December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Query on "secure databases"
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Peter - here's my previous posting, with an addendum, Cc: cypherpunks At 04:43 PM 2/11/97 -0500, Peter Swire <swire.1(a)osu.edu> wrote: > Can you point me to anything I can read on "secure databases"? I >hadn't hit that term before. I am curious to what extent they are secure >due to cryptographic approaches, or to what extent you rely on other >mechanisms for keeping out unauthorized users. It's been a long time since I've looked much into it, since I was getting out of phone-company-defense-contractor mode at the time the field was developing. I think the NCSC Rainbow Book that deals with secure databases is the Purple Book, though it might be the Gray. Oracle and/or Sybase have done some work trying to do databases at the B1 or B2 level, but I don't know details. I'll talk about secure databases a bit, but for the real world there's more useful stuff that isn't related to them. =================== Begin "Secure Database" Section ============== At the time, the Orange Book (security for standalone computers) was well-understood, though there weren't really any systems above B2 level, and the Red Book was written, but nobody really had a clue how to implement multi-level machines on a multi-level LAN, though you could use encrypting Ethernet cards to get single-level machines of different levels on the same LAN, if they were all administered by the same group of people (so user-IDs and security levels worked across the entire system.) At the lower security levels, Orange Book techniques mainly involve removing bugs and adding accounting features. At the higher levels, the key is to come up with a good mathematical/logical model of interactions in your computer system, and then design a computer system that only does the things permitted by the model and prove it does that. Some of these systems use cryptographic techniques, including some of the capability-based systems - see Bill Frantz's KeyKOS work, which he's referred to on Cypherpunks occasionally. The objective is to have databases that can be accessed by multiple users with different sets of security permissions. In the military vernacular, this mainly means having UNCLASSIFIED, CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and maybe TOP SECRET data in the database, where not all users are cleared to the highest security level, and maybe projects X, Y, and Z, where users of project X may not have a need to know for project Y, etc. The easy problems are probably solved by now - either you do a good job of verifying the design and bug-free-ness of your database software so you can be sure that each request includes, and obeys, security levels, or you use crypto to encrypt the data items for each security level (e.g. everybody with a SECRET or PROJECT Z clearance shares a key for that data, which isn't really ideal for non-small groups of people, the database just tries to do a good job, and you only do operations in the database that make sense when the data is encrypted, though that's annoyingly restrictive for many applications.) The sticky problems are aggregation-related. It may be ok if an uncleared person knows that military base A has missile types 1, 3, and 5, and if the uncleared person knows where all your military bases are. But is it ok if the uncleared person knows about _all_ the missiles at _all_ the bases, and can tell that nobody's using Type 2 missiles any more, and that all the Type 4 missiles got moved to New Jersey last week? =============== End "Secure Database" section ================= =============== Begin "Real-World and Crypto" section ========= For the average person, though, the simple military models aren't really useful. You really care more about groups of people, though the multi-level stuff is sometimes a good way to keep machines from being hacked. But the real problem is that computers are very good at correlating information - if two different companies know your Social Security Number, and they share their data with each other (maybe for a price), then they can all tie together everything they each know about you. And there's no way to stop it, except by limiting the information you give people (which limits the transactions they'll do with you), or contractually limiting what they can do with it (good luck), or using multiple identities - and even then, computers are often good at guessing that the John Doe at 1234 Main Street is the related to Jane Smith at 1234 Main Street, and maybe the foreign car parts Jane bought on her American Express are for the Porsche registered to John, so there's a junk-mail opportunity. There's really only one technology that lets you avoid this, which is crypto and its relatives - though you still have to get people you use business with to use it, which is an uphill game. Some of the fundamental work on this is David Chaum's papers on Credentials without Identity (or something about like that, from ~1985.) For instance, you can have a voter registration number that's cryptographically signed by the voting bureau, but uses blinded signatures so they can't correlate the known good unique number with the Peter Swire who walked in and showed a picture ID one day. A driver's license smartcard could keep a pointer to your driving records, but wouldn't give your True Name, and would only show a cop that the person whose picture is on the front is a Licensed Driver, and maybe could demonstrate that the bearer knows the card's PIN. One big issue is that the government is pushing banks to demand SSNs, and requiring employers to demand SSNs (makes them easy Employee IDs), and pushing medical insurers and providers to use SSNs (makes it easy to collect Medicare data.) You can gain a lot of privacy just by having employers use their own employee-ID numbering system, so the travel agent subcontracting to Corporate Travel doesn't need your SSN on every form they fill out. But suppose the Social Security Administration and IRS issued you a bunch of separate numbers, that were either related using a cryptographic key, or just randomly picked and kept in a big database (maybe pointing to your old SSN), so you could give everybody who needs a Tax ID a different number, and only you and the IRS could correlate them. (To some extent, you can do this yourself by creating lots of companies, but it's a real pain and costs a certain amount of money.) =============== addendum ===================== Of course, for many transactions, the way to reduce the privacy problems is to use bearer certificates rather than book-entry approaches - pay cash, or digicash, rather than credit cards, use on-line anonymous delivery of bits, or picking up stuff in person, rather than mailing stuff to a snail address, etc. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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Re: Excerpt on SPAM from Edupage, 11 February 1997
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:45 PM 2/15/97 -0600, Igor Chudov wrote: >Roy M. Silvernail wrote: ... >> Or that the money wasn't there in the first place (absent a trusted >> signature system), or the key doesn't exist, or the wrong key is >> offered, or the sender put the same e-dollar on all 60000 mails sie >> sent and it's already been redeemed. > >Well, if the trusted party performs the encryption by both recipient's >public key and the "retrieval key", the problem that you mention can >be avoided. Yeah. I as a spam artist send the "proof" message through the e-cash verification center with the Send To: field returning it to a mail exploder. Each receipient gets the same dollar. This assumes that the To: field is not hashed into the verification signature, and that the verification works like a glorified remailer. (cash added on a separate channel).

