December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: NSA Report: Anyone seen this?
by Norman Hardy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just finished reading the report "How to Make a Mint: The Cryptography of Anonymous Electronic Cash" by Law, Sabett & Solinas. It can be found at <http://jya.com/nsamint.htm>. It is very well written with only identification of the issues except in the last short paragraph where they clearly lean toward government interests. They identify and distinguish interests of the bank, the consumer's privacy, and the government. Some of the measures that they describe (providing for traceability) might well be done by a bank operating in an anarchy. Imagine that you are running a bank in an anarchy and the son of one of your good customers is kidnapped and held for ransom. Suppose that the kidnapper is a good customer of another bank with whom you have an arm's length relation. The arguments are not simple. Only towards the end does the paper begin to conflate the interests of the government and the bank. Some of the law enforcement purposes that they describe would apply to the anarchy bank, others would not. The paper is the best description I have seen of several advanced money schemes. It has a better description of Chaum's off-line scheme than I had seen before. It describes sever even more advanced schemes, both abstracted form the mathematical details, and then with the details filled in.

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FW: Dr. Vulis is not on cypherpunks any more
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Those of you who think that it was wrong, unwarranted censorship for John Gilmore to take Dr. Vulis off the list should note this sentence from John's message: When he posted a message saying that we'd have to use technical means to stop him from flaming the list, I said, "OK". It was Vulis who challenged John to stop him by technical means. It was at John's discretion to do so, and he took the liberty of following up on Vulis' challenge. Vulis did everything to set himself up for what he got, did he not. .. Blanc

