December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: FV's blatant double standards
by John Pettitt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:34 AM 2/6/96 -0500, Nathaniel Borenstein wrote: >1. He doesn't explain how he's going to spot the VirtualPIN in the >outgoing stream. Given the non-structured nature of the VirtualPIN, >this alone probably requires more sophistication than our entire attack >program. > >2. He acknowledges that this approach will miss anyone who isn't buying >things from the machine that actually composes his mail messages. What >he doesn't seem to realize, however, is that this means that any >automated attack will cause "fraud" to be called as soon as it hits a >user of AOL, Compuserve, etc. Jeff's approach would last a bit longer, >but is also vulnerable to heterogeneous mail environments. The real >point is that an automated attack like this one is undermined by email >heterogeneity, which will cause FV's fraud department to be alerted >quite quickly & trace things down. In contrast, the attack we've >outlined on credit card numbers is simple, single-step, and has no >obvious "misfiring path" that would lead to quick detection. It could >do its dirty work for a long time. > > You missed my point. 1) hook into the winsock and look for an FV message in the web data stream, save the ID. 2) now look for an approve/deny/fraud, when you see one you know that the user uses an IP connection for mail and web. 3) only now does the attack begin. The attack does not trigger until it *knows* that both FV orders and confirms are moving via winsock - I.E. it does not report back the FV ID of the victim until it sees the victim use FV and *knows* it can intercept the reply. The key here is not breaking all cases just a significant number and not setting off too many alarms. This significantly lowers the fraud detection risk, now the fraud does not get noticed until the card statement shows up, the same as with a card number snooping attack. Yes it will miss a large group of FV customers who use AOL, CI$ etc (although a similar hook in the common serial port code on Win95 could catch most of them). The basic point is if the achine is not secure then no data on it is either. John Pettitt, jpp(a)software.net VP Engineering, CyberSource Corporation, 415 473 3065 "Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it." - Max Frisch

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Re: Why am I wrong?
by lunaslide＠loop.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think there is a middle ground that you may have missed. Let's see... The cypherpunk view seems to be that eveyone *should* use forms of encryption for passing packets along on the internet. It works best when the majority of people are using, but no one is forced to encrypt their email. People still send postcards, right? No matter what percentage of users on the net use encryption, there will always be those who will exercise their right to send open, plain text messages. It is our right to choose *to* encrypt that we are fighting for, not a general mandate that all use crypt. As for the law's take on this matter, under the constitution, they have no right to tell us that we cannot use encryption in sending our messages. They also have no right to tell us that we cannot teach others how to use it, develop easier ways to implement it so that eventually it will be a no-brainer to use, say that we are criminals because we opt for our right to privacy, or ask us to give up that right to privacy because we are using a new medium. One issue that may come up is that the law cannot make us give our passwords so that they may use our keys to open our documents because it would be self-incrimination, however, they can serve warrants to search our software and documents. In their search, they will be able to try and break our passwords to gain access to the files. If they cannot, it is their tough luck. I don't think that I am stating a position of cypher-anarchy, but advocating a position of personal privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. I don't think that wide-spread use of cyptography would cause anarchy. Would foreign govt. be able to slpi stuff by our govt. because they can use encryption? Sure, like they aren't already doing that right now. The US govt. seems to be saying "Hey, no fair! I can't see your stuff anymore. You can't do that!" when all along, no one has been able to see their packets because they are encrypting it. There are still ways for them to gain access too. Don't tell me they can't set up peeping toms to record keystrokes. Certainly they can do this on ppl's machines. It would be more difficult, but that is the whole point. It should be sufficiently difficult for them to tap so that to tap freely would be infeasable for them to do, just like steaming open every envelope that comes through would be infeasable. They can only go after the real suspects because it is feasable to do only that. In essence, what I am saying about the govt. is that