December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

An asshole using PGP
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just received a PGP-encryptd message from Douglas Floyd, just after explaining carefully the work that's needed to decrypt PGP messages. I dutifully clipped the article, moved the text into my text editor, fired up MacPGP, entered my key, etc. The message was banal, and is included below: ---begin his message--- What's wrong with putting your private key on a UNIX box? (Obviously, I AM root on the boxes I have the key on, and the boxes are firewalled to boot.) ---end his message--- There was no need for this to be PGPed, no need even to ask it, period, as I had already made the point about the dangers being for boxes one is *not* root on, etc. I conclude from this that Douglas Floyd is just an asshole. One I don't plan to ever respond to again. Only a prick would make a point to send me a PGP message, encrypted to my published key, only to make such a point. For some reason the number of fools and lightweights around here has jumped dramatically in recent months. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Easy PGP use from the Mac
by doug＠OpenMind.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For all those who have been complaining about the inconvenience of using PGP to sign their messages, decrypt received messages, etc., and who primarily use a Macintosh for their private mail reading... I use a set-up which is as simple as: 1) Type a message into a Eudora window 2) Double click on a desktop icon 3) Wait about 15 seconds, and the message in the window is replaced with a signed and/or encrypted version of the original message. (Plus typing in a recipient into dialog box for encryption, and entering a passphrase for signing -- or the passphrase can be "saved"). Decrypting and signature verification is almost as easy... but the decrypted text appears in a text editor window instead of a new Eudora window. No big deal. All disk based plaintext files can be automatically wiped during this process. All you need is: 1) Commercial Eudora for the Mac (costs about $50) 2) Applescript 1.1 (buy it now, or provided with System 7.5, due out soon) 3) MacPGP 2.6ui 4) Some carefully written scripts for combining the above three components. I found it necessary to tweak the scripts that someone else had written to do all of the above, but now it's all working great. The main disadvantage that I can see is that MacPGP 2.6ui is required to make this work (the "USA-domestic" MacPGP 2.6 does not have the required scripting support). But since you can configure 2.6ui to pretend to the outside world that it is regular 2.6, this doesn't seem like much of a problem for most people. By the way, Eudora comes with Unix-mail program interface scripts that enable many people to use it in combination with a terminal Unix account (such as a standard Netcom account). I'll be happy to provide more details/help on request, or to send a copy of my slightly modifed scripts. The desktop icons I alluded to in the beginning are just aliases to the scripts. Doug ___________________________________________________________________ Doug Cutrell General Partner doug(a)OpenMind.com Open Mind, Santa Cruz ===================================================================

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Re: Nuclear Weapons Material, Truly?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by perry(a)imsi.com ("Perry E. Metzger") on Wed, 24 Aug 9:10 AM >(I'm not sure >that people outside of the bomb building industry >really know *for sure* what the geometries used in the >atomic weapon that sets off the fusion reaction.) Perhaps. However, there is much detailed design and production info in the "Nuclear Weapons Databook" series: U. S. Nuclear Warhead Production, Volume II, 1987. U. S. Nuclear Warhead Facility Profiles, Volume III, 1987. Soviet Nuclear Weapons, Volume IV, 1989. And others. The series provides pretty detailed textual and graphic descriptions of the entire history of design, production, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons. These are written by the folks at Natural Resources Defense Council and are available there and from Ballinger Division, Harper and Row, New York. The beloved McGeorge Bundy is quoted on the covers: "A powerful antidote to the simplistic deceptions peddled with such zeal from high places . . . contains more facts about the past, present and future of [U. S. nuclear] forces than have ever been put in one place before . . . meticulous and responsible . . . the effect is overwhelming." They are mesmerizing. But then maybe they were written only for the ignorant. John

