December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: RIP, Carl Gorman, Code Talker
by rdew＠el.nec.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Oh-Oh! Us "newbies" slipped up. Except, when I signed up, my entry notice said: "To post to the whole list, send mail to cypherpunks(a)toad.com" Soooo, maybe you want we should send it elsewhere, to the same lists you send to, you should publish the correction, not just flame ... Until then, we just have to do as told by the list-admin ... On Sat Jan 31 12:20:56 1998 Dr.Dimitri Vulis wrote: > From dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com Sat Jan 31 12:20:56 1998 > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Re: RIP, Carl Gorman, Code Talker > From: dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM) > Comments: All power to the ZOG! > Date: Sat, 31 Jan 98 14:23:21 EST > > Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> writes: > > > (As Gary seems to be a newcomer, let me remind him and others that > > "cypherpunks(a)toad.com" is not the place to send messages to the list. > > Please use one of the distributed addresses. It's been a year since the > > list moved off of toad.com. I wish John would just start bouncing messages > > sent to toad.com and be done with it.) > > When are cocksuckers John Gilmore and Guy Polis planning to die from AIDS? > > --- > > Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM > Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps > Ciao, Bob De Witt, rdew(a)el.nec.com

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An update on MS private key (in)security issues
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A fortnight ago I posted a message exposing a number of weaknesses in the way various Microsoft security products handle users private keys. A few days before I was due to vanish for a security conference (where it was very difficult to contact me), the article started getting a bit of attention. This is a general response which clarifies several issues relating to the original message. First, Russ Cooper (moderator of the NT Bugtraq mailing list) made some wildly inaccurate claims about the article. I've had a bit of feedback which indicated that it wasn't even worth dignifying this stuff with a response but I've written one anyway, at least for the original NT Bugtraq messages he posted (the stuff he put on a web page is just more of the same). You can find it at http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/breakms2.txt (even if you don't want to plough through the whole thing, you might want to read the last two paragraphs for a giggle). After this, Microsofts spin doctors leaped into action and posted a response to the article. I've replied to this one in a bit more detail, since it raises several important issues. Comments on Microsofts Response ------------------------------- >Microsoft's Response to Recent Questions on the Recovery of Private Keys from >various Microsoft Products >[...] >With the exception of the details about a possible PKCS-12 attack, all the >issues raised in the recent discussions are specifically aimed at Microsoft's >base CSPs, not at CryptoAPI. The base CSPs are the royalty-free, >software-based CSPs provided with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95, and Internet >Explorer. These attacks do not apply in general to other CryptoAPI CSPs and do >not indicate any fundamental concerns with the security of the CryptoAPI >architecture or applications built upon it. This statement is mere obfuscation. As Microsoft have said, every single (recent) copy of Windows NT, Windows'95, and MSIE (and, presumably, other products like IIS and Outlook, which rely on them) ship with these CSP's, therefore every recent system comes with this security hole installed by default. In addition, the CryptExportKey() function is a standard CryptAPI function, which is described by Microsoft with the text "The CryptExportKey function is used to export cryptographic keys out of a cryptographic service provider in a secure manner" (obviously some new use of the term "secure" with which I wasn't previously familiar). There's nothing in there that says "Only the Microsoft CSP's support this" (some may not support it, but by Microsofts own admission the default used on any recent system does indeed exhibit this flaw). >Microsoft products do not "store" private key material using PKCS-12, contrary >to recent descriptions on the Internet. I was unfortunately somewhat unclear in my article, I've fixed up the online version at http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/breakms.txt. To summarise, if you want to get at an exported key stored on disk, you can use the pre-4.0 key file/PKCS #12 key file flaws. If you want to get at the current users key, you can use the CryptExportKey() flaw. >The example of breaking a PKCS-12 data blob, which was given in discussion on >the Internet, is not an attack on the "weak" cryptography of PKCS-12. Rather, >it is simply a dictionary attack (long known and well understood in >cryptography), This statement is accurate. As Microsoft have said, dictionary attacks have been known to the computer industry for a long, long