December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Reputation Capital papers?
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Are there papers out there on reputation capital that I should be familiar with before talking about it? I have a bunch of ideas, but would like to review the lit before presenting any of them, so I don't repeat things that have been talked about, and don't make any dumb mistakes. I checked the index of AC, and also looked in the bibliography under Chaum but did not see anything. Can anyone provide useful pointers? Adam

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CEB PREMEIER ISSUE PART 2
by Gary Jeffers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

however, can still read both formats. Although this is annoying if you have a really old key that has lots of old signatures on it, the fact is that the older the key, the more likely someone has captured both it and the passphrase used to protect it. Therefore, I strongly recommend generating a new key and getting at least one other person to sign it. ARE MY OLD KEYS COMPATIBLE WITH MIT PGP 2.6? Unless they were created with the old, non-PKCS standard (i.e., created with PGP 2.2 or earlier, or created with PGP 2.3a with pkcs_compat set to 0), and unless they were created with a modulus of more than 1024 bits, then they are compatible. If a compatible key has an incompatible signature certificate, then the incompatible signature certificate will simply be stripped off by PGP 2.6. Otherwise, you can keep using your old key. In fact, if you just copy your key ring files to your new PGP 2.6 directory, then extract your old key with ASCII armor, it will be indistinguishable from a PGP 2.6 key, but have the same value, id, and signatures (assuming they were all in the PKCS format). WHY DOESN'T THE MIT KEY SERVER ACCEPT KEYS FROM PGP VERSIONS < 2.4? They don't want to be accused of contributing to the possibly infringing use of PGP 2.3a. WHY IS MY PGP 2.3a KEY ON THE MIT KEY SERVER? Because the MIT key server synchronizes with several non-USA key servers that run PGP 2.6ui or MIT PGP 2.6, and which accept keys from PGP 2.3a. When keys are extracted from those servers to synchronize with the MIT server, they appear to be coming from PGP 2.6, so they are accepted. WHY SHOULD I UPGRADE TO MIT PGP 2.6 FROM PGP 2.3a (BESIDES THE TIME BOMB)? First of all, if you are in the USA, the patent-legal status of MIT PGP 2.6 is good for your conscience. Second of all, there are a lot of bug fixes and features: Fixed a bug with the -z <passphrase> option. If no passphrase was given, PGP used to crash. When using -c, the IV is generated properly now, and the randseed.bin postwash is done. (This bug could have resulted in the same ciphertext being generated for the same plaintext, if the same passphrase is used.) Memory allocated with halloc() is now freed with hfree() in ztrees.c and zdeflate.c. (MS-DOS only.) The decompression code now detects end of input reliably, fixing a bug that used to have it produce infinite amounts of output on come corrputed input. Decompression has also been sped up. PGP -m won't try to write its final output to the current directory. This makes it less efficent if you want to save the text to a file, but more secure if you don't. If the line comment=<string> appears in the config file, the line "Comment: <string>" appears in ASCII armor output. Of course, you can also use this from the command line, e.g. to include a filename in the ASCII armor, do "pgp -eat +comment=filename filename recipient". PGP now enables clearsig by default. If you sign and ascii-armor a text file, and do not encrypt it, it is clearsigned unless you ask for this not to be done. The now enables textmode. Textmode detects non-text files and automatically turns itself off, so it's quite safe to leave on all the time. If you haven't got these defaults yourself, you might want to enable them. All prompts and progress messages are now printed to stderr, to make them easier to find and ensure they don't get confused with data on standard output such as pgp -m output. PGP now wipes temp files (and files wiped with pgp -w) with pseudo-random data in an attempt to force disk compressors to overwrite as much data as possible. On Unix, if the directory /usr/local/lib/pgp exists, it is searched fror help files, language translations, and the PGP documentation. On VMS, the equivalent is PGP$LIBRARY:. (This is PGP_SYSTEM_DIR, defined in fileio.h, if you need to change it for your site.) Also, it is searched for a default global config.txt. This file may be overridden by a local config.txt, and it may not set pubring, secring, randseed or myname (which should be strictly personal) The normal help files (pgp -h) are pgp.hlp or <language>.hlp, such as fr.hlp. Now, there is a separate help file for pgp -k, called pgpkey.hlp, or <language>key.hlp. No file is provided by default; PGP will use its one-page internal help by default, but you can create such a file at your site. On Unix systems, $PGPPATH defaults to $HOME/.pgp. PGP used to get confused if you had a keyring containing signatures from you, but not your public key. (PGP can't use the signatures in this case. Only signatures from keys in the keyring are counted.) PGP still can't use the signatures, but prints better warning messages. Also, adding a key on your secret key ring to your public keyring now asks if the key should be considered ultimately-trusted. Prviously, you had to run pgp -ke to force this check, which was non-obvious. On Unix, PGP now figures out the resolution of the system clock at run time for the purpose of computing the amount of entropy