December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Mad_Software_Disease
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Path: newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news-e2a.gnn.com!pop.gnn.com!JDonth From: JDonth(a)gnn.com (Joseph L. Donth) Newsgroups: comp.sources.testers Subject: Beta Testers Wanted Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 13:09:55 Organization: InfoBook Technology Lines: 251 Message-ID: <4j9fer$sr1(a)news-e2c.gnn.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: www-31-240.gnn.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-GNN-NewsServer-Posting-Date: 26 Mar 1996 19:10:19 GMT X-Mailer: GNNmessenger 1.2 InfoBook Technology is looking for Beta Testers for our latest product called ONE-PHONE-CALL. This post is in four parts: 1) What does a Beta tester do? 2) How Do I Sign-up? 3) How do I get chosen? 4) The product description The product description is quite lengthy. Feel free to bail on it when you have decided to be a tester or have decided not to be one. Note: Since the program includes encryption software, we are restricting our testing (and possible distribution of the commercial release) to people living in the USA. I will restrain from comment on governments, export licenses, the NSA and the like. If you decide not to be a tester, would you drop me a post and tell me why? This is our second posting of this request - our goal is to have at least one hundred testers - so far we have less than two dozen. If you have any thoughts on where else I might post this beta test request and meet with a favorable response please let me know that as well. Thanks and without further delay... ****************************************************************************** ** What Does a Beta Tester Do? Although we will not ask you to sign any agreements, we do ask that you honor the following conditions of our Beta Test Program: 1. The software being tested is not for commercial use. If you use it in a commercial fashion, you do so at your own risk. The software may have 'bugs' in it. The purpose of the beta test program is to identify those problems. 2. Don't give copies of the software (except when authorized) to other people. If you know of someone that you think might be a good beta tester, let us know and we will look at adding him or her to the beta list. 3. Please let us know when you have problems with the software. Don't assume that someone else has reported it. A written response sent to JDONTH(a)GNN.COM, is the requested communication method. 4. We also ask for comments on the whole package you received from us. Did it create a good first impression? Was it complete? Is the User's Guide clear? What would you change? Why? ****************************************************************************** ** How Do I Sign up? Please reply by EMail (JDonth(a)gnn.com) with the following information: 1. Full Name 2. Surface mail and preferred email address 3. City, State and Zip code 4. Attention Line 5. Telephone number 6. An "I agree to the terms of the Beta Test Program" statement 7. Computer system information 8. Computer expertise (optional) 9. Experience as a Beta Tester (no previous experience is required) 10. Why you want to test this product ****************************************************************************** ** How Do I Get Chosen? We will be choosing testers on a first-come, first-serve basis. You are not guaranteed a position as a tester of ONE-PHONE-CALL. If you are chosen you will receive an email confirmation, followed by the software, sent via fist class mail. The software will be a 30+ day version with all features and capabilities. You will be sent an email questionnaire about 30 days after shipment of the software. Your reply to the questionnaire will insure you a FREE copy of the software after it is released into retail sales. If you are not chosen you will be notified by email. If you have any questions, please contact me at JDonth(a)gnn.com or Joseph L. Donth InfoBook Technology 7660 Reed Rd. Azle, Texas 76020 ****************************************************************************** ** What is ONE-PHONE-CALL? ONE-PHONE-CALL is a PC-based software product that enables you to transfer electronic information such as a program, a scanned fax, a word-processing document or a spreadsheet to someone, in a secure environment, with just one telephone call. It features a simple installation, user-friendly interface, mouse support, a menu system, and easy-to-remember commands. First, Some Background More and more of our correspondence is electronic in nature. We use word processors to compose letters and reports. We use spreadsheets to do budgets and financial analysis and we use accounting programs to keep track of everything from the corporate books to our personal checking accounts. The power of these software tools is easily appreciated and the trend is to use our computers in meeting more and more of our daily needs. What is lacking, however, is a simple, easy-to-use method of sharing our electronic information with each other. Using the facilities of fax, EMail or floppy disks has problems. A fax can only transmit printed information, EMail is difficult to use and can be expensive, and mailing floppy disks is very slow. Also, none of these methods is very secure. The wrong people can read a fax, open business mail, or gain access to voice-mail or EMail accounts. Now with your modem equipped computer and ONE-PHONE-CALL you can addresses all of these issues. Let's illustrate with three examples: The first example demonstrates the simplest issue: sharing electronic information with