December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

E$? Whatever
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE OF MONEY, AS CITI SEES IT Known inside Citicorp as the Electronic Money System, the bank's version of electronic currency for cyberspace is the result of four years of mostly top-secret toil by technical wizards who report to Colin Crook, the New York money-center's top technology officer. Still in a prototype stage and probably years away from full-scale operation, the Electronic Money System is described as fully equivalent to cash, but hardware and software reside on secure processing environment. At a recent demonstration, one of six laptops was programmed to contain the functions of two banks, with icons representing tellers, security, and other features. The other terminals were set up to display "electronic wallets" that individuals can use to withdraw money from the virtual bank, exchange money with each other, and perform a variety of sophisticated transactions. For example, a customer on one laptop can transfer $100 and 50 British pounds from his bank account to his electronic wallet. The cash then exists in digital form on the individual's computer hardware. "Our system does not depend on any network mechanism for security," said project manager Sholom Rosen. "The security is between the two devices. They have their own cryptography and security." Bank officials said they intend to apply the technology first in wholesale functions, with retail use still far in the future. -- American Banker, 2/23/96 --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Cyberspace Hashishim Declare Jihad [NOISY]
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.onworld.com/MUT/elecGur.html has a declaration which includes many of the crypto-anarchy concepts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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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Re: In favour of privacy legislation
by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Why shouldn't I be able to sell it. Information is free. If > it's illegal to sell it in the US, I'm sure Marketing Info, Inc., > operating out of Costa Rica, would be happy to sell the information > about your buying habits. If we're talking about a US-based, on-shore operation, the reason why you should not be able to sell my buying habits, ethical and legal, would be that I gave them to you in the first place, for a specific purpose. If we're talking about Costa Rica, which has achieved mythical status as a data haven in some future cupherpunked world, thenwe're not in the US any more. We're in the world of the Internet, of the technology-is-law life that appeals to so many of us (including me), and you wouldn't be able to track my buying habits anyway. I'd be using the alpha.c2.org remailer, which would have conveniently located itself in - where else - Costa Rica. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Indian Techonomist - newsletter on India's information industry http://dxm.org/techonomist/ rishab(a)dxm.org Editor and publisher: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh rishab(a)arbornet.org Vox +91 11 6853410; 3760335; H 34 C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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What's this "Digital Cash" stuff...
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Of course, I'm guilty of confusing the topic because I talked about credit and debit cards in a book with the title "Digital Cash." Sorry about that. But I think the whole debate is really pretty confusing. Real "cash", i.e. Federal Reserve Notes, are pretty traceable. They've got serial numbers on them. If it was practical to require everyone to keep a log book of serial numbers, someone could really track the flow of currency throughout the economy. Note that serial numbers aren't that important for paper currency because the physical difficulty of finding a good printing press is supposed to prevent counterfeitting. Digital "cash" requires the serial numbers to prevent copying. (Everyone should read today's NYT article on the counterfeits.) So I would argue that Fed. Reserve notes aren't "cash" either. It's only a matter of time before FinCen starts requiring everyone to report every serial number. But while I think Tim's point is well taken and essentially correct, we should remember that "cash" is term that also often means immediately negotiable. For instance, many people who need to trade large amounts will trade T-bills. These pieces of paper pay interest! In other circumstances, bringing a cashier's check is what people mean when they talk about "paying in cash." A real estate buyer who actually showed up at a closing with $300,000 in $100 bills would be pretty unpopular, even if he said he was going to pay in "cash". So, I guess it's all just a question of semantics. But that's life on the Information Super highway where it may just be illegal to run the "finger" protocol. -Peter

