December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Responding to Exon -- technology is not enough
by Daniel Miskell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Humphries writes: >Instead of figuring out how to build a new treehouse that excludes Exon and >Hyde, how about fighting the damned bill in the courts? Possibly because a) it is allready being faught, and b) court battles cost money which most folks dont have. If people are unfamilliar with encryptation, they should do a web search and find out what they can, then use it. What you are saying (as far as encryptation not being an answer because so few know how to use it) feels like "lets not use a gun to defend our home from intrusion because so few know how to handle them. You dont just assume that bewcause you dont know how that you give up. You learn how. That is how i found this list - because i did a little running around. Munster --- _________________________________ *!Cheese Doctrine:!* Though cultured over time, and aged to perfection, one must not yield to produce mold. One must also not belittle themselves by conforming to the "whiz", but melt over the unprocessed ideas of Ghuda. _________________________________

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Prayers Pay
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The raiders hit early this morning, banging the door about 4 AM, me groggily peeking out, a subpoena wadded into my shirt, then the bastards barged in. My ex-wife holding back, grinning like shit, saying you're fucked this time Johnny wee-dick. The black suits took all of it, computers, backup disks and tapes, printers, scanners, plotters, fuck, even the phones and message box -- jeez, why those? Harassment, teaching you a lesson, Bess my shark phoned just now, they shut your business down, take weeks to rummage the equipment and data, give it back slowly, one at a time, no hurry, wanting you to ache in case they find nothing. Swift justice, she hisses, even if you're innocent, cause nobody really is, they want you to scream, use you to broadcast a scare. Fuckups are getting gutted all over that Net Playboytoy. Six others this week, Bess coughs on, dragging deep, it's gonna rain even heavier in Exon's maelstrom, sweet darling maryjesus, prayers pay.

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Plea for information
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Daniel, During a year in this penitentiary, here's five I heard the older cons mutter: 1. "Applied Cryptography," Second edition just out, Bruce Schneier, Wiley, 1996. Flip through it and stare in disbelief and awe. Enjoy 2-5 and return, anxious. 2. "The Codebreakers," David Kahn, Macmillan, 1967. Crypto- biblical tales of lying and cheating via momentarily secret tricks. Continued in 3. 3. "Cyphernomicon," Tim May et al, 1006-Far Future. A wad of inspiring sci-non-fi of miscreating, eluding hard-bars and regaling in off-shore soft-bars. Also, C4. 4. "Cypherpunks archives," All Wholesomes, <www.hks.net>, Infinite. The stingers honey pot for luring beekeepers into berzerk swarms. Wear 5 for protection. 5. "PGP." Download it somewhere somewhat legally while you can, practice picking this sitar. And heave some brick- bucks at benefactor Phil for malefactor dues.

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Re: 1)Age etc CA 2)Swedish Digicash
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:56 PM 12/7/95 +0100, Mats Bergstrom wrote: >Posten has licensed Digicash and plans to >open a mint/bank (Posten already is closely connected to a bank) >dealing in Swedish crowns. (This is not news but things seem to >be moving right now.) Some (but slight) mention of laundering, >of course. It's supposed to come about in 'the beginning of next >year'. I wonder how exchanges crowns/dollars will be managed. Is there an existing Post Office Bank in Sweden? If so, can foreigners open accounts? The UK's postal bank (Girobank) has become more like a normal bank and I think foreigners can open accounts. (The US Postal Savings System was closed in 1956 or so.) I'd rather have a Swedish Digicash account than one in the US. DCF "A bank is just a money switch. Soon we'll all have money switches."

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Re: latest librand source now av
by jps＠monad.semcor.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

an116512(a)anon.penet.fi writes > ... [various profanities omitted] ... The bad is getting worse. I don't know how these services work. Can I killfile the account, or do I need to ax the host? Many thanks. jps -- Jack P. Starrantino (215) 674-0200 (voice) SEMCOR, Inc. (215) 443-0474 (fax) 65 West Street Road jps(a)semcor.com Suite C-100 Warminster, PA 18974

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NIST GAK, Escrow Agent Criteria available
by pfarrell＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At the meeting, the NIST/NSA folks presented their criteria for being an acceptable escrow agent criteria. They had hardcopy, and Geoff had slides. The slides didn't exactly match the hardcopy. I have typed in the text from my hardcopy. It is on my clipper2 page (which is under construction at <a href="http:/www.isse.gmu.edu/~pfarrell/nist/clipper2.html">) url for the criteria for escrow agent entities is <a href="http:/www.isse.gmu.edu/~pfarrell/nist/escagent.html"> I will _not_ post it (about 4 pages) to the list. If you can't use the web, email me and I'll forward a copy. I've got some notes on Geoff's presentation that I'll post later on. Pat Pat Farrell grad student http://www.isse.gmu.edu/students/pfarrell Infor. Systems and Software Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP key available via finger or request #include standard.disclaimer

