December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Crypto-anarchy and Haydn
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 17:06:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Peter F Cassidy <pcassidy(a)world.std.com> To: dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Subject: Crypto-anarchy and Haydn Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Peter F Cassidy <pcassidy(a)world.std.com> DCSBers, I'd like to invite you to the Longwood Symphony Orchestra's summer concert at the Hatch Shell in Boston on Wed. Aug. 20, 1997 at 7:30. It's free. The LSO is presenting Mendelsohn's Capricio Briliante Opus 22, the Haydn Cello concerto and the Haydn Symphony 104, the last movement of which contains a coded message. Played backwards at twice the normal turntable speed, you can clearly hear the composer shout, "Burn the mint" in the finale, about 64 bars from the end. For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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Cyphernomicon, and a section on Escrow and Reputations
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been asked by two people in e-mail what the "Cyphernomicon" I referred to in a recent message is. It's been a while since I mentioned it, so I'll give some details. In late 1993 I foolishly committed to doing a "Cypherpunks FAQ," as several earlier attempts had gone nowhere. And since the most frequently asked question of all is always "Where's the FAQ?," followed closely by "How come there isn't a FAQ?," the need was there. (As it turns out, the people most in need of a FAQ seldom read FAQs, but this is another story.) I finished my first release, a megabyte-sized file done in MORE, a powerful outline processor (which enabled me to maintain notes, make cross-references, and generally manage such a huge writing project). I released it last year, and put it in my anonymous ftp account at ftp.netcom.com, in the directory /pub/tc/tcmay, as the file CP-FAQ. Netcom is often very crowded, though. I know of a couple of alternative places. A very nice job of HTMLizing it was done by Jonathan Rochkind, a Cypherpunk, and is located at the URL http://www.oberlin.edu/~brchkind/cyphernomicon/ Another URL, which is just one large file, is http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6095/articles/cyphernomicon/CP-FAQ The recent thread about the dangers of anonymity and the role of escrow agents as possible fixes is a good excuse to include one of my sub-sub-subsections, to also illustrate the structure and expected contents. Enjoy it. But, please, don't nag me with suggestions that I should do, or should have done, the thing in HTML, or using your favorite tool set. --Tim May Crypto Anarchy: Escrow Agents and Reputations 16.24.1. Escrow Agents as a way to deal with contract renegging - On-line clearing has the possible danger implicit in all trades that Alice will hand over the money, Bob will verify that it has cleared into hisaccount (in older terms, Bob would await word that his Swiss bank account has just been credited), and then Bob will fail to complete his end of the bargain. If the transaction is truly anonymous, over computer lines, then of course Bob just hangs up his modem and the connection is broken. This situation is as old as time, and has always involved protcols in which trust, repeat business, etc., are factors. Or escrow agents. - Long before the "key escrow" of Clipper, true escrow was planned. Escrow as in escrow agents. Or bonding agents. - Alice and Bob want to conduct a transaction. Neither trusts the other; indeed, they are unknown to each other. In steps "Esther's Escrow Service." She is _also utraceable_, but has established a digitally-signed presence and a good reputation for fairness. Her business is in being an escrow agent, like a bonding agency, not in "burning" either party. (The math of this is interesting: as long as the profits to be gained from any small set of transactions is less than her "reputation capital," it is in her interest to forego the profits from burning and be honest. It is also possible to arrange that Esther cannot profit from burning either Alice or Bob or both of them, e.g., by suitably encrypting the escrowed stuff.) - Alice can put her part of the transaction into escrow with Esther, Bob can do the same, and then Esther can release the items to the parties when conditions are met, when both parties agree, when adjudication of some sort occurs, etc. (There a dozen issues here, of course, about how disputes are settled, about how parties satisfy themselves that Esther has the items she says she has, etc.) 16.24.2. Use of escrow services as a substute for government + as in underworld deals, international deals, etc. - "Machinery of Freedom" (Friedman), "The Enterprise of Law" (Benson) - "It is important to note in any case that the use of third- party escrow as a substitute for Government regulation was a feature of the Northern European semi-anarchies of Iceland and Ireland that have informed modern libertarian thought." [Duncan Frissell, 1994-08-30] 16.24.3. Several people have raised the issue of someone in an anonymous transaction simply taking the money and not performing the service (or the flip side). This is where _intermediaries_ come into the picture, just as in the real worl (bonds, escrow agents, etc.). 16.24.4. Alice and Bob wish to conduct an anonymous transaction; each is unknown to the other (no physical knowledge, no pseudonym reputation knowledge). These "mutually suspicious agents," in 1960s- and 70s-era computer science lingo, must arrange methods to conduct business while not trusting the other. 16.24.5. Various cryptographic protocols have been developed for such things as "bit commitment" (useful in playing poker over the phone, for example). I don't know of progress made at the granularity of anonymous transactions, though. (Though the cryptographic protocol building blocks at lower levels--such as bit commitment and blobs--will presumably be used eventually at higher levels, in markets.) 16.24.6. I believe there is evidence we can shorten the cycle by borrowing noncryptographic protocols (heresy to purists!) and adapting them. Reputations, for example. And escrow agents (a form of reputation, in that the "value" of a bonding entity or escrow agent lies in reputation capital). 16.24.7. if a single escrow agent is suspected of being untrustworthy (in a reputation capital sense), then can use _multiple_ escrows - with various protocols, caveat emptor - n-out-of-m voting schemes, where n escrow agents out of m are required to complete a transaction - hard to compromise them all, especially if they have no idea whether they are being "legitimately bribed" or merely pinged by a reputation-rating service - Hunch: the work of Chaum, Bos, and the Pfaltzmanns on DC- nets may be direcly applicable here...issues of collusion, sets of colluders, detection of collusion, etc. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: SSL attack
by don＠cs.byu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- From: "Robert A. Rosenberg" <hal9001(a)panix.com> >I thought that the ACK gives starting location and number of segments. If I >get 500 segments and ACK at the 50% point I am sending an ACK for the >Starting Point and 250 Segments (the unprocessed part would then ACK With multiple heirchical servers, you don't have the same bottleneck problems. If you have a random mode that you can switch into, same deal (if you care to use it). There are a lot of people who want the anonymity and server-independance of random mode. There are people who don't want to add another 37% onto the processing time, given the unlikeliness of a D.O.S. attack on the server. I continue to support the idea of a two-pronged attack using both methods. Given that most of the server bottleneck was un-updated clients anyway, I think that the bottleneck-on-the-server problem is solved anyway, meaning there won't be any problems getting new keys - thus eliminating the need for a keyspace buffer queue. Don -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMEfVssLa+QKZS485AQEV9QMAoue7RyySe1H0a7s6hBkjf7knaXesLY1h ZQg9rBZ9ZieJ5qWyBHL03Gn4XikSD8U6/MBbiyMvOnz+QTYRQcMxQioEu4YDcFdD etaful6wYhtXzd/MTn+VWjBf86poDeNK =Mp2o -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- <don(a)cs.byu.edu> fRee cRyPTo! jOin the hUnt or BE tHe PrEY PGP key - http://bert.cs.byu.edu/~don or PubKey servers (0x994b8f39) June 7&14, 1995: 1st amendment repealed. Death threats ALWAYS pgp signed * This user insured by the Smith, Wesson, & Zimmermann insurance company *

