December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Utah as a Religious Police State [RANT]
by Moroni 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

The mountain is not for the public . Not even mormon public. The records are.The mountain merely contains dup0licates of everything so in the event of a nuclear devastation the church could paste things together again. People can submit whatever they wnat to the records including wills and trusts and stuff ,but that has nothing to do with the gentile community at large . i can only think of the microfilms containing a gentile will if that gentile wanted one.

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mormons questions
by Moroni 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

I have no desire to make this a mormon list so any additional questions can be answered by me at 1-717-343-2365. Intelligent questions only. moroni

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GAK Rat Pack
by jya＠pipeline.com 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

C|NET, October 2, 1996, 1:45 p.m. PT Computer alliance supports encryption policy By Alex Lash An alliance of 11 software and hardware companies has just announced its formation to develop key-recovery solutions for electronic encryption, a crucial component of the Clinton administration's latest plan to loosen the export of encryption technology. Announced yesterday, the administration's plan gives exporters of encryption or encrypted software a two-year window starting January 1, 1997, to build what the administration calls "key recovery" into their products. IBM, Apple Computer, Atalla, Digital Equipment, Groupe Bull, Hewlett-Packard, NCR, RSA Data Security, Sun Microsystems, Trusted Information Systems, and United Parcel Service have banded together to develop systems that will give the government what it wants, which is access to suspicious encrypted messages, so that compliant software companies will be able to get export licenses for hard-to-crack encryption codes. "Export controls are a fact of life," RSA President Jim Bidzos said today. "In an imperfect world this technique will at least allow you to take advantage of what governments around the world will allow." RSA's presence in the alliance is not only a coup for the government but a big surprise, as Bidzos has been one of the most vocal opponents of the Clinton administration's key escrow efforts. He has even accused the government of offering software companies special "sweetheart" deals to gain support for its encryption regulation plans. A key-recovery plan not only satisfies the government's desire for court-ordered access to encrypted messages, but also sets off alarm bells for privacy advocates and civil libertarians. Some within the U.S. software industry also claim they won't be able to sell encrypted products overseas if customers know the U.S. government has access to a skeleton key. "While some companies might choose to cast their lot with the government's key-escrow policy, the marketplace is likely to reject the approved products," said David Sobel, legal counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Users want strong security, not guaranteed government access to their communications." However, the concept of key recovery is not anathema to companies that acknowledge that firms and folks using encryption to secure electronic transactions and communications will need backup copies of their keys, just as homeowners keep an extra house key under a flower pot. Under the new government plan, a company that promises to participate in key recovery will receive a six-month license to export up to 56-bit DES encryption. When the promise is fulfilled and the government can get access to the decryption keys, the 56-bit limit is lifted. If by the end of the two-year grace period the company has not fulfilled its promise to implement a key-recovery scheme, the 56-bit limit is dropped back down to the current 40-bit limit. "The fact that 56-bit DES [a type of encryption] will be available from significant sources is going to jump-start electronic commerce," said Ken Kay, executive director of the Computer Systems Policy Project, a public policy group comprised of 12 computer industry CEOs. Now that the details are out and endorsements are coming in, executive action is expected in the next two to three weeks, according to one senior administration official. President Clinton will soon sign an executive order that transfers jurisdiction over encryption export licenses from the State Department to the Commerce Department, a move that the computer industry has asked for in the past because they see Commerce as a more sympathetic agency. At the same time, Commerce will announce a new set of streamlined rules to grant companies a "fast track" to an export license if they comply with key recovery, the official said. Commerce plans to begin licensing on January 1. But the new plan will also give the Justice Department a voice in the licensing process, a detail that angers privacy advocates and software companies alike. "The transfer from State to Commerce has been called for for a long time, but a small tweak is that the FBI now has veto power," said Peter Harter, legal counsel to Netscape Communications. "Domestic law enforcement shouldn't have a seat at the table." Harter acknowledged that Netscape has not ruled out key recovery but said that the market must show demand for it. The administration has said it hopes to introduce a bill next spring that would encourage the build-up of key recovery by establishing laws on the conduct of third-party key holders. But it will not try to mandate key recovery through legislation. "I think we have a critical mass of companies willing to work with us," said Heidi Kukis, spokesperson for the Vice President's office. "That would make legislation to mandate key recovery very unlikely." Another fear is that the administration is using export limits to control domestic use of encryption. While Gore directly stated yesterday that domestic use of encryption will remain unregulated, the double standard for domestic and international products might discourage U.S. companies from developing two different versions, leaving U.S. and Canadian customers with the same products that the federal government has deemed safe to ship overseas. "We obtained and intend to hold the administration to its assurances that export controls would not be used to control domestic use," said Kay of the CSPP. "The CEOs have told the administration that if they want to do domestic controls, they should do it frontally through the democratic process and introduce legislation." [End]

