December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [NOISE] GAK and self-incrimination?
by tallpaul＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Dec 10, 1995 23:55:13, 'Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com>' wrote: > >Testimony was often compelled by more direct means than threatened >contempt citations. Piling rocks on people until they talked was >still in use in the 1600s, unless I've got my dates wrong. >It may have gone out of fashion slightly after witch-burning, >but was still in recent cultural memory of the Constitution's authors. > The rock process was called "pressing" and it had an economic basis to it, if my memory serves. The laws of the time permitted the state (i.e. often the little village) to confiscate the property of those convicted of crimes in a court. Remember that many of the witch etc. accusations were made among the residents of the same villages with all of the petty resentments, vindictive people, and "nuts" that exist in every location and every time throughout history. The legal system did not permit someone to be tried for a crime until they had entered their plea of guilty or not guilty. In other words, you could charge them with being a witch. Then you demanded that they enter a plea. Then you try them, and likely convict them. Then you confiscate their property. People who reused to enter a plea jammed up the entire process -- no plea = no trial = no verdict = no property confiscation. To avoid this unpleasant series of equations, the forces bringing the charges wanted a way of forcing people to plea to the charge. They wanted it to be reasonably safe, since a person who died passed their property on to the rest of the family. But they also wanted it to be unpleasant enough to actually compell the accused to actually enter the plea. Thus pressing was invented. Stones were slowly added over a period of days to produce maximum discomfort with minimal chance of an accidental death. (Now what does this have to do with strong crypto?) Well, why would the person charged refuse to plea unless they were guilty? (Beginning to sound a little familiar?) Futplex's original post brings up yet another example from history where human behavior has nothing to do with crime. The person who refused to plead so refused not out of any sense of guilt but from something entirely different. If I'm not guilty why do I want strong crypto? Sometimes for the same reason I want a shredder. And why do I want a shredder? Sometimes just to keep the local gossip from going through my papers after I throw them out. --tallpaul

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RE: Because they want to be "players"
by jay holovacs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

========================== >From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> >To: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com>; fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu;cypherpunks@toad.com >Subject: Because they want to be "players" >Date: Thu, Sep 18, 1997 10:37 PM > >Yes, SAFE is an evil bill. And anyone who supports the "use a cipher, go to >prison" language (*) is guilty of a most serious crime. In NY (as possibly other places), wearing a bullet resistant vest while doing something illegal is itself a crime. While it might be argued that messing around with guns can hurt bystanders, no one was ever injured by a stray bullet resisting vest. Jay

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Anohter angle on timing (TEMPEST)
by Dave Emery 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Reading of Mr Kochers clever attack brings to mind another way of obtaining the timings it uses, particularly on smartcards and other tamper resistant hardware based crypto devices - but also perhaps on locally accessible (and poorly sheilded) servers. Observing small changes in current drain, radiated rf pulses, ground noise, noise on other pins of the device (eg a smartcard) and other kinds of transient electrical noise generated by an internal processor performing a cyrpto algorithm noise might very well allow one to quite precisely identify when certain sections or loops in the internal code of the device was running. Using this information with Kochar's statistical approach to determining bit values from time variances might make such a tempest attack on protected keys held by such a devices practical even for those of us not privy to the tricks used by the spooks to process tempest data. And it certainly could make available much more timing information per run than just the gross time to complete the crypto operation, in fact it is entirely possible that an accurate timing for each step of the algorithm could be derived from such noise measurements. Dave Emery die(a)die.com

