December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: distinctive properties of ecash, netbill, cybercash and iKP
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 16:40 5/11/96, Jüri Kaljundi wrote: >This is one question why the central bank in Estonia (I am not sure about >other countries) does not allow issuing e-cash here in Estonia. While the >banks issue e-cash to people, they get some real cash from people. This >leads to actually doubleing the money in circulation, each monetary unit, >either dollar or kroon, can at the same time be used by owner of e-cash >and at the same time by the bank. The central banks are afraid that when >the amount of e-cash in circulation gets big, this could lead to >devalvation of money, especially a small country like Estonia is afraid of >such development. That's simply silly. The same argument would hold true for travelers checks. Are Estonian banks allowed to issue them? I thought so. Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, not those of my employer. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: Remailer in a box
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:52 5/11/96, Matts Kallioniemi wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >At 17:39 1996-05-10 EDT, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >>Yes, for the cryptographic purposes. It doesn't make much difference >>on the juristictional end of things - I'd need to locate a UNIX account >>in another country for that. Hmm... possible. >> -Allen > >Anybody who want's an anonymous shell account in Sweden, send me MTB ecash >and I'll get an account opened for you with a local ISP. Sweden has the best >Internet access outside North America. A 34 Mbps line to the US, soon to be >upgraded to 155 Mbps! May I suggest convincing that Swedish ISP to offer up a signup form accepting Ecash? Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, not those of my employer. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: Again: [hrdware] anti-Tempest video settings
by Adam philipp 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:02 PM 5/11/96 +0000, you wrote: >But of course. But what I want to know is: is there some >combination of >display colors that will be visible for the eye, but not for the >Tempest equipment? I am not an electrical engineer and do not play one in real life. However in my on TEMPEST I heard nothing about varying colors to reduce RF radiation from a monitor. Just set up a Faraday cage, much simpler. >That might answer it. I suppose that if some "stealth" settings >exists, they are highly hardware dependent. Better to get TEMPEST rated hardware then... check government surplus... I've had reports of TEMPEST class computer cases being sold with power supplies real cheap... >My question was not "would it work in all instances?" but rather >"had this tactic been implemented successfully in *some* instances?" Not that I have ever heard... Hopefully I am not feeding this troll too much. >Or, to the contrary, is it reasonable to assume that modern Tempest equipment can >work around theses impediments almost all of the time, therefore >making any attempts at this futile? No modern equipment can detect radiation that does NOT leave a Faraday cage. Adam, Esq. -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-\ | My PGP key is available on my |Unauthorized interception violates | | home page: http://www.rosa.com |federal law (18 USC Section 2700 et| |=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|seq.). In any case, PGP encrypted | |SUB ROSA...see home page... |communications are preferred for | | -=[ FUCK THE CDA]=- |sensitive materials. | \=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-/ If A is a success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut. Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

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Reply to anonymous ping.
by daemon＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Your code name is: an611909(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Re: distinctive properties of ecash, netbill, cybercash and iKP
by minow＠apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >> >> Anonymity of monetary transactions is another thing that Bank of Estonia >> has declared illegal. > >Cash is illegal, too! How does the economy in Estonia work these days? >Barter? If you think about it, anonymous cash transactions above a certain limit ($4,000?) are illegal in the United States, too. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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Notes from the SF Physical Cypherpunks meeting
