December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Certificates/Anonymity/Policy/True Names
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:47 PM 8/18/95, Michael Froomkin wrote: >I have a question which is of course purely hypothetical. > >Suppose you were designing the legal framework that would govern the >operation of Certification Authorities (the people who issue certificates >vouching for public keys used for digitial signatures), called CAs for >short. The CAs will operate in a hierarchical model (not a >PGP-web-of-trust model), with a state agency being at the root, and >issuing certificates for private CAs. I don't see any basis for having a state agency as the root...lots of things that are grounded in law have no origin/connection to the state. But, I'll assume your hypothetical (though I think the assumption that government = root leads down a dangerous path). >You have decided to allow the private CAs to issue certificates of varying >degrees of corroberation so long as the degree of verification used is >deducible from the certificate. E.g. a certificate might say "we check >the passport"; or "we check driver's license" or "we took blood, hair, >fingprint, retinal scan and first-born child". It might even say "we >checked nothing". You have also decided that a CA may issue a certificate >in the name of a pseudonym, so long as the CA retains information about >the True Name. Now the issue arises as to whether one should allow the CA >to issue certificates to pseudonyms where it has *no record* of the real >identity of the person proffering the key pair. It all depends on what the purpose of certification is in the first place, and whether alternative heierarchies of certification exist outside the one that has government as root. For example, I may instantiate many keys for use in experiments, or as agents in a market microworld, and I may "vouch" for them. These "agents" have no True Name, are not persons, but still have varying levels of certification (to me, at least) A company may even have multiple agents. Multiple departments, multiple users, etc. The web-of-trust model, which, loosely phrased, says "I say I believe this is the key of so-and-so, and you can believe me or not. We don't need no steenking badges!" The beauty of this is that any person or program can generate lots and lots of keys, for experiments, agents, etc. Now if it is desired to have the "legal system" mesh with this certification process, the governemnt is still not needed. Contract law suffices. If the Alice Corporation claims the Bob Company signed a document with a fraudulent key )or whatever the scenario might be), then each side can present in a court what the contracts they agreed to said and what the facts were. This happens all the time, though "I am not a lawyer," in disputes about whether a contract was signed properly, about whether the signer had the right authority, etc. And it is apparently not necessary to have the "state" establish itself, for example, as the keeper of signatures. I concede that there is a path back to the legal "is-a-person" status of parties, such as credentials for identity. In cases involving software agents and "virtual persons" (which is where key certification tends to come in), a stipulation can be made that a Real Person is to be involved in the loop. >Is there any reason why a person would want such a certificate? In other >words, given that the recipient of a digital signature will easily be >able to check the value of the certificate (nil), won't the >transaction/communication be in all ways identical to one where there was >no certificate at all. So is anything of value lost by prohibiting such >a certificate? So long as I am not prohibited from getting together with others (on a list like our, in a corporation, with offshore folks, etc.) and setting up our own system--of whatever nature--then I suppose it doesn't matter. But you ask "So is anything of value lost by prohibiting such a certificate?" Well, why prohibit something unless a real and compelling problem exists? it might turn out to be very useful to have certificates even for keys that belong to entities or agents that have no True Name attached to them. I've given some examples, and can think of more. --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net (Got net?) | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Economic Model for Key Cracking
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

So far, list members have mostly presented two points of view on the economics of key cracking: o It's free, since it uses spare CPU cycles o It should be priced at the cost of the dedicated computer hardware needed to do it. Both of these approaches are wrong. The first approach fails because it doesn't scale -- there probably aren't enough people willing to crack lots of keys purely for the research interest, hack value, or the goodness of their heart. At the same time, many people and companies have lots of unused CPU time on their hands. Economically, this CPU time is scrap material -- and there are companies out there that do nothing but buy up scrap equipment for pennies on the dollar. Therefore it should be possible to create a market in spare CPU cycles for tasks like this that require massive parallel computing. An earlier suggestion for bounties on keys (basically the Chinese lottery approach) is a step in this direction. I'd also like to point out that a hacker who can sniff out SSL-encrypted packets on a hacked network is going to be vastly harder to catch than someone who trolls through his or her physical community dumpster diving and bribing clerks. The ability to anonymously gather and decrypt credit card numbers has a vastly lower "cost" in terms of likelyhood of prosecution. If it drops down to under $100 per key, it's probably at a good break-even point to do it wholesale. Certainly the out-of-pocket cost of cracking a 40-bit SSL key is less than that right now for a great many people, even without creating a market.

