December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

DC-Nets and Noise
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:40 AM 1/17/96, s1018954(a)aix2.uottawa.ca wrote: >(Speaking of sublists, whatever happenned to the DC-net list mentioned in >the cyphernomicon? Is this a figment of my imagination or was there any code >written that I might partake of? Btw, why call it a DC network when it is >really a ring? Maybe I haven't taken a good enough look at the protocol. >Dinner calls. :> ) Without consulting the Cyphernomicon, my memory is that there were two main proposals for a DC-Net (Dining Cryptographers Net) mailing list. The first was by Yanek Martinson, a Russian emigre, circa 1992. The second was by Jim McCoy, of Austin. Yanek I have not heard from in a few years. Jim McCoy has also not been active on our list in at least a year, maybe longer. I recently heard from Doug Barnes that Jim may be coming to the Bay Area, so things may change. Neither of these proposed mailing lists seemed to have gotten to a critical mass. There are many reasons why mailing lists and subgroups fade out. DC-Nets are a hard thing to pull off (anyone see any working versions lately?), about as hard to pull off as true digital cash; and with less economic benefit, less incentive to do the work. So, I can't say I am, or was, surprised that such mailing lists atrophied. An equally interesting question is why the Cypherpunks list has kept on growing in size, given the nontechnical digressions that some subscribers so object to. My view, shared by others I think, is that too technical a list will atrophy...only a handful of folks are usually competent to contribute, and so message volume drops to only a few messages a day, then a few per week, then it fades out altogether. The "noise" that some decry may help to keep lists vital. (In any case, even for those who disagree, modern filtering techniques make it trivial for the "gurus" to filter out all messages except by the several of themselves, so I've never understood the point about how the list must purge itself of "noise.") --Tim May 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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The object....
by tjm＠easynet.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Mr. McNally, A correction. I did not say the statement. I submitted it. You have constructed a context which was not in the original email. By posting just a segment to the list you no doubt have created what you wanted.....you remind me of a person that I know - a journalist..... The submission was because I felt that it would be of interest to someone, if you did not find it so, such is life........ Your comments at the bottom of the email.....well....good luck with your monoply, I hope you pass go soon...... Terence. "Its funny how those who fight against tyranny eventually become tyrants." Mr. McNally, I did write this.

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Spiderspace, Privacy & Control
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:38 AM 1/16/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: > >I've been thinking a lot about the problems and opportunities that are >coming up as more and more "spiders" (Web searchers, crawlers) are indexing >directories and files on systems they can find. > >Second, what is out there in spiderspace is incredibly useful for building >dossiers, for compiling correlations, and for doing competitive analyses. All of these capabilities might seem to increase the control opportunities of others but for the fact that our opportunities for independent interaction have increased much faster. All the modern control technologies have been blown out of the water because of the single significant fact that a network creates more connections than anyone else can block. And this is true whether that network is called a "market" or an "Internet." Liberty can be defined as an opportunity to complete "transactions." Control may be defined as the capability to block another from completing "transactions." The "lowest chained serf in the fields" has few opportunities to complete "transactions" or to make choices. Even if his legal status were different, the fact that he is bound to the soil by necessity if not law restrains his liberty. He can't go anywhere or do anything. If he is in a lightly populated place like the Northern Europe of old, his "world" contains about 100 people. If he is in a densely populated place like a Chinese river valley he still only has about 1000 people in his village to deal with. Nature constrains his choices so much that only a minor effort by "society" is required to completely restrain him. A modern market and a modern telecoms infrastructure is so vast and is made up of so many potential links that it takes a major and very expensive application of human force to even slightly restrain other people. Since each of us can buy from or sell to, talk to, form attachments with literally millions (and soon billions) of other people (and companies and software robots, etc) the opportunities for others to control us are limited. Very expensive prisons, criminal justice systems, credit bureaus, and employment records systems are inadequate to keep us from doing much of what we want. Which is why an allegedly "controlled" world seems a lot less controlled than the world of the past. Among all of the potential "transactions" that we can choose to complete (T) are a subset of transactions (t) that give us outcomes closer to what we actually want. In the past, the best representation of this transaction space was T=t=1. The total transactions were very limited (subsistence farming in the place and among the people of our birth). We were stuck. Today we are approaching a situation in which for all practical purposes T=~ and t=~ and the all of the possibilities make the match between what we want and what we can get very close. So if one government or one employer or one friend is not "right" for us, there are millions more where that came from. We aren't there yet but we are getting there. No matter how peculiar your exact nature, there are so many markets and people out there that very few people on earth will be unable to find a niche. If your needs are esoteric, you may have to shop around a bit but all these great search tools sure make that easier. Thus if I write something that upsets a government or an employer, there are other governments and other employers (including myself in both cases). In fact, I am likely to find some "small, deeply disturbed following" that actually likes what I have to say. There are an awful lot of people out there. It's like the Bill Mauldin cartoon featuring a skinny, ugly, GI with a funny big curl on his head driving through an Italian hill town full of ugly, skinny people with giant curls on their heads -- "Gee, my Daddy told me I'd find a place like this." That village is already part of Market Earth (tm) and is (or soon will be on the Net). With the millions of choices each of us has, restricting those choices quickly becomes impossible outside of prison and prisons become ever harder to maintain because of cost and countermeasures. (The Soviet Union, for example). DCF "An ISP that restricts access isn't an *Internet* Service Provider but rather a proprietary online service."

