December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: No matter where you go, there they are.
by Powers Glenn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

- It's called "S/A" (Selective Availability) which is the NWO term for adding - errors that "authorized" users can remove. (Not to be confused with A/S, or - anti-spoofing) It was originally intended to be turned on in wartime to - deny the enemy accurate fixes, but during the Gulf War military GPS - receivers were so scarce that the soldiers had to use commercial products, - so the S/A actually was turned OFF then! - - Since then, pressure has been building to turn off S/A, since its usefulness - is nearly zero. Even so, the amplitude of S/A errors are only a little - larger than natural errors caused by satellite timing errors, atmospheric - propagation variations, etc. The result is that DGPS is useful, which is - (more or less) a fixed antenna and GPS system which knows where it is, and - subtracts where it "seems" to be by GPS every second, and broadcasts the - resulting error data on some terrestrial system to receivers locally. The - result is errors down to the 1-meter level and even lower. That system - compensates for both natural errors and S/A, so the whole purpose of having - S/A is negated. Eventually S/A will probably be turned off permanently, but - even then we'll want to continue to use DGPS systems. Close, but not quite: S/A is an ADJUSTABLE variable, not on/off. it can reduce accuracy to 10 meters or 100 meters or whatever. It's a DoD term, not NWO term. The "this is where you really are" percision location (forgot the designation off hand) is ENCRYPTED (yes, there is crypto revelance here...) in the data stream from the satellites. The difference S/A makes is on the order of magnitude, therefore not "useless." It should be pointed out that different regions of the earth can have different degrees of accuracy based on the S/A system. I doubt S/A will ever be turned off, but this is my opinion. I know Jim's opinion. Discussion of this point is pointless. DGPS transmission are made from a multiple single points, which (to the best of my knowledge) are not networked. glenn

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info
by James Childers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

send info

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I have seen the enemy, and it is us (was Know Your Net.Enemies)
by Michael C. Peponis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 10 Apr 96 ,Declan B. McCullagh wrote: > Would anyone be interested in collaborating on a "Know Your Net Enemies" > project? > > We'd start with a resource like Bob Chatelle's excellent web pages at > <http://world.std.com/~kip/bcfenatl.html> and with permission build on > it and list the deceptions and misrepresentations each Net-Enemy has > engaged in -- what each has done to restrict liberty online. We'd > include original documents and links as appropriate. > > Who would be listed? Well, there's the family values groups > [AFA/CC/NLC/EE!/FOF/FRC], the green card spammers, Carnegie Mellon > University, Marty Rimm, the Church of Scientology, the Simon Wiesenthal > Center, the NSA, German state prosecutors, Senator Exon, Dorothy > Denning, and so on. > Anyone interested? This would be a great resource. Sure, it's worth a shot, but what is the ultimate goal??? I have noticed that there has been alot of noise about who is doing what, but instead of whining and crying, what are we going to do about it???? Cryptology lets people put an envelope on their communications, which is a significant achievment. Digital signatures allow for authentication, another acheivement, but what else could be coded? Sure, it is technicaly possible to set up net sites whos physical location could not be determined without alot of effort, but at that point, the war has already been lost, that practice is just minimizing the extent of the loss. Seems all the end result is just rialing up everybody, and repeting ad nausum how stupid these people are, like we didn't know that before. These are not technical problems, they can not be coded out of existance. The problem is with people, and must be delt with at that level. Legislation and debate will not do a damm thing, we have our views, others have thiers, and the two will never meet. Personally, I don't even respect the family groups, national security types, etc, thus I really do not care about thier concerns or feelings, nor do they care for mine. At some point and time, people are going to decide for themselves what is their freedom worth. Are they willing to give up all the benifits of a parential govement taking care of them so that they can be truely free. I would say no, even most people here are all for freedom, as long as it does not cost them anything. They are all for freedom as long as they don't have to live in fear for their life because absolute freedom means that everybody can do whatever they want, and some people have no problem blowing you away for the stupidest reasons. Such is human nature, alot of people are not very nice, sorry, that is the way it is. The other one was "We need a stable enviorment to continue generating captital so we can afford to by new toys" Again, we have a choice, give up our freedom for the toys, or give up the toys to be free. As has been said many times before FREEDOM ISN'T FREE. Regards, Michael C. Peponis Public Key Avalible Via Key Servers, or Finger

