December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: The Crypto Applications we would rather not talk about
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:00 AM 11/5/95, Nathan Loofbourrow wrote: > > The answers are there and have been published > > in most books on tradecraft, 3 person cells organized > > as pyramids. > >I've read only fictional accounts about the 3-person cell. Any >pointers to nonfiction material? "Tradecraft" didn't seem to be the >magic keyword in the local card catalog. It's easy to work out the relationships from first principles...I'm not sure what a book would add to your understanding. I suspect Kahn's "The Codebreakers" contains at least a brief mention of cell organizations, thought that was not Kahn's focus. Or, look at any of the various books on Soviet spy rings in the U.S., or various spy rings in WW II. For example, I think the true-life book "I Led Three Lives" might still be available--it was the basis of a t.v. show I used to watch in the early 60s. (The t.v. show presumably went to the same Politically Incorrect resting place as "Amos and Andy," mourned by Sapphire, The Kingfish, and me.) --Tim Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: Telephone switch capacity -Reply
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 18:43 11/3/95, Rich Graves wrote: >[about the FBI supposedly wanting the ability to tap 1% of all phones in >the US simultaneously] [...] >Of course the FBI doesn't have the staff to listen to all these lines, and >they need an individual court order to authorize each individual >interception, so this numbers game is a bit of a joke. One more time. Despite what you read in the papers, despite what most people - even in the legal profession - believe, telephone wiretaps do _not_ require a court order. They haven't required a court order in over a year. The Digital Telephony Bill, which passed Congress by an overwhelming margin, _explicitly_ allows for wiretap authorizations other than a court order. The law does not impose any rules for these "other forms of authorization". "The captain signed it off" may suffice. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Telephone switch capacity
by Noah Brodbeck 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please be aware that the current capacity of the telephone system in the United States (and for that matter, most of the developed world) is only capable of supporting between 15 and 20 percent simultaneous telephone conversations. If the FBI wishes to set up a system that is capable of monitoring 1% of the total number of lines, that equates to a ability to tap 5%, not 1% of all calls in progress. >As the FBI's "interest" shifts from area to area, the whole >country could rapidly come under the 1% surveillance >directive. >1.5 million telephone intercepts. Or more. -=- Noah

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Real randomness generators
by fc＠all.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Two points: 1 - The noisiest thing on most lists is the noise about other peoples' noise. 2 - Why not use the postings of people complaining about other peoples' posts as a source for noise. Surely few things in the Universe are more random. On the the subject at hand: There are two major technical issues I have encountered in using EM waves (which is what video and radio noise are) for generating randomness. 1 - They tend to be biased toward 1 or 0. This can often be compensated for by (for example) xoring one bit stream from the same source with the inverse of another. By doing this enough times, you can eliminate many of the characteristics of interest. 2 - Noise tends to be characteristic for different media and noise causes. This is a more difficult issue. For example, certain types of media tend toward short noise bursts. In these cases, you have to be quite careful to assure that the bit streams meet the randomness criteria of the application. As a side issue, you may find that once you start sending enough information with truly random characteristics, you will be visited by people that don't want you sending it. I know people who have experienced these visitations and felt highly constrained as a result. -- -> See: Info-Sec Heaven at URL http://all.net Management Analytics - 216-686-0090 - PO Box 1480, Hudson, OH 44236

