December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Information is POWER- Get it!
by iiucom＠iiu.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Reminder: Physical DC Cypherpunks Meeting
by Mark O. Aldrich 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks: A January 1997 physical DC Cypherpunks meeting will be held at GRC International, Inc., in Vienna, Virginia, on Saturday, 18 January. Directions to GRCI, including a couple of spiffy-neato maps, are available at: http://www.grci.com/overview/locations/vienna/ If you're in town for the inauguration (yes, it's the following Monday), then stop by and check out the East Coast "punks" contingent. Meeting starts at 1400 hours (2:00 PM). You will be entering a secured facility and will have to endure the usual rigors of being badged, exchanging pleasantries with the guard, and being limited to "requires escort" status. So, allow a few minutes extra before the meeting starts. Agenda includes a presentation by Carl Ellison, Senior Systems Engineer from CyberCash, Inc. Ad-hoc additions are welcome - show up with your presentation materials and you're automatically added to the agenda. We even have a historical crypto-relevant door prize to be given away at the meeting! (Assuming you can haul it home <g>) GRCI is located at the corner of Gallows Road and Boone Blvd, about two miles north of the Dunn-Loring Metro station on the western end of the orange line. As solicitations for rides haven't appeared (yet) on the list, the assumption is that they're being coordinated off-list at the moment. If your ride fails you and you're stuck at the Metro on Saturday, the phone number for where we'll be meeting is 703.506.4951. We can try to beg you a ride from some gracious punk with wheels. The front desk is 703.506.5000 or 4000, is there's no answer downstairs. If you show up late for the meeting and there's nobody there to sign you in, you'll have to have the guard call us. We'll be downstairs in the "lower level conference room." Just say those words and s/he'll know where we are. S/he can then call and someone will come up to get you. Post-meeting world-problem-solving and beer-swilling activities can be undertaken in any of the numerous suitable locations in and about the illustrious Tyson's Corner locale. We'll coordinate at the end of the meeting. Hope to see y'all this Saturday! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |I want to die peacefully, | Mark Aldrich | |like my Granddad did. | GRCI INFOSEC Engineering | |Not in sheer terror, | maldrich(a)grci.com | |like his passengers did. | MAldrich(a)dockmaster.ncsc.mil| |_______________________________________________________________________| |The author is PGP Empowered. Public key at: finger maldrich(a)grci.com | | The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author | | and my employer gets no credit for them whatsoever. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Hi again, and an invitation to kibitz
by amanda＠intercon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello folks, A couple of years ago I signed off of cypherpunks in annoyance at what I thought was a high "fluff" level, and said I'm sign back on when I had crypto software to talk about. Well, I do and so I have :). Last week at MacWorld Expo, we announced a new product designed to provide a secure AppleTalk tunnel over the Internet; we'll be doing a public beta in a few weeks, and expect to be shipping relatively soon after that, assuming that the public beta goes well. The initial version is moderately secure (that is to say, I believe that the most effective attacks to be DES key search and a dictionary attack on the user's pass phrase). I'm interested in comments on weaknesses aside from the use of 56-bit DES; I'm profiling DES-EDE and if it's fast enough we'll be switching to that. Here's a sketch of the protocol: (a) Server sends 8-byte challenge to client (b) Client sends Microsoft NT authentication response to the server (take the password in Unicode form, do an MD4 hash, pad with 0s to 21 bytes, split into 3 7-byte groups, use these as DES keys to encrypt the challenge three times, send the 24-byte result as the response). (c) If authentication fails, close the connection. (d) If authentication succeeds, all subsequent traffic is enccrypted with DES in CFB mode. Until April :), the DES key used is taken from the first 7 bytes of the MD4 hash of the password (after April, we expect to switch to Diffie-Hellman key exchange first, followed by a revised authentication handshake). I have not been able to find any obvious weak points, even if MD4 is weak, since the digest is not put on the wire--recovering the digest would require recovering a DES key given a single known plaintext/ciphertext pair. I would be very interested in any weak points anyone can identify (particularly with step b, since that would have repercussions beyond this little piece of software). I would also be interested in the effects on anyone's analysis given the following modifications: - Using SHA (160 bit hash) instead of MD4 - Using DES-EDE (112 bit key) instead of DES - Using Blowfish in CFB mode instead of DES - Using RC5 in CFB mode instead of DES (not likely unless RC5 is cheap) - Using RC4 (40 bit key) instead of DES (not likely) Comments? Catcalls :) ? Amanda Walker Senior Software Engineer InterCon Systems Corporation

