December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: airline id
by Brown, R Ken 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Various anonymes and Joel O'Connor discussed sabotaging trains - presumably in order to force >>you flew to. Even with trains, all's it will take is one bomb and >> youbetter believe security will be pumped up as high as it is >> with airlines. > Naaah, you pull rail-spikes to get trains, no big ba-da-boom required. > And it does happen. > > Actually you just put something on the line. It happens all the time. If a fast train hits it there can be big problems. Even a small obstacle (like a plastic rubbish bag with rubbish in it) will cause a train to stop if it is seen. (Trains can't swerve). That just causes inconvenience, unless of course you put something conductive down that shorts out the power - that has a (small) chance of causing a serious accident and a (big) chance of disrupting all rail traffic for miles around for hours. A sort of occasionally fatal denial of service attack. It appeals to 14 year olds. You too can make 75,000 people late for work, cause 30,000 pounds worth of damage and possibly kill a train driver. In fact it is so easy to do (all you need to find is a bridge over the line & a time when no-one is looking, and heave over a stolen supermarket trolley or an old fridge door from a dump, or any other bit of metal rubbish) it is almost surprising that it doesn't happen more often. IIRC, the IRA never tried to disrupt train traffic into or out of London by putting things on the lines, always by bomb scares in stations. There was one real bomb on a train, went off just after it arrived at Victoria, killed a couple of people. It was a train I regularly used, although I usually travelled later in the day. It got much harder to put bombs on trains, or in stations, after that. The main fixes were removing the litter bins from around stations (it took the IRA to teach the messy English to clean up after themselves) and getting people to report unclaimed packages and then evacuating trains when they were found. If you leave yout bag on the train they stop the train. This makes people angry. So there is social pressure to not leave packages lying around on, or near, trains. So if you want to plant a bomb on a crowded train and not get blown up yourself you have a problem. On trains, unlike planes, you keep your luggage with you. Also people *like* trains. They are cute. Even in America you have hordes of trainspotters and steam enthusiasts and model-builders and all the rest. It always amazes me that bookshops have more shelves of hobbyist books about trains than about cars, but only about 15% of the population regularly travel by train and about 60% by car. (In England - I guess in the USA that's more like 5% and 85% - and before you say that that last figure is too low remember there are an awful lot more disabled, vey old, very sick or imprisoned people than most of us notice - I guess that car users in the USA include just about everyone capable of using a car, with the possible exception of the inhabitants of some parts of very big cities) Back to the point - the reason you need id to travel on a plane is because people are scared of planes. Especially they are scared of them falling out of the sky, depressurising or catching fire. When something goes wrong with a plane everybody can die very quickly. When an accident happens to a train it usually just comes to a halt. They don't have heaps of fuel on them (except if you are on an line that is still back in the diesel age - and even then the fuel is usually all in one location, separated from the passengers) You mostly don't die whan a train crashes, or even blows up. Repressive laws get popular support from people who are scared. People are scared of plane crashes so they put up with -no, they mostly applaud or even demand - treatment they wouldn't stand for anywhere else. People aren't scared of trains. Nobody's scared of cryptography - well, nobody wh hasn't received the NSA corporate injection - but some peope are scared of drugs/paedophiles/terrorists etc, so thats the way in for the jackboots. To oppose it we need to reduce fear. Ken Brown (who prefers bicycles to trains but had to use the train to get to work today because of a broken spoke he is incapable of fixing. He only does software) > ---------- > From: Anonymous[SMTP:nobody@replay.com] > Sent: 28 October 1998 17:36 > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: airline id > > At 12:43 PM 10/27/98 -0800, Joel O'Connor wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

