December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: *comeon
by sidney＠taurus.apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Gary Jeffers" <CCGARY(a)MIZZOU1.missouri.edu> wrote: >We [...] are amused [...] >The Cypherpunks' list is [...] "politically incorrect" [...] > & we like it this way. > We are sick of [...] > We also do not like [...] > We would be quite pleased by [...] Thank you for speaking up for us. Unfortunately you got it wrong. Unless you were using the archaic royal "we". Or unless you just forgot to say what "we" you were talking about. > Of course, I'm not really familiar with you. Now you got it right. -- sidney markowitz <sidney(a)apple.com> One of the 500+ subscribers to the cypherpunk mailing list. Not one of the n who let Gary Jeffers know their personal political and social philosophies so that he could speak authoritatively for their collective.

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Re: Leaving the Country
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Duncan: It is not a matter of tax planning but a matter of psychology. They have convinced you to manage your own oppression because it is cheaper and easier if you do it than if they do it.. . . . . It is possible to reprogram yourself to disobedience. . . . .................................................. For those who have seen the light of reason, there is still the problem of living with the methods used to enforce complicity to the prevalent political policy. Disobedience by itself may psychologically help the individual who imagines themselves to be free, but the disadvantage of a government administrative clerk's preemption over your own decisions remains. There is still the need to keep what is one's own, even when there is no recognition for the sanctity of the self or of personal property. This problem of efficacy in the face of human forces which are moved by values contrary to one's own, is what I think of when I imagine what it takes to "live among them", considering that there is no longer a place to form a new, improved country. There are some circumstances at a company I know of (!) where they have found ways of establishing a "win-win" situation with clients. It is a controversial way of arriving at arrangements which are acceptable to all parties - I wonder what sort of compromises go on at meetings where eventually everyone comes out smiling. But it is the sort of calculating in interpersonal, entrepreneural, and political juxtapositions which sometimes appear to be the only way to make headway in difficult butt-heading circumstances. I'm not an advocate of compromising, but I do think that there is much material for personal advantage in the study of psychology & cognition, as it relates to understanding what one is up against. The question remains, how to navigate in spite of some of these things. The more that one can live openly in correspondence with the way things really, really work, the better it is for the minds which must live with the actual. I do think an anarcho-capitalist would rather live/work with the actual, rather than shrink from it or excuse themselves from the fray (even while trying to avoid the obstacles). Judiciously. Blanc

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Re: Response to Duncan
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As usual, I'm putting my oar in where it's not wanted, but the only way I can figure out how to keep money out of the tax rolls if you're an american citizen is not to make it here in the first place, and that doesn't work if you're too aggressive in hiding it from the Uncle. Forbes seems to think most of this money won't come back. Since the corporations are foriegn domiciled, these people get to tell the Feds the most plausible story. Thrashing my shaky memory of the Forbes 400, the examples of these people are: Arneson: (Princess Cruise Lines) money made on ships flagged in Panama, a known tax haven. Foriegn crews, for the most part. Americans pay mucho dinero for booze cruizes aroun' de islands, mon. The two guys who own Duty Free Stores, Inc. Billionaires. Shaking down japanese tourists. One is still an american citizen who flies coach. The other ran afoul of the IRS and now has Hong Kong citizenship. Wonder what he's going to do in a few years... Marc Rich. We know about him. BTW, his wife is in the process of suing him for divorce, and may get half. If she can prove what that is. There was a guy in Texas who made a great big pile in Liberian flagged oil tankers. I think he's lost it all by now, though, and we know what happened to Liberia, anyway. There's another guy who got into container ships in a big way early. American President lines, I think. Like Arneson, he made most of his money offshore with foreign flagged ships. Rupert Murdoch. I believe he's a U.S. citizen now. Oh yeah. My favorite. Mr. Soros. The man who made the fastest billion (4 months?) ever. His corporation is domiciled in the Netherlands Antilles. He's also foriegn born, and I'm not sure he's a citizen. The point here is that Tim's right. You have to take some serious chances in order to keep your money out of Uncle Sam's hands. Either you risk the big fun of a piss-fight with the IRS taking known money out of the country, or you have to take a chance and make your stash outside the border. To do that, you must invest that money with an uncertain return. If you're in it for income, which would seem to be Tim's goal right now (it would be mine if I were in his shoes, anyway, he wants to do other things than play financial cowboy), putting that money in high risk foreign ventures is not a good idea. I have no personal finance credentials to justify any of the above opinions. I just read too much and I have a big mouth. I'll sit down and shut up now. Thanks, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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Was accurate description of movie...
