December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Paper on Network Security
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We posted news* a few days ago of a white paper by the OURS organization on network security. We have put it at: http://jya.com/recsec.htm (63 kb) OURS is an our-gang of gorilla industries such as Bellcore, Chase, LDS(!), Compaq, DEC, EDS, EXXON, IBM, Intel, MIT, Microsoft, Motorola, Novell, Oracle, Princeton, Security Dynamics (!), Societe Generale, Texaco and Ziff-Davis. Mother of all GAK-enfeebled alliances. The report was prepared by an Information Protection Task Force of OURS members assisted by Amex, ICL, Mergent and TIS. It's a fair overview of what mega-corporations fear of network vipers and what they pray will exorcize the Edenic mayhemics. Sorry, it's a bit too long for E-mail. * That original news report is at: http://jya.com/oursay.txt

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Re: Blue Box Plans & hacker bbs's
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:09 PM 10/20/96 EDT, you wrote: >I know this is my second question in a short period of time...but anyone >got or know where to get any good blue box plans?? I cant find shit on >the web, and I need some good hacker telnet bbs's. Someone please give >me either. goto alt.2600. Around here we generally can afford to pay our phone bills :-) Also, the network's signalling has changed, and the basic Captain Crunch Whistle doesn't work many places any more - most of the signalling is digital out-of-band rather than inband audio. Phreaking isn't impossible (or there wouldn't be as many people chasing the Dread Pirate Mitnick), but at this point you actually need to know what you're doing to succeed at it, and merely having plans for a device you don't know well enough to emulate in code on your PC isn't going to buy you much. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk Imagine if three million people voted for somebody they _knew_, and the politicians had to count them all.

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AOL/remailer testing
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi cypherpunks, It has come to my attention that there may be problems sending mail from the anonymous remailers to AOL accounts. I'd like a volunteer with an AOL address to recieve a test messages sent by me, and report back to me which mails got through and which didn't. Thanks very much in advance. Raph Levien

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Apologies and Clarifications -
by cypher＠cyberstation.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

