December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

FBI Technical Assistance Draft
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to Willis Ware we offer the full text of the FBI's August 28 "technical assistance draft" for encryption legislation, a few paragraphs of which Declan posted here: http://jya.com/fbi-tad-s909.htm (57K) Although prepared to revise McCain/Kerrey's S 909 to satisfy law enforcement, it's the source for the various amendments to SAFE which copied much of it unchanged, and some portions not yet lifted may foretell what's coming.

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Re: write up AP for FC++
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: >>I'm now mildly amused that Bell is being seen as the inventor of anonymous >>and untraceable murder markets, with clueless journalists seeking >>information on his discovery. But, hey, better he rot in jail than me. At 04:27 PM 8/18/97 -0700, Blanc wrote: > A presentation from you at FC98 would remind everyone of your own initial > writings on the subject and provide you with due credit (better credit than > a jail/rotting sentence). I can't think of anyone else who would be more > qualified for this. Freedom of speech is protected by nothing stronger than the cluelessness of our masters. If you publish your idea in appropriate forums, you can get away with it. If you go from forum to forum singing your idea like a broken record, and flogging it like soap, you will probably go to jail. I see no point in explaining our ideas so thoroughly and repeatedly that even cops and politicians start to understand them. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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RE: engineering infowar disasters (was Re: How the FBI/NSA forces can further twist SAFE)
by Phillip Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Saturday, September 27, 1997 7:57 PM, Adam Back [SMTP:aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk] wrote: > Reckon cypherpunks can knock up a few of those. > > So lets here some ideas for good photogenic infowar attacks which show > that the lack of crypto is dangerous. I suggest unless people want to hand the FBI an excuse to harass everyone that they don't enter into this discussion. There are plenty of conspiracy laws on the book. Infrastructure attacks are illegal and exactly the kind of thing that gets long jail sentences. More to the point it is completely counterproductive. Even now there is probably some FBI junior waving Back's message in the air as if he has won the pools, probable cause for wiretaps I would say. I suspect I'm not the only person on the list who is responsible for a service that is a regular hacker target. If I catch someone I really don't care what the motive for the attack was. I'm going to look to make that person serve jail time. Phill

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Re: write up AP for FC++
by Blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

More than a month later, James A. Donald responded: >I see no point in explaining our ideas so thoroughly and repeatedly >that even cops and politicians start to understand them. ......................................................... I dont' think where you publish your idea makes as much difference as in how you present it, based on what attitude and inclinations you reveal about your motives for the future. If you are having an abstract discussion which explores the ramifications of what a new technology makes possible - not only for the good, but for the bad - it is surely distinguishable from a discussion on who exactly you dislike and how precisely you are going to hurt them badly with your new, advanced weapon-tools. One type of discussion could reveal your perspective and the scope of your ability to follow ideas to their logical conclusions. A different discussion, conversely, could reveal your psychological problems and the malfunctioning of a disturbed imagination. Anyone who studies ideas seriously will want to explain their discoveries to colleagues; it's almost a given that this is so. I wasn't suggesting to Tim that he reiterate himself to clueless public authorities for the purpose of elevating their understanding (although it is a fact that Tim very often has explained, again and again, the same ideas which he has posted in the past, until lately he has arrived at the point of merely referencing himself and his previous contributions to the list.). I was making reference to the mistake certain people are making, as he mentioned, of attributing to Jim Bell the origin of the AP ideas, when Tim's own extensive exploration of this subject preceded Jim's epiphanies by years. I was encouraging Tim that presenting his ideas to a physical gathering of people who are of the mind to consider the impact of these possibilities upon their business enterprises, would contribute to clarifying the situation (to some degree - I can't say how or what kind of effect it would actually have, obviously). But anyway, James, don't you think it is better to live in an atmosphere of people who have a clue, rather than otherwise, regardless of their position in this contradictory world? .. Blanc

