December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Proof that "cypher punks" have complete degenerated...
by John Fricker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM (dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com) said something about Proof that "cypher punks" have complete degenerated... on or about 12/6/96 9:17 AM > >No one even commented on the latest Dr. Dobbs issue. Oh? If you had something to follow up on my postings re: RIPEMD-160 and the Bozoki interview I didn't see them. --j ----------------------------------- | John Fricker (jfricker(a)vertexgroup.com) | -random notes- | My PGP public key is available by sending me mail with subject "send pgp key". | www.Program.com is a good programmer web site. -----------------------------------

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Re: Aghast..
by Will Rodger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Folks - just for the record - the Freeh summary was a CLEAR typo, or at least vague in its meaning. Someone meant to say Freeh thought it was an *alienable* right. So much for cute phraseology. Then again, anyone familiar with the numerous pieces we've run on crypto would likely have guessed at our meaning. Sen. Conrad Burns, after all, was #21 on our list. > I couldn't believe my eyes when reading through Inter@ctive Week's > "The Driving Forces of Cyberspace" Top 25 list I saw that Louis J. > Freeh, Director of the FBI received an Honorable Mention because of him > supposedly believing that "Encryption is an inalienable right." I > suppose that isn't necessarily a lie, but it would need the word "Weak" > added on to the front in order to qualify it. Anyway, I was quite > disappointed in seeing their poor choice of this candidate. And yes, my face is at least as my hair, right now....... Will Rodger Washington Bureau Chief Inter@ctive Week

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Re: Aghast..
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: Will Rodger <rodger(a)worldnet.att.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Precedence: Bulk Date: Fri, 06 Dec 1996 16:48:05 -0500 From: Will Rodger <rodger(a)worldnet.att.net> To: Multiple recipients of <e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: Re: Aghast.. Folks - just for the record - the Freeh summary was a CLEAR typo, or at least vague in its meaning. Someone meant to say Freeh thought it was an *alienable* right. So much for cute phraseology. Then again, anyone familiar with the numerous pieces we've run on crypto would likely have guessed at our meaning. Sen. Conrad Burns, after all, was #21 on our list. > I couldn't believe my eyes when reading through Inter@ctive Week's > "The Driving Forces of Cyberspace" Top 25 list I saw that Louis J. > Freeh, Director of the FBI received an Honorable Mention because of him > supposedly believing that "Encryption is an inalienable right." I > suppose that isn't necessarily a lie, but it would need the word "Weak" > added on to the front in order to qualify it. Anyway, I was quite > disappointed in seeing their poor choice of this candidate. And yes, my face is at least as my hair, right now....... Will Rodger Washington Bureau Chief Inter@ctive Week --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

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KIDNEYS STOLEN FROM A NAKED DRUGGED MAN
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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CDA Again
by gorkab＠sanchez.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Supreme Court to hear Internet indecency case December 6, 1996 Web posted at: 2:45 p.m. EST WASHINGTON (Reuter) -- The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a landmark case on free-speech rights in cyberspace arising from a federal law that effectively bans indecent material on the Internet global computer network. http://www.cnn.com/US/9612/06/scotus.reut/index.html

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Happy Holidays from Music Boulevard!
