December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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by 71440094＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Scientists in Black
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In "Scientists in Black,"Jeffrey Richelson, noted intel author, surveys use of vast archives of classified intelligence data by select civilian scientists under the Medea program (SciAm, Feburary 1998). http://jya.com/sib.htm (40K with 4 images) Thanks to PJP for pointing.

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Gilbert Vernam
by bill payne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tuesday 2/3/98 7:02 AM John Young J Orlin Grabbe The crypto problem was solved in 1918. Vernam and Maugborne [sp?] did the work. Gilbert Vernam in 1918. Vernam used two tapes of random characters to generate the additional characters. With the same tapes at each end set to the same start position this system was unbreakable. The Germans decided that the distribution of these key tapes presented too great an operational problem and the Lorenz machine uses a complicated mechanical gearing and cam system to generate a pseudo random sequence with very long period and 10^19 complexity. They thought this was good enough to ensure unbreakability, it wasn't! Fushimi's implementation of Lewis and my GFSR algorithm has period of 2^521 - 1. And LOTS of possible starting seeds. John Young kindly posted my article on putting non-singular binary matrices in one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers. Although the period of a shift register can be 2^521 - 1, 521 bits determines THE EXACT SEQUENCE of the remaining 2^521 - 522 bits. Pseudorandom numbers generators have an easier job than bits used for cryptography. Pseudorandom number generators merely have to deceive statistical tests. Orlin Recall the GIANT radio transmitter in the south of Russia, perhaps Baku. I heard on PBS TV that it was transmitting a shift register sequence. The Russians were apparently trying to communicate with underwater submarines. NSA crypto algorithms mostly rely on shift register sequences - both linear and NON-LINEAR. The R register in my SAND report posted at jya.com implements a non-linear SECRET/NSI feedback algorithm. Perhaps someone may have to put NSA's SECRET/NSI R register non-linear feedback function out on the web some time. So that every one can have a good laugh, of course. Like for the SECRET/NSI number 31 algorithm step. John Young Judge Svet made a ruling. I sent a copy to you by snail mail. Later, bill Title: Colossus Rebuild The Colossus Rebuild Project by Anthony E Sale, FBCS A bit of History Colossus was designed and built at the Post Office Research Laboratories at Dollis Hill in North London in 1943 by a team led by Dr Tommy Flowers to help Bletchley Park in decoding the intercepted German telegraphic cipher traffic enciphered using the Lorenz SZ42 cipher machine. Lorenz SZ42 cipher machine at Bletchley Park This cipher machine enciphered electrical teleprinter signals which used the international 5 bit Baudot teleprinter code. It enciphered the input plain text by adding to it successively two characters before transmission. Because this addition was bit by bit modulo 2, at the receiving end with the Lorenz machine set to the same start position, the same two characters were added again to the received characters revealing the original plain text. This scheme had been developed in America by Gilbert Vernam in 1918. Vernam used two tapes of random characters to generate the additional characters. With the same tapes at each end set to the same start position this system was unbreakable. The Germans decided that the distribution of these key tapes presented too great an operational problem and the Lorenz machine uses a complicated mechanical gearing and cam system to generate a pseudo random sequence with very long period and 10^19 complexity. They thought this was good enough to ensure unbreakability, it wasn't! A bibliography of works discussing the Lorenz cipher has been compiled by Frode Weierud is availabe here by permission. As is a book chapter describing the Swedish effort to crack Lorenz. The German high command thought that the Lorenz machine was completely unbreakable and used it for their most secret messages, literally from Hitler to his generals and between generals. The interception and deciphering of these messages gave Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery vital