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How Does Fortezza Work?
by Alan Tu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi all, I am writing an article to help people understand the technical and practical issues surrounding the key escrow debate. Can someone tell me how the Fortezza chip works. I have a 1993 document which is incomplete. Is the session key K still encrypted with the unit key U? And is that whole thing encrypted, with the serial number, with the family key F? I'd appreciate some more current info. You will be credited in my article. Alan Tu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv Comment: Requires PGP version 2.6 or later. iQCVAwUBM9zSwZezmBrl2RXhAQEF3AP+Nw3xwRh+fwxXtNDIK8Eo0BiZiyHNnKHo vyPqe/V3OrK6k3U9iHAiajCodpvQpb6uaPE+YiKwymtLdzEqUp2AcxubV9/7XIk1 cKrdsTEvBFMnPV0DN0H3UFqPivsJJ3beRifAjP07xOUiiw7b0dyiDFwPnyNLm40w BRl2Dvxv5Ow= =tDzB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Type Bits/KeyID Date User ID pub 1024/E5D915E1 1997/04/27 Alan Tu <atu5713(a)compuserve.com> Alan Tu <102534.2165(a)compuserve.com> -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.3i Comment: Requires PGP version 2.6 or later. mQCNAzNivkwAAAEEALdGUXD3j+RioIirVG46N6LaGD3YMMVVT5Mjwr5JojQsDICy 856I06Ugo/Fqid2A/os7v/gwE+Sj/WhMERgTsTejUZtsucTpS9sae+cc27Fjjq1l hOnqcLZqnHDDNyn3+jesVFPLnRlSoHbmcBK1XDW/SJT1anZz55ezmBrl2RXhAAUR tCBBbGFuIFR1IDxhdHU1NzEzQGNvbXB1c2VydmUuY29tPokAlQIFEDOguk6Xs5ga 5dkV4QEBBF8D/1B0ePqlMavWEUMP0uTmyvWFI7jooAcih6uHZFo2u+u3EzE2Is8X EoLHg39DhjleTHPu6TnGsWIiwDYEslzYeVw/Cglx6eliYIr/qs7peEywuhtZsEFH ln6yR9IE6rX3b3GCvPSQ5uPhXWrd2kWaZvG4rQ4Oj1m3yTrFaPRqCBPvtCRBbGFu IFR1IDwxMDI1MzQuMjE2NUBjb21wdXNlcnZlLmNvbT6JAJUDBRAzyUJWl7OYGuXZ FeEBAc4TBACT8gLtyE0C8NBGs9aDa9kHfeNzN8VbNfUpoOiWi4duAAZFiAt/e+ji J2BUMLIY8kzm2WX4mVzpKYjvea5TtHeQgbESV1HVZ5k7abENMUYz5nSMloOE+bb+ XRzgGgFF3htGXDJNywlLNgoYi5vTMT0pbGlCzOu215Cc4mFls2w1iA== =CM85 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Re: Netscape security
by adam＠bwh.harvard.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

| > > There is no word as to how to become a KSA. Netscpe has | > >ignored the question on several occaisons. | > | > I'm fairly sure that I remember Taher saying at the W3C security | > meeting that they intend to do this, and that hardcoding the CA's | > into the library was as quick hack. I also have the impression | > that they don't know how to do it, but my recollection is fuzzier there. | | It has been stated publicly several times that we do plan to allow | user configurable certificate authority and server trust. A user | will be able to configure their browser to talk to servers that have | certificates signed by any CA they choose to trust. But I think I can work cheaper than Verisign. What do I have to do to get set up as a KCA today? Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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How Does Fortezza Work?
by Alan Tu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please send replies to atu5713(a)compuserve.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi all, I am writing an article to help people understand the technical and practical issues surrounding the key escrow debate. Can someone tell me how the Fortezza chip works. I have a 1993 document which is incomplete. Is the session key K still encrypted with the unit key U? And is that whole thing encrypted, with the serial number, with the family key F? I'd appreciate some more current info. You will be credited in my article. Alan Tu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv Comment: Requires PGP version 2.6 or later. iQCVAwUBM9zSwZezmBrl2RXhAQEF3AP+Nw3xwRh+fwxXtNDIK8Eo0BiZiyHNnKHo vyPqe/V3OrK6k3U9iHAiajCodpvQpb6uaPE+YiKwymtLdzEqUp2AcxubV9/7XIk1 cKrdsTEvBFMnPV0DN0H3UFqPivsJJ3beRifAjP07xOUiiw7b0dyiDFwPnyNLm40w BRl2Dvxv5Ow= =tDzB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Type Bits/KeyID Date User ID pub 1024/E5D915E1 1997/04/27 Alan Tu <atu5713(a)compuserve.com> Alan Tu <102534.2165(a)compuserve.com> -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.3i Comment: Requires PGP version 2.6 or later. mQCNAzNivkwAAAEEALdGUXD3j+RioIirVG46N6LaGD3YMMVVT5Mjwr5JojQsDICy 856I06Ugo/Fqid2A/os7v/gwE+Sj/WhMERgTsTejUZtsucTpS9sae+cc27Fjjq1l hOnqcLZqnHDDNyn3+jesVFPLnRlSoHbmcBK1XDW/SJT1anZz55ezmBrl2RXhAAUR tCBBbGFuIFR1IDxhdHU1NzEzQGNvbXB1c2VydmUuY29tPokAlQIFEDOguk6Xs5ga 5dkV4QEBBF8D/1B0ePqlMavWEUMP0uTmyvWFI7jooAcih6uHZFo2u+u3EzE2Is8X EoLHg39DhjleTHPu6TnGsWIiwDYEslzYeVw/Cglx6eliYIr/qs7peEywuhtZsEFH ln6yR9IE6rX3b3GCvPSQ5uPhXWrd2kWaZvG4rQ4Oj1m3yTrFaPRqCBPvtCRBbGFu IFR1IDwxMDI1MzQuMjE2NUBjb21wdXNlcnZlLmNvbT6JAJUDBRAzyUJWl7OYGuXZ FeEBAc4TBACT8gLtyE0C8NBGs9aDa9kHfeNzN8VbNfUpoOiWi4duAAZFiAt/e+ji J2BUMLIY8kzm2WX4mVzpKYjvea5TtHeQgbESV1HVZ5k7abENMUYz5nSMloOE+bb+ XRzgGgFF3htGXDJNywlLNgoYi5vTMT0pbGlCzOu215Cc4mFls2w1iA== =CM85 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Vacation
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sorry to be bugging out at such an interesting time, but I will be on vacation from Aug 19 through Aug 26. Hope to see a lot of CPs at Crypto - Hal Finney

