December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: CDT Policy Post 2.27 - No New News on Crypto: Gore Restates
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:06 PM 7/14/96 -0700, David Sternlight wrote: >At 2:37 PM -0700 7/14/96, jim bell wrote: >>At 10:17 AM 7/14/96 -0700, David Sternlight wrote: >>>Your best shot would be to make sure the part about the system being >>>voluntary was hard-wired into any legislation or rule-making. >> >>Wrong. Our "best shot" is to ensure that no "key escrow" legislation is >>adopted, and moreover export restrictions on crypto are eliminated. > >Nope. That's some people's preferred shot, but may not be the best one Okay, "best" by which definition? And don't avoid the question: Am I not free to reject YOUR opinion of what the "best" solution is FOR ME? >or even a realistic one. "Realistic"? Who's definition? >It's certainly a partisan political advocacy (in the >sense that people are partisan about this issue, not in the sense of a >particular political party). Meaningless tripe. All you're saying is that people disagree. People disagree about a lot of things; that doesn't legitimize opposing opinions. > Yet that attitude didn't get any legislation to stop Clipper I. We didn't NEED "any legislation to stop Clipper I." Quite the opposite, anyone promoting Clipper NEEDS legislation to force it on unwilling citizens. >My point was very simple--if the government is going to say a system is >voluntary, make them put it in writing in the rules or legislation. Why have the "system" in the first place? No legislation, no system. Simple. > We >failed to do that with Clipper I (when they said in non-rulesmaking >statements that they had no intention of making escrow mandatory--but >nobody said "OK. Put it in writing as a formal policy.") No, you're misrepresenting the issue: You're trying to subtly suggest that we should have agreed with MOST of the Clipper proposal AS LONG AS it was explicitly made voluntary. (Yet nothing prevents Congress from writing and passing a law which prohibits the executive branch of government from making escrow mandatory; they haven't done this.) Quite the contrary: I don't trust the government to implement any such proposal EVEN IF it is, ostensibly, "voluntary." The voluntary/involuntary aspect is an excellent reason to oppose Clipper, but is by no means the only one. Also, I don't trust the government's definition (and dynamically changeable interpretation) of the word, "voluntary." Since Clipper was funded with tax dollars stolen from the public its very existence is already a violation of the "voluntary" requirement. The fact that Clipper was developed without substantial public (and I mean PUBLIC, not some selected committee of bootlickers) input and debate proves that the government knew it could get no support for the idea. One of the recently revealing aspects of the government's dishonesty concerning Clipper was a clarification which stated that Clipper telephones could not communicate with any crypto telephone that didn't implement key escrow. But as anyone who followed the Beta vs. VHS competition saw, the market generally abhors two mutually incompatible standards, particularly if a certain level of compatibility is required or is at least desirable, and particularly if there is no good reason to maintain BOTH those standads. The main disadvantages to maintaining two tape formats was the inconvenience of sharing tapes with people who had the opposite format, the requirement that retail stores maintain two stocks, and the requirement that rental people support both formats. There were no powerful incentives to maintain two standards, and thus one had to die. Crypto telephones, by definition, need to be far more compatible with each other than VCR machines. They must actually talk to each other. Imagine a world in which there were two different crypto formats, and for stupid political reasons they were entirely incompatible: System "A" couldn't talk to system "B." What would happen? It's obvious: One format would kill the other. People wouldn't tolerate the compatibility. The US Government wanted the surviving system to be Clipper, and to accomplish this they used stolen tax dollars to secretly develop a system that they hoped would nip the potential competing systems in the bud. It didn't work, of course, but it is clear what they tried to do. If, on the other hand, there was no impediment to system "A" talking to system "B", both systems could easily co-exist. A few suckers would buy Clipper phones; the rest of us would insist on good encryption. Clipper would eventually die, just as Beta VCR's eventually did. The government understands this, that's why they inserted the requirement for incompatibility. >. As a result, many >in government even at the higher policy-making levels are still calling for >mandatory escrow. Had it been in the rules, it's less likely they could >have overtly gone against a rules-making covenant/compromise. Hmmmm... I thought Congress made arming the Contras in Nicaragua explicitly illegal. Yet Ollie North got away with it, effectively. What is it that makes you so certain that Government has gotten any more honest in the past 10 years? >It's simple pragmatic regulatory politics. And that's exactly the problem! That's because it's also wrong. We don't need to be "pragmatic" by YOUR definition. >It's how the system works, Actually, in the past the system has "worked" by suckering in the public, in exactly the way you're attempting to do. Tricking them into supporting things that were bad for them. Remember the "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution"? > and >using the system itself to achieve one's goals is one of the more powerful >techniques around. You don't have to like it, but you do have to decide >whether you'd rather be "right" or get the result. In a sense, we ALREADY have "the result," or at least a substantial fraction of it. Development of domestic crypto is ostensibly free. The only thing desired further in the elimination of any residual restrictions, WITHOUT letting the government set up any sort of key-escrow system, voluntary OR involuntary. As far as I can see, cooperation at this point with the pro-GAK forces can only hurt the cause. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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My impending death
by Bruce Baugh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Since Vulis decided to drag in a disagreement from elsewhere, I have a brief invitation. He says I'm going to die in the next few months. My birthday is in October. So on my birthday in 1997, I'm going to have a party. All present will be invited to petition Vulis for more oracular pronouncements about the fate of past and present posters to Cypherpunks. In the meantime, I give thanks to the God of Killfiling, and fire mine up. -- Bruce Baugh bruce(a)aracnet.com http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce

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PKI Documents
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://csrc.ncsl.nist.gov/pki/ ---------- Public Key Infrastructure Pardon our mess. This page is under construction. Additional files, and additional formats, will be added in the near future. Your patience is appreciated! The following documents are products of the Federal PKI Steering Committee's Technical Working Group. Together, they comprise Version 1 of the Technical Specifications for the Federal PKI. + Requirements for the Federal Public Infrastructure (PostScript) [265366 bytes] This is Part A: of the Technical Specifications, the Draft Requirements for the Federal PKI. + Technical Security Policy for the Federal PKI (PostScript) [163543 bytes] This is Part B: of the Technical Specifications, the Draft Technical Security Policy for the Federal PKI. + Proposed Federal PKI Concept of Operations (PostScript) [980672 bytes] This is the Part C: of Technical Specifications, the Concept of Operations for the Federal PKI. + Interoperability Profile (PostScript) [746328 bytes] This is Part D: of the Technical Specifications, Draft Interoperability Profiles for the Federal PKI. Contractor Reports: the following reports were developed by contractors for NIST. These reports do not constitute government positions, but rather detail the advice and guidance provided to the government regarding public key infrastructure. + The 1994 Mitre PKI Study Final Report. [1461396 bytes] This report describes a federal PKI based on a strict hierarchical architecture, using X.509 version 2 certificates. + A Public Key Infrastructure for Unclassified but Sensitive Applications. [946734 bytes] This 1995 report describes a federal PKI based on a network architecture using the X.509 version 3 certificate. [End]

