December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Lotus Notes vs. the Web and the Net
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:29 PM 9/5/95, Timothy C. May wrote: >On this one I agree...and I've said this here on this list. Local groups, >such as university departments, corporate departments, even entire >corporations, can use the Web/Net in ways similar to what Lotus Notes >provides (using their own LANs, or even the Internet, with suitable >security steps). My favorite financial application for small multinationals (one of my clients is a haircutter with 50 salons and 4 schools worldwide) is nightly remittances to the home office in e$, especially in cash. The consequences for the banking and tax systems are obvious. But it's possible to imagine interesting changes in the foriegn exchange markets as well ... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<

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TEST
by apache＠bear.apana.org.au 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

latency test

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the S-1 Algorithm
by Bruce Schneier 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[I just posted this to sci.crypt. I don't normally read Cypherpunks, so please forward any substantive replies directly to me. Thanks. -Bruce] I was in Europe while S-1 was posted, so I missed most of the discussion. Better late than never.... Over the last year, I have spent considerable effort collecting SKIPJACK information. I have gone through the published literature, the rumors, and a large stack of documents received by EPIC through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits. At Crypto last week I gave a Rump Session talk entitled "Reverse Engineering SKIPJACK from Open Sources." I prepared the slides before I left for Europe. Here is what I said: What the government told us: Single-key block cipher. Can be used in ECB, CBC, CFB, or OFB. 64-bit block size. 80-bit key size. What the review committee told us: 32 rounds. No weak keys (like DES has). No key complementation property (like DES has). What the hardware specifications tell us: The latency of the Mykotronx chip has 64 clock cycles. This means two clock cycles per round. Assorted rumors (excuse me if I don't reveal sources): SKIPJACK does not have rounds in the same sense that DES does: i.e., half of the text block is not encrypted in each round. SKIPJACK has half the total S-box data as DES. SKIPJACK has a 48-bit internal structure analogous to a 32-bit internal structure in DES. The masks for the Clipper/Capstone chip are unclassified and the chips can be produced in an unclassified foundry. Part of the programming in the secure vault includes installing part of the SKIPJACK algorithm. The part of the algorithm installed in the secure vault are the "S-tables", suggesting that perhaps unprogrammed Clipper chips can be programmed to implement other 80-bit key, 32 round ciphers. Trying to puzzle out the meaning of the third rumor, Matt Blaze and I invented something called an Unbalanced Feistel Network. These are Feistel networks where the source and target blocks are of different size. For example, in each round 48 bits might be used as an input into the F function, and produce 16 output bits to be XORed with the remainder of the bits. We called this a 48:16 UFN, and we proposed a design at last year's Algorithms Workshop in Leuven. Our design was broken, but I am still examining the structure. A 48:16 UFN satisfies the first and third rumor above, and I think it as good a guess as any regarding SKIPJACK. A few months ago, I found some additional information in the form of documents released under FOIA. One document was a Mykotronx design review for "Project Capstone" dated 10 December 1991. The design review was unclassified. Among the details about the modular multipliers and the SHA code was the following page about SKIPJACK: ECB Processing Rate 2 clocks per G-Box operation x 1 G-box per shift x 32 shifts per ECB encryption ______________________________ 64 clocks per ECB 64 clocks per ECB / 64 bits out per ECB = 1 clock per bit Yields 40 Mbit encryption using a 40 MHz clock. The only other thing I found was a SECRET memo. The organization name (either from or to) is blacked out. The date is 25 August 1992. The subject is "SKIPJACK Revision." Paragraph 2 is blacked out, but paragraph 1 reads: 1. (U) The enclosed Informal Technical Report revises the F-table in SKIPJACK 3. No other aspect of the algorithm is changed. That's it. Rounds are called "shifts," which seems to indicate that they are not "rounds" in the DES sense. A shift consists of a "G-box" operation, which includes not only