December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

OECD: No GAK
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The New York Times, March 27, 1997, pp. A1, D3. U.S. Rebuffed in Global Proposal For Eavesdropping on the Internet By John Markoff In a setback for the Clinton Administration that demonstrates the difficulty of setting global policies for the Internet, the leading industrial nations have declined to embrace a United States proposal to allow computer eavesdropping by the world's law enforcement agencies. The United States proposal, backed by Britain and France, was an attempt to restrict the private use of increasingly advanced data-scrambling technology that can protect the privacy of electronic mail and other forms of computer communication. The equipment can make it difficult for law enforcement officials to crack a code when they suspect it is masking criminal or terrorist activities. The proposal called for international endorsement of a system in which mathematical keys to computer-security codes would be held by escrow agents from whom law enforcement officials could obtain the keys once they have a court's wiretapping warrant. But policy guidelines scheduled to be released in Paris today by the 29-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development fail to endorse the United States proposal. And they leave such leeway for members to regulate data-scrambling technology--or not--that computer security experts say any uniform international policy remains elusive. "The difficulty with the guidelines is that anybody can interpret parts of them in their own way," said Konstantine Papanikdaw, a policy analyst for information security at the European Commission in Brussels. Indeed, the industrial world seems to be deeply divided on whether governments can ever legitimately eavesdrop on the electronic communication of their citizens. Because messages on the Internet are easy to intercept, a growing number of individuals and corporations are protecting the privacy of their communications and the security of their commercial transactions by scrambling such information. Some O.E.C.D. nations, including Britain and France, have either outlawed or are in the process of tightly regulating the private use of data-scrambling systems. But other nations--including Australia, Canada Denmark and Finland--have policies that protect individual privacy. Among other member nations, Japan had initially resisted the United States proposal but was said to be moving closer to it, while Germany remained deeply divided. Most other countries, inside or outside the O.E.C.D., have yet to confront the data-scrambling issue. And even the United States has a somewhat contradictory national policy that permits citizens to use whatever data-scrambling software they wish within the nation's borders, but restricts the export of the most up-to-date computer-coding technology. That seeming contradiction, however, did not prevent the Clinton Administration in recent months from waging a vigorous behind-the-scenes effort for its proposal. And hoping to resolve some of the policy conflicts, the Administration is now circulating draft legislation on Capitol Hill which would attempt to control even the domestic use of data-scrambling software and establish a key-escrow system for the United States. While the O.E.C.D. has no authority to set international policy, its recommendations are frequently used by member nations in setting their own foreign and trade policies. And the privacy and law-enforcement aspects of the Internet are issues on which member governments have been desperate for guidance. But even though most of the O.E.C.D. discussions involved law enforcement officials, who have been the main advocates for measures that would insure their ability to crack codes, European officials say that there was never much agreement on what to do. And so the primary recommendation in the report, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, simply gives O.E.C.D. member nations the latitude to do as they see fit when it comes to data scrambling, which is formally known as cryptography. "National cryptography policies may allow lawful access to plain text, or cryptographic keys, or encrypted data," the report says. Privacy-rights advocates see the O.E.C.D. guidelines as a critical setback for the Clinton Administration. "The U.S. proposal to endorse lawful access to private keys was explicitly rejected by the O.E.C.D. member countries," said Marc Rotenberg of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and a member of the O.E.C.D.'s advisory group. "The O.E.C.D. chose instead a policy based on voluntary, market-driven development of cryptography products." And even supporters of the United States position acknowledged that guidelines were a disappointment. "The United States probably had more success raising consciousness then getting language that could he treated as an endorsement for key recovery," said Stewart Baker, a former National Security Agency official who participated on the American delegation to the O.E.C.D. Meanwhile, executives for the United States computer industry were critical of the O.E.C.D. for even leaving the door open for governments to set national policies on data scrambling. "We think that markets, not governments, should be the primary determinants of technology solutions," said Jon Englund, a vice president at the Information Technology Association of America, a trade group. Many experts question whether governments can ever hope to insure law enforcement access to electronic messages or to restrict the spread of super-strong coding software, because new, more powerful versions can always be developed and easily transmitted over the Internet in the blink of an eye. And any international effort is almost certainly doomed if some countries refuse to go along with a common approach, because people looking for strong encryption can simply acquire it wherever the laws are lax. In fact, the big German company Siemens A.G. recently introduced an encryption system that it advertises as being much more powerful than American companies can export under United States law. Besides the United States, France and Britain both support a system for enabling law enforcement officials to obtain keys to data-scrambling codes. France has already passed a stringent law that requires participation in such a system, although the rules to carry out the law have not yet been worked out. And in recent days, Britain has quietly circulated the most restrictive proposal of any nation, a domestic policy under which the Government would allow private use only of cryptography that was officially licensed, to make sure that the software uses code that law enforcement officials can crack. Under such laws, of course, criminals and terrorists might logically choose to use unauthorized encryption software. But the mere fact that such use would be a crime may be a deterrent--or give the police grounds to arrest anyone whose communications were indecipherable. In Germany, encryption remains a deeply divisive issue. The Interior Ministry has supported the need for encryption restrictions of some sort, but the Justice Ministry and the Economics Ministry have both signaled their opposition. And German businesses have been outspoken opponents against any new restrictions on data scrambling. Meanwhile, United States export restrictions have been a boon for Brokat Informationssysteme G.m.b.H., a two-year-old start-up company in Boblingen, Germany. Brokat supplies secure electronic transaction software for banks like Deutsche Bank and on-line services like America Online in Europe. One of Brokat's hottest products is the Expresso Security Package which essentially adds strong encryption to the World Wide Web browsers and Internet server software sold by two of the largest American software companies-- Microsoft and Netscape Communications. [End]

