December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: USENET on a tape, and
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com N >unsure if there is enough evidence to connect you to the crime. Or, N >let's say that they believe you have had a long-involved role in N >inciting the breaking of a law. N >-nate But inciting the breaking of the law is "as legal as church on a Sunday." The President of the US (used to?) do(oes?) it all the time. Duncan Frissell --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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Signing pictures -- how hard, how long?
by Alan (Miburi-san) Wexelblat 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At the Media Lab, some people have begun discussing the ease with which digital pictures can be altered. One suggested way of ameliorating the problem is to have the original photographer append something like a PGP signature to the picture. This doesn't stop the original photographer doctoring the picture before signing it, but it does stop (I think) people downstream from undetectably doctoring the pic. And if the subject of the photo wants to claim it's been doctored, there's a clearly-responsible person's signature attached. Anyone performing an operation which changed the bits (such as cropping) would have to generate a new signature associating his name with the set of alterations. With luck, newspapers and other information deliverers who care about their reputations would not accept unsigned pictures (just as they don't take pix today without the proper releases). The end user would not likely see the signatures (though they could be delivered and checked in software invisibly to the user), but people with reputations and liability on the line would. One associated question has to do with the soon-to-be-productized next generation of high-end movie cameras. These are all-digital at the source, so the question becomes: how hard would it be to build in digital signing at the source. In theory, you'd like every frame (probably 70 fps in the ultra-high end HDTV cameras) to be signed -- how long would that take? You'd like the signature hardware built into the camera -- what would that cost? Can we come up with a relatively reliable way for the camera operator to handshake with the camera so that it's *his* signature appended to each frame? Perhaps by using some hand-held plug-in module to carry the key or to generate an unique session key each time the camera is turned on? In my opinion we're never going to get a 100% unspoofable system. But I think that a pretty straightforward signature system can get us to a level of reliability where there is at least someone somewhere we can point the finger at as the potential source of doctoring. --Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard Media Lab - Advanced Human Interface Group wex(a)media.mit.edu Voice: 617-258-9168 Page: 617-945-1842 an53607(a)anon.penet.fi The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.

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Surrender or Die
by an12070＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There has been some extremely strong speculation as to our identity lately. It's time for us to identify ourselves. We are Operation CRaP, the Cryptoanarchist Repression and Poison, and we have infiltrated your own conspiracy to the most sensitive levels. L.Detweiler retypes most notes to prevent style analysis and inference detection that would lead to our identities. We have infiltrated the *interesting* mailing list, have a 'bug' planted at crl.com, and a brilliant spy in one of your most sensitive development projects. Finally, we have an informant very close to one of the Big Three. We would be more specific, to prove it, but we can't do so without compromising our contacts. However, we can tell you that we got bored of your silly open meetings and stopped going to them a long time ago because they don't have anything to do with what you're *really* doing! We have been engaged since the talk on this list led us to suspicions and the discoveries of the deceptions and accomplices involved in the Wired article (Kelly,Dyer). Tentacle hunting is one of our favorite pastimes, and we have developed a variety of techniques to hunt down and kill snakes. We also have been able to detect some of the more atrocious pseudopooling. But we lost interest in the `small fries' when the smell led us to the `big macs'. In fact, we would have dropped the tentacle hunting business if it weren't so spectacularly pervasive among the Big Three. After you penetrated RISKS and continued to lie and cover up, it became clear that you will truly stop at nothing to protect your tentacles. We think that you could stop immediately, or someone could get hurt, or a truly great disaster could occur. All of our postings are careful craftings of disinformation and actual truth that are designed to elicit the maximum degree of desperate paranoia on your part. Sometimes when e.g. L.Detweiler says somewhere `I know' or 'in fact' he means `I think' and sometimes `I suspect' really means `we have long had extremely incriminating evidence on this that would convict you in any court in the country, and plan to eventually, but we're just tormenting you at the moment to see how loud you can shriek and how much you can squirm'. Our `cyberspatial' campaign is one of our more effective measures in promoting your disintegration without exposing our extremely stategic positions within your organization, but we have not yet employed the `big artillery'. We are actively destroying your conspiracy so that you will no longer sabotage the growth of cyberspace. We are quite amused to use your own guerrila sabotage tactics against your fragile excuse for 'development'. We are especially amused at your fright at our 'violent death threats'. We are particularly focused on your quasi-criminal activities. You are already aware of many signs of our countermeasures. You have the chance to give up now or face serious escalation and vastly more grisly consequences. You have 24 hours before we launch our next cyberspatial strike. We now return you to your regularly scheduled perversions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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He's Baaack!
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Keywords: Detweiler Yeah, one of his tentacles is posting to Cypherpunks again; unfortunately we haven't really decided how to do a good reputation system yet, so filtering out these sorts of attacks without also trashing newbies and causing other collateral damage isn't easy yet. However, I can report that at the December physical Cypherpunks meeting in the Bay Area, Tim May pointed out that *all* the major tentacles were there - Tim, Eric, John Gilmore, Nick Szabo, and Jamie Dinkelacker. Just for fun, I asked Jamie if I could see his driver's license (it's a "real" California license), and Tim, Eric, and Nick also presented theirs. (John was out of the room doing Cygnus business, but I've known him for 6-7 years.) Either they're all separate people, or Tim/Eric/Dr.Moriarty/Jamie/Medusa hired a bunch of actors and got good fake California ID for them. On the other hand, I suppose this just means that *I'm* one of the tentacles now, but I guess that's just a risk you've got to take in the search for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.... Tentacle #9 # Also known as # Bill Stewart NCR Corp, 6870 Koll Center Parkway, Pleasanton CA, 94566 # Voice/Beeper 510-224-7043, Phone 510-484-6204 # email bill.stewart(a)pleasantonca.ncr.com billstewart(a)attmail.com