what we call the F- F-function but the XOR as well. And there is something called an F-table, which could be a table of constants or perhaps a table of functions. In any case, it is something that can be revised without changing the rest of the algorithm. Now let's look at S-1. The most probable explanation is that it is a hoax. But it is a very good hoax: The hoaxer knew enough about algorithm design to make a cipher that was not obviously lousy, while at the same time not unduly complicated. The hoaxer knew enough to make a design that included three novel ideas not seen anywhere else: S-boxes that are created according to no known criteria, a G-table that chooses a rotation of S-boxes to use in a given round, and a bizarre key schedule. The hoaxer knew enough about how algorithms are used in the military to make a spookish interface. I am particularly interested in the "zeroize" function, the separation of the key creation and key loading functions, and the key masking. Blaze said that the interface was similar to the Fortezza interface, but not the same. The hoaxer knew about Blaze's and my MacGuffin paper and that we thought SKIPJACK was a 48:16 UFN. We made no secret about this, and our paper is on Blaze's web page. The hoaxer knew to use the term F-table. I haven't shown many people what I found in EPIC's documents, so the hoaxer either had to look through them himself or get them by some other means (maybe an independent FOIA request). It's not a perfect hoax, though. The classification markings look odd: NSA algorithms are SECRET, not TOP SECRET, and the codeword restriction sentence is strange. The key schedule is hopelessly flawed (David Wagner posted an attack to sci.crypt). The coding style is amateurish, like it was translated from one language to another. (Maybe this is clever on the hoaxer's part.) And there's even a typo in the code. And maybe the hardware latency is wrong. Clearly the design facilitates parallelization. You can precompute all possible F- table outputs in previous shifts, and then use the G-table result to select between them; I am not sure you can get a shift down to two clock cycles. I don't have the hardware background, and would appreciate comments from others. And why are there not bitwise permutations? If SKIPJACK is designed for hardware, it makes sense to put them in. They're free, after all. Anyway, it's a real good hoax. Blaze estimated that he could have done it, but it would have taken him a month of effort. I agree with his assessment: one man-month. It's a lot of time to spend on a hoax, especially one where the hoaxer doesn't get any credit. So, maybe it's SKIPJACK. It has a 64-bit block size and an 80- bit key size. It's a 48:16 UFN with 32 rounds (or shifts, or whatever). And it has an F-table. This is really interesting, because the structure really is an S-box. Everyone knows it's an S-box, and it makes no sense for a hoaxer to call it something else. But in S-1 it's called an F-table. (I think this is very significant, but others find it less convincing.) And the F-table has been revised at least once. In the code it says that the F-table entries "differ in the S-2 version." The code is dated 1 February 1989 and 31 July 1991, and I have a memo dated 25 August 1992 that says the F-table has been revised in "SKIPJACK 3." Pretty convincing, I think. (Of course this means that we can't confirm anything by testing the hardware, since the F-table entries are different.) Maybe there are no bit permutations because they make analysis harder, and perhaps they don't add all that much. Maybe the algorithm was designed for both hardware and software, or maybe it was designed for specialized cryptographic hardware with several parallel microprocessors and some cryptographic primitives. If it is real, we have a lot to learn about S-box design. The S- boxes are not even balanced. Maybe they are created just so to avoid some bizarre attack we can only dream about, but I kind of doubt it. But the key schedule is just plain wrong. So, here's a theory. Let's assume the code is real. (Not that it's SKIPJACK, but that it's a real algorithm from some military or some corporation.) Clearly the code is not designed to test the cryptographic algorithm, but to simulate some kind of hardware interface: it's called a "software chip simulator." If I were the NSA and I designed an algorithm whose security rested on some tables of constants, I might replace them with phony constants before giving them to another organization to test. I might call the phony version S-1 and the real version S-2. Maybe the code was originally written in FORTRAN, and then translated into C. (NSA doesn't use ADA.) NSA algorithms are classified