December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Picketing With Packets
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I availed myself of some free home page enhancements on the Web yesterday, and all of a sudden, my SPAM has increased by at least an order of magnitude. Obviously, one or more of the sites I visited sold my email address to Mr. Spamford. I am now getting almost continuous Cyberpromo, EmailBlaster, and SubmitKing mailings as well as one from some female entrepreneur in Singapore who wants me to send her US$10 to email me obscene stories. (sigh) The time has come to make an example of Wallace Spamford, and to mount his stuffed carcass on the gates of the Internet as a warning to those who might be tempted to follow in his footsteps. The following was suggested to me by someone on IRC this morning, and I think it's a pretty nifty idea. We write a little Perl script that keeps exactly ONE AND ONLY ONE TCP connection open to each of Mr. Spamford's machines. Keeping a single TCP connection open to someone's box is unlikely to be illegal, and does not constitute a Denial of Service attack. Consider it the packet equivalent of a single person picketing. We publish the script, and encourage every Sysadmin who hates Mr. Spamford to run it. When thousands do so, he will be out of sockets, and consequently out of business. Consider this the packet equivalent of the UPS strike. We can make the scripts clever, and have them goose a wide variety of ports on Mr. Spamford's machines. He can, of course, devise a technical defense against this, but he does not have one installed at present, and it will shut him down for the time being, and give him sufficient time to ponder his evil ways. This also has the advantage of distributing the liability over thousands of individuals, a technique shown in the recent uunet UDP to render legal redress impractical. Anyone have any comments on this scheme, or anything even more insidious to suggest? -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ enoch(a)zipcon.com $ via Finger $ {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}

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Re: Export rules
by Jim Ray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 02:05 AM 8/15/97 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: ... >Well, Raph Levien applied for an export permit for the RSA-in-4-lines-of-PERL >shirt several years ago, and the export thugs stalled on it and never >responded positively or negatively, in spite of their publicly stated >policies that they "will" respond in some small number of days. ... I wonder if it's possible/practical to do a FOIA request on Raph's old permit request and why it didn't merit action. As I recall, he even sent them a couple of the shirts. Then the export thugs could never- respond to the FOIA request, I guess. Someday, the news media might even notice that it's an interesting (and humorous) story. JMR -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Freedom isn't Freeh. iQEPAwUBM/YiLzUhsGSn1j2pAQHXTwfQ4Iwltxah6RzMhQ7T0ttNejtpwLYMdX/R nqzHvgvB/OrOpElnX7BBSUlt3kj8Evj39EaRAKbvRcXU7YagmQaRbMrZW7MD5cdT gMNBujRqEiNezi6iF3obxlQb7ZUDaCdFEscGSVq1pWacAVtJkZWUvUeKsuIs1374 X0DgdXAVMmw20JjS1An0ME17IwDyUnVsWAhgijUQmlWUMeS6WZnvfOmzClEJWTGn N919pcLzyWmL0ZGfjo5c8i2+eWCgTfY/oMBPa2TwChqAOIDuip1O1v3vHWgFpoJ7 ffXmwXOTw2yWZO5b511jQ3TLgY9UmZXYuvljndsYi1zxPA== =uVHt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: FCPUNX:McVeigh on McVeigh
by Wazoo MixMaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:27 PM 8/15/97 -0800, you wrote: > Amen!!! > More money was spent on McVeigh's defense than on O.J.'s prosecution. >For fifteen million dollars, McVeigh's lawyer couldn't be troubled to >raise his voice in his client's defense. Funny thing is, if O.J. was, say, a bus-driver with food stamps, how long do you think *his* trial would be? Besides, McVeigh's trial wasn't about truth or justice. It was all about getting revenge, drawing blood, satisfying the bloodthirsty people of America. > There are a handful of lawyers I respect as having the skill and the >integrity to properly defend me to the max, but I wouldn't give you two >cents for McVeigh's government-bought schill. McVeigh's lawyer was probably influenced (read: leaned on) by government fascists, so that McVeigh would die. > The role of McVeigh's attorney was to placate the American people's >sense of "justice" without rocking the boat. He didn't upset the >American people, he didn't upset the judge, the prosecutor, his golfing >buddies, or the court house restroom attendant. Very different from say, Atticus Finch, in "To Kill a Mockingbird". He defended a black man, in a place and time very against that. While this government controlled dickless loser that was McVeighs lawyer, didn't prosecute like a man, because then he'd be blacklisted and treated like shit. > He did upset me, however, and that might turn out to be a big mistake >on his part. If anyone out in this world feels like bumping off McVeighs lawyer, please do so. We need less lawyers like him.

