December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: BOYCOTT AT&T
by Graham Toal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

: The single oddest thing about the announcement, was that they were talking : about spending the equivalent of $25K for each new phone subscriber in Saudi : Arabia, and still only doubling the number of phone subscribers. Where the : heck does all that money go? Into the monitoring equipment. This will be a field-trial for the stuff that the FBI want for the phonetap bill. G

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Re: Message Havens, Pools, and Usenet
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I agree with Tim May that Usenet newsgroups can do the job of a global message pool. However, it takes too damn long to get a reply. It typically takes 3 to 4 days before I see replies to messages I post to Usenet. I wouldn't want to use Usenet for one-on-one communication. I'd prefer a network of indexed message pools like I described in an earlier post. Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

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In defense of paranoia in cryptography
by Jim Gillogly 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Yes, excessive paranoia is inefficient. For example, assuming that NSA is godlike could lead people to choose 4K-bit RSA keys, with the associated penalty, when 700 bits or so would be plenty for the near term. However, a successful cryptographer must be cautious at a level that would be judged paranoid in more civilized communities. A trusting cryptographer would accept arguments about how many more keys this new system will accept than there are atoms in the universe (like simple substitution, for example, which allows for 26! different keys). A non-paranoid user of PGP would use a shared UNIX system for all business, since only trusted users and the very rare cracker have access to that system. A non-paranoid cryptographer would put her password into her autoexec.bat file. If you need cryptography, it's because you have enemies. In a world of sweetness and light, it doesn't matter if everybody knows everything about you, because they won't take advantage of that knowledge. In the real world, your data and identity have value, and people may be willing to expend resources to acquire some of that value. You need to estimate how much exclusive use of your data is worth to you, how much your hypothetical enemies are willing to spend to get access to that data, and how cheaply you can defend against that attack. It's been observed that a good programmer will look both ways when crossing to a one-way street. I'll observe that a good cryptographer will not only look both ways, but will also look up and down. Jim Gillogly Trewesday, 23 Thrimidge S.R. 1994, 23:05

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Re: Message Havens, Pools, and Usenet
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

:> I think this is the way to go, and I don't think we need special :> groups for it either. Tim, just as an experiment, post a message :> to any group you like (except netcom ones!) with 'gtoal' in it :> somewhere (innocuously, like in a .sig), and I'll show you how easy :> it is to find stuff that's addressed to you. :Mass kibozing is certainly an option for the receiver, but I think :this scheme is going to provoke loud complaints from most sysadmins :if it ever gets off the ground. I agree with Karl's comments re Heh. I'd never contemplate such a thing. In practice if I were using such a scheme I'd probably stick to *.test - I was just pointing out that Tim doesn't need to create an alt.w.a.s.t.e group specifically for the traffic. In fact, we *can't* create any such group specifically for the traffic because it wouldn't be carried, and you could trace recipients easily because all the people who talked to each other this way would have to arrange for their own feeds to take the group and get it from each other. (Actually I *had* been giving serious thought to such a scheme for an anonymous fax service I've been thinking about, but thought better of it, because, as you say, the net would want my head for posting 100's of K's of encrypted binaries in alt.test :-) ) G