First of all, I would like to sincerely apologize for my personal attacks on Perry. It is the first time that I have ever done that and I apologize for wasting you time and mine in that regard. He is obviously going to try to pontificate and rehash the old forever. Accordingly, to paraphrase Chief Joseph, "from where the sun now sits, I will fight Perry Metzger no more, forever." I further apologize for any offense that you feel that I may have caused. As to other matters: Instead of replying to the attacks being fabricated by Perry and other I have opted to recapitulate the matter at hand as perspicaciously as my limited abilities permit. As we know, Shannon was not a prolific writer. We also know that IT has not advanced very far during the 50 years since Shannon's nascent ground breaking work. Why? Because of the very issues that are at the heart of this matter. The differences between black, white and all the multitude hues of grey in between. I am extremely skeptical, and believe many readers may be too, of people that go around flaunting their understanding of Shannon, entropy and its application in absolute unequivocal mathematical terms. I hold that such a position, except in terms of delimiters, does not reflect an understanding of Shannon's impartations but au contraire, it is evidential proof that they do not have any real appreciation of Shannon at all. That is in no way intended to denigrate Shannon's very important contribution to our endeavors. I embrace the predicate that Shannon in terms of mathematical certainty has only defined the boundary conditions of the playing field within which we must play our games. If we stray outside that field, we are errant in the absolute sense. If we however play within those mathematical certain boundaries, we may be in error for other reasons, but Shannon cannot be cited as the casual agent. The recondite "parti pris" hijacking of the definition of the term OTP on the basis of conflict with Shannon is ludicrous, when such usage is apodictically within Shannon's delimiters. I have witnessed several definitions of an OTP which I maintain are entirely consistent with Shannon. Among such are: An encryption where any ciphertext may in fact be an an encrypted expression of any plaintext of the same or lesser length; or an encryption where the only information obtainable from the ciphertext is the maximum plaintext length; and so forth. All of these definitions have the essential quality that at the bit level, they can be reduced down to the equation: Pb xor Ub = Cb where Pb is a Plaintext bit, Ub is an Unknown bit and Cb is the resultant Ciphertext bit. Of course the combining form is normally XOR, but could be table lookup, modulo additive, or other. The important thing is that so long as only Cb is known, it is impossible to determine either Pb or Ub. If somehow the Ubs can be subtracted or cancelled out, as for instance by any discoverable reusage of Ub, even in a derivative form, then you may be able to recover some or all of the Pbs. The assertion that an Ub must be an Rb, a truly Random bit, is irrelevant ideology unless there exists the means to convert the Unknown bit, Ub, into a Known bit, Kb. That is the sublime basis of the IPG algorithm, which is to generate a stream of "unknown bits" which cannot be analytically reconstituted in the absence of the OTP generator key, and possibly other related key like parameters. The additional caveat of course is that the key cannot be guessed, nor can it be derived from brute force methodologies, both of which are patently impossible with the IPG algorithm. You do not have to be a Stephen Hawking to comprehend why that is a fact; each of you, with possible minor exceptions, will be able to discern that because it quickly becomes self evident as you ply the algorithm. There are those who will advance the contention that the ciphertext cannot in fact represent any possible plain text. That is incontestably true. In fact with reasonably long ciphertexts, say for example an encrypted FAX, unlike a hardware sourced OTP, there will only be one meaningful plain text that can be derived from the resultant ciphertext. Does that mean that a given ciphertext might not represent any plain text of that same, or lesser, length? One would think so, since it obviously cannot. The problem being though, is exactly how do you go about proving that any given plain text cannot be represented by a known ciphertext. There are two prongs to such a proof, both of which must be substantiated in any specific case at hand:. 1. Inclusionary Proof - the one most frequently advanced alone, which simply stated says that since each encryptor stream may represent any possible encryptor stream of that same length, then the ciphertext may be the XOR product of any plaintext of same said length. Obviously, a hardware sourced OTP DOES meet that proof. Also. it is patently evident that the IPG software OTP DOES NOT meet the inclusionary proof test. 2. Exclusionary Proof - which is equally valid, and simply stated consists of two propositions: A. Can any plaintext be encrypted with the OTP? Obviously the answer is YES for BOTH both hardware sourced OTPs and the IPG software sourced OTPs. B. If 2.A is true, is it possible to exclude any plaintext possibility? Obviously in the case of hardware sourced OTPs, no plain text can possibly be excluded. What about the IPG software OTPs? . One method that you could theoretically be used to exclude a possible plaintext for the software OTP, would be to by brute force try all possible keys, until the correct one is obtained. That however, would be difficult to say the least, as a matter of fact it is impossible: If every subatomic particle in our known universe was a Googol, 1 with 100 zeroes after it, of Cray T3E computers - and each of them had been brute forcing a partition of the possibilities at the rate of 1 Googol of them per picosecond which could not be done - but assume that it could - and they had been doing so since the Big Bang say 20 billion years ago - and they were to continue to do so for the next 20 billion years, that is beyond the life expectancy of our solar system/galaxy, and perhaps the universe, then approximately 10^322 of the possible OTPs would have been tried. Thus it would still take 10^34000 times as long as that to try all of the possibilities - that is they would have tried only one part in 1 with 34000 zeroes after it - not theoretical infinity by any means, but a very, very large extra-astronomical number. Brute force is patently impossible. . Another possibility might be to guess it - anyone recognizes that would not be practical, and how would you know that you were right. All of the IPG OTP generator, aka Encryption, keys are themselves OTPs. . Another possibility would to be to analytically exclude the invalid possibilities. As stated previously, and as you can discover for yourself, this reduces itself back down to to the exact equivalent of the brute force method set out above. With the algorithm, there is no difference between analytically exclusion and brute forcing - they are one and the same. So in fact, any known ciphertext may indeed be an encryption of any plaintext of that same, or lesser, length, because you cannot prove that it is not a specific plaintext. Some will contentiously assert that the key and other parameters might be hacked. While we include within the system facilitators that reduce that risk to a minimum, and to near zero if you use simple precautions, it is true that the hacking possibility exists. However, that possibility exists for RSA, PGP, hardware sourced OTPs, or any other form of security or encryption. We are better positioned in that regard than others but in terms of the human element, as we all know, there is no such thing as perfection. With warmest regards, Don Wood

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Alice in Cypherspace
by David Lesher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I found my copy, if the person asking last week still needs it.... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

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Dimitri
by David Lesher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM sez: > Sounds like a crontab job, or Timmy May, or both. THIS sounds like our friend SternFUD. {Who, BTW, is back attacking folks in the pgp groups..} -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

