December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Electronic Revolution and Guerilla Warfare?
by Kelly.Goen＠Eng.Sun.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Interesting Post David, some rather disjoint comments follow: > > From: merriman(a)metronet.com (David K. Merriman) > Subject: Electronic Revolution and Guerilla Warfare? > > What with the governments of several nations around the world starting to > get a bit heavy-handed with their populaces, I was wondering how a > modern-day revolution could take place in a crypto-repressive society, and > how the citizenry could sufficiently rattle/displace such a government so as > to regain control over their destinies. > > For the purpose of discussion, I'd like to propose the following > "environmental variables": > > majority of the population unable/unwilling to do more than complain. > > minority of the population not sure of how to fight the process, but > willing to support those that do know. > > some number (small) of those capable of crypto or other electronic mayhem > depart the country in a short period bridging the implementation of > repressive government controls and laws. > > There are varying permutations of the crypto/electronic-capable, and the > force-capable (ie, hackers-only to bomb-makers-only, and anything in between). > > said government uses all means at it's disposal to try and apprehend those > attempting to resist, as well as intercept communications, prevent damage to > it's infrastructure and physical entities. I would suggest initially that one examine the e-book "Terminal Compromise" by Winn Schwartau and also Information Warfare by the same author. In addition one also may want to obtain a project planner package and actually plan every scenario out along with costs and estimated effects. This would increase the accuracy of your gaming study. One may also wish to include items such as Blacknet in their gaming study as well as a complete and functional blackmarket. Tim's FAQ gives a good review of the tech in crypto and remailers available. Note also for purposes of short term games, knowing ones opponent(i.s. dossiers built up using information brokers and pressure on weak points) tends to be vastly more effective then official routes of change. After all its the oppositions preferred technique. Keep in mind that various hackers have tried this in a haphazard way and gotten caught at it... > > at the start of government "hostilities", all intra-national anon > remailers are seized or shut down, and access to international ones is > *heavily* monitored or blocked (yeah, I know, but we're gaming here!). > > national identity medium (card, wristband, etc) in place and mandatory. > > travel, currency, and information transfer restrictions (ie, no more "How > to build a Backpack Nuke" or "How to hack the Tax Gestapo central computers" > books :-) I expect E-publishing and Data havens for such documents will appear almost immediately after such laws. Backpack nukes unless they are for EMP arent too interesting but EMP/HERF generators are in terms of the attack potential against an information infrastructure. "Information Warfare" looks at this and other issues. Is it happening already??? "I can neither confirm nor deny this rumour". Does our government look at these issues... I point the interested user to a90-217 SBIR, an early I-Warfare project " Electronic Countermeasure: Computer Virus" a project to create military viruses and research into vectoring via RF/induced signal. > > What problems would those willing to fight such government oppression be > likely to face? How to deal with those problems? How to organize and > exchange personnel/information? How to not get caught? How to avoid > detection? What means/methods of, um, dissonance against such a government > would be more/less effective? Under what various permutations of > electronic/physical bushwhacking would the process be successful or not? > Duration? Other than the obvious crypto/cyber/military disciplines, what > other professions or specialized knowledge would be useful under what > conditions? What blatantly obvious thing(s) have I left out? Check out loompanics press... they have many such titles useful to your research... also checkout Paladin Press and Loompanics press. look at spy-cell organizations with crypto/remailer substituted for the comm links and dead drops, information brokers help detect infiltration. Laptop mobile IP with encrypted links and on-line info-brokers allow one to continuously evaluate current local conditions. The one thing always lacking for me in many of these Crypt-anarchy posts "Overthrow the government". is a lack of attention the least principles of logistics, economics and proper planning. You can be sure the opposition is paying attention to such details and has a huge advantage because of this. > > 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. > cheers Kelly

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BofA & the CIA
by Lewis McCarthy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May writes: $ Banks already collude (BCCI was not a fluke, just a CIA $ front bank, like Castle Bank, Nugan Hand Bank, and Bank of America). Stephen Williams writes: $ I happen to be contracting in the Bay Area for Bank of America till $ Feb/Mar... See: http://www.bankamerica.com Does this make you a CIA plant ? -L. McCarthy "I'm just a sucker with no self-esteem" -Offspring Send me mail using "Subject: remailer-help" for an autoreply about Underdog