SECRET, put perhaps algorithms in development are classified TOP SECRET. (We know cryptanalytic techniques can be TOP SECRET, so perhaps commented code falls under that category as well.) And maybe the code originally didn't have an 80-bit key schedule. Maybe it had a longer key schedule. The poster then modified this key schedule to make it look more like SKIPJACK. (This might also explain the bug in the code, which might not be a bug if it still had the original key schedule.) Which leaves us precisely nowhere. The most likely explanation is that it is a hoax, but I am hard-pressed to imagine a hoaxer with the requisite combination of skills, resources, and attitude. I also don't believe that it is SKIPJACK. It might be a preliminary design for SKIPJACK, but if both the key schedule and F-table entries are wrong, we really haven't learned anything. If we suddenly discovered that unbalanced S-boxes are far superior to balanced ones, then all best are off. Bruce ************************************************************************ * Bruce Schneier 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,002,000, * Counterpane Systems 000,000,000,000,000,000,002,000,000,002,293 * schneier(a)counterpane.com The last prime number...alphabetically! * (708) 524-9461 Two vigintillion, two undecillion, two * 730 Fair Oaks Ave. trillion, two thousand, two hundred and * Oak Park, IL 60302 ninety three. ************************************************************************

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RE: Equinox/cypherpunks/www
by James A. Tunnicliffe 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Anyone that missed or was unable to get the UK TV programme Equinox > might like to take a look at: > > http://www.cityscape.co.uk/channel4/big_bytes/cybersecrecy/cyber000.html > > - Andy Thanks for the pointer. I was reading through their nicely organized gentle introduction to basic concepts, when I nearly sprayed coffee all over my monitor from laughing so hard at the following gaffe: "...most modern codes rely on the intractable mathematical problem of 'factorisation'. This is the process of trying to find the two prime factors that, multiplied together, would give you a third prime number. [JT: Yes, I'd call that an intractable problem, all right.] For example, if you take 3337 - a prime number (i.e. a number that has precisely two divisors) - how would you find its two prime factors? (They are, in fact, 47 and 71.)" A little unclear on that "prime" thing, it sounds like... :-) - Tunny ______________________________________________________________________ James A. Tunnicliffe | WWWeb: http://www.inference.com/~tunny Inference Corporation | PGP Fingerprint: CA 23 E2 F3 AC 2D 0C 77 tunny(a)Inference.com | <--finger for key 36 07 D9 33 3D 32 53 9C ======================================================================

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index.html
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CNN logo Navigation Infoseek/Big Yellow Pathfinder/Warner Bros Main banner Reservation Desk rule CHILDREN ACCUSED OF TRYING TO POISON TEACHER August 24, 1997 Web posted at: 8:31 p.m. EDT (0031 GMT) HAMPTON, Virginia (CNN) -- Four pupils have been charged with felonies for allegedly planning to poison their fifth-grade teacher with a mixture of oils, soaps and household cleaners. The two boys and two girls, now ages 10 and 11, were charged as juveniles Friday with attempting to poison and conspiracy to commit a felony, said Jeff Walden, spokesman for the Hampton Police Department. The names of the youngsters and the teacher were withheld. On January 15, a classmate overheard the four pupils discussing ways to kill their teacher, and told school authorities, Walden said. The principal confronted each pupil and found one carrying a glass vial containing a liquid that allegedly was to be used to poison the teacher's food. The four weren't charged until now, because authorities had to wait for laboratory test results, police said. The tests indicated the mixture would have made the teacher sick, but would not necessarily have killed her. The Associated Press contributed to this report. rule Related site: Note: Page will open in a new browser window * City of Hampton, Virginia External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive. _________________________________________________________________ Infoseek search ____________________ ____ ____ _________________________________________________________________ rule Message Boards Sound off on our message boards You said it... [INLINE] Reservation Desk rule To the top © 1997 Cable News Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you.

