December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

BayLISA: Randal Schwartz, Just Another Convicted Perl Hacker (fwd)
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This should be QUITE entertaining. -rich ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 17 Nov 1996 19:03:17 -0500 From: Laura de Leon <deleon(a)cat.hpl.hp.com> Newsgroups: ba.announce Subject: BayLISA: Randal Schwartz, Just Another Convicted Perl Hacker The BayLISA group meets monthly to discuss topics of interest to systems and network administrators. The meetings are free and open to the public. BayLISA holds monthly meetings on the third Thursday of each month at 7:30 PM PST. We meet at Cisco building J in San Jose, on Tasman Drive near First street. (This is across the street from the room we met in at Cisco last month). See www.baylisa.org for more information. The meetings are also broadcast via MBONE. NOTE: AS OF OCTOBER, WE HAVE MOVED TO CISCO. This is a new location. Thanks very much to Synopsys for hosting us. Schedule -------- November 21 Randal Schwartz: Just Another Convicted Perl Hacker This talk will describe how the speaker became a felon in the process of doing his job as a systems administrator in the well-publicized Oregon v. Schwartz case (victim: Intel). It will include some points about Oregon's current law and the implications of this case on the computer community. There will be a special focus on how to make sure this doesn't happen to you. There will be copies of Randal's new PERL book available if you would like to get one signed. BayLISA Board Elections & member meeting before the regular meeting At 7:00, Elections for the BayLISA board will be held. We encourage all members to vote. If you aren't a member, this is a good time to join (see our Web site) December 19 Our Holiday meeting-- Join us to share goodies and computer horror stories, as well as descriptions of stupid computer tricks. There will be a prize for best story. This is a very informal meeting, and will not be broadcast on the MBONE. January 16 Brent Chapman, Containment Zones (firewalls to keep people in) February 20 Standards efforts and how they will effect you March 20 Paul Vixie [Schedule subject to change] For further information on BayLISA, check out our web site: http://www.baylisa.org/ To get further information on the meeting location, you can also ftp it from ftp.baylisa.org:/location For any other information, please send email to: info(a)baylisa.org If you have any questions, please contact me or the info alias listed above.

2 1

FC97 Final Call for Papers
by R.Hirschfeld＠cwi.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Financial Cryptography '97 February 24-28 1997, Anguilla, BWI FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS General Information: Financial Cryptography '97 (FC97) is a new conference on the security of digital financial transactions. The first meeting will be held on the island of Anguilla in the British West Indies on February 24-28, 1997. FC97 aims to bring together persons involved in both the financial and data security fields to foster cooperation and exchange of ideas. Original papers are solicited on all aspects of financial data security and digital commerce in general, including Anonymous Payments Fungibility Authentication Home Banking Communication Security Identification Conditional Access Implementations Copyright Protection Loss Tolerance Credit/Debit Cards Loyalty Mechanisms Currency Exchange Legal Aspects Digital Cash Micropayments Digital Receipts Network Payments Digital Signatures Privacy Issues Economic Implications Regulatory Issues Electronic Funds Transfer Smart Cards Electronic Purses Standards Electronic Voting Tamper Resistance Electronic Wallets Transferability Instructions for Authors: Send a cover letter and 9 copies of an extended abstract to be received by November 29, 1996 to the Program Chair at the address given below. The extended abstract should start with the title and an abstract followed by a succinct statement appropriate for a non-specialist reader specifying the subject addressed, its background, the main achievements, and their significance to financial data security. Submissions are limited to 15 single-spaced pages of 12pt type. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to authors no later than January 17, 1997. Authors of accepted papers must guarantee that their paper will be presented at the conference. Proceedings: Proceedings of the conference will be published online in the Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce. Instructions and deadlines for submission of final papers will be sent along with notification of acceptance. Stipends: A very limited number of stipends may be available to those unable to obtain funding to attend the conference. Students whose papers are accepted and who will present the paper themselves are encouraged to apply if such assistance is needed. Requests for stipends should be addressed to one of the General Chairs. Registration: Conference registration and information on travel, hotels, and Anguilla itself is available at URL http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/. Workshop: A workshop, intended for anyone with commercial software development experience who wants hands-on familiarity with the issues and technology of financial cryptography, is planned in conjunction with FC97, to be held during the week preceding the conference. For further information, please contact one of the General Chairs. Send Submissions to: Rafael Hirschfeld FC97 Program Chair CWI Kruislaan 413 1098 SJ Amsterdam The Netherlands email: ray(a)cwi.nl phone: +31 20 592 4169 fax: +31 20 592 4199 Program Committee: Matthew Franklin, AT&T Laboratories--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA Michael Froomkin, U. Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, FL, USA Rafael Hirschfeld, CWI, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Arjen Lenstra, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Mark Manasse, Digital Equipment Corporation, Palo Alto, CA, USA Kevin McCurley, Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA Charles Merrill, McCarter & English, Newark, NJ, USA Clifford Neuman, Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA, USA Sholom Rosen, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Israel Sendrovic, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York, NY, USA General Chairs: Robert Hettinga, Shipwright, Boston, MA, USA email: rah(a)shipwright.com Vincent Cate, Offshore Information Services, Anguilla, BWI email: vince(a)offshore.com.ai Conference, Exhibits, and Sponsorship Manager: Julie Rackliffe, Boston, MA, USA email: rackliffe(a)tcm.org Workshop Leader: Ian Goldberg, Berkeley, CA, USA email: iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu Financial Cryptography '97 is held in cooperation with the International Association for Cryptologic Research. Those interested in becoming a sponsor of FC97 or in purchasing exhibit space, please contact the Exhibits and Sponsorship Manager. A copy of this call for papers as well as other information about the conference will be available at URL http://www.cwi.nl/conferences/FC97.

