December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Fighting the cybercensor. (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 18:59:34 +0100 (MET) > From: Asgaard <asgaard(a)Cor.sos.sll.se> > Subject: Re: Fighting the cybercensor. (fwd) > > >The Web does not equal the Internet, straw man argument. > > A semantic comment: > > We here all know that this is right but it's obvious that > the language is sliding towards Internet = Web. Most people Typical modern American attitude, getting it right is too much work so let's lower the benchmark so anyone can be 'right'. You'll be supporting Ebonics next. Blah. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: Fighting the cybercensor. (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 02:58:41 -0800 > From: Toto <toto(a)sk.sympatico.ca> > Subject: Re: Fighting the cybercensor. (fwd) > > > If the people in those counties want to give away their freedom that > > is their business (and right), not mine, yours, or this countries unless > > there is evidence they are trying to take their views and impose them here. > > Right. And if someone 'chooses' to give their money to a thief with > a gun, then it is not the business of other people, or the police. > I would hate to interfere with someones 'right' to get robbed, > raped, or murdered. This is a perfect example of why we disagree. You feel society has the same responsibilities as an individual, I don't. Countries and societies are a tightly linked concept because man is a social animal. Trying to equate this to an individual who chooses to ignore the moral, ethical, and legal standards of their society is a non-sequiter. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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THE NEW YORKER on the V-Chip
by Alan Bostick 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the Jan. 20, 1997, issue of THE NEW YORKER, the "Comment", written by Malcolm Gladwell, makes a powerful arguement about the unintended consequences of the V-Chip, the programmable device to be included in next-generation television sets sold in the US that supposedly will allow parents to control their children's access to sex and violence on TV. Gladwell makes an analogy between V-Chipped TV content and air-conditioned cars in the New York City subway system in summertime: " . . . we need air-conditioners on subway cars because air-conditioners on subway cars have made stations so hot that subway cars need to be air-conditioned." Similarly, he argues, "the V-chip is likely to increase the amount of sex and violence on television, not decrease it" because when viewers can block offensive programming, there is far less pressure on broadcasters and cable operators to avoid offending. This is just the sort of thing that John Young is given to scanning and putting up on his Web site or sending out to people who send him email with FUN_nie subject lines. If I were him, I'd put it up. And, for the benefit of those people who don't think the V-Chip isn't in itself on-topic for cypherpunks, I might point out that Gladwell's argument applies equally well to mail filtering with procmail recipes -- or Sandy's and John's list moderation experiment. If the noise level on the unmoderated list jumps to even higher than we were seeing before the moderation began, that would provide observational support to Gladwell's argument. -- Alan Bostick | To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height mailto:abostick@netcom.com | of elegance. news:alt.grelb | Jean Genet http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick

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Re: fingerd
by Steven L Baur 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

snow writes: >> > Couple of things you can do: >> > 2. Install a more secure "fingerd" such that it only >> > allows "finger `userid(a)node.domain`" instead of >> > "finger `(a)node.domain`". > cfingerd can be gotten from: cfingerd is not a safe program. It must run as root, and has some big problems. Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 18:34:43 +0200 (MET DST) From: Janos Farkas <chexum(a)shadow.banki.hu> To: Administrador da Rede <admrede(a)opensite.com.br> cc: linux-security(a)tarsier.cv.nrao.edu Subject: Re: Finger Doubt Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.960918181033.2523A-100000(a)shadow.banki.hu> Howdy people! On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Administrador da Rede wrote: > I use the newest version of cfinger, setted to not allow general finger, just > specific ones. Does anyone knows how this person did that ? I hope I can > find out, otherwise, bye bye finger service. Badly. I have sent the author a letter, but never got any reply back (it's 3 months later now!), so I just take the opportunity to warn the public against its use. Excerpts from the source (1.2.3, older versions have been a bit more directly broken, now it has root privs only at the moments it shouldn't have.) "This daemon must be run as root!" [And unfortunately, does..] ... unlink ("/tmp/fslist"); ... sprintf(st, "%s | tail +2 >> /tmp/fslist", prog_config.finger_program); ... system(st); A similarly terrible one some lines later: system("cat /tmp/fslist | sort > /tmp/fslist.sort"); As it stands, it can allow any local user to destroy any file on the system, including partition tables on disks. Please someone correct me if I am wrong, I tried this with cfingerd-1.2.2 and it allowed me to do bad things. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of any reply from the author, so I think I am now justified to tell that if anyone installed cfingerd (about 1.1 or later) on his system, disable it IMMEDIATELY, until at least the author clarifies this bug in a new version. The current version is BAD. However if you just need a finger daemon, you may take a look at xfingerd, at ftp://ftp.banki.hu:/pub/xfingerd/xfingerd-0.1.tar.gz which is the one I wrote when I got desperate about cfingerd. (If you take a look at its date stamp, you can see that cfingerd is long broken..) I too can't garantee that it's good for you, but it at least doesn't require to be run as root, which is why I started being against cfingerd. I hope this note finds everyone concerned. Janos -- steve(a)miranova.com baur Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be billed at $250/message. Real men aren't afraid to use chains on icy roads.