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Michael Moriarity in _Penthouse_ on Law Enforcer Power Expansion
by anon-remailer＠utopia.hacktic.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "Clay Irving" <clay(a)panix.com> Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 07:36:47 -0500 To: sea-list(a)panix.com Subject: (Fwd) Michael Moriarity in _Penthousse_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Thought I'd pass this along -- It was in my mailbox this morning... --- Forwarded mail from "Linda Thompson, American Justice Federation" <iquest.net!lindat> Date: Wed, 6 Sep 95 02:52 EST To: news(a)aen.org From: lindat(a)iquest.net (Linda Thompson, American Justice Federation) Subject: Michael Moriarity in _Penthousse_ In the "Special 26th Anniversary Issue -- Collector's Edition" of _Penthouse_, Michael Moriarity wrote the "Advise & Dissent" feature. The cover tickler reads: "Michael Moriarity -- Charging Janet Reno with Genocide" TREES FOR ALL THE DEAD CHILDREN by Michael Moriarity [The author is an Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe award-winning actor. He is also an accomplished classical and jazz pianist-composer, with three CDs in release and another about to be recorded.] _A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them for a century._ Montesquieu I am sitting in a sidewalk cafe in Canada at the moment. I am here because I can no longer live in the United States of America. The nation my father knew as a surgeon for the Detroit Police Department and the country in which my grandfather built a 50-year professional baseball career has become a nightmare of lies, propaganda, and vicious disinformation pouring out of Washington, D.C. Today, the F.B.I. and Janet Reno are asking for new legislation that would permit them to investigate anyone for simply opposing their ideas of what causes violence. I protested the attorney general's initial assault on network television during her back-room meetings with NBC executives. "What are we talking about here?" asked Dick Wolf, executive producer of "Law and Order." "Federally controlled programming between the hours of three and six?" "How about three to nine." Janet Reno said that without a question mark. It was not a request. It seemed to her a foregone conclusion. She had the right to say the most insane thing I've heard from a reasonably well-dressed person, let alone the highest law-enforcement officer in the land. she claimed that the mere words of a murder-mystery TV show were dangerous to the health of the nation. I simply asked that she be relieved of her post and sent on a long vacation and given therapy. Who left their jobs instead? Philip Heymann, her respected deputy, and yours truly. Resignations in protest. Now she and her Justice Department -- and even more recently, Bob Dole, the next frighteningly viable candidate for president of the United States -- would like to brand all artists and producers dealing with dramatizes violence and sex as accessories to drive-by shootings, terrorist bombings, and the moral degeneration of our nation. And she's hoping that people like me and Rush Limbaugh, and anyone who makes fun of her, like David Letterman, will be counted by the American public as accessories to the bombing in Oklahoma. Did Al Capone really learn everything he knew from George Raft? Was the death of Christopher Marlowe a product of the fight scenes in William Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_? Blaming violent drama for real-life violence is like indicting _Penthouse_ for the spread of AIDS. Until I left my country, I was living in a novel by Franz Kafka, with characters like the real Elie Wiesel telling me, "It's not possible, Michael. This is America." They told Elie and his family the same thing in Europe, just before they carted him off to Auschwitz. "It's not possible, Elie. This is Germany." How far is Janet Reno willing to go in her definition of what is causing violence? "I know 'Murder She Wrote' has no violent images," said the attorney general, "but they talk about nothing but violence." What does this mean? Does she charge that Jessica Fletcher was an agent provocateur for Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing? Has Angela Lansbury been derelict in her concern for the children? Was Reno's fear of language, this frontal assault on the entire meaning of the First Amendment, merely a lapse in the attorney general's thinking process? As "kooky" and as "noisy" and as "paranoid" as I am accused of being, I have never put together a sentence quite that sick. Where was the reaction from the Fourth Estate, the one branch of our democratic process that is sworn, above all, to uphold our freedom of speech? Today, unfortunately, the media is a direct extension of the two-party system, and now that the Republicans and Democrats are a coalition dedicated to expanding federal law-enforcement armies exponentially, there is little protest from the pundits. A coalition in a two-party democracy is not an option. It is tyranny. Since mainstream American journalism is either