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lp (134.222.35.2)?
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm sure some of you will have seen this, so sorry to toss logs on the listburn fire; still, it seemed worth reposting to CP--no, it's not entirely crypto-related, but nor is it a completely vague allegation. >From GovAccess.183.snoops: > The following is the transcript of an actual communications trace that a > friend ran, while I was sitting next to him, watching -- reprinted here > with his permission. > > He did a "traceroute" of two messages that he sent from his machine in > Switzerland (he'd telneted into it while we were at a computer conference > in California). > > Traceroute automatically reports each Internet node through which a message > passes, as it proceeds from origin to destination. > > He did two traceroutes. The first was from Switzerland to an addressee at > Netcom in San Jose, California. The second was from Switzerland to an > addressee in Israel. > > > Date: Fri, 21 Apr 95 02:54:58 +0200 > From: kelvin(a)fourmilab.ch (John Walker) > To: jwarren(a)well.com > Subject: Traceroute > > > /usr2/kelvin> traceroute netcom11.netcom.com > traceroute to netcom11.netcom.com (192.100.81.121), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets > 1 eunet-router (193.8.230.64) 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms > 2 146.228.231.1 (146.228.231.1) 326 ms 345 ms 307 ms > 3 Bern5.CH.EU.NET (146.228.14.5) 447 ms 408 ms 364 ms > 4 146.228.107.1 (146.228.107.1) 127 ms 37 ms 36 ms > 5 Zuerich1.CH.EU.NET (146.228.10.80) 37 ms 38 ms 175 ms > 6 (134.222.9.1) 65 ms 109 ms 252 ms > 7 lp (134.222.35.2) 196 ms 179 ms 405 ms > 8 Vienna1.VA.ALTER.NET (137.39.11.1) 191 ms 179 ms 313 ms > 9 fddi.mae-east.netcom.net (192.41.177.210) 336 ms 204 ms 303 ms > 10 t3-2.dc-gw4-2.netcom.net (163.179.220.181) 182 ms 251 ms 187 ms > 11 t3-2.chw-il-gw1.netcom.net (163.179.220.186) 305 ms 586 ms 518 ms > 12 t3-2.scl-gw1.netcom.net (163.179.220.190) 537 ms 693 ms 797 ms > 13 t3-1.netcomgw.netcom.net (163.179.220.193) 698 ms 549 ms 754 ms > 14 netcom11.netcom.com (192.100.81.121) 890 ms 1922 ms 1696 ms > > > /usr2/kelvin> traceroute jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il > traceroute to jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il (192.114.21.101), 30 hops max, 40 > byte packets > 1 eunet-router (193.8.230.64) 2 ms 3 ms 2 ms > 2 146.228.231.1 (146.228.231.1) 933 ms 853 ms 874 ms > 3 Bern5.CH.EU.NET (146.228.14.5) 1040 ms 450 ms 525 ms > 4 146.228.107.1 (146.228.107.1) 453 ms 424 ms 188 ms > 5 Zuerich1.CH.EU.NET (146.228.10.80) 64 ms 61 ms 47 ms > 6 (134.222.9.1) 80 ms 312 ms 84 ms > 7 lp (134.222.35.2) 270 ms 400 ms 216 ms > 8 Vienna2.VA.ALTER.NET (137.39.11.2) 660 ms 1509 ms 886 ms > 9 dataserv-gw.ALTER.NET (137.39.155.38) 1829 ms 1094 ms 1306 ms > 10 orion.datasrv.co.il (192.114.20.22) 1756 ms 1280 ms 1309 ms > 11 ... > > > Notice that both messages went through an unnamed site -- 134.222.9.1 and > then a strangely-named site, "lp (134.222.35.2)" -- then through the same > Vienna, Virginia (USA) site ... and thereafter, on to their destination. > I.e., the second message went through Virginia to get from Switzerland to > Israel. > > The whois servers at the InterNIC and at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET Information > report, ``No match for "134.222.9.1". '' and `` No match for > "134.222.35.2".'' > > Now let me see ... which spy agencies are located in or near Virginia? > > --jim

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[NOISE, if interesting NOISE] Assassins
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Interested parties might want to discuss the effectiveness of murder in politics with the world's most recent assassin. Or at least leave interesting mail to the security forces who will likely be running through his e-mail. Here's your chance to make your life REAL interesting, and test PGP, just send some encrypted mail to our friend and gunman Mr. Amir at: la59(a)popeye.cc.biu.ac.il --- "In fact, had Bancroft not existed, potestas scientiae in usu est Franklin might have had to invent him." in nihilum nil posse reverti 00B9289C28DC0E55 E16D5378B81E1C96 - Finger for Current Key Information

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Re: lp (134.222.35.2)?
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You don't really need a special (and clearly suspicious) IP address to perform driftnet fishing. All you need is to be sure that all physical packets pass through a checkpoint charlie and just park a sniffer there to watch everything fly by. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see how hard NSA pushes behind the scenes to have physical long distance cables run through the US routers/switches (in the name of US national security, of course). It would be fun (perhaps horrible) to see what the NSA does the first time Isreal or France set up their own high capacity long distance to other friendly/unfriendly countries (thus bypassing the US completely). Second, let France or some other country set up major Internet routing clearinghouses which advertise secure routes to other nations (not US). Ern

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Re: lp (134.222.35.2)?
by Richard Huddleston 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

134.222.0.0 is a Class B network, so if you do 'whois' on 134.222.0.0 (instead of the individual IP addresses) you find: European Unix Users Group (NET-EUNET-X25) Kruislaan 413 NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam NETHERLANDS Netname: EUNET-X25 Netnumber: 134.222.0.0 Coordinator: EUnet Ltd (EU-NIC) hostmaster(a)nic.eu.net +31 20 5925109 +31 20 5925165 (24hr Emergency) +31 20 5925163 (fax) Domain System inverse mapping provided by: NS.EU.NET 192.16.202.11 SUNIC.SUNET.SE 192.36.125.2 192.36.148.18 NS.UU.NET 137.39.1.3 NS2.NIC.FR 192.93.0.4 Record last updated on 07-Mar-94. ...what does this do to your traceroute dumps? Richard

