December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

"The Future does not Compute"
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am reading "the Future does not Compute" by Stephen L. Talbott. I wonder if anyone else has gotten into this. Its a fairly interesting read that is some of the typical trendy reactionism against the utopianism of various visionaires promoting cyberspace and the bit revolution. Talbott however seems to be awfully vague in his criticisms. They seem to amount to, "I'm not sure what the net is missing, but it lacks something crucial that is the essence of our humanity". It reminds me of the various criticisms against AI by Penrose and Searle, "the technology fundamentally lacks, and will continue to lack, that inexpressible something that makes us human which is impossible to define or characterize." One quote drew my attention. He quoted an anonymous participant on an "irvc-l" discussion list: While I'm not forecasting Utopia, I think networks of the future will be the most incredibly egalitarian technology ever invented. It will transform our entire societies. Imagine that homeless people or single parent children can "interconnect" with anybody who is willing to talk to them in the *world*. The possibilities are rather dazzling. Sure, there might be even cyberspatial outcasts, but the point is that we will be doing *at least* as well as we are now, which is not something to "write home" about. The writing seems vaguely familiar, yet I can't quit pin it down. I think I might have been on that list in the time period, and I am trying to figure out the authorship. (And am a bit annoyed at Talbott for not giving proper credit.) Surely one of the visionaires like Gilmore, Barlow, Rotenberg, or somesuch. Its an interesting theme; I think it may have been the same author who said, quoted by Talbott, "the net is fundamentally democratizing and leveling." If anyone recognizes that quote, maybe drop me a line. Talbott uses this theme of whether "the Net is inherently democratizing and leveling" as a counterpoint thought to the chapter, even at times the whole book. I am inclined to agree with Talbott in general, by the way, and I think the quotes are overstated. In my opinion networks are like all other technologies: they bring out the best and worst in human beings, beyond what was known previously. In this way technology is like a magnifying glass on our virtues and vices. We may find the things that work about our society magnified, but at the same time our failings become expanded and exacerbated as well. That is what I like about great technology. It is not necessarily an ends in itself, but a way of learning about the essence of our human psychology. It forces us to confront what we find uplifting and what we find despicable, and removes the possibility of denial. It seems to me that networks are inherently democratic in a society that craves democracy, but I don't really believe that there is fundamentally something egalitarian or democratic about certain kinds of technology. Actually, I think that is true in general if *everyone* is given access to the techology, but the problem is that some governments can use the technology for themselves as a powerful instrument of control by the elites over the downtrodden. To me Talbott has a very good point, that we should be thoughtful in the creation of new technology, and examine our axioms as to whether we can even achieve what we are attempting to derive from it in the long run. The Thoreauian quote, "men have become the tools of their tools" comes to mind repeatedly when I read Talbott. ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^ \ / ~/ |\| | | |> | : : : : : : Vladimir Z. Nuri : : : : <vznuri(a)netcom.com> \/ ./_.| | \_/ |\ | : : : : : : ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/vz/vznuri/home.html

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Billing for internet usage
by koontz＠MasPar.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From time to time there is noise about billing for information transfer on the internet. Historically, it cost more to do the billing calculations then it was worth, yet you still hear about people wanting to figure out how. One way would be to perform cooperative billing balances between nodes, and allow each node to 'bill upward'. This means that any two machines are more interested in their relative balance than how much money they are really spending. There are some interesting problems of trust and reliability, that might be solved through the use of digital money. Then there is the wiley programmer (or machine) that applies expert solutions to the problem trying to 'route' around billing imbalances. With sophisticated enough algorithms such machines would be basically trading on billing futures, perhaps demonstrating that computers could be better capitalists than people. Imagine a communications network that collapses because of an economic crash. Would the internet require the equivalent of suspension of programmed trading (routing) and a FTC?

