December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: The Four Horsemen Go to the Olympics!
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:22 AM 7/28/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >By the way, the airline solution is not too difficult to visualize: > >1. Eliminate checked baggage, or at least require those with checked >baggage to deposit it enough hours in advance to be inspected and to pay >any surcharges for this inspection. (I try to only have carry-on baggage, >and this seems to be a major trend.) > >2. Let the market decide. Airlines could announce their baggage inspection >policy, and customers could decide on the tradeoffs between increased >inspections and higher costs, and greater confidence in security. > >I think I'll repost my "Soft Targets" piece of a few weeks ago, in the >light of TWA 800 and this morning's bomb in Atlanta. Actually, if I wanted to blow up the Portland airport, all I would do is set up a mortar up on the hills overlooking the airport. The entire airport is pretty visible from those hills. There is no way to completely eliminate terrorism. And since the imposition of order tends to promote the escalation of disorder, I expect it to only get worse... And the only people to "win" will be the control freaks. --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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"Soft Targets" as Schelling Points
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The connection should be clear, but in case it is not: many soft targets are Schelling points for terrorist actions. Putting yourself in the mind of a terrorist or militia crazy or whatever, where would you attack? The Olympics, obviously. (And security officials of course see the same Schelling point, hence the unprecedented security measures and presence.) Given that most Olympic events are well-guarded, etc., what's the next target to look at? Crowded public gatherings, where the "message" can still be delivered and where security measures are problematic. There are tens of thousands of such soft targets/Schelling points in an "open society," and it is unreasonable to expect to defend each one of them. (Costly, too.) And if they are so-defended, the attacker moves to other targets. Keep your head down. --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Washington Post, July 27, 1996, p. A22. Speaking in Code on the Internet ... [Editorial] The decibel level has been rising in the argument over how much control the federal government should have over the export of encryption technology. The Senate Commerce Committee held hearings Thursday on a proposal dubbed Pro-CODE (Promotion of Commerce On-line in the Digital Era) that would lift current restrictions on exporting encryption software above a certain level of complexity. The move is opposed strongly by law enforcement and national security authorities, who fear the consequences to their tracking of terrorism or crime if uncrackable cryptography becomes the global standard. But encryption software -- which scrambles a person's computer messages so no one can read them without a key -- also is thought by many in the computer industry to be the missing piece that's preventing customers from a full-scale move to the Internet for banking and other confidential transactions, rather than, as now, worrying about the security of their data. They also see it as a market in which the United States maintains a comfortable lead, one that is threatened if domestic encryption makers can't sell their products elsewhere. The makers argue that foreign encryption software will rush in to fill the gap, doing nothing about the uncrackability problem -- indeed, making it worse. The administration in turn is pursuing a wider international agreement to maintain controls on cryptology export by all the industrialized nations and has been putting pressure on its colleagues in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which will rule on the matter in a Paris meeting in September. Administration officials, including FBI chief Louis Freeh, have been pushing for an alternative policy of "voluntary key escrow" -- encryption makers would deposit a key to the code with a neutral third body before exporting the products and could then have access to the codes only by court order, as happens now with wiretapping. Mr. Freeh, testifying at Thursday's hearing in favor of an optional key escrow plan, noted that the point is not to prevent all copies of uncrackable code from going abroad -- that's clearly impossible -- but to prevent such high-level code from becoming the international standard, with architecture and transmission channels all unreadable to world authorities. To software companies and Internet users who have been clamoring for the right to encrypt as securely as possible, Mr. Freeh and others argue, "the genie is not yet out of the bottle" on "robust," meaning uncrackable, encryption. It's far from obvious to anyone that an optional escrow plan really can prevent the growth of inaccessible transmissions by international terrorists or criminals. Encryption, if widely used, could conceivably ease some privacy problems concerning who gets to see personal and financial data on individuals -- though such data usually are vulnerable to being dug out of storage rather than intercepted in transmission. But neither is it clear that the encryption enthusiasts' desire for free development should take precedence over the tracking of terrorism. At the very least, Congress should be exceedingly cautious about getting out ahead of administration concerns on controls that, once lifted, are hardly reversible. -----

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Re: Olympic bombing
by Wayne H. Allen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 17:41 96.07.27 +0200, Mike van der Merwe wrote: >I can just see the FBI screaming "we need weaker encryption to combat >terrosism on US soil" with nasty effects -- it seems all to many people, >lawmakers included, will be only to happy to sacrifice their privacy that >the FBI can better combat these terrorist acts (which could *of course* >could been prevented had only the FBI been able to read their encrypted >mail...) > >Somehow I got the feeling watching CNN that the FBI was given a shitload >of ammo. Call me cynical but the Reichstag fire comes to mind... The phrase "Get a life" comes to mind. Wayne H.Allen whallen(a)capitalnet.com Pgp key at www.capitalnet.com/~whallen

