December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

NYT: Virus; NeXT (unrelated)
by walter kehowski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks and Extropians: Two articles of interest in today's NYT: 1) [Front Page, lower right] A software vendor allegedly planted a virus in a customer's machine because he threatened to stop payment on the software he bought. The virus was programmed to shutdown the customer's computer. 2) [Front page, bottom, Business section] NeXT and Sun have announced a partnership. Apparently, Sun is to invest 10mil in NeXT for access to the source of their OOP environment. BTW, how much did Sun make last year? How much is 10mil by comparison? Walter A. Kehowski <wak(a)next0.math.pitt.edu>

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ViaCrypt Details?
by Bruce C. Dovala 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Does anyone have any details on ViaCrypt? Particularly availabilty, sources, user interface, compatibility with PGP, etc. Please post or write. Thanx, Bruce

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Re: Comments on NSA (was: "Pyrrhus Cracks RSA?")
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(NSA has been making noises about how they'd already discovered public key crypto years before Diffie and Hellman did. This could be face-saving bragadoccio. Time will tell. Any NSA readers out there are free to post anonymously to this group or to alt.whistleblowers, or to "sell" your memoirs on BlackNet.) There was an interesting discussion on this point at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security a few weeks ago. At the ``Festcolloquium'' in honor of Gus Simmons, someone who used to work for NSA (his name escapes me, but I have it at home) stated that in 1963, President Kennedy signed a memorandum calling for -- in today's language -- the use of digital signatures for nuclear weapons command and control. The memo -- National Action Security Memorandum (NASM) 160 -- is still classified. Someone else on this list (I'll let him speak for himself) has contacted the JFK library about it. It may already be going through clearance release; if not, forms have been submitted to initiate the release process. And there's always FOIA if that fails. It will be very interesting to see the memorandum when it comes out. (Btw, it was written by Jerome Weisner, Kennedy's science advisor.) A lot of wisdom consists of asking the right questions; if the phrasing was right, I would tend to believe that NSA did indeed have public key technology in the mid-60's, once they were asked to create something with those properties. But if that was true, why didn't Simmons himself know of it? He said that he learned of public key from the Martin Gardener column in Scientific American, as I recall. Simmons was familiar with NASM-160, though; in fact, he was the one who supplied the number. --Steve Bellovin

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Re: Can NSA crack PGP?
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> [ Stanton McCandlish wrote ] >The persons holding this viewpoint espouse the idea that >the NSA can crack anything, pretty much, and that anything they could not >crack would not be available to the general public, but would have been >supressed. That view allocates to the NSA the power they wish they had over cryptographic creativity. I wonder if the author is really NSA him/her self. Vernam's one-time-tape [-file, for us] is provably unbreakable and not suppressed. RSA with enough modulus bits is unbreakable and not suppressed (although they tried). [We don't know how many bits is "enough", however.] There are ways to use DES which increase the difficulty of breaking -- but again we don't know how many instances we have to use to achieve enough security to foil the NSA. We know we can get there, however, and I'm willing to bet it's not difficult. Of course, I don't know and don't want to know. I want the NSA to be good at what it does. I want our team to be able to read the other team's signals. All I want is to preserve my freedom to use any cryptosystem of my own concoction -- straight invention or cobbled together from others'. I've had that freedom for all my life and intend to preserve it. ----------- Can NSA break PGP? Who knows? I'm not sure I care. I don't see the NSA as my enemy, per se. (That does *not* mean I'll hand them a skeleton key to my traffic, eg., via Clipper.) My secrets are from people I think of as criminals (in or out of government) and I want to use strong cryptography to foil them. I would trust PGP for that. I trust RIPEM with triple DES (and 1024 bit RSA keys) a bit more, for its better-tested conventional algorithm. For even better security, I would use: 2000 bit RSA keys true hardware ranno generator for session keys des-cbc|tran|des-cbc|tran|des as the conventional cryptosystem but, of course, there are always TEMPEST attacks, bugs in my office, ..., and as Diffie points out -- you have no control over the recipient. S/he might send cleartext of your messages right to the person you're trying to foil. Fact remains: there is *no* absolute privacy. There is only a computational hindrance on eavesdropping. - Carl

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Re: NYT: Virus; NeXT (unrelated)
by jim＠chiba.Tadpole.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sun has over $1B in 'the bank'.

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Re: Canadian application?
by owen＠autodesk.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Recently there have been articles & letters in the local gay press > complaining about Canadian Customs engaging in censorship by preventing gay > publications from entering Canada. Seems to me this is an ideal case for > setting up a special-purpose private encrypted net, and gaining a vocal > constituency in our favor. Queer people are used to codes and semiotic communication, we are pretty good at steganographic social posturing too. On ething I've found though is a definite trend not to volunteer as guinea pigs for social agendas beyond attaining the basic rights now denied us. Oh, and I'm not so sure that a vocal queer constituency is all that helpfull these days :-) > > What I have in mind would be to consult with various publishers in the gay > community, toward the end of setting up offices in Vancouver and Toronto > which would receive encrypted files from the US which could then be > reassembled into printed form for regular press production and distribution > within Canada: thereby entirely bypassing Customs and its censorship. As I understand it the few Gay-Lesbian bookstores who are commited to the cause just drive over the border to pick up their shipments, and then smuggle them back. besides introducing a doubling effect on the physical production process would probably not be worth the expense for that market when simpler methods suffice. > > I'm guessing that they'll probably want to use an authorised/licensed system > such as ViaCrypt, and wonder whether that can handle magazine and book > production type files, which may be text and/or graphics, full color, layout > details, and so on. This could be like waving a red flag in the face of a psychotic bull. Giving the Gummint an excuse to claim probable cause due to contraband sexually explicit material just doesn't sound like a good idea to me? > If anyone out there is interested in helping with this; preferably if you're > in the San Francisco Bay Area, email gg(a)well.sf.ca.us. There are plenty of issues regarding abuse of this network by psychopathic e-terrorist, most of 'em directly analogous to this lists current controversial bad-boy. I for one, would much rather see some attention to methods of dealing with that! LUX ./. owen