information prior to and after D Day in 1944. Colossus was the world's first large electronic valve programmable logic calculator, not just one but ten of them were built and operational in Bletchley Park the home of Allied WW II codebreaking. The question of what is the worlds first computer is less a question of history than a question of definition. The Mark 1 at Manchester (1948) is a strong contender. A view of Colossus Colossus found the wheel settings used by the German Lorenz machine operator for a particular message. When these had been found, which took about two hours, they were plugged up on the Tunny machine. It was this machine which actually deciphered the message. This is the Tunny room in Bletchley Park in 1945. Colossus, hardware details Input: cipher text punched onto 5 hole paper tape read at 5,000 characters per second by optical reader Output: Buffered onto relays: Typewriter printing onto paper roll Processor: Memory 5 characters of 5 bits held in a shift register. Clock speed 5kc/s derived from input tape sprocket holes. Internally generated bit streams totalling 501 bits in rings of lengths equal to the number of mechanical lugs on each of the 12 Lorenz wheels. A large number of pluggable logic gates. 20 decade counters arranged as 5 by 4 decades. 2,500 valves. Power supplies +200v to -150v at up to 10A. Power consumption 4.5KWatt Size: Two banks of racks 7ft 6inches high by 16ft wide spaced 6 ft apart. Bedstead, 7ft 6inches high 4ft wide by 10ft long Colossus, operating cycles The basic machine cycle: read a character from tape, get bits from bit stream generators, perform up to 100 logic operations, clock result into decade counters. The cycle determined by the input tape: The intercepted enciphered text tape is joined into a continuous loop with about 150 blank characters in the join. Specially punched start and stop holes indicate the beginning and end of the cipher text. On receipt of start hole pulse: Start bit stream generators and send sampling pulses to reader output. Execute basic machine cycle until receipt of stop hole pulse: Staticise counter states onto relays. After a delay, reset counters and reset bit stream generators to a new start position. Colossus programming All programmes hard wired, some permanently, some pluggable. Conditional jumping possible between alternative programmes depending on counter outputs. The Rebuild Work on the rebuild started two years ago with the collection of all available information about Colossus, including a series of official photographs taken in 1945. The first stage was to produce accurate machine drawings of the frames for Colossus (all the original machine drawings had been burnt in 1960). This involved three months of eyestrain pouring over the photographs and using 3D projections to transfer the details to a CAD system, EasyCad running on a 486 PC. Next problem was the optical paper tape reader system. The details of this are not shown in any of the photographs. However I managed to locate Dr Arnold Lynch who designed the reader system in 1942. Although well into his 80's Dr Lynch came to my house and using my CAD system we re-engineered the reader system to his original specifications. Then I built it and here it is. It uses original Colossus hard vacuum photocells, shown here on the left and a mask onto which the image of the tape is projected by a Colossus lense. All the racks are now in place. Here are some of the decade counters. We are also rebuilding the Tunny machine. The current state of Colossus: Jan 96 Examples of most of the circuit panels are now working and the whole machine is working at one bit level. We are now rapidly cloning circuit panels to populate all the racks. I need lots more valves: EF36, 37 or 37A pentodes, 6J5 triodes, 6V6 tetrodes and GT1C gas filled triode thyratrons. The 6J5's and 6V6's should be the large glass versions to look right. Please send any contributions, valves or money, to me (Tony Sale) at "The Colossus Rebuild Project, 15 Northampton Road, Bromham, Beds MK43 8QB" tel: 01234 822788 email: TSale(a)qufaro.demon.co.uk Come and see the Colossus Rebuild, the Lorenz machine and codebreaking exhibitions in Bletchley Park. This page was created by Tony Sale (tsale(a)qufaro.demon.co.uk) of the Bletchley Park Trust, and has been modified by Jeff Goldberg (J.Goldberg(a)Cranfield.ac.uk) of the Cranfield University Computer Centre. Title: Cryptome Cryptome JYA/Urban Deadline OpEd _______________________________________________________________________________________ File Topic Date _______________________________________________________________________________________ sib.htm Scientists in Black February 3, 1998 CAP The Cryptographic Analysis Program (offsite) February 2, 1998 Arne Beurling The Geheimschreiber Secret (offsite) February 2, 1998 Army Stegano US Army Steganography (offsite) February 2, 1998 <A HREF="http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/ccc/bpark/colossus.htm ">Colossus Rebuilding Colossus (offsite) February 2, 1998 Frode Crypto Cryptology Papers (offsite) February 2, 1998 jimbell9.htm Jim Bell Update February 2, 1998 echelon-boost NSA Surveillance System Boosted (offsite) February 2, 1998 cn020298.txt Crypto News February 2, 1998 bxa020298.txt BXA Meet on Export Rules and Procedures February 2, 1998 cs020298.txt Rules to Challenge Customs Seizures (63K) February 2, 1998 usg020298.txt USG Secret Meets February 2, 1998 echelon.htm NSA Global Surveillance System February 2, 1998 cathedral.htm The Cathedral and the Bazaar February 1, 1998 natsec-rule.htm Protection of National Security Information February 1, 1998 47cfr216.txt National Communications Issuance System (106K) February 1, 1998 47cfr213.txt Emergency Telecomms Precedence System (17K) February 1, 1998 47cfr202.txt National Security Emergency Plans & Ops (27K) February 1, 1998 47cfr201.txt Policy for Telecomms During Emergencies (12K) February 1, 1998 44cfr336.txt Facilities for National Security Emergency (14K) February 1, 1998 44cfr334.txt FEMA Graduated Mobilization Response (14K) February 1, 1998 32cfr322.txt Privacy Act Exemption for NSA Records (40K) February 1, 1998 32cfr299.txt National Security Agency FOIA Program (8K) February 1, 1998 32cfr2101.txt National Security Council FOIA Requests (24K) February 1, 1998 32cfr185.txt Military Support to Civil Authorities (52K) February 1, 1998 31cfr9.txt Effects of Imported Articles on National Security February 1, 1998 22cfr124.txt Contracts, Off-Shore Buys, Defense Services (42K) February 1, 1998 22cfr123.txt Licenses for the Export of Defense Articles (51K) February 1, 1998 22cfr121.txt United States Munitions List (92K) February 1, 1998 _______________________________________________________________________________________ ntia-dnsdrft.htm Draft Proposal for New Domain Name System January 30, 1998 korczak.txt Boris Korczak: CIA Agent Seeks Payment January 30, 1998 pm87.txt Prez on Terrorist Threat to Middle East Peace January 30, 1998 leahy-wipo.txt Senator Leahy on Ratifying WIPO Treaties January 30, 1998 32cfr147.txt DoD: Policies for Access to Classified Info January 30, 1998 32cfr148.txt DoD: Facilities for Storing Classified Info January 30, 1998 32cfr149.txt DoD: National Policy on Technical Surveillance January 30, 1998 ntia012798.htm RFC: Self-Regulation for Privacy Protection January 30, 1998 cylinked.htm Latest: Cylinked to Organized Crime? January 29, 1998 websoft-warn.htm Web Software Warning January 29, 1998 scant-peril.htm U.S. Spy Agencies Pauline Peril January 29, 1998 mossburg.htm E-Comm Forum on E-Authentication and DigSig January 29, 1998 pollard.htm Bankers O Table on E-Authentication and DigSig January 29, 1998 brown.htm Secret Service on Financial Instruments Fraud Janaury 29, 1998 rpk-hack.htm Invite to Hack RPK InvisiMail January 29, 1998 nrc012998.txt Generic Letter on Y2K Readiness for Nuke Plants January 29, 1998 fc012998.txt FinCEN RFC on Information Collection January 29, 1998 dtc012998.txt Arms Export to Saudi Arabia January 29, 1998 nsa-etc-nf.htm NSA, Echelon, Trade & Crypto/Netscape & Fortify January 28, 1998 dod012898.txt DoD Blacklist of Higher Education January 28, 1998 47usc1002.txt Interception of Digital and Other Communications January 28, 1998 cn012898.txt Crypto News January 28, 1998 cn012798.txt Crypto News January 27, 1998 bxa-fy98.txt BXA Funding FY 1998 January 27, 1998 cia-tsang.htm CIA Concedes Spying on Americans January 26, 1998 atpc.htm EU-Parliament: Technologies of Political Control January 26, 1998 us-crypto.htm US Crypto Policy January 25, 1998 pg-nzcrypto.htm New Zealand Crypto Policy January 24, 1998 ra-ukcrypto.htm UK Crypto Policy January 24, 1998 whp012398.htm Payne/Morales vs. NSA: Reply to Defendant January 23, 1998 kellner.htm Intellectuals and New Technologies (66K) January 23, 1998 bxa012398.txt BXA Penalizes Export Violator January 23, 1998 osd012398.txt Compensation of North Viet-Imprisoned Operatives January 23, 1998 dod012398.txt Defense Dept Secret Meets January 23, 