December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Responding to Pre-dawn Unannounced Ninja Raids
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:38 PM 7/23/96 -0400, hallam(a)Etna.ai.mit.edu wrote: >The facts are very clear, if you have a handgun in the house it is >far more likely to kill a member of the familly than stop an >intruder. The NRA know this which is why they have lobbied for the >CDC to stop research in this area - they do not like the facts. And most people who die after jumping out of airplanes have (defective) parachutes. Therefore it is safer to jump out of airplanes without parachutes. The CDC sucked suicides into the mix to cook the books and suicide by firearms is a *legitimate* use of same. Surely you believe in the "right to die," don't you? DCF

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RE: No more stupid gun thread ...
by Bill Olson (EDP) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Alan Horowitz writes: > >How _can_ anyone say that "stupid guns" is ready for the trash-heap of >history? No one has called anyone a Nazi yet! I agree. >

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WinSock Remailer Going On-Line Tonight
by Joey Grasty 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Y'all: I'm pleased to announce that the WinSock Remailer is going into operation tonight at 11:00 PM. Please feel free to test it. You can get the key by sending a message to winsock(a)c2.org with the "Subject: remailer-key". After about a week of further testing, I will be releasing the executables to everyone who sent me a note asking to participate in the alpha test. If you want to be included, please send me a note. Here's the info for the remailer-list: $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)c2.org> cpunk pgp hash cut ksub reord"; I'll be adding "post" to this list after I get a more thorough testing of the NNTP code that I added for authentication. "latent" is also pending. The remailer will run every 60 seconds from 12:00 AM to 8:00 AM every day and whenever I am online. c2.org automatically spools the messages when I am not connected. Note: alt.religion.scientology and alt.clearing.technology are blocked. I'm not interested in run-ins with either supporters or detractors of the Church of Scientology. Binary and picture groups are also blocked, but only because I don't have the bandwidth to support them. Anyone who has blocking lists that they want to share, please send them to me. Regards, -- Joey Grasty jgrasty(a)gate.net [home -- encryption, privacy, RKBA and other hopeless causes] jgrasty(a)pts.mot.com [work -- designing pagers] "Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." -- John Von Neumann PGP = A7 CC 31 E4 7E A3 36 13 93 F4 C9 06 89 51 F5 A7

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Re: Another fascist
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"david(a)sternlight.com" "David Sternlight" 23-JUL-1996 08:30:51.02 >One of the great friends of free speech on this list sent a forged cancel >message to the listbot to try to cancel my subscription. >The listbot, being reasonably well designed, ignored him and told me about >it, though I have no doubt less of a dunce could bring it off. >What a piece of slime! What do others think of this practice? You have my sympathies. Either I got logged off the list accidentally a bit back, or someone did this successfully to me. I didn't notice due to being gone for a bit, but I finally did and got back onto the list. I'd meant to email the list maintainer (Eric Hughes, as I recall), but haven't gotten around to it - lack of time. Any signs of who did it from the message? I would guess not. -Allen

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Re: Brute-forcing DES
by Steve Reid 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Specialized DES-cracker chips have of course been considered. Diffie and > Hellman's nearly 20-year-old paper on cracking DES considered this. > Wiener's calculation of a few years ago did more that this: he also > architected a basic system. And the "how many bits is enough?" (sorry I > don't have the official name on the tip of my tongue) panel considered such > designs last year. Yep, I'm familiar with the issue. Bottom line is, it'll take thousands of times the CPU power of the RC4-40 crack. Probably not 2^16 times more; I think RC4 has a longer initialization. > But actually building a DES cracker entails a level of commitment very > difficult to achieve in an informal, volunteer effort. Not exactly > something that 10 or 20 people can work on usefully. > The advantage of the cracks done last year, the French and Australian > cracks, and the MIT cracks, were that the "entry costs" for joining the > project were low. I'm not talking about one individual or organization building one big DES cracker. I'm thinking that DES chips _could_ be used to supliment the PCs in a distributed crack. People with PCs would feed keyspace through their PCs and people with DES chips could feed keyspace through their DES chips. DES chips just happen to have a _lot_ more cracking power than PCs, so they could make a big difference. Adding one DES chip would be like adding hundreds of PCs to the effort. PCs will probably still be the main factor simply because they're ubiquitous. Even with a bunch of DES chips and a massive legion of PCs, this is going to take a long time. Perhaps we should be looking at the thousands of computers and many months, more like the RSA-129 crack than the RC4-40 crack. >From "The Magic Words Are Squeamish Ossifrage": > We believe that we could acquire 100 thousand machines without > superhuman or unethical efforts. If Lenstra et al know what they're talking about, then WE CAN DO THIS!!! ===================================================================== | Steve Reid - SysAdmin & Pres, EDM Web (http://www.edmweb.com/) | | Email: steve(a)edmweb.com Home Page: http://www.edmweb.com/steve/ | | PGP (2048/9F317269) Fingerprint: 11C89D1CD67287E68C09EC52443F8830 | | -- Disclaimer: JMHO, YMMV, TANSTAAFL, IANAL. -- | ===================================================================:)

