December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Elliptic Curve Tidbit (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From owner-austin-cpunks(a)ssz.com Tue Dec 9 10:26:41 1997 Message-Id: <9712091607.AA17974(a)sso-austin.sps.mot.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: combee(a)sso-austin.sps.mot.com (Ben Combee) To: austin-cpunks(a)ssz.com Subject: Elliptic Curve Tidbit Date: Tue, 9 Dec 97 10:06:53 CST Sender: owner-austin-cpunks(a)ssz.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: austin-cpunks(a)ssz.com (From today's TBTF) ..First level of Certicom Challenge falls The first shot is fired in an elliptic-curve challenge Certicom is a maker of elliptic-curve encryption software. ECC al- gorithms are drawing considerable interest and study because they hold out the possibility of offering security comparable to the RSA algorithms using smaller keys, therefore requiring less computation. This possibility is not yet considered verified by most of the math- ematics and cryptosystems research community. The assumption that ECC encryption can use smaller keys is the as- sumption that no subexponential-time solution exists for the mathe- matical problem (the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem) on which ECC is based. The only solution to ECDLP known to exist takes fully exponential time. In contrast, both of the other well-studied mathematical problems that underly modern cryptosystems -- the in- teger factorization problem (e.g., RSA) and the discrete logarithm problem (e.g., Diffie-Hellman) -- have solutions that require only subexponential time. In order to gain exposure and to jumpstart the expert scrutiny that ECC will need if it is to be widely trusted, Certicom is sponsoring a crypto crack contest (they call it a challenge) [17]. The challenge comes in three parts: a series of "warmup exercises" followed by Level 1 and Level 2 problems [18]. A total of $625,000 in prize money is offered. Yesterday Robery Harley <Robert.Harley(a)inria.fr> announced [19] that he and Wayne Baisley had cracked one of two first-level warmup exer- cises, a 79-bit problem [20] designated ECCp-79. At this writing he has had no reply and the Certicom status page [21] has not been up- dated, so it is possible (but unlikely) that Harley's claim will prove not to be the first. If it is, he will receive as a prize a copy of the Handbook of Applied Cryptography (though somehow I suspect he's already read it) and a Maple V encryption package from Certicom. Certicom estimates the difficulty of the warmup exercises thus: > Using a network of 3000 computers, it is expected that the > 79-bit exercise could be solved in a matter of hours, the > 89-bit in a matter of days, and the 97-bit in a matter of > weeks. Harley and Baisley applied 6 computers to ECCp-79 and solved it in a bit under 10 days, which would have amounted to less than half an hour had they had 3000 machines to throw at the problem. Harley takes the opportunity presented by his winning claim [19] to tweak Certicom for their membership in the Key Recovery Alliance [22]. If the company replies to him substantively on this point, I'll post their response on the TBTF archive. [17] http://www.certicom.com/chal/index.htm [18] http://www.certicom.com/chal/ch4.htm [19] http://www.tbtf.com/resource/certicom1.html [20] http://www.certicom.com/chal/curves.htm [21] http://www.certicom.com/chal/ch_52.htm [22] http://www.kra.org/roster.html -- Ben Combee, Software Guru (ARMy Core of Engineers) Motorola > MIMS > MSPG > CTSD > Austin Design Center E-mail: ra3781(a)email.mot.com Phone: (512) 895-7141

1 0

Re: Staff changes at the Center for Democracy and Technology
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Shabbir begged: >I'm feeling very left out. Insult me immediately please. Very well. It's a fact that Dick Morris, Stephanopoulos and Gorelick are your business feeds, Scaife, Gates and Dell are your sugardaddies and USG, SG, and CN have bought you for a Net chokehold campaign of global scare dupery, combined with deal for industry giants to ruin workaround pygmies. Your pure-gold credential is all the folks who once trusted you to never, ever swap principle for piles of moola (and cut them out). Now admit it, you're beating hire-me's and lie-for-me's off with a stick. Listen, I've got a near-indicted who needs you.

2 1

FBI's Kallstrom Retiring
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to Anon: CNN is saying FBI Ass. Dir. Jimmy "I never met a tap I didn't like" Kallstrom is retiring. He was the standard-bearer for the FBI Wiretap bill, and is a noted ally of Louie Freeh. He's going to work for MNBA Bank.

2 1

Re: Encrypted InterNet DEATH THREAT!!! / ATTN: Ninth District
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Court Judges TruthMailer wrote: > p.p.s. > You can also charge me with use of 'conventional' encryption > in the commission of a crime. > Must be your lucky fucking day, eh? If I were TruthMonger, I would worry more about being charged with the "use of stupidity" in the commission of a crime.

