December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography, 2nd Edition
by norm＠mediacity.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Stanford University Book Store (om compus) has a bunch at about $49.

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Kallstrom Calls All Calls Tappable
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

11-3-95. Wash Post: "Privacy Groups Assail FBI's Wiretapping Plan" [Excerpt] James Kallstrom, assistant FBI director in charge of the New York field division, argues that the proposal would in fact reduce the FBI's surveillance authority. "Today ... we could tap all the phones in the United States," he said, referring to older, pre-digital technology. Under the plan, the FBI's surveillance ability would shrink to a maximum of 1 percent of simultaneous telephone calls from any one telephone switch, he said. Kallstrom said a typical central switching office in New York that serves 50,000 telephone lines has a capacity to carry only 5,000 calls simultaneously. It is the latter number, not the former, he said, on which the FBI bases its calculations. So the highest level of simultaneous surveillance in that area, he said, would be 50 lines. "We've never done that many" taps at one time, he said. But in a "worst-case scenario," such as a major act of terrorism, the agency might need such ability, he said. "I think it's a reasonable, minimal, conservative number."

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censored with Perry
by gjeffers＠socketis.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Enzo Michelangeli writes: >In any case, before Perry (rightly) send us stern reminders of the scarce >crypto relevance of this thread, let's take it out of Cypherpunks and, >if someone is interested, let's continue by e-mail. Perry is again narrowly defining allowable speech on Cypherpunks. Encryption becomes a trivial topic if its best medium is taken by the States. Perry is still in his "only encryption algorithms in C is a proper topic for Cypherpunks" mode. This is a direction that if followed would take the vitality and relevance out of the Cypherpunks list. Perry does a disservice for Cypherpunks. Since when did Cypherpunks become the mailing list fit for Perry? Perry makes a big deal out of "nobody speaks for Perry" yet on Cypherpunks he has decided that he sets the parameters for allowed speech. When did Perry come to own the list? Where did he get this "authority" to tell other Cypherpunks to shut up? As Perry often presumptiously and rudely reminds C'punks that their speech is not tolerable, we must also take the time and trouble to occasionally tell Perry to shove his opinions up his ass. Gary Jeffers

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Re: Photuris Primality verification needed
by William Allen Simpson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: "Brian A. LaMacchia" <bal(a)martigny.ai.mit.edu> > > Recently, someone asked for a smaller prime of only 512-bits for speed. > > This is more than enough for the strength of keys needed for DES, 3DES, > > MD5 and SHA. Perhaps this would be easier to have more complete and > > robust verification as well. > > Our practical experiences with discrete logs suggests that the effort > required to perform the discrete log precomputations in (a) is slightly > more difficult than factoring a composite of the same size in bits. In > 1990-91 we estimated that performing (a) for a k-bit prime modulus was > about as hard as factoring a k+32-bit composite. [Recent factoring work > has probably changed this a bit, but it's still a good estimate.] > Thanks. I have added the [from Schneier] estimate e ** ((ln p)**1/2 * (ln (ln p))**1/2) and number field sieve estimate e ** ((ln p)**1/3 * (ln (ln p))**2/3) to the Photuris draft, with a small amount of explanation. Hilarie Orman posted that 512-bits only gives an order of 56-bits strength, 1024-bits yeilds 80-bits strength, and 2048 yields 112-bits strength. I do not have the facilities to verify her numbers. As most of us agree that 56-bits is not enough (DES), the 512-bit prime seems a waste of time and a tempting target. I'd like to drop it, but Phil is inclined to keep it with a disclaimer. Bill.Simpson(a)um.cc.umich.edu Key fingerprint = 2E 07 23 03 C5 62 70 D3 59 B1 4F 5E 1D C2 C1 A2

