December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Science News - article on Quantum Crypto
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>The new Science News that showed up in today's mail >has a short but informative article on quantum >cryptography. It explains what quantum crypto is for >us newbies and gives the history of a recent success >in Lake Geneva (Switzerland, not Wisconsin) - an >encrypted message was sent 22.7 km over fiber-optic >cable successfully. It's a nice article. Does anyone know if the new in-line optical amplifiers (not switches!) have any effect on quantum crypto messages? Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

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National Cryptologic Museum (Noise)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I peeled this off of Usenet, Wondering if this is Tim doing a little trolling? Cheers! The Christmas Troll --(fwd)-- Hi all, If you've never heard of the National Cryptologic Museum and have an interest in this kind of stuff, you MUST go take a look. It's at Fort Meade, outside Laurel, Maryland, and actually lies on the grounds of the NSA. I dropped by the other day and was very impressed. The NSA is to be grudgingly %^) commended, although the material on recent operations (post-1950) is understandably a little thin. The very coolest exhibit is a functioning Enigma machine on which visitors are allowed to encrypt/decrypt messages. It really does work well, and I got the same gloating thrill I felt the first time I decrypted a PGP message from a friend. There is also a piece of Gary Powers' U2, a Cray X-MP processor that you can sit on and peer into, several specimens of old Japanese crypto machines, and incontrovertible proof of the Rosenbergs' perfidy and treason, among many other interesting displays. The staff is friendly and informative, but you will not get the current key codes for ICBM launch control out of them, of course. I did not see any mention of PGP or related topics in my brief visit, either. Oh, and most surreal was the entrance: at the end of the road, an almost unmarked gate a yard wide in a razor wire fence, dangling a padlock. I wondered for a moment if it were the right place and if I would be shot if I actually went inside. Allow half a day if you are a serious student of these topics, and an hour or two if not. All in all, it was the second most interesting museum I saw in Washington (after Air & Space). I still don't trust Clipper, but it was certainly nice to see the human side of the big bad spooky NSA. They have done an important job for the country and don't deserve most of the abuse that I see heaped on them on the Internet. --ccm Christopher C. May, M.D. Univ. of Texas Health Sci. Ctr. San Antonio may(a)uthscsa.edu * 72707.413(a)compuserve.com "Too much Law; not enough Order." --

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Re: Online Zakat Payment: Religious tithe.
by Steven C. Perkins 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am resending Mr. Gabb's message edited to show that Mr. May wrote the three lines in question. SC Perkins At 10:34 AM 2/13/96 +0000, you wrote: >On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: > > Once again, the gutter religion of Islam reveals the derangement of its > so-called Prophet. > > The world really needs to get around to nuking these folks. > >Oh, Come now! Islam may in its present form be a religion deeply hostile >to liberty. But since "nuking" the whole Islamic world would not be >itself much of a defence of freedom, the only long term answer is to >promote within Islam the same kind of Reformation as eventually made >Christianity half decent. And Tim's comments do not contribute to that. >I don't know how many internet servers there are in the Middle East. >But, if I were an intelligent fundamentalist, I'd be copying it all over >the place. "Look", I'd be saying, "these people really do mean another >crusade to destroy us and our faith". > >I can understand Tim's disgust with these people. But I do question his >manner of expressing it. > > ***************************************************************************** Steven C. Perkins sperkins(a)andromeda.rutgers.edu User Services Coordinator, Rutgers School of Law at Newark 15 Washington Street Newark, NJ 07102 VOX: 201-648-5965 FAX: 201-648-1356 http://www.rutgers.edu/RUSLN/rulnindx.html http://www.rutgers.edu/lawschool.html "Raise your voices to the Sky. It is a Good Day to die." Chief Crazy Horse *****************************************************************************

