December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: NSA's Venona Intercepts
by smith＠sctc.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:26 AM 8/27/96, Black Unicorn wrote: >I seem to recall an exhibit on Verona including a proported Soviet OTP at >the National Cryptologic Museum in MD. Kahn's "Codebreakers" also has photos of OTPs captured from undercover Soviet spies. The fact that illegals were using OTPs to talk to their controllers didn't necessarily imply that messages from Soviet embassies and other offices needed to be using OTPs themselves. The could have used a good rotor machine (well, good for the era). But now I'm convinced they didn't. The whole thing makes sense if we're looking at cryptanalysis based on reused OTPs. I can see why the NSA doesn't mind letting the world know that they could crack reused OTPs as opposed to some other identifiable cipher technique. The degree of NSA's success doesn't help an adversary optimize their crypto technology. The decryption success is in direct proportion to how sloppy the Soviets were in using their OTPs. I'll bet some official got shot when this was all figured out. Partial decrypts occur when parts of the keystream are recovered and other parts are not. I wonder if one could compare the "holes" in the various messages and thereby infer which OTPs were used for which messages based on patterns of keystream recovery. Venona also presents an object lesson on why not to use OTPs: the security does not degrade gracefully if they are misused. Reusing one even once could easily compromise both messages sent with it. I doubt security degrades nearly as quickly if you overuse or reuse keys in more modern techniques. Thus, OTP keying requires a reliably pessimistic prediction of traffic flow, and your security is toast if you underestimate your transmission needs. Besides, given that nobody can crack a truly randomized OTP, I can see why NSA would want to publicize a failed use of OTPs. Might as well focus interest on more theoretically tractable techniques. Rick.

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Cato Institute conference on Net-regulation, 9/20/96
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This should be a good half-day conference, with some interesting speakers. I'll probably show up for Charles Platt's keynote. Naturally, it's being held in the building's Hayek Auditorium. Hayek has some relevance to cypherpunks, I think -- he warned early on that the loss of economic freedom inevitably leads to the loss of civil liberties as well. He also described the phenomenon of spontaneous order (admittedly in the context of markets), which speaks to the way the Net has ordered itself. -Declan // declan(a)eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan(a)well.com // ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:05:44 -0400 From: Solveig Bernstein <sberns(a)cato.org> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Please redistribute this conference announcement freely: ********************************************************* Regulation or Private Ordering? The Future of the Internet The Cato Institute cordially invites you to a morning conference and luncheon Regulation or Private Ordering? The Future of the Internet Friday, September 20, 1996 8:30 a.m. 1:30 p.m. The Cato Institute's F.A. Hayek Auditorium 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC The Internet promises users unprecedented individual control over information. It is at once a tool for universal communication, a new form of media, and a new way of doing business. But it is also a challenge to lawmakers and regulators. Existing laws cannot easily be applied to the Internet and appear doomed to failure. Do we need a new set of laws or will voluntary private action ensure order on the information superhighway? Cato's Regulation or Private Ordering? The Future of the Internet conference will bring together leading authorities on law, regulation, and technology to discuss the problems of adapting existing law to the Internet and to explore private alternatives to regulation. Can private ordering consistent with individual freedom forestall a government backlash against perceived Internet chaos? The cost of this conference is $25.00. Registration Wintergarden 8:30 8:35 a.m. Lawrence Gasman Welcoming Remarks Director, Telecommunications and Technology Studies, Cato Institute 8:35 9:20 a.m. JURISDICTIONAL BOUNDARIES David Post;Collective Action in Cyberspace" Georgetown University Law Center Dan Burk Federalism without Borders; Seton Hall University School of Law 9:20 10:30 a.m. FEDERAL REGULATORY ISSUES Robert Crandall; Rate Regulation and Arbitrage; Internet Telephony; Brookings Institution Trotter Hardy;Congress and Digital Copyright: Avoiding a Balancing Act;William & Mary College of Law Lori Fena;Security of Personal and Corporate Information Online: Moving toward Industry Self Regulation; Electronic Frontier Foundation 10:30 10:45 a.m. Break 10:45 11:55 a.m. FREE SPEECH IN CYBERSPACE Danny Weitzner; The Empowered User: Internet Technology Tools for Limiting Access to Unwanted Material; Protecting Privacy; Center for Democracy and Technology Eugene Volokh;Private Online Speech Controls: Censorship, Constitutionally Protected Editing, or Both? University of California at Los Angeles School of Law David Sobel;Prospects of the CDA in the Supreme Court; Electronic Privacy Information Center 12:30 p.m. Keynote Address - Charles Platt; Net Futures: Scary and Sublime; Author, Free Zone, The Silicone Man, Contributing Writer, Wired Magazine 12:30 p.m. Luncheon News media please call Robin Hulsey at (202) 789 5293. To Register, please e-mail Scott Wallis at swallis(a)cato.org, or vist our web site at //www:cato.org. ********************************************************************** Solveig Bernstein, Esq. (202) 789-5274 (202) 842-3490 (fax) Assistant Director of Telecommunications & Technology Studies Cato Institute 1000 Mass. Ave. NW Washington, DC 20001

