December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Message Havens (fwd)
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Douglas asked me to forward this to the list] > I disagree. The only resource that will be hit is the message haven > (unlike say every computer in the world that carries the certain > usenet group you have chosen to use as a communications vehicle). > Geez, think of like a place that offers anonymous ftp. It's resources > are hit, but I don't buy the "massive load on net.resources". You think so? Hm. I'm just pulling numbers out of the air here, but... Let's say the cypherpunk dream is realized, and everyone on the net uses anonymous mail through a message haven. I believe there are 20 000 000 InterNet users right now. Lets say each person sends one piece of mail every day, and also checks the message haven each day. Each day there are twenty million new messages on the message haven. These are downloaded by twenty million people each day. That's 400 trillion messages that the message haven must send each day. Let's say the average size of a message is 1Kb. This gives a total of 3 Petabits a day. At 86400 seconds in a day, this requires a bandwidth of 30 Terabits/second. This is, of course, far beyond practicality. I'm allso being a little silly here, assuming there is only one message haven for the world. With distributed havens the load on each haven decreases. However, the load on each recieving terminal is the same. Each terminal must process 20 Gigabytes of mail to look for messages to the user. Maybe that'll be practical in a few years, but then again in a few years there will be more internet users. > This scheme is precisely what I described earlier! The two users > agree on what to name/tag the file, and that's how they get messages > to each other. The problem is Bob can't just retreive that one file > (if he is concerned about traffic analysis), so he can get them all so > a watcher learns nothing. You have suggested downloading a smaller > portion of the available message base instead of the whole thing. I'm sorry, I must not have read your post carefully enough. I understood there to be no tag outside the encryption wrapper. I thought you were implying attempting decryption of every post on the haven until one worked. My appologies.

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Re: Message Havens
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Let's say the cypherpunk dream is realized, and everyone on the net > uses anonymous mail through a message haven. I believe there are Well, if the cypherpunks "dream" is realized then there won't be a need for message havens since anonymous mail will be accepted net-wide. People wouldn't go after anonymous remailer operators because somebody harrassed another person. But back to the problem at hand... Your analysis is interesting, but so far fetched I'm not going to worry about it. I mean, yes, if the 5 billion people of earth decide to do this, or decide to call each other, or decide to send each other snail mail, everything will collapse. Considering this as a worst case, in my opinion, is a waste for right now, and will deter useful work before it even starts. Planning for this is about as useful as worrying about all 20 million net users will access the same Mosaic page, the same gopher site, the same ftp site, etc. I just don't expect traffic to be that heavy. And I base it on personal experience from running anonymous remailers. Plus, it is ONLY necessary to retreive all messages if you don't want it know who you are communicating with. If you don't care if it is known you communicate with some psuedonym, then you don't have to get all the messages. The primary goal is to not mail messages out since that is where most the complaints against anonymous remailers lie. -- Karl L. Barrus: klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu keyID: 5AD633 hash: D1 59 9D 48 72 E9 19 D5 3D F3 93 7E 81 B5 CC 32 "One man's mnemonic is another man's cryptography" - my compilers prof discussing file naming in public directories

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MacPGP interface project
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1) Get source code for MacPGP2.3aV1.1 and alter it to accept the Clipboard as an input/output option, which it already can do, if operated manually. Till then we will spool the Clipboard to disk and have MacPGP2.3aV1.1 act only on files. MacPGP2.3aV1.1 was recently released in Germany, and will act as our temporary model crypto engine. <- This has proved a serious set back. I would design around MacPGP2.3 v.1.0.5 (or whatever) The V1.1 source code doesn't look like it will be around real soon. Cut your losses, and work on v1.0.5 -uni- (Dark)

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Re: MacPGP interface project