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Reduce your long distance bills
by helledge＠oilfieldtrash.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// This Message was Composed using Extractor Pro Bulk E- Mail Software. If you wish to be removed from this advertiser's future mailings, please reply with the subject "Remove" and this software will automatically block you from their future mailings. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// True Residual Income-FCI Communications Hello there, Every day I check my mail, I get another solicitation from one of those 5.9 or 7.9 cent per minute scams. In fact, I am also getting faxes a couple times per week by the same or similar groups. They always ask for a sign up fee of anywhere from $29.95 to $100 or more; $50 is the most common. These con artists are coming and going every week now, some undoubtedly collecting $1000's in up front fees for the right to promote a non-existent service for a non-existent commission. I'm writing this message to you in an effort to spread the truth about these fraudulent scam artists. I am a 60 year old, practicing international petroleum engineer and I supplement my income by working in the telecommunications industry. I have traveled to 58 countries and therefore have paid my share of high long distance calls. I have been around the block more than a few times, and I can tell you this: The best deal any average consumer is going to get in this country today is a 9.9 cent per minute flat rate, if you know where to go. Here is the reason why: Whenever a long distance call is placed, there are fees charged by your local telephone company, called "origination" fees, and fees charged by the receiver a local telephone company, called "landing" fees. These fees are regulated by the federal government. On average, the combined origination/landing fees are 6.5 to 7.5 cents per minute, depending on the telephone companies involved. In addition to those fees, the carrier that connects the call over long distances via fiber, copper, and/or satellite links carries a cost for that call of at least 1 cent, and sometimes more. This brings the COST for that call to 7.5 to 8.5 cents per minute. Then, there are the administrative costs associated with the calls in the form of "rating" the call data, "formatting" the calls in a logical manner to present them to the consumer (both processes are extremely computer intensive , AND postage, paper, and labor, in the form of customer service, and equipment maintenance. Conservatively, these costs add another .5 (one half) cent, bringing the true COST of a long distance telephone call to anywhere from 8 to 9 cents per minute. Finally, there is the cost of distribution, i.e.: marketing and advertising. The commercials that you see on television every day for the big carriers are not free to those companies. In fact, they spend millions of dollars every DAY to push their long distance service, which, remember, is costing THEM 8 to 9 cents per minute. When you see a commercial for Sprint, for example, make sure you watch the fine print. Their "dime line" only applies during evenings after 7pm, and during the weekend. Every weekday from 7am to 7pm the cost is 25 cents per minute. AT&T has taken a more honest approach recently with their "one rate", yet even they are still charging 15 cents per minute. MCI has so many plans now, you're lucky if you'll ever know how much you're paying for a long distance call until you look at your bill. (if you dare) Telecommunications "resellers" are the real wave of the future. These companies purchase transmission time from major carriers, and bill their customers themselves, while still providing the exact same service at a much lower cost. Their customers are still physically utilizing the major carriers for service, but simply receive their BILLS for their calls from the reseller or "rebiller". Since deregulation in 1984, the reseller industry has grown to over $12 BILLION per year, and industry experts predict that by the year 2000, the majority of telecommunications usage will be handled by resellers utilizing the major carriers. How can they do this? By being creative in their marketing approach, and keeping the cost of distribution down to an absolute minimum. The most cost-efficient way to market telecommunications is via an agent network, i.e.: individuals working for the reseller on a commission-only basis. The best rate any individual can receive today is through a reseller for a major carrier. I am a customer and agent for a company called FCI, which is a direct reseller for IXC Communications, Inc., the USA's 5th largest coast-to-coast fiber optic network. IXC currently provides 1000's of miles of fiber for AT&T, Sprint, MCI, and the federal government. FCI offers a flat rate 9.9 cent per minute rate for 1+ long distance AND 800 usage, and bills its customers in 6 second increments, instead of full minute increments like the big carriers do. This results in savings to consumers of an additional 10%-25%, depending on the types of calls placed. FCI is also nearly finished completing a "web page billing" system which will be a great benefit to the consumer, as they will be able to see the actual calls they place on a DAILY basis, as well as their cost for those calls. When in place, FCI will be the ONLY long distance company in the nation offering this unique service. The Wall Street journal, as well as the FOX News Channel, have recently featured FCI and their unique approach to the long distance market. FCI is a truly revolutionary company, and has been gaining acclaim across the nation and particularly on the internet. As a reseller, FCI has the right to work with other carriers if they are presented with better rates for their customers. FCI has recently chosen to work with ITL (International Telecom Ltd) for its superior international calling rates, such as the following flat rates per minute (US origination): U K .185 Russia .670 France .280 Greece .475 Israel .690 Japan .360 (this is not a typo!) China .810 For more information on FCI and how you can even earn a great residual income by promoting their service like I do, you may visit my FCI Web Page at: http://freedomstarr.com/?EL3544771. You will have the opportunity to sign up for service online, and get a free web page to promote the service, with an opportunity to earn up to 5% residual commissions on other people's usage. There is no "sign up" or "agent" fee to participate in the program. I hope this note finds you and yours in good health. Good luck and warm regards, Harold W. Elledge

