December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Community ConneXion & its new look
by sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Community ConneXion is in the process of upgrading its web presence and image. If you'd like to keep abreast of developments, check http://www.c2.org regularly-- most of the changes are in terms of focus & marketing angle, but new services should be appearing soon as well. -- sameer Voice: 510-601-9777 Network Administrator FAX: 510-601-9734 Community ConneXion: The NEXUS-Berkeley Dialin: 510-658-6376 http://www.c2.org (or login as "guest") sameer(a)c2.org

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ADMIN: How to find out if you have been culled from the list
by hugh＠ecotone.toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If I (or any software I write) remove a user from the <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> list the users entry now gets appended to the culled.users file. Since I was keeping a list anyway, I have set it up so that anyone can email/download the list of recently culled cypherpunks via majordomo. If you stop getting your CP drug for too long, before sending a note to the list(shame!) ask for this file to see if I culled you. If you forget how to get a file send a help message to <majordomo(a)toad.com>. Here is a quick (emacs) example of how to get the file: To: majordomo(a)toad.com --text follows this line-- get cypherpunks culled.users end and the file will show up soon. This is a very boring file (dates and email addresses). You might want to save this message away, so you will have it to reference if need be. Now, you get back to writing that great crypto/UI package! ||ugh Daniel Sometimes Postmaster Always Majordomo Potty Trainer <hugh(a)toad.com>

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Re: GAK/weak crypto rationale?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by futplex(a)pseudonym.com (Futplex) on Wed, 13 Sep 2:11 AM >Your paraphrase of Nelson's statement strikes me as >remarkable. Doesn't "we are not concerned with bad >people using crypto among themselves" run completely >counter to all the hyperbole about terrorists planning >OKC II with PGP ? Does anyone have an exact quotation >? At any rate, sign me up as a "bad person".... "Bad people" is my euphemism for Mr. Nelson's "terrorist" -- which brought snorts from the audience. Yes, his statement about not being concerned with crypto use among terrorists was surprising. On a verbatim transcript: Mr. Ed Roback of NIST, the KE meet director, said that a complete transcript of the proceedings will not be published, only a summary report at some point, and then, after the September 15 session, some version will appear in the Federal Register for public comment. The summary report should appear eventually at the NIST web site -- the CSSPAB site has reports for prior KE sessions in the annual reports. See <http://csrc.ncsl.nist.gov/csspab/94-rpt.txt> for 1994, and similar for earlier years, on key escrow documents. To amplify what Tim said, the CSSPAB site has very interesting docs.

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Scientology tries to break PGP - and
by Henry W. Farkas 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Tue, 12 Sep 1995, S. Keeling wrote: > I would just like to point out that, when a LEA comes to you > to get at the contents of your computer, (s)he is not going to > patiently wait while your system wipes the offending evidence off your > hard disk. The first thing they do is make a copy of everything, so > they can work from the copy. Besides, you do have backup tapes laying > around all over the place, don't you? Acutally, I have *everything* laying around all over the place but I suppose that's off-topic. They have to decrypt the file sometime if they want it's "contents". I use the -w option when encrypting. After encryption, the "dummy" file (would be) embedded and the plaintext is wiped. The only "secret" key is the "fake" key. The "real" key is under the blender in the kitchen. (If I get busted and they search under the blender I will write back if I'm in a position to do so. Not that I have anything to get busted for of course. :) Don't back up plaintext and what is the problem here? Where will they get the "real" data from? What does it matter where the decryption takes place? And no, I don't have backup tapes laying around; I use a Zip Drive! :-) =========================================================================== Henry W. Farkas | Me? Speak for IBM? Fat chance. hfarkas(a)ims.advantis.com |------------------------------------------------ hfarkas(a)vnet.ibm.com | http://newstand.ims.advantis.com/henry henry(a)nhcc.com | http://www.nhcc.com/~henry - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PGP 6.2.2 Key fingerprint: AA D0 F5 44 C1 8C 11 52 B3 80 34 1C CE 38 EC 53 Public key at: pgp-public-keys(a)pgp.mit.edu, and other popular key servers. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brought to you by Henry's Hardware: Home of the Pretty Good Hack "We're not fast, but it's not bad, and we're cheaper than the guy down the street!" =========================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Auto-signed with Bryce's Auto-PGP v1.0beta iQCVAwUBMFbWVqDthkLkvrK9AQFxlAP+P3blN7wD42aUNctsCF9QALqsRdGHPsdo B6ALA72dqVYXGIsW9M3DVxXAM2WAosHl2rDKXbTrXwirxCJQBPkYQLT9Vdzl8nyJ hb0uNb2zo9xQ8ImM/dCuUqGazW2tnnAXuHZ9KkwDAQFDwDpNtjkHYCSDRgKmPmWO fUjGpsVViU8= =3JI5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Whitehouse "dissident
by damion.furi＠the-matrix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

