December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Can we kill single DES?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:27 PM 10/1/96 -6, Peter Trei wrote: >Unlike many cypherpunks, I actually write code (:-). I took Phil >Karn's DES386 as a starting point, and modified it to run effiiciently >on the Pentium. The code I've written will run 14 round DES (all >that is required for a key test app) at 254,000 crypts/sec on a >90 MHz Pentium. > >Allow about 10% overhead for key scheduling (there are some tricks to >speed this up), and we're still at about 250,000 keys/sec on a 100MHz >Pentium (I'm using a nominal 100 MHz Pentium as my 'unit' of >cpu power). [snip] >On this type of processor, it would still take 9133 years to exhaust >a 56 bit key space. On the other hand, on 20,000 processors of this >power it would take less than 6 months. If the target is encrypted >in a chaining mode with an unknown 8 byte IV, the time more than >doubles. [snip] >Questions for general discussion: > >1. Is this a good idea? What will happen if DES becomes perceived > as insecure? Reluctantly, I'd have to say that I don't think this is a good idea. If anything, what this would inadvertently demonstrate is how difficult (at least, with non-dedicated hardware) it is to crack DES. The resulting number will be misleading if it doesn't represent the real danger to encryption users. I contend that a misleading estimate is actually worse than none at all, because it is a number which can be misused. They can say, "Hey, these guys had to apply $10-20 million dollars worth of computer equipment for a full year just to get the contents of a SINGLE MESSAGE!" The real danger is, indeed, a dedicated system, because it would presumably be the way a "real opponent" would do it. First, my assumptions: I assume that it would be generally straighforward to build a cracking chip that tries 10 million keys per second, with a great deal of internal parallelism and pipelining. This is a factor of 40 higher than the number you quoted above for a 100 MHz Pentium. Further, I assume that at least 10 of these chips could be installed on a single card in a PC, monitored by a program running on that PC. Thus, it would take 9133 years/400, or 23 years, for a single one of these modules to try all keys. With "only" 100 of these units, a crack would take about 3 months max, 1.5 months on the average. Now, THAT sounds like a real threat! It would be a far more effective demonstration of the weakness of DES. Compared to this, the alternative, say an average of a crack in a year with 4500 machines, is practically meaningless. An even more ominous configuration would involve perhaps 50 chips per full-length board, seven boards installed in a stripped-down PC, which would produce a crack in 4 months average with one system alone. So how would all this be done? First, write a serious proposal for the project and circulate it among companies with fab capacity. How about finding a custom, semi-custom, or other semiconductor manufacturer who would be willing to do the fab in exchange for the publicity, or a deep discount. It might be particularly "relevant" if that company had an interest in seeing DES discredited, possibly because it was going to be building an encryption chip with greater security. (NTT? and their new encryption chip?) Likewise, find a politically-sympathetic designer with access to IC layout software, etc. The way I see it, there has to be a huge amount of unused 0.5-0.7 micron IC capacity around the world. Remember, we're only talking about a few hundred wafers. And for example, as I recall, I've seen a number of ads over the years for a company called "Orbit Semiconductor," which builds small-volume IC's by putting a number of different designs on a single wafer. The number of die per wafer is, more or less, based on the volume needed for that particular chip. They do a new fab run fairly regularly, to accomodate designs with fast turnaround. Presumably, they occasionally would like to do a run quickly without waiting for the wafer to "fill up" with new designs. Anyway, the way I see it, you're probably going to burn up over a million dollars worth of ELECTRICITY alone on a single crack with Pentiums. Why not get whoever is doing these cracks to donate 1/10th of this value to finance the portion of this project which cannot be "finagled"? Maybe Microsoft would be willing to help? After all, it is THEY who are going to be limited to DES-strength exports if things continue as they've been going. How about Intel? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Export laws don't just affect crypto
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The recent posts about GPS made me research the state of the art of GPS receivers. Seems they are getting pretty good. Two pounds, sub-meter accuracy, attitude determination, all at altitudes up to 60,000 feet and speeds up to 1,000 nmph. But what really caught my eye was the fine print at the bottom of the spec sheet: "Higher altitude and velocities up to 25,000 nautical miles-per-hour options are available in the U.S." I gather from this that as long as you are in the US, you are welcome to use this technology for applications that require larger than 1,000 nmph speeds. Seems the software industry is not the only industry that's suffering from silly export control laws. --Lucky

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Re: active practice in America [RANT]
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mark M. wrote: > On Mon, 30 Sep 1996, Dale Thorn wrote: > > Re: Below text. One of the most fascinating aspects of the Simpson > > case (to me, anyway) is how persons who know about conspiracies, > > mafia hits, etc., are still willing to believe OJ is guilty (fer > > sure), looking only at the "evidence" presented by the same folks > > who (send for list). > Information about the evidence, crime and trial are not classified for > the reason of "national security" in this case. True, but what's reported is a joke, just like other media scams. > There's a motive and there is nothing outlandishly unbelievable about > the possibility that Simpson did do it. I didn't say no possibility, just very little probability. And what motive did this wealthy man have to savagely (inhumanly, yet) murder those two people? There are people who have plausible motives, though. > OJ never was in the military and there is nothing that even remotely > suggests that he had anything to do with the CIA. CIA, remotely? I guess Colby, Jr. living next to Nicole is outside the boundary of remote? I guess A.C.'s boss Ippolito, *close* friend of George Aronow, *close* friend of George Bush, etc. is also out of bounds? Ever hear of international coke rings? OJ was up to his neck in Mob, and looks like Denise Brown likewise. Too remote for you? > The Simpson case and the JFK assassination are not even remotely > comparable. Lessee, an apple and a banana are "not even remotely comparable", due to so many differences, etc. But, I can eat both of them, and get nutrition from both, so, they *do* have quite a bit in common. The Warren Commission, and all "official" treatments of the JFK assassination were not based on the real evidence, nor was the OJ trial. If you're one of those people who saw Ruby do it, and you said "gee, musta been just another wacko", then you could look at the OJ trial the same way and say "gee, just another crazy black man", etc.