thy are crying wolf. They can still be efficient in their duties without wholesale access to all the data streams. They want the power to monitor far more traffic than they could ever get warrants for and they know it. I likewise invite you to chip at the cracks in my reasoning as it will improve our arguments in general. Freedom is power. God save the Citizen! Jeff Conn lunaslide On the meridian of time there is no injustice, only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama. Henry Miller -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQBvAzD3EHEAAAEDAMVwZzXozPjX18mCenA5fJsdWZXcrhJCxPR+SoVCmR7d4ZVU mwITzPTHo/GyLvJrWyk5YdhheczyY2VSawaMrCN/nWA7K9lwAylbKyPxqBhRYJ3C 2wi2uD5LY2wypNOQyQARAQABtB5KZWZmIENvbm4gPGx1bmFzbGlkZUBsb29wLmNv bT6JAHUDBRAw+1bqS2NsMqTTkMkBAQkTAwCersFbCyk8O0MbGlNcZDAe24CLEWQ0 0C5EHni33W76UsG1bybcLsuMH6HVwLF7IqZivnzc7wkujYPQvCqn8HEYYTld8V9V Cou4dOvA8kV7rHvAn/LuLx7DRruLFrRoPSk= =OIT9 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Re: Likely application for high-bandwidth proxies (fwd)
by lunaslide＠loop.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>It would appear that a potentially very popular application for high- >bandwidth anonymizing proxies has arrived: > >Forwarded message from list-managers-digest: >> From: Project Genesis <genesis(a)j51.com> >> Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 02:42:13 -0500 >> Subject: Speaking of spams... >> >> Did I mention that Project Genesis is an organization specializing in >> religious education? The message below explains why all of our public lists >> are moderated. I value privacy and have grave doubts about things like the >> Exon amendment (which may make Internet providers liable), but I also think >> that we need to ensure that the Internet not become one big red-light >> district. Spams like this are a step in the wrong direction. It hit several >> of our religion-oriented lists. >> >> Ken I don't think that you understand one thing. If we (the users of the internet) say that X-THING is unacceptable on the internet, we open up the floodgates for everything else that ppl what to censor. There are better ways to keep children from looking at sites and spams like the one you posted. Parents. It's their responsibility to keep their children from getting into this stuff on the net. If we allow the govt. to take care of our issues and do not take responsibility for them ourselves, we deserve to have a big brother who can take care of us (see what I mean?) No control can be given to the govt. If it comes down to it, we can have a rating system like the movies and music. Our lists are moderated, BTW, so that we don't have to wade through a bunch of irrelevant data while trying to read about the lists/newsgroups topic. Some of my favorite groups are alt groups, and as much as I hate having to read about Grubor all the time (please ship him off to a dessert isle), the moderation would limit the scope of the groups and interesting, sometimes relevant pseudotopics would be gone. I want the psudotopics! That's where some of the best threads get started! But moderated groups have their place too. Who wants to read a bunch of trolls while trying to read a science group. And soc.support groups would not be of much use if flamers and lusers kept posting disruptive and disturbing articles. But in all the cases here, it is we, the users, who decide what stays and what goes. Peace to all. Jeff Conn lunaslide On the meridian of time there is no injustice, only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama. Henry Miller -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQBvAzD3EHEAAAEDAMVwZzXozPjX18mCenA5fJsdWZXcrhJCxPR+SoVCmR7d4ZVU mwITzPTHo/GyLvJrWyk5YdhheczyY2VSawaMrCN/nWA7K9lwAylbKyPxqBhRYJ3C 2wi2uD5LY2wypNOQyQARAQABtB5KZWZmIENvbm4gPGx1bmFzbGlkZUBsb29wLmNv bT6JAHUDBRAw+1bqS2NsMqTTkMkBAQkTAwCersFbCyk8O0MbGlNcZDAe24CLEWQ0 0C5EHni33W76UsG1bybcLsuMH6HVwLF7IqZivnzc7wkujYPQvCqn8HEYYTld8V9V Cou4dOvA8kV7rHvAn/LuLx7DRruLFrRoPSk= =OIT9 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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OCAF White Paper on porn on the net
by printing＠explicit.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello all, With the passing of the CDA recently, The first wounding of the rights of free speech online, The Oklahomans for Children and Families are going in for the kill. A WWW site has been set up with a HTML version of what the autoresponder sends out. http://www.bway.net/~dfenton/noporn.html This is a scary document, and was originally written as a prosecution primer for law enforcement. -William Knowles .. //!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\ Graphically Explicit Printing - Advertising - Graphic Design 1555 Sherman Avenue - Suite 203 Evanston IL., 60201-4421 800.570.0471 - printing(a)explicit.com Accept, Embrace, Adapt, Create \\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//!\\!//

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The OCAF's White Paper on Internet Pornography
