December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

1997 Mac Crypto Conf registration
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: mac-crypto(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: Vinnie Moscaritolo <vinnie(a)webstuff.apple.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Precedence: Bulk Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 11:33:11 -0800 From: Vinnie Moscaritolo <vinnie(a)webstuff.apple.com> To: Multiple recipients of <mac-crypto(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: 1997 Mac Crypto Conf registration -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- hey all; I have posted a registration webpage for the 1997 Mac Crypto Conf at http://www.vmeng.com/mc/conf.html If you plan to give a talk there, I am looking for abtracts by end of Jan thanks Vinnie Moscaritolo http://www.vmeng.com/vinnie/ Fingerprint: 4FA3298150E404F2782501876EA2146A - ------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Pretty Safe Mail 1.0 iQCVAwUBMtvcsfMF2+rAU+UdAQFOogP/R1/WmmAi3oEgLsC1il1OKf+7jR9j4L5U tAvhZIB6nyYpuHdP1fZ+/KfyCi4fYDmHIO4wVJo1BfbUtYL0YkIqzw/00JM8zfHR Zm9pcjSo70EDZPuypYyH+t0RlXJZj1eU0KjhAtRGeeWxAhP686wWCvz8hW4f2VfX uiLObXiqXiw= =faEk -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://offshore.com.ai/fc97/ "If *you* don't go to FC97, *I* don't go to FC97"

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Re: [Math Noise] (fwd)
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate allegedly said: > > > Forwarded message: > > > Only countably many real numbers, or members of any uncountable > > set, are denumerable. It is the property of being uncountable, > > rather than of being real or complex, which is important here. > > In short you are saying there are Reals which can not be expressed in the > format: > > AmEm + Am-1Em-1 + ... + A0E0 . B0E-1 + B1E-2 + ... + BnE-n+1 No, that's not what he is saying. What you have written does not represent a *specific* number. He is saying that IF you have a particular scheme for representing *specific* numbers, you can only represent countably many -- for any given scheme, there are numbers you can't represent. To put it another way a scheme that says "you can represent numbers as half infinite strings of digits with a single period somewhere" doesn't actually *specify* any numbers. A scheme that says "start with the number 1 and increment it 400 times" actually specifies a number. > And I contend that ANY number which is Real can be expressed by the decimal > expansion above. Which clearly qualifies as a formal system. To be a formal system of the type required, you would also have to specify deterministic rules that could generate the "Ai" values. The key distinction is between "expressed by" and "generated by". -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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UNS_top
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

01-16-97. Reuters: "Unstoppable Internet will defy controls" Governments which seek to restrain the freedom of speech and tax the vast electronic commerce spawned by the Internet will almost certainly be wasting their time, experts say, and that any attempt to control traffic over the Internet will be futile. Governments in China, Burma and Singapore have already tried to discipline this on-line activity with minimal success. Dr Bob Glass of Sun Microsystems Inc said any attempt by governments to curtail any of this would be a waste of time. Not even the most powerful computers will be able to effectively patrol the world's telephone lines. Individual computer experts will always be one step ahead. "Big brother is out there trying to monitor this, but I don't think they're competent enough," he said. "Government is not really aware of the magnitude of money exchange on the web, but there's really not much they can do about it." Professor Patrick Purcell from London's Imperial College describes the Internet as a highly subversive phenomenom for international telecommunications, for a nation's state security and for international commerce. ----- UNS_top

