December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: When did Mondex ever claim to be anonymous?
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Asgaard wrote: > > If you doubt that disinformation, including rumour campaigns, can be > effective, read the book on CIA by the renegade Phillip Agee. Yes, it's an excellent example. Or did you mean something else? - -rich - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMnbBbyoZzwIn1bdtAQH8tgGAkveB3XGlT+E6//V6pRIKzSz6cJ8ZWW+E ZjYtrPNIB/msT7f1tfdEXSgZ2EmB9Yac =Eswk -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Fortezza web site in Huntsville
by Jeff Ubois 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Looks to be LJL Enterprises, run by Larry J. Layten, which has deals with Nortel and the US military for secure email (e.g. its ArmorMail product) and Fortezza products. Check out www.ljl.com for info on LJL. From their page: LJL Enterprises got its start by supporting Department of Defense agencies with electronic mail and security products and services. Currently, we are shipping security products that plug in to existing versions of cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail. These products offer seamless integration so users can benefit from our line of security products without having to learn a new interface. We're also hard at work developing products for Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and Qualcomm's Eudora. LJL products work with the Entrust and Fortezza security subsystems, giving you a choice between hardware and software security. Contact us at: LJL Enterprises, Inc. 4825 University Square, Suite 6 Huntsville, AL 35816 Phone: (205) 830-8991 Fax: (205) 830-5702 E-Mail: info(a)ljl.com If you're asking who runs Larry Layten, well... At 12:28 PM 10/29/96 -0800, you wrote: >Check out http://www.armadillo.huntsville.al.us. Bonus points for the first >people to identify who actually runs the site. > > John > > >

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Re: When did Mondex ever claim to be anonymous?
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, R.J.Blakemore wrote: > >> As for the Bank, they get details on the item the student has purchased, >> purchase location (the building and exact 'Mondex point' in the bar/shop >> where the transaction took place), the exact time and date the >> transaction was carried out, together with (obviously) the name and ID >> of the purchaser, etc. > Relax, bandwidth is limited, all transactions over certain amounts and in certain areas have been logged for a long time, these will continue to be logged. Records made on the chip will probably have a shorter life than the memories of those people present, still admissible in court. Because the computers logging the details, either on site or at the finantial institution, have limited storage capacity, less useful data will be continuously overwritten by more current data. On site, this may be nightly, at the bank, possibly weakly, maybe even monthly. All records, except those already logged, will have a fairly short halflife, this will be especially true of locations which enjoy heavy traffic. As for the "smart card", it will have a half life as well, especially if you purposely flood it. Go to the ATM with the lowest rates, 0 if possible. Pick one heavily visited, the nearest to a coin-op laundry would have a particular poetic justice to it, and transfer funds back and forth for several cycles to overwrite the data on the card. Suddenly, the card has been through too many transactions to recall what happened 500 transactions back. Someone with experience with the technology might also modify an electronic wallet to blank transaction records, this could be as basic as transferring funds repeatedly between two cards.

