December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: key recovery vs data backup
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, May 07, 1997 at 09:56:21PM -0700, Lucky Green wrote: > At 11:47 PM 5/7/97 -0400, Carl Ellison wrote: > >I was saying that if Sam needs to read my encrypted file/mail, then I should > >list Sam as a crypto-recipient. If Acme,Inc. needs to read my encrypted > >file/mail, then I should list Acme,Inc. as a crypto-recipient. > > > >There's no safe of keys. It's even simpler to explain to an executive. > > Several people on this list asked me to elaborate on my claim that KR is > not required. I doubt that I could put it more succinctly than Carl has in > his post. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the problem at all. In fact it doesn't even address the problem. So much so that reading these replies makes me think that I am looking at different problem than you. So perhaps backing up to discuss the problem a bit would be helpful. I hope you will forgive me if this is old ground. The problem is key management for an organization. The keys are used to protect and authenticate data owned, not by any individual, but by an organization. Keys are generated for the organization's purposes, not the purposes of any individual. Furthermore, the individual privacy of an individual who works for an organization is not a necessary priority for the organization. Organizations are composed of many individuals, some of which may not share the goals of the organization, or who may indeed be inimical to the organization. And the members of an organization may vary widely in competence, personal responsibility, and so on. Thus, the members of an organization cannot be trusted to do the "right thing". [I am using "organization" in a loose sense, so that we can consider a business an organization, and an employee as a member of that organization.] In fact, in most cases, only a small fraction of the members of an organization care more about the welfare of the organization than about their personal welfare. So people will almost always be more concerned about their own personal data security than they will for that of an organization. This, coupled with difficulties of coordination and control, and the above conditions, means that in a global sense information security for an organization will always be difficult, regardless of the security of the crypto they use. For a moment consider the analogy with physical keys. Consider the key management problem of a moderate sized corporation that occupies a large office building. There are office keys, storeroom keys, supply room keys, conference room keys, bathroom keys, keys to filing cabinets -- there are *lots* of keys, lots of different delegations of authority involved. In many cases there is a "key czar", a "building coordinator" that hands out keys, and gets them back when someone changes offices or jobs. It *has* to be this way -- you can't rekey the entire building when a janitor quites. So, occasionally it is necessary to rekey a lock, but typically keys are just reused. Many office keys are designed to be difficult to casually duplicate, for this reason. Of course any key *can* be duplicated, but that's not really that important -- the building is full of employees during the day, and the night watchman checks each person that enters after normal hours. All these physical keys all fit locks that can be broken quite easily -- there is essentially *no* possibility of something valuable being lost behind a lock that cannot be broken. This is vastly different from cryptographic keys -- for all systems of interest, encryption represents locks that cannot be broken. Data behind a lost cryptographic key is gone forever. You can't call a locksmith or a safe cracker. It's really just gone. With this background, perhaps now you can see why I say that Carl's solution doesn't even address the problem. The problem is management of complexity. Carl says "encrypt to Acme Corp". Who in Acme Corp? What part of the organization that is Acme Corp is authorized to know this particular bit of information? Because some of the employees are idiots you want this built automatically into the application they are using for encryption/email/whatever. How does this software know what policy is appropriate for which employee? How is that policy distributed? What is the interface that allows a policy to be defined? How do you protect the policy definition from subversion? Contrast that with a key-safe model, where a copy of every encryption key is kept in a secure database. The encryption client software only talks to the key-safe when a new key is generated, over a cryptographically secure channel, of course. There is no policy the client has to know. The user encrypts freely without concern about who else should get copies. The organization knows that there is very little chance of data loss because of lost keys, and can use any policy it chooses to recover keys, from the company president's ad hoc whim to a carefully specified organization al security policy. Access to the key-safe is critical, of course, but it can be made very secure -- a special-purpose piece of hardware that requires passwords from n out of m key czars before access is granted, for example. Or the contents of the key safe can be encrypted via keys escrowed through a secret sharing mechanism -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent(a)songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55 http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

