December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: lack of evolution (So What!)
by Feanor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Aug 25, 21:41, Ray Arachelian wrote: } Subject: Re: lack of evolution (So What!) > > On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, Peter Trei wrote: > > > One factor which everyone seems to be overlooking in this > > thread is the future impact of biotechnology. > > <much stuff deleted> > > I see someone's been recently reading Beyond This Horizon by Heinlein. :) Sounded a lot more like Sterling/Crystal Express, the Shaper/Mechanist section, to me. -- #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

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Re: Scientology and police visit XS4ALL Amsterdam
by an253398＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

announce(a)xs4all.nl writes: [ snip ] > Police and members of Scientology church enter offices of XS4ALL > ================================================================ > > Amsterdam - thuesday september 5, 1995. > > Today at about 14:00, XS4ALL was visited by Mr. S. Braan, > bailiff. He was acting on behalf of the Religious > Technology Centre, better known as the Scientology Church, or > Scientology for short. He was assisted by a local police officer and Mr. > Hermans from the 'Nauta-Dutilh' legal firm that represents Scientology > in The Netherlands. Also present were two computer experts (Mr. Ootjes > and Mr. Van Suchtelen) a locksmith (to enter had we not been present) and > two American employees of Scientology, Mr. Weightman and Ms. Jenssen. [ snip ] This is the second or third time I've seen descriptions of such raids where cult (no, I'm not trying to be diplomatic) representatives were present and participating. Is this legal in Amsterdam? How about in the U.S.? Britain? If a police officer has a warrant then I really don't have much choice about letting him in. Am I also under an obligation to allow the people who filed for the warrant into my home or business? Thanks, Mole Rat ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. If you reply to this message, your message WILL be *automatically* anonymized and you are allocated an anon id. Read the help file to prevent this. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Re: Make Money Fast
by Feanor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Aug 25, 15:02, Bruce Schneier wrote: } Subject: Make Money Fast > This should be fun for someone: > > > HACKERS VIE FOR $1-MILLION REWARD > Austin, Texas start-up Crypto-Logic Corp. has offered a $1-million reward to > whomever can crack its new e-mail encryption system within a year. > Cryptologists generally agree that Crypto-Logic's technology, called a > "one-time pad" is theoretically uncrackable -- each "pad" has a set of > uniquely random digital symbols that are coded to the actual message. The > recipient uses the same pad to decode the message, and each pad is used only > once. Still, experts are warning never to underestimate the tenacity of > computer hackers: "Anyone who says their system is bulletproof is either a > liar or stupid," says one. "If I'm wrong," says Crypto-Logic's VP and COO, > "we're out of business." http://www.ultimateprivacy.com I've looked at this, there are two problems: 1. The message is in [A-Za-z0-9!@#$%^&*()] ASCII. The translation scheme is undisclosed. 2. The message is, apparently, compressed to some proprietary standard. So, someone's going to have to hack disassembly to get this message into binary. Once that's done, we can start bruting it. -- #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