TCM|We don't believe in "security through obscurity," do we? The notion that we |are "safe" if the White House, or (horrors!) Janet Reno herself, are not |reading our list or the Web sites on various issues, is the same kind of |security the ostrich thinks he has with his head in the sand and his butt |in the air. Maybe so, but we don't have to like it. And I don't. But it's not so much their access, per se, that I object to. It's their potential intentions, all things considered, and the fact that they aren't at all open about such monitoring. TCM|If you want to be unheard by the Feds, and the White House, and the FBI, |and GCHQ, and Mossad, etc., then don't post publically. If you want your |own access to Web sites kept private, push for the development of Web |proxies ("Web remailers"). Mix or Flame is fine. :) furi(a)the-matrix.com pgp-public-key(a)demon.co.uk C1225CE1 RADical 1 Systems - Multi-Platform Custom Programming, Service, & Support

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Majordomo results: (NOISE) Re: White House MONITORS Web Pag
by majordomo＠europages.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-- >>>> This is NOISE ! **** Command 'this' not recognized. >>>> >>>> DAMION FURI writes: **** Command 'damion' not recognized. >>>> > Maybe so, but we don't have to like it. And I don't. But **** Command '>' not recognized. >>>> > it's not so much their access, per se, that I object to. **** Command '>' not recognized. >>>> >>>> Why the hell do you care ? Someone has a home page for something on the Web. **** Command 'why' not recognized. >>>> Someone at the White House looks at it. So what ? You object to the fact **** Command 'someone' not recognized. >>>> that somebody in the government has a Web browser and *gasp* uses it to read **** Command 'that' not recognized. >>>> stuff on the WWW ??? **** Command 'stuff' not recognized. >>>> >>>> > It's their potential intentions, **** Command '>' not recognized. >>>> >>>> You take moral offense to what you think someone else _might_ be thinking ? **** Command 'you' not recognized. >>>> Sounds like you believe in thoughtcrime. Banned any good books lately ? **** Command 'sounds' not recognized. >>>> >>>> > all things considered, and **** Command '>' not recognized. >>>> > the fact that they aren't at all open about such monitoring. **** Command '>' not recognized. >>>> >>>> This is absurd. You expect the White House to issue a press release every time **** Command 'this' not recognized. >>>> a staffer clicks on a URL ? **** Command 'a' not recognized. >>>> >>>> "WASHINGTON (UPI) The Clinton Administration unveiled plans today to **** Command '"washington' not recognized. >>>> add several new sites to the White House bookmarks list. At a hastily **** Command 'add' not recognized. >>>> arranged press briefing this morning, Defense Secretary William Perry **** Command 'arranged' not recognized. >>>> told reporters that the changes would be implemented in close **** Command 'told' not recognized. >>>> consultation with NATO allies. There was little immediate reaction **** Command 'consultation' not recognized. >>>> from Capitol Hill. Members on both sides of the aisle said they **** Command 'from' not recognized. >>>> needed time to study the proposal in detail." **** Command 'needed' not recognized. >>>> >>>> Someone please tell me this is just an extremely premature April Fool's joke... **** Command 'someone' not recognized. >>>> >>>> -Futplex <futplex(a)pseudonym.com> END OF COMMANDS **** Help for majordomo: This is Brent Chapman's "Majordomo" mailing list manager, version 1.93. In the description below items contained in []'s are optional. When providing the item, do not include the []'s around it. It understands the following commands: subscribe <list> [<address>] Subscribe yourself (or <address> if specified) to the named <list>. unsubscribe <list> [<address>] Unsubscribe yourself (or <address> if specified) from the named <list>. get <list> <filename> Get a file related to <list>. index <list> Return an index of files you can "get" for <list>. which [<address>] Find out which lists you (or <address> if specified) are on. who <list> Find out who is on the named <list>. info <list> Retrieve the general introductory information for the named <list>. lists Show the lists served by this Majordomo server. help Retrieve this message. end Stop processing commands (useful if your mailer adds a signature). Commands should be sent in the body of an email message to "majordomo". Commands in the "Subject:" line NOT processed. If you have any questions or problems, please contact "Majordomo-Owner".

