December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Government takeover of the gambling industry / Am I Psychic, or what...?
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: > It's the way of all governments. First denounce something, then co-opt it, > then get rid of the competition. > > But imagine how this might rebound to our favor: suppose NSA > Microelectronics, Inc. finds itself limited in its sales prospects by the > NSA policies limiting electronics companies...maybe NSA Microelectronics > will point out to the DIRNSA that the nice flow of kickbacks to all senior > NSA managers will come to a halt if NSA Microelectronics is not able to > sell its crypto products domestically. I used to think I was psychic, since I predicted the fall of communism in the Soviet Union (almost to the day). Later, after reading Tim's tirade against "magical thinking," I realized that I was just using common sense. I realized that once "Pepsi" and "Burger King" had a vested interest in the "Red Menace" operating in the "Black," any fool who had the ability to make 'i' increase in increments of 'two' could accurately predict how long it would take for the Rockerfellers to notify the leaders of the secret Zionist conspiracy that it was time to make a few changes. NSA Microelectronics will no doubt realize the value of using convict labor to maximize the government's profits in their foray into the wonderful world of government usurpment of the free enterprise system. Since the government has always been less efficient than the forces of free enterprise, we can expect that, "in the interests of national security profits," more citizen-units will be required to become felons "under an increasing number of laws." Not being a lawyer (although I played one at Jim Bell's trial), I cannot say for certain whether "suspicion of being Tim C. May" will be a state crime or a federal crime. Nonetheless, I feel certain that Mr. May's experience and expertise will enhance the efficiency of our convict-labor system to a level that will help move us toward a balanced budget (if we can take him alive). Although my tendencies toward "magical thinking" and observing life through "Scotch-colored glasses" leads to my posts being somewhat rambling and incoherent, I can always count on the Philosopher Kings (such as T.C.M.) on the CypherPunks list to remind me when it is time to take my medication. I believe in reincarnation. I believe that if you live a corrupt, sinful life, doing all manner of evil to your fellow men and women, that you are reborn as either Jimmy Hoffa or Dr. Vulis. {There are those who believe that the above will result in your being reborn as myself, but I cannot believe that any entity who claims to be the Supreme Being could be that cruel.} In closing, I would like to remind the members of the CypherPunks list that, "If God is Love, and Love is Blind, and Justice is Blind, then Jim Bell's attorney is fucking Ray Charles." TruthMonger

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Re: Sorry about accidental spamming
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tom Helenius wrote: > Dear Security Professional, > We apologize for the annoyance and confusion we might have caused to you > due to human error in our email addressing. As a result some of our > internal emails about the newly announced F-Secure VPN v1.1 software were > erroneously emailed to your attention. > It is definitively not our company policy to contribute to spamming on the > Internet, and we do hope that you'll still want to receive the otherwise > unbiased information sent to the members of our press list. Tom, Bullshit! We on the CypherPunks list are wise to all the "Oops!" scams that spammers use to pretend that they aren't inundating us with their UCE/Spam crapola. "In Reply To Your Request" "The Information You Requested" "Sorry! I Accidentally Sent My Post To 10,000,000 Email Addresses." To tell the truth, your post was not off-topic on this list, since the list was formed to discuss privacy and security issues. However, your follow-up post makes it clear that you spammed a whole shitload of InterNet users with your commercial message, and that the fact that it was on-topic for our list was a mere matter of random chance. Accordingly, we _will_ have to burn down your house, rape your wife, kill your dog, and sell your children into slavery. The "upside" is that some of us will probably purchase your F-Secure VPN v1.1 software, as it seems to be a pretty decent product. Do you take Visa? TruthMonger

