December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Disclosure of Public Knowledge to Foreigners
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:44:52 -0700 (PDT) >>From: shelley thomson <sthomson(a)netcom.com> >> The church of scientology plans to subpoena the records of every >>anonymous remailer in the USA. ... >> On the basis of events today, Ward believes the church will >>issue subpoenas for the records of every anonymous remailer in the USA. >> If these records are delivered to the church, our First Amendment >>rights go with them. They can have all the records for the pamphlet remailer from the relevant time periods - it doesn't keep any. I may have to start some sort of short-term log-keeping to deal with spam problems (for now, I've shut it down, because of a particularly hostile kind of spam that would require grepping the body of each outgoing message to stop, and I haven't written code for that.) If I do start logging, I'll probably also insist that all incoming traffic be encrypted. And there are certainly ECPA issues involved in a subpoena, as well as major First-Amendment issues, reporter shield law issues (though I gather those vary by state), and such. Good luck! # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215

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Re: onyma
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:05 PM 4/9/96, Name Withheld by Request wrote: > The term `nym' is erroneus: The Greek words are an-onym, pseud-onym, > syn-onym, hom-onym pp, derived from `onyma', name. Ah. I get it. Like Bass-omatic... <Siddown, Bob!> But, but, wasn't Bass-o-matic crypto, once? Cheers, Bob -------------------------------------------------- The e$ lists are brought to you by: Making Commerce Convenient (tm) - Oki Advanced Products - Marlboro, MA Value-Checker(tm) smart card reader= http://www.oki.com/products/vc.html Where people, networks and money come together: Consult Hyperion http://www.hyperion.co.uk info(a)hyperion.co.uk See your name here. Be a charter sponsor for e$pam, e$, and Ne$ws! See http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/ or e-mail rah(a)shipwright.com for details... -------------------------------------------------

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Re: No matter where you go, there they are.
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hmm. Here's an interesting question. Let's say that there are 3 satellites in view broadcasting signals f1(t), f2(t) and f3(t). The way the system triangulates is to compute the distance from a location to a satellite by timing the arrival of a signal. So if signal f2(t) arrives at t+3 milliseconds, then the receiver is 3 lightmilliseconds away from satellite 2. For sake of simplicity, let the coordinates be expressed in distance from the satellites. (2,3,1) would mean a distance of 2, 3 and 1 light milliseconds from satellites 1,2 and 3 respectively. Okay, so why can't I just tape the signals I get from each of the three satellites. Let these be T1(t), T2(t) and T3(t). Assume we can easily synchronize them so that T1(t-o1)=f1(t). That is, we figure out our coordinates (o1,o2,o3), and subtract the offset from each tape. Then if we want to pretend to be at coordinate (a1,a2,a3), we simply say that we just received values T1(t-o1+a1), T2(t-o2+a2), T3(t-o3+a3). Or course, I could be completely missing some neat feature of DGPS. I really don't know the details of how it works and this could be completely wrong. Any thoughts? -Peter

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Re: Tense visions of future imperfect
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: frantz(a)netcom.com (Bill Frantz) > >[Description of dcash counterfeiting scam, presumably done by stealing > > the bank's public key] > I don't see how this third scam would work in a system such as DigiCash > which uses online clearing. Unissued serial numbers would be refused when > presented for clearing. DigiCash banks do not issue serial numbers. Serial numbers are randomly chosen by the user when he withdraws his cash. He blinds the serial number before presenting the cash to be signed by the bank during withdrawal. So the bank never sees serial numbers until they are spent. The uniqueness of serial numbers results solely from having a large enough random space that matches are unlikely. What the bank does is keep a list of all spent serial numbers, not all issued ones (since it doesn't know those). That way it can detect double spending. We have had some discussions here about how banks could recognize this kind of counterfeiting, similar to the statistical measures mentioned in Garfinkel's scenario, and steps that could be taken. Hal

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Re: Enforcing the CDA improperly may pervert Internet architecture
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:38 PM 4/9/96 -0500, Scott Brickner wrote: >Wait a second. I don't know that it's really as impossible as you >think. Given the CDA advocates' hypothesis that anonymity is a Bad >Thing (tm), it's reasonable for them to assume that the ISP can arrange >to have a policy requiring that it know who's making the SLIP/PPP >connection. It's not too hard to have *every* packet generated by a >given connection flagged with an IP option indicating "adult" or >"minor". Of course that doesn't overcome the "technical problem" of getting the IETF to adopt that change in the protocols and getting a significant number of sites to adopt the new protocol. Even if you impose a substitutte on the IETF, it doesn't stop them from wandering off and creating their independent protocols and seeing whether the "official" or the "unofficial" get adopted. DCF

