December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

"Sue" and Detweiler
by nzook＠math.utexas.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Okay, so I'm very new here. Got a nickel? Here's three cents change... First, if you look to the posts, the Detweiler connection/accusation did not stem from the name being used. Cyber-stalking (combo of net-stalking and physical stalking) has been documented, and I seriously doubt that anyone that belongs on this list would object. More specificly, how can Nobody get upset about Sue? The connection/accusation _did_ arise, however, when the text of the post was analysized. The Clinton/North post greatly enhanced the connection. Once the connection was made, the system started looking for "collateral" evidence, and found some. Some words to "Sue": If you have, in fact, been the subject of stalking, physical, net, or cyber, please accept my appologies on behalf of all honorable males for failing to properly limit the number/range of these monsters. If you wish to avoid being connected to Detweiler, limit your posts accordingly Specifically, don't philosophize about 42 unless it has a strong crypto/ privacy slant. Don't post conspiracy info unless it has a strong crypto/ privacy slant. In fact, avoid ALL posts that don't have some/privacy slant. Most of us have many other things to do, and since this list does around 300 posts per week, many are annoyed at best by off-topic posts. This explains the reason for the "Go Away" responses. As for threats to the remailer that posted Detweiler, why not just recylce the threat? A and B threaten C, C routes A to B and B to A. More to the point, this is the fronteer, and most of us are learning. eg: Ambulance-chasing spammers get mail-bombed. Sounds like appropriate Justice to me. Now, _I_ better quit before someone suspects _me_. Nathan Zook When Senator Hatch supports any Clinton nominee great guns from the get go, worry.

1 0

Re: GUT and P=NP
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(flashing philosophical credentials) :-P All this stuff about existing in mind and existing in reality reminds me of St. Anselm's proof of the existence of god (Hettinga's Hashed Layman's Version 1.0(tm)): 1. Conceive of perfection. 2. You have just demonstrated that perfection can exist in mind. 3. It is more perfect to exist in mind and in reality than to exist solely in mind. 4. Define god as perfection. 5. Therefore god exists. Now this Midieval brainbuster was pretty much beat to death sometime in the Enlightment, though somebody respectable in the late 19th century (Frege?) liked it a lot... This GUT and P=NP thing smells awfully like scholastic bickering, don't ya think? Just my (unmathematical) opinion... Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

2 1

RE: pseudonyms and such
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Jonathan Rochkind I'm sure if someone had mailed this sue person, and politey explained why they felt her posts to be inappropriate, she would have changed her behavior. ........................................................... FYI, I did write to the "sue person" and explained further about list subjects & LD's subjects, and received the reply that (among other things): "OK OK I will try to lay of the posting for awhile." If nym(a)netcom.com is not LD, then it should be that he/she will hold true to their word. Blanc

1 0

Pseudo-Random Number Generators & _BIG_ Primes
by nzook＠math.utexas.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've pasted my algebra prelim, so please consider my intuition here as possibly being above average. Last week, some posters were talking about using "good" pseudo-random number generators for working with big primes. I would hope that all here are aware of the non-recursive and non-algebraic distribution of primes. It is my deepest suspicion that in fact primes are strongly non-recursive and non-algebraic. That is, I suspect that tests for primeness, and quests for primitive roots of primes, form a test for randomness whose strength is directly linked to the length of the prime, possibly in a non-polynomial fashion. What I am saying is: until I see a proof that some pseudo-random code will in fact work for primality testing (in all cases), or primitive root searching, I shall hold that {p|p is a "bad" prime} is nonempty. As a lemma, I claim that elements of this set are _precisely_ the sorts of primes that we would wish to use. $.02 Nathan Zook When Senator Hatch supports a Clinton nominee great guns from the get-go, worry.

1 0

TCMay on KFJC Tonight at 6
by weaver＠avtc.sel.sony.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tonight on a Very Special "Thoughtline" I'll have Tim May, discussing coming social changes due to crypto-technology, including things such as anonymity, e-cash and dreaded national ID cards. 6 PM on 89.7 in the Bay basin, or check your cable listings.