time (several decades). For example the Unix password encryption uses 25 iterations of DES to protect users passwords from dictionary attacks (this is rather inadequate now, but was appropriate more than two decades ago when it was introduced). If this is a well-known flaw which the entire industry has known about for decades, why are Microsoft's very latest "security" products so extremely vulnerable to it? As I mentioned in my writeup, I published an attack on the exact format used in older MS products more than 1 1/2 years ago, but Microsoft made no attempt to fix this problem at the time. It wasn't until I published the current writeup that they finally addressed it. >One statement by the original poster argues that Microsoft managed to design a >security format that actually makes it easier to break into the protected >data. As stated above, a number of well respected companies were involved >extensively in the design and review of PKCS-12 before it became a standard. The problem is that Microsoft ignored the other companies recommendations for increasing security. I'll refer people back to the original writeup for mention of the various security features which were added to PKCS #12 and subsequently ignored by Microsoft. PKCS #12 is just a basic modification of PFX, which was a purely Microsoft invention, and Microsofts implementation of PKCS #12 does indeed make it very easy to perform the attack I described (you'd have to read my writeup for the full technical details in which I describe each individual flaw which, as each is exploited in turn, make it progressively easier and easier to recover a users private key). In addition (as I mentioned in my original message), Microsoft use RC2/40 to encrypt the private keys, which means that no matter how good a password you choose, the default PKCS #12 format private key produced by MSIE can be recovered in a few days with fairly modest computing power. There already exists a Windows screen saver which will recover RC2/40 keys for S/MIME messages, and the prize of an RSA private key is a much higher motivating factor than the "Hello, how are you?" typically found in an S/MIME message. As Microsoft point out, Netscape can indeed handle RC2/40-encrypted files, however they usually use triple DES and not RC2/40 (they encrypt the private key components - the really valuable part of the PKCS #12 payload - with triple DES and the other odds and ends with RC2/40). Since Netscape also iterate the password and MAC processing, they aren't vulnerable to the attacks which the Microsoft software is vulnerable to, even though both are based on the same PKCS #12 standard. >Exploiting Internet Explorer > >One of the fundamental requirements to perform any possible cryptographic >attack discussed in the recent postings is the assumption that a malicious >entity could somehow access to data on a user's computer system, without the >permission or knowledge of the user. This is a large leap of faith. > >Users that are using Public Key Certificates today are generally sophisticated >and savvy users, Bwahahahahaha! Sorry, I guess I should explain that in more precise terms. Now I'm not trying to claim that the average Win95 user isn't as sophisticated and savvy as Microsoft seem to think, or that relying entirely on the sophistication of the average Win95 user for security is a dangerous move. However these statements do seem to completely ignore the reality of the situation. Let me go into the background of the weaknesses a bit further. When I tested the weaknesses, I asked some "guinea pig" users to send me their exported keys, with the promise that I'd destroy the keys and not keep any record of where the keys came from and so on. Because of this I can't give exact figures, however here are a few data points: - More than half the keys (I can't remember the exact figure) were in the older, pre-4.x format. This indicates that the majority of users (or at least of the crypto-using guinea pigs) are still running old versions of MSIE which contain a number of widely-publicised problems, including precisely the weaknesses required to run arbitrary code on the machine or read files off the machine. One of the respondents commented that the key was "the key I use with Outlook", I'm not sure what that says about the origins of the key. Another key was one used with IIS for a web site which runs an online commerce service that processes credit-card based orders. This must have been an older version of IIS since the key was in the pre-4.x format. - When I asked two of the people why they were still using an old version, the responses were "It came installed with the machine when we bought it" and "It does what I want, so I haven't upgraded". I expect most users of the older version would have a similar reason for using it. In a company of 20 people (some of whom participated in this test), only two were running 4.x. These people are all highly competent software developers (presumably this includes them in the group of "sophisticated and savvy users" which MS were referring to), however none of the remaining 18 wanted to risk installing MSIE 4 because of the extent with which it messed with their system, possibly