by Richard Johnson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- From the keyboard of: Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)access.digex.net> > I would design around MacPGP2.3 v.1.0.5 (or whatever) > The V1.1 source code doesn't look like it will be around real soon. Can someone fill the rest of us in on the true story behind this? Why is the (copylefted) source code to 2.3a V1.1 not available? I figure there must be a reason, but I'm all out of guesses. Richard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.4 iQCVAgUBLdQuHPobez3wRbTBAQHqOwQAm56N4SKwIA4Rnjr207g/w5wcA99/u7AB yAEzBicn1lHd7uFFL8WvAEMBF0tNwBBPZENtlQ/3ql3rwCien0gLbFwJD0/j/qUC sntCha/7qvbDj5WXnOLICDzZBtS+gw6zno1oE2ne0wbEfW6u95ttzNEmh/Xxeche soYjfahyZ+I= =ybK+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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rec.guns Cross-Post
by anonymous＠extropia.wimsey.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Cross-posted from rec.guns regarding the banning of remailered posts] + Date: 11 May 94 14:32:13 + From: john.nieder(a)tigerteam.org (John Nieder) + To: gun-control(a)cs.umd.edu [rec.guns] + Subj: [ANON]: Yes or Goodbye! ========================================================= "The Federalist Papers were anonymous posts." -- Anon. ========================================================= I'm so angry I can barely enter this... This question of anon posts is currently the subject of conflict in numerous RTKBA net-venues, and I am sorry to see it come up here. As someone who has carefully followed the encryption/net-privacy/anonymity movement for the past three years, I feel that I am qualified to comment on the issue. To get to the point, _there are no logical arguments against anon posts_. ALL the arguments against them I have heard boil down to one of two roots: <1> Technical ignorance. <2> An adolescent prejudice that anon posting isn't macho. That's _it_. I can't dignify them further. To elaborate: <technical ignorance - short course> "Real" Names and accounts aren't. Fictitious and virtually untraceable "real" accounts and net identities are trivially generated, particularly with the increasing number of other commercial nets and computer Bulletin Board Systems linked to Internet. Anyone can produce a "good" account in about as much time as it took me to write this. If anyone is bent on making trouble on this or any other group, there is no practical barrier to their efforts, least of all by the banning of remailed posts. Generating new "real" accounts is often easier than using remailers. At least a message from a remailer _says_ it's an anonymous post, and the reader may killfile that From: field if he has an anti-anon bias. "Accountability" is generally illusory anyway, as anyone knows who has tried to silence the many legendary Net Nuisances who have abused Internet to an extent beyond that which we are likely to encounter in rec.guns. If troublemakers want to post mischief, even under their own names, there is very little that can be done about it. If you doubt this, consider the infamous Prodigy "Vito" case. They'll be back. In short, if you think a "real accounts only" policy is any protection against _anything_, you're just dreaming, plain and simple. Further, _remailers provide needed non-anonymizing functions for some users_. Though the parochial Internet mindset assumes that all users are on complex institutional Unix systems, this is simply no longer true; many users are on private home computers, linked through a wide variety of host systems, each with its own limitations. For example: In posting this message, I am limited by the (non-configurable) host software to headers containing only To:, From: and Subject: fields. It is impossible for me to Cc: a netmail reply to a post's author, or include Reference:, Comment:, Reply-To: or any other header field. This is frustrating, but by using some remailers for my reply, I may include these and other standard header fields for enhanced function. I do not use the remailer to anonymize, but merely to post more efficiently - I will include a Reply-To: field with my name in it as well as my sig. Currently, such posts are rejected from rec.guns. There are many other secondary functions for remailers. Use your own imagination. <"Duhhhh...but I betcha _John Wayne_ wouldn't use a remailer!"> A competent explanation of "anonymized digital reputation" as concept is beyond the purview of rec.guns, but I will refer those interested in it to the cypherpunks(a)toad.com mailing list. Put on your thinking cap, though, as the list principals are smart boys who'll leave you in the dust if you can't keep up. Anyone who wishes a better understanding of the purpose of the anonymity movement should monitor the list for a while. But so what? _Ultimately, all posts stand or fall on their internal merits, no matter what name - if any - is on them_. Ego and identity is utterly irrelevant, or should be. In these anon-post arguments over the past few years, I have noticed those who most oppose anon posts are consistently the same persons who habitually engage in flamewars, ego battles and rants. This cannot be a coincidence. As I have already demonstrated above, remailed posts pose no "threat" to anything beyond what is already present from falsely generated "real" accounts, but