December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: LITTLE BROTHER INSIDE
by Justin Lister 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> C'punks, > On Tue, 26 Jul 1994, Jim choate wrote: > > . . . > > This would of course assume that the police were silly enough to > > use the disk and such from your machine in your machine. From my > > experience w/ Mentor and Erik Blookaxe during Operation Sun Devil this > > is not very realistic....Also it would only work > > once. Thereafter they would either examine the equipment in a Farady Cage > > or else start doing pager rental scans prior to seizure. Why not just use an encrypted partition. I guess then it is a problem of not being persuaded to reveal the key. What laws/rights does the user have as to revealing the key ? And if the user says "I forget" what would be likely response ? How many users would hold tight, from cases I have heard they usually give in when the stakes are raised. > I'm not so sure. Operation Sun Devil was a more sophisticated operation > than the average cops run. Cops, for the most part, are incredibly lazy > and stupid. I think you could count on lots of them not doing it right. A while back a local BBS system was investigated, it was amazing to find that the police had little knowledge of the software (MSDOS and OS/2 - Remote Acess RA and Front Door) and hardware being used. Apparently the sysop had the system setup so that he could quickly delete the drives FAT and do random zeroing of the drives. Although it wasn't performed as they weren't even familar with hidden (attrib) directories or using non-printable dir names. Essentially they relied on information from the sysop to carry out the investigation. -- +---------------------+--------------------------------------------------+ | ____ ___ | Justin Lister ruf(a)cs.uow.edu.au | | | \\ /\ __\ | Center for Computer Security Research | | | |) / \_/ / |_ | Dept. Computer Science voice: 61-42-835-114 | | | _ \\ /| _/ | University of Wollongong fax: 61-42-214-329 | | |_/ \/ \_/ |_| (tm) | Computer Security a utopian dream... | | | LiNuX - the only justification for using iNTeL | +---------------------+--------------------------------------------------+

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RE: What can one do for remail operators?
by Philippe Nave 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I am interested in doing something to support the remailer operators > that put their necks on the line for us cypherpunks. > > I have noticed people like Detweiler (dunno who he is) who are basically > awed by the fact that a remailer crashes when you send your VM swap > file through it, or people using it to do "nanny-nanny-boo-boo, you > can't catch me, so pween off" messages, et al. > > I would like to something in support of these people who are noble > enough to keep things running even when EVERYONE it seems is out > to get them. > > If I knew any around here, they would get a free beer, and if > the operator of Soda's remailer or Julf was in my area, they > would get the whole keg ;). > I think the single most important thing we could do for remailer operators would be to figure out how to make the remailers *truly* *anonymous*. That is, we need a net.hack of some sort that allows remailers to send their messages in a way that leaves no trace whatsoever of the original poster *and* leaves no trace of the remailer itself. Net.veterans will perhaps recall a thread I started a while back along these lines... this is a technical problem, and I have the utmost confidence that the skills to solve this problem are around here somewhere. If I may make a humble suggestion, I would suggest that this problem is more immediate and pressing than many of the issues currently being debated. Philippe

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Re: XSPLIT now own ftp.wimsey.bc.ca
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

