December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: 56 kbps modems
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 16 Sep 1996 12:16:08 +0200, Gary Howland wrote: >craigw(a)dg.ce.com.au wrote: >> well here in Australia Telstra our national carrier only "garantees" >> 2400 baud to work. >As I am sure has been discussed at length before, baud does not equal >bps. AFAIK, V32bis is only 2400baud. This is correct. The difference is in the number of values for each of the 2400 signals sent per second. # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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WARNING: Major Net-Abuse
by Z.B. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't know the full details about this, so I'll try to give as good an explanation as I can. Since sometime yesterday, someone has been posting huge binaries all over Usenet, usually to at least 20 groups at a time. The files are usually several thousand parts big at the least, and are posted to either groups in which people are likely to respond with emailbombs, or test groups that send you a reply if the message appears on them. What some $#&!@-heads are doing is changing the Reply-To headers to the addresses of people who they dislike or want to harass. See where I'm going now? 10000 posts to a test group with your address on it = 10000 emails in your inbox. I posted this because there are some people on both of these lists who might be the target of one of these spams, and you might want to get your killfiles ready, just in case. Thanks for your time, and sorry if I annoyed anyone with the off-topic post. --- Zach Babayco zachb(a)netcom.com <----- finger for PGP public key http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/4127

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Re: The GAK Momentum is Building...
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>On Tue, 17 Sep 1996 21:02:03 -0700, Lucky Green wrote: >>On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >> However, making the government a _required_ part of such plans implies a >> motive that is not at all the same as what companies wish (mostly, disaster >> recovery). > >The required part will come later. Meanwhile, many big players in the >industry are volunteering to include GAK for you. It seems that in order for this to work Net consumers must be convinced/coerced into accepting the GAK security features. What if, due to a grassroots uprising, Neters refuse to use products which require GAK or Net services which will only operate via GAK? Isn't there an great opportunity being created for S/Wan, Apache and its ilk and third-party (especially off-shore, non-COCOM, produced) security plug-ins? > >When I asked the fellow from HP that proposed the CommerceNet position >paper how the "voluntary key recovery" he was proposing on his slides >could possibly aid law enforcement against criminals who obviously >wouldn't "escrow" their keys, he said, and I am not kidding: > >"There are many possible interpretations of the words voluntary and >mandatory." I was the *only* person in a room full of people working in the >industry that seemed bothered by this. > >> Furthermore, the main worry (for me, at least) is that the government hopes >> to get its Clipper IV scheme accepted (by means of export laws) at some >> large fraction of important corporate accounts, not the least of which will >> be Netscape, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Qualcomm, and suchlike major players >> in the "infrastructure" business. Once most of these have "bought off" on >> GAK, pressure will be intense to universalize the process, to make it a >> felony _not_ to use a "Key Authority." > >That's exactly how it will be. Enacting laws which make criminals out otherwise upstanding citizens is the surest path to civil disobedience/unrest, disrespect for duly constituted government and more serious criminal behavior. I guess I and many friends will be on posters in the Post Office. -- Steve PGP Fingerprint: FE 90 1A 95 9D EA 8D 61 81 2E CC A9 A4 4A FB A9 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Snoop Daty Data | Internet: azur(a)netcom.com Grinder | Voice: 1-702-655-2877 Sacred Cow Meat Co. | Fax: 1-702-658-2673 7075 W. Gowan Road, #2148 | Las Vegas, NV 89129 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Just say NO to perscription DRUGS.