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HI THERE
by ezx45542＠cttl.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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re: Just in case...
by Abstruse 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ok..i don't know how many of you saw this, and..given my short time recently, it may have even passed through this list..so, if it's a re-post, i apologive..if not, enjoy..but i figure with all the other side threads that come through here..this will be my fuck up if it's a re-post, ok?! well, enough of that, onto the post! ***************************from the BoS list****************** In a development that is probably sending Louis Freeh into coniptions and may represent a fatal blow to the administration's efforts to control encryption exports, the source code for Pretty Good Privacy's PGP 5.0 encryption program was posted Monday on a web site at the University of Oslo. So how did it get there, what with prohibitions on the export of 128-bit encryption encryption software? Right out the front door, that's how -- in the form of a 6,000-page book (remember them?), a format that is not covered by the law. A group of enterprising hackers set about scanning all 6,000 pages of the source code and then painstakingly double-checked for errors, a two-month process whose final fruits were unveiled in Unix format Monday, with Mac and Windows versions forthcoming. PGP says it had nothing to do with the whole thing, but was happy to have its product vetted free by a group of experts, whose trouble-shooting showed that the code is secure and contains no back doors for government visitors. More info at http://www5.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/zdnn/0812/zdnn0006.html

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Degausser
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim C[reep] Mayflower will fuck anything that moves, but he'd rather be fucking his own mother's dead body. __o _ \<_ Tim C[reep] Mayflower (_)/(_)

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Re: (Fwd) FWD: Texas Driver's License database on the web
by miner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= >>From: Brent Heustess <heustess(a)mail.utexas.edu> >> >> This is a really spooky web site <http://www.publiclink.com>. You can >>search 17 million Texas drivers by name, driver's license number or >>license plate number. When you find a person, you can then find everyone >>at that address with a license. You can even find everyone with the same >>9-digit zip code. The record does not have a GIF of the photo, but it >>has everything else on the license. > >Those who tell the government the actual address where they sleep at night >have no expectation of privacy. Most governments don't care if you >substitute an accomodation address. If you find a government that does >care, shop around until you find another that doesn't. I've been turned >down exactly once in my career when I attempted to use an accomodation >address for DMV purposes. I went elsewhere. > >DCF > There was an article in the WSJ about this recently, TX has passed a law that goes into effect Sept. 1ST that will make publiclink illegal, they said they would continue to run the site and see what happens in court. Don't remember the date of the article.

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Suitable for viewing by "Foals" (as rated by Tim C. May)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

* Paul Millhouse, 49, pleaded not guilty in February to assault on an animal after he was arrested in Lakeside, Calif., near San Diego. He is suspected of being the man sought for 11 years for various horse stalkings (the very first one of which was reported to police by Joan Embery, the San Diego Zoo spokesperson who frequently appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson). According to police in the latest incident, Millhouse was videotaped entering a private pasture, taking off his clothes, and fondling a horse.

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Shakespearean Conspiracy / Re: FCPUNX:McVeigh on McVeigh
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Wazoo MixMaster wrote: > At 06:27 PM 8/15/97 -0800, you wrote: > >For fifteen million dollars, McVeigh's lawyer couldn't be troubled to > >raise his voice in his client's defense. > > McVeigh's trial wasn't about truth or justice. It was all about getting revenge, > drawing blood, satisfying the bloodthirsty people of America. > > this government controlled dickless loser that was McVeighs lawyer, > didn't prosecute like a man, because then he'd be blacklisted and treated like shit. > > If anyone out in this world feels like bumping off McVeighs lawyer, > please do so. We need less lawyers like him. Keep in mind that you should first remove all works of Shakespeare from your possession, since possession of them could lead to the filing of conspiracy charges against you. It might also draw the cypherpunks into the web of conspiracy from the point of view of the broad, unconstitutional laws covering this area, since Shakespeare was a cypher-punster. (I hope no one on the list has been exporting the works of Shakespeare without an export license.) BardMonger

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NTSC version BBC-4 show (cryptography/privacy)
by baum＠apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have a copy of the recent BBC 4 show on cryptography & privacy, transferred from PAL to NTSC so it can be watched here. Anyone who wants to borrow it (& lives in the SF Bay area) is welcome to email/call me to arrange to borrow it. ************************************************** * Allen J. Baum tel. (408)974-3385 * * Apple Computer, MS/305-3B fax (408)974-0907 * * 1 Infinite Loop * * Cupertino, CA 95014 baum(a)apple.com * **************************************************

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Re: Commercial Mixmaster (was Re: Mixmaster status)
by loki＠obscura.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

