December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

New! Improved! CryptoLib 1.1 now available.
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Note: This is posted on behalf of Jack Lacy, whose news posting software is hopelessly broken; please direct responses to him at cryptolib(a)research.att.com. Jack spent the better part of the last two weeks getting a new release of CryptoLib out the door. This version, which should be stable for a while, fixes a few x86 problems, improves the interfaces to some of the functions, and now allows you to use your own random number generator to create key material. If you don't already have CryptoLib, be the first nerd on your block to get the new release. -matt] ======== Announcing CryptoLib - Release 1.1 12/21/95 Jack Lacy, AT&T Bell Labs CryptoLib is a portable and efficient library of primitives for building cryptographic applications. It runs under most versions of Unix as well as DOS, Windows and Windows-NT (and 95). We are pleased to make CryptoLib source code available without charge to researchers and developers in the US and Canada. (Because of export restrictions on cryptographic software, we are only able to make the software available within the US and Canada to US and Canadian citizens and US permanent residents.) CryptoLib is intended for research and experimental use, and is distributed without warranty or support. In particular, please note the following license conditions: * Copyright (c) 1995 by AT&T. * Permission to use, copy, and modify this software without fee * is hereby granted, provided that this entire notice is included in * all copies of any software which is or includes a copy or * modification of this software and in all copies of the supporting * documentation for such software. * * This software may be subject to export controls. * * NOTE: * Some of the algorithms in cryptolib may be covered by patents. * It is the responsibility of the user to ensure that any required * licenses are obtained. * * SOME PARTS OF CRYPTOLIB MAY BE RESTRICTED UNDER UNITED STATES EXPORT * REGULATIONS. * * * THIS SOFTWARE IS BEING PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED * WARRANTY. IN PARTICULAR, NEITHER THE AUTHORS NOR AT&T MAKE ANY * REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND CONCERNING THE MERCHANTABILITY * OF THIS SOFTWARE OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. The attached describes the library and some timing results. To obtain source code send electronic mail to: cryptolib(a)research.att.com with a statement of the following form: "I am a U.S. or Canadian citizen or a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and am aware that some parts of CryptoLib may be restricted under United States Export regulations and may be covered under various US and/or foreign patents. I have read and understand the CryptoLib license." Name: Location: E-mail: Are you licensed to use the RSA patent? If yes, give name of licensed organization: =============================================================================== CryptoLib includes the following: arbitrary length bignums. bigmath package: bigAdd, bigSubtract, bigMultiply, bgiDivide, bigLeftShift, bigRightShift, bigAnd, bigOr, bigXor, bigCopy, Euclid's extended GCD, modular reduction and exponentiation crypto primitives DES and 3DES + modes Diffie-Hellman DSA (Signing and verification roughly equally efficient) El Gamal Rabin's scheme Random Number generation (PSEUDO and TRUE) MD[2,4,5] Prime generation RSA (provided only if you convince me that you have a license) SHA truerand (For Unix, NT and 95) quantization (Defense against Kocher's timing attack) quantized RSA, DSA and El Gamal private key operations. support functions asn1.c ioutils.c netIface.c Some timing information: All times assume 32X32 bit assembly of multiplication primitives. bigPow times (a^b mod c with a,b,c the same length) 512 bits 1024 bits -------- --------- bigPow 0.12s 0.72s Sparc II Brickell bigpow 0.43s 3.0s Sparc II with asm (gcc) 0.12s 0.78s Sparc 10 with asm 0.03s 0.17s Sparc 10 with asm (Brickell) 0.084s 0.45s SGI Indigo (150MHz) 0.109s 0.75s 100 MHz Pentium (gcc under DOS) Strong Prime Generation -- ProbTestAttempts = 5 100 primes generated in each test. Times below are: (total test time)/100 = avg. time per prime generated. Using Gordon's strong prime algorithm. 256 512 1024 Machine --- --- ---- ------- 2.8s 24.0s 5.11m Sparc II .45s 2.7s 77s 100 MHz pentium RSA Times (64 bit public exponent, message encrypted is full length) --------- 512 768 1024 bits machine --- --- --------- ------- encrypt 30ms 50ms 80ms sparc II decrypt 160ms 480ms 930ms encrypt 15ms 33ms 56ms 100 MHz Pentium (Under NT) decrypt 38ms 104ms 214ms DSA Times --------- 512 768 1024 bits machine --- --- --------- ------- sign 99ms 166ms 216ms sparc II (Brickell speedup) verify 156ms 316ms 416ms sign 21ms 38ms 49ms 100 MHz Pentium (Under NT) verify 27ms 43ms 71ms

