December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Federal key registration agency
by tmpeters＠calvanet.calvacom.fr 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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. Speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, Reno said her plan would require people to register with the new agency the secret codes -- or "keys" -- they use to encrypt messages online. Reporting on this speech, Sandra Ann Harris of United Press International adds, "Federal authorities could then obtain the information they need to decipher the encryptions using a court order and secretly monitor electronic communication on the Internet the same way wiretaps are used to monitor telephone conversations of suspected criminals." Reno added, "We look only to make existing law apply to new technology," adding new computer programs designed to crack the new complicated encryptions take too long to be useful to law enforcement. "Some of our most important prosecutions have depended on wire taps." 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. Reno told the group that effectively regulting electronic encryption will depend on fiding a blance between protecting privacy interests while stopping criminals from cashing in on the new technology. "If we do our job right citizens will enjoy the Information Age without being victimized" by high technology, Reno said. United Press International Charles Bowen

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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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Netscape Mail Security and PGP Plugins
by Greg Kucharo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There hasn't been a lot of discussion on this list about the future of secure e-mail via Netscape. The most i've seen has come from Raph Levien on the standards battle between S/Mime and other various implementations including one using PGP. Raph has said at various Cypherpunks meetings now that( and not wanting to totally put words in his mouth) the PGP based implementations have lost ground to S/MIME. The reason I believe that this whole area has received so little quarter on the list is that either few people use Netscape for e-mail and that few people actually send encrypted e-mail. I'm going to try and put together a compendium of web links on this so it's a little easier to track the developments and various schemes. At the second to last Cypherpunks Bay Area meeting we had a discussion of crypto GUI's. It's my opinion that Netscape would be an excellent place to start because it does encryption relatively seemlessly. Incorporating S/MIME into the mail would be a great step forward in bringing easy crypto to the general community. Any PGP plugin I would hope eleviate the many UI problems PGP has. A couple of questions I have right off the bat are; 1. In Hal's Java mail encryptor, what are the legal aspects of sending code across that contains crypto? 2. Can any plugin access the Netscape Mail program. 3. When is S/MIME going to be in Netscape, I tried to find info on the web site but thier statements about S/MIME seem vague. I hope I'm not running over old ground, but this has to be alot more intresting than discussing that PBS show! Greg Kucharo sophi(a)best.com

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Snake_Oil_punks was Re: SafE Mail Corporation
by Scott Schryvers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Talked with Randy of Safe Mail Corporation on the phone. Among the stuff he claimed was that PGP has the secret key in its public key! Found out that not only does this algorithm use 22 characters. The characters are the ones only found on the keyboard. SafeMail uses a proprietary Russian algorithm. Not only is this company misquoting it's making up as it goes along. :)

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FYA: SafE Mail Corporation
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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

17 Dec '03

At 3:44 AM 6/15/96, Warren wrote: >I have never paid much attention to the protection of firmware or the >technical issues revolving around such schemes...was wondering: > >I recently saw an add for a UK based group that says they can take a PIC >OTP micro and read the prom (for a fee, of course) - How the heck is this >done?? I have my suspicion that they (somehow) magically peel off the >ceramic coating (without destroying the chewy center), get a circuit mask >and 'micro probe' the I/O of the IC...they then download the secret recipe >to the afore mentioned 'chewy center'. > >Is this close to accurate?? How is it 'done' ??? 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. Once exposed, various methods exist to read internal voltage levels. For example, electron beams in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) can fairly easily read at least surface potentials. Whether a SEM in voltage-contrast mode can read voltages on lower levels depends on a lot of things, and I can't even make a guess here as to whether OTP (one-time programmable) memories from particular vendors can have internal nodes probed. With enough money, many things are possible. --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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FTS2000 and Encryption?
by nson＠kpmg.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I trying to find out if there are any talks, decisions or even standards being discussed for encryption and FTS2000? Anything will be helpful.

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Re: The Reno Text URL.....
by Censored Girls Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The URL for the Reno Address is: http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jwa/addres.txt Thanks to John Young for the KEWL website. Check out some of the other stuff in it too! Love Always, Carol Anne At 04:21 AM 6/24/96 -0700, you wrote: >I'd like to read it, but you didn't include the url, and the article >you followed up seems to have expired out of my news spool. > >Mind telling me where the text is? > >-jcr > > Member Internet Society - Certified BETSI Programmer - Webmistress *********************************************************************** Carol Anne Braddock (cab8) carolann(a)censored.org 206.42.112.96 My Homepage The Cyberdoc *********************************************************************** ------------------ PGP.ZIP Part [017/713] ------------------- M8H,),S$8G>&.WP(8IRA`-M['+`Q%&_C"">5-F%LX@<_Q$;*P'',Q$Z/AA[8M MF=O0H+*%(-S%&>S%+FS&<LS%3(Q&#W1"<]2%`H^;,]^1C$'HBN8PX$4SYAU^ MPGD<Q0ZLA0D+,`MCT!LA**4M[-JPAK9F?40!AJ,CW"'%DR#:'9?Q)3[%<DQ` ------------------------------------------------------------- for next chunk to export --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/export/

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Re: CIA Fears UmpTeen InfoNukes
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:57 AM 6/27/96 -0400, Vin McLellan wrote: >... The real threat is incompetent, poor-trained DoD >system administrators -- and a class of computer-illiterate senior managers >who define "system security" and routine administration as a marginal >expenses and scorn readily available options like one-time passwords as too >complex for the military mind. Public key authentication could go a long way toward solving the military and contractor's security problems. However, they won't use public key authentication for unclassified systems until it is available in "COTS" (Commercial, Off The Shelf) software. And it won't be available there until it can be exported as well as sold domestically. Catch-22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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PhillNoise: Re: Those Evil Republicans
by nobody＠vegas.gateway.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Dr." Hallam-Baker <hallam(a)ai.mit.edu> ["but I don't think that I would ever let him cut on me." - sorry Jimmy] opined: ..... >Newts idea of giving laptops to homeless people is not a >solution for poverty. Agreed, any more than is Willie's subsidizing illegitimacy, despite his oft- proven love for sex-without-responsibility. > >Given the experience of derregulating Savings and Loans institutions I don't >think the country could survive another round of deregulation. This is so moronic it could only come from Hallam. For you, "deregulation" means doubling the government's liability, as happened when that space- cadet (really!) Garn and that crook Fernand St. Germain raised the payout from 50 to 100 thousand. Yeah, Phill, that really deregulated 'em... >As Reagan said >"Gentlemen we've hit the jackpot" - and of course they had, S&L was not a >fiasco for certain people, just for the poor taxpayers. Certainly not for that crook Cranston, either. There's a reason 4 of the Keating 5 were Democrats, Phill. They were and are even more for sale than the Republicans. Political history, even recent, isn't your strong suit, and your pity for taxpayers is touching, if a bit recent. anon.

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