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RE: Just another government fuckover: New crypto regulations
by Brett Carswell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>-----Original Message----- >From: Toto [SMTP:toto@sk.sympatico.ca] >Sent: Friday, January 24, 1997 12:29 AM >To: Attila T. Hun >Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >Subject: Re: Just another government fuckover: New crypto regulations > >Attila T. Hun wrote: > >> free speech, which is what we are talking about. supposedly >> absolute freedom of speech in America was in the Articles of >> Confederation and was a major point of the Declaration of >> Independence. free speach was an "intention" of the Magna Carta. > >> ::> books are an intellectual 'solution' to the problem. the real >> ::>problem is the hardware. in order to negate governments and their >> ::>virtually stated intentions of blocking our inalienable freedoms, >> ::>particularly freedom of speach, we must be able to distribute >> ::>universal crypto worldwide, and be able to improve it as the shadow >> ::>governments of the various spook shows improve their ability to >> ::>break our code. > >Dear Mr. Hun, > I see that your post was expunged from the cypherpunks-politically- >correct-outgoing list. > I am assuming that it was as a result of linking crypto to free >speech. >Perhaps you need to fall more into line with the New List Order. > >Toto > >More likely 'grep dimitri '

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If you were unable to download UDCM V2.0 before....
by DataETRsch＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

{If you were unable to download UDCM V2.0 before, we're extremely sorry.} {UDCM's web site may have been under construction during the time you visited.} {UDCM's web site has finished undergoing its changes and will operate correctly.} {UDCM V2.0 has been extensively modified from its previous variation.} {Digital signaturing and public key cryptosystem capabilities have been added.} {UDCM's DS and PKCS techniques do NOT make use of conventional PN factoring.} {UDCM's source code is currently unavailable. PLEASE DO NOT REQUEST IT.} {UDCM's on-line help documentation has also been extensively modified.} {This advertisement has also been modified.} Hello, Greetings! I am Jeremy K. Yu-Ramos, president of DataET Research, Data Engineering Technologies. I am sending you this message to let you know that DataET Research has recently initiated the distribution of UDCM, Universal Data Cryptography Module. UDCM implements a revolutionarily new, extremely advanced and sophisticated, digital data encryption algorithm named IMDMP, Integrated Mathematical Data Manipulation and Positioning. UDCM (the IMDMP algorithm)... o Is a royalty-free Windows DLL module featuring advanced cryptography. o Contains more than 150 procedures and functions. o Is a very cost-effective size of only 60 kilobytes. o Implements the IMDMP encryption algorithm. o Allows encryption keys as large as 2048 bits. o Includes 18 sub-algorithms. o Processes all forms of binary and ASCII files. o Allows multiple encryption layer levels. o Has absolutely no back-doors or magical keys. o Includes time and date locking features. o Includes file specific unique encryption features. o Includes file authentication guard features. o Includes digital signaturing capabilities. o Implements the public key cryptosystem method of security. o Includes data importance and sensitivity stamping features. UDCM, being a Windows DLL module, can be accessed through programs developed with popular application and database programming languages and environments such as: C, C++, Visual Basic, PowerBuilder, Delphi, OOP Pascal, Turbo Pascal, dBase, Paradox, Access, Sybase, Oracle, etc. DataET Research has released a shareware version of UDCM named UDCM V2.0. To download UDCM V2.0 for free, please go to: http://members.aol.com/dataetrsch/udcm.html. I hope you will consider applying UDCM in the software you develop. Thank-you very much for your time. Sincerely, Jeremy K.Yu-Ramos President DataET Research Data Engineering Technologies

