December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: FBI=LIE
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/fbi-lab.html: > The World Trade Center bomb was made of urea-nitrate, a compound > that can be confused with non-explosive mixtures of the same > ingredients. In an informal internal check of lab procedures, some > senior FBI lab workers mixed human urine with fertilizer and added > samples of that non-explosive mixture to the flow of material being > tested by the chemistry unit. A manager in the chemistry lab > identified the urine-fertilizer mixture as an explosive. Just coincidentally, these errors imprison the innocent instead of freeing the guilty. > Still, Joseph E. DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, > said the issues raised in the report would allow defendants to > contest lab findings against them and would permit people convicted > of crimes to attempt to reopen their cases, based on the possibility > of flawed forensic evidence. > "It's going to be a royal pain in the neck for federal judges and > prosecutors and a godsend for defense attorneys looking for a means > of getting their clients off," he said Why not "proving their innocence"? A prosecutor - and one who does not respect our legal tradition of presumed innocence - is not a good choice for a quote here. Nowhere in the entire article is there evidence that the reporters talked to anyone outside the FBI/Justice Department milieu. > Scientists at the lab said they were often stifled in a lab run by > non-technical field agents who had little knowledge of science and > who regularly altered reports to help prosecutors. But law > enforcement officials said there was little evidence that anyone had > been wrongly convicted based on improper lab work. Why isn't this the story? FBI agents regularly committed perjury, and we see a story about lab errors. Elliot Ness

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Re: Fighting the cybercensor
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think that with the demise of Mr Bell and anyone running a remailer there would be an end to his scheme pretty quickly. Society is not bound to put up with cranks and psychopaths. there is no right to anonymously call for murder. The authorities could easily stop Bells scheme. The point I was making is that it is not consistent as claimed. Phill

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Complying with the EAR [was: More Circumventing the ITAR]
by Michael Paul Johnson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997, Mark Rosen wrote: > I'm curious as to exactly what the ITAR/EAR/Whatever says specifically > about "unrestricted FTP sites." My program, Kremlin, is available for You should check the exact text yourself, but the way I read the EAR, you are not "exporting" strong cryptographic software without a license (exept to Canada, which needs no license) if you do things "such as" (1) have the guests to your site acknowledge that the EAR restricts export, (2) have the guests affirm that they can legally get the software (proper citizenship or residency & location), and (3) "check the address of the destination computer to see if it is in the USA" or Canada. The last one, I interpret rather loosely to mean that if the guest's email address domain isn't one commonly used in the USA or Canada, then I deny access. We all know that not all .com addresses are North American, but chances are really good that if the address ends in .ru, then the destination machine is probably not in North America. This is not a perfect way to prevent export, of course, but it is what the regulations say, as I read them. For a pointer to the regulations and to my access request form and crypto site, see http://www.sni.net/~mpj/crypto.htm Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and most lawyers don't even understand this stuff, so you read and act on it at your own risk. This is just my best effort to comply with the law without sacrificing my right to publish. > download at the web page below. On my web page, I have some stuff in bold > print that informs about the ITAR and tells people to go away if they're > not from the US or Canada. Does this count as an unrestricted FTP site? Is there any reason why people have to look at your warning before reading your warning? At my site, the ftp site itself is in a hidden directory that changes names often enough that people can't successfully link to the restricted files for very long without going through my warning page. Indeed, my site can't be navigated and indexed properly by web search robots. At your site, it is extremely likely that someone would find your software without ever seeing your warning. Indeed, your software is on another server with another interface. I think that your site counts as unrestricted. > Also, back to the question of registration numbers. A registration number > is just a string of letters and numbers, and is essentially the same as a > friendly letter; it contains no cryptographic code. For all anyone knows, I > could just be charging for pseudo-random numbers, again, nothing of > cryptographic significance. Is it illegal for me to mail someone outside of > the US or Canada a registration code? Thanks for any help. The registration code is legally equivalent to the registered software that it unlocks. Sending the registration code to France, for example, would be likely to be considered the same as sending the registered software to France (in violation of the laws of both countries). Now if the "unregistered" software is weak (i. e. crippled key length) without the registration code, you need not worry about posting it publicly and without restriction, as long as you don't export the registration code (except to Canada) without a license. I do this with Quicrypt (ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/qcrypt11.zip) BTW, I posted krem104.zip at my site. Please let me know if I mangled it in the process... http://www.sni.net/~mpj/crypto.htm Michael Paul Johnson Opinions herein are not necessarily Exabyte's. Work: mpj(a)exabyte.com http://www.exabyte.com Personal: mpj(a)csn.net http://www.csn.net/~mpj BBS 303-772-1062