1 0

Re: Cato forum tomorrow: should money laundering be a crime?
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Steve Schear wrote: >Nerthus wrote: >>Might be a bit of a stretch, but I think this is because money today is >>inherently a liability, that is a debt that someone, somewhere has promised >>to pay back. > >You've got this all backwards. The bearer certificates (paper money) issued >by governments is an interest-free loan by those holding the paper to the >issuer. This is true, but it is only part of the picture. The paper currency issuer (the central bank) is enjoying seigniorage, that is -- in the case of the US - -- the Federal Reserve is collecting revenue from the interest earned on the outstanding paper dollars. This earned interest is given to the Treasury and accounted for as revenue for the federal government. However, this tells us nothing about the currency's real worth. We need to look deeper to find the source of the paper currency's value. When the US government wants to create money, it issues debt instruments such as T-Bills to the Fed or to a commercial bank. The bank then credits the government's deposit (checking) account for the face value of the T-Bill. The bank believes it will collect this money back plus interest in a certain amount of time. The government can then ask the Fed to issue some paper cash in exchange for the deposit currency (new paper is then created). The T-Bill is nothing but a promise by the federal government to pay back a debt. The government has taken a loan from a bank and promises to pay it back in 1,5,10 or 30 years with interest. The money to pay it back comes directly from the tax revenues the government collects from its citizens. Thus paper currency is based on the debt saddled upon future generations of citizens/taxpayers. Interestingly, this is not much different than John Q. Public getting cash advances on his credits cards for a few years and then wondering why he is $25k in the hole and growing at 18% per annum. Many people, especially politicians, always go for the short term gain, regardless of the long term consequences. Debt-based currency (primarily a 20th century phenomenon) has ushered in a new era of political and financial irresponsibility. Eventually the debts must either be reneged on or paid off. When that time finally comes, neither option will paint a pretty picture. Nerthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNIxg7Ra1d3zm4nqOEQJnnwCfaOLKaiCiYuqUJRSVBLc1Q6aZ4VIAoNJY EdB96VwVlxlcI9u3Glnwjf1y =vMJq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote: >I've had to threaten several DPS officers (Texas state troopers) >with this because they like to park their cruiser in the drive outside >my fence but still within the property line without asking my >permission to do paperwork and eat. > >They don't do it anymore. Damn, Jim, it's been nice having you here. Huntsville's agape for sugary puckers "threatening an officer." Still that beats joining the roadkill at the bottom of Lake Travis for messing with Texas.

1 0

Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi John, Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 17:34:30 -0500 > From: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> > Subject: Re: [Censored] Quote of the Day (fwd) > Jim Choate wrote: > > >I've had to threaten several DPS officers (Texas state troopers) > >with this because they like to park their cruiser in the drive outside > >my fence but still within the property line without asking my > >permission to do paperwork and eat. > > > >They don't do it anymore. > > Damn, Jim, it's been nice having you here. Huntsville's agape > for sugary puckers "threatening an officer." > > Still that beats joining the roadkill at the bottom of Lake Travis > for messing with Texas. Sorry dude, it isn't against the law in Texas to threaten an officer when they are committing a crime, and trespassing on private property without permission, in pursuit of a suspect, or a warrant is most definitely a crime in this state, even for police. In this state if I catch somebody on my property at night in the process of what I *believe* is theft is even grounds for me to use deadly force; but *only* between sunset and sunrise. About 3 years ago we had a female UT-Austin student shoot and kill a peeping tom in the middle of town. She saw the guy through her window, got her gun, went outside and dropped the guy. No charges were filed because it was after dark and his trespassing on the apartment property was enough to invoke the above referenced law. There was a lot of screaming and yelling from a bunch of bleeding hearts about it, but the law still stands. You really should try to understand why you cow-tow to 'The Man'.... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | | | We built your fort. We will not have it used against us. | | | | John Wayne - Allegheny Uprising | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0

