December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Factor a 2048-bit number
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Theodor Schlickmann and Peter Trei have expressed some skepticism regarding the 2048-bit number which I believe can be factored. I confess that I do not know the exact method required, but I am pretty sure it exists. Hint 1: The method will not work to factor 2048-bit numbers in the general case. Hint 2: There is an observation which suggests the number may be factored. A one word hint will reveal this observation. (I want to hold off on Hint 3 for a little while in case somebody is already working on the problem. If anybody wants me to withhold Hint 3, please post a message to the list and I may do so. It seems to me that it will be more fun to solve without Hint 3.) Wouldn't it be neat to actually factor a 2048-bit number which was the product of two large primes? Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNHMvmpaWtjSmRH/5AQHWVQf+KvPxxNw8bHWhxVq//I7ic8dwtmVa2AS6 zpl77qI6vkeMfjFv0UxP5XXIEDH13cy7nlgOHjmvSc/IjC2A0+twQEgxUBzLV5pe Ltpnbw/RM/vqs5wX7d7KhY+kUxQR77ElUANVVve5sQNn1cDPAIQcQnC7UL7oAk0B Wo2/xlCoTncUkXwPX94PLk1hjdARimpvcoBYmtYcE0mnwNZfzTTU4ExgxAbiOq5H /oosTwnEjb+bDU7uPr9H/XxUkdGxa4PfWEw9C+folUbEtjFjJznfn78c45fz2IYs 6S/oywGnKlWEU9xS9Yg8fnIDCWB1V6tTEW3PGJDp5fwi3x06i298eQ== =sJgk -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Did ANYONE get this number?
by amp＠pobox.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Though it will probably be changed soon, this could be a useful number to have... amp Oops! President's fax line made public Copyright (C) 1997 Nando.net Copyright (C) 1997 The Associated Press WASHINGTON (November 20, 1997 5:06 p.m. EST) -- The House committee investigating campaign fund raising briefly posted President Clinton's personal fax number on the Internet this week, despite a request that it keep the number private. White House press secretary Mike McCurry called the incident "a procedural lapse" on the part of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee chaired by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. A committee spokesman said the public posting of the number of the president's fax machine was a quickly corrected and "inadvertent" mistake with no malicious intent. McCurry said the White House is concerned because the fax machine, located just outside the Oval Office, serves as the president's sounding board, a personal link to hundreds of friends and acquaintances around the country. "It would be a source of concern to the White House because that's a very valuable way in which the president maintains contact with an incredibly diverse group of Americans," McCurry said. "It's not the first time that they've had some procedural lapses," McCurry said of the Burton committee. The incident was reported Thursday by Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Congress. The committee obtained the fax number when it was mentioned by former Clinton political consultant Dick Morris during a deposition last August. The committee failed to black it out when it posted the Morris deposition on the Internet Tuesday. Will Dwyer, a spokesman for the committee said the number was available to the public for no more than an hour. He contended committee lawyers had never definitively promised Morris to keep it private although Morris did ask that it and his private phone numbers not be disclosed. "I don't think we have breached any agreement," Dwyer said. Dwyer took issue with McCurry's assertion that the incident was one of a series of lapses on the committee's part. "He's making a mountain out of a molehill," he said. "As soon as we discovered it we corrected it. There was no intent for anything malicious to occur here." ********************************************************* To post a message to AEN NEWS, address it to news(a)aen.org. ---------------End of Original Message----------------- === E-mail: amp(a)pobox.com Date: 11/21/97 Time: 01:11:39 Visit me at http://www.pobox.com/~amp -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-3-lines-PERL #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/) Have you seen http://www.public-action.com/SkyWriter/WacoMuseum ===

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Re: Environmentalism (was Re: Crimes) (fwd)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> try to make a model of a complex system, and push your models beyond design > constraints, you are going to have some amount of difficulty. Predicting > weather a decade hence is about a tough as predicting the market over the > same time period... Or trying to predict the content of the Cypherpunks Mailing list!