Republican or Democratic, we now hear no outcry (although _The New York Times_ did quote one "law-enforcement official at the Treasury Department .. who spoke on condition that he not be named, [who] said there was a tremendous potential for abuse in some of the recent F.B.I. proposals to relax the standards for investigating suspected terrorists"). Speaking out publicly would risk careers, and if anything is at fault for the disastrous situation we are in, it is a mad obsession with career. Read John Dean's _Blind Ambition_ if you don't believe me. My role in the miniseries "Holocaust" -- that of the Nazi lawyer Eric Dorf -- was inspired by the idea that if Watergate's John Dean were a German professional in the 1930s and less sensitive to his own corruption, he would have risen to the very top of the Third Reich. With no strong feelings, apart from an obsession with his own career, such a man would find himself standing proudly at the side of Adolf Hitler. "Free speech," the Justice Department seems to be saying, "is the root cause of all violence." Has anyone been fired for such a tyrannical notion? No, but Jocelyn Elders was dismissed for broaching the possibility that our drug laws should be reexamined, and for speaking honestly about AIDS and condoms and children. I began my campaign fighting the drug laws. I'm right back to those statutes as the main cause of domestic violence in America. Only this time the violence is not the drive-by shootings in ghettos. It is the speed with which our law enforcement has been destroyed from within by its own increasing power. The F.B.I. will be given almost absolute power to harass and wiretap and investigate any opponent of the standing government. The drug laws and now, so conveniently, the Oklahoma City bombing are the linchpins for billions of dollars pouring into the American law-enforcement community. Their increasing freedom to hassle suspected anti-big-government agitators must not be threatened. Will it work? Not if this nation sees the tapes called _Waco: The Big Lie_, a two-part examination of the murder of the Branch Davidians. This video, which Gary Null wrote about in _Penthouse_ this past April, is all over the country now, and more and more people will see it despite how Janet Reno, the F.B.I., and the leadership of both parties try to misinform the public about the tapes and their maker, Linda Thompson. The obvious questions raised by Thompson's analysis of government-approved violence are damning to the F.B.I., the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Janet Reno, and all other parties accessory to the obvious cover-up. They show hard evidence of a government lynch mob at Waco. If the Rodney King tapes won him $2 million, the implications of _Waco: The Big Lie_ could win the surviving Branch Davidians tens and possibly hundreds of millions from the government, criminal charges against perpetrators, and the downfall of major careerists in the current administration. Now, with the help of her spokesmen, who just happen to be President Clinton and Bob Dole, possibly the next occupant of the White House, Janet Reno is trying to convince America that her enemies are just as bad as her own army. They can't be worse. Try as she may, she knows that history cannot draw the bombers of children as any worse than the burners of children. Washington, D.C., is saying that there is a difference between the children of Waco and the children of Oklahoma City. The deaths in Oklahoma warrant capital punishment. "Swift and severe punishment," was the fate the president and attorney general promised for the killers of federal employees. Since the F.B.I., the C.I.A., A.T.F., and other arms of federal law enforcement have been gutting the Bill of Rights for years, such threats are not unlike the reprisals announced in Germany following the Reichstag fire. What about the death of civilians? Not only does Reno not call for capital punishment for the incineration of the Waco children and the equally cold-blooded murders in Idaho of survivalist Randy Weaver's wife and child by federal agents, her response to these crimes doesn't even merit the term _pursuit of justice_. And any movement that calls for such justice, like Linda Thompson's American Justice Federation, is branded "fanatic." Who has more blood on their hands? Network television or federal law enforcement? Until justice befalls the Justice Department, a tree must be planted for all the children of violence ... including the children of Waco. "Peace is not the absence of war," said one letter written to me while I was performing in the television series "Law and Order." "It is the presence of Just." ---End of forwarded mail from "Linda Thompson, American Justice Federation" <iquest.net!lindat> -- .-. .-. / \ .-. .-. / \ / \ / \ .-. _ .-. / \ / \ -/--Clay Irving-N2VKG-(clay(a)panix.com)-\---/---\-----/-----\-------/-------\-- http://www.panix.com/clay `-' `-' \ / \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / `-' `-'

