December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Clipper Comparisons for non-geeks
by tim werner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) >Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 21:57:23 -0700 (PDT) >Speaking of landlords, when I was renting I certainly had no >expectation that the landlord had any "rights" to invite the police in >to inspect my place for guns, drugs, or other such "contraband." Was I >mistaken? (I'm not saying a landlord can't enter the premises...it >depends on the rental agreement. Most landlords give warning. Some may >snoop. But I think letting in the cops, without a warrant, is still an >illegal act. I could be wrong.) In Ohio, they have to give 24 hrs notice before coming in, unless they smell smoke or gas, or there is some other clear evidence of an emergency situation. Not sure about what they can do if they come in because of an emergency and find you practicing unsafe sex, or something. >With so much of our world increasingly being owned by the State (the >consequence of a dollar being taxed many times in its life is that the >State ends up controlling lots of land, lots of highways, facilities, >military bases, courthouses, schools, etc. Eventually they may get it >all.), this "we can frisk you because now you're on our turf" approach >may put a de facto ending to the Bill of Rights. I'm not too worried about protection from the state in this case. That's what the Bill of Rights is about, and I'm certain these warrantless searches will fail any Constitutionality test precisely because the property is government owned. The scary thing has been our general erosion of a right to privacy from private enterprise. For instance, most big companies now routinely make urinating in a jar a requirement for employment. It's much easier for a private entity to get away with something like that than for the government. tw

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Autobombs - use and misuse
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

rarachel(a)prism.poly.edu (Arsen Ray Arachelian): > I found this on comp-privacy. Maybe we can use a scheme like this one to send > anti-clipper information over the net... Does toad.com have a usenet news > feed? If so, maybe we can have a program written that scans for keywords > and mails the author of the message some info about cypherpunks and clipper > and digital telespying 2. > > [.....] > > We could also have this program autobomb different articles based on different > keywords. It would be a good idea to also keep a list of names of those who We'll soon start using agents, knowbots et al to look for info of our interest. Autobombers can act as useful 'reverse agents,' that find info that we ought to be interested in, determined from our postings. Very useful, if done in a way that doesn't irritate. However, Paul's description (below) of rtfm keeping track of posters is scary. It's like subscription lists; if I let the Economist give my name to whoever, I might get some interesting info; I might also be junk-bombed, and 'kept track of.' Also: > From: "Paul W. Robinson" <PAULW(a)TDR.COM> > > [description of rtfm autobomber elided] > > > > This sort of practice could be prostituted into to all sorts of > > interesting political correctness tactics by having automated programs > > that watch for comments someone doesn't like and mailing the writer > > complaints. I can imagine a 'Detweiler bomb.' It scans for all occurrences of 'anonymity,' 'remailers,' 'Tim May,' 'reputations,' 'fraud,' and responds with long essays on pseudospoofing and child pornography. Let's see: 'reputations' - 'conspiracies by Them'; 'remailers' - 'that Roman torture thing'; 'Tim May' - 'is really Hal Finney (or was it Nick Szabo?)'; and so on... Using a different anon address (we don't mind using remailers to 'demonstrate their misuse') each time, with an expert system to recreate the original Detweiler writing style. (When not ranting against cypherpunks, LD seems to do quite a bit of useful work; the very detailed anon, privacy and whistle- blowing faqs, or the Net resource list for writers.) Thankfully, it's not *too* hard to build firewall agents to keep junk out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "What is civilisation rishab(a)doe.ernet.in, rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in but a ribonucleic Voicemail +91 11 3760335; Vox/Fax/Data 6853410 hangover?" H-34C Saket New Delhi 110017 INDIA --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Laundering money through commodity futures
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>[then is described the double-up strategy] >>Ideally, you play this game with two players with relatively deep >>pockets. This means that A can cover the short term loses. >Here's the flaw, in full glory. This scheme is the classic >double-or-nothing martingale. It doesn't work. The "relatively deep >pockets" of A have to be infinite, because that's the expected value >of the amount of A's intermediate loss in the random walk to the >completion of the transaction. >The example is ludicrous, but the conclusion is valid. More >transactions means more interactions between them and more possibility >to hide something inside the ever-increasing flux. There is a major difference between playing this game with commodities and trying to win with a double or nothing Martingale scheme in a casino. The casino always takes their cut. The transaction costs in the futures market are often much smaller if you're dealing with significant amounts of money. Many of the people who experiment with these schemes have very large pools of money to move. You must realize that laundering money was usually done through much more inefficient ways. Some typical techniques involve double billing and inflated construction costs. If Entity A wants to move money to Entity B then, Entity A contracts with B for a big new building. B charges too much for the building and A pays up. This can be done with supplies or other commodities. The problem is that you've got a brand new building that you've got to sell/lease or whatever. So, are there problems? Yes. But it can be much more efficient and much more transparent than almost other scheme. Remember that the flux between the two entities in the commodities market is not immediately apparent. You don't need to use the same broker. One could use a broker in Hong Kong and the other could use one in Chicago. You don't even need to trade the same contracts. One side of the deal could buy gold futures market marked in pounds sold in London and the other side could sell gold futures marked in dollars in Chicago. The thousands of arbitrageurs out there will make sure that the markets move together. (You can also hedge your deal against the currency risk.) Who is going to piece these two together?