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Forward of sci.crypt web of trust.
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Newsgroups: sci.crypt Subject: Re: Announcement: Mac Crypto Interface Project I thought I would forward this to try and provoke discussion: ++++ In article <199405140507.AAA23861(a)indial1.io.com>, Terry Ritter <ritter(a)indial1.io.com> wrote: > In <strnlghtCpr6DE.7C6(a)netcom.com> strnlght(a)netcom.com (David > Sternlight) writes: > >>[...] >>Thus PGP will either have to be modified to conform to the PEM Certification >>heirarchy, Apple will have to add web-of-trust provisions to Digisign and > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>the core system utilities, or PGP Mac users will have to generate their key >>pairs for PGP separately and use them separately from their certified AOCE >>key pair used to sign and authenticate. > >>[...] >>Ripem may shortly be adding the new "web-of-trust" addendum to the RFC on > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>PEM certificates. Whether Apple will do so or not remains to be seen. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > I am aware of no formal analysis of "web-of-trust" as a secure > cryptographic protocol. Strangely, sci.crypt has held many huge > discussions on the strength of RSA and IDEA, but few if any on > the relative difficulty of defeating "web-of-trust." > > Failure of "web-of-trust" to identify a "spoofed" invalid key > leaves the PGP design open to "man-in-the-middle" attack. While > many consider such attack unlikely, I wonder just how unlikely > this cheap and easy method would be when compared to the capital > and time required to attack even a 512-bit RSA key. Note that > the Network itself seems almost the ideal resource for the > automatic re-routing of messages needed in such an attack. [...] > "Web-of-trust" is almost certainly the weakest part of the PGP > design. [...] One of the biggest problems I see with the web of trust in PGP, at least in the MAC version, is the difficulty in verifying signed messages. It's just too complicated to be done on a regular basis. This is why it is easy to forge usenet messages now-a-days on the net, no one checks. The other flaw here is characterizing the web-of-trust as a secure cryptograhpic protocol for your analysis. Indeed the social aspects of the web-of-trust model are what your really referring to. If a messages is signed by me, and the signature checks out, the public key having been verified by some physical exchange or a trusted key signature, validity is no longer a cryptographic question. There is little doubt that the message was: 1> Signed by the public key in question. 2> Not altered since. The real question is does the key belong to who it claims to belong to, and has it been compromised? This is a social question, and makes key signatures a shade and not a bit (on/off black/white) question. It now comes down to judgements about the key management practices of the user, and the key signature policy of the key certifiers. A key certificate is not really a cold "certificate of authenticity," it is a voucher, and it's only as good as the authority it comes from. The reason I prefer this over a centralized system is because the potential for compromise of the thousand potential signators on the net is minimal. Because a central authority takes each potential certification application as a blank slate, it has basic unreliabilities that to me are more disturbing. All it takes to compromise a central authority is a forged identification document. If you've been to college you know this is a joke, if you live in LA you have more experience. Why this is more trustworthy than several signatures from diverse, respected net or other personalities is beyond me. What's wrong with the web of trust right now is that it takes a boolean approach to a non-boolean process. Signatures should instead bear some qualifying information, like "know personally" or "physical exchange of key information" or "life long friend." In addition I would like to see a reputation signature as well, a signature that says "not only is this a person who I know personally, but I respect this person's judgement and perspective in intellectual matters." This in conjunction with the strong signature method would make the web-of-trust model much more effective. Regardless, the greater problem is transparency of operation. Once that is accomplished, it will be a trivial matter for forged usenet posts to be rebuked by readers realtime. In short, you need to ask not just: "Is it signed." But: "Is it signed by a public key bearing a key certificate from a user I trust to make good decisions." -uni- (Dark)

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AT&T and Saudi Arabia
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> in alt.news-media: >From: Publications-Admin(a)Whitehouse.Gov (The White House) >Subject: CLINTON: 1994-05-11 President Names Mabus as Ambassador to Saudi Arab >Date: 14 May 1994 08:29:23 -0400 > THE WHITE HOUSE > > Office of the Press Secretary >________________________________________________________________________ >For Immediate Release May 11, 1994 > > PRESIDENT ANNOUNCES INTENT TO NOMINATE RAYMOND EDWIN MABUS > AS AMBASSADOR TO THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA > The President today announced his intent to nominate Raymond >Edwin Mabus, Jr., of Mississippi, as Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi >Arabia. > "Ray is a good friend who I had the honor of serving with as a >fellow governor. As Governor of Mississippi, he represented the people >of that state with distinction," the President said. "He brings the >leadership and vision he has demonstrated throughout his years of public >service to this critical assignment. I am pleased to nominate him as my >personal representative to Saudi Arabia. " > > Mr. Mabus served as Mississippi's Governor from 1988 to 1992. He >also served as State Auditor of Mississippi and on the staff of a >previous governor. For the past two years, he has managed his own timber >business, worked as a consultant on job training and telecommunications, ---------------------------------------------------------<bingo!> >and was the Chairman of the Commission of the Future of the South. ... Someone want to bet how much money is in whose pocket?

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No Subject
by Cyber City 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: Re: BOYCOTT AT&T Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 20:07:37 -0400 Reply-To: cyber1(a)io.org In-Reply-To: <199405131541.IAA24220(a)well.sf.ca.us> Lines: 40 > sure it didn't hurt. In the May 13 New York Times: > > >The AT&T Corporation's winning bid for a $4 billion contract to > >modernize Saudi Arabia's phone system ,WHICH HAD BEEN SUPPORTED > >BY HEAVY CLINTON ADMINISTRATION LOBBYING , was hundreds of > >millions of dollars higher than other bids [...] The huge-scale In a column written for the Toronto Sun today, former Canadian Defense Minister Perrin Beatty went on record as opposing the Clipper chip. His reasoning: "1) American policy can't apply around the world, and foreign companies will build equipment without the chip. Criminals will have ready access to scramblers without trap doors. 2) The code the chip inserts makes it easier to identify information from a particular source. Instead of simply being part of a computerized stew, each piece of data is more recognizable and can be readily decrypted by the electronic key. 3) If Canadian industry must include the chip in products sold in the U.S. and Canada, it will lose business to less buggable equipment from Asia or Europe. 4) The chip could open our diplomatic and commercial secrets to U.S. snooping. The Americans are our best friends and our interests are usually similar. But shouldn't we at least be cautious? 5) The requirement for a court order is fine if procedures are followed and no one breaches security, but what if the system breaks down? Should we rely on only one means of protection?" ..................................................................... My comments: Canada used to have that Saudi Arabia contract, so there may be some economics involved. On the other hand, Mr. Beatty is especially well informed and has shown an interest in privacy issues for some time. -- Alex Brock

