December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Crypto use to foil law enforcement?
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:21 am -0400 on 5/23/97, Carl Ellison wrote: > With the congress so woefully uninformed that they confuse password > protection with cryptography and naive enough to believe that 1.9E6 > possibilities represents a serious roadblock to entry, it looks like we have > a major education effort to perform. For 35 years we've sown innumeracy, and now it's time to reap the harvest, I'm afraid. Heinlein once half-jokingly proposed that all voters have to prove they can solve a quadratic before they can vote. That joke's not so funny anymore. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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Re: [NTSEC] 64-bit En/Decryption speed (fwd)
by Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 13:22:42 +0000 From: Alan C. Ramsbottom <acr(a)als.co.uk> To: ntsecurity(a)iss.net Cc: stoutb(a)pios.com Subject: Re: [NTSEC] 64-bit En/Decryption speed > Consensus is that Alpha CPUs can run crypto operations 10x faster than > Intel-based systems, but to say it's based on the 64-bit-ness of the CPU > alone is false. Is everyone aware of the RSA DES challenge? In essence the task is to brute-force DES. You can find more information at: http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/des.html DESCHALL is one of real-world programs written to take up the challenge and reports the figures: DEC AlphaStation 600 5/333 ... 2.944M keys per second Dual Pentium 200 MHz ......... 2.003M keys per second SGI Onyx2 (194 MHz R10000) ... 1.943M keys per second HAL 385 (161 MHz Sparc64-II) . 1.660M keys per second UMAX S900 250MHz 604e ........ 1.368M keys per second AlphaStation 255/233 ......... 1.297M keys per second PowerMac 8500 200MHz 604e .... 1.095M keys per second PowerBook 3400 240MHz 603e ... 1.065M keys per second Sun Ultra2 Dual CPU .......... 1.060M keys per second PowerMac 8500 180MHz 604e ..... 990K keys per second PentiumPro 166MHz ............. 901K keys per second HP 9000/780C 180Mhz ........... 870K keys per second PentiumPro 180MHz ............. 850K keys per second [snip] I do not know how well this program is optimised for specific platforms, if at all. However I can confirm that other programs written for the challenge give similar results on Intel Platforms. Regards, --Alan-- acr(a)als.co.uk