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Re: Forgery, bills, and the Four Horsemen (Articles and Comment)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 22:42 9/5/95, Bryce Wilcox wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >I, Bryce Wilcox <bryce.wilcox(a)colorado.edu> wrote: >> >> >I hope I'm not missing anything here. > > >shamrock(a)netcom.com (Lucky Green) wrote: >> >> Only that Ecash has no benefits for transactions that are of an illegal >> nature. The meaning of "illegal" is of course increasing as new laws are >> passed every session of the legislature. > > >Chaum says that (especially when speaking before U.S. Congress) but I think >he is playing both sides of the fence. He is a die-hard privacy advocate who >allegedly turns down lucrative business deals because he feels they would >dilute his privacy achievements. The truth is that Chaumian DigiCash is a >*lot* safer for criminals than, say, credit cards, and when it is combined >with the other tools in a money launderer's toolbox, I expect it will be a >great boon to them. Chaum is a privacy advocate when it comes to companies compiling dosiers on you. When it comes to criminal use, my conversations with Chaum, his public comments, and last not least the current implementation of his software suggest otherwise. > >Suppose you have acquired a million dollars worth of legal, above-board >DigiCash dollars and you want to surreptitiously transfer this wealth to a >below-board friend. Your friend creates a temporary anonymous account at an >understanding bank. Y Won't work. Ecash, except as used for frequent flyer like points, will exist in only *one* world wide e$ currency, issued by a single entity composed of various major banks and subject to US laws. Getting Ecash accounts will therefore be subject to the same legal requirenments that apply to normal US checking accounts. >Now without active physical surveillance, nobody other than yourself and your >friend will ever know where the money went, and you can't prove that you gave >it to him, either... You or a sting operation can always reveal the recipient by publishing the blinding factor. Besides, your Ecash client keeps a log of the payees. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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"This discussion is off-topic, please take it elsewhere"
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:58 AM 9/5/95, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > SANDY SANDFORT > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > >C'punks, > >This is not a crypto post, but those interested in threat models >and counter-measures might want to read on. This brings up an important issue. Sorry it is not written in C, or even TCL. I actually agree with a point the noted tentacle VZNuri ("visionary," obviously) wrote, namely, that people are getting entirely too apologetic (myself included, though most of my "apologies" have had an ironic edge to them) about posting things that are other than about coding in C, writing sockets for Windows, or breaking SSL. Folks, this list is about a _lot more_ than just some facet of writing software. It started as a wide-ranging list, with many topics, many interests. I don't think I need to try to list the topics, but they obviously include things such as legal issues, policy, PGP, remailers, digital money, money laundering, regulatory arbitrage, data havens, steganography, languages, frameworks, Unix utilities, and dozens of other related topics. We've covered hundreds of topics, and are probably the only such list on the planet that routinely considers the ramifications and ways of actually building the exciting ideas that the academics at the Crypto conferences discover and write about. (I can tell you that one of the main motivations we (Eric and I) had in starting the group was to take the academic abstractions, things like "bit commitment" and "dining cryptographers networks" and reify them into actual blocks of code, or running programs.) Some have argued that "Cypherpunks write code," which has been a short slogan making it clear that one of our main interests is in actually building and deploying these methods. This was a major goal in the spring of 1992 when Eric (Hughes, for any newcomers) and I spent time hashing out what is needed in crypto. As far as I'm concerned, we're on track. Remailers have advanced far beyond the early remailers, and that they exist at all is an accomplishment. The "theory" of remailers is immensely accelerated by having actual remailers in actual use to test theories against and to see real world behaviors. Likewise, message pools have been built. A working anonymous market (BlackNet, for example) has been instantiated, albeit not proliferated. Digital money in various forms (Magic Money, work with Chaum's DigiCash, etc.) has been used. Lots of other examples. PGP, hooks to mail programs (though a lot more are needed), key escrow considerations, etc. Of course, things have gone more slowly in some areas than in others. Digital money, and financial instruments in general, have proceeded in fits and starts. I suspect this indicates that things like