December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: FV's blatant double standards
by John Pettitt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:39 PM 2/5/96 -0500, Simson L. Garfinkel wrote: >Yes, clearly if you are not concerned about missing 50-75% of First Virtual's >users, this attack will work just fine. >-simson > > Who cares - if 25 to 50% of a systems users are vulnderable doesn't that make it weak ? John Pettitt, jpp(a)software.net VP Engineering, CyberSource Corporation, 415 473 3065 "Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it." - Max Frisch

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[NOISE] just a few bits shy of a soul...
by Dave Del Torto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

While chatting with a friend recently over brown rice in Boulder CO, he said something that I found raw-ther amusin'. Thought I'd share it. We'd been discussing bit-sizes of keys vs fifth-generation NSA cryptanalytical systems, etc and he said: "Wow, it's amazing how much [NSA] computing power is placed in service of [such a] '1-bit' consciousness." Heh... dave

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Re: CONTEST: Name That Program!
by Dave Del Torto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:10 AM 1/31/96, Bill Stewart wrote: >At 11:45 AM 1/30/96 -0500, Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb(a)nsb.fv.com> wrote: >> In fact, I'd settle for getting onto 10% of the machines, although I >> suspect I could get onto more like 80% without raising a sweat. If I were you, Nathaniel, I'd drop that petard of yours on the ground, grab a very absorbent hankie and run like hell. ;) >You've alleged that Macs and Unixen should be about as easy as Windows >machines to crack with your CardShark. I disagree - most Mac users I >know have been using virus protectors more consistently and reliably >than DOS/Windows users. However, if their virus software only stops >known viruses, rather than anything modifying critical resources, >you might get away with it for long enough to surf some numbers. [elided] Actually, for those who don't know, one of the most ubiquitous anti-viral utilities for Macs (Symantec Antivirus for Macintosh, aka "SAM") also offers a mode that constantly watches for any generic attempt to modify crucial file/app/system resources -- and offers the opportunity to deny such attempts. Thus, it doesn't _only_ offer protection against "known" attacks. It even specifies which application/virus is trying to modify which file, allows the user to teach it that certain mods are verboten and halts activity until the user decides how to proceed. This makes it all but impossible (if a Mac is so-protected) to even introduce a trojan-keystroke-sniffing-credit-card-transmitter, much less use it to take over the TCP stack (MacTCP) without the user's knowledge. As for FV's recent "discovery:" [a] I'm glad if FV _really_ wants to educate the public, but I hope they find a better way next time than a "hey, we found this really simple way to hack the universe, but we're not telling all you 13-year-old juvenile delinquent hacker-wannabes" broadcast (talk about yer invitations!), [b] confused why NB didn't anticipate the fuss and prepend a short disclaimer onto his posting of it to cpunx (how about _thrice_ burnt, Nathaniel?), [c] unimpressed by all the vitriol it stirred up and the glee exhibited by everyone in slamming Nathaniel and Co. (lighten up, even if it was deserved) and [d] bummed that no-one remembered my keycapture utility survey of nearly a year and a half ago...as in "gee, I wish _I'd_ thoughta that." ;) Frankly, I wonder if, in the long run, FV's stunt hasn't wrought more harm than good: I got a late-night call from a worried but clueless friend asking me to clarify this "credit card sniffer thing" he'd heard about from someone else: he was all worried that there was an invisible virus on his machine. >sigh< It's seems the brush has been set afire: now which way will the winds blow? Cheers, dave ____________________________________________________________________________ "With annual interest, compounded every nanosecond, that'll be $0.02000018."

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Disperse/Collect version 1.0
by Wei Dai 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To follow up on a post last year where I suggested that Rabin's information dispersal scheme might be useful for sending large files across unreliable remailer networks, I built a shareware package called Disperse/Collect out of my own Crypto++ library. Disperse splits up files into redundant pieces and encodes them in base 64. Collect decodes them and reconstructs the original files. You can download this software from my home page at http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai. Wei Dai

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Mike Godwin at HotWired
by Jon Lebkowsky 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

PLEASE RECIRCULATE! Mike Godwin, staff counsel for EFF and eloquent supporter of civil liberties online and off, will be our guest at HotWired's Electronic Frontiers Forum this Thursday, February 8, at 7PM PST, 9PM CST, 10PM EST. Coincidentally, President Clinton is scheduled to sign the Telecom Bill the same day, and the '48 Hours of Protest' demonstration will begin when the bill is signed. We encourage online activists to participate in the ongoing EF Forums as a chat space wherein we can discuss new developments and issues of organization in support of a free and open Internet. A login is required but the account is free. We're at http://www.hotwired.com/club or telnet://chat.wired.com:2428. thanks, Jon L. http://www.hotwired.com/eff -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Jon Lebkowsky <jonl(a)well.com> http://www.well.com/~jonl Electronic Frontiers Forum, 7PM PST Thursdays <http://www.hotwired.com/club> Vice President, EFF-Austin <http://www.io.com/~efaustin> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