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Re: lp ?
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>"Peter D. Junger" writes: >>"Perry E. Metzger" writes: >> >>: >>: Thaddeus J. Beier writes: >>: > So, if this person was sending cryptographics codes from Switzerland >>: > to Israel, the code would have been imported to the US, then exported >>: > by UUNET. They can't do that, can they? Probably nobody would prosecute, >>: > but it might be something to threaten UUNET with if one of their Northern >>: > Virginia neighbors ever wanted something the couldn't get otherwise. >>: >>: It isn't clear that telecoms treaties don't implicitly make this legal >>: in spite of the export regulations. >> >>Once again, what the ITAR forbid is the disclosure of cryptographic >>software to a foreign person within or without the United States, so >>it does not make any difference whether the message containing the >>code passes through the United States or not. > >OTOH, the ITAR explicitly permits "temporarily imported" munitions to >be re-exported. Those clauses should entirely eliminate the issue of >whether UUNET could be held liable under ITAR. ITAR says otherwise -- >see section 120.18. What if all traffic routed through the US was automatically modified, say, by inverting all bits, and then de-inverted after it exited the country. (a software flag would alert the systems to this). At the time it was exported, it would not be runnable code, nor compilable source code. Sure, somebody would claim that "it's easy to turn it into runnable code, just by XORing the file with ones." The response is obvious: Every 100K file is only a XOR away from every OTHER 100K file.

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nym-compoop
by Stephen Whitaker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm glad "nobody" thinks I'm a nym for being a good eight hours:fifty-nine minutes out of step and having lowered my reputation in his/her eyes. Now I'll ask my question again, which apparantly got lost in the collective groan of my stale post: Are there ways for someone with access to modify router tables to constantly create alternate paths at other routers which would serve to end-around any such snoops? This question is now offered in the context of the _hypothetical_situation_ of there being snoops out here in the first place. Later I'll ask about sniffing for sniffers. One reason for this post is the fact that certain ambitious bureaucrats here in Vermont have decided to build, own and control the internet, connecting governments, schools and a few businesses. There is no encryption in use by the government agencies and they have let the school hackers and teachers on now to share the T-1 backbone with the state agencies and contractors (medicaid/EDS) carrying personal information collected and managed by state government. These [ir]responsible parties refuse to provide any documentation requested under public records law demonstrating that a security plan or practice is in place. The high schools are offered 56K circuits for $5K/annual and a share of a gov'ment network manager who wont answer his e-mail and doesn't know where to begin looking for copies of it, when it too is requested under our public records laws. Our governor stated in his address to the legislature that these 56K lines will let an "unlimited number of students access the internet simultaneously". Anybody got a bridge? I sure would like to hear from some folks who would be willing to aid in paying close attention, discussing the implications and appropriateness of encryption technologies for this situation, aiding in testing for sniffers, etc. This request is offered as an attempt to keep a step ahead of the public/private competition, privacy accident-waiting-to-happen and the surveillance potential/practice of such a beast. If someone who feels strongly that this is off-topic for this list makes that case I'll carry my inquiry elsewhere, after a little cross-fire, of course. I even went back and just now read the "Welcome to" message to see whether these issues fall withih the scope. I can hardly find anyone who even cares about the fact that our legislature relies on the executive branch gov-net managers for their port/connection on the internet router. They also rely on the executive branch for troubleshooting their novell LAN. Does anyone else see a separation of powers issue or privacy issue here? Note that I cc: the speaker, who cares but doesn't yet grasp the implications. Feel free to write him directly. His name is Michael Obuchowski, Obe for short, <speaker(a)leg.state.vt.us>, tell him I sent you. At this point offering encryption software to school age kids is a whole lot easier than convincing bureaucrats that it's a good practice. This wont solve the problem of poor practice by government though. Unfortunately this will also likely frighten the school network techies, administrators and school board members. Anybody have a copy of any good, tight, discovery orders which can be useful in gaining court ordered access to prevent destruction of evidence and for combing the electronic files and e-mail of these accountable public servants to demonstrate that they don't know what there doing? (responses to the legal points by private e-mail please. Do I come across as litigious?) The Boston Globe did a good front page story a week or ten days ago entitled "e-mail as evidence". Mostly the story was relating to lawyers and consultants making big money aiding corporations to assure that the really damaging, unencrypted e-mail is thoroughly scrubbed from all systems. Back to where this started: Eating my tasty crow gives rise to another question relating to the timing and continuity of these threads: How did the first responder on the RE: 134.222.9.1, Simon Spero, reply at 10:48 pm on Nov. 4 to Anonymous' posting of 7:19AM on Nov 5? Which way is this thing spinnin? Stephen Whitaker P. O. Box 1331 Montpelier, Vermont 05601-1331 802.479.6118