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No Subject
by dfloyd＠runner.utsa.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To whom it may concern: In a previous mailing called "An Asshole using PGP" which does have a valid message and my signature, he basically killfiles me in the worst manner possible. Before sentence is passed, and the sound of a thousand plonks is sent in my direction, I would like to speak my part. In an earlier mailing, Mr. May was mentioning how annoying it is to obtain a PGP encrypted message, download it to their home machine, and then find a message like "wow... pgp's kwl man.". I composed the reply that Tcmay so generously posted for everyone to marvel at. I signed it, but re-read it, and DID found it to be as one would put it "nitrogenous cow waste." I composed another reply in the same directory as the original, which is irrelevent now because of this ad hominum attack. To make a long story short, I mailed the wrong file. If tcmay feels that I am such a low life that I am worthy of the plonk sound, so be it. I refuse to have judgement passed on me by the whole of this list without speaking my part. Tim May definitely has more clout than I do, and the people on the list respect him, while I am less anarchistic, more conservative about the way the government is. (I do NOT like the pressure of GAK and the Klinton Klown stuff though, let me make this clear.) Again, I am not asking for anything, but you not to killfile me for a mistake, though stupid it may be. I apologize to you, Mr. May, but I find it rude for you to take something out of private mail, and onto this list. Unless there is some major change in circumstances, consider this the last mailing from me on this as I will NOT trouble this list, and go on personal flamewars. My mailing address is dfloyd(a)runner.jpl.utsa.edu, and if you have any problems, please take this to me. I will not have this mailing list, the only mailing list I've really participated on polluted by petty ad hominum attacks. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLlsHoXDkimqwdwa5AQFZSAP8CPzDk8g8HZcQ0KH1O33k2mNgABTGslPG q2YSmuQqn6SKoNRt5VNVSlZJNrLcVbx4umo+1tw0xTSWJBQlHr57B8/+innhop3m ErNK1Pais/xnkRU3Mw0D9ya+Oy+CLM7nwEhE/IYSxYAU9l7Nd3fKqLD13nZJij8w diyNr7WVzI4= =F2jA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Voluntary Governments?
by Jim Dixon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message <9408232042.AA18345(a)fnord.sybgate.sybase.com> Elton Wildermuth writes: > Here's the closest applicable dictionary definition of "government", The closest "applicable" definition is not the SOLE definition, it is only definition 1 in your dictionary, and even then [I won't go into boring detail] the dictionary meaning is wider than the narrow reading you are trying to apply to it. > "Rule", or "political ... control" are only ever exercised through force. > People keep using that word, "enforce", without looking carefully at it. > >From the same dictionary: "to put or keep in force; compel obedience to." Have you never admired someone so much that that person's displeasure was a compelling force? > >I grew up in a small town of 5,000. It had a city government. The > >county government was in the same town. No one denies that California > >has a government, I think. And then there was the US government. And > >we had city police, the sheriff's office, the Highway Patrol, and the > >FBI paid an occasional visit. > > Uh ... you _do_ understand that that's a specious argument, yes? Uh ... you _do_ understand that that is a silly comment, yes? I was illustrating some of the common uses of the word. Linguistic arguments are best met with linguistic replies, not political bullshit. Your insistence that there is only one 'true' government in the United States, and that all other governments are in some sense derivative, does not agree with my reading of the US Constitution, but this is not a matter that I, for one, will pursue. > Here, someone will surely object that by this definition, the Mafia can > be considered a government. Well, yes, of course. It has quasi-governmental functions in southern Italy. > Well, if they can successfully kick the > existing thugs off of some plot of ground, and then defend it against > all comers, then yes: that's exactly what they'll be. How else do you > suppose that governments become established? This is supposed to be a revelation? -- Jim Dixon

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Actually using strong crypto on a routine basis.
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by jkreznar(a)ininx.com (John E. Kreznar) on Wed, 24 Aug 4:30 AM >Stick to your guns, Rick. Even cypherpunks founders >can become corrupted. No. Tim says: Don't do what I do, do what I say. Do your homework. Clean your room. You embarass me. Get a job. Get a haircut. Get a life. Don't talk back. When I was your age . . . Listen to me . . . Shut the fuck up. I'm sorry, I love you. Every parent of rambunctious kids talks like this. Sigh. John

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Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:08 PM 8/23/94 -0400, Jason W Solinsky wrote: >Well we agree that the selling point is economic efficiency. But "anonymity >reduces overhead" ? I keep getting tangled up in that. I'll try again. Anonymity is not the issue. Strong Cryptography is the issue. Anonymity comes from strong crypto. Like I said before, anonymity is the byproduct of using strong crypto to build a digital cash system. It's like what I said about flight in this same thread. It turns out the best way to go really fast is to fly (at least until someone builds an evacuated tunnel with a magnetic levitation train in it, anyway). In inventing aviation, we discovered how to go really fast. It turns out that going really fast is a cheaper way to do things if time is valuable. Being able to fly, while an end in itself, is also a byproduct of wanting to get somewhere fast, at least in economic terms. It turns out that in creating an anonymous digital cash system, you can do very cheap, irrefutable transactions offline in an internetworked environment. That's cheaper for a whole lot of reasons, a relatively minor one being the ability to pool the cash without a lot of transaction recordkeeping. You don't have to know who gave you each piece of money in order to find who stiffed you, if it happens. The reduced overhead increases economic efficiency. There are other reasons for not doing on-line transactions. Including credit checks, interest calculations on outstanding balances, vendor reserve requirements, transaction threading, on-line wait states and bandwidth, etc. It's considerable. In addition, I'll forward to you off-line the Eric Hughes postings that got me started on this. They were put here on 8/19 at 12:20, 1:02, and 4:24 and 4:43. Cheez, looks like I'm citing scripture here. I feel like one of those fundamnmentalists you see in football endzones on TV. You know, the guys with the sign that says "John 6:66". ;-). > There are alot of reasons why I think anonymity is important, but I fail >to see any significant economic advantage that anonymity confers to a person >who otherwise couldn't care less about it. I think like stellar formation, evolution and economic progress, the privacy of digital cash may be a happy accident resulting from the activities of a random process (internet commerce) looking for a way to make itself more efficient. It happens. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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Computer Security Conference & Exibit
by Claborne, Chris 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Has anyone been to the Computer Security Conference & Exhibition? If so, what did you think of it. I am thinking of goin to the 21st annual on Nov 14-16 in Washington D.C. PGP key signing party??? 2 -- C --

