December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

ashcroft on encryption
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- Forwarded Message Date: Sun, 18 Jan 98 17:51:16 -0500 From: vols-fan(a)juno.com (R L Johnson) To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: Senator Wants Back Door to Encrypted Data Closed http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/9661.html Senator Wants Back Door to Encrypted Data Closed Reuters 3:15pm 14.Jan.98.PST WASHINGTON - Sounding the opening bell of a renewed battle over encryption policy, Senate Republican John D. Ashcroft has declared he would oppose legislation that would mandate that all software made in the Unites States be equipped with features that would allow government access to all encrypted data. "Americans must be free to communicate privately, without the government listening in," Ashcroft said in a statement Tuesday. "The privacy concerns here are fundamental and call for serious consideration by the Senate." The Missouri Republican said he would hold a hearing next month on the issue in the Senate Judiciary's Constitution, Federalism, and Property Rights subcommittee he chairs. Ashcroft's remarks followed a battle last year in Congress over regulation of encryption technology, which scrambles information and renders it unreadable without a password or software "key." Encryption has become an increasingly critical means of securing electronic commerce and communications on the Internet. But the scrambling capability can also be used by criminals to hide their dealings from law enforcement agencies. A bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee last year would impose strong incentives to promote the use of encryption with a back door to allow covert government decoding of any information. And legislation approved by some committees in the House would go even further, requiring the back door in all products sold in the United States. Ashcroft said he opposed the Senate measure, sponsored by Bob Kerrey, Democrat of Nebraska, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona. Majority Leader Trent Lott asked Ashcroft to "pay special attention" to the issue, Ashcroft said. ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: subscribe ignition-point email@address or unsubscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** http://www.telepath.com/believer ********************************************** ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Interlock Protocol
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, The Interlock Protocal (Applied Crypto 2nd. ed., pp. 49) is just exactly what I have been looking for to address the MITM issues in regards the data haven model I have been working on. I had completely forgotten about this technique. I should read AC more often...;) Thanks again for the pointer! ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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Re: (eternity) Eternity as a secure filesystem/backup medium (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 21:31:38 -0800 > From: Kent Crispin <kent(a)songbird.com> > Subject: Re: (eternity) Eternity as a secure filesystem/backup medium (fwd) > You must find the advertising business completely mystifying, then. Not at all. I even manage to use it well enough to make money selling my own services now and again... > You pay to have your data disseminated in a form that you can be later > paid -- for example, leave the juciest part of the data in encrypted > form, along with a public key through which payment options can be > negotiated. Exactly, which means we are left with two results. Either the source forgoes the d-h completely, since they could dissiminate their data through a normal anon remailer and usenet (for example) completely eliminating the whole point of the d-h and the consequential payments - this reduces their overhead considerably. Or they share the income through the d-h operator. Now if the source has two halves of a clue to rub together their share will include whatever money they paid the d-h operator in the first place - thus eliminating the need for the source to have paid in the first place. Either way the source ends up with the net effect they don't pay the d-h operator for their services - the end user does. In only one case is there a economic reason for the d-h to exist. Now if the goal of a d-h operator is to make some income which model would you choose? From the source's perspective the d-h model makes sense because it places two (not one) layer of anonymity between them and Mallet. As a source, which model would you choose? Either way you look at it, the end result is the end user pays the bills. > Why on earth do you try to be an ISP, then? Why on earth are you assuming that is what I do? While I have sold dedicated and intermittent dial-ups they in general have not been to the general public and my customer base is not one that comes from general advertising. At no point has it ever been a significant portion of my income in any case. As a matter of fact I haven't advertised in any public forums. Don't know where you get your data about me from but you really should go to the horses mouth instead of some jackass. Your data would be much more accurate. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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Re: Nanotechnology
