December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Hackers Conf discussions
by crunch＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Re: Hackers Conf, Tim says.. >I'd like to hear any ideas you folks may have, whether or not you'll >be attending. And also any volunteers to talk (briefly!) or be on a >panel discussion, depending on what structure we follow. Yes!! I would like to participate in this discussion, as I am now in position where I have ability to communicate with thousands of young ravers and PGP wannabes and soon I'm going to want to communicate with these folks on several issues: ** Getting LOTS of people to use PGP ** Voter registration and political actions such as letter writing to local representitives, etc. ** Other actions where large masses of people can make SOME influence on our officials.

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Monthly Bay Area cypherpunks meeting
by hughes＠ah.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ANNOUNCEMENT ============ What: October monthly cypherpunks meeting When: Saturday, October 10, 1993 12:00 noon - 6:00 p.m. Where: Cygnus Support offices, Mountain View, California (directions below) The Bay Area cypherpunks meeting is the second Saturday of the month, every month, at the Cygnus Support offices. All are welcome and encouraged to attend. Agenda ------ Here's what I know about for Saturday's meeting: -- Norm Hardy on Harvest -- Arthur Abraham on the DES cracking machine -- a presentation either on electronic voting or copyright (TBA) -- a report on the Austin-EFF cryptography conference -- the usual reports from the attendees Directions ---------- [Directions to Cygnus provided by John Gilmore. -- EH] Cygnus Support 1937 Landings Drive Mt. View, CA 94043 +1 415 903 1400 switchboard +1 415 903 1418 John Gilmore Take US 101 toward Mt. View. From San Francisco, it's about a 40-minute drive. Get off at the Rengstorff Ave/Amphitheatre Parkway exit. If you were heading south on 101, you curve around to the right, cross over the freeway, and get to a stoplight. If you were heading north on 101, you just come right off the exit to the stoplight. The light is the intersection of Amphitheatre and Charleston Rd. Take a right on Charleston; there's a right-turn-only lane. Follow Charleston for a short distance. You'll pass the Metaphor/Kaleida buildings on the right. At a clump of palm trees and a "Landmark Deli" sign, take a right into Landings Drive. At the end of the road, turn left into the complex with the big concrete "Landmark" sign. Follow the road past the deli til you are in front of the clock tower that rises out of one of the buildings, facing you. Enter through the doors immediately under the clock tower. They'll be open between noon and 1PM at least. (See below if you're late.) Once inside, take the stairs up, immediately to your right. At the top of the stairs, turn right past the treetops, and we'll be in 1937 on your left. The door is marked "Cygnus". If you are late and the door under the clock tower is locked, you can walk to the deli (which will be around the building on your left, as you face the door). Go through the gate in the fence to the right of the deli, and into the back lawns between the complex and the farm behind it. Walk forward and right around the buildings until you see a satellite dish in the lawn. Go up the stairs next to the dish, which are the back stairs into the Cygnus office space. We'll prop the door (or you can bang on it if we forget). Or, you can find the guard who's wandering around the complex, who knows there's a meeting happening and will let you in. They can be beeped at 965 5250, though you'll have trouble finding a phone. Don't forget to eat first, or bring food at noon! I recommend hitting the burrito place on Rengstorff (La Costen~a) at about 11:45. To get there, when you get off 101, take Rengstorff (toward the hills) rather than Amphitheatre (toward the bay). Follow it about ten blocks until the major intersection at Middlefield Road. La Costen~a is the store on your left at the corner. You can turn left into the narrow lane behind the store, which leads to a parking lot, and enter by the front door, which faces the intersection. To get to the meeting from there, just retrace your route on Rengstorff, go straight over the freeway, and turn right at the stoplight onto Charleston; see above. See you there! John Gilmore