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We're in Anguilla! Comon down!!!
by Bill Clinton 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My fellow cypherpunks, I wanted to let you all know, we are having a great time, building a router to the 21st Century, down here in sunny Anguilla. Al and I will be wiring Anguilla's great high school for the internet. Afterwards, we'll meet with some longtime supporters of the democratic party for a beer. Spaces at the conference are still available, I didn't let those folks at American strike, so you have no excuses to be anywhere else next week. Willy Citizen Unit 429-92-9947

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Re: Excerpt on SPAM from Edupage, 11 February 1997
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sean Roach wrote: > > At 04:45 PM 2/15/97 -0600, Igor Chudov wrote: > >Roy M. Silvernail wrote: > ... > >> Or that the money wasn't there in the first place (absent a trusted > >> signature system), or the key doesn't exist, or the wrong key is > >> offered, or the sender put the same e-dollar on all 60000 mails sie > >> sent and it's already been redeemed. > > > >Well, if the trusted party performs the encryption by both recipient's > >public key and the "retrieval key", the problem that you mention can > >be avoided. > Yeah. I as a spam artist send the "proof" message through the e-cash > verification center with the Send To: field returning it to a mail exploder. > Each receipient gets the same dollar. > This assumes that the To: field is not hashed into the verification > signature, and that the verification works like a glorified remailer. (cash > added on a separate channel). > Sean, No, it works the other way. The verification center gets $1000, creates 1000 $1 coins, signs them and encrypts each with the given recipients' public keys. The spammers gets these signed and encrypted coins, may superencrypt them and sends them to the recipients. As long as the trusted party is honest, there is no way to cheat. - Igor.

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Re: Questions about Naughty Robot (fwd)
by Genocide 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I got this message (on a system that I am webmaster on) regarding something that sounded so stupid it made me chuckle...Naughty Robot...I have enclosed the message below. If any of you have any idea what this user is talking about, any info would be appreciated. Personally it sounds like another "GoodTimes Virus" again... Genocide Head of the Genocide2600 Group ============================================================================ **Coming soon! www.Genocide2600.com! ____________________ *---===| |===---* *---===| Genocide |===---* "Courage is not defined by those who *---===| 2600 |===---* fought and did not fall, but by those *---===|__________________|===---* who fought, fell, and and rose again." Email: gen2600(a)aracnet.com Web: http://www.aracnet.com/~gen2600 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion. It is by the Mountain Dew that the thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion. ================================================================================ Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 10:30:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Questions about Naughty Robot Resent-Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:10:54 -0800 (PST) >> Don't wanna bug ya too much, but I was wondering if you have ever heard >> of Naughty Robot, and whether or not if it is a hoax or Real? >> >> I had a customer in Tennesee who got an E-Mail saying that Naughty Robot >> has infected your host computer and consider all your credit cards >> stolen. >> >> I think it's a hoax, but the Admins at VR-NET Cafe say that they have >> been hit with it and say that it's a script that does hack into the >> IPS's server and sits back and watches the users browse the web and take >> the info they see on there screen and dump to some remote server?? >> >> I was wondering if you have heard about it...and if so can you direct to >> the right locations on the web to get the "Official" Scoop on it?

