December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Blacknet in WIRED
by plaz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Did everyone catch the Blacknet reference in WIRED 1.5? P.32 in the central item. Check it out! _______________________________________________________________________ Geoff Dale -- insert standard disclaimers here -- plaz(a)netcom.com "We are the shock troops of reality." - Voice of the Friends (Wild Palms)

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Re: (fwd) ViaCrypt PGP ships today
by Dark 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For some reason it occured to me that were CiaCrypt (oops, slip... sorry) to want to provide an unsecure product to the general cryptography public, the best way to do it would be to attack the security of the secret key password. To me, the fact that Phil Z. has vouched for the program is enough for the moment. If the key password were attacked, output would not be affected. I'm sure this is no revelation to most of you. As for the rest, See how smart I am? :) -uni- (Dark)

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Re: (fwd) ViaCrypt PGP ships today
by Dark 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-> I don't see how this would be of much help tho. Putting a weakness in the secret key password wouldn't help them much since they don't have your secret key. Furthermore, they couldn't easily change it without making it incompatible with previous keys. If I wanted to subtly weaken <-- oh, yeah. I knew that. -uni- (Dark)

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Real-world digicash
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been reading digicash papers lately, and it appears there are three approaches to preventing double-spending: 1) Catch the cheater after the fact, by matching up two copies of the same coin in such a way as to reveal his identity. This requires a challenge-response sequence between the user and the shop. 2) Combine (1) with an observer, a piece of secure hardware which signs transfers and prevents double spending. 3) Use an online server which checks off coins as they are spent. After-the-fact detection probably won't fly, because organized multiple spending could kill it. There are people who are dumb enough to write their PIN numbers on their ATM cards. Such people will also be careless with their digicash and any secret keys used to protect it. A thief could compromise a few coins belonging to such careless people, distribute them to a network of many thieves, and spend them hundreds of times before being detected. This would make the shops either abandon digicash or refuse to deliver merchandise until the coins cleared the bank, making it effectively an online system. Using this type of digicash over the net would be particularly troublesome. A person receiving a double-spent coin would be in the same situation as a person receiving a bad check from another state. Legally, he has all kinds of rights. Practically, he is flat out of luck. It will cost him more to take action than the amount of the coin or check. Observer-based protocols can protect privacy. All data going to and from the observer is blinded by the user's software so the observer cannot learn anything about the user. The design of the observer can be public; the only secret in the observer is a key. Observer-based protocols also include the after-the-fact detection, so anyone who cracked his observer (i.e. extracted the secret key) would still be caught later. To cheat, you would have to steal someone else's observer, extract the key, and use it. If the time required to crack an observer was longer than what it would take a person to notice and report his stolen observer, fraud would be uncommon. Because the observer is hard to crack, it would be much like counterfeiting paper money: possible, but requiring a large organization to be profitable. Such an organization would be susceptible to traditional methods of law enforcement. Since observers require hardware, this method cannot easily be used on a guerrilla basis. The banking industry could do it, but since people are willing to use credit cards, which are online, insecure, and a dossier-builder's dream, there is no particular motive for the banks to create such a system. Most people, if surveyed, will say that they are concerned about their privacy. But when made to choose between privacy and convenience, they choose convenience. That leaves online digicash as the most practical system for use on the net right now. Online digicash will probably be the only system trustworthy enough for large transactions in any case. Are there any published online systems which include strong privacy and which allow multiple banks/servers? NetCash does not provide strong anonymity; the user has to trust the coin issuer not to record who gets which coins. An investigator could go to the coin issuer and demand that the issuer track a particular user's coins. --- MikeIngle(a)delphi.com

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Re: Warning for PGP Users!
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Each new >version of PGP should contain a file with MD5 hashes of each of the >source files, and the whole file with MD5 hash should be clearsigned >by one of the developers (Branko, I think). I checked the .tar file at soda.berkeley.edu and the sources have several mismatching MD5s. Is anyone looking at this? - Carl

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Re: Private and Public
by Arthur Chandler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hmmm... my post may well ignite some flames; but I can't go along with the notion that this list is for purely tech discussion. Encryption is a social and political issue as well as a technical one, isn't it? I would think that it's more dangerous to ignore the social and political ramifications than to have them out publically. It seems to me that encryption poses LOTS of dilemmas for any government. I chose just one -- taxes -- for my post. And looks like there are quite a few viewpoints on that one, with regards to the government's right to examine your income sources. The fact the encryption schemes are classified as military (or military-type) material and so are subject to comparable controls by the State Department should alert us to this fact. So to insist that we stick to Greatest Primes and Modulo seems... unrealistic. Of course, if the discussion seems pointless or irrelevant to you... there's always the delete key. My :9&53xS+ (= digital $.02) worth. On Mon, 8 Nov 1993, Nick Papadakis wrote: > > > What do you think? > > I think you are inviting a political flame war on what is > supposed to be a technical list. Please take it to alt.privacy. > > - nick >

