December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Welcome to cypherpunks
by patrick＠Verity.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Why am I getting this when I am already subscribed to the list?????? > Because someone signed the list up to the list...probably inadvertently. They probably sent something to majordomo with a line like: subscribe cypherpunks cypherpunks(a)toad.com thinking it actually made sense for some reason...then again they might have done it on purpose. Patrick _______________________________________________________________________ / These opinions are mine, and not Verity's (except by coincidence;). \ | (\ | | Patrick J. Horgan Verity Inc. \\ Have | | patrick(a)verity.com 1550 Plymouth Street \\ _ Sword | | Phone : (415)960-7600 Mountain View \\/ Will | | FAX : (415)960-7750 California 94303 _/\\ Travel | \___________________________________________________________\)__________/

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E-mail Spy
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Wall Street Journal, October 25, 1995. A '90s Espionage Tale Stars Software Rivals, E-Mail Spy By Glenn Simpson Technothriller novelist Tom Clancy might have a hard time dreaming this one up. In a computer-age case of spy vs. spy, a small software firm is claiming to have uncovered an industrial espionage attempt by a much larger competitor by using a controversial e-mail program. Court documents and interviews tell a tale of intrigue, deception and twist upon twist. Not to mention the alleged involvement of a mysterious "classified government agency." The protagonist is Performix Inc., a closely held eight-year-old firm in McLean, Va., that has carved out a significant niche for itself producing Empower, a software program used for "load testing," which measures the ability of a software program to serve many users simultaneously. Every major computer manufacturer now uses Empower. Enter Mercury Interactive Corp., a $300 million publicly traded California firm that also is in the business of selling software-testing products and produces competing software called Load Runner. In June 1995, a senior Mercury Interactive official, Graham Burnette, allegedly wrote to Performix inquiring about a possible corporate alliance to develop load-testing software. Performix spurned the offer. Around the same time, a Virginia businessman named Joel Dietrich, president of an obscure company called Styx Systems, approached Performix asking to try out a version of Empower known as Empower/CS on behalf of an anonymous client. According to Performix, Mr. Dietrich said he couldn't identify the client because it was a federal government intelligence agency. On June 16 Performix granted Mr. Dietrich and Styx a short-term license to use Empower/CS. At 1:55 a.m. on Saturday, July 29, Performix received a most curious e-mail message over the Internet. The message indicated that someone who wasn't authorized to do so was trying to install Empower/CS on a large computer and examine its "source codes" -- the software's secret programming language. A feature Performix had embedded in Empower/CS automatically causes an e-mail alert to be sent to Performix whenever there are indications the software is being used improperly. The e-mail indicated the address from which it had been sent: "merc-int.com." This is the registered Internet address of Mercury Interactive. The e-mail also gave the name of the network on which someone was installing the copy of Empower/CS: "testrun.mercury." The license number of the software apparently now in Mercury Interactive's hands, the e-mail further indicated, was the license number of the copy that had been leased to Styx. While Mercury Interactive and Mr. Dietrich have disavowed any knowledge of a possible software transfer, Mercury Interactive's Mr. Burnette acknowledged in an interview that Mr. Dietrich's