December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

PGP key spoofing
by christopher＠nescio.zerberus.de 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, everybody, (Please note that I sent this to several mailinglists at once. I am not subscribed to cypherpunks any longer, so I won't see any replies there.) I think I have realized a serious flaw in PGPs key-handling. This may lead to people using and signing bogus keys despite the usual security measures. The problem is that PGP fails to differentiate between two keys sharing the same 64-bit-Key-ID. It is not a real problem to generate a key with a given key-ID (just take a prime, invert the desired key-ID modulo this prime and look for another prime whose lower bits are the same as in the number you just calculated), so the following attack would be possible: - Get the real key you wish to mimic. - Generate a fake key with the correct IDs. - Send your bogus key to a person of which you know that - This person does not have the correct key yet. - This person is going to meet the correct key's owner. If the owner of the correct key does not give a fingerprint, but rather a disk with the correct key to the person you are trying to fool, his or her pgp won't ring alarm bells when reading the key (apart from possibly a failed signature), but rather will tell him the key is already there. He will then, most probably, sign the bogus key without any further thought. Therefore, you should *always* check the fingerprint, even if you got the real key, at least if it has no valid signature from its alleged owner. -- Christopher Creutzig # Im Samtfelde 19 # D-33098 Paderborn # V+49-5251-71873 # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Sammele Vorschläge zur Rettung vom Genitiv.

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Re: NT's C2 rating
by David Loysen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:54 PM 3/21/96 EST, you wrote: >> configuration can be certified as C2 compliant. The way I read the orange >> book, no system with a network connection can ever be C2. For that matter a >> system can't get C2 unless it is in an area where you can control and >> monitor physical access to the system. > >This is incorrect -- you can have a C2 system which has a network >connection. Indeed, you can get a B2 rating with a networked system, >c.f. Multics. > >-derek > > > Well, I never argue with anyone from MIT..... But. I don't see any reason a C2 or B2 system can't be networked to another system(s) with the same classification. But that isn't really what I meant. Can you make a firewall system that is C2 compliant? Isn't this what you would need in order to connect a C2 system or network to another non secure network, (i.e. the internet)? I do agree that there is no place in the orange book that says "thou shall not speak ethernet" but can you network a system and be able to "require that ADP systems that process, store, or use classified data and produce classified information will, with reasonable dependability, prevent delibrate or inadvertent access to classified material by unauthorized persons, and unauthorized manipulation of the computer and its associated peripheral devices." Which the orange book does say. I guess "reasonable dependability" is a pretty broad term. Pardon a newbie here if I am being unusally obtuse, but you can't learn if you don't ask. dwl(a)hnc.com David Loysen 619-546-8877 x245

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Re: Leahy bill nightmare scenario?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I believe the debate about the Leaky bill can essentially be summarized as: A. If the bill is interpreted in light of the Bill of Rights, et al, then we don't have anything to worry about, and it's a good bill. B. If it's not, then it's a bad bill. I would like to remind people that the US judicial system, while not as always mistaken as some believe, is not particularly noted for not making serious errors in this area. For instance, regarding the forfeiture scheme, quite a few competent lawyers have examined civil forfeiture - used for _any_ crime - and found it to be a violation of the Bill of Rights. Moreover, it is the contention of many lawyers - such as with the ACLU - that the whole ITAR scheme should have been thrown out long ago as unconstitutional. That it has not been so may be taken as an indication of how the _politically appointed_ judges on the Supreme Court, et al, are likely to make mistakes. I would also remind you of the ratings given by the American Bar Association to quite a few current judges on the Supreme Court, which may be taken as a reflection of their competency. -Allen

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C2 rating of NT
by Mark Aldrich 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 08:09:14 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Aldrich <maldrich(a)grctechs.va.grci.com> To: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: your mail On Wed, 20 Mar 1996 owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com wrote: <snip> > > Basically, I'm now questioning the C2 rating of Windows NT. The > entire security layer is modular to the Kernel. As a modular > driver, it can be removed, rewritten, and replaced. > > So, what makes it secure? What gives it the C2 Rating? How would > one go about getting a C2 rating? Politics make it C2. The DoD mandated, years ago, that all their OSs had to go to the C2 level of trust. Further, they had also mandated POSIX compliance in just about every procurement that they had to publish in CBD. Well, they then proceeded to ignore their own policy and they bought MS DOS all over the damn place because everyone wanted the stuff just like they have at home. You can't play DOOM on SCO UNIX, ya know... So, in order to not look like a bunch of incoherent IRM loosers, they effectively forced the C2 and POSIX compliance stickers onto Windows NT even though everyone (including some nameless NCSC personnel with whom I've spoken) clearly state that C2/POSIX and MS Windows NT is an oxymoron. Now everyone can claim to be running C2 and POSIX systems, even though, by admission of MS, you can't have NT configured for both at the same time. Duhhhhhh... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Liberty is truly dead |Mark Aldrich | | when the slaves are willing |GRCI INFOSEC Engineering | | to forge their own chains. |maldrich(a)grci.com | | STOP THE CDA NOW! |MAldrich(a)dockmaster.ncsc.mil | |_______________________________________________________________________| |The author is PGP Empowered. Public key at: finger maldrich(a)grci.com | | The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author | | and my employer gets no credit for them whatsoever. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: NT's C2 rating
by David Loysen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:53 AM 3/21/96 -0800, you wrote: >> Basically, I'm now questioning the C2 rating of Windows NT. The >> entire security layer is modular to the Kernel. As a modular >> driver, it can be removed, rewritten, and replaced. > >Good questioning. > >> So, what makes it secure? What gives it the C2 Rating? How would >> one go about getting a C2 rating? > >The fine print says its insecure as soon as its connected to a network. Ain't nothing fine about that print. An operating system or piece of hardware may be C2 certifiable. But only a complete system in a specific configuration can be certified as C2 compliant. The way I read the orange book, no system with a network connection can ever be C2. For that matter a system can't get C2 unless it is in an area where you can control and monitor physical access to the system. So if you can't hack it over the wire, and you can't remove, rewrite and replace the kernel because you can't get near the keyboard what's the problem? dwl(a)hnc.com David Loysen 619-546-8877 x245

