December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Life, The Universe, and Everything
by Tom Hallgren 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

hey... everyone else has decided to annoy me with their test messages, so I have decided to hop on the annoy the hell out of everyone bandwagon. yah, i know this is gonna make it to the real world, but what do you think of my signature? it was lined up on the note pad but it looks like crap in MS Exchange (but then again so do all of yours.. hehe). œœœœÅÅÅÅœœœœÅÅÅÅœœœœœœœœœÅÅÅÅœœœœÅÅÅÅœœœœ € Tom Hallgren, freelance misanthrope € € (903)792-9836 € € astro(a)clover.cleaf.com € €"All men are intrinsical rascals, and I€ € am only sorry that not being a dog I € € can't bite them." € € --Lord Byron € ÅÅÅÅœœœœÅÅÅÅœœœœÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅœœœœÅÅÅÅœœœœÅÅÅÅ

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Re: TCP/IP Stego (was CU-SeeMe)
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

JonWienke(a)aol.com writes: >>A tcp header contains quite a bit of useful information.. but most of it >>wouldnt be easily manipulated (by me) to get a bit. [header checksum >>twiddling...] > >This is a bad idea, because in addition to the extra processor overhead, it >is an incredible waste of bandwidth. For a 512 byte packet, you are only >getting .02% efficiency, because you wouldn't be able to use the actual data >in the packet; otherwise someone would probably notice the increased error >rate if you dink around with the checksum. I think that the original poster meant twiddling some of the (relatively) unused fields of the header which most routers and applications do not care about, the type-of-service field or priority would good place to start. This would have no effect on the data in the packet, particularly if you fiddle at the IP level instead of TCP. While it is a low bandwidth comm channel, it has a couple of advantages which you seem to overlook: -It can be applied by two routers which are in the middle of the connection. The two endpoints of the TCP/IP connection would not even notice. For example, if I control a router "upstream" of a major connection point and the site I wish to communicate with is in a similar position then I can run the subliminal channel in a "spread spectrum" mode across many connections and the packets can get reset to their original settings by the other site. The user whose stream we fiddled with does not even know that they were used as carrier wave... -While the per-packet information rate is low, such a system has a _lot_ of packets to work with and a much larger choice of endpoints. Your hypothetical .WAV file may pack more information in, but there are a miniscule amount of such files moving on the Internet; just by transmitting such a file you could be suspect (honestly, how many soundfiles do you think you could ship around before people get suspicious...) By hiding the information in the lower layers of TCP/IP you also make it less likely to be noticed; unless someone hooks up a packet sniffer and filters at the IP level the stream will go unnoticed, while a soundfile is an application-level communication and much easier to watch. It is, in effect, hiding the channel in the low-order bits of the comm channel used to transmit your soundfile... -An application encoding method (pictures,soundfiles, etc.) also needs a "reason" for being sent. You can legitimately send packets for no reason whatsoever, at least from the users perspective (e.g. DNS lookups, ICMP messages, faked fragments, etc.) A packet system also has a constant stream of traffic to play with; you could run TCP/IP _on top of such a system_! Passing soundfiles and images back and forth would not work for interactive communication, it is UUCP at best. jim

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Re: ANTI-CRYPTO CYPHERPUNKS
by David K. Merriman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 07:05 PM 03/7/96 -0800, you wrote: >This is the first in a regular series of postings of cypherpunks >who have joined big brothers fight to deprive you from Unescrowed >Crypto. ... <fascist bullshit deleted> ... A: Who fucking died and made you God? B: Give it a rest. You're getting annoying. C: Fuck off. I decide for myself what the 'value' of these people is in my life. As it stands right now, their horsepower rates higher than yours by a factor of about a billion to one. My apologies to the CP list for this - lots of late nights and little sleep tend to make me less tolerant of bullshit than usual. Dave Merriman -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMT8RpMVrTvyYOzAZAQH4kAQAh4w6YEknXtc/yWHRfh+l1lUdvZKgKswh EX3EMhI4b5A5JB9zRDCG0GbnzqA4UHANQOvtDqSKvOnCvDsMOqo0cUv9QxWyes2x v0ElHSXxuuIeMX1vsM0oJbFlfEiXjU0/KMcKUOppQFvpJ7+xzV9Ag/PD3FGTsCrP VYdvI9/86Ns= =F0Da -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------- "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." P. J. O'Rourke (b. 1947), U.S. journalist. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> For privacy tools: http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/1148

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Re: Vexatious Litigants (was: SurfWatch)
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:29 PM 3/7/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >My point was that "opinions" (such as movie reviews) are not "tortable" >(don't know the legal name), unless specific inaccuracies can be >demonstrated, and even then it is hard. Siskel and Ebert have undoubtedly >destroyed the box office prospects of many a movie with their "thumbs down" >diss of death, but I know of no successful (or even adjudicated) lawsuits >on this basis. I agree fully so far. However, when your TimWatch software takes action based on your opinions, you may have crossed the line between speech and action. Since you made the decision, rather than just provided an opinion, you might, in our current legal climate, have caused a tort. It would be interesting to see if a HIV positive teen could sue SurfWatch because it blocked him from getting information on safe sex. IMO our society has tilted too far away from caveat emptor toward "it's someone else's fault". People who let a machine censor their data deserve what they get. Parents who consistantly hide reality from their children, instead of helping them learn how to deal with it, are crippling their children. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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

