December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

[NOISE] Re: FLT 800: From the Rumor Mill...
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Angelos D. Keromytis" <angelos(a)gradin.cis.upenn.edu> writes: >This has happened before; an Aegis ship in the Persian Gulf shot down >an Iranian Airlines (or whatever it's called) aircraft; i'm not sure >how many died in that incident (i think about 70 - can very well be >wrong). The US just "apologized" for the mistake AFAIK. >- -Angelos Well, not quite the same situation. IIRC, the Iranian aircraft refused to respond to challenges. The captain of the Vincennes added that to the info that the Aegis system was giving him, and decided the aircraft was a threat. Turn a key, push a button, and so long, Airbus. (There was also some discussion about whether the Airbus had military IFF gear aboard that may have led the captain to think it was a warplane, but I don't remember if anything came of it.) The Iranian Airbus was also flying out of what was essentially "hostile" airspace. Despite the massive number of "terrorists" who live here -- at least according to the popular press -- I don't think the Navy has taken the step of declaring CONUS to be a hostile territory. :-) Feel free to correct my memory if I'm wrong.

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Re: Pseudocrypto detector is going wild (was: Re: ALPHACIPHER - An unbreakable encryption program.)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

C Matthew Curtin <cmcurtin(a)research.megasoft.com> posted a reference to ALPHACIPHER, which appears to be Yet Another Snake Oil System. It's got good intentions - it uses (ahem) "one-time pads", and tries to build a convenient user interface for low-volume work. Of course, it apparently doesn't quite get it: > ALPHACIPHER uses key sets generated by a > proprietary random key set generator > to insure the production of unique, high-quality keys. The key set generation is inherently part of the encryption process; since it's proprietary, it's not possible to test the quality of the random numbers, but they must be assumed to be low-quality crackable stuff unless the author is willing to reveal the algorithm and demonstrate otherwise. The program is written in DOS, and produces its output as UPPERCASE LETTERS to avoid being caught by eavesdropping scanners that might detect other patterns. Not unreasonable, I guess. The author, Wolfgang Hammersmith, also wrote The New ADFGVX, a cypher that can be done by hand (if necessary), which he does acknowledge is breakable, but comments that for short messages, there may not be enough information to break it. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: Free Speech and List Topics
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> More disturbing to me recently has been the steady increase in subscribers > to this list who don't seem to value free speech very highly, who write of > their own nation's censorship as valiant efforts to protect citizen-units > from foreign devils, and, even more shockingly, from supposed defenders of > electronic freedom who are now talking about the need for limits on > anonymity. I too have noticed this, but we must remember that although we are the people who see the tyranny of censorship etc. all to clearly we are in a very small minority, the majority of people do not support censorship because they have made a reasoned judgement, the either support it because they are too lazy to do anytthing, too shit scared of the government if they do, or they just do not take the time to understand the issues and so support the common view, there is also the case that many people "go with the majority", because they do not want to appear different, and the media has so demonized free speech and liberty advocated that to associate yourself with them now is equivalent to telling people you are a rampant sexually deprived paedophile in an anorak. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Http://www.fatmans.demon.co.uk/crypt/ "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey" -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6 mQCNAjH9j+cAAAEEAMBvREiQR0ot9dFCO0TiSCSunAYLv2g1Bc6I3bz8FzKXNH53 6mieJf/W4rD+CxJpT0q9RQaaoRtkHJLwbjfK2il3D7mEahMAyqvF/xRJNqkXfhM3 sRJM0Jh43l+W0M5vwokbEbk25/bxWWGspTsLD3YHbzKnG6pOcL5OPIRbv66xAAUR tCdQYXVsIEJyYWRsZXkgPHBhdWxAZmF0bWFucy5kZW1vbi5jby51az4= =riHc -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Re: DON'T Nuke Singapore Back into the Stone Age
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timothy C. May wrote: > The point is to make clear to them that the Usenet and similar Web sites > are global in nature, not subject to censorship without a very high local > cost. If discussions of Lee Kwan Yew's dynasty are considered illegal, then > Singaporans will have to choose not to carry the various newsgroups into > which *I* post such messages! If the govt. of Singapore wish to keep their people in ignorance of their corruption it is going to be harder than banning a few newsgroups. I would expect the opposition to be scanning USEnet and like fora for email addresses ending with .sg and spamming appropriately. The irony of censorship is that its rarely effective and almost always superfluous. The people of singapore are aware that their government is corrupt. They vote it back in because they expect the alternative to be at least as corrupt. Its much like the US where there is a choice between the rightwing authoritarian Republican Party and the authoritarian, rightwing Democrats. > (This was done by many of us during the Karla Homulka and Teale trial in > Canada a couple of years ago: Canada imposed press restrictions on > discussion of the trial and the grisly evidence...and then was chagrinned > to find that the global Net did not adhere to their notions of what should > and could be discussed. They even seized copies of "Wired" at the border, > very much akin to Singapore's stone age policies.) There is a big difference between the Canada situation and the Singapore situation. In Canada the restrictions are temporary and stem from making the right to a fair trial a higher priority than the right to free speech. It is a conflict of two competing individual liberties. No observer of the OJ Simpson trial could state that the media coverage did not affect the outcome. The arguments that Mill advances for freedom of speech in On Liberty do not apply in the context of a temporary judicial injunction, they are utilitarian (suprise) and applying his general principle of "interests" would favour the temporary restriction. The situation in Sigapore is simply a corrupt government trying to supress legitimate democratic discussion. The intention is not to protect an individuals right to a fair trial, the intention is to restrict argument permanently. It is important that in an international forum people don't start imagining that their local customs are universally accepted as superior. The difference between Canadian and US law is a minor one and relates to different interpretations of a common principle. There is a vast gulf between the Singapore position and that of either the US or Canada. This is not simply a difference of local interpretation. Phill

