December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Why Net Censorship Doesn't Work
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:29 AM 1/2/96 -0600, Ed Carp [khijol SysAdmin] wrote: >Tell that to folks in the contries of used-to-be-Russia. Lots of old >Communist leaders getting back into power - some folks are even saying >that the old days under the Communists were better than living in a free >market economy. I said "modern" country. Even so, Russia and the rest are much more market dominated than they used to be. Transition will not be easy but I doubt if they'll go back. As for an eternity of slavery being superior to too rambunctious freedom -- we won't let them be that stupid. The "cancer of Anglo-Saxon values" is pretty powerful. >> Where are the pressure points where regulation can be applied? > >How about on the backbone itself? Since everyone goes through the htree >major backbones, all one would have to do is control access at those >points. Of course, that would lead to clandestine use of >store-and-forward LEOsats, s&f UUCP sites, etc. UUCP might even make a >comeback ;) That would require outlawry of crypto over the backbone and some way of convincing the backbone to run government approved code. Quite a bit of resistance would ensue. Have the Feds ever successfully mandated that large numbers of people run government code? DCF

1 0

Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers
by Mark Grant, M.A. (Oxon) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 2 Jan 1996, Jay Holovacs wrote: > Commercial satallites have land based corporate owners. Remember the > success that Alabama had a few years ago pulling the plug on a New York > based softporn tv satellite distribution system. They simply went after the > assets of the satellite companies and got quick cooperation. About ten years ago a group I was involved with were thinking about putting something into space as a publicity stunt. One company we talked to claimed they could put 1 kg into orbit on one of their sounding rockets for about $ 30,000 (that's a 1 kg satellite, not $ 30,000 per kg). How small can you build a "data haven" satellite ? Looking a few years into the future, you could probably stick a stripped-down Linux laptop with solar cells and a stripped-down satellite telephone as a Net link on top of a slightly larger rocket and charge for on-orbit storage using ecash... Using remailers it should be pretty-much untraceable. Mark

2 1

Re: AOL security letter
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>bj: ALERT: Password Security >Date: 95-12-31 07:27:13 EST >From: Steve Case >Sent on: America Online (using Stratus) >"Dear AOL Community Member: >...Some of the effects as a result of not having the database link files >include: random log-off's, AOLnet runs slower, and Email may accidentally be >deleted. These problems are MAJOR inconveniences to our users, so we need >your help to fix the problem." Are you guys really sure you need me to send in my AOL password? I don't use my AOL account very often, but if you really need it, here it is: Username: Tim May, tcmay(a)aol.com Passphrase: 42trollsrus I hope this helps. --Tim May, tcmay(a)aol.com

1 0

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

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 18:43:31 +0000 (GMT) > From: "Mark Grant, M.A. (Oxon)" <mark(a)unicorn.com> > Subject: Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers > > About ten years ago a group I was involved with were thinking about > putting something into space as a publicity stunt. One company we talked > to claimed they could put 1 kg into orbit on one of their sounding rockets > for about $ 30,000 (that's a 1 kg satellite, not $ 30,000 per kg). How > small can you build a "data haven" satellite ? > > Looking a few years into the future, you could probably stick a > stripped-down Linux laptop with solar cells and a stripped-down satellite > telephone as a Net link on top of a slightly larger rocket and charge for > on-orbit storage using ecash... Using remailers it should be pretty-much > untraceable. > Actualy, both the Pacific Coast Rocketry group and the Experimental Spacecraft Association are working on putting the first amateur payload in LEO. ESA wants to put a telescope with real-time downlink up as their payload. PCR wants to put some kind of transponder up. Under current technology a group of about 30 dedicated amateurs (with suitable skills) could put a 25kg payload in orbit for under 1/4 million. It would consist of surplus and amateur built equipment. Tripolli puts out a magazine called High Performance Rocketry which you may be able to find at your local newstand (in Austin you get it at the Central Market Bookstop). It usually carries at least a couple of adds for material that PCR and a couple of smaller groups are putting out to help fund their project. I would say it will be less than 3 years before this dream occurs unless the DOT (the people who regulate all space shots now) decides not to give them a permit. Hi ho, Hi ho, it's of to LEO we go....

