December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

The Alchemical Net
by declan＠hotwired.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

***************** Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 15:16:38 -0500 To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu From: declan(a)hotwired.com (Declan McCullagh) Subject: FC: The Alchemical Net Sender: owner-fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu X-URL: http://www.eff.org/~declan/fight-censorship/ X-JusticeOnCampusURL: http://joc.mit.edu/ This is an essay that talks about about the psychology of Net-censorship. The writer draws parallels between the architecture of the Net and the architecture of depth psychology, with particular emphasis on alchemical symbols. Repressing the Net represses ourselves. McCullagh studies at the Jung Institute in Philadelphia. An excerpt from the essay: "The Net and Web symbols and icons, the mythological names, the weird links and mirrors, the uncensored slop, the stench of digital sulfur, the secrecy, the fuss about encryption, the inside language, the personal signatures, the home pages and so on, are the stuff of alchemy. The world governments efforts to control this secretive language is no different than the Church trying to censor medieval alchemists or religious mystics. The powers always take such actions in the name of god-fearing decency and the protection of innocents. The government wants to regulate Net behavior because it doesnt understand it. They can certainly fake it, as Dole tried to do in the first debate with Clinton. T.S. Eliot wrote about the twentieth century citizen as having the experience but missing the meaning. That is a description of the 800-pound gorilla government presence in the Net-terrain. They dont get it. But, in a way, they do. Even unreflective government ministers realize this Netthing is bubbling up from somewhere and like Hermes/Mercury, is forever changing its shape, spots, color, and demeanor. Suppress a web site in Burma and an alchemical mirror captures the message in Timbuktu." -Declan **************** The Alchemical Net By Chuck McCullagh <76543.1777(a)CompuServe.COM> October 10, 1996 I got interested in the Net about the same time I developed an interest in alchemy. Since that time Ive been musing about what these two protocols, one distinctly medieval, one post-modern, might have in common. Both, to borrow the words of writer Flannery OConnor, draw large and starting figures. Both are agents and expressions of cultural, psychological, and perhaps even spiritual transformations. Both protocols are ostensibly about technology and process; but ultimately the two protocols are about changes in technology that can change the inner man. The protocols can be easily misunderstood. And they can readily serve the charlatan seeking the quick buck. Alchemy was originally the effort to change base metals into gold. This arcane science predated chemistry and metallurgy and medieval literature shows how serious practitioners were about this activity. For them, alchemy was a sacred art. To truly transform base metals into gold, an internal transformation must also take place, though the process might be unconscious. The genuine alchemical artists would understand the poet Auden's phrase:new styles of architecture, a change of heart. There had to be the right chemistry between the metallurgical process and the alchemist. Alchemy went the way of the dung heap, sent there in part by all the charlatans who promised get rich schemes. Today they would be stock brokers. Chemistry replaced this earthy science. Three hundred years later C.G. Jung, the Swiss psychologist, stumbled onto alchemy. After hearing thousands of his patients' dreams Jung was struck by the similarity of symbolism in the various dreams. He found arelatedness among the dream imagery and eventually found similar imagery in alchemy. He considered dream symbolism a kind of empirical evidence that man possesses a collective unconscious which houses archetypes common to mankind. Jung also discovered that alchemists were interested in personal, as well as metallurgical, transformation. Though there were technicians and charlatans in the business, the real alchemists were philosophers who were using the witches brew of sulfur, metals, and whatnot, as a mediation axis for their internal transformation. They were actually in search of soul. But why the charade? Why engage in ironwork when the true interest is in soul work? The psychological answer is that the Catholic Church, in the driver's seat for centuries, has successfully managed to suppressive the personal and collective unconscious and emphasize spirit rather than soul. The Church essentially denied the interior man and his/her proclivity for symbol-making. Augustine, Aquinas and the other Church fathers denied the dark side of life. Satan, once the brother of Christ, was now dethroned. Evil was merely the absence of good. Neat as this might be from a theological perspective, it absolutely devastated psychological man. Jung writes that when