December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Another potential flaw in current economic theory... (fwd)
by Matthew James Gering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > free markets don't work, and lead inevitably to monopoly, > > and therefore we ought to use governments monopolies on > force to prevent > > Where do I *ever* say we need 'government' monopolies. Not > once, not ever. No, I believe he said (meant) government's monopoly on force (i.e. regulation, not anarchism), not government monopolies. > I have said, and stand by it now, that what is needed is an > *impartial* 3rd party. That does *NOT* equate to 'the > government'. Wow, I happen to agree, people need on objective framework in which to take their disputes. The only such framework though that need be a monopoly is one that deals with force as the dispute or where force is the end retribution (i.e. you cannot have regulatory arbitrage with force). The problem is the assumption that any such regulator could be impartial. The need for such arbiter needs to be minimized (hence minimal/limited government = laissez faire != anarcho-capitalism). Matt

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IP: Navy's Open Source Security Project Shines
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 23:28:13 -0400 From: Richard Sampson <rjsa(a)sprintmail.com> Organization: Unknown Organization MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com" <ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com> Subject: IP: Navy's Open Source Security Project Shines Sender: owner-ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: Richard Sampson <rjsa(a)sprintmail.com> Navy's Open Source Security Project Shines Oct 08, 1998 (Tech Web - CMP via COMTEX) -- An open source security program created by a team of Navy programmers is proving to be one of the most successful high-tech network burglar alarms online. Late last month, the Navy released an unusual warning -- attackers were probing military computers in ways that had previously gone unnoticed, coordinating efforts around the world to keep any individual series of probes virtually invisible. Analysts had finally noticed the potential crackers' coordinated probes using the Navy's SHADOW, or Secondary Heuristic Analysis System for Defensive Online Warfare, intrusion-detection program. "It was partly dumb luck," said Stephen Northcutt, the Navy's lead analyst and programmer on the SHADOW team. But the software's sensitivity to subtle attacks, combined with the number-crunching power of statisticians associated with the project, let Northcutt and his team of analysts tease evidence of the probes out of a mass of apparently innocuous network logs, he said. The SHADOW software is one of a growing number of intrusion-detection tools on the market, designed to pick up and help analyze attempts to break into computer networks instead of simply functioning as a passive firewall-style siege wall. Most of the major commercial-security vendors, such as Axent, Internet Security Systems, or Network Associates, all provide intrusion-detection programs, with support and service teams that can help analyze possible attacks. SHADOW is different in this respect. It is freely distributed online. Like most open source programs, there is some documentation, but no official support -- although there is a huge community of programmers who have looked at the code and have written improvements and continue to tinker with the way it functions. The software itself is the product of more than two years of work by a team led by Northcutt. The code was initially released to the public last May, and revised later in the summer after a slew of comments and criticism from outside developers. It consists of two parts. Sensors sit outside a network firewall, monitoring normal and potentially illicit attempts to enter the network. An analysis system sits inside the firewall keeping a log of activity, and periodically putting this information in front of a human security analyst. In the months since its release, the program has been picked up and used by several major financial institutions, universities, local government systems, and divisions of large companies that don't have budgets for commercial intrusion-detection programs, Northcutt said. "It's very good at doing some things and not so good at others," said Allen Paller, chief researcher at the SANS Institute, a network-security research and education organization. The program can be initially difficult to use, since it requires users to program their own filters to recognize attacks or probes not included in the original documentation. But the program's open source birth and evolution has made it strong and extremely sensitive, Paller said. "The real strength of this process is [the program] has been beaten on." Northcutt is a proponent of pushing the open source model even beyond the development of code, at least in the security field. Most intrusion-detection programs function by picking up unusual events -- malformed TCP or domain name system queries, handshakes between servers and clients that don't look quite right, or other signs of computer probes and attacks. SHADOW and other commercial trip-wire programs do a good job of picking up things they recognize, Northcutt and other security analysts said. But new attacks -- such as the coordinated probes spotlighted by the Navy last month -- require considerable expert analysis to spot. "Attackers have been sharing very well inside their community," we have no equivalent to the underground magazines and other communication channels." -- Stephen Northcutt U.S. Navy That's where the open source model comes in, Northcutt said. Intrusion-detection analysts can function best if information about different attacks is widely and freely distributed. The Navy site that distributes SHADOW publishes much of the information it uncovers, and distributes new filters that recognize new attacks and probes. This kind of open, widely shared information is critical for stopping crackers, but must happen on a wide scale, he said. "Attackers have been sharing very well inside their community," Northcutt said. "We have no equivalent to the underground magazines and other communication channels." Paller agreed. His organization is one of several that sponsor workshops where security professionals can share their experiences with their peers. SANS also runs a security-oriented mailing list with nearly 55,000 subscribers, many of whom served as SHADOW reviewers. "Unless we get communication lines going, we can't keep up," Paller said. "Otherwise, we don't have a chance." -0- Copyright (C) 1998 CMP Media Inc. News provided by COMTEX. [!HIGHTECH] [!INFOTECH] [COMMUNITY] [COMPUTER] [EDUCATION] [GOVERNMENT] [INTERNET] [MARKET] [MILITARY] [NAVY] [NEWS] [NEWSGRID] [ONLINE] [RESEARCH] [SOFTWARE] [TWB] -- ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ********************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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No Subject