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Re: key escrow arguments (fwd)
by David Downey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Am I just being paranoid or am I seeing a pattern here? Let me point out a few items that have sprung to mind after reading the post. 1) The government is trying to take away our right to strong private crypto because they do not have access to the decrypting key at either end. This nullifies any type of access they "need" to have to those transmissions. 2) They also are trying to use their market power to force companies to manufacture and sell crypto products that use government backed algorythms. (Which of course include the "back door" features they so loudly claim they need.) Such as when they told AT&T that they would buy 2.3 million Secure 3600 series phones from them *if* they put the government designed Fortezza(?) chip in them. 3) They classified crypto as a munition, like a fighter jet or tank, in an attempt to take it out of the realm of Constitutional Right. (Though it seems they forgot about the "Right to bear arms" part) 4) They forced the telephone industry to write their software in such a way as to instantly allow them access to any and *all* lines. (In the event that they should "need" to tap the line as per a supposedly legally obtained court order from an Artical III federal court judge. (Ummm.. Do they really think that we don't know what it takes to obtain that high a level of a political seating in the judiciary branch?) 5) They stirred up the media which in turn roused the sheeple. THe rally cry was child porn. Is there a pattern here, or am I just going out of what is left of my mind? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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[Noise] A vaguely humorous post
by Don M. Kitchen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I saw some fool posting to alt.security among other places trying to get his basic program to do OTP's. On the off chance that anybody thinks this is funny, here's my response: In-reply-to: spy(a)vs.spy's message of 10 Dec 1995 05:02:17 GMT Newsgroups: alt.2600,alt.2600.programz,alt.security Followup-To: alt.2600 Subject: Re: HELP....This will not work; I am perplexed. Reply-to: don(a)cs.byu.edu References: <4adpkp$3id(a)mercury.initco.net> - --text follows this line-- > 60 INPUT "HOW MANY ONE TIME PADS DO YOU WANT?";NUMB [snip] > 160 RANDOMIZE E > 170 X=INT(RND(0)*90)+1 This isn't sci.crypt so I won't flame, but I feel I should point out that "One Time Pad" is a registered trademark of Cypherpunks, Ltd, and that any inferrence that anything coming out of a basic randomizer is "One", "Time", or "Pad" is a blatent trademark violation. As a courtesy to the public, Cypherpunks, Ltd, makes freely available it's patented One Time Pad technology. Using PGP, you may enter the top-secret activation code thusly: "pgp +makerandom=[size] [filename]" where [size] is the size, in bytes, of your Cypherpunk[tm]-generated, super-cryptographically- secure, ultimate One Time Pad[tm], and [filename] is where you want it stored. You can rest assured that with your cypherpunk[tm] One-Time-Pad[tm], not even a Cypherpunk[tm] can break your code without breaking your bones. > **Have you been compromised? If the answer is no, > you had better think again. With security ideas like that, I'm not surprised. MD5 man, MD5. PS, try to zip a large output from pgp makerandom. Now try a large output from basic. Hmmmm. Which one Just Wont Compress[tm]? Happy Monday everyone. PS: got mail crypt working, it's awesome. It's quite seamless, up to the point where my home box doesn't have incoming mail service and EMACS doesn't have built in POP or IMAP. (Yet). But great for nntp and PGP. Don -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMMwBmcLa+QKZS485AQHKLAL6Ah4881dbMan91wNL2TJjvGMHe75Xwzrw YI0x5/XsmuoYv7M6qn4O+MZ9vEF51ES1sJaW5bOQ5Gq0vJn2bmGVIV+kmbn2p3TZ ZHxkv51NW7zxwRgyvnezwyYwBrY10bQ2 =eoAc -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- <don(a)cs.byu.edu> fRee cRyPTo! jOin the hUnt or BE tHe PrEY PGP key - http://students.cs.byu.edu/~don or PubKey servers (0x994b8f39) June 7&14, 1995: 1st amendment repealed. Junk mail to root(a)127.0.0.1 * This user insured by the Smith, Wesson, & Zimmermann insurance company *

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A few years back i ran thru a paper emanating from a navy labs researcher (i think the name was Peccora) about using synchronised chaotic signal generators as a signal scrambling/encrytpion scheme. Has there been any kind of progress in this line of work, practical applications ? Answer on C4i-pro or directly email to Denholl(a)ceram.fr L. Den-Hollander. OIT engineer.

