December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Mail delivery question
by hfinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have a somewhat dumb question about mail delivery. This has a CP connection because it relates to a remailer enhancement I am working on. When I receive mail from cypherpunks, this is a typical set of headers for an incoming message: From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Wed Oct 20 23:57:11 1993 Received: from nova.unix.portal.com by jobe.shell.portal.com (4.1/1.34) id AA14713; Wed, 20 Oct 93 23:57:11 PDT Received: by nova.unix.portal.com (5.65b/4.1 1.505) id AA18779; Wed, 20 Oct 93 23:57:09 -0700 Received: by toad.com id AA20355; Wed, 20 Oct 93 23:47:55 PDT Received: by toad.com id AA20115; Wed, 20 Oct 93 23:43:21 PDT Return-Path: <jamie(a)netcom.com> Received: from netcom.netcom.com ([192.100.81.100]) by toad.com id AA20111; Wed, 20 Oct 93 23:43:19 PDT Received: from netcom3.netcom.com by netcom.netcom.com (5.65/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id AA27104; Wed, 20 Oct 93 23:43:51 -0700 Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 23:43:51 -0700 Message-Id: <9310210643.AA27104(a)netcom.netcom.com> X-Mailer: Eudora To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: jamie(a)netcom.com (Jamie Dinkelacker) Subject: Re: Something Silly, Something Serious Status: RO Now, my question is, when this mail is delivered to the Unix system which I use, how does the local software know to deliver it to hfinney? My name does not seem to appear in the header at all. In particular, the "To:" address is not hfinney(a)shell.portal.com, as I would have expected, but rather cypherpunks(a)toad.com. I suppose there is some other information that is passed along with the message when it is delivered to portal.com, information which tells my user name. It would be nice if this information were available to scripts which would process the incoming mail. Could someone explain how this delivery process works? Thanks - Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com

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PGP vs PEM discussion
by Brad Huntting 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Perhaps someone on cypherpunks can help with this... To: pem-dev(a)tis.com Subject: Articulation of PGP point of view? From: "Robert W. Shirey" <shirey(a)mitre.org> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 10:54:43 -0500 Is there anyone who has, or is able to, articulate the PGP point of view for public key management and compentently contrast it to the PEM point of view? Is there, perhaps, someone who has written on this subject or spoken publicly in an organized fashion? I am seeking such a person for a presentation and panel discussion at an international conference. I need names ASAP! Please feel free to forward this message to appropriate newsgroups. Regards, -Rob- SHIREY(a)MITRE.ORG * tel 703.883.7210 * fax 703.883.1397 Robert W. Shirey, The MITRE Corporation, Mail Stop Z202 7525 Colshire Drive, McLean, Virginia 22102-3481 USA

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Gold in them thar Bills...
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Now, I realize that there is something romantic about Swiss bankaccounts, but lets not fool ourselves. Gold in the Zurich Free Transit Warehouse depends on the good graces of the Swiss government. After WWII, the Swiss ended up with a real pile of Nazi gold in their vaults because they had been remaining neutral during all of these years. The US demanded the gold because it won the war. Here is an account from Paul Erdman's _The Swiss Account_, a docudrama about the time period. It is a work of fiction, but the true parts are as true as any history book. He gives footnotes. Where that gold was concerned, even before the war ended, the Allies threatened to maintain an economic boycott on Switzerland unless it was turned over to them. The Swiss government agreed and also promised to relinquish all other German assets in Switzerland, such as bank accounts, once it was determined how much was involved. So no embargo was imposed. This promise was subsequentally reaffirmed in a formal agreement signed in Washington after which the Swiss simply stonewalled. There was no proof, they claimed, that they had received any looted gold from Germany. And as to the Nazi bank deposits, there was no way under Swiss law that private property could be seized. They insisted that the netire matter be turned over to an international court of arbitration... which would have taken years. In the end, the Allies caved in. On August 28, 1952, in return for a lump sum settlement of ninety million dollars, the Allies concented to declare all of the claims against Switzerland arising out of World War II as satisfied. That amount represented no more than five cents on the dollar. The rest was simply kept by the Swiss, although a small amount was eventually given to the Red Cross. Now, as it stands, I really don't think that gold in a Swiss vault is , without question, better than US paper money. I can pay my US taxes in US currency, but I can't eat gold. It's just shiny and neat. It's great if you need to make gold chains and rings, but it's not that great for anything other than electronics. In my computer, the silicon is worth more than the gold. -Pete r