the urge to personalize and invest ego (however illusorily) in posts dies hard. The anonymous post has a long and noble history; it says, "Here is a thought - consider it on it's merits, irrespective of how 'important' or obscure its author is." Further, there are legitimate reasons for wishing anonymity in any case. There are many persons whose situations are such that participation in politically-sensitive newsgroups and lists is unwise. On ca-firearms, there was an anonymous poster who was a policeman in a highly politicized, anti-gun PD. His participation on an activist RTKBA list would jeopardize his job (remember Leroy Pyle). Would anyone braying on here about the un-machoness of anon posting wish to support his family when he gets fired because of "manly" non-anon policy preferences? I thought not...funny how that works. "Caution is not cowardice and carelessness is not courage." There is no upside to being personally conspicuous in dangerous political waters. If you want to stick your neck out for no good reason, go right ahead, but don't impose that pointless risk on everyone else just because you don't know any better. < MAKE ENEMIES FAST! > Though the political and civil rights issues at stake in the privacy movement have probably never seriously crossed the minds of 95% of the participants here, they exist nonetheless, and are remarkably related to the RTKBA battle. _There are no more important natural allies to the RTKBA movement on Internet than the computer privacy advocates_. There is substantial overlap in these groups, and the ill-informed banning of remailer use in RTKBA net forums is stupidly antagonistic and insulting to the best friends we have...and right now, we need all the friends we can get, especially ones who are experienced and organized activists in their own right. Such anon codewriters and advocates as Tim May and most other principal encryption/anti-Clipper/remailer activists are vehemently pro-RTKBA, and make their support known at every opportunity. I find it embarrassing that "well-meaning" but ignorant RTKBA list and newsgroup maintainers such as "Magnum" and Jeff Chan have directly insulted them so grievously, without a second's thought or serious consideration. < "It's _my_ list! If you don't like it LEAVE!" > I intend to. I believe in the RTBKA because I dislike folks who compulsively want to dominate others by force of authority and who wish to ban everything they can't understand, or fear because they can't control. The anti-gunners and the anti-privacy people are the _same_. Usually, they are actually the same people (check voting records in Congress), but in any case exhibit identical mindsets. When another user left ca-firearms(a)shell.portal.com in protest of the anti-anon policy, imposed there not because of any problems caused by anon posts but rather "on principle," he received netmail from two anti-anon users which he forwarded to me when I left the list. Neither one had the least idea of the actual issues and technical considerations enumerated in this message, which was not a surprise. What I found truly sickening was that one idiot went on for his entire post about how a list had to be a "benevolent dictatorship," (oxymoron unnoted) and that anon posts somehow threatened the "order" of the list, and that anon posters were ungrateful and soforth. It was nothing more than a catalogue of irrational bullyings by a control-addict. I do not want to align myself with people like that. Sorry. If anon posts are forbidden on rec.guns - or ca-firearms, or anywhere else - I'm leaving and encourage others to do likewise. |%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%| | <john.nieder(a)tigerteam.org> * CP2A * PGP Key # E27937 on all servers | |-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=| |"If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude | | better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in | | peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the | | hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may | |posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams, 1776| |=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-| |BOYCOTT: Pepsico <KFC - Taco Bell - Frito-Lay - Pepsi-Cola> & Gillette| |%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%|

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IGNORE-NEON
by ADAM GERSTEIN, _THE_ MACGURU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Neon- Here's my pgp key, and I will send the files to the appropriate people. Adam P.S.- What's the best way to contact you? the Alt.? newsgroup you mentioned? -=-=-=-=-=-=- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQBVAgUBLc0c/AT73QJlKKVlAQGV5QIAmusRN0C58o/ScjA1/V7Mq77XurUi3Ktk XZfUXkk6yLJtxtKj5kIddxMiJISfRLbNFvKkAv7LFbYDAdI0RYpnxg== =vEVx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -=-=-=-=-=- God's last message to his creation: "We apologize for the inconvenience" -D. Adams

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Is anyone archiving the list, for those who miss during the interruption?
