December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

MixMaster remailer source
by kevin＠elvis.wicat.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A little while back when the "remailer crisis" discussion was in full swing, L. McCarthy recommended the Mixmaster remailer as being the most modern. After several days of hunting, I have utterly failed to turn up the source to this remailer. Can anyone provide me a pointer? On a slightly related note, is there a validation suite for PGP? The MIT distribution does not include OS/2 binaries, unfortunately, but I have managed to get a clean build. It seems to work, but I simply don't know enough about PGP to be sure that it really is a fully working verson. Kevin At Intel, quality is job 0.999731.

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Internet Mailing lists book
by Arsen Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I found a 1993 version of this book (is there a 94 or 95?) it unfortunatly lacks the cypherpunks list. >8-( =============================================================================== | + ^ + || ' . . . . . . . Ray (Arsen) Arachelian || | \|/ || . . . ' . ' . : . . rarachel(a)photon.poly.edu || |<--+-->||. . . |' '| .' . . ... ___ sunder(a)intercom.com || | /|\ || . . \___/ . . . : .... __[R] || | + v + || . oOOo /o.O\ oOOo :. : .. |A| "And bugs to kill before I sleep"|| =========/---vvvv-------VVVV------------|I|----------------------------------/ / . : . ' : ' |D| This signature pannel is / / The Next Bug to kill(tm) --- now open. / /___________________________________________________________________/ GCS d++(---)(-) H s+++/++ !g !p !au a- w-(+) (!v | v) C+++++ Coherent++++ L+ 3 C+ V+ P? E- N++ K- W W--- M++ V-- po- Y+++ t:[tos+, tng--, ds9+] 5 !j !R G? tv+ b+++ D+ B--- e+(- | *) u--- h+++ f+(++) r++ n+(---) x**(++)

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An article on Windows (in)security
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Begin Forwarded Message ---------- >From: first(a)individual.com (An Information Service of INDIVIDUAL Inc.) (by >way of [Some initial stuff seems missing, sorry.] > ``No.'' > > And so it went. Once the security configuration is established and the >security profiles are put in a database-like protected file system, >accessing that data to get a full view of the security policy implementation >is near impossible. An administrator must retrieve individually each piece >of data stored in the security database, then manually collate and compile >it into a usable form. > > In a large operation, the security administrator will build a security >database by virtue of the number of objects and characteristics assigned to >each object during configuration. But Windows NT offers little way to access >and manipulate that database for analysis, rapid reconfiguration or global >views. It appears, and Microsoft engineers agree, someone will have to build >a utility program to take advantage of the security database via the maze of >APIs available to third-party developers. > > Kevin Phaup, program manager lead of Microsoft's Business Systems >Division, put the best spin he could on this first major Windows NT >shortcoming. ``Pull the data into a database and then massage it,'' he said. >``We have a new product - System Management Server from the Back Office >Suite - that could help.'' > > I agree, but why would I want to buy a brand-new operating system that >needs help out of the box? > > What's more, the third-party database solution for security administration >is a hopeless short-term patch. To be truly effective, it needs a much >tighter integration with Windows NT's APIs to permit not only systemic >analysis, but also systemic security changes based on selected criteria. > > If administrators want to change the access rights of every user so they >can log on at 7 a.m. instead of 8 a.m., they cannot do it with Windows NT >3.5. They might be able to do it with a third-party product or with Windows >NT 4.0. > > ``If someone builds an administration product like that, they'll make a >lot of money,'' Phaup says. > > A WEEKEND'S WORK Windows NT has other security problems, as well. For >example, it does not have data cryptography, which is essential to make sure >a network is reasonably secure from eavesdropping and integrity breaches. >Microsoft, which knows encryption technology, easily could have included the >appropriate algorithms in software to make Windows NT more secure. > > Microsoft's Phaup agrees it would have been simple to add encryption to >Windows NT. ``The hooks are all there,'' he said. > > But Windows NT does not need cryptography for C2 certification. And >perhaps even more telling, Microsoft cannot export cryptography outside the >U.S. due to export control laws that prohibit it from doing so without >licensing. Of course, the company could have made two versions of Windows >NT: one with crytography for domestic use and one without cryptography for >export. > > According to Phaup, Microsoft was reluctant to do so for two reasons. >``Security is way down on the list of corporate concerns and desires and >wants in an OS. It's in the top 20, but not the top 3,'' he says. ``And the >testing cycle would have been a double killer.'' > > Windows NT's last major shortcoming lays in the omission of a feature that >most security experts consider virtually indispensable: boot control. > > In the DOS/Windows world, third-party PC security is reasonably attempted >by forcing users to boot from the C drive and making them log on with IDs >and passwords. However, if a bootable DOS diskette is inserted in the A >drive, the PC will boot without a logon, and the A:> will appear. > > But if the user attempts to log over to the C drive, the system will come >back with a message such as: Invalid drive specification. Security experts >recognize this as an inexpensive technique that will keep out casual >intruders and nontechnical types. > > One way to mandate boot control is with a hardware or firmware addition to >the PC in the form of an add-on card. The hardware boot process is >interrupted, and then even access to the A drive can be restricted until the >actual logon process through the legal boot drive has been successfully >completed. > > In Windows NT, boot control does not even exist as an option. Again, this >suggests that Microsoft's security effort was driven by C2 certification, >not by security itself. > > In its defense, there is a lot to like about Windows NT and the plethora >of functionality it offers from the application standpoint. But Windows NT >sorely lacks in security, so much so that it almost would be safer not to >use any security. > > Windows NT must evolve quickly to garner a spot in the secure operating >system arsenal or somehow steal market share from the likes of Novell. It >just is not there yet. But Microsoft's Phaup left me with one closing >thought. ``Have you talked to the Cairo [Windows 95.5] guys yet?'' > > 2Schwartau is an independent consultant, writer and lecturer on network >security topics. He can be reached at Interpact, Inc. at (813) 393-6600, or >via electronic mail at P00506(a)psilink.com. > >[01-23-95 at 15:10 EST, Copyright 1995, Network World, File: x0123303.8dn]

