December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: H.E.A.T. SEEKING
by merriman＠metronet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > SANDY SANDFORT > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > >C'punks, > >Bummer! WWOR, here in the New York area, pulled a fast one on >me. They rescheduled Acapulco H.E.A.T. from 18:00 to 15:00 >without so much as a "by-your-leave." > >But as Mr. May will tell you, I'm one of the list's perennial >optimist. There are no problems, only opportunities. If you saw >the show in question, my loss may be your gain. That's right, I >asking you to post a "guest review" of this week's episode of >Acapulco H.E.A.T. to the list. If we're lucky, we may end up >with "dueling reviews." > Wheeeeeep! Wheeeeeeeep! HEAT ALERT! HEAT ALERT! Wheeeeeep! Wheeeeeeeep! :-) Happily, the local affiliate has left it at it's "regular" time (midnight!), so I'll be glad to help fill in the slack. I'll send the stuff to you, if you like/don't mind, so you can merge it with any others (or edit to taste :-). Dave Merriman - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Finger merriman(a)metronet.com for PGP/RIPEM public keys and fingerprints. Unencrypted Email may be ignored without notice to sender. PGP preferred. Remember: It is not enough to _obey_ Big Brother; you must also learn to *love* Big Brother.

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On the crime bill and remailers
by hughes＠ah.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Even the crime bill doesn't apply _ex post facto_, meaning anything newly illegal under the crime bill wasn't illegal before it. In particular, any discussion about remailers, discussion which has already happened and which might be construed as conspiracy for a newly illegal action, cannot now be subject to the terms of a new bill. Even more in particular, any discussion of remailers that has already happened is perfectly safe. And as for me, I don't plan on shutting up now. Eric

