December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: NSA's Venona Intercepts
by smith＠sctc.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:26 AM 8/27/96, Black Unicorn wrote: >I seem to recall an exhibit on Verona including a proported Soviet OTP at >the National Cryptologic Museum in MD. Kahn's "Codebreakers" also has photos of OTPs captured from undercover Soviet spies. The fact that illegals were using OTPs to talk to their controllers didn't necessarily imply that messages from Soviet embassies and other offices needed to be using OTPs themselves. The could have used a good rotor machine (well, good for the era). But now I'm convinced they didn't. The whole thing makes sense if we're looking at cryptanalysis based on reused OTPs. I can see why the NSA doesn't mind letting the world know that they could crack reused OTPs as opposed to some other identifiable cipher technique. The degree of NSA's success doesn't help an adversary optimize their crypto technology. The decryption success is in direct proportion to how sloppy the Soviets were in using their OTPs. I'll bet some official got shot when this was all figured out. Partial decrypts occur when parts of the keystream are recovered and other parts are not. I wonder if one could compare the "holes" in the various messages and thereby infer which OTPs were used for which messages based on patterns of keystream recovery. Venona also presents an object lesson on why not to use OTPs: the security does not degrade gracefully if they are misused. Reusing one even once could easily compromise both messages sent with it. I doubt security degrades nearly as quickly if you overuse or reuse keys in more modern techniques. Thus, OTP keying requires a reliably pessimistic prediction of traffic flow, and your security is toast if you underestimate your transmission needs. Besides, given that nobody can crack a truly randomized OTP, I can see why NSA would want to publicize a failed use of OTPs. Might as well focus interest on more theoretically tractable techniques. Rick.

1 0

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-----

3 2

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

2 1

Cato Institute conference on Net-regulation, 9/20/96
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This should be a good half-day conference, with some interesting speakers. I'll probably show up for Charles Platt's keynote. Naturally, it's being held in the building's Hayek Auditorium. Hayek has some relevance to cypherpunks, I think -- he warned early on that the loss of economic freedom inevitably leads to the loss of civil liberties as well. He also described the phenomenon of spontaneous order (admittedly in the context of markets), which speaks to the way the Net has ordered itself. -Declan // declan(a)eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan(a)well.com // ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:05:44 -0400 From: Solveig Bernstein <sberns(a)cato.org> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Please redistribute this conference announcement freely: ********************************************************* Regulation or Private Ordering? The Future of the Internet The Cato Institute cordially invites you to a morning conference and luncheon Regulation or Private Ordering? The Future of the Internet Friday, September 20, 1996 8:30 a.m. 1:30 p.m. The Cato Institute's F.A. Hayek Auditorium 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC The Internet promises users unprecedented individual control over information. It is at once a tool for universal communication, a new form of media, and a new way of doing business. But it is also a challenge to lawmakers and regulators. Existing laws cannot easily be applied to the Internet and appear doomed to failure. Do we need a new set of laws or will voluntary private action ensure order on the information superhighway? Cato's Regulation or Private Ordering? The Future of the Internet conference will bring together leading authorities on law, regulation, and technology to discuss the problems of adapting existing law to the Internet and to explore private alternatives to regulation. Can private ordering consistent with individual freedom forestall a government backlash against perceived Internet chaos? The cost of this conference is $25.00. Registration Wintergarden 8:30 8:35 a.m. Lawrence Gasman Welcoming Remarks Director, Telecommunications and Technology Studies, Cato Institute 8:35 9:20 a.m. JURISDICTIONAL BOUNDARIES David Post;Collective Action in Cyberspace" Georgetown University Law Center Dan Burk Federalism without Borders; Seton Hall University School of Law 9:20 10:30 a.m. FEDERAL REGULATORY ISSUES Robert Crandall; Rate Regulation and Arbitrage; Internet Telephony; Brookings Institution Trotter Hardy;Congress and Digital Copyright: Avoiding a Balancing Act;William & Mary College of Law Lori Fena;Security of Personal and Corporate Information Online: Moving toward Industry Self Regulation; Electronic Frontier Foundation 10:30 10:45 a.m. Break 10:45 11:55 a.m. FREE SPEECH IN CYBERSPACE Danny Weitzner; The Empowered User: Internet Technology Tools for Limiting Access to Unwanted Material; Protecting Privacy; Center for Democracy and Technology Eugene Volokh;Private Online Speech Controls: Censorship, Constitutionally Protected Editing, or Both? University of California at Los Angeles School of Law David Sobel;Prospects of the CDA in the Supreme Court; Electronic Privacy Information Center 12:30 p.m. Keynote Address - Charles Platt; Net Futures: Scary and Sublime; Author, Free Zone, The Silicone Man, Contributing Writer, Wired Magazine 12:30 p.m. Luncheon News media please call Robin Hulsey at (202) 789 5293. To Register, please e-mail Scott Wallis at swallis(a)cato.org, or vist our web site at //www:cato.org. ********************************************************************** Solveig Bernstein, Esq. (202) 789-5274 (202) 842-3490 (fax) Assistant Director of Telecommunications & Technology Studies Cato Institute 1000 Mass. Ave. NW Washington, DC 20001

