December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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."

1 0

E-cash and Interest
by Tim Philp 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I had been doing some thinking about E-cash and some of the implications. It seems to me that there is another element in the discussion that has not gotten very much consideration. When you have your money in the bank, you are earning interest on the money (albeit not very much! <g>) and that money continues to earn interest until it is withdrawn. If you write a check to pay for something, that ends your interest accumulation for that money. With the E-cash systems that I have seen, you generate your own E-cash and have it signed by a 'bank' At that moment, it becomes like cash in your wallet and you loose interest that this money could be earning. Has this issue been addressed, or am I missing something? Regards, Tim Philp =================================== For PGP Public Key, Send E-mail to: pgp-public-keys(a)swissnet.ai.mit.edu In Subject line type: GET PHILP ===================================

3 2

Re: WIRE TAP ON NET
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "Michael S. Fischer" <mfischer(a)nsi.edu> >Well, I can't exactly say I feel sorry for the guys, even if cellular companies are ripping us off. Anyone who commits crimes while using email without encryption are idiots. ---------- While I can't really approve of stealing from the cellular companies, I do like a lot of the uses of such stolen numbers. Specifically, that they're being used in ways (such as by drug dealers) that the government doesn't like at all. -Allen

1 0

BIG NEWS: PRZ investigation dropped!
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Stanton McCandlish <mech(a)eff.org> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 11:53:46 -0800 (PST) Justice Dept. dropped investigation of Phil Zimmermann, declines to prosecute. They put out a press rel. about it, already got a journo call regarding this. More when I find it. -- <HTML><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/~mech/"> Stanton McCandlish </A><HR><A HREF="mailto:mech@eff.org"> mech(a)eff.org </A><P><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/"> Electronic Frontier Foundation </A><P> Online Activist </HTML>

3 2

Re: Popular Science on US Spysats - Part 1
by stevenw＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Friend, > > > 02 96 Popular Science runs a cover story, America's First Eyes > in Space. It's by Stuart Brown. It's about "a secret space > reconnaisance program known as Corona." Yawn. Didn't I ask you to stop posting garbage to the list? Please do not grace us with parts 2, 3 or whatever. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Weller | "The Internet, of course, is more | than just a place to find pictures | of people having sex with dogs." stevenw(a)best.com | -- Time Magazine, 3 July 1995

2 1

NOISE.SYS for DOS v0.3.5 (NEW!)
by wlkngowl＠unix.asb.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The latest version of NOISE.SYS (v0.3.5-Beta) can be gotten via anonymous ftp at ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/random/noise035.zip NOISE.SYS is a /dev/random driver for DOS systems running on 386 or later processors. It will sample fast timings between keystrokes and disk access, as well as changes in mouse position and CPU-clock drift, mixing with SHA-2 message digest to generate crypto-quality random numbers. Added in this version: Added documentation!!! Fixed timer sampling bug Fixed clock drift sampling (better entropy too) Added mouse position sampling Different accumulation function Lots of other changes

1 0

Mitnik and Shimomura
by Mark 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Shimomura had almost complete packet traces of the break-in, which >allowed him to reconstruct the attack. >It was a trap. It was not a trap. Shimomura was caught with his proverbials down. His arrogance made him complacent and as such he didnt take the most basic steps to keep the attack out. According to Tsutomo's own account of the incident he was only able to decipher what happened because the attacker(s) didnt clean away the info off the hard drive when they were finished. They rm'd sure but he dd'd the raw disk to another drive and worked through the blocks until he found the two tools that were used to effect the intrusion. He was also able to recover the tcpdump logs that were erased. If the intruder(s) had rm'd the data and THEN done a mkfile that filled the disk with 0's then most of what we know today would not be available. As mentioned a week or two back, filling the unused portions of blocks with 0's would probably also be necessary. As to wether Mitnik is capable of effecting the intrusion, that is yet to be ascertained. He claims no involvement in it and based on whats known of his cracking prowess there is a certain truth to it. He's infinitely better with a phone than a keyboard.

