December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

A _REALLY_ Interesting Bet
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Betting on football is one thing, but some of us would be very interested in the odds on US presidential election outcomes as November approaches. This kind of betting is illegal here, and I haven't looked lately for a "Ladbroke's" type site, but it is interesting because the betting odds from across the Atlantic more closely match eventual election results than the annoying calls from Gallup & Roper during suppertime. I have posted here, anonymously, on this topic before, but some of you are aware of who I am. I'll thank you to keep that a secret. ;}

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Boeing Antenna Demos T1 Reception Rates
by reagle＠rpcp.mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1996 AUG 27 (NB) -- By Bill Pietrucha. All eyes were on the truck as it meandered its way down the twisting mountain road in northern Bosnia. Except the eyes didn't belong to lookouts in an observation post along the road. They were in a modified US Air Force (USAF) C-135 flying at 35,000 feet along the East Coast of the United States, some 6,000 miles away. The USAF C-135, known by the name Speckled Trout, was participating in the 1996 Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID `96). JWID `96 is the eighth in a series of technology demonstrations designed to identify command, control, communications, computer, and intelligence (C4I) problems between the armed services, demonstrate improved operational capabilities for deployed forces, and promote interoperability among existing and emerging C4I systems needed to support a joint task force. As part of the exercise, the Air Force installed the first full-scale prototype Ku-band phased array receive antenna system on the Speckled Trout, a modified avionics testbed aircraft maintained by the 412th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The antenna, developed by Boeing Co., is capable of receiving broad- band, high data rate satellite communications, with civilian as well as military applications, Boeing spokesperson Charles Ramey told Newsbytes. According to Ramey, the antenna will "revolutionize mobile satellite communications by increasing the data flow by thousands of times over current capabilities." Depending on the satellite and receiver, he said, rates of up to 30 megabits-per-second (Mbps) may be realized through a single transponder. "To date, satellite communication to mobile platforms has been limited to relatively narrow bandwidths, and wide band communication has been subject to the limits of antenna technology," Ramey told Newsbytes. The Boeing design can be adapted to simultaneously receive signals from multiple satellites in different orbits with a single antenna. The electronically steered antenna also allows for rapid switching between different satellites. During the JWID exercises, which will continue through August 30, the Boeing antenna system is being used to receive satellite transmitted video and data to support the Global Broadcast Service (GBS) mission. GBS, Ramey said, is designed to provide the military with a worldwide, seamless, high-throughput broadcast information service to support current and future defense objectives. As one Air Force Colonel at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, told Newsbytes, "GBS is the CNN of the warfighter." EchoStar, a key member of the antenna demonstration team, transmitted video in Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) format for reception by the Boeing antenna system on the Speckled Trout. In addition to the video, an uplink data stream at T1, or 1.5Mbps, or higher is generated at the GBS uplink terminal testbed at the Operational Support Office facility located at the Naval research Facility near Washington DC. This signal, according to Ramey, is relayed through the GBS Americom K2 FSS satellite which downlinks to a receiver at an EchoStar facility. The data is then incorporated into the network broadcast system and retransmitted via the EchoStar 1 satellite to a GBS receiver. The data is then stored for retrieval by other systems, Ramey said, including the Global Command and Control System (GCCS), sponsored by the Air Force Communications Agency, and the Combat Information System, sponsored by the Air Intelligence Agency. "Other systems on board the Speckled Trout can retrieve data through the Boeing phased array antenna system, which is routed to terminals inside the aircraft for display and demonstration," Ramey said. The Speckled Trout also can track and receive video and data from EchoStar Dish Network TV, Hughes DirectTV, and USSB transmissions for display on a conventional monitor, Ramey said. Looking to commercial applications, Ramey said the phased array communication antenna system "offers the ability to provide passengers with more entertainment and information options. With the Boeing antenna system on board, passengers can have access to the entire spectrum of commercial television programming available from a BSS satellite." Ramey said the antenna system is capable of instantaneously bringing in approximately 100 channels from a given BSS satellite. (199670826/Press Contact: Charles Ramey, Boeing Defense & Space group, 206-657-1380)