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Re: active practice in America
by Marc J. Wohler 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

At 12:39 PM 9/30/96 -0800, Tim May wrote: >As for the historical reasons for the "conspiracy to not take seriously the >civil rights of an aggrieved minority" nonsense, isn't it about time to >roll back such laws? Whatever the putative justification for such things >might have been 30-40 years ago, this is now, that was then. "this is now, that was then" This is the same same argument used by those who wish to revise and limit the First Amendment. mjw

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Where to find some papers on the the information economy?
by Donald Weightman 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

The "World Economy Survey" in the Current ECONOMIST makes some interesting points about the intractabilty of the information-based economy to traditional manufacturing-based econometrics, which looks at things like industrial outputs as the basis for forecasting, and, not least, macroeconomic policy. The gist of it is that the older measures overweight the more traditional transactions -- production & sale of widgets and ingots -- and undercount digital economic activity -- writing code, for example -- because no one knows how to measure the latter. The implications for the political control of cybercommerce are pretty striking -- how can a government control -- using the traditional blunt instruments like fiscal and monetary policy -- sectors it cannot see, measure, or quantify? Anyway, the ECONOMIST Survey cites a couple of papers I'd like to see: Charles Goldfinger; "The Intangible Economy and its Implications for Statistics and Statisticians". Eurostat -- ISTAT seminar, Bologna, Feb. 1996 Danny Quah; "The Invisible Hand and the Weightless Economy". LSE Centre for Economic Performance, occasional paper No. 12, April 1996. I ran some Web searches with null results. Does anyone know how I can get these quickly? Thanks, and apologies if the cross-posting is burdensome. Don Weightman dweightman(a)radix.net

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LEO_rat
by jya＠pipeline.com 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

10-1-96. WaPo: "U.S. to Ease Encryption Restriction." Page One lead. Sources at IBM say scientists there have devised a scheme that uses several steps to encrypt information and the keys for unlocking it. Law enforcement officials authorized to unscramble information would not get a key for unlocking a message but instead the instructions for how to break open a specific encrypted message. ----- http://jya.com/leorat.txt LEO_rat ----- For an earlier report on IBM's LEO-rat, see http://jya.com/ibmgak.txt

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Re: ASAP letter on e-cash
by jya＠pipeline.com 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Forbes, ASAP, October 7, 1996, p. 18. Bankrupt the Bureaucrats! Eugene Ludwig's principal concern ["The Money Changers," August 26] is not counterfeiting, theft, or fraud: Those crimes have victims, and regulators are never concerned with victim crimes. As comptroller of currency, he is worried sick about tax evasion (i.e., avoidance) and money laundering because he knows that technology like Chaum's Ecash could put him and his entire bureaucracy out of their cushy jobs, regardless of the actions of the executive branch or Congress. Counterfeiting a $100 bill, even one of the new ones, is easier than counterfeiting one of David Chaum's Ecash payments, and the previous level of government "concern" regarding offshore counterfeiting of $100 bills is instructive here (they let it go on for years!!). Some in government have gotten a clue by osmosis, such as Senator Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), but the damage is already done. My solution: Vote Libertarian! Jim Ray liberty(a)gate.net [Right E-steamed Cypherpunk]

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DES CRACKING SCREENSAVER, was: Can we kill single DES?
by azur＠netcom.com 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

>On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Frank Andrew Stevenson wrote: > >> DES CRACKING SCREENSAVER >[...] >>the screensaver itself can simply display a rotating globe, >> where the different densities of global usage is given in colour shades, >>showing >> an inverse sunclock of sorts. I think such a concept might give the >>DES-cracking >> screensaver a critical mass. Suggest you make it a plug-in module to one of the popular screen savers (e.g., After Dark). I'd run it. PGP Fingerprint: FE 90 1A 95 9D EA 8D 61 81 2E CC A9 A4 4A FB A9 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Snoop Daty Data | Internet: azur(a)netcom.com Grinder | Voice: 1-702-655-2877 Sacred Cow Meat Co. | Fax: 1-702-658-2673 7075 W. Gowan Road, #2148 | Las Vegas, NV 89129 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Just say NO to prescription DRUGS. "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." -- C.S. Lewis "Surveillence is ultimately just another form of media, and thus, potential entertainment." -- G. Beato