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Re: Signing pictures -- how hard, how long?
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If you have System 7 Pro (and an RSA certificate), you can sign any file, including a picture stored as EPSF or TIFF or whatever by dropping the file on your signature -- there are no modifications needed to the application that created the file. An application can sign pieces of information within a file (such as the content of a dialog, or the position of an object) by adding a small amount of code that calls the Digital Signature Manager. File signatures are verified by the Finder (or by an application), while object signatures are verified by the application. The developer toolkit has sample code that shows how to manage digital signatures, including a drawing program with signed objects and a Think C class library for signed files and objects. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com The above does not represent the position of Apple Computer Inc.

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Re: Signing pictures -- how hard, how long?
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think signing photographs and movie images is a difficult problem. Why? Because one flipped bit will completely screw up the hash function. Errors on these tapes happen rarely, but most video manufacturers aren't really going to bother worrying about occasional bit errors because they're usually invisible to the eye. Why waste all that extra effort on error correction if it's not worth the trouble. So signed photographs will also need to contain all of the error correction necessary and that will make them more expensive. This isn't any real cost on a general purpose machine, but it matters in some places.

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Unsubsribe
by Stefan Haag 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sorry for mailing this to the list, but all efforts to unsubscribe by e-mailing cypherpunks-request(a)toad.com have failed. Please unsubscribe me. Thanks, Stefan Haag.

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CELP C Code - where?
by charliemerritt＠BIX.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

While skimming over cypherpunk mail a couple of days ago I saw a reference to some C code for CELP de/encoding voice. Where can I get a look? Email charliemerritt(a)bix.com

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*2* remailers have been attacked
by Sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm wondering if any people here running remailers have been having trouble lately. I'll explain. (And try not to act paranoid.) I ve been running a remailer on cs60a-qu(a)cory.eecs.berkeley,edu, and one day the account was disabled. I mailed the responsible administrator, and he said that it was because I didn't reply to his mail (I never check that account's mailbox, 'cause I hardly use it.) telling me that I should see him in person about possible email abuse. My account was going to be disabled on the 20th anyway, so I really didn't worry about it-- I had finals to worry about. So now I'm in Boston, and I call netcom, (where I run another remailer) and they tell me the account is being investigated because the account was used to break in somewhere. I know *I* did no such thing. I finger the account (by calling all the way across the damn country to my berkeley account) and it says that my las login was from soda.berkeley.edu, even though my las login was from the Berkeley dialup, not soda. I was told to call the netcom office tomorrow morning about the issue. My question is whether anyone else running a remailer has been attacked lately. In paranoia, Sameer (Please pardon any irrationallity.. phone calls from Boston->Berkeley are *not* cheap, and it's pissing me off.)

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Signing Images Not So Useful Now
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't think signing digital images is especially useful right not. This is not to say we shouldn't discuss it, or that someone out there won't make some bucks on such a product. Some points: * signing at the digital camera level is the most unlikely, currently, as most digital images are currently made by _scanning_ conventional slides or prints. (Slide scanners are readily available, with >1200 dpi, and even higher, resolution.) * as others have noted, almost all digital images are further massaged in PhotoShop or the like. Even Nick Szabo's "picture distance" idea is of marginal use, as many common filter operations introduce very large picture distances and/or Hamming distance. Determining "alikeness" metrics of an image and a suspected forgery or copyright violation will be a challenge. (Could be a nice little niche business for a "expert witness" on such things, though.) * most ripped-off images are of course done by using scanners. All those "Playboy" and "Penthouse" images you see on the Net are done with scanners. (Both Playboy and Penthouse offer on-line services, so I suppose it's possible some of the bootleg images are in fact digital copies. In these cases, a signature might reveal the copyright violation. A simple Gaussian blur in PhotoShop would of course erase most conceivable signatures. There may be some way to introduce something that can't be easily blurred away, though...) * the most common means of detecting forgeries and copyright violations is of course the human recognition of such images, the recognition that an image came from a well-known source. --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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