December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Design my protocol
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's a question for all the gurus out there: I work for a company that manufactures a new concept in telephony hardware. The system we developed essentially replaces PBXs with an off-the-shelf computer, some special cards, and some software. Our system will offer all the features that you'd expect from current PBXs, such as least cost routing, as well as other features that can't be provided by a standard PBX. When a customer sets up a site, the system connects via a modem to our server, from which the system retrieves software, routing tables, etc. We also offer periodic software updates, and software based add-on features for an additional free. We would like to be able to upgrade, and in some cases control, the sites by remote and we would like the customer to be able to purchase extra software from us via modem or over the net. We use TCP/IP and SNMP to comunicate with the sites. We want to include strong crypto from the begining for several purposes: -Link encryption between the customer sites and us. -Authentication of the upgrade software. -Secure purchases and transmision of software both via dial-up and the Internet. -Optional encryption of the (telephony) data carried between sites. I understand that the last issue is somewhat different from the others, I just mentioned it to complete the picture. For now I need a solution for the first two or three questions. We need something that can be delivered to the customer six months from now, not something that may make it out of a standard comittee years from now. Thanks in advance, -- Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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the problem that destroyed PGP
by peace＠BIX.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Return-path: <peace(a)BIX.com> Received: by bix.com (CoSy3.31.1.50) id <9502112132.memo.28092(a)BIX.com>; Sat, 11 Feb 1995 21:32:20 -0500 (EST) From: peace(a)BIX.com Date: Sat, 11 Feb 95 21:32:20 EST To: cyperpunks(a)toad.com Message-ID: <9502112132.memo.28092(a)BIX.com> Subject: the problem that destroyed PGP So finding a KeyID is the problem that destroys PGP eh? Well I would just take that as the problem to solve, not a reason to throw the baby out with the bath water. All we need to do is design a distributed, hashed database. Should be a piece 'o cake, right? Let's see, first of all the problem is the receiver of a message who gets just the KeyID. First of all, the trusted keys should be expected to be local (in some webby sense). But lets assume that the key is new, not in our local cache. Now my scheme would put a net of keyservers that ALL know each other. The local environment puts in a request to its usual keyserver. That is the keyserver that typically has the keys that the receiver is likely to trust. Now it is certainly possible to imagine a case where a key is not in the receiver's expected server, so what's next. Well the keyserver knows ALL the other servers, right, so just copy the original receiver's request to all the other keyservers. If that gets to be too big, just build a real net where every keyserver is at most two hops away from any other one, then the intermediate servers that could not honor the request would forward it to all the servers it knew. I purposely propose that only two steps would ever be necessary to limit the explosion, but I see that as no real limitation, the rule could even be modified if there was really any need. Hey look, the net supports archie and a host of other non-structured search mechanisms. Why create a search hierarchy where such things are not natural. Why create a naming hierarchy where such things are not natural. By the way, the dockmaster.ncsc.mil note is a good example of a naming hierarchy that has nothing to do with the employment of the person. Anyone working in the security field can get an address there. And any member can get acm.org or ieee.org. But I can post from any of there different net addresses which do not even agree at the very most basic level. So why would my KeyID be naturally associated with any one of .net, .org or .com? Peace ..Tom

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Re: MIME based remailing commands
by Nathaniel Borenstein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Excerpts from mail: 10-Feb-95 Re: MIME based remailing co.. Rick Busdiecker(a)lehman.c (1667) > If you start your header name with X-, then you are conforming that > gross, ugly atrocity that is MIME. And yet, by using headers rather > than TGUATIM, you help to preserve sanity and avoid that vast majority > of MIME slime. Well, I have no idea why you think that MIME is an "atrocity" or "slime", but it is perfectly clear that you have no idea what it actually *is*, since "X-" headers have nothing whatsoever to do with MIME. The "X-" headers are defined by RFC 822, which has been the standard for Internet mail formats since 1982. Perhaps you should learn what MIME is before you embarass yourself further. -- Nathaniel

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Q: ref. for DNA used to solve math. network prob. (fwd)
by root 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Message-Id: <m0rdRDS-0005iFa(a)hip-hop.hh.sbay.org> > Date: Sat, 11 Feb 95 15:27 PST > From: jwgruber(a)aol.com (JWGruber) > Subject: Q: ref. for DNA used to solve math. network prob. > Designated-To: Internet Amateur Mathematics Society > > Hi - I am looking for a reference (newspaper or popular magazine) on a > recent article that described the use of DNA and genetic expression to > solve a complex mathematical problem (linear algebra-matrix systems I > believe) regarding a network of paths or routes between cities. Does > anyone have a reference on this work ? I would be greatly obliged if I > could receive a note on this. Thank you ! > John W. Gruber > Philadelhia College of Pharmacy & Science > JWGruber(a)aol.com > Only peripheraly related to crypto but has anyone got any info on this?