by Andrew Purshottam 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I hope no one of any race/sex/religion is so offended that they feel driven away from this list. There is some genuinely interesting techincal comment amongst the flames, tracts, rants, and chatter. In the case of the informal movie review of _True Lies_, the description is quite correct, if stated rather coarsely. Rather than hassling the reviewer, you might like to keep his comments in mind when deciding whether to see the movie. This said, I went to the movie with several people of various sexes and nationalities, and they all enjoyed highly, though some felt it necessary to express formal dis-approval before laughing. Andy

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Re: Card Playing Protocol?
by Arsen Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 17 Jul 1994, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > > D1(E2(E1(Card,eK1),eK2),dK1) = E2(Card,eK2) > > I think I see a problem with XOR here. Seems to me that D and E are the > same operation (DE == ED == D^2 == E^2 == 0). So is this true? > > E1(E2(Card,eK2),OldCardBeforeEncryption) == eK2 > > Looks like Alice can cheat pretty easily. (if I'm wrong here, please > let me know) Nope. Alice's key is not Bob's key, so they can't cancel each other out. ie: Say Alice's key is 3 and Bob's key is 7 and the plaintext to encrypt is 0. Alice encrypts with her key, you get 3. Bob encrypts with his key, you get 7. Both encrypt and you get 4. Bob decrypts the dualy encrypted message, and he gets 7 again. Alice decrypts the dualy encrypted message and she gets 3. But Bob doesn't know what the card is if its encrypted by Alice. alice doesn't know what card it is if it's encrypted by Bob. Only when the message is decrypted by one part can the other see it. But since you're sending the whole deck, there's no way one of the could cheat. Now neither Bob nor Alice use XOR as a cypher. They use a cypher such as DES or IDEA in a rng mode whose output they XOR to the deck of cards to encrypt or decrypt. > Assuming your random number generator is good, this would be faster: > > //shuffle the deck: > for (i = (4*13+2) - 1; i >= 0; i--) > { > c1=rand() % (i) <-- change % (i) into % 54 and I'll agree with you *; > swapcards(&cards[c1],&cards[i]); > } > > This will randomize the whole deck in one pass. Remember, though, that The reason I say this is that you're not really shuffling the cards very well. If a card is at the front of the deck, the odds are that it will remain between the front of the deck and its relative position. While larger cards at the back of the deck are likely to swap themselves with the ones in front just as likely as the ones in the back, this is a bit one sided. This is off the top of the my head and what's obvious in crypto may not be actual, so Kent may want to test this out to see just how random the shuffle is. > seasoned card players will notice that this deck doesn't act like a real > deck. This is because the traditional method of shuffling doesn't > randomize the whole pack. It performs a series of permutations with a > small random content. Although slower and far less random, it might be > a plus to implement a realistic hand shuffle. Here's a (really) rough > 10-minute untested hack. Feel free to optimize it! :) > > //hand-shuffle the deck > #define DECK_END 53 > #define DECK_SIZE 54 > int deck_split, tmp_index, left, right, x, y; > cardtype cards[DECK_SIZE], tmp[DECK_SIZE]; > > > > while(passess--) { > decksplit = (rand() % 10) + 22); // split the deck within 10 card > // of the center. > left = 0; > right = decksplit; > tmp_index = 0; > while(left < decksplit && right <= DECK_END) { > y = rand() % 4; > for(x = 0;x < y;x++) { > if(left >= decksplit) { > break; > } > tmp[tmp_index++] = cards[left++]; > } > y = rand() % 4; > for(x = 0;x < y;x++) { > if(right <= DECK_END) { > break; > } > tmp[tmp_index++] = cards[right++]; > } > } > for(x = 0;x <= DECK_END;x++) { // copy the deck back > cards[x] = tmp[x]; > } > } > > This always drops the left hand cards first, which you might want to > randomize too. But if you watch people shuffling cards, you'll notice > that a given player usually drops one side first. Yes, but the goal of shuffling is to randomize cards. If you simulate it, you're giving seasoned players a bigger advantage with the "odds" :-) Then again, the desireability of this is left to the implementor, so Kent you decide which you want to do. Seasoned players will prefer the second method, however, this may be less random, and may infact weaken the security given by the protocol and encrypting the deck because they may "guess" where the cards are likely to be. Other issues: should the deck be reshuffled after each hand is played, or should it continue to be used for the next few hands? In "real" poker you reshuffle occasionaly (anyone know the actual "rule" for this?) Someone may build a good algorith to play poker. You have no way of knowing that you're playing against a machine or a human. However, in the least you can be sure that the machine can't cheat. Though you could train it to be very smart and keep track of every card that's been played and have it calculate the odds for each next hand. Casual players won't match this "skill" but pros will.

