December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

FWD: L. Detweiler tortures the Satellite of Love
by plaz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The second Detweiler forward in 24 hrs, but I just can't help it! This is just too good! I went back to alt.privacy to see the post forwarded earlier. I found that Detweiler had posted five or six messages in a row, in reply to my kiss-off message. But I also found this gem: --Begin Forwarded Post-- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xref: netcom.com talk.politics.crypto:1835 alt.privacy:10671 alt.tv.mst3k:18867 Path: netcom.com!csus.edu!decwrl!nic.hookup.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!dige x.net!digex.net!not-for-mail From: steve-b(a)access.digex.net (Steve Brinich) Newsgroups: talk.politics.crypto,alt.privacy,alt.tv.mst3k Subject: Re: ancient torture techniques Followup-To: alt.tv.mst3k Date: 31 Dec 1993 12:08:18 -0500 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Lines: 354 Message-ID: <2g1ma2$htr(a)access.digex.net> References: <netnewsCIMtzo.42w(a)netcom.com> <netnewsCIpv3q.CH7(a)netcom.com> <Dec31.090735.79631(a)yuma.acns.colostate.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: access.digex.net SCENE: Satellite of Love. Tom Servo is polishing a glass globe that looks just like his own head. Crow: Whatya doing? Tom: I'm just.... polishing up a fishbowl. I thought it'd look good here by the hexscreen (he moves over to the hexscreen and places the bowl, opening up, just under the hexscreen). What do you think? Crow: I think that's silly. First of all, there's no place to put a fishbowl there. Besides which, we don't have any fish here to put in a bowl. (Mike enters from stage right) Mike: Are you two arguing again? (Light flashes to indicate an incoming call from the Mads) Mike: Never mind; let's see what they want this time. (taps button) SCENE: Deep 13. Dr. Forrester is holding a cheap-looking mask resembling his own face. Dr. F: Hello, Matt. Mike: That's 'Mike'. Dr. F: Whatever. Anyway, it's time for your Invention Exchange, unless you need more time to set it up and want me to go first-- Mike: Well, actually no-- Dr. F: OK, I'll go first. Of course, a mad scientist in my position has his share of enemies, and some of them are a bit too tough to be beaten off directly. The next best thing is misdirection: getting them to vent their frustrations on something more... what's the word... 'expendable'. (Turns toward stage left) Oh, Frank! (Frank enters from stage left) Dr. F: I need you to model this (hands Frank the mask) (Frank puts on Dr. F mask) Dr. F: As you can see, the perfect decoy to cover my escape if things ever get too hot to handle. And now, your turn. (Mike holds a telephone with several types of bells, horns, and other noisemakers attached to it.) Mike: You're finished, then? Dr. F: That's what I just _said_. Frank: How long do I have to wear this? Dr. F: (To Frank) Until I tell you to stop! (To Mike) Well?? Mike: We all know about Caller ID, but it has one big problem: you don't see the caller's ID until you get close enough to read that little display window. My invention is a Caller ID Ringer that lets you know whether the call is worth picking up without even having to get out of the bathtub. (Cash register bell rings) Mike: See, that tells you it's one of those calls from somebody asking you for money. (Bugle call of 'Reveille' sounds) Mike: That tells you it's an Army recruiter calling. (Foghorn sounds) Mike: That means it's your boss on the line. (Poofter pops out of phone, with sound) Mike: That means a call on the party line. Dr. F: Yes, yes, I'm sure you've got a million of them, but that's all the time we have for the Invention Exchange. Now, for your experiment, I have a special treat. (grins evilly) You remember L. Detweiler, alias R. Boxx, alias about a dozen other names I can't be bothered to keep track of? Crow: I have a bad feeling about this.... Dr. F: Well, we have a rare treat: a post from him under his very own name (as far as we know). Boy, are you in for some deep hurting this time! (Movie alarm goes off) 6....5....4....3....2....1....G >talk.politics.crypto #1834 (1 + 6 more) | |-<1> >Newsgroups: talk.politics.crypto,alt.privacy, | |-<1> >+ comp.org.eff.talk | \-[2]--[2] >From: ld231782(a)keller.lance.colostate.edu (L. |-<1> >+ Detweiler) |-<1> >[2] ancient torture techniques \-<1> >Date: Fri Dec 31 04:07:35 EST 1993 >Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 >X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 021193BETA PL3] >Followup-To: talk.politics.crypto,alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk >Lines: 98 > (Mike and Crow enter theater) Mike: Where's Tom Servo? >Geoff Dale (plaz(a)netcom.com) wrote: > >: > Congratulations! If you repeat anything frequently enough, >: > people begin to believe it. Crow: Repeat?? Isn't once bad enough? >: That seems to be your strategy. It doesn't work when you so consistantly >: undermine your credability with rants, tho. >: So stop posting and this little bit of net.history will soon be forgotten. (Tom Servo enters theater) Crow: What took you so long? Tom: I had to finish with the... fishbowl. > Hello world, I am not proud of everything I have posted `out there' lately, Crow: And you have so much to be not proud about! >but I am even less proud of the ugly depths and grotesque deformities Tom: Of my terrible secret past. >I have seen in certain black corners of the Internet lately Crow: Hey! That's "African-American corners of the Internet"! > and the >apalling complacency with which you all view it. The skeletons >have not only fallen out the the closet, Mike: They had a falling out, and outed each other, and are now out of the closet. > they have danced around us and >punched us all in the face. Crow: (Muhammad Ali voice) Dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee. > My own letters on the subject are an attempt to >shock you from your silent complacency and `accessorizing'. Tom: With out lovely line of spring accessories