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, I got bumped off the list like everyone else, and I assume there will be some useful discussion going on between now and when the mail gods reinstate me, on topics like PGP 2.5 and how the list was hosed. Is anybody saving these somewhere that I could ftp or otherwise retrieve? Thanks; Bill Stewart wcslists(a)anchor.att.com # Bill Stewart AT&T Global Information Solutions, aka NCR Corp # 6870 Koll Center Parkway, Pleasanton CA, 94566 Phone 1-510-484-6204 fax-6399 # email bill.stewart(a)pleasantonca.ncr.com billstewart(a)attmail.com # ViaCrypt PGP Key IDs 384/C2AFCD 1024/9D6465

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Crippler Article in Wired
by Justin Lister 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I found this article on the WIRED www document server, it will appear in a coming issue of wired. NSA's Chief Counsel to Appear Online Stewart A. Baker, Chief Counsel for the National Security Agency and featured writer in WIRED 2.06 will host a Q&A session on the Clipper Chip. He will appear on America Online in Center Stage (from AOL type keyword: "center stage") on Thursday May 26, 1994, from 7-9 p.m. EST. Baker is the NSA's top lawyer and supports the Clipper Initiative. He worked briefly as Deputy General Counsel of the Education Department under President Jimmy Carter. His article "Don't Worry Be Happy" refutes seven myths of key escrow encryption and is a WIRED Exclusive. Don't Worry Be Happy Why Clipper Is Good For You By Stewart A. Baker, Chief Counsel for the NSA With all the enthusiasm of Baptist ministers turning their Sunday pulpits over to the Devil, the editors of WIRED have offered me the opportunity to respond to some of the urban folklore that has grown up around key escrow encryption -- also known as the Clipper Chip. Recently the Clinton administration has announced that federal agencies will be able to buy a new kind of encryption hardware that is sixteen million times stronger than the existing federal standard known as DES. But this new potency comes with a caveat. If one of these new encryption devices is used, for example, to encode a phone conversation that is subject to a lawful government wiretap, the government can get access to that device's encryption keys. Separate parts of each key are held by two independent "escrow agents," who will release keys only to authorized agencies under safeguards approved by the attorney general. Private use of the new encryption hardware is welcome but not required. That's a pretty modest proposal. Its critics, though, have generated at least seven myths about key escrow encryption that deserve answers. MYTH NUMBER ONE: Key escrow encryption will create a brave new world of government intrusion into the privacy of Americans. Opponents of key escrow encryption usually begin by talking about government invading the privacy of American citizens. None of us likes the idea of the government intruding willy-nilly on communications that are meant to be private. But the key escrow proposal is not about increasing government's authority to invade the privacy of its citizens. All that key escrow does is preserve the government's current ability to conduct wiretaps under existing authorities. Even if key escrow were the only form of encryption available, the world would look only a little different from the one we live in now. In fact, it's the proponents of widespread unbreakable encryption who want to create a brave new world, one in which all of us -- crooks included -- have a guarantee that the government can't tap our phones. Yet these proponents have done nothing to show us that the new world they seek will really be a better one. In fact, even a civil libertarian might prefer a world where wiretaps are possible. If we want to catch and convict the leaders of criminal organizations, there are usually only two good ways to do it. We can "turn" a gang member -- get him to testify against his leaders. Or we can wiretap the leaders as they plan the crime. I once did a human rights report on the criminal justice system in El Salvador. I didn't expect the Salvadorans to teach me much about human rights. But I learned that, unlike the US, El Salvador greatly restricts the testimony of "turned" co-conspirators. Why? Because the co-conspirator is usually "turned" either by a threat of mistreatment or by an offer to reduce his punishment. Either way, the process raises moral questions -- and creates an incentive for false accusations. Wiretaps have no such potential for coercive use. The defendant is convicted or freed on the basis of his own, unarguable words. In addition, the world will be a safer place if criminals cannot take advantage of a ubiquitous, standardized encryption infrastructure that is immune from any conceivable law enforcement wiretap. Even if you're worried