December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

REMAIL: list 12/2/93
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Unless I missed more, the changes are chaos.bsu.edu can be looked up, so no more remailer%chaos remailer at cdodhner(a)indirect.com is down also, I got some anon mail about changing the dos scripts to include more redirection to nul; apparently 4dos is more verbose. I will update this over the break, promise! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Cypherpunk anonymous remailers, 12/2/93 Q1: What are the anonymous remailers? A1: 1: remailer(a)chaos.bsu.edu 2: nowhere(a)bsu-cs.bsu.edu 3: hh(a)cicada.berkeley.edu 4: hh(a)pmantis.berkeley.edu 5: hh(a)soda.berkeley.edu 6: 00x(a)uclink.berkeley.edu 7: hal(a)alumni.caltech.edu 8: cs60a-qu(a)cory.eecs.berkeley.edu 9: ebrandt(a)jarthur.claremont.edu 10: catalyst(a)netcom.com 11: sameer(a)netcom.com 12: remailer(a)rebma.mn.org 13: elee6ue(a)rosebud.ee.uh.edu 14: elee7h5(a)rosebud.ee.uh.edu 15: hfinney(a)shell.portal.com 16: sameer(a)soda.berkeley.edu 17: remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu 18: remail(a)tamaix.tamu.edu 19: remailer(a)utter.dis.org 20: remailer(a)entropy.linet.org 21: elee9sf(a)menudo.uh.edu 22: remail(a)extropia.wimsey.com NOTES: 1-6 no encryption of remailing requests 7-21 support encrypted remailing requests 22 special - header and message must be encrypted together 12,19,20,22 introduce larger than average delay (not direct connect) 12,19,22 running on privately owned machines 13 requires "cash" payment for remailing 21 supports RIPEM encryption, caches remailing requests ====================================================================== Q2: What help is available? A2: Check out the pub/cypherpunks/remailer directory at soda.berkeley.edu (128.32.149.19). chain.zip - program that helps with using remailers dosbat.zip - MSDOS batch files that help with using remailers hal's.instructions.gz - in depth instruction on how to use hal's.remailer.gz - remailer code pubkeys.tar.gz - public keys of remailers which support encryption pubkeys.zip - MSDOS zip file of public keys scripts.tar.gz - scripts that help with using remailers For MAC's, at 129.82.156.104 in /pub/pgpc/ are two files: pgpc22.tar.gz, pgpc22.tar.Z which assist in using the anonymous remailers, including anon.penet.fi. Mail to me (klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu) for further help and/or questions. ====================================================================== Q3. Email-to-Usenet gateways? A3. 1: group-name(a)cs.utexas.edu 2: group.name.usenet(a)decwrl.dec.com 3: group.name(a)news.demon.co.uk 4: group.name(a)news.cs.indiana.edu 5: group-name(a)pws.bull.com 6: group-name(a)ucbvax.berkeley.edu NOTES: * This does not include ones that work for single groups, like twwells.com. #6 blocks from non-berkeley sites (so use the berkeley remailers :-) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLP5f44OA7OpLWtYzAQGzUQP/ewQIHSB4DNjAMabfcpvIiggpE/uuliyG RpmbqROIRQr7YQ6NaCuYxXFLO5v4nJeMeGOpVCzdGNoyFyX8BlUlAyZVjnNh+ymT Hmg8v18xEuH6OaMDRRiACUA1zfiU1Ia/iTDl8Z8fUxXAUzuuBkbYYofORBMWa1Rg iVxCj5IS+8w= =veYO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Karl L. Barrus: klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu keyID: 5AD633 hash: D1 59 9D 48 72 E9 19 D5 3D F3 93 7E 81 B5 CC 32 "One man's mnemonic is another man's cryptography" - my compilers prof discussing file naming in public directories