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Data Havens
by dfloyd＠runner.utsa.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I know this may be getting off track on this list, but it may be worthwhile. I was exploring the concept of a "data haven" which, to my knowledge, a place whose location is unknown to its users, but via anonymous remailers, files can be stored and retrived from it. I am going to look into writing a script or program that will allow people to store items using a passphrase or their PGP key, and retrive and delete the files on demand. Here are my problems though: 1: I am clueless about Perl, and not that great with C. 2: One must have to "hide" behind a VERY TRUSTABLE remailer, one that does not go down all the time, and one that accepts PGP encoded mail. 3: Would hiding behind one remailer or two be secure enough? There is a problem, unlike simple remailer chaining that people need to be able to E-mail the script. 4: A need for verifing that the mail got to the DH successfully since data errors do occur, and sometimes networks truncate mail packets. (Compuserve is notorius about this, so is Fidonet). 5: A way of making verifing that the user is who (s)he claims to be. (PGP, IDEA, or a passphrase) 6: Multiple security levels, so files cannot be retrived even if one's PGP key is compromised (user settable) 7: How will files be stored? Will folders and directories actually be made, or will they be all stored in one place with wierd names (to prevent name collisions) and one file be the index? Will there be user names or UID's? 8: There will need to be a way to tell if the DH is up or not. 9: How will PGP keys be stored and indexed? One would not want their files mailed in the clear. (How would I mail files if the user cannot use PGP? have a user settable password, and use crypt?) 10: How would people be able to trust a DH? Data Havens, by definition must be _very_ reliable, yet in a secure location to prevent unauthorized access of the files. What bothers me is DH's starting up and either croaking unexpectably or being places for Bad Guys (TM) to be able to snarf unsuspecting people's files. Perhaps a reputation based system? 11: How would a DH turn away files because the disk is full? 12: Would integrating DigiDollars with a DH be a good idea? (For secure storage of your files, we charge $1 DD per month per meg, and .01 DD per transaction.) What would the DH do with the files if they are not paid, or double-spending occurs? I will be working on a command set that one can use for sending and retriving files to and from the DH, as well as an authication system that can support PGP, DES (SunOS style), or crypt (yes, laughable security, but some people cannot use PGP at work). I think I will use perl for eventually writing this, but I know nothing about perl, so will have to print out a manual or two and do some work on my linux box... As per my previous posts, I am very clueless, but If I can get a decent data haven script working, it will be worth all the flames :-). Once the script is written, all one has to do is install the script, and ping a Penet type remailer, then post the anon remailer address, and Voila' a DH now exists. I apologize for the length of this post, but there are a lot of questions and problems in making a stable, usable data haven. - --- Finger dfloyd(a)lonestar.utsa.edu for PGP key, and please use it when mailing me. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQCVAwUBLntxFXDkimqwdwa5AQEE0gP+P+8sjma3rDkrxhZOBRam7/0v6lsUG0e9 fvtUsLHKAYaB8f6cCUUxwtpwhrI/9TPeh7QoQnEcHlhDO1kV46X9kA1n04hhJpXb Rx+BWSNaLHB3tynaXkN0lTIR/r6CGs+zKvc8BOJpLHSL7ajowmXs1C9Z8Lf4IW+G 8IwG9TR/iec= =9Vg8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Acapulco H.E.A.T. Auxilliary Review
by merriman＠metronet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, here we go, sports fans - an alternative review of Acapulco H.E.A.T. In this weeks' episode, the plot was that an Iranian freighter had gone down in the waters off Acapulco - with stolen Russian U-235 aboard (enough to make Iran a Nuclear Power). The heavy (with an atrocious generic Slavic accent) was trying to recover said uranium for sale to Iran ($50M price tag - keep it in mind). Our Fearless Team was assisted by a world-famous salvage diver. Since nearly all the "action" took place underwater (duh!) at 17 fathoms (102 feet to you non-Navy/sailing types :-) the bikini count was inordinately low. Ditto on gun battles. Ditto on explosions. Ditto on crypto/computer/privacy - the closest we got was a database search of typhoon patterns. No Fabio. There *was* a brief flurry of goodguy/badguy underwater WWF action, but considering that their alleged bottom time for the dives was 25 minutes (any diver confirmation out there?), it not only didn't last long, but wasn't terribly productive. Toward the end, the H.E.A.T. team succeeded in recovering the stolen uranium; interestingly, it appeared to be contained in a single box, approximately 2' x 18" x 18" - what with shielding, etc, I don't know that there was $50M worth inside. Something to look forward to: next week, the team goes to Panama to deal with an Evil Drug Lord. From the preview clips, it looks to have a fairly high bikini count - and they appeared to be some very nice bikinis, indeed :-) Dave Merriman ----------------------------- Disclaimer: I'm not a reviewer, but I play one on the Internet. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Finger merriman(a)metronet.com for PGP/RIPEM public keys and fingerprints. Unencrypted Email may be ignored without notice to sender. PGP preferred. Remember: It is not enough to _obey_ Big Brother; you must also learn to *love* Big Brother.

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RC4 - A response from RSA Data Security, Inc.
by schneier＠chinet.chinet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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(fwd) \"Will You Be a Terrorist?\" ( Moi? )
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Other tidbits for thought: . Optimism It is easier to be optimistic about impending events & the gathering dark clouds on the horizon, when one is mentally prepared & is accoutered for dealing with a threatening circumstance. Things don't look nearly so overwhelming the greater your confidence that you know how to respond; when you are prepared to meet the challenge because you have the means to do so (or can get them) and the knowledge of how to apply these to advantage. . Violation It is so telling, that legal documents on crime will always state that violations are of "section 351, 844 (f) or (i), 1114, 1116, 1203, 1361, 1363, 1751, 2280, 2281, 2331, or 2339", or a violation of "this or any other Federal criminal law". They don't say that an act is an attempted violation of "reality" or "of the sanctity of the individual" or of "the principles of privacy" or "the values for which this Nation stands". The words and meanings are arranged to place the sanctity and inviolability of the State as beyond the right of the individual to contemplate. It places the prerogative for State functions as existing outside an individual's category of the thought: there is no way that one could imagine the requirements of independent existence as sovereign to the functions of the State, as there is no allowance for, there are no "provisions"made for, any power to act beyond what is outlined by "the Law". That wouldn't be so bad, if The Law was a reflection of the real world and True Intelligence. (Barring that, it's back to the trenches. Now the trenches of cyberspace.) Blanc