the unconscious is suppressed, it erupts as fate. Our inability to believe that an evil as great as Hitler could be real, led to the slaughter of millions. That the Catholic Church and the Reformers, who promised much more attention to psychology but failed, denied modern man his or her psychology, sent the activity underground. The philosopher/alchemists, made wary by Church Inquisitions and witch burning, went underground and developed a delicious pre-industrial protocol to disguise a psychological activity. As Jung has noted, the changing of base metals into gold is really a metaphor for the individuation process, during which a person becomes fully integrated and whole. The alchemists were an industrial offshoot of the mystical tradition, perhaps best represented by Meister Eckhart of Germany, that believed, as the Greeks did, he who knows himself, knows God. Such a position was anathema to the Church which held the keys to the kingdom. No wonder alchemists went underground. Alchemy was finally done in by the powerful worlds of rationalism and empiricism that denied the unconscious. If you couldnt measure something, it wasnt real. Our world today is a product of these movements. Most of our cultural ailments, whether consumerism, materialism, nihilism, fundamentalism, or extremism of any kind, have their origins in the psychology of rational and empirical Americans. The spiritual despair so many people feel today is due to the denial of the soul and the failure of the old religious symbols to speak to us at the end of the 20th century. As the rap song goes, Denial, Anns just a river in Egypt. It is a principle of depth psychology that what a culture represses, comes back as fate. Our collective inability to accept the very real presence of evil in the world (and in ourselves and in our icon gods) has given us a brutal century which will likely close the way it began--in bloodshed. The pathetic, simple-minded political discourse in this country only underscores our lack of reflection. American and world institutions are scared shuttles of the NET, not because they cant control it but because, from a psychological point-of-view, it is the animals emerging out of the collective unconscious. In terms of digital exchange, the NET was probably inevitable. Im less interested in the Net as a overlay of technical protocols than the Net as a projection of depth psychology replete with its own cultural icons and alchemical processes. The alchemical language was archaic, symbolic, suggestive, designed that way so the authorities could not easily decipher. It was a game of sulfur handshakes and smoky mirrors. The factory floor was smelled of Yeats foul rag and bone shop of the heart. The alchemists knew the stench of excrement. They were that too. The Net and Web symbols and icons, the mythological names, the weird links and mirrors, the uncensored slop, the stench of digital sulfur, the secrecy, the fuss about encryption, the inside language, the personal signatures, the home pages and so on, are the stuff of alchemy. The world governments efforts to control this secretive language is no different than the Church trying to censor medieval alchemists or religious mystics. The powers always take such actions in the name of god-fearing decency and the protection of innocents. The government wants to regulate Net behavior because it doesnt understand it. They can certainly fake it, as Dole tried to do in the first debate with Clinton. T.S. Eliot wrote about the twentieth century citizen as having the experience but missing the meaning. That is a description of the 800-pound gorilla government presence in the Net-terrain. They dont get it. But, in a way, they do. Even unreflective government ministers realize this Netthing is bubbling up from somewhere and like Hermes/Mercury, is forever changing its shape, spots, color, and demeanor. Suppress a web site in Burma and an alchemical mirror captures the message in Timbuktu. Whatever the Net is technologically, it also represents a psychological space where transactions of the soul and spirit take place. Yes, its messy, god knows its messy. But so were the alchemists attempts to turn base metals into gold. So is the psychological process of individuation which is a life journey for us all. Psychologist James Hillman, updating Jung writes, In my symptoms is my soul. Life is a mess and that is reflected on the Net. Neither religion nor the state encourages psychological development. Instead both encourage wars to fight for anthropomorphic god we have projected into the heavens. The symbols that are passed on to us by tradition (Christ, Virgin Mary, the saints) are made clean by tradition and are rid of the shadows of the unconscious. Our presidents, saints, and cultural icons are elevated and become etherized on the table of history. The conscious mind wants order. impeccable grammar, and Jefferson without his black mistress. The unconscious mind serves up dreams in alchemical dress that scare the hell out of us. That is, if we are awake. That this is a manifestation of depth