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Re: Netscape security
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by altitude(a)cic.net (Alex Tang) on Fri, 18 Aug 2:52 PM >It seems that one of the problems with Damien's >cracking job was that it was "not sanctioned". Look >at the WSJ article, they didn't mention his >name...they just called him "a hacker". It shows how >public opinion still sees groups like the cypherpunks >as just that, a bunch of punks. > >With some "respected" business on our side, it may make >a much bigger impact (better publicity, better >leverage, etc.). While the WSJ story mentioned no names, other than the esteemed CypherName and our cypheragent who lured the reporter, later stories have given individual credit and amplified the "mainstream" impact of the cabalistic hacker culture crack. This segue may be due to the PR-mad corporations and the LEA's seeking to profit by the drama given to outsiders to get their safety-products approved, to pose themselves as being more devoted to the public weal than the devil- punks (liars or inadverdent truthsayers?). Or, it may just be a more interesting (lucrative) to pump the outsider, hacker aspect. Reporting on hackerdom has been oft used to boost a shrewd wannabe-an-insider's rep in the mainstream -- no names now, you know who they are, most are doing quite well, Zarathrustra bless their complicit Guccioni-success. So, hackers, punks, cypherpunks, up all night, right, watch them come calling for an interview when you misbehave in outrageous and wondrous and techno-magical ways. Gotta get lurid stories to allure the customer/advertiser/voter. Damien, Hal and the SSL-non-anonymous hackers, watch your backs, think of Kevin and his oh-so-admiring, trust-me provocateurs. Just my Time-averse sensor-jigger, sensing threat models.

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Re: WhiSSLing in the Dark
by ab411＠detroit.freenet.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Netscape Encrypted Data Cracked > >Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 18 (NB) -- ... > >Many companies working on secure transaction systems hope >the much more secure 128-bit code version of the system >will be available for export eventually. This is said to >be almost unbreakable, requiring a trillion times more >processing power to crack than the 40-bit version. ... Notice how the "over a trillion times more" has devolved into simply "a trillion times more" -- and we all know that the former statement was a gross underestimate, reminiscent of the claim of "over 3 billion combinations" on Ideal's packaging for Rubik's cube. Of course the real reason the media have standardized on trillian for this is that they know it is the biggest number the bulk of their audience is familiar with, and that if they said 3e26 or even "three times ten to the twenty-sixth power" they would snow most of their readers/viewers. (To be fair, I think the WSJ did say 10^26, with a brief explanation of what that meant. I congratulate them for not "talking down" to their readers.) -- David R. Conrad, ab411(a)detroit.freenet.org, http://www.grfn.org/~conrad Finger conrad(a)grfn.org for PGP 2.6 public key; it's also on my home page Key fingerprint = 33 12 BC 77 48 81 99 A5 D8 9C 43 16 3C 37 0B 50 Jerry Garcia, August 1, 1942 - August 9, 1995. Requiescat in pace.

