December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Jamming and privacy problem
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It looks like one non-political solution to this problem would be a gadget to jam the receiver so it can't activate the transponder or, alternately, receive the transponder's signal. Cryptographic relevance? They might start doing something tricky with frequencies, etcetera. -Allen =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help(a)weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Sat, 03 Feb 96 10:21:11 EST From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator <comp-privacy(a)uwm.edu> To: Comp-privacy(a)uwm.edu Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V8#012 Computer Privacy Digest Sat, 03 Feb 96 Volume 8 : Issue: 012 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 01 Feb 1996 19:25:04 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre <pagre(a)weber.ucsd.edu> Subject: Universal Tracking of Road Traffic I have here the most amazing document. It is a Request for Proposals (number 95-7, dated January 1996) from the State of California Air Resources Board (Research Division, 2020 L Street, Sacramento CA 95814) entitled "Incorporation of Radio Transponders into Vehicular On-Board Diagnostic Systems". The ARB wants someone to build transponders and receivers that allow computers to automatically poll cars to determine if their emissions systems are failing, in the process accumulating a database of the cars' locations on particular dates and times. According to the RFP, by 1996 new cars and light trucks in California are required to have onboard systems that illuminate a dashboard light if the emissions systems are malfunctioning. Since the appearance of this light does not ensure that the car's owner will get the emissions system fixed, the ARB is proposing that new cars and light trucks starting in the year 2000 (it doesn't say all of them, but it does say 1,000,000 of them) be required to include transponders that can broadcast the car's VIN number, the emissions system fault codes, the vehicle's location at the time of the query, and a status code. The receivers are supposed to be capable of automatically polling the "fleet" of cars equipped with transponders and storing in a database the following information: date and time of current and last query, VIN, status and fault codes, and "vehicle location (to the zip code level, and city)". The contractor also "shall produce a public service video documenting the system and explaining the concept and the benefits of such a transponder-assisted approach to enhancing the present I/M [Inspection and Maintenance] program." In case it's not clear, the ARB is envisioning a system under which cars sold in California will be required to incorporate a device ("no larger than a pack of cigarettes") that the state can use to track its whereabouts at all times. This plan poses a greater threat to individual privacy than automatic toll collection or any other plan currently under development for non-commercial transport informatics, so far as I know. Environmental concerns are real, and the air in Los Angeles is a crime, but plenty of means are available for alleviating air pollution without constructing the technological groundwork for an authoritarian society. -- Phil Agre ------------------------------ End of Computer Privacy Digest V8 #012 ******************************

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None
by Flame Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> > Could someone tell me how to quit this list, I just dont > >> have the time to read anything that is being sent to it. >> >> Yes. You can turn your modem off :) >> > Hey Boffo, Don't be an idiot!! It is hard to turn off your > modem when you are on a university network. Don't be so > quick to be a smart ass. If you don't have anything > productive to say then shut the fuck up!! Wow.. Looks like someone didn't get their nap. Maybe someday he'll figure out about anonymous remailers too and quite trying to argue with Mr. Boffo. :)

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[NOISE] Is this email getting through?
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have not received any CP traffic for several days. Repeated (re-)subscription requests didn't generate a reply from majordomo. If this message shows up on the list, please let me know. Puzzled, -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: cypherpunks-d V2 #480
by gibo＠ripco.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: Cecelia A Clancy <cacst9+(a)pitt.edu> >Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1996 18:06:32 -0500 (EST) >Subject: Re: THE JEWS (ALL of them!) Try to kick Ernst Zundel off Usenet!! > >On Sat, 3 Feb 1996 ErnstZundl(a)aol.com wrote: > >Ernst Zu"ndel's e-mail address is ezundel(a)cts.com. He is on on >AOL to me knowledge. [snip] >The above text does not feel like Zu"ndel to me. I think >that this ErnstZundel(a)aol.com might very well be an imposter. >The above is not the real Zu"ndel's speaking or writing >style. Zu"ndel does not want books burned and people persecuted >nor does he want certain races and ethnic groups declared >inferior. <amazement gaze="slackjawed"> My God, you're kidding! The Zundel post might have been a JOKE?! But I believed every word of it! </amazement> =========================================>>>http://pages.ripco.com/~gibo "Tree-borne kettle-girl...I love you." -- from Ranma 1/2

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Protecting the innocent on the nets
by A. Padgett Peterson, P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

About a year ago I came up with a mechanism to allow subscription or controlled circulation magazines to be distributed on the net. Not saying is new, just was new to me. Seems like it would be a mechanism for anyone to communicate/access Web pages without crypto, yet allowing protection of such things from those requiring such protection. Concept works like this: LZ (or most other) compressed files have two elements - a data dictionary and ordered pointers to that dictionary. Now say you took a large number of text files/.Gifs/.Jpegs/whatever and created a universal (well nearly) data dictionary that would fit on a CD-Rom. Using large patterns and good ordering techniques could achieve good throughput. Now to a group of subscribers/friends/whatever, the disk is distributed in a controlled manner. Once distribution is made, then what is sent on the net/put on the Web page are just the pointers to the data dictionary plus any patterns not in the dictionary (low enough not to create anything intelligable). What you have is a gigantic book code with a copyrightable book for which you can control the circulation. Those under age need not apply. If they obtain one, then it was illegally and you have made a "good faith attempt" IMNSLO to protect the innocent. Can even change the CD-Rom dictionary *order* yearly/montly/whatever if you want. Comment ? Warmly, Padgett ps if you reply to the list, *please* do not copy me, my volume is silly enough without getting duplicates as it is.

