December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Another PGP Tools / Magic Money update
by qwerty-remailer＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- There should be a new version of PGP Tools and Magic Money on csn.org soon. The PGP Tools will be called pgptl10b.zip and the Magic Money will be mgmny10b.zip. The new naming was warlord's idea: the "b" will be "c" etc in future releases, until some serious updating justifies a new version. The new Magic Money does not contain the PGP Tools files, so be sure to download PGP Tools as well. Will I run out of bugs or letters first? :-) The prime-multiplication problem appears to have gone away. The new Magic Money checks the whole coin, but the attack is probably impossible anyway. jkreznar(a)ininx.com quotes: Here we consider only {\em prime\/} divisors of $n$ and ask, for given order of magnitude of $n$. ``how many prime divisors are there typically?'' and ``how many {\em different\/} ones are there?'' Some of the answers will be rather counterintuitive. Thus, a 50-digit number ($10^{21}$ times the age of our universe measured in picoseconds) has only about 5 different prime factors on average and --- even more surprisingly --- 50-digit numbers have typically fewer than 6 prime factors in all, even counting repeated occurrences of the same prime factor as separate factors. We will also learn something about the distribution of the number of prime factors and its implications for the important factoring problem. Thus, we discover that even for numbers as large as $10^{50}$, the two smallest primes, 2 and 3, account for about 25\% of all prime factors! A number of several hundred digits, such as a Magic Money coin, if it were to be made of all small primes, would need 50 or 100 factors. These would probably be very rare, considering this average. hfinney(a)shell.portal.com wrote: >I was thinking over the attack I described on Magic Money and Chaum >cash, and I now think it will not actually work, especially in the case >of the Chaum cash. Specifically, it will take as much work to forge >cash as to factor the modulus. [ describes how finding smooth numbers is equivalent to factoring ] >So, unless there is in fact some trick that can be used to quickly find >smooth numbers given that the low order 128 bits are free, I don't >think there is any need to worry about my attack on Magic Money. And >it looks like Chaum's online cash is completely invulnerable to this >approach. Unless something else comes up, it looks like we don't need to worry about this one. If it does become a problem, it would be easy to go to full Chaum cash - take the MD5 of a random number and use it, including the random number in the coin. But there is no reason to code this unless we find out we need it. As for the big-endian problem, andrewl(a)wtg20.wiltel.com wrote: >I retrieved the latest version of Magic Money from the mpj archive >and compiled it on a big-endian machine (a 68k NeXT). It seems >to work now... I was able to setup the server and client and >move a little cash around whereas before the server would never >sucessfully find a q.... This was the last version, which set all precision to max. The last version also had a bug in pgp_extract_rsa, again involving set_precision. The new one has defines which try to use lower precision and adjust pointers, for those functions which can be sped up this way. If that fails, another define will go back to setting everything max. Please test this on a big-endian machine and find out if it works without everything set to max. If it doesn't, please try to debug it and post what needs to be done. The code seems to be getting close to working. Does anyone want to set up a Magic Money server? You could run it through a remailer, if you want to. The server filters PGP messages from stdin to stdout, so you would not need root access to run one. It would probably be no harder than running a remailer. I compiled in the 8086.asm under DOS, and it is fast enough. Use the assembly for whatever system you are running on, because the server has to perform a lot of secret key operations: decrypt, sign message, and sign each coin. Pr0duct Cypher -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLVdKTsGoFIWXVYodAQFGAgQAgNs7PiGe3KItFiouUs/iXoH5bfVsgdGs pVbf4sTZcF3c531KARJGxVkXsrTXH+VOU2QPi2zj3M/w06elCnov/KZYl/aSRerg viLquHK8sUymEq9KB7swIO+Kthk5G8fke/h/3xq1i4S0n6klajtU8HuOR5FdmcAU kfA05Czngzw= =gleH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Netcom remailers.
by qwerty＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Lucky me. I got my first complaint about my remailer today, as Eric Hollander told me I would eventually get. He says once a month Mr. Employee bashes Mr. Boss with his remailer 'cause Mr. Employee is too cheap for a stamp, and so he sends Mr. Employee a nasty warning from Mr. Remailer Operator. Me, no logs, yet, even assuming it wasn't just from another remailer. And the person didn't contact me, he contacted Netcom. Gee, maybe the guy made it up. No matter. It was an edu address, possibly a student. So now I get a terse, not too serious message from support(a)netcom.com mentioning "unsolicited mail" being against Netcom policy, so cut it out. I've blocked that outgoing address and sent the guy an explanation, and he hasn't responded to my asking what was up. I've added "Report Problems to qwerty(a)netcom.com." in my outgoing header too. But I have a question. I'm the quite type. I tend to ignore things like this, till say Netcom deletes my account, or at least demands an explanation. My question is, should this happen again, say tomorrow, should I tell support(a)netcom.com what's up? "I'm running an anonymous remailer, you know, like anon.penet.fi, the one that has 10,000 active users. Thus Netcom is now diverting CPU time to anyone who wants it." I wouldn't word it like THAT, but that's what they might truthfully assume. Sure would be nice if I could fully forge e-mail as coming from "nobody(a)nowhere.org". Alternatively I could just keep logs. Or I could just never log into qwerty again, and see how long it lasts ;-)! Hit and run remailer accounts. Centralized remailers on the internet. Bah! Nik (-=Xenon=-) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQCVAgUBLVhO0wSzG6zrQn1RAQEBfwP/YnMjuyphc2O8onhEHT6jH3qyDp0YPzgd JFRrJzZI/ZOCnqtR6+zyjKqDtXCbY4GvR29vAyyXIFmG4kxfMNBRmRr4lwzUxf7G quguvzMRxdOFencHxToxaoXqZ/4/tBI5O472c1hOtdvuHaFTPP+JOLpg18Git5AR e74uFtB7I4U= =eZsb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Cypherpunk forum in NYC, Thurs. 2/17
by David Mandl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

