December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

really hiding encrypted data
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Let's imaging that the government has made it illegal to encrypt data unless you use an "approved" crypto-system. In a world like this, a person who wanted to encrypt data would have to find a way to hide the encrypted data. Many people have suggested placing the encrypted data in the least significant bit of a binary picture file. However, I suspect it is easy to distinguish between the collection of least significant bits of a normal picture file and the collection of least significant bits of a picture file used to hold some encrypted data. In other words, your picture file envelope could trigger an alarm in some government traffic sniffer. This is probably a stupid question, but...is there anyway to take a chuck of encrypted data (presumably with a high degree of randomness) and securely munge it so it looks less random, while retaining the ability to reverse the munge and decrypt the data. Ideally, the munge process should not be based on obscurity. The munge process should be a keyed algorithm so the government filters can't systematically "unmunge" to check for highly random (and suspect) data. Unfortunately, I have a hard time imagining an algorithm that is secure AND produces an output that isn't highly random. Any ideas? How about something fractal? <arg! I can't believe I said the "f" word> The "munge key" could be the initial state of the fractal engine. <shrug> I really don't have a clue about the randomness of the output of a fractal engine. Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

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really hiding encrypted data
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, the output of an additive knapsack encryption has a normal distribution. More precisely, if you encrypt many input values with the same public key, the resulting output values will follow a normal distribution. This is because you're adding up a set of large numbers with an apparent uniform-random distribution. Not quite you what you asked, I realize. --Steve Bellovin

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Disruptive members
by Andy Wilson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 17:10:48 PST From: lefty(a)apple.com (Lefty) >I have seen a man arrested ostensibly for "disturbing the peace", who was >actually just giving a speech. The charges were thrown out. If you don't >like free speech, don't log in. The U.S. Constitution and the Declaration >of Independence state very clearly that our form of government is based on >the recognition of human rights, not responsibilities. You might be able >to find a system more to your liking in China or North Korea for a little >while longer. There is little I less enjoy seeing than the spectacle of someone who has never actually bothered to find out what the Bill of Rights says and what it means blathering about "free speech". I am aware of what the Bill of Rights says, but I am not required by the political philosophy cops to make sure my own notion of free speech is isomorphic to it's, thank you just so much. Mr. Wilson: does my right to free speech entitle me to come into your living room and demand that you provide me with a podium and a megaphone in furtherance of my expressing my opinion? Nope. But you can send me unsolicited mail as long as it doesn't contain bombs, threats or frauds. That's all Detweiler is doing to me. I can turn him off just like I can turn off junk snail mail, if I take the appropriate steps. Not a big deal at all. Just like turnin' off a TV channel I find particularly asinine. Technically cypherpunks is private since it is administered from a private site, but it is freely accessible. I don't think excluding someone from the list should be illegal, I just think it's misguided, like trying to fix a leaky faucet with a revolver. If you think it doesn't, then you have no cause for complaint. If, on the other hand, you think it _does_, then I've done you a grave misservice by mistaking you for nothing more than an uninformed chowderhead. You would constitute, at the very least, a full-blown loon. >After all the speech criminals are rounded up, what next? Got any ethnic >groups in mind? That's low. Or, to be more precise, on a par with the rest of your little screed. Not any lower than the groteseque bastardization of the word "rape" I was responding to. I don't have much tolerance for that kind of P.C. doggerel. I was alarmed by the control-freak strategy of the poster I was responding to. Excluding "disruptive members" is a non-solution. They'll just come back with a different account if they really want to. What particularly incensed me was the crap about "rights without responsibilities". It's not anyone's responsiblity to make sure that their posts are entertaining to everyone. That's what kill files are for. As for ignoring people not being a solution because it interferes with "outreach", the members of this list, and the Extropians list, include some of the most atrocious examples of "outreach" I've encountered. Perhaps Mr. Detweiler wouldn't have gone off the deep end if he hadn't received death threats. But then again perhaps he's just a dadaist... or another one Tim May's pranks... Andy -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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Factor Breakthru!
by Matthew J Miszewski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

'Punks, Just curious as to what would (or will eventually) happen when a shortcut to factoring large numbers is discovered? Do we revert to older less secure conventions or am I missing something? --Matt ______________________________________________________________________________ In defense of liberty, encrypt for all purposes, civil and professional. In defense of privacy, encrypt all correspondence, personal and professional. In defense of sanity, do not encrypt your dry cleaning invoice! ++++++++--------mjmiski(a)macc.wisc.edu (c)1993

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Medical and Hospital Info Systems.
by Matthew J Miszewski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

