December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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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REMAIL: policy
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim asks about remailer policy: here is mine. About logging: I think there are two kinds of logs remailers can keep. By default, the "archive.remail" and "archive.pgp" (and "archive.ripem") files are kept, which record messages as they pass through. Also, there is debugging logging, which records stuff like the return value of pipes, user environment variables, whether pasting tokens and message delimiters are found, etc. Further, Hal showed how the maildelivery file can be extended to log usage only - an entry appended to a file for every use (see the cypherpunks gopher site :-) in "Anonymous Mail" for how to do this). I don't keep debugging logging or archive logging - I unlink the archive.* files every time slocal is invoked. Actually, I don't keep usage logs either. However, I haven't had a chance to drop in a sendmail agent, so there is always the syslog file I can't control. Hm.. I suppose I could just remove the relevant lines from the maildelivery file and avoid the archive.* files completely. I will do that. Errors (malformed messages) are dropped in the elee7h5@rosebud and elee6ue@rosebud remailers, and get forwarded to me (klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu) from the elee9sf(a)menudo.uh.edu remailer. This is so mail intended for me but sent to my old address still gets here. Furthermore, the elee7h5@rosebud remailer is locked - I can't log in anymore. But, the directory structure is preserved, the remailer still works last time I tried, and I mailed to the admin asking him to contact me about this about two weeks ago, and haven't heard back. Encryption: elee7h5@rosebud, elee6ue@rosebud, elee9sf@menudo support PGP encryption. Also elee9sf@menudo supports RIPEM. Caching: elee9sf@menudo caches messages, remailing in a random order at midnight. More precisely, it caches them in random order and mails out every midnight. So if you wrap your PGP encrypted message inside a RIPEM encryption, it will stay until midnight the first day to unwrap the RIPEM, and then will stay till midnight the next day to unwrap PGP to get the remailing request. Message padding: I'm experimenting with this, but not in production mode just yet. It's easy enough to pad so the messages waiting to be remaild are the same size, but I want to extend this so what leaves via sendmail or it's replacement is also the same size. Ownership: well, these are all school accounts so I don't have final authority over the machines. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLJ47zYOA7OpLWtYzAQECcgP/ZuQ/zT5hJx3yIITTmq7RGLX5s4FUoHN0 cf0LXhNKZGIbINeI6wGxn1edCFrwrm9DujuAQpf0J+9yVgENlvU9VB2Z5BhorRQW zoFKMrEW6mwPHYR/ga7l0FKqG2WVLSo4DE37Tba6VnFY5vOEnt+KCkDaQXyNcOIc EbYcehaYafE= =irE+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Is the following digicash protocol possible?
by jamesd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A question about offline digicash: Is it possible to arrange digicash as follows: If A, the original issuer, issues a unit of digicash to to B, and B gives it to C, and C gives it to D, and D, gives it to E, and E cashes it with A, -- and everyone colludes except C and D, it is impossible to prove that C got this unit from D. If A, the original issuer, issus a unit of digicash to to B, and B gives it to C, and C gives it to D, and D, gives it to E, and E cashes it with A, -- and C double spends it to D', who then gives it to E' who then attempts to cash it with A, -- then A will detect the double spending and rebuff the attempt, E' will complain to D', and D', with information supplied by E' and A, can then prove that C dishonorably double spent the money, without discovering that C gave the money to D, and hence without discovering that D gave the money to E. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. jamesd(a)netcom.com

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Government and Repression
by Gary Jeffers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rishab Aiyer Ghosh writes ind! >I'm amazed at the way some of you keep screaming about the violence of >governments. Maybe you need to experience some _real_ repression. I disagree: In the U. S. we have real repression. Current real total taxation is approx. 45%. I believe the serfs of Europe only paid a small amount above 1/12 of their production to their lords. That's a little in excess of 8.3% We revolted against English rule for taxation that was tiny compared to current burden. Also, we are currently starving out Iraq, Cuba, & Haiti with embargoes as well as doing other atrocities. Our State is currently systematically ending our freedoms & is developing Hell weapons in Black Labs for domestic use. To say that we're ok because other oppressors are worse than ours is slave talk. PUSH EM BACK! PUSH EM BACK! WWWAAAYYY BBBAAACCCK! BBBEEEAAATTTT STATE! Gary Jeffers