by Otto Matic 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cross posted to the "Highly Imaginative Technology List" HIT-list(a)asisem.org >------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- >Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 23:14:32 -0500 >From: Nathan Russell <frussell(a)frontiernet.net> >Reply-to: frussell(a)frontiernet.net >To: HIT-list(a)asisem.org >Subject: Re: HIT: Fwd: (Fwd) Re: Nanotechnology > >Otto Matic wrote: >> >> >Orinally posted to the cypherpunks list cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net. >> > >> >------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- >> >Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:45:36 -0500 >> >From: ghio(a)temp0181.myriad.ml.org (Matthew Ghio) >> >Subject: Re: Nanotechnology >> >To: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net >> >Reply-to: ghio(a)temp0181.myriad.ml.org (Matthew Ghio) Matthew Ghio Wrote to the Cypherpunks: <<<SNIP>>> >> >So roughly 8 months just to build one copy, rather than to achieve >> >world domination. :) >> > >> >Still, unless I'm way off on these estimates, it's within the right >> >ballpark. If the cubes were 1 cm, you could make copies in less >> >than a day, assuming it didn't get too hot at that power level. >> >Just figure out how you're going to feed the electricity and raw >> >materials into all those little things... > >You could direct the molecules the same way electron beams are steered >in a TV > > > >This sort of replicator is not what is usually >considered > >nanotechnology, but if it actually worked, such a >device >could become > >quite popular. Nathan Russell wrote to the HIT-List Yeah... what about making microchips, LSD or diamonds - all of which have very high value/mass ratios. Or bio warfare agents - maybe in cryogenic state to be warmed up when finished. What about more complicated lifeforms - like people. It would be hard to figure out what to use for currancy, though - in Star Trek, Latinum is assumed, according to one book, to be dependent for its properties on a huge number of molecular legs resting against each other rather like the fins of an artichoke steamer - can't be replicated because unless the molecule is complete each leg creates an unequal force on its neighbors and they flip into a non-latinum position. Not that there wouldn't be positive elements - medicine would be very cheap. In fact, a pound - or maybe a mole - of anything with value would cost no more than its component elements, plus labor. What about little self- 'replicating' robots that go into a landfill and produce an army of themselves, turning excess elements into something useful. BTW, could living things be replicated or would the structure be too complex? Intelligence supposebly depends on electrons moving in tiny protein quantom channels in the brain in a completely unprodictable way, telpathy is the electrons becoming quantom linked. That could be hard to replicate. -Nathan ___END FORWARDED___ Thought you cypher punks would like to see this. Otto ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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RE: rant on the morality of confidentiality
by Wayne Radinsky 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> dilemmas do not prove a concept does not exist. That's correct. My point is natural selection can explain why the dilemma exists. > there are pretty clear cut cases Natural selection also explains why there are "clear cut" cases, since it assumes our "moral sense" is just our mental accounting of reciprocal altruism: what we've done for others and what (we think) others owe us. > natural selection does however support the idea of altruism. natural > selection does not require each individual seek survival. various aspects > of the genetic code that lead to survival of the species are what are > truly favored. a breed of animals that does nothing but try to kill > each other off leads to a situation where each individual is maximizing > the odds of its own DNA propagating, no? but how long would such a > species survive? and extra credit, to what "animal" am I actually > alluding to here? You are correct: the object is survival of the gene and this can be at odds with survival of an individual. This applies to all animals and even "non" animals; so I have no way of knowing which "animal" you are alluding to. > natural selection is relevant among species that have no intelligence > or intellectual control over their own destiny. it is only relevant to > humans insofar as we wish to behave like animals. Our "intelligence" itself evolved, presumably, because it enhanced genetic fitness in the evolutionary past. Intelligence exists to increase, rather than overcome, inclusice genetic fitness. >>So it is a myth that scientists live to find deep truths or to benefit humanity >>. They may do those things, but their real goal is maximizing their own >>inclusive fitness. > > false, even by your own reasoning, because a scientists DNA does not > necessarily lead to more scientist DNA. sons and daughters of scientists > may be anything they wish to be in a free country. All that is required is that the offspring can survive and reproduce. Scientists use their jobs as "scientists" to fund survival and reproduction. > natural selection among animals. and a pretty scary mind that would > consider us on that level. I agree there are some vague parallels for > human development. but humans do not have children in the mindless way > that animals breed, The use of birth control causes the trait, "conscious desire to have children" (and not use birth control) to be selected. It was not required before, so natural selection gave more weight to sex drive and love of offspring. > nor hopefully do they live their lives according > only to evolutionary instincts, The whole premise of evolutionary psychology is that we live according to evolutionary instincts, it's just that those instincts (and our behavior) are very complex, and that "consciousness" and "free will" are illusions. > but of course letters like yours tend > to make me wonder, and I'm being deliberately ambiguous here by what > I mean by that <g> Of course most people are bothered by the idea that copying genes is the only thing their life (and all lives) are about. Life is totally meaningless if you follow Darwin's logic to its conclusion, and the alternative is religion and belief