December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: (Fwd) RE: Noise Sphere in Java
by Andrew Loewenstern 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Deranged Mutant writes: > Noise spheres will show certain correlations in the data. It > doesn't mean that the RNG is crypto-usable if it looks good. > But if it looks bad then you know to be suspicious.... "Statistical tests cannot find good (P)RNG's, only bad ones." This has been said before in various ways on the list, but it is worth repeating... andrew

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RE: math patents
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:54 PM 4/18/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:

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FW: EARN $350 PER DAY!!!
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I received the message below today, addressed to me. Notice the info at the bottom. I didn't follow the instructions. But this could be what some people are receving which prompts them to send "unsuvscrive messages". .. Blanc >---------- >From: communicate@earthlink.net[SMTP:communicate@earthlink.net] >Sent: Thursday, March 28, 1996 1:09 PM >Subject: EARN $350 PER DAY!!! > > If you would like to earn up to $350 per day... call >1-800-545-0341!! > > You can earn $350 per day giving away a product every business needs > and are paying up to $3,000 for. > > Help us expand our client base as the Corporation prepares to go >public > with the release of a State of the Art Software Program for the >Internet! > > This is a CAREER opportunity, not a get rich quick scheme or MLM > offer. If you are a career oriented bright professional, with a >desire to > become financially successful in the 90's, then we will provide you > with the product that No One can say no to. We Provide training; a > great support staff and average earnings of over $1,500 per week. > > Full and Part-time opportunities available! > > CALL TODAY > > 1-800-545-0341 > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- >----------------------------- > Our records indicate that you may be qualified for this dynamic >position. If not, > just reply and type REMOVE in the SUBJECT heading and your name will > promptly be deleted from any future career opportunities with our >organization. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- >----------------------------- > >

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Announce: new Microsoft CryptoAPI mailing list (fwd)
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You read it here first. Or is this not really new? I'm approving three or four more MS announcements to comp.os.ms-windows.announce now. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 16:15:06 -0700 From: Microsoft Internet Announcements <inetannc(a)microsoft.com> To: "'Comp.os.ms-windows.announce Moderator'" <win-announce(a)metrics.com> Cc: Microsoft Internet Announcements <inetannc(a)microsoft.com> Subject: Announce: new Microsoft CryptoAPI mailing list CryptoAPI on listadmin(a)lists.msn.com CryptoAPI is a mailing list (discussion list) for Microsoft Cryptographic API (CryptoAPI), which provides services that enable application developers to add cryptography to their Win32 applications. For more information about CryptoAPI, see <http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/>. You can subscribe to the regular mailing list or a digest version. To subscribe, send e-mail to listAdmin(a)lists.msn.com with the following text in the message body (not subject line): subscribe CryptoAPI your(a)email.address or digest CryptoAPI your(a)email.address where <your(a)mail.address is your actual e-mail address. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to listAdmin(a)lists.msn.com with the following text in the message body (not subject line): unsubscribe CryptoAPI your(a)email.address To send a message to the subscribers of the list, send e-mail to CryptoAPI(a)lists.msn.com.

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Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by JonWienke＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-04-18 15:05:51 EDT, Perry Metzger writes: >Before making pronouncements like "You are still OK" you ought to >learn a bit more about cryptanalysis. Its tiny little statistical >toeholds like that which permit breaks. I don't know for sure, but my >intuition says that there may very well be instances in which a couple >of little nicks like that into the entropy of a key are sufficient to >radically lower the time to crack something. Since there are far >better techniques available (hash distillation, for instance) for >assuring the quality of a random stream, Jon's suggested techniques >should be regarded as unnecessary and dangerous. [Slightly ad hominem PSA deleted] 1. If "cooking" a byte sequence in a manner that reduces its maximum entropy by less than 1% allows an attacker to break your cryptosystem, then it is crap to begin with. With only a little more effort, he could break it anyway. 2. All I was trying to say was that applying cooking technique X to a byte sequence will reduce the maximum entropy of the sequence by a factor of Y; adjust entropy expectations accordingly. I said nothing about the origin of the byte sequence, the techniques used to generate it, or the exact method for "cooking" it. I did not recommend against using hash distillation, hardware RNG's, or any other commonly accepted method of generating cryptographically useful random or pseudo-random numbers. Jonathan Wienke

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Bernstein ruling meets the virus law
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It should be interesting to see what happens when the Bernstein ruling (assuming it is further upheld as the court case and appeals proceed) meets the proposed law making the writing of virus code a crime. If crypto software is essentially speech, albeit in a non-traditional human language, then virus software is no different. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" 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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Eudora Mac Pro 3.0
by stevenw＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From the list of new features: New Translation Services API: this is a programming interface that will make it easier for other software applications to simply plug into Eudora Pro software, opening up a whole new world of uses for e-mail. For example, natural language translation products that can translate a message from English to some other language. Another example is a security application that could automatically encrypt/decrypt your messages. Interesting.... http://www.qualcomm.com/quest/mac30B.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Weller | Weller's three steps to Greatness: | 1. See what others cannot | 2. Think what others cannot stevenw(a)best.com | 3. Express what others cannot

