December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Devil's Advocate
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm not so kind as others on this list. I think people should live consistent with their philosophy and what they advocate. Many times arguments are useless and only experience serves to convince. I wouldn't try to convert another from their faith just because it would do me good. As long as it's possible to find alternate methods of doing the same thing (in this case achieving privacy), I wouldn't try too hard to save Liberals from themselves. I think they deserve to use Clipper. Blanc

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USACM Calls for Clipper Withdrawal (fwd)
by NetSurfer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1994 16:35:37 +0000 From: "US ACM, DC Office" <usacm_dc(a)acm.org> To: "usacm_dc(a)acm.org" <distribution.list(a)acm.org> Subject: USACM Calls for Clipper Withdrawal U S A C M Association for Computing Machinery, U.S. Public Policy Committee * PRESS RELEASE * Thursday, June 30, 1994 Contact: Barbara Simons (408) 463-5661, simons(a)acm.org (e-mail) Jim Horning (415) 853-2216, horning(a)src.dec.com (e-mail) Rob Kling (714) 856-5955, kling(a)ics.uci.edu (e-mail) COMPUTER POLICY COMMITTEE CALLS FOR WITHDRAWAL OF CLIPPER COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY "TOO IMPORTANT" FOR SECRET DECISION-MAKING WASHINGTON, DC The public policy arm of the oldest and largest international computing society today urged the White House to withdraw the controversial "Clipper Chip" encryption proposal. Noting that the "security and privacy of electronic communications are vital to the development of national and international information infrastructures," the Association for Computing Machinery's U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM) added its voice to the growing debate over encryption and privacy policy. In a position statement released at a press conference on Capitol Hill, the USACM said that "communications security is too important to be left to secret processes and classified algorithms." The Clipper technology was developed by the National Security Agency, which classified the cryptographic algorithm that underlies the encryption device. The USACM believes that Clipper "will put U.S. manufacturers at a disadvantage in the global market and will adversely affect technological development within the United States." The technology has been championed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the NSA, which claim that "non-escrowed" encryption technology threatens law enforcement and national security. "As a body concerned with the development of government technology policy, USACM is troubled by the process that gave rise to the Clipper initiative," said Dr. Barbara Simons, a computer scientist with IBM who chairs the USACM. "It is vitally important that privacy protections for our communications networks be developed openly and with full public participation." The USACM position statement was issued after completion of a comprehensive study of cryptography policy sponsored by the ACM (see companion release). The study, "Codes, Keys and Conflicts: Issues in U.S Crypto Policy," was prepared by a panel of experts representing various constituencies involved in the debate over encryption. The ACM, founded in 1947, is a 85,000 member non-profit educational and scientific society dedicated to the development and use of information technology, and to addressing the impact of that technology on the world's major social challenges. USACM was created by ACM to provide a means for presenting and discussing technological issues to and with U.S. policymakers and the general public. For further information on USACM, please call (202) 298- 0842. ============================================================= USACM Position on the Escrowed Encryption Standard The ACM study "Codes, Keys and Conflicts: Issues in U.S Crypto Policy" sets forth the complex technical and social issues underlying the current debate over widespread use of encryption. The importance of encryption, and the need for appropriate policies, will increase as networked communication grows. Security and privacy of electronic communications are vital to the development of national and international information infrastructures. The Clipper Chip, or "Escrowed Encryption Standard" (EES) Initiative, raises fundamental policy issues that must be fully addressed and publicly debated. After reviewing the ACM study, which provides a balanced discussion of the issues, the U.S. Public Policy Committee of ACM (USACM) makes the following recommendations. 1. The USACM supports the development of public policies and technical standards for communications security in open forums in which all stakeholders -- government, industry, and the public -- participate. Because we are moving rapidly to open networks, a prerequisite for the success of those networks must be standards for which there is widespread consensus, including international acceptance. The USACM believes that communications security is too important to be left to secret processes and classified algorithms. We support the principles underlying the Computer Security Act of 1987, in which Congress expressed its preference for the development of open and unclassified security standards. 2. The USACM recommends that any encryption standard adopted by the U.S. government not place U.S. manufacturers at a disadvantage in the global market or adversely affect technological development within the United States. Few other nations are likely to adopt a standard that includes a classified algorithm and keys escrowed with the U.S. government. 3. The USACM supports changes in the process of developing Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) employed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This process is currently predicated on the use of such standards solely to support Federal procurement. Increasingly, the standards set through the FIPS process directly affect non-federal organizations and the public at large. In the case of the EES, the vast majority of comments solicited by NIST opposed the standard, but were openly ignored. The USACM recommends that the standards process be placed under the Administrative Procedures Act so that citizens may have the same opportunity to challenge government actions in the area of information processing standards as they do in other important aspects of Federal agency policy making. 4. The USACM urges the Administration at this point to withdraw the Clipper Chip proposal and to begin an open and public review of encryption policy. The escrowed encryption initiative raises vital issues of privacy, law enforcement, competitiveness and scientific innovation that must be openly discussed. 5. The USACM reaffirms its support for privacy protection and urges the administration to encourage the development of technologies and institutional practices that will provide real privacy for future users of the National Information Infrastructure.