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Privacy legislation in CA
by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just forwarded my last post to some other list favouring - sort of - proposed privacy legislation in California. As it may not have appeared here, and is very short, and I don't have the URL, and I believe my response was relevant to cpunks, I've reproduced the bill. -Rishab SB 1659 Personal rights: privacy. BILL NUMBER: SB 1659 INTRODUCED 02/21/96 BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Senator Peace FEBRUARY 21, 1996 An act to add Section 43.2 to the Civil Code, relating to privacy. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SB 1659, as introduced, Peace. Personal rights: privacy. Existing law, the California Constitution, provides that all people have certain inalienable rights, including the right to privacy. This bill would prohibit a person or corporation from using or distributing for profit information concerning an individual, including his or her credit history, finances, or medical history, without his or her written consent. The bill would include a statement of legislative findings concerning the right to privacy. Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no. State-mandated local program: no. SECTION 1. The Legislature hereby finds and declares the following: (a) All people have an inalienable right to privacy as declared in Section 1 of Article I of the California Constitution. (b) Advances in technology have made it easier to create, acquire, and analyze detailed personal information about an individual. (c) Personal information, including information about a person's financial history, shopping habits, medical history, and travel patterns, is continuously being created. (d) The unauthorized use of personal information concerning an individual is an infringement upon that individual's right to privacy. SEC. 2. Section 43.2 is added to the Civil Code, to read: 43.2. No person or corporation may use or distribute for profit any personal information concerning a person without that person's written consent. Such information includes, but is not limited to, an individual's credit history, finances, medical history, purchases, and travel patterns. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Indian Techonomist - newsletter on India's information industry http://dxm.org/techonomist/ rishab(a)dxm.org Editor and publisher: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh rishab(a)arbornet.org Vox +91 11 6853410; 3760335; H 34 C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Re: PGP source code book sold out!
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Ray McKinney wrote: > On Tue, 27 Feb 1996, John Gilmore wrote:[..] > > The PGP Source Code book is now out of print. We assumed there > > would only be limited interest in the source code, so we printed > > only 1500 copies. When we sold out of this run (just last month), > > If you are just wanting to reference the source code book, try your > library, if it is large enough. The Evans Library here at Texas A&M > University has a copy on its shelf. You could also use Inter-Library Loan... though it's on permanent reserve at a library here. I took a look at it, it's mainly source code. Not much text giving anything new that I saw. Having the files with the source code is fine enough. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMTPeayoZzwIn1bdtAQGa7AGA2+yomb6WOzh7Wx+n65m2uo3FvPAeqmvb U/nsvR011Xy21A1YgCodwniqpiCMCs/6 =U+85 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Remember, RC4 is now PC1
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Bill Stewart wrote: > >Every time you say RC4 without saying "Trademark of some bunch of > >lawyer scum" you theoretically break the lawyer made law. So let us > >stop doing it. Serve them right. > > You can always call it "Ron's Code 4" or "Rivest's Code 4" or whatever. Bah. I don't think there's much RSA can do, esp. if you use a homegrown implementation. If someone says "A stream cipher compatible with RSA's RC4 (tm)" then what is RSA going to do? It'd be funny if the next time somebody hacks a proprietary code, if they make some changes, redo the key schedule, perhaps in mind of strengthening the algorithm, and then post it to sci.crypt as "hey, I got this idea for a new crypto algorithm... what do you think?". If the algorithm is different enough from the proprietary code version, with no clear connection between them, and the author can give full design rationale as if s/he wrote it from scratch, then what's a company to do? (If the practice of secret/proprietary algorithms continues for the long term future then it's quite possible a genuine coincidence like this will occur... RC4 [officially secret] and RC5 [not officially secret] are some very simply constructed algorithms... what's to say another skilled cryptographer could not have reinvented the wheel?) - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMTPauioZzwIn1bdtAQGR9QGAkRVkH2PZFk2LShKcBqGoWJTDkLX87sBL Uc4bo2ksl47YEXQ2slL238auZVLBFCC8 =D1/4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Internet shutdown Feb 29?
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Interesting. My ISP was shut down for a day this week because of a "problem with a router upstream from us". <insert emoticon here> It would be nice to see ISPs maintain multiple paths or at least have a set of backup connections to keep outages like this from happening. Simon Spero wrote: > > As a matter of interest, I wonder how much of the internet could be > shut down by concerted effort; obviously individual services can be > trivially disabled by jamming listen queues (not really stoppable by > anything short of IPSEC w/photuris). The BGP backbone could probably be > disabled from within by a traitor planted in one of big companies, and a > confused backhoe around the MAEs could probably do a lot more damage than > people would like to admit. It seems that the internet is getting pretty > brittle- I wonder if it would be worthwhile having some sort of infranet > with a bunch of backups links using dial-up lines or spare transponders > (with a filter to block port 80 :-) > > It's probably not possible with todays routing technology > (slow, flappy links with nightmarish convergence times), plus it's not > sexy like a nice OC-12 SONET. This is the sort of thing the NCSC should > be working on- something to keep the essential services flowing in the > early stages of an info-war, or an info truck-bomb - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMTPgOyoZzwIn1bdtAQHhzwF+IpnE8dOwNVq0SXSshqc6oEpMo99knyBC 8VnvSn7qvaHn6AJqTIrIKII2InR9cLR9 =N5QY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Privacy legislation in CA
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > SECTION 1. The Legislature hereby finds and declares the > following: > (a) All people have an inalienable right to privacy as > declared in Section 1 of Article I of the California > Constitution. Does the bill define "privacy" explicitly? Or is it defined clearly anywhere else in California law? That can be a real problem... (the US Supreme Court seems to limit 'privacy' to what goes on in bed between a married heterosexual couple, for instance.) > (b) Advances in technology have made it easier to create, > acquire, and analyze detailed personal information about an > individual. > (c) Personal information, including information about a > person's financial history, shopping habits, medical history, > and travel patterns, is continuously being created. > (d) The unauthorized use of personal information concerning > an individual is an infringement upon that individual's right to > privacy. What is unauthorized use? Is it still acceptable to collect information on someone? Is a person given the right to know who is tracking them, and what someone else or a corporation has about them? > SEC. 2. Section 43.2 is added to the Civil Code, to read: > 43.2. No person or corporation may use or distribute for > profit any personal information concerning a person without that > person's written consent. Such information includes, but is > not limited to, an individual's credit history, finances, > medical history, purchases, and travel patterns. What counts as written consent? Checking a "Yes, you may send my name to interested advertisers so I can receive lots of junk mail to burn in my stove to keep warm in the winter" box? And once a person has checked off on it, is it ok for a corporation to redistribute that info without asking permission (since it's already been signed off), of must that third party again ask permission? - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMTPdKCoZzwIn1bdtAQEnvAF/dslZaaBn0j8ZyEHH3t97LyzjBHCai04A ng/kuJ5nkkneIVAl2OJKZAnq8JSaIzqp =0Tmm -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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No Subject
by anonymous＠nowhere.toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greetings All Does anyone reading this know any details of the crypto scheme proposed for TETRA (The Euro standard digital radio system). Actual concrete details of the system seem to be impossible to find !! Thanks in advance LP

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