December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Information
by scuttle＠alias.cyberpass.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:00 PM 9/1/97 EDT, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote... >Dave K-P <k.p(a)snet.net> writes: > >> > > > Information, please! >> > > Dont go swimming on a full stomach. >> > Don't "escrow" your keys. >> Don't take advice from strangers. >Don't ask, don't tell. Don't eat yellow snow.

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Re: not a flame please read and think about this
by aba＠dcs.exeter.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anon writes: > i know this is unpopular but i wish someone would respond the the > points rather than flaming me. Fair enough, try these... > wei dai patents algorithms - for microsoft!!!!. that should > fucking help us a lot. whos he gonna sue first? Shame it got patented, one more patent. Patents are a mess, ick! > hey i think ill patent xor!!!! and give the patent to the nsa!!! I was kind of wandering if it would be necessary to patent something just to ensure someone else did patent *your* idea, if you came up with one. Or can you publish, and then say that's prior art, so no one else can go patent your idea. Otherwise it would be kind of cool for cpunks to be holding a few patents themselves, allowing free use, just to stop some "hmm lets see what we can patent this week", and "lets patent their work cos they haven't yet" types stealing stuff, and disabling a whole section of work. Chaum's got lots of nice technology, but his patenting and $150k price tag might not be doing him favours. Unless he really does manage to pull some big banks or something. I reckon the netscape model is a good one, give stuff away to the educational lot, sell things cheap, have free demo versions, get the standard first before charging a ransom. Guess he knows what he's doing tho. I hope so for the sake of the future of anon ecash. Be a shame if some of these lame things which claim to be ecash but are really checks with full audit logs, or credit card transactions in disguise become the defacto standard. Problem is no one stands much of a chance unless a radically new method of ecash can be had, he has his patents cover blind sigs? I guess they don't cover blind sigs in general because Brands has applied for patents on his improved blinding techniques. > according to sci.crypt mat blaze can prove that clipper has no back > door. right. that sure helps us. david sternlights new hero. That interpretation was argued. But it's interesting anyway, if a MKCS is equivalent to a PK, and PKs are computationally expensive, and clipper chips are cheap, well hey maybe that's what it does mean, and they wouldn't want to have a weak backdoor in the sense of a weak algorithm, as it may come to light some day, similarly eventually the thing would surely get reverse-engineered, they wouldn't want to be caught out, I'd have thought. They don't need that for a backdoor, they've already got the front door - a copy of all the keys. > pat farrel signs up with the nsa to make the key escrow rules easier > for us morons to understand. hey thanks. maybe theyll give you a > nicer room in the concentration kamp. I found it real informative to have a first hand report of what was going on. I don't see anything wrong with going along to the meeting just to throw your spanner in the works, sounds like the govt types didn't have an easy time of it. They're clearly asking for things which are unacceptable to industry, and cpunks alike. A lot of the stuff Pat wrote up about the NIST meeting sounded like the majority of the attenders were trying to convert a government request for GAK into a CKE discussion. Would be a cool switch. > a whole shitload of socalled cypherpunks jumping over each other to > help and defend him. Well you did ask :-) > brian davis trys to convinice us that key escrow isnt so bad (who > signs your paycheck davie?????) Not sure that there was a motive attached (I could be wrong?), seemed like a provoking question to me. Got some interesting replies. > that guy from rand corp tells us words of wisdom from robert morris > the nsa guy as if we should write them down and pray three times a day > to them. I always kind of like to hear what ex-NSA types are reported as saying, it's quite fun because you never know if they are still on the payroll and feeding you a story for ulterior motives, or if they are making a statement which they think is to their advantage to scare you, or if they really are ex-NSA and are just saying what they can, being helpful, without getting in hot water with the secrecy stuff they have to agree to. > carl elison designs key escrow for tis and acts like hes one of us. Designs CKE, CKE is fine by me, it's voluntary, and just the software equivalent of having a spare key for your own use. GAK is the evil one. > bruce schneier is copyrighting crypt programs and > threatining to sue people who use it. Let's tackle one thing at a time ok? Lots of folks would agree patents are bad news, at least the state of them in the US with idiots patenting XORed cursors, etc. Clost to unanimous on GAK being evil incarnate. Copyrights, well GPL, ILF, RMS says programs should be free. Indeed long term copyrights look like endangered species, if crypto anarchy has it's say. But it's a tricky one because a lot of people make their money writing applications, and they don't want to vote themselves out of a job. If crypto anarchy long term proves copyrights to be outmoded, well the market will change. > even phil zimmerman is selling the rights to pgp. what about all the > people who contributed code (like me). not a dime for us because > phil is famous and your not alowed to say anythingn bad about > him. sorry i forgot phil is god. no one dares to complain. ask phil > about me and when i asked about sharing profits from the code i > conrtibuted. also about the deal with r.f... Wouldn't be much to go around if all the contributers got a share, there were lots of contributers. He's the one taking the rap anyway, and the guy who made it all possible. > lets get back to being punks. Cpunks write code, so lets do it! And lobby, and analyse govt polices, and educate about crypto, and attend govt run white-washes (NIST etc) to register their protest. > fuck these traitors Nah. Crypto anarchy and all that, it's an anarchy, you ain't going to find 2 cpunks with exact identical view points on all topics. Most of the people you complained of to my understanding have done a lot of work for the cpunk causes, as well as their implied copyright/patent crimes. > do crypto and fuck the nsa. Sounds cool to me. So whats the plan of action? People have different ideas, but they're all fighting for the same cause. Down with GAK, being the #1 target at the moment. Privacy from governments, scaling down of hugely bloated governments, malign cancerous growths that they are becoming these days, freedom is what it's all about. Adam

