December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Letter to the Government
by Jim Sewell - KD4CKQ 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FYI folks, I just sent this electronically and would like to urge you to express your feelings to the government officials as well. Don't copy my letter, express your own thoughts, but please do let them know how you feel about it even if you disagree with me :) Jim Sent electronically to: Representative Maria Cantwell, D-Washington - cantwell(a)eff.org Representative Lee Hamilton, D-Indiana - hamilton(a)eff.org Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs The President of the United States - president(a)whitehouse.gov The Vice President of the United States - vice.president(a)whitehouse.gov The Cypherpunk mailing list of Internet - cypherpunks(a)toad.com Greetings, I wish to express my concerns about a current issue that has drawn a lot of attention from the computing world. The issue is that of encryption and the Clipper chip. We Americans pride ourselves with the freedoms guaranteed us by the Constitution and it is freedom upon which this entire country is based. The Clipper chip threatens this freedom in an unprecedented way. I, as a professional computer programmer, am frightened by the desire of some of our Congress members to eliminate all forms of encryption except special government approved devices such as Clipper. Although I do not disapprove of the chip, nor of the ability to break it with the proper search warants, I do disapprove of what the success of this chip will bring. If Clipper succeeds then it will promote the wholesale outlawing of any encryption method. This will be undesirable for four reasons: 1. Right to privacy will be compromised if the citizens of the United States can not take steps to keep information such as financial transactions and personal data from prying eyes. 2. By requiring ONE and only one means of encryption you would be making it easier for those who wish to do harm to decypher our information. A cryptoanalyist would have a much easier time if he is guaranteed to know the form of encryption used. 3. The Clipper chip will do nothing to deter crime. A criminal smart enough to use encryption will be smart enough to use a safe code and not stupid enough to use the Clipper chip that he knows the governent can decode. The gangsters of the early to mid 20th century used nothing that could be called encryption and yet talked freely about taking packages for delivery and erasing people. The same would be true today. In fact, there are programs that exist TODAY and are readily available that will hide an encrypted message in an otherwise innocent picture. This method of hiding information is nearly undetectable. Considering this, criminals would still use cyphers if they so desired and only law-abiding citizens would be forced to make their private information vulnerable. 4. The only thing worse than having no means of privacy is to give the people a device they trust implicitly which is, in reality, not secure. Imagine a classified document from the millitary that is encrypted by the Clipper chip falling into the hands of an enemy who can decrypt it. In answer to those who say breaking the Clipper code is not practical I'd ask "Why was Clipper designed for non- classified information?" The answer is, of course, that Clipper is not secure enough to trust to protect our most sacred documents. I want to thank those of you who are working to block the "slaughter" of freedom and the elimination of American's rights to use encryption as they see fit and to implore anyone whose eyes fall upon this document to support it as well. Thank you for your time and consideration. Respectfully Jim Sewell 1209 Virginia Street Key West, Florida 33040 -- Tantalus Inc. Bringing people together Jim Sewell-KD4CKQ 2407 N. Roosevelt Blvd. to have a little fun. Internet: jims(a)mpgn.com Key West, FL 33041 CIS: 71061,1027 (305) 293-8100 "We keep coding and coding and coding..."

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Re: Dave Emory lecture Saturday, Bay Area
by dmandl＠lehman.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For those of you in the NYC area, we've been broadcasting Dave's tapes on WFMU (E. Orange, NJ, 91.1 FM) every Tuesday evening from 6-7 p.m. --Dave. > From: tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) > > Coincidentally, my favorite radio commentator, Dave Emory, will give a > 3-hour lecture on "Drugs and Fascism" (or a similar title) on Saturday > evening, 7-10 p.m., at Foothill Community College, Room F-12. Foothill > is in Los Altos Hills, visible from Highway 280. I believe the cost > will be $10. > > I've seen Dave speak twice before, on other topics. He can speak for > hours without notes and with captivating presentation. Whether you > agree with all his points or not, this three hours will surely be > enjoyable and may even change your outlook on things. > > Dave has a radio talk show on Sunday nights from 7-11 p.m., on KFJC, > 89.7. Some of this is rebroadcast Monday night, 9-10:30 on KKUP, 91.5. > I can't get the KFJC broadcast here in Santa Cruz, but I religiously > listen to the KKUP broadcast on Monday nights. > > I understand that radio stations around the country, at least a > handful of them, rebroadcast his tapes. > > His theme is the national security state, the role of the State in > suppressing freedom, the various "conspiracies" of Inslaw, Casolaro, > P-2, Gehlen, NSA, Contras, Cabazon, Nazis, etc. (If these words mean > something to you, then you know what Dave talks about. If these words > mean nothing to you, then you owe it to yourself to at least spend a > few hours listening.)

