December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

leahy and the eff on clipper "reversal"
by Jonathan Rochkind 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am amused to see that Senator Leahy's press release was in fact more "radical", and closer to the typical position of a cypherpunk then the EFF press release was. An actual politician simply read the Gore letter for what it was: no significant change in their policy whatsoever. While the "public interest" or "advocacy" group that the EFF is supposed to be appearantly decided it would be more politic to make friends with the administration by pretending they've made some progress. I'm sure Leahy (or one of his aides) assumed the EFF would be saying the same thing as Leahy was. He's probably berating one of his aides right now for releasing a statement that was more radical and likely to anger the administration then even the EFF statement. Sigh.

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Travelling ants
by Ben Goren 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A recent RISKS digest had an article that described a computer that simulated a colony of ants with independent software units that interacted in certain ways. The article said that the "ants" were able to find an efficient solution to the traveling salesman problem. Wouldn't such a system be perfect for a public key cryptosystem? It seems that mechanisms already designed for knapsack algorithms would work; it would remain to be worked out if the traveling salesman problem has the same cryptographic problems as the knapsack problem. b& -- Ben.Goren(a)asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music net.proselytizing (write for info): We won! Clipper is dead! BUT! Just say no to key escrow. And stamp out spamming, too. Finger ben(a)tux.music.asu.edu for PGP 2.3a public key. du says to finger remailer-list(a)chaos.bsu.edu and > that account does not exist. Chael Hall changed operating systems on chaos and hasn't reinstalled the finger thing yet. You can get the list by sending mail to mg5n+remailer-list(a)andrew.cmu.edu

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Travelling ants
by sglass＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Operating System: SunOS 4.1.3 Site: netcom4 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1796 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- | From: Ben Goren <ben(a)Tux.Music.ASU.Edu> | Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 10:24:48 -0700 (MST) | Subject: Travelling ants | | A recent RISKS digest had an article that described a computer that | simulated a colony of ants with independent software units that | interacted in certain ways. The article said that the "ants" were able to | find an efficient solution to the traveling salesman problem. I bought Rudy Rucker's Hacker and the Ants (0-688-13416-5) in May. Jerzy Rugby's an artificial life hacker who battles millions of "strange viral pests appearing from out of nowhere to wreak havoc throughout the net" in his quest for truly intelligent robots. I really enjoyed the story. Like Stephenson, Rucker makes cyberspace a blast. Recommended buy. Remember folks, don't allow 0xdef6 as the Godel sentence if you're into this kind of thing. | Wouldn't such a system be perfect for a public key cryptosystem? It seems | that mechanisms already designed for knapsack algorithms would work; it | would remain to be worked out if the traveling salesman problem has the | same cryptographic problems as the knapsack problem. I wonder if e$ fundraising could support grants to investigate good ideas? | b& Sheldon - -- sheldon glass | "... if you think ah *enjoy* steppin an fetchin an sglass(a)netcom.com | talkin this way, you crazy." #include <std.disclaimer> | finger for PGP key from _Wetware_ by Rudy Rucker -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLjFfPDl9PRHQ3ZZVAQHJvQP+ILCjhhJ8wixQum85yGzEVU8/R69ZGBXl RuOgLIIaVf/uajgl3B3/ILBRUR3n2W7iZpniTX4zQaTtkkcJPINE9iLHpVK+D0jK 40dkxeLP2q4Iz42NetBlvd4Ud+AXO5rl9lc1KUbOUY2O5SpEEV74XL72cNiXF0bd ESk0gUda4TU= =TOrZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Stalling the crypto legislation for 2-3 more years
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Brad Huntting wrote: > The right to free speech is protected by the US constitution. We > need only show that encryption software == speech. > > This shouldn't be to difficult (a bit painful perhaps, but not > difficult). > > The act should involve a published work (preferably in the printed > sense). It should be clear of any gross patent infringements as > they might cloud the issue. > > Since the hardware will be confiscated it should probably be a > cheap PC. Also, it should probably be in a house with no other > computer equipment. That way when it's confiscated, they wont take > anything besides the ftp server. I _like_ this idea! Explicitly calling the site a "Free Speech" or "First Amendment" site, and publishing all sorts of things could help. I think we ought to think this out some more. Publishing encrypted stuff, etc. Of course, lots of sites already publish encrypted stuff, have PGP-encrypted files on them, etc., and the Feds have not moved to shut them down, so it may be real hard generating a test case. But I do like the explicit emphasis of the connection between encyption and free speech; this is the line I use with people. To wit, "Nobody can tell me what language I have to write or speak in." --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."

