December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

The Global Fix is In
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The "Meeting of the Eight," formerly the G7, is happening in Denver. Listening to what's coming out of it, it's apparent that the Four Horsemen are front and center. Clinton is speaking of a network of banking and communications policy coordinators, to detect and halt drug dealing, money laundering, and nuclear terrorism. This fits with the details of reports about global wiretapping efforts, about joint intelligence activities, and, of course, with the OECD/GAK laws being proposed, passed, and about to be signed into law about "Key Recovery" and "Trusted Third Parties." The fix is in. It probably won't be long before Stronghold is barred for export from either Britain or RSA (the other one); both Tony Blair and Nelson Mandela are Friends of Bill, so a few phone calls should take care of that little problem. (And Norway and the other Scandinavian countries are part of the global wiretap agreement, so I rather doubt free export of PGP 5.x code out of Norway will be feasible, despite the OCR effort now underway there.) (Not that Clinton will mention Stronghold to Blair...that's far too much microdetail. Jimmy Carter might have gotten involved at that level, but not Bill. Details will be left to underlings.) The call to Japan, probably the visit by David Aaron, stopped NTT's plans for exporting the RSA chip. Anguilla and other "offshore" havens, will be subject to the same kinds of pressure. Mark my words. It's not hopeless. Physical havens are vulnerable, to all sorts of pressures (I doubt many cryptographers want to set up shop in Libya or Iraq, not that these places would be hospitable to Cypherpunks sorts of goals and methods). Going underground, using the untraceable features of cyberspace, may be the last, best hope. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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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Re: CDT Policy Post 3.08 - Senate Committee Approves Key Crypto Bill
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 12:18:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: Paul Spirito <spiritop(a)slic.com> Cc: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu, Charles Platt <cp(a)panix.com> Subject: Re: CDT Policy Post 3.08 - Senate Committee Approves Key Crypto Bill I'm much more intersted in looking at the motives not of the minority who voted for ProCODE II, but at who endorsed the final McCain-Kerrey bill and reported it out of committee. Keep in mind that civil liberties and business groups across the spectrum are unanimous in condemning the McCain-Kerrey bill as evil. But which senators on the full Commerce Committee voted against it? Did Ashcroft? Did Burns? -Declan On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Paul Spirito wrote: > 1) The senators who voted for the pro-CODE "compromise" were acting > about as principled as senators normally will.

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spook pressure on crypto exports
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back asked for info crypto export news for AU, IE and NZ, which I echo. I recall that Peter Gutmann has a standing request for crypto export info from anywhere. We'd like to host any reports that come in. For those who've not seen it, his report on his bizarre trials is at: http://jya.com/nsazeal.htm And a report on a weirdly similar UK experience by Mike Cobb is at: http://ukeep.htm Documenting the various international experiences is a worthy accompaniment to those of Bernstein, Karn and Junger, and about the only way to expose global GAK at work. It seems to be spreading quietly, implemented case by case, wearing down isolated appliants with evasive procrastination, or promising a one-time approval, using the clock to threaten pending sales.

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Re: The Global Fix is In
by Mix 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Going underground, using the untraceable features of cyberspace, may be the >last, best hope. You can't go underground if cryptography is illegal. You don't have remailers, so you can't be anonymous. You don't have crypto, so anyone can see what you're doing online. It doesn't work. You can't ignore the laws. You can't ignore society. The real world is all around you, and you have to live in it. People are tired. We win one battle, and have to begin again with another. But that's the way it works. Look at the political battles which have gone on for decades: gun control, abortion, environmentalism, many more. You have to be in this for the long haul. You have to fight every step of the way. Don't give up. Anon

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by 17509422＠ranier.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: cypherpunks PR fluff-ups
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back wrote: > Some general comments about the crack: > > Many of the people involved in running the cracks seemed more > concerned with their own glory, or with getting their name in lights > to enhance their consulting rates, or the technical interest of it, or > control freakish tendencies over the management of it, arguing over > how best to design the software to conceal the key from the finder of > the key! etc, than in making a political statement about the weakness > of DES. There seemed to be a multitude of political interests working to different ends in a number of the crack efforts, according to a lady who was involved with a couple of them rather intimately. Her impression was that there were people involved who were purposely giving out patently bad advice and working toward removing some of the more competent players from the scene. > Seemed like few of them were cypherpunks at heart. > > This reflected itself I think in the complete hostility to giving the > prize money to the winner, the fact that several of the cracks > wouldn't reveal the source code, nor their techniques. I know more than a few people who began to join in one or another of the cracks and then said to hell with it because of the cliquish nature of the efforts. Peter Trei's software ran best on my machines but when I contacted a couple of the groups as to how to find what keys had already been searched I was pretty much told to fuck off like it was some great secret only for the in-crowd. Also, there was a fair amount of sabotage going on in the background. The New Media effort in particular was plagued by bogus versions of their software being distributed and efforts to interfere with various sites running their software. Even their own version of the software was bogus at the point I first downloaded it. When I emailed them to point it out, they denied it, but then they stopped giving out their software for a couple weeks while they rewrote it, and then refused to make their source code available after that. All in all, my impression was there was too much ego and intrigue going on to make the distributed cracking efforts terribly efficient and functional at many points along the way. I would give those running the distributed cracks a few points for effort, but not many points for integrity. I still have a lingering feeling that the whole affair is being choreographed according to some unknown script, but I'm suspicious by nature. TruthCracker