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There's a hole in your crypto, dear Eliza dear Eliza...
by Robert A. Hayden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Alright, here's my 2 cents worth for this petty flamewar... Once upon a time, there was PGP 2.3. MIT had nothing to do with it. The population of the net that used the program was fairly small. In addition to being small, they were all (mostly) computer literate people. These people were confident in the security of PGP because the had read and understood the source code. It was checked and declared good. Then, in stepped MIT. I, and a few others, raised concerns about a possible conflict of interest with MIT distributing the code, and encouraged everyone to double check the code for back doors and other NSA nasties. It was checked and declared good. Now, we are in the present. MIT is still part of the equation. However, the demographics of the net have chaged. Fewer people are here that (by percentage) are computer literate to the level to do source code investigations. A few question why they shoudl trust PGP when they don't know it's secure. We, those who have grown up with PGP, point out that it is good, yet that really isn't a great reason to trust it. So the question is, why shoudl non-technical people believe that PGP is good? They don't have the skills to check it for themselves, and you have to admit that the associations of MIT with various TLAs are at the very least concerning. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: PGP Signed with PineSign 2.2 iQCVAwUBMB2F0DokqlyVGmCFAQGhpgP9EIaGx3cHG78pFic0poPsgI/Yo1UNn6SY gRG9kfx3M1XzWITND5m2ywUx1B9n48hGoPfgP9ISvGoXDd5/yHgsY6uEjzZCGaLU tXzace1PvdjL5htH9prvh5GMoghCi34B9cDh01d1U2hKXEypj1pTRA+z+xWUfnGT teMJ9uEaOu0= =2aWA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ____ Robert A. Hayden <=> hayden(a)krypton.mankato.msus.edu \ /__ Finger for Geek Code Info <=> Finger for PGP Public Key \/ / -=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=- \/ http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden/Welcome.html -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.0 GED/J d-- s:++>: a-- C++(++++) ULU++ P+! L++ E---- W+(-) N++++ K+++ w--- O- M+ V-- PS++>$ PE++>$ Y++ PGP++ t- 5+++ X++ R+++>$ tv+ b+ DI+++ D+++ G++++>$ e++ h r-- y++** ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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Australia next to ban PGP
by Andrew.Spring＠ping.be 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Path: ping.be!Belgium.EU.net!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!rja14 > From: rja14(a)cl.cam.ac.uk (Ross Anderson) > Newsgroups: alt.security.pgp,alt,politics.datahighway,aus.legal,aus.net.news,sci.crypt > Subject: Australia next to ban PGP > Date: 1 Aug 1995 17:53:50 GMT > Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK > Lines: 57 > Message-ID: <3vlpne$cks(a)lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> > NNTP-Posting-Host: nene.cl.cam.ac.uk > Xref: ping.be alt.security.pgp:9699 sci.crypt:4852 > > Australia's proposed crypto policy: > > (1) Banks will get key escrow > > (2) Other Australian residents will be forced to use weak crypto > > Source: talk by Steve Orlowski, Assistant Director, Australian attorney > general's department, given at the Cryptography Policy and Algorithms > Conference, Queensland University of Technology, last month. > > p 34: `the needs of the majority of users of the infrastructure for > privacy and smaller financial transactions can be met by lower > level encryption which could withstand a normal but not > sophisticated attack against it. Law enforcement agencies could > develop the capability to mount such sophisticated attacks. > Criminals who purchased the higher level encryption products > would immediately attract attention to themselves.' > > He mentioned that his department considered itself a suitable repository > for the government central decrypting unit, which would decrypt traffic > for local police forces. He also wants to escrowed keys for banks and > other organisations allowed to use strong crypto. > > Centralising the wiretap capability with the AG is represented as a useful > safeguard against abuse of power by local police forces. It would be > presented as a `data recovery' facility in order to reassure the voters. > > Centralisation will enable the AG to acquire the capability to use ``more > sophisticated techniques in circumstances where the key cannot, for > whatever reason, be recovered from escrow''. > > So the technical parameters would appear to be: 40 bit keys for the > masses, 56-bit escrowed keys for the banks, and a Wiener machine sitting > in Orlowski's office. Belt, braces and string. > > Curiously enough, he quotes a `Review of long Term Cost Effectiveness > of Telecommunications Interception' as saying that ``Encryption by > targets of their communications (both voice and data) is not considered > as a problem for TI at present in Australia'' and goes on to say that > ``there has been comparatively little market for voice encryption > products, although they have been readily available''. > > He even produces some good arguments for the EFF, such as that much of > the intelligence comes from the call log data and from calls to third > parties such as airlines and hotels which are not encrypted. > > He also says that the OECD countries will hold a meeting on National > Cryptography Policies later this year. While at the conference, I found > out that a classified meeting took place this March in Germany between > the signals intelligence agencies of the developed countries, plus > Australia and South Africa, at which the assembled spooks agreed to > press their governments to bring in escrow and/or weak crypto. > > Australia seems rather eager to lick Uncle Sam's boots on this issue. > I wonder what the payoff was? > > Ross -- Thank you VERY much! You'll be getting a Handsome Simulfax Copy of your OWN words in the mail soon (and My Reply). <Andrew.Spring(a)ping.be> PGP Print: 0529 C9AF 613E 9E49 378E 54CD E232 DF96 Thank you for question, exit left to Funway.

