December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

"What motivates Crypto-folk?"
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There's an interesting new thread with this name in talk.politics.crypto. I've responded with an essay--you other folks might want to as well. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

1 0

ANI 800 number
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

About 1.5 years ago, Sandy posted an 800 number that would give you the number of the phone you are calling from. Does anyone still have that? TIA, -- Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> PGP public key by finger Please write to clipper.petition(a)cpsr.org and tell them you oppose Clipper.

1 0

Re: RE: BLACK UNICORN
by ghio＠cmu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

| Well, I just sent mail to you, Sandy at crl.com, but it came back to | you saying that you were "554 Unbalanced '>' ". I guess it's in | reference to the software :>) This is a bit of SMTP foolishness. Some applications put greater-than/less-than brackets around the address, like this: RCPT TO:<cypherpunks(a)toad.com> and some don't, ie: RCPT TO:cypherpunks@toad.com Some SMTP implementations refuse to accept one or the other format. It's not a very common problem, but it happens occasionally, especially with older versions.

1 0

NSA Agents Threaten to Kill Bidzos of RSA?
by jim＠RSA.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Everything reported in the Merc News is true. I am certain that he was not speaking for the agency, but when it happened he was quite serious, at least appeared to be. There was a long silence after he made the threat, with a staring contest. He was quite intense. I respect and trust the other two who were in the room (they were shocked and literally speechless, staring into their laps) and plan to ask NSA for a written apology and confirmation that he was not speaking for the agency. We'll see if I get it. If the incident made it into their trip reports, I have a chance of getting a letter. ..end.. --

1 0

Bandwidth According to Seabrook
by Brian Beker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The New Yorker's John Seabrook on the Charlie Rose show tonight: "...bandwidth, which is basically the width of the wire coming into your home..." [quoted from memory -- verbatim or nearly so.] Brian

1 0

LA Radio Program
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Bidzos is damn impressive. I heard most of the Which Way LA program on the rerun as I recorded it. (I think I got it all--the tape flip was during Marc Rotenberg's introduction, but we mostly know who he is--next question, what do I do with the tape? KCRW-FM sells tapes, so they might object to free distribution of said recording...) Bidzos did a wonderful job. He sounded nice and approachable, the practical businessman, and the independent American standing up on principles. He left no obvious openings for the other side to make points, it was a great appearance. (Apparently from an airport lounge, all the more impressive.) Don't get me wrong, all the privacy phreaks sounded good (even the "neutral" member of the press, Steven Levy), it is just that Bidzos was really in the flow this afternoon. Generally a very well done program. To me it seemed obvious which side came out ahead, yet the other side got such a good opportunity to clearly make their case that they probably think the same. (To me the TLA case is so damming that a clear statement is thrilling.) -kb, the Kent visiting in Venice, CA P.S. As a MA resident I wish I had Moakley's correct fax number. Effector says his House Rules Committee is the next battle in the Cantwell bill crypto-export war.

2 1

Subscription Info Request
by tcann＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please send subscription and general info to tcann(a)netcom.com Thanx

1 0

Re: Bandwidth According to Seabrook
by tim werner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Wed, 29 Jun 1994 00:04:10 -0700 (PDT) >From: Brian Beker <beker(a)netcom.com> > >The New Yorker's John Seabrook on the Charlie Rose show tonight: > > "...bandwidth, which is basically the width of the wire > coming into your home..." > >[quoted from memory -- verbatim or nearly so.] Finally an explanation I can understand. tw

1 0

Un-Documented Feature
by trollins＠debbie.telos.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

PGP 2.6ui has an undocumented feature. When generating a Public/Secret key pair PGP documentaion shows the command "pgp -kg" as the way to generate the keys. I had posted about how pgp uses a small public key exponent of 17 which is 5 bits. It turns out that this is only the default setting. An Un-Documented feature in PGP 2.6ui (I don't know about other versions as I don't have source code for them) lets you specify the number of bits in your public key exponent. The command "pgp -kg keybits ebits" will let you specify this public key exponent size. For example "pgp -kg 1024 256" will generate a key with modulus of aprox 1024 bits and a public key exponent of 256 bits rather than the 5 bit default. Too Bad pgp doesn't let you look at the public key exponent. I had to write some code to see them. -tom

2 1

ACM Press Conference on Crypto 6/30
by David Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FYI - CLIPPER REPORT RELEASE ON THURSDAY ACM TO MAKE POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS A press conference will be held at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, June 30 at 10:30 am to announce the release of a new study on the controversial Clipper cryptography proposal. The ACM cryptography panel was chaired by Dr. Stephen Kent, Chief Scientist for Security Technology with the firm of Bolt Beranek and Newman. Dr. Susan Landau, Research Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts, co-ordinated the work of the panel and did most of the writing. The panel members were: Dr. Clinton Brooks, Advisor to the Director, National Security Agency Scott Charney, Chief of the Computer Crime Unit, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice Dr. Dorothy Denning, Computer Science Chair, Georgetown University Dr. Whitfield Diffie, Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems Dr. Anthony Lauck, Corporate Consulting Engineer, Digital Equipment Corporation Douglas Miller, Government Affairs Manager, Software Publishers Association Dr. Peter Neumann, Principal Scientist, SRI International David Sobel, Legal Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center. The final report of the panel will be made public at the Thursday press conference. Also, the policy committee of the 85,000 member ACM will release a statement on cryptography issues facing the Clinton administration. For more information, call (202) 298-0842. Additional press announcement forthcoming. Cryptography report announcement. 10:30 am, Thursday, June 30, United States Capitol building, room SC-5.

1 0