by musicblvd＠n2k.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Happy Holidays! ------------------------------------------------------ Check out all of the fun at: http://www.musicblvd.com ------------------------------------------------------ Now that we we are in the hectic holiday home stretch, here is what's going on at Music Boulevard that will make your holiday shopping fast, fun, and give you the best deals around. Everything in the store is on sale now! Just for a little while longer every CD and cassette (more titles than you can shake a stick at!) is reduced at least another 10% off of our everyday low price. Our international (outside of the United States & Canada, that is) shipping rates have been dramatically lowered! So, if you are over there, you have another reason to shop here. This week's great gift ideas: *Holiday music in for every musical taste..... *Great Gift sets for everyone... *A Monster list of "Greatest hits..... Our Featured Sale Titles For The Week (at special low prices) are: *** Pop/Rock *** Prince - "Emancipation" 3 CD Set only $24.99 Enigma - "Enigma 3 - Le Roi Est Mort" $11.99 Bush - "Razorblade Suitcase" $11.99 *** Jazz *** Dianne Reeves - "Grand Encounter" $11.99 Branford Marsalis - "Dark Keys" $11.99 Pat Metheny Group - "Quartet" $11.99 *** Classical *** Leonard Bernstein - "New York Philharmonic Debut" $15.99 Pavarotti - "War Child" $11.99 Yo Yo Ma - "Appalachia Waltz" $11.99 *** Country *** Mark Chestnutt - "Greatest Hits" $11.99 Alan Jackson - "Everything I Love" $11.99 Reba McEntire - "What If It's You" $11.99 *** Eclectic *** Julio Iglesias - "Tango" $11.99 Soundtrack - "Preacher's Wife" $11.99 Music Boulevard is located on the Internet at http://www.musicblvd.com. No traffic, no lines, no hassle - just tons of music. Thanks for your continued support, and have a great holiday. Neil Roseman Manager, Music Boulevard neil.roseman(a)n2k.com /******************************************************************/ * If you do not want to receive any more Music Boulevard mail * * simply reply to this message with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in * * the body of the mail. * /******************************************************************/

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Law crosses speed bumps
by nobody＠cypherpunks.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FTC News Release FTC TO DISTRIBUTE NEARLY $338,000 TO VICTIMS OF HIGH-TECH FRAUD FOLLOWING SETTLEMENT: Funds to be Retrieved from Bahamas In a case that will mark the first time the U.S. government has obtained an asset freeze issued by a foreign court and returned the frozen funds to American telemarketing fraud victims, the Federal Trade Commission today announced that consumers victimized by a fraudulent paging license application mill will share $337,780 out of funds that a defendant in an FTC case allegedly diverted to a Bahamian bank. The defendant is Robert Corey (also known as Michael Allen), who was a hidden principal in a company called On Line Communications, Inc. that, while headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, actually conducted business out of Los Angeles. The FTC charged the firm and its principals in January with making false claims to investors about the nature and value of the paging licenses it could obtain for them. Corey has agreed to disgorge a total of $362,500, of which $337,780 is for the refund pool, as part of a settlement that will end the FTC litigation against him. The FTC said it has been working with such agencies as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Justice Department to return funds hidden in overseas banks to American fraud victims, and this case is a successful example of that effort. [Ed. Note: Many details were snipped in length's best interest. If you'd like to receive a full-text copy of the 6K PR, send Email to: liz(a)kersur.net SUBJECT: FTC News Release ] [BY: Capitol NewsWire-D.C. Bureau-Law Correspondent <CapNwsWire(a)aol.com> ]

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"Family Channel" of the Internet?
by Ken Kirksey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I had a rather interesting conversation today with a man who works for an individual who is getting into the ISP business. The guy freely admitted that he was not a technical kind of guy, and was only repeating what he had been told. The gist of the conversation: this company was going to try to position itself as, and I quote, "The Family Channel of the Internet" by going SurfWatch one better. If you sign up with them as your ISP, you'll only be able to access sites that they have personally inspected and approved. He said that they were going to do this, again I quote, "using the same encryption that Visa and Mastercard use." The last statment pegged my bogometer, of course. Now, since I know that I don't know everything about crypto, and I know even less about the inner workings of IP, I'm going to pose a couple of questions: 1) Is it technically possible for them to limit access to only approved IP addresses? If so, how can they do this, and is it possible to get around these measures. 2) What in the world would SET--I assume that was what he was talking about--have to do with this? 3) In general, how would you use crypto to ensure that your users only connected to approved sites, regardless of the platform or browser software they were using? I asked the guy to send me some technical details. If I receive them, I'll share unless he makes me sign an NDA. Ken

