December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Word lists for passphrases
by Perry E. Metzger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

AwakenToMe(a)aol.com, in a profound display of stubbornness, continues to insist that his program to enumerate all possible words of length N (that is, aaaaa, aaaab, aaaac, etc.) is somehow interesting. I am therefore forced to drive in the nail with a sledgehammer. Forgive me. He writes: > > > > It's [...] trivial enough to be done by 99% of the people on > > > > cypherpunks in their sleep. > > > > > > Yes. But let me ask you this. Have you done it yet?? > > > > Most of us don't bother writing up four line programs and shipping > > them out, no. > > really? Wow. four lines of code? You must be a really good programmer. duh. Hardly. A ten year old could do it. I know, since I wrote substantially more sophisticated stuff when I was ten. Since you insist, here is less than a minute's work. Yes, I timed it. ------Cut Here------ /* This could be more elegant, but the point is obviousness. */ #include <stdio.h> int main() { char i[6]; for (i[0] = 'a'; i[0] < 'z'; i[0]++) for (i[1] = 'a'; i[1] < 'z'; i[1]++) for (i[2] = 'a'; i[2] < 'z'; i[2]++) for (i[3] = 'a'; i[3] < 'z'; i[3]++) for (i[4] = 'a'; i[4] < 'z'; i[4]++) printf("%s\n", i); } ------Cut Here------ The operative portion of the program is six lines ling, and five of those lines are virtually identical. You can write the thing much more elegantly, without redundant code. However, I have elected to leave it as utterly brainless as possible to demonstrate that ANYONE could write the thing. > Youd be surprised at the # of requests from people who actually had a good > use for it, and didnt have the time to spend writing it themselves. Human stupidity is never a surprise. Perry

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Secure Computing extends deal with NSA for E-mail system
by Lou Zirko 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Tue Jul 09 00:01:32 1996 Following is an article from PC Week that some might find of interest. Also available at this URL - http://www.pcweek.com/news/0708/08escc.html Secure Computing Corp. has signed a $15 million deal with the National Security Agency to develop the agency's secure network server system for Department of Defense employees' E-mail. Officials of the St. Paul, Minn., company announced that Secure Computing will take about a year to complete the project, which will ensure security within the Defense Department E-mail system. The agreement is an extension of a deal Secure Computing first signed with the National Security Agency in 1992, according to company officials. Lou Zirko (502)383-2175 Zystems lzirko(a)c2.org "We're all bozos on this bus" - Nick Danger, Third Eye -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 iQEVAwUBMeHntstPRTNbb5z9AQEAfggAmM16zuktn2KeIsr4WNIYP69LZ1lZ4veY bqllaZfccr17NIvffqSINrxY62Xl5daVHnLcpy7y0QSMa3pksj3+FKT5X8C+GYQ6 tCOlTPO8VC0mXONXAmsZSvHEqQrHYHwJDZ9ljciXOyjajaPoElzTm3XScKLGR9p9 tac+3HIMuKmdXrVJ23Z8OmEvvKAiUqQdZtgS+FE+hwP2vzVh68Tqv+yUM5Ac6gAS i3Z5YxJ+0Ycugqa0BLyoJi1aOe2PqC6EbEzPI0LG2WNPA25MRFSDMJxWr2pulEas pBqZmzbAVSVI/JqaMU50LRKFIGb58gl+47QLFmCWqFWKlarDs6NcvA== =LbOA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by smith＠sctc.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:01 PM 7/8/96, John F. Fricker wrote: >Ever hear of home schooling? Home schooling has its own set of disadvantages. I've done enough teaching to respect it as a profession, especially when dealing with a small, evolving set of students. I also respect my own limitations. >Seems like if your child needs drugs to go to school than perhaps school is >the problem not that your child's body lacks Ritalin. I tend to agree, but it doesn't make the problem any easier to solve. Another alternative to Ritalin would simply be to let him struggle with school. It worked for me, I guess. >So it happens that I was talking with a fellow Saturday who grew up on >Ritalin. He's 36 now and strung out. Life with Ritalin prepared him for >drugs, you know. They were natural. I definitely see that as a risk. Without knowing how his parents and associated medical gurus (if any) were managing the drug, it's hard to tell if the situations are parallel. Life without Ritalin prepared me for a life as a coffee addict, I guess. Rick.