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Re: FV's blatant double standards
by simsong＠vineyard.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:18 AM 1/31/96, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: >FV demonstrated, through it's "card sharp" or whatever, that >real-time transactions are vulnerable to sniffers on the recipient's >own machine. Of course. We all knew that. But the mistake is to >assume that FV isn't _equally_ vulnerable to that threat. If you >can write a trojan that will somehow get privileged access to my >machine, trap my keystrokes, and identify my credit card number, >you can certainly write one that will, sitting on my machine: > "intercept the user's electronic mail, read the confirmation > message from First Virtual's computers, and send out a fraudulent > reply" >(to quote from Simson's article). Simson further quotes FV's Lee >Stein: "A single user can be targeted, Stein said, but ''it is very >difficult. . . . There are too many packets moving . . . to too many >different machines.''" - which is of course equally true for real-time >Netscape transactions. Oh, I think that such a program can be written. However, it would be much harder to get right, considering all of the different ways that people read e-mail. ============= Simson's Schedule: Feb 2 - Feb 5 - Cambridge: Conference on Freely Redistributable Software Feb 7 - Feb 13 - Baltimore: American Association for the Advancement of Science. Feb. 28 - March 1 - Seybold, Boston. March 23 - NYC. MacFair. March 27 - March 30: Cambridge. Computers, Freedom and Privacy.

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[NOISE] Sound bites re the Zundel German censorship thing (fwd)
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Bcc'd to the webcom.com guys FYI] Sorry if you get duplicate copies, but I agree with Tim that mailing list cross-pollution is bad. *Not* for broader redistribution, because they deserve privacy, but illustrative for, say, certain knee-jerk anti-PC forces here, is the fact that the two people who run webcom.com (Bcc'd) have been reported to be: 1. Grandson of a Holocaust victim 2. Activist with PEN and Amnesty International I think we're all on the right side here, and for all the right reasons. -rich ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 17:56:19 -0800 From: Rich Graves <llurch(a)Networking.Stanford.EDU> To: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu Newgroups: alt.censorship, comp.org.eff.talk, alt.internet.media-coverage Subject: Maudlin sound bites re the Zundel German censorship thing I put this together for the few journalists who actually bothered to ask for quotes, rather than taking or manufacturing them without asking. Sent to CMU fight-censorship and relevant newsgroups (not counting alt.revisionism, where this is not really relevant); will also send separately to cypherpunks. I'm not on any other lists, but feel free to pass it along, with PGP signature intact. -rich ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Subject: Re: Quote for Guardian newspaper -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Please cite me as rich(a)c2.org without Stanford affiliation. Yes, I can handle any amount of mail, and I'd much rather have to answer questions than be misinterpreted. Pick and choose and edit at will. The email address rich(a)beep.stanford.edu goes to an alphanumeric pager (cellular beeper, whatever you call it on your side of the pond) that takes 60 characters from the Subject: line; please use it to confirm quotes at deadline. Some material, from least to most maudlin: I am not a free speech activist. As Rosa Parks explains her refusing to move to the back of a racially segregated bus, "I was tired." The Internet belongs to all of us, and if parts of it are cordoned off for even the most noble political reasons, then we are all diminished, and totalitarian regimes like China's are given another excuse. This was an important point to underscore, but it should be noted that all I did was send a half dozen electronic mail messages and copy a few files, which took less than an hour of my time. No less important than the fight against censorship itself, for me, is that hateful demagogues like Ernst Zundel be denied their spurious appeals to "anti-censorship." Mr. Zundel is no more of a free speech activist than are the leaders of the IRA. Repression only breeds criminality. As Tolkien or any good German fairy tale will tell you, the evil troll, when exposed to the light of day, will turn to stone. Evil trolls like Mr. Zundel might still frighten children, but as statues in the Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance they can no longer harm us; and ultimately, these statues will attract pigeons, weather with time, and crumble to dust. Now that the power of the Net has been demonstrated, we have taken down our mirror sites. Now the onus is on Mr. Zundel, in the spotlight of world attention, to reveal his true friends by calling on them to come to his aid. Now we know that Mr. Zundel's friends include Joe Bunkley, a notorious racist at Georgia State University. Joe Bunkley's mirror site, and those of other friendly mirror sites, cannot all be censored; in fact, to my knowledge, no action has been taken against any mirror site. Indeed, the DFN/WiN network that serves most German universities restored access to Mr. Zundel's original site some days ago. Let Mr. Zundel's conspiracy theories about Jews and UFO bases in Antarctica into the public domain, and let us see who will believe them, and who will laugh. I am a great fan of Milan Kundera, who teaches us that the only responses to a totalitarian buffoon are laughter and memory. Nizkor: we will remember. (No, I'm not Jewish) Zundel's hate should never be ignored, but it can be publicly refuted and ridiculed, which has far greater moral and practical effect than censorship. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" can be interpreted many ways. Let freedom ring. - -rich On Sun, 4 Feb 1996, Azeem Azhar wrote: > Hi, > > I'm a journalist on the UK Guardian newspaper > I'm doing a background piece the Zundel bnusiness. > Could you give me a short quotable quote about why you're doing it: > Extreme non-tech if you could. > ASAP? > Cool > > Azeem > > Azeem Azhar vx: 0171-713 4193 > The Guardian fx: 0171-713 4154 > 119 Farringdon Road azeem(a)dial.pipex.com > London EC1R 3ER aa(a)guardian.co.uk (alt) > All opinions are my own unless otherwise stated. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMRU8nY3DXUbM57SdAQHz7gP/VHY9mkoZ4NdJ3bklnH+cKjCXxcT8uxTb bSm/+f/iYe06C2XN3g5O5VVDQiPn0jA4aWJCwP1ntkkZmEsYyIBjRCQgMTBvNqt2 7blwHlLsEelJU2AaqMwK6z+4jiOdgp2InXYOjGsFZZaNwn0gCvbhaUbl5uYy4BV5 9tXMt9ZG95k= =GzMs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Our "New Order"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:26 PM 2/4/96 GMT, Mutatis Mutantdis wrote: >On Sat, 3 Feb 1996 11:30:48 -0700, David M. Rose wrote: > >>In view of the fact that our government seems bent on abrogating its >>citizens' rights to free speech, has anyone done a survey indicating which >>foreign countries have the best Net connections to the U.S. (excepting, of >>course, Germany and possibly France)? > >>It may be expedient for Planned Parenthood and others whose points of view >>differ somewhat from those approved under our "New Order"* to explore >>alternatives in order to reach their constituencies. > >The law makes anyone accessing material lable... even if you connect >to a foreign site where it's legal there, if it's banned in the US, >you can still get screwed (in theory). > >Methinks the time is right for a "PGPScape" web browser. > >Rob. Let me see if I understand this concept correctly. The remote site would pre-encrypt the transmitted data, so that when received it could be decrypted by the requestor according to his (or a temporarily chosen, to avoid disclosing the actual recipient.) public key, so as to disguise both the material and perhaps also the actual requestor? Excellent idea!

