December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Hash functions
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy May's father, an idiot, stumbled across Timmy May's mother, an imbecile, when she had no clothes on. Nine months later she had a little moron. /\ __/__\__ | 00 | Timmy May |: \ :| | \_/| \__/

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Re: Corrupted "From:" headers in my posts
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal Finney wrote: > > Several people have noted that my posts have had duplicate "From:" lines. > In a recent message > where I quoted Greg Broiles, the headers > has From: lines both from me and Greg. > Apologies to those who have been bothered by this problem > with my posts. Hal, I began reading the post, thinking it was from Greg, and I had a heart attack because I thought he was finally making sense. I will be suing for medical expenses. -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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Re: Tim C. May's Interpretation of the U.K. Proposal
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Huge Cajones Remailer <nobody(a)huge.cajones.com> wrote in article <5h8e8u$b3h(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > Timothy C. May wrote: > > > > The U.K. may sense that, absent such "local content" laws, the market for > > key signings, time-stamping, and other services will naturally concentrate > > in certain markets. Longer term, the concentration may be more > > globalized, or even in "cyberspace," but almost certainly not in Britain. > > Nations may thus fear this flight of such services to other countries. I think that this is not quite accurate. To begin it is necessary to understand the different relationship of the Civil Service and the executive in the UK. Unlike in the US the CiVil service is apolitical, it prepares policy advice for ministers but couched in guarded terms. It explains the advantages and disadvantages of particular policies while avoiding conclusions. Thus it is a mistake to read too much into briefing papers. What really count are green and white papers. Green papers are the first draft of policy and frequently involve "kite flying" exercises. A proposal to implement GAK in a green paper may equally well be intended as a signal to opponents to put their case more coherently as a positive affirmation of the policy. The UK is currently having a general election which barring a resurgence by the Liberals the socialists will win. If you thought Bob Dole's campaign was dire watch the UK Conservatives for sheer and frequently adulterous incompetence. Ten Tory MPs have been accused of accepting bribes and the Govt manipulated the date of porogueing (ie suspending) parliament before it was disolved for the election to suppress publication of the report into the affair. Since two case have been proven beyond reasonable doubt this is a bad start to say the least. Traditionally the socialist are far more likely to support civil liberties than the Conservatives. The Liberals have the best record but the best they can hope for is to become the opposition in place of the Tories. During the years of Tory rule left wing political organisations such as CND have been monitored by MI5. Crypto will undoubtedly have support from the far left who have frequently been the target of politically motivated surveillance. > Tim, at his best, interprets the U.K. laws from both a global and > local perspective. > Certainly, any actions of the U.K., in particular, should be viewed > from the lingering shadow of the British Commonwealth. The U.K., having > ruled an Empire, is much more cognizant of the implications of how the > structure of proposed legislation will affect the expansion of global > aims, or the protection of indigeonous rule. The UK has also traditionally understood cryptography policy far better than the US. During both World Wars the US managed to persue a crypto policy of quite astonishing boneheadedness. > Although "local content," as Tim points out, is undeniably one > of the major factors behind the legislation, the U.K. is also > undoubtedly positioning themselves to resist letting the *power* > that comes from information *control* fall into the hands of > others. Its not legislation, nor even a proposal to legislate. Its one side in a discussion document. No need to panic! Instead we need to make sure we have a coherent lobbying strategy. To effectively lobby the UK government you don't need vast amounts of cash but having a permanent office to coordinate grass roots activity is usefull. Corporations with a heavy UK involvement such as IBM and DEC would be usefull sponsors, not so much for the cash as for links to constituency MPs. Also note that now is a good time to press the issue. The US administrations policy on Cuba has greatly discredited it abroad. The Helms-Burton act is a clear attack on other nations sovereignty, that its primary sponsor is notorious as a racist hatemonger makes matters worse. Similarly a US attack on the computer systems of the EU during the GATT negotiations has not been forgiven. Proposals to allow the US to break secret messages in other countries are correspondingly unpopular. Phill

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Re: Another Interpretation of the U.K. Proposal
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timothy C. May <tcmay(a)got.net> wrote in article <5h6rmj$38q(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > The U.K. may sense that, absent such "local content" laws, the market for > key signings, time-stamping, and other services will naturally concentrate > in certain markets. I think they would expect to win that battle in any case. I don't think there is a particular concern about competition except in regard to the problem of the UK legal framework being inadequate. The UK has a major presence in finacial services and the govt. would be more concerned to keep foreign markets open to UK exports than inf\dulging in protectionism. There may be a fear about US govt. interference however. There was considerable concern that the US regularly abused its role in COCOM to advantage US companies. UK compaines who bid for contracts with communist countries tended to face unexpected competition from US firms shortly after applying for a COCOM export license. Phill

