December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Stolen PC has Credit-Card accounts data
by dwiley＠pcy.mci.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Might wana check out http://www.usatoday.com/money/mds7.htm. It seems to me that things like this are a bigger threat than actual attacks by wire. But I guess Visa was not concerned about their physical security. Oh well.....To bad for the 314,000 people. Gota love security. To bad it sounds like the person that stole the PC had little or no knowladge of what was on the PC. I love this line..... "Melancon said the account information wasn't encoded but was in compressed form and not easy for someone outside the Visa system to read." So I guess uncompress or gunzip might work..:) Dan

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Used to Be
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Used to be that if you wanted dirty words or pictures, you had to go to Paris. Used to be that if you wanted Nazis, you had to go to Deutschland. Used to be that if you wanted to know how to blow things up, you had to go to the US Government Printing Office. Used to be that if you wanted racists, you had to go to Alabama. Used to be that if you wanted commies, you had to go to Moscow (or at least the LSE). Used to be that if you wanted garrulous bores, you had to go to you local watering hole. Used to be that if you wanted child molesters you had to go to your local public school. Used to be that if you wanted a cop you had to go to the nearest doughnut shop. Now you can get all of the above and more from the privacy of your own home on the Internet. DCF

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Re: "Right to Privacy" and Crypto
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just cleaning up old responses to old messages: Sometimes I will see long articles on subpoenas, contempt of court, and compelled testimony in which no one mentions the fact that the only sanction used is a little bit of imprisonment (two years seems to be the max). That's for things you know. Since software can be made harder to compel than people, a properly configured system (sort of like a spendthrift trust where you can't get at it when compelled) may allow you to dodge sanctions entirely. Once we get better at human programming, it should be possible to make our nervous system a secure system that can't respond when coerced. This can already be done by conscious self programming in individuation. I certainly try to do that. Studies of the effects of North Korean brainwashing on different types of POWs showed a wide variability in susceptibility. Likewise studies of Moonie brainwashing. Political "moderates" with little or no ideology find it hard to resist coercion. "You can't fight something with nothing." In Korea, the prisoners from Turkey, proved impossible to brainwash. They had a mental toughness, a tradition of self posession, and a tolerance for physical discomfort that strengthened their defenses. Most U.S. Moonie recruits were from squishy liberal households (like Barbara Underwood of the Moonie 5 trial). I am not as physically tough as a Turkish soldier but I am certainly tough ideologically. In resisting coercion I use a form of "name magic" to strengthen me and weaken the opposition. If you can control the naming of an act or a relation, you can dominate the situation even if you are in a weaker position. Thus when Moonie recruiters approached me at the No. 10 Monterey bus stop in front of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park in SF with their usual "Hi sailor, new in town?" approach ("Are you from out of town? We live with a group of people. Would you like to come to dinner?); I responded "I'm not interested in the Reverend Moon." They left me alone. When confronting con artists, I usually name the general category name of their cons: "Spanish Prisoners," "Shell Game," "Bank Examiners Con," etc. Naming works with the Geheime Staatspolizei as well. "You can't park here." "I'm not parking, I'm standing." "Well you can't stand here either." "OK." "In nature it's kill or be killed. In politics it's define or be defined." -- Szaz DCF

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CAVE Query
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We've received by black bag a 25-page doc entitled: TR45.3, Appendix A to IS-54, Rev. B Dual-Mode Cellular System Authentication, Message Encryption, Voice Mask Generation, A-Key Verification, and Test Data February, 1992. No Source. It describes the CAVE cryptographic function in detail, and its use to generate a set of cryptovariables for the Cellular Message Encryption Algorithm (CMEA); for generation of 520 bits for the duplex voice privacy masks; and for other tasks. Each page warns that information in the document may be subject to export jurisdiction under ITAR. Does anyone know if this is already available on the Web? TIA of incarceration.

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Re: Rogue Governments Issuing Policy Tokens
by Hal Finney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> > The problem (for GAK) of "rogue governments" is this: a government such as > Libya or Panama, henceforth to be known as "Rogueitania," issues policy > cards to all of its citizens, and to all those visiting Rogueitania, and > perhaps through the mail to anyone who pays some fee. I don't think this would happen. Some kind of secret information or hardware is going to be needed to create policy tokens. (Otherwise anybody could make one.) That means that HP, and therefore ultimately the U.S. government, is going to have to approve those governments which are allowed to issue such tokens. HP will have to provide them some special hardware or something to make them. The tokens will only be accepted if they have proper secrets inside them. I can't see the U.S. allowing Libya and similar countries to create policy tokens. The whole point of this exercise is to prevent these countries from being able to use strong crypto. So they will certainly not be on the approved list. Does this represent an attempt to establish a de facto U.S. hegemony over the world, where the U.S. government gets to decide which other governments have access to crypto? Not necessarily; other countries will still have the option to use computers made outside the U.S. The fact of international competition will still exist. If the HP initiative does become a widespread standard (which I think is unlikely at this point) then we will see the same sorts of flight towards non U.S. computers that we now see towards non U.S. crypto companies. Why should an Israeli company buy an American computer with a policy chip that is ultimately under the control of the U.S. government when they can get one locally made which has no such restrictions? And of course all this focus on hardware tokens ignores the fact that the alternative of software-only crypto will still be present, both for the domestic market and for the international market where the products don't come from the U.S. This will represent additional competition which the HP proposal must face. For these reasons I don't think the HP idea solves the export problem for U.S. hardware and software makers. And the response by opinion leaders has ranged from ho-hum to negative, despite the self-serving cheerleading by HP management. Companies which try to sell computers with these chips in them risk getting a "big brother inside" (to use Tim's very effective slogan) reputation. I think this initiative is going nowhere. Hal

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Re: [NOISE] aga isn't on cypherpunks... (and I'm glad)
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > That is your last warning, Mike. If you start harasing my postmaster, > I will have your fucking ass in Federal Court before you can blink. > I on the other hand can kick your ass because I am in the UK and I look forward to doing so immensely unless you stop sending shit to the list... Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re:
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> unsunscribe This stego system must be damn slow seeing as they only ever misspell it in one of two positions, ie. unsuXscriXe, X any letter. Still, i`ll assume it was a cunning plan to trick me into telling him how to unsubscribe. To unsubscribe from the cypherpunks mailing list: Send a message to majordomo(a)toad.com with the *MESSAGE BODY* reading exactly as follows: unsubscribe cypherpunks you(a)your.domain.com Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: Taking out the garbage
by Dana W. Albrecht 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'd like to point out that accepting posts from those who are not technically subscribed to the list is not always a bad idea. In particular, many of us read the list through means other than a direct subscription, be it either a mail-to-news gateway, web server, filtered list, or other such mechanism. As a case in point, while I do read the list, my actual email address is not subscribed to it. :) While I usually don't contribute to the discussion, I hope that the few posts I have made from time to time don't fall into the pollution category. Furthermore, it's often the case that noted cryptographers who are not subscribed to the list occasionally post valuable contributions to it (e.g. Matt Blaze). Non-subscription and pollution are not necessarily related. Dana W. Albrecht dwa(a)corsair.com Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> writes: > Beginning Monday, 11/25/96, I will bounce all email from the various > (non-)subscribers polluting this list with garbage back to the > authors. Furthermore, I will attach documents describing basic > Internet rules of conduct to each bounce. > > I would encourage other Cypherpunks to do the same.

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Reputation based hiring (was REQUESTING INFORMATION)
by Clay Olbon II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:12 PM 11/19/96 -0200, George A. Stathis wrote (in part): >Does your "unemployment list" include Doctor Dimitri Vulis? I'd be greatful >to know this. >Please, seriously now, and if you have such evidence (that >Dimitri is 'lazy', 'stupid' or 'dishonest') send to me if you can... I won't comment on who I will or won't hire. I will state that I believe that what a person posts is a relevant issue when it comes time to make a hiring decision. Hiring is based on many factors other than simply technical ability. If someone thinks that another should not be hired for whatever reason, I support their right to hold that belief and even to publicize it. <rant against cypherpunks deleted> I won't follow you into the gutter on this one. That horse has been dead for days (and it is beginning to smell really bad). Clay ******************************************************* Clay Olbon olbon(a)ix.netcom.com engineer, programmer, statistitian, etc. **********************************************tanstaafl

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Monitor Radio Talks Crypto-FUD
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The FUDgine keeps rolling down the track... Looks like Monitor Radio's promoting 56-bit encryption. Reporter's name is Duncan Moon. Quotes a guy quoting Blaze (not mentioning Matt). Calls 56 bit encryption "puny in the future", but not now. The article talks about hardware as giving keylength economic legs, with some logic I can't quite fathom... Cheers, Bob ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

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RE: Unsubtroll
by Daniel Todd 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

uh.... I think the last 5 letters were a hint :-) -- Daniel D. Todd Technology Analyst USWeb Corporation 408.987.3294 >---------- >From: Butler, Scott[SMTP:SButler@chemson.com] >Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 1996 12:15 AM >To: 'cypherpunks(a)toad.com' >Subject: FW: Unsubtroll > > > >FOR GOD'S SAKE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > >>---------- >>From: piotrk@opnt.optimus.wroc.pl[SMTP:piotrk@opnt.optimus.wroc.pl] >>Sent: 19 November 1996 05:04 >>Subject: Unsubtroll >> >>>unsubtroll >> >

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RE: The Utility of Privacy
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Isn't asking about the "utility of privacy" like asking about the utility of having a self independent from others - a separate identity of one's own, subject only to one's own command, with complete authority to determine the occasion of its visibility? Is there anything justifiable about separating oneself from the company of others and becoming non-visible to them, at those times when one is out of their sight, away from their awareness of one's existence, of one's activities, of one's thoughts & manners? What do youall think you are, anyway? Special? .. Blanc > >

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Cyber Power in Forbes
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dayglo Yellow on dayglo pink cover of the December 2, 1996 Forbes. Wired Envy. CYBER POWER gives financial markets a veto over the President and Congress by Peter Huber DCF