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Re: libelous action
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 26 Aug 96 at 20:28, Ross Wright wrote: > If I was John E. Holt, I would take a different public relations > tack. I would seek positive input, not a negative reaction to > criticism. Or I would ignore the critique altogether. > Ross Wright Yes Ross, but while writing this, your premise is that Holt has a product that is at least partially decent and that it could maybe be improved. You assume he might be making an honest error. Maybe it is not the case. ;) jfa DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee; Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants: physicists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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MUD anyone?
by Rev. Mark Grant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Would anyone out there be interested in helping set up a crypto-anarcho-capitalist MUD to play around with some of the social aspects of crypto-anarchy and anarcho-capitalism? I can probably hack together a basic lpmud in a month or two if someone has a machine which it could run on and which could run a mailing list for those involved. On the software front, there's a demo of version 0.86 of Privtool on utopia.hacktic.nl in /pub/replay/pub/PGP/unix (or something like that), and my mailbot is also on there somewhere. Amongst other things that allows you to remotely maintain Web pages by sending PGP-signed email (actually, PGP-encrypted would probably also work if you don't mind leaving a secret key on the system with no passphrase). Doesn't yet protect against replay attacks and there are a few known bugs but it's only an Alpha. If anyone wants to use it for real I can mail you a patch for the worst problems. Finally, does anyone outside the US have the last few months of the list available for ftp? I'd like to catch up on what I've missed since I unsubscribed and using the Web archive is far too slow and expensive. Please send replies to me directly as I'm travelling and consequently off the list. Looks like I'll be on a mad bus trip round New Zealand for most of next month so Net access will be erratic. Mark |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| |Reverend Mark Grant M.A., U.L.C. EMAIL: mark(a)unicorn.com | |WWW: http://www.c2.org/~mark MAILBOT: bot(a)unicorn.com | |Approximate Current Location: Melbourne, Australia | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

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Re: Spamming
by John Deters 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:27 PM 8/26/96 -0800, Adamsc wrote: >On Mon, 26 Aug 1996 13:26:04 -0500, John Deters wrote: > >>>What do cypherpunks think about the following practice or law (I realize >>>that it may be impossible to implement): each email message should carry >>>a little digicash check for, say, 20 cents. Mail reading programs should >>>reject (send back unread) all messages not carrying these digital >>>checks, unless the senders are in the "friends list". The MUAs should >>>ask users whether they want to "cash" the digital check or not. >> >>I do not believe it is possible to have a secure executable that exists on >>an uncontrolled user's machine. "Tamperproof" encryption chips still >>require communications in and out from the user's program. A determined >>attacker could continue to use the pieces of their code that talk to the >>encryption chip. > >>Never underestimate the allure of "free money" when you're planning to >give >>it away. > >Methinks you don't understand e-cash. It's not executable, and uses public key >crypto to prevent "minting". It uses records to prevent replays. In other >words, it'd be like Ed McMahon including a quarter in the envelope. You'd only >be able to use it once.... Maybe I misspoke; I wasn't referring to minting e-cash. I was referring to the fact that if you can get spammers to enclose a 20e coin for every junk e-mail advertisement you agree to read, then you can write a mail reader that will read their spam and collect all their 20e coins. To me, that's better than "minting" e-cash. Totally legal, and the net effect transfers funds from the spammers to me. The rest of my letter was in regards to writing that mail reader. And no, even if they were to succeed at getting stupid users to install their own special mail reader just for the privilege of reading their advertisements, without secure hardware in the users' machines, their mail server would not be secure against a spoofing attack. John -- J. Deters "Captain's log, stardate 25970-point-5. I am nailed to the hull." +-------------------------------------------------------+ | NET: jad(a)dsddhc.com (work) jad(a)pclink.com (home) | | PSTN: 1 612 375 3116 (work) 1 612 894 8507 (home) | | ICBM: 44^58'36"N by 93^16'27"W Elev. ~=290m (work) | | PGP Key ID: 768 / 15FFA875 | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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A _REALLY_ Interesting Bet
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Betting on football is one thing, but some of us would be very interested in the odds on US presidential election outcomes as November approaches. This kind of betting is illegal here, and I haven't looked lately for a "Ladbroke's" type site, but it is interesting because the betting odds from across the Atlantic more closely match eventual election results than the annoying calls from Gallup & Roper during suppertime. I have posted here, anonymously, on this topic before, but some of you are aware of who I am. I'll thank you to keep that a secret. ;}