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Re: CDT Policy Post 3.08 - Senate Committee Approves Key Crypto Bill
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: > On Fri, Jun 20, 1997 at 04:50:16PM -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > Statements similar to yours have been made so many times, scolding > > "extremists" for "not being realistic." I seem to remember something about > > extremism in defense of liberty being no vice, and moderation no virtue. > > Either way, if you compromise, you don't get what you want. That is > > absolutely obvious. So why compromise? > > Because half a million dollars is better than no dollars? Because in > real life the vast majority of choices are not binary? "Give me half my freedom, or hurt me bad." - Negotiator Crispin > The real question is: What is the most *effective* way for achieving > your ends. "Give me compromise, or I will give you death." - Prosecutor Crispin Wasn't someone named Crispin one of the original signers of the "Declaration of Wishing We Weren't Oppressed"? Half-TruthMonger

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Career non-criminal
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From News of the Weird: * The New York Times reported in December that Odell Sheppard, a "middle-aged handyman," had just passed his ninth consecutive year of incarceration in Cook County Jail in Chicago, even though he has not been charged with a crime. He was sent to jail for failing to reveal the whereabouts of his daughter Deborah, who was the subject of a child-custody dispute between Sheppard and Deborah's mother, but Sheppard maintains he has no idea where the girl is.

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McCain Talks Crypto
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This guy needs to connect to a clue server soon before it is too late... http://www.wired.com/news/politics/story/4588.html McCain Talks Crypto by Todd Lappin 6:04pm 20.Jun.97.PDT Just got off the phone with Senator John McCain. It has been a big week for the Republican from Arizona. On Monday, he and Senator Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska) dropped a bomb on the encryption debate. They introduced S909, the Secure Public Networks Act, a bill that would write into law most of the Clinton administration's encryption policy - leviathan key recovery system, continued restraints on exporting strong encryption, the whole bit. Then, leveraging his chairmanship of the Senate Commerce Committee, he pushed the bill onto a legislative fast track. Despite the fact that his bill cuts the legs from under Pro-CODE - a bill by Montana Republican Conrad Burns that would scrap the export controls - McCain said he's eager to negotiate on the issues. Here are the highlights of our 5-minute conversation - during which a certain two-word term was repeated again and again. Let's see if you can spot it. On the rationale behind S909: "I've always said that national security is a primary concern - and based on my own experience [nearly six years as a Vietnam POW], I've had a lot of time to consider how important that really is." On the software industry: "Frankly, I'm somewhat surprised that the software industry would be so willing to downplay the dangers of child porn.... This stuff is out there, and we can't allow child pornographers to hide by encrypting that material." "... I'm astonished that any industry would consider their priorities to be so important that they override national security concerns." On the rival Pro-CODE bill: "I'm all for Pro-CODE - except for its impact on national security. On the future: "I promise you, now that we've adopted this legislation, we will sit down and work this out with all the parties involved. As I've said before, from a practical standpoint, we can't override a presidential veto. With this bill, we've established that the president of the United States has authority over national security."

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Re: McCain Talks Crypto
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Alan Olsen wrote: > Here are the highlights of our 5-minute conversation > - during which a certain two-word term was repeated > again and again. Let's see if you can spot it. > > On the rationale behind S909: > "I've always said that ZIONIST CONSPIRACY is a primary > concern > > On the software industry: > "Frankly, I'm somewhat surprised that the software > industry would be so willing to downplay the dangers > of ZIONIST CONSPIRACY > > On the rival Pro-CODE bill: > "I'm all for Pro-CODE - except for its impact on > ZIONIST CONSPIRACY. > > On the future: > "With this bill, we've established that the > president of the United States has authority over > ZIONIST CONSPIRACY."

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