1 0

Re: Cypherpunks, Inc?
by Remo Pini 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: azur(a)netcom.com, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Mon Nov 18 14:00:17 1996 > Now why don't the cypherpunks put together something like the item > below? In fact, why don't we form some sort of Guild, trademark the term > cypherpunks (I'll volunteer) and offer cracking and security products > (like the one below) or services? A product security endorsement from > Cypherpunks Inc. could carry a lot of weight :-) "We", do, check out the cryptocd at www.rpini.com. - ------< fate favors the prepared mind >------ Remo Pini rp(a)rpini.com PGP: http://www.rpini.com/crypto/crypto.html - ----< words are what reality is made of >---- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv Comment: http://www.rpini.com/crypto/crypto.html iQEVAwUBMpBd4hFhy5sz+bTpAQFqewf/aJ/xx/hxZn1o/nMKJcLjauCpfcZmxX12 aGD2fJw8PncAzmZAnyxP0/ymK21+mdry1wZPsJXLtqrwJqT8nxPqEXXtfh19MHm9 HB1pDo0nYSOWfP7ENq3lNe995FGEvQ6EMiyy/7PxulcY+0T53Q78CTk6GD0KgPxd rqmfmxvqNuKERzCONhtirkiwkm2NjFT2ytd7H3VTFSUv7wIHGp2dFiiscC2csP2I XUlVlQ7w6TUGkO498qSY3wB+ZLHMYYkU21rvKgCTz4AZqmTLRWgZar5g3qlug1uS RA1r/GB3vfa6KuTcOGowt26FvROEsHu3ZSrZzOry8U0LMo2tgIcNtA== =vtPA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

