December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Brute-forcing DES
by Steve Reid 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Any one up for a distributed brute force attack on single DES? My > back-of-the-envelope calculations and guesstimates put this on the > hairy edge of doability (the critical factor is how many machines can > be recruited - a non-trivial cash prize would help). Count me in. I've got a couple of net-connected Pentiums that are mostly idle. Did you consider the possibility of DES chips in your back-of-the-envelope calculations? They are hundreds of times faster than PCs. I don't know where to get them or how much they cost, though. I would expect they wouldn't be too expensive. The cash might be better spent on DES chips than on a prize. Might be able to bring some money in by selling "I Helped Crack DES And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt" T-shirts. ===================================================================== | 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: Credit Card to eCash
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:08 AM 7/22/96 +0000, Jonathon Blake wrote: > Myers: > >On Sun, 21 Jul 1996, Myers W. Carpenter wrote: > >> What would be the problems in setting up a web site to make a >> charge to a Credit Card/ATM card number and return Cash, like an ATM for >> the net? > > Eight to ten years, I think. It is called money laundering. I find that interesting, since I can do the same thing with a bank machine. (Or maybe it is only money laundering when you don't get your picture taken as part of the process.) The only problem I see is that charges to a credit card can be withdrawn by the customer within a certain time period after either the billing or transaction. (I do not remember which. It has been a year or two since I have been responsible for CC transactions.) The individual could always say "It was not me" and get away with the e-cash. Sounds like a BIG risk for anyone setting up such a site. > AFAIK, that was the major legal hassle, when it was first > done. << OK, so it was on a BBS, not the internet. >> > > Getting people to use it is the other major problem. That is the big problem with e-cash as it is... Not everyone has a major credit card. Not everyone is willing to go through the hastles and invasion of privacy involved to set up an account with an e-cash provider. When getting e-cash is as easy as getting a money order, then there might be more interest. --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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Re: Borders *are* transparent
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:11 PM 7/22/96 -0700, Lucky Green wrote: >At 4:50 7/23/96, Paul Foley wrote: >>"Peter Trei" <trei(a)process.com> wrote: >> >> Any one up for a distributed brute force attack on single DES? My >> back-of-the-envelope calculations and guesstimates put this on the >> hairy edge of doability (the critical factor is how many machines can >> be recruited - a non-trivial cash prize would help). >> >>Not quite sure what you mean by "doability" -- it's obviously doable, >>it just depends how long you want to wait. >> >>I'm in. > >Same here. I think it is about time for another full scale hack. Breaking >DES would help get our message more than breaking 40bit RC-4 ever did. So how many keys can (for example) a 100 MHz Pentium try per second? I assume it's known-plaintext. Even at a million per second, that's still somewhere around 35 billion machine-seconds (average) to find the solution. 1000 systems operating, and it's around a year to a solution. Doable, but not all that practical. What about the possibility of using DSP's? Is there any brand of 28.8 K modem which uses a "standard" DSP and EPROM firmware? Such a beast might be the easiest way to get a large amount of CPU horsepower operating independently of the host computer. DSP's are optimized to execute a large number of instructions with little I/O needs. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Netscape
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 13:27 7/22/96, Tom Weinstein wrote: >Well, for starters, the genius who put it out there put out a beta, >which has an expiration date, instead of waiting for the final release. >Secondly, millions of people don't use PGP. I am sure the final release will be exported the day you release it. The government will not go after you because some third party violated the law. Remember, even PRZ was only harassed, never charged. It is my opinion, and that of many of the legal folks on this list, that the ITAR are unconstitutional. Netscape is being intimidated by a bluff. And no, I do not fault Netscape for not forcing the issue. >Also, notice the simple verification system MIT was allowed to use, and >the complex one we're required to use. Sure. The feds are learning. They know that they can't prevent export. They even know that their regulations don't have a leg to stand on. But they also know that they can make the life difficult for anyone wanting to make strong crypto available domestically , thereby reducing the number of shrink wrap quality programs available for domestic users. Which, let there be no mistake, is the true reason for the ITAR including software crypto. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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

17 Dec '03

