December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Clinton UN Speech / Msg to Prez/VP
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In his UN speech this morning, Clinton talked about cracking down on nuke and missile proliferation, and he also mentioned eliminating cold-war-era restrictions which are harming American business. Let's put together a message to president(a)whitehouse.gov and vice-president(a)whitehouse.gov (since Gore is the info-highway guru) stating our position. Points we should make: (please modify and add to this list) * Crypto export restrictions are among the most obsolete and oppressive of these restrictions. * Americans can be jailed for exporting software which is widely used throughout the world (e.g. DES), and which in many cases was even developed outside the U.S. * These restrictions have already hurt American software companies. * They will prevent America from taking the lead in many crucial information technologies. * They will leave American companies vulnerable to industrial espionage. And our position on Clipper: * Clipper should not be established as a mandatory standard for the general public or for business. * Alternatives to Clipper should not be restricted. * Telecommunications companies should not be coerced into using Clipper. * Clipper chips should not have any special export status due to the fact that we keep the keys. This would put American makers of crypto hardware at a serious disadvantage in the world market. * Clipper should be reserved for its stated purpose - protection of non-classified information within the Federal government. * Use outside the government should be purely voluntary. * The whole concept of key escrow needs serious public examination. While the government may have the right, with a warrant, to knock down your door, key escrow is equivalent to requiring every citizen to give the police a copy of his or her key. This is a major departure from the status quo, not a continuation of it. --- MikeIngle(a)delphi.com P.S. It could be worse. Remember Clipper was a Bush administration plan. Bush was a former CIA head. He also had a dictatorial attitude and felt no need to justify his actions to anyone. Bush would probably have tried to ban crypto outright as soon as Clipper was ready.