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Why I might want a trusted third party.
by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, There have been a number of comments on the UK proposals by the DTI to introduce a legal framework for use of trusted thrid parties. I contacted some old friends to find out what the issue really was. I was surprised by the result. First off the proposals are not intended as a Trojan horse for the Clipper chip "or any other colonial scheme". The UK authorities have been fighting terrorists rather longer than the US and the ones they are concerned about have used encryption for a decade. My friend was somewhat concerned that the US administration may have poisoned the water preventing any sensible scheme being deployed. The issue of concern is not private use of encryption but corporate users. Imagine you are a security administrator for IBM or DEC. You probably don't want your employees using absolutely secure email systems that would allow them to post company secrets through your firewall. I used to administer security at a large nuclear installation with an improbable amount of Uranium to hand (several hundred tonnes). Last thing I was going to allow was encrypted communications from the secure area to the Internet. Companies probably don't want to have their LAN completely open to snooping either. Their sysop may be snooping for a competitor as much as for them. For this particular customer the trusted third party concept is quite a good one. They can collect large quantities of information in a manner that avoids the risk of having gathered together a large collection of en-clair sensitive material in one place. Such a company would probably prefer to have the decryption key far away from the reach of their employees, ideally the key would be stored in such a way that even the TTP didn't know who it related to. Basically the DTI proposal clears the way for people to offer this type of service in the UK. They are emphatically not trying to introduce a Clipper chip proposal. Unfortunately what they do propose is clearly a slippery slope to a Clipper situation. If use of TTPs became ubiquitous it might become possible to enforce their use somehow at a later date. I think that this is a remote possibility but one that should raise concerns. If it was merely the UK government that was involved I would have fewer concerns than the current situation. The problem with US policy is that the executive keeps making ignorant and dangerous bids for unlimited power over the Internet and the people seem to have little influence over Congress. There was a tellling episode during the PICs/CDA fiasco when one of the professional lobbyists said "now we need to collect money for the hearings". Basically the governing assumption in DC amongst lobbyists is that you buy your way into hearings with campaign donnations. Crypto has many rich supporters but they tend not to understand just how corrupt US politics are. Phillip M. Hallam-Baker Visitng Scientist MIT Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence. hallam(a)ai.mit.edu http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/hallam/hallam.html

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by sitesubmit＠allvip.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: remailer spam throttle
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Greg Broiles <gbroiles(a)netbox.com> writes: > I think there are two broad models of complaints/problems with remailers: > > 1. The recipient is angry because they received a message they didn't like. > (because it's an advertisement, or it's rude, or it's an image that their > parents didn't like ..) > > 2. A third party is angry because the sender sent some information to the > recipient which the third party thinks should not have been sent. (copyright, > trademark, defamation, tortious interference with [prospective] contract, > etc.) > > Your "contract" model (which looks like you really mean it to be a waiver of > warranty/damages and/or an indemnification agreement) addresses (1) to the > point of overkill, but it doesn't reach (2), because there's no contract with > the third party, who is the party who's likely to be filing suit. > (Indemnification by the sender might work, if you worded the contract > correctly - but then you've got to abandon anonymity, and the value of > indemnification from person you don't know whose assets/finances are unknown > is pretty low.) <snip> Does anyone here actually know the requirements for common carrier status? (A web search proved mostly uniformative, except that now I know that Ohio University offers a course in CC Regualtions.) While my intuitive notion of what a CC is does mean that ISP's are not good CC's (ISP's want to not carry every newsgroup, want to not let people have accounts for any old reason, etc), remailers seem like a perfect candidate. For example, you could have a remailer that has one simple rule: they only allow 10 messages a day from people who aren't other anon. remailers. That way, the system isn't rejecting any traffic "unreasonably," and gains some legal protection. If someone form, say, a praticularly profitable religous institution calls up and says "We belive that certain copywritten internal documets were sent through your remailer." You say "Sorry, dude, I just pass the messages along." I imagine that there would be problems keeping messages anonymous ir regards to the feds, as I imagine that there would be some analogy to phone taps, but legal protection from civilians is a step in the right direction, and a few remailers in civilized jurisdictions would make the feds' lives difficult. Jer "standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMzii4Mkz/YzIV3P5AQFy4gMAqdL2XMwr34JoJspqkXgrUpfv77s4OwWb S+l/AYQxQJD97eGyG9NgqglJ87tiIv9H9zzCdm3wYjA1syycQlMoI+rUQ0t/OMZz mytZNRk3SmT2OBQ4zl2VvFfB6pqLm035 =7Ehu -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Why a U.K.-style law against key-signings won't fly in the U.S.
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> writes: ... > If not, then the Constitution is a joke. It is. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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PGP-integrated mail reader for Windoze?
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, Not being a Windows user, I wonder what do you think is the best mail reading program for windows 95 that has some pgp integration? The mail criteria, pretty much, is ease of use and some degree of fool proofness. Thank you. - Igor.

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Re: PGP-integrated mail reader for Windoze?
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:39 PM 3/25/97 -0600, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >Hello, > >Not being a Windows user, I wonder what do you think is the best >mail reading program for windows 95 that has some pgp integration? >The mail criteria, pretty much, is ease of use and some degree of >fool proofness. Eudora Pro 3.0 <http://www.eudora.com/> and PGPMail <http://www.pgp.com/>, without a shadow of a doubt. Neither is free, but you sure get your money's worth. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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