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Re: Workers Paradise. /Political rant
by Llywarch Hen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"In July, Mr Lee [Kuan Yew, senior minister of Singapore] described an insight that came to him watching a sheepdog show in Australia. You start off with a group of young puppies, and 'weed out those who are not going to be successful . . . You either have those qualities or you don't.' It was, said Mr Lee, 'the simplest of all the lessons in life.' From _The Economist_, September 14th 1996. -- Llywarch Hen

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Re: PGP in the workplace
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:20 AM 9/18/96, Rick Osborne wrote: >Upon explaining to them that I was simply trying to make sure of my own >security, I was told that I was to just assume that I was secure, and that >*any* 'poking around' was found to be "highly aggravating" and could only >only "exascerbate the situation further." > >Luckily, I had to get to class, so I cut the conversation before it could >get any more out of control. > >Now, seeing as I'm fairly new to the Corporate world, but is this something >common? I know when I was at college, poking around was expected and >encouraged, as it helped find and plug holes in the system. But this is >almost like some kind of protection racket here! Sadly, this is common. Anybody taking undo interest in security "must have something to hide." Be aware that the effects can be a lot worse than just "being noticed," or even of being dismissed. Companies have been known to call in the police. (And since you are posting with a "Grumman" account, this could trigger visits by the DIA and other such agencies.) This happened in a well-publicized case up north, and I am convinced (from reading some of the details) that the programmer was not doing anything criminal. Even many who worked with him have expressed the same views, that he was just an unusually curious and attentive security expert. Some of them tell me they--and their employer!--were surprised the case actually went to trial. But the DA decided, for whatever reason, to prosecute on felony charges. I can only speculate about the pressures, the desire for publicity in a trendy new area ("computer crime"), and about the relative importance of this employer to the local economy. So, don't get too curious. Don't change your passwords more than your neighbors do (or at least not more than 2.13 standard deviations more often than is the statistical average of all employee-units within 7 cubicles of you in all directions). And whatever you do, never, never, never point out security flaws. This is a sure sign of your guilt. Or your smarty-pants attitude, which is actually worse. (Never cast perls before swine.) (All of this is explained daily in "Dilbert," of course.) --Tim May 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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Codex Sample
by SpyKing 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Attached... This communication is copyrighted by the author. 1996, All Rights Reserved. Interception, forwarding, posting/re-posting of all /or any part of of this message is a violation of U.S. Copyright laws and may result in civil or criminal action against violators. The Codex Surveillance & Privacy Newsletter - http://www.thecodex.com

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Re: Quantum Computers
by Rick Osborne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I rather enjoyed this article, especially the part about: >It gets even wilder, because the quantum mechanical state of the >matter in the machine's memory determines the output, Seth Lloyd >of MIT thinks you could run the machine in reverse and the result >would be a quantum mechanical micromanipulator. This was great! So where do we plug in the nice hot cup of tea? ;^) I'm sorry if I seem to be making light of a very serious topic, but, last time I checked, computers don't have a reverse. Spam me, flame me, whatever, but as far as I know, the universe only goes in one direction. It's just a rehash of the old sci-fi dramas about building a computer that goes on and builds a smarter computer, ad infinitum. That's one of the problems of non-sentient things: they can't grasp anything beyond their scope. But, for argument's sake, let's assume: 1. This quantum computer, which looks startlingly like my HP48, has a slider labeled: FORWARD -- STOP -- REVERSE And the slider actually works. 2. We are working with a finite-state quantum computer (say 32 qbits worth). 3. There is NO error introduced into the system from any source, including itself. Okay, so I turn my little QC48 on, just to set a state, and then slam the slider into REVERSE. AT this point, it fizzles and dies. Why? Because of the same reason you can't just put the DES algorithm 'in reverse': the quantum equivalent of s/p-boxes. What am I talking about? I'm talking about a QUANTUM COMPUTER here. Remember it's greatest asset? It does every calculation at once. This is exactly why you can't go backwards. You have nowhere to go, because you have EVERYWHERE to go. Because at each 'quantum tick' of the 'quantum clock' EVERY possible operation is going on, each state has the possibility of leading to every other state. Now, let's throw out assumption #3, and deal with a slightly more realistic version of my QC48, the QC48SX. Because we're dealing with a computer that produces error in it's own system, the error is going to be relatively hard to keep track of. Notice that the error-correction schemes listed don't eliminate error, they just help thin it out. So you've got your result to the operation you just performed: OP1 + OP2 + OPERR = RESULT The error-correction protocol makes OPERR small, but it doesn't eliminate it. So this is when I throw it into