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by sales＠thebestcoffee.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Digital Postage (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 19:18:01 -0400 > From: Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> > Subject: Re: Digital Postage (fwd) > Jim Choate wrote: > >[Tim May wrote: ed.] > >> Some will remail for some form of digital postage. Some will charge too little, some too much. > >> Some will adjust their prices based on market/customer reactions. And so on. > > > >And there are a couple of problems with this: > > > > - it relies on a mechanism not currently in place to interface with > > other more traditional financial institutions. Which I might add > > don't look upon this as the most trustworthy mechanism. > > Ecash is in place right now. True, but there are only 3 systems and it is not clear at all which will dominate and be used by all parties. Also there is the issue of security in regards to maintaning anonymity when there is such a small pool of parties to use. Doesn't take a genius to figure out where to hang out and watch the action. > > - how do you charge for the postage, per submission? What happens when > > I want to send 10,000 parties the email. Do I still pay the digi-postage > > equivalent of $.35? Or do I pay $350.00? > > This is easily worked out between the remailer operator and the > customer. How? There is certainly no clear mechanism in place. Does the customer contact each remailer operator prior to sending the traffic, thus opening up N opportunities for anonymity cracking. If the operators agree to a system how do we get there? Is it time to have a anon-remailer conference to settle on distributed payment schemes? > Were I running a remailer, I would charge $350.00. As a > customer, I would not see this as unreasonable. Unless it is pertty serious nobody is going to pay such a fee just to send an email around. The problem I see is one of scale. The infrastructure for handling physical mail is very 'bulky' and requires a lot infrastructure. Email on the other hands effectively rides on the back of an existing Internet infrastructure for nearly free. Because of the historicaly low cost for email this would tend to in general indicate a low market value on anon remailers. This means the cost per msg. must be very low (the aforementioned micro payments) and hence leads to two realizations: - we need a lot of remailers - we need a lot of traffic to invoke economy of scales It is clear that neither of these can exist without the other, meaning this puts us at a chicken-or-the-egg type situation. > >I suspect that anon remailers will operate by something similar to > >ISP's where when the account is setup some fee is paid for use and > >not on a use by use based fee. The problem with that is it creates a > >'concrete' link between the party desiring anonymity and the remailer > >operator that may be exploited in some (most? all?) cases to break > >that anonymity. > > The way to break the concrete link is with blinded credentials. Of > course, ecash already provides this feature without the hassle of > opening an account with a remailer operator, writing and deploying new > software, etc. etc. True, but it doesn't have the rest of the infrastructure (some detailed above) in place. To get this to work will take more than a couple dozen operators swapping some digi-cash between themselves. There are entirely too many infrastructure and legal issues for remailers to be any sort of profitable long-term business that will attract non-techie investors. If you know of some investors please let them know of me as I am very interested in commercial remailers (anon & not). ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Digital Postage (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Syniker(a)aol.com > Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 20:21:11 -0400 (EDT) > Subject: Re: Digital Postage (fwd) > I'm probably not thinking right Jim -- but what if I bought a postal > money order, or such, with cash... sent it too you... along with > an encyrpted email that referred to the serial number of the > money order... then, you uncyphered my email... to verify payment, and > recyphered my account info to me... > Would something like that work to establish a paid-up account? It would provided nobody was really concerned about tracking you. Let's consider your scenario for a moment <any mistakes in comprehension or description or my own>... Process: 1. purchase M.O. with cash, presumably in person 2. use ground mail to get the M.O. to the remailer 3. send encrypted email from your nym to me identifying which account it applies to. 4. remailer receives the email and the M.O. 5. apply funds to account. I see a couple of ways a determined mallet could over time figure out who was doing what with whom. My primary assumption is that mallet has some reason to suspect a specific party and their use of anon remailers. When the M.O. is purchased, even by cash, the chances of getting put on tape is pretty high. This places a clear link between at least one party and the purchase of the M.O. (it has a serial #) and the time it was purchased (M.O.'s have time stamps). Making it trivial to figure out which security tape(s) to review. The ground mail places at least a rough geographic area as to its source unless you plan on travelling all over the states sending your M.O.'s. This is too much trouble for a user except in very unique circumstances. My grandmother for example probably won't travel across town let alone across the state on each use. By monitoring the physical mail at the remailer we can clearly link the mail to the recipient. When the remailer deposits the M.O. a record is going to be made about who received it and how much. My guess is that it would take about 3-4 cycles of this before mallet can start putting a clear picture together of what and who is involved. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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17 Dec '03

