December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Cypherpunks & Ecash in WSJ, Chaum,and Amazing Revelation by NSA
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:17 AM 3/22/97 EST, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: ty 1 queries for a reasonable fee, like $FV10. > >I recall that someone got hold of the Washington State database and >operated such a service for free for a few days as a demo. It was Oregon... unless you are thinking of an incident that I didn't hear of. I have the Oregon DMV database on CDROM. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: "why privacy" revisited
by Wei Dai 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 21 Mar 1997, Timothy C. May wrote: > The best arguments are not those couched in terms of "benefits" to > society/markets, but in terms of "lowest common denominators." I favor the > "Schelling point" view, and have espoused it here often. > > In most Western systems, a reasonable Schelling point is that various > actors agree not to try to enter the "private spaces" of others. For > example, my neighbors and I agree not to enter each other's houses to pry > and inspect. > > (The Schelling point is that this "boundary" point is essentially agreed > upon even though my neighbors and I have never formally negotiated it...as > with animals and their "territories," certain equilibrium points are > reached.) > > In Western systems, it is recognized that the _costs_ of coercively > entering another's home and/or private space are too high, and so we > declare there to be a "right of privacy." In reality, what we mean is that > we accept a private domain as a Schelling point. I think you're answering the third meaning of "why privacy", "why DOES privacy exist?" This is a positive rather than a normative question (which is what I was asking). I agree with you that most likely privacy exist because in some sense it is an equilibrium in the game of life. But what I'm asking is whether it is a desirable equilibrium, and whether a new equilibrium involving more privacy is better than what we have now. > I reject the argument Wei Dai mentions, that market benefits could obtain > if society rejected privacy, for two reason. First, because in an important > sense rights are not the slaves of corporate or personal business > interests. (E.g., my interest in Alice's television viewing habits does not > trump her right to keep me out of her house.). Second, because so-called > "market efficiency" is largely an illusion anyway. Certainly no real market is perfectly efficient, but some markets are relativly more efficient than others, and most markets are more efficient than alternative forms of economic organization (e.g., socialism) so I don't see how you can call "market efficiency" an illusion. The inefficiencies I was talking about were relative to the case where both parties have the same information. Also, I don't quite understand your first argument. It seems to suggest that privacy should exist for no reason in particular. If this is the case then it doesn't make sense to argue about the costs/benefits of privacy. But it is my understanding that most cypherpunks believe more privacy benefits everyone, and therefore work to making more privacy for everyone. What I'm looking for are arguments that support this belief.

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Re: PGP Security
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:16 PM 3/20/97 -0600, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >Mark M. wrote: >> >> Speaking as "XXXXXXXXX" (or, at least, one of the "XXXXXXXXXs"), I did receive >> the following message which originated from "TruthMonger." Shortly after I >> received the message, anon.nymserver.com closed down all of its free, >> anonymous accounts due to "abuse." >> > >This is mostly addressed to jimbell: jim, it is now obvious that >the remailer network is as weak as a 5 year old child. It cannot >possibly withstand even mildest forms of "abuse". > >Due to this fact, I question the viability of your assassination >politics idea as it does not seem possible to safely operate an >assassination bot. I don't doubt that remailers need to be strengthened to support a "classic AP" system. However, complicating (or, perhaps, simplifying; depending on your point of view...) the issue is the fact that an AP-type system is going to be inherently self-protecting: Even if I wasn't inclined to donate to see the death of anybody else, I'd want to protect the underlying system to ensure its continued existence. I (and some others) are convinced that an AP-system would totally eliminate the series of tyrannies that governments have been throughout history. That, if true, is a _very_ valuable accomplishment to most of us, one for which we'd be wise to pay to achieve. And generally, where there is a demand, a free market supplies that desire with a product. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: "why privacy" revisited
by Jonathan Gaw 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