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Pentium pitch
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

NY Times sez: Intel will pitch the Pentium chip on comedy shows like "Saturday Night Live" and "Frasier." The challenge of the new campaign will be to talk about technology without having viewers laugh it off as so much technobabble. Stuart Elliott: Advertising. [D16]. Email copies available. John

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Re: Credit cards, false names, and important details
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:25 AM 8/23/94 -0500, Jim Hart wrote: > >How is this simple? A credit card company sure as hell wants >to known who you truly are and where you truly live. It must >be able to collect its debt and mark your credit rating. >Applying for a credit card with false name or Social Security >number is fraud, with heavy punishments. Or are there, yet >again, numerous details you are neglecting to mention? > >Jim Hart >hart(a)chaos.bsu.edu There is no such thing as a false name. You can still call yourself anything you like (and spell it any way). If you are trying to pretend to be another actual person, there may be fraud involved. No one's busted the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus -- Kawize(sp?) Infume -- for using a name other than his birth name. The issuers of secured credit cards vary in the amount of info they want about you. Citibank's secured credit card app asks for almost as much info as their normal app. Some secure card issuers just want to know your name address and SS #. The overseas issuers of bank debit Visa cards don't want your SS# but usually these days want a bank reference. Using a nome de guerre and an accomodation address is not fraud. They asked for your name and address and you supplied it. It is an interesting question as to whether or not using a phoney SS# would be fraud. This is particularly uncertain if the bank would have issued you a secured credit card even if you gave your "real" SS#. If you are just trying to protect your privacy, and not trying to induce the bank to do anything that it would not have done anyway, is there fraud since the "lie" is not material to the granting of credit in the case of secured credit cards? It will not come up in any case. Note too that the SS# requirement is there not because the bank wants it but because the *government* requires it. (A credit card account is actually a bank account.) You are not lying to the credit card issuer but to the State that is forcing them to invade your privacy. Lying to the government is not fraud because you (or I at least) am not attempting to get anything of value from them. The "Necessity Defense" can always be used to justify lying to the government. DCF "You speak Treason!" - The Lady Marion Fitzwalter "Fluently!" - Sir Robin of Loxley Not from the politically correct version.

