December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Hack Lotus?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:14 PM 1/19/96 -0500, daw(a)quito.CS.Berkeley.EDU (David A Wagner) wrote: >I was talking to Avi Rubin from Bellcore last night, and he speculated >that maybe the 64 bit key was a fixed one, generated once at installation >time and escrowed with the government then. To do that, the user's system have to communicate with the government, which would be unlikely and avoidable. Alternatively, if Lotus is willing to release copies with different serial numbers (either on the disk or printed on the label), the installation process could include public-key encrypting a 64-bit key for the user with the GAK key, generating a (say) 512-bit encrypted key which could be dragged around in the headers or (if they wanted to minimize overhead) handed out in 64-bit chunks with every message or some such silliness. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 # # "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" used to mean us watching # the government, not the other way around....

1 0

Re: HAVAL (was Re: crypto benchmarks)
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Thanks. It looks like F4 and F5 are improved. Do you know how these > optimizations can be done in general? I tried playing with F2 > as a multivariate polynomial with coefficients in GF(2) in Mathematica. > This seems to work and I found several equivalent expressions that take > 13 operations (the original also takes 13 operations). Is there a tool > that can do this automaticly? I did the optimizations by hand. Simple rules of boolean arithmetic and logic (you know, things like Demorgan's Law applied to binary operations). Other processor-related optimizations can be done by hand, such as add x,x instead of shl x,1. I think I had the same proglems with F2 as well. Couldn't find a way to optimize it reasonably. > The biggest problem I have with HAVAL now is that with 4 or 5 passes the > transform functions are larger than 10k even with compiler optimzation for > size. Since the Pentium L1 instruction cache is only 8k, this makes HAVAL > with 4 or 5 passes extremely slow. Do you have ideas how I can fit the > transform functions into L1 cache? You might do some creative optimization to use more registers than it does. I haven't looked at it in a while. The code was so huge and slow compared to optimized MD5 and SHS that I have up using it for an unfinished encrypted file system. 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.

3 2

Restricted FTP & Web servers wanted.
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm trying to persuade the powers-that-be at my employer that we can use a restricted access, encrypted Web server to distribute beta copies of our products (which include encryption) to test sites. We're mainly interested in avoiding any confrontation with ITAR. Since we can restrict by IP address, and unlike the MIT PGP site, will be encrypting the link, I think we're in the clear. However, to aid me in making the case, I'm looking for other IP restricted servers to show that this is an accepted practice. Please drop me a line if you know of any, and I'll summarise next week. thanks, Peter PS: Does anyone know of a Domestic strength SSL web browser which allows you to install trusted roots (Netscape does not meet these conditions, in any released version). Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation http://www.process.com trei(a)process.com

1 0

Re: DES in real life
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:01 PM 1/20/96 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >Thats RC4, and it isn't neccessarily better than RC4, especially if >the RC4 key length is reasonable. No one really knows the strength of RC4. The shortness and simplicity of RC4 leads me to believe that it must be strong. If something that simple had a flaw, the flaw would have been found by now, whereas more complicated algorithms, such as DES, might well avoid discovery of their flaws merely by their irregularity and complexity, which makes analysis tedious. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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

1 0

Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers
by goldberg＠mars.superlink.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:21 PM 1/4/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: >At 10:54 AM 1/4/96 -0800, you wrote: >>>Previous exchanges deleted... >> >>(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. > > I can give you the benefit of some experience I have had with optical data transmission systems. We used IR lasers to span an approximately 800 meter distance between buildings, and the results were dreadful. Never again! Fog took the system down completely, on a regular basis here in New Jersey, as did even moderate snow. Rain was much less of a problem, surprisingly, even heavy rain rarely did more than raise the retransmission rate and lower throughput somewhat. Further, the beams were very narrow, and over that distance minute changes in transmitter orientation would cause the link to go down. I am talking about changes due to expansion and contraction of metal mountings with temperature, for instance. Mounting direct to masonry would probably have helped a lot. Then, there are the things like trees growing into the path over the course of the summer, telephone cables swinging into it intermittently in high winds, etc. Shorter paths allow greater control over environment, certainly, but I would be very careful about deploying large numbers of these types of systems. Spread spectrum microwave radio is a great improvement, but nothing seems to beat properly installed glass fiber for reliability. Frederic M. Goldberg WA2BJZ EMT-D