: > How about doing this with n of m? Anyone have code? : What do you mean? The sources are included with XSPLIT. The algorithm is : very very simple. : What exactly did you mean by n of m? Since at each byte the numbers are picked He means an n-of-m error correcting code applied to secret sharing. Take a Hamming code for example. I used to use a 4-bit one when I worked in teletext. 4 bit nibbles were encoded as 8 bit words. You could corrupt 2 bits and recover the 4 bits correctly, thus it was a 2-in-4 error-correcting code. I think it was also a 3-in-4 error *detecting* code, because if three of the eight bits were in error, you could know there was an error but not reliably correct it. Thus you can take a stream of data, split it up into 4 bits, and hamming encode each nibble. Then you give 1 bit from each output byte to a different person. The original file can be rebuilt if 6 of the 8 people get together - effectively you're decoding each 8-bit byte by assuming that the bits from the two missing people were corrupted in transit (ie any value you supply will do) Error-correcting codes are well understood (though not necessarily by me ;-) ) and can be tailored to any n of m, eg you could have a code that took 24-bit units, made a 100-bit output word, and could rebuild the original 24-bit word by having access to only say 70 of the 100 bits. The application of this to secret sharing is obvious. What isn't so obvious is that since these codes are designed for data transmission rather than data hiding, you're liable to find that for some bit positions in the output word, you have a direct copy of one of the input bits! So in my first example above where 4 bits mapped to 8 bits, 4 of the 8 bits of output were actually just the four input bits even though the other 4 bits were in some way random 'check bits'. So just by finding the right 4 people and analysing the data you'd get if you took their bits as actual data, you could tell whether you'd found the cleartext bits or not. Thus a straight Hamming code can't be used to split secrets; I'm not sure of the modifications necessary - I *think* it might be enough to whiten the input data with random noise, but I'm far far less than 100% convinced of this. I'll have to think about it some other time when I don't have as much on my mind. I expect some textbook has already covered the application of these things to cryptography. Wish I had one :-( G

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Attention: the us.* hierarchy and its effect on the gun groups
by d9bertil＠dtek.chalmers.se 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