by Connectfree Admins 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: propose: `cypherpunks license' (Re: Wanted: Twofish source code)
by Blake Coverett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>This might seem like a paradox: you give people "more freedom", but >they end up with less. How can that be? It has to do with stretching >the word "freedom" to include the ability to control other people. >That kind of "freedom" tends to leave other people with less freedom. >What happened with the X Window System illustrates this unambiguously >(see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/x.html) This assumes that writing and selling proprietary software is 'the ability to control other people'. I fail to see why this would be the case. Free software is a good thing, but people *choose* to accept the restrictions of non-free software for any number of reasons. I do not see anyone being coerced into using it by threat of physical force. regards, -Blake (who prefers markets to religions, even with software)

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Re: Something else...
by Michael Motyka 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> I think freedom comes from order and knowing what to do with that >> freedom comes from chaos. > > Freedom comes from understanding what one can do standing alone, > naked, in the middle of a wilderness. Everything else is a > compromise of that. I was thinking more along the lines of : an animal that has literal freedom spends 99.9% of its time looking for food and avoiding predators. The order we impose upon our lives by being social animals give us a more satisfying type of freedom that is derived from leisure. What I see as the real problem is that as the degree of order is increased the society becomes more like an anthill. Which I consider the perfect example of a bioengineered police state. Kind of what corporate America would like all of us citizens to be - predictable controllable unquestioning undeviating uncreative underthethumb consumer units. A key means to this end is eliminating cash and privacy. It's no here yet but it's in process. I don't think it's a conspiratorial effort either - it's more the result of widespread bad behavior. I'm rather stunned at the blatant disregard our representatives display for the basic liberties the moment these liberties seem inconvenient. Mike Don't trust your HW or your SW. There are soldier ant footprints everywhere.

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Re: Something else... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1998 10:53:05 -0700 > From: Michael Motyka <mmotyka(a)lsil.com> > Subject: Re: Something else... > >> I think freedom comes from order and knowing what to do with that > >> freedom comes from chaos. > > > > Freedom comes from understanding what one can do standing alone, > > naked, in the middle of a wilderness. Everything else is a > > compromise of that. > > I was thinking more along the lines of : an animal that has literal > freedom spends 99.9% of its time looking for food and avoiding > predators. The order we impose upon our lives by being social animals > give us a more satisfying type of freedom that is derived from leisure. Actualy most animals spend 60% or more asleep, only about 10% looking for food (there are exceptions here for the smaller herbivores because of scaling issues related to metabolism). The current estimate is that, for example humans, in the wild spend only about 8 hours out of 40 is spent looking for food. > What I see as the real problem is that as the degree of order is > increased the society becomes more like an anthill. I agree, but I think it's a function of the form of government and not the institution of government itself. A large part of it, which I've stated many times, is that the vast majority of systems that people develop assume the people are plug-n-play. That's a major shortcoming in my mind. I believe democracy has a chance to subvert that shortcoming but only if the participants aren't primarily motivated by compromise, a base human expression. > Which I consider the > perfect example of a bioengineered police state. I'll agree biology has a lot to do with it if it's not recognized for the shortcoming it is. > Kind of what corporate > America would like all of us citizens to be - predictable controllable > unquestioning undeviating uncreative underthethumb consumer units. The 'rational consumer' axiom in traditional economics is a perfect example of how this becomes entrenched (even when it isn't accurate). That's sort of the problem with government in that they want these absolute limits on behaviour, yet so few behaviours are absolutely good or bad. Law sucks when it deals with exceptions. Another aspect of failure in our current system is that the law and its practitioners aren't unbiased, they have a vested in interest in the outcome, not the principles. > it's in process I don't think it's a conspiratorial effort either - > it's more the result of widespread bad behavior. I'm rather stunned at > the blatant disregard our representatives display for the basic > liberties the moment these liberties seem inconvenient. Your preaching to the choir... One aspect that seems under appreciated is that as the population grows the number of people who hold a particular view grow. Since their behaviours are influenced by those views it begins to be expressed as a social movement (perhaps not in the traditional view ala yippies for example) and even a political one. The collective results of all these little actions can in fact behave in a manner that is quite 'conpiracy' like. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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17 Dec '03

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17 Dec '03

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IP: ISPI Clips 5.29: What's on Your Hard Drive That The Delete Didn't Delete?
