December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

crypto in the NY Times
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Once and for all we have to squaush the stupid question that leads the last paragraph of the NYT Magazine article: "What if the [VoicePGP] static shielded the murderous plans of a terrorist or kidnapper? Phil Zimmermann would feel terrible." Presumably because he is "of the Left". Phil goes on to talk about tradeoffs. The real answer is: That's a real stupid question. Right now in my head I could be a psycho killer planning all sorts of terrible stuff, does that mean that you should use the techniques of the Inquisition to fight crime by peeling back the layers of my mind? Computers and communications are just extensions of the minds of individuals. If I can keep my mind private, I can keep my computer private. DCF --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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Re: Protocol Wanted!!
by mpd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

greg(a)ideath.goldenbear.com (Greg Broiles) writes: > If Alice wants proof that Bob can factor large numbers, > Alice should generate many of them - say, 1,000,000 of them. > She sends them to Bob and says "Hey, factor one and send me > the results as soon as you're done." The chances are 1 in > 1,000,000 that Bob is giving away a useful service for free Bob is now doing at least twice as much work as before. He is factoring a random key and a real one for each customer he does business with. Since the existance of a breakthrough in factorization is certainly of interest to people who do not want keys factored, Bob will get lots of requests from the curious, who have no interest in buying his services. Should he prove to someone in the academic community that he can indeed factor keys, people would simply stop using RSA and Bob's economic future would be bleak indeed. Bob needs to charge a lot for his services, and not give free demos. The protocol needs to require that the customers commit to the fee before Bob demonstrates his talent. This will discourage enquiries by the frivilous. > What they both need are trusted friends, attorneys, or > agents - Bob puts an ad in the newspaper, saying "I can > factor big numbers. Contact me through my attorney - her > name is [...]." Gaaak! All these people. You are making Bob paranoid. Bob is definitely not going to put an ad in the paper. His customers are foreign and domestic law enforcement and intelligence services and corporate security folks. Bob wants to keep an extremely low profile with the Great Unwashed. Isn't there some way for Bob to conduct business using the remailer at Hacktic and anonymous DigiCash(TM)? Bob does not wish to find himself at the bottom of a large body of water wearing concrete galoshes. Bob wishes to factor a few numbers, transfer the money offshore, and retire without the general public being aware that RSA has been compromised. > I don't have a damn thing to do with either law enforcement > or the intelligence community, but I bet that folks would > be willing, upon occasion, to pay between $100K and $1M for > factorizations of other folks' RSA private keys. The trend > towards civil forfeiture of "drug money" will probably lead > to higher prices for key factoring - folks who could factor > big numbers might even be able to negotiate for "points" of > the gross take, rather like big-name actors/directors or > sports figures. I agree. I think that $100 a bit would be an extremely reasonable price for factoring a 1024 bit modulus. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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crypto in the NY Times
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

And yet again: Attention - Steven Levy - The most common use of crypto from the dawn of time to the present has been to protect commercial information. There were always more traders than governors and they had more need to read or count. Writing was a commercial invention and coding is just another form of writing. How much are we paying these guys department: Attention - Jim Kallstrom, Fibbie - who argues (correctly) that strong crypto is just the same thing as if a criminal gang could build an unbreakable fortress in the Bronx and stash Polly Klass inside and the government could do nothing... If the bad guys have an unbreakable wall, the *victims* have an unbreakable wall too. The criminals gain nothing. They are, in fact, worse off since it becomes *harder* to 'break the close.' DCF There'll be more I'm sure. --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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crypto in the NY Times
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Control freaks - yah gotta love 'em. DD in today's Times - "I was exposed to cases where wiretaps had actually stopped crimes in the making...If they didn't have this tool, some of these things might have happened." I have been exposed to cases where torture actually stopped crimes in the making... I have been exposed to cases in which locking the entire population of a nation into a totalitarian control regime with internal passports and everything has actually stopped crimes in the making... I have been exposed to cases in which decimating the inhabitants of a village actually stopped crimes in the making. Guess what control freaks: The guy next door may have strong crypto, a gun, and a car with a tank full of gasoline with enough energy in it to blow up your house. There's not a goddamned thing on this good green earth that you can do about it. Get used to it. Learn to trust people until proven otherwise. DCF --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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Re: Protocol Wanted!!
by Ben.Goren＠asu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned yet that Bruce Schneier solves this problem in chapters five and six of _Applied Cryptography._ See especially page 90, "Noninteractive Zer-Knowledge Proofs." b& -- Ben.Goren(a)asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music net.proselytizing (write for info): Protect your privacy; oppose Clipper. Voice concern over proposed Internet pricing schemes. Stamp out spamming. Finger ben(a)tux.music.asu.edu for PGP 2.3a public key.