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Re: Zimmermann legal fund
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 17:57 7/30/95, Ed Carp [khijol SysAdmin] wrote: >When I lived in California, I banked at Security Pacific, then changed >over my account to BofA. When I left the bay area, I closed my account, >not knowing that someone had sat on a check for $120 - I thought it was me >just entering an ATM receipt twice (as I do from time to time). So, >someone from a place called ChexSystems sends me a letter, saying "well, >you had a check go through and the bank paid it, please pay us." So, I >send them the $120 or whatever it was. How old was the check when it was presented (and how long was it from the check's date until you had closed the account). If the check was stale then you have a valid gripe about the bank's behavior. I've dealt in situations where people are collecting checks which are going to be "stale" before they are submitted for processing yet there is no request to post-date the check nor setting up of an escrow account to hold/clear the money until it can be turned over to the correct owner (they collect voting fees for a convention where the winner gets the money but the holder of the election is the one who is being sent the check to sit-on [for up to 6 months] until the winner can be handed the stack of checks - There is a claim that the holder of the election can not open a segregation/escrow account due to bank rules or procedures).

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Pat Robertson Fears E-cash?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Foxhole-atheist swears Pat Robertson said last night that his new book warns of a "digital cash society" and massive theft by cyber-criminals. Did any believer hear this, or know if this is what he prognosticates for e-cash bedevilment?

