December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Tech: Truth about Canon Copiers
by an4914＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > This is interesting. Since most of the change-making machines in > laundromats seem to use the side with the dead white guy, I wonder if it > would work to use this copy? > ----Dave REes (rees(a)cs.bu.edu) > >Nah, the changers just say "this side up" - the scanner may be looking at >the underside of the bill, or at both sides (more probable). > Or, they may not "scan" at all! Ever wonder why wrinkles, folds, and other mutilations wreck their ability to recognize your cash? I think many of them may be measuring paper thickness, folks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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Re: Pyrrhus Cracks RSA?
by cfrye＠ciis.mitre.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>You know the people who could break DES, RSA, PGP, etc. Shamir >unpacked Diffie's knapsack. What is most probable, is that these >ciphers will stand for some unforeseeable time until someone who >may not be born yet comes along and breaks them all as an idle >{exercise on her way to greatness in another field. > >But the NSA? No way, Jose. They might be nerds who hacked some >code at 3 am. But you put them on a salary and benefits in a >pyramid, then tell them not to talk about their work, and you >thwart whatever creativity they had. The NSA can kill you. But >t({they can never out-think you. Strong words that, IMHO, put way too much faith in the argument that a "restrictive" work environment inevitably crushes individualism and creativity. Any organization, .gov or !.gov, that: * recruits the best and the brightest and pays them well; * gives access to substantial computing/financial resources and academic knowledge; * fosters team-building, creativity, and competition *within the group*; * rewards achievement and provides status *within the group*; and * provides other movitivation, be it patriotism/pride/whatever, will produce more than its fair share of advances in a field. Given a concentrated environment and an advanced set of tools, it seems improbable that any group, regardless of organizational affiliation, could be outperformed *on an evolutionary basis* by a loose band of academicians and private researchers with irregular contact. Revolutionary change is impossible to predict, though I feel that no organization with sufficient resources would throw away promising methods without thorough investigation. Even so, I do personally believe that private individuals may have an edge in revolutionary research. Unfortunately, both statements are unverifiable. The key point to remember is that motivation is relative - regardless of our personal opinions, if someone seeks status within a group then more "restrictive" environments are not a hindrance to creativity. -- Best regards, Curtis D. Frye cfrye(a)ciis.mitre.org "If you think I speak for MITRE, I'll tell you how much they pay me and make you feel foolish."

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Re: The Final Ultimatum
by lefty＠apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Folks, Detweiler is psychotic. Answering this message of his, even to >flame him, isn't going to get anyone anywhere. There isn't any point >to it. Well, gosh, Perry, thanks for taking upon yourself to respond for the rest of us. A truly noble undertaking on your part. Many people are, in fact, capable of making decisions without your input, strange as this concept may appear to you. -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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Re: Pyrrhus Cracks RSA?
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've always felt that the NSA and its corp of mathematicians has a much greater chance of breaking anything than the folks in the University. Even in the best situation (MIT), a professor must devote substantial time to raising money to support themselves, their travel expenses and their graduate students. There aren't many folks who hold positions in these schools. The rest are in schools where the professor must also teach 2-4 classes to pay for food. Research is nice in these places, but it doesn't pay the rent. Very, very few people have the freedom and the time to devote to deep exploration of problems like cracking RSA. Most of them are in the NSA. There is no doubt that the restrictive work environment is a pain in the neck. But, most mathematicians don't really have many choices. They can go to a small college and teach forever. They can go to industry and work hard on the industry's problems. Or they can go to the NSA. It really isn't a bad choice in many respects. No classes. No students whining about their grades or asking for an extension. No endless search for grant money. If you want to do algebra or number theory or a host of other problems, it might be considered one of the best environments you could get short of the Institute for Advanced Study.