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RE: airline id
by Joel O'Connor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Interesting, I like that. It makes sense. Bill Clinton knows all about putting things in fromt of trains, like the two kids who found his secret cocain dumping ground in Arkansas when he was governor, so he dumped their two bodies on a train track and the train (spotting them, like you said Ken) tried to stop but hit them. Further investigation found that they had died of a massive hemorage, but Clinton's honest people told the public that they had "fallen asleep on the railroad tracks and were accidently hit by a train." Convenient, if I've ever noticed. I guess the thing with trains is that they are fun and a nice ride, but modern societies push to get there quickly escalates about as fast as inflation, so the demand to fly is becmoming more popular as time goes on. I think in the future, the only need for trains will be for shipping us cpunks off to the concentration camps, seeing as most are only accessible by train or helicopter anyway. We'll see though. ---"Brown, R Ken" <brownrk1(a)texaco.com> wrote: > > Various anonymes and Joel O'Connor discussed sabotaging trains - > presumably in order to force > > >>you flew to. Even with trains, all's it will take is one bomb and > >> youbetter believe security will be pumped up as high as it is > >> with airlines. > > > Naaah, you pull rail-spikes to get trains, no big ba-da-boom required. > > And it does happen. > > > > > Actually you just put something on the line. It happens all the time. > If a fast train hits it there can be big problems. > > Even a small obstacle (like a plastic rubbish bag with rubbish in it) > will cause a train to stop if it is seen. (Trains can't swerve). That > just causes inconvenience, unless of course you put something conductive > down that shorts out the power - that has a (small) chance of causing a > serious accident and a (big) chance of disrupting all rail traffic for > miles around for hours. A sort of occasionally fatal denial of service > attack. It appeals to 14 year olds. You too can make 75,000 people late > for work, cause 30,000 pounds worth of damage and possibly kill a train > driver. > > In fact it is so easy to do (all you need to find is a bridge over the > line & a time when no-one is looking, and heave over a stolen > supermarket trolley or an old fridge door from a dump, or any other bit > of metal rubbish) it is almost surprising that it doesn't happen more > often. IIRC, the IRA never tried to disrupt train traffic into or out of > London by putting things on the lines, always by bomb scares in > stations. There was one real bomb on a train, went off just after it > arrived at Victoria, killed a couple of people. It was a train I > regularly used, although I usually travelled later in the day. It got > much harder to put bombs on trains, or in stations, after that. The main > fixes were removing the litter bins from around stations (it took the > IRA to teach the messy English to clean up after themselves) and getting > people to report unclaimed packages and then evacuating trains when they > were found. If you leave yout bag on the train they stop the train. > This makes people angry. So there is social pressure to not leave > packages lying around on, or near, trains. So if you want to plant a > bomb on a crowded train and not get blown up yourself you have a > problem. On trains, unlike planes, you keep your luggage with you. > > Also people *like* trains. They are cute. Even in America you have > hordes of trainspotters and steam enthusiasts and model-builders and all > the rest. It always amazes me that bookshops have more shelves of > hobbyist books about trains than about cars, but only about 15% of the > population regularly travel by train and about 60% by car. (In England - > I guess in the USA that's more like 5% and 85% - and before you say that > that last figure is too low remember there are an awful lot more > disabled, vey old, very sick or imprisoned people than most of us notice > - I guess that car users in the USA include just about everyone capable > of using a car, with the possible exception of the inhabitants of some > parts of very big cities) > > Back to the point - the reason you need id to travel on a plane is > because people are scared of planes. Especially they are scared of them > falling out of the sky, depressurising or catching fire. When something > goes wrong with a plane everybody can die very quickly. When an > accident happens to a train it usually just comes to a halt. They don't > have heaps of fuel on them (except if you are on an line that is still > back in the diesel age - and even then the fuel is usually all in one > location, separated from the passengers) You mostly don't die whan a > train crashes, or even blows up. > > Repressive laws get popular support from people who are scared. People > are scared of plane crashes so they put up with -no, they mostly > applaud or even demand - treatment they wouldn't stand for anywhere > else. People aren't scared of trains. > > Nobody's scared of cryptography - well, nobody wh hasn't received the > NSA corporate injection - but some peope are scared of > drugs/paedophiles/terrorists etc, so thats the way in for the jackboots. > To oppose it we need to reduce fear. > > > Ken Brown > > (who prefers bicycles to trains but had to use the train to get to work > today because of a broken spoke he is incapable of fixing. He only does > software) > > > ---------- > > From: Anonymous[SMTP:nobody@replay.com] > > Sent: 28 October 1998 17:36 > > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > > Subject: airline id > > > > At 12:43 PM 10/27/98 -0800, Joel O'Connor wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > == Ogre bounces like sonar. . .Peace. Ogre _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: Shuffling (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 