someone else. You are working on a report at home and need to confer with a co-worker in the office. You place a telephone call to your co-worker and discuss the report. You decide he needs to see a copy of the report. Without ONE-PHONE-CALL it might go like this: To fax a copy of the report you might: ... Print out the report on your printer ... Dial his fax number ... Fax the report ... Call him back to tell him the fax has been sent ... Wait for him to get the fax and call you back! The result - at least three phone calls and who knows how much time wasted in printing, faxing, perhaps getting busy signals and so on. Or perhaps you decide to send him an electronic version of the report, via his EMail account. You might: ... Format the document properly for the EMail service to accept ... Dial the EMail service, connect, log-in, and all the rest ... Transmit the report ... Call him back to tell him the report is on the EMail service ... Your co-worker connects to the EMail service ... He downloads the report ... He calls you back. At least four phone calls! And who knows how much money and effort? Now with ONE-PHONE-CALL, you can accomplish the same task with your original phone call. You and your co-worker can stay on the phone and transfer the information back and forth as many times as necessary, without having to make another phone call! A second example demonstrates a more complex problem. The ability to transfer information when you don't know exactly what information needs to be transferred. You have just received a copy of a great new shareware game from the XYZ Software Company. Your brother shares your liking for this company's software and you have exchanged previous shareware games with him. It's a great game and you're pretty sure he'll want a copy too. Without ONE-PHONE-CALL, you have two obvious choices. First, you could upload all the software to his EMail account (see above!) and maybe call him to tell him it's there, or you could copy the software to a floppy disk and mail it to him. If you go the EMail route, you're out the upload time and several dollars. (So is he, on the other end.) If you go with the Postal Service, you're out a buck or so for a floppy and some postage and the software gets there days later. With ONE-PHONE-CALL, it's as simple as calling him, finding out if he wants the software, and sending it right then and there! ONE-PHONE-CALL will even figure out what software he needs (perhaps several of the files are the same as in previous games) and will only send the new files that he doesn't have, and update any files that are out-of-date. We can extend this example to many specific problem areas: You own a software company that operates a customer service line for help with your products. If your customer needs an updated version of the software, you can upload the new software to him immediately, sending him only what he needs, during the one phone call the customer has made to your company. Result! a happy customer. A friend is having a problem with his computer. You suspect he may have a problem with one of his configuration files such as CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT or one of his Windows INI files. Without using the capabilities of ONE-PHONE-CALL he is either reading you the text of the file over the phone (yea, right!) or he is printing it out to fax it or mail it to you. You get the listing (maybe days from now) and find the problem. You need him to edit his CONFIG.SYS file to fix the problem. "How do I do that?" he asks. You get the idea. With ONE-PHONE-CALL, he simply sends you the files, you edit them on your computer, and send them back, he reboots, and the problem is solved. All with ONE-PHONE-CALL. Our final example highlights the security aspects of electronic information transfer. Have you ever sent a fax and wondered if it went to the wrong machine? Did you dial that number correctly? Or did you wonder if it was "eaten" by the machine? or was read by the wrong people? or fell into the "black hole" of cyberspace? Have you ever wanted to send some confidential information but didn't "quite trust" your on-line service? Have you ever wanted to make sure the right person and ONLY that person sees your communication? Without ONE-PHONE-CALL, the electronic exchange of confidential information can be very difficult. With ONE-PHONE-CALL, your life just got much easier. Here's a hyperbolic example but it makes the point: You have been away at your summer retreat working on the company annual report and budget. It is FULL of confidential information. You need to send it to your CFO back at the office for review and the insertion of some background information that he has in his computer. How do you get it to him? With ONE-PHONE-CALL, you call his office, get him on the phone, and send the document! You KNOW you dialed the right number. You KNOW you have the right person on the line. And by using the encryption feature of the software, you can even deter access to your information in the event of a wiretap. How do you do that without ONE-PHONE-CALL? Minimum System Requirements ONE-PHONE-CALL runs under Windows 95, Windows 3.1 or MS-DOS. System Requirements: For operation under Windows 3.1 or higher: IBM-compatible PC (386 or higher) 4 mb of RAM memory, 8 mb recommended Mouse Hard drive with at least 1 MB of free space 1200, 2400, 9600, 14.4K, 28.8K modem For operation under MS-DOS 3.11 or higher IBM-compatible PC (8088 or higher, 80286 or higher recommended) 640 kb of RAM memory Mouse recommended Hard drive with at least 1 MB of free space 1200, 2400, 9600, 14.4K, 28.8K modem Best Regards, Joe JDonth(a)gnn.com