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Boeing Antenna Demos T1 Reception Rates
by reagle＠rpcp.mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1996 AUG 27 (NB) -- By Bill Pietrucha. All eyes were on the truck as it meandered its way down the twisting mountain road in northern Bosnia. Except the eyes didn't belong to lookouts in an observation post along the road. They were in a modified US Air Force (USAF) C-135 flying at 35,000 feet along the East Coast of the United States, some 6,000 miles away. The USAF C-135, known by the name Speckled Trout, was participating in the 1996 Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID `96). JWID `96 is the eighth in a series of technology demonstrations designed to identify command, control, communications, computer, and intelligence (C4I) problems between the armed services, demonstrate improved operational capabilities for deployed forces, and promote interoperability among existing and emerging C4I systems needed to support a joint task force. As part of the exercise, the Air Force installed the first full-scale prototype Ku-band phased array receive antenna system on the Speckled Trout, a modified avionics testbed aircraft maintained by the 412th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The antenna, developed by Boeing Co., is capable of receiving broad- band, high data rate satellite communications, with civilian as well as military applications, Boeing spokesperson Charles Ramey told Newsbytes. According to Ramey, the antenna will "revolutionize mobile satellite communications by increasing the data flow by thousands of times over current capabilities." Depending on the satellite and receiver, he said, rates of up to 30 megabits-per-second (Mbps) may be realized through a single transponder. "To date, satellite communication to mobile platforms has been limited to relatively narrow bandwidths, and wide band communication has been subject to the limits of antenna technology," Ramey told Newsbytes. The Boeing design can be adapted to simultaneously receive signals from multiple satellites in different orbits with a single antenna. The electronically steered antenna also allows for rapid switching between different satellites. During the JWID exercises, which will continue through August 30, the Boeing antenna system is being used to receive satellite transmitted video and data to support the Global Broadcast Service (GBS) mission. GBS, Ramey said, is designed to provide the military with a worldwide, seamless, high-throughput broadcast information service to support current and future defense objectives. As one Air Force Colonel at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, told Newsbytes, "GBS is the CNN of the warfighter." EchoStar, a key member of the antenna demonstration team, transmitted video in Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) format for reception by the Boeing antenna system on the Speckled Trout. In addition to the video, an uplink data stream at T1, or 1.5Mbps, or higher is generated at the GBS uplink terminal testbed at the Operational Support Office facility located at the Naval research Facility near Washington DC. This signal, according to Ramey, is relayed through the GBS Americom K2 FSS satellite which downlinks to a receiver at an EchoStar facility. The data is then incorporated into the network broadcast system and retransmitted via the EchoStar 1 satellite to a GBS receiver. The data is then stored for retrieval by other systems, Ramey said, including the Global Command and Control System (GCCS), sponsored by the Air Force Communications Agency, and the Combat Information System, sponsored by the Air Intelligence Agency. "Other systems on board the Speckled Trout can retrieve data through the Boeing phased array antenna system, which is routed to terminals inside the aircraft for display and demonstration," Ramey said. The Speckled Trout also can track and receive video and data from EchoStar Dish Network TV, Hughes DirectTV, and USSB transmissions for display on a conventional monitor, Ramey said. Looking to commercial applications, Ramey said the phased array communication antenna system "offers the ability to provide passengers with more entertainment and information options. With the Boeing antenna system on board, passengers can have access to the entire spectrum of commercial television programming available from a BSS satellite." Ramey said the antenna system is capable of instantaneously bringing in approximately 100 channels from a given BSS satellite. (199670826/Press Contact: Charles Ramey, Boeing Defense & Space group, 206-657-1380)