by zinc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- cpunks, regarding this paper; it's sent out by an autoresponder. is it illegal to make excessive use of the autoresponder? this would be a type of denial of service attack. i'm wondering if i set up a cron job to request a copy every 5 or 10 minutes and just send it to /dev/nul, could i get in more trouble than say, someone just telling me to cut it out? opinions? - -pjf "Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (1773) finger for PGP key zifi runs LINUX 1.3.57 -=-=-=WEB=-=-=-> http://zifi.genetics.utah.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Processed by mkpgp1.6, a Pine/PGP interface. iQCVAwUBMRe7B03Qo/lG0AH5AQF6KwP/XAQq4yoi0Ytetl6rUnnCJBvbNktRmSEP 3D+ILw4+qn4YDQX96Q6+SoGYD/9zHu59ywFWk42hYCXYNhOpo+GBTF9uGWIb5lD6 /DdzSLDpCKUvggmI395STqoEBuKj5ILSGBzDZGfnw6g6IAcJIRwnwiE/MhLjgKof 2S0mWLFc4aQ= =+twb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [noise] Re: Crippled Notes export encryption
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:11 PM 2/6/96 +1100, Jiri Baum wrote: >Forget about Jeff, how about PGP? Put it on a rocket (I'm *sure* there's >an amateur rocket club conveniently located near the border), and off >you go! (I guess you'd want to check @ 126.1 first, though). > >Have I missed anything? Another question is this: Would the point-to-point (USA to USA) transmission of PGP by radio (say, a satellite telephone bounce) that is "inadvertently" intercepted external to the US qualify as a violation of ITAR? It would be hard for the NSA to criticize this, as this is their main operations area. Besides, if anybody was prosecuted, they'd presumably be able to subpoena the NSA about their monitoring operations, to determine if the NSA was violating any OTHER country's anti-export laws, etc.

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Release of Pronto Secure first Beta
by geoff klein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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RE: Why am I wrong?
by A. Padgett Peterson, P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I don't think that I am stating a position of cypher-anarchy, but >advocating a position of personal privacy guaranteed by the Fourth >Amendment. Don't forget the other side of the conversation. While the government cannot (notice I did not say they might not try) effectively control communication, there are other points at which control may be exerted: 1) communications *with* the government (IRS, Social Security, etc). 2) communications using someone else's equipment/network (university, employer, etc) 3) communications with anyone (Internet merchant, etc) who says "this is not what <MasterCard|Visa|AmEx> approves..." Each of these may have compelling reasons for complying with what the government wants even if it is not law. IMNSHO "law" is just a means for exacting retribution/revenge - if you have to resort to it, you have already lost. Warmly, Padgett

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Re: RC2--Some very preliminary analysis
by daw＠dawn7.CS.Berkeley.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <01I0SDBW5VYY984JFR(a)delphi.com>, <JMKELSEY(a)delphi.com> wrote: [ ... 1/4 of a cycle of RC2: ... ] > A = rotl(A + f(B,C,D) + sk[i], 1); [...] > Has anyone looked at this cipher with regard to linear attacks? A little bit. > However, it's not clear to me how to build linear > characteristics that will make it through more than a few rounds of > alleged-RC2. Linear characteristics that are spread across many > subblocks (i.e., partly in A and partly in B) seem to get messed up > quickly by the rotations. Hrmm, I'm not convinced that it's so hard to build a linear characteristic; there are plenty of 1/4-cycle characteristics that don't spread out very much. The problem is that I can't find any approximations with high enough bias to be useful. So here's some information on the (useless) linear characteristics I've been thinking about; maybe this will prompt some clever improvement from someone else. They're all based on two observations: first, the addition operation Y = A + X has linear characteristics of the form Y[i] = A[i] + X[i,i-1] bias 1/2 Y[i] = A[i,i-1] + X[i] bias 1/2 and second, the bit-multiplexing function X = f(B,C,D) has linear characteristics of the form X[i] = B[i] bias 1/2 X[i] = C[i] bias 1/2 X[i] = B[i] + D[i] bias 1/2 X[i] = C[i] + D[i] + 1 bias 1/2 etc. (A note on notation: X[i] denotes the i-th bit of X, and X[i,j,k] = X[i] + X[j] + X[k]. If an approximation holds with probability p, then I say it has bias b = 2 |p - 1/2|; note that adding two approximations multiplies their biases, and that one needs about 1/b^2 known plaintexts to take advantage of a linear characteristic for the whole cipher. Next, let K denote the 1/4-cycle subkey, and let A' denote the new value of A after the 1/4-cycle is applied to it. Also, + denotes xor in approximations. By 1/4-cycle, I mean something of the form A = rotl(A + f(B,C,D) + K, 1); so RC2 has 16 full cycles, and each full cycle has 