December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Optical repeaters
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:45 AM 2/20/96, Alexandra Griffin wrote: (about inline optical amplifiers/regenerators) >You're right, I do remember reading about these somewhere... didn't >realize they were already in use. > >Even so, I still don't think such a repeater would pass quantum-crypto >signals, excepting any photons that happened to just "leak" directly >through. Your useful quantum state information resides in the >individual photons originally sent, and any even the optical repeaters >you describe achieve gain by by gating in *more* photons under the >incoming signal's control. In so doing it will collapse the >wavefunctions of these incoming photons. Given that a quantum cryptography system depends on *single photons* to work, I'm not sure that talk of amplifification makes sense. Between source and receiver, a photon either makes it or doesn't. If it makes it, it makes it will its full "quanta" of energy, of course. If it doesn't make it, due to tunnel-penetrating the walls of the fiber or scattering off an impurity in the fiber, then it just doesn't make it, so no amplification/regeneration is possible. (Regenerate _what_?) But the quantum measurement issue, aside from the above, is an interesting one. We have to be careful here (and I'm including myself, not just using the royal "we"). It isn't clear to me that the amplification/regeneration process counts as making a measurement, from some recent work I've read (sorry, don't recall the references, but could be a recent issue of "Scientific American"). In interference measurements, the wave function collapses if individual photons are counted and recorded (whatever "recorded" really means...) and the interference pattern vanishes. If the photons are not counted and/or recorded, the pattern reappears. By analogy, it is not clear to me that a simple regeneration mechanism, with no local observer or recording apparatus, will collapse the wave function. Seems to me an experiment may have already been done along these lines: separate fibers producing an interference pattern and then these inline amps added...if the interference pattern remains, as I would expect, then the amps/regenerators did not constitute a "measurement" in QM terms. --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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Guaranteed snake-oil, er, privacy...
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> Sigh. Here comes another one..... We have been trying to post this News Release to several places in USENET, but are seemingly being thwarted by person or persons unknown. Shortly after the posting, on 01-26-96, our postings were all methodically removed without any trace evidence. We have been unable to maintain their posting since. We believe that the obvious malefactor may be at the root of these problems. Why would 'they' try to keep this from coming to light? Because 'they' know what is best for all of us. >> Maybe they know it's a waste of bandwidth! The posting(s) concern an extremely easy to use, unbreakable system for encrypting all user sensitive data going out over Internet. As a reference to its unbreakability, I refer you to an article by Paul Leyland on Internet at: http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/otp.html Mr. Leyland refers to some problems, which our PCX system addresses and resolves. >> That piece discusses true one-time pads. To anyone reading the posts on Cpunks and sci.crypt regarding another purported purveyor of OTP technology, this is g oing to ring some very familiar bells. Again: you can't create pseudo-randoms on-the-fly, algorithmically, and call it OTP. Just stop it! [SNIP] The good obviously outweighs the bad. We must stop this insanity of some imagined fear being advanced as the rationale from keeping us from doing something that will immensely benefit us all. If we allow some crazed terrorist fear keep us from doing something important, then we become the victims of that terror. That is not right! We cannot let faceless terrorists dictate what we can and cannot do. With the forgoing in mind, we are pleased to make the following press release: >> I suppose it's possible that some intelligible text was run thru this package's transform, producting this example of random unintelligible gibberish! If You Break our System, You've Bought our Company! Internet.Privacy.Guaranteed, IPG, today announced a new product line that guarantees privacy for 2 to 20,000 or more or more people on Internet. They back up there Guarantee with their Corporate motto, 'If You Break our System, You Have Bought our Company.' IPG Guarantees Absolute Privacy on Internet. Using the trademark CRE transform, >> If I can find an explanation of what a CRE transform really is in any IPG material, what do I get? the IPG PCX Nvelopes system translates any intelligble digitized information into random gibberish. >> So does XOR-ing a message with the output of my compiler's "rand()" function: does this make it secure? Ridiculously not. Only one other user, or more in certain instances where there is a need to know, will have the Nvelopener required to transform the random gibberish back into intelligible digitized information. CRE Transforms, trademark IPG, are the only acknowledged unbreakable method of so transforming digitized information. >> Acknowledged by whom? Where are they? What do they really say? What information was given them about the implementation? Who is IDG, what are their bona-fides? Did they work for the Mossad once, per chance? That's always a good line..... There are no passwords, encryption keys, or anything like that to conjure up, remember, and perhaps forget. PCX Nvelopes usage is automatic, similar to PKZIPand PKUNZIP. Easy to install, use, add to, and administer. It is Unbreakable If an individual, or any group of individuals, break the IPG Privacy System, IPG will sell them their company for $1.00, and even give them the dollar to buy it with. If you think you can, just try and find out that it is impossible. There may be rumors that someone has broken the system, but that is not possible, it will never happen. Don't Waste your time ! How dare IPG have the unmitigated gall? When you are certain, then you are certain, and IPG is certain! Others dare not make such a brazen boast because they cannot possibly back it up, but IPG most certainly can. Every informed expert of the technology will confirm, without reservation, that the IPG system is not breakable, as many already have! There, we have thrown down that gauntlet, dare you pick it up? Be forewarned, if you do, in your quest, you will never become a knight; but instead, will only become utterly benighted. >> Would you buy an encryption system from this (wo)/man? CRE Transforms The system uses CRE transforms, called Nvelopes, to translate any meaningful digitized information into random gibberish. In order to convert that random gibberish back into intelligible usable form, a Nvelopener is required, and only the recipient has the required Nvelopener. >> OH, **THAT** explains it! ROTFL!!!!

