December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Andy Grove on Clipper
by Vinod Valloppillil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I saw Larry King Live last night on CNN and the guests were Al Gore, Andy Grove (CEO/Intel), Dan Sussman (? -- I think that's his name, he was an editor at Newsweek), and Reed Hundt from the FCC. As can be expected, it was another talk show about the "Data Superhighway". It got interesting on two points: First, Larry King asked Andy Grove what he thought Intel should do for the Data Superhighway and he told Larry that since Al Gore was on the show, he'd rather get into what he thought the Feds _shouldn't_ do and discussed the path towards universal access to PC's without any federal involvement. Al Gore tried to get involved by arguing that the Fed's were originally responsible for the computer revolution b/c of the Apollo program. The two hit back and forth a couple of times on the issue. At this point, I was patting Andy on the back for being a non-statist. Then, the editor from Newsweek said that in any show about the "Data Superhighway" the Clipper chip had to be discussed. He then went on to say (and occasionally apologizing to Gore for being blunt) how the chip and the whole program were "loathed" by the industry and privacy advocates. Larry asked Groves what he thought about it and he went off talking about the govt's legitimate right to tap analog media and how all this chip did was to extend that right into the digital realm. I was shocked. Even worse, Al Gore supported Andy's position and then when Larry King got back to the editor, he backed off saying "well, I just heard that people in the industry didn't like it." Larry asked for his opinion on it as a provider of information services and he said, "we just report on public opinions in our magazine and don't try to take positions on the issues. Yuck.

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Cpunks archive works with lynx
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Vincent.Cate(a)FURMINT.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU: > 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. :-) Though I prefer Mosaic, this one worked when I tried it with lynx. You can get the latest version of lynx at ftp://ftp.cc.ukans.edu/pub/lynx/ (maybe it's ftp2.cc...) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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

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Another dumb question... proving dates
by dfloyd＠runner.utsa.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I could not find this anywhere, so I will torture you all again... In the RSA FAQ, it states how one can set up a server to do time and date stamping of documents, but I know of no Internet service that will do this. Is there a way I can send a document to some agency/server and have it time and date stamped with their public key? Thanks in advance,

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I'm getting all the mail twice!
by Vinod Valloppillil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For some reason, I'm getting all cypherpunks mail twice. I'm posting to the general group address in case there's anyone else who might be getting hit twice as well. Vinod

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(None)
by Jeff Gostin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

paul(a)hawksbill.sprintmrn.com (Paul Ferguson) writes: > It does my heart good to hear someone use the term 'grok' -- I don't > hear many folks use that term very much anymore. ,-) I'll admit, I first ran into this term about 6 months ago, straight from the "source". Since then, I've been using it rather frequently. Sometimes, it's the only word that'll fit, y'know? :-) --Jeff -- ====== ====== +----------------jgostin(a)eternal.pha.pa.us----------------+ == == | The new, improved, environmentally safe, bigger, better,| == == -= | faster, hypo-allergenic, AND politically correct .sig. | ==== ====== | Now with a new fresh lemon scent! | PGP Key Available +---------------------------------------------------------+

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(None)
by Jeff Gostin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

osten(a)hurricane.seas.ucla.edu writes: >> It does my heart good to hear someone use the term 'grok' -- I don't >> hear many folks use that term very much anymore. ,-) > What does it mean? Well, it comes from the book Stranger In A Strange Land. It's a martian word that implies an understanding of something. The main character was right when he said that there is no human word for it. At the risk of starting a whole philosophical debate, here goes the longer version: When you Grok something, you understand its purpose and existance instinctually, spiritually, and intellectually. It's not something you can explain concretely, it's just something who's concept is so thoroughly understandable as to be outside the realms of that which is explanable. A good example is this: A child groks that his parents will take care of him, and that they will protect him and keep him safe. He couldn't explain to you why he feels that way. He just groks the meaning of the relationship. That, IMHO, is GROK. It's an understanding that lies so deeply within you that it is inseperable from your state of being. --Jeff -- ====== ====== +----------------jgostin(a)eternal.pha.pa.us----------------+ == == | The new, improved, environmentally safe, bigger, better,| == == -= | faster, hypo-allergenic, AND politically correct .sig. | ==== ====== | Now with a new fresh lemon scent! | PGP Key Available +---------------------------------------------------------+ -- ====== ====== +----------------jgostin(a)eternal.pha.pa.us----------------+ == == | The new, improved, environmentally safe, bigger, better,| == == -= | faster, hypo-allergenic, AND politically correct .sig. | ==== ====== | Now with a new fresh lemon scent! | PGP Key Available +---------------------------------------------------------+

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Did anyone see...
by mpd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was reading Usenet this morning before breakfast and came across a very interesting series of messages to the effect that a polynomial exists which generates exactly the prime numbers as its set of positive values. Such polynomials exist, the article argued, not only for the property of primeness but for any computable property on the natural numbers and stem from some deep result involving the Riemann Zeta function and Hilbert's 10th problem. I wanted to save this thread but now I can't find it again. If someone else read the same thread, could they drop me some Email with the subject of the thread and the name of the newsgroup. Thanks. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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Re: DES w/ variable S-boxes
by Ben.Goren＠asu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:13 PM 6/16/94 -0700, Matthew Ghio wrote: >You should take a look at Michael Paul Johnson's Diamond Encryption Algorithm. >It uses variable S-boxes as you describe. Source code and documentation is >availiable on ftp csn.org. /pub/mpj/... Thanks for the info. For those who wish to look, the actual path is now: ftp.csn.net:/mpj/I_will_not_export/crypto_???????/mpj/dlock.tar.gz. Note that you'll have to read the file /mpj/README.MPJ to find the real name of the "crypto_???????" part. b& -- Ben.Goren(a)asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music net.proselytizing (write for info): Protect your privacy; oppose Clipper. Voice concern over proposed Internet pricing schemes. Stamp out spamming. Finger ben(a)tux.music.asu.edu for PGP 2.3a public key.