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Cryptography Short Course
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 22:09:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Christof Paar <christof(a)ece.WPI.EDU> To: DCSB <dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu> cc: Arlene Lowenstein <arlowenstein(a)jake.WPI.EDU> Subject: Cryptography Short Course MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Christof Paar <christof(a)ece.WPI.EDU> WPI's Continuing Education Program is offering a 5-day short course in cryptography. I will be teaching the course from August 4-8, in Waltham. Waltham is 10 miles West of Boston. Please find below a detailed course description and a registration form. If you have any question about course contents etc., please feel free to contact me by email. For questions regarding registration, contact Arlene Lowenstein at: arlowenstein(a)jake.wpi.edu Best regards, Christof ************************************************************************* Christof Paar http://ee.wpi.edu/People/faculty/cxp.html Assistant Professor email: christof(a)ece.wpi.edu Cryptography Group phone: (508) 831 5061 ECE Department, WPI fax: (508) 831 5491 100 Institute Road Worcester, MA 01609, USA ************************************************************************* ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Worcester Polytechnic Institute 5-Day Short Course APPLIED CRYPTOGRAPHY AND DATA SECURITY Seminar Leader: Dr. Christof Paar Many of today's information technology applications have data security as a central system requirement. Applications such as wireless computer networks, electronic commerce, and many www applications rely heavily on a high degree of system security. This five-day course will provide you with an in-depth introduction to the field of applied cryptography. Virtually all important aspects of public-key and private-key algorithms as well as protocols will be introduced. The course keeps the theoretical background and technical applications well-balanced. You will leave the course with a solid, broad knowledge of state-of-the-arts cryptography. You will have skills to carefully choose and design a security scheme for a given application. Background Note: The seminar is based on a highly successful course which has been taught to more than 150 professionals in industry and graduate students on campus. COURSE OUTLINE Day 1, AM - Introduction Principles of cryptography. Classical algorithms. Attacks on cryptographic systems. Day 1, PM - Private-key algorithms Stream ciphers. Pseudo-random generators. One-time pads. Day 2, AM - Private-key algorithms Data Encryption Standard (DES): Function, performance, implementation, security. Overview on other modern block ciphers. Key length and long-term security. Day 2, PM - Usage of private key-algorithms Operation modes of block ciphers. Multiple encryption. Key whitening. Day 3, AM - Public-key cryptography Introduction. One-way functions. Some number theory. Day 3, PM - Public-key algorithms RSA: Function, performance, implementation, security. Recent attacks. Day 4, AM - Public-key algorithms The generalized discrete logarithm problem. Diffie-Hellman key exchange. ElGamal encryption. Elliptic curve cryptosystems. Day 4, PM - Protocol building blocks Digital Signatures. Hash Functions. Security Services: Privacy, authentication, integrity, identification, non-repudiation. Day 5, AM - Key distribution Key distribution protocols. Principle of Kerberos. Certificates. Trusted authorities. Day 5, PM - Identification Smart Cards. Principles of identification. Challenge-and-response protocols. Course summary. WHO SHOULD ATTEND Engineers and other technical professional who develop, implement, or assess information security applications in software or hardware. Technical managers who need a solid understanding of data security issues will also greatly benefit from the course. ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR Dr. Christof Paar leads the Cryptography and Data Security group at WPI's ECE Department. His research interests include security issues in wireless and ATM networks, efficient algorithms for elliptic and hyperelliptic curve systems, and hardware implementation of cryptosystems. DATES AND LOCATIONS August 4 - 8, 1997 in Waltham, MA (10 miles from Boston) FEE $1795 for first registration $1625 for subsequent registrations --------------------- print and cut here ----------------------------- WPI CONTINUING EDUCATION REGISTRATION FORM Please print out, complete, and return this form to Office of Continuing Education, WPI, Worcester, MA 01609-2280, call (508) 831-5517 or FAX this form to (508) 831-5694. Make copies of this form for multiple registrations. Title of Seminar: APPLIED CRYPTOGRAPHY AND DATA SECURITY Date of Seminar: August 4-8, 1997, WPI Waltham Campus, Waltham, MA Name (Mr.)(Ms.) ___________________________________________________ Title _____________________________________________________________ Organization ______________________________________________________ Business Address __________________________________________________ City _______________________________________ State ________ Zip _________________________ Business Phone ____________________________ FAX _____________________ Home Phone ______________ Fee Enclosed (Make checks payable to WPI) ______ Bill my Company, P.O.# __________ Please charge my: VISA Mastercard Discover Name on card ________________________________________________ Exp. date _____________________ Card # ______________________________________________________ Signature ___________________________________________________ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe from the dcsb list, send a letter to: Majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu In the body of the message, write: unsubscribe dcsb Or, to subscribe, write: subscribe dcsb If you have questions, write to me at Owner-DCSB(a)ai.mit.edu --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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Re: Banking Secrecy and Nazi Gold
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- According to the archives, Tim May wrote: > I suspect the U.S. pressure on Swiss banks has a political dimension > related to forcing a New World Order on international banking. The > U.S. wants banking secrecy subject to U.S. control (so that banks > like Castle Bank, Nugan Hand Bank, Banco Ambrosiano, BCCI, and the > Bank of America can continue to be used for U.S. interests, and > only U.S. interests). I think this is the first time I've ever said this about Tim, whom I usually read first, but "That's nuts." The political game is simple: The Wiesenthal Center and the World Jewish Congress are in a pissing contest to see who can recover the most cash. (There are two different class action lawsuits going, one from each organization.) Senator Alphonse "I Love to Make Noise" D'Amato is pandering. Some former members of the intelligence community are involved, but that shouldn't be surprising given the fact that they grew up as Nazi hunters. In general I agree with Tim's argument and the mean (if not all the details) of the followups, but I'd like to restress a few things: 1) The reason Jews used Swiss banks is precisely that they were secret, fercryingoutloud. 2) Sure, some banks took advantage of the power disparity (even if the victims had little guarantee that they'd be able to recover their assets, if they didn't squirrel them away soon they'd be sure to go to the Nazis). That makes them scum. But screwing with bank secrecy ain't the way to fix that Reputation Problem. 3) The reason governments and not just banks & individuals are involved is that some unclaimed deposits went to the government, which sent them off to Eastern Europe. - -rich http://www.stanford.edu/~llurch/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQBVAwUBM3LIZpNcNyVVy0jxAQERfgIAiaOqRZrwRxyNWqRUo0ypLT4WDzawsdvB VxiYN3E/nw5k9ZL7AUQQes2AJHS3tDaN086rflJ0GHUwg4TFA8Vsng== =shYb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: e$: In Vino Veritas
by Stephen Cobb, CISSP 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert Thanks so much for a truly enjoyable and thought-provoking piece of writing. It gladdens my heart to know that there are still people out there who know what happened to the Romantics! But you do have to be careful about typing behavior with age. I live in Florida and yes, we have a lot of old folks, but a sadly significant number of the moralists are in their 20s and 30s. In Brevard County where I live (and shuttles are launched) they have banned nude sunbathing, even on Federal property (also thong bikinis and male swim wear that "permits discernible turgidity" -- by this standard most of the Olympic finalists in the men's 100 meters would have been breaking the law if Brevard County had been hosting). Much of the ban-the-nudist lobbying was done people well under 40. There was a great moment at the televised County meeting when a frail old man made his way to the podium and we all braced for another "skin is sin" speech. But this is what he said "I'm a nudist and believe me, you have no idea who else is." So, it is not age that makes folks stupid. My mother took me on a ban-the-bomb march when I was 6. I helped disrupt a tour by the all-white South African rugby team when I was 17. But in the town were I grew up we had both hippies and Nazi-loving, Paki-bashing skinheads (I use the term Paki-bashing only because that is what people called it). We also had Young Conservatives, aging beatniks, and leftists who were so far left they actually admired Stalin (they were so screwed up that, despite being atheists, they protested the British government's decision to deny a priest, jailed for helping the IRA blow up parts of Coventry, conduct mass in prison). Me, I'm 45 and hope I will be my own kind of libertarian until I die. My mother is in her 70s and still working for the cause of freedom and dignity. My brother quit banking to write security software, some of which is causing brains to hurt at the UK's DTI. But getting back to prohibition, do the words "when will they ever learn?" strike a chord? It is so damn obvious that prohibition=organized crime I can't believe it isn't genetic already, like not eating things that smell rotten. But I digress. A book worth reading on the subject, if only for the examples and footnotes, is "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society" by Peter McWilliams Now available in paperback, published by Prelude Press. Personally, I look forward to reading more of your postings. Stephen Certified Information Systems Security Professional Owner, Cobb Associates: "An independent information technology & security consulting firm...since 1987" "The best weapon with which to defend information.. ..is information." Cobb, Guide to PC & LAN Security 2825 Garden, Suite 7-11, Titusville, Florida 32796 Tel: 1 407 383 0977 Fax: 0336 Email: stephen(a)iu.net Try http://www.2cobbs.com & http://www.cobweb.co.uk

