December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Fax encryption software
by Jonathan Blake 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I saw this article in alt.privacy. Anybody think the described encryption actually is worth looking at. Xref: netcom.com alt.privacy:29325 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!uunet!in2.uu.net!news.deltanet.com!lkf0166 From: clav(a)deltanet.com Newsgroups: alt.privacy Subject: Re: FAX Encryption Software Date: Mon, 18 Sep 95 12:39:53 GMT Organization: Delta Internet Services, Anaheim, CA Lines: 59 Message-ID: <43k3nv$m9(a)news1.deltanet.com> References: <43hvft$n2b(a)news1.deltanet.com> <43ii1t$210(a)nntp.crl.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lkf0166.deltanet.com X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #3 Dear Mr. Chaos, We are talking about a 72 bit engine that is more than sufficiently strong for time sensitive general business purposes. In addition it does not rely merely on simple factoring but a process called graphical encryption that adds additional difficulty to an attack. I would like to see if your cracking abilities are anywhere near your abilities to return an uninformed answer. I invite you to try your skill. David _________________________________________________________________ _____________ In article <43ii1t$210(a)nntp.crl.com>, acollier(a)crl.com wrote: >clav(a)deltanet.com wrote: > >>ANYONE FOR A CRYPTO-STRONG, YET EASY TO USE FAX/EMAIL SECURITY >>SOFTWARE PACKAGE FOR BUSINESS OR OTHER USE??? > >>Aliroo Ltd. has developed a Windows, eye-to-eye fax/email >>encryption package called PrivaSoft. > >>Unlike any previously devised system, this method protects, with >>only 4 mouse clicks, fax and email transmissions in electronic >>and even paper form - FROM THE TIME YOU CREATE A MESSAGE UNTIL IT >>IS READ - NOT JUST WHEN YOUR FAX IS BEING TRANSMITTED. > >>You can encrypt a message, and then fax or email it (via plain >>old standard fax machine or fax modem), print it to paper or save >>to a disk file. > >>It is fully licensed, without restriction for export, by the U.S. >>Department of Commerce. NO PGP WORRIES. > >Also no worries about security - if DOC says you can have it, you can bet >that NSA has seen to it that it is cryptographically weak, or else uses a >key escrow system (where sombody else can get to the keys), and as insecure >as any other non-published method. For all we know, they may be using a >cereal box decoder ring set up. > >>Email me for a free copy which will be sent to you via email or >>snail mail post. It is fully functional (not crippleware) and >>enables you to try our system out before purchase with 8 free >>page scrambles. It retails for $130 per installed computer. >>Looking for end users and distributors. > >>Thanks, >>David > > -- To subscribe to Graphology-L send e-mail to: listserv(a)netcom.com / subject: leave blank message: subscribe graphology-l(a)netcom.com <your internet address> To get the Graphology-L FAQ send e-mail to grafolog(a)netcom.com / subject: hwafaq / no message ^

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Re: Yet Another Alarmist TV Show About Child Molesters on the Ne
by James Caldwell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 25 Sep 95 at 0:06, Hroller Anonymous Remailer wrote: It's called the Hegelian Diclectic(sp?) first postulated by William Hegel (an ass) in Germany approx the 1600's as a method for social change when none could otherwise be achieved. > And the trashing will continue. It is the classic scenario. > Feed the media negative press clips about the entity you wish > to discredit (here, the Net), e.g.: > 1. All those pedophiles out to lure your children; > 2. Big coverage on catching some of those pedophiles; > 3. First page coverage on breaking Netscape's code with the > headlines that your sensitive information such as your > credit card numbers, etc. can be retrieved (ignoring that > the reason was to show Netscape's poorly structered code > would allow this and, therefore, preventing it before it > could happen); > 4. Expect cryptology to crop up in the Oklahoma bombing trial. > There already has been articles of those involved having > allegedly used that *damned* Net to correspond.