22:10:08 -0800 > From: Alex Alten <Alten(a)home.com> > Subject: Re: Shuffling > The concept of swapping to get a random string of bits is very interesting. > >From what I understand when one shuffles a deck of 52 cards 7 or more times > the card order becomes unpredictable e.g. random. Only if it is a 'fair' shuffle. There are poker players I've met who could put a given card anywhere in the deck after 4-5 shuffles. > The shuffle must be > what is called a "near perfect" shuffle. Perfect for who? Idealy the 'perfect' shuffle (if I understand your meaning of perfect) would be for each card in each deck-half to interleave 1-to-1. This does not produce random anything, it does make it very hard for people to count cards, which is why you shuffle - not to create a necessarily random ordering of the cards, just so mis-ordered nobody can remember what the sequence was and predict reliably what the sequence will be. This is incredibly important in games like poker or rummie where the cards pile up and players can see the sequence (and if they can remember it use it). This is also the reason that all games involving shuffled cards strictly call for a neutral party to shuffle and deal, falling back to the players only for 'friendly' games. Really smart 'amateur' players as you call them also make sure that he who deals is not he who anties first. I've never quite understood where this 'shuffle equal random' theory so many people have comes from (historicaly). But it is fun to play against them because they also (usualy) only shuffle the cards once to twice before a deal. Even un-even shuffles aren't prevention from short-sequence card counters. I impliment this when I play poker, it's helpfull to figure out how many cards to draw because it's possible to estimate the 'distance' between a short set of cards (eg a royal flush) after the shuffle. > In other words the cards can't > strictly alternate from each hand (with a half deck each), but must be > slightly random, in the sense that sometimes 2 or 3 cards may drop from a > hand before a card drops from the other hand. Unfortunately, professional croupie's don't practice for this. They practice for a perfect inter-leave. > An amateur shuffle, like > the one I perform, where the cards clump as they drop, may require 100's > of iterations before the order becomes totally unpredictable. BTW, if > I remember correctly the number of people in the world who can execute a > perfect shuffle at a professional rate (about 8 times a minute?) > consistently is somewhat less than 30. 8 time a minute? That's a pretty slow shuffle. Where did you get this number from? A really quick proffessional shuffle doesn't take 3 seconds. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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update.399 (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 10:48:06 -0500 (EST) > From: physnews(a)aip.org (AIP listserver) > Subject: update.399 > NONLOCALITY GETS MORE REAL. "Bell's Inequalities," the > set of mathematical relations that would rule out the notion that > distant quantum particles exert influences on each other at > seemingly instantaneous rates, have now been violated over record > large distances, with record high certainty, and with the elimination > of an important loophole in three recent experiments, further > solidifying the notion of "spooky action at a distance" in quantum > particles. At the Optical Society of America meeting in Baltimore > earlier this month, Paul Kwiat (kwiat(a)lanl.gov) of Los Alamos and > his colleagues announced that they produced an ultrabright source > of photon pairs for Bell's inequality experiments; they went on to > verify the violation of Bell's inequalities to a record degree of > certainty (preprint at p23.lanl.gov/agw/2crystal.pdf) Splitting a > single photon of well-defined energy into a pair of photons with > initially undefined energies, and sending each photon through a > fiber-optic network to detectors 10 km apart, researchers in > Switzerland (Wolfgang Tittel, Univ. Geneva, > wolfgang.tittel(a)physics.unige.ch) showed that determining the > energy for one photon by measuring it had instantaneously > determined the energy of its neighbor 10 km away--a record set by > the researchers last year but now demonstrated in an improved > version of the original experiment. (Tittel et al., Physical Review > Letters, 26 October 1998.) A University of Innsbruck group > performed Bell measurements with detectors that randomly switched > between settings rapidly enough to eliminate the "locality loophole," > which posited that one detector might somehow send a signal to the > other detector at light or sub-light speeds to affect its reading. > (Weihs et al., upcoming paper in Phys. Rev. Lett., website at > http://www.uibk.ac.at/c/c7/c704/qo/photon/_bellexp/) > TUMOR GROWTH CAN BE FRACTAL. A curve is fractal if when > CORRECTIONS. Update 397---Among nuclei for which gamma ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: IP: Crypt Wars, UK-Style
by Alex de Joode 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <199810290400.UAA14769(a)netcom13.netcom.com> some1 wrote: : CRYPT WARS, UK-STYLE : UK's Privacy International has awarded the Department of Trade and : Industry a Big Brother award for its contribution to invading privacy. The : DTI wants all companies offering encrypted services to be licensed, which : means using a third party holding keys to the user's encryption code. : Encryption licensed outside the UK will not be recognised, and thus would : not be protected by law. And only the recommendation of senior police is : needed to get a key - users aren't allowed to know if their key has been : given to the police. More Big Brother awards at http://www.privacy.org/pi/ Hmm would like to see on which EC directive/law they base this exclusion of 'foreign' (ie EC) TTP's. -- Alex de Joode | International CryptoRunners | http://www.replay.com 'A little paranoia can lengthen your life'