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Entrust Technologies's Solo - free download
by Michael C Taylor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Entrust Technologies (www.entrust.com) has made Solo available for download, free for 30-day evaluation & edu/non-profit. For Win95/NT. A mere $49 Cdn (~35 US) for commerical usage... For e-mail / file encryption, digital signature Solo uses 128-bit encryption, which is CAST-128, the royality-free algorithm invented at Entrust/NorTel. It also uses 1024-bit RSA public-key cryptography and has DES, Triple DES available. Also follows FIPS 140-1 validated security kernel. It is compatible with other Solo clients (of course), Entrust/Lite and Entrust. It looks like PGP Inc might have some decent competition. I assume that it won't have the market pentration of PGP, but at least it will make a dent and might force PGP Inc. to make their product robust and flexiable. "Offer not valid in Libya, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Angola, Syria, and North Korea" I do not have any affiliation with Entrust or NorTel other than both being in Canada. I don't even have a copy of Entrust/Lite. -- Michael C. Taylor <mctaylor(a)mta.ca> <http://www.mta.ca/~mctaylor/> "Not speaking on Mt Allison University's behalf"

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Re: Entrust Technologies's Solo - free download
by Sandy Harris 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM <dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com> writes: >> Entrust Technologies (www.entrust.com) has made Solo available for >> download, free . . . >I ask everyone on these two forums Cypherpunks & Freedom Knights. Both should be very happy to see strong encryption becoming more widely available. >to inform Northern Telecom Forgers / Bell North Forgery Research >/ Entrust that we will boycott their "security" products Snarky quotes not required. This isn't snake oil. There is plenty of solid analysis behind these products. Check references on Entrust web site. >as long they continue to employ the child-molesting >pedophile Chris R. Lewis - the biggest forger on Usenet. What this scum is actually upset about is Chris Lewis cancelling spam. He calls that "forgery" because the spammer's name goes in the sender field of the cancel message. Nonsense. Dimitri, the "forgeries" are going to continue until someone comes up with a better way of dealing with spam. If you have suggestions, post them to some of the news,admin.net-abuse.* groups or to the Freedom Knights list. The crap about pedophilia is also, of course, nonsense. It seems to be a favorite slur lately with several grossly misguided people who think calling people they dislike pedophiles is a way to "defend freedom of speech".

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Doing the SSL challenge
by Eric Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Boy, go away for a weeks holidays and every-one else has all the fun :-). Just a few quick ramble about my searching of the top half of the key space in the first SSL challenge, please ignore if you are sick of this thread. All these estimates of the cost in CPU time are a bit silly. I started out using a few of our bigger machines at work but when people noticed I just stoped using them. My main workhorse machines became desktop boxes that nobody used at night. Quite a bit of my %50 keyspace was done by 5 dual processor sparc 20's that people around me had on their desktops. Most of the rest was done by about 50 486's that I rsh'ed to each night (I just tried to rsh to every Solaris/x86 box in the company :-). Out of a company of about 300 people, about 2 (who did not know about my attempt on the challenge) asked me about this processing and what was I actually doing, no-one else really noticed :-). I was making no particular effort to use every machine I could but I was still able to do about %2.5 of the key space each 12 hour night and %12.5 each weekend. If I made a real effort to harness the compute power at my work I would have probably been able to run at twice this rate but that would have required work on my part, alot more people would have noticed and it would have had an impact on people doing real work. The way I was seaching had no impact. I will also say that screen-savers running on the above mentioned 486's were a real pain, perhaps we will change xlock so they can only run the blank screen :-). I personally feel that using mas-pars is cheating a bit :-). People are aware that something is going on when a machine that big is grunting away all weekend :-). There is so much CPU sitting on people's desktops that is just unused that there is very little need to use the big central boxes. The relative speed on some of the machines I used is as follows (per CPU is in brackets) 6 CPU SGI challenge 37 (6.1) 5 (1.6) 2 CPU sparc 20 7 (3.5) 1 1 CPU 486 DX50 1 I could never realy get more that 1/2 the SGI but I could always get 5 sparc 20's and 50+ 486's without anyone noticing. So I was getting the 2.5 6CPU SGI challenge's from idle machines on people desks. eric -- Eric Young | Signature removed since it was generating AARNet: eay(a)mincom.oz.au | more followups that the message contents :-)