for 1994. > What happens when trust breaks down? Crow: (German accent) It decayz into a migzture of Uranium 235 and Plutonium 238. Very hazzardousz zubsztanzes. > What happens when people respond >to their own posts? Tom: They're schizo? Mike: Maybe they're just absent-minded. > When they misattribute writing? Crow: OK, so they're absent-minded AND schizo. > When they don't care >who is behind email addresses, Tom: Schizo, absent-minded, and now apathetic. Mike: This is getting hard to keep track of. > or deceive others about them? Crow: Schizo, absent-minded, apathetic, and dishonest.... Mike: Is somebody writing this down? Crow: Hey, you're the only one here with fully functional arms! Mike: (takes notepad and pencil from a pocket) > When they >post multiple messages from different addresses? Crow: As we come full circle back to schizo. > Imagine that every one of my posts came from a different address. Tom: Not hard in this guy's case. >What is to prevent me? My honesty? My integrity? All: NAAAAAH! > What if I am a >cyberanarchist? Mike: (jotting something on a notepad) How do you spell that? Tom & Crow: (turn to look at Mike) Mike: (tosses notebook and pencil into the air) > Would I be horrified or delighted at these embezzlements >of trust? Tom: He doesn't know how he'd react to his own actions? Crow: Jeez, enough already with the "schizo"? > By the squirming and writhing of my victims underneath my >crushing onslaught? Mike: Hey! I didn't think the Mads were sending us that kind of movies! * * * > I was reading a book about ancient torture techniques. Tom: Like these posts. > (Actually, it was >about something else, but some paragraphs on the subject crept in from >obvious relevance.) Mike: Obvious to _you_, maybe. > The Roman soldiers had invented some of the most grisly torture and execution >techniques the world has ever seen, perhaps the most humiliating and heinous >punishments known to man. Crow: Throw Sandy Frank to the Romans! Tom: Lippert, too! > One that I was reading about was called >`Circle of Eight'. Crow: (pirate voice) Arrrgh, mateys! I have a sack of doubloons and Circles of Eight. Mike: I think that's PIECES of Eight. Crow: Whatever. > A blindfolded prisoner stands as Roman soldiers >(enthusiastic volunteers?) circle him and take turns punching him in the >face. Mike: I think his verb tenses are about two thousand years off. > They take the blindfold off, and ask him, who hit you? Tom: The guy with the brass knuckles? > And if the >prisoner fails to name the person, the game continues, they dance in their >delight, circling at a faster, more dizzying rate, and pummel harder. Tom: On the other hand, if he _does_ correctly name the person, he wins a new 94 B.C. chariot and a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni. >What is the point of all this? Mike: I was hoping you'd tell _us_! > I don't have a major point, Crow: Imagine my surprise. > except to >suggest that this is one of the most evil abominations of humanity I can >imagine. And that it is shockingly identical to the mentality that a >cyberanarchist has in hammering others with his fake email identity >arsenals. Tom: You can send an arsenal through email? Crow: What will they think of next? >Medusa is delighted to punch the blindfolded victim in the face with >her dizzying circle of tentacles. Tom: Punched with a circle of tentacles?? > Guess who it is! Crow: You already _said_ it was Medusa! The tentacles are a dead giveaway. > Ooops, you're wrong, >sorry. Crow: _I'm_ wrong?? I'm just going by what you just said! > PUNCH. What? No, N.Szabo is a real person. PUNCH. Pseudospoofing >is immoral? nah. PUNCH. N.Szabo is my roommate. PUNCH. Lies are >liberating. PUNCH. cypherpunks have never pseudospoofed. PUNCH. >especially the leaders. PUNCH. and everything in the media is true. >PUNCH. especially what we say. PUNCH. and our leaders are the >greatest of all. PUNCH. Tom: Stop it! The pain! The pain! >See the blood dripping on the ground, see the hideous disfigurement of >the victim's face. Tom: (head explodes) (Mike and Crow exit hastily, Mike carrying Tom) SCENE: Satellite of Love. Mike places Tom on a table and begins looking around frantically. Mike: Crow! Quick! Help me find a spare head for Tom Servo! We don't have much time! Crow: (exits stage left) (A second Tom Servo enters from stage right) Mike: Tom Servo! Quick! Help me find a spare head for Tom Servo! (Mike stops and does a double-take) Mike: What?!? But you're there (points to Tom Servo on table) with your head blown apart from illogic overload or something.... Tom: (chuckles) Oh, that! That's just one of the alter egos I use when I need a break from the Mads' experiments. (Light flashes to indicate an incoming call from the Mads) Tom: Quick! Get that out of here! I don't want them to find out.... (Mike pushes the remains of the other Tom Servo out of sight under the table.) SCENE: Deep 13. Frank is still wearing the Dr. Forrester mask. Dr. F is wearing an equally cheesy-looking Frank mask. Frank: Well? Mike: Frank? Are you still wearing that silly mask? (Dr. F rips off his own mask, then Frank's. Frank clutches his nose, which was pinched by Dr. F's grab). Dr. F: Oh, stop whining and push the button! (Frank keeps both hands on his nose and fumbles for the button with his elbows, hitting it after several tries). \ | / Mystery Sceince Theater 3000 and associated characters \ | / are the property of Best Brains, Inc. and used here for \|/ satirical purposes only. ----O---- /|\ This post is not meant as a personal attack upon / | \ the original author (but rather as an impersonal / | \ attack upon his ideas and level of logical argument). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --End Forwarded Post-- _______________________________________________________________________ Geoff Dale -- Cypherpunk/Extropian -- Plastic Beethoven AnarchyPPL - Anarch (Adjudicator) ExI-Freegate Virtual Branch Head plaz(a)netcom.com 66 Pyramid Plaza plaz(a)io.com Freegate, Metaverse(a)io.com 7777 "Subvert the domination paradigm!"

