December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

(fwd fyi) SecureNet to allow classified data on the I'net??
by foodie＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 17:11:21 -0800 From: jwarren(a)well.com (Jim Warren) Subject: (fwd fyi) SecureNet to allow classified data on the I'net?? For whatever it's worth -- from an unknown source inside a govt lab, forwwarded to me by an outside friend. Distribute freely, as far as I'm concerned. --jim Jim Warren, GovAccess list-owner/editor (jwarren(a)well.com) Advocate & columnist, MicroTimes, Government Technology, etc. A "Superlab" linking the computational resources of four national laboratories has come a big step toward becoming a reality with the opening of SecureNet -- a network for transmitting secret and classified data over the Internet. Bing Young, who led the Lab's part in the project, says the new network is still only a "dirt road" able to transmit data at 1.5 megabits/second. However, he says new encryption technologies will bring the network up to information superhighway speeds over the next year. Young will discuss SecureNet in a presentation at 10 a.m., Wednesday, April 3, in Bldg. 113, room 1104. Green-badge employees only. The Department of Energy gave approval in March for the network developed by the Lab, Los Alamos and the two Sandia laboratories to improve scientific collaboration in Stockpile Stewardship programs. --- end forwarded text

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Re: J Bell's Moniker (WAS: Re: NYT on CFP)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:06 PM 4/2/96 -0500, Mark Aldrich wrote: >On Mon, 1 Apr 1996, jim bell wrote: >> Damn! They keep leaving me out of their short list! Maybe they meant to >> lump me in with the groups they mentioned. I'm an American, so I can't be a >> "foreign spy," and my supply of child pornography is at a constant zero >> level. I'd sure hate to be lumped into an ignominious position with the >> "other criminals," however: What an unimpressive title! >> >> Maybe I'll just have to settle for being called a terrorist. Harrumph! > >OK, Jim, I'll take the bait: > >What, per chance, _DO_ you want to be called? What I was trying to suggest, in a suitably humorous way, is the fact that the government really isn't concerned about these "bad guys," and in fact is (or, ought to be) more worried about technological developments that will (and should!) make governing populations increasingly difficult. It doesn't want to admit this, but that's still the truth. I'm sure they have advisors who are telling them what is going to occur, and if they're at all on the ball they're desperately working to try to figure out if these eventualities can be prevented. I don't think they'll be successful, but it is still possible to identify many of their efforts such as the Clipper I and Clipper II proposals, both of which were abject failures, and the Digital Telephony bill, which despite the fact it passed has not been funded, and others. I view the Leahy bill as a somewhat more "realistic" proposal in this series, in the sense that they got a bit smarter about their proposals, putting some tasty bait in the trap. It's still a trap. I was also trying to point out that when the government views just about all its enemies as "foreign spies, child pornographers, other criminals and terrorists," its task is to fit all the people who are REALLY dangerous to it into one of these pre-defined molds. I am reminded of the saying, "When the only tool you have is a hammer, you begin to treat all problems as if they are nails." So I wonder what kind of "nail" I'm going to be. One last thing: I don't really know what I'd like to be called, but maybe "the last revolutionary" is appropriately melodramatic. Because what I'm promoting will be, literally, the LAST revolution society will ever need. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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National id already here?
by Yap Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.aamva.net/AAMVAnet_New_Systems.html says: Coman said [police] officers can use "CDLISCheck" to access commercial driver license status, history and AKA information. She noted that the new service was developed in response to a Congressional mandate that requires access to commercial carrier and driver information by at least 100 roadside sites by 1996 and at least 200 locations by 1997. There's a congressional mandate for nationwide online id???

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Re: What backs up digital money?
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:11 AM 4/2/96, Hal <hfinney(a)shell.portal.com> wrote: > I am curious to know why you say that ecash is not a currency. One of > the main points of my original posting was to challenge this view. I'd like a shot at this... I sort of blurted this at the coin-BOF at CFP96, and I think I'll still own up to it, viz, When money finally goes onto the net, and never comes back, the digital bearer certificates we call ecash will be a currency. Until then, it's just a script. Or is it an interestless bond? ;-). Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

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Cypherpunk Enquirer
by enquirer＠alpha.c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

