December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Please help
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please help. Somehow, someone signed up the "cypherpunks" mailing list to your "ZD Net Update" electronic newsletter. Our mailing list, with over a thousand members, is for the discussion of cryptography and technical means of achieving privacy and anonymity in the emergent digital world. There is some overlap between your publication and our mailing list, which is why some well-meaning individual "signed us up." It's pretty slight, however, and interested parties can sign up individually. So, please remove cypherpunks(a)toad.com from your mailing list. As always, if you ahve questions about the propriety of this, you can follow the internet conventions of writing to postmaster(a)toad.com to double-check. Thanks. /r$

1 0

Re: PAY-OFF TIME FOR BUG-BUSTERS, NETSCAPE PLEDGES "DOGFIGHT"
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 18 Dec 1995, Ian Goldberg wrote: > In article <199512151800.KAA11304(a)jobe.shell.portal.com>, > <anonymous-remailer(a)shell.portal.com> wrote: > >On Mon, 11 Dec 1995, Michael Coates wrote: > > > >> PAY-OFF TIME FOR BUG-BUSTERS, NETSCAPE PLEDGES "DOGFIGHT" > >> Netscape Communications has awarded two software sleuths $1,000 each > >> for finding security gaps in its Netscape Navigator 2.0 software. The > >> company also awarded gifts to 50 other contestants in its "Bugs Bounty" > >> program for identifying non-security problems. (Wall Street Journal > >> 11 Dec 95 B7) > > > >Can anyone tell me whether Ian Goldberg and David Wagner got their $25,000 > >from Netscape for finding the HUGE security flaws in Netscape's existing > >product line?? > > > >I can't remember whether they got anything or not ... > > That would be no (well, except for the nifty T-shirt from Sameer; Thanks!). Not anything?? That's shameful ... where on earth are the values in America, today? AT&T and Netscape have jointly made a small fortune distributing this product, and yet NEITHER company feels that the software engineers who "voluntarily" made a difference -- a couple of students -- deserve even a wooden nickel for the ideas which were used. It's absolutely shameful. But then, I guess that AT&T and Netscape have no shame at all. They just steal "intellectual property" from students, and don't even pay a token amount. And people wonder what's wrong with Aemrica? > - Ian "There's a reason people talk about `starving grad students'..." >

1 0

Re: revised time quantization package (Unix & WIN32) available
by Karl A. Siil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:32 PM 12/19/95 GMT, ECafe Anonymous Remailer wrote: > >And why do we tolerate Jeff Weinstein and Mat Blaze calling themselves >cypherpunks, when they are so clearly just working us for their >corporate interests? I wonder how much they get paid to monitor this >list? Matt, if you're getting paid to read this list, I want a new contract. Karl A. Siil AT&T BCS Advanced Projects 908-949-4037 908-949-8978 (FAX) karl(a)cosmos.cosmos.att.com !karlsiil

2 1

Correct URL Crypto Law Survey
by Bert-Jaap Koops 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>http://cwis.kub.nl/~frw/CRI/projects/bjk/lawsurvy.html Sorry, the URL should be: http://cwis.kub.nl/~frw/CRI/projects/bjk/lawsurvy.htm Bert-Jaap.

1 0

Which countries don't allow encryption ?
by visentin＠imdwd01.milano.italtel.it 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, Apologies in advance if anyone feels this is off topic... I'm trying to address the following issue: people at my company need to exchange sensitive information with their colleagues abroad (e.g. East Europe, or Southern America). Of course, the most obvious way to protect our data is to encrypt everything, regardless how we communicate (either via e-mail or sending magnetic media). So we should use PGPi, but...it seems to me there is a _problem_. I read somewhere that Russian law forbids the use on encryption: is this correct ? Let me generalize this first question: which countries in the world don't allow encryption usage, or encrypted traffic inside their boundaries ? or allow, but provided certain conditions are satisfied ? 2nd question: which way(s) could we meet the laws in, let me say, East Europe while protecting our info ? (I'd like to avoid giving away our keys, as I'd requested -possibly- in France, so maybe encryption is not suitable). Please e-mail directly to me, since I'm not a subscriber of this list (I tried it, but it is a too high volume and specialization level for me). Thanks in advance, Franco Visentin ( visentin(a)milano.italtel.it )