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"Open Sesame"--MacNeil-Lehrer Report on Clipper
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just finished watching--and videotaping--the 11.5 minute report by Philip Elmer-Dewitt on Clipper and related topics. The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour should be in your area several more times today...around the dinner period, later, etc. Here in Bay Area, it comes on at 5, at 6, and as late as 10 and 11. "Check your local listings." An even-handed report, with brief statements from Marc Rotenberg, Lynn McNulty, Dave Banisar, Dorothy Denning, Whit Diffie, Jerry Berman, and a Dept. of Justice guy. "A bad idea" vs. ""Folly to let intercept capabilities be lost." Some nice aerial shots of Fort Meade, NSA. A demo of AT&T's SecurePhone 3600. A brief explanation of Clipper. I won't type in the quotes from the folks above. See the report for yourself. No major surprises. Except perhaps Marc Rotenberg's clear statement that after Clipper and Digital Telephony will come "restrictions on noncomplying cryptography." (Surprising in that it's a bold prediction. One we all have suspected is the case, but a public statement--which the report did not have a refutation of--all the same.) Tim-Bob says "Check it out!" -- .......................................................................... 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: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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RE: Pseudonyms and Reputations
by norm＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:22 4/7/94 -0700, Blanc Weber wrote: ... >Could I really allow myself to be so prejudiced by what a number of >others have determined is (or is not) a worthwhile contributor to a list? Only those others whose reputation for taste in giving endorsements you have come to trust. ...

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NSA security manual
by grady＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I got a call from SDO10 at (301) 688 6911 [NSA Security Duty Officer] this morning asking me where I got the following:

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the hh remailer on soda
by Eric Hollander 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

the remailer, hh(a)soda.berkeley.edu, has moved slightly, and is now remailer(a)soda.berkeley.edu. everything will work the same way, and an alias pointing from hh to remailer will exist indefinitely. expect another change some time in a few months: soda itself will move from soda.berkeley.edu to soda.csua.berkeley.edu, and the remailer will move to another machine, perhaps ftp.csua.berkeley.edu or something like that. personal mail to me on soda can be sent to cat@soda. a note to list maintainers: please leave me on the cypherpunks list as hh@soda, not cat@soda. i would like to thank ERic (melhaff@soda) and matt (seidl@soda) and the rest of the soda staff and the csua for creating the dedicated remailer account and for being supportive of the remailer project. as an aside, i am actively working on an encrypted alias remailer, which is currently in testing, and will come on line for public use soon. e

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They can't stop themselves
by Brad Dolan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

DRUG DEALERS EXPORT BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO EVADE LAWS ON CURRENCY REPORTING - Wall Street Journal 4/7/94 Washington - Drug smugglers are evading U.S. currency-reporting laws by shipping billions of dollars out of the country, according to a report released by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. One of the most reliable methods used by the smugglers, according to the report, is the U.S. mail. Over 25 criminal organizations have been found mailing cash through a single, unidentified East Cost airpor. U.S. Customs officials have been wrangling with the U.S. Postal Service for almost two years on ways to get at the money by changing the law so outgoing packages can be randomly inspected. But the issue remains unresolved. [...] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The report states that a recent, more agressive search experiment by Customs, using dogs trained to sniff cash and other methods, more than ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ doubled the amount of cash seized during a five month period. [...] "At the very least, the report's findings suggest it is time for all law-enforecement agencies to work together to plan and execute a coordinated, long-range approach to address the money-laundering problem," concluded Sen. Nunn. The report was prepared for his subcommittee by the General Accounting Office. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) I don't need to comment on the trend toward random monitoring of all activities of all citizen-units. (2) Re. "other methods" Has anybody tried gamma or neutron activation analysis of currency? bdolan(a)well.sf.ca.us

