December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

FABIO META: cartoon transcript
by sw＠smds.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Fox Trot," by Bill Amend, for Wed, Sept. 28, 1994: Computer: WELCOME TO COMPUNET. YOU HAVE 65,031 WAITING MESSAGES. Kid: [pause with pensive expression] Maybe setting my username to "Fabio" wasn't such a hot idea. Computer: DIANE(a)NASA.GOV WISHES TO CHAT. LUCILLE(a)OSU.EDU WISHES TO CHAT. JOYCE(a)UPS.COM WISHES TO CHAT. ... --Steve

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IN H.O.T. WATER
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, How exciting! My first anti-fan, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: Sandy's H.E.A.T was hard enough on my poor 'D' key; I hope ... yada, yada, yada ... While I agree that "Beach Clash" *is* too far afield (sorry, David), I have a serious and a *seemingly* not-so-serious reason for "reviewing" Acapulco H.E.A.T. MY SERIOUS REASON--The world does not see cryptography and related privacy technologies as do the Cypherpunks. Most folks "learn" about crypto from popular culture (e.g., TV and movies) and, to a lesser extent, the popular press. When we try to persuade others to support strong crypto, we have to know what *they* know (and don't know), if we are to be effective. MY REAL REASON--Cypherpunks is not just a mailing list. It is a wired community of people with strong, commonly held beliefs concerning privacy. The problem is, the intensity of our beliefs and the ultimate seriousness of what's at stake, can lead to a negative, siege mentality. I believe there is a place, in every community of fellow travelers, for humor and humanity. That's one of the reasons that physical meeting are so important. If you've been to one, you know that it isn't all strategy and tactics; there is also fellowship. After a Cypherpunks meeting, many attendees go out for dinner together. In California, we even--god forbid--"bond." (Not valid in Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky or where prohibited by law. Your mileage may differ. If pain persists, consult a physician.) Acapulco H.E.A.T., with dubious crypto and suspect technology, has become an inside joke for Cypherpunks. When we watch it, we see things the average person misses. This is something we share, and something that helps create the lighter side of Cypherpunk culture. S a n d y P.S. I'm serious. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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NYT on TLA Rot
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Today's NY Times has front page article and editorial on a congressional study to be done on the need for the CIA and reassessment of eleven other intelligence agencies. Says funds for the study were included in recent $28 billlion package for intelligence. One excerpt: "Throughout the cold war, the nation needed a great intelligence service, and by and large, it got one," said Allen Goodman, a former CIA official and dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. "But from about 1985 onward nobody's been able to say if they are good or bad, and from 1990 onward nobody's been able to say exactly why we need them." End excerpt. Bet many "national threats" are in the offing. Email available for the NYT-impaired. John

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Digicash Palo Alto
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just browsing www.digicash.com, I see a relatively new web page with some info on various employees. They also mentioned that there is a U.S. office, DigiCash Inc 701 Welch Road, Suite 323 Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA tel +1-415 321 0300 fax +1-415 321 0322 Bay area CP's might want to check this out (unless it is already common knowledge). (I notice Chaum has his own picture and initials on the DigiCash coins in the graphics!) Hal

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3DES
by pstemari＠bismark.cbis.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Quick question. There's a brief mention in Applied Cryptography that triple DES uses: Eabc(x) = Ea(Db(Ec(x))) as opposed to: Eabc(x) = Ea(Eb(Ec(x))) in order to preserve some symmetry properties. Can anyone give a better explanation?

