December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Chaining through Soda
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Could someone give me some advice on chaining? I'm thinking of bouncing > a message fisrt thru hacktic and then soda (as you can Usenet post from > there) but need some tips as i seem to have trouble getting the encryption > sequences correct. I dunno. Has anyone succeeded in doing that? I can't recall ever getting a chained and encrypted message posted through soda. Messages sent there as plaintext seem to get posted just fine. Could it be that: 1.) They wont post CHAINED Usenet bulletins, or; 2.) They are rejecting messages encrypted with PGP 2.3a rather than 2.6. Any success stories?

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Re: Position Escrow System
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

But for now, the auxiliary Portable Position Escrow Devices (cellphones, to mix in the OJ thread) augment the satellite support. Under no circumstances shoudl citizen-units be permitted to put their PPEDs in moving vehicles driven by other people; fortunately, existing littering laws prevent people from tossing their cellphones into moving pickup trucks, and the forthcoming ban on Gun Transportation Devices should eliminate pickup trucks before the population as a whole notices. Meanwhile, plans to restrict citizen-units to their Position Escrow Zones unless carrying PPEDs are being evaluated, and a cost-benefit analysis versus enhancing the planned SmartCard systems will be forthcoming. ... And they think we're just working for the Post Office....

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RE: Beware of Roman Catholic Corruption
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ralph.Stokes(a)f1611.n375.z1.fidonet.org (Ralph Stokes) wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > > Beware of the Satanic conspiracy of the WHORISH Roman Catholic Church. The > Pope and his puppets have attempted to infiltrate and subvert the > Protestant Christian church using corrupt modern translations of the Bible. > These are nothing more than religious filth that have spewed forth from the > deceitful pens of Satan-inspired men in league with the Vatican. Don't > let them lure you into following them into Hell. The 1611 Authorized (King > James) Version of the Holy Bible is the only book that God ever wrote. All > other alleged translations are frauds written by the Devil himself. > > For further information regarding this damnable Satanic conspiracy, contact > me: > > Ralph Stokes, sysop King James Bible BBS, Millbrook, AL > Internet address: ralph.stokes(a)f1611.n375.z1.fidonet.org > Fidonet address: Ralph Stokes (1:375/1611) > BBS #: (205) 285-5948 > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: 2.3a > > iQCVAgUBLf5XxlD7OIX0EWM5AQG1sgP/fdbLsmV6M89n/zZbW6I3Cjmup99BGaYm > YEw2oernsmnn7cOuCM9IwZkOy24ggVXIBoD2yRhuXJ7P/7aecXchV8cERZhPuDpi > 0XPTFuYeAeAIt3uV13yNAzVDYvLGNK/eWwIqjSw16IevOHLjtbw1kGS6lu9XgRFE > g5YsARSzQ5I= > =TEbX > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- It looks like Ralph Stokes has finally learned about Internet and Usenet gateways and is now spreading his prenicious religious bigotry beyond the borders of Fido-land. (He spammed several Usenet newsgroups with this malicious diatribe, too) Mr. Stokes is infamous for promulgating hatred and intolerance on certain religious echoes on Fidonet. He is one of those rare breed of fanatics called "Ruckmanites" who follow the xenophobic rantings of an ultra-fundamentalist evangelist from Florida named Peter Ruckman. They have come to be know, less affectionately, as "WRECKmanites" or "Ruckbots". Stokes even dared to post his Fidonet/Internet addresses. I wonder if he's prepared for the response to his worldwide "spam" post? I guess he's about to learn! If you'd care to protest his net.abuse, a polite letter to his sysop, net coordinator, and alternate net cooordinator would probably be in order. The way Fidonet works, he'll be burning up their resources, too, so they should probably be made aware of your feelings. Because of the topology of the fidonet.org domain, appropriate addresses for complaint, at your discretion, are as follows: His sysop: sysop(a)f1611.n375.z1.fidonet.org His Net coordinator: sysop(a)f0.n375.z1.fidonet.org His alternate Net coordinator: sysop(a)f1.n375.z1.fidonet.org The operative expression on Fidonet, as concerns grounds for disciplining an abusive user, is "excessively annoying behavior". You might wish to make mention of that phrase in any letters that you write. In any event, reading his mail should "keep him off the streets" (or info super-highway) for awhile... :)

