December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: EC patent
by Hayashi_Tsuyoshi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Thu, 17 Oct 1996 17:38:28 -0800, jim bell said: >At 04:53 PM 10/17/96 -0400, Robert Hettinga wrote: >>--- begin forwarded text >>Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 14:03:34 +0800 >>From: James Lee <jlee(a)ccl.itri.org.tw> >>Reply-To: jlee(a)ccl.itri.org.tw >>+----------------------------------------------------+ >>Addressed to: set-discuss(a)commerce.net >>+----------------------------------------------------+ >> >>I heard that CitiBank has filed for a patent in Japan with 140+ claims The document is on my desk: CitiBank's patent in Japan #: Toku-Kou-Hei 7-111723 o 104 claims o published date: 29 Nov, 1995 o 112 pages (text: 48 pages, fig.: 64 pages.) # Note: # "Toku" means "Tokkyo", "tokkyo" == "patent" # "Kou" means "Koukoku", "koukoku" == "published" # "Hei" means "Heisei", "Heisei" is the Japanese year- # name; This year == Heisei 8 == 1996. A publication of the CitiBank's patent was a big news in industrial or financial domain in Japan. I found the article on Nikkei-Sangyo shinbun. # sangyo == industrial # shinbun == paper >>covering many aspects of electronic commerce, security electronic >>transaction, etc. Probably yes. >>--- end forwarded text > >Maybe Japanese law is different, but don't I recall reading somewhere that >"methods of doing business," business practices in general, are not >patentable? It seems that "Toku-Kou-Hei 7-111723" claims specified procedure, not *general* "methods of doing business". >Not that it would surprise me if the Patent Office idiots were to change >their minds, like they did concerning software, algorithms, and mathematics >in general... I think that Japanese P.O. has changed their policy in a few years influenced with U.S.P.O. ///hayashi

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Re: YES OR NO?
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Vulis-bot wrote: >Sandy Sandfort <sandfort(a)crl.com> writes: > >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> SANDY SANDFORT >> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . >> >> C'punks, >> >> On Thu, 17 Oct 1996, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: >> >> > I said: YES, when I have the time. Unless the "YES" was in private email to Sandy, he lies (again) about ever having given any form of a straight answer. >> Great. So let's pick a date sufficiently in the future that you >> can make a firm commitment. For starters, our three winter >> meetings are tentatively scheduled for December 14, January 11 >> and February 8. Any of those sound good to you? > >Don't know yet. Prediction/translation: "never" Sandy, I am not even sure that this is such a good idea... rewarding the annoying with a free, wintertime trip to CA with free lodging seems to be a way of encouraging more of the annoying... The last thing we need. Respected c-punks are dropping like flies as it is. Perhaps you'll prove me wrong and shut him up, if he proves me wrong by attending, that is.

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FDA Net-regulations -- "Drug Lords" from HotWired
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 05:20:19 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: FDA Net-regulations -- "Drug Lords" from HotWired http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/42/global4a.html HotWired The Netizen "Drug Lords" Global Network by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) Washington, DC, 17 October Forget the Communications Decency Act and the censor-happy Clinton administration. Instead, it now seems like we have to keep an eye on the pinstriped bureaucrats at the US Food and Drug Administration, who are hatching their own schemes to regulate the Net. I just got back from the agency's two-day conference in the Maryland suburbs, entitled "FDA and the Internet: Advertising and Promotion of Medical Products." Discussions drifted from troublesome-to-the-Feds notions of drug use in America Online chat rooms to emerging international Net-regulatory agreements, but all the talk shared a kind of benevolent paternalism. Consumers can't be trusted to make their own choices. The Federal government must protect us from reading what only doctors are allowed to see. Netizens can't even be trusted to figure out when they're leaving a Web site after they click on a link. Drug industry representatives on the panel this morning appeared less than overly concerned with regulatory threats to free speech. Jamie Marks from Body Health Resources said: "It's very important that drug companies police the sites they link to." The panel also discussed how to prevent sites that celebrate or even talk about illicit drug use from linking to sites operated by pharmaceutical companies. Even search engines like AltaVista could be hit by FDA regulations. Sara Stein from Stanford University noted, "Search engines have begun to sell links ... that's another area of disclosure that's required." Translation: the FDA is looking to have a say in how to label medical advertisements on Web sites. The FDA's also working the international angle. They brought in to the conference speakers from France, Britain, Switzerland, Brazil, and the Netherlands - all of whom were particularly interested in online drug promotion, since US advertising laws are currently so permissive. J. Idanpaan-Heikkila, the World Health Organization's director of drug management and policies, said that real-world claims promoting pharmaceuticals should be "in good taste," adding, "I think this is applicable to the Internet." Cedric Allenou, the French Embassy's health attache, predicted more controls: "In France, as in the United States, there is a lack of regulation on the Internet. But these issues will soon be discussed by the French government." When asked what his country would do if a US server distributes information banned in France, he replied: "If your Web site is not in France, you're not under French rule. This is a problem with French Internet regulation." John Rothchild, an attorney from the Federal Trade Commission - which will announce its own Net-regulation plan later this year - said: "Based on some hasty research I did last night, I can report it is feasible to control access to our Web site based on what country the accesser is in.... I don't know the technical details, but according to the technical people at the FTC, non-US domain names have a two-letter suffix." Rothchild apparently didn't realize that many companies outside the United States have domain names ending in nothing but .com. At the end of the two-day conference, meanwhile, the one question left unanswered by attendees was not whether the FDA should regulate the Net, but how long it will take them, and how far they'll go. ###

