December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Study of national cryptography policy
by Herb Lin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

February 3, 1994 To: Whom It May Concern Subject: A Study of National Cryptography Policy This message should be forwarded to any and all individuals or groups that may be interested. ----------------------------------------------- In a message broadcast electronically and by fax in December 1993, the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council (NRC) issued a call for nominations of possible committee members who would undertake a study of national policy with respect to the use and regulation of cryptography. This report was requested by the U.S. Congress in the Defense Authorization Bill for FY 1994. That message said that ALL committee members (and associated staff) would have to be cleared at the "SI/TK" level. Since that time, there has been some discussion of a study that would only require SOME members of the study committee to be cleared. Thus, in the interests of casting the broadest possible net to capture the necessary expertise, we are re-issuing the call for nominations to find those people who otherwise fit the criteria below but who would have been reluctant to accept security clearances or to undergo the required investigation. It is expected that the study committee will be a high-level group that will command credibility and respect across the range of government, academic, commercial, and private interests. The committee will include members with expertise in areas such as: - relevant computer and communications technology; - cryptographic technologies and cryptanalysis; - foreign, national security, and intelligence affairs; - law enforcement; - commercial interests (both users and technology vendors); and - privacy and consumer interests. Committee members will be chosen for their stature, expertise, and seniority in their fields; their willingness to listen and consider fairly other points of view; and their ability to contribute to the formulation of consensus positions. The committee as a whole will be chosen to reflect the range of judgment and opinion on the subject under consideration. Note that NRC rules regarding conflict of interest forbid the selection as committee members of individuals that have substantial personal financial interests that might be significantly affected by the outcome of the study; in addition, individuals currently employed by the federal government are ineligible to serve on the study committee. Please forward suggestions for people to participate in this project to CSTB(a)NAS.EDU by February 11, 1993; please include their institutional affiliations, their field(s) of expertise, a note describing how the criteria described above apply to them, and a way to contact them. For our administrative convenience, please put in the "SUBJECT:" field of your message the words "crypto person". If you would like a copy of the original solicitation, please send a request to CSTB(a)NAS.EDU. On the National Research Council The National Research Council (NRC) is the operating arm of the Academy complex, which includes the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The NRC is a source of impartial and independent advice to the federal government and other policy makers that is able to bring to bear the best scientific and technical talent in the nation to answer questions of national significance. In addition, it often acts as a neutral party in convening meetings among multiple stakeholders on any given issue, thereby facilitating the generation of consensus on controversial issues. The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the NRC considers technical and policy issues pertaining to computer science, telecommunications, and associated technologies. CSTB monitors the health of the computer science, computing technology, and telecommunications fields, including attention as appropriate to the issues of human resources and information infrastructure and initiates studies involving computer science, computing technology, and telecommunications as critical resources and sources of national economic strength. A list of CSTB publications is available on request.

1 0

Minor suggestion
by Marc W. Mengel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The info in the pub ftp sites about the cypherpunks mailing list should probably make a mention of the volume of mail currently piled onto subscribers. This would probably greatly reduce the number of subscribers who bail out a few days later and get on just the announce list (like me :-))... Marc

1 0

No Subject
by Richard Savel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

please take me off this list thanks very much Richard Savel rsavel(a)welchlink.welch.jhu.edu

1 0

Drop Oceania Thread Now
by anonymous＠extropia.wimsey.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

* Reply to msg originally in CYPHERPUNKS > I was just wondering what sort of business one might engage in in > Oceania?... Please cease this Oceania thread. The cypherpunks list is already bloated to bursting with off-topic posts. Thanks.