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Re: Having your own computer means never having....
by Jonathan Rochkind 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Beyond that, unrestrained encryption is dangerous to corporations, > because what's to stop a ticked off employee from encrypting > everything in the office as revenge for some imagined slight? If the bozo has write-priveledges to everything in the office, sounds like a problem with or without encryption. Or were you just suggesting that he was going to encrypt it all and mail it to a competitor? This too seems to be a problem with or without encryption; he can just copy to floppy and snailmail to a competitor. Same with industrial espionage of just about any kind; sure it makes it _easier_ for the hypothetical spy to do his dirty work, but it doesn't actually enable him to do anything fundamentally different then he could before. I can't think of any real security risks introduced by allowing employees the use of encryption, that weren't present already. Certainly none mentioned thus far fit the bill. Obviously properly used encryption can enable the corporation to keep info in the "hands", of only those people who are supposed to have it, actually. Although of course I'm not accusing you of suggesting that corporations shouldn't have access to good cryptology; you probably wouldn't be on the list if you thought that. I'm not completely sure how different it is to say that individuals give up their right to good cryptology upon being employed by a corporation, however.

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Re: Having your own computer means never having....
by khijol!erc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Actually, Apple has some really good concepts, using AOCE digital > signatures and products currently out for the corporate environment. The > automatic routing of digitally signed forms from one desk to another, with > the appropriate digital signatures on them, replacing normal forms. This > is the kind of thing I think you'll see making cryptographic inroad with > business. I think you're right. The ability to verify a signature that would be impossible to repudiate is a strong one. Tamperproof documents that preserve privacy are all powerful incentives for a company to adopt strong crypto and DSS. -- Ed Carp, N7EKG/VE3 ecarp(a)netcom.com, Ed.Carp(a)linux.org "What's the sense of trying hard to find your dreams without someone to share it with, tell me, what does it mean?" -- Whitney Houston, "Run To You"

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Andy Grove on Clipper
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

T >Denning, Andy Grove, and others. In this campaign, the second T >approach mentioned above will be dominant: a focus on pedophiles who T >"encrypt their list of victims," a focus on "terrorists who form T >virtual networks around the world," and a focus on "money launderers T >who use crypto anarchy to spread their poison." I agree of course that technological fixes are superior to political argument. In fact, I *use* technological fixes as a political argument. For example, "While you might like to censor video nasties, you should know that censorship is no longer technologically feasible. There are so many different communications channels that you can't possibly block all of them." It can be convenient to work on some anti Clipper/DTI soundbites though. Since coding sentences are more my specialty than coding software... "The administration wants us to spend $300 million of our own money to help them perform just a few wiretaps a year. It isn't worth it." "Yeah, and we could use torture to catch pedophiles too. Do you favor torture?" "Strong cypyto *prevents* crime by protecting people from criminals." "The government didn't think we needed strong crypto until the market demanded it. Why should we trust their judgement as to what kind we need?" "How does the government think that it can compete in a software and hardware market that will frustrate the brightest marketers around." "I guess the government thinks that forcing Microsoft, Novell, and IBM overseas so that they can incorporate strong crypto into their products is a good idea." DCF "Do you suppose the Feds can completely upgrade their hardware/software crypto system every 6 months to keep up with the market?" "In 1946, Soviet and U.S. electronics technology was approximately equal and the U.S. had a 10-year lead in nuclear weapons technology. By 1986, U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons technology was approximately equal but the U.S. had a more than 10-years lead in electronic technology." Trust the market. --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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Re: Another Cellular Vict
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com C.>No doubt this will eventually be marketed as a feature you can pay C.>extra for... intended so people can track their spouses' movements C.>so they know when they're getting home, if they're stuck in a traffic C.>jam, etc. Bell Atlantic already announced a joint venture with one of the electronic navigation companies to supply drivers with position info using cellular triangulation. DCF --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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RE: Beware of Roman Catho
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

