December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Revisionist Reinterpretation
by chen＠intuit.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Blanc writes: > Responding to msg by Jim choate, quoting another: > > >> We might also add Shay's Rebellion, Bacon's > >Rebellion, the Hudson > >> River Renters' Uprising, the Pullman Strike, the > >Homestead Strike, the > >> Ludlow Massacre, the Lawrence Textile Strikes, etc., > >etc. Many of > >> these were full-scale insurrections. This country's > >"progress" is > >> really just a series of grudging concessions made by > >authoritarian > >> power structures to various nearly catastrophic > >crises. > > I have a hard time comparing any of these histricaly > important but comparatively minor events to the half a > million dead of the Civil War or the 50,000+ dead of > Vietnam. Perhaps you have extended the analogy a > little too far?... > .......................................................... > > I think he was talking about the Principle of the deal, Jim - > about what this means regarding the relationship of the > citizenry to the big G. > Put all of those insurrections together and what do they spell? > > F _ _ _ _ _ F Blanc is right. You are correct, Jim, in that in terms of destruction, the wars you mention surpass in magnitude the other events that I listed (though I'll point out that if we count Indochinese dead, Vietnam's cost was far higher than 55,000, even if we add in the more than 60,000 who committed suicide in the aftermath). What I am really saying is that we are not, even in "normal" times, the slightly rambunctious but contented citizenry that popular mythology makes us out to be. This country has serious problems, and it always has. I think that we may be in agreement on this. Another good point that you've made elsewhere is the importance of economics as a motivator. I believe that you are exactly right. I'd like to add more, and also to say something about the perceptive comments from John Young, but I think I have a flu, so I'll go home and pick this up again on Monday. Meanwhile, wishing you all a good weekend. . . . - Mark - -- Mark Chen chen(a)netcom.com 415/329-6913 finger for PGP public key D4 99 54 2A 98 B1 48 0C CF 95 A5 B0 6E E0 1E 1D

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minor humor: telco's vs cable companies
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We at TPC like to put it to people quite simply, " Do you want your cable service to be like your phone service, or do you want your phone service to be like your cable service?" Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot "Cryptocosmology: Sufficently advanced communication is indistinguishable from noise." --Steve Witham "Have you ever had your phones tapped by the government? YOU WILL and the company that'll bring it to you.... AT&T" --James Speth

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Steve Jackson opposes Clipper FIPS
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

===cut=here=== Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 21:15:13 GMT From: sj(a)indial1.io.com (Steve Jackson) Subject: Comments on Clipper/Skipjack proposal Steve Jackson, President Sept. 26, 1993 Steve Jackson Games / Illuminati Online PO Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760 512-447-7866 sj(a)io.com National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) ATTN: Proposed FIPS for Escrowed Encryption Standard Technology Building, Room B-154 National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Sirs: I am writing in opposition to the Proposed Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) for an Escrowed Encryption Standard, docket # 930659-3159. As a publisher of both printed and online materials, I am deeply concerned by the potential effect of the proposed standard, which appears to me to have been produced in haste and to be lacking many significant elements required for informed citizen comment. I am in strong agreement with the points raised by the EFF and CPSR in their comments opposing the proposed standard. Private access to strong encryption is simply vital to protect the privacy of individuals in today's online environment. Legitimate business requirements for confidentiality also mandate free access to good encryption technology. The manner in which this proposal has been put forward is improper and incomplete. An algorithm intended for private and commercial purposes should not be classified as a "national security matter." And it is wholly improper to ask for meaningful "citizen input" while the algo- rithm itself is secret, the identities of the escrow agents are not firmly established, complete operating procedures are not available, and no legal recourse is yet proposed for the improper release of keys. In particular, the proposal fails to define what "legal authorization," other than a court order, might be available to compel the escrow agents to release a key. This omission is unacceptable. If keys are to be released to any authority except a United States court, the details must be made public immediately. Finally, a strong guarantee is needed that the Clipper/Skipjack system will never become mandatory, and that other forms of encryption will remain freely and legally available to all Americans. The proposal should be withdrawn until all these issues can be addressed. Only then can a legitimate period of citizen comment begin. Respectfully submitted - Steve Jackson ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Re: PGP Business Week article
by George A. Gleason 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Re. Representative Sam Gejdenson (pronounced as if spelled "gaydenson", accent on first syllable): I went to one of his campaign appearances when he first ran for office (this was Middletown Connecticut, 1980), and was very much impressed by his positions on various issues, and in particular, his background knowledge in a number of areas including engineering and policy areas related to the environment.... he is definitely someone who has a good ability to digest and utilise technical information in detail, and I'd say he could be a very very key person on our side of these issues. He definitely deserves 100% support and all the solid detailed information we can provide. -gg

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Re: Verilog encryption broken
by George A. Gleason 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Re Mark's question about the ethics of revealing that a proprietary system is crackable: I believe there is every right and duty to make the vulnerability publicly known. However, this can be done without disclosing enough of the content of the badly-protected information as to come in for heat. For example, one might post little snippets of a source code file which by themselves aren't usable but which the original owners will instangly recognise. This would be akin to the "fair use" of quotations from literature and poetry in critical reviews. And I also believe it would stand up in court, because the material which was revealed in the quotations could not be used in and of itself to devalue the content of the original complete work. -gg

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GIF experts
by ssteele＠eff.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi everyone. I know this is not the focus of the cypherpunks, but I was hoping one of you folks out there might be able to point me in the direction of a technoid who could testify about how easy it is to manipulate GIF images. Please respond by private message (ssteele(a)eff.org) so I don't cause any more noise on the list. Thanks. Shari