reverse. (Sure, I could have kept track of all my operations up to that point and trace back along them with no problem, but I can only do that until the point at which I turned on my QC48SX, so let's just assume I didn't keep track.) I've got RESULT now, and with a reasonable degree of accuracy, I can statistically figure out what two states led up to that point, with a margin of error STATERR. This is made even tougher by the fact that there was an error (OPERR) in the system to begin with. Remember now, every state can lead to every other state, but let's assume we've got NSA-level statisticians here, and STATERR is relatively small. You now have STATERR*OPERR working against you. This is where working in a finite-state machine is good, as it keeps these values relatively small. But they are still there. These errors, in combination with the quantum-s/p-box factor, precludes you from going backwards with any degree of reliability. Like I said, I'm not trying to tear down anyone hopes and ideas, I just want to introduce a little *reality* into our system. ____________________________________________________________ Rick Osborne osborne(a)gateway.grumman.com "Yes, evil comes in many forms, whether it be a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin, but you can't let the package hide the pudding! Evil is just plain bad! You don't cotton to it. You gotta smack it in the nose with the rolled-up newspaper of goodness! Bad dog! Bad dog!" - The Tick

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Re: Redundancy in XOR encryption
by Brian Durham 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Fear of Flying -- from HotWired
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Adamsc wrote: > >> On Thu, 12 Sep 1996 12:03:18 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote: >> >> >>... former CIA director James Woolsey: responded with some seemingly >> >> gratuitous anti-Net >> >> rhetoric. Terrorists may use biological weapons like anthrax, he said. >> >> "Anthrax is colorless, odorless, and has a 90 percent lethality. One >> >> gram has 100 million lethal doses." Then Woolsey delivered the zinger: >> >> "The knowledge of how to make anthrax is widely available, including >> >> on the Internet." >> >> >Gee, biotech has come a long way. Now I can download the Anthrax DNA >> >sequence from the net and insert it in some carrier bacteria and start >> >making Anthrax bacteria. Neat! > >Culturing and growing anthrax is painfully simple. No DNA required. > >> >BTW - My dictionary says that Anthrax is primarily an animal disease which >> >only occasionally infects humans. It sounds like a poor choice for bio-war >> >terror. > >Incorrect. It is highly problematic and very nasty when it is properly >delivered. The hardest thing about anthrax is to get an areosol fine >enough to present an inhalation risk. (This is why it does not >generally cause problems in humans- it's rare for it to get this fine). > Why not learn from the pros: IRAQI BIOLOGICAL WARFARE [BW) DEVELOPMENTS Filename:0119pgv.00p [ (b)(2) ] [ (b)(2) ] SUBJ: IRAQI BIOLOGICAL WARFARE [BW) DEVELOPMENTS 1. [ (b)(1) sec 1.3(a)(4) ] IRAQ ACQUIRED FORTY HIGH PERFORMANCE AEROSOL GENERATORS IN THE SPRING OF' 1990 OSTENSIBLY FOR SPRAYING CROPS WITH PESTICIDES. THE GENERATORS WERE CUSTOM BUILT TO DELIVER EITHER LIQUID OR DRY MATERIAL EITHER SIGNLY OR SIMULTANEOUSLY. THE GENERATORS CAN DISTRIBUTE FIFTY LITERS PER MINUTE [3-,0O0 LITERS PER HOUR OR APPROXIMATELY 800 GALLONS PER HOUR) THROUGH A CUSTOM DESIGNED NOZZLE[S] WHICH PERMITS THE AEROSOL TO BE ADJUSTED TO TEN DIFFERENT PARTICLE SIZES. THE DISSEMINATION OUTLET CAN BE ROTATED ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DEGREES THEREBY ENABLING DISSEMINATION HORIZONTAL TO GROUND OR WATER SURFACES, OR UPWARDS AT AN ANGLE PERMITTING PREVAILING WINDS TO CARRY THE AEROSOL. THE IRAQI ENTITY WHICH ACQUIRED THE AEROSOL GENERATORS IS NOT KNOWN AT THIS TIME BUT COULD VERY WELL BE CONNECTED TO THE IRAQI BIOLOGICAL [ (b)(2) ] WARFARE BW PROGRAM. 2. THE AEROSOL GENERATORS ARE OF SUCH--SIZE TO FIT ON THE BACK OF A PICKUP TRUCK OR A SMALL ALL-TERRAIN VEHICLE, A SMALL BOAT, OR SMALL AIRCRAFT. THESE UNITS WOULD BE SUITABLE FOR THE DISPERSAL OF BW AGENTS IN EITHER LIQUID OR DRY FORM. THE ABILITY TO DISPENSE SIMULTANEOUSLY TWO BW AGENTS AT THE SAME TIME. SUCH UNITS, HOWEVER, WOULD THEMSELVES BECOME HEAVILY CONTAMINATED DURING USE AND WOULD REQUIRE DECONTAMINATION TO RENDER THEM SAFE. PERSONNEL OPERATING SUCH UNITS WOULD AT A MINIMUM NEED TO WEAR A PROTECTIVE OVERGARMENT A CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE MASK, AND UNDERGO THOROUGH DECONTAMINATION AFTER DISPENSING THE AGENT(S) . DECONTAMINATION OF THE AEROSOL GENERATORS AND TRANSPORT VEHICLES WOULD LIKELY HAVE TO ACCUR NEAR THE AREA OF OPERATION AT REMOTE LOCATIONS SO AS TO MININIZE INCIDENTAL CONTAMINATION OF IRAQI FORCES. 3. THE IRAQIS HAVE TWO CONFIRMED BW AGENTS--ANTHRAX AND BOTULINUM TOXIN. ANTHRAX CAN BE4 DISSEMINATED BY AEROSOL GENRATORS EITHER AS A FREEZE-DRIED POWDER OR AS A LIQUID SUSPENSION. THEORETICALLY BOTULINIUM TOXIN CAN BE DISPENSED AS EITHER A FREZE-DRIED POWDER, PROBABLY IN COMBINATION WITH A FILLER, OR AS A LIQUID. THE MORE LIKELY OF THE TWO CHOICES FOR BOTULINUM TOXIN IS DISSEMINATION AS A POWDER. POWDERS ARE EASILY MIXED WITH FILLERS, POSE A CONSIDERABLY GREATER THREAT THROUGH INHALATION, AND ARE BETTER ABLE TO WITHSTAND THE SHEAR FORCES EXPERIENCED WHEN DISSEMINATED THROUGH NOZZLES WITH A RELATIVELY SMALL ORIFICE. PGP Fingerprint: FE 90 1A 95 9D EA 8D 61 81 2E CC A9 A4 4A FB A9 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Snoop Daty Data | Internet: azur(a)netcom.com Grinder | Voice: 1-702-655-2877 Sacred Cow Meat Co. | Fax: 1-702-658-2673 7075 W. Gowan Road, #2148 | Las Vegas, NV 89129 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Just say NO to perscription DRUGS.