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IP: A nationhood under seige: Is the nation obsolete?
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Holy shit. The Fourth Estate figures it out. Of course, the answer to the question, "Omigawd! There's gonna be no nation-states, dude!", is, the same answer to the question "Egad! The Church has no more earthly power!" Which is, "So?". :-). Mort a le infame, as Voltaire used to say... Cheers, Bob Hettinga --- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 06:41:34 -0500 From: Richard Sampson <rjsa(a)sprintmail.com> Organization: Unknown Organization MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com" <ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com> Subject: IP: A nationhood under seige: Is the nation obsolete? Sender: owner-ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: Richard Sampson <rjsa(a)sprintmail.com> A nationhood under seige: For 350 years, the world has been governed by the pri A nationhood under seige: For 350 years, the world has been governed by the principle of national sovereignty, but the new global economy respects no national borders, laws, or interests. Is the nation obsolete?< Three and a half centuries after the nations of the world won the power of self-rule, a new force has come along to erode that power and undermine the democratic rights of their citizens. That force is the global economy, which is relocating the economic decisions that frame the lives of citizens far beyond the reach of the voters and their voice. There's a sort of cruel historical irony here, that at the very moment when liberal democracy has finally triumphed over all rival systems of government, the power of markets - the other half of the post-Cold War triumph - has come along to leech that democracy of much of its meaning. This weekend is the 350th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia, a treaty signed in 1648 by the Holy Roman Empire with France and Sweden and, especially, with the princes of the various German principalities. This treaty not only ended the Thirty Years' War, but also severely limited the ability of the Empire and the church of Rome to intervene in the affairs of the German principalities. In other words, Westphalia proclaimed the sovereignty of the principalities, the right of the princes to rule their territories without outside interference. This idea of sovereignty has echoed down the three and a half centuries since then and is the basis both of self-government and of international relations. Considering all the massacres, pogroms, persecutions, gulags and holocausts of the past 350 years, this principle of sovereignty leaves something to be desired. But it's what we have, the magnetic pole of the international system. More important for those lucky enough to live in democracies, Westphalia is the basis of democratic self-rule, the idea that the average citizen has a say in the decisions that affects his or her life. Somebody else may make the decisions, but citizens have the right to cast their votes and state their opinions, confident that these vote and opinions will be heard by the decisionmaker who, one way or another, must pay attention. It's this right and this confidence that are vanishing in the face of the global economy, which is the one really new thing under the sun. The reason is that democracy is national and so are its institutions. Governments are national and their power to make and enforce laws is national. The power of the vote is felt at national levels, but not beyond. But the nation-based industrial economy that underwrote the growth of democracy is being replaced by a global economy, powered by global capital markets and global communications, answering to the needs and demands of global corporations and investors who can and do ignore frontiers. In short, an extremely important part of public life _ the economy _ is going global in a way that politics and government have not, and so is moving beyond any kind of democratic control. As Americans and the rest of the world have learned in the past year, impersonal global markets can and do cast instant judgments on entire societies, dictate the spending decisions of government and unravel the social contracts that used to bind corporations with their employees and their societies. Peter Drucker, the founder of modern management, has written that we are in an ''age of social transformation,'' one of those historical eras that happen ''every few hundred years,'' when, ''within a few short decades, society rearranges itself _ its worldview; its basic values: its social and political structure: its arts: its key institutions.'' Such transformations, like the global economy itself, are not innately evil forces. Instead, they are amoral but immensely powerful movements that change civilizations. But all such movements are created by humans and potentially controllable by humans, for good or for ill. A century after the Industrial Revolution, societies tamed the economic forces generated by this revolution and turned them into the market democracy that enhanced the past 50 years of Western history. No such taming of the Global Revolution _ or even a debate on how to do it _ has begun yet. The old economy was built on a national consensus that economies exist for societies, not the other way around. Over the past half-century, the democracies created social markets _ capitalist structures that insisted the companies share the cost of citizenship. Tax laws required companies to pay their fair share to the places where they made their money. Other laws gave rights to unions, protected worker safety and the environment, and mandated good health and pension plans. Companies accepted these laws, however grudgingly, if only because it cost them no competitive edge: all their rivals, subject to the same laws, faced the same costs. Now, not only capital markets have escaped into cyberspace, beyond the reach of national regulations. There are about 50,000 global corporations who see the globe as a single market and ignore national borders and regulations. These are no longer multinationals, with most of their operations in one country but with a few foreign branches. The global economy is being driven by global corporations who see the globe as a unit. They have their headquarters in one country, research and development in others, accounting in still another, manufacturing scattered across the world, with sales wherever there are customers. These companies have gone global because, with the advent of global communications, they can. But in the process, they have left behind their old home and its laws. Too often, companies now pay taxes and wages where the rates are lowest and the laws loosest. In many countries, environmental or benefits regulations are nonexistent. Many other countries are willing to waive them for companies that will invest there. In this atmosphere, businesses argue they can no longer afford the social costs imposed on them by society, when their rivals may be operating halfway around the world, in a place where the average wage is $1 per day and environmental laws don't exist. Either, they say, they must be allowed to break the social contract, busting unions and negotiating easier regulations and dumping health and pension plans, or they must go abroad themselves. Often they do both. Good jobs go away and the ones that are left somehow pay less, are more unstable and are less likely to come equipped with pension or health plans. Wolfgang Reinicke, a senior economist at the World Bank, has written that this is an attack on ''internal sovereignty,'' the ability of an elected government to really govern. The laws remain intact, but the ability to enforce them disappears. Government exists but its effectiveness and efficiency are eroded. The economy rolls on, but the public's ability to insist that it benefit society is eroded. Elections are held and votes counted, but the power of that vote to promote particular policies wobbles and wanes. The economic rights won by citizens over the centuries, from collective bargaining to decent wages to job stability to pensions, often depending on the power of national governments to enforce them. As this power withers, so do the rights. Small wonder that government is held in such low esteem these days and politics derided. A government that cannot enforce its own laws is a government fit only for scandals and other sideshows. The main event is going on somewhere else, and neither Washington nor its subjects knows where it is. There oughta be a law, a global one replacing the national laws and bringing this economy back under democratic control. In fact, there are laws, lots of them, with more being written every day, but the voters aren't being asked to help write them. Around the world, bureaucrats, experts, lawyers and lobbyists are writing a new web of global regulations, on stock markets, accounting, banking, investment, even auto safety and drug trials. These talks aren't exactly secret but the government isn't going out of its way to publicize them. They are highly technical and, frankly, pretty boring. But they're important. They're writing the rule book for the 21st Century. New global tax laws haven't been written yet, and environmental or labor regulations are barely a gleam in a bureaucrat's eye. But they'll be written someday, if only because the global economy otherwise will be a jungle. But when they are written, they'll look a lot like the regulations already framed. That is, they will be technical exercises, focused on efficiency and the well-being of corporations, not on democracy or the public health. Nations and corporations have different interests. Nations want to raise the living standards of their citizens, while corporations want to raise their profits. The glory of the past 50 years rests on the creation of the social market, with the drive of capitalism tempered by the needs of society, enabling both to thrive. This 20th-Century thrust has focused on the rights of citizens, as individuals or as classes. The new rule-making focuses on the safety and efficiency of markets and corporations. They are making the world more secure and predictable for investment and trade, which is vital for the creation of an honest market. But it caters to the needs of global actors, not the folks at home. De-regulation nationally is being replaced with re-regulation globally. But in the process, governments are giving away power from national bodies to global institutions. But governments exist by democratic sufferance. These global bodies do not. The growth of the global economy requires global governance. But increasingly, as Reinicke has written, this is turning into ''governance without government,'' public functions wielded by bodies with no public control. Pat Buchanan, the commentator and onetime presidential candidate, has called for a ''new economic nationalism'' that, essentially, calls for derailing the global economy with barriers on trade, limits on immigration and an all-around isolationism that, apart from its basic selfishness, is a national solution to a global problem and, hence, futile. The right answer is to recognize that the global economy exists and won't go away, and to tame and temper it with a new social market, composed of new laws and rules in which the public, for a change, has a voice. For a start, the government should never negotiate new global rules that supersede national rules without making a sort of democratic impact statement on what this will mean to the rights of citizens. This is a ''new economic internationalism'' in which American democratic institutions would cooperate with the democratic institutions of other countries to recapture the sovereignty of both. (This is an adaptation of the Richard W. Leopold Annual Lecture that R.C. Longworth, a Chicago Tribune senior writer, delivered at Northwestern University this month.) KRT PERSPECTIVE is a forum for essays by staff writers from contributing papers. (c) 1998, Chicago Tribune. -0- Visit the Chicago Tribune on America Online (keyword: Tribune) or the Internet Tribune at http://www.chicago.tribune.com/ Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. AP-NY-10-28-98 0611EST< -0- By R.C. Longworth Chicago Tribune News provided by COMTEX. [!COMMUNITY] [!FINANCE] [!WALL+STREET] [ACCOUNTING] [BANKING] [BOOK] [CONTRACT] [DEMOCRACY] [ECONOMY] [ENVIRONMENT] [FRANCE] [GOVERNMENT] [HEALTH] [IMMIGRATION] [INVESTMENT] [KNS] [LABOR] [MANUFACTURING] [MARKET] [MONEY] [NEWS] [NEWSGRID] [POLITICS] [RATES] [REGULATIONS] [RESEARCH] [SALES] [STANDARDS] [SWEDEN] [TAXES] [TRADE] [TREATY] [UNIONS] [USA] [WAR] [WASHINGTON] [WORLD+BANK] -- ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **************************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Two ISPs Seized Over Usenet Content
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

