December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/~raph/premail.html For the PGP public keys of the remailers, finger pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord ?"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"cracker"} = "<remailer(a)anon.efga.org> cpunk mix remix pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord post"; $remailer{'redneck'} = '<config(a)anon.efga.org> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"bureau42"} = "<remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org> cpunk mix pgp ksub hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"neva"} = "<remailer(a)neva.org> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub ?"; $remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix"; $remailer{"medusa"} = "<medusa(a)weasel.owl.de> mix middle" $remailer{"McCain"} = "<mccain(a)notatla.demon.co.uk> mix middle"; $remailer{"valdeez"} = "<valdeez(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"arrid"} = "<arrid(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"hera"} = "<goddesshera(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"htuttle"} = "<h_tuttle(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. remailer(a)crynwr.com is _not_ a remailer. There is no remailer at relay.com. Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator: (cyber mix reno winsock) (weasel squirrel medusa) (cracker redneck) (nym lcs) (valdeez arrid hera) This remailer list is somewhat phooey. Go check out http://www.publius.net/rlist.html for a good one. Last update: Thu 23 Oct 97 15:48:06 PDT remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- hera goddesshera(a)juno.com ------------ 5:03:45 99.86% nym config(a)nym.alias.net +*#**#**### :34 95.82% redneck config(a)anon.efga.org #*##*+#**** 2:00 95.44% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com +++ ++++++* 19:18 95.27% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de -- ---+--- 2:34:19 95.16% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net *++***+ ++ 11:26 95.11% replay remailer(a)replay.com **** *** 10:06 94.93% arrid arrid(a)juno.com ----.------ 8:50:34 94.41% bureau42 remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org --------- 3:38:29 93.53% cracker remailer(a)anon.efga.org + +*+*+*+ 16:32 92.80% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca + +*-++++ 24:14 92.79% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net -..-..---- 9:59:18 92.22% neva remailer(a)neva.org ------****+ 1:03:02 90.39% valdeez valdeez(a)juno.com 4:58:22 -36.97% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net 1:01:28 -2.65% History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

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Re: Another of Gary Burnore's Lies Exposed
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

rashidk(a)mailexcite.com (Rashid Kaman) > X-No-Archive: yes > >Shades of McCarthyism.... > > Such big words, my my! :-) Sorry, I forgot you were from DataBasix, where most words are four letters in length. (Hint: I wasn't talking about CHARLIE McCarthy...) > >Strangely enough, a search of the public database of listed telephone numbers > >turns up nothing for you. > > Why did you look for it? To be a champion of privacy you first have > to respect privacy. Of course I respect privacy. Your phone number would only have been there if you'd CHOSEN to have it listed by the phone company, right? And if you'd chosen to have it listed, then it would be logical to assume that you WANTED people to have it. It's not like I went to your phone company and demanded that they turn over a listing of their unlisted numbers. (Your buddy Burnore, OTOH, did demand a list of all the users of the Huge Cajones Remailer from their logs. In case you're unclear on the concept, people use remailers so that people like Gary and Belinda WON'T have access to their e-mail addresses.) It was Gary Burnore and Belinda Bryan who've been denouncing "hiding behind" anything, so I found it sort of ironic that all of them have unlisted phone numbers while whining about my unlisted e-mail address. (Should I adopt Burnore's tactics and start calling the denizens of DataBasix "Unlisted Assholes"? Nah!) > >> >If remailers were shut down, I'd lose my ability to post. > >> > >> Why is that? > > > >For the same reason you'd no longer be able to post from mailexcite.com if > >someone decided to shut it down! > > That's not an answer, it's a cope out. "Cope out"? Sorry, I don't have a DataBasix-speak dictionary, and am not familiar with your in-house (or outhouse) jargon. Regardless of whether it is a "cope out" or not, it is an answer. Sorry if you don't approve. If the remailer I use for posting were to shut down, I obviously would no longer be able to utilize that resource, just as you'd no longer be able to use mailexcite.com if that were to be shut down. Something about that too difficult for you to understand? You might feel differently if Billy "Wotan" McClatchie had gone after Mailexcite rather than Mailmasher.