Re: Remailer Trivia / Re: Singapore & Freedom (fwd)
by Charlie Comsec 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> wrote: > > With both Nynex and Bell Atlantic, I've gotten phone service under a > > nym. No SSN, no credit references, no problem. > > > > Just don't call yourself Bill Clinton. > > That isn't the same as having it listed under the nym 'anonymous', when > you can get a phone company to start service, accept payment under that > 'name' and keep it that way in their records let me know. Further, with > the cross to the service address your anonymity isn't. But that isn't analogous to making an anonymous post to a public forum such as a Usenet NG or a mailing list. The best telephone analogy to that I can think of would be to place a phone call from a payphone to one of those call-in radio programs, say what you have to say, then hang up and listen to the responses over your radio. Signing up for a telephone under a pseudonym implies that you desire incoming calls (private replies) and is more analogous to a 'nym server. - --- Finger <comsec(a)nym.alias.net> for PGP public key (Key ID=19BE8B0D) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNI2qrwbp0h8ZvosNAQF0MAf9E6GecTJszUYlfj6D1WCX8HUpJcVBo2gY DwLJOs8l3tgf292xFbcInQpQncJyIWHWY3svOZyGcmxgtUDjAi61vaeAYasU44sA KXJV0NjZgqXtE2bIAAWDSQsRzWalawnOp0UfNv1f3arHJrOx03YttAA8IuzB0365 uyCaZhjZDnhaSYd+Z+yfICcth4PVInRmm+gW6kpthMV3bY/+14hVjC6DAdh3W38E 5mlVG/99OLd2J+dSbo3al0eFmTnLcqyUK0w5kqkWpnStvTYuos1TSvuIX7toBOZi WIDLn83zHYbFwpp25hs68SrbTZ+IrQeiuannd14UtAXvWoGjzNLCQw== =Ldte -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

ABC NightTerror
by Nobody 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Gump, A few comments on your CyberTerror show on Dec. 8th. First, I would like to compliment you on how well you articulate with Uncle Sam's cock in your mouth. Second, I would like to suggest that if you would make a habit of burning the government press-releases that you parrot so regularly, that you might be inspired to ask questions of your DCZombie guests that would be of interest to citizens in outlying areas of the country who have not yet received their digital mind- control government implants as of yet. Next time that you interview someone who tells yourself and all of America that this or that organization, agency, or national infrastrucure is in great danger of being compromised by small children, threatening the financial and physical safety of all of humanity, why don't you try asking them when they intend to announce their resignation for allowing conditions to come to this on their watch? Do you sleep well at night, knowing that those who view your show go to bed dreaming of putting children in prison, instead of lynching warlords who claim to have made our national security vulnerable to those children? I suggest that ABC News spends the $50.00 per month necessary to connect the ClueServer, or buy one. Bubba ROM DOS TruthMonger #3 "It's not FUD until *I* say it's FUD!" cc: Nightline(a)abc.com

1 0

Re: Burnmore & Databasix
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Voice <scorpion(a)anon.nymserver.com> wrote: > Gary L. Burnore wrote : > > >The anonasshole is now working on his "way out of this". > >Expect many more of his posts to contain bits of how more > >than one person posting anonymously is > >making the accusations. All is falling down around the anonasshole. > > Been lurking and reading this anon vs. Burnmore thing for a while. He's engaging in wishful thinking. Fanciful, paranoid theories about his critics (such as imagining that he only has one <g>) are apparently intended to divert attention from his own tactics and activities. > >We'd expect no less. I do wonder how long it will take before those who > >believe remailers are a good thing start to realise this asshole has > >it in for them. Everything it posts could be used by the anti-remailer > >front as a reason to shut them all down. Much of this "anti-remailer front" works for DataBasix. Notice the classic disinformation tactics that Gary Burnore is engaging in here. But notice that Gary was part of this "anti-remailer front" that used ALLEGED forgeries and "spam baiting" to get two remailers shut down. It is interesting that he now attributes the activities of himself and his associates at DataBasix with this unnamed "anti-remailer front". > That, IMO, is what you're up to. You and the Databasix thugs took a > couple of re-mailers down. You staged the whole thing. > > It should be clear to any thinking person that this group of thugs have an > anti-privacy motivation. > > Sadly, I also think they do this for shits and giggles. Gary Burnore, Belinda Bryan <eridani(a)netcom.com>, William "Wotan" McClatchie <wmcclatc(a)primenet.com> seem to want privacy for themselves but at the same time they also want to be able to identify their critics. Strangely enough, several of Gary's non-anonymous critics have reported harassment, forged posts, spam-baiting, etc. Probably just a "coincidence", right? Which makes one wonder why Gary and Belinda wanted to get ahold of the logs from the Huge Cajones Remailer which would have identified anyone who ever sent or even received anonymous mail through that remailer. Gary and Belinda have consistently stonewalled that question. My guess is that they were counting on Jeff keeping that dirty little secret of theirs hidden. Helena Kobrin and the Church of Scientology weren't able to bully that information out of Jeff and neither were Gary, Belinda, and DataBasix, for the simple reason that Jeff was smart enough not to collect it in the first place!

2 1