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Re: WhiSSLing in the Dark
by goedel＠tezcat.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David R. Conrad wrote: >>Netscape Encrypted Data Cracked >> >>Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 18 (NB) -- ... >> >>Many companies working on secure transaction systems hope >>the much more secure 128-bit code version of the system >>will be available for export eventually. This is said to >>be almost unbreakable, requiring a trillion times more >>processing power to crack than the 40-bit version. ... > >Notice how the "over a trillion times more" has devolved into simply "a >trillion times more" -- and we all know that the former statement was a >gross underestimate, reminiscent of the claim of "over 3 billion >combinations" on Ideal's packaging for Rubik's cube. > >Of course the real reason the media have standardized on trillian for >this is that they know it is the biggest number the bulk of their >audience is familiar with, and that if they said 3e26 or even "three >times ten to the twenty-sixth power" they would snow most of their >readers/viewers. (To be fair, I think the WSJ did say 10^26, with a >brief explanation of what that meant. I congratulate them for not >"talking down" to their readers.) I talked the guy out of using an analogy with physical key length (the kind you stick in a door) and he settled on "10^26" rather than a power of 2. Also, I gave hime the relevant names, e-mail addresses, and URL's, but didn't have any phone numbers. BTW, in the "cryptography experts and hackers and mathematicians" as well as the whole "hacker" slant, smells like an editor. Dietrich J. Kappe | Red Planet http://www.redweb.com/ Red Planet, L.L.C.| "Chess Space" /chess 1-800-RED 0 WEB | "MS Access Products" /cobre Web Publishing | E-mail: RedPlanet(a)redweb.com

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Re: Certificates/Anonymity/Policy/True Names
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:47 PM 8/18/95 -0400, Michael Froomkin writes about CAs, and asks why a CA or customer would want a certificate for a pseudonym without any identification or True Name. >given that the recipient of a digital signature will easily be >able to check the value of the certificate (nil), won't the >transaction/communication be in all ways identical to one where there was >no certificate at all. So is anything of value lost by prohibiting such >a certificate? It's useful for a couple of reasons 1) Continuity - For a single transaction, it doesn't make much difference; for multiple transactions/communications it does. If you want to use the nym JohnDoe, and you register with keys.com, you can do repeated transactions (e.g. posting to the net) as JohnDoe/keys.com, and nobody can impersonate you as long as keys.com doesn't allow duplicates. This allows people to build reputations under pseudonyms, and do repeat business or have readers bother to read their postings. Without certification (whether web-based or hierarchy-based), you're stuck with always posting your messages with a given key and hoping people can decide whether they've really got yours or some other JohnDoe. Our local Black Unicorn is this way - few of us know his True Name, but his reputation is established. On the other hand we can't really tell if the many postings by the L-Name are from a single person, a cooperating group, or imposters who decided it would be fun to borrow his reputation for the day. Tim May has occasionally proposed that the key is really all that matters, and that the name tacked onto it is just an untrustable convenience, but I'd say that certification does increase that convenience by adding some trust. 2) Policy-vs-Mechanism - Realistically, there'll be software out there that wants an Official CA-approved certificate to talk to anyone. If nobody's willing to give certificates to nyms, then nyms can't participate. 3) What's your definition of "prohibit"? If you mean "Keys.com decides not to offer the service", they lose the cash they might have made selling certificates to nyms, lose some customer goodwill, but maybe gain an improved reputation in other parts of the market, and JohnDoe can always go to Nyms-R-Us.org and register as JohnDoe32767. If you mean "the government should ban it", I've done enough anarchist ranting about how that sort of thing degrades society :-) However, if you mean "The Certificate Authority Cabal should agree not to offer any certificates without real ID and contractually forbid lower-level certifiers to do it either", well, it's a sad thing for society, but they can do it if they want. You lose the ability to participate as a nym, you lose privacy, you lose the value that you might have gained by transactions with people who wanted to retain their anonymity. RSA does offer personna certificates to unauthenticated people. (Also see my follow-on message about my offer to sign PGP keys for nyms.) 4) Are there negatives about dealing with unattributable pseudonyms? Of course. But you don't have to deal with them, and there will be CAs who don't, and services that refuse to deal with unauthenticated pseudonyms, just as there are on-line services like the Well that allow "unlisted" identifications but do keep track of true names for their users. It would be nice if certification authorities did indicate how much trust they have in the identity of a given key's owner, but markets will take care of that. Thanks; Bill Stewart #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #--- "The fat man rocks out Hinges fall off Heaven's door "Come on in," says Bill" Wavy Gravy's haiku for Jerry