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ACM Releases Crypto Study (fwd)
by NetSurfer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1994 16:34:47 +0000 From: "US ACM, DC Office" <usacm_dc(a)acm.org> To: "usacm_dc(a)acm.org" <distribution.list(a)acm.org> Subject: ACM Releases Crypto Study Association for Computing Machinery PRESS RELEASE __________________________________________________ Thursday, June 30, 1994 Contact: Joseph DeBlasi, ACM Executive Director (212) 869-7440 Dr. Stephen Kent, Panel Chair (617) 873-3988 Dr. Susan Landau, Panel Staff (413) 545-0263 COMPUTING SOCIETY RELEASES REPORT ON ENCRYPTION POLICY "CLIPPER CHIP" CONTROVERSY EXPLORED BY EXPERT PANEL WASHINGTON, DC A panel of experts convened by the nation's foremost computing society today released a comprehensive report on U.S. cryptography policy. The report, "Codes, Keys and Conflicts: Issues in U.S Crypto Policy," is the culmination of a ten-month review conducted by the panel of representatives of the computer industry and academia, government officials, and attorneys. The 50-page document explores the complex technical and social issues underlying the current debate over the Clipper Chip and the export control of information security technology. "With the development of the information superhighway, cryptography has become a hotly debated policy issue," according to Joseph DeBlasi, Executive Director of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), which convened the expert panel. "The ACM believes that this report is a significant contribution to the ongoing debate on the Clipper Chip and encryption policy. It cuts through the rhetoric and lays out the facts." Dr. Stephen Kent, Chief Scientist for Security Technology with the firm of Bolt Beranek and Newman, said that he was pleased with the final report. "It provides a very balanced discussion of many of the issues that surround the debate on crypto policy, and we hope that it will serve as a foundation for further public debate on this topic." The ACM report addresses the competing interests of the various stakeholders in the encryption debate -- law enforcement agencies, the intelligence community, industry and users of communications services. It reviews the recent history of U.S. cryptography policy and identifies key questions that policymakers must resolve as they grapple with this controversial issue. The ACM cryptography panel was chaired by Dr. Stephen Kent. Dr. Susan Landau, Research Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts, co-ordinated the work of the panel and did most of the writing. Other panel members were Dr. Clinton Brooks, Advisor to the Director, National Security Agency; Scott Charney, Chief of the Computer Crime Unit, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Dr. Dorothy Denning, Computer Science Chair, Georgetown University; Dr. Whitfield Diffie, Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems; Dr. Anthony Lauck, Corporate Consulting Engineer, Digital Equipment Corporation; Douglas Miller, Government Affairs Manager, Software Publishers Association; Dr. Peter Neumann, Principal Scientist, SRI International; and David Sobel, Legal Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center. Funding for the cryptography study was provided in part by the National Science Foundation. The ACM, founded in 1947, is a 85,000 member non-profit educational and scientific society dedicated to the development and use of information technology, and to addressing the impact of that technology on the world's major social challenges. For general information, contact ACM, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036. (212) 869-7440 (tel), (212) 869-0481 (fax). Information on accessing the report electronically will be posted soon in this newsgroup.