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FREE REFERRAL SERVICE
by MOBILE.CONNECTION＠texoma.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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64-bit CPU 10x faster in crypto?
by Bill Stout 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

During a Digital seminar, a statement was made that 64-bit CPUs are about 10x faster than a 32-bit CPU in dealing with crypto, and that Alphas are favorites of Crypto-affiliated Gov't agencies. I spoke with a reference within Digital and the following logic was presented: o A 128-bit key is processed in two 64-bit chunks, vs four 32-bit chunks, greatly reducing processing time. o The Alpha executes four instructions per clock cycle. o Alpha clock ratings are 600MHz this summer. o Caveat: The O.S. needs to support 64-bit processing (Digital UNIX or Linux, not NT). I'm concerned about the strength of personal/corporate crypto in face of large jumps in processing power. I do not subscribe to cypherpunks due to the volume, so please respond to me directly on this question. stoutb(a)pios.com Bill Stout

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Re: [ADMINISTRATIVIUM] Cyclic codes
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There's a rumor that Timmy May sells his dead relatives as fertilizer as they constitute the best shit in California. <<<< o(0-0)o -ooO-(_) Ooo-- Timmy May

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EAR Revisions
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

BXA has published in today's Federal Register a final rule for revisions and clarifications to all Parts of the EAR. Encryption is affected. http://jya.com/ear050997.txt (123K)

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nyt coverage of 'new' US export policy
by Ariel Glenn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

May 9, 1997 U.S. To Ease Rules on Export Of Finance Encryption Technology By JOHN MARKOFF G iving ground on the Clinton administration's computer-data privacy policy, the Commerce Department said Thursday that it would begin in some cases to allow export of the most powerful data-scrambling technologies when used for securing financial transactions. The move departs from previous export policy, which had allowed export of the U.S. computer industry's most powerful privacy-protection software and hardware only if the technology enabled law-enforcement officials to obtain copies of the mathematical keys needed to break the codes. The revised policy would require no such code-breaking proviso in the case of certain types of financial transactions. Besides international funds transfers between banks, permissible applications under the new policy are expected to include privacy-protected home-banking software for banks to offer to customers worldwide. The new policy would also apply to a technology known as the Secure Electronic Transaction standard, which has been developed by Mastercard and Visa to permit consumers to send credit card information to merchants electronically. Computer-data scrambling, or cryptography, is widely seen as the most crucial technology underlying a wide range of new computerized communications and commerce applications. But the Clinton administration, as did the Bush administration, has limited export of the most powerful U.S. encryption technology, for fear it would enable foreign criminals or terrorists to conspire with electronic impunity. Privacy-rights advocates have opposed the government's policy, fearing Big Brother intrusiveness if law-enforcement officials could obtain code keys. And industry officials have argued that because data-scrambling technology is already widely available overseas, the export laws have forced U.S. companies to miss out on a thriving foreign market. Banks and other financial institutions, meanwhile, have complained that the policies made it difficult to insure the security of electronic-funds transfers between the United States and foreign countries. But word of the new rules drew concern from critics of the administration's data-scrambling policies, who said the banking industry would receive unfair business advantages. "There is a danger of creating a cartel-like environment that gives banks advantages over many of the current leaders in electronic commerce," said Laurie Fena, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public policy group in San Francisco. Historically, U.S. banking and financial institutions have been given special exemptions to export data-scrambling equipment based on the 20-year-old Data Encryption Standard. But the big increase in computer processing power in recent years has made that standard appear increasingly vulnerable, and the government has been under pressure to permit the export of strong encryption technology for financial purposes. Administration officials said the new rules would be published soon. Until then, it is unclear whether the definition of financial institutions and transactions may now be broad enough to include software makers like Netscape Communications Corp., which produces the most popular software for navigating the Internet's World Wide Web. _________________________________________________________________ Related Articles IBM Announces New Encryption Formula (May 7,1997) U.S. Restrictions Give European Encryption a Boost (April 7,1997) _________________________________________________________________ Netscape's software has a component for insuring secure financial transactions; but under current export law, that ability must be weakened or disabled when its Web-navigating software is shipped overseas. "It's very heartening to see the administration finally admitting that there are products overseas that are cutting into our markets," said Peter Harter, the lawyer in charge of global public policy for Netscape. "It's unfortunate to have to watch this happening from the back of the bus." Home | Sections | Contents | Search | Forums | Help Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company _________________________________________________________________ IBM WWWDirectory

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Re: El Gamal
by Ariel Glenn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> Is El Gamal used in the source for PGP 3.0? > >I don't know, no one's exported the source to pgp3.0 in electronic >form, and I haven't seen the books either. I have the books; ElGamal is indeed one of the algorithms in use in the 3.0 pre-alpha code. Ariel Glenn / AcIS R&D / Columbia University ariel(a)columbia.edu #include <stddisclaimer.h>

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"constructive" possession of a gun
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Senate Judiciary Committe -- 08 May 1997 Well the JackBoots are at it again. Under current Federal Law 5yrs can be tacked on to a criminal sentance if a gun is used in the commision of a crime. Now they have a new twist to add: "constructive" possession of a gun during the commision of a crime. Now what does "constructive" possession mean? Well according to those who testified from the various depts of the Excutive Branch it means that a gun happens to be in the area, or the potential to use a gun or if you recoment that someone else use a gun durring the commission of a crime even though the weapon was never used. Some examples given: If durring the planning of a bank robbery you recomend that a gun be used durring the robbery even though you did not use the weapon or was not even present durring the robbery you could still get the extra 5yrs. If durring a drug deal taking place in the back seat of a car there is a gun under the front seat of the car you would still get the extra 5yrs even though the the gun was never used. If durring a drug raid on your home and a gun is found anywhere in the house, yes you would be elegible for the extra 60 months. <sigh> why do they even pretend to be running a constitutional government? - -- - ----------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. Finger whgiii(a)amaranth.com for PGP Key and other info - ----------------------------------------------------------- Tag-O-Matic: "640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Registered User E-Secure v1.1 ES000000 iQCVAwUBM3KQGo9Co1n+aLhhAQEHkAQAtBlcEtyXzRNKKI7HtEx0H1glMGmlzN+8 cQD91dlgHhNbN24C5Ixq+hDBvBYWTs0yUY8fHOIgMo5HqQWRr4VMG2yrfcM42vyH LuhKuldAYem4mKWoEm4wl0LYTxn18r0w/4f5NCT3VN+7aTrrme6QjYkN7BXNr6lU Mxd1YGeAFzM= =ZpFe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Tag-O-Matic: OS/2 means...CURTAINS for Windows!