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Copyright violations
by alzheimer＠juno.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Associated Press 11/19/96 STOLEN COMPUTER HAS INFORMATION ON 314,000 ACCOUNTS Credit card holders often worry that some computer hacker will find his or her way into their charge accounts. One thief took the low-tech route and simply took an entire computer, its memory holding information on hundreds of thousands of some of the best-known cards. The personal computer was stolen earlier this month from a Visa International office that processes charges on a number of different credit card brands, Visa said Monday. Its memory included information on about 314,000 credit card accounts, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Diners Club, said Visa spokesman David Melancon. Some issuers, like Citibank, which had about 33,000 accounts affected, began calling customers about the theft early last week. Citibank canceled the cards in question and issued new ones, said spokeswoman Maria Mendler. The personal computer was discovered missing from Visa's data processing center at its main office in Foster City, Calif., on the evening of Nov. 8. American Banker, 11/19/96 MASTERCARD WILL BUY 51% OF SMART CARD FIRM MONDEX MasterCard International said Monday it would buy 51% of Mondex International and promised significant investments to create a global electronic cash system. The pending deal -- one of the card industry's worst kept secrets -- puts MasterCard in the forefront of the smart card race. Observers had criticized MasterCard Cash, a smart card system that was deemed less than successful in its Australian debut. With Visa Cash in several pilots around the globe and American Express announcing a licensing agreement last week for the Proton smart card technology owned by 60 Belgian banks, many industry observers said the dash for dominance would now begin in earnest. Mondex, developed by National Westminster Bank of London and owned by 17 banks worldwide, is to retain its board, staff, and organizational structure, acting as an independent subsidiary. Financial Times: Monday, November 18, 1996 Electronic Money Threat to Banks By George Graham Central banks could lose billions of dollars of revenue if consumers start to jettison the traditional banknote in favour of electronic money, economists from the Bank for International Settlements have warned. A report issued today by the BIS, the central bankers' central bank, says innovations such as "electronic purses" loaded on to a smart card or "digital cash" used for making payments over the Internet could erode central banks' income from issuing banknotes. Note issue is a significant source of revenue for many central banks because the private sector must in effect make interest-free deposits to obtain the notes. The BIS cites studies estimating the loss of this "seigniorage" at more than $17bn (#10.3bn) for its 11 member countries if prepaid cards were to eliminate all banknotes below $25 in value, although not all seigniorage comes to central banks. Central banks could "consider issuing e-money value themselves" as a way of offsetting the lost income, the BIS says. Alternatively, it suggests, they could increase mandatory reserve requirements, although this would run counter to the trend towards lower minimum reserves. The BIS report appeared as MasterCard, one of the world's two leading payment card consortia, prepared to expand its efforts to develop a widely accepted electronic purse by taking control of Mondex, a UK-developed smart card. MasterCard will announce today it is taking a 51 per cent stake in Mondex, which is currently on trial in Swindon and Hong Kong. Widespread substitution of e-money for cash could make it more difficult for central banks -- by reducing their ability to control the money supply -- to affect interest rates. But the BIS says this is unlikely to happen. The BIS report warns that if central banks chose to issue their own e-money, they "could limit competition or reduce incentives to innovate". While no restrictions are usually imposed on the issue of single-purpose prepaid smart cards, such as telephone cards, multipurpose electronic purses, which can be used as money in a variety of places, raise different questions. Some central bankers view them as comparable to deposit accounts, which in most countries can be managed only by authorised banks. Others see them as equivalent to travellers' cheques, on which few restrictions are imposed. The BIS report warns that any decision will involve a trade-off: "If issuance of e-money is limited to banks, the regulatory framework already in place can be extended to cover the new products, but competition and innovation might be more limited." Washington Post: Sunday, November 17, 1996 Smart Cards Deal Simpler Life for Cash-Phobes By Jane Bryant Quinn The next piece of plastic the banks think you ought to keep in your wallet is a smart card. These cards come in several varieties, and most aren't yet ready for mass distribution. But pilot projects are forging ahead--in Atlanta, in New York City early next year, in Canada and in several other countries. There's no obvious consumer need for smart cards today. But the bankers believe that you're going to love them anyway. You may even be mailed one and urged to try it. Smart card promoters make the assumption that you hate to carry cash. You hate fishing for bills and coins to buy a newspaper or a soda. You'd put down plastic, instead. This plastic card has money on it, embedded in a computer chip. A $20 card, for example, will give you $20 in spending power. If you buy a 75-cent newspaper, the seller will put your card in a special terminal and drain off 75 cents. No identification or signature is required. You now have a card with $19.25 left on it. After spending $1 on a soda, the value of your card goes down to $18.25. If you forget the amount, you can check it with a little portable card reader. Some readers also might list the last five things you've bought. Don't confuse a smart card with a debit card. When you pay by debit card, money is moved automatically from your bank account into the merchant's bank account. With a smart card, however, you first move money from your bank account onto the card's computer chip. When you buy something, the money moves from your card to the merchant's terminal and then, electronically, to the merchant's bank. If every merchant, street vendor, taxi driver and bus accepted smart cards, you wouldn't have to carry cash. To some, that would be a huge convenience; to others, it's a shrug. As long as some merchants took smart cards and others didn't, however, you'd have to carry both. Smart cards come in three varieties, some of them more flexible than others: - A prepaid, disposable single-purpose card. Telephone cards are a good example. You pay $10 or $20 for a card, dial a toll-free number, give the number of your card and then make your telephone call. Minute by minute, the cost of the call is deducted from the value of the card. When you've drained all the money out of the card, you throw it out. - A prepaid, disposable bank card. You buy the card at a bank and can use it at any store that has a terminal. - A reloadable card. When your money runs out, you can take it to the bank, an ATM or a special kiosk and load it up again. Visa, MasterCard, Citibank and the Chase Manhattan bank will jointly test a reloadable card in a section of New York City next year. A reloadable card could also serve as your credit card, debit card or ATM card. What's in it for the bank? Eventually (although not at first), the bank probably would charge you for the card. There might be a fee when you accessed the ATM to load it up. The merchant also would pay a fee, in return for getting what is presumably a more secure transaction. What's in it for consumers? A very little bit of convenience. Putting down a card is a tad quicker than fishing out cash. You always have the equivalent of exact change. You wouldn't have to count your change (but you'd have to use the card reader to be sure the merchant's terminal deducted the right amount). You may or may not pay more for the card than it costs to get cash from an ATM. For a while, the smart cards probably won't have any more than $100 on them, and the limit might be lower than that. So they're strictly for walking-around money. You'd still need your credit card, debit card or checkbook for more serious shopping. If the card malfunctions--say, it registers $14 when you're sure you were carrying $36--the bank can check the balance on the computer chip, says Ron Braco, a senior vice president at Chase Manhattan. But if you lose the card, it's just like losing cash. You're out the money. Promoters of smart cards blue-sky a lot of national and international uses that aren't yet anywhere in sight. I'll probably wait for them. Banks have a sales job to do on people like me who don't find it a nuisance to carry cash. U.S. Banker: November 18, 1996 Scott Cook Considers His Next Move By Joseph Radigan Today's home banking market would be very different -- and a lot smaller -- without Scott Cook's Intuit. But a stab at processing payments fizzled out, and some banks still suspect the company wants to steal their customers. The message boards at America Online's Motley Fool investment center may be one of the quirkiest sources for stock tips, but then individual investors have always been magnets -- or suckers for unconventional advice. Anyone who logs on to AOL can find a breadth of opinions on a vast number of publicly traded companies and funds. But in this forum -- where sage financial advice often takes a back seat to the cyberspace equivalent of a food fight, there are no favorites -- not even Intuit Inc., the company that since its formation 13 years ago has quietly, steadily nursed its innovative home banking program, Quicken, from a cult classic into a consumer software powerhouse. While this was taking place, bank after bank was throwing up its hands in frustration over its inability to convince more than a handful of customers to do their banking by personal computer. Clearly, Intuit founder and chairman Scott Cook, a former marketing guy from Procter & Gamble Co., understood something about consumers' banking habits that bankers themselves just didn't get. But lately that hasn't bought the company any favors with some of Motley Fool's regular visitors. On September 12th, just days before the company reported its results for the fiscal year, one posting exemplified the sentiments of a small group of AOL subscribers that had soured on Intuit's prospects: "The party is over, kids. There was never a chance that a $ 300-million company was going to control a multi-trillion-dollar business. To buy into that was nuts to begin with. Those who did, most at more than $ 65 a share, are getting a new lesson in large-bank thinking today." To see Intuit trashed in an on-line foram is especially ironic. After all, it was one of Wall Street's hot software stocks just as the high-tech sector began soaring to undreamed of heights two years ago, and, thanks to a marketing relationship with AOL, Quicken and its no-frills stablemate, BankNow, are the banking options of choice for the on-line service's subscribers. Plus, Quicken has become the preferred financial management software among the computer-literate, and that was what persuaded nearly three dozen banks to sign marketing relationships with the company in the last 18 months. But the last 12 months have been rough on Intuit's stock. The price peaked at $ 89.25 in November 1995, and since the beginning of the year, it's been caught in a steady downward spiral. By mid-September, when the company released the earnings for its July fiscal year, the stock was wallowing around at barely $ 30 a share. The price rebounded slightly on the news that Intuit was selling its money-draining payment-processing unit, but that momentum evaporated quickly. "The Street was clearly dropping the stock over the last six months," says Genni Combes, a securities analyst for Hambrecht & Quist. "The back-end processing was a big drain, and Quicken sales slowed." Cook still speaks regularly at trade shows, but his one-on-one contacts with the press are not as frequent as they once were. In a recent telephone interview with U.S Banker, he said the stock's price gyrations had more to do with factors beyond his company's control than with the firm's performance. A year ago, the stock market was caught up in its Internet hysteria, and this spring, when Intuit's price started sliding, it was primarily because investors were finally evaluating on-line stocks with a healthy dose of much-needed logic. Whatever the actual cause of Intuit's share decline, the company still has plenty of fans. Most people posting messages on AOL are still bullish on its prospects, as are most of the professional analysts that follow the company for the big brokerage firms. "Their cash flow is tremendous," says David Farina, an analyst with William Blair & Co. in Chicago. Indeed, although Intuit confirmed some of the worst fears of its detractors by losing $ 20 million on $ 552 million in sales during its July 1996 fiscal year, the company did generate a cash flow of $ 44 million. An important source of that cash flow is the nearly 10 million customers of Quicken, some of whom are almost fanatical in their enthusiasm for the product. As recently as four years ago, Quicken was the whole franchise, and while its market is still growing, it is now only 20% of the company's sales. Much of the firm's recent growth has come from its diversification into new markets. One is tax software. In acquiring the publisher of TurboTax, the company has a product that now accounts for 30% of revenue. Another important segment is small business accounting, where the QuickBooks program contributes another 20%. These products will become even more important to Intuit because the firm's strategy is to build upon Quicken's customer base by selling its regular users other programs like TurboTax. But in the wake of the announcement that the company was selling its processing unit, Intuit Services Corp., or ISC (the sale is expected