December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Why RSA?
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Derek writes: > First, the ViaCrypt version: I realize that it is legal. > It's also very expensive when compared to the price of If you buy it now, it's $100; even $199 is within the realm of what corporate customers consider non-annoying, especially since volume discounts kick in very rapidly. (Q5 = $120 each, Q20 = $83 ea, Q50+ = negotiable.) $100 is within my pain threshhold, and that of most serious non-student cypherpunks, though I'd be much happier at $49.95, and I'd guess they'd get more up-front cypherpunk revenue. I'm not sure the legalities of buying ViaCrypt PGP and then using the latest off-the-net version with trustable source and fewer bugs, but I'd feel better about that than just using PGP without a license. I don't know if ViaCrypt includes any distinguishing features that let you tell a ViaCrypt PGP message from a Real PGP message - they could do subtle stuff like make the session keys all include some checksum (e.g. be a multiple of N mod M), or crude stuff like put "Version 2.3ViaCrypt" in the headers, which would let them detect non-ViaCrypt PGP users. I assume not, but I haven't seen it. > * is there a reference I can read that covers the scope of > public key crypto patents? Basically, there are the patents themselves. Check your favorite FTP sites, including rsa.com, and ask your favorite mathematically-trained patent lawyer how realistic the claims are and how much broad the interesting ones are. > * in broad terms, what would I have to do to develop an > algorithm that works from a user's perspective like > p.k.c. (ie public/private keys, the central functional > point of all the wonderful schemes based on pkc) but > doesn't violate patents? To avoid patent problems, either get a license from PKP, or do any implementations outside the US (it's ok to use the math as math, you just can't apply it for encrypting stuff), or work for the U.S. government which gets use of at least RSA free. If you develop a new public-key algorithm that's any good, PKP may be willing to make a deal with you. # Bill Stewart wcs(a)anchor.ho.att.com +1-908-949-0705 Fax-4876 # AT&T Bell Labs, Room 4M-312, Crawfords Corner Rd, Holmdel, NJ 07733-3030 # # goin' where the climate suits my clothes ....