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Re: Spam Update/Cyber Promo attacked
by The Spectre 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Fri May 09 09:48:11 1997 > > Like I said, it's more of a passive agressive thing. If I were to > > come across a page that said "Click here to spam some spammers" and > > that's all I had to do, why wouldn't I take 2 seconds of my time to > > do it? That's > > Can you think of a way to have it originate at the browser's machine, > not your machine? Perhaps an activex program for w95 :-) java program/script could do this as well. > > certainly less time than it takes to go through the amount of spam in > > my mail each day. > > I suggest you learn to filter your e-mail. Hmmm... I'm hearing a lot of "you have a right so long as it doesn't interfere with me" kind of talk here... if the gentleman has a right to spam, then this person as the same right to spam him back.. I personally detest getting crap like the guy sent in my mailbox.. filtering doesn't stop it from wasting bandwidth. > > And who cares if the pings/emails are coming from my site? For the > > email version I just add a header that says something to the effect > > of "This email was sent to you on behalf of someone at $REMOTE_HOST" > > and set the > > You could also try an html form whose actions send mailto:your@enemy yup. > > > Return-Path to <root@localhost>. At that point, how can you prove > > that it was sent by your script or just by someone using your SMTPd? > > He'll just filter out your site. Wallace has some very smart > people working with him. Maybe he needs some smarter people working "against" him.. this has potential to get fun. The Spectre spectre(a)nac.net - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQENAzM2vJwAAAEH/1uuDgh1udD+DbU9ies8Lst3j7bmlM+m+aN0gVwerfx+uA14 AG6RDZwwCLwCZYxh0/AizW1b25nHs5XDFW7QIVo1/agtbyz3rt7plcp3wi+rXPxo zFPgILegG2k81mHYIYVJ1g9bEExVGsNc7GMthkaOjPL2VYirQPRtAa4ZZc6JuCLH I85xIcwuLppYajUU4WMMf4yz+5w1WtTlHdL9+ec6BHoF+fOhsF/8DMd5nveFl0aM G52t+z6okMw9vFjLbEtj0BbDRsMjRJNM5uFQWzU+nPEaUzVP+MySe/yrjR2P3dZa UKjpG3Er7U4DV7rb8mE20Wet10jJoALjG8yMZrUABRG0HVRoZSBTcGVjdHJlIDxz cGVjdHJlQG5hYy5uZXQ+iQEVAwUQM0qy66AC4xvMjGa1AQGNLAf/QY5SyC/jybOQ asYfNqhPFip0gZwUutOOgPdyrEsXoxFOWJ9OG95dzvNJ3of22zh4RLusUt5NT7lB DFUKiP4aQsNf5XmW+qk/R1nmqyO/XHAAAdIos2SGsYew2d3JatIlFZIQ+vMkEOC0 +oPotz7effhkDKeYl+Qdla9eZ1C47Be2NrA1sH26jKYhCob6VnAK+zAin8ZPEnb0 XEKQTMVdE2ehv2Q8PxygZhDI0L6sM6EgguvDWjJuGN4bIhxh22dAyNRJ7CVQsqwV rj4TtkAuqUb0nyQvD2xUeJcB/O+1LCH7oFBE4EG1qEIl7asVjEURrfej7OwxRrA0 J0Lc5tZToA== =tS4W - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBM3MrHaAC4xvMjGa1AQH6jwf8DvSZdcz61rx4I9l1pnTjRqiPECiGZfuN LRDFyXGiLwz5w7InPk3y4VYbDrRXWQKpfxWE51HO+HZs0kYbgGnsshIvJjpxS3ej zcmqywEcJBhLdBXfxOz6sNW518zom2J7VBaHBvkQq/hNWTSiVV7ALot4rFZLzyU5 +1PUebikvme+ISonmae6OLCZgwC1D/7zZHJ+S4D+QTyuZlyk9q/VhVK2MAZ5MRze F6bzjvq+KRD+QvPZnhx6UKZwkQIhHQ/WCDpyr3ztXO/a8HT2MnrUxYAgBkFl6CKT Y1PNiPUs4tzDrF/2eUotg3Lpn4gXR+JR5foEWNrTV+cpy1+P6wyjmg== =Pv6d -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Wired coverage of 'new' admin rules
by Ariel Glenn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Quite a different spin on it in this article... ---- Banks' Crypto Permit Not as Free as It Looks by Kristi Coale 6:12pm 8.May.97.PDT When the Commerce Department on Thursday gave its blessing to the export of the strongest available encryption products for electronic banking and finance, the Clinton administration wasn't really giving any ground on its stance on key recovery. That's because the likely customers for these products - banks and financial institutions - are already subject to tough rules when it comes to tracking transactions and accounts to individuals. And these institutions are legally bound to share this information with the authorities. Given the scope of current regulation, the Commerce Department's key recovery requirement would only be duplicative, a department spokesperson said. That's why banks have been allowed to export government-approved Data Encryption Standard technology since the early 1980s. And that's why they'll now be able to use stronger encryption to secure transactions, including account and credit card numbers. The government standard has a fixed-key length of 56 bits; encryption being readied for electronic commerce such as Secure Electronic Transaction can have keys of 1,024 bits and longer. It is assumed that it would take years and enormous computing power to crack the longer keys. In remarks Thursday before a Washington gathering of the American Bankers Association, Undersecretary William Reinsch outlined the plan which gives banks the ability to export direct-home-banking products with encryption keys of unlimited length. However, if a commercial software company - and not the bank - develops the banking product, the program must meet the administration's requirement for a key-recovery plan. Key recovery provides a "back door" that allows third parties to open and read electronic transmissions such as email. Under the administration's plan, these keys would be stored with government-sanctioned escrow agents such as Trusted Information Systems, a computer security firm, or Bankers Trust, a bank holding company. With these keys, police, prosecutors, and spy agencies with court orders can get access to any message or document. But privacy advocates distrust this system. To organizations like the Electronic Privacy Information Center, key recovery is no different from the administration's plans for government access under the failed Clipper initiatives. And given the current level of regulation, exempting the financial institutions from the key-recovery requirements represents a mere "fig leaf of a concession" on administration policy, said Dave Banisar, EPIC staff counsel. Developers have their own concerns about the Commerce Department announcement - namely, that by telling companies seeking to sell electronic commerce software to banks that they must include key escrow in their products, the administration is playing to prominent a role in the process. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard which support key escrow prefer to implement it in products where it makes business sense for them to do so, said Fred Mailman, the company's regulatory manager. Mailman is worried that the door may now be open for the government to tell companies what product families will have key recovery instead of the companies choosing themselves. While companies sort this out, the pressure on the industry to capitulate to the administration's key recovery plan increases, Mailman said. Related Wired Links: Netscape's Key Recovery: That's Business by Michael Stutz Law and Order and a Crypto Bill by Rebecca Vesely Andreessen: Market, Not Policy, Pushes Crypto by Michael Stutz arrow [INLINE] Find Read a story in the Wired News archive. Feedback Let us know how we're doing. Tips Have a story or tip for Wired News? Send it. Copyright ) 1993-97 Wired Ventures, Inc. and affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

