December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

My PGP Key
by The Deviant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'd just like to say, to everyone with my PGP key, that the one you have should be removed, it is no longer valid (lost in disk crash). Also, I've finally gotten around to finding why PGP stopped running for so long on my machine, and it works now, so here's my new key. - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQENAzKSSsQAAAEH/1QbvzR/tN+L759w0oGhqOzp+FputqlVx0Rr7+rWxzULd5Qs +MXZjMh+187RA7Q2GwNIijOEL27nUqpAmMT8Rb5dc0k0T4ubDCD7/phN31eoUkDy iV/TnwajrfyEmiFX2Rz1iVc9Zg8VC+x4Uho9pEO9l7cc6PaCFhKXb+hJn/q6ZiCA GaQPu7wtL+bKu+aENFa+eCXOnCN1UsiTaNIfOYDlB5G+6XzE3yY8pN6kK0uDyfb3 C+ScCcxd7tEaFnn9w9I4Hp6GqNtwoL8RfCHPj9ojvODoLCa5TgQ0aT+LlGsDryhR 5T0vI7tPhuzw4h0hHcVZogIjakQkMJ0SHegg8BUABRG0JVRoZSBEZXZpYW50IDxk ZXZpYW50QHBvb2gtY29ybmVyLmNvbT4= =gbdI - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- --Deviant When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMpJkjTCdEh3oIPAVAQFNogf9FR+TarEEGpVvL/id/cP1mNiB9YsT5t09 8+OWNgIUYid2DIejVWBkNkbdcAmLxYMaqlOmAzqQxizaDqDIjFstNOPwLEmELv1B XXWv7BqRtI3yKkGs8ntamTbtV7cER1SknBIr5xnfbyDbltMcitApwZ7ixSywc8YQ o8qq/mEmftDIgoiFcK65Cj/IsMuW+jQIxu+7xH9l3ivoi5H79/lgLTKbPtH9ISdv e35Y1zIbfsblgyeveJwOVXTBYQd8TFvLylBxDyk+Oh9icpdkt/Qk5277BICw4l1z KmCkQ1spbumUcd0h2qnZijJPrQWiBqHZYGs/2MAl7pUGbx3gIR3d5w== =ECKT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: [NOISE] aga isn't on cypherpunks... (and I'm glad)
by pclow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > That is your last warning, Mike. If you start harasing my postmaster, > I will have your fucking ass in Federal Court before you can blink. Errrr..... what has Paul's oversexed donkey got to do with this list or the Federal Court? Sorry, I'm not in the US and my knowledge of US culture is very limited. ---------- From: paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk[SMTP:paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk] Sent: Monday, November 18, 1996 11:58 PM To: aga Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: [NOISE] aga isn't on cypherpunks... (and I'm glad) > > That is your last warning, Mike. If you start harasing my postmaster, > I will have your fucking ass in Federal Court before you can blink. >

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The NSA Responds
by se7en 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The NSA responded to a series of 14 questions posed to them by the Houston Chronicle regarding their involvement and interest in cryptography. While this article is not recent, it is still very interesting. Because of the size, I have not posted it here. It can be found at: http://www.dis.org/se7en/ and click the on "The NSA" The question list is: 1. Has the NSA ever imposed or attempted to impose a weakness on any cryptographic code to see if it can thus be broken? 2. Has the NSA ever imposed or attempted to impose a weakness on the DES or DSS? 3. Is the NSA aware of any weaknesses in the DES or the DSS? The RSA? 4. Has the NSA ever taken advantage of any weaknesses in the DES or the DSS? 5. Did the NSA play a role in designing the DSS? Why, in the NSA's analysis, was it seen as desirable to create the DSS when the apparently more robust RSA already stood as a de facto standard? 6. What national interests are served by limiting the power of cyptographic schemes used by the public? 7. What national interests are served by limiting the export of cryptographic technology? 8. What national interests are at risk, if any, if secure cryptography is widely available? 9. What does the NSA see as its legitimate interests in the area of cryptography? Public cryptography? 10. How did NSA enter into negotiations with the Software Publishers Association regarding the export of products utilizing cryptographic techniques? How was this group chosen, and to what purpose? What statute or elected representative authorized the NSA to engage in the discussions? 11. What is the status of these negotiations? 12. What is the status of export controls on products uing cryptographic techniques? How would you respond to those who point to the fact that the expot of RSA from the U.S. is controlled, but that its import into the U.S. is not? 13. What issues would you like to discuss that I have not addressed? 14. What question or questions would you like to pose of your critics? se7en

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Dogpile
by drose＠AZStarNet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

While Rome is burning, and with apologies in advance for the lack of vitriol in this post, I would like to point out a new and effective means of searching the Web and Usenet. Check out Dogpile (with which I have no affiliation).