jeopardising their development work. Therefore most of these "sophisticated and savvy users" were still running old, insecure versions of MSIE, and weren't going to upgrade any time soon. - For the two remaining 4.x users in the company, both are still using straight, unpatched 4.0 because they considered it painful enough to download all of 4.0 and they didn't want to bother with an upgrade just yet. This makes them vulnerable to the bug pointed out in the l0pht advisory. - When I informed one of the guinea pigs of the recovered password, his response was "Now I'll have to change my login password" (the others generally restricted themselves to some variation of "Oops"). This comment confirms that users do indeed sometimes use their login password to protect their private keys, so that a successful attack recovers not only their private keys but their login password as well. - One respondent commented that most of the code they downloaded from the net was unsigned, but they ran it anyway. This is probably typical of the average user. Although I've only been back for two days, I haven't yet managed to find anyone who has applied all the latest patches and kludges to their system which makes them immune to these problems. This includes at least one person who has a code signing key which could be used to sign malicious ActiveX controls. Therefore all of the guinea pigs could in theory have their private keys stolen. >Attacks against Authenticode signing keys > >[...] > >However, it is extremely unlikely anyone could be successful with a simplistic >strategy for stealing Authenticode signing keys and then using them. See my comments about about this. I could, right now, obtain at least one Authenticode signing key with which I could create a malicious ActiveX control. I'm sure that if I were serious about this I could obtain a number of others. >Second, anyone signing code using Authenticode technology is extremely >unlikely to leave their key material sitting on an end user machine routinely >used for browsing the Internet. I see no basis for this claim. Every developer I know uses the same machine for both code development and web browsing (in fact a number of users keep a copy of MSIE or Netscape permantly running on their machine so that they'll have something to do between compiles). Microsoft's statement seems to imply that users will be running two machines, one dedicated entirely to web browsing and the other to code signing. I find this extremely unlikely. >Attacks on Encrypted Key material > >There is some confusion over the algorithms and methods that Microsoft uses to >provide protection of encrypted key material in Internet Explorer when using >the standard Microsoft base CSPs. There were changes between Internet Explorer >3.0x and Internet Explorer 4.x specifically to address any possible concern. And the astounding thing was that, despite a complete rewrite of the code, the newer version offers no extra security at all, as my article points out. Both are equally weak, you just need to attack them in slightly different ways. >Key export attacks > >The original Internet posting raises concern about the CryptoAPI interface >CryptExportKey(). This function is fully documented and does indeed export >private key material in an encrypted format. The statement from Microsoft omits one important point here. Myself and another security researcher have been trying to tell Microsoft for more than four months (probably a lot longer, I didn't log the earlier mail) that this is a very serious security flaw. In all cases Microsoft's response was some variation of "We don't see this as a flaw". It wasn't until my warning was published that they finally addressed the problem, and even in this case (the program to set the CRYPT_USER_PROTECTED flag) it's only a quick hack to plaster over the cracks and allow them to declare the problem fixed. In fact it doesn't fix the problem at all. I'll post details in a fortnight or so when I've had time to test things, please don't ask me about this until then. >The presence of the CryptExportKey() function is to support functionality such >as migrating key material between machines for a user or creating a backup >copy of a key. It should be noted however, that many CSPs, including most >hardware based CSPs, do not allow exportable private keys and will return and >error in response to a CryptExportKey() request. However the CSP's installed by default on every recent system do allow the export. The fact that there may exist, somewhere, an implementation which doesn't exhibit this flaw really doesn't help the majority of users. >The posting also asserts that an ActiveX control could be downloaded from a >web page, simply ask for the current users key, ship the key off for >collection by an unscrupulous person, and then delete itself without a trace. > >If users run unsigned code, or code from an unknown origin, a number of >unpleasant things can happen. This could indeed occur if the key as been >marked exportable and the CRYPT_USER_PROTECTED flag is not set. Which was, until my warning, the automatic default action for Verisign, and is still the automatic default for many other CA's. This means that keys