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Dirty Jobs Ad
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

NY Times, Sept 13, 1995. For the outawork: C.I.A.'s Chief Calls Covert Action a Must Washington, Sept. 12 -- The Central Intelligence Agency will maintain, and perhaps increase, its covert operations abroad and continue to hire informers from terrorist cells, military regimes and drug syndicates, the new Director of Central Intelligence said today. The Director, John M. Deutch, called espionage "the core mission of the Central Intelligence Agency." That mission has been questioned by critics of the C.I.A. in Congress and the foreign-policy establishment, who wonder whether the rewards of secret information are worth the risks of undertaking covert operations and recruiting murderous and corrupt foreign agents. -----

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Whitehouse "dissident" web site monitoring?
by an215712＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

- ---------------------------------------------------------- WHITE HOUSE MONITORING OF DISSIDENTS ON THE INTERNET The National Security Agency presumably can monitor subversive communication on the Internet without leaving any trace by "sniffing packets" at traffic nodes. For purely political purposes, however, the White House may be forced to do the monitoring in-house, which means that they leave traces everywhere they go. With just a superficial search for such traces, The Washington Weekly has uncovered intensive monitoring of "dissident" Internet sites by the White House. It turns out that computers from inside the White House have kept pretty good tabs on information available on Whitewater, Vince Foster, and Mena at a few key repositories on the World- Wide Web, a subset of the Internet. Just three such sites: "The Washington Weekly, "The Whitewater Scandal Home Page" and "Whitewater & Vince Foster," were accessed 128 times by four computers from the Executive Office of the President between August 28 and August 31. If the White House is showing a similar interest in other sites on the World Wide Web, that would amount to a monitoring operation of considerable magnitude. Tim Brady of the Yahoo! World-Wide Web index says that his company alone has indexed approximately 725 political sites. That monitoring effort would be nothing, however, compared to the effort required to follow all anti- Clinton discussion on the Usenet, another subset of the Internet. The White House did not respond to an inquiry (attached below) asking for an explanation and asking whether this constituted "casual browsing." Interestingly, the week after the White House snooping of files, which included a series of articles by J. Orlin Grabbe on Vince Foster's ties to the NSA, the following little piece appeared in Newsweek Magazine: "Conspiracy theorists perked up when Deborah Gorham told Senate Whitewater investigators in June that her boss, the late deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, asked her to put two secret notebooks from the National Security Agency in a White House safe. The suggestion that Foster dealt with the NSA sparked feverish speculation on the Internet that he was involved in espionage. The reality appears more prosaic. The White House won't give details, but sources say Foster's files dealt with legal questions about national emergencies...." Does the White House follow anti-Clinton discussion on Usenet newsgroups just as closely? The White House posts press releases to Usenet in collaboration with the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But MIT System Administrator Bruce Walton says that the White House does not use the same server for reading netnews. It would be difficult - although not impossible - to find the server that the White House uses for reading or receiving netnews and check for traces on that server. Readers may be tempted to post a threat to the President on a newsgroup just to see if they get a visit from the Secret Service the next day. That experiment is not advisable. It is a criminal offense. But Usenet just might be a faster conduit for getting the attention of the administration than the email address that the White House has published for the president. Attachment: THE WASHINGTON WEEKLY _________________________________________________________________ August 31, 1995 Virginia M. Terzano White House Office of the Press Secretary The White House Dear Ms. Terzano: It has come to my attention that several dissident sites