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Re: The POUCH
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:44 PM 8/26/96 EDT, JOHN E. HOLT wrote: >The Pouch uses a 64 x 64 block product cipher, a 1024 bit random initialization >vector and the CBC technique. Most experts agree that such an implementation >is highly resistant to all forms of cryptographic attack. That depends highly on the cypher. Also depends on if your "initialization vector" is truly random. (Or even close, as some other companies have found in the past...) It is resistant to all attacks that you know of. Depending on the nature of the algorythm, this could be true in some sense, false in some sense and meaningless in some sense. Without published code, it is meaningless in all senses. >Hellman and Dilfie rely on knowing the algorithm for their known plain text >attacks >An unpublished algorithm forces them into reverse engineering the computer >programs to learn the algorithm. The POUCH has many roadblocks built in >to prevent this. As someone who has spent time reverse engeneering code, I find this one pretty funny. The only thing I have found that will obscure code in any real fashion is writing it badly. "Roadblocks" to reverse engeneering also tend to be a speed hit. Either way, it will not stop someone with the proper skills and tools. >I refer to Cummings, Cryptography and Data Security pages 150 and 98 in this >regard. Do we have to read them in reverse order or is that part of the roadblock you are using to make things more difficult...? I will be interested to see just what kind of liability problems you run into when this thing gets compromised. Of course, with a name like "The Pouch", you will probibly just claim it was a "kangaroo court". --- | "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD. - alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com "| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Denning interview in Wired
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

don't recall anyone mentioning this-- Steven Levy did a lengthy piece on Dorothy Denning for the recent Wired. any reactions? I was personally struck at how Dorothy seems to lack strong convictions that hold up in the face of others. she wrote a paper urging that hackers be studied and worked with by the security community and then backed away from the position quickly after talking to "authorities". I was amazed that Dorothy, after a long time, has failed to confront some very basic issues in her advocation of Clipper: 1. constitutional issues. it would be ok for me if she described why she thinks that privacy is not constitutionally protected, but she fails to mention constitutionality issues in virtually any of her writings. frankly this strikes me as the utmost weasely evasion. is she aware of any court precedent on freedom of speech, freedom to speak in private etc? she never quotes any case law etc. 2. she fails to address the issue of "returns vs. cost" or "cost/benefit" ratio. her argument amounts to an extremely simplistic line, "law authorities have been stymied by crypto. therefore it should be restricted". but this reminds me of speed limit advocates saying, "55 saves lives". well, how many? 35 saves lives over 55. the key issue is that of *compromise*: what is the optimum compromise? we can catch more criminals by adding security cameras everywhere, but what are the costs? such back-and-white thinking has little place in any complex policy issue, yet unfortunately tends to dominate them. it's very bizarre to see an academic like Denning just seem to be vacuously oblivious to such simple concepts such as "tradeoffs". nothing I've read suggests she has ever addressed the issue of *compromise* in regard to catching criminals vs. protecting rights. but amazingly, people like Kallstrom seem to think the same way. paraphrased, "if even one criminal gets away because we didn't have enough funding in the FBI, we need more funding in the FBI" etc. 3. she fails to address the "big brother" issue. why is wiretapping never going to be used by "big brother"? it's inconceivable to me how she can honestly evade this issue as well. she has never addressed the issue of abuse by law authorities from what I can tell. 4. Denning seems to be to be remarkably swayed by "authority figures". she has changed her opinion before based merely on conversations with "authority figures" in the FBI and NSA. it seems maybe she has a bit of "spook envy" or something like that. many of her arguments for me essentially amount to, "people that claim to know what they are doing say we need [x], therefore we need [x]" well, I am not trying to start a new round of Denning-bashing (although that's always fun, hee, hee) but the recent article does give a little new food for thought about Denning's psychology etc. frankly I think that Denning has lost the intellectual battle because she absolutely fails to address some of the above key points. (particularly the total failure to address the constitution is getting more egregious). I suggest that anyone who wants to debunk her line of thinking (which apparently is getting to be awfully easy) just focus on any of the above areas. she apparently has no reponse to these points in anything I have read of hers.

