December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: New Infowarfare Panel
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:14 PM 7/18/96, David Sternlight wrote: >At 8:30 PM -0700 7/17/96, Timothy C. May wrote: > >>Winn Schwartau is running conferences, is talking about the imminent danger >>of the nation's computer networks being knocked out (paraphrasing his >>latest "Wired" item: "imagine your ATM network being knocked out and people >>being unable to gain access to their money"). >> >>Schwartau is predicting/advocating a "fifth branch" of the military to deal >>with the this threat. A cyberforce, as it were. >> >>Color me skeptical, but I see this all as a lot of hype and fear-mongering. >>Folks in the Pentagon, FBI, and NSA probably see it as a way to get more >>funding, Folks in the consulting business probably see it as a way to crank >>up the seminar prices and increase the number and frequency of "Information >>Warfare" workshops and seminars. > >Haven't there been some worked examples of information warfare that make >this fear and the need to deal with it legitimate? I'm certainly not saying "information warfare" is impossible--for example, I did some work in the late 70s for DARPA on knocking out satellites with particle beam weapons. Specifically, I rebutted MIT Professor Kosta Tsipas' claim that directed energy weapons in orbit would require tens (or more) of Space Shuttle trips _per shot_. I showed the DARPA people how it could be done with 5 orders of magnitude less energy, and speculated that "ticklings" of satellites could be done with commercially available ion implanters--they got real concerned and I was not invited to the classified sessions where they discussed this threat model, as I lacked a clearance. However, the current wave of publicity about "information warfare" seems to focus on _possible_ scenarios, with Hollywoodesque overtones. (And I just learned that "infowar consultant" Schwartau is indeed "working on a movie." Not to ascribe impure motives to him--who's to say what's impure?--but it still sounds like hype to me.) >As I recall my background reading in the public press, wasn't the etiology >that we figured out how to do some pretty nasty things (the Gulf war was >one presenting occasion) to enemies' info infrastructures to threaten their >entire social system. Then, as I understand it, someone smart said >something like "If we can do this to them, then someone can do this to us." >and we were off to the races. Sure, we dropped conductive fibers on their power lines, we blew their dishes out with Special Ops sniper fire, and we did a lot of other such things. Could this destroy the nation's "infrastructure"? Hey, there have been scenarios for disrupting Wall Street, for all sorts of things. Bombs in power plants, knocking over high tension lines, etc. Some things never change. But destroying or even seriously damagaing the U.S. infrastructure would be _very_ hard to do. Sure, the government should think about such things. Utilities companies routinely plan for efforts to disrupt service. (I live a mile or two from where "Earth Action Now!" knocked over a power line about the time treehugger activist Judi Bari was partly blown up while apparently transporting a homemade bomb down here to Santa Cruz.) >It's the military and counterintel community's job to think like this and >act to protect us. I don't think imputing selfish motives is dispositive. I noted that there is a recent wave of hype: books, conferences, calls for action, even movie deals (:-}). Given that there is no real evidence that these mysterious "HERF guns" have ever been used, nor is there evidence that they would do much beyond knocking out the PCs in the office they were aimed at, this is why I said "color me skeptical." By the way, I was interviewed for the BBC programme "The I-Bomb," had discussions a while back with someone working on HERF guns, and have been in touch with Schwartau on this latest round (he contacted me). I'm still skeptical. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." --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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Re: ABC News on internet telephony
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 18 Jul 96 at 9:41, Clay Olbon II wrote: > There was a pretty long piece on the evening news on using the internet for > long distance and how much money can be saved. Even had several demos of > intercontinental phone calls. The disappointing aspect was they didn't > mention PGPfone (although if they had, I'm sure child pornographers and > terrorists would have been mentioned as well :-) PGPfone isn't marketed very well. Other Internet phone software is advertised in magazines, promotions with ISPs, etc. 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: overseas PGPfone and Netscape