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(Fwd)
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 10:01:03 -0500 From: Al Thompson <alt(a)iquest.net> To: Multiple recipients of list NEWS <NEWS(a)AEN.ORG> Subject: (Check out this excerpt from the recent committee report on S735. Here's the header info. -AT) [Congressional Record: April 17, 1996 (Senate)] [Page S3454-S3478] >From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT--CONFERENCE REPORT The Senate continued with the consideration of the conference report. (A bunch deleted. Here's one of the interesting parts -AT) Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, what I would like to speak to in an indirect way covers this. We have had several votes on wiretaps, and I know people are asking why am I introducing the other wiretap provision that was taken out of the Senate bill. The reason I am is I refuse to believe that, if you all hear this enough, you will not eventually decide to do the right thing on this. The provision that I have proposed is not original with me. It was in the Senate bill that we passed. The provision would add a number--the bill we have before us, the conference report--would add a number of terrorism-related offenses to the law. I will go into those in a minute. What I have sent to the desk, if adopted, would instruct the conferees to add the same number of offenses that we are adding to the bill, to the law, to those categories of things for which the Government, with probable cause, can get a wiretap. It was in the Senate bill as introduced by Senators Hatch and Dole. It was part of the terrorism bill reported out of Representative Hyde's Judiciary Committee. Unfortunately, by the time the bill had made it to the House, the provision was dropped. I think it is worth talking a moment about how a wiretap statute works, the one that is in place now in the law, for it seems there is a lot of misunderstanding about it these days. I am repeating myself again to eliminate the misunderstanding. As some people tell it, you would think the FBI and BATF and the local and State police are tapping our phones left and right, that they are riding down the streets in vans with electronic devices eavesdropping into our windows and houses--which they have the capacity to do, by the way.

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Re: RSA-130 Falls to NFS - Lenstra Posting to sci.crypt.research (fwd)
by Bruce Marshall 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please tell your user (Alex Strasheim <cp(a)proust.suba.com>) to be more careful in responding to messages to ensure that they are received by the correct site postmaster. *I* was not the one requesting off the list. I was merely the person the original poster happened to reply to with their plea to remove *them* from the cypherpunks mailing list. > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 00:24:15 -0500 (CDT) > From: Alex Strasheim <cp(a)proust.suba.com> > To: postmaster(a)fn.net > Subject: Re: RSA-130 Falls to NFS - Lenstra Posting to sci.crypt.research (fwd) > > Please tell your user that he can unsubscribe by sending the message > > unsubscribe cypherpunks > > to majordomo(a)toad.com > > Posting messages like the ones he's been posting to cypherpunks don't do > any good -- none of the people reading them can unsubscribe him. > > > Forwarded message: > > From cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com Thu Apr 18 00:12:51 1996 > > Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 18:08:25 -0700 (PDT) > > From: Leslie Farnsworth <leslie(a)koalas.com> > > To: Bruce Marshall <brucem(a)wichita.fn.net> > > cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > > Subject: Re: RSA-130 Falls to NFS - Lenstra Posting to sci.crypt.research > > In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.91.960417083229.17657A-100000(a)wichita.fn.net> > > Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.960417180811.3310E-100000(a)koalas.com> > > MIME-Version: 1.0 > > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > > Precedence: bulk > > > > take me of your emailing list

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Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by Peter Monta 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Perry Metzger writes: > > 1. If "cooking" a byte sequence in a manner that reduces its > > maximum entropy by less than 1% allows an attacker to break your > > cryptosystem, then it is crap to begin with. With only a little > > more effort, he could break it anyway. > > I would suggest that you look at differential and linear cryptanalysis > to learn what a tiny little statistical toehold will give you. > > My "ad hominem PSA" stands. I suggest people not trust Mr. Wienke's > pronouncements. He appears to be suffering from significant hubris. No, he's correct; cryptanalytic schemes like those you mention rely on statistical toeholds *in the context of a deterministic cipher algorithm*. For one-time pads that are "cooked" or "screened" (and I agree that it's a silly thing to do), the toehold is much weaker, infinitesimal in fact. For example, suppose we take 1024-bit blocks from a physical RNG (which we'll agree is "good", has entropy close to 1024 bits, whatever that means). There are 2^1024 such blocks. Obtain one and apply the magical test---if the block fails, toss it in the bit bucket. Suppose, conservatively, that half the sequences fail. The cryptanalyst now knows that the plaintext cannot be ( failed_pad xor ciphertext ) for any of the 2^1023 failed_pads. Thus, it must be one of the other 2^1023. This is the *only* toehold he gets. Cheers, Peter Monta pmonta(a)qualcomm.com Qualcomm, Inc./Globalstar

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