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Re: chaos cryptography
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Hi all - saw this in New Scientist and thought you might be interested >(I guess it's more stenography than cryptography): ^^^^^^^^^^^ Yes, chaotic communication is preferred by secretaries around the world. They follow their dictates. --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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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Coercion-proof remailers (solved?)
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For a while I've been talking about the importance of a robust infrastructure for anonymity, including coercion-resistant remailers. Here is an approach that appears to eliminate the problem of after-the-fact coercion. Existing remailers chain messages by using a fixed public/secret key pair in each remailer. This leaves them open to after-the-fact compromise from the sender end. If you capture a message as the sender sends it, you can later get the key of the first remailer, and decrypt the first layer. You can then proceed on down the line to the recipient. This creates a motive for an attacker to coerce remailers, and it means the value of the remailers' keys continually increase as more messages are sent. Instead of using a fixed key, the sender can perform a Diffie-Hellman exchange with the recipient at each point in a message's passage. This eliminates the coercion problem, since there is no permanent key to steal, but allows a corrupt remailer to see where the message is going. If the first remailer is corrupt, the whole path is compromised. The next step is to make sure there is no first remailer. The sender S generates a message and header requesting mailing S to the recipient R. The sender splits it into two pieces using / \ a method that requires both pieces to recover any data. Then he 1 2 adds a header to each piece requesting remailing to remailer 3. \ / He sends one piece to remailer 1 and one piece to remailer 2. 3 The transmissions are protected by DH exchange and encryption. | Remailers 1 and 2 each send their pieces to remailer 3. These R transmissions are also protected by DH exchanges. Remailer 3 combines the two pieces, recovers the header requesting remailing to R, and sends the recovered message to R. This approach is secure against after-the-fact coercion or key theft, because there is no persistent key to recover. It is also secure against any one of the three remailers being corrupt. If 3 is corrupt, it sees both pieces as it combines them, and knows they came from 1 and 2, but does not know where 1 and 2 got them from. If 1 is corrupt, it knows that a message from S went to 3, but it has only half of the split message, so it can't find out where 3 sent it to. If any two of the three are corrupt, the path is exposed. It is possible to add more levels. This one uses seven remailers, /S\ and can survive any two being corrupt. Some questions I don't / | | \ know the answers to: What is the best possible arrangement of 1 2 3 4 remailers, so that the highest percentage of them have to be \ / \ / corrupt before the path is revealed? If any continuous line 5 6 from S to R is corrupt, the path is revealed. And if any two \ / remailers in a 'triangle' are corrupt, the whole triangle is 7 corrupt. For example, 1 and 2, 1 and 5, or 2 and 5. | Is there a better arrangement, reusing some remailers, that R allows the message to remain secure with a higher number of corrupt remailers in the path? Mike

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Re: Fax encryption software
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:34 PM 9/26/95 -0700, Jonathan Blake wrote: > > I saw this article in alt.privacy. > > Anybody think the described encryption actually is worth > looking at. > > We are talking about a 72 bit engine that is more than > sufficiently strong for time sensitive general business purposes. Since David does not know the difference between CPU word width and an encryption algorithm, I think it is safe to ignore him. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Wild Idea for RNG
by Ray Cromwell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ok, so I'm reading a message somewhere and I see a message about algorithmic information theory. Cryptography was recently on my mind and I thought of Chaitin's quote "arithmetic is random" So, why not construct a turing machine with a large state transition table, input a random program, and get a 1 or 0 bit depending on whether it halts in X number of cycles. You could even get more than 1 bit out of it by measuring how many cycles it takes to halt (if it halts before X) and use the LSB. Is it as secure as the halting problem? (intractable to devise an algorithm used to predict a bit with more than 50% confidence if you knew the state table?) Ok, so it's impractical. So how about this: Grab a picture of the current bitmap on your screen. Run it through a good compression algorithm (say, an arithmetic/Q-coder or one of the LZ schemes). Grab the LSB of every 4th byte or so. If the screen is size 1024*768*8, that's 786432 bytes. Let's assume a 10 to 1 compression ratio = 78643 bytes. Let's assume you take 1 bit from every 10 byte, that's 983 bits of entropy. The screen will often contain data like: random placement of icons and windows current time current applications running, and the data in their windows If Netscape was running for instance, part of the random bits would come from the bitmap representation of the data in Netscape's window which would depend on the URL being displayed. -Ray