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Re: MacPGP 2.3 sources
by an5877＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Connected with the fault, if anyone knows of the domain name or whereabouts > of the machine with IP number 179.135.226.153, I would be most interested > in contacting its manager. You have been hacked. IP addresses above 168.xxx.xxx.xxx have not yet been allocated. DEADBEAT <na5877(a)anon.penet.fi> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQBFAgUBLLQZrPFZTpBW/B35AQEcPgGArD2mpFu4Sd7oj+s95XRgJtfW9lo/I/Ln y14lstlkI1wS0XsHDPZnC/6FOZrokyOK =57Jo -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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WEAK RSA KEYS
by charliemerritt＠BIX.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On cypherpunks warlord(a)MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins) posted an example of a (small) RSA key. He is perpetuating a dangerous myth about RSA. He probably believes, along with most people, that for each encryption exponent there is ONLY ONE decription exponent. In fact there are AT LEAST TWO. Yes, you have a "spare key". Maybe many. In fact I can generate RSA keys with "good" primes that are hard to factor, yet the keys are WEAK - easy to break. This is part of Derek Atkins' example: > Here is a better example: > > p = 5 q = 11 N = pq = 55 > m = (p-1)(q-1) = 4*10 = 40 > >Now, we need to choose our public and private decryptors, E and d, >such that Ed = 1 mod (m): > E = 3 d = 27 In his example the decrypt exponent is 27. The "spare" is 7. The "spare" runs faster, too. Go ahead, try it. The myth is that "ED = 1 mod (m)". The truth is as follows: G = gcd( p-1 , q-1) in this example G=2 F = m/G in this example F=20 ED = 1 mod (F) I showed this to Phillip Zimmermann and PGP keys are generated this way. At first PRZ checked to be sure G=2. Then he found that with random large primes G was almost always small, say < 17 or so. So now he doesn't check. HERE IS WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW THIS: Let's say my name is Denning. Lets say there is a new government chip they want certified. They describe the (RSA) algorithm to me, in secret. I look at it from every angle I *can think of*. Yes the skipj--- RSA algorithm is good. I say so in public. No, I can't reveal how it works, but trust me, my name is Denning and I know what I speak of. Now the government starts producing KEYS for this new algorithm. They key escrow them to two agencies. They also make sure that G IS LARGE. The algorithm can be brute force attacked (search for spares). They don't give a da*m about warrants and escrow, the TLA can brute force any keys they need. Think about it, Dorothy. We aint in Kansas any more. Here is an example (using small numbers) of a weak key. P=607 q=1213 n=736291 phi=(p-1)*(q-1)=734472 G=606 F = phi/g = 1212 E=5 D=485 (D*E)=1 mod F M=40 (message) M^E mod n = 55551 cyphertext=55551 55551^D mod n = 40 A spare key can be found every 1212 numbers, just add 1212 to D: 1697, 2909, 4121, 5333.....etc They are all spares. Charlie Merritt's rule of cryptography: "Don't trust even RSA if you don't generate the keys; Know your source (code)."

