December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Oblivious key escrow
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've revised and expanded the paper on decentralized key escrow that I presented at the Cambridge Information Hiding workshop and mentioned here a few weeks ago. The paper is now called "Oblivious Key Escrow", and is available from: ftp://research.att.com/dist/mab/netescrow.ps (postscript) ftp://research.att.com/dist/mab/netescrow.tex (latex source) -matt \begin{abstract} We propose a simple scheme, based on secret-sharing over large-scale networks, for assuring recoverability of sensitive archived data ({\em e.g.,} cryptographic keys). In our model anyone can request a copy of the archived data but it is very difficult to keep the existence of a request secret or to subvert the access policy of the data ``owner.'' We sketch an architecture for a distributed key escrow system that might be suitable for deployment over very large-scale networks such as the Internet. We also introduce a new cryptographic primitive, {\em oblivious multicast,} that can serve as the basis for such a system. \end{abstract}

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Re: Britain to control crypto - official (fwd from Usenet)
by John Pettitt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:07 PM 6/11/96 -0400, David Lesher wrote: >The British government quietly announced yesterday that it will >legislate to restrict crypto. The details are in the attached >Reuters and PA newswires. So I didn't see any move top 'restrict crypto' in the two wire stories. It looked like the return of clipper with escrow agents other than government which seems *almost* reasonable when I note that they are not mandating any of this stuff. Still given the close relationship between Cheltenham and Ft Mead one is left wondering what the real story is ... John Pettitt, jpp(a)software.net EVP, CyberSource Corporation, 415 473 3065 PGP Key available at: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/htbin/pks-extract-key.pl?op=get&search=0xB7AA37…

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Re: plugging in
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:05 PM 6/11/96 -0500, Alex Strasheim wrote: >Doing tech support at my ISP has made me very skeptical of anything that >requires a plug in. Most people aren't willing or able to download and >install them. I have installed, RealAudio as have many other people. Likewise Streamworks. I agree with your general point about general plugins but plugins for specific purposes will be deployed (at least until Netscape includes the capabilities). DCF

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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: HACKERPUNKS MAILING LIST
by David Rosoff 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 10.12 AM 6/11/96 -0400, SINCLAIR DOUGLAS N wrote: >I don't have a C2 account, and don't really want to pay for one. >I trust someone will put the hackerpunks archives on the web so >the rest of us can read them. C2 nym accounts are free. =============================================================================== David Rosoff (nihongo o chiisaku dekimasu) -------------> drosoff(a)arc.unm.edu For PGP key 0xD37692F9, finger drosoff(a)acoma.arc.unm.edu or get from keyservers pub 1024/D37692F9 1995/07/01 David Rosoff <drosoff(a)arc.unm.edu> Key fingerprint = 25 7D AA 01 85 41 43 89 50 5A 33 76 F1 F1 99 67 I accept anonymous mail. If I didn't sign it, you don't know I wrote it. === "Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find-- and not to yield." <---- "Ulysses", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMb4A5xguzHDTdpL5AQGxLQP/YXH9uWmXC2xK/Pr/c4kdyopE213bsQpL +T3RD2qSK+qO234fHL3nJmQVBTS5Eyyw4YtMEmnV87vclpWbP9WIr+7RDvYpr/aM 1/6QBEux3f/K6SaPD5iBHfuoc8XkriqhfXgiiUnVK4IxbhHaLatPpSeKLQmX0o2Q 3fVXFjWuEGs= =sSf7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Information Age Intelligence
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Foreign Policy, Summer 1996: "Information Age Intelligence." by Bruce D. Berkowitz, a former CIA analyst and staff member for the Senate Intelllgence Committee. Excerpts of 14-page essay: During most of this century, the intelligence community led the world in developing information technology. Intelligence organizations were deeply involved in the development of telegraph and telephone networks, modern computers, and space-based communications and surveillance systems. The intelligence community also established new forms of analysis and areas of expertise. Yet several signs suggest that the intelligence community is no longer the leader in the information world, and it may have fallen behind significantly in some respects. The underlying problem is that the intelligence community has failed to keep up with changes in how modern society uses information and how information technology develops in modern society. As a result, our model for