generated right up until a few days ago (and in some cases keys being generated right now) have, by default, no protection whatsoever. In addition I've just been sent mail to say that CRYPT_USER_PROTECTED still isn't the default with Verisign, you have to click a box asking for extra security or you get the usual default of no protection. To add to the confusion, a lot of documentation (including the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) online documentation on Microsofts web site) describes the CRYPT_USER_PROTECTED flag with "The Microsoft RSA Base Provider ignores this flag", which can cause programmers to leave it out when it is *essential* it is always included. Incidentally, MSDN also claims that Microsoft are "supporting" PFX, which is in direct contrast with the claims in their press release. >There was also discussion of 16 dialog boxes appearing to the user for their >password if the CRYPT_USER_PROTECTED flag is set. Certainly asking the user >too many times would be better than too few times, however in our tests, under >extreme (and uncommon cases), a user might be asked for their password at most >four times when a key is used with the Microsoft base CSPs. Perhaps the claim >came from an early beta release. The 16 dialog boxes problem was present in 4.0, and it's been confirmed as still being present in 4.01. This was apparently verified on Microsoft's own CryptoAPI mailing list (the claimed "beta" version was actually MSIE 4.0 final). >Microsoft is constantly working to improve the security of our products. Myself and another person had been trying to convince Microsoft for more than four months that things like CryptExportKey() are a major security hole. Their response each time has been some variation of "We don't see this as a problem". It simply wasn't possible to get them to acknowledge these flaws, therefore my posting of the details wasn't "irresponsible" (as some have claimed) but a necessity in order to get them fixed. When I pointed out several months ago that Microsoft were using, in their pre-4.x products, an exported key format which was identical to the one which I broke more than 1 1/2 years ago, their response was "What's the problem with this?". I would have liked to have included URL's for the CryptoAPI mailing list archives to prove that Microsoft were warned of these problems some time ago, but the CryptoAPI archive seems to be temporarily offline. Risks of a Private Key Compromise --------------------------------- One or two respondents have tried to play down the seriousness of a private key compromise, saying that I exaggerated the dangers in my original message. What I wanted to point out was how extremely valuable a users private key is, and how disappointingly little concern Microsoft seem to have for protecting this valuable resource. For example Garfinkel and Spaffords "Web Security and Commerce" (O'Reilly, 1997) contains the warning: "Today's PC's are no better at storing private keys once they have been generated. Even though both Navigator and Internet Explorer can store keys encrypted, they have to be decrypted to be used. All an attacker has to do is write a program that manages to get itself run on the users computer (for example by using [...] Microsoft's ActiveX technology), waits for the key to be decrypted, and then sends the key out over the network" (p.120). Including a function like CryptExportKey() (which hands over a users private key) makes this very attack possible. The potential damage which can be caused with a misappropriated private key is enormous. Consider the relative risks in the compromise of a logon password and a private key. With a logon password, the worst an attacker can do (apart from stealing possibly valuable data) is to trash the victims hard drive, which involves reinstalling the operating system (an action which many users are intimately familiar with). In contrast an attacker who obtains a private key can potentially drain the victims credit card, clean out their bank account (if the victim uses one of the emerging online banking services), sign documents in their name, and so on. The implications of that last point can be quite serious. Take for example the Utah digital signature act, which was used as a model by a number of other states who implemented or are implementing digital signature legislation. Under the Utah act, digitally signed documents are given the same evidentiary weight as notarised documents, and someone trying to overcome this has to provide "clear and convincing evidence" that the document is fraudulent, which is difficult since it bears a valid signature from the users key (this fact has been used in the past to criticise digital signature laws based on this act). In addition, under the Utah act and derived acts, anyone who loses their private key bears unlimited liability for the loss (in contrast, consumer liability for credit card loss is limited to $50). This leads to the spectre of a malicious attacker who has the ability to issue notarised documents in your name for which you carry unlimited liability. This is a lot more important than someone reformatting your hard drive, or stealing last months sales figures. Peter.