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "ama-gi ISPI" <offshore(a)email.msn.com> Subject: IP: ISPI Clips 5.29: What's on Your Hard Drive That The Delete Didn't Delete? Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 00:40:03 -0700 To: <Undisclosed.Recipients(a)majordomo.pobox.com> ISPI Clips 5.29: What's on Your Hard Drive That The Delete Didn't Delete? News & Info from the Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) Friday October 9, 1998 ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This From: The New York Times, October 8, 1998 http://www.nytimes.com What's on Your Hard Drive? If You Want Privacy, It Pays to Find Out What Data Your Computer Saves And How to Erase Information That the Delete Button Hardly Touches http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib-site+52+ 0+wAAA+privacy By PETER H. LEWIS For computer users, some of the more startling revelations in the Starr report have nothing to do with sex. Footnotes in the report from the Office of the Independent Counsel include such phrases as "document recovered from Ms. Lewinsky's home computer," "e-mail retrieved from Catherine Davis's computer" and "deleted file from Ms. Lewinsky's home computer." One of the ways Kenneth W. Starr's investigators peered into the private lives of their subjects was to peer into their computers. What they were able to find, and the ease with which they found it, may prompt computer users to re-evaluate their computer practices. Word processing software, Web browsing software and electronic mail have become integral to all sorts of communications, both professional and personal. As a result, many people have files on their hard disks that they wish to keep private, like love letters, confidential business documents or financial data. And many people have sensitive, confidential and potentially embarrassing files in their computers that they do not know are there, either because they think that the files have been erased or because they are unaware that certain common programs on the computer automatically keep a log of what the user does. "Recovering files that were deleted from a computer directory is a trivial process," said Joel R. Reidenberg, a professor at the Fordham University School of Law in New York who specializes in privacy issues. He said a related issue was the computer's creation of sensitive files that the user often did not know were there in the first place. "The user's Web browser will create files, unbeknownst to the user, that record all their interactions," Professor Reidenberg said. "Many people today know about cookie files, but the browser creates a history file as well that keeps a record of the Web sites the user visits. And then there's a cache file that sometimes even keeps copies of the pictures that have been downloaded." More obscure are the temporary files created by word processors, for example, and the so-called swap files that an operating system creates as a way to manage computer memory. These files often remain readable even if the original files are erased. In computers, being safe can sometimes lead to being sorry, as Oliver L. North discovered in the Iran-contra investigation in the Reagan Administration, when incriminating files he thought had been deleted were later resurrected from network backup tapes. In the current Justice Department investigation of the Microsoft Corporation, e-mail messages and memorandums from long ago are being resurrected from computer disks and cited as crucial evidence. The great majority of computer users have little reason to believe that their computer files will be scrutinized by law-enforcement agents, corporate and government spies, or even special investigators. But what about unscrupulous co-workers or curious children or computer thieves? What confidential information resides on the hard disk of the computer that was donated to charity, sold at a yard sale or accidentally left on the commuter train? Examples abound of sensitive information going out the door when government agencies, pharmacies, doctors' offices and other businesses donate or sell used computers without erasing the computers' memories. Last year, for example, a woman in Nevada bought a used computer from an Internet auction company and was surprised to find that it contained names, addresses, Social Security numbers and prescription information for 2,000 people, including people being treated for AIDS, alcoholism and mental illnesses. A pharmacy had failed to erase the information when it sold the computer. The rise in the number of computer thefts and the increased sharing of computers in the home are confronting consumers with security issues that in the past were issues only for big corporations, banks, the military and government agencies, said Steve Solomon, chief executive of Citadel Technology Inc., a security software company in Dallas whose products include Winshield and Folderbolt. "It's moving down into the small office and home office markets, to schools and to home computer users," he said. How does one keep confidential information