N >It looks like Ralph Stokes has finally learned about Internet and N >Usenet gateways and is now spreading his prenicious religious N >bigotry beyond the borders of Fido-land. (He spammed several At least he's using PGP. We are making progress. Nothing wrong with a strong expression of religious opinion (as long as it was limited to the religious USENET groups and mailing lists). At least he's not asking for a new government program. Must be a lot of papists out there if they fear hearing the "truth" once in a while. DCF "If the language of the Authorized Version (1611) was good enough for our Lord Jesus Christ -- it's good enough for me." -- actually, not a bad read. --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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No Subject
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There are a few things to watch out for. First, it's really easy for subtle (or not so subtle) biases to be present in a noise source. These can be due to component drift, external noise (i.e., power supply coupling), etc. You want a design that isn't sensitive to such things, if possible. Second -- and it's partly a corollary to the first -- the designs I've seen for real RNGs have always included a scrambler step, to mix up the bits, account for biases, etc. The first such scrambler was, I think, described by von Neuman himself. I have the citation in my office; I'll try to post it tomorrow.

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Re: Having your own computer means never having....
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I can't think of any real security risks introduced by allowing employees the use of encryption, that weren't present already. Certainly none mentioned thus far fit the bill. Have a look at Matt Blaze's paper from Usenix last week. He describes a smart-card based key escrow system for file encryption -- the risk to the company is that an employee will quit, forget a password, walk in front of a truck, etc. -- at which point they're unable to get at the files that this person created -- files that the company owns in accordance with the provision of the free-market contract willingly agreed to by this employee.

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Hardware generators was: your mail
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message Sat, 18 Jun 94 19:30:35 EDT, Adam Shostack <adam(a)bwh.harvard.edu> writes: > Making it PC only shuts out the Mac/UNIX market for your > devices. There are probably lots of folks in the research/scientific > community who use UNIX & would buy a random number dongle that hangs > off the serial port. For $25, I'd probably get our lab to buy 3 or 4. > > If you put it on a PC card, you're cutting out all other > computers from using it. Adam's points are correct, and I thought of them before I posted the initial message. My thinking was that about 90% of all computers sold are Intel PCs, and to get my manufacturing costs down, I need volume and simplicity. So by addressing the 90% solution first, I have a larger market without the complexity of multiple platforms. Once I've sold thousands of Hardware random number generators, then I can afford the design effort for other platforms, if they still exist then :-) Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: Decline and Fall
by lethin＠ai.mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <2tnlbgINNjss(a)life.ai.mit.edu> you write: >Decline and Fall of the Nation State: > >Tuesday's WSJ had an article on how private money market funds are >starting to jawbone foreign governments just like the World Bank used to. > >Case cited was Fidelity Investments calling Mexican bank officials during >the Peso crisis after the recent assasination. They said "we'll invest >another $18 billion (of ours and other fund's money) if you do what we say >and if not..." > >DCF > >"If they hadn't killed quite so many people, you'd almost have to feel >sorry for them." > >--- WinQwk 2.0b#1165 > Noam Chomsky spoke here in January and made the point that the increasing mobility of capital increasingly holds governments hostage. He felt that it was the current greatest danger to democracy, because it bypasses any leverage voters might have on politicians at the ballot box. It's not clear how well his argument really holds together, though, since the leverage that the mobile capital has is via the satisfaction of the voters. If capital flees a country, the population will be less productive, dissatisfied and vote the politicians out of office. So policies that favor capital in some sense also favor labor. Anyone else care to take shots at his argument or support it? Mobile capital does mean that population and government lose their ability to decree the relative rewards made to capital and labor. If labor requires too high a return, capital will go somewhere else. The ownership and control of capital IS highly skewed, but since it's still distributed among many parties, it is forced to compete and remain engaged, lest it depreciate in value. Go cyphercredits.

