December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Fw: Re: ITAR satellite provision
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:17 AM 10/3/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote: >On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, Remo Pini wrote: >> Date: Thu Oct 03 08:08:42 1996 >> > >* A launch vehicle or payload shall not, by reason of the launching >> > >* of such vehicle, be considered an export for purposes of this >> > >* subchapter. >> > Okay, everybody, call Estes! We've got some crypto to export...er...laun >> > ch! >> If I get the above wording correctly (unicorn, help me!), it is sufficient >> to put the cryptostuff on a disc in a LAUNCHABLE device, it never says that >> the payload has to be delivered by air. So, just put that thing in a bag >> and get it through customs... (or does "by reason of ..." mean that the >> exclusive means of export allowed is launching ?) > >The launching alone will not cause it to be an export. If it is launched >and then ends up outside the U.S., it could be an export. Certainly if it >is launched with the purpose of exporting crypto, it will be an export. Too bad you didn't support this with a logical argument. The wording was clearly intended to be an exception to a rule. What the wording doesn't include is the "exception to the exception," most likely because they weren't thinking in too great a detail when they wrote the regulations. But if the regulation is "wrong," the fault of that is those who wrote the regulation. (and we, the public, are entitled to assume that the regulation is "right" in its literal meaning.) It appears that the government left a loophole so large that you could drive a truck...er...shoot a rocket through it. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

4 3

How to fight GAK by obeying the law
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It seems that the best method for fighting GAK is to accelerate wide-spread domestic use of freely redistributable non-GAK crypto. The Lynux automatic firewall concept that John Gilmore is pushing is a great idea, but it is still brewing, and he's shooting for developing an exportable ... er ... importable version. That will take much time to develop, and time is what we don't have much of. We need to work on applications, API's, flexible software modules, etc. and the primary reason we cannot do it so easily is because we cannot redistribute the software so easily. First thing we definitely need is a way to determine with fairly good accuracy, whether a host is in the U.S. This MUST be an automagic mechanism ... no person involved so there is little delay in getting the goodies. The best implementation would automatically set the group of an incoming anonymous FTP session daemon to a special group if there is a high degree of certainty that the originating host is within the U.S. Second thing we definitely need is a convenient way and universal way to clearly notify the recipient of the current export restrictions of such software, so that the recipient knows what he/she is in for. Basically, we have to do our best to NOT violate the law, no matter how much we hate it. What the government wants to happen is that everyone will get hooked on GAK, and it will be too inconvenient to use something else. A good counter-strategy is to get everyone hooked on the good stuff. Right now, the FBI/NSA is looking for an excuse to prosecute anyone not jumping on their bandwagon. We have to avoid give them an excuse to prosecute us while still enabling rapid application development. Communication and distribution are key. Ern

3 2

Clipper III questions
by Eric Murray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The recent CDT policy post sez of Clipper III: >* Access to keys internationally "would be provided in accordance with > destination country policies and bilateral understandings." This reminds me of the understanding between CIA/NSA and their counterparts in British Intelligence. Both sides are prohibited from spying within their own countries borders but are encouraged to spy in other countries. Both would very much like to spy on their own citizens (for legitimate law encorcement/national security reasons only, of course). So, they have a simple system in place. The British spy on the American citizens that the Americans want spied on and then turn over the intercepts. The Americans do the same for the British in Britain(*). Sometimes they lie to each other or withhold material, but that's what spy organizations do all the time. If Clipper III passes and the OECD gets their member nations in line with what the American miliary wants, I predict a similar system will evolve. "Destination country policies" will allow decryption of incoming GAKked messages from non-citizens. After all, they have no rights, do they? Cooperating intelligence agencies will then exchange intercepts. Presto Chango, pesky privacy rules vanish right before your eyes! Of course this is in our best intrest, we must fight against terrorisim with all methods possible. The ends justify the means. A question: What happens if a company decided not to go along with Clipper III? Can they still ship the "old" 40-bit-style GAKware unimpeded? Or will there be a slow tightening of the rules to force compliance? The existing way of doing things depends to a large degree on a set of "common practice" which the NSA doesn't have written down. For example you won't find the 40 bit limit written anywhere in ITAR, and if you want to export something that's already been approved elsewhere (i.e. another implementation of SSL) you still have to go through the approval process. (*) this comes from "The War Aginst the Jews" which is worth reading. Sorry I can't find my copy at the moment, maybe someone who's got it handy will provide authors/ISBN. Capsule review: covers government dirty dealing from the early 1900s on, mostly British and American. Concentrates on Jews and Israel of course but they seem to have been the brunt (sometimes the instigator) of a lot of the dirty pool that governments have played. -- Eric Murray ericm(a)lne.com ericm(a)motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF

3 2

gack vs. key escrow vs. key recovery
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

cpunks, a note about recent developments in "key recovery" initiative. I think cpunks as a group should reconsider very seriously their own positions on cryptography and come up with something more sophisticated than "any government bill or plan associated with crypto is evil" which is the functional equivalent of the ideology behind many recent posts. what is the precise difference between gack, key escrow, and key recovery? TCM has argued that the administration is muddying the issue by manipulating the terminology. perhaps so, but I feel that cpunks are equally guilty, by branding anything that emanates out of the government as inherently orwellian. do you always have to have an enemy? is the government always going to be your enemy, no matter what they do? I have posted here before that many companies find the concept of "key recovery" highly acceptable and even desirable. the basic question is, what does this mean to wiretapping and search warrants and subpoenas? it is clear we are coming to a fork in the road at this moment. there are going to be two types of cpunk opinions based on recent developments. 1. those who feel that wiretapping was illegitimate from the start and are working to make wiretapping impossible. confronted with a legal search warrant/subpoena etc. for personal data, they would not hand over keys. they would "superencrypt" in systems that do etc. 2. those who feel that there is such a thing as a legal warrant or subpoena for information protected by cryptography keys, and would agree that this logically means that governments will be getting access to "key recovery" infrastructures. personally I am leaning toward 2, because I feel that we already live in such a society, and that it is not orwellian. companies are going to lean toward (2). I do agree that the gov't has the potential to twist this process to evil ends, but that has always been true of everything about democratic government, and the recipe for 200+ years has always been and remains "eternal vigilance". in other words, I am in favor of some kind of mechanism by which the government can obtain keys via subpoenas/warrants. cpunks, I think we should try to clarify our terms and come to some conclusions. those who continue to pursue (1) are going to be perceived as more and more radical and extremist, because arguably it is not even a system we have today or one that was ever devised. remember, the constution guarantees freedom from *unreasonable* search and seizure, but never prohibited search and seizure in the first place!! apparently at least our found fathers believed that "reasonable" search and seizure was a wholly legitimate function of government, based on this wording. regarding (2): the government may actually help bring crypto to the masses via the post office and other routes. are cpunks going to continue to hold the simplistic, reactionary, knee-jerk, black-and-white opinion that "anything with the word 'government' in it is evil"? "if the government is doing something, then we must sabotage it"? I'll be watching the debate closely, as the true extremists incapable of compromise (and thereby living in a fantasy world) show their colors....

6 6

RE: Microsoft CAPI
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Andrew Loewenstern I ask: "Who Cares?" It is easy enough to distribute with the secure-non-GAK plug-in a patch for disabling the module authentication. Heck, you could even make an ActiveX applet that did it... andrew "Click Here to Download and Install Real Crypto" .................................................... Like PGP, it would need to be widely (& anonymously) made available before anyone could do anything about it.... .. Blanc