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Re: Arthur C. Clarke Supports Strong Crypto
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 21:06 2/4/96, jim bell wrote: >At 08:05 PM 2/4/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >> >>(Pardon me for mentioning crypto...) >> >>Arthur C. Clarke, known to most of you (author of many SF works, coiner of >>the phrase: "all sufficiently advanced technlogies are indistinguishable >>from magic," mention by Alan Olsen yesterday), has a role in a "Discovery >>Channel" program called "Mysterious Universe." > >Actually, it was _I_ who mentioned this quote, but didn't specifically >recall whom to ascribe it to. It is known (at least among Science Fiction Fans) as "Clarke's Law" and I seem to remember it more accurately phrased as "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic". It is similar to suggesting that "Magic is any Technology that you do not understand".

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Re: re Telecoms Bill
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- mianigand(a)unique.outlook.net ("Michael Peponis") wrote: >I think the first problem would be how to hide a sites true location. >For example, if I have a domain called xxx.offensivestuff.org, how would >I hide the sight so that while it is freely accessable to those who are >looking for it, yet not allow a goverment agency to home in on the >geographical locations via trace route. That's a problem... data havens come to mind, but that's another issue. Keeping the data in a domain/country where it is not restricted, or where laws are very laxly enforced is one start... then the issue is using crypto so that one can get the material from a country that restricts it. [Off topic... DC Nets/Anonymous or encrypted IRC comes to mind too...] [..] >Of course, this approch would result in a slower connection and more >packet hops. A price for maintaining security and anonyimity... [..] >:On the non-net side of things, implementing encrypted >:BBS/communications and file-transfers is useful. I'm told PGP-Phone [..] > >I like this idea, but I am not sure how the laws work. For example if a >BBS had subscribers sign a voucher stating that they were not agent of a >goverment agency, would it hold up? would lying constitue entapment? It wouldn't work, and would make them more interested in the material that BBS has. Any what about DMV/DOT employees, clerks, firemen, hospital employees, etc., who are non-enforcement people? Encryption would restrict wiretapping. If users send private encrypted email to each other (Isn't there a PBBS program that allows users to PGP-encrypt private mail to each other...?) that's another layer of security. Keeping the BBS on an encrypted partition also helps. BBS's aren't as prone to snooping as networks are, but then again, why should government employees be the only type of snooper? The comm program could also implement a kind of zero-knowledge proof or digital sig rather than the standard login, making the BBS secure against someone hacking an account. - --Rob Just some suggestions to dilute the noise ratio... - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMRcvjyoZzwIn1bdtAQGl2gF+INNeeX6GH9oX/8KSB0NPIi2ifzDuBVSu d2fwPoAmiJ3ds7mzBPCn3msATxaCROFd =kPGx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Report available: "Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric Ciphers"
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At the request of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an ad hoc panel of seven cryptologists and computer scientists met last November to address the question of the minimum key length required to provide adequate security against exhaustive search in commercial applications of symmetric cryptosystems. We have just completed our report. We adopted a simple, and somewhat conservative, methodology in an effort to gain a realistic understanding of what size keys might actually be vulnerable in practice. It is common in analysis of key length to give all benefit of the doubt to the capabilities of the potential attacker and to make very generous assumptions about the technology and resources that might be available to mount an attack. In our analysis, however, we assumed that the attacker would employ only conventional, commercially-mature technologies and would be limited by budget and time constraints. We used several different technologies to design attack strategies that accommodate the budgets of various hypothetical attackers, from individual ``hackers'' to well-funded enterprises. Our conclusions, therefore, represent an approximation of an ``upper bound'' on the strength of various size keys; I believe more efficient attacks than those we considered might also be possible and should be taken into account by the prudent cryptosystem designer. The abstract of the report follows below. A PostScript copy of the full text of the report is available in ftp://ftp.research.att.com/dist/mab/keylength.ps An ASCII version is available in ftp://ftp.research.att.com/dist/mab/keylength.txt (The report will also likely appear on the BSA's web site shortly). -matt (speaking only for himself) ======================================================================= Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric Ciphers to Provide Adequate Commercial Security A Report by an Ad Hoc Group of Cryptographers and Computer Scientists Matt Blaze (1) Whitfield Diffie (2) Ronald L. Rivest (3) Bruce Schneier (4) Tsutomu Shimomura (5) Eric Thompson (6) Michael Wiener (7) January 1996 ABSTRACT Encryption plays an essential role in protecting the privacy of electronic information against threats from a variety of potential attackers. In so doing, modern cryptography employs a combination of _conventional_ or _symmetric_ cryptographic systems for encrypting data and _public key_ or _asymmetric_ systems for managing the _keys_ used by the symmetric systems. Assessing the strength required of the symmetric cryptographic systems is therefore an essential step in employing cryptography for computer and communication security. Technology readily available today (late 1995) makes _brute-force_ attacks against cryptographic systems considered adequate for the past several years both fast and cheap. General purpose computers can be used, but a much more efficient approach is to employ commercially available _Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)_ technology. For attackers prepared to make a higher initial investment, custom-made, special-purpose chips make such calculations much faster and significantly lower the amortized cost per solution. As a result, cryptosystems with 40-bit keys offer virtually no protection at this point against brute-force attacks. Even the U.S. Data Encryption Standard with 56-bit keys is increasingly inadequate. As cryptosystems often succumb to `smarter' attacks than brute-force key search, it is also important to remember that the keylengths discussed here are the minimum needed for security against the computational threats considered. Fortunately, the cost of very strong encryption is not significantly greater than that of weak encryption. Therefore, to provide adequate protection against the most serious threats --- well-funded commercial enterprises or government intelligence agencies --- keys used to protect data today should be at least 75 bits long. To protect information adequately for the next 20 years in the face of expected advances in computing power, keys in newly-deployed systems should be at least 90 bits long. ----------------------------------------- 1. AT&T Research, mab(a)research.att.com 2. Sun Microsystems, diffie(a)eng.sun.com 3. MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, rivest(a)lcs.mit.edu 4. Counterpane Systems, schneier(a)counterpane.com 5. San Diego Supercomputer Center, tsutomu(a)sdsc.edu 6. Access Data, Inc., eric(a)accessdata.com 7. Bell Northern Research, wiener(a)bnr.ca