WHATS UP: There is discussion over at news.groups to start a new top-level hierarchy named us. The main argument being that the US of A should have an own hierarchy since everyone else has one. Now you might have whatever opinion on that, that is not core of the matter, but some people are trying to sneak in something very bad under cover of the us.* hierarchy question. They, and I'm talking of a cabal of seven persons calling themselves the "US Hierarchy Coordinating Committee" out of a net population of twenty million, want to sneak through severe changes in the newgroup creation procedures that would put them in absolute command of the us.* hierarchy. TODAY: Today when a new newsgroup is to be created, anyone can propose it, a period of discussion where anyone can participate follows and its fate it decided by a vote, in which anyone can participate. TOMORROW: In the us.* hierarchy groups can only be created by the cooperation of the US Hierarchy Coordinating Committee. After they have decided on a name for the group, and 'firmed up the charter', they will start a public discussion by announcement on a (by them) moderated group. If they decide that the group get enough support they will create it. The US Hierarchy Coordinating Committee is not elected by anyone. They are totally self-appointed. Their proposal does not include any rules or guidelines on how new cabal members are choosen, nor any ways to depose the current ones. To quote them directly: "The Committee feels that it would be better to wait until the hierarchy exists for a while so that the lay of the land may be better understood before proposing a whole system of rules for changes to the Committee, the creation guidelines, and the structure of the hierarchy." They themselves want to write the rules (if any) by which they themselves can be replaced, but they don't want to show us the rules, we should just accept them, they say. WHY: Why rip up the old democratic guidelines and replace them with this oligarchic mess? They say it is to make the us.* hierarchy more efficient and easy to use. Proposals to concentrate power in the name of efficiency always makes me wary. THE NEXT 40 LINES OF THIS MESSAGE SHOULD BE UNNECESSARY: Because this proposal should not be judged after how much good the the Comittee might do, and certainly not after what good things *they* claim they'll do, but after what bad things they *can* do since their proposal totally lacks any checks and balances. So what I have written upto this point should be enough to make you jump to the "WHAT CAN I DO" part:) MY FEAR: There have been much talk recently about how Usenet is lawless, about how various nastiness float around here, and about how the wild frontier needs to be tamed. I think that is what they intends. This is an attempt to impose authority on the net, put barbed wire across the frontier. I doubt that any controversial newsgroups will pass the comittee. I suspect that us.rec.guns will be as impossible to get past the comittee tomorrow as rec.illegal.drugs would be today. So therefore I urge everyone who has interests that is ever so slightly non-mainstream, either in reality or as pictured by the media, or feels that your interests might slide out of the mainstream soon, to vote NO to the us.* hierarchy, if you want a place to discuss your interests on on Usenet tomorrow. Around here I'm thinking of you who are any or all of pro-rkba, anti-WoD, anti-BATF, anti-censorship's, anti-clipper, libertarians, etc etc. [only 4 of which is correct about me, but that is irrelevant:) ] SO WHAT? So what? This will only cover the us.* hierarchy? The rest of Usenet will be as before? Right? Well yes and no. Formally that is right, but the net is growing at an amazing rate. New sites are added daily, many of them schools and schools lower and lower on the age scale is getting access. What do you think they will choose if given the choise between getting only the pg-13 us.* hierarchy, the R-rated normal Usenet or the X-rated altnet? Especially since the us.* hierarchy advertises itself as handling the US-specific issues on the net, I think most new sites in the US will play it safe and only get the us.* hierarchy. And the way the net is growing new sites will soon be in the majority and not long after that take up 90% of the total net sites. So if you want to say something that more than 10% hear, you'll have to go through the us.* hierarchy, and you better hope your interest is covered by the cabal-approved charter of a cabal-approved newsgroup. And if you have angered any of the cabal-members in the past you are f*cked. period. WHAT CAN I DO: You can vote NO to the proposed us.* hierarchy. A us.* hierarchy might or might not be a good idea, but under these rules it would be a disaster. It should be possible to just reply to this message (press 'R' on rn/trn/rrn), edit out all quoted text except the 1 line between the dashes, and send it off. You should however check that your mail is going to "voting(a)qualcomm.com" and not to me before sending it off. --------- I vote NO on this us.* hierarchy proposal. --------- After voting you should recieve an ack by mail within a day or two. If not then remail your vote. The voting closes on August 8, so vote early! IMPORTANT CAVEAT: In their CFV the cabal plainly writes that they will *not* accept the usual 'more than twice as many yes as no' criteria for group creation, and if they get defeated they also plainly state that they will rewrite their proposal and refile it immediately without waiting 6 months as is the normal procedure. They claim they can do this since there arn't any formal rules for HIERARCHY creation, just NEWSGROUP creation. Well most people assumed that in the absence of specified rules, the group rules would have jurisdiction, since a hierarchy is just a bunch of individual groups, but the cabal seems determined to steamroller this through despite any opposition. Kinda makes me wonder if they'd even follow their own rules, provided they ever write any that is. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that they are made to realize that the opposition to their oligarchic proposal is compact. Explain the gravity of the situation to all your on-line friends and collegues, and get them to vote too. This is doubly important if they are sysadmins or similiar. Get them to state that they will not carry a us.* hierarchy that does not abide by normal newgroup creation procedures. Thanks -bertil- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The full text (the little there is) is available on news.announce.newgroups under the Subject "CFV: us.* hierarchy" and with Article ID <us_hierarchy-CFV1(a)uunet.uu.net> A SECOND OPINION: Quoted without permission under the fair use doctrine from a call to vote NO posted on news.groups by John De Armond: * New rules are being proposed by a new defacto cabal that replaces the voting system that has worked well for the most part, with a system of "bosses" who control what gets created and what doesn't. And it replaces defined criteria for passage or failure with the "judgement" of the bosses. It replaces the will of the users with the will of a few men sitting on high. This is the antithesis of the net spirit. * The proposed group creation criteria is most unsatisfactory. The newly formed cabal proposes to replace the current vote with an "interest poll" whereby if 100 people sorta indicate an interest in the group it is created regardless of the number of negative votes. This is NOT the way to create new groups. * The makeup of the cabal has been decreed from the cabal and no procedure for removing or replacing members is contemplated in this proposal. The highly controversial nature of several of the proposed cabal members combined with no mechanism for removal almost guarantees a spoils system with no checks and balances at all. "Piss me off and your group fails" isn't the way to run the net. * This vote is being conducted in a very abnormal manner, without the usual CFD discussion period. If changes are needed in the current group creation process, the proper way is to implement them in accordance with the old procedures until those procedures are formally changed. Change via fiat is again the antithesis of the net culture. For all those reasons and more, I urge everyone to REJECT this proposal and vote NO. This is a BAD heirarchy and a BAD proposal and deserves to die. -- Legal Notice: Exporting 'personal data' to non-European countries without special license issued by the Computer Inspection Agency ('Datainspektionen') for each specific case (message) is a crime. Personal data include names, even my name. If you read this message outside Europe, I'm a criminal.