1 0

AW: Binding cryptography - a fraud!
by Eric Verheul 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >>The idea is that any third party, e.g., a network or service provider, >>who has access to components 2, 3 and 4 (but not to any additional >>secret information) can: >>a. check whether the session keys in components 2 and 3 coincide; >>b. not determine any information on the actual session key. >> >>In this way, fraud is easily detectible: a sender that attempts to >>virtually address a session key to the TRP (component 3) that is >>different from the real one he uses on the message (or just nonsense) >>will be discovered by anyone checking the binding data. If such >>checking happens regularly, fraud can be properly discouraged and >>punished. > >I am at the same time dismayed and disgusted at the tendency of some people >to want to "detect fraud" on the part of ordinary citizens, as this paper >appears to want to do, but says _nothing_ about preventing fraud >_by_government. How is the average citizen to know if keys are being given >out to government agents for valid reasons? First of all, that (and the legitimacy of "wiretaps" in general) is something that should be regulated in national law (including procedures, checks and balances, penalities). Maybe you have the opinion that that is impossible to achieve, [or at least that making wiretapping as such by government impossible is the only satisfactory way of doing it (-; ]. Our concept assumes that it is possible and acceptable, although legislation (and especially appliance of it) in some countries might be improved.. Second, the concept is flexible in the choice of Trusted Retrieval Parties; we have the opinion that if you don't trust the existing TRPs then, hey, setup your own TRP. We believe that should be possible (and forsee serveral "privacy-protecting" organisations doing so). However, as you don't want to have criminals setting up TRPs, some legislation on this point should be made... Finally, as said in the announcement: "In [VKT], we explain how we envision the framework in which the binding concept could present a security tool in the information society." > >I am further enraged by the last portion of the paragraph above where he >says, "fraud can be properly discouraged _and_punished_" Why "punished"? >Why call it "fraud"? Why should sending the "wrong" bits become a crime? >The US government, for example, has repeatedly claimed that key-escrow >systems should be "voluntary." Presumably, except for authoritarian and >totalitarian countries, no other country should force their own citizens or >others to use any sort of key-escrow/GAK system. Wait a minute. It is a *voluntary* system, but it has some rules that apply. The whole idea here is: if you don't like it, use your own system. "Fraude" refers to using the system without sticking to its rules, maybe fraude has a wrong connotation. > >Maybe I'm biased: I'm a libertarian who believes that sending the wrong >bits shouldn't be considered a crime. The problem we have is with the Depends, it might be childrens pornography. The information society is *not* about bits, but about information. >politicians, NOT primarily the criminals. Giving the government the ability >to punish people merely for sending the wrong bits (absent some other, REAL >crime) is an enormous step backward. And if they're guilty of a real crime, >why bother about the bits? In a democratic country one needs evidence to convict someone. > >Even if I believed in GAK, which I don't, I don't think governments or >anyone else should be able to determine whether the "correct" code is >included with the data until and unless the government has a valid warrant, Code is checked (on protocol compliance) by third parties all the time. They should not get any wiser from it, that is the point. > > >Jim Bell >jimbell(a)pacifier.com > > Thanks for the feedback, Eric Verheul

1 0

Re: Recent Web site cracks [CIA & DOJ sites]
by William Knowles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Igor Chudov asked after stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: >> The DOJ and CIA sites were actually cracked; don't know the mechanisms. >> The dole-kemp96.com and dole-kemp96.org domains were spoofs - they >> have similar names to the real site, and people reach them by accident >> or by hearing about them. According to today's San Jose Mercury News, >> the web designer who registered them did so just before Dole announced >> Kemp as his VP, and tried to sell his design services to the campaign. >> They didn't buy it, and the names were sitting around with nothing >> better to do anyway, so he decided to have a good time with them. >> Supposedly he's gotten about 40,000 hits and the "real" >> site got 1,000,000. > > Anyone got a copy of the cracked CIA page? Try: http://www.dis.org/se7en/hacktrash/index.html Both the CIA and the DOJ sites are mirrored there. Cheers! William Knowles erehwon(a)c2.net -- William Knowles <erehwon(a)c2.net> PGP mail welcome & prefered / KeyID 1024/2C34BCF9 PGP Fingerprint 55 0C 78 3C C9 C4 44 DE 5A 3C B4 60 9C 00 FB BD Finger for public key -- Vote Harry Browne for President -- http://www.HarryBrowne96.org

