December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Jan 27 special Bay Area CA mtg
by mrm＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Out-of-band cypherpunk meeting Saturday Jan 27 12 noon - 3 p.m. Sparcy's cafeteria, B21, Sun Microsystems, Mountain View, California The reason to call a special half-meeting on January 27th is that a producer/videographer for PBS would like to film a discussion among cypherpunks about 1st amendment issues, for a PBS show named "Freedom Speaks." The show airs nationally on PBS. In San Francisco, currently on KMPT Thursdays at 5 p.m., and starting in March, on KQED. The producer is Roger Masterton and he describes his goals like so: (the parts in between [] are my paraphrasing of what he said, for brevity) I am currently working on the story for a program we will tape in 2 weeks about Cryptography, focusing on the Free Speech aspect as well as the governments attempt to limit export of programs. ... The reason that I'm writing to you is that we would like to shoot a cypherpunks meeting as a way of introducing the [program.] [We want to film cypherpunks talking on camera] about the need for cryptograpy and the government's attempt to control access. ... I talked with him on the phone. He is affiliated with a group known as the Freedom Forum in Arlington, VA, which is non-partisan and non-profit. I said, sure, I'd be glad to reserve the room and call for a meeting, but that it would be up to the local Bay Area cypherpunk community as to whether or not folks could make this meeting. I also mentioned that a number of us have had mixed experiences with the media, and that we're pretty cynical about being presented fairly. I told him a several of us have endured the problem of spending all day in some video shoot, only to have 10 seconds of out-of-context inflammatory sound byte show up on the eventual program. If you want to, it would help me to know if you think you can make the meeting on Jan 27th, so we have some idea how long to wait for people to show up before starting the "official" agenda. Marianne mrm(a)eng.sun.com mrm(a)netcom.com p.s. directions to B21 of Sun: Take 101 south to Amphitheater Parkway. Turn left at the light at the bottom of the exit ramp onto Charleston. (This street is also known as Garcia.) After about 1/3 mile, turn right onto the first real side street. In about 2 long city blocks, you'll see big purple and white signs for B21 of Sun. The meeting is held in the cafeteria. This time I'll bring blank foils and pens. :-)

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Re: Hack Lotus?
by daw＠quito.CS.Berkeley.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <199601190610.RAA17232(a)sweeney.cs.monash.edu.au>, Jiri Baum <jirib(a)sweeney.cs.monash.edu.au> wrote: > > Hack Lotus? Please do. > > I have no idea how Lotus actually does this, but: > > How about a salt determined by the forty bit part? > > Ie if the key is s.g (s=secret, g=gaked), the BARF (="Big-brother Access > Required Field") could contain Encrypt(Hash(s).g,BigBrother). > > The receiving end, knowing both s and g, could re-calculate the > BARF and only function when it's correct. Unless it's been hacked too, > in which case it could barf when the BARF is correct :-) Looks good to me -- I think that should work. I guess that goes to show my lack of creativity. :-) I was talking to Avi Rubin from Bellcore last night, and he speculated that maybe the 64 bit key was a fixed one, generated once at installation time and escrowed with the government then. With a fixed pre-escrowed key, the receiver wouldn't have to do any checking; and it would obviate the need for a LEEF/BARF/... field. On the other hand, it seems to me like one should be able to disable this fixed pre-escrowed key mechanism with a little binary patch. I guess we need hard technical details. - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMQAXySoZzwIn1bdtAQFQxgF/d72pj3qiRVIxCBPvhBEsLwWtTiO9tibv HEa8VbFTwMWoWY70XAMd8meFG5ktMRob =8JMW -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: NSA vacuuming down Internet traffic
by tallpaul＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Jan 20, 1996 04:05:50, 'Tatu Ylonen <ylo(a)cs.hut.fi>' wrote: >As for the keyword search problem, it would easily be possible to scan >much of the data (say, tcp ports smtp, nntp, login, exec, ident) in >real time against a million-phrase dictionary (containing keywords, >e-mail addresses, names, abbreviations, etc.). If there are >performance problems, you can first limit by >source/destination/protocol/port. Only intercepts (e.g., entire tcp >connections) that pass this initial screening are passed on to other >machines for more complicated analysis. > >Note also that many parts of the filtering problem parallelize quite >nicely. Or simply pipeline it. Bare bones Pentium systems go for under $US 1,000 (quantity one) on the open market. Buy them in quantity and a private company can set up a thousand Pentium pipeline for under a million dollars. Easily affordable for even medium-sized corporations. -- tallpaul "To understand the probable outcome of the Libertarian vision, see any cyberpunk B movie wherein thousands of diseased, desparate and starving families sit around on ratty old couches on the streets watching television while rich megalomaniacs appropriate their body parts for their personal physical immortality." R. U. Sirius _The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook_

