December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: anonymous remailers
by Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

c.musselman(a)internetmci.com (Charley Musselman) writes: > C'punks -- > When I told a friend about the alt.drugs.pot cultivation newsgroup > and suggested that he use an anonymous remailer to post to the group, > he laughed and said, "Who do you suppose runs the remailers? ATF, > FBI, DEA, that's who!" Gee, it makes sense to this paranoid. Does > anyone know the answer? Specifically, how can we choose a trusted > remailer? Even if the feds are not directtly involved, the so-called "cypher punk" remailers are run by people who should not be trusted. Check out their remailer-operators list: it's full of announcements that some specific person posted something via the remailer that the operator didn't like. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: 40-bit RC5 crack meaningless??
by Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This would be the same Strassmann who stated in public at Harvard early in 1995 that most remailers were run by intelligence agencies such as the KGB, then denied saying it when asked for substantiation? And cut it from his paper? On Thu, 6 Feb 1997, Vin McLellan wrote: > Strassmann, the author of this denunciation of RSADS and > Ian Goldberg, is the former Director of Defense Information > (i.e., CIO,) of the Bush DoD and an often-insightful commentator Having said that, there is some debate about the extent to which in *intelligence gathering* as opposed to, say, trying to crack a banking protocol, one can reasonably count on a known plaintext. And much debate about the processing costs of not having one, especially when one doesn't know what kind of document is being encrypted (e.g. is it ASCII plaintext? a spreadsheet? a jpeg? etc.). I think that's his (misdirected) point. A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.

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Re: mail-to-news fun
by Lance Cottrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It would be a trivial hack for Mixmaster. It allways knows if a message if going to another remailer, or if this is the last hop, so it can add the disclaimer only on the last hop. -Lance At 4:06 PM -0800 2/6/97, Bill Stewart wrote: >At 01:01 PM 2/6/97 -0500, Scott V. McGuire wrote: >>On Wed, 5 Feb 1997 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: >>> People don't read mail headers or disclaimers at the bottom, >>> and putting disclaimers like that into message text for >>> email exposes the message to traffic analysis.) > >>How does putting it in the message expose it to traffic analysis but not >>putting it in a header? > >Suppose you're sending a message on a remailer chain of >you -> Alice->Bob->Charlie->Dave->Eve->Fred--> target >and Bob puts lots of disclaimers in his remailer's outgoing messages. >Anything Bob puts in a header will get stripped out by Charlie, >so it's no problem. However, if Bob tacks a disclaimer >as the bottom text in the outgoing message, when Eve sends >mail to Fred she'll also see the disclaimer that > The message was sent by an anonymous user > through the remailer at Bob's Remailer Shack. > Bob doesn't know who sent it, and doesn't keep records, > so he can't squash the user, but he can block mail to you > if you don't want any more anonymous email. > Don't believe everything you read! >so she'll know to check the FBI Illegal Wiretap files for Bob. > >Some comments and backtracking >0) Of course, if you want to avoid traffic analysis, >sending unencrypted email is pretty stupid, and only the >next hop is going to see a disclaimer that you append >after the encrypted part of the message. > >1) Prepending the disclaimer to the message body is >pretty unfriendly to the :: syntax, and not all that >great for PGP encrypted messages either. Pretend I >really just suggested appending it at the end, >since that's what I would have said if I'd been thinking :-) > >On the other hand, I suppose that you can see whether the >next hop is a Type I remailer by looking for the :: or ##. > >2) Cutmarks would be a nice fix, but they require too much >attention to detail to get right, in case the next hop >is a remailer. > >So maybe you _should_ always put in the disclaimer, >at the end, with a reminder to always encrypt your >remailer-chain mail if you want to avoid traffic analysis :-) > > > > > ># 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.) ---------------------------------------------------------- Lance Cottrell loki(a)obscura.com PGP 2.6 key available by finger or server. http://www.obscura.com/~loki/ "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come." --Nietzsche ----------------------------------------------------------