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Re: HACKERS: Crypto Session Being Planned
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Whoops! I've already gotten half a dozen messages similar to this one: > > The Hackers Conference is coming up in early November at Lake Tahoe. > > Many of you will be attending. > > Can you send more info about this? First time I've heard of it...thanks! Let me clarify something: the Hackers Conference is an invitational event, for better or for worse. The best way to get an invitation is to do something "hackerish" that gets you noticed. I don't necessarily mean hackerish in the breaking-and-entering vein, either. The Hackers Conference began in 1984, sponsored initially by Steward Brand and others, and presumably based partly on the Steven Levy book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution." (Levy has attended in some years, and you may also recall he wrote the excellent "Wired" article on crypto and "Crypto Rebels"--us.) For the first several years it was in a rustic jewish boy's camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains, above Saratoga, where we slept (if we slept...) 10 to a room in either unheated or overheated cabins. In 1990 it moved to luxurious digs at the Granlibakken Lodge at Lake Tahoe, where we get ski lodge-type rooms (it's before skiing season starts, though, but this also holds the cost down somewhat). The Conference lasts for about 48 hours, from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, and many people stay up the entire time. Lots of interesting people, guest speakers, all-night hacking sessions, machine room demos, "work in progress," etc. At the 1987 Conference, John Walker of Autodesk met Ted Nelson, Roger Gregory, and others and the funding of Xanadu and AMIX commenced. Many interesting business contacts have been made at Hackers, especially in areas of VR and multimedia. "Prose hackers" also show up. Vernor Vinge has attended, as has Marc Stiegler. Jerry Pournelle is a regular. Too many people to mention. (BTW, Vernor was very interested in the public key crypto implications when he attended in 1989...I wonder if the P-K references in his Hugo-winning novel "A Fire Upon the Deep" were affected by our discussions?) My first Hackers was in 1988, shortly after the "Crypto '88" conference, where I described my "crypto anarchy" ideas to some folks....probably this is partly why I got invited that year. I gave a talk on public key crypto, along with John Gilmore, at the 1990 session. The next year Eric Hughes (whom I had just met a few months earlier) talked about digital money and the Chaum stuff. And last year I was asked to lead a main session on crypto (I was slightly infamous at the time for having written the "A Trial Balloon to Ban Encryption?" piece in sci.crypt, which alerted many readers to the "key escrow" ideas of Dorothy Denning, which presaged the "Clipper" proposal six months later). At that session we had several speakers, including Stu Haber on digital time-stamping, Eric Hughes on digital money, John Gilmore on EFF and FOIA-type activites, and so on. The EFF activities are always a big deal at Hackers, what with Mitch Kapor often attending and so forth. Mike Godwin is our "legal hacker," so to speak (aren't all lawyers hacks?), and he'll be at this year's Hackers. Well, that's enough of a summary. The best way to get invited is to do something that brings you to the attention of the attendees, as every year they ask us to make nominations. Yes, there are many of you out there who are better hackers than many of us who (somehow) got on the invite list. That's life, I guess. Don't take it too seriously. --Tim -- .......................................................................... 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: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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Re: Standard Headers for Anonymous Remailers
by owen＠autodesk.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: pierre(a)shell.portal.com (Pierre Uszynski) > > From: Karl Lui Barrus <klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu> > > The attitude expressed by the individual on io.com shows a problem we > > will have in educating others - "anonymous posts CAN destroy a civil > > conversation". Yes, maybe so, but in my experience on mailing lists, > > bbses, etc. I've noticed that "flame wars" and "anonymous posts" have > > NO correlation, and are quite independent of one another. > > Since I've seen "flame wars" on systems with absolutely no anonymous > > posting facilities (or none that were used), I conclude that civil > > conversation is destroyed by strongly held differences in opinions (or > > some other factor I can't pin down). > I'll second that. The main menaces against "civil conversations" have been, > on Netnews, flame wars and wars between two individuals. There is another level of *menace* which I suppose many of you are unaware. The queer newsgroups of usenet, have been experiencing waves of net-terrorism for the last couple of years. I don't mean the usual mean-spirited or dogma-driven type of uninformed posting that echoes the stereotypical stuff we are used to dealing with in daily life. Nor do I mean the occasional *ALL FAGS SHOULD DIE POSTED IN ALL CAPS FROM SOMEONES ACCT THAT THEY LEFT LOGGED IN ON A PUBLIC TERMINAL AT AN INSTITUTION OF -ahem- HIGHER LEARNING* I mean people who exploit insecure sites and networking skill to forge mail and articles as part of a concerted and ongoing campaign of harrasement. Stuff that has resulted in very serious consequences. Theres no need to go into detail here about the array of tactics and the widening scope of the phenomenon, but I think it needs to be looked at as an example of how and why systems are abused. If anti-social immaturity can easily find shelter for puerile behavior, then any socipathic agenda or ruthless competitor can do likewise. > the flamers and the opponents are clearly > identified. They are usually proudly posting under their usual Name (as > they are all fighting for their Reputation, and for establishing their > opponent's Incompetence) (... do we recognize anybody yet :-? ) I actually > can't remember such a war involving an anonymous poster (as in "using > penet or similar"). soc.motss and other newsgroups have seen a long list of pseudo-persons posting from non existent sites, and yes.. penet has been used to this effect. > What destroys discussions (and forces people to leave them...) is the > tendency of threads to start genuine, and to end as flame wars. > Certainly, for-money systems would tend to shorten flame wars.. I think that there is no shortage of contributing factors to the shortcomings of network distributed ascii based communication. Bottom line is that when we have our full range of auditory clues, and visual context, we use all of that and more in order to convey meaning, and in network distributed ascii communication the clues and context are missing unless we *spell it out*. Most of us aren't that diligent or patient. I think it is interesting to also note that people will engage in levels of flaming that tehy would never do to another person face to face. That is also a form of non-acountability by being unreachable when your content might otherwise earn you a fist in your face. Personally, I believe that some levels and forms of anonymity are highly desireable. Reality is that some levels and forms of anonymity are too easily subverted by sociopaths who don't care about the consequences of their acts, or the restrictions that may come about due to their abuse. Not to get too far past the scope of mailers and netnews, but these issues have importance to the growth of Networked commerce in general. I think that the design of privacy systems needs to take these dark-side issues seriously and do their best to minimise the potential for abuse. If for no other reason, where there is money, there is abuse and criminally sociopathic predators who will do anything in their power to gain advantage over their competition. Perhaps a *zoning* concept is needed, in such that transactions would have qualifying conditions - or in such that *zones* exist as data-space with authentication qualifications for *entry* or transaction. LUX ./. owen

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Correction in Bay Area meeting announcement
by hughes＠ah.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CORRECTION ========== The meeting is Saturday the 9th, not Sunday the 10th. Sorry for the typo. The Bay Area meetings are always on Saturdays. Eric