about illegal government taps, key escrow reinforces the existing requirement that every wiretap and every decryption must be lawfully authorized. The key escrow system means that proof of authority to tap must be certified and audited, so that illegal wiretapping by a rogue prosecutor or police officer is, as a practical matter, impossible. MYTH NUMBER TWO: Unreadable encryption is the key to our future liberty. Of course there are people who aren't prepared to trust the escrow agents, or the courts that issue warrants, or the officials who oversee the system, or anybody else for that matter. Rather than rely on laws to protect us, they say, let's make wiretapping impossible; then we'll be safe no matter who gets elected. This sort of reasoning is the long-delayed revenge of people who couldn't go to Woodstock because they had too much trig homework. It reflects a wide -- and kind of endearing -- streak of romantic high-tech anarchism that crops up throughout the computer world. The problem with all this romanticism is that its most likely beneficiaries are predators. Take for example the campaign to distribute PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") encryption on the Internet. Some argue that widespread availability of this encryption will help Latvian freedom fighters today and American freedom fighters tomorrow. Well, not quite. Rather, one of the earliest users of PGP was a high-tech pedophile in Santa Clara, California. He used PGP to encrypt files that, police suspect, include a diary of his contacts with susceptible young boys using computer bulletin boards all over the country. "What really bothers me," says Detective Brian Kennedy of the Sacramento, California, Sheriff's Department, "is that there could be kids out there who need help badly, but thanks to this encryption, we'll never reach them." If unescrowed encryption becomes ubiquitous, there will be many more stories like this. We can't afford as a society to protect pedophiles and criminals today just to keep alive the far-fetched notion that some future tyrant will be brought down by guerrillas wearing bandoleers and pocket protectors and sending PGP-encrypted messages to each other across cyberspace. MYTH NUMBER THREE: Encryption is the key to preserving privacy in a digital world. Even people who don't believe that they are likely to be part of future resistance movements have nonetheless been persuaded that encryption is the key to preserving privacy in a networked, wireless world, and that we need strong encryption for this reason. This isn't completely wrong, but it is not an argument against Clipper. If you want to keep your neighbors from listening in on your cordless phone, if you want to keep unscrupulous competitors from stealing your secrets, even if you want to keep foreign governments from knowing your business plans, key escrow encryption will provide all the security you need, and more. But I can't help pointing out that encryption has been vastly oversold as a privacy protector. The biggest threats to our privacy in a digital world come not from what we keep secret but from what we reveal willingly. We lose privacy in a digital world because it becomes cheap and easy to collate and transmit data, so that information you willingly gave a bank to get a mortgage suddenly ends up in the hands of a business rival or your ex-spouse's lawyer. Restricting these invasions of privacy is a challenge, but it isn't a job for encryption. Encryption can't protect you from the misuse of data you surrendered willingly. What about the rise of networks? Surely encryption can help prevent password attacks like the recent Internet virus, or the interception of credit card numbers as they're sent from one digital assistant to another? Well, maybe. In fact, encryption is, at best, a small part of network security. The real key to network security is making sure that only the right people get access to particular data. That's why a digital signature is so much more important to future network security than encryption. If everyone on a net has a unique identifier that others cannot forge, there's no need to send credit card numbers -- and so nothing to intercept. And if everyone has a digital signature, stealing passwords off the Net is pointless. That's why the Clinton administration is determined to put digital signature technology in the public domain. It's part of a strategy to improve the security of the information infrastructure in ways that don't endanger government's ability to enforce the law. MYTH NUMBER FOUR: Key escrow will never work. Crooks won't use it if it's voluntary. There must be a secret plan to make key escrow encryption mandatory. This is probably the most common and frustrating of all the myths that abound about key escrow. The administration has said time and again that it will not force key