intelligence is out-of-date. This reality is what current efforts at intelligence reform are failing to recognize. The intelligence community needs to move as fast as information businesses do to capture markets, but the traditional organization is not up to the task. Today's model for intelligence -- how it is organized and how it operates -- is an artifact from an earlier age. Even the name "Central Intelligence Agency" is reminiscent of the New Deal era, when large, powerful, national bureaucracies were the accepted way of getting things done efficiently. It makes less sense in a world moving toward fluid, distributed, networked information organizations. As the capabilities of the private sector improve, the intelligence community will need to move on to the next frontier of technology or expertise that the private sector has yet to fill. While one challenge for intelligence reform is to keep up with these changes, fundamentally the greater challenge will be to establish an organization that can adapt with the times. One reason why the intelligence community cannot deal effectively with the Information Revolution is that intelligence requirements and the intelligence community's comparative advantage are both fluid, but the traditional intelligence bureaucracy remains static. In addition, organizations responsible for developing and applying technology, such as the National Reconnaissance Office (NRC)) and the National Security Agency (NSA), have created organizational dogma, and dogma always resist change. Once such organizations carve out a place for themselves (and their technologies) in the budget, they can be difficult to dislodge. The fact that these organizations often operate at a classified level further insulates them. As a result, the intelligence community often locks into specific technologies, even when new and possibly better ideas have come along. http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/fpintel.htm ----- Our Web site was hosed clean today, so this article may not survive. If not there, send us e-mail with the subject: FPI_ntl

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Re: Micropayments: myth?
by foodie＠localhost.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Brian describes a UI metaphor for micropayments, with a gauge indicating the value of your micropayment purse and a cutoff for the maximum automatic per-unit payment: >Now, let's consider bridging this metaphor into the micropayments world. >Imagine that surfing the web is like driving a car - you'll dribble out >small amounts of money over a period of time, but as long as you watch >your speedometer (the rate at which you spend money) and the feul tank >levels (the amount of coinage in your wallet), you are in control of your >spending rates. Whether you approve every micropayment explicitly, or >you set a minimum level below which requests for payments are automagically >granted, is up to you. Me, I'd probably be alright with just about any >site I go to asking for less than $.02 for any action I take. Anything >above that, I want to be explicitly asked. My user interface has a gas >gauge and a speedometer in the upper-right-hand corner instead of a >throbbing "N". When my levels are low, I go visit my bank and "refill" >my wallet. Voila! That's fine so long as the majority of sites one visits all cost within, say, an order of magnitude or so. What happens if people skip around a lot? When I go from checking out Hagbard's Poetry Corner, which charges $.02 cents per page (and falls below the speedometer cutoff), and switch over to Belbo's Future's Tips Market, which charges a dollar a page, I'm going to get annoying alerts every click. If one allows customizing the cutoff for each page, the guage becomes meaningless (as much as if your car occasionally sucked half the gas tank at one stoplight). If you don't, it is annoying. Sure, $1.00 a page, perhaps, pushes the micropayment scale, but I'm sure there are plenty of folks who would set the cutoff in that range or higher. Perhaps a graphical relation-o-meter, comparing some user defined scale to the cost of the current page, so that users could get a relative feel for high rent districts (Web-rent control, anyone?), but I can see pitfalls to this appoach, too. I don't think this works unless the micropayments world standardizes on a very narrow price band, which isn't very likely, or people are found to stick pretty consistently to a given price when browsing, which I don't think is very likely either. >And yes, I am presuming a system involving transfers of digitally signed >tokens of some sort. I don't think this is a mistaken presumption. It strikes me as perhaps more useful for account-driven billing systems, where one has a contanst quanta of payment magnitude. -j -- The signal is the noise. ____________________________________________________________________ Jamie Lawrence mailto:jal@cyborganic.net mailto:foodie@netcom.com