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authentication cards
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I use Secure ID's from security dynamics, and have found them very effective. Security Dynamics One Alewife Center Cambridge, MA 02140-2312 USA phone (617)547-7820 fax (617)354-8836 My account exec is Wayne A Nelson, tell him I sent Ya' Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot "Cryptocosmology: Sufficently advanced comunication 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 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLbLdjtCcBnAsu2t1AQGeywP/Wugl3vZsPNiarfMN8m/ezM/w1MzL9Gx9 yj3A/7EFG0xth3Icb9NEg6V5IHiRttbzgvW8+ZJorT1mG4t6Tih87NhOIrePHhZ+ J9l5/0yvvh3RXB/vPTcqz3ZlkR3C3BRHhqGTcZ+iqmr6ufM/II7j0yfRQWA217D1 Ob2/L27lTlQ= =+o0z -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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FBI Cost-Benefit
by fnerd＠smds.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dave Banisar forwards something aparently from CPSR- > Ever since it first proposed "Digital Telephony" legislation in > 1992, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has claimed that > wiretapping enables law enforcement agencies to prevent billions > of dollars in economic loss. Wonder what the value is of the right of everyone to conduct their business as they see fit, and the value of safety from government peeping, and what figures I should cite to justify them. Not to undercut the point, just needed some air. There should be a catalog, maybe a science, of slippery slopes. -fnerd quote me - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - hah. i can do that with my eyes tied behind my hands. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvt3niQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2tPEot1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hSnC1R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Dolphin Encrypt
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Real? "Anonymous" here reveals that he has not been keeping up with > the literature. DE was examined critically by Prof. Cipher Deavours > in the October 1993 issue of Cryptologia, who (after studying the C > source code for the encryption algorithm) wrote: "The diffusion Is what you are saying, Mr. Davidson, that "Prof. Cipher Deavours" is sufficient critical examination? This argument boils down to "well, we had this one group look and it and they couldn't break it, therefore, it is secure." > For all we know Eric himself posted that "anonymous" message, so he > could quote him out of context. As I recall, Anonymous seemed to have > (deliberately?) misunderstood the part about the statistical test (and > Eric agrees with him). This is not Eric Hughes. What did I misunderstand about the statistical test? I read about a weak system versus a 2000 byte file, and Dolphin Encrypt versus a 60000 byte file. No description of what the files were was evident. If the authors have such high cryptographic skills, then perhaps they can show the results of differential cryptanalysis (or linear cryptanalysis, etc.) on Dolphin Encrypt, rather than some completely bogus statistical test like the one displayed.