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Hypnosis and a pass-phrase...
by Jim choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey everyone, Hope you are all having a great holidays...:) On the suggestion of a post-hypnotic suggestion it is great but it won't work. Psychologist and Psychiatrist are both very familiar with the signs of such 'tampering' and know how to get around it. Besides this won't support a defence since it shows pre-meditation to refuse and would only fauster the states case to use unlimited incarceration as pursuasive motivation. If they can prove you commited some action(s) prior to a crime which directly relate to that crime you are providing the state w/ probably cause, opportunity, motive, and a goodly amount of circumstantial evidence. I fail to see how shooting oneself in the foot is helpful...;) Probably the safest thing would be to make agreements among your friends to generate pass phrases for each other. One could then exchange public - private key pairs in some kind of anonymouse way. Then you could say in all honesty that you did not know it. On the stego front, I assume since nobody responded about my request for HSV information that we had nobody involved w/ it. Archie couldn't find any either....:( I was looking over some material done by Huffman years after his coding work relating to describing graphics w/ a meta-language. His motivation was looking at Escher prints and trying to determine a methodology to determine if a 2D representation was a honest representation of a 3D subject. He apparently succeded and I suspect that using such techniques you could find images which contained information imbedded in them. I am trying to find the material localy and will let you know what comes of it (if anything). Anybody else take a look at this work? I suspect that some of Penrose's tiling work might also be applicable but know nothing about except some SA articles here and there. Finaly, This morning I got e-mail claiming some guy found a shift and add technique for cracking RSA algorithms. Did anyon else get this? Anyone know anything about its authenticity or reference locations? Off to Archie... Everybody have a great party tooooonite!

