December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

No Subject
by bryce＠cybernet.co.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Well thats 2 replys, Man it`s going to be packed! :) > >When a meeting happens what do we discuss?/do? > - an obvious one would be NZ crypto! > - New crypto ideas? > - NZ Anon remailers & Repositorys > - Patents??? (maybe not) > - Cryptanalasis (Hopefully, oh please-oh please) We haven't heard from Peter Gutmann yet (probably because he is so busy), but if he turns up it would be interesting to hear about any future plans for SFS. I don't mind explaining a little bit about some areas of cryptanalysis, maybe the various sieves. Chris might want to talk about some hardware ideas. >PS: Why do we need a workstation? (probably a dumb question) To try stuff out, play with programs, broadcast the nonsense worldwide over the net <grin> ... We don't need one, we just need people who have a common interest and something to say about it. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 Comment: Please note my current address is bryce(a)cybernet.co.nz iQCVAwUBLvJtYtXxuu4HpwwBAQF9PgP/ZLORHZjtNqchFHZSuhHfqQIFqrfdJIyI C7J7jCSnpt8cEqdZKJf2xSU6oeITg8oL388KwqY+O0em2O0QyiWqNZZcv4oJItFs 4R/lECvtrO9a5YbNyT4tgzFXWM2muULoYbSog2FhUlFOkNAfwRaJCqIghQceOrzF apRh15/AH1I= =3/2q -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bryce Boland <bryce(a)cybernet.co.nz> Finger for PGP Public Key

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NYT on Pentium
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John Markoff writes today on Intel's mishandling of the Pentium flaw. Mr. T May quoted. For email copy send blank message with subject: 585_999 Here are few excerpts: In recent weeks, evoking memories of Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate crisis, Mr. Grove has retreated to his "war room" inside the company's corporate headquarters in Santa Clara. *** 'Righteousness' How did a sporadic arithmetic error that was not detected for months, in the chip that Intel insists is its most heavily tested microprocessor in history, become the heart of such a debacle? The answer is rooted in Intel's distinctive corporate culture, and suggests that Intel went wrong in much the same way as other big and unresponsive companies before it. Intel has traditionally valued engineering over product marketing. Inward-looking and wary of competitors (from experience with the Japanese), it developed a bunker mentality, a go-for-the-jugular attitude and a reputation for arrogance. "There are certain elements in Intel's culture, and one is righteousness," said Federico Faggin, a former Intel engineer and co-inventor of its first microprocessor. "The attitude at Intel is, 'We're better than everyone else and what we do is right and we never make mistakes.' " *** But the technologist's mind-set did little to prepare Intel for the consumer marketplace. Although it spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its "Intel Inside" and Pentium ad campaigns, the consumer-oriented strategy unraveled last month when Mr. Grove dismissed customers' requests for chips to replace the Pentium. *** "What Intel clearly should have done is issued a bug report as soon as they found out it was a reproducible problem," said Timothy May, a former Intel semiconductor engineer. "Instead, by keeping it mum, they backed themselves into a corner." But although he has issued a public apology for the flaw, Mr. Grove has been unwilling to personally come forward in an effort to restore customer confidence. "The test of a great company is in how they handle disasters," said James F. Moore, head of Geopartners, a high-tech consulting firm. "This is one where you can't behave like a paranoid. This is one where only the compassionate survive."