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Re: DC-Nets and Noise
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:38 1/17/96, Timothy C. May wrote: >There are many reasons why mailing lists and subgroups fade out. DC-Nets >are a hard thing to pull off (anyone see any working versions lately?), >about as hard to pull off as true digital cash; and with less economic >benefit, less incentive to do the work. So, I can't say I am, or was, >surprised that such mailing lists atrophied. David Chaum told me last year that someone has created a DC net that works over AppleTalk. Supposedly, it was mentioned at Eurocrypt. Any pointers? TIA, -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Crypto on private files
by Jay Holovacs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a brief NPR report on the Leary case (he is alleged to have firebombed the NYC subway) there is a decision due on whether prosecutors can force him to give up passwords for his personal computer files (he was a computer professional). His attorney is claiming 5th amendment privilige. According to the newscaster, the NY state court decision should be a first in this type of case. Prosecutors argue it is no different from being forced to turn over a diary. The report does not say what type of protection was used. Jay Holovacs <holovacs(a)ios.com> PGP Key fingerprint = AC 29 C8 7A E4 2D 07 27 AE CA 99 4A F6 59 87 90

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Netscape & the NSA
by foodie＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Folks interested might want to check out http://gnn-e2a.gnn.com/gnn/wr/96/01/12/features/nsa/index.html Not much new to those who follow it. -j

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Random Number Generators
by Timothy L. Nali 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all For a class project, I will be designing a VLSI cmos chip to generate truly random numbers (The chip will be fabricated). I'm limited to a 2-micron standard cmos technology (no fancy BiCMOS, MISC, or anthing else). The most promising design I've seen so far (that I can actually do) is based on clocking a D flip-flop in the following way: ----- 8Khz clock ------ | |----- Random output | | | | (sloppy) slow clock ---- |> | | | ----- The slow clock has enough random variation in it's period for the Dff to generate random numbers. The random bits will , of course, have biases that will need to be corrected with things like Xor gates. Can anyone give me pointers or references to other types of true random number generators and to ways of correcting the biases and other problems in the resulting random bitstream? I'd also appreciate a pointer to an intro text (if such a thing exists) on what makes random numbers good random numbers. (and before you say it, yes I have Applied Cyptography. It's a great book.) One thing I'm concerned about is making sure the random bitstream is uniformly random. What effects, if any, will things like thermal noise, power comsumption (what if there is a sudden rise in power comsumption in another part of the circuit), etc. have on the randomness of the bitstream? I'd also appreciate any other suggestions or advice you have on RNGs. Thanks in advance.