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Re: The Continued Attack on Cash (Was: "The Right of Anonymity"...) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: "Attila T. Hun" <attila(a)hun.org> > Date: Mon, 02 Feb 98 18:07:57 +0000 > Subject: Re: The Continued Attack on Cash (Was: "The Right of Anonymity"...) > >I've been doing it for many years. Don't have a checking account, don't > >own a credit card. I do have a saving account with a local credit union > >and go in every 3-4 days and withdraw what I need for the next 3-4 days. > >Pay every bill in cash or money order. > > first, the use of the credit union includes your SSN and > they have a total cash transaction at least on your primary > expenses. Wrong. I go in once a week and pull out money in a lump sum. I then budget that money myself. The only thing they have is a sequence of deposits from paychecks and withdrawals to cash. > if you have "consulting" income which can be > converted to cash, and dont deposit it, then you can do you > 'high on the hawg' living with the cash --until they bring > the IRS CID along and look at your 'imputed' income which is > almost indefensible in their kangaroo courts. I either take the fees in check and deposit them or else take 'in kind' trade (eg I did a job if installing Win95 for a customer on some laptops he'd bought via auction. There was a Tadpole 3XP Sparcbook on there. I took it for my fee). > >I'm going to go tomorrow and buy a new laptop at around $1500. > > what are you getting for $1500? out here in the boonies > we dont see those kind of prices. Looks like a Toshiba Satellite 445CTX (133MHz Pentium). > well, in the first place, you live in Texas where the > attitude to the Feds is rather strong --not as strong as our > attitude in rural Utah where the usual transaction is in > cash. out here, a Fed is the same as a revenuer in Eastern > Kentucky or Tennessee. reminds me of the Fed approaching a > child and telling him he'd give him $5 if he took him to his > father (still) --the boy asked for the money up front. when > the Fed asked why, the boy said: "...'cause you aint coming > back". You don't know Texas or Texans very well... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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the best justice money can buy --Lessig suspended
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >>> the best justice money (and politics) can buy I really do not believe this --this is bought justice as appeals courts never, or at least rarely such as a blatant in the case of a blatant error in a capital murder criminal trial, interfere with a sitting federal judge. the damage is immense; it delays the first round of adjudication by at least 5 months. if I were Joel Klein I would go for the jugular and file action for an immediate divestiture of M$ including injunctions against operations and management by Bill Gate$ and Steve Ballmer. the appeals court would probably suspend the actions, but they would still be there and on the table. Jackson at this point will be furious --hopefully he keeps total cool. the obvious next move on the part of M$ will be to have Jackson disqualified for bias. that will make 2 judges in the DC circuit who M$ has wasted. Royce Lambert refused to accept the 1994 plea bargain --obviously M$ would ask him to recuse if his name came out of the barrel; theoretically, cases are assigned by lottery --in reality, you can influence the choice of a judge as the cases are assigned at the time of filing by rotation. --M$ obviously is capable of shopping for a judge. at this point, I would say M$ has won the game. W98 will be released with IE4 as the desktop, complete with push channels and www.msn.com --at that point, Jackson --if he is still the sitting judge-- will be forced to make a bad law decision if he tries to block it on the 1994 agreement: the product is 'integrated' --M$ had the foresight to hoodwink the DOJ --Royce Lambert saw through the smoke screen but the appeals court removed him from the case. so... we will have multiple choice of OS: M$ on Intel, M$ on SGI, M$ on Alpha --and SUN goes down the tubes as they will never capitulate. M$ will bury IBM with their NT alliance with Ahmdal who clones all the IBM iron --which is fading against the clustered servers. IBM long since gave in on OS/2 versus M$ --it may figure in their corporate strategy, but unless they are willing to update past Netscape 2.02 they will lose that as well --in fact you can no longer any of the IBM PCs with OS/2 preloaded --except by special order: in quantity. Bill Gate$ for President? might as well... maybe Lee Harvey Oswald will come to the rescue. Lessig appointment suspended By Dan Goodin, C|Net February 2, 1998, 6:40 p.m. PT A federal appeals court has immediately suspended the appointment of a contested computer expert charged with collecting and weighing evidence in the antitrust case the Justice Department has brought against Microsoft. In a ruling handed down late Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted Microsoft's request to halt, pending further review, the proceedings before visiting Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson appointed Lessig a "special master" in mid December, giving the computer and Internet law expert until May 31 to recommend factual and legal findings in the high-profile case. The one-page ruling is a significant--but by