That is correct. The current code can not be recalled. That is part of why I released it that way. So that I could not be coerced into withdrawing it. -Lance At 12:48 PM 9/15/95, Futplex wrote: >Anonymous writes: ># Consider this scenario ... Mixmaster get's bought by the Acme ># Crypto Company of Ft. Meade, MD. They "improve" it, and offer a new ># version. It's even FREE (for non-commerical use)! But their ># "improvements" make it incompatible with previous versions, and so ># you have to upgrade. The new "commercial" version comes with no ># SOURCE CODE, of course... > >Lance Cottrell writes: >> 4) There will always be a free version of the client with source code. >> >> While I have not discussed it, I can not imagine that there would not also >> be a free version of the server code (with source). Without remailers what >> is the point of the client software? > >Beyond taking Lance on his PGP-signed-word, which I'm strongly inclined to do, >I suspect he may not have much legal leeway in this regard. > >With the caveat that I Am Not A Lawyer, it seems to me that the GNU General >Public License (Version 1 from 1989, Mix/GNU.license in the Mixmaster .tar or >http://hopf.math.nwu.edu/docs/Gnu_License) which covers all extant >distributions of Mixmaster, has some significant implications for any >commercial development of Mixmaster. It's applicable to "the Program or any >derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the >Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or >translated into another language". > >The GNU GPL specifies that: > > 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of > it, and copy and distribute such modifications under the terms of > Paragraph 1 above, provided that you also do the following: > [...] > b) cause the whole of any work that you distribute or publish, that > in whole or in part contains the Program or any part thereof, either > with or without modifications, to be licensed at no charge to all > third parties under the terms of this General Public License (except > that you may choose to grant warranty protection to some or all > third parties, at your option). > >and that: > > 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a portion or > derivative of it, under Paragraph 2) in object code or executable > form under the terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above provided that you > also do one of the following: > a) accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable > source code, [...] or, > b) accompany it with a written offer, [...] to give any third party > free (except for a nominal charge for the cost of distribution) a > complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, [...] > >So it looks to me as though Mixmaster source code will continue to be >legally available, no matter what.... > >Better informed interpretations are enthusiastically solicited. > >-Futplex <futplex(a)pseudonym.com> ---------------------------------------------------------- Lance Cottrell loki(a)obscura.com PGP 2.6 key available by finger or server. Mixmaster, the next generation remailer, is now available! http://obscura.com/~loki/Welcome.html or FTP to obscura.com "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come." --Nietzsche ----------------------------------------------------------

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laptop passwords
by RopeGun＠alaska.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've got a dilema. 2 laptops that I just purchased at a police auction have passwords, from what I can tell they are passworded at the cmos level. I would normaly just pull out the battery and clear the cmos but these are laptops and I'm not to comfortable about doing that. Any ideas? laptop1 - Toshiba Satelite Pro T2400CT laptop2 - Epson Action Note 500 c Oren Tanay RopeGun Productions \\V// o o J +--

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Re: Linking = Showing = Transferring?
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >>To:cyberia-l@warthog.cc.wm.edu >>From:tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) >>Subject:Linking = Showing = Transferring? >>_Linking_ is effectively _showing_, given the point-and-click mechanics of >>hypertext. This is a situation anticipated by authors (e.g. Ted Nelson), >>but is now coming to the fore. >> >>Granted, providing a link is not the same as actually _including_ the >>material the link points to, but it is very, very close. Arguably, the >>same. There are two important differences. The first difference is in ownership of the data. If the source of the link decides to clobber the file, then the fact that I have a page with the URL does not guarantee access to that file for the user of *my* page. Similarly, the person owning the file can freely change the content of the file, without my changing the URL which points to it. The other difference is in handling of the data. If the link were to a pornographic image and someone were to access it through my page's URL, the bits of that image would never touch my computer. Meanwhile, <a href="http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/"> RSA encryption system in PERL </a> might be a URL which violates US export laws -- if this interpretation were to be taken -- but if so, does it violate them in this mail message? That depends, I suppose, on whether your mail agent is aware of URLs and turns them into point-and-click units. Is it a violation if the URL is printed in a paper magazine? After all, it's the convenience of the web browser which is at issue. One can invoke netscape with or without a parameter. Yes -- interesting legal times ahead. - Carl +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)acm.org http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | |PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | | ``Officer, officer, arrest that man! He's whistling a dirty song.'' | +----------------------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison -+ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMFniL1QXJENzYr45AQFlYAP8DGHGk6EEmHXyPbeA7hoZjQ1pkEiyW2xB 1srFbXVsdJt9cwNQbBmFSfKARKVOnh1f+rEEqFZEwXXS1BbwlSljDz/hykZwfQwv h1kXPvJ9MMqleg6y8IXM5nTL9lKnq+ThKmgl/aciDYZqZ009IL4ssb81gUA5r5lC mYkfhqulWsU= =AYRX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Commercial Mixmaster (was Re: Mixmaster status)
by droelke＠rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> With the caveat that I Am Not A Lawyer, it seems to me that the GNU General > Public License (Version 1 from 1989, Mix/GNU.license in the Mixmaster .tar or > http://hopf.math.nwu.edu/docs/Gnu_License) which covers all extant > distributions of Mixmaster, has some significant implications for any > commercial development of Mixmaster. It's applicable to "the Program or any > derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the > Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or > translated into another language". > Most common mis-understanding about the GPL. If you GPL something, *you* hold the copyright to the material, and can still do anything you want with it. See Perl for a good example - released under an artistic license and under GPL. GPL prevents *others* from making distributions without distributing the source code. Of course, if you accept GPL'ed patches to your code, the whole thing gets messy, as now you can't claim complete ownership of the entire code base. I have simplified this - go to gnu.misc.discuss for a complete rehash of this subject every 2-3 weeks. Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Oelke Alcatel Network Systems droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com Richardson, TX

