December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: A Cyberspace Independence Refutation
by strata＠virtual.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Oh, hey, no problem. You're not the only one, despite the explicit reference in the document. Whether I like it or not, this industry is largely centered around and run by men. I always got a kick out of people's assumptions that my resume and my writing must "naturally" belong to a guy. Apparently the dominant paradigm thinks I'm holding my own in the rat race. I learned to take it as a compliment years ago; the same thing happened in 3 out of 5 phone screenings for job interviews. What's really been entertaining is where we did email prescreening and I showed up for an interview and got to watch someone's mental transmission popping its syncromesh for a moment. <grin> They always recover quickly and continue the shift into "interview mode", and I get that nice warm glow of having broadened someone's horizons. Cheers, _Strata

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Re: LI Newsday OpEd: Criminal Justice System
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:16 PM 2/12/96, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >"Deranged Mutant" writes: >> Found a really good op-ed piece in LI Newsday, Thurs. Feb 8, pA53 >> by Robert Reno, "If Jails Are Full, How Much Tougher Can Judges Get?" > >I personally find stuff like this interesting, but I prefer read about >it in places like libernet or the like. Cypherpunks is for >cryptography. Au contraire. Those interested in pure cryptography and coding are over in Coderpunks, the new gated community for such folks. The rest of us, stuck here in the ghetto of Cypherpunks, will talk about what we want to talk about. --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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DEA
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Column by Jim Dykes in the Knoxville Journal (423-584-9606), 2/8/96. (...) I had a call the other day. About the DEA. Try to keep all these damn acronyms straight: DEA is Drug Enforcement Agency. Call was from an old cowboy - well, former Air America pilot, to be more precise, CIA. (There should be a federal agency to control us old men better.) To make a long, long story short, I have some names and phone numbers of people around the country - Customs, Immigration & Naturalization, maybe even some DEA, who can discuss rather interesting money ripoff techniques by DEA agents involving Title 18, Title 21, and Title 19 of the Federal Code. There was a time when I would have busted a gut - and a phone budget - trying to snare some bent government agents. But, now ... Let me make it perfectly clear that this old persimmon really doesn't give a damn. I am long past being shocked at venality and corruption in public servants. But, if anybody wants to be a hotshot investigative reporter (and run up a helluva phone bill for his or her employer) just give me a call. (That lets a lot of you out, since it would have to be somebody I know and trust.)

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cypherpunks t shirts, anymore?
by Oscar Boykin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I know someone that got bought a black sypherpunks t shirt with warning strong crypto on it. Are there any more of these? I would like to purchase a large. Please contact me if you know anything. oscar boykin mailto:boykin@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~boykin home: 404-206-0477

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MS CryptoAPI (fwd)
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/inttech/cryptapi.htm 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 warmish here.

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NRL IPv6 code
by Perry E. Metzger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've just mailed off to Sameer Parekh the January '96 release of the NRL IPv6 sources. For those not in the know, this code implements the IPsec protocol for both IPv4 and IPv6. IPsec is a cryptographic protocol for securing IP datagrams -- it is now an IETF Proposed Standard, defined in RFCs 1825-1829. The code probably could use some work, but its not bad and a reasonable start for all sorts of work. This is a new version that reportedly has lots of bug fixes -- I'm also given the impression it may be the last NRL release of this code because the people doing the work have left there -- if it gets adopted by the BSD community, it will probably end up integrated into future NetBSD, BSDI and FreeBSDs, which would be where to look for future releases. The code should drop into BSDI almost out of the box -- it requires more work for NetBSD and FreeBSD. Perry PS Sorry to interrupt the discussion of the sex life of the Aloe Vera plant with something as irrelevant as cryptography. I can't resist sometimes.

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Smartcard report from Nando.Net
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anyone know anything else about this? Like any privacy protections (I doubt it), counterfeiting protections, etcetera? Thanks, -Allen Copyright &copy 1996 Nando.net Copyright &copy 1996 Bloomberg LONDON (Feb 12, 1996 11:23 a.m. EST) -- Motorola Inc. said it won two contracts to supply microchips for smart cards that will be used by the governments of Spain and the Czech Republic to administer benefit programs. The cards are credit-card sized devices incorporating specially-designed memory chips, called microcontrollers. They have a growing number of applications and can be used instead of cash in stores, at telephone booths, for pay-television and computer-shopping. The largest demand, though, will come from government agencies, like Spain's Social Security Administration and the Czech Republic's Healthcare Ministry. China, with a population of 1.2 billion, is considering a national identification card using this technology, said Waqar Qureshi, Motorola worldwide marketing manager for smart-card chips. [...] Spain has ordered 7 million microprocessors, valued at more than $10 million, from Motorola in the first phase of a nationwide program that could grow to 40 million cards. The chips will store the digitized description of the holders' fingerprints, which should help to reduce fraud. "The smart cards will enable multiple transactions with the Social Security to be carried out in a more secure manner and their use can easily be extended to other services," said a spokesman for the Spanish Social Security Ministry, quoted in a Motorola statement. In the Czech Republic, Motorola is supplying 10,000 chips for a pilot health-insurance program in the Litomerice region. A countrywide health-card project for 10 million people is planned for introduction starting in 1997. [...] "These two contracts, valued at tens of millions of dollars, are prime examples of the growing trend among governments across the world to look at smartcard solutions in the administration of public social services and benefits," said Allan Hughes, Motorola's worldwide smartcard manager. Visa Spain said in December it would launch smart cards to replace the use of cash for transactions as small as buying a pack of cigarettes. With software written in Spanish that already is being used in Miami, Colombia and Argentina, Visa Spain said it intends to place as many as 3 million "Visa Cash" cards a year in circulation in Spain this year.