by Jean-Paul Kroepfli 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ian Goldberg wrote: >Could various people with various architectures post MD5 or SHA1 hashes >of the files they downloaded? (i) very good idea (ii) Do you know where I can find a MSWin or MSDOS executable of SHA? Jean-Paul ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Jean-Paul et Micheline Kroepfli (our son: Nicolas and daughter: Celine) eMail: JeanPaul.Kroepfli(a)utopia.fnet.fr Also Compuserve and MSNetwork Phone: +33 81 55 52 59 (F) PostMail: F-25640 Breconchaux (France) or: +41 21 843 27 36 (CH) or: CP 138, CH-1337 Vallorbe Fax: +33 81 55 52 62 (Switzerland) Zephyr(r) : InterNet Communication and Commerce, Security and Cryptography consulting PGP Fingerprint : 19 FB 67 EA 20 70 53 89 AF B2 5C 7F 02 1F CA 8F "The InterNet is the most open standard since air for breathing"

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Re: (fwd) Re: US versions of Netscape now available---NOT
by David Lesher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Whatever YaKnow > > cybernut(a)nutcom.com > > 10401 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 805 > > Los Angeles, CA 90024-4628 > > (310) 475-3799 > > > > > > Isn't that nice. Some creep is proud enough of his skill at accessing the > trivially available InterNIC finger data that he posts it to invoke > harassment. And being a coward as well, he hides behind an anonymous > remailer. Of course, SternFUD himself advertised all the same material & much more hornblowing on http://www.switchboard.com; Check it out yourself. (I do note UnProfessor has removed the Panasana address that was there previously.) [IMAGE] DR. DAVID STERNLIGHT PROVIDES ECONOMIC AND STRATEGIC PLANNINGCONSULTING SERVICES FOR HIGH-TECHNOLOGY FIRMS. Strategic uncertainty is now the norm for the business environment. Wrenching events such as the fall of the Soviet Union, major shifts in technology and its location, and new directions in national and international policy strongly affect the medium and long-term business future...... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

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Re: Gorelick testifies before Senate, unveils new executive order
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:04 AM 7/18/96 -0700, David Sternlight wrote: >Serious studies have shown that the kinds of protections to make the >systems we depend on robust against determined and malicious attackers (say >a terrorist government, or one bent on doing a lot of damage in retaliation >for one of our policies they don't like) "Policies"? There you go again. A "policy," at least in regard to the US government, is not merely opinion, but is action. Action which may (legitimately) anger people. Action which may not genuinely be in the interests of American people, although you'd never get those government thugs to admit it. If somebody overseas doesn't like a US government "policy," maybe the best thing to do is to determine whether it's actually beneficial to the ordinary American citizen, or whether its benefits can be achieved simply by changing government behavior. So what's the best way to avoid "terrorism"? Maybe the fastest, more efficent, and overall best way to avoid it is to get the US government to stop doing things that foment it, rather than trying to protect against it after the fact. , have costs beyond the capability >of individual private sector actors. Your friendly neighborhood ISP, for >instance, probably can't affort the iron belt and steel suspenders needed >to make his system and its connectivity sabotage-proof, and so on. Even >cheap but clever solutions involving encryption in such systems require >standards and common practices across many institutions. None of which require government actions to achieve. If anything, what is required is that governments STOP doing things which discourage such implementations of encryption. Government is the problem, not the solution. >In such a case, where public benefits from government action greatly exceed >public (taxpayer) costs, This is the classic Sternlight misrepresentation. Chances are excellent that this public benefit you speak of is almost totally a benefit to government employees, not ordinary citizens. Government's "solutions" are predictably skewed to maintain government budgets, not actually designed to solve the underlying problem. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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RE: ABC news on Internet Telephony
