December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

COMMUNITY CONNEXION ANNOUNCES PROMOTION FOR UNCENSORED ACCESS TO THE INTERNET
by sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Newsgroups: alt.censorship,comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.privacy,comp.privacy Subject: COMMUNITY CONNEXION ANNOUNCES PROMOTION FOR UNCENSORED ACCESS TO THE INTERNET From: Community ConneXion <admin(a)c2.org> For Immediate Release - January 4, 1996 Contact: Sameer Parekh 510-601-9777x3 COMMUNITY CONNEXION ANNOUNCES PROMOTION FOR UNCENSORED ACCESS TO THE INTERNET Berkeley, CA - In response to recent restrictions on Usenet material made available to CompuServe customers, Community ConneXion, an Internet privacy provider, today announced that has begun a promotion to offer uncensored access to Usenet newsgroups at a discount to users who have experienced censorship at the hands of their Internet service provider, employer, or university. "'The Internet views censorship as damage, and routes around it,'" said Community ConneXion President Sameer Parekh, quoting a famous saying on the net, "While a network provider, university, or employer may want to limit the access their customers, students, or employees may have to potentially controversial material on the Internet, people need to realize that it is still possible for them to access controversial material through alternative means. We're making available services to make this fact obvious." Community ConneXion offers full Internet access to its customers, with no content-based restrictions on materials its customers may read or make available on the Internet. Community ConneXion has made available one free month of service to users signing up for services with Community ConneXion who are doing so in order to avoid content- based restrictions instituted by their net provider, university, or employer. Customers who would like to take advantage of Community ConneXion's uncensored access may continue to use their current provider for their basic access, but to access the previously-unavailable materials they may proxy through to the Community ConneXion servers. Parekh commented on the ease with which people can bypass censorship instituted by their provider or employer, "Providers, employers, and universities may think that they are restricting access through their sites, but given the ease with which people can set up an account with us, the organizations trying to restrict access will soon realize that censorship is hopeless." Community ConneXion, founded in June of 1994, is the leading provider of privacy on the Internet. They provide anonymous and pseudonymous Internet access and web pages in addition to powerful web service, virtual hosts, and web design consultation. Information is available from their web pages at http://www.c2.org/. More information on the uncensored promotion is available at http://www.c2.org/uncensored/.

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Re: FreeBSD
by Daniel C. Cotey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was wondering if anyone else with pine observed wierd behaviour when reading that message. My pine exported the file, started a message, then fired up a shell, at which point I killed it before anything else happened. --- --- Daniel Cotey dccotey(a)serf.uccs.edu

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Representations of Pi, etc.
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:39 AM 1/5/96 +1100, you wrote: >> The decimal representation of any irrational number (e.g. pi, e) >> contains the decimal representation of every natural number >> somewhere. (Proof by diagonalization.) >What you say here isn't quite true. Right. But BTW, isn't it interesting, that news item from a few weeks ago, on an algorithm for determining individual bits in Pi, regardless of whether you've calculated all the previous ones. Only problem is, it only works in hexadecimal (and, obviously, binary, etc, not decimal.

