December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [NOISE] Toast Fishing in America
by wulf＠horvendile.getty.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 17 Apr 1996, David K. Merriman wrote: > If Microsoft made toasters... > They'd put the slots on the side, the actuator on top, make the > cord too short, and design it to only run properly on 177V, 41Hz. Then > they'd declare the toaster to be the new industry standard. and the toasters would download your toasting habits and preferences to Microsoft HQ... --Wulf

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Announce: new Microsoft CryptoAPI mailing list
by Microsoft Internet Announcements 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CryptoAPI on listadmin(a)lists.msn.com CryptoAPI is a mailing list (discussion list) for Microsoft Cryptographic API (CryptoAPI), which provides services that enable application developers to add cryptography to their Win32 applications. For more information about CryptoAPI, see <http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/>. You can subscribe to the regular mailing list or a digest version. To subscribe, send e-mail to listAdmin(a)lists.msn.com with the following text in the message body (not subject line): subscribe CryptoAPI your(a)email.address or digest CryptoAPI your(a)email.address where <your(a)mail.address is your actual e-mail address. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to listAdmin(a)lists.msn.com with the following text in the message body (not subject line): unsubscribe CryptoAPI your(a)email.address To send a message to the subscribers of the list, send e-mail to CryptoAPI(a)lists.msn.com.

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Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: daw(a)cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner) > My entropy cruncher takes in random noise from a number of diverse > sources (some possibly of dubious quality). I take *all* the noise > and run it through a hash function to distill entropy. > > Now I need to have some method to estimate when I have enough entropy > in the random noise I'm crunching. First rule: be conservative. > One can never have too much entropy in the input to the hash function. > > Therefore, I suggest making a *copy* of the input noise stream, > running it through Jon Wienke's "this shouldn't happen" filter, and > feeding the result to some entropy estimator. When the entropy > estimator says "I've got 1000 bits of entropy", I stop crunching. > > This is conservative design, folks. Using Wienke's filter in this manner > can't be any weaker than not using it at all. (agreed?) I see two problems with this. The first is whether this mysterious black box, the entropy estimator, is really possible. In practice the only way to know how much entropy you've gotten is to have a model for how the data is being generated, and to deduce from that an estimate of the entropy rate. So the entropy estimator can't be a general-purpose calcluation, but it must be one which is specifically chosen, developed and tuned for the specific source of entropy you are dealing with. Given this, what is the point of filtering? You already have a model. If you want to be conservative, why not just take 50% more bits than your model says you needed? The other problem is the functioning of this filter. I haven't followed Jon's proposals closely, but at one point he was talking about histogramming the input and throwing out data which he had seen too often. Now this is an implicit model as well - it assumes that the data is supposed to be uniformly distributed on a per-byte (or whatever the data elements are) basis. Suppose your random noise from dubious sources includes some timing values which vary in the range 90-110, roughly normally distributed. You have good reason to believe that it actually is a normal distribution, and that there are 2 or 3 good bits of entropy per sample. If you didn't use Jon's filter you could just collect data, hash it, and figure that each datum gave you this much entropy. But now if you throw Jon's filter in there, it may start throwing out all the values in the range 90-110. Where are the 0-80's?, it wonders. Where are the 120's and up? There are way too many 100's here! If the filter isn't smart about the data like your model is, it could end up throwing the whole data set out. Your entropy counter would be spinning its wheels waiting for more data, and you'd think you never got enough. So I think the lesson is that there is only one way to estimate entropy, and that is to study your source. I have to agree with Perry that this filtering concept is not the way to go. It is a red herring that lures you in the direction of automatic entropy estimation, and that is really not safe. Hal Finney

