December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: MISC: thought for the dat
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

thought for the day; In Starfleet, all communications are encrypted automatically. Although there is no honor in knowledge gained through stolen transmissions, some of our enemies have no honor. A true Klingon does not "sneak"-he shouts into the face of his enemy. But I have seen many types of dishonor, and so I am prepared for it. -Lieutenant Worf,chief of security, U.S.S.Enterprise From the star trek next generation book "20th century computers and how they worked" by Jennifer Flynn published by alpha books. ISBN 1-56761-257-1 Hardly a new sentiment. From Kahn: ``Gentlemen do not read each other's mail''. Henry Stimson, Secretary of State, 1929, shutting down the American Black Chamber. In 1940, Stimson was Secretary of War, and a recipient of MAGIC....

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nonrandom string
by cjl＠micro.med.cornell.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I address this to the list at large hoping that one or more of you can explain something unusual that I observed. A friend of mine and I have been using PGP for several months and I just recently noted that in at least three of the recent posts to me that the first 18 characters of the encrypted message were identical. The first words of the plaintexts were not identical and so I assume that these characters are something else, perhaps the stuffer that I have heard mention of on this list. This repeating string is of concern for obvious reasons (e.g. so much for anonymity), and I would like to understand the cause of its recurrence. Please post to me and I will post a precis of the most reasonable suggestions. cjl

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Re: meaningless rumor
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matt writes: > [Steve writes:] > >they may throw in charges of importing IDEA, though I doubt that they'd > >indict just on those grounds; in an era of key escrow, they'd certainly > >like a court to rule they had the power to exclude subversive foreign > >crypto.... > > Assuming that whoevever implemented PGP did not himself import the cipher, but > based the implementation on the EUROCRYPT '90 paper that was 'imported' > by Springer-Verlag, I don't understand what the basis would be for such a > charge. Now an indictment against Springer for shipping the proceedings > (which contained C source code for IDEA) into the US - that would be > interesting... If memory serves me correctly, Phil's original PGP offered DES and bass-o-matic, and the IDEA encryption was implemented in the Europeans PGP2.0 version (though I don't know if it was done by Phil or by Europeans, I think the latter.) This means that the IDEA implementation was imported by person or persons unknown, presumably including Phil and many others. During one round of Sternlight Wars, I proposed doing a U.S. implementation, but John Gilmore convinced me that importing software is legal under the then-existing ITAR wording. This could be an opportunity to test it in court. Bill