THE CYPHERPUNK ENQUIRER "Encyphering minds want to know." The Enquirer has strong evidence that a group of well known cypherpunks is using the nym Jim Bell in a conspiracy to wheedle a free legal education out of the Black Unicorn. As one of the anonymous unindicted co-conspirators stated recently on the semi-secret coderpunks mailing list, "If Mr. Bell had not already existed, we probably would have been forced to invent him." Mr. Bell has pleaded innocent to charges that he is assisting the group, stating that his judgement was impaired by the ingestion of large quantities of sugar in the form of Hostess chocolate covered cupcakes, otherwise know as the "Ding Dong Defense". Microsoft announced today that it has achieved B1 Orange Book security on a Windows NT box by encasing the computer in concrete and sinking it to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. C2 security had previously been attained for Windows 95 by adding a warning message that the C2 rating was voided by any use of the I/O bus. In other news, the DoD has announced it is suing c2.org for unauthorized appropriation of the C2 security designation. A DoD spokesperson stated that, "they can use the C2 designation all they want to as long as they don't hook it up to a network." Novell has announced that all future versions of Netware will abandon their proprietary IPX protocol, in favor of IPv6. "That way," claimed a Novell spokesperson, "we won't have to worry about Netware 5.0 for at least a couple of years, and if we still can't get it out in time, we'll just announce that we're waiting for PGP 3.0." Timothy May is spending his recuperative time in the Corralitos General Hospital learning some Spanish. Mr. May suffered a broken nose, a sprained neck, and multiple bruises and contusions in a local Mexican restaurant after a friend jokingly told him that the Spanish translation of "Where's the restroom?" was "Puta tu madre". Perry Metzger announced a new theoretical attack on so-called 'smart card' technology such as the Fortezza card. Using the newly developed Continuous Atomic-Level Asynchronous Magnetic Array Resonance Interferometer, Mr. Metzger speculated that it should be possible to train a school of the little nanotechnological wonders (also affectionately known as "Detweilers" because of their many tentacles) to swim up a PCMCIA port and back out the NSA's secret trap door with code fragments clutched in their suction cups. Raph Levien lost an important court case recently, when a federal judge ruled that his son (born March 17, 1996) will legally be known as Alan Mathison Levien until he's old enough to decide for himself whether he wants to be named after his PGP key fingerprint. Netscape Communications announced today that they were launching a hostile takeover bid of $35/share for Lance Cottrell in order to get his highly coveted export-controlled ftp site technology. Netscape engineers, stymied after a year and a half of effort to code a secure export- controlled ftp site, have hailed the new acquisition. Jeff Weinstein, Electronic Munitions Specialist at Netscape, stated, "Now we'll finally be able to offer the same RC4 128 security to our beta testers as we offer to our regular clients. Non-domestic users, unfortunately, will still have to install it themselves by copying it off the T-shirts." Employees of the FBI have banded together to purchase director Louis Freeh a cowboy belt with his name embossed on the back, so that when the proctologists at Bethesda Naval Hospital finally get his head unstuck, he'll be able to see who he is. After a recent discussion of WWII "codetalkers" on the cypherpunks mailing list, the NSA and DoD have banned Native Americans of Navahoe descent from leaving the country without first filing a CJR. The sale of Internet Security Guaranteed to the Elementrix Corporation for one dollar was cancelled today after San Francisco securities analysts Hambrecht and Quist declared ISG 'overvalued'. CERT has announced the first discovery of a computer 'prion'. The prion, which affects only Microsoft's Explorer web browser, causes the victim's hard drive to slowly fill with holes until his data turns to mush. Bill Gates reportedly started foaming at the mouth when told of the new threat to Internet security, causing Microsoft employees to dub the new affliction "Mad Bill Disease", which resulted in Mr. Gates being banned in Britain. Next in the Enquirer: Direct from the CDA hearings, Marty Rimm and Dorothy Denning demonstrate the "Rimm" job.

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Cypherpunk Enquirer
by enquirer＠alpha.c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