At 02:42 PM 7/22/96 -0400, hallam(a)Etna.ai.mit.edu wrote: >Genuine philosophers have made such sacrifices. Russell gave away his >inheritance after completing Principia because he objected to the idea >of inherited wealth. And spent his life arguing for a social system which executes those who do not work all their lives for the State or attempt to escape it. >Of course if Perry was interested in genuine liberty instead of a slave >owner's idea of liberty - liberty to exploit others he would see the >contradiciton in his rhetoric. Perry is self-employed and thus only exploits himself. He isn't a tax-eater as you no-doubt are either. DCF

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Re: Netscape 3.0B US version MD5 (was: Re: overseas PGPfone and Netscape)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 18:48 7/20/96, Jeff Weinstein wrote: [...] >> But assumedly if they're downloading the 128-bit netscape, then they're >> only using the 40-bit version to do it... :-) > > Well yes, the first time they do it. But the many times they download >new versions, from now until the end of time, they can use 128-bit SSL. Not so fast. Win 32 Netscape 3.0b5 freezes my machine :-) -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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Re: Special Agent Safdar
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 02:32 AM 7/22/96 -0600, Anonymous wrote: >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. Denial?? Sarcasm perhaps... No "denial" I could see. As for your "evidence", it is pretty shaky. Such as the part about not having a drivers license. Since when is government regulation of driving proof of existence? >We don't have to wonder a second longer about the motives behind >Safdar\VTW\FBI's collection of names of crypto-dissidents, their >support of the Leahy crypto control bill, their refusal to >denounce it even today, their support of the digital telephone >act, the disinformation to make us believe otherwise and all >the other lies. And what about the money? Why would they have to operate a dummy organization? All they have to do is get the names of the subscribers on this list. Much more cost effective. >We must call on the other organizations, like EPIC, EFF, CDT, and ACLU >to denounce the VTW\FBI fraud. Their board of directories, Blaze and >Schneier to face the truth in public that they they have been used. >The net as a whole to demand its pound of cyberflesh. And not to forget all the free code that Blaze and Schneier have handed out over the years. Maybe that is a plot as well. Maybe the typos in Applied Cryptography are a secret conspiracy to weaken the cryptography of the nation. Next thing I expect you to say is that Queen Elisabeth is a drug dealer and/or other LaRouche style rants. I judge the above individuals by their deeds, not just by their words. They have accomplished much in the areas of preserving privacy and cryptography. What have you done lately? >There are very big questions to be answered now and we must not >forget to keep asking them until they have been. How high did >this operation go? Agent Safdar is no Olly North! He didn't >do this on his own. Who ordered this? The voices in your head? Actually, I have more interest in your motives than his. >This is exactly like the FBI in the 1960s and civil rights groups. >In the hands of the right reporter, this could and should >bring slick willie right on down. Interesting that you should bring up the FBI actions against dissenting groups... Actually, your screeds read like some of the stuff the FBI sent to the Black Panthers in the 60s and 70s. The screeds were written in the same manner, by an anonymous source, to discredit others in the organization. Your texts seem designed to cause mistrust amongst those who are willing to fight for their own freedom. (Especially amongst those who are not involved in the middle of the fray.) Your accusations are not accomplishing anything constructive. I do not believe that they were designed to either. I believe that they were designed to sow mistrust in the individuals who are making real progress against the Government held position that they have the right to spy on our every move. So far, you have not given any proof as to why we should believe you. Given the vitriolic nature of your screeds, I see no reason to do so. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMfPVPeQCP3v30CeZAQHiWQf+LCxtk/q4DmbLjJBrkU0aBVa8sDtWkMOU O2UA8/S0HwnYRy+DW+Hh5CUWM213LOw4gSwTrfz/y8Wdo7ErloV4orM45gKkZxSS RMq25GtSjpqJUrfWUnMKYhtc97NGkg0tOQU+D7c+LY+8IP5CK6JQh7k639C2q9Ic oKVxTlNO3xQ6PJiXB0oW21xWTTOC+WgC0OnRUeFGAnsWEXMZg5MBLrIMkLcqehBE Cgs6lIQEz4NfHWBAD3rwyEnXbxtP5MRK842Gorol3D27aLu8DEUyHddAeWLAQLZv bQUFR0liOgKrdusLDET6+NGv5RzmgT7E0iZ/abCObXaGQvPjUMpFMQ== =vJY8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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Preaching to the Choir?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:44 PM 7/22/96, hallam(a)Etna.ai.mit.edu wrote: >Your analyses are almost always junk because you only analyse one >side of the argument and deny that there is another side. You are >great at preaching to the choir Perry, problem is that you don't >convert anyone who isn't already converted. I think there is very little "converting" of those with well-developed views, of whichever side. Thus, solid libertarians are not converted by liberal/left arguments on this list, solid liberals are not converted by libertarian arguments, and so forth. We've had Religious Right folks (though not vocally in a long time), Greens, and several other flavors. (We also have several professional lawyers, law professors, economists, and the like, and I doubt the beliefs they have settled on in 10 or 20 or more years of thought will be changed by our arguments.) What _does_ happen is that people who have not given a lot of thought to some issues get exposed to views and can decide for themselves. Many student types arrive on this list with various half-baked ideas about the role of government, the effectiveness of laws, etc. _These_ folks are often influenced by persuasive points made here--they usually recognize the "common sense" in the best arguments presented. (At least this is what folks have told me, that they came to the list having ideas that crypto-privacy was important, but not realizing the full ramifications of the libertarian outlook until exposed to many people discussing them here.) So, I don't expect to convert David Sternlight to my views, nor to convert Phill H.