December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Detecting double-spending (long)
by an41418＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Very good summary!! It's much clearer now! So, can I take it that if Alice or anyone else can figure out how the bank randomly picks half of the k values sent in, that Alice or anyone else can now get free money by using bozo instead of her real identity in the right k/2 messages? Also, how does the bank calculate cube roots? Wonderer ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Casio kid diary- Executive Toy?
by Philippe_D_Nave 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, all! The post about the Casio kids' diary with password protection started me thinking... has anyone tried to incorporate encryption into one of those executive-toy memo-minders (Sharp 'Wizard', for example) or a PDA (EO, Apple Newton, etc) for the business-suit crowd? That group is at least as susceptible to market pressure and the 'I-want-the-newest-toy-NOW!' mindset as the kids. It would indeed be ironic to hear two suits exchanging PGP public keys as part of their corporate business-card-swap ritual. Obviously, you can run PGP off a laptop's disk drive in the conventional manner. What I've got in mind is more like the PCMCIA (or EIEIO, whatever that acronym is) cards that let you add functionality to your processor by plugging hardware modules in. It seems to me that a PGP port to this platform, with an E-Mail interface and some sort of user interface (apologies to Zimmermann) might very well sell like hotcakes and go a long way toward the goal of educating the public about encryption. Executives with room-temperature IQs can't be bothered to load software, but plugging in a cartridge and following the bouncing ball would be easy. Maintaining physical security of the card is easier than wagging the whole box around, too- PC repairs could be done without compromising PGP, etc. Issues abound; any interest? ........................................................................ Philippe D. Nave, Jr. | The person who does not use message encryption pdn(a)dwroll.dw.att.com | will soon be at the mercy of those who DO... Denver, Colorado USA | PGP public key: by arrangement.

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Novell Leads Assault on Clipper Encryption Standard
by trestrab＠GVSU.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(taken from Nov '93 Computer Shopper, page 109) The Clinton administration's effort to establish a new encryption standard for the coming data superhighway has drawn a firestorm of criticism - with Novell the lead flamethrower. Joined by AT&T, Computer Associates, Citicorp, Hughes Aircraft, Motorola, and other major corporations, Novell argues that Clipper - intended to protect both government and private-sector data communications - was designed from the start as an easy nut to crack. Specifically, these companies suspect that Clipper's creators (the National Security Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology) made the encryption system child's play for government agencies to decrypt. True or not, Novell and its allies are adamently opposed to Clipper's adoption by corporate America. [3 paragraphs concerning Novell's NetWare ellided] What is clear, though, is that Clipper will be hardpressed to succeed in the private sector with such influential opponents. If this article truly represents opposition to Clipper, and not just jockeying for position to be included on the "inside", then Clipper is in far bigger trouble than the Cypherpunks can make for it: MONEY TALKS. Jeff

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Re: Casio kid diary- Executive Toy?
by jim＠chiba.Tadpole.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Along the same lines, I'm fairly sure that the NSA had a RFQ out for much the same kind of thing. (Key management on PCMCIA memory cards.) Jim

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NAFTA event
by jim＠Tadpole.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Appologia to those of you who've seen this already. Carl invites you to send email. I'd suggest some verbage about export controls for crypto. Jim From: carl(a)town.hall.org Subject: White House NAFTA Event Org: Internet Multicasting Service Channel: Internet Town Hall On Wednesday, October 20, the White House is showcasing the benefits of the North Amercian Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to American workers and the American economy. President Clinton and Vice President Gore will highlight American-made products which are currently sold in Mexico. The range of products, and the number of American workers who make them is enormous and the White House would like to present to the American public the benefits of increased trade with our neighbors. The White House has invited over 200 companies and their employees to bring their products to the West Lawn of the White House. Sun Microsystems is one of the companies invited and they would like to use this opportunity to highlight the computer industry in general as a crucial technology for our global economy and in particular to highlight the significant role the Internet will play in fostering trade in the global marketplace. Sun Microsystems, in conjunction with several other companies, will put two Sparcstations on the lawn of the White House. Using a Persoft Intersect Remote Bridge wireless 2 Mbps spread-spectrum radio link, we will link the LAN on the White House lawn to our facilities in the National Press Building. That network will in turn use the MFS Datanet national fiber backbone to link us at 10 Mbps to Alternet, our IP service provider. The workstations on the White House lawn will feature a variety of Internet applications such as NCSA Mosaic for X, Gopher, and other applications that highlight the scope and diversity of the global Internet computer network. Here is how you can participate! Send your electronic mail to: nafta(a)town.hall.org The mail will be collected and will be available on the screen as well as being printed out on a laser printer. Tell the President, the Vice President, members of the Cabinet, members of the Congress, and the national media what you think about NAFTA. Help demonstrate to this important audience that the Internet is an important forum for the discussion of public affairs. If you feel the need to flame pro or con on this subject, feel free to cc: nafta(a)town.hall.org in your discussions to the list. For general information on the Internet Multicasting Service, send mail to info(a)town.hall.org.

