December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Mass-market crypto phones
by Clay Olbon II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:41 AM 11/22/96 -6, Peter Trei wrote (in part): >It's kind of pathetic - I'm sure that the billions lost to cellular fraud >far outweigh the value of crimes that the LEA groups have been >able prevent by preserving their ability to illegally eavesdrop on >cell calls without a warrant. Lots of TV specials lately on stealing cell-phone codes and cloning phones. Seems to me that this would be ridiculously easy to stop using crypto. As a side issue (related to your comment about banning the listening in on cell-phone calls). I find it pretty amazing that it is possible to make it illegal to listen to signals broadcast over public airways. Yet another way crypto will help society - it will make such laws restricting our freedoms obsolete. Clay >Peter Trei >trei(a)process.com >(standard disclaimer applies) > >Peter Trei >Senior Software Engineer >Purveyor Development Team >Process Software Corporation >http://www.process.com >trei(a)process.com ******************************************************* Clay Olbon olbon(a)ix.netcom.com engineer, programmer, statistitian, etc. **********************************************tanstaafl

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Re: Crypto Bounties
by Ted Anderson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Regarding the idea of setting up markets (or bounties) for software, I'd like to direct your attention to the Idea Futures scheme. This is currently embodied as a web server at: http://www.ideosphere.com/ideosphere/fx/main.html There is some background on the idea by Robin Hanson who talks extensively about using it as a funding mechanism. In addition there is a whole suit of market claims denominated in fake money. Ted Anderson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMpXDrgGojC9e/wyBAQGPmgP/fXo4g3w9yefWiQK+Lp2RRxpwjwmmTmr3 b75k0deXV5gX/WdcNccvdFEYcZ5MMTEMQYOeFxhPi0Xr5goIJLJ++oPCRGXAWADQ k98PDgzfM+si8QqT8K7PG+BwejankJsh1npqaJVCE/8dboZBKNFVlsrzg7oGTfw2 adgiDyWD7Og= =pbS3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: Mass-market crypto phones
by Mullen Patrick 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

_______________________________________________________________________________ From: Adam Shostack on Fri, Nov 22, 1996 1:21 > > I'd just like to second what Lucky wrote at the end of his >very nice summation of the crypto phone hardware issues. Eric's phones >have damn good voice quality in secure mode. I should probably make it more clear that my comment referred to price, NOT quality. I'm sure it is a wonderful product (I haven't tried it myself), but I believe the price tag was at or around $1000. My comments on the hardware used was for demostration purposes, not for saying anything was wrong with the design strategy. In fact, I thought it was a perfectly fine strategy, and easy(ish) to implement. Basically, it took the dedicated computer you would need for phone encryption and put it in a cheaper box. To be honest, I thought he had a good idea. I just wouldn't want to pay $1000 for phone encryption. But, it's rare I have conversations where I need that much security. I'm sure the product is worth it; it's just out of my price range. And probably out of the price range of the average user. PM USER ERROR: REPLACE AND STRIKE ANY KEY WHEN READY

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Re: Word Lists
by pjb＠ny.ubs.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

