December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

[reply to anonymous] Re: rsaref
by Alex de Joode 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

to whom it may concern: rsaref20 is available on ftp.hacktic.nl since may 1995 in /pub/replay/pub/crypto/LIBS/rsaref20.zip -AJ-

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Laws, Politics, and Crypto Anarchy
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(Those interested in discussions of Fermat numbers should skip this message.) At 2:33 PM 12/28/95, David Mandl wrote: >I have very strong feelings about this subject, but I'll keep them to >myself for now since I'm posting from work. We were all informed a >week or two ago that Bear Stearns is now archiving every piece of >email coming into or leaving the company. > >All I'll say here is that I disagree strongly with the views Tim May >posted about employees' property rights, etc. (though we agree on most >other things). Yes, Dave and I agree about many things, but disagree about some things. I would not like to have my e-mail into and out of Bear Stearns--were I an employee--archived, monitored, and so forth, but I can certainly see why they feel the need to do it (their liability for SEC violations, insider trading, etc. is enormous). And were I an employer, I would not want some government telling me I am forbidden to see if my employees are selling me out over the Net. Just an example. (Important Historical Note: The thing that got me interested in cryptography, beyond my longstanding interest in the elegant mathematics of public key cryptography, was an evaluation I did in 1987 of an "information trading" business startup. My friend Phil Salin asked me to review his business plan for a company which later became "American Information Exchange" (AMIX). It allowed for people with information to sell to reach the potential buyers, and for buyers to reach potential sellers. Like a classified ad system. I thought about the system and said: "As an employer, I could not let my employees use your system." Phil's reaction was "Huh?" So I outlined a scheme whereby employees could begin "digital moonlighting," not only selling their expertise to my competitors on _company time_, but, infinitely worse, selling specific trade secrets to my competitors! I cited to Phil the prospect of a "BlackNet" (yes, I named it that in '87) which bought and sold corporate (and military, as I elaborated on the concept) secrets through digital pseudonyms and Chaum-style mixes. It became apparent to me what the Brave New World was going to look like. And thus were the ur-cypherpunkish ideas born.) It was not my intention to begin a debate about the nature of civil liberties and the role of property. In fact, I don't think "libertarian" debates are very useful here, for various reasons. (Though I don't go as far as some in thinking that only pure crypto should be discussed....the mix of crypto, programming, personal privacy, and technological empowerment is what we talk about.) Moreover, if political and economic issues never get discussed at all, some folks may think that Cypherpunks are "obviously" supportive of things like Data Protection Laws (which place limits on the compilation of dossiers and files on people), Electronic Privacy Laws (which tell employers they cannot snoop on employees), and Web Index Laws (which may limit the archiving and indexing of Usenet and Web items). In fact, I am against all of these laws. However, I won't take the list's time now to explain why, as the political discussion would take too long. Past articles have touched on these points, and references are scattered throughout the Cyphernomicon. --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Compuserve is Not "Censoring": Look to Governments for the Cause
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:52 PM 12/28/95, Cees de Groot wrote, speaking of Compuserve's recent dropping of many newsgroups in response to demands by German prosecutors: >I won't start to comment on the style of this message. The term "Suitspeak" >comes to mind. Perhaps it is "Suitspeak," but it is not "censorship." Or, more precisely, it is fear that government laws will be used to sanction the service. Thus, it is the government of Germany in this case which is "censoring." ("Censor" and "censorship" are notoriously overloaded terms, of course.) Likewise, the Telecom/Exon Bill which we are so opposed to would just make the U.S. another player in this arena, joining Germany, Iraq, Syria, Singapore, and other regimes in attempting to regulate what people access on the Net. The U.S. would most like demand that a foreign-based service operating in the U.S. comply with U.S. laws. The problem lies with the laws themselves, as there is essentially no solution which will accommodate all of the various conflicting standards and mores of the world's nations and tribes while still having a Net such as we know it today. This is why I favor "technological anarchy": have systems which allow people to read and write what they want to read and write, not what church elders or government officials have deemed to be approprate or wholesome. (Note: There are ongoing debates about whether laws against obscenity, pornography, insulting speech, and on and on, violate free speech provisions in the U.S. Constitution. I won't get into this here. However, the laws of Germany, Iraq, North Korea, Singapore, France, Syria,......, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Zaire are definitely not those of the U.S. Thus, any _global_ service, such as Compuserve, may soon be forced to remove 70% or more of all Usenet newsgroups, and to restrict Web page access. After all, providing access to "alt.binaries.pictures.muslim.women.nude" is punishable by death by stoning in at least 30 countries. And providing access to Christian recruiting groups, and most Jewish groups, is definitely not allowed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia--better remove all those groups.) More than just Compuserve and AOL--which has a list of words it does not like to see used--I expect the various attempts to crack down on un-Christian, un-Muslim, un-chastity, etc. words and images to spread. Singapore will have its list of things it doesn't want its "children" (= all citizen-units) to see, Nigeria will have its list, and so on. Germany's longstanding moves to limit images and words it considers inappropriate and offensive are likely to force many Usenet newsgroups out of Germany. Law enforcement there is concentrating on Compuserve, and is trying to get U.S. officials to crack down on neo-Nazi Web sites in the U.S. The shape of things to come. Technology to bypass these new laws, not even more laws, is the key. --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: cool cpunk project proposal: "cpunk approved" logo
by Corey Bridges 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>now, I don't know if people here realize how much great potential this >idea has. the media just LOVES to quote these kinds of judgements when >it's a slow news day (witness Blackwell's "worst dressed" list or >"best haircuts" or whatever else). Well...nothing personal, but I'd rather cut my n*ts off than be the blackwell of the information industry... >:-) And not to poo-poo a nifty idea, but ultimately, I think that any c'punk cooperative effort like that is doomed to failure. Sure, people can manage to get together every month or so for a cypherpunk meeting (well, *I* can't, but I'm even more disorganized than most), but beyond that, things like official c'punk press releases, and official c'punk FAQs, and official c'punk seals of approval are just NOT going to happen and still be called Officially Cypherpunk. It's tough to have an "official" anything for a group that's not REALLY a group--just the name of a mailing list. Now, this doesn't stop Tim from creating his Cyphernomicon, and it doesn't stop other people on this list from issuing their own press releases. Nor should it stop you (and other interested parties) from issuing your seal of approval to worthy products. I just don't think it'll work to call it the Official Cypherpunk S-O-A. Besides, the idea of having an official seal-of-approval sticker sounds like we're only one step away from having Cypherpunk action figures. ("New Eric Hughes figure with crushing logic grip! Detweiler with whirling Tentacles of Doom (tm)!") Uh, I guess I should have put "NOISE" in the subject line... Corey Bridges Security Documentation Netscape Communications Corporation home.netscape.com/people/corey 415-528-2978