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Weak RSA keys?
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't mean to flame you, but before you rush off and publish your results somewhere you may want to step back and check over your premise and the steps it involves a few times. > The "spare" is 7. The "spare" runs faster, too. Go ahead, try it. > The myth is that "ED = 1 mod (m)". > The truth is as follows: > G = gcd( p-1 , q-1) in this example G=2 > F = m/G in this example F=20 > ED = 1 mod (F) Now how exactly do you calculate this "F"? Does it involve, say, knowing phi(n), information ONLY available to you if you happen to know the factorization of n? In which case the whole thing collapses anyway? How can you use this information to decrypt a message? If I were to give you the 200 digit product of two primes, could you find the "spare" key? If I get some time I'd like to look over your method to see if it's really there or an artifact of the numbers you chose. There is a "weakness" easily shown in RSA in that for some keys, up to 9 messages encrypt to themselves! That is, M^e = M mod n. Now, if you pick large primes, these 9 messages will get lost in the 100 trillion numbers every atom in the universe can have allocated, so it really isn't a problem. -- Karl L. Barrus: klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu keyID: 5AD633 hash: D1 59 9D 48 72 E9 19 D5 3D F3 93 7E 81 B5 CC 32 "One man's mnemonic is another man's cryptography" - my compilers prof discussing file naming in public directories

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Fiberpunks? (Was - Really Cheap Crypto)
by djw＠eff.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>>From today's New York Times: >> >>"- - - General Aidid was brazenly speaking out on his own clandestine radio >>station this week, assailing United Nations colonialism. Today, Pentagon >>officials said they believed the Somali clan-leader had foiled their >>efforts to locate him in part by communicating with his forces on simple >>walkie-talkies difficult to monitor with high-technology American >>listening gear". >> >>Now, is the time for Dorothy D. to suggest, as she did with Clipper, that >>all dissident Somalis be required by law to use high-tech comm gear. Let's >>hope that the criminal element against which the escrowed key crap is >>oriented doesn't hear about the Somali answer to communications intercept. >>In the off chance that they might, I'm going to buy stock in oatmeal boxes >>and wax string. String is, indeed, an critical privacy-protecting technology, but alas, a threat to national security as well. Perhaps someone will have to start a fiberpunks movement. ................................................................... Daniel J. Weitzner, Senior Staff Counsel <djw(a)eff.org> Electronic Frontier Foundation 1001 G St, NW Suite 950 East Washington, DC 20001 202-347-5400 (v) 202-393-5509 (f)

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Weak RSA keys?
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>He probably believes, along with most people, that for each >encryption exponent there is ONLY ONE decription exponent. >In fact there are AT LEAST TWO. Yes, you have a "spare key". Yes, it does look like there are two possible decryption exponents, but one is derived from the other and information only known to the person who can factor n, so it isn't clear to me how this is a big weakness. If you pick good factors of n and the primes are large, the problem is just as infeasible as it was before, and you get ONLY two decryption exponents. In fact, if you look on page 92 of "Cryptography; An Introduction to Data Security" by Seberry and Pieprzyk, you will see that they make it more explicit than some other texts: they give this as the formula relating then encryption and decryption exponents: e d = 1 mod gamma(n) where gamma(n) = lcm (p-1, q-1) So they use the least common multiple of p-1 and q-1. With good choices of p and q, there will be 2 decryption exponents: d and (d + phi(n)/gamma(n)). If you have more than 2 decryption exponents, you have made poor choices of primes. Again, to calculate the "spare" key you nee need to know how n factors, which makes the whole thing moot. Example with better choices for p and q: p = 107; q = 167; n = 17869 phi(n) = 106 * 166 = 17596 e = 43 d = 43^-1 mod 17596 = 7775 71^43 mod 17869 = 10073 (the encrypted message) to decrypt: 10073^7775 mod 17869 = 71. If you use e d = 1 mod gamma(n) you get d = 43^-1 mod 8798 = 7775, which is the same d you got above. Thus, the spare key is 7775 + 8798 = 16573, which does work as a decryption exponent. -- Karl L. Barrus: klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu keyID: 5AD633 hash: D1 59 9D 48 72 E9 19 D5 3D F3 93 7E 81 B5 CC 32 "One man's mnemonic is another man's cryptography" - my compilers prof discussing file naming in public directories