to close in December), the Menlo Park, CA, software publisher finds itself at what may be one of the most important junctures in its history. In the last year, Microsoft Money picked up market share against Quicken. Cook says Quicken has recovered some of the ground it lost, but rarely does anyone best Bill Gates in a head-to-head shootout. Several of the three dozen banks that distribute Quicken have at best a lukewarm commitment to promoting the software, and some would rather pursue on-line banking strategies that circumvent Intuit. The on-line world, including that segment of the population that banks with Quicken, is rushing headlong toward the Internet, where only a few companies have established brand names. Moreover, the companies that are succeeding on the Internet tend not to be established technology firms like Microsoft or IBM Corp., but small start-ups devoted solely to doing business on-line. Operating costs are rising faster than revenue. Expenses are not out of control, but marketing in the on-line world challenges even the most skilled players, and that is forcing more software companies to steadily spend more on marketing and software development. Intuit is no exception. Revenues rose a healthy 32% last year to $ 552 million, but that rise was outpaced by the nearly 40% jump in expenses for customer service, marketing and research and development. And according to analysts like Hambrecht's Combes, R&D will continue taking a big bite out of the company's budget. "It takes tremendous tools to design products for the Internet, and you have to spend money on employees," says Combes. "Those costs have been grossly underestimated" throughout the software industry. No Show Stoppers None of the challenges confronting Intuit is a show-stopper -- and some opinionated AOL subscribers notwithstanding, the party is definitely not over but 1996 had more potholes than anyone could have predicted. The more than $ 30 million spent on repairing ISC's operations was a big drain on management. Another problem has been the indifference, if not downright hostility, displayed by some banks toward promoting Quicken. Cook now says that in the wake of the ISC sale, that attitude is changing. Yet there are still banks that consider the company a threat. "The jury is still out on whether the consumer puts more value on the software or the bank," says Tom Kunz, vice president for electronic banking at PNC Bank Corp. It's probably impossible for a final verdict to ever be reached on this issue, but because it's still undecided, some banks have ventured into electronic banking very gingerly. This unknown was at the heart of many banks' suspicion of Microsoft's motives when it tried to buy Intuit, and it is still lurking as a possible scenario should cable TV firms and regional Bells enter the home banking market. Should banks surrender that brand-name identification with their customers in some on-line markets, the fear is that the loss will snowball and lead toward depository institutions becoming mere payment-shuffling middlemen. The desire to retain customers' loyalty has been behind some bankinspired on-line ventures, such as the Internet bank, Security First Network Bank; the five-bank partnership that purchased Meca Software Inc. from H&R Block Inc. and the announcement in September by 16 banks that they would process home banking payments in a joint venture with IBM Corp. With Quicken, banks can promote their logos and brand names, but only after a customer has intentionally purchased the package from a local software store or bought a new computer with a copy of Quicken pre-installed. Soon after a customer starts using the program, she can establish an on-line connection between the bank and her home computer, provided her bank has a marketing agreement with Intuit. In the last 18 months, some three dozen banks and thrifts have done so. Another 12,000 or so haven't. The objection bankers like PNC's Kunz have had is that even after the on-line connection between the bank and the consumer is in place, the consumer's electronic sessions still begin with them looking at a Quicken logo. That has always raised the unwelcome prospect that customers would show more brand-name loyalty to the software than to the bank, and so even some of the banks that have marketing contracts with Intuit are only promoting Quicken half-heartedly. PNC, for example, makes the software available only to customers who specifically ask for it, and Mike King, director of alternative banking for Michigan National Bank in Farmington Hills, MI, says his institution, despite its signing of a processing agreement last year, "didn't aggressively promote either" Quicken or Money. "You go into some banks and you have to practically put a gun to their head" to get a copy of Quicken, says Meca's president Paul Harrison. The reason for that reluctance is that the banks that market Quicken are "clearly cutting themselves off from any cross-sell opportunity. You open the Intuit box, and you have to fill out the form, and the other side of that is an application for an Intuit credit card," issued by the Travelers Group's bank unit. Harrison is a direct competitor to Intuit, so it doesn't hurt him one bit to point out any disagreements between Intuit and the banks. But his point is also borne out at the Internet site for the Quicken Financial Network, where all of the banks and brokerage firms that process payments through ISC are listed, although the listings are presented in a manner that doesn't distinguish any one bank from the others. Here too, along with lines for Chase Manhattan, Citibank and Wells Fargo, there's a line for the Quicken Credit Card from Travelers Bank and a second line for Travelers Bank. This credit card isn't all that significant, believes Jim Grant, a senior vice president for First Chicago NBD Corp. There are so many card offers from so many issuers, and Intuit's is just one more. A technology company could hijack customers' loyalty, Grant allows, "but I just haven't seen any of it." He's felt for some time that the fears about Intuit's motives border on paranoia. In the last two years, this issue of branding and positioning seemed to have become as much of a sore point for Cook as it has for the bankers who accused him of hogging the market. Whenever he demonstrated Quicken at a press briefing or a trade show, he was quick to point out the bank's logo on the computer screen. Cook readily acknowledges that Intuit is still trying to hang on to some brand name recognition, but he said that it's something of a false issue to argue that the Quicken logo should permanently evaporate once a customer has selected a given on-line banking option. After all, brand names are routinely shared in more familiar markets. "When customers walk into McDonald's, they know they're ordering Coca-Cola," Cook says. What's so bad about applying the same logic to on-line marketing? Cook also pointed out that if banks are hesitant to have direct marketing relationships with Quicken because there are three dozen other banks whose names appear on the software program's menu, then those reluctant banks are really going to be in for a rude awakening when Internet banking soars off the charts. Some 500 banks had Web pages by this fall, and if the market forecasts are accurate, that number could increase five- or ten-fold in the next few years. He feels it's unfair to singled out Quicken for committing on-line disintermediation. Some bankers may never be reconciled to Cook's presence in their business. As long as somebody else is selling software to their customers, that person, whether it's Gates, Cook or someone else, they are going to be looked upon as interlopers who are trying to hog "ownership" of the customer relationship. A Matter of Ownership When NationsBank chief executive Hugh McColl addressed a retail banking conference last December, he said, "I get calls every week from representatives of technology companies. They all swear they don't intend to become banks. But they won't have to. With control of the medium, they ultimately gain the chance to own our customer relationships." But Cook responds, "Owning the customer? I don't know what that means. We found out with our ISC strategy, that when you don't allow the customer -- in this case our bank customer -- to have a choice, they're unhappy. What you want is to have the customer seek you out and want to do business with you." Although Cook seems a little bit wiser now, his prior insistence on banks processing home banking payments through ISC if they wanted to distribute Quicken only made it more difficult for him to overcome banks' suspicions about the company's motives. "We know we need to play in Intuit's world," says PNC's Kurz. But "there's a difference between saying 'Connect to me, and I'll provide you this service', and saying, 'If you want to connect to me, you have to go through my processor.'" Throughout Intuit's history, someone who bought a copy of Quicken could keep their checking account at any bank, and that's still true. In most cases, Quicken's customers print out specially formatted paper checks, which can be ordered through a depositor's bank or directly from the firms that provide printed check stock. In 1990, Intuit formed a relationship with Checkfree Corp. to sidestep the printing of paper checks and make payments electronically. But less than 10% of its customers chose this option. Then in April 1994, Intuit entered the processing business itself when it purchased National Payments Clearinghouse for $ 7.6 million. Intuit wanted to use NPC for the background wiring for all of its on-line banking and investing services, and it was last year that NPC was rechristened Intuit Services Corp. But the plans never panned out. Intuit couldn't build the necessary computer systems quickly enough -- or well enough -- and more than $ 30 million in R&D costs went down the drain before Cook and his management team finally concluded they were wasting their time. Things hit bottom earlier this year, when some late and improperly filed payments caused a flurry of stories in the consumer press. Intuit finally announced the sale of the operation to Checkfree in September, for $ 227 million in stock. The biggest reason the ISC unit was sold, Cook freely acknowledges, was bankers' unhappiness about having to go through ISC. Most banks prefer to select a processor independent of their retail software. Converting home banking payments from paper to electronic form has been a tough nut to crack for every entrant in the market, not just Intuit. But Checkfree has had far more luck at it than anyone else. The company now processes bills for 800,000 consumers, and it will pick up another 300,000 with ISC. About 40% of Checkfree's payments are completed electronically, but chairman Peter Kight says the conversion process is time-consuming. More than 40 employees from the Atlanta company are devoted to marketing electronic payments to merchants and helping them adapt their computer systems. Still, as recently as a year ago, things looked bright for Intuit's ISC strategy. Individual Quicken customers could still opt to have their payments processed through Checkfree, but without a link between their bank and ISC, these consumers didn't have electronic access to their bank statements and couldn't use Quicken to transfer balances among accounts. Since banks had to join forces with ISC if they wanted to offer a complete service through Quicken, it appeared that Intuit could bend them to its will. But it wasn't meant to be. With the sale of ISC, Intuit seems to have made a brilliant tactical retreat. It has hardly given up promoting its own brands, but it has finally satisfied banks that they're not going to be forced into doing business with a firm that's intent on stealing their customer lists. "The whole fear of Bill Gates or Scott Cook becoming a bank just went away," says Frank Han, vice president for strategic planning for the $ 28-billion-asset Union Bank of California. The sale coincided with the launch of a strategy called Open Exchange, which is blueprint for connecting Quicken's users and banks to the Internet. In a way, it's a response to a similar strategy Microsoft announced last March, called Open Financial Connectivity, and IBM's Integrion home banking venture. At the very least, the sale of ISC and the proposal of Open Exchange indicate a new pragmatism on Cook's part. Not long ago, some banks were so eager for a link to Quicken that they would accept almost any product distribution terms. But now does not seem to be a time when a hardball strategy can work in home banking. Software companies like Intuit need the banks, the banks need the processing companies like Checkfree, and everyone depends on everybody else's cooperation. Moreover, should any of the players move in on one of the other's turf, they may wind up losing more than they gain. Intuit's experience with ISC is proof of that. "This is a very complex market," says Checkfree's Kight. "Everybody needs to focus." For software companies like Intuit, that focus is now on gathering up as many customers as possible, even if it means giving the software away. Publishers like Intuit have discovered they can sell much more software by distributing packages directly to PC manufacturers, who then ship the software programs with every computer they sell. Unfortunately for the publishers, the wholesale revenue from this strategy is barely a fraction of that on copies sold through traditional retail outlets. But once these consumers have a copy of Quicken, Intuit believes it can sell them its other software. It's all part of a trend in high-tech markets that Citicorp's chief technology officer Colin Crook has called "non-linearity:" forsake the up-front revenue on your products now with the anticipation that customers will like what they see and pay extra for more valuable products down the road. Crook says banks are going to have to understand this approach and employ it themselves if they are to succeed in the on-line world. Intuit is staking its future on just this sort of non-linear approach. If Cook succeeds, he may yet find his detractors on the Motley Fool message boards eating their words.