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Copyright violations
by alzheimer＠juno.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

New York Times: Thursday, December 5, 1996 Stock Hyped On Internet Resumes Trading By LESLIE EATON Peter Usinger was incensed. The Rochester business consultant was using the Internet, as he often does, to check up on a little company he had bought stock in called Omnigene Diagnostics Inc. But when Usinger reached the company's site on the World Wide Web, he did not find the usual information about its patented test to diagnose gum disease. Instead, he read that the company was in default on the license agreement that lets it use the patent -- the company's main asset. Usinger fired off an angry electronic message to the Web site manager, who had put up the information. Usinger correctly suspected the site manager was embroiled in a dispute with the company. ``If you are not able to substantiate your claims and we have to take a financial loss,'' Usinger wrote, ``we will notify our lawyers.'' The manager, Robert Gibson, shot back his own e-mail, with enough details to convince Usinger. And that was the beginning of the end of a high-technology hype that had turned Omnigene Diagnostics stock from a dud into a high flyer almost overnight. Within two weeks, the Securities and Exchange Commission halted trading in the stock and announced its action on America Online, the agency's first such use of an electronic bulletin board. With the expiration Wednesday night of the trading suspension, the cyberspace drama resumes Thursday. If the stock follows the usual pattern, it could well fall back to earth with a thud. The Omnigene Diagnostics story shows the effects Internet technology is having, for good and bad, on investors and investing. Reams of information are available -- but truthfulness and accuracy can be almost impossible to judge. Amateur investors find their way to obscure securities and mingle online with both stock promoters trying to drive prices up and short-sellers trying to drive prices down. But the tale also illustrates the changes occurring in the still young world of Internet investing. Securities regulators are becoming more aggressive about online stock fraud; at the same time, individual investors like Usinger are becoming warier and starting to use the power of the Internet to protect themselves. ``A lot has changed -- dramatically -- in the last six months,'' said John Stark, a lawyer for the SEC who specializes in Internet fraud. ``There was a real culture of trust and benevolence; now people are becoming more skeptical.'' And not a moment too soon. Online investing is growing by leaps and bounds; with that growth has come a corresponding rise in scams, including manipulation of small stocks with few shares outstanding. ``It's a growth industry,'' said William McLucas, the director of enforcement for the SEC. Regulators are investigating several suspected ``pump and dumps,'' in which the Internet is used to stir up investor enthusiasm and inflate prices. The perpetrators, who usually own shares they acquired for little or no money, sell them into the rising market. When the scam falls apart, legitimate investors are left holding the worthless shares. To be sure, such schemes have flourished for decades without the Internet. And the Omnigene Diagnostics story includes some traditional elements of stock hype, including the use of a radio talk-show host, who was paid with stock to promote the company. But the Internet was integral to the rise and fall of Omnigene Diagnostics, which is based in West Palm Beach, Fla. The stock was touted on electronic bulletin boards; clues about the company's problems first appeared on its site on the World Wide Web; the details were fleshed out using e-mail, which was also employed to alert regulators, and the company's management took to the Net to defend itself before the SEC stepped in online. When Omnigene Diagnostics first showed up on Internet bulletin boards in early October, virtually identical messages praising the company appeared on different boards, signed with different names. These messages said the company had no competition, had already racked up sales of $400,000, would have revenues of more than $2 million next year and had only 450,000 tradeable shares. Urging readers to call the company's 800 number for more information, the messages concluded, ``This could be your stock buy of the year ... Take a look NOW.'' By then, the share price of Omnigene Diagnostics, known as ``Oh My God'' because of its ticker symbol of OMGD, had already jumped from $1, where it traded over the counter -- very occasionally -- in July, to about $4. But as the Internet messages flew, so did the price, topping $6.50 by mid-November. Even early on there were voices of caution. ``Oh no, not another FL company,'' wrote someone on America Online's Investor Network. ``I have heard that a lot of scams originate out of Florida.'' Other writers noted that the company did not seem to have filed documents with the SEC, and was not traded on an exchange. But naysayers were quickly shouted down by writers who accused them of trying to profit from a drop in the stock price. The boosters hinted of a deal with Procter & Gamble, and cheered each