========================================================= On Thursday, February 17, Cypherpunks Perry Metzger and Dave Mandl will be speaking on the subject: ----------------------- "Crypto-Anarchy: How New Developments in Cryptography, Digital Anonymity, and Untraceable Digital Cash Will Make the State a Thing of the Past" ----------------------- WHEN: Thursday, February 17, 7:30 p.m. WHERE: Penn South Community Room 7A, 330 W. 28 St., bet. 8 & 9 Aves. New York City (Warning: This place is a little difficult to find, but there will be signs posted.) This is an anarchist forum, part of the Libertarian Book Club's monthly forum series. Admission: Contribution (whatever you can afford) =========================================================

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Re: Cypherpunk forum in NYC, Thurs. 2/17
by dmandl＠lehman.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: kevin(a)axon.cs.byu.edu (Kevin Vanhorn) > > > "Crypto-Anarchy: How New Developments in Cryptography, > > Digital Anonymity, and Untraceable Digital Cash Will Make > > the State a Thing of the Past" > > I would be willing to pay $5 for a tape of this talk. Alternatively, > in exchange for a tape of the talk I would be willing to transcribe it. I can't tape it, but anyone else is more than welcome to do so and distribute tapes and transcripts to their heart's content. I say this partly because I'll be too busy concentrating on the talk and partly because I've had many problems in the past getting people to stick to their promises to transcribe tapes (notably the interview I did with Tim May on my radio show last year, which was very good; the guy who promised to transcribe the tape screwed me, and so it never happened). These messages should probably not be posted to the whole list. If anyone there next Thursday tapes the talk and wants to make copies available, s/he can let me know and I can pass the address, price, or whatever along to the list. --Dave.