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cypherpunks mentioned in Z Magazine
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There was an article in Z Magazine about the RC4 disclosure, and IP and information in general on the internet, in which the cypherpunks were mentioned. They got a lot of information confused about cypherpunks, but over all it was an interesting article. Here's the first portion of the article, in which cypherpunks were given prominence. If anyone wants to write them and clear up their confusion between anonymous remailers and mailing lists, or other errors about the 'punks (which generally cast us in a worse light then we should be), their address is: Z Magazine 18 Millfield St Woods Hole, MA 02543 ******** Pandora's Mailbox; RC4 a secret no longer by Mark Chen On September 9 there appeared on the Cypherpunk's Internet mailing list a short piece of computer code purporting to be RSA Data Security's secret RC4 cipher algorithm. RC4 is one of the most widely used commercial ciphers, but its internals have for years been a guarded trade secret--a status that changes within hours, as the program fragment, which simple tests revealed to be the genuine article, traversed the the farthest corners of the Net via e-mail, bulletin boards, and file transfer. State Department export regulations, as well as intellectual property laws, were smoothly rendered moot. As Cypherpunks founder Tim May says, "National Borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway." Soon after RC4 hit the Net, RSA Data Security (RSADSI) issued a statement that read in part: "It has come to RSA Data Security's attention that certain RSA trade secrets, in the form of confidential and propietary source code, have been misappropriated and disclosed..." "...Not only is this act a violation of law, but it's publication is a gross abuse of the Internet. RSA has begun an investigation and will proceed with legal action against anyone found to have violated its intellectual property rights." Setting aside the questionable legal basis of these threats, why doesn't RSADSI bring charges against the person who originally released the code? The answer is that they don't know who did it. The code was distributed through a mechanism called a "mailing list," a system that distributes e-mail to people who have signed up to receive messages on a given topic. For example, if you were interested in fish, you might sign up for an aquarium hobbyists' list. People could then send email to the list server, and the e-mail would be forwarded to everyone on the list. RC4 was posted to the Cyperpunks "anonymous remailers" list. When an anonymous remailer receives a message, it strips off all of the sender information and remails the message under an anonymous pseudonym. Thsi effectively breaks the link between sender and recipients, and makes tracing impossible. The intended purpose of these remailers is to allow free distribution of various intellectual "commodities" whose distribution is ordinarily discouraged by law or custom. A Cypherpunk faction called the Information Liberation Front has long used anonymous remailing to distribute inaccessible, expensive, copyrighted literature. Moreover, the remailers serve as technological guarantee of the right to free speech. They allow unpopular opinions to be voiced, while protecting the authors of those opinions from retribution. Far from being a "gross abuse of the Internet," as RSADSI maintains, the distribution of RC4 was a case of the Internet doing what it does best--propogating ideas. While this act may or may not have been a violation of human-made laws, it was a faithful exercise of the natural laws of information flow... [etc etc]

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No Subject
by pgut01＠cs.aukuni.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>We haven't heard from Peter Gutmann yet (probably because he is so busy), but >if he turns up it would be interesting to hear about any future plans for SFS. >I don't mind explaining a little bit about some areas of cryptanalysis, maybe >the various sieves. Chris might want to talk about some hardware ideas. I seem to have been dropped in at the tail end of the discussion, so if you can let me know what it's about I'll be able to disagree with you about it. Peter.

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PGP-Pine Scripts?
by Jason Burrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Are there any scripts out there to set Pine 3.91 up to use PGP for message encryption and signing? I would prefer to stay away from installing a 1MB+ executable, since I have neither the root privlidges on this machine or the disk space for such an endevour. Thanks. - -- Jason Burrell | PGP 2.6 public key available by finger. Geek Code (V2.1): | GCS/CM/S/M d++ H s:+ !g !p+ !au !a w+++ v+\(---)>!v San Antonio, TX | C++ UC+ P+>++++ L+ 3 E+ N+++ K--- W--- M-- !V -po+ | Y++ t++++ 5+++ jx R+ G tv++ b++ D- B-- e u++>+++ h* f+ | r* n---->+++ y? - --- [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 iQBFAwUBLvSZaCoZzwIn1bdtAQHYvgF9GlGCfkFh9I/RMyRdXyuR55ELZQ6kHkiP MKf5XzOXt3S+bMs7uF12S/O3xaHCTVWf =jqpA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Remailer at myriad.pc.cc.cmu.edu??
by Mark Terka 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I take it the above remailer has bitten the dust? I didn't see it in Ralph's last list.

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2048 bit keys
by Tony.Gurnick＠nzdairy.co.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I saw a thread here a couple of weeks ago about generating 2048 bit keys after the 15-dec. I cant remember how to do it, can somebody please enlighten me??? T

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Name that phone
by Philip Zimmermann 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm trying to come up with a name for the secure phone software I'm planning on releasing. The software would turn any multimedia PC into a secure phone. I'm open to suggestions for the name. Some names that have been suggested: 1) Voice PGP 2) Pretty Good Secure Phone (PGSP) 3) PGP Phone I like 2 or 3. Does anyone want to suggest other names, or vote for which of these is better? Send your replies to prz(a)acm.org, with the subject line of "Name that phone". The winner will get a free copy. But then, so will a lot of other people.