in keystroke timings. This means that on many Unix machines, less typing should be required to generate keys. (SunOS and Linux especially.) The small prime table used in generating keys has been enlarged, which should speed up key generation somewhat. There was a bug in PGP 2.3a (and, in fact in 2.4 and dating back to 1.0!) when generating primes 2 bits over a multiple of the unit size (16 bits on PC's, 32 bits on most larger computers), if the processor doesn't deal with expressions like "1<<32" by producing a result of 1. In practice, that corresponds to a key size of 64*x+4 bits. At the request of Windows programmers, the PSTR() macro used to translate string has been renamed to LANG(). The random-number code has been *thoroughly* cleaned up. So has the IDEA code and the MD5 code. The MD5 code was developed from scratch and is available for public use. Versions prior to 2.6 would not permit a new signature to be added to a key if there was an already existing signature from the same signer. Starting with version 2.6 newer signatures will override older ones *as long as the newer signature verifies*. This change is important because many keys have signatures on them that were created by PGP version 2.2 or earlier. These signatures can not be verified by PGP 2.5 or higher. Owners of keys with these obsolete signatures should attempt to gather new signatures and add them to their key. WHY SHOULD I UPGRADE TO MIT PGP 2.6 FROM PGP 2.6ui? If you are in the USA, PGP 2.6ui suffers from the same alledged patent infringement problems as PGP 2.3a. PGP 2.6ui also lacks most of the bug fixes and enhancements listed above since PGP 2.3a, since PGP 2.6ui is essentially just PGP 2.3a modified to accept both new and old packet version bytes (2 and 3). On the other hand, if you are outside of the USA and Canada, you should be careful not to offend the U. S. Department of State, Office of Defense Trade Controls, by exporting MIT PGP 2.6 from the USA or Canada. I suppose that you wouldn't break U. S. law if you got a copy of MIT PGP 2.6 that someone else exported, or you could get a copy of the PGP 2.6ui (that originated in Great Britain) if you don't care about the enhancements listed above, or if you want to be able to use 1264-bit keys. Note that if you use MIT PGP 2.6 in most countries, you are still bound by the RSAREF license because of the copyright law, and you are still limited in some countries to noncommercial use of PGP by the IDEA patent (unless you get a license from ETH Zurich). IS THERE AN EVIL PLOT, BACK DOOR, OR INTENTIONAL WEAKNESS IN MIT PGP 2.6? Not that I am aware of. It ships with source code, and I didn't see any way to hide such a thing in the source code that I looked at. Besides, if you really knew Phil Zimmermann, you would know just how repugnant such an idea is to him. IS THERE A LEGAL VERSION OF PGP FOR COMMERCIAL USE IN EUROPE? Not yet. To do that, you would have to (1) arrange to license the use of IDEA from ETH Zurich or wait for the coming triple-DES option in PGP, and (2) use the original (PGP 2.3a or 2.6ui) RSA code linked in with the new PGP (to avoid restrictions on the copyrighted RSAREF code). There is also the possibility of other local laws, such as those in France, restricting use of strong cryptography. IS THERE A LEGAL VERSION OF PGP FOR COMMERCIAL USE IN THE USA & CANADA? Yes. Use Viacrypt PGP for any commercial or personal use in the USA and Canada. I understand that there are some BSAFE-based PGP versions for commercial use in the USA, too, but you need to check with Philip Zimmermann on that to make sure that all of the copyright and licensing issues are handled properly. WHAT EXACTLY IS COMMERCIAL USE? I don't have an exact definition. Use some common sense. Are you encrypting sales reports, business plans, contract bidding information, and proprietary designs? Are your money making operations aided by the use of PGP? If so, and if one is available to you, you should buy the fully licensed commercial version. SINCE VIACRYPT PGP SHIPS WITH NO SOURCE, HOW DO I KNOW IT IS OK? Philip Zimmermann wrote or examined all of the source code. He says it is OK, so I trust him. I guess you have to decide for yourself. IS IT OK TO BUY VIACRYPT PGP, THEN USE MIT PGP FOR COMMERCIAL USE? RSADSI/PKP says it is not. On the other hand, since their only recourse is to sue you for damages, and since such a plan results in exactly the same revenue they would have if you did what they wanted, there are no damages to sue for. Personally, I use Viacrypt PGP except when beta testing PGP. IS THERE AN INTERCHANGE PROBLEM WITH THE DIFFERENT RSA ENGINES IN PGP? Fortunately, there is no problem interchanging RSA encrypted packets between original PGP, Viacrypt Digi-Sig, RSAREF, and BSAFE versions. They all do the same RSA computations. They are all different implementations of the same basic algorithm with a different legal status for each of them, which changes depending on what country you are in. The only annoyance is that unmodified copies of RSAREF and BSAFE can't handle more than 1024 bit RSA keys, but that isn't much of a problem (IMHO). HOW DO I UPGRADE FROM VIACRYPT PGP 2.4 TO VIACRYPT PGP 2.7 Call 800-536-2664 with your registration number, name, address, and credit card number handy. Hey, it is only US$10. No, I don't work for Viacrypt, nor do I get a commission on sales -- I just use Viacrypt PGP. WHERE DO I GET MIT PGP 2.6? By ftp: ftp://net-dist.mit.edu/pub/PGP/mitlicen.txt ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/README.MPJ ftp://ftp.wimsey.bc.ca/pub/crypto/software/README ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/pub/virus/crypt/pgp/ Look for the files pgp26.zip, pgp26src.zip, and pgp26src.tar.gz. BBS: Colorado Catacombs BBS 303-772-1062 (free -- log in with your name) Hieroglyphics Voodoo Machine 303-443-2457 (log in as VOO DOO, password NEW) Download PGP26.ZIP, and for source, PGP26SRC.ZIP. Compuserve: Use IBMFF to look for PGP26.ZIP and PGP26S.ZIP. For a longer list, see the daily and montly postings on alt.security.pgp, or get ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/getpgp.asc WHAT KNOWN BUGS ARE IN MIT PGP 2.6? The function xorbytes doesn't. Replace the = with ^= to fix it. The effect of this bug is that RSA keys aren't quite as random as they should be -- probably not a practical problem, but worth fixing if you are going to compile the code yourself. DON'T SET PGPPASS when editing your keys, because if you do, and if you don't change your pass phrase, the key is lost. (If this happens, rename your backup keyring files to the primary files before you do anything else). These bugs have been fixed in the master source code, and will be corrected in the next release of MIT PGP. WHAT IS COMING IN FUTURE VERSIONS OF PGP? I won't steal the thunder from Philip Zimmermann, Jeff Schiller, Colin Plumb, and the rest of the team, but there is some neat stuff that they are working on. Transition from MIT PGP 2.6 and Viacrypt PGP 2.7 to the newer versions will be easier than transitions from other versions. If you have enhancements and suggestions for the PGP team, I suggest you coordinate with them so that your ideas can be integrated with the main PGP project. WHERE DO I REPORT BUGS IN PGP? Please send bug reports, bug fixes, ports to new platforms, and suggestions to pgp-bugs(a)mit.edu. WHERE DO I SEND OR FIND LANGUAGE KITS? If you have a language kit to share, you can also send it to me at mpj(a)csn.org for me to post on ftp.csn.net/mpj/public/pgp/, as well as sending it to some of the other PGP sites. IS PHILIP ZIMMERMANN STILL THE SUBJECT OF AN INVESTIGATION? Yes. He is still paying a lawyer lots of money to represent him, too. If you like PGP, then I would strongly suggest sending a donation to his defense fund at: Philip Zimmermann defense fund c/o Philip Dubois 2305 Broadway Boulder, Colorado 80304 USA CAN I REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE? Permission is hereby granted to freely redistribute unmodified copies of this PGP signed file. ___________________________________________________________ | | |\ /| | | Michael Paul Johnson Colorado Catacombs BBS 303-772-1062 | | \/ |o| | PO Box 1151, Longmont CO 80502-1151 USA Jesus is alive! | | | | / _ | mpj(a)csn.org aka mpj(a)netcom.com m.p.johnson(a)ieee.org | | |||/ /_\ | ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/README.MPJ CIS: 71331,2332 | | |||\ ( | ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/mpj/README.MPJ -. --- ----- ....| | ||| \ \_/ | PGPprint=F2 5E A1 C1 A6 CF EF 71 12 1F 91 92 6A ED AE A9 | |___________________________________________________________| -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.7 iQCVAgUBLlDhNvX0zg8FAL9FAQHoZAP8C+XgqMzs1y0x1SHM45lzPzD8XK9JjjPk lHUSDlQ6uo5lRnBXxUVPpPlTmLW4E2AHvCM+mke4bsVbvNJnNK513tUELWDkGLf4 6rexV0wiZJ9VdnQW3HyN44Sug8/5W7mxmgbdIOwv4A+OOWwAqm/chOLXsFAVn1mP TLQSBl8sb3E= =Wq3r -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Chapter 2. Steganography "A picture is worth a thousand words." ============================================= %% = !I = %% %%% = !!! BB = %%%* *%%%% = **!!** & = *** @** = u \ x! ) < = * *** + m ) c $ = ** = # k } º = º = $%- & u = = ------- = @!p +e$ ~ # = º = h 6& ; | = º = =,# {{ = º = = º º = = º º = = º º ============================================= º º STILL LIFE WITH CRYPT +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Steganography is the craft of hiding messages in pictures. The text is, of course, encrypted text rather than plain text. The current best steganography program has been done by Arsen Arachelian Below, follows his text contribution: From: rarachel(a)prism.poly.edu (Arsen Ray Arachelian) WNSTORM is available from: ftp.wimsey.bc.ca:/pub/crypto/software/dist/US_or_Canada_only_XXXXXXX/Steg Usual routine to get it. i.e. cd /pub/crypto/software, get the README file, and if you agree to the terms then follow the instructions. Short description off the top of my head (I wrote the beastie) Another info scrap should be in the same directory as WNSTORM. WNSTORM is a data encryption/steganography utility which is pretty secure for most uses. Unlike some stego systems WNSTORM is expandible, all you have to do is write your own LSB injector/extractor for whatever data format you wish to hide information into. WNSTORM doesn't require the recipient of the host picture, sound, movie, etc. to have the original un-stormed picture. Unlike primitive stego programs, WNSTORM doesn't compare an stormed picture with an unstormed picture. WNSTORM will cover its tracks statistically. If it changes a 0 bit in the LSB data stream to a zero, or a 1 bit to a 1, it does nothing. If it changes a 1 bit to a zero, it will balance itself by changing an unused adjacent 0 bit to a 1. Ditto for a 0->1 transform. WNSTORM will NOT change every bit of the LSB in order to prevent detection. It will use a passkey along with a probabilistic algorithm to decide which bits it will change. The algorithm for picking bits depends on the previous succesfully encoded/decoded cyphertext AND the passkey. Internally WNSTORM works by picking "windows" or "packets" of bytes out of either a random number stream or an LSB stream extracted from a picture, sound, movie, etc. It then injects eight bits of cyphertext into this window. Each window is of variable