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EVENT: Two big events you can be a part of at democracy.net on May 13!
by Shabbir Safdar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

========================================================================= _ _ __| | ___ _ __ ___ ___ ___ _ __ __ _ ___ _ _ _ __ ___| |_ / _` |/ _ \ '_ ` _ \ / _ \ / __| '__/ _` |/ __| | | | | '_ \ / _ \ __| | (_| | __/ | | | | | (_) | (__| | | (_| | (__| |_| |_| | | | __/ |_ \__,_|\___|_| |_| |_|\___/ \___|_| \__,_|\___|\__, (_)_| |_|\___|\__| |___/ Government Without Walls Update No.7 http:/www.democracy.net/ May 8 1997 _________________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents - democracy.net needs your help! - Internet Caucus field hearing @ Library of Congress: May 13, 3-5pm Eastern - Live Town Hall Meeting with FCC Chairman Reed Hundt: May 13, 7pm Eastern - In our archive - About democracy.net / Subscription and Unsubscription Information ___________________________________________________________________________ DEMOCRACY.NET NEEDS YOUR HELP! On Tuesday May 13, democracy.net will be testifying before the Congressional Internet Caucus about the use of the Internet for bringing citizen participation to the democratic process. We occassionally get letters from all sorts of people who tell us how much they appreciate democracy.net. Help us tell your story. Take a moment to answer the questions below and send the results to feedback(a)democracy.net! 1. Answer the following questions where appropriate. How old are you? Where are you when you participate in democracy.net events? At home? Work? What does democracy.net allow you to do as a citizen that you couldn't do without it? Have you used material from the democracy.net website in an article, term paper, school paper, or book? What do you like most about democracy.net? Does democracy.net help you overcome other barriers to being an active citizen? How are the democracy.net archives useful to you? 2. Send the answers to feedback(a)democracy.net ___________________________________________________________________________ INTERNET CAUCUS FIELD HEARING @ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: TUE MAY 13, 3-5PM EASTERN One of the most crucial benefits of the Internet is it's ability to allow government agencies to publish information to the public at a very low cost. Numerous examples of how the Internet has revolutionized access to the democratic process and government exist today, including: * The Library of Congress' THOMAS service (http://thomas.loc.gov/) which makes available bills and speeches from the Congressional Record, * The Federal Communications Commission's Daily Digest and Website (http://www.fcc.gov/) which allows citizens to track every issue moving through the agency's processes, and * The National Aeronautics and Space Association's Website (http://www.nasa.gov) which has made available photos and other astronomical images available to the very taxpayers that funded them. These projects and others like them have fundamentally changed the way Americans today keep tabs on their government. But there's still a long way to go, and this Internet Caucus field hearing will examine nine examples of how the Internet is being utilized to make the government more accessible to Americans. You can attend this event live by listening to the live audio feed, submit questions to the Senators and Representatives from the Internet Caucus for the witnesses who will be there, view live photos from the hearing room, and discuss the issue with Internet users and Congressional staffers in interactive chat. * Congressional Internet Caucus Hearing - How To Participate * DATE: Tuesday, May 13, 1997 TIME: 3-5 pm Eastern / noon-2 pm Pacific (Event will last +/- 90 mins) LOCATION: http://www.democracy.net In advance of the hearing, please visit http://www.democracy.net for background information on this issue, including the list of witnesses who are testifying. You can also submit questions in advance. _____________________________________________________________________________ LIVE TOWN HALL MEETING WITH FCC CHAIRMAN REED HUNDT: TUESDAY MAY 13, 7PM ET During the May 7th Universal Service Proceeding, Internet users submitted their questions and comments via democracy.net. On Tuesday May 13, FCC Chairman Reed Hundt will join democracy.net for a live Virtual Town Hall meeting to discuss the Universal Service proceeding, respond to Internet users questions, and discuss other Internet-related issues before the FCC. This is a great opportunity for Internet users to talk with one of the key telecommunications policy makers. * Online Town Hall Meeting with FCC Commissioner Reed Hundt * * How To Participate * DATE: Tuesday, May 13, 1997 TIME: 7:00 pm Eastern / 4:00 pm Pacific LOCATION: http://www.democracy.net Visit http://www.democracy.net/ in advance of the event to submit questions. Additional information can be found at the FCC home page: http://www.fcc.gov _______________________________________________________________________________ IN OUR ARCHIVE * FCC UNIVERSAL SERVICE RULEMAKING FROM MAY 7TH NOW AVAILABLE IN OUR ARCHIVE! -FCC Chairman Reed Hundt at May 7th public meeting on Universal Service, broadcast by democracy.net! You can get the entire audio or text-based transcript of the meeting, or selected excerpts, at http://www.democracy.net/archive/05071997/ _______________________________________________________________________________ ABOUT DEMOCRACY.NET / SUBSCRIPTION AND UNSUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION democracy.net is a joint project of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW) to explore ways of enhancing citizen participation in the democratic process via the Internet. To this end, democracy.net hosts live, interactive cybercasts of Congressional Hearings and online town hall meetings with key policy makers. democracy.net is made possible through the generous support of WebActive (http://www.webactive.com) Public Access Networks (http://www.panix.com) the Democracy Network (http://www.democracynet.org) Cheetah Cybercasting Service (http://www.cheetahcast.com/) and DIGEX's ISP-TV (http://isptv.digex.net) More information about the democracy.net project and its sponsors can be found at http://www.democracy.net/about/ To receive democracy.net announcements automatically, please visit our signup form at http://www.democracy.net/ or send mail to majordomo(a)democracy.net with "subscribe events" in the body of the message. To stop receiving announcements on the democracy.net "events" mailing list, please send mail to majordomo(a)democracy.net with the phrase "unsubscribe events" in the message body. _____________________________________________________________________________ End update no.7 05/08/1997 =============================================================================