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PDF417 2-D barcode specs needed
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Who knows where to find the specs for PDF417 2-D barcode? Any idea where on USENET barcodes are being discussed? -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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Re: Montgolfiering, the Hot Air Balloon of Cryptography
by L. Patrick Elam, III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To nobody(a)replay.com (Anonymous): I will use simple words so you can understand. My IQ is not 207 but I know BS when I see it. Too much bravado without substance. Too much hot air without mass. You claim that thermodynamics is about hot air. Anyone with a basic course in physics knows that thermodynamics is not just about hot air. Present the algorithm and it's proof if you want someone to listen or stop wasting everyones time with your rantings. Pat At 10:17 PM 10/29/96 +0100, nobody(a)replay.com (Anonymous), wrote: > >Fie on the small minds that cackle at my brilliance! As a Mensa member and >founder of the Society for Superintelligent Former NSA Employees, I chortle >at the baseness of callow criticisms by those doubters and dilletantous >denigrators of virtual one-time pads and PRNGs (perfect random number >generators). > >Montgolfiering. What is it, you ask? It is demonstrably a new paradigm in >the evolution of homo sapiens (Parry Messger excepted) toward Shannon's >dream of a one-time pad needing only a single, easily memorizable number as >a seed. I have heard only silence when I challenged the so-called >superbrains of this latargial list to try to determine which number I am >using as the seed of my system. If you are such great smarty pants, far >smarter than my colleagues at the NSA and at Mauchly-Wood, why can you not >then determine this number? Could it be because I have outsmarted you? >Could it be because I understand the Sufi secrets of picking random numbers >truly randomly? I submit this to you: 8 31 26 3 19. Now, oh great ones, >tell me, what is the next number in this sequence? > >Ha, you cannot predict this next number, can you, oh gibbering greatnesses? >Ths proves that my perfect random number genarator (PRNG, for those of you >too stupid to remember) cannot be broken. Q.E.D. > >I question the issue of Parry Messger's objectivity in assessing the >brilliance of my importations and acidulous assertations. I question >whether Parry may have a peculiarly pecuniary interest in these affairs? >Does Parry have an insider, or other position, or interest in one or more >of the RSA interest? If, this explains his fantastical faith in the core of >this so-called "RSA" system, which I proved to my colleagues at NSA could >not possibly be valid. Why, you ask? Because it contains no virtual seed, >and that which has no seed cannot grow. Q.E.D.--it has been debunked. > >Entropy, you quibble? Ha! What is entropy but thermodynamics? And what is >the topic of thermodynamics, you small-minded ensemble (Gibbs) people who >never worked for the NSA may ask? Thermodynamics is about hot air. Hot air >is in balloons. Balloons were pioneered by the Montgolfiers. Thus we come >full circle (can you understand this, you mental midgets?). Q.E.D.--it has >been demystified. > >Montgolfiering = a new virtual one time pad based on hot air. Eureka! I >have found it. > >P Information = P * log_base_infinity P > >As my colleague Dr. Bronner told me on my last balloon trip to his >institute in Escondido, "NATURAL! NATURAL! NATURAL! YOU AND THE PLANET - >CLEAN AND HEALTHY! PURE AND NATURAL CRYPTO COMES FROM WITHIN THE AGENCY." > >I pity your eupatrid minds for not accepting the wisdom of the Virtual >Montgolfiering System (which I have dubbed "VMS"). I guess unintelligent >creatures such as petty selves are too much like Parry Messger! Your >mendacious misrepresentations of my brilliance are wounding me deeply--NOT! > >Only Dr. Bronner and Dr. Vulis seem capable of understanding the immmense >mental breakthrough my IQ measured at 207 has provided the world. > >I laugh at your sanctimonious snivelings, your bombastic bombardings, and >your fatuous flatulations. > >Remember, they laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Bozo. They laughed at >Von Daniken. They laughed at Ludwig Plutonium! All of those who leaped at >the opportunity to take me apart before are now displaying contemptuous >intellectual pap, that is pap not the other similar word though that also >applies. Their misleading inculcations did not work so what are they trying >now. > >Montgolfiering into the hot air, I am, > >--KVFP, Esquire, KOTM > >(Montgolfiering. Q.E.D.--"it has been deflated") > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ------------------------------------------------------- Patrick Elam patelam3(a)atl.mindspring.com Engineering at its finest! http://www.mindspring.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMfwmggBXLW8oj+lZAQHCiwP+La/CLNY/yRvrH8TZQdvTxHK7Dgf0e1Dp j1xsa0h4VoWXrM4v5LYHbjyFYcpJGpOY7s6yIl1vFj2HGaix6DTv222/dHleMZZp lUJtAoJAW7AmbwA51skDc5EZZ0oSBh2BRXUfuAEzicm709SmKUKn0oH0vtKoS4Z2 xaGZ7952BX8= =MM2Y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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nytsnoop
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

News: By far the top snoop at jya.com: gatekeeper.nytimes.com Extra surprise: the site's logging 13,000 hits per month, mostly crypto-related. Odd, jya.com knows squat about such hot rods.