1998 walton-pk.htm GCHQ: The Pre-History of Public Key Cryptography January 22, 1998 primer The Proliferation Primer (offsite) January 22, 1998 sh105-238.txt Proliferation and US Export Controls (196K) January 22, 1998 sh105-267.txt Safety and Reliability of US Nukes (347K) January 22, 1998 acda012298.txt Arms Control Secret Meet January 22, 1998 pd012298.txt Prez Notice on Mideast Terrorism Emergency January 22, 1998 bia012298.txt Rule on Indian Casinos January 22, 1998 cn012198.txt Crypto News January 21, 1998 fc98.htm Financial Cryptography '98 January 20, 1998 doj-ssgsup.htm Supplement to Fed Guide for Seizing Computers January 20, 1998 cn-netreg.htm New Chinese Internet Regulations January 20, 1998 pg-get-MSkey.htm How to Recover Private Keys for Microsoft Wares January 20, 1998 ietf-dea-97.htm IETF Draft Encryption Algorithms 1997 January 20, 1998 radio-rec.htm Update: Locating Radio Receivers; Encoder Stolen January 20, 1998 pipenet.htm PipeNet Description January 20, 1998 dod012098.txt Defense Dept Secret Meets January 20, 1998 bernstein12.htm Transcript of Bernstein Hearing January 19, 1998 fbi-umbc.htm Barry Smith (FBI) to Speak on Encryption Policy January 18, 1998 de-snoop.htm Update: German Surveillance State January 17, 1998 bxa-wa-rule.htm Update 2: BXA Rule on the Wassenaar Arrangement January 16, 1998 pd98-10.htm Prez OKs China's Nuclear Controls January 16, 1998 tcryptol Theory of Cryptography Library (offsite) January 16, 1998 cn011698.htm Crypto News January 16, 1998 nsasuit8.htm USA/NSA Responds to Payne/Morales Motion Janaury 16, 1998 dod011698.txt Defense Dept Secret Meets January 16, 1998 bxa011398.txt Materials Advisory Meet January 15, 1998 crypto-kong.htm Announcing Crypto Kong January 15, 1998 occ-dstc.htm OCC OKs CA as Authorized Banking Activity January 14, 1998 aes-980820 Advanced Encryption Standard Conference (offsite) January 14, 1998 ustr010898.txt Update: Telecommunications Trade Agreements January 14, 1998 rc2.htm Rivest Describes RC2 Encryption Algorithm January 13, 1998 fc011398.txt FinCEN Regulates Card Clubs January 13, 1998 ta011298.txt Key Management Infrastructure Meet January 12, 1998 nist011298.txt Transmission-Electron Microscopy Meet January 12, 1998 doa011298.txt Army Hazard Containment Invention January 12, 1998 gps-jam.htm GPS Jamming January 11, 1998 arthur.htm The Force of An Idea: Theory of USA v. Microsoft January 10, 1998 RSA-stego.htm Batch RSA for Stego Data January 9, 1998 batch-DSA.htm Batch DSA January 9, 1998 cell-track.htm Update 2: Mobile Cell Phone Surveillance January 9, 1998 fiat-rsa.htm Fiat's Batch RSA January 9, 1998 aes010798.htm Update: Advanced Encryption Standard January 9, 1998 doj010998.txt RFC: USA v. IBM/STK Antitrust Suit January 9, 1998 bmd010898.txt Ballistic Missile Defense Secret Meet January 9, 1998 nih010898.txt Commercialization of Medical Data January 9, 1998 fas-pde Prez Directives/Executive Orders (offsite) January 7, 1998 ussc-ecopy.htm Sentencing for Electronic Copyright Violations January 6, 1998 ussc010698.txt RFC: US Sentencing Guidelines (254K) January 6, 1997 mercier.htm Terrorists, WMD, and the US Army Reserve January 6, 1998 terror-rnd.htm US Counterterrorism R&D Program January 6, 1998 belet Bob East Letter on AP/Jim Bell/IRS (offsite) January 6, 1998 pitfalls Schneier: Security Pitfalls in Crypto (offsite) January 5, 1998 dsb010598.txt Defense Science Board Secret Meets January 5, 1998 ntia010598.txt Funds for Public Telecommunications January 5, 1998 cn010598.txt Electronic Surveillance News January 5, 1998 csda.htm Cypherpunks Smartcard Developer Association January 4, 1998 aimd-98-21.htm Executive Guide: Info Security Management (139K) January 3, 1998 blast-mono.htm Blast Resistant Doors Monograph January 3, 1998 tempest-door.htm Electromagnetic Shielding/TEMPEST Door January 3, 1998 ehj.htm Banned Basque Video: Democratic Alternative January 3, 1998 fda010298.htm Policy for External Penile Rigidity Devices January 2, 1998 doe010298.htm Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Plan January 2, 1998 dos010298.txt Meet on Global Communications and Info Policy January 2, 1998 doa010298.txt Army Science Board Meet January 2, 1998 _______________________________________________________________________________________ Cryptomb 2 June-December 1997 Cryptomb 1 To May 31 1997 (site stats) DoE: Pay Bill Payne DoJ: Free Jim Bell

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RE: The Continued Attack on Cash (Was: "The Right of Anonymity"...)
