December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Protocols at the Point of a Gun
by Henry Huang 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Apr 16, 16:22, Steve Reid wrote: > Security classification and "decent/indecent" ratings are rather > different, IMHO. With security, the author of the data has to decide the > best rating for his/her own security. With decent/indecent filtering, the > author has to decide what is best for _other_people_. I suppose it's not > as bad as that with the third-party ratings in PICS, but there will still > be inconsistancies. "As bad"?!? Actually, it's a good deal worse. See below. > The main reason I think decent/indecent filtering should be done at the > application level is, if they create a ratings system and later decide > that they've screwed up and another system would be better (which is quite > possible, if you understand the previous paragraph), all that's really > required is re-writing the application software. OTOH, if they did it at > the transport layer and later decided to switch to something else, they > would have to change the protocol, which is very difficult. And, depending > on the changes, they may have to re-write the apps again anyways. > > Also, at the application layer, ANYONE could create their own ratings > system, and the market could decide which is best. (The downside of that > is that there would be nonstandardized chaos for a while). Well good. Better nonstandardized chaos than a single, arbitrarily defined and applied system. (Ref: "Parental Advisory" stickers, which were IMHO totally useless, and a doomed concept from the start.) I think that if there's going to be ratings, better to have lots of different organizations reflecting different tastes and mores than one organization reflecting political pressures and prejudices. (No real crypto relevance in the concept per say, but perhaps in the application (as Bill pointed out with the PICS excerpt).) -H

1 0

COQ_tal
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

4-17-96. Fint: "When rocket scientists crash out of orbit." Barry Riley essays on the impact of physicists and mathematicians on finance and economics, while reporting on a recent article by three physicists critiquing the shortcomings of the Black-Scholes formula for pricing options. The Bouchaud-Iori-Sornette formula for "real world" options attempts to minimise these residual risks, especially by applying a more sophisticated mathematical treatment to the "tails" of the distribution. If the risks cannot be hedged out, at least they can be reduced via diversification. A bracing cocktail for the recent cpunks bar-slappers on funny-money and unscriving and eye-grit quackers. COQ_tal

1 0

Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by rick hoselton 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:12 PM 4/16/96 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >> Are you sure you want to claim that the text of Hamlet would make >> a good key for a one-time pad? ... much deleted .... >It is far, far more probable for the cryptanalyst, thinking the >key was "Hamlet", to get out a plausible but totally bogus text, than >it is for the key to actually be "Hamlet". I can agree with this. >Of course, it is also far, >far more probable for you to be stupid than for a random number >generator to put out "Hamlet". I agree here too. I've been stupid many times, but I never expect to see a fair random number generator produce Hamlet. (I should live so long!) >but if you go around getting rid of >RNGs that produce "Hamlet" or anything close, you have in theory given >information to the attacker that gives them a slightly better chance >of attacking you since your pads are no longer purely random. And I could agree with this too, except that cryptanalysts do not consider every string to be equally likely. If they did, they would never even bother to look at XORing a bitstream with ciphertext to produce plaintext. >The reason all this isn't stupid to discuss and actually has some >importance is just this fact. If you build a system that discards >things that "don't look like they have enough entropy" (which certain >people around here have proposed), you are giving the cryptanalyst a >very strong piece of information about the key, so your key is no >longer totally unpredictable. This is true. But it is also unavoidable. Actually, I'm pleased to give up one-percent of my keyspace, if that's the one-percent that an analyst will check first. Another example: What if I selected a nonsense passphrase, "Dagmar shaved Howard's cocker spaniel" Not great, but adequate for my needs. If, by some wild coindence, a book by that title became a best seller, I would change my passphrase. A cryptanalyst who knew that was my feeling could simplify his cracking by not bothering to search for best selling book titles. On the other hand, a cryptanalyst who was not so convinced of my paranoia, and who DID check book titles, would not find my passphrase. I assume that BOTH philosophies would be used in a serious attack. When I do the math, it says that, assuming BOTH types of attack are done, it is better to have a passphrase that is not the title of a book. >An irony, but something important to >keep in mind. Every once in a while (once in every four billion bits, >or so) your random number generator will put out 32 1's in a row if it >is functioning properly. Agreed. And if that produces a "weak key" for your cipher, you'll get broken. >Any given small segment of the output of a >good RNG might not look "random", but "random" isn't a property of a >given number -- it is the property of the infinite sequence itself. I agree here too. But the analyst doesn't see the infinite sequence, only the number itself. I am enjoying this discussion, but I feel like I'm running out of useful new ways to try to express this idea. If I don't reply, it doesn't mean you have convinced me. :)

3 2

Re: Clinton blathering about Internet terror
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"m5(a)vail.tivoli.com" "Mike McNally" 17-APR-1996 11:19:57.56 >Subject: Clinton blathering about Internet terror >See http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/960417/news/stories/internet_1.html. Also at http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/info/041796/info11_8930.html. The listing of sites outside of the US might encourage people to realize that this information can't be stopped. -Allen