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List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/~raph/premail.html For the PGP public keys of the remailers, finger pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{"extropia"} = "<remail(a)miron.vip.best.com> cpunk pgp special"; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{'alpha'} = '<alias(a)alpha.c2.org> alpha pgp'; $remailer{'nymrod'} = '<nymrod(a)nym.jpunix.com> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"lead"} = "<mix(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"exon"} = "<remailer(a)remailer.nl.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"haystack"} = "<haystack(a)holy.cow.net> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"lucifer"} = "<lucifer(a)dhp.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"balls"} = "<remailer(a)huge.cajones.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"middle"} = "<middleman(a)jpunix.com> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"dustbin"} = "<dustman(a)athensnet.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek mix reord middle ?"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"death"} = "<x(a)deathsdoor.com> cpunk pgp hash latent post"; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. remailer(a)crynwr.com is _not_ a remailer. There is no remailer at relay.com. Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator: (cyber mix) (weasel squirrel) The alpha and nymrod nymservers are down due to abuse. However, you can use the nym or weasel (newnym style) nymservers. The cyber nymserver is quite reliable for outgoing mail (which is what's measured here), but is exhibiting serious reliability problems for incoming mail. The squirrel and winsock remailers accept PGP encrypted mail only. 403 Permission denied errors have been caused by a flaky disk on the Berkeley WWW server. This seems to be fixed now. The penet remailer is closed. Last update: Mon 20 Jan 97 6:47:59 PST remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- nym config(a)nym.alias.net +#+-*******# 4:38 99.99% weasel config(a)weasel.owl.de +++++-+++++ 1:34:36 99.95% lucifer lucifer(a)dhp.com +++++-++++++ 36:32 99.94% balls remailer(a)huge.cajones.com *+ ********* 3:01 99.94% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net * +*++++*+** 35:08 99.88% exon remailer(a)remailer.nl.com * ++##*###*# 1:14 99.86% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net ----------- 2:02:21 99.86% dustbin dustman(a)athensnet.com -++--+.--+- 3:01:52 99.74% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de ++ + ++ +++ 1:35:05 99.41% lead mix(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu +++++-++*+*+ 39:30 99.35% extropia remail(a)miron.vip.best.com ----------- 5:06:43 98.93% haystack haystack(a)holy.cow.net +* .-####+# 2:24:43 98.64% replay remailer(a)replay.com +*+******* 15:38 98.25% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net + + -+-- 1:51:15 92.61% middle middleman(a)jpunix.com ++ -+ .-- 1:48:09 67.78% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com .-++-+. 4:35:20 50.49% History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

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Slow Cypherpunk Day
by mpd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Is cypherpunks-outgoing-ksiuw(a)toad.com where articles should be sent to bypass the censors? Testing 1 2 3... Cocksucker Armenian Mayonaise Gilmore Faggot Crypto Testing 1 2 3... We now return you to your regular programming... -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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Re: Newt's phone calls
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sean Roach <roach_s(a)alph.swosu.edu> wrote in article <5bv7g8$fhl(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > At 03:44 PM 1/17/97 -0600, Igor Chudov wrote: > > It is limited, both accounts have to have the same password, (four > character, numeric.) If I want to transfer funds from another persons > account to one that I control, all I have to do is change the password on > one of them to that of the other, transfer funds, and change the password > back. By the time that my victim found out, (via the little letter "per > your request, $xxx was transferred to accnt#123456 from accnt#7890"), I > would be long gone. Depending on the country and bank you can probably perform almost any transfer you like by fax. I moved my pension from one bank to another simply by sending a fax. I have done similar transactions with Swiss, German and UK banks. For some reason the fax is considered to be a practically infallible authentication device. Quite why is beyond me since it should be obvious to anyone that all one needs to fake a fax is a photocopier, document signed by account holder, paste and scissors. You get everything needed on a signed cheque. Phill.

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Using the political opportunity Was: Newt's phone calls
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sarah L. Green <greens(a)hiwaay.net> wrote in article <5bo2df$7ui(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Phillip M. Hallam-Baker wrote: > > > > It was a conference call but over a cellular phone. Martin had hacked his > > Radio Shack Scanner using a well known technique. He had a radio ham > > license. > > > Phill > Actually I'd love to see this go to court & have the law itself > tossed out. How many years have the airwaves been free? Now it is > illegal to listen on the cellular frequencies. Well I would love to see the case go to court but I prefer to see someone else being harassed. I don't imagine for a minute that anyone will want to take it to court though. Newt can hardly want his crookery to continue to be before the public eye. He wants it buried as soon as possible so he can make similarly "arcane" charges "nobody understands" against Clinton. Interestingly the tax law that Newt broke was the use of non profit funds for political purposes. Newt should know all about these since the Republicans used these laws to shut down political comment by the likes of the Sierra club etc under Reagan. I know several people who used to be involved in non-profits who either resigned or changed the status of the group because the cost of administration and risk of politically motivated prosecution was not worth the tax advantages. Given the "butterfly under the wheel" nature of the Republican attack I would expect jury nullification in a big way. Meanwhile there would be several weeks of questions asking why Newt is not being prosecuted, only the Martins. Despite the fact that I don't think the Democrats are smart enough to mount such a conspiracy it would be a bloody good one if they had done. I think that the challenge the crypto lobby must take on is to use the event to raise public consciousness for crypto rights. What we probably need is a single issue lobby group that the media can call on for this and only this issue and nothing else. The energies of the CDT and EFF are inevitably spread between this and other issues such as the CDA. The problem is that a journalist does not immediately think EFF or CDT when a cellphone case comes up. A single issue crypto lobby could fill that purpose. Phill

