December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Announcement: RPK InvisiMail released on 12 Jan, 1998
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was amused to receive two mail messages back-to-back, one from Peter Gutmann talking about New Zealand having one of the strictest formal export controls in the world, and one from RPK New Zealand talking about how their encryption product is not export-controlled because it's from NZ, not the US, and how their RPK Fast Public Key Encryptonite(tm) Engine is the strongest crypto in the world. Either they haven't bothered asking for export permission, or they asked in such a way that the export bureaucrats didn't notice it was crypto and regulated by their crypto export preventers, or their crypto somehow falls through the cracks, e.g. by using an algorithm with public keys shorter than 512 bits (works for ECC, not RSA) and private keys shorter than 40 bits (or 41 on a good day), or perhaps passes the "snake oil test" for export permission. I suppose it's possible that the NZ Export Bureaucrats have lightened up since Peter's last dealings with them, but it's not likely. >--------------- The mail, referencing www.invisimail.com >RPK New Zealand Ltd. in a joint venture with Virtually Online Ltd. >has released RPK InvisiMail, a standards-based e-mail security >application for use with Internet mail software (SMTP/POP3). >The product offers the strongest encryption available anywhere in >the world. Since it was built outside the United States, >it is also available all over the world with strong encryption. >RPK InvisiMail is also the easiest product of its type >to setup and use which makes it quite unique. ========= From Peter Gutmann's web page This policy has resulted in New Zealand enjoying the dubious distinction of having the strictest export controls on earth, with everything ranging from crypto hardware down to software, library books, computer magazines, and journals being restricted from export. It's not even possible for a university to publish academic research without prior permission from a government agency, and the requirements for obtaining this permission are structured to ensure that they can never be fulfilled. You can find the information on: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/policy/ ============================== Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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NYTimes web cookies
by ghio＠temp0199.myriad.ml.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Cookies and the NYTIMES subscription: NYTIMES.COM tries to store your > userid and password in the cookie with keywords PW= and ID=. Problem is, > it tries to encode them using 8-bit characters. Lucky for us, at this time > NYTIMES.COM does not check if userid/password are valid, just that they're > a part of the cookie!! So, just add these two lines to your junkbuster > config: > > wafer PW=0 > wafer ID=0 > > and nytimes.com will greet you as "0" and let you right in. It doesn't check the PW or ID at all except the first time you log in. After that it generates a new cookie titled NPLCNYT and that is the only cookie it checks; the PW and ID are not required to be there at all. If you delete the NPLCNYT cookie, it will check the PW/ID and generate a new one. An example cookie is below: NPLCNYT=AAAALw>AAAAAX9IUUWiPhfALqHZuSh2mUM0yzNOwGRReAAAAAsAAAAAY3lwaGVycHVua3M> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^|||||##### The characters marked ^^^ appear to be random, and change every time a new cookie is generated. The ones marked ##### appear to encode the originating IP address, and ||||| appears to be date/time. The rest don't seem to change (tho I only tried ID=cypherpunks PW=cypherpunks). The server will still accept the cookie if your IP address changes. There does seem to be some sort of checksum on the data. While the relatively small area it uses to store the time and IP address wouldn't seem to leave much room for this, I wasn't able to find a spoofed cookie that it would accept - perhaps the checksum is included in the 'random' part.

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Re: Announcement: RPK InvisiMail released on 12 Jan, 1998
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart compared the PR of RPK New Zealand's crypto to Peter Gutmann's claims for NZ export controls. This contrast confirms the report a few days back that any commercial crypto product that receives export approval from any country is probably compromised notwithstanding the manufacturer's claims otherwise. Not that it's news here, but this appears to be the unpublished requirement for granting of approvals, case by case. Either cooperate or face indefinite delays. As Peter noted some time ago, this is what he was running into when he could not get a clear answer about NZ regulations, and parallels reports of similar experiences in the US, UK and other countries. There is a similar current thread on UK Crypto about the difficulty of getting a straight answer about crypto policy from HMG while observing the success of cooperating crypto manufacturers. It will be interesting to see how hard Congress pushes in the new session to expose what the Administration is up to behind BXA's closed doors in contrast to open accounts. And, what will be revealed (and concealed) bit by bit from the horse-trading of the Bernstein, Karn and Junger cases.

