December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

e-mail forwarding, for-pay remailers
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't have much faith that the people who are currently doing the DNS for my domain name (goldenbear.com) are going to do anything about the current bouncing-messages phenomenon anytime soon, so I'm looking into other ways to get & send E-mail (e.g., more persistent than this address which will disappear when I'm done with school in ~ 6 months). I've found a few services which may be of interest to C-punks because they're useful for creating/maintaining persistent cyberspace identities with no necessary connection to a "real name". I'm not listing the alpha-style alias servers because they depend on underlying remailers which I think makes them likely to be slower & less reliable; also, they won't store E-mail for you, such that you could connect every day or two or [...] to pick it up. I'm also ignoring the zillions of ISP's because I think that the market is separating (or ought to) into service/storage providers and connectivity providers. My hunch is that in the next year or so it's going to become easy to get nationwide dialups for IP connectivity the way it was done for X.25 10 years ago, so you won't care *where* you are, you'll be able to get an IP connection back to the folks that hold your mail, and you won't give a shit where *they* are. Then again, if the Exon stuff passes, I suspect that all we'll be left with in the US are service providers who deal with us at the level of IP packets and get (quasi-)common carrier status, acting just like Sprintnet/Tymnet/Telenet/CPN, but with IP not X.25. We'll all connect to offshore providers to pick up our E-mail and read our newsgroups, the control freaks will hate it, and we won't care. netbox.com ( http://www.netbox.com ) provides web pages and E-mail storage or forwarding for people; they let you sign up for a trial month for free. They ask for name/address/phone (which could easily be a Mailboxes Etc address and a voicemail from Mailboxes Etc or whatever) and accept payment by check or credit card. They'll store incoming email or forward it to another account. They'll do header rewriting (similar to the anonymous remailers) so that outgoing mail looks like it came from this address. thebook.com ( http://www.thebook.com ) provides web pages and E-mail storage or forwarding or E-mail -> FAX conversion, and also let you sign up for a free month to try things out. They also ask for name/address/phone. You can send incoming Emails to different places depending on wildcard-based filter criteria. The ACM ( http://www.acm.org ) provides e-mail forwarding and web pages to ACM members ($25 for students or ~$80 for professionals) for ~ $25/year. Hiway Technologies ( http://www.hway.com ) provides web pages and will accept/forward mail sent to your own domain name for pretty cheap. I'm planning to make a wee FAQ on this for my home page, please send along comments re these folks or suggestions about others. -- "The anchored mind screwed into me by the psycho- Greg Broiles lubricious thrust of heaven is the one that thinks every temptation, every desire, every inhibition." greg(a)goldenbear.com -- Antonin Artaud gbroiles(a)darkwing.uoregon.edu

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Re: Usability of Cryptography (was Re: More FUD from First Virtual)
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:06 PM 12/11/95 -0700, Bryce wrote: > To get to the point, I want to know if this "fundamental > tradeoff" that you refer to is in fact *fundamental*. That is > to say: is the product of the "security factor" and the > "usability factor" a constant? Or are there methods which can > be practically implemented to make strong cryptography easier > for Joe Average to use without exposing Joe to unnecessary > risks? Web of trust is a mess because it attempts to link keys to physical people, which in general cannot be done. If we stick to a lesser goal -- constancy of identity -- this is not so hard. In general it is impossible to prove that Bryce is the "real" Bryce, but it is trivial to prove that Bryce is the same Bryce who has a certain Web page, and the same Bryce who posted a certain article in archives. We should blow off this attempt to do the impossible. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: Clinton's Pager Hacked (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: "Attila T. Hun" <attila(a)hun.org> > Date: Sat, 20 Sep 97 04:57:57 +0000 > Subject: Re: Clinton's Pager Hacked > THIS is precisely why the government fears encrytion! They simply do > not understand it; they do NOT want to understand it, and like all > other problems of government, they want to make it illegal and sweep > it under the carpet which will make it go away! yeah, right.... Attilla, This without a doubt is the most brain-dead thing I have ever read from you. Of course governments understand encryption, they only been using it what - 5,000 years or so... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Timing Cryptanalysis Attack
by Armadillo Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Simon Spero <ses(a)tipper.oit.unc.edu> writes: >My gut & scribble-on-the-back-of-a-napkin feeling about this class of >attack is that it could be a problem for smartcards (almost certainly) Is it a problem to create smartcards that do their calculations in fixed time? I'd guess it should be easier than on multi-purpose hardware. Does the attack work for existing smartcards?

