December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Clipper = Bobbitized Crypto
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 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. Consistency with one's own philosophy, huh? I dont see much of that in liberal politics, although maybe to be fair it should be applied to politics in general. Let me cite some examples: 1.) Anti-gun politicians who would regulate away the average citizen's right to self-defense with firearms, but only after they are assured of Secret Service protection, or private bodyguards for themselves. IOW, a level of personal security not affordable to their constituency. Clipper is the personal security equivalent of having to call 911 when threatened and patiently wait for the police to show up to protect you, vs. having a small army of Secret Service agents on call 24 hours a day to spring into action to defend you. 2.) Politicians who accept campaign contributions from teachers' unions, the National Education Association, etc., who vote down any legislation designed to give the average citizen a choice in their child's education, other than the entrenched public school monopoly. Yet, most of these same people put their own kids in PRIVATE schools, financed from tax dollars by the salaries that we pay them. 3.) Politicians who already employ strong crypto, unavailable to the general public, who want to limit the rest of us to "Clipper". All three points apply directly to Clinton, but not exclusively to him, of course. You know, there's just something about the name "Clipper" that conjures up pictures of Lorena Bobbitt... Maybe that's what Clipper really is ... Bobbitized crypto... <g> Anyway, back to your point, the average "liberal on the street" may indeed be stuck with Clipper. And as long as Washington DC is dominated by a single party with a liberal bent, maybe they can convince the rest of their "fellow travellers" that "Big Brother loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life", and thus to accept Clipper and its host of problems. But let liberals lose control of this country, and then watch them change their tune, when the Big Brother technology they put in place is now in the hands of "the other side". Does anyone remember 20+ years ago when the roles were reversed? It was the liberals who were protesting wiretaps, etc. by the Nixon administration? Putting a liberal in the White House somehow "blesses" these same things?

1 0

PGPKey for vox.hacktic.nl
by usura＠vox.hacktic.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This is a 1000 bits PGP key for the remailers at vox.hacktic.nl, it will be valid for the month July. The 512 bits PGP will remain valid for "general" use, the 1000 bits KEY will be changed every month. - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6 for VoX Labz. mQCpAi4VnJsAAAED6J6slxXd/i/gckEHHykILgG9MnItD4pTnI2qDbN7JS7/RTTQ CBBzX1OBRepf8L58UuNaLSpwU1wAqgsyxdhtnvHJKTDGwDN6eRthpkPXigmIy1/H uvHTci9snnOvINjWMii44Osrc3g3SNAg481bi8PQP/8uHU6bRukx7VRlAQCAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAbQtVm9YIFJlbWFpbGluZyBTZXJ2 aWNlIDxyZW1haWxAdm94LmhhY2t0aWMubmw+tDBbS0VZIHZhbGlkIHRpbGwgMTk5 NC0zMS0wNyAyMy41OS41OSBHTVQgKyAwMjowMF0= =yb/k - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 for VoX Labz. iQCVAgUBLhWk2lnfdBSNVpE9AQHC4AP/WdhPEsrEG9dErRyDlJy+Pfgvwf1bD9wC Iv/33qJAcydeNYxfHn7ikW9NdZYFiyFwrHXGW5Q0+tpxtbl9aiIqWF7vFqntRodP hkFyEua3+tI0bd/fgBT5YHbyFJOdol+52aRgJgy58CUjTFFA4qASS1GbdMvSzLqt iQ5O4POCd2w= =wcCa -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Exit! Stage Left. Alex de Joode <usura(a)vox.hacktic.nl>

1 0

MacPGP Bug
by fhalper＠pilot.njin.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I friend of mine has shown me a bug in MacPGP that allows someone to come along after you have decrypted a message, check "Recycle Passwords" in the options menu and proceed to decrypt any encrypted messages you have. Even if you didn't have "Recycle passwords" selected before you decrypted the message, PGP will recycle the passwords. I assume it exists in all versions. Reuben Halper P.S. I am going away so I have to unsubscribe from the list for a month or so. Please send any comments to Reuben8878(a)aol.com

1 0

Devil's Advocate (again)
by Anonymous User 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I notice the argument against "why do you need crypto... are you doing something ILLEGAL" is that the argument that "why don't you want a camera in your house... are you doing something ILLEGAL". This is good, but where in the Constitution does it say that people can have crypto not regulated by the Government? Would this be under the First Amendment of free speech? Again, I am playing Devil's Advocate here. ------------ To respond to the sender of this message, send mail to remailer(a)soda.berkeley.edu, starting your message with the following 8 lines: :: Response-Key: ideaclipper ====Encrypted-Sender-Begin==== MI@```%IS^P;+]AB?X9TW6\8WR:"P&2%))6DK&_"'9H7Z#TP^%/-Q).;<[88Q ME30D:-V2"G!=KV&$CCA?;+(6+E.#?2%P`0:V-J'.#NA:J^2@,\;GUI)DG5,O %CR6`-HX` ====Encrypted-Sender-End====