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Re: House crypto-vote echoes classified briefing (plus: COWS!)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:55 AM 7/23/97 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Then there were the cows. Again, I'm not making this up. Where there's bull, there's cows... >the president has said he'll veto any pro-crypto bill that >comes across his desk... Yet more evidence that, while Clinton doesn't have the fiscal responsibility of some conservatives, he's certainly no liberal. On the other hand, Secretary Cohen gives a marvelous explanation of why all government employees should use GAK on their own communications, or at least any who handle material relevant to National Security. [*See below] No point in bothering the rest of us when the spies work for him... >Excerpt from Secretary of Defense William Cohen's letter to >Congress, dated July 21, 1997: > It is also important to note that the Department of Defense > relies on the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the > apprehension and prosecution of spies. Sadly, there have > been over 60 espionage convictions of federal employees > over the last decade. While these individuals represent > a tiny minority of government employees, the impact of > espionage activities on our nation's security can be > enormous. As the recent arrests of Nicholson, Pitts, and > Kim clearly indicate, espionage remains a very serious > problem. Any policies that detract from the FBI's ability > to perform its vital counterintelligence function, > including the ability to perform wiretaps, inevitably > detract from the security of the Department of Defense > and the nation... [*Below] >Gilman's amendment offered today: > [....] National security > shall include, but not be limited to, the ability of law > enforcement agencies, including Federal, State, and local > agencies, to combat espionage, terrorism, illicit drugs, > kidnapping, or other criminal acts, or otherwise would > involve the potential for loss of human life. And fortunately defeated, though an appalling number of Committeecritters voted _for_ it. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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REMAIL: policy
by sameer＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Remailers: sameer(a)soda.berkeley.edu sameer(a)netcom.com cs60a-qu(a)cory.eecs.berkeley.edu Policy: At this point I log everything and delete it daily, manually. This will change, RSN. (It was for debugging purposes.) I will change it so that the archive.* files are not created. (By editing the maildelivery file.) It's run on two school systems, and netcom. The cory account will disappear at the end of the semester, but I will hopefully be able to have that mail forwarded to sameer@netcom, and once I get my semi-permanent class account next semester I'll try to get stuff forwarded to there. Soon I will have linux running on my roommate's computer with a net connection via UUCP (Hopefully SLIP eventually) and I'll run a remailer there, under my physical control. -- Sameer sameer(a)netcom.com

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Brit Fascists To Track Motorists
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, I see on the news that the British Government are installing cameras with OCR capabilities throughout London so that they can track all the cars which pass by. Of course this is only to track 'terrorists and car thieves', not ordinary law-abiding citizens, no, no, no, not at all, guvnor, so that's all right. And don't worry about all those reports that the British Police Force is full of corrupt officers who the superiors can't fire. I wonder why no-one in the media has pointed out that terrorists and car thieves, being, after all, criminals, will have no qualms about strapping on false plates. Oh, but I guess it will catch 'stupid' terrorists and criminals, so that's all right after all. Odd that this was announced the same day as other annoucements of the British Government joining an EU-wide system to track millions of European subversives (including, apparently, those who have been to rock concerts?). I bet it's just one of them coincidences... SpyMonger

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Anonymous Forwarding Software Available
by rjc＠gnu.ai.mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wrote some quickie installation docs and put a copy of my anonymous forwarding software in soda.berkeley.edu:pub/cypherpunks/incoming/aforward.shar If you don't know what the software is used for check the cypherpunks gopher for a file like "Forwarding for multiple accounts" -Ray p.s. I am not supporting it right now because of my workload. If it's bugged, wait for a new version. -- 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 --

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Free Money
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In response to outside pressure, Swiss bankers have abandoned their traditional secrecy laws and published a list of all bank accounts opened by non-Swiss citizens prior to May 9th, 1945, the end of World War II. This list and instructions for claiming your share of the millions of dollars offered may be found at... http://www.dormantaccounts.ch/ Happy browsing. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ enoch(a)zipcon.com $ via Finger $ {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}

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