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Physician, Heal Thyself!
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If I say I doubt this message will make into the "Approved By Sandy" list, it perhaps will, but my very mention of this may mean Fearless Leader will then chuck it into his Reject pile, but then.... Our Founder wrote: #Silly things happen when one responds literally to an obvious #metaphor. (see, "analogy.") See "sarcasm." Once again, Sandy flames, but calls it erudition. He uses sophistry to explain why *his* flames are actually just "corrections". #Nonsense. Richard may have read my response on the Unedited list #and Paul post on the Moderated list, but I sent my response to #Nope, wrong again. I referenced sophistry and hypocracy. I #leave the significance of the difference as an exercise to the #student. (Hint: one is an argument to the man, the other isn't.) More pointless sarcasm. This is the stuff Sandy would presumably dump into his "not fit for True Cypherpunks" pile, except that he wrote it, and so it is by definition approved. Utter hypocrisy. #And wrong yet again. Not a personal attack but commentary on #wooly thinking. Remember children, "If it comes from Sandy and appears to be a flame, it really isn't. It is just a comment on "woolly thinking."" #> One might wonder just what the rules of proper decorum are. #One might read my posts on this point and pay attention. And I urge our Enlightened Leader to take his own medicine. Stop flaming the list and calling it mere commentary. Xanthar -- --

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Re: Trigger-Words...
by harka＠nycmetro.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In> harka(a)nycmetro.com writes: >does anybody know any contact points/Web pages, where I might get >some information on e-mail filtering via trigger-words? I am >interested in how this technology specifically works and a >acollection of trigger-words would be nice too :) Actually, I might not have chosen the correct words for what I wanted... I am looking for sniffer-programs, that analyze e-mail traffic on the Net and filtering out all e-mails potentially interesting for _intelligence services_. For example, I've heard, that if an e-mail contains the words: "assassinate President" (DISCLAIMER: I hope, our President lives a long and happy life, even after his impeachment...:)), it will automatically get filtered and checked out by the Secret Service. Different intelligence agencies might have similar things in place. Where could I get some more information about that? Thanks in advance... Ciao Harka /*************************************************************/ /* This user supports FREE SPEECH ONLINE ...more info at */ /* and PRIVATE ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS! --> http://www.eff.org */ /* E-mail: harka(a)nycmetro.com (PGP-encrypted mail preferred) */ /* PGP public key available upon request. [KeyID: 04174301] */ /* F-print: FD E4 F8 6D C1 6A 44 F5 28 9C 40 6E B8 94 78 E8 */ /*<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>*/ /* May there be peace in this world, may all anger dissolve */ /* and may all living beings find the way to happiness... */ /*************************************************************/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAgUBMunaiDltEBIEF0MBAQHVFAf/TbYVKOSoH4G0GRaHcJJDREUbzkr4nczs Vi7EMagZci3FRx0atVAkMz4GNwBYCf5CJdnDTIR7tOADs1OamMIRhsGV00r3ZbCB dAWTKbjKcXHno+Eztmelk9P5F50ryP2B25mjWT2CJDTZqyml6Bhe5AW8K0lSDPfw AHCGPk701pXB62POXf2rwccQusOFAMaR4X/44xcOdamrWBsKJKaE1Sz/wvzvzxob 7t8Dh7x48oEgMQ68cQz2luZlZlIUzHV3x0npZNetYbEzRTKMEITXfKqzb0iG8pfD r1K13Jlr4Li93f59OKci5Rrz6eiCIvXlII9w4o2ejYJp8EPZdNsTKg== =Mh6f -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption...

