December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Tech: Truth about Canon Copiers (fwd)
by jim＠Tadpole.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> If you use non-chemically whitened paper and put MICR (magnetic) toner > into the copier, you can VERY EASILY fool the change machines. Trust me > on this one :) Since 1990, US currency in denominations of $20 and up has had a small, metal-like strip buried in the left-hand side. If you hold the bill up to the light, and look for a verticle line running approx through the 'mint mark', you'll find it. Tearing the top of the bill around the line will let you remove this little bit of foil. The foil is lettered with the denomination of the bill. Collect 'em all! Of course, you don't put twenties in the change machine. Ob (weak) crypto reference: Has anyone else noticed that the NSA has plans to build a largish installation in Dallas in '95? Something like 6 *big* Cray machines. I have it on good word that E-Systems is involved. Jim

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RE: Info on L.Detweiler
by James Still 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Douglas Barnes digs up: >Here's some info folks might appreciate (all numbers area code >303, unless otherwise noted): > [ a whole bunch of phone numbers from everyone and their brothers...] >I had a very productive talk with Gary Edelen who (like me) is not pleased >that state funds are going to subsidize someone's highly disruptive, insane, >quasi-religious rants; he's contacting Scott Douglas, who is apparently the >administrator of record for the lance subdomain. > [...] >Notes: >He is no longer listed with student information or as a staff/faculty >member, nor is he listed with 303 directory; there is no L. Detweiler >listed in Fort Collins anymore, or in Denver/Boulder, although there >is a Jeff Detweiler listed in the 1991 phone book; a call to 498-8278 >got an answering machine, 491-5893 forwards to the Kater Laboratory >Optical Core. > [ more Magnum P.I. daring-do information...] I find it very ironic that a list dedicated to the preservation of personal privacy, seeks to exterpigate one of its own through White Supremacist tactics of hassling the "enemy's" employer. I recall a week ago or so, someone posting something to the effect of: "There's a lot to learn from the Nazi methods of rooting out Communists...." Disturbing coincidence or Illumanati plot? Perhaps. Then again, maybe its just a mob mentality to storm the castle and burn the Frankenstein monster. No thanks, keep the torch (you'll need it, those castle's get very dark at night). Its none of my business whether or not L. Det wants to post "quasi-religious" rants or even if he wants to leech off of alt.erotica every day with his "state-funded" account. My business is the preservation of the freedom of speech, even if I don't agree with the speaker... I apologize for seizing the moral high ground in so smug a fashion, but the precedent that this behaivor is setting is too disturbing to ignore. Now, continue to pave and flaaaame away me paranoid kin....! --- still(a)kailua.colorado.edu ---------------------------------------------

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BAN Detweiler(WHAT A LOON)
by nobody＠pmantis.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I THINK ITS TIME TO TAKE DETWEILER OFF THE MAILING LIST, HE IS CLEARLY ABUSING THE PRIVELGE OF HAVING US AS AN AUDIENCE. ANY OTHERS ON THIS SIDE OF THE ISSUE?? ANON

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Identities vs. Accounts
by an31122＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Fellow cpunks, The schemes proposed by Detweiler et al. can only verify that a real person OWNS an account, not who's USING it. We can only track a message as far as the computer or account from which it was sent. There is simply no way to verify that the person who sent the message is actually the owner of the account. I've seen otherwise intelligent and responsible people tape their passwords right onto the front of their terminals. We can concievably prevent the creation of fraudulent accounts, but not the improper usage of valid ones! "WiReD" article aside, it's possible that Tim May, Eric Hughes, and Nick Szabo are real people who have never HEARD of the cypherpunks, and don't know that their accounts are being used to post here. Detweiler might be plotting to kill the wrong person entirely. The Tentacles laugh heartily at that when it made the news. It could be Henry Kissenger and the Queen of England who are behind the whole thing (as Mr. Larouche has suggested). Why assume that ANYONE is telling the truth? Perhaps Detweiler itself is a creation of the CONSPIRACY intended to throw us off the trail. Back to the real world: Personally, I let my wife send mail from my account. She simply dosen't use the computer enough to warrant creating a new account. As far as I know, she sends only to her friends and parents. She may, however, be posting in my name to alt.sex.bestiality. I've no way to know, and there is no possible way for the people of that group to know because my account is valid and I use it. If they try to backtrack and arrest me because messages apparently from me have advoated killing anyone who posts to the list, I can convincingly deny any knowledge of it. More generally, what if I keep my computer on my desk at home and somebody breaks in and steals it? If, by chance, the person who ends up with it knows anything about PGP, then my key is compromised. If I'm on vacation when it happens then it may go undetected for weeks. Let's say that I send all of my mail from my Apple Newton, but one day on the subway someone hits me on the head and takes it. They can then use the thing to send mail for probably two days before I can get all of my accounts cancelled. What if I don't use the thing much and don't even realize that it's been stolen for two weeks? THE POINT: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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Re: BAN Detweiler(WHAT A LOON)
by owen＠autodesk.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: nobody(a)pmantis.berkeley.edu > Subject: BAN Detweiler(WHAT A LOON) > > I THINK ITS TIME TO TAKE DETWEILER OFF THE MAILING LIST, > HE IS CLEARLY ABUSING THE PRIVELGE OF HAVING US AS AN AUDIENCE. > ANY OTHERS ON THIS SIDE OF THE ISSUE?? > ANON one psuedonym, one vote .. I assume :-) I vote we keep Detweiler , and get rid of you. ( justa joke! :-) LUX ./. owen