psychology with its lions, tigers, and dream corridors worries the guardians of the conscious state. So they propose their own protocols, wrapped in the white flag of decency. The authorities want to repress the Net because it is a projection of their own unconscious. They dont want to enter that terrain. They will certainly stand tall against pedophiles but will refuse to see the Net as a journey they must to take. Alchemists had rigorous protocols of mixing elements to get the right elixir. But their work was not programmatic, for that approach would satisfy the conscious mind. Rather alchemists relied more on intuition and magical clues, finding hints and links during the soul journey. The objective was always transformation; taking the unprocessed substances and combining them in such a way as to bring about the desired end which, in psychological terms, was the development of the Self, the whole person. A basic principle of alchemy was that the basic materials had to be combined and processed the same way Jungians believe raw dream material has to be subjected to a critical analysis. A technical need gave birth to the Net. However, the Net also answered a psychological need. Again, what the conscious mind represses, returns as fate or culture. Modern man is both liberated and enslaved. The institutions that purport to serve him has denied him access to the unconscious, the royal road to the soul. Alchemists knew intuitively what analytical psychologists know empirically; that is, the unconscious is more responsive to the spontaneous attitudes associated with the young. This is what has perplexed and scared so many in authorities. The young are vigorously responding to this invitation from the unconscious to develop the mysterious tools and protocols that will, as the fantasy goes, transform the world and perhaps themselves. For some the Net is really about ontology, the nature of being itself. It is a mirror that invites a very different view of man. He or she is no only digital, world at the fingertip; this emerging tech-head renders obsolete most institutions associated with paternalism. Free speech is really free. A literate, enfranchised, ennobled citizen can be a reality. More profoundly, the collective psychology is changing. The boundaries that define and confine are less important. On the Net nationalism takes on a very petty glow. Netizens have the potential of living their lives symbolically in that they are always linked to the other. Of course, the Net is also a junk yard filled with tons of stuff that must be subjected to the right touch of alchemy. The process is about process and realizing one must interact with the untutored material. The Net is certainly a solipsistic zone of personal chatter. But this chatter has an alchemical role in that it allows the base material to show forth to be transformed. The impulse to censor the Net argues against the Nets psychological benefits. Alchemy described a technological process that was also about personal transformation. The psychological aim was wholeness and integration of the Self. The Net is a technical protocol that permits the transfer of unlimited amounts of digital date. But the Net architecture is also a manifestation of depth psychology that has the potential of ordering the world in a much more soulful way. ### ------------------------------------------------------------------------- fight-censorship is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fight-censorship/

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RE: AW: Binding cryptography - a fraud!
by Eric Verheul 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

E. Allen Smith[SMTP:EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU] wrote: >From: IN%"everheul(a)NGI.NL" "Eric Verheul" 10-OCT-1996 07:31:16.85 > I would be curious as to whether you believe that China should be >permitted to do censorship as part of "national law." If your answer is yes, >I would ask if you would believe that Germany's Holocaust was something that >should be permitted as a part of "national law." In other words, national >sovereignty is not something that should be permitted to override individual >liberties. > Censorship is something else than demanding (and checking) that people comply with the policy of a voluntary system. Would you consider Microsoft sueing users of illegal Microsoft software also a "censorship". >>Wait a minute. It is a *voluntary* system, but it has some rules that >>apply. The whole >>idea here is: if you don't like it, use your own system. "Fraude" refers to > > >>>Maybe I'm biased: I'm a libertarian who believes that sending the wrong >>>bits shouldn't be considered a crime. The problem we have is with the >>Depends, it might be childrens pornography. The information society is >>*not* about >>bits, but about information. > > If the bits carry information, then restricting the bits is restricting >the information. I would point out that no harm whatsoever is being done to >children in the _distribution_ of such pornography; such harm is only done in >the _manufacture_ of such pornography There is no harm in firing at somebody, harm is only done when hit somebody. Distribution is part of the manufactury process. Don't go to Belgium for a vacation, and start stating these kind of things. > It is only theoretically a voluntary system; governments such as > China's, Germany's, etcetera could require that it be used with these > goverments as the TRA (or, essentially equivalently, someone licensed by > such a government). > Quite simply, you've invented a system that makes censorship more >possible. As a scientist, I try to avoid areas that have such negative >effects; I won't work on biological warfare, for instance. I would like to >suggest that you follow such ethics also; you have not. > -Allen > I agree to some extend that our system could be used in a totalitarian country, to make certain censorship possible. On the other hand, it doesn't make their job especially easy: they can forbid and control any type of "strange" data, i.e. encrypted data. One could argue that our system at least gives security between citizens. The whole problem is that you don't trust your government, well I do (till some extend). I get the impression that this is a typical USA problem. Eric

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Re: Why not PGP?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:01 AM 10/10/96 -0600, Rollo Silver wrote: >I don't intend to submit my present or future private PGP keys for key >escrow (Is that what's called GAK?). To protect myself against forgetting >my private key (which has happened once already) I'll no doubt some day put >it on a floppy and put the floppy in my bank safe deposit box. You can't "forget your key"; it's encrypted with your password and is on disk. BTW, if you do put either or both on floppy to take to your bank, encrypt the files using PGP's single-key encrypt capability, using a long and highly non-memorizable key. (Use a freshly demagnetized, formatted floppy, being careful not to put any non-encrypted files on it, even temporarily.) That way, if somebody (police, Feds, etc) break into your deposit box, they get NOTHING. You still have to "remember" that long, non-memorizable key, although something like that can be written on paper and well-hidden and/or split up into parts. It's only value is to decrypt that bank-stored floppy. > >Two questions: > >1. Does anyone think that legislation might be passed which would >criminalize my communications with Ray? The politicians and cops and TLA's would certainly love this, but it doesn't look too likely for the next five years or so, at least in America and probably not Europe. However, somebody just posted an item about illegalizing "networked computers" in Burma... If you're worried about this, how about giving PGP to as many friends as have computers, to increase its usage? The more who use it and are aware of the political issue behind it, the less likely the politicians are to pull the wool over the collective eyes of the public. >2. Suppose someone writes a program Z that has no expicit crypto code in >it, but has hooks for installing one or another version of PGP. Given a >copy of Z, someone in this country could install PGP he got from MIT, >whereas someone in Europe could install the international version. >Would export of Z violate ITAR restrictions? Nobody seems to know for sure, but this has been discussed a number of times around here. I happen to believe that using ITAR to even restrict the export of encryption is an abuse. Attempting to restrict a program which can interface with external encryption is even sillier. (by that standard, an operating system interfaces with PGP, which would make MSDOS restricted if ITAR were interpreted in this way.) The really odd thing is that exports of Pentium computers aren't restricted, apparently, yet an X86 clone is just as much a tool of encryption as the software. And if you ask a person, "would you rather have a copy of PGP and no computer, or a 166 MHz Pentium computer and no copy of PGP?" the answer most intelligent people would give is the latter, since getting PGP is easy and free. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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[Noise] Re: MISTY Algorithm
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:12 AM 10/10/96 -0400, John Young wrote: >Nikkei Industrial Daily, October 08, 1996 >Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said it has released the design >principles for its data encryption algorithm MISTY. In >doing so, the company can enlist third-party users to >evaluate the integrity and power of its encryption >algorithm and gain wider name recognition for MISTY. I beleive this algorythm was created by a Dr. Clayton Forrester of the Gizmotics institute. I could reveal the source to you, but then I would have to kill you with a forklift. --- | "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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DCSB: The Election and Digital Commerce Agenda