on the World Wide Web have been visited by White House computers this week. Apparently, all information regarding Whitewater, Foster, and Mena has been transferred to White House computers. Specifically, the sites, "Washington Weekly" (http://www.federal.com) "The Whitewater Scandal Home Page" (http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~crow/whitewater/) "Whitewater & Vince Foster" (http://www.cris.com/~dwheeler/n/whitewater/whitewater-index.html) have been visited by White House computers ist1.eop.gov, ist6.eop.gov, ist7.eop.gov, and gatekeeper.eop.gov between August 28 and August 31, and a total of 128 files have been transferred to those White House computers. For all sites, this constitutes a significant increase over previous access by White House computers. In light of this information, I have the following questions: (1) Does this constitute "casual browsing" by White House staff, or is it, in light of the considerable time and effort spent during regular business hours, part of a monitoring or intelligence operation? (2) For what purpose is the information transferred to the White House used? (3) Does the White House keep information from these web sites on file, and does the White House keep a file on the persons responsible for these web sites? (4) Is the April 9 statement by David Lytel of the White House Office of Science and Technology to Amy Bauer of Copley News Service that the administration does not monitor anti-Clinton activity on the web still operative? Thank you very much for your cooperation in this matter. Sincerely, Marvin Lee The Washington Weekly Copyright (c) 1995 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. If you reply to this message, your message WILL be *automatically* anonymized and you are allocated an anon id. Read the help file to prevent this. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Re: Scientology tries to break PGP - and
by aba＠dcs.exeter.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Why would they use your copy of the program to decrypt the file? > They could just use a version that lacked this 'feature'. Of > course, they still couldn't get at the real plaintext unless you > gave them the key, but you are right back to the same old standoff > where they say, "Give us your key," and you (try to) say, "No." I agree, you can't rely on them using your doctored program, it must be resilient to them having a copy of all of your software, and their own fresh copies of software, and a backup of each copy before starting, and still provide pluasible deniability. Here's an idea to do just that, perhaps something which could be added to a future PGP. I reckon this is what you'd do: % pgp -es duress % pgp -es msg % stealth < msg.pgp > msg.stl % cat msg.stl >> duress.pgp % pgp +makerandom=1234 noise % cat noise >> duress.pgp % pgp -a duress.pgp % mail someone < duress.asc The pgp +makerandom=<size> <file> is an undocumented feature of pgp > 2.6 (not sure exactly when it got added, Colin Plumb pointed it out when I asked him about ran nos for stealth). So what this means is that you are using PGP it's self to hide a stegoed message. This would be good for the guy from FACTnet (forgotten his name) who just got hit by the CoS, he could hold out for a while, then give up his key, the duress message would appear, and the real message would be explained by having a script to do this on his HD, and having long since burned the disk with a script to do the above on it: % pgp -es msg % pgp +makerandom=4567 noise % cat noise >> msg.pgp % pgp -a msg.pgp % mail someone < msg.asc ie the idea is that you pad your message to a fixed size for the express purpose of hampering traffic analysis (of the type of my, Alice did have a lot to say to Bob that day). It would be even better cover if the thing had gotten sent through a remailer, as this kind of thing is expected of type I remailer traffic (before mixmaster which does the packetizing for you). So the duress message really looks like this: +---------+---------------------------+--------------------+--------+ | pgp hdr | IDEA encrypted duress msg | stealthed real msg | noise | +---------+---------------------------+--------------------+--------+ the IDEA block has a length field, but you can increase the length without damage to include the following stealthed stuff as the underlying stuff which is IDEA encrypted will know it's length on decryption, and the following junk will just be discarded. So, Alice and her secret key ring (encrypted) gets nabbed by the