by talon57＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David Sternlight writes: >There's something fundamental going on here beneath the surface. >Surprisingly, a recent item (maybe the one you reported) on this >suggests that the big phone companies are trying to use this >phenomenon rather than stop it. I think it was AT&T who announced >that they had web software that improved the quality of such >internet voice calls. Surprisingly constructive, in contrast to >the coalition of small phone companies screaming for the FCC to >"stop it". The FCC has wisely said they're not going to act right >now because it could kill an incipient new technology. There is something fundamental going on here, a lack of common sense, and/or critical reasoning. Lets try it again. Who is the most likely to be disintermediated by a global packet network? (how do you get to your ISP?) I assume by "big phone company" vs "little phone company" you are refering to long distance vs local service, tell me, if the RBOC's continue merging, at what level do they become a " big phone company." The RBOC's are not the only local service providers of course, here in Illinois alone there are more than 80 (at my last count) providers of local service, and soon there will be many more. The other "urban myth" you are helping to support is the notion that it is the local providers that are fighting deregulation. Ameritech filed for total unbundling in March of '93, and you don't see them insisting on having a percentage of the long distance market before the long distance companies are allowed to compete in the local loop. >This is the rankest speculation on my part, but could some of the >bigger, smarter phone company cum internet providers have done >some serious analysis and concluded that we're moving away from >distance-based rates for voice calls. Might they even have >examined where we'll be in the next ten years (with ADSL, etc.) >and decided that the network technology and simple market >economics makes fixed charges per "line" more profitable to them >than metered usage? Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but >some of the bigger actors are starting to behave in a surprisingly >counter-intuitive (based on the way we stereotype them) fashion on >this topic. point to point circuits are more efficiently handled by circuit switching rather than packet switching networks. Nicholas Negroponte wrote an interesting piece about asynchronous vs synchronous, I believe it is in his book "Being Digital." ADSL is an interesting attempt at digital telephony but expensive and basically would mean replacing existing central office switches. (backbone bandwidth) In a packet network you have to either dedicate a portion of the bandwidth for a synchronous circuit, or you have to have a very fast network and use very small packets (ATM), expensive either way. A single central office has many times the bandwidth of the widest part of the internet, and the average state has hundreds of CO's. If even a small portion of the Internets current users tried placing a call things would grind to a halt. A huge increase in the number of backbones and their bandwidth would solve this, but who will pay the bill? TANSTAAFL Sometime ago the discussion was on the cost of laying new fiber, may I suggest the realworld heuristic of "a million dollars a mile." Please note I am not trying to make fun of anyone personnally, I am in the words of Jubal Harshaw "heaping scorn upon an inexcuseably silly idea, a practice I shall always follow." Brian communicate globally, censor locally

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Alternative Journalism
by enquirer＠alpha.c2.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

THE CYPHERPUNK ENQUIRER PRESENTS: "Adventures in Alternative Journalism" The Analysis Piece Alice stared at the two strange creatures. She was completely dumbfounded. "So let me see if I've got this right. You make really good wheels. But if the Queen of Hearts had wheels, her subjects who occasionally raid your borders would be able to get away faster, and you wouldn't catch as many of them. Is that right, Tweedledumb?" "I'm Tweedledumber. He's Tweedledumb. Yes, that's right. We have a technological lead over the Cards, and we have to maintain it." "So you won't sell them wheels?" "Well, it's more complex than that. A large part of our population is engaged in making wheels, and we make a lot of money selling them to the Cards. So we made a compromise. We only sell them SQUARE wheels." "But of course," Tweedledumb chimed in, "it's very expensive to make both square and round wheels. So most of our people only make square wheels, so they can sell them to both us and the Cards. Of course, our people are allowed to buy round wheels, IF they can find them." "AND," stated Tweedledumber, "since the wheel is patented here, we get to collect a hefty licensing fee for every wheel sold." "But the Cards DO have wheels!" Alice could see over the fence, and the Cards were happily zipping around all over the place. "And so do a lot of people over here. What happened?" "Well, we couldn't stop the Cards from building their OWN wheels ... " "And people like buying the Card wheels because they're faster than our wheels, and they're cheaper, because they don't have to pay us the licensing fee ..." "You see, we have a licensing treaty with the Cards for most things, so if they make something we have a patent on, they