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Re: "Use implies consent to monitoring"
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

`h > Please be advised that use constitutes consent to monitoring Use of what?

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Re: Commercial Mixmaster (was Re: Mixmaster status)
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Better informed interpretations are enthusiastically solicited. Lance owns the code. He can take it, strip off the copyright, and transfer all rights to Bill Gates for a million bucks. He cannot, however, rescind the copyright or licenses that he has previously given out. /r$

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Re: CYPHERPUNK considered harmful
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What's in a name? That which we call a rose would by any other name still smell as sweet. Surely, right now, there are more important things to work on. /r$

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Re: CYPHERPUNK harmful. THE TRUTH IS TOLD
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Hmmmm... If memory serves, a year or so ago there was just such a schism >when a prominent cypherpunk split off and formed the "cypherWONKS" list. >The failure of that list can be attributed to one thing and one thing >alone: a concerted effort by YOU and your acolytes against it. You refuse >to even mention this, which is all the proof any open-minded person needs. >Now you are trying to stifle all open debate by doing it again. So, Mr. >May/Szabo (if that IS your name), why not come clean once and for all >about your role in the deaths of Vince Foster and Randy Weaver's wife, and >your part in the newly-emerging administration scandal: TENTACLE-gate. Yeah!!!! What he said!!!! Seriously. It seems to me that if a list of cypher-interested "cryptologists, hackers, and mathematicians" (Copyright, Wall Street Journal), want to call themselves "punks", it's fine by me. Face it folks, people of the "punk" genre have innoculated this particular petri dish. There's enough information-agar to munch on here for quite a while, so it doesn't look like we're going to go anywhere. If some members of this particular community wants to bud off, or fission, or spore, or whatever this particular meme does to reproduce, in order to change its name to something reputable, they're welcome to. Frankly, I find it entertaining to phone up the local internet-hysterical talkshow host's call screener and say, "I'm a cypherpunk, and I disagree with the host". It gets me to the head of the line, even if the innumerate technophobe who's managing the queue couldn't spell "cypher" if he/she/its life depended on it... So long, and you're welcome for all the fish. Can we get back to c-coding and dissolving reality as we know it, now? Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<

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Re: "Use implies consent to monitoring"
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:08 PM 9/15/95, Rich Salz wrote: >`h >> Please be advised that use constitutes consent to monitoring > >Use of what? Uh, it looks like the .com registration to me... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<

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Re: why ecash is traceable
by szabo＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal & Tim have made some interesting comments about payee untraceability. I suspect it will clarify things to point out the orthogonality in two of the major design choices: * Clearing: Offline vs. online * Settlement: Deposit to payee's account vs. sending new cash to payee Because DigiCash wants their product to have payer, but not payee, privacy, the current ecash(tm) software from DigiCash uses online clearing and deposit to payee's account, but the three other combinations are also quite doable if somebody wanted to implement them. The design that allows symmetric untraceability combines online clearing with sending new cash. This way the bank need not ID the payee Bob in order to credit him with the value of the transaction; Bob and the bank can complete the clearing and settlement via anonymous channel. (The bank will also want to receive an anonymous payment from Bob for the service, and Chaum has described a second blinding step the payee must perform for the symmetric case, complications which I won't go into here). Offline clearing requires the potential to ID the payer in order to punish double-spending after the fact. Online systems without observers (such as ecash(tm)) don't need to worry about trying to find multiple spenders, because this is prevented by the online clearing. In fact, purposeful second-spending is used to recover from some error conditions, specifically to determine whether the payee in fact received the "coin" or not when there has been a network error in the middle of a transaction. Distinguishing between mistaken and fraudulent double spending is a very complex, not completely tractable problem, so the current ecash(tm) punts it, which is reasonable because it is online. An offline system would need an elaborate blacklisting system as well as active support of law enforcement in all jurisdictions using the ecash, would need to come up with reasonable ways to distinguish between fraudulent and mistaken double-spending, and would need more elaborate and specialized error-recovery protocols. If hardware "observers", based on "tamper-proof" hardware instead of mathematical protocol, and which prevent double-spending at the source, can be made harder to crack than the maximum a cracked card is allowed to spend, then such small-value transactions might be feasible offline. (This is the major avenue being pursued commercially, because online transactions are perceived to be too expensive, which is false in the case of the Internet IMHO). Nick Szabo szabo(a)netcom.com

