December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/cryptobytes/
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FYI. ---------- Begin Forwarded Message ---------- From: <Jueneman(a)gte.com> Message-ID: <30ED605E-00000001(a)wotan.gte.com> Date: Fri, 05 Jan 1996 12:31:08 EST Subject: Recent cryptographic findings To: ietf-pkix(a)tandem.com For those who may not have seen it, the most recent issue of CryptoBytes (Vol1, No. 3) put out by RSA Laboratories has a wealth of information in it. I have not had the time to fully digest the importance of all of the articles, but in the first one Adi Shamir has proposed an "unbalanced RSA" variant of RSA which "makes it possible to increase the modulus size from 500 bits to 5,000 bits without any speed penalty." Another article discusses means of deliberately constructing collisions (due to Hans Dobbertin of the German Information Security Agency) when using MD4, and concludes that "where MD4 is in use, it should be replaced." So far, at least, it appears that MD5, RIPEMD, and SHA-1 would resist this kind of attack, but a certain amount of nervousness might be in order. (Hugo Krawczyk of IBM Research and I considered some of these possibilities in conjunction with work we did on the SEPP protocol, which uses a salted hash function as a means of confirming the knowledge of a secret to a third party without having to use encryption. We were concerned that collisions might be possible, and also that it might be possible to partially reverse a hash function and glean at least information about the message that was being hashed, (the credit card number) in the case of a very short message. We ended up proposing a combination 140-bit hash function which includes both MD5 and SHA-1, assuming that it would be much more difficult to break both algorithms than just one. I will post the analysis to this list in a subsequent message.) Finally, Burt Kalisky provides a compendium of some of the possible attacks against RSA, and discusses simple and practical countermeasures. It seems to me that the most important of the various attacks involve the encryption and decryption of small messages. Since small messages are frequently generated for key exchange and for signature purposes, it is important that we consider these issues carefully. In particular, the use of pseudo-random padding for both encryption (a la the Bellare-Rogaway Optimal Asymmetric Encryption Padding) seems very beneficial, and padding is also important in the signature block. This group certainly ought to examine these issues very carefully, and we should probably give serious consideration to adopting OAEP for message encryption and key exchange. I believe we should also give serious consideration to a increased length message digest function such as SHA-1, and perhaps incorporate the use of multiple message digest algorithms for particularly important signatures , e.g., CA certificates. The back issues of CryptoBytes are available at http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/cryptobytes/. Bob ---------------------------- Robert R. Jueneman GTE Laboratories 1-617-466-2820 Office "The opinions expressed are my own, and may or may not reflect the official position of GTE, if any." ----------- End Forwarded Message -----------

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Mixmaster On A $20 Floppy?
by tallpaul＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Jan 05, 1996 19:06:21, 'Adam Shostack <adam(a)lighthouse.homeport.org>' wrote: > Towords the goal of making Mixmasters in a box, I've written >an installer script for mixmaster. If you're running on one of the >supported platforms (alpha, bsdi, hpux, linux, sunos, solaris), the >script will walk you through everything from the make to setting up >cron jobs & /etc/aliases. > > If you've been putting off setting up a remailer because its a >pain, give this a shot. Lance will probably be including it in the >next release of mixmaster, but you can get it now by sending me a >message with the Subject: get mix-installer. > > Comments, bugs, bug fixes are welcome. Thanks to Rich $alz >for a extensive comments & suggestions for portability. > >Adam > I've reports that the latest version of SyQuest's external parallel port EZ135 "floppy" drive is due on the shelves this month. Also reported is the ability to effectively boot off the thing, and thus run whatever OS resides on the SyQuest "floppy" rather than an OS that has to be on the host's hard drive partition. Weight, under two pounds. Price ~$US250. Capacity 135 Mb formatted. Price of spare disks: $US 20. Take it off a computer. Put it in a briefcase. Carry it with you nicely out of public view. Hook it up to another machine and .... Question 1: Can you fit linux, pgp, mixmaster, etc. on the 135 Mb disk and have enough useful space left over for a useful amount of data? Question 2: Anybody want to speculate on what traffic analysis is like when encrypted data comes INTO one known Mixmaster site but goes OUT on one or more "unknown" or (partially) random Mixmaster sites? Question 3: Anyone want to speculate on what data recovery is like when encrypted data and the horse it rode in (and out) on has all been physically destroyed at a replacement cost of only $US20? -- -- tallpaul -- "If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude." William Gibson "Johnny Mnemonic"