in the afterlife. I personally believe someday we will see a synthesis of the two, but at the present, which to believe is a philosophical decision. ---------- From: Vladimir Z. Nuri[SMTP:vznuri@netcom.com] Sent: Thursday, January 15, 1998 12:52 PM To: Wayne Radinsky Cc: 'Blanc'; 'cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net'; 'tcmay(a)got.net'; 'vznuri(a)netcom5.netcom.com'; vznuri(a)netcom11.netcom.com Subject: Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality philosophers have struggled with what is moral since the beginning of civilization. at least they are struggling with the question. each new civilization and era gives a new answer to the question, "what is morality", and hopefully each is more evolved than the last, unless humanity is regressing. "what is morality" is obviously something that cannot be settled in cyberspace, it hasn't even been settled by great writers, and there are only mediocre and borderline insane minds in cyberspace <g> >The reason morality is impossible to nail down is because it does not exist al >all in any absolute sense, at least as far as science is concerned. If you dec >lare, for example, that "murder" is "wrong" you are always left with dilemmas, >such as whether soldiers who kill during a war are doing something "wrong". dilemmas do not prove a concept does not exist. there are pretty clear cut cases, and less well clear cut cases. those that have difficulty with the concept of morality will tend to focus on the fuzzy cases and conclude that the whole exercise is a waste of time. >According to the principle of natural selection, all people, including scientis >ts, exist purely to maximize their own inclusive genetic fitness. "Fit" means >that an organism is well adapted to it's environment, so "maximizing inclusive >genetic fitness" means having the maximum number of offspring which are themsel >ves fit. natural selection does however support the idea of altruism. natural selection does not require each individual seek survival. various aspects of the genetic code that lead to survival of the species are what are truly favored. a breed of animals that does nothing but try to kill each other off leads to a situation where each individual is maximizing the odds of its own DNA propagating, no? but how long would such a species survive? and extra credit, to what "animal" am I actually alluding to here? >The underlying reason people benefit by promoting themselves as moral people, i >n general, is because of the benefit of what evolutionary psychologists call re >ciprocal altruism. With reciprocal altruism, both parties benefit if they are >in a non-zero-sum situation. Because most situations are non-zero-sum and the >benefits are so great, everyone has a stake in promoting themselves as a good r >eciprocal altruist, in other words, a good, trustworthy, moral person. This is > how natural selection explains the existence of the concept of "morality". natural selection is relevant among species that have no intelligence or intellectual control over their own destiny. it is only relevant to humans insofar as we wish to behave like animals. >So it is a myth that scientists live to find deep truths or to benefit humanity >. They may do those things, but their real goal is maximizing their own inclus >ive fitness. false, even by your own reasoning, because a scientists DNA does not necessarily lead to more scientist DNA. sons and daughters of scientists may be anything they wish to be in a free country. >The only way out is to believe in the afterlife, and religion, and that life ha >s meaning beyond the genes and material world. Doing so doesn't make moral dile >mmas go away, and you never know, people may just be believing such things for >the benefit of genes, after all natural selection has no real concern for "trut >h". natural selection among animals. and a pretty scary mind that would consider us on that level. I agree there are some vague parallels for human development. but humans do not have children in the mindless way that animals breed, nor hopefully do they live their lives according only to evolutionary instincts, but of course letters like yours tend to make me wonder, and I'm being deliberately ambiguous here by what I mean by that <g>

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Re: proving that one knows how to break RSA
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dimitri Vulis <dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com> writes: > Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes: > > Dimitri Vulis <dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com> writes: > > > Bill Payne was with Sandia national lab (where they quite a bit of > > > crypto work) Bill claims to have discovered a very fast > > > factorization algorithm using shift registers, which he refuses to > > > publish. While I haven't seen the algorithm, I believe he may well > > > be right. > > > > Bill Payne's claim to having discovered a faster factorization > > algorithm than the current state of the art, allows us to invoke the > > oft discussed mechanisms for the author to prove this ability without > > divulging the algorithm, and then proceed to sell the algorithm to the > > highest bidder, whilst minimizing his chances of being killed. > ... > I believe Bill is genuinely afraid that if he published his algorithm, > then he'll be killed. I don't know enough to judge how realistic his > fear is. I've been involved in serious discussions of assassinations > over smaller amounts of money than is at stake here. He displays great > courage by saying anything at all at this point. Oh, please. Payne's so-called faster factorization algorithm was discussed on this list May 13. See the archives under the thread title "Public Key Break Paper". The algorithm is total garbage. Payne is obviously a nut case who is setting himself up for a contempt of court charge.

