December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Libel, Times v. Sullivan
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Attila T. Hun, member of the Early Bird Consortium of Stray Cats, quoting from the Pages of History: did not the Magna Carta guarantee the right of free speech? Of course, there was not full suffrage at that time, but the Magna Carta is the basis of our common law. [and...] which gets down to just what the hell did my forefathers, and maybe yours, fight for in 1776 if it was not for freedom of speech and assembly, the right to bear arms, to be free from unreasonable search and seizure; and enjoy the protection of law? ................................................ Yes, if the Magna Carta guaranteed a right and the forefathers fought to secure it, why should any of us ever have to lift a finger in our own defense. My contribution to this thread from the Cpunk History & Philosophy Division: a Jewish saying from a book I glanced through of couple of weeks ago, something like: "What good is it to a man who has lost his sight that his ancestors had perfect vision." .. Blanc

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Re: Cyphernomicon by Tim May
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

blanc wrote: > From: Toto > Hm, well, what's an anarchist to do about other people's psychological > makeup? Hold up a mirror. > Not that I'm condoning centralized management, but I bet I could flame > anyone pretty good yet by-pass the moderator. It's all in the style, you > know. Some people are very delicate about what offends them - I know I > could get on some particular people's nerves any day without trying. An > opportunist can take advantage of another's infirmity by being perfectly > polite while yet excruciatingly annoying. What constitutes a 'flame' seems to depend heavily on whose mouth it comes out of. Jim Choate called me a schizophrenic, and it seemed to be acceptable enough to make the censored list. He tends to call people "Bessie", basically saying they are a Cow, and that also seems acceptable. Personally, I could care less when people want to play footsie-games with flaming, but I think it points out the ludicrousness of having a moderator limiting people to 'childish' insults. I prefer someone screaming at me what a cocksucker I am. Ray Hettinga forwards these long, literate missives advertising this-or-that million dollar a plate conferences, but when he chose to insult me with his own words, the result was an immature blathering which showed questionable literary skills. > Oh, I wasn't condemning Tim's posts as being repetitive and boring - it's > commendable that he would write about the same ideas in fresh new ways, for > the benefit of the newbies and the entertainment of the oldies. > But not everyone is as interested & willing (or have the time) to > re-iterate this way, and with only one or a few "holding up the ship", so > to speak, it leaves a lot of room for wayless bickering degenerating into > unproductive ad hominems - ad absurdum, ad nauseam. There are some good socio/politico posts by a variety of list members who are highly knowlegeable about a range of topics surrounding crypto, but they tend to come sporadically. I suppose that this is because they actually have real lives. > You, know, Toto, I heard that there's a vacancy in the Cypherpunk Division > of History & Philosophy .... I suppose that Sandy might nominate me, just for the pleasure of sitting back and enjoying the flood of, "A Vote of FUCK OFF for Toto" postings. It would be nice, however, to try to twist the rest of the list around to my own world-view. It gets lonely here in the 'rubber room' at the Home, and I could use some company. Toto

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Re: Trigger-Words...
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, harka(a)nycmetro.com queried: > 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? Many Un*xes (SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, Linux, and probably others) have included their own versions of sniffers, supposedly for network debugging. These are typically called something like "tcpdump", "etherfind", "snoop", etc. You would need to run a sniffer at a "choke point" of an organisation, for example the external router to the Internet, to capture all of the packets to / from that organisation. Putting a sniffer on some arbitrary router out there in cloud-land would probably not be all that productive, since there's no guarantee that all of the IP packets carrying a given TCP connection would take the same route. Cynthia -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: cp850 iQCVAwUBMvSyq5Og7xGCJGQtAQFJPwQAiXbxtfdfVEDL5ZHdktdy6bfH/Wmio3oU J1bYKpfwY4H4NnIoXipGF+oo48Pe4j8x46UneVZ8d4ZsSy93/JsvmQw38TxSj/8o cPbtIaagBw9eofsdimzlwx9Y0VvaTRWt+2Cjd8aQKmG5nwUBSF9BlFoX2/TU3QZY IP+hiecLaag= =rHlB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada E-mail: cynthb(a)sonetis.com Home Page: http://www.sonetis.com/~cynthb/ PGP Key: See Home Page Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it. - Edmund Way Teale, "Circle of the Seasons"

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Re: Key Security Question
by Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: > Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > > Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> writes: > > > On the other hand, if the "repairman" replaced your pgp executable > > > with version 2.6.3kgb, which uses your hashed passphrase as the > > > session key, you're hosed. Or if he installed a keystroke sniffer, > > > or added a small radio transmitter to your keyboard, or whatever. > > > Depends on your threat model. If you need to be paranoid, > > > they've already gotten you.... > > > > If you're really paranoid, you can boot from a clean floppy and > > reinstall everything from your backup tapes. You do have a > > contingency plan in case your hard disk goes bad, or gets a > > virus, don't you? Well, if you're in doubt, exercise it. > > And what if the repairman replaces BIOS ROM chips with KGBios? On some computers it's possible to add executable code to the boot sequence without replacing the actual ROM chip because they're rewritiable. Examples: most Sun boxes; intel motherboards with 'flash bios'. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Trigger-Words...
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, harka(a)nycmetro.com queried: > 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? Many Un*xes (SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, Linux, and probably others) have included their own versions of sniffers, supposedly for network debugging. These are typically called something like "tcpdump", "etherfind", "snoop", etc. You would need to run a sniffer at a "choke point" of an organisation, for example the external router to the Internet, to capture all of the packets to / from that organisation. Putting a sniffer on some arbitrary router out there in cloud-land would probably not be all that productive, since there's no guarantee that all of the IP packets carrying a given TCP connection would take the same route. Cynthia -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: cp850 iQCVAwUBMvSyq5Og7xGCJGQtAQFJPwQAiXbxtfdfVEDL5ZHdktdy6bfH/Wmio3oU J1bYKpfwY4H4NnIoXipGF+oo48Pe4j8x46UneVZ8d4ZsSy93/JsvmQw38TxSj/8o cPbtIaagBw9eofsdimzlwx9Y0VvaTRWt+2Cjd8aQKmG5nwUBSF9BlFoX2/TU3QZY IP+hiecLaag= =rHlB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada E-mail: cynthb(a)sonetis.com Home Page: http://www.sonetis.com/~cynthb/ PGP Key: See Home Page Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it. - Edmund Way Teale, "Circle of the Seasons"

