December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

name.space. call for content
by mf＠MediaFilter.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello All, The black.hole in the net project is now online and functioning. Please add your project to the "switchboard" via the links generator accessable from the black.hole page: http://black.hole (or http://blackhole.autono.net) The page is beginning to get lots of hits, so now's the time to put up your stuff! Best wishes, Paul Garrin

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NYT: Faulty Crypto Policy
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The New York Times, December 16, 1996, p. A14. Another Faulty Encryption Policy [Editorial] The Clinton Administration has issued its third plan in as many years to keep powerful encryption programs for telephone and computer messages out of the hands of international terrorists and criminals. But this latest plan to control the export of encryption software, like the two before it, is unworkable and risks trampling on privacy rights and harming American software firms. Encryption in the hands of criminals unquestionably makes law enforcement hard. But the greatest use of encryption is by banks and other legal businesses that need to transmit confidential data without fear of interception. In legitimate hands, encryption helps to prevent crime. The Administration first sought to steer all Americans toward an encryption standard that Washington would design, thus preserving the Government's ability to tap phone calls. But after sharp criticism of Government snooping, the Administration retreated to a policy, still rejected by most privacy advocates and software firms, aimed at exports of encryption programs. The newly released regulations, which were supposed to implement the October policy, in fact make a flawed policy even worse. The one consistent thread through the Administration's plans is commitment to an encryption standard that uses mathematical "passwords" to scramble messages. The Government would then have the technical capacity to recover passwords, upon court order, and unscramble the phone or computer message. But the new policy will not succeed abroad. The Administration insists it needs not only to unscramble stored computer files but also to tap phone and computer messages, without the caller's knowledge, as they are transmitted. That would in effect require the foreign purchaser of American software to deposit its passwords with a reputable outside party -- a government agency, a bank or the computer firm from which it bought the software -- which would relinquish them upon court order and without notifying the user. What foreign company or individual will purchase software that is prey to undisclosed Government snooping when they can, buy equally powerful encryption from foreign firms that offer no such path for eavesdropping? The plan runs into other insolvable problems. It does not propose prohibiting powerful encryption software for domestic purchase, where such programs are constitutionally protected and already in wide use. Thus anyone could, with a few key strokes, send the domestically available programs over the Internet to Europe and beyond. The Administration also fears that software firms will write their programs so that the powerful domestic versions communicate readily with the easier-to-tap export products. If so, the technical result would be that criminals here and abroad could communicate out of reach of Government wiretaps. The Administration proposes to solve that problem by prohibiting software firms from providing easy communication between their domestic and export products. But that would make American export encryption programs unsellable abroad. A panel of the National Research Council recommended that Washington drop export restrictions on encryption software already available abroad, beef up the F.B.I.'s ability to crack private encryption codes and support private efforts to develop high quality encryption to stop illegal eavesdropping. Those steps will improve communications security and will not put Government law officers in corporate boardrooms, open E-mail to instant wiretaps or send foreign customers toward European and Asian software firms. [End]

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FER_mat
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

12-16-96. NYP Book review: Fermat's Last Theorem: Unlocking the Secret of an Ancient Mathematical Problem By Amir D. Aczel The world has many worlds, with the priestly cult of mathematicians, so mystifyingly and inaccessible to most people, among the more esoterically interesting of them. Aczel describes the intrigue and double-dealing in the international world of mathematical speculation, some of which involves Andrew Wile's proof of Fermat's theorem. ----- FER_mat ---------- The NYP reported on Wile's proof in January, 1995: http://jya.com/fermhak.txt (15 kb) FERM_hak

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SAV_eit
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

12-16-96. NYP: "Global Debate Over Treaties On Copyright" Given the overwhelming domestic objections to most of the treaty proposals, the obvious questions are: Who does support them? And why is the United States pushing so hard for them in Geneva? In fact, the main beneficiaries of the new copyright rules are the highest-stake copyright holders: rich, politically powerful entertainment and media conglomerates, which fear that pirated material will destroy the lucrative international market for products that can be digitally copied and distributed globally. In the digital world, computer software companies are already effectively using various data encryption technologies to protect their products for distribution over the network. And if progress to date is any indication, these technologies will become even more sophisticated and effective over time. ----- SAV_eit