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ANNOUNCE: February meeting--"True Names"
by hughes＠ah.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ANNOUNCEMENT ============ February 1994 Bay Area cypherpunks meeting Saturday, February 12, 1994 12:00 noon - 6:00 p.m. Cygnus Support Offices, Mt. View, CA, USA Our theme this month is "True Names", after the Vernon Vinge story. We'll be talking about pseudonymity in virtual environments, whose current implementations include MUD's, MOO's, Habitat, and various other shared online environments. The schedule as of right now includes Chip Morningstar, co-author of Habitat, speaking about that project and maybe what he's working on currently. I think some BayMOO folks are going to do something, but that's not confirmed. Other speakers will likely be added. Plus the usual mix of monthly progress reports and current events discussion. The March meeting theme is "Politics", a none-too-unusual topic, except next month it's featured. Start up the rhetoric-machines now; we're going to have a soapbox session and possibly prizes for best rant. Eric ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Directions to Cygnus provided by John Gilmore. -- EH] Cygnus Support 1937 Landings Drive Mt. View, CA 94043 +1 415 903 1400 switchboard +1 415 903 1418 John Gilmore Take US 101 toward Mt. View. From San Francisco, it's about a 40-minute drive. Get off at the Rengstorff Ave/Amphitheatre Parkway exit. If you were heading south on 101, you curve around to the right, cross over the freeway, and get to a stoplight. If you were heading north on 101, you just come right off the exit to the stoplight. The light is the intersection of Amphitheatre and Charleston Rd. Take a right on Charleston; there's a right-turn-only lane. Follow Charleston for a short distance. You'll pass the Metaphor/Kaleida buildings on the right. At a clump of palm trees and a "Landmark Deli" sign, take a right into Landings Drive. At the end of the road, turn left into the complex with the big concrete "Landmark" sign. Follow the road past the deli til you are in front of the clock tower that rises out of one of the buildings, facing you. Enter through the doors immediately under the clock tower. They'll be open between noon and 1PM at least. (See below if you're late.) Once inside, take the stairs up, immediately to your right. At the top of the stairs, turn right past the treetops, and we'll be in 1937 on your left. The door is marked "Cygnus". If you are late and the door under the clock tower is locked, you can walk to the deli (which will be around the building on your left, as you face the door). Go through the gate in the fence to the right of the deli, and into the back lawns between the complex and the farm behind it. Walk forward and right around the buildings until you see a satellite dish in the lawn. Go up the stairs next to the dish, which are the back stairs into the Cygnus office space. We'll prop the door (or you can bang on it if we forget). Or, you can find the guard who's wandering around the complex, who knows there's a meeting happening and will let you in. They can be beeped at 965 5250, though you'll have trouble finding a phone. Don't forget to eat first, or bring food at noon! I recommend hitting the burrito place on Rengstorff (La Costen~a) at about 11:45. To get there, when you get off 101, take Rengstorff (toward the hills) rather than Amphitheatre (toward the bay). Follow it about ten blocks until the major intersection at Middlefield Road. La Costen~a is the store on your left at the corner. You can turn left into the narrow lane behind the store, which leads to a parking lot, and enter by the front door, which faces the intersection. To get to the meeting from there, just retrace your route on Rengstorff, go straight over the freeway, and turn right at the stoplight onto Charleston; see above. See you there! John Gilmore

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typo in ANNOUNCE: February meeting--"True Names"
by hughes＠ah.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As was pointed out to me: >It's Vernor Vinge. Not Vernon Vinge. It was a typo. Oops. Thanks to my corrector. Eric

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Re: Crypto Regulation Reform
by m5＠vail.tivoli.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert Cain writes: > > Would disclosing the encryption algorithm put your patent claim at > > risk? > > 'Fraid so. R, S and A almost blew it by disclosing theirs in a paper > before filing. So your encryption algorithm (not the key exchange part; the bit-stream encryptor) is not a well-known (or at least published) algorithm? Hmm... -- | GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5(a)tivoli.com> | | TAKE TWA TO CAIRO. ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX: | | (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |

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Canadian voice recognition article
by Prof. L. P. Levine 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

