December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Internet Privacy Guaranteed ad (POTP Jr.)
by droelke＠rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Mon Feb 19 17:50:19 1996 > Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 17:17:52 -0600 (CST) > From: IPG Sales <ipgsales(a)cyberstation.net> > We are not currently revealing all the details of our system because of > patents in process, and other relat6ed matters. We are offering the > software. You should be able to readily decompile it and determine the > algorithms used andf how they are used to generate random number sequences > for very long files. For short messages, a true OTP is used directly. Marketing Fluff - read "we don't *want* to revel it". Patent stuff doesn't take long to get the initial disclosures filed. Cypherpunks are generally engineers and are immune to such crap. > If you are aware of encrtypting technology, you recognize that hardware > prime number cycle wheels for the basis of some of the most secured > hardware systems employed for encryption. We simply expand that technogy > using software to set an intial setting, an adder, and a limit for 64 > such wheels, using large random prime numbers for each of those settings. > The total number of possibilities is over 10 to the 1690th power and can > be much larger. So. Large "random" prime numbers are generated. From what? How? Obviously these act as keys to your "OTP". Figure out how to match this prime and you can generate the same "OTP". > Thus we can eliminate the need to have the length of the OTP to be equal > to the length of the file - if you do not belive that it works, try it > and see - it takes inly a few hours to set such a trial up. We generated > over 790 gigabytes of charcaters, on multiple backups, and tested. Our > standard deviations, chi squares, Delta ICs for bits, characters, sets, > and the entire set were random. The sets are random, and you can take > that to the bank. So the data coming out appears random. Big whoopie. Lots of algorithms can generate the same thing. The key is how do you seed that random number generator? This isn't even close to being a OTP. A OTP by definition has a random set of data that is transmitted to the receipient over a seperate secure channel from the actual message to be sent. The actual message and the OTP are XOR'ed together and sent. The receipient then XORs the OTP and the encrypted message to get plaintext. That is pretty simple - even a marketing drone should be able to figure that one out. Now - explain how (in generic terms) your system acts as a OTP. > Someone, will decompile it and discover that it is truly random, at least > from the practical usage basis. But we need that time to file patents, > cvopyrights and the like. Yes - hopefully someone will take the time and money to decompile it. .... but if you are so sure of yourself, why not give away some demo copies. Why not source of the security functions? (Shove that patent crap someplace - you wouldn't be selling it if your disclosures weren't already filed) > The IPG system solves the key management problem and produces a truly > unbreakabkle system. We make no apologies for not currently revealing all > of the methodologies andf algorithms, but they will be revealed with > time, by us or others, and you will discover that it is indeed a simple, > easy to use, easy to install, truly unbreakable system. "unbreakable" - Bullshit - you obviously don't know crap. Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Oelke Alcatel Network Systems droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com Richardson, TX

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Off-topic, but pertinent...
by Ed Carp 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 01:00:06 -0800 From: Sun Angel Innovations <webmaster(a)sun-angel.com> To: quotes(a)sun-angel.com Subject: Daily Quote for Sunday, 18 February 1996 If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions. unknown -- Sun Angel Innovations | http://www.sun-angel.com/ | info(a)sun-angel.com

