December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

CFI- Foreign Available Cryptography Resources
by cfrye＠ciis.mitre.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Clinton Administration has transformed its Clipper/Capstone proposal into a definitive policy that could pave the way for banning all non-Clipper crytography in the United States. I agree with most everyone who reads these groups: the thought scares the hell out of me, especially given the "fight crime" mandate from recent public opinion polls. I posted some of these thoughts in response to David Banisar's 7 February press release on CPSR's reaction to the announcement. In that post, I offered to compile a list of cryptographic tools and resources that were available outside of the United States (i.e., machines not physically located in the US) if such a list hadn't already been done. Stanton McClandish indicated that it hadn't and urged me to "GO FOR IT!". I'm going for it, but I need your help. My work account with ftp access will go away this Friday and the dial-up lines to my school account are constantly busy. I should have a digex.com account within the next two weeks, but until then I won't have reliable archie/veronica/gopher access to the Internet. That's one reason I'm asking for help (the other is the sheer enormity of searching every non-US machine). If you live outside of the US or visit non-US machines on occasion and know they store crypto resources, please send me a directory listing at this email address (for now). Also, if there are any readme files or other program descriptions in those directories, I would appreciate receiving an electronic copy of them as well. Furthermore, if any of you have product information about foreign-made cryptographic equipment or software, I would be interested in seeing that as well. I can be reached by snail mail at: Curtis D. Frye 100 Yeonas Cir. SE Vienna, VA 22180 USA I look forward to your support and hope to report back in a few weeks with some preliminary results. Curtis D. Frye PRIVATE! Citizen I don't speak for MITRE, they don't speak for me.

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ANNOUNCE: February meeting--"True Names"
by hughes＠ah.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ANNOUNCEMENT ============ February 1994 Bay Area cypherpunks meeting Saturday, February 12, 1994 12:00 noon - 6:00 p.m. Cygnus Support Offices, Mt. View, CA, USA Our theme this month is "True Names", after the Vernon Vinge story. We'll be talking about pseudonymity in virtual environments, whose current implementations include MUD's, MOO's, Habitat, and various other shared online environments. The schedule as of right now includes Chip Morningstar, co-author of Habitat, speaking about that project and maybe what he's working on currently. I think some BayMOO folks are going to do something, but that's not confirmed. Other speakers will likely be added. Plus the usual mix of monthly progress reports and current events discussion. The March meeting theme is "Politics", a none-too-unusual topic, except next month it's featured. Start up the rhetoric-machines now; we're going to have a soapbox session and possibly prizes for best rant. Eric ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Directions to Cygnus provided by John Gilmore. -- EH] Cygnus Support 1937 Landings Drive Mt. View, CA 94043 +1 415 903 1400 switchboard +1 415 903 1418 John Gilmore Take US 101 toward Mt. View. From San Francisco, it's about a 40-minute drive. Get off at the Rengstorff Ave/Amphitheatre Parkway exit. If you were heading south on 101, you curve around to the right, cross over the freeway, and get to a stoplight. If you were heading north on 101, you just come right off the exit to the stoplight. The light is the intersection of Amphitheatre and Charleston Rd. Take a right on Charleston; there's a right-turn-only lane. Follow Charleston for a short distance. You'll pass the Metaphor/Kaleida buildings on the right. At a clump of palm trees and a "Landmark Deli" sign, take a right into Landings Drive. At the end of the road, turn left into the complex with the big concrete "Landmark" sign. Follow the road past the deli til you are in front of the clock tower that rises out of one of the buildings, facing you. Enter through the doors immediately under the clock tower. They'll be open between noon and 1PM at least. (See below if you're late.) Once inside, take the stairs up, immediately to your right. At the top of the stairs, turn right past the treetops, and we'll be in 1937 on your left. The door is marked "Cygnus". If you are late and the door under the clock tower is locked, you can walk to the deli (which will be around the building on your left, as you face the door). Go through the gate in the fence to the right of the deli, and into the back lawns between the complex and the farm behind it. Walk forward and right around the buildings until you see a satellite dish in the lawn. Go up the stairs next to the dish, which are the back stairs into the Cygnus office space. We'll prop the door (or you can bang on it if we forget). Or, you can find the guard who's wandering around the complex, who knows there's a meeting happening and will let you in. They can be beeped at 965 5250, though you'll have trouble finding a phone. Don't forget to eat first, or bring food at noon! I recommend hitting the burrito place on Rengstorff (La Costen~a) at about 11:45. To get there, when you get off 101, take Rengstorff (toward the hills) rather than Amphitheatre (toward the bay). Follow it about ten blocks until the major intersection at Middlefield Road. La Costen~a is the store on your left at the corner. You can turn left into the narrow lane behind the store, which leads to a parking lot, and enter by the front door, which faces the intersection. To get to the meeting from there, just retrace your route on Rengstorff, go straight over the freeway, and turn right at the stoplight onto Charleston; see above. See you there! John Gilmore

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typo in ANNOUNCE: February meeting--"True Names"
by hughes＠ah.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As was pointed out to me: >It's Vernor Vinge. Not Vernon Vinge. It was a typo. Oops. Thanks to my corrector. Eric

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Canadian voice recognition article
by Prof. L. P. Levine 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