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Forcible Concryption of Data
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>anonymous(a)freezone.remailer wrote: >> Does anyone understand what this "Concryption" really is? Reading the >> press blurbs, it could be nothing more than simply compressing the >> stream before encrypting it. A patent on that idea would be rather >> awkward. "Concryption" is the process by which your secret data gets enlisted in service to the government, as with Clipper and GAK. The original term when people got pressed into military service was "conscription," but times change. Thus, one might say, "My secrets have been concrypted--the government now has them." (After all, why do you think so many software releases are called "drafts"?) --Klaus! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Double Messages from Ed Carp
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:19 PM 1/4/96 -0800, Tim May wrote: >In looking at the detailed headers of a pair of such duplicates I see that >there may have been some kind of "fork" (not a technical term, just a >description) where the two messages (called Blue and Red) differ as >follows: > [Weirdness deleted] I am seeing the duplicates with another user as well. Received: (from lastxit@localhost) by arrakis.alphachannel.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA10251; Wed, 3 Jan 1996 18:52:35 -0600 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: "Marc Martinez" <lastxit(a)alphachannel.com> In-Reply-To: master(a)internexus.net's message of 3 Jan 1996 13:44:30 -0500 Subject: Re: 2047 bit keys in PGP Received: (from lastxit@localhost) by arrakis.alphachannel.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA10237; Wed, 3 Jan 1996 18:50:10 -0600 Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 18:50:10 -0600 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: "Marc Martinez" <lastxit(a)alphachannel.com> In-Reply-To: master(a)internexus.net's message of 3 Jan 1996 13:44:30 -0500 This might be an isolated problem with this user or someplace between here and there is duping mail messages... I thought there were more but it turned out to be a bunch of messages I was cc:ed on and it got caught in the filter. 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

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Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers (fwd)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:54 AM 1/4/96 -0800, you wrote: >At 11:43 1/4/96 -0600, Jason Rentz wrote: >>Previous exchanges deleted... >>> >>>With a tightly focused beam (light is easy, I don't know about lower >>>frequencies), you can prevent interception except by very obvious physical >>>devices. (e.g. Someone in a cherry picker truck.) You may be able to >>>avoid the need to encrypt the link (and all the paranoia about key >>>management, advances in factoring etc. that that implies.) >>> >>>Bill >> >>The problem with this comes when you start creating links between much >>taller buildings like in San Fran. Any give building over 30 stories might >>sway a foot or so at any given time. Combine that with the other building >>and you might get a few feet of movement. (movement not including during an >>earthquake) :) > >(1) No single communication technology is appropriate for every problem. > >(2) A technical fix could include having the receiver send steering orders >to the transmitter. This solution would, of course, be a long way from the >low tech scavenged lens and 1/2 meter cardboard mailing tube technology I >was thinking of. I think you guys (further up the reply chain) are missing the point. While IR does have stealth advantages in, say, wartime, for routine network usage everyone can be assumed to know where everyone else is, and where all the optical links are, etc. There's no point trying to use link-location secrecy. And presumably, encryption will provide all the message-secrecy/anti-spoofing functions required. Simply ASSUME that the beams can be intercepted (although probably not intentionally cut). That's why we're "cypherpunks," right?!? Secondly, IR beams can be plenty narrow enough to avoid inter-link interference, but at the same time wide enough to avoid beam-steering problems. Note: I'm assuming link distances of under, say 300 meters here. Previously, a point was made about the effects of fog cutting links: Due to scattering, one of the reasons automobile fog lamps are 550 nanometer yellow/orange is to minimize the scattering that shorter wavelengths (400 nm blue, 450 nm green) are more prone to. I would imagine that near IR at, say, 890 nm would be dramatically less sensitive to such scattering. 1400 nm might be even better. Rain might be a different story. But then again, if we're limiting the links to around 300 meters, the total amount of water between "here" and "there" CAN'T be all that great. And in addition, one of the advantages of computer networking over telephone-type networking is that we can "tolerate" (although, not LIKE) the occasional necessity of re-transmitting data. And dynamic re-routing is probably far easier than for real-time telephone-type data. >From the standpoint of computer networking, the main benefit of IR is to cross rights-of-way without permission or trenching (or stringing cables from telephone poles) in urban and suburban areas, allowing data transfer near-fiber speeds. In an urban setting, a single tall building could become a central hub for most of its nearest neighbors. I don't anticipate IR being used "to the home" (especially since residential areas have trees, etc); rather, I would imagine that it would be used to feed the occasional top-of-the-telephone-pole microcell, with very-low-milliwatt (or high microwatt) RF going the last 100 meters or so to the home. This would allow a non-phoneco, non-cableco company to offer bidirectional networking in an entire residential area with an absolute minimum of costs/rights aquisition.