1 0

A Mondex like Protocol
by norm＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Two Mondex units, upon command of their respective operators, can pass money from one to the other via infra_red signals. I think that this requires tamper proof units. I understand that the Mondex protocol is currently undisclosed. I have no information about that protocol but am merely trying to find a protocol that fits the little that I know about Mondex. Are there other guesses? Here is one way it might work. Upon an operator receive command, the payee unit transmits a DH greeting along with the value of a counter located in the payee unit. (The integrity of the counter value in the greeting is somehow ensured.) It continues to send this greeting while it awaits a greeting. Upon a pay command from its operator, a payer unit transmits a DH greeting and continues to send that while it awaits a greeting. When either unit receives a greeting it computes the shared secret key ala DH. The payer decrements its cash value and generates a pay order enciphered under the secret key. The pay order includes the counter value from the payee's greeting. This order is transmitted repeatedly until an acknowledgement is received or times out. If it times out then the money is lost. When the payee receives a pay order, it verifies that the counter value is correct and then increments the counter, preventing replay. The payee then increments its cash value and sends ciphered acknowledgements for a brief period. The payer may give one final acknowledgement acknowledgement which, if lost, merely means that the receiver will time-out sending acknowledgements. The common DH modulus is known to all units and but otherwise secret. This, of course, requires a extraordinary tamper resistance. Only the state must be kept secret, not the hardware behavior. Here is the money integrity argument for this protocol. The units are collectively responsible for preventing counterfeiting. For counterfeiting to happen some unit must increment its cash value when there was no corresponding decrement in another unit. A unit increments its cash value when it decodes a pay order from someone who knows the global secret DH modulus. That someone must have been a legitimate unit that decreased its cash value. Replay is impossible because each such transaction is uniquely identified by the recipient's counter value. The recipient never increments its cash value twice for the same counter value.

1 0

Re: 2047 bit keys in PGP
by Michael C. Peponis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Why is there a limit to the size of the key anyway? It's too bad PGP > doesn't support any size key (within reason). Within reason is the Key Phrase. Even with a Pentium 90, I notice a considerable lag in decrypting messages that have been encrypted with a key larger than 2047/8. Even if you have a fast machine, if the person recieving the message could wait a long time to decrypt you 4096 byte encrypted message. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i iQCVAwUBMOs4u0UffSIjnthhAQEfigP9GQvgcyuCUxkrPqX/3yDdtwxDGajKbbhY j90px4tr1Q1sNQue8ywBDdBIQakirTr95QDeGMrC1n0NjSh5+dotUUWiChWLCLS+ AMIsA3LCJr5BzeCOni8bYyz7+alt617cIIYZs0Unt26BKJVI20hU8OgD0oC9K/uR 7WN3YIKff0k= =TuOD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Regards, Michael Peponis PGP Key Avalible form MIT Key Server Key fingerprint = DD 39 66 3D AE DE 71 C2 B6 DA B2 3F 47 2A EB AC

2 1

Re: DOS/Windows remailer chaining
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:27 PM 1/2/96 +0100, nobody(a)REPLAY.COM (Anonymous) wrote: >Cypherpunks write code. With that phrase and the wave of attempts to >censor the 'Net, I've embarked on a quest to make remailers easier to use. > >Has anyone written an easy to use Windows or DOS application that will let >someone chain a message through several remailers, perhaps with support >for the mailer at alpha.c2.org? Yup. Private Idaho, www.eskimo.com/~joelm/ does just that, along with calling PGP to do things you commonly want done. >Would the writer of such a program, if in the US fall under the provisions >in ITAR? Obviously, calls to the PGP program would have to be made. I >recall reading that such hooks do fall under the ITAR. If this is true, so >much for a more user friendly version of chain for the masses. Depends on whether it's a "component" of an encryption system or not. But if you're not doing PGP, no problem at all (except of course that _real_ remailers only talk encrypted....) #-- # 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....

1 0

Re: Guerilla ISPs
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:07 1/3/96, Peter Monta wrote: >I'm skeptical about cable modems---few cable providers have adequate >return paths, and everyone competes for the downlink bandwidth. >Broadcast is not the right architecture. Taking a closer look at it, you will find that the cable giants have prepared themselves rather well. In the US, there are about 3300 subs per headend. Each of which is served by about 7 trunks. Moreover, the cable operators have been busy laying fiber to all the headends. In fact, the vast majority of headends, certainly all the ones in the interesting markets have fiber on site today. The bandwidth crunch only happens if most cable subscribers want to use the ISP services. How many of the 3300 subs have PCs and are willing to pay $500-1000 per hookup? If you add switching to the picture, not that switching was necessarily needed, things look even better for cable based ISPs. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

1 0

Re: Guerilla ISPs
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:07 1/3/96 -0800, Peter Monta wrote: >I'm skeptical about cable modems---few cable providers have adequate >return paths, and everyone competes for the downlink bandwidth. >Broadcast is not the right architecture. I would be skeptical too, but the cable modems I reviewed in a marketing research focus group were from HP. My view of HP's reputation is that when they claim their equipment does something, it does. Does anyone want to offer counter examples? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

1 0

Re: Duplicate messages
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:40 PM 1/3/96 -0600, you wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >> Has everyone else been getting two messages for the price of one? > >I've gotten several pieces of email from people who are getting two >copies of stuff I post, but I've looked at my mailer (sendmail 8.6.10) >and it's not sending out dups to toad.com, as far as I can tell. > >If people continue to get dups from just me, then I'll have to install a >sendmail front-end to log outgoing email or something... It is not just you. I am getting dups from about half the list. Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "Governments are potholes on the Information Superhighway." - Not TCMay

1 0