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----BY SAFEMAIL----- The Digital Commerce Society of Boston Presents Philip S. Corwin, Principal, Federal Legislative Associates "The Impact of the 1996 Election on Washington's ECommerce Agenda" Tuesday, November 5, 1996 12 - 2 PM The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston One Federal Street, Boston, MA Mr. Corwin is a Principal of Federal Legislative Associates (FLA), a Washington, DC government relations firm whose clients include organizations involved with such issues as internet payments security, computer crime, encryption export restrictions, and the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material over the Internet. He has been involved in legislative activities for twenty years, including five years on the U.S. Senate's professional staff. Immediately prior to joining FLA he served as Director and Counsel for Operations, Retail Banking, and Risk Management for the American Bankers Association, where his portfolio included payments system policy, bank cards, consumer compliance, and money laundering. He is Official Reporter of the American Bar Association's Task Force on Regulatory Barriers, Committee on the Law of Commerce in Cyberspace. His articles on a broad range of financial system topics have been published in numerous publications here and abroad, including American Banker's Future Banking. He has testified before Congress and has been interviewed on such programs as the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, The Wall Street Journal Report, CNN Newsmaker, and CNBC Capitol Gains. "The Impact of the 1996 Election on Washington's ECommerce Agenda" will discuss the myriad federal legislative and regulatory initiatives which will shape the legal infrastructure for ECommerce. In particular, it will focus on Internet payments and digital value: the Federal Reserve and FDIC regulatory initiatives on stored value cards; money laundering; digital counterfeiting and financial system safety and soundness; taxation of Internet commerce; and the monetary policy implications of electronic free banking in competition with central banking. Mr. Corwin will also discuss the 104th Congress' attention to encryption export standards, Internet copyright protection, Internet privacy, and computer security and espionage, as well as general Congressional oversight of electronic banking. Finally, He will make some predictions about the disposition of these and other matters in the next Congress. This meeting of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston will be held on Tuesday, November 5, 1996 from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown Branch of the Harvard Club of Boston, One Federal Street. The price for lunch is $27.50. This price includes lunch, room rental, and the speaker's lunch. ;-). The Harvard Club *does* have dress code: jackets and ties for men, and "appropriate business attire" for women. We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or, if we *really* know you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", by Saturday, November 2, or you won't be on the list for lunch. Checks payable to anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston will have to be sent back. Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston". If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements (We've had to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for instance), please let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can work something out. Planned speakers for DCSB are: December "Black Unicorn" Money Laundering: The Headless Horseman of the Infocalypse January TBA 1996 in Review / Predictions for 1997 February Rodney Thayer Applying PGP To Digital Commerce We are actively searching for future speakers. If you are in Boston on the first Tuesday of the month, and you would like to make a presentation to the Society, please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Commmittee, care of Robert Hettinga, rah(a)shipwright.com . For more information about the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, send "info dcsb" in the body of a message to majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu . If you want to subscribe to the DCSB e-mail list, send "subscribe dcsb" in the body of a message to majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu . Looking forward to seeing you there! Cheers, Robert Hettinga Moderator, The Digital Commerce Society of Boston -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----BY SAFEMAIL----- Version: 1.0b3 iQCVAwUBMl1dH/gyLN8bw6ZVAQG3MQP8CndlQ87Smpwjpky4o08vNLzr24lURKm4 M1lEFKTXuscXwb4wLS+0T003jbYqUWpSlwyzodpkogVc0avSTxMKwl1o9VVScgjf AjWFBmJ3/43i/5einwqRPR0csfonGznoT5oWq+9G0R1HrtYkrTSVI5BctdK+W+zV bJGqAanUcp8= =PEH4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

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Re: LET'S MEET DIMITRI
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dimitri, an honest to goodness Kook o.t.m.? And in the Bay Area! I'm there! Ross =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: 415-206-9906