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Re: Know Your Net.Enemies Project
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:31 PM 4/11/96, Declan B. McCullagh wrote: >Excerpts from cypherpunks: 11-Apr-96 Re: Know Your Net.Enemies P.. by >Timothy C. May(a)got.net >> Sort of like Nixon's Enemies List? >> >> Have we become the enemy? > >Tim, I thought that the "Enemies List" name would be seen as a >deliberate takeoff of Nixon's Enemies List, and what I thought would be >a humorous working title for the project until a permanent one was >found. You may remember, BTW, that I don't have the power of the FBI to >command. > >But since I was unclear and since the joke was ill-taken, I apologize. No apology needed. I just think it's a destructive, negative idea, one that I think could cast the Cypherpunks as a bunch of small-minded people. Maybe it comes from living in sunny California, with its fruits, nuts, and odd people, but I would really prefer to concentrate on positive ideas (which I view crypto anarchy as being, by the way) than on compiling lists of enemies. It also seems odd that you recently characterized Dorothy Denning as a "sweet old lady" but now propose a special page for her on the Enemies List. I have no brief for her positions, and have opposed her positions over the years, but I have no interest in formally demonizing her. (I confess to _once_ having characterized her as "the Wicked Witch of the East," but this was during the furor over the Clipper Chip, and I have since scrupulously avoided personalizing the attack. And it was meant at that time as a joke, obviously. I even got on well at last year's CFP with Stewart Baker, former chief counsel of the NSA and still heavily-linked to spooks, but I disagree _strongly_ with his views about encryption policy. Still, I would not dream for an instant of helping to compile an Enemies List with Stewart Baker on it!) >To be clear: I envision this as opposition research. In the context of >the CDA, it was very useful to know what the family values groups were >saying -- their arguments and their strategies. A central collection >point for such research is a useful thing. > >Suggestions for a working title, anyone? I think David Friedman had a pretty good point a while back on the Cyberia list: that compilation of such viewpoints could help opposition lawyers prepare their cases. Speaking for myself, I have seen Kathy Cleaver _several_ times on various interview shows, so I know her positions on most CDA-related things. You undoubtedly know her likely positions even better. I submit that only a handful of Cypherpunks know more than the two of us about Cleaver's position, for example (I include myself because I have CNN on during ordinary working hours, or NPR, and so I get a chance most people don't have to see her, Arianna Huffington, Ralph Reed, and suchlike, being interviewed or giving their views.) A research page having detailed links to their positions _might_ be useful to those who will be facing them in court or in debates. You might ask Godwin, Barlow, etc. if this would be useful. But this is quite a different thing from an "Enemies List," which I rather doubt would be useful per se to Barlow, Godwin, and other civil liberties activists. Maybe my viewpoint comes from just wanting to wash my hands of "those easterners" in the Beltway-New York corridor. --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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Re: No matter where you go, there they are.
by Tim Dierks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:22 PM 4/10/96, Peter Trei wrote: >> >> Peter - didn't they say that the checking station is also listening >> to the satellites? That way they can tell that you are playing back >> signals that you taped earlier because they won't match what the >> satellites are broadcasting right now. >> >> I think your idea would work if you wanted to pretend to be at a point >> which was _farther_ from each of the satellites than where you actually >> are. Then you could delay all of the signals. But the only way to >> be farther would be to be deep underground. You might be able to pretend >> to be at the center of the earth, but that is not very useful. >> >> Actually I suppose this only applies to those satellites which are shared >> between you and the checkin station. If you are far away then maybe you >> only share one or two. If you know which ones those are, you can lie to >> your heart's content about other ones, and for the shared ones you can >> again delay the signal and claim to be farther than you are. >> >> If their authenticated repeaters are used then you have to assume the >> checking station has all the satellite signals and again the best you can >> do is pretend to be a Mole Man. >> >> Hal > >Denning hasn't thought this through. Do the math. While we may disagree with Ms. Denning on a number of political matters, she's quite intelligent; I suspect the paper is well-founded. >The diameter of the earth is 12,576 km >The speed of light is about 3e5 km/sec GPS receivers are line-of-sight only; only a small portion of the earth can see the same satellites. > [...] >Therefore any site that can see the same set of satellites as the site it is >trying to simulate can do so, buffering less than 50 ms of waveforms and >pretending to be on the end of a slow link. GPS works by measuring the differing distances to a number of satellites. Thus, a crucial factor of GPS reception is not just the signals from satellites, but the different times at which these signals were received. It might be possible to seperately record the signals from several different satellites, delay them each just the right amount of time, and then recombine them to simulate being at another nearby location (within several hundred miles). However, this might not be possible. Examine the following quote from Denning's paper: :The location signature is virtually impossible to forge at the :required accuracy. This is because the GPS observations at any given time :are essentially unpredictable to high precision due to subtle satellite :orbit perturbations, which are unknowable in real-time, and intentional :signal instabilities (dithering) imposed by the U.S. Department of Defense :selective availability (SA) security policy. It's possible that the orbit perturbations may be enough to screw up an attempt to forge a signal; the variations in signal timings won't provide enough information to an attacker to be able to accurately replicate what the signal would look like at another location. It remains to be seen whether it is reliably possible for the secure host, at its location, to distinguish between an accurate signature and an inaccurate but plausible forged signature. Selective Availability doesn't really seem to matter that much, especially since it's going to be phased out. (There was an announcement on this last week, but I can't find a reference right now). - Tim Tim Dierks -- timd(a)consensus.com -- www.consensus.com Head of Thing-u-ma-jig Engineering, Consensus Development