this used to be a good site for what you want. YMMV "An anonymous ftp server has been built on wocket.vantage.gte.com which contains the following files in the pub/standard_dictionary directory:" -paul > From cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com Fri Nov 22 03:04:16 1996 > X-Sender: camcc(a)smtp1.abraxis.com > X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) > Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 17:29:07 -0500 > To: kb4vwa(a)juno.com (Edward R. Figueroa) > From: camcc(a)abraxis.com (Alec) > Subject: Re: Word Lists > Cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type> : > text/plain> ; > charset="us-ascii"> > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Content-Length: 1012 > > At 01:40 PM 11/21/96, you wrote: > :I'm looking for a Large Word List, for a pkcrack program. > : > :Anyone have any idea where to find one, or how to convert a dictionary > :formated file to a wordlist file? > : > :Ed > : > http://world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.wordlist.asc > > This is the wordlist for Diceware, and I quote, "7776 short English words, > abbreviations and easy to remember character strings. The average length of > each word is about 4.2 characters. The biggest words are six characters long. > > The list is based a longer word list posted to the Internet news group > sci.crypt by Peter Kwangjun Suk." > > This may not be long enough for your needs. > > The address of the Diceware page is > > http://world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.page.html > > Good luck. > > Cordially, > > Alec > > PGP Fingerprint: > Type bits/keyID Date User ID > 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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re: sci fi
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:48 PM 11/22/96 +0100, Asgaard wrote: >On Thu, 21 Nov 1996, Alan Olsen wrote: > >> For absolute brain candy, I recommend "Star Smashers of the Galaxy >> Rangers". EE.Doc Smith meets the Hardy Boys. The ending I had to read >> twice... > >A rather odd book that I found immensely stimulating is >'Venus on a halfshell' by a Nym (allegedly for Kurt Vonnegut, >who in most of his books under his own name now and then >refers to some hilarious non-existing SF story by this 'author'). Philip Jose Farmer claimed to have written that one. It also brings up an interesting point... Nyms are fairly commonplace amongst the writing community. (Even Steven King wrote under a nym (or two).) In fact there are books listing "nyms of the famous" for book collectors. Payment schemes for authors under nyms are already in place. (For example, I do a monthly column under a nym and they have no qualms about paying me.) DBAs also cover nyms in some respects. Nyms do not have to have a "sinister purpose" (as the feds would like us to believe). I think that they are far more ingraned into the culture than people realize. (Where would this world be without Mark Twain (a nym for Samuel Clemmens), Maxwell Grant (the nym for Walter B. Gibson and others for the Shadow pulps), and the thousands of other nyms that appear in the publishing field?) Just because they are published under a nym does not mean anyone takes their books less seriously or enjoy them less. (In fact, there are many authors that are nyms unbeknownst to the readers. I would say that most nyms in the publishing world are...) --- | "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD." | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com|

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Re: RE: Mass-market crypto phones
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: Sat Nov 23 14:16:14 1996 Peter Trei wrote: <snip> > It's kind of pathetic - I'm sure that the billions lost to cellular fraud > far outweigh the value of crimes that the LEA groups have been > able prevent by preserving their ability to illegally eavesdrop on > cell calls without a warrant. I agree, but to the LEAs, the "value of crimes" includes asset forfeiture "profits," which change that accounting in favor of eavesdropping (in their minds, at least). Of course, cellular fraud is paid for by others who, if they're politically active at all, are likely to demand even more money for the LEAs. A win -- win situation (in their minds, at least). JMR 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 iQEPAwUBMpdNgjUhsGSn1j2pAQFCbQfOJss3rMfEaWt1kv8oNfiOvwtoaa15s6lc vOVqG9dBMKCI41/x+k8Jzsb4pVvQOu4cXtUvIDOojY3JvmEzO9EVl125o8/pDxZy iNqgpLic8Px0R/uASJCj9T0nnFemRmY+QznaQNMdgLs92nOHuEK6Kfi66lqEGmda CxeuOSdijI+U741bU1a7xjqhc0uwj4ycsjmBB9nOKPSIsbZZYkYcDirT0z/l1F48 aVFphyzek4FjhIaFNFTdGs9YUkJM7hJJ0EfpxeWUeBAfyjkphrATXnW2WGF/iExo 32h6EYgso94VCT7LiWfK20pQ4Mk43i6xemjDdPS+9oS93Q== =eZ9E -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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re: [NOISE] sci fi
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 18:48:22 +0100 (MET) > From: Asgaard <asgaard(a)Cor.sos.sll.se> > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: re: sci fi > On Thu, 21 Nov 1996, Alan Olsen wrote: > > For absolute brain candy, I recommend "Star Smashers of the Galaxy > > Rangers". EE.Doc Smith meets the Hardy Boys. The ending I had to read > > twice... > A rather odd book that I found immensely stimulating is > 'Venus on a halfshell' by a Nym (allegedly for Kurt Vonnegut, > who in most of his books under his own name now and then > refers to some hilarious non-existing SF story by this 'author'). > Asgaard "Star Smashers" first appeared under a wierd 'Generic Book' imprint in the late 70s/early 80s. There were a series of them - with plain white covers and black capital titles such as "SCIENCE FICTION", "ROMANCE", "WESTERN", "MYSTERY", etc, all actually by well respected authors in their respective fields. I think "Star Smashers' was by Harry Harrison, but am not sure. VotHS claimed to have been written by Kilgore Trout, an third rate SF author who exists only in the works of Kurt Vonnegut. However, the actual author is Phillip Jose Farmer, whom Kurt granted permission to use the character as a joke at a party. Farmer then wrote and published VotHS, perfectly imitating Vonnegut's style, to Vonnegut's great dismay. Peter Trei trei(a)process.com