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Remote command execution PGP script
by Steven Greenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

About a year and a half ago one of the Perl wizards on this list posted a script which would alllow you to mail a PGP-encrypted script to an account and (if the signature checked out) execute the script on the remote system. This would be extremely useful to me right now. Anybody have a copy of that script so that I don't have to reinvent the wheel? Thanks, Steve

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Re: Win NT security
by Andrew K Bressen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Kevin Phaup, program manager lead of Microsoft's Business Systems >>Division, put the best spin he could on this first major Windows NT >>shortcoming. ``Pull the data into a database and then massage it,'' he said. >>``We have a new product - System Management Server from the Back Office >>Suite - that could help.'' >> I agree, but why would I want to buy a brand-new operating system that >>needs help out of the box? Because there aren't any that do not. OS/2 1.x and 2.x had no performance monitoring tools, Windows 3.1 and 3.11 didn't initially come with TCP/IP, Mac owners for the longest time had to buy suitcase and still buy ramdoubler, VMS doesn't support RAID out of the box... systems and utility software has been with us for a long time, and will be for a while yet. At one facility where I work (an NYC brokerage) we run at least 200 users each on ultrix, VMS, NT 3.5, WFW 3.11, Windows 3.1, and VM/CMS, and have about ten OS/2 1.3 servers as well. NT users require less help with networking than dos users, more than unix users. Backup is easier with NT than dos, but harder than VMS. RAID is easier than with VMS or unix, but multiple redundantly clustered systems aren't available for NT. Systems management is slightly harder than VMS or unix, but much easier than WFW. NT crashes more than VM/CMS, but less than ultrix 4.2 did and much less than dos windows does. >> What's more, the third-party database solution for security administration >>is a hopeless short-term patch. To be truly effective, it needs a much >>tighter integration with Windows NT's APIs to permit not only systemic >>analysis, but also systemic security changes based on selected criteria. huh? you just specced out what it needs to work; I don't see why this would be a problem for symantec or some similar firm to deliver. The API is published and fairly stable, NT users just have to wait for someone to actually do it. >> If administrators want to change the access rights of every user so they >>can log on at 7 a.m. instead of 8 a.m., they cannot do it with Windows NT >>3.5. They might be able to do it with a third-party product or with Windows >>NT 4.0. they can't do it with unix either without coding some, and with dos windows you can just forget about it. >> ``If someone builds an administration product like that, they'll make a >>lot of money,'' Phaup says. yep. so what makes you say that it is "hopeless"? >> A WEEKEND'S WORK Windows NT has other security problems, as well. For >>example, it does not have data cryptography, which is essential to make sure >>a network is reasonably secure from eavesdropping and integrity breaches. um, what OS does, out of the box? especially in a 1.5 release... heck, I'm not aware of any networkable OS that has end-to-end link and application level encryption, file acl's, and a key management scheme that can be both centrally and distributedly administered. Kerberos and AFS both make a start in these directions, but are not there yet. >>Microsoft, which knows encryption technology, easily could have included the >>appropriate algorithms in software to make Windows NT more secure. please to define easily? the NT 3.5 release slipped enough as it was. >> Microsoft's Phaup agrees it would have been simple to add encryption to >>Windows NT. ``The hooks are all there,'' he said. so are the hooks for UFS support, and for WINS-DNS integration. the os has more hooks than a football field covered in velcro. so what? >> But Windows NT does not need cryptography for C2 certification. And >>perhaps even more telling, Microsoft cannot export cryptography outside the >>U.S. due to export control laws that prohibit it from doing so without >>licensing. Of course, the company could have made two versions of Windows >>NT: one with crytography for domestic use and one without cryptography for >>export. >> >> According to Phaup, Microsoft was reluctant to do so for two reasons. >>``Security is way down on the list of corporate concerns and desires and >>wants in an OS. It's in the top 20, but not the top 3,'' he says. ``And the >>testing cycle would have been a double killer.'' summary: consumers aren't demanding security and it would cost time and money to put it in, so we didn't make it a priority, but we did leave hooks for it. so why are you villifying them? overall, this sounds pretty reasonable. >> Windows NT's last major shortcoming lays in the omission of a feature that >>most security experts consider virtually indispensable: boot control. um, which security experts would these be? I sure don't consider the absence of boot control on my 400 VMS and unix workstations to be much of a concern... >> In the DOS/Windows world, third-party PC security is reasonably attempted >>by forcing users to