December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Canon copiers
by hfinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The thing that makes me skeptical about this copier story is this: the money could have any orientation and position on the page. It would take a large amount of computing power to look at an image and deteri\\ determine whether there is a certain bitmap anywhere on it. Look at how poorly optical-character-reader technology does now, and that is when it knows how the letters are oriented. Adding random orientations would make the problem far worse. And, will it look at the whole dollar bill, or just pieces of it? It has to respond to all the different denominations, too. Plus, if it makes a mistake and permanently locks up the customer's machine, the manufacturer is going to have a big problem. In short, I'm pretty sure that there is a lot of disinformation going around designed to scare people away from trying it. However, there is another possibility, which is to look at hte color of the bills. This does not take so much processing power, although bills may vary somewhat in color. Years ago, I'd read that these machines would not accurately reproduce the color of money. Perhaps today they will turn that color to black. Hal

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Sharing a secret
by hfinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I will give a simple example of Shamir secret sharing. Suppose you have some data D which you want to split up into n pieces such that any 2 of them are sufficient to reconstruct D. Shamir solves the problem for any k of them being sufficient, but the case k=2 is especially simple. Pick a random number m which will be the slope of a line. Take the equation y = mx + D, and substitute x = 1, x = 2, ... x = n. Pass out the y's for each value of x as the secret shares. For example, if D=12, pick random m = 4, and pass out (1,16), (2,20), (3,24), (4,28), and so on. Now, suppose an enemy gets hold of one of these - say (2,20). What does this tell him about the value of D? Nothing! D could be anything, depending on the value of m. But suppose we have two of these values - say (1,16) and (2,20). From these it is easy to calculate m=4, and from that it is easy to see that D=12. Two points determine a line. In the actual Shamir scheme, integers mod a prime p are used, where p>D. The math is basically the same. For k=3, a parabola is used instead of a line, so that 3 points are needed; for k=4, a third-degree polynomial is used, and for general k, a (k-1)-degree polynomial is used. In each case, knowing k-1 points tells you nothing, because there will be a (k-1)-degree polynomial that would pass through any possible value of D. Hal

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cellular
by abootch＠sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey Cypherites, While taking a *study* break last night I caught the last couple of minutes of a report on the cellular phone hacking on Prime Time Live - KABC(?) west coast. Someone, presumably, from one of the cellular phone co's came up with a security scheme that would stop people from hacking into other people's accounts - using digital signatures! When asked how long this *technology*'s been around he answered its been out for awhile, only it has been implemented yet because no one was willing to pay for it. I wonder.... Also, they mentioned something about 400 people being caught by the S.S. so far this year(?) on cellular hacking charges. Is this correct? I didn't catch the whole show and am not sure if I ingested what was being said properly (I was too tired to chew) so if anyone caught the whole piece or knows more please post. Thanks.

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Message to Extropians...others ignore!
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(Sorry to send a message this way, but you'll see why.) The Extropians list has been down for several days as a result of the security incident involving Panix, the systems off of which the Extropians list is run. (The security incident is being discussed in several of the *.security groups.) Perry Metzger mentioned this a few days ago here, but I am still getting several messages a day asking what happened to the List, hence this message to you all. By the way, a conclusion I draw from this is that an alternative way to signal list members should exist, even if it's just a very long list to send mail to from an unaffected system. Sort of an "Emergency Broadcast System." Harry Shapiro says Panix is back up and the Extropians list should be restored sometime today, probably. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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Re: Paper Shredders
by norm＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The garbage disposal in a kitchen sink is very effective.

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Clipper Chip report on 700 Club today (Wednesday)
by James K. Huggins 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Phil Karn (karn(a)qualcomm.com) writes: > If I hadn't seen the show with my own eyes, I never would have > believed it. The Religious Right, so ready to mind everyone else's > personal business and to reshape the government in its own image, > opposes something that would make it easier for the government to > control the private lives of its citizens. Let's be honest, though ... the "Non-Religious Left" is interested in the same thing (though in different ways). Just about everybody in politics wants to change something or other. > Of course, the Religious Right is at odds with the current government, > what with talk of using the federal racketeering laws against > anti-abortion demonstrators. So perhaps they can be forgiven for > their current anti-government stance. It ain't just governments that oppose the religious right. There are a lot of moves on college campuses lately to kick conservative religious groups off campus because they aren't PC. I can easily see a time when having cryptography might be very useful to me if the administration at my university starts grepping my e-mail to see if my group meets the latest PC test. Sure, the US government tends to like Christian folks right now. But there are lots of governments around that don't -- ask people who live in Muslim countries where being a Christian is illegal, punishable by death as heresy. Any applications for cryptography there? > And there's supreme irony in the right to encryption and the right to > abortion both being founded in the same basic concept: personal > privacy. It all depends on whose ox is being gored, I guess. The problem ain't with privacy ... it's with what do you with privacy. Should we all have microphones installed in our homes because the privacy of my house out in the country means that I can beat my wife and no-one will hear her scream? The problem isn't that my house is private ... the problem is that I'm a jerk. So make being a jerk illegal and forget the microphones. Disclaimer: I don't have a house or a wife, and 4 out of 5 officemates don't think I'm a jerk ... Jim Huggins (huggins(a)eecs.umich.edu)