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Likely application for high-bandwidth proxies (fwd)
by lmccarth＠cs.umass.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It would appear that a potentially very popular application for high- bandwidth anonymizing proxies has arrived: Forwarded message from list-managers-digest: > From: Project Genesis <genesis(a)j51.com> > Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 02:42:13 -0500 > Subject: Speaking of spams... > > Did I mention that Project Genesis is an organization specializing in > religious education? The message below explains why all of our public lists > are moderated. I value privacy and have grave doubts about things like the > Exon amendment (which may make Internet providers liable), but I also think > that we need to ensure that the Internet not become one big red-light > district. Spams like this are a step in the wrong direction. It hit several > of our religion-oriented lists. > > Ken > > >Sender: kristina(a)free.org [User Unknown - I told her to go away.] > >Subject: LIVE NUDE VIDEOCONFERENCING! > > > >Hi, > >My name is Kristina. I'm a nude model and I'd > >love to take my clothes off and entertain you. > >You can watch me live and in color on your > >computer. We can type back and forth and I'll > >be happy to perform your erotic fantasy. If > >this sounds like fun, visit the website and > >download the software. The address is > >http://www.[I don't plan to help them].com or you can get the > >software from the BBS at 815-[ditto]. I'll > >turn the camera on in my studio and wait to > >hear from you. I think you'll like what I have > >to show you. This isn't a movie...you make a > >request and I'll probably fulfill it for you. > >Look for my picture on the Website. Hope to > >see you soon! > > > >Love, > >Kristina

