December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: EE Times on PRZ
by Andrew Lowenstern 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jalicqui(a)prairienet.org (Jeff Licquia) wrote: > It was my impression that DH had a further weakness not related to > the difficulty of the hard problem. As my copy of Schneider is at > home, I must defer to ignorance at this point. My understanding is that once you do the computation to solve a DH exchange you can use that information to easily solve any exchange under the same generator and modulus. So it's important to at least use large enough numbers to make this unfeasable. I think it was Suns SecureRPC that shipped with a fixed (and not big enough) generator and modulus and was not secure (assuming someone had already done the pre-computation). Maybe this is what you were thinking of? As always, proper generation of components is an important consideration in implementing public-key systems. andrew

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Law of Electronic Commerce -- seminar announcement
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FWIW, Bob Hettinga >From: nsb(a)radiomail.net >Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 14:16:54 -0800 >To: inet-marketing(a)einet.net, www-buyinfo(a)allegra.att.com, > edi-new(a)tegsun.harvard.edu, ietf-edi(a)byu.edu >Original-From: "NSB's Portable (via RadioMail)" <nsb(a)radiomail.net> >Subject: Law of Electronic Commerce -- seminar announcement >Reply-To: Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb(a)nsb.fv.com> (via RadioMail) > >To help educate business professionals about electronic commerce, >First Virtual (TM) Holdings Incorporated is pleased to lend promotional >support to: > > Law of Electronic Commerce > On-line Seminar > Starting January 30, March 13, and May 9, 1995 > Future Dates to Be Announced > >The National Computer Security Association announces a new form of >professional education -- an on-line seminar. It is education >delivered through the NCSA InfoSecurity Forum on CompuServe. >(Internet delivery is also available.) For 30 days, attorney >Benjamin Wright will convene a seminar covering The Law of >Electronic Commerce -- EDI and E-mail Contracts and Records. > >Participants will attend the seminar by exchanging computer >messages with Wright in a private discussion forum. Thus, no one >will have to travel or miss time away from the office or home. > >The seminar is designed for security managers, Online and MIS >professionals, EDI managers, purchasing managers who use EDI and E- >mail, lawyers, accountants and auditors. Topics on the agenda: > >1. Electronic Contracts >2. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer >3. Electronic Signatures >4. EDI Trading Partner Agreements >5. Value-Added Network Agreements >6. Electronic & Optical Evidence >7. EDI & Optical Tax Records >8. UCC Article 4A >9. Electronic Healthcare Data >10. E-mail Privacy > >Tuition is $350 for NCSA members and $395 for non-members. (Group >discounts are available.) > >The starting dates for the next three sessions of the seminar are >January 30, March 13, and May 9, 1995. > >Special Guest Lecturers: > > Nathaniel Borenstein, Chief Scientist, > First Virtual Holdings Incorporated > > Richard K. Crone of KPMG Peat Marwick LLP, > electronic banking expert > >Views expressed in the seminar are those of the individuals expressing >them and not necessarily those of sponsors, employers or anyone else. > >To register on-line, or for more information and a free brochure, point >your browser at the following URL: > >http://www.infohaus.com/sponsored/ncsa-seminar.html > >Or write to: > >National Computer Security Association >10 South Courthouse Ave. >Carlisle, PA 17013 >Tel: (800) 488-4595 >Tel: (717) 258-1816 >Fax: (717) 243-8642 >bwrigh01(a)reach.com > > (This Notice May Be Distributed Freely) ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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Re: Another problem w/Data Havens...
by pstemari＠erinet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:05 PM 1/17/95 -0700, Ben.Goren(a)asu.edu wrote: > ... That's the main reason why I like my idea of having a trusted encryptor. >Nobody's suggested that the current timestamp operators would be in Deep >Doo-Doo if they timestampped some piece of thoughtcrime; why should >somebody who encrypts be any different? ... Quite possibly the timestampers would be in trouble, the risk for them is the same as the risk for the remailers and the DH operators. As long as some piece of info is considered to be a thought-crime, everyone who accepts info from a wide range of sources is at risk. > ... The service could even be advertised as a different form of timestamping >(or notarizing). Not only do you get the file back signed, but you get it >back encrypted and signed. ... That would still be a useful service, however, but it does transfer the risk from the DH operator to the encryptor. Since he isn't leaving evidence on a hard drive, his window of vunerability is somewhat less. --Paul J. Ste. Marie pstemari(a)well.sf.ca.us, pstemari(a)erinet.com

