December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: What are Appropriate Topics?
by snyderra＠dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:58 AM 8/5/94, Timothy C. May wrote: >First off, my sincere apologies to Bob Snyder for quoting and >responding to his e-mail to me, without realizing he had not cc:ed it >to the list as well. I'm so used to replying to the author and then >having to manually cc: the Cyherpunks list that it was not until I got >the message quoted below that I realized his comments were private. I >will try to be more careful. > >Partly it was his civil tone that misled me--it read like a post to >the list, and not a personal note. In any case, my apologies to Bob. No problem. I'll try to remember to flame you next time. :-) >At least in my messages, I was not arguing merely statism vs. >libertarianism, or some such stale abstraction, but the specific issue >of taxation in the face of strong crypto and privacy, and the >oxymoronic nature of "volunteer governments." (I also think there are >issues related to privately-produced law which folks on this list >ought to know about, as it is the likely form of crypto anarchic law, >such as it is. The connections with crypto are quite strong, as it is >untraceable communication and commerce which makes these discretionary >communities possible.) OK. Perhaps I misread your article. I appear to have erased it from my Cypherpunks mailbox, or I'd reread it. I was reacting primarily to your initial comments on why you felt it should be on the list. I don't object to (and am happy to see) discussions of "applied" cryptography on the list, such as tax laws in the presence of cryptography. I would only object to the discussion of government in the abscence of either a (preferably) cryptological reference, or a privacy one. >As for pure crypto being discussed on the list, there's a fair amount >of that. I've posted my share of explanations of zero knowledge proof >systems, dining cryptographers protocols, complexity theory, etc. I'm >not saying this to defend myself, per se, but to note that these >topics produced almost no discussion, almost no interest. Make of this >what you will. Yes, and I appreciate you doing so. I try to work though such postings, and often check with _Applied Cryptography_ for more background. But I usually don't have any response for it. "Oh, no, that's completely wrong"? :-) Such postings are often a stretch for me, with my limited math background, and this isn't an appropriate place to ask the kind of math questions that would bring me up to speed. >And a dozen other juicy topics. If people want to debate these and >similar issues, we should *encourage* them to, not announce that the >topics are deviating from some imagined idea of the charter. I agree. I should apologize then, for misunderstanding your posting. My only concern was that the thread was going to start out without any cryptological reference, and who knows where it could veer from there. :-) The topics you listed (and I deleted in this response) appear to me to be perfectly legitimate topics. >It's generally best, I think, to lead by example. Instead of >pronouncing a topic to be off-limits or not consistent with the >charter, why not find a way to make what you *are* interested in also >interesting to others? That's how we'll move forward into new areas. I don't disagree with this. But this takes a skill set I'm still working to acquire; enough knowledge of cryptological concepts to start a discussion. And I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to set the Cypherpunks' agenda. I know what I would like to see here, and I phrase my responses as such. I hope I'm not one of the "complainers and the enforcers of dogma" Eric Hughes mentioned in his post. Bob -- Bob Snyder N2KGO MIME, PGP, RIPEM mail accepted snyderra(a)post.drexel.edu PGP & RIPEM keys on key servers When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

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Re: Something of Interest (fwd)
by Jeremy Mineweaser 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Alan <alano(a)teleport.com> writes: > >> I recieved this today via e-mail. I find it strange since I have >> never asked to be put on any sort of "interest list" by anyone >> at the IRS. Did anyone else get this? I received a copy of this earlier today via a low-traffic mailing list devoted to discussion of prisoner's dilemma games. Upon receiving the message, the connection between PDG and Jim Bell wasn't immediately obvious, but then I remembered that Jim Bell was also a subscriber to that mailing list. It's quite probable that the IRS sent a copy of their press release to all of the forums where they had records of Bell's involvement. Did others receive this message directly, or via mailing lists? .jlm --- Jeremy Mineweaser <jlm(a)null.net> Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators. -- Richard Dawkins

