December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: THE RECIPROCAL ?......
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:33 AM 1/17/96 -0600, you wrote: > >Terence Joseph Mallon writes: > > "When people talk of encryption they use the word break, they are > > approaching from one way but not the only way. I am at present trying the > > reciprocal, that is, to mend." > >Why do I sometimes feel that personalities that once were drawn to >design of perpetual motion machines or techniques for squaring circles >may very soon flock to cryptographic "research"? Actually, I think she was just fucking with his mind... It sounds like an answer that I would give to a paranoid newbie, given half the chance. (If I had thought of it...) "A mindfuck is a terrible thing to waste." I am sometimes surprised at the number of "They have broken PGP" stories I keep hearing. People who know NOTHING about cryptography somehow "know" that PGP has somehow been "broken". I wonder how these memes are getting into the culture at large? 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/ "Is the operating system half NT or half full?"

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RE: Random Number Generators
by Kurt Buff (Volt Comp) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If you're going to work with hardware to get really random numbers, why not go to the back of any of several PC-type magazines, and order the radiation detector board that someone is hawking? Can't really do any better than that, can you? Counting cosmic ray hits and noting their time differentials should be just what the doctor ordered, right? Kurt ---------- From: Perry E. Metzger[SMTP:perry@piermont.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 1996 11:00 To: Timothy L. Nali Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: Random Number Generators "Timothy L. Nali" writes: > For a class project, I will be designing a VLSI cmos chip to generate > truly random numbers (The chip will be fabricated). I'm limited to a > 2-micron standard cmos technology > The most promising design I've seen so far (that I can actually > do) is based on clocking a D flip-flop in the following way: I'd say that the design you have picked has a couple of problems with it. The first is that you are, from what I can tell, building a synchronizer, which means that you may have metastability problems. (Your diagram wasn't completely clear so I can't tell). Also, you are depending on a sloppy clock and a not sloppy clock actually having the stated properties, which means you aren't really generating randomness so much as hoping you can detect and exploit it. As it is very hard to determine if a stream is really random, this makes your life difficult. Far better to try to use some analog tricks in the circuit itself to generate the random numbers for you. Of course, some of these end up producing metastability problems of their own... Can anyone point this guy at good texts on all of this? I've never found one... Perry

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02 96 Wired: Cyperpunks-related
by James M. Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friend, Cypherpunks-related items in 02 96 Wired: TITLES PAGES Surveillance-on-Demand 72 Spam King! 84 Cyphermilitia 95 Steve Jobs 102 [interview; see 162.2: "If the Web becomes too complicated, too fraught with security concerns...."] Catching Kevin 119 Privacy Is History 124 How Good People Helped Make A Bad Law 132 [FBI reverse-engineers EFF] I may have overlooked some items. Wired subscription requests: 1 800 SO WIRED. Cordially, Jim