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Re: Programlike Texts
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Also coming to mind is the well-known notation for dancers ... I believe it's called Laban notation. At 09:46 AM 7/29/97 -0400, you wrote: > >One argument that is made by the government when trying to defend its >export restrictions---which are really publishing restrictions---on >cryptographic software is that they are not trying to regulate the >communication of information but rather the functionality of the >software. > >Now this has never made any sense to me, but that does not mean that >the argument can just be ignored. > >So I have been looking for examples of texts that are analogous to computer >programs but that are executed by something other than a computer. > >So far the best example that I can think of, and I doubt that one can >find a better one, is the instructions given to a drill team. > >I have looked at the drill manual for the U.S. Naval Academy that is >located at <http://www.nadn.navy.mil/MISLO/DRILL/drillman.html> and >it sounds exactly like a manual for some rather specialized computer >language dealing with mathematical objects that can be subjected to >various rotations and other transformations.

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[NOISE] Re: Basically F-C-ed
by Alex de Joode 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wrote earlier: [..] : : Orlando, Fla., August 20 (AP) -- Two explosives were : : planted in a professor's suitcase to test airport : : security measures in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and were : : discovered when he arrived in Orlando, officials said : : Saturday. : [..] : : Kensel said such security measures were normal for : : Europe. : : "Particularly in Europe, there are grave concerns about : : security issues," he said. "As a result, they do conduct : : various security programs regularly. This was part of a : : routine check of their own security systems. : : "The bag got away from them basically," he said. : Airport police was very quick to point out that such practices : were legal, now when they do that ...... The Dutch Department of Justice stated that there was no legal basis for such practises, Airport Police are forbidden to use 'innocent travelers' as decoy. -- Alex de Joode Fear Uncertainty Confusion and Kaos, Inc.

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NEXT CHALLENGE: plan of action?
by fc＠all.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I would like to offer all.net as a repository for the sources and executables for all platforms. We can put them in the gopher server for all to access. -- -> See: Info-Sec Heaven at URL http://all.net Management Analytics - 216-686-0090 - PO Box 1480, Hudson, OH 44236

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Re: Netscape security
by Damien.Doligez＠inria.fr 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: altitude(a)cic.net (Alex Tang) >It seems that one of the problems with Damien's >cracking job was that it was "not sanctioned". Actually, INRIA's PR people are quite pleased with the publicity. They asked me to prepare an official press release to counteract the Wall Street Journal's "evil hacker" story, which was unfortunately reprinted by some papers. The Herald Tribune is particularly bad in this respect. If some media insist on this "evil hacker" thing, they will look more ridiculous than anything else (I hope). The press release will be out as soon as it gets through the red tape (the official opinion of a French administration is not something to be taken lightly, even though it's mostly facts :-) I'll put it on my web page when it's official (which is likely to be too late). -- Damien

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Netly's Walter Miller talks crypto with President Clinton
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

************* Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 13:04:35 -0400 To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> Subject: FC: Netly's Walter Miller talks crypto with President Clinton X-FC-URL: Fight-Censorship is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/ ReSent-Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 13:12:16 -0400 (EDT) Walter Miller is Netly's roving, raving, and notoriously misspelling columnist. He's recently been keeping on top of cyber-rights issues. Not long ago, Walter Miller had brunch with the Supreme Court justices, and told them the dos and don'ts of web site design. "I also made sure to sugest that the US Supreme Court get a password- protected Intranet too -- to post stuff like cafateria specials, snow days, even forums where they coud flame eachother. Or maybe secretly play network Diablo on laptops right there on the bench during boring testimony": http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1125,00.html Then he took on the University of Memphis, which tried to wipe out a student's "Old People" site. "Sections on the site include Geezer News, (mostly newswire acounts of elderly motoring mishaps), and a humor page the likes of this: Q: What's 1,000 feet long and smells like urine? A: The conga line at Century Village": http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1196,00.html Now Walter Miller writes about encryption, and his Granfather's long history of crypto-talk with President Clinton (who apparently goes by the alias BUBBA1)... -Declan *********** http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1227,00.html The Netly News Network Walter Miller (http://pathfinder.com/netly/wmiller/) Trailer Trash on the Infobahn for the week starting July 30, 1997 An Encrypted Freindship by Walter Miller (thenetlynews(a)pathfinder.com) My Granfather isnt just a crankey old S.O.B. he's also a longtime F.O.B., or 'Freind Of Bill'; No, not Bill Gates--the slightley less inportant one: Bill Clinton. (The othor Bill probly HAS no freinds...Sorry, that was mean spirrited of me, and inspired out of jealousy--but atleast i can ADMIT it.) But Gramps and Bill Clinton realy ARE freinds. They met during the '72 Presidential race. Clinton was 26 and George McGovorn's Texas campaign chair. Granfather was a low-ranking precinct leador. The two were tossin back coldies one night after a rubber chicken event at a motel out onthe I-10. Eyeing 2 bellbottomed chicks at the bar, Bill winked at Gramps; he winked back, scribbling with a pen on a napkin: "YOU TAKE THE YOUNG CUTIE. ILL TAKE THE OL' UGLY ONE". Both men nodded. Unable to read Grampy's scrawl, the gals never cought on. Thus began a 25-year freindship based on encryption which contineus to this day. Well, neithor man got lucky that night, and McGovern lost Texas in a 49-state landslide. (Granfather, a conservotive Democrat, ended up votting for Nixon). But encryption has come along way since. And so has the mop-topped boy from Hope. Not only did Granps let him keep his favvorite ballpoint pen, they both kept in touch. Last week they were in toutch allot. It was about the new Encryption bill that just passed Congress. Granps suported it while the President was agianst it. They hotly discussed it by e-mail for a few days, till this mesage arrived: Return-Path: whitehouse.gov Received: from (ENCRYPTED) Message-ID: (ENCRYPTED) X-Mailer: (ENCRYPTED) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Trans-Encod: 7bit : From: "Bubba1" To: "Granpy" Subject: (ENCRYPTED) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 97 09:36:55 -0400 : Dear Sir: POTUS suggests e-mail is not the best forum for this discussion. Please meet POTUS tonite, 8PM, EDT in (ENCRYPTED) Chat. The regular place. : On behalf of POTUS, Your pal, : "VPOTUS" : P.S. Don't worry, POTUS tells me it won't take so long as to cut into the X-Files, which my (ENCRYPTED) sources tell me is a repeat anyway. : =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This is my sig. tHIs iS mY SIg ON dRUGs =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Of cuorse, "POTUS" is President of the United States and 'VPOTUS' is Mr. Gore. (Just like most big inportant exetcutives in the private sector, there's always some low-level lacky handling the adminostrative end of his E-mail.) Later that evening, their convorsation contineud, but this time in chat: Granpy: YOU OUT THERE, BUBBA? Bubba1: Right here, Gramps. Sweet4U: Who else is out there? Prowler: I'm here. Whos there? Granpy: I TELL YUH, BUBBA I AIN'T GLOATING, BUT