New York State Attorney General Dennis Vacco, who is running for re-election, is crowing and posturing this morning over having seized two ISPs, Dreamscape in Syracuse, and Buffnet in West Seneca, over the content of the newsgroup alt.binaries.pictures.pre-teen, thus making a small dent in the distribution of "filth" to ignorant citizen-units. A running gag in abpep-t for the last several years has been for newsgroup posters to identify themselves as various faculty belonging to a mythical "Pedo University" when responding to trolls. Vacco believes this imaginary organization to be a "International Child Pornography Ring" which he has broken up. 13 individuals in various countries were also arrested on various child pornography possession, trading, and promotion charges, related to activity in the newsgroup, and 34 are still under "investigation", according to this morning's AP wire. alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen continues merrily onwards, and is presently discussing the arrests and seizures, minus a few of its regular participants. While the loss of two small ISPs and a dozen or so patrons is unlikely to bring the uncensorable worldwide Usenet to its knees, this appears to be a small first step towards eroding the legal notion that common carriers are immune from liability over Usenet content. exerpts... NEW YORK (AP) -- Authorities say they have broken up an international child pornography ring dubbed ``Pedo University'' in which suspects swapped sexually explicit information, pictures and video online. ... Thirteen people were in custody and more arrests were expected. As many as 34 people were still under investigation. New York state police seized two Internet providers, Dreamscape ISP in Syracuse and Buffnet.net ISP in West Seneca. ... Both allegedly carried Pedo University news groups, a type of electronic bulletin board similar to a chat room. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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Re: Shuffling (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu (Ian Goldberg) > Subject: Re: Shuffling (fwd) > Date: 29 Oct 1998 16:16:41 GMT > The "7 times" theorem uses the following model of a shuffle: > > o The deck is cut into two parts, with the number of cards in each piece > binomially distributed (with mean 26, of course). > o The resulting deck is then achieved by having cards fall from one or the > other of the two parts; a card will fall from one of the parts with > probability proportional to the number of cards remaining in the part. The only problem I see with this model, re real card decks, is that the probability for a given card to fall to the top of the shuffled pile isn't related in any way to the number of cards in either stack in a real-world shuffle. It also doesn't address the problem of 'clumping' where a group of cards (ie royal flush) stay together through the shuffling. This is the reason that real dealers try for a 1-for-1 shuffle each time. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Interesting Articles... Micro jet engine for Wearable power?
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Resent-Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 12:03:26 -0500 Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 09:50:40 -0500 Organization: Scientific-Atlanta MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: Interesting Articles... Micro jet engine for Wearable power? To: "wear-hard(a)haven.org" <wear-hard(a)haven.org> From: Pete Hardie <pete.hardie(a)sciatl.com> Sender: phardie(a)sciatl.com Resent-From: wear-hard(a)haven.org X-Mailing-List: <wear-hard(a)haven.org> archive/latest/5435 X-Loop: wear-hard(a)haven.org Precedence: list Resent-Sender: wear-hard-request(a)haven.org Mark Willis wrote: > single spool turbojet > 12mm OD x 3mm long (Tiny!) Weighs 1 gram... > Rotor speed: 2.4 million rpm > Combustor temp: 1600deg K > Output: 13 grams thrust, or 16W electrical > Fuel: Hydrogen @ 7 grams/hr. > > Fuel for 2-3 hours would fit in a CO2 cylinder sized container or so > <G> They use air bearings, and a *silicon* spool, no nickel metal > sintered exotics here... This little puppy will run a wearable nicely > when it gets to production! (The original is for a small surveillance > aircraft, 16W power budget isn't bad though!) I imagine it puts out > some heat, of course... But that annoying roar and jet of flame..... -- Pete Hardie | Goalie, DVSG Dart Team Scientific Atlanta | Digital Video Services Group | -- Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" to wear-hard-request(a)haven.org Wear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.ml.org --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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No Subject
by concerned＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Oct.30th,1998 Y2K Solution! 8 Pine Circle Dr., Silicon Valley, Calif. OTC Company "TCFG" 21 st. Century Frontier Group has through several members of their administrative research department leaked vital information about their companies efforts. Everyone was tight lipped and interviews were refused, and through un-named sources we have learned that the technology and software solution are in the process of being patented! In over 1640 trials, using various data systems the use of the new technology and software solved the Y2K problem 100% of the time. This small publicly traded company "TCFG" which is just 3 years old is through various sources now negotiating with the "Big Boys"! "TCFG" the letters to look for!