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Re: Digital timestamping...
by Phil G. Fraering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just checking, Tim, but you said earlier that Bellcore currently holds the patent rights to the setup described by Haber and Stornetta, I think in email, right? (Please note: I'm not currently trying to say anything about software patents or the like; just checking some factual data that might be useful to the list). Phil

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Re: Did anyone see...
by mpd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dan Harmon <harmon(a)tenet.edu> writes: > If you find out anything would you please post it to the > list? This is very curious. D.C. Williams remembered the thread and Emailed me a copy. (Thanks D.C.) It was in alt.security.pgp which is why I couldn't find it. I was looking in sci.math for something with the word "prime" in the title. :) I quote the interesting sections below. Nick Gilling begins by asking: > Is there a formula for calculating primes? Gareth McCaughan responds: > Well... yes, actually, but not a useful one. > For instance: "Wilson's theorem" says that if p is prime > then (p-1)! is congruent to -1, modulo p. And you can check > that if p isn't prime then (p-1)! is congruent to 0 modulo p > (i.e., is a multiple of p). > So, writing [x] for "integer part of x", ((p-1)! - > [(p-1)!/p].p)/(p-1) is 1 if p is prime and 0 if p is > composite. So summing this thing will give you a formula for > the number of primes <= any given number; and I'm sure > there's a "formulaic" way to invert this to give you the > n'th prime for any n. > Alternatively, there is a polynomial of degree > something-very-large in about 26 variables with the > property that when you plug integers into it you get either > a negative number or a prime; and every prime arises as some > value of it. (In fact, for any computable property of > positive integers, there is a polynomial in lots of > variables such that the values it takes are {some load of > negative numbers} together with {positive integers with the > required property}. This is a Deep Theorem.) > Alternatively, I suspect there is some sort of thing > involving contour integrals and the Riemann zeta function. James Kilfiger then expands: > Actually it a little more interesting than this. First a > disclaimer, I'm writing from memory and may be wrong on > details If you want to see more a truly wonderful book is > "The Little book of BIG primes" By Riemboiem (I've spelt > this wrong) published by Springer-Verlag. > This book as a section on prime number formulae, There is a > famous class of polynomials {P(x)}, tend to be large (the > classic one has 26 variables and has degree 25) With the > exellent property of {all positive values taken by > P(x)}={all positive primes}. The existance of such > polynomials is gaurrenteed by results stemming from > Hilbert's 10th. Also There is a number \theta with > 3^\theta^n (or some similar formula, remeber I'm quoting > from memory) being prime for all values of n, unfortuantly > we can't calculate \theta, but its quite small. (if somebody > can correct me on the formula I'd be grateful) Gareth McCaughan then cites the following reference: > By an amusing coincidence, when I went into our > departmental library to look for a reference, there on the > "new accessions" shelf was a book all about Hilbert's tenth > problem. So, here's a reference. > Matiyasevich, Yuri V. "Hilbert's 10th Problem" (MIT Press, > 1993; in their "Foundations of Computing" series) section > 3.4, at end. > For those who are wondering how on earth it's done, here's > a *very* brief sketch. In everything that follows > polynomials have integer coefficients, and variables range > over non-negative integers, which I shall call "natural > numbers". > Observation number 1: Suppose we have a set A of natural > numbers, and a polynomial P such that: there exist > x1,x2,..,xm with P(a,x1,..,xm)=0 iff a is in A. Then there > is a polynomial Q such that the natural number values of > Q(x0,..,xm) are just the elements of A. PROOF: put > Q(x0,..,xm) = (x0+1)(1-P(x0,..,xm)^2)-1 and notice that if P > isn't zero there, we get something negative, and if P is > zero we get x0. > Difficult Theorem number 1: There is a polynomial E such > that there exist x1,x2,..,xm with E(a,b,c,x1,..,xm)=0 if and > only if a^b=c. > Observation number 2: So it's enough to find an > "exponential polynomial" (i.e., we allow variables as > exponents) such that there exist x1,..,xm with > P(a,x1,..,xm)=0 if and only if a is prime. > Difficult Theorem number 2: We can "do" the operations > "factorial" and "greatest common divisor" with exponential > polynomials. > Easier Theorem: p is prime iff the greatest common divisor > of p and (p-1)! is 1. (See a posting I made earlier in this > thread.) > Conclusion: We can "do" primality with an exponential > polynomial, and hence with a normal polynomial. > Annoying Fact: The numbers do get *very* large. I do not > recommend trying to generate primes with this method. I > haven't done the calculations, but I suspect that getting > the prime 5 might require more computing resources than you > have available. > More details are in Matiyasevich's book. (Matiyasevich did > a large fraction of the work required to prove all this and > much more. He knows what he is talking about.) Victor S. Miller, [who I suspect is the same Victor S. Miller I knew at UMass Boston many years ago], published a nifty little paper in the mid 1980's on the computation of the function Pi(n) which gives the Nth prime as a function of N. He had a table giving the (10^N)th prime for n={3,6,9,12,15,18,...} which was quite impressive. Calculating the correct value for the zillionth prime directly is a cute bit of mathematics. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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