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Re: Response to Duncan
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Only solid factual info & techniques to follow... At 11:49 AM 7/20/94 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Facile nonsense! (No offense, Duncan.) Marc Rich is a virtual exile in >Zug, unable to visit the U.S., and with an army of lawyers. I'm far >from being Marc Rich, in more ways that one, and I have family and >friends here in the States. Leaving and not being able to return is >"not an option." Marc Rich was born in Belgium and currently holds Spanish citizenship. He is free to travel anywhere but the US and has $0.5 Billion in compensation. I doubt that he misses New York. It is possible to "internationalize" your family and friends. I did it. It is even easier these days because of cheap travel and telecoms. It is unfortunate that the US (and the Phillipines) claim to tax a national's earnings anywhere on earth but there you have it. >(If Duncan's main advice is that I simply "take the money and run," this >is precisely the "one way street," the not easily reversed decision I >have said that I may someday take, but not casually I'm not really speaking to Tim in these pieces (I'm sure that he can take care of himself) but to others. It is quite common for otherwise sophisticated Americans to avoid thinking about expatriation even though objectively it may be their best financial move. I was recently working with a businessman who has been self-employed and successful since he was a teenager. A libertarian, he was heavily involved in Foreign Asset Protection Trusts (FOAPTs). But even this guy was jumpy about expatriation of self and money until he really checked things out. Americans are too provincal. >"Wait ten years" seems to be the key. The IRS considers expats to be >responsible for U.S. taxes for each of these 10 years (some details >complicate the issue, but the basic point is that failure to file >while living abroad is comparable to failing to file here). However 60% of expatriate Americans don't file. A high rate of non-compliance. >I agree that such self-questioning is stupid. What's it got to do with >the issues here, except to confirm that you, like me, and like a big >fraction of the subscribers here, are politically incorrect and of an >independent mind? The fact that attempts at social control via political correctness dissolve if you merely refuse to accept them shows a general method of political resistance. The technique applies in many situations. Many control attempts fail if you do no more than oppose them. I know it sounds banal but why don't more people do it? I read constant pissing and moaning on the Nets about the big bad government and I see few people trying to demonstrate a little optimism. There are so many show stoppers out there that are guaranteed to get most control freaks to leave you alone: "My father doesn't believe in sending us to your schools. He says they are controlled by communists." -- My daughter used this one. "I am morally opposed to recycling." -- A real jaw dropper. "But I'm not a resident of this state." -- Saved a guy I know a $400 fine and automatic license suspension. "Where's your warrant." -- Surprising how few people employ this one. "All this agitprop about spousal abuse is merely an attempt to destroy the bourgeois family so that it can be replaced by individuals and weak entities that are dependent upon and hence supportive of the coercive state apparatus." -- They *really* leave you alone after this one. >Maybe this has been the crux of the issue in all these round and round >in circles debates: I have no interest in general ideological >sloganeering, only in the concrete "nuts and bolts." > >"Cypherpunks write code" has resonances elsewhere. I know that I am given to rhetoric. My wife complains about it all the time. But words are things too. They are code. I do recall that in "Snow Crash" our heroine employed Jesuit Rhetorical programming to protect herself against a Sumerian brain virus. There are "magic words" that will help in most situations. I do have quite a few actual techniques (residential ambiguity, contract/self employment, expatriation both real and virtual, avoidance of database links or key fields, conventional tax planning, multiplication of entities, clean team/dirty team, etc.). I must have talked about all of these on the list from time to time. Sandy and I will be doing so again in our virtual privacy seminar coming soon to a majordomo server near you. All are welcome. We invite public officials to drop by. Since you are rapidly becoming "market actors" like the rest of us you can probably use the info. DCF "Your children will be vastly richer and freer than you are. Be sure to inform them of this fact whenever they complain about life."