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Re: [reply to anonymous] Re: rsaref
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:06 AM 12/29/95 +0100, Alex de Joode <usura(a)utopia.hacktic.nl> wrote: >to whom it may concern: > >rsaref20 is available on ftp.hacktic.nl since may 1995 in > > /pub/replay/pub/crypto/LIBS/rsaref20.zip If the RSA folks want to get picky, this may be violating their copyright, which is enforceable in Europe (unlike their patents.) There's also an RSAEURO clone of RSAREF which is available on ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto, and presumably at many other fine sites. #-- # 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....

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Re: Employer Probing Precedents?
by ecarp＠tssun5.dsccc.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Wed Dec 27 17:48 CST 1995 > Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 16:51:41 -0500 > Subject: Employer Probing Precedents? > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > From: "Jason D. Livingood/WSC"@hks.net > X-Server-Version: Cactus-Serv 1.5 > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > To Whom It May Concern: > > I was curious as to where I might find some electronic freedom legal > precedents. If, for example, an employer was planning to probe file systems on > PCs in the off-hours and employees began encrypting their hard drives, what > legal precedents would support the employees or would support the employer in > blocking the encryption? Try www.eff.org. I have a partition on my HD that is routinely encrypted. When asked about it, my response was that I was acting to protect company confidential material and company assets.