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Re: Anonymous Video on Demand
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim - That is a nice protocol. Seems to work OK. I had thought of a variant: Vendor creates a set of pairs of numbers and random DES keys: (1,KEY1), (2,KEY2), (3,KEY3),... These are sent via oblivious transfer to buyer such that he only gets one but the vendor doesn't know which. Suppose buyer gets (10,KEY10). Buyer sends back a mapping of the numbers 1-N and a set of N movies. He maps the number he got in step 1 (10 in my example) with the movie he wants. Vendor encrypts these movies with the corresponding numbered DES keys, and sends them to buyer. He will only be able to decrypt one of them. These protocols have the obvious disadvantage of increasing the needed bandwidth by a factor of N. I guess we assume bandwidth is cheap. Once I get the movie, what stops me from recording it and giving copies to all my friends for free? Nothing, as far as I can see. Therefore, it would be good to think of a system where N movies are broadcast all the time (on N channels), all N encrypted, but with each person who has paid only able to decrypt one of them. You argued that people would just share keys, but I don't think that is an issue since they might as well just share movies. This system is much more acceptable in terms of bandwidth. It would be interesting to think of a solution which worked with this situation, where the encrypting keys are fixed. The requirement is, given a set of keys, 1-N, which A knows, B ends up knowing only key I, where I is chosen by B ahead of time, but A doesn't know which key B got. Off hand I don't see how to do this. Hal Finney P.S. with a little thought, a variant on my protocol can solve this, and perhaps your protocol works too. In step 1, A sends random keys to B via oblivious transfer; in step 2, B sends a mapping of key numbers and movies, pairing up the key he got and the movie he wants; in step 3, which is different, A sends not the movies, but the movie keys which will be used during the broadcast phase, encrypted with the random keys chosen in step 1. B is left with one key which will decrypt just the movie he wants during the broadcast. Maybe if this were done in tamper-proof chips like the encryption chips used in current cable boxes it would be secure enough for most purposes, at least as secure as current pay cable.

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The Best Death Threat Yet
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This person claims I have `threatened' Nate Sammons, Colorado Cypherpunks Founder and Leader. I have done no such thing. Please do not send me this vomit. `Mine enemies without reason outnumber the hairs on my head.' I am only posting this in case the person is serious, whoever starts an investigation has something to go on. Death threats are illegal in the U.S.Mail, and there is probably a pretty good case to be made they are illegal in email as well. I'm not aware of any legal precedents. Maybe someone could post on the subject. ===cut=here===