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Re: Weak RSA keys, 2nd post
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- (sorry for posting this twice, but as I sent the previous message, line noise or something overtook me) It does appear that there can be multiple decryption keys, but with good choices of p and q, there will be only two. Whether or not "ed = 1 mod phi(n)" is a myth or not... depends. Look at "Cryptography: an Intoduction to Computer Security" by Seberry and Pieprzyk. On page 92, equation 3.9 gives the relation between encryption and decryption keys as "ed = 1 mod gamma(n)" where gamma(n) = lcm(p-1,q-1). Which is what the "F" function described before is. With proper choices of p and q, the d calulcated by the first forumla and the d calculated by the second will be the same. Of course, since you must know how to factor n to calculate the "spare" key, it isn't clear to me how it will help you decrypt a message. With large enough properly chosen primes, it won't matter. Solution: pick good primes. An example with better choices for p and q: p = 107; q = 167; n = pq = 17869 phi(n) = (p-1)(q-1) = 17596 e = 43 Method 1: d = 43^-1 mod 17596 = 7775 Method 2: lcm(p-1, q-1) = 8798 d = 43^-1 mod 8798 = 7775 Either method: message M = 71 encrypted M' = 71^43 mod 17869 = 10073 decrypt = 10073^7775 mod 17869 = 71 The "spare" key is 7775 + 8798 = 16573, which does indeed work. But again, I don't see how an attacker can use info about the existence of a second key. Karl L. Barrus <klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLLR5CYOA7OpLWtYzAQH/FQP/a+/uxGaKIYKuWCNcP5e0aBGMjhVPnwlU cJxrDMSBQYcPHzMPafqXIdfIlNE/g7aB/0Fnnh2cB4MtwvsGiCOe/XGNUgrR+R+e X2LWBlQmQ4YBPRnGgXAejX8LkWTScexIrfcXLsps6REyJHVoJB/5gpLNflBnjW5C h8xTNoqknf4= =8y9+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Standard Headers for Anonymous Remailers
by pierre＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: owen(a)autodesk.com (D. Owen Rowley) > > There is another level of *menace* which I suppose many of you are unaware. [...] > I mean people who exploit insecure sites and networking skill to forge > mail and articles as part of a concerted and ongoing campaign of ????????????????????? > harrasement. > Stuff that has resulted in very serious consequences. ????????????????????????? > > Theres no need to go into detail here about the array of tactics and > the widening scope of the phenomenon, but I think it needs to be looked > at as an example of how and why systems are abused. On the contrary, let's hear the details. If what we are considering here is how to fight abuse while encouraging (what we think is) positive use of anonymous systems, then we need to know the details. If you are not comfortable posting that here, I'd welcome a private email (as well as the people at io.com would, I expect). Still, I don't think cypherpunks is anywhere close to the stage where we should withold that kind of detail (except for OS bugs that go to CERT first)... > soc.motss and other newsgroups have seen a long list of pseudo-persons > posting from non existent sites, and yes.. penet has been used to this > effect. ok, and anonymous remailers don't change that possibility one way or the other. I'll go hang out there for a while anyway... > I think that the design of privacy systems needs to take these > dark-side issues seriously and do their best to minimise the potential > for abuse. Sure, but consider that extremist systems will exist nonetheless. > Perhaps a *zoning* concept is needed, in such that transactions would > have qualifying conditions - or in such that *zones* exist as data-space > with authentication qualifications for *entry* or transaction. Who qualifies whom, based on what info, and to eliminate whom? Pierre pierre(a)shell.portal.com

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Good editorial in the Merc
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Thursday Oct 7 San Jose Mercury News lead editorial contains a note acknowledging a sane point of view about cryptographic exports. (It's titled "Unshackled Tech -- Looser export rules will boost Silicon Valley Sales", and it discusses Clinton's decision last week to boost the speed limit for exportable computers.) The *good* part, though, is: " * Congress should update the Export Administration Act. A 1990 version would have lifted export controls on telecommunications and software with encryption codes, which give the software users a better way to keep data secret. President Bush vetoed it. His administration wanted to deprive the Chinese and Russians of the latest, hard-to-bug telecommunications equipment, and the latest encrypted software. Well, the Chinese already know how to make the new telecommunications equipment. The encryption software is in the hands of anyone who can find a pirated copy." Awareness is beginning to grow out there. Doug

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Re: Standard Headers for Anonymous Remailers
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: pierre(a)shell.portal.com >Who qualifies whom, based on what info, and to eliminate whom? As the Internet becomes more diverse and less the domain of programmers and scientists, it is natural that other means of selection are needed for membership in a group. The traditional academic atmosphere of mailing lists will evolve away from total openenss. Here are some possibilities: 1. By invitation only--members sponsor new members. 2. By trial period--new members are lurkers on the main list and a subset of the members can see their postings or they must first be moderated. 3. Qualifications--could range widely. 4. Tests. 5. All of the above. >From: owen(a)autodesk.com >with authentication qualifications for *entry* or transaction The Extropians list already does this--not totally secure, to be sure, but you must let the list administrators know all your posting nodes. Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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Weak Keys? explained
by charliemerritt＠BIX.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