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pgp bugs list?
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I seem to remember someone saying that pgp's +makerandom function was broken. However I'm unable to find any confirmation of this with a web search. I'm sure there used to be a known pgp bugs list held at MIT? I can't find it now. Anyone know of the bugs lists whereabouts, or could confirm/refute any security problems with +makerandom? (premail uses it, pgp stealth could use it, if it worked). [the (undocumented) feature is this: pgp +makerandom=1024 out creates 1024 bytes of what should be good random nos, in file "out"] Adam -- print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

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Re: Does John Gilmore...
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Black Unicorn writes: > Dave Hayes writes: > > > Again, you confuse free speech with free broadcast. > > Isn't broadcast a subset of speech, especially in this culture? > That which is broadcast is certainly speech. > Trying to draw some kind of "right to be broadcast" as a result is > stupidity or ignorance, or both. Then I suppose you want to control all mailing lists, USENET groups, and web pages. These are broadcasts, and of course they have no rights other than what you seem to want to give them. > Anyone has the right to, e.g., start a mailing list, or a newsletter. > No one has the right to compell ABC or FOX or John Gilmore or anyone > else to broadcast their speech. (The rarest exceptions, like equal time > rules, exist in election contexts). But what about this letter? It is cc'd to two mailing lists. I own the Freedom Knights one, John Gilmore owns the cyperpunks one. Does that mean that both of us have to approve it before it gets sent? Do we both own it? > Learn the difference. Go to law school before you argue free speech > concepts in any detail. "Laws" do not cover the net's "multicast" technology. Distinguishing communication types so as to control those who use them is not going to solve your problem. You are much better off, from a practical standpoint, learning to control what you see and hear rather than attempting to control others. One does not need a school to see this, it sits under one's nose like a milk moustache. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet One only fights what one thinks is real.

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Re: The Utility of Privacy
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 19 Nov 96 at 6:31, Duncan Frissell wrote: > Owning gold in America in 1930 vs 1933 Hi Duncan. Do you have any documentation or historical references to the reason they gave for forbidding ownership of gold? Just curious... How about gold backed Magic Money tokens? :) Ciao jfa Jean-Francois Avon, Pierrefonds (Montreal) QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Finest Limoges porcelain and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants physicists and engineers, LabView programing PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 ID# 5B51964D : 152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C

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Lucky your no punk...
by cyberhawk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> writes: > Beginning Monday, 11/25/96, I will bounce all email from the various > (non-)subscribers polluting this list with garbage back to the > authors. Furthermore, I will attach documents describing basic > Internet rules of conduct to each bounce. > > I would encourage other Cypherpunks to do the same. Lucky: Are you an elitist cypherpunk? It sounds like you've out grown the designation of punk. Punk: 1. worthless or unimportant person. 2. a petty hoodlum -adj, 3. poor in quality. You are hereby promoted. You are now a cypher-corporal in the elite crypto army. God Speed my boy. We'll keep a candle lite for you son if you someday choose to return to the great un-washed masses. Chow-baby, Rocky J. Squirrel

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Re: Reputation based hiring (was REQUESTING INFORMATION)
by George A. Stathis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:02 ìì 19/11/1996 -0500, Clay Olbon II wrote: >I won't comment on who I will or won't hire. I will state that I believe ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >that what a person posts is a relevant issue when it comes time to make a ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >hiring decision. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Very important admission here: WATCH out what you say, folks, from now on. Say it _real_ nice, or else you WON'T GET HIRED!!! No "abuse", from now on... :-) aha, aha, aha! NOW I understand the insecurity and the fear of young *unemployed* Americans. NOW I understand... :-) >If someone thinks that another should not be hired for >whatever reason, I support their right to hold that belief and even to >publicize it. Likewise. But ONLY publicly, in contrast to you (hiding it)... ><rant against cypherpunks deleted> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There was NO rant "against cypherpunks" as such. You could label my text a 'rant', by all means, but I note with interest your attempt to turn it "against cypherpunks" (Setting a new target to what was only a... friendly-clay-bullet, dear Clay). :-) I would never hire you. What I need is people with a VISION; NOT people with IMPAIRED VISION, distorting things so unreliably. I need TRUE VISIONARIES able to work creatively in High Technology. People like Philip Kahn (Hurrah) and Richard Branson (Hurrah, Bravo); even Bill Gates himself, were SELF-MADE visionaries. In contrast... people "threatening others with unemployability files", are CLAY MEDIOCRITIES. Your reputation is correct, given the kind of people you are 'selling'. (Slaves in fact, just like in the SLAVE TRADE times... -High I.Q. slaves). I would suggest, Clay, that you are indeed doing a good Job. But if you are a... "Cypherpunk" then... I am the Emperor of Mars! :-) >I won't follow you into the gutter on this one. That horse has been dead ^^^^^^ >for days (and it is beginning to smell really bad). > Clay ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You know Clay, if only you knew what TREASURE you have giveth me today :-) I never even knew this existed locked up inside a... Smelly Clay Gutter... Many thanks anyway George P.S. (deleted) ********************* CORPORATE GUTTER FOLLOWS: *********************** >I would say you are a decent, honest, fearless man trying to do a job which RANT DELETED >with _serious_ issues of 'unemployability'., FURTHERMORE people are NEVER >guilty before PROVEN so. Guilt or Innocence is NOT a matter of 'opinion', RANT DELETED >the guy's back. WHAT is going on? I've been harrassed and threatended TOO, >just because of defending him or supporting people's rights to a fair trial? RANT DELETED >I have no disagreement with your down-to-earth explanations. But... >Sooner or later your 'sheep-leader' Mr. Gilmore will start blocking access >to MORE geniouses (other than Voulis, who I think _could_ be one) to your >list, and then encryption will be entrusted to morons who can at ANY moment >have their coding systems BROKEN!!! RANT DELETED >unemployability (as indeed happened in the letter quoted below) it's an >alarming sign that the _criteria_ for employability are no longer your >own decent down-to-earth criteria (honesty, intelligence, trust-worthiness) RANT DELETED >It's only recently that the type of fascist harrassment like "We'll put >you on our U-list", has reached such ABUSE, MISUSE, and ALARMING FREQUENCY. RANT DELETED >You are, most probably, a real person with very real responsibilites. >In this case, I appreciate you a lot, and hopefully my complaints have >reached the right man's ear. RANT DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDELETED. huh?