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Re: New US regs ban downloadable data-security software
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:45 PM 1/13/97 -0800, Ian Goldberg wrote: >After _very_ careful reading of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) >(though IANAL), it would seem that the above is slightly inaccurate. [...] >Therefore, it would seem that, as long as the security software on your ftp >or WWW site is free of cost, it is OK to keep it there. Commercial >security software, however, remains export-restricted. I concur with Ian Goldberg's careful analysis (thanks, Ian!) that *freeware* data security software that does not use cryptography is indeed not covered under the new regs. Commercial data security software of any kind, regardless if it uses crypto or not, is however prohibited from being distributed via the Internet or being exported by any other means. Note that such software was explicitly exempt from export regulations under the old ITAR. Now it is explicitly included in the EAR. I fail to see a rationale behind this change. But then, I fail to see the rationale behind the entire ITAR/EAR scheme. As always, IANAL, -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm

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Re: PBS program - Turing/Enigma
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

dave_gellerman(a)newbridge.com (Dave Gellerman) writes: > In article <01bbfde7$950f4820$fb1093cf(a)worldnet.worldnet.att.net>, "Tech" > <TIER-1(a)worldnet.att.net> wrote: > > > Feb 2,1997 (one 90 minute show) ref: www.pbs.org > > > > bill_h <bill_h(a)azstarnet.com> wrote in article > > <32D1F2C1.9B1(a)azstarnet.com>... > > > Just caught a teaser on Public Television for an upcoming Mobile > > > Masterpiece Theatre presentation billed as "the true story of > > > Alan Turing" titled 'Breaking The Code'. > > > > > > The little bit of clips they showed looked fascinating. > > > > > > Is this a 'new' show or a re-run? Anybody know anything about it? > > > > > From the pbs web site: > > > "Breaking the Code" (2/2) Based on the play by Hugh Whitemore and > the book Alan Turing: the Enigma by > Andrew Hodges, this program tells the story of Turing (Derek > Jacobi), the mathematical genius who was > responsible for designing the computer that enabled the allies to > crack the German Enigma code and, some would > argue, win the war. On Churchill's specific instructions, Turing was > given all the resources he required and his > personal behavior was tolerated - Turing was an active homosexual at > a time when homosexuality was illegal. > Amanda Root, Prunella Scales, Harold Pinter, Alun Armstrong and > Richard Johnson also star. > > > Dave Homosexuality was pretty well accepted in GB in 1930's, as evidenced by the success of Comrade Philby and his friends. Homosexuals have a strange attraction to cryptography, perhaps because of its connection to privacy and anonymity. But they haven't made any contribution to it (or to any other area of human knowledge). They ascribe to Turing the results of heterosexual cryptographers; they libel prominent heterosexuals like Leonardo da Vinci to argue that their perversion somehow leads to intellectual superiority. While homosexuality used to be a detriment to obtaining a security clearance, being gay at NSA was a big plus under Inman. Of course now being gay is a big plus anywhere in the KKKlintoris administration. ObHomophobocReference: cocksucker John Gilmore is full of shit. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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You can now subscr. to the moderated/unmoderated/flames lists
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's taking a bit longer than we had hoped, but I'm finally getting the toad majordomo configuration set up for the moderation experiment. I have set up majordomo so that you should be able to sub-scribe to the three new cypherpunks mailing lists: cypherpunks the new moderated list cypherpunks-unedited same as it ever was - flames and all cypherpunks-flames the flames that the moderator rejected MODERATION HAS NOT YET BEGUN. At the moment, a subscription to either of the first two lists will get you everything, while a subscription to cypherpunks-flames will get you no postings. ALL CURRENT SUBSCRIBERS ARE STILL SUBSCRIBED TO THE CYPHERPUNKS LIST, which will become the moderated list. I hope most people will stay on it, so we can get some real results from the experiment of having a volunteer moderator for a month. If you want to change your subscription, send mail to <majordomo(a)toad.com>. You can tell it things like: subscribe cypherpunks-unedited (to subscribe to the new unedited list) unsubscribe cypherpunks (to get off the cypherpunks list) which (if confused about which lists(s) you are on) help (if truly confused about majordomo) The software doesn't care if you subscribe to multiple lists, but you will probably only want to subscribe to one of them at once. This means that to CHANGE your subscription you will need to unsubscribe from one list and subscribe to another. I've only briefly looked at the list traffic on the subject of moderation, but there seems to be a misunderstanding. I'm planning to keep the cypherpunks-unedited list around. This will preserve fast turnaround (though it frequently takes many hours to send each posting to each list member -- it isn't *that* fast), and will permit other people to run their own different brands of moderation if they want to put in the effortw. The list I have no use for, and might terminate after trying things for a month, is the flames list. Each message will be processed by immediately sending it to cypherpunks-unedited. The experimental moderator (Sandy) will be on the -unedited list, and will therefore receive all the traffic. He will forward each posting to either the moderated list, or to the -flames list. Note: * The unedited list gets fast turnaround and doesn't require any human action in order to forward a message. * The integrity of the flames list depends on the human moderators; if they drop a message (accidentally or on purpose) then it won't appear on either the moderated or the -flames list. John Gilmore PS: If you're wondering why I said "subscr." and "sub-scribe" it's because majordomo doesn't like messages containing those words in the subject or first five lines. It keeps down the unintended noise from newbies who send subscription requests to the entire list.