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Re: Wrap Up: Conference on Law Enforcement and Intelligence
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:13 PM 10/20/96 -0600, C Kuethe wrote: >On Sun, 20 Oct 1996, Bill Frantz wrote: >> (3) The devil is in the details. I still am not convinced that MacPGP has >> enough sources of entropy for its IDEA key generation. (But I am not >> convinced that it doesn't either.) I put integrating Jon Callas's entropy >> manager into MacPGP as a high priority. > >Tell me more... I use macpgp. I just built some new keys tonight, a 2048 >bit monster. PGP wanted 1496 bits of rand info... where is it's entropy >"Hole" > >And what is the "Entropy Manager"? When you build RSA keys in PGP it uses keyboard timings to acquire "true randomness" or entropy. This kind of randomness is related to quantum mechanical uncertainty. It probably has enough entropy to safely generate RSA keys by the keyboard technique it uses. In addition to RSA keys, it generates symmetric IDEA keys whenever you send a message. It uses keystrokes accumulated during normal operation and saved in a file called randpool (or something like that) to generate these keys. Since you almost never enter keystrokes during the normal operation of MacPGP, I am concerned that randpool does not have enough entropy. Entropy Manager is a program Jon Callas of Apple is working on. It uses well-known sources of entropy in the computer to build up a pool of entropy for use by programs that need it. The last I heard, it was nearly ready. I would trust it more than the ported PGP since Jon has examined sources available in the Macintosh specifically. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Tired of Dole/Clinton? | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | Vote 3rd party. I'm | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | Voting for Harry Browne | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: Usenet and Re: extortion via digital cash
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> As an already existing, widely >disseminated and easily used message pool, Usenet is very valuable to us. >I'm concerned that it may not last though. Many people now complain about >how low the signal to noise ratio is [...] So, if it gets too bad, might it >just fade away? Or, if it remains but becomes unpopular, will it be easy to >restrict if we use it for anonymous messages? I haven't read all of Usenet in 10+ years :-) But it keeps growing, and if you're trying to piggyback anonymous messages on it, then it's great to have VOLUME, VOLUME, VOLUME, as the talk.bizarre folks put it. On the other hand, there are technical difficulties with using the current modes of Usenet for real applications, and volume may make it worse. Usenet used to work by flooding - every message goes to every machine, so it's not suspicious your machine receives an Anonymous Message. Most machines had multiple users (Unix, after all), and didn't log who accessed what files in the news spool (which you could do directly as well as through your newsreader.) Now, however, most users use NNTP to fetch news articles from their ISP, and the number of machines receiving the whole Nx100MB/day flood is probably smaller, though perhaps businesses and universities are putting up with it, and perhaps the usage patterns are different outside North America. Fetching material by NNTP is probably logged by many ISPs, and can also be detected by sniffers in the places where security is weak enough for them, which probably includes many major ISPs. So it's easier to detect who's reading alt.anonymous.messages, especially if some government agency subpoenas logfiles. azur(a)netcom.com (Steve Schear) wrote: >In the U.S., at least, attempts to enforce identification of Internet users >or anonymous posters to newgroups and such are likely to meet with stiff >legal resistance. The Supreme Court has ruled that anonymous use of >protected speech (e.g., political handbills) must be permitted. No legal resistance at all, if it's done by ISPs or businesses or individuals - only if the government tries it does it get into "protected speech" territory. There may be market resistance, and the Internet and Usenet are fundamentally worldwide cooperative efforts, so if the protocols support anonymity, then participants in the nets can choose to have their systems cooperate with or refuse to cooperate with anonymous messages, and you'll find some people doing each one. This may mean that small-ISP.net and xs4all.nl will permit anonymous users and aol.com, compuserve.com, and proxy.gov.sg will demand Internet Driver's Licenses to let your postings through, while nihilism.net won't allow any non-anomymous messages. Spontaneous order is like that. And the US government could probably get away with sponsoring Internet access for Real American Citizens and Green-Card Holders that requires positive identification because you can file your tax forms over it, as long as they don't prevent anonymous messages on _some_ part of the net. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk Imagine if three million people voted for somebody they _knew_, and the politicians had to count them all.