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Re: sooner or later
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following message is forwarded to you by William H. Geiger III <whgiii(a)users.invweb.net> (listed as the From user of this message). The original sender (see the header, below) was "David Downey" <digital_matrix(a)hotmail.com> and has been set as the "Reply-To" field of this message. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Return-Path: <digital_matrix(a)hotmail.com> >Received: from hotmail.com (F4.hotmail.com [207.82.250.15]) > by users.invweb.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA18318 > for <whgiii(a)invweb.net>; Fri, 19 Sep 1997 17:41:47 -0400 >Received: (qmail 10896 invoked by uid 0); 19 Sep 1997 21:41:28 -0000 >Message-ID: <19970919214128.10895.qmail(a)hotmail.com> >Received: from 207.51.67.2 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; > Fri, 19 Sep 1997 14:41:28 PDT >X-Originating-IP: [207.51.67.2] >From: "David Downey" <digital_matrix(a)hotmail.com> >To: whgiii(a)invweb.net >Subject: Re: sooner or later >Content-Type: text/plain >Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 16:41:28 -0500 >X-Old_TimeStamp: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 14:41:28 -700 >Status: >Oh I wouldn't be feeling to optimistic with that. We in the >crypto/anarchist community are a very small minority. Our govenrmnet >would have no qualms at all of taking us out. A nice little Reichstag >Fire to turn popular opinion against us and then the storm troopers >will be sent out. If you are expecting some type of popular support >of "us" against "them" I think you are sorely mistaken. The majority >of the sheeple would be all to happy to turn in those evil >cryptologist for their 5min of fame. > I wouldn't say that we are that small of a minority. There are many folks out there that feel the same way that we do. I know of a large community in Kentucky, USA that feel that the government is slowly trying to institute a police state. (And no, I do not mean a militia, though many of them are friends that I had the honor of serving with in the US Army.) The viewpoint that I am trying to get accross comes from looking at history. Although many groups that went against governments were in fact wiped out, they left an indeligible mark on the minds and attitudes of future generations. Some even to the point of creating another generation of "freedom fighters" that actually forced the government to radically re-evaluate it's stance on certain items. (There are too many incidences of this to mention, though the slave movement in Rome, and the Spartan soldier revolt do come to mind.) What is to say that with the physical fire-power of today, and good old fashion American grit such as was shown at Iwa Jima by the US Marine Corp, we could not show the Government that we could not change their minds? I personally would hate for things to come down to that level, yet it seems that they are forcing us more and more towards that path. (Please don't misread my statements. I do not advocate the overthrow of the government. I merely am commenting on the fact that the factors which contributed to the American Civil War becoming a reality are once again present today. If another war should break out today... let's just say that is one nightmare I'd prefer *not* to have! ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com - ----------------------------------------------------- -- End of forwarded message - ----------------------------------------------------- - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNCL+TI9Co1n+aLhhAQEeFgP/aqjyGITziDJBIke1hAfHFBea4Dxv11Av 7J4fkFZYF3In7j/NI00pDmX8Kb0xOiZXJkiA/JWhGr6pPFyJcFvEtMSoJKUy5W+l TEcTikn9y2qwkDl1dAULf2vP9etd825TC2wQkYJsPV/1baN1eRjzmedBoGvz7X/q qKxAZKKwSBI= =FglG -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Clinton's Pager Hacked
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dave Wagner passed on a story about the hacking of the White House Communications Agency's pager system, with commentary on what was lifted and the possible consequences for crypto policy: http://jya.com/potus-hack.htm The full report on the hack is online at: http://www.inch.com/~esoteric/pam_suggestion/formal.html With links to the transcript. The big-time media are about to break the story worldwide according to Dave.

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Re: e-Cash: CAFE vs. Mondex
by Matthias Schunter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Mr. Klur, I'm member of the CAFE consortium but I can not answer your question. As far as we know, the details of the Mondex protocols are still confidential (or only available under a non-disclosure license). However, I can give you some details about CAFE. The CAFE system is a cheque based system. This means that the customer receives an electronic chequebook, where each cheque is (blindly) signed by the bank. During each payment the customer has to use one of these signed cheques. Some of its properties are: secure Breaking the card results in a limited gain, since soon the customer will run out of cheques (Mondex' security is quite likely only based on tamper-resistance). open Due to the open public-key architecture used, the system is open, e.g., it supports multiple-issuer, multiple-currencies. One part of this openness is the public availability of the specifications. practical It provides full loss- and fault-tolerance (i.e. if you loose your wallet you're able to recover your electronic money) and supports fast micropayments (e.g., for phone ticks). privacy-protecting The privacy of the user is protected. We will soon publish our full protocol and architecture specifications. A short 50-page summary is already available (PostScript). Additional information may be found at http://www.informatik.uni-hildesheim.de/~sirene/projects/cafe/index.html Please ontact me, if you are interested in this abstract or if you have additional questions. Regards, M. Schunter --- Forwarded mail from "David Klur" <dklur(a)dttus.com> Date: Mon, 11 Dec 95 12:13:48 CST From: "David Klur" <dklur(a)dttus.com> To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com, WWW-BUYINFO(a)allegra.att.com Is the Cafe e-cash system different than Mondex? If so, how? Also, does anyone know when the Mondex trial will start in Delaware? ---End of forwarded mail from "David Klur" <dklur(a)dttus.com> % Matthias <Schunter(a)acm.org> Uni Hildesheim +49(5121)883-788 fax-732