2 1

Re: cyphernomicon FTP site?
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:59 AM 12/20/95 -0800, you wrote: >At 9:18 PM 12/19/95, Vinod Valloppillil wrote: >>Anyone know where I can FTP a full copy of the cyphernomicon? [Much deleted] >Anybody who plans to download the entire linear file and then print it out >must be missing a bits in his shift register. There are reasons to want a non-html version. The best being uploading to your favorite text-oriented BBSes. (Or crypto-oriented BBSes.) Not everyone has access to the web. (Yes, I know it is blasphemy...) | Remember: Life is not always champagne. Sometimes it is REAL pain. | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmerman unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

1 0

Re: revised time quantization package (Unix & WIN32) available
by Karl A. Siil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:14 AM 12/20/95 EST, Dr. Dimitri Vulis wrote: ... >> Matt, if you're getting paid to read this list, I want a new contract. > >Karl, are you an unpaid volunteer at AT&T, or do you quit your job every >time you read your e-mail? Actually, AT&T has us record our time down to 15 minute intervals, which I obey religiously*. In this case, I'm writing my CP activity off to "People who can't see a joke without a :-)." * Note there should be a :-) here, too. Not speaking for the company... Karl

1 0

Re: Motorola Secure Phone
by Mike Rose 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I saw a new cordless phone made by Motorola in a retail outlet today >that is supposedly "Secure from eavesdroppers." I asked the >salespeople for more technical info, but they weren't very helpful. >Does anyone have any information on this? I have one of these, it's a good phone. I think the security will stop only an off-the shelf scanner. My understanding is that the signal is not encrypted, but only phase-inverted or otherwise shifted. Mike

1 0

Re: revised time quantization package (Unix & WIN32) available
by Perry E. Metzger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dan Harmon writes: > Perry, If my memory is correct, you are the one who has a history of being > a jerk. You know, Mr. Harmon, you can just keep posting my private mail to you all day, but you WILL start to annoy others after a while. [Just to be clear to others, this is the first of the several messages on the topic I've posted -- Mr. Harmon has been forwarding my private replies to the list. I think it all makes him look bad, but some people have no sense.] Perry

1 0

QCF_dec
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Science, 8 December 1995 Quantum Computers, Factoring, and Decoherence I. L. Chuang, R. Laflamme, P. W. Shor, W. H. Zurek [First paragraph] The uniqueness of the prime factorization of a positive integer is the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. In practice, the determination of the prime factors of a given number can be an exceedingly difficult problem, even though verification is trivial. This asymmetry is the basis for modern cryptography and provides secret codes used not only on your own bank card but also to transfer diplomatic messages between embassies. [Precis] It is known that quantum computers can dramatically speed up the task of finding factors of large numbers, a problem of practical significance for cryptographic applications. Factors of an L-digit number can be found in ~L^2 time [compared to ~exp(L^1/3) time] by a quantum computer, which simultaneously follows all paths corresponding to distinct classical inputs, obtaining the solution from the coherent quantum interference of the alternatives. Here it is shown how the decoherence process degrades the interference pattern that emerges from the quantum factoring algorithm. For a quantum computer performing logical operations, an exponential decay of quantum coherence is inevitable. However, even in the presence of exponential decoherence, quantum computation can be useful as long as a sufficiently low decoherence rate can be achieved to allow meaningful results to be extracted from the calculation. I. L. Chuang, Stanford University. R. Laflamme and W. H. Zurek, Los Alamos National Laboratory. P. W. Shor, AT&T Bell Labs. ---------- QCF_dec (18 kb) Sent with compressed qcf1.jpg of 14 equations and 2 figures (31 kb)

1 0