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Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
by kkirksey＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Mark Terka says: >> Not to mention the fact that without tritium, the "trigger" for nuclear >> weapons (and extremely expensive and rare at $ 100m a gram) all you have >> is a radioactive paperweight. > >This is sheer ignorance. First of all, tritium is not nearly that >expensive. Its quite cheap, in fact, and can be manufactured without >that much trouble. Second of all, tritium is not a necessary component >of non-thermonuclear (i.e. hydrogen) bombs. Third, tritium isn't a >"trigger". I remember reading an article recently (though I can't remember where) about making a pure fusion bomb without the need for a fission trigger. It involved using tritium and a class a VERY high velocity high explosives known as ballotechnics. According to this article, these bombs could be made as small or smaller than a simple fission bomb and would be much harder to detect, the upshot being that this kind of device was more of a concern than a fission bomb vis a vis terrorist useage. Does anyone have any more technical details on this type of fusion device? I'll have to see if I can dig out that article sometime. Ken = Ken Kirksey And the Clinton administration launched an attack on = = kkirksey(a)world.std.com people in Texas because those people were religious = = Mac Guru & Developer nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by = = religious nuts with guns. - P.J. O'Rourke = -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLlsSZesZNYlu+zuBAQHbxAP9HEFBKAyEgCGFdazub6WlGoqa9Kn/dX+1 LiwwNFA5i+ripKd9MaQbDBCqJOSNyy5Pj/4O7H8K0SBasWVkwzWNrmQ2tShnrFkm tDk9rsyhzbWKVNcJUxbpz/zlmuxtIAx8MYMW3LueqWCNDESUKQA46DWZ0owe8P1g JLHNADQgVHs= =eUAH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Remailer-list pinging frequency
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, I believe that I am providing a useful service with my remailer list, but I have received one complaint about the frequency of pinging. I send hourly pings. This is helpful for quickly identifying remailers which have gone off the net. If you don't want me to do this, let me know. I apologize for not having brought this up before I started with the hourly pings. My pinging script can be configured to adjust ping frequency on a per-remailer basis. If you would like a greater interval between pings, I would be happy to do this. I already do this for penet. An anonymous poster from rebma criticized ping traffic as a way to improve remailer mix. It might be that the two goals (improving mix and collecting good statistics) are at odds, but I would be willing to modify my ping script to make the pings more like mix-improving traffic. Ideas include: 1. Encrypt the ping, so it looks like so much PGP traffic. 2. Pad it with a random amount of junk (but not _too_ much :-), so traffic analysis based on size will fail. 3. Chain it through other remailers. A good approach might be to choose two random remailers out of the "top five," and sandwich rebma between them. The drawback is that it penalizes rebma for their latency and failure rate, but this might be acceptable. 4. Randomize the time that the ping is sent. If the operator of the rebma remailer would be so kind, please let me know if and when I have been de-Detweilered, and whether you would like me to implement any of these suggestions. Also, I plan to autopost the remailer list every Monday, to both cypherpunks and alt.privacy.anon-server. This is my first experience with spamming the net, so if anybody has any objections or cautions, I would like to hear them. Raph Levien

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Anonymous questionnaires
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My partner is a participant in a long term psychological study. I have been asked to fill out a questionnaire to aid in this study. Some of the questions address issues that I would never answer non-anonymously. After speaking with the research director, I ended up with the following problem: is there a way that would allow the institute to 1. Correlate my answers to the answers of my partner. 2. Verify that I have indeed sent in a filled out questionnaire (and send me a check for participating). 3. Allow a supervisory agency, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to verify that the researchers did not just make up all the data - that is to allow an audit. 4. Protect my privacy by making it impossible to correlate my name to the answers given. I would very much like to help to advance medical knowledge, but am concerned what might happen once the institute is forced to hand over all accumulated data to the Kommunal Kare Kontrol Kommittee under the Health Care and Crime Prevention Act of 1998. The researchers seem to think that there is no way to satisfy all the above criteria. I, after following discussions on this list for a long time, am not so sure. I intend to forward any workable suggestions (if the problem even has a solution) to the researchers. I am sure that better privacy protection would not only increase the number of participants, but also the quality of the data. Thank you all in advance, -- Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> PGP public key by finger

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Re: Brands cash
by Rick H. Wesson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Wed Aug 24 08:20 PDT 1994 > Received: from relay2.UU.NET (relay2.UU.NET [192.48.96.7]) by ar.com (8.6.9/8.6.5) with ESMTP id IAA10560 for <wessorh(a)ar.com>; Wed, 24 Aug 1994 08:20:58 -0700 > Received: from toad.com by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP > id QQxeiv09436; Wed, 24 Aug 1994 11:15:13 -0400 > Received: by toad.com id AA11441; Wed, 24 Aug 94 08:08:47 PDT > Received: from newdaisy.ee.und.ac.za by toad.com id AA11434; Wed, 24 Aug 94 08:08:28 PDT > Received: by newdaisy.ee.und.ac.za (Smail3.1.28.1 #12) > id m0qdJvP-0007VlC; Wed, 24 Aug 94 17:07 GMT+0200 > Date: Wed, 24 Aug 1994 17:07:36 +0200 (GMT+0200) > From: Alan Barrett <barrett(a)daisy.ee.und.ac.za> > Subject: Re: Brands cash > To: Hal <hfinney(a)shell.portal.com> > Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" > Content-Length: 332 > > > Unfortunately, I don't think perl is suitable, as it has no facilities for > > multiprecision arithmetic. > > There is some multiprecision arithmetic in perl, but it's implemented as > user-level functions, not as a builtin feature. Look at the bigint.pl, > bigrat.pl and bigfloat.pl packages supplied with perl4. > > --apb (Alan Barrett) > > I'm in the process of adding the mpi library that comes with PGP in perl, Perl is fairly extensible... I just figured that it would be a good common ground for codeing... -Rick