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Re: Having your own computer means never having....
by tim werner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Sun, 19 Jun 1994 22:27:23 -0700 >From: nobody(a)kaiwan.com (Anonymous) >carterm(a)spartan.ac.brocku.ca (Mark Carter) wrote: >> Beyond that, unrestrained encryption is dangerous to corporations, because >> what's to stop a ticked off employee from encrypting everything in the >> office as revenge for some imagined slight? > >If he was pissed off and wanted revenge, he would not waste his time >encrypting it, he could just delete it, and/or steal all remaining copies. Not necessarily. One could get in the habit of keeping all one's files encrypted, decoding only the material that one has to occasionally release in order to convince one's boss that one is doing productive work on one's computer. :-) Many times when one is fired, one does not have the option of logging in one last time. The boss taps you on the shoulder, and escorts you to human resources. While you are having your exit interview, the sysadmin is disabling your account. For instance, the emacs editor has a mode (see crypt++.el) that automagically prompts for a decryption key wheneve you open a file that appears not to be pure text, in case you want to pass it through crypt before editing it. Only in the editor's buffer does it ever appear in decoded form. On the disk it is always encrypted. If one got fired unduly, one's former bosses would have to ask for the key. Of course, the usual reason peopnle get fired is incompetence, so there may not be anything worthwhile laying around anyway. tw

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L.J. Freeh and the Opposition
by Dave Otto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Check out sunday's _Parade_ magazine for an article on Louis J. Freeh, the director of the F.B.I. "Tough on crime", "man of the streets", and ruthless eliminator of directors :-) If he ever throws his weight behind Clipper, the battle will get *MUCH* tougher. Dave Otto -- dave(a)marvin.jta.edd.ca.gov -- daveotto(a)acm.org "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" [the Great Oz] {I *DO* have a life, it's just that my kids are using it right now!}

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Re: Having your own computer means never having....
by nelson＠crynwr.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 02:37:42 -0400 From: snyderra(a)dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu (Bob Snyder) Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com What to stop him/her from shredding everything in the office? Um, because desks don't *fit* in the shredder? :) Sorry about that, but this thread *is* becoming a little silly on its own. -russ <nelson(a)crynwr.com> ftp.msen.com:pub/vendor/crynwr/crynwr.wav Crynwr Software | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | ask4 PGP key 11 Grant St. | +1 315 268 1925 (9201 FAX) | Quakers do it in the light Potsdam, NY 13676 | LPF member - ask me about the harm software patents do.

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Re: Hardware generators was: your mail
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How about a SCSI device instead. Most UNIX boxes and Macs nowadays have a few unused SCSI IDs. The great majority of DOS machines with SCSI (all those new ones with CD-ROMs, etc.) have unused SCSI IDs. SCSI has the advantage of being rather fast, and is a cross-platform solution. ``Cross-platform'' is great, but ``fast'' is probably a bad idea. Few random number generators are particularly fast, and if you sample the input too rapidly, you're likely to get too high a correlation between successive bits.