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Re: ID of anonymous posters via word analysis?
by George A. Gleason 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm not so sure about translation software... apparently there is a story about the first time this was attempted; an NSA implementation for use on the US-USSR hot line, to speed things along in the event of a crisis. When they opened the thing up for test, there was a diplomat at each end, and a top military official as well. At the US end, they typed in, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." Then it popped out in Russian, and was typed back in again in Russian. What popped back out in Washington in English was, "The ghost is ready but the meat is raw." Back to the proverbial drawing board. Presumably things have improved a bit since then, eh...? -g

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Mirrorshades & Prosody
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ABOUT MIRRORSHADES & PROSODY ************************************************************************ by Keith Eluard FAQs with a bit of Technical Info buried inside... 1. What are Mirrorshades & Prosody? and Why? Mirrorshades and Prosody are my babies - a pair of text generation/revision programs that I developed to suit my needs as a creative pump to force me to use more vibrant and evocative images in my writings. They originally started as a semi-intelligent thesaurus on my Commodore 64 (which I still use ...as a printer controller). If I were to enter the word "bird", I would have spat back at me a few dozen choices such as "black bird" or "the blue bird of happiness that flew up my left nostril". Anyway, I kept messing with it and eventually ported it out onto a NeXT, where I also was using a wonderful language known as cmusic to generate musical sequences and sounds. Then an evil idea occurred to me. If language is related to music, then a music tool could be used to create a language tool of a similar nature...Why Not! The first program was what would later become Mirrorshades. It wrote haiku. nothing but haiku lots of haiku 1,768,669 haiku, to be exact. Then it ran out of possible word combinations that fit its algorithms (more later) That bit o' code was called "basher" (in dadaist mockery of Basho) and was slapped onto indyvax.iupui.edu by a few friends (a copy might be around there still...). It had quite a few things in it I didn't like, so I revised it to fix its problems and what I thought were problems... Then a lovely group of people sent me a note called SUNDEVIL... ((I'm still paying for that Mac... <contributions welcome>)) It was at that time I decided that encryption is A GOOD THING and bought into PGP. Not a bad cypher, but it could be better... That's where Prosody came from - a bulletproof adaptation of PGP into an encryption that I DARE ANYONE to decode (& if you do, may I please drool over your machine, pretty please...). It revises an existing text to a degree specified by the user. If the word "bird" is entered, it might spit back "black bird" or it might spit back "a silly gesture" depending on its settings. The original text is preserved electronically in its original form, but encoded using a strange attractor. So if you see the text block: it snores in the simple tank. its pipe pesters the mud. its hot glove is full of meaning. you have to decide if I'm being weird or using Prosody to send an encrypted post. And it can't be decoded except by using Prosody to revise the received message at the appropriate setting or else you get weirdness of a similar nature back at you. Combine this with traditional encryption and viola! Privacy at its finest and easiest. But Mirrorshades uses the same algorithms to search a database of words (the text pool) and generate a surreal style all its own: rubbing her sable with long thoughtful fingers. skimming the curdles of the dream. his eyes, dull and tired, like grape seeds. gravy stains from the previous tenant. motific clouds. a summer shaped like a hot dog, and its rungs of sunlight. nails--no two bent the same way. 2. How exactly does it work? Both programs use iterative mathematics to search databases of words classified by 1)part of speech, 2)connotative meaning, 3)association to other words, 4)metrical value & common pronunciation, and 5)established user preferences (it can be taught to write really messed up love poems, if you'd like). In Prosody, most of the algorithms are strange or chaotic attractors with a few Julia curves thrown in for good measure driving a probability engine in the form of a set of distribution curves set up in a way reminiscent of cmusic algorithmic composition programs. As a result, it flows very well when spoken aloud (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you voice synthesis developers <especially those involved with singing simulation>...). Mirrorshades does somewhat of the same thing, except that it uses the intersections of strange attractors, distributed pseudo-random number generators, various fractal curves, and formal rules to create semi-surreal, lucid dreaming images (I was inspired by Wm Gibson's work in _Mirrorshades_, an anthology of first wave cyberpunk authors ed. by Bruce Sterling) that fit a series of preferences that could be called poems. That is, if you want a sonnet you can get a sonnet. If you want a really f8nky paragraph on gravity to lead off a chapter in a physics textbook you're working on, you could get that too. In short, I was setting out to create the most flexible writing tool I could. I think I've come close. 3. Is it commercial? What do you think!!! No, actually it's shareware with a pricing structure like this: if you request a copy as an *.edu user from now until 1 December, it's free. After that, it's available at the *.com user price of $10 to receive the code key to unlock a copy. I'm still not sure if I want to let any *.gov types have it yet, but if they're nice to me...we'll see. Hacked copies are worthless - it comes out as a really screwed up epic poem (when I tried hacking it, it was about an umbrella and a sewing machine --I heard great grandpa Eluard rolling in his grave). You have to use the appropriate code key for that copy of the program or my shipping backdoor (no, it won't open messages created with it, just the copy I give you...). I think it's a reasonable pricing structure. If you don't, please tell me through keithwriters @ delphi.com. 4. When will these programs be available? That depends on your function in the universe. If you are a sysop at a university with a respected Creative Writing program, advance copies for your Net will be made available. The same with industry magazines (computer science, cyberculture, artificial intelligence, iterative math, etc... but not $5/issue advertisements like @(*# or &@ (##% posing as "true sources of NEW information" on computers when they're actually rehashing stuff thought of and started in the '50s...yes, it's a torchy kind of thing for me...). User copies will be sent via e-mail or to designated FTP sites for downloading by 1 December. Pre-release registration materials will be sent to requestors around Thanksgiving. Physical (diskette) copies will be available also (give KEITHWRITERS(a)DELPHI.COM a physical address for you and everyone will be happy). 5. Has anyone used this stuff before? Yes. Me. I have 4 books of poetry out and available that are direct output from Mirrorshades and/or Prosody: _Naked_City_, "Black Sun" (actually the libretto to an opera in development of the same name), _A_Dream_of_a_Shadow_of_Smoke_, and _Hieroglyphs_of_Desire_. Copies of all are available by e-mail and asking nicely for the book(s) you want and providing a physical address. They will be sent COD (or free to reviewers). 6. Is it AI (artificial intelligence)? Maybe. I'm not completely sure. They use a cut-down version of a neural net and intuitive search processes based on past accepted outputs (it can figure out what you want from that session, but not between sessions). They have passed some informal Turing tests among some poets & writers of international caliber with some interesting results. However, none were computer experts and so I am interested in that side of testing. Any volunteers? 7. Where can I find out more? Prowl the sci.ai.nat-lang for some nifty academic resources. I have brewed my notes from my development stage into a text file I could send to any interested persons, but it's mostly on strange attractors and fractals. Most GOPHERs will have something there under computer science, artificial intelligence, fractals, chaos theory, or related topics. Thanx for your time and patience. Please direct replies/correspondence to KEITHWRITERS(a)DELPHI.COM mark it: "ATTN: K Eluard" in the subject line so that it doesn't wind up on Keith Boyle's desk here at the Writers' Center of Indianapolis. or snail mail us at Technosys: Keith Eluard, software development Technosys 3025 North Meridian Street #202 Indianapolis Indiana 46208