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Visual Correlations of RNGs useful for cryptanalysis?
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Somebody passed an interesting article to me, "Random number generators: pretty good ones are easy to find", Clifford Pickover (IBM Watson Research Ctr, NY), The Visual Computer (1995) 11:369-377. The article does NOT deal with cryptographically secure RNGs, however the author discusses some interesting methods for visualizing correlations in RNGs that probably can be applied to crypto. One is the "Noise Sphere", which involves plotting the last three numbers generated by the RNG (Xn, Xn+1, Xn+2, where 0<Xn<1, and n=0,1,2,3...N) on spherical coordinates (r, theta, phi), where theta = 2 * pi * Xn phi = pi * Xn+1 (note, X subscript n+1) r = sqrt(Xn+2) ( " X subscript n+2) The article includes some pretty interesting graphics, including a couple that demonstrate what crappy RNGs look like. Also discusses some other methods (terrain generation) for visualization. Advantage is that this type of test is that it can be done on a low-end PC, can show some complex correlations even when an RNG is statistically good, and one doesn't have to an expert to see when something is wrong. Crypto output (bytes, words, dwords, etc.) can be easily(?) translated into binary fractions for this type of test. Take care, --Rob --- "Mutant" Rob <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a blank message with the subject "send pgp-key" (not in quotes) for a copy of my PGP key.

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None
by Mr. Nobody 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <199601050311.TAA27567(a)netcom5.netcom.com> frantz(a)netcom.com (Bill Frantz) writes: > From: frantz(a)netcom.com (Bill Frantz) > Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 19:13:58 -0800 > > At 20:05 1/4/96 -0500, anonymous(a)freezone.remailer wrote: > >Does anyone understand what this "Concryption" really is? Reading the > >press blurbs, it could be nothing more than simply compressing the > >stream before encrypting it. A patent on that idea would be rather > >awkward. > > What I interpreted their press release as saying was that they had patented > the idea of doing the compression AND the encryption in one pass over the > data. If they got a patent for this, then the patent office has totally > lost the concept that in order to be patentable, the idea must not be > obvious to those well versed in the state of the art. Unfortunately, the patent office has totally lost that concept, with rather disastrous consequences for people who can't afford to fight bogus patents in court. http://www.lpf.org for more info.

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Indecency Mathematics
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:26 PM 1/4/96 +0100, Rudi Raith wrote: >2) > >I suppose that there is a predicate indecent_p(n), which is true if n >represents something indecent, false otherwise. (Some implementation >of such a predicate could be a police officer arresting you upon >presentation of the number to him, yielding true. :-) ) Such numbers >may be called "Indecent Numbers", their "posession", "transfer", >etc. be banned. Fortunately or unfortunately, "decency" and "indecency" are incapable of exact mapping to words. Location, context, tone of voice, year, time of day, recipient of communication, etc. all affect "indecency." "That girl is attractive." "The bitch is in heat." "Our President -- William Jefferson Blythe Clinton." "Jesus Christ is the Son of God." All of these statements are sometimes decent and sometimes indecent/blasphemous. It depends purely on a host of factors. That is the point of using the "indecency" standard. Consider the similar problem of defining the crime of Blasphemy: Christian: "Jesus Christ, the Messiah is God" Blasphemy because it claims that a man as God. Jew: "The Messiah has not yet come." Blasphemy because it denies the divinity of Jesus. We solved this problem in the US by legalizing all such speech. That is the only way to handle the similar decency/indecency definition problems. DCF "Government is not established for the benefit of the governed."