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Re: White House crypto proposal -- too little, too late
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:50 PM 10/1/96 -0700, John Anonymous MacDonald wrote: >> Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 14:56:21 -0700 (PDT) >> From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> >> >> "What?" I asked. "Unless you're talking about import restrictions." >> >> "Exactly," he said. >> >> -Declan > >I don't doubt that they can do this if they really want to, but I >wonder what legal basis they will use for import restrictions. > >Are there any current import restrictions for products on can legally >manufacture, sell, and use in the United States? "Sugar" Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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unsubsribe
by GOULDING CP 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unsubsribe

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The Right to Keep and Bear Crypto
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. --Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment II, 1791 I'm not a consitiutional scholar, but it seems to me that since the government has already classed crypto as arms via ITAR and since the I am guaranteed the right to bear arms I choose to bear the crypto of my choice as part of my arsonal. The founding father's believed that the citizen's right to arms is all that may ultimately stand in the path of a government no longer duly constituted. In such a case a manditory GAK system could render all but the government's crypto impotent, disarming the populace of this valuable weapon. I therefore propose that since only strong crypto may be secure against the government in such a circumstances the government may not deny me the right to keep and bear the strong crypto of my choosing, unless I use it for criminal purpose. Futher in order that citizen militias employing strong crypto be well regulated (e.g., well maintained) the practice of using strong crypto by such citizens must be regular and wide spread. -- Steve PGP Fingerprint: FE 90 1A 95 9D EA 8D 61 81 2E CC A9 A4 4A FB A9 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Snoop Daty Data | Internet: azur(a)netcom.com Grinder | Voice: 1-702-655-2877 Sacred Cow Meat Co. | Fax: 1-702-658-2673 7075 W. Gowan Road, #2148 | Las Vegas, NV 89129 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Just say NO to prescription DRUGS. "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." -- C.S. Lewis "Surveillence is ultimately just another form of media, and thus, potential entertainment." -- G. Beato

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Re: This list is a joke
by Dave Temple 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Actually, I am not adult enough to save the welcome message I received when I joined the list. Thanks to the many people who have since sent me the instructions. I am sorry I had to whine to get them. > > I guess you are not adult enough to take yourself off the list. > > > andrew >

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REM_ail
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

10-8-96. VV: "The Remailer Is Dead, Long Live the Remailer. Life After Penet." By Dave Mandl (Excellent, Dave, yes!) By the strict standards of the cypherpunks, a loosely knit affinity group of the Net's most radical and technoliterate privacy advocates, Penet's security was actually on the flimsy side. Its Achilles' heel was the file -- just begging to be subpoenaed -- that linked users' real names to their Penet pseudonyms. Cypherpunk-run remailers, on the other hand, generally leave no trace of the sender's true identity. In addition, cypherpunk remailers can be "chained" -- messages can be routed through several far-flung remailers before reaching their final destination, making message tracing all but impossible, even for the remailer operators. ----- http://jya.com/remail.txt ftp://jya.com/pub/incoming/remail.txt REM_ail

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Re: NYT on IBM GAK
by Rich Burroughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:14 AM 10/2/96 GMT, jya(a)pipeline.com (John Young) wrote: > The New York Times, October 2, 1996, pp. D1, D8. > > > Compromise Is Offered on Computer Security Codes > > By John Markoff [snip] > Executives of the International Business Machines > Corporation said late yesterday that they were still lining > up the final list of companies in the alliance. Those > involved will include Digital Equipment and smaller > data-security companies including RSA Data Security, Cylink ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > and Trusted Information Systems. [snip] > "The Government announcement is disastrous," said Jim > Bidzos, chief executive of RSA Data Security, one of the > country's leading developers of data-scrambling software. > "We warned I.B.M. that the National Security Agency would > try to twist their technology." [snip] Isn't there at least a slight contradiction here? Hello, Mr. Markoff? Is RSA really involved in this "alliance" (read "sell out") or did IBM just throw out their name? Inquiring minds want to know... Rich ______________________________________________________________________ Rich Burroughs richieb(a)teleport.com http://www.teleport.com/~richieb See my Blue Ribbon Page at http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/blueribbon U.S. State Censorship Page at - http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/state New EF zine "cause for alarm" - http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/cause

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Re: LDS 'mountain'
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

attila wrote: > Dale: > the 'mountain' contains only original copies of the church > records (actually quite small) and the immense collection of > the genealogy of the world as records are microfilmed whereever > the have been available. these records contain ** only ** birth, > baptismal, marriage, death, and burial records. most European > records come from the churchs. [remaining text deleted] The only reason I would bother to mention this is merely to caution people to think: What could *possibly* happen if the shoe were on the other foot. If the Constitution is about anything at all, it's about balance of power, and when *any* power transfers more to one interest than another, interesting changes can occur. BTW, there have been articles in the L.A. Times about attempts by persons not of the Mormon faith to prevent Mormons from dominating the cultural life in SLC schools, other public venues, etc. This raises the eternal question: Can a group live the way *it* wants to without interference, or is group culture always going to constitute a threat to persons in the vicinity who don't share that culture?

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