December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: PGP 3.0/4.0
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:23 AM 3/1/96 -0500, you wrote: >At the same time am trying to set up a secure mailing system for >80,000 mailboxes (soon to be over 200,000) and the last time I put >together a 6,000 key ring on a 386 it took three days & several Mb. Fortunately, on a site this big, you can afford to use a Pentium or Sparcstation and 32-bit code :-) However, if it took you that long (as opposed to, say 4 hours), you probably were short of RAM and were paging a lot. >This will require a "different" mechanism. Yup. You may be able to do it within the structure of the current PGP, by dyamically managing keys in separate files (e.g. 80,000 files, or condensations into keyrings of say 100 keys) though it would help immensely to hack the key retrieval code. Under PGP 3.0, you'll have libraries to let you do this stuff; until then it's probably not too hard to build a front-end (stealing the non-RSA portions of PGP) that looks at the keys in a file and calls PGP with a request to use the correct keyring file, or some such hackery. Or, of course, you can license RSAREF and integrate the code yourself. Depending on the email volume, it may be cheaper to just license RSA, so you can use better bignum packages like some of the European PGP flavors. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com / billstewart(a)attmail.com +1-415-442-2215 # http://www.idiom.com/~wcs Pager +1-408-787-1281

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Re: M A F_i o s
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:35 PM 3/2/96, Bill Stewart wrote: * "Buckaroo Banzai against the World Crime League".... Onk? ...another BB movie? Did they make another one???? Cheers, Bob (I may have been one of the four people who saw the movie in an actual theatre...) ----------------- 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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Re: Truelly Random Numbers
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Timothy C. May wrote: [..] > Now, is the modulus, n = pq, any more factorable than if a "more > random" source of p and q were used? > > (I am actually asking this as a real question. Does anyone know if > factoring is significantly easier for such not-completely-random > numbers? I would expect that in theory it is, but in practice this is > not a useful point of entry into factoring n. Just a hunch.) > Only if I can have a good enough idea of the non-random method for generating numbers, or if I can find some useful statistical correlations in your numbers. (And then again, what do you mean by "significantly easier"? Knowing 1 bit reduces the work by half, but with orders or thousands of bits, it's not much help.) Whether I can realisitically reproduce or work with that non-random method of key generation is another matter, though. Rob. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMTkHYCoZzwIn1bdtAQHdSgGAzgoS4Y1BQuI5hzlsLsfnoKyzVALJD3TR Mm5Dmu/I5N3Rnk9TxNviwLFjKp6Fd35Z =UnWo -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RNG method
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I thought of that for a long time. - Use a microphone on your sound card and locate it close to the computer fan. - generate a (relatively short) set of random number, maybe using the PRNG of the computer. - Use the LSB of the sampled sound, the sampling being done at intervals fixed by the serie of numbers generated by the PRNG. - when the numbers generated by the prng are exausted, re-use part of the output stream as a random source of numbers for the sampling interval. - keep doing this up until: 1) you are fed up of looking at RND numbers on your screen 2) you have no use for rnd numbers anymore 3) your hard disk is full 4) your computer cpu is so mixed up that it starts outputting all your PGP encrypted files in Serbo-Croatian cleartext 5) any other reasons deemed reasonable by the computer operator 6) none of the above Whaddyathink of it? Regards to almost all Cyphering Punksters JFA Please note, my new key signature is: 2048 bits key Id: C58ADD0D 1996/03/01 Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon(a)citenet.net> fingerprint = 52 96 45 E8 20 5A 8A 5E F8 7C C8 6F AE FE F8 91 But I'll still use my old key for signing for a while. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i iQCVAwUBMTi0fwOWptJXIUrtAQE2DgP/S8VRX3PbrKHMKl6JJrFvZgZhdhzOk8Am 8qLJzvwjGZ7ll1gZTYT5iLfAEw+03wpy0eS/ohYdlgQ0Xu9AI418uLP6dReQbsjg ndz9/LIaQeOmrZgL1BlAtk9119QmtCdzx59gwwngz1qNYUZNhJ4l10UGz2EWksXI 51Lve+FjKE0= =zdM0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- **** OLD KEY: USE ONLY FOR VERIFYING SIGNATURES **** 1024 bits Key ID:57214AED 1995/10/04 Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon(a)citenet.net> 84 96 76 AE EB 7C AB 15 88 47 87 B0 18 31 74 9F