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No Subject
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

:: Subject: Remailers for Dummies? I'm interested in setting up a remailer (I already have, to a small degree), but I'm looking for a remailers-howto, something that covers the issues beyond `mere' compiling. Things like, getting a Mixmaster and a Type1 remailer to cooperate nicely; how to minimize complaints and legal hassles. If there's a remailer- operators list, I'd love to know about that too. Please address replies to dave(a)columnist.com - as much as anything, I'm sending this message through my proto-remailer (based on the freedom code) to make sure it works :)

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Re: Clinton Admin. to announce new Crypto regs
by Will Rodger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 10:39 PM 5/8/97 +0000, Rick Smith wrote: >These "new" regulations "to be issued" are scrambling to catch up with >previous and current practices. It doesn't change things at all. I disagree. Here's why: New regs unquestionably do change things for US banks. Right now banks may export nothing stronger than unescrowed DES. Period. So - what do they use the dirt-cheap, insecure Internet for? Nothing terribly important outside the US. One banker from JP Morgan told me yesterday that this was big news for them since they would soon move tons of stuff onto the Net. JPM, you'll recall, does business with huge, multinational institutions. They don't do retail banking. They aren't interested in small deals. What do you suppose JP Morgan's bill for proprietary network use is each year? How much will they save by moving to the Internet? It's worth noting, too, that banks and consumer software companies will soon export things like PC banking software with minimal delay. >This announcement is simply a public acknowledgment that the BXA will look >favorably on export requests to banks and that someday they'll try to draft >specific regulations on the subject. Meanwhile you do it by grinding >through the bureacracy. It goes beyond banks. It affects any company that writes financial software for use with the banking infrastructire, including companies like CyberCash and Intuit. Consider this: Last time Cybercash got approval to export it took them 15 months - count 'em - to get approval. OpenMarket had a similar wait. Regs like those may as well prohibit export. Now DOC says similar deals should be routine and take weeks to complete. Regs are supposed to appear soon - within the month, according to Reinsch's deputy. That's a significant change. Will Rodger Washington Bureau Chief Inter@ctive Week -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBM3NA/UcByjT5n+LZAQGMrQf+LYo0Hr1Intna+9yr7E+D0Pmor0G02qxn tHvyk1SAZI/NF8ps9VncboyxVrTVMRtD+eM+l962XHyjF/+PP2J/u7wZH6AivzV5 CeER7l/J6GoZLCFG4I1+1drHsgfHgR3QOuqehYTUg+CfscYYej7T7FkN6mL7jRZ8 ZDNzqYqrNQVhDJHUQJevUUJvHUELS+btSvo0m6sIyzn2WV8pBVwQZqzBxqf74KXd FojRLnKwBquMZwLKZ1jVqlrdwY+S2La8r7XDEQI4VMetEPtKnsdczrJwKUDvYMKg ZqLBR3CCAO50yWw7AcP7YIaAg2drcYJIZKF6DARjfr9eotQfFZ1nmA== =KVo4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: El Gamal
by Hal Finney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The next version of PGP will offer the combination of El Gamal for encryption and Digital Signature Standard (DSS) for signatures, as an alternative to RSA. These are based on the discrete log problem. El Gamal is really almost the same as Diffie-Hellman. You have a secret x, he has a secret y, and together you calculate g^(xy) which is your shared secret. With DH you then just use that shared secret as your message encryption key; with El Gamal you multiply (or xor, or add...) your key with the shared secret. PGP uses El Gamal so that we can send along not only key info but also which algorithm to use for the message body encryption, and also a checksum. It is true that El Gamal encrypted messages will be about 128 bytes bigger than RSA for 1024 bit keys. DSS on the other hand produces somewhat smaller signatures than RSA, by about 85-90 bytes. But neither of these is really significant in typical applications. The Diffie-Hellman patent expires September 6, 1997. I gather that it would also cover El Gamal since that is a variant. The Hellman-Merkle "knapsack" patent, which claims to cover all public key cryptography, expires October 6, 1997. After that date, at least some forms of public key cryptography will be unpatented in the U.S. The RSA patent expires September 20, 2000. It is possible that the next three years will see greater use of discrete log cryptography because of the patent state, although RSA has a significant "brand" advantage in the business market. (This patent info is from "Handbook of Applied Cryptography", from Menezes et al, which I recommend as a supplement to Schneier.) Hal

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Admin Feigns Back Off On Crypto Bill
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

News report today: Reinsch told reporters that strategy will be to follow advice he has been given and not to circulate Administration draft bill. Issue is so polarized, he said, that that bill would be dismissed quickly, and some of its content that lawmakers might want to adopt also would be rejected because it came from Administration. Reinsch said it's close call, and Administration is reevaluating its tactics constantly. This seems to coordinate with Kerrey's initiative to lump all crypto bills into one "acceptable to the leadership and the White House." http://jya.com/backoff.htm BTW, another report claims that proposed new regs will allow banks the special privilege of strong crypto if they come up with an acceptable KMI within two years. This seems to be what Kerrey means when he says NSA's Crowell is working with industry to develop an acceptable KMI along the lines of what government is preparing for its own use. All interests to be subservient to the Number One interest?

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"constructive" possession of a gun
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Senate Judiciary Committe -- 08 May 1997 Well the JackBoots are at it again. Under current Federal Law 5yrs can be tacked on to a criminal sentance if a gun is used in the commision of a crime. Now they have a new twist to add: "constructive" possession of a gun during the commision of a crime. Now what does "constructive" possession mean? Well according to those who testified from the various depts of the Excutive Branch it means that a gun happens to be in the area, or the potential to use a gun or if you recoment that someone else use a gun durring the commission of a crime even though the weapon was never used. Some examples given: If durring the planning of a bank robbery you recomend that a gun be used durring the robbery even though you did not use the weapon or was not even present durring the robbery you could still get the extra 5yrs. If durring a drug deal taking place in the back seat of a car there is a gun under the front seat of the car you would still get the extra 5yrs even though the the gun was never used. If durring a drug raid on your home and a gun is found anywhere in the house, yes you would be elegible for the extra 60 months. <sigh> why do they even pretend to be running a constitutional government? - -- - ----------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. Finger whgiii(a)amaranth.com for PGP Key and other info - ----------------------------------------------------------- Tag-O-Matic: "640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Registered User E-Secure v1.1 ES000000 iQCVAwUBM3KQGo9Co1n+aLhhAQEHkAQAtBlcEtyXzRNKKI7HtEx0H1glMGmlzN+8 cQD91dlgHhNbN24C5Ixq+hDBvBYWTs0yUY8fHOIgMo5HqQWRr4VMG2yrfcM42vyH LuhKuldAYem4mKWoEm4wl0LYTxn18r0w/4f5NCT3VN+7aTrrme6QjYkN7BXNr6lU Mxd1YGeAFzM= =ZpFe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Tag-O-Matic: Windows is to OS/2 what Etch-a-Sketch is to art.

