December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

CLIPPER CHIP /NO!
by charliemerritt＠BIX.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Mr. Prisident: I do not like the "Big Brother Inside" Clipper chip. Wire Taps need to be hard to do. I know you and Al are nice guys, but Richard Nixon and his plumbers could come back! A crypto chip with a government trapdoor (key escrow) is an idea fit for a J. Edgar Hoover, not nice people. Please dont make a techno-fool of your administration. A Razorback Fan from Arkansas...Charlie Merritt [charliemerritt(a)bix.com]

1 0

Re: Disturbing statistics on wiretaps
by Mike Godwin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

smb(a)research.att.com writes > The same is true of e-mail over the Internet--there is no > statutory exclusionary rule that would prvent its > admissibility in court. It is at least theoretically possible, > however, to exclude illegally seized communications of these > sorts using a "pure 4th Amendment" (nonstatutory) exclusionary > rule. > > Don't hold your breath, though. > > Do you really think that? One could argue, fairly strongly, that the > rules set forth in the ECPA have created an expectation of privacy, > and that a violation of that expectation would be exactly the violation > of the 4th Amendment that the Supreme Court addressed in the 1967 > decision that led to the original wiretap provisions in the Omnibus > Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. What's your point? One can argue all sorts of things. Are you saying you have reason to believe an argument of this sort is likely to be a winner? Me, I just work from what I know about 4th Amendment caselaw. --Mike

1 0

Re: the public key minefield (fwd)
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[ In the following 100 line post about the origin and philosophy of relevent law, I gradually lead in to privacy issues; I discuss U.S. laws regarding patents and privacy and such because I am largely unfamiliar with such laws in other countries; mea culpa. If you don't really care about legal issues, skip this. ] Svetlana Borisova <svet(a)nrcbsa.bio.nrc.ca> said: >smb(a)research.att.com wrote: > And if you do -- well, then, the patent system has succeeded in its goals, > in that the monopoly assigned to someone else has stimulated you to find > another way to do things, and thus furthered the useful arts and > sciences. > Of course, wonderful idea! Hey, let's patent all irrigating systems >so that people have to think of other ways to make plants grow. I agree that the patent system in the U.S. (and elsewhere, 'though I know much less about that) has severe faults in implementation. The entire area of software patents is being grossly mishandled, for instance. On the other hand, you seem to have a distaste for the entire *theory* behind it, and I must differ on that point. The legal philosophy of patents is to encourage invention that will be of value to society in general. It is *not* directly intended for the benefit of the person holding the patent, although it often seems to work out that way. "smb" is referring to that philosophy. The alternative to the general philosophy is to refuse to grant legal protection to invention. >The goal of patents is to give a researcher a reward for his invention; to >give him the opportunity to make money off it. This is incorrect; ask any patent attorney. In the U.S., anyway. Ask a Canadian patent attorney...but I'm 99.9% sure that Canada follows precisely the same legal philosophy. In the U.S., the legal philosophy is derived from the fundamental meta- philosophy of its law which evolved out of British common law dating back to at least the Magna Carta, which is that (loosely) the purpose of law is for the common good. Every year there are cases in the U.S. where judges make a "surprising" decision that overturns the apparent letter of the law in favor of an appeal to the common good of society. Case law is filled with such things. There is always a tradeoff against rights of the individual. But the Magna Carta itself was necessary in order to begin to establish some rights for individuals against that of society (as represented in that time by the sovereign). Similarly in the U.S., the Bill of Rights acts to establish those minimal rights. But whereever the Bill of Rights is not explicit, on average you can expect courts to rule in favor of the rights of society. (And sometimes even then...) There are some cases where this is easy to view as a bad thing, others where it seems clearly a bad thing. But there is nonetheless many centuries of tradition behind this approach. Patent law is merely one more example. As smb said, it offers a monopoly for an individual, which would usually be considered to be contrary to the good of society. But it does so in order to foster more invention, which is considered to be a good for society. It simply appeals to individual avarice for the sake of the common good, trading off the global long term good against the short term loss. In short, it has an unusual lack of short-sightedness to it...in *theory*. Patent law most certainly and unquestionably is *not* in existence for the benefit of the inventor, like it or not. If you are implying that you think that there should never be legal protection for intellectual property of any sort, as e.g. Stallman has told me he believes, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. Stallman believes that such a philosophy is in favor of individual rights, but historically that philosophy has resulted in a *loss* of individual rights. But then, Stallman isn't too hot on history of law... If on the other hand you merely mean that you disagree with the way that the patent system is working out in a lot of cases currently in the U.S., then you should be more careful to distinguish the legal theory from the legal implementation of the theory. It's very much like the U.S. Bill of Rights in theory versus practice; the two can be quite different. Cypherpunks is in large part about privacy. In Roe versus Wade, privacy was (rather amazingly) held to be an implication of the U.S. Constitution, and as a side effect abortion was judicially held to be legal. The right to privacy is not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution nor Bill of Rights, though, and so most courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have far more often held that there is no automatic right to privacy. That's why Roe vs. Wade was both amazing at the time, and has been in such jeopardy since. California is an interesting case, because its state constitution *does* guarantee a right to privacy, but that doesn't slow down the right to life protests, naturally, just as an aside. :-) Public key cryptography is a mechanism for privacy. There are vast complications because: 1) Privacy is not explicitly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. 2) Privacy is not generally guaranteed by case law, Roe vs. Wade aside. 3) The patent claims for public key cryptography are overly broad, demonstrating obvious incompetence on the part of the patent examiners involved, yet to correct this injustice would require a test case in which the plaintiff willingly exposed himself to the potential of large damages. 4) This effectively makes the only known methods for *technically* private long distance communication via any media impractical for *legal* reasons. 5) Even in California, the state constitution is of no help, because the applicable patent law and privacy case law are in the federal domain, not the state's -- at least by default. Again it would take an actual court decision to decide otherwise, which doesn't appear likely. The question is what to do given all of this. If one works within the system, the answer is to find someone with bucks for a defense and devise a test case...one intended to lose at every level until it reaches the Supreme Court, where it is then intended to win and thus establish ultimate precedent. Chancy proposition. The other in-system approach is to lobby and to educate. Also chancy. But worth doing. Doug P.S. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on t.v.