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Re: Using /dev/random for PGP key generation? Be Wary
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- rngaugp(a)alpha.c2.org wrote in the c'punks list: > Subject: Using /dev/random for PGP key generation? Be Wary > > I have created a modified version of pgpi for use with a hardware random > number generators. Recently, there has been some confusion because > people have assumed that I wished people to use this version with > NOISE.SYS or an RNG that gathers entropy from timing events called > /dev/random. My concern, since there is a DOS version available according to your announcement (and this applies to OS/2 and Linux compilations as well) is that your version assumes /dev/random produces a continuous stream rather than bursts of data limited to how much entropy is gathered. A poor implementation even with a good driver is disasterous. [..] > Be assured that I originally planed the modification to be used with a > real hardware RNG. I tested it with the CALNET/NEWBRIGE RNG under DOS > and OS/2. The "RNGDRIVER" feature I tested with OS/2 and the driver in > RNG810.ZIP available at ftp.cdrom.com. Hmmm... I'll have to check that out. [..] > I am unsure about using my modification, together with these drivers > that are not connected to a real hardware RNG. In what way would the use > of these drivers' methods of gathering entropy be superior to PGP's > method of getting entropy from keyboard timing? If you choose to do > something like this, you should think carefully and make a careful study > of the code. I'm curious as to what method you tyest the hardware RNG's entropy? [..] > made to work. But careful thought an careful design should be done > first. Yep. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMR/s2yoZzwIn1bdtAQEdeAF/XFFki97J+phJv76eMZXcMyHt1ChjN3FD PsMvsq03g/QHYfAMhb25qoSp5H6F5HFZ =2l/3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Dave Winer, MORE, and Outline Processors
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:21 PM 2/12/96, William Knowles wrote: >Found this in my mail this morning. >--------------------------------------- >Amusing Rants from Dave Winer's Desktop >Released on 2/12/96; 5:59:40 AM PST ... > The first huge blast of cyberpsace puffery and a historic rejection > of the US Constitution, on the same day. Some will say this has nothing to do with cryptography, but I want to share something about Dave Winer. Dave Winer wrote "MORE." the outline processor I wrote my Cyphernomicon FAQ in (and many other things over the years). Winer originally wrote "Think Tank," which I also had on my original IBM PC, circa 1983-4, and then "MORE," for the Macintosh. These were the preeminent outline processors, a market niche which has, sadly, almost vanished. (The outliner in Microsoft Word is primitive and cumbersome by comparison. FrameMaker, an otherwise extremely powerful writing tool, lacks an outline mode altogether. Hence I seldom use it.) Winer and his partners (not sure who they were) sole their company, Living Videotext, to Symantec. Symantec supported MORE for a couple of upgrades, then let it fade out. (MORE 3.1 still runs flawlessly on my Macintosh 7100av, with System 7.1.2, but will likely eventually stop working with some version of the System.) I've seen new-in-the-box copies of MORE 3.1 for $75 at Weird Stuff Warehouse, in Sunnyvale, CA. I highly recommend MORE for any of you Mac users out there. (In case anyone is wondering, no, I don't use MORE to write my things for this list. Conventional text editing is sufficient for these relatively short items. I don't even use a spulling checker anymore.) --Tim 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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fwd: Meeks on telcos sharing local call info
by tbyfield＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>This is forwarded from: > >Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 20:17:43 -0800 >From: "Brock N. Meeks" <brock(a)well.com> >To: cwd-l(a)cyberwerks.com >Subject: CWD--We're Not in Kansas Anymore Sender: owner-cwd-l(a)cyberwerks.com > >CyberWire Dispatch // Copyright (c) 1996 // > >Jacking in from the "Abandon All Hope" Port: > >Washington, DC -- >Howard Stern's Private Parts >========================== > >Although Howard Stern's privacy (is this an oxymoron?) isn't in question >here, your privacy is. > >The bill basically allows the telephone companies to use the data they have >on you in any way they see fit, with one caveat: They must provide the same >access to that information to competitors, if asked. As long as they don't >hog all your private data, such as how many times >you call Domino's Pizza or whether you're an avid QVC network shopper, they >can sell your data to just about anyone and use it internal in ways that >should make your skin crawl. > >This is all laid out in admittedly banal Congress speak: "A local exchange >carrier (that's your local phone company) may use, disclose, or permit >access to aggregate customer information... only if it provides such >aggregate information to other carriers or persons on reasonable and >nondiscriminatory terms and conditions up reasonable request therefore." > >In other words, bend over and kiss your sweet aggregate good-bye. > >Meeks out... >--- end forwarded text

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