2 1

nazi's, jews, and why you don't get to hear about them
by pamphlet＠idiom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Internet providers asked to censor racist groups ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1996 Nando.net Copyright 1996 The Associated Press BOSTON (Jan 10, 1996 09:34 a.m. EST) -- White supremacist groups that once spread their racist messages at rallies and in leaflets are now going high-tech on the Internet -- a trend a leading Jewish human rights group wants to stop. The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Tuesday began sending hundreds of letters to Internet access providers asking them to refuse to carry messages that "promote racism, anti-Semitism, mayhem and violence." Good idea? No, say providers and civil libertarians. They argue that public debate is the way to defeat hate. The Internet allows users to "show the whole world what's wrong wrong about what the hate speakers are saying," said Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group dealing with computer communications. "The correct place to try and put pressure is on the people who create the content, not the person who provides access to it," said CompuServe spokesman William Giles. The roughly 250 hate groups in the United States, whose previous methods reached a limited audience, now "have a magnificent marketing technology dumped in their laps," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal center, based in Los Angeles. "They are able to dress up their message in a way that looks ... presentable." Slick web sites are springing up every day, with names such as Aryan Nations, Skinheads U.S.A. and The Aryan Crusader's Library. Ernst Zundel, a prominent Canadian Holocaust revisionist who has a homepage called Zundelsite, says he should have as much of a right to post a web page as anyone else. "The Internet is the first and last truly free marketplace of ideas, for the time being. It levels the playing field," Zundel said. "To curtail the freedom for some will curtail the freedom for all." The Wiesenthal Center's request is part of a growing debate over whether Internet service providers should be viewed as publishers responsible for what moves on their networks, or carriers who simply provide access to a service without monitoring what is communicated. The Wiesenthal Center argues that the services are publishers who have a civic responsibility not to promote bigotry. Godwin says Internet service providers should be treated like bookstores, which exercise some control when they decide to specialize in science fiction instead of mysteries, but are not expected to read every book and be held responsible for the books' contents. Prodigy spokesman Brian Ek said the service does employ systems operators who monitor content on its proprietary bulletin boards and can remove any messages with "blatant expressions of bigotry, racism or hate." But what exactly meets that definition is hard to pin down: "You make a decision when you see it." For example, when one subscriber pointed out a "repugnant" bulletin board message saying the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews was a good thing, Prodigy removed it Joe Bunkley -- who operates the "1st WWW Banned Media Page," a web site that links to virtually every other white supremacist and neo-Nazi Internet site -- had a strong message for those who would want to stop him from posting his views. "You cowards who want my page shut down can't deal with either the diversity or the free interaction of ideas," he said. "You, the intellectually dead, are hereby formally notified that my intentions are not to offend anyone. It is to speak the truth as I know it and to ensure, to the best of my abilities, the survival of the White Race."

1 0

Zimmermann case is dropped.
by Philip Zimmermann 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- My lead defense lawyer, Phil Dubois, received a fax this morning from the Assistant US Attorney in Northern District of California, William Keane. The letter informed us that I "will not be prosecuted in connection with the posting to USENET in June 1991 of the encryption program Pretty Good Privacy. The investigation is closed." This brings to a close a criminal investigation that has spanned the last three years. I'd like to thank all the people who helped us in this case, especially all the donors to my legal defense fund. Apparently, the money was well-spent. And I'd like to thank my very capable defense team: Phil Dubois, Ken Bass, Eben Moglen, Curt Karnow, Tom Nolan, and Bob Corn-Revere. Most of the time they spent on the case was pro-bono. I'd also like to thank Joe Burton, counsel for the co-defendant. There are many others I can thank, but I don't have the presence of mind to list them all here at this moment. The medium of email cannot express how I feel about this turn of events. -Philip Zimmermann 11 Jan 96 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMPDy4WV5hLjHqWbdAQEqYwQAm+o313Cm2ebAsMiPIwmd1WwnkPXEaYe9 pGR5ja8BKSZQi4TAEQOQwQJaghI8QqZFdcctVYLm569I1/8ah0qyJ+4fOfUiAMda Sa2nvJR7pnr6EXrUFe1QoSauCASP/QRYcKgB5vaaOOuxyXnQfdK39AqaKy8lPYbw MfUiYaMREu4= =9CJW -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

10 11

Re: Microsoft continues to mislead public about Windows security
by kolivet＠alpha.c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 9 Jan 1996, Frank Willoughby wrote: > When a system is breached or a CERT Advisory is issued, this is a major > embarassment for the company. The breach (or publicized security flaw) > shakes the confidence of people in the vendor's products. People are > rather unwilling to risk putting their business-critical data on a system > which has just recently breached. This lack of confidence translates into > a loss in sales. If unchecked or the case if severe enough, this could > also translate into a loss of jobs. What are CERT's criteria for a bulletin to be issued? Would the previously mentioned Windows NT and Windows 95 security bugs qualify? - Kay Olivetti

1 0