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discussion on crypto rights *NOW* (1230PST, 23Nov93)
by jet＠nas.nasa.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

KPFA, 94.1FM is having some sort of discussion on crypto exports and whatnot. Some woman from SPA talking about crypto export rights. -eric

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Markey Bill debuts in House
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Followup-To: comp.org.eff.talk Reps. Markey and Fields Introduce H.R. 3636, the "National Communications Competition and Information Infrastructure Act of 1993": EFF Applauds Inclusion of Open Platform Provisions On Monday, November 22, 1993, EFF applauded House Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Minority Chairman Jack Fields (R-Tex.), and other cosponsors for introducing the "National Communications Competition and Information Infrastructure Act of 1993." The Markey/Fields legislation, which incorporates EFF's Open Platform philosophy, is built on three concepts: open platform services, the entry of telephone companies into video cable service, and universal service. Reacting to the open platform provisions, Mitchell Kapor, EFF Board Chairman, stated: "The sponsors of this bill are to be commended for proposing legislation that incorporates a truly democratic vision of the emerging data highway. Open platform service can end channel scarcity once and for all and make it possible for any information provider to offer voice, data, and video services on the data highway. Every citizen will be able to access a true diversity of information and programming." EFF Executive Director Jerry Berman added that "we believe public interest and nonprofit groups, as well as computer and communications industry leaders will work very hard for the open platform provisions. Our goal is to keep them in the bill and make them even stronger before its enactment." BELOW, EFF BRIEFLY SUMMARIZES THE BILL'S PROVISIONS RELATING TO OPEN PLATFORM SERVICES, THE ENTRY OF TELEPHONE COMPANIES INTO VIDEO CABLE SERVICE, AND UNIVERSAL SERVICE. AN EFF ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF THE BILL ON PUBLIC INTEREST GOALS OF UNIVERSAL SERVICE, COMMON CARRIAGE, AND CONSUMER EQUITY WILL BE RELEASED AS SOON AS IT IS COMPLETED. OPEN PLATFORM Under the Markey/Fields bill, open platform service is designed to give residential subscribers access to voice, data, and video digital telephone service on a switched, end-to-end basis. Information of the customer's choosing would be transmitted to points specified by the customer. The bill directs the Federal Communications Commission to investigate the policy changes needed to provide open platform service at affordable rates. To ensure affordability, open platform service would be tariffed at reasonable rates. ENTRY OF TELEPHONE COMPANIES INTO VIDEO CABLE SERVICE The bill promotes the entry of telephone companies into video cable service and seeks to benefit consumers by spurring competition in the local telephone and cable television industries. The bill envisions that telephone companies, cable companies, and others will be interconnected and have equal access to facilities of the local telephone companies. The bill would rescind the ban on telephone company ownership and delivery of video programming that was enacted in the Cable Act of 1984. Telephone companies would be allowed to provide video programming, through a separate subsidiary, to subscribers in its telephone service area. Telephone companies would be required to establish a "video platform" upon which to offer their video programming. Telephone companies, on a nondiscriminatory basis, would be required to allow other providers to offer video programming to subscribers using the same video platform. Other providers would be allowed to use up to 75 percent of the video platform capacity. Telephone companies would be prohibited from buying cable systems within their telephone service territory, with only tightly drawn exceptions. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would be required to establish rules for compensating local telephone companies for providing interconnection and equal access. UNIVERSAL SERVICE To ensure that universal digital services are available to residential subscribers at affordable rates as local telephone service becomes more competitive, the Markey/Fields bill would establish a joint Federal-State Board to perpetuate universal provision of high-quality telephone service. The Board would be required to define the nature and extent of the services encompassed within a telephone company's universal service obligation. The Board also would be charged with promoting access to advanced telecommunications technology. The FCC is required to prescribe standards necessary to ensure that advances in network capabilities and services deployed by common carriers are designed to be accessible to individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden is posed by such requirements. Additionally, within one year of enactment, the bill requires the FCC to initiate an inquiry to examine the effects of competition in the provision of both telephone exchange access and telephone exchange service furnished by rural carriers. Mary Beth Arnett Staff Counsel Electronic Frontier Foundation 1001 G Street, NW Suite 950 East Washington, DC 20001 (202) 347-5400 VOICE (202) 393-5509 FAX -- Stanton McCandlish mech(a)eff.org 1:109/1103 EFF Online Activist & SysOp O P E N P L A T F O R M C R Y P T O P O L I C Y O N L I N E R I G H T S N E T W O R K I N G V I R T U A L C U L T U R E I N F O : M E M B E R S H I P @ E F F . O R G

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C-source for diffie-hellman?
by Sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was just talking with a friend, and I think it would be pretty good for medium-level security on irc to hack up something do that /dcc does diffie-hellman key exchange, and maybe triple-des or something. Is there some available C-source which would help? (I guess I should get the Schneier book.. But urgh! $50 on a "starving-student" budget is quite a bit.)

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Re: Secure Drive 1.0 is here!
by Marc Horowitz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

IMHO, the relevant section of the GPL, version 2 -- assuming that this is the version of the license Mike Ingle intends -- is as follows: > 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent > .

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