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Anonymous virtual networks
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What if people were to create virtual machines (eg Java or whatever) which were accessible to anyone on the internet, and linked them together in a virtual network. CPU-time and bandwidth on the virtual machines could then be sold (or more likely bartered). The network would be self-contained, so nobody outside the virtual network would see it. So, when one wants to send some anonymous messages, just buy or trade for some processor time and disk space somewhere, then mail in a remailer program and it'll run. When it runs out of cpu-time credits, it just gets deleted. (The machine owner would have little reason to keep it around, since it is more economically profitable to lease the disk space to someone else rather than try to decrypt old remailer traffic, which would likely be a futile effort, given enough layers of encryption) So let's say we agree I'll give you 10 mips-years of cpu and 10 MB disk space and 100 MB of network traffic on my machine, and you give me the same on your computer. I then trade some of the CPU time & disk space on your machine to Joe, who uses it to set up some remailers. Joe then sells remailer services to some newbies. After their pre-paid remailer cards run out then Joe's remailer has used up all his CPU-credits on your machine and the remailer (and the evidence) disappears. Your computer just deletes the files and you never know about Joe or his anonymous message service. Pretty good anonymity. :-) Of course, in order to prevent certain obvious harassment attacks, the virtual network would need to remain self-contained, so people would need their own virtual-network/virtual-computer clients to access their anonymous mail. They'd probably even need to sell their cpu-cycles to key crackers in order to pay for their email service. ;-)

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Re: Problem in draft FIPS `CRYPTOGRAPHIC SERVICE CALLS'
by p.v.mcmahon.rea0803＠oasis.icl.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> someone please post to me the original "Problem in draft FIPS > `CRYPTOGRAPHIC SERVICE CALLS'" item? (my server was down at the Thanks very much. I now have the mail. > 2. NIST have proposed the draft FIPS to a number of standards > development organisations - including X/Open and POSIX - and I > know that Microsoft have reviewed it, so it will likely influence > interfaces to commercially available cryptographic software and > devices. > If there is anybody with interest in crypto APIs on this list, > then your informed comments on this NIST proposal, or other > candidates (which I could make available if the level of interest > warranted it), or alternatives, would be useful and timely. My interest in this is that I am chair of the X/Open security working group defining a industry consensus specification for which the draft FIPS is one of the inputs, along with other inputs from RSADSI (via Sun), IBM, HP, Olivetti, SESAME etc. Piers

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Two Birds With One Stone / Re: Keepers of the keys
by TruthMonger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Joe Shea wrote: > And if Tim May does kill me, I hope someone has his key, or better > yet, can go make a showing to a judge and get it from him. It is much more likely that a federal agent, using Tim's escrowed key to read his opinion of you, would whack you out and set Tim up for the crime, thereby eliminating two troublesome birds with one stone. > There are > plenty of them, though, and they are moving vast sums of stolen money and > nuclear weapon parts and stolen information all over the globe. I see no > reason why we should be defenseless against them. We are defenseless against them because they are working for the same fucking governments that you want to give your crypto keys to. Key escrow is meant for fucking the little guy in the ass, not the major players. > On the other hand, > if someone's going to blow up San Francisco this week, it sure would help > to have a key to any encrypted communications he was generating. Yeah, sure. I use an escrowed key to communicate about all of my criminal activities, and I send the FBI a cc: on all of them. It sure would help if LEA's all had access to the American Reporter's files so that they could censor any writing that might encite someone to blow up San Franciso. Why don't you send them all of your writing for approval, Joe? If all the people in favor of key escrow would allow the government total access to all of their communications, then the drop in crime would more than make up for that commited by those who use encryption. If you can't afford to buy a clue, Joe, then try renting. TruthMonger