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RE: Take it to sci.math
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: someone using WinSock Remailer Will all those people who are talking about set theory and the countability of various number systems take their discussion to sci.math, please? 'Cuz 1) All that stuff is irrelevant to crypto, its science or politics. .................................................. And as everyone on this list acutely knows, neither math, science, nor politics has anything to do with crypto. In fact, history bears out the fact cryptologists have neither cause nor reason for what they do. It is a useless by-product of excess mental activity for which only a few can find application, while fewer yet have any concern for its ramifications in a globally connected society of lightning communication. .. Blanc

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Re: Newt's phone calls
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sean Roach <roach_s(a)alph.swosu.edu> wrote in article <5bv7g8$fhl(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > At 03:44 PM 1/17/97 -0600, Igor Chudov wrote: > > It is limited, both accounts have to have the same password, (four > character, numeric.) If I want to transfer funds from another persons > account to one that I control, all I have to do is change the password on > one of them to that of the other, transfer funds, and change the password > back. By the time that my victim found out, (via the little letter "per > your request, $xxx was transferred to accnt#123456 from accnt#7890"), I > would be long gone. Depending on the country and bank you can probably perform almost any transfer you like by fax. I moved my pension from one bank to another simply by sending a fax. I have done similar transactions with Swiss, German and UK banks. For some reason the fax is considered to be a practically infallible authentication device. Quite why is beyond me since it should be obvious to anyone that all one needs to fake a fax is a photocopier, document signed by account holder, paste and scissors. You get everything needed on a signed cheque. Phill.

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Re: One time pads and randomness?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Welcome! You've asked a Frequently Asked Question, so you're obviously new here, but you're also thinking, so we'll cut you some slack :-) A good book on cryptography that you should read is Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography", which talks about both math and practical issues. At 09:51 AM 1/18/97 -0500, AaronH4321(a)aol.com wrote: >I want to use a one time pad pased crypto system. I understand that the >randomness of the pad genorator is key to security (other than lossing >the keys). What I want to know is if I use a psuedo-RNG that .... Pseudo-Randomness isn't Real Randomness, and OTPs need Real Randomness. [Von Neumann said that anyone using mathematical methods to generate random numbers "is, of course, in a state of sin."] If you've got a Pseudo-RNG, your random number generator has some state at step 1 that totally determines the output at steps 2...infinity. This means that anybody who can determine the state of the PRNG at step n can decode all messages for steps n+1, n+2, ...., and often for steps 1....n-1 as well (depending on the particular PRNG.) If you're got Real Randomness*, even if you know the value of the pad at step n, it tells you entirely nothing about any other step. To make it worse, the popular PRNGs turn out to be annoyingly easy to crack, i.e. to determine the state from a small number of samples. >Say I create a 1 million character one time pad that passes all of the >randomness tests. It is "truely random". Unfortunately, passing randomness tests doesn't tell you a pad is "truly random" - it just eliminates the blatantly easy stuff. For instance, x[n+1] = Hash( x[n] ) or X[n+1] = Encrypt( x[n] ) for a cryptographically strong hash function or encryption like MD5 or SHA or 3-DES will pass randomness tests just fine, but it's still totally deterministic. Still not a OTP. However, say you create the pad from really random sources like flipping lots of coins or counting gamma rays, and haul it to your computers by well-armed guys with briefcases handcuffed to their wrists. >"A" grabs a chunk of the one time pad starting at a random point and >encrypts it....There "B" moves to the random point and begins decryption. If the pad is _really_ random, and you're sure nobody's seen any of it, then there's no difference between starting at a random point and starting at the beginning, and the bookkeeping is much cleaner. >During to process both computers mark that section of the OTP used so >that they don't retransmit with it. I realize this has a limited amount >of messages before it is used up. But would this be secure? Yeah, you've got it (once you remember to use a really random pad so there's entirely no relationship between bits n and n+1.) And you've also hit one of the basic difficulties with using OTPs, which is making sure you only use the once, and that this means that sometimes you run out AND YOU STILL CAN'T USE THE PAD AGAIN. [*Some philosophers will argue that there isn't any Real Randomness, that there's just a deterministic State Of The Universe that's more complex than you happen to know, and some will rant about Quantum Mechanics, and others who actually have some clue about Quantum will tell you that it doesn't get you off the hook; in any case, as long as the universe is messy enough it's be close enough for government work.] The NSA was able to crack a bunch of Russian OTP transmissions back in the 50s (the project name was Venona, and it was recently announced) because the Russians did two major things wrong: They used pads more than once when they were sloppy or out of new pads, and they didn't use very good randomness - clerks banging "randomly" on typewriters generate data with more correlation and less even distribution than they'd expect, and in nearly-pre-computer days they weren't able # 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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Re: Eudora PGP
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:07 AM 1/18/97 -0800, Some Anonymous Remailer User wrote: >If somebody wants to play with the new Eudora PGP >but don't have Eudora Pro 3.0, it is available at >ftp://ftp.catalog.com/aussie/biscoe/Eudora30.zip Rather than ripping off a commercial product, from a company that's nice enough to give away free versions, you can get Eudora Lite 3.0.1 from www.eudora.com; I haven't yet installed PGPmail with it, but it should work, and meanwhile it's nicely junking the more common flamers. It is a beta version, but there should be another out soon. >Btw, is it legal for a moderator to let messages >like this one through to the list...? This list isn't currently moderated. The legality if it were is unclear. > > > # 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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Re: Keyword scanning/speech recognition
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:34 AM 1/19/97, pgut001(a)cs.auckland.ac.nz wrote: >I was talking to someone recently about the feasibilty of >keyword-scanning phone conversations. He thought it was probably still >beyond the reach of current technology, I thought it wasn't I'd guess it's in-between, and it depends a _lot_ on how error-tolerant you are - do you want to catch them _all_, or just reduce the set of tapes that you'll have humans listen to later, since you're trolling for leads but don't mind missing the occasional one? Speaker-dependent isolated-word recognition is pretty doable. Speaker-independent small-vocabulary isolated-word is also pretty good (though the AT&T calling-card bot does a better job when I read it numbers than when I rapidly tell it "calling card" early in its dialog.) Connected-word is a lot harder. But word-scanning isn't the only thing "They" would troll for - it's probably easier to look for possible matches for specific voices, since you don't have to be too accurate. You want to catch Big Joey's calls from Vinnie, but don't care about his wife's calls. Some of the problems are with modeling speech well enough to do good algorithms; some are just getting enough horsepower to do it in real time. Can "They" afford enough DSP chips to do the job? They certainly can't follow a significant fraction of domestic traffic, and probably not even of US-to-overseas international traffic, but they may be able to pick out calls to/from phones of usual suspects, at least if they're mainly trying to filter for what tapes to listen to. # 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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Gilmore and Sandfart (spit) died of AIDS
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