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Re: ARTICLE: IRS learning how
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>He was taking 80K to the Bahamas or Caymans [...] Well, obviously he should have taken tip from Ollie North and paid a courier to fly back and forth with $9500 at a time. No laws against that. Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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Detecting double-spending
by nobody＠alumni.cco.caltech.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Wonderer asks about Alice guessing the bank's random choices of the blinded f()'s that she creates. Certainly this would let her cheat. The bank would probably use a quantum-based hardware random number generator (as a seed, at least) to make this impossible. To take cube roots, the bank must find a d such that d*3 = 1 mod (p-1)(q-1), where p and q are the secret primes in its RSA system. Finding such a d is a simple application of Euclid's algorithm. It has the property that (m^d)^3 = (m^3)^d = m. In other words, taking a number to the power of d produces its cube root. This is the basic mathematics behind the RSA public-key cryptosystem. Marc Horowitz asks about collusion between Bob and Charlier to pick the same 1's and 0's. It is true that this would defeat the scheme. However, the chances of this happening randomly are so low that the bank would know that at least one of them was cheating, although it would not know which. Chaum discusses this threat in his paper. He suggests that each merchant in the system would have a unique ID number. The 1's and 0's that the merchant uses in the payment protocol would be partially random choices as I described and partially based on the unique ID. Since all ID's are different this would guarantee that any two merchants would use different patterns of 1's and 0's even if they were cheating. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com

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new magazine: Computer Telephony
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just saw Vol 1 No.1 in the corporate library. Subtitle: The Magazine For Computer And Telephone Integration Subscription info: 215-355-2886 - Carl

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Re: ARTICLE: IRS learning how
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> You just have to fill out the right forms. Yes, of course, that's what I meant. There are no laws against skirting the paperwork if you are under the limit. Or, as you note, the "IRS 1040 list of foreign bank accounts" is another matter completely. Paul

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Re: Monitor radiation overlooking.
by bgomes＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Victor A. Borisov (blaster(a)rd.relcom.msk.su) writes: > Some words about DES - I spoke with one cryptoanalisyst from > KGB and he sow, that for number crypto algotitm c(key, text) > (key is keyLength tall) present f(key, text), that for all > key1 and key2 present key with length keyLength, that > c(key2, c(key1, text))==f(key, text). > He also say, that now present f() for c()=des(), more f() wery > like des(). > That`s why for decrypting of des(k1, des(k2, ... des(kN, text) ... )) > we must try 2^56 keys with spetial function. And Lyle_Seaman(a)transarc.com replies: > I had a little trouble with the English, but I think I followed the > math. I believe Victor's KGB friend is claiming that DES is a group. > Victor, does the following text contradict your claim? > > (Excerpt from sci.crypt faq deleted) I think that Victor's friend proposes a second function, f(), which is not the same as DES. He is saying that for every set of three keys used for triple-DES (k2,k3,k4), there is a key (k1) such that: f(k1,text) = DES(k2,DES(k3, DES(k4,text))) It seems to me this is different than saying DES is a group, since f != DES. Am I mistaken?

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