1 0

Re: FCPUNX:ABA Likes GAK
by roy＠sendai.scytale.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- jya(a)pipeline.com forwards: > 10-03-96 at 19:09 EDT, American Banker > > > Banks Like Export Plan for High-Power Encryption > > By Drew Clark [snippo] > Banks were heartened by the announcement because many > view the widely used Data Encryption Standard - a > low-level form of data scrambling - as inadequate > protection against the rising computer power of so-called > hackers. > > Though banks can use a complex 56-bit data encryption key > for financial transactions, sensitive communications with > overseas branches are limited to a less powerful 40-bit > standard. Wow... in two successive paragraphs, DES is first called inadequate and then lauded as "complex [...] encryption" (as though it were the weapon of choice). Who's clue-impaired here? Clark or the ABA (or both)? - -- Roy M. Silvernail [ ] roy(a)scytale.com DNRC Minister Plenipotentiary of All Things Confusing, Software Division PGP Public Key fingerprint = 31 86 EC B9 DB 76 A7 54 13 0B 6A 6B CC 09 18 B6 Key available from pubkey(a)scytale.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMlznpRvikii9febJAQGu9gP/R6MAE4SbJTyiXFjXGBRIrQTNnn9KDO0P +K1GpRd2dLRjnPnsZekYokSailm2ga7Q/UPwIs8PXHbtTUFYL2nlwzcxfMG4gE6m PWCfLWBhbQ3p22F8M9OlivbR7a+sLzo0ZwItDUa5vAJv5kMFhuHegNvtYE2Qnpr2 H9SW6Vc07UE= =rJ99 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

MISTY Algorithm
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Nikkei Industrial Daily, October 08, 1996 Mitsubishi publicizes MISTY encryption algorithm Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said it has released the design principles for its data encryption algorithm MISTY. In doing so, the company can enlist third-party users to evaluate the integrity and power of its encryption algorithm and gain wider name recognition for MISTY. To make evaluations easier, the company is also providing a sample program. The existing de-facto world standard encryption algorithms DES and RSA were both developed in the U.S. But MISTY has advantages of its own and Mitsubishi would like encryption experts around the world evaluate the program. [End] No information given on the source for the algorithm or sample program. Anyone with the info care to share?

1 0

Future of Money Hearings
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 19:49:50 PT From: "Paul Lampru, Marketing Manager, Electronic Commerce Products, Strategic Marketing, ATL, 770-640-3688" <PAUL_L2(a)sfov1.verifone.com> Subject: Future of Money Hearings To: e-payments(a)commerce.net Organization: VeriFone X-PS-Qualifiers: /FONT=Courier-Bold/LINES=66/LEFT_MARGIN=36/CALCULATE/TOP_MARGIN=36/BOTTOM_MARGI N=36 MIME-version: 1.0 Sender: owner-e-payments(a)commerce.NET Precedence: bulk +--------------------------------------------------+ Addressed to: e-payments(a)commerce.net +--------------------------------------------------+ All: Last June, Denis Calvert, VP for US Sales for VeriFone presented testimony to Rep Castle's Banking Subcommittee. This testimony suggested a strategy that would enable Internet payment schemes...that develop naturally for the Internet over the next couple of years...to be used by merchants who have store fronts or cash register sales systems. This strategy touches chip cards, public key certification authorities, Stored Value Cards, and the migration away from magnetic stripe technology toward chip cards or PC Cards or whatever electronic token is appropriate. This strategy also touches on the potential use of the Internet by US Treasury to distribute welfare payments and other Federal Transfer Payments. This strategy is a hypothetical scenario that leverages the MC/Visa SET payments protocol, but does not effect the protocol or its use for credit card payments on the Internet. This strategy is gaining the attention of a number of Federal agencies. Before this gets too far down the road...PLEASE review this testimony and critique the strategy. The testimony may be found at the following URL: http://www.house.gov/castle/banking/calvert.htm Please suggest a forum that these ideas may be presented and explained in more detail than they can be explained in Mr. Calvert's testimony...or this Email message. Thank you...pdl ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This message was sent by e-payments(a)commerce.net. For a complete listing of available commands, please send mail to 'majordomo(a)commerce.net' with 'help' (no quotations) contained within the body of your message. --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

1 0