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Attacks on PGP
by tcmay＠sensemedia.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Things are heating up between Fred Cohen and some of the rest of the list. I don't believe MIT is in collusion with the NSA or any other government agency to deliberately weaken or cripple PGP. I base this on having dealt with some of the MIT folks, with the various source code analyses folks have done, etc. However, I think it's a perfectly *fine* idea for some group to launch a cryptanalytic attack on PGP, or an attack based on any other approaches. This is the "tiger team," or "Team B" approach to finding flaws and weaknesses. I don't take the security of PGP only on faith, though analyzing it is not my bag, as they say. Rather, I use the Popper/Bartley notions of falsifiabilty and see truth as a process, not a state. Seeing lots of source code available, independent compilations on various machines, and believing neither Zimmermann nor Atkins nor Schiller, etc., would consent to inserting back doors into PGP, I am thus led to _believe_ that PGP is probably not so affected. Doesn't mean it isn't so, but I'm not overly worried about it. Still, more studies and technical attacks (technical, not verbal) would be welcome. One of the problems we in the "civilian cryptography" sector face is that we don't have much activity in cryptanalysis. (We've talked about this several times before, before Fred Cohen joined the list, for example.) The NSA and other intelligence agencies have not only code makers, they also have code _breakers_ (such as modern ciphers are breakable, which hasn't been the case much lately, if Bamford and Kahn are to be believed). Probably entire groups whose only job is to try to break the systems devised by others. (Modern ciphers are not as prone to breakage as earlier ciphers were, for technical reasons, so I suspect the number of cryptanalysts has shrunk since the good old days when they had more successes...there may only be a small contingent left...) The lack of cryptanalysis papers at "Crypto" has been striking...I was told that the program committee considers cryptanalysis to be less important than original research. (I can see the rationale in this, as Crypto is an academic/research conference, and there are really no "engineering" crypto conferences. And cryptanalysis might not even fit into an engineering conference very well, as cryptanalysis is traditionally a sort of "hobbyist" activity--if you've read Kahn you'll know what I mean.) Crypto comes in various flavors, from hardware implementations, to number theory, to Unix/IETF sorts of standards, to digital cash, and even to statistical analysis. It is dangerous to have a "monoculture" in which one topic is the trendy one and everyone is urged to work on that (whether the "that" is PGP or Java or anything else equally trendy). Most of the activity has been on adding hooks to PGP to make it usable in other programs, or on remailers. Not as much effort has gone into proofs of validity, systems analysis, etc. (Eric Hughes and I talked about this several years ago, before the Cypherpunks group was formed...the need for "Viper"-like systems with provably correct components, especially for digital money, etc.) If folks think PGP is flawed, or deserves an independent and critical look, then this is a good project for someone. (I think several such analyses have been made, however...this doesn't make it impossible for a flaw or backdoor to exist, but at least the code has been examined by various folks. I'm personally not too worried, though this has little suasive value.) (The Monoculture of Trendy Projects. My own programming mini-project, while proceeding slowly, is of a pattern extractor and "entropy estimator" for text. Stuff like measuring patterns, examining clusterings and author-specific patterns. I'm writing it as a bunch of "critic agents" who are responsible for different areas of analysis. In SmalltalkAgents. My point? There will be those who cite the "monoculture" and scoff at anything not written in C++ for Unix boxes, or not built to be Net-aware from the gitgo, or not written as applets in Java....oh well, in Digital Walden, one marches to a different drummer. Better to program the thing I _want_ to program rather than the things I _don't_ want to program, and hence _won't_. Final note: it'll be ready for use and maybe demonstration when it's ready. And ready when it's finished, finished when it's ready.) I've long appreciated Fred Cohen's work on viruses, so it's nice to have him on the Cypherpunks list. Maybe Fred can tell us if it's really true that he was stopped by U.S. Customs and held for many hours at the Canadian border when going to or returning from a conference where he described computer viruses.... --Tim May .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)sensemedia.net | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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US vs Overseas Banks
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:05 PM 7/30/95 -0400, Lucky Green wrote: >Six years ago, you could walk into a Bank, show them your driver license, >and open an account. >Today, you need several pieces of ID. >Three years ago, you could withdraw money from your own account without >having your checkbook on you. >Today, they make you pay for a "counter check". >One year ago, you could walk into a bank an cash a check drawn onto an >account at the very same bank. >Today (Coast Federal), they make you pay a $10 check cashing fee. This depends on location. The Feds require that banks use the same ID to open an account that they would require to cash a check. The banks on the Left and Right Coasts are fairly restrictive (more restrictive than they have to be). Banks in the Heartland (particularly the Intermountain West) are much easier. With a little work, it is still possible to open accounts with "soft" ID in the more relaxed regions. Since these banks are accessible by ATM and Fedex and will soon be on the net (in some cases), they can be convenient to use. Likewise Canadian banks (which routinely offer US$ accounts). In the soft ID category, I place Employment ID and Student ID which you are free to make yourselves as well as the new secured credit cards; some of which can be obtained in spite of one's lack of existence. The latter make very good ID. >The US banking industry has gone to the dogs. The day a non-US bank offers >an account that can be accessed over the net will be the day I close my US >accounts. This will be the most interesting story of the next few years. I will be anxious to see if the new ease of "switching" money reverses the trend toward decreased financial privacy caused by the war on money laundering. DCF "If Work, Jobs, Income, and the Middle Class Dream are all over, how come more Americans and a higher proportion of Americans are now in paid employment than ever before in our history."