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Re[2]: Crypto CD UpDate
by Adam Pingitore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Um, why am I getting mail from you people.

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CDT Policy Post 2.12 - Sen. Burns Announces New Bill To Lift Crypto ExportControls
by editor＠cdt.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- _____ _____ _______ / ____| __ \__ __| ____ ___ ____ __ | | | | | | | | / __ \____ / (_)______ __ / __ \____ _____/ /_ | | | | | | | | / /_/ / __ \/ / / ___/ / / / / /_/ / __ \/ ___/ __/ | |____| |__| | | | / ____/ /_/ / / / /__/ /_/ / / ____/ /_/ (__ ) /_ \_____|_____/ |_| /_/ \____/_/_/\___/\__, / /_/ \____/____/\__/ The Center for Democracy and Technology /____/ Volume 2, Number 12 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A briefing on public policy issues affecting civil liberties online ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CDT POLICY POST Volume 2, Number 12 March 28, 1996 CONTENTS: (1) Sen. Burns Announces New Bill To Lift Crypto Export Controls (2) Subscription Information (3) About CDT, contacting us This document may be redistributed freely provided it remains in its entirety ** Excerpts may be re-posted by permission (editor(a)cdt.org) ** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) SENATOR BURNS ANNOUNCES BILL TO LIFT CRYPTO EXPORT CONTROLS The battle to roll back the Clinton Administration's encryption policy escalated on Thursday when Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) announced that he will introduce a new proposal to repeal restrictions on encryption exports and to encourage the growth of electronic commerce. Senator Burns announced the bill via a teleconference during a special session at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference in Boston, MA. The bill, titled the "Promoting Commerce On-Line in the Digital Age Act" (PROCODE), joins two recent bills introduced earlier this month (S. 1587 and HR 3011) designed to encourage the development of strong, easy-to-use privacy and security products for the Internet. The Burns bill is different from the other proposals in several respects. Specifically, the latest bill does not contain any new criminal provisions or provisions imposing liability on third party key holders. In his presentation today at CFP, Sen. Burns outlined his new bill. Among other things, the "Promoting Commerce On-Line in the Digital Age Act" would: * Allow for the unrestricted export of "mass-market" or "public-domain" encryption programs, including such products as Pretty Good Privacy and popular World Wide Web software. Encryption software and hardware for sale in local software stores or widely available on the Internet would all be exportable under the proposed Act. * Require the Secretary of Commerce to allow the unrestricted export of other encryption technologies if products of similar strength are generally available outside the United States. * Prohibit the Federal Government from imposing mandatory key-escrow encryption policies on the domestic market. * Limit the authority of the Secretary of Commerce to set standards for encryption products. CDT applauds this effort by Senator Burns to put strong privacy and security technologies in the hands of individuals and businesses. CDT is also pleased that the Senator chose the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference as a forum to announce this proposal. The choice of CFP demonstrates that the Internet community is becoming an increasingly important political constituency. CDT looks forward to working with Senator Burns and other members of Congress interested in policies which encourage the development and widespread use of strong privacy protecting technologies for the Global Information Infrastructure. FOR MORE INFORMATION For more information on the cryptography policy debate, including the text of Senator Burns' proposal when available, visit CDT's Cryptography Issues Web Page: http://www.cdt.org/crypto/ Contacts: Center for Democracy and Technology +1.202.637.9800 Daniel Weitzner, Deputy Director, <djw(a)cdt.org> Alan Davidson, Staff Counsel, <abd(a)cdt.org> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Be sure you are up to date on the latest public policy issues affecting civil liberties online and how they will affect you! Subscribe to the CDT Policy Post news distribution list. CDT Policy Posts, the regular news publication of the Center For Democracy and Technology, are received by more than 9,000 Internet users, industry leaders, policy makers and activists, and have become the leading source for information about critical free speech and privacy issues affecting the Internet and other interactive communications media. To subscribe to CDT's Policy Post list, send mail to policy-posts-request(a)cdt.org with a subject: subscribe policy-posts If you ever wish to remove yourself from the list, send mail to the above address with a subject of: unsubscribe policy-posts ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) ABOUT THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY/CONTACTING US The Center for Democracy and Technology is a non-profit public interest organization based in Washington, DC. The Center's mission is to develop and advocate public policies that advance democratic values and constitutional civil liberties in new computer and communications technologies. Contacting us: General information: info(a)cdt.org World Wide Web: URL:http://www.cdt.org/ FTP URL:ftp://ftp.cdt.org/pub/cdt/ Snail Mail: The Center for Democracy and Technology 1634 Eye Street NW * Suite 1100 * Washington, DC 20006 (v) +1.202.637.9800 * (f) +1.202.637.0968 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- End Policy Post 2.12 3/28/96 -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Crypto CD
by JR＠ns.cnb.uam.es 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:52 AM 3/24/96 -0500, Ben Holiday wrote: >I would plan to put unix/dos/mac all on one CD. I'm thinking that >realistically I can expect 50 megs or so. Possibly as much as 100 if I >find a TON of wonderful text. I burned one such CD this last fall. Oh, well, it wasn't for publishing, although I thought of that at the time. It was mainly to be able to move with me all my data when I switched positions. I included all the Cypherpunks archives, and several international FTP crypto sites in full (ya know, the italian, australian, english, pgp, etc... places). It was well over your "50 megs". And I would find that pretty more useful (if I hadn't it already). :-) Oh, I'm lying. I also did a "purged" version to remove duplicated packages first, when I didn't know if I would have enough sapce in the few CDs I had to burn in the few days I had left. I seem to remember that wasn't as big and maybe in the range that you mentioned. But it was compressed, and hence its usefulnes now is somewhat less since I have to expand everything if I want to get it. I was filling the CDs with other "important to me" stuff, and wanted to save space, but having the space available I don't see any reason not to expand the material. What I'd suggest is a compilation of all main archives, purged from duplications, rearranged rationally (I have it just in the original hierarchies) and all expanded for direct access. If you add to that executables for most packages compiled for a few popular platforms (Mac, PC, Linux and FreeBSD come to mind), I'd bet that you'd get a far greater amount of space. But that's a lot of additional work though. I know from experience. It might do for a very nice cypherpunk project. Although, there still remains the "trustfulness" of the product: how can the final user know that the sources, executables, key databases, etc... have not been tampered with? From the original archives one has the truth one poses on them, but from a copy, one needs to trust the copier. And if it became a multi-person project, all the people involved... But it's well worth a thought o two. If it helps you, my CDs are probing now invaluable to me. jr