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DCSB: The Internet Consumer -- 1996 in Review & Predictions for1997
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The Digital Commerce Society of Boston Presents David Kaufman FIND/SVP Emerging Technologies Research Group "The Internet Consumer -- 1996 in Review & Predictions for 1997" Tuesday, February 4, 1997 12 - 2 PM The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston One Federal Street, Boston, MA David is Managing Director of FIND/SVP's Emerging Technologies Research Group with specific responsibility for "The Internet Consumer - Continuous Market Advisory Service". The group provides numerous Fortune 500 companies with detailed research and analysis on behaviors and preferences of Internet consumers. Mr. Kaufman will discuss the Internet as a consumer platform. The growth of the Internet has been getting a lot of press, most of it based on speculation, not research. Although good data is hard to find, it does exist and can be used to approach the Interactive consumer. During 1996 it became true that Internet consumers, who paid for their own access, were one of the fastest growing market segments. Currently, home and small business users are driving the demand for interactive services such as online banking and financial planning. Users also expressed an interest in locating information on such diverse topics as travel, entertainment, parenting, and health. Starting in 1997 consumers will be able to access the net from more numerous locations and in different ways. Internet appliances such as WebTV will allow non-technology users to access the net. As critical mass develops, the net will become impossible to ignore for most marketers. Based on research and some industry insight, Mr. Kaufman will present FIND/SVP's predictions for the Internet Consumer in 1997 and beyond. Prior to joining FIND/SVP's Emerging Technologies Research Group, David was with BIS Strategic Decisions (now GIGA Information Group) at the time it was a division of NYNEX Corporation. He has been employed by Metaphor Computer Systems and XEROX Corporation in the marketing of the first technology products from the Palo Alto Research Center. David is a Graduate of the University of Wisconsin. This meeting of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston will be held on Tuesday, February 4, 1997 from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown Branch of the Harvard Club of Boston, One Federal Street. The price for lunch is $27.50. This price includes lunch, room rental, and the speaker's lunch. ;-). The Harvard Club *does* have dress code: jackets and ties for men, and "appropriate business attire" for women. We will attempt to record this meeting and put it on the web in RealAudio format at some future date We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or, if we *really* know you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", by Saturday, February 1, or you won't be on the list for lunch. Checks payable to anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston will have to be sent back. Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston". If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements (We've had to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for instance), please let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can work something out. Planned speakers for DCSB are: March Daniel Greenwood The Role of State Government in Digital Commerce April Stewart Baker Encryption Policy and Digital Commerce We are actively searching for future speakers. If you are in Boston on the first Tuesday of the month, and you would like to make a presentation to the Society, please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Commmittee, care of Robert Hettinga, <mailto: rah(a)shipwright.com> . For more information about the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, send "info dcsb" in the body of a message to <mailto: majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu> . If you want to subscribe to the DCSB e-mail list, send "subscribe dcsb" in the body of a message to <mailto: majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu> . Looking forward to seeing you there! Cheers, Robert Hettinga Moderator, The Digital Commerce Society of Boston -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Pretty Safe Mail 1.0 iQCVAwUBMtxDivgyLN8bw6ZVAQE49gP+OwzyhPKcYc8r8E4l8RYDUHJvvcPa9XvD UYPZ4CnpkT3Q3Y9IXI573I2zYnI7qXv6nckU+F9GSIH8k2DdItp3YNl6mvf8+vgB 2yFCqHEL82H0kR9+xUIepCwtqZLz8BoO1Ee4KJJZl451KuA2jvAO5+T4P/U2uBHH z8oh9U7F0Dk= =NZD0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox, e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://offshore.com.ai/fc97/

