December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Fortune, 3 Feb
by Mike McNally 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Big article in Fortune about e-mail privace. One little paragraph about encryption ("scrambling"). Fairly clue-free overall, but entertaining. -- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Mike McNally -- Egregiously Pointy -- Tivoli Systems, "IBM" -- Austin mailto:m5@tivoli.com mailto:m101@io.com http://www.io.com/~m101 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, On Mon, 3 Feb 1997, Timothy C. May wrote: > Unfortunately, Sandy responded to my post with his own flames ("piffle," > "disingenous," "straw man," etc.). Now he may well think his points are not > flames becuase they are "true," but to me they take the form of flames. But they are not ad hominem attacks on Tim May. The are my opinions of some of his arguments. Even very smart people such as Tim say poorly thought out or even silly things. > But then I have long disliked Sandy's method of argument. Nothing personal. But Nor I, Tim's. Nothing personal, but that's the point. It is still possible to conduct ourselves with mutual respect even if our views and styles differ. > As Sandy did a too-common section-by-section disssection, I'll do the same > for his comments. After reading through Tim's post, I don't think much would be served by doing another point by point response. From Tim's tone, it appears he is still seething about how this all came about, so I'll just leave our two expressions of opinions where they were. I have no wish to exacerbate any hard feelings Tim may be having. S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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GAK cracking?
by tmcghan＠gill-simpson.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just days after a U.S. graduate student cracked the most powerful computer encryption system allowed out of the country, the Commerce Department announced it would allow three companies to export an even stronger system. Until this year, computer encryption programs, which scramble information and render it unreadable without a password or software "key," were classified as munitions and stronger programs could not be exported. But under a controversial new Clinton administration policy that took effect Jan. 1, companies may receive permission to export stronger programs. "I'm happy that we've been able to do this within the first month without rancor or difficulty," Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration William Reinsch told Reuters in a telephone interview. To export stronger programs immediately, companies must agree to incorporate features within two years allowing the government to decode encrypted messages by recovering the software keys, however. The administration's policy has been widely criticized as not relaxing the export limits enough and some companies feared the requirement for a two-year plan would substantially delay export approvals. The quick approvals should quell some of the criticism and encourage more applicants, Reinsch said. "As a result of this, you will have more companies taking it seriously and we will expect more plans over the next couple of months," he said. Encryption was once the realm of spies and generals. But with the explosion of online commerce on the Internet, encryption has become a vital tool for protecting everything from a business' email message to a consumer's credit card number sent over the net. The amount of protection afforded by encryption is largely a function of the length of the software key measured in bits, the smallest unit of computer data. Companies said products with just 40-bit long keys, the old limit, were too easy to crack. The approvals came just days after Ian Goldberg, a graduate student at the University of California, cracked a message encoded with a software key 40-bits long. The government did not name the companies given permission to export stronger, 56-bit programs, but Glenwood, Md.,-based Trusted Information Systems acknowledged that it was one of the three.

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by tmcghan＠gill-simpson.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

on or about: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 14:51:47 -0800 in a message allegedly from: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> {snip} > the really important issue is this: is the _physical hosting_ of the > Cypherpunks mailing list coterminous with the "Cypherpunks"? { much thoughtful and well-phrased commentary elided } > I would have had no problem had John announced that he was creating > a new list, the "Good Stuff" list, with Sandy has his Chooser of > Good Stuff. > But by making the _main list_ the censored one, this skewed things > considerably. > * Why, many reasonable people may ask, did I not simply unsubscribe > from the "Cypherpunks" list and subscribe to the"Cypherpunks-Unedited) >(or whatever it is called) list? Because of my overall anger > But the clear message by having Sandy censor the > main list (the default list, the list name with the main name, the > list we all know about, etc.) {snip} Now that the horse is out of the barn, ( or maybe not? ), I can't help but ask whether one specific 'change to the change' would have satisfied most of your objections: retaining 'cypherpunks' as the name of the unedited, all-the-crud-you-can-read-and-then-some, version, and adding an 'cp-worthwhile' list for those of us who prefer not to wade thru mountains of garbage to glean a few precious tidbits. What's in a name? Is perception more important ( to you ) than reality? If just swapping names between cp and cp-unedited would make such a large difference, I humbly suggest to you that you consider how much labels need to matter. Is the title of the group more important the the content? From where I sit, this looks a lot like a style-over-substance complaint. Of course, I don't have my trifocals on just at the moment. It may also be worth noting that the current 'status quo' is a transient experiment, with a fairly short time limit. When JG, Sandy, et al. evaluate the results with an eye to future direction(s), they may well consider an 'inverted default' for the two list names (i.e.: cp / cp-unedited) In any event, please accept my .02 in the spirit in which it is intended ( constructive criticism ). /* */

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Re: PCS Encryption?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I was under the impression that Fortezza was ok for classified >traffic. Did I miss the changeover, was it unannounced, or was I >simply misremembering? Fortezza now comes in several implementations for various, variable and multiple levels of classification and message handling. There is info on latest mani-dexterous products at NSA's armadillo and missi sites. If you don't want to be logged by NSA, see the Mykronyx bouquet at: http://jya.com/fortezza.htm To be sure, you might get logged anyway: jya.com may have been approved by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for a snoop.

