December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Certificates/Anonymity/Policy/True Names
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:47 PM 8/18/95 -0400, Michael Froomkin writes about CAs, and asks why a CA or customer would want a certificate for a pseudonym without any identification or True Name. >given that the recipient of a digital signature will easily be >able to check the value of the certificate (nil), won't the >transaction/communication be in all ways identical to one where there was >no certificate at all. So is anything of value lost by prohibiting such >a certificate? It's useful for a couple of reasons 1) Continuity - For a single transaction, it doesn't make much difference; for multiple transactions/communications it does. If you want to use the nym JohnDoe, and you register with keys.com, you can do repeated transactions (e.g. posting to the net) as JohnDoe/keys.com, and nobody can impersonate you as long as keys.com doesn't allow duplicates. This allows people to build reputations under pseudonyms, and do repeat business or have readers bother to read their postings. Without certification (whether web-based or hierarchy-based), you're stuck with always posting your messages with a given key and hoping people can decide whether they've really got yours or some other JohnDoe. Our local Black Unicorn is this way - few of us know his True Name, but his reputation is established. On the other hand we can't really tell if the many postings by the L-Name are from a single person, a cooperating group, or imposters who decided it would be fun to borrow his reputation for the day. Tim May has occasionally proposed that the key is really all that matters, and that the name tacked onto it is just an untrustable convenience, but I'd say that certification does increase that convenience by adding some trust. 2) Policy-vs-Mechanism - Realistically, there'll be software out there that wants an Official CA-approved certificate to talk to anyone. If nobody's willing to give certificates to nyms, then nyms can't participate. 3) What's your definition of "prohibit"? If you mean "Keys.com decides not to offer the service", they lose the cash they might have made selling certificates to nyms, lose some customer goodwill, but maybe gain an improved reputation in other parts of the market, and JohnDoe can always go to Nyms-R-Us.org and register as JohnDoe32767. If you mean "the government should ban it", I've done enough anarchist ranting about how that sort of thing degrades society :-) However, if you mean "The Certificate Authority Cabal should agree not to offer any certificates without real ID and contractually forbid lower-level certifiers to do it either", well, it's a sad thing for society, but they can do it if they want. You lose the ability to participate as a nym, you lose privacy, you lose the value that you might have gained by transactions with people who wanted to retain their anonymity. RSA does offer personna certificates to unauthenticated people. (Also see my follow-on message about my offer to sign PGP keys for nyms.) 4) Are there negatives about dealing with unattributable pseudonyms? Of course. But you don't have to deal with them, and there will be CAs who don't, and services that refuse to deal with unauthenticated pseudonyms, just as there are on-line services like the Well that allow "unlisted" identifications but do keep track of true names for their users. It would be nice if certification authorities did indicate how much trust they have in the identity of a given key's owner, but markets will take care of that. Thanks; Bill Stewart #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #--- "The fat man rocks out Hinges fall off Heaven's door "Come on in," says Bill" Wavy Gravy's haiku for Jerry

