December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Whats new at Bletchley Park
by pjb＠ny.ubs.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greetings; I have just returned from spending a week at Bletchley Park, and have the following to report: On Thursday, 6 June, we had the official switch-on of the rebuilt Colossus. There is still a lot of work to be done on Colossus, but that which is there is definitely working. What remains is to fill in the holes to expand it to the full five wide system that was the Mark-II machine. The switch-on was accompanied by a reasonable sized media affair with many of the original Colossus users present. Also in attendance was Tommy Flowers, the designer of the original, along with his wife and son. It was the first time that his wife had seen or even heard a lot about Colossus. Dr. Flowers, now in his nineties, has a wonderful memory and is a first class gentleman. It was a real pleasure to spend some time with him. There was a lot of local media coverage, but as yet I have seen nothing in international media, such as The (London) Times or the Financial Times, both of whom were represented at the switch-on. During this time, I also installed a new Sun Netra-I server at BP. This server was most kindly donated by Sun Micro Systems. Many thanks to Scott, who set the direction for this gift, and to Matthew, Michael and Steven at Sun-UK for all their efforts in making this happen. A four GByte disk farm was also donated by BoxHill Systems. Thanks to Carol, Ben, Philip, etal at BoxHill for this contribution. This server will provide Internet and WWW access to BP and will serve as the BP mailhost. Once we have the communications facilities in place, the server, elgar, will be on-line. I'll keep the net informed re: our progress in that direction. Once on-line, Tony Sale has a lot of very cool ideas for web pages, including an interactive, GUI-based Enigma emulation. Tony and James Bristow also plan to move their existing Web pages to elgar. The plans to make BP into a one-of-a-kind museum are well underway. Many improvements and added facilities have been added since I was there in April, including a nice bar and restaurant in the original Hut Four. Again I will keep the net up-to-date until the Web server is generally available. I strongly urge everyone who has the opportunity to visit BP to do so. At this point they are open every other weekend, but will, at some point in the future, improve on that. If you have any questions, e-mail me, or for 'open weekend status' call BP directly at: (011 44) 1 908 640404. Many thanks to my friends and colleagues at Bletchley Park; Roger, Peter, Tony, Harry, Margaret, etc, for their hospitality and kindness. -paul (pjb(a)23kgroup.com)

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Re: Fuseable Links - no guarantees??
by wxfield＠shore.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I don't know of any modern chips that have "ceramic coatings." (Some chips, >esp. CPUs, are still ceramic-packaged, but in these cases the metal or >ceramic lids are easily removed.) > >Most chips are plastic-packaged, and plasma ashers and/or chemical baths >will expose the chip surface easily enough. Yep....I guess my age was showing ;-) _______ Warren Crossfield Programmer/MacOS "Buy a Pentium - so you can restart Windoze faster!"

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Time (of CyberPorn fame) puts up a nice CDA page; commentary from PED
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Netly-L is the mailing list that goes with www.netlynews.com. The traffic is quite low, and occasionally something entertaining comes by. -rich ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 05:58:20 -0400 From: Philip Elmer-DeWitt <ped(a)well.com> Reply-To: netly-l(a)pathfinder.com To: Multiple recipients of list <netly-l(a)relay.pathfinder.com> Subject: Re: So... Chris, a couple of omissions in your very good techwatch CDA extravaganza (http://pathfinder.com/technology/netdecency/) 1) the screening software sidebar in this week's TIME (preferably with live pointers) 2) John Perry Barlow's TIME essay from late 1995 (search TIME for "this bill is full of shit") I could argue the omission of the "cyberporn" cover round or flat. Philip Elmer-DeWitt ped(a)well.com TIME Magazine ped(a)cis.compuserve.com philiped(a)aol.com

