December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Star Trek: First Contact
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:02 AM 11/23/96 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote: >On Sat, 23 Nov 1996, Bill Frantz wrote: >> OBMoney: Picard states the they don't have money in the 24th century. >> Instead they work for the good of mankind. Nanotechnology must have made >> everything material possible, so the only reward left is status (aka >> reputation). > >Why doesn't everyone have a starship? (Tongue firmly in cheek) It seems some feel that their best route to high status is to be the crew member who beams down and dies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | The lottery is a tax on | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | those who can't do math. | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | - Who 1st said this? | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: how much entropy in common answers
by Hal Finney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Pat Farrell <pfarrell(a)netcom.com> > Clearly there are cultural issues involved. The entropy in a question > such as "what is your favorite brother's name?" is low in an Irish > family like mine where names cluster arround choices such as are Patrick, > John, Sean, and Dan. > > So how do we measure the entropy objectively? You have to estimate the probability that the attacker will guess what you have chosen. This will depend on how much the attacker knows about you. If he knows that you're Irish, it will help in the question above. If he knows the names of your brothers, it will help a lot more. Probably it is best to be conservative in assuming what your attacker knows. If you have four brothers and nobody whom the attacker could ask will know who is your favorite, but you think he could find out there names, then he has probably a 1/4 chance of guessing right. (Actually he might do better by preferring older brothers rather than younger, etc.) The amount of entropy is then negative log 2 of the probability, or 2 in this case (2**-2 is 1/4). For cars, if 50% of people like you would have chosen Mustangs, 40% Camaros, and the remaining 10% scattered among other brands, then if your favorite car was a Mustang that is only worth about 1 bit. But if your favorite car was an Oldsmobile there might be only 1/100 chance of the attacker guessing that, so it could be worth 6 or 7 bits. Hal

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This is your last warning
by aga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 23 Nov 1996, Firebeard wrote: > >>>>> aga writes: > > a> It just "looks" that way on the net. I do live-fucking, newsgroup > a> flooding, mailbombing, vote-tampering and defamation all legally, > a> and OPENLY on the InterNet. > To be truly honest about this, (since you keep putting that cypherpunks address in the header) I have not really done any of the above yet, but they are all perfectly legal in cyberspace. Just get the fucking point, there are no laws which can cross borders. > a> The more you PGP, the worse you look. Nobody reads your e-mail, so > a> stop being so paranoid. > > Hate to disabuse you, but I've had it done. I've had military > investigators hand me copies of email I've received, and ask me to > explain them, and the actions I took (and did not take) in response. > Just what kind of 'military investigators?' Since you are a civilian, they should not have even asked you that question. You answer by privete email. The net is clearly not military property but belongs solely to international anarchists which can not be stopped by any laws. > -- > #include <disclaimer.h> /* Sten Drescher */ > ObCDABait: For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the > flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. [Eze 23:20] > ObFelony: President Clinton, you suck, and those boys died! > Unsolicited solicitations will be proofread for a US$500/KB fee. > Now look, I have told you before. Stop writing to me and using the cypherpunks address as a cc in the header. I told you before that I am not going to write to that fucking list any more, and if I receive any more e-mail from you with their address in the header, well... You have been doing this for a number of days now. This is your last warning.

