December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

BXA Docs
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

BXA has published two short crypto-related docs, both dated May 8, 1997. William Reinsch's testimony on Goodlatte's bill: http://jya.com/bxa050897.htm Press release on Reinsch's ABA talk about the new regulations for financial transactions: http://jya.com/bxa050897-2.htm

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96 Wiretap Report
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We offer the text and three summary tables of the U.S. Courts "1996 Wiretap Report" at: http://jya.com/96wiretap.htm (36K)

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Re: Quadratic residues
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May's mother attempted to pro-choice the unwanted little bastard by fishing with a coat hanger in her giant cunt, but failed miserably to pull the rabbit and succeeded only in scraping out the contents of little Timmy's fetal cranium (not much to begin with). (_) _____ (_) /O O\ Tim May ! I ! ! \___/ ! \_____/

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Re: Rwanda and "anarchy"
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:48 5/14/97 -0700, Rich Graves wrote: >Kent Crispin wrote: >> In fact, the correlation between anarchy and war is very strong, for >> obvious reasons. Perhaps that is why most intelligent people don't >> consider anarchy a desirable state of affairs. > >There is no such thing as anarchy, and there never will be. I think it's at least a little tacky for you to ignore recent work which may have already shown your claim to be false. For the rest of you out there, I suggest that you check out AP part 9. There are excellent reasons that people considered true anarchy to be unattainable, because it was considered fundamentally unstable. Even I believed that, before 1995. Now, I've changed my opinion, and for good reason. Anarchy becomes stable if the population can anonymously target those who threaten danger to the rest. AP will do exactly this, so anarchy will become stable. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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OTP
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy May's reheated, refurbished, and regurgitated cud is completely inappropriate for the mailing lists into which it is cross-ruminated. \|/ /~~~~~~~\ | O O | -ooo-----U-----ooo- Timmy May

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Re: The Inducement of Rapid Oxidation of Certain Materials....
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:27 5/14/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote: >On Wed, May 14, 1997 at 03:07:43PM -0400, Tom Allard wrote: >> How pedantic. Webster's New World Dictionary (also reputable, I might add), >> has THIS to say about "Anarchy": >> >> anarchy n. [Gr. an- without + archos, leader] 1. the absence of government >> 2. political disorder and violence 3. disorder; confusion >> >> Note the etymology. Taken to its roots, the word simply means "no leader". > >Note the second definition. A definition which it included because of years of misuse. It is said that language is a living thing, which it is, which means that if an error is made frequently enough it becomes the truth. Most of us understand this concept. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Disinformation in L.A.
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Didn't her boss's murderer walk on the charge by using the defence that he ate too many Twinkies? No political intrigue here...