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test ping - cypherpunks@toad.com 12:32pm PST - ignore
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi! This is a test ping to verify whether mail to cypherpunks(a)toad.com gets forwarded successfully to one of the other cypherpunks lists, and how fast. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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Bad Headers Added to John Young postings via owner-cypherpunks@sirius.infonex.com
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi! The following headers are from a posting by John Young that looks like it was sent to cypherpunks(a)toad.com, forwarded to cypherpunks(a)sirius.infonex.com and/or cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net, and has the Reply-To: header set to reply to cypherpunks(a)toad.com instead of to John Young.... It looks like the obvious implementation of cypherpunks-style mail header patching, but isn't quite right..... Leads to people sending their John Young mailbot requests to cypherpunks(a)toad.com instead, as some well-known cypherpunks have mistakenly done recently :-) ===================================================== Return-Path: <owner-cypherpunks(a)sirius.infonex.com> X-Sender: jya(a)pop.pipeline.com Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 09:04:14 -0500 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> Subject: FBI_100 Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)sirius.infonex.com Reply-To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com X-List: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net 2-15-97. NYP: "Phone Companies Balk At Latest Plan by FBI." Markoff. ============================================== # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin writes: > Dave is offering a single mailing list, which, while I am sure Dave is > a great person, still represents a single point of control and a > single point of failure. A distributed mailing list has a potential > for being much more robust, and for supporting a wide range of > viewpoints. I can also offer my participation in the distributed mailing list, if that is what it takes to get cypherpunks free of control interests again. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet A poor man shames us all.

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Against Moderation writes: > I believe homophobia is a great way to bring out the censors in > people. However, inducing censorship is only part of fighting it. You assume that it is an enemy to be fought. While censorship is clearly undesireable, making it an enemy only strengthens it. > You also need respectable people to some in, argue cogently against > the dangers of censorship, perhaps even get some extremely reasonable > articles suppressed, and then spread the word about it. I find the > freedom-knights tactics' extremely lacking in this second, "clean up > and analyze the mess" phase. Part, if not all, of that lack is due to our knowledge of the subjective standard of "respectability" that human beings have. That's the same differentiation used in many censorship attempts, and if we made or supported such differentiations this would undermine any anti-censorship actions we could take. The meta-points are: - What is reasonable to you may or may not be reasonable to me. That is why we refrain from censoring others, since we have no absolute standard of reasonability. - You appear to be concerned with convincing others. We are not concerned with that, since we know that the default for most others is to be invincibly unconvincable. We are simply here to be living models for an arbitrary code of behavior...that behavior being outlined in the Freedom Knights FAQ. - Please remember that you have to judge who is and is not a Freedom Knight by their -actions- and not their claims. > censorship on cypherpunks. However, I think most peoples' opinions > didn't really turn, or at least people didn't realize how serious > things were and didn't really care, until Tim May [someone the many > freedom-knights hate] started criticizing this censorship in extremely > reasonable messages that were suppressed from both the -edited and > -flames mailing list. Assuming that is true, that people do not care about censorship until a person with an arbitrary reasonability says something, I would say that such a group cares not about free speech...even if they think they do. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Two men were fighting outside Nasrudin's window at dead of night. Nasrudin got up, wrapped his only blanket around himself, and ran outside. As he tried to reason with the drunks, one snatched his blanket and both ran away. "What were they arguing about?" asked his wife when he went in. "It must have been the blanket. When they got that, the fight broke up."

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FC97: Post-strike airfares
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One more datablip about FC97 and I'll shut up a bit. Having just promised gratuitously cheap airfares to Anguilla/St. Maarten, I went and called the local branch of American Express Travel and got some actual prices. Their number is 617-868-2600, but AEXP-T has branches everywhere, and, I think, an 800 number, so you might want to get ahold of them that way... Anyway, here's what I got, as of about 20 minutes ago: For departures 2/22/97 with return 3/1/97, Boston Anguilla $ 864 Boston St. Maarten 851 (+ Taxi and short ferry ride to Anguilla) San Francisco Anguilla 828 San Francisco St. Maarten 748 Heathrow Anguilla 1,315 (looks like the strike didn't affect you folks, sorry) All in all, that's as good as the prices we were getting for 14 day advance purchase earlier this month. Not bad, but not completely spectacular. Note that it's cheaper to get to Anguilla or St. Maarten from San Francisco than it is from Boston, so y'all don't have an excuse. Well, possibly seat fatigue, but Sunday on the beach will fix that. I'll check tomorrow to see if the airline yield management software war gives us something better after the weekend's over. Only if fares are significantly lower will I post something here about it, in the interest of nomex conservation. :-). If you *do* decide to fly while the seats are hot, don't forget to register for FC97 first, so we can plan for meals and stuff: <http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/> Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/

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