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Jim Bell accused of "spamming"
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I find it symptomatic that the enemies of free speech use "spam" as a generic term for any kind of speech they don't like. I don't think the following piece needs much commentary, but it probably will. Path: altavista!news1.digital.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!192.108.254.3!news.teleport xtm!kelly.teleport.com!jh From: Jack Hammer <jh(a)teleport.com> Newsgroups: or.politics,wash.politics,alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.tom-leykis Subject: IRS SAYS INTERNET SPAMMER SABOTEUR (fwd) Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 17:15:35 -0700 Organization: Teleport - Portland's Public Access (503) 220-1016 Lines: 155 Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.970521171344.16635E-100000(a)kelly.teleport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: kelly.teleport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Xref: altavista or.politics:25633 alt.rush-limbaugh:79911 alt.fan.tom-leykis:5 xt Subject: IRS SAYS INTERNET SPAMMER SABOTEUR Government affidavit says an Internet author plotted to sabotage an Oregon 9-1-1 computer and poison city water with botulism. VANCOUVER, Wash.- Is there any truth to the rumour that Assassination Politics (AP) author Jim Bell, who was arrested here Friday by the Internal Revenue Service, plotted with Portland, Oregon 9-1-1 overseer Greg Daly to poison the Bull Run resevoir with botulism made from green beans, and shut down the 9-1-1 emergency center's computers by dumping carbon fibers into the air vents? The IRS is accusing Vancouver resident James Dalton Bell, 38, of conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government. He appeared Monday afternoon in U.S. Distict Court in Tacoma and was accused in an 18-page affidavit. AP is a Murder Inc. like plot about a risk-free way of rewarding assassins through a lottery. Bell was seen frequenting local Libertarian functions and a so-called common law court. The murder conspiracy was applauded by some high ranking Libertarians. The plot has circulated widely on the Internet. An April search warrant accused Bell of directly soliciting others to murder. AP would supposedly protect the identity of the murderers. The strategy, which Bell says he wrote and posted solely for speculation, involves uses of encryption to predict and confirm assassinations and electronic digital cash to pay for the gruesome killings. Criticism of AP predicted a reign of anarchy and terror should the plan be allowed to develop. Bell responded to criticism personally and with vehemence. Federal agents raided Bell's Vancouver home April 1 and then accused him of obstructing government officers, and employees, and using false Social Security numbers. Bell is far more dangerous than the charges suggest, the affidavit filed by IRS Inspector Phillip G. Scoff said. Scott's affidavit said Bell, who has a chemistry degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had discussions about using carbon fiber particles to attack computer systems with Greg Daly, a friend who is an electronics specialist overseeing Portland's 9-1-1 communications center. "Daly stated that he and Bell had 'laughed' about attacking the 9-1-1 center with the fiber," the affidavit said. The affidavit went on to say that Daly also told IRS agents that he had hypothetical discussions with Bell about contaminating water supplies and about making the botulism virus from green beans. In the April 17 and 18 intertiews with IRS agents, Daly admitted he had keys to Portland's pristine alpine watershed and direct access to the Portland water treatment facilities. Daly tried to defend himself Monday by saying that the conversations he and Bell had were "merely intellectual fun-and-games discussions" between old friends who enjoy technical things. But Daly also described his friend of 15 years as "bit of an odd unit". And during the interview Daly appeared to crack and turn state's evidence when Daly offered to "rat (Bell) out in a heartbeat." The investigation had been expanding Thursday when IRS agents searched the home of another friend of Bell's, merchant marine radio man Robert East. Among items seized in the East address raid was a three foot length of carbon fiber. The IRS affidavit reported that East told agents he and Bell had discussed "the possibility of putting the fibers down the air vents of a federal building" to its computers and about using the fiber against the IRS. Bell was recently published in The Oregonian daily newspaper where he appeared to avoid an explanation of his plan, writing mostly of what he predicted would be AP's positive impact. Bell did not say in the article how exactly AP would be implemented, who could be killed by it or even why it was called Assassination Politics. But the Internet version, repetively posted for more than a year on libertarian e-mail lists and newsgroups, revealed a darker vision. Some recipients of Bell's complained of the excessive "spamming", others of AP's ethical lapses. The Oregonian seemed to accept Bell's story without question, and Bell's idea was defended by some Libertarians. Responding to the arrest, Tonie Nathan, the first woman and only Libertarian to receive an electoral vote for Vice President, appeared to endorse Bell's assassination plan. "I find them basically rational, mind-opening, intellectually stimulating," she wrote Tuesday. She went on to say that AP "should be considered." Found inside what the IRS reports was Bell's car were documents from the Multnomah County Common Law Court (MCCLC), a group that elects themselves the case judges and purports to administer "common law." Bell was seen at a court meeting held in a Portland pizza parlour back in February. Bell has denied ownership of the car. The self-appointed court met in an all-you-can-eat buffet where it put Attorney General Janet Reno, IRS Commisssioner Margaret Richardson and other IRS officials on trial. The mock trial was the result of a complaint by Oregon resident Louis Wispell, one of the MCCLC "Justices." It has been observed in this "court" that complainants can select their judges from the buffet line, some who confessed to stealing food, having snuck past the cashier on the pretense of being on the camera crew. The judges have also been observed to switch places with complainants in other meetings of the MCCLC in trhe basement of a Russian church. The MCCLC has recently been in the news in regards to charges of its clerk, Richard Lancial, and his son, Thor Lancial, of simulating court process. Charles Bruce Stewart is the Chief Justice of that court and also the owner of an e-mail list, nwlibertarians(a)teleport.com, on which Bell posted much of his material. Stewart insists his court is constitutional. The IRS says Bell has a history of tax disputes with them and reportedly has a large, outstanding, unpaid balance. Friday was set for Bell's detention and preliminary hearing. The government has asked that Bell be held without ball because he is a danger to the community, and reportedly is seeking a grand Jury indictment. From your friend, Your best friend, Your only friend, Jack Hammer ;-) --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Accounts payable
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy C[reep] 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 C[reep] May

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Re: Spam Prevention System?
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was wondering if perhaps a way to minimize the hassle with sitting on one's thumb while waiting for unwanted email to download could be eased by an email program which retreived only headers, allowed you to delete the unwanted ones, and then retrieve the wanted ones, deleting the rest. Is this feasible?