when i talk to people like the Direct Marketer's Assn., they honestly don't understand what the fuss is about. Their attitude is, quite literally, "What's the harm being done here?" what do you think the community interested in privacy protection can do to best illustrate to the general public the "harm" in the collection of personal information? Jonathan Gaw At 09:28 AM 3/22/97 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: > >Much as I agree with the point that privacy is desirable, I find the >"market efficiency" arguments unpersuasive, at least as presented below: > >At 1:01 PM +0000 3/22/97, Adam Back wrote: > >>You requested an argument couched market economic terms as to why >>reduced privacy might be a bad idea for the market efficiency. >>Consider: >> >>Less privacy is a bad thing in market economics terms, because as >>privacy takes a downwards spiral, which leads to ever increasing >>government intervention, increasing sizes of governments, fascism, >>etc. the free market economy will go to hell. Poverty, and food >>shortages will result, a la the former USSR, which is slowly >>recovering from the decline caused by statist, facist policies. We on >>the other hand, absent pressure from outside government, law >>enforcement and secret services circles are collectively headed into >>that fascist driven downward spiral.in economics. > >Or, since we all understand perfectly well that *credit cards* and *checks* >and other forms of *electronic payment* are not private in the way cash is, >Adam's argument could read as follows: > >"Using credit cards and checks is a bad thing in market economics terms, >because as privacy takes a downwards spiral, which leads to ever increasing >government intervention, increasing sizes of governments, fascism, etc. the >free market economy will go to hell. Poverty, and food shortages will >result, a la the former USSR, which is slowly recovering from the decline >caused by statist, facist policies. We on the other hand, absent pressure >from outside government, law enforcement and secret services circles are >collectively headed into that fascist driven downward spiral.in economics." > >In other words, I submit the fallacy of this comment, that traceable >payment schemes such as credit cards and checks have _not_ destroyed the >U.S. and Western economies as evidence that Adam's thesis is incorrect. > >(One might point to the correlation between increased credit and check >instruments over the past 50 years and the rise of government spending, but >such a correlation would not, in any reasonable view, be causative. I'll >elaborate on this if there's real interest.) > > >--Tim May > >(I'm not arguing against privacy. I just don't see the validity of some of >the attempts to "prove" that privacy enhances markets (whatever that means) >and that non-privacy undermines markets. Such arguments are mostly >unpersuasive and depend strongly on assumptions and interpretations and >selective admission of facts.) > >Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" >We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. >---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- >Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, >tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero >W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, >Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. >"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway." > > > > > ****************************************************** Jonathan Gaw The Star Tribune Minneapolis, Minnesota jonathan(a)gaw.net *********Wasting Digital Bandwidth Since 1986*********

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PGP Security
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am passing along the following message, not because of my belief in the accuracy or veracity of its contents, but merely because of the fact that it seems to have kept getting eaten up by various email systems in the attempts to send it to its original destination. The first time it was sent via a remailer, it was bounced for ill- defined reasons. The second time it was sent, the remailer was shut down, and remains shut down. Efforts to send it through a second remailer also failed, with no notice from the server of any problems being received. Other email sent through the remailer at the same time encountered no difficulties. I am only noting the facts, here, not proferring any personal judge- ments on the matter, although I have formed my own opinion as to the meaning of these facts, particularly since I, myself, came by this post during the process of email interception. > X-Anon-Password: XXXXXXXXXX > X-Anon-To: XXXXXXXXXXX > X-Anon-Name: XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX, I thought I would reply privately to you, since you seem to at least have a willingness to allow the possibility of compromises to the security of the encryption methodologies behind PGP programs, among others. To begin with, I'm not sure whether you realize it, or not, but the Navy's spook tenacles run deeper, and extend further, than those of any of the more notable or visibly involved agencies who lurk in the background of security and privacy issues. One of the reasons for this is that their physical existence could be said to mirror the Internet in many respects. The very nature of their 'global' home (the sea), has always permitted them access to people and regions which are denied to others. Also, they are often in the position to be involved in what looks to be merely the 'transporting' of people and information. Whether providing escort services or getting drunk in foreign bars, the expertise of naval intelligence has always lain in the area of observation, first and foremost. By far the greatest tool of intelligence agencies on the Internet, has been traffic analysis. Their techniques are sufficiently sophist- icated that I would not be surprised to find out that they can tell more about us from our Internet activity than can be learned from the satellites capable of reading the newspaper over our shoulder as we sit in the park. Traffic analysis involves all measurable quantum of information, the chief concerns being the patterns and timing of data transfer, from which everything ranging from content and motivation can be deduced. If you wish to think in terms of back-doors, then you would be well advised to go beyond the