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RESPONSE FROM CYBERPROMO
by abusebot＠savetrees.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Version 10-9-96: Cyber Promotions has started to implement stricter Terms of Service policies WITH TEETH. We have just recently terminated several accounts for abuse of our policies. (Updated TOS at end of message). The following email accounts have been *recently TERMINATED... *jrtkjs(a)savetrees.com 10-9-96: Forgery and spamming INTERNET *jrtkjs(a)answerme.com "" "" "" "" "" "" *dollars(a)savetrees.com Non-existant account. The account was forged by the people who opened the accounts above. *info1(a)cyberpromo.com 10-8-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses *changes(a)answerme.com 9-30-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses *changes(a)cyberpromo.com 9-30-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses *changes(a)savetrees.com 9-30-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses *catalog(a)savetrees.com 9-30-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses *catalog(a)cyberpromo.com 9-30-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses *catalog(a)answerme.com 9-30-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses *eleven(a)answerme.com 9-28-96: Forgeries *eleven(a)savetrees.com 9-28-96: Forgeries *eleven(a)answerme.com 9-28-96: Forgeries *tsahk(a)cyberpromo.com 9-27-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses *tsahk(a)answerme.com 9-27-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses *icssender(a)omni.cyberpromo.com 9-19-96: FORGED unsolicited email, making it appear that Cyberpromo's auto-sender was responsible. If you are in receipt of the message, please look through the headers and complain to the appropriate postmasters. networkes(a)answerme.com 9-17-96: Ignored remove requests networkes(a)cyberpromo.com 9-17-96: Ignored remove requests networkes(a)savetrees.com 9-17-96: Ignored remove requests reminders(a)answerme.com 9-17-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses reminders(a)savetrees.com 9-17-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses reminders(a)cyberpromo.com 9-17-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses salespromo(a)answerme.com 9-16-96: Unsolicited ads to INTERNET addresses salespromo(a)savetrees.com "" "" "" "" salespromo(a)cyberpromo.com "" "" "" "" promo(a)answerme.com "" "" "" "" promo(a)savetrees.com "" "" "" "" promo(a)cyberpromo.com "" "" "" "" info4free(a)answerme.com "" "" "" "" info4free(a)savetrees.com "" "" "" "" info4free(a)cyberpromo.com "" "" "" "" manda(a)cyberpromo.com 8-28: Massive abuse to INTERNET addresses / FORGERY manda(a)answerme.com 8-28: Massive abuse to INTERNET addresses / FORGERY website(a)cyberpromo.com 8-27: excessive abuse to AOL / removals ignored sevenmil(a)cyberpromo.com 8-27: excessive abuse / all removals ignored sevenmil(a)answerme.com 8-27: "" "" "" "" "" "" vera(a)cyberpromo.com vera(a)answerme.com zol(a)answerme.com website(a)answerme.com allied(a)cyberpromo.com allied(a)answerme.com lists(a)cyberpromo.com lists(a)answerme.com If you have a complaint about an account that was not listed above, please forward it to our President's personal account: wallace(a)cyberpromo.com We currently operate the following servers: answerme.com cyberpromo.com omni.cyberpromo.com gamut.cyberpromo.com We DO NOT operate the following servers: uunet interramp athens.servint cais postman.com powernet pwrsite Cyber Promotions is *not* in business to annoy people. We are in the business of sending (and assisting in sending) commercial (and noncommercial) email to people who are *not* offended by the receipt of these messages. Unfortunately, due to many experiences (many of which were out of our control) we have had some problems accomplishing our goals without upsetting some people. We are truly sorry about that fact, and we plan to "clean up the streets" as best as we can. Some people have been under the impression that all email that appears to come from cyberpromo.com, is from Cyber Promotions. That is not true. Most of the complaints that we have recently received have been in reaction to people who have "autoresponders" and "virtual email addresses" on our system. In that case, their mail would have referenced an account on our system, but originated from a different site. Unfortunately, software like Pegasus enables their mail to appear as if it came from us, driectly. But, their true origination is still evident in the headers. You can determine where it originated if you know how to decode headers. But when doing so, remember that Pegasus, for example, actually logs into *our* sendmail. At this time, the only messages that originate from Cyber Promotions, use our proprietary Cyber Sender 2.1+ protocol which will always be indicated in the organization: header. Due to these "look alikes," it could appear that recipients' remove request were being ignored. WE DO NOT IGNORE REMOVE REQUESTS. We now also maintain a "master" remove list of people who have asked to be removed from all commercial mailing lists. If you have received an email from "Cyber Sender 2.1+", our new proprietary transport agent protocol, then the remove features *do* work properly, now that all of the bugs have been fixed (uppercase and lowercase now match, too). No mail is allowed out of our system, if the recipient's address is in our master remove list. We currently have over 1.1 million email addresses in that file. If you wish to add your address to that master remove list, you can do so in two different ways. 1. You can send an email to remove(a)cyberpromo.com and type "REMOVE ALL" in the subject or message field. Our systems will automatically permanently remove from our system the email address from which you sent your request. 2. You may also send an email to manremove(a)cyberpromo.com and type as many email addresses as you wish in the body of the message, each on its own line, without any comments. The subject line is ignored. That address will also permanently remove the addresses. Please note: we have no control over mail that originates from other sites, that travel through our SMTP (relay-host) servers. We will simply terminate any accounts that we maintain, that is referred to in their abusive mail. ATTENTION PRODIGY MEMBERS: It has come to Cyber Promotions' attention, that some of you are having a major problem removing yourselves from our lists. This can be attributed to the "alias" that your outgoing mail may contain. If you are having problems, please send an email to manremove(a)cyberpromo.com and type both of your email addresses in the body of the message, each on its own line, without any comments. The subject line is ignored. You probably have one address like xazd35r(a)prodigy.com and another address like sanford(a)prodigy.com. ATTENTION PIPELINE MEMBERS: It has come to Cyber Promotions' attention, that some of you are having a major problem removing yourselves from our lists. This can be attributed to the "alias" that your outgoing mail may contain. If you are having problems, please send an email to manremove(a)cyberpromo.com and type your email addresses in the body of the message, each on its own line, without any comments. The subject line is ignored. You should type your email id followed by the following THREE domains. @usa.pipeline.com, @pipeline.com, @nyc.pipeline.com. Even if you feel that your address is definately only one of the three possibilities, you should still remove all three addresses (each on its own line). ATTENTION INTERNET USERS: It has come to Cyber Promotions' attention, that some of you are having a major problem removing yourselves from our lists. This can be attributed to the "alias" that your outgoing mail may contain. If you are having problems, please send an email to manremove(a)cyberpromo.com and type your email addresses in the body of the message, each on its own line, without any comments. The subject line is ignored. If your email address could contain an alias like mail.domain.com or if you may have more that one email address that points to another email address, you should remove them all. If you wish to remove *every* email address in your domain, please contact us, and we will "grep" out every possibility. REVISED TERMS OF SERVICE: (We are also looking into the possibility that we may be forced to adopt the policies of our backbone providers. For the time being, we are emulating their policies as best as we can while matching the needs of our operations.) 1. We do not allow postings to inappropriate newsgroups with reference to your account because such postings result in *MUCH* more negative response than positive. 2. We prohibit the advertising of offensive material (ie. pornography, weapons, etc). 3. You may not use the account to participate in illegal activities. 4. Our TOS strictly prohibits the sending of mass commercial emails to INTERNET addresses, unless expressed permission has been granted to you by the recipient. In addition, you *must* honor all requests for removal from your mailing list in a diligent manner. Our service can be used in conjunction with advertisements that you place with a bulk email company other than your own or us, as long as they follow the same guidelines. 5. Cyber Promotions reserves the right to terminate any account for any reason at any time, without notice. If you would like to send a complaint about any account @cyberpromo.com or @answerme.com or @omni.cyberpromo.com that has not been terminated, please send email to: wallace(a)cyberpromo.com