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Re: Pyrrhus Cracks RSA?
by cfrye＠ciis.mitre.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> = cfrye(a)ciis.mitre.org (Curtis D. Frye) > = boone(a)psc.edu (Jon Boone) >> Strong words that, IMHO, put way too much faith in the argument that a >> "restrictive" work environment inevitably crushes individualism and >> creativity. Any organization, .gov or !.gov, that: >> >> * recruits the best and the brightest and pays them well; > > Do you know how much NSA employees get paid? I'm wondering, because it > is certainly _not_ the case in the CIA. The "analysts" may make somewhere > between the $30K - $45K range, but that's hardly "good pay" for people > who are experts on that kind of analysis, especially when they have Ph.D.s. While I'm not intimately familiar with the workings of the NSA, I would guess that folks w/ Ph.D.'s and no/little work experience are probably brought in near the top end of that range, though the advanced degree would allow for quicker advancement to senior technical or management positions and correspondingly greater pay. Also, be sure to include the labor surplus, government benefits and job satisfaction as factors in considering salary adequacy. > >> * gives access to substantial computing/financial resources and academic >> knowledge; >> * fosters team-building, creativity, and competition *within the group*; >> * rewards achievement and provides status *within the group*; and >> * provides other movitivation, be it patriotism/pride/whatever, >> >> will produce more than its fair share of advances in a field. Given a >> concentrated environment and an advanced set of tools, it seems improbable >> that any group, regardless of organizational affiliation, could be >> outperformed *on an evolutionary basis* by a loose band of academicians and >> private researchers with irregular contact. >> >> Curtis D. Frye >> cfrye(a)ciis.mitre.org >> "If you think I speak for MITRE, I'll tell you how much they >> pay me and make you feel foolish." > > Please tell me how much MITRE pays you. Is your above description a > description of MITRE? MITRE pays me significantly less than what they would pay a Senior VP, which is about the level where I would feel comfortable stating that I "speak for" MITRE. As for the team-building observations I made above, they are made from a general management perspective and are open to debate, though that discussion might be a bit off-topic for cypherpunks if removed from the crypto framework. -- Best regards, Curtis D. Frye cfrye(a)ciis.mitre.org "If you think I speak for MITRE, I'll tell you how much they pay me and make you feel foolish."

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Re: Pardon my vanity, but...
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Ah you are still around! Postings from you have been so scarce in > recent days that I thought you might have left for the holidays. Nope, I'm still here! > Is it possible that you missed my reply to you last week, repeated > below Yep, I missed it. I read so much mail/news, some times I scan too quickly. > In-Reply-To: Stanton McCandlish's message of Tue, 16 Nov 1993 18:23:59 -0500 (EST) <199311162324.AA29258(a)eff.org> > Subject: Should we oppose the Data Superhighway/NII? > > > Part of the effort that must be made is to knock some sense into the > > rapidly merging entertainment/information/telecom conglomerates, and try > > to at very least keep a large section of the "data highway" (or whatever > > one chooses to call it) an Internet-like many-to-many communications > > medium, if not fused with Internet itself. Convincing the govt. of this > > is will also take some doing. One certainly can't IGNORE the govt. No > > matter how much we may wish it'd just go away, it won't, and has to be > > dealt with. > > The beauty of cypherpunk technology is that it provides means to _avoid_ > the tyranny of government, rather than trying to redirect that tyranny > on behalf of one's own ends. This is a commendable goal, but one can't rely on a trickle to do the job of a river. I'm all for cp tech, and I'm all for reducing the power of the govt. as much as possible and as soon as possible. I'm _not_ all for expecting to accomplish this immediately. > Government gets its power from its hundred million clients. Hmm I tend to think govt. gets its power from the adequately backed-up threat that it can rob (fine), enslave (imprison) or kill (execute or shoot while resisting arrest) you if you don't do what it says. If someone holds me hostage, I tend to think of them as a coercive kidnapper, not a business that I am patronizing. This is not to say that everything the govt does is nefarious. Most of what it does is inefficient handwaving and ignorant blundering. In these cases, I see it as a something akin to a large automobile with an incompetent driver behind the wheel. I might criticize, even yell and fly them the bird, but I'll get the hell out of the way. > To join > that clientele is not consistent with wanting government power to > whither away. Recognizing that in the very rapidly unfolding "data highway" plan (if anything this chaotic and free-for-all can be called a "plan"), the govt WILL play one role or another, like it or not, is not joining the govt's clientele. Much as I'd like to see no govt. involvement, it is inevitable in the current socio-political climate. 5 EFFs could pop up, with twice our funding each, and all scream bloody murder about govt involvement in the "national information infrastructure", and all 5 of them would be utterly ignored. Working more carefully, rather that pursuing an all out barrage, can be more effective in some cases, and we think this to be one of them. I think it's wise to look at the realities of the situation, whatever one's outlook whether libertarian or otherwise, and recognize that sometimes unpleasant things like an unwieldy state simply have to be dealt with. Whether govt involvement is wrong or not is really irrelevant, until cp tech, and cp/libertarian attitudes are in a position to DO something about it. It's like being confronted by a mugger: you can point out that they have no right to rob you and are using coercive force to violate your civil liberties, but it's not going to make them go away if you don't have the physical power to defend yourself. The time's just not right for a cypherpunk "War on Govt". Cypherpunks will lose. As the NII is coming on fast, the govt has to be dealt with NOW, to reduce their impact and involvement, rather than hope that, w/o DigiCash, w/o a large base of support in the culture at large, w/o our own infrastructure, CPs will convince the govt to just give up and go away. They'll trample that idea into the dirt, because they have the money and power to do so, right or wrong, and you'd end up with a net.fcc and 5000 channels of crud, metered out byte by byte, requirements for a net.license to be a provider rather than consumer, and taxed into oblivion. I'd like to point out also that it's much easier to prevent large scale govt involvement and reduce small scale involvement later, that fight against ANY govt involvement, lose, and a be faced with trying to get rid of it later after it's become law and granted the govt all sorts of powers. Try to eliminate the FCC. Good luck! This stance does of course presume vigilance to prevent the govt from expanding their small base of power into a bigger one. I look forward to seeing the power of the govt wane in coming years, and I am certain that it will happen, but I don't think it's going to happen this month, or next year. When we've got a DigiCash-based banking system, when the majority of the population are computer-literate, when cryptography is fully legal and unstigmatized, when CP tech is easy to use for the non-techie and built in to applications and hardware, when anti-authoritarianism returns as the focus of the country's political thought, and when the govt begins to collapse under the weight of it's own failures, then we'll see the changes come. But, I tend to expect that things will get worse before they get better, in the big picture. People aren't mad enough yet to get up off their commercial-brainwashed, apathetic couch potato butts and DO much of anything yet, but would rather go to the mall or play with their Game Boys. "Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death" as Jello Biafra mocked. Have a look at the stuff EFF's doing - to reduce/eliminate ITAR restrictions, to combat unjust laws, to defend people who's civil liberties have been violated by "law enforcement" that doesn't even seem to know what the law is, to educate about privacy and encryption, to make using the internet easy for "Big Dummies", to encourage grassroots real-world networking on the local level, and to ensure that whatever the "superhighway" will be, it provides for full-bandwidth, open platform, and openly accessible many-to-many participation - before tossing us on the garbage heap as govt lubbers. :) I don't think anyone here LIKES the idea that we have to haggle and play the game w/the govt, but that's just the way it stands, and any step that reduces govt interference in any way even if it doesn't bring on the glorious anarcho-capitalist revolution, is still a step in the right direction. -- 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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Case Studies Info Request
by Christopher Garrett Goebel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm looking for info, articles, archives, book and journal leads on info related to applied cryptology in the 20th century... for a senior thesis I'm writing on cryptology, warfare, and national security. Specifically, I'm looking for o Clipper chip archives of articles o Articles on Phil (PGP) and RSA disputes o Articles on the export of cryptology I'd also like info on cryptology in the Cold War or leads to such info. Please send info to: genghis(a)blue.engin.umich.edu. Thanks, Garrett