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Re: Hardware generators
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message Sun, 19 Jun 94 10:50:14 EDT, Adam Shostack <adam(a)bwh.harvard.edu> writes: > Understood, but its not a matter of addressing 90% or the > other 10%, its a matter of "Is the security gain in building a card > that only hands out each number once worth cutting out 10% of the > market?" I think that if you are worried about rouge code on your > machine, you aren't going to run on a computer that can't protect its > memory from random browsing. (I can still access all of a PC's memory > from normal code, can't I?) Thus, building a PC card doesn't really > afford you a gain in security if I can use my hostile code to read > PGP's memory locations. If you agree with that, then there is no good > reason not to build a serial port dongle, and include me in your > potential customers. :) I think I'm a bit confused. Your first post suggested that I was ignoring an important part of the market, and I acknowledge that this was delibrate. Now you seem to be arguing that the paranoia that I addressed in my fourth question is justified. I'd like more backup for this, as all I have is speculation at this point. I don't know if it is paranoia or prudence. Yes, if you are running DOS/Windows, you can address the world. Sigh. And lots of other/better OS fix this, but they haven't got the market penetration. So I'm back to addressing lots of folks, or a few ones with real computers and real operating systems. I'd rather not degrade into that religion, I started with TOPS-10 and moved to Tenex... The problem with the serial port dongles are: 1) while parallel port dongels are known technology, making it work on a serial port is more problematical. 2) Most PC serial ports are junk. Getting reliable data rates above 2400 baud is non-trivial for low end PCs. If I could claim that the users had to have 16560AFN uarts, or better, then I could get decent rates, but then I lose market size. 3) PCs typically don't have a spare serial port. It is interesting that my mail is so far favoring an internal board approach. Given that, and the forthcomming Plug-n-Plan spec from Microsoft/Compaq/Intel/... and the hidious hassles of seting up IRQs, port addresses, etc. Does this suggest that a Plug-n-play board would be more attractive? The key is that they would be more expensive, at least at first. Compaq probably has the volume that can allow the cost difference to be offset by lower tech support costs. I haven't got that volume yet. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Hardware RN generators, data volume requirements
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm quite happy about the volume and quality of responses I've received. So here is another question: What data generation rate should we aim for? I guess I should be more precise, given that costs are usually directly proportional to data rates, what are the minimum, hoped for, and high end data rates needed? For example, Tony Patti's RANGER has a very high data rate, but is big and costs more than two cases of beer. Is a good bit a second sufficient? 100 b/s? ??? Right now, I've only generated a few of Pr0duct Cypher's magic money tokens. So if I had a daemon process collecting bits for me in the background, then 3600 per hour is plenty. I am sure that when Perry uses digicash for online trading of eurodollars, he (and his user community) will need orders of magnitude more. But I'd expect them to be willing to pay at least an order of magnitude more for the gear too. I'd like to hear grounded justification for rates, and/or a rate/dollar tradeoff. Don't worry about the exact monetary exchange rates. Estimates in bits per second per case of beer are accurate enuff for this level of design. Thanks Pat p.s. I just got up to the chapter of Bruce's _Applied Crypto_ that addresses some of the approaches to this. It really is a FAQ for serious cypherpunks. Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Anonymous Mailing list?
by Jonathan Rochkind 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Has anyone tried to write some mailing list software that uses PGP-anon-remailers to implement a double-blind anon system? It wouldn't be very dificult to have a mailing list people contributed to using a remailer with a encryted address-block, so no one knew the actual address of the mailing list. Or more significantly, the mailing list, instead of keeping a list of addresses, could keep a list of encrypted address-blocks, and the proper remailer to send them to, so the list maintainer doesn't know the real address of anyone on the list. This is intriguing to me because it seems to solve the problem of a "secret" organization's security. The members of this mailing list don't need to trust anyone else on the list not to reveal their identity; no one can reveal anyone elses identity even if they wanted to. Assuming the security of the encryption (which of course can't be assumed; anyone with a sufficiently powerful comptuer and sufficient time to spend can surely break PGP, but anyway...), this mailing list would seem to be pretty much 100% secure. It would also seem desirable to have the mailing list software keep a record of all it's members public keys as well, and send out posts encrypted. As well as perhaps check signatures of incoming messages so that only legitimate list-members could contribute to it. I've been thinking of trying to write such software, perhaps by working with the procmail program from comp.sources.misc, whcih can be used to implement a standard mailing list. But has this already been done? It seems like such an obvious idea, that it's hard to believe no one has thought of it first, but I haven't heard of anything so far. Comments?