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Re: You really do want to volunteer, don't you?
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:38 PM 9/1/97 -0700, Tim May wrote: >This was an actual case, heard by the Supreme Court several years back. Bus >passengers were given the opportunity to volunteer, as noted. Failure to >volunteer was construed as probable cause that contraband was present. > >(No, I don't know the name of the case. My recollection is that it took >place in Florida or one of the Carolinas. Nor do I recollect how the >Supremes decided the case... This sounds like _Florida v. Bostick_, 501 U.S. 429 (1991), on the web at <http://www.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=501&invol =429>. Bill Stewart's summary of the case looked like a good one to me. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

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Re: not a flame please read and think about this
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I was kind of wandering if it would be necessary to patent something >just to ensure someone else did patent *your* idea, if you came up >with one. Nope. >Or can you publish, and then say that's prior art, so no one else can >go patent your idea. This works. IBM used to have publish a monthly journal (I forget the name, it came out of one of their Yorktown labs) that did exactly this kind of thing for exactly this kind of reason. ACtually, they wrote about stuff that they thought was 5-10 years away. >> even phil zimmerman is selling the rights to pgp. what about all the >> people who contributed code (like me) ... . ask phil >> about me and when i asked about sharing profits from the code i >> conrtibuted. also about the deal with r.f... Mr/Ms. Anonymous is lying. His/her name appears nowhere in the credits, and his/her code appears nowhere in any PGP release. Don't waste any neurons on it. /r$

