December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: INV_ade
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

# Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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Re: Server Authentication
by Eric Murray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Frantz writes: > > I recently came aware of an interesting problem in server authentication. > I.e. How does a browser plugin validate the server it is working for. > There are many reasons for a plugin to want to validate its web server > including contractual relations, but the one that most appeals to me is > that the plugin provides access to confidential data which is used in an > application distributed between the client machine and the server. Since > the data is confidential, the plugin doesn't want to send it to just any > server who can serve up a web page in the correct format, so it needs to > authenticate the server. > > Now the obvious way to validate the server would be through the > certificates exchanged when the SSL session was set up. (I am assuming a > SSL session here because you shouldn't send confidential data over a > non-encrypted link.) However, I haven't found an API where the plugin can > discover the certificate used by the server, so it appears you have to roll > your own. I think that you can get access to the server's certificate. I know you can from the CGI interface. Unfortunately it's the raw ASN.1 encoded certificate, so you would have to ASN.1 decode it. Bleah. If the SSL handshake completes, then you can assume that the client has verified and authenticated the server certificate. The only problem would be that the authentication might not be up to the plugin's standards- i.e. a connection to www.foo.com is somehow intercepted by www.ripoff-plugins.com. The server www.ripoff-plugins.com presents a cert who's name is www.foo.com. The browser correctly presents a pop-up dialog noting the discrepancy, and the luser operating the client clicks on the 'OK' button, allowing the SSL handshake to finish. Oops.