day's rising price with lines like, ``I'm going to ride this train to the gold mine. Toooot!! TOOOOT!!'' Meanwhile, the Internet was helping to bring together two men with a rather different view of Omnigene Diagnostics: Robert Gibson, a computer programmer in Florida, and Peter Mahler, president of the company's former parent, Omnigene Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. With sales at its diagnostics unit declining, Omnigene Inc. sold the unit in May 1995 to the American Biodental Corporation, of Boca Raton, Fla., which makes dental implants. Though its testing operations continued in Cambridge, Omnigene Diagnostics was to be run from Florida. But almost from the beginning, things went wrong, Mahler said. Omnigene Diagnostics quickly fell behind on its rent and royalty payments to its former parent. Most of its staff quit, and Mahler's company went to court to evict its one-time subsidiary. Though the company dropped the suit after receiving a payment, Omnigene Diagnostics still owes it money, Mahler said. Even worse, people were confusing Omnigene Inc. with Omnigene Diagnostics and its troubles; another spinoff, Omnigene Bioproducts, mistakenly had its credit shut off, Mahler said, adding, ``It's an awful situation.'' But the final straw for Mahler may have been Omnigene Diagnostics' Web site, which had the address www.omnigene.com. The site was operated by Gibson, the computer programmer, whose main business includes running Web sites for legal process servers. Last year, at an Office Depot store in West Palm Beach, Gibson bumped into an old acquaintance, Dominic Scacci, and eventually agreed to do some programming for businesses Scacci was involved with, which included Omnigene Diagnostics. In fact, Gibson said, he ended up sharing an office with Scacci, who used his phones, computers and copier. But like Mahler, to whom he had spoken about Omnigene Diagnostics' computer system, Gibson said he was having trouble getting paid. The company did not seem to be doing nearly as much business as Scacci said. And earlier this fall, Gibson began to have suspicions about what Scacci was up to. ``The company was always short of money, and suddenly Dominic drives up in a new car,'' Gibson recalled. He also found a list, left in his computer by Scacci, that indicated the company had been issuing hundreds of thousands of free shares to Scacci's other companies, his friends and family, Gibson said. ``It started to smell,'' he said, so he called the SEC. Shares also went to Jerome Wenger, host of ``The Next Superstock,'' a program that is heard on radio stations around the country, including WEVD in New York. In an interview, Wenger said that he received the stock for serving as a consultant to bring the company to investors' attention, and that he discloses such arrangements to his listeners. On Oct. 31, Mahler sent an e-mail to Gibson complaining that the Web site's address infringed on his trademark and saying that unless the site was removed immediately, ``legal action will result.'' Instead, on Nov. 3, Gibson changed the first page of the site to the message that so irked Usinger, the Rochester investor. (Gibson also took his equipment out of the office he had shared with Scacci.) Which brings the story back to the angry e-mail sent by Usinger, who had bought several hundred shares of Omnigene Diagnostics in October. After Gibson replied to his message, Usinger said, ``all the little tricks you see in shells and scams started surfacing like little bubbles.'' So he decided to send some information to the SEC's online complaint division. He also decided to sell his stock, at a nice profit. As Usinger and a few other investors began posting their information on the bulletin boards, a free-for-all broke out in cyberspace. Some people scolded Usinger for trying to make people panic and sell their shares, and bulls and bears got into online shouting matches. Messages signed by Scacci appeared, saying that Gibson owed him money and had encoded the company's computer data. ``He demanded $10,000 to give us the key,'' read one such message posted on Nov. 7 on a bulletin board on the Silicon Investor Web site. ``I refused. This is when he decided to proceed to send falsehoods out over the Internet.'' As for the default on the patent license, a message on America Online signed Scacci6733 said that Omnigene Diagnostics ``owns the patent purchased from Omnigene Inc. It's as simple as that.'' But there were a number of things Scacci did not tell people in his messages. A former stockbroker with a history of regulatory run-ins, Scacci has filed for personal bankruptcy protection twice, according to regulatory records. Scacci was the agent for something called the Austria International Fund, which was based in the Bahamas, according to documents filed with the SEC by American Biodental. These filings say that it was really the fund, not American Biodental, that spent $189,000 to buy Omnigene Diagnostics. Omnigene Diagnostics was spun off in January, shortly before American Biodental filed for bankruptcy protection. But American Biodental's shareholders never received any OMGD shares, said Ingo Kozak, a director of American Biodental, which has changed its name to Biolok International Inc. Scacci said in a brief interview last week that, on the advice of his lawyers, he could not answer questions about the Omnigene situation. But he said his previous