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Patents
by derek＠cs.wisc.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks: Too often in email fora, when a substantive discussion results in the presentation of interesting material, no effort is made to integrate the result into a form that will be useful beyond the heat of the exchange. For this reason, I will impose once more upon the bandwidth of Cypherpunks with a rewrite of my previous mini-essay. Because of the effort and generosity of many correspondents, I hope that some of the clueless parts have had clues plugged in. Rather than equivocating, which is my usual practice when not entirely certain of what I'm saying, I state some "facts" quite plainly here because equivocation is kind of annoying to everybody. If anybody notices that I'm "full of it" in some way, please let me know... I have no desire to mislead or cause confusion. Special thanks to: E. Carp L. Detweiler P. Metzger smb(a)research.att.com MOTIVATION: Starting with a premise that widespread use of Public-Key Cryptography (PKC) would be in some sense a Good Thing (and for our purposes here ignoring the interesting and spirited reasons for *why* PKC is so cool), newbie Cypherpunks may well wonder how this can be achieved. My purpose here is not to complain about restrictions or wonder about alternate worlds without those restrictions; rather it's an attempt to assess what the restrictions are and what their practical implications are. The important fact of life in this area is that PKC has been granted patent protection and is proprietary technology. Exclusive licensing rights to PKC and its dominant embodiment, the RSA algorithm, have been assigned to Public Key Partners (PKP). PATENT PROTECTION: smb(a)research.att.com explained patents (only excerpts are quoted here): > ... a patent is (theoretically) a contract between an inventor > and society. In return for the inventor teaching everyone about the > new idea, he or she gets a monopoly on use of that idea for a limited > period (normally 17 years in the U.S.). > Patents cover the right to build, make, import, or even *use* the > protected idea. ... A patent is *not* a license to do something. > Rather, it is the right to prevent others from doing it. > For our purposes, a patent consists of two major parts. The first is > more or less a technical paper; this is what you're supposed to learn > from. ... The second part is the ``claims''; these are written in very dense > legalese, and are supposed to delimit exactly what's new. You infringe > a patent if your activity includes all of the elements of any one > claim. ... you have to make sure that what your claim doesn't include > prior art. There are four patents of primary interest (I mention three because I'm not certain what 4,424,414 [1984] is all about): 4,200,770, granted 1980. This patent (smb again:) " claims virtually all mechanisms for public key distribution or exchange systems. Exponential key exchange is the particular example given; it's claimed, too." This patent has Diffie, Hellman, and Merkle as inventors. Diffie and Hellman working together, and Merkle working independently, came up with the ideas behind PKC. The patent was assigned to Stanford University. Since with PKC keys can be broadcast without requiring a secure channel, it offers obvious advantages for key distribution. 4,218,582, granted 1980. It (smb:) "claims all of public-key cryptography. The knapsack system was the particular system given; it was claimed, as well." Hellman and Merkle are the inventors on this patent, also assigned to Stanford. From reading Diffie's "The First Ten Years of Public Key Cryptography," I get the impression that Diffie was not on this patent because Hellman and Merkle together devised the "trapdoor knapsack" that was the particular system illustrating PKC. At some financial cost to Merkle in lost bets, that particular PKC system was broken, but that is only a historical footnote. 4,405,829, granted 1983. This patent is for the RSA algorithm, and has Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman as inventors. This patent was assigned to MIT. Diffie calls RSA "the single most spectacular contribution to public key cryptography" and it is an un-"broken" complete public key cryptosystem. RSA is the overwhelmingly dominant PKC system. The difficulty of breaking RSA has not been proven equal to the difficulty of factoring the product of two large prime numbers, which would be desirable because it would preclude some cracking scheme coming in from nowhere (we'll say that factoring is "somewhere" because it's commonly studied). Rabin has come up with a RSA variant that is equivalent to factoring, but has other technical problems. IMPLICATIONS Because PKP has been assigned all licensing rights to these patents, which cover all of PKC to one extent or another, we are not at present free to code up and sell PKC tools without licensing the technology from PKP -- at least not without risk of a lawsuit. Some people believe that one or more of the patents are invalid in some way. A patent must be for something new, useful, and non-obvious. Given that PKC is useful, the other two criteria could be challenged: * perhaps the ideas could be described as obvious * perhaps prior art could be demonstrated, so that the patented inventions aren't really "new". Such an effort would cost a great deal of money and is uncertain of success. Other efforts to get around the PKP monopoly are possible. One idea would be to claim an "experimental use exemption", an unclear way of legitimately ignoring a patent for personal experimental use (see the comp.patents FAQ for more information on this and other patent issues). Another idea is simply to ignore the patent. PKP would have to sue the infringer, an expensive and time-consuming process and probably not worthwhile for some small infringements -- but it's probably very unwise to try making any money this way! Another legal route would be to claim that the assignment of rights by MIT and Stanford to PKP violate anti-trust laws. Users of the wonderful "underground" program PGP presumably are doing so with the "experimental use" idea or the "ignore the patent" idea in mind. While this has caused some friction, it appears not to be very dangerous for individual users. The final approach to an end-run around the patents is to wait. The broad PKC patents expire in less than four years, which should allow non-RSA PKC schemes to be developed and sold without restriction. However, it is important not to underestimate the difficulties of doing this. Solid efficient PKC schemes are most definitely not trivial to devise, and an extended period of evaluation by professional cryptologists is probably required in order to convince users that the scheme offers good security. The RSA patent expires in 2000. The straightforward approach, and the only practical one for small-time entrepreneurs wanting to develop PKC products now, is to strike a deal with PKP for the use of RSA (as ViaCrypt has done for the "legit" version of PGP). It seems that the designers of Internet Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) agreed with this assessment, as they took the unusual step of including proprietary RSA in their standard. For their part, in RFC 1170, PKP states: "We assure the interested parties that Public Key Partners will comply with all of the policies of ANSI and the IEEE concerning the availability of licenses to practice this art. Specifically, in support of any RSA signature standard which may be adopted, Public Key Partners hereby gives its assurance that licenses to practice RSA signatures will be available under reasonable terms and conditions on a non-discriminatory basis." The exact meaning of "reasonable terms and conditions" is not clear. For evidence we can look at the ViaCrypt product, which is apparently available for less than $50 in quantity. Since it includes the extensive facilities of PGP, as well as support overhead, in addition to the cost of the RSA license. Standards (for example, PGP and PEM) are key to widespread use of PKC. It appears unlikely that standards will go to something besides RSA any time in the near future. The final option is to invent some new revolutionary technique, to amaze and delight Cypherpunks everywhere. Please do. Good luck. REFERENCES sci.crypt FAQ: information about PKC comp.patents FAQ: information about patents RIPEM FAQ: stuff about PKP stopping developement of an implementation of Rabin's scheme Diffie, W.: "The First Ten Years of Public Key Cryptography", chapter 3 of: G. Simmons (ed.), Contemporary Cryptology: the Science of Information Integrity. IEEE press, 1991. which might be the same as: "The first ten years of public key cryptography", Diffie, W., Proceedings of the IEEE 76:5, 1988, pp 560-577. Cypherpunks list archive (there is one, right?): many interesting comments, often highly-clued. derek