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Re: Employer Probing Precedents?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(I've purged the four accumulated names off the cc: list. I urge other to do the same, as the headers are getting clogged up, and people are often getting two copies.) At 10:59 PM 12/28/95, Mike McNally wrote: >Another vaguely-related concept is that of tenants' rights to a degree >of security in rental property. Actually, tenants have nearly absolute rights of privacy. Landlords cannot enter the premises whenever they wish, conduct bed checks, sniff for marijuana, etc. However, landlords are also not held liable (in most cases) for the illegal acts of tenants. (Obvious exceptions include recent developments with "crack house" laws, or where the tenants are using a house as a base of operations, such as shooting from windows...and even then the landlord's responsibility is to cooperate with law enforcement: he is not liable for the shootings, nor for anything else that he could not have reasonably known about or controlled.) Ditto for hotel owners. I wrote a long essay for the Cyberia list using these examples as jumping off points for a view of law in cyberspace. Basically, that ISPs be treated as hotel owners. Not liable for the misdeeds of customers in the "rooms" (in realspace hotels, or in cyberspace). However, corporations aren't given the luxury of disassociating themselves from the actions of their employees. (Contract workers are a further issue, and the issue of whether they supply their own tools/computers, workspace, etc., enters in.) I maintain that my employees are beholden to me as to what they run on their computers. They can always choose not to work for me. (And the same applies to hotels, actually. Were a hotel to have stringent rules on in-room behavior, such as the YMCAs and religious retreat hotels have, then customers have little right to complain about bed checks, mixed sex bans, etc. That most hotels have no such rules says more about where the Schelling points are than it does about the efficacy of rules and laws. >Though the ownership==control equation works sometimes, and is >appealing to reason, I don't think things are always so simple. Nor do I think things are always simple. But it pays to think about proposed laws from a perspective of maximizing personal choice. (The choice of the owner of a hotel, or computer, or car, to establish the basis for trading use of his property for other considerations.) --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: blind validation
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Those are very interesting thoughts Alex Strasheim posted about blind validations. The issue of people handing out copies of their validations ("credentials" is the term Chaum uses) can be significant. Chaum's way around it was basically to have some mechanism to give each person a unique number of some special form. There doesn't have to be any agency who knows what number each person has (in fact, there isn't, in his scheme), but there is a mechanism to assure that one person does not get two numbers. This is sometimes loosely referred to as an "is-a-person" credential (although in this specific context it is not actually a credential, just an identifier). One way to achieve the goal would be to make each person give a thumbprint, or some other biometric identification, in exchange for giving them the is-a-person credential. Another way would be to use conventional ID, making sure their credential is blinded. Then, the blind validations are mathematically structured to be linked to the identity number. Only someone who has a specific identity number can show a specific blind validation. The idea here is that this addresses the copying-validation problem because a person would not only have to give away the specific validation, but also his identity number. This would in effect let the other person masquerade as the first, and any bad things he did would come back to hurt the person who gave away the data. You can't just walk away as in a totally uncontrolled blind signature system because of the linked nature of the credentials, and because you only get one identity number. So the result in effect is to make it difficult to give away just a validation, without also giving away the ability to act as you. Here is an idea about another way to achieve the same thing, closer to Alex's example: Alice gets a blind validation as Alex describes based on a simple blind signature. (Alice hands a blinded number to Bob, he signs it, Alice unblinds it, and uses the resulting signed number as the validation to, say, access Bob's files.) We add that Alice puts, say, $100 into "escrow", encrypting it with the secret number and putting it on some public server. She proves to Bob that she has done this using cut and choose. Now if Alice gives away her secret number, anyone using it will be able to access Bob's files, but they can also get the $100. So now it costs something for Alice to give away her secret. (There are some major problems with this idea, the worst being that Alice can extract and spend the $100 right after proving to Bob that she is doing what she said, and before publishing her number. Maybe someone could think of some fixes.) Hal

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Re: Employer Probing Precedents?
by ecarp＠tssun5.dsccc.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Wed Dec 27 17:48 CST 1995 > Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 16:51:41 -0500 > Subject: Employer Probing Precedents? > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > From: "Jason D. Livingood/WSC"@hks.net > X-Server-Version: Cactus-Serv 1.5 > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > To Whom It May Concern: > > I was curious as to where I might find some electronic freedom legal > precedents. If, for example, an employer was planning to probe file systems on > PCs in the off-hours and employees began encrypting their hard drives, what > legal precedents would support the employees or would support the employer in > blocking the encryption? Try www.eff.org. I have a partition on my HD that is routinely encrypted. When asked about it, my response was that I was acting to protect company confidential material and company assets.

