December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Whitehouse PROFS email privacy case
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

this was a hot subject a long time ago on the list, here's a book with the scoop ------- Forwarded Message From: Phil Agre <pagre(a)weber.ucsd.edu> To: rre(a)weber.ucsd.edu Subject: PROFS Case: Book on White House e-mail Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 12:50:49 -0500 (EST) From: Eddie Becker <ebecker(a)cni.org> Subject: PROFS Case: Book on White House e-mail NEW BOOK PROVIDES NARRATIVE ON PROFS CASE ALONG WITH REMARKABLE PRIMARY DOCUMENTS. Following Press Release 11/22/96 REVELATIONS FROM --WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL: THE TOP SECRET COMPUTER MESSAGES THE REAGAN/BUSH WHITE HOUSE TRIED TO DESTROY, Edited by Tom Blanton (New York: The New Press, 256 pp. plus 1.44 megabyte computer disk), distributed by W.W. Norton & Company. For more information, contact: Tom Blanton (o) 202/994-7000, (h) 301/718-6543, nsarchiv(a)gwis2.circ.gwu.edu SECRET SUPPORT FOR SADDAM HUSSEIN Top Reagan administration officials, including Colin Powell, presided over covert intelligence support to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, including targeting information on Iranian civilian infrastructure for Saddam's SCUD missiles. In secret e-mail messages, National Security Council staffer William Cockell recommended -- and Deputy National Security Adviser Alton Keel agreed -- they cover-up the assistance to Saddam, because "it is difficult to characterize this as defensive assistance." [pp. 36-41] Subsequently, while Powell served as Deputy National Security Adviser in 1987, the Reagan administration discussed a "shopping list" of pro-Iraq actions in order to "stiffen them up." [pp.235-237] HELPING NORIEGA "CLEAN UP HIS IMAGE" Three months after Seymour Hersh and The New York Times exposed Manuel Noriega's involvement in drugrunning and murder, Noriega approached the National Security Council staff with an offer to assassinate the Nicaraguan Sandinista leadership. Oliver North relayed the offer to his boss, National Security Adviser John Poindexter, writing that "you will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly good relationship." Poindexter replies, "I have nothing against him other than his illegal activities" and approves a North meeting with Noriega -- as does Secretary of State George Shultz. The bottom line? The White House agrees to help Noriega "clean up his image" in return for Panamanian sabotage operations against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. [pp. 23-25] THE WHITE HOUSE SENDS A COCAINE CONSPIRATOR TO CLUB FED Top Reagan administration officials from the White House, Pentagon, and Justice Department just said yes to a reduced prison sentence (in a minimum security facility) for a Honduran colonel and sometime CIA asset who was convicted of cocaine trafficking and conspiracy to assassinate the civilian president of Honduras, because otherwise the colonel might "start singing songs nobody wants to hear" about covert operations in Honduras. [pp. 42-48] SECRET DEALS WITH LOBBYISTS ON A CONTROVERSIAL CONGRESSIONAL VOTE The White House struck a secret deal with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in the spring of 1986 to avoid an AWACS-style all-out battle on a Saudi arms deal vote, and in return got AIPAC's help on foreign aid funding and on the Iran- contra scandal. But National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher warned, "whatever one may think of the jewish leadership, the 'masses' are rarely if ever swayed by what the rational, reasonable leaders say. instead, it is the israel right or wrong demagogues at the grassroots level that will try to take advantage of the leadership's pusillanimity." [pp. 150-157] HIDDEN FAILURES OF THE POLYGRAPH (PRECURSORS OF ALDRICH AMES) According to the National Security Council's top counterintelligence official in 1985, career FBI agent David Major, two out of the 48 individuals indicted, arrested and/or convicted of espionage against the U.S. in the years 1975-85, had successfully deceived the CIA's favorite screening tool, the polygraph (lie detector) -- a 4% error rate. (Aldrich Ames subsequently beat the polygraph twice.) [p.220] ROSS PEROT'S EGO RIDES AGAIN Ross Perot "sandbagged" the Reagan White House at a 1986 Congressional hearing on the POW-MIA issue, according to the lead White House staffer on the issue, Col. Richard Childress, who also wrote, "he has played into Hanoi's hands for his ego and doesn't even know it." [p. 162] MORE WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL STORIES * Then-Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin personally arranged with Oliver North for secret shipments of captured PLO weapons to Central America in September 1986, with the approval of the National Security Adviser. Rabin also commented, according to North's e-mail, "at some length about his low opinion of our intel service [CIA] - both in terms of coverts ops and intelligence collecting," and promised "no more Pollards." [pp. 119-122] * The regular breakfast meetings in the Reagan administration of the National Security Adviser, the Secretary of State (George Shultz), and the Secretary of Defense (Caspar Weinberger) often degenerated into what staffers called "slugfests." p. 193 * Contrary to claims in a recent autobiography, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane did not anticipate the collapse of the Soviet Union and craft U.S. policy accordingly to pressure the Soviets, rather, in his 1984 e-mail, McFarlane wrote "it will not change ideologically and therefore our task is to establish a basis for peaceful competition with them." p.189 * At the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Vice President George Bush proposed a "7-point peace plan" during a Middle East trip in 1986, only to have it shot down by White House and State Department opposition back in Washington. p. 200 * While serving as Deputy National Security Adviser to President Reagan in 1987, Colin Powell lived in an alarmed house at Fort McNair which "scared hell out of the family initially and then became amusing when the MPs assaulted the house every time the alarm misfired." p. 211 * White House staffers joked about CIA Director William Casey's renowned "mumbles," writing, "The last time he told Goldwater we were going to 'lay some mines in Nicaragua,' Goldwater thought he said we were going to 'pay some fines for some joggers.'" p. 214 END - ------- End of Forwarded Message ------- End of Forwarded Message