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NIST's call for comments
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

cpsr.org's archive of comments is looking mighty thin, this close to the deadline. Is no one writing to NIST? ..or just not copying CPSR? /cpsr/crypto/clipper/call-for-comments: total 64 -rw-r--r-- 1 cpsr 1000 2574 Sep 24 16:09 campbell_comments.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 cpsr 1000 3221 Aug 24 21:46 denn_comments.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 cpsr 1000 22895 Sep 24 16:10 ellison_comments_may_93.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 cpsr 1000 6079 Aug 19 13:32 howland-comments -rw-r--r-- 1 cpsr 1000 2286 Aug 21 15:08 mcallister-comments -rw-r--r-- 1 cpsr 1000 1955 Aug 24 21:54 nate_comments.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 cpsr 1000 21934 Aug 19 13:33 notice-for-comments -rw-r--r-- 1 cpsr 1000 1536 Sep 24 16:10 oram-comments.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 cpsr 1000 1295 Sep 24 16:11 riordan-comments.txt ..and I've just mailed them my comments for this round, yet to show up in this directory. - Carl

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Re: NIST Explains Clipper "Review"
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

An economic analysis would indeed be useful, especially if it led to poll-type question like "Would you be willing to pay $100 extra for a cellular phone to get secure communications that allowed government wiretaps?" Or as a sound bite: "At $100M+ a year, consumers and businesses are subsidizing government wiretapping at the minimum cost of $100,000 for each wiretap." At that price, the government might as well give $100k to the suspects under the condition that they stop doing whatever is considered illegal. ;^) Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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Re: NIST Comment Deadline - FAX NUMBER
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I called the person below; the person who answered the phone said that the director is James Burrows, and his fax is 1-301-948-1784. Branstad's fax is 948-1233. ------------- ADDRESSES: Written comments concerning the proposed standard should be sent to: Director, Computer Systems Laboratory, ATTN: Proposed FIPS for Escrowed Encryption Standard, Technology Building, room B-154, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Dennis Branstad, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, telephone (301) 975-2913.