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Picking the Crypto Locks
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Byte, October, 1995, pp. 77, 80. Picking the Crypto Locks A new technique called differential cryptanalysis can break even DES quickly By Peter Wayner How secure is your encrypted data? Advances in mathematics and increased computing power mean you need longer keys and stronger algorithms if you still want to keep your secrets. Both private-key encryption (which uses a single key for coding and decoding) and public-key systems (which use separate keys for encryption and decryption) are increasingly vulnerable to determined attack. But do these weaknesses represent a real threat to encrypted data, or are they still just intriguing research results? Unfortunately, when we try to assess the effectiveness of today's popular cryptographic systems, we run into a problem of mathematical ignorance. Most people who are familiar with mathematics can work in two directions, forward and backward, like the simple algebraic equation a = b + 1. We can determine the value of the first variable from that of the second and vice versa. Crypto systems, however, generally rely on mathematics that works only in one direction. People assume these systems are secure because no one has yet shown how to work the mathematics backward and break open the message. In general, we determine the strength of most cryptographic systems by seeing how well they avoid the attacks we know have been used on other systems. If none of the past attacks seems to work, then we deem a system secure. For now. Let's look at how today's codebreakers work, the resources and time they need, and what we require in the way of new systems and longer keys. Recent assessments of the strength of private-key crypto systems involve looking for theoretical holes and measuring the time needed for a brute-force attack. Finding the holes can be devilishly hard, calling for deep mathematical insights. Brute-force attacks are easier to mount if enough computational hardware is available, but they're also easy to defend against. The most important development in the realm of data encryption in recent years is Eli Biham and Adi Shamir's differential cryptanalysis. They showed how to mount a limited attack on today's most widely used cryptosystem, DES (the federal Data Encryption Standard), which is also the basis for Unix's password system. Imagine that you had access to your victim's DES cipher "box" (the common term for an enciphering system) with preloaded keys. Your goal is to determine the 56-bit key, so that you can decrypt the other messages your victim had encrypted with the box. Biham and Shamir showed that you could infer the hidden key if you could pass 247 messages through the box and observe what came out. This chosen plaintext attack builds up a statistical model of the cipher, and it needs this many plaintexts to produce an answer with confidence. Most intriguing, this work exposed flaws in many DES substitutes. Because the U.S. government classified the details behind DES's design, many assumed that there might be a trapdoor through which the government could eavesdrop. To circumvent these potential trapdoors, some folks designed their own variations of DES. Most of these new ciphers, however, fall even faster to Biham and Shamir's mathematical machinery. FEAL-4, a faster replacement, for example, takes only four well-chosen plaintexts. _______________________________________________________ Strengths and Weakness of Crypto Algorithms _______________________________________________________ Algorithm Comment Strengths Weaknesses _______________________________________________________ DES Standard, Long-tested Has yielded Widely to DC Accepted _______________________________________________________ FEAL-4 DES Easily broken substitute by DC _______________________________________________________ GDES, DES-like Easily broken New DES by DC _______________________________________________________ Khufu DES-like Secure New, unknown against DC _______________________________________________________ Blowfish DES-like Secure New, unknown against DC _______________________________________________________ RC-4 Proprietary Variable- Unknown length key _______________________________________________________ RSA Widely used Long-tested Vulnerable to Public Key advances in factoring _______________________________________________________ Skipjack Classified Considered Algorithm must strong remain secret to preserve law-enforcement trapdoor _______________________________________________________ DC = differential cryptanalysis _______________________________________________________ Recently, the IBM scientists who originally designed DES revealed that they anticipated Biham and Shamir's attack and optimized DES to resist it. Because other nongovernment cryptographers didn't know about this attack, they couldn't design their software to resist it. Now the information is public, and there are new ciphers that hold up well against these attacks. Ralph Merkle's Khufu and Bruce Schneier's Blowfish are two private-key ciphers that are similar to DES but resist differential cryptography. They do this by creating new S-boxes for each encryption, using the key to randomize them. (S-boxes are the essential scrambling elements of DES-like ciphers. Think of them as lookup tables or nonlinear functions; their outputs should be as random as possible.) Differential cryptanalysis works only if the attacker knows what's in the S-boxes. This work also revealed some stunning counterintuitive results. Key length is usually taken as a rough measure of a system's security. DES uses 56-bit keys; a brute-force attacker might need to try all 2^56 keys to find the right one. A longer key would mean a longer