1 0

Re: Wipe Swap File
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 10:38 AM 1/20/96 EST, Dr. Dimitri Vulis wrote: >tallpaul(a)pipeline.com (tallpaul) writes: >> Remember that one simple wipe is *not* secure. Current Department of >> Defense security regs call for wiping the same space something like 8 or 9 >> times. Even then the wipe is not secure enough for higher level DofD >> classified material. There the regs call for the physical destruction of >> the medium after it has been wiped. > >Degaussing the media (running a household magnet over it :-) may be an option. Degaussing using a common, AC-driven bulk tape eraser is FAR FAR FAR better than using a permanent magnet. DO NOT USE A 'HOUSEHOLD MAGNET"!!!! (Except in an absolute dire emergency, such as when the government thugs are breaking down the door, and you have to wipe that disk in a second, and didn't think to keep the bulk eraser plugged in and immediately available, etc. Even then, use a Neodymium Iron Boron magnet, because floppies are actually remarkably insensitive to demagnetization...) Here is why: Magnetic materials have "hysteresis curves." If you merely apply a "DC" magnetic field to a floppy disk, this orients "all" the domains in one direction, but perhaps with a small residual bias based on the previously-magnetized direction. Such data won't be readable on an ordinary floppy drive, of course, but it might be recovered, with substantial (read, "money") effort. This gives uninformed people a false sense of security. AC-powered tape demagnetizers, on the other hand, produce a 60-hertz (actually, 120 hertz, depending on how you look at it) pulsing magnetic field, which REPEATEDLY saturates and re-saturates the magnetic domains in one direction and then the other, taking a "trip around the hysteresis curve" 60 times per second. Residual magnetic fields are repeatedly reversed and thus overwritten, and quickly become totally and completely unrecoverable in a second or so. (actually, far less, I'm just not proposing you stand there for a minute degaussing a single floppy!!!) And there is a far more practical reason to NOT use a permanent magnet, and CERTAINLY not on audio-quality tapes. Read heads can get inadvertently magnetized, and if you insert a disk or tape with a DC-magnetization on it "who knows what" might go wrong. (it would take a reasonably technical audiophile to tell you how much of a problem this could be on audio cassette tapes. It is possible that digital-writing floppy disks heads are comparatively immune from this effect, but don't count on it!) (However, using an AC demagnetizer on a floppy after you've zapped it with a permanent magnet will remove whatever residual DC magnetiziation was present. >Two semi-on-topic questions: > >1. Does anyone know a cheap way to recover the traces of the previous >(overwritten) recordings on the media? Cheap? No. >2. If a cheap way exists, has anyone considered stego use of it? Doesn't sound particularly practical. I can think of a slightly better way, MAYBE. There are, what, 80 tracks on the typical floppy disk, right? (okay, I may be wrong about this...). But it would be physically possible to write a few more tracks onto the floppy before you hit a mechanical stop. Putting data THERE while the typical system thinks there are "only" 80 tracks would hide it reasonably effectively. Note: I'm not over-rating the effectiveness of such a system. It wouldn't faze the CIA or the NSA, but it would probably get by the local police, the state police, and maybe even the FBI unless they had written a program specifically designed to search "illegal" tracks. Label the floppy, "Doom program, great game!" and they'll probably waste most of their time blasting monsters rather than looking for tracks 80, 81, 