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Compuserve grovels to foreign censors
by Sudduth, Larry 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 15:05 1/4/96, Bill Frantz wrote: >Caller ID could tell them where you are calling from. They can also use >their billing information and user profile information to decide where you >live and/or how old you are. I wonder if any of these filters will keep >the German prosecutors off their necks, given that they can be bypassed. I don't know whether or not one can presume the existence of Caller ID over in Germany. When I lived there (albeit several years ago), it was a frustrating mixture of old technology (no records of any calls, just a counter that registered message units, so one could get a monster phone bill, and not even contest it) and new (ISDN and the German Post's version of BTX, Bildschirmtext). >I feel sorry for them given the situation they are in, and want to kick >their butts for just rolling over dead instead of fighting for free access. Feeling much the way you do about CompuServe's actions, I voted with my wallet, and canceled my membership. More and more vendors are offering equivalent support through the I'net anyway. The vision of a tin horn prosecutor in Munich being successful will only fuel the zeal of the would-be censors here and elsewhere in the World. (I wonder if the Revolutionary Guards in Iran are discussing what they next want censored.) BTW, I've never been an alt.* group reader, etc. That being said, who is CompuServe to try to control access to it. CompuServe is transport-only, and not a content originator. Since the Una-bomber used Fed-Ex to kill his victims should Fed-Ex no longer deliver to US addresses? begin 600 WINMAIL.DAT M>)\^(AX%`0:0" `$```````!``$``0>0!@`(````Y 0```````#H``$%@ ,` M#@```,P'`0`%````. `)``4`'P$!"8 !`"$```!%1C8U,# Y0S8X-#9#1C$Q M.$$P,# P-C X0S8X13<W10`5!P$@@ ,`#@```,P'`0`%````. `=``4`,P$! M"( '`!@```!)4$TN36EC<F]S;V9T($UA:6PN3F]T90`Q" $$@ $`)@```$-O M;7!U<V5R=F4@9W)O=F5L<R!T;R!F;W)E:6=N(&-E;G-O<G,`=0X!#8 $``(` M```"``(``0.0!@!D!P``$@````L`(P``````"P`I```````#`"8```````,` M-@``````'@!P``$````G````36%S<V5Y+"!#14\@;V8@0V]M<'5S97)V92P@ M;VX@26YT97)N970```(!<0`!````&P````&ZVRK;.IP`991&:!'/B@``8(QH MYWX``5:S40`#``80\D%G_@,`!Q#Y! ``'@`($ $```!E````050Q-3HP-3$O M-"\Y-BQ"24Q,1E)!3E1:5U)/5$4Z0T%,3$52241#3U5,1%1%3$Q42$5-5TA% M4D593U5!4D5#04Q,24Y'1E)/351(15E#04Y!3%-/55-%5$A%25)"24Q,24Y' M20`````#`! 