concepts of 'passwords' and 'holes' and try to think in terms of patterns and timing, and other such 'structures' which are peripheral to concerns regarding 'code' and 'mathematics.' i.e. As well as considering the 'content' of what a program returned, you must also consider 'when' the program returned the result, and the patterns in the timing, as well as the content. An analogy could be made to a person who, being interrogated, answers all questions with a predictable rhythm and then 'pauses,' however slightly, in answering a certain question. You can see that what is revealed by the 'content' of the answer can be greatly insignificant compared to what is revealed by the 'delay' in answering. To expand your concept of 'back-doors' and 'holes,' you have to ask questions such as: "Does it take a program or hardware longer to return a result of '0', than to return a result of '1'?" "What factors can be introduced into the hardware and/or software that can influence the patterns and/or timing of various processes and the results they return?" "Can key searches be made more efficient by analyzing such things as rhythm, syntax, etc? What 'details' or 'qualities' of an individual, group, or 'arena of concern' can be analyzed for the purpose of being able to group them into structures which can be searched for?" "How can 'assigning' a value to certain sequences of numbers be used as a pattern to 'filter' the input data into a form which is easier to analyze?" You are aware of 'tricks and techniques' that apply to mathematics and are widely known. i.e. The process of shifting and adding numbers when multiplying by the number '11'. However, what about those quantum of information which are of no consequence to those seeking for the 'final result' of that multi- plication? Can the peripheral effects of mathematic calculations be used to analyze what has taken place, to narrow the scope of inquiry? My nephew describes numbers as getting 'wider' as they get larger, and he does quick checks of his result through his 'feel' for how much 'wider' a number should be when he is done, even in complicated equations which he ill-understands. (He reminds me of Steven Wright, who claims that someone told him that his socks didn't match, and he replied, "Sure, they do. I go by thickness.") I am currently working on a project which involves merging chaos theory with traffic analysis and other processes to analyze the effects that algorithms display when processed through the filters of varying hardware and software structures and methodologies. The RSA algorithm and accompanying RSAREF subroutines were our first focus, for the very reason that there were certain factions behind the scenes of the Zimmerman/RSA agreement who seemed to have an inordinate amount of interest in the subroutines being chained to the algorithm (for reasons that have nothing to do with patent protection). Those whose expertise goes far beyond my own in this area look at the initial results of the analysis as confirming that their is a 'relationship' between the RSA algorithm and the RSAREF subroutines which will enable them to break the system down into workable units for fairly quick analysis. What is interesting is that the results from small probes into other encryption systems show the same potential for exploitation using varying analysis methodologies and processes. (One fairly well-known encryption routine is almost lame enough to reveal its secrets to anyone with a pencil and a stopwatch, as well as the file size and time it takes to encrypt.) While I would rather you didn't publicize the preceding information, as a general rule, I think that is something that should be shared with anyone who is seriously focusing their efforts on better methods of encryption and analysis of encryption methodologies. I am aware of two other groups who are working along the same lines, although with a narrower range of variables than ourselves, and I am certain that there must be more than a few other entities out there who are also pursuing this line of research. I would appreciate any comments you may have on the above, as well as any suggestions you may have. (Despite having a post-graduate degree in an area which required a thorough grounding in mathematics I may have to refer any highly technical suggestions to those in the group who dream in numbers, sunset to sunrise.)

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Re: UK govt. to ban PGP (was Re: UK TTP Paper)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>: In Grey's words, ``All over Europe, the lights are going out'' >: >: Ross There does appear to be a coordinated global action to issue policies on TTP, GAK and the like at this time. OECD is due to shortly release its crypto policy, as is the USG according to BXA. The FBI issued its wiretap payment plan yesterday. Herson publically admitted the EU-FBI wiretap pact. All are apparently guided by The Wassenaar Arrangement amongst two dozen or so countries to act in concert, and to go public with dual-use controls in unison. So, Clint Brooks' comment at CFP about a new policy coming out for stronger crypto is a surely a harbinger of global GAK, in the guise of TTP or Key Recovery, as was speculated here, and as Rensch's statement to the House yesterday affirms. It's a policy sure to appeal to nationalists and chauvinists: strong protection for a nation's interest and commerce with GAK; without it no protection from predatory (rogue) nations (and criminals). But, as the Crypto AG engineer asked, "Who will protect us from NSA?" And its predatory clients and contractors, the Germans and French and others are asking, now that they are suffering the unilateral spying of their highest tech "friends."