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RE: What remains to be done.
by jfricker＠vertexgroup.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:32 AM 7/9/96 +0100, Andy Brown wrote: >On 09 July 1996 02:04, John F. Fricker[SMTP:jfricker@vertexgroup.com] wrote: > >> One of these days Microsoft will officially release NT's IFS SDK. A few >> "preliminary" and incomplete copies of a 1993 beta release do float around >> but for a mere $50K there's a company that will sell you the complete source >> for an IFS. It's a crime that Microsoft hasn't shipped this SDK yet as the >> Installable File System is one of the great powers of NT. > >You can do this with the existing device driver kit since they supply the >entire source code to the AT hard disk driver. I took a look and decided >that it would be too much work for me alone. They also seem to suggest that >you can write "filters" that extend the capability of existing drivers. > >> So, if someone is interested in coughing up the $50K I know a couple NT >> programmers just chomping at the bit to build cool IFS's like PGPDrive, etc. > >I'm one of them, but this low level device driver stuff makes me shudder! > > >- Andy > > That's why the IFS SDK is so important. Writing device drivers is one thing and nasty at that but the IFS is higher level and exactly what is needed to create a PGPDrive that could exist on scsi, ide, tape, network drives, floppies, cd-roms, etc. A device driver implementation would be married to a particular controller type. --j

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Re: What remains to be done.
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 8 Jul 96 at 18:04, John F. Fricker wrote: [..] > One of these days Microsoft will officially release NT's IFS SDK. A few > "preliminary" and incomplete copies of a 1993 beta release do float around > but for a mere $50K there's a company that will sell you the complete source > for an IFS. It's a crime that Microsoft hasn't shipped this SDK yet as the > Installable File System is one of the great powers of NT. > > So, if someone is interested in coughing up the $50K I know a couple NT > programmers just chomping at the bit to build cool IFS's like PGPDrive, etc. Coughing up a mere $200-500 (depending on the cmpany) to write a few freeware drivers for Windows NT/95 or OS/2 is a bit much for poor hackers like myself. A GNU/FSF project should be to develop freeware DDKs for Windows or OS/2. There'd be many grateful people out there. 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: Word lists for passphrases
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:10 PM 7/8/96 -0500, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >Ben Holiday wrote: >> If you have access to a shell, and to the news spool, you can generate >> some quick lists by hopping into the directory of any newsgroup that >> interests you and doing: >> >> cat * | tr -cs A-Za-z '\n' | tr A-Z a-z | sort | uniq > my-big-ol-wordlist >> >> With most unixes that will generate an alphabetized list of all the unique >> words in your source text, converted to lowercase. I've had some problems >> with tr on a few machines, however. Adding a '-c' after 'uniq' will tell >> you how many times each word occured (useful for grepping out words that >> appear too infrequently, or too frequently) .. > >Actually I am fairly sure that your selection of words will be mediocre >at best. There are words (such as nethermost, insatiable, insufferable) >that are almost never used in news. If the purpose is for use with "Crack" or some similar program, it might be better than you would think. You won't get the "unusual" words, but you will also get the words in common usage that do not appear in dictionaries. (Such as fnord, jedi, killfile, and the like...) You will also get alot of proper names, which may have been used as passwords. The idea is that words in common usage may be more likely to be used as passwords. Another thing to look for when choosing dictionaries/wordlists for crack is not sticking to english. If you have a userbase that is known to have a certain percentage of people of a non-english background, you will want to find lists of words from that background. (I had a sysadmin asking me about Yiddish and Hebrew wordlists for just that reason.) These can be a bit harder. (Especially for unusual languages.) But knowing your userbase can make all the difference in what it might take to crack the passwords from the outside. --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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ACLU: NJ Alert! Personal Data Chip in DL! (fwd)
by Julian Assange 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From notes(a)igc.org Tue Jul 9 15:12:01 1996 Date: Mon, 08 Jul 1996 19:48:10 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: Moderator of conference "justice.polabuse" <bwitanek(a)igc.apc.org> From: Bob Witanek <bwitanek(a)igc.apc.org> Subject: ACLU: NJ Alert! Personal Data Chip in DL! To: Recipients of pol-abuse <pol-abuse(a)igc.apc.org> Message-ID: <APC&1'0'a9f989e8'c0a(a)igc.apc.org> X-Gateway: conf2mail(a)igc.apc.org Errors-To: owner-pol-abuse(a)igc.apc.org Precedence: bulk Lines: 32 Posted: sspnj(a)exit109.com *Computer Chips in Driver Licenses?* NEWARK, N.J. -- The Associated Press reported today that drivers may soon be using a new high-tech driver's license to pay tolls and do banking in New Jersey. The soon to be tested "Smart Card" will carry a data packed computer chip that will provide authorities with access to private information including fingerprints and medical records. The pilot cards will be limited to standard driver's license information. By the time the cards are issued to all New Jersey drivers in July 1997, they would also contain fingerprints and an "electronic purse" to be used to pay bus and train fares, the AP said. Civil libertarians said the new licenses raise privacy concerns. Ultimately, the AP said, the license will contain arrest records, medical records, vehicle registration, and could be used as a debit card to pay for groceries and do banking. "I think citizens should be extremely scared about loss of privacy," David Rocah of the New Jersey ACLU told AP. "They could store tax data. They could store medical data. They could store driver's records, insurance data, virtually any data in the government's possession." The ACLU also warned that the potential for misuse of the information --government surveillance or telemarketing research - - could pose potential problems. ---------------------------------------------------------------- -- "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_ +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+ |Julian Assange RSO | PO Box 2031 BARKER | Secret Analytic Guy Union | |proff(a)suburbia.net | VIC 3122 AUSTRALIA | finger for PGP key hash ID = | |proff(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu | FAX +61-3-98199066 | 0619737CCC143F6DEA73E27378933690 | +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+