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PGP Certification Service for Pseudonyms
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Time to stretch some paradigms :-) I've decided to offer a service of certifying PGP keys for Pseudonyms. Normally, it only makes sense to sign PGP keys for people you can trust to really be who they say they are, but this means you can't sign keys for people who want to use pseudonyms, which would be a Good Thing. To try and retain a certain amount of trust in the process, here's my policy for doing so: 0) I only sign pseudonyms with the psuedonym-signing key below, which tries to make it clear how trustable it isn't.. 1) First Come, First Served - The first user of a given name gets it, and the only guarantee I'll make about verification is that I won't sign more than one key with the same name unless the later key is signed by the earlier key. 2) At least for now, keys need to indicate pseudonymity in the name. 3) If you're using a name I recognize, I might check it out with the person I know who uses that name. 3A) If you're claiming to be L.Detweiler, I'll want a fax of your ID :-) Procedures: 1) Requests by email; I will mail a copy of the key to the keyserver and to the address you sent the request from if I can. 2) Price is 1 Digicash e$, or 1 Tacky Token, or a big prime number, or an interesting cypherpunk-related URL (well-known sites only count if it's something new. New code is always interesting!) 3) I'll post interesting payments to http://idiom.com/~wcs/ , and if it's something that takes a while to verify (e.g. I haven't gotten my free stuff from digicash.com yet :-) and your payment bounces, I'll probably post that too :-) Pseudonym John Doe sent me a composite number 897098274398742! Enjoy! Bill ############################################################################ 1024/B57ECBC5 1995/08/18 Bill Stewart Unauthenticated Pseudonym Signing Key <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> PGP-Fingerprint: 70 96 C9 B8 38 05 61 0C A5 30 D0 82 7A 74 16 15 - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.7.1 mQCNAzA1FMYAAAEEAKW0NWw3NyyFSuo1tQRbK8hBQDJ8Kdi0VlNqJrxKYcdbMMsW 3Mcy9aqU9Z2o4ZzqFGWVVgXARwBzIK996yL+6tNPeVZQeDa64gmuTc12oYhfocjt AhEv6+f/oEYBiKjhSfoVVuoe8sudFH2e1Q5wjpd8LGZux15gN/nzJsm1fsvFAAUR tEtCaWxsIFN0ZXdhcnQgVW5hdXRoZW50aWNhdGVkIFBzZXVkb255bSBTaWduaW5n IEtleSA8c3Rld2FydHNAaXgubmV0Y29tLmNvbT6JAJQDBRAwNRcy+fMmybV+y8UB AaYjA/iyfRbaYmNrlH81Pig/3c9Co2pPXWXJW4MES/5syRvebZEmbWaXFKpIwXh6 OBT1oKZtN8WfGxENyWcXyyoiOaRR/9tt3c3VqJ98oAgJcB9W217q4NGWiG2X6mlB IQYZ8Lcdl6aX2pftHGbFZ0AR45RKYcIdQOPVC87NLzJYEDxkiQBVAwUQMDUXFHB8 FQG9p6e1AQF/BQH+JROoAsFoo9CmzUfP2c8w8OqfNSlGkZ6gHRsJ6zgzXkJJwQ89 gJcK9HkIFPgec1/HiTmRtLWrqeDB9WVzorTnMokBFQMFEDA1Fi6IHBX3yeGy8QEB GdAH/RknVXw5UDCkEXXrrLUyNBvDpokBb7rarpJQ1SXB+YvvfcMDyotUTyhb5QZi LWOi8OrSeUD0l/LyJjQ01ejMUC3Y5z4KVyKel4E+3CwMWkuJpkoe0AkQ3TUfXqtd AM7H2kC13hXrprQKOAMJMArcHxocP9GkIRKx7URDM7vE6lmaXYEd6i5uFICNNFNM MggRfVTCr8RecP+kAWvbFJQ3ET2/ctP/wzb2uJoXlzFTebAMlh32d4UrQyo2iE1h qSF6G+GKYbtl61OJU0FySAPPV2bO5xVqgsySm9mmjEs7W2l3gyddMallbnE5vFJr 0xSOd/9ZKNfq+0Cxdy7KuW3PobY= =OBBP - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.7.1 iQBVAwUBMDUk2fthU5e7emAFAQEqZwH/ZOGPWCOldIsueBZWbmSAEGcXoUlXqJNS 8DoFNO0W1qs7+2kcKxM55UahdcOdaJe/lTbtf2PLgRmEzkV2mYLSyw== =kpgd -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #--- "The fat man rocks out Hinges fall off Heaven's door "Come on in," says Bill" Wavy Gravy's haiku for Jerry

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Re: PGP Certification Service for Pseudonyms
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In my announcement about Pseudonym Signing Service, I forgot to type Rule 4) 4) Any messages requesting signatures for keys must be signed by the key requesting the signature (both the key and the email message need to be signed...) Thanks; Bill #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #--- "The fat man rocks out Hinges fall off Heaven's door "Come on in," says Bill" Wavy Gravy's haiku for Jerry

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Strong encryption for credit cards only
by monty.harder＠famend.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

H > There are many aspects to privacy beyond credit card numbers. The bottom "Jane goes to dance class Wednesdays from 4:30 to 5:30. And since Madame Sophia's School of Dance is just a few blocks away from Johnson Elementary, she can walk." tells that pedophile (and we know that the Internet is just =filled= with them, thanks to Marty Rimm's Definitive Study on the subject) exactly where he can lie in wait for his next victim. We need strong crypto to protect The Children!<tm> from such threats. Hillary and the rest of the Children's Defense Fund-amentalists should be in the vanguard of this Just Cause. * Encrypted just to pixx off Louis Freeh: mQCNAiqxEn0AAAEEAM0fi4K4+iXI9fV0fz0n --- * Monster(a)FAmend.Com *

