December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Hack DigiCash: Payee Anonymity
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <199510240750.IAA04175(a)utopia.hacktic.nl>, anon-remailer(a)utopia.hacktic.nl (Name Withheld by Request) wrote: > Well, Sameer is offering a "Hack DigiCash" promotion, in the same spirit as > the hack Netscape and Microsoft offer. However, Chaum is a fairly > experienced cryptographer, and I doubt that there are any major security > flaws in the system. The trial version used RSAREF, so that code at least > was open for your inspection. There is still the possibility of bugs > creeping in when porting to different platforms tho... > > I think the most interesting hack to pursue is to eliminate the > payee-nonanonymity problem. The current software uses the following > protocol: [protocol elided] Payee anonymity will never be integrated into the protocol for political reasons. Still, it is trivial to do this with current Ecash by setting up a repayer site. I'll release some perl scipts doing just that as soon as my current project is over (~2-3 weeks). - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMI3N1CoZzwIn1bdtAQFsNQF/ZxwblP0YIUE47oXukUuSCA0ymeVexjGc d7AA0efbzER+xKYvjtwppTGoWG+GiNzx =35an -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Quick commercial package question
by Marshall Clow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>At 12:34 PM 10/25/95, Jonathon Fletcher wrote: >>Just a brief question. >> >> There's a compression/archiving package on the Mac call Stuffit. It > > <...> > >>from the US (or so I thought) so it can't be DES. Is it (down) on a level >>with the MS Word or Wordperfect ciphers, or is it a little better ? How >>far should I trust it ? > > Not at all. Take a look at: > > http://www.uccs.edu/~abusby/mac_u-g/RemoveIt.sit.bin > Ted -- Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I wasn't aware of any cracking program for Stuffit archives. If you know of any others, please let me know. I just finished trying this one, though. It doesn't work. Here's a some background on Stuffit archives: There have been three different formats for Stuffit files over the past 8 (has it really been 8?) years. 1) Version 1.5.1. The original 2) Version 2.0 Short lived. No longer used. 3) Version 3.0 The Current version. First shipped in 1992 (I think) The crack described at the above URL does not work for 1.5.1 archives. It also does not work for 3.0 archives. I don't have any 2.0 archives handy, but I will test them in the morning. It is possible that the cracking technique described at the above URL will work for 2.0 archives. However, none of Aladdin's shipping software will generate 2.0 archives, and Aladdin supplies a (free) converter from 1.5.1 and 2.0 archives to 3.0 archives. (They get smaller when converted, too!) -- Marshall Aladdin Systems, maker of Stuffit Deluxe, etc. Disclaimer: There is no way that this could possibly be considered an official statement of Aladdin Systems. Marshall Clow Aladdin Systems mclow(a)coyote.csusm.edu Warning: Objects in calendar are closer than they appear.

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Re: Quick commercial package question
by Marshall Clow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Somebody who might be "Jonathon Fletcher" <jonathon(a)doemail.sbi.com> said: > > There's a compression/archiving package on the Mac call Stuffit. > > Question is - does anyone know anything about the strength or >trustability of the encryption algorithm used ? It's freely exportable >from the US (or so I thought) so it can't be DES. Is it (down) on a level >with the MS Word or Wordperfect ciphers, or is it a little better ? How >far should I trust it ? > Well, that's an interesting question. On one hand, it's a proprietary encryption algorithm, written by a bright 17 year old. On the other hand, there have been no reported cracks, no "decrypt your encrypted archives" programs like there are for MS Word, or WordPerfect. (Maybe it's hard, maybe no one cares.) [ Late breaking news: "t byfield" reported one; it appears not to work. ] On the gripping hand, there was no trouble getting export approval. Many people/companies put encrypted Stuffit archives up for anonymous ftp. (Beta versions of executables, etc) How far should you trust it? That's up to you. -- Marshall Aladdin Systems, maker of Stuffit Deluxe, etc. Disclaimer: There is no way that this can be considered an official statement of Aladdin Systems. Marshall Clow Aladdin Systems mclow(a)coyote.csusm.edu Warning: Objects in calendar are closer than they appear.