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Re: [Proposal:] Revolving Web Mirrors
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart wrote: > > >> Maybe a mailing list/news group that could > >> post current URL's for the mirrors? > > Having the pattern matcher look for (and delay) potential mirror lists > is more productive, since you can catch them at the Nationalist Firewall > before they get into the country. Maybe. If readers know what to > look for in their news postings, censors probably do to. > > Email is tougher - the Bad Guys don't need to find the source of the > mirror listings (presumed to be in a non-cooperative country, > if you can find it at all) - they can find the recipients of the lists, > and go beat them up. Maybe it's time to set up an "InterNet Free Europe" type of program. Crypto and remailers seem to be well-suited to the task of implementing the dissemination of information and protecting identities of the many individuals who would be involved. CyberHackers could compromise a few systems, to turn them into innocent remailers, and this would open the door for the administrators of other systems to 'fake' system attacks, and do some remailing themselves. CryptoRebels could disseminate encryption programs containing the public keys that would be used for the InterNet broadcasts in certain cases. One of the keys to "InterNet Free World" (a better name?) would be to make a habit of disseminating a plethora of 'false' encrypted messages with little or no meaning, and no available key, as a cover for the messages that are actually targeted for certain users or systems. -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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MC / My Computer?
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: KRAP
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 05:21 PM 3/26/97 -0600, Toto wrote: >Jeremey Barrett wrote: > >> > Key Recovery Agents Plan > >> I dunno, but they couldn't have picked a better acronym :-) > > Good eye. I read about it and never noticed their >truth-in-advertising acronym. > > You are hereby awarded 50,000,000 Toto Eca$h credits. > (1,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1 peso) Actually the anacronym was posted a couple of months ago. (Check the archives, if they still exist.) In the original posting, I pointed out that if they are the Key Recovery Alliance, then what they produce mut be Key Recovery Alliance Products (aka KRAP). But then that was on a parellel universe/listserv. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQEVAwUBMzqe2OQCP3v30CeZAQGK1Qf9HTYic3rKPZMVqd2uyfUbGTIP9J1vXF1X h4ikOzKUR5gf3vhRDzxdViEA/KcE/4neXgZZe2tpB/H5XEiPhxMg5IksyXhSTgDx hC+9kpRMlO7hj8JxHA3dtsqzZjUSdt3ws8YjfmXaz/76HBG9FpAYNyYg7xBheYd/ 5J4mfSQS5cn2libq0B1gAnDxWROJ6NxywpD8fVq46JoxE+vJdUtR2CRkOe4HOvbr Zh98FBx6VH1i1xUo6LDlrqI3YLm6VfAjrhOU6wTImiSnuZdh276cbR1FtqQxdz8o X01W2Agug/UaEtnXYnzXxkFuIU8AB46z4nDTj3ZTlKw7fmJCYAWIXw== =skFo -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --- | "Mi Tio es infermo, pero la carretera es verde!" | |"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.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com|