FC97 Final Call for Papers
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: R.Hirschfeld(a)cwi.nl Precedence: Bulk Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 11:46:13 +0100 From: R.Hirschfeld(a)cwi.nl To: Multiple recipients of <e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: FC97 Final Call for Papers Financial Cryptography '97 February 24-28 1997, Anguilla, BWI FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS General Information: Financial Cryptography '97 (FC97) is a new conference on the security of digital financial transactions. The first meeting will be held on the island of Anguilla in the British West Indies on February 24-28, 1997. FC97 aims to bring together persons involved in both the financial and data security fields to foster cooperation and exchange of ideas. Original papers are solicited on all aspects of financial data security and digital commerce in general, including Anonymous Payments Fungibility Authentication Home Banking Communication Security Identification Conditional Access Implementations Copyright Protection Loss Tolerance Credit/Debit Cards Loyalty Mechanisms Currency Exchange Legal Aspects Digital Cash Micropayments Digital Receipts Network Payments Digital Signatures Privacy Issues Economic Implications Regulatory Issues Electronic Funds Transfer Smart Cards Electronic Purses Standards Electronic Voting Tamper Resistance Electronic Wallets Transferability Instructions for Authors: Send a cover letter and 9 copies of an extended abstract to be received by November 29, 1996 to the Program Chair at the address given below. The extended abstract should start with the title and an abstract followed by a succinct statement appropriate for a non-specialist reader specifying the subject addressed, its background, the main achievements, and their significance to financial data security. Submissions are limited to 15 single-spaced pages of 12pt type. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to authors no later than January 17, 1997. Authors of accepted papers must guarantee that their paper will be presented at the conference. Proceedings: Proceedings of the conference will be published online in the Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce. Instructions and deadlines for submission of final papers will be sent along with notification of acceptance. Stipends: A very limited number of stipends may be available to those unable to obtain funding to attend the conference. Students whose papers are accepted and who will present the paper themselves are encouraged to apply if such assistance is needed. Requests for stipends should be addressed to one of the General Chairs. Registration: Conference registration and information on travel, hotels, and Anguilla itself is available at URL http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/. Workshop: A workshop, intended for anyone with commercial software development experience who wants hands-on familiarity with the issues and technology of financial cryptography, is planned in conjunction with FC97, to be held during the week preceding the conference. For further information, please contact one of the General Chairs. Send Submissions to: Rafael Hirschfeld FC97 Program Chair CWI Kruislaan 413 1098 SJ Amsterdam The Netherlands email: ray(a)cwi.nl phone: +31 20 592 4169 fax: +31 20 592 4199 Program Committee: Matthew Franklin, AT&T Laboratories--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA Michael Froomkin, U. Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, FL, USA Rafael Hirschfeld, CWI, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Arjen Lenstra, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Mark Manasse, Digital Equipment Corporation, Palo Alto, CA, USA Kevin McCurley, Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA Charles Merrill, McCarter & English, Newark, NJ, USA Clifford Neuman, Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA, USA Sholom Rosen, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Israel Sendrovic, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York, NY, USA General Chairs: Robert Hettinga, Shipwright, Boston, MA, USA email: rah(a)shipwright.com Vincent Cate, Offshore Information Services, Anguilla, BWI email: vince(a)offshore.com.ai Conference, Exhibits, and Sponsorship Manager: Julie Rackliffe, Boston, MA, USA email: rackliffe(a)tcm.org Workshop Leader: Ian Goldberg, Berkeley, CA, USA email: iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu Financial Cryptography '97 is held in cooperation with the International Association for Cryptologic Research. Those interested in becoming a sponsor of FC97 or in purchasing exhibit space, please contact the Exhibits and Sponsorship Manager. A copy of this call for papers as well as other information about the conference will be available at URL http://www.cwi.nl/conferences/FC97. --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

1 0

DOO_dad
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Several pieces on the export of encryption regs, the crypto czar, Motorola's crypto modem, PGP's buy of PrivNet, and Keytronic's finger-ID keyboard. Professor Denning opines that the HP doodad will include GAK. ----- http://jya.com/doodad.txt DOO_dad ---------- The NYT has a long report today on a pedophile computer racket run from a prison. With details on how investigators were able to break through hard drive security and use DejaNews to track a suspect. A prison computer business was used to cloak the kiddy pixels. Red flags the Internet's lurid prospects compared to the virtues of do-me-dads like the Times. see: www.nytimes.com

2 1

Squirrel goes Mixmaster-only
by Johannes Kroeger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hello remailer users! I'm sorry, but my ISP complained that the huge mail traffic for squirrel overloaded their servers. Effective immediately, my remailer accepts only Mixmaster packets and is not listed in Raph's type-1 statistics anymore. The operation of the nym server at weasel.owl.de is not affected. Regards, Johannes - -- Johannes Kroeger <jkroeger(a)squirrel.owl.de> Send me mail with subject "send pgp-key" to get my PGP key -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: latin1 iQEVAgUBMpBs1bwPSJ4oQv5pAQF3Agf/UYmh1P7DM0Wqy9Dzoq/e0jZdvcTDHpNH 2MFohAmU1rYn0tKCRW1jUDkG8ULAmfM4HY+aSdKwoihndLL4wTRkhzcl2qePVx6L 69ZEs7EpTLpdiFuTAvIvAD8AInqRZY1WgKII9jk7gccU379gl8nxDZtlIyA89jrG 795R8QWysQs5zfyQ4VtS2s94ZchFJD+Wp5u6fsVhzklsjxwb43EdVZ4/dPUFo7nO azctBYNpWdJBW2Rf81zQDE2OPPs+2kXcvDXU/cg64gtGVGf+8okysEr2fEqdVkFe yQsFvpNngaClUSu6xxMIJXiTy3WlbEYXceQE6hUGStq/PkhqKxkqYQ== =nAT3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 2

Re: The Utility of Privacy
by nobody＠cypherpunks.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:13 PM 11/17/1996, Huge Cajones Remailer wrote: > Examples? How about the draft? The privacy protected child has options the others do not. Legal risk okay - beats getting shot. diGriz