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Workaround for filtering/cybersitter
by Mark Rogaski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If I had experience with Netscape plugins and spare time, I'd try it myself. But here's my proposed solution. A plugin in Netscape intercepts all requests, encrypt the URL with a pubkey algorithm, encode the string base64, send it as GET input to a proxy server. The proxy server decodes and decrypts the URL, gets the requested page, and returns it. This beats out URL-based filtering. Still need to figure out the specifics of key-exchange. If we use 40-bit encryption, it's exportable, and it still works in our threat model (ie. we don't care if the watchers figure out the URL a few hours later). To beat out dropping packets with unacceptable pattern in them, we could use an SSL-based server as the proxy. The plugin could even have a nice little on/off switch and a list list of available proxies. mark -- [] Mark Rogaski || "Computers save time like kudzu [] [] wendigo(a)pobox.com || prevents soil erosion." [] [] http://www.pobox.com/~wendigo/ || - afcasta(a)texas.net [] [] >> finger for PGP pubkey << || []

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Re: Fighting the cybercensor
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think that with the demise of Mr Bell and anyone running a remailer there would be an end to his scheme pretty quickly. Society is not bound to put up with cranks and psychopaths. there is no right to anonymously call for murder. The authorities could easily stop Bells scheme. The point I was making is that it is not consistent as claimed. Phill

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PGP Key Preview...
by harka＠nycmetro.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi there, is there a way to preview the contents of a received public key, without adding it automatically to the public key ring? Thanks a lot in advance... Ciao Harka /*************************************************************/ /* This user supports FREE SPEECH ONLINE ...more info at */ /* and PRIVATE ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS! --> http://www.eff.org */ /* E-mail: harka(a)nycmetro.com (PGP-encrypted mail preferred) */ /* PGP public key available upon request. [KeyID: 04174301] */ /* F-print: FD E4 F8 6D C1 6A 44 F5 28 9C 40 6E B8 94 78 E8 */ /*<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>*/ /* May there be peace in this world, may all anger dissolve */ /* and may all living beings find the way to happiness... */ /*************************************************************/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAgUBMunrbjltEBIEF0MBAQEisgf+OBS8Q06g3pNfKgntaKQdCkHyLXZWHjI7 hOnVeF47C0qgsFjEEymnrQMl4b1l2zcRgqUKTY8jXhmaY6yeGcoRXc5hgo1679MY l+7BTNKIy2YTnzjhFk5bOKXk6V9DDWfq4chhCE2dpEVdUgRPVTfkfbm5VEN+zmn8 gaXyIf/bYv5GEs2F/FPc1kTmySx/NT5CvbvQRHaQdfEDk+QatnRjRLSsprln8cnt vxqZO9a6lveygA/wECPdx1gnHBhrscUeaLHIXz4YVVaSMrkEHJfLWOrzQHg2CGwQ o5OcKmuY0FcvzfpS2Yo0/lA8+/Ez83yUAdeEeY+yF7p2XgrLaOiFnw== =o/jO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption...

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exporting stego
by Syntel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just a quickie, Does the present ITAR / DoC regulations cover the export of Steganography programs? thanks Steveo

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"Meeks Unfiltered" on ISP-TV Wednesday nights
by ISP-TV Main Contact 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

*** ISP-TV Program Announcement: "Meeks Unfiltered" *** Wednesday Nights *** *** 8:00 PM ET *** If you missed "Meeks Unfiltered" last week, you missed how easy it was to intercept cell phone calls, the recent decision on the Phil Karn encryption case, and electronic freedom in Hong Kong as it is taken over by China. Don't miss "Meeks Unfiltered" this week! Brock N. Meeks is the publisher of the 800,000 subscriber CyberWire Dispatch electronic news service, and he brings his crusading style into real-time Internet video with "Meeks Unfiltered." The live uncensored hour-long show, produced and distributed through ISP-TV, explores cyberspace and cyberpolitics Wednesdays at 8 PM Eastern Time. Call-in questions will be taken during the show at (301) 847-6571. Tell Brock and co-host Declan McCullagh what you think! **** This video interview can be viewed on the ISP-TV main CU-SeeMe reflector at IP 205.197.248.54, or other ISP-TV affiliate reflectors listed at http://www.digex.net/isptv/members.html. See URL http://www.digex.net/isptv for more information about the ISP-TV Network To obtain Enhanced CU-SeeMe software, go to: http://goliath.wpine.com/cudownload.htm

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