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pem-dev requests "Articulation of PGP point of view?"
by henry strickland 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If someone wants to answer this, it may help the people on the Privacy Enhanced Mailer Developer <pem-dev@tis-com> list add the capability for the web-of-trust model of key distribution. I think this is a chance to preach to the unconverted-but-convertable. Notice one wants a speaker, one merely a posting. Who's articulate? strick Forwarded message: # From pem-dev-request(a)magellan.TIS.COM Thu Oct 21 08:40:42 1993 # Message-Id: <9310211453.AA22593(a)smiley.mitre.org.sit> # X-Sender: shirey(a)128.29.140.20 # Mime-Version: 1.0 # Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" # Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 10:54:43 -0500 # To: pem-dev(a)tis.com # From: "Robert W. Shirey" <shirey(a)mitre.org> # Subject: Articulation of PGP point of view? # # Is there anyone who has, or is able to, articulate # the PGP point of view for public key management and # compentently contrast it to the PEM point of view? # # Is there, perhaps, someone who has written on this # subject or spoken publicly in an organized fashion? # # I am seeking such a person for a presentation and # panel discussion at an international conference. # # I need names ASAP! # # Please feel free to forward this message to # appropriate newsgroups. # # # Regards, -Rob- # SHIREY(a)MITRE.ORG * tel 703.883.7210 * fax 703.883.1397 # Robert W. Shirey, The MITRE Corporation, Mail Stop Z202 # 7525 Colshire Drive, McLean, Virginia 22102-3481 USA # Forwarded message: # From pem-dev-request(a)magellan.TIS.COM Thu Oct 21 09:41:29 1993 # Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 16:27:16 +0100 # From: Ruediger Grimm <grimm(a)darmstadt.gmd.de> # Message-Id: <9310211527.AA19289(a)ipsi.darmstadt.gmd.de> # To: shirey(a)mitre.org # Subject: Re: Articulation of PGP point of view? # Cc: pem-dev(a)tis.com # # > Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 10:54:43 -0500 # > To: pem-dev(a)tis.com # > From: "Robert W. Shirey" <shirey(a)mitre.org> # > Subject: Articulation of PGP point of view? # > # > Is there anyone who has, or is able to, articulate # > the PGP point of view for public key management and # > compentently contrast it to the PEM point of view? # > # # How much I would like to read the output of this! # Does such a statement exist? This list is certainly # a thankful forum of interested readers. # # Ruediger #

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MATH: factoring, # of bits
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >First, we need an equation that tell us how difficult it is, in # of >operations, to factor a number of N bits. eg: N_ops(N) = # of >operations it will take. I think the fastest method that anyone admits to, by Odzyklo (spelling?), has an order of magnitude defined by: e^(sqrt(ln(x) ln(ln(x)))) I've been dusting off my Mathematica skills working on the crypto techniques Matt posts :-) so it looks like this in Mathematica: f[x_] := N[Exp[Sqrt[Log[x] Log[Log[x]]]]] x in bits difficulty 200 2.27 E11 384 5.54 E16 <- PGP casual 512 6.69 E19 <- PGP commercial 664 1.18 E23 1000 1.75 E29 1024 4.42 E29 <- PGP military 1500 8.11 E36 2000 3.11 E43 3000 5.49 E54 4000 2.44 E64 6000 7.06 E80 8000 8.99 E94 I don't know how many seconds until the end of the universe, but I think you'll be covered using an 8000 bit key :-) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLMbFXYOA7OpLWtYzAQEwrwP9G60hCktxcj7MwkOV2H7QPQ1+i+j5ceTK DEcj74ZFZdsp1vouMxtsN+zvqkdy1+DTzNUuXusWKhogDLFEPTuASZD3tcFgkoUT Uk0B805mJi/gfiBa7+CBWHgjF0T7NSZe1lTjqfru1u+XeU/7iAq+erU0ojydL/xi tqBAZZg3gEs= =wkBt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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why an envelope
by pmetzger＠lehman.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Enough people have asked that I'll explain why envelopes are seperated from headers in mail. Lets say I'm sending mail with the following header To: foo, bar, baz Mail gets stored and forwarded many times during its delivery process on a large internet. If at every stage the only hint the mailer had for delivery was the header address, every mailer along the way would have to generate three copies of the mail in order to guarantee delivery. Kind of nutty, eh? Thats why there is a seperate envelope. When you generate the mail, three seperate copies will be produced with seperate envelopes indicating the mail whould be sent to "foo", "bar", and "baz", and the mailers in between don't look at the headers at all. This is a slight simplification because envelopes can contain multiple addresses -- but thats when you are sending one message to many people via a common path -- the mailer at the last step where the mail can take a common path is expected to break the envelope up before sending it further along. Perry

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Re: Mail delivery question
by peter honeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

i think you want to check out rfc 821, which describes smtp. peter

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Re: backing
by hfinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Perry wrote: > > A digital currency can be backed by gold held in some secure location > > like the Zurich Free Transit Warehouse. U.S. Dollars are backed by > > absolutely nothing other than blind faith in the U.S. Governement. > > Who's kidding whom? Banks are contractually obligated to turn over mortgage notes in exchange for U.S. dollars. These contracts are valid over approximately 30 years, and provide unencumbered title to valuable property. These and similar contracts may be said to give value to dollars independent of government promises. Hal

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Colorado Cypherpunks
by W. Kinney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Count another Colorado 'punk, Boulder. Writing code (slowly) for the Mac. That pesky thesis keeps getting in the way... -- Will

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re:backing
by F_GRIFFITH＠CCSVAX.SFASU.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>workable barter currency? Aug/Sept 93 Mother Earth News has an article "The Ultimate Barter" about "A currency based on time-hours is a boon to a rural community." >poorly-backed digital currency will win out over e.g. U.S. dollars? Depends on legal tender status (see post by Perry). Note too his point that digital currency needn't be poorly backed. However, also note that government issued dollars would circulate in preference to gold backed digital currency issued by someone else according to Greshams law (which was stated in reference to metal coins, but applies to other forms as well). Solution might be to denominate digital currency in something other than $ (e.g. gold grams) & have parallel monetary system develop.

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