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Wine Politics Again!
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: mcooley(a)pop.tiac.net Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 22:25:28 To: dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu From: Marianne Cooley <mcooley(a)nethorizons.com> Subject: Wine Politics Again! Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Marianne Cooley <mcooley(a)nethorizons.com> This one is not just an Internet message. In fact, I should probably take it to my marketing list ;)--but just to keep y'all up to date with the latest commerce developments. Marianne forwarded message: Hello friends of the Virtual Vineyards and family wineries. Remember the felony direct shipping law in Georgia I wrote about a few weeks ago? Well, Governor Miller signed it, unfortunately. Ship a bottle of wine, go to jail. Amazing. Here it is again, this time in Florida. The wholesale liquor lobby is pushing a bill through the state houses making it a felony to ship a bottle of wine to a Florida consumer. If you believe, as we do, that this is unreasonable restraint of legitimate commerce, please register your opposition directly with Governor Chiles. This is not just a Florida issue, as other states are watching the development of such laws very closely. If you have friends in Florida please pass this on to them and urge them to act quickly. The bill will soon be on the governor's desk. Here is a sample letter for Governor Chiles with several ways to contact him. Personalize it if you wish, or send it as is: E-Mail: chilesl(a)eog.state.fl.us Fax: 904-487-0801 Phone: 904-488-4441 Governor Lawton Chiles Office of the Governor Florida State Capitol, Talahassee, Florida 32399-0001 Dear Governor Chiles: I call upon you to veto HB 725 (SB336), the felony direct shipment bill. This bill is sponsored by the state's Liquor wholesalers in order to protect their monopoly on wine sold to Florida consumers. Out-of-state sellers of wine support Florida Attorney General Butterworth's counter-proposal, and are willing to register with Florida, pay state excise and sales taxes and assure that all Florida laws protecting minors are observed. If HB 725 becomes law, Florida wine consumers' choices of products will be narrowly limited to the few wines represented by the Liquor wholesalers and Florida itself will be making a statement that small family winegrape growers and wineries in over 40 states deserve to go to jail, and lose their farms and vineyards, if they ship a bottle of wine to a customer who happens to reside in Florida. HB 725 is hostile to consumers and agriculture. I urge you to use your veto. Sincerely yours, Peter D. Granoff, M.S./Virtual Vineyards http://www.virtualvin.com 800-289-1275 415-938-9463 415-919-1977 fax 3803 East Bayshore Rd., Suite 175 Palo Alto, CA 94303 ********************************************************************* Marianne Cooley Internet Special Interest Group NetHorizons Unlimited SigNet.org--where online users meet mcooley(a)nethorizons.com http://www.signet.org 617.433.0825 Join "Life at Internet Speed" on www.boston.com Wednesdays from 1-2pm! For a chat topic reminder, send an email to majordomo(a)signet.org and write "subscribe life" (no quotation marks) in the body of the message. ********************************************************************** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe from the dcsb list, send a letter to: Majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu In the body of the message, write: unsubscribe dcsb Or, to subscribe, write: subscribe dcsb If you have questions, write to me at Owner-DCSB(a)ai.mit.edu --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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e$: In Vino Veritas
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I love this prohibition stuff. First recreational drugs, then guns, then cryptography, then tobbacco, and now, the grandaddy of all prohibitions, alcohol sales, on the net in Florida, with good old vino being retreaded as a brand new thin edge of the tired old wedge of government behavioral control. Once again, a whole generation of libertines now becomes moralistic in their old age. Same as it ever was. Remember that the Romantics (Beethoven, Chopin, the waltzing Strausses, etc.) grew up to become the Victorians (the temperance, missionary, conservation, and "indian school" movements). So, maybe it *is* time to move to a country where the average age is under 30. Fortunately, there are a lot of them, thanks to exploding life expectancy caused by advancing technological progress and Peale's "demographic transition". Maybe soon they'll have enough wealth (and technological creativity) of their own to ignore the increasing constrictions of what Tim May likes to call the "Terror State". I'd gladly exchange a moribund environment of backward-looking luddism for a cheerful attack on the problem of making the future happen, anytime. Unfortunately, that doesn't look like an option, not just yet, anyway. The other thing which comes to mind with all this is, of course, financial cryptography, which, contrary to the opinion of more than a few on the e-mail lists I'm on, I see as the thin edge of another kind of wedge. It is financial cryptography which will kill cryptographic prohibition, and, someday, prohibition of other technologies as well. Currently, the relaxation of export controls on cryptography is now merely a cudgel to make us submit to ubiquitous wiretapping, and not for national security, the original purpose of such controls. Former National Security Agency Chief Counsel Stewart Baker said at the Digital Commerce Society of Boston luncheon this Tuesday that the management of the NSA gave up on succeeding with cryptographic export controls in 1993, and that their only hope was to enlist Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Louis Freeh in their efforts by showing him threat of cryptography to his wiretap apparatus. It's now quite clear that the NSA is fighting a retreat on strong cryptography, and that they're using Louis Freeh and the FBI to do it for them. So, at this point, any residual attempts by the national security apparatus per se to control exports, beyond assisting Freeh in slowing down technological progress, is just regulatory inertia. Still real and very dangerous to anyone who believes in freedom and privacy, but lacking any further accelleration to move it forward, once the momentum it already has finally goes away. In my conversation last year with senior people there, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), responsible for catching money launderers and other financial criminals and another would-be cryptographic hoplaphobe, certainly seemed to understand that if blind-signature digital bearer certificates are proven to be as economically efficient as a few of us on the net think they will be, FinCEN's ability to monitor transactions on the net will just disappear. Not only because they can't see those transaction behind the Chaumian blind-signature algorithm, but because the sheer volume of transactions (the micromoney mitochondria, digital-cash-as-microprocessor-food idea I like to throw around, as an extreme example) will physically choke any monitoring effort they attempt to build. In yet another paraphrase of John Gilmore's law of internet censorship, the net sees surveillance as damage, and routes around it. Again, inertia is a problem here, and the powers-that-be at FinCEN haven't given up quite yet on ultimately controlling the impending explosion of internet financial cryptography, as NSA's management seems to have with crypto in general. Mostly because all the starry-eyed claims people like me make on behalf of digital bearer certificates are just that, claims, with no empirical evidence so far to back them up. Yet. :-). Finally, that leaves wiretaps, and the FBI's Louis Freeh, a man who got his law-enforcement bones because of bugs and wiretaps, and who has never seen a wiretap he didn't like. First of all, Freeh faces the same problem FinCEN faces. Even if it were economically possible