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Re: toolkits?
by Stephen Whitaker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks, Daniel, for a thoughtful response. At 08:18 AM 11/7/95 CST, Daniel R. Oelke wrote: >First off - avoid trying to legislate minute details of any encryption >or signature scheme. Bureaucrats trying to understand, much less control >technical things is doomed to fail. (take GOSIP as a prime example) > I didn't mean to suggest that government would be responsible to get it right. It is possible to show them how it's done though. >Second - push for legal acceptance of digital signatures and >acceptance of privacy through encryption. I believe Utah has taken a strong >step in this direction. Most people, businesses, and courts won't accept >digital contracts and the like until there is more of a sound >set of laws behind them. This is good as it can be pitched as economic development. Any good models? Where to find the UTAH language? Pitfalls to watch out for? >Strong laws against government snooping or >against anti-encryption or anti-anonymous laws are a good thing IMO. This will probably be tough in the current environment. Again, any good language available? Fortunately Vermont is small enough where anyone can get a bill printed and introduced if it is properly drafted. What did the recent US Supreme court decide in support of anonymity? > >Third - provide services to the citizenry. For example - provide >a public key server. Or how about a digital time-stamping service. >If the crap was kept out of these services, and they were free for >anyone to use, then it would advance the idea of encouraging people to >use crypto in their daily lives. > Now were getting specific. These are things that us ordinary folk can do which show the 'leaders' how to follow. What software, hardware, applications, support and sysadmin experience is required and where is it available on what terms. What are the cash flow opportunities to support such services? >Warning - Although I think there are some good things that governments >can do, it is also very important to watch out for "sabotage" by >the government. Governments tend to like control too much and by >trying to maintain control, reverse a useful service to one that >is a dis-service to the people. In general, if governments get >out of the way, people will take care of problems themselves. > Agreed. That why after five or six years of trying to get the privacy laws passed, and watching government drag anchor, I started fishin the cypherpunks list for some pragmatic solutions to everyday situations. I'd still like to be pointed to some toolkits/reference works which will teach me how to access and use available information (or data) to map the net performance, message paths, transmission delay times, sniffers active, etc. -sw

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Re: Timed-release crypto and information economics
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

