December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Crypto hardware summary
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[A summary of my points on crypto hardware follows my response to Norm.] Norm Hardy writes: >What key length are you using that takes 3.2 sec? >The DSP can operate concurrently with other processing, giving an >improvement greater than 3.2/1.9. I'm aware of this -- I was using Tim's pessimistic estimate of improvement... to make it clearer for those who didn't read his post, I should have said, "Even if the reduction is only from 3.2 seconds to 1.9 seconds, it would be significant for someone running a server." I'm aware that with DSPs you can get rather better results; an ASIC will get you another order of magnitude over DSPs (assuming equivalent price -- the Moto 96K DSP is a real gem for bignum math but is many times more expensive than an equally effective ASIC. They were also having serious availability problems last year...) Here is a summary of my points on this subject to date, for those who haven't been following this discussion: o Using coprocessors of any sort to achieve speed in cryptography operations is probably not justified for end users; it is almost always justified for servers with a high volume of transactions requiring public key authentication or encryption. o DSPs are not really as attractive as general purpose CPUs for accelerating cryptography for high-volume servers. Although DSP architecture is somewhat more conducive to bignum math, the benefits seem to be offset by the wide availability of standard CPUs and tools for programming them. If a large increase in speed is desired without resorting to single-purpose hardware, I recommend using a large number of standard CPUs as coprocessors, rather than an equivalent approach with DSPs. (The fact that uint multiplies on a 486 take multiple clock cycles is offset by the higher internal clock speeds and lower cost of the 486. You can point out super-fast DPSs, and I can point out their super-large price tags, more expensive tools, and substantially more expensive programmers.) o The real way to go for speed is ASICs, which give you much better bang for the buck, although they have disadvantages, including problems of export, inflexibility, etc. My favorite RSA chip board so far is from Uti-Maco in Belgium, which is a tamper-resistant add-in card with a 8086-compatible controller and a custom BIOS for doing RSA and DES operations in h/w, which allows s/w to be developed using standard tools. (I have ranted at length about the complications involved with _Beligan_ crypto export controls, which seem to stem from NATO pressure and US desire to balkanize the market for cryptography products.) o People doing valuable transactions on servers are going to want tamper resistance and hardware-key security. This is more important in some cases than speed, although speed is also very important. o People running cryptography-based transaction clients on their PCs are going to learn, one way or another, that having valuable secret keys on their hard disks is not a great idea. This, not speed, is the primary motivation for consumer-oriented cryptography hardware. People want their keys and financial transactions on secure, removable, non-mechanical media. Products that provide this are just starting to come on the market, notably from National Semiconductor and Telequip. o End-user software will need to be written to allow, but not require, external cryptography devices. Consequently, consumer software that performs valuable transactions still needs to be written in an extremely paranoid fashion with respect to the reliability and security of the underlying hardware.

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Spoofing HTTP server certificates
by Greg Miller 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Since there has been a lot of talk about the "man in the middle" attack on the secure web servers, has anyone actually considered the processing time required to fake a certificate from scratch? I haven't really familiarized myself with how the certificates are generated, etc, but it's my understanding that they are signed with RSA. The few recent factorings of RSA keys have shown that brute force attacks are feasable with distributed processing. Since these projects were done "just for the fun of it", wouldn't it seem likley that someone (or some people) would take the time and effort to factor the certificate signing key? After all, it would actually be worth something. gmiller(a)grendel.ius.indiana.edu http://www.ius.indiana.edu/~gmiller/

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Re: Cryptanalysis of RC4 - Preliminary Results (Repeat)
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:39 AM 9/30/95 -0400, Dr. Frederick B. Cohen wrote: >The problem is that if these keys are weak, there may be many others >that are also weak. In fact, by the time we explore all of the >weaknesses, we may find the system is no longer very strong at all. These so called weak keys are far from weak. You have a 1 in 64000 chance of reducing the search space by 64000. Big deal. Use 128 bit session keys. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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Restrictions on Munitions _Imports_
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:58 AM 10/2/95, Michael Froomkin wrote: >On Thu, 28 Sep 1995, Douglas Barnes wrote: >[...] >> communications problems, their fear of RSA Labs, new Belgian >> export controls they haven't tried to work with yet, and their >> belief that I need a US crypto import license, which I can't persuade >> anyone to admit _exists_. > >There is no such animal under US law. Note however (1) you need export >permission to re-export the import, just as if it was produced here; (2) I don't expect that any specific _crypto_ import licenses exist, but certainly various kinds of _munitions_ import licenses exist (improperly, in my opinion, of course). Specifically, importers of guns must have licenses. And not just because of local laws, as the Feds (U.S. Customs, BATF) get involved in seizures of ammunition, clips, guns, etc. (A recent case here in the Bay Area involved the highly publicized seizure of some large number of crates of Chinese or Russian 7.39 mm ammo...it was alleged that improper licenses had been gotten, or had been forged, or some other such crime. After Feinswine got her media attention, calling the imports "shocking," it was later admitted that the warehouse contents were duly licensed and the news was carried on page C23 that the importers were kosher. (As with most laws, a welter of competing laws are involved. The Gun Control Act of 1968 is involved, as is the McClure-Volkmer Act, etc. And during the recent anti-gun hysteria, new laws were passed about the importation of ammunition, clips, etc.) As far as other munitions go, try "importing" a French Exocet, a Russian Strelka, or any number of other "munitions" items. Given that crypto is classified as "munitions" for the purpose of export control (including the ITARs), it would not surprise me in the least if the same sorts of restrictions on imports of the aforementioned munitions are not applied to at least some crypto imports. If not now, soon. (Given that many folks are talking about a strategy that has been apparent for many years: develop core crypto in less hostile environments than the U.S.) I can't cite a specific law affecting crypto imports at this time--and I doubt any crypto products have been affected so far--but clearly there are restricitions on imports of ammunition, guns, missiles, jet fighters, and--maybe soon--on "crypto munitions." --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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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The Free Speech Implications of Remailers
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've seen a bunch of messages in this group, and on Usenet, about what can be done to track down and punish (or otherwise stop) the posters of racist, fascist, inflammatory posts. This in light of several recent widespread postings of racist screeds. People are doing traceroute analyses, asking what can be done, proposing to sue those who send them unwanted spewage, etc. Well, guess what? The very technologies we have been so central in deploying are the technologies that make _conventional_ means of controlling distasteful material so hard. Think about it. Remailers mean the people whose speech we abhor will be untraceable. (I of course mean Chaum-style mixes, and ecologies of mixes, not the "almost mixes" we have now, where a motivated operator can screen posts, stop spams, etc.) All is not lost, in the long run, as "digital postage" schemes may develop. This will reduce Net-wide spamming, though not have an effect on a lot of "distasteful" speech. In that regard, reputation filters will help. A person could insist that he will only read messages from persons or nyms he knows. (Sure, it doesn't stop the problem of the _mail volume_ itself, but first things first. The current delivery paradigm is unlike the paid-transport system of the various mail delivery systems.) Crypto anarchy means the racists, sexists, speciesists, and other "ists" cannot be muzzled. I call this a good thing. It's why I'm here. --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: Crypto hardware (was: Using sound cards to accelerate RSA?)
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> belief that I need a US crypto import license, which I can't persuade >There is no such animal under US law. Note however (1) you need export Perhaps they're worried about contributing to patent infringement?