4 1/4-cycles.) Now given those building blocks for linear characteristics, you can combine them to get various linear characteristics for 1/4 of a cycle, like this: A'[i+1] = A[i,i-1] + B[i] + K[i,i-1] bias 1/8 A'[i+1] = A[i] + B[i,i-1] + K[i,i-1] bias 1/8 A'[i+1,i] = A[i,i-2] + B[i,i-1] + K[i,i-2] bias 1/64 A'[i+1,i] = A[i,i-1] + B[i,i-2] + K[i,i-2] bias 1/64 A'[i+1] = A[i,i-1] + C[i] + K[i,i-1] bias 1/8 A'[i+1] = A[i] + C[i,i-1] + K[i,i-1] bias 1/8 etc. These don't spread out too well; I haven't completely worked out how to do many-cycle linear approximations, but I think they shouldn't be too hard to find. (For instance, keep only A and C active, or somesuch.) The real stumbling block is the lack of high-bias linear approximations for a 1/4-cycle, not the difficulty of combining them, IMHO. For instance, if you supposed that there was just one 1/8-bias linear approximation active in each full cycle, we get a total bias over 16 cycles of 2^{-48}, which would imply something like 2^{96} known plaintexts for a linear attack. This is an overly optimistic estimate, since any full 16-cycle linear characteristic which I can imagine will probably require more than one linear approximation per cycle. (It also ignores the non-iterative rounds; but I think they'll be easy to deal with if you can handle everything else.) What makes the 1/4-cycle linear approximations have such a low bias is RC2's extensive use of addition mod 2^32 instead of bitwise xor. So anyhow, the final word is that I don't see how to do linear cryptanalysis of RC2, but maybe someone else will have some insights. P.S. There is an analogue of differential cryptanalysis where we consider the difference measure as addition mod 2^32 instead of bitwise xor. Is there a similar generalization of linear cryptanalysis? I don't know any, offhand. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMRbB/CoZzwIn1bdtAQEKEAGAujcKp6aM4OV9AoveQaFQdEpQi/hQTSK/ YoMEkSKYtt+aq0Usv5nMHB7ikEflmGak =TYbl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Why am I wrong?
by Decius 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am posting this pondering to cypherpunks in hopes that it will be refuted. Although these ideas are obviously in opposition to those held by Denning and the law enforcement community, they are also in opposition to those held by the Cypherpunks. This idea is bothering me because I cannot refute it, although it goes in opposition to many people whom I respect greatly. Please tell me why I am wrong about this. (Sorry for the US-centric perspective, but I think the arguments here apply regardless of what your system of government may be.) Crypto-Absolutism decius(a)ninja.techwood.org One of the largest problems in the debate over public access to cryptography is the fact that both sides of the issue hold absolute beliefs. They are unwilling to compromise, and often seem unwilling to decide on a solution which is anything but a total win for their side. Many of those who are opposed to cryptography have proposed what they claim is a compromise, when in reality these suggestions often change the issues instead of addressing them. However, in all conflicts there is a middle ground. The answer to the whole crypto debate may be in finding it. Nothing ever works in absolutes. On one side of the debate we find the law enforcement community. This group is totally opposed to the concept of public access to cryptography. Although they claim this to be false, the reality is that these people think its ok for anyone to keep a secret, as long as no one is keeping secrets from them. This belief is founded upon the principle that the law is absolute. They believe that the law is always right and always good. As Jim Kallstrom, assistant FBI director, put it, "unless you're a criminal, you have nothing to fear from the government." However, history has proven this philosophy to be totally flawed, time after time after time. The law is often very wrong, and even our lofty constitutional values do not prevent bad laws. When the law is wrong, the law's enforcer is the criminal. That is the definition of natural law, the philosophy upon which our system of government is based. People MUST have the right to dissent. People must have the right to oppose bad laws, and in many cases people must have the capability to violate bad laws with impunity. It is necessary for the survival and health of our society. If people's right to dissent is taken away and bad laws are passed, we move immediately into war. Peace is the definition of a healthy society. Furthermore, it cannot be assumed that if people can commit crimes with impunity that they will. If murder became legal, I do not think you would see much of an increase in the murder rate. As Socrates would say, if people know the what is good and what is bad, they will always choose the good, because the good is what is most desirable. That is why law enforcement is very restricted in the Constitution. The "compromise" the law enforcement community has suggested, key-escrow, is not a