1 0

Re: libelous action
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 26 Aug 96 at 20:28, Ross Wright wrote: > If I was John E. Holt, I would take a different public relations > tack. I would seek positive input, not a negative reaction to > criticism. Or I would ignore the critique altogether. > Ross Wright Yes Ross, but while writing this, your premise is that Holt has a product that is at least partially decent and that it could maybe be improved. You assume he might be making an honest error. Maybe it is not the case. ;) jfa DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee; Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants: physicists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

1 0

Re: Spamming
by John Deters 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:27 PM 8/26/96 -0800, Adamsc wrote: >On Mon, 26 Aug 1996 13:26:04 -0500, John Deters wrote: > >>>What do cypherpunks think about the following practice or law (I realize >>>that it may be impossible to implement): each email message should carry >>>a little digicash check for, say, 20 cents. Mail reading programs should >>>reject (send back unread) all messages not carrying these digital >>>checks, unless the senders are in the "friends list". The MUAs should >>>ask users whether they want to "cash" the digital check or not. >> >>I do not believe it is possible to have a secure executable that exists on >>an uncontrolled user's machine. "Tamperproof" encryption chips still >>require communications in and out from the user's program. A determined >>attacker could continue to use the pieces of their code that talk to the >>encryption chip. > >>Never underestimate the allure of "free money" when you're planning to >give >>it away. > >Methinks you don't understand e-cash. It's not executable, and uses public key >crypto to prevent "minting". It uses records to prevent replays. In other >words, it'd be like Ed McMahon including a quarter in the envelope. You'd only >be able to use it once.... Maybe I misspoke; I wasn't referring to minting e-cash. I was referring to the fact that if you can get spammers to enclose a 20e coin for every junk e-mail advertisement you agree to read, then you can write a mail reader that will read their spam and collect all their 20e coins. To me, that's better than "minting" e-cash. Totally legal, and the net effect transfers funds from the spammers to me. The rest of my letter was in regards to writing that mail reader. And no, even if they were to succeed at getting stupid users to install their own special mail reader just for the privilege of reading their advertisements, without secure hardware in the users' machines, their mail server would not be secure against a spoofing attack. John -- J. Deters "Captain's log, stardate 25970-point-5. I am nailed to the hull." +-------------------------------------------------------+ | NET: jad(a)dsddhc.com (work) jad(a)pclink.com (home) | | PSTN: 1 612 375 3116 (work) 1 612 894 8507 (home) | | ICBM: 44^58'36"N by 93^16'27"W Elev. ~=290m (work) | | PGP Key ID: 768 / 15FFA875 | +-------------------------------------------------------+

1 0

please help
by Manuel Benedicto Procas 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please...you know a macintosh program in order to war dialing TCP IP numbers and Unix or VMS localice Login/password cobinations. MANUEL

2 1

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)

1 0

"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

3 2

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. ;}

5 5