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Commercial aspects of digital cash
by szabo＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's my attempt to explain the practical commercial aspects of digital cash on imp-interest(a)thumper.bellcore.com: Rob Raisch questions digital cash by pointing out the many problems with issuing credit over the net. What's missing is that digital cash is not credit. It is cash, unforgeable, signed by a reputable bank. The customer cannot obtain such cash without presenting whatever credentials are necessary to join the bank, and the bank takes any risk involved in trusting those credentials. Cf. Chaum & colleague papers for the protocols. Thus, no physical identity is needed by the vendor, just as none is needed for physical cash purchases. Thus, > - Monetary transactions require hard identity to cover risk. True for credit transactions, untrue for cash. For customers without physical identity, the the cash's integrity is verified with real-time connection to the issuing bank before the goods are delivered (much like credit cards are verified today, except that we're checking the signature of the bank that issued the cash, not the ID of the customer). > - Risk can be offset by charging a fee for each transaction. The risk of digital cash fraud is much lower than for credit cards, ATMs, and even physical cash (which can be forged and stolen much more easily than digital cash). > - On the Internet, there is no hard physical identity. Quite true, and it is also quite impractical to insist, as Mr. Detweiler does, that the Internet be radically changed to facilitate it. It is possible to build up a system of reputation for "soft" identities, so that digital signatures with unforgeable credentials and/or well developed credit ratings can be extended limited amounts of credit, but such a system will take time to develop and get used to. I've described a combination offline cash/reputation system which gives extremely low rates of fraud, which I can post if there's interest, but it's probably better to start off with the online digital cash system which also gives very low rates of fraud, is simpler and doesn't require any credit ratings for digital signatures. > - Data cannot be protected because it lacks a physical identity. Not at all true. Encryption, digital signatures, and variations of these can be used to protect data in a wide variety of ways, typically superior to protecting the integrity of physical objects (photo IDs, cash, etc.). The difference is that on the net, the signature itself becomes an identity with its own reputation. This requires a change in the way we view commercial credit risk as we become more at home in the net, but it is not inherently less trustworthy or "subversive" (love ya, Mr. Detweiler) than physical identity (which is also just based on information, the imperfect information of our senses, which can be spoofed in various ways). Keeping mind it is not necessary to trust such signatures for online digital cash: the customer's identity doesn't matter, and the bank's signature can be checked online. Conclusion: Issuing credit over the net is, for the near future, a can of worms. Even just verifying credit entails the high fraud, lack of ubiquity, and lack of privacy of credit cards. Lack of hard identitity, thousands of legal jurisdictions criss-crossed by the net, etc. make net credit very risky. Take the trouble to implement digital cash. With significant volume it will soon pay for itself in much lower, even very close to zero, rates of fraud. Nick Szabo szabo(a)netcom.com