1 0

Re: Why triple encryption instead of split+encrypt?
by John Douceur 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >From: <solman(a)MIT.EDU> >Date: Friday, July 15, 1994 2:45AM >Although I mentioned "true" secret splitting at the end of my post, I was >refering to non-redundant secret splitting in most of the post. That is, >for each 128 bit block, you split it into two 64 bit blocks. Obviously you >have to make sure that in the inverse of the split, each bit of the 128 is >dependent on multiple bits in both 64 bit parts. I read this as something like the following: int munge[16] = {0x0, 0xE, 0xD, 0x3, 0xB, 0x5, 0x6, 0x8, 0x7, 0x9, 0xA, 0x4, 0xC, 0x2, 0x1, 0xF}; for (int i = 0; i < num_blocks/2; i++) { unsigned int s0 = source[2*i], s1 = source[2*i+1]; unsigned int d0 = 0, d1 = 0; for (int j = 0; j < 8; j++) // 32-bit ints assumed { d0 |= munge[(s0>>(4*j)) & 0xF] << (4*j); d1 |= munge[(s1>>(4*j)) & 0xF] << (4*j); } dest0[i] = (d1 & 0xAAAAAAAA) | (d0 & 0x55555555); dest1[i] = (d1 & 0x55555555) | (d0 & 0xAAAAAAAA); } This fragment splits alternating bits from each contiguous pair of 64-bit blocks in the source[] array into two blocks, each of which is placed into one of the two dest[] arrays. The inner loop first makes each bit in the pre-split data dependent on the three other bits in the same nibble. Is this consistent with your suggestion? >This is obviously not as secure as traditional secret splitting, but you >don't need it to be because this isn't a threshold scheme. You just need >to guarantee that knowing one half does not allow you to reassemble the >other half. I believe these claims hold true for the above code. >I am claiming that you can allow the crypt analyst to remove >half of the entropy from the plaintext (did I phrase that right? probably >not :( ) and the other half will still require successful cryptanalysis >of DES and since you can't tell if you're right until you get both halves, >meet in the middle does not work. Yes and no. Meet-in-the-middle does not work, per se, or more precisely has no applicability. Recall that meet-in-the-middle is a method of extending a known-plaintext attack on a single encryption to multiple encryptions by means of an enormous amount of memory to hold intermediate results. In the split+encrypt proposal (as I have implemented it above), a known-plaintext attack can be applied directly, with only twice as much computation as that needed for a single encryption, and no need for large amounts of memory. The cryptanalytic approach is simple: 1) Split the known plaintext, P, with the splitting algorithm, into P0 and P1. 2) Apply known-plaintext attack to P0 and C0 to determine key K0. 3) Apply known-plaintext attack to P1 and C1 to determine key K1. >So, is a secret splitting algorithm that does NOT increase redundancy >followed by DES with different keys on both halves as secure as triple >DES? No. It is not even as secure as double DES, since cryptanalysis of the former has the same computational complexity as the latter, but without the extreme memory requirements of meet-in-the-middle. >I believe so, but I would like your opinions on the issue before >I consider implementing this. MHO. >If it works it would be especially nice >because it allows arbitrary extension of keysize without substantially >increasing the time required for computation. A noble goal. It would also have allowed multi-threaded crypto code on multiprocessor machines to perform the separate encryptions in parallel. >I have a hunch that if I'm wrong, its because the time required to do secure >non-redundant secret splitting is as large as the time I'm saving. >JWS JD -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLirAX0GHwsdH+oN9AQH9uQQAswJhWwuB57y/V2ETz0epmFCKqk9JAwLC WWF9P5sNoOIHDK0soACURcvRCAWnUMJnXspbQ+0B2nQa7aWFLgD9lbm9obvbZREP 9q1dAqjK1yKxu1qxunk3wsdc7tyDMJzdOwGnpUOR1Gs7hqDOtVbs3wG9napzBY4h 2ndBT/BtJec= =QDW9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 1

pseudonyms and such
by Jonathan Rochkind 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think it's rather odd to find cypherpunks basically flaming someone because they choose to use a pseudonym instead of their real name. Or presuming guilt of being Detweiler because of the choice to use the pseudonym. Isn't the right to hide one's official on-your-passport identity something that we all supposedly support? Seems kind of contrary to this goal to go making anyone who exercises this right feel unwelcome on the list. I'm sure if someone had mailed this sue person, and politey explained why they felt her posts to be inappropriate, she would have changed her behavior. And if she didn't, _then_ you could try to make her feel as unwelcome as possible. Sure, this plan of action means that Detweiler-spoofs are a bit more effective, and detweiler identities will take a bit longer to be "outed". And preventing the clipper chip from becoming a standard means that drug dealers will have a bit of an easier time, especially if we succeed in making PGP standard. Or terrorists. Such is the cost of being fair. I think it's awfully hypocritical to judge this pseudonomous person harshly merely because of her pseudonimity, or because that pseudonimity makes you suspect she's really detweiler.

4 3

TCMay on KFJC Tonight at 6
by weaver＠avtc.sel.sony.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tonight on a Very Special "Thoughtline" I'll have Tim May, discussing coming social changes due to crypto-technology, including things such as anonymity, e-cash and dreaded national ID cards. 6 PM on 89.7 in the Bay basin, or check your cable listings. And no jokes about my air name, please. Gotta have it; union rules.

3 2

Re: PGP bug *NOT* yet fixed
by Ben.Goren＠asu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:58 PM 7/17/94, Jeffrey I. Schiller wrote: >Chill out friend. We are working on a bugfix release to PGP which will >fix several important bugs. The bug you mention is fixed in our >development sources and will be fixed in the next release. Read Colin's >note carefully. If you do you will realize that this problem is not >a disaster [. . . .] It might not be a disaster, but if it was bad enough for Colin to write that message--it couldn't have been comfortable to admit to such a mistake--it seems more than worthwhile to fix it at the same time, especially considering that the fix could be as simple as putting his message in the release directory. I certainly thank Colin for having the courage to publicly announce the mistake; my complaint is that there wasn't any follow-through. The point is that this is damaging to PGP's reputation--it makes the programmers look amateurish. You might be amatuers, but you sure haven't acted like it until this. Any security-related bug serious enough to announce is serious enough to fix immediately; otherwise, we should take "Pretty Good" much more literally than most of us do now. Heck, it would have taken a fraction of the time to fix the code than it must have for Colin to write the letter. b& -- Ben.Goren(a)asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music net.proselytizing (write for info): Protect your privacy; oppose Clipper. Voice concern over proposed Internet pricing schemes. Stamp out spamming. Finger ben(a)tux.music.asu.edu for PGP 2.3a public key.

1 0

Re: Leaving the Country
by tim werner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Sun, 17 Jul 1994 18:27:52 -0400 >From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)imsi.com> > >Goldwater was a friend of his to the end. Recently, some Republicans >have been shocked to discover that Goldwater supports equal treatment >under the law (although not "affirmative action" or other similar >crud) for Homosexuals and other similar unattractive groups, and that >he holds other evil "liberal" views. Some conservatives have gone so >far as to denounce him for "slipping". They never have understood what >his views have been all along, either. > >However, might I point out that none of this has anything to do with >cryptography? That may be true, but does it have to do with punks? tw

1 0