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EPIC Alert 1.04 (Gore on Clipper)
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

============================================================= @@@@ @@@@ @@@ @@@@ @ @ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@ @@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@ @ @@@ @@@@ @ @ @@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ ============================================================ Volume 1.04 (special edition) July 21, 1994 ------------------------------------------------------------ Published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Washington, DC (Alert(a)epic.org) ======================================================================= Table of Contents ======================================================================= SPECIAL EDITION -- "SON OF CLIPPER" [1] Administration "Reversal" on Clipper [2] EPIC Statement [3] Letter from Gore to Cantwell [4] What You Can Do (Email the VP) [5] Upcoming Conferences and Events ======================================================================= [1] Administration "Reversal" on Clipper ======================================================================= A letter from Vice President Al Gore to Representative Maria Cantwell (D-WA) sent this week during Congressional debate on the Export Administration Act has raised important questions about the current state of the Clipper proposal. Some have hailed the statement as a major reversal. Others say the letter seals a bad deal. Below we have included the letter from the Vice President, a statement from EPIC, and recommendations for further action. ======================================================================= [2] EPIC Statement on Gore Letter to Cantwell ======================================================================= News reports that the Clinton Administration has reversed itself on encryption policy are not supported by the letter from Vice President Gore to Maria Cantwell regarding export control policy. In fact, the letter reiterates the White House's commitment to the NSA's key escrow proposal and calls on the private sector to develop products that will facilitate electronic surveillance. The letter from the Vice President calls on the government and the industry to develop jointly systems for key escrow cryptography. Key escrow is the central feature of the Clipper chip and the NSA's recommended method for electronic surveillance of digital communications. The letter also reaffirms the Administration's support for Clipper Chip as the federal standard for voice networks. There is no indication that the White House will withdraw this proposal. Statements that Clipper is "dead" are absurd. The letter offers no changes in export control policy. It recommends instead that the status quo be maintained and that more studies be conducted. (The White House already completed such a study earlier this year. The results were never disclosed to the public, despite EPIC's request for release of the findings under the Freedom of Information Act.) This is a significant setback for groups expecting that export control laws would be revised this year. The White House expresses a willingness to allow unclassified algorithms and to hold key escrow agents liable for misuse. These are the only provisions of the Gore letter favorable to the user community. But neither provision would even be necessary if the White House did not attempt to regulate cryptography in the first place. The Administration's willingness to accept private sector alternatives to Clipper for data networks essentially ratifies an agreement to develop "wiretap ready" technologies for data networks. We believe the letter from the Vice President is essentially a blueprint for electronic surveillance of digital networks. The government will set out the requirements for surveillance systems such as key escrow, and the industry will build complying systems. The plan dovetails neatly with the FBI's Digital Telephony proposal, which will establish legal penalties for companies and users that design systems that cannot be wiretapped. We do not believe this is in the interests of users of the information highway. Key escrow necessarily weakens the security and privacy of electronic communications. It makes networks vulnerable to tampering and confidential messages subject to compromise. It is the approach urged by organizations that specialize in electronic eavesdropping. No group of Internet users has ever called for key escrow encryption. If this proposal goes forward, electronic surveillance will almost certainly increase, network security will be weakened, and people who design strong cryptography without key escrow could become criminals. This is not a victory for freedom or privacy. We support unclassified standards and relaxation of export controls. We cannot support the premise that the government and industry should design key escrow systems. We also do not believe that Clipper is an appropriate standard for federal voice communications. We are asking the Vice President to reconsider his position and urging network users to make known their concerns about the proposal. Electronic Privacy Information Center Washington, DC July 21, 1994 ======================================================================= [3] Letter from Gore to Cantwell ======================================================================= THE VICE PRESIDENTWASHINGTON July 20, 1994 The Honorable Maria Cantwell House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 "Dear Maria, "I write today to express my sincere appreciation of your efforts to move the national debate forward on the issue of information security and export controls. I share your strong conviction for the need to develop a comprehensive policy regarding encryption, incorporating an export policy that does not disadvantage American software companies in world markets while preserving our law enforcement and national security goals. "As you know, the Administration disagrees with you on the extent to which existing