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

os <os(a)cs.strath.ac.uk> writes: > >There is not a single foreign language I can think of it that would help me > >in my goals or help anyone I know. > > I have never known anyone being disadvantaged by knowing another language tha > tongue. Tim (and others) miss out the pleasure of using an exotic language in the presense of people who won't understand it. --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Crypto CD
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:53 PM 3/27/96 -0800, Matthew Ghio wrote: >alano(a)teleport.com (Alan Olsen) wrote: > >>It would be a nice thing to have if it is reletivly complete. Hopefully it >>can be created with a minimum of government interfearence. (But then, I >>have been xpecting alt.binaries.crypto to be created as well...) > >alt.binaries.warez.crypto has existed for a long time (at least on Netcom), >although I haven't seen any posts lately. I suspect many sites deliberately >exclude alt.binaries.warez.* to save disk space. I notice that Netcom takes *EVERYTHING*. (Including the incredibly bogus and silly groups.) Teleport has never, to my knowledge, taken that group. Teleport has since removed all of the remaining warez groups in an effort of moral excess. (After taking all of the groups in existance, including the forign ones that nobody on Teleport reads, and claiming they did not censor groups.) Personally I could care less about the warez groups (it is not as if you could ever find a complete program), but the crypto one would have been nice to see... --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon