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Scaling Web-of-Trust
by Kevin L Prigge 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sorry for the noise, someone had emailed a while ago with the URL for a paper on scaling the web of trust for PGP, and I've lost the email. If whomever it was could resend the information, I'd be most appreciative. Thanks. -- Kevin L. Prigge |"Have you ever gotten tired of hearing those UofM Central Computing | ridiculous AT&T commercials claiming credit email: klp(a)tc.umn.edu | for things that don't even exist yet? 010010011101011001100010| You will." -Emmanuel Goldstein

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Re: Starting an e-cash bank
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:41 1/4/96, Scott Brickner wrote: >Wait a minute. I can see how one needn't be a bank to convert ecash >into pcash, but going the other way requires that the cash be >transferrable in ways that Digicash isn't. > >If I withdraw ecash from the bank, it's marked so I'm the one who's >identified if it's double-spent. If I give the cash to someone else >(different from paying it to them, which requires they have an account) >they're free to double-spend with (relative) impugnity. Present day Ecash is bases on online clearing. I does not encode any user idendifiying information into the coin. You are thinking of offline Ecash. Besides, wherer users get the Ecash from, be it by putting money into their account at MT or buying it from you doesn't matter. They still need an account with MT. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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TAL_kup
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1-10-96. NYPaper: "Group Urges an Internet Ban On Hate Groups' Messages. Joins in Move to Censor Offensive Material." Citing the "rapidly expanding presence of organized hate groups on the Internet," a leading Jewish human rights group yesterday began sending letters to hundreds of Internet access providers and universities asking them to refuse to carry messages that "promote racism, anti- Semitism, mayhem and violence." A sage says, "It is not possible to end idiocy by censoring it. The best response is cellular." TAL_kup

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Why Companies are Poor at Finding Bugs
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:37 AM 1/9/96, Lucky Green wrote: >Very true. But why does it always seem to take an exploitable crack before >companies pay attention to security flaws? Is it because they are unable to >admit that they have made a mistake? Everybody makes mistakes. What's the >big deal? I really don't understand it. Any psychologists on this list? I'm not a psychologist, though I doubt that would help. (Having had a girlfriend who was one, she had no special knowledge about corporate motivations...) Companies are pyramids, with a flood of signals flowing up and down the pyramid. Few of the signals are truly important, most are just noise. Hence the difficulty with corporations responding to crises. When a confirmation of a serious problem is made--a building collapses, a floating point bug is found in a chip, a random number generator is found to be flawed, etc.--then there is little doubt that a real problem exists, or at least that a public relations problem must be dealt with. Therefore, a flurry of corporate activity ensues, task forces are created, press releases issued, etc. I'm neither surprised nor disheartened by this. It often takes hitting a company over the head with a two-by-four..."to get their attention." (I saw this many times at Intel, and they were ahead of most of their rivals in spotting problems early on. The "Pentium debacle" is a perfect example of what Lucky is decrying, as internal memos on the problem had been basically pooh-poohed and ignored, until a major public relations disaster hit.) And this has always been a major role of extra-corporate agents: safety inspectors, insurance companies, independent testing laboratories, and so on. The in-house testing departments are frequently inclined to overstate concerns (known universally as "CYA," for "cover your ass"), so it is not surprising that their concerns are often treated as a non-urgent matter. Until a crisis happens, then they are lambasted for not having spoken up more loudly and more forcefully. This was true in ancient Sumeria, in the early factories in Europe, on the communes in China, and in the high-tech labs of today. An easily understandable mixture of psychology, systems analysis, group dynamics, economics, and evolutionary game theory. The Cypherpunks group is, to some extent, helping in this process by trying to break or cripple new software. (As several of us have noted, the NSA's second official role, that of securing commercial cryptography, COMSEC, seems to have been ignored. We are thus left to fill in for these slackers.) --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Is this true...