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10/28 - Crypto Day at IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, NY
by Peter Capek (TL-863-6721) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

*********************************************************** Cryptography Day at IBM Yorktown October 28, 1993 Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights New York *********************************************************** Once the province of diplomats and spies, cryptography is assuming a central role in civil applications, including digital telephony, electronic mail, database access, software copy protection, funds transfer and contract negotiation. As these services become more powerful and globally integrated, cryptographic techniques provide the chief means of reconciling the conflicting goals of privacy and accessibility. This day-long symposium will explore the emerging intersection of cryptographic algorithms, devices, applications, and policy that is shaping the future of information services. Topics to be covered include + A survey of cryptography and related techniques + The role of cryptography in information distribution and licensing + Electronic privacy + Smart cards + Evolution of the regulatory framework and international standards Speakers include Richard Barth Council on Competitiveness, Washington, DC Gilles Brassard Universite de Montreal, Canada Whitfield Diffie Sun Microsystems, Sunnyvale, CA Charles Hartman IBM Personal Systems Multimedia, Mountain View, CA Jean-Jacques Quisquater Universite Catholique, Louvain, Belgium The symposium will involve no proprietary or confidential information. There will be no registration fee, but ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. To register or to obtain further information, contact Phyllis Helms by electronic mail (easiest for us), fax, or phone, at the addresses below. email: PHELMS(a)watson.ibm.com fax: (914) 945-4001 phone: (914) 945-1681 Organizing Committee Nabil M. Amer NABIL(a)watson.ibm.com Charles H. Bennett BENNETC(a)watson.ibm.com Neil Gershenfeld NEILG(a)media-lab.mit.edu