boot from the C drive and making them log on with IDs >>and passwords. And NT does this. >>... However, if a bootable DOS diskette is inserted in the A >>drive, the PC will boot without a logon, and the A:> will appear. >> >> But if the user attempts to log over to the C drive, the system will come >>back with a message such as: Invalid drive specification. Security experts >>recognize this as an inexpensive technique that will keep out casual >>intruders and nontechnical types. Well, booting off of a DOS diskette in drive A sure won't let you at my NTFS C: drive... though I'm not sure how technical an intruder would have to be to find the users password written down somewhere on their desk, or to try their initials or first name... >> One way to mandate boot control is with a hardware or firmware addition to >>the PC in the form of an add-on card. Or a key lock on the power supply or a passsword lock in the CMOS of the machine, both of which are available from several major hardware vendors, and neither of which cares if the machine is dos, nt, unix, or pick. >> In Windows NT, boot control does not even exist as an option. Huh? The key lock on my DEC PC works just fine, and the CMOS lock on the compaqs here doesn't care what the OS is... >>... Again, this >>suggests that Microsoft's security effort was driven by C2 certification, >>not by security itself. OK, the federal government spends millions of dollars coming up with a security spec for computers that they buy. Microsoft wants to sell the fed NT, so they make sure NT can pass the spec. I fail to see the shortcoming on their part. Out of the box NT is more secure than DOS, Windows, Windows for Workgroups, and most flavors of unix more than two years old. A well administered group of NT machines can be more secure than a poorly administered group of VMS, Novell, or unix systems. It is not the most secure OS ever devised. It sure isn't B2. This doesn't strike me as unreasonable, though we could wish for better. >> Windows NT must evolve quickly to garner a spot in the secure operating >>system arsenal or somehow steal market share from the likes of Novell. It How is Novell more secure or securable than NT? Comparing an OS to a networking system, strikes me as unproductive; people run Novell on servers, not desktops. NT can run a 32 bit API on several 64 bit flavors of hardware, it is multitasking and multithreaded... comparing it to Novell is apples and oranges. If you're comparing Novell+DOS (or DOS/Windows) to NT, then right out of the box, your above statements seem reversed: if the data is on the desktop, and the PC doesn't have extra security hardware, then I can floppy boot the pc and get the data, but I'll need a username and password to get into the NT system. If the data is on the server, then under either system I'll need a username and password. Neither one will stop me from taking the hard drive and sticking into a machine I have control of and getting the data. - --a. k. bressen - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBLygs0yoZzwIn1bdtAQG/YQF9EpEzsvQvEDdBnoROxlgAUK0YMrFTR35b FvT1uqcLEqfCo65qJ2qpSmX0SC+Hin5u =eTTq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Reordering, not Latency (Was: Re: Remailer)
by Wei Dai 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Andrew Lowenstern asks: > Is this even technically possible? That is, wholesale monitoring of > disparate portions of the net from a single access point. Given the > distributed and dynamic properties of the Net this would seem impossible. To > monitor the entire remailer network an attacker would have to setup packet > sniffers upstream from each and every portion of the Net that contained a > remailer, wouldn't they? Given the current state of computer security, this should not be too difficult for an organization such as NSA. For each remailer, just hack into a computer on its local ethernet and put it into promiscious mode. Each time an e-mail passes by, have it send the header to some monitoring center using an UDP packet. > I suppose an extremely resourceful attacker could monitor traffic at crucial > points (i.e. transcontinental feeds, points on the NFSnet, CIX, etc...), but > there are so many private connections linking networks that it would be very > difficult indeed to sniff out every bit of remailer traffic. Is having every > bit of remailer traffic necessary for traffic analysis? Or would having a > good percentage of it be sufficient? Complete monitoring should not be neccessary, having a larger percentage of the traffic just makes the job easier. Wei Dai -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLygz8jl0sXKgdnV5AQFv3wP/USeKOwPBn12m1hC9RPOgwi1Zt4wB+T5J RWM3fYAvpK4gGUB2xOGrSLDh68DNDgSghjwqacBTkEsn+5ENBXd9rrQOjmaMeipI rJuxYSJTiNKhlGro3yY2UW3FScKYks3mi6eJ9G+g5rOOIHqCKtAhkSQJkHeCJOM3 3m2ObHv1gMs= =xmaK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- E-mail: Wei Dai <weidai(a)eskimo.com> URL: "http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai" =================== Exponential Increase of Complexity =================== --> Big Bang --> atoms --> complex macromolecules --> biological evolution --> central nervous systems --> social learning --> symbolic communication --> computers --> internetworking --> close-coupled automation --> high-bandwidth brain-to-net connections --> artificial intelligence --> distributed consciousness --> group minds --> ? ? ?