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Re: Keyword scanning/speech recognition
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:34 AM 1/19/97, pgut001(a)cs.auckland.ac.nz wrote: >I was talking to someone recently about the feasibilty of >keyword-scanning phone conversations. He thought it was probably still >beyond the reach of current technology, I thought it wasn't I'd guess it's in-between, and it depends a _lot_ on how error-tolerant you are - do you want to catch them _all_, or just reduce the set of tapes that you'll have humans listen to later, since you're trolling for leads but don't mind missing the occasional one? Speaker-dependent isolated-word recognition is pretty doable. Speaker-independent small-vocabulary isolated-word is also pretty good (though the AT&T calling-card bot does a better job when I read it numbers than when I rapidly tell it "calling card" early in its dialog.) Connected-word is a lot harder. But word-scanning isn't the only thing "They" would troll for - it's probably easier to look for possible matches for specific voices, since you don't have to be too accurate. You want to catch Big Joey's calls from Vinnie, but don't care about his wife's calls. Some of the problems are with modeling speech well enough to do good algorithms; some are just getting enough horsepower to do it in real time. Can "They" afford enough DSP chips to do the job? They certainly can't follow a significant fraction of domestic traffic, and probably not even of US-to-overseas international traffic, but they may be able to pick out calls to/from phones of usual suspects, at least if they're mainly trying to filter for what tapes to listen to. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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A Prayer For Swiss Banks
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This happened a year ago but I couldn't resist posting it in light of the current political attacks on the privacy of Swiss banks. MANILA, Philippines (Feb 24, 1996 9:45 p.m. EST) - Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos presided over a bizarre ceremony on Sunday to mark the 10th anniversary of the People's Power revolution that forced her and her corrupt husband into ignominious exile. Marcos -- notorious shopaholic, convicted criminal and now a legally elected member of the Philippine Congress -- asked God to bless Corazon Aquino and other leaders of the 1986 revolt. But she also asked the Almighty to enlighten Swiss bankers holding some of the estimated $5 billion the Marcoses and their cronies are accused of looting from the national economy. "May the Lord enlighten ... the Swiss banks -- that they might uphold justice and preserve the integrity of their own laws and the laws of confidentiality, trust and basic decency between the banks and their clients," she said in a speech. Two Swiss banks holding some $475 million linked to the Marcoses are currently embroiled in a row over what to do with the money. The Philippine government wants it back but a U.S. court has ordered it distributed to victims of human rights abuses during the late Ferdinand Marcos's 20 years in power. ***** DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQCVAgUBMuPAIIVO4r4sgSPhAQFhSQQAiLrFwcvR0CxiZDrG1f6RSysX8ypxe2y4 Az2MejxFj4ACZIw9lCN98pxRwM8QwEQnCo+RKpMEchurk1bx0EEK749+kxpccsw2 qi+VW1lhBLV38YyzAm0vRwK1pwsKuW/E0UjMOvfTfQynRljohiLvLxQDMJ4DQLHi qi+R9K2Gpr0= =wmjK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Quantum computers/Java of a different sort
by Mike McNally 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For all you quantum computer fans, see http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/html/970117c.htm -- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Mike McNally -- Egregiously Pointy -- Tivoli Systems, "IBM" -- Austin mailto:m5@tivoli.com mailto:m101@io.com http://www.io.com/~m101 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ To: java(a)tivoli.com Subject: ScienceNOW www.sciencenow.org From: jchou(a)tivoli.com Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 12:49:39 -0500 jchou(a)tivoli.com 01/20/97 12:49 PM An advance in Java computing... http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/html/970117c.htm <BASE HREF="http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/html/970117c.htm"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>ScienceNOW www.sciencenow.org</TITLE> <META NAME="ScienceNOW www.sciencenow.org"> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK="#004080" VLINK="#649FDB" TEXT="#000000"> <TABLE Border=0 Width=100%> <TR VALIGN="top" ALIGN="center"> <TD> <A HREF="/cgi/redirect-ad.cgi?journal=sciencenow&ad=Knight%20Ridder%20ScienceB ase%20-%20Fish&url=http://krscience.dialog.com/&side=only"><IMG BORDER=2 WIDTH=220 HEIGHT=40 SRC="/ads/gifs/845499541.CDATAKRFISH.GIF"ALT="Knight-Ridder ScienceBase"></A></TD> <TD> <A HREF="/cgi/redirect-ad.cgi?journal=sciencenow&ad=Hewlett-Packard&url=http:/ /www.hp.com/info/hpcag8&side=only"><IMG BORDER=2 WIDTH=220 HEIGHT=40 SRC="/ads/gifs/850239381.gif"ALT="Hewlett-Packard Chemical Analysis"></A></TD> </TABLE> <P> <TABLE Border=0 Cellspacing=0 Cellpadding=0> <TR VALIGN="top" ALIGN="center"> <TD><A HREF="../home.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-home.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Home" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="./newstips.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-news.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="News Tips" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../archives.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-arch.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Archives" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="./masthead.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-mast.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Masthead" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/science/scripts/feedback.pl"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-feed.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Feedback" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-sci.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Science Online" ></TD> </TABLE> <P> <TABLE Border=0 Cellspacing=0 Cellpadding=0> <TR> <TD WIDTH=100><A HREF="./970117b.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Prevstor.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Previous Story" ></A></TD> <TD WIDTH=100><A HREF="./970117d.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nextstor.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Next Story" ></A></TD></TR> </TABLE><P> <TABLE Width=100%> <TR> <TD WIDTH=100 ALIGN="center"><P><A HREF="/cgi/redirect-ad.cgi?journal=sciencenow&ad=SB:%20Science%20Online&url =http://science-mag.aaas.org/science/&side=only"><IMG BORDER=2 WIDTH=75 HEIGHT=75 SRC="/ads/gifs/845576920.CDATAONLINE2.GIF"ALT="Science Online"></A></TD> <TD WIDTH=100 ALIGN="center"><P><A HREF="/cgi/redirect-ad.cgi?journal=sciencenow&ad=SB:%20Next%20Wave&url=http ://www.nextwave.org/&side=only"><IMG BORDER=2 WIDTH=75 HEIGHT=75 SRC="/ads/gifs/845560987.CDATANXTWV1.GIF"ALT="Science's Next Wave"></A></TD> <TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="Center"><IMG HEIGHT=49 WIDTH=273 SRC="../assets/images/Scinowsm.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="ScienceNOW logo" ></TD></TR> </TABLE> <P ALIGN="RIGHT"><FONT SIZE="-1"> Friday, 17 January 1997, 7:00 p.m. </FONT></P><P ALIGN="Center"><FONT SIZE="+1"><STRONG> Quantum Computer in a Cup of Joe?<p> </STRONG></FONT></P> <p> Researchers have come up with a way to turn coffee and other mundane liquids into primitive quantum computers. The findings, reported in today's <i>Science</i> and in an upcoming issue of the <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</i>, suggest a new approach toward conquering the Mount Everest of computing: a quantum computer that in a few seconds could perform calculations that would take billions of years on an ordinary supercomputer.<p> <A NAME="image1"></A><P><HR> <IMG ALT="Illustration" BORDER=1 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=20 VSPACE=10 SRC="970117-2.gif"> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <STRONG>Fresh-brewed. </STRONG>A prototype tabletop NMR quantum computer, showing the circuitry and the radio-frequency coil.<P> <FONT SIZE=-2>JOSHUA SMITH</FONT><BR> <HR><P>The key is nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), a technique for manipulating and measuring the spins of atomic nuclei that is already a mainstay of medical imaging and chemical analysis. The up-or-down spin of nuclei offers the two-bit logic system that a computer needs. What makes a quantum computer special, however, is quantum parallelism. In the strange world of quantum mechanics, the spin of a nucleus can be in both states, representing both bits, at the same time. That property should permit a quantum computer to perform calculations on incredibly large numbers of bits at once. And Neil Gershenfeld of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Isaac Chuang of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a second team, Tim Havel and Amr Fahmy of Harvard Medical School and David Cory of MIT, have found that it's easier to achieve this parallelism by using NMR in an ordinary liquid than in the exotic systems researchers have tried so far.<p> Cory, Fahmy, and Havel have actually built quantum circuits using a standard NMR spectrometer, while Gershenfeld and Chuang are gearing up experiments and hope to demonstrate quantum circuits and maybe even a simple computation by next summer. What can be done now can be done with easily available and affordable equipment--"off-the-shelf coffee cups, off-the -shelf liquids, off-the-shelf magnets, etc.," says MIT computer scientist Seth Lloyd.<p> "This NMR scheme is pretty slick stuff, but in the long run, they're going to have to find a particularly special molecule or state that allows them to extend it to large numbers," says Chris Monroe of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.<p> Indeed, the researchers note that fundamental obstacles may prevent the scheme from ever producing a practical computer. But "from the point of view of verifying the basic ideas and doing interesting physics," says Lloyd, a pioneer theorist in quantum computing, "it's fantastic." For more details, <i>Science</i> Online subscribers can link to the <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/275/5298/307">News story</a> in today's <i>Science</i>.<p> <p> <P ALIGN="CENTER"><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/science/home/copyright.shtml"><FONT SIZE="-1">© 1997 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science</FONT></A></P> <TABLE Border=0 Cellspacing=0 Cellpadding=0> <TR> <TD WIDTH=100><A HREF="./970117b.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Prevstor.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Previous Story" ></A></TD> <TD WIDTH=100><A HREF="./970117d.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nextstor.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Next Story" ></A></TD></TR> </TABLE><P> <TABLE Border=0 Cellspacing=0 Cellpadding=0> <TR VALIGN="top" ALIGN="center"> <TD><A HREF="../home.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-home.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Home" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="./newstips.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-news.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="News Tips" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="../archives.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-arch.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Archives" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="./masthead.htm"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-mast.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Masthead" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/science/scripts/feedback.pl"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-feed.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Feedback" ></A></TD> <TD><A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/"><IMG HEIGHT=20 WIDTH=100 SRC="../assets/images/Nav-sci.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="Science Online" ></TD> </TABLE> </BODY></HTML>