controls are harming U.S. industry in the short run and the extent to which their immediate relaxation would affect national security. For that reason we have supported a five-month Presidential study. In conducting this study, I want to assure you that the Administration will use the best available resources of the federal government. This will include the active participation of the National Economic Council and the Department of Commerce. In addition, consistent with the Senate-passed language, the first study will be completed within 150 days of passage of the Export Administration Act reauthorization bill, with the second study to be completed within one year after the completion of the first. I want to personally assure you that we will reassess our existing export controls based on the results of these studies. Moreover, all programs with encryption that can be exported today will continue to be exportable. "On the other hand, we agree that we need to take action this year to ensure that over time American companies are able to include information security features in their program in order to maintain their international competitiveness. We can achieve this by entering into a new phase of cooperation among government, industry representatives and privacy advocates with a goal of trying to develop a key escrow encryption system that will provide strong encryption, be acceptable to computer users worldwide, and address our national security needs as well. "Key escrow encryption offers a very effective way to accomplish our mutual goals. That is why the Administration adopted the key escrow encryption standard in the "Clipper Chip" to provide very secure encryption for telephone communications while preserving the ability for law enforcement and national security. But the Clipper Chip is an approved federal standard for telephone communication and not for computer networks and video networks. For that reason, we are working with industry to investigate other technologies for these applications. "The administration understands the concerns that industry has regarding the Clipper Chip. We welcome the opportunity to work with industry to design a more versatile, less expensive system Such a key escrow scheme would be implementable in software, firmware or hardware, or any combination thereof, would not rely on a classified algorithm, would be voluntary, and would be exportable. While there are many severe challenges to developing such a system, we are committed to a diligent effort with industry and academics to achieve such a system. We welcome your offer to assist us in furthering this effort. "We also want to assure users of key escrow encryption products that they will not be subject to unauthorized electronic surveillance. As we have done with the Clipper Chip, future key escrow schemes must contain safeguards to provide for key disclosure only under legal authorization and should have audit procedures to ensure the integrity of the system. Escrow holders should be strictly liable for releasing keys without legal authorization. "We also recognize that a new key escrow encryption system must permit the use of private-sector key escrow agents as one option. It is also possible that as key escrow encryption technology spreads, companies may establish layered escrowing services for their own products. Having a number of escrow agents would give individuals and businesses more choice and flexibility in meeting their needs for secure communications. "I assure you the President and I are acutely aware of the need to balance economic and privacy needs with law enforcement and national security. This is not an easy task, I think that our approach offers the best opportunity to strike an appropriate balance. I am looking forward to working with you and others who share our interest in developing a comprehensive national policy on encryption. I am convinced that our cooperative endeavors will open new creative solutions to this critical problems." Sincerely /s/ Al Gore ======================================================================= [4] What You Can Do (Email the VP) ======================================================================= The Clipper debate has reached a critical juncture. The White House and industry are about to seal a deal to make key escrow the standard for encrypted communications. If you believe that individuals should have the right to make full use of new technologies to protect privacy, now is the time for your voice to be heard (and your email to be sent). EMAIL the Vice President at vice.president(a)whitehouse.gov - Thank him for the Administration's willingness to reconsider its views on Clipper - Express support for the decision to support unclassified algorithms and liability for key escrow agents - But urge him not to require key escrow as a standard for encryption products - Emphasize that key escrow is the soul of Clipper, the method for conducting electronic surveillance of digital communications - Call for extensive testing and studies before any key escrow system is deployed You should also: - Urge him to withdraw Clipper as a standard for voice communications - Urge him to support relaxation of export controls - Ask for the public release of the earlier White House study on cryptography - Ask for the public release of White House documents reviewing the weaknesses of the key escrow proposal The Vice President has clearly shown a willingness to listen to the concerns of the user community on this issue. Your letter could make a difference. ======================================================================= [5] Upcoming Privacy Related Conferences and Events ======================================================================= DEF CON ][ ("underground" computer culture) "Load up your laptop Muffy, we're heading to Vegas!" The Sahara Hotel, Las Vegas, NV. July 22-24. Contact: dtangent(a)defcon.org. Hackers on Planet Earth: The First US Hacker Congress. Hotel Pennsylvania, New York City, NY. August 13-14. Sponsored by 2600 Magazine. Contact: 2600(a)well.sf.ca.us. Technologies