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Re: Key backup (was: How do I know . ..)
by Dr. D.C. Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- 'Adam Shostack' was reported to have written: > Putting the UPC's on things other than cards (such as books) > makes it easier to hide in the open. `UPC' stickers on, say, a few > books are easier to miss than UPC stickers on index cards. Exactly. If the intention is to keep them out in the open, then making labels which resemble UPCs is preferred. However, if I'm going to dig a hole in the ground at a secret location and bury my barcoded key in a special container, a different format might be indicated. > Invisible ink draws attention to the correct UPC's once they > know you're using it. See Kahn for a discussion of secret inks being > developed during the second world war. I'll do that, but I think you might be intermixing ideas. Pseudo-UPCs in invisible ink wouldn't be a good combination. Pseudo-UPCs should probably be printed exactly like normal UPCs. If you want the "invisible ink" process, it should probably blend into the ambient environment as much as possible. Even if "they" know you're using secret ink, don't "they" have to find the printed key first? How much work is required to check every page of every book and every sheet of paper you might have access to? You could mail your key anywhere in the world invisibly printed on the outside of an envelope. Better yet, send someone a special document (wedding announcement, legal document, 21st birthday card, whatever; the important part is to send something that the recipient will keep) with your keyring invisibly printed on it. Variations on this theme (there are many) are encouraged. Have a friend check out a library book and let you stamp your key somewhere inside. It's the number of possible variations that make this seemingly impossible to attack. Apologies if this "secret ink" stuff is way off base ;-) . Most people (myself included) would opt for the "split and disguise" or "hidden/buried" key schemes where secret ink wouldn't add much security. > If you want to hide bits, they > should be stripped of low entropy parts and hidden with a stego > program. The idea was to use something other than magnetic media. A new and different optical encoding method could be devised to hide a key in a halftone, but the barcode example was offered as one possibility using an existing standard. The basis for this thread was the perceived need for a relatively simple key backup system that didn't require the active participation of a whole hoard of people. =D.C. Williams <dcwill(a)ee.unr.edu> - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBLx2rEyoZzwIn1bdtAQEBVAGAzJc1fOAchLGEIlnbQBiJXV2cICE2WK8e 8FnXnP8ztcWEdUCYY0vjDewiLI2iW4bt =tUR2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Does encrypted equal safe?
by pstemari＠erinet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:55 PM 1/17/95, Sandy Sandfort wrote: > ... In my law school they taught that the burden of proof in a >criminal case was on the government. Unless of course the case involves porn, drugs, etc, in which case the current practice in the American legal system places the onus on the accused, regardless of what the Constitution requires. Civil forfeiture is a fine example of this, along with requiring porn producers to demonstrate the age of their models, etc ad nauseum. --Paul J. Ste. Marie pstemari(a)well.sf.ca.us, pstemari(a)erinet.com

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Re: Another problem w/Data Havens...
by Ben.Goren＠asu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:33 PM 1/18/95, Paul J. Ste. Marie wrote: >[. . .] As long as >some piece of info is considered to be a thought-crime, everyone who accepts >info from a wide range of sources is at risk. We might have a test case right now for part of that idea--the Scientologists. They're essentially claiming that the various newsgroups should be shut down because somebody put thoughtcrime on them. I would posit that the operator of any automated data transmission/massaging service is not responsible for the data that passes through her equipment. Consider, for example, if I used a bang path to route an illicit email note through, say, apple.com. Does that make Apple Computer responsible for what I send? Tying in with some of Eric's comments, this could be viewed as a fundamental flaw in the 'net: it's the sender, generally, who initiates and controls the connection, not the recipient. We could view this as an advantage: how can you blame me for what somebody else does to my computer without my knowledge, especially if I have no way to stop it short of getting off the 'net completely? >> ... The service could even be advertised as a different form of timestamping >>(or notarizing). Not only do you get the file back signed, but you get it >>back encrypted and signed. ... > >That would still be a useful service, however, but it does transfer the risk >from the DH operator to the encryptor. Since he isn't leaving evidence on a >hard drive, his window of vunerability is somewhat less. Less to nonexistent. If no human sees it on the encrypting site, no human can be responsible for it. "They" would have to ban the service outright, or try to prove that you knew that your site would be used for illicit purposes. If putting a warning to not export crypto software on an ftp site is sufficient protection--and, judging from the number of sites which do no more than that, it is--then a simple statement that the service is not to be used for any illegal purpose should do fine here. > --Paul J. Ste. Marie > pstemari(a)well.sf.ca.us, pstemari(a)erinet.com b& -- Ben.Goren(a)asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music Finger ben(a)tux.music.asu.edu for PGP public key ID 0x875B059.