that's why there is no traffic.

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RE: Take it to sci.math
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: someone using WinSock Remailer Will all those people who are talking about set theory and the countability of various number systems take their discussion to sci.math, please? 'Cuz 1) All that stuff is irrelevant to crypto, its science or politics. .................................................. And as everyone on this list acutely knows, neither math, science, nor politics has anything to do with crypto. In fact, history bears out the fact cryptologists have neither cause nor reason for what they do. It is a useless by-product of excess mental activity for which only a few can find application, while fewer yet have any concern for its ramifications in a globally connected society of lightning communication. .. Blanc

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Re: Eudora PGP
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:07 AM 1/18/97 -0800, Some Anonymous Remailer User wrote: >If somebody wants to play with the new Eudora PGP >but don't have Eudora Pro 3.0, it is available at >ftp://ftp.catalog.com/aussie/biscoe/Eudora30.zip Rather than ripping off a commercial product, from a company that's nice enough to give away free versions, you can get Eudora Lite 3.0.1 from www.eudora.com; I haven't yet installed PGPmail with it, but it should work, and meanwhile it's nicely junking the more common flamers. It is a beta version, but there should be another out soon. >Btw, is it legal for a moderator to let messages >like this one through to the list...? This list isn't currently moderated. The legality if it were is unclear. > > > # 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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Question on Diffie-Hellman patent
by Amanda Walker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please excuse if this is a FAQ. I'd been operating under the assumption that the Diffie-Hellman patent (4200770) will expire on April 29, 1997 (17 years after the date of issue). Several people have recently told me it doesn't expire until September, evidently confusing the date of issue with the filing date. However, does anyone know of another patent (Hellman-Merkle, perhaps?) that would hve an impact on software that does D-H key exchange? We've got some planned uses of DH; while it doesn't seem cost effective to pay to license DH at this point, that six-month difference is something I need to plan around if necessary. Thanks, Amanda Walker Senior Software Engineer InterCon Systems Corporation