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Re: Protocols at the Point of a Gun
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:50 AM 4/11/96, Jeff Weinstein wrote: > Given that the IETF has no "official" (whatever that means) sanction, >what would prevent any other organization from coming in and trying to >take over their turf? I saw an article today (sorry, can't remember >where) that suggested a brewing fight between IETF and W3C over future >HTTP and HTML standards. If someone stands up and says that the IETF >is becoming too slow and overcome by bickering (not my opinion, just >a what if), and that their new group is better suited to setting standards, >who decides who is right, and based on what criteria? It seems that >one aspect of anarchy is that anyone could move in and replace "their >anarchy" with the "new anarchy". > > Just some philosophical pondering late one night... This is indeed an interesting philosophical question. Many have studied the emergence of order in anarchic or chaotic systems: F. Hayek, R. Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, W. Bartley, David Friedman, and many others. Standards or modes have generally evolved without enforcement from a central authority. Economies and markets are a good example (but perhaps too loaded with baggage about politics, so I won't use markets as my example here). Language is the most obvious example of this evolution without central authority. And everything in your paragraph above has an equivalent in language. For example: "It seems that one aspect of [the words we use] is that anyone could move in and [introduce new words and others might start using them]." Indeed, languages and cultures change. Sometimes slowly, and sometimes quickly (a la punctuated equilibrium). But it is not necessarily an easy thing to have such changes adopted. Inertia, other cultural/memetic forces, and other factors give certain advantages to the status quo, with changes percolating in. Sometimes changes happen rapidly, in an almost phase shift-like way. The introduction of Mosaic (and now Netscape) followed this pattern. Note that no offical standards body dictated the form (quibblers may cite HTML standards, but this is beside the point...), and it spread like wildfire, either filling newly-created ecological niches or largely displacing existing products (like gopher, archie, veronica, anonymous ftp, etc.). A good place to read about some of this is Kevin Kelly's "Out of Control," where the title suggests the theme, that central control mechanisms are dead. This applies to economies, cultural memes, evolution, and so on. And of the aforementioned authors, Hayek's "Law, Legislation, and Liberty" is a good source. --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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security auditing class (fwd)
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Wow. Looks like fun. ----- Forwarded message from Dan ----- >From firewalls-owner(a)GreatCircle.COM Thu Apr 11 06:54:33 1996 Message-Id: <199604102045.NAA29570(a)flying.fish.com> X-Authentication-Warning: flying.fish.com: Host zen@localhost didn't use HELO protocol To: firewalls(a)GreatCircle.COM Subject: security auditing class reply-to: /dev/null(a)flying.fish.com Date: Wed, 10 Apr 96 13:45:46 -0700 From: Dan <zen(a)flying.fish.com> Sender: firewalls-owner(a)GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Announcement of Free Class on Internet Security Auditing and Risk Assessment *** Sponsored by Sun *** TIME & LOCATION Tuesday, April 30th, 1996 ***** This class will be given *one* time; it will *not* be repeated ***** The class will last all day - 8 or more hours [Exact building/location TBA, but will be in Mountain View, CA, USA INSTRUCTORS Dan Farmer Wietse Venema Sun Microsystems Eindhoven University of Technology GENERAL OVERVIEW *** WARNING *** *** This class will be aimed at experienced system administrators or *** *** security auditing professionals. 