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(Fwd) Re: GPS-based authentication (response)
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As many of you will remember, I wrote last week to Dorothy Denning and Peter McDoran, describing some of the reservations expressed on the cpunk list concerning their 'cyberlocator' scheme. They've both responded, but not in a terribly helpful form. Denning wrote back quickly to say that she was going out of town, and that her colleague would respond. MacDoran took 6 days to reply, and then only to say that if my employer entered into a non-disclosure agreement with ISR Inc, then all my concerns "would be addressed". I wrote back to MacDoran, suggesting that open disclosure of their techniques would build confidence in their product, and requesting permission to repost his letter to the cpunk list. He has not responded after 24 hours. Peter Trei ptrei(a)acm.org Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation http://www.process.com trei(a)process.com

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Re: (Fwd) RE: Noise Sphere in Java
by Andrew Loewenstern 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Deranged Mutant writes: > Noise spheres will show certain correlations in the data. It > doesn't mean that the RNG is crypto-usable if it looks good. > But if it looks bad then you know to be suspicious.... "Statistical tests cannot find good (P)RNG's, only bad ones." This has been said before in various ways on the list, but it is worth repeating... andrew

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RE: math patents
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:54 PM 4/18/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:

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FW: EARN $350 PER DAY!!!
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Announce: new Microsoft CryptoAPI mailing list (fwd)
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You read it here first. Or is this not really new? I'm approving three or four more MS announcements to comp.os.ms-windows.announce now. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 16:15:06 -0700 From: Microsoft Internet Announcements <inetannc(a)microsoft.com> To: "'Comp.os.ms-windows.announce Moderator'" <win-announce(a)metrics.com> Cc: Microsoft Internet Announcements <inetannc(a)microsoft.com> Subject: Announce: new Microsoft CryptoAPI mailing list CryptoAPI on listadmin(a)lists.msn.com CryptoAPI is a mailing list (discussion list) for Microsoft Cryptographic API (CryptoAPI), which provides services that enable application developers to add cryptography to their Win32 applications. For more information about CryptoAPI, see <http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/>. You can subscribe to the regular mailing list or a digest version. To subscribe, send e-mail to listAdmin(a)lists.msn.com with the following text in the message body (not subject line): subscribe CryptoAPI your(a)email.address or digest CryptoAPI your(a)email.address where <your(a)mail.address is your actual e-mail address. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to listAdmin(a)lists.msn.com with the following text in the message body (not subject line): unsubscribe CryptoAPI your(a)email.address To send a message to the subscribers of the list, send e-mail to CryptoAPI(a)lists.msn.com.

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Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by JonWienke＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-04-18 15:05:51 EDT, Perry Metzger writes: >Before making pronouncements like "You are still OK" you ought to >learn a bit more about cryptanalysis. Its tiny little statistical >toeholds like that which permit breaks. I don't know for sure, but my >intuition says that there may very well be instances in which a couple >of little nicks like that into the entropy of a key are sufficient to >radically lower the time to crack something. Since there are far >better techniques available (hash distillation, for instance) for >assuring the quality of a random stream, Jon's suggested techniques >should be regarded as unnecessary and dangerous. [Slightly ad hominem PSA deleted] 1. If "cooking" a byte sequence in a manner that reduces its maximum entropy by less than 1% allows an attacker to break your cryptosystem, then it is crap to begin with. With only a little more effort, he could break it anyway. 2. All I was trying to say was that applying cooking technique X to a byte sequence will reduce the maximum entropy of the sequence by a factor of Y; adjust entropy expectations accordingly. I said nothing about the origin of the byte sequence, the techniques used to generate it, or the exact method for "cooking" it. I did not recommend against using hash distillation, hardware RNG's, or any other commonly accepted method of generating cryptographically useful random or pseudo-random numbers. Jonathan Wienke

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Bernstein ruling meets the virus law
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It should be interesting to see what happens when the Bernstein ruling (assuming it is further upheld as the court case and appeals proceed) meets the proposed law making the writing of virus code a crime. If crypto software is essentially speech, albeit in a non-traditional human language, then virus software is no different. --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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