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Re: A Cyberspace Independence Refutation
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:13 AM 2/16/96 -0500, lmccarth(a)cs.umass.edu wrote: >> I'm waiting. Then I'll have to call all the way to Montreal to log on. > >So much for the-net-as-I-know-it, where people don't have to call outside >the country just to log in to the net. Most of the people I want on the net >are very unlikely to do this. But what we think of as "phone calls" are likely to be digital and flat rate as well so calling distant points won't involve much of a hit. >I'd be interested to see the documentation of the number of peasants in >the U.S. (or elsewhere) who have done anything like this. Documentation of >the number of peasants who could manage the technical details would also >be interesting. Actually, it only takes a million or so out of the world population to make restrictions impossible. That will certainly be achievable. Configuration need not be difficult if the technically aware produce easy installation software and I think this is being done. In any case, once Windows 96/Windows NT is stable enough with genuine multithreading we'll be able to do a nice background TCP/IP setup with a point and click interface. If the capability to do something people want to do (communicate freely) exists, it *will* be used. Enforcement doesn't work. The Great Enemy would need to remove the capability. But they are not doing that. They are encouraging the move towards a more communications rich environment not towards a lesser one. >And of course, all peasants have plenty of disposable income to spend on >long-distance phone charges.... No more long distance. Haven't you heard. The "production cost" of a New York to London call is currently less than 2 cents a minute (most of that for billing) AT&T charges about 50-100 cents a minute. That sort of markup can't survive. >Duncan Frissell writes: >> We (some of we) don't want the housing or the school funding either. I >> certainly consider slave schools to be the most common form of child abuse >> in the world today. > >That's nice, but are you seriously claiming that the portion of the average >set of voters in a Congressional district that strongly agrees with you on >those issues matters a whit in a Congressional election ? No. But I do claim that their view doesn't mean much in an age in which politics is being replaced by markets. Look. Coercion-based systems like government depend on a power balance tipped far in their direction. They start to break down as individuals and small groups gain levels of power that are more equal to theirs. If we can overturn one of their commands with five minutes of keyboarding, that command can't stand. The stability of past systems was based on the fact that 90% of the population couldn't do anything no matter what happened. They had to stay where they were and grow food or they would starve. It's not hard to rule people in that situation. We aren't in that situation any more. We can move and communicate and buy and sell and the government can't do much about most of it. They depend on our acquiescence and the freedom of communication we have weakens their hold on that acquiescence. DCF

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Re: CDA Yes Votes; Collection
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:54 PM 2/16/96 -0800, Simon Spero wrote: >So, if the US were to end up with a President Buchanan elected by 25% of >all eligible voters, would you advocate seeking exile, or armed rebellion? Well, few rebelled or left when William Jefferson Blythe Clinton won with 23% of the eligible vote. DCF

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Re: A Cyberspace Independence Refutation
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:56 PM 2/18/96 -0500, Duncan Frissell wrote: >At 06:13 AM 2/16/96 -0500, lmccarth(a)cs.umass.edu wrote: >>I'd be interested to see the documentation of the number of peasants in >>the U.S. (or elsewhere) who have done anything like this. Documentation of >>the number of peasants who could manage the technical details would also >>be interesting. > >Actually, it only takes a million or so out of the world population to make >restrictions impossible. That will certainly be achievable. ... My wife attended the World Women's Conference in Hai Rou, China (as staff supporting their Apple computers). She reports that the "killer application" demonstrated there was email. Women in extreemly poor countries of the world were interested in communicating with each other about solving local problems (e.g. Clean water supplies). The demand is there. These people are not stupid. They can learn. I expect to see the village email computer build on "obsolete" donated machines start to become a force in the next century, the same way the village TV and cassette player have played a role in the last decade. Regards - Bill

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[NOISE] Re: CDA Yes Votes; Collection
by tbyfield＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:40 PM 2/18/96, Duncan Frissell wrote: >Well, few rebelled or left when William Jefferson Blythe Clinton won with >23% of the eligible vote. This fact seems to pique you, Duncan, as though it were somehow unjust. If you feel so strongly, maybe you should get out and organize those oceans of people who're waiting to think and vote just like you do. Or is "organizing" too gauche for your finer sensibilities? I'm no fan of the man myself, but he _did_ win. Don't like it? Change it. Ted

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Re: CDA outside US (Including Indian Reservations)
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 19:08 2/17/96, Ed Carp wrote: >Another problem - if you ever want to get into the US, you can kiss that >chance goodbye. They might not even let you into the country as a >visitor. Stupid. A fair number of Western countries have laws that say, >in effect, that if you do something in your country that isn't illegal in >your country but is in country X, then country X can bar you entry or PR >status or citizenship based on the fact that is *is* a crome in country X. Of course there are other Western Countries that will let you in with the intent of Arresting you (and possibly extradite you to a 3rd Country since you are not Guilty of anything in the Extraditing Country except for being on the 3rd Country's "Wanted List". There was a big stink a while ago about someone being shipped to Germany on one of these International Pick-Up Warrants.