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PGP PRNG seeds?
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi! I tinkered with the switch pgp +makerandom=size output.fil Is there a way to "seed" the PRNG with another file, say , part of an encrypted text file? Thanks JFA

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Re: RNG method
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Jean-Francois Avon (JFA Technologies, QC, Canada) wrote: > > I thought of that for a long time. > > - Use a microphone on your sound card and locate it close to the > computer fan. It's been thought of before, along with scraping the microphone against the desk. I've been told this works best when first turning the gain up on the soundcard and setting it for stereo input. The raw data and be processed cryptographically (with a cipher or run through a hash). This method will be an option for the NOISE.SYS driver eventually. - --Rob PS - noise049.zip has been uploaded to a few sites today. When I get confirmation I'll announce it... - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMTke4SoZzwIn1bdtAQHQ3wF9GsZjk+jbtWrap8sKcSXDQ3n8GVksofBX CaVPqXKiE7CxB41hbo2ftSFqQ+P3XhFX =gdTO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: RNG method (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 23:24:04 -0500 > Subject: Re: RNG method > > > > - Use a microphone on your sound card and locate it close to the > > computer fan. > > It's been thought of before, along with scraping the microphone against > the desk. I've been told this works best when first turning the gain up > on the soundcard and setting it for stereo input. > If you use the fan remember in your power supply remember that many of them run directly off the 120 VAC. As a consequence the sound it makes will have a strong 60Hz componant. If you are using a DC bearing fan then there will be a componant in the noise related to the number of balls in the bearing. DC bearingless fans should provide the best white noise provided the bushings are not worn. Once they wear you will be a harmonic related to shaft diameter, shaft length, and the gap between main shaft and bushing.

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Jefferson Wheels?
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone know where I might buy a Jefferson Wheel cipher? The army version (M-118?) would be fine. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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Re: M A F_i o s
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Bill Stewart wrote: [..] > The title does remind me somewhat of > "Buckaroo Banzai against the World Crime League".... Hm. Remember the scene where one of his buddies in the film could just decode some military crypto just by staring at it... *sigh* Back to the regularly scheduled noise. - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMTkIRCoZzwIn1bdtAQFvxAGAyVKXhD4fV6CE0ivluAJTLrAmbimmrzo3 v0MDgt0SYpt29XcV77uiaRMIXSkqtx+o =wlQb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Problems with certificates.
by Greg Rose 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Apologies if this appears twice -- I had a posting problem.] A. Padgett Peterson wrote: Next rage might well be "vanity" PGP keys. While at the moment it is not known how to create a specific match key to a sequence, if you generate enough keys, there will be some interesting sequences found. Possibly some PGP signatures will even be in violation of the CDA (now that should start a rush 8*). That's not quite correct. The part about it not being known, I mean. I created a key: Type bits/keyID Date User ID sec 1024/DEADBEEF 1995/09/28 Prime Rib Lovers sig DEADBEEF Prime Rib Lovers (note: DEADBEEF seems about the most interesting 8-character hex word -- CAFE doesn't seem to go with anything...) And Christopher Drake (http://pobox.com/~netsafe) has mailed out a key which has a company advertisement in its ASCII armor. Hmmm. I thought I kept it around, but I can't find it. Ahhh. There it is. -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.i mQCNAjD/mQAAAAEEAP/////NetSafe+PGP+key////We+provide+inexpensive AntiFraud/theft+etc+Security+Software5tGfKREuINIWsQqsLNS+uAneN9M SuMu37f+NU/U2djtxE/b9h4bJ4wb8h3QkBiuTAS1QjpxpxryQzZ10zzGQe8VAAUR tChDaHJpc3RvcGhlciBOLiBEcmFrZSA8TmV0U2FmZUBQb2JveC5jb20+ =SGC/ -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Type bits/keyID Date User ID pub 1024/C641EF15 1996/01/19 Christopher N. Drake <NetSafe(a)Pobox.com> I still assert there are a bunch of attacks related to producing on-demand keyid's. Greg. Greg Rose INTERNET: greg_rose(a)sydney.sterling.com Sterling Software VOICE: +61-2-9975 4777 FAX: +61-2-9975 2921 28 Rodborough Rd. http://www.sydney.sterling.com:8080/~ggr/ French's Forest 35 0A 79 7D 5E 21 8D 47 E3 53 75 66 AC FB D9 45 NSW 2086 Australia. co-mod sci.crypt.research, USENIX Director.

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