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Re: Free Speech and List Topics
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"tcmay(a)got.net" 2-SEP-1996 05:36:20.36 >No self-respecting Cypherpunk thinks the Antitrust Act and related acts are >worthy of enforcement. >(Think of how the technology we support will tend to allow new avenues for >price collusion, interlocking directorates, new forms of business combines, >unreadable secure communications with foreign competitors, and so on, all >things the Antitrust regulators are already growing worried about.) There's a difference between thinking something shouldn't be enforced (e.g., drug laws for adults) and thinking that other things - such as privacy and free speech - are more important than fully effective enforcement of something (anti-terrorism measures, AntiTrust Act, etcetera). I don't think that transparent houses, as Perry put it, should be required to prevent murders - but I don't approve of murders either. It's a problem with means, not ends. -Allen

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Secure anonymouse server protocol: comments please
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following is a very sketchy plan for a secure protocol for an anonymous server which allows replies without storing a recipient database in the clear. To send a message: The sender first exchanges keys with the sever (public key cryptography assumed), the server now has the users key and the user the servers. The user sends the server: The recipient for the message the message itself a password previously agreed The users ID on the server The server decrypts to get the above back in plaintext, then it encrypts the ID & the users address with a random session key and stores it in the database. notice nothing is stored in the clear the server now encrypts the session key with the senders public key, and fowards it to the sender of the original message. now finally the server sends the message onto the intended recipient in plaintext (who must also have exchanged keys with the server) along with the ID of the sender encrypted with the servers public key. the recipient responds with his reply, and the ID of the sender still encrypted in the servers Public key The server stores this When the user (the original sender) wants to pick up his mail after a couple of days he sends the server his ID encrypted with the servers public key, the server compares this with all of the encrypted IDs in the database and when it finds a match it fowards the corresponding mail to the original sender of the first message. Thats all folks. This system has 1 huge fault, we can encrypt a uses ID with the servers public key to see what his ID in the encrypted database is and therefore identify him, maybe we need two seperate server public keys, and when IDs come in encrypted with key1 (the one it releases) it decrypts with secretkey1 then encrypts with publickey2 (the one it keeps secret) or maybe we can just hash and sign the IDs in the database? as I said it`s very sketchy, I made most of this up as I wrote it so if you must tear it to pieces please do so constructively, it could be the route to a secure system.... Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Http://www.fatmans.demon.co.uk/crypt/ "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey" -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6 mQCNAjH9j+cAAAEEAMBvREiQR0ot9dFCO0TiSCSunAYLv2g1Bc6I3bz8FzKXNH53 6mieJf/W4rD+CxJpT0q9RQaaoRtkHJLwbjfK2il3D7mEahMAyqvF/xRJNqkXfhM3 sRJM0Jh43l+W0M5vwokbEbk25/bxWWGspTsLD3YHbzKnG6pOcL5OPIRbv66xAAUR tCdQYXVsIEJyYWRsZXkgPHBhdWxAZmF0bWFucy5kZW1vbi5jby51az4= =riHc -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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(no subject)
by Fran Frisina 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: FLT 800: From the Rumor Mill...But It Makes Sense.. (fwd)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:59 PM 9/1/96 -0700, James A. Donald wrote: >At 09:04 PM 9/1/96 -0400, Alan Horowitz wrote: >> The Aegis ship in the Gulf wzs not in an exercise. It was in a war zone. >> >> If my memory serves, the Iranian jetliner had its squawker turned off, or >> broken. > >Your memory does not serve: The computers record of the events was: > >Computer tells crew: Civilian jetliner on radar. > >Crew expecting an attack by jetfighters, tell computer to shoot it down. > >Computer does not put up a bunch of dialogs saying: "Hey, I think this >is a CIVILIAN airliner, did you get that CIVILIAN airliner, are you quite >sure you want it shot down? Instead it just shoots it down. Suggestion for future improvement... C:>DEL AIRLINER.COM Are you sure? (Y/N) _ Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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desubscribe
by Christopher Carper 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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The Esther Dyson Flap
by Chuck Thompson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't quite understand the position taken by Mr. Assange and Mr. Unicorn regarding recent statements attributed to Ms. Dyson. I would appreciate some additional insight. It appears as though they are both critical of statements (taken out of context according to Dyson) because of her position with the EFF. It appears that they both believe that she has no right to her opinion if it is contradictory to the policy of the EFF. If such an EFF policy exists, and if Dyson is of a different opinion, the fact that she holds office in an organization with which she is not in total agreement should not count against her. In fact, it is to her credit that she has the courage to speak her mind, considering that hers is an elected position. She has something to lose by speaking her mind publicly. Mr. Unicorn remains anonymous, thereby mitigating repercussions which might otherwise accrue to him as a result of the expression of his opinion. I agree with Mr. Unicorn that the EFF should state its position unequivocally. I do not agree that officers or staff of EFF should not be allowed to disagree with that position, if in fact they do. In the case of Ms. Dyson, how can we know whether she agrees or disagrees with a non-existant policy? She has, evidently, spoken her mind. Isn't that what freedom of speech allows? Imagine, if you will, where we would be right now if all elected representatives were censured for disagreeing with stated government policy. That ability is what makes this country great - and, what you both seem to be saying you stand for. Is your position solid only if everyone agrees with you and you them? Whatever happened to "defending to the death your right to say it"? Pouncing on someone, without knowing all the facts, who is vulnerable because of their position smacks of dirty politics - it is distasteful. Why not ask for the facts from the source? Then state your opinions or make your threats about not contributing financially. In keeping with the message, you have the right to take a cheap shot. I'd just like some insight into your thinking. Regards, Chuck Thompson

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