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Re: CJR returned to sender
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:13 PM 10/24/95 -0700, you wrote: > I got the CJR back today, envelope unopened (although the corner was >torn so you could see there were t-shirts inside). "Returned to sender", >it said, "Refused___, Unclaimed___". > > Did I do something wrong, or did the Dept. of State decide it >didn't want to deal with this CJR? That is what you get for warning people in advance! (I would say that they "skirted" the issue, but that is not a-dress-ed here...) Maybe they read the list and knew what you were up to. Why else would they refuse free t-shirts? (Or maybe they had already talked with Netscape that week...) ];> | 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: Quick commercial package question
by tbyfield＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Marshall Clow wrote not-on-behalf-of-Aladdin-Systems: >I just finished trying this one, though. It doesn't work. That's not really surprising, since the "version controls" on cracks are dubious to say the least; whether it's just bogus, a mangled version, or whatever, is anyone's guess. There are probably others around, maybe just as effective; if I run across any more, I'll forward them to you. >Disclaimer: There is no way that this could possibly be considered an >official statement of Aladdin Systems. <heh heh> Ted

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Re: CJR returned to sender
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:13 AM 10/25/95, Raph Levien wrote: > I got the CJR back today, envelope unopened (although the corner was >torn so you could see there were t-shirts inside). "Returned to sender", >it said, "Refused___, Unclaimed___". > > The address on the envelope reads: > >ATTN: Samuel L. Capino - 15 day CJR >Defense Trade Analyst >U.S. Dept. of State >Office of Defense Trade Controls >PM/DTC SA-6 Room 200 >1701 N. Fort Meyer Drive >Arlington, CA 22209-3113 > > Did I do something wrong, or did the Dept. of State decide it >didn't want to deal with this CJR? Raph, I mean no offense, but if _any_ request is ever to be deemed "frivolous," surely submitting a CJR for t-shirts is such a request. I won't belabor the point that the t-shirt is _at best_ comparable to a book, which generally needs no CJR (*), and _at worst_ is an illegible, confusing "work of art." (I personally am miffed at the imprecision of the "This shirt has been declared to be a munition"--or whatever, as I don't have one handy to check--and the language of the sales advertisements.) So the little joke was returned unopened. Not surprising. No offense intended to all those who think a CJR for a t-shirt is a worthy cause, but I think it's a pointless diversion. (* Hal Abelson of MIT says there are possible export problems with the MIT Press book on PGP, and MIT dropped plans for a version in a special OCR font. So, I agree that _some_ books cross the line and look like pure software. However, I continue to maintain that a badly-printed barcode is just a joke, nothing more.) --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: MD5 weakness ? [was Re: Netscape Log
by agermain＠cmp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have unsubscribed from this mailing list. Please remove my name from your personal address lists. Thanks. ahg3 ---------- From: hallam[SMTP:hallam@w3.org] Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 1995 1:14 PM To: Dr. Frederick B. Cohen; cypherpunks Cc: hallam Subject: Re: MD5 weakness ? [was Re: Netscape Logic Bomb detailed by IETF] Precedence: bulk >As to weaknesses, I seem to remember that someone managed to forge a >modification to a program used to observe networks on a Sun so that it >had the same MD5 checksum as the official trusted version. But whether >this is real is not strictly the issue. Ron has not mentioned such an event to me and if that were the case I would seriously doubt that he would not have been told about it. The only comment he generally makes is that he wrote MD5 because "MD4 was making me nervous". >In the case of the trust being placed in MD5 by Netscape, the assumption >being made (without adequate support as far as I can tell) is that an >MD5 checksum cannot be forced, through a chosen plaintext attack, to Netscape do not simply use the MD5 of the message, they are using (as I understand it) the PKCS#1 standard for makoing the signature. If not they probably have severe problems. >There has been no limit given by anyone on this list to the level of >trust they place in MD5. Several people have posted (without >contention) that MD5 is sufficiently trustworthy to trust billions of >dollars in commerce to it's being able to prevent a selected plaintext >attack as eluded to above. NIST and the NSA trusted MD4 sufficiently to base SHA upon it. SHA is preferable in many ways to MD5, it has a different approach to extending the scheduling and resist differential cryptanalysis. There is a problem with the compressor function of MD5 which I dislike. This is fairly irrelevant though since SSL allows other digests to be used. Phill