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"Don't Hire Lists" of FASCIST SCUM Tim May
by George A. Stathis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:18 ðì 17/11/1996 -0800, Timothy C. May <tcmay(a)got.net> wrote: (in response to a rather civilised condemnation of censorship I had written as defense of someone _else_, a person whom I don't even know)... >"Not ethical"? > >But we will do it anyway. Moreover, some of us maintain lists of "Do Not >Hire" persons. Few high tech or Silicon Valley software companies will hire >such folks. > >Congratulations, Stathis, as you are now on such a list. First of all, I question your right to have 'authority', not only for this, but for dictating to "Cypherpunks" what persons to trust or to distrust. BECAUSE you are NOT a "cypherpunk". You are a CypherScumBag-Fascist. People sent me PRIVATE letters asking how to converse in encrypted E-mail due to FEARS that people like YOU, ASSHOLE, are monitoring them. THIS is why you got me angry. I URINATE upon your Unemployability files. I got BALLS meaning I got my OWN job. And I can tear you apart in front of everybody NOW, because it took me a fucking long time NOT to need to remain SILENT in front of FASCIST ASSHOLES LIKE you. DIE, Scum! Well, my friends and I have been compiling OPEN lists of *Fascist Scum*, _undesirable_ among...parties and wild sexy holidays in Greek Islands. :-) For example in _my_ island of Kythera (birthplace of Goddess Venus) where I also have a house, often relaxing there to flee the 'rat-race' madness. (whenever I can steal some time from running my _own_ business in Athens). In any case... ************************************************************************** Congratulations, Master Tim, you've earned yourself the No[1] place in our own... _legal_ blacklist of Fascist Scum who are Undesirables in... Greek Islands. If you ever come to Greece we'll *ruin* your holidays... :-) ************************************************************************** ROTFL!!! (seriously now...) "Unemployability lists" are *illegal* in _Europe_ anyway, you know. They are specifically illegal in the "Human Rights and Protection of Private Records of Information" Acts, of the EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT... The only _legal_ 'unemployability files' in _Europe_ are those involving penal convictions, as well as _true_ records of previous employment. And if someone can _prove_ in a European court that someone else's slanderous activity ruined their prospects of employment, you go to jail, poor Tim... In Europe, freedom of opinion and style of self-expression OUTSIDE WORK, are irrelevant, actually.. Even inside a company they're relevant if and only if they damage the profits or the reputation or other company assets. (And good programmers are tolerated for being wild eccentrics, _anyway_). HOWEVER... This is *nothing*, compared to what _will_ happen in a few years time, when SUCH so-called 'UNEMPLOYABLE PERSONS FILES' are gonna be taken to Publicity and also to (European) Justice. We'll convict you to pay such a great FINE for malicious harm to individuals all over the world, that you will CRAWL inside a hole somewhere in your United States and never, ************************************************************ ever, ever, attempt to leave the shitty polluted hole of yours anymore. You will be screaming for help from the ACLU, and hiring bodyguards! :-). Of course, _Mafia-like Fascist McCarthian Scum_ like yourself laugh with 'human rights laws'... (Especially European Laws)... So, if THIS didn't scare ya, there is MORE for you AT HOME: *************************************************************************** The hordes of U.S. University Graduates, left unemployed by the year 2005 or 2010, will LITERALLY FRY YA alive, scumbag Tim, chop off your head and pin it on a lamp-post, IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY, because they'd be *very* angry with fascist scum like you, undermining their (already widespread) serious unemployment, which is likely to cause many deaths in RIOTS and TURMOIL... *************************************************************************** As for me... :-) I imagine myself waking up in my Greek island house one day, reading the NEWS: "Lynch Mob in the States torture and murder controversial holders of 'unemployability lists', blaming them for their own unemployment"; Wow! And as I sip my (100% _real_) orange juice with cheerful REAL people, in a beach-bar near my island-house, I will sigh; starting to tell my friends a story(!) about WHAT this strange news is about, and WHO was this Fascist American "Tim May", murdered by mobs of angry young American unemployed... (MY CONDOLENCES). In fact... Long before THIS day is over, poor old Tim, you will start having REAL nightmares at night: Because NOBODY can protect you, NOW, when you crawl YOUR streets at night; streets already UNSAFE, you know. And THIS lack of safety is part of your DEPLORABLE standard of living over there: NOT the money; what money BUYS! So... Don't *ever* threaten again ANY European, with your "U-lists", especially Europeans who have their OWN businesses, and who can also write _much_ better software code (in 'PROLOG' & 'Assembler') than you, dumb-old-Tim! You are ALREADY obsolete, disposable, pseudo-human NOISE; Trash from your own past, when Senator McCarthy's 'unemployability threats' sent the U.S. back to the Middle Ages. You are welcome to get BACK to those Middle Ages, if you like; So as to follow the drain-pipe-highway of OTHERS like you... >We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. We got computers, we're TRANSCENDING your technology, we'll smash you one day LEGALLY (if your compatriots don't murder you ILLEGALLY, long before then)... Tim May, May you (already) "live" in an "interesting time" (Chinese Curse). ("live"?... for how long? :-) ) With *much* delight about your self-chosen TROUBLES, George Alexander Stathis (Hellenic Software Producer, and PROLOG/ASM programmer) (my web page is now being prepared with the help of a friend, who lives in Kalamata and started his OWN Web site there.

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Re: Playing Cards - Caution!
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:57 AM 11/19/1996, Alan Bostick wrote: > Thirty-two bits of randomness in a space that is 225 bits wide leave > room for an awful lot of order. The maximum entropy after one riffle shuffle is actually about 48 bits, assuming the deck was split in half. That is, n! / k! (n-k)! = 52! / 2 * 26! ~= 4.9592 * 10^14. log_2 4.9592 * 10^14 = 48 bits. (Think of one half of the deck of k cards fitting into n possible holes. The order of each half of the deck is guaranteed, so this can be thought of as the number of ways k balls fit into n holes. What about the other half of the deck? They just fall into the empty holes.) Assume the split introduces about 4 more bits, and we get 52 bits of possible shuffles. However, in practice a riffle shuffle may be more predictable. It is possible that 32 bits of entropy are introduced with each riffle shuffle, but it is not obviously true. For a cryptographic application, the standard is higher than for almost any other. So, if it is not clear that something is the case, probably it shouldn't be used. >> A model is presented which Diaconis believes is similar to how people >> shuffle in real life. What is troubling from a cryptographic point of >> view is that there is little empirical evidence to back this up. What >> is more, Diaconis mentions that there is some variation in shufflers. >> A neat shuffler will be less random. (Side note: The Economist claims >> Diaconis can execute 8 perfect shuffles in less than a minute. This >> means the deck is returned to its original order!) > Mathematics does not rely on empirical evidence. ;-) That's true, but the application of mathematics certainly does depend on empirical evidence. I would be very surprised if Diaconis made a mistake with the math. I think the math is what primarily interests him. From his book I did not see a lot of evidence that a great deal of empirical research on card shuffling had been performed. Rather, a few mathematicians here and there appear to have tried out the model and decided that it more or less works. For the standards we should apply, those of a cryptographic application, this is not good enough. >> The study of randomness in cards looks much harder to me now. Also, >> flaws which may be exploitable for financial reasons when real money >> is on the table may have to be substantially more dramatic than the >> flaws required to exploit, for instance, an alleged one-time pad. > Do bear in mind that, unless you distill its entropy through hashing, > a randomly-ordered deck of cards is going to show a lot of seemingly > non-random properties if you try to use it as a one-time pad. Most > obviously, because each card in the deck is dealt once and only once, > there must of necessity be correlations between cards dealt early in > the deck and cards dealt later. (Card-counters at blackjack tables > make their money by exploiting these correlations.) I solved this problem in my original message on the subject. You use the order of the cards to represent your message. Then you use a fully shuffled deck to mix up the mapping of the cards to numbers. If the deck is truly randomly ordered, the scheme I proposed is a true one time pad. (If I made an error, I would like to hear about it!) Tangentially, I would be reluctant to rely on a one time pad whose key was produced by a hash function. We assume that the hash function is cryptographically secure, but if we can assume that, we might as well assume that some cryptosystem is secure. One time pads are supposed to avoid those types of assumptions. > The randomness of rolling dice is much more easy to interpret than that > of dealt cards. I agree completely. In practice, you pretty much have to have a computer to make use of the original schemes I proposed. The literature on card shuffling is quite interesting. A number of people over many years have worked on this. It looks to me like there's lots more interesting work to be done. Many readers of this list would probably find Diaconis's book interesting. There might even be a number of new attacks possible on card games. If 7 riffle shuffles does not, in fact, bring the deck to complete entropy it means that a number of combinations of cards are unlikely. Is the distribution of pokers hands perfectly even? They may not be. Solving this problem in the general case appears to be very hard. But, some progress could be made by modeling real shuffling and looking for patterns in the relationships between the cards electronically. Conceivably, poker hands are not as random as people believe. While the cards you have in your hand may be random, their relationship to other cards may not. This is like a pseudo random number generator. If you don't notice the pattern, you will believe you are looking at a random number stream, but in fact you are not. However, the entire subject is orthogonal to my goals right now. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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WinSock Remailer Resuming Operation
by Joey Grasty 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Y'all: I'm pleased to announce that the WinSock Remailer is resuming operation tonight at 11:00 PM EST from winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net. All messages to the remailer must be PGP encrypted. The public key for this remailer is: - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQBtAzKL9KEAAAEDANpSkWhtxPQXO4A/igS1TKsrHpBIgLd07sgKHmcwGsnPcI5K h2/T1rm3E8lRw5zKWd5MDs7b9Ku7+/V1SjEs2XmpiX1aJ7oN2LJvQ9OO5Z01CwUA 7LFnSfcOrGCnk0ADrQAFEbQuV2luU29jayBSZW1haWxlciA8d2luc29ja0ByaWdl bC5jeWJlcnBhc3MubmV0PokAdQMFEDKL9PjDgztlfPQWWQEBlYYC/iv5zt+v8E/N puymUHLHavlBr9XuP7XVECW3trUxSRdCqnVp1el7fHIQNaN0hw+DW9KutOuumm+u ZzwStZ94dimBYlmSedZ4t4f6DAOK0WZ6wosi/tV5IGlgCdIQA7o2W4kAdQMFEDKL 9M4OrGCnk0ADrQEBWCYDAIlhADaxwBSb2Edz9A5oqAq6YddIVSJdUwuIiN5TvKPa oRXdpkpEYRi1JOUPNy+vLCF21c9LLUYcKMxMvIJPGq6OSBy6VzCdaiOS/yBz7fsH 9I4X5IwoNnf0/Mm+di5zlA== =/UGi - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Here's the info for the remailer-list: $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp hash cut ksub reord"; I'll be adding "post" to this list after I get a more thorough testing of the NNTP code that I added for authentication. "latent" is also pending. The remailer will run every 60 seconds from 12:00 AM to 8:00 AM every day and whenever I am online. Cyberpass automatically spools the messages when I am not connected. Those of you that want to run your own remailer may obtain a copy of the remailer from links from the WinSock Remailer Home Page at: http://www.cyberpass.net/~winsock/ Currently, the remailer runs only under Windows 3.1, but a version for Windows NT and 95 will be available shortly. Note: alt.religion.scientology and alt.clearing.technology are blocked. I'm not interested in run-ins with either supporters or detractors of the Church of Scientology. Binary and picture groups are also blocked, but only because I don't have the bandwidth to support them. I invite people who want remailers to post to these groups to download the remailer and operate it for themselves. Regards, Joey Grasty Jim Ray WinSock Remailer Operators -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMpJaEQ6sYKeTQAOtAQEhZwMAqPnQG0a6Vm4HSx111ha1VulP7ClWqRba 66v/Ff5hLssO+nWbnEKb3VQ/sJEEdQzGQk2lMGeradxQBt0YANiymGkpNR66uAGg a5rtisLAfmwJNJSGhvJtPaMd4r7HnSG3 =EN8y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Cracks Are Found In Smartcard Security (fwd)
by Z.B. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[This was on the Defcon list...apologies if it's already been posted today.] Zach Babayco zachb(a)netcom.com <-------finger for PGP public key http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/4127 ----- If you need to know how to set up a mail filter or defend against emailbombs, send me a message with the words "get helpfile" (without the " marks) in the SUBJECT: header, *NOT THE BODY OF THE MESSAGE!* I have several useful FAQs and documents available. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 21:17:49 +0000 From: Simon Gardner <simon(a)access.org.uk> To: aaa-list(a)access.org.uk Cc: dc-stuff(a)dis.org Subject: Cracks Are Found In Smartcard Security Cracks Are Found In Smartcard Security Researchers have found a way to attack tough codes, says Michael McCormack. A team of Cambridge and German researchers have used ordinary hacking methods and £150 worth of electronics equipment to crack the "world's most secure computer chip", used in automated teller machines worldwide. They say their technique could be used to reprogram a wide variety of supposedly secure smartcard applications, including the Mondex "money on a card" bankcard, GSM phones, and satellite TV descramblers. Dr Ross Anderson, of Cambridge University Computer Laboratory, working with German researcher Markus Kuhn, used methods pioneered by Sky-TV hackers to crack the Dallas chip, described by the manufacturer as having "the most sophisticated security features available in any microcontroller" and used in most of Britain's cash machines. The chip decodes the information read from bankcards and authorises the bank machine to process transactions ordered by the owner. It is also used by the Mondex system to verify the amount of electronic money available to the cardholder. Anderson and Kuhn used cheap and easily built electronic equipment to send wrong instructions to the chip, observing how it encrypted bad data. By sending such errors through all parts of the encryption system, they could work out its key. "You will have to have backup security" "Once you know that, you can instruct it to put some zeros on the end of your Mondex balance, start unscrambling your satellite feed, anything you like," Anderson said. "Breaking the average smartcard can be done by anyone with a modicum of technical knowledge by the methods we have described. The expense is negligible but it is time-consuming." Their discovery could spell the end of the Mondex system, which relies entirely on the security of the smartcards for its integrity. "I don't think you will be able to have floating systems like Mondex any more, where all the information is held on the smartcards," said Anderson. "You will have to have backup security with authorisation calls and auditing, just like ordinary credit cards. The smartcards are no longer reliable on their own." John Beric, head of security at Mondex, said security was a moving target, and he was unconcerned by the findings. "I welcome Dr Anderson's work, because it's a benchmark that establishes the difficulty of breaking the system," he said. "I take some comfort that it's taken a Cambridge academic and a very bright student to do this." Beric said Mondex had a scheme for continually improving its security by transparently introducing new smartcard chips every two years. "It's not static, we're ahead of the criminal now, and we believe the technology is there to ensure that we stay ahead." Anderson said his latest research indicated that two of the world's most widely used systems for encoding sensitive financial information - the RSA and DES encryption standards used by most banks - could also be cracked easily." [The London Telegraph, 19th November 1996]