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Using the political opportunity Was: Newt's phone calls
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sarah L. Green <greens(a)hiwaay.net> wrote in article <5bo2df$7ui(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Phillip M. Hallam-Baker wrote: > > > > It was a conference call but over a cellular phone. Martin had hacked his > > Radio Shack Scanner using a well known technique. He had a radio ham > > license. > > > Phill > Actually I'd love to see this go to court & have the law itself > tossed out. How many years have the airwaves been free? Now it is > illegal to listen on the cellular frequencies. Well I would love to see the case go to court but I prefer to see someone else being harassed. I don't imagine for a minute that anyone will want to take it to court though. Newt can hardly want his crookery to continue to be before the public eye. He wants it buried as soon as possible so he can make similarly "arcane" charges "nobody understands" against Clinton. Interestingly the tax law that Newt broke was the use of non profit funds for political purposes. Newt should know all about these since the Republicans used these laws to shut down political comment by the likes of the Sierra club etc under Reagan. I know several people who used to be involved in non-profits who either resigned or changed the status of the group because the cost of administration and risk of politically motivated prosecution was not worth the tax advantages. Given the "butterfly under the wheel" nature of the Republican attack I would expect jury nullification in a big way. Meanwhile there would be several weeks of questions asking why Newt is not being prosecuted, only the Martins. Despite the fact that I don't think the Democrats are smart enough to mount such a conspiracy it would be a bloody good one if they had done. I think that the challenge the crypto lobby must take on is to use the event to raise public consciousness for crypto rights. What we probably need is a single issue lobby group that the media can call on for this and only this issue and nothing else. The energies of the CDT and EFF are inevitably spread between this and other issues such as the CDA. The problem is that a journalist does not immediately think EFF or CDT when a cellphone case comes up. A single issue crypto lobby could fill that purpose. Phill

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Re: One time pads and randomness?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Welcome! You've asked a Frequently Asked Question, so you're obviously new here, but you're also thinking, so we'll cut you some slack :-) A good book on cryptography that you should read is Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography", which talks about both math and practical issues. At 09:51 AM 1/18/97 -0500, AaronH4321(a)aol.com wrote: >I want to use a one time pad pased crypto system. I understand that the >randomness of the pad genorator is key to security (other than lossing >the keys). What I want to know is if I use a psuedo-RNG that .... Pseudo-Randomness isn't Real Randomness, and OTPs need Real Randomness. [Von Neumann said that anyone using mathematical methods to generate random numbers "is, of course, in a state of sin."] If you've got a Pseudo-RNG, your random number generator has some state at step 1 that totally determines the output at steps 2...infinity. This means that anybody who can determine the state of the PRNG at step n can decode all messages for steps n+1, n+2, ...., and often for steps 1....n-1 as well (depending on the particular PRNG.) If you're got Real Randomness*, even if you know the value of the pad at step n, it tells you entirely nothing about any other step. To make it worse, the popular PRNGs turn out to be annoyingly easy to crack, i.e. to determine the state from a small number of samples. >Say I create a 1 million character one time pad that passes all of the >randomness tests. It is "truely random". Unfortunately, passing randomness tests doesn't tell you a pad is "truly random" - it just eliminates the blatantly easy stuff. For instance, x[n+1] = Hash( x[n] ) or X[n+1] = Encrypt( x[n] ) for a cryptographically strong hash function or encryption like MD5 or SHA or 3-DES will pass randomness tests just fine, but it's still totally deterministic. Still not a OTP. However, say you create the pad from really random sources like flipping lots of coins or counting gamma rays, and haul it to your computers by well-armed guys with briefcases handcuffed to their wrists. >"A" grabs a chunk of the one time pad starting at a random point and >encrypts it....There "B" moves to the random point and begins decryption. If the pad is _really_ random, and you're sure nobody's seen any of it, then there's no difference between starting at a random point and starting at the beginning, and the bookkeeping is much cleaner. >During to process both computers mark that section of the OTP used so >that they don't retransmit with it. I realize this has a limited amount >of messages before it is used up. But would this be secure? Yeah, you've got it (once you remember to use a really random pad so there's entirely no relationship between bits n and n+1.) And you've also hit one of the basic difficulties with using OTPs, which is making sure you only use the once, and that this means that sometimes you run out AND YOU STILL CAN'T USE THE PAD AGAIN. [*Some philosophers will argue that there isn't any Real Randomness, that there's just a deterministic State Of The Universe that's more complex than you happen to know, and some will rant about Quantum Mechanics, and others who actually have some clue about Quantum will tell you that it doesn't get you off the hook; in any case, as long as the universe is messy enough it's be close enough for government work.] The NSA was able to crack a bunch of Russian OTP transmissions back in the 50s (the project name was Venona, and it was recently announced) because the Russians did two major things wrong: They used pads more than once when they were sloppy or out of new pads, and they didn't use very good randomness - clerks banging "randomly" on typewriters generate data with more correlation and less even distribution than they'd expect, and in nearly-pre-computer days they weren't able # 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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Re: UNS_top
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