of Surveillance; Technologies of Privacy. The Hague, The Netherlands. September 5. Sponsored by Privacy International and EPIC. Contact: Simon Davies (davies(a)privint.demon.co.uk) 16th International Conference on Data Protection. The Hague, Netherlands. September 6-8. Contact: B. Crouwers 31 70 3190190 (tel), 31-70-3940460 (fax). CPSR Annual Meeting. University of California, San Diego. October 8-9. Contact: Phil Agre <pagre(a)weber.ucsd.edu> Symposium: An Arts and Humanities Policy for the National Information Infrastructure. Boston, Mass. October 14-16. Sponsored by the Center for Art Research in Boston. Contact: Jay Jaroslav (jaroslav(a)artdata.win.net) Third Biannual Conference on Participatory Design, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. October 27-28. Sponsored by CPSR. Contact: trigg(a)parc.xerox.com. Ethics in the Computer Age Conference. Gatlinburg, Tennessee. November 11-13. Sponsored by ACM. Contact: jkizza(a)utcvm.utc.edu (Send calendar submissions to Alert(a)epic.org) ======================================================================= To subscribe to the EPIC Alert, send the message: SUBSCRIBE CPSR-ANNOUNCE Firstname Lastname to listserv(a)cpsr.org. You may also receive the Alert by reading the USENET newsgroup comp.org.cpsr.announce ======================================================================= The Electronic Privacy Information Center is a public interest research center in Washington, DC. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging privacy issues relating to the National Information Infrastructure, such as the Clipper Chip, the Digital Telephony proposal, medical record privacy, and the sale of consumer data. EPIC is sponsored by the Fund for Constitutional Government and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. EPIC publishes the EPIC Alert and EPIC Reports, pursues Freedom of Information Act litigation, and conducts policy research on emerging privacy issues. For more information email info(a)epic.org, or write EPIC, 666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 301, Washington, DC 20003. +1 202 544 9240 (tel), +1 202 547 5482 (fax). The Fund for Constitutional Government is a non-profit organization established in 1974 to protect civil liberties and constitutional rights. Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility is a national membership organization of people concerned about the impact of technology on society. For information contact: cpsr-info(a)cpsr.org ------------------------ END EPIC Alert 1.04 ------------------------

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*comeon
by Gary Jeffers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Connie Sadler is quite displeased at what Berzerk finds delightful. I would not call this list a boys' club but the vast majority is male. People talk to please themselves. This list is statistically unusual. We have lots of guys, minarchists, anarchists, eccentrics, & tech- heads. We kinds of people are amused at what berzerk finds amusing. I doubt that Sadler's principles are offended, but rather her interests. If fun had been poked at guys then she would have been amused. In the US women are accorded special rights at being a "victimized group". There are many places that your interests will be specially catered to. The Cypherpunks' list is just about as "politically incorrect" as you can get & we like it this way. We are sick of being censored & vilified by society at large. We also do not like our rights of freedom of association being trampled. Your demands that your sensibilities be respected is a demand that our speech be censored. We would be quite pleased by any contributions to the Cypherpunks' cause that you have to offer. But you will not get a good reception here by demanding rights that you believe are awarded to state certified "victims" groups. Of course, I'm not really familiar with you. Possibly you think of yourself more as an individual than as a member of a particular group & possibly you will be an asset to Cypherpunks & your first post was not representative of yourself. In that case, we would be pleased to have your company. Wishing for the best, Gary Jeffers

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Re: Card Playing Protocol?
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My system has been up and down last couple of days, and what with this and the small downtime on toad.com I'm not sure if my message got through on Karl's idea to use blackjack as an example crypto based card game. First I'll mention that I was browsing rec.gambling this morning and I saw several references to poker games being played over IRC. They had an init file posted which defined macros so you could say "/raise", "/fold", etc. This might be something which could be incorporated into a good crypto-strong version. (A corollary would be to hack the existing code so you could win every time if possible. I believe they are relying on a trusted server at a well-known host.) The point I had made earlier about blackjack was that Karl's idea is good if there is just one player and one dealer. The dealer shuffles and publishes a hash of the deck so that he is commited to it. Then they play through the deck. At the end the player can confirm that the hash of the played cards in sequence matches that originally published. Since the dealer has no discretion in blackjack this works well and it is much simpler than the more general protocols. The one problem I saw was that if there were more than one player, the dealer and one or more players could collude to cheat the other players. The dealer could tell his players what the upcoming cards were, and they could hit or stand in such a way as to hurt the other players. The sol- ution I proposed was a little bit complicated, but still quite a bit simpler than the full-generality card-playing protocols, I think. You just have the players and dealer cooperatively choose the next card to be played via a joint coin-flipping-type algorithm. By using the English version of blackjack, in which all cards can be dealt face-up, everyone learns each new card at once and there is no opportunity for any players to know what the cards will be ahead of time. Of course, blackjack is not nearly as popular as poker, so perhaps a more general implementation is desirable for this reason. Hal