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RE: dfloyd's faux pas :) :)
by Philippe Nave 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I composed the reply > that Tcmay so generously posted for everyone to marvel at. I signed it, > but re-read it, and DID found it to be as one would put it "nitrogenous > cow waste." Amazing how that happens sometimes, hmmm? The half-life of an e-mail message is about 10 seconds; after a few minutes have passed, the bogon flux density goes clear out of sight. > > To make a long story short, I mailed the wrong file. > My God! A member of the glorious CryptoReich made a MISTAKE ?!? By now, it should be obvious that Real Cypherpunks(TM) **never** make mistakes... [wheee, ha, ha! ROTFL] > I apologize to you, Mr. May, but I find it rude for you to take something > out of private mail, and onto this list. I agree; reposting personal mail without prior consent is terribly rude. > > Unless there is some major change in circumstances, consider this > the last mailing from me on this as I will NOT trouble this list, > and go on personal flamewars. What the hell - if you walk erect and sleep indoors, you're as qualified to 'trouble the list' as the rest of us. Philippe "Anarchy means never having to put up with shit from your 'leaders'"

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DSPs (was: Nuclear Weapons Materials)
by Jim Dixon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message <9408241340.AA03320(a)snark.imsi.com> perry(a)imsi.com writes: > > I've been wondering recently, by the way, about what advantages doing > some of this stuff on DSPs might have. DSPs are not magical chips, but > they are optimized for a few tasks, including, typically, fast integer > multiplies. More precisely, fast integer inner products. > IDEA and modular exponentiation both require lots of fast > integer multiplies. Would it make sense to use DSPs as co-processors > to things like Pentiums to speed up these processes? -- Jim Dixon

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College Email Monitoring Refs?
by sw＠smds.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A friend relates how their college computer administrators "reserve the right" to keep all email messages and read them at will. Would someone send me some references to groups who are dealing with this sort of situation? Please mail to my home address: sw(a)tiac.net Thanks, --Steve

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Windows Front End PGP 2.6
by John L Tocher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anybody know where I can find a windows front end that works with PGP 2.6? Any feedback on this would be appreciated! Thanks, John Tocher ????Windows front end: PGP WinFront from Ross Barclay????

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Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
by usura＠vox.hacktic.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

khijol!erc(a)apple.com (Ed Carp [Sysadmin]) writes: :> In a fusion, or H Bomb, the tritium (which is just hydrogen with an :> extra two neutrons) is that which produces the boom -- the main fuel, :> as it were. Its a "neutron source" only in the weakest possible sense :> -- the same way dynamite might be considered to need nitroglycerine as :> a "neutron source". (I'm not sure that people outside of the bomb :> building industry really know *for sure* what the geometries used in :> the atomic weapon that sets off the fusion reaction.) : : I don't understand your point. The earliest devices used a pie shape : with a wedge cut out. The actual geometry is rather unimportant to : getting a fission reaction - but it *is* important if you want to : maximize your yield. One doesnot need to detonate the Uranium/Plutonium one can poison the watersuplies and make havoc with The Simple Bear Necessities of life. -- Exit! Stage Left. Alex de Joode <usura(a)vox.hacktic.nl>

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Re: Voluntary Governments?
by Jim Dixon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message <199408231846.NAA08977(a)zoom.bga.com> Jim choate writes: > You strike me as a person who trusts governments. Thank you. I am an American who has spent has most of his adult life outside the USA because (a) bureaucratic errors ruined my career prospects, (b) my involvement in the Indochina wars left me sickened by American stupidity and convinced for life of the futility of large-scale government enterprises, (c) [later] certain elements in the Federal Gov't had it in for me (they had me up in front of a grand jury at one point), (d) certain political bureaucrats at other levels of government felt the same way and sued me for millions, and (e) American blindness to the outside world is sometimes very hard to take. I trust the government to extort every penny they can from me and then to waste it on idle bureacrats and in the pursuit of votes. I trust government to be arbitrary and stupid. Need I go on? However, I also understand that government performs certain essential functions. Where I grew up in California, there were still people living who could remember Mexican bandits raiding across the border. And I teach my children that if they are in trouble they should look for a policeman. And they go to school to learn things that they can't or won't at home. But the discussion was about the use of certain words, including "government". There are people on the list who insist on using the word in an abnormal way and then attack those who use it in a normal way. My preference for clean and simple English does not make me a lackey of "the government". -- Jim Dixon