size. The bit locations where the bits are inserted are randomly exchanged for each pass. The bit values are also randomly exchanged for each pass. WNSTORM includes an injector/extractor for PCX images, however I will write more injecotr/extractor programs for it in the future, and OTHERS can do so as well. Chapter 3. Shells for PGP. Section 1. David Merriman's WinPGP26.ZIP From: "David K. Merriman" <merriman(a)metronet.com> Subject: Windows PGP shell I've just finished making an ftp deposit to soda in the cypherpunks/ incoming directory of WinPGP26.ZIP; it's the latest version of the Windows PGP shell Shareware, and understands 2.6/2.6ui/2.7. Dave Merriman Section 2. Ross Barclay's WinFront 3.0 From: Ross Barclay <RBARCLAY(a)TrentU.ca> Subject: PGP WinFront 3.0 Now Available! (New Windows front end for PGP) To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com, ~rbarclay(a)TrentU.ca -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Announcing PGP WinFront 3.0 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A freeware Windows front end for PGP 2.3a and 2.6 Copyright 1994 Ross Barclay (rbarclay(a)trentu.ca) WHAT IT IS: - PGP WinFront is the most fully featured free (or otherwise) Windows front end available. It will make using PGP easy for beginners, and it will drastically increase the speed at which experts use it too. PGP WinFront is now into is third revision and I have tried to implement as many of the suggestions that I received as possible. PGP WinFront was designed by its users, but was coded by me. Features: - Supports secret key ring placement on floppy drive - Support en/decryption to/from clipboard - Move / Copy / Delete files - Online hypertext help - Online hypertext PGP help - Keyring reader to pick names, view key characteristics - Keyring reader supports less-often used "huge" keyrings - Signature Checker - Very configurable - over 25 user-definable settings - more . . . This program does too much to list here. And it's free! This version is a complete rewrite of the popular PGP WinFront 2.0. The feature-set has largely been set by users who sent in suggestions. Please read the file README.TXT and peruse the help files. Please send me your comments. HOW TO GET IT: At the moment, there are 2 ways to get this program: 1) Via FTP - The PGP WinFront 3.0 filename is called PWF30.ZIP. - It has been uploaded to the incoming directories of the following FTP sites: ftp.cica.indiana.edu ftp.eff.org ftp.wimsey.bc.ca black.ox.ac.uk soda.berkeley.edu ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de ftp.ee.und.ac.za ftp.demon.co.uk - Hopefully, they will be slotted into the PGP directories soon. On CICA, it will be placed into \pub\pc\win3\utils. That is where PWF20.ZIP was placed. - Once you get the program, please upload it to other FTP sites! 2) From Colorado Catacombs BBS - dial (303)772-1062. The file is called PWF30.ZIP - once you get the program, please upload it to other BBSs. *** The mail access system I had was discontinued. This is because the file was too big to fit into my account. However, you can still register PWF and request certain PGP and PWF related items using my mail access system. Details of these are on the "About" screen of PWF 30. - --Ross Barclay - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ross Barclay (rbarclay(a)trentu.ca) Assistant Editor | To receive my PGP | public key, send PC NEWS Review: Windows Edition | me e-mail with the Bellevue, WA (206) 399-8700 | subject: GET KEY - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To receive PC NEWS Review, send me e-mail with the subject: GET PNR. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQBVAwUBLmZ7fdgpRteEZ9JhAQFeXgIAxIpvJQeMsx7YecNgtusBDMqL662XFeX2 qL0qF8HcN4ReZ9MYjtn9t8N1zWGxkPOXQEI3KfM7uk8JTzxjZ5LG2g== =gSYT -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Chapter 4. Generally cool things. Section 1. Loompanics sources. Something cool from Vincent: Most of the Loompanics Unlimited catalog is online as: gopher://gopher.well.sf.ca.us/00/Business/catalog.asc And you can send mail to them at: loompanx(a)pt.olympus.net You can also get their catalog at: Loompanics Unlimited PO box 1197 33 Port Townsend, Wa. 98368 P id Send $5.00 for their general catalog - free with any order. Section 2. Viruses sources. AMERICAN EAGLE PUBLICATIONS Cypherpunks, I have found a source of info. that I just must share! American Eagle Publications, Inc. P. O. Box 41401 Tucson, AZ 85717 I'm sure they will send you a catalog just for the asking. So, what are they about? They are about VIRUSES! They don't just carry a couple of virus things - they are the VIRUSES-ARE-US of the virus world! They have a journal: Computer Virus Developments Quarterly. They have books on viruses, virus protection, cryptanalysis, the science fiction book "Heiland", a CD-ROM for $99.95 of several thousand live viruses, disks of viruses with source code, executable & utilities, programs & cards for boot protection, & even a virus IDEA computer system protector. Copy follows for two items of particular interest to Cypherpunks: POTASSIUM HYDROXIDE, KOH By the "King of Hearts" A sophisticated piece of software which uses ideas first developed by computer virus writers to secure your computer system against those who would like to get their hands on the information in it. You give KOH a pass phrase, & it uses state of the art IDEA data encryption algorithm to encrypt all of the information on your hard disk & your floppies. It is, for all intents & purposes, unbreakable, & works well with DOS & Windows. Many encryption programs offered commercially are easily cracked, but this one is not. Some people