December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Random Hiss from Mac mike
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Wed, 23 Aug 1995 19:09:35 +0100 >From: Andrew.Spring(a)ping.be (Andrew Spring) >I've been looking at using the Mac's Sound Input Manager for hardware RNG. [...] >I suspect there's much less entropy in that signal than even this estimate, [...] >Does anybody have any experience/advice in this area? I would try injecting noise and seeing how well you can control the output signal. I would also do a Fourier transform of the output and look for cyclic behavior -- then see how the frequency spectrum can be modified by turning machinery on and off, turning radios on and off, .... You can also try various compression algorithms to see how much entropy they claim to see. When that's done, you can then use some of my ranno conditioning code, free on the net (although written for UNIX, for now): http://www.clark.net/pub/cme/html/ranno.html I especially like running a pseudo-random stream through ranM and then a hash, to obliterate any patterns which might sneak past your analysis. - Carl +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)acm.org http://www.clark.net/pub/cme/home.html | |PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | | ``Officer, officer, arrest that man! He's whistling a dirty song.'' | +----------------------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison -+

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Random Hiss from Mac mike
by Andrew.Spring＠ping.be 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been looking at using the Mac's Sound Input Manager for hardware RNG. The advantage of it is that (1) most macs have a microphone port these days, (2) it doesn't involve any user interaction, (3) the API is easy. What I don't know, is how secure it is. Or more precisely, I don't know how much entropy is contained in the signal. In the simplest case, where the microphone is not attached, the signal consists of long runs of '0x80's alternating with '0x7f's. Now, I have no problem transforming this into uniformly distributed RN's : just hash the buffer with MD5. My question is, how many bytes get fed into the hash? Obviously, enough bytes so that I have 128 bits of entropy. Preliminary tests give me a max entropy of about .65 bits per sample byte. That's not very much, but if I can sample at ~20 KHz, that's 1625 bytes per second. That's estimated by recording the length of runs and computing the entropy over the entire sample: i.e. the sum (for k = 1 to 120) of -(fraction of runs of length k * log2 of that fraction). That works out to about 3.3 bits per run with an average run of 5.1 bytes. I suspect there's much less entropy in that signal than even this estimate, but I don't have any way to conduct tests with pure 50 cycle power and uniform ambient temperature. Or whatever else biases the signal. For all I know, every time someone in this building starts his microwave it biases the signal. Does anybody have any experience/advice in this area? -- Thank you VERY much! You'll be getting a Handsome Simulfax Copy of your OWN words in the mail soon (and My Reply). <Andrew.Spring(a)ping.be> PGP Print: 0529 C9AF 613E 9E49 378E 54CD E232 DF96 Thank you for question, exit left to Funway.

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Denning questions/reverses her position?
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'm too old for this! I never thought I would see the day that Dorothy Denning would terminate her star role as a shill for the Clinton/LEA encryption ban! from: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C13000%2C00.html?nd Two supporters of Clinton administration's stance on encryption released a report today finding that encryption has not inhibited law enforcement efforts, with at least one author questioning her belief in the administration's position. The authors--Dorothy Denning, a Georgetown University computer science professor, and William Baugh Jr., vice president of Science Application International Corporation-- ______________________________________________________________________ "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBM+Eh5L04kQrCC2kFAQF9wwP+INGEAnc+1akKc+dP7re8fleX4PJrmsYU UKzxgBZAsWcZC7L5WkaOygckHznOc+a37iHzDFtt3sr86DP0D/4j675qJdt/O4B+ jbxXumJ8EXmTN9bOvXK8x9JRGjR9aWzjeaJKN3X+fH4Bjbw76FR9xIFkhhNvZqnM ahBzZyL2cZ4= =MlQZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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PacBell's idea of a good password
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - From the PacBell Messsage Center (voice mail) brochure: "Make it easier to remember your password by choosig a code you use already, i.e. a PIN number or birth date." - -- - -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMDu1OyoZzwIn1bdtAQEvlAF+ObOioS3uF8obI6BRhtjfkZdvRAztTlUa uCjeR0AH2MzNEgTFM0mCSXuTnyy/trG0 =rg3O -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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The sorry state of non-US crypto
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I just spent an hour surfing the various crypto/cypherpunks web sites. In this hour I did not come across a single non-US site that carried anything else but PGP. Most non-US sites just carry rants about the evil ITAR, and a few carry the various international versions of PGP. That's it. I know that there are several European ftp sites that have other cryptographic software as well, but I sure as hell can't find them by browsing the web. One would think that at lest some of the major homepages (Virtual library, etc) carry links to such sites. Who cares if someone violates ITAR, if overseas users can't find the exported software? - -- - -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMDq+LSoZzwIn1bdtAQGfJAF7B/XTP5VHlvTLgVRcrDHGX9kcLOANI7OE oQbdMFG6K9V7URHL7HV4N7EaAo+TriRp =Ocb0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: e$: The Book-Entry/Certificate Distinction
by stevenw＠iglou.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>At 2:30 AM 8/22/95, Timothy C. May wrote: >> (An important point is that >>in a cash economy, identity is almost irrelevant. It's only in non-cash, or >>"account-based," economy that True Names are demanded. Lots of interesting >>issues to discuss here, which I won't now.) [Lots of interesting discussion deleted] >Everyone trusts their transactions because of the difficulty of forging >certificates. That means that once again, a certificate has it's own >inherent worth. It speaks for itself, and when it changes hands, the trade >is, as Eric Hughes says, "immediately and finally" cleared and settled. >The overhead of keeping books is gone, at least for the trading parties, >and especially for the clearing houses, who, like exchanges, just kind of >disappear, along with any way to regulate them. Somewhere, Joe Kennedy, >the first Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Comission, is probably >either crying his eyes out or laughing his head off, depending on your >interpretation of his role in regulatory history. In such a system, where does credit come in? If I have a certificate that is worth X, then does the recipient know that it's from my "credit card"? How do I obtain credit, and in what form does it exist? Furthermore, how do we assess the value of real physical things in a system like this? -- Steven Weller <Windsor Consulting Group> +1 502 454 0054 (voice) OS-9 Consultancy and Software +1 502 451 5935 (fax) Finger for public key 00 02 3C 2F 83 76 D3 77 2A 95 E8 90 94 9A 9D 74 http://iglou.com/windsorgrp stevenw(a)iglou.com or realtime(a)well.sf.ca.us