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Remailer-list pinging frequency
by usura＠vox.hacktic.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

raph(a)kiwi.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Raph Levien) writes: : 1. Encrypt the ping, so it looks like so much PGP traffic. A good idea, if a c'punk remailer cannot decrypt a message it should be considerd "down". : 2. Pad it with a random amount of junk (but not _too_ much :-), so : traffic analysis based on size will fail. That would be the start of RemailerNet. :) : 3. Chain it through other remailers. A good approach might be to : choose two random remailers out of the "top five," and sandwich rebma : between them. The drawback is that it penalizes rebma for their : latency and failure rate, but this might be acceptable. One question about your "suggested path", it looks like you thake the tree fastes remailers [if using kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu] If the two remailers from Hal Finney are consecutive [ie. 1 and 2 fastes] a suggestion to mail from alumi to portal would IMHO be wrong, because for security reasons both remailers should be regarded the same, since they are operated by the same person. [same goes ofcourse for the usura(a)hacktic.nl and the vox.hacktic.nl remailers wich are operated by me] -- Exit! Stage Left. Alex de Joode <usura(a)vox.hacktic.nl>

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Re: Remailer-list pinging frequency
by Pierre Uszynski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Raph Levien (raph(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu) says: > I believe that I am providing a useful service with my remailer > list, but I have received one complaint about the frequency of > pinging. If I may suggest without implementing :-) use adaptive pinging. There is little point in sending one ping per hour while getting no answer, then getting 24 answers all at once, and then doing the same thing all over again the next day... A more general way to put this is that pinging much more frequently than necessary does not give any more info. If you measure up time and latency both in days, there is no need to ping more than once a day. If you measure up time and latency respectively in days and minutes, there is still no need for very frequent pinging. The only case where you need frequent pinging is when a site keeps going up and down and you want to distinguish latency due to down periods from operating latency.... But from a practical standpoint, these need not really be distinguished. Most mailers are configured correctly to retry failing connections, so that connections that are down only for a few hours are seen only as long latency. In conclusion: Start with pings at random phase, and 180 minute period. If for the last 16 pings of average period n minutes (random phase), the average latency is more than 4xn minutes, triple the period. Use a maximum period of once a day. If the average latency is less than n minutes, divide by three the period. Use a minimum period of one hour. You could do the same thing for very stable sites (stable latency): they require less pinging. Short latency stable sites need not be pinged every hour. The rule may have to be fixed a bit one way or the other, but it would help both your pinging script and slow remote sites (personal remailers) by cutting traffic for both. Pierre. pierre(a)shell.portal.com Still, there is no harm in making pinging traffic look more like real traffic. Like you said chaining is questionable for pinging (and if it comes from a remailer site, and goes back to a remailer site, it would not be obvious if it still met 1, 2 and 4): > 1. Encrypt the ping, so it looks like so much PGP traffic. > > 2. Pad it with a random amount of junk (but not _too_ much :-), so > traffic analysis based on size will fail. > > 3. Chain it through other remailers. A good approach might be to > choose two random remailers out of the "top five," and sandwich rebma > between them. The drawback is that it penalizes rebma for their > latency and failure rate, but this might be acceptable. > > 4. Randomize the time that the ping is sent.