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Re: Redundancy in XOR encryption
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > > Compress P to get perfect compression (ie. 0 redundancy) > > Encrypt F (the compressed text) using a repeated key XOR > > > > of course this is all rather theoretical as there is no such thing as > > perfect compression, but I just thought it might be interesting to > > see if this is indeed strong, superficially it appears so to me... > > > > Paul: > I think that if the cryptanalyst knows that F has zero redundancy > that he can run searches from 0 to n bits for the key and have > the computer flag solutions that have zero redundancy. I never though of that. > I also think that a perfectly compressed file would have a relative > entropy value close to one also, hence the computer could flag possibles > that have both characteristics. yeah, these two are reasonably unlikely to occur together (only a reasoned guess, anyone got any comments on this?) so we really have a weakish system. > Hence, instead of searching for plaintext by counting coincidences, > we are searching the decrypts for solutions that have zero redundancy > and a relative entropy value close to one. How many solutions will > have both these qualities? I don't know. But if the compression method > is known, brute force will be tried, and only having to try to > decompress (read) data that has the resultant characteristics > of compressed information will speed things up by quite a bit. Yeah, this is still a form of brute force but I was thinking of this in terms of a smallish (sub 200 bit) key, so brute force against solutions with 0 entropy is a realistic possibility. anyone else got a faster way to attack this highly theoretical, will-never-be-implemented, type system?? I`d imagine there is some sort of way to measure the entropy "mixed in" by the XOR thus giving a foothold in the key, but I can`t think of anything right now, anyone got any ideas? 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: 2.6.3ia mQCNAjH9j+cAAAEEAMBvREiQR0ot9dFCO0TiSCSunAYLv2g1Bc6I3bz8FzKXNH53 6mieJf/W4rD+CxJpT0q9RQaaoRtkHJLwbjfK2il3D7mEahMAyqvF/xRJNqkXfhM3 sRJM0Jh43l+W0M5vwokbEbk25/bxWWGspTsLD3YHbzKnG6pOcL5OPIRbv66xAAUR tCdQYXVsIEJyYWRsZXkgPHBhdWxAZmF0bWFucy5kZW1vbi5jby51az6JAJUDBRAy NwfvNkCBjDT0xHEBATQPA/9TORmN/UjNecj03q4anpvdyCLiez5sKuNbnYK50RiP Jj4QpWWvST3smyQ0A86DrZY/re056MXwQmARESx0rFZxdnD0oORICl5r8dJLIy3b j8rbA5olXwZwKz73/X5s13v/pvHYX4cIsbVK8NHXqh5llSKt6TBAuGgkIGF29z5k C4kAlQMFEDI3B9mdtf/umVkv7QEBcRYD/1FBteLqsUmr81euxqqnnrpLlyHb58B/ 9sdATuua4uSjX46hXDZ264YozspNrzSB4NEdrmXOWVX3fiE0ga6XkSSkIeF23V90 En37Z0BdbFzgF00FRYTFyTq8eezQrdg/+rBPUsZUmG5wpq3e12FKHQsX01i+1mB2 YmqqwCV5e95eiQCVAgUQMh8uSb5OPIRbv66xAQEqJwP/fxQyiCasjFcbDpsFfsYp put5cCC/9pOx6X3DlbKShPMpUOS+A9HsTEmJQN8Iawv1nSwPdtc2cR/GhW6ilVjW LSloGdMVLabm9pGpZZMkRaZlXFUkOv7VhfgsUiL+vIDryBCAwUZCzQiWycjt/cPi mUqFH41Z7NkyO8ZFdi5GGX0= =CMZA -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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