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Higher Sources / Index
by Bubba Rom Dos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Heaven's Gate / Main
by Bubba Rom Dos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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[NTSEC] CIFS Authentication Protocol Errata (fwd)
by Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

=====================================Kaos=Keraunos=Kybernetos============== .+.^.+.| Ray Arachelian | "If you're gonna die, die with your|./|\. ..\|/..|sunder(a)sundernet.com|boots on; If you're gonna try, just |/\|/\ <--*-->| ------------------ |stick around; Gonna cry? Just move along|\/|\/ ../|\..| "A toast to Odin, |you're gonna die, you're gonna die!" |.\|/. .+.v.+.|God of screwdrivers"| --Iron Maiden "Die With Your Boots on"|..... ======================== http://www.sundernet.com ========================= For with those which eternal lie, with strange eons even death may die. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 23:21:52 -0800 From: Paul Leach <paulle(a)microsoft.com> To: "'cifs(a)listserv.msn.com'" <cifs(a)listserv.msn.com>, "'WWW-SECURITY(a)ns2.rutgers.edu'" <WWW-SECURITY(a)ns2.rutgers.edu>, "'NTBUGTRAQ(a)RC.ON.CA'" <NTBUGTRAQ(a)rc.on.ca>, "'ntsecurity(a)iss.net'" <ntsecurity(a)iss.net> Subject: [NTSEC] CIFS Authentication Protocol Errata Sharp eyed reviewers have already caught the following errors in CIFS-Auth (CIFS Authentication Protocol), draft 3. A new version will be forthcoming shortly. In paragraph 2 of section 1.1, it should say: The response is computed by DES encrypting a challenge (a nonce) selected by the server with three keys derived from the user's password. In section 1.2, [s]<n:m> be the "n" bytes of s starting at byte "m". should be clarified to be: [s]<n:m> be the "n" bytes of s starting at byte "m" (the first byte is numbered 0). In step 1 of section 1.4, was: Kb = [Ks]<7:8> Kc = [Ks]<15:2>, Z(5) should be: Kb = [Ks]<7:7> Kc = [Ks]<14:2>, Z(5) In step 4 of section 1.4 was: Kb' = [Ks']<7:8> Kc' = [Ks']<14:2>, Z(5) should be: Kb' = [Ks']<7:7> Kc' = [Ks']<14:2>, Z(5) and Km' = Ks, R should be Km' = Ks', R In step 6 of section 1.4, C: MS' = [MD5(Km, SN, Msessr, CC, CS)]<8> should be C: MS' = [MD5(Km, SN, Msessr,)]<8> In step 2 of section 1.5, there is a missing right bracket: S->C: Mrsp, [MD5(Km', SN', Mrsp)<8> should be: S->C: Mrsp, [MD5(Km', SN', Mrsp)]<8> > ---------- > From: Paul Leach > Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 1997 1:18 PM > To: 'cifs(a)listserv.msn.com'; 'WWW-SECURITY(a)ns2.rutgers.edu'; > 'NTBUGTRAQ(a)RC.ON.CA'; 'ntsecurity(a)iss.net' > Subject: CIFS Authentication Protocol Review > > We are releasing preliminary drafts of the proposed fixes to the > CIFS/SMB authentication protocols for widespread public review. If > they pass review, they will be in Service Pack 3 for NT 4.0. > > The original protocol from which the new version descends was designed > more than a decade ago; recently, quite a few weaknesses have been > found in those previous versions. This latest revision is an attempt > to repair those weaknesses with as small a change to the protocol as > possible, so that it can be incrementally and rapidly deployed. > > All three documents are available in .doc, .txt and postscript. > > Information on how to get them is available from: > ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/cifs/sec.htm > > All followup discussion should be on the CIFS mailing list at > CIFS(a)listserv.msn.com. > > Your comments are actively solicited. > ------------------------------ > Paul J. Leach > paulle(a)microsoft.com >