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CNET Dispatch: Comdex wrap-up; Web cops (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 18:14:58 -0800 > From: CNET Digital Dispatch <dispatch(a)CNET.com> > Subject: CNET Dispatch: Comdex wrap-up; Web cops > CNET Digital Dispatch: Comdex wrap-up; Web cops > November 20, 1997 > This week on CNET: [deleted] > 2. How cops fight online crime [deleted] > 10. "Your turn": revolution of the Net [deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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Algebra down?
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Been getting bounces from Algebra for the last few hours. Anyone know what's up on that end? ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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What REALLY happened to Flight 800...
by Brian W. Buchanan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From comp.risks: | An article `Windows added to cockpit choices' in Flight International, 5-11 | November 1997, p 25, explains that the US company Avidyne has certificated | an avionics system based on Windows NT. The hardware supplier is Electronic | Designs, who has recently received approval from the FAA (approval for what | is not specified). Avidyne is apparently working on Level-C approval, which | will allow use of its moving-map display for IFR navigation. One of the | benefits is said to be the wide range of interfaces available to other | devices. "Good afternoon, Microsoft technical support." "This is TWA Flight 800. Our avionics system just shit itself! Something about a segmentation violation in the hydrolics interface driver!" "Hmm. Did you try rebooting it?" "Yes, several times! Losing attitude control!" "Hmm. This may require a reinstall of the operating system then. Please hold for a moment while I connect you to one of our reinstallation support technicians." "No! Wait! The center fuel tank's thermostat control dialog is full of random garbage now! *SCREAM* *BOOM*" ... And in today's news, despite a leaked report from the NTSB that it was not "digital sabotage," but a critical bug in Microsoft Windows NT for Avionics that was responsible for the crash of TWA Flight 800, President Clinton has asked Congress to introduce legislation that would enable the FBI to monitor so-called computer hackers more carefully through digital wiretaps and mandatory key escrow, to "save the children from the info-terrorists on the other side of the Bridge to the Twenty-First Century." Microsoft is not commenting at this time, but a source within the company has informed us that a fix for the "center fuel tank bug" will be included in NT for Avionics Service Pack 4, to be released in the first quarter of 1998. -- Brian Buchanan brian(a)smarter.than.nu "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you." No security through obscurity! Demand full source code! 4.4BSD for the masses - http://www.freebsd.org

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No Subject
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This comes the same day as a Wired News story about detritus.net, an online gallery which plans to host works of "appropriated," copyright- infringing art. Better not take any digital handouts at the gallery, or you're opt to join them in the paddy wagons, too. The assertion of "Intellectual property" = the control of human Mind. Lock and load. Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 18:38:30 -0500 From: Carl Donath <ctdonath(a)RPA.NET> Reply-To: Netly <NETLY-L(a)LISTSERV.PATHFINDER.COM> To: NETLY-L(a)LISTSERV.PATHFINDER.COM Subject: Re: Today's netly Jonathan Peterson wrote: > > So assuming I have a copy of Director on a workstation at home and > choose to install it on a laptop so I can work on the road I'm up for > 5 years and $250,000? Yep. Welcome to the reality that an increasing number of reasonable citizens face: do something normal, reasonable, even constitutionally protected, and face years in prison and huge fines.

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Violence and Depravity
by nobody＠neva.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Monty Cantsin wrote: >Violence is, in nearly every case, a poor investment of time, >money, and energy. I disagree. The US Goverment and the mainstream media were both guilty of either ignorance or deliberate subreption during McVeigh's trial. As a military trained explosive demolition instructor, I am compelled to concur with the absent testimony and published findings of a certain three star, to wit: It ain't necessarily so. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of explosives will tell you that two tons of ammonium nitrate, sixty feet from the base of a tall, reinforced concrete and steel building, will not do very much more than break lots of windows. You see, ammonium nitrate is a low velocity explosive compound useful for moving dirt. A brissance, or shattering effect, on steel and/or reinforced concrete requires an explosive compound with much greater explosive velocity.... C-4, several types of commercial blasting gelatin, even TNT. If you observed the news footage of the Murray Federal Building after the blast, you may have noticed that the damage was configured in a semi-cylindrical fashion, rather than the conic section which would have resulted from a ground placed charge of sufficient strength. You might also have wondered about the apparent lack of a crater at the site of the explosion... (The crater was mysteriously relocated to the basement of the structure, probably by A Terrorist-Provocateur To Be Named Later...) If you looked closely at the ruined building, you would have seen evidence of brissance on alternating bearing members on each floor. (I have photos of this) Had detailed chemical analysis of the site been permitted, evidence of a very large and elaborate line or ring main constructed of detonation cord, of the RDX or PETN based military variety, likely, would have been found. Consider that the placement of the array of charges necessary to simultaneously shatter several dozen large bearing members in the building would have required several hours for a well trained demolition team, not to mention unlimited access to the building after hours. Seismographs recorded TWO impacts that day, several minutes apart. Consider that if this action was meant to revenge or commemorate the Waco massacre, it achieved the opposite goal. However, if this was the work of agents-provocateur, it worked beautifully. Waco was downplayed in the face of 'the threat of domestic terrorism.' The body count was higher, and this time it came from the 'self-styled militia.' Also, if McVeigh really had followed the Turner Diaries recipe, he would have put his bomb somewhere useful. The book details the use of a similar device to destroy a large government database, and the truck bomb is parked underneath it in the basement parking structure, _not_ sixty feet away... The reader's digest version: 1) McVeigh's bomb, as it was and where it was, was a squirt of piss in a hurricane. 2) A well financed team of demolition professionals did the job. 3) The payoff from this "investment" was the impressive Anti-Terrorism bill, much political mileage for the agency "targeted" by the attack, and an option for more legislation in the crypto arena. 4) In a perfect world, McVeigh would have been prosecuted for incompetence, and given a suspended sentence because he was, after all, merely an infantry sergeant, not a demolition pro. In the same perfect world, Woodward and Bernstein types would follow up on stuff like this instead of gulping down regurgitated propaganda like so many infant birds. Then perhaps the true terrorists would be punished, and the political agenda of their employers exposed. 5) The convenient deaths of poor defenseless children(TM) contributed mostly to the policy goals of the jackbooted thugs, not to those of their detractors. 6) McVeigh pulled an Oswald. Quit crediting him with success. A Noncom To Be Named Later

