December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

A weakness in PGP signatures, and a suggested solution
by Clark Matthews 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just a note to Dr. Dmitri Vulis -- your post by this name appears to have been forge-cancelled on mail. cypherpunks 1/1/96 at 4:13 EST. Two replies also forge-cancelled. Anybody running lazarus on mail.cypherpunks? Might be an interesting idea. Dr. Vulis, can you repost the item to this list? Best, Clark .---. .----------- * :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: / \ __ / ------ * clark.matthews(a)paranet.org / / \(..)/ ----- * :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ////// ' \/ ` ---- * //// / // : : --- * PERMISSION TO \\/ / * / /` '--* COPY / REPOST \*/ * //..\\ x-x-UU----UU-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- '//||\\` N E M O..M E..I M P U N E..L A C E S S I T x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 23:35 1/1/96, Jon Lasser wrote: >More work needs to be done on untracable, yet at least modestly >efficient, truly anonymous routing, even in a system where many of the >participants, and perhaps even one of the endpoints, is or is willing to >"cheat." Time to bring up my favorite CP invention of the last years: Wai Dai's Pipenet. Of course running Pipenet would be a felony in the future I forsee, but it sure is a great idea. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers
by dmandl＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:44 PM 1/1/96, Lucky Green wrote: >At 15:32 1/1/96, Felix Lee wrote: >>Lucky Green: >>> Some site in physical space has to host the nntpd, the ftpd, and the httpd. >>> That site will be subject to search, seizure, and arrest and conviction of >>> owner. >> >>but if it turns out that 30% of home PCs have to be seized to prevent >>dissemination of dangerous-information-X? > >Wrong. Only 0.03% of the home PCs have to be seized and the owners >incarcerated. The remaining users will cease to carry controlled data on >their own. I agree. It's not a good idea to assume that there's going to be some kind of widespread opposition movement when the big Net Crackdown comes. Most people will either obey the law, be unaffected by it, or violate it in very insignificant ways ("net jaywalking"). There's strength in numbers, but I just don't think the numbers will be there. --Dave. -- Dave Mandl dmandl(a)panix.com http://www.wfmu.org/~davem <---Completely overhauled--tons of new stuff

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On 1/1/96 at 3:11 pm Lucky Green replied to Andreas Bogk about: >>So I guess we'll need some computers in outer space, on offshore boats >>or in well-bribed stable dictatorships. >o Outer space: not very realistic >o Offshore boats: see the fate of drug trafficers in international waters >after the Coast Guard is through with them. What about using converted freighters offshore in international waters for storing the computers? i.e. Sameer the Wolfman Jack of Pirate Internet Services (tm) I was told that Belize is offering passports for the next two years for $50,000 and that might be even less if offers were made to the government to provide low cost Internet access to the citizens of Belize. http://www.belize.com/citzdoc.html Belize has always been known as a home for pirates, A wonderful Cypherpunk candidate for an offshore data haven! L. Malthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMOjOmQJo+wOswDgJAQEdGgP8CzcIf7/p1QS8yYc7uelApYLWcDUHo1AE LHBz4kWg8bdrvWEqck1oIgY/Z+gvr88tKP3l7TDei8y+mJFoqYeSM27aE0ohvS2a XVq7YwbGs+/CKTWJTWsyxwsQEQHyj+Ig7oY+JB76wUN9WTz9pfuwXQ7oaF4RXHcf WqFOXM6ogMA= =0UFR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