regulatory difficulties were basically problems with record-keeping. And he denied being the agent for the Austria International Fund. On Nov. 20, the SEC said it was suspending trading in Omnigene Diagnostics' shares for 10 business days, the maximum allowed. The reason: questions about the company's ``alleged ownership and other rights as to certain patents and trademarks, ODI's sales, past and projected, ODI's operations and facilities, and the number of freely traded shares.'' The SEC posted a notice of the halt on America Online's bulletin board because ``it looks like one of the vehicles people were using to disseminate a substantial amount of hype'' about the company, said McLucas, the enforcement chief, adding that he expects the agency to make similar electronic announcements in the future. Whether the SEC will go after anyone it believes has hyped the stock electronically is unknown; the commission never comments on current investigations. The company's fate will become clearer Thursday, when trading can resume -- which will occur only if brokerage firms are confident they have enough information to make bids on the stock. In the past, stocks in which trading has been suspended have tended to plunge when it resumes. Gibson is still unhappy about his run-in with Omnigene Diagnostics and the investors who excoriated him online. But, he said, ``the good news is that this stuff can come to the surface quicker because of the open lines of communication'' that the Internet allows. As for Usinger, he said that his Omnigene experiences have made him a more cautious investor. And that despite the abuse he received from some online critics, he does not regret having shared his discoveries about the company with his fellow Internet investors, some of whom also got their money out before trading was halted. ``I thought everyone should know this,'' he said. ``It's the difference between having something more before Christmas and having nothing.'' New York Times: Thursday, December 5, 1996 Mastercard's "Smart Card" Builds Support By SAUL HANSELL Seven financial giants, including Wells Fargo, Chase Manhattan and Dean Witter, Discover, have agreed to market the Mondex electronic-cash product in the United States. The Mondex ``smart card,'' which was developed in Britain, is a plastic card containing a computer chip that can be used to make purchases in vending machines, via pay telephones and over the Internet. Customers can transfer money onto and off the card at an automated teller machine or by using a specially equipped telephone. The backing ensures that Mondex will be one of the leading systems in the country as the market for smart cards evolves. Last month Mastercard International bought 51 percent of the international arm of Mondex, which will sell franchises in various regions. The seven companies plan to announce Thursday that they will form a company to offer Mondex in the United States. Wells Fargo & Co. will own 30 percent of Mondex USA, Chase will own 20 percent, and 10 percent stakes will each be owned by Dean Witter, AT&T, First Chicago NBD, Michigan National Bank and Mastercard. This group will license the right to issue Mondex cards to other financial companies. The card will get its major introduction in the United States in New York City as part of a test by Chase and the Citibank unit of Citicorp. That test, which will involve 50,000 consumers and 500 merchants, was to have introduced another smart-card system, Mastercard Cash. But when Mastercard bought Mondex, it abandoned that system, and Chase will have to modify its systems to use Mondex. ``We were moving along at a real good pace and expected to deliver Mastercard Cash, as promised, in the first quarter,'' said Ronald Braco, senior vice president of Chase. ``But we felt it would be foolish to go forward. Chase is not in the business of having our customers test technology that has no future.'' In the New York test, Citibank will use the Visa Cash smart-card system by Visa International. A primary goal of the test is to develop terminals for merchants to use that will be able to accept both the Visa and the Mondex cards. Unlike Visa Cash and other smart-card programs, Mondex allows people to transfer money between their cards, allowing a parent to put money on a child's card, for example. The transfers use a $100 calculating device called an electronic wallet. The owners of Mondex will conduct several tests in the next year. Plans call for introducing the product more widely in 1998. Initial tests of smart cards -- such as the high-profile introduction Visa Cash had at the Atlanta Olympics -- have shown that the technology is effective but that consumer demand is tepid. ``The technology works well, but the consumer proposition has not been a grand-slam home run,'' said Janet Crane, president of Mondex USA. ``Cash works fine, and getting people to replace something they are quite happy with is very hard.'' Ms. Crane said that additional smart-card applications, such as shopping on the Internet, and frequent-buyer rewards at fast-food restaurants would help spur Mondex's acceptance. Still, it is unclear who will be willing to bear the costs of introducing expensive new technology. Merchants have to buy new terminals that now cost about $500. The cards themselves cost $10 each wholesale. And Mondex USA will charge banks that issue the cards 25 cents each time money is transferred