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Re: DES cracker.
by Geoffrey C. Grabow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 13:54 10/18/96 +0200, Gary Howland wrote: >Geoffrey C. Grabow wrote: >> > >> Tell me what you need. A large part of my job is providing hardware >> security modules to banks to secure (among other things) their ATM networks >> (Automated Teller MAchines, not Async Transfer Mode). Do you need PIN >> encryption formats, transmission message protocols, or what? Just LMK. > >It would be nice to get some confirmation that PINs are generated using >a DES encryption of the account number. > Actually, there are several methods. The most common one by far is called IBM3624. That uses 12 digits of the Primary Account Number (PAN), which in most cases is the card number, and encrypts it with DES. That result is then "decimalized" to change all hex letters to numbers. The first n digits of that result are then used to perform a MOD10 subtract from the customers selected PIN. That result is called an offset and is stored on track 2 of the card, the bank's database or both. G.C.G. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Geoffrey C. Grabow | Great people talk about ideas. | | Oyster Bay, New York | Average people talk about things. | | gcg(a)pb.net | Small people talk about people. | |----------------------------------------------------------------------| | PGP 2.6.2 public key available at http://www.pb.net/~wizard | | and on a plethora of key servers around the world. | | Key ID = 0E818EC1 | | Fingerprint = A6 7B 67 D7 E9 96 37 7D E7 16 BD 5E F4 5A B2 E4 | |----------------------------------------------------------------------| | That which does not kill us, makes us stranger. - Trevor Goodchild | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: "Stopping Crime" Necessarily Means Invasiveness
by Bert-Jaap Koops 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> wrote: > The recent talk about "catching criminals" misses this point, that > governments typically use surveillance powers to control citizens. (Note: I > would think Dutch residents should be especially sensitive to this concern, > given what happened to them in WW II, when the arriving Nazis used > telephone records to locate Jews for extermination. Until recently, Holland > had a tendency to carefully think about such issues---I believe phone calls > were billed in such a way as to not keep such records, for example). I suppose this remark is targeted at me and Eric. Yes, I am sensitive to the issue, but no, I don't think the threat of an American invasion particularly realistic. At present, I worry more about the threat of (organized) crime than about the threat of government abuse, call it Dutch naivete if you want. So much for politics. Can we get back to crypto? Bert-Jaap

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Re: GET ME OUT OF HERE
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:24 AM -0700 10/18/96, crumrig(a)us-state.gov wrote: >UNSUBSCIBE You have been unsubscibed. For good measure, you have also been unscribed, unsubsribed, and unsuscribed. In the event that you wished to be _unsubscribed_, only you can do that. Directions follow at the end of this message. --Unsubsciber To subscribe to the Cypherpunks mailing list: -send a message to: majordomo(a)toad.com -body message of: subscribe cypherpunks To unsubscribe from the Cypherpunks mailing list: -send a message to: majordomo(a)toad.com -body message of: unsubscribe cypherpunks

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Production of ALPHACIPHER for Windows 95 and DOS Cancelled!
by ! Drive 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This may have already been posted, but I found it interesting... from: http://www.aa.net/cyber-survival-hq/ Development of the ALPHACIPHER product line has been voluntarily cancelled due to the possibility of non-compliance of users of ALPHACIPHER with the new key escrow law. Every key created by a user that would encrypt messages for international correspondence would have to be registered with the US Government. Cyber-Survival-HQ cannot insure that the users of ALPHACIPHER would voluntarily comply with this new law, and so ALPHACIPHER is hereby withdrawn from the marketplace. ALPHACIPHER currently has no built-in key generation function, and the proposed release of an ALPHACIPHER key generator has been terminated. All purchasers of ALPHACIPHER are entitled to a complete refund, and this has already been done. The New ADFGVX cipher is still offered for sale, as it is a breakable cipher, at least in theory.

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No Subject
by Alexander.Kvache 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unsibscribe