82, etc.) Also, this is certainly not a new idea. My public key. - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQCNAi1zvWcAAAEEAKmSqngLWK2N2gOJKPtjF9VCfSkXY+XUZBRCbbFU71uH/dLX C2Uq6wFS8alRgMc3rp90JnnJ/6eJqXwMjCunogwucWOaU7S/w+OwjOG9fUqsXIA6 2j25Wtjce65mbp0TKLAzwMb/P/Qq7BlclqhuKzfVBH7dIHnVAvqHVDBboB2dAAUR tBFKYW1lcyBEYWx0b24gQmVsbA== =G3LA - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMQFn5/qHVDBboB2dAQG1BgP/Wbx4lda9RCp9mjeqBGEOUxRtR98/ZoQY QH4QbreNEtskiHKjEPVpaab5oqCzpnkz3wX+Ve1EZ45kMNYs86gpWqb36IcsDBAi Ic9ZeUr2l0BEz0cZbyTiZPhN1J9LW0mDjLW5Zg83uaUKCwCa6MFuZP7iObmlAUjL GC3CsymuBSo= =xx4B -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: A Modest Proposal
by James M. Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim, On 01 17 96 you say: ...we are for people looking out for Number One, with the expectation that many other people simply won't make it. I'm reading Christopher Hill's The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution. At page 270: In 1616 John Rolfe, Secretary to the Virginia Company, attributed to Sir Thomas Dale the view that the English were 'a peculiar people marked and chosen by the finger of God' to possess North America. But the phrase [pecu- liar people] soon ceased to be equivalent to 'the chosen people' and came to be restricted to descriptions of them- selves by the saints. In 1659 Christopher Feake urged 'the real fifth-kingdom men' to 'become a peculiar people (or, as it were, a nation in the midst of the nation) wait- ing for the word of command from their leader [i.e. God] to execute the vengeance against Babylon'. Christ's cause will 'be amiable in the eyes of all the nations in due time'. Quakers and Bunyan also used the phrase. It indicated a group conscious of its superiority but also aware that it was a minority. Time tests prophecy and expectation alike. Hill's book has other pertinent things to say. At p 248: There are two (at least) ways of using the Bible for political controversy, which are not easily separated. First as CODE. When Thomas Goodwin in 1639 asked 'How, by degrees, do these Gentiles win ground upon the outward court in England?' he had already told us that Gentiles mean Papists. 'The outward court' continues a metaphor about the Jewish temple; but it was at Charles I's court that the Papists were making headway. At 249: Secondly, the symbols of the myth can be interpreted to taste. We have seen Cain pass from being all the reprobate to 'all great landlords', Nimrod from a tyrannical king to all kings, all persecutors; Samson from a type of Christ to a freedom fighter or a terrorist. There seemed to be no limits. Cen- sorship had to be restored.... Some of the myths came to be put to secular uses. John Bull with his cudgel, the bully of the waves, the master slave- trader, becomes the symbol of the chosen Anglo-Saxon people, of their manifest destiny to bring the world to protestant Christianity, to civilization, and in our century to 'demo- cracy'. But long before that the Bible had lost its function as final arbiter. At 176: But it is not totally absurd to suggest that the role of the [church] elders who decide and whose decisions are taken over by 'the people' is performed in our [present-day] society by the media. The main difference is in the way in which spokes- men of the latter find their way to such powerful positions: unlike elders, they are not elected. I expect those spokesmen are simply looking out for their Number Ones --their employers. Cordially, Jim NOTE. The first bracketed insertion in the first quotation is mine; the second is not. I capitalized CODE in the second quotation for the minority who can't see all that well. The book was published in 1993 by Allen Lane / The Penguin Press. Its ISBN: 0 713 99078 3. Pages: xiv + 466.