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4th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
by Mike Reiter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

*** EARLY REGISTRATION DISCOUNT ENDS JANUARY 31 *** Fourth ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (Preliminary Technical Program) Zurich, Switzerland April 1-4, 1997 Sponsored by ACM SIGSAC For more information, including registration and hotel information, see: http://www.zurich.ibm.ch/pub/Other/ACMsec/index.html ================ TUESDAY, APRIL 1 ================ 4 half-day tutorials in two parallel tracks: Theory Track Practice Track Morning Cryptography CERT and Practical Network Security Jim Massey, Ueli Maurer Tom Longstaff (ETH Zurich) (Software Engineering Institute) lunch Afternoon Internet Security Info-Wars Refik Molva Paul Karger (Eurecom) (IBM TJ Watson) ================== WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2 ================== 09:00-09:30 Introduction and Opening Comments Richard Graveman (Bellcore) Phil Janson (IBM Zurich Lab) Li Gong (JavaSoft) Clifford Neuman (Univ. of Southern California) 09:30-10:30 Invited talk 1: To Be Announced 10:30-11:00 Coffee Break 11:00-12:00 Session 1: Fair Exchange of Information Chair: Philippe Janson (IBM Zurich Lab) * Fair Exchange with a Semi-Trusted Third Party Matthew Franklin, Mike Reiter (AT&T Research) * Optimistic Protocols for Fair Exchange N. Asokan, Matthias Schunter, Michael Waidner (IBM Zurich Lab and Univ. Dortmund) 12:00-14:00 Lunch 14:00-15:30 Session 2: Language and System Security Chair: Michael Waidner (IBM Zurich Lab) * Static Typing with Dynamic Linking Drew Dean (Princeton University) * Secure Digital Names Scott Stornetta, Stuart Haber (Surety Technologies) * A Calculus for Cryptographic Protocols: The Spi Calculus Martin Abadi, Andrew D. Gordon (DEC SRC and Cambridge) 15:30-16:00 Coffee Break 16:00-17:30 Panel 1: Programming Languages as a Basis for Security Chair: Drew Dean (Princeton) Panelists: To Be Announced Welcome Cocktail ================= THURSDAY, APRIL 3 ================= 09:00-10:30 Session 3: Authentication Chair: Ravi Sandhu (George Mason Univ.) * Authentication via Keystroke Dynamics Fabian Monrose, Avi Rubin (New York Univ. and Bellcore) * Path Independence for Authentication in Large-Scale Systems Mike Reiter, Stuart Stubblebine (AT&T Research) * Proactive Password Checking with Decision Trees Francesco Bergadano, Bruno Crispo, Giancarlo Ruffo (Univ. of Turin) 10:30-11:00 Coffee Break 11:00-12:00 Invited talk 2: To Be Announced 12:00-14:00 Lunch 14:00-15:30 Session 4: Signatures and Escrow Chair: Martin Abadi (DEC SRC) * Verifiable Partial Key Escrow Mihir Bellare, Shafi Goldwasser (UC San Diego and MIT) * New Blind Signatures Equivalent to Factorisation David Pointcheval, Jacques Stern (ENS/DMI, France) * Proactive Public-Key and Signature Schemes Markus Jakobsson, Stanislaw Jarecki, Amir Herzberg, Hugo Krawczyk, Moti Yung (UC San Diego, MIT, IBM Haifa Lab, IBM TJ Watson, and Bankers Trust) 15:30-16:00 Coffee Break 16:00-17:30 Panel 2: Persistance and Longevity of Digital Signatures Chair: Gene Tsudik (USC/ISI) Panelists: To Be Announced Banquet Dinner =============== FRIDAY, APRIL 4 =============== 09:00-10:30 Session 5: Commerce and Commercial Security Chair: Jacques Stern (ENS/DMI, France) * A New On-Line Cash Check Scheme Robert H. Deng, Yongfei Han, Albert B. Jeng, Teow-Hin Ngair (National University of Singapore) * Conditional Purchase Orders John Kelsey, Bruce Schneier (Counterpane Systems) * The Specification and Implementation of 'Commercial' Security Requirements including Dynamic Segregation of Duties Simon Foley (University College, Cork, Ireland) 10:30-11:00 Coffee Break 11:00-12:30 Session 6: Cryptography Chair: Mike Reiter (AT&T Research) * On the Importance of Securing Your Bins: The Garbage-Man-in-the-Middle Attack Marc Joye, Jean-Jacques Quisquater (Univ. Louvain) * Improved Security Bounds for Pseudorandom Permutations Jacques Patarin (Bull) * Asymmetric Fingerprinting for Larger Collusions Birgit Pfitzmann, Michael Waidner (Univ. Hildesheim and IBM Zurich Lab) 12:30 Conference Adjourns