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Re: how much entropy in common answers
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:26 PM 11/23/96 -0800, Hal Finney wrote: >From: Pat Farrell <pfarrell(a)netcom.com> >> Clearly there are cultural issues involved. The entropy in a question >> such as "what is your favorite brother's name?" is low in an Irish >> family like mine where names cluster arround choices such as are Patrick, >> John, Sean, and Dan. >> So how do we measure the entropy objectively? > >You have to estimate the probability that the attacker will guess what you >have chosen. This will depend on how much the attacker knows about you. >If he knows that you're Irish, it will help in the question above. If he >knows the names of your brothers, it will help a lot more. Probably >it is best to be conservative in assuming what your attacker knows. I was really hoping for some insight into the general problem. If you knew that my family is Irish, that makes certain names much more likely. Obviously if you know that I've got five brothers, a little bit of work will probably let you know that they are Tom, Dick, Harry, Mike, and John. But that is an example of a terrible question for Carl's approach. I was asking the more general question. Carl suggested that in general a first name has about eight bits of entropy. But knowledge of the social environment can seriously reduce it. Jenifer was a hugely popular name for girls in the US ten to 20 years ago. You'd expect more Juan's and Jose's in a Hispanic community, just like you'd expect the Dan's, Pat's, Mike's, in an Irish community. I know that the classic definition of entropy is, but without knowledge of the statistical universe that we're dealing with, how can I measure it? The probability that a male's first name is Harry is probably pretty low in general, yet it is exactly 20% if you restrict the world to my brothers. Carl suggested "What was the name of the first person on whom I had a crush?" But if 33% of the women are named "Maria" in the local universe, then that is not much entropy. Yet a name of "Maria McGee" is probably fairly high entropy, as it is an unlikely combination. If you were raised in a small rural area, there might not be all that many possible answers to Carl's question. >If you have four brothers and nobody whom the attacker could ask will >know who is your favorite, but you think he could find out there names, >then he has probably a 1/4 chance of guessing right. (Actually he >might do better by preferring older brothers rather than younger, etc.) This is exactly the type of local social bias that I want to measure. We would expect that an older brother could be a role model, etc. and thus be more likely to be the "favorite" How do I know when I've got Carl's 90 bits of entropy? Pat Pat Farrell CyberCash, Inc. (703) 715-7834 pfarrell(a)cybercash.com #include standard.disclaimer

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Re: IPG Algorith Broken!
by nobody＠cypherpunks.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:33 PM 11/23/1996, Eric Murray wrote: >John Anonymous MacDonald writes: >> >> >> At 8:09 AM 11/23/1996, Eric Murray wrote: >> >No, you can't. It's impossible to prove an algorithim unbreakable. >> >> No? Please prove your assertion. > >You can't prove a negative. If it can't be proven, why do you believe it is true? The good news is that you can prove a negative. For example, it has been proven that there is no algorithm which can tell in all cases whether an algorithm will stop. >The best IPG could say is that >it can't be broken with current technology. >Next week someone might come up with a new way >to break ciphers that renders the IPG algorithim breakable. The best they can say is what they did say: they have a proof that their system is unbreakable. What you question, quite reasonably, is whether they have such a proof. >You point could have been that the same problem exists >for proofs- that next week someone could come up >with a way to prove, for all time, that an algorithim >really IS unbreakable. So, to cover that posibility >I should have said "it's currently impossible to >prove an algorithim unbreakable". :-) Or, more accurately, nobody credible has seen such a proof. But, a clever person might invent one. IPG is eager to demonstrate their proof. They should hire a professional skilled in the art to evaluate their proof and publicly announce the results. This costs less than $5000 and would be, presumably, a small part of their profits should they have invented such an algorithm. diGriz

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Re: Sameer R.I.P.
by drose＠AZStarNet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 24 Nov 1996 Sandy Sandfort <sandfort(a)crl.com> wrote: >On Sun, 24 Nov 1996 drose(a)AZStarNet.com wrote: > >> Sameer has decided, it seems, to get out of the anonymity >> business and pursue other interests. > >Well, I guess you could call privacy guaranteed by strong crypto, >"other interests." Seems right in the middle of what Cypherpunks >are all about. If you like strong crypto, you'll love what's >coming next from C2Net. Point well taken. Most people who are in the market for a Web server, however, are cognizant of the fact that along with Netscape, Microsoft, Open Market, O'Reilly et al, Sameer has been for some time now selling a well regarded product: namely, his proprietary version of Apache. I guess my point was that, notwithstanding Sameer's estimable commercial software offerings, the *news* is that he has, to repeat myself, abandoned the anonymity business with respect to many of his traditional public Internet services. Certainly, no slight was intended. I "like strong crypto", so I naturally look forward to stuff from C2Net that, in your opinion, I'll "love." David M. Rose drose(a)azstarnet.com