money are not done lightly, and that many non-coding issues are intertwined in such a way as to make any "amateur" efforts problematic. But it's only through trying that the obstacles can be seen, so even our failures are useful. Is this "writing code" in all cases? Of course not. Not everything is coding. Planning and preparing is just as important. And consideration of threat models is part and parcel of writing code, else one will not know where to start writing code. Thus, for example, the hundreds of posts here on key escrow (and some of us anticipated Clipper six months before it was announced, allowing the Cypherpunks to hit the ground running as soon as it was announced) and GAK are useful in countering the arguments of those who have spent years planning such escrow (GAK) policies. What I'm getting at is that the "Cypherpunks write code" mantra does not mean that _only_ the few dozen folks actively writing C code can contribute. Indeed, many of the folks now writing code have _claimed_ that they were inspired to write some code in some area--remailers, digital cash, SSL challenges, whatever--by the discussions here on this list. Would they have been so inspired if all political, legal, and cultural discussions had been expunged, if only the arcania of programming and C were being discussed? After all, sci.crypt already exists, and even sci.crypt.research, so why should the Cypherpunks list even exist, as these groups are already ostensibly focussed on pure crypto issues. No, Cypherpunks is about more than just C programming, about more than just IETF issues, about more than just algorithms. I think it great that so much programming discussion occurs, that so much progress is being made. I just think some list.cops are going a bit overboard in their denunciations of "off-topic" posts, and their increasing shrillness in saying that anyone not out there writing Unix crypto programs should stop posting. Those who only want to read about "malloc" and "struct" are encouraged to use the filtering tools which they surely have access to and to stop telling us in shrill voices that posts are "off-topic." --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Searchable Crypto Paper Archive?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:48 PM 9/6/95, David J. Bianco wrote: >I was trying to dig up some cryptography papers cited as references >today, when a thought hit me; there seem to be a fair amount of crypto >papers available on the Net, but they're pretty scattered. Bell Labs >has some online, which is great! The cypherpunks FTP archive has a >few, though you can't perform keyword searches against them. In >short, it's hard to find papers unless you already know what you want >and where it might be. > >Having had some experience in designing and implementing technical >report retrieval services, I naturally think there's room for >improvement here. 8-) What I have in mind is something like NASA's >NTRS ("NASA Technical Report Server", ><http://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/NTRS>), which I helped >design and implement at my last job. It's an idea with some attraction. But some issues need discussing. Being an analytical sort of person, prone to looking for flaws in ideas, I'll mention a few: 1. First and foremost, _copyright_ issues. Most articles are copyrighted (automatically, by Berne Convention) and the permission of the authors must be obtained. Authors may also collect royalties, or the conferences may, so unlimited electronic distribution is a potential problem. NASA can publish its reports (and those of other government agencies) electronically because it has the copyrights, or the copyrights are free and clear. Try putting someone's article on the Net without their permission and look out. Indeed, there are a couple of the most important papers on the soda archive site, some of them scanned-in and OCRed by "The Information Liberation Front." There are so few that the authors likely don't even know they are there, or care. But try to put lots of copyrighted material on a site and get ready for actions. Remember, most nations are party to the Berne Convention(s). 2. Many of the papers have complex typography, lots of equations and diagrams. These reproduce poorly on most screens, and really need a new level of display presentation. (Yes, I know about Adobe Acrobat, which I have. Ditto for FrameMaker, and a few other such systems. But not many others have them.) I happen to know the ILF member who posted the Chaum "Dining Cryptographers" paper, anonymously, and know that he picked that paper both because of its importance to his interests and because it was pure text, with no equations and no diagrams. This made it a natural for scanning. 