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NYT Article on Clipper Chip Retreat
by mclow＠san_marcos.csusm.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Taken from the New York Times on America Online: -------------------------------------------------- 7/21:ADMINISTRATION REVERSES ITSELF ON WIRETAPPING TECHNOLOGY By JOHN MARKOFF c.1994 N.Y. Times News Service In an abrupt and significant reversal, the Clinton administration indicated Wednesday that it was willing to consider alternatives to its Clipper chip wiretapping technology, which has been widely criticized by industry executives and privacy-rights groups. In a letter Wednesday to a congressional opponent of the technology, Vice President Al Gore said that the administration was willing to explore industry alternatives to Clipper, a system designed in secrecy by National Security Agency scientists. Intended as a way to let people scramble their electronic conversations - but retain law-enforcement agencies' ability to conduct court-authorized wiretaps - the Clipper chip was introduced by the administration in April 1993 as the government's preferred method for communicating in secret code in the era of computerized digital electronics. Such coded communications use hardware and software known as encryption technology. Critics have said that because Clipper is classified, there is no way to verify whether the nation's intelligence agencies have embedded a secret electronic "backdoor" in the Clipper design that might allow for unauthorized government spying. And software and computer industry executives have worried that the government would use its Clipper preference as a way to block exports of hardware and software products using other commercially available - and more popular - encryption methods. But Gore's letter is the apparent result of a compromise with Rep. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who recently introduced legislation that would have significantly relaxed controls on the export of encryption software. Ms. Cantwell said she welcomed the vice president's willingness to compromise. "I view this as going down a new path, with a new set of criteria," she said Wednesday. "This has been driven by private industry and privacy groups." A number of people in the computer industry and in privacy-rights groups who had read Gore's letter to Ms. Cantwell said that it indicated that the Clipper chip plan might now be abandoned - at least for anything beyond basic telephone calls. As for computer communications and video networks, Gore's letter said, "we are working with industry to investigate other technologies for those applications." Some industry executives hailed the news. "I think this is great," said Nathan Myhrvold, vice president for advanced technology at Microsoft Corp., the nation's largest software publisher. "Maria Cantwell has gone head-to-head with the powers-that-be and they blinked. The Clipper chip is dead at least for any kind of data stuff." Microsoft has been one of a wide range of U.S. high technology companies that have been fighting the administration over the Clipper chip and export control policies. Software publishers have argued that stiff controls on the export of coding software hamper them in international competition. Still, while the administration is now willing to compromise on its original proposal that became a de facto national standard, it is not ready to compromise on a principal Clipper feature, known as key escrow. The original Clipper system called for a two-part key for decoding scrambled conversations. These two parts of the key - actually two large numbers - are to be held by two independent government agencies. Under the plan, when a law enforcement agency had a legally obtained warrant to listen to a conversation that had been coded by Clipper, it would obtain the keys from the separate agencies. By merging the keys, it could obtain a key that would successfully unlock the coded conversation. Gore's letter said that any industry-proposed alternative to Clipper accepted by the administration would need to have a key-escrow component. But the escrow agents need not be government agencies - a proviso of the Clipper system that had raised concerns over excessive government intrusion and made it seem unlikely that foreign customers would want to buy Clipper-based communications products. Other concessions by the administration include a willingness to consider an encryption system based on nonclassified mathematical formulas that would be subject to testing and evaluation by industry experts. The administration is also willing to let products containing this encryption system be eligible for export. The government's National Institute for Standards and Technology recently licensed such a system from a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It could become the basis for a Clipper replacement. Not all Clipper critics were ready to endorse the new plan. Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said the vice president's letter was a step in the right direction but still did not resolve a critical concern. "We cannot accept the key-escrow requirement," Rotenberg said. "This will undermine the security of the encrypted messages. The privacy risks are enormous." But administration officials portrayed the reversal as a fresh start that indicated their willingness to work with industry and privacy groups to build a consensus. "This is a clarification of our goals and our willingness to work with industry," said Greg Simon, chief domestic policy adviser to the vice president. "There has been a lot of static on the line between industry and the administration." Transmitted: 94-07-20 23:07:46 EDT Marshall Clow Aladdin Systems mclow(a)san_marcos.csusm.edu

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