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Re: RSADSI vs. Remailers (Meta Strong Crypto)
by doug＠OpenMind.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Hal forwards articles mentioning that the jpunix remailer is down after complaints were made regarding the remailing of "copy-written" material. The jpunix remailer is the visible remailer used to post the RC4 source code to cypherpunks.] (Meta Strong Crypto) This points at one of the weakest links in the crypto anarchist's toolset. To the extent that the sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpublic becomes concerned with the "implications" of the tools of crypto anarchy, there will probably be attempts to outlaw or otherwise control these tools. Take the recently much discussed notion of the risk-free placement of "contracts to kill". This relies upon almost all of the major tools in the crypto anarchist's toolkit. I count four in this case: the existence of strong public key cryptography; the existence of widely read and used public bulletin boards (such as alt.test); the existence of untraceable digital cash; and the existence of secure anonymous remailers. Of these four, strong public key cryptography is here today and would be very difficult to regulate legislatively at this point. Likewise, widely visible public bulletin boards are rock solid. Untraceable digital cash is of course not really here today, and it is possible that attempts to outlaw it could be made. However, Swiss banks have specialized in anonymous accounts and similar services for a long time, and there could be significant financial gains to be made from issuing untraceable digital cash. It seems likely that there will be banks in Switzerland or elsewhere that will be more than happy to do this. Then the only impediment can be at the level of outlawing the *use* of digital cash. However, the combination of secure public key encryption and anonymous remailing would make the use of digital cash impossible to detect. This leaves anonymous remailers as the one vulnerable link in the chain. Imagine that a country (say the USA) decides to outlaw the operation of, or use of, any anonymous remailer. I don't see how any of the other tools of strong crypto could be used to circumvent such laws. The last link in an anonymous remailer chain is always visible. The operator can be prosecuted for operating an anonymous remailer, if inside the borders of the country (or even outside, given recent USA claims to be able to kidnap foreign citizens on foreign soils for prosecution within the USA). It still might be possible to have anonymous remailers operating safely outside the borders of the country -- but it would be possible to monitor for traffic *destined* for these remailers, leaving the country. Since no anonymous remailers exist within the country, the origin of this traffic can be determined, and the sources can be prosecuted for use of an anonymous remailer. (Going Out On A Limb) One possible way around this societal control of anonymous remailers might be the existence of very large DC-nets (or related technologies). The idea here would be to effectively spread the social responsibility for the operation of an anonymous remailer out over such a large segment of the population that societal (legal) pressures could not be effectively brought to bear to suppress it. This would in effect be a type of political movement... the participating members of these vast "DC-nets" would effectively be members of a kind of political group. This membership would be intrinsically visible, since it will be used to *construct* the possibility of anonymity, and cannot rely on it. In order to be immune from suppression by the rest of society, the membership rosters would have to be comparable to that of a major political party... probably on the order of millions of members (at least hundreds of thousands). Getting there would be the tricky part... during the initial formation stage, when the membership rosters are low, the group is susceptible to be legislated out of existence. Doug

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Data Havens
by Jeff Gostin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