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VOO_doo
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

October 25 Science reports on the latest teleportation research in "To Send Data, Physicists Resort to Quantum Voodoo." It describes a laser-driven apparatus for transmitting highly secure encoded (but not encrypted) messages via entangled photon states. IBM's Charles Bennett says, "as other researchers work to harness quantum mechanics for computation and cryptography, teleportation could become the equivalent of a quantum mail service." ----- http://jya.com/voodoo.htm VOO_doo (txt) Science is at: http://www.sciencemag.org/

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URG_ent
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

11-02-96. "Transaction Records Urged for Smart Cards" Electronic money systems must generate transaction records to help law enforcement agencies track money launderers, a senior Justice Department official said last week. "In a paper environment ... we can get bank records, we can get credit card records. Our goal is only to preserve this ability." "Internet insecurity " Jeff Schiller: The Web has a lot of potential vulnerabilities. There's plenty I know about that I don't want to talk about. People who know about the vulnerabilities are reluctant to talk about them because if we disclose what we know to the public, the bad guys will take advantage. And if we address them with the vendor community, they don't do anything about them. There's a lot of hooey out there. Never trust the advice of someone selling you a product, especially if the sales pitch is, "My product makes your problem go away." "RSA offers kit for secure credit-card transactions" RSA Data Security, Inc. will announce today a tool kit for developing secure applications that support credit-card transactions on the Internet called S/Pay in support of SET. "Medcom introduces a "Super Cafe" data encryption product" Medcom's latest data encryption product, the Secure Socket Relay (SSR), features strong encryption with full key length (56-bits DES). A demo version can be downloaded at http://www.medcom.se/. "On Technology's Security White Paper" "Taking The Threat Out Of Network Security," will stimulate the industry into discussing some of the issues of security that face the Internet industry and its users. Copies of the paper are available on request from On Technology. The company's Web site is at http://www.ontech.co.uk . ----- http://jya.com/urgent.txt (21 kb) URG_ent ---------- In another story on gov-spooked insecurity: NEC announced that it successfully demonstrated country-to- country virtual private networking (VPN). During the tests, privacy and security was maintained between the two sites by deploying DES and triple-DES encryption. Since DES encryption technology cannot be exported from the United States, a Japanese version of DES, developed outside the U.S., was used.