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Bill Gates gives 1 Billion to EFF!
by EFF 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[EFF - Bienfait, Saskatchewan] News Release: Gates Gives Gargantuan Gift to Gullability Grifters! ---------------------------------------------------- In a suprise announcement this afternoon, Bill Gates announced that he would be donating a billion dollars over the next ten years to the Electronic Forgery Foundation, for use in promoting CypherPunks Action Projects. Gates emphasized that this plan had been in preparation for quite some time, and was not a response to the publicity-seeking Ted Turner's challenge to the rich and notorious. He also pointed out that he, unlike Turner, had nothing but the most self-serving of intentions. "I have asked that none of the money go directly to the projects, but only toward the administration of the CypherPunks Action Projects." he stated. "I expect that the CAP's will become rather top-heavy and, being overseen by the Electronic Forgery Foundation, will be able to compete with the sheer volume of lies that the government uses to suppress free speech and liberty in the U.S. Chief CypherPunks Spokesperson, TruthMonger, thanked Gates profusely for the gift, babbling and drooling at times, while accepting the first check and handing Gates an envelope about the size needed to contain photographic negatives. Gates immediately burned the envelope. TruthMonger stated that he had met with the EFF Board of Directors, including ? the Lunatic, Toto, The Real Guy, and A Player To Be Named Later, and that all of them had been anonymous in agreeing that the first order of business would be to purchase a liquor store from which to run the CypherPunks Action Projects. TruthMonger then put on an aluminum foil hat and, addressing the crowd as ? the Lunatic, said, "We will naturally be replacing the staff of the liquor stores with people more in tune with the goals of the CypherPunks.", adding that he had already put out some 'feelers' at local tit-bars in this regard. Bill Gates explained that a top-heavy disorganization, such as he envisioned with the EFF running the CAPs, would stand a good chance of becoming a self-feeding monster which could promote strong crypto at the same time as bending the multitudes to do his bidding as the year 2000 elections approached. When asked by a reporter if he was the Anti-Christ, Gates grinned and replied, "I could tell you...but then I'd have to burn you in Hell, forever." Reporters were quick to ask the EFF directors how they planned to protect their forseen rise in power and influence from being sabotaged by veteran CypherPunks who might use strong encryption to thwart the attempts of Big Money to harness their reputation capital to promote their own agenda. Taking off the aluminum hat and whipping out his dick, The Real Guy stated, "Well, of course we will have to forbid use of non-GAK'ed cryto by EFF employees, in the interests of Foundation Security. Or, alternatively, we may limit the use of encryption by our employees to 8-bit crypto products." Smiling sheepishly, he added, "We're not real good at math." At this point, shots rang out from the window of a nearby building, as well as from a grassy knoll and several other places, dropping many of those gathered at the press conference like flies. As Gates and TruthMonger made their getaway in an armored limousene, several CypherPunks were heard arguing on the grassy knoll as to whether it had been a mistake to shoot the lawyers first. A later memo to the press from MicroSoft indicated that the official announcement of the donation would be released in an upcoming chapter of "InfoWar (Part III of the True Story of the InterNet), written by Bill Gates, himself. When asked about the possibility of Gates having presented the EFF with a forged check, sources at MicroSoft merely giggled. --------------------------------------------------------------------- This announcement is copyrighted under the auspices of the Electronic Forgery Foundation. Any misuse or misquoting of the announcement will be considered par for the course. ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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