2 1

CONFERENCE: European Computers, Freedom & Privacy
by russell＠eternity.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ECFP '93: The First European Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy The New Cavendish Club London, England 20th November 1993 Organised by ECFP Ventures Limited Co-operating organisations : The Libertarian Alliance Privacy International, UK UK Cryptoprivacy Association SCOPE - ---------------------------------- The widespread use of computers and communication systems has brought considerable benefits to our business and personal lives and will continue to change and shape the way in which we live. However, with those benefits come unprecedented threats to our personal privacy and potential for abuse. A variety of different models for protection of individual privacy in the electronic age have been suggested, ranging from state regulation to individual action through the use of strong cryptography. However, these solutions bring with them their own class of problems, including excessive state involvement in private matters and the frustration of law enforcement and national security objectives. The First European Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy will both provide an introduction to these issues and the technological developments that drive them, and examine different ways in which individual rights can be guaranteed. These questions are central to the preservation of a free society in the Information Age. John M. Brimacombe Conference Chair KEYNOTE SPEAKER - ---------------------------------- John Gilmore Email: gnu(a)cygnus.com JOHN GILMORE is Chairman of the Board of Cygnus Support, who provide commercial support for free software. As founder and board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Cypherpunks, he has campaigned extensively for electronic privacy. John will speak on building a society in which personal privacy is guaranteed through the use of strong cryptography. OTHER SPEAKERS - ---------------------------------- John Brimacombe (Chairman) Email: john(a)mantis.co.uk JOHN BRIMACOMBE is the Managing Director of Jobstream Group plc, developers of business software. A graduate in both law and computer science, he was an advisor to CFP '93 in San Francisco. John will serve as conference moderator. Simon Davies Email: davies(a)privint.demon.co.uk SIMON DAVIES is Director General of Privacy International and a member of the School of Law at the University of New South Wales. He will be looking at new developments in surveillance and ways of combating them. Tom Burroughes Email: tom(a)reptile.demon.co.uk (after 10 October 1993) TOM BURROUGHES is Deputy Chief Reporter with the East Anglian Daily Times in Ipswich, England. He will be giving a journalist's point of view on privacy issues, including recent incidents involving eavesdropping on cellular telephones, and the roles of various corporate and government bodies in the recent adoption of cellphone signal encryption standards in the UK. David Chaum Email: chaum(a)digicash.nl DAVID CHAUM is head of the Cryptography Group at the Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) in Amsterdam, and founder of DigiCash, which develops electronic payments systems. Dr. Chaum received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1982, and joined CWI in 1984. He helped to found the International Association for Cryptologic Research and remains active on its board. David also consults internationally on cryptology. Duncan Frissell Email: frissell(a)panix.com DUNCAN FRISSELL is an attorney, technical author and consultant on matters of personal and financial privacy. Duncan will speak on "Traditional Privacy in the Electronic Age". Elaine Fletcher ELAINE FLETCHER is Assistant Solicitor for Eric James Howe, Data Protection Registrar (UK). Elaine will speak on issues arising from the Data Protection regime established under the 1984 Data Protection Act. Chris Tame CHRIS TAME is the Director of the Libertarian Alliance and Director of the smokers rights group FOREST, as well as UK representative of the Libertarian International. He has written extensively for such academic journals as /Science and Public Policy/, /Economic