THE CYPHERPUNK ENQUIRER "Encyphering minds want to know." The Enquirer has strong evidence that a group of well known cypherpunks is using the nym Jim Bell in a conspiracy to wheedle a free legal education out of the Black Unicorn. As one of the anonymous unindicted co-conspirators stated recently on the semi-secret coderpunks mailing list, "If Mr. Bell had not already existed, we probably would have been forced to invent him." Mr. Bell has pleaded innocent to charges that he is assisting the group, stating that his judgement was impaired by the ingestion of large quantities of sugar in the form of Hostess chocolate covered cupcakes, otherwise know as the "Ding Dong Defense". Microsoft announced today that it has achieved B1 Orange Book security on a Windows NT box by encasing the computer in concrete and sinking it to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. C2 security had previously been attained for Windows 95 by adding a warning message that the C2 rating was voided by any use of the I/O bus. In other news, the DoD has announced it is suing c2.org for unauthorized appropriation of the C2 security designation. A DoD spokesperson stated that, "they can use the C2 designation all they want to as long as they don't hook it up to a network." Novell has announced that all future versions of Netware will abandon their proprietary IPX protocol, in favor of IPv6. "That way," claimed a Novell spokesperson, "we won't have to worry about Netware 5.0 for at least a couple of years, and if we still can't get it out in time, we'll just announce that we're waiting for PGP 3.0." Timothy May is spending his recuperative time in the Corralitos General Hospital learning some Spanish. Mr. May suffered a broken nose, a sprained neck, and multiple bruises and contusions in a local Mexican restaurant after a friend jokingly told him that the Spanish translation of "Where's the restroom?" was "Puta tu madre". Perry Metzger announced a new theoretical attack on so-called 'smart card' technology such as the Fortezza card. Using the newly developed Continuous Atomic-Level Asynchronous Magnetic Array Resonance Interferometer, Mr. Metzger speculated that it should be possible to train a school of the little nanotechnological wonders (also affectionately known as "Detweilers" because of their many tentacles) to swim up a PCMCIA port and back out the NSA's secret trap door with code fragments clutched in their suction cups. Raph Levien lost an important court case recently, when a federal judge ruled that his son (born March 17, 1996) will legally be known as Alan Mathison Levien until he's old enough to decide for himself whether he wants to be named after his PGP key fingerprint. Netscape Communications announced today that they were launching a hostile takeover bid of $35/share for Lance Cottrell in order to get his highly coveted export-controlled ftp site technology. Netscape engineers, stymied after a year and a half of effort to code a secure export- controlled ftp site, have hailed the new acquisition. Jeff Weinstein, Electronic Munitions Specialist at Netscape, stated, "Now we'll finally be able to offer the same RC4 128 security to our beta testers as we offer to our regular clients. Non-domestic users, unfortunately, will still have to install it themselves by copying it off the T-shirts." Employees of the FBI have banded together to purchase director Louis Freeh a cowboy belt with his name embossed on the back, so that when the proctologists at Bethesda Naval Hospital finally get his head unstuck, he'll be able to see who he is. After a recent discussion of WWII "codetalkers" on the cypherpunks mailing list, the NSA and DoD have banned Native Americans of Navahoe descent from leaving the country without first filing a CJR. The sale of Internet Security Guaranteed to the Elementrix Corporation for one dollar was cancelled today after San Francisco securities analysts Hambrecht and Quist declared ISG 'overvalued'. CERT has announced the first discovery of a computer 'prion'. The prion, which affects only Microsoft's Explorer web browser, causes the victim's hard drive to slowly fill with holes until his data turns to mush. Bill Gates reportedly started foaming at the mouth when told of the new threat to Internet security, causing Microsoft employees to dub the new affliction "Mad Bill Disease", which resulted in Mr. Gates being banned in Britain. Next in the Enquirer: Direct from the CDA hearings, Marty Rimm and Dorothy Denning demonstrate the "Rimm" job.

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New Internet Security Survey
by Joseph M. Reagle Jr. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

LAS VEGAS, Nevada, April 1 (Reuter) - The overwhelming majority of America's top corporate high tech users will have implemented some Internet strategy over the next 12 months, although worries over security and distracted workers persist. A survey of 500 leading U.S. networking users found that 89 percent expect to have implemented strategies for using Internet technologies in internal corporate networks -- known as intranets -- by the end of the next 12 months. But 70 percent believe employees use the Internet for entertainment on company time and 54 percent are worried about the security of information they exchange over the Internet. A preview of the Network World 500 Internet study "Networking in the Cyber Age," jointly conducted by Network World and International Data Corp, was due to be released here on Tuesday at the NetWorld+Interop trade show. A significant portion of respondents -- 28 percent -- already make some use of Internet or intranet applications for making transactions in electronic commerce with customers, while 48 percent plan to do so in the next 12 months. "As networking enters the cyber age, it will create new electronic commerce oppertunities on the Internet, increasing general acceptance and demand," Network World president and chief executive Colin Ungaro said in a statement. Among the top five general Internet trends, 83 percent of respondents said they use the Internet for communications -- email and file sharing, while 78 percent said they use it for research, such as accessing electronic information. A majority of 55 percent said they access the Internet several times a day, and that most spend five to 30 minutes per session on-line using the global computer network. An overwhelming majority of 85 percent of respondents said they have Web servers in their organizations for Internet applications, and 73 percent for intranet use -- while 88 percent said new services will make public carriers more important to their company's enterprise network strategies. Fully 69 percent said they have remote access to local area networks for more than 200 employees. "The study demonstrates how quickly corporate America has become acclimated to Internet technologies," said John Gallant, editor-in-chief of Network World. The annual telephone survey polled 500 U.S. network users whose companies have internetworked local area networks and wide area networks and annual network expenditures of more than $5 million, with more than 1,000 employees. -- Silicon Valley Bureau +1 415 462 2610 _______________________ Regards, Those who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers. Joseph Reagle http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html reagle(a)mit.edu 0C 69 D4 E8 F2 70 24 33 B4 5E 5E EC 35 E6 FB 88