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Crypto Boundries
by ratak 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Tue Oct 01 12:38:37 1996 Hello All... A few questions here... The idea of a Crypto programming division has been tossed around over here, and was wondering... Does anyone have any serious hard facts on what crypto is allowed in which countries? How about Crypto development within Canadian Boundaries, are there any limits/concerns? Are any of the Crypto systems subject to different laws i.e 3Des/IDEA/MD5/Blowfish etc.? Later ___________________________________________________________________ GarGoyle Securities - -Intrusion Assessment Systems - -Security Consultation/Education/Curriculum Development - -Project Management/Research/Analysis World Wide... - -Member of CITDC (Canadian International Trade Development Council) - -Email 1: <ratak(a)escape.ca> Jason E.J. Manaigre - -Email 2: <ratak(a)GargSec.mb.ca> - -Email for PGP key with phrase 'Get Public Key' as Subject - -2048 PGPKey iD E2 FA 30 E5 F5 AD EC F3 00 9A 9D 33 59 FC DF AD ___________________________________________________________________ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMlFXIfqtmO8M92GRAQF2tgf/aZ1bATXGeE8jK309T1gcnl25cogE0I0a pO1hAtgtBedSO56XBas0bwhJD5tWeNuR46uQNKNH3hX7MeJN1wAKGg5o7sBsf4k0 J1ApRTXt2DsbELkYdIkcMVsTf1W40AimormYDKq2DPqSg7b9C1n1vQe/uDkDxDN3 aT/MOl7YLH1d31TffF7zwOLmcs1d0qZ8n0w//QcGwOI9l1Q2i0hc98DW6qYwdpJG Zg+rZzt7jWJxICufh43AABs3j1X7FBsN+g0zBVrLmBK+I55/cHoxAg0uK+b1umTJ eetc2GyjtO3H7uzpFDBZLJ3bTamm9nyA6fmYgjKm0dXpfYPlR5UBpw== =BjRl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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How might new GAK be enforced?
by Timothy C. May 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Now that the shoe is dropping on "Clipper III" (or "Clipper IV"), the "voluntary, for export, key escrow system," how might it be enforced? Some possibilities: 1. Make GAK the "easiest and safest" use even within the United States. Do this by aggressively pursuing, harassing, and prosecuting anyone who lets non-U.S. persons, even within the United States, have access to export-controlled software. (I had not fully appreciated the ramifications of the ITARs for software distributed _within_ the U.S. until the Bernstein matter unfolded. Export-controlled software is not supposed to be sold to various classes of foreign persons, including visitors, students on certain types of visas, and others. Mostly such rules have been ignored, with large software stores like CompUSA, Fry's, Egghead, etc., simply selling export-controlled software to anyone with the money. Their are _stickers_ on some software items warning against export, but these are ignored in sales. A few high-profile prosecutions of large resellers could spread FUD wide and far, triggering a "GAK-only" policy on sales of crypto products. The outcome of the Bernstein hearing could thus be critical.) 2. Attempt to make illegal the _interoperability_ with non-GAK software. Or, attempt to make illegal interoperability with a product which would have been illegal to export. Thus, if Alice, in the U.S., uses a crypto product to communicate with Bob, in a foreign country, and it "would have been illegal" for Bob to legally receive the product, then Alice is presumed to be breaking some law (maybe "conspircacy"...I'm not a lawyer) by sending messages Bob can read. This is just vague speculation. But I think the government must be thinking how they can finesse this point, how they can stop the current "crypto anarchy" (in a different sense than I use it), where "rogue users" in foreign countries are unreachable by U.S. law. The easiest way, of course, is to go after U.S. persons or companies who intercommunicate with these rogue users. (Else what's to stop Giant Corporation from using Non-GAKked software within the U.S., which is perfectly legal (under the "voluntary" system), but then "happening" to have their foreign branches and customers obtain "bootleg" versions at their end? All it takes is a single copy to get out, and be duplicated a zillion times. Voila, interoperability, with the only "crime" being the first export...which is essentially impossible to stop, for so many reasons we mention so often. Conclusion: Government must make this very mode illegal, perhaps by making it a conspiracy to thwart the export laws....) Any other ideas on how the government plans to enforce GAK, to make GAK the overwhelmingly-preferred solution? --Tim May 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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