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Lance Rose writes anti-cryptoanarchy in WIRED
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've missed recent traffic so forgive me if this has already come up. Lance Rose writes a particularly twisted piece in the Idees Fortes section of WIRED 3.02 (February). His basic premise is that tradritional forms of copyright law are sufficient to ensure that the Net poses only limited problems to mass content producers such as Time Warner. I agree with this, as most people feel uncomfortable about 'stealing' however impossible it is to detect. Lance Rose, though, goes on to insist that the reason for the copyright law's strength will be the power of the omnipresent Net Cops (sic). So that you don't consider him entirely ignorant, he acknowledges the increasing use of anon remailers. However, he adds (repeatedly), "Can't we all use anonymous remailers to keep the Net knee-deep in infringing copies? Nope. Net cops can swiftly clean each new infringement out of the major online markets as soon as it appears." How will they do this so efficiently? By "deploying software agents" net-wide to "search out anonymous infringements." He later admits the possibility of "friend-to-friend" markets, but rejects the possibility of such markets growing out of hand, as "few or none of the participants will know everyone else in the circle" allowing cops to join them undetected (as if the Information Liberation Front would mind giving the _cops_ pirated software). "A symbolic legal attack" every once in a while will scare would-be black-marketeers. Later, he does discuss the hidden costs of acquiring pirated versus genuine stuff - "the time and effort needed to track down pirate dealers [...] who are so deep underground even the cops can't find them." Sheesh. And here we are, post-BlackNet, discussing untraceable paid-for anon-remailers (which exist today on Sameer's c2.org blind server) and data havens. I haven't bothered to hunt for Lance's address, which is not given, but really I thought someone as prominent a SysLawyer as him would be clued in. Nor have I found the time to send WIRED a letter. OTOH maybe ignorance, for LEA-friendly legislators who read WIRED, is bliss? Let the sleeping dog lie, etc, just finish your data haven code ;-] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "In between the breaths is rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in the space where we live" rishab(a)arbornet.org - Lawrence Durrell Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Re: Electronic cash illegal?
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Within the United States (and most other sovereign states) Hal Finney is > correct to point out that the power to print currency is reserved to the > government. I would think that e-cash is a currency and therefore illegal > TO ISSUE WITHIN the geographical (legal) domain of the US. He didn't say it was illegal to print private banknotes, just taxable. Anybody can issue paper or metal tokens or whatever - the difference with goverment-issue currency is that they can pass laws saying you must accept it as payment for debts, even though your contract specified repayment in real money instead of private bogons like green paper IOUs or lightweight impure-metal coins with politician's pictures on them. As far as I know, the legal definition of a "dollar" in the US is still a certain weight of silver, and payment in silver legally satisfies debts; under current silver prices, that probably costs more than a $1 US Federal Reserve Note, so nobody bothers. Bill

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Re: Another problem w/Data Havens...
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I could write a procmail recipe and a script in about an hour to > automatically secret-share-split and redistribute the incoming submission. > If the authorities attempt to indict you for possessing illegal > information / kiddie porn / whatnot, they have to prove that you > interfered with the automatic redistribution process and examined the > contents of the submission. If you in fact did not look at the submission, > they would have a difficult time doing so. The problem with a procmail script, unlike the ugly on-the-fly SMTP-like splitting method I proposed, is that the suspicious message is in your mail system, intact, and if they nail you before you can dispose of it, they can prove you had it. (Even though procmail does stuff quickly, sendmail still accumulates the material before delivering it, doesn't it?) They still have to prove that there's something illegal or forfeiture-supporting about the way you possessed the message, but by then you're hauled into court and your computer is stolen. The Feds argued in the Steve Jackson Games fiasco that intercepting unread mail in mailboxes is different than intercepting it in transit, and while we can hope that will be overturned, it's better not to be the guinea pig. If your machine never has more than a few bits of the message, they can't catch you in possession of the message - they can only argue that bits of it flowed through your machine, and that's much harder to build a case on, and given the abuse the judge gave the Bad Guys in the SJG case, it's probably easy to prevent them from keeping your machine as evidence, or at least get it back. Your paranoia may vary.... Bill

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Re: Scientologys Attempts
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > who has the authority to remove alt. groups? jamesd writes: > Anybody has the power. Nobody has the authority. More precisely, anybody has the power to send a rmgroup message, just like anybody has the power to send a cancel message. Aside from ettiquette and ethics, the question is whether most of the news servers out there will respond to them, which is a local decision. The last time I ran a news server was in B News days, so your mileage may vary, but responses to newgroup and rmgroup messages can be turned on and off. I used to leave them turned on; not only did new groups appear on my system without manual intervention, but the Great Renaming took care of itself automatically on my box. > [...] This is a classic case of net abuse. Yep. rmgroup wars happen occasionally on the net, usually about alt.joe.newuser.die.die.die and other spam groups run by (or about) people with more spare time than taste. The difference here is that it's part of an organized group-sponsored censorship attempt, rather than an individual squabble, so it retains some degree of classicity. Bill

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