December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

PGP backdoor? (No, I'm not paranoid.)
by Mark Bainter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was recently speaking with a newly-made aquaintence, and we were discussing the merits of various encryption systems. Now, I had heard about all the people who claimed the reason versions later than 2.3 wouldn't work with 2.3 was because of a backdoor for the government. I personally thought they were being paranoid. However, this guy tells me that he met Phil at defcon and phil told him that he co-operated with the government and gave them information that would enable them to crack key's for versions later than 2.3. I don't know whether to believe him or not, as I said earlier he is not a long-time friend or anything, so he could just be lying to me. If anyone has any information on this I would appreciate it. --- "Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured." --- Thomas Paine 1791 >>My key is on the keyservers.

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Re: ViaCryptPGP 4.0?! (was Re: PGP integrated into Z-Mail)
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Derek Atkins <warlord(a)MIT.EDU> writes: > > And, what does this have to do with ViaCrypt PGP 4.0? Would it be 3.0 > > compatible or is it something entirely different? > > I dont know. I dont work for ViaCrypt, and they have been fairly > secretive in their work. For all I know, they've made ViaCrypt PGP > 4.0 completely incompatible with PGP 2.6.2 and PGP3. I would have thought you and Colin would have some communication with Phil regarding PGP3, since PGP is his trademark. The web page referred to it as being in beta, so maybe they are working with the old specs... could also be that they completely rewrote and improved on the old version. (Of course if I have questions I should address them to ViaCrypt...) 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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Re:
by Housley, Russ 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Blake: At least three companies have MSP implementations that can be liscensed. Russ ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: RE: Author: "Blake Ramsdell" <Blaker(a)msn.com> at internet Date: 2/28/96 12:19 AM > Further there is a good implementation of MOSS. It was even announced at > the workshop. Did you miss it? TIS has done an implementation that is > available for anonymous FTP, albeit only within the US. It's integrated > with MH, not the most favored mail user agent, but the current version has > shell scripts that perform minimal MIME functions to facilitate integration > with other agents. Is there a version that can be used in commercial applications? There is for PGP, S/MIME, and (I think) for MSP. From a developer's point of view, this will influence my decision between specifications. Blake

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Re: PGP backdoor? (No, I'm not paranoid.)
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

perry(a)piermont.com wrote: > >Mark Bainter writes: <snip> >> However, this guy tells me >> that he met Phil at defcon and phil told him that he co-operated with >> the government and gave them information that would enable them to crack >> key's for versions later than 2.3. I don't know whether to believe him >> or not, >Your informant is taking extremely good drugs. You should find out who >his connection is should you want to get any. > >Perry Dear Perry, many peoples hear many things. The difficult part is to figure out what is the validity of what ones hears. I personnally heard a things or two, even if I am not involved in any way in the trade of crypto. I heard them through outside channels, completely independently from any crypto-activist, wether pro or con (CPunks et al or Govt). Theses sources are of utmost qualifications. Wether or not there is a "vast conspiracy" either to make us believe that, for an example, PGP *is* or *is not* crackable we *do not* know. Every side have vested interests. Many opinions that PGP is secure rest on *actual* evaluation of our computing capabilities, actual or forecasted. And experts are *very often* wrong. Have a look at history of sciences... You'll realize that most accomplishments were held as impossible even shortly before they were discovered/created. Such is the history of intra-abdominal surgery, of space flight and of many other knowledge and/or technology. In most instances of life, it is much wiser to realize that *we do not know* and accepting ignorance as such rather than adopting the first tempting rationalization that comes to mind. Because in the former case, you still have the possibility to enhance life by learning, while in the second, you can only hope that you did not adopt a wrong belief that will eventually cost you dearly. Remember, when an ostrich puts it's head in the sand, which part of it's anatomy it is showing to the world... So, why waste bandwith with a post that apparently mainly seems to be aimed at dismissing somebody but brings *absolutely no* new knowledge to the discussion? Please, next time, post privately. Funny jokes are, IMHO, welcome because they have some life-enhancing value. So please, at least be funny... Your post makes me wonder for what terribly conspiring organisation are you working for... JFA The collectivists be DAMNED! **** OLD KEY: DO NOT USE ANYMORE UNLESS FOR VERIFYING SIGNATURES **** 1024 bits Key ID:57214AED 1995/10/04 Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon(a)citenet.net> Key fingerprint = 84 96 76 AE EB 7C AB 15 88 47 87 B0 18 31 74 9F