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Re: Test case for RSA t-shirts
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:33 AM 4/2/96 -0800, Jeff Weinstein wrote: >Dave Del Torto wrote: >> >> At 1:08 pm 3/30/96, Raph Levien wrote: >> > While we're on the subject, I called Sam Capino's office regarding my >> >CJR for this t-shirt, and he said they were still waiting for a response >> >from the NSA. I think my next move will be a letter asking exactly when >> >I can expect a response, and whether there's anything I can do to compel >> >a response, It was originally filed (in October) as a 15-day expedited >> >review. >> >> FYI, PRZ mentioned to me last night that the CJR on the OCR-able book of >> PGP source is still pending. The "15 days" has stretched into about a year >> in that case, if I don't have my dates/the facts wrong. Bob Prior at MIT >> would know. I'm trying to figure out what the difference is (legal) between a "book" an an "OCR-able" book. FAIK, all fonts are OCR-able, simply with widely varying degrees of difficulty. A fixed-spacing, non-microspace justified typewriter font is probably one of the easiest ones to OCR. Did the export license application for this "OCR-able" book say that "It's an OCR-able" book, or did they just include a copy of that book on paper?

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[MagicMoney] Passwords of various PGP keys.
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I played with Magic Money recently. I wondered: Where are the passwords of the various PGP keys stored? Now, suppose you want to use this system for serious use: What, if any, are the critical files that must be protected from outsiders to prevent tempering (altering without the owner's ability to quickly discover the manipulation) with the system data? Is is necessary to encrypt the whole client directory when you don't use it? Ditto, for the server? JFA PGP key at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon(a)citenet.net> ID:C58ADD0D 96/03/01 fingerprint: 52 96 45 E8 20 5A 8A 5E F8 7C C8 6F AE FE F8 91 Unsollicited commercial e-mail will be proofread at a rate of 165 $ U.S. per hours. Any sender of unsollicited commercial e-mail will be considered as to have accepted the above ment- ionned terms.

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Treasure of Sierra Madres?
by cpunk＠remail.ecafe.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"The scent of riches wafting from cyberspace is overpowering." Free CSI Report Explores Threats to Secure Electronic Commerce San Francisco, April 2 -- The drive toward Internet commerce is unstoppable. But how serious are the security threats associated with it? And how effective are the proposed solutions? Computer Security Iinstitute's "Special Report on Electronic Commerce Security: Treasure of Sierra Madres?" offers a comprehensive look at the risks, threats and vulnerabilities of Internet-based transactions. Will the profits justify the risk? What lessons can be drawn from recent revelations such as the vetting of Netscape, the robbing of Citibank, the ransacking of the Netcom and the Kocher "timing attack?" This latest "CSI Special Report" contains insightful answers from a broad range of experts including Dr. Gene Spafford of Computers, Operations, Audit, Security and Technology (COAST), Donn B. Parker of SRI International, Dan Farmer, co-author of SATAN, and Mack Hicks, Vice President of Bank of America. "The scent of riches wafting from cyberspace is overpowering," comments Richard Power, CSI editor and author of the report. "The risk of failing to go on-line is perceived as greater than the risk of failing to go on-line securely. But recent revelations about vulnerabilities in Java and Netscape highlight how much still needs to be done." The 19-page study includes practical tools such as electronic commerce security checklists and sample electronic commerce policies. To obtain a free copy of CSI's "Special Report on Electronic Commerce Security" email your mailing address to prapalus(a)mfi.com, phone 415-905-2310, or fax 415-905-2218. Computer Security Institute (CSI) is the industry's leading international membership organization specifically serving the information security professional. Established in 1974, CSI has members worldwide and provides a wide variety of information and educational programs to assist practitioners in protecting the information assets of corporations and governmental organizations. --

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