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Involve Telcos in activism?
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

storm(a)marlin.ssnet.com (Don Melvin): > Telecoms have bucks. > Telecoms have lawyers. > Telecoms are the 'transmission' agents for pretty much all of > the internet. Even high speed dedicated T1s are usually > from a telecom or two. That's a laugh! Yes, it would be a good idea to involve telcos in our cause, but it was my impression that most cypherpunks expressed derision for the EFF for 'compromising' (i.e. being realistic). Telcos do not necessarily share the interests of cypherpunks; they want to make money, that's all. They'd love to compromise, and provide funding for CDT, Jerry Berman's new lobbying outfit. A good example of their attitude is what they do in India, or China. Here none of them are too keen to say anything against some of our ancient and idiotic laws, and they're all happy to budget for huge and unjustified 'licence fees' because they want to lick state ass. They want to grab these huge markets before it's too late, free speech be damned. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Electric Dreams subscriptions and back issues, send a mail to rishab(a)arbornet.org with 'get help' as the message Subject. Rishab Aiyer Ghosh rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in rishab(a)arbornet.org Vox +91 11 6853410 Voxmail 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Clinton's No Warrant decree, and insulting dogs
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Brad Dolan <bdolan(a)use.usit.net>: > WARRENTLESS SEARCHES CAN NOW BE APPROVED BY FREEH, RENO, DOD, ET. > AL. AND CONDUCTED BY ANY FED AGENCY. DUE TO THE CRIME BILL, THE FED > AGENCIES ARE NOW ALL OPERATING IN CONSOLIDATED "TASK FORCES." Clinton's recent high-profile resort to executive orders reminds me of Yeltsin's 'democracy by decree'. I await with interest an American Chechnya. However with the latest one he seems not to be ordering anything new, he's just pulled something out of the legislative hat, he's just using powers he's been given under the cited subsections of the Foreign Intelligence Act. He seems happy to follow whatever little safeguards it has. How that Act was never ruled unconstitutional beats me. Why is Clinton kowtowing to the Notional Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Instigation all of a sudden? Is this a 'law-and-order' shift to the right of a New New Democrat? Can we all stop insulting dogs? Lawrence Detweiler can be safely refered to as LD. Rottweilers, as a correspondent writes with "great umbrage" in last week's Time, are "handsome, noble, courageous and steadfastly loyal." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Electric Dreams subscriptions and back issues, send a mail to rishab(a)arbornet.org with 'get help' as the message Subject. Rishab Aiyer Ghosh rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in rishab(a)arbornet.org Vox +91 11 6853410 Voxmail 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Clinton's No Warrant decree, and insulting dogs
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in () on Mon, 13 Feb 1:26 AM >Why is Clinton kowtowing to the Notional Security >Agency and the Federal Bureau of Instigation all of a >sudden? Is this a 'law-and-order' shift to the right >of a New New Democrat? The NY Times report today on the near miss of "terrorist mastermind" Yousef in Manila after a kitchen blaze of cooking-up explosives, says that he was seen walking rapidly away talking on a cellular phone. Allegedly left behind on a laptop was a disk "filled with details of his plots to kill Pope John Paul II, and to blow up American jets flying in the Far East." Twenty (20) FBI agents were sent to pick him up in Islamabad, Pakistan for safe home in the New York. A concerned citizen may ask: What was picked up from the phone, or will be affidavited to have been picked up. What was on the disk, or will be solemnly sworn to have been found on the disk. And, finally, what armament and intergalatic technology accompanied the SWAT team -- over and back, to provide full cloak and security on land, sea and air? And, with that show as spoof, how was he really imported? How many other fake transports were set in motion? When will we learn more of the lurid Clancy-juicy details of this black-op budget-busting crowd-pleaser? Is this a laptop dog and pony? No offense to Fifi and Holy Bull and Apple.

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Re: Factoring - State of the Art and Predictions
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:12 PM 02/12/95, Zachary wrote: >This touches on something I was thinking the other day: Most >cryptosystems that we seem to use are based on the assumption that >factoring large numbers is a Hard Problem. Isn't this putting all our >eggs in one basket? Are there other Hard Problems crypto systems can be Keep in mind that it's been mathematically proven that factoring is NP-complete. That is, it's in the set of problems including such things as discrete logs and the travelling salesman problem, such that if a polynomial time solution is found to _any_ of these problems, one can be found for all of them. Of course it hasn't been proven that none of the problems in NP can be solved in polynomial time, so it hasn't been proven that these are "hard problems". But I suspect that most problems suspected to be Hard Problems that one could base a crypto system off of, are also NP-complete, so it wouldn't be any better to use them then to use factoring. Logarithms, for instance, are used in some crypto systems, and are another suspected Hard Problem, but are also NP complete. So if factoring is solved, discrete logarithms will be solved too. At least that's how I understand it.

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Re: Factoring - State of the Art and Predictions
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Zachary <zachary(a)pentagon.io.com> wrote: Most cryptosystems that we seem to use are based on the assumption that factoring large numbers is a Hard Problem. Isn't this putting all our eggs in one basket? Are there other Hard Problems crypto systems can be based on? There is of course the discrete log problem - DH and all that. Unfortunately, although the discrete log problem has not been shown to be equivalent to the factoring problem, every factoring advance immediately leads to a corresponding discrete log advance and vice versa, and the two problems take a very similar length of time to solve, suggesting that the two problems have some deep equivalence. So far no one has found a way of applying NP problems to Crypto. And that pretty much wraps it up. There are of course a lot of hard problems that are not NP, yet probably take exponential time, but obviously you want a well understood problem that is part of conventional mathematics. This narrows the field rather drastically. Discrete log and factoring pretty much covers it. Of course you can do discrete log on weird fields -- there is a lot of research in that which I do not understand at all. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.catalog.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. | jamesd(a)netcom.com

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Re: Factoring - State of the Art and Predictions
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:19 PM 02/12/95, Matt Blaze wrote: >No it hasn't. Factoring is believed to be hard, but no one has ever >shown it to be NP-hard (let alone NP complete). Woops. Thanks for the correction, and thanks to everyone else who managed to correct me within only minutes after I made the mistake. :) You can all stop sending me mail now. [Moral of the story: don't make a math error on the cypherpunks list.]

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