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My messages not appearing on either of the lists?
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks, My posting seem to be going into Limbo, being sent neither to the Cypherpunks Heaven Sandy administers nor to the flames of the Cypherpunks Hell. At least this is how things now appear. I sent the message below to the list this morning (Thursday) at 8:43 a.m. PST. As of tonight, 12 hours later, I haven't seen it on either the Singapore Web site--last archived 30 minutes ago--or on the "Flames" list to which I have temporarily subscribed (to see what Sandy counts as a "flame"). Has anyone else seen it? I've looked, but there's always a chance I somehow spaced out and missed it. (I doubt it though.) If I have missed it, despite carefully scanning for it for the past 8-12 hours, my apologies. If it has not appeared on either the Censored list or the Flames list, then something is rotten in the state of Denmark. By the way, I noted that many of the messages which appeared at the Singapore Web archive site have dates much later than mine, including several dated at least 8-10 hours after my message. Likewise, some of the Flames messages are dated much later than my message. (Bill Stewart got a message through dated Thu, 06 Feb 1997 16:06:06 -0800, Mark Henderson got one through at Thu, 6 Feb 1997 15:56:19 PST, and so on. One would thus have thought that my message, dated Thu, 6 Feb 1997 08:43:35 -0800, would by now either have been approved and hence on the Censored list, or rejected as unfit for Cypherpunks to sully their neurons with, and hence passed on to the Flames list. By the way, some of the "Flames" messages are also dated late afternoon or evening.) So, is my message just sitting around someplace, awaiting some final decision? What's the basis of this decision? (Perhaps Sandy has "kicked it upstairs" to John for him to decide on? Just a hypothesis....) I will repeat my message below. As you will be able to see, my message contains no "flames" of its own, and the messages it quotes do not seem flamish to me, either. (It is true that Vulis uses the phrase "Limey faggots," in reference to beer-serving habits, but he does not directly insult any list members with this phrase. If Sandy is calling this phrase a flame, then Cypherpunks will be blocked from their usual characterizations of Congresscritters and NSA stooges.) I think a delay of greater than 11 hours in being distributed on one of the two lists (even if my message is sent out in the next hour or so) is unacceptable. If a moderator cannot get to traffic in the order in which it was received and disposition it promptly, he or she has no business being a moderator of a high-volume list. (Eric Blossom's and Ray Arachelian's "best of" compilations are a different matter, for reasons discussed many times here.) So, why hasn't this message appeared on one of the two lists? --Tim May >Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 08:43:35 -0800 >To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> >Subject: Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy] >Cc: >Bcc: >X-Attachments: > > >I decided to subscribe only to the "cypherpunks flames" list, just to see >what was being filtered into it. > >The message below is one example of what is going there. I received it, >and the header includes the line: "Sender: >owner-cypherpunks-unedited(a)toad.com", so I am surmising that it was indeed >filtered into the flames list. > >Now, admittedly, the _content_ of this kind of post is "off-topic," but I >sure don't see any evidence of _flames_. > >Is Sandy now filtering based on his notions of list relevance, and not >just on the basis of insults, jabs, flames, and "lack of comity"? While >lack of relevance may be a criterion for someone to filter by, it doesn't >square with anything I recall Sandy citing, and it introduces a new and >dimension to the debate. > >--Tim May > >(The entire post is included, to ensure that no one claims I am editing >out any flames, insults, etc.) > > >At 11:06 PM -0800 2/5/97, Dale Thorn wrote: >>Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: >>> Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> writes: >> >>> > > > The drunk can be excluded, but when someone wants to use the drunk as >>> > > > an example to escalate the exclusion to other persons who are not in >>> > > > fact drunk, watch out! >> >>> > > If I get really really drunk, which happens very seldom, then I'm >>> > > too drunk to post. I don't mind an occasional beer, though. >> >>> > > Oksas, have you ever tried beer? :-) >> >>> > I had my first beer(s) in three years at one of those industrial >>> > parties last night. It made the craps table action seem a bit >>> > merrier, and the girls were friendlier too. >> >>> I like an occasional Coors Lite. BTW I think Limey Faggots are right about >>> one think: I like room-temperature beer better than cold beer. YMMV. >> >>Interesting coincidence for people on opposite coasts - the bar at >>the hotel had two choices: Bud regular and Coors light. I took the >>Coors. > > > > > 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."