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Re: Voice/Fax Checks
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

solman(a)MIT.EDU writes: >On a more important note, I believe that in one of the papers on my to-read >list for this weeked, Chaum demonstrates that e-cash can not be transferable >unless it grows bigger. Otherwise you have to give it back to the bank and >get a new one each time it is used. Given this, I think that it is highly >desireable for us to accept the increasing size of the e-cash and maintain >its transferability. I had the impression from that paper that with transferred ecash, a person earlier on the trail could always recognize the cash even at a later point. This followed, Chaum claimed, from the need to detect double-spending. I'd be interested to hear whether you get this from that paper as well. In the real world, I'd guess that most cash is not transferred very much before it goes back to the bank. I get money from the ATM and spend it at the grocery store, which takes it to the bank every day. The smaller bills may circulate a few times because they go back out as change, but even there I'd guess there are not many transfers. So there are two possible lessons from this: one is that perhaps transferrable cash is not very necessary; or the other is that it's not a significant problem if cash grows somewhat each time it is transferred because it probably won't get very big. Hal

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Traceless Communications
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. Trial access codes are available in a block of 100 minutes for $75. Large volume discounts apply thereafter. FYI, another company is providing this same service at 90 minutes for $99. Call or email: Kevin T. Smith, President TeleSource (408) 247-4782 voice (408) 247-1070 fax ksmith(a)beach.com *****************NeXTMail Preferred********************

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Re: "Key Escrow" --- the very idea
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> they can detect abuses and possibly notify those tapped that > they've been compromised. They can't do that without either an Wait a second, they would notify those that have been victimized? Are you serious? Do you have one case in the history of the united states where they have done this? In point of fact, U.S. law has required after-the-fact notification of wiretaps since 1968. There's a statutory period within which notification must take place, unless extended by a judge on the grounds. This is 18 USC 2518(8)(d): (d) Within a reasonable time but not later than ninety days after the filing of an application for an order of approval under section 2518(7)(b) which is denied or the termination of the period of an order or extensions thereof, the issuing or denying judge shall cause to be served, on the persons named in the order or the application, and such other parties to inter- cepted communications as the judge may determine in his discre- tion that is in the interest of justice, and inventory which shall include notice of- (1) the fact of the entry of the order or the applica- tion; (2) the date of the entry and the period of autho- rized, approved or disapproved interception, or the denial of the application, and (3) the fact that during the period wire, oral, or electronic communications were or were not intercepted. The judge, upon the filing of a motion, may in his discretion make available to such person or his counsel for inspection such portions of the intercepted communications, applications and orders as the judge determines to be in the interest of justice. On an ex parte showing of good cause to a judge of competent jurisdiction the serving of the inventory required by this subsection may be postponed. This is for domestic surveillance, not for intercepts pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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Re: GUT and P=NP
by jamesd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ray wrote: > Everything is an algorithm This does not appear to be a very useful concept of what an algorithm is. > I can't think of a single thing which is non-algorithmic > except true randomness or non-determinism. How about any process where the state and the change between one state and another state can be described tolerably simply in some language that is not explicitly algorithmic, but which is enormously difficult, complex, and expensive to describe in explicitly algorithmic language, for example water pouring through a channel? -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from jamesd(a)netcom.com the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

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Re: Travelling ants
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May writes: > * By the way, there has been little progress in taking known > NP-complete decision/computation problems and making cryptosystems out > of them. I'm not sure why this is, and I get the impression that not > many others understand this either. > > In fact, I'll close with a nagging questio. Except for some work on > elliptic functions, there has been no real alternative to RSA for > public key crypto. Why? One would think that in 16-18 years of work, > some alternatives based on something other than the difficulty of > factoring or taking discrete logs would have been developed. Why not? Good one-way transformations are hard to find. Merkle & Hellman's knapsack-based cryptosystem predated RSA; it depended on transforming an easy subproblem of a NP-hard general problem into the general case. Shamir and others found ways to reverse the transformation that was used, reducing it to the easy problem. In general, a symmetric cryptosystem needs to have one easy path through it (using the key); an asymmetric system needs two (encryption & decryption), and that's much harder to find. The inter-relatedness of NP-complete problems probably doesn't help much. There may be some deep mathematical truth hiding somewhere in here, but I'm more of an applied-math type than a real theoretician :-) A separate problem is that signature and encryption are both useful, and it's hard to find a system that can do both securely. > "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway." Lately they've been more like speed limits... Bill # Bill Stewart AT&T Global Information Solutions, aka NCR Corp # 6870 Koll Center Parkway, Pleasanton CA, 94566 Phone 1-510-484-6204 fax-6399 # email bill.stewart(a)pleasantonca.ncr.com billstewart(a)attmail.com # ViaCrypt PGP Key IDs 384/C2AFCD 1024/9D6465

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Re: Cordless phones with encryption
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Nobody asks: > Can anyone recommend a good 900 Mhz. cordless phone with some > sort of voice encryption or scrambling? My most important > objective is maximum range from the base unit, but I'd also like > some privacy, too. Thanks. If all you're looking for is "some privacy", any of the digital systems will give you some, and spread-spectrum systems should do more. That'll do better than simple analog scrambling to keep scanner-users from listening in on your calls; spread-spectrum systems will continue to be useful after the scanner-users get basic digital capability. Neither one will really keep the NSA out, but they can tap the wireline your phone's base unit is connected to anyway :-) If you want to know whether a set is using spread-spectrum or just vanilla digital, you'll get better information at a specialty telephone or electronics store than at the large discount warehouse-place where you'll probably eventually buy it (:-), but it may take you a few contacts with manufacturers to find out more than what's on the box. (Shameless plug follows:) I think I remember reading that AT&T was doing a spread-spectrum cordless with a range of about a mile, and a price in the $400 range, but I haven't really kept track. (List-traffic-reduction plug follows:) I would have replied by email instead of sending this to all 700 people on the list, but you used a remailer without return message capability. anon.penet.fi gives you an anonymous account, and some of the cypherpunks remailers like soda.berkeley.edu now support encrypted return-blocks. Bill

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