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re: havens, pools, usenet
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > To wit, what happened to the idea of posting anonymously to > newsgroups? This is how folks apparently communicated with BlackNet, Nothing happened to the idea of posting anonymously to usenet! It's just that it usually draws complaints from people, which at times threaten the existence of the remailers involved. And the fact that the haven doesn't send mail out is an attempt to solve this problem. Besides, the advantage the haven would offer is that it could allow you to pay for more time - say by default messages get tossed out after a day or two, but you could pay for yours to stay around a while longer. Maybe commercial services operate differently, but here at Rice, newsgroups (especially in the alt.* hierarchy) expire lightning fast. Well, all except the rice.* and clari.* heirarchies. Which would pose a difficulty in using certain groups. Like I said, most of the objections I see to anonymous mail are the fact that mail actually arrives at another person mailbox or in a newsgroup. I mean, I was involved in a flame war on comp.admin.policy a while ago, and after exchanging posts and email with a few people, it became clear their only objection to anonymous posts/mail was that mail actually went somewhere or it was a breach of "nettiquette". Tim, I agree with your assessment of "nettiquette"; there are plenty of worse abusers, but all the same, it draws fire which is harmful. If nothing else, lots of other people get irritated. For instance, Serdar Argic seems to survive despite net.abuse, but it irritates hundreds. Karl Barrus klbarrus(a)owlnet.rice.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLdWHFIOA7OpLWtYzAQHOiQP8CQF5Sdj/nf+YbDNuyWgNB8bFrZTW7f1q 3oPsfjdXiJsrmpkb53YeM1iPZr3THAJYX9M8wPOopZOvU9LDVRQhGXOUa7FuIAww 6+lk13ys/1RWFNLhycOmIErz+0+prwp1bBMbxQ7s4Ok5lecXjM8Qkaz356gUhJDc lYHrQkcNN2c= =krV1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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List Filtering.
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have been thinking lately about list filtering, and the moderation methods that have been tossed around on the list of late. I come down against any kind of "negative" moderation. What strikes me as more effective and efficient is a reputational system. Interestingly this ties into my concept of how the "web-of-trust" should work as well. If somehow, the list server could be made to keep track of reputational signatures on some sort of a point scale and tack the result into a header like "X-Posters-Reputation-Grade: A-." The result would be easy filtering, a lack of active censorship, and less user work overload to make the system work. Of course this is by no means a new idea. If I could remember who has suggested this point on the list before, I'd credit you... sorry. I don't have a firm idea of how reputational signatures would be "valued" but it seems to me that positive systems are a better idea the negative ones for a few reasons: Negative systems allow blacklisting. In any system, if I have three or four accomplices, it's easy to spoil whoever I have personal conflicts with. Negative systems just aren't "nice." If you can't say something good about someone.... :) Negative systems don't account for perspective as well: While anyone can find something poor to say about someone, it is probably more instructive of a poster's "worth" if a few people can say something good. Additionally, in a hybrid system where negative systems and positive systems are balancing (one users positive vote of reputation is offset by anothers negative one) the filtering tends to be content based rather than merit based. For example, just because I post about political and distractingly political issues occasionally, a list user like, oh I dunno, let's call him Mr. M., might give me and F or a D. While someone who particularly likes my posts, even when they are distracting, and approves of my ability of analysis and perspective, no longer has much impact on my rating. Simply, in a positive system: If your a complete idiot, you'll never get any real reputational certificates. If your a poster of worth, and you just tend to annoy some of the regulars, you'll still get some positives. It would be nice if PGP had a system to account for a reputational rating of a users key management and security practices as well. -uni- (Dark)

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Public Key Servers
by Matthew Cable 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm looking to set up a public key server at phantom.com, supporting both 2.3 and 2.5 keys. Who should I contact for information and source to work from? With the moving of BAL's server to 2.5, i figure we could use another server here on the east coast. Thanks! *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* mcable(a)[jade,emerald,cs].tufts.edu \|/ wozz(a)wozz.ext.tufts.edu Matthew Cable <0-0> wozzeck(a)mindvox.phantom.com MTUC Jackson Labs ----o00-O-00o----- http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~mcable/ Tufts University GCS/MU -d+ -p+ c++++ l++ u++ e+ m++(*) s++ !n h+ f* g+ w++ t+ r- y+ *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

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