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Non-Delivery Notification
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What is this shit? Got about ten today. --- begin forwarded text From: sysop(a)dkmail.dkeep.com To: shamrock(a)netcom.com Subject: Non-Delivery Notification Organization: Dragon Keep (904) 375-3500 Date: Wed, 06 Sep 95 00:05:41 EST NON-DELIVERY NOTICE ------------------- The message you sent on: Unknown to -unknown was undeliverable. ========================= !!! Automated Notice !!! ======================= E-mail replies to this user should have the following on the first line of message text: TO: -unknown ========================================================================== --- end forwarded text -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: Growth of actions definded as crime. Which math formula?
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 23:56 9/5/95, Black Unicorn wrote: rypted mail preferred. > >Really it's hard to answer this because what constitutes a "NEW" act is a >real question in and of itself. > >For example, wire fraud. Is it a "NEW" crime? Or just a subset of >fraud, or mail fraud? If they guy would have gotten away before the new law was passed, it is a new crime. That's the stats I am looking for. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Email privacy in Dutch constitution
by Alex Le Heux 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Aloha, In the Dutch constitution it says that (snail) mail is personal and private. It is illegal to open mail. Except of course with the usual warrants. And there used to be a special division of the PTT (the Dutch phone/mail company) that had the right to open mail that couldn't be delivered or had other problems. These people had to take all kinds of oaths. On the whole it wasn't easy to (legally) read someone else's mail. There is currently a proposal to change the constitution(1) so that email is specifically included in this. I'll attempt a translation of the article here (the original can be found at http://www.pi.net/computer/multim/21-8-97/mm21-8-97a.html) - --- BEGIN --- Privacy of encrypted email - -------------------------- Email will be part of the 'privacy of letters' (== briefgeheim) as is written down in the constitution, if the proposal passes through parliament, and the new parliament in 1998. The government says this needs to be done as the old law is obsolete. Also, since the Dutch PTT has been privatised there is no minesterial control anymore. The two most important parts are: 1. The right to communicate privately is inalienable, except in cases described by law, by those who are appointed by law. 2. The law describes rules to protect private communications. The law seems strange when seen from a multimedia perspective. Video/images will, in principle not be protected by it, as it is neither written text or spoken word. If the video/images are meant for a limited group of people, for example when communicating through lip-reading (?), it will be protected. Faxes and unencrypted email will not be protected, as those are like postcards. Also information about the communications, like the fact that email has been sent, should not be protected according to the government. The point is that persons can communicate in private, and that this is clear. The sender will have to use encryption to indicate that secrecy is wanted, otherwise the communications will not be protected (by this law). Telephone conversations will also be private, except in the case of someone being withing earshot of it. Changes in the constitution have to be approved by to consecutive parliaments. So it will take at least a year before this proposal will have the force of law. - --- END --- Hmm... Looking back at this translation, I don't think it's very good. But it'll have to do for now. I'll post any other relevant information I find. I wonder if this will be the first constitution in the world that'll mention encryption specifically... Alex (1) To change the constitution in The Netherlands, the parliament has to vote on it, then there have to be new elections, and then the new parliament has to vote on it as well. This is to (try to) ensure that governments do not change the constitution on a whim. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNAF4N9uYAh4dUSo/EQJC2wCeNdu+LscGWu8LVHRviiTuS81kQiQAnAm5 tzI7B5+wPTI6n+Elzoag08PI =WNZ+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Forgery, bills, and the Four Horsemen (Articles and Comment)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 22:42 9/5/95, Bryce Wilcox wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >I, Bryce Wilcox <bryce.wilcox(a)colorado.edu> wrote: >> >> >I hope I'm not missing anything here. > > >shamrock(a)netcom.com (Lucky Green) wrote: >> >> Only that Ecash has no benefits for transactions that are of an illegal >> nature. The meaning of "illegal" is of course increasing as new laws are >> passed every session of the legislature. > > >Chaum says that (especially when speaking before U.S. Congress) but I think >he is playing both sides of the fence. He is a die-hard privacy advocate who >allegedly turns down lucrative business deals because he feels they would >dilute his privacy achievements. The truth is that Chaumian DigiCash is a >*lot* safer for criminals than, say, credit cards, and when it is combined >with the other tools in a money launderer's toolbox, I expect it will be a >great boon to them. Chaum is a privacy advocate when it comes to companies compiling dosiers on you. When it comes to criminal use, my conversations with Chaum, his public comments, and last not least the current implementation of his software suggest otherwise. > >Suppose you have acquired a million dollars worth of legal, above-board >DigiCash dollars and you want to surreptitiously transfer this wealth to a >below-board friend. Your friend creates a temporary anonymous account at an >understanding bank. Y Won't work. Ecash, except as used for frequent flyer like points, will exist in only *one* world wide e$ currency, issued by a single entity composed of various major banks and subject to US laws. Getting Ecash accounts will therefore be subject to the same legal requirenments that apply to normal US checking accounts. >Now without active physical surveillance, nobody other than yourself and your >friend will ever know where the money went, and you can't prove that you gave >it to him, either... You or a sting operation can always reveal the recipient by publishing the blinding factor. Besides, your Ecash client keeps a log of the payees. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Crypto '95
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Perry asked for an overview of Crypto '95. I missed the rump session, so hopefully someone else will write about that. The best talks were probably by Ross Anderson (Robustness Principles for Public Key Protocols) and Adi Shamir (Myths and Realities of Cryptography). Since Anderson's paper is in the proceedings, I won't rehash it here, but Shamir's talk is not, I present his 10 commandments of Commercial Security: 1. Don't aim for perfect security. 2. Don't solve the wrong problem. 3. Don't try to sell security bottom up. 4. Don't use cryptographic overkill. 5. Don't make it complicated. 6. Don't make it expensive. 7. Don't use a single line of defense. 8. Don't forget the mystery attack. (Know how to regenerate security when you don't know whats going wrong.) 9. Don't trust systems. 10. Don't trust people. In other news: Richard Schroeppel, Hillarie Orman (and others) presented some speedups to elliptic curve systems, based on fast calculation of reciprocals. The speedup is about a factor of 3. There were some interesting analysis of RC5, SAFER-K64. Bruce Dodsen and Arjen Lenstra presented some interesting results running NFS with four large primes. From their abstract: "[factoring with 2 large primes] completion time can quite accurately be predicted...For NFS such extrapolations seem to be impossible--the number o useful combinations suddenly `explodes' in an as yet unpredictable way, that we have not yet been able to understand completely. The consequence of this is that NFS factoring is substantially faster than expected, which implies that factoring is somewhat easier than we thought." Please note that that doesn't mean RSA has been broken, or that they can factor products of large primes in their heads. It means that there are speedups possible, but not enough that anyone should be worrying about a 1024 bit key. The best quote of the conference was doubtless Robert Morris, Sr, reminding us of the first rule of cryptanalysis, "Don't forget to look for plaintext." Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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Church of Cryptology
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Church of Cryptology, established by Brother D'Shauneaux in 1919, resents the attempts of the U.S. government to criminalize our most closely held religious beliefs. Cryptography is well documented in the Bible, from the Tower of Babel to talking in tongues, and any infringement on our right to communicate in tongues constitutes religious oppression. Accordingly, the Church of Cryptology would like to acknowledge those who have suffered persecution in their efforts to spead cryptology as Saints for the Holy Cause. The Primary Religious Elected Zeus, our current leader, would like to assure all Cypherpunks that they will be granted special dispensation for any acts of Holy War they perform in the cause of strong encryption.