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The closed Nym list
by Daniel J. Boone 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: > Declan decided that rebroadcasting articles out of Nym would not be > allowed, but he said nothing about not mentioning its existence. (Nor would > I have agreed to be on a list whose very existence I could not disclose.) > Anyway, tonight when I mentioned its existence as I was posting an article > here that I wrote for the Nym list, I half-expected some comments from > Dimitri. > > But I didn't expect someone to post the subscription instructions > (anonymously, of course). Hint: it wasn't I. > > Anyway, I suppose that by mid-morning tomorrow Declan is going to have to > decide how to deal with subscriptions by Vulis, Human Gus-Peter, Toto, and > all the others. The Nym list appears to be closed. (The web page says so -- so I didn't try.) This state of affairs may even be my fault. The history, for those who care, is appended. It's a shame -- if David Brin really is posting there as one of Tim's recent messages suggested I'd be very interested in seeing his posts. (Thanks, Tim, for reposting yours here.) I still don't think it makes much sense to have a conversation about the use of nyms and then try to protect the posters' words from public view. If posters are concerned about public scrutiny, why not use a nym? Not to mention the fact that one would have to keep the list closed to have a prayer of enforcing the no-repost rule. --Daniel Boone History: Robert Hettinga was briefly forwarding "nym" posts to e$pam, where I saw them. Declan publically requested that posts not be forwarded. I sent Robert a message asking if he was going to comply -- and expressed (to Robert) my lack of respect for a no-forwarding policy. Robert (that notorious cross-pollinizer that he is) forwarded my message to Declan, which was unfortunate -- as Declan no doubt considered my message insulting. (Addressed to Declan, it would have been.) I got a very chilly "response" from Declan about how he had no duty to entertain me with his list traffic. I took the opportunity to ask him how his no-repost rule would fare when someone using a nym started reposting the traffic publicly. He responded with "the list is now closed" or words to that effect. I realized too late he may have thought _I_ was threating to do the evil reposting deed.

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If I live in the US and put the perl RSA code in my sig, then post in an international newsgroup, have I illegally exported encryption? If I put that same code on my web site, then post requests to view my site in an international newsgroup, have I exported it? What is the penalty for exporting powerful encryption?

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Re: hashcash spam prevention & firewalls
by Antonomasia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk>: > How about this alternative which achieves the same functionality and > removes the juicy supeona target: > Turn on hashash database for all mails. That means hashcash gets put > in the database to prevent double spending. .... > So now when you reply to a message, on it's way out via the mail hub, > you remove that hashcash token from the double spending database. > This means that the sender can cache sent hashcash tokens, and re-use > them when after he gets a reply. Doesn't this invite the spammer to Bcc an accomplice with the target ISP ? The accomplice replies; thereby freeing the coin for reuse. > I am told by one subscriber to look at TIS firewall toolkits imap > program. You may have meant "smap". -- ############################################################## # Antonomasia ant(a)notatla.demon.co.uk # # See http://www.notatla.demon.co.uk/ # ##############################################################