no means final--win for Microsoft, which repeatedly has objected to Lessig's appointment. In briefs filed first in district court and then with the court of appeals, Microsoft strenuously has opposed the designation of any special master in the case, but has argued further that Lessig is an inappropriate choice because he appears to be biased against the software giant. In a sternly worded order issued two weeks ago, Jackson denied Microsoft's request, calling the allegations of bias "trivial" and "defamatory." Today's ruling by the court of appeals is in stark contrast to Jackson's order, and may indicate that the three-judge panel assigned to hear matters in the case sees things in a different light. Rather than permanently halting the proceedings, today's ruling is an agreement only to consider Microsoft's challenge to the special master--known in legal parlance as a writ of mandamus. In a sign that the judges may be inclined to agree with Microsoft's arguments on the issue, however, they handed Redmond an additional win by immediately halting the proceedings scheduled to take place before Lessig while the challenge is being heard. "It is extremely unusual for a court of appeals to reach down and stop what a district court has ordered," said Rich Gray, an antitrust attorney at Bergeson, Eliopoulos, Grady & Gray. "The court of appeals is saying, 'We're interested in hearing more about this, and in the meantime, we're going to put the special master on hold.'" A Microsoft spokesman agreed. "This is a very positive step, but it's only one small step in a long process," said Jim Cullinan. "We look forward to presenting our evidence to the appeals court as well as the trial court." The court of appeals already had agreed to hear a separate appeal, in which Microsoft is fighting a preliminary injunction Jackson issued in December that requires Microsoft to separate browser software from its Windows products. Today's ruling consolidates both motions into the same April 21 hearing. It also requires both sides to file additional briefs concerning the special master challenge by April 7. Moreover, the government must file its opposition to Microsoft's appeal of the preliminary injunction by March 2, and Microsoft must respond to that brief by March 9. Justice Department representatives were not immediately available for comment. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQBVAwUBNNc8R7R8UA6T6u61AQH3swIAtVNkbSk80Crg/dseQOP4pPpIbEDGchsl rWj/sEmXn/2EnWxXBTp4OnkRpJlFbobhbkT3lJqE4Jj2V+MnEGUFzw== =9S7I -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Airline ticket information -- help
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm trying to find out what airline flight someone is taking. I have a name and know the general travel plans and likely date. How can I find out the airline, flight number, and seat number? This is somewhat urgent. (You have my assurance that the purpose is legit.) If anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate the help. Thanks, Declan

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Whoa: British SmartCard rollout
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: bill payne <billp(a)nmol.com> > To: webmaster(a)cylink.com > CC: federico pena <" Federico.F.Pena"@hq.doe.gov>, jy(a)jya.com, > john gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com>, j orlin grabbe <kalliste(a)aci.net>, > cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Jim Omura > <B>cn010598.txt Electronic Surveillance News January 5, 1998</B> 2 January 1998, Newsbytes: British Govt Announces Smart Card Plans for UK Citizens London, England: Amid the quiet of the Christmas and New Year break, the British government revealed plans for a "citizen's smart card" that will streamline the interfacing of British people with their government. In plain English, that translates to a smart card that can be used to allow people to pay all of their taxes, including income tax, national insurance, and local taxes, as well as apply for passports, state benefits, and other forms of government welfare. The idea behind the smart card, according to Peter Kilfoyle, the British public services minister, is that people will be able to use the card to identify themselves to the various government computers, all of which will be interlinked with each other. Kilfoyle claims that there are "huge potential savings" to be had from the introduction of the smart card, although he revealed that possessing a card will be voluntary. When questioned further on this, he admitted, however, that people could find it difficult to operate in the future without such a card. Initially, the citizen's smart card will rely on traditional PIN protection systems to allow a person to ID themselves alongside the card to the government computer systems. In the longer term, and certainly within the next five years, the plan is to allow an individual to use a fingerprint or similar biometric system for positive identification. ---- Fingerprinting everyone on the planet: those of you in CA and a handful of other states have already been fingerprinted "so you can drive". Police will eventually be able to stop anyone and demand to check their fingerprints via cheap small portable scanners. EFF/EPIC etc need to specifically target these biometric systems as being way over the top. Totally unnecessary. ---guy How did you CA cypherpunks feel about being fingerprinted?