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CryptoAPI and export question
by m5＠dev.tivoli.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tom Johnston writes: > We would ship a CSP development kit to a foreign vendor, and sign a CSP > developed by the foreign vendor, but only with the appropriate export licenses. So you'll only perform the signing operations in the United States? In other words, what if I'm in Egypt, and I develop a CAPI-compliant DLL (or whatever). Could I go down to the Cairo Microsoft office and get my stuff signed there? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Nobody's going to listen to you if you just | Mike McNally (m5(a)tivoli.com) | | stand there and flap your arms like a fish. | Tivoli Systems, Austin TX | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[Local] Update Information for Portland Cpunks Meeting
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The Portland Cypherpunks meeting is still on. We will be having a key signing. Reminder about time and location: Location: The Habit Internet Cafe 21st and Clinton in Portland OR http://www.teleport.com/~habit/ for more info. Date: January 20th, 1996 (THIS SATURDAY) Time: 5:23pm So far I have received only four keys for the key signing. I am kind of disappointed about the results of the proposed key signing for the meeting... If you are planning on attending, even if you are not planning on participating in the key signing, I need to know so the Habit can plan for the added influx of people. So far I have a large pile of "maybes" and few confirmations. If you have topics you would like to do a presentation on, please give me information on it so that I can distribute it to the other participants. (Or bring it up before the meeting.) *** NOTE *** Teleport (my ISP) has been having mail problems. If you have sent me mail and not received an confirmation, please resend. I may not have received it. Currently, there is only one other speaker confirmed (besides myself). I would like to see more input from the rest, so this does not just become a one way spouting of information. The one confirmed speaker will be presenting some of his findings on remailers involving reliability and getting nyms to function for those not versed in the field. It should be useful information for anyone using remailers. (He had a few findings that surprised me...) I have had a few interesting "maybes", but I will wait until (or if) they show up... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMP1nl+QCP3v30CeZAQFtGAf8DEofknvToxZWO5upwZoFiSUCaENrPtM/ 6t6Mdl3eTZHan28qJV9vXkKAG6Q9gANQ342NQeH1CbmOalNLxnVrETbKTKv8llNG ASH1iZML//JEQJT3XeHYHAPBBCg18zIfskjU0h0of60MzmcsykHN/ZJTIpps8UIq sgB8fk2Uh9LVg/VFyIvnVnpIMQPZ1W+Z5YQco3rEnqKycKjOi0E0XoKsaJFoWelj 1aHtmWrXxC1Lr2H7fVa0DsF5Vh3w5h2RaelpZBR8QB7Uz8JwYb4jaBtdkrSMlqeg IGZaKirdZDX7i0geB905aVVdiRrahbAz4nV82DxkVEbn/h56XHAtvg== =3PKR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- 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/ "Is the operating system half NT or half full?"

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Hack Microsoft Promotion Gets some Press
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just FYI, and patting everybody on the back. I've tried to deflect the credit, and at least in PC Week I was successful. January 8th PC Week, Netwired section, only distributed in print I think (which is odd). It mentions c2.org as a "controversial link" on the win95netbugs FAQ, which is odd because nobody has ever complained to me or on the newsgroups about it. But controversy sells, so that's probably a plus anyway. http://www.zdnet.com/~pcweek/ (their Web server sucks, though, you might not get through) InfoWorld, next issue, probably on the cover. http://www.infoworld.com/pageone/nickextra.htm San Jose Mercury News, probably tomorrow or the next day, not sure whether it's the main section or the computing/business section. http://www.sjmercury.com/ MERCURY on America "Online" Simson is rapidly approaching deadline and has frozen his sources, so please disregard my last about sending anything further to him. I will accept it and pass it on to anyone who inquires in the future. I think I was probably too timid by half in not violating anyone's anonymity by even forwarding notes to Simson and by not spamming Simson's mailbox, but that's OK, it'll all come out eventually. Watch these spaces for Microsoft's response. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pr/clarifications.htm http://www.wagged.com/ Three cheers especially for Peter, Frank, and Sameer. -rich(a)c2.org http://www.c2.org/hackmsoft/ llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/win95netbugs/faq.html