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Re:Micropayments are Crap
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Stephan Vladimir Bugaj <stephan(a)studioarchetype.com> writes: > > Micropayment proponents are incredibly fond of the proposition that software > could be leased on a usage time basis from a centralized server, and people > could also rent time on the servers' CPUs. Sounds an awful lot like the > mainframe days to me. Well, at the risk of being branded a heretic, maybe the mainframe days were not as bad as you assume... Back in "the mainframe days" computers cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the best way to most efficiently use that resource was to tiemsharing. Currently I would guess that 2/3 of the possible CPU cycles in the world go unused, wasted by machines that are turned off sitting in someones den or running a screensaver in the cubicle of some drone in the marketting department. With micropayments one can purchase access to these cycles and put them to use, allowing the user to recover costs when they are not using their system and giving the user cheap access when needed to computing resources way beyond what they would be capable of purchasing themselves. > I see plenty of ways in which this benefits the vendor (greater control > over distribution, centrailzed revision/upgrade distribution, greater > profits over one-time sales, etc.), but no ways in which this benefits > the user. Especially the power user. Some advantages to the user: -Faster and more frequent upgrades and bug fixes. No need to wait for the CD or floppies to be shipped. -Better responsiveness from the vendor/distributor. Currently once you buy a program you are stuck with it, warts and all. A "test drive" is not an option, so vendors are led by their marketting droids. With online "rental" the user has the ability to try a program before plunking down their $69.95 and possibly ending up with an unusable collection of annoying bugs. This also means that they have the option of selecting a different program without risking paying the entire cost of a program they do not really want but which had good advertising. Software vendors will be forced to actually pay attention to the users _after_ the initial sale and will also be motivated to create and provide more customized niche programs so you end up with a better selection of software as well. -Access to programs which the user could not normally afford or would not use enough to justify the purchase price. I am not a chip designer and am not interested enough to drop $20K on a VHDL simulator and design synthesis program, but I would be willing to pay several dollars an hour to play around with one. > I'm certainly not going to rent time > on a compiler or image editing program every single time I want to do some > work. Then buy the program yourself, and then wait overnight for that ray tracing and rendering program to complete two frames of that animated logo for your kewl web page. No one is saying that everything wll go to micropayments, in some cases for software which is used constantly it does make more sense to buy the program outright but in most cases you end up using the other programs which clutter your hard disk a lot less than you think. By renting your non-essential programs you save money. > It took the industry long enough to get PCs and workstations to the speeds > they're at today so people could do their own work on their own machines to > go back to waiting in a queue for time on a centralized system so you can > have the honor of paying someone a lot of money to run your job. How did you make the leap from micropayments (remember that "micro" prefix) to paying someone a lot of money to run your job. With micropayments you can pay a lot of people a very small amount of money to run your job and get it done orders of magnitude faster than someone stuck with a lone PC. You also avoid getting caught up in the hardware game. Just a few years ago everyone was told they needed to upgrade their 386SX to a 486 or 486DX2 or they would be left behind, now everyone simple must have a Pentium, and tomorrow it will be the next chip du jour. By only requiring the hardware necessary for user interaction on the desktop one can get better economies of scale (hence the so-called "Network Computer") If you could get by with having a 486 on your desk running the presentation and interface level and then rented cycles on a huge cluster of pentium cycle servers to get real work done you would probably end up saving money in the long run, and would not need to run out to Fry's every year/month/week to upgrade your hardware with new pieces which would soon be obsolete. jim

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CDT Policy Post 2.24 - Join Sen. Burns TONIGHT (6/11), 10 EDT
