December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: phone calls from hell
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:48 AM 1/9/96 +0100, Anonymous wrote: >Media reports said that the explosion was set off by >remote control when Ayyash answered a call to him. It is >not known how the identity of Ayyash was ascertained. NBC News reported Monday that it was a Motorola phone, that Israel cut the landlines to the house to encourage cellular use, that *the* call came from the Engineer's *father*, and that an Israeli aircraft overhead triggered the blast after assuring itself (by voice info) that the Engineer was using the phone. DCF

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Re: "Microsoft.com" added to my KILL file
by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim and Lucky were talking.... >>embedded spreadsheets and embedded graphics. And as for attachments, such >>as attaching programs for running on a machine, mailing list messages are a >>very poor way to distribute such programs, for many reasons. To say nothing of the risk of some nasty Word virus or other malicious executable. _______________________ Regards, Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed. -William Blake Joseph Reagle http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html reagle(a)mit.edu 0C 69 D4 E8 F2 70 24 33 B4 5E 5E EC 35 E6 FB 88

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Re: get mix-installer. (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From adam(a)lighthouse.homeport.org Fri Jan 5 19:52:45 1996 > Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 20:55:25 -0500 > From: Adam Shostack <adam(a)lighthouse.homeport.org> > Message-Id: <199601060155.UAA21106(a)homeport.org> > To: ravage(a)ssz.com > Subject: Re: get mix-installer. > References: <199601060152.TAA04065(a)einstein.ssz.com> > In-Reply-To: <199601060152.TAA04065(a)einstein.ssz.com> > Precedence: junk > > I followed the request information per the original posting by Adam and received this in reply. This leads me to believe that Mr. Shostack is basicaly unwilling to fulfill his own promises. My advice, avoid like the plague. Caviat emptor.

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W 4:15 ** Markoff and Shimomura on the pursuit of Kevin Mitnick, ComputerCriminal
by ee380 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Highly edited announcement perhaps of interest to SF Bay Area cpunks. My appologies to those that are not interested in the subject. - Bill Frantz EE380 Computer Systems Colloquium Date: Wednesday, Jan 10,1995 Time: 4:15-5:30 pm Location: Skilling Auditorium, Stanford University, Stanford, CA Speakers: John Markoff, New York Times Tsutomu Shimomura, San Diego Supercomputer Center Title: Takedown: The Capture of Kevin Mitnick Abstract Shimomura and Markoff will talk about the pursuit and capture of Kevin Mitnick, a 32-year old computer programmer who was arrested in Raleigh, N.C. last year by the FBI, after Shimomura, working on behalf of several Internet service providers, traced him to an apartment complex on the outskirts of the city. Shimomura and Markoff have cooperated to write a soon to be released book about the pursuit, Takedown (Hyperion 1996) ************************************************************************ * EE380 is the Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium. The Colloquium * * meets most Wednesdays throughout the normal academic year. * * * * For information on the class send e-mail with a subject line * * mentioning "info" in the subject line to ee380(a)shasta.stanford.edu. * * * * WWW Page: http://www-leland.stanford.edu/class/ee380 * ************************************************************************

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Certificates: limiting your liability with reuse limitations
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Suppose I am a CA. I am worried that by issuing a certificate with a lifespan of more than 2 milliseconds I am opening myself up to unlimited liability if for some reason, despite my best efforts, I issue an erroneous certificate. I know I can write disclaimers, but that's not reliable since courts often ignore them, and anyway it scares off customers. I know I can put an expiration date on the certificate, but that's not enough. I can accumulate a lot of exposure in a few seconds, much less weeks. I know I can put a reliance limit in the X.509 ver 3 certificate, but that's not enough. Even a $1 limit could be used many millions of times. Is it feasabile to say: Can only be relied on once per day/week/month? Is this something the relying parties can reasonably be expected to monitor? It seems to me that this sort of a limit is essential if a CA is to feel comfortable outside Utah.... A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.

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Re: phone calls from hell
by Alan Horowitz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I almost hate to start a thread about something that will inevitably implode into a middle-east-politics flamefest, but this reminds me of the time the newswires reported that 10% of Israel's population had attended that peace rally in Tel-Aviv. Was it right after the Sabra-Shatilla massacre? Anyway, the followup news (which of course never made the news) was that it would not be physically possible for a third of that many people to all be in that place (Kikar Square?) all at once. The original numbers were published by the Israeli "peace camp", who would have liked for there to be that many people there. 100,000 people at a funeral? I don't doubt that there were 100,000 people who would have liked to be there, but I am skeptical that there's enough vehicles in Gaza to assemble 100,000 people to a funeral within a few hours. It doesn't matter does it? Everyone is willing to lie when they write press releases; newspapers are willing to not check ridiculous claims (if the claim comports with the publisher's outlook); and setting the record straight doesn't help sell advertising, publishers really care how lazy journalists are. I saw a great interview with the man who invented the phrase "ethnic cleansing" - a PR-agency guy in Boston under contract to the Bosnian Government. He openly stated, that he doesn't get paid to write the truth into press releases; he's paid to get his client's press releases into opinion-molder's fax machines FIRST. The first press release always wins. He also openly stated that he didn't know and didn't care if the Bosnian-Serb militias were operating concentration camps or not; the important thing was to fax the story to the American Jewish groups; he knew that the very *word* concentration camp would catch their eye and push them into agitating against the Serbs. He specifically stated, that he was so proud of his cleverness, because the Croatian President (foe of the Serbs) has a book under his belt ("Wastelands of Historical Reality") that is packed full of some very hot anti-Semetism. Alan Horowitz alanh(a)infi.net