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quote
by Zooko Journeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Igor Chudov contributed a quote from some government manual: >These anti-government extremists and supporters are convinced >citizens are being systematically oppressed by an illegal, >totalitarian government. They believe the time for traditional >political reform has passed, that their freedom will only be >secured by resistance to the law and attacks against the >government in several forms. > >Members of these groups bond to one another and lose contact with >other people who hold different opinions. The isolation works to >reinforce their views, which in turn gives them new purpose. >This new purpose may take ordinary ideas to extremes, rationalize >their problems into blaming government, and cause members to >compete with each other to make stronger statements. Couldn't've said it better myself. I see the same pattern in cypherpunks and in my non- (or barely-) 'Netted extremist friends of the right, the libertarian, and the left varieties. I've argued with myself for years about whether the spread of the Net would connect these people back to their fellow humans, by offering uncensorable, violence-free communication channels, or whether it help them to make virtual communities consisting solely of people who reinforce their own beliefs. I'm still hoping for the former... Z, hopeful cynic

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Re: Remailers and ecash (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 02:29:28 -0400 > From: "Robert A. Costner" <pooh(a)efga.org> > Subject: Re: Remailers and ecash (fwd) > At 12:25 AM 9/29/97 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: > >> From: "Robert A. Costner" <pooh(a)efga.org> > >> So I proposed, and documented, that the minimum level to achieve this > >> would be a $50K investment over a year's time. This is in fact, more or > >> less what the Cracker remailer takes to run. > > > >I have to disagree on the annual cost to run. Considering the load of > >remailers a simple ISDN would be sufficient. > > Sure. You can run a remailer on whatever bandwidth, and under whatever > conditions you choose. Duh. > When I did a breakdown of the pricing, I simply put > forth what Cracker has behind it, not the minimum required. But with an > ISDN line, you then have to have a location to house it, so you in theory > require rent. You also add one more thing in the loop that is subject to > failure. Like a T1 doesn't require a POP. Like T1's and their associated CSU/DSU's and such don't break (tell that to several of my customers who will get a hearty chuckle out of that one). Like they don't need air-conditioning and other support services. > The winsock remailer demonstrates that a remailer can run on a 28.8K PPP > connection, part time. Remailers never have been bandwidth intensive. True, but to be effective they must be available on demand and the user shouldn't have to wait until your auto-dialer feels this is a good time to deliver the service. > An advantage of the 10MB connection for Cracker is that when those several > hundred megabyte mailbombs, and thousands of addresses to the same location > come in, they can be discarded faster than with a 64K ISDN connection. I have found that my 128k connection very seldom gets congested even with high traffic. Other traffic choke points usualy limit the amount of traffic that I see. Even when one of my customers runs their resume tracking program (which will saturate a ethernet easily in testing) can seldom saturate the line for more than a few seconds. > In reality, Cracker runs with whatever resources have been made available > to us. It turns out we were offered a spare 10MB connection before we > offered a spare 64K connection. And interestingly enough, the true cost of > the 10MB connection is less than the 64K ISDN connection would be. There > are definite advantages to a colocated machine even if it is what we are > "stuck with". Ah, so cracker is not a true commercial model but rather a hybrid then? You pay for some services and a 3rd party donates the rest? I'm wondering about your co-location machine, from your comments above it must be sitting in a field since you don't pay rent (or was that your way of saying somebody else pays the rent for you?). Is this so? Since so many of your utilities and physical plant are donated I have to question the accuracy and utility of your figures as well as the applicability of those figures to a true commercial enterprise. Whether you have realized it or not, all those seemingly great freebies and perks for nothing actualy make the remailer less stable because your operation relies on the good feelings of a 3rd party which can be used to Mallet's advantage. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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