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PGP Certification Service for Pseudonyms
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Time to stretch some paradigms :-) I've decided to offer a service of certifying PGP keys for Pseudonyms. Normally, it only makes sense to sign PGP keys for people you can trust to really be who they say they are, but this means you can't sign keys for people who want to use pseudonyms, which would be a Good Thing. To try and retain a certain amount of trust in the process, here's my policy for doing so: 0) I only sign pseudonyms with the psuedonym-signing key below, which tries to make it clear how trustable it isn't.. 1) First Come, First Served - The first user of a given name gets it, and the only guarantee I'll make about verification is that I won't sign more than one key with the same name unless the later key is signed by the earlier key. 2) At least for now, keys need to indicate pseudonymity in the name. 3) If you're using a name I recognize, I might check it out with the person I know who uses that name. 3A) If you're claiming to be L.Detweiler, I'll want a fax of your ID :-) Procedures: 1) Requests by email; I will mail a copy of the key to the keyserver and to the address you sent the request from if I can. 2) Price is 1 Digicash e$, or 1 Tacky Token, or a big prime number, or an interesting cypherpunk-related URL (well-known sites only count if it's something new. New code is always interesting!) 3) I'll post interesting payments to http://idiom.com/~wcs/ , and if it's something that takes a while to verify (e.g. I haven't gotten my free stuff from digicash.com yet :-) and your payment bounces, I'll probably post that too :-) Pseudonym John Doe sent me a composite number 897098274398742! Enjoy! Bill ############################################################################ 1024/B57ECBC5 1995/08/18 Bill Stewart Unauthenticated Pseudonym Signing Key <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> PGP-Fingerprint: 70 96 C9 B8 38 05 61 0C A5 30 D0 82 7A 74 16 15 - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.7.1 mQCNAzA1FMYAAAEEAKW0NWw3NyyFSuo1tQRbK8hBQDJ8Kdi0VlNqJrxKYcdbMMsW 3Mcy9aqU9Z2o4ZzqFGWVVgXARwBzIK996yL+6tNPeVZQeDa64gmuTc12oYhfocjt AhEv6+f/oEYBiKjhSfoVVuoe8sudFH2e1Q5wjpd8LGZux15gN/nzJsm1fsvFAAUR tEtCaWxsIFN0ZXdhcnQgVW5hdXRoZW50aWNhdGVkIFBzZXVkb255bSBTaWduaW5n IEtleSA8c3Rld2FydHNAaXgubmV0Y29tLmNvbT6JAJQDBRAwNRcy+fMmybV+y8UB AaYjA/iyfRbaYmNrlH81Pig/3c9Co2pPXWXJW4MES/5syRvebZEmbWaXFKpIwXh6 OBT1oKZtN8WfGxENyWcXyyoiOaRR/9tt3c3VqJ98oAgJcB9W217q4NGWiG2X6mlB IQYZ8Lcdl6aX2pftHGbFZ0AR45RKYcIdQOPVC87NLzJYEDxkiQBVAwUQMDUXFHB8 FQG9p6e1AQF/BQH+JROoAsFoo9CmzUfP2c8w8OqfNSlGkZ6gHRsJ6zgzXkJJwQ89 gJcK9HkIFPgec1/HiTmRtLWrqeDB9WVzorTnMokBFQMFEDA1Fi6IHBX3yeGy8QEB GdAH/RknVXw5UDCkEXXrrLUyNBvDpokBb7rarpJQ1SXB+YvvfcMDyotUTyhb5QZi LWOi8OrSeUD0l/LyJjQ01ejMUC3Y5z4KVyKel4E+3CwMWkuJpkoe0AkQ3TUfXqtd AM7H2kC13hXrprQKOAMJMArcHxocP9GkIRKx7URDM7vE6lmaXYEd6i5uFICNNFNM MggRfVTCr8RecP+kAWvbFJQ3ET2/ctP/wzb2uJoXlzFTebAMlh32d4UrQyo2iE1h qSF6G+GKYbtl61OJU0FySAPPV2bO5xVqgsySm9mmjEs7W2l3gyddMallbnE5vFJr 0xSOd/9ZKNfq+0Cxdy7KuW3PobY= =OBBP - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.7.1 iQBVAwUBMDUk2fthU5e7emAFAQEqZwH/ZOGPWCOldIsueBZWbmSAEGcXoUlXqJNS 8DoFNO0W1qs7+2kcKxM55UahdcOdaJe/lTbtf2PLgRmEzkV2mYLSyw== =kpgd -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #--- "The fat man rocks out Hinges fall off Heaven's door "Come on in," says Bill" Wavy Gravy's haiku for Jerry

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Re: PGP Certification Service for Pseudonyms
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In my announcement about Pseudonym Signing Service, I forgot to type Rule 4) 4) Any messages requesting signatures for keys must be signed by the key requesting the signature (both the key and the email message need to be signed...) Thanks; Bill #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #--- "The fat man rocks out Hinges fall off Heaven's door "Come on in," says Bill" Wavy Gravy's haiku for Jerry

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Strong encryption for credit cards only
by monty.harder＠famend.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