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A practical use of c'punk brain power.
by an48848＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greetings c'punks! I have an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet to which I do not have the password. Do any of you know a clever way to break the Excel protection either by divining the password or removing the layer of encryption in the file? Any help is appreciated! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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No Subject
by nobody＠jpunix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > On the same note, do any of you have any humorous / >chilling stories about what you found out when you got >your file? There's a guy who was active with the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation (Roy Wilkinson? Memory fades...) who amassed more FBI file pages than anyone. His file was in excess of 200K pages. In the files---this I heard directly from him---was information that the FBI had learned of a plot to kill him. They did nothing but continue their surveillance. ======================================================================= Crim Tideson Privacy is its own justification. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAwUBLpCCNqvOblMnt4MdAQFQRAP9HK4mqbnl0d0IallbCpQBm737QT5gCgMm 8PSlgHLCWAI9Rx4q93g8+zDMWNA22eELe+amUufJxuoZHNChpTNU87lBT4klif89 NlEMB2/jqbZM0eeqTi0tzdfu3nTI1S5Hu/SH0oRxTj2iHNKfuA81gs19bmNxiqG9 30xx5LqVvHg= =Tmtv -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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A practical use of c'punk brain power.
by bogus＠no.return.address 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greetings c'punks! I have an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet to which I do not have the password. Do any of you know a clever way to break the Excel protection either by divining the password or removing the layer of encryption in the file? Any help is appreciated! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Re: Electronic Revolution and Guerilla Warfare?
by System Operator 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kelly.Goen(a)Eng.Sun.COM (Kelly Goen [CONTRACTOR]) writes: > I would suggest initially that one examine the > e-book "Terminal Compromise" by Winn Schwartau and also > Information Warfare by the same author. In addition one also may want [...] > Check out loompanics press... they have many such titles useful to your > research... also checkout Paladin Press and Loompanics press. I second the motion for Loompanics and Paladin Press. Two books that might be directly related, both from Paladin Press and both by Lawrence W. Myers are "SPYCOMM: Covert Communication Techniques of the Underground" and "Improvised Radio Jamming Techniques: Electronic Guerrilla Warfare." Both are full of practical, "nuts and bolts" discussions of the issues you're pursuing. Dan -- system(a)decode.com (System Operator) Cryptography, Security, Privacy BBS +1 410 730 6734 Data/FAX

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Cyber honor
by macorp!moonlight!ken＠uu4.psi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Recently, I wrote about forging mail and introduced the idea of honor in cyberspace: >I've been vaguely following the thread, which seems to be attempting to >close a loophole in port 25. Assuming you succeeded, wouldn't a clever >demon hacker simply find another way to forge messages? I have seen that >any system a human can devise, another human can eventually break. This >leads me to believe that eventually we will have to begin acting on our >honor, and provide severe consequences for dishonorable behavior. I >haven't finished working out what "honor" means in this social context. to which Jim McCoy responded: >Like what? When identity is "weak" then honor has no meaning... That sounded reasonable to me until Crim Tideson asked: >I've created a pseudonym and a PGP key pair for that pseudonym. ... >I have no intention of revealing who "me" actually is. ... >I want to make and keep a reputation.... So honor may after all have meaning in cyberspace, as some code of behavior that preserves one's "reputation". James A. Donald, whose thinking I tend to respect, points out that, >Ken Landaiche writes >> I have seen that >> any system a human can devise, another human can eventually break. > >False. Most cryptographic algorithms these days are secure. I'm glad to take your word on this. But I still think that the cryptographic system can be broken: subversion, torture, and "truth serums" come to mind. If someone strong enough wants your secret badly enough, they can probably get it, as long as at least one keeper of the secret is alive. This argument relies on one's adversary having no scruples. Since, as I mentioned before, I have little knowledge of the mathematics of cryptography, but still share the cypherpunks' interest in liberty, I'm focusing my efforts on the social end of the solution. As I said: > This > leads me to believe that eventually we will have to begin acting on our > honor, to which JAD responded: >Walking through a security hole on a computer is not necessarily >dishonorable, though many dishonorable things can be done once >you are through that hole. What do you mean by "dishonorable"? Is walking through a security hole like walking through a stranger's insecure door? The latter is an invasion of privacy to me, something I would consider damaging to me and would label a "dishonorable" act. >> and provide severe consequences for dishonorable behavior. > >If "we" provide "sever consequences" then we are not relying >on honor, but on coercion. Consider reputation systems, kill files, and the famous "If no one reads your posts, you're dead." Death is a pretty severe consequence, and one that many people admit to imposing. For target practice, I suggest that at the most basic level, net entities will have "honor" or a good reputation who do the following: 1. Tell the truth. 2. Keep their agreements. 3. Do not injure their neighbors.

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Re: your mail
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)access.digex.net> Market forces are lathargic, sometimes they need a boost. I propose this boost be accomplished with motivators like tax breaks, market assisters and privatization. . . . . Anyone who thinks the Federal Government is the driving force behind the majority of technological advancement (aside the space program and military hardware) needs to take a good look. .............................................................. Market forces being lethargic, sometimes they need a little boot, a little tax break, a little assistance. Anyone who doesn't think so needs to examine their current Federal allowance. Blanc