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Re: considering internet/privacy periodical
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 28 Oct 1996 07:42:37 -0500 (EST), Adam Shostack wrote: >| >I'm considering putting together a periodic publication about the technical >| >and legal aspects of privacy and the Internet. My "business model" would >| >feature free WWW/email access with a charge for fax or postal delivery. I'm >| >curious to know if this strikes people as interesting or just Yet Another >| >Email Newsletter Of No Real Consequence. (no offense taken if it's the >| >latter.) >| >| If you did a real noise-removal job, this could be very useful. Sort of a >| privacy-RISKs digest, if you will. > You mean like the PRIVACY digest, as occiasonally hyped in >RISKS? Yeah... Reinvent the wheel, why not? <g> # 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: When did Mondex ever claim to be anonymous?
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 29 Oct 1996 20:13:04 +0100 (MET), Asgaard wrote: >> I don't think spreading false rumours is a good idea - it can discredit >> the spreader if anyone bothers to check any details. > >Disinformation is a time-honoured weapon in political struggle. >A rumour is called just that because it can't easily be checked >- somebody heard from somebody, who heard from somebody etc. The >spreader is hardly ever discredited since he does not guarantee >the validity of the information. 'It's just a rumour, but...' And don't forget the old he-denied-a-wild-claim: "Mr. Politician denied reports that he spent several days in the Lovebird Inn with a goldren retriever, six gallons of coolwhip and a hoover vacuum." # 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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How can I get this book: "Secret Power"
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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How can I get this book: "Secret Power"
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From EE Times October 21, 1996 Issue: 924 Section: Design -- Computers & Communications Required reading By Loring Wirbel What was I thinking? It's been more than six months since I wasted column space with a good intelligence community rant. It's not as though nothing much has been happening. The New York Times and other media outlets have laid out the Cellular Telephone Industry Association's significant complaints against the Digital Telephony Act, portions of which will allow the FBI and National Security Agency to determine location of roaming telephone or IP addresses in a network. And we here at EE Times have been filling you in on the NSA's questionable involvement in an Internet backbone program called Project Monet. Truth be told, it's hard to keep sending up warning flares about the vast expansion of intelligence agencies' reach in an election year as hopeless as this one. President Clinton, of course, called for "wiretaps, many more wiretaps" during his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, and tried to sneak in a quadrupling of the Digital Telephony Act tapping slush fund during the waning days of Congress's budget negotiations. Everyone from Wired to The Progressive is now suggesting that President Nixon actually was more liberal than Clinton along the civil-liberties axis. And Bob Dole? The Republican Party quashed the efforts by budget hawks like John Kasich to carefully analyze NSA and National Reconnaissance Office budgets. The Repub gospel now is to give the Defense Department everything it asks for, and then some. Cryptography buffs have been waiting for relief in the form of the third edition of James Bamford's classic The Puzzle Palace, on the workings of the NSA. The new edition is supposed to contain material from co-author Wayne Madsen detailing NSA presence at Internet switching centers, and cipherpunks have been disappointed that the book didn't meet its June release date. Rumor has it that squabbles between the two authors and the publisher may push the book out well into 1997. But fear not, if you're willing to go chasing afar for good fireside reading! Researcher Nicky Hager in New Zealand has just published an amazing tome, Secret Power, that might do more damage to the NSA than Bamford's work. Hager is a bold activist, working with producers of the New Zealand version of "20/20" to go inside the secret signals base at Waihopai and take unprecedented video footage of the inside of the radomes, which are alleged to spy on international civilian Intelsat traffic. Hager isn't just a crank, however. His work on New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau is incredibly well-researched. Respected defense analyst Jeff Richelson wrote the foreword and British journalist Duncan Campbell claims in the Observer that the book has created quite a stir inside NSA headquarters. The most damning information details a global computer network, run by NSA on behalf of all the U.K./U.S. Treaty allies, called the Echelon/ Dictionary network. Echelon allows NSA to snare traffic intercepted by any ally into a unified database, without the ally having the slightest idea of what NSA is taking. And Hager is certain that civilian telex and Internet traffic is a prime target of the system. Don't look for a U.S. distributor for Secret Power-everyone here is afraid to touch it. His publisher doesn't even list a phone or e-mail. But if we all write to Craig Potton Publishers, Box 555, Nelson, New Zealand, perhaps we can free up enough copies of the book to scare the U.S. signal-intelligence community into having a minimum modicum of respect for civil liberties. But then again, I doubt it.

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