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Re: Status of Cypherpunks list sites?
by Antonomasia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

TCMay wrote: > Not too long ago I was subscribed to the "cypherpunks(a)algebra.com" address, > and the list stopped flowing to me for a day or so. I resubbed under > "cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net." I noticed that Igor Chudov said he was taking > a hiatus from the Net and lists, so I wondered if this meant his support > for his site was either being dropped or might be subject to more frequent > outages. I re-subscribed to the algebra list when I returned from HIP97 and in fact got onto the ssz list. Seems like Igor diverted the subscription. Comments, Igor ? > And shouldn't we all be making a more serious effort to drop the use of the > "cypherpunks(a)toad.com" address, as John said some months back that he would > support forwarding stuff for a while, but not necessarily forever. As it > is, it just adds another hop and another potential weak link. Yes. -- ############################################################## # Antonomasia ant(a)notatla.demon.co.uk # # See http://www.notatla.demon.co.uk/ # #### !!! PGP 5.0 beta available now at ftp.replay.com !!! ####

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FSTC - Request for Info
by todd＠lgt.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, I am now looking for pointers into this mystical coonsortium of financial wizards... Also do any of you know about online issues pertaining to new network adaptations of Unisys's proprietary banking protocols or the FEDLINE stuff? TIA Todd Regards, T. S. Glassey Chief Technologist Looking Glass Technologies todd(a)lgt.com

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Re: FSTC - Request for Info
by John Curran 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:05 AM 9/2/95, Todd Glassey, Chief Technologist, Looking Glass Technologies wrote: >Hi all, > I am now looking for pointers into this mystical coonsortium of financial >wizards... A good place to start is the FSTC WWW pages: http://www.llnl.gov/fstc /John

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Re: Status of Cypherpunks list sites?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Okay, mace me, I'm still posting to toad, and receiving from it, along with dupes from cyberpass, and TAing the latency. Toad's stuff comes right through, fast, while it's +/- all over the chart from cyberpass -- up to eight hours delay at times, even a day later, with answers to vital controversies coming before the issue is shown to be misunderstood squat. Excuse cyberpass dis for disarray, but toad's speed is handy when you've nothing to say and want to instantly scream it very clearly to yourself and the empty void rather than face the horror of fixing insyntax. And, praise elvis, not all vaporings that come from toad makes it past molassel cyberpass, although most eventually oozes in. Null stench especially pops up from world-sucking toad, the kind that makes one's own East Coast voidance smell not so bad. Until the West Coast wakes up and sez jesus cork that, we're fetal lunged here. Still, if Tim's right to call for toad discon, its reliable speedy drip drip drip of 24-hour addictive invective will be sorely missed when it presents a last time middle web and hops off into the swamp leaving only one's own dig-itch digit to sniff and howl how awful.