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test
by Igor Chudov ＠ home 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

test

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Re: Shuffling (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 19:22:52 +0100 > From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> > Subject: Re: Shuffling > For any N greater than two, the random-swap algorithm cannot produce > a perfectly smooth randomization of A[N]. If by 'perfectly smooth randomization of A[N]' you mean that any two members of A[N] have equaly likelyhood to be swapped, and hence any pattern of A[N] members being possible with equal odds then this is incorrect. For that arrangement to be relevant your (P)RNG function must choose any element from 0 to N with equal odds, it's probability curve must be a horizontal line at 1/n for each N. If it ain't you aren't going to randomly shuffle the elements of A[] since each element doesn't have the same odds of being selected in this (or every other) turn. > A perfect randomization of A[N] would give equal probability to each of > the N! (N factorial) possible rearrangements of A. Ah, but there aren't N! rearrangements of A if we are limited to only swapping two elements. There are at best n^2. Allow me to explain... > Each iteration of the random-swap algorithm makes two choices of the N > values to swap. There are N^2 possible ways these two choices could go. Ok, we shoot off our first random number, 1/n. We then shoot off our second random number, also 1/n. The combination is 1/n * 1/n or 1/n^2. Now if we add the stipulation about the i'th and i+1'st numbers not being identical then the odds are 1/n * 1/n-1 (note that this boundary condition is artificial and may in fact be problematic, there is no logical reason to keep i and i+1 from being the same n if we want truly random behaviour). > To calculate the probabilities after an iteration, we try all the N^2 > choices and count how many instances of each arrangement are produced. Huh? What probability are we calculating here, the odds of getting the particular pattern we have now generated? If so that is either 1/n^2 or 1/n(n-1) depending on the boundary condition. > This gives each possible arrangement a probability in the form of > k/N^2, where k of the N^2 choices led to that arrangement. What arrangement, the one we start with before or after the swap? If we start with arrangement I and then swap two elements we get I+1. There are only two ways to get to any particular arrangment. An identical arrangement where we swap i with itself (ignoring the potential boundary condition) and the arrangement where the l'th and j'th elements are swapped. As long as we're only swapping two elements there can only be two possible parent patterns for any given resultant pattern. Now if we swap more than 2 elements it gets big fast. I seem to be reading an implication that given a particular pattern, I, there is some rhyme or reason to the pattern of previous I's that got us here, there isn't. For any given pattern there is a infinite number of potential paths that would get to any particular. Let's say we have: [ 0 1 2 4 3 ] and we shuffle and get, [ 0 4 2 1 3 ] or, [ 0 1 2 4 3 ] Now if the question is how many possible ways could be have gotten to the original, [ 0 1 2 4 3 ], then there are two ways to calculate that, given no stipulation on reptitions we get: n^2 given a stipulation for no repetitions we get: (n)(n-1) We can generalize this somewhat if we let s represent our current sequence and our goal is to determine the number of possible previous states the sequence could have held. s-1 = n^2 or, s-1 = n(n-1) Now if we want to calculate the number of possible parent generations for s-1 *from the perspective of s0* we get: s-2 = (s-1)^2 = (n^2)^2 or, s-2 = (s-1)((s-1)-1) = (n^2)((n^2)-1) Thus, s-3 = (s-2)^2 = ((s-1)^2)^2 = ((n^2)^2)^2 or, s-3 = (s-2)((s-2)-1) = ( (n^2)((n^2)-1) )( ((n^2)((n^2)-1) )-1) = (n^4 - n^2)( (n^4 - n^2) - 1) for the second form only, s-4 = (s-3)((s-3)-1) = ((n^4-n^2)((n^4-n^2)-1))(((n^4-n^2)((n^4-n^2)-1))-1) = ((n^4-n^2)^2 - (n^4-n^2)) (n^4-n^2)^2-(n^4-n^2))-1) (I'm going to stop here trying to resolve this equation, I don't have the time. Note that the relation is i(i-1) for each generation so we only need to affix a relation to i and the generation number. It's worth noting this can be resolved recursively.) These can be generalized for the first form to: C(s-i) = n^(2^i), where i is the number of generations going back. The inverse makes a handy measure of entropy as well as telling you the odds of selecting any particular path from one pattern to another pattern given the number of elements swaps that are allowed. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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No Subject
by Mixmaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can someone do a fill in/summary/recapitulation? I'm not sure I understand all of this and the MIB stuff... -----Original Message----- From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> Date: Tuesday, October 27, 1998 8:45 PM :[Two letters received by fax on 27 October 1998] : :---------- : :[Letter 1, cover and 16 pages] : :8 September 1998 : :Cover Sheet : :Declan : :The Good News is that I have a pen to write :with, due to the Free Enterprise System being :alive & well within the Prison System. : :The Bad News is that Micro$oft Pens (TM) :controls 95% of the market... : :I am hoping you can share as much of this :communique as possible with the CPUNX, :since my chain is constantly getting yanked :in different directions, making outside contact :sporatic & unreliable. : :Feel free to reserve for your own use any :of the enclosed information you need for your :own journalistic purposes. : :I will try to reach you by phone (automated :collect-call system requiring touch-tone on :your end). : :Thanks for the Mags, : : CJ Parker : :ps# My prison cell mirror now reads, :"Chocolate Skelter." (Brownie & Milk) : :------------------------------------------------ : :[FLORENCE NUTLY NEWS - "I'M HERE BECAUSE I :believe that the KONTROLLERS are taking :actions that create obstacles to the freedom :and openess of the Internet. ~Truth Glaser] : :Declan, : :Looks like you may be receiving the *only* copy :of the Florence Nutly News, since I have, up :until now, been writing on paper towels and :medicine cups, using combinations of blood, :sperm and chocolate (two of which are in short :supply) for ink, and I will soon be headed :to Nutly News Head (pardon the pun) Quarters :in Springfield, Missouri, for Rewiring of :my Brain Circuity.

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No Subject
by informant＠earthlink.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

10/30/98 Y2K Solution! 8 Pine Circle Dr., Silicon Valley, Calif. OTC Company "TCFG" 21 st. Century Frontier Group has through several members of their administrative research department leaked vital information about their companies efforts. Everyone was tight lipped and interviews were refused, and through un-named sources we have learned that the technology and software solution are in the process of being patented! In over 1640 trials, using various data systems the use of the new technology and software solved the Y2K problem 100% of the time. This small publicly traded company "TCFG" which is just 3 years old is through various sources now negotiating with the "Big Boys"! "TCFG" the letters to look for.....