I'M GLAD ABOUT THET THAR NEW ENCRYPTION BILL. Bubba1: Well, Gramps, I did have reason to oppose it. Prowler: Hey Granpy--ALL CAPS are for SHOUTING ONLY Granpy: I AM SHOUTING Sweet4U: Bubba, age, M/F? Bubba1: Um...uh, well, Shucks... Prowler: Prowler here. (((BURP!))) Who's out there? Needless to say, this chat thread, like most, soon descended into the ininteligible drivol of a dozen voices saying nothing to no one in particulor. So Gramps and the Presidant took it private. Bubba1: Geez, that garbled chatroom drivel sounded like my last cabinet meeting. Granpy: NO WONDER REAGAN USED TO FALL ASLEEP IN HIS, HUH? Bubba1: LOL! Who needs encryption when you've got IRC chat! Granpy: LEVITY ASIDE MR. PREZ, BUT WHO NEEDS ENCRYPTION WHEN THE GOVORMINT HAS THE SOFTWARE KEYS? Bubba1: Oooh. That was cold, Granps. Yes, Granfather had hit a nerve with that one. The gist of the encryption bill was to allow US companies to export encryption technollogy. Right now America's ass is getting kicked in the world market cause we're not allowed to sell encyprtion software while foriegn competittors are alredy doing it. Mr. Clinton had opposed the bill, but would of alowed it only if the US Govorment--yes, the US Goverment was given access to the software keys to be able to crack the codes. Granpy: WHY DON'T WE ALL JUST SURRENDER OUR NET PASSWORDS, HUH? HOW 'BOUT OUR BANK ATM PASSWORDS, AND CREDIT CARD PINS? Bubba1: Come on, Gramps. I had the FBI and the DEA on my side on this, not to mention members of both parties. What about international spies? What about drug kingpins? They use encrypted technology. Uh, ecxuse me Mr. President, but spies and druglords also use the telephone and the U.S. Mail. And when you need to put badguys under survellance, you simply get a court ordor, and you do it. I have to agree with Granfather on this. And I cant help but think that mabye a little of the high-profile hand- wringing abbout encryptoin exports might be just some old fashionned low-tech fear of computers. And besides. Nothin personal, but I use my conputer for private corespondence. My browsing logs, purchasing habbits and credit card numbers are here too, and I dont want them falling into the wrong hands. Or, perhaps, falling onto the desk of some fat guy in the White House basement in charge of 'security' who no one remmemmbers hiring. Granfather relayed my concerns to the Prez. Bubba1: Is that what your grandson said? I feel his pain. Granpy: HE'LL BE FEELIN MINE ON HIS SKINNY ASS IF HE DONT GIT ME A BEER, LIKE I DONE ASKED HIM TO. Bubba1: LOL! In any case, their disagreement on this one isseu hasnt hurt Granfather's and Clinton's freindship any. Funny thing is, theyve relied on encryption to maintain it in secrecy. (A close freindship with Granfather is bound to be a politicol liability, if you think abbout it). And somhow I think the president is better at 'encryption' than he thinks--Ive ben readin in the papers about Whitewater for 5 years now: The president seems unscaithed, and I still dont know what the hell is going on. Bubba1: Do you think my loss on the encryption bill will hurt my approval rating? Granpy: YOU KIDDING? WHAT'RE YOU AT, 68 PERCENT? HELL, TWO MORE POINTS, YOU KIN START DATING AGINN, BOY. Bubba1: ROTFL! Seriously--you think this chatroom is secure? Granpy: YUP. UNLESS NEWT OR AL ARE HACKIN' IN. Bubba1: Those guys? Everything Al knows about computers he learned from his kids. And Newt still goes to Newsgroups for news. Granpy: YEH, THE NEWS IN BINARIES, I'D BETCHA. Bubba1: LOL! Hey, BTW, speaking of 'non-family fare' I accidentally erased that gross .wav file from last week. Can you send it again? Granpy: SEND IT? GIMME A MINUTE AND I'LL BE ABLE TO MAKE IT AGINN FOR YOU, LIVE. Bubba1: HAH! I'll leave you Newt's private phonemail; you can leave it for him there. Granpy: SO, BUBBA--D'YOU STILL LIKE ENCRYPTION? Bubba1: Know what, Grampy? I like privacy better. Handing over encryption keys to the government sucks. Granpy: HERE IT COMES...NOW, BUBBA, NOW Bubba1: OH! Hold that, er "thought" another second, I'll give you Newt's secret number...typing...Got a pencil? area code (202) (ENCRYPTED)... ...And this is where the convorsation seemed to end. Or at least, it was the last I got of it that wasnt garboled. ### ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is public. To join fight-censorship-announce, send "subscribe fight-censorship-announce" to majordomo(a)vorlon.mit.edu. More information is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/

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