2 1

RE: NT insecurity
by Kenneth L. Hamer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Really? Could you provide a reference for this assertion? What is the name of the "password file"? Where is it located on the disk? I'd be very interested to try this out on one of my test systems, especially if it is true. But my experiences with corrupted registry hives leads me to believe you are incorrect. NT usually does nothing so nice when it's registry is corrupted. That's why we keep "emergency repair disks" around 8-). - Ken >---------- >From: Adamsc@io-online.com[SMTP:Adamsc@io-online.com] >Sent: Monday, November 11, 1996 9:36 PM >To: cypherpunks >Subject: BoS: NT insecurity > >Given the recent comments about insecure machines, I thought it was >interesting to note that you can clear *every* password on an NT box by >using >a diskeditor to corrupt the password file (Boot off of a floppy and use >NTFSDOS if you have to). It'll reboot several times and then you'll be >allowed to login. > ># Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | >http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp ># <cadams(a)acucobol.com> | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY" >"That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can >change them." > --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review >editorial) > >

1 0

Re: Command confirmation request (057CCA)
by csa＠netmaine.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ok

1 0

TIS + HP
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A blurb in the Wash Post today says that the HP roll-out this morning will include TIS's "trusted third party" product. "One essential ingredient in the equation: technology developed by TIS. TIS is so far the only company that has received permission to export encryption technology overseas that exceeds the government's existing threshold." Guess we'll know shortly who else in the System is to be Trusted with Information -- other than Thirds, Fourths and other Dots and Steves.

1 0

POC_ket
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

WaJo reports today on IBM's tiny pocket computer that transmits data through the body -- to another body or to a device such as a telephone. Invented by Tom Zimmerman, formerly of the Media Lab, it can tell "anything you touch who you are." Being shown at Comdex. The body as a token. How to crack a human? Grab and squeeze out a pass phrase. ----- http://jya.com/pocket.txt POC_ket

3 2

Re: [REBUTTAL] Censorship on cypherpunks?, from The Netly N
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> If you do not send it to me by e-mail, I will never see it. > Why are you so paranoid that someone is reading your e-mail? > I never do anything criminal, so I could give a shit less if > everybody reads all of my fucking mail. I was trying hard not to get into this thread as it is basically just one long flamewar that is getting out of control but I have to comment here: There need be no reason for paranoia. I don`t call it paranoia, I call it constant vigilance, to demonize it is a statist position and tries to ostricise those who protect their privacy. Whether you do anything criminal or not is not the point. Indeed I would say that 90-95% of encryption usage is for perfectly legal purposes, and only about 0.1% of encrypted material is concerned with unethical acts rather than illegal acts. The point is you should retain the right to protect your privacy. Sure, it`s not illegal to put forward anarchist arguments in mail today, but do you really want your company boss knowing about it? I personally don`t work - I`m a student so it doesn`t matter to me, but whether it is right that your employement and political views should affect each other they do, so you should be able to protect yourself with technology... Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

4 5

RE: ideal secure personal computer system
by John Fricker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Bill Frantz (frantz(a)netcom.com) said something about RE: ideal secure personal computer system on or about 11/17/96 5:37 PM >(Note that even if it only runs with a user's privileges, a Trojan horse >will have no problem stealing e.g. that user's PGP secret key ring. Not >everything of value is in system files. True enough. >Question, can a user-level Trojan >horse insert itself as a keyboard monitor and get the PGP pass phrase as >well?) In the September 95 issue of NT Developer Richard Wright describes an NT Key Log Service (started as a challenge after his wife threatened to password protect the familiy accounting software <g>). Source code for such a trojan is provided. Note that the Login screen is *never* hooked. There must be a way to walk the chain of system hooks. I'll let you know when I find it as that would be the key to writing a detector. --j ----------------------------------- | John Fricker (jfricker(a)vertexgroup.com) | -random notes- | My PGP public key is available by sending mail with subject "send pgp key". | www.Program.com is a good programmer web site. -----------------------------------