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Re: Random array (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 20:04:57 -0800 > From: Jim Gillogly <jim(a)acm.org> > Subject: Re: Random array > One could modify Greg's suggestion slightly by attaching an auxiliary > array of 256 random numbers to each of the members of the original > array and then using the most efficient handy sort algorithm to sort > those random numbers, dragging along their associated original array > elements. This way it doesn't have a chance to interfere with the > operation of the sorting algorithm, at the cost of an extra array. So you've got a set of arrays that have 256 numbers in them, whether they are random or not is irrelevant since we're going to sort them and break their randomness. It is merely sufficient that they all be reasonably (what the hell ever that's going to mean) different, if they're all 6's for example it isn't going to be very interesting. If I understand the process. Each array would cycle through in parallel sorting 2 elements of each array. Once that was finished we'd then sort the arrays themselves according to some process. From your description it seems to imply that you're going to sort the 1st element descending at that point. This in effect mis-orders each array after every sort. This sort of system is an IFS and could lead to determinism (ie a cycle of sort patterns that repeat endlessly) or chaos (ie a pattern that doesn't repeat). It in and of itself doesn't guarantee any randomness merely a continously munged sort. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Jim Gilmore
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> from ppoole(a)fcref.org CfCL Weekly Update 10/30/98 ***** Companies Create New Crypto Back Door Hewlett-Packard and Wave Systems announced Tuesday that they have developed a new programmable chip that can be adjusted to match prevailing encryption policies. This system will only allow a computer to encrypt data to the maximum level that local regulations allow. The new program, called EMBASSY, must be registered with a "designated local authority", who will activate the cryptography application. The companies behind EMBASSY are hoping that the program will meet the new Department of Commerce encryption export standards, which currently place a 56-bit limit on exported software applications. While 90 percent of countries have no domestic-use policies, the program allows law enforcement agencies that mandate key recovery features, such as France, to be able to obtain access to a user's encrypted files under certain circumstances. Several countries, including the UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Japan and Australia have already approved the technology. The US will not issue export license until they are certain that the recovery elements have been tested. Privacy advocates were critical of EMBASSY. Jim Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, expressed concern that the cooperation of Hewlett-Packard and Wave Systems with the government may lead to more surreptitious features being included into the program. "What other black boxes have they put in this chip? Keystroke monitoring? Recording traffic across the bus?" asked Gilmore. "If they're giving you a black box, who's to say what other capabilities are actually in that chip?" Read this related WIRED News article: http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/15848.html

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Re: cohen predicts army patrols US streets
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>"Terrorism is escalating to the point that Americans soon >may have to choose between civil liberties and more >intrusive means of protection," says Defense Secretary >William S. Cohen This is the classic intro into a dictatorhip and militarisation of a society. I wonder if someone can dig up Hitler's speeches on the subject. >"It could happen here," Cohen said he conclued after 8 >months of studying threats under the Pentagon microscope. Sure. I bet this has nothing to do with the surge of false "bomb threats" in Austin and SIlicon Valley high-tech companies or flooding mass media with descriptions of dangers from domestic terrorism. Public must be aware of the "presence" of undesirables first. Who is it going to be this time, after cpunks are dealt with ?

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William H. Gates III
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Leading digits "539"...what state was he born in? ---guy ====================================================================== SCAN THIS NEWS 10/29/98 The following information is posted on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) "EDGAR" database located at: http://www.sec.gov/edaux/formlynx.htm In the "Enter a company" box, search on - "MICROSOFT CORP" You'll find the following file - Date Filed Forms CIK Code Company Name "02-07-1996 SC 13G/A 789019 MICROSOFT CORP" Click on this link and you'll find the following information - MAIL ADDRESS: STREET 1: ONE MICROSOFT WAY - BLDG 8 STREET 2: NORTH OFFICE 2211 CITY: REDMOND STATE: WA ZIP: 98052-6399 FILED BY: NAME OF REPORTING PERSON S.S. or I.R.S. Identification No. of Above Person William H. Gates III Social Security #: 539-60-5125 SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 SCHEDULE 13G Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Amendment No. 7)* MICROSOFT CORPORATION ======================================================================

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Super computer SR2201 at PJWSTK
by Jan Dobrucki 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I got news for you all. I'm applying for an account on a super computer which we got in our school. I need to write the reason why I need to have such an account. The reason why I want to put is: to break a DES-56 bit key encrypted message. I don't know if my applications for the account will be accepted, but if you got any ideas now as to how you'd like to use the computational power of a super computer, just let me know... http://www.pjwstk.waw.pl/sr2201/index.html this is the address to the page at my school about the SR2201, but it's in polish... i might translate it one day soon... Looking foreward to your comments and ideas. JD PS. My return address is somewhat messed up. Just send mail to either the list, or to s1180(a)qmail.pjwstk.waw.pl for some reason, the server at my school, PJWSTK, says that your domain is not accepted. For some reason, it says so for all domains.

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Re: MIB Subpoenas
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:23 PM 10/28/98 -0800, Tim May wrote: >The first thing I did when I heard about the latest case, that of Toto, was >to purge any private mail messages between myself and Toto or any of his >alleged nyms. (My backups may have old messages, but I've been trying to >find them all and destroy or recopy them sans the Toto messages.) > >I advise any of you with links to the idea of anonymous murders and AP to >do the same. Soon. Tim, Betty Currie will be by to pick up the rest of the backup tapes...