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Re: Why Americans feel no compulsion to learn foreign languages
by mike＠fionn.lbl.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mar 27, 1:05pm, Rich Graves wrote: > Undeniably true. I think Tim's point was more, "Who cares? Everyone *I* > want to talk to speaks English." Maybe; & who someone talks to & how they do it is of no particular interest to me. However, he said something else: that foreign language speakers were unavailable to most Americans. This is easily shown to be false. That many other people in our English-speaking community also believe it is interesting. Often, they can provide counterexamples themselves without too much trouble (& you may recall that Tim May did). This says something about this culture. What, I don't know, but it's some kind of cognitive dissonance. It occurs to me that members of certain large language groups in the US, who don't speak English, sometimes make the same statement -- "Everyone I want to talk to speaks X". I don't know why this disclaimer is necessary, but please note that I don't think for a moment that you all are "bad" if your beliefs are in accord with what Tim May wrote. Nor do I think you should go out & learn some random language. > One may quibble with the wisdom or morality of such a statement, but if > the second statement is true in your case, then there is no reason you > should have to learn another language. Most upper-income Americans have no I'm not sure what the "second statement" is you're referring to. Anyway, there are a lot of reasons one might choose to study a foreign language, and many levels of fluency. There are many economic issues that could apply, & some non - economic arguments as well. There are very good reasons not to bother, as well.

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Re: National speed limits and expansion of federal power...
by Chevelle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

let me tell ya' I live in Central Texas and regularly use I-35, which was the primary highway considerd for the bill. The speed limits were raised to 75 mph at increments of every 4 to 5 miles. By that I mean the minute you pass the sign that says 75 with good eyes you can see the one up ahead that says 65 or 55 and you might even catch a glimpse of the state trooper parked beside it. I personally think its a joke and an inconvience, I was totally for the the bill as it was stated but this "red light, green light" game is very disapointing. Just goes to show the government still can't do anything right. Chevelle out.... At 06:52 PM 3/28/96 -0500, Deven T. Corzine wrote: >At 06:06 PM 3/27/96 -0500, Deven T. Corzine wrote: >>Actually, the national government didn't even *pretend* it had jurisdiction >>here. Instead, they used an indirect approach -- they passed laws which >>denied some of the existing highway funding to states with higher speed >>limits than 55 MPH. (Later this limit was raised to 65 MPH, given some >>additional restrictions such as proximity to population centers.) > >At 03:12 AM 3/28/96 -0500, Chevelle wrote: >>It was only months ago that they passed a bill raising alot of speed limits >>to the 75mph range. > >To be precise, Congress repealed the laws which had pressured states into the >55/65 MPH speed limits. Once this happened, a number of states either took >advantage of it immediately to raise speed limits, or are considering it... >Other states don't intend to raise the limits. In Montana, you can now drive >at *any* speed legally, in the daytime. So if you want to go 100 MPH, head to >Montana... :-) > >Deven > >

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here is an abstract of a report the German newsmagazine Focus published on March 11, 1996 (p. 16) - "Spaete Ermittlungen gegen Techno-Spione" (late/belated investigations against technology spies). I do not include a translation of the whole original text for copyright reasons. "Specialists of the German Federal Police Agency (BKA) have decrypted 44 floppy disks from the former [East German] Ministry for State Security" (MfS). A defector had handed over the floppies to the German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) in spring 1990. The disks contain information on East German spies in former West Germany. Judicial inquiries against 29 suspects have started now. Apparently, the BKA got the data no sooner than 1994. This is because the BND did not tell law authorities about the floppy disks. German federal DAs learned about the data in late summer 1994 by chance. The article does not say whether the defector came over with the keys. - Probably not, otherwise prosecution should have started much earlier. It is likely that the extremely paranoic MfS used a cipher and a key length it believed to be sufficiently strong. According to Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography East Germany was quite aware of DES, it even produced DES chips. Another possibly strong algorithm used in the former Soviet block is GOST (a block cipher derived from the concepts of DES, also described by Schneier). Let us assume BKA specialists have broken the code using a combination of cryptoanalysis, brute force and good luck. They are policemen, not espionage professionals. Further, the BKA is much smaller than the FBI. Imagine what code breaking capabilities a well-funded, big intelligence agency should have then!

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Re: DESCRIBE
by Herb Sutter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:27 03.26.1996 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >If you had an ounce of intelligence, of course, you would simply use >the automated unsubscription instructions you got when you >subscribed. Sadly for the rest of us, who will now have to deal with >your whining indefinately, intelligence is a commodity in precious >supply around this planet. The total intelligence on the planet is constant. The population is growing. --- Herb P. Sutter Current Network Technologies Corp. Senior Architect, Distributed Computing 2655 Benedet, Mississauga ON Canada Cell 416-618-0184 Tel 416-805-9088 Fax 905-855-7194

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