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Re: Does John Gilmore...
by George A. Stathis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:17 ìì 19/11/1996 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote: [snip] >Forward complaints to : European Association of Envelope Manufactures >Finger for Public Key Gutenbergstrasse 21;Postfach;CH-3001;Bern >Vote Monarchist Switzerland ^^^^^^^^^^ Monarchiste et... Cypher-punk, n'est pas? :-) Alors, pour vous Monsieur, je dis: Liberte Egalite Fraternite. Peut'etre votre... Rois trouve le medecin contre la... Decapitation. <plonk> Alors, combien d'argent vou voulais pour mon droit dans votre "mailing list", Excellence? Dit mois, Dit! Je vous... pris !!! ROTFL Vive le Rois Georges :-) P.S. All the nutcases gather here at once? No wonder they're 'unemployable'.

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My PGP Key
by The Deviant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'd just like to say, to everyone with my PGP key, that the one you have should be removed, it is no longer valid (lost in disk crash). Also, I've finally gotten around to finding why PGP stopped running for so long on my machine, and it works now, so here's my new key. - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQENAzKSSsQAAAEH/1QbvzR/tN+L759w0oGhqOzp+FputqlVx0Rr7+rWxzULd5Qs +MXZjMh+187RA7Q2GwNIijOEL27nUqpAmMT8Rb5dc0k0T4ubDCD7/phN31eoUkDy iV/TnwajrfyEmiFX2Rz1iVc9Zg8VC+x4Uho9pEO9l7cc6PaCFhKXb+hJn/q6ZiCA GaQPu7wtL+bKu+aENFa+eCXOnCN1UsiTaNIfOYDlB5G+6XzE3yY8pN6kK0uDyfb3 C+ScCcxd7tEaFnn9w9I4Hp6GqNtwoL8RfCHPj9ojvODoLCa5TgQ0aT+LlGsDryhR 5T0vI7tPhuzw4h0hHcVZogIjakQkMJ0SHegg8BUABRG0JVRoZSBEZXZpYW50IDxk ZXZpYW50QHBvb2gtY29ybmVyLmNvbT4= =gbdI - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- --Deviant When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMpJkjTCdEh3oIPAVAQFNogf9FR+TarEEGpVvL/id/cP1mNiB9YsT5t09 8+OWNgIUYid2DIejVWBkNkbdcAmLxYMaqlOmAzqQxizaDqDIjFstNOPwLEmELv1B XXWv7BqRtI3yKkGs8ntamTbtV7cER1SknBIr5xnfbyDbltMcitApwZ7ixSywc8YQ o8qq/mEmftDIgoiFcK65Cj/IsMuW+jQIxu+7xH9l3ivoi5H79/lgLTKbPtH9ISdv e35Y1zIbfsblgyeveJwOVXTBYQd8TFvLylBxDyk+Oh9icpdkt/Qk5277BICw4l1z KmCkQ1spbumUcd0h2qnZijJPrQWiBqHZYGs/2MAl7pUGbx3gIR3d5w== =ECKT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: [NOISE] aga isn't on cypherpunks... (and I'm glad)
by pclow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > That is your last warning, Mike. If you start harasing my postmaster, > I will have your fucking ass in Federal Court before you can blink. Errrr..... what has Paul's oversexed donkey got to do with this list or the Federal Court? Sorry, I'm not in the US and my knowledge of US culture is very limited. ---------- From: paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk[SMTP:paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk] Sent: Monday, November 18, 1996 11:58 PM To: aga Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: [NOISE] aga isn't on cypherpunks... (and I'm glad) > > That is your last warning, Mike. If you start harasing my postmaster, > I will have your fucking ass in Federal Court before you can blink. >

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The NSA Responds
by se7en 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The NSA responded to a series of 14 questions posed to them by the Houston Chronicle regarding their involvement and interest in cryptography. While this article is not recent, it is still very interesting. Because of the size, I have not posted it here. It can be found at: http://www.dis.org/se7en/ and click the on "The NSA" The question list is: 1. Has the NSA ever imposed or attempted to impose a weakness on any cryptographic code to see if it can thus be broken? 2. Has the NSA ever imposed or attempted to impose a weakness on the DES or DSS? 3. Is the NSA aware of any weaknesses in the DES or the DSS? The RSA? 4. Has the NSA ever taken advantage of any weaknesses in the DES or the DSS? 5. Did the NSA play a role in designing the DSS? Why, in the NSA's analysis, was it seen as desirable to create the DSS when the apparently more robust RSA already stood as a de facto standard? 6. What national interests are served by limiting the power of cyptographic schemes used by the public? 7. What national interests are served by limiting the export of cryptographic technology? 8. What national interests are at risk, if any, if secure cryptography is widely available? 9. What does the NSA see as its legitimate interests in the area of cryptography? Public cryptography? 10. How did NSA enter into negotiations with the Software Publishers Association regarding the export of products utilizing cryptographic techniques? How was this group chosen, and to what purpose? What statute or elected representative authorized the NSA to engage in the discussions? 11. What is the status of these negotiations? 12. What is the status of export controls on products uing cryptographic techniques? How would you respond to those who point to the fact that the expot of RSA from the U.S. is controlled, but that its import into the U.S. is not? 13. What issues would you like to discuss that I have not addressed? 14. What question or questions would you like to pose of your critics? se7en

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Dogpile
by drose＠AZStarNet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

While Rome is burning, and with apologies in advance for the lack of vitriol in this post, I would like to point out a new and effective means of searching the Web and Usenet. Check out Dogpile (with which I have no affiliation).

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Re: Rogue Governments Issuing Policy Tokens
by Jim Ray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed Nov 20 22:12:52 1996 Hal wrote: <snip> > I can't see the U.S. allowing Libya and similar countries to create > policy > tokens. The whole point of this exercise is to prevent these countries > from being able to use strong crypto. So they will certainly not be on > the approved list. I think Tim was referring to a "Panama" or "'80s Iraq" situation, rather than a stable enemy state like Libya. Unless the hardware has some way of making itself have a short lifetime, there will be problems when U.S. policy changes or when one is stolen. <snip> > Companies which try to sell computers with these > chips > in them risk getting a "big brother inside" (to use Tim's very effective > slogan) reputation. I think this initiative is going nowhere. Amen. Sometimes these policy initiatives seem so ham-handed that the suspicious side of me wonders "what they're really up to." They can't seriously think they can control this any more than they can control the ocean, at least not without an awesome (even for this century) world-wide police-state. JMR P.S. Please, everyone, try not to feed the flamefest-knights, so they will someday (hopefully) go away. Creative killfiling can only do so much. Regards, Jim Ray DNRC Minister of Encryption Advocacy One of the "legitimate concerns of law enforcement" seems to be that I was born innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around. -- me Please note new 2000bit PGPkey & address <jmr(a)shopmiami.com> PGP id.A7D63DA9 98 1F 39 BA 93 86 B4 F5 57 52 64 0E DA BA 2C 71 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEPAwUBMpPItzUhsGSn1j2pAQF19QfQhGqLa5BBoxcPdX+FGyY6zCQY5jOQA5y5 HJjB28jQGGmqiNFpXsqh2UB+aRMCYknWmshG3kBOsPqpQBiIRaHpUalYTsDxdnIA bd8rwHvY8uD6aCKdaU1yAE+fXbdLuwClUYL9SbeoLo/84ITRKWNX8LuBCPF5fROS soRrsx1noLW4V9rFvhYRmFXp7czmHGAl2ItOcndNv1xBLFea8BJ3VdbrNWgTO4rc Q2glxaqMYqd1gF3Q2uFz2u5NLlh0Ba+1MZCF9MJQ1yXdL4N0Ucov5pAeiBWCg8Ef h0BkekE6oiE9OUeu3YUZjVb0V4CcUeejUIYPxj/a97RiiA== =mNwN -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Invitation to PhD defense
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Path: perun!news2.panix.com!panix!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!howland.erols.net!swrinde!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!sdcc12.ucsd.edu!cs!markus From: markus(a)cs.ucsd.edu (Markus Jakobsson) Newsgroups: sci.crypt Subject: Invitation to PhD defense Message-ID: <56qnou$5va(a)sdcc12.ucsd.edu> Date: 18 Nov 1996 22:25:34 GMT Organization: CSE Dept., U.C. San Diego Lines: 12 NNTP-Posting-Host: beowulf.ucsd.edu On December 9th, I will defend my thesis, ``Privacy vs. Authenticity'', proposing an efficient and versatile payment system that balances privacy requirements against protection against criminals. If you are in San Diego at this time, I would like to invite you to the defense. For more details, please contact me by email. Markus Jakobsson -- Research: privacy vs. authenticity, digital cash, zero-knowledge. Homepage: http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/users/markus/ Email : markus(a)cs.ucsd.edu