May I post this in your name in my comuter privacy digest? I got this from a source here on campus. Do I have your permission? ---------------------------------+----------------------------------------- Leonard P. Levine | Moderator of Computer Privacy Digest and Professor of Computer Science | comp.society.privacy. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Post: comp-privacy(a)uwm.edu Box 784, Milwaukee WI 53201 | Information: comp-privacy-request(a)uwm.edu ---------------------------------+----------------------------------------- Craig McKie muttered something about... >From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Thu Feb 3 19:52:39 1994 From: cmckie(a)ccs.carleton.ca (Craig McKie) Message-Id: <9402040124.AA03270(a)superior.YP.nobel> Subject: Canadian voice recognition article To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Thu, 3 Feb 94 20:24:59 EST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Spy Agency works on eavesdropping device for phones, faxes New snoop gadget would identify voices carried through air The Canadian Press Used on page 1, Ottawa Citizen, Monday January 31, 1994 An elite wing of Canada's spy agency is secretly developing devices that can monitor and identify voices carried through the air by phone, fax and radio signals, according to a broadcast report citing government documents. The Communications Security Establishment is a super-secret branch of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that specializes in gathering signals intelligence - SIGINT to insiders. Since 1989, the CSE has awarded three contracts worth $1.1 million to a Montreal firm to make machines that can quickly isolate key words and phrases from the millions of signals the CSE monitors each day, CTV reported Sunday. In May 1983, the CSE awarded the Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montreal a contract to develop a "speaker identification system," which can pick voices from the electronic haze and identify them. "Its frightening," says Bill Robinson, a researcher with the peace group, Project Ploughshares. "It has Orwellian potential to sweep through everybody's conversations. As computers get faster and faster, theoretically, one would be able to keep records of all conversations." The CSE is supposed to provide the federal government with foreign intelligence, but parliamentarians have often voiced concerns about the agency's potential to violate the privacy of Canadians. Liberal MP Derek Lee, the head of a Commons committee that oversees Canada's spy agency, said the CSE is overstepping its mandate. "Have they been asked, or have they decided for themselves to take on a new role that requires them to analyse the human voice? And if they have, they've gone beyond what I think they've told us." The CSE is accountable to Parliament through the defence minister. But Defense Minister David Colonette told CTV her was unaware of the CSE's latest electronic snooping projects. "This is the first I've heard of this," Collenette said. "It is certainly something I'll discuss with my officials." While in Opposition, the Liberals pledged to make the CSE more accountable. With a budget of about $250 milliojn and more than 800 employees the CSE operates out of a building on Heron Road in Confederation Heights surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Its work is considered so sensitive that employees are told not to take commercial flights, in case the plane is hijacked and they are held hostage. -- e x t r a p o l a t e steve j. white _____________________________________________________________________________ Gort, klatu barada nicto. aragorn(a)csd4.csd.uwm.edu

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Re: Crypto Regulation Reform
by rcain＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jay R. Freeman sez: > > > So, I'll be back to discuss this further when I can freely. > > May you have all the best of luck! -- Jay Freeman I really appreciate that. The reception here to the possiblity of something we all wish for has astonished me with its negativity. In some cases it has gone *way* beyond healthy skepticism which I would expect. Hey, I'm on the same side as you guys! It is in fact the other side that prevents me from full disclosure. This thing would be in the patent mill and fully disclosed were it not for my fear that it will be classified at the filing stage and supressed. Grok? I am still stumped by this uncertainty and not quite ready to simply give it away. If I could somehow find out whether it will be or won't be classified without actually filing all the details we'd be off to the races. If I were absolutely certain it would be classified I would simply give it away here or elsewhere rather than file. Conversely if I were certain it would not be classified I would simply file and it would be available in that form for your contemplation whether or not they decide to ultimately grant it. It's a real catch 22 for me. Peace, Bob -- Bob Cain rcain(a)netcom.com 408-354-8021 "I used to be different. But now I'm the same." --------------PGP 1.0 or 2.0 public key available on request.------------------

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thanks for prodigy info
by jdblair＠nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to everyone who squashed Prodigy hard drive scan rumour. -john.

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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OK
by Matt Cable 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Bouncing is getting annoying. I've gotten 15-20 copies of one letter and 5-7 of another. Could someone figure out who's bouncing posts so I'm not checking my mail every 2 minutes. Thanks! *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* ^ mcable(a)jade.tufts.edu Matt Cable <0-0> wozzeck(a)axposf.pa.dec.com MTUC Jackson Labs -----o00-O-00o----- wozzeck(a)mindvox.phantom.com Tufts University *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

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Whit Diffie's comments
by Lee Tien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A few days ago John Gilmore forwarded some comments from Whit. I was curious about one in particular, where Whit said: "Despite all the assurances, there is another trap door in the algorithm that will be used in reading foreign traffic. A publicly [sic] explainable mechanism is needed if the intercepts are to be used in court, but not if they are to be 'Handled Via COMINT Channels Only.'" I don't understand this comment -- at least I don't think I do. Is this a reference to some provision of federal law or a secret directive? I dimly recall from my reading of Bamford, or some other book about the intelligence agencies, that there's a statutory "NSA exception" re electronic interceptions. Is that what's being referred to here? If so, can anyone provide a citation? I'd like to take a look at it. Lee Tien

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