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Canada (was Re: Regulation of citizen-alien communications (Was: Choices))
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Attributions lost in the flow] > >Oh? You mean that I can get busted for giving my Canadian spouse a copy > >of PGP? > > > > Nah - Canada is America's 51st state :-) Until you try to bring your laptop back across the border. On a recent trip, I was actually stopped at customs and asked about my 4 year old Dell. Of course, I had purchased it in the US, but I didn't even want to think about the .. er .. things that I had on the hard drive. Linux with pgp, cfs, ssh, and a number of other interesting packages installed. Should I have been worried? yup

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ready the article about the COOKIE.TXT file that Netscape creates. Apparently my copy has yet to modify it since it was installed... so much for 'hacking' it (I decided to try and leave it write-protected for now). I'm curious if anyone knows which sites use/modify it. Also wondering why Netscape seems to touch/modify the certification key files every time it runs. Rob. --- Send a blank message with the subject "send pgp-key" (not in quotes) to <WlkngOwl(a)unix.asb.com> for a copy of my PGP key.

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Net Police, Red and in Bed
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

WSJ, 15 February 1996: China Tells Internet Users To Register With Police Beijing (AP) - China ordered all users of the Internet and other international computer networks to register with the police, as part of an effort to tighten control over information. The order came in a circular issued by the Ministry of Public Security, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. Xinhua didn't give a date by which current users must register but said new users and those switching or terminating services must inform police within 30 days. It was unclear how foreigners would be affected. The rules haven't been published in detail, but previous Xinhua reports warned network users not to harm national security, reveal state secrets or disseminate pornography. China embarked on a broad crackdown on Internet users and other sources of information potentially harmful to government interests in December. The Ministry of Post Telecommunications was made the sole provider of channels connecting Chinese computer users with international networks. ----- Financial Times, 15 February, 1996 Cyberlaws [Editorial] Communication *sans frontieres*. To the Internet's fans that is the essence of its appeal. But to anyone putting information on the Internet's World Wide Web, its global nature is the cause of a growing headache: how to uphold intellectual property rights to the rivers of information pouring over its wires. Online computer systems such as the Net are among the fastest growing ways to distribute information -- music and pictures as well as words and numbers. But existing copyright laws deal inadequately with digital transmission. Regulation is complicated by the way that information downloaded in one country can have originated almost anywhere in the world. The $35bn-a-year music industry now believes that digital copyright abuse is a big future threat to its revenues. The century-old Berne convention on copyright and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade represent a degree of international agreement on the treatment of such issues. However, many countries are not signatories, while standards of intellectual property protection vary widely among those which have signed. Moreover, there are technological problems in enforcing agreements even where they exist. At present, it is often difficult to identify both those who have accessed information, and those who have entered it on the Net. Given that problem, some groups want companies providing Internet access to be responsible for upholding rules, rather than users or publishers. But this is highly unattractive: service providers will be unaware of much on the Net. The currently imperfect state of protection is one reason why much cyberinformation is junk, of value to almost nobody, deposited partly to stir up interest in paidfor services beyond the Net. However, new ways to restrict access to parts of the Net, and to charge for subscriptions to that information, may address that shortcoming. Companies are also working on "electronic tags" which will show whether information is passed to unauthorised users. If such technological developments bear fruit, the whole game may change. The mainstay of the Internet may no longer be information already published in another medium. Instead, publishers could put material of real value on the Net, knowing they would be paid. Other media may be squeezed as the Internet assumes some of their role. In this respect, copyright problems are a symptom of the Internet's immaturity, rather than a sign that electronic sophistication has made regulation impossible. The Net itself is a creation of technology, not policy, and the solutions to this problem are more likely to be technological than legal. But solutions must be found if the Net is to realise its enormous commercial potential. ----- FT has a front page article on what China may do if the US imposes sanctions for copyright violations. It includes overtures by the Chinese to Britain to reap the benefits of shutting down US businesses in retaliation. Noting the well-oiled handover of Hong Kong to China as an example of the mutual benefits of imperialist most- favored status, and sharing tips and tricks of crackdown on civil disorder.

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2.5_bil
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The 2-15-96 NYT reports on the design and manufacture of the new high-tech Swiss bank note: The 50-franc bill is the world's first digital bank note -- designed on a computer that resolves its design into 2.5 billion points, each of them individually accessible electronically. There are more than 20 security features, though the precise number is a secret. Its design is vertical rather than horizontal. Ten printing processes are involved, including silk screening for the chameleon numbers and hot stamping for the silvery elements. The Swiss say American bills are "a little outdated, even the new ones, as far as the state of the art goes." 2.5_bil

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Re: Netscrape's Cookies
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Alex Strasheim <cp(a)proust.suba.com> said: >The best answer would probably be to use the kind of pop-up messages you >get when you're going to submit a secure or insecure form. "You're about >to send a cookie back to a web server, continue or abandon?" "You're >about to send mail from a web page, do you want to do that?" Give people >the ability to turn the messages off -- that way functionality isn't >impaired. I find that a very good solution providing that the browser say: >"You're about to send a cookie...." Here, I would add: "... that contain the following information:" (information list) "... back to a web server, continue or abandon?" Otherwise, it not as worse, but still in the same spirit as to sign a blank check to a stranger... ( I am telling you... it's been *at least* a million years that I did not exagerate! :) Regards to the vast majority of CPunk JFA **** NEW PGP 2.6.2 KEY ********* 2048 bits Key ID:24201BA1 1996/02/13 Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon(a)citenet.net> Key fingerprint = 23 B6 24 31 86 67 FB 35 C7 A7 AF 12 A1 61 E9 3D **** OLD KEY: DO NOT USE ANYMORE UNLESS FOR VERIFYING SIGNATURES **** 1024 bits Key ID:57214AED 1995/10/04 Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon(a)citenet.net> Key fingerprint = 84 96 76 AE EB 7C AB 15 88 47 87 B0 18 31 74 9F

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Re: anonymous age credentials, sharing of
by gw 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:38 PM 2/14/96 -0500, you wrote: >Suppose Alice is a CA who issues anonymous age credentials. >Bob is 15 >Carol is 25 > >Carol gets a legitimate anonymous age credential from Alice bound to an >anonymous public key generated for this purpose. Carol then gives the >key pair to Bob. Bob uses to do things only adults are legally permitted >to do. (It's not bound to Carol's everday keypair because that's not >anonymous....) > >What can stop Bob and Carol from subverting a scheme that relies on >anonymous age creditials in this manner? > >If the answer is "nothing" this might mean that purveyors of "adult" >material might have no defense against a law requiring that they collect a >True Name + age creditential.... > >A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) >Associate Professor of Law | >U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu >P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin >Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here. > > I believe the answer is nothing ... but the situation is no different than Carol going into Le Sexxey Shoppey, buying a porn-pack of restricted material, and then giving it to Bob. As has been said in this forum and others before, in the limit all access control comes down to positive identification of an individual. Unless We, the People, want to support permanently binding a traceable, non-anonymous identity to all certificate attributes that are used in electronic exchange (age, etc...) then there is going to be the potential for someone to deliberately allow their credential to be misused. IMO, to prevent this totally would require implanting a non-forgable i.d. chip in everyone at birth ..... not very appealing.

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sameer's lawsuit??
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Some entity calling itself Sameer may have said: > One of my ex-users who is now suing me has posted to > alt.anonymous. You might want to read about it. Look for the subject > "THE FACTS ON COMMUNITY CONEXION" > (this guy is a wellknown spammer) Could someone forward this post to cypherpunks? I can't get ahold of a reliable newsserver ...... Thanks, Micahel Ellis <mellis(a)alpha.c2.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMSKE2Qqs/Oe38tFJAQG8nwP/RCqIfKZrSXfhgsGBG+P61fBvzzXM6fdR QmRtA/xYcxTUW7TZmjvsvQAnpUQYSpywB84FFUhHB7w8cdxJBZVHg53tYyuDuAHU q4InJbbS+9AsFeoCGspy7ADqn4DU8gmLpIZ6mxGb37hBav10xlVYaUm7IyYjej+Z WWSakPnjcVk= =W2v0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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