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IT View of Worldwide Electronic Commerce Conference
by guthery＠austin.sar.slb.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert Hettinga wonders ... >Did anyone go to the > >"Worldwide Electronic Commerce Law, Policy, Security and Controls Conference" ? > >It was in Bethesda October 18 - 20. > >Just curious. Sponsored by a lot of Big Cheese (ABA, HLS, NIST, UNCITL, >SPA, ETC, ETC, ETC). I did and here's a view from IT; i.e. not law or marketing. The conference was two-track so by definition I only attended 1/2 the sessions. The high points ... - the Web will support commerce next year from modest (multi-$1,000) down to micro (sub-penny) transactions - the U.S. Government is trying to trade 64-bit keys for escrow but folks aren't buying it; Dorthy Denning gave a very weak "the sky is falling" talk. - Intel is building systems and secure infrastructure software; Microsoft may start to feel trapped between Intel and Netscape. - current copyright law seems up to the task of handling the Web but contract law may need some updating - iris scanning seems to be the leading biometric; there is a PCMCIA card that does fingerprints including pores which I learned are better than ridges for identification - nobody had any insight on transnational data flow, encrypted or otherwise - Verisign (a spin-off of RSA) is selling Digital IDs and running a Certification Authority; see http://www.verisign.com - the Swedes have a very aggressive Digital ID system on the air; see http://www.cost.se - X.509 seems to be the de facto and de jure certificate standard; current work is at ftp://NC-17.MA02.Bull.com in /pub/OSIdirectory/Certificates - RSA for encryption and DSA for signatures were the encryption technologies of preference; PGP was occassionally acknowledged to be one of the best available but strangely went undiscussed. Good quote: "Commercial DES (for export) with 40 bit keys is a joke. Don't even think about it." - other relevant URLs: www.ms.com www.terisa.com www.ssa.gov Most of the security focus of the conference was on authentication.

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Re: Anonymity: A Modest Proposal
by edgar＠highnrg.sbay.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Herb Sutter comments on Modemac's proposal, At 04:58 10.18.1995 -0700, Modemac wrote: > 1) A person writes a message and encrypts it with PGP. Using a set public key? Which would mean the remailers all share the same pub/pri key pair (or pieces thereof)? You'll have to come up with a good way of maintaining this secret, since if you're not careful it could be compromised by something as simple as an attacker's trying to attach a new remailer to the remailer group or physically attack any existing remailer. But using a shared key isn't necessary. Each remailer can have it's own key. The message can be encrypted using PGP's function of encrypting with multiple public keys. PGP versions 2.63ui and 2.6.3i, now under development, will even have the ability to encrypt to a whole -file- of keys, one key per line. Message senders can use all the scanning remailer keys, or some subset. Scanners will either skip over or forward msgs they can't decrypt. Also keep in mind that under this first layer of encryption is just the address of another remailer, which could, in turn, either forward to another remailer, or back to the anon newsgroup. --- edgar(a)HighNRG.sbay.org Keep Freestyle Alive!

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Re: IT View of Worldwide Electronic Commerce Conference
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:20 AM 10/25/95, guthery(a)austin.sar.slb.com wrote: >I did and here's a view from IT; i.e. not law or marketing. The conference >was two-track so by definition I only attended 1/2 the sessions. I *love* this place! Thanks, very much. 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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