December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Excerpted from a message to fight-censorship. For the full thread, check out: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?thread =The+Leahy+Crypto+Bill+is+Rancid+Sausage&after=1795&type=short (On one line, of course.) -Declan ---------- Forwarded message begins here ---------- From: Stanton McCandlish <mech(a)eff.org> Message-Id: <199603190315.TAA05777(a)eff.org> To: declan+(a)CMU.EDU (Declan B. McCullagh) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 19:15:09 -0800 (PST) Cc: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu, junger(a)pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu, tcmay(a)got.net [...] As our statement on the bill made clear, *EFF does not support the Leahy bill*, nor do we endorse it, like it, find it useful or any other synonym. We're happy to see the issues raise again, a la Cantwell, but we specifically recommended simple and complete deregulation. As our co-founder John Gilmore points out, the Leahy bill as written pre-supposes Congressional authority to legislate in this are, and Executive authority to regulate under that legislation. These are notions that we, and Phil Karn, are challenging in court with Constitutional tests we are throwing at the ITAR export regs. [...]

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A funny story
by Greg Kucharo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was driving on the Foothill Expressway in Palo Alto today when I came to a stop at a light. I glanced over at the car next to me and noticed that someone had left thier keys in the door lock. So being the good cypherpunk that I am I jumped out and grabbed the keys from the lock, then knocked on the window. The passenger rolled down the window and accepted the keys back. Much to my surprise the passenger was none other than Whitfield Diffie. Very goofily I exclaimed, "aren't you Whifield Diffie!?". "Yes, who are you", was the reply. "I'm a cypherpunk", I retorted. I'm not sure his exact reply by I think it was along the "excellent" lines. I got handshakes from he and his driver. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- "When they came for the Fourth Amendment I didn't say anything because I had nothing to hide. When they came for the Second Amendment I didn't say anything because I wasn't a gun owner. When they came for the Fifth and Sixth Amendments I didn't say anything because I had committed no crimes. When they came for the First Amendment I couldn't say anything." -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQCPAzEIa2wAAAEEALouE7MNxsG+QTOJSrMTygYWKblpI9MgOKaFA+5AICNelAw6 6Gj3B0EQr7bwLILk8EJULG+kYh/ND9Kn1EXBK+elXbwpFCLqoyEZrbHJnurhH/t6 VFEwhbN1V0e/bFOCTq8nykoJjZ/uq0mz8HouIbEt6BYWoKVSUIU/T+iDV3TVABEB AAG0DWdoa0Bzb3BoaS5jb20= =gwax -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Happy shiny censors holding hands
by Nobody 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

McPaper USA Editorial, March 21st, 10A: Racism on the Net Even in the wildest reaches of the Internet, where anything goes and most things have gone at least twice, the flow of free information is sometimes at risk. Take this ugly battle: on one side, a band of racists wants a formal place on the Net to discuss "white power" music. On the other, a cadre of Internet users believes white power deserves no such setting. At risk is the wondrous anarchy of the Internets newsgroups. These exist by the thousands in an Internet subject called Usenet, where they are divided in two. In the "alternative" category, newsgroups careen about essentially without limits. In the other, qualified newsgroups are organized into eight subject "hierarchies": politics, science, etc. Membership in these is preferred because, for the most part, these hierarchies are carried by the Internet's networks without question. In this case, a fan proposed that the "recereation" hierarchy, which includes music sections, add a white-power newsgroup. This would put the music -- and its central tenets -- smack in the middle of the Net. Then the fight commenced. Although the Usenet contains no real structure, it is self-regulating. Newsgroups proposed for a hierarchy are subject to a discussion period and then balloting by interested Netizens. In this case, opponents argued that white-power advocates should hold their discussions in one of the "alternative" newsgroups; that the hierarchies constituted a special garden in the Net's "village green"; and that white-power music deserved no bench there. To be sure, racism deserves neither respect nor credibility. But in this case, exclusion may have unintended results. If offensive ideas by themselves are a basis for exclusion, then who else should be locked out? Some would make the same argument against the hip-hop and music-poetry newsgroups, where harsh and violent rap lyrics may be discussed. Without their own newsgroup, the white-power devotees will only contaminate other newsgroups with their static. Give them a lair to call their own, and at least you know where not to tread. There are advantages to Usenet's ad hoc self-governance. It helps protect the system from outsiders seeking to control its carbonated anarchy. But if the system then turns against speech, the result is the same: Free exchange of ideas is constricted. Even in the ether -- especially in the ether -- that's something to beware. We Gungir Din

