December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Clipper on Gene Burns?
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone told me that Gen Burns, the libertarian syndicated talk show host, was supposed to focus on Clipper a few days ago but was missing a guest so he may do it at some time in the very near future. Perhaps today. Those interested should listen in. He does one topic per three-hour show so it could be good. DCF

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Re: News Flash: Clipper Bug?
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> One thing this shows, even if the application of the technique turns out >> to be too difficult to be practical, is that Dorothy Denning's evaluation >> of the design was worthless. That team should have found this themselves. >> No wonder she was trying to play it down in the NYT. > >It was my understanding that Denning was just looking at the Skipjack >algorithm, and not the clipper unit as a whole. I wouldn't be too quick >to condemn her on this point. Of course, Dorothy Denning could simply say, "Gosh, the Blaze result shows how to make Clipper _more_ secure for the average user. Now they don't have to worry about the government. I stand by my assessment that it is secure."

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Re: News Flash: Clipper Bug?
by baum＠newton.apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

koontzd(a)lrcs.loral.com (David Koontz )> >I've been saying it can be done for more than a year. I wrote a C model >of some operating code for the chip. The clipper chip has save and restore >commands that are used to dump and restore the LR register (crypto state). >You keep your own LEAF and feed it back to the chip. You take the initial >value of the LR register after IV generation and reload, it contains the >IV. You exchange IVs with the distant end, who has also feed his own >LEAF back to his chip. You have achieved crypto sync. Where did you get the information about the internals? I've seen no references at all. >2) There might be anti-tamper features (re: FIPS Pub 140-1), causing loss > of crypto variables (say for key exchange). It might be possible the > TSD won't operate it all if security features are tripped. (unlikely, > when you consider mechanical switches might bounce when one of these > is thrown is a briefcase). Hmm- a lot of the pay-TV cable boxes have security like that, and they work just fine. ************************************************** * Allen J. Baum tel. (408)974-3385 * * Apple Computer, MS/305-3B * * 1 Infinite Loop * * Cupertino, CA 95014 baum(a)apple.com * **************************************************

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Re: Black Eye for NSA, NIST, and Denning
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> At today's talk at MIT (Morris & Unkenholz of the NSA) Morris >said several times that the escrow system had to be produced in a >hurry, on top of the Skipjack algorithim, which was designed >previously and 'sitting in a storeroom.' (boy, I'd like to FOIA that >storeroom. :) Gee, now that mab(a)research.att.com (Matt Blaze), knows where to find the checksum, and by extension the unit id (Which shows up on labels in photos on the literature from Mykotronx) - providing a known plaintext, maybe someone will start working on the family key? (I won't hold my breath waiting for it to be announced)

