December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Fred, Fred, Fred: Enough already!
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:58 AM 10/24/95 -0400, Robert Hettinga wrote: > Can we please talk to Dr. Fred, the Poster Child of the Informal Fallacy, > if we *really* have to, off line? Yes, please, will everyone please killfile Dr Fred. I am tired of seeing things that are glaringly obvious explained in painful detail to someone who is reluctant to understand them. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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Spooks' New Charter
by Kent Borg, remove X for real email 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been thinking about the secret briefings the CIA/NSA/pick-your-TLAs have given to folks such as the House National Security Committee, the briefing that caused them to gut SAFE. What did they say? What are they after? Now, with the 50th anniversary of the CIA, there are some news stories such as one I saw in the International Herald Tribune--also available at <http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-09/14/155l-091497-idx.h…>

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Re: Welcome to cypherpunks
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:16 PM 10/26/95, Steven Weller wrote: >Well, the Welcome message says this: Actually, not "the" Welcome message, but a particular instance of it, namely, the instance directed at the new subscriber (in this case, cypherpunks(a)toad.com was the new subscriber). >->If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list, >->you can send mail to "Majordomo(a)toad.com" with the following command >->in the body of your email message: >-> >-> unsubscribe cypherpunks cypherpunks(a)toad.com > >So it is but a small leap of logic to remove the 'un' in order to >subscribe, since to my knowlege the Welcome message does not tell you how >to subscribe. A human interface problem? Except that the list would _have_ to have been subscribed to itself _before_ that particular Welcome message would have gone out. Sort of a binding issue. I would prefer the Welcome message to always say the command is: unsubscribe cypherpunks yournamehere and subscribe cypherpunks yournamehere But this is presumably a Majordomo feature. In any case, let's hope subscribing the list to itself is not a trend. --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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CAS_bah
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

10-22-95. NYPaper: "High Stakes, High Tech. Imagine the Internet As Electronic Casino." Mr. Fields is the former director of Darpa. He now hopes to transform the Internet, developed to defeat the evil empire, into a powerful medium for indulging America's growing weakness for wagering, to bring casinos to the people -- and into the center of American life, the home. "When I was looking around for what I would do next I decided to do something in the entertainment and gaming industries because they're now the greatest users of advanced technologies," Mr. Fields said. "It used to be the defense industry." CAS_bah (6 kb)

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Usenet: pseudonymity's killer app
by pjm＠ionia.engr.sgi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Risks Digest 17.42 contains a Boston Globe story by Simson L. Garfinkel detailing the risks of the DejaNews (http://dejanew.com) Usenet archiving service. Not only does this service archive Usenet postings, it provides a "sophisticated system for retrieving 'author profiles' of the individuals who have posted messages." Many people are upset at what they view as an invasion of privacy. The article notes that: > But Usenet has actually been archived for a long time. Many schools, > for example, have backup tapes containing Usenet messages dating back > many years. Furthermore, says Madere, the National Security Agency and > possibly other law enforcement or intelligence organizations has been > cross-referencing and indexing Usenet for quite some time. "I know for > a fact that they do have a text retrieval database which contains > Usenet," says Madere. Creating a searchable index of Usenet " was > already done for what people might consider to be sinister purposes," > says Madere. "What we have done is made it searchable for useful > purposes." DejaNews will be archiving the alt, talk, and soc groups beginning later this year. That could result in many more people becoming upset at the service. It would appear that ISPs could make money from offering anonymous or pseudonymous accounts to their customers who would rather not have their postings used by marketers, employers, or neighbors. Providing protection from junk mailers is also more politically defensible in this society than providing protection from the government. This could be the catalyst for widely used and accepted pseudonymity on the net. Patrick May -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMI/tze5Yg08fDKehAQHUiwP/ePOJeQ5+R0+h0QQVJEziWFZvz0qCMooA 6jQXjDxWpxydas+KYCe9dt2yekjsh3Lr/bc+VHDtuTuE4l+m3HIFqk7uWxYk7iB6 fjIhuPMcmVSIg+lPOTFIlhfypmwE/6c4FHXiGb6N02Pc5E22BJFjECOdx1RNlJwv A8DbV/lAyGI= =FjnE -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: 80 bit security from 40 bit exportable products
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Even if you assume complete independence of key setup, if a successful >decryption at each layer can be independently detected and verified >(which seems likely in your example), there're only about 3 * (2 ^ 40) >total operations in the worst case, NOT 2 ^ (3 * 40) operations needed >to expose the plaintext. This is an effective 41.5 bits, not 120. > Of course. It comes down to whether each encryption step plans some known plaintext to be used for brute force testing of any next layer.