1 0

HP crypto-announcement and key recovery, from The Netly News
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 09:03:25 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: HP crypto-announcement and key recovery, from The Netly News The Netly News http://netlynews.com/ November 18, 1996 Under Lock And Key Recovery By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) As a non-event, it was a rather well-attended one. This morning Hewlett-Packard Co. threw a press conference in Washington, DC to announce that it had vaulted the Federal government's export restriction hurdles by including "key recovery" technology in its encryption products. At least that's what the press release said. The reality is somewhat less exciting: HP's announcement is crypto-vaporware. "We're not making any specific announcements of products today," admitted Doug McGowan, HP development director. HP's move comes after competitors such as IBM and DEC stole the limelight last month by being the first to buy into the Clinton administration's latest key escrow scheme which would allow U.S. law enforcement agencies to locate copies of the private keys used to encode files and communications. The company's announcement follows a presidential executive order signed last Friday codifying the administration's "key recovery" proposal unveiled in October, which the White House hopes will splinter an industry previously united in opposition to Federal regulations governing encryption exports. HP responded by flying CEO Lew Platt into town today to announce a product using plug-in hardware or software "activation tokens" that can vary by country -- but Platt admitted that the tokens don't exist yet. Rather, he admitted, it's only a product with "a security framework built into it" that currently uses woefully-insecure 40-bit DES encryption. Eventually, HP hopes to export crypto that's stronger, but the company declined to discuss details. Dave Banisar, a policy analyst at EPIC, says such a system would be "worse" than current policy. "It's got this new detection system in it that requires monitoring of your crypto use and program use to determine what the national government says is correct," he says. The "key recovery" technology HP licensing is likely to come from Trusted Information Systems Inc., a company founded by former NSAers that still enjoys close ties to the spook community. TIS's Commercial Key Escrow uses the 56-bit Data Encryption Standard and so was cleared for export on January 18, 1996. "This is the first step toward implementing key recovery. That's a policy that's just not going to solve the privacy problem for Internet users," says Alan Davidson, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology. "This is the first step on that road toward building key recovery for the world. It's a very dangerous thing." Clinton's executive order is carefully crafted to counter the three strategies that crypto privacy proponents have devised to kill the export rules: the public relations, the judicial and the legislative approaches. Netizens, privacy advocates and high-tech firms rightfully blasted the old export policy, which classified crypto as a "munition," as a relic of the cold war -- a sentiment with which even The New York Times agreed. So Clinton has reclassified it as a non-munition, yet the change is in name only: Netscape browsers remain subject to export controls. Several lawsuits are challenging the constitutionality of the old export regulations. So Clinton's executive order contains language that EFF's John Gilmore says is designed "to evade the current lawsuits" by taking aim at some of the legal arguments. Administration officials spent an unhappy summer on Capitol Hill being grilled by senators who were considering legislation to lift the crypto export embargo. So Clinton carefully crafted his announcement to defuse some of the reasons to pass this legislation when Congress returns in January. In other words, the White House has been able to answer or deflect many issues that netizens have raised in favor of strong encryption. But another argument may not be as easy to counter. Patrick Ball is a senior program associate at the American Association for the Advancement of Science who has traveled the globe teaching human rights workers how to protect themselves from oppressive governments. The stamps on his passport read like a who's who of censor-happy regimes: El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Guatemala, South Africa and Turkey. "I have done PGP training in every country I've worked in," says Ball. To Ball, the debate over crypto isn't about civil rights or businesses losing export dollars, but over something much more fundamental: human rights. He says: "Why do security police grab people and torture them? To get their information. If you build an information management system that concentrates information from dozens of people, you've made that dozens of times more attractive. You've focused the repressive regime's attention on the hard disk. And hard disks put up no resistance to torture. You need to give the hard disk a way to resist. That's cryptography." And that's a winning argument. ###

1 0

Re: Crypto Bounties: Another Thought that crossed my mind.
by Ian Grigg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

