December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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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Re: A Global Village; an open letter to Bill & Hill [rant]
by Alex F 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The world is everchanging and Mrs. Clinton is correct in that the > industrialized > countries have lost, most, of their extended families. This makes children > vulnerable to danger. This is such crap, and I'll tell you why. It is a classic example of political double speak. Here Hillary says that children are in danger because of lost family values. Absolutely true. Let me ask you then why is it that Bill(ary) signed an unconstitutional law? I am referring to the CDA and the telephony bill. What about the terrorism bill? They apparently support censorship on the Internet. They don't want "bigtitties.gif" on the net and accessable to little Johnny. They say that it is WRONG for little Johhny to have access to "bigtitties.gif," and that the GOVERNMENT should DO SOMETHING about this. What happened to family values? Just HOW the hell can you support and promote family values when you are telling the parents (who you want to pay more attention to their children, get more involved, and be kinder) "WE know what is best for little Johnny, and WE will make the decisions, NOT YOU" To me this sends a message of "The government knows best because most parents are stupid and uncaring." It is much more likely that little Johnny will go over to Sammy's house and look at the Playboys that Sammy's dad has hidden under the bed than collect nudie .gifs off of the net, but they wouldn't dare censor that. The Internet is another story, however. I got news for them, we had pornography LONG before the net ever existed, and there is NO solid psychological link to viewing porn and becoming a sex offender. Anyone who thinks so needs to realize that they are talking about something about which they have no clue. Anyway, getting off-topic again. I'll be quiet now :) Alex F =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Alex F alexf(a)iss.net Marketing Specialist Internet Security Systems =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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Re: Distributed DES crack
by Remo Pini 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed Jul 24 16:31:44 1996 Has anyone thought about TI or Motorolas DSP-Eval-Boards (at 99$ a piece at 40 MHz with optimized assembler they might easily outrun a PPro200) Don't look at me that way, I know only little about DSP-Programming. By the way, using FPGA's (as suggested earlier) at around 100 MHz should be extremely fast (after all, on one 100000 Gate FPGA, one should be able to do lot of parallel things at one clock cycle -> test several keys at once...). I estimate, that at reasonable cost (lets say, <$500) you should be able to put enough FPGAs on a board to do enough keys in parallel to equal 1 key per cycle, i.e. 1e8 keys/sec. That would amount to: 7.2e8 secs ->8340 days If you build 100 such machines you win in 3 months (without any of the mentioned optimisations (2e55 instead of 2e56, etc.) - --------< fate favors the prepared mind >-------- Remo Pini rp(a)rpini.com PGP: http://www.rpini.com/remopini/rpcrypto.html - ------< words are what reality is made of >------ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMfYz0RFhy5sz+bTpAQGj0Af/Xto3KiZMxb4zybeRcGK3mOINTmgiBo3i Ewbzk5V0DRmNU0j6a1GFh0hmPnHwAZoopLr0VjdiBYRKCj73AEp2FHNuWxhRdp33 KKa4qfWATJM3ESGRpNTfTQr/ruCzxbkGTtDki/j0HC4UbRi/fdjy6MinstjaIJ3t eIcX18+SKOxmV+hzZ8qrJeHlEI3e2RPl0YscXSnHVGlHZNOFUiJB/jPz/Gs8ph9i aZR6bv+T8UVC36CzFF/B9Syxr6QFXVM5xcZ9tAui6VyAk7GOd/O5AKG8Z51jO+OK Nf77HxT3g3wovPz/9pC+6yr9haaokBYPDs4YrBNKA8Wtln2HgdTr3w== =OjX2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: Distributed DES crack
by Andy Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 24 July 1996 12:11, pjn(a)nworks.com wrote: > You are assuming that we will not get the right equasion/code/whatever > untill the very end. There is a good chance that it will only take > half that time...and a slim chance that we will get it with the first > try... My figures were based on 2^55 tries, which is exactly half of 2^56. - Andy

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Pachinko Cards in WSJ
by moulton＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The July 24 1996 edition of the Wall Street Journal has a front page article about the "cashless Pachinko cards" in Japan which resulted in losses for several businesses. This was discussed in cypherpunks when the story originally broke months ago. The article in the WSJ relates how the cards were the results of fears that the money laundered from the pachinko halls was being sent to North Korea to fund the nuclear program there. The CIA provided intelligence about this to the Japanese authorities according to the article. Far too many details to summarize here, I suggest those who are interested read it. Fred

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OPS_nuk
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The WSJ Page Ones a loser's game about the CIA's role in promoting Japanese pachinko cards to halt the surreptitious funneling of betting cash to the construction of a North Korean nuclear plant. And the op's nuking by the Kobe quake looting of card-reading mechanisms, cracking encryption codes, and counterfeiting not-so-smart cards for counter- tipping the house fix. Mondex, watcher bleedin arse. ----- http://jya.com/opsnuk.txt OPS_nuk

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Brute Force attack Question
by ichudov＠galaxy.galstar.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, I've been thinking about brute force attacks, and there is something that I do not understand. Maybe someone could explain me where I am wrong. Suppose Alice sends letters to BoB, and they always exchange plain text ASCII data. Suppose also that they use DES for encryption. They are afraid that Perry intercepts their messages and tries to brute force their DES key. Perry has 100,000 computers (and 20,000 couriers alone:) and his brute force attacks are as follows: he tries all keys in succession, looks at the decrypted texts, and *if* the decrypted text looks like a potential message (has only ASCII characters for example) he looks at that key closer as it is likely that he has found the right key. What is Alice and Bob decide to obscure their letters and add random NON-ASCII characters at random places? They may agree to just ignore all non-ASCII characters, so these characters would never change the meaning of their letters. If they do that, Perry does not have any easy way to tell whether he really recovered the right plaintext or not, because even correct key would still produce a lot of non-ASCII characters. If percentage of ASCII characters in all 256 byte space is 40%, Alice and Bob may agree to put in junk characters to make up exactly 60% of the message. This way messages will look like random character data. Is there any good method for attackers to circumvent this obscurity? What is the general method to make a judgment whether the recovered text really is a plain text if Alice and Bob noisify their letters? I can think of this: we sift through all recovered plaintexts and remove all non-ASCII bytes, and then do some simple testing to see whether the remaining ASCII data resembles normal English texts. This kind of testing seems to be quite expensive though, compared to just testing for ASCII vs. non-ascii bytes. Anything else I am missig? Thanks. - Igor.

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