call this program a virus, come say it is not. In ways, it acts like a virus to do some of your security housekeeping for you. Yet at worst it is a friendly virus that lets you choose when & how it will replicate. program & manual on disk, $10 program, full source, & manual on disk, $20 (Overseas customers add $12: KOH cannot be exported from the US, but since it was not developed in the US, we will forward your order to the overseas distributor. Please allow 6 weeks for delivery) HEILAND By Franklin Sanders 276 pages, Paperback, 1986 Here's an entertaining book about America in the year 2020. If you wonder if it's proper to use viruses in wartime or if such a virus could be termed "good", this book will give you some food for thought. Sanders makes use of computer "worms" when the oppressed people of the US attack the federal government in an all-out war against tyranny. Sanders uses his worms right too - not as some all-powerful monster. Rather, they are deployed as part of a larger military strategy. For a book written in 1986, that's not bad! And if you're fed up with the government, this book is sure to give you a vision for the future. Sanders has been part of the mounting tax protest in this country. He's fought the IRS in court for years & won some important battles. Unfortunately the government seems to be con- firming some of his worst suspensions about them. Now you can get a good dose of his philosophy & his ideas about remedying our problems. And if you work for the government, don't be offended - this book is doubly recommended for you! Book, $8.00 for shipping add $2 per book. 5% sales tax for AZ. residents. It is my belief that in the next few years more uses for viruses than just being a vandal will be found. Also, they may find a place in protecting our electronic freedom. - for instance virus remailers. Also see my previous post - The FREEDOM DEAMON. Also, they have a place in my CHATTERBOX concept(a remailer for chat mode or commands). "Viruses aren't just for Sociopaths anymore!" Also, I suspect the state may start cracking down on virus tech- nology. Incidentally, did you all know that crypt has a place in modern viruses? Encryption is used to hide "nasty" code & virus signatures until they get into the system & decrypt. Yours Truly, Gary Jeffers PUSH EM BACK! PUSH EM BACK! WWWAAAYYY BBBAAACCCKK! BBBEEEAAATTTTT STATE ! Chapter 5. Getting the Cypherpunks' archived & indexed list. Vincent also tells us about the complete Cypherpunk's text on line & indexed with fast access times: Eric Johnson has put one together as: http://pmip.maricopa.edu/crypt/cypherpunks/Cypherpunks.src Please don't think that you used to be safe doing something illegal on this list and that you no longer are. That would be foolish. -- Vince The "http" is for "Hyper-Text Transport Protocol". This is not FTP, though it is a protocol similar in function to FTP. It is used by "WWW" (World Wide Web) of which Mosaic is the most popular implementation. If you have Mosaic, you can just give the above path. If you do not have mosaic, you should spend some time trying to get it. Mosaic makes it really easy to quickly move through lots of information on the net. Mosaic is a point and click hypertext interface. You can FTP to ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu and go into Mosaic. WWW has a simple language for writting your own hypertext documents - "HTML" (Hyper Text Markup Language). You can think of this as sort of like Troff, LaTeX or Postscript, but for hypertext documents. One page of HTML can make dozens of normal files easy to access. For example, my README.html security page points to many normal files: ftp://furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu/security/README.html It turns out that the mail database is really in "WAIS" (Wide Area Information Server). You can use WAIS directly, though I think it is easier to use through mosaic. To use WAIS you would do: ws -h pmip.maricopa.edu -d cpindex/Cypherpunks <keyword> The "ws" may be "waissearch" on your system. You can get lots of info on WAIS from ftp://wais.think.com/comp.infosystems.wais-FAQ As someone pointed out, this "http" method does not yet work with "lynx" (a text only implementation of WWW) on the cypherpunks mail database. It seems it will take a new version of lynx or WAIS for this to work. But the Unix "xmosaic" works fine. :-) This form of global filename starting with something like "ftp://", "http://", "gopher://" etc is also part of the WWW architecture. These names are called "URLs" for Universal Resource Locator. Well, that is probably enough acronyms for today. :-) -- Vince From: Vincent.Cate(a)FURMINT.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: WWW Acronyms (was Re: Cypherpunks' mail database does exist) Gary Jeffers: > Vincent, you state that a fully archived, indexed cypherpunks >mailing list exists as: >http://pmip.maricopa.edu/crypt/cypherpunks/cypherpunks.src >Ok, so I ftp'ed to pmip.maricopa.edu & tried to get to cypherpunks.src, >but even the subdirectories weren't there. The "http" is for "Hyper-Text Transport Protocol". This is not FTP, though it is a protocol similar in function to FTP. It is used by "WWW" (World Wide Web) of which Mosaic is the most popular implementation. If you have Mosaic, you can just give the above path. If you do not have mosaic, you should spend some time trying to get it. Mosaic makes it really easy to quickly move through lots of information on the net. Mosaic is a point and click hypertext interface. You can FTP to ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu and go into Mosaic. You also have a typo, it is "Cypherpunks.src" with