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Re: [NOISE]Re: Dr. Vulis
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 3 Nov 96 at 15:44, Sandy Sandfort wrote: > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > SANDY SANDFORT > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > > C'punks, > > > Just want to add my 2 cents. I am also unhappy with the fact that > > he was removed. My personal correspondence with Vulis has been > > friendly and he has been very helpful. > > Then I suggest that Ross not remove Dimitri from his private > e-mail correspondence. On this list, however, Dimitri was NOT > friendly NOR helpful. > > Wha do Ross' or anyone else's private interactions have to do > with the decisions of those who pay for this list's existance? In fact, nothing. I just wanted to show that this coin has 2 sides. 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: Thank you, John Gilmore, for protecting freedom of speech against Dr. Dmitri Vulius [RANT]
by Gary Howland 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> But there's probably a logical reason for taking this "action", although it can > apparently be easily circumvented, even though many of us don't understand what > that logic could be. Yes. If only you knew what they knew ... :-) The mail filter is dead! Long live censorship, double standards and hypocrisy! Gary

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Re: Discrete logs 1 [non-cryptography related annecdote] [NOISE]
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 03 Nov 1996 09:36:32 -0800, Dale Thorn wrote: >> >properties than regular logarithms, but I thought this bit of history >> >would spark some memories in old-timers and give a new perspective for >> >younger people. >[snip] >> The same thing goes on with SATs and especially SAT-IIs. Some higher-end >> calculators, esp. HPs, have plugin cartridges which automate much of the >> basic work in chemistry, physics, etc. I never saw anyone who used such >> things even get asked about it. Do we even need social engineering with >> people this stupid? >Technology has a base, much like a pyramid. When you add enough layers, you can't >find very many people who can traverse top to bottom and understand all of what's >in between. How true... >I consider it a miracle when a student has the quality of consciousness to buck the >trend and get themself a quality instrument (such as an HP-48SX/GX), since once they >do that, they might be encouraged to explore further. Were this the way it actually happened, I'd tend to agree. However, the group that bought high-end calculators solely to do things like this was proably about 50-60% of the total. # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # <cadams(a)acucobol.com> | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY" "That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them." --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)

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Re: Sliderules, Logs, and Prodigies
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A quick note, I consider myself to be a nerd. This is in part "reclaiming", as I found myself uninterested in sports, as my classmates were, and found computers fun.(good reason too, considering I had access to one of those, an old TI99/4, longer than I had classmates). I didn't grow up un either log tables or slide rules, but I did learn how to do basic arithmetic on both the traditional slide rule, and a round one designed for engineers. At one time, nerds were the intellectuals, the only thing that has really changed is that now the nerds are in control, making intellectual arts a little more appealing. I'm only a 21 year old college student who is still somewhat ignorant, make that quite ignorant, about the world, but I do feel that just because it was an unpopular term to describe you, it isn't disrespectful to consider ourselves nerds. Relevance to Crypto, none. Just attempting to defend myself in the ether.

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Re: Censorship on cypherpunks
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:54 PM 11/3/96 -0500, Will French wrote: > I'm quite upset about this. Up to now I was able to tell >people that "there is at least one mailing list on the net that >functions in a completely open manner". No more. This is an easy problem to solve. Run your own list, you can set the policies. There are service providers who will set up/maintain mailing lists for you. If you can't find one, and "quite upset" means >$200/month to you, let me know, and I'll set one up for you. Mailing lists aren't exactly rocket science. Actually, I'm curious exactly how much money "quite upset" means to you. Perhaps you and the others who are also upset can buy Dmitri his own mailing list. You can even subscribe your list to the cypherpunks list, and advertise it as "total freedom cypherpunks", so that subscribers to your list get everything on cpunks, plus Vulis' helpful commentaries. The lesson to learn from this is not "all people are essentially authoritarian" but "one jerk can ruin something good for 1500+ people." Just one turd in the punchbowl, and all that. Doesn't matter if the turd has a PhD, nobody wants any punch. When one person does something which inconveniences or annoys many people (over and over, intentionally) it's unsurprising (and not even "authoritarian", in any useful sense of the word) that someone gets sick of it and tries to correct the situation. Freedom isn't just for assholes; and the name for someone who won't take care of himself (or his mailing list) isn't "friend of liberty", it's "pushover". -- Greg Broiles | "We pretend to be their friends, gbroiles(a)netbox.com | but they fuck with our heads." http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | |

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