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my clipper letter
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matthew Blaze 55 River Drive South Jersey City, NJ 07310 September 25, 1993 National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) ATTN: Proposed FIPS for Escrowed Encryption Standard Technology Building, Room B-154 National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Dear Director: I am writing to express my opposition to the Proposed Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) for an Escrowed Encryption Standard, docket #930659-3159. First, let me state my qualifications in this area. I hold a Ph.D. in computer science in the area of large-scale systems from Princeton University. I am presently employed as a Principal Investigator / Member of Technical Staff in the Computing Systems Research Laboratory of AT&T Bell Laboratories. My research focuses on the design of cryptographically secure networked computing and communications systems and I have published several research papers in this field. I must emphasize, however, that I am making these comments as a private citizen; nothing in this letter should be construed as representing the opinion or position of my employer or any other organization. I state my affiliation only for the purpose of identification. I believe that adoption of the proposed Escrowed Encryption Standard would be harmful to the national interest in at least two ways. First, it will harm us economically, putting our computing and communications technology at a significant disadvantage against foreign competition. Second, it will hinder, rather than promote, the increasingly vital efforts to improve the security of our information infrastructure. Several aspects of the proposed standard render the system inadequate for our competitive and information security needs. First, because the proposed system relies on the use of a special, tamper-resistant computer chip, it is impossible to manufacture equipment or design systems that have their cryptographic security functions based entirely in software. The implementation of cryptographic systems in software has only recently been made feasible by advances in computer speed and has significant advantages over hardware (chip)-based encryption. Software encryption can be included in digital voice and computer communications equipment, such as cellular telephones, at virtually no increase in marginal cost. Hardware-based encryption (based on technologies such as the proposed standard), on the other hand, can add over a hundred dollars to the end price of each unit. This could represent an increase of several times the original price for typical low-end consumer communications products. Clearly, devices that include the proposed standard will be at a significant disadvantage compared with equivalent products (possibly from foreign competitors) that employ software-based encrypFrom owner-cypherpunks Tue Sep 28 06:46:18 1993 Received: by toad.com id AA03637; Tue, 28 Sep 93 06:41:30 PDT Received: by toad.com id AA03607; Tue, 28 Sep 93 06:38:21 PDT Return-Path: <cme(a)ellisun.sw.stratus.com> Received: from transfer.stratus.com ([134.111.1.10]) by toad.com id AA03603; Tue, 28 Sep 93 06:38:18 PDT Received: from lectroid.sw.stratus.com by transfer.stratus.com (4.1/3.14-jjm) id AA14444; Tue, 28 Sep 93 09:38:16 EDT Received: from ellisun.sw.stratus.com by lectroid.sw.stratus.com (4.1/3.10-jjm) id AA29408; Tue, 28 Sep 93 09:38:15 EDT Received: by ellisun.sw.stratus.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA25476; Tue, 28 Sep 93 09:38:15 EDT Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 09:38:15 EDT From: cme(a)ellisun.sw.stratus.com (Carl Ellison) Message-Id: <9309281338.AA25476(a)ellisun.sw.stratus.com> To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: saturation tactics? >From: "George A. Gleason" <gg(a)well.sf.ca.us> >Subject: saturation tactics? >Message-Id: <93Sep26.015035pdt.14005-3(a)well.sf.ca.us> >Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 01:50:31 -0700 >lots and lots of people & companies applying for those arms export licenses, >"saturation," which involves lots and lots of people scrupulously obeying an >unfair or controversial law to the point where it starts to swamp the >system. I'd much rather not do it. There won't be enough people out there to really swamp the system. Meanwhile, it lends credence to the stupid notion that S/W crypto is arms. I much prefer the statements in the READMEs at soda.berkeley.edu .... The official Stratus line on this issue, BTW, is that we don't want to deal in munitions. We have no intention of selling arms to anyone. We sell much of our product overseas and we sell only freely available crypto -- the stuff which is so widely documented and available that no terrorist or unfriendly government could possible not already have it. In particular, we sell software DES and a few simpler systems for our customers to use as they will. Of course, ye olde US Gov't still forces not to export this except to financial institutions (which is a reasonable fraction of our business) but there are other customers pissed at us because we obey the stupid US export laws. Needless to say, Stratus as a company wants to see the export laws changed. - Carl Disclaimer: I don't speak for Stratus. For the official company policy, see the company's letter to NIST re: Skipjack. [I certainly hope these will be available to the public.]

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Re: GIF experts
by Romana Machado 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi Shari, I am not quite an expert on GIFs, but I know a thing or two about manipulating digital images to hide information - steganography, and I am writing a shareware tool for the MAC that can embed data undetectably within GIF images. The first release date is scheduled for October 15. I am also working on providing an IBM version of this about one month later. If this interests you, let me know. Cheers, Romana romana(a)apple.com

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FAX # for Clipper Comments
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just checked with NIST; they are accepting FAX comments on the Escrowed Encryption Standard until close-of-business today. The number is 301-948-1784 -matt

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MPJ Encryption Algorithm comments
by Michael Johnson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Due to an unfortunate circumstance beyond my control, all of my mail from this group for the last 30 hours got forwarded to /dev/null. If anyone had comments on the MPJ Encryption algorithm, please send them to me again at mpj(a)csn.org or mpjohnso(a)nyx.cs.du.edu. Mike

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