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RE:NRC Panel, Law Enforcement questions
by liberty＠gate.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Nice questions, John. To bring executive-branch accountability to a level more closely approaching absolute zero, the FBI might want a FOIA backlog of +8 years instead of "only" 5, but from what little I know of FOIA; its exceptions, combined with a hostile judiciary (led by Justice Scalia) are swallowing most of it anyway, as embarrassment _obviously_ hurts vital U.S. National Security Interests...[Note: IANAL, and I *am* a bit sarcastic!] I wonder, and perhaps my kind friend Hadmut can help me here, if there is an English translation of any and all Nazi-era German laws/regs regarding cryptography. As I [dimly] recall, Enigma was born as a private enterprise and the patent was only later taken over by government and classified after it was offered for sale to businesses (without much luck). These laws, if they exist, might make for interesting reading in side-by-side comparison with either Sen. Grassley's latest proposals, or with anything regarding cryptography coming from our paranoid FBI director. JMR -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Freedom isn't Freeh iQCVAwUBMB7vC21lp8bpvW01AQE9WQP7BxH6fBTRyxLX3Sw46oYSCbTHKukVC5Hc Z9nNSC35bazNa5QBCnr7pZjFUBmGXTzs4/NE2uyPbp34d3ojVJrgta9n+y8DX5uD yY4oMignyHGMPscac8OEkUmN+5T5gG1UKYpWv80Qt8sGfpyw3HCHOyE2YYFjpZ1y X+/ZDHvogj8= =dJ3T -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Regards, Jim Ray "The people will again respect the law when the law again respects the will of the people." Jim Ray, Campaign '92 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PGP key Fingerprint 51 5D A2 C3 92 2C 56 BE 53 2D 9C A1 B3 50 C9 C8 Key id. # E9BD6D35 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Support the Phil Zimmermann (Author of PGP) Legal Defense Fund! email: zldf(a)clark.net or visit http://www.netresponse.com/zldf ________________________________________________________________________

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Re: Pat Robertson Fears E-cash?
by Michael Handler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John Young: | A Foxhole-atheist swears Pat Robertson said last night that his | new book warns of a "digital cash society" and massive | theft by cyber-criminals. Did any believer hear this, or | know if this is what he prognosticates for e-cash bedevilment? ----- BEGIN EXCERPT ----- The 700 Club, March 8, 1995, 10:00 -- 11:30 AM [ ... ] PAT ROBERTSON: OK. Well, ladies and gentlemen, something a little bit more serious. You know, the Bible talks about a day when people won't be able to buy or sell except having a mark; a mark of what is called the beast. It's one of those things in Relevation that keeps coming up. Well, as technology increases, we see a little bit -- a little bit more. Now we've got digital cash that may on the way to your wallet, a card you can use for any kind of purchase, from health care to road tolls to pay-per-view TV. But are there hidden security dangers in this computerized wonder card? We've got a special report on this program. You don't want to miss it. [ ... ] ROBERTSON: Now that man [David Chaum!] is Jewish. I don't know whether he's speaking out of Relevations or not, but that is the scenario set forth ... in Relevation, that the -- the -- the cards are too -- too valuable to be lost, which means that -- that there has to be some other identification. And we just were speaking, prior to the program, about the possibility of, indeed, a tattoo that would carry -- just tiny little dots would carry -- all the information that is needed could be put on somebody's hand or wherever. It's -- it's that close, really. ... We've got a few years to go, but I -- I -- I -- I'm just -- and -- and the -- the -- the justification for all this is, `Well, we can't have people dealing drugs.' So let's -- in order to cut the drug dealers, let's take away the freedom and privacy of every other human being on the face of the earth, and that is a frightening prospect. [ ... ] ----- END EXCERPT ---- There's more, like an interview with David Chaum and Dave Banisar [EPIC], but I've got raw calluses on my hands, so I'm not doing any more typing tonight. ;-) PS to JYA: Communique top secret postal address / telephone facsimile machine access codes for possible transmittance of relevant sections for scanning and automatic distribution to the CP list via usual methods? Remember to use HyperMIME backchannel DC-net OTP public key MOST SECRET secret-shared subliminal-signature encoding methods to prevent intellectual property gestapo from homing in on location of Rebel base, no? ;-) -- Michael Handler | Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty through Complex Mathematics handler(a)sub-rosa.com | grendel(a)netaxs.com | ISO: Midrange good quality violincello, new or used, Philadelphia, PA | full size, with bow and case, in PA/NY/NJ/DE/MD.

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