daughter and son-in-law work for Mercury Interactive. In mid-August, in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., Performix sued Mercury Interactive, Styx and Dietrich, alleging copyright infringement, fraud, conversion, unfair competition, breach of contract and unjust enrichment. Performix alleges Mercury Interactive "acquired Empower/CS so that it could unlawfully, willfully and maliciously copy, use and/or reverse engineer Empower/CS for the purpose of improving the performance and features of existing Mercury Interactive products in an attempt to gain significant economic advantage." Mercury Interactive hasn't yet formally responded to the allegations, but Mr. Burnette denied any wrongdoing by the company. "Mercury Interactive has a very strong policy against industrial espionage," he said. "We don't do it." Mr. Dietrich's response filed with the court has raised some eyebrows. While claiming no knowledge of any transfer to Mercury, he hasn't backed away from his claim to be working for the federal government. Indeed, Mr. Dietrich is asserting that he is immune from the suit because he was acting as an agent of the U.S. government. He claims in court papers that he obtained the software on behalf of "a classified government agency." None of the parties to the case who were willing to be interviewed said they knew the identity of the agency, and Mr. Dietrich didn't respond to interview requests. However, Mr. Burnette of Mercury Interactive said: "I know that Mr. Dietrich works as a contractor for a government agency. I know it's a secret government agency, but I don't know what it is." Officials of both Mercury Interactive and Performix said the two firms have reached a tentative settlement, although they disagree on what it contains. "Everything Performix needed from a business perspective they received, including the ability to review Mercury Interactive product releases," said Performix attorney Nelson Blitz. In addition, "money will be paid to Performix under this agreement in principle." But Mr. Burnette asserted that no money would change hands. The penultimate turn: Mr. Burnette claims that Performix is eager to settle the case because it has a problem of its own. He contends that it is illegal to secretly embed in commercial software code a program that causes the customer's computer to send out e-mail. Mr. Blitz of Performix denied there was anything legally questionable about the practice and said Mercury Interactive never raised that issue in settlement negotiations. He also said the feature isn't intended to be a spycatcher. Rather, he said, it is meant solely to help clients who are improperly installing the product by alerting Performix that they need help. Empower's documentation informs customers of the feature, he added. James Haggard, president of Vasco Data Security Inc., said the purpose of such programs is ambiguous, and it would be hard to rebut Performix's claim that the feature is merely meant to serve the customer. He noted that Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows 95 software contains a program that can send Microsoft a report on the software products being used by those who sign up for its on-line service albeit only with the users' permission. While critics label it a means of economic snooping, the company says the program simply helps it assist customers. "The concept of a program calling home of its own accord" is controversial in the computer industry, said computer security expert Samuel Bellovin of Bell Labs. "People tend to get very upset when it happens," he said, because it can look as if the software maker is spying on them. The final twist: Performix last week agreed to be acquired by Pure Software Inc., a publicly held firm as large as Mercury Interactive-which now will be up against someone its own size. ----- [How many CompSecExp S. Bellovins o'BellLabs?]

