December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Info on alleged new German digital wiretapping law?
by um＠c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rich Graves <llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu> writes: >None of the Europeans I ran into at today's SAFE conference had even heard >of the legislation decried at > > http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=3027 > >and in alt.fan.ernst-zundel. What's up? The report is correct. The mainstream press has completely ingnored the wiretap legislation, probably because it is part of the long-awaited new telecommunications law to end the Telekom monopoly.

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Re: Message pools _are_ in use today!
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:28 PM 7/1/96 -0700, David Wagner wrote: >If folks have better ideas for how to achieve really good recipient >anonymity, I hope they'll speak up! Once they start offering Internet news/email/USENET feeds (one way) by DSS-type dish antenna from satellite, it'll be mighty hard to figure out who's receiving the data. They could probably easily provide 10 megabits per second, which I assume would be more than enough for what's needed. (BTW, for a few years a company called "Planet Connect" has been providing FIDOnet data feeds, although they use the older-style, large antenna systems, and their data rate is 19.2kbps, not even close to enough for Internet service.) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: SAFE Forum--some comments
by Lile Elam 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, I went to SAFE and found that it was very helpful for me. I have been struggling with trying to figure out what I personally can do to help change the current state of cryptography in the US of A and found that alot of good suggestions were made at this conference. It was almost like a brainstorming event on how to get things (US politics and laws) going in the right direction in this field. Hearing leaders in the cryptography field speak was awesome. They were direct and to the point. And you could tell that they were being completely strait with everyone about the current situation and what the technology could/could-not do for us. The comment I kept hearing over and over was that we have to educate the public about what cryptography is and why it's important to everyone using computers to communicate. This public includes people who are not on the net and those who don't even know what the Internet is. So, now I have some ideas on what I, as an individual can do to help. Educating poeple about crypto. I work with alot of artists on the net (~300+) and will introduce crytography to them. We'll think of some cool ways to implement it in our work and in the process will learn how to use it. :) The SAFE t-shirts were great too... -lile (a webmaster(a)art.net) www.art.net

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Re: Message pools _are_ in use today!
by um＠c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>alt.anonymous.messages is not an ideal message pool-- it is a hack. >(Granted, it *is* a really cool, clever, and practically useful hack.) I agree that alt.anonymous.messages is not perfect. But if you download all articles and don't post to alt.anonymous.messages without using a remailer, the only real threat are denial of service attacks with cancel messages etc. >If folks have better ideas for how to achieve really good recipient >anonymity, I hope they'll speak up! I think a DC+ net would achieve the same degree of anonymity more efficiently. (It's not trivial to estimate the traffic caused by a remailer net as proposed by Ian, so I may be wrong there.)

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Re: But what about the poor?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:55 PM 7/2/96 -0700, Martin Minow wrote: >Jim Bell wants to get rich running a key escrow business (:-) >> >>Oh, but what a business opportunity! I assume a floppy can hold 1000 keys. >>Even if I undercut the going rate of $200 per year by a factor of 10, that's >>a potential income of $20,000 per floppy per year. A box of 20 floppies on >>the shelf, and I'm set for life! >> >Add in the cost of a bank vault I'm assuming that the keys are, themselves, encrypted. > and the ability to provide any key >to an approved law enforcement agency (i.e., one that provides you with >a legitimate search warrant for the key) with a 2 hour response time >(24/7/365). Easy solution! Make 'em show up at the front door. It'd cut down on the requests, I'd say... This would be an excellent way of getting around the "response time" requirement: The time the cops take to actually arrive and request the key is THEIR time, not that of the escrow agent. Locate the escrow agent in Encampment, Wyoming, and see how many can find it! > Also, you will have to take in keys as they are provided. However, this raises an interesting question: Can key-escrow agents change the terms of their operation to delete such responses (or slow them...) for the cops? Or, for that matter, can they charge the cops an arm and a leg for the key? (Say, $100,000 per?) Another question: The cops probably assume that the escrow agent is NOT going to inform the key holder that the key has been delivered. But if the stated policy of the escrow agent is that the key owner MUST be informed, what are the cops gonna do about it? Further, how are the cops going to evidence the existence of a valid warrant? (As opposed to a forgery?) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: The Net and Terrorism
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:00 AM 7/3/96 -0700, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: > >keep in mind that Ruby Ridge and Waco happened only a few years >ago. that's a nanosecond in cosmic time, yet the terrorist >repercussions are being felt immediately. I would say its very >visceral evidene that terrorists are responding to events and >are not just madmen out for the fun of killing people. there's >a bit of that of course.. If you listen to the Feds discussing this most recent militia story, when they're asked what was the militia's motivation, they don't want to talk about it, and won't even speculate on more than the most unspecific, vacuous terms. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: SAFE Forum--some comments
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:44 PM 7/2/96 -0700, Martin Minow wrote: >It's not quite that bad. Here are a few (more or less strong) crypto >products you might not know you have: > >1. Every Macintosh made since at least 1988 has a secure authentication > client module in the AppleShare Chooser dialog. When you use it to > connect to a remote server, it notes that the user information > is "two-way scrambled." (The server sends a random number challenge > that the client uses to encrypt the username and password. The > encrypted information is sent to the server.) All Macintosh systems > running System 7 or later have the corresponding server software. > What is interesting about this is that the encryption is completely > invisible to the user. How did this affect the Macintosh's exportability? >Note that the VCR companies have solved the vcr problem by receiving >a timecode from a local television station -- making the problem >invisible to the end user. We should be able to do the same with >strong crypto. I haven't bought a new VCR in a few years. Is this real? What prevented them from doing this 10 years ago? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Message pools _are_ in use today!
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 1 Jul 96 at 20:28, David Wagner wrote: [..] > Ian and I talked about this at some length. alt.anonymous.messages > has certain unfortunate shortcomings. > Someone sniffing the Berkeley 'net can tell when I receive an > alt.anonymous.messages message by when I download an article from > the NNTP server; they can tell when I send such an article by when > I upload an article to the NNTP server; they can list all the > ``subversive'' Berkeley folks who have read alt.anonymous.messages > lately. Uploading can be gotten around by using anonymous remailers and mail-to-news gateways... although someone can tell if you send mail to anonymous mailers. Rob --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Re: hard drive encryption
by Anthony Daniel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi You could try using SECURE Desk-Top. It can encrypt your hard drive using a symmetrical key. The algorithms are DES and IDEA (128 bits). It's fast and you could choose exactly what part of the drive to encrypt, whether just some files or the entire drive. You can download the software from this url: http://www.systems.it/secure All the best Anthony > >What is the best utility freely available for encrypting an entire drive >that won't be used for a length of time? ie: I'm going away for a period >of time and wish to encrypt the drive while I'm gone, but have no interest >in actually using it while it's encrypted. I also have no real preference >in what algorithm is used, as long as it's relatively secure. Speed is >also not a big consideration, as it will be used once when I leave to encrypt, >and once when i return to decrypt. >Thanks in advance for the help... >//cerridwyn// > >btw, the OS is Win95 if that matters... >

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Re: PGP secret keys
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 2 Jul 96 at 6:39, anonymous-remailer(a)shell.port wrote: > Could someone post a pointer to a FAQ that tells what to do if you loose > your secret key file? How can you regenerate your private key so that the > userid number still matches the public key that has been distributed?? You can't do anything. Yer screwed.

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