December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Usenet: pseudonymity's killer app
by pjm＠ionia.engr.sgi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Risks Digest 17.42 contains a Boston Globe story by Simson L. Garfinkel detailing the risks of the DejaNews (http://dejanew.com) Usenet archiving service. Not only does this service archive Usenet postings, it provides a "sophisticated system for retrieving 'author profiles' of the individuals who have posted messages." Many people are upset at what they view as an invasion of privacy. The article notes that: > But Usenet has actually been archived for a long time. Many schools, > for example, have backup tapes containing Usenet messages dating back > many years. Furthermore, says Madere, the National Security Agency and > possibly other law enforcement or intelligence organizations has been > cross-referencing and indexing Usenet for quite some time. "I know for > a fact that they do have a text retrieval database which contains > Usenet," says Madere. Creating a searchable index of Usenet " was > already done for what people might consider to be sinister purposes," > says Madere. "What we have done is made it searchable for useful > purposes." DejaNews will be archiving the alt, talk, and soc groups beginning later this year. That could result in many more people becoming upset at the service. It would appear that ISPs could make money from offering anonymous or pseudonymous accounts to their customers who would rather not have their postings used by marketers, employers, or neighbors. Providing protection from junk mailers is also more politically defensible in this society than providing protection from the government. This could be the catalyst for widely used and accepted pseudonymity on the net. Patrick May -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMI/tze5Yg08fDKehAQHUiwP/ePOJeQ5+R0+h0QQVJEziWFZvz0qCMooA 6jQXjDxWpxydas+KYCe9dt2yekjsh3Lr/bc+VHDtuTuE4l+m3HIFqk7uWxYk7iB6 fjIhuPMcmVSIg+lPOTFIlhfypmwE/6c4FHXiGb6N02Pc5E22BJFjECOdx1RNlJwv A8DbV/lAyGI= =FjnE -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: 80 bit security from 40 bit exportable products
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Even if you assume complete independence of key setup, if a successful >decryption at each layer can be independently detected and verified >(which seems likely in your example), there're only about 3 * (2 ^ 40) >total operations in the worst case, NOT 2 ^ (3 * 40) operations needed >to expose the plaintext. This is an effective 41.5 bits, not 120. > Of course. It comes down to whether each encryption step plans some known plaintext to be used for brute force testing of any next layer.

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Re: [Noise] Perrynoia in the Comics
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:13 AM 10/26/95 -0400, you wrote: > >Alan Olsen writes: >> This has no real crypto relevence, but some anarchistic relevence. > >Alan; > >As much as I found the comment interesting, it probably belonged >somewhere like libernet-d, not here on cypherpunks. I posted it on Cypherpunks becuase it is the only list I take where such political views are even mentioned. I thought that people on the list would enjoy it. I prefaced it with [noise[] so that people who would object would skip over it. Evidently that disclaimer is not enough anymore. >[I'm posting this in public, as I do about one in ten such messages, >so that a wider audience of people will be discouraged from posting >such things in advance. Don't bother mailing me a message saying "you >are adding to the noise yourself, why not mail in private" -- I do >that 90% of the time. Sometimes the nose levels rise enough that I >feel that a few public mentions would do some good.] I am not certain as to the "nose levels" as I thought they stopped publishing a number of months back. I think you need to get some treatment for those hardening of the orthodixies. | Visualize a world without lawyers! | alano(a)teleport.com | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmerman unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | | -- PGP 2.6.2 key available on request -- | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano | <fnord> |

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RE: Let's Not Merge Mailing Lists, OK?
by ali＠eit.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greetings, The problem is reducing the noise at cypherpunks list, so all communities can benefit from it, and not the "varying levels of competence" different communities may have. What more noble cause is there than to educate others of your beliefs. A well thought out question or cross-point is not noise but a poorly-backed false claim certainly is. In special instances, cross-postings enable the cypherpunk community and the other communities to interact together to produce real-life solutions that real people would care to use. Thinking on the social issues such as anonymity and privacy with no regards to what other communities think about or have to say is simply not optimum. Now if there is technical issues, such as mail-loops or some such thing against cross-postings, please inform. Regards, Ali p.s. Being subscribed to cypherpunks is not a prerequisite for following the list; thanks to its hypermail archive and numerous filters.