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Re: is there no end to AP & Creative Wiretap Arguments?
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Steve Schear wrote: > How about as a means of coercing war criminals ethnic purgers, as those in > Bosnia/Serbia, to turn themselves in to proper tribunals for judging. > Having AP bettors wager $100,000s on your untimely retirement, unless you > turn yourself in, could induce one to consider conventional justice. On the other hand it would provide said war criminals with a convenient mechanism for carrying out their crimes. It does not work for Bell and his appologists to wave their hands and say "trust me it will be better". There is absolutely no reason to believe that AP markets would be used by anyone but psychopaths. No mechanism is proposed which restricts the purposes to which the AP markets can be put. They would inevitably be used by the KKK and neo-NAZI groups for hate-crimes. > All human rights are Naturally derived as are the 'Laws of the Jungle'. > Governments instituted among men should derive their rights from the > soverignty of its citizens. Unfortunately, many countries choose to ignore > this. AP should serve an occassionally competitive system to keep the > 'duly consistuted' system on its toes lest those in authority reap the law > of the jungle. Rights do not exist outside a legal framework that supports them. Arguments from natural law have been discredited for 300+ years. Such arguments merely reify the prejudices of one society into axiomatic rights without the bother of having to justify them. There is no logical basis to prefer the "rights" of th US constitution over the "rights" recognised by the Islamic Jihad. If you read the US declaration of Independence it is very clear that its authors rejected natural law arguments. The rights that they hold to be "self evident" are extreemly abstract principles which could be justified within almost any ethical system. The removal of the word "God" was deliberate and reflects a concious rejection of the natural law argument. AP is self-contradictory. It claims to uphold "rights" by infringing them massively and disproportionately and in such a way that no rights would remain. It is impossible to justify AP except in extreeme authoritarian terms that could be used to justify any system of government. Phill

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Kantor Mischaracterizes
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Washington Post, October 18, 1996, p. A26. The Administration's Encryption Plan I write in response to The Post's Oct. 4 editorial [below] that mischaracterizes the administration's recent encryption plan. The administration's encryption plan is reasonable, workable, fair and coherent. It addresses the critical issues of promoting the export of encryption products and protecting the public safety and our national security. The administration's objective is to put forth a balanced plan that promotes commerce and protects people. And that's exactly what we've done. The proof that our plan will work is with the critical mass of industry that has announced its intention to work with the administration to develop a key recovery system, which will allow law enforcement, under proper court order, to have access to encrypted data. In fact, many of these companies have products they will soon market that both safeguard information and protect society, and more are expected to follow. The National Research Council (NRC) report to which the editorial referred recommended allowing the export of encryption up to the strength of 56 bits. Contrary to the editorial, the president has not "embraced a looser form of licensure" than this report. Instead, this administration's plan allows the export of encryption up to 56 bits so long as industry commits to build and market products that support a key recovery system. This is, in fact, a stronger form of licensure not called for by the NRC report. The Post's editorial conveniently ignores the critical role encrypted products play in protecting businesses against illegal activity and the privacy rights of individuals. This is a disturbing omission that avoids critical concerns that can only be advanced by the administration's plan. Finally, this administration takes seriously its responsibility to protect its citizens and our national security. That's why we are not lifting all restrictions on the export of encryption products, and why there is a two-year deadline on the export of 56-bit encryption products. The administration's plan will accelerate the development of a market-driven, global key management system. That will provide the best security of all. Michael Kantor Secretary of Commerce Washington [End] ---------- The Washington Post, October 4, 1996, p. A22. Crypto Politics [Editorial] The Clinton administration once had a coherent, if unpopular, position on encryption software, the stuff that allows you to encode your email messages or other data so that no one can read it en route without a key. Now, in the wake of word that the president will sign an executive order, the position is no longer coherent, nor discernibly more popular with the high-tech audience it attempts to mollify. People and companies doing international financial business are highly interested in this kind of software, the more powerfully "uncrackable" the better. The U.S. software industry thinks there's a lot of money in it, especially if encryption becomes routine. The administration position till recently was that, much as U.S. software companies might profit from being able to market "uncrackable" encryption software freely, national security and law enforcement considerations dictated that such exports be controlled by license. Powerful encryption, like arms, could be dangerous in the hands of terrorists, rogue governments or international criminals. The software was classed as a munition; software above a certain uncrackability level could not be exported unless law enforcement authorities could get access somehow to the "key" after obtaining the proper warrants. Unbreakable codes on the loose strike us as a real danger, a legitimate reason for tight export controls. But if the administration really believes this, you'd think it would stick with steps that can plausibly meet the goal of control. Instead, trying to please, it has been splitting and splitting the difference between itself and the largely unmoved industry, which argues that no one will buy an encryption product that a government can decrypt at will. As with arms sales, the companies also argue that if they don't sell it, somebody else will, and that anyway it's far too late to fence off rogues. The national security people respond that there is still a "window," perhaps two years, in which they can prevent, if not all leaks of unauthorized crypto technology, at least its off-the-shelf use and wide adoption as the international standard. The administration initially proposed, then repeatedly refined, the concept of key "escrow" -- depositing a copy of the code with trusted third parties -- but never came up with a version the industry would accept. It commissioned a National Research Council report, which recommended a significant easing of restrictions. Now the president appears to have embraced a yet looser form of licensure upon declaration by a company that it will develop a plan within two years for key recovery. Also, the technology no longer will be considered munitions. What kind of plan? Nobody can quite say. What if the plans aren't acceptable? Licensing will revert to the old rule in two years. Will the security issue be moot by then? Probably. Barring some burst of clarity, one is left wondering whether the administration has compromised or caved, and what it now believes about the dangers of exporting uncrackable software. [End] See the National Research Council report: http://jya.com/nrcindex.htm

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