3. In the crypto domain, the papers are much more conveniently concentrated into a handful of conference proceedings, nearly all published by Springer-Verlag. (Those great silvery-grey paperbacks.) This point about Springer-Verlag relates to Item #1 above. Namely, that copyright holders (Springer-Verlag, through publishing arrangements with the conferences) will not take kindly to folks making the papers available electronically. This point, about the limited number of main crypto volumes, also implies another point: many of these papers refer to other papers in the same volume or set of volumes (e.g., papers in the "Crypto '93 Proceedings" will refer to papers in that volume or earlier volumes). This makes it *even more advantageous* for a serious researcher to buy the complete set of volumes. 4. Authentication issues. Electronic versions of articles will need to be signed, to prevent unauthorized modifications. The infrastructure for this is beginning to build, but is clearly not available to many. I am confident that someday most journals will be published electronically. Many people think this likely, whether in 5 years or 15 years. Just too many advantages. However--and this is my point--before that happens a huge amount of negotiation about author's rights to reproduction, about verification of copies, about royalty payments for copies, etc., has to happen. And, the display software/hardware is not quite there yet....too many people would be unable to see the equations and diagrams on the screen. In 5 years, less of a problem. Many authors make their papers available by anonymous ftp, or via the Web. I think this is the way to do it: let those who feel their papers need electronic dissemination do so. The author makes the choice. In summary, this project is probably premature (technologically), has numerous copyright issues to be resolved, and is probably less needed in the crypto community than in some other areas. (Granted, we are not following those other areas, necessarily. But that other domains have not yet gone fully electronic is indicative that others see some of these same problems, and are likely to address them before the math/crypto community does.) Sorry to dissect this proposal so thoroughly, but it's one of the things I do. --Tim May (P.S. The copyright problems can possibly be skirted by using anonymous remailers and offshore data havens in jurisdictions that will not raid the sites, or by message pools. But these are major steps, mostly untested. A "Scientology" site is probably a better test than a site with crypto papers. I wouldn't want to run either of them.) ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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BoS: Bug bugs privacy file but a fix is on the way (fwd)
by Patrick Oonk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From best-of-security-request(a)cyber.com.au Tue Aug 26 08:30:09 1997 Resent-Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:16:35 +1000 (EST) From: darrenr(a)melb.convergent.com.au (Darren Reed) Message-Id: <199708260343.NAA08202(a)duchess.melb.arcsystems.com.au> Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 13:43:37 +1000 (EST) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: darrenr(a)cyber.com.au Old-Status: O Resent-Message-ID: <"kYO8a.A.IkC.-PmA0"@plum> X-Loop: best-of-security(a)cyber.com.au Errors-To: best-of-security-request(a)cyber.com.au Precedence: list Resent-Sender: best-of-security-request(a)cyber.com.au To: best-of-security(a)cyber.com.au Resent-From: best-of-security(a)cyber.com.au X-OS: FreeBSD3.0-current X-Mailing-List: <best-of-security(a)cyber.com.au> ftp://ftp.cyber.com.au/pub/archive/b-o-s/ X-Subscription: To unsubscribe from this fine mailing list mail best-of-security-request(a)cyber.com.au with Subject: unsubscribe Subject: BoS: Bug bugs privacy file but a fix is on the way A "flaw" in the encryption program PGP 5.0 was reported to the Australian security organisation AusCERT lat week, and a recommended fix was issued later in the week. Security consultant Paul Drake, an expatriate Australian working for a company called NetSafe, said he had discovered a bug that menat PGP 5.0 (for "Pretty Good Privacy") kept passwords in memory "at all times", as well as part of the text of whatever had been encrypted. The keyfile was also being kept in a relatively insecure file, he said. AusCERT confirmed the problem had been reported and said they were investigating. PGP advocate peter Moon, who is pushing for wider use of the software in Australia, said while the problems pointed out by Drake were "valid", they were more weak points than "bugs". "The PGP encrpytion algorithm is - as anyone knows - as solid as a rock. The attacks are all based on the principal that if you want to break into the strongest box in the world, the easiest way is to pinch thekey." He said a product called bcwipe could clear the saved information and the keyfile should probably be deleted altogether. Drake said PGP, a United States-based company, would release "PGP 5.01" without the problem. -- Jenny Sinclair, Page D4, The Age, Tuesday 26 August 1997 -- | Patrick Oonk - http://patrick.mypage.org/ - patrick(a)pine.nl | | PGP Key ID 0xDA2E93FA - Internic PO59 - <clicketyclick> | | Pine Internet B.V. Consultancy, installatie en beheer | | Tel: +31-70-3111010 - Fax: +31-70-3111011 - http://www.pine.nl/ |

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