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Re: Patent Fight Could Add to Cost of Inter
by Phillip M Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- > > ``We believe it's important to draw a line in the sand and make > > them prove infringement,'' said CompuServe spokeswoman Gail > > Whitcomb. ``We think their claim is way too broad.'' > > This is quite a statement coming from a company that flexed its muscles on > the .GIF file spec. about 3 years ago. > > If I remember right Compuserve caused some some major changes in RIP and > HTTP developement. Until that time the only graphic format supported in > Mosaic was .GIF. JPEG was promptly added and there was hot debate about > the issue. Having been at CERN at the time and having been the first person to incorporate JPEG into a browser (Arena) I know this to be incorrect. We intended to put JPEG into the browsers from before the time that Marc introduced the IMG tag. Indeed a principle point of discussion on the list was how to cope with multiple formats. We knew that GIF was poor and that 24 bit screens would soon become the standard. On the other hand GIF was better for icons, line drawings and such and had better support from tools. The question was how to do content negotiation well and support the best configuration for the particular hardware. Marc did not exactly allow much time for comment on the list and chose to interpret the constructive criticism of his IMG tag as opposition to the idea of transcluded images. Actually the question was whether images should be a special class of transcluded object, it really should be possible to transclude HTML within HTML, something that frames attempts to do but not particularly well. The patent issue was not of CompuServe's making. They were unaware of the UNISYS patent when they developed the spec and had they known about it would have developed GIF differently. When UNISYS asserted their patent rights CompuServe had no choice to pay up, they did however negotiate a blanket license agreement which has assisted the rest of the industry in making agreements. The main effect of the patent issue was to give added impetus to the PNG (prn. "Ping!") which is a patent free extension of the GIF idea. Unlike GIF PNG is designed to work on the 24 bit displays we use today and provide a good, general purpose standard for interchange of images in a lossless manner. JPEG is fine for presentation of images but useless as an editing format since it looses information on each cycle. It is also poor at handling line drawings and other non photographic sources (the P in JPEG is Photographic). It would be nice if the industry would support PNG more widely since its probably the best piece of original work to come out of the Web consortium. I believe that Microsoft are supporting it in their next browser release and even if they don't both 4.0 browsers are much better at supporting plug ins. Phill

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Nov 26 DC: House hearing on compsec & crypto: PRZ, Denning, Lin, ...
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

DC-area cypherpunks may want to attend to watch the sausage machine in action. Forwarded-by: Dave Farber <farber(a)cis.upenn.edu> Subject: IP: House Briefing on Crypto From: Dorothy Denning The Technology Subcommittee of the House Science Committee is holding a briefing on computer security and encryption at 2:00 PM in Room 2318 Rayburn on Tuesday, November 26. Panelists are: Herb Lin, moderator. Study director of NRC crypto report. Bill Reinsch, Commerce Dept. Undersecretary for Export Administration Dan Geer, Director of Engineering, Open Market, Inc. John Linn, chair of IETF Common Authentication Technology Working Group Dorothy Denning, professor at Georgetown University Phil Zimmerman, author of PGP

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Re: Stewart Baker on new crypto rules
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:17 PM 11/20/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: > he [hp's policy person] >replied: > >"There are many >possible interpretations of the words 'voluntary' and 'mandatory'." > >I am willing to testify to this under oath. > >I don't know what dictionary HP is using. Orwell himself must have >written it. Well, if the customer does not complain about its inclusion, and chooses to use it for its simplicity over more secure, "after market" systems, then thats voluntary. Thats the same voluntary that means that if the people don't get out to the polls then they volunteered to keep thier opinions about how government should be run to themselves. It will probably be voluntary, no one tells you that you have to use interNic when using the internet, but you probably do because it is easier than trying to route around it to its new competitor (the one issuing URL's ending in .auto and .bus among others). No one is telling you to use interNic, no one is telling you to pay to register with interNic, but it is definately less of a headache.

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