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Re: Dirty Laundry...
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> Notice that both Proctor and Gamble and Dell computers have recently >> sustained large losses in the futures markets. Maybe they're gambling, >> maybe they're funnelling money someplace. Who knows? >Given the sums involved, if the firms wished to launder money in this >manner they would not resort to silly martingale schemes but would >just bribe a broker to swap tickets. They could not possibly have >managed to "double the bet" often enough not to go broke. However, in >both cases, I am sufficiently familiar with the events to very >seriously doubt that any profits laundering was taking place at all. I think you misunderstand what I suggested might possibly have been happening. If a potential launderer guesses the market correctly, then they don't close out their position. They just let it keep losing money because they know that they're piling it up elsewhere. There is no need to do any doubling. Someone else has pointed out a large company in Chile recently lost a small fortune on financial trades. They placed bets on the market and didn't cut their losses. Another potential excursion into hypothetical guessing might suggest that the reason the losses were so big is that they _were_ trying to launder a much smaller amount and they found themselves forced to keep doubling. But, again: who knows? Don't get me wrong. Bribing a broker to swap tickets is an okay system, but it may leave too great a paper trail as the recent news has shown us.

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Safeway + Your Privacy
by an3747＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In <0097D140.1B631720.2317(a)Leif.ucs.mun.ca> Bill Garland <bill(a)kean.ucs.mun.ca> wrote: > Hey, we have already inadvertently given great power to a centralized > government. We - many of us - well, some of us, well, er, I'm sure > at least Tim May and myself, are just trying to get some of it back, > and not to give them any more. No, you must be thinking of someone else. Tim May acts to _strengthen_ government. Why, just the other day he boasted about _voting_ for them: In Message-Id: <199404140800.BAA23572(a)mail.netcom.com> he wrote "Understand that I actually _voted_ [in a government election]... " Voting in their elections is right up there with petitioning them or accepting money from them as their justification for being. When they're challenged, they need only point to these constituencies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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Autentication gadgets
by Johan Helsingius 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I remember seeing some discussion about the security gadgets people from Bell Labs, amonst others, used for logging in from remote sites. It was a simple credit-card-calculator-like challenge-response device. Any pointers? Julf

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RE: Warrantless searches -- A sign of things to come?
by GERSTEIN＠SCSUD.CTSTATEU.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 17 Apr 94 13:39:39 paul(a)hawksbill.sprintmrn.com (Paul Ferguson) wrote: >A Page 1 story in The Washington Post Sunday (94.04.17) reads, >"Clinton Lets Police Raid Projects," "Warrantless Searches Said to Be >Needed For Tenants Safety." > >For those who haven't been following this ludicrous story, the USG has >now decided that Chicago Housing Authority-sponsored, and warrantless, >searches of dwellings within the CHA, is "A Good Thing" (tm) and >specifically geared towards uncovering weapons of criminals (or >would-be criminals) for the safety of law-abiding Housing tenants. > >Personally, I find this mentality alarming and indicative of a growing >trend within the government. "Big Brother knows best." > >Vile and Nauseating. > >This is another absurdity in the "War on Drugs" and "War on Crime." >More government-sponsored "wars" are undoubtedly on the horizon, >perhaps even a war on non-escrowed crypto. > >I suppose things will get worse before they get better. ======== While I don't agree with these searches either, you have to understand the situation that the people in the CHA buildings are in. Did you see the show that was done on it? (I think it was Nightline, they did a whole hour on it) Anyway, the point is, these people aren't safe in their own homes. The parents keep their children home from school because they are afraid that they will either get shot (which happens quite a lot, one child was shot by a "gangsta" with a sniper rifle while his mother was walking him to school- the kid was about 5 years old) or that the kids will get involved in the gangs. For a while, the Chicago PD were unwilling to enter the buildings until after the shooting had stopped, and would then go in to tag and bag the bodies. IT WAS BAD!!! The landlord of the little kid who got shot decided he wasn't going to put up with that, and started the CHA PD, and they were kicking ass until the ACLU got involved. Slightly related is the fact that I live on my school's campus in the residence halls. If the resident advisors feel there is probable cause for something and decides to do a room search, I can do nothing about it but hope they don't find what ever it is their looking for (usually because I don't do anything bad >:)). Anyway, if they find something (drugs, beer in excess of the 6 can limit, firearms, PGP, etc.) they can call the campus police (real, live, actual cops) in to bust my ass and nail it to the wall. BUT NO WARRANT WAS SERVED! Does that mean I can get the ACLU up the school's ass? If the school says they can do that because I pay to live on their property, then why can't the CHA do what they want? Just my 0.02¢..... adam "After this, nothing will shock me." ---------- "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 4, 1994

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