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Your Majordomo request results
by Majordomo＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-- Your request of Majordomo was: >>>> subscribe cypherpunks cypher(a)infinity.nus.sg Succeeded. Your request of Majordomo was: >>>> end END OF COMMANDS

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Welcome to cypherpunks
by Majordomo＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-- Welcome to the cypherpunks mailing list! If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list, you can send mail to "Majordomo(a)toad.com" with the following command in the body of your email message: unsubscribe cypherpunks cypher(a)infinity.nus.sg Here's the general information for the list you've subscribed to, in case you don't already have it: About cypherpunks ----------------- I. Administrivia (please read, boring though it may be) The cypherpunks list is a forum for discussing personal defenses for privacy in the digital domain. It is a high volume mailing list. If you don't know how to do something, like unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo(a)toad.com and the software robot which answers that address will send you back instructions on how to do what you want. If you don't know the majordomo syntax, an empty message to this address will get you a help file, as will a command 'help' in the body. Even with all this automated help, you may still encounter problems. If you get really stuck, please feel free to contact me directly at the address I use for mailing list management: cypherpunks-owner(a)toad.com Please use this address for all mailing list management issues. Hint: if you try to unsubscribe yourself from a different account than you signed up for, it likely won't work. Log back into your old account and try again. If you no longer have access to that account, mail me at the list management address above. For other questions, my list management address is not the best place, since I don't read it every day. To reach me otherwise, send mail to eric(a)remailer.net This address is appropriate for emergencies (and wanting to get off the list is never an emergency), such as the list continuously spewing articles. Please don't send me mail to my regular mailbox asking to be removed; I'll just send you back a form letter. Do not mail to the whole list asking to be removed. It's rude. The -request address is made exactly for this purpose. To post to the whole list, send mail to cypherpunks(a)toad.com If your mail bounces repeatedly, you will be removed from the list. Nothing personal, but I have to look at all the bounce messages. There is no digest version available. There is an announcements list which is moderated and has low volume. Announcements for physical cypherpunks meetings, new software and important developments will be posted there. Mail to cypherpunks-announce-request(a)toad.com if you want to be added or removed to the announce list. All announcements also go out to the full cypherpunks list, so there is no need to subscribe to both. II. About cypherpunks The cypherpunks list is not designed for beginners, although they are welcome. If you are totally new to crypto, please get and read the crypto FAQ referenced below. This document is a good introduction, although not short. Crypto is a subtle field and a good understanding will not come without some study. Please, as a courtesy to all, do some reading to make sure that your question is not already frequently asked. There are other forums to use on the subject of cryptography. The Usenet group sci.crypt deals with technical cryptography; cypherpunks deals with technical details but slants the discussion toward their social implications. The Usenet group talk.politics.crypto, as is says, is for political theorizing, and cypherpunks gets its share of that, but cypherpunks is all pro-crypto; the debates on this list are about how to best get crypto out there. The Usenet group alt.security.pgp is a pgp-specific group, and questions about pgp as such are likely better asked there than here. Ditto for alt.security.ripem. The cypherpunks list has its very own net.loon, a fellow named L. Detweiler. The history is too long for here, but he thinks that cypherpunks are evil incarnate. If you see a densely worded rant featuring characteristic words such as "medusa", "pseudospoofing", "treachery", "poison", or "black lies", it's probably him, no matter what the From: line says. The policy is to ignore these postings. Replies have never, ever, not even once resulted in anything constructive and usually create huge flamewars on the list. Please, please, don't feed the animals. III. Resources. A. The sci.crypt FAQ anonymous ftp to rtfm.mit.edu:pub/usenet-by-group/sci.crypt The cryptography FAQ is good online intro to crypto. Very much worth reading. Last I looked, it was in ten parts. B. cypherpunks ftp site anonymous ftp to ftp.csua.berkeley.edu:pub/cypherpunks This site contains code, information, rants, and other miscellany. There is a glossary there that all new members should download and read. Also recommended for all users are Hal Finney's instructions on how to use the anonymous remailer system; the remailer sources are there for the perl-literate. C. Bruce Schneier's _Applied Cryptography_, published by Wiley This is required reading for any serious technical cypherpunk. An excellent overview of the field, it describes many of the basic algorithms and protocols with their mathematical descriptions. Some of the stuff at the edges of the scope of the book is a little incomplete, so short descriptions in here should lead to library research for the latest papers, or to the list for the current thinking. All in all, a solid and valuable book. It's even got the cypherpunks-request address. IV. Famous last words My preferred email address for list maintenance topics only is hughes(a)toad.com. All other mail, including emergency mail, should go to hughes(a)ah.com, where I read mail much more regularly. Enjoy and deploy. Eric ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there were more of it. Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want privacy must create it for themselves and not expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence. Cypherpunks know that people have been creating their own privacy for centuries with whispers, envelopes, closed doors, and couriers. Cypherpunks do not seek to prevent other people from speaking about their experiences or their opinions. The most important means to the defense of privacy is encryption. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy. But to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Cypherpunks hope that all people desiring privacy will learn how best to defend it. Cypherpunks are therefore devoted to cryptography. Cypherpunks wish to learn about it, to teach it, to implement it, and to make more of it. Cypherpunks know that cryptographic protocols make social structures. Cypherpunks know how to attack a system and how to defend it. Cypherpunks know just how hard it is to make good cryptosystems. Cypherpunks love to practice. They love to play with public key cryptography. They love to play with anonymous and pseudonymous mail forwarding and delivery. They love to play with DC-nets. They love to play with secure communications of all kinds. Cypherpunks write code. They know that someone has to write code to defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're going to write it. Cypherpunks publish their code so that their fellow cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Cypherpunks realize that security is not built in a day and are patient with incremental progress. Cypherpunks don't care if you don't like the software they write. Cypherpunks know that software can't be destroyed. Cypherpunks know that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down. Cypherpunks will make the networks safe for privacy. [Last updated Mon Feb 21 13:18:25 1994]

