December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: V-chip?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This message rated FZ. At 08:33 PM 1/24/96 -0800, mpd(a)netcom.com (Mike Duvos) wrote: >As I understand it, the basic concept behind the V-Chip is to >allow selective blocking of material a particular viewer might >find offensive based on content information transmitted along >with the program. As long as the program material itself is >transmitted unaltered, and there are multiple non-governmental >providers of content descriptions catering to the spectrum of >human likes and dislikes, this sounds like ideal Cypherpunk >technology. No, it's to allow selective blocking of material that a government-approved panel has described as deserving blocking for children. It's rabidly unnecessary, and also too simplistic to be really useful. For instance, it's unlikely to block "COPS" and "The War In Bosnia" under any available settings, and "Speeches of President Exon" will probably be required viewing because there isn't a "no lies" setting. Selective blocking, using VCRplus codes or some similar technology, would be far more useful, support multiple rating services, and give your VCR something to do other than flash 12:00. ... >What are the dangers of this new technology? >First, the government might want only one description of content, >which it controls. My notion of what is offensive probably >differs greatly from that of Jesse Helms, for instance. Yup. However, _you_ won't be the one doing the description... #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 # # "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" used to mean us watching # the government, not the other way around....

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by postmaster＠ncr-sd.SanDiegoCA.ATTGIS.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Crippled Notes export encryption
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:18 PM 1/24/96 -0800, Jeff Weinstein <jsw(a)netscape.com> wrote: >Mike Tighe wrote: >> > I can see two practical ways to build a netscape product outside >> > the US. The first is to export the source code for the Navigator >> > with the crypto code removed. .... >> Didn't Netscape already promise to remove the hooks? It seems to me all of >> the major software players are already in bed with the government. > > What do you mean by "promise to remove the hooks"? I think Mike's remembering the NCSA freeware httpd server which had the crypto code removed at the NSA's request. I don't remember if that was before or after the Mosaic developers left to form Netscape, but being an organization that gets government grant money subjects you to more leverage than a random commercial company. One seeming paradox of the law is that you're not allowed to export "components of a cryptosystem", e.g. software with the crypto routines removed but everything else there. But you are allowed to export code that the NSA has determined isn't strong enough to bother them, including applications with wimpy cryptosystems. The Clipper II escrow standardization folks attempted to get industry to agree on wiretap-enabled short-key software with tampering protection in return for export permission, but as far as I know the current not-officially-defined policy of 40 bits doesn't require that export-requesting software be non-modular; how much work would it be to binary-patch-replace the 40-bit subroutines in current Netscape with 128-bit subroutines? (More work than just mailing the US version overseas, I suppose :-) Obviously Netscape couldn't do it themselves if they wanted to ever get export permission again, but they could always issue a press release condemning the nasty foreigners for hacking their product ("We're SHOCKED to discover that HACKING is going on with our software!") #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 # # "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" used to mean us watching # the government, not the other way around....

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Re: Why is blowfish so slow? Other fast algorithms?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> At 07:32 PM 1/23/96 -0500, David A Wagner wrote: >> >If you want authentication, you must use a crypto-strength MAC. >> >Encryption (be it RC4, DES, etc.) is not enough. Are there any simple but crypto-strong hash functions? I've been thinking about doing a "One Page Privacy" program, using the 3-line RSA, 10-line RC4, and some glue, but using a separate MD5 program seemed like cheating (even though the 3-line RSA uses dc :-). I was thinking about using RC4 in some feedback mode as a MAC, but it sounds like that's not secure enough? Is there anything else that's short? MD5 requires too much code. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 # # "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" used to mean us watching # the government, not the other way around....

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Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:14 PM 1/25/96 -0800, Rich Graves wrote: > >I believe that the choice not to read other people's personal mail is an >ethical imperative, since we do not have and probably can not have total >privacy enforced by technology and law alone. Sure, strong crypto helps, >and should be spread, but there will always be back doors and >implementation bugs, and in the worst case, most people will give in to >moderate torture. > >It's hard to say what the ethical role of individuals in the government >(or Jim Bell's "assassination politics" organization, which quacks like a >government for me) is. Needless to say, I disagree. If you define government as, "That entity which keeps me from doing bad things to people," then a S+W model 629 .44 caliber revolver "quacks like a government to you." If the reason you don't do bad things in public because people will sneer at you and criticize, then sneering and criticizing "quacks like a government to you." What "Assassination Politics" does is to eliminate the ability of 51% of the population to control the remaining 49%. If there is any residual pro-government bias left in this system, tell me and I will work strongly to root it out.