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Privacy vs. Pseudospoofing
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello everyone. I am a bit unclear as to what cypherpunks are really promoting as far as privacy vs. pseudospoofing. The lack of official comments by head cypherpunks make this difficult to sort out. Clearly, you are in favor of some forms of pseudospoofing. Here is a list of all the various forms I can think of. Please indicate which ones you are in favor of. These are just some tentative names I'm coming up off the top of my head for terminology. pseudonymity: a name that is not traceable to a particular human being. 1) straight pseudonymity: the audience is aware of the fact that the name is not traceable. (e.g. anon.penet.fi aliases, some book pseudonyms.) 2) semipseudonymity: the audience is not aware of whether or not the name can be traced, and makes no assumption. 3) quasipseudonymity: the audience tends to assume from context that the name is traceable, but it is not. I think email addresses fall in this category, but (unfortunately IMHO) that is increasingly becoming the exception. 4) pseudoanonymity: the audience is deliberately deceived into thinking the name is traceable when it is not. (e.g. a tentacle saying `I am a real person.' or someone else vouching for them.) Now, I have no objections to 1-2. And one can indeed have privacy with them. But it seems to me that all the cypherpunks are promoting 3-4 in the name of `privacy'. But it seems to me that (3) is misleading, and (4) means active lies. These are not privacy. These are the tools that criminals use to evade punishment for their crimes. Also, one *must* make the distinction between *active* and *passive* pseudonymity. If I read a book, I am not conversing with the author. I am not asking him any questions about his identity. This strikes me as harmless in most cases even if the reader is tricked into thinking the name is `traceable'. But the interactive pseudonyms, those possible with the internet, are extremely dangerous, because someone can actively lie to me when I ask `who are you?'. And it really discourages me that all you cypherpunks (e.g. J. Gilmore) think it is all the same thing, Privacy. So, which do you favor? (Please do not continue to obfuscate the issue by pretending that they are all identical.) Cypherpunks, I don't think you all understand the whole purpose of names in the first place. They were invented so that we could function as a society. The ability to `trace' a name to a human being is a very basic aspect of social interaction and ettiquete. Every day that you corrupt that trust you are not only breaking down governments, but honest interactions. I am beginning to think that not only do the leaders have secrets from the followers, they have secrets from each other. Imagine one leader asking the other through a tentacle, `what do you think of so-and-so'? yee, gad. Where is your trust, cypherpunks? Why are you so paranoid? In my experience, the people I have met that are the least trusting of others are also the most paranoid. But they are also the most secretive themselves. When you keep secrets from other people, you begin to think the whole world is keeping secrets from you. Is all of history a big lie to massage the egos of some people? The Bible is probably entirely fictional too, right? Don't you people know you are playing with fire? Active pseudoanonymity is used to start riots and wars. I plant people around the mob or in a country who agitate for the destruction of everyone. And real people get caught up in the passions. Perhaps you think you can control this. You are mistaken. He who lives by a mob, dies by a mob. What is the consensus on that delightful little Nazi story about pseudospoofing for espionage purposes? A glorious example of the delights of pseudoanonymity? Something to strive for? This is the story that I was going to send you all when your leaders told me what they knew about pseudospoofing, that I was talking about for a long time. But S.Boxx sent it before I had the chance. BTW I have misplaced the comments from the leaders that said they didn't pseudospoof, could someone email them to me?

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Re: Anonymous Video on Demand
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike Ingle writes: >Are you thinking of physical videotape or electronic distribution? Electronic distribution. "Anonymous video on demand" is a bit misleading, because I'm not so much interested in preventing the video provider from knowing my identity, just from correlating my identity with my video selections. >For electronic distribution, suppose you have a fiber-optic cable with >n channels, where n is a large number. My feeling is that this architecture is too inflexible. Here's the sort of thing I have in mind: Customer browses the video supplier's catalog and notes the catalog number of the video it wants Customer randomly chooses 99 other catalog numbers to generate a pool of 100 catalog numbers. The Customer and the Video Provider engage in a protocol so that the Customer ends up receiving 100 compressed and encrypted videos, only one of which the Customer can successfully decrypt (and uncompress). The Video Provider never learns which of the 100 videos the Customer successfully decrypts, but is sure that the Customer can decrypt only one of them. I don't know what the protocol would be, but it sounds like an ANDOS-like protocol. By the way, I think that if the "rental" fee is low enough, the Video Provider wont have to worry about cheaters. If it costs you more money (or time) to cheat the Video Provider than it does to simply pay the fee, then most people will pay the fee. I'm thinking the fee would be as small as 25 cents/video, for example. Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