private? And when the information is no longer needed, how does one make sure that it is completely erased? Both questions involve a combination of good computer security policies and good security software. The software is the easy part. Creating and sticking with good security habits is the hard part. "Technology exists today to protect individual privacy for as long as the individual chooses to keep the information private," said Scott Schnell, senior vice president of marketing at RSA Data Security of San Mateo, Calif. Computer users today have access to inexpensive software tools that can encrypt the contents of a file (including images), an e-mail message or even the entire contents of a computer so thoroughly that it can never be read by someone else in our lifetimes. Other programs can shred unwanted files so completely that no one can recover them. But very few people use such security tools. Computers are good at keeping secrets. Too good, in fact. The secrets can reside on a computer, and on a computer network, long after the user deletes them. The files are forgotten, but not gone. Deleting a file does not really delete the file. It merely hides it from view so it no longer shows up in a directory of files. It's like getting an unlisted telephone number. The listing may not appear in the phone directory, but the phone can still ring if someone knows the right number. When a user deletes a file, the computer stops listing it in the file directory and marks the disk space as available for reuse. Another file may eventually be written atop the same space, obliterating any traces of the original. But as hard disk capacities swell into the gigabytes, the space may not be overwritten for a long, long time. In that limbo period when the deleted file is undead, any moderately skilled computer user can locate, restore and read the deleted file by using such commands as "undelete" or "unerase," which are common features of many software utilities. The computer's ability to remember deleted files is most often a good thing, especially when important files have been deleted by accident. Every day, computer technicians get frantic calls from people who have inadvertently erased the boss's speech or the big presentation due the next morning, or who have children who have erased those boring Quicken folders to make room on the disk for games. At those moments, being able to resurrect the files from the dead seems like a miracle. There are a number of utility programs available that have an "unerase" capability, to be used both in emergencies and as a precaution against accidents. Examples include Norton Utilities from the Symantec Corporation. But as with most tools, "unerase" programs can be dangerous in the wrong hands. To truly erase a file and prevent it from being recovered, one must write over it, or wipe it. There are several utility programs available that enable the user to overwrite a single file or the entire disk, or anything in between. Such programs typically have apocalyptic names, such as Shredder, Flame File and Burn. Similar disk-wiping tools are often included in PC utility programs and encryption programs, but others are available for downloading without charge from the Internet. These programs typically hash over the designated disk space with meaningless patterns of ones and zeroes, instead of the meaningful patterns of ones and zeroes that represent the original information. That process renders the deleted file unreadable in most cases. The key phrase is "in most cases." Just as with encryption, there are people working just as hard to recover wiped files as there are people working to wipe them. Law-enforcement agencies and spies have developed ways to reverse a simple, one-pass wipe with ones and zeroes and retrieve the original file. So the Federal Government requires that sensitive files be wiped many times with random characters, which, in theory, obliterates the original file and makes it unrecoverable. Unless, of course, the file has already been copied onto backup tapes. In the digital world, the original file may be shredded, while one or more perfect copies can exist elsewhere. An even more bulletproof way to render files unreadable is to encrypt them. Encryption scrambles a disk or file, including pictures (or a telephone conversation, or a credit card sent over the Internet) so it can be opened and read only by the person holding the proper key, or password. The strength of the encryption is often measured by the length of the key, which is in turn measured in bits. In general, each additional bit of key length doubles the amount of effort needed for unauthorized users to break the key. Even weak encryption (with a 40-bit key length, for example) is sufficient to deter most casual snoops. Breaking a 56-bit key requires computing resources that are beyond the reach of all but the most determined code breakers, and even then it can require days of sustained attacks by a supercomputer just to crack one e-mail message. (The Government's National Security Agency, by far the most formidable group of code breakers