1 0

Clinton worried books may help arm terrorists
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Roiters, 4/17/96: Clinton worried books may help arm terrorists TOKYO, April 17 (Roiter) - U.S. President Bill Clinton said on Wednesday he was worried that books are aiding international terrorism by making it too easy for sinister forces to learn how to make bombs or produce nerve gas. "Are people learning, for example, from reading how to make the same sort of trouble in the United States that was made in Japan with sarin gas?" Clinton said at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in Tokyo. "Isn't it a concern that anybody, anywhere in the world, can find books and encyclopedia articles about how to build a bomb like the bomb that blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City?" he added. Clinton said Japan and the United States, both victims of home-grown terrorism last year, should learn from each other about how to deal with the dangerous issue of unauthorized reading. >From Tokyo, President Clinton is to fly to North Korea to discuss North Korea's successful campaign to limit access to books and reading.

1 0

Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by JonWienke＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-04-16 15:51:46 EDT, Perry Metzger writes: >There is no reason you can't have a string of 20 1 bits in >a row in a perfectly random sequence, for example. Usually, random >sequences are non-compressable, but it is possible (though very >improbable) for Hamlet to appear out of a random number generator, >and it is of course quite compressable... Of course, if that happened, the odds of it happening from a Trojan Horse or other type of attack are overwhelming...

1 0

Re: No Subject
by JonWienke＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-04-17 02:35:51 EDT, you write: >Knowledge about TCP/IP is alot easier to control than knowledge about the >Berlin Wall (ie, how many Chinese will even know of the existence of TCP/IP >-- in the US, where this is freely available, how many citizens know of it's >existence)? I bet this would change if people saw knowledge of TCP/IP as the "key to the Berlin Wall."

1 0

META: Having the last word
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:58 PM 4/17/96, rick hoselton wrote: >I am enjoying this discussion, but I feel like I'm running out of >useful new ways to try to express this idea. If I don't reply, >it doesn't mean you have convinced me. :) I have long used this principle. All discussions have to end at some point, and I have no problems with others having "the last word." If they think that by having the last word, or by my non-response to their points, that they have "won," or that I am speechless before their eloquence, then of course they were not worth arguing with in the first place. No point in arguing with the preterite. (My neo-Calvinist stoicism showing.) Recall the recent absurdity of one of our list members repeatedly saying "I see that Joe Blow has still not responded to my arguments, so I guess he has conceded defeat! Hee Hee." The more likely explanation is that his opponent simply realized what he was dealing with. --Tim May THE X-ON CONGRESS: INDECENT COMMENT ON AN INDECENT SUBJECT, by Steve Russell, American Reporter Correspondent....You motherfuckers in Congress have dropped over the edge of the earth this time... "the sorriest bunch of cocksuckers ever to sell out the First Amendment" or suggesting that "the only reason to run for Congress these days is to suck the lobbyists' dicks and fuck the people who sent you there," ....any more than I care for the language you shitheads have forced me to use in this essay...Let's talk about this fucking indecent language bullshit.

1 0

Re: A possible problem with more regulation possible?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:17 PM 4/16/96 EDT, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: > This proposal would appear to increase vulnerability to regulation. > -Allen > >From: IN%"educom(a)elanor.oit.unc.edu" 7-APR-1996 18:42:00.83 > >>MORE ROUTERS = MORE INTERNET BROWNOUTS >>As businesses and Internet operators keep adding routers to speed electronic >>content on its way, the proliferation of routing devices actually begins to >>slow traffic, causing Internet "brownouts" -- when the response time slows >>to a crawl. The solution could be an updated Internet, redesigned for >>fewer, more powerful routers, so that data packets need fewer hops. "The >>U.S. Internet is about as reliable these days as the phone system in >>Russia," says NetStar's VP for sales and marketing. (Business Week 8 Apr 96 >>p82) I'd like to hear of some estimates of the cost (total, and per-user) of installing the system, and running Internet on a daily basis. They are spread out over a large number of entities, but I'd think they could be estimated with at least a factor-of-two precision. What are the costs of laying fiber? Switching equipment? etc.

1 0

Re: "STOP SENDING ME THIS SHIT"
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This rash of postings reminds me of a technique to harass someone by telephone. You note that pager companies are usually assigned a block of telephone numbers. So you program your auto-dialer to dial each in turn and then send your target's number. Result: your target gets a lot of, "Why did you page me?" calls. (My collage roommate had fun in high school by dialing two "random" numbers on his two line phone and then connecting them together and listening to the result.) The analogy here is to spoof mail addresses to subscribe your target to high-volume mailing lists. If you want to attack the list as well, even better. Can someone be subscribed to cypherpunks and not get the welcome message? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

1 0