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Re: Commerce Sec. Hearings and Encryption
by Bill Campbell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

toto(a)sk.sympatico.ca wrote: > Bill Campbell wrote: > > > > I have been watching the confirmation hearings for William Daley, > > and I was amazed at the number of references in the questioning > > to encryption. I have been watching confirmation hearings for a long > > time and have never noticed this much attention being placed on such > > a (formerly?) obscure topic. > > It certainly looks like someone is gearing up for a battle in regard > to cryto. > I find it very interesting that there would be a grand battle over > 'exporting' what is already freely available overseas (and always > will be, despite the export laws). This "freely available overseas" concept is a bit overstated. France and other countries are beginning to come down hard on encryption. (Also note the post from the guy in New Zealand on the hassles exporting from his country.) The US now has a "Crypto Ambassador" roaming the world, and I *don't* think he is encouraging an open common encryption standard. > I suppose that a cynic might > be led to believe that perhaps the anti-export champions' agenda > might be to make more convenient for the average joe to just > give in and accept weak, government approved crypto. Cynic or realist, you make the call. <G> The average Joe doesn't even know *why* he needs encryption...at least not yet. =Bill=

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Re: No Dimitri??
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

drose(a)azstarnet.com writes: > William H. Geiger III wrote: > > >I have noticed that there has not been any post from Dimitri in a couple of > >days. > > Yup. Ditto Tim May. Fair trade? No. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: THE NEW YORKER on the V-Chip
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"abostick(a)netcom.com" "Alan Bostick" 23-JAN-1997 23:09:54.72 >In the Jan. 20, 1997, issue of THE NEW YORKER, the "Comment", written by >Malcolm Gladwell, makes a powerful arguement about the unintended >consequences of the V-Chip, the programmable device to be included in >next-generation television sets sold in the US that supposedly will >allow parents to control their children's access to sex and violence on >TV. >Gladwell makes an analogy between V-Chipped TV content and >air-conditioned cars in the New York City subway system in summertime: >" . . . we need air-conditioners on subway cars because air-conditioners >on subway cars have made stations so hot that subway cars need to be >air-conditioned." Similarly, he argues, "the V-chip is likely to >increase the amount of sex and violence on television, not decrease it" >because when viewers can block offensive programming, there is far less >pressure on broadcasters and cable operators to avoid offending. Personally, I'd view this as a positive development. The puritanical types will be busily still protesting it, but without so many parents who (falsely) believe their children will be harmed by exposure to sex, thus dividing their efforts. Normally one would think that advertisers et al might give in to a small number... but advertisers particularly suceptible to this won't be sponsoring anything but G-rated shows anyway. (Of course, I view the V-chip itself as a bad thing, but if it has an outcome opposite in at least _some_ ways to the one intended by the neo-puritans, I can see the silver lining.) >And, for the benefit of those people who don't think the V-Chip isn't in >itself on-topic for cypherpunks, I might point out that Gladwell's >argument applies equally well to mail filtering with procmail recipes -- >or Sandy's and John's list moderation experiment. If the noise level on >the unmoderated list jumps to even higher than we were seeing before >the moderation began, that would provide observational support to >Gladwell's argument. An interesting question... although I'd point out that the degree of social pressure against spamming et al appears to be ineffective. The herd-like public (referring to the parents with their foolish fears and anyone else brainwashed into believing the puritans/fundamentalists) can put pressure on with their buying patterns... as yet such a market system is lacking in mailing lists (except for putting people on filter lists, which probably exacerbates the problem). In other words, there is no particular reason for the spammers et al to desist even if people _are_ receiving their email. -Allen

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