snow(a)smoke.suba.com said: > Well, I was thinking, what if a "Crypto Software Bounty Server" > were set up, so that someone could propose a tool that they would like > to see, along with an initial bounty. Others could contribute toward that > bounty (anonymously if they wish) until either the tool was delivered. > > The original issuer sets standards for the software (i.e. "easy to > use interface to mixmaster remailers for Macintosh", then must define > easy to use; Software considered delivered when in [alpha beta late-beta > &etc.]). The first to present software meeting these qualifications gets > the bounty, with the caviate that the software must be either gnu-copylefted, > or some similar "free use" copyright, after all, "The Net" paid for it... Hmmm. This is a one shot game (is that the term?) whereas software generally has implications that escape a single sale scenario. For example, the more difficult the software, the more risk there is that someone else will beat you, thus lowering the real risk-adjusted payoff dramatically. For this reason, more complex stuff would need some sort of contract+reputation scenario that allows a repeating game to work. A contractual alternative could work like this. I (the initial desirer) write a contract specifying my requirements. I publish this as a market tender, where other desirers can contribute funds, and this becomes a cumulative sum that grows. Programmers can offer to supply by naming a price. The market clears when the pot of desire equals or exceeds the lowest offer to supply. In a simplistic scenario, the contract is now sealed and the work is done and paid for. In order to overcome project failure, I could write my contract as a multi-supplier seed project (often done by governments). That is, the pot gets shared around, say, the three best alternatives. Once supplied, all are free to pick from the alternatives. In order to overcome the low silly bid, somehow reputation would have to be built into the market. That is, your efforts in the past as programmer will cause your solution to be better valued than mine. So perhaps we should turn this around. Programmers would write contracts to supply the given requirements at clearance+T, also specifying the clearance price. Your price is 2000 for the widget, mine is 1000. (That makes three contracts, a widget spec, my work plan and your work plan.) The market (the desirers) would then push funds back and forth between the two until it became clear that one or the other cleared. As more pressure increases, more funds pour in. Then, deliverables could be phased, with monies similarly phased, so that the market has a chance to monitor. Now, if it is not delivered, reputation suffers, and you have to lower your price for the next job (or hide in shame). There's a lot of aspects of newbies and switching funds that I havn't really thought through here. However, I like this viewpoint because it eliminates the need for judges. History shows that a good market microstructure will beat an authority approach in the long run. Also note that if you drop the free software assumption, and make it, say, moneyware, then the market becomes much more workable - the asset being traded is a share of future revenues. This has more ramifications than might be obvious: Propose a market to write a GAK killer for e$10,000. If it clears and is built, is the Dept. of Justice forced to buy the rights out? > Has anything like this been proposed before? I don't know if this has been proposed before, but it is a logical conclusion of the CP world. If the Internet transaction costs make single-person economic entities the most efficient unit in the machine, and e$ in all its forms provides the oil, then we need some way to connect up the parts for grand projects where there are hard cash incentives. There has to be some mechanism to distribute that cash in the most efficient manner to produce the result. BTW, this is a here and now issue, not a hypothetical future. We have already found that there is too much work on our plate, and limited efficiency in farming it out. Others may have found the same. -- iang iang(a)systemics.com

4 4

Re: Members of Parliament Problem
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I don't quite follow how this would work. If Trent issues a blind > signature, then that means (doesn't it?) that he doesn't see what he > is signing. So how can he confirm that the message is actually from > a member of the group when he doesn't see it? I should have elaborated a little on this. My idea was that trent should be able to decrypt the message and verify it was meaninful (at least probably so) by some form of frequency analysis, as he would be a computer program this would not be a significant time loss in a system with few users (such as parliament as suggested with the initial problem) if the resulting message didn`t have approximate frequency distributions of letters you would expect in natural langauge or source code or whatever the message would not be published as it is probably an invalid key being used thus decrypting to garbage. A better way to do all this would probably just be to have Bob sign the message then Trent strip the signature before signing it himself but I just dashed this off as a quick response without really thinking it through. A nicer protocol would be one where the key distribution is easier initially (isn`t this always the case ;-)) or even a protocol which isn`t arbitrated, like your reply said Chaum mentions protocols for this. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

1 0

Re: Cypherpunks State of Emergency
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:51 PM 11/16/96 -0800, Tim May wrote: >And sabotaging the GAK scheme in more devious ways remains an option. I see several "leverage" points here: The cards can use either a "dongle" model, similar to that used in ordinary copy protection, which has to date been a big failure - or they can use an "on-card processor" model, where the card does the actual crypto processing. This will be tough to break using the traditional cracking techniques, but will also be expensive. And card distribution can be either weak or strict; if it's a weak model (e.g., cards are sold at Fry's or 7-11 :) or are otherwise easy to come by) it'll be tough to control their distribution and export. It's a little easier to control the export of chips than to control the export of software, but neither is easy. And strict distribution will cost an enormous amount of time and money as some agency or another is deputized or created to check credentials, keep records, issue keycards, charge fees, and so forth. If cards are easy to come by, requiring them won't be much of a deterrent to the use of strong crypto; the people the government is supposedly trying to keep from using crypto (terrorists, spies, etc) are already accustomed to keeping and purchasing things which are forbidden. If cards are difficult to come by, that's a big hole waiting for someone to fill with software crypto, or software tricks to get around the hardware requirements. One bug/feature I suspect we'll see will be the inclusion of the keycard's ID in every message that it signs, facilitating detection of unauthorized use and traffic analysis. Without this, the scheme seems entirely futile. (Which is not to say that the US Government hasn't done some futile things :), but ..) Another likely feature is an expiration date, such that the cards stop working after X months and the owner must go to the Bureau of Crypto Control and show his/her credentials and exchange the old card for a new one. Of course, if you've got outstanding warrants or haven't filed your taxes or are in arrears for child support or are a "foreign person" or have been saying illegal/controversial things with your crypto card, well, perhaps you won't feel like going down to the BCC after all. So they're going to have to find a way to make the cards easy/cheap enough to get that many people will adopt them; but they have to be expensive/difficult enough to get that people won't want to "lose" them, lest they fall into the hands of the wrong people. And that seems like a difficult task, especially if opponents of the scheme continue to provide cheap/free software-only solutions. And, as always, folks not subject to the US export regulations won't need to fuss with all of this regulatory bullshit, and can produce strong software-only crypto, or drop-in replacements for the "policy chips" which are distributed without government control. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