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Re: The Balloon is Going Up....criminalization of noncompliant crypto
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jeff Barber wrote: > The real problem is, as Hal notes, that CAs registered under the act > can only create certificates if the corresponding private key is lodged > with a registered KRA. > > This proposal is a bald attempt to make a totally artificial linkage > between a concept for which there is a good [or at least perceived good] > business case -- officially registered CAs -- and one which the > government desires but which has *no* business case: officially > registered KRAs. It's trying to make it seem that key recovery/escrow > has something to do with key signing/certification when it patently > does not. Do the words 'Gun Control' ring a bell? It seems that every time government announces its intention to restrict 'criminals' use of an item, it is not long before everyone using that item is considered a criminal. In the case of encryption, it will still be legal, but not if you use real bullets. Perhaps if enough people manage to circumvent forced key escrow in the future, the government will pass a law requiring all crypto products to force everybody to use the same password. (I can hardly wait to see what reasoning they use to explain to us that it is for our own protection.) -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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PC Shopping Planet - Tech Info-Letter
by newsletter＠shoppingplanet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Book-entry settlement mechanism
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Precedence: Bulk Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 17:27:59 -0500 From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> To: Multiple recipients of <e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: Re: Book-entry settlement mechanism At 2:23 am -0500 on 4/1/97, Somebody wrote: > I may have misunderstood some of your points but here goes.. I doubt you're misunderstanding anything, as I'm usually making this up as I go along, anyway. :-). So, let's see what we have, here... > Your model assumes distributed settlement facilities provided by > underwriters, issuers or transaction agents v the centralised model we have > today. Yes. > One of the problems with today's model is that there are too many > centralised agencies ie euroclear, dtc, local clearing systems which are > proprietary, complicating global settlement processes unnecessarily. Is > distributed processing efficient? *I* think so, if they all use the same cryptographic transaction protocols, which is what I've been talking about all along, here. If a cryptographic protocol breaks, the trade doesn't clear. I expect that settlement protocols, like internet protocols, will be open and standardized. That way, it doesn't matter who you're settling with, as long as long as their reputation is good. That reputation can be a distributed one, with a "reputation club", just like it is now. NASD membership, for instance, is a good present example. In the model we're talking about, if your key is signed by the club (association, syndicate, whatever) and not revoked, you're a member in good standing, so you're trustworthy for various kinds of transactions. > If I am a hedge fund buying a global > portfolio of stocks I do not want to have to settle individually with the > underwriter/issuer of each stock I purchase. See above. You get your information from different web sites, now, right? No difference, to my mind. > As you say, the underwriter > may well want to farm out this secondary market processing but I don't > think transaction agents will offer that service for nothing. In my example, they're selling the exaust, the pricing information they collect. New information is always more important than old information in a geodesic market, right? I say that secondary market transaction costs are still inconsiderable, for the most part. > Also because > no one has critical mass for a clearing service I the investor end up > paying over the top. I think that you're looking at a world where there are economies of scale, here. As I said elsewhere, that "critical mass" continues to get smaller and smaller, particular in "switching" activities like trade clearing. One of my many groundless claims about all this is that the transfer price inside operating units of larger entities converges toward the market price between small independant entities. Exactly the opposite of what happens in industrial communications networks. Cf. all my various rants on Moore's Law and geodesic networks. The upshot is that organazitions map to their communication structures, and hierarchical, economies-of-scale markets and organizations don't work in that kind of world. > I also don't think it's more efficient for investors > to pay transaction agents for the resulting price information - again if I > am a global investor I don't want to pay for hundreds of different price > feeds. Again you can see information agents entering the market but this > is simply what we have today. Yes, but