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Hack Microsoft At Work Fax?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been helping a client install Microsoft Windows for Workgroups, which comes with Microsoft At Work Fax. The fax software, in addition to doing normal stuff, lets you encrypt faxes with passwords or public-key encryption for sending to other people who use the same software. The manual has minimal technical information, so I don't know the algorithms it uses; it mostly talks about what GUI buttons to push. I was hoping the section on taking your software overseas would say something about Export Laws and International Arms Traffickin' (and creatin' a disturbance...) but all it said was how to set the international-direct-dialing phone codes so you can get your fax to go where you want. Because of that, I'm guessing it's something like RC4/40 and RSA-512 with some sort of user name as part of the public key field, but I'd like to know more, and I'm also guessing that they've got some sort of general export license permission from the Feds. The public-key system uses a public key file with "154 computer-generated characters", and recommends exchanging public keys by floppy disk. I don't know if that's 154*8 bits, or 154*6 or *4, or if there's a user-name string using up some of those characters; probably the latter since it's probably 512 bits because of export. I called the usually helpful Microsoft Technical Support phone number, and they were friendly and will try to get back to me, but this is way out of the scope of the kind of questions they're used to :-) And the stuff I could find from the Web page or ftp.microsoft.com on encryption had less than the manual, plus some stuff on password encryption, plus some stuff on their RAS remote network access stuff which apparently uses DES as well as standard PPP handshaking or Shiva handshaking. Does anybody have any more information? It'd be fun to hit up Microsoft for the next crack if it's weak enough; the fax stuff can also be sent by MSMail so there is eavesdropping potential. #--- # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #---

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testab
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

testab

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testab
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

testab

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HP KEscrew
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Wall Street Journal, Sept 27, 1995 Hewlett Lobbies for Its Encryption Plan That Would Satisfy Tough Export Rules By Don Clark Hewlett-Packard Co. is pushing an unusual plan to protect electronic transactions around the world without running afoul of U.S. export laws. The Palo Alto, Calif., computer maker said it has been lobbying government agencies for more than a year to gain support for its proposal, which uses a data-scrambling technology to protect transactions from tampering or theft of data. Strong encryption technologies ordinarily fall under tough export rules that limit technologies which could impede U.S. wire-tapping capabilities, a source of continuing friction between the government and high-technology companies. H-P, in a plan developed with the French company Gemplus SCA, wants to split the code-making technologies into two pieces that would be approved under different government standards. One device, which could fit in a standard computer, would contain a basic encryption capability that is designed to be broadly exported without the need to seek a separate export license for each foreign user. Would Help Industry That device, dubbed an encryption engine, would be useless without the addition of another tiny piece of hardware that contains a code-making formula set at a specific strength. The second device, called a policy card, would be separately reviewed by the U.S. State Department for each customer. Government agencies, including codebreakers at the National Security Agency, would still have a say over the strength of encryption exports. But customers could build commercial applications around the proposed encryption engine, knowing that it will work with any code-making formula that governments might adopt in the future. Now they run the risk that their work will become obsolete amid policy changes in Washington, D.C., and other countries. State Department officials weren't immediately available for comment. Stewart Baker, a former NSA general counsel who now practices law in Washington, D.C., termed the H-P plan a clever answer to the problem of shifting government policy. "There was a lot of skepticism when H-P first proposed it," said Lynn McNulty, a former encryption specialist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "But it looks to me that they are well on the way to the next step." H-P Confident of Approval Doug McGowan, an H-P manager involved with the project, said he expects to receive U.S. approval by next year to begin shipping the encryption engine freely to Western Europe and Canada. "We believe we will receive relaxed export controls," he said. H-P's plan fits some of the NSA's objectives. For one thing, its technology embeds encryption technology in microchips that can't easily be modified by computer hackers or terrorists. H-P's policy cards also could be adapted for a controversial Clinton administration proposal called key escrow, in which mathematical keys to break codes could be stored for later use by law enforcement or intelligence agencies, Mr. McGowan said. The plan complements a parallel H-P effort to develop a new generation of "smart" data cards to let consumers buy goods and services around the world electronically. Gemplus, a huge supplier of credit and debit cards in Europe, is supplying technology to that effort along with Informix Corp., a database software maker in Menlo Park, Calif. Jeff Hudson, an Informix vice president, said the partners' proposed cards could store money and a database worth of personal information, such as medical records. That approach could eliminate the need to connect to multiple companies or agencies to manage such information, since it would be stored on each card, the companies said. [End]

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