by minow＠apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here are my notes -- without significant editing or correction -- from Saturday's (96.05.11) cypherpunks meeting in Palo Alto. Discussion of crypto user interfaces (particularly NetScape and e-mail) -- How to tell user that "installation" not secure in a decent GUI? -- Expectation of what leaves user machine. -- Vendor's "shouldn't distinguish products on security: security is the bedrock of our industry." (Quote from some industry person who was not present to defend this thesis). -- Someday, there will be a "Word virus that attacks your CyberCash wallet." -- If the message is insecure with respect to the user's expectation, there should be a user-visible window border (or similar): NetScape's little key isn't good enough. Did you know that the netscape key has 1 tooth for 40-bit, and 2 teeth for 120 bit encryption? -- Signed code is the new industry meme. Bonded agents who certify signed code. Do you know how much bonding costs, and how little it offers? -- Security dialogs need a help button that explains security. -- Error messages (of all kinds) should have a url that gives more info. Can be a file:// or http:// for local help. Eudora and Netscape will provide S/Mime. PGP is going nowhere, S/Mime becoming ubiquitous (Eudora, future Netscape) S/Mimepretty good. 2 Flaws: signature's name is not encrypted. Major flaw: encryption defaults to 40-bit. No good way to negotiate for stronger encryption. c2.org: 90% of all connections are 40-bit RC2. Need to publish negotiation info so that sender and receiver can agree on crypto strength. PGP lost in Eudora/Netscape: ongoing legal problems with Phil Zimmerman. Strong concern that companies can't use PGP without problems with RSA. Do they need Viacrypt. Web of trust: not working. Hard to map an e-mail address to a key. Hal Finney's Java implementation not sufficient for signature distribution. S/Mime will support Verisign. Verisign certificates have "trust" level: class 1 is untrusted (equivalent to PGP self-signed?) Next Netscape beta will have five additional non-verisign CA's: ---- Crypto toolkit: need certification for code fragments. Need "web of trust" for software validation. There will be a zillion Java applet's out there: how do you know one does what you claim it do? When will Java signed classes/signed applets be released. Two weeks. Hmm, Java One conference is in two weeks. Surely a coincidence. You can sign a class by signing the class file (zip), then archiving it together with the source and then sign the combined archive. I think that Stuffit (on the Macintosh) supports signed archives if PowerTalk is provided. ----- Norm Hardy talked about the E programming language from Electric communities. (Java with capabilities). [[These are notes, and occasionally incoherent, for which I humbly apologize.]] Capabilities. Should be able to import code and run it even when you don't trust the code. Java-type scheme can succeed. No short description. Here are some of the reasons you should believe it: -- History: late 50's Algol 60. Code shouldn't be able to escape it's storage. Compilers and hardware thought this was not sufficiently important to do this. Not implemented on actual compilers or hardware (hmm, Burrows 5000, Basic timesharing systems offer counter-examples). Intent was to be neat and modular, not to be secure against intruders. Garbage collectors forced better, formal, theory of storage. Gave us storage security. Multics gave cross-trust subroutine calls. KEYCOS Started in TimeShare, early 1970's. Ran customers (competitors) on the same machine. Machine code didn't get in other people's way. Customers needed to interact. NCSC (part of NSA) looked at this, recommended B3 rating. Archtecture was good for A1 (next to top, as good as it comes). Needed rewriting by cleared people, needed formal proofs. NSA judging systems to protect NSA secrets. Main idea: programs have rapid communication, with strong security properties that they themselves arrange. HYDRA earliest system (Bill Wulf). KEYCOS improved on HYDRA. Capability: designates something and conveys authority to that thing Can't pull this apart: can't access without having capability. Can't get information, can't affect its state. No specific superuser state: privileged programs have different set of capabilities, not necessarily all. COM e-mail/bbs system (Sweden) -- operator could backup e-mail, but not read it. Object oriented programming system is a capability system. Crypto (public-private key) similar to capabilities. Public key is a capability. Private key is the thing that the key designates. Access lists: people access data. However, it's really the computer program that accesses the data on the person's behalf. Access control lists (VMS, Mac filesharing) -- more prevalent than you might expect, but can be made unobtrusive. Few people notice that Mac filesharing has access control lists. Contraxt Unix and capability system. On Unix, programmer gives a filename to the shell, shell tells the compiler. Compiler opens the file. Capability: give "read" capability to shell, shell gives it to compiler. Compiler uses capability to access data. Cannot hide capability from programmer. When you build something (create something), you have to present a "space bank" (sub-pool). You can buy space bank, determine the amount of free space, zap parts of it, etc. Money object: can do in Java -- two classes: mint, pot. Pot has two private fields, mint reference, value. Pot method: produce a sibling pot with same mint object and no value. Transfer -- if two pots refer to the same mint, transfer value between them. I own program, you own data. I don't trust your data, you don't trust my program. I want to allow you to run your data on my program. Factory (mutually trusted). Give access to code to factory. Give you access to factory. You invoke factory, factory creates object that can execute code on data, but