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Re: [Noise] Perrynoia in the Comics
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:13 AM 10/26/95 -0400, you wrote: > >Alan Olsen writes: >> This has no real crypto relevence, but some anarchistic relevence. > >Alan; > >As much as I found the comment interesting, it probably belonged >somewhere like libernet-d, not here on cypherpunks. I posted it on Cypherpunks becuase it is the only list I take where such political views are even mentioned. I thought that people on the list would enjoy it. I prefaced it with [noise[] so that people who would object would skip over it. Evidently that disclaimer is not enough anymore. >[I'm posting this in public, as I do about one in ten such messages, >so that a wider audience of people will be discouraged from posting >such things in advance. Don't bother mailing me a message saying "you >are adding to the noise yourself, why not mail in private" -- I do >that 90% of the time. Sometimes the nose levels rise enough that I >feel that a few public mentions would do some good.] I am not certain as to the "nose levels" as I thought they stopped publishing a number of months back. I think you need to get some treatment for those hardening of the orthodixies. | Visualize a world without lawyers! | alano(a)teleport.com | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmerman unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | | -- PGP 2.6.2 key available on request -- | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano | <fnord> |

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RE: Let's Not Merge Mailing Lists, OK?
by ali＠eit.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greetings, The problem is reducing the noise at cypherpunks list, so all communities can benefit from it, and not the "varying levels of competence" different communities may have. What more noble cause is there than to educate others of your beliefs. A well thought out question or cross-point is not noise but a poorly-backed false claim certainly is. In special instances, cross-postings enable the cypherpunk community and the other communities to interact together to produce real-life solutions that real people would care to use. Thinking on the social issues such as anonymity and privacy with no regards to what other communities think about or have to say is simply not optimum. Now if there is technical issues, such as mail-loops or some such thing against cross-postings, please inform. Regards, Ali p.s. Being subscribed to cypherpunks is not a prerequisite for following the list; thanks to its hypermail archive and numerous filters.

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Re: Anonymity: A Modest Proposal
by loki＠obscura.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I think the idea of a token has come up before. I think it is a good idea. The token should have some expiration information in it so the remailer need not keep it around forever (or it could just "forget" all token older than 3 months). Right now there is not much spare room in the Mixmaster headers. There are several ideas for improvements in Mixmaster that will require the adoption of an incompatible message format. I plan to collect them and implement them all at once. One of the ideas is an expiration date in the message to keep it from ever being replayed (even after the remailer expires its record of the message ID). -Lance At 7:43 AM 10/26/95, Adam Shostack wrote: >Lance Cottrell wrote: > >| How open is the protocol? Is there and API for it? Does anyone know how big >| the coins are? There will have to be room for one per header in Mixmaster. >| Do they vary in size, or are all coins identical? There is so much stuff to >| try to keep track of all at once! :/ > > If the coin is bigger than a Mix header has room for, does it >have room for an arbitrary token? > > I send a message to the mixmaster I'd like to use, containing >a coin and a large arbitrary number. I then put that number in a list >I maintain of the tokens I can spend with that mixmaster. > > The mixmaster cashes the coin at once[1], and puts my number >into a list of 'paid' tokens it will accept. > > When I want to spend the token, I put that in the message >header block. Since its smaller than the coin, its easier to put in >the header than the coin. > > This scheme also reduces mapability between the coin and the >message, since they are not strongly correlated in time as they would >be if they were included in the message. This seems to be a stronger >win than the size benefit that caused me to suggest this. > > [1] Other than the time mapping win, I could also see spending >a few bucks at the start of each month to be able to use any >mixmaster. The mixmasters would, by cashing my coins early, win on >the float between the time they get my money and the time they provide >service. Icing on the cake. > >Adam > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMI/NvfPzr81BVjMVAQGcbgf/b9wzPqGoijggurIm3uGiddSyaz2uAEXj 65INp6g/Va/Yf1q3+vQfyfixs3jviihmPMgepjs/deQqV5qxgEh05kbyvgKDf8wX vh8cVLTYMKpqGOU34K/9jLOXD9gZqvKBdDy9Z5YsLimDRV3ju9uRpBSLnUaiI1rU whpP+py/hqgFl0DL4Ybx5PBZDbcSkRhSqmlnx46/hbyY/bnaiTplPtMAU8oHZTK6 VOSB3hsPtfpGuKwCqe60WeZZDQygPbD6aDW+BZl4kMSv5+1kf4/aHECCOUqfzmvc O1Jmr6K8wLLtp/S12qRKh4SIEea9TUqN4PoV6YGQTBV1gM6MxC/GrQ== =qSuu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---------------------------------------------------------- Lance Cottrell loki(a)obscura.com PGP 2.6 key available by finger or server. Mixmaster, the next generation remailer, is now available! http://obscura.com/~loki/Welcome.html or FTP to obscura.com "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come." --Nietzsche ----------------------------------------------------------

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Digitial Money [SHAMELESS PLUG FOR BOOK]
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Leslie Lundquist, a co-worker of mine here at Electric Communities, together with Dan Lynch from Cybercash & Interop fame, has written a book called _Digital Money: The New Era of Internet Commerce_. It should appear in stores "real soon now"; it can be ordered right now from any book store for $24.95. The book is intended as an overview of current and projected digital payment systems and commerce, and contains basic background information on the underlying technology. It is intended for the general reader: this is the kind of book a techno-weenie might buy for his or her manager to help them understand some of these issues. Note that this is a different book than _Digital Cash_, by Peter Wayner. I'm not in the loop on this, but this appears to be "one of those things" and not intentional on anyone's part. For more information, e-mail leslie(a)communities.com

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