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Latest in Factoring
by Alan Tu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jeff Lawrence wrote: >>>>> Well, my opinion is only one of many, but I just finished installing PGP 5.5 and it allows both RSA keys (max of 2048) as well as DS/DHH keys (max of 4096). Most keys I'm seeing these days are running at 2048, so 1024 could be considered as "below average". Just my $0.02 <<<<< First, I do have a 2048 RSA key I generated with 2.6.3ix, but its in hibernation and not on a key server, yet. (g) Second, what is 5.5 compared to 5.0? Let alone 5.5.3 as displayed in your key block? Third, I think its arrogant that PGP Inc. (and many many other software companies) have left dos/win 3.x users behind. The people, like me, who still use DOS/Win 3.x obviously like it, not to mention people not in the USA. Then, because of the lack of conventional encryption, and other options not in pgp 5.0 (I don't know about 5.5), and because its not freeware (freeware doesn't fully support RSA), people on the Internet had reached the concensus that they weren't going to stop using pgp 2.6.xxxx. When I complained about 5.0, one person asked me if my 2.6.3ix version had stopped working. Anyway, I think that PGP Inc. should release a version of PGP for DOS that lets you generate longer keys, be it RSA or otherwise. Finally, there are a lot of people in other countries (where PGP has spread as widely as in the US, if not more so) who are not compatible with Win95 users using PGP 5.0 freeware. --Alan Tu Type Bits/KeyID Date User ID pub 1024/E5D915E1 1997/04/27 Alan Tu <atu5713(a)compuserve.com> Alan Tu <102534.2165(a)compuserve.com> -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.3i Comment: Requires PGP version 2.6 or later. mQCNAzNivkwAAAEEALdGUXD3j+RioIirVG46N6LaGD3YMMVVT5Mjwr5JojQsDICy 856I06Ugo/Fqid2A/os7v/gwE+Sj/WhMERgTsTejUZtsucTpS9sae+cc27Fjjq1l hOnqcLZqnHDDNyn3+jesVFPLnRlSoHbmcBK1XDW/SJT1anZz55ezmBrl2RXhAAUR tCBBbGFuIFR1IDxhdHU1NzEzQGNvbXB1c2VydmUuY29tPokAlQIFEDOguk6Xs5ga 5dkV4QEBBF8D/1B0ePqlMavWEUMP0uTmyvWFI7jooAcih6uHZFo2u+u3EzE2Is8X EoLHg39DhjleTHPu6TnGsWIiwDYEslzYeVw/Cglx6eliYIr/qs7peEywuhtZsEFH ln6yR9IE6rX3b3GCvPSQ5uPhXWrd2kWaZvG4rQ4Oj1m3yTrFaPRqCBPvtCRBbGFu IFR1IDwxMDI1MzQuMjE2NUBjb21wdXNlcnZlLmNvbT6JAJUDBRAzyUJWl7OYGuXZ FeEBAc4TBACT8gLtyE0C8NBGs9aDa9kHfeNzN8VbNfUpoOiWi4duAAZFiAt/e+ji J2BUMLIY8kzm2WX4mVzpKYjvea5TtHeQgbESV1HVZ5k7abENMUYz5nSMloOE+bb+ XRzgGgFF3htGXDJNywlLNgoYi5vTMT0pbGlCzOu215Cc4mFls2w1iA== =CM85 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Re: Guy Polis is a pedophile
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Heh-heh-heh: it's so funny so see how high Dimitry jumps when he sees people being made aware of his body of work. > From: dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com > > I have perfected sucking my own cock! Call me for a video! Oh, Dimitry, we already know you are in love with yourself. ---guy And what a pathetic Net researcher... ;-)

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Software Reverse Engineering
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi All - I've recently been disassembling some software written by idiots who never heard of operating systems other than messy-windows, so that I can re-implement it on my favorite platform (and fix numerous bugs). I know many of you have done work in this area so maybe you can give me a few tips. I ran the program and traced its execution, which quickly showed what parts were significant, and it's pretty easy to figure out what the relevant functions are and what they do. I was able to recompile sections of the code into my own program and make it work without too much difficulty. What is bugging me is this: The program contains huge amounts of 'junk code' such as the following (disassembled with gdb): movl 0x7c58c,%eax movl %eax,0xffffffa8(%ebp) movl 0xffffffa8(%ebp),%eax movl %eax,0x7c590 movl 0x7c590,%eax movl %eax,0xffffffa8(%ebp) movl 0xffffffa8(%ebp),%edx This segment of code accomplishes nothing execpt to move the same value around into different locations, which are never again read. At least half of the instructions consist of similiar garbage, writing data into locations that are never read, duplicating constants, copying values that are never used, and so on. The only thing saving the program from running out of memory is that the programmer mostly used static buffers, only sparingly doing dynamic allocation. I'm quite surprised that I haven't found any buffer overruns or security holes yet. So, does anyone have reccomendations of what is the best way to seperate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak? I can use the program as is, but the sheer amount of junk tends to make it run slowly, so I'd much prefer to completely rewrite it.

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Re: GNU market penetration... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: GNU market penetration... > Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 14:43:51 -0600 (CST) > From: ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) > Jim Choate wrote: > > I have a question, after going to the GNU homepage (www.gnu.org) I have not > > been able to find out the numbers of how many if any corporate subscribers > > and participants to the GNU Foundation. Is there anyone out there who might > > have a pointer to this information, or better yet is an actual participant > > in the GNU heirarchy and can discuss these and related issues? > > The number of subscribers bears almost no relation to the number of users. Here is what I am thinking... - commercial success at larger commercial enterprises can be seen by looking at their gross orders of software. Consider that if a company decides they want to use Win95 and WinNT for their systems. Are they going to buy them one at a time? No, they are going to purchase either large quantities or site licenses. - Since GPL doesn't really support site licenses in the normal sense they won't be there to look at. In other words the total number of site licenses from corporations for software is a measure of its penetration. - Since GPL doesn't prohibit buying one copy and then making as many subsequent copies as you desire it is not likely that a given company is going to buy great quantities of GPL'ed software. What they'll do is have each department, through their own budget disbursement and orders, purchase such software as required. So we can expect to see one or more, but relatively few overall, purchases of software. Since this does not seem, to me anyway, to allow for a differentiation between one hacker purchasing the software in a comany or an entire department this also will not be a clear indication of penetration. - Large companies faced with the above situations and having committed to the continued survival of those sources of software will want to create a situation where they minimize their need to keep re-ordering software as its needed (expensive in people and process time) the reasonable thing is to subscribe for annual terms or similar programs. What I would like to know is what is the percentage of subscriptions by companies in regards to the total number of subscriptions of GNU software. I couldn't find any way to get this info on the www.gnu.org page. Since the question is at what point is current penetration of Linux into commercial entities as a standard business environment this seemed relevant. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | 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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