by James O'Toole 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim, the "social pressure" I was referring to is the process through which the obstacles to privacy-protecting measures are created and enforced. Examples include both government regulation, which derives part of its support from publicity connecting cash with money laundering with drugs and/or crime, as well as finality/liability rules within non-government financial consortiums, which may strongly encourage proof-of-identity. Let's take your example of the Institute of Applied Ontology (IAO) corporate Amex card (Ax)... Even with no relevant government regulations, we may find that Ax's agreement with merchants requires Ax to at least either pay the merchant or reveal to the merchant all relevant information known to Ax about the cardholder. The right contract terms between the merchant and Amex will be good for them, and may be good for most consumers, and could easily be sub-optimal for the subset of consumers who highly value privacy. The impracticality of negotiating special terms with each merchant means that the best plan to get the privacy/anonymity you want may be to set up a card such that Amex will be willing to operate without knowing much about the cardholder. I assume that's the intent of your IAO corporate Ax card. What allocation of the liability for card usage do you expect among Amex, IAO, and the cardholder? Amex will want the liability allocated to IAO and the cardholder, and if Amex does not possess traceable identity information on the cardholder, then Amex will want an enforceable promise to pay from IAO. To get this, or even to get funds in advance from IAO, we will find that Amex ends up knowing a lot about the identity of IAO or one of its officers. Pretty soon we'll run up against the problem of whether Tim May can configure a corporate in the U.S. to be operated by people who don't know who he is, and who can't find out who he is (when properly encouraged to cooperate by Ken Starr...). With or without government regulation, the most reliable people you can hire to operate that corporation for you may only want to do so if they are given the opportunity to somehow "know" you. I think you can probably use a bank in a privacy-enhancing-locale such as Switzerland as an effective intermediary in Amex card issuance, but if you really don't want the bank to know who you are, you'll probably need a corporate intermediary between you and the bank, with nominee officers. The real trick is probably to structure the whole thing so that neither the bank nor the nominee officers have anything to lose, including their reputations. As long as part of their reputation is that they don't act as front men for drug dealers and criminals, we may find that they keep trying to find out enough about who you are to satisfy themselves that you are a good guy. That's the social pressure flexing its muscles. >An interesting question about the Privacy Card product is whether the >social pressure against it is strong enough to defeat its privacy whenever >the product is well advertised. In other words, will a privacy product >survive in spite of its own publicity in our current environment, or can Corporate cards are already widely accepted...most of you probably have a card issued to you through your employing institution. I see no "social pressure" to block usage of my Institute of Applied Ontology corporate AmEx card. The real roadblock is that government makes such privacy-protecting measures either difficult or illegal. --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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The War on Some Debts
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a further blatant erosion of Constitutional rights, the California Supreme Court has ruled that a person owing child support who fails to seek or accept work may be jailed and fined for contempt of court, and that this does not violate any Constitutional bans on involuntary servitude or imprisonment for debt. This reverses nearly a century of contrary rulings. Look for this "improved" interpretation to be expanded to other kinds of debts and judgments as well, as soon as massive public acceptance of it for the carefully picked child support issue is engineered. The credit card companies are no doubt carefully analyzing this decision as we speak. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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the best justice money can buy --Lessig suspended
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >>> the best justice money (and politics) can buy I really do not believe this --this is bought justice as appeals courts never, or at least rarely such as a blatant in the case of a blatant error in a capital murder criminal trial, interfere with a sitting federal judge. the damage is immense; it delays the first round of adjudication by at least 5 months. if I were Joel Klein I would go for the jugular and file action for an immediate divestiture of M$ including injunctions against operations and management by Bill Gate$ and Steve Ballmer. the appeals court would probably suspend the actions, but they would still be there and on the table. Jackson at this point will be furious --hopefully he keeps total cool. the obvious next move on the part of M$ will be to have Jackson disqualified for bias. that will make 2 judges in the DC circuit who M$ has wasted. Royce Lambert refused to accept the 1994 plea bargain --obviously M$ would ask him to recuse if his name came out of the barrel; theoretically, cases are assigned by lottery --in reality, you can influence the choice of a judge as