escrow on manufacturers and companies in the private sector. In a Catch-22 response, critics then insist that if key escrow isn't mandated it won't work. That misunderstands the nature of the problem we are trying to solve. Encryption is available today. But it isn't easy for criminals to use; especially in telecommunications. Why? Because as long as encryption is not standardized and ubiquitous, using encryption means buying and distributing expensive gear to all the key members of the conspiracy. Up to now only a few criminals have had the resources, sophistication, and discipline to use specialized encryption systems. What worries law enforcement agencies --what should worry them -- is a world where encryption is standardized and ubiquitous: a world where anyone who buys an US$80 phone gets an "encrypt" button that interoperates with everyone else's; a world where every fax machine and every modem automatically encodes its transmissions without asking whether that is necessary. In such a world, every criminal will gain a guaranteed refuge from the police without lifting a finger. The purpose of the key escrow initiative is to provide an alternative form of encryption that can meet legitimate security concerns without building a web of standardized encryption that shuts law enforcement agencies out. If banks and corporations and government agencies buy key escrow encryption, criminals won't get a free ride. They'll have to build their own systems -- as they do now. And their devices won't interact with the devices that much of the rest of society uses. As one of my friends in the FBI puts it, "Nobody will build secure phones just to sell to the Gambino family." In short, as long as legitimate businesses use key escrow, we can stave off a future in which acts of terror and organized crime are planned with impunity on the public telecommunications system. Of course, whenever we say that, the critics of key escrow trot out their fifth myth: MYTH NUMBER FIVE: The government is interfering with the free market by forcing key escrow on the private sector. Industry should be left alone to develop and sell whatever form of encryption succeeds in the market. In fact, opponents of key escrow fear that businesses may actually prefer key escrow encryption. Why? Because the brave new world that unreadable encryption buffs want to create isn't just a world with communications immunity for crooks. It's a world of uncharted liability. What if a company supplies unreadable encryption to all its employees, and a couple of them use it to steal from customers or to encrypt customer data and hold it hostage? As a lawyer, I can say it's almost certain that the customers will sue the company that supplied the encryption to its employees. And that company in turn will sue the software and hardware firms that built a "security" system without safeguards against such an obvious abuse. The only encryption system that doesn't conjure up images of a lawyers' feeding frenzy is key escrow. But there's a second and even more compelling reason why the key escrow initiative can't fairly be characterized as interfering with private enterprise: The encryption market has been more or less created and sustained by government. Much of the market for encryption devices is in the public sector, and much of the encryption technology now in widespread use in the private sector was funded, perfected, or endorsed by the federal government. And not by accident, either. Good encryption is expensive. It isn't just a matter of coming up with a strong algorithm, although testing the strength of an algorithm can be enormously time-consuming. The entire system must be checked for bugs and weaknesses, a laborious and unglamorous process. Generally, only the federal government has been willing to pay what it costs to develop secure communications gear. That's because we can't afford to have our adversaries reading our military and diplomatic communications. That's led to a common pattern. First, the government develops, tests, or perfects encryption systems for itself. Then the private sector drafts along behind the government, adopting government standards on the assumption that if it's good enough for the government's information, it's good enough to protect industry's. As encryption technology gets cheaper and more common, though, we face the real prospect that the federal government's own research, its own standards, its own purchases will help create the future I described earlier -- one in which criminals use ubiquitous encryption to hide their activities. How can anyone expect the standard-setting arms of government to use their power to destroy the capabilities of law enforcement -- especially at a time when the threat of crime and terror seems to be rising dramatically? By adopting key escrow encryption instead, the federal government