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fun with the web and security
by daw＠orodruin.CS.Berkeley.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's a fun way to exploit security holes via the web: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/js1.html A rough representation of its contents follow. Whee! The web is awfully convenient for exploiting security bugs.... The following URL contacts your sendmail SMTP server and attempts to exploit an old, well-known security hole, trying to gain root access. Click _here_ to try it. As it stands, clicking on the URL above does not do anything harmful to your machine-- but it could! (This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. This is only a test.) ______________ We can get you to send arbitrary text, to an arbitrary port on an arbitrary host, from your machine. (If you are inside a firewall, we can thereby send arbitrary text to any internal machine by getting you to click on the link above.) The technique is simple: we list the host and port in a gopher URL, and encode the text to be sent in the path. For instance, a successful exploit of the hole could leave a backdoor root shell, and inform us via a pseudonym at an anonymous remailer. The exploit could be hidden by use of the JavaScript "width=1,height=1" techniques pioneered at John LoVerso's _JavaScript security hole page_; then you wouldn't even know when you'd been attacked. The exploit could be forced on you via many standard tricks: the Redirect: or META-EQUIV Refresh: or JavaScript mechanisms work fine, for instance. This is most dangerous when you are behind a firewall. Typically, there will be many machines inside a firewall which run insecure software. Normally, that would be safe, since the firewall prevents an outsider from connecting to the unsafe sendmail servers inside-- yet the example URL above allows outsiders like us to exploit security holes on the inside of your firewall. Nothing stops us from putting the IP address of a vulnerable machine inside your firewall in the URL above, and waiting for you to click on it: the firewall doesn't prevent connections from you to the internal vulnerable machine, and thus can't stop this attack. Using JavaScript, we don't even have to wait for you to click on anything. Furthermore, a JavaScript program could systematically and invisibly try all the machines inside your firewall. We could have used many other well-known security holes: there's nothing special about this particular sendmail bug (except that it was convenient for us to implement). ______________ Be afraid. Be very afraid. -- Ian Goldberg and David Wagner.

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"wisecrackers" by Levy in March Wired
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I sent this to <steven(a)echoync.com> but the address bounced. in any case I thougt I would cc: the list. this is a fun article to read, and I encourage everyone here to check it out. ------- Forwarded Message To: steven(a)echoync.com Subject: wisecrackers feedback Date: Tue, 27 Feb 96 18:12:02 -0800 From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri(a)netcom.com> hello, I'm a cypherpunk subscriber. I liked your wired article on the cpunks ("wisecrackers") a lot. I thought I would mention some things: 1. you didn't seem to address the issue that factoring has not been proven to be difficult. a fast factoring algorithm is not ruled out by any existing mathematical theories, although no one expects that one exists. in other words, it is purely mathematician consensus that insists that factoring is a hard problem. hence RSA has not actually been proven to be a secure way of encoding information. its only secure because no one knows how to factor numbers quickly, and everyone is pretty confident that such a capability does not exist, although no one has proven it (yet). RSA rests on the difficulty of undoing a "trapdoor function" and as far as I know, there is no proof that any operation used for cryptography is intrinsically difficult to undo. (there are proofs that some functions are "intrinsically difficult" but they can't be used for crypto, because what you need in crypto is some operation that "is difficult when you don't have secret information, but is easy when you do."