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ZDNet Members-Only: JavaOne Discount!
by announce＠lists.zdnet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ZDNET ANNOUNCEMENT 3/26/97 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings from ZDNet! Ziff-Davis, a Silver co-sponsor of JavaOne(sm) has an exclusive offer for ZDNet Members: Attend JavaOne(sm) on April 2-4 for a *SPECIAL* low rate of $995, a $200 discount! What: JavaOne, Sun's 1997 Worldwide Java Developer Conference Where: Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, California When: April 2-4, 1997 Here's your chance to get in-depth technical knowledge directly from the source: Sun's Java Development Team. JavaOne(sm) is three very full days of intensive Java learning from the people who invented Java. If you are an Internet developer or want to be one, you won't want to miss it! Keynotes will be delivered by Scott McNealy, James Gosling, Alan Baratz, Vinton Cerf, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Johnson. In addition to the three day conference, there will be loads of extracurricular activities that will further your opportunity to learn about Java and to meet other Java developers. For complete information on the conference, visit the JavaOne web site at http://java.sun.com/javaone/ To register at this special rate of $995, please call 800-668-2741 (US & Canada), or 415-372-7077 (International) before March 28, and refer to source code "JAVAZIFF." If space is still available, you can register at this special rate on-site too, but you will have to mention source code "JAVAZIFF." For more Information: http://java.sun.com/javaone/ 800-668-2741 (US & Canada) 415-372-7077 (International) _______________________________________________________________ ZDNet Announcements are periodic notices of new features, special events and free offers available to members of ZDNet. --To subscribe to ZDNet Announcements, please send mail to: announce-on(a)lists.zdnet.com You can leave the subject and body blank. --To unsubscribe to ZDNet Announcements, please send mail to: announce-off(a)lists.zdnet.com You can leave the subject and body blank. _______________________________________________________________ Powered by Mercury Mail: http://www.merc.com

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heavensgate.com?
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have a copy of the heavensgate.com web pages? I've found a couple mirrors of Higher Source already. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/970327/news/stories/suicides_7.html) If you want to send something anonymously, finger -l declan(a)eff.org for my PGP public key. -Declan

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Microsoft ammunition
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Infoworld: March 24, 1997 Coda dependency may contribute to the fall of the great Gates empire Last week's column demonstrated that Microsoft is unable to respond to the network computer in its usual "co-opt the technology" manner -- a fact that may signal the turning point in the company's history. (Why am I leaving Intel out of this prediction, you ask? Because it is in a far more flexible position than Microsoft. Its chips can run anything. Microsoft needs them to run Windows.) Add to this NC threat the mounting troubles for Microsoft, and it's no wonder there's no joy in Redmond tonight. Look at the trends. According to International Data Corp., Microsoft SQL Server for Windows NT has been losing significant market share for two years to competing products that run on multiple platforms. Microsoft's Wolfpack clustering technology is turning out to be a Chihuahuapack. (See "Toothless Wolfpack," March 17.) Seemingly endless rapid-fire announcements by ISVs to support standards such as Java, JDBC, LDAP, IMAP4, and CORBA are shoving Microsoft's TAPI, MAPI, ISAPI, "SLAP-HAPI," and a host of other Microsoft-centric specifications right out of the limelight. By now you have undoubtedly heard more than you want to hear about the fellow in Germany who demonstrated that a malicious ActiveX control can secretly empty your bank account. Leaks, bugs, and hastily cobbled service packs have been drawing attention to the immaturity of Windows NT. And, most recently, college kids have found more holes in Internet Explorer than it takes to fill the Albert Hall. (My apologies to those outside the Beatles generation who don't get the reference.) Meanwhile, Microsoft has crushed or alienated practically every potential partner that might otherwise have helped it out of its current fix. Network hanky panky This latest Microsoft Internet Explorer security dustup really isn't a bug, it's a feature. Internet Explorer was built to make it easy to launch a file, whether that file is on your hard drive or sitting on a server somewhere in Freedonia. Unfortunately, it took someone outside Microsoft to realize last August that the file one launches from Explorer could be a Word for Windows document packing a malevolent macro. Then, in the past few weeks, .URL, .LNK, and .ISP files were added to the danger list. Then it surfaced that Microsoft's Common Internet File System opens the door to network hanky panky. This is clearly a company that isn't used to thinking outside of the universe of the local LAN. The Microsoft patches configure Explorer to ask your permission before launching a potentially dangerous file type (similar to Netscape Navigator). OK, but this solution makes it virtually impossible for Microsoft or anyone else to integrate a browser seamlessly into the Windows desktop. If seamless, safe desktop access to remote files on the Internet is the goal, Microsoft is spinning its wheels. There is really only one way to provide these features without introducing a local security risk. You have to eliminate the possibility that anything you run can affect your local drives. Better still, get rid of your local drives. In short, a Java-based browser is a good way to do it, but a Java-based network computer is best. Which brings us back to the conclusion of last week's column. But, if you're tired of the repetition, here's a reason you should sit through another sermon: RandomNoise's Coda. Coda lets you design entire Web pages in Java rather than use a mixture of HTML content, tags, and Java applets. Most pundits seem to be fixated on the fact that Coda gives you a way to display fancy fonts that HTML can't handle. Our own Bob Metcalfe is the only one I know of who addressed the bigger picture. (See From the Ether, March 10). He pointed out that Coda may lead the way toward replacing HTML with Java. A Java-based Web page removes the distinction between application and data. It presents data just as an HTML page would, but every element on the screen has the potential to be an interactive part of a sophisticated application. In other words, the Web page becomes both powerful and safe enough to earn the right to be the new desktop user interface to the world. But Internet Explorer and Windows are nowhere in that equation. So is Microsoft in a batting slump, or is this the beginning of the end? Personally, I think Microsoft can pull out of this one. All it would have to do to fully recover is turn Windows NT into Unix, drop Distributed Component Object Model for CORBA, phase out its Windows-centric protocols for platform-independent standards, adopt NetWare's Novell Directory Services, kill ActiveX, port SQL Server to several different platforms, and abandon the idea of integrating Internet Explorer into the desktop. Well, I'm going to take a nap. Wake me when all that happens.