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Re: another anonymous poster helping to destroy our rights
by blancw＠accessone.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" you can't have it both ways. either anyone is free to decide what a cypherpunk is, and no one has the right to argue with it. or, cypherpunks are something in particular, and someone has the authority to determine that. ............................................ So are you saying that "SHTBD!!!!"? :>) As you note, it is an informal system which operates on the list. As you also note, an "intelligent and mischievous adversary" can effectively create problems. But you failed to note that intelligent and technically savvy members will find effective ways to deal with it. That is what is important about an 'anarchic' list like this - that the challenge of maintaining rational discourse is met by the application of active intelligence, rather than all the rigmarole you mentioned. And this is what makes it interesting, I think. Any person's ideas or concepts or contributions can be tested or challenged by the more knowledgeable on the list, if they are so moved (or not, if they are not so moved). The organizing subject around which discussions revolve is crypto, within the social context. Because of this, the relationship to the main subject is difficult to maintain. (And isn't this list like a microcosm, at times, of the larger social picture?) It is the unexpurgated exchanges of thought & expression, which regulate the list. It reminds me of a book about life: You Learn, or You Die. <g> .. Blanc

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Re: Only accepting e-mail from known parties
by tallpaul＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[I mistakenly failed to post the original message to which A.J. Stuckey responded to the entire group. I have corrected this error. However, A.J. Stuckey quoted enough of the original to have his questions comprehensible so I'll reply to them here without waiting for the original to be sent to the list.] On Dec 27, 1995 15:50:55, '"Anthony J. Stuckey" <stuckey(a)mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu>' wrote: >In uiuc.mlist.cypherpunks you write: >>We live in a post-Faustian world. >> >>It is divided into two groups of people. First are those who understand the >>post-Faustian character and devote themselves to getting used to it and >>even having fun with the new opportunities while understanding that the new >>world also generates new problems (like furthering data-narcicism). Second >>are those classic-reactionary forces (from all parts of the political >>spectrum) who whine about how the post-Faustian world is personally unfair >>to them and how everybody in the world has a personal obligation to them to >>move the world back to its pre-Faustian origins. > > Just what exactly defines a "post-Faustian" world? That we're aware >people will sell their souls for power? >-- I wasn't a matter of people selling their souls for power or that we're aware of it. My original reference was to one view on our society (not necessarily reflected on the list) that we must "avoid the Faustian bargain." Gee, I hated to inform them that the Faustian bargain had already been made and made anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of years ago. In this sense, we live in a post-Faustian [bargain] world. The bargain, so to speak, was not about knowledge or power or other such things. Those were involved only in the negotiating stages of the contract. The *real* bargain occured when Faust stated: "And if I should ever say, "'Oh moment stay!' "Thou art so fair!' "I *deserve* to perish "Then and there. _Faust_, Part I, Goethe We are all caught in a process that can not be even stopped let alone turned back without damnation. We need not like this; we need not support it; we can even pull the covers over our heads and refuse to recognize it. But the bargain and process exists nonetheless. There are Group One people, like (most) cypherpunks and others who understand the bargain has been made, who accept the world, and who may even have fun participating in a continuing and ever changing process. E.G. the microprocessor was invented. This created the possibility of things like PGP that in turn created the first opportunity in the history of the world for the average man and woman to have privacy as (pretty) good as any government *if they were willing to provide themselves that privacy.* The same invention also meant the greatest invasion of privacy through computerized lists at credit card companies, etc. Now personally I like PGP and do not personally like credit company's data bases. But both exist in the world and I recognize the inevitability of both. The you have Group Two people who whine about how the development of the microprocessor created a world they don't like, that is unfair to them, that is based on the Faustian bargain, etc. etc. To them, the world says (if it bothers to say anything at all) "Tough!" Now am I inclined to give up either PGP or my Pentium because these necessarily exist in the same world with the credit companies they do not like. To use another example: we have the internet and we have a _de jure_ freedom of speech. Group One people like the net, even if it means that a few people are going to send "kiddie porn" over the wires instead of looking at the old "kiddie underwear" ads in the _Sears_ catalog. Group Two people are fearful of the net and hate it, frequently attempting to rationalize their fears by reference to "kiddie porn," "drugs," "terrorists," etc. They want their fears to dominate both the net and freedom of speech on a global level. "If it doesn't play in Peoria then it shouldn't play in Denmark," etc. Group One people say in essence that "kiddie porn" is a small price to pay for the net and expanded freedom of speech; Group Two people say in essence that the net is too high a price for "kiddie porn" and let us also reduce freedom of speech while we're at it. As I wrote, it is a post-Fastuain world and none of us can go home to the pre-Faustian world ever again. ==tallpaul