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Sun's buggy MD5?
by michael shiplett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's something fun to do on Solaris 2.3 or 2.4. Notice the similarity among the Solaris md5 output. Anyone know why this is? The Sun service folk weren't able to point me to a Solaris bug-report email address. I had a similar experience looking through www.sun.com. Pointers are welcomed. PROBLEM: A program which uses md5 from a dynamically linked (or loaded) library and the nsl library is loaded before a ``standard'' md5 library will get md5 results different from the rest of the non-Solaris world. NOTES: the non-Solaris md5 files are from RFC 1321. some test output has been deleted as it does not fit nicely on a standard message line. solmd5 seems to give slightly different output on different machines and greatly different output with different compilers the nsl library is required on Solaris 2.4 when using sockets. /usr/include/sys/ppp_chap.h includes a slightly modified---mainly names---version of md5.h. % gcc -o md5 mddriver.c md5c.c % gcc -o solmd5 mddriver.c -lnsl % ./md5 -x MD5 test suite: MD5 ("") = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e MD5 ("a") = 0cc175b9c0f1b6a831c399e269772661 MD5 ("abc") = 900150983cd24fb0d6963f7d28e17f72 MD5 ("message digest") = f96b697d7cb7938d525a2f31aaf161d0 MD5 ("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz") = c3fcd3d76192e4007dfb496cca67e13b MD5 ("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789") = d174ab98d277d9f5a5611c2c9f419d9f % ./solmd5 -x MD5 test suite: MD5 ("") = f00001c0effffba8429b59d50529097c MD5 ("a") = f00003c0effffba8aec5fcf4284a8dbe MD5 ("abc") = f00005c0effffba896fc8af8ca60a911 MD5 ("message digest") = f00007c0effffba8f373218f317a9558 MD5 ("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz") = f00009c0effffba896b4f24acb3f4738 MD5 ("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789") = f0000bc0effffba8cef237a614aa457d michael

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Red Shift
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Citibank Theft New York (AP) -- Russian computer hackers broke into a Citibank electronic money transfer system and stole more than $10 million before they were caught, according to newly-unsealed court documents. The money was shifted from Citibank to accounts in Finland, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, Israel and Switzerland, FBI agent Steven Garfinkel said. Citibank said six people have been arrested in the scheme and that none of its clients lost money.

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Re: Exportable if Escrowed Changes Nothing!
by Joey Grasty 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous wrote: > Joey Grasty writes: > > Governments: can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > It is precisely this kind of self-defeating pessimism that has allowed > the current state of affairs to develop. > > You grossly misinterpreted my remark. I believe that socialist-statism exhibited by the current US gov't is about to crack due to overspending and technology. Whether it will go peacefully or not is another question. I stand ready to defend myself if necessary, but I prefer to kick the statists in the ass by deploying strong encryption. When information can flow, the statists lose. They know that; witness the frantic effort to outlaw encryption. Too late, though. I'm writing code to hasten the end of the statists. Just what are you doing besides hiding behind anonymity? Regards, -- Joey Grasty jgrasty(a)gate.net [home -- encryption, privacy, RKBA and other hopeless causes] jgrasty(a)pts.mot.com [work -- designing pagers] "Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." -- John Von Neumann PGP = A7 CC 31 E4 7E A3 36 13 93 F4 C9 06 89 51 F5 A7