H > There are many aspects to privacy beyond credit card numbers. The bottom "Jane goes to dance class Wednesdays from 4:30 to 5:30. And since Madame Sophia's School of Dance is just a few blocks away from Johnson Elementary, she can walk." tells that pedophile (and we know that the Internet is just =filled= with them, thanks to Marty Rimm's Definitive Study on the subject) exactly where he can lie in wait for his next victim. We need strong crypto to protect The Children!<tm> from such threats. Hillary and the rest of the Children's Defense Fund-amentalists should be in the vanguard of this Just Cause. * Encrypted just to pixx off Louis Freeh: mQCNAiqxEn0AAAEEAM0fi4K4+iXI9fV0fz0n --- * Monster(a)FAmend.Com *

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Sun's buggy MD5?
by michael shiplett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's something fun to do on Solaris 2.3 or 2.4. Notice the similarity among the Solaris md5 output. Anyone know why this is? The Sun service folk weren't able to point me to a Solaris bug-report email address. I had a similar experience looking through www.sun.com. Pointers are welcomed. PROBLEM: A program which uses md5 from a dynamically linked (or loaded) library and the nsl library is loaded before a ``standard'' md5 library will get md5 results different from the rest of the non-Solaris world. NOTES: the non-Solaris md5 files are from RFC 1321. some test output has been deleted as it does not fit nicely on a standard message line. solmd5 seems to give slightly different output on different machines and greatly different output with different compilers the nsl library is required on Solaris 2.4 when using sockets. /usr/include/sys/ppp_chap.h includes a slightly modified---mainly names---version of md5.h. % gcc -o md5 mddriver.c md5c.c % gcc -o solmd5 mddriver.c -lnsl % ./md5 -x MD5 test suite: MD5 ("") = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e MD5 ("a") = 0cc175b9c0f1b6a831c399e269772661 MD5 ("abc") = 900150983cd24fb0d6963f7d28e17f72 MD5 ("message digest") = f96b697d7cb7938d525a2f31aaf161d0 MD5 ("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz") = c3fcd3d76192e4007dfb496cca67e13b MD5 ("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789") = d174ab98d277d9f5a5611c2c9f419d9f % ./solmd5 -x MD5 test suite: MD5 ("") = f00001c0effffba8429b59d50529097c MD5 ("a") = f00003c0effffba8aec5fcf4284a8dbe MD5 ("abc") = f00005c0effffba896fc8af8ca60a911 MD5 ("message digest") = f00007c0effffba8f373218f317a9558 MD5 ("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz") = f00009c0effffba896b4f24acb3f4738 MD5 ("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789") = f0000bc0effffba8cef237a614aa457d michael

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Red Shift
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Citibank Theft New York (AP) -- Russian computer hackers broke into a Citibank electronic money transfer system and stole more than $10 million before they were caught, according to newly-unsealed court documents. The money was shifted from Citibank to accounts in Finland, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, Israel and Switzerland, FBI agent Steven Garfinkel said. Citibank said six people have been arrested in the scheme and that none of its clients lost money.

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Re: Exportable if Escrowed Changes Nothing!
by Joey Grasty 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous wrote: > Joey Grasty writes: > > Governments: can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > It is precisely this kind of self-defeating pessimism that has allowed > the current state of affairs to develop. > > You grossly misinterpreted my remark. I believe that socialist-statism exhibited by the current US gov't is about to crack due to overspending and technology. Whether it will go peacefully or not is another question. I stand ready to defend myself if necessary, but I prefer to kick the statists in the ass by deploying strong encryption. When information can flow, the statists lose. They know that; witness the frantic effort to outlaw encryption. Too late, though. I'm writing code to hasten the end of the statists. Just what are you doing besides hiding behind anonymity? Regards, -- Joey Grasty jgrasty(a)gate.net [home -- encryption, privacy, RKBA and other hopeless causes] jgrasty(a)pts.mot.com [work -- designing pagers] "Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." -- John Von Neumann PGP = A7 CC 31 E4 7E A3 36 13 93 F4 C9 06 89 51 F5 A7