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"The Observer" calls the internet a child pornography ring
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Banner Front page headline in the British Observer, Sunday 25th "The Peddlers of child abuse" see http://scallywag.com/ The internet is presented as a conspiracy by child molesters. There is a picture of Johan Helsingius, the man who free of charge provides an anonymous remailer service: The picture is captioned "The internet middle man who handles 90% of all child pornography" He is represented as personally profiting from the distribution of child pornography, though in fact no posts to binary newsgroups can go through his system, and no large binaries can go through his system, and he provides the anonymising service free of charge. There is a picture of Clive Feather, the man who runs the largest internet service provider in Britain, captioned "The school governor who sells access to photos of child rape"]] The observer article savagely demonizes all who use the internet, presenting it as primarily existing for the purpose of distributing child pornography, and demonizes and libels by name those who have sought to defend the liberty of netizens. I urge you all to check out this article, and send snail mail letters to the observer condemning (since they are obviously too low tech to read email) and email letters of support to those netizens who have been savagely libeled for their defence of liberty. --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re:Edited Edupage, 18 Aug 1996 [SATELLITES]
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:24 PM 8/26/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: >At 12:35 AM 8/21/96 -0800, mccoy(a)communities.com (Jim McCoy) wrote: >>You want to avoid moving parts like the plague in orbit. They eventually >>wear out or fail and once that happens you have a very expensive piece of >>junk in orbit. Solid-state storage is the _only_ way to go if you want to >>avoid things like neding to pressurize the drive (eliminating any cost >>advantage over solid-state.) > >Why do you need to pressurize the drive? Most hard disk drives >for the last N years have been airtight sealed containers, >haven't they? (Removables are different, of course.) While I haven't looked at the more recent ones closely, most hard drives have an ultra-fine (<0.1 um particles?) filter element separating "inside" from "outside." It allows air to pass to equalize pressure and humidity, while keeping out the dust. (it is probably made of the same kind of material that is used, internally, as a filter for the airflow within the drive.) Even if they didn't, there is a big difference between an enclosure that's good enough to hold a hard disk on earth, and one which can spend N-years in a high vacuum yet maintain enough air to run a hard drive. > >I'd worry far more about the stresses of launch bothering >the drives. That's not a problem at all. Most modern drives are rated for 10's of G's, non-operating. Satellite launches are probably a breeze compared to this. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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"The Observer" calls the internet a child pornography ring
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Banner Front page headline in the British Observer, Sunday 25th "The Peddlers of child abuse" see http://scallywag.com/ The internet is presented as a conspiracy by child molesters. There is a picture of Johan Helsingius, the man who free of charge provides an anonymous remailer service: The picture is captioned "The internet middle man who handles 90% of all child pornography" He is represented as personally profiting from the distribution of child pornography, though in fact no posts to binary newsgroups can go through his system, and no large binaries can go through his system, and he provides the anonymising service free of charge. There is a picture of Clive Feather, the man who runs the largest internet service provider in Britain, captioned "The school governor who sells access to photos of child rape"]] The observer article savagely demonizes all who use the internet, presenting it as primarily existing for the purpose of distributing child pornography, and demonizes and libels by name those who have sought to defend the liberty of netizens. I urge you all to check out this article, and send snail mail letters to the observer condemning (since they are obviously too low tech to read email) and email letters of support to those netizens who have been savagely libeled for their defence of liberty. --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald jamesd(a)echeque.com