Affairs/, and /The Jewish Journal of Sociology/, and such books as *The Case For Private Enterprise* and *The Politics of Crime Control*. He appears regularly on radio and television in the UK. Chris will speak on the libertarian views of data protection and privacy. Russell Whitaker Email: whitaker(a)eternity.demon.co.uk RUSSELL WHITAKER, conference co-organiser, is a consultant on electronic communications, a director of ECFP Ventures Ltd and communications editor of Extropy magazine. Russell will speak on the composition of, and influences upon, the electronic community in Britain today, and how public policy affects those on computer bulletin boards and online services. PROGRAMME - --------------------------------- Registration 9.30 - 10.00 am First session 10.00 - 11.30 am BREAK 11.30 - 11.50 am Second session 11.50 am - 1.20 pm BREAK 1.20 - 2.20 pm Third session 2.20 - 3.50 pm BREAK 3.50 - 4.10 pm Fourth session 4.10 - 5.40 pm PANEL SESSION 5.40 - 6.20 pm Closing remarks 6.20 - 6.30 pm Lunchtime is the break after the second session, and lunch itself is not included in the price of the conference. There are pubs and restaurants in the immediate vicinity. Coffee, tea and biscuits will be on sale through the day, however. Registration form: - --------------------------------- NAME _____________________________________ JOB TITLE _____________________________________ ORGANISATION/AFFILIATION _________________________ ___________________________________________ MAILING ADDRESS _____________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ TELEPHONE ___________________________________________ FAX ___________________________________________ E-MAIL ___________________________________________ IMPORTANT NOTE: only *fully* completed forms with full telephonic details will be accepted, to be used in the event of any emergency changes, such as change of venue. This is not optional. CLASS OF REGISTRATION : [Prices are Pounds Sterling] Student 10.00 ($16.00 U.S.) Normal 17.50 ($28.00 U.S.) Normal before 1 Nov 93: 15.00 ($24.00 U.S.) Press (Contact for arrangements) MEANS OF PAYMENT: - U.S. cheques/cash - U.K. cheques/cash - EuroCheques (tm) Unfortunately, due to bank conversion charges, we are unable to accept cheques drawn on other overseas accounts, for payment of this year's attendance fees. PROCEEDINGS AND AUDIO/VIDEOGRAPHY - ------------------------------------------- You may pre-order copies of transcripts of the proceedings, which will be shipped within 90 days after the conference: "Please send me ____ copies of the conference proceedings at 20 pounds each." Video and audio recordings will be made of the conference, in its entirety. No pre-sales will be made; tapes go on sale in December 93/January 94. Cheques, made payable to "ECFP Ventures Limited", should be sent with this form to : 16 Circus Road MM Box 8593 London NW8 6PG England Please direct any further enquiries to the above address, or: ecfp-1st(a)eternity.demon.co.uk (Email) +44 81-812-2661 (Manned message service; quick response) HOW TO FIND THE NEW CAVENDISH CLUB : - ---------------------------------------------- The New Cavendish Club is 2 minutes walk from Marble Arch Underground station. Immediately turn right as you exit from the station onto Oxford Street. Then take the first turning on the right, i.e. Great Cumberland Street. The New Cavendish Club is 3 blocks north on the northeast corner of the intersection of Great Cumberland Street with Upper Berkeley Street. Address: New Cavendish Club 44 Great Cumberland Place London W1H 8BS - ----- Text ends --------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQCVAgUBLKjhjYTj7/vxxWtPAQGjQAP+NW1LOc806i0c3MmA2RiluzWmDKvFEPPm ibtU3tbqqF93fb0lqJ/z1q8DEtWeiG6LnLQ41IasIHDL6o7EmZEWXN6G17CDFLSk cQHCGaIpC9BkBI8VwnsPZIlItL5T+TkcOwLjdqp7x24tQ9uAm3BhpFLGMfLJAnwB xI/ZG0zMEIs= =QElR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Russell Earl Whitaker whitaker(a)eternity.demon.co.uk Communications Editor AMiX: RWhitaker EXTROPY: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought Board member, Extropy Institute (ExI) Co-organizer, 1st European Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, London, 20 November 1993