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Re: Anonymity: A Modest Proposal
by loki＠obscura.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I think the idea of a token has come up before. I think it is a good idea. The token should have some expiration information in it so the remailer need not keep it around forever (or it could just "forget" all token older than 3 months). Right now there is not much spare room in the Mixmaster headers. There are several ideas for improvements in Mixmaster that will require the adoption of an incompatible message format. I plan to collect them and implement them all at once. One of the ideas is an expiration date in the message to keep it from ever being replayed (even after the remailer expires its record of the message ID). -Lance At 7:43 AM 10/26/95, Adam Shostack wrote: >Lance Cottrell wrote: > >| How open is the protocol? Is there and API for it? Does anyone know how big >| the coins are? There will have to be room for one per header in Mixmaster. >| Do they vary in size, or are all coins identical? There is so much stuff to >| try to keep track of all at once! :/ > > If the coin is bigger than a Mix header has room for, does it >have room for an arbitrary token? > > I send a message to the mixmaster I'd like to use, containing >a coin and a large arbitrary number. I then put that number in a list >I maintain of the tokens I can spend with that mixmaster. > > The mixmaster cashes the coin at once[1], and puts my number >into a list of 'paid' tokens it will accept. > > When I want to spend the token, I put that in the message >header block. Since its smaller than the coin, its easier to put in >the header than the coin. > > This scheme also reduces mapability between the coin and the >message, since they are not strongly correlated in time as they would >be if they were included in the message. This seems to be a stronger >win than the size benefit that caused me to suggest this. > > [1] Other than the time mapping win, I could also see spending >a few bucks at the start of each month to be able to use any >mixmaster. The mixmasters would, by cashing my coins early, win on >the float between the time they get my money and the time they provide >service. Icing on the cake. > >Adam > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMI/NvfPzr81BVjMVAQGcbgf/b9wzPqGoijggurIm3uGiddSyaz2uAEXj 65INp6g/Va/Yf1q3+vQfyfixs3jviihmPMgepjs/deQqV5qxgEh05kbyvgKDf8wX vh8cVLTYMKpqGOU34K/9jLOXD9gZqvKBdDy9Z5YsLimDRV3ju9uRpBSLnUaiI1rU whpP+py/hqgFl0DL4Ybx5PBZDbcSkRhSqmlnx46/hbyY/bnaiTplPtMAU8oHZTK6 VOSB3hsPtfpGuKwCqe60WeZZDQygPbD6aDW+BZl4kMSv5+1kf4/aHECCOUqfzmvc O1Jmr6K8wLLtp/S12qRKh4SIEea9TUqN4PoV6YGQTBV1gM6MxC/GrQ== =qSuu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---------------------------------------------------------- Lance Cottrell loki(a)obscura.com PGP 2.6 key available by finger or server. Mixmaster, the next generation remailer, is now available! http://obscura.com/~loki/Welcome.html or FTP to obscura.com "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come." --Nietzsche ----------------------------------------------------------

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Digitial Money [SHAMELESS PLUG FOR BOOK]
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Leslie Lundquist, a co-worker of mine here at Electric Communities, together with Dan Lynch from Cybercash & Interop fame, has written a book called _Digital Money: The New Era of Internet Commerce_. It should appear in stores "real soon now"; it can be ordered right now from any book store for $24.95. The book is intended as an overview of current and projected digital payment systems and commerce, and contains basic background information on the underlying technology. It is intended for the general reader: this is the kind of book a techno-weenie might buy for his or her manager to help them understand some of these issues. Note that this is a different book than _Digital Cash_, by Peter Wayner. I'm not in the loop on this, but this appears to be "one of those things" and not intentional on anyone's part. For more information, e-mail leslie(a)communities.com

