December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

How the other half lives - why encryption is necessary
by Dave Emery 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following showed up on a public radio-oriented mailing list I occasionally read - if this is really a true report by a confessed cordless/cellular scanner freak who got caught taping calls and passing the tapes around it is certainly illuminating as someone in an official position may have possibly said much more than more sophisticated law enforcement eavesdroppers would ever admit to. Clearly most people would think the law in the matter was very different than the attitude here expressed, though I think that many of the more cynical would view this as no surprise at all and indeed SOP in most investigative agencies, I cannot vouch for the identity of the poster or the veracity of this. However I think it certainly shows the official attitude that has made many of us advocates of encryption, particularly of wireless communications, and deeply suspicious of the notion that court ordered wiretaps are the only ones used by the police and other agencies. Forwarded message: From scan-mass-east-request(a)nomad.n-reading.ma.us Old-Return-Path: <merk!tiac.net!kilo> Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 19:17:41 -0400 Message-Id: <199604122317.TAA17404(a)zork.tiac.net> X-Sender:kilo@tiac.net X-Mailing-List:<scan-mass-east(a)nomad.n-reading.ma.us CORDLESS PHONE MONITORING: -- I was accused of monitoring phone conversations of public officals over a scanner. I was accused of taping said conversations in which the public officals were conducting town buissness in a illegal manner etc. The allegded tapes (copies) were allegedly passed around to "other" town officals for them to hear what was being "said", "done", and what actions were about to unfold. A investigation by the Mass. District Attoney was ordered and the results if that investigation is as follows ---- "The information available during this investigation indicated that the telephone calls which were tape recorded were made on a cellular telephone or a portable telephone. No evidence was obtained indicating a wire communication was illegally intercepted and recorded. The audio tape that was around the town of $%#@!%^%$$ and played for several individuals was not recovered. @@ @#$$#% ^%%&* found the tape left on the front seat of %$^ car and had it for a period of time, but does not have it or knew where it was at this time. This officer (police) explained to those directly involved that cellular telephone conversations and any conversation that is transmitted over the airwaves is not protected communitations, as there is no expectation of privacy in the open airways. I further informed those involved that there are people who have nothing better to do then listen and record such cellular telephone calls and this means of communication is not secure. This officer requests that this investigation be closed". That is from the Masssachusetts District Attoney's Office in Barnstable,Mass. ******** In fact when I was interviewed I was told flat out that lawenforcement "does not want" it to be against the law, because not only do they hear about drug transactions which allows them to bust subjects, "BUT" it is also a saftey tool, for at times the people under survailance talk using this type of communication and they (POLICE) can find out if the subject(s) have weapons, etc. etc......!!!!! That's what my experience in this area is... Happy Scanning!!!!!!!!!! Vietnam Vets - "USMC"

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Re: On computer face recognition:
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:14 PM 4/11/96, David Loysen wrote: >Take a peak at http://www.neci.nj.nec.com/homepages/lawrence/papers. One of >Lawences papers is on using Neural networks to recognize faces. Methinks >that the state of the art is advancing rapidly and such problems as not >looking at the camera or changing your expression are rapidly being overcome. One system I read up on a few years ago relied heavily on ear shape....it seems that the profile of ears varies tremendously and ear profiles are fairly easy to get a kind of hash of, assuming the ear profile is not obstructed by hair. "Get a haircut" may once again return to favor. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! 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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Re: questions about bits and bytes [NOISE]
by JonWienke＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-04-11 20:26:44 EDT, jeffb(a)sware.com writes: >[I told myself I was going to stay out of this, but Jim Bell's dogmatic >stance irks me... ] Here's a citation from "Portability of C Programs >and the Unix System" by S.C. Johnson and D.M. Ritchie (yes, that Richie) >in the Bell System Technical Journal volume 57, Number 6, July-August 1978. Citing sources from 1978 in the computing field is a little like using dictionaries from the 1800's to dictate modern English usage. My desktop machine has as much computing power as some colleges had during that era. We've come a long way, baby! Yes, in the past, the term "byte" applied to entities other than 8 bits, but "8 bits" IS the commonly accepted, standard meaning of "byte" now, in the present. The fact that the meaning and usage of words can change over time is not relevant to current meaning and usage. Anyone who wishes to dispute this should study the etymology of the word "gay." Jonathan Wienke

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Lotus notes 24 bit hack project?
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

reading notes on the recent RSA conference reminds me of something. Lotus announced their 64 bit encryption for foreign users some months ago, with 24 bits secretly "owned" by the NSA. there was some speculation here about how this was handled. could the system be so insecure as to have a unique 24 bits used across every foreign key? or are those 24 bits somehow algorithmically determined from the other 40 bits, with the algorithm a secret? in any case it seems that reverse engineering of Lotus Notes would provide the answer, and we'd be able to embarrass both NSA and Lotus (who imho deserves it, for caving in to the NSA) all in the same sweep by revealing it to the world!!! I would bet this would be worth some more NYT or WSJ almost-front-page ink for some lucky cpunks if someone can pull this off!! this would be a *major* new feather in the cpunk cap, and I'd enthusiastically support anyone attempting to work on this project (maybe writing HTML pages for information or something). cypherpunks, start your disassemblers!!

