December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

New World Encryption
by James M. Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friend, An item in 11 09 95 Edupage summarizes a NY Times new- sstory revealing Clinton's wish to spy on the world: OPPOSITION TO ADMINISTRATION'S ENCRYPTION STAND A coalition of 37 major U.S. technology companies has re- jected the Clinton Administration's proposed standard for data encryption, saying that they found Administration of- ficials unwilling to compromise. The government wants an encryption plan that will allow it to gather intelligence overseas, through the use of a key ^^^^^^^^ escrow encryption system. The high-tech companies want an encryption standard that would ensure privacy for both domestic and overseas users. ^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ (New York Times 8 Nov 95 C3) Their opposition to the Administration's plan has been joined by 12 conservative organizations who call it anti-consumer, anti-marketplace, and anti-progress. (New York Times9 Nov 95 C3) Cordially, Jim NOTE. To subscribe to Edupage: send a message to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: subscribe edupage <your first name> <your last name>

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Current list of Remailers
by John Perry 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello Everyone, Since Raph annonced his new Type-II remailer list, I just wanted to let everyone know that I have updated the type2.list and pubring.mix files on jpunix.com to reflect the most up-to-date status of the Type-II Mixmaster remailers, You can connect to http://www.jpunix.com or ftp to ftp.jpunix.com to get the latest configuration files. John Perry - KG5RG - perry(a)alpha.jpunix.com - PGP-encrypted e-mail welcome! Packet Radio - KG5RG(a)WA4IMZ.#SETX.TX.USA.NA WWW - http://www.jpunix.com PGP 2.62 key for perry(a)jpunix.com is on the keyservers.

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New feature for the Cryptography Technical Report Server
by David J. Bianco 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Yes, it's still there! 8-) I posted a note to this list a few months ago announcing that I had set up such a service, and though we've only got a few reports I'm up to a couple o' hundred visitors a week. To me, the amount of activity indicates interest in the subject, but the lack of reports tells me that either authors are not interested in contributing, it's too difficult to contribute, or they don't know about service. I took some time this weekend and wrote a script to handle online submissions. This should make things easier on the authors, I think. If you have a technical report, journal article or book you'd like to index in CTRS (abstract only submissions are supported as well as full-text submission), point your browser at: http://www.itribe.net/CTRS/add-entry.cgi If you try this, please let me know how you liked it. I'm interested in making the submissions process as painless as possible. As always, the main CTRS page is http://www.itribe.net/CTRS/ or https://www.itribe.net/CTRS/ -- ========================================================================== David J. Bianco | Web Wonders, Online Oddities, Cool Stuff iTribe, Inc. | Phone: (804) 446-9060 Fax: (804) 446-9061 Suite 1700, World Trade Center | email: <bianco(a)itribe.net> Norfolk, VA 23510 | URL : http://www.itribe.net/~bianco/