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RC2 protected by copyright?
by thad＠hammerhead.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

RSA issued a statement claiming that anyone using RC2(TM) would be in violation of various laws. I think that they might have a point. You can't protect an idea with trade secrets, certainly not a software idea, if you intend to sell the software. It is easy to reverse engineer it; this is probably what happened with RC2. But, what about copyright? Now, copyrights cannot protect ideas, only the expression of those ideas. An algorithm is clearly an idea, you could write a program that would implement it in a completely different way, not just by translating it (translations are still protected by copyright). RC2, though, as 256 bytes of seemingly random data at the head of it, in a permutation table. This is clearly not any idea, but a bit of text. This text would have to be copied to any interoperable RC2. (You could surely use some different permutation, and probably most of the 256! permutations would be equally secure, but would not interoperate with RC2). I would expect that this copying of text be held to be a violation of copyright. Some might argue that 256 bytes is so small that perhaps it couldn't be copyrighted. Copyright clearly can't protect use of a word, or a short phrase (1000 points of light, say). If the permutation table at the beginning was 65536 16-bit numbers, instead of 256 bytes, then the copyright protection be that much stronger and less open to debate. Do any of the real lawyers on the list want to take a crack at this? Has anybody heard any noise from RSA describing exactly how they intend to go after people? thad -- Thaddeus Beier thad(a)hammerhead.com Technology Development 408) 286-3376 Hammerhead Productions http://www.got.net/~thad

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Arthur C. Clarke Supports Strong Crypto
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(Pardon me for mentioning crypto...) Arthur C. Clarke, known to most of you (author of many SF works, coiner of the phrase: "all sufficiently advanced technlogies are indistinguishable from magic," mention by Alan Olsen yesterday), has a role in a "Discovery Channel" program called "Mysterious Universe." The episode tonight dealt with famous ciphers, including the Beale Cipher (buried gold), the Voynich Manuscript (who knows what it is), and the Vinland Map (my ancestors beat the Italians to the New World). Clarke concluded by opining that strong ciphers that can only be read by the intended recipient are now more important than ever. --Tim May Boycott espionage-enabled software! 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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