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Re: Question on Diffie-Hellman patent
by Tim Dierks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:24 AM -0500 1/20/97, Amanda Walker wrote: >Please excuse if this is a FAQ. > >I'd been operating under the assumption that the Diffie-Hellman patent >(4200770) will expire on April 29, 1997 (17 years after the date of issue). >Several people have recently told me it doesn't expire until September, >evidently confusing the date of issue with the filing date. However, >does anyone know of another patent (Hellman-Merkle, perhaps?) that would hve >an impact on software that does D-H key exchange? We've got some planned >uses >of DH; while it doesn't seem cost effective to pay to license DH at this >point, that six-month difference is something I need to plan around if >necessary. As a result of the GATT treaty, patent expiration times for some US patents changed. The international standard is 20 years from filing, while old US law was 17 years from issue. On the day which GATT took force for the US (June 8, 1995), all outstanding patents' expiration dates were changed to 20 years from filing or 17 years from issue, whichever is later. This affects some cryptography patents as follows: Here's a summary of some relevant crypto patents: Name Number Filed Issued Expires Diffie-Hellman 4,200,770 Sept. 6, 1977 Apr. 29, 1980 Sept. 6, 1997 Hellman-Merkle 4,218,582 Oct. 6, 1977 Aug. 19, 1980 Oct. 6, 1997 RSA 4,405,829 Dec. 14, 1977 Sept. 20, 1983 Sept. 20, 2000 Data from <http://patents.cnidr.org/patbib_index.html> References: <http://www.lightlink.com/bbm/gatt.html> <http://www.cushman.com/articles/artpat10.htm> - Tim Tim Dierks - timd(a)consensus.com - www.consensus.com Software Haruspex - Consensus Development Developer of SSL Plus: SSL 3.0 Integration Suite