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Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:43 PM 1/25/96 -0800, Rich Graves wrote: >Therefore, to ordain myself Devil's Advocate Being, is it not wrong, in >principle, for us human beings to inquire into the affairs of the humans >claiming the authority of Divine Governmental Beings? Are not the actions >of the Fort Meade Beings a matter for their own personal conscience, >absent any immediate, *direct* impact on us that would justify an >appropriate reaction, be it fight, flight, or encryption? Please assume no >funny theological beliefs in the existence of other Non-Divine Beings, or >sympathy therewith. > >Of course, on individual principle, I quite agree with you, which is why I >do not believe I could ever become a cleric or even disciple of any odd >religion. I'd really suck as a soldier, too. > >However, of Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx, Motesquieu, and Locke, I find Hobbes >the most logical. People just suck, and ethics aren't enough. Karl Marx >and Jim Bell talk about the withering away of the government, but what >they're really talking about looks like a new and more onerous form of >government to me. >-rich > Fucking Statist You might be surprised. I've considered that very question, which is at the "outer limits" of my "Assassination Politics" idea. Question: could the principles of that system eventually result in some sort of super-tyranny? In my opinion, no, if for no other reason than the average person simply doesn't have enough time to attempt to be tyrannical against 5 billion other people on the planet. How would it work? Well, let's suppose 95% of the public believed that EVERYBODY, including the other 5%, should pay the Widget tax. Each citizen would have to pay it, and prove that he paid it, or those 95% would pay to have the 5% killed. The Widget tax would buy Widgets from the WIdget manufacturer, and they would installed so as to benefit THE PUBLIC. Problem is, taxes are collected, not simply to take them from one person, but to give them to another. The 5% might have to pay the Widget Tax, but they could also pay to have the immediate beneficiaries of the Widget Tax killed (the manufacturers of the widgets themselves, or at least those manufacturers that accept orders for widgets paid for by stolen tax dollars.) At this point, nobody will risk making widgets anymore, so the Tax will be unjustified and bandoned as uncollectible and useless.

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This is not "DivineBeingPunks"
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:52 AM 1/26/96, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >I'm sure that most people seem to believe in this quasi-Divine Being, >of course. A lot of people seem to have constructed temples to some >Holy Being that they refer to as "The Government", made of marble and >steel and glass (often in the manner of temples constructed in ancient >times to Jove or Apollo). There are strange rites associated with the >worship and sustenance of this Divine Entity, such as the ritual ....etc. etc. etc. Since Perry has on several occasions said he does not want to hear about politics and other "off-topic" posts, and since he has written at least five of these posts just today (the "Gentleman do not" thread), I suggest he heed his own advice. I was skipping most of these posts that Perry, Rich Graves, and others are writing, but the hypocrisy of calling for others to not engage in "off-topic" posts while writing five of them himself...well, it speaks for itself. Debating basic libertarian theory, including the rights of Divine Beings, quasi-Divine Beings, Secular Beings, etc., is best done on another list, or in private e-mail. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. --Tim Boycott espionage-enabled 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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RE: Microsoft's CryptoAPI - thoughts?
by Alan Pugh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>What does everyone think about this? Perhaps I already missed the boat, but >>I just found out about it. How would international apps work? Would a data >>file encrypted with an app compiled with a US-only CSP (cryptographic >>service provider) be able to be loaded by a European equivalent app? >> >>[Info can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/inttech/cryptapi.htm] I too would be interested in any insights some of the folks here might have on this API. It would seem to me that in light of some of the discussions on this list recently concerning the perversity of ITAR, that this API could easily run afoul of it. I've seen a brief article on it in pcweek and was suprised I'd not seen it here yet. Perhaps I just missed it. I hate to say good things about M$, but they certainly have the pull to perhaps get an API through. amp

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Re: PGP in Eudora and other mail programs
by geoff klein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- X-Pgprequest: signed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=dgjlnouteqkhfsmbcz97531sfhkmpi > THIS IS A MESSAGE IN 'MIME' FORMAT. Your mail reader does not support MIME. > Some parts of this will be readable as plain text. > To see the rest, you will need to upgrade your mail reader. --dgjlnouteqkhfsmbcz97531sfhkmpi Content-Type: application/octet-stream Content-Description: PGP encrypted file Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: tcmay(a)got.net, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Fri Jan 26 14:30:46 1996 At Thu, 25 Jan 1996 11:54:46 -0800 Timothy C. May wrote: >..... > And yet how many of these programs actually can transparently > (automatically, push-button, etc.) support PGP? >...... Commtouch is about to release Beta-1 of Pronto Secure. This will REALLY support PGP transparently, and as far as E-mail clients go, Pronto makes Eudora look like "sour grapes". We expect to announce a special Beta testing offer for c'punks in early February. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Geoff Klein email: geoff(a)commtouch.com Product Manager - Pronto Secure http: //www.commtouch.com - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CommTouch SW Inc, U.S CommTouch, Israel Home, Israel 1206 W. Hillsdale Blvd 10 Technology Ave 27 Amishav St San Mateo, CA 94403 Ein Vered, 40696 Tel-Aviv, 67191 Tel: (415) 578-6580 Tel: 972(9)963445 972 (3) 7321378 Fax: (415) 578-8580 Fax: 972(9)961053 972 (3) 5716203 - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBMQlWGkLv5OMYFK1FAQFYeQQAqPXMk0fS7ZmFkV0rCD3goLgkCnfxbN6F sPXZ08pHD2mH5MU50+gyprgJx87H/9OGwzR+pbGHtZP3QwucWBrwLCU2gj1dAzZ6 CGhrgZJTOa1XEKy9xzXJSuLXEAHuJYDQnmANVneRt04Ld0Z67QEW6cZHYCeVwHeH KavQ4tAJ9WM= =ouF2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --dgjlnouteqkhfsmbcz97531sfhkmpi--

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Information
by Khalil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am very much interested to find out more about this type of remailing service. I would appreciate any information I get. Regards Khalil

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