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unsuscribe
by Pascal Mattiocco 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

unsuscribe

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Re: Pickle Angels?!? (Humour)(Noise)
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 17 Jun 96 at 19:35, William Knowles wrote: > On today's Sally Jesse Raphel was Curtis Swiva? > founder of the Guardian Angels talking about his new record > of eating pickles. He plans to break the record for eating > 22 hot dogs in 12 minutes.... I can see it now... "In a rather ironic twist of fate, Curtis Sliwa was the first person charged with violating the Communications Decency Act (upheld by the Supreme Court) after a web-surfer in Tennessee complained about digitized pictures of himself breaking the world's record for eating hot dogs which were posted on his web page..." Rob. --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Re: "Mail Exploders"
by vin＠shore.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Wonderful tale! I can see that -- maybe, just maybe -- AOL or another targeted online community (a semi-moderated mailing list or even a semi-moderated newsgroup) could be slapped for just bouncing the SPAM back at the sender. I bet they could get away with it, however, if they appended a brief polite notice that this mailing exceeds some (anti-spam) perimeters that the subscribers of AOL (or other online community) agreed -- in their intial subscriber contracts -- to have AOL refuse for them. (Which text, of course, would add to the reply mail burden for the Spammer's IAP.) The only meaningful control on SPAM I can see is to start enforcing a chain of contracts that forbid it (without reference to content) from the backbone back through the IAPs to the users. (I think Long-Morrow at Yale had a nice paper on this a couple of years back.) But this sort of auto-return mechanism could make a dent on the super-Spanners now. Yea for AOL! Suerte, _Vin > On Nerd AOL using explosive mail, this Cyberia-L pointer: > > http://infolawalert.com/stories/061496a.html > > [Excerpts] > > Cyber Promotions sends a collection of short ads, written > as if they were newspaper classifieds, to upward of 900,000 > recipients, 600,000 of whom are America OnLine subscribers. > > America OnLine contends that its computer systems have been > swamped by Cyber Promotion's mass mailings, especially when > 5,000 undeliverable messages start to pile up each day. ... > > When the mailings continued, an AOL employee collected a > bunch of Cyber Promotions's undeliverable messages and > redirected them to UUNET, a large Internet service provider > used by Cyber Promotions. > > According to Cyber Promotions' complaint, this "stunt, > known as an 'e-mail bomb,' was knowingly and maliciously > sent to UUNET by AOL in order to severely tie up and/or > bring down UUNET's computer system." UUNET subsequently > cancelled Cyber Promotion's account. > > According to Cyber Promotions' complaint, AOL bombed > another service provider used by Cyber Promotions. ... > > > > > > Vin McLellan +The Privacy Guild+ <vin(a)shore.net> 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, Ma. 02150 USA Tel: (617) 884-5548 <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

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Re: "Mail Exploders"
by long-morrow＠CS.YALE.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: vin(a)shore.net (Vin McLellan) > The only meaningful control on SPAM I can see is to start enforcing >a chain of contracts that forbid it (without reference to content) from the >backbone back through the IAPs to the users. (I think Long-Morrow at Yale >had a nice paper on this a couple of years back.) But this sort of >auto-return mechanism could make a dent on the super-Spanners now. Actually the paper was written by our Assistant Chairman (Dunne-Bob(a)CS.Yale.EDU) I only made the paper available via FTP, Gopher, WWW and email. ftp://www.cs.yale.edu/pub/dunne/jurimetrics/ gopher://www.cs.yale.edu/11/pub/dunne/jurimetrics/ http://www.cs.yale.edu/pub/dunne/jurimetrics/jurimetrics.html mailto:majordomo@cs.yale.edu ( put 'get sneakers jurimetrics.txt' in message body ) H. Morrow Long, Mgr of Dev., Yale Univ., Comp Sci Dept, 011 AKW, New Haven, CT 06520-8285, VOICE: (203)-432-{1248,1254} FAX: (203)-432-0593 INET: Long-Morrow(a)CS.Yale.EDU UUCP: yale!Long-Morrow BITNET: Long-Morrow@YaleCS WWW: http://www.cs.yale.edu/users/long-morrow.html