0``````,`$1 ``````@$)$ $```"T!0``L 4``-H)``!,6D9U MG-MAO?\`"@$/`A4"J 7K`H,`4 +R"0(`8V@*P'-E=#(W!@`&PP*#,@/%`@!P M<D)Q$>)S=&5M`H,SMP+D!Q,"@S02S!3(-0/&713%?0J ",\)V3L8SS(\-34" M@ J!#;$+8&YG&#$P,Q10"P-L:3.^-@WP"U46\@P!$U!O$]!Z8P5 005 `% + M515B,G42L&,`0" 6\!S_'@,Z+QZ?'Z <WQWE-1YP+S2P+SDV+ KA(7]"`Q#) M`R!&<@!P='HDEQUM2G<=XCH*A3Y#!T!L(020($E$( 6@=6S,9" 3T"7Q=&@3 MX"?PTRI &- @>0A@( K *L F8RCQ"X!G( -2+B!T(%0J0'DK40.@!T!SN&\@ M=1&P"H<DSSXFG^L=]"HQ:07 8B7A*Z(+@&4"$'(`P'1I`B K$&[O*< M,07 M'=%F`Q JP#%J]G0M$ 6!:0VP*G@M;RY_6QU>')!V*L R(2\%L6B^;P?@!O I MP"KE+"%))_#W`B $@3%09C(1+( RT"HB?Q&P*] #$!/0$: G\"7B:ST)X' U M+S8_+X\J0"!'SP20`X(=T1&P8W4S\#P!ES+0.S,PL6X%D&MS)("^9SA1,]$1 M@#!C+(1B*L#<8GD*L 00"8 N/,T=9*X@"H\>[#H@9 (@)P5 _&MN.1$J@2HQ M!< %L4A WP5 `B K0D!R!Y!U!X _T\QE> 0`$]!N8RK .R%U*.AO.&!R1<4+ M@$ 5>?TL(5<J0 .@.B X0BG!*I/V* = 0Z!I!4 1L$PQ!T"-*M!E$9$K$&=O M*22 O4\A=T0`*Q KT2TP="8PAS'0*[%%Q6UI>'0(<+=+,SE"'@%H2$ 88&<L M@-HH2$ @&- %H61!,CK3^RMB0C%J44%0\2F!`C I(7]"PQC00F 3P1C14>8' MD'/_4# JP%8@3R!",2T!27,ID]]8,%7"!& `@%9"<#D`28'_,.(D@#(B23)/ M80.@!:!6,3M5L4\@*47%6T,'T2A)6%-$3C(3/^E00+!T/B<$($PQ`) Q\3LA M0E2^6"2 )=%4@!%P,+!M$]#]4G I1%9%RQR;/;\^SSH1SF8)X ,@+0!R<BR M,8'_*B1"9BK `)!2@#.5+&(K(I\+@%LD4, ",#/B:VE"$/\\SV.O/N\PE$#P M6)!F<U63[P-@*X1,(C0182G "X 3P>=O@3LA,N!G:%&39H(#4-L)X"L08TL@ M!! N:I\?H,UA?$9EX2NB;741<#_3_U# +( JXD?0*Q &X$#P2W#Y`W!P=09A M.&!?00#0,=)[0C$Z('8=\6E!3R!TL&V_+(!A[V+_'Y%0P"D!=%LD_RRA2R I M$"G >%$'@ ;0._'U8-!P+"%-!; X<UGQ*K%_0H%'T% "4J-ET 404;AE/'%U M.% '0 GP3S%U<&YP&'$J(0-@=7" /]-)_B=!\%7!.O!U$2PD7V $`/]?M5$` M49$X\02A1<5 F$S"?DU8872A3P$KL4H@<9-F=RF@/"0"(&QF80I0*A,@OGI/ MX(<Q.S,Z,2FA+4.A_T7%2R `@$$2*I,R(BGP$;#W*H1,T3_B5P6P*; L(5VP M^SHY/^)23V &\$#P,>$*P+IY1<5'9^!4<DS1228Q_2L39 0`0. $$"NB*H!" MYO]!\%)P:52)]$0Q7+9%Q6 @^E=W82<X84'P;R)#H$*1L2RS="XJ0E"!$7!4 M(>]O@ 20)( 1P&,L(T+AA?7]"W!D)( J@"T0! !%Q78H_S/B46 L@#/Q7!)N MD7%U,^)_3R L(9B)! "940!Q@*(M_X=26R-%Q4DR5>)6,6F!!;#?<' +@#' M!; L(5,+@$LA_3_B58XPB4 #<'R!+2(IP/-T`(DP17AII"7Q8-!?4?MI\#'0 M;9@&?+ IDZ$55 &_&& ;T&\S.$)682T0507PS6^ 9$H!$;!S/VHO'S8O'<>F M+W*>%_$`JI! `#D`(+FB@C+;N@$"`4<``0```#(```!C/553.V$](#MP/5-E M8W5R94,R.VP]4')I=F%T92!-1$(M.38P,3 U,#4U-C$P6BTY````0 `', #( MA.$PV[H!0 `(,.!,WXXRV[H!'@`]``$````!``````````(!%#0!````$ `` 3`%24H< I?Q ;I8<(`"LJ)1=K< `] ` end

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