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Patrick May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy Sandfort writes: [ . . . ] > On Sun, 2 Feb 1997, Timothy C. May wrote: [ . . . ] > > Fourth, it sent a message to enemies of liberty that "Even the > > Cypherpunks have found it necessary to abandon their anarchic > > ways." > > That's one message that one could take from all this, I suppose. > I don't see it that way, nor do several list members who thanked > me in private e-mail for improving the list. Again, YMMV. This is the strongest point in Mr. May's essay, and it is not easily dismissed as a difference in perspective. I admit to looking forward to the moderation experiment when it was announce; the noise on the list was phenomenal even by cypherpunk standards. My procmail filters were approaching the level of complexity required for self-awareness and the ASCII art still slipped through. Plus, I generally agree with Mr. Sandfort's positions. The point above demonstrates that support of the current solution is not rationally justified. Banning people from the list, however ineffectually, and imposing moderation on the main list, rather than offering another filtering service, does indeed support the thesis that even a virtual anarchic society must resort to a central authority to solve some problems. The moderation mechanism is the message. > What didn't work was "local filtering" which has no feed-back > loop to engender comity. This is a strong rebuttal. The primary affect of local filtering is that posts which are filtered do not garner as many responses as those which are not. This feedback is swamped by the tendency of filtered messages to generate flames from those who do not filter them. Filtered sublists are a more effective technique, available to non-technical subscribers as well. Some of the more advanced tools discussed here, such as collaborative filtering, rating schemes, etc. have potential if the ease-of-use barriers can be overcome. A cryptoanarchic solution, however, should be technical and individual. Centralized human moderation does not have the cypherpunk nature. Regards, Patrick May

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by tmcghan＠gill-simpson.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

on or about: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 14:51:47 -0800 in a message allegedly from: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> {snip} > the really important issue is this: is the _physical hosting_ of the > Cypherpunks mailing list coterminous with the "Cypherpunks"? { much thoughtful and well-phrased commentary elided } > I would have had no problem had John announced that he was creating > a new list, the "Good Stuff" list, with Sandy has his Chooser of > Good Stuff. > But by making the _main list_ the censored one, this skewed things > considerably. > * Why, many reasonable people may ask, did I not simply unsubscribe > from the "Cypherpunks" list and subscribe to the"Cypherpunks-Unedited) >(or whatever it is called) list? Because of my overall anger > But the clear message by having Sandy censor the > main list (the default list, the list name with the main name, the > list we all know about, etc.) {snip} Now that the horse is out of the barn, ( or maybe not? ), I can't help but ask whether one specific 'change to the change' would have satisfied most of your objections: retaining 'cypherpunks' as the name of the unedited, all-the-crud-you-can-read-and-then-some, version, and adding an 'cp-worthwhile' list for those of us who prefer not to wade thru mountains of garbage to glean a few precious tidbits. What's in a name? Is perception more important ( to you ) than reality? If just swapping names between cp and cp-unedited would make such a large difference, I humbly suggest to you that you consider how much labels need to matter. Is the title of the group more important the the content? From where I sit, this looks a lot like a style-over-substance complaint. Of course, I don't have my trifocals on just at the moment. It may also be worth noting that the current 'status quo' is a transient experiment, with a fairly short time limit. When JG, Sandy, et al. evaluate the results with an eye to future direction(s), they may well consider an 'inverted default' for the two list names (i.e.: cp / cp-unedited) In any event, please accept my .02 in the spirit in which it is intended ( constructive criticism ). /* */

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swiss buy centralized euro-smartcard system
by Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.hotwired.com/staff/pointcast/Features/1814.html A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.

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Re: PGP 2.1
by wlkngowl＠unix.asb.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 3 Feb 1997 10:46:20 -0500, you wrote: >Mark Henderson wrote: >> >> Larry Johnson writes: >> > Hello, >> > Can any;one tell me how to get a version of PGP 2.1? >> > Thanks >> > >> But, why do you want version 2.1? >Because the guy who wrote it was let off after that on his jail Phil Zimmerman? >charges, so I'm not going to use anything he made after that if No, the charges were not "jail charges". They were for exporting munitions. He was let off after 2.5 or 2.6. The urban myth is that 2.3a is safe. You can read the source code yourself. 2.6.2 is fine. Older versions actually have some minor bugs. >I don't know why. >I'm not saying that he rolled over or nothin buyt I'm gonna be >paranoyd like he said in the book. I dont suposse he'd mind, >since he said it. You'd be using a version with holes in it. Why not read the source code of the new version and verify it's security yourself? (If you can't undertsand it, it won't matter which version you're using because you're trusting it no matter what.) >I'm not real smart sometimes but I'nm not a real lamer, either. >(I don't think) Well, start thinking.... Rob ----- "The word to kill ain't dirty | Robert Rothenburg (WlkngOwl(a)unix.asb.com) I used it in the last line | http://www.asb.com/usr/wlkngowl/ but use a short word for lovin' | Se habla PGP: Reply with the subject and dad you wind up doin' time." | 'send pgp-key' for my public key.

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No Subject
by Krenn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Mark Henderson wrote: > > > > Larry Johnson writes: > > > Hello, > > > Can any;one tell me how to get a version of PGP 2.1? > > > Thanks > > > > > But, why do you want version 2.1? > > Because the guy who wrote it was let off after that on his jail > charges, so I'm not going to use anything he made after that if > I don't know why. > I'm not saying that he rolled over or nothin buyt I'm gonna be > paranoyd like he said in the book. I dont suposse he'd mind, > since he said it. > I'm not real smart sometimes but I'nm not a real lamer, either. > (I don't think) > No, you're not real smart. The source code is _provided_ with PGP. If you are paranoid, _read_ it. Krenn

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