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Protocols at the Point of a Gun
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 02:38 PM 4/9/96 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >The internet and the culture are coming into conflict in a big way, >and I don't believe that both of them can survive. > >Perry Well this is as good a time and place as any to ask the question that none of the opposition seems to have asked (perhaps because they don't know enough to ask): How do you force geographically dispersed nodes on a distributed network to adopt a set of officially mandated protocols? But first a reading assignment: "How Anarchy Works--Inside the Internet Engineering Task Force" from Wired. http://www.hotwired.com/wired/3.10/departments/electrosphere/ietf.html So, now we know that the IETF has been pretty successful as a means of standards setting. We then have to go on to discuss how The Great Enemy might undertake to intervene in this process. Questions: 1) Are there any official agencies currently involved in drafting substitute protocols? 2) Do the public employees on the IETF behave any differently from the private employees? 3) Do the world's governments have the programming talent? 4) Do the world's governments have a way to get users at all levels to adopt their protocols? I don't know the answer to these questions. We know that governments would like to impose things like the Simple Tax Transfer Protocol on the Net as well as Is A Person (and Is A Minor) Protocols. The Heathen Chinee have proposed their own entry into the protocol design process as have many of the other governments. Do they have any idea yet how to go about it? Do we? DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMWu7OYVO4r4sgSPhAQFw8wP/SONzr+vOKaIw3NQPTF4o1xk4hVFrlWEs y5fLcrh2jHlejPMvdoTNJIvZ0nsgLNJU8QsW+goRzl9B37/8U9oG8A0CgvOu9Wr9 2aP+zkHjTYldvtGuOWXNoq7tdQDGY5cGzMTJZO0WRwMBhpO+BnOGPPN2MqxMOPIK vbIgly4DEI8= =57wn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: No matter where you go, there they are.
by Paul_Koning/US/3Com%3COM＠smtp1.isd.3com.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Location-based System Delivers User >Authentication Breakthrough >By Dorothy E. Denning and Peter F. MacDoran Nice april fools article... After all, position information is nothing more than a particular phase shift (time delay) between GPS data streams received from the set of satellites overhead. If I report the datastreams received -- or information about them -- then someone can calculate where I am. (Indeed, there are GPS applications where the device whose position is of interest doesn't actually decode the GPS data, it merely reports what it receives to some central data collection site, where the arithmetic is done.) If I want to pretend to be somewhere else, all I have to do is some simple geometry to calculate the time delays I want to report, and then phase-shift the GPS streams from their received position to where they would be at the other place. Note that relying on the PP code (military code) in the GPS stream is no help, since I don't need to be able to interpret the PP stream in order to pretend to be elsewhere, I merely need to know where I am and where I want to be, to insert the right phase shift. paul !----------------------------------------------------------------------- ! Paul Koning, NI1D, C-24183 ! 3Com Corporation, 1-3A, 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough MA 01772 USA ! phone: +1 508 229 1695, fax: +1 508 490 5873 ! email: paul_koning(a)isd.3com.com or paul_koning(a)3mail.3com.com ! Pgp: 27 81 A9 73 A6 0B B3 BE 18 A3 BF DD 1A 59 51 75 !----------------------------------------------------------------------- ! "Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors ! -- and miss!" ! -- Robert A. Heinlein, "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long" ! in "Time Enough for Love"

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The last I'll say on the unsubscribing thing
by Brad Shantz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm did not say that the people sending the messages to "unsubscrive" were justified in what they did. YES, it is written in the welcome message. I just think that maybe we need to be a little tolerant of a few people out of 1200 who made an honest mistake. I still believe that the people sending the messages haven't read Tim's "nth Fucking Time" message. Or his "Under attack by foreigners" message. Or my response about their lack of ignorance. (Tim, I just mentioned your messages because they came to mind. **GRIN**) Steve, I even think that they didn't read your "unsubscrive list" message, which I thought was wonderful. I just think that instead of complaining to the list they're trying to remove themselves from, we should send them mail individually. I'm sure that Tim already has. (at least he said he did...i think.) Since I posted yesterday, I have received a nubmer of messages from people interested in removing themselves from Cypherpunks. I sent them the paragraph from the welcome message. And that was that. Brad

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Re: Open Systems, Closed Systems, & Killer Apps
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Various correspondents have pointed out that X.25 is an "open system" in that it is not proprietary. I knew that. I was thinking more of hierarchical vs peer-to-peer. I have been under the impression that TCP/IP connections are more peer-to-peer between different sorts of networks (or nodes) than X.25. Isn't X.25 more of a standard for a single network? Don't X.25 networks need someone more "in charge" than TCP/IP networks, or am I mixing up different layers on the OSI reference model? Which gives me an opportunity to post the only mnemonic that I ever created: Read from the bottom up: (and) Anarchists Application Progressives Presentation (back when it was Communication, it was Commies) Socialists Session Trust Transport Never Network Departments Data Link Police Physical DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMWvBIYVO4r4sgSPhAQHmegP/bPmRjFRpbczDfQTpTbfGgnLmuvWp6cBb J62Rp/LW0tOnBOW4rrf/d88AUTlh4sesn1daxn+3LEL1zgSaZromjW6i+lRSK+cw AkShAuuTJUwzG44Li473au5b32jhw6VK2ZMTcZBWAo2f4kl5zLOgpMwKM1Cb6s8b /StrGFRLmd0= =5gXR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: No matter where you go, there they are.
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Peter - didn't they say that the checking station is also listening to the satellites? That way they can tell that you are playing back signals that you taped earlier because they won't match what the satellites are broadcasting right now. I think your idea would work if you wanted to pretend to be at a point which was _farther_ from each of the satellites than where you actually are. Then you could delay all of the signals. But the only way to be farther would be to be deep underground. You might be able to pretend to be at the center of the earth, but that is not very useful. Actually I suppose this only applies to those satellites which are shared between you and the checkin station. If you are far away then maybe you only share one or two. If you know which ones those are, you can lie to your heart's content about other ones, and for the shared ones you can again delay the signal and claim to be farther than you are. If their authenticated repeaters are used then you have to assume the checking station has all the satellite signals and again the best you can do is pretend to be a Mole Man. Hal

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