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Re: "Forward Privacy" for ISPs and Customers
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:08 PM 10/10/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >At 11:42 AM -0700 10/10/96, Bill Frantz wrote: >>At 10:13 AM 10/9/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >>>Something ISPs could do--and may do if there is sufficient customer >>>pressure--is to adopt a policy of "forward secrecy" (to slightly abuse this >>>technical term). That is, to have an explicit policy--implemented in the >>>software--of _really_ deleting the back messages once a customer downloads >>>them to his site. This means that _backups_ must be done in a careful >>>manner, such that even the backup tapes or disks are affected by a removal. >> >>One technical approach is described in: >> >>"A Revocable Backup System", dabo(a)cs.princeton.edu (Dan Boneh) and >>rjl(a)cs.princeton.edu (Richard J. Lipton) in The 6th USENIX Security >>Symposium Proceedings. >> >>Basically the idea is to encrypt the file on the backup (tape) and then >>lose the encryption key when you want to "forget" the file. > >Given that keys = data, this just transfers the problem from one set of >data to another set of data. (Wanna bet a lot of ISPs would keep backups of >the disk with the keys on it?) Agreeded. I was assuming some degree of competence on the part of the ISP. Since it is a service they are offering, they are responsible for its correct operation. Reducing the size of the data you must lose is quite valuable. It means you don't have to pass large amounts of tape to stomp on the file. The article offers some solution to this problem, as I remember, but I don't really have time to re-read it and summerize (unless you want to outbid my current client :-). ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | "Cave softly, cave safely, | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | and cave with duct tape." | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | - Marianne Russo | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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"Internet II" and Clinton
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Clinton has unveiled his plans, such as they are, for what he calls "Internet II," combining in his announcement $100 million in funding for school links, "an Internet account for every high school student," and (unspecified) speed improvements to the Internet. (I wonder if he thinks the Internet belongs to the U.S., or is controlled by the U.S.?) The implications for our list are as we have long talked about. Potentially: * a government attempt to reassert some sort of control over the Internet, a la the "we paid for the Arpanet, so we can control what it's used for." (Of course, the Internet is no longer what it once was, and it is not a specific network the USG can claim to own or control. It's more of a "protocol," a set of agreements on how packets, messages, newsgroups, etc. will be carried. I'm using the term "Internet" in its largest sense, as "the Net.") * all of these schoolchildren are gonna need to be protected from filthy Web sites, unrestricted free speech, pedophiles, money launderers (and moneychangers), Hemlock Society advocates, gay and lesbo rights groups, the NRA< and other assorted Horsemen. Look for increased school purchases of filter software, various laws tightening up what U.S. sites carry (depending on how the CDA gets resolved). * my prediction from a few years ago: "the Internet Driver's License." Or, worse, all packets must have True Names attached in some way. (The smallest packets, a la ATM, may be too small to carry IDs, but larger-granularity packets may have to carry IDs, digital sigs, etc.) Of course, it may be that Clinton is just posturing for the upcoming election, and the "Internet II" will be a trivia question a few years from now. But now that the politicians have well and truly discovered the Net, look out. --Tim May "The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology." [NYT, 1996-10-02] We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Why not PGP?
by Geoff Klein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: liberty(a)gate.net, rollo(a)artvark.com, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Fri Oct 11 15:08:41 1996 On 10 Octt Rollo Silver wrote: > 2. Suppose someone writes a program Z that has no expicit crypto code > in it, but has hooks for installing one or another version of PGP. Given > a copy of Z, someone in this country could install PGP he got from MIT, > whereas someone in Europe could install the international version. Pronto Secure is an e-mail client which pretty much fits Z. > Would export of Z violate ITAR restrictions? Good question. Anyone know if exporting Z has been tested ? Commtouch does not currently export Pronto Secure from the US :) - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Geoff Klein, Pronto Secure Product Manager http://www.commtouch.com, Tel: 972-9-963445 (ext 130), Fax: 972-9-961053 For my PGP public key send mail with subject: Get Key - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBMl44zELv5OMYFK1FAQES/AQApuvGj1DFHOhSkUVJ4tyaQpHUYapC8cDA I3HOd9Ic5hS4u/NCHFbHPlvbe+kFN8jBDlwtLcyOtbFiWcfOTJJcvJAWQgSadjjf zvdfxFs5DXzIIepijQoGBSOtcPKn8F4UtxQ47G/7SViEUob1OkCrFUxmOtpkuFDh 5Yd720FJEnI= =NdPu -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: MISTY Algorithm