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_The Hacker Crackdown_ on-line
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Excuse the repost, but this is interesting stuff. From: kadie(a)cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) Subject: _The Hacker Crackdown_ on-line Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL Date: Sat, 1 Jan 1994 20:40:43 GMT The short of it: To access Bruce Sterling's _The hacker crackdown: law and disorder on the electronic frontier_, try gopher -p1/Publications/authors/Sterling/hc gopher.well.sf.ca.us 70 The long of it: I've directed followup to this article to comp.org.eff.talk. I found _The Hacker Crackdown_ with the CAF/WELL whatsnew server (gopher gopher.eff.org 5070). You can access the book via email. For details, send email to archive-server(a)eff.org. Include the line: send acad-freedom/admin access The electronic version of the book is being released as "literary freeware". Here is the library entry for the paper version of the book. Sterling, Bruce. The hacker crackdown : law and disorder on the electronic frontier / Bruce Sterling. New York : Bantam Books, c1992. xiv, 328 p. ; 24 cm. Includes index. Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada. ISBN 055308058X : $$23.00 ($$28.00 Can.) 1. Computer crimes--United States. 2. Programming (Electronic computers)--Corrupt practices. 3. Telephone--United States--Corrupt practices. I. Title. ocm25-914955 - Carl -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie(a)cs.uiuc.edu =

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Re: Anonymous Video on Demand
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

could As I think about it more, the "anonymous video on demand" problem can be solved with an oblivious transfer protocol. Here's how I see it working: (The following is adapted from the oblivious transfer protocol described in "Applied Cryptography" on page 98.) Say Alice is the Video Vendor and Bob is the customer... Alice generates a public/private key pair for each movie in her video database and publishes the public keys in an electronic catalog. Each public key would be paired with a movie description and a catalog index number. Bob downloads Alice's catalog and browses through it offline. Bob makes a selection, and also randomly picks 99 (or any large number) other catalog numbers Bob generates a random DES key and encrypts this key with the public key associated with his selection. Bob sends the encrypted DES key and the list of 100 catalog numbers to Alice. Alice decrypts the DES key with the private key associated each catalog number received from Bob. In only one case will Alice successfully recover Bob's DES key, only she doesn't know which case. Alice encrypts each movie selection with the resulting DES keys from the previous step and sends all 100 encrypted movies to Bob. Bob will only be able to decrypt and view the movie he selected and Alice wont know which of the 100 movies Bob selected. Ta Da! The nice thing about this protocol is that it doesn't really have anything to do with videos. It could be used for an electronic library, or any warehouse of digital information where the Vendor wishes to charge for a download, yet the Customer doesn't want the Vendor to know which item is selected. Also, the Vendor still can use statistical analysis to determine which items are more popular and which items are less popular. The Vendor could keep track of how many times an item was mentioned in a Customer selection list. The more popular items would appear in more lists. Unpopular items would have different statistics. This analysis breaks down if all items are equally popular, or Customers don't chose the other 99 items randomly. Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

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Re: _The Hacker Crackdown_ on-line
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's also out in paperback now -- I picked up a copy yesterday.

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radiation experiments and trusting the government
by Perry E. Metzger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I find the recent disclosures concerning U.S. Government testing of the effects of radiation on unknowing human subjects to be yet more evidence that you simply cannot trust the government with your own personal safety. Some people, given positions of power, will naturally abuse those positions, often even if such abuse could cause severe injury or death. I see little reason, therefore, to simply "trust" the U.S. government -- and given that the U.S. government is about as good as they get, its obvious that NO government deserves the blind trust of its citizens. "Trust us, we will protect you" rings quite hollow in the face of historical evidence. Citizens must protect and preserve their own privacy -- the government and its centralized cryptographic schemes emphatically cannot be trusted. Perry

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