dfloyd(a)runner.utsa.edu (Douglas R. Floyd) writes: > I know this may be getting off track on this list, but it may be worthwhile. Nah, Data Havens are well within the "charter". :-) > 1: I am clueless about Perl, and not that great with C. This is your first, and foremost, problem. I'm not terribly familiar with Perl, however, if it's half as anal-retentive as C is, make damn sure you know your stuff, or at least have a trusted opinion on the subject (Hi RS!! You know who you are!). > 2: One must have to "hide" behind a VERY TRUSTABLE remailer, one that > does not go down all the time, and one that accepts PGP encoded > mail. Agreed. > 3: Would hiding behind one remailer or two be secure enough? There > is a problem, unlike simple remailer chaining that people need to > be able to E-mail the script. Define your attacker. Who is this suppose to be "secure enough" against? If it's Joe Avg. CompuGeek, yes, one should be "enough". If, OTOH, the NSA is your intended foe, find 12. Then find 3 more. Then, perhaps another 43. Then, MAYBE, you'll be "secure enough". You see, the problem with "secure enough" is that a good security system, while not foolproof, makes the cost of attack substantially higher than the cost of the information so gained. So, ask yourself: how much "money" (IE: resources, time, and man-hours) is "too much" for the value of the data and obscurity your DH will offer. Once you've determined this, then, and ONLY THEN, have you determined how much security is "secure enough" for your purposes. > 4: A need for verifing that the mail got to the DH successfully since > data errors do occur, and sometimes networks truncate mail packets. > (Compuserve is notorius about this, so is Fidonet). You'll pardon me for saying, but the hell with CI$, and to hell, even quicker, with Fido. Anyone who's serious enough will find their way onto Internet. Call me a purist, or a jackass, but the aforementioned are more of a handicap than a help. I say drop 'em. > 5: A way of making verifing that the user is who (s)he claims to be. > (PGP, IDEA, or a passphrase) Well, the only real way to do this SECURELY is for human intervention to decide which keys are accurate and which aren't. Barring that, try taking advantage of the keyservers. When a packet comes in, snag a copy of ALL the keys this person has (and, perhaps, a few that haven't, just for a confounding factor), and use them one-by-one until a match is generated. Then, discard all keys. If no match, trash the packet. > 6: Multiple security levels, so files cannot be retrived even if > one's PGP key is compromised (user settable) Fair enough... multiple keys? How else? > 7: How will files be stored? Will folders and directories actually > be made, or will they be all stored in one place with wierd names > (to prevent name collisions) and one file be the index? Will there > be user names or UID's? How about just saving the files under sequencial names (0000000001, 0000000002, base 62 (A-Z, a-z, 0-9))? Then, use a PGP-encrypted 1024-bit key to encrypt the index file. > 8: There will need to be a way to tell if the DH is up or not. Pinging? > 9: How will PGP keys be stored and indexed? One would not want > their files mailed in the clear. (How would I mail files > if the user cannot use PGP? have a user settable password, > and use crypt?) See above. . . > 10: How would people be able to trust a DH?. . . Perhaps a reputation > based system? To borrow a phrase from X-Files: "Trust no one." (X-Files, btw, is a very cool show. New season started yesterday. Friday, 9pm, FOX). The problem is a chicken-egg paradox: If no one uses your DH, what kind of reputation can it have, but, in order to get a reputation, one has to use it. . . I dunno how to handle this. > 11: How would a DH turn away files because the disk is full? Don't accept files when less than 5% of the drive is full. Send back a confirmation code different from that of a successful transfer. Either that, or trash the packet, adding a rather cryptic bounce message. The exact wording and protocol will have to be established first, and only known to people who use the DH. > 12: Would integrating DigiDollars with a DH be a good idea? (For Positively not. > I apologize for the length of this post, but there are a lot of questions > and problems in making a stable, usable data haven. Glad you asked. I'm not hardly a guru, but there's my $.02. --Jeff -- ====== ====== +----------------jgostin(a)eternal.pha.pa.us----------------+ == == | The new, improved, environmentally safe, bigger, better,| == == -= | faster, hypo-allergenic, AND politically correct .sig. | ==== ====== | Now with a new fresh lemon scent! | PGP Key Available +---------------------------------------------------------+