1 0

Re: Hack Lotus?
by daw＠quito.CS.Berkeley.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <9601200326.AA09366(a)toad.com>, Peter Trei <trei(a)process.com> wrote: > > > If they're nasty, they'll check on the receiving side as well, to > > > ensure that the LEAF and/or the espionage-enabling key have not been > > > patched in the sending 'International' version. > > > > Nearly impossible. Why? Because they can only include the public key, > > and not the private key, of the GAK authority in the code. You can > > encrypt the three bytes of key, but it is very hard for a receiver > > other than the govvies to read them. There is no shared secret > > information or private information available, ergo, they can't check > > their LEAF equivalent. > > Think it through. [suggesting that Alice encrypts 24 bits of key under NSA's public key, Bob repeats calculation and checks that the two LEAFS are the same] > Thus, you can prevent a non-complying copy of Lotus from talking to > a complying copy of Lotus, which is one of the goals of the GAKers. No, you're wrong, the process you've described does not work. Note that RSA normally is used as probabilistic encryption: encrypt the same plaintext twice, and you'll likely get two different ciphertexts. Thus, if RSA is used in the normal probabilistic way, the receiver can't tell whether the sender was compliant. Now you might suggest that the sender should not include probabilistic padding, and use RSA deterministically, so that (somehow) the receiver can check whether those 24 bits are correct. That again won't work, since a third-party eavesdropper will be able to do a 2^24 brute force calculation to recover those 24 bits. There are complicated ways to prevent a non-compliant copy of Lotus from inter-operating with a compliant copy (as others on cypherpunks have kindly pointed out), but they are complicated, and would require a re-design of Lotus Notes' encryption module. Since the export version is interoperable with the non-export version, this would seem to require too much foresight and work to be very likely. In any event, I've heard that the export version of Lotus Notes 4 always sends a LEAF, but the receiver never checks it. So I think a simple binary patch to change the NSA's public key should work. P.S. So does anyone know how large the NSA's public LEAF key is? - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMQKzSyoZzwIn1bdtAQF/zAGAxODShPqrBQLsWzRVAkW7+jbVJidQIF5q 1Jyisn2EedTQoBLHnZD7ojnmws807XZK =bRAO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Censorship
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Censorship: In the past, whenever a new medium came into play, the new medium was subjected to extraordinarily restrictive censorship, while censorship was radically relaxed, or abandoned altogether, on the old media. Thus when the talkies came in, censorship on books was relaxed. When TV came in censorship on movies was relaxed. I conjecture that this represents the power of vested interests, and the relative weakness of new interests. Now if this pattern is going to be repeated, we would expect the FTC to attempt to utterly strangle the internet in a straightjacket, on behalf of the television interests that have largely captured the FTC. Note that current proposed legislation, legislation containing Exxon's severe censorship rules, gives the FTC ownership of the internet. They may claim to own it. Let us see them try. Censorship on television is now much tighter than it used to be: Expect a radical relaxation when internet use starts to cut into television time. Remember the original Star Treck: Every episode would have a fistfight, a gunfight, a space battle between starships with really cheap cheesy special effects, Captain Kirk would dip his wick (off screen) in a new exotic alien female, and he would defy orders, or Starfleet regulations, and most regularly and spectacularly, he would violate the prime directive. In most episodes a redcoat or two would be killed in a completely senseless and unnecessary manner, illustrating the cold indifference of the universe, or the casual evil of sentient beings. Whenever they introduced a new character with a red coat, you knew that violent death was on tonight's menu. Now consider the bland successor show "Star Treck the Next Generation": In a bow to political correctness they changed the words from "To boldly go where no man has gone before" to "To boldly go where no one has gone before". The "Next Generation" universe is socialist, and socialism is boring. Worse still, on "Next Generation" socialism actually works, and if there is anything even more boring that actual real life socialism, it is socialism that works because everyone cares about each other and they are all such very nice people. Well it came to pass that our TV executives woke up to the fact that there was something missing from the boring "Next Generation" universe, so they shift their plots to less perfect places. In an upcoming science fiction series "Osiris" the story universe has social collapse and reversion to barbarism, the exact opposite of the sickeningly perfect "Next Generation" universe. A logical continuation of the gimmick they pulled in "Deep Space Nine" in order to get the story out from the deadly grip of socialism. So far so good. But guess what? Nobody in the "Osiris" story suffers violent death, and the bad guys reproduce asexually. Asexually!! What would Captain Kirk do? Probably sodomy. And now let us consider the cartoons. Remember Yosemite Sam with his fiery temper and his two six guns? Pow! Blam! Well guess what? In today's cartoons, Yosemite Sam has no guns! Poor Captain Kirk. Poor Yosemite Sam. Under these circumstances we should expect a certain amount of friction around such newsgroups as alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children, alt.conspiracy, alt.sex.bestiality.barney, alt.nationalism.white, and so forth. You will notice that political censorship goes hand in hand with censorship of sex and violence: Not only does Captain Whazisname of the "Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine" refrain from spreading his semen indiscriminately across the galaxy and refrain from beating people up man on man, he also obeys orders and regulations and never says anything that would be controversial in his universe or ours. They had to make Captain Whazisname of "Deep Space Nine" black instead of the white Captain Whazisname in "Next Generation" and young instead of old, because otherwise nobody would have noticed that he was supposed to be different person, played by a different actor. Typical politically correct diversity: Different colors, but only one voice. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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

1 0

Re: Respect for privacy != Re: exposure=deterence?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:19 AM 1/19/96 +0100, Anonymous wrote: >On 15 Jan 96, Rich Graves wrote: > >> But government employees should only be held accountable for >> their actions as government employees. If the situation >> warrants, go ahead and tap their offices, break into their work >> computers, etc. But don't fuck with their personal lives. > >Oh, my! A little sensitive, are we? Aren't you even a *little* >struck by the fact that fucking with people's personal lives >is *precisely* what errant government officials *do*??? I LOVE this response! This is the kind of comment that totally destroys Rich Graves' position: Graves' would allow the government to screw with US, as ordinary citizens, while we're denied the ability to defend ourselves. Maybe I was excessively rude by calling Rich Graves a "fucking statist" on this list, but I don't think I was at all inaccurate. >We Jurgar Din Thank you for putting Rich Graves in his place. Jim Bell

1 0