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Need to Declare Policies on Remailer Record-Keeping
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(I hope this is not considered "off-topic" by anyone.) It would be nice if the operators of the current remailers made clear their archiving/record-keeping policies on remailer traffic. An "ideal mix" is like an "ideal op amp": very hard to build in practice, but very useful as a concept. David Chaum's 1981 paper anticipated many of the issues some of us later discovered, and which are dwell upon at length on this list. Some brief descriptions of the "ideal mix" (remailer): 1. Records. No records kept of incoming or outgoing traffic (in Chaum's mix, done by tamper-resistant hardware implementing software that keeps no records; in DC-Net approach, no single entity knows traffic, so only collusion can reveal traffic). Score: Many remailers keep records/logs, either explicitly ("to help in debugging") or by default (Unix records, system requirements, etc.) I have been shocked on a couple of occasions--a useful, educational shock--to get e-mail messages from the operators of remailers, saying things like "I couldn't help noticing your comments--I agree with you that...." Now partly this was my problem, in that I was not using PGP to chain my transmissions (in which case no snooping remailer operator will be able to get my true name except by colluding or traffic analyis), but it also indicated that some remailers are not taking a sufficiently hands-off policy...more on this point later. 2. Encryption, obviously, to hide mapping between ingoing and outgoing traffic. Score: Pretty good (no pun intended), though use of encryption is reported to be low. PGP has helped immensely. 3. Latency: some number N of messagers needs to be stored (securely, unobservably, as in #1) and then sent out in an order that obscures order of arrival. (Lex order, for example.) Score: Someone has been trying to implement this, but it is not widespread. (People want fast response, and in a low overall message volume environment, this could be impossible. If N = 100, could be a very long wait.) 4. Padding of message lengths in such a way that messages cannot be tracked by message length. Score: I don't think this is being implemented. We've talked about "quantizing" to several standard message lengths ("short," "medium," and "long," uncreatively enough) for this reason. 5. Other issues can be found in Chaum's papers, in the attacks on DC-Nets (one of which I distributed with the 70 pages of printed material handed out at the first Cypherpunks meeting), and in the many messages on remailers here on this list. Hal Finney's analysis, for example. In light of the recent subpoena, I urge that #1, record-keeping, be addressed quickly. If the authorities are seeking sources of crypto material, or routes used in conveying such material, they may conceivably issue subpoenas for site records. Some suggestions, which protect the remailer operators and the users: a. Keep no records, use scripts to delete records that may be generated that you have control over. b. The "best" remailers will be on systems under the control of the remailer operator himself (there seem to be a few of these), as he can control archiving and logs. c. Remailer operators should announce their policies on logs, announcing their philosophy (e.g., "to protect myself, I keep copies of all traffic through my remailer," or, "I keep no records whatsover--once it's through my system, all traces are deleted."). d. Trust in what they remailer operators say is another big issue...if the FBI operated a remailer, would you trust what they say? One avenue for helping here is to have independent agents reporting on their experiences, and perhaps confronting the remailers with evidence (such as the "helpful messages" I 've sometimes gotten) of their actual policies. e. Increased use of encryption. Lots more here. For now, just getting the remailers to publically state their policies will be helpful. To us, in allowing better market choice in which remailers we use, and to them by making their lack of record-keeping (for example) a matter of public record. Let's plan ahead for the day when Cypherpunks traffic, and remailer records, get subpoenaed. That _could_ be the next test case. I don't think I'm being paranoid. In any case, there are some fairly easy _social_ changes to the remailer system that we can make that will improve the security against traffic analysis and subpoenas. -Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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Cypherpunks & GOPHER
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Cypherpunks, I'd like to announce the Cypherpunks Gopher Site - dedicated to putting up information for access, and meant to be a list resource. I'm running the gopher site at chaos.bsu.edu, thanks to Chael Hall, who graciously donated an account to me to be used for any and all projects. This is something I've been wanting to do for quite some time but have been unable to. But now I have an account and a sympathetic system administrator...! Chaos.bsu.edu is 147.226.53.28, and the port is 2000. That is port 2000 and not the usual port 70 - when Chael and I have some more time I will ask him to perform the various and necessary incantations (chown) and I'll move it to the usual place. So: try 'gopher 147.226.53.28 2000' and browse around. The site doesn't have much stuff yet... I plan to add more information sometime in the future. Currently the site consists of some old back articles from the list, some faq's, etc. I plan to sift for more stuff, especially Clipper related, and add it in. In posting back articles, I have attempted to give proper credit at the BOTTOM of the article, unless a signature already appears. I figure that posts sent to the list are meant to be seen, but if the original author of something wants is taken off, mail me. If lots of people want stuff removed, I'll probably just solve the whole problem with 'rm -rf ~/gopher-data' I will sift through my archives of the list, incomplete as they are, and add files when I have time. Direct questions to: klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLJuILIOA7OpLWtYzAQFcjgP+K2MOSFKX1M+Y903DKTSdEAOoVdLSl/N4 /1eukQ5B8f09Rw6zU2AjpxcGa4uQcKQ2brNGXzEG4n3+SK5WcEq5t5+oLQ679jrM /aWcWLJWT9sNoiJPQt0li26BWhKhFQSanqbDr+MZ+5JRWu5FBIFgM4cOe0gwK3p1 5S9NokdBBfE= =gMFB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: meaningless rumor
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From a high-level source in contact with an *extremely* high level source: Rumor: Moby Crypto was targeted because G. Ward intended to include PGP on distribution disks. The investigation is primarily PGP oriented, and G. Ward is just a bystander who got caught up. PRZ & PGP is the essential target. Notes (1) phrasing of the subpoenas definitely confirms this -- PGP is mentioned in both. (2) can we find any Usenet postings where G. Ward announced intent to distribute PGP with Moby Crypto to help confirm this? Ward posted a note that (in essence) asked for help in evading the ITARs. (Well, I suppose it could have been someone forging a posting...). He went so far as to offer to provide mailing labels to someone abroad who would redistribute Moby Crypto, though from a country where that would be legal -- but never said how the first copy would get to the trans- shipment point. Some reasons were given why this sequence was going to be technically legal -- but if you were a U.S. attorney investigating the export of cryptographic software, it's the sort of thing that almost has to be investigated. Face it -- if Ward *wanted* to generate a test case, he couldn't have done a much better job; a private note to the authorities could have been ``misfiled'', but an announcement to tens of thousands of readers around the world? C'mon -- they may or may not be stupid, and they may or may not be paranoid, but their entire raison d'etre is to wield power, and Grady just slapped that authority in the face. Spitting at your local traffic cop would have been a lot safer. As for PKP -- *somehow*, it wandered out of the U.S. Probably, someone in power decided that that finally needed investigating in detail, to see if a law was broken. And Sternlight is right -- if they decide to indict, they may throw in charges of importing IDEA, though I doubt that they'd indict just on those grounds; in an era of key escrow, they'd certainly like a court to rule they had the power to exclude subversive foreign crypto.... --Steve Bellovin