1 0

Stickers
by Christian D. Odhner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I recently received email from Whit Diffie regarding some concerns he had about the "Big Brother Inside(tm)" stickers. I asked for and received permission to repost the message to the group, however I seemed to have misplaced (ie, hit the wrong button) it, so I'll paraphrase. Firstly, he suggested that I wait before ordering/distributing the stickers because without clipper phones to put them on they may very well be stuck in random places, and that could reduce the impact of a good, focused, silmultanius distribution. Secondly, He asked that I try to add some more substantial information to the stickers, such as a short note that basicly says this phone is pre-tapped, use at your own risk. After some thought, I sent in the order anyway. My reasons for this action were that 1) Some people stated that they had already sent me money, and I wouldn't want to change the facts of the matter after the money was sent, and 2) Any more substantial information would increase the size of the sticker, which would make it more visible, harder to place, and would anger the owners of the property on which it was placed substantialy more. I think it is appropriate at this time to restate the reason that these stickers have been (are being) produced/distributed. Everyone on the list is familiar I'm sure with the clipper wiretap chip and the issues surrounding it. Everyone on the list I am equaly sure has seen at one time or another the "Intel Inside" stickers on Ibm and Dell and other computers, and in ads for those computer and ads paid for by intel itself. It is an image seen by a signifigant portion of the population each and every day. I was in a local computer store not too long ago when I heard a man ask a salesperson "Does this one have intel inside?" and I'm sure that he had not a clue in the world what that meant. Everyone on this list I'm fairly certain has either read George Orwell's famous book, _1984_, or has at least been exposed to it's influence of society through the introduction of such words and phrases as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Doublespeak", etc.. Horible images of goverment invasions of privacy, mass media mind control, and legalslation run amok come to mind quite easily... Our Big Brother Inside sticker has been designed to look as much like the intel logo as possible, without breaking any copyright laws or anything like that. But instead of conveying the message "This product contains parts built by a company you know and trust" our sticker seems to say, "This product is a tool built by the goverment to keep tabs on your personal life". It is intended to be descretely applied to telephones, faxes, modems, computers, and other devices containing the clipper or capstone chips or other key-escrowed technology. It is intended to be seen by those who would potentialy purchase such items, as an attempt to dissuade them from doing so. It is intended _NOT_ to be seen by the owners of establishments selling said items, as that would lead to thier removal at least; prosocution at most. I think another sticker, in brighter colors and containing informative text, could be usefull for applying to clipper phones etc that have already been deployed; a use at your own risk type thing. The time for that has not yet come. I hope I didn't leave anything out, Please use discretion regarding what messages get sent to the list and what can be handled through email. BTW; My total of sticker orders and contributions (not counting today) is: 6875 stickers sold $166 contributed I sent a check for $145 today, so everything past that is going to my cost to mail out the stickers to the people who ordered them. Any funds left over wil be used as a starting point for some cypherpunks tshirts, and proceeds from the shirts (if I ever do them) will go to the eff. Happy Hunting, -Chris ______________________________________________________________________________ Christian Douglas Odhner | "The NSA can have my secret key when they pry cdodhner(a)indirect.com | it from my cold, dead, hands... But they shall pgp 2.3 public key by finger | NEVER have the password it's encrypted with!" "If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns." -E. Abbey My opinions are shareware. For a registered copy, send me 15$ in DigiCash. Key fingerprint = 58 62 A2 84 FD 4F 56 38 82 69 6F 08 E4 F1 79 11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Re: Orange book, the NSA, and the NCSC
by jim＠Tadpole.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Keep yourself on the NSA watch list, send email to someone(a)docmaster.ncsc.mil every once in a while. :-) Jim