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I resubmitted the CJR
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have been told by several people that I did it wrong. Apparently there are two addresses: one for mail, and one for couriers. The first time, I sent it by mail to the courier address. This time, I also sent a fax. From what I've heard, I should be receiving a tracking number within a few days. Also, for those who were wondering, the "Arlington, CA" address was merely a keying error. The actual envelope said VA. I will keep the list up to date with any further developments. Raph

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Diane Rehm Show just ended
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You just finished a show on terrorism (WAMU, 10-11am, 10/26/95). Thank you. Some of your callers said most of what I would have said and I found that pleasing, since I wasn't able to call in. However, there was a theme which kept coming up and which wasn't addressed specifically. You might hold it in mind for future shows on terrorism: The FBI representative was saying that the goal is to *prevent* terrorism, not just to investigate and prosecute crimes after the fact. I heard Director Freeh (on 10/19 on All Things Considered) say something similar -- that the FBI's job was to protect the people (which can be be translated into "prevent terrorism"). This seems to be a major problem and perhaps the source of the concern about civil liberties. Terrorism might be a product of an organized, identified group and infiltration of that group might enable the FBI to prevent acts of violence. Of course, the permission to infiltrate suspicious groups has been used in the past to justify infiltration of non-violent but unpopular groups like the Sanctuary Movement. However, many of our recent terrorist acts appear to be the result of individual actions -- not those of organized groups. [Unabomber, OK City, train derailment] Infiltration is out of the question in such cases. The only way to prevent such acts is to put the entire population of the US under surveillance -- an authentic instance of Big Brother from 1984. The conclusion to me is that we can not task the FBI with the job of prevention of terrorism. I suspect that we must insure that the FBI is formally and carefully restricted to the job of investigating and prosecuting crimes once they occur -- allowing the threat of almost certain prosecution to serve as a prevention -- rather than with the impossible job of prevention of such crimes. ------------------------------ Meanwhile, there was one question I had that no one answered: I didn't like history much as a student, but I vaguely remember other periods of domestic terrorism: bombings in the early 1900s, acts of violence associated with the labor movement, sabotage during WW-I conducted by German agents. There may have been many others. This seems to be a feature of life -- nothing recent, nothing special, frightening from its news coverage but not a serious threat to any one individual (because of the actual statistics around the threat -- comparing my chance of injury due to auto accident, plane flight or terrorist act (for example)). It would be interesting to know why we had the pause in terrorism during the Cold War -- or, for that matter, if we actually did. Could it be that the apparent return of terrorism is actually a perception rather than a fact -- as a result of shift in focus of the news media? - Carl +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)acm.org http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | |PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | | ``Officer, officer, arrest that man! He's whistling a dirty song.'' | +---------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison (aka Mother) -+

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MD5 and ITAR questions
by Simon Spero 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I can't remember the exact details, so could someone give me a quick refresher- which of the following are considered ok under ITAR? MD5 as a checksum keyed MD5 for authentication keyed MD5 as a stream cypher Thanks Simon --- (defun modexpt (x y n) "computes (x^y) mod n" (cond ((= y 0) 1) ((= y 1) (mod x n)) ((evenp y) (mod (expt (modexpt x (/ y 2) n) 2) n)) (t (mod (* x (modexpt x (1- y) n)) n))))

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[Dr. Fred] [FRED] (was: Re: Fred, Fred, Fred: Enough already!)
by Herb Sutter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:51 10.26.1995 +0800, James A. Donald wrote: >At 11:58 AM 10/24/95 -0400, Robert Hettinga wrote: >> Can we please talk to Dr. Fred, the Poster Child of the Informal Fallacy, >> if we *really* have to, off line? > >Yes, please, will everyone please killfile Dr Fred. I am tired of seeing >things that are glaringly obvious explained in painful detail to someone >who is reluctant to understand them. At the very least, please put "Dr. Fred" or "[FRED]" in the subject line so my filter hits it ("Fred" alone is too general). Thanks. :-) Herb ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Herb Sutter 2228 Urwin, Suite 102 voice (416) 618-0184 Connected Object Solutions Oakville ON Canada L6L 2T2 fax (905) 847-6019

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