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Net Regulation
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I know that this was a long time ago but I've been cut off from cyberspace for *days* (months in net time) while PANIX was down. S >From: smb(a)research.att.com S >Or -- envision, if you will, an ukase that the FCC will regulate the S >Internet, and that anyone who wants to connect will have to agree to an S >acceptable use policy that includes the requirement that all mail be S >digitally signed, both by the individual and by the site, and that S >mailers enforce this requirement. Can't happen? Since the Internet is an international entity, it is probably not subject to FCC regulation. Even if domestic accounts are somehow regulated, it is no problem to telenet from my regulated account, (or make a long distance phone call) to Demon Internet Services in London and access my account there automatically downloading encrypted mail and news files. As most of the comments on the Bell Atlantic/TCI merger suggest, there is little appetite even in the Clinton Administration for telecommunications reregulation. Such a move would seem to run counter to the domestic and international trends in telecoms policy. If the Bundesposte has had to surrender *its* monopoly, I doubt if mere US regulatory authorities can prevail in the winds that are blowing now. Further, such rules do not now govern private networks and setting up a secure, encrypted "enterprise network" is simple and cheap these days. The regulators will have enough on their plate trying to chase down all those people downloading porno from Zimbabwae and setting up their very own private "virtual" phone companies to compete with the licensed monopolies. Each node on a network can be a network of its own as large or larger than the network of which it is a part. S >Nor do I think that ``offshore data havens'' will help. Apart from S >the fact that most major governments are basically in accord on the S >question of who makes the rules (them, not the people -- or did you S >see any governments denouncing Clipper? I saw lots of endorsements), S >there is a potent weapon that can be used: mandatory disconnection S >from the net for any country that doesn't co-operate enough. The Feds can't even keep *me* off the nets (without arresting me), how can they keep a whole country off the nets. Shutting off the nets would be the equivalent of shutting down the phone system (since those will both soon be the same thing). You couldn't do that to one of the OECD countries at this point. It would be an Act of War. It would also cause a total financial panic since everyone would worry about other shutoffs and investors involved in the shutoff country would engage in a run to cash. Global liquidity depends on a microsecond by microsecond flow of data. This flow is bound to increase as time goes on. There is not even an international authority capable of imposing that sort of ban. It would also be technically difficult since the nets are topologically complex. S >Wanna place any bets on creating a whole new S >anonymity structure?) For that matter, international bandwidth is a S >matter for diplomats as well as technicians; permission to create new S >circuits will simply be withheld. If you doubt me, try placing a S >call to Cuba, or to the former USSR. After your Nth ``circuits busy" S >message, don't bother asking why the long distance carriers haven't S >installed more trunks, when there's obviously a demand for them. That was then. This is now. There is a guy in Havana right now selling satellite dishes. Thousands of Russian computers a month are joining Internet since the links were opened up a few months ago. With all of the dark fiber now going into the ground/ocean and data compression and multiplexing continuing to improve, I doubt that the regulators will have much effect on bandwidth allocation which is a child of scarcity. When lines are expensive, you can support expensive central switching and large monopolies. When virtual "lines" are nearly free, even force majure can't cope with 5 billion people shopping 'till they drop for cheap telecoms. S >Cryptographic technology is an enabling mechanism for various social S >changes. It by no means makes them inevitable. Don't delude S >yourself on that; the political will to do something is more important S >when various alternatives exist. I've always considered the "action at a distance" capabilities of the nets to be more important than encryption per se. Since governments are geographically-based entities, technologies which enable us to weaken the bonds of place reduce the ability of states to exact a "monopoly rent" based on their control of certain land areas. S >And throughout the centuries, governments have had no trouble stripping S >hated minority groups of their assets, without any need for computers. True. Computers, and jet travel, and other things don't make the government enormously more powerful than it's ever been but they *do* make us vastly more powerful than *we've* ever been. Louis XIV and Slick Willy could both destroy a village "so that no stone was standing upon a stone" but we are not bound to the soil like the peasants of 18th century France. S >If you want a Brave New Digital World, it isn't sufficient to build S >the tools. You also have to convince people that it's a good idea. S >Oh, the online world is coming; no doubt about that. But people have S >to be convinced that privacy and the like is in their interests, that S >it will solve problems that *they* will have. I think that a 30% to 50% increase in income via elimination of effective tax liability is quite an inducement. The artificial profitability of untaxed over taxed income has been enough to support thousands of offshore financial subsidiaries of all the world's banks for years now. This when they have had to pay substantial costs associated with offshore operations. When the Bank of the Internet brings offshore banking as close as your terminal, such "arbitrage" between taxed and untaxed transactions will grow explosively. S >Equally important, they have to be convinced that it will not create S >new problems, to their perception (and the perception may have little S >to do with reality. 500 -- nay, 500,000 -- channels of digital S >information to the home will do nothing to educate those who prefer to S >learn about the world from McData Services, or from S >CBS/NBC/ABC/Fox/AP/UPI. What's this got to do with the price of Yak butter in Ulan Bator? What does it matter what other people think in the fibersphere (thanks George) in which everyone who wants to controls their own switching capabilities. In which there is no effective central control and no way to prevent communication between or among any individuals or groups that want to communicate. "Early adopters" such as ourselves will develop the fibersphere and lots of others will follow. As soon as they discover that they can make "free" LD video calls anywhere on earth, see any pictures, play any games, find work, "sex", and all things imaginable and unimaginable many more will come. What they will find is freedom. They will not be convinced by a close reading of "Human Action," they will *live* it. Freedom is what you get when human interactions cannot be blocked. And don't tell me that we still have to live in the physical world. If 90% of the GWP (including *almost all* the money) consists of non-physical goods and services on the nets, government control over the remaining 10% is not statistically significant. Since "unbundling" of services from physical goods is already going on and will be accelerated as people discover the tax consequences of non-physical services performed on the nets, large chunks of the GWP are bound to transfer to the nets. Look at the explosion in the forex market on the nets (tripled in size since 1986) once it "slipped the surly bonds of earth." S > --Steve Bellovin Duncan Frissell "Prediction -- The global information/communications phenomenon as highlighted by this week's Bell Atlantic-TCI merger will be at least as big in its impact on human society as the Industrial Revolution. You heard it here first." -- John McLaughlin "The McLaughlin Group" NBC Sunday 17 October 1993 --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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Re: Emergency Broadcast System
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Subject: Emergency Broadcast System >Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 13:36:33 -0600 (MDT) >From: "Philippe_D_Nave" <pdn(a)dwroll.dw.att.com> > 1) Mailing list data should be distributed to "N" sites where "N" is a > magic number that minimizes the chance of losing all the copies. > (Mathematicians, sharpen your pencils!) I've done the math, if anyone is interested. (part of the job here at a producer of fault tolerant machines.) BTW, we also have solutions for tolerating death of servers which I should write up and post one of these days.... It's such second nature here at Stratus that I don't pay much attention to the fact that not everyone has seen the various solutions. - Carl - <<Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are my own, of course.>> - Carl Ellison cme(a)sw.stratus.com - Stratus Computer Inc. M3-2-BKW TEL: (508)460-2783 - 55 Fairbanks Boulevard ; Marlborough MA 01752-1298 FAX: (508)624-7488

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Warning about exposing anon id
by an41418＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am a strong believer in the importance of being able to have an anonymous identity with a reputation. As such, let me post a warning about the most common way people are revealing their identities to me. If you see a post to cypherpunks from an anonymous user of the Finish remailer. That is, an####(a)anon.penet.fi, and you reply to cypherpunks and to that person, then the article that appears on cypherpunks will have your real name and e-mail address, but the message received by the original poster will be from your anonymous id. It's easy to put the two together and establish a list of who is who. Personally, I am ignoring it when this happens, but if I wanted to, I could have a list of about 15 of you by now. It's important to understand how an anonymous service works if you want to rely on it. Also realize, that even if you don't think you are using the service, it is allocating an id for you when you reply to an anonymous poster. You will receive a message about this auomatically from the remailer. 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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