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FYI: GOP's Stolen Laptop...
by Steve O 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FYI: Front page of the New Jersey Star Ladger: "GOP's Stolen Laptop had credit card Details" NJ Republicans' convention info and card card numbers and info was on the laptop insecurely, a letter went oput to the NJ Republican committee informing them of the 'inconveince'. Several key Rebulican Reps' cards were among those stolen including: Dick ZImmer and Christopher Smith as well as the State Committee's credit card. etc... "True Utopia can only be reached by an uncensored and secure Internet, True Chaos can only be reached by the government, True love can only be reached in the movies." S.O. "Bang your head, Metal Health will drive you mad!" Quiet Riot "Welcome my friend, Welcome to The Machine" Pink Floyd -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQCNAzHF2iIAAAEEAKw9QZ8yNG0X1YOGvaYeLaOQphDSEFYxelYED8a4YKoxnHuX Wd7CPKXBS6Bhx9uGFpNa/7Km33TfhzJhuolHPb60upBIsNTdrkzVlSYyiE0aWuFt EORVWEG6Rmy9w2yZ8obQAIx9aAy7h1wDi2mdSrDH+rPBw0pXelhDCiQ5KnJpAAUR tCBTdGV2ZSBPIDxwcml2c29mdEBpeC5uZXRjb20uY29tPg== =J4Tk -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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File System Encryption
by drifter＠c2.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm aware of the three main disk encryption programs SFS, SECDRV, and SECDEV, but I need to find a solution that works with Windows 95 32bit or Windows NT 4.0. I'm currently using SFS 1.17 and Secure Drive under Win-95, but am unable to continue to work in dos compatability mode due to severe performance hits. I am open to commercial products that have passed peer review, but know of none. If anyone could suggest a solution (outside of switching OS's), I would be *most* gratefull. Please respond to the list, as I am a subscriber under another account. The Drifter

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Re: Sen. Leahy's "impeccable cyberspace credentials"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:50 AM 8/26/96 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote: >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 12:23:57 -0400 >From: Jonah Seiger <jseiger(a)cdt.org> >To: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)eff.org> >Cc: shabbir(a)vtw.org, fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu, brock(a)well.com, > telstar(a)wired.com >Subject: Re: INFO: Democratic convention chats online! Be there! (8/25/96) >Declan: >In a world where we have very few real friends, I simply don't understand >what you are trying to accomplish. It's fine (and healthy) to raise >concerns about the particular positions a member of Congress takes (hell, I >don't agree with everything Leahy does), but to simply dismiss Leahy as a >'no friend of the Net' is naive and counterproductive. > >Look at the record. Leahy is hands down the strongest supporter of the Net >in Congress. Period. No other Member (including our small but growing >handful of other friends like Burns, White, Wyden, Cox, Eshoo, etc) has >been a more forceful or consistent advocate for your causes for as long as >Leahy has. What exactly do you want? Perhaps we should elect you to >Congress and see how well you can do. Leahy's crypto bill sucked, bigtime. The portion of the bill criminalizing the use of encryption that had the effect of thwarting a government investigation is classic, "foot in the door" creeping government manipulation. I was particularly disgusted to notice that a number of the traditional net-freedom organizations rushed to announce that they were in favor of that bill, without even a few days of analysis, and did not retract or even restrict that support when a more careful study (specifically, that of Peter Junger) showed how seriously flawed it was. Indeed, I never saw another analysis that purported to defend Leahy's bill, despite the fact that it would have been the responsibility of any organization which claimed support of it to prepare one. I believe that it is particularly suspicious that these bills come into existance without even cursory "vetting" on the Internet. Both the Leahy bill and even the Burns crypto bill popped into public view without any indication of how they were written, or any public input on their intent and scope. Perhaps this "take it or leave it" practice is old hat to politicians, but frankly I'm disgusted at politicians' presumption that they can prepare a law with no identifiable input from the public. I am similarly disgusted at any organization (even if, ostensibly, acting in support of "net freedom") that assisted in the development of the Leahy crypto bill (and to some extent, even the Burns bill) because they clearly failed to solicit the kind of public input that such bills should automatically get. And in a sense, "the Net" doesn't NEED "strong supporters": what we need are politicians who are willing to LEAVE US ALONE! It should come as no surprise that the call you frequently see among net-freedom- supporters for new legislation is that which repeals existing restrictive laws, such as ITAR and censorship laws. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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