1 0

News You Can Use
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

AP 09/21 0844 Encryption Software Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- A federal grand jury is investigating exports of a controversial computer program in a case that could affect how software is distributed worldwide. U.S. Customs officials asked for an investigation into ViaCrypt of Phoenix and Austin Code Works of Austin, Texas, and the companies' plans for foreign distribution of software, including PGP, a program that turns data into an indecipherable code using encryption technology. William Keane, an assistant U.S. attorney, confirmed that an investigation is continuing, but declined to comment on the case. The PGP program has been distributed worldwide over computer networks by some computer enthusiasts who oppose the U.S. government's trade regulations on encryption. The National Security Agency, which monitors international communications, has supported strict encryption technology export regulations, arguing that it would be difficult to keep tabs on hostile governments and foreign terrorists. But opponents say the restrictions hurt sales and violate the First Amendment that protects the right to publish information about encryption. "I wrote PGP to make democracy healthier. I didn't do it to make money," said Philip Zimmermann, a computer consultant who developed PGP. "We believe everything we are doing is above board and well within the law," said ViaCrypt president Leonard Mikus. He said the company had no intentions of violating export regulations. WP (Washington Post) 09/18 Encryption Program Stirs Security Debate By John Mintz and John Schwartz Washington Post Staff Writers Computer industry officials and civil-liberties activists are launching new attacks on the Clinton administration's plan to make the so-called clipper computer chip the national standard for encrypting, or scrambling, data and voice communications. Under the clipper plan announced this year by the Clinton White House, police agencies that receive court authorization for a wiretap to intercept encrypted communications would then need the technological cooperation of two independent "escrow" agents to crack the code. Earlier this week administration officials told congressional staff members that the two escrow agents will be officials of two government agencies: the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and a non-law enforcement section of the Treasury Department that has not been selected. Yesterday industry and civil-liberties groups criticized that selection because they said NIST and Treasury are not independent, but arms of the same federal government that could some day be called upon to listen in on their communications. Douglas Miller, government affairs representative of the Software Publishers Association, made up of U.S. software firms, said his group has "grave doubts" that foreign corporations will encrypt their communications with the clipper chip because "the U.S. government holds the key." A main reason the administration is promoting clipper is that the U.S. National Security Agency, the super-secret code-breaking agency, wants to discourage use of highly capable, non-clipper encryption programs that are becoming increasingly popular but that the NSA can't pierce. Industry officials for years have regarded NIST as a stalking horse for the NSA. Jerry Berman, director of the Washington office of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which promotes public-interest causes in technology-policy areas, said NIST is "so close to the NSA that it can't give the public comfort that this is a true escrow system." John Podesta, assistant to the president and a key White House staff member on this issue, said such objections are "a phony issue." "We clearly are looking for procedures and escrow agents that would maintain privacy and confidentiality and security of the keys," Podesta said. "Cryptography lends itself to a certain degree of paranoia." Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies of the American Civil Liberties Union, mocked use of the term "escrow" in this case. An escrow agent is someone who is independent of two parties potentially in conflict, like a settlement attorney at a real estate closing, she said. "As long as the escrow agents are government agencies, it's misleading to call them that," she said. "The government doesn't have a fiduciary obligation to the people whose (communications) keys it holds," but only to the government. "The whole idea continues to be structurally flawed," said Bruce Heiman, attorney for the Business Software Alliance, a group of top U.S. software firms, such as Microsoft, Novell, Lotus and Apple. Companies and individuals who transmit secure information "will have serious doubts about the integrity of the system." Since the government currently prevents the export of many powerful U.S.-made encryption techniques, the administration's attempts to promote its clipper chip "will discourage use of encryption, period, or hand over the market for encryption to foreigners." When one listens to an encrypted conversation, it sounds like a crackle or buzz. Under the plan, every law-enforcement agency will have a special personal computer or "black box" to descramble that crackle, but the device will work only when they have been given a special key from the escrow agents. When police get a judge's permission to intercept an encrypted conversation or stream of computerized data, they would use the box to determine the special encryption identifier or label assigned to that particular encryption device. A detective would notify NIST and Treasury that he or she has permission to listen in on the party. NIST and Treasury would have a list of the secret encryption key numbers - extremely long lists of 0s and 1s - for every encryption device sold in the United States. NIST and Treasury would find the appropriate one on the list, and then they would send the needed key number to the police over telephone lines. The police would then insert that decoder number into the black box to tap the phone line in question. The ACLU's Martin said the government, given lists of secret encryption numbers, "has an enormously greater ability to eavesdrop than it's ever had." Government officials deny that. Duncan Frissell The $1 Trillion/year Health Security Act of 1993, the most expensive government program in the hisotry of mankind. --- WinQwk 2.0b#0

1 0

Why no publication?
by David Colston 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Carl, I have not published for several reasons. The main one is that I have no academic creditials. My masters is in Rehab Counseling. I haven't had a math course since high school in 1964. I am mainly self taught in the area of math and crypto, but have had a lot of assistance from Charlie Merritt and Joel Benston. They were two of the 3 authors of Dedicate 32, the first public key crypto program for the PC, which was released in the early 80's. As I have noted, the paper was sent to sci.crypt by PKZ. /s

1 0

Re: NYT article - WOW
by Matthew B. Landry 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"L. Detweiler" writes: >write! he almost appears to be alluding to *digital cash*! Obviously, >Mr. President forgot to clear his remarks with the NSA first! Saying He doesn't have to clear it with the spooks first. _They_ work for _him_! Maybe we'll all get really lucky and have someone in charge who realizes that. (Personally, I'm not holding my breath, but there's always some hope.) -- Matthew B. Landry ml7694a(a)american.edu (Finally!) mbl(a)ml7694a.leonard.american.edu

