December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: (fwd) FBI Wiretaps. Old news....
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> ``We could be out of the wiretap business in a very short > time,'' Freeh said. He said 91 court-approved wiretaps were > abandoned last year because telephone companies could not solve > technical problems. I forgot to add, EFF's recent FOIA act asking for equipment interference with court ordered wiretaps showed NO problems. Where the 91 figure comes from is a mystery.

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Pondering Clipper
by Adam Lake 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Heard enough about Clipper? I have been receiving cypherpunk material for about a week now. I am new to cryptography, and new to security(feel free to laugh). I hope this posting is appropriate.. Well enough excuses for what I am about to say but I might like Clipper. 1.) From what I am hearing (largely propaganda from both sides) Clipper will be OPTIONAL. If I am businessman X and I dont know squat about security (but realize it is a good thing) wouldnt I want something I could feel secure with? For me, wouldnt Clipper be a good thig? 2) If, for some reason, I wanted to keep something even more secure so the government couldnt see what I was doing, couldnt I just encrypt a message before or after it goes through the Clipper Chip? I would think this would prevent the government as well as anyone else from reading my message en route 3) Right now I can pick up cellular phone conversations and intercept data through any network lines with a datascope. For anyone who doesnt wan this to occur wouldnt it be nice if they couldat least be reasonably certain that no one could understand what they are hearing or seeing? 4) Also, would it be unreasonable to have an on/off switch on the Clipper chip? Please dont assume me to be a pro-clipper individual. I am merely trying to form a logical, educated opinion on the issue. I will always feel skeptical when the FBI say we just need this to maintain our current state of survellience capability (or is that survellience state ;-) And I am also aware that if anybody thinks these keys will be kept confidential unless the government has a warrant blah blah blah well I better stop there.......... lake(a)uenics.evansville.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space for rent ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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VIACRYPT/PGP Listservers
by tontine key llc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Are there any LISTS that are devoted to developing expertise in the use of the various forms of PGP being peddled by VIACRYPT et al. It would be a boon to us "NEWBIES" and the cause of "Crypto Publicos" if such a forum was available which provided some handholding on the minutia of using the software. Any ideas?

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Royal Bank privacy waiver
by marc＠tanda.isis.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Gentlefolk, The following is in light-grey small print on the back of the current Royal Bank Visa Gold card application. It appears to be an attempt to end-run privacy legislation. The net is that using your Gold Card gives the Royal Bank, and anyone else it chooses to share information with, permission to do what it wants with any information about you that it has, has ever had, or ever will have; even if you are no longer a client. It is worth the read. ... I will comply with the Cardholder Agreement you will send to me when you issue, renew or replace my card. If I sign, use or accept my card, it will mean that I have received and read the agreement. It will also mean that I have understood and agreed with you to everything written there. You may collect credit and other financially-related information about me (Information) from me, from credit bureaux and from other parties. You may use information as follows: - You may give it to credit bureaux and other parties who have or may have financial or other business dealings with me: - You may use it to determine my financial situation; - You may use it for any purpose related to the provision to me of services I request from you. You may also give it to anyone who works with or for you, but only as needed for the provision of those services; - You may use it to promote your services to me. You may also add it to client lists you prepare and use for this purpose; and - You may share it with your affiliates (where the law allows this), in the form of client lists or otherwise, so that they may promote their services to me. If I have ever given you my social insurance number, you may treat it as information and use it as an aid to identify me with credit bureaux and other parties. Even if I am no longer your client, you may keep Information in your records and use it for the purposes noted above. If a co-applicant signs this Application, they also agree and consent to everything written here and in the Cardholder Agreement. .... At the bottom of the page, in bold black letters, for comic relief, are the words "RESPECTING YOUR PRIVACY IS IMPORTANT TO US". Cheers, Marc --- Marc Thibault | Any warming, global Automation Architect | or otherwise, is Oxford Mills, Ontario, Canada | welcome. -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3a mQA9AiyT2YcAAAEBgKVboQejsR2t2U70HoWOXTIqlWUCRGkTht8Yn/4kuzWby/e3 Z9tT8RHJbAx9us7QZwAFEbQdVGFuZGEgTWFpbCA8bWFyY0B0YW5kYS5vbi5jYT4= =aFhG -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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The CP WWW Home page
by Sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I've been setting up a cypherpunks WWW home page on soda. So far I've been linking things into the home page stuff that's already on soda, and there's a good deal more work to be done. If you have some of your work available on the soda ftp site, if you want to make it available, I'd like a little bio info about yourself, (or your psuedonymous identity). So if you would like to send me either HTML pages with information or the proper URL so I can put in a link to your information, that would be great. Other suggestions for links are appreciated as well. (The cypherpunks URL is ftp://soda.berkeley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/Home.html) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLYyRZXi7eNFdXppdAQEY5gQApHsTeZ8iyrt5EvS4y9AVP2ayEYCW89sk I2ZT+HFGd6vhZd+AyDoSosjDKyLaslOyiTCIwWWstCRE9P7yM4ZkZEEIaDWPEsyP 9lsSo8AToC9wHnPvOsYyzLJJKGnkS6M3km23gH05HDUUGXKcvEgsyJTKD2spqBMN Ieacy6ely9E= =wpCz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: A Certain Monk at a certain village in Hanoi I thought I'd share this with you: -----------CUT HERE------------- program Hanoi(input,output); type Pegnumber = 1..3; var N: integer; Procedure WriteMoves (N: integer; Peg1, Peg2, Peg3: PegNumber); begin {Moves} if N=1 then writeln('Move a ring from ', Peg1:1, ' to ', Peg2:1) else begin {else} WriteMoves(N-1, Peg1, Peg3, Peg2); writeln('Move a ring from ', Peg 1:1, ' to ', Peg2:1); WriteMoves(N-1, Peg3, Peg2, Peg1) end {else} end; {Moves} begin {Program} writeln{'Enter the number of rings and'); writeln('I''ll explain how to play Towers of Hanoi.'); readln(N); writeln (' To move ', M,' rings'); writeln (' from peg 1 to peg 2 proceed as follows:'); WriteMoves(N, 1, 2, 3); writeln (' That does it.') end. {Program} ------------AND HERE----------- I've used it on 64 rings, and it works fine. Of course this runs slowly and does tend to use a lot of storage. The stack really grows too large. I'm hoping that it may be possible to use this type of call with some bandwidth growth to help defeat analysis. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." said the Cat. --Lewis Carroll