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groups
by pstemari＠bismark.cbis.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Another quick question. Frequently when discussing a cypher the question of whether it is a group arises. In the absence of further definition, is it safe to assume that the set of elements for this group is the cyphers with each possible key and that the operation for this group is composition? Paul

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Re: Quantum Cryptography Biblio.
by chen＠intuit.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As an addendum to the bibliography that Tim Cole posted, there are three good papers in the July 1993 edition of _Physical Review A_ (vol. 48 no. 1): "Information-theoretic limits to quantum cryptography" by Stephen M. Barnett and Simon J.D. Phoenix, "Quantum cryptography without conjugate coding" by Simon J.D. Phoenix, and "Quantum computers and intractable (NP-complete) computing problems" by Vladimir Cerny. - Mark - -- Mark Chen chen(a)netcom.com 415/329-6913 finger for PGP public key D4 99 54 2A 98 B1 48 0C CF 95 A5 B0 6E E0 1E 1D

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re: new rules: filing electronic tax returns
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In an note to Cypherpunks, LaurenN(a)wri.org notes that the IRS will require fingerprints (and other information) for people filing tax returns electronically. My understanding is that this refers to professional tax preparers. Note that individuals are currently filing "electronically" by sending their return to an agency, such as the MacInTax people. The problem the IRS faced, as I understand it from a brief report on NPR, is that there was a lot of fraud going around -- people filing bogus returns with refunds, then disappearing with the money. LaurenN also wondered why CPA's and lawyers are exempt -- I would imagine that this is because their identity is known through their professional licensing. Just my speculation. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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More quantum references.
by Doug Shapter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This appeared on sci.crypt.research, so many on the list may have already seen it. For those that haven't (thanks and credit to Tim Cole) : As one reply to the thread on Quantum Cryptography, I have put together this bibliography of what I could find on the subject about 1 year ago. If there are other references that are not included here, I, and I suspect other readers of this group, would be very interested in those references. Anyway, here is the list: 1. Blow, K.J., S.J.D. Phoenix, On a fundamental theorem of quantum cryptography, Jnl. of Modern Optics, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Jan. 93),pp 33-6. 2. Brassard, G., C.H. Bennett, Quantum Cryptography, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol.325, 1988, pp. 79-90. 3. Bennett, C.H., G. Brassard and N.D. Mermin, Quantum Cryptography without Bell's Theorem, Physiacl Review Letters, Vol. 68, No. 5 (3 Feb. 92), pp. 557-9. 4. Bennett, C.H., Quantum Cryptography Using Any To Nonorthogonal States, Physical Reveiew Letters, Vol. 68, No. 21 (25 May 92), pp. 3121-4. 5. Bennett, C.H., Quantum Cryptography: Uncertainty in the Service of Privacy, Science, Vol. 257, (7 August 92), pp. 752-3. 6. Ekert, A.K., J.G. Rarity, P.R. Tapster and G. M. Palma, Practical Quantum Cryptography Based on Two-Photon Interferometry,Physical Review Letters, Vol. 69, No. 9 (31 August 92), pp. 1293-5. 7. Werner, M.J. and G. J. Milburn, Eavesdropping using quantum nondemolition measurements, Physical Review A, Vol. 47, No. 1 (January 1993), pp. 639-41. 8. Stewart, I., Schrodingers Catflap, Nature, Vol. 353, (3 October 1991), pp. 384-5. 9. Bennett, C.H., G. Brassard and A. K. Ekert, Quantum Cryptography, Scientific American, October 1992, pp. 50-57. 10. Ekert, A.K.,Quantum Cryptography based on Bell's Theorem, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 67, No. 6 (5 August 91), pp. 661-3. 11. Bennett, C.H., F. Bessette, G. Brassard, L. Savalle and J. Smolin, Experimental Quantum Cryptography, Proceedings of Eurocrypt '90, also in Journal of Cryptology, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1992), pp. 3-28. 12. Bennett, C.H., G. Brassard, C. Crepeau and M-H. Skubiszewska, Practical Quantum Oblivious Transfer, Proceedings of Crypto '91. 13. Bennett, C.H., and G. Brassard, The Dawn of a new era for quantum cryptography: The experimental prototype is working !, SIGACT News, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Fall 1989), pp. 78-82. I hope this is a help to those of you just getting started. Many of the articles have their own bibliographies, but htese were the articles that I could find in my files. Again, I hope this helps. Tim Cole. Doug.

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What is the PGP key for WIEN ?
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Where can I find the key for the WIEN remailer? It's not on the chaos gopher go or on soda

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