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Re: Rogue Governments Issuing Policy Tokens
by Jim Ray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed Nov 20 22:12:52 1996 Hal wrote: <snip> > I can't see the U.S. allowing Libya and similar countries to create > policy > tokens. The whole point of this exercise is to prevent these countries > from being able to use strong crypto. So they will certainly not be on > the approved list. I think Tim was referring to a "Panama" or "'80s Iraq" situation, rather than a stable enemy state like Libya. Unless the hardware has some way of making itself have a short lifetime, there will be problems when U.S. policy changes or when one is stolen. <snip> > Companies which try to sell computers with these > chips > in them risk getting a "big brother inside" (to use Tim's very effective > slogan) reputation. I think this initiative is going nowhere. Amen. Sometimes these policy initiatives seem so ham-handed that the suspicious side of me wonders "what they're really up to." They can't seriously think they can control this any more than they can control the ocean, at least not without an awesome (even for this century) world-wide police-state. JMR P.S. Please, everyone, try not to feed the flamefest-knights, so they will someday (hopefully) go away. Creative killfiling can only do so much. Regards, Jim Ray DNRC Minister of Encryption Advocacy One of the "legitimate concerns of law enforcement" seems to be that I was born innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around. -- me Please note new 2000bit PGPkey & address <jmr(a)shopmiami.com> PGP id.A7D63DA9 98 1F 39 BA 93 86 B4 F5 57 52 64 0E DA BA 2C 71 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEPAwUBMpPItzUhsGSn1j2pAQF19QfQhGqLa5BBoxcPdX+FGyY6zCQY5jOQA5y5 HJjB28jQGGmqiNFpXsqh2UB+aRMCYknWmshG3kBOsPqpQBiIRaHpUalYTsDxdnIA bd8rwHvY8uD6aCKdaU1yAE+fXbdLuwClUYL9SbeoLo/84ITRKWNX8LuBCPF5fROS soRrsx1noLW4V9rFvhYRmFXp7czmHGAl2ItOcndNv1xBLFea8BJ3VdbrNWgTO4rc Q2glxaqMYqd1gF3Q2uFz2u5NLlh0Ba+1MZCF9MJQ1yXdL4N0Ucov5pAeiBWCg8Ef h0BkekE6oiE9OUeu3YUZjVb0V4CcUeejUIYPxj/a97RiiA== =mNwN -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Invitation to PhD defense
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Path: perun!news2.panix.com!panix!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!howland.erols.net!swrinde!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!sdcc12.ucsd.edu!cs!markus From: markus(a)cs.ucsd.edu (Markus Jakobsson) Newsgroups: sci.crypt Subject: Invitation to PhD defense Message-ID: <56qnou$5va(a)sdcc12.ucsd.edu> Date: 18 Nov 1996 22:25:34 GMT Organization: CSE Dept., U.C. San Diego Lines: 12 NNTP-Posting-Host: beowulf.ucsd.edu On December 9th, I will defend my thesis, ``Privacy vs. Authenticity'', proposing an efficient and versatile payment system that balances privacy requirements against protection against criminals. If you are in San Diego at this time, I would like to invite you to the defense. For more details, please contact me by email. Markus Jakobsson -- Research: privacy vs. authenticity, digital cash, zero-knowledge. Homepage: http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/users/markus/ Email : markus(a)cs.ucsd.edu

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NYT article on Holocaust
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

An article in today's (Tue, Nov 19, 1996) New York Times described how British intelligence had early information of the slaughter of European Jewery through the decryption of German radio messages. (Although not noted in the article, this is presumably Ultra decryption of Enigma). The information was not acted upon, and the article offers a number of reasons, among which was a (not unreasonable) fear that doing so would compromise Ultra. The article also notes that the decryptions were kept so secret that the information was not available at post-WW2 war crimes trials (such as Nurenburg). I suppose that this could offer a counter argument to the NSA FUD "If you only knew what we know." Martin. minow(a)apple.com

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Re: 1996 Codebreakers
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Shostack <adam(a)homeport.org> writes: > I just got a review copy of the new (1996) ed. of Kahn's The > Codebreakers from my local used bookstore. Its a little disapointing, ... > & DH. Nothing on Cypherpunks, little on how privacy can be enhanced. Some folks have a very unrealistic opinion of their own importance. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Playing Cards - Caution!
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:59 PM 11/19/1996, Ian Goldberg wrote: > I studied the "imperfect shuffle" thing in my Randomized Algorithms class > last year. If I remember correctly, an "imperfect shuffle" is something like > this: > Cut the deck into two piles, left and right. The number of cards in > (say) the left pile is distributed binomially. > Drop one card at a time to form the new deck. A card is dropped from the > left or right pile, with probability proportional to the number of cards > remaining in that pile. > - Ian "someone else can figure out the entropy of this..." This is the approach described by Diaconis. I think his book will show you how to calculate the entropy, too. (It's a cool book. The same section shows how to do a magic trick using three riffle shuffles. A member of the audience inserts the mystery card in the deck after the three riffle shuffles. Then the magician spreads the cards on the table and looks for one which does not line up with one of the several interleaved sequences in the deck.) However, it is not obvious to me that this is how it works every time, for sure, guaranteed, no doubt at all, in the real world. Diaconis mentions that the amount of entropy varies very substantially by shuffler. I also judged his experimental data to be limited. Furthermore, I am suspicious of the model itself. A binomial distribution is convenient to use, but I don't think that's how people cut cards in practice. I think that it is a much more "pointy" distribution with lower entropy. When I cut the deck there are less than 4 bits of entropy. But, I have to admit that if I worked my way through the book and learned a little related math, I might be convinced. But, even then I would probably judge it to be too tenuous for security applications. Incidentally, some big names have worked on this problem, like Graham and Shannon. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: [NOISE] U.S. CIA employee caught spying
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Tim Scanlon <tfs(a)adsl-122.cais.com> writes: > > This is on the local DC news; > > Harold Nicholson age 46, a CIA employee was arrested for spying today Did he used any crypto-tools we use? Did he used PGP? Would be fun to hear about... :) jfa Jean-Francois Avon, Pierrefonds (Montreal) QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Finest Limoges porcelain and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants physicists and engineers, LabView programing PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 ID# 5B51964D : 152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C

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