brute-force attack. However, Biham and Shamir showed that even if DES used longer keys, it would hardly be any stronger against differential cryptanalysis. The statistical model would still be solvable if DES used the maximum of 768 bits. Applying this knowledge to other types of ciphers is tricky. RSA Data Security markets a proprietary algorithm called RC-4 that accepts a variable-length key; this algorithm is used in many products. The flexible key length can be an advantage in some situations. For example, the government allows general export of software using RC-4 with a 40-bit key, but similar software using a longer key must stay within the U.S. While we don't know if differential cryptanalysis can be applied to RC-4 directly, because of the algorithm's proprietary nature, the results with DES suggest that more key is not necessarily stronger. Men and Machines Mathematical tools like differential cryptanalysis can be the most powerful attack against a cipher system. Brute-force attacks are normally a last resort, rare in practice because cipher designers routinely use long key lengths specifically to preclude them. But times are changing. We're reaching a point at which a large machine can quickly search the entire keyspace of DES. DES is still in wide use; it' s been the commercial and governmental standard for nearly two decades. Replacing such standards can be a painfully slow process. DES users should be thinking about what can be done with off-the-shelf hardware. Brute-force attacks simply use large machines that try all possible passwords in parallel. It's even possible to produce native chips that run DES. Michael Wiener of Bell Northern Research described how to build a $1 million machine using a pipelined DES processor that could cruise through all possible keys in about 7 hours. Massively parallel machines can also attack the problem. Some of the most promismg emergmg machines distribute small, 1-bit processors directly onto the memory chips. Some have 1024 processors on a chip with 42 bits of memory per processor. (Before it entered Chapter 11, Cray Computer was building for the National Security Agency a special Cray 3 with such processor-embedded memory.) In 1992 I designed a machine using 1 million associative processor memory chips (standard DRAM densihes) from Coherent Research (Syracuse, NY) that could attack all of DES in one day. This machine could be reprogrammed to attack other DES-like ciphers. Linden Technology (Austin, TX) is currently exploring manufacturing new 4-Mb DRAMs with the 1024 associative processors built onto the chip. The effect of brute-force attacks on DES is also important for Unix security, which stores each password after passing it through DES 25 times. At log-in, you type your password; it's encrypted 25 times and the result compared against the password file. If it matches, the system grants you access. Because the password file doesn't contain the passwords themselves, unauthorized users can't use the file to recover them directly. They must use a brute-force machine. However, the brute-force attack can be relatively successful against Unix, because the keyspace is smaller. Most users limit their passwords to alphabetic characters, occasionally adding numbers. This makes searching for passwords much faster; it could be done quite quickly with an associative-memory parallel processor. One estimate suggests that a computer using 512 of Linden's chips could test all six-character alphanumeric passwords in 15 minutes. Clearly. the Unix password structure needs to be rethought in light of today's machines and code-breaking techniques. Because of this new vulnerability, you may want to explore other, newer ciphers. such as Merkle's Khufu or Schneier's Blowfish. The classified Skipjack algorithm buried inside the U.S. government's Clipper and Capstone encryption chips also uses S-boxes, but little is known about their design. There's little reliable public information about RSA Data Security's RC-4. Anyone who uses these algorithms must be prepared to trust the wits of the designers, because the algorithms have not undergone the intensely thorough and long-time public scrutiny given to DES. Many organizations have opted to continue with DES, but the current state of the art is triple-DES -- three passes of the algorithm with either 112- or 168-bit keys. This effectively guards against both brute-force and differential analysis attacks. These users can rest assured that, paradoxically, all the attacks focused on DES continues to keep it strong. ----- Peter Wayner is a BYTE consulting editor living in Baltimore, MD. You can reach him on the Internet at pcw(a)access.digex.net, on BIX as pwayner(a)bix.com, or on the World Wide Web at http://access.digex.net/~pcw/ pcwpage.html. ----- Byte, October, 1995, p. 78. Factoring in Public-Key's Future Long thought nearly unbreakable, public-key cryptogratphy is yielding to attack. The secret of security here is key length. By Bruce Schneier Factoring large numbers is hard but not as hard as it used to be. This has grave implications for the effectiveness of public key cryptocraphy, which relies on the difficulty of factoring long keys for its security. But how long is long enough'? In 1976, Richard Guy wrote: "I shall be surprised if anyone regularly factors numbers of size 10^80 without special form during the present century." In 1977, Ron Rivest said that factoring a 125-digit number would take 40 quadrillion years. In 1994, a 129-digit number was factored. The lesson here is that making predictions is foolish. Today, 512-bit keys are common. Factoring them, thus destroying their security, is well within the range of possibility for today's computing resources. A weekend- long worm on the Internet could do it. Computing power is measured in MIPS-years: a million-instructions-per-second computer running for one year, or about 3 x 10^13 instructions. A 100-MHz Pentium is about a 50-MIPS machine; a 1600-node Intel Paragon is about 50,000 MIPS. In 1983, a Cray X-MP supercomputer factored a 71-digit number in 0.1 MIPS-years, using 9.5 CPU hours. That's expensive. Factoring the 129-digit number in 1994 required 5000 MlPS-years and used the idle time on 1600 computers around the world over an eight-month period. Although it took longer, it was essentially free. Those two computations used what's called the *quadratic sieve*, but a newer, more powerful algorithm has arrived. The *general number filed sieve* is faster than the quadratic sieve for numbers well below 116 digits and can factor a 512-bit number over 10 times faster -- it would take less than a year to run on an 1800-node Intel Paragon. And the process gets still faster. Mathematicians keep coming up with new tricks, new optimizations, and new techniques. A related algorithm, the special number field sieve, can already factor numbers of a specialized form (not generally used for cryptography) much faster. So we can probably optimize the general number field sieve to run that fast. For all we know, the National Security Agency is already doing it. The figure "MIPS Years Needed to Factor" gives the number of MlPS-years required to factor "special" and "general" numbers of different lengths. How Big Is Big Enough? The wise cryptographer is ultraconservative when choosing key lengths for a public-key system. You must consider the intended security, the key's expected lifetime, and the current state of the factoring art. Now you need a 1024-bit number to get the same security you got from a 512-bit number in the early 1980s. If you want your keys to remain secure for 20 years, 1024 bits is probably too short. Consider these assumptions from the mathematicians who factored RSA-129: We believe we could acquire 100,000 machines without superhuman or unethical efforts and without an Internet womm or virus. Many organizations have several thousand machines on the Net. Using their facilities would require diplomacy but should not be impossible. Assuming an average power of 5 MIPS and one year elapsed time, we could reasonably embark on a project that would require half a million MIPS-years. The project to factor the 129-digit number harnessed an estimated 0.03 percent of the Internet's total computing power. A well-publicized project might be able to harness 2 percent of the world's computing power for a year. My recommendations for public-key lengths are given in the figure "Recommended Public-Key Key Lengths" according to how long you require the key to be secure. There are three key lengths given for each period -- one secure against an individual cryptanalyst who can get his hands on 10,000 MlPS-years, one against a major corporation that could harness 10^7 MIPS-years, and the third secure against a major govemment and 10^9 MIPS-years. These figures assume that computing power will increase by a factor of 10 every five years and that mathematical advances will let us factor numbers at the speeds of the special number field sieve. Not everyone will agree with these final recommendations. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has mandated 512- to 1024-bit keys for its Digital Signature Standard. PGP has a maximum RSA key length of 1280 bits. Aljen Lenstra, the world's most successful factorer, refuses to predict beyond 10 years. There's always the possibility that an advance in factoring will surprise me as well, though I tried to factor everything into my calculations. But why trust me? I just proved my own foolishness by making predictions. _______________________________________________________ MIPS Years Needed to Factor _______________________________________________________ Ascending Line of General Number Field Sieve Ascending Line Special Number Field Sieve Y-axis: MIPS-years 10^0, 10^3, 10^6, 10^9, 10^12, 10^15, 10^18, 10^21 X-axis: Bits 512, 768, 1024, 1280, 1536, 2048 _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Recommended Public-Key Key Lengths _______________________________________________________ Ascending bars for: Individual, Company, Government Y-axis: Bits 0, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 X-axis: Year 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 _______________________________________________________ ----- Bruce Schneier is the author of Applied Cryptography (John Wiley), the second edition of which is due out in December. He can be reached on the Internet as schneier(a)winternet.com, or on BIX c/o editors(a)bix.com. -----

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Just the facts, ma'am.
by uunet!attmail.com!uucp internet!sytex.com!fergp/G=Paul/S=Ferguson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

message

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Status ongoing Key-Escrow (black) Humor
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

That makes 3 of 4 .... Ye olde Spooge Meister spooge /spooj/ 1. Inexplicable or arcane code <spooge(a)dev.null.net> or random and probably incorrect output from a computer program.

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returned mail NIST call for Comments on "Key-Escrow" (fwd)
by uunet!lebanon.cerf.fred.org!daemon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Paul Ferguson | "Government, even in its best state, Network Integrator | is but a necessary evil; in its worst Centreville, Virginia USA | state, an intolerable one." fergp(a)sytex.com | - Thomas Paine, Common Sense Type bits/keyID Date User ID pub 1024/1CC04D 1993/03/15 Paul Ferguson <fergp(a)sytex.com> Key fingerprint = EE D2 93 7D 04 6D C6 05 AC 36 AD 9D 8E 4F 41 58

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