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Re: Word lists for passphrases
by stevenw＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>AwakenToMe(a)aol.com, in a profound display of stubbornness, continues >to insist that his program to enumerate all possible words of length N >(that is, aaaaa, aaaab, aaaac, etc.) is somehow interesting. I am >therefore forced to drive in the nail with a sledgehammer. Forgive me. >------Cut Here------ >/* > This could be more elegant, but the point is obviousness. >*/ >#include <stdio.h> > >int main() >{ > char i[6]; > > for (i[0] = 'a'; i[0] < 'z'; i[0]++) > for (i[1] = 'a'; i[1] < 'z'; i[1]++) > for (i[2] = 'a'; i[2] < 'z'; i[2]++) > for (i[3] = 'a'; i[3] < 'z'; i[3]++) > for (i[4] = 'a'; i[4] < 'z'; i[4]++) > printf("%s\n", i); >} >------Cut Here------ > >Perry I agree with you, but it could also be correct. Since the char array is allocated on the stack as an auto, its contents are not guaranteed. So i[5]='\0'; is needed as the first statement. And of course it will never include a 'z' because the '<' will not permit it. Replace all the '<' with '<='. Plus there is the small matter of non-ASCII character representations breaking the increments and comparisons. Oh, and don't forget that main() returns an integer. This will generate at least a warning from the compiler, since the code does not return anything. It may well return a random number or something that will be interpreted as an error code. (also less than a minute's work) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Weller | Technology (n): | | A substitute for adulthood. stevenw(a)best.com | Popular with middle-aged men.

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Metered Phone
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any ideas about this metered phone? I am from Philippines and heard some news that it will be existing in 1997. Quite a big problem! Every dial will be counted, every seconds will be measured...

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Metered Phone
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any ideas about this metered phone? I am from Philippines and heard some news that it will be existing in 1997. Quite a big problem! Every dial will be counted, every seconds will be measured...

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