December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Sorry for looping feed
by harry's panix mail 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

SOrry. Not an intentional spam.... but rather a software bug. It has been stoped. Harry Hawk Ray Cromwell > > Please stop this spam addressed to cypherpunks(a)toad.com, now. > > Sincerely, > > Declan > > > ---------- Forwarded message begins here ---------- > > X-Andrew-WideReply: internet.cypherpunks > X-Added: With Flames (listbb v2.2) > Return-path: <owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com> > X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 0;andrew.cmu.edu;Network-Mail > Received: from po2.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for > arpalists+cypherpunks(a)andrew.cmu.edu (->listbb+cypherpunks) > ID </afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr0/listbb/Mailbox/0lDXLUK00UdaMX8U4g>; > Wed, 6 Mar 1996 20:03:29 -0500 (EST) > Received: from relay3.UU.NET (relay3.UU.NET [192.48.96.8]) by > po2.andrew.cmu.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA08989 for > <arpalists+cypherpunks(a)andrew.cmu.edu>; Wed, 6 Mar 1996 20:03:25 -0500 > Received: from toad.com by relay3.UU.NET with SMTP > id QQafxy03661; Wed, 6 Mar 1996 19:36:29 -0500 (EST) > Received: by toad.com id AA09621; Wed, 6 Mar 96 16:36:07 PST > Received: from waterville.warwick.com by toad.com id AA09600; Wed, 6 Mar > 96 16:35:57 PST > Received: from cmyk.warwick.com by waterville.warwick.com > id VAA08365 for <cypherpunks(a)toad.com>; Tue, 5 Mar 1996 21:52:33 -0800 > Received: by cmyk.warwick.com > id TAA21695 for cypherpunks(a)toad.com; Wed, 6 Mar 1996 19:30:02 -0500 > Received: from GATEWAY by cmyk.warwick.com with netnews > for cypherpunks(a)toad.com (cypherpunks(a)toad.com) > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 00:01:36 GMT > Message-Id: <DnvEqp.8yM(a)pwa.acusd.edu> > Organization: The Fractal Images Company > Content-Type: text/html > From: > uunet!in2.uu.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!info.ucla.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!pwa > .acusd.edu!news(a)warwick.com > Subject: test > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Precedence: bulk > > Test > --- > Robert Uomini > The Fractal Images Company (http://www.fractals.com) > Voice: 510-528-0258/800-548-0258 > Fax: 510-528-0243 > ******************************************************************************* > * Buying or selling a home? Come visit the most comprehensive set of * > * residential real estate listings and related services on the Internet: * > * The FractalNet Real Estate Server, http://www.fractals.com/realestate.html * > ******************************************************************************* > ---------- > X-Fractalimgs-Data-Name: sample.html > X-Fractalimgs-Content-Length: 1255 > > <html> > <head> > <title>FractalNet Home Page</title> > </head> > > <body> > <p> > This is a test of WebReader. This line should appear as text in the font > chosen by the user, as defined in the Properties file. A horizontal rule > follows: > <hr> > <h1>FractalNet Advertisers</h1> > <hr> > <ul> > <li>Unordered item #1 > <li>Unordered item #2 > <li>Unordered item #3 > <li>Unordered item #4 > </ul> > <ol> > <li>Ordered item #1 > <li>Ordered item #2 > <li>Ordered item #3 > <li>Ordered item #4 > </ol> > <ol> > <li>Ordered item #5 > <li>Ordered item #6 > <li>Ordered item #7 > <li>Ordered item #8 > </ol> > <hr> > <h2>FTP icon</h2> > <blockquote> > Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth, ne'er look upon me. There is > a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old, fat man. A tun of man is > thy companion. Wherein is he neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and > to eat it? Wherein is he cunning, but in craft? Wherein is he crafty, > but in villainy? Wherein is he villainous, but in all things? Wherein is > he worthy, but in nothing? > </blockquote> > <hr> > <address> > Bob > <br> > Bob's address > <br> > </address> > <dl> > <dt>Term 1: > <dd>This is the first definition > <dt>Term 2: > <dd>This is the second definition > <dt>Term 3: > <dd>This is the third definition > </dl> > </body> > </html> > > > >