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Encrypted file systems
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some more thoughts on encrypted file system design criteria. A wish list: - Choice of secret key encryption algorithms (IDEA, 3DES, MDC, Blowfish) - Multiple architectures (MSDOS, Win31, Win95, WinNT, Unix, Mac) - High performance (hand optimised assembler for each architecture) - Compression - Ability to chain algorithms (IDEA and then 3DES for example) - Possible to have encrypted file systems on separate partitions, or - Encrypted file system located in a file in another file system (much like DOS stacker drives) this is an ease of use criteria -- I suspect re-partitioning drives would put off many potential users. - Ease of use. Graphical user interface for setup and administration functions, with a very simple set of configurations options displayed by default, with more advanced configuration options available in "expert" mode. - All directory and FAT information should be encrypted, so that it is not possible to discover even number of files, or percentage of disk used without the key - Facility for duress key, with the real data hidden in the unused space of the first encrypted drive. To increase the plausible deniability all unused blocks within a file system should be filled with garbage, so that it is not possible to tell if there is more data there. - File system steganographically hidden in files on another file system (encrypted or not). Support for a wide selection of file formats (Aiff, Wave, Midi, JPEG, GIF, RGB, MPEG). - Ability to use stegoed file system in files on an unencrypted file system, and boot from a floppy to access stegoed file system, with no other traces left on hard disk. Thought for the day: the main barrier for a Chinese dissident to using such software is that being caught with a boot floppy with the software for a stegoed drive would be dangerous. What would solve this would be if Microsoft, Apple, UNIX vendors, Slackware linux included this functionality (or this software itself as useful freeware included with the CD distribution) in their respective O/Ses as non-optional modules -- that is you get the software installed whether you want it or not. If everyone has the software, mere possesion of the software no longer is a problem. Throw in a few useful utilities, like a steganographic interface to anonymous remailers, the address of a few ftp/www by email services, and you have a system with interesting possibilities. To improve the national security of the US, the NSA should be dropping CDs with such software (much like war-time propoganda leaflets air dropped) on undemocratic countries with poor human rights records. Instead they expend their efforts on ITAR... Adam -- #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

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GIB_ber
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

6-13-96. NYP: Markoff: "Clinton Proposes Initiatives On the Scrambling of Data." Under increasing pressure from Congress and the computer industry, the Clinton Administration proposed a series of new data-scrambling policy initiatives yesterday that it said would address the Government's national security concerns while also permitting American companies to compete more effectively overseas. 6-14-96. NYP: William Gibson: "The Net Is a Waste of Time. And that's exactly what's right about it." The Web, in its clumsy, larval, curiously innocent way, offers us the opportunity to waste time, to wander aimlessly, to daydream about the countless other lives, the other people, on the far sides of however many monitors in that postgeographical meta-country we increasingly call home. It will probably evolve into something considerably less random, but in the meantime, in its gloriously unsorted Global Ham Television Postcard Universes phase, surfing the Web is a procrastinator's dream. And people who see you doing it might even imagine you're working. http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/gibber.txt (13 kb for 2) GIB_ber (for 2)

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HotWired -- "Crypto Storm Warning"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 20:19:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu Subject: HotWired -- "Crypto Storm Warning" >From Monday's The Netizen on HotWired. Read the full text at the URL below. Gorelick spoke last Friday at the Freedom Forum in Virginia. -Declan --- http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/29/campaign_dispatch0a.html HotWired The Netizen "Crypto Storm Warning" Campaign Dispatch by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) Washington, DC, 14 July The Clinton administration escalated its cyber-fearstorm today when a top Justice Department lawyer slammed the Net for "transmitting child pornography into our homes" and for allowing hackers to possibly "shut down the banking system." [...] At the same time, [Jamie] Gorelick edged away from the hard-line rhetoric the administration used to defend the Communications Decency Act. [...] Gorelick's cybercondemnations play against a backdrop of political jockeying inside the Justice Department. Reno disclosed last November that she has Parkinson's disease, and Gorelick is her logical successor if Clinton stays in office next term. [...] After Gorelick completed her speech and sat down, I leaned over and asked her: "Could I have your email address?" She didn't know it. "I don't go into it that often," Gorelick said, adding that the Justice Department doesn't use email much, for "security reasons." "Call me and I'll give it to you," she promised. Gosh, what a surprise: The US government's leading spokesperson on the dangers and the evils of the Net doesn't even log in.