have to pay us, but the wheel can't be exported, so it can't EXIST over there, so our patents don't apply ... " "But I don't understand! You said you needed to catch people, but now you can hardly catch anyone!" Alice was totally astounded at what she was hearing. "It's only a stopgap measure anyway." Tweedledumber clasp his hands behind his back and started pacing. "We need to get an agreement with the Queen of Hearts that both of our people will only use, oh, say, pentagonal and maybe hexagonical wheels. That way, everyone can get around faster, but we'll still be able to catch them." "But who's WE?" "Anybody with a TLA on their shirt. WE get round wheels." "What's a TLA?" Alice almost felt relieved when she saw the familiar grin materialize. The rest of the Cheshire Cat soon followed. "A TLA, my dear, is a Three Letter Anachronism. When people start referring to you by your initials, you've overstayed your welcome. If everyone starts calling ME TCC, I'll know it's time to find another job." The caterpillar spoke up from its perch on the toadstool. "Wrong, tuna breath. TLA's are the only thing standing between society and total chaos." Alice turned to face the caterpillar, who responded by blowing a lungful of hookah smoke in her face. "THESE two goons only deal with the dangers of the Queen of Hearts and her soldiers, I have to worry about the domestic situation. So we came up with a solution. There are certain unscrupulous locals who engage in terrible things, terrorism, drug dealing, child molestation, money laundering ... we have to be able to catch them. If they had wheels, they could outrun us. But if we had ACCESS to those wheels when we needed it ... by the way, speaking of drug dealers, we know about that mushroom, and the pills. You might want to think really hard about playing ball with us, the Queen of Hearts is rather fond of cutting off dope addict's heads." "Access to wheels? Does that have anything to do with those ropes hanging off the back of those carts?" "Yup. We pull on that rope, the wheels fall off. And since we may have to stop a LOT of people at one time, we could have a riot, or another Butthole Surfers concert, we figure that we should be able to stop about ten percent of the population at once, a little less in the rural areas ... well, they've gotta be REALLY LONG ROPES ... and there have to be A WHOLE LOT of them ... course, the ones with the ropes we let have octagonal wheels ... " "But can't just anybody pull the rope? You'll have wheels falling off all over the place." "Price you have to pay for a safe society. Besides, we have trusted third parties holding to to the other end." "How will you get people to use it, when they can get regular wheels from the Cards?" "How else? We could pass a law. But it's easier just to threaten all the wheel dealers - put the rope on or we shut you down. Spread the word that only criminals don't use ropes - what are you afraid of? Got something to hide? Eventually we'll have to outlaw the round wheel, of course, but for the time being, some creative social engineering should do the trick." The caterpillar took another long drag on the hookah. "Good shit. Dole was right about this stuff." "But can't people get real wheels for free?" "Sure, we've pulled off enough they're lying around all over the place. But then you need an axle, bearings, steering - most people still just go down and buy the whole package. We get them, we're in - guy up in Seattle makes something like 90% of all carts sold here, you should see the shit we've got on HIM! No problemo. And those idiots at Netscape - we've got them doing a complete background check on anybody who wants a round wheel - come back in five days, and maybe you can have it." "So, Alice, are you learning anything?" Alice liked the Cheshire Cat, but it did have very sharp teeth, and very long claws, and it did have the habit of appearing out of nothing. Alice felt that it should be treated with respect. "Not really, your cattiness. It doesn't make any sense at all!" "It isn't supposed to. You have to look at it the right way. From their perspective, it makes perfect sense." "I'm confused." "Don't worry about it. It gets worse before it gets better. Come on, we're going to a party. Tim May and John Gilmore are throwing a Mad Tea Party." "Are they really mad?" "May's crazy as a loon. You'll like him. Gilmore, he's just still pissed at Shimamura for that stunt in the hot tub ... "

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Re: Opiated file systems