# 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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Re: INV_ade
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

# 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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Re: Server Authentication
by Eric Murray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Frantz writes: > > I recently came aware of an interesting problem in server authentication. > I.e. How does a browser plugin validate the server it is working for. > There are many reasons for a plugin to want to validate its web server > including contractual relations, but the one that most appeals to me is > that the plugin provides access to confidential data which is used in an > application distributed between the client machine and the server. Since > the data is confidential, the plugin doesn't want to send it to just any > server who can serve up a web page in the correct format, so it needs to > authenticate the server. > > Now the obvious way to validate the server would be through the > certificates exchanged when the SSL session was set up. (I am assuming a > SSL session here because you shouldn't send confidential data over a > non-encrypted link.) However, I haven't found an API where the plugin can > discover the certificate used by the server, so it appears you have to roll > your own. I think that you can get access to the server's certificate. I know you can from the CGI interface. Unfortunately it's the raw ASN.1 encoded certificate, so you would have to ASN.1 decode it. Bleah. If the SSL handshake completes, then you can assume that the client has verified and authenticated the server certificate. The only problem would be that the authentication might not be up to the plugin's standards- i.e. a connection to www.foo.com is somehow intercepted by www.ripoff-plugins.com. The server www.ripoff-plugins.com presents a cert who's name is www.foo.com. The browser correctly presents a pop-up dialog noting the discrepancy, and the luser operating the client clicks on the 'OK' button, allowing the SSL handshake to finish. Oops.