1 0

Re: Why no publication?
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David Colston <0005542837(a)mcimail.com> said: > I have not published for several reasons. The main one is that >I have no academic creditials. That is not generally required for publication; what counts is whether the submitted paper follows the norms. In some instances referees may want to see that the paper has the support of someone else in the field who is known or at a known institute to save themselves wasted time, if the paper is novel and would require nontrivial time to check, but that's easy enough to obtain. Page fees can often be waived, too, when someone doesn't have a grant or institution to pay them. Doug

1 0

NY Times Article...
by broitman＠bucrf4.bu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Could someone post the entire article (that is if you have nothing else to do with your time....) -jZb %#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#% Internet:broitman@koala.bu.edu J.Z.Broitman broitman(a)radon.bu.edu Dept. of Chemistry broitman(a)carbon.bu.edu Boston University broitman(a)xenon.bu.edu Snail:42 Maynard St. W.Newton MA. 02165 %#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%

1 0

Re: NY Times Article...
by freeman＠MasPar.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Now, the real question is, will those who still call themselves "post- > human" in a million years have learned much worthwhile since the > extinction of homo sapiens? :) Fellow post-Australopithecines, how goes it? 8:) -- Jay Freeman

1 0

Re: Why RSA?
by derek＠cs.wisc.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

First, my sincere gratitude for the replies to my queries regarding public key cryptography patents. To pay back such generosity, I will summarize. Also, I have done a little more digging and will present my findings, even though those findings include more questions! My original question was why cypherpunks don't just pick some non-RSA public key algorithm to achieve widespread distribution of cryptographic tools. My contention is that for such widespread distribution to occur, the price must be small in comparison to the average user's electronic communication outlay, and the tools must be beyond reproach legally so that it can be distributed by commercial email tool providers in a form that is elegantly integrated into the user's environment. My mother will not fetch, install, and configure PGP, though she might pay $10 - $20 more for an email product with "privacy enhancements". My reading of the comp.patents FAQ leads me to understand that any use of PGP by an individual in the U.S. is in violation of U.S. law (though the chances of being prosecuted are vanishingly small). Cypherpunks probably don't care too much about that, but the masses waiting for conversion probably do. The reasons for the desirability of widespread public key tools are obvious, even without considering the collapse of governments. For example, digital signatures can be used to authenticate electronically-distributed software upgrades, and so on (but this is all old hat to the folks on this list!). Unfortunately, as Perry Metzger pointed out: > All are patented in so far as one of the patents covers ALL public key > schemes. Some, like Rabin's scheme, have possible technical advantages > over RSA. First, a note: "Rabin's scheme" is (as Perry said) the one provably linked to factoring (a major advance!) and I assume it's the one implemented in RPEM. According to the RIPEM FAQ, PKP squashed that development by claiming that their patents were broad enough to cover Rabin's scheme, and the effort was abandoned "for pragmatic reasons" (another example of how superior technology can be suppressed by monopolies). Now, I've looked a little further into the patent issue, and I remain kind of confused. I went to the library and read the four patents in question (but only made a hardcopy of the first chronologically). I found the documents difficult to understand (for legal rather than crypto-tech reasons). All four applications were made in 1977-1978, and the patents were granted variously from 1980-1984. The earliest one has Hellman, Diffie, and Merkle as inventors; the second just Hellman and Merkle. Both are assigned to Stanford University. It seems to me that one of these is the one that covers, broadly, public key cryptography -- presumably the earliest one (4,200,770), since it has all three major players as inventors and the language of the eight claims seems to be rather broad (though only the second patent, 4,218,582, has the phrase "public key" in its title). Patent 4,405,829, granted in 1983, is for the RSA algorithm [footnote: the RSA patent apparently celebrated its tenth birthday two days ago; was there a party?]