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No Subject
by Mix 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timothy C. May sits at his terminal dressed in five-inch stiletto heels, fishnet stockings, a gold-lame mini-skirt, a purple halter with girdle underneath to keep in his flabby gut, a Fredericks of Hollywood padded bra also underneath the halter, a cheap Naomi Sims pink afro wig, waiting to yank his crank whenever a black man responds to one of his inane rants. \ o/\_ Timothy C. May <\__,\ '\, |

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Re: RSA hardware
by Ryan Lackey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Lucky Green: > The more I think about it, the less sense it makes to me to use a dedicated > hardware accelerator. I have seen $3,000 hardware accelerators that are > outperformed by a PP200. The nCipher device is excellent. 100 1024 bit RSA > signing a minute for $5,000. How much would be a nice multi-processor Alpha > that does about the same number of signings? Or just a stack 10 of Pentiums? > > Before buying an accelerator, make sure to do the math. Eric Young posted > timings for various common CPU's a while back. Keep in mind that there are metrics other than just keys per second for comparison. Often, hardware devices are certified RED/BLACK isolation devices, TEMPEST certified, tamper-resistant, etc. They are also usually easier to maintain than software systems on GP hardware. Also, the major consumers of such devices, the government/military, spend a *lot* more on hardware/software/user maintenance than any cypherpunk. Their computers are usually TEMPEST certified, etc., so their curve is a lot higher up. Assuming efficient markets, the reason so few of these devices are sold outside the military is that they're overpriced except for those in the same situation as the military. though :) I've been thinking of buying a wicked-fast FPGA prototyping board and making my own coprocessor. There are some really nice gate arrays, and David Honig has some fairly wonderful plans for how to use them for things like Blowfish, etc. I've mainly concentrated on high-speed symmetric ciphers, but they'd be applicable to RSA/DH, I believe. For one blowfish implementation, the limiting factor (assuming key setup can be done efficiently) is the PCI bus, I think. - -- Ryan Lackey rdl(a)mit.edu http://mit.edu/rdl/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNMMyzKwefxtEUY69AQGruwgAgsJTym5TsaFLVGgBXQQpUYwd8Ar2lquU SFM9F1LYLTQjcBIlzh9h3cQdfE2sOkpjENmVGqUvPhyZLwRAC5eWfHL8H/y0giIW 9Y+1xYY1pY3t/O7w5WgYDwye1fzbL5KDz4XEYKX830LWjShfAZhQxahzLbZd+qnd Z6KpjSnylTb9YSp+i5rafgk/i8GnjqFdv5925reexzFBhy/FQi3xwweJWxeRWa+o tNX4G/D7W2r1Lq4Z6Yxbk3dTDddif26UTE12M8EENhhlr/6VCO0zGI59VePUC55w ZeqgUDGviqe/il1EUMIKUfNdSYBJ0Ur5T4TL2lVYDPrZ6q4KjnHPjA== =9ejF -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Barry Smith (FBI) to speak on encryption policy
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anyone going to this? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following message is forwarded to you by "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii(a)invweb.net> (listed as the From user of this message). The original sender (see the header, below) was "Dr. Alan Sherman" <sherman(a)gl.umbc.edu> and has been set as the "Reply-To" field of this message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: "Dr. Alan Sherman" <sherman(a)gl.umbc.edu> >Newsgroups: sci.crypt >Subject: Barry Smith (FBI) to speak on encryption policy >Date: 19 Jan 1998 01:54:28 -0000 >Organization: University of Maryland, Baltimore County Campus >Lines: 55 >Message-ID: <69ubok$lkn(a)news.umbc.edu> >NNTP-Posting-Host: news.umbc.edu >NNTP-Posting-User: sherman >Path: edison.dotstar.net!pull-feed.internetmci.com!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!204.59.152.222!