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Re: 1)Age etc CA 2)Swedish Digicash
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:06 AM 12/7/95 -0500, Duncan Frissell wrote: > Is there an existing Post Office Bank in Sweden? If so, can foreigners open > accounts? While any foreign account is of course better than any home country account, Sweden is not really a place that I would like to keep my money. High taxes, rigid controls, intrusive and unpredictable government, and, most importantly, the country has repeatedly teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. I would wait for some more solvent foreign country to get into digicash. More to the point -- few people will accept or spend digicash unless those unreasonable charges come right down. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: Still more on the Digicash protocol
by Mark Twain Ecash Support 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:01 PM 12/6/95 -0500, you wrote: >Hal has pointed out that payments & deposits with a wildcard in the >payment_hdr should NOT be sent in the clear, since they can be stolen >by any passive eavesdropper. Let us contemplate in which type of situation the payee will send such a wildcard coin. To pay a shop via TCP? No. The payment request comes in with the shop ID. The resulting payment won't be done with a wildcard coin. So when will the user pay with a wildcard coin? To make a payment to a party that is (pseudo-) anonymous to the payor. That is, if the payor sends the payment via anonymous remailer, in which case the messages should be encrypted anyway. [Why a remailed message should be encrypted is left as an exercise to the reader.] >Ian has pointed out the same problem with cancellations: the payer_code >should NOT be sent in the clear, since any passive eavesdropper can >grab this info and steal the corresponding payment. As mentioned before, this will be fixed. >Anyhow, the obvious solution is encryption. Our new observation is >that encrypting deposits & cancellations with the mint's public key >is not enough to solve the problem. [Argument in support of claim elided... I am not conviced.] >While I'm ranting, let me also remind you of a problem Ian discovered >earlier through reverse-engineering: the payment & deposit messages aren't >encrypted, [...] >With traffic analysis, if payers use the default TCP connection, all >this information about them can be compiled. If I target a payer, I'll >probably be able to record all his transactions (unless he's using >remailers or pipenet). If I sit outside a small business, I can compile >a dossier on its buying habits. One more time: this is only an issue if the payor is using a secure http connection. Otherwise, you can gather all that information with out without Ecash. The next release will use an already established SSL connection to transmit this information, should the payor request it. >Worse still, anonymity for the shop is worse with Digicash than with real >cash. If I pay you real cash on a secluded street, you're fairly anonymous. >If I pay you Digicash over the Internet, any passive eavesdropper could be >recording your identy and the whole transaction. Blech. This is raising an issue that has nothing to do with Ecash. The complaint is in fact about the lack of a gereral link encryption on the Internet. I agree that this is needed, but providing it really isn't Ecash's job. I am eagerly anticipating the general use of IPSEC. > (Yes, this means shops will need to have certificates if you want > to avoid a man-in-the-middle attack. So be it. Most online shops > will be using SSL, and thus have a certificate anyhow. You can safely > punt on the authentication between customer <-> shop if you're not > worried about active attacks.) That's why the next version will use existing SSL, should the user so desire. >* add a big warning to the documentation: users should not use wildcards > in payments (unless they know the dangers & are encrypting with e.g. PGP). Will do. >* continue specifying the protocol at a deeper level, like you promised > (and throw in source for security-critical modules too, eh? :-) Writing all this down takes time. DigiCash may hire a tech writer soon. That should improve communications between all parties. --Lucky Green --Mark Twain Bank Ecash Support Ecash. The secure Internet payment system that protects your privacy. <http://www.marktwain.com/ecash.html>

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More FUD from First Virtual
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It is important to remember that Nat Borenstein is a principal in a company that very much does not want to see anonymous e-cash succeed. Their extremely backwards technology cannot compete in the long term with cryptography-based methods, and therefore they are compelled to run around the country and on the Internet, bad- mouthing cryptography and anonymity at every turn, while pointing to some charity work for Phil Z. as a fig leaf to cover their actions in this regard (sort of like Exxon building an artificial reef and claiming to be friends of the environment.) I have, on several occasions, refuted his "infinite liability" rant, but it keeps on resurfacing. A few months ago, I wrote a short tech note on why this claim doesn't hold water. I thought I might stretch it into something longer, but other things have more urgently grabbed my attention. It's available at: http://www.communities.com/foo/noninf.txt Also, I haven't had time to confirm it, but based on conversations with and hints from Digicash people online, I'm pretty sure they are doing something similar to this (possibly better) that they are hoping to patent. --doug

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RSA '96 Conference
by Kevin L Prigge 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This might be a little early, but will there be a cypherpunks get together at RSA '96? Perhaps a Coed Naked Cypherpunks Key Signing or something? -- Kevin L. Prigge |"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster UofM Central Computing | than any invention in human history--with the email: klp(a)umn.edu | possible exceptions of handguns and tequila." 01001001110101100110001| - Mitch Ratcliffe

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