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Re: PSYOPS/infowar
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is surely going to piss some people off, but let's some fun with this, shall we? At 9:30 pm -0500 on 3/29/97, Greg Broiles wrote: > According to Ronald Duchin, graduate of the US Army War College and > former special assistant to the Secy of Defense and director of the > Veterans of Foreign Wars, activists fall into one of four categories: > radicals, opportunists, idealists, and realists. He recommends a > three-step strategy to neutralize activists: > > 1. isolate the radicals Tim May Kelly Goen Phil Zimmermann (then) Belize, say > 2. "cultivate" the idealists CFP (a virtual terrarium :-)) EFF (agrabiz!) Phil Zimmermann (now) Eric Hughes Michael Froomkin Any cypherpunk who's actually making money on this stuff :-). Anguilla Vanuatu Me ;-) > 3. co-opt the realists into agreeing with industry RSA Mondex (a little hand-biting here, on my part) x.blabla SET-folk David Chaum Hong Kong Indonesia The Phillipenes Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA Lesley Stahl: "You mean *anyone* can set up a web site and compete with the New York Times?" Andrew Kantor: "Yes." Stahl: "Isn't that dangerous?" The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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FCC Internet Paper
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As summarized below the FCC has issued a long paper: "Digital Tornado: The Internet and Telecommunications Policy." To supplement the FCC's PDF and WordPerfect versions we've converted it to HTML: http://jya.com/oppwp29.htm (270K; 189K images) ------- From: Robert Cannon <cannon(a)DC.NET> Subject: FCC Releases staff Working Paper on Internet policy To: CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM News Release -- March 27, 1997 DIGITAL TORNADO: THE INTERNET AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY FCC Staff Working Paper on Internet Policy The FCC's Office of Plans and Policy (OPP) today released a staff working paper analyzing the implications of the Internet for the FCC and telecommunications policy. OPP Working Paper No. 29, "Digital Tornado: The Internet and Telecommunications Policy," was written by Kevin Werbach, Counsel for New Technology Policy. OPP periodically issues working papers on emerging areas in communications; these papers represent individual views and are not an official statement by the FCC or any FCC commissioner. "Digital Tornado" represents the first comprehensive assessment of the questions the Internet poses for traditional communications policy. A central theme running through the paper is that the FCC, and other government agencies, should seek to limit regulation of Internet services. In framing his approach, Werbach states: "Because it is not tied to traditional models or regulatory environments, the Internet holds the potential to dramatically change the communications landscape. The Internet creates new forms of competition, valuable services for end users, and benefits to the economy. Government policy approaches toward the Internet should therefore start from two premises: avoid unnecessary regulation, and question the applicability of traditional rules." After providing an analytical framework to understand the forces driving Internet growth, and describing the Internet's development and architecture, the paper addresses three primary areas: CATEGORY DIFFICULTIES Policy and legal questions arising from the fact that Internet- based services do not fit easily into the existing classifications for communications services under federal law or FCC regulations. PRICING AND USAGE Policy questions arising from the economics of Internet access, including assertions by local telephone companies that current Internet pricing structures result in network congestion, and arguments by Internet service providers that telephone companies have not upgraded their networks to facilitate efficient transport of data services. AVAILABILITY OF BANDWIDTH Regulatory and technical issues affecting the deployment of technologies promising to enable high-speed Internet access to the home and to businesses, including the implications for the Internet of the FCC's role in promoting universal service. The paper is available on the FCC World Wide Web site, <http://www.fcc.gov/>. The file is available for online viewing in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/OPP/working_papers/oppwp29.pdf or for downloading in WordPerfect format at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/OPP/working_papers/oppwp29.wp Copies may also be purchased from International Transcription Services, Inc., 1919 M Street, NW, Room 246, Washington, DC 20554, (202) 857-3800. -FCC-