-- that is, not "always difficult". that's a trapdoor function, such as that used in RSA-- the secret knowledge makes the operation possible, whereas without it, it is "computationally impossible", i.e. possible in theory but not practice.) in fact there have been very incremental improvements in factoring algorithms. but no one can say, "factoring number [x] takes exactly [y] years" because no one knows what is the optimal factoring algorithm-- they only know the best one that has been *found* to date. (which is the quadratic sieve you mention). the question of whether factoring really is difficult is interesting to study. there is a whole class of computer problems called "NP" that can be shown to be "difficult" in an equivalent way. whether they are truly "difficult" is an open question. surprisingly, factoring has not yet been proven to be in this "NP" class, despite that many other problems have been. also, some mathematicians say that people have been trying to factor numbers since the dawn of time (well, at least since the greeks) so that if there was a good algorithm, we would probably have found it by now. I would argue against this position, saying that computers are a very recent invention on the horizon of human knowledge. the study of algorithmic complexity did not really begin in earnest until the 70's or so, again an extremely recent blip of time in regards to the history of human mathematical thought. 2. I think you were overplaying what Morris said to Zimmermann at the end. it made for good drama but I suspect the truth is more mundane. the fact that he asked "how much would the NSA spend for [x]" (where here [x] is "break PGP keys"). does not imply that they can actually do [x]. rather, what it implies is that their first inclination is to assume that something is theoretically possible, and then determine how much it would cost to do [x]. then, they determine whether the stategic results of obtaining [x] are worth its cost. in other words, the NSA has to approach all cryptoanalysis from this basic point: can we justify the cost based on the stategic value of the intelligence. they have to make this choice all the time as to where they invest their resources based on the payoff. their first question is, "what is the strategic value of cracking [x] code". I believe that they are run internally such that projects that are feasible and that they have the money are not actually carried out just because they are possible-- the strategic value has to be determined. what Morris was asking Zimmerman was, "how much would it be worth to an attacker to be able to read PGP messages". the NSA might well come to the conclusion that nobody important is using PGP and therefore trying to break it to read their messages is a waste of time. my opinion is that what was implied by Morris's position. frankly, I think the threat of prosecution against Zimmermann suggests the NSA may not be able to break the RSA cypher at certain key lengths no matter how much of our tax money they burn trying. 3. a group broke a 384 bit PGP key a little while ago. I was surprised how little coverage this got. perhaps it was due to the choice of keys. some are more "respectable" than others. <g> Paul Leyland and Jim Gillogly (Derek Atkins maybe?) were involved as well as some cpunks. anyway, keep up the good work. (heh. loved the description of the media outlets as "bottom feeders"). bye ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Re: Strassmann's Anonymous Remailers Paper
by tbyfield＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A few observations on Paul Strassman's response to John R. Levine; I've rearranged it a bit for clarity, edited out a handful of lines, and whittled down the CCs. At 4:01 PM 2/28/96, Paul A. Strassmann wrote: John R. Levine: > >It's been possible for at least a century to mail letters with no > >return address. It's equally possible to use post office boxes and > >mail drops, or even a chain of mail drops, to have two-way exchanges > >of messages between people who don't know each other's identities. > > > >As far as I can tell, the existence of anonymous postal mail hasn't > >caused any great trouble over the past century. Can you explain why > >the appearance of similar facilities for on-line mail presents a > >greater problem? Paul Strassmann: >Since the idea that Internet remailers are not much different than >anonymous letters sent by mail is an often repeated theme, it warrants a >comment: > >1. Your statement that anonymous post mail hasn't caused any "great >trouble" over the past century does not stand up well. I have not done a >statistical sampling of incidents, but I wish to note that all my exposures >(personal and otherwise) to anonymous post have been associated with >extortion, spreading of unwarranted