by Ted Garrett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Being new to crypto subjects, I guess I'm pretty gullable about how much one should use encryption in general. I remember reading somewhere that it would probably be best for the 'world as a whole' if everyone used encryption whenever possible so that when you DO send encrypted messages that actually contain information you want kept secret, it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. To that end, I should imagine that once I have a person's pgp key, they may well never see another cleartext message from me again! Of course, now I'm trying to figure out how to use the anonymous remailers and such. Boy, this is fun! Of course, the fact that my government doesn't really care for the idea of publicly available cryptography makes it even more enticing. - -- Ted Garrett Live Systems Integration -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMPQhKc1+l8EKBK5FAQGkqgf7BN6GxJ5MHCAJZwfuS1JjNNQanT471L3O 0VEhkg0S0GG+827Swly3Bi+0BABcGcQatBSMGFRiecjIEzrRRa/6ME4tAr8qT/EW DXVksWk4Bf6ax8uIF1uPf0uIOeQHOuCZwVnH7uHYCpaOMaMeTVobbyLeT30Gc5Ou YhRIeyUvTazqlWqQaNSLSJX1no9Ph0R6WnDMUYGXof+VXgLw//jddcEfMYYn24hA C8860mAbzke95iuACGcu6hzrr6njVaPMJHqyHb8kZwOjuESzDxZw0cYxt3VRPE72 NXqHzati0Rc/uzpx9FXV5lopRd0fFQUBOK75w0PA3Q5h/RQE6cvj+g== =SQ81 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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IRS/FBI story re Internet
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"educom(a)elanor.oit.unc.edu" 9-JAN-1996 20:19:54.25 To: IN%"edupage(a)elanor.oit.unc.edu" "EDUCOM Edupage Mailing List" IRS, FBI EYE INTERNET WITH SUSPICION The Clinton administration's reluctance to ease up on export controls for encryption software stems in part from pressure from U.S. law enforcement agencies, and the owner of a New York-based software company sees heavy lobbying behind the government's desire to regulate content on the Internet: "I think the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI are watching this one very carefully. They wouldn't mind seeing the government set a precedent for deciding what can and cannot go on the Internet." The IRS fears that easy access to cheap and sophisticated encryption software will make income- and sales-tax evasion too easy, and the FBI worries about criminal and terrorist plots hatched in cyberspace, but some observers say government control tactics are too little, too late. A Hudson Institute economist says, "Electronic money gets really interesting when you realize how impossible it is to put national walls around it, mandate the use of national currencies, or require that transactions go through banks... The country will have no practical choice but to rely more than ever on voluntary tax compliance. That means tax rates will have to be kept as low as possible on people and on businesses." (Investor's Business Daily 9 Jan 96 B1) [...] EDUPAGE is what you've just finished reading. (Please note that it's "Edupage" and not "EduPage.") To subscribe to Edupage: send a message to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: subscribe edupage Warren Buffett (assuming that your name is Warren Buffett; if it's not, substitute your own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe edupage. (Subscription problems? Send mail to educom(a)educom.unc.edu.)