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Time-memory tradeoff in SSL's RC4 code?
by JMKELSEY＠delphi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 08:32:56 -0400 >From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> >Subject: Re: SSL challenge -- broken ! >It has occured to me that, because the RC4 key crackers spend most of >their time in key setup, you can crack N SSL sessions that you >captured in not substantially more time than it took to crack 1. This >is analagous to the way brute force Unix password file hacking operates. This would work with straight 40-bit keys, but I believe SSL uses 128-bit keys, and then intentionally leaks 88 bits to comply with export requirements, to prevent this kind of attack from working. >Perry --John Kelsey, jmkelsey(a)delphi.com PGP 2.6 fingerprint = 4FE2 F421 100F BB0A 03D1 FE06 A435 7E36 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMDVGXUHx57Ag8goBAQFyUQP7B7fhKc8AqpcHnQ09ip5gOfy5QMCtGImB f1Y9lZtAmLFwOIkrfdaL2vCWJKIKc7yg8+FwtmX6Q8yYWH4TdE5eWOGIKSfl5Q8f etVgF2B49T5Lxxb02ah5cHfO8baOqQOTMkvzQ9bj0XVqAItPoPjDTCOAAegwKZ3V 6L+kZQn89lY= =KkAX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Export policy change
by JMKELSEY＠delphi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 23:48:01 -0400 >From: Rich Salz <rsalz(a)osf.org> >Subject: Export policy change >Just heard on the 11:30pm NPR news update. The Clinton Administration >has changed the crypto export policy. You will now be allowed to >export strong crypto, provided it is a key escrow system. The >reporter (Dan Charles?) said something like anyone can hold the keys, >as long as they will be made avail when presented with a court order. >He also said, US citizens will still be able to use strong crypto >without key escrow internally. Terrorists and drug pushers were given >as "reasons." I think this is an important and somewhat subtle political move on the part of the administration. If they can get at least a few large businesses (the ones who buy into the key-escrow scheme) on their side, by making it in their economic interests for everyone to use escrowed crypto, they will have manufactured some potentially powerful allies in the computer industry. Certainly, once any major company has spent a lot of money to set up a key escrow facility, they will help lobby *against* any easing of the requirement to use escrowed crypto, based simply on self-interest. --John Kelsey, jmkelsey(a)delphi.com PGP 2.6 fingerprint = 4FE2 F421 100F BB0A 03D1 FE06 A435 7E36 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMDVGZUHx57Ag8goBAQEutQQAmM/qEIAlLklDRW/FVvLah7vgY6lYcCK/ XToA79tVZNmy+8U/XjS2g6+Ffsc/gQflOdg/ZmewDOQRJ4YI+BzHUjKL5NVDWAUA /4+ySWxcAAEOD23GhS9p/iFN/Gbe0oV9JIQ2HCpPN929VaRl7J+1fWA/ETZkB914 ClJPlXqa1xo= =XefF -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Anonymous certificates
by JMKELSEY＠delphi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 14:47:55 -0400 (EDT) >From: Michael Froomkin <mfroomki(a)umiami.ir.miami.edu> >Subject: Certificates/Anonymity/Policy/True Names >Now the issue arises as to whether one should allow the CA >to issue certificates to pseudonyms where it has *no record* of the real >identity of the person proffering the key pair. >Is there any reason why a person would want such a certificate? In other >words, given that the recipient of a digital signature will easily be >able to check the value of the certificate (nil), won't the >transaction/communication be in all ways identical to one where there was >no certificate at all. >So is anything of value lost by prohibiting such >a certificate? There are definitely cases where something is lost by prohibiting that kind of certificate. For example, there may be cases where a certified key gives someone some right that doesn't need any further identification, such as a right to run up $100 in phone bills, or a right to receive a year's subscription to cp-lite. As long as the person has paid for that right, who cares who he or she is? In other words, you may wind up sometimes binding a key to a function, rather than a person. >A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) >Associate Professor of Law | mfroomki(a)umiami.ir.miami.edu >U. Miami School of Law | >P.O. Box 248087 | It's hot here. And humid. >Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | --John Kelsey, jmkelsey(a)delphi.com PGP 2.6 fingerprint = 4FE2 F421 100F BB0A 03D1 FE06 A435 7E36 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMDVGbUHx57Ag8goBAQHO/AP+IM1YQSXZWaysjDALtOljqUEiyiCBA3EM Wxd8dp0dVrXKEii1Ima/xLHMKY4P0fvwT3oQl4x+mMo+ED2lNHo5GOUhgkE1tOZ8 6JfnUS6+l1Y4r14Aq0eMLljrOKFBDDUxewJTRaz36awWNr9W0tEcnnKv9NwQMU// CCKR6L5fekI= =EI6V -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Certificates/Anonymity/Policy/True Names
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:26 AM 8/19/95, Michael Froomkin wrote: >Bill Stewart asks what follows from "prohibit". In the model I am, um, >hypothesizing, CAs that play by the rules are entitled to certain safe >harbors shielding them from potential liability (e.g. can't be sued if >their certificate was used in a transaction that went bad through no >fault of theirs). No other behaviour or act is banned, but other, >private, alternatives may suffer a coompetitive disadvantage since they >would lack the certainty that they could not be sued. Then I suggest you use a different word than "prohibit." To many of us, this implies illegality, men with guns, early morning raids, and Janet Reno. You don't seem to mean this. By the way, is this really just an excercise, or are you perchance involved in the goings-on with policy on crypto? (Not making any accusations, just noting that various crypto policy groups are reported to be meeting...the National Research Council thing, the key escrow initiatives, etc.) Encrypting minds want to know. --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net (Got net?) | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Economic Model for Key Cracking
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:29 PM 8/18/95 -0600, howard(a)cs.ualberta.ca wrote: > Distribute work when a request is received. > When the final results come back, pay the worker e-cash. > >We need to make sure that someone did do the work honestly, but I don't know >how to check this (other than doing the work yourself to confirm the results, >but this defeats the whole point of the system). For the usual NP-hard problems, including keycracking, checking the answer once you have it is easy - the hard part is finding the answer. Another way to look at it is that most of the work is throwing away the 2**N-1 keys that aren't correct, and if you've got one correct key you don't need to know about the rest (except in special cases where there are multiple keys that work, but usually you don't care about that.) Most people are honest, except Bad Guys. The honesty problem is more serious for negative results - if somebody says "Range N1-N2 doesn't have the key", they could be honest, or they could be a Bad Guy who knows that the key really _is_ in that range and wants to prevent you from searching it, or they could be a scammer who wants to get paid for searching but didn't actually do the work. If people are willing to be paid in lottery-mode (only the person who finds they key gets paid), then honesty's not a problem. Otherwise, only hire honest people (plus Bad Guys), and if they don't find the key after the first sweep, try again (switching off ranges so one Bad Guy doesn't get to lie about the same range twice.) Alternatively, you could do a model where everybody gets paid, but only after the answer is found, which discourages scammers (since they don't get paid if they lie about searching the range that has the real key.) If a Bad Guy lies about the key not being in his range, people do have an incentive to look for it if the first pass fails, and have an incentive to finger him if they do find the key on a later pass. #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #--- "The fat man rocks out Hinges fall off Heaven's door "Come on in," says Bill" Wavy Gravy's haiku for Jerry