-B. Nor do they, I am sure, expect to convert me. But I _do_ hope that the arguments here will have an effect on the thinking of many. --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: Borders *are* transparent
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:30 PM 7/22/96 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > >Perhaps a Java page containing a DES cracker that one could run for >the casual participant, and a set of links to download a real cracker >for the non-casual participant... And if it can be cracked using Java anytime in our lifetime, then it is truely insecure... ]:> >I think its really time that we did this. DES must be shown to be >dead. Personally I would like to see the cracking app written in assembly or optimized C. Something that will reduce the search time even farther. (Everyone talks about the hardware, but inefficient software will cost just as much time as slow hardware. Not to mention flaky hardware, as is seen sometimes with gold lead simms and tin lead sockets. [Personal gripe. I have been tracking down system problems for a couple of months involving just this issue. Damn agrivating!]) >When the media hear about it, they will, of course, get "experts" >saying "but it took five thousand people millions of dollars in >computer time". We should ask Matt Blaze to write a paper in advance >explaining that although this test, on general hardware, took a lot of >effort, that with specialized hardware it would be cheap as can be. No matter WHAT is done, they will get some "expert" claming that there is some flaw in the methodology. Given enogh attention, those people will look like hired spin doctors and be pretty much ignored and/or laughed at. --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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DES brute force? (was: Re: Borders *are* transparent)
by aba＠atlas.ex.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Peter Trei <trei(a)process.com> writes: > [...] Last September, three or four semi-overlapping efforts > succeeded in brute-forcing 40 bit RC4 (used in export-quality SSL). > > This had three main effects: > > 1. Raising the issue in the media, and thus in the public consciousness. > > 2. Within a month, the government was starting to talk about permitting the > export of stronger (but GAK'd) encryption products. > > 3. It enabled people like Jeff to argue successfully that releasing > only an export-strength product was no longer a viable option.In > practical terms is probably the most important effect of the crack: > I know of at least one other company where it led directly to the > release of both domestic and export versions. > > Any one up for a distributed brute force attack on single DES? My > back-of-the-envelope calculations and guesstimates put this on the > hairy edge of doability (the critical factor is how many machines can > be recruited - a non-trivial cash prize would help). Hmm, 56 bits is a lot of bits... Here's some calcuations of my own for your criticism... using libdes-3.23 ftp://ftp.psy.uq.oz.au/pub/Crypto/DES/libdes-3.23.tar.gz running the "speed" application, on a 100Mhz SGI R4000 Indy, I get ~600k key shedules / sec. (With the ~Mb/s throughput for encrypt, the bottle neck for simplistic brute force is going to be key scheduling). 56 bits = 72057594037927936 worst case = 3800 years ouch! So ideally for a break you would like the whole thing to be completed in say 2 weeks wall clock time, which gives rise to the need for ~100,000 machines of similar throughput, full-time for two weeks. Possible? As far as cash prizes go how much could cypherpunks and friends generate for such a purpose? I'd guess individuals could come up with a fair bit of money... 1000+ list members x 10$ = 10k (or whatever). Also perhaps there are some commercial backers with interests in seeing ITAR squished who might be persuaded to donate? Somebody would need to spend a fair bit of effort publicising it on USENET, to get a good response. There may be problems associated with offering prize money... what if some employees at DES hardware vendors `borrowed' some time on their top of the range DES cruncher? Perhaps this doesn't matter, as it would just make the point even more strongly :-) Also I can't help wondering if there isn't some lateral thinking we can do to reduce the cost... Are there cheap (<100$) PC DES cards which would help significantly? What DES modes are used in typical banking situations? (I am presuming a challenge involving a widely used banking funds transfer protocol would be a suitably juicy targets, based on a criteria of demonstrating the greatest financial risk). Are there any practical published attacks on DES which have space / time trade offs which improve on simplistic brute force whilst still having relatively low memory requirements for each node, and very low communication requirements? Adam -- #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

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