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Statistics of Low-Order Bits in Images
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Several folks have recently mentioned the need to carefully look at the statistics/distributions of bit values in the low-order bits (least-significant bits, LSBs) of real-world images intended for steganographic use. I concur. This problem interests me. Material from Li and Vitanyi's "An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications," 1993, bears directly on the issues of "picture distance" and how much one can change an image before it's recognizably "different" or before filter programs can detect the presence (or absence) of characteristic structure in images. In this little article I'll be making some general points and reasoning informally about image statistics, picture distances, and the like. There's no doubt a more rigorous way to reason about these statistical properties, using sigmas and summations and Central Limit Theorems and the like, but I'm not that much of a real mathematician to be bothered with that. C'est la vie. Several points: 1. Probably not a pressing concern, yet. I expect few sites have LSB-analyzers, just as few folks are using LSB stegonagraphy. 2. Romana Machado's "Stego" program for the Mac is interesting, and may be useful, but it makes almost no effort to hide the _existence_ of the message bits, e.g., anyone with a copy of Stego can apply it to an image and recover the plaintext or ciphertext. (I mean in contrast to some of the schemes which require a copy of the original image, a kind of one-time pad approach, in which one XORs or subtracts the original image to see the "differences" in the LSBs--a cryptanalyst without the "reference" image is unable to extract any bits for further analysis.) (I suggest we keep these two models in mind. Proposal for jargon: "Type 1 Stego": No reference model needed: message bits are just the specified bits, e.g., LSB, or larger low-order bits. "Type 2 Stego": a reference model--an image or DAT or whatever--is needed to XOR with message to recover the plaintext or ciphertext (if more encryption was used originally).) 3. With fairly noisy 8-bit images, such as might be gotten by frame-grabbing a video image under poor lighting or focus conditions, my experiences at Intel (I ran an image processing lab, for electron microscope analyis of microprocessors) tells me that the lowest _several_ bits of each pixel are "noisy." Very noisy. The bottom bit is "almost purely noise" (also a dangerous term!). But I agree that more recent images need to be looked at and the statistics analyzed. Still, I suspect the bottom bit, the LSB, will be found to have Gaussian noise characteristics. Note also that images are often run through filters, as in PhotoShop, which can give Gaussian characteristics where before there were none. 4. Can "image analyzers" in the hands of border security/law enforcement be used to proseute holders of images that have such white noise characteristics in the LSBs? I doubt it. I interject this point here because an important long-term issue for stego is whether the "Crypto Authority" (resonance with Gibson's "Turing Authority") can make such images ipso facto illegal. I suspect this is hopeless, both because many images have these characteristics and because many people will massage their images to be this way, regardless of original camera-CCD characteristics. 5. All of these arguments apply to the LSBs in DATs. Ambient room noise, noise in microphones, thermal noise in the electronics, etc., all contributes to there being almost no "signal" in the LSB of a 16-bit CD or DAT sample of music. (There are anecdotal reports of people being able to hear effects here, and different noise-shaping filters may have audible effects at least some of the time. So, I do agree that these statistics ought to be looked at, eventually. Some of my audio magazines have articles on this, which I'll try to look at soon.) 6. Here's a strategy which may work OK even if the statistical patterns of the LSBs are not "completely random" (a dangerous term, of course). - take a plaintext or ciphertext and compress it with a good compressor (L-Z may not be enough to wring out all the structure and raise the entropy to the full 8 bits per character, for ASCII). A good encryption of the text should of course produce high entropy. - XOR the compressed (high entropy) text with the LSBs of the image. - the resulting LSBs should have _similar statistics_ as compared with the original image. "Noise" has been added, but no knew structure has been added. Consider a couple of examples to see this: Original image (in bits) : 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 Random 1s and Os: 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 Resultant Image (XOR): 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 (Another example: If one toggles all the bits in a binary image, the "Hamming distance" between the images is maximal, and yet the "picture distance" is very small, i.e., the images look nearly the same. The picture distance being small means the structure is the same, even though the Hamming distance is, by definition, the greatest it can be. This provides a powerful clue that there is a "lot of room" to manipulate images so as to pack bits into this "Hamming space" while still keeping the resulting pictures in a "tiny picture space volume.") Well, this is of coure not a proof, but gives a feel for why XORing with a high entropy image will not _add_ structure. However, it can certainly _remove_ structure! Which takes us back to the original issue of the statistics (structure) of the LSBs of images. If in fact there were "clumps" of 1s and 0s, "ridges" and "valleys" caused by camera/CCD characteristics, then XORing the LSB image with a "random" image will demolish this structure. This is nothing more than the role of the one-time pad....to remove structure but allow its immediate reconstruction on the other end. At least in this case one does not have to worry about the ciphertext _adding_ unwanted structure, only that it may _remove_ structure already present in the image (and perhaps "typical" of images not carrying stego bits). 7. A better approach may be to take two very similar images, perhaps successive frame grabs with the same camera/digitizer, and use the statistics of the LSBs directly as part of the "one-time pad" above (Type 2 Stego). This could be used to give the LSBs the same "structure" (ridges and valleys of pixel values, for example) as a "real image" but without leaking message bits. (More work needed here.) (I apologize for any vagueness here. Partly it is that I haven't worked this out completely. Partly it is the lack of a blackboard to draw pictures on--verbal descriptions get confusing after a while. And partly it is that this message is already too long and I want to wrap it up.) 8. None of this subtlety really matters too much, I suspect. An image or DAT contains _so much room_ for stego bits that the problem of finding a tiny fraction of message bits in megabytes or hundreds of megabytes (DATs) of noisy source material seems well beyond current crunch capabilties. Perhaps images being sent to some sensitive location could be given a quick analysis to see if the LSBs are "too regular," but even this I doubt. And at least the XOR method described above won't introduce new structure....at worst the images or DATs would appear to be "too random." Perhaps we need to paraphrase Eric's line: "Use a random image, go to jail." --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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cryptanalysis for radio communications
by sameer＠uclink.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was wondering if any cryptanalysis packages existed which could help in decrypted information picked up with a scanner. It seems that a bunch of people trying to defend their home from the feds were listening in on the feds radio communications, but now they're encrypting stuff. It's probably not very strong crypto, maybe just a simple XOR. (So I hear.. a friend asked me to help him, 'cause he's the one helping these folk in Nevada.) Thanks.