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DES in real life
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Recognizing that DES is not the best thing out there, but that it is better than RC40 and life is a series of cost/benefit tradeoffs and that there is a large installed base to interoperate with, I'd like your opinions on the following: 1) Suppose you are approached by a corporate client who believes that they can get export permission for DES (but nothing stronger, i.e. no 3DES). What kind of real-world, non-banking, applications is DES just too weak for today? In answering keep in mind that most US corporate clients are not too worried about the US government reading their email. Some do worry about foreign governments and many worry about competitors. [I've limited this to "non-banking" because banks seem to be gearing up for 3DES.] 2) How long before DES becomes generally unsuitable for (A) corporate (B) personal use [please keep the threat model on which this question is based in mind -- threats *other than* the US government wiretapping you]? 3) Do you have a view as to whether DES (A) will and (B) should be recertified next time the issue arises? A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.

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Re: Hack Lotus?
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> "Peter Trei" writes: > > I suspect that Lotus has not completely reworked it's security > > system for the international version, and that they are in fact > > doing a second public key operation on the 3 bytes of GAK'd data. > > Likely. > > > If they're nasty, they'll check on the receiving side as well, to > > ensure that the LEAF and/or the espionage-enabling key have not been > > patched in the sending 'International' version. > > Nearly impossible. Why? Because they can only include the public key, > and not the private key, of the GAK authority in the code. You can > encrypt the three bytes of key, but it is very hard for a receiver > other than the govvies to read them. There is no shared secret > information or private information available, ergo, they can't check > their LEAF equivalent. Think it through. 1 Alice generates session key K 2 encrypts with Bob's public key, producing Epb(K) 3 extracts 24 bits of K to make K' 4 encrypts with Eve's (spy) public key, producing Epe(K') 5 encrypts message under K, producing EsK(M) 6 sends EsK(M), Epb(K), Epge(K') to recipient (and possibliy Eve) 7 Bob's copy of lotus decrypts Epb(K), recovering K 8 Bob's copy of lotus repeats steps 4 & 5 above, and checks if it's version of Epe(K') matches the one sent. 9 If it does, decrypt EsK(M), and give it to Bob If it does not, send a copy to the NSA, blowing the whistle on Alice, who's running a hacked copy. Thus, you can prevent a non-complying copy of Lotus from talking to a complying copy of Lotus, which is one of the goals of the GAKers. > This is likely where the flaw in the scheme is -- it should be trivial > to drop another public key in place of the government one and foil the > entire thing with minimal effort. All will look normal until someone > tries to use the GAK private key. > Of course, I'll point out that 64 bit RC4 keys are still not > particularly heartwarming... Granted, but we don't know if they use RC4, DES, or what. > Perry Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation http://www.process.com trei(a)process.com

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New China Ruling Threatens Closure Of News Agencies 01/19/96
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In effect, the edict puts Xinhua, the world's unnewsiest news agency, in charge of agencies normally beyond the grasp of cadre communists -- even in Hong Kong, Macau and, Taiwan. On this basis, the next time Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing did a deal with state authorities that relieved McDonald's Corp. or any other legal entity of its contractual rights (as happened last year), the story would have to be vetted by Xinhua. Xinhua already made information-control history when it established a service that both disseminates outgoing commercial data on the Internet and filters any incoming information. Although the State Council's directive gives Xinhua control over strictly "economic" news, the government body has licensed Xinhua to control everything, effectively ruling out reliable news. Stock markets and business plans are driven by market forces -- even in highly manipulated China. Even when one is tempted to think business is market driven, the whims of China's central controllers can skew everything -- as merchandisers in the casual wear clothing market found when that suddenly dried up because the bosses on top didn't like then Giordano clothing store chairman Jimmy Lai. The State Council's directive will in all likelihood force the New York Times, Reuters and other news organizations to reassess their operations in territories Xinhua is authorized to control. Controls go beyond editorial conventions. According to Xinhua, foreign wire services will not be allowed to increase subscribers in China "directly nor by ways of establishing joint ventures, solely funded companies or agents." The Xinhua report said that foreign news providers "will be punished in accordance with the law if their released information to Chinese users contains anything forbidden by Chinese laws and regulations, or slanders or jeopardizes the national interests of China." Jeopardizing the national interest of China is now taken to mean jeopardizing the interests of the communist party, or the roughly 5% of the population controlling the country from "the barrel of a gun," to borrow from Mao Zedong. Agencies only learned of the new rules Tuesday night when Xinhua, skirting the usual practice of circulating advisories on operational changes internally, simply put the story on the wire. One Hong Kong agency man told Newsbytes: "We always knew writing stories from China was a problem. Now you have to wonder if we'll be able to send stories from Hong Kong, without having to pass them by Xinhua for approval. The directive indicates stories will have to pass through Xinhua first -- pointing to a major evacuation of news services, and technology vendors who handle them. (Nigel Armstrong & I.T. Daily/19960117)