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Re: Cryptosplit note
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It uses rand() when it needs random numbers for the coefficients of the polynomial. I don't know what kind of security risk that poses, but it really should be using something better. It definitely should. It will be trivially crackable. (Well, trivally after someone writes the program I mean, which is more tedious than difficult). (Next question to determine *how* tedious... what do you do to initialise the random sequence? - oh, never mind, I should look at the code, except it's probably not worth the effort now. Just make sure people only use it for fun and not serious data hiding. Ask on sci.crypt if anyone wants to take a crack at decrypting the exored data, given the source code.) Where can I get Blum-Blum-Shub source or documentation on the algorithm? Can't help on that one, sorry. They don't tell us nasty furriners. g

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Anonymous Remailer list
by Jeff Gostin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

C'Punks, I'm looking for a list of Anon Remailers that hopefully have most/all of the following features, or at least get me in the ballpark. Failing that, perhaps just a list of remailers would be nice. Requested features: o I would like to be able to send a PGP [2.3-present versions!] file with commands-etc to be decoded and processed by the Anon Remailer. This allows me to not have to send my password-etc in plaintext. I realize that this will have to wait until after my first email to the remailer, as it has to get my key. o Allows embedded PGP files: One for the remailer, which contains both a second PGP message and commands for the remailer. o Allows passwording of anon accounts (I know, they probably all do this....) o Reports back errors in command syntax-etc, using a pgp encrypted file. o Uses latency and/or reordering. o Relatively quick (this might countermand latency -- I'm not sure which is more important to me) I'm just getting started with remailers, and am interested in secure, anonymous communications. --Jeff -- ====== ====== +----------------jgostin(a)eternal.pha.pa.us----------------+ == == | The new, improved, environmentally safe, bigger, better,| == == -= | faster, hypo-allergenic, AND politically correct .sig. | ==== ====== | Now with a new fresh lemon scent! | PGP Key Available +---------------------------------------------------------+

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us.* heiarchy--scary
by nzook＠math.utexas.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following is only tangentally c-punk. It is also long. Ctrl-C now if that is your only concern.

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Continum of numbers and Turing Machines
by Jim choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, Just a thought, Seems to me that a Turing Machine can't simulate a continous section of R for a simple reason, computers can only work on rational numbers and a continous section would have irrationals in it. Take care.

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(fwd) WWII Enigma traffic
by Jim choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Newsgroups: sci.military Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!sundog.tiac.net!usenet.elf.com!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!news.duke.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!uunet!ncrgw2.ncr.com!ncrhub2!ranger!military From: lharnisch(a)delphi.com Subject: WWII Enigma traffic Message-ID: <CtMKns.J91(a)ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> Sender: military(a)ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com (Sci.military Login) Organization: Delphi (info(a)delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 00:43:04 GMT Approved: military(a)ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com Lines: 13 >From lharnisch(a)delphi.com Does someone know the location of archives (or preferably microfilm) containing undeciphered German Enigma traffic? It isn't important whether it was cracked by the Allies during the war... am simply seeking some original German traffic to test computer program.... I have already gone through messages in the journal Cryptologia...... Pls E-mail me if you know of some sources... Thanks.... Larry Harnisch

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Patently Absurd?
by will＠thinkmedia.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I realize this may seem absurd, but for the sake of humor could there be any relationship between the Dept. of Justice near pardon of Microsoft on charges of Anti-trust and the potential adoption of a software encryption standard in Chicago with the blessing of NIST and some goverment agencies. Would it be ridiculous conspirancy theorizing to think that MS and Justice made a deal? I have nothing to back this up, just reading the news and cypherpunks. ______________________________________________________________________________ Opinion is a flitting thing, Thinking Media Research But Truth, outlasts the Sun-- will(a)thinkmedia.com If then we cannot own them both-- (408) 423 3720 Possess the oldest one-- Emily Dickinson

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