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Re: NSA and PGP rabblerousing
by markh＠wimsey.bc.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Note that doubling the key size from 1024 to 2048 bits is also > probably a ruse, since it dramatically increases computation time (I > think). 1024 bits are a lot of bits as it is. On a 486DX/33 an RSA sign operation takes a little under 2 seconds with a 1024 bit key. With an 1800 bit key (not quite 2048), a little under 9 seconds. (gcc 2.5.8, gmp 1.3.2, Linux) Personally, I think 1024 bit keys are probably enough. I'm currently working on some Montgomery multiplication code for RSAREF (sans gmp), which should make things faster. (It already works, I just need to clean some things up before releasing it). Mark -- Mark Henderson markh(a)wimsey.bc.ca (personal account) RIPEM MD5OfPublicKey: F1F5F0C3984CBEAF3889ADAFA2437433 ViaCrypt PGP Key Fingerprint: 21 F6 AF 2B 6A 8A 0B E1 A1 2A 2A 06 4A D5 92 46 cryptography archive maintainer -- anon ftp -- wimsey.bc.ca:/pub/crypto

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Re: Coming Police State
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Duncan, I live in Chicago, let me know if you'd like to get together for a Pizza, cocktail, or whatever. I could also give you a place to check your mail (via telnet etc) Brian Williams Ameritech Data Center 425 w randolph Chicago Il 312.669.2373

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Re: Note from EDUPAGE
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-> CALL FORWARD FOR CRIME Criminals have discovered that by forwarding their calls, they can evade wiretaps placed on their home lines. "Criminals can go to any phone, call the `intelligent network' and route calls anywhere," says an FBI special agent. The FBI estimates that 25% of all wiretaps "are adversely affected" by this telephone hide-and-seek. (Wall Street Journal 3/18/94 A5A) <- What the hell is with the FBI and figures? First they cant come up with any effects, then it's 91 instances, which was not released in EFF's FOIA request, now it's 25% of all wiretaps.... which to my math sounds like 75 or so. Oh boy.... -uni- (Dark)

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Re: A Certain Monk at a certain village in Hanoi
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

BTW, does anybody have a good Tibetan font for X? I've got an application that involves counting up to about 9 billion, and needs some appropriate display technology....

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