the information is ubiquitous, and, of course, it's distributed geodesically. Anybody with a reasonably fast machine can purchase pricing from all those places, or even a reasonable statistical sample, and "publish" that information. More to the point, people with new pricing information will probably auction it off on a non-exclusive basis. Remember Cronk's geodesic information auction talk during the rump session in Anguilla? People with the most to gain from the newest information, pay the most for it, usually because they resell it to others, but also because they might need it to trade with. > 'the operating costs of exchanging certificates for the secondary market is > minimal'. Certainly it could be cheaper than it is today but minimal costs > rely on the counterparties applying simultaneously and there being no > hitches on the authentication. Of course. "Assume a frictionless surface", and all that. However, just because the mathematics of the situation varies slightly from reality, doesn't mean that it's wrong. Physics versus Engineering. Frankly, I think that "no hitches in the authentication", being the most important business necessity for the underwriter, will have to be be the *first* thing to work. :-). Fortunately, that's not too difficult a problem with these cryptographic protocols. In addition, the operative clause in your sentence above is "certainly it could be cheaper than it is today". If it's "cheap" enough, and that is yet another unsubstantiated claim of mine requiring actual data :-), then it's good enough to use. H1 replaces H0, in statistical parlance. > How could investors sell short? Same way they do now. By borrowing certificates from somebody, and paying the lender back with others. If the borrower doesn't pay those certificates back, it's reputation "capital punishment". > How would > the clearer cope with back to back trades? How can we ensure that this > technology is standard so that investors don't have to deal differently > with each clearer? See above. With a standard protocol. The internet is one big standard protocol, right? > I don't think your argument about seven years of audit trails etc is > focused on net v book entry settlement but rather on the structure of the > industry as it stands. The seven years of audit trails could stand equally > in the new world since regulators might demand it (say they want to > investigate a fraud) and you want some minimal regulation (do you worry > about market manipulation for example?). See <http://www.braintennis.com/> Suppose you could punish someone without needing the physical force of a nation state to do it. Reputation is orthogonal to identity in cypherspace. The ultimate sanction in a geodesic market is the loss of one's reputation. It's equivalent to capital punishment, because no one will ever trade with you again. And, the most important point, that reputation adheres to your digital signature, not your physical person. Biometric identity, audit trails, etc., are no longer necessary. So, if you can have non-repudiation through cryptographic protocol (to keep the trades from breaking, and, more to the point, to make them settle instantly) and reputation (to keep people from defrauding you), *what* exactly do you need market "regulation" for? > You could certainly simplify the > current structure ie eliminate custodians, eliminate brokers, merge > exchange and clearinghouse. But even with this new technology you would > need to be able to reconcile your holdings against the underwriter (human > error doesn't go away) and the underwriter has to keep an account of the > holdings for dividend/coupon purposes. Not if the coupons are actual certificates. For a bond and its coupons, you just issue a bundle of bearer certificates comprising the coupons and the principal. You could even "strip" them apart and sell them idividually in a secondary market, if you can find someone to buy them. :-). At redemption time, it would be just as if someone mailed in the little coupon they clipped off a paper bearer bond, only I send them digital cash, instead of a check. Don't need to know, or care, who they are. It's cheaper that way. For dividends, there are lots of different zero-knowlege cryptographic proofs that you can run using a digital bearer stock certificate, as the "information" that you want to prove you have. (See Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography", 2nd ed., for this.) I call a dividend, people send me a hash (or something) of the certificate to prove they have it, and I send them digital cash in a message encrypted to them alone. Dividend paid, all on a bearer basis. You can do the same kind of thing for proxies, too. Yes, there are anonymous voting schemes. Welcome through the looking glass, Alice. > Finally, I'd like to understand how the investor gets best execution > (agreed that he isn't getting it at the moment). How does your investor > know he is getting best price? Because he's picking the seller out of the equivalent of an open-outcry market. > How much structure will you impose? The market imposes structure on itself. Economic reality is not optional. Reality dictates