December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: National ID cards are just the driver's licenses...
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

: I, and I'm sure Duncan, would be more than happy to discuss the subject : with anyone on the list who is interested. Let's do it offline, though, : unless there is a strong crypto tie-in. Sandy, I'd love to take part in a list for discussing practical ways of assuring privacy. I've been doing it myself for years. How about asking Robert Hayden to start up a specific mailing list for it? (Some name like 'obfusc', for obfuscating database entries etc...?) - description: 'discussions of practical real-life ways of improving personal privacy.' Also, you tend to mention things in dribs and drabs... in fact, didn't you do a sort of mini privacy-101 some years ago by posting little snippets of advice in your .sig file every post? Do you have any collected files with _lots_ of this stuff in it already that we could read? G PS Robert, did you say you could run anonymous mailing lists or was that someone else? This might be a good list to kick off as an anon list, just on principle...

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Re: Triple encryption...
by DAVESPARKS＠delphi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Carl Ellison (cme(a)tis.com) wrote: > have you considered > > des | tran | des | tran | des ? That one's sort of your "trademark", isn't it? <g> (TRAN is really clever, BTW.) One scheme that seems to make even more sense, though, is: des | tran | IDEA | tran | des You get the benefits of 112 bits worth of DES keyspace along with 128 bits of IDEA keyspace, and thus don't stake your total security on the strength of EITHER algorithm. Other than making the code bulkier by requiring the inclusion of code for TWO crypto algorithms, and 64 bits of extra key material, what other drawbacks would there be to such a scheme (in a NON-commercial setting where licensing of the patented IDEA is not an issue)? If IDEA turns out to not be as secure as we've been led to believe, at least it, sandwiched between two layers of TRAN shuffling, should at least slow down a meet-in-the-middle attack on the remaining two layers of DES. As I recall, last time we discussed this over on sci.crypt you also advocated an additional step of "PRNGXOR". Is that still the case? Have you had the opportunity to read the Eurocrypt '94 paper by Eli Biham on triple DES modes, yet? /--------------+------------------------------------\ | | Internet: davesparks(a)delphi.com | | Dave Sparks | Fidonet: Dave Sparks @ 1:207/212 | | | BBS: (909) 353-9821 - 14.4K | \--------------+------------------------------------/

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Ghio "loses it"
by nobody＠ds1.wu-wien.ac.at 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi Mathew Ghio. Ask, and you shall receive. You complain about my current campaign and report that you have shut down your remailer because of it. My sincere apologies. As I wrote, it is not my intention to sabotage any remailers. I was sending you messages at a gentle pace (not nearly as much as you claim for sympathy), but apparently it was too much! So I will take you off the current mailing list. I'm sorry to see you go. I may add you in the future at some unspecified time, however. This will help encourage your inspired and highminded attention to carefully filtering and screening every incoming message to your remailer which you have grandly demonstrated. I think I speak for all other members of the Reich in saying that we are proud of your extremely patriotic commitment to censorship and upholding our cause. Any user of your highly secure system will surely be flush with pride. I wish I had more men who are as dedicated as you are. I have grand plans for my brethen that will soon, very soon, be coming to fruition. The first few `triggers' are the drastic earth cataclysms (not the least of which will be Operation Shake-and-Bake in CA, commencing shortly) that will help plunge the world into an anarchy that is more receptive to our way of thinking. The paranoia and deadly cynicism against government will help too. But the most important brick of all, of course, is the deification of cyberspace. I would love to expound on these subjects more but I have to keep a `low profile' at the moment. The time has not come yet. Thanks again for your contributions. . . . . . . . ,,. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , ___ . .//~~~. . //. ./. . //. ./. . //~~\ . . //~~~ . .//~~\. . / / . .//===. . //. ./. . //===/. . //===/. . //=== . .//===/ . +===#===+ . .// . . . .\\__/. . //. ./. . //. \ . . //___ . .//. \. . / / . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~~~ ' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: "Key Escrow" --- the very idea
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:49 PM 7/21/94 -0700, Mike_Spreitzer.PARC(a)xerox.com wrote: >(1) I'm not an anarchist. [snip] I'm a congenital republican. [snip] >(2) I think crimes can be committed in cyberspace... [snip] So do I. [snip] >(4) If you accept points (1) and (2) above, you're left wanting a way to >implement searches in cyberspace when due process is followed. [Plea for better key escrow removed] I've never gotten into the Clipper discussion before now. I've assumed (somewhat lazily, I might add) that market forces would kill it, if nothing else. I am much more in other consequences of strong-crypto and global public-access computer networks; e$ and all that... I'm not so sure that wiretapping was ever a good idea, but the "private life" of the technology which enabled it ensured its use. Like machine guns, nuclear weapons and semi-automatic firearms, weapons (wiretapping is as surely a weapon as any of the above) will be used. Fortunately, counter-weapons arise. Gentlemen didn't read each other's mail because they couldn't do it practically. Telephony and signals intellegence changed that. People found that they could, and they did it. Now the technological pendulum has swung back to the days where letters were sealed in wax with unique seals. I would like to propose, probably not the first time on this list, an acceptable, time-honored method of determining the contents of a secure conversation. Snitches. That's they used before wiretaps, and it seemed to work well enough then. A contempt of court citation for refusing a warranted search seems strong enough to handle the rest of a government's prosecutory urges. Cheers, Bob ----------------- 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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Re: Come On
by jamiel＠sybase.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:06 PM 07/19/94 +0000, Ray wrote: > Anyway, I'm surprised that there isn't a feminist witch-hunt >investigating Samdy Sandfort, for his non-pc H.E.A.T. reports. Sandy's honest, up front and cool about his HEAT Posts. Speaking only for me, don't think there is anything wrong with liking bodies. It's when someone can only see that body and not person in there that it becomes an issue. Hmmm, if I could only find a way to make this crypto related."" -j -- "Blah Blah Blah" ___________________________________________________________________ Jamie Lawrence <jamiel(a)sybase.com>

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by the way...
by perry＠imsi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For those who believe "the NSA can do ANYTHING" or some such, an article in the New York Times claims the annual black budget now seems to be hovering around $28 Billion per year, for ALL secret government work. All the spy planes, CIA bribes, etc, come out of that pool. Its a lot of money, but not enough to pay for really outlandish things, like disk drives the size of Seattle to store exhaustive listings of all possible DES encryptions. Perry

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RE: Ghio "loses it"
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Another article reference: I think I just saw an image of the new Fuhrer on page 23 of the August edition of PCWorld. Blanc

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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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