December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

FW: NSA Takes Over Healthcare Reform
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Dr. David Chaos <dchaos(a)delphi.com> Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 02:07:20 -0500 June 3, 1994 NSA CLIPPER CHIP FAILS, AGENCY SETS SIGHTS ON HEALTHCARE (ups) After the discovery of a fatal design flaw in the Clipper chip's "crime-busting" LEAF system, NSA has shifted its focus to a "more attainable goal, healthcare reform", said an anonymous government source. "It appears that President Clinton's healthcare reform package will likely result in citizens, who can afford it, leaving the country for private healthcare provided by foreign countries. Based on this, NSA believes they have a clear, jurisdictional mandate to develop healthcare policy." the source further stated. "With NSA's technological superiority, we should have a system in place which will prevent medical subversion within a few months. Even the Bahamians will be powerless to overcome it" said the source. Despite objections from diverse medical organizations, the President supported NSA's position that they are the most qualified to determine healthcare policy. He further justified the agencies assertion that the details of the policy must remain secret to prevent medical malingerers from abusing the system. Secret details of the policy, obtained by confidential informants, indicated that it would be based on the "KneeCapstone" and the "Clapjack" algorithms. An "independant" examination by the renowned doctor and cold-fusion investigator, Dr. Staley Ponz, was recently conducted on the KneeCapstone and Clapjack algorithms. "These algorithms are totally and completely malingerer proof...I really mean it, this time, honest!" said Dr. Ponz from an undisclosed location in South America. Further details on the plan will be forthcoming "real soon now" said government policy advisor, Tyrone Shoelaces. Reprinted, with permission, by, Dr. David Chaos

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No compulsory licensing of patents in USA.
by greg＠ideath.goldenbear.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Perry Metzger writes: > smb(a)research.att.com says: > > Why can't they refuse to license a patent? > I was under the impression that the law obligated you to license > patents -- albeit not necessarily at an attractive price. I am quite > likely to be mistaken on this -- my memory on the topic is very > sketchy, as demonstrated by the fact that I didn't realize the > government can patent things (although I was right on copyrights.) - From "Intellectual Property: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright in a Nutshell", pp 12-13, Miller & Davis, West Pub., 1990. (not a particularly authoritative cite, but it ought to do) "During the life of the patent, the owner has the complete right to determine who, if anybody, will have the right to use, make, or sell the patented item, 35 USCA (s) 261, and to a more limited extent, how or where it will be initially exploited. It is important to understand that American law does not require the patentee to put the patent into use or allow others to do so. The first requirement, of putting the patent into use, is called 'working' the patent, a requirement with some historical meaning and considerable foreign patent law significance. The second requirement, of allowing others to use the patent, is called 'compulsory licensing.' Like working, there is no absolute American requirement of compulsory licensing, but other aspects of the law, especially antitrust, may have the effect of obliging a patent owner to license others to use the patent." -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.5 iQCVAgUBLe+bQn3YhjZY3fMNAQFMbQP/d6MuZtq87sbJIyZQaG05fMfvd2M0uCNP hL18MTRCMAr+6esg5/QOsSwJ7Xd4XiRPFG3Dhq8U1Itl0zemcKd+5u0pxgAP3Dbu GkNTDfk3x5TQMjzScchdkL7+V/yZ3G00GnH+kJwGdfIckJd/35nocN0KFVAle/28 Zi66/HIz3Sc= =AnQK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Black Eye for NSA, NIST, and Denning
by an5877＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On the one hand, I applaud Dr. Blaze for the discoveries based on his black-box analysis of the NSA product. How fortunate to have him working in a laboratory seeded with this gear. On the other hand, I am amused at the "big deal" being made about such a minor result. This "protocol failure" exposes the NSA product to no new threats. If one's objective is to use SKIPJACK but to defeat key escrow, pre-encryption is easier, conceptually simpler, and may be more secure, depending on what is actually inside the SKIPJACK code. I won't ask why the big deal is being made about all of this -- the agenda surrounding Clipper and friends is clearly a political one, not a technical one, so it is no surprise to hear even the technical voices, i.e., this list, trumpeting Blaze's paper as though it were a dagger in the heart of SKIPJACK. But let's all acknowledge the technical weight and importance of Blaze's result for what it is: minuscule. DEADBEAT <na5877(a)anon.penet.fi> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.4 iQBFAgUBLe9KWPFZTpBW/B35AQEbdwGAmBpl2lBCtLkPN4QBruEEKsstCWWpIEGm KMBK2YlxL5V9fnHRDn3RlRJT6Ji++7yd =gIHN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Re: Black Eye for NSA, NIST, and Denning
by thad＠pdi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: Black Eye for NSA, NIST, and Denning DEADBEAT sez >> I won't ask why the big deal is being made about all of this -- the >> agenda surrounding Clipper and friends is clearly a political one, not >> a technical one, so it is no surprise to hear even the technical voices, >> i.e., this list, trumpeting Blaze's paper as though it were a dagger in >> the heart of SKIPJACK. But let's all acknowledge the technical weight >> and importance of Blaze's result for what it is: minuscule. > The importance is that the current justification for Clipper is 1. The benevolent government wanted us to have very good encryption so they gave us SKIPJACK, but 2. They didn't want to hurt themselves by giving away something that they couldn't crack. The Clipper apologists have retreated from the "we are going to use this to catch criminals" posture to "let's give the citizens good encryption that doesn't hurt us". PGP et al was a devastating answer to the first position, so that is why they abandoned it. Blaze's result destroys the current justification, they are giving us good encryption that they can't break. There is then no reason to push Clipper, unless it is fixed, of course. thad Thad Beier Pacific Data Images 408)745-6755 thad(a)pdi.com