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Re: You really do want to volunteer, don't you?
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:12 AM -0700 9/2/97, Greg Broiles wrote: >At 11:38 PM 9/1/97 -0700, Tim May wrote: >>This was an actual case, heard by the Supreme Court several years back. Bus >>passengers were given the opportunity to volunteer, as noted. Failure to >>volunteer was construed as probable cause that contraband was present. >> >>(No, I don't know the name of the case. My recollection is that it took >>place in Florida or one of the Carolinas. Nor do I recollect how the >>Supremes decided the case... > >This sounds like _Florida v. Bostick_, 501 U.S. 429 (1991), on the web at ><http://www.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=501&invol >=429>. > >Bill Stewart's summary of the case looked like a good one to me. Thanks, I guess, to all of you who sent further information on this case. I'm chagrinned at this repetitive pattern, though: all it takes is a "I don't remember" for a thread to be completely dominated by helpful comments, clarifications, etc. (Ditto for any question even remotely impinging on financial or tax advice, which is why I almost always include requests that helpful tax advice not be sent to me. I can't seem to mention tax issues without a bunch of helpful souls sending me their ideas on how to beat taxes by incorporating myself in Andorra and then hiring myself as a consultant to the Andorran embassy in California, or whatever.) One strategy I've considered is to never, never, ever admit that I don't know something, as this will forestall the corrections, expansions, clarifications, and citings. Or to express things more elliptically. It pays to be Young. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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You really do want to volunteer, don't you?
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Oh, I left out one of the best examples of this Orwellian doublethink about what "voluntary" means. Item: "You may volunteer to let the nice officers boarding this bus search your bags without any kind of search warrant or probable cause. Most of you will readily volunteer, as you "have nothing to hide." However, failure to volunteer will then mark you as a probable hider of something, and the police officers will then have "probable cause" to search your bags. Have a nice day." This was an actual case, heard by the Supreme Court several years back. Bus passengers were given the opportunity to volunteer, as noted. Failure to volunteer was construed as probable cause that contraband was present. (No, I don't know the name of the case. My recollection is that it took place in Florida or one of the Carolinas. Nor do I recollect how the Supremes decided the case....I can hope they ruled it a clear violation of the Fourth. But I don't remember. Regardless of the outcome, for now, it shows the Orwellian concept of "mandatory voluntary" at work.) --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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RE: 64 bit crypto
by John A. Limpert 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Couldn't we modify RC4 easily to provide the same security against brute-force attacks by just running the key-setup phase 65536 times instead of just once? Why would the attacker need to run the key setup 65536 times?

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Re: Wearing RSA shirt to school
by liberty＠gate.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim wrote: <snips throughout> >At 4:43 AM 9/4/95, Futplex wrote: >>I wrote: >>> With respect to possession within the U.S., there aren't any >>> laws stopping you from waving strong cryptography around wherever you like >>> (at least, not yet). >> >>---- >>...and in private email, Jim Ray pointed out that showing the shirt to a >>foreign national might technically violate ITAR... > >Nope, no more so than letting a foreign national read Schneier's book is a >violation of the ITAR. If you dispute this, ask whether Schneier's book is >banned from export (the book, not the optional diskette). It isn't. Nor are >other cryptography _books_ banned from export. The law doesn't have to be consistent, or to make sense, or be enforced evenhandedly. The law is, after all, not written, or interpreted, or enforced, by partisan Libertarians like me. My private email to Futplex said *may* violate... and I stand by it. [IANAL, though.] Whether or not a law as incontrovertably stupid as ITAR is enforced may depend on the timing of the next election, as we seem to be witnessing in the limbo-state of PRZ. >I'm not minimizing the issue of export of machine-readable code, as in >diskettes. But to claim that a blurry, printed on cotton "barcode" is even >remotely in the same class as exporting a workable set of cryptographic >system routines, or that letting a furriner merely "gaze upon" this blurry >barcode, is a violation of the ITARs is laughable. Yes, but *many* laws are laughable. >>Yeah, I suppose I overstated it a bit. It appears that if the ITAR do cover >>the shirt (unclear at present, AFAIK -- any news on the CJR, Raph ?), then >>flashing it at a furriner could constitute a violation. Thanks for the >>correction. Actually, it was less a correction than me pointing out (yet another) note of uncertainty. James Madison, in Federalist #62 said it best: "What indeed are all the repealing, explaining, and amending laws, which fill and disgrace our voluminous codes, but so many monuments of deficient wisdom." Now, many of us would be more than satisfied to get back to that level of government. I suggest that everyone go have a look at the entire Code of Federal Regulations, before the next election. <g> >the original questioner need not fret about his son wearing the >>shirt to school. I agree that wearing it through Customs on the way to Jamaica would be more problematic, but I live next to a US Customs agent, and he learned about ITAR from me. Here in Miami, Customs has plenty to think about with the various (occasionally venomous) inbound cargo. >It was this series of posts about whether wearing the "munitions t-shirt" >near schools was a crime or not that made me think the silly season had >arrived. It has, a long time ago. Ever watch C-SPAN? JMR -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Freedom isn't Freeh iQCVAwUBMEro1W1lp8bpvW01AQHKsgP/bhOcCUoksLvbGe/nAKxDqZU8KvibvRFm nQ++Xy3FjDDJrFg1/lgmivtrriuFK/xg4CvKdu+yQ6zJ72pH+92cLivsfHeg+ljZ MPSXfHftaOP7i1e4KajnlC3jBcYbWQnqZRdduIyPXZnfn5xK5bU99c5oceCABtSx UD/Hp9Poqbc= =7tMD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Regards, Jim Ray See, when the GOVERNMENT spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of TAXPAYERS, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs. -- Dave Barry ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PGP key Fingerprint 51 5D A2 C3 92 2C 56 BE 53 2D 9C A1 B3 50 C9 C8 Key id. # E9BD6D35 James M. Ray <liberty(a)gate.net> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Support Phil! email zldf(a)clark.net or see http://www.netresponse.com/zldf ________________________________________________________________________