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Re: ANI 800 number
by werner＠mc.ab.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: khijol!erc(a)apple.com (Ed Carp [Sysadmin]) >Date: Fri, 1 Jul 1994 08:55:30 -0400 (EDT) > >> shamrock(a)netcom.com (Lucky Green) wrote: >> >> No, but you can use AT&T's test number - 1073214049889664 > >Too bad it doesn't work from Canada :( Doesn't seem to work for me in Cleveland, either. Maybe you have to have AT&T long distance for it to work. tw

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Re: (FWD) WHAT MOTIVATES FORWARDERS?
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, I for one like to see forwarded stuff. I have no desire to chase down likely references. Maybe I'm lazy for letting others filter stuff for me, or maybe you're lazy for not hitting "D". Quien sabe? It's you :-) Really, it's a question of degree and obscurity. A forward a day isn't too bad, a dozen a day is, especially if they're 600 lines of EFF press release which we see *everywhere*. However if the item was found in some out of the way place (like say a BITNET mailing list for librarians) then forwarding would be reasonable. But stuff from comp.org.eff.talk, sci.crypt, talk.politics.crypto and alt.security.pgp which are groups that most people interested in crypto will read, is a bit redundant. If you're not reading them, you *should* be. G

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Re: What motivates Crypto-folk?
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

sandfort(a)crl.com: > > Thanks for your thoughtful comments. However the message was > > not by me but by Sherry May <scmay(a)rschp2.anu.edu.au>. > > Sherry May, Tim's EVIL TWIN? (Or is it the other way 'round?) Sherry Mayo, not May -- <scmayo@....> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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USACM
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

sommerfeld(a)orchard.medford.ma.us (Bill Sommerfeld): > Who is the USACM? How big is it, who can join, and who has? I thought it was pretty clear that the USACM is the US Public Policy committee of the Association for Computing Machinery. This would suggest a branch of the ACM, which as you know is rather large. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Pedophiles everywhere!!!
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)imsi.com>: > > The drumbeat against all those anonymous pedophiles continues.... > > _Wall Street Journal_, 6/30/94 > > PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY by Walter S. Mossberg > > "Keeping Your Kids Away From Creeps As They Play Online" > > They aren't the only ones talking about it. I've seen three articles > about this in the past week. Even the Clipper article in the Economist, who should know better, that appeared a few weeks ago talked about pedophiles abounding in a Clipper-less world... I think the pedophilic possibilities of the Internet capture the imaginations of the media -- their deepest desires, perhaps. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Re: WHAT MOTIVATES FORWARDERS?
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

perobich(a)ingr.com: > IMHO a more serious and prevalent problem is the onslaught of spam > whenever EFF, CPSR, EPIC, NSA, or EIEIO issue press releases even > tangentially related to crypto. Not only do I usually get a copy in my > main inbox (since my filter doesn't catch it because it's not via I had cribbed about this a while ago, after I received 6 copies of an EFF release. I suggested that we agree on individuals responsible to forward posts from different sources. IAC the major ones - EFF, EPIC, CPSR... seem to have cypherpunks(a)toad.com on _their_ lists, and many of us subscribe to them independently. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Beware of keystroke capture tools!
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I want to remind folks of another _practical_ security weakness in using PGP or any other crypto program: keystroke capture utilities. These are small utilities (inits in Mac terms, perhaps TSRs in DOS terms, and who knows what in Windoze terms) that record all keyboard input. Very useful for recovering from crashes and such. These started in the Unix community, where I've forgotten the name ("history"?). In the Mac community, "Last Resort" has been doing this for a couple of years, and now several other packages offer similar capabilities (QuicKeys has "GhostWriter," or somesuch). Many's the time I've forgotten I had thse things enabled, only to find in my System Folder a folder marked "Saved Work" or the like, containing files of all the histories from each rebooting. The security risks are obvious: * passphrases (and perhaps even the original key generation process, in toto) are captured over and over again. * the stored history files may be tucked away in odd places on one's disk, on various backup tapes made, and so on. (Easily recoverable with search warrants.) * anyone with access to one's machine (a snoopy coworker, an employer, a spouse, even an NSA black bag job) can insert this harmless-looking utility and then pick up the results later. There are commands to bypass such keystroke capture--specifically intended to head off these breaches--but most people will forget sometimes, and may not even know the program is installed. (And there are at least 3 of these for the Mac, so confusion is increased.) This is a well-known security concern, but I thought it important to mention. --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: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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