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NSA
by The PUNISHER - Judge 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey all, I just wanted to let you know (as an ex-SEAL), the NSA (and to a limited extent CIA) have UNBELIEVEABLE resources! If anyone could crack RSA, DES, OPP...they could. Never underestimate the power of a "black" budget (or for that matter soup) The PUNISHER Judge; Jury; Executioner....All in a day's work Mob Boss: "500 of my men killed; there is a limit to revenge you know" Punisher: "I haven't reached mine yet"

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Re: (fwd) Technosys, Prosody, the "NSA", and some unfunny BS passed off as a joke
by owen＠autodesk.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

And people think that corporations are going to entrust their information assets, and valuable corporate data/communication to a network where forgery is this easy. Right, and I am the emperor of China! This is classic. Expect to see lots more of these *harmless pranks*. LUX ./. owen

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Re: Can NSA crack PGP?
by owen＠autodesk.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: baum(a)newton.apple.com (Allen J. Baum) > But, there is one thing that is true about NSA's ability to crack it: > they won't give you cause to know whether they can or not. This statement, like the following, is like a rich vein of valuable insight into the extra-technical aspects of the issue. I found myself reading this next part over several times, and each pass I found that I associated what I understood to other unspoken questions I have. > e.g., if they can, and they read some mail of yours that you REALLY don't > want them to read, they won't act on that information in such a manner that > you can determine that they cracked the code for your message. They > couldn't use it on a warrant, & they couldn't testify as to its contents in > court. To do so would advertise their capabilities, which is a no-no for > them. (they might, of course, use that information to point people in the > right direction so they can attribute information to an anonymous tip, but > they have to be careful even there) and thus revealing that if you become a target of genuine scorn from that corner, it will operate from a position which is beyond accountability itself. I think that Doug Barnes hit the nail on the head by pointing out that sheer volume of stuff to filter through has the potential of affording us an edge. > Even now, when it's pretty certain they could crack DES, you won't > find them doing it for a law enforcement agency that asks; it gives away > too much. Anything you are *required* to keep secret, is more valuable to the *requiring agency* than to you. Anything you are expected to accept on faith, can't be proven. LUX ./. owen

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