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:41 AM 10/10/96 -0700, you wrote: >Perhaps they are referring to > >Mitsuri Matsui, ``New Structure of Block Ciphers with Provable >Security against Differential and Linear Cryptanalysis'', >Fast Software Encryption '96, LNCS 1039, Springer-Verlag, 1996. > >which provides specifications, test vectors, analysis, etc. of >a new cipher from Matsui? ----- That is surely accurate: a c'punk linked Matsui to MYSTY a while back. Below is a year-old announcement on Mitsubishi's MISTY encryption algorithm. We have requested information on the October 8 announcement that the algorithm is to be released for third-party evaluation along with a sample program for doing so (see E-mail address below for inquiries). ----- http://www.melco.co.jp/rd_home/new/crypt_e.html Mitsubishi Electric Develops New Encryption System "MISTY", More Powerful Than DES (Data Encryption Standard) for Communication Networks -- Security Strictly Evaluated in World's First Practical Block Ciphers -- Tokyo, October 27, 1995 -- Mitsubishi Electric has developed a new block cipher algorithm for an encryption system, which is essential technology for protecting the privacy of individuals and confidential information in communication networks, that makes both strength and speed compatible. The encryption algorithm is based on a cipher strength evaluation index, which applies the "linear cryptanalysis", a powerful decoding method unique to Mitsubishi Electric, and the "differential cryptanalysis", considered to be an effective decoding method next to the linear cryptanalysis. Mitsubishi Electric has succeeded in strictly evaluating the security of this encryption algorithm against these decoding methods. Background: Using ciphers on wide-area networks requires a method to maintain security as long as its encryption key (password commonly shared by a sender and a receiver) is kept secret, even if the mechanism of the encryption is made public. However, possibilities of unauthorized access will increase when the encryption mechanism is made public. In fact, several encryption algorithms, whose specifications were made public, have been compelled to make specification changes, and to sacrifice their encryption speed in return for an increased cipher strength to protect against recent decoding methods. This is why an encryption system whose security against these decoding methods is strictly evaluated at the design stage has been required. Security of encryption is formulated as the lower limit of the number of calculations needed for decoding. A powerful decoding method leads to a stricter safety index in that it reduces the number of calculations needed for decoding. At present, the "linear cryptanalysis" is considered to be the most effective general-purpose decoding method. A decoding method called the "differential cryptanalysis" is another widely known decoding method next to the "linear cryptanalysis". A evaluation based on the linear and differential cryptanalysis is therefore considered to be the most reliable among strength indexes of block ciphers.*1 *1 Block ciphers : Plain texts and cipher texts that are processed by being grouped into units called blocks; most widely used at present. Outline of Development: Since announcing the linear cryptanalysis, Mitsubishi Electric has been making efforts to develop encryption technology backed by adequate security. In January 1994, Mitsubishi Electric performed the first successful experiment to decode the Data Encryption Standard (DES), an American standard commercial encryption system, to quantitavely evaluate its strength using this linear cryptanalysis. Using this evaluation technology, Mitsubishi Electric has developed an encryption algorithm that quantitavely provides sufficient security to linear and differential cryptanalysis and achieves a practical encryption speed. The encryption algorithm can clarify the relationships between encryption speed and strength and allow users to use an encryption that meets their security needs. Mitsubishi Electric plans to develop software tool products and hardware products (LSIs) using this encryption algorithm. Mitsubishi Electric will make the specification of this encryption algorithm public and will also promote its use. Address questions or comments to: www-rd(a)hat.hon.melco.co.jp [End of announcement] Note: Mistubishi is developing LSI chips at two specialty laboratories at Itami. Sparse information is available by links from Mitsubishi's home page at: http://www.melco.co.jp An inscrutable (^^) image of an LSI encryption chip is at: http://www.melco.co.jp/rd_home/map/j_s/item/pat1/uf1-7-e.html

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