December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Traceless Calling
by kevin＠beach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For anyone interested in private communications: We have a way to make untraceable phone, fax and modem calls! We've negotiated with a reseller to pre-pay a (huge)chunk of minutes at a set price. No information is taken. My company simply gives them the money and they give us an 800 number and a ton of random access codes to get into their network...from anywhere in the world(it can also be used as a travel card). We then make the number and codes available with no record of ownership. As well, by the time we distribute the access codes, they have been sequestered through 3 levels of distribution. Payment is made up front in cash or by money order and no record is kept of who gets which access code. No records, no invoicing, no auditing by Uncle Sam. Just complete communications privacy. Access codes are available in blocks of 100 minutes for $75. Volume discounts are available. FYI, another company is providing this same service at 90 minutes for $99. Call or email: Kevin T. Smith, President TeleSource A Division of SonRise Corp. (408) 247-4782 voice (408) 247-1070 fax ksmith(a)beach.com *****************NeXTMail Preferred********************

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www for cypherpunks' collection
by Gary Jeffers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At the location: http://pmip.maricopa.edu/crypt/cypherpunks/Cypherpunks.src is the location of all the Cypherpunks' posts with index. I can get to this place by placing a "www" in front of this instruction. However, then, their are no "hyper" keys to push. Some key words are listed but I don't know how to use them to get info.. Anyone familiar with www & got some answers?. Yours Truly, Gary Jeffers

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USA Editorial on ID Cards
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date 7/16/94 Subject USA Editorial on ID Cards From Dave Banisar To Dave Banisar USA Editorial on ID Cards USA TODAY'S OPINION (1) (7/15/94) Think the federal government already knows too much about your private life? Hang on. The granddaddy of all privacy invasions - a national ID card - is marching onto Capitol Hill. Startling numbers of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, are embracing variations of the identity card - all in the name of immigration reform. They contend the cards could keep illegal immigrants out of American jobs by requiring potential bosses to use the cards and accompanying national data base to verify citizenship. The cards present gargantuan potential for abuse with enormous costs. Just ask Eddie Cortez about the possibilities. The mayor of Pomona, Calif., was stopped and ordered to produce proof of citizenship by U.S. Border Patrol agents more than 100 miles from the Mexican border last summer. What did Cortez do to warrant such suspicion? The mayor was sitting in a pickup truck, wearing jeans and looking like a Latino. Civil rights organizations and advocates for Asians, Hispanics and other minorities believe the national ID cards would mushroom such incidents of harassment. Even if true, what's the harm if law-abiding citizens have a card to clear them on the spot? Fear of constant harassment is the problemm. Having to carry a card to guarantee your freedom is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Then there's the price tag. Production costs plus a supporting computer data base are estimated conservatively at $2.5 billion by the Social Security Administration. More elaborate systems could top $6 billion or more. Still, proponents believe the means justify the end - closing the jobs door to illegals. Not likely, say technical experts. Right now, on street corners in California, Texas and other states, fake Social Security cards, passports and driver's licenses can be had for a price. Should a national ID card go into effect, these same counterfeiters would merely turn their talent to producing fake IDs or to producing the fraudulent documents necessary to obtain the national ID. National ID cards are an old idea and a bad idea. The last thing the federal government needs is another peephole on personal privacy that ends up costing U.S. taxpayers more money than it saves. OTHER VIEW (2) DAN STEIN is executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Washington, D.C.: A decade-old plan to create a counterfeit-resistant work-welfare eligibility document to help stop illegal immigration got a boost when the Commission on Immigration Reform hinted this week that it might recommend the idea. This tame proposal is endorsed by Democrats and Republicans. California's Dianne Feinstein and Pete Wilson support it. Polls by `Time,' Roper and Field show most Americans do, too. The `Los Angeles Times,' `San Diego Union' and `Sacramento Bee' nod approval. Liberals such as Barbara Jordan and the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, who've chaired our last two major immigration commissions - are also on board. So why the flak? Because the idea got mislabeled as a sinister-sounding "national ID card." Ridiculous. In a country where the average American now carries a driver's license, credit cards, calling cards, bank cards and leaves electronic fingerprints all over town, isn't it time to improve the integrity of America's birth records and make the Social Security card fraud-proof? Americans are comfortable with today's technologies and want illegal immigration stopped. With secure documents, we could do it. Without them, we can't. There would be other benefits. A secure identification system would save us money, reduce welfare fraud, voter fraud and tax cheating, while improving delivery of vital government services and reducing discrimination. Most compelling is the fact that illegal immigration pressures are growing fast. You heard it here first: These are the "good old days." Unless we take steps now to improve our ability to tell who's here legally and who's not, we're going to lose the nation. Because of birth-record fraud, our citizenship is built on a foundation of sand. Americans may not notice it, but criminals and smugglers do. Crime rings know that if you've got a good laser printer, you can become a citizen of the USA - by making a phony birth certificate and Social Security card. That's all it takes to make the phony foundation for other state and federal documents and benefits. We're taking steps to secure the currency of the USA against fraud. Isn't it time our citizenship is given the same protection?