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Re: [crypto-philo]OTP or DES?
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:45 AM 10/20/95 -0500, walrus <walrus(a)tcgcs.com> wrote: >I would argue that the security of an OTP is >derived not from the fact that it really is secure, but from the fact that >it is claimed to be an OTP. The meaning of "Security" depends on your threat model. Are you worried about - having your message noticed? - having your message decoded? - being able to deny a possible decoding of your message? Whether your message noticed or not depends a lot on the environment; in some places "pure noise" is not noticeable, while in others it really stands out (posting it to a text newsgroup, for instance.) If you simply remove the "----- BEGIN PGP" etc. headers/trailers from a PGP message, it's still got a well-defined format, including magic numbers indicating what kind of data is in each block, block length indicators, etc. They're both noticeable to someone who's trying to find them and strong evidence that something is a PGP message. That's why there's a Stealth-PGP, though even it's not perfect. As far as "Secure" meaning "They can't decode the message", if you use a One-Time-Pad more than once, you can lose (viz. VENONA.) If you use a pad that's not true random numbers, but is some simple LFSR or LCM PRNG, or some random English-language book, it's pretty easy for skilled cryptanalysts to decode it. If you use something that has a well-defined structure as a pad, and the Bad Guys notice your message and decode it, it's not credible to say "oh, no, it's just a one-time pad, the fact that there's one chance in 2**168 of that particular series of random numbers matching the output of triple-DES shouldn't influence you any, Judge".... You're gonna go to jail. What gives you deniability with OTPs is that they _can't_ produce a meaningful message that's any more probable than any other meaningful message of the same length, so you can argue that it really says "BUY MORE" instead of "RUN AWAY" or "ATTACK!!" and even if they guess you're lying, they can't tell what the true message was. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk Imagine if three million people voted for somebody they _knew_, and the politicians had to count them all.

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lambda 2.11 - Short-circuits in Burma
by -Jerome Thorel- 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