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DIO_fan
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Sciences, March/April, 1996: "Beyond the Last Theorem." On Diophantine equations, by mathematician Dorian Goldfeld. To mathematicians, the statement and proof of the STW conjecture were as revolutionary as the first mingling of waters in the Panama Canal. Until that point, the mathematics of elliptic functions and the mathematics of rigid motions had developed in isolation from each other and in strikingly different ways. The study of elliptic curves was a branch of number theory, small, specialized and provincial -- not unlike the study of Diophantine equations. In contrast, the study of rigid motions was a bustling, sophisticated suburb of topology, geometry and analysis, with many applications to engineering and physics. Mathematicians had been working on rigid motions intensely for a hundred years and had accumulated a vast armamentarium of powerful mathematical machinery. By suggesting that the two fields could be linked, Shimura, Taniyama and Weil delivered that heavy machinery to the construction site of elliptic curves; by proving that the link held, Wiles and Taylor started the engines. The result has been a frenzy of productive mathematical work that has benefited each field and is likely to lead to solutions of outstanding problems in other fields as well. ... If the ABC conjecture yields, mathematicians will find themselves staring into a cornucopia of solutions to long-standing problems. Some of those problems are of more than theoretical interest. Nowadays many methods of ensuring the security of electronic mail and other computerized transactions depend heavily on number theory, as programmers develop ciphers based on time-consuming problems in arithmetic. For example, a highly popular technique depends on the difficulty of determining all the large prime factors of a very large number. In principle, it should also be straightforward to create a cipher based on the difficulty of solving problems in Diophantine analysis. The major hurdle is the solvability barrier: the number of variables above which a Diophantine equation becomes impervious to attack. Any cipher based on an equation with that many variables should be absolutely secure. But where is the threshold? All anyone knows is that it probably lies between three and nine variables. At current or foreseeable processing speeds, a nine-variable cipher is impracticably slow, even for the fastest computers. A four-variable Diophantine cipher, however, would be both practical and extremely useful. DIO_fan (35 kb)

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Re: Leahy bill nightmare scenario?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:42 PM 3/21/96, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: > I would like to remind people that the US judicial system, while not as >always mistaken as some believe, is not particularly noted for not making >serious errors in this area. For instance, regarding the forfeiture scheme, >quite a few competent lawyers have examined civil forfeiture - used for _any_ >crime - and found it to be a violation of the Bill of Rights. And yet civil forfeiture continues, in a big way, There are entire police departments who count on civil forfeiture to supply them with cars, boats, planes, helicopters, and who count on sales of seized assets to fund their departments. (From the yachts seized in Dade County to the killing of a retired doctor who had land in Malibu desired by the cops, the civil forfeiture situation is grim.) > Moreover, it is the contention of many lawyers - such as with the >ACLU - that the whole ITAR scheme should have been thrown out long ago as >unconstitutional. That it has not been so may be taken as an indication of how By the way, it was also the opinion of lawyers within the NSA that a real test of the ITARs in court should be avoided because they would likely be ruled unconstitutional. (Source: private conversation with Carl Nicolai, inventor of the PhaserPhone, suppressed by a Patent Secrecy Order, who was allowed, with his lawyer, to look through certain legal papers at NSA headquarters. He encounterd memoranda to the effect that an ITAR challenge would likely see the ITARs thrown out. I communicated this information to Phil Karn and the EFF a couple of years ago.) --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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Re: Cypherpunk Enquirer Request
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:13 PM 3/21/96, Andrew Loewenstern wrote: >Would some kind soul please forward to me a copy of the latest Cypherpunk >Enquirer? My filter mistakenly tossed the last copy and the archive at >hks.net is still down. I just did this. Hilarious stuff. Interesting that no one complains about this use of anonymity! (By the way, with 1000+ subscribers, a "would some kind soul" request is possibly a dangerous thing to request. Game theory has some advice about rolling dice, etc., but I doubt this works well.) >(who should probably rewire his filter to toss messages into a temporary >'holding tank') Indeed, with Eudora (for the Mac and Windows), I filter offending messages into a file I call "Kill," though it is persistent and can be perused at any time. With the traffic having gotten lighter these last couple of weeks, I confess to looking at it more often. Some messages I "delete," which Eudora moves to a Trash file...and STILL doesn't delete the messages until the Trash is explicitly emptied! Lots of layers of protection. (Though I confess there have been times when I got an insulting or infuriating item in the mail and decided to remove all temptation to reply by immediately trashing it and then giving the command "Empty Trash." At this point, only a determined effort with Norton Utilities or the like could have any hope of recovering the deleted stuff. A a post offends thee, pluck it out.) --Tim 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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Cypherpunks Key-Signing at Networld
by Chris Claborne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Planning on attending Netoworld / Interop? Want to connect your PGP public key ring to San Diego? If so... Send me an e-mail before 3/29/96 and we will create a meeting place. Best time for me will be Monday night (4/1/96). I can be reached during the show (via my newton so don't mail bomb me) at 76340.2422(a)compuserve.com ... __o .. -\<, Chris.Claborne(a)SanDiegoCA.ATTGIS.Com ...(*)/(*). CI$: 76340.2422 http://bordeaux.sandiegoca.attgis.com/ PGP Pub Key fingerprint = A8 FA 55 92 23 20 72 69 52 AB 64 CC C7 D9 4F CA Avail on Pub Key server. Dreams. They're just screen savers for the brain.