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Time-memory tradeoff in SSL's RC4 code?
by JMKELSEY＠delphi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 08:32:56 -0400 >From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> >Subject: Re: SSL challenge -- broken ! >It has occured to me that, because the RC4 key crackers spend most of >their time in key setup, you can crack N SSL sessions that you >captured in not substantially more time than it took to crack 1. This >is analagous to the way brute force Unix password file hacking operates. This would work with straight 40-bit keys, but I believe SSL uses 128-bit keys, and then intentionally leaks 88 bits to comply with export requirements, to prevent this kind of attack from working. >Perry --John Kelsey, jmkelsey(a)delphi.com PGP 2.6 fingerprint = 4FE2 F421 100F BB0A 03D1 FE06 A435 7E36 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMDVGXUHx57Ag8goBAQFyUQP7B7fhKc8AqpcHnQ09ip5gOfy5QMCtGImB f1Y9lZtAmLFwOIkrfdaL2vCWJKIKc7yg8+FwtmX6Q8yYWH4TdE5eWOGIKSfl5Q8f etVgF2B49T5Lxxb02ah5cHfO8baOqQOTMkvzQ9bj0XVqAItPoPjDTCOAAegwKZ3V 6L+kZQn89lY= =KkAX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Export policy change
by JMKELSEY＠delphi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 23:48:01 -0400 >From: Rich Salz <rsalz(a)osf.org> >Subject: Export policy change >Just heard on the 11:30pm NPR news update. The Clinton Administration >has changed the crypto export policy. You will now be allowed to >export strong crypto, provided it is a key escrow system. The >reporter (Dan Charles?) said something like anyone can hold the keys, >as long as they will be made avail when presented with a court order. >He also said, US citizens will still be able to use strong crypto >without key escrow internally. Terrorists and drug pushers were given >as "reasons." I think this is an important and somewhat subtle political move on the part of the administration. If they can get at least a few large businesses (the ones who buy into the key-escrow scheme) on their side, by making it in their economic interests for everyone to use escrowed crypto, they will have manufactured some potentially powerful allies in the computer industry. Certainly, once any major company has spent a lot of money to set up a key escrow facility, they will help lobby *against* any easing of the requirement to use escrowed crypto, based simply on self-interest. --John Kelsey, jmkelsey(a)delphi.com PGP 2.6 fingerprint = 4FE2 F421 100F BB0A 03D1 FE06 A435 7E36 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMDVGZUHx57Ag8goBAQEutQQAmM/qEIAlLklDRW/FVvLah7vgY6lYcCK/ XToA79tVZNmy+8U/XjS2g6+Ffsc/gQflOdg/ZmewDOQRJ4YI+BzHUjKL5NVDWAUA /4+ySWxcAAEOD23GhS9p/iFN/Gbe0oV9JIQ2HCpPN929VaRl7J+1fWA/ETZkB914 ClJPlXqa1xo= =XefF -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Anonymous certificates
by JMKELSEY＠delphi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 14:47:55 -0400 (EDT) >From: Michael Froomkin <mfroomki(a)umiami.ir.miami.edu> >Subject: Certificates/Anonymity/Policy/True Names >Now the issue arises as to whether one should allow the CA >to issue certificates to pseudonyms where it has *no record* of the real >identity of the person proffering the key pair. >Is there any reason why a person would want such a certificate? In other >words, given that the recipient of a digital signature will easily be >able to check the value of the certificate (nil), won't the >transaction/communication be in all ways identical to one where there was >no certificate at all. >So is anything of value lost by prohibiting such >a certificate? There are definitely cases where something is lost by prohibiting that kind of certificate. For example, there may be cases where a certified key gives someone some right that doesn't need any further identification, such as a right to run up $100 in phone bills, or a right to receive a year's subscription to cp-lite. As long as the person has paid for that right, who cares who he or she is? In other words, you may wind up sometimes binding a key to a function, rather than a person. >A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) >Associate Professor of Law | mfroomki(a)umiami.ir.miami.edu >U. Miami School of Law | >P.O. Box 248087 | It's hot here. And humid. >Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | --John Kelsey, jmkelsey(a)delphi.com PGP 2.6 fingerprint = 4FE2 F421 100F BB0A 03D1 FE06 A435 7E36 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMDVGbUHx57Ag8goBAQHO/AP+IM1YQSXZWaysjDALtOljqUEiyiCBA3EM Wxd8dp0dVrXKEii1Ima/xLHMKY4P0fvwT3oQl4x+mMo+ED2lNHo5GOUhgkE1tOZ8 6JfnUS6+l1Y4r14Aq0eMLljrOKFBDDUxewJTRaz36awWNr9W0tEcnnKv9NwQMU// CCKR6L5fekI= =EI6V -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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