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Senate Bill 974
by David Neal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Senate Bill 974 The full text is difficult to interpret since it mostly just amends other law. Essentialy the law makes illegal: using a computer for racketeering purposes, threatening to destroy data, transferring of unlicensed software, using any method to hide illegal funds transfer, and exporting crypto software. (Relavent bits are included below). The law also expands wiretapping authority, and seems to allow electronic evidence found during a search to be introduced as evidence. You'll have to insert the text of the bill into the real laws to get full context. `(2) to distribute computer software that encodes or encrypts electronic or digital communications to computer networks that the person distributing the software knows or reasonably should know, is accessible to foreign nationals and foreign governments, regardless of whether such software has been designated as nonexportable; `(3) to use a computer or computer network to transmit a communication intended to conceal or hide the origin of money or other assets, tangible or intangible, that were derived from racketeering activity; and `(4) to operate a computer or computer network primarily to facilitate racketeering activity or primarily to engage in conduct prohibited by Federal or State law. `(b) For purposes of this section, each act of distributing software is considered a separate predicate act. Each instance in which nonexportable software is accessed by a foreign government, an agent of a foreign government, a foreign national, or an agent of a foreign national, shall be considered as a separate predicate `(c) It shall be an affirmative defense to prosecution under this section that the software at issue used a universal decoding device or program that was provided to the Department of Justice prior to the distribution.'. David Neal <dneal(a)usis.com> - GNU Planet Aerospace 1-800-PLN-8-GNU Unix, Sybase and Networking consultant. "...you have a personal responsibility to be pro-active in the defense of your own civil liberties." - S. McCandlish

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Senate Bill 974?
by David Neal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Haven't seen it discussed here, but the August 28, 1995 issue of Lan Times covers Sen. Charles Grassley's (R-IOWA) Senate Bill 974. Frankly, you should probably read the text of the bill itself, because the article doesn't seem to get the facts straight. The article asserts first that the bill may outlaw any non-GAK encryption, but then quotes the senator as saying ``All my bill does is say you can't use computers to steal, to threaten others or conceal criminal conduct.'' Perhaps concealing criminal conduct is considered using non-GAK. The quote from the bill itself reads like the ITAR; it is illegal to ``distribute computer software that encodes or ecrypts electronic or digital communications to computer networks that the person knows, or reasonably should know, is accessible to foreign nationals and foreign governments, regardless of whether such software has been designated as nonexportable." The article also says that up to 64 bit keys may now be allowed in exportable software, but that ``some experts'' suggest that those keys may have to be GAK. I've never heard anything BUT the keys would have to GAK. David Neal <dneal(a)usis.com> - GNU Planet Aerospace 1-800-PLN-8-GNU Unix, Sybase and Networking consultant. "...you have a personal responsibility to be pro-active in the defense of your own civil liberties." - S. McCandlish

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