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World's first Ecash note
by Jeremey Barrett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The world's first Ecash note has been printed! A USD 0.01 note made out to anyone can be found at: http://www.veriweb.com/people/jeremey/ecash/1_cent.html The data portion of the note is a PDF417 2-D barcode, containing a standard ecash payment of 1 US cent. The source code for the general PDF417 encoding and the ecash conversion will be published as soon as I clean it up and come up with a somewhat nicer interface. The PDF417 code should be useful for non-ecash stuff as well, it will encode anything. I will be bringing a bunch of notes to the bay-area cypherpunks meeting Saturday. Suggestions/comments appreciated. - -- =-----------------------------------------------------------------------= Jeremey Barrett VeriWeb Internet Corp. Senior Software Engineer http://www.veriweb.com/ PGP Key fingerprint = 3B 42 1E D4 4B 17 0D 80 DC 59 6F 59 04 C3 83 64 =-----------------------------------------------------------------------= -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface iQCVAwUBMvq83i/fy+vkqMxNAQH/tQP/fSgEQ8K0BQcwTJxnaF7aKg1LzNshMdey A8MH67Uv8zfv9cQTD0+g/JO4x64Ina5ZcMqn4IoHNOybqfvrR4ZepDLa+SsX2hhU 2xdmgf452OEhVpjSYoNnDMKoKAUUbfIlApu7W/9M/Ecx3vbT0cq4dxVF2zzcmJsy nhEPFe2iSc4= =v84p -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Which list am I on?
by Against Moderation 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I thought I was on the cypherpunks edited list. However, I appear to have seen some of the messages that Tim says got lost. Moreover, I keep getting ASCII art messages flaming someone with the initials DLV (though I haven't seen any more of the TCM flames [I haven't looked too hard, either]). My mail headers have: >From cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com <date> >Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Now I'm really confused. Which list am I on?

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Dr. Denning
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dimwit Vermin is a pimply dweeb sitting at a computer chortling at his own imagined cleverness. _<_ (_|_( Dimwit Vermin \-._|_,-, `-----'

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Re: Govt & cyberspace
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I find your "distributed democracy" interesting, except that it would allow scant time for deliberation. Think of it this way: don't you think the majority of Americans would have voted to pass the CDA? Or worse? Or restrictions on domestic crypto? Or worse? Democracy generally means majoritarian rule. The Bill of Rights is an anti-majoritarian document. It protects the rights of political or religious minorities. I fear that electronic "click here to vote" democracy would undermine the Bill of Rights even more. -Declan --- Dale Thorn writes: I wish for once and for all someone would delineate this "democracy" thing from a true, distributed democracy, where every individual is required to participate equally, and no narrow interests can co-opt the vote the way they do in the kind of "democracy" Declan mentions. Wouldn't it be better when people mention a one-word political philosophy such as democracy, that they make the definition more precise by using two or three words instead?

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remailer-operators DEA agents?
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > c.musselman(a)internetmci.com (Charley Musselman) writes: > > C'punks -- > > When I told a friend about the alt.drugs.pot cultivation newsgroup > > and suggested that he use an anonymous remailer to post to the group, > > he laughed and said, "Who do you suppose runs the remailers? ATF, > > FBI, DEA, that's who!" Gee, it makes sense to this paranoid. Does > > anyone know the answer? Specifically, how can we choose a trusted > > remailer? > > Even if the feds are not directtly involved, the so-called "cypher punk" > remailers are run by people who should not be trusted. Check out their > remailer-operators list: it's full of announcements that some specific > person posted something via the remailer that the operator didn't like. Examples, please?

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Re: lead remailer is shut down
by Michael H. Warfield 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

zinc enscribed thusly: > The following message is a courtesy copy of an article > that has been posted as well. > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > hi, > i came in today to find they (university system admins) had pulled the > plug on my machine. this is all because some luser spammed usenet > using the remailer on my machine. thanks a lot. Yeah? Did you find his ass? Kindly forward the coordinates of the body so we can desecrate the corpse! > so, the lead remailer is gone for good; it lasted almost exactly one > year. > it was nice while it lasted. Never used it but it is always sad to see the passing of a network resource due to the abuse by cretins with all the morals of an alley cat in heat... > - -patrick finerty > biochem grad student, u of utah > - -- > "Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary > safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (1773) > finger zinc-pgp@zifi for PGP key > zifi runs LINUX 2.0.28 -=-=-=WEB=-=-=-> http://zifi.genetics.utah.edu > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: 2.6.2 > Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface > > iQCVAwUBMvqXqE3Qo/lG0AH5AQHsQgP+LJFyMCrYnackXVZqMuDRt2vgliYeWh2L > 6i3IgfCqMSxfScyLFQXMP7cRJT1oNWFEilmcBLURWOqK/hy4sAufRaNKNw/rvcOE > 4qYFyxm3IDwF3vqdgDnaj5LWISWxaVrglHL8wNKNBQDr1Eq6XVZiqYPT5UC00klt > clfXhusEPPg= > =0fse > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Mike -- Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | mhw(a)WittsEnd.com (The Mad Wizard) | (770) 925-8248 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/ NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471 | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!

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