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!feeder.qis.net!news.umbc.edu!not-for-mail The UMBC Security Technology Research Group presents A Law-Enforcement Perspective on Encryption Policy Barry Smith Supervisory Special Agent, FBI moderated by journalist Peter Wayner 3:30pm - 5:00pm Friday, March 6, 1998 Lecture Hall V (LOCATION SUBJECT TO CHANGE) University of Maryland, Baltimore County http://www.cs.umbc.edu/events/spring98/crypto.shtml The second lecture and discussion in a two-part forum on encryption policy. Journalist Peter Wayner will introduce and moderate the event, which is free and open to the public. In Part I, freedom activist John Gilmore and Fritz Fielding (Ex-Associate General Councel, NSA) gave their divergent views, focusing on the Burnstein case. Barry Smith will articulate the needs of law enforcement to conduct lawful wiretaps; he will advocate the use of key-recovery techniques to achieve this end as a way that provides adequate privacy to law-abiding citizens. Schedule: The event will begin with a brief (10 minute) introduction by Peter Wayner. Following Barry Smith's talk, which will last approximately 45 minutes, there will be an opportunity to ask questions for approximately 20-30 minutes. Questions: Attendees are encouraged to ask questions in advance by sending email to sherman(a)cs.umbc.edu Directions: Take Exit #47B off interstate I-95 and follow signs to UMBC. LH V is on the 100-level of the Engineering Computer Science (ECS) Building, directly behind the University Center. There is a visitor's parking lot near the I-95 entrance to UMBC. Host: Dr. Alan T. Sherman Associate Professor, Computer Science sherman(a)cs.umbc.edu http://www.umbc.edu (410) 455-2666 This event is held in cooperation with the UMBC Intellectual Sports Council Honors College Phi Beta Kappa honors society CMSC Council of Majors IFSM Council of Majors ----------------------------------------------------- -- End of forwarded message ----------------------------------------------------- -- --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html --------------------------------------------------------------- Tag-O-Matic: One man's Windows are another man's walls.

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Re: proving that one knows how to break RSA
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous wrote: >Oh, please. Payne's so-called faster factorization algorithm was >discussed on this list May 13. See the archives under the thread title >"Public Key Break Paper". The algorithm is total garbage. Payne is >obviously a nut case who is setting himself up for a contempt of court >charge. We posted the notice about Payne's RSA paper. There's an archive of his (and fellow Sandian Art Morales') NSA suit and links to his papers : http://jya.com/whpfiles.htm Perhaps Bill's a nut case, and if so, he's probably a bellweather of other disaffected researchers in classified work who are being trashed for refusing to continue Cold War violations beyond the original conditions for signing secrecy agreements, and who are being ostracized by those who want the perks to continue. What folks like Payne are going to do with what they learned about what the USG has been up to is a good question. And what the USG will do to them if they start to tell is more so. That's what Payne's NSA suit is about, and it may be more consequential than the all-too-sane Bernstein, Karn and Junger suits. That will depend on what Payne chooses to reveal in spite of secrecy agreements. We may never know what Bill knows about faulty cryptography if DOE settles with him and Morales. Alternatively, he confesses to a fear of flying, for the reasons Dimitri states, based on what he says he knows of the insane accusations and actions of the TLAs when their own comfort and security is threatened by an ex-insider.

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