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Re: Remailer Chaining Security
by VACCINIA＠UNCVX1.OIT.UNC.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- :: Request-Remailing-To: rperkins(a)nyx.cs.du.edu :: Request-Remailing-To: nowhere(a)bsu-cs.bsu.edu :: Request-Remailing-To: vaccinia(a)uncvx1.oit.unc.edu The preceding remailer message path was generated using Hal's Chain utility. One can find this program at soda.berkeley.edu pub/cypherpunks/remailer, get Chain.zip. It automates alot of the drudge in chaining remailers. It will even encode messages using PGP if you have the remailers public key on your ring and your PGP directory in your path statement. For instance, to get the above remailer path I typed the following: chain vaccinia(a)uncvx1.oit.unc.edu vox rperkins nowhere <foo.let> foo.vox Thus my address will be the final destination, the message file (foo.let) is converted to the remail ready file, foo.vox. The remail ready file must then be manually sent to the first remailer in the chain, in this case remail(a)vox.hacktic.nl. It will then go to rperkins(a)nyx.cs.du.edu and then to nowhere(a)bsu-cs.bsu.edu, finally being sent to vaccinia(a)uncvx1.oit.unc.edu. The Chain.ini file (from the chain.zip file) contains the remailer addresses and whether a PGP public key for the remailer is available on your public key ring. Remailers for which you have keys will automatically be encoded and begin thusly: :: Encrypted: PGP N.B., It may be neccesary to edit the chain.ini file (it is merely an ASCII file) to update the list of remailers. I recommend this utility for chaining to most remailers. Remember that remailer(a)soda.berkeley.edu does not support the format, :: Request-Remailing-To: Even so it is a handy program to have if you want to avail yourself of the cypherpunks remailer system. Scott G. Morham !The First, Vaccinia(a)uncvx1.oit.unc.edu! Second PGP Public Keys by Request ! and Third Levels ! of Information Storage and Retrieval !DNA, ! Biological Neural Nets, ! Cyberspace -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLfoGvz2paOMjHHAhAQFSoQP+IELwswIrLk6B0W1nXDQJysqjYl7GGQg8 6gO38xSI7CzbqFFneM8YMNQG7U/PKIjs5Kw89lFZNHAYk6NzDGvVUbOepvIjQ9F3 xIO/TsTYASFAz5WcGNHKVR2ceq4juubDkBd9O5r+mEcj9c34Nhsbs9QxWC1T1l64 +YSyP9DBxHE= =hDW4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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test... please ignore.
by Robert Lau 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

this is only a test. if this had been a real emergency, this message would have been crypted. Robert Lau - Systems Programmer, Unix Systems 213-740-2866 -- University Computing Services Internet: rslau(a)usc.edu -- University of Southern California Bitnet: rslau@uscvm -- 1020 W Jefferson, LA, CA USA, 90089-0251 UUCP: ...!uunet!usc!rslau

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test 2... please ignore.
by Robert Lau 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

<test 2> this is only a test. if this had been a real emergency, this message would have been crypted. Robert Lau - Systems Programmer, Unix Systems 213-740-2866 -- University Computing Services Internet: rslau(a)usc.edu -- University of Southern California Bitnet: rslau@uscvm -- 1020 W Jefferson, LA, CA USA, 90089-0251 UUCP: ...!uunet!usc!rslau