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Re: Federal key registration agency
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:27 PM 6/18/96 +0200, TM Peters wrote: >Compuserve Online Today Daily Edition, 15 June 1996: > >Attorney General Janet Reno is advancing a plan to establish a new agency >overseeing all digital encryption, saying that would make it tougher for >criminals and terrorists to use the Internet to carry out crimes. [...] >Reno added, "We look only to make existing law apply to new technology," Such a claim is bogus. "existing law" already "applies" to new technology. It's just that this only means that cops think they have a right to wiretap. It does not mean that they are able to usefully understand the meaning of what they hear. >adding new computer programs designed to crack the new complicated >encryptions take too long to be useful to law enforcement. Like a billion years too long, huh? > "Some of our >most important prosecutions have depended on wire taps." But is the average citizen substantially impacted by crimes that would be assisted by good encryption? Probably not. >She also said registration of keys might end up being a worldwide >requirement, since the Internet is used increasingly for international >communication, commerce, and criminal enterprise. She forgot to mention REVOLUTION. >Reno told the group that effectively regulating electronic encryption will >depend on finding a balance between protecting privacy interests while >stopping criminals from cashing in on the new technology. I see no need for a "balance." I think that the advent of good encryption has the effect of increasing the security of individuals. >"If we do our job right citizens will enjoy the Information Age without >being victimized" by high technology, Reno said. Maybe she should have said, "without toppling the government-employed parasites from their positions of power." >United Press International >Charles Bowen Another one of those organizations threatened by media-bypass. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: SafE Mail Corporation
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:55 AM 6/18/96 -0700, Lucky Green wrote: >At 17:21 6/17/96, M.Wagoner (1 wrote: >>We would like someone to be able or should I say try and crack our >>encryption. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. > >Sigh. Yet another one... > >Unless you make source code available, you will be at best ignored, and at >worst sued by users of your product should they discover that your >unbreakable encryption isn't so unbreakable after all. Unless you use a >hardware RNG and OTPs, your statement that it is impossible to break your >encryption software is simply false Don't even assume that hardware RNGs and OTPs by themselves make a system unbreakable. Go see NSA's web site on the Verona intercepts to see what people who know what they are doing can do when users slip up using a OTP system. http://www.nsa.gov:8080/ I'm with Lucky (and many others) 100% on this one. Snake Oil. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | The Internet may fairly be | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | regarded as a never-ending | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | worldwide conversation. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Source Laundering <was: You bet they have/are: NSA/CIA to snoop INSIDE theU.S.???>
by vin＠shore.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Nobody, an anonymous source of no repute, posted a pretty savvy analysis of the politics of unauthorized wiretaps a week back: > anyone who believes the FBI and a host of other U.S. agencies even > less scrupulous does not wiretap without permits, has been standing > behind the door. generally, it does not matter if the information >learned is > admissable in court --they never admit wiretapping in the first place as > the agency themselves, in many cases, *did*not*wiretap* --but the > agency does buy info from usually unsavory "contractors" who do wiretap. This conforms to my information too. Back in the mid-80s, I took a wiretap counterintelligence class with a lot of cops, PIs, and oil company securitymen. (The quietest guy in the class, a balding little whimp at the tech bench behind me, was a PI by the name of John Walker, who later drew some attention with his overseas business interests. The weirdiest guy in the class was another PI who kept trying to talk to the other guys about their work but was jerked around because everyone knew he was always wired and at the end of the day would rush back to his hotel room to put the tapes through a voice stress analyser. I would have said the most dangerous guys in the room were the grizzled Malasian oilmen, but in hindsight Walker probably takes the prize.) The instructors were big Ray Jarvis (now of Jarvis Security,) an ex-Marine reputed to have recently been the CIA's top wireman, and Allan Bell (now of Dektor Counterintelligence,) the former director of the US Army's spy shop R&D (who probably has as many secret patents as Friedman did) -- both smart, thoughtful, amiable guys who knew their tradecraft cold. What I remember most of the week long class was Ray Jarvis standing before my classmates and estimating