has simply made the reasonable judgment that its own purchases will reflect all of society's values, not just the single-minded pursuit of total privacy. So where does this leave industry, especially those companies that don't like either the 1970s-vintage DES or key escrow? It leaves them where they ought to be -- standing on their own two feet. Companies that want to develop and sell new forms of unescrowed encryption won't be able to sell products that bear the federal seal of approval. They won't be able to ride piggyback on federal research efforts. And they won't be able to sell a single unreadable encryption product to both private and government customers. Well, so what? If companies want to develop and sell competing, unescrowed systems to other Americans, if they insist on hastening a brave new world of criminal immunity, they can still do so -- as long as they're willing to use their own money. That's what the free market is all about. Of course, a free market in the US doesn't mean freedom to export encryption that may damage US national security. As our experience in World War II shows, encryption is the kind of technology that wins and loses wars. With that in mind, we must be careful about exports of encryption. This isn't the place for a detailed discussion of controls, but one thing should be clear: They don't limit the encryption that Americans can buy or use. The government allows Americans to take even the most sophisticated encryption abroad for their own protection. Nor do controls require that software or hardware companies "dumb down" their US products. Software firms have complained that it's inconvenient to develop a second encryption scheme for export, but they already have to make changes from one country to the next -- in language, alphabet, date systems, and handwriting recognition, to take just a few examples. And they'd still have to develop multiple encryption programs even if the US abolished export controls, because a wide variety of national restrictions on encryption are already in place in countries from Europe to Asia. MYTH NUMBER SIX: The National Security Agency is a spy agency; it has no business worrying about domestic encryption policy. Since the National Security Agency has an intelligence mission, its role in helping to develop key escrow encryption is usually treated as evidence that key escrow must be bad security. In reality, though, NSA has two missions. It does indeed gather intelligence, in part by breaking codes. But it has a second, and oddly complementary, mission. It develops the best possible encryption for the US government's classified information. With code breakers and code makers all in the same agency, NSA has more expertise in cryptography than any other entity in the country, public or private. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that NSA had the know-how to develop an encryption technique that provides users great security without compromising law enforcement access. To say that NSA shouldn't be involved in this issue is to say the government should try to solve this difficult technical and social problem with both hands tied behind its back. MYTH NUMBER SEVEN: This entire initiative was studied in secret and implemented without any opportunity for industry or the public to be heard. This is an old objection, and one that had some force in April of 1993, when the introduction of a new AT&T telephone encryption device required that the government move more quickly than it otherwise would have. Key escrow was a new idea at that time, and it was reasonable for the public to want more details and a chance to be heard before policies were set in concrete. But since April 1993, the public and industry have had many opportunities to express their views. The government's computer security and privacy advisory board held several days of public hearings. The National Security Council met repeatedly with industry groups. The Justice Department held briefings for congressional staff on its plans for escrow procedures well in advance of its final decision. And the Commerce Department took public comment on the proposed key escrow standard for 60 days. After all this consultation, the government went forward with key escrow, not because the key escrow proposal received a universally warm reception, but because none of the proposal's critics was able to suggest a better way to accommodate society's interests in both privacy and law enforcement. Unless somebody comes up with one, key escrow is likely to be around for quite a while. That's because the only alternative being proposed today is for the government to design or endorse encryption systems that will cripple law enforcement when the technology migrates -- as it surely will -- to the private sector. And that alternative is simply irresponsible. For more information on the