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Re: (fwd) "Will You Be a Terrorist?"
by jonathan＠memex.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a post to <cypherpunks(a)toad.com>, cactus(a)bb.com (L. Todd Masco) wrote: > Now, this won't give protection from traffic analysis; In was > suggestion, I was really blurring two seperate lines of thought > (I'm interested in PGPified mailing list software for content-hiding > reasons; I'm trying to set up a "distributed business" that I'd > like to keep secure). Also, though, I'm not sure I want to count > on anonymous remailers being available. If people want to > effectively "chain" them, that's fine. I don't see how using PGPified mailing lists help at all (with the assumtion that anyone can subscribe). I mean, anyone can simply subscribe to the list and then read all of the traffic. What's the point? Anyways... I *can*, however, see the use of using PGP encryption for mailing list submissions, expecially combined with an aliasing feature. (i.e. the mailing list has a key pair, and people send mail to it). Possibly even accepting something like the cypherpunk remailer format (i.e.: :: anon-post-from: bob etc... ). This, however, *might* be going to far for some people's comfort, because it would allow *COMPLETELY* untraceable posts (depending on the security of the site, but that's another issue). You can do other remailer-type traffic analysis defeaters like sending out the posts in random order at fixed intervals, etc. > - What I want (for other purposes) is a mailing list that has > its own public key; Material is encrypted to it, it decrypts it, > and then the material is encrypted with each recipient's public > key (I'm assuming a PGP base here). Probably simply to do, > but has anybody done it? No pretense of protection from > traffic analysis here: just to keep prying 3rd parties' eyes > off it. See above. Also, a couple problems with encrypting it to each person on the list is that it takes: #1 Space for all of the keys #2 Time to encrypt EACH message to each person Both of which quickly become a problem on high-volume lists such as cypherpunks. Also, it requires that EVERYONE use PGP if they want to read the list. This, I believe, is an unacceptable requirement. --- jonathan(a)memex.com PGP 2.6 key available. Fingerprint: (Jonathan Adams) 40 27 43 E0 5C 20 66 0E EE 8C 10 9F EC 40 78 6A (revoked!) A5 77 E9 28 88 DD B7 D4 9C 8C F9 D5 D8 3F 45 BE (new! 1024 bit)

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art encryption...
by Lile Elam 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, it looks like I have to delve into this subject as I should really know what's available for signing art. Some poeple are concerned that art via the net is going to be ripped off, abused, and any other sort of horra you can think of *if* people share digital images of their works via the Internet (WWW, ftp, newsgroups, et all). So, I have been thinking that a way an artist can insure a viewer that the art they are viewing is really that of the artist, the artist can *sign* their art with their private key and others can check it with their public key. Now, the art would be factered into the key generated that others would check with the public key. So, a image file (gif, jpeg, tiff whatever) would be run through a encryption coding that would generate a signage based on the artist's image and their private key. The image would remain unchanged. Then viewers could run the same encyription coding on the image and apply the artist's public key to see if it really *is* their work.... I don't know if this is the best way to do something like this and I sure am not much of a programmer... :) But it would be interesting to find if you think this is possible. Any other ideas on work authenticy would be appreciated. The main goal here is to let people view the work and if they *really* want to make sure the artist posted it, they could check it with PGP... or the like. Hopefully, people could catch art abuse and let the artist know about it. I myself have my art on the net as "share art" and people can do what they like with the images as long as they don't use them commercially without contacting me first. Also if they really alter an image, to say it's been manipulated and the orig can be found at say art.net. I realize that some folks may abuse these images of paintings I have done but I feel that what I gain by sharing makes up for it all. Unfortunately, this isn't the case with other artists and alot of them are not ready for this concept of sharing and letting go. They become terrified that their works might be open to the terrors I have mentioned. I want to give these artists a method that will make them feel more comfortable about sharing digital images.... Such a method will also help shoot down the marketeering, blood sucking, types of slippery jerks I run into who try and scare artists from sharing on the net. One fellow had the nerve to scare two artists away from art.net with copywrite arguments and abuse issues and then in some crazy way, he convenced them to pay him $ to provide the same service with no security messures ither. Blows my mind that they went for it... sigh..... This type of undermining will not help artists and I want to fight back. This jerk also is probably scared of art.net because we are offering to help teach artists how to put their stuff up with html, are offering a free space for them to create and share in, and are asking them to teach others the same. We are wanting to help other sites come up on the net and do the same. We're totally non-profit. This jerk couldn't understand why I would barter a painting for a years worth of Internet connection for art.net. He asked, "What do you get out of it?". I just shook my head... Sigh... thanks for your help in advance and check out "Art on the Net" if you get the chance... (http://www.art.net) -lile Lile Elam founder and one of the webmasters of "Art on the Net" lile(a)art.net

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