3 2

Re: My comments to NIST
by Phil Karn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thank you. Sternlight didn't like it, but what else is new? :-) Phil

1 0

Re: Easy cracking
by Marc Horowitz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> The same kind of thing happened at Sun, except with the >> secure rpc stuff. Had a guy send mail saying, "I know your >> two primes." Sun replied, "No way." (And lauged internally.) I'm not sure this is how it happened, but the person (maybe there's more than one?) who did this is a cypherpunk, who will identify himself if he wants. He also wrote a paper on this. The first version of the paper had the private key at the top of the first page, but it got removed because certain spooks got upset. Marc

1 0

Hacking ClipperPhones
by rjc＠gnu.ai.mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Cypherpunks Hack Hardware" It seems logical that when the ClipperPhones come out, they will have some kind of vocoder chip in them. (I doubt the (co)decoding will be implemented on the Clipper chip itself) If so, cypherpunks can take advantage of this situation. By hacking up a daugherboard, the phone's vocoder/modem/sampler can be exploited and interfaced to a PC (possibility via something as simple as a null modem cable or centronics). After that, the software hackers can do their job. If the ClipperPhone becomes popular and the daughterboard is cheap to build ($25-50), it would serve as a massive hardware platform for cypherpunks phone software. The alternative is to produce our own vocoder/sampler boards, but I doubt we could approach the economy of scale that AT&T can, plus we get to ride on the back of their advertising/marketing by having them sell the basic hardware. (then we just release a hack for it) What do you think? -Ray -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries --

1 0

Re: Disturbing statistics on wiretaps
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

smb(a)research.att.com writes > The same is true of e-mail over the Internet--there is no > statutory exclusionary rule that would prvent its > admissibility in court. It is at least theoretically possible, > however, to exclude illegally seized communications of these > sorts using a "pure 4th Amendment" (nonstatutory) exclusionary > rule. > > Don't hold your breath, though. > > Do you really think that? One could argue, fairly strongly, that th e > rules set forth in the ECPA have created an expectation of privacy, > and that a violation of that expectation would be exactly the violat ion > of the 4th Amendment that the Supreme Court addressed in the 1967 > decision that led to the original wiretap provisions in the Omnibus > Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. What's your point? One can argue all sorts of things. Are you saying you have reason to believe an argument of this sort is likely to be a winner? Me, I just work from what I know about 4th Amendment caselaw. I realize that you know more about the relevant case law than I do. It would be pretty sad if you didn't. But I'm not completely ignorant of either this subject in particular, or constitutional law in gneral, and I like to learn more. I'm asking to be educated, and I don't like to rely on assertions by authority. I advanced what I thought was a fairly strong argument against your point. Further, the wording of the statute seems pretty clear to me. 18 USC 2515: Prohibition of use as evidence of intercepted wire, oral, or electronic communications Whenever any wire, oral, or electronic communications has been intercepted, no part of the contents of such communication and no evidence derived therefrom may be received in evidence in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding in or before any court, grand jury, department, officer, agency, regulatory body, legis- lative committee, or other authority of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof if the disclosure of that information would be in violation of this chapter. As I read it, if the government doesn't follow the wiretap rules, the evidence thereby obtained can't be used. What have I missed? --Steve Bellovin

1 0