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Re: NT's C2 rating
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:30 PM 3/21/96 -0800, David Loysen <dwl(a)hnc.com> wrote: >I don't see any reason a C2 or B2 system can't be networked to another >system(s) with the same classification. But that isn't really what I meant. >Can you make a firewall system that is C2 compliant? Isn't this what you >would need in order to connect a C2 system or network to another non secure >network, (i.e. the internet)? Leaving out Red Book details (since back when I last read the Red Book, nobody really had any general solutions to the problems), the problem is that the Orange Book demands that for C-level and above, the operating system must know the identity of all the users so it can track file, process, and authentication accesses, and for B1 and up, it also needs to know what users are allowed to use what security levels and what levels they're actually operating at. 1) It's difficult to do that - you have to trust the messages coming over a wire from the other machine to tell you who they're from, unless you can be sure there's only one user per wire. That means you need a mechanism for trusting the other machine, a mechanism for communicating that trust, a shared or mappable mechanism for identifying users, etc. That takes a certain amount of work even when you control all the machines that your machine can talk to, which you often can't (e.g. on an outer firewall.) 2) To _certify_ a system for general use (as opposed to certifying a specific instantiation of a system), you need to be sure that it will be installed and maintained in a way that will provide that identification and assurance. That's even harder, because you either need cryptographic authentication and session control, or else you need a way to guarantee that the system you're certifying only talk to machines that are administered in coordination with it, in spite of being installed by some Army grunt or military contractor who may RTFM but isn't a security wizard. And in the C2-certification biz, "cryptographic" means "something you got from the NSA", because they're the ones who do military crypto, and they tend not to trust software. Fortezza cards may do this stuff ok.... 3) The networking code becomes part of the Trusted Comptuting Base, which means you have to be able to verify that it can't mess with anything that you don't want it messing with, and if it supports more than one simultaneous user, it's got to be able to keep track of sessions and communicate them reliably to the OS and TCB. That works relatively well for serial-port user logins and maybe uucp. TCP/IP, on the other hand, is typically implemented down in the guts of the OS, partly because IP needs to talk to hardware a lot, partly because it's often easier to do the TCP and IP together, partly for "speed", and partly because it's much more efficient to hand stuff to multiple users from kernel space than to hand it up to a user-space application which then IPCs things back through the kernel to their destination user processes. It also tends to have various pieces running as root, either to access hardware or protected parts of the software, or to make it easier to transfer ownership of information to processes owned by different users. (Yes, this is a Unix-centric view, but other systems tend to do similar stuff.) This makes it difficult to verify that it's clean (hey, parts of it are tough enough to get working really well, much less bug-free), and it's even tougher at higher levels like B2 that want Least Privilege rather than having a SuperUser root that can do everything. Root stuff is just basically dangerous anyway. And B1-level OSs often run the TCB (including root) at System Low to make sure no regular user can mess with it, which makes it hard for root-owned processes to write up to users. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissible." - US government statement on China... "SigFiles of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist!"

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BOAF Sat April 6, Melbourne
by Julian Assange 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