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Re: coding and nnet's
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:52 PM 11/10/95, Bill Stewart wrote: >Schneier's 2nd edition says "Neural nets aren't terribly useful for >cryptography, >primarily because of the shape of the solution space. Neural nets work >best for >problems that have a continuity of solutions, some better than others. >This allows a neural net to learn, proposing better and better solutions as >it does. >Breaking an algorithm provides for very little in the way of learning >opportunities: >You either recover the key or you don't. (At least this is true if the >algorithm is >any good.) Neural nets work well in structured environments when there is >something >to learn, but not in the high-entropy, seemingly random world of cryptography." >And he doesn't give any references. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This paragraph sounds a _lot_ like what I wrote in sci.crypt a while back on the usefullness of AI and neural nets for crypto. Sounds almost like exactly the paragraph I wrote, in fact. And I recollect that Bruce dropped me a note saying I made the point succinctly and that he wanted to use what I said in his next edition. (My recollection at least, but I don't have any easy way anymore of searching my several hundred megs of accumulated mail, articles, etc.) I have no problem with Bruce using my points. I hope he didn't use my _exact_ words, though. But not a cosmic issue. --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: New World Encryption
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:49 AM 11/11/95, James M. Cobb wrote: > > >Friend, > > >An item in 11 09 95 Edupage summarizes a NY Times new- >sstory revealing Clinton's wish to spy on the world: > >OPPOSITION TO ADMINISTRATION'S ENCRYPTION STAND "Friend," I'm sure your intentions are good in forwarding this and other similar items to the Cypherpunks mailing list, but if you are reading the list, you should surely know that this item--including both summaries and the complete article--have already been posted to the Cypherpunks list. Two days ago, in fact. If for some reason you are _not_ reading the CP list, or not paying attention, then you really should not be forwarding stuff to it. I'm copying the CP list on this to remind folks to "stay on the page" as to what's already been posted. We are already becoming a kind of "automatic cc:" for a variety of announcements, spams, and other earthshattering items. --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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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Q: Bookshop in Seattle
by Jonathon Fletcher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can someone point me towards a bookshop in Seattle that is likely to have the second edition of Applied Cyptography ? Sincerely, -Jon -- Jonathon Fletcher, j.fletcher(a)stirling.ac.uk

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Re: ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update: Nov. 8, 1995
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:15 PM 11/8/95 -0500, ACLUNATL(a)aol.com wrote: > According to the government's own statistics, 1,800 innocent conversations > are intercepted each and every time a wiretap or other form of electronic > surveillance is placed. This seems curiously inefficient, even for government work. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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: Timed-release crypto - Proactive security plug
by Amir Herzberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A small note/plug: the schemes by Tim and Michael are based on `long lived' secret sharing, i.e. you trust each share of your secret to a server for a really long time. Some people may be concerned that such a long time would allow an attacker to break into most servers and reconstruct the secret (key). A solution to this is proactive secret sharing, as described in [HJKY95]. In this protocol, the secret shares are periodically refreshed (i.e. new shares are computed distributively and then the old shares are erased). In this manner, an attacker has to break into most servers during the same period; shares from one period are worthless on the next period. Best, Amir [HJKY95] `Proactive Secret Sharing', A. Herzberg, H. Krawczyk, S. Jareski, M. Yung, Crypto 95. > At 12:09 AM 11/7/95, Michael Shields wrote: > > >In the May proposal, when you have a message to be encrypted, you > >encrypt it with a session key, optionally split that key with an n-of-m > >scheme, and then send the key into a network of escrow agents, which are > >instructed to hold the message for a given period of time. You then > >hold onto the encrypted message, though you need not keep it secret. > >Conceptually, you have encrypted a message and then remailed the key to > >yourself in such a way that it will take X length of time to arrive. > > --Tim May > > Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. How do you know that? :-)

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RE: POTP Security
by Paul Koning 1695 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Paul Jackman <jacktech(a)delphi.com> >Newgroups: talk.politics.crypto > Subject: Re: Elementrix One-Time Pad >.. > The algorithm will be published when patent protection is assured. > It is currently patent pending in several countries. I saw that comment earlier. It's rather a curious statement, given that the rule of publication vs. patents is that publication before FILING kills your ability to get the patent (in most countries) whereas publication after filing but before grant is not an issue at all. This explains why you often see a mad scramble in companies when something patentable is about to be announced at a trade show, or explained in a white paper... the filing has to be in the mail before that happens. But only just before... whether the patent office takes days or years to grant the patent doesn't matter. paul

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Re: unsuscribe all news groups
by Mark Murray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I wish to unsuscribe to all news groups as I feel I should be on a different planet. > Could somebody notify all newsgroups on on my behalf please. > > Sincerely yours Please send a one line message containing only HELP to majordomo(a)toad.com to get help on doing this. M -- Mark Murray 46 Harvey Rd, Claremont, Cape Town 7700, South Africa +27 21 61-3768 GMT+0200 Finger mark(a)grumble.grondar.za for PGP key

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