the cases are assigned at the time of filing by rotation. --M$ obviously is capable of shopping for a judge. at this point, I would say M$ has won the game. W98 will be released with IE4 as the desktop, complete with push channels and www.msn.com --at that point, Jackson --if he is still the sitting judge-- will be forced to make a bad law decision if he tries to block it on the 1994 agreement: the product is 'integrated' --M$ had the foresight to hoodwink the DOJ --Royce Lambert saw through the smoke screen but the appeals court removed him from the case. so... we will have multiple choice of OS: M$ on Intel, M$ on SGI, M$ on Alpha --and SUN goes down the tubes as they will never capitulate. M$ will bury IBM with their NT alliance with Ahmdal who clones all the IBM iron --which is fading against the clustered servers. IBM long since gave in on OS/2 versus M$ --it may figure in their corporate strategy, but unless they are willing to update past Netscape 2.02 they will lose that as well --in fact you can no longer any of the IBM PCs with OS/2 preloaded --except by special order: in quantity. Bill Gate$ for President? might as well... maybe Lee Harvey Oswald will come to the rescue. Lessig appointment suspended By Dan Goodin, C|Net February 2, 1998, 6:40 p.m. PT A federal appeals court has immediately suspended the appointment of a contested computer expert charged with collecting and weighing evidence in the antitrust case the Justice Department has brought against Microsoft. In a ruling handed down late Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted Microsoft's request to halt, pending further review, the proceedings before visiting Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson appointed Lessig a "special master" in mid December, giving the computer and Internet law expert until May 31 to recommend factual and legal findings in the high-profile case. The one-page ruling is a significant--but by no means final--win for Microsoft, which repeatedly has objected to Lessig's appointment. In briefs filed first in district court and then with the court of appeals, Microsoft strenuously has opposed the designation of any special master in the case, but has argued further that Lessig is an inappropriate choice because he appears to be biased against the software giant. In a sternly worded order issued two weeks ago, Jackson denied Microsoft's request, calling the allegations of bias "trivial" and "defamatory." Today's ruling by the court of appeals is in stark contrast to Jackson's order, and may indicate that the three-judge panel assigned to hear matters in the case sees things in a different light. Rather than permanently halting the proceedings, today's ruling is an agreement only to consider Microsoft's challenge to the special master--known in legal parlance as a writ of mandamus. In a sign that the judges may be inclined to agree with Microsoft's arguments on the issue, however, they handed Redmond an additional win by immediately halting the proceedings scheduled to take place before Lessig while the challenge is being heard. "It is extremely unusual for a court of appeals to reach down and stop what a district court has ordered," said Rich Gray, an antitrust attorney at Bergeson, Eliopoulos, Grady & Gray. "The court of appeals is saying, 'We're interested in hearing more about this, and in the meantime, we're going to put the special master on hold.'" A Microsoft spokesman agreed. "This is a very positive step, but it's only one small step in a long process," said Jim Cullinan. "We look forward to presenting our evidence to the appeals court as well as the trial court." The court of appeals already had agreed to hear a separate appeal, in which Microsoft is fighting a preliminary injunction Jackson issued in December that requires Microsoft to separate browser software from its Windows products. Today's ruling consolidates both motions into the same April 21 hearing. It also requires both sides to file additional briefs concerning the special master challenge by April 7. Moreover, the government must file its opposition to Microsoft's appeal of the preliminary injunction by March 2, and Microsoft must respond to that brief by March 9. Justice Department representatives were not immediately available for comment. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQBVAwUBNNc8R7R8UA6T6u61AQH3swIAtVNkbSk80Crg/dseQOP4pPpIbEDGchsl rWj/sEmXn/2EnWxXBTp4OnkRpJlFbobhbkT3lJqE4Jj2V+MnEGUFzw== =9S7I -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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too little too late: SPA takes on M$
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >>> too little and too late, SPA takes on Microsoft this might have been a good action in so much as they are well entrenched, in part on M$' money, as Washington lobbiests. now, with Lessig's role as the court appointed expert suspended by the appeals court until a 21 Apr hearing (submissions due in early April), their voice will be lost in the court action. any action they stimulate with Orrin Hatch's judiciary is a) too late; too slow --at least two years; 3) of little consequence as Congress can not legislate against a specific company --they can legislate by regulation against an industry; and, 4) more importanty, the Appeals Court castrated Johnson's order for the special administrator. still, it is another voice; even though the guidelines are bland, there is no mistalking who the target is; and, in typical M$' fashion they are threatening to drop their membership instead of renewing in August. there are three areas where M$ is exercising monetary influence, even control of the agenda, in