rumors and unsubstantiated accusations. >Most ransom notes in kidnapping cases have been conveyed by this means. Obviously, kidnapping and extortion demands sent anonymously through the post would attract far more attention than innocuous uses would--as did the recent incident in which someone donated (by anonymous mail) a million-dollar McDonald's sweepstakes ticket to a children's hospital. I daresay that for every such criminal instance you could cite, there are hundreds or even thousands of instances of completely benign "secret santas" and anonymous valentines from teenage "secret admirers," for example--which would hardly bear out your claim that >In civilized society the receipt of anonymous post has been always >associated with unacceptable social behavior. That reputation persists. Valentines and gifts sent anonymously will no doubt strike some people as trivial in the face of "information warfare" and other such gothic notions, and perhaps they are; but I can only wonder what exactly these valiant strategists think they're protecting and from whom they're protecting it. >2. Your assertion that one can be equally anonymous by post as with e-mail >does not stand up. > >First, anonymous mail is likely to carry stamp cancellation marks, which >provides an important clue as to the origin of the message. > >Second, criminal forensic techniques have been used very successfully in >tracing identifying marks, such as typewriter characteristics, Xerox copy >drum defects and other tricks such as genetic identifications of saliva >remnants left from licking a stamp or sealing the envelope. There are many >others. Anonymous e-mail does not convey such clues. > >Third, anonymous mail operates on a totally different scale and with a >different technology than post. The fact that automobiles were originally >called "horseless carriages" does not make them possess the attributes of >horse-carriages. When technology scales up from thousands to hundred >millions, the potential consequences are not subject to simple >extrapolation. By the same token, the fact that law enforcement agencies have, over the last two centuries, developed the forms of forensic analysis you mention doesn't mean that these techniques are a god-given right whose shortcomings in the face of new technologies need to be compensated for. These techniques are, as you point out, contingent on the traits peculiar to the objects being examined. Postal mail consists of integral physical objects which can bear these kinds of traces; email does not. Nor does shouting--yet I've never heard anyone suggest that fans at a football game should preface what they yell with their name and their address, or that their failure to do so constitutes a threat to national security. >3. Anonymous remailers have been conduits for misconduct ranging from >"spamming" - e.g. launching thousands of messages to saturate server >capacity - to massive distribution of "sniffers" that make a number of >software-based fire-walls inoperative. This objection remailers is a red herring: giveaway ten-hour accounts on AOL and other services, hacked accounts, accounts obtained under false names, and accounts obtained under a True Name are much more notorious sources of spam than are remailers. If spam is your objection, you're barking up the wrong tree. As for the "massive deployment of 'sniffers'," anyone capable of doing this or of using information gained by this means hardly needs remailers. >4. The most likely scenarios of an information assault on the information >infrastructure that performs essential social functions such as message >switching, transportation dispatching, public security communications, etc. >always commences with a saturation dispatch of a wide variety of >intelligent agent via anonymous remailers. "Most likely scenarios" are speculative: something that hasn't happened yet doesn't "always commence with" anything. >There is a long list of anti-social and criminal behavior that is greatly >facilitated by a guarantee of untraceability. The repertoire of such >malfeasances is sufficiently long that it does not warrant further elaboration. This chicken-or-egg formulation suggests that a milieu in which total traceability is possible would greatly diminish criminal behaviors and activity. Perhaps, but as you yourself have pointed out, such a milieu is utterly antithetical to anything remotely resembling a free democracy. Since the alternative to untraceability isn't viable, there's no point in bringing it up. >Now, I would like to repeat that I believe that anonymous remailers are >here to stay - at least in democratic societies. However, that does not >mean that one should continue insisting that anonymous remailes are not a >different phenomenon than an envelope containing a message that does not >have a return address. If you were the final arbiter on the question, your repeated claim that "remailers are here to stay" would be much more comforting. Unfortunately, the force of almost all your arguments is, in a nutshell, that remailers are associated with and facilitate criminal and/or terrorist activities--and that suggests to me that if you had your druthers, they would be illegalized. I'm curious: Do you or do you not support the continued existence of nonregulated, nonlicensed, and publicly accessible remailers? (Please note that this is a different question than "Are remailers here to stay?") regards Ted Byfield