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Re: Distributed DES crack
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"mab(a)crypto.com" "Matt Blaze" 23-JUL-1996 09:38:21.11 >Personally, I'd rather someone finish up the Wiener ASIC to the point where >it could go out to fab, get some prototype chips made, design a board around >it, and publish the design, from board layout on down. This would be a >great Master's project, and some of us (maybe me, but I'll have to check) >might even be able to scrape up enough funds to buy enough chips/boards/etc >to build a modest size machine (say, that could exhaust a DES key in 1-6 >months). Initial engineering costs aside, the marginal cost of each >such machine could be well within the budgets of, say, a medium size crypto >research lab, and would make a scary enough demo to convince even the >most trusting management types of the risks of 56 bit keys. How about generalized FPGA boards? Some applications in computational biology (searching for similar genes or proteins using FASTA, etcetera) use those quite a bit - and they're available for only about 20,000 or so for quite a few high-level FPGA chips on a board. We've been looking into getting one such and renting its use out on the Web, but the initial investment costs are beyond what available grants will cover; maybe later. Given that at Rutgers is one of the people doing whole bunches of stuff on Web security - namely Simon Cooper - it should't be too difficult. But that will be at least a year or so. -Allen > - matt >(Please cc me on replies, as I'm not reading the list except when someone >alerts me to an interesting topic. Thanks.)

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Re: Special Agent Safdar
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Perry Metzger writes: > Anonymous writes: > > FBI Special Agent Safdar is upset enough by the revelation > > of his true identity to issue a quick denial (on a sunday night, to get > > more OT no doubt), but he doesn't even bother to try to refute the > > central truth that his cover has been blown by a careless operator at > > his home office who verified his employment and offered to take a message > > for him. > > You really are on drugs. The question is, which ones? It could only be Ritalin, the Official Non-Stimulant of the Cypherpunks list.

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Re: Netscape (foreign downloads)
by Arun Mehta 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:11 23/07/96 -0700, Jeff Weinstein wrote: > I certainly have sympathy for those who want to make a point >by uploading our US software to hacktic and other foreign servers, >but I think that my company will probably have to ask hacktic >and others to remove these copies. > And what are your plans for those outside the US who have downloaded from hacktic? While I'm sure your copyright allows you to do so, don't suppose you have any plans of going after them? Suppose I, as a foreigner, were to obtain a copy Arun Mehta Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103 amehta(a)cpsr.org http://www.cerfnet.com/~amehta/ finger amehta(a)cerfnet.com for public key