a capital C. WWW has a simple language for writting your own hypertext documents - "HTML" (Hyper Text Markup Language). You can think of this as sort of like Troff, LaTeX or Postscript, but for hypertext documents. One page of HTML can make dozens of normal files easy to access. For example, my README.html security page points to many normal files: ftp://furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu/security/README.html It turns out that the mail database is really in "WAIS" (Wide Area Information Server). You can use WAIS directly, though I think it is easier to use through mosaic. To use WAIS you would do: ws -h pmip.maricopa.edu -d cpindex/Cypherpunks <keyword> The "ws" may be "waissearch" on your system. You can get lots of info on WAIS from ftp://wais.think.com/comp.infosystems.wais-FAQ As someone pointed out, this "http" method does not yet work with "lynx" (a text only implementation of WWW) on the cypherpunks mail database. It seems it will take a new version of lynx or WAIS for this to work. But the Unix "xmosaic" works fine. :-) This form of global filename starting with something like "ftp://", "http://", "gopher://" etc is also part of the WWW architecture. These names are called "URLs" for Universal Resource Locator. Well, that is probably enough acronyms for today. :-) -- Vince PS I only read cypherpunks once a day, some time after midnight when my collection for the day is done. From: rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in Subject: Accessing the Cpunk WAIS archive "Gary Jeffers" <vikram!CCGARY(a)MIZZOU1.missouri.edu> > 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. Do an archie search for lynx or mosaic or some other decent browser. This is a WAIS indexed archive; no hyper links; you type in a keyword, and get a list of matching articles, and select one (or more) of them to look at. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA Chapter 6. Remailers & chained remailers. From: wcs(a)anchor.ho.att.com (bill.stewart(a)pleasantonca.ncr.com +1-510-484-6204) Message-Id: <9408300753.AA22369(a)anchor.ho.att.com> To: CCGARY(a)MIZZOU1.missouri.edu Subject: Re: Using remailers, chained remailers? There's somebody who posts a remailer summary to the list about monthly. There are three or four sets of remailers out there: - anon.penet.fi, which gives you an account an12345(a)anon.penet.fi which people can reply to. Send "Subject: help" to anon(a)anon.penet.fi and it'll probably give you a useful reply. Its big use is for anonymous Usenet posting with working replies. - The cypherpunks remailers, which are mostly one-way no-reply mailers; some also support Usenet posting. Soda is pretty typical. - Various enhanced cypherpunks remailers, which have features like encrypted reply addresses you can attach at the end. You can get information on using the soda remailer by sending email to remailer(a)csua.berkeley.edu, with "help" somewhere in the posting; I'm not sure if it wants it in the Subject: or in the body. That's the remailer that posts from "Tommy the Tourist" with random NSA-bait at the bottom of postings. Here's a recent posting on getting status of remailers. Note that some really only remail once per day, so they may be working fine even if it says they're not. ---- Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 13:39:33 -0700 From: Raph Levien <raph(a)kiwi.CS.Berkeley.EDU> To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: "finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu" now operational Hi all, I have written and installed a remailer pinging script which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, at http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html Please do not take the uptime figures too seriously, at least for another week or so. The script has only been running reliably for a few days. Please let me know about any other remailers which I missed. I've only included remailers which can mail to arbitrary addresses, so I already know chop and twwells are missing. If you've got a Web page, please feel free to include a link to this page. If you think your Web page is relevant to the subject of remailers, let me know and I'll link it in. Comments and suggestions welcome! Raph Levien ------- # 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 Chapter 7. Current problems in Crypt. 1. We need an Internet Chat PGP system for conversations in real time. Note: #Freedom channel on the Internet Chat system has carried out fast encrypted conversations for years. When a Cypherpunk contacted one of their members (Sargent someone), he was politely told that their system was private. Sargent was unwilling to disclose method. Is their system some kind of security by obscurity code that cannot be varied (like by a drop in crypt/decrypt algorithm)? Or maybe the crypt method could be a drop in variable method & Sarge was unaware of it? Possibly other #Freedom members would be more knowledgeable? Possibly, a knowledgeable & diplomatic Cypherpunk could hit paydirt by pursuing this. 2. Has Stealth PGP been done yet? 3. Has Arsen Arachelian really solved the problem of discovery of crypt in steganograpy by statistical examination of the least significant bits in his WNSTROM? I have seen no debate on this. 4. If the Feds capture the internet & put their anti-privacy hardware & protocols in place & outlaw remailers, does anyone have any idea how to build secure & effective remailers? A "Fortress remailer"? 5. If the above possibility happens & Cyperpunks' list is outlawed, does anyone have ideas how to make a "Fortress list"? PUSH EM BACK! PUSH EM BACK! WWWAAAYYYY BBBAAACCCK! BBBEEEAAATTTT STATE!