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Graynet
by szabo＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded from comp.infosystems: Reply-To: an53728(a)anon.penet.fi Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 06:03:34 UTC Subject: Information INFORMATIONAL REPORTS - How to trick pay phones into thinking you deposited money - How to clone cellular phones - How to make traffic lights turn green by remote control - How to build and use a bugging device - How to make your electric meter go backwards - How to get cable TV for free - How to create your own pirate TV or radio station $10 each, or all for $40. For informational purposes only. Send self- addressed, stamped envelope. Make checks or money orders out to Kardos. Kardos P.O. Box 2310 Darien, CT 06820 USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Steganography and noise
by W. Kinney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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No Subject
by hazman＠cco.caltech.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Unsubscribe hazman(a)cco.caltech.edu

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Re: Data Fellows announces F-Secure SSH Tunnel&Terminal
by Tom Helenius 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello Petri and others, I think you haven't fallen off the tracks. We have now (very soon) SSH 1.1 clients. Instead of SSH 1.1 we call the product SSH Tunnel&Terminal. This way we want to emphasize that SSH is a very nice tool for remote and mobile workers. Most of the details about SSH 1.1 you can find in the press release. Regards, Tom At 01:44 AM 7/25/97 -0700, Petri Laakkonen wrote: >Hi guys, > >I'm afraid of that US sales has fallen off the tracks. We need to catch up >ASAP. > > >At 07:58 PM 7/24/97 +0200, Tom Helenius wrote: >>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE >>23 July, 1997 >> >>Data Fellows announces F-Secure SSH Tunnel&Terminal >> >What's this product all in all ? Has this now replaced F-Secure SSH or is >this one additional derivative of SSH a'la ISP SSH ? SSH 1.1 - Easy to use product for remote/mobile workers. It can do all the same that SSH 1.0 does and it is more optimised for telecommuting. >Are the features same as for the most recent SSH clients/servers ? HOw does >this product differ from SSH ? > >Any data sheets ? Probably we should update SSH 1.0 sheets. >Is the software > >a) shipping >b) downloadable from the web ? Should be in a couple of weeks. >>The remote worker can use e-mail, Internet browser, database tools and all >>the usual applications at home, on the road or in any place with Internet >>access. The big difference, though invisible to the remote worker, is that >>all data communication between the server in the office and the remote user >>is flowing through an encrypted tunnel. >> >Does this configure itself automatically for most popular office apps as >discussed some time earlier, or do admins still need to do the installation >manually for each computer or count on users doing this themselves ? You still need some knowledge to make the initial configuration. After that it is very easy. I don't know about the automatic deployment tool. >>F-Secure SSH Tunnel&Terminal provides strong encryption of data and thus >>sets a new standard for secure remote working. Existing solutions like >>Cisco Systems L2F, IETF L2TP and firewalls dont provide strong encryption >>and authentication, which makes these solutions insecure against >>eavesdropping and IP spoofing attacks. In addition to encrypted tunnels, >>F-Secure Tunnel&Terminal also provides secure terminal connections to UNIX >>hosts and secures UNIX X11 applications. >> >What would be F-Secure Tunnel's added value over MS pptp ? MS PPTP does not provide strong crypto. With the SSH tunnels we are almost directly competing against PPTP. Of course PPTP is not available for win3.x and Mac. I'm preparing some info about PPTP, at least for our partners. The problem is I'm not sure what to say and how. >>The automatic deployment tool enables straightforward company-wide >>installation and updates. >> >Interesting. Tell us more about this ? This is very interesting. I have to admit I don't know what this really means. Let's find out on Monday. >> >> >>F-Secure SSH Tunnel&Terminal is available for win3.1, win95, winNT and UNIX >>operating systems worldwide in the end of July, 1997. >> >How about our friends from Cupertino (e.g. Apple) ? This seems to be an error. We are doing the Mac also. Sorry. >Thanks for the additional info in advance, > >Petri > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- >Petri.Laakkonen(a)DataFellows.com, World Wide Web: http://www.DataFellows.com > >Data Fellows U.S headquarters has moved ! Our new contacts as of March >24th, 1997 are: > >Data Fellows >675 N. First Street, Suite 605 >San Jose, CA 95112 >phone (408) 938-6700, fax (408) 938-6701 > >********************************************************************* >* F-Secure * >* Award-winning Security for Peace of Mind * >* from the Desktop to the Internet * >* * >* http://www.DataFellows.com/ * >******************************************************************** > -- Tom.Helenius(a)DataFellows.com, World-Wide Web http://www.DataFellows.com