compromise at all, because it makes it impossible for people to keep secrets from the government. It removes the people's right to dissent, presumably the very right cryptography allows us to protect. The law enforcement community is wrong. On the other hand, we have the crypto-anarchists. They believe that the existence of anonymous transactions will naturally lend itself to a situation where everyone is anonymous, no transaction can be tracked, no communications can be monitored, and basically, no government can possibly control the transactions and interactions of its citizens. They support the broad use of military grade cryptography and anominity. Let no message be crackable or traceable. This, also, is an absolute belief and it is also flawed. We have governments for a reason, we came together and founded societies for protection, and if we tore apart our current social structure and created an anarchy, people would immediately form small societies for their own fiscal protection. Creating an anarchy is a massive step backward in social development, not a step forward. Furthermore, PEOPLE WANT TO BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS. No totally anonymous society will ever exist in the real world. In fact, many BBSs have tossed out anominity, although it works quite well in some communities. The right to anominity is very important. As I said before, it is important to allow people to express their ideas without fear of persecution for their beliefs. However, people want to be accountable for many of the things they do. People want recognition, and you cannot receive recognition for the actions of your anonymous identity. If people really wanted to be totally anonymous all the time, we would all be running around the shopping mall with ski masks and fistfuls of small unmarked bills. Not only is the idea of crypto-anarchy wrong, but it provides those who oppose cryptography an easy concept to attack. As Denning said, "Although May limply asserts that anarchy does not mean lawlessness and social disorder, the absence of government would lead to exactly these states of chaos. I do not want to live in an anarchistic society -- if such could be called a society at all -- and I doubt many would." The crypto-anarchists are also wrong. So who is right?? The concept I propose here is bound to be controversial, but I propose it because it must be considered. Lotus is right. Currently the internet is ripe for abuse by totalitarian governments everywhere. How wonderful the net must be to an insane dictator. One carefully placed packet sniffer and he can automatically monitor the conversations of thousands of people, censoring posts he doesn't like, and identifying email addresses of thought criminals. Although PGP, ssh, and similar tools provide a solution for some, traffic analysis makes those who speak privately stand out like a sore thumb that needs further investigation. Eric Huges said at Summercon that if cryptography is going to work, it needs to be just like Dolby noise reduction. Its there, its always on, people don't need to know what it does, but it makes things better. (No one stands out like a sore thumb.) Although doing this with military grade encryption would be the cryto-anarchist's dream, what if we did it with partially escrowed keys? The system would have to be designed such that the non-escrowed part could be increased with advances in technology. However, a system like this would stop the wide spread mass monitoring described above. Furthermore, it would allow the government to tap a conversation if it was willing to put forth the resources (which will add some visibility to an illegal tap). The system would also require one additional aspect. It must be impossible to automatically identify messages that have partially escrowed keys and messages that are not escrowed. Thus, the right of dissent is preserved. Although most software would only support escrowed keys. Through such a system the net will become a great deal more secure from tapping and monitoring. Tapping is possible with a lot of work, however it is not assured. Government remains the arm of society, yet it can be subverted and destroyed if necessary. Such a system brings us to the central question here. Does the government have the right to tap conversations, or do the people have a right to keep secrets from the government? I think the answer is both. In the end, it's very difficult to actually hurt someone with an email message. But, nothing ever works in absolutes. -- */^\* Tom Cross AKA Decius 615 AKA The White Ninja */^\* Decius(a)montag33.residence.gatech.edu -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQCNAzA6oXIAAAEEAJ6ZWl7AwF9rDZhREQ2b9aPxJKL7dxQNx6QQ0pB5o9olvNtG tIjA47KxWmZAx47m2JEWRgAIaiDHx00dEza5GX4FuFHL7wSXW7qOtqj7CmVLEg4e 0F/Mx0z7Q/aNsn34JrZUWbMLKkAOOB9sJARRynPRVNokAS30ampImlrLbQDFAAUT tCZEZWNpdXMgNmk1IDxkZWNpdXNAbmluamEudGVjaHdvb2Qub3JnPg== =0qgN -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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