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"GOOD" GOVERNMENT
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Carl Ellison wondered: To what extent is gov't a home for bullies and to what extent is it the collective defense against bullies ...? How do we turn it from the first to the second? As I see it, it's always a home for bullies masquerading as a collective defense. Sometimes it actually it actually has to perform its advertised defense function. Like naked quarks, purely defensive governments cannot exist. They are bipolar by nature, with some poles (i.e., the bullying part) being "more equal than others." S a n d y "There's no government, like no government" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Digital Cash mini-FAQ for the layman
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I recently wrote a description of digital cash for Tom Steinert-Threlkeld, Technology Writer for the Dallas Morning News. I figured I might as well post it here in case there are any newbies that are still coming up to speed. Keep in mind that my intended audience is a person who is in touch with the latest commercially available technology, but is not an engineer, mathematician, or scientist. I've intentionally generalized and oversimplified the descriptions to keep from getting bogged down in the details. If I've made any gross errors let me know, but I think most of the information is accurate. Q: How is digital cash possible? A: Public-key cryptography and digital signatures (both blind and non-blind signatures) make digital cash possible. It would take too long to go into detail how public-key cryptography and digital signatures work. But the basic gist is that banks and customers would have public-key encryption keys. Public-key encryption keys come in pairs. A private key known only to the owner, and a public key, made available to everyone. Whatever the private key encrypts, the public key can decrypt, and vice verse. Banks and customers use their keys to encrypt (for security) and sign (for identification) blocks of digital data that represent money orders. A bank "signs" money orders using its private key and customers and merchants verify the signed money orders using the bank's widely published public key. Customers sign deposits and withdraws using their private key and the bank uses the customer's public key to verify the signed withdraws and deposits. Q: Are there different kinds of digital cash? A: Yes. In general, there are two distinct types of digital cash: identified digital cash and anonymous digital cash. Identified digital cash contains information revealing the identity of the person who originally withdrew the money from the bank. Also, in much the same manner as credit cards, identified digital cash enables the bank to track the money as it moves through the economy. Anonymous digital cash works just like real paper cash. Once anonymous digital cash is withdrawn from an account, it can be spent or given away without leaving a transaction trail. You create anonymous digital cash by using numbered bank accounts and blind signatures rather than fully identified accounts and non-blind signatures. [To better understand blind signatures and their use with digital cash, I highly recommend skimming through chapters 1 - 6 of Bruce Schneier's book _Applied Cryptography_ (available at Taylor's Technical Books). It is quite readable, even to the layman. He doesn't get into the heavy-duty math until later in the book. Even if you don't write a digital cash column in the near future, I still recommend reading through chapters 1 - 6 of _Applied Cryptography_. Bruce does a very good job of describing the wide variety of interesting things you can do when you combine computers, networks, and cryptography.] There are two varieties of each type of digital cash: online digital cash and offline digital cash. Online means you need to interact with a bank (via modem or network) to conduct a transaction with a third party. Offline means you can conduct a transaction without having to directly involve a bank. Offline anonymous digital cash is the most complex form of digital cash because of the double-spending problem. Q: What is the double-spending problem? A: Since digital cash is just a bunch of bits, a piece of digital cash is very easy to duplicate. Since the copy is indistinguishable from the original you might think that counterfeiting would be impossible to detect. A trivial digital cash system would allow me to copy of a piece of digital cash and spend both copies. I could become a millionaire in a matter of a few minutes. Obviously, real digital cash systems must be able to prevent or detect double spending. Online digital cash systems prevent double spending by requiring merchants to contact the bank's computer with every sale. The bank computer maintains a database of all the spent pieces of digital cash and can easily indicate to the merchant if a given piece of digital cash is still spendable. If the bank computer says the digital cash has already been spent, the merchant refuses the sale. This is very similar to the way merchants currently verify credit cards at the point of sale. Offline digital cash systems detect double spending in a couple of different ways. One way is to create a special smart card containing a tamper-proof chip called an "Observer" (in some systems). The Observer chip keeps a mini database of all the pieces of digital cash spent by that smart card. If the owner of the smart card attempts to copy some digital cash and spend it twice, the imbedded Observer chip would detect the attempt and would not allow the transaction. Since the Observer chip is tamper-proof, the owner cannot erase the mini-database without permanently damaging the smart card. The other way offline digital cash systems handle double spending is to structure the digital cash and cryptographic protocols so the identity of the double spender is known by the time the piece of digital cash makes it way back to the bank. If users of the offline digital cash know they will get caught, the incidents of double spending will be minimized (in theory). The advantage of these kinds of offline systems is that they don't require special tamper-proof chips. The entire system can be written in software and can run on ordinary PCs or cheap smart cards. It is easy to construct this kind of offline system for identified digital cash. Identified offline digital cash systems can accumulate the complete path the digital cash made through the economy. The identified digital cash "grows" each time it is spent. The particulars of each transaction are appended to the piece of digital cash and travel with it as it moves from person to person, merchant to vender. When the cash is finally deposited, the bank checks its database to see if the piece of digital cash was double spent. If the digital cash was copied and spent more than once, it will eventually appear twice in the "spent" database. The bank uses the transaction trails to identify the double spender. Offline anonymous digital cash (sans Observer chip) also grows with each transaction, but the information that is accumulated is of a different nature. The result is the same however. When the anonymous digital cash reaches the bank, the bank will be able to examine it's database and determine if the digital cash was double spent. The information accumulated along the way will identify the double spender. The big difference between offline anonymous digital cash and offline identified digital cash is that the information accumulated with anonymous digital cash will only reveal the identity of the spender if the cash is double spent. If the anonymous digital cash is not double spent, the bank can not determine the identity of the original spender nor can it reconstruct the path the cash took through the economy. With identified digital cash, both offline or online, the bank can always reconstruct the path the cash took through the economy. The bank will know what everyone bought, where they bought it, when they bought it, and how much they paid. And what the bank knows, the IRS knows. By the way, did you declare that $20 bill your Grandmother gave you for your birthday? You didn't? Well, you wont have to worry about forgetting those sorts of things when everybody is using fully identified digital cash. As a matter of fact, you wont even have to worry about filing a tax return. The IRS will just send you a bill. Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

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Re: How Did This Get Done?