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Is Colossus out of date?
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You may recall recent comments by Attorney General Janet Reno where she notes that exportable encryption cannot be broken in reasonable time by modern supercomputers. With that as background, you may find the following paragraph interesting. It is from the Financial Times article on Colossus. http://jya.com/coloss.txt > [Tony] Sale describes [Colossus] as a large electronic valve > programmable logic calculator. "No lay person would argue > that it is not a computer," he says. Furthermore, because > it wasted no time retrieving a stored program it was almost > as fast as a high-speed modern computer whose nominal > work-rate is 1,000 times quicker. A simulation of Colossus > which Sale ran on a top-of-the-range Pentium PC took twice > as long as the real thing. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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Re: Schelling Points, Rights, and Game Theory--Part II
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:31 AM 7/25/96 EST, jbugden(a)smtplink.alis.ca wrote: > Basically, in this view of rights and raising of children it would seem that a > relativistic pragmatism prevails. Personally, I think that the two choices are > either this relative pragmatism or an absolute morality. The fact that someone is doing something that is morally wrong, does not automatically give us the right to go and rectify it at gunpoint. Not all wrongs are crimes, only those wrongs for which is just to engage in violent retribution. > Some implications of Tim's view is that all our rights are basically a > transitory agreement between individuals. Tim may or may not believe this, but that is not a consequence of his views. The schelling point theory of rights is substantially equivalent in practice to "We hold these truths to be self evident." --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:21 PM 7/27/96 GMT, John Young wrote: > The Washington Post, July 27, 1996, p. A22. [Snip] > Mr. Freeh and others argue, "the genie is not yet > out of the bottle" on "robust," meaning uncrackable, > encryption. Why does it sounds like Mr. Freeh and his friends are drinking out of a different bottle than the rest of us? The genie is out of the bottle and has been for a while. The tools are there for those who care to use them. Maybe it is a diffrenet genie that he is trying to portray... Maybe it is the acceptance and relyance on crypto that has not quite escaped into the general populace. If someone tried to portray all automobie drivers as dangerous maniacs and cars as only useful for making getaways, he would be laughed out of the room. If someone tried to claim that phones are a haven for drug dealers, and thus must be licenced, they would get a harsh reaction from the public. Freeh is fighting a war against the public having a positive view of Crypto. By smearing crypto users as "criminals and terrorists", he is using his office to influence the opinions of "law abiding citizens" to be anti-crypto. I beleive that there is alot that can be done to influence the public to be pro-crypto. With the proper memes, you can reveal the flaws in the anti-privacy forces arguments. Here are a few in no particular order... Teaching computer users how to use PGP. Offer to give instruction in use of PGP amongst general PC and Mac users groups. Whenever possible associate the wiretapping requests of the FBI with the opening of mail. Remind people of the abuses in the past. Ask them of if they can remember any good coming from these program. Ask them if they mind *you* looking through their mail and what makes the Government any better or worse. Local stations will usually have a "public forum discussion" program on varioussubjects. get on it. Usually the program is rigged in one direction por another, but you can get in a good meme or two that will stick in the heads of the people watching. (And it can be alot of fun!) Offer to sponsor a crypto archive and discussion area on a local BBS. Keep it current. Get others interested. Spread the tools and teach people how to use them. Build web sites that are pro-crypto. Where possible, get them working under SSL. Are there any SSL crypto sites out there? I know of only one, and it is not advertised. (Or up to date.) Work fast lest the darkness overcome us all... Be creative. The control freaks and authoritarians lack that creativity. Lets use it to our advantage. --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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BCI_sys
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

7-27-96. WaPo: A report on the Army's Battlefield Combat Identification System (BCIS), designed by TRW, which identifies friendly targets through triple-checked microwave pulses, encrypted signals that change frequencies 43 times a second to resist jamming or detection by the enemy. (The roasting of friendlies depicted in "Courage Under Fire" is cited as firing increased public interest.) ----- http://jya.com/bcisys.txt (14 kb) BCI_sys

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Re: Twenty Beautiful Women
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:19 PM 7/27/96, David Sternlight wrote: >Here's another: > >Twenty beautiful women are to pass before you, one by one (or 20 handsome >men). You see only one at a time. You cannot speak to them. After seeing >any one, you must pick her or reject her. If you reject her, you cannot >change your mind. If you pick her the exercise terminates. > >What is the optimal strategy for insuring you get the most beautiful woman >possible under the circumstances? Look at the first 1/e of them, or about the first 36.8% of them. In this case, the first 7 of them. Then pick the first one after this group which is better than any of the first group. While there is some chance that one will get to #20 and find that none of #8-20 were better than #1-7, this strategy is the best compromise between "committing too early" and "waiting too long." --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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cypherpunks vs hackers
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How can we differentiate cypherpunks to hackers? What are their attitudes, psychological thinking, main objective?

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