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Re: Jim Bell - Murderous Terrorist
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- [while I am replying to this anonymous, flaming message from what MAY be a stable nym, I specifically request a consensus opinion on whether I should continue to comment in this way. Some people say that a discussion of my "Assassination Politics" idea (containing, as it does, issues of good encryption and digital cash implemented with good encryption and blinding) is "on-topic" here, but on the other hand it does seem to bring out the flamers among us. I would be happy to go either way: To continue to respond to what is obviously a strenuous debate, or to ignore the issue here, in this area, and to direct the debate to another.] At 07:06 PM 2/4/96 -0800, jdoe-0007(a)alpha.c2.org wrote: >Dr. Vulis writes: > >AO> Alan Olsen <alano(a)teleport.com> writes: > >AO> I consider Mr. Bell to be a crank and a loon. > >DV> You're certainly entitled to your opinion. You might be interested to know that >DV> I consider Jim Bell to be highly intelligent, knowledgeable, and overall nice >DV> person. I'm particularly impressed by his calm and restrained response to your >DV> provocations. I've also formed a rather negative opinion of you, based on your >DV> actions in this incident. > >Jim Bell has advocated nothing less than paid death squads No, I haven't. The term "squad" implies more than one person. In practice, I think those people who are motivated to collect the anonymous awards will be individually self-selected people, and will not come in the form of "squads." If anything, the use of a "squad" defeats the entire purpose of the anonymity provided by my idea: Quite literally, nobody in the world except the killer himself needs to know who he is. >using crypto as a >means to hide payment to these murderous terrorists. <sigh!> Aside from the fact that the difference between "terrorists" and "freedom fighters" is primarily a matter of point of view, in effect you are merely objecting to people being able to defend themselves anonymously, by proxy as it were. > If you can find a conspirator >of murder as " highly intelligent, knowledgeable, and overall nice person" then >you also are in need of immediate mental health intervention. As my essay makes clear, the whole purpose of the system is to KEEP most people from being "conspirators of murder" by the legal definition. You may disapprove of people being able to defend themselves from government abuse, but I actually encourage it. >Should the mainstream media ever get wind of Bell's lunacy it will be one more >nail in the crypto-coffin spurring the Feds and international anti-crypto efforts to >a frenzy. As you know well, my current opinion is that the theory is tantamount to being inevitable. If anybody is worked up into a "frenzy," it'll be because they are afraid I might actually be correct. Anyone who is really convinced I am wrong will be quite calm, because they "know" nothing will come of my idea. > Bell is either a total fucking lunatic of the extreme right wing For the record, I was a minarchist libertarian for about 19 years, until about a year ago when I realized that pure anarchy (with protection for rights) could actually be made stable. I have as little sympathy for the "extreme right wing" as I do the "extreme left wing." And as I'm happy to point out, I upset both of their "apple carts" just as effectively, so both categories have "good" reason to hate me. >(having >read his suck ups posts supporting General Linda Thompson) This is an extremely odd assertion. While I have certainly heard of Linda Thompson (the highly controversial Indiana lawyer) I don't recall having written much about her, and certainly not on the Internet and certainly not within the last year or so. I don't think I've ever "defended" her, although I have occasionally criticized a few of her critics as buffoons. Because they WERE buffoons! (This does not automatically make Linda Thompson look any better, however. In fact, the only communication I've ever seen from her on the subject of "Assassination Politics" was actually critical. I responded, correcting some false conclusions of hers, and I never heard anything more from her. Even so, I challenge this guy to show (or even describe the "where and when" of these "suck up posts." > or an agent provocateur for the Feds. This is rich! I've proposed a system which may spell inevitable doom for the Feds no matter what they do, no matter what they try, and this guy tries to claim that I'm an "agent provocateur" for them! In past posts I've mentioned that I carefully considered the question of whether or not my posting would help or hinder the adoption of the "Assassination Politics" idea, and I came to the conclusion that the worst situation would be if the government could keep its ultimate weaknesses disguised for a few more years. That's why I published when I did. The first person to think of an "Assassination Politics" idea was probably some well-paid apparatchik in the NSA, who (quite opposite of my position) was terrified that it might come true. > One is as bad as the other. To quote your own >words to Mr. Olsen; " I've also formed a rather negative opinion of you, based >on your actions in this incident." > >AO> He has no interest in any sort of honest discussion. > >DV> Honest or dishonest, the discussion of Jim's political views has nothing >DV> to do with encryption. > >His plans for death squads success DEPENDS on the anonymity provided by >CRYPTO! Some anti-gunners argue that the public shouldn't be allowed to own guns because they might do something wrong with them. They are fools. If anti-crypto people take the same position with respect to crypto, they are even WORSE fools. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com Klaatu Burada Nikto "Something is going to happen. Something... Wonderful!" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMRbXR/qHVDBboB2dAQFdEgQApk8IhefbWiA9+Ae6ypaHWA6216yTZvYJ Jox1G/fpdToYeQpfQF6ARCl1dAmLjq7qSe5chJo4IF8W7sMbtSiOKMCNY8xIG6IL cS3XTRXELyNX8YEsHy7A8bYyaKe0J2X4M1MEcmWqVjt4HiaQ4dConh0pm7zc/5wy hXTDsvIEaQc= =D087 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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