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Net Control is Thought Control
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On CSPAN Friday morning a gentlemen who is, I take it, a lobbyist for TPC or the Competitive Long Distance Coalition (TPCs) said that the Internet could be regulated just like magazines, tv, or anything else. I have long doubted statements like this particularly since they come from people without apparent experience on the Net. I have long suggested that net control=thought control and will prove as difficult in the modern world as the more conventional thought control itself. But why is net control just a form of thought control? It is difficult for others to control our thoughts because they are insubstantial, hidden, and under our control. Small groups (family, village, etc) have a better chance of influencing what we think but even they are not totally successful. Governments who wanted to engage in thought control have usually set up government schools for this purpose with mixed results. Liberal societies (broadly defined) have loosened many of the traditional controls on our thoughts exercised by our families and neighbors. They have tried to replace these controls with bureaucratic thought control systems with limited success. Only the totalitarian states have done much of a job in this area but not enough (obviously) to save themselves from destruction. There has been a general decline in the effectiveness of thought control since the Industrial Revolution made (atomistic) individualism possible and books cheap. The Nets are the next step in this process. Since they allow our thoughts to easily, rapidly, and cheaply leap from our minds to a world-wide communications medium, our minds are in some sense extended worldwide. It becomes cheap and easy for anyone to publish their thoughts. The dramatic changes occasioned by the mechanical production of cheap pulp paper and steam-driven printing presses in the 19th century will be as nothing compared to effects of the speed and reach of Net "publishing." In addition to expanding the scope of our thoughts, the Nets also give us new powers of secret communication. Modern encryption and anonymity technology lets us both keep our thoughts secret and communicate them to anyone else who is interested. Quite an expansion of the capabilities of "the thought in the brain." Also, the Nets allow us to find others of our ilk (however small and deviate that may be) who offer support to us in our thoughts. This further reduces the power of traditional thought controls exercised by our immediate communities. Since my immediate community has included Cypherpunks since February 1993, I am less likely to be influenced "locally" on topics of Cypherpunk interest. The normal primate tendency to look to the "troop" for guidance in what to think and do is sabotaged by our ability to find our own reinforcing communities where ever we like. So even less thought control is possible. As we users know and non-users will find out, the Nets are not "just another medium" like books, magazines, and TV (just as those were not "just another medium" in their day). Control of the Nets will prove as difficult as the control of thoughts themselves. DCF

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RISC not everything
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:24 PM 1/9/96, Kent Dahlgren wrote: >better way to tell them? Maybe I'm just paranoid. Its just that I kind >of feel sorry for DEC; its not easy being burdened with the worst >marketing staff in the world, having the world's fastest RISC processor, >and having the media go wild over the P6. I'm also a fan of Alta Vista, and use it daily. And I'd love to have a DEC Alpha workstation. However, there's more to success than being "the world's fastest RISC processor," as history has shown for the past decade or so. (Amongst other things, the SPECInts for the Alpha are actually lower than for the P6, though SPECfps are higher. And some of the MIPS/SGI processors are about as powerful as either.) The various high-end Alphas have a high per-chip cost. Very high. (Low-end Alphas are cheaper, but mainly for good reasons...a low-end Alpha is not compelling.) The high per-chip cost is associated with the large die size, DEC's lack of volume in making chips (which largely determines chip yields), the "mostly clock" layout (the 300 MHz clock is hard to distribute across the entire die area, and DEC uses a considerable fraction of the chip area and metallization in distributing the clock without significant skew), and the architecture. I'm not a P6 expert (nor do I even own or use any Intel processor machines, save for an old laptop, a first-generatino IBM PC, and a 1978-era Sol), but my friend John Wharton has written glowingly of the P6 architectural innovations in the P6. In any case, Intel has the manufacturing machine able to make Pentiums in large enough volume for low enough cost to be a major market force. DEC does not have the same advantages. There are of course lots of issues to consider. If NT is as successful as I think it will be (see, I'm not _only_ a basher of Microsoft!), and if the versions of software for NT will not require extensive tuning for various platforms, then I think Intel's dominance will be slightly weakened. However, Intel is not standing still--it's busy building several new fabs that each cost more than a billion dollars (including one that will cost $2 B). Its "P7" processor is far along in development, and reportedly will merge today's features with "very long instruction word" (VLIW) techniques. DEC is back to making profits, but it sure wasn't for several years while it coasted on the work done earlier on the VAX. --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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