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Returned mail: User unknown (fwd)
by Alan Horowitz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Alan Horowitz alanh(a)norfolk.infi.net ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 08:27:15 -0500 From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON(a)infi.net> To: alanh(a)larry.infi.net Subject: Returned mail: User unknown The original message was received at Thu, 18 Jan 1996 08:26:56 -0500 from alanh@localhost ----- The following addresses had delivery problems ----- Name Withheld by Request <anon-remailer(a)utopia.hacktic.nl> (unrecoverable error) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to utopia.hacktic.nl.: >>> RCPT To:<anon-remailer(a)utopia.hacktic.nl> <<< 550 <anon-remailer(a)utopia.hacktic.nl>... User unknown 550 Name Withheld by Request <anon-remailer(a)utopia.hacktic.nl>... User unknown ----- Original message follows ----- Received: by larry.infi.net (Infinet-S-3.3) id IAA19226; Thu, 18 Jan 1996 08:26:56 -0500 Return-Path: alanh Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 08:26:56 -0500 (EST) From: Alan Horowitz <alanh(a)infi.net> To: Name Withheld by Request <anon-remailer(a)utopia.hacktic.nl> cc: "Alan Horowitz <alanh(a)infi.net> \"Timothy C. May\"" <tcmay(a)got.net> Subject: Re: PPF #25 and the UN test In-Reply-To: <199601180540.GAA14063(a)utopia.hacktic.nl> Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.91.960118080009.15630B-100000(a)larry.infi.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Very interesting. You make bona-fide sounding noises. Now let me ask you this. Do you think that USA has, or will ever have, security organs as kick ass as the East Germans had? Yet within a short time after the Soviets decided, to cede that whole part of Europe, to the Bonn sphere of influence, those East German operatives were running to cover their ass. Love of Liberty runs deep within the American psyche, analogously to the way that devotion to Islam runs deep in the Arab countries. The Islamists have plenty of sympathizers in various Arab security organs. Let's recall that President Sadat was shot by bona fide memmbers of the Egyptian military, in a highly organized operation. If you were a CFR guy, would you bet your life that you could order 500 more Wacos, without having to fear that thre would be no loyalty problems inside your chosen operating units? Let's accept that 20% of the SEALS said they'd confiscate legally-owned firearms from Americans....is 20% enough? Of the other 80%, could you rely on _none_ of them to casue major, major problems? The secret government has had total control of the economy, since the day the Federal Reserve was delegated the authority to create national debt. America is already well-controlled for the benefit of Insiders. They really don't need to attain higher visibility or more power. They are anglo-saxons, not banana-republic cult-of-personality types. Does Walter Wriston have to worry about Tim May deciding to stockpile blackpowder rifles? The SEALs are cannon fodder. They know it. Alan Horowitz alanh(a)norfolk.infi.net

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RE: Alta Vista, Great Stuff!
by Steve Gibbons 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In Article: <199601170427.XAA27753(a)UNiX.asb.com>, Beethoven <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> wrote: # Hey, I saw a message on the list about personal mail # showing up in an A.V. search, and figured why not try # it out and see what comes up under one of my nyms... # Lo and behold, my nym corresponds with the title of a # popular comic strip and an episode in a bad TV show... # Crypto related? # Imagine your nym is related to something common-place at # the time of posting. Even though you may be well known # under that nym, simple searches for that name will turn up # loads of crapola, or at least some light entertainment # for someone searching for oyur past posts. # (It can also turn some unsuspecting people looking for the # crapola onto your interests...) # Yes, I know that sophisticated search engines and simple # expressions can filter out most of the unwanted junk, but # not all of it. Likewise filtering will let some of your # posts fall through the web-crawler-cracks. I've ran into three similar situations lateley. 1) Quite a few people assume that aztech.com is Aztech Labs, the makers of various sound cards, video cards, and CD-ROM drives. (I _wish_ these fols would use the various search engines to find who/what they're looking for.) 2) I'm hosting a web-page for a band called One Foot In The Grave. There's a (fairly popular, I guess) British sit-com by the same name, with quite a few followers that have set up pages for the TV show. 3) There happens to be a steve(a)tezcat.com, and we occasionally receive email from long-lost aquaintances that was intended for the other. Generally this is in response to something that either one of us posted to Usenet. Crypto relevance? Only on item 3, if PK encryption was in wide-spread use, and easy to use, this wouldn't happen. The MUA would realize that it didn't have a local PK key for steve(a)tezcat.com, and inform the user (who could then perform a soundex lookup on their existing keys, and realize that they meant to contact steve(a)aztech.com.) Soundex (or equivilant technology) search spiders are going to make the whole mess even worse... ObPunk: I decided that the easiest way to hide from item 1 was to change domain names. By chance, someone else was interested in aztech.com, so I even made a profit. :) I keep meaning to write something up, and submit it to comp.risks, but who has the time?... -- Steve(a)AZTech.Net

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underground digital economy
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Question: The existing underground economy uses the same money as the aboveground economy (i.e. paper money, for the most part). Could a significant underground digital economy develop if the aboveground digital economy used only identified e-money? Jim_Miller(a)suite.com ____________________________________________________________________ The Internet is a land bridge for memes ____________________________________________________________________

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Scientic American
by Dan Harmon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The latest issue of SA has a small piece in zero knowledge transactions in the Math Rec section. Dan

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