December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Flaws of Thinkers (Jefferson, Rand, Nietzsche, Voltaire, etc.)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:54 PM 7/22/96, hallam(a)Etna.ai.mit.edu wrote: >No, the argument is over whether a person should live by the ideals he >preaches. I have more respect fot the likes of Kant and Russell who made >rather more of an effort than Jefferson. > >The observation that history is made by rich people and written by rich >people is not a new one. Until this century there were few countries >where politics were open to anyone but the very wealthy. In the USA >that is still by and large the case. > >Rather than attempting to excuse Jefferson it would be better to >accept that not everything he said was valid when he said it and >to try to engage ones brain rather than using his words as slogans. I agree with much of what Phill says here. His original "throwaway line" about Jefferson's slave-owning did not fully make this point. (As I see it, this is a common danger with throwaway lines, which often look like dismissive insults.) The flaws of leaders and thinkers are well-known. From from what I've read, Voltaire was a real cad. And my favorite aphorist/philosopher, Nietzsche, had his share of bigoted views. And he was apparently not at all a "superman" specimen. But who cares? The ideas of a person are somewhat separable from their quirks as persons. If we demand perfection from all thinkers--assuming perfection could ever be defined and agreed upon--we'd likely have far fewer thinkers to study. (Phill also mentions Rand. She was about as deeply flawed an individual, especially in terms of treatment of her supporters, as one can imagine. She, for example, insisted that her followers smoke, as smoking is (she claimed) proof of Man's dominance over nature. However, many of her ideas were very influential.) I rather suspect the U.S. would have had a more consistent moral stance if a condition for a state joining the Union had been the freeing of all slaves. Of course, giving womyn the vote would have been too much to ask for. (And there were many violations of the rights of Indians, including land-use rights and treaties, which did little to polish the reputation of the U.S. for adhering to its own stated principles.) --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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[Noise] Re: Responding to Pre-dawn Unannounced Ninja Raids
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:16 PM 7/22/96 -0500, snow wrote: > Yeah, and to a fscking statist you give your all to the state. ^^^^^^^ This is assuming that the state is corrupted and needs to be remounted. (Or is not considered clean opon boot.) Which might not be a bad assumption... Assuming that it can fix the errors it finds in the state in the first place. Sorry. Too much time spent fixing corrupted disks today. (I hate cheap hardware.) --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Re: Borders *are* transparent
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:32 AM 7/22/96 -0006, Peter Trei 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). My Mac 9500/132 is chomping at the bit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Cave ab homine unius lebri | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | [Beware the man of one | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | book] - Anonymous Latin | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: Boobytraps and the American Legal System
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:13 PM 7/23/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >No, a better solution it seems to me is to dispose of the body so there is >only a "disappearance," with nothing to link the perp to one's self. >(Unless the perp left records or told someone...) > >My place is pretty isolated, so I wonder if my proposed solution is enough: >process with my 10 h.p Troy-Bilt chipper/shredder, treat output with 2 >sacks of quicklime, hose resulting product into ravine dropping down to >valley floor below. (Probably too much DNA-carrying crud left around, Contrary to all the old stories, quicklime (calcium hydroxide) actually PRESERVES bodies, it doesn't assist their decomposition. (It probably inhibits bacteria growth by raising pH, yet its alkalinity doesn't attack the organic material.) What you want is a few gallons of concentrated sulfuric acid, which will hydrolyze the fats, the proteins, dissolve the calcium in the bones, as well as erase any traces of DNA left in the mixture. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: NSA Lawyers Believe ITARs Would be Overturned
by Chris Adams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 22 Jul 96 05:06:06 -0800, tcmay(a)got.net wrote: >>Which raises an interesting question: Why aren't they (still) restricting >>PC-type computers for export? While it might not appear to make a great >>deal of sense either, a PC is just as much a tool for encryption as the >>software which runs on it. And it's obvious that given the two scenarios >>below: > >But they _are_ (so far as I know, though I haven't checked recently). > >That is, there are export restrictions on computers and programs which can >perform certain mathematical operations faster than some specfied limit. >For example, FFTs faster than a certain rate. > >My copy of Mathematica, updated less than 18 months ago, says "Not for >Export," and this was not because it contained any crypto code, but because >of the performance on certain algorithms (on commonly available machines). I was wondering why Mathcad had that sticker. It's only 2-3 months old, BTW. // Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> - Webpages for sale! Se habla JavaScript! // Automatically receive my resume or PGPKEY by sending email with a subject // of 'send PGPKEY' or 'send resume'. Capitalization counts so be careful!