____ _ _ _ / ___| _ _| |__ _ _ _ __| |__ (_) __ _ \___ \| | | | '_ \| | | | '__| '_ \| |/ _` | ___) | |_| | |_) | |_| | | | |_) | | (_| | |____/ \__,_|_.__/ \__,_|_| |_.__/|_|\__,_| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Birds of a feather ____ _ _ | _ \ __ _ _ __| |_ _ _| | | |_) / _` | '__| __| | | | | | __/ (_| | | | |_| |_| |_| |_| \__,_|_| \__|\__, (_) |___/ Saturday April 6, 1996 (easter weekend) 8:30pm till day light boaf(a)suburbia.net Melbourne Australia (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/dest/aust/melb.htm) Q: who's invited? A: you Q: who will be there? A: a cross-social strata of individuals, occupations and ages. It will be an eclectic evening. Q: no, I mean who will *really* be there? A: now is not the time for potentially dichotomatic simplifications of character, but what the heck... (a) Suburbia users: From magistrates and politicians to convicted computer hackers. We have as users private investigators, writers, programmers, QC's, record producers, musicians, film directors, journalists, policemen, intelligence agents, chess champions, members of obscure religious sects, netball umpires, many, many types of scientists and engineers, security experts, doctors, accountants, bartenders, choral conductors, comedians, nurses, DJ's, military police, drivers license testing officers, farmers, haematologists, herbalists, unionists, lecturers, librarians, linguists, paramedics, basketball umpires, air force pilots, singers, surgeons, system operators, linesmen, TV service men, solicitors, taxi drivers, teachers, unemployed inventors, veterinarians, actresses, aerobics instructors, art directors, athletes, chefs, bank clerks, cleaners, prison officers, dentists, dishwashers, film marketers, housewives, locksmiths, pensioners, radiologists and waiters (to name a few) (b) members of the following Suburbia run mailing lists: Avenue St. Etienne (a musical group) fans. BoS (best-of-security digest) Paranoid system admins, computer hackers, security professionals and a whole bunch of spooks Inside-Source (inside-source) As above, but don't introduce these guys to your sister. LACC (Legal Aspects of Computer Crime) Lawyers, security professionals, police, hackers, certifyably paranoid system admins and political activists (c) Memebers of the: Powerline Action Group Alternative Technology Association Center for Comtempory Photography Ross House Association Australian Public Access Network Association Private Inquiry Agents Association (d) Selected people and organisations that we owe favors to, and who shall remain anonymous. (e) Fans of T. Capody, P.K Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Pushkin, Nabakov, Dostoevesky or Thomas Pynchon. Venue: A computationally secure address in North Melbourne, approximately 10 minutes drive from the city center and 5 minutes walk from the North Melbourne railway station. There will be around 15 Internet ISDN connected PC's and a pro-tem dedicated link to Suburbia. Though, we encourage you to forget all about life as a keyboard interface for the night. Main course meals will be available for around $10 a head. Drinks will be served till 1am. Email boaf(a)suburbia.net for the ADDRESS and DIRECTIONS on how to get to it. You will need to include the number of people you plan bringing and how many of those (including yourself) desire to digest something other than the fascinating conversation. Do not request the address unless you definitely plan on coming, or our calculations and your reputation will go down like a V1. There is NO door fee, but small donations of dollars and/or computer/radio/microwave hardware/cables are encouraged (or you might get a few funny looks) to help cover costs. Music: BYO and we will play it provided it is something people can background if they want to talk. Most techno, hard-rock and pop will end up as a North Melbourne UFO sighting before it gets anywhere near the audio equipment. R&B, Jazz fusion, and Syd Barret (early Pink Floyd) style/derived material will be looked upon a good deal more favorably, but some of us are open minded. Dress: Anything that doesn't get you an indecent exposure charge will get you in the door. 1930's incognito is just fine. ps. the undercover colour of the day is purple.

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Minneapolis Star Tribune this morning
by Charles Gimon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mpls. Strib did a piece this morning, front page, about AltaVista, Dejanews, etc. Well-worn territory to readers of this list. Your words can come back to haunt you, all that stuff. One paragraph that deserves rebuttal from those of you who are better-informed: "Of course, technology is working on solutions to itself, but mechanisms that would hide the name of a message's author, such as cryptography and anonymous remailers, are convoluted and incomplete." Author was Jonathan Gaw; no e-mail address given. Star Tribune Online is at http://www.startribune.com. *********************************************************************** --The Interview-- | gimonca(a)skypoint.com George Clinton: "Suck on my soul, | Minneapolis MN USA and I will lick your funky emotions!"| http://www.skypoint.com/~gimonca Dave Letterman: "Yuck!!" | A lean, mean meme machine. ***********************************************************************

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Re: [NOISE] Re: Dorothy Denning attacks Leahy's crypto bill
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:31 AM 3/21/96 -0500, dirsec wrote: > I think Leahy will, quite rightly, refuse to adopt the new bill because > it has a snowball's chance in hades of passing, and it makes him look > soft on crime and terrorists. Hold it: Backup: Opponents of the bill say it says X: Supporters of the bill say it says Y: The proposal is to rewrite the bill so it actually does say Y in plain english. And you (quite correctly) say that the bill will not pass if says Y. You are right. The bill does not facilitate crypto exports, it just sounds like it does, and it delegates judicial powers to cops. If it was amended to facilitate crypto exports, and to maintain the separation of judiciary and executive, it would not pass. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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LET'S ROCK!!!!
by weinberg＠accessus.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ok, here is the situation. I have a person mad at me in one of my mailing lists. Turns out, this person was the owner of the mailing list! Well now I'm stuck, knocked out of the list. The owner can not see any of my mail, no matter how hard I try. I need some ideas to eather get through to her, or really fuck up the mailing list. Any ideas? WThinker P.S. please E-Mail directly to me. If you can. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WThinker Social Deviant, W.W., and CHIPs expert! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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