netizen's --> Lambda Bulletin 2.11 <-- contents + Short-circuits in Burma + Medical privacy and PGP + New York's CDA on tracks * * * * * SHORT-CIRCUITS IN BURMA The military regime in Burma decided last month to ban information technology use and possession, in order to sustain its new iron fist on dissidents and members of the National League for Democracy. Among other news here's a message sent through the mailing list of the US organisation CyberPOLIS. ---fwd message--- >>From: George Sadowsky <George.Sadowsky(a)nyu.edu> >>Subject: Re: Burma Bans modems >>RANGOON, BURMA, 1996 SEP 27 (NB) -- Burma has made owning, using, >>importing or borrowing a modem or fax machine without government >>permission a crime, punishable by up to 15 years in jail, according to a >>report by United Press International. >>Burma's military government has imposed what's called "The Computer >>Science Development Law" which empowers the Ministry of Communications, >>Posts and Telegraphs to specify what exactly can be restricted, UPI >>reports. >>UPI quotes the government-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar as saying >>the same punishment is prescribed for anyone who sets up a link with a >>computer network without the prior permission of the ministry, or who >>uses computer network and information technology "for undermining state >>security, law and order, national unity, national economy and national >>culture, or who obtains or transmits state secrets." >>UPI reports that in July a diplomat, Leo Nichols, died in prison after he >>was sentenced to a lengthy term for illegal possession of fax machines. >>It's clear from this action that the SLORC, i.e. the "State Law and Order >>Restoration Committee" (sic!) understands full well the benefits and >>importance of the Internet and other forms of electronic communication to >>open societies, and is determined to deny these benefits to its citizens. >>Given its recent history and the quasi-imprisonment of Daw Aung San Suu >>Kyi, this new action is perfectly consistent with the government's >>previous abysmal record. >>Countries who would deny open Internet access to its citizens might well >>pause to consider if they wish to be associated with the current >>government of Myanmar in doing so. ... c y b e r P O L I S ----------------------------------------------- C o m m u n i c a t e T h i s C u l t u r e ( Christopher D. Frankonis -- baby-x(a)cyberpolis.org ) ---end of fwd message--- ------------------- FURTHER INFOS According to other sources--international press reports and electronic forums like Usenet's *soc.culture.burma*--it turns out that Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and NLD leader, saw her telephone line cut on Friday, Sept. 28 on the evening. That was the beginning on a widespread crackdown on dissidents and a ban of NLD meetings. University Street, where Ms Suu Kyi lives, was blocked to avoid demonstrations. Hundred of citizens and NLD supporters were detained, some were released by mid-October. The Web site http://freeburma.org is a well known relay for the Burmese diaspora, especially the daily newsletter BurmaNet, which offers a rich compilation of dissidents' communiqués and Western newspapers articles and editorials. Ms Suu Kyi writes a daily letter from her home in Rangoon which is published in the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun (in japanese, http://www.mainichi.co.jp) - a translation appears daily in soc.culture.burma. It seems that the letter (surely copied on an audio tape) continues to be shipped ouside the country to be published in the Tokyo-based newspaper. Furthermore, other reports claimed that Burma doesn't have any official connection to the Internet. It seems to be true, but a Burmese and US resident found that the domain name "mmnic.net" (mm for Myanmar) was reserved by the Burmese governement in February, 1994. The operation was made possible with the help of the Internet provider Asia Pacific NIC based in Tokyo, Japan. A spokesman confirmed he reserved the domain on the behalf of Burma's State, and that it was dedicated to a future Internet connection. * * * * * MEDICAL PRIVACY AND PGP ---fwd message--- >Sender: dfickeisen(a)cpsr.org (Duane Fickeisen) > Subject: cr> Health Info Database Misused > >An AP story from Tampa Bay appearing in the Palo Alto Daily News asserts >that a public health worker took a laptop and disks with confidential >lists of people with AIDS and HIV home and to a gay bar to check out the >HIV status of potential dates and offered to look up names of people his >friends were interested in dating. One person asserted that he had warned >friends away from potential dates, telling them that their names were "on >the list." Another claimed that people interested in dating him backed >away after the health worker talked to them. The County Health Department >has fired him, although he claims he did nothing wrong. The former health >worker also owns and lives in a funeral home. The state had permitted such >databases to be removed from offices and taken home until they changed >their internal rules two weeks ago. > >Raises anew questions about privacy and confidentiality of records, >security, and misuse/abuse of information for personal and private gain. >This ought to be raised up as an example of abuse in response to the >announced plans for a national health information database. > >Duane H. Fickeisen, Interim Director >Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility ---end of fwd message--- As far as I can remember, Phil Zimmermann, speaking during the international encryption conference in Paris on Sept. 25, mentioned this story to explain how easy it was to have his privacy on personal medical records beached. And that to encrypt this sensitive information may be the ultimate solution. Zimmermann is president of PGP Inc., which develops computer security software based on his popular program Pretty Good Privacy (http://www.pgp.com) * * * * * NEW YORK's CDA ON TRACKS ---fwd message--- >============== >VTW BillWatch #61 > >VTW BillWatch: A newsletter tracking US Federal legislation >affecting civil liberties. BillWatch is published about every >week as long as Congress is in session. (Congress is in session) > >BillWatch is produced and published by the >Voters Telecommunications Watch (vtw(a)vtw.org) > >Issue #61, Date: Thu Oct 17 01:17:52 EDT 1996 > ... > >FREE NOV. 3RD SEMINAR ON NY STATE INTERNET CENSORSHIP BILL > >To learn more about this free cybercast seminar see http://www.vtw.org/speech/ > >New York state recently passed a bill that criminalizes expression >online that is currently legal in print. When it goes into effect on >November 1, World Wide Web pages, Usenet postings, and email lists that >fall under the law may become subject to criminal prosecution, as might the >Internet providers that host them. > >But don't panic! VTW and the Netly News (http://www.pathfinder.com/Netly/) >are putting on a seminar to educate you on the history of the bill, the ins >and outs of it and what you should ask your own lawyer, as well as the >status of any pending legal challenges. > >Who should attend? >------------------ >Anyone who publishes information on the Internet, including through >World Wide Web pages, Usenet, Email lists, or interactive chats. >Attorneys whose clientele include any of the above. >Journalists whose beat include the Internet or online services. >....and you! ... >Who will be there? >------------------------------- >Speakers marked as "invited" have told us they intend to come, but have >informed us of potential conflicts that same day that might interfere with >their attendance. > >Live speakers . Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) invited: Opening remarks . >Shabbir J. Safdar, President (VTW Center for Internet Education) . >Steve Barber, Legislative Counsel (VTW): How will this bill affect you, and >what you should ask your own attorney . >Ann Beeson, Litigation Staff (ACLU) invited > >Speakers available online through interactive chat >Diana Jarvis, Staff Counsel (VTW Center for Internet Eduation) >Stephen Filler, Law Offices of Stephen C. Filler invited ... >Where and when is this seminar? >------------------------------- > >The seminar will be held at Outernet, Inc, home of bway.net at, > >Outernet, Inc. >626 Broadway, Suite 3-A >(Very close to the Broadway/Lafayette stop on the F train) ... ---end of fwd message--- -------------------------------- the lambda bulletin, 2.11 http://www.freenix.fr/netizen =+= the lambda bulletin -> www.freenix.fr/netizen =+= =-= Jerome Thorel, Journalist, Paris (Planete Internet Editor) =-=

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