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SmartGate
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This looks like they're using Diffie-Hellman. Does anyone know anything further? -Allen --------------------------- > Reuters New Media _ Tuesday December 12 6:33 AM EST _ V-One Unveils Internet Security Technology ROCKVILLE, Md. (Reuter) - V-One Corp. says it has introduced security technology called SmartGate that enables companies to build a secure system to conduct transactions on the Internet computer network. SmartGate is transaction-based software that uses encryption to ensure protection over an open network, the privately held company said Monday. Encryption scrambles the data and in the SmartGate system, a key to decode the data is generated that is unique to a specific transaction session. V-One, which stands for Virtual Open Network Environment, said SmartGate is available now directly from the Rockville, Md.-based company. It said SmartGate can be purchased in either a hardware-software or software-only form. The SmartGate server retails for $9,995 and the software-only version is $4,995. A server is computer that manages the flow of data in a network. SmartGate licenses are priced at $79, with reductions offered for volume purchases.

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Re: Blinding against Kocher's timing attacks
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: ljo(a)ausys.se (Johansson Lars) > Does anyone know whether David Chaum's patent on > blind digital signatures extends to this application? I don't think it would. Chaum's blinding protocol has one major difference: the blinding factor is applied by a different person than the one doing the signing. The purpose of the blinding is different, too; in Chaum's case the idea is to end up with a signature which is unknown to the signer, while with Kocher's "defensive blinding" the signature (or decryption) is an ordinary RSA one, and the blinding is just done internally by the signer to randomize the timing. (I gather BTW that the idea of the blinding is for the server to have pre-chosen a random r and pre-calculated r^d mod n, and then when he is given c to decrypt he first does c*r mod n and then decrypts this, then takes the result and divides by r^d.) It's conceivable that Kocher's blinding would be a patentable technique in itself, and not impossible that he has already applied for a patent before publishing. Probably he would have said so if that were his intention, though. Hal "Blind defensively - watch out for the other guy..."

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Re: NT Password Security Update. Registry values changed!
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Ted Cabeen wrote: > > > Well, I did some more research into the NT password security issue and I > > discovered that I can get access to the Security section of the registry > How did you do that? The SECURITY section is always greyed out and the > operating system will not allow you to change the permissions on it. > If you did indeed gain access to that area then you've probably found a > flaw in the tamperproof capabilities of NT. > - Andy Andy, do you have Administrator privs on your NT system? I too seem to have full access to all registry entries, including all under Security. M$ may have some hidden areas in the registry (security by obscurity), but I can't see anything that says 'sorry, you can't look here'. Speaking for myself. Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation http://www.process.com trei(a)process.com

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Re: e-Cash: CAFE vs. Mondex
by Matthias Schunter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:46 Uhr 13.12.1995, Adam Shostack wrote: >Matthias Schunter wrote: > >| The CAFE system is a cheque based system. This means that the >| customer receives an electronic chequebook, where each cheque is >| (blindly) signed by the bank. >| During each payment the customer has to use one of these signed cheques. > >| privacy-protecting >| The privacy of the user is protected. > > How do checks protect the privacy of the user? The bank >knows who is spending how much with whom for each check. No. The cheques are certified blindly. I.e., the bank does not see them during signing/withdrawal and therefore doe not re-recognize them. However, the bank does know how much money each participant receives or spends, but not who's paying whom. m % Matthias <Schunter(a)acm.org> Uni Hildesheim +49(5121)883-788 fax-732

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Re: Timing Cryptanalysis Attack
by Mark Twain Ecash Support 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:39 AM 12/13/95 -0500, you wrote: >Armadillo Remailer wrote: > >| >My gut & scribble-on-the-back-of-a-napkin feeling about this class of >| >attack is that it could be a problem for smartcards (almost certainly) >| >| Is it a problem to create smartcards that do their calculations in >| fixed time? I'd guess it should be easier than on multi-purpose >| hardware. > > Not if the fixed time is in weeks. > > If you read the Crypto proceedings, you'll find a number of >papers on using an (untrusted) CPU, such as that in a cash machine, to >aid a smartcard. This is because the CPUs in smartcards are very >slow. DigiCash has been aware of the timing problem for years. Especially as it relates to smartcards, for which you can get timings down to the clock cycle. Cosequently, both DigiCash's smartcards and DigiCash's Ecash use fixed timings. --Lucky at work --Mark Twain Bank Ecash Support Ecash. The secure Internet payment system that protects your privacy. <http://www.marktwain.com/ecash.html>

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Re: Timing Cryptanalysis Attack
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:30 12/13/95 -0500, Josh M. Osborne wrote: >In message <199512120056.QAA16055(a)mage.qualcomm.com>, Peter Monta writes: >>> Of course, this works against a remote adversary, but not against one >>> on the same machine who can look at actual CPU consumption (which doesn't >>> increase when the target is blocked). >> >>Maybe this is a good reason to spinwait, rather than sleep, until >>the timer expires. It would be pretty subtle to distinguish that >>from "real" computation. > >Across a net it should be hard. On the same CPU it may be easy. Some >CPUs with hardware branch prediction keep track of how many branches were >correctly and incorrectly predected. These registers are not allways >protected, and not allways "made virtual" by the OS. Of course you can spend the time doing exponentiation of random (pseudorandom would probably do) numbers, and when the timer pops, longjump out to return your answer. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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