December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Protecting the innocent on the nets
by A. Padgett Peterson, P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

About a year ago I came up with a mechanism to allow subscription or controlled circulation magazines to be distributed on the net. Not saying is new, just was new to me. Seems like it would be a mechanism for anyone to communicate/access Web pages without crypto, yet allowing protection of such things from those requiring such protection. Concept works like this: LZ (or most other) compressed files have two elements - a data dictionary and ordered pointers to that dictionary. Now say you took a large number of text files/.Gifs/.Jpegs/whatever and created a universal (well nearly) data dictionary that would fit on a CD-Rom. Using large patterns and good ordering techniques could achieve good throughput. Now to a group of subscribers/friends/whatever, the disk is distributed in a controlled manner. Once distribution is made, then what is sent on the net/put on the Web page are just the pointers to the data dictionary plus any patterns not in the dictionary (low enough not to create anything intelligable). What you have is a gigantic book code with a copyrightable book for which you can control the circulation. Those under age need not apply. If they obtain one, then it was illegally and you have made a "good faith attempt" IMNSLO to protect the innocent. Can even change the CD-Rom dictionary *order* yearly/montly/whatever if you want. Comment ? Warmly, Padgett ps if you reply to the list, *please* do not copy me, my volume is silly enough without getting duplicates as it is.

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Re: FV's blatant double standards
by simsong＠vineyard.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:18 AM 1/31/96, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: >FV demonstrated, through it's "card sharp" or whatever, that >real-time transactions are vulnerable to sniffers on the recipient's >own machine. Of course. We all knew that. But the mistake is to >assume that FV isn't _equally_ vulnerable to that threat. If you >can write a trojan that will somehow get privileged access to my >machine, trap my keystrokes, and identify my credit card number, >you can certainly write one that will, sitting on my machine: > "intercept the user's electronic mail, read the confirmation > message from First Virtual's computers, and send out a fraudulent > reply" >(to quote from Simson's article). Simson further quotes FV's Lee >Stein: "A single user can be targeted, Stein said, but ''it is very >difficult. . . . There are too many packets moving . . . to too many >different machines.''" - which is of course equally true for real-time >Netscape transactions. Oh, I think that such a program can be written. However, it would be much harder to get right, considering all of the different ways that people read e-mail. ============= Simson's Schedule: Feb 2 - Feb 5 - Cambridge: Conference on Freely Redistributable Software Feb 7 - Feb 13 - Baltimore: American Association for the Advancement of Science. Feb. 28 - March 1 - Seybold, Boston. March 23 - NYC. MacFair. March 27 - March 30: Cambridge. Computers, Freedom and Privacy.