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ACTIVIST ALERT
by ssimpson＠eff.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ACTIVIST ALERT - The Government Is Messin' With Your Privacy! Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) posted the following call for comments to the Net. As the deadline for comments on the proposed Escrow Encryption Standard (CLIPPER/SKIPJACK) looms near, EFF wholeheartedly supports CPSR's work to bring attention to the proposal and encourages everyone who reads this to respond with comments. We have added a sample letter and additional information at the end of the CPSR post. ==================== text of CPSR post ==================== Call for Clipper Comments The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued a request for public comments on its proposal to establish the "Skipjack" key-escrow system as a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS). The deadline for the submission of comments is September 28, 1993. The full text of the NIST notice follows. CPSR is urging all interested individuals and organizations to express their views on the proposal and to submit comments directly to NIST. Comments need not be lengthy or very detailed; all thoughtful statements addressing a particular concern will likely contribute to NIST's evaluation of the key-escrow proposal. The following points could be raised about the NIST proposal (additional materials on Clipper and the key escrow proposal may be found at the CPSR ftp site, cpsr.org) * The potential risks of the proposal have not been assessed and many questions about the implementation remain unanswered. The NIST notice states that the current proposal "does not include identification of key escrow agents who will hold the keys for the key escrow microcircuits or the procedures for access to the keys." The key escrow configuration may also create a dangerous vulnerability in a communications network. The risks of misuse of this feature should be weighed against any perceived benefit. * The classification of the Skipjack algorithm as a "national security" matter is inappropriate for technology that will be used primarily in civilian and commercial applications. Classification of technical information also limits the computing community's ability to evaluate fully the proposal and the general public's right to know about the activities of government. * The proposal was not developed in response to a public concern or a business request. It was put forward by the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation so that these two agencies could continue surveillance of electronic communications. It has not been established that is necessary for crime prevention. The number of arrests resulting from wiretaps has remained essentially unchanged since the federal wiretap law was enacted in 1968. * The NIST proposal states that the escrow agents will provide the key components to a government agency that "properly demonstrates legal authorization to conduct electronic surveillance of communications which are encrypted." The crucial term "legal authorization" has not been defined. The vagueness of the term "legal authorization" leaves open the possibility that court- issued warrants may not be required in some circumstances. This issue must be squarely addressed and clarified. * Adoption of the proposed key escrow standard may have an adverse impact upon the ability of U.S. manufacturers to market cryptographic products abroad. It is unlikely that non-U.S. users would purchase communication security products to which the U.S. government holds keys. Comments on the NIST proposal should be sent to: Director, Computer Systems Laboratory ATTN: Proposed FIPS for Escrowed Encryption Standard Technology Building, Room B-154 National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Submissions must be received by September 28, 1993. CPSR has asked NIST that provisions be made to allow for electronic submission of comments. Please also send copies of your comments on the key escrow proposal to CPSR for inclusion in the CPSR Internet Library, our ftp site. Copies should be sent to <clipper(a)washofc.cpsr.org>. =================== end of CPSR post =================== EFF joins with CPSR in urging you to send your comments to NIST as soon as possible. To help get your creative juices flowing, we're attaching a sample letter. You will probably want to personalize any letter you actually send. And because time is so tight, EFF has set up an Internet address where you can send your electronic comments in lieu of mailing them through the U.S. Postal Service. Send your letters to: cryptnow(a)eff.org We will be printing out all letters and hand-delivering them before the deadline, so please make sure to send us any letter you want included no later than 8pm on Monday, September 27. If you would like additional background materials, you can browse the pub/EFF/crypto area of our anonymous ftp site (ftp.eff.org) The original solicitation of comments can be found there and is called NIST-escrow-proposal. DO NOT WAIT TO WRITE YOUR COMMENTS! TIME IS SHORT! ====================== <<your name>> <<your organization>> <<your street address>> <<your city, state, zip>> <<date>> National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) ATTN: Proposed FIPS for Escrowed Encryption Standard Technology Building, Room B-154 National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Mr. Director: I am writing to oppose the Proposed Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) for and Escrowed Encryption Standard, docket # 930659-3159. Encryption is vital for the protection of individual privacy in the Information Age. As more and more personal information flows around electronic networks, we all need strong encryption to safeguard information from unwanted intrusion NIST should not be moving forward with technical standards specification until critical policy decisions are made. These policy issues include: o Continued Legal Use of All Forms of Encryption: When the Clinton Administration announced the Clipper Chip, it assured the public that this would be a purely voluntary system. We must have legal guarantees that Clipper isn't the first step toward prohibition against un-escrowed encryption. o Legal Rights of Escrow Users: If people choose to deposit their keys with the government or any other escrow agent, they must have some legal recourse in the event that those keys are improperly released. The most recent draft of the escrow procedures specifically states, however: "These procedures do not create, and are not intended to create, any substantive rights for individuals intercepted through electronic surveillance, and noncompliance with these procedures shall not provide the basis for any motion to suppress or other objection to the introduction of electronic surveillance evidence lawfully acquired." Leaving users with no recourse will discourage use of the system and is a tacit acceptance of unscrupulous government behavior. o Open Standards: People won't use encryption unless they trust it. Secret standards such as Clipper cannot be evaluated by independent experts and do not deserve the public trust. In addition, the current proposed technical standard is incomplete. It should not be approved until futher comment on the complete proposal is possible o Operating Procedures Unclear: The full operating procedures for the escrow agents has yet to be issued. Public comment must be sought on the complete procedures, not just the outline presented in the draft FIPS. Even the government-selected algorithm review group has declared that it needs more information on the escrow process. o Identity of Escrow Agents: The identity of one or both of the escrow agents has not been firmly established. o Algorithm Classified: Asking for comments on an algorithm that is classified makes a mockery of citizen participation in government decision-making. NIST will be involved in making many critical decisions regarding the National Information Infrastructure. The next time NIST solicits public comments, it should be ready to accept reply by electronic mail in addition to paper-based media. Sincerely, <<name>> <<title>> ****************************** Sarah L. Simpson Membership Coordinator Electronic Frontier Foundation 1001 G Street, NW Suite 950 East Washington, DC 20001 202/347-5400 tel 202/393-5509 fax

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Re: the public key minefield
by baumbach＠atmel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[my silly public key example deleted] > No, because of the language in the patent which requires that it be > infeasible to find the deciphering key from the enciphering key. Here's > the claim, from patent 4218582, that covers all of public key cryptography: > > 1. In a method of communicating securely over an insecure communication > channel of the type which communicates a message from a transmitter to > a receiver, the improvement characterized by: > providing random numbers at the receiver; > generating from said random numbers a public enciphering key at the > receiver; > generating from said random numbers a secret deciphering key at the > receiver such that the secret deciphering key is directly related to > and computationally infeasible to generate from the public enciphering > key; > communicating the public enciphering key from the receiver to the > transmitter; > processing the message and the public enciphering key at the > transmitter and generating an enciphered message by an enciphering > transformation, such that the enciphering transformation is easy to > effect but computationally infeasible to invert without the secret > deciphering key; > transmitting the enciphered message from the transmitter to the > receiver; and > processing the enciphered message and the secret deciphering key at > the receiver to transform the enciphered message with the secret > deciphering key to generate the message. Doesn't a patent have to have enough information for a person skilled in the art to construct a prototype? I publish for the first time here my invention. I will patent it within a years time. Striped Vegetables ---- This isn't enough for anyone to do anything. If I were more specific, I might have something patentable, but then by claims wouldn't be as broad. If you figured out how to make an anti-gravity device. That device would be patentable. The concept of "anti-gravity" device is not patentable. If I could duplicate the effect of your anti-gravity device without using any of the same novel mechanisms. My device would be separately patentable. Peter Baumbach baumbach(a)atmel.com