to Mondex cards. The banks, in turn, are expected to pass this fee and their own costs to customers. The inclusion of Dean Witter puts that company in the unusual role of cooperating with Mastercard, which has stringent rules against linking its brand with rival credit-card marketers like Discover. Shawn Healy, a Mastercard spokesman, said that unlike credit cards, Mondex was meant to be an ``open system.'' Dean Witter's main interest is in offering merchants the ability to accept Mondex cards. The company has not decided yet whether to add a chip that can store Mondex cash on its Discover cards or to offer Mondex as a separate product. American Banker: Thursday, December 5, 1996 Wells, Chase Take Lead Stakes As Seven Invest in Mondex USA By JEFFREY KUTLER Wells Fargo & Co. and Chase Manhattan Corp. head a group of seven U.S. companies making equity investments in the Mondex smart card system. Wells and Chase -- through subsidiaries Wells Fargo Bank and Texas Commerce Bank -- have acquired 30% and 20%, respectively, of Mondex USA, the global payment organization's U.S. franchise. They will be joined by five 10% owners in a formal announcement today of the launching of Mondex USA. It will be based in San Francisco, with Wells Fargo executive Janet Hartung Crane as president and chief executive officer. "We have an impressive group of well-capitalized players who are making very significant, long-term commitments," Ms. Crane said in an interview Wednesday. She said her unit would begin in earnest to staff up in January -- it has heretofore relied on about 15 Wells people led by Ms. Crane and executive vice president Dudley Nigg - to "propel Mondex in the United States." Along with Wells and Texas Commerce, two other national banks -- subsidiaries of First Chicago NBD Corp. and Michigan National Corp. -- got approval this week from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to participate in Mondex USA. Also owning 10% each will be three nonbanks that did not require OCC clearance: Dean Witter, Discover & Co.; AT&T Corp.'s Universal Card Services unit; and MasterCard International Inc. Only Wells and AT&T were previously listed as Mondex owners. They and Natwest Group, the London banking company that developed Mondex, were the first equity participants in Mondex USA and were among the 17 "global founders" of the Mondex International umbrella organization incorporated in July. Wells and AT&T "sold down" their interests to accommodate the five additional partners, Ms. Crane said. And Natwest Group completely sold what was designed to be a temporary, minority stake. Meanwhile, Mondex International is in a state of flux, awaiting MasterCard's purchase of a 51% interest, leaving the U.S. company, Mondex UK, and other regional entities with pieces of the remaining 49%. The U.S. owners did not disclose the value of their equity stakes. It has been publicly acknowledged only that the original capitalization of Mondex USA was 30 million British pounds, or about $50 million. That is likely to be a fraction of the marketing and development expenditures required to realize Mondex's vision of "global electronic cash." "This is something that is definitely not going to be a smashing success in one year," Ms. Crane said. But given Mondex's blue-chip backing and the owners' desire to sign others as card issuers, merchant-acquirers, and licensees, Ms. Crane said she has every reason to be confident. As evidence that momentum is already building, she cited growing trials in Britain and Canada, the rapid sign-up of 12,000 cardholders for a test in Hong Kong, and commitments from technology vendors like Verifone Inc. to create the necessary infrastructure. Infrastructure-building and pilot testing are the Mondex USA priorities for 1997, the CEO said. Wells has 800 employees using the chip cards at 22 merchants; AT&T just launched a 200-employee test in Jacksonville, Fla., and is planning to handle "virtual" transactions via the Internet and intranets. The last will demonstrate Mondex's ability to operate in both the physical and virtual worlds, which Ms. Crane said gives Mondex a unique advantage. An eagerly awaited New York City trial -- the first attempt by MasterCard and Visa to prove their competing technologies can "interoperate" -- has been put off from the first to the fourth quarter next year, in part to let MasterCard implement the Mondex system. Each of the Mondex USA owners has a seat on the board of directors, with Mr. Nigg of Wells as chairman. Ms. Crane, who joined Wells a year ago from MasterCard, is also a director as well as Mondex International vice chairman. The others are Walter Korchin, senior vice president and general counsel of AT&T Universal Card Services; Ronald Braco, senior vice president at Chase; William Simmons, executive vice president of Novus, the Dean Witter merchant services unit; Bruce Nyberg, senior vice president, First Chicago NBD; Alan Heuer, MasterCard's U.S. region president; and Michael King, senior vice president of alternative delivery at Michigan National. Michigan National's parent, National Australia Bank, is a Mondex global founder. Mondex USA actually consists of two Delaware-incorporated entities: a services company headed by Ms. Hartung and a lower-profile originating company charged with monetary operations and risk management issues. Wells Fargo vice president Jim Rudd is president of the latter.