lacks capability to send data. Capability architectures (narrower sense): for A to affect B, necessary and sufficent for A to have capability for B. Can't add onto Unix since old, non-capability mechanisms are still there. Get capabilities two ways: create object, gets ownership to message. Can pass capability in a message. Give to subcontractor only narrow capabilities it needs. Build system so capabilities can be very narrow. Can grant capability "Q := zero" -- receiver executes capability, but never know name of variable. Algol call by name -- caller passes a "thunk" to the subroutine. Subroutine executes the thunk that carries out the caller's computation. Debugger subject to same capability restrictions. Keeper -- computational resources become capabilities -- meters grant ability to use cpu time. Meter has "amount of ticks" -- when hits zero, task is suspended. Attached to another program with role of meter keeper. Meter keeper can decide to replenish meter. Can allocate budget (rate-based) -- useful for real-time app's. Jewel manual (agorics web site). Market-based control Scott Clearwater. Fractional (Fractal) reserve bank. http://www.agorics.com/agorics. Can grant subsets of own capabilities. Can (by prior arrangement) revoke capabilities. Language-based vs OS based. Can run large parts of o.s. in capability model. Get some advantages, but there are pitfalls. Capability systems can protect against denial of service. Can administrate cpu/space usage. Language-based systems can message across trust boundaries quickly. O.S. based may need many machine cycles. Crypo-based capability may need millions (exponent). ---- Marianne Mueller. Reported on Java Security Workshop. [[Dumb jokes self-censored to protect the guilty.]] Java team interested in security -- nobody is specifically Mr. Security. Everybody's responsiblity. 1st Morning. Status + foodfight: Steve Bellovin: Java is a virus. Venting. We all got minimal trusted computing base (with verifying, formally) religion. Need better formal model of the language. with better specificiation, can get better testing. Need better test suites to ensure that Microsoft implements the same model as Netscape. VM spec, language spec, also working on policy spec (what the sandbox policy actually is). Funding an outside security group. 1st Afternoon. Paul Karger, Mark Schaffer. How to use capabilities with Java. "If you do capabilities, make sure it does these 15 properties. " 2nd Morning. Proposal to do code signing. Afternoon, continued to discuss code signing and key management. Discussed trust models. Butler Lamson and Ron Rivest paper on Rivest's home page (on capabilities). Lamson now working for Microsoft. IEEE symposium on security and privacy. Security theory people. Princeton stuff. Security folk all over the Princeton folk -- think they're just a bunch of hackers. Java folk impressed; find Princeton stuff useful. Working on crypto API's. Sun lobbying govenment to free crypto API's. Signing classes, applets, applications (application is classes + data). Microsoft coming out this summer. Code signing very important. Needs very soon. Hard to do real capabilities on Java. Transitive closure is very difficult. ----- Transcribed in real-time by Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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Re: Mandatory Voluntary Self-Ratings
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It is interesting to note from the CIEC trial bulletin (which they won't let me quote part of, according to their initial notice - stupid policy) and other sources that the conservatives won't let people just rate "objectionable" material in order to keep it from them. They want it off the net/world whether or not it's rated. Thus, the idea that vznuri and others (such as the various proponents of its current use) have that PICS can save the net from the conservatives et al doesn't work. Nice idea (maybe), but no cigar. -Allen

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Re: Why I Pay Too Much in Taxes
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Thanks to Philip Zimmermann and Lance Cottrell the balance of power > between the state and the little guy has changed completely. It's > good to see that both of them are going into mass market business. > Perhaps they can get some of the billions of dollars they deserve. Thumbs up! JFA DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, Silverware and mouth blown crystal glasses JFA Technologies, R&D consultants. Physists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 Unsollicited commercial e-mail will be proofread at US165 $/h Any sender of such material will be considered as to have ac- cepted the above mentionned terms.

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No Subject
by Jeremiah Harmsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Notes from the SF Physical Cypherpunks meeting
by Matts Kallioniemi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:29 1996-05-12 -0700, Martin Minow wrote: >COM e-mail/bbs system (Sweden) -- operator could backup >e-mail, but not read it. Sure. The database was encrypted by using XOR with the string "KOM". That was the sorry state of encryption in the early eighties. Matts

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