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QPK SOURCE ONLINE
by charliemerritt＠BIX.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks: I now have David Colston's [5542837(a)mcimail.com] source code for "CALL SECURITY". I also have the IBM PC executables. CALL SECURITY is an implementation of David's QPK (quick public key) algorithm. If you are on BIX I can E-mail to you with binary attachments, please specify which files. I am not sure how to get this to an FTP, BIX doesn't have FTP posting yet. I know it is done from BIX, help is welcome. So, I will make this software available on my PC this *WEEKEND ONLY* The purpose is to S P R E A D this stuff around. Please upload to an FTP, BBS or what-have-you. SEC_SRC.EXE 64668 bytes self extracting source code SEC_RUN.EXE 278542 bytes self extracting RUN TIME EXECUTABLES (PC) 2400 baud only 8n1 zmodem, ymodem, xmodem You will connect with Telix "qdhost" script. Enter full name (chrs (space) chrs) please be truthful Password is QPK (in caps) Phone (501) 839-8579 Voice (501) 839-3543 I do not run a BBS, forget these numbers after this week end United States calls only, honor system, please. email charliemerritt(a)bix.com

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Phil Zimmermans's statement (reposted)
by bart＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date--Sun, 19 Sep 1993 13:38:44 -0500 From--Philip Zimmermann <prz(a)columbine.cgd.ucar.edu> Subject--Zimmermann statement on PGP investigation Some of you may have received my Internet message of a couple of days ago about the ongoing U.S. Customs investigation of the exportation of PGP, which has now progressed to the level of Federal Grand Jury subpoenas. This earlier message was intended by me for distribution to a very small group of friends who previously communicated their concern about me and the investigation and asked to be kept informed. I did not send the message to anyone outside this group. Unfortunately, I did not adequately assert my desire that the message not be further disseminated. It appears that the message has gone completely public. This was not my intention. My lawyer, Phil Dubois, has been in touch with the Assistant U.S. Attorney (William Keane) assigned to the investigation. We have no reason to believe that Mr. Keane is anything other than a professional and reasonable person. He made it clear that no decision has been made regarding any prosecution of anyone for any offense in this matter. Such decisions will not be made for some time, perhaps several months. Mr. Keane also made clear his willingness to listen to us (me and my lawyer) before making any decision. It appears that both Mr. Keane's mind and the lines of communication are open. My fear is that public dissemination of my message will close the lines of communication and put Mr. Keane into an irretrievably adversarial position. Such a result would not serve any of our interests. My lawyer tells me that nothing irritates a prosecutor more than being the subject of what he perceives to be an orchestrated publicity campaign. He also tells me that his nightmares involve FOAs (Friends Of the Accused), invariably people with good intentions, doing things on their own. I understand that the issues involved in this investigation are of the greatest importance and transcend my personal interests. Even so, I would rather not turn an investigation into a full-scale federal prosecution. I ask that everyone keep in mind that the government's resources are limitless and that mine are not. Speaking of resources, many of you have offered help, and I am grateful. Those wishing to contribute financially or otherwise should contact either me or Philip L. Dubois, Esq., at dubois(a)csn.org or by phone at 303-444-3885 or by mail at 2305 Broadway, Boulder, CO, 80304. Mr. Dubois has just got on the Internet and is still learning how to use it. Donated funds will be kept in a trust account, and all contributions will be accounted for. If this whole thing somehow goes away with money left in the account, the balance will be refunded to contributors in proportion to the amounts of their contributions. This message can be widely circulated on public forums. Philip Zimmermann prz(a)acm.org 303 541-0140 ------------------------------

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a picture of the Clipper?
by nate＠VIS.ColoState.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I seem to remember there being a picture of the clipper chip in Popular Science or something.... does anyone remember where this picture is? -nate -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------- | Nate Sammons email: nate(a)VIS.ColoState.Edu | Colorado State University Computer Visualization Laboratory | Finger nate(a)monet.VIS.ColoState.Edu for my PGP key | #include <std.disclaimer> | Always remember "Brazil" +----------------------+

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