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NYT article on Holocaust
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

An article in today's (Tue, Nov 19, 1996) New York Times described how British intelligence had early information of the slaughter of European Jewery through the decryption of German radio messages. (Although not noted in the article, this is presumably Ultra decryption of Enigma). The information was not acted upon, and the article offers a number of reasons, among which was a (not unreasonable) fear that doing so would compromise Ultra. The article also notes that the decryptions were kept so secret that the information was not available at post-WW2 war crimes trials (such as Nurenburg). I suppose that this could offer a counter argument to the NSA FUD "If you only knew what we know." Martin. minow(a)apple.com

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Re: 1996 Codebreakers
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Shostack <adam(a)homeport.org> writes: > I just got a review copy of the new (1996) ed. of Kahn's The > Codebreakers from my local used bookstore. Its a little disapointing, ... > & DH. Nothing on Cypherpunks, little on how privacy can be enhanced. Some folks have a very unrealistic opinion of their own importance. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Playing Cards - Caution!
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:59 PM 11/19/1996, Ian Goldberg wrote: > I studied the "imperfect shuffle" thing in my Randomized Algorithms class > last year. If I remember correctly, an "imperfect shuffle" is something like > this: > Cut the deck into two piles, left and right. The number of cards in > (say) the left pile is distributed binomially. > Drop one card at a time to form the new deck. A card is dropped from the > left or right pile, with probability proportional to the number of cards > remaining in that pile. > - Ian "someone else can figure out the entropy of this..." This is the approach described by Diaconis. I think his book will show you how to calculate the entropy, too. (It's a cool book. The same section shows how to do a magic trick using three riffle shuffles. A member of the audience inserts the mystery card in the deck after the three riffle shuffles. Then the magician spreads the cards on the table and looks for one which does not line up with one of the several interleaved sequences in the deck.) However, it is not obvious to me that this is how it works every time, for sure, guaranteed, no doubt at all, in the real world. Diaconis mentions that the amount of entropy varies very substantially by shuffler. I also judged his experimental data to be limited. Furthermore, I am suspicious of the model itself. A binomial distribution is convenient to use, but I don't think that's how people cut cards in practice. I think that it is a much more "pointy" distribution with lower entropy. When I cut the deck there are less than 4 bits of entropy. But, I have to admit that if I worked my way through the book and learned a little related math, I might be convinced. But, even then I would probably judge it to be too tenuous for security applications. Incidentally, some big names have worked on this problem, like Graham and Shannon. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: [NOISE] U.S. CIA employee caught spying
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Tim Scanlon <tfs(a)adsl-122.cais.com> writes: > > This is on the local DC news; > > Harold Nicholson age 46, a CIA employee was arrested for spying today Did he used any crypto-tools we use? Did he used PGP? Would be fun to hear about... :) jfa Jean-Francois Avon, Pierrefonds (Montreal) QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Finest Limoges porcelain and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants physicists and engineers, LabView programing PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 ID# 5B51964D : 152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C

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Re: Does John Gilmore...
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Dave Hayes wrote: > > Black Unicorn writes: > > > Dave Hayes writes: > > > > > Again, you confuse free speech with free broadcast. > > > > Isn't broadcast a subset of speech, especially in this culture? > > > That which is broadcast is certainly speech. > > > Trying to draw some kind of "right to be broadcast" as a result is > > > stupidity or ignorance, or both. > > Then I suppose you want to control all mailing lists, USENET groups, > > and web pages. These are broadcasts, and of course they have no rights > > other than what you seem to want to give them. > If I owned it, of course I would control it. If you really owned it, you would not need to control it. > You are simply exhibiting the symptoms of a spoiled brat because you have > been fortunate enough, thus far, to rely on the benevolance of whoever is > providing you your newsfeed. Methinks you know not to whom you are speaking to. Those that know may see just how the seeds of assumptions are sown in this person's mindset. > The fact that control is not exercised, does not mean it doesn't > exist. In reality control is exercised in many ways. The fact that control exists does not mean it is effective, necessary, or appropriate. Unchecked need to control is merely an outward sign of a lack of inner control, which is a disease most control freaks have. > Thus your attempt to demonize me merely exposes your ire for the system as > it now exists, your fanciful dreams of how it should be aside. I am not attempting to demonize you...you do that to yourself well enough. I have no interest in your support or opposition, other than as a tool to show those who can see where certain specific attitudes come from. > This is where you fail, with the basic inability to distinguish ownership > of intellectual content and the right to compell its broadcast by whomever > might control the medium. I maintain that it is neither appropriate nor in any sense beneficial to apply this kind of draconian control to internet communication in the general sense. > > > Learn the difference. Go to law school before you argue free speech > > > concepts in any detail. > > "Laws" do not cover the net's "multicast" technology. > >Snort< I suppose you live in the only true anarchy? Why is it that when less regulation is desirable, the kneejerk response is to declare that desire anarchistic? Human attempts at creating and imposing "law" are arbitrary, inefficient, and subject to change based on the whim of those who claim to own their implementation. > > Distinguishing communication types so as to control those who use them > > is not going to solve your problem. You are much better off, from a > > practical standpoint, learning to control what you see and hear rather > > than attempting to control others. > I'm not sure what the above babble means. Hence your attempt to control others. > I'm not sure you are either. Hence your inability to understand the concept of "honor". > > One does not need a school to see this, it sits under one's nose like > > a milk moustache. > This is the uneducated man's excuse. "Education" has very little to do with knowledge and a lot more to do with external approval, in the sense you appear to be using it. "Indoctrination" and "Conditioning" are the two terms that best fit your apparent notion. We all know how far those have gotten us in the past 2000 years. One can see this "progress" by looking at the net's attempts to control Mr. Grubor... ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet A king who feared wasps once decreed that they would be abolished. As it happened, they did him no harm. But he was eventually stung to death by scorpions.

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Symantec ask user to post registry(passwords and all) in newsgroup
by ! Drive 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Path: usenet73.supernews.com!news.good.net!news.good.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!mr.net!news.clark.net!phzzzt!service.symantec.com!usenet From: "Nancy Ives [Symantec]" <nives(a)symantec.com> Newsgroups: symantec.support.win95.nortonutilities.general Subject: Re: Crashing while searching with Reg Editor - continued (For Nancy Ives/Symantec). Date: 20 Nov 1996 00:06:09 GMT Organization: Support Request Lines: 40 Message-ID: <01bbd675$eb9440e0$7357409b(a)nanio.symantec.com> References: <01bbd1a6$ea377560$9e2774cf(a)HALLM999.JH.COM> NNTP-Posting-Host: 155.64.87.115 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1155 Thanks for the input. Could you send me a copy of your Registry? Export the whole thing and attach it to a post. Thanks! -- Nancy Ives Symantec Product Support

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Snare, any info
by Craig S. Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any info on a piece of software called: Snare It is an encryption program for tcp/ip from windows PC's or so they say from http://www.capres.com Thanks Craig

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Re: "Don't Hire Lists" of FASCIST SCUM Tim May
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 20 Nov 96 at 0:43, George A. Stathis wrote: > In any case... > ************************************************************************** > Congratulations, Master Tim, you've earned yourself the No[1] place in our > own... _legal_ blacklist of Fascist Scum who are Undesirables in... Greek > Islands. If you ever come to Greece we'll *ruin* your holidays... :-) > ************************************************************************** [snip] > HOWEVER... > This is *nothing*, compared to what _will_ happen in a few years time, > when SUCH so-called 'UNEMPLOYABLE PERSONS FILES' are gonna be taken to > Publicity and also to (European) Justice. We'll convict you to pay such > a great FINE for malicious harm to individuals all over the world, that > you will CRAWL inside a hole somewhere in your United States and never, > ************************************************************ > ever, ever, attempt to leave the shitty polluted hole of yours anymore. [snip] > >We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. > We got computers, we're TRANSCENDING your technology, we'll smash you one > day LEGALLY (if your compatriots don't murder you ILLEGALLY, long before > then)... Tim May, May you (already) "live" in an "interesting time" (Chinese > Curse). ("live"?... for how long? :-) ) With *much* delight about your > self-chosen TROUBLES, Hey George, have you ever heard a guy named Jim Bell? jfa Jean-Francois Avon, Montreal QC Canada "One of theses centuries, the brutes, private or public, who believe that they can rule their betters by force, will learn the lesson of what happens when brute force encounters mind and force." - Ragnar Danneskjold PGP key at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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FUCK YOU punk/was:Taking out the garbage
by aga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > Date: Tue, 19 Nov 96 07:42:36 EST > From: "Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM" <dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com> > Reply-To: freedom-knights(a)jetcafe.org > To: freedom-knights(a)jetcafe.org > Subject: Re: Taking out the garbage > > >From cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com Tue Nov 19 02:39:20 1996 > Received: by bwalk.dm.com (1.65/waf) > via UUCP; Tue, 19 Nov 96 07:38:34 EST > for dlv > Received: from toad.com by uu.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.061193-PSI/PSINet) via SMTP; > id AA05505 for cypherpunks; Tue, 19 Nov 96 02:39:20 -0500 > Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id SAA02766 for cypherpunks-outgoing; Mon, 18 Nov 1996 18:15:31 -0800 (PST) > Received: from netcom6.netcom.com (shamrock(a)netcom6.netcom.com [192.100.81.114]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id SAA02760 for <cypherpunks(a)toad.com>; Mon, 18 Nov 1996 18:15:17 -0800 (PST) > Received: (from shamrock@localhost) by netcom6.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) > id SAA04695; Mon, 18 Nov 1996 18:15:16 -0800 > Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 18:15:15 -0800 (PST) > From: Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> > Subject: Taking out the garbage > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9611181823.A3117-0100000@netcom6> > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Precedence: bulk > > Beginning Monday, 11/25/96, I will bounce all email from the various > (non-)subscribers polluting this list with garbage back to the > authors. Furthermore, I will attach documents describing basic > Internet rules of conduct to each bounce. > Somebody tell this stupid motherfucker that there are NO "basic Internet rules of conduct." He who tries to make or enforce any rules DIES! > I would encourage other Cypherpunks to do the same. > Yeah boy, you are a PUNK allright. A "punk" is a wimp-like pussy, and anybody that associates with John Gilmore is suspected of also being a faggot. > [Flames: /dev/null.] > -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred > If you try to make or enforce any rules and YOU DIE cocksucker! Your presents shall be totally eliminated form this InterNet! Your connection will be TERMINATED at once! fuck you punk, and fuck all of your "rules" -aga