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Re: Keyword scanning/speech recognition
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:34 AM 1/19/97, pgut001(a)cs.auckland.ac.nz wrote: >I was talking to someone recently about the feasibilty of >keyword-scanning phone conversations. He thought it was probably still >beyond the reach of current technology, I thought it wasn't I'd guess it's in-between, and it depends a _lot_ on how error-tolerant you are - do you want to catch them _all_, or just reduce the set of tapes that you'll have humans listen to later, since you're trolling for leads but don't mind missing the occasional one? Speaker-dependent isolated-word recognition is pretty doable. Speaker-independent small-vocabulary isolated-word is also pretty good (though the AT&T calling-card bot does a better job when I read it numbers than when I rapidly tell it "calling card" early in its dialog.) Connected-word is a lot harder. But word-scanning isn't the only thing "They" would troll for - it's probably easier to look for possible matches for specific voices, since you don't have to be too accurate. You want to catch Big Joey's calls from Vinnie, but don't care about his wife's calls. Some of the problems are with modeling speech well enough to do good algorithms; some are just getting enough horsepower to do it in real time. Can "They" afford enough DSP chips to do the job? They certainly can't follow a significant fraction of domestic traffic, and probably not even of US-to-overseas international traffic, but they may be able to pick out calls to/from phones of usual suspects, at least if they're mainly trying to filter for what tapes to listen to. # 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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A Prayer For Swiss Banks
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This happened a year ago but I couldn't resist posting it in light of the current political attacks on the privacy of Swiss banks. MANILA, Philippines (Feb 24, 1996 9:45 p.m. EST) - Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos presided over a bizarre ceremony on Sunday to mark the 10th anniversary of the People's Power revolution that forced her and her corrupt husband into ignominious exile. Marcos -- notorious shopaholic, convicted criminal and now a legally elected member of the Philippine Congress -- asked God to bless Corazon Aquino and other leaders of the 1986 revolt. But she also asked the Almighty to enlighten Swiss bankers holding some of the estimated $5 billion the Marcoses and their cronies are accused of looting from the national economy. "May the Lord enlighten ... the Swiss banks -- that they might uphold justice and preserve the integrity of their own laws and the laws of confidentiality, trust and basic decency between the banks and their clients," she said in a speech. Two Swiss banks holding some $475 million linked to the Marcoses are currently embroiled in a row over what to do with the money. The Philippine government wants it back but a U.S. court has ordered it distributed to victims of human rights abuses during the late Ferdinand Marcos's 20 years in power. ***** DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQCVAgUBMuPAIIVO4r4sgSPhAQFhSQQAiLrFwcvR0CxiZDrG1f6RSysX8ypxe2y4 Az2MejxFj4ACZIw9lCN98pxRwM8QwEQnCo+RKpMEchurk1bx0EEK749+kxpccsw2 qi+VW1lhBLV38YyzAm0vRwK1pwsKuW/E0UjMOvfTfQynRljohiLvLxQDMJ4DQLHi qi+R9K2Gpr0= =wmjK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Quantum computers/Java of a different sort
by Mike McNally 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For all you quantum computer fans, see http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/html/970117c.htm -- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Mike McNally -- Egregiously Pointy -- Tivoli Systems, "IBM" -- Austin mailto:m5@tivoli.com mailto:m101@io.com http://www.io.com/~m101 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ To: java(a)tivoli.com Subject: ScienceNOW www.sciencenow.org From: jchou(a)tivoli.com Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 12:49:39 -0500 jchou(a)tivoli.com 01/20/97 12:49 PM An advance in Java computing... http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/html/970117c.htm <BASE HREF="http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/html/970117c.htm"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>ScienceNOW www.sciencenow.org</TITLE> <META NAME="ScienceNOW www.sciencenow.org"> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK="#004080" VLINK="#649FDB" TEXT="#000000"> <TABLE Border=0 Width=100%> <TR VALIGN="top" ALIGN="center"> <TD> <A HREF="/cgi/redirect-ad.cgi?journal=sciencenow&ad=Knight%20Ridder%20ScienceB ase%20-%20Fish&url=http://krscience.dialog.com/&side=only"><IMG BORDER=2 WIDTH=220 HEIGHT=40 SRC="/ads/gifs/845499541.CDATAKRFISH.GIF"ALT="Knight-Ridder ScienceBase"></A></TD> <TD> <A HREF="/cgi/redirect-ad.cgi?journal=sciencenow&ad=Hewlett-Packard&url=http:/ /www.hp.com/info/hpcag8&side=only"><IMG BORDER=2 WIDTH=220 HEIGHT=40 SRC="/ads/gifs/850239381.gif"ALT="Hewlett-Packard Chemical Analysis"></A></TD> </TABLE> <P> <TABLE Border=0 Cellspacing=0 Cellpadding=0> <TR VALIGN="top" ALIGN="center"> <TD><A HREF="../home.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-home.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Home" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="./newstips.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-news.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="News Tips" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../archives.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-arch.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Archives" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="./masthead.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-mast.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Masthead" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/science/scripts/feedback.pl"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-feed.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Feedback" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-sci.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Science Online" ></TD> </TABLE> <P> <TABLE Border=0 Cellspacing=0 Cellpadding=0> <TR> <TD WIDTH=100><A HREF="./970117b.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Prevstor.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Previous Story" ></A></TD> <TD WIDTH=100><A HREF="./970117d.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nextstor.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Next Story" ></A></TD></TR> </TABLE><P> <TABLE Width=100%> <TR> <TD WIDTH=100 ALIGN="center"><P><A HREF="/cgi/redirect-ad.cgi?journal=sciencenow&ad=SB:%20Science%20Online&url =http://science-mag.aaas.org/science/&side=only"><IMG BORDER=2 WIDTH=75 HEIGHT=75 SRC="/ads/gifs/845576920.CDATAONLINE2.GIF"ALT="Science Online"></A></TD> <TD WIDTH=100 ALIGN="center"><P><A HREF="/cgi/redirect-ad.cgi?journal=sciencenow&ad=SB:%20Next%20Wave&url=http ://www.nextwave.org/&side=only"><IMG BORDER=2 WIDTH=75 HEIGHT=75 SRC="/ads/gifs/845560987.CDATANXTWV1.GIF"ALT="Science's Next Wave"></A></TD> <TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="Center"><IMG HEIGHT=49 WIDTH=273 SRC="../assets/images/Scinowsm.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="ScienceNOW logo" ></TD></TR> </TABLE> <P ALIGN="RIGHT"><FONT SIZE="-1"> Friday, 17 January 1997, 7:00 p.m. </FONT></P><P ALIGN="Center"><FONT SIZE="+1"><STRONG> Quantum Computer in a Cup of Joe?<p> </STRONG></FONT></P> <p> Researchers have come up with a way to turn coffee and other mundane liquids into primitive quantum computers. The findings, reported in today's <i>Science</i> and in an upcoming issue of the <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</i>, suggest a new approach toward conquering the Mount Everest of computing: a quantum computer that in a few seconds could perform calculations that would take billions of years on an ordinary supercomputer.<p> <A NAME="image1"></A><P><HR> <IMG ALT="Illustration" BORDER=1 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=20 VSPACE=10 SRC="970117-2.gif"> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <STRONG>Fresh-brewed. </STRONG>A prototype tabletop NMR quantum computer, showing the circuitry and the radio-frequency coil.<P> <FONT SIZE=-2>JOSHUA SMITH</FONT><BR> <HR><P>The key is nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), a technique for manipulating and measuring the spins of atomic nuclei that is already a mainstay of medical imaging and chemical analysis. The up-or-down spin of nuclei offers the two-bit logic system that a computer needs. What makes a quantum computer special, however, is quantum parallelism. In the strange world of quantum mechanics, the spin of a nucleus can be in both states, representing both bits, at the same time. That property should permit a quantum computer to perform calculations on incredibly large numbers of bits at once. And Neil Gershenfeld of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Isaac Chuang of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a second team, Tim Havel and Amr Fahmy of Harvard Medical School and David Cory of MIT, have found that it's easier to achieve this parallelism by using NMR in an ordinary liquid than in the exotic systems researchers have tried so far.<p> Cory, Fahmy, and Havel have actually built quantum circuits using a standard NMR spectrometer, while Gershenfeld and Chuang are gearing up experiments and hope to demonstrate quantum circuits and maybe even a simple computation by next summer. What can be done now can be done with easily available and affordable equipment--"off-the-shelf coffee cups, off-the -shelf liquids, off-the-shelf magnets, etc.," says MIT computer scientist Seth Lloyd.<p> "This NMR scheme is pretty slick stuff, but in the long run, they're going to have to find a particularly special molecule or state that allows them to extend it to large numbers," says Chris Monroe of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.<p> Indeed, the researchers note that fundamental obstacles may prevent the scheme from ever producing a practical computer. But "from the point of view of verifying the basic ideas and doing interesting physics," says Lloyd, a pioneer theorist in quantum computing, "it's fantastic." For more details, <i>Science</i> Online subscribers can link to the <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/275/5298/307">News story</a> in today's <i>Science</i>.<p> <p> <P ALIGN="CENTER"><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/science/home/copyright.shtml"><FONT SIZE="-1">© 1997 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science</FONT></A></P> <TABLE Border=0 Cellspacing=0 Cellpadding=0> <TR> <TD WIDTH=100><A HREF="./970117b.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Prevstor.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Previous Story" ></A></TD> <TD WIDTH=100><A HREF="./970117d.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nextstor.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Next Story" ></A></TD></TR> </TABLE><P> <TABLE Border=0 Cellspacing=0 Cellpadding=0> <TR VALIGN="top" ALIGN="center"> <TD><A HREF="../home.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-home.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Home" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="./newstips.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-news.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="News Tips" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../archives.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-arch.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Archives" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="./masthead.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-mast.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Masthead" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/science/scripts/feedback.pl"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-feed.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Feedback" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-sci.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Science Online" ></TD> </TABLE> </BODY></HTML>