8 hours of class in one day is not *** *** for the faint of heart! However, there are no requirements or *** *** prerequisites needed to attend. *** *** *** Wietse and I are going to give a class on security auditing. In something like 8 hours, we are going to try and cover everything we know (or at least the highlights) on how to do an Internet security audit. Neither of us have any formal auditing training, but we feel that with our combined experience (we are the authors of the TCP wrappers, COPS, and SATAN, among other tools and papers) that we have a fair amount to say about the subject. If the class goes well, we plan on giving another talk in the summer, probably in europe next time, on securing your Unix system. CLASS TOPICS (selected, not exhaustive) Definition and purpose of security auditing Software and hardware tools used Our general philosophy about auditing Tiger teams Types of auditing/systems What to examine/ignore "Perfect" vs. incomplete data Micro vs. macro auditing Auditing large networks Passive vs. active data collection Interpretation of data collection Auditing the security policy *Our* auditing and security standards Scoring methods Overall data analysis System design analysis The report REGISTRATION NOTES & INFORMATION We don't know how many people will show up; we will try to accomodate everyone, but with finite space, we might have to limit the class size. It will be filled in a more-or-less first come, first serve basis. We will be placing some notes on the web; registered participants will be notified of where to find them. To register, you must send a *physical* letter with your name and e-mail address to my wonderful Sun administrator: Diana Behjou 2550 Garcia Avenue, MS PAL01-550 Mountain View, CA 94043-1100 USA And request a position in the Internet Security Auditing and Risk Assessment class. You will receive an e-mail reply to confirm your registration. Again, there is no charge, but *please* don't register unless you are certain that you'll be there, because others will suffer if the class fills up. E-mail will probably be ignored, unless I know you, and then I'll be pissed off that you asked me to add you to the list instead of sending a stupid letter, and you'll owe me a bottle of fine port or something. There is no ulterior motive to this, other than the fact that wietse and I are trying to write a book, and we're using this as a motivational tool. Enjoy. ----- End of forwarded message from Dan ----- -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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Re: Protocols at the Point of a Gun
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>At 9:48 4/10/96, Duncan Frissell wrote: >[...] >>We know that governments would like to impose things like the Simple >>Tax Transfer Protocol on the Net as well as Is A Person (and Is A Minor) >>Protocols. There was a recent discussion on a radio talk show that the IRS is now requiring some large class of taxpayers who submit estimated taxes to do so electronically. The host and callers weren't sure of any of the details (such as exactly who's covered and whether you can deduct the computer you had to buy to submit your taxes electronically :-) but obviously they read Duncan's phrase about Simple Tax Transfer Protocol and decided to implement it real fast.... # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215