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Re: Anonymous questionnaires
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Lucky Green asks how to: 1. Correlate my answers to the answers of my partner. 2. Verify that I have indeed sent in a filled out questionnaire (and send me a check for participating). 3. Allow a supervisory agency, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to verify that the researchers did not just make up all the data - that is to allow an audit. 4. Protect my privacy by making it impossible to correlate my name to the answers given. The following a complicated and impractical solution (but it was a fun exercise): First, assume everybody participating in the study is on the Net and is crypto savvy. :-) Each participant generates a new public-key pair for the study. The supervisory agency generates a new public-key pair and gives a copy of the public key to each participant. They do not give a copy to the researchers. The researchers generate a new public-key pair and give a copy of the public key to the supervisory agency and each participant. Finally, each participant generates a symmetric key, blinds it, and has the supervisory agency sign the blinded symmetric key. Ok, assume Bob and Alice are a couple participating in the study. Bob and Alice each get a copy of the questionaire, the researcher's public key, and the supervisory agencies' public key. They each generate and blind a symmetric key and have it signed by the supervisory agency. Bob fills in his copy of the questionaire and then signs an MD5 hash of his completed questionaire. Alice does the same. Bob gives his signed hash value to Alice and Alice gives her signed hash value to Bob. Bob appends Alice's signed hash value to the end of his completed questionaire. Alice appends Bob's signed hash value to the end of her completed questionaire. Neither sees the other's completed questionaire. Bob now signs his questionaire with his private key. Alice signs her questionaire with her private key. Bob encrypts his (now signed) questionaire and his public key with his symmetric key. He next encrypts the signed (and now unblinded) symmetric key with the supervisory agencies' public key. Finally, he encrypts those items, along with a cleartext copy of the completed and signed questionaire, with the researcher's public key and e-mails the result to the researchers using a chain of anonymous remailers. :-) Alice does the same. Ok, the researches receive an anonymous e-mail message from somebody (call him Ted) that is encrypted with their public key generated specifically for this study. They decrypt the message and get four items: Ted's completed and signed questionaire, Ted's encrypted and signed questionaire, Ted's encrypted public key, and Ted's encrypted and signed symmetric key. Since Ted's public key is encrypted with his symmetric key and the symmetric key is encrypted with the agencies' public key, the researchers cannot read these items. Also they cannot verify the signature on the cleartext copy of the questionaire. However, they check that everything appears to conform to the requirements of the test, so they credit Ted with completing the questionaire and e-mail him (via the encrypted reply block) an IOU signed by the researcher's private key. More on the IOU later. The researchers collect all the anonymous replies and send them as a group to the supervisory agency. The supervisory agency decrypts all the encrypted symmetric keys using its private key, validates the signatures on those keys, then uses the symmetric keys to decrypt the participants' public keys and encrypted questionaires. Since the symmetric keys were blinded when the supervisory agency signed them, the agency does not have enough information to be able to determine which participant completed which questionaire. All the agency can do is verify that the questionaires were completed by people who had symmetric keys signed by the agency. Since the questionaires where e-mailed to the researchers via anonymous remailers, the researchers can't collude with the supervisory agency to determine who complete which questionaire. The agency sends the decrypted public keys and questionaires back to the researchers. The purpose of the signed symmetric keys was to help prove to the agency that the researchers did not fabricate the study results. This is not perfect, the researchers could have pretended to be all of the participants and could have filled out all of the questionaires. However, if they did that, they would be unable to produce any real participants, if they were ever challenged. The researchers use the decrypted public keys and the signed MD5 hashes to group the questionaires into related pairs. The researches can compare the decrypted questionaires sent back from the agency with the plaintext copies received from the participants to verify that the supervisory agency did not substitute any of the real questionaires with bogus ones. The researchers can now analyze the questionaire data, but they don't know which participant filled out which questionaire. However, the researchers do know which questionaire is paired with which other questionaire. More on the IUO: How does a participant redeem the IUO without revealing information which could allow the researchers or the supervisory agency to pair them up with their completed questionaire? Well, the IUO is really a blinded message sent to the researchers in the anonymous message along with the other stuff. If the researches are satisfied with the plaintext questionaire, they will sign the blinded IUO and send it back via the encrypted reply block. The participant unblinds the signed IUO. The participant can now redeem the IOU offline without giving anyone any information other than the fact the person was a participant in the study. Of course, if there was real anonymous digital cash, there would be no need to use an IOU. How to prevent a totally fabricated study: As mentioned above, the researchers could fabricate the entire study by pretending to be all of the participants, getting known symmetric keys signed and so forth. How can the supervisory agency determine the difference between a real anonymous participant and a bogus anonymous participant? It is at this point that we have to step out of cyberspace and back into the real world. Ideally, the supervisory agency needs to determine two things: 1) All of the participants were real people. 2) None of the participants colluded with the researchers. Requirement 1 can be satisfied by having the supervisory agency redeem the IOUs using money they escrowed on behalf of the researchers. When the participant comes in to redeem the IOU (or snail mails it in), the supervisory agency can check the ID (driver's license, SS#, whatever) of the participant, verify the signature on the IOU, and hand over (or mail) the check. The signed IOU will not give the agency the ability to determine which questionaire the participant filled out. I know of no way to enforce requirement 2 without violating the anonymity of the participants. The researchers could hire a bunch of people to redeem bogus (but correctly signed) IOUs, fooling the supervisory agency. The only way I can think of to prevent participant/researcher collusion is to have independent auditors standing over the participants while they fill out the questionaires. Not what Lucky Green had in mind, I'm sure. So anyways, there it is, a complex and impractical solution that still doesn't solve all the problems. Oh well. Time to go back and work at my real job. Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