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Re: Remailer at myriad.pc.cc.cmu.edu??
by L. McCarthy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mark Terka writes: > I take it the above remailer has bitten the dust? I didn't see it in Ralph's > last list. I asked about this on the remailer-operators list the other day. It seems Matt G. asked Raph to remove it from the list temporarily; I think he's just gone on vacation for a little while. - - -L. Futplex McCarthy - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQCVAwUBLvT2d2f7YYibNzjpAQEPTAQAt5nqYycS//ebW9ZsISwshdUtYmMHlGox 6WdkaU0x27whC08ppk3MULMVERXmRRAxs7yUcFUeea/nmjQFGqnITprWGW0h2ONl CqL1XNvp7miky/L0ESbM1H+fm1e2bWObn1mh57LQuzuX5pW01EB+g7pw8L8yJgs3 qqH747EZfaM= =vz9F - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- - --- [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 iQBFAwUBLvT5AioZzwIn1bdtAQG8SgF/UK/GUXDynLdM3hv0sHs1ev75lPIKFRPz Yvv3BdJg8B9jlhf9nfIgfPaTnrmfPtn+ =h8gc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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freedom+diversity=noise
by mkj＠october.ducktown.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This list appears to be going through some sort of crisis. Tim May has quit, others are threatening to quit, and the messages criticizing the list itself threaten to outnumber those on all other topics! Frankly, I don't get it. What's everybody so upset about? A few arguments, some bad manners? Can we afford to be so sensitive? Now, I admit I don't read every message posted here (who has the time?), but I read a fair sampling, and I haven't seen anything half as bad as what I face every day on the subway. At least on this list, nobody has ever pulled a weapon on me! Personally I don't understand why some people are so bothered by the noise here and elsewhere on the nets. Sticks and stones and all that, you know? But a number of people here have even suggested that the Cypherpunks list, at least in its present form, is near the end of its useful life. I would like to go on record as strongly DISagreeing with that suggestion. Sure, I wish we were making more progress faster, but I think we are doing better than many of us realize. The job is not an easy one, and in my experience, I have found that difficult jobs demand perseverance above all other virtues. However, it seems that every time a forum, list, newsgroup or whatever becomes too popular, it reaches a "critical mass" at which people start complaining that everything is ruined, and soon thereafter the forum splinters and/or switches to a moderated format. Thinking about the phenomenon, I came up with the following brilliant (ahem) generalization, which I humbly dub "mkj's law": FREEDOM + DIVERSITY = NOISE Where "noise" is defined as any behavior(s) which a significant portion of the group finds undesirable. The above law appears to apply not only to network forums, but equally well to other types of social groups. (Note for example that mkj's law is inextricably linked with the old amateur-radio principle, "One Man's Signal is Another Man's Noise".) Mkj's law has disturbing implications, in that "noise" (which is normally considered a Bad Thing) is shown to be an inevitable consequence of the combination of freedom and diversity (which are normally considered Good Things). Mkj's law also states that there are only two ways to reduce the noise in any group: (1) Crack down on freedom (impose controls on behavior, the job of police in the physical realm or moderators/censors in the informational realm); or (2) Crack down on diversity (usually by restricting group membership, or perhaps by other means such as strong charismatic leadership). Note that this "mkj's law" stuff is a first-draft, brand-new idea for me; I'm not taking a firm position, just soliciting comments. ObCrypto-Philosophy: Clearly, at the root of the Cypherpunks agenda -- or any pro-privacy agenda -- lies a presumption that freedom and diversity are Good Things, whereas "noise reducers" like censorship, prejudice, and intrusive law-enforcement are Bad Things. I share this presumption. But it might be an interesting exercise to ask: If we can't accept with good grace the current noise on the Cypherpunks list, how are we going to like real life in a global society where freedom and diversity have been greatly increased by "crypto-anarchy"? Will the "global village" fragment into isolationist cliques? Even sooner, will the Cypherpunks? --- mkj P.S. Since I don't recall posting my public key to this list before: - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6 mQCNAi3q+mcAAAEEAOKHMopu6yj57rtwamGwh79bpxAzcbysIJ17PNc/D902WEHG m81FyrcjZaWgj2jX+JYPKqPrOmy72arHJjP5wkAFd2VG5p+WdQjkwXtObOoJ5qfd l+twaRqZVvl4gDiBoFrdrwVSGxXGqAMLOP3VvcQk3uH4y6GmdF11Wd4tm8clAAUR tC5NYWhhdG1hIEthbmUtSmVldmVzIDxta2pAb2N0b2Jlci5kdWNrdG93bi5vcmc+ =Eb3a - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLvYFdl11Wd4tm8clAQH20AP9ESKpTtl3C926QDOzUZXISQLWDWY6hsxd 1i3g29cePDDfb29D4LweXp5GTJTpGwHE5saXpPuveFrsWUN8KUOBlJRG0g+Sj1JP ZR3QAb/hRlEJBoi7bgpZJQOijXdJIV2oevO5Q9CinRP56CEudCnAhi3xqX5dfMeL ikAwokXsB44= =Nl3X -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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