Charlie (CoS?), and coerced into divuling her passphrase. And if and when it is noticed that the message was longer than it ought to be (CoS that smart? substitute the NSA and they'd notice for sure), Alice explains away the junk on the end by pointing them to the fact that all of her messages where exactly (say) 16k long, and that she was using a the noise only script, and that the message really is this: +---------+---------------------------+-----------------------------+ | pgp hdr | IDEA encrypted duress msg | noise | +---------+---------------------------+-----------------------------+ Having this built-in to PGP provides plausible deniablity as you have no extra software which might look incriminating unless you managed to dispose of it first, if it comes as stock. Even as a standalone it would be feasible, but you'd need to be careful to hide the first script, maybe on an encrypted drive or something. This is not good tho as you ideally want nothing left, just a standard pgp implementation, and they have no way to prove anything, they can be suspicious, but suspicion can't put you in jail, and if you say there is no message, only random junk for padding purposes to foil traffic analysis this would be plausible, especially if they really had captured a whole load of 64k messages. You really need to use stealth2 for that, as stealth1.x gives the game away for determined attackers, but for stealth2, I need some cryptographic opinions on whether this is secure: 0 < x < N N is RSA modulus, and converting that to a number x' in the range: 0 < x' < 2^(int(log2(N) + 1) + 64) (ie the next power of 2 over N multiplied by 2^64) and the transformation supplied by: x' = N * f(MD5(x)) + x where f(y) is a function which converts from range 0 <= y < 2^128 to a range 0 <= f(y) < scale. Scale some constant defined in terms of N, and n other randomisation. Is that safe? x is random, and will be different even for a repeat encryption of the same file, as PGP is using a random IDEA session key. So are there any brute force attacks on that which would be cheaper than attacking 128 bit IDEA? PGP's random number generator also makes extensive use of MD5, so I'm taking the use of MD5 as secure as a given. If it is thought to be dangerous for some reason (it is after all some kind of signature on it's self, presume that you know N, and x' but not x, the question is can the equation be brute force reversed in a less than 128 bit brute force attack. I'm neglecting to consider the rand() calls, which I'm not expecting to add security, but are just a mechanism to stir the value with to get more random nos, as occasionally the alogrithm needs more than one, if the first fails, etc. The other approach, presuming that you can get to the data before they can, is to use secure drive, and securely wipe (or physically destroy - data on floppy) the encrypted key. Then you can give your passphrase without concern. Could land you in trouble for destruction of evidence or some such tho, so innocent, plausible deniability would be better. Adam

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Re: GAK/weak crypto rationale?
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by futplex(a)pseudonym.com (Futplex) on Wed, 13 Sep 2:11 AM >Your paraphrase of Nelson's statement strikes me as >remarkable. Doesn't "we are not concerned with bad >people using crypto among themselves" run completely >counter to all the hyperbole about terrorists planning >OKC II with PGP ? Does anyone have an exact quotation >? At any rate, sign me up as a "bad person".... I think this is setting up the rationale for software key escrow. One of the big loopholes in this idea has always been that it would be easy for bad guys to superencrypt or otherwise bypass the legal encryption. The response has been that the systems will be designed so that compliant systems will not interoperate with rogue systems. And the counter-response to that was that criminals (and privacy advocates) would use software which would operate compliantly with conventional programs and maintain privacy when talking to other rogue programs. This new line will be used to respond to this argument, I think. Even if it is admitted that there is no way for the government to be able to tell what the criminals say amongst themselves, it will still be useful to be able to tell what they say to other people. Therefore software key escrow will be argued to still be useful even though it can be defeated. Hal

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