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

17 Dec '03

>Lance Cottrell writes: >> If all nym servers were standardized to run from the same account name >> (nymserve for example) the remailers could be configured to only deliver >> final hops to addresses with that username. > >A detail I missed before: the remailers used in pseudonym reply blocks must >somehow deliver replies to the True Name (verinymous ?) address of the holder >of the pseudonym. I suppose they could all finally be routed to the >pseudonymizer, which would deliver the messages directly to the intended >recipient (holder of the pseudonym). > >-Futplex <futplex(a)pseudonym.com> They could also end up getting dumped in a message pool. Perhaps all (or most) nym servers could operate mailing list message pools. Anyone could subscribe to the pool, and any nym could have its mail directed to that pool. It should not be too difficult to rig a procmail script to try to decrypt all mail from that list, and deliver those that could be decrypted. -Lance ---------------------------------------------------------- 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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[Noise] Paranoia in the Comics
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This has no real crypto relevence, but some anarchistic relevence. Sometimes you find anti-government paranoia in the strangest of places... In the Ziggy strip for 10/25/95, Ziggy is in a Psychiatrist's office. The shrink is stating "You're afraid of the government, are you? I'm required to report that sort of thing you know." You can tell the state of distrust of the state when you see such things in a generally bland and spineless strip like Ziggy. What next? Little Billy from Family Circus bringing home a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook? Charlie Brown getting his phone tapped by Louie Freeh? Garfield joining the EFF? The mind boggles... | 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: DigiCash
by szabo＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Darren New: > If I give you a dollar for an online newspaper and the > newspaper never gets to me, or I give you $50 for a textbook and the > textbook never shows up in the mail weeks later, who do I go to to get my > money back? This is a bad-case scenario, since it involves long delay and delivery of goods that, unlike information, have a nontrivial marginal cost to the merchant. These both give the merchant incentive to skip the delivery step. For this kind of business, there are several possibilities, none of which is mature enough to have actually been deployed yet (which is why ecash is currently aimed at small, immediately delivered goods and services). * Escrow services, which take responsibility for delivery each way (and develop a public reputation for reliably doing this). This has the value that it still allows the parties to be mutually anonymous (although additional tools are needed to actually have strongly anonymous connections, the payment/delivery protocol doesn't preclude it). * Ripped bill protocols might be able to substitute for escrows. (these are quite esoteric, but can again be hidden behind a nice metaphor). * Deal only with a jurisdictionally reachable merchant and hope the law is on your side (often not an available solution on the global Internet, but usually assumed by identified payment schemes, so it's a reasonable fallback from that point of view). For smaller transactions with rapid delivery times, complaining loudly and publicly on Usenet will soon put the business out of it. Receipts will give such complaints more credibility, and will also allow the clearing agent to credibly get involved. (Obviously in these cases anonymity is lost for a particular transaction, but unlinkability with one's unchallenged transactions remains). Finally, in a few markets the value add of confidentiality is enough to outweigh the risks for even large transactions. Nick Szabo szabo(a)netcom.com

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RE: Hash collisions [was Re: MD5 weaknes
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: Matt Blaze[SMTP:mab@crypto.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 1995 3:02 PM To: hallam Cc: cypherpunks Subject: Hash collisions [was Re: MD5 weakness ? ...] > >>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 preferab le >in many ways to MD5, it has a different approach to extending the scheduling a nd >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 I hesitate to jump in to this exchange given the defensive and vague nature of the discussion, but... While I agree that SHA seems preferable, for a number of reasons, to MD5, it is worth noting that Hans Dobbertin of the German Information Security Agency recently found a collision in MD4. His attack allows you to generate a pair of plainexts that generate the same hash. A fast technique for finding a second plaintext that hashes to some given value remains an open problem with MD4 (and SHA and MD5, for that matter). As far as I can tell the attack does not readily generalize to MD5 or SHA. -matt

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symmetric key algorithms
by Goh Seow Hiong 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Could anyone comment on the acceptability and reliability of the SAFER algorithm, in comparison with other algorithms such as IDEA, Triple-DES, DES, RC4, .... Has there been any comparison paper written on the pros and cons of the different symmetric key algorithms? Thanks.. SH

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Re: Mandatory ID in California?
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:45 AM 10/25/95 -0700, Ian Goldberg wrote: >"The officer, in accordance with police policy, arrested Burton >for refusing to properly identify himself." ><snip> > >That last sentence seemed ominous to me... This has been chatted about for years. Under California law, failure to identify yourself is a minor violation. They always dismiss the next day at your hearing. You don't have to carry ID, you just have to identify yourself (there's a difference). "my name Jose Jimenez." You still don't need ID unless you are operating a motor vehicle on public streets and roads (or maybe catching a plane). DCF "The average seasoned citizen pays a higher percentage of his income for medical expenses today than he did in 1964 before the passage of Medicaid."

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