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Re: Newt's phone calls
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> The take on this that we won't hear is: "This is outrageous! Why don't >> cell-phones offer encryption to ensure our privacy?" > > Cell-phone encryption is 'essential' for 'important' people. > However, it is 'dangerous' in the hands of the 'citizens' (translate >that >to mean 'schmucks'). > The government doesn't object to crack-dealers having cryptography >capabilities, they just want to make sure that those crack-dealers >work for the CIA (freelancers need not apply). > >Toto When I worked at Cylink we developed a product, called SecureCell which combined a standard analog cellphone (NEC I think) and a version of our SecurePhone. Despite the fact that it could thwart any but the most well funded eavesdropping we only sold a handfull. It was quite pricy (about $6,000) and required a small suitcase to tote, but even so only a few gov't agencies (mostly diplomatic) and execs thought it was worth the trouble. One problem facing such devices are the interruptions caused by cell-to-cell handoffs. These can occur even when stationary. SecureCell, I believe, used off-the-shelf line modems. I've read newer modem technologies (Spectrum and AT&T) have pretty much solved this problem. There's no reason Eric Blossom's phone encryptor can't be readily adapted to cellular to offer a secure and more reasonably priced cellular encryptor. PGP Fingerprint: FE 90 1A 95 9D EA 8D 61 81 2E CC A9 A4 4A FB A9 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Schear | Internet: azur(a)netcom.com Lamarr Labs | Voice: 1-702-658-2654 7075 West Gowan Road | Fax: 1-702-658-2673 Suite 2148 | Las Vegas, NV 89129 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet and Wireless Development 1935 will go down in history! For the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead in the future! --Adolf Hitler

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[CRYPTO] One-time pads
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy May is a pimply dweeb sitting at a computer chortling at his own imagined cleverness. )))) )) OO Timmy May 6 (_) `____c

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[Math Noise]
by mpd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate <ravage(a)EINSTEIN.ssz.com> writes: > In reference to numbers which you can't describe, if you > examine the work they are ALL in the Complex domain, none of > them are Real's. Only countably many real numbers, or members of any uncountable set, are denumerable. It is the property of being uncountable, rather than of being real or complex, which is important here. In general, only countably many members of any uncountable set can be precisely specified within any formal system, given names comprised of strings of symbols, or other similar things. > Complex numbers deal with areas, not with lengths. It is often convenient, such as when drawing contour maps, to consider the complex numbers to be in 1-1 correspondence with the points of the plane. However, I wouldn't necessarily consider regions of the complex plane to have "area" in the Euclidian sense. > If there existed a Real for which we could not describe > this would imply that we could not draw a line of that > length. We can't physically draw a line segment to arbitrary high precision. We can conceive of the notion of line segments being in 1-1 correspondence with the reals, but we can specify at most countably many "finitely denumerable" line segments if we wish to discuss their lengths individually. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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