First off, thanks to all the people who replied to my first post. Which, as it turns out needs a bit of clarifying. I am looking for a secure information system for hospital administration. My mother is on the purchasing committee at her place o' employment (she is a Registered Nurse) and asked me some questions about their nascent search for a new information system. They are considering three operating systems all put on 3090's i believe. They are considering CICS, AIX and something merely labeled propietary (UNIX?). Well, I am visceraly familiar with the first two and know of several security problems with both systems. So, when I read on in her literature I found mention of security. All that it said was individual users have individual passwords! HELLO! I immideatly told her that there was or would be a problem. AIX out-of-box is horribly insecure as is any CICS implementation i have seen. I was/am concerned about the probability of a breach. So, my cryptoQuestion is based around *any* possible/existing medical info- rmation protocals in existance. I would prefer a cryptographic protocol, thus my appeal to the list. If none exist, then industrious punks can make a bundle by creating one (Oh yeah! We do write code when were not hissing at Medusa's Head!). Otherwise, I may simply piece together a package from that which already exists. Punks, I must say it is sad to see the state of information security with regard to Medical Information. --Matt ______________________________________________________________________________ In defense of liberty, encrypt for all purposes, civil and professional. In defense of privacy, encrypt all correspondence, personal and professional. In defense of sanity, do not encrypt your dry cleaning invoice! ++++++++--------mjmiski(a)macc.wisc.edu (c)1993

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Knights who say NII (was Crypto(A), govt & NII)
by fnerd＠smds.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May writes (1): > Having read the three main "position papers" on NII (the White House > paper, the CPSR analysis, and the EFF "Open Platform" piece), I'm as > convinced as ever that the Data Highway is largely about regaining > control of the currently anarchic network system. Mike Godwin replies (2): > For what it's worth, I don't think this interpretation can be read into > EFF's Open Platform paper. A rotated view on each of these. 1) NII is not "about" anything in particular. You can look at what each person talking about it means in each instance, or you can look at what effect the ideas will have when they become incarnated in government organizations and rules, and take on lives of their own. Or you can look at the process that keeps the topic alive as a popular issue. I'm not sure what kind of "about" Tim was talking. 2) It doesn't matter so much what interpretations can be read into EFF's, or anyone's papers. What matters is the effect they'll have. Giving the government savvy advice, telling them they should do whatever will promote, say, competition or open forums...what effects will these have? They may provide justifications, expertise and targeting info for interventions, for instance. New ways to get involved... There's a dynamic to things like this involving momentum and snowballs and chaos theory; government; media; punks; the public; policy orgs, tanks and wonks; and regulated industries. I can't think of one positive thing (as opposed to the negative thing, disengagement) government can contribute to the goals of EFF. I wonder if the EFF folks are sure there are some. Mitch Kapor talks of "decentralists" who want to use government to promote decentralization-- thwart centralization effects that happen in capitalism, I suppose. (You may have missed Mitch's post as it was forwarded by Ell Dee.) The government can stop all the things it does that produce centralization (it produces centralized capitalists, for instance), but the most centralized organization in the world as the decentralist's tool or ally doesn't seem workable to me. The means clashes against the ends. Telling a bull that he should make whatever positive contributions he can to the china shop...is worse than just not mentioning that there are none. To the bull it suggests, well, a fact-finding tour at least... "But we didn't say that." Of course not. The good guys just tag along and advise against what's *specifically* happening, while gesturing in a forward direction. I'm sure anyone in CPSR or EFF who's even heard the word libertarian has weighed similar arguments. I've seen Mitch and Mike (for instance) talk. Both energetic yet eminently rational and calm. The perfect people to talk someone down from a contemplated harmful act. I hope that's what they end up spending their time doing, in this NII business, (although it's not a positive- or creative-sounding or pleasant thing to wish on someone). And sure, of course I hope sane heads prevail everywhere, that everything everyone says is taken in the right spirit by everyone involved and no terrible travesty of "Open Platform" comes to pass, unlike the rest of the history of such things. Times are changing... I just don't like the whole country waiting for the government to "do better this time, we promise," when it's not helpful for the government to do anything except put down the blunderbus and come out. -fnerd(a)smds.com quote me -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvtoxiQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2toust1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hanC0R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Cryptosplit 2.0
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>If I remember coorectly it's KerberosV uses an MD5 hash of /dev/mem. I'm pretty familiar with the most recent iteration of Kerberos V (pre-release beta 3). There is no mention of /dev/mem in any of the Kerberos V source code files. As best as I can tell, all DES keys and random numbers used by Kerberos are ultimately derived from pass-phrases. The random DES keys produced by the Kerberos administration utilities are derived from the KDC master key and some other info (not /dev/mem). The KDC master key is derived from a pass-phrase. All random numbers used inside the Kerberos runtime library are derived from the user's or server's secret DES key. A user's secret key is derived from the user's pass-phase. A server's secret key is derived from a pass-phrase or generated automagically by the Kerberos administration utilities mention above. (all this is assuming you are using the DES encryption option) Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