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WebWorld 19
by Bubba Rom Dos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: OPINION: moderation and anonymity
by Igor Chudov ＠ home 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jay Denebeim (denebeim(a)deepthot.cary.nc.us) wrote * Igor Chudov @ home <ichudov(a)algebra.com> wrote: * * >3. It is a common misconception to think that since anonymity means no * >accountability, it will lead to abuses. Even though such an argument may * >be made in general (it is subject to a significant disagreement), it * >does not apply in the least to moderated groups. Since moderators are, * >generally, responsible for the content of the messages that they allow, * >the final responsibility and control is in their hands. If a certain * >anonymous posting does not satisfy the newsgroup charter, moderators can * >always reject it. I would like to thank Jay for his thorough and thoughtful comments. I agree with many of his point, and leave only those that I disagree on. * You can have both accountability and anonymity. From a newsgroup * moderator's perspective it's not necessary to know the account of the * person, only a way to uniquely identify the individual. There is * cryptography available for every machine that can provide these unique * signatures without requiring a valid from address. You are correct, there are tools allowing individuals to sign their articles and verify electronic signatures. My moderation bot STUMP even has built in support for PGP signature verification. Some of its features are directly indended to be helpful for anonymous users who want to not only post to newsgroups, but also maintain their reputations. As you know, I think that anonymous users can be great contributors to moderated newsgroups. I am not sure that this article is the place to go into a lot of detail about these features, but I can summarize them for those who are interested. However, there is a big and sticky question of what identity really is. For example, I can establish several PGP keys and post anonymously using all of them in turns. What would be my identity? And if I use one of the keys to post off-topic articles and you "punish" that key not knowing that the same physical person uses several others, what's the point of such "punishment"? That is not to say that using PGP signatures in moderated groups is bad: it is great, especially since anonymous users who use PGP to sign their articles can be safely put to the preapproved list of robomoderator bots. The problem is that while we have IDENTIFICATION, there is little we can to do enforce ACCOUNTABILITY. * However, the current newsgroups where this issue has been raised are * all robo-moderated purely for spam elimination. That means that there * must be some way to identify posters so they can be mechanically * blocked if necessary. Cryptography and/or valid e-mail addresses * (whether those addresses actually show up in posts or not) are * necessary for the filtering function to be totally bullet-proof. I disagree with this point. First of all, forging email messages to look like they come from non-anonymous addresses is very easy (just telnet to port 25 and type 3 magic lines). Second, a person can secretly have multiple keys. If someone is determined to bypass a robomoderation bot that does not require EVERY preapproved poster to positively identify herself, they will get through. By the way, I believe that most forgeries in moderated groups are results of personal problems of posters AND moderators, and moderators need to honestly take care of the underlying problems. It is very hard if not impossible to deal with determined and knowledgeable forgers. I would much rather ensure that they get equal access to the group than try to fight them by technical means. * Actually, the cryptographic signature posts are the only 100% reliable * ones, although all newsgroups I'm aware of only accept the forgable * from: lines currently, the spammers have not figured out how to get This is 99% correct, but not 100% correct. Newsgroups that are moderated by STUMP will NOT ACCEPT forged From: lines pointing to posters who have requested special cryptographic protection. All articles purporting to be from such persons pass mandatory check of a PGP signatures. * past robomodded groups yet, and if they do forge addresses, they are * breaking the law currently (fraud), so I don't know that this will * ever become an issue. * * Now, there are some other, even less reliable, methods of * robo-moderating. The 'clue test', which requires a password on your * first post that is listed in a FAQ is one that I think would work * quite well today. It does have a problem in that if the spammers ever Yes. It is an absolutely great method for newsgroup that do not want to bother themselves with the costs of having a human moderator, while at the same time eliminating spam and multiposted "flame" threads. We now have two bots, one of which is yours, that allow to quickly set up such automoderated groups. People who are determined to post off-topic articles to such groups have very many ways of getting past the robomoderator bot. That is usually OK since it is not the regulars who are the problem. - Igor.