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Encrypted Magic Folders
by Alex Woolfson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello! First of all let me go on record by saying that I really like the idea and the interface you've designed for your product, Encrypted Magic Folders. The interface is easy to use and efficient. Job well done! There are, however, some security concerns I'd like resolved before I would be interested in purchasing your product. You scramble filenames which is an excellent idea. I might suggest that you also scramble the directory names as well. When using the freeware program Directory Snoop 1.1 designed by Kent Briggs (www.briggsoft.com) in Windows 95, I was easily able to find the directories that EMF had hidden. I wasn't able to access them, but I could see they were there *and also what their names were*. I don't know if it is possible to hide these directories from such a program (although, obviously, that would be ideal), but it seems that we should at least be able to scramble the directory filenames so that little information is gleaned about which directories are worth attacking by cryptanalysis and which are not worth the attackers' trouble. On the question of encryption algorithms, let me add my voice to those who have been suggesting that you use strong and tested algorithms like IDEA or Blowfish. I feel very strongly that this is essential to any product that purports to provide true security to its users. If your product were meant to merely keep your kid sister from reading your files, then the security through obscurity your product seems to offer would be sufficient. But your marketing materials suggest that you wish to offer a greater level of security than that. Not being a cryptologist, I consulted with members of the Cypherpunk mailing list to aid me in evaluating the security of your software referring them to the "How Secure Is It?" section of your Help file. These guys really know their stuff. The verdict was unanimous--that the security of Encrypted Magic Folders was not sufficient for anything but the most casual uses. I have included below one of the more thorough and detailed of the replies in the hopes that it will be useful in improving the strength of your software. I would also feel more comfortable if you were willing to have the source code of your product reviewed by industry experts (such as Bruce Schneier of Counterpane Systems who wrote the very well respected Applied Cryptography book as well as Blowfish). If you are concerned about someone stealing your idea, non-disclosure agreements should be able to offer sufficient legal protection. Truly secure algorithms and programs can withstand this kind of scrutiny without compromising their security. Relying on the fact that your company is "too small and obscure" for an attacker to develop an prepackaged attack offers little comfort--if someone really wants to have access to my files, I imagine they'll devote the time to attempt to crack your product--copyright infringement notwithstanding! If you haven't already, I would strongly suggest that your developers read Schneier's book Applied Cryptography. It does a much better job of explaining the difference between true security and security through obscurity. And it's written for programmers who wish to use cryptography in their programs. It's not a bad read, either. :-) I am really interested in purchasing a product like Encrypted Magic Folders, but for such an application, security is obviously the biggest priority. I believe others who have not taken the trouble to write you feel the same way. If EMF makes use of strong encryption and is willing to have the source code of its product reviewed by industry experts, I would be interested in paying for it. For a $60.00 product, I believe it is fair to expect this kind of protection. Yours Alex Woolfson Below is the response of Ray Arachelian of the Cypherpunks list. There is a bit of sarcasm involved, but I trust you'll be able to see beyond it to the valid criticism he makes. I hope you find it useful. On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, Alex Woolfson wrote: > EMF's encryption offers good protection and excellent speed. It > hasn't been broken yet. It is, as far as we know, exportable. THERE > IS NO BACKDOOR. Should you forget your password there is nothing we > can do to decrypt your encrypted files. If it is exportable, then it is weak encryption by definition. The question is how weak. Reading their marketting crap provides more insights in just how lame this is: > Quite a few people ask us how big EMF's key size is. They've learned > from other encryption programs that the bigger the key the stronger > the encryption. This really doesn't apply to EMF. > > We developed our own encryption instead of using a standard because > we wanted EMF to be able to decrypt at the byte level. In this way > we only need to decrypt/encrypt the data your programs require and > not the entire file. In other words: security through obscurity. Smells like snake oil, looks like snake oil, it even has bits of snake scales in it. Heck, if they say that the key size is not important, it's likely very tiny, or regardless of what key size you'd use (if you had any choice), it's such a weak cypher that it wouldn't get you anything. > In theory, because we decrypt at the byte level, the biggest key we > could use would be 8 bits - which is a joke. So instead of > decrypting every hunk of data using the same key, as most other > encryption programs do, we developed an algorithm to vary the key > based on the data's location within the file. In this way we get > both high security and high speed. We are trying to patent EMF's > encryption method. Whoop. so the key is the location of the data? At most, this means a 32 bit key on most file systems, 64 bits on newer file systems. This assumes that your file is long enough for that. But as a key, this is totally useless as the key is the location which is visible to all. Likely they would be wise to "mix" this location key with the passphrase. This offers little more than CBC would. The only difference is that CBC is based on the previous block, where this is based on the location of a byte in the file (which is known) whereas a CBC depedns on knowledge of the previous block. If they did it the right way, they'd use the passphrase to build a lookup table of large keys based on the byte location within a file, but because this depends on your passphrase, your security is still that of the passphrase at maximum. There may be ways to weaken this. > Having said all that, truth is, most encryption isn't "cracked" by > breaking the algorithm, it's done by guessing the password. Brute > guessing of passwords tends to level the playing field tremendously. > We actually have an advantage because we aren't an established > standard. Because we're small and relatively obscure chances are no > one will take the effort to write a password guessing program (which > incidentally would violate copyright and intellectual property laws.) > Even if someone were to go thru all this effort we could easily > change the encryption method for the next update. This is total bullshit. It's Grade A, government approved exportable snake oil. Just because they are small and obscure it doesn't guarantee you any extra safety. Just because nobody has bothered to write a brute forcer for their code doens't mean nobody can do so. And no, this would not violate any of their copyright if the author of the brute forcer proggie wrote it without copying their code. It might violate intellectual property laws if they had a patent on it, but they can't get one since they're going by security through obscurity. They claim to be applying for a patent, but if they do, their code is published and their weaknesses will be displayed. It might violate trade secret laws if someone who has the source or the algorithm shares it, but not if someone reverse engineers it (depending on reverse engineering laws of course.) Just because they could "rewrite" the code in the next update against cracking or brute force attacks does not buy you security. FYI: If you use this crap and someone steals a copy of the encrypted files off your hard drive, it doesn't matter what new updates this company produces. The fact is you used the older breakable version, the attacker has your cyphertext and will decode it. > If we used an established encryption method like DES or Blowfish then > your files would probably have to be fully decrypted when opened, > would exist on disk as unencrypted while you're using them, and then > would need to be encrypted when closed. Translation: We don't use CBC, because that would be more work and slow down our crappy cypher. Deeper translation: break any portion of any encrypted file and you'll likely break the whole thing if not huge parts of it. "Established encryption methods (sic)" use CBC because it adds security. Their algorithms are well published and well known so people can find their weaknesses and publicise them. Whatever weaknesses there are in this thing are hidden from those who can't or won't reverse engineer it. But there are plenty of those who can and will, and have no qualms about releasing it anonymously, or worse: keeping the expolit to themselves so as to exploit those stupid enough to use this lame shit. It only takes one cracker with a good disassembler to reverse engineer their code and find all the holes, and they'll be out of business. If what protects your data is the cypher, and not the key, then breaking the cypher is all you need to do. Heck, I'd bet they use something really shitty like this: (since "key size is not important", and "depends on location".) char code(char *passphrase, char data, long location); { int i; char c; for (i=0; passphrase[i]>0; c^=passphrase[i++]); return (data ^ c ^ (char)(location & 0xff)); } Gee, I probably violated their "intellectual" property by guessing their code, heh. > This has multiple > disadvantages. First, if your computer shuts down while you have > "encrypted" files open, then those files would be unencrypted. This > doesn't happen with EMF as your encrypted files are always encrypted > as stored on disk. The second disadvantage is that it slows things > down tremendously. Not if you use an encrypted disk driver. then, all your data is encrypted all the time. (You get into other issues such as keeping the passphrase or key from falling into the pagefiles, etc...) [Meaningless babble deleted.] =====================================Kaos=Keraunos=Kybernetos============== .+.^.+.| Ray Arachelian |Prying open my 3rd eye. So good to see |./|\. ..\|/..|sunder(a)sundernet.com|you once again. I thought you were |/\|/\ <--*-->| ------------------ |hiding, and you thought that I had run |\/|\/ ../|\..| "A toast to Odin, |away chasing the tail of dogma. I opened|.\|/. .+.v.+.|God of screwdrivers"|my eye and there we were.... |..... ======================= http://www.sundernet.com ==========================