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[NOISE] Sound bites re the Zundel German censorship thing (fwd)
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Bcc'd to the webcom.com guys FYI] Sorry if you get duplicate copies, but I agree with Tim that mailing list cross-pollution is bad. *Not* for broader redistribution, because they deserve privacy, but illustrative for, say, certain knee-jerk anti-PC forces here, is the fact that the two people who run webcom.com (Bcc'd) have been reported to be: 1. Grandson of a Holocaust victim 2. Activist with PEN and Amnesty International I think we're all on the right side here, and for all the right reasons. -rich ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 17:56:19 -0800 From: Rich Graves <llurch(a)Networking.Stanford.EDU> To: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu Newgroups: alt.censorship, comp.org.eff.talk, alt.internet.media-coverage Subject: Maudlin sound bites re the Zundel German censorship thing I put this together for the few journalists who actually bothered to ask for quotes, rather than taking or manufacturing them without asking. Sent to CMU fight-censorship and relevant newsgroups (not counting alt.revisionism, where this is not really relevant); will also send separately to cypherpunks. I'm not on any other lists, but feel free to pass it along, with PGP signature intact. -rich ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Subject: Re: Quote for Guardian newspaper -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Please cite me as rich(a)c2.org without Stanford affiliation. Yes, I can handle any amount of mail, and I'd much rather have to answer questions than be misinterpreted. Pick and choose and edit at will. The email address rich(a)beep.stanford.edu goes to an alphanumeric pager (cellular beeper, whatever you call it on your side of the pond) that takes 60 characters from the Subject: line; please use it to confirm quotes at deadline. Some material, from least to most maudlin: I am not a free speech activist. As Rosa Parks explains her refusing to move to the back of a racially segregated bus, "I was tired." The Internet belongs to all of us, and if parts of it are cordoned off for even the most noble political reasons, then we are all diminished, and totalitarian regimes like China's are given another excuse. This was an important point to underscore, but it should be noted that all I did was send a half dozen electronic mail messages and copy a few files, which took less than an hour of my time. No less important than the fight against censorship itself, for me, is that hateful demagogues like Ernst Zundel be denied their spurious appeals to "anti-censorship." Mr. Zundel is no more of a free speech activist than are the leaders of the IRA. Repression only breeds criminality. As Tolkien or any good German fairy tale will tell you, the evil troll, when exposed to the light of day, will turn to stone. Evil trolls like Mr. Zundel might still frighten children, but as statues in the Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance they can no longer harm us; and ultimately, these statues will attract pigeons, weather with time, and crumble to dust. Now that the power of the Net has been demonstrated, we have taken down our mirror sites. Now the onus is on Mr. Zundel, in the spotlight of world attention, to reveal his true friends by calling on them to come to his aid. Now we know that Mr. Zundel's friends include Joe Bunkley, a notorious racist at Georgia State University. Joe Bunkley's mirror site, and those of other friendly mirror sites, cannot all be censored; in fact, to my knowledge, no action has been taken against any mirror site. Indeed, the DFN/WiN network that serves most German universities restored access to Mr. Zundel's original site some days ago. Let Mr. Zundel's conspiracy theories about Jews and UFO bases in Antarctica into the public domain, and let us see who will believe them, and who will laugh. I am a great fan of Milan Kundera, who teaches us that the only responses to a totalitarian buffoon are laughter and memory. Nizkor: we will remember. (No, I'm not Jewish) Zundel's hate should never be ignored, but it can be publicly refuted and ridiculed, which has far greater moral and practical effect than censorship. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" can be interpreted many ways. Let freedom ring. - -rich On Sun, 4 Feb 1996, Azeem Azhar wrote: > Hi, > > I'm a journalist on the UK Guardian newspaper > I'm doing a background piece the Zundel bnusiness. > Could you give me a short quotable quote about why you're doing it: > Extreme non-tech if you could. > ASAP? > Cool > > Azeem > > Azeem Azhar vx: 0171-713 4193 > The Guardian fx: 0171-713 4154 > 119 Farringdon Road azeem(a)dial.pipex.com > London EC1R 3ER aa(a)guardian.co.uk (alt) > All opinions are my own unless otherwise stated. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMRU8nY3DXUbM57SdAQHz7gP/VHY9mkoZ4NdJ3bklnH+cKjCXxcT8uxTb bSm/+f/iYe06C2XN3g5O5VVDQiPn0jA4aWJCwP1ntkkZmEsYyIBjRCQgMTBvNqt2 7blwHlLsEelJU2AaqMwK6z+4jiOdgp2InXYOjGsFZZaNwn0gCvbhaUbl5uYy4BV5 9tXMt9ZG95k= =GzMs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Our "New Order"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:26 PM 2/4/96 GMT, Mutatis Mutantdis wrote: >On Sat, 3 Feb 1996 11:30:48 -0700, David M. Rose wrote: > >>In view of the fact that our government seems bent on abrogating its >>citizens' rights to free speech, has anyone done a survey indicating which >>foreign countries have the best Net connections to the U.S. (excepting, of >>course, Germany and possibly France)? > >>It may be expedient for Planned Parenthood and others whose points of view >>differ somewhat from those approved under our "New Order"* to explore >>alternatives in order to reach their constituencies. > >The law makes anyone accessing material lable... even if you connect >to a foreign site where it's legal there, if it's banned in the US, >you can still get screwed (in theory). > >Methinks the time is right for a "PGPScape" web browser. > >Rob. Let me see if I understand this concept correctly. The remote site would pre-encrypt the transmitted data, so that when received it could be decrypted by the requestor according to his (or a temporarily chosen, to avoid disclosing the actual recipient.) public key, so as to disguise both the material and perhaps also the actual requestor? Excellent idea!

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RC2 protected by copyright?
by thad＠hammerhead.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

RSA issued a statement claiming that anyone using RC2(TM) would be in violation of various laws. I think that they might have a point. You can't protect an idea with trade secrets, certainly not a software idea, if you intend to sell the software. It is easy to reverse engineer it; this is probably what happened with RC2. But, what about copyright? Now, copyrights cannot protect ideas, only the expression of those ideas. An algorithm is clearly an idea, you could write a program that would implement it in a completely different way, not just by translating it (translations are still protected by copyright). RC2, though, as 256 bytes of seemingly random data at the head of it, in a permutation table. This is clearly not any idea, but a bit of text. This text would have to be copied to any interoperable RC2. (You could surely use some different permutation, and probably most of the 256! permutations would be equally secure, but would not interoperate with RC2). I would expect that this copying of text be held to be a violation of copyright. Some might argue that 256 bytes is so small that perhaps it couldn't be copyrighted. Copyright clearly can't protect use of a word, or a short phrase (1000 points of light, say). If the permutation table at the beginning was 65536 16-bit numbers, instead of 256 bytes, then the copyright protection be that much stronger and less open to debate. Do any of the real lawyers on the list want to take a crack at this? Has anybody heard any noise from RSA describing exactly how they intend to go after people? thad -- Thaddeus Beier thad(a)hammerhead.com Technology Development 408) 286-3376 Hammerhead Productions http://www.got.net/~thad