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Re: Question on Diffie-Hellman patent
by Tim Dierks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:24 AM -0500 1/20/97, Amanda Walker wrote: >Please excuse if this is a FAQ. > >I'd been operating under the assumption that the Diffie-Hellman patent >(4200770) will expire on April 29, 1997 (17 years after the date of issue). >Several people have recently told me it doesn't expire until September, >evidently confusing the date of issue with the filing date. However, >does anyone know of another patent (Hellman-Merkle, perhaps?) that would hve >an impact on software that does D-H key exchange? We've got some planned >uses >of DH; while it doesn't seem cost effective to pay to license DH at this >point, that six-month difference is something I need to plan around if >necessary. As a result of the GATT treaty, patent expiration times for some US patents changed. The international standard is 20 years from filing, while old US law was 17 years from issue. On the day which GATT took force for the US (June 8, 1995), all outstanding patents' expiration dates were changed to 20 years from filing or 17 years from issue, whichever is later. This affects some cryptography patents as follows: Here's a summary of some relevant crypto patents: Name Number Filed Issued Expires Diffie-Hellman 4,200,770 Sept. 6, 1977 Apr. 29, 1980 Sept. 6, 1997 Hellman-Merkle 4,218,582 Oct. 6, 1977 Aug. 19, 1980 Oct. 6, 1997 RSA 4,405,829 Dec. 14, 1977 Sept. 20, 1983 Sept. 20, 2000 Data from <http://patents.cnidr.org/patbib_index.html> References: <http://www.lightlink.com/bbm/gatt.html> <http://www.cushman.com/articles/artpat10.htm> - Tim Tim Dierks - timd(a)consensus.com - www.consensus.com Software Haruspex - Consensus Development Developer of SSL Plus: SSL 3.0 Integration Suite

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