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Re: The POUCH
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:44 PM 8/26/96 EDT, JOHN E. HOLT wrote: >The Pouch uses a 64 x 64 block product cipher, a 1024 bit random initialization >vector and the CBC technique. Most experts agree that such an implementation >is highly resistant to all forms of cryptographic attack. That depends highly on the cypher. Also depends on if your "initialization vector" is truly random. (Or even close, as some other companies have found in the past...) It is resistant to all attacks that you know of. Depending on the nature of the algorythm, this could be true in some sense, false in some sense and meaningless in some sense. Without published code, it is meaningless in all senses. >Hellman and Dilfie rely on knowing the algorithm for their known plain text >attacks >An unpublished algorithm forces them into reverse engineering the computer >programs to learn the algorithm. The POUCH has many roadblocks built in >to prevent this. As someone who has spent time reverse engeneering code, I find this one pretty funny. The only thing I have found that will obscure code in any real fashion is writing it badly. "Roadblocks" to reverse engeneering also tend to be a speed hit. Either way, it will not stop someone with the proper skills and tools. >I refer to Cummings, Cryptography and Data Security pages 150 and 98 in this >regard. Do we have to read them in reverse order or is that part of the roadblock you are using to make things more difficult...? I will be interested to see just what kind of liability problems you run into when this thing gets compromised. Of course, with a name like "The Pouch", you will probibly just claim it was a "kangaroo court". --- | "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD. - alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com "| |"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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Denning interview in Wired
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

don't recall anyone mentioning this-- Steven Levy did a lengthy piece on Dorothy Denning for the recent Wired. any reactions? I was personally struck at how Dorothy seems to lack strong convictions that hold up in the face of others. she wrote a paper urging that hackers be studied and worked with by the security community and then backed away from the position quickly after talking to "authorities". I was amazed that Dorothy, after a long time, has failed to confront some very basic issues in her advocation of Clipper: 1. constitutional issues. it would be ok for me if she described why she thinks that privacy is not constitutionally protected, but she fails to mention constitutionality issues in virtually any of her writings. frankly this strikes me as the utmost weasely evasion. is she aware of any court precedent on freedom of speech, freedom to speak in private etc? she never quotes any case law etc. 2. she fails to address the issue of "returns vs. cost" or "cost/benefit" ratio. her argument amounts to an extremely simplistic line, "law authorities have been stymied by crypto. therefore it should be restricted". but this reminds me of speed limit advocates saying, "55 saves lives". well, how many? 35 saves lives over 55. the key issue is that of *compromise*: what is the optimum compromise? we can catch more criminals by adding security cameras everywhere, but what are the costs? such back-and-white thinking has little place in any complex policy issue, yet unfortunately tends to dominate them. it's very bizarre to see an academic like Denning just seem to be vacuously oblivious to such simple concepts such as "tradeoffs". nothing I've read suggests she has ever addressed the issue of *compromise* in regard to catching criminals vs. protecting rights. but amazingly, people like Kallstrom seem to think the same way. paraphrased, "if even one criminal gets away because we didn't have enough funding in the FBI, we need more funding in the FBI" etc. 3. she fails to address the "big brother" issue. why is wiretapping never going to be used by "big brother"? it's inconceivable to me how she can honestly evade this issue as well. she has never addressed the issue of abuse by law authorities from what I can tell. 4. Denning seems to be to be remarkably swayed by "authority figures". she has changed her opinion before based merely on conversations with "authority figures" in the FBI and NSA. it seems maybe she has a bit of "spook envy" or something like that. many of her arguments for me essentially amount to, "people that claim to know what they are doing say we need [x], therefore we need [x]" well, I am not trying to start a new round of Denning-bashing (although that's always fun, hee, hee) but the recent article does give a little new food for thought about Denning's psychology etc. frankly I think that Denning has lost the intellectual battle because she absolutely fails to address some of the above key points. (particularly the total failure to address the constitution is getting more egregious). I suggest that anyone who wants to debunk her line of thinking (which apparently is getting to be awfully easy) just focus on any of the above areas. she apparently has no reponse to these points in anything I have read of hers.

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"The Observer" calls the internet a child pornography ring
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Banner Front page headline in the British Observer, Sunday 25th "The Peddlers of child abuse" see http://scallywag.com/ The internet is presented as a conspiracy by child molesters. There is a picture of Johan Helsingius, the man who free of charge provides an anonymous remailer service: The picture is captioned "The internet middle man who handles 90% of all child pornography" He is represented as personally profiting from the distribution of child pornography, though in fact no posts to binary newsgroups can go through his system, and no large binaries can go through his system, and he provides the anonymising service free of charge. There is a picture of Clive Feather, the man who runs the largest internet service provider in Britain, captioned "The school governor who sells access to photos of child rape"]] The observer article savagely demonizes all who use the internet, presenting it as primarily existing for the purpose of distributing child pornography, and demonizes and libels by name those who have sought to defend the liberty of netizens. I urge you all to check out this article, and send snail mail letters to the observer condemning (since they are obviously too low tech to read email) and email letters of support to those netizens who have been savagely libeled for their defence of liberty. --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald jamesd(a)echeque.com

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