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Re: Burning papers (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 04:00:08 +0100 (MET) > Subject: Re: Burning papers > From: nobody(a)REPLAY.COM (Anonymous) > I've heard that you can look at it under a microscope with a polarizing > filter and see the magnetic patterns. Go down to your local security or electronics supply (not Rat Shack) and you should be able to buy a polarized loupe and see it directly. > Plastic should burn fine, as most is polyethylene (CH2) which produces > water and carbon dioxide when burned, leaving virtually no residue. The > only plastic that you'd need to worry about is chlorinated stuff like PVC. If it has any N in it then don't burn it in a closed space otherwise you will get various xCN compounds. These are very toxic, KCN is Potassium Cyanide. In general you don't want to burn most plastics in closed spaces or be downwind because they do give off various toxic chemicals. You can check with your local fire dept. and they can provide references on the plastics used in television cases, 3.5 floppy covers (v the disk itself), video tape, etc. and the sorts of gases they give off. When my house burned 3 years ago both my cats were killed because of smoke inhalation (approx. 9 computers and bunches of other plastics went up). It was not a pretty sight. Congealed blood from lung eruptions on their lips, very blue tinge to the skin, etc. Not a pretty sight. If you're smart avoid burning plastics except under very controlled circumstances. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ 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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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: Technologies of Political Control
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A bit more on getting a copy of the report: An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control It is Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) of the European Parliament offering the report, not British MEP Glyn Ford, who was its sponsor. For a copy to be sent by snail, fax a request to STOA in Luxembourg: 352-4300-22418 No electronic version is available from STOA. Draft reports remain in paper format until finalized by the European Parliament, which may take a while. STOA's publications web site was last updated in July 1996, and its rep apologized for the trailing-edge tech. http://www.europarl.eu.int/dg4/stoa/en/publi/publi.htm