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Re: lp (134.222.35.2)?
by Stephan Somogyi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:20 5.11.95, Anonymous wrote: > it seemed worth reposting to CP--no, it's not entirely crypto-related, > but nor is it a completely vague allegation. [...] > From GovAccess.183.snoops: [...] >> Notice that both messages went through an unnamed site -- 134.222.9.1 and >> then a strangely-named site, "lp (134.222.35.2)" -- then through the same >> Vienna, Virginia (USA) site ... and thereafter, on to their destination. >> I.e., the second message went through Virginia to get from Switzerland to >> Israel. >> >> The whois servers at the InterNIC and at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET Information >> report, ``No match for "134.222.9.1". '' and `` No match for >> "134.222.35.2".'' >> >> Now let me see ... which spy agencies are located in or near Virginia? Oh please. The probable reason that the InterNIC doesn't know about the 132.222.0.0 networks is because they're in Europe. If you search for either of the network numbers of the IP addresses mentioned above in the RIPE database <http://www.ripe.net/>, you will find that they belong to the EUnet backbone. After pinging 134.222.9.1 successfully, I telnetted to it and it claimed, quite plausibly, that it's a device (presumably a router) in Amsterdam. I am currently unable to ping 134.222.35.2; this, however, fills me with no dread whatsoever. _______________________________________________________________________ Stephan Somogyi Senior Editor Digital Media

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Re: Sun speaks out - but not to the cypherpunks
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I know that it is rude to follow up one of your own posts, and I apologize in advance for this horrible faux-pas, but hopefully, it's excused this one time. I wrote: >One example of this that should serve as a useful case study is a recent >problem which was brought to the Canadian public's attention just this >week, on a program called the Fifth Estate. The CBC (Canadian >Broadcasting Corporation) detailed a software code problem in one of >AECL's (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's) instruments which deliver >penetrating radiation. > >The software which controlled the radiation dose, would periodically >override the oncologist's calibration and deliver a radiation dose 100 >times what was prescribed. This software "bug" literally killed wherever >the machine was in use. Does anyone on this list know if the CBC has a web site on the Net? I'm hoping that someone (hint, hint) who has a convenient website, one with lots of spare bandwidth could volunteer to contact the CBC and persuade them to copyright clear the Fifth Estate program clip which documented some of the risks of software bugs in mission critical applications, and allow it to be placed on the Net. I'm hoping that this English language piece reaches a wide international audience. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is a Crown Corporation which has historically received its primary funding from the Government of Canada. Recently, it has suffered under the budgetary ax, and the push for privatization. I'm pretty confident that the Corporation would copyright clear the clip for MPEG distribution across the Net, if they were approached with the concept that the clip was a demonstration of the CBC's journalistic excellence and integrity, a piece which is demonstrative of the critical need to continue their funding. A concrete demonstration of the need for the CBC. And a piece which could well receive deserved international acclaim. The site would help them, and would simultaneously be a site of international public service. Nothing will drive home the need for quality software, quality code, and quality security more than the vivid graphic pictures of the consequences of sloppy code, or of the risks if certain critical systems, LANs, or private networks are compromised, or if security and privacy (which are flip sides of the same coin) are ignored. The sight of a body, that has had a hole burned straight through it from the front through to the spine is truly chilling and drives the message home. Nothing seems to speak as clearly as a picture ... as to what the stakes are ... of what "bugs" in code do ... and of what a network compromise can leave in its wake. A picture of consequences. Six people died in Canada and the United States due to the software flaw. Even after numerous reports of the flaws, the company refused to even acknowledge the existence of a problem, and in fact did everything within its power to make sure doctors, radiologists and physicists were unaware. The attitude of trivialization can only be characterized as fantastic, and would be unbelievable to anyone who has not viewed the piece. It's one hell of a backgrounder which not only details problems, but looks at solutions -- it examines attitudes, especially management attitudes. It truly deserves an expanded audience. From teachers, to students, to the international media, to the concerned private individual, all will be served well if this piece gets wide attention. Takers, anyone?? Alice de 'nonymous ... ...just another one of those... P.S. This post is in the public domain. C. S. U. M. O. C. L. U. N. E.

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