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A weakness in PGP signatures, and a suggested solution (long)
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been engaged in a lively debate with a few members of the cypherpunks mailing list about forgeries that are hard to repudiate even if PGP signatures are used. One of the participants suggested that I post a summary to alt.privacy.pgp and sci.crypt, which is just what I'm doing. (My apologies to the mail.cypherpunks readers who already saw much of this once.) I'll illustrate the problem with several scenarios of forgeries. (It's funny that earlier today I was showing a friend how easy it is to post forgeries. She seemed suitably impressed. :) Scenario 1: Bob once sent Carol an e-mail that looked like this: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bob@boxb To: Carol@boxc Date: 25 Dec 1965 Subject: Carol, we're history Message-ID: <111@boxb> ----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE---- I no longer wish to go out with you. Merry Christmas! ----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE---- Version 2.6.2 12341234... ----END PGP SIGNATURE---- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Carol can forge an e-mail to Alice that looks like this: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bob@boxb To: Alice@boxa Date: 25 Dec 1995 Subject: Alice, we're history Message-ID: <222@bobb> ----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE---- I no longer wish to go out with you. Merry Christmas! ----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE---- Version 2.6.2 12341234... ----END PGP SIGNATURE---- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- We assume that it's easy for Carol to forge the RFC 822 headers to make it look like the e-mail came from Bob. That's why many of us use digital signatures. The signed portion of Bob's original e-mail did not state that the message is addressed to Carol (e.g., "Dear Carol"). Alice will probably verify that the signature matches Bob's private key and assume that the e-mail is authentic and has been sent to her by Bob. To repudiate the e-mail, Bob might have to point out that the "Received:" headers differ from his usual e-mails, without relying on PGP. In fact, the presense of his verifiable signature would create more of a presumption of authenticity of Alice's part. Scenario 2: Bob sends the same e-mail as above to Carol. David, a rogue sysadmin, gets a copy of the e-mail, forges the same e-mail as above to Alice. Scenario 3: Bob sends a signed e-mail to Alice. Alice sees it in her newsfeed, forges a Usenet article, makes it look like it came from Bob, and includes the body of Bob's e-mail as the body of the Usenet forgery. Usenet forgeries are easy. Again, if the signed text happens to be suitable, then Bob will have difficulty repudiating the forgery. He won't not be able to use the PGP signature, which will in fact verify. Hopefully, he'll be able to point out that the RFC 1036 Path: header is different from his usual header (which may not be the case). Many Usenet readers would be unconvinced and Bob's reputation would be damaged. Scenario 4: Bob posts a signed Usenet article to alt.sex. Alice forges a usenet article in Bob's name to misc.kids, recycilng the signed body, which would probably be considered inappropriate for misc.kids. Same result as #3. Scenario 5: Bob posts a signed Usenet article to some innocuous newsgroup. Alice reposts the same body in a forgery in Bob's name. The forgery can be cross-posted to numerous "inappropriate" newsgroups ("velveeta"), or multi-posted ("spam"). Certain rogue self-apponited net.cops forge cancels for all copies of Bob's article, including the original. (They are a bigger menace than the forgers :) (As several people know, I have been a victim of some of the above-described kinds of forgeries.) I think the underlying problem is that the way PGP signatures are used by most people, they validate a text, but allow it to be quoted out of context in an e-mail or Usenet forgery. I suggest to the kind folks working on PGP 3 that there should be a standard protocol to include within the signed portion the information on when and for whom this text is written: i.e. the list of e-mail recipients and/or Usenet newsgroups, which could be easily compared with the RFC 822/1036 headers of an e-mail/Usenet article. Perhaps there could be a new option for PGP to look _outside_ the signed block and match the headers with what's inside the block. For example, suppose the signature block says: this text was written by alice(a)zog.org, posted to alt.sex and alt.sex.banal and e-mailed to bob(a)masons.com. Suppose PGP is asked to check the signature in a file that purports to be a e-mail or a Usenet article and has some headers before the signed portion. If there is a list of To: recipients, and it includes someone other than the recipients listed within the signed block; or if there is a Newsgroups: header, and it includes newsgroups not listed within the signed portion; then the input is bogus. For compatibility with the existing software, if the signed block doesn't include this info, then this checking should't be done, of course. After I posted the above suggestion to cypherpunks, one very respected member of that list informed me that "the security multiparts standard (RFC 1848) includes a provision for signing the headers as well as the body of a message. The security multiparts can be used with PGP, and there is even an Internet Draft for it (draft-elkins-pem-pgp-02.txt), but there is not yet consensus for adopting this as a standard on the pgp-mime mailing list." I hope my examples will convince some that present practice of signing pieces of text which can be quoted out of context in a forgery is just not enough. We need to have an easy way to sign the headers without resorting to mine. --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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