1 0

Re: TIS + HP
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:18 AM 11/18/96 -0500, John Young wrote: >A blurb in the Wash Post today says that the HP roll-out >this morning will include TIS's "trusted third party" product. >"One essential ingredient in the equation: technology >developed by TIS. TIS is so far the only company that has >received permission to export encryption technology >overseas that exceeds the government's existing >threshold." > >Guess we'll know shortly who else in the System is to be >Trusted with Information -- other than Thirds, Fourths and >other Dots and Steves. With TIS bending over for the big GAK Monster in so many ways, it brings up a question... (A probibly off-topic one...) Does anyone know of intentional GAK-like holes put in their Firewall Toolkit? They distribute it for free and distribute source, but with their record i have little trust in the matter... (Better yet, does anyone have suggestions for Firewall code that will run under Linux or FreeBSD?) --- | "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD." - alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

1 0

BIS_sez
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

11-18-96. FiTi: "Electronic money threat to central banks" A report issued today by the BIS says that innovations such as "electronic purses" or "digital cash" used over the Internet could erode central banks' income. "However, if issuance of e-money is limited to banks, the regulatory framework already in place can be extended to cover the new products, but competition and innovation might be more limited." ----- http://jya.com/bissez.txt BIS_sez

1 0

HP proposal available
by Hal Finney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

HP has put up info on its crypto proposal at http://www.hp.com/go/icf. You can also try http://www.dmo.hp.com/gsy/security/icf/main.html if that URL is slow. The basic idea is what we had been speculating, their old "International Cryptography Framework" based on hardware crypto cards. It has now been given government approval, which is no big surprise since the system looks like it's been designed by fed bootlickers. The claim of other companies signing on is less impressive than it sounds. They're using Microsoft's Crypto API, and of course Microsoft would like plenty of companies to use it. Intel offers to build some hardware, which is more business for them. "Netscape and VeriFone are exploring a wide range of uses for ICF technology." That's all they say about those companies. This is hardly a commitment; Netscape and other companies generally keep abreast of everything happening in the field to keep their options open. So this is not a resounding endorsement. The one good thing about the plan is that since it is very complicated and requires specialized hardware, we probably won't see any impact from it for years. Hopefully it will be obsolete before it can be deployed. The plan itself is an NSA wet dream. Not only do you need a token from Big Brother to activate the crypto in your computer (the token can be hardware or software, but the crypto card itself apparently must be hardware), it's also necessary for any application which wants to use crypto to supply an application specific certificate to the card. This lets the law enforcement bureaucrats not only determine who gets to use crypto, but which applications get access to it. If you want to build an app which will use crypto you'll have to get permission from the authorities in order for them to give you a certificate which you can compile in to let your app run. The one thing which was not clear was how much of these rules would apply within the U.S. In fact notably missing from the press release, white paper, overviews, slides, etc. on the web site was any discussion of civil liberties impact. It certainly was not listed as one of the considerations in the design of the system. Overall, I'd say this is just HP trumpeting the unsurprising government approval of their ICF system and turning it into a press event by providing some lukewarm "endorsements" from well known companies. This system looks to me like it's got a long way to go before it becomes a widely used standard. Hal