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Re: Cypherpunk remailer
by David K. Merriman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 05:34 PM 02/28/96 -0800, cmca(a)alpha.c2.org (Chris McAuliffe) wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >[To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com] >[Subject: Re: Cypherpunk remailer] >[In-reply-to: Your message of Wed, 28 Feb 96 13:06:19 N.] > <427.6632T768T557(a)eniac.campus.luth.se> > >johan(a)eniac.campus.luth.se (Johan Sandberg) requested: >>How do I send Email through a cypherpunk remailer? >>There might be some FAQs about this, but never seen one. >> -- Please refer to where I can get the FAQ if there is one! -- > >There is a FAQ about anonymous remailers by ><A HREF="http://www.well.com/user/abacard/remail.html>Andre Bacard</A>. > Alex de Joode has a nice entry-level explanation of how to use remailers (and chaining) at: http://www.replay.com/people/usura/chain.html HTH Dave Merriman -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMTRVrMVrTvyYOzAZAQHqawP/fOAciPC+eESCKkE9dQEE5OnZsPK9L8BM VX4FYOKis7NYN7qrZ1wN3v8RtUER5/OvV/RFyeLE32aKta/MMUHTLM//EvfgHljQ S+g4WeeLhdafNgH5ZoHV5PGYk2tRazgQszG0BeamI+HB4WdhU8tktAcTWavSmQuY X5dQizSETTg= =PtlJ -----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: Spin Control Alert (LI Newsday, 2/12/96)
by cme＠cybercash.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 16:52 2/17/96, Declan B. McCullagh wrote: >McMickle, a protege of Taylor's, *wrote* Sen. Chuck Grassley's >net.indecency legislation. McMickle is a longtime anti-porn activist and >worked in an office shared by the National Law Center, the National >Coalition Against Pornography, and Enough is Enough! McMickle now works >for Grassley. McMickle also drafted the Grassley bill which would turn ftp of PGP into a RICO-enforceable federal crime. That's the bill the FBI declared was laughably extreme. It sank into nothingness -- but I did have a few rounds with McMickle on the phone about it. He appeared to take special pleasure in the idea of putting PRZ in jail and siezing all his worldly goods for the crime of nose-thumbing at the USGov't. - Carl +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)cybercash.com http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | |CyberCash, Inc., Suite 430 http://www.cybercash.com/ | |2100 Reston Parkway PGP 2.6.2: 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | |Reston, VA 22091 Tel: (703) 620-4200 | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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Re: Remember, RC4 is now PC1
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:31 AM 02/28/96, Mutant Rob wrote: >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? Umm, if the _algorithm_ is different enough, it's a different algorithm and it's not even an issue. I guess you mean if the algorithm is the substantially the same, but the code implementing it is substantially different. But I'm not sure that matters anyway. The way I understand it with trade secrets is: If I'm an employee of PKP (let's pretend they have employees who actually look at code), and they want to keep something a trade secret, they make me sign a non-disclosure agreement. If I break it, and they can prove I broke it, I am in big trouble for breach of contract. I guess if I can make up a convincing enough lie about inventing it from scratch, I can get off. But if I work for PKP, I don't think I'm going to have too much luck convincing a jury that I just coincidentally stumbled on the same algorithm. If I, who has signed a non-disclosure agreement with PKP, takes the trade secret code and sends it to Mutant Rob, and Mutant Rob posts it near and far, Mutant Rob hasn't done anything illegal, and hasn't broken any contractual obligations, and is basically doing fine. As I understand it. So it doens't matter if he pretends he invented it himself or not. Of course, if they take him in the back room and introduce him to "Mr. Thingy" (or make him testify in court, if you prefer), and they find out it was me who sent it to him, I'm still in Big Trouble. Trade secrets don't really have any legal standing or protection, for the most part. They're just things a company is trying to keep secret, for the most part. Generally by using non-disclosure agreements.

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