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Re: Are booby-trapped computers legal?
by michaelb＠primenet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:43 PM 9/5/95 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: <snip> >>As far as I know the owner of property has no legal right to kill a person >>either traspassing or stealing it in any of the 50 states. There was a >>recent federal ruling that basicly says that if you meet a burglar in your >>home at nite you can not kill or otherwise harm them unless you're life is >>directly threatened. In short, you MUST give up the ground if at all >>possible. Federal and all 50 states (as far as I have been able to >>determine) rule human life to have a inherantly higher value than property >>of any type (this does not apply to government institutions). > <snip> The laws regarding the use of deadly force against an unarmed burglar in one's home vary from state to state. In Massachusetts, for example, a homeowner has a DUTY to retreat from his own home before employing deadly force against an intruder. In Arizona, however, we prefer a much different approach. 13-411. Justification; use of force in crime prevention A. A person is justified in threatening or using both physical force and deadly physical force against another if an to the extent the person reasonably believes that physical force or deadly physical force is immediately necessary to prevent the other's commission of ... burglary in the second or first degree under section 13-1507 ... 13-1507. Burglary in the second degree; classification A. A person commits burglary in the second degree by entering or remaining unlawfully in or on a residential structure with the intent to commit any theft or any felony therein. michaelb(a)primenet.com

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