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Re: Digital Cash Escrow
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:17 AM 4/11/96 -0500, John Deters wrote: Go dig up the manuals for a >UNIVAC 1100, Jim. Why do you think the RFCs for IP specifically refer to >"octets" as opposed to "bytes"? Because (they explain) "octet" is >unambiguous, which then infers a certain ambiguity to "byte", now, doesn't it? Wasn't the original development of the Internet done in the middle 1960's? And thus, does its development pre-date the coinage of the term, "byte"? If that's true, doesn't this answer your question? The terminology used for the definition of a standard often tends to be frozen in time. Lacking the term "byte" they used "octet." The subsequent invention of the term "byte" would not have displaced the original term, at least in Internet standards.

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Re: "Contempt" charges likely to increase
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"unicorn(a)schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 6-APR-1996 16:17:13.99 >I might add that the Cayman Islands are full of trust companies with >provisions which forbid the disclosure of data to a client who is >coerced. A law on the books refuses to recognize "consent" orders made >under judicial compulsion. This would give the appearance of total >unavailability of evidence and suggest the futility of contempt >charges. Yet courts have still, and with no small measure of success, >imposed sanctions on witnesses so protected. What measure of success? Getting the data, or locking up the witness? -Allen

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Re: On computer face recognition:
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There was a piece, I _think_ in Scientific American, tho it might have been an AI journal, on face recognition by use of neural nets together with what were called "eigenface" images: These eigenfaces each have specific characteristics, which when combined together can closely approximate a specific face image. The target face was analyzed in terms of closeness-of-match to a small set of eigenfaces, on the order of 5 to 8, I think. Results of course were promising (else why write about it, eh?) if not excellent. At 12:14 PM 4/11/96 -0700, you wrote: >At 10:02 PM 4/10/96 -0700, you wrote: >> >>On computer face recognition: >> >> >>>> Shaving probably will not be a problem, but holding your head at a >>>> slightly different angle... will screw up the system totally, >>>> unless the system has radically improved since the last time I read >>>> up on it. >> >>At 11:45 AM 4/9/96 -0500, K00l Secrets wrote: >>> Well, the systems I have seen are quite good at finding people's eyes. >>> Scaling (for distance), and rotation (for the angle of your head) >>> therefore don't really confuse the system once it has your eyes. >> >>Finding the eyes can only control for rotations in the plane of >>the image, when you tilt your head to one side. They cannot >>handle the much more common case of 3D rotations, where you >>look slightly to the right or slightly to the left of camera. >>Facial expressions also throw them badly. >> > >Take a peak at http://www.neci.nj.nec.com/homepages/lawrence/papers. One of >Lawences papers is on using Neural networks to recognize faces. Methinks >that the state of the art is advancing rapidly and such problems as not >looking at the camera or changing your expression are rapidly being overcome. > > >===================================== >dwl(a)hnc.com > >Zippity do da, zippity ah, my oh my what a wonderful day. >Ya right, and hear I am without time to finish a cup of coffee. > >

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[NOISE] Why there are so many cluless people
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Today, I heard a commercial on the radio. Some company wants to help you make $1k+ per day as an Internet expert. Simply listen to their one week audio tape course and you know everything you need to work as an Internet consultant. Sigh, -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: questions about bits and bytes
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:17 PM 4/11/96 -0500, Sten Drescher wrote: >>>>>> jim bell writes: > >jb> At 06:29 PM 4/10/96 -0700, Simon Spero wrote: >>> No, bytes are no always 8 bits - some machines use(d) 9-bit bytes. > >jb> I notice you gave no examples. Why is that? > > As I recall, the Honeywell H6000 used 6-bit bytes and 36-bit >(6 byte) words. Here's the problem with this kind of counter-example: You do not explain whether or not these data structures were actually called "bytes" by the manufacturer, or whether the term "byte" was inflicted later on by people who didn't know better. Remember, in the absence of any name for a "6-bit data object" I'm sure the temptation was probably very strong to misuse a term, especially in hindsight. See, I do not challenge the fact that there were plenty of data objects of length other than 8-bits. The issue is whether or not the people back then actually believed that a correct, official usage of the term "byte" included lengths other than 8. Dmitri Vulis at least acknowledged that when he looked back into the documentation, he discovered that the term used for his counter-example was "character", not byte. How many other of these counter-examples would show this kind of thing?

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Re: On computer face recognition:
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:48 PM 4/11/96, Alan Horowitz wrote: >How do _people_ recognize faces? Still an open question, last I heard. It may be unknowable, at least in a formal sense. That is, we know that babies can recognize the faces of their mothers in fractions of a second (no, I don't have a reference for this, but I remember the number from my days as an AI person at Intel). There may be no simple description that is used, such as angles between eye line and mouth, convexity of chin, whatever. What is important is that face recognition happens in about 30-100 "cycles" of the brain, implying massive parallelism (hardly surprising). There are, of course, very few recognition algorithms that run on conventional computer architecures in so few cycles. By "unknowable" I don't mean "supernatural," merely not practically describable as an algorithm runnable on conventional von Neumann-type machines. "Neural net" is the buzzword usually associated with this. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! 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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