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Real-world digicash
by hfinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I agree with Mike Ingle's points re NetCash. I had some pretty strong criticisms of their proposal when it first came out. They didn't seem too familiar with the literature on digital cash. Their system was more like cashier's checks than cash. The anonymity was not strong. Nick has some interesting ideas re the use of "reputation capital" to discourage double-spending of dcash. You wouldn't want to destroy your reputation by cheating on a small sum of money, not if the reputation was one which you had built up over a period of time. In considering these ideas, there are a lot of questions about the whole infrastructure in which the dcash is being used. Is this something which we would see occuring in the near future, the next couple of years, in which case current systems of electronic communication would be used? In that case, we might imagine people purchasing items via the more progressive on-line services, like the new MUD-based systems people are working on (metaverse, virtual city, ...). Or companies might simply advertise items for sale on the internet and accept orders by email or perhaps TCP connection. One technical detail is that dcash systems require a multi-step protocol for spending and withdrawal. This would make email orders more difficult to deal with since mail would have to bounce back and forth. Actually, Chaum's simplest dcash scheme has a one-step protocol for spending (just send the cash), but that requires on-line verification. TCP connections can handle the back-and-forth very quickly so that may be a preferred communications method. Today, most credit card transactions do an on-line check, so I don't think that on-line systems should be ruled out, although eventually a dedicated network separate from the internet would probably be needed. The total data transfer per transaction is not large, a few hundred bytes. One question in considering whether double-spending is likely to be a problem is whether bank accounts are anonymous. One possible system is for bank accounts to be non-anonymous, but for transactions to be untraceable. Then if someone double-spends the cheating is traced, not to a "nym", but to a real person. (There is still the possibility Mike raised of stealing someone's cash, similar to how you might steal someone's PGP secret key today, but perhaps this will not occur often enough to be a problem.) In this case you don't have to have an infrastructure of reputations and credit ratings in order to use the cash. Nick's idea sounds like it would take some time to develop. Our hundreds of years of experience in giving credit will require some readjustement to a world in which "nyms" can disappear much more easily than physical people can. Another technical detail with the two forms of digital cash that I am more familiar with, Chaum's on-line and off-line systems from his Crypto 88 paper, is that even the off-line system requires the vendor to communicate with the bank for every transaction. He has to send in the spent cash, as well as the results of his protocol with the customer, for every piece of cash he gets. The difference is that he doesn't have to do it right away. So this off-line system will actually require more bandwidth for communication with the bank than Chaum's on-line system would (because of the extra transaction information that has to be sent). It seems that on-line and off-line cash systems both have pros and cons. Initially my feeling is that an on-line system might be preferable because there is less need for trust between the parties involved. Each person checks at each stage to make sure he is not being cheated. There is no need for a legal system to prove double-spending and force cheaters to make good. The protocols are much simpler and easier to understand. And the bandwidth requirements are less. The main disadvantage is the need for enough redundancy in the bank to allow continual accessibility, although even this would not be an issue for purchases which are delivered after a delay, typical of electronic purchases today. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLN0b86gTA69YIUw3AQEw+wP/daSj1lrRoYB/YuXVq1JGVvqxANOwVEyb KeG53eOaauxn4BlhG6z7jMZYLeTJO1Ct045ZbeKwfgMEDKFyDJyfwquDz7VcgtQH 5N1E4yLRYiIyy6UEiIz6Vg2BLOp1yYqux4h/n6F13xY7HgXYSzHTwZAp+9UFvh5v lUxNkVkC8Tk= =n4aj -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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