1 0

No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1 0

Re: Some stuff about Diffie-Hellman (and more :-)
by collins＠newton.apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>What you say seems to indicate that D-H as we know and >love it has been rendered obsolete because it depends on the modulus >being known. What am I missing? DH exchange doesn't require a known modulus. Most people implement it with a common alpha and small set of generators so that they don't have to invent a distribution or agreement protocol. Authenticated DH exchanges (e.g., station-to-station protocol) can include these parameters as part of each parties signature; and provide an agreement policy (e.g., initiator's parameters unless receiver thinks they are weak). After each party has generated and exchanged an exponent, each verifies the `certificate' of the other, and the signature of the other over the exponent pair. The shared knowledge that makes this possible in this case is, of course, foreknowledge of the public key of the other party. If you don't know it before you start the protocol, you can't really know who you're talking to. Other protocols can be designed with other choices of shared knowledge. STS is immently practical, any other practical and fair scheme is likely to be similar, i.e., involve shared knowledge, independently generated random input from both parties, a mechanism for securely (but expensively) transmitting the random data (typically based on the shared knowledge), combining the disjoint random data symmetrically so that each party shares in a fresh secret session key, and finally authentication based in part on the original shared knowledge. Hope this helps, Scott Collins | "Few people realize what tremendous power there | is in one of these things." -- Willy Wonka ......................|................................................ BUSINESS. voice:408.862.0540 fax:974.6094 collins(a)newton.apple.com Apple Computer, Inc. 5 Infinite Loop, MS 305-2B Cupertino, CA 95014 ....................................................................... PERSONAL. voice/fax:408.257.1746 1024:669687 catalyst(a)netcom.com

1 0

T-shirt update - Please Read
by Christian Void 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Several people have sent orders to me without including an e-mail address. This is not a problem, but I would like to confirm the orders so you know they were recieved. If you know this is you, or think it may be you, please send me a note. This is also the last call for orders. We will be taking orders until the 15th of February, so if you want one, send it ASAP. We will not be re-pressing the shirts, it is a one-time deal. Ordering information can be obtained via anonymous FTP to netcom.com: ~/pub/cvoid/cypherpunks/ordering.information.txt Christian Void /T71 | "I don't like it, and I'm sorry I | V/M/Research, Inc. cvoid(a)netcom.com | ever had anything to do with it." | P.O. Box 170213 Tel. 1+415-998-0774 | -Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961) | SF, CA 94117-0213 * PGP v2.3a Public Key Available Via Finger *

1 0

archives request
by mdbomber＠w6yx.stanford.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Are there any archives of this list? My email service has been unreliable and I have probably missed most of December and January. Please respond by direct email to w6yx - mail from the list to me @lear35 isn't getting to me for some reason. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQBVAgUBLVhM8jSSmvXojb+5AQF8kAH/TAxSfgZvURkAi8ZvPtVkz9AZ2iEId/H7 qUmB87at9yS27pWP9xWrOymYcVlgOMP1J12TtosERy19pxrMdtDZvw== =peD2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Internet: mdbomber(a)w6yx.stanford.edu Matt Bartley UUCP: mdbomber(a)lear35.vlpa.ca.us GPS: 33 49' xx'' 117 48' xx'' (xx due to SA :-)

1 0

Re: Crypto Regulation Reform
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert Cain writes: > We shall see. I contend that with this I can establish a > spoof-proof point to point with a total stranger to any > desired probability that a spoof could not be there > without disclosing him/her. > Page 44 of "Applied Cryptography" discusses a point to point *public* key exchange protocol called the "Interlock Protocol" (invented by Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir). This protocol is an attempt to foil the man-in-the-middle attack. The protocol does not provide a %100 guarantee against man-in-middle, but it does make it much harder (or so says the book). Perhaps Robert's device really uses a variation of the Interlock Protocol, and not Diffie-Hellman (mentioned only as a red herring?). <shrug> Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

1 0

UNSUBSCRIBE
by peanuts＠jpn.thomson-di.fr 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Unsubscribe peanuts(a)jpn.thomson-di.fr Please. Thanks. Sorry for bandwidth waste, but cypherpunks-request(a)toad.com has no effect.

1 0