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San Diego Cpunks Physical Meeting
by Chris Claborne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

San Diego Area CPUNKS symposium Thursday, December 7, 1995 Invitation to all Cypherpunks to join the San Diego crowd at "The Mission Cafe & Coffee Shop". Get the latest update of Lance Cottrell's anonymous e-mail server, "mixmaster", exchange keys, and discuss other topical subjects. If you are in to what's happening on the list, encryption, privacy, The Mission is the pace to be. Don't forget to bring your public key fingerprint and forms of identification. If you can figure out how to get it on the back of a business card, that would be cool. Drop me a note if you plan to attend. Place: The Mission Cafe & Coffee Shop 3795 Mission Bl in Mission Beach. 488-9060 Time:1800 Their Directions: 8 west to Mission Beach Ingram Exit Take west mission bay drive Go right on Mission Blvd. On the corner of San Jose and mission blvd. It is located between roller coaster and Garnett. It's kind of 40s looking building... funky looking (their description, not mine) They serve stuff to eat, coffee stuff, and beer. See you there! New guy, bring your fingerprint. 2 -- C -- ... __o .. -\<, Chris.Claborne(a)SanDiegoCA.ATTGIS.Com ...(*)/(*). CI$: 76340.2422 http://bordeaux.sandiegoca.attgis.com/ PGP Pub Key fingerprint = A8 FA 55 92 23 20 72 69 52 AB 64 CC C7 D9 4F CA Avail on Pub Key server.

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break microsoft!!!
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

re: the recent message that windows 95 has weak password encryption due to a 32 bit random seed sent to RC4-- this seems like another EXCELLENT opportunity for some major cypherpunks press coverage and feather-in-the-cap accolades. remember, the last break of the Netscape RC4 algorithm (or was it MD5?) got front page NYT coverage and reverberated throughout the entire media. a "cypherpunk" accomplishing the same thing for Microsoft would potentially get *major* notice. I imagine a short .exe file that when run on the proper computer prints out passwords as it cracks them. this would get the attention of a LOT of people. I have the MS C++ compiler, and if someone could discuss the difficulty of writing this proposed "exe" file, the rough time required to break the keys, and other considerations (physical access to server computer required?) and maybe point to code pieces on the net (RC4 etc.) to pull it off, I might start the effort myself.