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

17 Dec '03

d 96-03-07 20:19:12 EST, you write: >Because the drive is portable. You can place an easily concealled two-pound >135 Mb drive in a briefcase or backpack and have a travelling MixMaster >site. Here today, there tomorrow, someplace else the next day. Makes the >whole system a real problem for the security types to track down. > Why not just put an IDE/SCSI EZ drive in a Pentium laptop with an ISDN or 28.8K modem? That would be the ultimate in portability; you could still hide the whole thing, or remove the cartridge and destroy it fairly quickly if necessary. That would give you the best of all worlds. However, no matter where you are physically located, you have to have an account with somebody somewhere to get Internet access. If the gov't wants you out of business, they can cancel your ISP account or revoke your domain name and shut you down that way. I suppose it would be harder for them to prosecute you if they didn't know where you were, though... Jonathan Wienke

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Re: Another Motivation for the CDA (Federal Sentencing Guid
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tj_lists(a)prado.com wrote: > Couldn't help noticing this, presume you mean Federal Judges since the > waiver would be from aspects of GCA 1968, a Federal law. The fact is, at > least in sentencing, Federal Judges now have very little discretion. The > Federal Sentencing Guideline structure established in the 1980's provides > "guidelines" for a given defendant convicted of a given set of charges. Things That aside, in running trials and in many other little things both federal and non-federal judges have too much leeway in deciding what evidence can be admitted, in some of the sentencing details and in various forms of punishment and restitution, etc. But yes, you made a good reminder point about mandatory sentencing. 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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U.S. State Dept criticizes Chinese net-censorship
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The U.S. State Department's Human Rights Report for 1995 talks about restrictions on new media in China, pointing out that Internet access is now limited. How ironic that the U.S. Government would report that "government limits on Internet access" will harm the medium's growth -- while our _own_ government is imposing similarly suffocating regulations domestically. I draw small comfort from the fact that, as censors, we're not quite as accomplished as those in China or Zambia: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/zambia/ http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/ -Declan ---- U.S. State Department Human Rights Report gopher://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/0F-1%3A23308%3AChina In many respects, Chinese society continued to open up: greater disposable income, looser ideological controls, and freer access to outside sources of information have led to greater room for individual choice, more diversity in cultural life, and increased media reporting. Although the sale and use of satellite dishes are tightly regulated, satellite television broadcasts are widely available, particularly in coastal areas. Telephone and facsimile communication is also extensively used. In many cities, the introduction of commercial Internet service promoted access to international sources of information. At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened to halt the growth of Internet use. In addition, new controls on reporting economic information introduced doubts about the Government's commitment to freedom of information. Government control of news media generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who exceed the permissable. ###

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Re: Anonymous remailers and Leahy bill
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:22 PM 03/07/96, jim bell wrote: >Wouldn't help "Bob" in the least. And you didn't read what I wrote very >carefully, either: Notice that I said, "under a different name." In other >words, the source of the note does not identify the user name under which >the illegal activity is promised to occur. Cancelling this particular >fellow's account does NOTHING to prevent the illegal activity from >occurring by other, unidentified users, and "Bob" knows it. How is this differnet then me calling up AOL and saying "Using a friend's account whose password I have, I'm going to send child pornography out to many people sometime tommorow"? I don't know if it is or not, but hopefully it's the same. As long as anonymous remailers are legally identical to ISPs, I think we don't have to worry too much becuase ISPs are now serious money-making businesses with lots to spend on lobbying and legal fees, and will fight any laws that effect them such. Whether this Leahy bill is passed or not, clearly AOL is not going to quietly shut down their entire company after receiving such a phone call. And they can't really do anything to stop the theoretical next-day child porn mailing either. [If you like, have the phone caller threaten to send out encrypted child porn, just to make it more perfect an example.] So it would be beneficial to present anonymous remailers as just another sort of internet service provider. And we only really have to worry when there are laws that seem to apply to anon remailers but not AOL.

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Re: Fractals, Cellular Automata, and Encryption
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Interesting point. I've dabbled with CA a little bit, though not in terms of crypto. I think at best CA can be used for stream ciphers... and a big problem is that people assume it's a totally new form of computing, when in fact it's only a different form, and anything that can be done with a conventional formula-based scheme can be done with CA and visa- versa... the pitfall is that one can get all caught up in how chaotic CA behaves and lose sight that the same thing can be done in a formula, and that possibly it can be easily broken. Fractals are interesting. I've thought about using the Julia-set iterations as a form of crypto (or for that matter, recursive methods in general)... maybe a kind of block cipher that works with complex numbers, but using the words as fractions rather than whole numbers. Perhaps using 64-bit binary fractions, and iterating X = X^2 + C, where the iteration count and C are keys... using the result as a kind of stream cipher. Problem is it would be slow on most machines. I've also thought about genetic algorithms. An interesting ideal would be a genetic algorithm that operated on plaintext, key, ciphertext but would be self-analyzing and evolve itself in ways to make cryptanalysis difficult. - --Rob - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMT+FpSoZzwIn1bdtAQHg9QF+OhSfJi0WIPB1Lqg5ne7f8mYYvow7yl5k 0gJh0KHaCEJZUcwhmRZ1uWlDlExcx+Q/ =sgLv -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Vexatious Litigants (was: SurfWatch)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:29 PM 3/7/96 -0800, the TimWatch service posted: >Opinions are opinions, and a free society has no business suppressing >opinions by use of torts. (Another related area is the use of torts to halt >public comment on controversial development plans. These are called "SLAPP" >suits--"Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation." For example, >where AT&T sues "the Cypherpunks" to shut them up about their anti-Clipper >feelings. Some judges are awarding large damages to the groups hit with the >SLAPP suits.) Hey, give The Big Phone Company a break - they did just stop pushing Lotus Notes (I don't remember if they were providing the latest espionage-enabled verstion or just the one previous to it.) Of course, their decision wasn't based on Lotus's selection of GAK; it was more related to their success in selling this high-mainenance service, which may also be related to Lotus's decision to try to increase their foreign market...... #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 #

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