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The LOGIC of Navigator 2.0 ?
by James M. Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friend, 01 07 96 the business news agency Bloomberg reports: Netscape Communications Corp. said it will release in two weeks a new version of its popular browsing software, de- signed to keep the Internet software company ahead of rival Microsoft Corp. ... The [new] browser can use programs that are stored on cen- tral computers on the Internet, making a personal computer's operating system less important. And thereby making GOVERNMENT LOGIC more important? Cordially, Jim NOTE: The newsstory's headline? NETSCAPE WILL RELEASE AN UPDATED INTERNET BROWSER IN TWO WEEKS. Its dateline? MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (Jan 7, 1996 4:16 p.m. EST). Its Nando News online filename? biz7_1087.html

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Re: e$ payee anonymity (Was: e$: Come aaaannnndddd Get it!)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:35 PM 1/7/96 -0500, you wrote: >Still working through my 10MB cpunks mail backlog; this one's from >November 17, 1995: > >jim bell writes [msg #0]: >> It seems to me that this should be possible, within limits, if the potential >> payee could generate a "blinded" note to be delivered to the payer by >> anonymous means. The payer could get the note certified by the bank, >> possibly given an extra "blind" if necessary (is this possible? Desirable? >> Why not?) and then the resulting still-blinded but certified note is posted >> (in encrypted form, I supposed) to the 'net so that only the payee can >> decrypt and unblind it. > >I wrote: ># This sounds like a version of "Hey, I'll pay you $10, if you give me a ten ># dollar bill first." As I understand your protocol, Bob gives Alice an enote, ># then Alice gives Bob an enote. >[...] > >jim bell writes [msg #1]: >> It sounds like you understand even less about the details of digital cash >> than I do. >> >> First, read the August 1992 issue of Scientific American, the article by >> David Chaum. He explains, with a certain amount of detail, how blinded >> digital cash operates. To become validated and worth money, it first has to >> be electronically "written," blinded, and then signed by the bank. Then it >> is unblinded, at which point it can be spent. >> >> What I was saying is that the notes would be written by the payee, then >> blinded by the payee, given to the payer, and then signed by the payer's >> bank. At this point, they are worth money, and they are then returned to >> the payee, >[...] > >Aha, thanks for the elaboration. I was confused by your use of the term >"note" to describe something that isn't in fact worth money, when you said >"the potential payee could generate a "blinded" note to be delivered to the >payer". It also helps that I haven't read much of the ecash(tm :) protocol >details :} > >Futplex <futplex(a)pseudonym.com> I'm quoting the whole thing since it's so old. As I assume you are aware, the reason I'm so interested in full payee/full payer anonymity for digital cash is that my idea, "Assassination Politics", requires it: It is necessary to be able to reward a completely unknown person by a completely unknown person, in such a way that nobody can rat out the other person. Even the presence of an intermediary (trusted) organization would be unnecessary if it were possible to GUARANTEE the offer of payment to the payee. As the idea is currently structured, the central organization collects the money, reports the donations, and makes the (continuing) publicized offer. It publicizes enough information to prove to the average citizen that it is dealing fairly with all concerned. Obviously, communication with the donors/guessors must be minimized/secured also, in such a way as to make detection of these people extremely difficult and ideally impossible.

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Re: "Re: NSA says strong crypto to china??
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:47 AM 1/7/96 -0800, Raph Levien <raph(a)c2.org> wrote: > My best guess is that we're seeing a distortion of this >interchange. If I were a Chinese dissident, I wouldn't want to use >GAK, for three reasons: using US-lackey encryption is certainly not >going to get you into any _less_ trouble than using independent >encryption, if you used GAK you'd be working as a US spy whether you >wanted to be or not, and finally, who says the Chinese can't decrypt >it, especially with the rapid growth of television. And, four, there's no guarantee the US keymasters won't burn you to the Chinese government, if it seems useful in preserving "stability"... #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 # # "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance" used to mean us watching # the government, not the other way around....

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Re: phone calls from hell
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8 Jan 1996 Jerusalem, (Reuter) - The head of Israel's Shin Bet resigned Monday just three days after the killing of a wanted Palestinian bombmaker recovered some of the damage the secret service suffered from the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The man, identified by his initial "kaf," remains in office until a successor is appointed, Israel Radio said. His predecessor, Yaacov Peri, is now president of one of Israel's two cellular telephone networks. -- 8 Jan 1996 Jerusalem (AP) -- The booby-trapped cellular phone that killed an Islamic militant was delivered by a longtime informer for Israel who was paid $1 million for helping, media reports said Monday. A fugitive for three years, Ayyash was hiding in the home of Osama Hamad, his friend from college days. Hamad said he warned Ayyash in the summer that his uncle, Kamal Hamad, may be an informer for Israel. Hamad said his uncle gave him a cellular phone so he could be found easily. A day before Ayyash was killed, his uncle asked for the cellular phone, took it and returned it later, requesting that it be kept on at all times, Hamad said. Israel's security services apparently deceived Kamal Hamad, telling him they had planted a bug in the phone, rather than explosives, the radio said. Media reports said that the explosion was set off by remote control when Ayyash answered a call to him. It is not known how the identity of Ayyash was ascertained. --

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