by Matthew Ghio 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I picked this up from a post in alt.sex.stories (and yeah....man does not > live on talk.politics.crypto alone :>) : > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Path: io.org!sun.cais.com!news.sprintlink.net!tequesta.gate.net!sysop > From: no_more_faggots(a)faggots.must.die.com <===== Is this a trick? > Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories > Subject: NO MORE FAGGOT STORIES! > Date: 5 Sep 1994 21:13:00 GMT > Lines: 1 > Message-ID: <34g1ks$jn1(a)tequesta.gate.net> > NNTP-Posting-Host: hopi.gate.net > > NO MORE FAGGOT STORIES DAMMIT > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > How the hell did the poster "customize" his address to ...ummm...fit the > post??? The same way the remailers insert "nobody" or "anonymous". Read RFC 977... (telnet port 119) Whoever it is, I wish he would quit it, I've gotten several complaints about someone flaming gays via my remailer in that group.

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prz in NYC on Saurday, Sunday
by Philip Zimmermann 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello PGP users. I'm going to be in NYC on Saturday and Sunday. If anyone in New York wants to get together and conspire to subvert our way of life, send me some email and I'll pick it up on the road. I have become too used to never buying my own lunch when traveling to places where cypherpunkers live. I'll be arriving late Saturday morning and leaving Sunday evening. Saturday night is booked. On Friday I can be reached at 617 253-0161. Philip Zimmermann prz(a)acm.org

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Re: Where can I get cypherpunk t-shirts?
by Matt Thomlinson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Greg Broiles <greg(a)ideath.goldenbear.com> I did, however, get my "Don't give Big Brother a master key" T-shirt very quickly. Would order from those folks again (sorry, don't have the address handy, though). at crypto I had a half-dozen requests for info regarding the big brother inside/1984 shirts. Is another run of these possible? I could probably scrape together that many orders just here in Msoft, I beleive. matt

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Re: Where can I get cypherpunk t-shirts?
by David K. Merriman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > at crypto I had a half-dozen requests for info regarding > the big brother inside/1984 shirts. Is another run of these > possible? I could probably scrape together that many > orders just here in Msoft, I beleive. > > matt > I'd still like to find one of the "eye" 1984 T-shirts; it's what I thought I was ordering when I got the Master Key shirt instead (though I still like the Master Key :-) 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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Australian Crypto
by Sherry Mayo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matthew Gream said... >Well, fuck that for thinking I was living under a less restrictive >regime -- and I can say goodbye to an international market for my >software. > [...snip] > >In short: Anything cryptographic, they want to know about, and they >want to know about it on a per end-user basis. They advise against >distribution on the "Internet" and any distribution without prior >approval otherwise there could be "problems". > >Matthew. I am more than a little concerned by this as I have just put PGP source and executables on my experimental WWW server (Australian based). I announced it on talk.politics.crypto yesterday before I read this post. I thought I was doing a service by providing a faster download for Aussie users (downloading big files from outside Aus is painfully slow). I hope I'm not taking an unacceptable risk with my temporary residence visa :-( I too made the mistake of assuming that the Aussie regulations were more relaxed (like those of the UK). Oh well for what it's worth, here's the address: http://rschp2.anu.edu.au:8080/crypt.html Sherry (waiting for those ASIO spooks :-)

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Cypher related T-Shirts
by Joseph Block 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

All this talk about T-shirts has me lusting for a suitable cypher related shirt. I missed the initial offerings, so would anyone who has any shirts left they'd like to unload please email me with details of the shirt and prices? Thanks, jpb(a)gate.net "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ..." -- Bill Clinton (USA TODAY, 11 March 1993, page 2A)

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