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Crypto-dongle protocols?
by fnerd＠smds.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I know there was talk of making little crypto boxes that attach to the back of bigger computers. "Crypto-dongles," they were called. Did anyone go and build one? Did anyone think up a protocol for talking to one? It occurs to me that pocket computers like the Psion might make nice crypto-dongles, especially for people who use Unix for mail. The little computer could show you the text you were signing or that it had decrypted. All safe from Unix hacks--but is there a good protocol? Integration with PGP functions would be nice and might even ease the implementation. So, once again, Has anyone got a crypto-dongle protocol? -fnerd(a)smds.com quote me -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvtoxiQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2toust1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hanC0R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Signing Keys for Nyms and Digibank Users
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

X-Note: This isn't a Detweiler-flame, it's a mostly technical discussion A While Back, L. Detweiler asked: > Suppose that a real person signed someone else's imaginary identity for > a key in a key server, or for their own. Can someone explain to me why > this is not dishonest? > > I guess the argument will be, the signor is only guaranteeing that some > key is associated with some email address. But that seems to me to > abuse the whole idea of trust in people. Has anyone asked PRZ what he > thinks of the practice of real people signing imaginary identities? There's a couple of issues here, some of which we haven't beaten to death: - what you're claiming to be the truth by signing the key - can you be sure you're signing a key for the *real* imaginary identity, or whether you're signing a key for somebody *impersonating* the imaginary entity? - if the pseudonym is one of yours, are you giving away its identity (and hence usefulness or safety) by signing it? The purpose of signing keys, in my opinion, is to verify that, if you're using a given key to talk to a given person or entity, does that key really belong to that entity, or is it a key the KGB/NSA/Mafia/Wiretaps-R-Us substituted for the real key. You're not necessarily claiming that the name on the key is the person's Government-Approved True Name, though government ID is one way you could help verify that the person you meet at a conference claiming to be "Tim May" is the real "Tim May" you've been sending email to all these years, and not some NSA guy or Eric Hughes in disguise. The government already supports government-approved fictional people with government-approved names - corporations. The quality of the introduction you're providing to other people may be affected by how well you verify that you're talking to the person you think you are, and by how well you know them, and ought to indicate this. If you're giving away PGP at, say, a trade show or conference or rave, you probably should create a separate public key for doing those signatures, e.g. (1993 Anarchist's Gathering PGP Demo <wcs(a)foobar.com>) so people know this isn't the usual high quality intro you normally provide. Verifying that you're talking to the right person for a pseudonym is tough. If you're having a conversation by email, it's really hard, unless you and the nym share some private knowledge that the Wiretaps-R-Us folks wouldn't have access to and that isn't on the Usenet CD-ROM collection, which is unlikely unless you know the pseudonym-user personally and are sure they've been using that name. I know a couple of people who use the names "Hobbit" and "Wookie", in real life as well as on the net (though that's probably not what their mothers call them :-), and I'd have no problems signing keys for them as long as the keys indicated *which* Hobbit and Wookie they are. Similarly, I've got a number of relatives who've changed their names (show biz, Anglicizing, personal weirdness, etc.), and I'd have no problems signing keys for them under either their government-approved names, birth names, work-use names, family-use names, or whatever. On the other hand, I'd have real trouble signing keys for Wonderer, Dark Unicorn, or strnlght(a)netcom.com because I haven't met them personally, and only have the consistency of their email addresses to verify who they are - and I haven't tried checking their articles to know what to look for to check whether an email request claiming to be from one of them looks unforged. If I remember right, none of these people puts a PGP Key ID or fingerprint in their posting signatures, so I don't have that clue available - that would increase my confidence a lot. But I still couldn't be sure. I once got a phone call from someone claiming to be Bob Morris (Sr.), about some computer security problems I was having, who pointed out that I couldn't really verify it was *him* I was talking to. (If I'd called him back, I'd at most know it was someone at his desk or someone hacking the phone system.) If I wanted to sign his key, I'd create a special "Unix Hacker who claimed to be Bob Morris" key to sign it with, if he told me the key words from that conversation, and you could decide how much to trust that introduction. ~~~ There are a couple of of my own nyms I've signed keys for (using other nyms), when I was demonstrating how the signature stuff worked to somebody who uses an anonymous remailer (and had already figured out that I was the person who used one of those nyms due to the anon.penet.fi remailer behavior; I knew his address because he'd included a signature in one of his anonymous postings.) On the other hand, if I really cared about preserving the anonymity of the nym-user, and it was somebody I knew in person, or myself, I probably wouldn't sign it with my real key - it may be relatively obvious that "Bill The Dragon-Basher" whose key was signed by "Bill Stewart" was me, but I'd rather not have to deal with a court subpoena or Mafia equivalent trying to find the users of the keys for "Crypto International, Ltd." or "Coalition Against the U.S. Invasion of Cuba" or "Some Unapproved Religion" or "Bear's Custom Chemicals" or an anonymous Panamanian bank account that's mine. But if the keys are only signed by other nyms, how trustable are they? If I ran a digibank, I'd be real hesitant about accepting changes of address or public-key unless I had some physical verification or other securely shared secret to avoid eavesdropper and interloper attacks, but one of the goals of digital banking is that you're not supposed to need physical transactions. I suppose an initial account set up by sending the bank a message with a Secret and a public key and a bunch of digibucks might do the job, with some cut&choose protocols to decrypt the digibucks if the account is approved? Bill The Dragon-Basher (oops! ^X^C:wq!/exit~.\b\b\b\b\b\b) # Bill Stewart Old address: wcs(a)anchor.ho.att.com AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ # After 10/15, NCR, 6870 Koll Center Parkway, Pleasanton CA, 94566 # Voice/Beeper 510-224-7043, Phone 510-484-6204, email bill.stewart(a)pleasantonca.ncr.com