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Re: Giving 6 year old kids Uzi's (Was: Responding to Pre-dawn Unannounced NinjaRaids)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:01 7/22/96, Ernest Hua wrote: >You might be missing the mark too, but I thought the subject was >giving a gun to every child who enters school, not YOURs or SOME >EXPERT 6 YEAR OLD's special case. There is *nothing* that should be given to every child or every adult for that matter. I very much oppose the use of my tax dollars to issue guns or school books to children. Let the parents buy the items required for the children's safety or education. [We are straying away from 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: Filtering out Queers is OK
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:03 PM 7/22/96 -0700, Ernest Hua wrote: >Therefore, nobody (not you, not the PTA, not the school, not the >Congress) has any right to tell me what is good for my child. Ern - This is a serious question. When does your child have the right to say that what you think is good for her/him is crap and then proceed to ignore you? IMHO, this question is the major question for the parental rights at all costs people. It is best if your children and you can reach broad enough mutual respect so you can work this issue out informally. However, I personally know a lot of cases where the best didn't happen. The teen-parent wars were quite spectacular. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Cave ab homine unius lebri | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | [Beware the man of one | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | book] - Anonymous Latin | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Intel, Microsoft doing Internet Phone Software
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I would be curious if the standards mentioned include any cryptographic capabilities. The PGPhone people might want to look into producing a patch for the Intel (and later Microsoft) programs allowing encryption. (In consideration of fair use, I am both editing it down and putting on the same ad I see (I use lynx).) -Allen > [The New York Times] > _ Monday July 22 6:03 PM EDT _ >Intel Unveils Internet Phone Application > SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (Reuter) - In its quest to make the personal > computer an indispensable tool, Intel Corp. Monday unveiled software > that will make it easy to place long-distance phone calls over the > Internet. > The Intel Internet Phone software is the first to allow users of > different types of computers and software to link up, solving a > problem that has held back use of the global computer network for > long-distance telephone calls, even though it would save long-distance > toll charges. > Intel's software uses a telcommunications standard that allows users > of different computers and telephone software to talk to each other. > Until now, people using the Internet for phone calls had to have > identical software and hardware. > The software works on PCs running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 95 > operating system. Intel also has signed up 120 companies who have > agreed to use the standard in new products. [...] > Jeff Pulver, author of the soon-to-be-publisehd Internet Telephone > Toolkit and chairman of the Voice on Internet Coalition, said Intel's > breakthrough was that the software is based on open standards, not > proprietary software, and so could spur growing use of the Internet > for telephone calls. > ``It's not that Intel is coming forward with a new product, but that > Intel and Microsoft recognized the need for standards and have done > something about it. Intel is the first company to actually deliver on > a standard,'' Pulver said. > To insure its success, Intel is offering the software free starting > Wednesday on its Web site -- http://www.intel.com/iaweb/cpc. [...] > The most viable competitor is Netscape Communications Corp., which is > incorporating a voice telephone feature in its Navigator 3 Internet > browser. [...] > ``We believe voice telephony on the Internet represents a major > opportunity for AT&T,'' AT&T spokesman Mike Miller said, adding that > AT&T is exploring the area as a business itself. [...] > Microsoft plans to introduce its version of Internet phone software, > called NetMeeting, in September. > _Reuters Limited_

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Re: Brute Force DES