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Re: CDT Policy Post 2.27 - No New News on Crypto: Gore Restates
by clark 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: david(a)sternlight.com, jimbell(a)pacifier.com, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Sun Jul 14 23:08:09 1996 > At 4:48 PM -0700 7/14/96, jim bell wrote a typically argumentative > message. > I've gotten wiser over time and don't plan to respond. I think both our > positions are quite clear and readers may make up their own minds. > > This post is a courtesy to others who may have been expecting more. It's > a > one-time statement to this list, which I've just joined, of my current > practice: Silence does not constitute assent. > > David More time required, apparently. Professional liars will put anything in writing. Judas' Sheep, too. Compromise is surrender. ec -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAgUBMenELqr9Bm6Zdjx5AQE4XQf+Je9KZ+3sVL+tACTfTxjqmnuzaq4XNvAN oH92/O5f4ilWYomeacqXYuEmc7Owk2bAVIA3IO2ZxbbBBKkb8Gy4xILEVyzVC825 +FDccpwwNETkVWGaLcoo8h7FHuWnNTfVmQ23IyTo7lIYy7g3Fkr4KJPBac4BInv4 GRy5qazCrLMEXHT0VHOrNsi+cCejlGBQAkrwqWNFonNVr3+FpZY9+Yo8AZGWTiPY d7yTWlFbAIANXLshSHatsVAb9uKTIzJeosGM9Hhq6hK9rYBXJhcfHat+7SkOKzJI we6Hgg4D/TVzLmJAo3X8yUPDDDm9YyA2RbdF1FLZg6qzYr+vvSjuTg== =2/4c -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Dep. AG Gorelick on CSPAN2 advocating escrow
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:34 PM 7/13/96, Deranged Mutant wrote: >Saw Jamie(?) Gorelick, Dep. Attny Gen. on CSPAN2 talking about needs >for key escrow. Emphasized the what if people lose their keys, or >someone dies, or if an employee steals company secrets & encrypts >them... rather than the usual what if terrorists use crypto line >(though she did mention that too). > >Guess they're taking a new tack to sell it to the public. A lot of >bunkum... (project left to the reader how these can be handled in a >non-GAK manner). And as we all know, having discussed this many times, even if one buys these arguments for the advantages of key escrow, THEY DO NOT APPLY TO COMMUNICATIONS! That is, imagine Alice and Bob communicating over some channel. Alice has files on her computer. Putatively, if she dies, leave her company, whatever, it is desired to reconstruct these files. Fine. A potential use for key escrow. (If voluntary, of course.) But what does this have to do with a channel between Alice and Bob? Why should the keys for this channel ever need to be escrowed for the reasons Gorelick cites? After all, Alice has the files she sent stored locally, and Bob presumably has the same files he received. There is essentially no rationale for escrowing the keys of a transient communication. The Administration and even cryptologists apologizing for GAK (who ought to know better) are curiously silent on this rebuttal to their claims. --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Word lists for passphrases
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:43 PM 7/8/96 -0700, you wrote: >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...) "fnord" is in _my_ dictionary - can't you find it in yours? :-) >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.) Grady Ward has his Moby Words databases with some of this kind of information. In addition to the usual sets of languages, it's useful to include any available lexicons of Elvish, Klingon, Unix, and other popular hacker-languages, plus any names you can scam off MUDs, etc. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs # Re-delegate Authority!

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Re: Reasonable validation of a software package
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I expect this problem can usually be handled without formal CAs. If you publish your PGP key fingerprint in your advertising and make the key available on your web page, then your users have a way of independently verifying your key. As the finger print appears in more and more places (letterhead, product packaging, etc.), it is less and less likely that your attacker can reach them all to modify them. The important thing is diverse paths. If you include your key in the package with the product and print the fingerprint on the outside, it becomes relatively easier for your attacker to replace the whole thing as part of an attack. At 11:33 AM 7/13/96 -0400, Michael Froomkin wrote: >This illustrates the need for and role of certification authorities. > >See http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/trusted.htm for some >info. > >On Sat, 13 Jul 1996, Lyal Collins wrote: > >> This touches upon a favourite rant of mine. >[...] >> So, now you need to ensure that you can get your public key >> (to verify the digital signature with) in the hands of all >> your possible, or intended, recipients. >> >> Now the race is on for as many people as possible to generate >> PGP public keys/certificates bearing your name, or variations >> of it. Once that occurs, there is a fair chance that one of >> these keys will verfiy the digital signature on a piece of >> software purportedly from you. Still, not many people will have >> your true PGP public key/certificate, but, them's the breaks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | The Internet may fairly be | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | regarded as a never-ending | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | worldwide conversation. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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