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Bootable disks
by A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> New hardware drives with replaceable media in the 100+ Mb >range has developed. The Syquest 135 Mb drive, featured in the latest issue >of _PC Mag_ can, with the parallel port version, reportedly boot. >This means one can have the drive that weighs about two pounds and a $20 >disk, place another OS on the disk, and have a very portable remailer >system. Have made some small study of that area and would be somewhat surprised if possible as advertised (BIOS would need some reason to look for disk on parallel port). What *might* be possible is to create a floppy that would install a device driver that would install directly on top of the BIOS intercepts that would transfer the boot to the Syquest but this would only work for an OS that did not replace the BIOS access with "something else" unless you had a driver for *that*. If you *really* wanted to go overboard, it would also be possible to create a PROM that could be plugged into the "bootp" socket of a NIC and do the same thing but the floppy route would be lots easier. A prom is how Iomega used to be able to make Bernoullis the boot disk - went into a socket on the PC2B (and earlier combo) card. Incidently more than one "hard disk encryption system" using this method has been broken once I have grabbed the intercept out of a booted system. Is also effective for recovering from CPTs. Warmly, Padgett

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Re: Truelly Random Numbers
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim Fulbright wrote: > > Now I, a lurker for two months, am truelly confused! L. Deitweiler must be > right. Surely one of you cyperpunk fellows could hack together a dongle with > some kind of AD converter and buffer ram to gather a Truelly Random Bitstream > off the environment every couple of milliseconds easier than this raindrop > scheme or recording the fan, you're haviung me on!. Let's go back [..] The raindrop scheme was (politely) laughed off. As for the fan recording scheme, it's a good make-do-with-what-you-already-have method, as opposed to buying and/or building a card. A 'simple AD converter' isn't so simple. Especially if you want to be sure you really have random noise and not something else that just looks random. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMTz0nSoZzwIn1bdtAQGl6QF+P1V62qg+Mf5K+VN3q0Y1e6/A4EO4uLLr WNxAbtE+OxQXFKnP7ajFUFBbnDLJxLmx =4ysY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: (Fwd) Gov't run anon servers
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal Finney writes: >From: mccoy(a)communities.com (Jim McCoy) [...] >> The point is not to make a system which is absolutely, positively, no >> doubt about it, secure against any attacker. If cypherpunks could do >> this they would be working for defense contractors and others who make >> certified systems. The objective is to make a system which is difficult >> to attack, one which costs the attacker time/money. [...] > >I was speaking of present conditions. If and when proven-secure Unix >systems start being used as remailer servers on the net then it may be >worthwhile having a larger key. You are correct in stating that having a huge key on a remailer is as silly as putting a $500 lock on a door made of balsa wood. OTOH, the key selected is vulnerable from attacks which you cannot protect yourself against. No amount of detailed security analysis for a host is going to prevent someone else from factoring the keys, and there is nothing that can be done to prevent this from happening. To prevent this is seesm reasonable to select a key which is at least somewhat outside the range of most attackers, 510 bits seems to be pushing the lower bounds of this range a bit (while more than 1024 is probably useless overkill.) With fairly decent logging and auditing at least you know that you have been screwed when it comes to standard system break-ins, you do not know that you have a problem when your key is factored. [...] >> The unix hosts running remailers also have the advantage in >> that they have been subjected to attack for quite a while now and >> most of the obvious problems (and some of the non-obvious problems) >> have been fixed. > >I am not sure what you mean by this. My experience is that new CERT >advisories come out every few months which represent security holes big >enough to steal remailer keys. Well, most of the announcements in the past year have been attacks through subsystems which a remailer should not be running in the first place (e.g. the recent chargen/daytime/etc attacks.) The fact that the announcements come out in the first place is a "good thing" because it makes you aware of the problem. The timid will then think that the system which is the subject of the announcement is insecure and place their trust in a system which is not under the same sort of public scrutiny (e.g. Windows NT, or a VM/CMS system) but which is even easier to hack. At least people are aware of security issues on Unix hosts... (a quick walk through a Computer Literacy bookstore last night turned up twelve books on Unix/internet-server security and none dealing specifically with Windoze95 or NT security, does that mean that my NT test box is perfectly secure? :) Otherwise, I agree that assuming you have a secure remailer just because you use a big key is a foolish attitude. jim