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Encrypted talk
by Jason Burrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does there happen to be a talk program out there that will allow more than two people to talk at once, and allow them to speak securely with strong cryptography, and will actually compile under Linux? Thanks.

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Re: A problem with anonymity
by David Murray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 05:15 PM 9/1/95 -0700, you wrote: >At 10:45 AM 9/2/95, David Murray wrote: >>[Akerlof, if I remember my economics right (and I am confident that I will >>be corrected if I don't) analysed a market for used cars. ... >>... So the only cars for sale would be lemons :-)] > >I haven't encountered this example, but it clearly misses some important >real-world issues. ... >Like a lot of simple game-theoretic models, the application to the real >world is quite different. True. But it does make the point that, in a perhaps surprising way, the bad can drive out the good. [I certainly don't want to get into any kind of normative v. postive methodological debate.] The lesson is not that "You can never find a decent used car", but that, in a market with particular characterisics (particularly with regard to what information is available to whom), lemons drive out the good. This just means that owners of good used cars offer them for sale in a market where pre-purchase checks are possible, etc.. But this is to concentrate on the example, not on the substance... >But I certainly agree that crypto will reignite interest in analyses of >such game theory questions. Another way of viewing anonymity vs. >non-anonymity is that knowing the True Name of a party with whom one trades >is just _one element_ of a transaction. By no means is it essential. I guess I was using True Name somewhat unusually. I didn't mean "True Name= state approved unique identifier of a human being" so much as "True Name<> easily discardable/transferrable/sellable digital pseudonym". I certainly did not mean to imply that net.commerce is impossible, or that it would only take place on the basis of True Names, however defined. Rather I was commenting that one pervasive feature of non-net.commerce is the ability to track down someone that owes you something and sue them/beat it out of them. You can't do this to a digital pseudonym. As you rightly pointed out, you can't do this to someone who escapes to South America, or to the guy who runs the market stall that won't be there tomorrow. So you take a bond, or you take your chances. I still think that, because of the (perfect) ease with which net.rep's are transferrable/cash-in-able, the chances you take in the digital domain are so much higher as to be (almost?) qualatatively different. >>If you can't rely on the unsecured promise of a digital pseudonym, and you >>can't accept reputation as 'security', how do you extend credit? > >I am willing to extend some amound of credit to PrOduct Cypher, Black >Unicorn, etc., based on their past reputation and on the fact that I can >show to others the transactions into which their pseudonyms entered and >thus expose them if they default. Now _how much_ I'm willing to extend is >of course a more complicated issue, but the principal is still there: a >purely digital pseudonym, with no possibility of being tied to a True Name, >can still be extended credit....I just said I would do so. This would, of course, allow PrOduct Cypher (for example) to cash in on hir rep. [Hir - never thought I'd see myself use it: ughhhhhhh <shiver>]. But, unlike the unscrupulous stall owner, who would have to sell the gold watch before he decamped, PC could sell hir rep before the rip-off had been done. This would be a sort of division of labour - rep-builders and rep-exploiters. In cybersapce, you could never tell whether you were dealing with the rep builder (buying a good car) or a rep exploiter (buying a lemon). Yes the rep-exploitation would be a one-shot thing. Within seconds of the sting PC's name would be mud. [And, yes, you could probably tell whether it was one of those two you were dealing with - if it asked for credit, it wouldn't be 'corn or 'pher :-)] But it is the _possibility_ of the scam that would shape the market. By the way, my final question was not rhetorical. I _do_ think methods of extending credit to pseudonyms will be developed. I just think they will be based on (possibly new) types of security interest. An old type of security interest (perhaps the oldest) could be used right away - the pledge. If Bob Pseudonymous pledges $100 worth of digital certificates, I would be glad to lend him $100 (well, perhaps $80 - gotta secure the interest:-) Cryptography might develop other ways of protecting the interests of creditors, while preserving the anonymity of debtors. In fact, I'm certain it will. And I'm just as sure the law/mercantile practice will assist in the process. And like you, I believe it is not only possible, but preferable, that this is done without the interevention/'assistance' of the state. Cheers, Dm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMEftjllo3j8JHzalAQE1OwP+IQTX2hUfJXI8Q7ojgFcKbnvxRLngSyDp rLm0wjZvMoiLwCqwhqn6F3ypTJBD0pS1ZT7ql+rnnEsYtQ75Xu0iJFbnnIY4whNh gB1plcImYms88Rt7VEuCjHZeAMHcV3tPZL9DHQVHZXMwqWKCeyBaImVaEosJTwZj IuZ4HHCi+GE= =V7vf -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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The legitimate needs of law enforcement
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In 1938, five years after taking power, the Nazis enhanced the 1928 law. The Nazi Weapons Law introduced handgun control. Firearms ownership was restricted to Nazi party members and other "reliable" people.

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