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Re: Kid Gloves or Megaphones
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 19:26 3/21/96, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >From: IN%"stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com" "Bill Stewart" 16-MAR-1996 01:55:32.07 > >>Depending on the details of Ian's method, I don't think the debate >>needs to be taken to the public, or even done - it may simply be a >>done deal once the technology's out there. If Mark Twain Bank or >>Merita Bank or the Federal <Exonive-Deleted> Reserve wants to offer >Digicash(tm) with Payee-Non-Anonymity, they can always make it a contractual >>requirement that their payees not use anonymity techniques in return for >>being paid. > > Wouldn't the viability of such a clause depend on the anonymizing >scheme in question? If the bank's cooperation isn't needed (i.e., going through >a proxy), then such a limit would be empty. It is true that the issuer is unable to discover that double blinding is being used. The real problem with the protocol is that it requires payor/payee collusion, which may make it difficult to execute. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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NT's C2 rating
by Ben Rothke 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>The fine print says its insecure as soon as its connected to a network. Try running the C2config.exe found in the 3.51 resource kit, Should NT detect that you have network connectivity during the C2 test, you will get the following error message: "C2 compliance requires that no networking software be installed on your system. One or more network services have been detected on your system. Select OK to use the Network Control Panel Applet to remove these services. If you click on Help, you will get the following bit of information: Windows NT networking services were not included in the NCSC C2 evaluated configuration. For your system to conform to the evaluated C2 configuration, the network services must be removed or disabled. Should you click on OK, if you are on a NT workstation, you have just disconnect yourself from the network. If you ran the test on a server, you have just shut down your network. ------------------------------------- Ben Rothke Citicorp Global Information Network NY, NY "Views expressed are exclusively my own & not of my employer" -------------------------------------

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Re: IPG message
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Seymour, TX Snake Oilers just keep getting better all the time, now that they've left Houston, or was it Boulder! Goat-getting hype about "What is specially claimed as copyrighted and or patentable" (blatantly incorrectly using those terms, and forgetting to include trademarks), several amusing new product names, bombastic claims about speed and strength, anecdotes about things he heard Dr. Von Neumann Himself say, and a sum-of-Linear-Congruential generators algorithm which is not only breakable but far slower than RC4 or RC5 or OTPs about which he's said less recently than before. And hardware random number generators achieving multiple megabytes per second of random numbers on a simple serial port! >Note: The zipped files are considerably larger than the original > because they are random unzippable data files. UnAuTHorIZed ReproDUCTion and DIS-SEMINATION Are STRICTLY ProHIBiTeD! Yee-Hah! P.S. Ralph - you now owe us the keys to your company (Percy still gets his 10%), plus all your remarkably copious Slack! #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] 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 permissible." - US government statement on China... "SigFiles of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist!"

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