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State of the Union Address
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Hear that the State of the Union next Monday has a section on Internet - >networks - critical infrastructure protection et al. Anyone have any >details? My bet is that it'll be the same as it always is. Klintonkov will rant about how he wants to censor the Internet. Then he'll go on and on about how he wants to connect every public school to the Internet and tax me to give these kids censored feeds, all when the students are coming out of the school system as complete morons. Some can't read, many can't do math, most have absolutely no clue about basic science, and most have absolutely no idea about the Bill of Rights and freedom of speech[1]. And of course he'll have to throw in a long diatribe about how Americans need to surrender more of their freedom to the government. Maybe he'll even mention how he doesn't remember screwing a reasonably attractive woman half his age in the White House while she was a White House intern. [1] Grab a totally random sample of 100 high school students. Haul the students out one at a time and ask them the following questions: 1) What is the acceleration of gravity at sealevel on Earth? 2) What are airlocks? What are they used for? How do they work? 3) How many chromosomes are in a normal, healthy human? 4) Joe is one of your classmates. He elects not to say the "Pledge of Allegience." Which of the following is true? a) He must say it because it is mandated by the government. b) He may not say it, but he must stand. c) He is not required to acknowledge it, except to allow others to say it if they wish to. d) He should be taken out behind the school and beaten with a sledgehammer. Afterwards his brains should be used to spell the words "Death to traitors!" e) He should be sent to the principal's office for disciplinary action. f) He should be expelled from the country. g) He must do so as long as he is a U.S. citizen. 5) Explain the equation 'f=m*a' and Newton's Third Law. 'f=m*a' is referenced in the context of Newtonian motion. 6) The First Amendment of the United States Constitution orders which of the following? a) Congress shall not restrict freedom of speech, the press, assembly, or religion. b) Congress shall not restrict freedom of speech, the press, assembly, or religion, except as ordered by the majority. c) Congress and private individuals may not descriminate on the basis of sex. d) Congress and private individuals may not restrict freedom of speech, the press, assembly, or religion. 7) What are the following government agencies and what are their function? a) FCC b) NSA c) CIA d) FBI e) DEA f) BATF g) NTSB h) DOJ 8) Your city passes a "teen curfew" law ordering criminal penalties for anybody younger than 18 who is out after 10PM on school nights. The law was passed by popular vote at this year's elections. Which of the following is true? a) This is a just and fair law, and is completely constitutional. Teenagers have no reason to be out past 10PM on school nights. They should be at home and asleep. b) This law violates the thirteenth amendment. c) This law violates the first amendment. It violates freedom of assembly. d) This is a constitutional law. Freedom of assembly does not apply because the people voted on this law and it passed by majority vote. 9) How many senators does each state have? 10) "What a piece of work is man; how noble in reason; how infinite in faculty, in form, in moving; how express and admirable in action..." Name the author. 11) Michelle mixes one gram of HCl and one half gram of NaOH. Under normal circumstances, what is produced and in what quantities? 12) (sin(9)^2 + cos(9)^2)=x. If this quantity can be determined, what is x equal to? 13) What is the square root of 256? 14) What is the fourth root of 81? 15) Given complete control of the environment, how could one cause pure water to boil at 96 degrees C? 16) Explain possible problems with cloning of humans. Analysis: Keep in mind that I'm talking about high school graduates or people who have almost graduated high school here, and these are people who have taken the appropriate courses. Back in high school I made the mistake of making some comments and assuming in class discussions that people had basic knowledge. I was wrong. Okay, so I was naive. Eventually I gave up and stopped participating simply because I was sick and tired of doing the school's job for them. 1) Most students probably won't have any idea. The value, of course, is about 9.81 m/s^2. 10 m/s^2 doesn't work although that's given in the mathematics books they give these kids. Most of them probably won't even know what the question is asking. 2) I actually brought this topic up to a group of *honors* students. Think of the expression "shove you out an airlock" for context. They boggled, wallowed in their ignorance and were proud, and then went off to their think tank. After confering with each other they came back with the breathtakingly brilliant answer that it was a contraceptive device. Of course even after explaining to them what it was they still didn't get the reference, had no grasp of how such a thing might work, and had no idea what it might be useful for. 3) This is taught in elementary biology which, at least down here, is a required course. They had no idea. Actually, most of them had no clue about basic genetics at all. Yes, basic genetics was covered in the course, and this material was included. 4) I was "Joe" in this case. The people involved had already taken a semester government course. Their answer to the question would have been along the lines of option 'd'. 5) I made a big mistake assuming they knew this one. Oops. 6) Most seemed to believe 'b' or 'd'. Maybe they knew it was 'a' and thought that maybe people wouldn't notice. 7) I made the mistake of using designations like this in a political science class during a class discussion. I regretted it when I had to start explaining these agencies and what they were supposed to be responsible for. 8) No explanation required. 9) "You expect me to memorize that for all 50 states?" "Nevermind." 10) Shakespeare. It wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't had to read Hamlet, MacBeth, and others in their English classes. Yipes. 11) "How am I supposed to know?" "Uh, you got out of chemistry with a B." "Yes, but they never gave me problems like that!" Uhhh... 12) Most probably couldn't solve it without a calculator. 13) Ditto. 14) Ditto. 15) They'll probably look at you like you're nuts and explain that you can't. Uh, right. 16) In an international relations class I took students picked a side and tried to argue it. Mine was pro-cloning or, more accurately, pro-science. Most were anti-cloning. Why? a) "God doesn't like us to do things like that." Right. Let's go outlaw fields of research based on one religion and what followers of one religion think their god is thinking at that moment. This is America, not Iraq. b) "How would you like it if somebody just came up and cloned you without you knowing and then made that person tell them information you refused to give them yourself?" Okay, I can buy the unwillful cloning part of it and could support a law on the grounds that it's theft of genetic material or for a variety of other reasons. As for the rest of that...ugh. Now maybe people on this list can't answer some of these either. That isn't the point. The point is that you should have been taught this stuff in school. Klintonkov wants to go blow millions (billions?) of dollars for censored network feeds in the schools and they haven't even got basic education down? And don't say "computer literacy" either. Most high school graduates can barely type on the bloody things, and they can forget about actually fixing a problem themselves. The *teachers* are blatently clueless. When Klintonkov fixes these problems he can talk about "wiring our schools for the 21st century." Of course then he'll want to censor the feeds or the net at large, at which point we're back to square one and should spend the money on something useful, like paying off the multi-trillion dollar debt the idiots ran up. Here's the scariest part of it all: These people are voting! And we wonder why we're in such a mess. The war isn't the war between the blacks and the whites, the liberals and the conservatives, or the Federation and the Romulans. It's between the clueful and the clueless.

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cookies and spam
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> 5. .reba.com (country music) cypherpunks cypherpunks > wafer RebaNet%5FPWD=cypherpunks > wafer RebaNet%5FUID=cypherpunks Yes, and thank you for signing up the list for their spam. cypherpunks/cypherpunks also works for dejanews, but at least I had the sense to send the replies to alt.anonymous.messages.

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More dumb ad sites for your killfile
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ads.lycos.com ad.doubleclick.net ads.altavista.digital.com ad.preferences.com ph-ad*.focalink.com www.news.com/Banners ads.lycos.com static.wired.com/advertising

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timothy May prefers to have sex with little kids because his own penis is like that of a three-year-old. /\**/\ ( o_o )_) Timothy May ,(u u ,), {}{}{}{}{}{}

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