No, I did not mean I can find the spares of a well constructed key. And yes, the best key has at least one spare. What I meant was, if I were the NSA and wrote the keygen for a crypto system I could guarantee that each key would have a huge number of spares. Enough, that if I were the NSA I could find them. How to generate a weak RSA key: Start with a prime R S=R*2 L1 If S+1 is prime then P=S+1 If S+1 Not prime S=S* next_odd_number (3,5,7,9,11...) Loop to L1 else L2 If S+1 is prime then Q=S+1 If S+1 Not prime S=S* next_odd_number Loop to L2 else N=P*Q #spare keys => 2*R In the example I gave R was 101 p=1+(101*2*3) q=1+(101*2*2*3) spare keys=606 There are many BETTER ways to make a keygen that will produce keys the author can break. RSA has no government trap door, but I, and certainly the NSA can write a keygen that makes trap-doored keys. Ones YOU can't break, but I can, knowing my secret. My example was a put-down of Denning's assurance that skipjack is good. RSA is good, skipjack MAY be good. Look out for booby trapped keys.

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Re: Standard Headers for Anonymous Remailers
by owen＠autodesk.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: pierre(a)shell.portal.com (Pierre Uszynski) > From: owen(a)autodesk.com (D. Owen Rowley) > There is another level of *menace* which I suppose many of you are unaware > > I mean people who exploit insecure sites and networking skill to forge > > mail and articles as part of a concerted and ongoing campaign of > ????????????????????? > > harrasement. > > Stuff that has resulted in very serious consequences. > ????????????????????????? > > Theres no need to go into detail here about the array of tactics and > > the widening scope of the phenomenon, but I think it needs to be looked > > at as an example of how and why systems are abused. > > On the contrary, let's hear the details. There are three personas in particular, who stand out in the crowd, they are: The Dark Knight Obvious psuedonym, claims that he was disciplined or fired because the nasty queers on soc.motss complained to his management about his honestly stated opinions. during two periods of his unwanted attentions and homophobic ranting there were several serious sendsys bombing incidents. I know of one in which an SGI employee was mail bombed with enough garbage to clog their whole mail system for quite a while. Interuption of net connectivity to a whole company in order to amuse some creep who fancys himself as a fag-bashing super hero, fits my definition of sociopath, and I suspect that if it happened to any of us, filling up our disk real estate, delaying our business as usual, we would consider it a serious situation. I'm not sure how many there were, but during the worst phases, there could be two or three such incidents per day, involving gigabytes of data. RALF, or RLF bizarre and aggresively homophobic, tends to rant about how homos victimised him in some way or another. Claimed to be Church of RALF, has a numerological hangup over his birthdate , pretty much your basic testosterone poisoned megalomaniac. also present and gloating during or around periods of mail bombing. like dark Knight, the home site of the acct changes, or is forged. Dr Artimus Page Phoney acct claiming to have succesfull therapies to turn disgusting homos into natural men like him. Posts long and surreal accounts, projecting his anal fantasys onto the nasty homos and promising to cure them.. uh huh! Claimed that phoney name and acct were to protect him from the roving gangs of hetero-bashers who are out to get him. In another incident from that same period an individual was targetted who did not have a very understanding employer, he was fired as a result. A very serious matter for the guy, who's life got turned upside down because he was the target of these acts. Sendsys messages would be forged, ton_o_byte mail bombings would be forged in the name of other soc.motss regulars, usually those who posted uppity responses to these *honestly stated opinions*. Punitive repostings of months of back traffic Oh.. yes.. there were denials.. but the common factors between all three of these guys and the harrasement showed more than a casual relationship between the appearance of this character and patterns of e-harrasement. There were occasional other minor players who would come around, usually obvious forgerys from accts claiming to have been succesfully cured by the sagely Dr Page, and trying to date the Lesbians in order to help them too. Rarely would more than one be present at a time, they seemed to run in a patterned sequence that has consistently covered the last two years. A good deal of it starts as nuisance stuff, forged addresses, forged cancelations. And you can look at sendsys and mail_bombing as the functional equivelant of ordering pizzas or other deliveries to a third party, but I see it as a pattern borrowed from terrorists, purposeful and repeated , intent to wear down the spirit, and keep their prey on the defensive so recovery doesn't happen. I have no illusion that it takes a rocket scientist to pull off these stunts, nor that given the state of our net, anything can really be done to stop it now. However the real world effect was that the real people of soc.motss were subjected to severe psychological harrasement, of the type that wouldn't be tolerated for a minute in real-space. That we currently have no choice but to tolerate it in cyberspace is not an acceptable prospect. Having experienced the personal cost of this sort of thing on my own psyche, I can tell you that it is maddening while it is going on, and sobering afterwards when you realise how vulnerable you are. There are others of course, actually quite a few who are more than willing to display there ignorance from their real accts. Why I bet some of 'em probably are on this list. lets see.. heres just a partial list of proud defenders of heterosexuality who find it amusing to taunt the queers on soc.motss. Daniel J Karnes, Walter Smith, Gary Lang, Ted Kaldis, Clayton Cramer, and more.. many many more. > > soc.motss and other newsgroups have seen a long list of pseudo-persons > > posting from non existent sites, and yes.. penet has been used to this > > effect. > ok, and anonymous remailers don't change that possibility one way or the > other. I'll go hang out there for a while anyway... I understand that, and for that matter I feel strongly enough about wanting my own freedom that I'll join you. > > I think that the design of privacy systems needs to take these > > dark-side issues seriously and do their best to minimise the potential > > for abuse. > Sure, but consider that extremist systems will exist nonetheless. oh .. of course, I'm only arguing for diligence and design criterea that will buy us optimum freedom, and minimise opportunity for abuse. > > Perhaps a *zoning* concept is needed, in such that transactions would > > have qualifying conditions - or in such that *zones* exist as data-space > > with authentication qualifications for *entry* or transaction. > Who qualifies whom, based on what info, and to eliminate whom? Well.. I suppose that in the case of commerce, the vendor will, and that market forces will ultimately detrmine the succesful strategys. Think of it in terms of reliability, and trustiness. Accountability optimises both, anonymity diminishes both - in fact can potentially dispense with accountability. when your transaction involves value don't you want reliability and accountability? I do. If providing my identity as collateral for reliability is required in some transactions, I think thats reasonable to offer as an option. I tend to think of cyberspace in terms of the UnReal Estate business. If I have some data space, then I think I should be able to determine who gets in and what they do there. regarding common data-space and whether there should be rules and accountability, would you move yourself or your family to a neighborhood where you couldn't determine who gets into your place or hold them accountable for what they do there? Perhaps you have a higher opinion regarding the negative aspects of human nature than I. LUX ./. owen