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Re: Optical repeaters
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> > > Optical repeaters have to pass your signal through an intermediate electronic >> > > stage anyway, since we have no purely optical valve/transistor >> > > equivalents (bosons don't interact with each other at all). >> > This is not true. There is now a whole technology of optical >> > amplifiers for fiber communications systems that used Ettrium doped >> > fibers pumped with strong light from a laser at a slightly shorter >> > wavelength. These fiber optical amplifiers have gains in the order of >> > 10-12 db in a section of special doped fiber only about 10 feet long. >Very nice! ;-) Flouride based amplifiers should be able to handle up >to 16 channels. Using state of the art time-multiplex stuff of 10 Gb/sec >gives a total throughput of 160 Gb/Sec.... smoking! The flavor of optical amplifier and end equipment being deployed by one large telecomm company (ahem) over the next couple of years uses 8 colors, each at 2.4 Gbps (OC-48), giving about 20 Gbps, which is about 10 times the current capacity (1.7 Gbps.) (Some other telecomm companies are deploying 3-colors of OC-48.) A nice thing about the optical amplifiers is that they have about triple the range of the current regenerators, so one amplifier can replace about 16-24 regens, reducing the amount of equipment that can fail and produce downtime. Because of this increased capacity, it's a good time to upgrade to SONET rings (which are dual rings that provide self-healing similar to FDDI's; SONET self-repair typically takes 60 ms instead of the several minutes to cross-connect the equivalent pile of T3s using current equipment.) If the FBI wants to wiretap this stuff, they'll have to get on the ball :-) #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com / billstewart(a)attmail.com +1-415-442-2215 # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs Pager +1-408-787-1281 ! Frank Zappa for President !

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Re: Guaranteed snake-oil, er, privacy...
by tbyfield＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:02 PM 2/19/96, geeman(a)best.com forwarded: > If You Break our System, You've Bought our Company! Isn't "You break it, you buy it" the kind of sign that merchants put up near _fragile_ things? Must be some new security strategy: threaten would-be attackers with hanging the albatross of a hemorrhaging corporation around their neck... Who knows? Maybe it'll work. Not sure how much pleasure I'd take in a "Hack IPG" mug if I had to face years of litigation. Ted

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Re: Internet Privacy Guaranteed ad (POTP Jr.)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 19:05 2/19/96, IPG Sales wrote: >Perhaps so, but our system does employ a true hardware generated OTP, and >operates similiar to what you describe - however, the important >differernce is that we use a smal;l OTP to generate a larger OTP, like >stringing the cable across the Golden Gate narrows. Somebody please hand the guy a textbook on information theory. The entropy of your "larger OTP" *can not* be greater than the entropy of your original OTP. You are suspending Golden Gate Bridge by a string. Anybody using it does so at their peril. Side note: why do these snake oil salesmen tend to have such horrible spelling? Let me guess. Because they design their software with the same care they use to compose their posts? -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: Piracy Bests ITAR
by tallpaul＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Feb 19, 1996 01:29:14, 'Alan Horowitz <alanh(a)infi.net>' wrote: > >> From: Anonymous <nobody(a)REPLAY.COM> >> Some economists have made a good case that slack >> enforcement of such rules may sometimes do little harm. >> Local firms benefit by acquiring pirated technology more >> cheaply than the real thing; consumers acquire affordable >> high-tech products and close copies of branded goods. > >Yes, when Mr Anon travels to a beach in Jamaica or in Mombasa, he >shouldn't complain when the taxi driver takes him, not to his requested >destination, buit some dark alley where Mr Anon gets clunked over the >head and his wallet removed. The locals need the money more than Mr >rich-tourist-on-vacation Anon. I haven't accepted the original argument that A. Horowitz critiques. However, there appears to be at least two errors in his counter argument. 1) Mr Anon is a real human being; the corporation is a legal fiction. Mr Anon has a real head; the corporation does not. Mr. Anon has suffered a real assault; the corporation has not. 2) Mr Anon has a real use for his money. The original argument was, I believe, that the tech etc. was appropriated in an area of the world where no one could afford it, etc. As in: I write a book. I get money for it in NYC where people buy it. I get mugged in NYC and my money is stolen. VERSUS Soneone in an area of the world where my book is not sold makes a xerox copy of the book. The crimes if crimes they be are not the same. > > They're only doing socialist justice, >after all. > Naturally, I expect all the members of the Libertarian Party and the non-LP libertarians who sent me e-mail and who posted to the list will post similar things about this fallacy in logic, won't you. (Note to T.C. May: This is not really sarcasm and not rhetorical hyperbole. It is more "wishful thinking" on my part. > >Property is property. Theft is theft. > I believe the original quote from Proudhoun was "property is theft" but who is counting. On the other hand, "2 + 2 = 4" and if my aunt had wheels and ran down 5th Avenue she'd be a trolley. So what?