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RE: [NOISE] U.S. CIA employee caught spying
by John Fricker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

According to this mornings AP story, the FBI recovered deleted files from his notebook computer. Apparently, working for the CIA does not imply knowledge of basic computer security. >Jean-Francois Avon (jf_avon(a)citenet.net) said something about Re: [NOISE] U.S. CIA employee caught spying on or about 11/19/96 10:45 PM > >> Tim Scanlon <tfs(a)adsl-122.cais.com> writes: >> > This is on the local DC news; >> > Harold Nicholson age 46, a CIA employee was arrested for spying today > >Did he used any crypto-tools we use? Did he used PGP? Would be fun to hear >about... :) > >jfa >Jean-Francois Avon, Pierrefonds (Montreal) QC Canada > DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee > Finest Limoges porcelain and crystal > JFA Technologies, R&D consultants > physicists and engineers, LabView programing >PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon >ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 >ID# 5B51964D : 152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C >End of message --j ----------------------------------- | John Fricker (jfricker(a)vertexgroup.com) | -random notes- | My PGP public key is available by sending me mail with subject "send pgp key". | www.Program.com is a good programmer web site. -----------------------------------

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st
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

s

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Re: Aga the homophobic redneck son of a bitch
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Hey motherfucker, I TOLD YOU to leave out the stupid > cypherpunks header! Just when are you going to learn > to listen?!! You have been around those faggots too much! Listen you cheap ass redneck son of a bitch, your homophobic biggoted attitudes do not impress anyone here. > Faggots have NOTHING to do with Fredom of Speech! Homosexual people have everything to do with liberty and basic freedom, learn how to read and maybe you`d be able to learn something about the subject. > There is a basic understanding in life by ALL GOOD MEN > that Faggots are defective creatures. NOBODY wants to > be seen with or associated with faggots! I`m afraid not actually fool. I am not a homosexual myself but whatever other peoples sexual orientation it has nothing to do with their worth or value in other areas. > John Gilmore is a Faggot, therefore he is defective. > And we question any of his associates. > open and shut case. I think not, I do not think I count myself among John`s "associates" and we no doubt disagree on a number of issues but you may ask whatever questions about me you choose to. You are the one who needs questioning, preferably by a good psychiatrist and failing that a night club bouncer with a baseball bat... Decist and leave, you are hereby killfiled. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: Fuck You Dumb Cunt
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> That's a fair question. I don't begrude one's ownership of their > fair share--but I do have serious problems with what we shall > call 'accumulators' if you will. For them I have contempt and no-- > they do not have that right of possession and often such 'work' is > at the expense and on the backs of others. Oh my god, a COMMUNIST!!!! - Call the morality police someone, quick. ;-) Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: Fuck You Dumb Cunt
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I believe the posession of property is a priv. to be taken > away if abused. There is no such thing as a 'right' to > property--in fact the very notion seems absurd. In what sense do you believe I am given a "privelige" to own what I do. Your very attitude implies some form of statism, in that you believe some higher authority has the right to remove that which I lawfully accumulated, this is the position taken by those who support the idea of taxation etc. Explain further, if you will, what you mean by this being a privelige. In what cases do you believe I do not have the right to retain my property? Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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CServe Does The Right Thing
by nobody＠cypherpunks.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

COMPUSERVE MAY PULL ADMIN UNIT OUT OF GERMANY CompuServe's administrative operations in Germany may be transferred to another country because of proposed German legislation that would make Internet companies block access to pornography, neo-Nazi material or extremist pictures or writing. CompuServe says it does not want to be in the position of having to "censor" the Internet. (New York Times 19 Nov 96 C5)

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Re: Cracks Are Found In Smartcard Security (fwd)
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 19 Nov 96 at 15:36, Z.B. wrote: > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 21:17:49 +0000 > From: Simon Gardner <simon(a)access.org.uk> [snip] > Subject: Cracks Are Found In Smartcard Security > > Cracks Are Found In Smartcard Security [snip] > Anderson said his latest research indicated that two of the world's most > widely used systems for encoding sensitive financial information - the > RSA and DES encryption standards used by most banks - could also be ^^^^^^^ > cracked easily." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > [The London Telegraph, 19th November 1996] In what context? (How does that applies to PGP? Did he say that for short keys used to encrypt data directly?) Sorry for my cluelessness. jfa Jean-Francois Avon, Pierrefonds (Montreal) QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Finest Limoges porcelain and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants physicists and engineers, LabView programing PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 ID# 5B51964D : 152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C

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Happy Holidays!!!
by Morence81＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--------------------- Forwarded message: Subj: For the Holidays... Date: 96-11-20 09:26:40 EST From: Morence 81 To: Morence 81 Need a special gift to give your family, loved ones, or your friends from the internet for the Holidays? You can now send them a personalized mouse pad printed by Morence Productions. Simply by mailing a picture of any size to us, we can scan it, using high quality full color scans, and print them perfectly onto the mouse pad. There are absolutely no restrictions on the photos you can send. We guarantee that we can scan it and print it onto the mouse pad for you. Send in a picture of your girlfriend, boyfriend, favorite actor, singer, scenery, movie title, computer game, family portraits..... the possibilities are endless. Want to add words to your picture on the mouse pad? No problem!! Professional computer artists will renderize fascinating 3D words onto the picture to give it a great effect. Please take advantage of our great Holiday prices: 1 personalized mouse pad for just $15.00. Each mouse pad you order after that is only $10.00!!! No limit on the number of mouse pads you order. If you are dissatisfied with the mouse pad(s) after you receive them, simply send them back for a complete refund, no questions asked. Here is all you have to do to get your personalized mouse pads: Send in your pictures that you want to be scanned to us (if there are small multiple pictures that you want to all be printed onto just 1 mouse pad, please explain in your order.) However you explain in your order how you want it printed, it will be done. Remember that the pictures can be any size, they will automatically be resized to print perfectly on the mouse pad. There is no extra cost to get words printed on your mouse pad. They will be placed over the picture. Just let us know in the order what you would like it to say if anything. There is a shipping and handling fee of $1.00 for each mouse pad. The pictures are returned with your purchase. Please make checks or money orders to: John Morence. John Morence c/o Morence Productions 2141 Glendale Galleria #191 Glendale, CA 91210 If you have any questions, please email <mousepad1(a)themall.net> Or feel free to write to our address.

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Re: Cypherpunks State of Emergency
by Matthew J. Miszewski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(snip) > I think it's apparent that the events of Friday, with the other shoe to > drop on Monday (the H-P/Intel/Microsoft/etc. Final Capitulation), signal to > us that we are in a State of Emergency. > > The Presidents of this country are in the habit of declaring such States of > Emergency, often essentially secretly (in that the sheeple know little of > such things, and those who speak of NSDDs and PDDs and EOs are demonized by > the media as "conspiracy nuts" and "militia members"). > > Maybe it's time for us to stop flaming about Vulis and his allies, and > concentrate on the Real War. (snip) I have to agree. One of the most impressive things I have seen as a modern "movement" (yes I realize cpunks are not an organized movement, relax) was the massive public relations job done by several core cpunks around the 1993 Clipper proposal. People with largely divergent opinions found public ground in their opposition to Clipper. Lets do that again. One thing that will help is spreading the use of filtering. Those interested in learning how to filter should be able to ask any of us and we should all respond ASAP. The Noise is horrible in here, but I only hear it in my trash folder. [BTW, Tim, thanks for being willing to withstand the crap you go through. You, and others on this list, have consistantly challenged and changed my assumptions about society, law and privacy. I dont always agree with you. But I am glad you are here.] Matt Miszewski > "The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM > that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology." > [NYT, 1996-10-02] > We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. > ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- > Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, > tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero > W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, > Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. > "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Stewart Baker on new crypto rules
by Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.steptoe.com/oped.htm argues that industry won't accept any system that threatens to cut off backwards compatibility after 2 years, hence DES export liberalization will have to extend beyond the proposed period. A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.

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COMPUTER THEFT, LOW-TECH STYLE
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: oldbear(a)tiac.net Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 11:12:35 -0500 To: rah(a)shipwright.com From: Somebody Subject: forwarded without comment Mime-Version: 1.0 COMPUTER THEFT, LOW-TECH STYLE A thief broke into a Visa International data processing center in California a couple of weeks ago and stole a personal computer containing information on about 314,000 credit card accounts, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Diners Club, says a Visa spokesman. Some issuers, including Citibank, began calling customers last week and have issued new cards. Others are keeping quiet about the event and monitoring accounts for unusual activity. Authorities speculate that the perpetrator was stolen for the resale value of the hardware, rather than the information it contained. --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

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