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For Blanc's Eye's Only (WAS: "I got there just in time...")
by Janet Reamhole 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[A very revealing series of articles at:] http://cnet.com/Content/Features/Dlife/Finest/ The next day the San Diego ISP was contacted by someone "who knew the hacker had been in their system," says George Vinson, assistant special agent in charge of the San Francisco office of the FBI. "He told the ISP the hacker's handle, and said Smak had a lot of credit card numbers for sale." That third party became the FBI's cooperating witness. Any bets that the 'cooperating witness' who showed up 'out of the blue' was already a government instigator/snitch? Sources close to the investigation say the hacker used PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, a powerful encryption tool available as freeware on the Internet and in commercial retail versions, to encrypt his communications. Although encryption often makes the FBI's job even tougher, in this case, Smak's use of encryption created an opportunity for the FBI to gain greater control over the sting. Bullshit. Any government agency who is able to access a user's computer via search warrant/surrepticious entry/cooperating accomplice, can compromise the target's encryption 99.9% of the time. Has the government ever provided a *single*instance* where inability to access encrypted files impeded a prosecution? The ratfuckers just want to 'Go Fish' through our private lives at will, and then go get legal authorization to pretend to newly discover their illegally acquired information. Unlike hackers whose main goal is to brag about their technological prowess, Smak was selling a huge volume of credit card numbers to criminals. Right... It this was the Truth (TM) as opposed to horseshit, the public would be privy to all the details of the horrendous range of his crimes, in order to bolster the government's agenda. "The encryption-using hacker also murdered fifty world leaders, but we have no information available on the details at this time. and never will." >From May 2, 1997, until the dramatic meeting at the airport three weeks later, Smak and the confidential witness exchanged more than 50 email messages. Let's see. The government allowed Smak to sell "a huge volume of credit card numbers to criminals" for three weeks--for what purpose? To build a case for conviction? When they already had a "confidential witness" who had knowledge of Smak's crimes? Bullshit. The government agents needed three weeks to encourage and abet Smak in becoming a criminal and committing crimes as a result of government influence. Unbeknownst to Smak, his messages to the witness were received at a computer controlled by the FBI, and recorded and maintained as evidence. "Only the FBI could access the email encrypted by Smak," says Agent Dalrymple. The cooperating witness "didn't have the password or the ability to access the information." Barf City! Give a retarded kid access to someone's computer and they can bust it wide open in a matter of hours. Controlling the encryption key and the password gave the FBI confidence that it was building an airtight case. "That way we had clean messages," says Dalrymple. "They couldn't be adulterated in any way. By law we can prove they were his messages." If the law *required* the FBI to prove that the messages *could* have been adulterated, and that they *weren't* Smak's messages, in order to convict him, they would have called cypherpunks, hackers and phreaks to 'prove' it to be so. Visa USA's fraud control team, which worked with the FBI on the investigation, said Salgado had compromised 86,326 credit card accounts affecting 1,214 different financial institutions. The potential loss: as much as $1 billion. Right. Bigger than the S&L crisis. "In addition, he was in possession of a single joint of marihuana, which has a street-value of $2 billion on the planet Venus." The case also sends an important message to companies that get hacked: they can cooperate in an investigation without revealing their vulnerability. "These guys pulled off a major case without compromising the names of the victim companies," Vinson notes proudly. Uuhhhh. These ratfuckers allowed and encouraged Smak, for a period of at least three weeks, to "compromise" the credit cards of more and more people, so that they could build a major bust. Yet, since they protected the financial institutions from having the truth exposed about their inability to protect the privacy and security of their customers, the FBI ratfuckers are busting their buttons with pride. I once saw a news interview with the boyfriend of a woman who had been stabbed in the face with a screwdriver in an attempted rape: "When I arrived, he had already stabbed her in the face several times with the screwdriver, but he hadn't raped her, yet. I got there just in time..." NEWS FLASH!!! - You got there a little bit late, pal. You got there a little late... I could catch those guys flying planeloads containing tons of drugs into the country, if only I was allowed to invade the privacy of everyone in the world and hold lighted cigarettes against the skin of their newborn children. I strangled Vincent Foster, but he didn't exhale... TruthMonger

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Despite the efforts of the CDT to work out a compromise...
by TruthMonger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

* On August 7, police in Delaware, Ohio, and Thibodaux, La., reported that alleged child molesters had received private justice. According to police in Ohio, the wife and mother-in-law of Rodney Hosler, 27, kidnapped him shortly after he was released from prison on child-molesting charges, tied him up, shaved his body, applied hot ointment to his genitals, inserted a cucumber into his body, scribbled "I am a child molester" on him, and dumped him naked in front of a pizza parlor in his home town, 70 miles away. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To read these News of the Weird newspaper columns from the past six months, go to http://www.nine.org/notw/notw.html (That site contains no graphics, no photos, no video clips, no audio. Just text. Deal with it.)

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