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Re: PING packets illegal?
by Olcay Cirit 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- "Markus L. Noga" <mlnoga(a)mail.hh.provi.de> wrote: >I think there is an implementation of IDEA called TinyIDEA that will fit >in <512 bytes. Why don't you try it? There is a version of Idea written by Fauzan Mirza in 448 bytes of ASM (80x86) -olcay - -- "For he who lives more lives than one, |) Olcay Cirit -- olcay(a)libtech.com more deaths than one must die" (| http://www.libtech.com/olo2.html - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMSk5GSoZzwIn1bdtAQHrJAF/UFAhOQJ+7VgpcjgwXext1lIxGt1+NdPb dVj1pggNXEW8OT85ci/Ttxptfc+gIHmG =1rkY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Optical repeaters
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:45 PM 2/19/96 -0500, Alexandra Griffin wrote: >I wrote: > >> > Optical >> > repeaters have to pass your signal through an intermediate electronic >> > stage anyway, since we have no purely optical valve/transistor >> > equivalents (bosons don't interact with each other at all). > >Dave Emery responds: >> This is not true. There is now a whole technology of optical >> amplifiers for fiber communications systems that used Ettrium doped >> fibers pumped with strong light from a laser at a slightly shorter >> wavelength. These fiber optical amplifiers have gains in the order of >> 10-12 db in a section of special doped fiber only about 10 feet long. > >You're right, I do remember reading about these somewhere... didn't >realize they were already in use. Actually, they're in very common usage today. [stuff deleted] >> The current generation of undersea cables from the US to Europe >> use these amplifiers instead of the more traditional regenerating >> repeaters that convert the light to electronic signals, reclock the data >> stream and convert it back to light with another laser diode. There is >> no conversion from light to digital electronic signals all the way from >> Rhode Island to England - the same light pulses that go into the fiber >> on one side of the Atlantic come out on the other end without ever >> having been converted to electronic form in between. > >You said power for the amps comes from a high-intensity, >shorter-wavelength beam... can this be superimposed on the original >signal at the point of origin, as with in-line coax-cable amplifiers? Uh, no. See, the problem is that the (long)transmission fiber has even more attenuation at about 980 nm (the "pump wavelength) than about 1500, the wavelength of interest. It is necessary to generate and apply the power at the amplifier site. >> These amplfiers have enourmous bandwidth, and can be used to >> amplify several slightly different wavelengths of light allowing >> wavelength division multiplexing of multiple streams of light flashes of >> slightly different "colors" (all the current technology works at around >> 1500 nm which is well into the infrared). This can expand the capacity >> of a single fiber to four to six times the 5 Gb/sec that is the current >> state of the art. > >Nice... :) They are! Truly amazing technology. It's like a "negative-loss" cable. Invented about 10 years ago, and they vastly improved the ability to do LD communications through fiber. Huge bandwidth, compared to current usage. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Internet Privacy Guaranteed ad (POTP Jr.)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 20:01 2/19/96, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >Are you refering to rotors, by any chance? Rotors are World War II era >technology. Of course, who can even guess what you are talking >about. You make about as much sense as the people handing out xeroxed >pamphlets on the street corner informing all comers about the fact >that they are being controlled by aliens. I think what he means is that they use virtual rotors built out of very long primes. I.e., write down n very long primes, one per line. Shift each prime number by a the number of positions indicated in an m by n key. Pick a column. Read the column top to bottom. Use the resulting number to xor with your cleartext of lenght <= n. If the cleartext is > n, use the next column(s) as well. Just a guess. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Prosecutor Violates CDA--Film at Eleven
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:12 AM 2/20/96, Brian Davis wrote: >On Mon, 19 Feb 1996, jim bell wrote: > >> it just didn't occur to me that you'd object to this. "Nettiquette" is new >> to me. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > ^^^^^^ > >No shit. Brian, While I agree with your point of view, I must inform you that your word is one of the "Seven Dirty Words" and that you have thus violated the Communications Decency Act. There are several self-admitted minors (including several high school students) subscribed to the Cypherpunks list, so use of such indecent language as the above is a violation of the CDA on the face of it. I presume you will not be allowed to prosecute yourself. --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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