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EPIC Seeks Release of FBI Wiretap Data
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Electronic Privacy Information Center PRESS RELEASE _____________________________________________________________ For Release: August 9, 1994 2:00 pm Group Seeks Release of FBI Wiretap Data, Calls Proposed Surveillance Legislation Unnecessary Washington, DC: A leading privacy rights group today sued the Federal Bureau of Investigation to force the release of documents the FBI claims support its campaign for new wiretap legislation. The documents were cited by FBI Director Louis Freeh during testimony before Congress and in a speech to an influential legal organization but have never been released to the public. The lawsuit was filed as proposed legislation which would mandate technological changes long sought by the FBI was scheduled to be introduced in Congress. The case was brought in federal district court by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a public interest research organization that has closely monitored the Bureau's efforts to mandate the design of the nation's telecommunications infrastructure to facilitate wiretapping. An earlier EPIC lawsuit revealed that FBI field offices had reported no difficulties conducting wiretaps as a result of new digital communications technology, in apparent contradiction of frequent Bureau claims. At issue are two internal FBI surveys that the FBI Director has cited as evidence that new telephone systems interfere with law enforcement investigations. During Congressional testimony on March 18, Director Freeh described "a 1993 informal survey which the FBI did with respect to state and local law enforcement authorities." According to Freeh, the survey describes the problems such agencies had encountered in executing court orders for electronic surveillance. On May 19 the FBI Director delivered a speech before the American Law Institute in Washington, DC. In his prepared remarks, Freeh stated that "[w]ithin the last month, the FBI conducted an informal survey of federal and local law enforcement regarding recent technological problems which revealed over 180 instances where law enforcement was precluded from implementing or fully implementing court [wiretap] orders." According to David L. Sobel, EPIC's Legal Counsel, the FBI has not yet demonstrated a need for the sweeping new legislation that it seeks. "The Bureau has never presented a convincing case that its wiretapping capabilities are threatened. Yet it seeks to redesign the information infrastructure at an astronomical cost to the taxpayers." The nation's telephone companies have consistently stated that there have been no cases in which the needs of law enforcement have not been met. EPIC is a project of the Fund for Constitutional Government and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. ================================================================ FBI Director Freeh's Recent Conflicting Statements on the Need for Digital Telephony Legislation _______________________________________________________________ Speech before the Executives' Club of Chicago, February 17: Development of technology is moving so rapidly that several hundred court-authorized surveillances already have been prevented by new technological impediments with advanced communications equipment. * * * Testimony before Congress on March 18: SEN. LEAHY: Have you had any -- for example, digital telephony, have you had any instances where you've had a court order for a wiretap that couldn't be executed because of digital telephony? MR. FREEH: We've had problems just short of that. And I was going to continue with my statement, but I won't now because I'd actually rather answer questions than read. We have instances of 91 cases -- this was based on a 1993 informal survey which the FBI did with respect to state and local law enforcement authorities. I can break that down for you. * * * Newsday interview on May 16: We've determined about 81 different instances around the country where we were not able to execute a court-authorized electronic surveillance order because of lack of access to that particular system - a digital switch, a digital loop or some blocking technology which we didn't have to deal with four or five years ago. * * * Speech before the American Law Institute on May 19: Within the last month, the FBI conducted an informal survey of federal and local law enforcement regarding recent techno- logical problems which revealed over 180 instances where law enforcement was precluded from implementing or fully implementing court orders [for electronic surveillance]. ============================================================

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No Subject
by loveinlife919＠usa.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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No more NSA supra-computer?
by Ben.Goren＠asu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Yesterday I was talking with a friend, and the subject of supercomputers came up. Naturally, I mentioned the NSA 7000 Y-MP equivalent and Gunter Ahrendt's list of supercomputers worldwide (finger gunter(a)yarrow.wt.uwa.edu.au) My friend sent me a note this morning saying that he couldn't find that machine on Gunter's list; sure enough, it's been removed. Anybody know what happened to this machine? Did they lose funding? Decide it's not worth it? Is there some sort of subterfuge involved? It would be nice to think the Congress killed it, or decided to give the computer to a university, instead. b& -- Ben.Goren(a)asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music net.proselytizing (write for info): We won! Clipper is dead! BUT! Just say no to key escrow. And stamp out spamming, too. Finger ben(a)tux.music.asu.edu for PGP 2.3a (soon 2.6) public key.

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Offline reading
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just finished (last night) Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove. Before that I read Out of Control by Kevin Kelly. Both were recommended by folks on this list, and both were very good. Does anyone else care to share thoughts on books they're read recently? I'm looking for anything interesting. Also, could anyone recommend a good intro to F.A. Hayek's work? (in or out of print; Boston has many good used bookstores.) Adam -- Adam Shostack adam(a)bwh.harvard.edu Politics. From the greek "poly," meaning many, and ticks, a small, annoying bloodsucker.

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Airlines to start profiling, bag matching -- "Pick Me"
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Alan Olsen forwarded an article from USA Toady (sorry, Freudian spelling slip) on airline bag matching, including this interesting statement: >Airlines are expected to match bags with about 5% of fliers. A >computerized profiling system will identify those who might pose a >security risk. Example: passengers >who buy tickets with cash. >If someone matches the profile, their bags would not be stowed until >they actually board the plane. Hmm, since the last bag on the plane is usually the first one off the baggage carousel, there is an opportunity for better service that ought to be exploited. Now, all I need is the cash. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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