Clipper standard you can access WIRED's Clipper archive via the following WIRED Online services. WIRED Infodroid e-mail server: Send e-mail to infodroid(a)wired.com containing the words "send clipper/index" on a single line inside the message body. WIRED Gopher: Gopher to gopher.wired.com and select "Clipper Archive." WIRED on World Wide Web: http://www.wired.com select "Clipper Archive." WIRED on America Online: The keyword is WIRED. WIRED on the Well: Type "go wired" from any "OK" prompt. Stewart A. Baker is the National Security Agency's top lawyer. He worked briefly as Deputy General Counsel of the Education Department under President Jimmy Carter, and he practiced international law at Steptoe & Johnson, in Washington, DC. He has been at the NSA since 1992. WIRED Online Copyright Notice Copyright 1993,4 Ventures USA Ltd. All rights reserved. This article may be redistributed provided that the article and this notice remain intact. This article may not under any circumstances be resold or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from Wired Ventures, Ltd. If you have any questions about these terms, or would like information about licensing materials from WIRED Online, please contact us via telephone (+1 (415) 904 0660) or email (info(a)wired.com) WIRED and WIRED Online are trademarks of Wired Ventures, Ltd. -- +---------------------+--------------------------------------------------+ | ____ ___ | Justin Lister ruf(a)cs.uow.edu.au | | | \\ /\ __\ | Center for Computer Security Research | | | |) / \_/ / |_ | Dept. Computer Science voice: 61-42-835-114 | | | _ \\ /| _/ | University of Wollongong fax: 61-42-214-329 | | |_/ \/ \_/ |_| (tm) | Computer Security a utopian dream... | | | LiNuX - the only justification for using iNTeL | +---------------------+--------------------------------------------------+

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MAKE.DIGITAL.MONEY.FAST
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- HOW TO ADVERTISE AND SELL SERVICES ANONYMOUSLY Now that we have two or more digital banks operating, we face the problem of actually marketing services anonymously. Here is a suggestion on how that can be done. Let's say you have the licence/I.D. information which Black Unicorn collected recently, and you wish to profit from it. Then, in the best traditions of Usenet, you would post a short (anonymous) notice in the misc.forsale newsgroup, stating what the offering is, and asking, say, 12 GhostMarks or 10 DigiFrancs. Of course, the average reader of misc.forsale will be a mite confused by this, so an explanation in the .sig space would be helpful. Something along the lines of, "finger phantom(a)stein.u.washington.edu for information about MagicMoney". So let's say you have a customer who is willing to pay. Where does he/she send the cash, or just ask for further information? You could use an anonymous server like penet, but as has been shown, there are problems involved in mapping anon i.d.'s to real i.d.'s. Plus as our friend David Sternlight pointed out recently, packets can be traced. Incoming and outgoing traffic can be compared and the routes monitored. In short, there are risks. I suggest a different technique. Use the "Jay Prime Positive Mail Pool". Here is a short description: Send mail to jpp=0x123456(a)markv.com, and the mail will be encrypted with the key matching 0x123456, and sent to alt.test with a subject line of "Ignore 0x123456" To add a key, send to jpp=poolnew(a)markv.com. The body of the message should contain the public key in pgp format. If there is a key clash, a message with the subject "Ignore jpp=poolnew key already in use" Therefore, in your advertisement in misc.forsale, just say, "Interested parties should mail their digital cash certificates to: jpp=0x(your_PGP_number)(a)markv.com Then just monitor alt.test and rake in the money. And BTW, remember to send Jay Prime your _anonymous_ PGP key (e.g. pseudonym <su(a)do.nym>). -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCdAgUBLdR+Hbhnz857T+PFAQGXpQQ5ARffKZQ/JxriU0+WPD5anuOqE+zYBlRE t12OQKJEDAM8gNnbLHvtnCXFTNfLZUz6Bhb6tNCJalwoiiW40NxA9ubY3IlQUg+u jRaFc2/b0bcQ0DTKRp8ps/J43utmFbQZigW9BWTn6s+330vNpZQG/PsCc79HLSeA lxNqQciIkPj50RFeDKWKwA== =Cq16 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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possible anti-mandatory-clipper constitutional angle?
by R. David Murray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I haven't had time to scan the list recently, so someone else may already have brought this up, but in case no one has, I want to launch an anti-clipper meme: A government mandante for key-escrow encryption in all communication devices would be the information-age equivalent of the government requiring private citizens to quarter troups in their home. --David

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