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Re: www for cypherpunks' collection
by Vincent.Cate＠FURMINT.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I exchanged email with Eric Johnson about his database a few days ago. He has had some sort of problem and does not have the time to fix it, so his database is down till further notice. This is too bad, as it was a fantastic resource. Sometime back someone mentioned that they now had their own workstation on the net and were willing to do something, like make it available for the Cyperpunk Electronic Book idea. I think it would be really good to have a permanent archive site to make all of the cypherpunk mail available via FTP. If they, or someone else, have the disk space to do this, it would be a very good thing. Along with making the mail directly available, a permanent archive would let mosaic pages reference any mail. -- Vince ftp://furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu/security/README.html

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TEMPEST
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

C'punks, I seem to recall a thread on the origin of the term "tempest" with regard to electromagnetic emissions. Several people thought it was an acronym and various phrases were offered. I found a story I don't think was mentioned. It's in an article from /Full Disclosure/, #26. The article, "Hi-Tech Fraud," is by James E. Carter of Bank Security. The relevant part says: ... Is there a real danger because of EME? Well, I have known about EME for over thirty years and back then our government was so concerned the subject was classified. Our government gave EME the name "Tempest." When this issue was brought up before a congressional committee, the statement was made, "it sounds like a tempest in a teapot." So thereafter the name Tempest was adopted, so the story goes. Sounds plausible. S a n d y

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Re: Traceless Calling
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:49 PM 7/16/94 -0800, kevin(a)beach.com wrote: >For anyone interested in private communications: > >Access codes are available in blocks of 100 minutes for $75. Volume discounts >are available. FYI, another company is providing this same service at 90 >minutes for $99. > Or you can walk up to any newsstand or drug store and buy a phone card from someone else for cash for 30-60 cents/minute. DCF

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Re: Card Playing Protocol
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tcmay(a)netcom.com writes of why projects (like my proposal) never get finished. His item #3: >No group of co-workers to chat with, to reignite interest, to exert >peer pressure to finish. I'm counting on Cypherpunks to play that role! -kb, the Kent who is pretty excited about Shoemaker-Levy 9 too. -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 35:00 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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Re: Card Playing Protocol?
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

hughes(a)ah.com wrote some interesting stuff: >Duplicate games won't work Damn! People are paying attention. It was an off-hand remark. Any bells and whistles along those lines are certainly banned from any early version. >There is a non-crypto issue of how one finds playing partners without >a central server. My mind wandered to that very point this very morning. The simplist way to find players is the same we currently find email addresses: the hard way. Type in the addresses of the other players. (Assuming the software is already running on those nodes, those players would not have to retype the other addresses, accepting the invitation to play would be more like a single "click".) I think anything more elaborate along these lines is a candidate for banning from 1.0. (One problem is that the "I'm looking for a game."-problem is at least as big and interesting as building a deck of cards.) >I would strongly suggest the separation of the communications, user >presentation, and decision parts of the client software. And that is one of the wonderful sort of engineering problems I love: keeping the different parts clear of each other's private parts yet still considerate of their desires and needs. >client software My instinct is for a peer-to-peer design. Yes, they will serve each other cards, etc., but I would like to avoid the user confusion of having two different sorts of software needed. (At a comms protocol level there might always be a single server per game--I don't know yet--but I would like to hide that sort of stuff from users.) -kb, the Kent who will be driving to Pasadena early in the morning, but not to watch soccer. -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 35:00 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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Re: Card Playing Protocol
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

hughes(a)ah.com >Time to read crypto. HEY! I've read Schneier (if that is what you meant). Eric also went into various details of how to reveal cards to individuals (my hand) and all players (the current trick), etc.--details I am not prepared to comment on yet. I have some reading to do first! I also need to review (learn) a collection of card games to appreciate their requirements, whether there is a tractable common set of operations. (Ironic to have a virtual non-card player consider this choice of project.) Crypto is not the only thing I need to read. -kb -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 35:00 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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Re: Hashed hash
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ben.Goren(a)asu.edu foolishly says: >I'm planning on implementing the "cryptographic protection of databases" And wonders about the hash being too fast to compute, that a brute-force traversal of the database would be too easy. The idea is then to hash a bunch of times to burn CPU cycles, but what if the hash is a group, extra hashing could be reversed quickly. (Did I get that right?) Well, as the LOUD proponent of making secret keys s-l-o-w-e-r to decrypt, I have thought about this a bit, and have a suggestion: Hash once, then do a zillion encryptions of the hash with a non-group cypher like DES. Another idea (something I have thought less about): send every legit user of the database a custom version with the parts encrypted with that user's public key--and do the trick mailing list companies use, scatter some dummy info in the list. When a dummy (not just me) gets a junk mailing, go beat up on the user who's copy had to have supplied the junk. Not perfect: combinations of dummies are needed in case the junk mailer cracks multiple copies (multiple work) and then trys to sift unique dummies that way. Another problem: it is expensive to monitor the dummies. (1990's biz opportunity?, the monitoring of data that no one is supposed to have.) -kb, the Kent who doesn't want to be thought of as only a card player -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 35:00 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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