legislation or justice: the DOJ action with their crying to Daddy (the appeals court), the SPA guidelines which they intend to force SPA to withdraw, and as part of the closed circle negotiating the rules on intellectual property and trade for the Western Hemisphere free trade zone --closed meetings. as I said: Gate$ makes Cornelius Vanderbilt look like a choir boy. Software group takes on Microsoft By Courtney Macavinta February 2, 1998, 5:05 p.m. PT As the federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft barrels forward, a prominent high-tech trade association tomorrow will release a list of competition principles that strike at the heart of the case and angered the software giant. The Software Publishers Association (SPA) hasn't officially responded to the Justice Department's accusations that Microsoft violated a 1995 consent decree by requiring computer makers to bundle its Internet Explorer browser as a condition of licensing its Windows 95 operating system. But the new guidelines echo some of its smaller members' and the government's complaints regarding Microsoft. The SPA's guidelines come one day after New York State's attorney general said he and ten other state prosecutors subpoenaed Microsoft for evidence of potentially illegal bundling of Windows and Internet software. In addition, the Senate Judiciary Committee and regulatory agencies from Japan and the European Union also are looking into Microsoft's business practices. (See related story) The SPA says it set out to develop the principles to define its role in the fair competition debate, which focuses on its largest member. The SPA has been sought for advice by lawmakers in the past, and it states that the new principles are intended to "guide government officials" in antitrust enforcement. Hitting home with Microsoft foes, the SPA principles state: "Operating systems should not be used to unfairly favor its own products and services, or its favored partners, over those competing vendors. The operating system vendor should not include its own services or products as part of the operating system or user interface unless it gives the same ability to integrate products and services into the operating system to competing vendors." The SPA went on to state that "the tying of certain applications to the sale of other applications has the effect of restraining competition among independent software vendors for the 'virtual shelf space' of [PC makers]." Dominant operating systems also should not "favor Internet content" that it owns or licenses, according to the guidelines. The principles say that healthy competition is reliant on equal access to retail customers. On the other hand, pre-announcing products that do not exist yet, so-called vaporware, stifles competition. Prior to developing the principles, the 1,200-member group surveyed its domestic members. Of the 164 that responded, anticompetitive activity was a top concern. As reported in January, the issue also took the spotlight at two scheduled meetings in Santa Clara, California. The SPA's Government Affairs Committee even met with Joel Klein, the Justice Department's lead attorney in the lawsuit against Microsoft. Microsoft fired back today, calling the SPA's process "short-sighted" and the publication of the principles "self-destructive." The company also quipped that it is undecided on whether it will renew its SPA membership, which expires in August. Although Microsoft was present at the SPA's California meetings last month, so were some of its main competitors, such as Novell, Netscape Communications, Apple Computer, and Oracle Corporation. "It's unfortunate that a handful of Microsoft's competitors are trying to use the SPA to drive a wedge into the software industry. This whole process has been such an obvious attack on Microsoft," Mark Murray, a spokesman for the company, said today. "I think the primary impact of this is that the SPA will be discredited, and that it will weaken their ability to serve as a legitimate voice," he added. The SPA knew its principles would be searched for hidden meaning regarding the Microsoft case, but the group contends it wasn't targeting the company. "The principles are not intended to prescribe remedies that might be applied by federal and state antitrust enforcers to any particular company or set of circumstances," SPA president Ken Wasch said in a statement. "Nor are these principles a call for general regulation of our industry. Rather, the principles reflect an industry consensus of how some business practices promote or impair strong competition." Still, for a group with no regulatory power, the SPA's opinion will hold some weight. The group is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee when it holds hearings on issues of competition in the high-tech industry this year. Moreover, the new principles amend the organization's existing guidelines, which were presented to the Federal Trade Commission during a hearing two years ago. During the hearing, the SPA advised the government to carefully scrutinize companies that allegedly impede others from getting space on retail store shelves. The SPA also took the position that owners of dominant operating systems should release essential technical information to other developers. Both points remain in the new eight-point plan. The remaining SPA competition principles include: Maximize innovation to benefit consumers. The owners of dominant operating systems should license their "interface specifications to any third party for the purposes of developing application software." "Barriers" should not be put up by dominant operating systems that limit consumers' or hardware makers' ability to reconfigure their desktops or utilize any software or online content services. Software vendors "should not intentionally disable, cripple, or otherwise interfere with the intended functionality and execution of other products." Operating systems should not prohibit Web sites from "exploiting the access capabilities of competing products" or force sites to display and promote their products. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQBVAwUBNNc1UbR8UA6T6u61AQHEQwH/cpSHIdQwCR0XVoxqEVya3E15ZBrmI5M8 hln8Dm2qFF39UjsNVLJhp4J4xDnyTdeRCDkGDixzI5qJqDwChz5prw== =sN0q -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Data Fellows wins another acclaimed award