by editor＠cdt.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- _____ _____ _______ / ____| __ \__ __| ____ ___ ____ __ | | | | | | | | / __ \____ / (_)______ __ / __ \____ _____/ /_ | | | | | | | | / /_/ / __ \/ / / ___/ / / / / /_/ / __ \/ ___/ __/ | |____| |__| | | | / ____/ /_/ / / / /__/ /_/ / / ____/ /_/ (__ ) /_ \_____|_____/ |_| /_/ \____/_/_/\___/\__, / /_/ \____/____/\__/ The Center for Democracy and Technology /____/ Volume 2, Number 24 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A briefing on public policy issues affecting civil liberties online ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CDT POLICY POST Volume 2, Number 24 June 11, 1996 CONTENTS: (1) Join Senator Burns Live Online TONIGHT at 10pm EDT - Preview Tomorrow's Hearing on "Pro-CODE" Encryption Bill (2) Attend the S.A.F.E. Forum on Encryption - July 1, Stanford, CA (3) How to Subscribe/Unsubscribe (4) About CDT, contacting us ** This document may be redistributed freely with this banner in tact ** Excerpts may be re-posted with permission of <editor(a)cdt.org> ** This document looks best when viewed in COURIER font ** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** UPDATE: DECISION IS NEAR IN FIGHT TO SAVE FREE SPEECH ONLINE ** An announcement from the Court is expected any time. Be sure to visit http://www.cdt.org/ciec/ for the latest news and information! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) JOIN SENATOR BURNS LIVE ONLINE =TONIGHT= at 10PM EDT: Preview Tomorrow's Hearing on "Pro-CODE" Encryption Bill --> Visit http://www.hotwired.com/wiredside/ for details <-- Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) will be on HotWired's WiredSide chat TONIGHT (6/11) at 10pm EDT to discuss tomorrow's scheduled hearing on his "Promotion of Commerce Online in the Digital Era Act of 1996" ("Pro-CODE") encryption bill. Tonight's WiredSide chat is a great opportunity to join Senator Burns on the eve of an important hearing to ask questions about encryption policy and get a preview of what the Senator expects to occur at the hearing. Senator Burns will chair the first of two scheduled hearings on his "Pro-CODE" bill tomorrow at 9:30 EDT in Room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The hearing will take place in the Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space. This is the first Congressional hearing in recent memory to discuss "pro-encryption" legislation that would relax current restrictive encryption export controls. Never before has the public had this much access to legislators without geographical proximity. Cheaper than teleconferencing, and more direct and unfiltered than the traditional press, online chats allow the public to directly question and hear the answers from members of Congress. The online chat is at 10pm EDT (7pm PDT) TONIGHT (6/11). HotWired's WiredSide chat is at: http://www.hotwired.com/wiredside/ Tonight's forum is another in a series of planned events, and is part of a broader project coordinated by CDT and the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW) designed to encourage members of Congress to work with the Net.community on vital Internet policy issues and to bring the Internet Community into the debate about those issues. Transcripts from previous online chats are available -- for transcript information and details about upcoming events, please visit CDT's newest Issues Page, "Congress and the Net": http://www.cdt.org/net_congress/ SEN. BURNS TO CHAIR "PRO-CODE" HEARINGS -- FIRST HEARING TOMORROW (Wed 6/12) The hearing tomorrow will take place in the Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, of which Sen. Burns is the chairman. This first hearing will focus on encryption as it relates to commerce and business issues. Prominent industry representatives have been invited to testify at the hearing. Scheduled to testify are: o Michael Zisman, president and CEO of Lotus; o Jim Barksdale, president and CEO of Netscape Communications; o Jim Bidzos, president and CEO of RSA Data Security; o Tim Krauskopf, V.P. and co-founder of Spyglass Inc.; o Kenneth Dam, chairman of the National Research Council; o Richard Sevcik, Senior V.P. of Hewlett-Packard; o Joe Holmes, chief technology officer for EDS; o Joel S. Lisker, senior V.P. for security and risk management at MasterCard; o Danne Buchanan, president of Zion's Data Services Company; o Jack Valenti, executive director of the Motion Picture Association of America; o Aharon Friedman, chairman, founder and chief technical officer of Digital Secured Networks Technology Inc.; and o Robert Bigony, senior V.P. and director of strategic marketing, government and space technology group, for Motorola. The second hearing, scheduled for June 26, will focus on privacy, law enforcement, and national security issues. For more information about tomorrow's hearing, background on the "Pro-CODE" legislation (including the text of the bill), and other information about encryption issues, please visit the Encryption Policy Resource Page at: http://www.crypto.com/ or the CDT Cryptography Issues Page at: http://www.cdt.org/crypto/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (2) ATTEND THE S.A.F.E. FORUM ON ENCRYPTION - JULY 1 IN STANFORD, CA On July 1, 1996, members of Congress, prominent computer industry leaders, noted cryptographers, privacy advocates, press, and netizens will meet in the heart of California's Silicon Valley for a lively, all-day forum to discuss cryptography and the need to reform current U.S. encryption policy. Anyone interested in the future of encryption technology and policy is strongly encouraged to attend. Admission to this special event is free, but those interested must reserve a ticket to attend. (Please visit the S.A.F.E. web site to reserve your ticket - http://www.crypto.com/safe/ ) The S.A.F.E. (Security and Freedom Through Encryption) Forum will be held on Monday July 1st from 9:00am - 4:00pm at Kresge Auditorium on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, CA. S.A.F.E. will feature panel discussions, interactive demonstrations of cryptography technology, and an opportunity for feedback from the public. Scheduled participants include such industry leaders and cryptographers as: o Marc Andreeson, Vice President of Netscape Communications Corp.; o James Bidzos, President of RSA Data Security; o Eric Schmidt, Chief Technical Officer, Sun Microsystems; o Brad Silverberg, Senior V.P., Microsoft Corp.; and o noted computer security experts Matt Blaze and Eric Thompson. Members of Congress scheduled to attend include: o Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), o Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [via satellite] o Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD), o Rep. Tom Campbell (R-CA), o Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and o Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA). By bringing together policymakers, industry leaders, cryptographers, net.advocates, and netizens, the forum promises to be an enlightening and informative event that will help raise public awareness for the importance of encryption technology to enhance privacy and security on the global information infrastructure. The forum will also detail the problems posed by the current U.S. encryption policy. The S.A.F.E. forum is sponsored by: o America Online o American Civil Liberties Union o Americans for Tax Reform o AT&T o Business Software Alliance o Center for Democracy and Technology o Center for National Security Studies o Commercial Internet eXchange o CompuServe Incorporated o Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility o Cylink Corporation o EDS o Electronic Frontier Foundation o Electronic Messaging Association o Electronic Privacy Information Center o Information Technology Association of America o IEEE - USA o Media Institute o Microsoft Corporation o National Association of Manufacturers o Netcom Online Communication Services o Netscape Communications Corporation o Novell, Inc. o Oracle Corporation o Pacific Telesis Group o Prodigy, Inc. o Progress and Freedom Foundation o Securities Industry Association o Software Publishers Association o Sybase, Inc. o Voters Telecommunications Watch o Wired Magazine For the latest information about S.A.F.E. and to reserve your free ticket to the forum, please visit the S.A.F.E. Web site: http://www.crypto.com/safe/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (3) 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 nearly 10,000 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) 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 2.24 6/11/96 -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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CDA decision TOMORROW 9 am! (fwd)
by David Lesher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The CDA deathwatch is almost over. The Philadelphia court will announce its decision tomorrow, 6/12, at 9 AM EST, according to a fax from the court. Check the usual web sites for more info and breaking news on the decision: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/ http://www.eff.org/ http://www.vtw.org/ http://www.aclu.org/ http://www.epic.org/ http://www.cdt.org/ The ACLU is holding a press conference in NYC at 11 am. The ALA/CIEC plaintiffs will be holding a press conference in Washington, DC at 12 noon. For the latest information, subscribe to the fight-censorship-announce mailing list by sending "subscribe fight-censorship-announce" to majordomo(a)vorlon.mit.edu. -Declan // declan(a)eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan(a)well.com //

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RSA patents in Canada
by sameer＠c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anyone have a definitive source on the state of the RSA patent in Canada? Thanks. -- Sameer Parekh Voice: 510-601-9777x3 Community ConneXion, Inc. FAX: 510-601-9734 The Internet Privacy Provider Dialin: 510-658-6376 http://www.c2.net/ (or login as "guest") sameer(a)c2.net

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