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Re: [Math Noise] (fwd)
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate <ravage(a)EINSTEIN.ssz.com> writes: > If infinity does not have predecessors (ie is immune to > normal arithmetic operations) then it is not possible for a > sequence to approach it by adding a finite amount to > succesive terms in order to approach it. This means that a > sequence can not meaningfuly be asymptotic with infinity > (meaning I have to be able to draw a asymptote, at least in > theory, in order to demonstrate the limit). > If infinity is not a number, how is it possible to have a > definite number (ie transfinite) which is larger than it? > My contention is that number theory as you present it is > playing fast and loose with the concept of infinity not > being a number or visa versa. The problem here is that the terms "infinity" and "number" are used to refer to many different things in mathematics. We use "infinity" as a term for transfinite Cardinals and Ordinals, but also use it when describing convergence on the reals, to indicate that a sequence increases without bound. We use it in calculus to describe the limits of integration over all real numbers, a set which does not include any infinite numbers at all. Similar we use the term "number" to refer to Cardinals, Ordinals, Reals, Integers, Complex, Quaternians, or whatever, hoping that what we mean by it will be clear from the context. With respect to the Real numbers, infinity is not a number, but simply a way of saying something increases without bound or that we wish to include all the positive or negative reals when performing some mathematical operation. With regard to Ordinals and Cardinals, not only is infinity a number, but there are an uncountable number of different infinities, which cannot be placed in 1-1 correspondence with each other. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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Re: INV_ade
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

# Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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DHM patent
by Richard Schroeppel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

re: A.Walker's query about expiration date of DH patent. (I'm not a lawyer: This is just my opinion. Get advice from a professional for making your business decisions.) A couple of years ago, as part of the legislation implementing the GATT treaty, Congress changed the patent lifetime. The old rule was 17 years from grant date; the new rule is 20 years from filing date. There were various transition rules; one was that holders of current patents could select either rule. Presumably they will choose the rule that gives the later expiration date. In the case of the DHM patent #4200770, this gives then a few more months, to Sept. 6 1997. Roger Schlafly has made a reasonable case that the DHM patent is invalid because the invention was "published" more than a year before the patent was filed. (He dug up a copy of a preprint they were circulating with a stamped received-date of ?May 1976?.) There is also a patent by Hellman & Merkle that seems to deal with the (busted) knapsack cryptosystem. It's number 4218582, filed Oct 6, 1977, granted Aug 19, 1980. My cursory reading shows that it includes the math both for knapsack crypto and for doing modular exponentiation. It might be a good idea to look this over to make sure it doesn't affect your plans. Rich Schroeppel rcs(a)cs.arizona.edu

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Disseminating public-key crypto source code
by Jon Orwant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've written a few Perl routines for public-key cryptography. I'd like to freely disseminate the source code (starting with ElGamal) to as many people as I can, It's my understanding that there are two orthogonal restrictions: 1) ITAResque: I can't give code to non-U.S. citizens. 2) PKPesque: Using public-key crypto is an infringement, although disseminating/possessing the source code is not. While I'm sure these are oversimplifications, it would seem that I can release my source code over the Internet provided I install a simple verification mechanism (cf. MIT's PGP distribution) to ensure that only people claiming to be U.S. citizens have access privileges. Am I correct? If so, why aren't more people doing this? Jon Orwant MIT Media Lab orwant(a)media.mit.edu

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