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link encryption and anonymous interactivity (Was: "Subway" remai
by Wei Dai 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Adam Shostack writes: > The idea is a very good one, its usually called "link > encryption." The idea is to make it difficult to tell when someone is > using a line by filling that line with random noise that looks like > encrypted data. This gives me an idea. Imagine a server that allows you to open a low bandwidth (let's say around 100 cps, in order to reduce costs) link-encrypted telnet session with it, and provides you with a number of services, for example a link-encrypted talk session with another user. You'll need to maintain the link 24 hours a day to defend against statistical analysis, and of course you can chain a number of these servers together in a way similiar to chaining remailers. This scheme seems to provide untracibility while getting around the latency cost problem of remailers, thus allowing users to talk to each other in real time, anonymously. Wei Dai -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLyinajl0sXKgdnV5AQHqMgQAkyA16Ai/s885L68KXFlqsLC6RFU7S8dc +ynRv/LJ1Lp6ZxyBel0sBqXixh3cJDIuZKXOHcUpfir0Wn7ifxgdoj2SvUdHOes+ af9GGZZOvo+hXhzbN/PYUI8AZLVbmqa8ighPUPdXNxA0Fq0ypMn7ZpxhzeW5gPJq mRtK2adKucQ= =alXA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- E-mail: Wei Dai <weidai(a)eskimo.com> URL: "http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai" =================== Exponential Increase of Complexity =================== --> Big Bang --> atoms --> complex macromolecules --> biological evolution --> central nervous systems --> social learning --> symbolic communication --> computers --> internetworking --> close-coupled automation --> high-bandwidth brain-to-net connections --> artificial intelligence --> distributed consciousness --> group minds --> ? ? ?

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pgp content type RFC
by Andrew Lowenstern 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Could someone please provide me with the number of the MIME PGP content-type RFC? thanks! andrew

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Re: Reordering, not Latency (Was: Re: Remailer)
by pstemari＠erinet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:10 PM 1/25/95, Michael Handler wrote: > ... I have literally hundreds of messages archived from the CP list of >several months back where Eric Hughes repeatedly states that reordering, >not latency, is the key. Reordering of a sufficient magnitude will >introduce latency inherently. Otherwise you are still vulnerable to >traffic analysis (which is an art, not a science, remember). The headache with reordering of that sort is that you can't reply to a message until you've seen the message you're replying to. There's a certain level of ordering that can't be changed. --Paul J. Ste. Marie pstemari(a)well.sf.ca.us, pstemari(a)erinet.com

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Re: Even more unix holy war. Was "Clinton freezes U.S. assets .."
by Bill O'Hanlon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Thu, 26 Jan 1995 14:43:39 -0800 (PST) "James A. Donald" wrote: -------- > On Thu, 26 Jan 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > > Unix is perfectly easy to use. Its no worse than DOS. > > Thanks for the entertainment Perry. > (I'm assuming you're being sarcastic.) I had agreed with Perry's statement when I saw it. I've taught classes in both DOS and UNIX. Whenever I've taught people who knew next to nothing about computers, I found people were able to attain a basic "user" sort of skill level in about the same amount of time with about the same difficulty when learning either. If you're going to be snotty and sarcastic, the least you could do is provide a counter-example, to give us something to discuss. After you showed your heinie (IMHO) in your comments about operating system security the other day. I'd think you'd have lost credibility to gain. I mean, I was tempted to make a comment to you much like the one you made to Perry, but I didn't think it was worth the time.

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