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Gustave Solomon
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mathematician Gustave Solomon died on January 31 in Los Angeles. He was 65. Dr. Solomon was a co-inventor with Irving S. Reed of the Reed-Solomon codes, which have come into increasingly widespread use as a way of combatting the inevitable errors that occur in the transmission and storage of information. He did early work concerning the algebraic theory of error-correcting codes, and, with H. F. Mattson, was co-author of the powerful tool for analyzing such codes known as the Mattson-Solomon polynomial. His other interests included composing popular songs and folksongs and teaching voice and movement. Excerpted from NYT obituary, February 18, 1996.

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Re: Science News - article on Quantum Crypto
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 01:18 PM 2/18/96 -0500, Alexandra Griffin wrote: >Bob writes: > >> Does anyone know if the new in-line optical amplifiers (not switches!) have >> any effect on quantum crypto messages? > >Yes, any active devices in your communications path would be unable to >function without making some kind of classical measurement on the >photons involved (e.g. measuring phase relative to a definite test >angle, if phase is what's being modulated), thereby collapsing the >wavefunction and spoiling any special properties afforded by being >able to send photons down the line without "looking at them." Optical >repeaters have to pass your signal through an intermediate electronic >stage anyway, since we have no purely optical valve/transistor >equivalents (bosons don't interact with each other at all). I love to be picky about such things. Yes, I think bosons _DO_ interact with each other. Before all you physics nerds flame me, hear me out: Photons, while they have no "rest mass" do indeed "gravitate" (they are energy, recall?). In a reference I can no longer find in my 1970 Encyclopedia Brittanica, it stated that a cubic mile of sunshine "weighs" 1/100,000,000 of a milligram. From another source (or maybe the same one?) it stated that the photon "weight" in a cubic centimeter of volume at the core of a star such as our sun (or at the core of a nuclear explosion) is about 1 gram per cubic centimeter. Thus, presumably photons self-gravitate, and thus, SOME bosons "interact," although admittedly this kind of interaction is a few dozen orders of magnitude lower than what you probably intended when you said "Bosons don't interact with each other at all." Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com Klaatu Burada Nikto -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMSeY6fqHVDBboB2dAQG7XwQAoGeWJgkUf2Ton5ptuAgps23RN1YVrdS8 MB0t9DIRrmCqNlFOf8c5b3I9ljxpY0JvEMyWG0LYVqp6+ZYBfBwaSEQ9YGI+uzRJ vDIWg/83sBlHDraNiV5f6VBjZNExgvk2N4j1FIploB0SFOBEH3W7ymVa6Z/IZ6fs kYaIKiXp+ns= =YPqX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Science News - article on Quantum Crypto
by Sherry Mayo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Bob writes: > > > Does anyone know if the new in-line optical amplifiers (not switches!) have > > any effect on quantum crypto messages? > > Yes, any active devices in your communications path would be unable to > function without making some kind of classical measurement on the > photons involved (e.g. measuring phase relative to a definite test > angle, if phase is what's being modulated), thereby collapsing the > wavefunction and spoiling any special properties afforded by being > able to send photons down the line without "looking at them." Optical > repeaters have to pass your signal through an intermediate electronic > stage anyway, since we have no purely optical valve/transistor > equivalents (bosons don't interact with each other at all). I am not sure this is correct. In-line optical amplifiers work by stimulated emission like a laser rod. There is no intermediate electronic stage. The amplifier is a section of fibre that is doped with a rare earth element. The rare earth atoms are boosted into a metastable high energy state using a power source around the fibre. Passing signals (photons) stimulate the decays of the metastable states releasing more photons and boosting the signal. I am not sure what the effect of this on the polarisation characteristics of the signal is but my *hunch* is that the polarisation characteristics would be preserved in the amplified signal. Sherry ps Any laser physicists in the house?

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