14 20

Cypherpunks of the world unite!
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Michael Wilson <0005514706(a)mcimail.com>: > There is a good reason why revolutionaries in very poor nations tend to > espouse socialist or communist rhetoric--those are political systems that can > raise the quality of life considerably and immediately, I see governments as representing the collective will of society, responsible for only those things that are best achieved through everyone's cooperation. It is now fashionable to talk about the Asian way -- subjugating freedom to prosperity. This is of course bunkum, freedom is an ideal and is universal. The way to get to that may differ from society to society, particularly, as Michael says, in poor nations. It isn't necessary to have a strong state to survive; India, with a similar standard of living in 1950, has been democratic with more or less regular, free and fair elections. Contrary to popular perception, India has been no more 'socialist' than many European countries such as France, with stockmarkets and large state-owned enterprises. It is naturally more difficult to control crime or rising population here than in China, where petty thieves and corrupt officials are frequently executed. Freedom is a right equally applicable everywhere, whatever the political, social or economic situation. Any technology that promotes it is important for the whole world. Cypherpunks of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your escrowed keychains! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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

2 1

PASSWORD DIFFICULTIE
by bmorris＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com KK> 22 words, a good start. But all will appear in a short dictionary KK> list, 4 gramatical sentences, sentences with related meaning. Not so But will a dictionary attack work when the passphrase is multiple words? Because then it would have to try all the words in the dictionary grouped with other worde, and the permutations thus become huge. i.e. "spinachwalrusgazebo" is three words, and to me, would seem immune from a dictionary attack, because the attack only uses single words. Is this right? * RM 1.4 B0037 *

2 1

Secure Device and Secure Drive problems
by VACCINIA＠UNCVX1.OIT.UNC.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have been having quite a bit of difficulty with my encrypted drive mangling files. After getting secure drive 1.3d installed on my hard drive, I find that various files are being corrupted and many times after accessing the drive a bunch of crosslinked files are present. The TSR was being loaded into high memory (login /s was included in my autoexec.bat and safe mode was on after the boot); I use Novell DOS 7.0. I had to uninstall the encryption on the drive and am thinking of trying Secure Device to see if the problem persists. Has anyone had any problems such as this? Any suggestions would be welcome as I desire to keep PGP on the encrypted drive. Encrypted floppies do not seem to be a problem (good thing I keep an encrypted floppy backup of my PGP files :-) Does anyone know where I can get a utility to decompress the secdevice.arj file? Is it the same as .arc files? Thanks. Vaccinia(a)uncvx1.oit.unc.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLhXv0D2paOMjHHAhAQF3UQQAzOFteMznnS/l+pzLRyJaCkpabKnJu9f8 750rHEEXSdIUJRbx7xUn8/V5zzcc0oeBYqbRSsNdm0JmuLGPG3dHW9LFR+vzFnbu oV+3Gqf+RAuMI1W3piCfDKjzsIfRYFlzn0dAKPsc6JIqCBKq5nMyl/m5WUvt8WFa 5qgbCg1a5+k= =UYEQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: PASSWORD DIFFICULTIE
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

bmorris(a)netcom.com wrote: >i.e. "spinachwalrusgazebo" is three words, and to me, would seem immune >from a dictionary attack, because the attack only uses single words. Is >this right? Wrong. Read chapter 7 of Schneier's Applied Cryptography, a dictionary attack is richer than just throwing a dictionary at it. There is no reason not to try all combinations of several words from smallish dictionaries. Those three words would likely show up in a 4,000-word dictionary. A 1-in-4000 choice is 12-bits. You chose three words, I count about 36-bits there then. Generously add another few bits for capitalization and spacing, and you are still at or under the 40-bits the NSA feels comfortable with. (The fact that you would hash this out to 128-bits should not confuse us. A hash function cannot make up entropy.) How many of us have dreamed up wild login passwords (in our youths, perhaps, but we were more savvy than most youths or adults), only to years later read David Klein's recipe for an extended dictionary crack and realize that he would get many of your "clever" passwords? Same thing for pass-phrases: clever people will come up with clever techniques, so only trust a cold count of random bits. The phrase "spinachwalrusgazebo" is worth no more than 40-bits, is weak, and yet is stronger than the keys most normal people will pick. Passwords are hard to choose. -kb, the Kent who is on a bit-counting harangue. -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 31:15 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994! P.S. When earlier comparing a million encryptions to 10-bits, I obviously meant 20-bits--either that or I was being very conservative. :)

1 0

Dr. Dobbs Dev. Update 1/5 July 94 & Schneier
by NetSurfer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Once again DDDU has an encryption News Brief re the Standards & clipper, and Bruce Schneier has an article on Eurocrypt '94 with some highlights from the same. As he is on the list (yes?) perhaps he might upload it here... -NetSurfer #include standard.disclaimer >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> == = = |James D. Wilson |V.PGP 2.4: 512/E12FCD 1994/03/17 > " " " |P. O. Box 15432 | finger for full PGP key > " " /\ " |Honolulu, HI 96830 |====================================> \" "/ \" |Serendipitous Solutions| Also NetSurfer(a)sersol.com > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

6 5

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

17 Dec '03

Actually, no, it's not really a forward of anything at all. It's just that this forwarding business is *really* getting out of hand. For Christ's sake guys, if *you* can read stuff on other groups, credit us with the intelligence of being able to find it too. If this keeps up we'll have the who 20Mb/day of usenet funnelling through cypherpunks. How about in future just saying "Hey, anyone who doesn't know about talk.politics.crypto, go have a look at it on usenet. By the way there's an interesting thread going on just now about blah blah blah."? G

5 4