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Re: Exportable if Escrowed
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

PGP inherently provides master-key service, which can be used for escrow. On a normal PGP message, there's a session key which the sender knows, and a copy of the session key is provided to the recipient, who can open it on the condition that he has the genuine private key. That's fairly close to _real_ escrow - it's certainly closer than Clipper's Master-Key stuff. (And it has a lot more masters :-) If PGP message-senders want to do so, they can use multiple recipients on a given message, so the key is accessible to a third party trusted by the sender (the legitimate recipient already can give it to trusted parties.) (Typically a sender might use encrypt-to-self to retain the key for later use.) An amusing feature to add to PGP (using the 3.0 toolkits when available) would be a session-key-splitting feature, which uses Shamir M/N sharing or a simple two-way split and encrypts the splits with different people's public keys, so that you could give them to semi-trusted parties. Of course, the Clintonites' proposal of "Well let you use slightly less wimpy encryption in return for GAK" is really offensive - if they've got GAK, it doesn't matter if they keys are 64000 bits long, since they'll have them. Smokescreen. On the other hand, master GAK keys don't fit well into a Web of Trust - you'd essentially have to require that people only send mail to keys that are signed by an escrow service, and people wouldn't always do that if they had a choice - to enforce GAK, you either need to limit the sender's encryption software (unrealistic) or the recipient's decryption software (unrealistic), probably by requiring exportable products to use a specific hierarchical key-service. #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #--- "The fat man rocks out Hinges fall off Heaven's door "Come on in," says Bill" Wavy Gravy's haiku for Jerry

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NSA's black hole event detector
by J. Kent Hastings 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-- [ From: J. Kent Hastings * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- >On July 19, Gerald Ollman and Robert Wayne, two researchers from the >University of Maryland geophysics department were detained in Fort Meade, >Maryland, apparently by agents of the National Security Agency, whilst >taking measurements of the Earth's gravitational field. So, the NSA has a microscopic black hole they're modulating with a fine particle stream, so gravity wave detectors can receive messages through the Earth using hyper-amplified optical data cubes. These messages could not be jammed by e-m waves (OK, terawatts at the receiver maybe). According to Communications Quarterly, such black hole events could arguably support a compressed real-time digital voice channel. This sounds like the "heavy hand" devices in the new Free Space science-fiction anthology. What? You haven't read it? Neither has anyone else, but when it finally comes out you'll get to read my story about blue helmeted Earth Union troops battling a neo-Confederate militia 20 years after the War of Annexation. Nanotech weapons, makeshift missiles, home-brew spacecraft. An important part of a balanced breakfast. Kent -- "Put pages for your business on the World Wide Web, just $5 per month!" J. Kent Hastings -- zeus(a)pinsight.com -- http://www.pinsight.com/~zeus/

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So, NSA can break 64-bit keys
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The WSJ article on Clipper II (The Next Day) was the best one. Particularly this line: "Clint Brooks, a technical advisor with the NSA [said] that continued [64-bit] limits [on key length] were needed because officials were "uneasy" about the possibility that software could be altered so that the key would no longer be accessible to law-enforcement officials." This must mean that the Feds figure that by the time this turkey gets around to actually flying (sometime well after the Clinton administration), 64-bit keys will be (are) vulnerable. I guess this means no source code. Are there any software encryption systems that can't be modified after the fact? DCF "Course, the source code could be released after key escrow has occured."

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HAQ_kof
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8-19-95. NYPaper: Whitfield Diffie OpEd: "Washington's Computer Insecurity." The Federal Government has refused to allow companies to export strong encryption systems, insisting that cryptography is a military weapon. If the Administration does not fundamentally alter its position, it is likely that our high-tech industries, which sell more than half their products outside the country, will continue to be forced to sell programs with weak security systems. This will pave the way for foreign companies to grab what is expected to become a huge market for properly safeguarded computer communications. "Citibank Fraud Case Raises Computer Security Questions." A $10 million computer fraud against Citibank appeared to be the first successful penetration by a hacker into the systems that transfer trillions of dollars a day around the world's banks. New details of the case were disclosed as a Federal complaint was unsealed in Manhattan. The hackers were accused of breaking into Citibank's cash management system, a network that allows its corporate customers to transfer money to any bank account in the world. Banking experts said similar breakins were bound to occur at a time when more powerful personal computers are available. Since the break-in, Citibank has required customers to use an electronic device, that creates a new password for every transfer. Two: HAQ_kof (11kb)

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