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U & Pu "poisoning of the environment"
by Brad Dolan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: IN%"usura(a)vox.hacktic.nl" >To: IN%"cypherpunks(a)toad.com" >CC: >Subj: RE: Nuclear Weapons Material [discussion about basement bomb building deleted] >One doesnot need to detonate the Uranium/Plutonium one can poison the >watersuplies and make havoc with The Simple Bear Necessities of life. >-- >Exit! Stage Left. >Alex de Joode <usura(a)vox.hacktic.nl> Well, I wouldn't want to snort the stuff daily, but its toxicity has been overrated in the popular press. Epidemiologic studies of workers [even wartime workers with impressive body burdens/ exposures] in a number of uranium bomb-making centers have found ~ no health effects. I haven't heard much about Pu-workers. Groeten, bdolan(a)well.sf.ca.us

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Message for 0x7CF5048D
by Random Factor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

sorry to inflict this on everyone. i've redirected followup elsewhere. randy -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.6 hIwCDYaeGXz1BI0BBACzJWMo49PMXrCnV5SLci/MqoUmldyAPY3WCyhOC/PYB++X Bpb+zOqs3kTJpaT0f9hwpiLHpB96lPkxjFHAP9k+lgekjGpMcICB/6xBjp8S1D0q L7wmiwZ933HUEorPrPOIlVJ/7Ufv8Y1uJbTZR7CTDoYlU4IP3Y/IE8/tWoIghKYA AAQw9t6doZJceiZVYBkY3TwgH1pTZdfvDTTssyucqkp6A09ClKpEgzzfKZnAXYZ8 c/QXd8thWqcLBERx4aPXfcW09w8knO6DUZgkk3pFHmdGshp3/gcTaO/ko8ecbI7V OnzPn5hjONWRYGuYB9praK5Fe/j//UVjTlaY3Tb5QY1lK+GSLFU7ktiuMXqagQYK 72mN8wpCZZlh1eGThu89UwsGjfiqFzvpmJTWa9+U1VtX+DNXlOYkcC5K5gqmDb97 XuDNakLX79O4wjeBJVx5xOglqEHS+wnt09EwG+IuwLxgPPVKpnm0qhAJNyt8Syhj XLiAaqlShOQIaXNp/qWKGrrIMcDvzBBI/2LlXHJZ/h5Ykl/c4/+FeqYOx26uMbCk SiI4LRsvwFE9cR/jlgPyzGRVsLB6WagUN8uhLXkxQKwMNlDSU5ZFOQSOZ2HuYwZc EgDQwtSXEgFBNgCKGhogQ2SyEj0GnH2bDLPxiGgM1svL1VzwogvgV6mS0wLed56V qT8pXdCSzY7LJCvVJ2kmnsqMl5y9E1wmqujeBQdIhr/SqJ2W4PXTgHiyYxKUvOWK 6SJdxMxCWdO8Vhr9oqpERSn0RuC2wsroNiposGaIvtzha5P975QmNZJDzupcCtmQ T8bXvK9loVfuKxtxgH2rc8IFjHPWhqrIkvUaq6mOUajIiY+DKzT1X6+Pus7RKnl+ EMdavCLY8tynKzkiHobPK5eUSo9XrwYMfaMCibAS+2DXFD83CDK7AoUfRnLA73ID xHb6TRw3ocHfKRyk8n+mwj6VEGN4RQIy1rgAtildynQCJC3H7qW6CAJQ/kfojBLf Cu+Au8GiPyGR8u3m2tgZgI4sqibOn5Xd5q5Ju4OiTYWZiXuQFjHiDUfTCQLojjf0 F8x33jl+c3jjyNM+L4xBs8mqXOFyvGaeQY1IyrAMYddVWHXU/NwJk/S73UBCXAaz i3r16GH7QsQ2GQiNvjqitkZOnP7rRgn2DExXnN2WrMbQID8kCV5WU8kGlKkdhPUK KxrpL6dJ49gPVOSxvRwWXujXaWvpKGtwBQ9sk6fVvhqilmA3TtSJ0u+vpPIWzSJ7 idML1PW5UG+E4j5lJpvZAwUEB9DRs54b1zlZ2kThDlic4R9N5akHvih8dimT/iFK qXxHt7nsExCW5kX0HFJVxj+4iEw77w7W9evo+M7JJW9ZWcNxk8P1SoYpD8I57b0c OUv+znOMbYcZqex2UuO0BworlIf+hEjS1spgUU8YlWvJaqRt7vQ0iXkGvebhYmTT BPM8AiPrJpQzoBEwBdDZ6ytWkbBTjb9UpDH/KFHPB+T1hRzB1DYuwI6nodIwh4aW zsWBahfhVtxZwRAHoC+ii70wedl28nwz+mAdBFvNl4Lh9WjYtE8x9pue2iCmWTuY X5Ts8zreyBD9a87/NbPcqucuhQ== =R4uo -----END PGP MESSAGE-----

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