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Reputation Capital
by Mark C. Wallace 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any papers/sources/url's on reputation capital? [1] I'm contemplating a project which I think might be similar; don't want to unecessarily make a fool of myself. [1] Dejanews and altavista turned up references, but nothing substantive. I've RTFM.

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NYC Crypto Forum
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ray Arachelian taped the Cryptography Forum at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York last evening and will share once its transcribed. In the meantime: TITLE OF PROGRAM: Guns, Ammunition and Cryptography: Is the Government's Policy on Digital Encryption Creating a Crisis? MODERATOR: Charles R. Nesson, Professor, Harvard Law School PANELISTS: Matt Blaze, Co-author of Risks of Key Recovery paper. (short-notice invitee) Lynn McNulty (ex-NIST now RSA) filling in for Jim Bidzos Scott Charney, Computer Crime Unit, Department of Justice Kenneth W. Dam, Professor, University of Chicago Law School Dorothy E. Denning David J. Farber, University of Pennsylvania Marc Rotenberg, EPIC ----- Nesson asked the audience (about a hundred), "How many use encryption?" Over half raised hands. "Wow!" he said, "If I asked that of a law class at Harvard, maybe two or three hands would have been raised." Nesson then posed to the principal question: "Is the government's policy on cryptography creating a crisis?" Dam, Denning and Charney said no. Other panelists said yes. The audience by show of hands was about evenly split. There was intense discussion among the panelists but no change in position. Some highlights: David Kahn, in the audience, reaffirmed his support for key escrow, stating that it would not change the current legal provisions for electronically snooping, and why ask for more privacy than is now authorized. Blaze summarized the KR risks paper and pointed out the enormous expense of designing, implementing, operating and securing a global key recovery system -- which, as he ironically smiled, could make cryptographers and crypto-corps rich. That such a system might make security weaker by offering fewer choice targets to attack -- the key repositories. Blaze reminded that encryption will become pervasive in all electronic systems, not just communications. That it must be robust and untamperable or more and more crucial systems will be vulnerable to attack. And, the more complicated the security provisions the more likely they will fail. Farber stated that time was being wasted on KR debate while the nation's infrastructure remained immensely vulnerable to electronic attack. He said that with six students he could shut the system down in "a few days, with, say, spoof E-mail to key administrators." That ITEF is working on a next-generation system to prevent that, but meanwhile there is great risk. McNulty reaffirmed industry's position that other countries will develop robust encryption if the US does not allow export. Charney responded by pointing out that the administration seeks global commitment to key escrow among governments, and asserts they will comply for the same reasons the USG wants it. He said, for example, that countries may allow development of strong crypto but, like the US, will not allow export. He cited Japan's refusal to allow NTT's 128-bit export, and said Russia will surely not allow the export of the Sun/Elvis product. Same for France, Germany, and so forth. There was audience derision when Charney noted that the US must do as the Russians and Chinese and French do to control crypto. Interestingly, Charney did not cite The Wassenaar Arrangement, although Dam pointed out how difficult it was to reach agreement on the COCOM predecessor and enforce compliance with it. Nesson summarized Charney's position by saying, "do you mean that key escrow would do no more than help you catch criminals too stupid to use unescrowed crypto?" Charney nodded, and said that "nearly all all criminals we catch by electronic surveillance talk openly about being surveilled but do nothing about to avoid it." Nesson reiterated: "Do you mean that you want a system to catch stupid criminals while the nation's infrastructure is left vulnerable?" Charney, "That's not the right way to put it." Denning gave examples of her recent survey of law enforcement for examples of crypto use to hinder investigations. Finally, Dam noted that encryption policy was a different task than implementing encryption systems. That the detailed understanding of those who follow the encryption debate is not shared by the public nor by most officials. That agreement upon policy will require greater education for those who could not care less about the complications and subtleties being debated. An auditor queried: There seems to be agreement that encryption will work best when it is totally transparent to users, and the sooner that is devised the better. Why not just get on with it,? Blaze shook his head at this cluelessness, howled at the ceiling, sprouted fur, bared teeth, leaped Dave Farber, went for Charney's jugular, clawed Denning. Kahn and the suited audience ran screaming into the safe streets of Manhattan, while shaggy coders roared, "Kill, kill, kill the infrastructure-fuckers."