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 16 Jul 96 at 19:21, Mark M. wrote: > > A problem with a c'punk-style encrypted fs with source code and wide > > distribution is, of course, that attackers will KNOW that there is a > > duress key. > > I don't see how this would effect the security of such a filesystem. There > is absolutely nothing that an attacker can do to get the real key. An attacker > would just ignore all computers that have duress key capability. 1. Confiscate computer (along with physical drive) with duress-capable encrypted file system; 2. back up the encrypted sectors; 3. reverse-engineer file system driver to figure out how the duress-key works, if there are multiple keys, where data is stored; 4. make sure you've rubber-hosed or subpeoned all passphrases or keys; 4a. if the system destroys data, you've got backups ("Very funny kiddo; now give us the real key...") 4b. even if there are two filesystems, the attacker will want access to both, just to make sure... Duress keys rely on a form of security through obscurity. They make sense for real-time situations where the attacker has to rush in, gain access quickly, and leave real fast (ie, bank robberies). If the attacker has plenty of time, he can prepare for that possibility. 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: 119_816
by Cerridwyn Llewyellyn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:29 AM 7/17/96 GMT, you wrote: > 6-17-96. NYP: > > "11 Officers Are Accused of Failure to pay Taxes. Claims of > Sovereignty and 98 Dependents." > > At least 11 New York City police officers have been > accused of failing to pay any Federal taxes for several > years by declaring they each had 98 dependents and by > insisting that the Government had no right to tax them. > The officers relied on a package of instructions that > described how to avoid paying taxes by declaring that > they were sovereign citizens who did not have to pay > taxes. Anyone know which "package of instructions" they were using, and where they can be obtained online? //cerridwyn//

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Re: Surf-filter lists
by Cerridwyn Llewyellyn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:31 PM 7/17/96 -0500, you wrote: ><rant>A Private organization cannot "censor" anything. The fundamental >definition of the word require some agent of the government take action >to censor. To accuse Surf-Watch, net-nanny, AOL, MSU, AT&T, or whatever >of "censorship" accomplishes nothing except to make us look the >fool.</rant> I am not going to go into petty details about the actual definition of censor, and how private organizations do censor, but private citizens have the option of getting their information from an uncensored source, the same as when a government censors. The only difference is the government is allowed to use physical coercion, whereas on the surface corporations are not yet allowed to do so. I will, however, address your argument on a different level. Your view of this issue typifies one of the primary objections I have to many of the arguments amongst libertarians. The problem is NOT JUST GOVERNMENT. It is with any authority that has power over you. When a private entity becomes powerful enough that they have the ability to forcefully exert their influence over you, they are just as bad as Government. Granted, Surf-Watch and so forth haven't yet become that big, but there are some rather large Media companies who have, as well as institutions such as the Church. For example, I think our mainstream news IS censored, and not necessarily by the government, more by corporations intent on keeping us in the mindframe that will make them the most money and prolong and extend their power. I am not saying that a private entity doesn't or shouldn't have the Legal Right to censor, but I am saying that censorship of any form by any entity is a Bad Thing and the public (not the government, mind) should fight it on all fronts. This, in my mind, is the only reason to be dismayed by the decision on the CDA. It was found that the government shouldn't censor on the Internet because there were forms of Corporate censorship available. It would have truely been a great day if the decision had been that the government shouldn't censor on the Internet because censorship is wrong. >I agree that the problem with the "bait-and-switch" filtering of net >materials by these various filtering packages needs to be addressed. If I >want to protect my kids from seeing alt.naughty.pictures, I shoudl still >be able to unfilter political and health speech. The real problem isn't >censorship, it's disclosure by the makers of filtering packages about >what exactly their packages are going to filter for me and my family. That is another problem, not the Real Problem. The Real Problem is that parents are scared to have to explain to children why something they've seen is wrong or bad. They are afraid to teach their children their beliefs and values, so instead would rather just filter everything that conflicts with those beliefs, so that they believe it by default. This is a big problem when those children grow away from their parent's influence though, and creates bigotry and intolerance. (They don't know why they believe what they do, but believe it with fearful vengeance). //cerridwyn//

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