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Digital Cash Primer (fwd)
by Alexander Reynolds 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 21:34:37 -0400 From: DON_HENSON(a)delphi.com To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Digital Cash Primer Shari Steele writes: -> Hey 'punks. Anyone know of an elementary primer on digital cash? I'm trying to get up to speed on this. <-- I would like an elementary primer also. How about posting the info to the list vice just to Shari. Thanks, Don Henson PGP key avail on server or on request <-- could i also get some beginning info on this subject as well? thanks in advance, alex reynolds

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The death of the list as we know it (tm)
by Robert J Woodhead 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've only been monitoring the list for a couple of days, but already it is clear to me that the traffic is _way_ too high to manage as a mailing list. Apart from the volume, the very structure of Email tends to dis-associate message from reply, and make it difficult to do any filtering before reading (one of the great joys of using _nn_ IMHO). A humble suggestion: someone undertake to create alt.cyperpunks and shadow the newsgroup and the mailing list (so that posts to one also go to the other). In my case this would cut my reading time in half and increase my "harvest" by a factor of two. The mailing list would still be available for those who cannot get the group. In addition, as the number of people getting the mailing list would decrease, it would probably delay the death of the net by bandwidth overload for a few hours (currently, it is scheduled for sometime in June 1997, last time I checked). Also, even an unmoderated alt group can be made moderated (and thus, filter out most of the forgery, etc) by appropriate use of technology described in this mailing list. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs. trebor(a)forEtune.co.jp | | AnimEigo US Office Email (for general questions): 72447.37(a)compuserve.com |

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Newbie reading: Bamberg
by jamie＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Newbie cypheroids and cypherettes, Tim May has pointed to _The Puzzle Palace_ by Bamberg several times here and on the Extropians list. If like me you're a newbie, it's a quick, excellent read. Don't miss it. It'll give context for the quote, "gentlemen don't read each other's mail." -- ................................ Jamie Dinkelacker Palo Alto CA Jamie(a)netcom.com 415.941.4782

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Re: second order homophonic substitution
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Another way of thinking about this is: Compress with one Huffman compression scheme based on the message text then Decompress with the Huffman scheme based on the desired statistics.