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[forwarded message]: IAB/IESG statement on cryptography (fwd)
by Jeff Barber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: IAB/IESG statement on cryptography To: ietf(a)ietf.org Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 08:21:59 +0200 (MET DST) From: Brian Carpenter CERN-CN <brian(a)dxcoms.cern.ch> IETF, FYI, the IAB and IESG have just requested the Internet Society to release the attached statement to the press on our behalf. (The copyright tag at the end is purely to protect the text against misuse.) We intend to publish this as an informational RFC for the record. Brian Carpenter - --- IAB and IESG statement on cryptographic technology and the Internet - ------------------------------------------------------------------- July 24, 1996 The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), the bodies which oversee architecture and standards for the Internet, are concerned by the need for increased protection of international commercial transactions on the Internet, and by the need to offer all Internet users an adequate degree of privacy. Security mechanisms being developed in the Internet Engineering Task Force to meet these needs require and depend on the international use of adequate cryptographic technology. Ready access to such technology is therefore a key factor in the future growth of the Internet as a motor for international commerce and communication. The IAB and IESG are therefore disturbed to note that various governments have actual or proposed policies on access to cryptographic technology that either: (a) impose restrictions by implementing export controls; and/or (b) restrict commercial and private users to weak and inadequate mechanisms such as short cryptographic keys; and/or (c) mandate that private decryption keys should be in the hands of the government or of some other third party; and/or (d) prohibit the use of cryptology entirely, or permit it only to specially authorized organizations. We believe that such policies are against the interests of consumers and the business community, are largely irrelevant to issues of military security, and provide only a marginal or illusory benefit to law enforcement agencies, as discussed below. The IAB and IESG would like to encourage policies that allow ready access to uniform strong cryptographic technology for all Internet users in all countries. The IAB and IESG claim: The Internet is becoming the predominant vehicle for electronic commerce and information exchange. It is essential that the support structure for these activities can be trusted. Encryption is not a secret technology monopolized by any one country, such that export controls can hope to contain its deployment. Any hobbyist can program a PC to do powerful encryption. Many algorithms are well documented, some with source code available in textbooks. Export controls on encryption place companies in that country at a competitive disadvantage. Their competitors from countries without export restrictions can sell systems whose only design constraint is being secure, and easy to use. Usage controls on encryption will also place companies in that country at a competitive disadvantage because these companies cannot securely and easily engage in electronic commerce. Escrow mechanisms inevitably weaken the security of the overall cryptographic system, by creating new points of vulnerability that can and will be attacked. Export controls and usage controls are slowing the deployment of security at the same time as the Internet is exponentially increasing in size and attackers are increasing in sophistication. This puts users in a dangerous position as they are forced to rely on insecure electronic communication. TECHNICAL ANALYSIS - -------------------------- KEY SIZE It is not acceptable to restrict the use or export of cryptosystems based on their key size. Systems that are breakable by one country will be breakable by others, possibly unfriendly ones. Large corporations and even criminal enterprises have the resources to break many cryptosystems. Furthermore, conversations often need to be protected for years to come; as computers increase in speed, key sizes that were once out of reach of cryptanalysis will become insecure. PUBLIC KEY INFRASTRUCTURE Use of public key cryptography often requires the existence of a "certification authority". That is, some third party must sign a string containing the user's identity and public key. In turn, the third party's key is often signed by a higher-level certification authority. Such a structure is legitimate and necessary. Indeed, many governments will and should run their own CAs, if only to protect citizens' transactions with their governments. But certification authorities should not be confused with escrow centers. Escrow centers are repositories for private keys, while certification authorities deal with public keys. Indeed, sound cryptographic practice dictates that users never reveal their private keys to anyone, even the certification authority. KEYS SHOULD NOT BE REVEALABLE The security of a modern cryptosystem rests entirely on the secrecy of the keys. Accordingly, it is a major principle of system design that to the extent possible, secret keys should never leave their user's secure environment. Key escrow implies that keys must be disclosed in some fashion, a flat-out contradiction of this principle. Any such disclosure weakens the total security of the system. DATA RECOVERY Sometimes escrow systems are touted as being good for the customer because they allow data recovery in the case of lost keys. However, it should be up to the customer to decide whether they would prefer the more secure system in which lost keys mean lost data, or one in which keys are escrowed to be recovered when necessary. Similarly, keys used only for conversations (as opposed to file storage) need never be escrowed. And a system in which the secret key is stored by a government and not by the data owner is certainly not practical for data recovery. SIGNATURE KEYS Keys used for signatures and authentication must never be escrowed. Any third party with access to such keys could impersonate the legitimate owner, creating new opportunities for fraud and deceit. Indeed, a user who wished to repudiate a transaction could claim that his or her escrowed key was used, putting the onus on that party. If a government escrowed the keys, a defendant could claim that the evidence had been forged by the government, thereby making prosecution much more difficult. For electronic commerce, non-repudiation is one of the most important uses for cryptography; and non-repudiation depends on the assumption that only the user has access to the private key. PROTECTION OF THE EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE In some cases, it is technically feasible to use cryptographic operations that do not involve secrecy. While this may suffice in some cases, much of the existing technical and commercial infrastructure cannot be protected in this way. For example, conventional passwords, credit card numbers, and the like must be protected by strong encryption, even though some day more sophisticated techniques may replace them. Encryption can be added on quite easily; wholesale changes to diverse systems cannot. CONFLICTING INTERNATIONAL POLICIES Conflicting restrictions on encryption often force an international company to use a weak encryption system, in order to satisfy legal requirements in two or more different countries. Ironically, in such cases either nation might consider the other an adversary against whom commercial enterprises should use strong cryptography. Clearly, key escrow is not a suitable compromise, since neither country would want to disclose keys to the other. MULTIPLE ENCRYPTION Even if escrowed encryption schemes are used, there is nothing to prevent someone from using another encryption scheme first. Certainly, any serious malefactors would do this; the outer encryption layer, which would use an escrowed scheme, would be used to divert suspicion. ESCROW OF PRIVATE KEYS WON'T NECESSARILY ALLOW DATA DECRYPTION A major threat to users of cryptographic systems is the theft of long-term keys (perhaps by a hacker), either before or after a sensitive conversation. To counter this threat, schemes with "perfect forward secrecy" are often employed. If PFS is used, the attacker must be in control of the machine during the actual conversation. But PFS is generally incompatible with schemes involving escrow of private keys. (This is an oversimplification, but a full analysis would be too lengthy for this document.) CONCLUSIONS - -------------------------- As more and more companies connect to the Internet, and as more and more commerce takes place there, security is becoming more and more critical. Cryptography is the most powerful single tool that users can use to secure the Internet. Knowingly making that tool weaker threatens their ability to do so, and has no proven benefit. - ---- The Internet Architecture Board is described at http://www.iab.org/iab The Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Engineering Steering Group are described at http://www.ietf.org - ---- (C) Internet Society 1996. Reproduction or translation of the complete document, but not of extracts, including this notice, is freely permitted. (ends)

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Re: Netscape
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jeff Weinstein wrote: > I'm also curious why these anonymous crusaders did not act > sooner? The US version has been available for sale in retail > outlets for about a year now. Was it not worth $50 to make > your point? If you look real carefully at ftp://utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/replay /pub/incoming you'll notice that the "commercial" 2.01 for Win32 has actually been uploaded. The reason that is was not done sooner is probably that it felt more like stealing to upload software that Netscape expected you to pay for. Now that Netscape is finally giving away strong crypto versions to anybody who asks for it (and claims to be an American) it isn't really stealing in the same sense anymore. It's just ITAR we're ignoring, not Netscape's commercial interests.

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