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Re: Black Eye for NSA, NIST, and Denning
by sidney＠taurus.apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

DEADBEAT <na5877(a)anon.penet.fi> says: >If one's objective is to use SKIPJACK but to defeat key >escrow, pre-encryption is easier, conceptually simpler, and may be more >secure Right now, you need to arrange things with another party if you are going to have secure communication. If Clipper catches on the way the government wants, you may be able to assume that someone you want to contact has an encryption device compatible with yours. If Blaze's hack can be used by the initiator of a communication to defeat key escrow without the cooperation or knowledge of the other person, then Clipper will have made it more difficult for law inforcement, since then criminals and other people with privacy concerns will be able to have secure communication with people who are not part of their pre-arranged secure communications system. That, the defeat of traffic analysis, and the avoidance of the attention one could draw by using non-LEAFed encrypted traffic, are the advantages of Blaze's result. -- sidney <sidney(a)taurus.apple.com>

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A black eye for whom?
by paul＠hawksbill.sprintmrn.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Fri, 3 Jun 1994 21:48:53 UTC an5877(a)anon.penet.fi (deadbeat) wrote - > I won't ask why the big deal is being made about all of this -- the > agenda surrounding Clipper and friends is clearly a political one, not > a technical one, so it is no surprise to hear even the technical voices, > i.e., this list, trumpeting Blaze's paper as though it were a dagger in > the heart of SKIPJACK. But let's all acknowledge the technical weight > and importance of Blaze's result for what it is: minuscule. Bullshit. _Any_ pitfall in key escrow system or the Clipper technology itself is far from "miniscule." _______________________________________________________________________________ Paul Ferguson US Sprint Enterprise Internet Engineering tel: 703.904.2437 Herndon, Virginia USA internet: paul(a)hawk.sprintmrn.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLe+x15RLcZSdHMBNAQFgCAQAs6HdAdxs6wVnv2ScKd5cR9jVdz+rVyNn gceOqi/BaOq8utu2lIPvO74qvMufCTycVBrSBPzFIZzfdzGKcwhmKIikpHMCy3f3 II1iM++P6+3HLzVGJUrTca7qMVS8H6fyPda7IufmYDOjqy8KEFfwwkoCXrnTBNY0 VHPYg2HYd3Y= =yI2v -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6 mQCNAiuk0/8AAAEEALqlLc+x9lmgiJCRSpu/aPhQdi0hMjwiGlN2B/GJQqgZPhTb pR+u5/blGogqT+WwcXZ2XfEdIV19FrJY4BXGGn4+4TjdVN3XuuCHuueoygBAmOQD IloU6SJuDqJa0kFA5X/i/1ELn86I5+8A4Hx88FiYJIVUBR6SApRLcZSdHMBNAAUR tCdQYXVsIEZlcmd1c29uIDxwYXVsQGhhd2suc3ByaW50bXJuLmNvbT60JVBhdWwg RmVyZ3Vzb24gPGZlcmd1c29uQGljbTEuaWNwLm5ldD4= =rtcO -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Rperkins remailer
by rperkins＠amtsgi.bc.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just a note to let you know that the rperkins remailer is back in business. This is available via: rperkins(a)nyx.cs.du.edu rperkins(a)nox.cs.du.edu rperkins(a)nyx10.cs.du.edu Sorry it was down for so long, but I lost net connections for a while. I'm still not back on the list, but for those who don't know me, I used to be known as ub075(a)freenet.victoria.bc.ca. Have fun.

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Mosaic / CEB / CypherEssay Archive and List
by Vincent.Cate＠FURMINT.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think that Mosaic pages are the way to go these days. These are not hard to write and they are very nice to use. For some interesting examples of what can be done, check out some of the existing cypherpunk mosaic pages: ftp://soda.berkeley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/Home.html ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/phantom/cpunk/README.html http://www.quadralay.com/www/Crypt/Crypt.html http://digicash.support.nl ftp://furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu/security/README.html http://pmip.maricopa.edu/crypt/cypherpunks I think it would be good to have a "cypherpunks-essay" mailing list that was not moderated but people only sent essays that they thought were good enough to be archived. For starters, people can just CC: mail to "vac+cypheressay" and it will get dropped into a separate file in: ftp://furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu/security/cypheressay My "vac+cypheressay" was done with one line in my .maildelivery and a short shell script I call "save-numbered". Both are below (note the A.I. methods used to moderate mail). Having a "cypherpunks-essay" mailing list on the same machine as "cypherpunks" could be nice for folks who want a lower volume group. Could have mail to it also go to cypherpunks, and Reply-To: also go to cypherpunks. -- Vince Addr vac+cypheressay pipe R /usr/vac/bin/save-numbered /usr/anon/security/cypheressay #!/bin/csh -f # # This is not totally safe as it is not atomic. If two messages # came at the same time there is a chance one would get lost. # For a low volume list this will not be a problem. cd $1 umask 022 set current = `cat num` @ next = $current + 1 echo $next > num cat >> $next # Moderator says no reply messages grep "Re:" $next if ($status == 0) then /bin/rm $next endif