that maybe 10-15 percent of the domestic wiretapping and bugging -- circa '85 -- by US police agencies was legally authorized. He paused and looked around the room for the consensus. Half the room (mostly big city US cops) paused, looked off in the distance for a moment, then nodded. My sense is that lawmen typically planted the relevant information in the hands (or mouths) of a maluable "trusted source" when they did the wire themselves. If a subcontractor did it for them (on a purposely vague assignment,) they just didn't ask how the "trusted source" managed to get the information. Either way, it worked like money laundering. Source laundering, you could call it. The cops didn't seem to view themselves as angels, but they were usually utterly certain the guys they were targeting were the scum of the earth. Maybe they were. My expectation was that most of the illicit wires would be focused on the drug trade (where cops feel like the Border Patrol in El Paso, hopelessly outclassed by their opponents) but -- at least at that time -- the scuttlebutt seemed to indicate it was much more broadly used in criminal investigations. Both wiretaps and bugs are just so damn easy to place, so cheap, so deniable, and (done properly) so untracable, the temptation was virtually irresistable. And there seemed to be a whole subculture of master wiremen, trained by the US Govt, accepting bids from both the Law and corporate security agents. (Outside the US, particularly in the oil business, it sounded like the Wild West before Judge Bean showed up. I've never doubted that the cost of a DES-cracking special purpose computer has been buried among the expense chits of many multinationals, certainly in the Big Oil Government budgets. I'd love to talk to the NSA guys who went in with Desert Storm to find out what the Iraqis picked up from Kawaiti government/oil IS installations;-) I don't expect much has changed, except everything has gotten smaller, cheaper, and (with datacom) vastly more automated. What those guys knew in the 80s were the phone systems (poor design left many PBXs with back doors, some of which could even be triggered remotely) but we've all learned new tricks -- and the NSA and others always concentrated on CompSec. > as for the NSA/CIA spying on US citizens --they dont, they spy on > British citizens with facilities provided by M5 and M6. in return, > British M5/6 agents spy on U.S. citizens from Langely or Gaithersberg, or > wherever. The fact they just happen to share information is an > "accident." In this, I doubt Mr. Nobody. I can't see either the Brits nor the Yanks willing to trust the other nation's bureaucratic system to keep in-country spying secret. The rule was: governments leak... eventually. And the fallout of Revelation would be awesome. (And there were so many safer options.) I suppose, however, Nobody's scheme fits the "laundered source" model too. I recall talk of this sort of arrangement mostly to cover US citizen to US citizen phone links across the US border. I'm not even sure the NSA couldn't legitimately do this, but after the Church Committee hearings in the 1970s, everyone wanted to keep their numbers low. (The extreme was the FBI, of course, which would show up annually to report what? 7 or 11 authorized wiretaps for the year. Everyone barely able to control their snickers.) My apologies if Memory Lane took up too much bandwidth, but the politics of crypto have a heritage that's ever more relevant. (Witness all the direct and indirect reference to Kahn and Bamford's work on this List.) A thought: Being pessimistic lately, and assuming our elected US pols continue their subservience to the spy agencies, I have a question. How difficult would be it to concoct a encryption-based scheme which would hold escrow keys in some sort of serialized time-sensitive one-way account -- a device that would make it all but impossible to get a key out of the account without leaving a permanent record that it was retrieved. How many were retrieved? When? By whom? Is there such a scheme? How does/could it work? In defending privacy, Accountability is a very powerful weapon. (Remember those FBI reports of 7-11 wiretaps?) I'd love to see such a tamperproof recording device imposed upon the FBI's access to its new Master Wiretap circuits, for example -- with a legislatively-mandated revelation of the unforgable results, something comparable to the current law in criminal cases, and maybe with some 5-year sunshine provison for national security cases. Such a scheme might be all we can get if this Administration or a future one gets a version of Clipper mandated. Cynics like many of you on this list may not realize how desperately these guys want to keep to the shadows. Bright Lights and Accountability ought to be a Cypherpunk Goal -- even when the tide is running against us. A well-documented tamperproof accounting scheme to document the use of these intrusive powers could result in a potentially powerful piece of legislation. Suerte, _Vin Vin McLellan +The Privacy Guild+ <vin(a)shore.net> 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, Ma. 02150 USA Tel: (617) 884-5548 <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>

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