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FCC and Internet telephones
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dost my ears deceive me? Is this true? Ern -------- INCLUDED MESSAGE FCC Asked to Stop Net Phones A trade association of long distance phone service carriers has asked the Federal Communications Commission to halt companies from selling software and hardware products that enable use of the Internet for long distance voice services. In a statement from Washington, the America's Carriers Telecommunication Association says it "submits that it is incumbent upon the FCC to exercise jurisdiction over the use of the Internet for unregulated interstate and international telecommunications services." A growing number of companies sell such software with ancillary hardware for transmitting and receiving voice over the Net, which, says the statement, "creates the ability to 'by-pass' local, long distance and international carriers and allows for calls to be made for virtually 'no cost.'" "For example," adds the ACTA statement, "online service providers generally charge users around $10 for five hours of access and then around $3 for each additional hour. Five hours equals 300 minutes, divided by $10 is 3.3 cents per minute. The average residential long distance telephone call costs about 22 cents per minute or seven times as much." Long-distance and international telephone service carriers must be approved by the FCC to operate and must file tariffs before both the FCC and state public service commissions. All of these requirements are stipulated in the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Says ACTA, "Technology may once again be surpassing government's ability to control its proper use. However, the misuse of the Internet as a way to 'by-pass' the traditional means of obtaining long distance service could result in a significant reduction of the Internet's ability to transport its ever enlarging amount of data traffic." Specifically, ACTA petitions the FCC to define the type of permissible communications that may be effected over the Internet.

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Leahy bill nightmare scenario?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In case any of you people still think that Leahy bill ostensibly freeing up encryption is "progress," the following scenario is provided for your consideration: "Bob" runs an encrypted remailer. His system forwards mail whose contents he cannot read, even if he wanted to. He cannot know from where the messages originated, or where they ended up. He likes it this way, because nobody can accuse him of complicity with a (encrypted) message that he can't read. One day, Leahy's bill passes, as described by VTW (and quoted by Peterson): "§2804. Unlawful use of encryption to obstruct justice" "Whoever willfully endeavors by means of encryption to obstruct, impede, or prevent the communication of information in furtherance to a felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, to an investigative or law enforcement officer shall-..." I am assuming they fix the obvious error in the phrasing above. "Bob," the operator of the encrypted remailer, receives an email one day which states something like: "Thanks for the use of your nifty anonymous remailer. Under a different name, I intend to use this remailer (along with others) to transmit child pornography, plot terrorism, and do all of my drug deals. You've made my life so much more secure!" Bob, alarmed at this note, tries to cover his ass by sending back a message asking this person to not do anything illegal on his machine, hoping that this will protect himself. The response is "as long as the system operates, it will be used for whatever I want!" What "Bob" doesn't realize is that the message came from an agent for the cops, who now have proof that he is aware that his system will be regularly used for illegal purposes. If "Bob" is smart enough, he will realize his quandary, and he has only two choices: 1. Shut the remailer down to prevent such use. 2. Continue to run the remailer, knowing that it is being used for illegalities. If he should choose the latter, the cops merely have their agent mail some kid some child pornography, and use Bob's remailer as the last link in the chain. At that point, the "investigation" starts. The cops approach "Bob," and insist that he tell them from where the message came. Naturally, however, "Bob" is an honest fellow, and he runs a remailer that doesn't keep records. At that point, Bob is GUILTY of violation of the Leahy bill, because his encrypted anonymous remailer: 1. Uses encryption to thwart message tracing, and thus the "criminal investigation." 2. Bob has already been informed that his system will be used for illegal purposes; the cops have the messages to prove he has been told. He's GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY, he will definitely lose the system and possibly whatever residence it runs in, and will probably have to pay a huge fine to boot. Now, you may not sympathize with Bob. This doesn't affect YOU, right? RIGHT?!? But let's suppose the cops offer him a DEAL! "Spy for us, keep records and forward each and every one of them to us, and we won't prosecute you!" Such a deal! At that point, even an idiot begins to see the problem: Suddenly, you can no longer trust ANY anonymous remailer, because the operator might have been "stung" already, and he's keeping his system up only to keep his house and life savings. One by one, each encrypted anonymous remailer is dealt the same treatment, and pretty soon you can't trust any of them. All the systems run by honest, uncoerced people will go down. Naturally, this treatment will occur in every country that sites anonymous remailers. So maybe the word gets out, occasionally. At that point, usage of anonymous remailers declines, and people willing to risk operating one declines. A few come up which are run by the Feds, which log anyone who attempts to use it... Or am I the only person who can see this, huh? If anybody doubts this scenario, I challenge you to tell me WHY it cannot happen. I am, frankly, astonished at anybody who did not immediately see the potential downside to this portion of the bill! Jim Bell, Pessimist and proud of it. Klaatu Burada Nikto