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Re: to The Atlantic
by peb＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The NSA has not admitted that it can break DES, but there is plenty of evidence that 0.01% of its budget would be enough to build a machine to break it. Paul E. Baclace peb(a)netcom.com

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[ANON} War in rec.guns
by anonymous＠extropia.wimsey.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- {{Reply-To: john.nieder(a)tigerteam.org}} -=> Quoting Royce(a)ug.eds.com to All <=- Ro> Um..not to encourage more of your ranting, but you published email Ro> from the r.g moderator. The post was a message in which the moderator admitted to killing my pro-anon messages to the group. THAT's why I cross-posted it. Ro> You may not remember McCarthy's "I have here a list of 157 Ro> communists...", but this argument sounds a lot like it. The moderator did not post pro-anon messages I received Cc:s of. Period. After I started raising hell and mentioning specific messages, they showed up - after "closure," of course. Some never showed. Ro> You claimed this, and the other posters who were "censored" were free Ro> to post here as proof. No one but you seems to be doing this. Probably they care even less than I do at this point. Still, I stand by what I said, as some the messages started showing up _after_ I made the accusation. Ro> The points you made were not relevant to the discussion. You weren't Ro> paying attention when I explained why the first time. Once and for all - my points; refute them or shut up: 1: "Real" accounts are easily simulated/spoofed. Therefore, a "real accounts only" policy gives no protection whatever from whatever it is that the moderator and rec.guns regulars feared so much from remailed posts. 2: Remailed posts are not always anonymous. Some users (myself included) use remailers non-anonymously because our normal systems do not have as much flexibility, particularly with headers [Cc:, Bcc:, Reference:, etc] as some remailers provide. This is especially true for users of BBS systems and other store-and-forward arrangements. Such posts, even with sigs, CLEARSIGN, and Reply-To: fields were being killed when sent to rec.guns, simply because they came through remailers. This was unreasonable. Jacob Vetleson in particular claimed to have posted many, many tech posts and articles that were killed because they went through a remailer. 3: Some participants on gun forums are uncomfortable using their regular accounts, especially when posting from their business sites, because of employer prejudice against firearms, and desire some degree of anonymity - even the trivial anonymity provided by the simple, unencrypted remailers - to protect their jobs. I also know a _lot_ of single women who do not like to post on _any_ newsgroup because they fear harassment at their jobsites stemming from some weirdo tracking them from their mail address. There are plenty of other reasons to use anonymous remailers. You may think they're stupid, I may think they're stupid, but that's none of our business. The measures one takes for his own defense and privacy are his own affair and his own responsibility, whether this means getting a house gun or using a remailer for his messaging. It's not for me or you to judge. 4: Someone (was it you?) smugly said that remailers were no good anyway, because of other measures available for defeating them, specifically traffic analysis. I posted a message explaining at some length the exhaustive countermeasures some of the more sophisticated remailers (and remailer users) incorporate to defeat traffic analysis. I didn't hear another peep about _that_ subject. 5: The remailers are the brainchildren of extremely pro-RTKBA net activists. Ignorantly banning remailer use was pointlessly antagonistic toward several very powerful, active and well-financed allies. 6: Numerous people simply hated remailed posts "on principle." My answer to that was basically, "So what?" I hated all the inane newbie crap that got posed on rec.guns asking the same _stupid_ questions ten or twelve times a week, usually how best to violate 922(r) or render an otherwise good weapon worthless through brainless modifications, etc.. etc., etc. You know what I do when I see posts I don't like or that offend my sensibilities? I scroll through them. I killfile the author. I don't bother to read them. These are perfect solutions for those who have irrational aversions to anon posts. Look into them. Ro> Answer this: Does every newsreader have a killfile option? Every setup I have used (six or seven, I think) has _some_ provision for twitting, filtering or killfiling. If yours doesn't, you might want to look into a change, especially if other peoples' posts bother you so much. Having whole classes of posts censored from a newsgroup seems an awfully inefficient way of setting up a twitfile...but that's exactly what you are, in essence, advocating. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLe8FnBAm8ppE4nk3AQFD2gP/c17bmgM2JLQDXi9GJapxDYDmjW2KqapH eaFMuxNxX0KBt34jZ1gDDnlM/WpzNN95HH0SLNZbcUF89yZ4bVgR1+cHlzXNi7pi tS8ioYY27B85MXLczfpuTa6/Pi/nhAIhg4dakywAz207sRuQJEXwat6dC8rO0gY7 zJayx7AvNy0= =3pDl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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