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Re: IPG Algorith Broken!
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:21 PM 11/23/96 -0800, John Anonymous MacDonald wrote: >At 12:33 PM 11/23/1996, Eric Murray wrote: >>You point could have been that the same problem exists >>for proofs- that next week someone could come up >>with a way to prove, for all time, that an algorithim >>really IS unbreakable. So, to cover that posibility >>I should have said "it's currently impossible to >>prove an algorithim unbreakable". :-) > >Or, more accurately, nobody credible has seen such a proof. But, a >clever person might invent one. I thought Shannon proved one-time-pads to be unbreakable using information theory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | The lottery is a tax on | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | those who can't do math. | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | - Who 1st said this? | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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RE: Symantec's claim.
by James D. Wilson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

See: http://www.alw.nih.gov/Security/security.html, and the attachment re Irina, Good Times, etc. ---------- From: cracker(a)icon.co.za Sent: Monday, November 25, 1996 3:45 AM To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Symantec's claim. In light of recent claims,i would like somebody to clear this up for me. There seems to be a great deal of conjecture over wether or not the Deeyenda Virus exhists. Symantec denies it's existence,although i hear differently?? Greatly appreciate anyone who can shed some light on the subject,even though C-punks list doesnt usually deal with this topic of thought ;) Anyone come across the pkz300 trojan,if you have it send it please. A student,a paper,and a possible future career are at stake here,so please dig deep into your pockets!!!!!! Asking a lot i know! J a m e s "Lead.Follow. Or get out of the way" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Type Bits/KeyID Date User ID pub 1024/9E318AA5 1996/09/24 Cracker <cracker(a)icon.co.za> -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.3ia mQCNAzJHdKwAAAEEALl3A6auLG0JLdtgEzl6KfPNqbTTSDX4L4To2b7PLqGDVV5r BezC9dD/ITrCK9M64juiQ2p/DNjIihnXlEsJCy2btypStypQgU1fvAei3AnZ1cQ8 NiAnHNS+ImUAJgZjSHEQSevGE53IUovmWQ7YHUz9VpTTCtoJoUKxYuqeMYqlAAUR tBxDcmFja2VyIDxjcmFja2VyQGljb24uY28uemE+iQCVAwUQMkd0rkKxYuqeMYql AQEjagP/cYgGLAkWZJLeRcM4URwBX3J/0R54DadVnsvvoxDkzilv7U02IXZGZGnA CvXsu2sThS7qDBiHFop/OZs3WmlQbQ4BAZ/hiCs5tSU2e7fkk0EKxsGAD1pTbw/J rRU4WePLc++vv+6CBKw5NCSR5kMh8H3X4qtZZ9dYX9zsuzWKdpk= =YGH8 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Security of E-Money
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published in August, 1996, "Security of Electronic Money," a long, detailed study. Compare this architecture to Anderson/Kuhn's and Biham/Shamir's recent demolition. The orginal is available at: http://www.bis.org/publ/cpss18.pdf Better, Ian Grigg has HTML-ed it at: http://www.systemics.com/docs/papers/BIS_smart_security.html

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RE: Mass-market crypto phones
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:41 PM 11/22/96 -0800, Declan McCullagh wrote: >PS: Over margaritas and enchiladas tonight, I was talking with one of the >crypto-ITAR enforcers from State. I mentioned that I'd be going out of the >country soon and taking my PowerBook laptop. Quite sincerely, he urged me >to keep a record of when I left and when I returned for five years. You >see, I have domestic Netscape Navigator on it. Wacky stuff. Comments like that by Feds are meaningless absent the busts of a few "laptop smugglers." If they have never busted anyone, it's a dead letter (all the more so since they legalized casual carry with record keeping). DCF

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