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Re: Boycott "Applied Cryptography" and AT&T and RSA
by shabbir＠vtw.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

VTW supports the Leahy/Goodlatte bill, since it helps to free lots and lots of cryptography that is currently being crushed under the weight of the Clinton Administration's cryptography export regulations. -Shabbir J. Safdar * Online Representative * Voters Telecomm. Watch (VTW) http://www.vtw.org/ * Defending Your Rights In Cyberspace PS AT&T makes so much money in a year that if everyone on cypherpunks switched to Sprint, it still probably wouldn't even put a dent in their annual budget for paperclips. anonymous-remailer(a)shell.portal.com writes: >Bruce Schnier (Author of applied cryptography) and Matt Blaze (Who >is a crypto bigwig at at&t) have made it clear that they support >key escrow. Both have written letters in favor of the new crypto >law, it creates a key escrow system and also other restricts on >crypto. The letters are on the CDT homepage and i think were >posted here. > >WHAT THE FUCK?????????????????????????????????????????? > >EFF, EPIC, VTW and almost everyone else (except for Bizdos at RSA, hmmmm) >have all come out against this piece of shit. But with these so called >experts baking it it could pass anyway. > >Maybe the ltrs are a forgery? We should ask them, and if this is true, LETS >SEND THEM A MESSAGE!!!!!!!! SWITCH YOUR PHONE SERVICE AND TELL AT&T WHY!!! >STOP RECOMMENDING APPLIED CRYPTO (THERE ARE EASIER BOOKS ANYWAY). DEMAND >THAT THESE PEOPLE STOP GIVING AWAY YOUR RIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > >their addresses are > schneier(a)counterpane.com > mab(a)crypto.com > jim(a)rsa.com >

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Re: Jump Start ecash With IPhone
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Duncan Frissell writes: >At 11:37 AM 3/6/96 -0800, Jim McCoy wrote: >> 2- The phone companies (actually ACTA, the telco lobby) petitioned >> the FCC on Monday to regulate the Internet phone software >> companies. >> >>IP phone systems themselves may need to move underground just to >>escape regulation. OTOH, there is nothing to prevent people from >>building their own systems once some free software is out there... > >That would be a super neat trick since the LD business is currently >deregulated (and in fact was never a government monopoly) and the local loop >is in the process of deregulation, and Vocaltec is in some senses an Israeli >company anyway and need not have a presence in New Jersey if it doesn't >want do. > The regulation in question was regarding things like local/state/federal telecom taxes and levies, and all of the BS hoops that LD carriers must jump through. Regarding where such companies are located, I am also at a loss as to how this recent action will be enforced; that does not necessarily mean that a bureaucrat somewhere will not try to do something stupid. Just because LD is "deregulated" does not mean that it is without any governmental oversight, much as I wish it were... LD companies still have to pay certain taxes (take a look at your next phone bill, they are clearly listed in addition to your actual phone charges) and I am certain that they have entire office buildings stuffed with drones filling out paperwork for Uncle Sam... jim