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bug in my Maurer code; retraction of claim; ref
by David Honig 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There was a numerical bug in the C code for Maurer's Univ. Stat. Test for Randomness which I posted. The "float" variable "Sum" should be "double". This will cause an incorrect input-size dependence for large >40Mbyte files. Measuring (with the fixed version) the output of a block cipher in feedback mode, I find that it DOES NOT differ from truly nondeterministic noise, as I had claimed. The difference I had observed was due to a larger sample size for my cipher-noise. Boy do I feel stupid. Needless to say, sorry about any inconvenience. The fixed code follows at the bottom. This version also spits out an early estimate after a million samples; this turns out to be very close to the final value for (homogenous) large samples. Also: I recently found the following amendment to Maurer's work at http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/coron/escience.html#1 Abstract. Maurer's universal test is a very common randomness test, capable of detecting a wide gamut of statistical defects. The algorithm is simple (a few Java code lines), flexible (a variety of parameter combinations can be chosen by the tester) and fast. Although the test is based on sound probabilistic grounds, one of its crucial parts uses the heuristic approximation: c(L,K) = 0.7 - 0.8/L + (1.6 + 12.8/L)K-4/L In this work we compute the precise value of c(L,K) and show that the inaccuracy due to the heuristic estimate can make the test 2.67 times more permissive than what is theoretically admitted. Moreover, we etablish a new asymptotic relation between the test parameter and the source's entropy. 09/08/98 - Jean-Sébastien Coron ..................................... /* UELI.c 28 Oct 98 This implements Ueli M Maurer's "Universal Statistical Test for Random Bit Generators" using L=16 Accepts a filename on the command line; writes its results, with other info, to stdout. Handles input file exhaustion gracefully. Ref: J. Cryptology v 5 no 2, 1992 pp 89-105 also on the web somewhere, which is where I found it. -David Honig honig(a)sprynet.com Built with Wedit 2.3, lcc-win32 http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32 26 Sept CP Release Version Notes: This version does L=16. It evolved from an L=8 prototype which I ported from the Pascal in the above reference. I made the memory usage reasonable by replacing Maurer's "block" array with the 'streaming' fgetc() call. 27 Oct 98 compiled under Sun cc OK if C++ stuff taken out.. 28 Oct 98 made "Sum" into a double, from float; fixes a bug found with larger (40M files); reposted with retraction. Usage: ULI filename outputs to stdout */ #define L 16 // bits per block #define V (1<<L) // number of possible blocks #define Q (10*V) // at LEAST 10 * V, to assure each block seen #define K (100*Q) // at LEAST 100 * Q, as large as possible #define MAXSAMP (Q + K) #include <stdio.h> #include <math.h> int main( int argc, char **argv ) { FILE *fptr; int i; int b, c; int table[V]; double sum=0.0; int run; // Human Interface printf("UELI 27 Oct 98 double-precision, with early value\n L=%d %d %d \n", L, V, MAXSAMP); if (argc <2) {printf("Usage: ULI filename\n"); exit(-1); } else printf("Measuring file %s\n", argv[1]); // FILE IO fptr=fopen(argv[1],"rb"); if (fptr == NULL) {printf("Can't find %s\n", argv[1]); exit(-1); } // INIT for (i=0; i<V; i++) table[i]=0; for (i=0; i<Q; i++) { b= fgetc(fptr)<<8 | fgetc(fptr); table[ b ]=i; } printf("Init done\n"); // COMPUTE run=1; for (i=Q; run && i<Q+K; i++) { // COMPOSE A 16-bit quantity b=fgetc(fptr); c=fgetc(fptr); if (c<0 || b<0) run=0; if (run) { b = b<<8 | c; sum += log( (double) ( i-table[b] ) ) ; table[ b ]=i; } if (i==1000000+Q) printf("Early measurement after %d samples = %g\n\n", i-Q, (sum/( (double) (i-Q) ) ) / log(2.0)); } if (!run) printf("Premature end of file; read %d blocks.\n", i-Q); sum = (sum/( (double) (i-Q) ) ) / log(2.0); // i should be K if enough samples printf("%s fTU= %g\n\n", argv[1], sum); printf("Expected value for L=16 is 15.167379 \n"); // Add further interpretation/thresholding of the number of sigmas from expected, // and include the fudge factors explained in the paper. } // end

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Re: log files (was: Re: dbts: Cryptographic Dog Stocks, The Dirigible Biplane, and Sending the Wizards Back to Menlo Park )
by Lynn.Wheeler＠firstdata.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

in fact, large number of security studies show that variety of operations are at greatest risk from insiders.

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 excuse this bandwidth. me -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.0 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> iQA/AwUBNjiEBHUkEFXvH2ZAEQJ11wCdEEcGeWaOWjrNZ2e22a0Q5WtRMtIAmwQH JkSiA2UUrB6pahgHqA0dvIYc =8qn4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: don't use passwords as private keys (was Re: Using a password as a private key.)
by RedRook 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You don't know you have to destroy a key file, until it is too late. Until then, it's just laying around waiting for some one to copy and crack. If you are paranoid enough to assume your opponent is going to torcher you to get your signature password, you should assume that he already has your keyfile, and is willing to torcher you to get it's password. Thus coercion and dicitonary attacks are moot points. That is, if your password is good enough. So, what's worse; guarding a high entopy password with a low entropy password, or trying to memorize a high entropy password? Harv Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> wrote: > > > Some people have been talking about using passwords as private keys. > (By using the passphrase as seed material for regenerating the private > and public key). > > I don't think this is a good idea. > > You can't forget passphrases. You can destroy private key files. > > Therefore you open yourself up to coercion, and forward secrecy is not > possbile with these schemes. This means it is less secure. > > The other reason it is less secure others commented on: you provide an > open target for dictionary attacks. I wouldn't want to do that, even > with high entropy passphrase, it loses one important line of defense: > unavailability of private key file. > > Adam > _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: Random array (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 17:33:29 +0100 > From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> > Subject: Re: Random array > A couple responders have said there is no SWAP_TIMES > which would work. But I don't understand why the > following wouldn't work: > > First of all, make sure that x and y can't be equal, since > there's no point in swapping an element with itself. This > should add a negligible amount of time. > > x=getrand(); > do > y=getrand(); > while (x == y); > > Now, simply calculate how many SWAP_TIMES it would take for it > to be equally as likely that an element would not be touched as > it would to land in its original spot. > > (255/256)^(t*2) = 1/256 > > or > > t = ln(1/256)/(2*ln(255/256)) > > or > > 708.3955 > > > Another anonymous wrote: > > In the following snippet of pseudo-code, what should the value of > SWAP_TIMES be to make the array A[] random, assuming > that getrand() returned a truly random integer between > 0 and 255 > > A[256]; > > for(i=0;i<SWAP_TIMES;i++){ > x=getrand(); > y=getrand(); > swap(A[x],A[y]); > } > > Thanks > Actualy the optimal value is even easier to calculate. Given an initial array, A(m), and the desire to randomly swap the contents until there is sufficient entropy to pass the various statistical tests leaves us with: Given m initial element and we are swapping them two at a time then we need to execute at most m/2 swaps to randomize the array. So, the optimal SWAP_TIMES ends up being, in this case, 128. This of course doesn't touch on the new rule above about testing for x=y. In which case you could simply do it over again. Now given that there are m elements and the odds of selecting any given one is 1/n and the odds of selecting it twice at one time is 1/n^2. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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