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Re: The End of the Ecash Trial?
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:35 PM 8/23/95, Nathan Loofbourrow wrote: >I have yet to see a date, but Digicash states several times in their >press releases that Cyberbucks are only a trial currency, and that at >some point in the future the trial will come to an end. We've talked about this a little bit on ecm. Someone from Digicash is on record there as saying that trading in c$ came as a complete surprise. The hitch about continuing to honor c$ is that there needs to be a bank. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the current system does work on an offline, peer-to-peer basis. Nonetheless, ocassionally, you still need to verify that the money hasn't been double spent, and for that you need a bank. The problem with being a bank is the price of the bank software, which is where David Chaum and Co. want make their money. Thus, the last price I got (offhand) from David on the phone a year ago was $250k + 10% of net profits. Given the cost of hardware, people, lawyers, and if you actually back the certificates with dollars in a bank of deposit (not being what we want do to here, admittedly) bankers, and more lawyers. Could add up to a mulitmillion dollar proposition. Of course, it could be done with donated professional time, bandwidth, hardware and donated bank software from Digicash. But it's hard to see that happening from here... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<

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Re: is there...
by dmandl＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:56 PM 8/23/95, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >Is there an online version of Raph's anonymous remailer list for FTP >or on the web? I suddenly need to give it to someone. > >.pm http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html --D. -- Dave Mandl dmandl(a)panix.com http://wfmu.org/~davem

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Denning questions/reverses her position?
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'm too old for this! I never thought I would see the day that Dorothy Denning would terminate her star role as a shill for the Clinton/LEA encryption ban! from: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C13000%2C00.html?nd Two supporters of Clinton administration's stance on encryption released a report today finding that encryption has not inhibited law enforcement efforts, with at least one author questioning her belief in the administration's position. The authors--Dorothy Denning, a Georgetown University computer science professor, and William Baugh Jr., vice president of Science Application International Corporation-- ______________________________________________________________________ "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBM+Eh5L04kQrCC2kFAQF9wwP+INGEAnc+1akKc+dP7re8fleX4PJrmsYU UKzxgBZAsWcZC7L5WkaOygckHznOc+a37iHzDFtt3sr86DP0D/4j675qJdt/O4B+ jbxXumJ8EXmTN9bOvXK8x9JRGjR9aWzjeaJKN3X+fH4Bjbw76FR9xIFkhhNvZqnM ahBzZyL2cZ4= =MlQZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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PGPfone Release is coming soon!
by jis＠mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- As you may have seen, the news media has picked up on the upcoming PGPfone release. This note is to let you know that we at MIT are working with Phil Zimmermann and the PGPfone team to distribute PGPfone from MIT. We expect to have a *BETA* test version (Macintosh Only) of PGPfone available shortly. We will distribute PGPfone via anonymous FTP from net-dist.mit.edu. Look in the /pub/PGPfone directory (which doesn't yet exist). We will also be distributing PGP via the World Wide Web from: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgpfone This "Home" page already exists, but doens't have the distribution yet. Feel free to check it periodically, as it will be changed as soon as the distribution is ready. -Jeff -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMDv4lMUtR20Nv5BtAQEyFAP+J3oFHuwKiOu56CtYSvA7WJUGgZg37zRj QPmMfnOD5/9nGUXGsQjs3NTMwV4Y+de4mM3Qxi/O/G0ID1aGod8pPbDkyh6wG594 FVWLu6c1E7pZcge1/Iv9nwBKbHAhOzh368YYMTIsiIlE3hjRB37/iVmIcQsOhleQ 4Qp8aJSEim8= =Mskz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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