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Re: ITARs effects
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

azur(a)netcom.com (Steve Schear) writes: > >Adam Shostack writes: > [snip] > > In my case the > >government's lawyer has made it quite clear that they would consider > >putting cryptographic software on a web site as a violation, and I > >don't think that for this purpose there is any distinction either in > >the government's mind or in reality between an FTP site and a web > >site. > > > > These changes are all aimed at making it harder to make money from strong > crypto and therefore reduce its common availability worldwide. They do > little to keep it from circulating worlwide, what ever its country of > origin as anonymous posting to a newsgroup is still straightforward. > > Look for more shareware and commercial crypto source to circulate in > printed, rather than machine-readable, form to take advantage of freedom of > speech rules. > > -- Steve >From the proposed regs: ----------------------- 16. Section 734.7 is amended by revising paragraph (b) to read as follows: 734.7 Published information and software. * * * * * Accordingly, such encryption software in both source code and object code remains subject to the EAR even if published in a book or any other writing or media. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ------------------------ Peter Trei trei(a)Process.com

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fwd: e-mail for free children's books for hospitals (fwd)
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded this anonymously so as not to get flames for being OFF Subject. Spread the spirit of Christmas :-) > --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- > From: Janet_Alfermann%TCI_DALLAS(a)trinityconsultants.com > To: James_McDonald(a)radian.com, > GARDNER.MINDY@epamail.epa.gov,kelemetcsl@bv.com, eriqe(a)aol.com, > ericscheier@worldnet.att.net,Denise_Ratcliff@mgind.com,CN=KNICKREHM.DENISE_A/O=Trinity_Consultants@KANSAS-CITY.VA.GOV,jumisch@cris.com, > stelzer(a)tannalum.attmail.com, effland@juno.com,kopecky@sky.net, > tjalfer(a)is.usmo.com, pderner@umr.edu,jderner@marvin.ecc.cc.mo.us, > eckelkac@river.it.gvsu.edu,gg14stu@semovm.semo.edu, > Laura.Dulle@anheuser-busch.com,rseggelk@redwood.DN.HAC.COM, > rebecca.light@qm.sprintcorp.com,michelle_wilde_at_NIL001@ccmailgw.mcgawpark.baxter.com,redingers@earthlink.net, > spring@terra.geology.indiana.edu,schroedp@mail.olathe.k12.ks.us, > kupneski.mj(a)pg.com, plutz(a)umr.edu > Subject: Please read > Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 14:22:45 -0500 > Message-ID: <862563FF:006DB8EA.00@mail.trinityconsultants.com> > > > > > > Christmas spirit INTERNET style. > > The Houghton-Mifflin publishing co. is giving books to children's > hospitals; how many books they give depends on how many emails they > receive from people around the world. For every 25 emails they > receive, they give one book--it seems like a great way to help a good > cause. > > All you have to do is email share(a)hmco.com. > > Hope you can spare the seconds...and let your friends know. So far > they only have 3, 400 messages...last year they reached 23,000. > > Merry Christmas > > > > > --------- End forwarded message ---------- > > > --

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Zerofaith/Mail Bomb (fwd)
by Michael H. Warfield 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

All... flagg(a)nlights.net enscribed thusly: > From nlights.net!flagg Mon Dec 16 02:56:39 1996 > Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 23:57:28 -0800 > From: flagg(a)nlights.net > Message-Id: <TCPSMTP.16.12.15.-9.57.28.2446633616.3387407(a)nlights.net> > Subject: Zerofaith/Mail Bomb > To: mhw(a)wittsend.com > After examining the header to the email bomb you recieved, it was > determined that the person was not "MARLA ESTES" but a user named > "Eradicator". The date is off by one day in the header file, check it > out, (though we do keep logs of the ppp logons). Well... I was close... :-) Only excuse I've got for missing that one little detail is that it was late... Good thing she didn't have a message pop-up. Hate collateral damage. > Eradicators account was removed as well as "Zerofaiths" and another > alias he hides under, "Kobra". This was quick action after we had managed to identify roughly where the nonsense was originating. These guys did good. > If you have any questions, feel free to call me voice at 206-259-6417, > or email back. I have no problem giving out the information we have to > you. > Mike Carpenter > Delivered from Northern Lights BBS, Everett, WA. Mike -- Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | mhw(a)WittsEnd.com (The Mad Wizard) | (770) 925-8248 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/ NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471 | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!