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HACK - U HAVE NO PRIVACY
by lefty＠apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't know whether you all have seen this: I've got a double-sawbuck that says it's nonsense, but those of you who are into recreational paranoia may enjoy it. I especially enjoyed the mention of the Bilderbergers... >From: fringeware(a)io.com (FringeWare Inc) >To: lefty(a)apple.com >Precedence: list >List-Server: fringeware-request(a)io.com >Errors-To: fringeware-owner(a)io.com >X-Www-Page: http://io.com/commercial/fringeware/home.html >Keywords: exchael psychotes convestuffican geneur existration tription >Subject: HACK - U HAVE NO PRIVACY >Reply-To: holo(a)netcom.com (D. Ronan Hallowell) >Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 21:51:06 -0700 (PDT) > >Sent from: holo(a)netcom.com (D. Ronan Hallowell) > >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >>Date: Wed, 25 May 94 09:42:11 -0700 >>From:paul.geronca@support.com >>To: sfraves(a)techno.Stanford.EDU > > [mod's note: We received another forwarded copy of this message > annotated with a msg saying it's a hoax...?] > >NSA can crack PGP > >A lot of people think that PGP encryption is unbreakable and that the >NSA/FBI/CIA/MJ12 cannot read their mail. This is wrong, and it can be a deadly >mistake. In Idaho, a left-wing activist by the name of Craig Steingold was >arrested _one day_ before he and others went to stage a protest at government >buildings; the police had a copy of a message sent by Steingold to another >activist, a message which had been encrypted with PGP and sent through E-mail. > >Since version 2.1, PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") has been rigged to >allow the NSA to easily break encoded messages. Early in 1992, the author, >Paul Zimmerman, was arrested by Government agents. He was told that he >would be set up for trafficking narcotics unless he complied. The Government >agency's demands were simple: He was to put a virtually undetectable >trapdoor, designed by the NSA, into all future releases of PGP, and to >tell no-one. > >After reading this, you may think of using an earlier version of >PGP. However, any version found on an FTP site or bulletin board has been >doctored. Only use copies acquired before 1992, and do NOT use a recent >compiler to compile them. Virtually ALL popular compilers have been >modified to insert the trapdoor (consisting of a few trivial changes) into >any version of PGP prior to 2.1. Members of the boards of Novell, Microsoft, >Borland, AT&T and other companies were persuaded into giving the order for the >modification (each ot these companies' boards contains at least one Trilateral >Commission member or Bilderberg Committee attendant). > >It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it. >The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation", >in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The >result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above >2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC >with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into >itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler >is older than from 1992. > >Distribute and reproduce this information freely. Do not alter it. >------------------------------------------------------------------------- >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. > > > > -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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Faster way to deescrow Clipper
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The attack posted here uses a brute-force search to find a phony LEAF which has a valid checksum. Instead, why not just initialize the chip with a session key and get the LEAF. Reset the chip and initialize it with a different session key, but send the first LEAF instead of the second one. The LEAF would look good unless you tried to decrypt the session key. The wrong-IV problem would remain. The NSA should have designed the Clipper so that, if the IV was wrong, the chips would not accept the LEAF. They also should have used a much larger (32-bit or even 64-bit) checksum. --- Mike

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Spoofing Clipper
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I had a fun idea. Imagine getting enough information together to spoof clipper transmissions? The idea being to disguise other types of secure transmissions as clipper ones. What would be needed would the escrow encryption identifer, a bunch of damaged LEAF/IV assemblies and a transmission channel that wouldn't be easily distinguishable from data portions of a clipper transmission. You start the channel up prepending one of a large number of spoofed LEAF/IV assemblies. With enough of these traversing the ether, the chaff/wheat noise ratio goes down to where having a source identifier (ID in the LEAF) gets real hit or miss - to where it loses traffic analysis value. Sort of growing weeds intentionally on the information superhighway.

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Re: Spoofing Clipper
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>With enough of these traversing the ether, the chaff/wheat noise ratio >goes down to where having a source identifier (ID in the LEAF) gets >real hit or miss - to where it loses traffic analysis value. Sort of >growing weeds intentionally on the information superhighway. If the adversary learns to distinguish false clipper transmissions, you could always use a fake one to lull him into not listening further.

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Re: HACK - U HAVE NO PRIVACY
by Vinod Valloppillil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> One question: What's MJ12? British Intelligence was still MI5, >right? >-- >Michael Brandt Handler <grendel(a)netaxs.com> >Philadelphia, PA, USA PGP v2.6 public key via server / finger / mail >"I am iron, I am steel, nobody can touch me when I'm on the wheel" -- Curve MJ12 is (supposedly) the ultra-secret high-level national security group for the free world in charge of advanced military projects and most importantly -- UFO phenomena. In UFO conspiracy circles this group has supposedly sold the American public to alien abductors in exchange for technology, science, etc. No list of good conspirators is complete without it ! :) These opinions are mine, not Microsoft's. Vinod Valloppillil

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Re: HACK - U HAVE NO PRIVACY
by Vinod Valloppillil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> One question: What's MJ12? British Intelligence was still MI5, >right? >-- >Michael Brandt Handler <grendel(a)netaxs.com> >Philadelphia, PA, USA PGP v2.6 public key via server / finger / mail >"I am iron, I am steel, nobody can touch me when I'm on the wheel" -- Curve MJ12 is (supposedly) the ultra-secret high-level national security group for the free world in charge of advanced military projects and most importantly -- UFO phenomena. In UFO conspiracy circles this group has supposedly sold the American public to alien abductors in exchange for technology, science, etc. No list of good conspirators is complete without it ! :) These opinions are mine, not Microsoft's. Vinod Valloppillil

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