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Private video on demand
by kadie＠eff.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At a "Computers, Freedom, and Privacy" '94 informal meeting, I heard a quick overview of a video-on-demand protocol that would ensure privacy. Does anyone know the details? Here is what I recall (I think): Three parties: A - the information provider has a list of movies (or other material) with prices B - a middleman/net owner C - a customer Some how, C gets her movie, A gets the money, and A doesn't know who her customer was, and B doesn't know which movie C is seeing. Details anyone? - Carl ANNOTATED REFERENCES (All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.) =================<a href="ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CAF/library/confidentiality.2.ala"> library/confidentiality.2.ala =================</a> * Confidentiality -- 2 (ALA) The American Library Association's "Statement Concerning Confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information about Library Users" ================= ================= If you have gopher, you can browse the CAF archive with the command gopher gopher.eff.org These document(s) are also available by anonymous ftp (the preferred method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org (192.77.172.4), and then: cd /pub/CAF/library get confidentiality.2.ala To get the file(s) by email, send email to ftpmail(a)decwrl.dec.com Include the line(s): connect ftp.eff.org cd /pub/CAF/library get confidentiality.2.ala -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me. =kadie(a)eff.org, kadie(a)cs.uiuc.edu =

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re: problems with key escrow
by Mark Hittinger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Mike Sherwood writes: >I was thinking about the problems that people have with escrowed keys and >was wondering a few things. For one, things like the clipper chip would >not give law enforcement agencies any new abilities or powers - they are >currently allowed to tap a phone conversation iff they have a court order >to do so. escrowed clipper keys would only be revealed if a court had >decided that there was enough evidence against someone to justify a >wiretap (and the accompanying keys). so these could only be revealed in >the case of criminal activity (or reasonable suspicion thereof), which >means that most people wouldn't have anything to worry about. I suppose the most serious issue is the internal abuse of power by government employees. We all know that california DMV operators sell drivers records to anybody for small amounts of cash. We all know that social security people sell employment history on any social security number to anybody for small amounts of cash. We've seen political power blocks abuse their authority by investigating opposition groups. We all know the "posse" would have everybody's keys on a brown bag full of DAT tapes within weeks of going live. Look at what bozo 9-X did with everybody's PIN number in their latest phone card mailing!! They printed people's PIN numbers on the *OUTSIDE* of the envelope!!! Why make it easy for them? Moral: Thou shalt not give power unto the gestapo or the bozo - or thou shalt be sorry in the long run. -------- His system was just roadkill along the information superhighway. -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3a mQCNAiz4FWMAAAEEALBCb7HZS7V4gbsp9yJ7Yty49jQ9wcgRhkLjNNgdyJbrJZCq 5/sv4Ljy/4AhVhjlJyZS8L3owS8l0ClZVzWw4/kO3KN7MPz4YPPR7+qIlPQVM0yv gWpJ43EZZ8b8cvAkE9HATCKWktY2ReRSX5DLnScDH/n5jivw+MD/UO8fURCVAAUR tCBNYXJrIEhpdHRpbmdlciA8YnVnc0BuZXRzeXMuY29tPg== =VbKi -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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problems with key escrow?
by mike＠EGFABT.ORG 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was thinking about the problems that people have with escrowed keys and was wondering a few things. For one, things like the clipper chip would not give law enforcement agencies any new abilities or powers - they are currently allowed to tap a phone conversation iff they have a court order to do so. escrowed clipper keys would only be revealed if a court had decided that there was enough evidence against someone to justify a wiretap (and the accompanying keys). so these could only be revealed in the case of criminal activity (or reasonable suspicion thereof), which means that most people wouldn't have anything to worry about. now, is the real problem that the key escrow agency is the weakest link in the chain of security? that people don't trust the government having these things since they could quietly copy the database to the nsa? what about the possibility of having some organization like, but not necessarily the eff hold onto keys so that they would reveal them, or better, decrypt only in the case of a court order, but they would also make it publicly known if the nsa tried to claim they had an inherent right to all of the info. I haven't really thought too much about this one way or the other, but I thought it would be worthwhile to get some others' opinions. -Mike -- Mike Sherwood internet: mike(a)EGFABT.ORG uucp: ...!sgiblab!egfabt!mike

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