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Re: Telcom bill report
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"futplex(a)pseudonym.com" 21-DEC-1995 18:57:06.16 >> Here's the additional info from Reuters. As usual, Clinton is being a > coward. How do you figure ? > Vice President Gore says President Clinton will sign the bill. Before > the agreement, the president had been threatening for months to veto > the bill if Republicans in Congress did not retreat on a long list of ~~~~~~~~~~~ > issues. They retreated. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Clinton won on this. The Administration does not appear to have altered its position on this substantially. ---------- I am calling Clinton a coward for giving in to the Christian Coalition and not vetoing this bill due to the censorship portion. He evidently decided that following his oath of office and upholding the First Amendment wasn't worth the "porn supporter" criticism Ralph Reed and his lot would direct his way. -Allen

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Re: Announcing a new alpha release of premail
by Alex de Joode 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You sez: : This is to announce that premail version 0.42 is now available. It : is a full alpha version of the new premail, containing all the : features and functions planned for the production release. [..] : If you are in the US or Canada, you can download premail now, from : the premail Distribution Authorization Form: : http://kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu/premail-form.html : Raph Levien ftp://ftp.hacktic.nl/pub/replay/pub/incoming

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Re: Only accepting e-mail from known parties
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:53 12/25/95 -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: > The basic problem is that (personal) spam is a social, not a >technical problem. If someone wants to annoy you via the internet, >they can do so. You can raise the cost of their annoying you, but you >need to be careful not to make it difficult to talk to you. It seems to me that one of the technical problems of the personal spam is the way it can grow into a denial of service attack on your system. If it takes you more horsepower to filter the spam than it takes to generate it, then you are particulary vunerable. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: Proxy/Representation?
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:46 AM 12/28/95 -0500, perry(a)piermont.com wrote: >"David E. Smith" writes: >> The question is: how do the current software packages handle representatives >> and proxies for a given is-a-person? Using PGP as an example, I can't sign >> a message with Helen's key. >Nor should you be able to, actually. And I can't :) >The right way to do this in the digital world, IMHO, is to have a >standard for "Power of Attorney" documents, and for the entity >receiving something signed in your key that should be signed in >another person's key to also see the digitally signed power of >attorney document. Then the entity can check the signature on the >power of attorney was in Helen's key, and that the signed key in that >document was the key that signed the document signed by the "attorney". That's more of what I was looking for. I suppose that (I'm still using PGP as my example) there could be a shared PGP key, signed by Helen and myself, where only the two of us know the passphrase, with a keyid of "David Smith <dsmith(a)midwest.net> on behalf of Helen Jones <helen(a)devnull.org>" or something similar. The obvious problem is that in sharing the pass phrase the security is weakened. (Paranoid threat model: at some point we have to decide on the pass phrase, and we are videotaped/bugged/spied upon while this takes place.) dave ----- David E. Smith, c/o Southeast Missouri State University 1210 Towers South, Cape Girardeau MO USA 63701-4745, +1(573)339-3814 PGP ID 0x92732139, homepage http://www.midwest.net/scribers/dsmith/ Dec15-Jan15: (618)244-3340/2209 Perkins, Mt Vernon IL 62864

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DOP_lip
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

12-27-95. WashP: The CIA's close-rankled directorate of operations aim to trashtalk Deutch out of depensioning the veteran Paris CoS for French economic spay of pigs. DOP_lip