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:55 PM 7/22/96 -6, Peter Trei wrote: >Single DES has the security of 56 bits of key - there are 64 bits in the >keys, but 8 of them are parity bits which add nothing to security. >2^56 = 7.205e16 keys (which is a whopping big number) >Let's guess that we can recruit the equivalent of full-time on 1000 >machines. >7.205e13 keys/machine. >Let's guess that we have about a month before people start to lose >interest - so we want to be more than 1/2 done by then. Lets say >we want to sweep the whole space in 40 days. > >1.8e12 keys/machine/day > >~21,000,000 keys/machine/second > >The fastest general purpose, freely available des implementation I'm >aware of is libdes. by Eric Young. With this, I can do a set_key in >15.8 us, and an ecb_encrypt in 95 us/block. That adds up to >about 9,000 keytests/sec (this is on a 90 MHz P5, running NT). For grins, I decided to look at some old Intel data books; I had recalled that they build a DES encrypt/decrypt chip. It was the 8294A, which could do 400,000 bytes per second, or 50,000 blocks per second. That's fairly good for 1983 technology. Since the clock rate of the typical microprocessor of the day was a 6-MHz 80286, and today's rate pushes 200 MHz, I think it's fair to conclude that a similarly state-of-the-art DES chip should be similarly improved, about a factor of 30, or about 1.5 million blocks per second. That's somewhat less than 2000 system-years of operation. (In practice, a cracker might be even more improved: The 8294A used an 8-bit I/O bus, which probably limited the rate at which encrypts could be done: 400,000 bytes per second means 400,000 writes, and 400,000 reads per second, or 1.25 microseconds per I/O byte throughput. This is sufficiently close to state-of-the-art for 1983 that I speculate the internal encryption rate might be substantially faster. And remember that a dedicated cracker doesn't need to I/O very much: Comparing with a previously-stored template requires no I/O, unless the compare is good, and that will rarely happen.) Not that I think that such a dedicated chip necessarily exists; chances are good that there isn't all that much demand for a 12-megabyte/second encryptor. However, appropriately-fast DSP chips tend to be at the cutting edge for wide-word operations, so I'll guess that the best way to implement DES today (absent a dedicated chip) would be on a DSP. It would also be the cheapest, because DSP's are built in huge numbers for other applications. What this shows you is that there is a vast difference between doing a task on a fairly optized platform, and a general-purpose computer. This _also_ shows you why the government is being highly dishonest by quoting the difficulty in cracking ciphers on scalar machines, rather than more-dedicated vector units. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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DES-Busting Screen Savers?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:28 PM 7/22/96, aba(a)atlas.ex.ac.uk wrote: >Hmm, 56 bits is a lot of bits... > >Here's some calcuations of my own for your criticism... >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. Or several times that number of machines or time for machines with less crunch. Say, 100K Pentium-type machines for a month or two. How might this be gotten? A while back I proposed one approach: a brute force "screen saver" for Windows machines. Other platforms, maybe, but the most cost-effective thing to do is to go after the Windows market only. Instead of bouncing balls around the screen, or whatever screen savers like "After Dark" are doing these days, it could flash messages about "Working on a crack of ...." and perhaps show bar graphs, etc. Maybe some flashy graphics, some Cypherpunkish slogans, etc. That is, an attractive enough screen saver module in its own right that people would be perhaps inclined to leave it running. (I know that "After Dark" publishes the specs on its program and encourages third-party drop-in modules...some have been successful enough to be marketed by the vendor. I presume this is still the case, and with Windows, too.) Acquiring chunks of keyspace remains an issue, but I think we resolved a while back that a probabalistic method works OK: people just pick chunks at random, and the decreased efficiency as compared to perfect scheduling is something like a factor of a couple (I have the numbers I calculated somewhere, and I recall Hal Finney made the same estimate). Some means of communicating results--especially wins!--is still needed. This is where Perry's idea of a Java program is a good one. >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). More realistically, 1000+ list members x 10% who make plans to contribute x half of these who actually follow through x $10 = $500. (If that....) Prizes have their place, but are hard to set up properly. --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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