politics, not the other way around. > What is > a more efficient way of providing price information and price history? The most "efficient" way is the market's way. You know that. The more information you put into a market, the more efficient it is, modulo psychology, like motl^h^h^h^h greater fool theories, which we really can't do anything about, anyway. > PS I've been reading The House of Morgan (history of JP Morgan, Morgan > Grenfell, Morgan Stanley etc) over the weekend. Although it is difficult > to find the right balance, it is a useful reminder of the dangers and costs > of unrestrained, unregulated capital and how we ended up with the today's > regulatory structures. I used to be a clerk at Morgan Stanley. My first job out of college. I read HOM about 5(?) years ago, after it came out. I read the book the same way you did, until I discovered this financial cryptography / geodesic market stuff. Now I see all that stuff completely differently. Morgan was "integrative", because that's the way communications technology was organizing things, into larger and larger hierarchies. I consider myself "disintegrative", because that's the way communications technology is organizing things, "surfacting" them into smaller and smaller entities on a ubiquitous geodesic market-network. By the way, my favorite J. Pierpont Morgan story is at the front of the book, where they haul him in front of Congress, after saving the US economy three(?) times and filling the mint twice(?), primarily because he has more money and financial power than God. :-). They ask him what is the most important thing to have to be a banker. His answer: Character. Something like, "Character. I wouldn't buy anything from a man with no character if he offered me all the bonds in Christendom." That's why we didn't need regulation in the original paper-based, instant-settled bearer certificate financial markets, the buttonwood tree on Wall Street, or the coffeehouse called Lloyd's, or a bunch of merchants in the City. Reputation ("Character") was good enough. It was a financial actor's most precious asset. Things changed from that, to the hierarchical, book-entry world we have today, because we needed to communicate long distances and had only humans to switch the information around. The technology you saw in Anguilla is about to change all that. I'll make one or my famous wild-eyed claims here, and say that the *only* reason we need market "regulation" is because our industrial communications technology required us to use book-entry settlement, which in turn required the force of nation-states to ensure non-repudiation. We don't need information hierarchies, much less book-entry settlement, anymore. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA Lesley Stahl: "You mean *anyone* can set up a web site and compete with the New York Times?" Andrew Kantor: "Yes." Stahl: "Isn't that dangerous?" The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ ---------- The e$ lists are brought to you by: Intertrader Ltd - Commerce Solutions in the UK Visit <http://www.intertrader.com/> for details ... Where people, networks and money come together: Consult Hyperion http://www.hyperion.co.uk info(a)hyperion.co.uk Like e$? Help pay for it! See <http://www.shipwright.com/rah.html> Or, for e$/e$pam sponsorship, see <http://www.shipwright.com/rah/> Thanks to the e$ e$lves: Of Counsel: Vinnie Moscaritolo <mailto:vinnie@webstuff.apple.com> (Majordomo)^2: Rachel Willmer<mailto:rachel@intertrader.com> Commermeister: Anthony Templer <mailto:anthony@atanda.com> Interturge: Rodney Thayer <mailto:rodney@sabletech.com> --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA Lesley Stahl: "You mean *anyone* can set up a web site and compete with the New York Times?" Andrew Kantor: "Yes." Stahl: "Isn't that dangerous?" The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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[NOISE] labelling requirement in EDSA 1997
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks, One of the more disturbing pieces of the Electronic Data Security Act of 1997 is the requirement that encryption software be labelled as to whether it uses Key Recovery Agents. While most cypherpunk-friendly software will be proud to label itself as non-GAKked, it seems to me to be fairly ominous, and is an important step towards banning non-GAK crypto altogether. I think it would be cool to combine the labelling requirement with a public relations campaign, not unlike the blue ribbon of last year. My proposal for the "no GAK" logo: a yellow star. To me, the symbolism is pointed and poignant, but on the other hand it may come dangerously close to invoking Godwin's law. If anyone else has any ideas for a logo that would get the point across equally well but be a little less controversial, I'd like to hear them. Raph P.S. My work on distributed key publication for the Internet is progressing very well. I'll give an update at the next bay area meeting, and there will be some UC Berkeley tech reports soon too. If my ideas fly, they will make Key Recovery Agents moot for a lot of people.

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