First, let me congratulate Michael Shields for working on this problem, and for (possibly?) coming up with a cleaner scheme. I confess that I'm not clear on how his scheme differs from mine. Let me hasten to add that my 1993 proposal was intended to be more conceptual than practical, to illustrate how distibuted escrow agents (escrow in the real sense, not in the GAK sense) could be used to "send messages into the future," a tool that has several intriguing applications, some of which Michael explores in the second part of his post. 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. Sending either the pieces of the message or the pieces of the key seem closely related to me (they go together). In principle, it is only the key that counts, so that is what I would focus upon. >I have a simpler, public-key plan. When you want to keep a message >secret until date X, you ask your favorite crypto house to generate a >key pair and hold the secret key until date X. You then encrypt your >message with the public key, and again hold onto the encrypted message. >N-of-m trust management can be implemented by secret-sharing your message >and encrypting each with a key generated by a different crypto house. This seems to be saying the same thing. In both cases, "Alice" is either distributing a message to"Bob," "Charles," "Donna," etc., with instructions not to return the pieces until Date X, or is holding onto a sealed message but asking that the decryption keys not be returned until Date X. I don't see the real difference, modulo some minor factors. In neither case can the original message be reconstructed unless n out of m of the escrow agents provide the pieces. I hope we are not miscommunicating because of terminology or because of the continuing Net problem of not being able to draw pictures showing what is going on. >I'll let everyone tear into this for a few days, and then I'll put up a >server for timed-release key generation, charging maybe c$1. I'd like >to then enhance it to be capable of issuing bonds and loans denominated >in c$. (I like the cyberbucks trial because it's officially play money, >so there aren't any regulatory burdens.) This should be interesting. In any case, I look forward to seeing reaction to this. This could be an important service. (In many ways much more interesting than fairly mundane "Internet commerce" applications.) --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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[NOISE] Karl Hess/Schulman Events
by J. Kent Hastings 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Visit Neil's page, http://www.pinsight.com/~zeus/jneil/ Here are places he'll be in Southern California this month to promote his new book. Contact Neil at jneil(a)genie.com for more information. > J. NEIL SCHULMAN APPEARANCES > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > [Download Neil's Photo] [Download Cover] > > "SELF CONTROL Not Gun Control" > November, 1995 > > NOVEMBER, 1995 APPEARANCES > > * Friday Nov. 10, opening until close of show > Saturday Nov. 11, opening until 4 PM > Sunday Nov. 12, opening until close of show > Personal appearance / book autographing! > Great Western Gun Show > At Fairplex in Pomona, CA > Building 6, Table 7048 -- > next to Threat Management Institute / Peter Alan > Kasler > > * Saturday Nov. 18, afternoon > Personal appearance / book autographing! > Richard Kyle Books > 242 East 3rd Street > Long Beach, CA 90802 > Further Info: (310) 432-KYLE > > * Monday, Nov. 20, 7:00 PM dinner, 8:15 PM program > Speech: "SELF CONTROL Not Gun Control" > Karl Hess Club > Marie Callender's Restaurant 4356 Lincoln Blvd. > Marina Del Rey, CA $13.00 includes meeting, buffet > dinner with soup, salad bar, meatloaf entree & sides, > corn bread, choice of three pies & beverage, tax & > tip included. Reservations appreciated at (310) > 289-4126, 24 hours. > EMail for further info to agorist003(a)aol.com. > > If you would like J. Neil Schulman to make a personal appearance at > your club meeting or store, Email: jneil(a)genie.com or Phone/fax: > 1-500-44-JNEIL (1-500-445-6345). If difficulty connecting, call > through AT&T 1-800-CALL-ATT then 500-445-6345. > > Return to J. Neil Schulman's Home Page. > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > HTML by J. Kent Hastings [Artist] , zeus(a)pinsight.com, > > 1354 East Ave. # R-108, Chico, CA 95926. Fax: (916) 893-1525. Kent -- "Put pages for your business on the World Wide Web, just $5 per month!" -- J. Kent Hastings -- zeus(a)pinsight.com -- http://www.pinsight.com/~zeus/

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True Random (short c-source)
by Frank Andrew Stevenson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have written a short random number generator which appears to produce reasonable random numbers even in DOS, at the heart of the code is the short function fGetRand, the amount of entropy derived from this function varies from >1 to >>6 depending on system load, I haven't made any effort to whiten it at all. I am not making any claims about its usefulness. I am only trying to demonstrate the ease at which good random number may be obtained. Any comments and analysis will be mostly welcome, the source is hereby placed in the public domain: I have used WATCOM10 to compile and test under DOS/WIN95, where clock is running at 18hz. I have also tested on IRIX with impressive results. --- START ---- #include <time.h> #include <stdio.h> int fGetRand (void); main (void) { long vCount; FILE *out; int byte; int tick; out=fopen("random.bin","wb"); if(out==NULL) { printf("cant write to file random.bin\n"); exit(1); } for(vCount=1;vCount<=512;vCount++) { tick=fGetRand()&0x01; byte=byte+byte+tick; if((vCount & 0x7)==0) fputc((char)byte,out); fputc((char)tick,out); } fclose(out); } int fGetRand (void) { int count; clock_t tick; tick=clock(); while(tick==clock()) count++; return (count); } ----- END ----- PGP encrypted mail preferred, finger for key. The above views are ONLY endorsed by BoggleMind Inc. (not to be confused with MindBoggle Ltd.)

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