1 0

HP announcement
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

HP has info on its new crypto stuff on the web now: <http://www.hp.com/go/security> and <http://www.hp.com/go/icf>. It's apparently a crypto coprocessor embedded in a board or chip which looks for a "policy token" (which is software/data, delivered via network or smartcard) which is doled out by local "policy servers", "developed and managed in conformance with national policy". Sounds to me like they want to be able to turn off strong crypto the way they can turn off high-detail GPS during politically/militarily sensitive events. As the press release notes, "ICF is designed to run any current or future cryptographic algorithms. Algorithms for key recovery also can be used. "Keys" are strings of computer code that lock and unlock data. Key recovery is a method that allows users to unscramble encrypted data if they lose their keys. Users can decide whether to use key recovery, based on personal needs or domestic -- or foreign -- government regulations. ICF cryptographic units, which can support keys of any length, are exportable because they are disabled until a Policy Activation Token activates them again. Policy Activation Tokens can be either a downloadable software module or a smart card. Policy Activation Tokens trigger particular algorithms for specific applications, based on needs. Additionally, ICF adapts easily to current government encryption policies, new encryption algorithms and changing key-recovery schemes. Customers who use ICF-based products are offered long-term investment protection, with rapid flexibility to meet changing needs." ICF is "International Cryptography Framework". The press release includes quotes from US and French government officials indicating that the new system will meet their needs. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

4 3

Re: ?????
by nobody＠cypherpunks.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 05:36:00 -0800 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com (John Anonymous MacDonald) apparently wrote: |Dale Thorn wrote: |>people on a list are given tools to filter with and reminded on |>occasion |>how to use them? |You are the reason, you can't shut up and you have little or nothing |to say. plonk. I wish I'd said that; my fear is that Dale will take 17 messages to compose his vapid thoughts. Love you all.

2 1

Playing card cryptosystems
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Also I did hear tell that Bruce Schneier was working on a crypto > algorithm which was designed to work with playing cards, for a book > which Neal Stephenson is writing. Presumably painful to use, but > maybe good plausible deniability, all that you need is a pack of > cards. Not even that in fact, there are methods, and I can confirm they work because I can do it myself, that allow one to memorize the order of a pack of playing cards, some people can even do it with up to 8 packs, although this requires a more complicated method. So while encryption requires one to have the cards ready (about 8 good riffle shuffles will restore a high degree of randomness to a deck) you can keep the pad for short messages in your head. But one can do the same with one time pads that use other plaintexts as the pad. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

1 0

[QUADRUPLE]-- Rewards for errors in _Digital Cash_
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just saw the movie "Ransom" where Mel Gibson gets to be cool by doubling the reward for the capture of his son's kidnappers. In that spirit, I'm doubling my reward again. What was once a reward of $10 for information about a technical error in the book is now a reward of $40. Also, I've opened an account with Mark Twain bank so I can pay the rewards in Digicash. Or, if you prefer First Virtual, I can handle that as well. Or, if you're old fashioned and want my signature, you get the proverbial check in the mail. The details are simple. The first person to report a technical error in the book gets $40. You're also welcome to make suggestions for ways to improve the book. I may pay a reward for these, but I can't make a blanket promise. I'm reaching my deadline so this offer will only be good until the end of November, 1996. So far no one has reported any technical errors. A few have made suggestions that I've taken. I hope more will continue to offer suggestions for improving the book because they're a great help and I will reward them. Here is the ``fine print'': 1) My decisions on what constitutes an error are final. I could declare something a ``feature'', not an error. Or I could lump many errors together and label it ``one''. So if I left out a page, this could be one error, not 200+ errors in the page number on all subsequent pages. But I hope to use this power benevolently. 2) Technical errors are eligible. Errors in spelling and grammar aren't. It's just too hard to come up with a logical definition of correct grammar. Technical errors also involve some amount of judgement, but I think they are tighter. 3) My decision on who is the ``first'' person to discover an error is final. I may choose to reward two people who obviously work independently. I just want to defend against people saying, "Okay, let's mail him this simulatenously." 4) This offer may be withdrawn at any time. Check my webpage for details. 5) Copies of the book may be obtained by purchasing them from 1-800-3131277 or from your local bookstore. Peter Wayner pcw(a)access.digex.net http://www.access.digex.net/~pcw/pcwpage.html 410-433-8275

1 0

U.S. CIA employee caught spying
by Tim Scanlon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is on the local DC news; Harold Nicholson age 46, a CIA employee was arrested for spying today at Dulles airport. He allegedly has been working for the Russians for the past 2 years. He was caught after he failed a series of polys, and bank account irregularities had been noticed, as well as suspcious travel. They got him on hidden video apperently photocopying documents that he intended to pass along. Tim

1 0