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Revisionist Reinterpretation
by chen＠intuit.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Blanc writes: > Responding to msg by Jim choate, quoting another: > > >> We might also add Shay's Rebellion, Bacon's > >Rebellion, the Hudson > >> River Renters' Uprising, the Pullman Strike, the > >Homestead Strike, the > >> Ludlow Massacre, the Lawrence Textile Strikes, etc., > >etc. Many of > >> these were full-scale insurrections. This country's > >"progress" is > >> really just a series of grudging concessions made by > >authoritarian > >> power structures to various nearly catastrophic > >crises. > > I have a hard time comparing any of these histricaly > important but comparatively minor events to the half a > million dead of the Civil War or the 50,000+ dead of > Vietnam. Perhaps you have extended the analogy a > little too far?... > .......................................................... > > I think he was talking about the Principle of the deal, Jim - > about what this means regarding the relationship of the > citizenry to the big G. > Put all of those insurrections together and what do they spell? > > F _ _ _ _ _ F Blanc is right. You are correct, Jim, in that in terms of destruction, the wars you mention surpass in magnitude the other events that I listed (though I'll point out that if we count Indochinese dead, Vietnam's cost was far higher than 55,000, even if we add in the more than 60,000 who committed suicide in the aftermath). What I am really saying is that we are not, even in "normal" times, the slightly rambunctious but contented citizenry that popular mythology makes us out to be. This country has serious problems, and it always has. I think that we may be in agreement on this. Another good point that you've made elsewhere is the importance of economics as a motivator. I believe that you are exactly right. I'd like to add more, and also to say something about the perceptive comments from John Young, but I think I have a flu, so I'll go home and pick this up again on Monday. Meanwhile, wishing you all a good weekend. . . . - Mark - -- Mark Chen chen(a)netcom.com 415/329-6913 finger for PGP public key D4 99 54 2A 98 B1 48 0C CF 95 A5 B0 6E E0 1E 1D

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minor humor: telco's vs cable companies
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We at TPC like to put it to people quite simply, " Do you want your cable service to be like your phone service, or do you want your phone service to be like your cable service?" Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot "Cryptocosmology: Sufficently advanced communication is indistinguishable from noise." --Steve Witham "Have you ever had your phones tapped by the government? YOU WILL and the company that'll bring it to you.... AT&T" --James Speth

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Steve Jackson opposes Clipper FIPS
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

===cut=here=== Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 21:15:13 GMT From: sj(a)indial1.io.com (Steve Jackson) Subject: Comments on Clipper/Skipjack proposal Steve Jackson, President Sept. 26, 1993 Steve Jackson Games / Illuminati Online PO Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760 512-447-7866 sj(a)io.com National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) ATTN: Proposed FIPS for Escrowed Encryption Standard Technology Building, Room B-154 National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Sirs: I am writing in opposition to the Proposed Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) for an Escrowed Encryption Standard, docket # 930659-3159. As a publisher of both printed and online materials, I am deeply concerned by the potential effect of the proposed standard, which appears to me to have been produced in haste and to be lacking many significant elements required for informed citizen comment. I am in strong agreement with the points raised by the EFF and CPSR in their comments opposing the proposed standard. Private access to strong encryption is simply vital to protect the privacy of individuals in today's online environment. Legitimate business requirements for confidentiality also mandate free access to good encryption technology. The manner in which this proposal has been put forward is improper and incomplete. An algorithm intended for private and commercial purposes should not be classified as a "national security matter." And it is wholly improper to ask for meaningful "citizen input" while the algo- rithm itself is secret, the identities of the escrow agents are not firmly established, complete operating procedures are not available, and no legal recourse is yet proposed for the improper release of keys. In particular, the proposal fails to define what "legal authorization," other than a court order, might be available to compel the escrow agents to release a key. This omission is unacceptable. If keys are to be released to any authority except a United States court, the details must be made public immediately. Finally, a strong guarantee is needed that the Clipper/Skipjack system will never become mandatory, and that other forms of encryption will remain freely and legally available to all Americans. The proposal should be withdrawn until all these issues can be addressed. Only then can a legitimate period of citizen comment begin. Respectfully submitted - Steve Jackson ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Re: PGP Business Week article
by George A. Gleason 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Re. Representative Sam Gejdenson (pronounced as if spelled "gaydenson", accent on first syllable): I went to one of his campaign appearances when he first ran for office (this was Middletown Connecticut, 1980), and was very much impressed by his positions on various issues, and in particular, his background knowledge in a number of areas including engineering and policy areas related to the environment.... he is definitely someone who has a good ability to digest and utilise technical information in detail, and I'd say he could be a very very key person on our side of these issues. He definitely deserves 100% support and all the solid detailed information we can provide. -gg

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