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No Subject
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone using the Huge Cajones mailer wrote: David Lesher <wb8foz(a)nrk.com> writes: > USPS uses key locks seemingly designed by Ben Franklin himself. > Look at them someday. FedEx boxes used to have Simplex 926 > 5 pushbutton ""locks"" if you stretch the point. Still did last I checked. Don't let the old-fashioned look deceive you. Most mail storage boxes use lever tumbler locks (similar to what's used in safe deposit vaults, though obviously the mailbox locks have a flimsier plug). How is that obvious? Safe deposit locks generally aren't designed to be hard to open, just hard to open without damage. There's always either a guard or a locked vault door protecting the locks. Mailboxes, on the other hand, generally aren't kept under guard or in vaults.

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Re: Cyphernomicon by Tim May
by Asgaard 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 2 Feb 1997, Declan McCullagh wrote: >That question is one for Tim to answer, but I should point out that TC May hasn't posted in a month or so. I miss his posts. Without any official role he was the de facto moderator, mostly by example but also by pointing out the core of the issues when things went astray, for all those years. Did he mention going away for so long in any of his latest posts? I remember 'for the holiday season' but that is long gone. I hope he hasn't left the list for good, being pissed off by Gilmore's choice of moderator(s) or some such reason. Asgaard

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Re: Keystroke sniffer question
by Z.B. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sat, 1 Feb 1997, Scott wrote: > How can you detect if there is a keystroke sniffer on your computer. > All sniffers have to write to disk at some point. You can detect one by checking to see how much disk space you have (DIR on MSDOS), typing a few lines of random characters, and check your disk space again. If it's gone down a little, then you probably have one. > Is there a file name to look for? Try checking in your TEMP directory...the few ones that I've seen default to creating an invisible file in that directory. > Where do people get them? They either buy them or write them. Zach Babayco zachb(a)netcom.com <-------finger for PGP public key If you need to know how to set up a mail filter or defend against emailbombs, send me a message with the words "get helpfile" (without the " marks) in the SUBJECT: header, *NOT THE BODY OF THE MESSAGE!* I have several useful FAQs and documents available.

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Re: If guilty of a lesser crime, you can be sentenced for a greater
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:56 AM 2/2/97 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote: >Please note that the difference between: > >"But he got the same sentence as he would have if he was convicted of >carrying a gun in furtherance of the crime." > >and > >"But he got the same sentence as he would have is he was not convicted of >carrying a gun in furtherance of the crime." > >is subtle at best. > >Next time don't get caught stealing with a gun nearby. Better yet, set up a system to encourage the public to USE those guns (and other weapons) to get rid of the people who pass such laws, and the problem is solved. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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National Cryptologic School
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

DAW provided this URL: http://csrc.nist.gov/training/in170.zip 1996-04-29 Introduction to Computer Security National Cryptologic School Interactive Courseware Trainee Guide (formerly, CP-133) (37 zipped files, DOS program) We've had a look at this course, a primer on CompSec and a required course for all DoD employees. It takes some fiddling to get past the sign-on block. Hint: after unzipping execute "student.exe" and enter "CP" as the lesson. Repeat for other listed files, CPxxx - CPxxx. It's basic stuff but worthwhile for its claims, these among others: 1. Most hackers are employees of the target. 2. Negligence, accidents and sloppy sys-administration are prime causes of disruptions, perhaps more than deliberate attacks. 3. Environmental weaknesses are often overlooked by security experts too focussed on computer systems. It lists these security documents as references: EO 12356 [superceded by EO 12958] DCID 1/16 [Director of Central Intelligence Directive] DoDDir 5200.28 DoD 5200.28 STD Public Law 100-235 NSA/CSS Dir 10-27 NSA/CSS Manual 130-1 (NSAM 130-1) NSA/CSS Manual 130-2 (NSAM 130-2) NSA/CSS Reg 130-2 NTISSAM COMPSEC 1-87 The Rainbow Series OMB A-130 Does anyone know of a source for the DCID series and the NSA/CSS series? Some of the others are available on the Web -- see AltaVista. While looking for these we ran across an informative implementation of infosec and compsec: Information Systems Accreditation Document, 4 Volumes System Security Requirements for the Department of Defense Intelligence Information System Automated Message Handling System (AMHS) V2.x By: McDonnell Douglas Aerospace For: Electronic Systems Center, Air Force Materiel Command Which we've put at: http://jya.com/amhs.htm

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