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SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 21:11:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary You get a sense of the inevitable when you're handed a stack of press releases congratulating a committee for passing a bill -- an hour before the vote happens. That's what happened this afternoon when the House Judiciary committee unanimously approved SAFE, a bill that generally loosens export controls on crypto. Now, today's vote doesn't mean that the bill will move to the floor unmolested, and it doesn't mean that all its problems have been fixed. The Judiciary Committee doesn't have jurisdiction over export relaxations, and the bill's opponents pledged to fight when the measure moves to the International Relations committee. Then there's that portion about using crypto in a crime: it's been modified, cleaned up, but not removed. High and low points of today's hearing. I'll keep these short since I've got to get to sleep: * In another blow to the White House, the New Democrat Coalition is demanding that the White House change its crypto-policy. A letter the group of centrist Dems sent to Clinton today said: "We are deeply concerned that current policy restricting exports of cryptography technology poses a real threat to U.S. dominance..." * The heinous section of the law that would create broad new Federal felonies for some uses of crypto was replaced. The amendment, offered by Rep. Delahunt and adopted unanimously includes eight hurdles: "Any person who, in the commission of a felony under a criminal statute of the United States, knowingly and willfully encrypts incriminating information relating to that felony with the intent to conceal such information for the purposes of avoiding detection by law enforcement agencies or prosecution..." It's a solid improvement, but this language still has no business becoming law. Problem is, nobody seems to have the balls to stand up and yank it. Delahunt, the amendment's sponsor, said the bill without the amendment "could have a chilling effect on the development and use of encryption." He added: "I recognize that some supporters of this amendment would like that this section be removed altogether." But it doesn't seem likely. * The word on the streets is compromise. Hyde, chair of House Judiciary, brokered a meeting in his offices yesterday bringing together spooks, law enforcement, Goodlatte, and staffers. He says they're "very close to resolving any difficulties." Rep. McCollum chimed in: "It's just a matter of time before we work something out." Rep. Buyer said, and I am not making this up: "We should be good listeners to the NSA." Rep. Berman: "I hope there would be some way to bridge the differences between the administration and Goodlatte." More on this later... * Rep. Hutchinson introduced an amendment that passed unanimously: (a) The Attorney General shall compile, and maintain in classified form, data on the instances in which encryption (as defined in section 2801 of title 18 USC) has interfered with, impeded, or obstructed the ability of the Department of Justice to enforce the criminal laws of the United States. (b) The information compiled under subsection (a), including an unclassified summary thereof, shall be made available, upon request, to any Member of Congress. Problem is, a similar provision is *ALREADY LAW*. (It passed last year as part of an omnibus spending bill.) Brock Meeks wrote about it in his last Muckraker column: http://www.muckraker.com/ And this is bad news: we already know that piss-poor crypto -- we're talking Brian Milburn-style, or WordPerfect strength -- has interfered with investigations. But with the NSA's help, cops were able to tunnel through it. That's why the Feds should be looking not at whether it *interferes* with an investigation, but whether it has *derailed* one. At least when the NRC report came out last year, not one investigation was derailed through the use of crypto. But even if it has derailed an investigation -- well, that may be the price of freedom... * Rep. McCollum (R-Fl), a real Big Brother type of guy, added an amendment to page 4, line 14 that passed unanimously. Addition is in caps: Subsection (a) shall not afect the authority of any investigative or law enforcement officer OR ANY MEMBER OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY acting under any law in effect on the effective date of this chapter, to gain access to encrypted information. Now what the hell does this mean? Says McCollum: ""it is truly a technical amendment." * Rep. Rothman was the only one who pointed out how government access to keys reduces freedom: "It raises civil libertarian and totalitarian issues for me." He recounted how at a recent hearing he asked the administration: "Let's cut to the chase: do you want to mandate this access?" The reply: "No, no, no." I've said it before and I'll say it again: Congress desperately wants to compromise. They're aching to split the difference, cut a deal, and screw the pooch in the process. Just watch for the backroom scheming over the next few months. And if the worst features of all the crypto-bills are combined into one package that's attached to a huge spending bill that "just has to go through" -- well, don't say I didn't warn you... -Declan