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DNSSEC (was: A brief comparison of email encryption protocols)
by Donald E. Eastlake 3rd 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 5 Mar 1996, Carl Ellison wrote: > Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 00:34:41 -0500 > >From: Adam Shostack <adam(a)homeport.org> > >Subject: Re: A brief comparison of email encryption protocols > >To: ericm(a)lne.com (Eric Murray) > >Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 21:18:41 -0500 (EST) > >Cc: ericm(a)lne.com, perry(a)piermont.com, cme(a)cybercash.com, warlord(a)mit.edu, > > lgl(a)qualcomm.com, Cypherpunks(a)toad.com > > ... > > > >| Along those lines, I was envisioning adding a KEY RR type to > >| DNS, and using it to maintain pointers to keyservers. > > > >[...] > >| This sounds so obvious that I'm sure that I'm not the first > >| or even the tenth person to think of it, and in fact I > >| see a KEY RR type defined in the BIND 4.9.3BETA17 source. But > >| there's just a type there, nothing else to support it. > >| Anyone know what it's for? > > > > Donald Eastlake is writing the spec for storing keys in > >nameservers. Its in the process of moving to draft standard; there > >will probably be something about it after LA. I think its: > > > >ftp://ds.internic.net/draft-ietf-dnssec-secext-09.txt actually its in /internet-drafts/draft-ietf-dnssec-secext-09.txt on any of the IETF shadow directory machines such as ftp.isi.edu or ds.internic.net via ftp. It's up for Internet Proposed Standard and tehre were no objections at the DNSSEC working group meeting this morning. It provides for KEY RRs and SIG (signature) RRs. I recommend people check it out. > >Adam > > > >-- > >"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." > > -Hume > +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ > |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)cybercash.com http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | > |CyberCash, Inc., Suite 430 http://www.cybercash.com/ | > |2100 Reston Parkway PGP 2.6.2: 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | > |Reston, VA 22091 Tel: (703) 620-4200 | > +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Donald ===================================================================== Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1 508-287-4877(tel) dee(a)cybercash.com 318 Acton Street +1 508-371-7148(fax) dee(a)world.std.com Carlisle, MA 01741 USA +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA) http://www.cybercash.com http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html

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Fractals, Cellular Automata, and Encryption
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Note: I have changed the thread title from the meaningless "Signature" (meaningless to this context) to something I think is more appropriate. Someone recently wrote to me asking why I so often change thread names, as, in his words, "it screws up the threading in my reader." Well, I think accurately labelled articles are more important that having a reader place an article in its "correct" position when the themes have changed so much. I urge all of you to think about what your article says and what the most accurate name is for it. By all means leave the name the same if you want, or if the Hamming distance is not too great. But if the topic has changed away from the name given by default, then _change_ the name to reflect the topic at hand. On to the actual article: At 11:54 PM 3/6/96, Mark M. wrote: >On Tue, 5 Mar 1996, Charles Choi (SAR) wrote: > >> 1) Is it possible to base a privacy key ( e.g. PGP ) on a fractal >> equation, instead of an algorithm based on two primes? >> This would allow for an eternal level of complexity due >> to infinite field of depth one can find as one 'zooms in' >> closer ( correct me because I'm wrong; I'm not a math major, >> although increasingly I wish I was... ), allowing for near >> unbreakable privacy of information. > >The fact that the private key is based on fractals rather than prime numbers >really doesn't make a difference. Fractals are not random, and do in fact, >have a pattern. The Mandelbrot Set, for instance, can be expressed in a >few bytes of information even though it is infinitely complex. Therefore, >the fractal has extremely low entropy making it a bad choice from which to >obtain random data. Besides these points, something missing from cellular automata-based crypto schemes is this: invertibility with a different key than was used to encrypt. That is, in any fractal or cellular automata-based schemes I have seen, a generator iterates a data set, transforming it into something which appears to have "no resemblance" to the original data set. The problem is that there is no second key, the decryption key (or "private" key) which reverses the process and recovers the original data set. That is, it is certainly possible to get some "messy" output by running a cellular automata (think: "the Game of Life" as an example) on an input. An attacker would be hard-pressed to determine the starting pattern if given the nth generation! So far, so good. The problem is that the _recipient_ would also have a hard time determining the starting pattern! And a more detailed wrinkle is this: at best, the system would be a single-key or symmetric system, losing the advantages of a public key system. At worst, the scrambled message could _never_ be recovered, as no inverse can be found of the CA. (In CA research, finding a starting pattern from some nth generation is known as the "Garden of Eden" problem, for reasons I won't get into here. Clearly, some CAs have no single inverse, as multiple inputs map into the same output--again, think of "Life.") Steven Wolfram had some speculations about using fractal or cellular automata-based systems for a new kind of cipher. His paper is in one of his books ("Theory and Application of Cellular Automata"), but it doesn't really get beyond just speculating. And, I recall that someone proved several years ago that Wolfram's CA-based encryption scheme was formally equivalent to a linear congruential generator. I think I included a few paragraphs on this topic in my Cyphernomicon. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" 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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