m5(a)dev.tivoli.com (Mike McNally) writes: > Dimitri Vulis writes: > > > For how long ... ? > > > > For as long as they're able to provide information and services that > > customers want, which are not available via "generic" small ISP's. > > But don't you think it likely that AOL & Compuserve will soon see the > economic advantage of making their services available (for per-use > fees) to the Internet as a whole? If not AOL & Compuserve, then > certainly the actual content providers themselves. (The NSA may be a > different matter.) > > I don't see why content providers would not be willing to make stuff > available via the internet; they don't have to do it for free. OK, I'm sure we have the nice folks from the National Computer Security Association on this list. Why don't they set up their forum so it's not necessary to have a CompuServe account to access it? --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Guerilla ISP's... (fwd)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 21:20 1/1/96, sameer wrote: >> Prosecution followed by conviction is what will happen to the owner of the >> computer on which the OS was running. > It's hard to jail a corporation. Pretty hard. That's why the corporate officers will be jailed instead. Not that this would be necessary to stop the corporation from operating. The authorities can just confiscating all the equipment and thereby put the corporation out of business. Saves time and trial costs. They just haul off the computers and declare that they are now property of the government. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Jeff Simmons <jsimmons(a)goblin.punk.net> > Subject: Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers > Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 16:32:33 -0800 (PST) > > Punknet is a 'Guerilla ISP'. Twenty of us share a 128k ISDN line, > distributed via high-speed modems. It's been running fine for over > a year now, but Pacific Bell has evidently decided to get rid of us. > > How? Simply by refusing to either repair or replace our 25 pair trunk > line, which is rapidly degrading. We've offered to replace it ourselves, > but according to them, it's illegal. Right now, we've got three dead lines, > and two others that only will do 1200 baud. > Hmmm, you should have some kind of Public Utility Commission (PUC) in your area that regulates the service provider. Here in Texas if SWBT received more than 2 complaints on a single problem without resolution then the customer can request that the PUC force a resolution of the problem. It has the power to fine SWBT on a per day basis until the problem is resolved. I have used the process one time to a successful end. I had squirrels that kept eating my phone lines when I first put in my ISDN and its dial-in lines. SWBT kept comming out and repairing the lines and the squirrels kept eating them. I asked for armored cables and was refused. I kept requesting them (and keeping records). On the next to last time the tech came out I showed him the records and advised him that I wanted armored lines. He said he would advise his supervisor. A week later I had my armored lines (run specialy nearly a block to the tie-block) and the problem was resolved until my roomie burned the house down (the phone lines survived). > We've been told that what they're doing is probably illegal, but it's the > old problem: Where does an 800 lb. gorilla sleep? > > We're fighting this like all hell, but who knows? After they get rid of us, > I wonder who's next ... > You also have the option of starting a civil and criminal claim dealing with breach of contract. Phone companies must provide phone lines that meet minimal standards (3kHz bandwidth / -32dB S/N). If the lines don't then the phone company is responsible for getting the lines upgraded. I rather doubt the phone company wants you out of business, they want your money. It is probably a local supervisor who has a limited budget and staff and is having to set priorities according to their supervisory responsibilities. Get it taken up a level and you might find the climate changes. The FCC is enacting a new regulation that will cause every phone company to provide 100% of their service areas with ISDN (you should have received some kind of notice last week, I did). This also sets some minimum standards as well as to the type and quality of service the phone company must provide. Good luck.

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Errata for _Applied Crypto_
by Wink Junior 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bruce Schneier <schneier(a)counterpane.com> has an errata file for the second edition of _Applied Cryptography_ available on request. Hopefully he will also make it available via the Web. Hats off to Bruce for making this information available in a timely, cost-effective manner. Wink -- "Dilute! Dilute! OK!"

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[Local] Portland OR Cypherpunks anyone?
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am considering getting regular Cypherpunks meetings going in the Portland, OR area. If anyone is interested in such a thing, please drop me e-mail. I have gotten some interest from a few friends and so I am sending out the request to the rest of the list to see who else is interested. Ideas for a local meeting place would also be appreciated, as my apartment is way too small. (And not the same time and place of the 2600 meetings. I am alergic to video cameras.) It would also be a chance to meet some of the people I see on the list who I know post from Portland... | Remember: Life is not always champagne. Sometimes it is REAL pain. | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmerman unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Unmuzzling the Internet
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The New York Times, January 2, 1996, p. A15. Unmuzzling the Internet [OpEd] How to evade the censors and make a statement, too. By Jaron Lanier (Visiting scholar at the Columbia University department of computer science.) If President Clinton signs the telecommunications bill drastically restricting private as well as public speech on the Internet, he can expect a rollicking cat-and-mouse game. It can be comical when politicians try to control something they do not understand. Such is the case with the bill's censorship provision, which not only outlaws the transmission of material over the Internet that would be allowed in most newspapers, but also makes owners of computers on a network liable for the speech of others. (As Compuserve demonstrated last week when, to satisfy a German court, it blocked American subscribers' access to sexually explicit material, regulation of the Internet can threaten both commercial and constitutional freedoms.) The other day, I came up with a way to easily evade the proposed American restrictions. My simple idea would be to create a computer program, dubbed "Unmuzzle," which would deposit incomprehensible fragments of any forbidden material in different foreign computers (though maybe not Germany's). The contraband communication would only be reassembled into a coherent whole when downloaded in the home of the user back in the United States, where it would become protected speech, as in any other medium. I had no intention of actually building "Unmuzzle," but I mentioned the notion in E-mail to a friend, and within days I was hearing from people I didn't know who were busy creating the program with the idea of distributing it freely. Fine with me. Such a program would make an mportant statement. Speaking as someone who has been involved with computers for most of my life (I coined the phrase "virtual reality" in the early 1980's and created much of the technology for it), I find that many Internet users have been reacting to attacks on freedom in cyberspace by slumping into a separatist, angry mood. They feel that they are being denied the rights that others enjoy. On the Internet, separatism is expressed by encryption: an encrypted message can be read only by the party it is intended for. Therefore, in the spirit of the First Amendment, I suggest Unmuzzle as an alternative method: it may break up images or text into a hundred pieces, but they are still accessible to the public. The idea of censoring the Internet should be unthinkable, especially in the United States. Aside from the question of free speech, there's the economic imperative as well. The Internet is not a plaything: it is the infrastructure of our information technology industry. The young have the most to lose from the new restrictions, in spite of the fact that such limits are purportedly meant to protect them. Schools and libraries will find it extremely difficult to offer vital Internet services in the face of a mine field of criminal liabilities. It is members of Congress and the President who need to show some maturity, by rejecting free-speech restrictions in the telecommunications bill. [End]

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