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Re: Anonymity and cowardice
by The Spectre 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed May 14 11:34:45 1997 > The time per year it takes for me to delete all these messages is about > the same as the amount of time it took me to reply to your previous > message plus the amount of time it will now take me to compose this > reply. All back of the envelope, of course. All by choice, which is what we're talking about here.. > I've been on this list for 18 months and have seen plenty of worthwhile > posts from remailers. You're entitled to your opinion, but I strongly > disagree. I guess I'll just never know.. > So you're calling John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton > cowards > (anonymous authors of the Federalist Papers)? Many others have > (also used > anonymity to further the cause of liberty. I doubt your real > name is "The Spectre" yet that is the name under which you are posting. > Are you calling yourself a coward? The difference in all these cases (save mine) is that the people you listed would have been persecuted, if not prosecuted, for their actions. Now people are hiding out of fear and paranoia of something that in most cases doesn't exist. The people you mentioned never had to deal with this level of abuse, either. In my case, it's simply the name i've old my email package to append to my messages. Anyone who really wants to can look me up at any time. - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQENAzM2vJwAAAEH/1uuDgh1udD+DbU9ies8Lst3j7bmlM+m+aN0gVwerfx+uA14 AG6RDZwwCLwCZYxh0/AizW1b25nHs5XDFW7QIVo1/agtbyz3rt7plcp3wi+rXPxo zFPgILegG2k81mHYIYVJ1g9bEExVGsNc7GMthkaOjPL2VYirQPRtAa4ZZc6JuCLH I85xIcwuLppYajUU4WMMf4yz+5w1WtTlHdL9+ec6BHoF+fOhsF/8DMd5nveFl0aM G52t+z6okMw9vFjLbEtj0BbDRsMjRJNM5uFQWzU+nPEaUzVP+MySe/yrjR2P3dZa UKjpG3Er7U4DV7rb8mE20Wet10jJoALjG8yMZrUABRG0HVRoZSBTcGVjdHJlIDxz cGVjdHJlQG5hYy5uZXQ+iQEVAwUQM0qy66AC4xvMjGa1AQGNLAf/QY5SyC/jybOQ asYfNqhPFip0gZwUutOOgPdyrEsXoxFOWJ9OG95dzvNJ3of22zh4RLusUt5NT7lB DFUKiP4aQsNf5XmW+qk/R1nmqyO/XHAAAdIos2SGsYew2d3JatIlFZIQ+vMkEOC0 +oPotz7effhkDKeYl+Qdla9eZ1C47Be2NrA1sH26jKYhCob6VnAK+zAin8ZPEnb0 XEKQTMVdE2ehv2Q8PxygZhDI0L6sM6EgguvDWjJuGN4bIhxh22dAyNRJ7CVQsqwV rj4TtkAuqUb0nyQvD2xUeJcB/O+1LCH7oFBE4EG1qEIl7asVjEURrfej7OwxRrA0 J0Lc5tZToA== =tS4W - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBM3nbmqAC4xvMjGa1AQHjLAf/QDq9v0zAjQhTLkTC773R6pN3a13z54s+ fsx4wYgg5zsTQhiwAsSs/0ROKQukLY660Yk4dZR8dbhoJKJmWpGKpuiOReP/XDPT jTijALMx31FGd8YdcSJORGPinHeU3MEZ8/ZklSUx2hbtS6/84lGzjZC93sT3xVfa ZA5QY/Z2lv9IS75rOQtIyBSublc7Un/AAs72rqjmq6rXzSp8UCtasAhqPgADSEgu 4A+VAzr8Jfq4mtwhx2W1W6amNTu0oKRSy+PNdCmrkD39+87/CsepDZ+OdnRK/Ebu 7bE7wA1ea6rw6mZg9Msje2M4p58vvomE4Q52iSkreD7CK7d325Baug== =SI22 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Eternity server considerations and musings
by Paul Bradley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I spent some considerable time today thinking about the eternity server idea proposed, and implemented in alpha stage, by Adam Back. The main method used by governments around the world so far to attempt to censor information has been the use, or proposal of, proxy servers for whole countries or jurisdictions. This method has only thus far been used to censor www connections, and has been used to censor specific sites, hence the use of mirroring to circumvent government censorship. To give an overview of the eternity server idea for those who didn`t see the original post the idea was that a non existant virtual TLD .eternity would be used to access HTML posted to usenet. So to access a site that was at say bombmaking.terrorist.com/assasination/killing.html you would send your browser to: http://bombmaking.terrorist.com.eternity/assasination/killing.html The assumption being that the distributed nature of usenet would not allow censorship. The proxies idea however can be extended to censor usenet, usenet traffic, although pretty huge, is not yet too large to be grep`d for keywords (currently around 600mb of traffic a day passes through the newsgroups) before being proxied, so a government can run a server which first checks to ensure the usenet article is not encrypted (this can be done crudely by checking for occurances of common words or by checking the redundancy of the text by attempting to compress it) and if it is encrypted junks it, if it is plaintext, greps it for keywords like "assasination", "anarchy", "porn" etc... then kills the articles that have these words in them, the other articles the government does not want to censor are put on a main server like news.fourth-reich.de and access blocked to all the other news servers. I know this might seem an unlikely scenario but it is not really when we consider the wacky ideas we have seen from governments in recent years, a dictatorship like France or Germany might begin implementing this within a few years, although the German government has had it`s fingers burnt recently with the Radikal fiasco. What I was considering was the possibility of circumventing proxies altogether, this is not an easy question and I could not think of one single way to get access, of course one could use and ISP outside of the jurisdiction but this incurs internation call charges for dial up users, and the gubmint of fascist-regime-N can block telephone access to internet POPs outside of their country. The problem with attempting to prevent censorship of usenet is that we cannot mirror it like we can web sites, the web is too huge for a government to mirror the whole of the "acceptable" part of it, so mirroring sites faster than they can block them is effective, usenet is too small to protect in this way, it could be effectively mirrored and all other access killed. Of course while we can mirror sites to prevent censorship this is almost an academic question, rather than a practical one, however, it would be nice to see a more robust system which thwarted all attempts to censor without the need for human intervention by mirroring sites etc. I can see no way that a government can censor internal traffic within a country, because this need not pass through the proxy, so if we can get a copy of a document onto one server within a country all others can access it through a virtual URL. However, this is likely to incur the displeasure of the authorities in that country and have them knocking at the door of the owner of the server holding the document, so we would have to have a system for server anonymity. This is all getting very complicated ;-) Anyway, as I have said, I can give no insight here into what is a possible solution, I hope that this post might cause someone who does have the beginnings of an idea to think about it some more and maybe give us a really robust solution to preventing censorship of this kind. Datacomms Technologies data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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