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Enough is enough
by jazz＠hal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Look, there's one advantage to not banning LD from the list; he generally posts under his own or his well-known anonymous names, which makes it easier to filter them. Recently, though, either he or someone else has started reforwarding his rants through a remailer, which I cannot filter on (unless I go to content filtering, which I'd prefer to avoid). If someone other than LD is forwarding his rantograms via remailers, Please Cease And Desist. If it's Detweiller himself, well, he's obviously not going to listen to me. (Of course, I haven't been accused of being a tentacle; I must not be important enough.) Jason

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Re: Spreading Technology (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: Spreading Technology > From: shadow(a)krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) > Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:23:37 PST > >>What did Einstein say? "God does not play dice with the Universe"? > > This comment was made in reference to the Uncertainty Principle and > > Einstein's perception of the indeterminancy of quantum mechanics. He > > supposedly said it so many times that Neils Bohr, who was more > > philosophically inclined to accept the contradictions in modern physics > > than Einstein, once became so exasperated that he admonished Einstein to > > "stop telling God what to do!" > > And after the experiments that pretty much killed the "hidden > variables" interpretation, one physicist reportedly commented "Not only > does God play dice, he sometimes throws the dice where they can't be > seen." Bohr's objection was one of religion, not reality. His objection was one of familiarity breeding contempt of God. It was Stephen Hawking who made the quip about not seeing the dice. The SU(5) theory was arrived at by political contrivance in 1927 when the Solvay Conference was called to resolve the various theories that happened to be flying fast and furious at the time, instigated by DeBroglie. Because several of these theories were completely in agreement with experiment it was becoming impossible to make progress because of all the possibilities. The question asked was "what theory shows the most promise for continued research and acceptance of requests for operating capital." The SU(5) was arrived at by majority vote and not experimental verification. Einstein's objection to the Uncertainty Principle was the same as David Bohm's. In fact most physicists at the time were opposed to it, the famous Schroedinger Cat was meant to be an objection to the theory and in particular to show how unrealistic it was. If you happen to be willing to do away with the standard SU(5) theory then the Uncertainty Principle goes away, a good example is to look at David Bohms 'many worlds' theory as it has no uncertainty principle involved. Bohm was black-balled by the conventional physics community because he would not accept the SU(5) even in principle. It has only been in the last 15 years or so that serious review of Bohm's work has taken place. Alfven and others have used it and other approaches to bring many of the basic tenets of the SU(5) and the Big Bang into question. Interesting aspect is even his most strident opponents admitted their objection to his theories were based on emotion and mental attitudes and not on any failure regarding experimental verification. He was and is considered one of the greatest modern physicists, on a par with Einstein and et ali. You might check out David Bohm's last book before he died, The Undivided Universe: An ontological interpretation of quantum theory D.Bohm, B.J. Hiley ISBN 0-415-06588-7 ____________________________________________________________________ | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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FTP site for t-shirt design
by Christian Void 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I forgot to put this in the last post... Our t-shirt design, as well as any other designs people come up will be available at netcom.com: ~pub/cvoid/cypherpunks. All files should be in *.gif format. Christian Void /T71 | "I don't like it, and I'm sorry I | V/M/Research, Inc. cvoid(a)netcom.com | ever had anything to do with it." | P.O. Box 170213 Tel. 1+415-807-5491 | -Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961) | SF, CA 94117-0213 * PGP v2.3a Public Key Available Via Finger *

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