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Re: The future will be easy to use
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:30 PM 11/28/95 EST, Carl Ellison <cme(a)TIS.COM> wrote: >BTW -- PGP currently lacks a way for me to note, when I sign a key, how it >is that I trust that key (by personal meeting, by attribution, by message >association, ...). A signed attribute record would let me record that >information for myself as well as for others. That would be a useful feature, even if it's just an unstructured text file. There is a way to do it now, though it's inefficient and hokey - create multiple key-signing keys, with name fields indicating the attribute, sign them with your main key, and use the appropriate one of them to sign keys for people. For instance, I have a key named "Bill Stewart Unauthenticated Pseudonym Signing Key <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com>" which I use to sign keys of significantly lower trust than my normal key; you could do similar things for higher-quality certification. This does increase the depth of the web-of-trust required, which is less of a problem for low-trust keys than for keys you actually care about :-) #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0663 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281

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Code to brute-force PGP passphrase?
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have an old, forgotten PGP key for which I would like to issue a revocation certificate (or maybe I stole somebody else's with an identical name; who could tell?). I can put the key on a Mac, PC, or UNIX machine (various flavors). I think I have a pretty good idea what the middle of the passphrase contains, so I'd guess there are only about 2,000 possibilities to be explored. Anybody have code for any platform for cracking this? Alternatively, I could just give you the key and wait for the answer. - -rich -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMLzGmI3DXUbM57SdAQE8NAP9EKVkxVzsTPHQ0NcJJgU4aor8BQbjN2a5 OqNAkpeNoZOcn5NcqGBMjI6mVQbgVjnzDOdoDWngGmWbtruFcFjE1IM8iK/wScah Caqo7SuKQqUMXB8mAC5pVYmdavJrOX4WPcl6nT2MkJTvnJe7YgiCMWIdm+4XCPZ/ YybyYhWf7XA= =W5H8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: key for Alice as promised (not)
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>On Tue, 28 Nov 1995, Adam Hupp wrote: > >> >Can you imagine?? I'm simply not willing to fool myself into thinking >> >that I ahve security by posting a key and using PGP. >> >> Unless you can post some proof that PGP is insecure, stop insisting it is. > >Hold on a minute. Alice is, here, 100% correct. no, he isn't. He isn't even using a minimal effort to prevent spoofing, and he's blaming this on the fact that some particular piece of software (for example, PGP) isn't absolutely foolproof. >If I use PGP to read messages and there's a videocamera trained on the >keyboard, and other people have access to the machine, PGP is not >secure. Similarly, if PGP is on a computer which other people may use >without my supervision, they can monitor keystrokes, etc. and PGP is not >secure. True but irrelevant. This is especially true since the only purpose to signing messages to a public area is to prevent spoofing. If somebody does, indeed, figure out how to break (say) a 1024-bit PGP key and "Alice" gets spoofed, HE WILL KNOW because he will see a message with his signature that HE KNOWS he didn't send. At that point, he will at least be able to reduce the number of spoofed messages to 1 before he alerts us that there is a problem. We won't necessarily know who to believe, of course, but we will know that one of a number of this is probably true: 1 "Alice" is lying to us. (by far the most likely.) 2. Somebody actually has physical access to "Alice's" machine and is actively using it to spoof messages. 3. Somebody found out how to break 1024-bit PGP keys easily. (Very unlikely, of course.) >A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; Alice recognizes this, and >makes no claim that PGP itself is the weak link. But "Alice" resists using ANY chain at all!

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Response to ping re: CJR
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just got a message on my answering machine from Sam Capino. He said they are working on answer to my CJR. They had hoped to get it out by now, but were set back by "the furlough." I had called him about a week ago to check up on the status, but at the time only got his answering machine. Of course, the original 15 days have passed, but I'm perfectly willing to let that slide since I'm not completely sure that the CJR was submitted using exactly the right process. Just thought you'd like to know. Raph