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junk mail analysis, part 2
by Wei Dai 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Last time I gave the equilibrium for the junk mail game. Now I will look at a modified game that allows the sender to include an ecash deposit with his email. (Note that there is a slight change of notation from the game tree given last time.) A: Send mail? / \ no / \ yes / \ (0,0) A: Decide deposit d | | | B: Read mail? / \ no / \ yes / \ (-d,d) B: Accept offer? / \ no / \ yes / \ (-d,d-c) (s,r-c) Solution We again apply the method of backward induction. In the last stage B accepts if r >= d. Therefore in the next to last stage, B knows that if he reads, his expected payoff is P(r<d)*(d-c) + P(r>=d)*E(r-c|r>=d). However, in equilibrium it is not possible that P(r<d) > 0 since A is always better off by offering a deposit of 0 instead of any deposit greater than r. Therefore B reads if E(r|r>=d)-c >= d. Now we come to A's deposit decision. A knowns that if he offers any d such that r >= d and E(r|r>=d)-c >= d, B will read and accept. A is indifferent between any such d, so he might as well offer the smallest such d if it exists. If it doesn't exist, A offers d=0. Finally A again always sends regardless of the parameters, since A can get a payoff of at least 0 by sending, and may do better if there is a small probability of B making a mistake. Conclusions We saw that if there exists a d such that r >= d and E(r|r>=d)-c >= d, A offers the least such d, and B reads and accepts. Otherwise A offers d=0, and B does not read. Interestingly, if E(r) > c, d=0 satisfies r >= d and E(r|r>=d)-c >= d, so we reach the same outcome as before. However, if E(r) < c, the outcome of the new game represents a Pareto-improvement since for realistic distributions of (s,r) it seems likely that for all sufficiently large r there exist d such that r >= d and E(r|r>=d)-c >= d, and for these values of r both the sender and the receiver do better than they did in the previous model. Let's call the smallest such r t. Unfortunately the outcome is still not Pareto-optimal if t > c. This conclusion opens the question of whether a better solution exists. One possibility is the following (called the pre-payment solution). A: Send mail? / \ no / \ yes / \ (0,0) A: Decide pre-payment p | | | B: Read mail? / \ no / \ yes / \ (-p,p) B: Accept offer? / \ no / \ yes / \ (-p,p-c) (s-p,r+p-c) If there is enough interest, I'll follow up with a comparison between the pre-payment solution and the deposit solution.

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Zero-knowledge interactive proofs
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim Maytag, a product of anal birth, appeared with a coathanger through his head. /_/\/\ \_\ / /_/ \ \_\/\ \ \_\/