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DejaNews and Alta Vista Search Tools, and Privacy Implications
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(Side note: I seem to have returned from my holiday away from this area and away from computers to a war zone, with multiple flames and threats of legal action. Being a part of the Cypherpunks group, and potentially part of the "criminal conspiracy" to defame, am I included in the lawsuits? I wonder.) Anyway, a point of clarification of a point, lest there be the belief that _all_ Cypherpunks are opposed to comprehensive Web search tools: At 8:46 PM 12/23/95, Steven L. Baur wrote: >Furthermore, no one has mentioned the positive changes made to ^^^^^^^^? >Dejanews since it got bashed thoroughly on this list a few weeks ago. >They've significantly turned down the amount of old information >indexed, and have restricted the groups (and mailing lists) they >archive. I for one don't consider this to be a positive development. Reducing the time horizon for searches has no real effect on the compilation of dossiers (for example), but certainly makes DejaNews less useful. (And I'd be willing to bet that the time horizon was scrunched down for space and time reasons, not for reasons of privacy; the horizon will likely _increase_ as users ask for, and perhaps are willing to pay a bit for, longer time horizons.) And I don't believe the dominant thinking of folks who commented was that DejaNews was worthy of "bashing." In fact, I found it all very interesting, and a confirmation of what many of us expected would soon happen, i.e., fast access to past comments. I think I and several others commented on the major implications for privacy, especially vis-a-vis the way corporations will be able to see compilations of postings to "outrageous" groups. Indeed, I know of some people hiring programmers who are already using such tools to get a better understanding of whom they may be hiring, or not. But my comments were not in the vein of "something has to be done," but of recognition that a Brave New World is fast unfolding. Thinking that one is "safe" because a particular search service is not including all the groups or mailing lists it _could_ include is illusory (one is reminded of ostriches....). The same thinking happened several years ago when a great hue and cry in the media caused Lotus to abandon plans to sell a CD-ROM to individuals with publically available census and other data on it about neighborhoods, phone numbers, etc. Inasmuch as the non-individual entities (corporations, mass mailers, courts, law enforcement, etc.) already have full access to such databases, all the hue and cry really accomplished was to give individuals a false sense of security and privacy. A triumph of feelgood style over substance. Real privacy and security comes from steps taken to make the information private in the first place, not to ex post facto limit access. (I am not claiming that Steven Bauer or anyone else on our list is calling for laws to limit Web search engines, just giving my views about this. As a matter of fact, however, I am hearing rumblings in other places that "there ought to be a law" about these archives, indexes/indices, etc. Same old story. Kind of hard to enforce such laws when the indexes are in Holland, or Byelorussia, or "somewhere in cyberspace." ) Face it, every single word written by any of us to any Usenet newsgroup, going back to the beginning of Usenet, and expanding out to many ostensibly-private mailing lists, will fairly soon be searchable. (Add some digital cash and proxy/remailer features, and someone will be incentivized to put some really big arrays of optical disks up for searching. And if the U.S. tries to "regulate" such searches....well, I'm preaching to the choir here....) --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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Proxy/Representation?
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Caveat: I haven't yet looked through the archives, and it's late. This may sound even less intelligent than most of what's on the list as of late (although what with the flamewars about I'm not sure if that's possible). Today I made a purchase at a local store using a personal check that wasn't mine. It very clearly wasn't mine (since the name on the check was Helen and mine is Dave), but I am a duly appointed representative of Helen in certain affairs. Including this one, which was <blush> grocery shopping </blush>. (There are also other affairs, some with actual legal consequences, and there is paperwork to that effect in a lawyer's safe somewhere.) The question is: how do the current software packages handle representatives and proxies for a given is-a-person? Using PGP as an example, I can't sign a message with Helen's key. And a message signed with my key won't hold as much weight because "Dave" is not "Helen." And if every message I send on behalf of Helen has to be followed up by a message from Helen stating "yes, Dave may act on my behalf for this instance" then much of the point of the proxy process is lost. (i.e. the reduction of Helen's workload etc.) I'm sure that this has already popped up, so I'll just ask for pointers. dave ----- David E. Smith, c/o Southeast Missouri State University 1210 Towers South, Cape Girardeau MO USA 63701-4745, +1(573)339-3814 PGP ID 0x92732139, homepage http://www.midwest.net/scribers/dsmith/ Dec15-Jan15: (618)244-3340/2209 Perkins, Mt Vernon IL 62864

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