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Re: Hardware generators was: your mail
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message Sun, 19 Jun 1994 11:24:34 -0600, Richard Johnson <Richard.Johnson(a)Colorado.EDU> writes: > > How about a SCSI device instead. Most UNIX boxes and Macs nowadays have > a few unused SCSI IDs. The great majority of DOS machines with SCSI (all > those new ones with CD-ROMs, etc.) have unused SCSI IDs. SCSI has the > advantage of being rather fast, and is a cross-platform solution. Sadly, the state of PC platform SCSI is in turmoil, at least right now. Microsoft is working hard to convince folks that Enhanced-IDE is the answer, and many CD-ROMs, big disks, etc. that are aimed at the mass market are no longer SCSI, but E-IDE. I don't think you can substantiate your claim that a "great majority of DOS machines" have SCSI. Worse, MS is pushing hard to push into Windows-for-Workgroups. Many OEMs no longer ship Windows, even for standalone PCs. They ship W4Wg. W4Wg's support for SCSI devices is a step or two down from even W4Wg 3.10. My SCSI disk setup (1.7GB Maxtor) is significantly slower under W4Wg 3.11 because MS changed things to the point that I no longer have 32-bit disk I/O. Chicago is claimed to have "better" SCSI support, but I was hoping that I could get this at least prototyped this summer. No RSN reliance on 3rd party vendors for me, thanks. Right now, SCSI is too high-end (Suns, HP, Macs, serious PCs, etc.) for the market that I have in mind. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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TV AS A SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

C'punks, I just watched the latest episode of "Acapulco H.E.A.T." In this weeks show, "Codename: Ghost," the Bad Guy is a renegade CIA agent who has become an arms dealer on the Black Market. He controls his far flung organization via encrypted e-mail over the Internet. The H.E.A.T. team foils his dastardly plans by *intercepting* his e-mail and sending on *forged* messages signed with his own *code* (digital signature?). Too bad he wasn't a renegade NSA agent (or a Cypherpunk), then he might have had the good sense to use strong crypto. Yeah, I guess there must be dumb criminals who would use Clipper or the like. WHY I WATCH ACAPULCO H.E.A.T. Cheap thrills. Lots of babes in bikinis, lots of guns, lots of car chases and lots of explosions. (Subtract 2 points for Fabio.) I would kill for a night with the woman who plays "Cat" (Alison Something-or-other). WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH ACAPULCO H.E.A.T. We can see really good TV and movies again and again. If you miss it the first time, it will be back again, soon enough. The really bad stuff is gone in a heartbeat. See it now, or never see it again (unless it becomes a cult show). S a n d y

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Cell phone tracking
by die＠pig.jjm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike McNally writes: > > Jef Poskanzer writes: > > It looks like at least some switches in Amerika are already equipped > > to read out locations for individual phones. > > This is not actually that surprising. All they need is to know which > phones are using a band on a cell site, and they narrow the search > down to a relatively small area. I seriously doubt that they can do > triangulation (I mean, they *could*, but there's not much likelihood > that the cellular operators would incorporate something complicated A company I am familiar with which does specialized classified interception systems for the NSA and other TLA's has built just such a system for the TLAs. It can locate a cellphone to within a few feet just as soon as it starts transmitting - it uses time of arrival techniques to triangulate the cell phone's position. How many of these are installed and where I do not know, but the technology has been developed and is in use. The system is multi-channel and can keep track of many cellphones at once - but as a practical matter it isn't hard to monitor the control channels and paging channels to locate the phone of interest and identify which of the 866 channels it is transmitting on so even simple doppler DF technology might work. Considering that the LA area is the biggest cellular market in the country it wouldn't surprise me that some of the these systems are installed there. And in the future Phil Karn's company Qualcomm's CDMA digital cellphones will provide few feet accuracy position as a byproduct of the spread spectrum receive correlator operation on every transmitting phone within range of more than one cell receiving site unless they actually aviod trying to make the measurement. Most of the time more than one cell site tracks a given phone so they can vote on which one has the stronger signal - given that each of these sites has a precise estimate of the time of arrival of transissions from each phone it takes little more than netting of the time base (with GPS ?) between the cell sites to detemine cellphone positions since the positions of the cell site antennas are well known. I suspect that if the hardware and software to do this (mostly software) is not part of the current base station that certain TLAs will pay to have it developed and implemented. Dave Emery die(a)pig.jjm.com