May I post this in your name in my comuter privacy digest? I got this from a source here on campus. Do I have your permission? ---------------------------------+----------------------------------------- Leonard P. Levine | Moderator of Computer Privacy Digest and Professor of Computer Science | comp.society.privacy. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Post: comp-privacy(a)uwm.edu Box 784, Milwaukee WI 53201 | Information: comp-privacy-request(a)uwm.edu ---------------------------------+----------------------------------------- Craig McKie muttered something about... >From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Thu Feb 3 19:52:39 1994 From: cmckie(a)ccs.carleton.ca (Craig McKie) Message-Id: <9402040124.AA03270(a)superior.YP.nobel> Subject: Canadian voice recognition article To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Thu, 3 Feb 94 20:24:59 EST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Spy Agency works on eavesdropping device for phones, faxes New snoop gadget would identify voices carried through air The Canadian Press Used on page 1, Ottawa Citizen, Monday January 31, 1994 An elite wing of Canada's spy agency is secretly developing devices that can monitor and identify voices carried through the air by phone, fax and radio signals, according to a broadcast report citing government documents. The Communications Security Establishment is a super-secret branch of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that specializes in gathering signals intelligence - SIGINT to insiders. Since 1989, the CSE has awarded three contracts worth $1.1 million to a Montreal firm to make machines that can quickly isolate key words and phrases from the millions of signals the CSE monitors each day, CTV reported Sunday. In May 1983, the CSE awarded the Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montreal a contract to develop a "speaker identification system," which can pick voices from the electronic haze and identify them. "Its frightening," says Bill Robinson, a researcher with the peace group, Project Ploughshares. "It has Orwellian potential to sweep through everybody's conversations. As computers get faster and faster, theoretically, one would be able to keep records of all conversations." The CSE is supposed to provide the federal government with foreign intelligence, but parliamentarians have often voiced concerns about the agency's potential to violate the privacy of Canadians. Liberal MP Derek Lee, the head of a Commons committee that oversees Canada's spy agency, said the CSE is overstepping its mandate. "Have they been asked, or have they decided for themselves to take on a new role that requires them to analyse the human voice? And if they have, they've gone beyond what I think they've told us." The CSE is accountable to Parliament through the defence minister. But Defense Minister David Colonette told CTV her was unaware of the CSE's latest electronic snooping projects. "This is the first I've heard of this," Collenette said. "It is certainly something I'll discuss with my officials." While in Opposition, the Liberals pledged to make the CSE more accountable. With a budget of about $250 milliojn and more than 800 employees the CSE operates out of a building on Heron Road in Confederation Heights surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Its work is considered so sensitive that employees are told not to take commercial flights, in case the plane is hijacked and they are held hostage. -- e x t r a p o l a t e steve j. white _____________________________________________________________________________ Gort, klatu barada nicto. aragorn(a)csd4.csd.uwm.edu

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What's a "real encryptor"?
by qwerty＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Fwd: Date: Tue, 8 Feb 94 23:59:22 CST From: Karl Lui Barrus <klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu> Message-Id: <9402090559.AA24308(a)flammulated.owlnet.rice.edu> To: qwerty(a)netcom.com Subject: bare min encryption Status: R Hm... I meant to send my last message to the list also, so if you want to and you haven't deleted it :) please send it along (I deleted my copy). Forward this one too if you want (I have quoted private mail from you so if you don't want to forward it that's fine!). -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Xenon wrote: >It was my perhaps naive impression that PGP could be stripped down of >its "convenience features" to give an encryptor like what the >dictionary says an encryptor is. Message in, "random" data out. I'm not super familiar with the internal workings of PGP, but I'm sure it could be "stripped down". It's just a matter of ease of use. The program I described earlier (RSA.tar.Z) is pretty minimal. Secret keys are just text, not locked by a hash of a passphrase, no "name" information attached. Public keys are the same: no username attached, no web of trust, etc. The output is in binary form, with no headers or checksums or anything. PGP has keyrings, this program requires you to keep track of seperate public keys on your own. I guess what you mean about PGP is if you want to know if a file is PGP encrypted, you can just run PGP on it and it'll say. It'll tell you whether or not you have the appropriate secret key to decrypt (unless you conventionally encrypt). Not so with the RSA package, it will quite happily decrypt a totally random file into another random file. The only "more bare" program I can see is just pure numbers :-). Like when I was taking a cryptography course and spent hours working/playing with the protocols using Mathematica. Just two large primes, and encryption exponent and a decryption exponent! >If such a bare RSA/IDEA program had been made, would its output in >fact be indistinguishable from random data? How vigorously so? The Well, I haven't run statistics tests on the RSA program output, but it claims to be nothing but RSA. So it's output should essentially be a number, less than the modulus. The program encodes numbers as ascii strings, but that's it. Karl Barrus <klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLVh6ZoOA7OpLWtYzAQGatwQAqNWUKjfc5hQ79d071zP7uKTEjj6ns+fb Rfo94hJSgyhfUHVcYydusjBvpsIfQFc2TISuB/lt3cZqhFqGhezM3ajcPI380rfI hrcMcbIRtQhs+B6Pd9FIF8r2kd5Yn4mrNt4j/z8J4APZUM6rb+/eTPbLFfGDFTQG oexOHvDDdAo= =jXMB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- P.S. Given that PGP is already a standard, all that is needed is a utility to strip down a PGP message, and later restore it, or some sort of "Plug in" to a modular PGP version. - Nik (-=Xenon=-)

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