on the planet, is thought to be able to break 56-bit keys in a much shorter time, said Enrique Salem, a chief technology officer at Symantec, whose products include Disk Lock, Norton Your Eyes Only, and Norton Secret Stuff. Some encryption programs available today use 128-bit keys, which are "infinitely unbreakable, at least in our lifetimes, even taking into consideration the predictable advances in computing power," said Schnell of RSA. In other words, it is more secure than the strongest physical vault ever built. Not even the National Security Agency is believed to have the ability to break a 128-bit key. And then there is e-mail. People type all sorts of embarrassing, confidential or intemperate words in e-mail in the mistaken belief that such messages are private. In reality, messages sent by e-mail are less secure than messages scribbled on a postcard. The way the Internet mail system works, an e-mail message passes through several exchange points, or nodes, on its way to the recipient's computer. The system administrator at each handoff point can in theory read the message, copy it, reroute it or tamper with it. If the message originates or terminates in a corporate computer system, chances are high that a copy will persist in the company's backup tapes or disk for days, at least. In the end, there are only two ways to keep information confidential in the digital age. One is to use strong encryption. The other is never to write it down or speak it in the first place. PRIVACY PROTECTION: Who knows what secrets lurk on your hard drive? With luck, and with the following security programs, only you do. PGP 6.0 (Windows 95, 98 and NT, and Macintosh OS 7.5.3 and newer; free for individual, noncommercial use) Philip R. Zimmermann's Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, is one of the world's most widely used encryption programs for personal computers, so good, in fact, that the United States Government contends that it is as potent a military weapon as a jet fighter or a cruise missile. NORTON YOUR EYES ONLY 4.1 (Windows 95, 98 and NT; about $75; (800) 441-7234.) Norton Your Eyes Only performs a variety of password-protected security functions. It can be set to blank the screen and lock the computer if the user steps away for a minute or to prevent unauthorized users from booting the machine. RSA SECURPC (Windows 95, 98 and NT; $59; Security Dynamics Technologies; (800) 732-8743.) Intended more for small office use, SecurPC links with the Windows Explorer file management system to automatically and transparently lock disks and files with 128-bit encryption, but it allows the keys to be shared with administrators. COOKIE CRUSHER (Windows 95, 98 and NT; $15 shareware; www.zdnet.com/swlib, www.shareware.com, etc.) Cookies are small files that a Web site installs on your hard drive. The cookie can contain technical and personal information, including a history of the Web pages you have visited. These utilities enable the user to accept or reject cookies. BCWIPE WINDOWS (Windows 95, 98 and NT; $15 shareware; www. download.com, www.zdnet.com/swlib and others.) For those who prefer not to use an encryption package, BCWipe provides military-grade file and disk wiping to make sure that deleted files are really erased. Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company --------------------------------NOTICE:------------------------------ ISPI Clips are news & opinion articles on privacy issues from all points of view; they are clipped from local, national and international newspapers, journals and magazines, etc. Inclusion as an ISPI Clip does not necessarily reflect an endorsement of the content or opinion by ISPI. In compliance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed free without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ISPI Clips is a FREE e-mail service from the "Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues" (ISPI). To receive "ISPI Clips" on a regular bases (up to 3 - 8 clips per day) send the following message "Please enter [Your Name] into the ISPI Clips list: [Your e-mail address]" to: ISPIClips(a)ama-gi.com . The Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) is a small contributor-funded organization based in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada). ISPI operates on a not-for-profit basis, accepts no government funding and takes a global perspective. ISPI's mandate is to conduct & promote interdisciplinary research into electronic, personal and financial privacy with a view toward helping ordinary people understand the degree of privacy they have with respect to government, industry and each other and to likewise inform them about techniques to enhance their privacy. But, none of this can be accomplished without your kind and generous financial support. If you value in the ISPI Clips service or if you are concerned about the erosion of your privacy in general, won't you please help us continue this important work by becoming an "ISPI Clips Supporter" or by taking out an institute Membership? 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