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"Proprietary" internetworking protocols (was RE: The future will be easy to use )
by Pete Loshin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Perry E. Metzger writes: >attila writes: >>figures. I'll give ipsec and ipsec-dev a look. However, SUN does have >>the power to make something happen on the high-power workstations, and the >>fact they are making a portable package available in source code is >>farther than anyone else has gone. > >Unfortunately, an internetworking protocol used by only one vendor >gets nowhere. much other discussion ommitted... I hate to quibble, but past experience may demonstrate this to be inaccurate. In particular, and most relevantly: NFS (Sun) SSL (Netscape) Another internetworking protocol (IPX) gave Novell a good run. The point is that a working implementation goes a long way for people who want/need _something_ that works, NOW. Consider the relative merits/success of S-HTTP and SSL. ObCrypto: the POTP people are the Boston Internet Expo today and tomorrow, and they have their "technical guy" who is supposed to be answering questions. The nontechnical guy said they generate random numbers using randomness taken from the text of the messages being encrypted. -pl _Electronic Commerce_ (Charles River Media, available now) pete(a)loshin.com

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Question on modular exponents
by Usuario Acceso2 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi CP's: I'd be pleased if someone explained me this ASAP: How could I demonstrate that _ (g^a)^b (mod p) = g^{(a*b) mod q} mod p _ when g's order in Zp is q? The same question remains for adition. I have the feeling the demonstration must be similar. Best. Jaime

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Re: GOST for sale
by JMKELSEY＠delphi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 03:43:25 +0100 (MET) >From: Mats Bergstrom <asgaard(a)sos.sll.se> >Subject: GOST for sale >According to a short article in a Swedish newspaper (DN) >with the title 'Spy Code of KGB can make computers safe', >JETICO INC., located in Finland (Tammerfors), introduced >a new crypto system on the world market last week. It's >based on GOST, the Russian federal standard algorithm. >This product, called BestCrypt, is implemented at least >partly in hardware. Alledgedly it uses 'GOST 28147-89', >whatever that stands for. Hmmm. >GOST is probably very secure - a huge keyspace (256 bits) and >KGB would not have left a trapdoor for NSA to take advantage >of, would they? If this is the cipher I've seen, it's not overwhelmingly impressive, though it may be OK. I haven't ever made any serious attempt to attack it, and I don't know anyone else who has. Anyone have a reference? Basically, GOST is a balanced Feistel network (like DES), but its F-function is much simpler. Basically, F(X,K) = Rotate_Left(S(X+K),11), where S(t) denotes parallel application of eight 4:4 S-boxes. Depending on the implementation, these S-boxes' contents could be key-dependent and pseudorandom, or fixed. Unfortunately small random S-boxes are likely to have some weaknesses W.R.T. differential cryptanalysis. This can be true even when the S-boxes are secret and key-derived--see Biham and Birkyov's paper in Auscrypt '94 on a DES variant with variable S-boxes, for a quick discussion of this. And the security of this scheme is very much going to depend upon the S-boxes used. If the S-boxes are generated at (pseudo)random from the key, I'd expect there to be some pretty nasty weak key conditions that could occasionally come up. On the other hand, GOST is defined with 32 rounds, so it may be hard to find any useful differential or linear characteristics, even for relatively bad S-box choices, that have high enough probability to get through 29-31 rounds. And it has a 256-bit key, so even if someone determines some attack which recovers 160 bits of the key, there are still 96 bits of key left to provide security. The GOST key schedule is really simple, though it avoids the most obvious kind of related key attack. I wouldn't be surprised to see some interesting related key attacks be possible. This is interesting because there is also a hash function based on GOST--I'd be pretty reluctant to use this without a lot of analysis. >The newspaper article ends: > >'The Finnish entrepreneurs asseverate that their >Russian colleagues have never had anything to do >with the KGB.' I may be mistaken, but wasn't there some other internal organization in the USSR that did cryptography? >Mats Note: Please respond via e-mail as well as or instead of posting, as I get CP-LITE instead of the whole list. --John Kelsey, jmkelsey(a)delphi.com PGP 2.6 fingerprint = 4FE2 F421 100F BB0A 03D1 FE06 A435 7E36 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMLv0kkHx57Ag8goBAQFH3AP+JR1sEQCH0ANmNSDFhzpCZb4jn4uqq23v PjZfFOrYc9SrD1xn+3azqfHFpiHIubfWzZ8u1aNEf4erAErbQLPAUOLPv17zhn// 6UEVKX4GhPqoLfou+wO38rF2DwWdeCjuQm2GgxuFpw5b0D4M3V1mv5ocLOoOMq2N twdfxiMtO6Y= =BOER -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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