by Mia Westerholm 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Data Fellows Ltd. Media Release For immediate release 4 February 1998 DATA FELLOWS WINS ANOTHER ACCLAIMED AWARD International Success Recognized by Head of State The developer of F-Secure data security products, Data Fellows Ltd., has received the President of Finlands Export Award. This award is granted annually to the most outstanding export companies in the country. This is the first time a developer of commercial software packages has been granted the award. Data Fellows is one of the worlds leading developers of data security products. It has offices in San Jose, California, and Espoo, Finland, as well as distributors in over 50 countries all around the world. Its products have been translated to over 30 languages. The companys annual growth in net sales has been over 100% since it was founded in 1988. "The award is a recognition of our status as a leading international data security development company," says the Chief Executive Officer of Data Fellows Ltd., Mr. Risto Siilasmaa. "I believe our success is based on two things: excellent products and high quality services." The most successful product group of the company is its F-Secure Anti-Virus products. Data Fellows is the developer of the revolutionary CounterSign Technology, which enables the use of several scanning engines simultaneously. Due to this groundbreaking technology, the theoretical chances of a virus slipping through to a computer or a network are smaller than ever. F-Secure Anti-Virus offers unrivalled protection by combining the best available single scanning engine F-PROT with the AVP anti-virus engine, which also ranks among the best in the world. Another fast growing business area for Data Fellows is its F-Secure cryptography software products. The F-Secure product family uses the best available military strength encryption and authentification algorithms to protect confidential data. F-Secure products are based on the SSH protocol, which provides a generic transport-layer encryption mechanism for network connections. The SSH protocol provides both host authentication and user authentication, together with privacy and integrity protection. The products of Data Fellows have already won numerous international tests and competitions, including the 1996 European Information Technology Prize; Data Communications Magazines Hot Product of the Year 1997; SVM Magazine, May 1997, Best Anti-Virus; and SECURE Computings Editors Choice. Data Fellows belongs to an elite group of companies that have a triple-A rating from Dun&Bradstreet. Triple-A is the highest possible credit rating. For further information, please contact: Data Fellows Ltd. Mr. Risto Siilasmaa, Chief Executive Officer Tel. +358-9-859 900 e-mail: Risto.Siilasmaa(a)DataFellows.com or visit the Data Fellows web site at http://www.DataFellows.com €€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€ Mia.Westerholm(a)DataFellows.com http://www.DataFellows.com Data Fellows Ltd. PL 24 FIN-02231 ESPOO, FINLAND Tel. +358 9 859 900 Fax. +358 9 8599 0599

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BSAFE 4.0 to force GAK?!
by steve 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FYI Jan. 26's Network World has an article on page 33 titled "RSA blasts (but also supports) Government encryption policy". The paragraph of note is the fourth paragraph which reads:"The next version of the RSA encryption toolkit, BSAFE 4.0, will force those building products with anthing over 56 bit strength encryption to use a key-recovery center for exportable products...." I haven't been able to confirm this with other sources yet but the glaring question is how will this be enforced and how will it affect domestic products that wish to use BSAFE 4.0 for their crypto. Further what ramifications does this hold for their S/Mail toolkit for S/MIME? and I haven't seen this discussed on the list yet. Steve O -- A picture tells a thousand words. Stego -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS/IT/S d--() s+: a-- C++++(++)$ ULS+++@ P++@ L+(++)$ E- W+(+++)$ N++$ !o K-? w++(+++)$ !O+>++ !M !V PS+(+++)@ PE(++)@ Y++$ PGP@ t+@ 5++@ X++>$ R+++>$ tv+@ b+@ DI+++>$ D+++@>$ G@ e++@>++++ h r* y+ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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A fatal flaw in PGP 6.0
by Bill＠rumplestiltskin.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This was posted anonymously to alt.security.pgp last night >Subject: PGP 6.0 alpha3 >Date: 3 Feb 1998 00:15:56 +0100 > >Anyone else having problems with the alpha of PGP 6.0? When I try to encrypt e-mail I get an error: > >FATAL ERROR > >Unable to find key "ghost(a)nsa.gov" >Please obtain a new key from Network associates. > > >Other than that it's pretty slick! I'm not sure I'd have the default cypher as ROT-13 though! I changed mine to RC-2 255-bit. > >Anyone else? Anyone like to confirm this?

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