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Microsoft ammunition (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 16:11:50 -0600 > From: Toto <toto(a)sk.sympatico.ca> > Subject: Microsoft ammunition > But, if you're tired of the repetition, here's a > reason you should sit through another sermon: > RandomNoise's Coda. Coda lets you design entire > Web pages in Java rather than use a mixture of > HTML content, tags, and Java applets. > > A Java-based Web page removes the distinction > between application and data. It presents data > just as an HTML page would, but every element on > the screen has the potential to be an interactive > part of a sophisticated application. Mix this with the distributed processing model of Plan 9 and you may just have tomorrows computer environment. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: remailer spam throttle
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal Finney <hal(a)rain.org> writes: > For example, one idea is to have a list of people who are willing to > receive anonymous mail without questions. It could be that the remailer > is set up to ask before sending mail normally, but to people on such a > list it doesn't have to ask, it just sends it, because they have given > permission. > > Some people have objected to this proposal because the existence of the > list might give a hint about which people send mail through the remailers. > Even though the list is of people willing to *receive* anonymous mail, > it could well be that there is a strong correlation with people who want > to send such mail. Instead of keeping this list in cleartext, one could keep 1-way hashes of the addresses. Thus a remailer (or anyone) can check whether a given address is on the list, but they can't just go through the list and "investigate" the addresses on it. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Analysis of proposed UK ban on use of non-escrowed crypto.
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: > Thus, in PGPs case at least, if you want escrowed encryption, then > you must escrow the signature key. Hence the DSA which is a signature algorithm that does not do encryption. I think the use of the same key for both is a bad idea BUT note that if you have a secure signature scheme you don't need an encryption key at all. Simply generate yourself a fresh set of public key parameters for each communication in the manner of IPSEC. The hard problem of setting up security is knowing the identity of the other party. All else pales into insignificance in comparison. Consider the following scenario. SMTP is adjusted so that it has a DH key exchange crypto option. A typical conversation becomes:- EHELO You-got-crypto-mate? 269 Yeah I have crypto XCHAL RSA 248af23876acdef 270 [key-id] [DHparameters e, n, e^x mod n] [sig-of-challenge+DH-params] XENCRYPT [IV] [e^y mod n] [Conversation continues encrypted under key e^y^x mod n AND keybits padding out messages as appropriate.] Now this type of scheme could be implemented without a certificate infrastructure and severly increase the difficulty of snooping. In that case the message would be sent even though [sig-of-challenge+DH-params] was absent. But with a CA infrastructure you could make sure that you hads contacted the correct machine, one authorised to accept mail for fred(a)ibm.com] all you need is a means of hacking the following assertion into X509v3: "Is authorized user of DNS namespace identifier matching" Add in a date and the protocol could be made very reilient and entirely transparent. Now that mail is moving away from godamn awfull crap like sendmail towards engineered systems like notes or exchange adding in protocol extensions becomes easier. If the mail sending agent knows that mail to a particular host should be sent encrypted the system can be made much more transparent than PGP or S/MIME. Like the punters might be able to use it without getting screwed too often. I think email security has often been the perfect being the enemy of the good. One huge problem has been braindamaged ideas about routing email through store and forward mailers rather than connecting to the real destination to start with. Phill

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Re: OECD: No GAK
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Is this in reference to the various GAK initiatives by the administration >or are they finally pushing for forced restrictions on domestic crypto? Has >anyone seen these drafts? I assume that the draft KRAP legislation at CDT Peter Junger cited here is what Markoff refers to: http://www.cdt.org/crypto/970312_admin.html Anyone know of other KR/TTF drafts in the US, UK, FR, JP, AU or elsewhere among the 29 signators of Wassenaar? The Wassenaariors have a wider ambition than the OECDistes.

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Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, Saturday 3/29
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

10am-6pm, S.F. County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park, 9th Ave at Lincoln Way. Free. +1-415-431-8355 Bound Together Books is organizing it, as usual. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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The Upside of Higher Source's Actions
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There's 39 new job openings in San Diego. (Astral travellers only, need apply.) -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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No Subject
by Mix 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timothy C[reep] May's family tree goes straight up. All of his ancestors were siblings, to dumb to recognize each other in the dark. /\ o-/\ Timothy C[reep] May ///\|/\\\ / /|\ \

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Re: The Blessing of Keys
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal Finney wrote: > I don't know about Tim's idea of claiming that a key signature is a > religious act. That sounds pretty bizarre to me. I wouldn't be so certain about that. Give the CypherPunks history of treating PGP as a Holy Icon, I think a good case could be made for building a religion around key signatures. Apparently, however, not all CypherPunks can be considered 'True Believers'. I, among others, checked out the information in the anonymous post which indicated press reports of the RSA algorithm being broken. I suppose that now I will be denied the opportunity to partake of the PGP Sacrament at the next CypherMass. -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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Mutual Link Proposal
by mail＠mkljk.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, my name is Guy W. Rochefort, President of Dino Jump International. I found your address through YAHOO. Dino Jump International are specialists in manufacturing and distribution of Interactive Inflatables worldwide. My lines have been featured in Walt Disney productions, NFL shows, and NBA events. Our product lines include moonwalkers, bouncehouses, and castles. I am interested in mutual links on our respective webpages beneficial to both our businesses. Additionally, I am interested in opening dialog on mutual beneficial business dealings as far as wholesale/retail efforts for manufactured products from my factory and/or resale distribution at competitive pricing. Please come visit my site at http://www.dinojump.com or email sales1(a)dinojump.com or call me at 1-800-570-3466 or 619-754-5186. If this email is intrusive I apologize and you will not hear further from me. Thank you again and I am looking forward to doing business with you. Guy

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