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anti-cypherpunk propaganda
by Timothy Newsham 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

strike another one up for L.D. and the NSA. Original readings of some of L.D.'s articles have lead me to believe that he was truely in a state of delusion but now I know better. His description of the great medusa was infact true, but the people he was describing where no the 'leadership of cypherpunks' but rather his own actions and tactics. It is amazing that this hasn't occured to me before, the cleverness of his rants draw attention away from him and make it seem implausible that he could be involved in such activity. His attacks are well coordinated, well thought out, obviously written with much care and taking up much of his time. He was reached out to many forums and undoubtadly affected the thinking of many people. It is going to take much information to reverse the damage he has done to the reputation of the list. Here is a recent article from CuD: ----------------------- Subject: File 3--A Psychopunk's Manifesto From: nagap(a)MINDVOX.PHANTOM.COM(Michael Roberts) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 22:20:11 EST A Psychopunk's Manifesto by T.C. Hughes Honesty is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Pseudospoofing is dishonesty. A pseudonym is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, and anonymity is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Pseudoanonymity is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world. If two thieves have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of their interaction. Each criminal can confess about their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it? One could criticize laws against it, but the freedom of collusion, even more than pseudospoofing, is fundamental to a criminal; we seek not to restrict any criminality at all. If many criminals speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and other parties. The holes in the Internet have enabled such group collusions, and it will not go away merely because we might want it to. Since we desire black markets, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no secrecy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must _always_ reveal myself. Therefore, pseudospoofing in an open society requires pseudoanonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. A pseudoanonymous transaction system is not an honest transaction system. A pseudoanonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of criminality. Honesty in an open society also requires identification. If I say something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it. If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy. To speak is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to speak on the Internet is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Furthermore, to conceal one's identity with assurance when the default is True Names requires the Internet. We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us embezzlement out of their beneficence. It is to their advantage to repress us, and we should expect that they will try. To try to prevent their restrictions is to fight against the realities of cyberspace. Evil does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Criminality expands to fill the available storage space. Criminality is Conspiracy's younger, stronger cousin; Criminality is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Conspiracy. We must defend our own conspiracy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow pseudoanonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own conspiracies for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong conspiracies, but electronic technologies do. We the psychopunks are dedicated to building pseudoanonymous systems. We are defending our criminality with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money. Psychopunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend criminality, and since we can't get perverted unless we all do, we're going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow psychopunks may practice and play with it. Our code is barred for all to use, worldwide. We don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write. We know that software can't be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down. Criminals deplore regulations on criminality, for criminality is fundamentally a private act. The act of corruption, in fact, removes information from the public realm. Even laws against conspiracies reach only so far as a nation's border and the arm of its enforcement. Criminality will ineluctably spread over the whole globe, and with it the dishonest transactions systems that it makes possible. For a conspiracy to be widespread it must be part of a social contract. People must come and together deploy these systems for the common evil. Secrecy only extends so far as the collusions of one's accomplices in private. We the psychopunks ignore your questions and your concerns and hope we may deceive you so that we do not get caught ourselves. We will not, however, be moved out of our course because some may disagree with our goals. The psychopunks are actively engaged in making the networks safer for criminality. Let us proceed together apace. Onward. T.C. Hughes <satan(a)soda.berkeley.edu> 16 Nov 1993 ------------------------------

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