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Non-bogus reporter seeks sources for story on MS Windows networking/security problems
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Free-lance writer and co-author of "Practical UNIX Security" seeks substantive reliable sources, preferably for attribution, on the history of the SMB, C$, and .PWL encryption bugs in both Windows 95 and Windows for Workgroups, but especially on what problems will remain after next week's "Service Pack 1." He might drop the story because of a dearth of sources and promises from Microsoft that everything has already been fixed, and will be distributed to the Netless masses via the SP 1 CD (the contents of which are not public knowledge, but which surely went to manufacturing some time ago...). I don't want to spam his mailbox, but his PGP key is 0x903C9265, with fingerprint 68 06 7B 9A 8C E6 58 3D 6E D8 0E 90 01 C5 DE 01. You might also run into him in person at this week's RSA Data conference in San Francisco. Please reply directly to the reporter with a subject line starting with "MS*" (assuming that's not too maudlin for you) because he gets a lot of mail. He isn't seeking any more mail on unrelated subjects. Stuff funnelled through me, especially from anonymous sources, is properly not considered relibable (though I might appreciate a Cc). Bcc'd to the reporter. - -rich -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMP1D1o3DXUbM57SdAQER4wQAnmmESUU8WW4awrHiBTzSVn8j1cN1gUI/ xxfRHVZ5AQGmQPMRNgr9tJaeN4c+5LsR7CzVxhTlGNTnU5B5cg6w3LvOgXpfhhVW MdNvxB/b8XJBs3XybuTtTnxYC+Qv8Hm1PPt63ULaurFW9c2BPhJk7ZcHo1Ju3X72 e/9VZtmSIBo= =WslA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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WP: Encryption rules hurt exporters
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Washington Post January 17, 1996 Study: Encryption Rules Hurt Exporters By Elizabeth Corcoran Washington Post Staff Writer U.S. export restrictions on technology for encrypting information are slowing American companies' success in some foreign countries and retarding the growth of an international market for such technology, according to a new report released by the U.S. Commerce Department. The study is likely to become the latest ammunition in the struggle between the administration and many U.S. high-tech companies and civil liberties advocates over how tightly the United States should control the export of sophisticated data scrambling, or encryption, technology. Both sides are likely to try to use the report to their advantage. U.S. businesses contend that they are losing market share to foreign competitors because they are not allowed to include the most sophisticated encryption technology in their software products. "The day we show lost market share [in the overall market for software] is the day that we start losing the whole ballgame," said Rebecca Gould, director of policy for the Business Software Alliance. The report, which was commissioned in late 1994 by the national security adviser and carried out by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Export Administration and the National Security Agency, aimed to assess the impact of encryption export controls. It assigns no dollar values to any sales lost by U.S. companies, but notes that there are many foreign-made encryption products available overseas. On the other hand, some of those products do not work well, the report says. Still, it cites evidence that U.S firms are not making significant progress in the business of selling encryption technology. In three countries -- Switzerland, Denmark and the United Kingdom -- market share for U.S. encryption products declined during 1994, the report said. Sources in 14 countries said that export controls "limit" U.S. market share, while those in another seven countries said such controls have "either no impact or no major impact." Although the report maintains that sources in "most" countries indicated that U.S. market share is "keeping pace" with overall demand, in many of the countries surveyed, "exportable U.S. encryption products are perceived to be of unsatisfactory quality." Today, a Washington-based policy group supported by a dozen major computer companies plans to release its own commentary on export encryptions, calling for the government to lift its export restrictions.

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RE: underground digital economy
by Kurt Buff (Volt Comp) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Certainly. There are a couple of ways, but all one needs is some sort of gateway to an e-cash, which is simply e-money without identification. The gateway could take the form of a human intermediary, with either services or physical goods being the medium of exchange, or simply an exchange server which takes a cut off the top, as happens in the street all the time in countries that have currency restrictions. Kurt ---------- From: jim@bilbo.suite.com[SMTP:jim@bilbo.suite.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 1996 14:39 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: underground digital economy Question: The existing underground economy uses the same money as the aboveground economy (i.e. paper money, for the most part). Could a significant underground digital economy develop if the aboveground digital economy used only identified e-money? Jim_Miller(a)suite.com ____________________________________________________________________ The Internet is a land bridge for memes ____________________________________________________________________

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