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Possible problems caused by Brown death?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Given that Commerce is the main force within the administration pushing for freeing up the escrow rules, the below article is of interest. -Allen > WASHINGTON (Apr 8, 1996 10:48 a.m. EDT) -- When Ron Brown died in a > plane crash, American capitalism lost its staunchest ally in the > Clinton administration. Now business executives wonder who will > champion their cause the next time commercial interests clash with > other priorities. [...] > With the Cold War over, Brown believed the United States no longer > should sacrifice economic interests to other foreign policy goals and > he used his close friendship with Clinton to push a business agenda > inside the administration. [...] > He succeeded in battles with the Defense Department in loosening Cold > War-era export controls that American companies had long complained > severely limited their ability to sell high-technology products such > as computers and telecommunications equipment. > Copyright &copy 1996 Nando.net

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Re: Scientologists may subpoena anonymous remailer records
by um＠c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) writes: >some details. (To Jim Byrd, that "alumni account at Cal Tech" that you >mentioned was one of the Cypherpunks remailers at Caltech that our own >pioneering Hal Finney runs.) From: noring(a)netcom.com (Jon Noring) Subject: [X-Post, Caltech OFFICIALLY Speaks] -AB-,penet, and Caltech ******************************************************* In article <3smmv3$ard(a)gap.cco.caltech.edu> rich(a)cco.caltech.edu (Richard E. Fagen) writes: On Wednesday afternoon, February 8th, three private investigators visited the Caltech Security Office and the Campus Computing Organization. The P.I.s wanted to know the identity of the holder of the account "tc" on the Caltech Alumni Association computer system (alumni.caltech.edu) They claimed to have gotten the account name from the anon.penet.fi server via the Helsinki police. Due to the unusual nature of this request, the P.I.s were told that Caltech would need more information before this type of information could be given out. Later that day, an attorney representing the Church of Scientology called the campus computing support office demanding the name of the account holder. The attorney claimed that a document had been stolen from a CoS computer system, and that the document had been posted to the a.r.s newsgroup from alumni.caltech.edu via the anon remailer. (The claim was the document was created on Jan. 21 and appeared in a.r.s. on Jan. 24). The computing support staff did not divulge the name of the account holder, and the CoS attorney was referred to the Caltech General Counsel's office. The Computer Crime Unit of the Bunco-Forgery Division of the LAPD subsequently contacted Caltech security and asked for more information on the case. The LAPD wanted to know if a breakin to the CoS computer had occurred from the alumni system. Caltech told the LAPD that no evidence of such a break in could be found. The LAPD requested and was given the name of the "tc" account holder with the understanding that this information would not be divulged. A couple days after that Caltech was informed that the LAPD could find no evidence that a crime had been committed. In the ensuing several days, the attorney and P.I.s representing CoS made repeated attempts (both via phone and by physically appearing on the Caltech and JPL campuses) to obtain the contents of the tc account and also the tape backups (the account holder had admitted to deleting most of the contents of the account). The CoS attorney produced a letter allegedly signed by the tc account holder allowing CoS permission to get the data stored on that account and the backups. Due to irregularities with both the letter and a phone conversation with the account holder, permission for CoS to have access to the data in the account was denied by Caltech. After the CoS attorney and P.I.s continued their attempts to get the data, Caltech retained the counsel of an independent law firm. Soon after that, all communication with the CoS ended. One phone call from the tc account holder requesting the backup data was received by the computing support staff. This request was also denied. That was the last communication with the account holder. Our analysis is that Caltech was caught in the middle of what appears to be an internal matter between the Church of Scientology and one of its members, who also happened to be an account holder on the Caltech alumni computer. No evidence that a Caltech computer was used to break into another computer, or was used to store stolen documents could ever be found. I hope this serves to shine a little light on this chain of events. Rich Fagen Director, Campus Computing Organization Caltech ****************** end of cross-post ******************** -- OmniMedia | The Electronic Bookstore. Come in and browse! Two 9671 S. 1600 West St. | locations: ftp.netcom.com /pub/Om/OmniMedia/books South Jordan, UT 84095 | and ftp.awa.com /pub/softlock/pc/products/OmniMedia 801-253-4037 | E-book publishing service follows NWU recommendations.

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