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Bryn Mawr talk TODAY on Enigma and Its Effect on the Computing Age
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded-by: Dave Farber <farber(a)central.cis.upenn.edu> and "Steven" Bi-Co Mathematics Talk Series at Bryn Mawr College Charles Terry: "The Cryptography of the Enigma Machine and Its Effect on the Computing Age" Monday, October 2, 1995, Talk at 4pm in room 338, Tea at 3:30 in room 355 Bryn Mawr College, Park Science Center ------------------------------ Steven P.S. I was told he obtained permission to bring an authentic machine to the talk and will demonstrate it's operation afterwards.

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Re: WHERE did this come from?
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 18:38 9/30/95, rivaud(a)rain.org wrote: >Attatched to this is, (I hope), the header text from a unsolicited e-mail >message I received. The return address does not work. WHY? How can I >inform the sender that I hope to never receive there material again? > >I tried "reply-all" through Eudora, but my reply got bounced back to me >as undeliverable. > >I have removed the content of the original message. I don't know why it >was sent to me, but it contained material that I found offensive. > >Any help, or words of wisdom and enlightenment would be appreciated. >Information would be nice too. > >Thanks. This is a KNOWN SPAM (it is currently being talked about in the Net-SPAM Usenet Newsgroup). It has been coming from 3 sites (one in Italy, one in France, and one in Germany). The national Police in all 3 countries (as well as the FBI) are apparently investigating it. To track the situation monitor this Web Page (Which should be Globally Accessible): http://www.panix.com/~lan/crusader

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Re: Spoofing HTTP server certificates
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:52 AM 10/2/95 -0400, Greg Miller <gmiller(a)grendel.ius.indiana.edu> wrote: > Since there has been a lot of talk about the "man in the middle" >attack on the secure web servers, has anyone actually considered the >processing time required to fake a certificate from scratch? > I haven't really familiarized myself with how the certificates >are generated, etc, but it's my understanding that they are signed with RSA. While I haven't seen Verisign's various public keys posted to the net, and didn't see them anywhere on their web page, I assume they're at least 508 bits long, and the ones for better-than-personna certification (or at least Class 3) ought to be ~1024 bits long, unless they're limiting themselves to 512 bits to support software that's limited by ITAR stupidity (which would be a shame, but is certainly possible.) For the moment, breaking a 512-bit key remains hard, though maybe within the NSA's reach. It's probably one of the next big factoring challenges after the RSA-130 number is taken out by the General Number Field Sieve folks. The better fake, which is much more possible, is to build a chain of certifications (trivial) and convince your victim to accept them instead of the real ones (more doable, especially if some vendor's software isn't written carefully, or is written carefully but requires the user to think about what he's reading.) #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #---

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European Email Police (fwd)
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This may be of interest to cypherpunk folk (yanked from the UK Electronic Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk) P. Madden =============================================================== The Electronic Telegraph Monday 2 October 1995 The Front Page Plan to police e-mail seems certain to fail By Adrian Berry, Science Correspondent A EUROPEAN Commission plan to police the use of secret codes in electronic mail appears certain to fail. To detect criminals, the commission is seeking legal powers to prevent people from using secret codes on the Internet which it cannot crack. Nature magazine says this would "effectively end the Internet's status as an unregulated medium for the free flow of information". The plan would require any person or company encrypting e-mail messages to leave the "secret keys" to read them in the hands of a law enforcement agency. But Dr Peter Lammer, managing director of Sophos, the Abingdon-based supplier of encryption software, said: "This plan would never work because people wishing to evade it could legitimately use layers of encryption. "Suppose I send a secret file. I would first encrypt it with my own system. I would then obey the law by encrypting it a second time with the European-approved system. "Even when the government agency had decrypted the message using the keys they had been given, they would still find that the message was totally unintelligible because of the second layer of encryption." In France, it is illegal to use any kind of encryption, and police can arrest the authors of any e-mail which they cannot understand. Codes are used by a vast range of financial companies, sending money orders and sensitive commercial details. Reply to Electronic Telegraph - et(a)telegraph.co.uk Electronic Telegraph is a Registered Service Mark of The Telegraph plc

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