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Re: Protocol Wanted!!
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Oh, am I stupid. Someone mentioned having lent his Schneier to someone. Hmmm. I wondered what book that would be, maybe I would want to buy a copy. So I charged off to look in the bibliography in Applied Cryptography. Strange, there are some articles listed by him, but nothing seems to fit, yet this book is so new... In any event, I really am enjoying Applied Cryptography, by Bruce Schneier. You could have lent your copy of it... -kb, the Kent who can be so slow -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 28:15 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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Massive ITAR Violation.
by catalyst-remailer＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN ROT13 SIGNED MESSAGE----- Fellow citizens of the United States of America, I wish to inform you of a great and ongoing catastrophe of most serious consequence. It is organized crime, by definition. Below is the header for the MacPGP2.2 file on sumex-aim.stanford.edu, archived with dozens of other utilities, as /info-mac/util/pgp.hqx, which has been there for *over a year*, many times a week being *exported* onto info-mac mirrors around the world. This is the most massive and organized absolute violation of the USA's ITAR munitions export laws (regulations) we have ever witnessed. For an entire year, weekly if not daily, the notorious encryptor PGP, right under our eyes, exported! I hope this is cleared up as soon as humanly possible, but we are all of us left with the guilt of not having noticed this before. All this talk of ITAR and there you are, your largest communal Mac ftp site pumping out PGP across the border like a huge demonic machine bent on destroying our beloved society. If the moderators cannot be contacted immediately, I suggest military force be used. Or cooperative shutdown of the US internet connections. Please begin this at once, as it *must* be stressed that PGP is classified as a MUNITION, right along with rocket launchers and tanks!!!!!!!! This is as serious as it gets. I didn't even know what the internet *was* back in April of '93, and I am but one in a million (literally) who has access to sumex-aim.stanford.edu and all its mirror sites. It must have been my destiny to save the world, for none of *you* seem interested in doing so. It has only been an hour since I discovered this NATIONAL SECURITY DISASTER, and I immediately set myself in action to save my country from destruction. *I*YoU*mE*We*OiwIE*wE*yOU*Me*I* P.S. Here is the evidence: >From: macmod(a)SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU (Info-Mac Moderator) >Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1993 23:22:58 PDT > >PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) ver 2.2 - RSA public-key encryption freeware >for MSDOS, protects E-mail. Lets you communicate securely with people >you've never met, with no secure channels needed for prior exchange of >keys. Well featured and fast! Excellent user documentation. > >PGP has sophisticated key management, an RSA/conventional hybrid >encryption scheme, message digests for digital signatures, data >compression before encryption, and good ergonomic design. Source >code is free. > >Keywords: PGP, Pretty Good Privacy, RSA, public key, encryption, > privacy, authentication, signatures, email > >(This file must be converted with BinHex 4.0) > >:$8eKBe"(8$)Z-LjcC@%!39"36'&eFh3J!!!$@3X!!%DFIea6593K!!%!!eN,FNa .... And upon downloading it and starting it up, the console window faithfully displays: >Pretty Good Privacy 2.2 - Public-key encryption for the masses. >(c) 1990-1993 Philip Zimmermann, Phil's Pretty Good Software. 6 Mar 93 >Date: 1994/06/12 16:10 GMT I further suggest that all of the following sites (but a sample) immediately remove this file from their archives and stop mirroring sumex-aim till they too remove the file. To keep this from happening again, I suggest *all of us* in the USA delete our copies of PGP from our hard disks, lest our children export it into the hands of such enemy nations as these. It is time we put an end to this scourge, for look what will happen if we do not. Pornographers and terrorists are coming for our children if we do not act. Death to PGP users!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where is our government in all of this? Our tax dollars are not being used to protect us from the EXPORT OF MUNITIONS TO ENEMY NATIONS!!!!! I suggest full prosecution of all users and maintainers of sumex-aim, as they have all obviously conspired to maintain this treachery. I suggest they all be searched for other weapons as well including land mines, automatic machine guns, poison gases, biological weaponry and mind control devices of all sorts, as it is my firm belief that the only reason they are interested in PGP is to forward their agenda to export other munitions, drugs pushed on *our* children to pay for them!!! This will culminate in the obvious acquisition of *nuclear bombs* by every Tom Dick and Harry gangster. Little boys and girls in the getto with *neutron bombs* and *poison gas missiles*! I shutter to think we could have stopped it but, alas, we may have failed ourselves. Here are the target sites. I suggest immediate offensive attacks to destroy these evil ports of death and destruction.... Australia (Melbourne): archie.au//micros/mac/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Austria (Vienna): ftp.univie.ac.at//mac/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Canada (Vancouver): ftp.ucs.ubc.ca//pub/mac/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Finland (Espoo): ftp.funet.fi// pub/mac/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Finland (Jyvaskyla): ftp.jyu.fi//info-mac/util/MacPGP2.2.sea Germany (Hannover): ftp.rrzn.uni-hannover.de//pub/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Japan (Tokyo): ftp.center.osaka-u.ac.jp//info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Japan (Tokyo): ftp.iij.ad.jp//pub/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Japan (Tokyo): ftp.u-tokyo.ac.jp//pub/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Netherlands (Wageningen): ftp.fenk.wau.nl//pub/mac/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Republic of Singapore (Singapore): ftp.nus.sg//pub/mac/util/pgp.hqx Sweden (Lund): ftp.lth.se//mac/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx.Z Sweden (Uppsala): ftp.sunet.se//pub/mac/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Switzerland (Zurich): nic.switch.ch//mirror/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx Taiwan (Hsinchu): ftp.edu.tw//Macintosh/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx UK (London): src.doc.ic.ac.uk//packages/info-mac/util/pgp.hqx.gz -----END ROT13 SIGNED MESSAGE----- -----BEGIN ROT13 SIGNATURE----- Whar fvkgu avargrra uhaqerq avargl sbhe. Sbhegubhfnaqgra punenpgref va frirauhaqerqrvtuglrvtug jbeqf bs baruhaqerq yvarf. -----END ROT13 SIGNATURE-----

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