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Idea for "friendly" Windows password hack
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Let me say up front that beyond a lot of perl hacking, I've never had a need to code my way out of a paper bag, so this is not something I'd be able to implement myself, at least not without a month of study.] OK, so we know how to crack .PWL files, and how any program (virus, trojan horse, Windows Help file calling a DLL beginning with ASCII 229 so that virus scanners can't see it) can obtain usernames, passwords, etc. even if persistent "password caching" to disk has been turned off. How might Microsoft (or someone else) address this without forcing users to quit all applications and "log out" of Windows to purge the temporary "password cache" in RAM? I.e., I don't care much about and know I can't count on the security of my PC as such, and it's really convenient to leave a zillion Popular Web Browser windows open when I walk out of my office, but I don't like the idea that anyone might walk up to my PC and log on as me to the otherwise (more or less) secure servers I use. In thinking about how MacOS PowerTalk deals with this by allowing the user to "lock" and "unlock" their keychain at will, it occurred to me that there's no particular reason we should just have to "look, don't touch" the password cache in RAM. After all, it's our insecure single-user operating system, and our passwords. Why not provide a way to grab the passwords cached in RAM, encrypt them securely, put them away somewhere, and scramble the original copy of the passwords in RAM so that Microsoft's code can't get to them? We don't need no steenking user interface. Actually, the first cut at this wouldn't really need to encrypt them securely, but just deny them to the OS, and restore them to the OS, on demand. Just a quick demo of how Microsoft can and should resolve this issue would have people beating down our door, and we'd unambiguously be the good guys. Because we'd be providing the solution, there would be no further moral qualms about posting full details and full source code. -rich owner-win95netbugs(a)lists.stanford.edu ftp://ftp.stanford.edu/pub/mailing-lists/win95netbugs/ gopher://quixote.stanford.edu/1m/win95netbugs http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/win95netbugs/faq.html

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Re: Hack Lotus?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:14 PM 1/19/96 -0500, daw(a)quito.CS.Berkeley.EDU (David A Wagner) wrote: >I was talking to Avi Rubin from Bellcore last night, and he speculated >that maybe the 64 bit key was a fixed one, generated once at installation >time and escrowed with the government then. To do that, the user's system have to communicate with the government, which would be unlikely and avoidable. Alternatively, if Lotus is willing to release copies with different serial numbers (either on the disk or printed on the label), the installation process could include public-key encrypting a 64-bit key for the user with the GAK key, generating a (say) 512-bit encrypted key which could be dragged around in the headers or (if they wanted to minimize overhead) handed out in 64-bit chunks with every message or some such silliness. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 # # "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" used to mean us watching # the government, not the other way around....

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Re: Elitism on Cypherpunks
by Corey Bridges 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:55 PM 1/18/96 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote: >It has been said that "Cypherpunks write code". They must do more than >that. Cypherpunks need to teach. Just remember you brought this up... Not all of us even write code. Some of us write (horrors!) books! Yes, my brethren, I earn my pay as a lowly scribe. Do I code? Nope. Am I a Cypherpunk? Christ, I don't care. I'm on this mailing list; that works fine for me. My brain expands almost daily from contact with such seditious sods. Do I contribute to the health and growth of this list? Maybe. Do I preach the Cypherpunk doctrine through my work at my company? Definitely. Just thought I'd point out that we aren't all code-monkeys. (And I mean that in the best sense of the word.) Corey Bridges Security Documentation Netscape Communications Corporation home.netscape.com/people/corey 415-528-2978

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Restricted FTP & Web servers wanted.
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm trying to persuade the powers-that-be at my employer that we can use a restricted access, encrypted Web server to distribute beta copies of our products (which include encryption) to test sites. We're mainly interested in avoiding any confrontation with ITAR. Since we can restrict by IP address, and unlike the MIT PGP site, will be encrypting the link, I think we're in the clear. However, to aid me in making the case, I'm looking for other IP restricted servers to show that this is an accepted practice. Please drop me a line if you know of any, and I'll summarise next week. thanks, Peter PS: Does anyone know of a Domestic strength SSL web browser which allows you to install trusted roots (Netscape does not meet these conditions, in any released version). Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation http://www.process.com trei(a)process.com

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