December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

allow me to state the obvious....
by SUCRUM22_at_INDY-ADP＠smtp-gw.cv62.navy.mil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

i am your average joe who uses the computer for work and e-mail and the occasional jaunt into the internet. going along reading this whole crypto-anarchy thing makes me want to cry. the whole point of cryptography is getting info from my eyes to yours. period. you can say that "illegal" information passes along the internet, but hello people - illegalities have been going on since long before the invention of the computer (or even the notion of cryptography - if i may stop to point out the obvious). the only reason _i_ use encrypted stuff is because i don't want my nosy sysadmin reading my mail. its that simple. think about it. how many times is your e-mail handed off? when sent it naturally follows the most convenient path to its destination, and even anonymous re-mailers (can) keep a hard copy of the messages that cross their connections with the original address included. you can go off into spoofing address and so on, but your average joe may (or may not) have the time or knowledge (much less the motivation) to do that. keep that in mind before you go saying that crypto is a good/bad thing. ---------------------- SUCRUM22(a)cv62.navy.mil ----------------------- a calculated risk based on the possible consequence of an action is better than a haphazard one based on poor judgment or ignorance --------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't confuse my views with those of the DoD or the United States Navy

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Re: Information [for new PGP user]
by Paul Bradley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >I'll bet you can't find 10 out of 1,000 users who have read the total source, > >let alone comprehended and validated it. > > Depending on the system, compiler and version of PGP, compilation may or > may not function as expected. I know, I class myself as quite an experience programmer (though I haven`t done a lot of code recently) but I spent several days weeding through the bugs and it still wouldn`t compile on Borland C++ V4.51 so I just read the core code and hoped the executable was really derived from that code. I`m normally more paranoid than that but I just don`t have the time to spend getting borland to compile it. It won`t even compile on my system with the borland makefile than comes with PGP. Has anyone else on here managed to get it to compile under Borland and how long did it take them???? Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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New Linux-IPSEC mailing list for the S/WAN project
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm sending you this message because you might be interested in helping to build or test or document, or teach about, my S/WAN project to secure 5% of the net by Christmas. There is now a public mailing list which you can join to find out what's happening in the project, get the latest software for testing, ask questions, etc. To join the list, send mail to: linux-ipsec-REQUEST(a)clinet.fi The email should contain a single line that just says: subscribe This mailing list will have discussions, not just announcements, and will be very technical (not political or social). The S/WAN project's goal is to provide free software that makes it easy to encrypt a site's net traffic automatically, and to encourage acceptance and deployment of this software. My original timetable aimed to have 5% of the net encrypted by Christmas. We will not meet this goal; it was romantic, but very ambitious. Instead, my current goal is to have our first complete software release available by Christmas, which people can use to encrypt 5% of the net in the following months. This is still an ambitious goal. In case you haven't been following developments in the project, there's a new version of the Domain Name System BIND code that you can install to enable your site to publish its keys to the net. Our software to USE the keys isn't ready yet -- but it usually takes weeks or months to get your domain administrator to update their version of BIND, so it's a great idea to get them started now. There's also a very new test version of the Linux kernel code that implements low-level packet encryption. This code requires manual configuration, and only implements single-DES rather than triple-DES. It has a long way to go. But it enables you to manually set up encrypted tunnels to other sites around the Internet (such as other sites in your company, or which you collaborate with). Shaking out this layer and making it solid and bulletproof is important, so we can depend on it as we build the higher layers that provide encrypting tunnels automatically and opportunistically. Details on how to get the test software are in the web page at: http://www.cygnus.com/~gnu/swan.html I hope that having a mailing list for the helpers and implementers will make it easier for everyone to stay up to date, and easier for everyone to contribute. If we all push in the same direction, we may have 5% of the net traffic encrypted by Easter... John Gilmore PS: The new Linux-IPSEC mailing list is graciously hosted in Finland by Tatu Ylonen, author of ssh, another good piece of cryptographic software. Linux is the free operating system on which the project is being built. IPSEC is the set of (Internet Protocol SECurity) protocols which add packet-level encryption to TCP/IP.

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Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?
by Paul Bradley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> It appears to be widely believed that cryptoanarchy is irreversible. > Everybody believes that the race to deploy or forbid strong cryptography > will define the outcome for a long time. This is certainly my position... > I can't think of a reason why this should be so. > If the wide use of strong cryptography results in widely unpopular > activities such as sarin attacks and political assassinations, it > would not be all that hard to forbid it, even after deployment. I don`t think so. The point is that cryptoanarchic ideals and strong cryptography will be too widely deployed to remove them from circulation. Also I believe that the sheer amount of traffic over the internet will make it virtually impossible to find encrypted messages even if strong encryption is outlawed. And last but not least the system of anonymous remailers and the ease with which return addresses can be forged means people using strong cryptography couldn`t be traced anyway. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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French Smart Card Firms in Merger Deal
by Dildophus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

NEW YORK -- Schlumberger Electronic Transactions, a leading French smart card company, said Wednesday it signed a letter of intent to acquire Soliac, a unit of the French processing company Sligos that makes magnetic stripe and smart cards. The Schlumberger company's agreement to buy Solaic points to further consolidation in the smart card industry, which has seen a number of joint ventures and acquisitions in the past year. Solaic has manufacturing facilities in France and Spain. Its marketing operations are primarily in those countries, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The proposed transaction, which is subject to the signing of definitive agreements, would include a partnership to develop smart-card-based systems.

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FICS Group to Build On Microsoft Platform
by Dildophus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

BRUSSELS -- FICS Group, an international banking systems company, announced a major electronic delivery initiative based on Microsoft Corp. technology. Expanding on the personal computer and telephone modes of banking service delivery, FICS said it is expanding into smart phones, personal digital assistants and wireless phones, electronic wallets, and Internet-based services. Microsoft platforms play a major role in FICS offerings, and Microsoft's Activex technology will be employed in Internet development. "The fact that FICS has chosen Windows NT as one of its key development platforms and adheres to the Open Financial Connectivity standard makes the company a valuable partner for Microsoft," said Ashley Steele, the Redmond, Wash., software company's marketing manager for the banking industry. FICS also participates in the Tandem Computers Inc. "payments factory" program, also based on Windows NT. Separately, FICS said it entered into a strategic partnership with Swift, the global banking telecommunications network. As a Level 3 partner, FICS is one of a few select firms that exchange strategic information with Swift and promote each other's products.

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Re: No More
by brazie＠ipa.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:53 PM 11/8/96 -0500, YoungSik Jeong wrote: >I want take off mail list > > >so do i, i tried but i keep getting all this damn mail

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Why Crypto Is Hard
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We've put Bruce Schneier's "Why cryptography is harder than it looks" November 6 post to Risks at: http://jya.com/whyhard.htm Thanks to SZ.

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Re: [Announcement] Cypherpunks Shooting Club
by camcc＠abraxis.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:54 PM 11/8/96 -0800, you wrote: :By popular request, I am following up on the three year old idea of the :Cypherpunks Shooting Club. : :Bring your own firearm or use one of the ones provided. :-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred How timely, especially after (or during) Flame Wars--96! How are targets to be determined, by lot? Cordially, Alec PGP Fingerprint: pub 1024/41207EE5 1996/04/08 Alec McCrackin <camcc(a)abraxis.com> Key fingerprint = 09 13 E1 CB B3 0C 88 D9 D7 D4 10 F0 06 7D DF 31

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Why Crypto Is Hard
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bruce asks his Risk post not be distributed on the Web. Okay.

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