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List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/~raph/premail.html For the PGP public keys of the remailers, finger pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{"extropia"} = "<remail(a)miron.vip.best.com> cpunk pgp special"; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{'alpha'} = '<alias(a)alpha.c2.org> alpha pgp'; $remailer{'nymrod'} = '<nymrod(a)nym.jpunix.com> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"lead"} = "<mix(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"exon"} = "<remailer(a)remailer.nl.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"haystack"} = "<haystack(a)holy.cow.net> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"lucifer"} = "<lucifer(a)dhp.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"balls"} = "<remailer(a)huge.cajones.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"middle"} = "<middleman(a)jpunix.com> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"dustbin"} = "<dustman(a)athensnet.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek mix reord middle ?"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"death"} = "<x(a)deathsdoor.com> cpunk pgp hash latent post"; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. remailer(a)crynwr.com is _not_ a remailer. There is no remailer at relay.com. Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator: (cyber mix) (weasel squirrel) The alpha and nymrod nymservers are down due to abuse. However, you can use the nym or weasel (newnym style) nymservers. The cyber nymserver is quite reliable for outgoing mail (which is what's measured here), but is exhibiting serious reliability problems for incoming mail. The squirrel and winsock remailers accept PGP encrypted mail only. 403 Permission denied errors have been caused by a flaky disk on the Berkeley WWW server. This seems to be fixed now. The penet remailer is closed. Last update: Mon 16 Dec 96 6:49:25 PST remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca ************ 14:59 99.98% lead mix(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu -++-+++*++++ 41:38 99.98% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net +*+******+** 32:02 99.96% lucifer lucifer(a)dhp.com ++++++++++++ 34:51 99.93% middle middleman(a)jpunix.com ------+----+ 2:57:46 99.90% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net ------------ 2:57:37 99.88% haystack haystack(a)holy.cow.net *#**+ *-++* 11:55 99.58% exon remailer(a)remailer.nl.com +########* * 2:36 99.51% replay remailer(a)replay.com -- -+**+*+- 32:21 99.43% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de ++++ ++++++ 1:18:02 99.22% weasel config(a)weasel.owl.de ++-+-++++ + 1:19:04 99.08% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net ------ -..- 7:21:13 98.40% dustbin dustman(a)athensnet.com -+++++ ++ .+ 3:00:38 98.13% balls remailer(a)huge.cajones.com #****+****** 27:28 93.99% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com -._.-.-++* 8:44:55 92.01% nym config(a)nym.alias.net #*###+#*#+ 2:53 84.35% extropia remail(a)miron.vip.best.com . --__.. 25:50:51 79.18% History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

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RE: !! Point 'n Crypt -- Win95 Privacy for Everyone !!
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Walt Armour <walt(a)blarg.net> > To: "'Matthew Ghio'" <ghio(a)myriad.alias.net> > Cc: "cypherpunks(a)toad.com" <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> > Subject: RE: !! Point 'n Crypt -- Win95 Privacy for Everyone !! > Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 22:30:23 -0800 > There is no arguing that 40 bits is strong security. I agree with that. [...] > As for security, the current release of PnC is primarily targetting > privacy, not security. They are two very similar but different approaches. > 40 bits is sufficient to encrypt files and keep them away from friends, > family and coworkers (unless you work at the NSA). The point of Point 'n > Crypt is to attempt to make encryption technology easily useable and > widespread. If anything you have is of such a nature that 40 bits isn't > enough protection then by all means don't use PnC (at least not this > version :). [...] > later, > walt Would you mind telling us just how you expand the 40 key to the 56 bits needed for DES? (Security through obscurity has a bad rep on this list). For many methods of doing so, 40bit DES is NOT secure against a motivated individual's attack. Peter Trei trei(a)process.com

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Re: Would you send money to Gary Rasmussen ?
by pjb＠ny.ubs.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

i have done a lot of business with Gary in the past, and recommend him without reservations. -paul > From cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com Fri Dec 13 18:15:33 1996 > Date: Fri, 13 Dec 96 19:54:50 GMT > From: peter.allan(a)aeat.co.uk (Peter M Allan) > To: 75542.1003(a)compuserve.com, cypherpunks(a)toad.com, jimg(a)mentat.com > Subject: Would you send money to Gary Rasmussen ? > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Content-Length: 1344 > > > > > > Gary Rasmussen (RagyR(a)aol.com) replies to me as below: > > Have people got a view on the second question ? I've had > no contact with Gary before and he may very well be honest; > but there's proper trust and there's stupidity. > > > Hi Peter, > > > > > I'm looking for Kahn's book. Have you an acccurate price now? > > > > A lot of copies (about 100) have been sold since .... > > > > > > > (And is there anyone I'd know who'd suggest I send you money ?!) > > > > Good question, but very hard to answer since I don't know who you > > know. Can tell you that I operate Classical Crypto Books primarily as > > a service for other members of the ACA. Two possible references are > > the current and past ACA presidents: > > > > jimg(a)mentat.com (Jim Gillogly, ACA President 1996-1998) > > 75542.1003(a)CompuServe.COM (Randy Nichols, ACA President 1994-1996) > > > > Operating CCB is not my main occupation (by day I'm a scientist working > > for MIT's Lincoln Lab). Can also say proudly that in 1.5 years of operating > > CCB I haven't had any complaints. > > > > Please let me know if you have other questions or would like a complete > > copy of the CCB catalog. > > > > Best Wishes, > > Gary Rasmussen > > Classical Crypto Books >

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