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More stories from the Bell jar...
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This story is from the Oregonian May 22, 1997 Page D3: Arrest solves mystery of law office stink bomb A federal investigation that led to the arrest of James Dalton Bell of Vancouver appears to have solved a longtime mystery regarding a stink bomb attack in a downtown Portland law office. In late April 1984, someone broke into law offices at 1123 S. W. Yamhill St. and poured a liquid on a hallway run that was so odorous it made at least one of the lawyers who smelled it vomit twice. At the time, Nick Albrecht, who still practices law there, said the skunklike scent, called mercaptan, was so overpowering that he had to go home because he could not stop gagging. The target of the stink bomb attack was lawyer C. Douglas Oliver, who now lives in Southern California and won't discuss the incident. Bell was arrested Friday on a federal complaint charging him with obstructing and impeding the Internal Revenue Service and the use of false Social Security numbers. The complaint said that documents found on Bell's computer boasted of the mercaptan attack on the office of a Portland lawyer who had sued him. The lawyer was Oliver. Albrecht said Oliver had suspected that Bell might have been behind the mercaptan attack, but could never prove it. The federal complaint also charged Bell with the March 16 mercaptan attack on the IRS offices in the federal office building in Vancouver. On the following day, when employees returned to work after the weekend, several of them had to be placed on leave because the smell was so powerful, the complaint said. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 5.0 beta Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBM4USfeQCP3v30CeZAQGNJgf+O8L65Bc6ce1jhUtUpjQS1kas2WU3TlNm l/wxZt+kNhRV58VnCLYg1JWsUhoifM6JK+v2QU727SVHmAy+ktlovL43oKsgK7EE Vg4WAj9A0rMqKIzNU/0PjNyjPtdsUEbxaZisIbWPONdm/sx1x9hhbDbA5T7sayyW 6HLms5v8n4OQ9URQsnNNpPme6cKTiMFnOk0qw2+0mQUska4q6fLgoEn+vxOYsDAP WPQHaF7EEWHr/8eDRYZP+GgaOtI2pLJvuLGXeebf/0+BEAmTNS6AUuAwt2ogmxCx TPGni0IRhODol5swhZlKAklK7si548Unm90o2o+Lg3JvFqg0SQs/Vg== =7KT2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --- | "Bill Clinton - Bringing back the sixties one Nixon at a time." | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com|

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Re: Jim Bell Complaint
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

William Geiger wrote: >After reading the complaint I have to say that with friends like that >who needs enemies? True, if that's what the friends actually said, and if they were not induced to do so by being fed lethal information: don't go down with Bell, protect yourself, spill your guts. Recall that John Painter spoke to one or more of them and they hedged the remarks of the complaint, but he, too, saw the makings of a deal in the affadavit's allegations. Turning friends against friends is pretty common in investigations, using threats and promises of relief from possible charges, even saying that your friend is squealing on you. I was struck by how similar some remarks attributed to Bell were to those attributed to McVeigh, not that they were not made, but that the investigators chose to select just those to indicate lethal intent. The possible link between the McVeigh trial and Jim Bell's bust could indicate how the feds are itching to attack every advocate of anti-gov mayhem (no pun Tim). The IRS searching the Internet for incriminating advocacy is a warning of what's to come, as often predicted here. Time to study and ponder the 1st Amend -- which, by the way, Matt Blaze did at the NYC crypto forum last night to challenge Charney and Denning. Matt pulled out a copy and cited it, which may be a good indication of what he knows that we don't about what's coming.

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Police & military access
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, It occured to me that if the police have no civil liberties extending beyond that of a citizen and citizens are not legaly permitted access to military hardware then neither should the police. If this applied then it would not be legal for police to have access to any sort of communication or encryption technology that was not available to the normal citizen. If a police officer can buy body armor and automatic weapons for self defence then so can a citizen. If a police officer can search a suspect for weapons "to protect their person" and confiscate or otherwise remove them from the immediate vicinity then a normal citizen should require a police officer to do the same. In other words, once it is established that the suspect is not armed the police officer should be required to place their weapon in their vehicle or othewise secure it off their person. etc. etc. So, the question of the hour is: Do police have any civil rights not endowed to a individual citizen? Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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