for the FBI to get the monsterous wiretap capability that the freshly legislated CALEA now crams down the collective financial throat of every telecoms manufacturer and provider on earth. Even if he did get access to all cryptographic keys, which he can't physically do, because economics will require that most of those session keys be disposed of as fast as they're used. Even if, in spite of both of those flights of economic fantasy, he were able to do so, Freeh still can't physically monitor all that communication, in the same sense that FinCEN can't follow all those transactions on the internet. Gilmore's Law strikes again. But, the joke here, of course, is that surveillence technology in meatspace itself is going to continue to increase. The eventual prospect of ubiquitous videobugging both by government and private sources means that a lot of David Brin's surveillance society will probably come to pass, and physical crime will continue to diminish as a result. The law-enforcement need for tapped or "excrowed" communictions will probably disappear, because even when Freeh & Co. couldn't just subpoena some stored private video somewhere, planting a physical bug, Gotti-style, will be much easier than listening in to an "excrowed" communication with disposable session keys. Much in the same way, I might add, as if the NSA bunch had never mentioned the idea of key escrow at all to Louis Freeh. That's because the inherent need of corporations to secure their own data from the hostile or accidental behavior of their own people would have already created a market for encrypted data recovery anyway. All the law enforcement community would need to do to get access to that information is the same thing they use for anything else: a subpoena. Again, the "rational control" of government destroyed what would have been a much more efficient market driven technology. Like the filtering of offensive internet content was before the Communications Decency Act threatened to "require" it, some very creative people were thinking very hard about private key and cryptography data recovery schemes and now won't touch them because the government wants to mandate key escrow, er, "recovery", into existance. However, the last laugh in the upcoming surveillance society will eventually be had by privacy advocates on would-be totalitarians like Mr. Freeh, and, it seems, on Al Gore, who seems to be Freeh's chief cheerleader in the Clinton administration. Remember that Stalin, too, came to totalitarianism from the absolutism of the extreme left, and leftist absolutism is something Mr. Gore's book "Earth in the Balance" is chock full of. Somewhere, Freddy Hayek is laughing. Anyway, in the ultimate twist of fate, all those ubiquitous surveillance devices will be predominantly in *private* hands, and, as the cleptocracy of the modern nation state continues to implode from it's own greed and power-lust, those surveillance devices will, eventually, be linked to privately held security firms, and, maybe someday to autonomous *munitions*. See the "Mesh and the Net", <http://www.shipwright.com/meshnet.html>, for some hints to this kind of defensive military technology. I claim that as we will be able to allocate network resources with some kind of cash settled economy, so too will we someday be be able to directly "purchase" the services of these kinds of technologies, without the centralized economic distortion of a nation-state. In other words, we'll be much more physically secure without people like Mr. Freeh, than with them. While that's a long way off, it's probably not so far as freedom and privacy advocates fear. For instance, if, say, 10 years from now, as some people have predicted, your home security system had complete visual coverage of your property with a swarm of very cheap CCD videocameras, all streaming that encrypted video over the net to some secure (possibly anonymous) storage place, then not only do criminals have a tougher time comitting crimes against your person and property, but so too does government. In addition, with such a system, there's nothing to keep a private cop or detective from appearing at the scene of the crime, probably at much less cost than that of a government one. Heck, the purchase of the cop's or detective's time could occur on a cash-settled auction market, for that matter. Paid by private crime insurance, of course. :-). Once again, information technology reduces government to the functional equivalent of ceremony, following monarchy down the road to mere decoration and, lately, occassional entertainment. Now, I agree that just waiting around for all this to mysteriously appear won't make it happen any faster. The faster the technology is built, deployed, and most important, made profitable, the better. And, these days, all this statist encroachment on our freedom feels, very debatably, like being a Jew on Krystallnacht waiting for the Americans to win the war already. But, this technology *is* going to happen, and, while nation-states aren't going to go down without fighting for their institutional lives, they *have* lost. Hopefully, the sooner they know they've lost, the sooner they'll give up, join the human race, and get on with building the future. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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One-Time Pads as Attack Method
by 00043.an＠edtec.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1. Agents of the Enemy wish to create the appearance of you possessing document A. 2. They obtain some artifact you have emailed, or posted, or possess on your private local storage. --- Possibly even signed. Call this message B. 3. They create the XOR of A and B, the result being a 'one time pad' C. which of course, gives: private message B XOR C = target bogus message A. This result is of course not a one time pad; the plan is to accuse you of possessing materials that prove you are trading with the enemy, exchanging kiddie-porn, any of the usual things. 4. This 'one time pad' file C. somehow finds its way into your possession: it is an email attachment, embedded in some binary --- it could even be stego'ed into a GIF/JPG. 5. The agents break down the door and seize all your effects. 6. They are able to prove that you possess B and C, the XOR of which is A., a fact that is impossible to have happened at random. 7. The jury doesn't know shit, and figures that if the chances of B ^ C = A by accident are 0, then you must be guilty. I'm only looking at the general schema of an attack like this: I'm sure there are many ways the right defense could be mounted about how the files got on the client's computer, etc.etc. The interesting part of this frame-job is using something you may have already publicly posted, making denial of its origin difficult, together with a surreptitious planting of the 'pad' data. Naturally the incriminating data payload could be delivered directly, without the OTP business. But I thought it might be worth examining the implications of this theme.

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Certified primes
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As `homo' as he might be, Timmy May is not of the species `Homo Sapiens', but rather `Papio Mephitis'. Unlike human beings, he has not descended from apes --- yet. o-:^>___? Timmy May `~~c--^c'

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Security flaw in key recovery -- you're looking at it
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[This is only a test. If I had been in a bad mood, this message would have contained the private key of the CEO of a major Entrust customer, obtained from an Entrust trusted "key safe" server. Who am I? Can Entrust or its customer's officers finger me?]

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How to get contact with Cypherpunks?
by aja.ub＠t-online.de 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, IŽm a user of internet technologies and interested to learn more about privacy and security in internets/intranets. How can I participate? Greetings from Nueremberg/Germany Andy

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