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Arthur C. Clarke Supports Strong Crypto
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(Pardon me for mentioning crypto...) Arthur C. Clarke, known to most of you (author of many SF works, coiner of the phrase: "all sufficiently advanced technlogies are indistinguishable from magic," mention by Alan Olsen yesterday), has a role in a "Discovery Channel" program called "Mysterious Universe." The episode tonight dealt with famous ciphers, including the Beale Cipher (buried gold), the Voynich Manuscript (who knows what it is), and the Vinland Map (my ancestors beat the Italians to the New World). Clarke concluded by opining that strong ciphers that can only be read by the intended recipient are now more important than ever. --Tim May Boycott espionage-enabled software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: [NOISE] Sound bites re the Zundel German censorship thing (fwd)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:05 AM 2/5/96, Rich Graves wrote: >Sorry if you get duplicate copies, but I agree with Tim that mailing list >cross-pollution is bad. > >*Not* for broader redistribution, because they deserve privacy, but >illustrative for, say, certain knee-jerk anti-PC forces here, is the fact >that the two people who run webcom.com (Bcc'd) have been reported to be: > >1. Grandson of a Holocaust victim >2. Activist with PEN and Amnesty International > >I think we're all on the right side here, and for all the right reasons. ... Thanks, Rich! I really think the Wiesenthal Center and whatnot could really make some good points, and gain new friends, by PUTTING THE HOLOCAUST DENIAL CRAP ON THEIR SERVERS! Yes, an extreme step. But think of what it would say? --Tim [This Bible excerpt awaiting review under the Communications Decency Act] And then Lot said, "I have some mighty fine young virgin daughters. Why don't you boys just come on in and do em right here in my house - I'll just watch!"....Later, up in the mountains, the younger daughter said. "Dad's getting old. I say we should do him." So the two daughters got him drunk and did him all that night. Sure enough, Dad got em pregnant....Onan really hated the idea of doing his brother's wife and getting her pregnant while his brother got all the credit, so he whacked off first....Remember, it's not a good idea to have sex with your sister, your brother, your parents, your pet dog, or the farm animals. [excerpts from the Old Testament, Modern Vernacular Translation, TCM, 1996]

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"PGP-Scape"? (was Re: Our "New Order")
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jimbell(a)pacifier.com wrote: [..] > >Methinks the time is right for a "PGPScape" web browser. [..] > Let me see if I understand this concept correctly. The remote site would > pre-encrypt the transmitted data, so that when received it could be > decrypted by the requestor according to his (or a temporarily chosen, to > avoid disclosing the actual recipient.) public key, so as to disguise both > the material and perhaps also the actual requestor? Something like that, yes. Anything to where someone watching cannot tell what a person is reading from a web site... even better if one cannot tell who is reading it. Anonymizing proxies would also be nice. There's also less worry about secure transactions, since if everything's encrypted it's harder to tell if a transaction is taking place, viewing porno or subversive or religious, literature, or if you're just reading something mundane. So much for vaporware, though. > Excellent idea! So is fast-than-light travel, but only if it's implemented. Rob. --- "Mutant" Rob <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a blank message with the subject "send pgp-key" (not in quotes) for a copy of my PGP key.

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Re: Sometimes ya just gotta nuke em
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:36 AM 2/4/96 -0500, James M. Cobb wrote: > Neither dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese cities nor an invasion > of Japan was necessary to secure surrender of the Japanese government. After the first nuclear bomb was dropped, the Japanese government held a cabinet meeting in which they summoned Nishina, head of the atomic program, and asked him if he could duplicate atomic weapons within a few months. After two nuclear weapons had been dropped on Japan, the cabinet concluded that Japan faced utter destruction with nuclear weapons, and some advocated surrender. But according to emperor Hirohito "At the time of the surrender, there was no prospect of agreement" Even with two nuclear weapons, surrender was far from assured. It was touch and go: Had the coup succeeded, Japan would not have surrendered, and a considerably more nuclear bombing would have been necessary. The bullet holes in the imperial palace testify that even after two nuclear bombs, there was a substantial faction of the government determined not to surrender. It was certainly true that Japan was defeated, and reasonable people may disagree on justice of using nuclear weapons under these circumstances, but to claim, as Alperovitz claims, that Japan was on the verge of surrender, is not a mere difference of opinion on the interpretation of the facts, but a simple, crude, barefaced, blatant lie. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: free speech and the government
by tallpaul＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Feb 04, 1996 14:40:51, 'Alan Olsen <alano(a)teleport.com>' wrote: > >Crypto relevence: Some people regard the ability to hide "dangerous" >information to be as "dangerous" as the information hidden. Freedom of >Speech includes the right to choose who can listen to that speech. > I do not think that his last sentence is accurate. The primary example os a group that exercises its freedom of speech (maybe even fights in the courts for it) by holding a rally in the Village Green. Does their right to hold their rally also include the right to choose who can listen to the rally speeches in the Village Green? Of course not! Fundamentally, I think that speaking is a speech issue; determining who can listen is a privacy issue. They are very much *not* the same thing. The separation is not done away with by things like the cellular phone anti-eavesdropping or satellite cable broadcast laws. (Aspects of the separation are, however, addressed by PGPhone, or rather should one say made "unaddressable". --tallpaul PS: Olsen's post did have some good themes on the nature of the internet "as public library."

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