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Re: Decline and Fall
by dmandl＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:55 AM 6/19/94 -0700, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >Chomsky's error is that he equates governments with democracy. Not true. Chomsky is an anarchist. He would never make a statement like that. Just for the record... --Dave. -- Dave Mandl dmandl(a)panix.com

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MAIL: anon mailing list
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Has anyone tried to write some mailing list software that uses > PGP-anon-remailers to implement a double-blind anon system? > a standard mailing list. But has this already been done? It seems > like such an obvious idea, that it's hard to believe no one has > thought of it first, but I haven't heard of anything so far. Comments? Well, Hal Finney offered a service by which people could subscribe to an encrypted version of this list... which is something similar. Say somebody wants to run a mailing list as you propose. I think they should just run the list at the same address unless the remailers can suitably pad, delay, and randomize incoming messages and redirect them to the true list site (but then delay and randomization may lead to loss of coherency on the list ;). If not, surely external observation of the contact point will show where all the messages are headed. The resources needed would be higher than a normal list since each incoming message would need to be checked for a digital signature (or the list could become victim to an anonymous mail bomber, and you can't filter out anonymous remailers since of course everybody is using them to submit posts!), encrypted to every other member, and remailed. Which isn't to say impossible, just maybe impractical for a large mailing list. Take this list, with say 500 members - every incoming post digitally signed and arriving via anonymous remailer, and upon arrival, checked for a valid signature, encrypted with the public keys of the pseudonyms subscribing to the list;), and remailed out... This may work if you have a small group of people dedicated to this setup, but otherwise, no go. I mean, most people on this list don't even sign their posts, most don't submit via anonymous remailer, etc. It would take much work to make it convenient enough to do this. I think a higher priority is finding the bug that keeps unsubscribing everybody ;) Karl Barrus klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLgTdeMSF/V8IjI8hAQHeTwQAjDPXzJgrwubLkxq0Kz6ETM7chR4Ci5kG XbzWrFc3jwT57xpOfHIeeTTWn73Sls7C5UsFAT1sE4hxHRZO2HG6a7psLRa5/82V bhjnW+6KMOByCZb01h4b0toVR+7vF22EzPME0lnlsW+SjBqlAcNYPb+rSnjbnahG g9zzaCL6nJ8= =1WIZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Karl L. Barrus: klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu 2.3: 5AD633; D1 59 9D 48 72 E9 19 D5 3D F3 93 7E 81 B5 CC 32 2.6: 088C8F21; 97 73 9E 8B 98 3E DD B5 E8 97 64 7E 20 95 60 D9 "One man's mnemonic is another man's cryptography" - K. Cooper

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rec.radio.scanner #7670 - Re: OJ's Cellular
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This article, reposted with permission from rec.radio.scanner, sheds a bit of light on the topic. In article <2u47fl$18no(a)hermes.acs.ryerson.ca>, cal(a)ee.ryerson.ca (Calvin Henry-Cotnam) writes: > > I just heard an interview on the radio with a representitive from the > "umbrella group" that represents the cellular industry. He explained > how position tracking is done, and stated that call content is not > involved. A court order is needed to track position, but another court > order, presumably one more difficult to get, is needed to intercept the > conversation. The location tracking basically locates which cell site > the call is being picked up by plus monitoring of actual signal strength > which usually can get to within a mile of the location. The original poster mentioned that he's not an expert on cellular; the person he cited is from an ``''umbrella organization'' for the cellular industry in D.C.

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