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Re: A practical use of c'punk brain power.
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

bogus(a)no.return.address sez: :Greetings c'punks! : I have an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet to which I do not have the password. :Do any of you know a clever way to break the Excel protection either :by divining the password or removing the layer of encryption in the :file? : I reply: Found this on alt.security, you said any help appriciated so here goes. Pleeeeeeeze, no flames. Newsgroups: alt.security From: agriffiths(a)vnet.ibm.com (Alan Griffiths) Subject: Re: Excel pass crack Sender: news(a)hawnews.watson.ibm.com (NNTP News Poster) Message-ID: <CwH0Jo.15sv(a)hawnews.watson.ibm.com> Approved: myself Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 08:21:24 GMT Lines: 103 Reply-To: agriffiths(a)vnet.ibm.com (Alan Griffiths) Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM. References: <Rw+xX1t.cinepott(a)delphi.com> Nntp-Posting-Host: nhbrp75.caanerc.uk.ibm.com Organization: LORAL CAA NERC Project X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.01 In <Rw+xX1t.cinepott(a)delphi.com>, Bob <cinepott(a)delphi.com> writes: >Someone was looking for a crack to excel's passwords, apparently they >forgot their password ? Well I found these helpful tidbits posted >previously. > >|>Encryption of Ms Excel files >|> From: Fabio Ottolina <fabio(a)tdc.dircon.co.uk> >|> Date: 29 Jan 1994 12:51:18 GMT (1 screen) >|> >|> I have saved an Excel 4.0 for Windows file with password-protection, and >|>I can't remember the password (how remarkably stupid! :-)). >|>Is there any way to crack the password-protection of Excel files? You may find the following program of help. I am sorry it's in QBasic but that's the only free language I have at present. The program removes document protection from Excel worksheets. I haven't tested it extensively so there are no guarantees or warranties. Always keep a backup copy of your files etc... The protection scheme does two things: 1. When you protect your document, Excel hashes your password to a 16 bit value, stores it somewhere and sets a few flags to say that the document is protected. 2. When Excel saves a protected document it encrypts the content of each block using 16 different alphabetic substitutions. This allows Excel to read and display protected documents before knowing their password. The program below unscrambles a protected document, removes an extra 8 byte block at the beginning, and resets the flags and passwords to zero. I don't know if it can cope with all combinations of protection available in Excel. It works fine on the simple protect document option. Similarly, charts etc. will probably get munged since I don't think the titles etc get scrambled. Hope this stuff is of use to someone. Alan. PS. Ironically enough, I found Excel of great value in recovering the set of magic numbers used in the program. It allowed me to very quickly generate and evaluate possible decryption formulae! -------------------cut here------------------------------ DECLARE FUNCTION decrypt$ (c$, adr&, blen%) DEFINT A-Z DIM SHARED magic(15) FOR i = 0 TO 15 READ magic(i) NEXT DATA 196, 115, 164, 32, 60, 91, 212, 23, 240, 31, 40, 19, 240, 75, 180, 3 COLOR 14, 1 CLS INPUT "Enter input Cyphertext filename: ", cf$ INPUT "Enter output Plaintext filename: ", pf$ OPEN pf$ FOR BINARY ACCESS WRITE AS #1 OPEN cf$ FOR BINARY ACCESS READ AS #2 chdr$ = INPUT$(18, #2) phdr$ = LEFT$(chdr$, 10) PUT #1, , phdr$ fp& = 10 cbh$ = INPUT$(4, #2) WHILE NOT EOF(2) PUT #1, , cbh$ blen = ASC(MID$(cbh$, 3, 1)) + 256 * ASC(MID$(cbh$, 4, 1)) btyp = ASC(MID$(cbh$, 1, 1)) + 256 * ASC(MID$(cbh$, 2, 1)) fp& = fp& + 4 IF blen > 0 THEN cblk$ = INPUT$(blen, #2) x$ = decrypt$(cblk$, fp& - 4, blen) IF blen = 2 THEN SELECT CASE btyp CASE 18, 19, 99 x$ = STRING$(2, 0) END SELECT END IF PUT #1, , x$ END IF fp& = fp& + blen cbh$ = INPUT$(4, #2) WEND CLOSE #1 CLOSE #2 END FUNCTION decrypt$ (c$, adr&, blen) offset = (adr& + blen) AND 15 d$ = STRING$(blen, 0) FOR i = 1 TO blen c = ASC(MID$(c$, i, 1)) crot = ((c * 8) MOD 256) OR (c \ 32) ctst = magic(offset) clss = (2 * (crot AND ctst)) AND 255 d = (256 + crot + ctst - clss) AND 255 MID$(d$, i, 1) = CHR$(d) offset = (offset + 1) AND 15 NEXT decrypt$ = d$ END FUNCTION -------------------cut here------------------------------ Alan Griffiths CAA NERC Project agriffiths(a)vnet.ibm.com Tel: +44-705-561325 Fax: +44-705-214094 All opinions expressed are my own and do not represent IBM in any way

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BIRD BRAINS
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Todd Masco wrote: ... there was a variety of smart-bomb developed in WWII that used a pigeon as its brain. The pigeon would be trained to peck at a building on a map, and then in the falling bomb it would guide the bomb by pecking at a clear panel.... I remember seeing a TV documentary that included this technology. The way it actually worked was that a special steerable bomb had a camera obscura in its nose. An image of whatever was below the falling bomb was rear projected onto a screen made out of frosted glass. The screen was somehow rigged so that it could sense where it was being pecked. The pigeon was immobilized except for its head and neck, but it could easily peck any point on the screen. They use operant conditioning to train the pigeon to peck at images of ships at sea. If the ship was off-center on the screen, the pigeon's pecking would cause airfoils to correct the bomb's aim. Just before the bomb hit, the pigeon would parachute to safety. (I made that last part up.) S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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