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that internet security scanner
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

anyone actually seen that thing? (to refresh: CERT posted some warning about a security scanner for Internet systems that might be the evil work of themthere hackers so you just better delete it, etc etc.) -- DISCLAIMER: This message represents only my OWN opinion, not that of EFF. Stanton McCandlish Electronic Frontier Foundation Online Activist mech(a)eff.org NitV-DataCenter BBS SysOp Fido: <tba> IndraNet: 369:111/1

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Re: Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace"
by jamie＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> Newbie cypheroids and cypherettes, >> >> Tim May has pointed to _The Puzzle Palace_ by Bamberg several times here > ^^^^^^^ >> and on the Extropians list. If like me you're a newbie, it's a quick, >> excellent read. Don't miss it. It'll give context for the quote, "gentlemen >> don't read each other's mail." > >"My name is Bamford, _James_ Bamford." > ooops, Tim's right. I was listening to David Bromberg (urg?) while writing that post and it slipped out. Thanks, Tim. -- ................................ Jamie Dinkelacker Palo Alto CA Jamie(a)netcom.com 415.941.4782

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Re: FIDONet Mail filterin
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

J >So how do I prevent what happened to SJG, killer, etc from happening J >to me? How do I prevent the LE types from showing up one day and J >saying 'hey, did you know there's a meg of kiddie porn on your J >machine and we're taking it all away'? As soon as you get the 10mbps line into the home (next year for you Continental cable customers), mirror your machine with another located overseas (or just run the machine overseas). Duncan Frissell --- WinQwk 2.0b#0

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Re: that internet security scanner
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Stanton McCandlish <mech(a)eff.org> said: >anyone actually seen that thing? (to refresh: CERT posted some warning >about a security scanner for Internet systems that might be the evil work >of themthere hackers so you just better delete it, etc etc.) (A) The "evil" in question was posted to comp.sources.misc (or some other similarly obvious group). (B) The advisory was about as neutral as such a thing can be. Further comment fails me. Doug

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MEETING: UK Cryptoprivacy Association
by russell＠eternity.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- UK Cryptoprivacy Association meeting Date: Sunday, 31 October 1993 Time: 1430 At the offices of: FOREST 4th floor 2 Grosvenor Gardens London SW1W 0DH [ FOREST is located at the corner of Grosvenor Gardens and Hobart Place, a couple of blocks west of Victoria Station. There is a taxi shelter across the street from the office. Those who have trouble finding this location can page Russell Whitaker on 081-812-2661, and stand by the payphone or cellphone for a callback. ] The UK Cryptoprivacy Association has its roots in the U.S. cypherpunk advocacy of strong personal cryptography. The next UKCA meeting, to be held at the offices of FOREST (see the above), will feature roundtable discussion on such issues as: - The recent well-publicised discovery of a larger number of U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) electronic listening posts than had been previously suspected; - Further news on the spread of freely-available public key cryptography software in Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Transcaucasian states; - The status of the various UK and Moscow PGP public key servers and software archive sites, with input from a couple of maintainers of these services in the UK; - The implications of the legal controversy surrounding the development and distribution of PGP encryption software in the U.S., with further discussion on the possibility of volunteer contributions to Phil Zimmermann's legal defence fund; - Introduction to public key cryptography for novices Attendees are encouraged to bring and exchange diskettes with their PGP public keys. A few of us will bring along our MS-DOS laptops, to sign public keys on site. In the interest of speeding things along, it is recommended that all keys signed at the meeting be submitted later, with their newly appended signatures, to the PGP Key Server at Demon Internet Services. Send a message with the subject line "help" to pgp-public-keys(a)demon.co.uk, for more information. PGP (Phil Zimmermann's "Pretty Good Privacy") public key encryption software can be obtained by ftp from, among other places, ftp.demon.co.uk in the directory /pub/pgp. Versions include, but are not limited to, Unix, MS-DOS, Archimedes, and MacOS. Full source code is available. This meeting will also feature discussion on the upcoming First European Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy (ECFP '93) to be held on 20 November 1993, which will feature speakers including John Gilmore, David Chaum, and Duncan Frissell, as well as a representative of the UK's Data Protection Registry. Russell Earl Whitaker ECFP Ventures Ltd -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQCVAgUBLLTAC4Tj7/vxxWtPAQGxdQP9G7uFHCcLJeSTTOBKYFBck2PpVk/jvWyM bxRg0stdjuWpHkIIZHAq4koh9BfUo46N3WOIG95SlfuRLVxzm3WmvKV7PJKhyfdh pFoYIwB2UcAknLPJva5eFBpi1VdDAMqv9G7qQfkoJQGXNAOlmh9GKhZkeLIeqVwv qfb7Q2SjLaI= =4OyJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Russell Earl Whitaker whitaker(a)eternity.demon.co.uk Communications Editor AMiX: RWhitaker EXTROPY: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought Board member, Extropy Institute (ExI) Co-organizer, 1st European Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, London, 20 November 1993

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