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ENCRYPTED FILE SYSTEM
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"thomas.hughes(a)chrysalis.org" wrote: >Subj: ENCRYPTED FILE SYSTEMS >>> ObCrypt: I'm looking for info on designing a distributed encrypted >>> filesystem. Any pointers? >in the "PC" world, look for DISKREET (with Norton's Utilities). >it simple, "Stacker"-like, and user friendly. >it seems to offer "feeble DES" > and "even more feeble DES" >it's speed is almost negligable when in use. > (which doesn't say very much for the "stength" of the encryption.) No, don't use Diskreet. Use my Secure Drive. Beta now if you want it, and release with source soon. Uses IDEACFB, protects a hd partition and floppies, takes only 2K ram, and is very fast. Reasonably user-friendly. You have to create a D: partition to use on a hard drive. >If the NSA is paranoid over PGP, what will they think of plug in pirate >PROMS for USR Couriers that will create obscenely secure connections? > (although the encrypted connections might not fly along at full speed, > that tis but a small price to pay...) What's the CPU in a Courier? Is the hardware well enough documented to hack something like this up? I once burned a rom for a friend's courier, from a file which he had, to give it V.32 instead of just HST which it previously had. Not sure where the file came from. An SRAM also had to be installed. --- MikeIngle(a)delphi.com

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Markey Bill debuts in house.
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The opinions expressed are my own and do not represent the views of Ameritech or any of its alliance partners. So, Markey proposes a bill that would "allow" the RBOC's to do video..... Markey likes it.... The EFF likes it...... I wouldn't invest a dime in a proposal that stupid..... not interested.......... Brian Williams

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Re: <8c> C-source for diffie-hellman?
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

DH itself is a trivial algorithm. All you need is a decent multiple precsion math package. I think all it takes is -- random numbers -- primality test -- gcd -- raise-to-power-modulo-some-number One more thing -- you want the base for the exponentiations to be a generator of the subgroup. Also, ideally the modulus should be a prime of the form kp+1, where p is also a prime and k is a small integer. Your DH toolkit should include routines to generate the base and modulus according to those criteria. BTW, schneier is literally a FAQ for cypherpunks. Fantastic book. Cough up the money for it... Indeed, though I've only seen some drafts; my copy of the book itself hasn't arrived yet.

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Threats from Detweiler
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Brian D Williams writes: > > Just want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. > > Party on! > >Party? PARTY?!? How the heck am I supposed to RELAX and ENJOY myself >when we're all here just WAITING for the FINAL JUDGEMENT to fall on >our TENTACLES?!? I'm a BASKET CASE! > >-- >Mike McNally I said I wouldn't comment further on Detweiler unless and until something changed and new information came to light. Folks, this is the time to really take care of yourself. "The Executioner" announced the "time's up" and that more drastic measures are about to occur. "an12070(a)anon.penet.fi" is beyond any doubt Larry Detweiler. Many other folks have posted analyses of why this is so: the use of TeX quotes, the same vocabulary, the same agenda (against TENTACLES of the MEDUSA), and even the same arrival times of messages (I get my death threats from S. Boxx and The Executioner every night around 10 p.m. to midnight, the same time as Detweiler's rants appear). I take him seriously. He's deranged. A lot more than just slightly neurotic, he's transitioned into insanity. His religious rants ("You will be hung by the neck until dead and then sent to Hell"), his death threats, his wailings and moanings....not a lot of doubt that he's psychotic. Me, I'm keeping my guns loaded in case he decides to drive out to California and end his misery by "cutting off the Tentacles," as he keeps threatening to do.I consider this unlikely, though. Too far to drive when he's got closer targets. The "Colorado Tentacles" should be especially careful, I think. Phil Zimmermann is currently back on Larry's good side (I quote: "Phil is God"), but this may not last long. (Hint: Phil Z. was not at all happy with Larry's rant about Tentacles and his quoting of Phil's comments at that Colorado talk he gave. If Larry discovers this, as he surely will, Phil may be back in the boat with the rest of us Spawns of Satan.) I don't think I'm being alarmist in advising you all to watch out for this guy. --Tim P.S. As long as I'm on the subject, let me again say that I'm not sending Detweiler any messages at all. I don't know if he's really getting anonymous messages ("pseudospoofers"), but if he is, they're not from me. And they never have been. John Gilmore wrote a very reasonable piece, addressing Detweiler's source of confusion, and has since been flamed and ranted against. Typical. And now I'll fall silent on this matter until something new happens. I just hope it isn't a "Texas Tower" sort of violent encounter. If you've got a gun, now's the time to make sure it's handy. If you don't have a gun, consider getting one. --TCM -- 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: by arrangement Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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holiday
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. Party on! Brian Williams

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