. There is no overlap between this patent's inventors and assignees and the earlier more general patent. Here's a question for somebody in the know: if the earlier patents cover all public key cryptography and RSA is a public key system, isn't it in violation of the earlier broader patent? Does PKP pay license fees to Stanford, or were they granted exclusive rights by Stanford as well as MIT? Similarly, apparently a public-key scheme called Warlock has been granted patent protection. How is this possible if somebody else holds patents covering all of public key encryption? If I understand patents correctly (hah!) they last for 17 years from the time they are granted. This means that the earliest public key patent will expire in about 3.5 years. After that presumably there will be no restrictions on new public key systems. The RSA patent would expire in 2000. If somebody could clarify which patent is the "broad" public key patent, I'd appreciate it (even with them right in front of me, I can't tell)! My guess is that it would have to be either 4,200,770 or 4,218,582 -- if it's the latter, how did Merkle get squeezed out of inventorship? Respondents to my initial questions pointed out that the patents may be over-broad and could be challenged on those grounds; given the history of how public key crypto was invented, it seems to me that it would be difficult to contend that the idea is obvious (Simmons says that the idea "stunned" the crypto community) -- but I'm no lawyer, and I'll leave that issue to those with more skill, brains, and money than me! For now, then, my conclusion is that for four more years at least, licensing RSA from PKP is probably the only viable commercial option for companies who wish to give their users public key crypto capabilities. It seems that the designers of Internet Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) agreed with this assessment, as they took the unusual step of including proprietary RSA in their standard. For their part, in RFC 1170, PKP states: "We assure the interested parties that Public Key Partners will comply with all of the policies of ANSI and the IEEE concerning the availability of licenses to practice this art. Specifically, in support of any RSA signature standard which may be adopted, Public Key Partners hereby gives its assurance that licenses to practice RSA signatures will be available under reasonable terms and conditions on a non-discriminatory basis." That sounds good -- but is troublingly vague. I have stated earlier what *I* think is are "reasonable terms" for the inclusion of a minor feature like PEM-compliance in an email processing system, but I don't get to decide that. If anybody knows more specifically how the standards bodies interpreted "reasonable", please let me know. As I am contemplating developing a PEM-compliant product, I will be writing to PKP to discuss licensing arrangements, but information from others (best: expressed publicly) would be helpful. If RSA is the only game in town, let's at least be clear about the price of admission. There seems to be a chance that manufacturing PGP-aware products (but not distributing PGP itself) could slide by, but it could also be interpreted as "inducement to infringe" which would apparently be actionable. The second point in my earlier message, largely obsoleted by the answer to the first, involved the development of new public key systems. Given that selling or otherwise using or distributing a new system now would invite litigation, the question is rather moot, but I'd like to thank L. Detweiler and P. Metzger for their comments on the all-important issue of trusting new algorithms. Finally, I suppose that it's always possible to come up with some radically new encryption technique that could be used to support authentication and yet have nothing to do with public key crypto... but I'm not holding my breath. Regarding the recent proposals for the construction of a toolkit, I'm all in favor and would personally welcome the opportunity to contribute to such an effort as a hands-on supplement to my crypto education. I have extensive experience with C and C++, and am VERY familiar with TCL (pronounced 'tickle', for those not in the know). A good start would be a clear statement of purpose. If this "Why RSA" thread has been too basic and has caused frustration for that reason, please forgive me. I have learned a great deal, and I hope that somebody somewhere else has profited as well. derek

5 6

Re: the public key minefield
by baumbach＠atmel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> derek(a)cs.wisc.edu (Derek Zahn) > >* in broad terms, what would I have to do to develop an > > algorithm that works from a user's perspective like > > p.k.c. (ie public/private keys, the central functional > > point of all the wonderful schemes based on pkc) but > > doesn't violate patents? L. Detweiler writes: > others have well addressed how patent issues are involved in this. but > this appears to be a simple technical question on one level. What does > it take to come up with a good public key system? How about a poor public key system? What is the simplest public key system you can invent, if you didn't care that it is trivial to break? If the NSA can crack RSA, does that change the fact that it is a pkc? message=99 public_key= 1/3 private_key= 3 encrypted_message= message * public_key message= encrypted_message * private_key Would PKP reading of their patent claims cover this pkc? Seems overbroad! Peter Baumbach baumbach(a)atmel.com

1 0

No Subject
by Eric.K.Kuecherer＠Dartmouth.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please remove me from the list. -kuech-

1 0