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You Could Earn $100 Every Time the Phone Rings!!
by 44096770＠15605.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: The Joys of Being Canadian
by Matt Elliott 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Cable Company Rep: "What's your Social Security number? >Answer: "I don't have one. I'm Canadian." For my cable company I asked why they wanted it. For a security check when you call in was the response. Does it need to be an actuall social security number? No, just something you can remember when you call up. 012-01-0123 I replied. They were quite happy to use that as my "Social Security Number" in their database. As far as cable goes they don't want your social security number. I wonder how many others would be happy to substitute something. Matt <mailto:melliott@itmail.ncsa.uiuc.edu>

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Super Cool Site!
by lori＠6t9.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I'm Lori. My girlfriends and I have created this way cool site. We would love you to check it out. http://www.6t9.com/dsnm/alpg/ Love, Lori P.S. Being new to this, we were told that if you NEVER want to hear from us again, reply with the subject "Remove" and you won't. That would make us really sad though.

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Re: Identity, Persistence, Anonymity, and Accountability--Part I of II
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On 12/14/97 6:54 PM, Tim May (tcmay(a)got.net) passed this wisdom: >But note that there absolutely is no requirement in the United >States for ageneral form of identification. Non-drivers need not >have any form of I.D. And as we have seen in court cases, a la >Lawson v. Kolender (where a blackman in dreadlocks used to like to >walk the streets of San Diego...the copsstopped him many times and >jailed him for not having I.D. on him...the court ruled that people >don't have to present credentials issued by the state to walk the >public streets). In New Jersey there is a criminal offense called "failure to properly identify" ... I don't know if its ever been tested, or if it is still on the books, but as of ten years ago it was there. I think it was a misdemeanor (in NJ the term is "petty disorderly persons offense) I cannot imagine it as a felony. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNJXIij7r4fUXwraZAQEMvAf9FzhcodfycwA3BSV4cB5nPAqyR+6+hguK 9VG1/b7CEvEyZleD1HzRbB7i8+ycwxvtZr959FPpume5LW3eWhSsVGLEb8A9EzW3 FQXqmxa6X6LLUcPIrhfSaO8JQdPV0LXOfXwW7ZZh7s02pUmTRgpXOuM5MdHSf0nG kKTGntI5JbaEmDgvyANXETV4EomZ/0Zm3zJiGw3M9G4aZpFl3LIgFPcOUSY1MwJI TMGbNCS/DveeAhmM2J+oa8DbUwqVYGGhA27YHNve5rtxqkDbobsF9OMY8ssU70D0 K0uHEq+ZoobSlNHHrFP+I52RxXiKtP4blGxn8riYmjBp8H4ih6Hsbw== =41Ml -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "to be yourself in a world that tries, night and day, to make you just like everybody else - is to fight the greatest battle there ever is to fight and keep on fighting" - e.e. cummings

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