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summary of talk by Birgit Pfitzmann on "Asymmetric and Anonymous Fingerprinting"
by nelson＠media.mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just heard an interesting talk by Birgit Pfitzmann of the University of Hildesheim on "asymmetric and anonymous fingerprinting". I thought I'd write up a little summary of the techniques she presented, what they are good for. More detail (including papers) is available on the web at http://www.semper.org/sirene/ see below for specific references Quick summary: background for what fingerprints are and what they're good for traditional fingerprints are symmetric - buyer and merchant both have the fingerprinted data scheme for asymmetric fingerprinting so only buyer has the fingerprint but merchant can still trace fingerprint scheme for anonymous asymmetric fingerprinting so buyer remains anonymous Fingerprinting is something like watermarking. The basic idea is giving merchants of data some way to protect themselves if unauthorized copies of the data are made. Watermarking is useful for proving that a document came from some provider. Fingerprinting goes further in that the merchant gives different buyers subtly different copies of the data - if a copy shows up, the merchant can look at the fingerprint imbedded in the data and figure out who leaked the copy. Traditional fingerprinting has a few hard problems. First, the fingerprint marks need to be embedded in the data without causing any significant change to the data itself. But this goal is in tension with the goal of having the fingerprint survive through potentially lossy transforms. Ie, if I want to fingerprint an audio stream I could modify some of the least significant bits. But then if that audio stream were compressed through some lossy filter the fingerprint might be removed. Furthermore, you want to make it difficult for multiple buyers to collude to remove your fingerprint. Ie: if two buyers compare their purchased data they can identify the parts that are different and conclude that these parts are part of the fingerprint. A good fingerprint coding will make this sort of collusion difficult, although there's a tradeoff between the size of the fingerprint and the number of colluders you can protect against. In a typical fingerprint protocol the merchant calculates the fingerprint, applies it to the data, and then gives the marked copy to the buyer. This is OK except that it means that if an illicit copy of the data shows up no one can prove whether it was the buyer who was responsible for the copy or if it was the merchant. At first glance this might seem silly (what incentive does the merchant have to make illegal copies?) but you can imagine several scenarios where this is a problem. For instance, the buyer wants to be sure it's impossible for the merchant to frame him or her. Also if the merchant's data storage is insecure then someone could steal the merchant's copy and the buyer would be falsely accused. So traditional fingerprints are something like symmetric authentication schemes: both the merchant and the buyer have the secret. The asymmetric fingerprint scheme presented provides a way for the merchant to guarantee that the buyer gets a fingerprinted copy of the data but *the merchant never has a copy of the data with the fingerprint*. Ie: the fingerprinted version is a secret that only the buyer has. This is analagous to asymmetric authentication: people can check that the fingerprint belongs to a buyer but they can't generate it. If a copy with the fingerprint is released then the world knows which buyer is to blame. The details of how this is accomplished were presented but I confess I didn't follow them very closely. Each buyer has a public/secret key pair: the fingerprint is keyed to the buyer's secret key. With a bit commitment algorithm it's possible to arrange it so that the merchant can generate a fingerprint based on the buyer's secret key without actually seeing the key or the fingerprint itself. The merchant can check if a copy of his data came from a buyer by checking the fingerprint with the buyer's public key. I'm sure the paper has the details of the actual algorithm. The system sketched above is not anonymous - the merchant knows the identity of the buyer. The next goal is to make it possible for a buyer to get a fingerprinted copy of data from the merchant without revealing his or her identity. Full anonymity is currently not possible. I didn't follow this very well, but my understanding is there's some scheme where the buyer registers a pseudonym with a third party who then works with the merchant to perform the transaction. The third party doesn't need to be trusted. Consult the web site for details. Overall, this work seems like a nice improvement on fingerprinting schemes. The asymmetry seems like a big win to me. The two directly relevant papers are linked from http://www.semper.org/sirene/lit/abstr96.html Birgit Pfitzmann, Matthias Schunter: Asymmetric Fingerprinting; Eurocrypt 96, LNCS 1070, Springer-Verlag, Berlin 1996, 84-95. Birgit Pfitzmann, Michael Waidner: Anonymous Fingerprinting; IBM Research Report RZ 2881 (#90829) 11/18/96, IBM Research Division, Zürich, Nov. 1996.

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