December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: RSA, PGP IN LEGAL FLAP OVER ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY
by Chris DiBona 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't pretend to be patent law knowledgeable, but I'll try to address this. While pure mathematics is unpatentable, the inventions based on it are not. Remembering you can't get patents on ideas, only inventions, I decided to go and check out the RSA patent and see why it has held up and been allowed renewal (no kidding. Think of all the trouble that could have been saved if renewal had been denied!) This first thing I noticed is that not only is RSA patented, but so is Stego, under patent 5613004. The RSA patent is abstracted and here it is: ABSTRACT: A cryptographic communications system and method. The system includes a communications channel coupled to at least one terminal having an encoding device and to at least one terminal having a decoding device. A message-to-be-transferred is enciphered to ciphertext at the encoding terminal by first encoding the message as a number M in a predetermined set, and then raising that number to a first predetermined power (associated with the intended receiver) and finally computing the remainder, or residue, C, when the exponentiated number is divided by the product of two predetermined prime numbers (associated with the intended receiver). The residue C is the ciphertext. The ciphertext is deciphered to the original message at the decoding terminal in a similar manner by raising the ciphertext to a second predetermined power (associated with the intended receiver), and then computing the residue, M', when the exponentiated ciphertext is divided by the product of the two predetermined prime numbers associated with the intended receiver. The residue M' corresponds to the original encoded message M. For the actual details of the patent go to IBM's patent server: http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/details?patent_number=4405829 Notice how careful they were to title it a "System" and a "Method". It is that they are patenting. I think if someone had good enough lawyers, they could probably challenge this patent using prior art claims, but what the hell do I know. I'm thinking however that the Secure Telephone Units had a dual key system, and were introduced by AT&T long before the RSA patent was granted, but I'm not sure. So indeed they are patenting the method of using the mathmatics. Which is thier invention, which is why (IMO) they were granted the patent. I wish that they hadn't been able to get it renewed. It would have been nice to see how RSA would do competing thier software libraries against alternative competitors. Ah well, guess we'll have to wait another 17 years. Too bad. Chris DiBona -----Original Message----- At 19:47 5/13/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote: >On Tue, May 13, 1997 at 07:11:48PM -0800, Jim Bell wrote: >> However, I've been waiting many years for some patent-law-knowledgeable >> person to explain why mathematics, which was widely seen as being absolutely >> unpatentable prior to the invention of public-key cryptography, suddenly >> became patentable just in time for RSA, etc. >> >> Until I hear such an explanation, I _DO_ begrudge RSA and others that "right." > >Wow! I agree with you! Sit down until the feeling goes away. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Videocrypt/Videocrypt2 any cryptanalytic results?
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Has any progress been made in cryptanalysing the algorithms used in the european Videocrypt and Videocrypt2 standards used to encrypt satellite broadcasts? Particularly, is there any information I can obtain about the protocols, the data communicated between the decoder and card, and the algorithm itself. I am looking at the possibility of a new version of the "season" card simulator software created some time ago, which is now obselete, which used to be used against videocrypt broadcasts...

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Re: Public Key Break Paper
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Phillip M. Hallam-Baker wrote: > > >I just took a brief look at it, (thanks for forwarding, Lucky), > >and it's pure crap-ola. > > As a meta-point any securirty person knows that employees and > ex-employees are the most serious security risks. Its not exactly > unknown for someone to go nuts and then come out with loony > paranoid theories. Whenever I see the dying embers of the spam debate being blown to life (along with similar non-issues), I wonder what the disinfo artists are trying to distract me from. I don't have to wonder too hard, however, since I can always count on the usual suspects to step forward and pooh-paah whatever they don't want anyone to look at too closely. Anything Phill casts aspersions on has to be worth checking out: http://jya.com/snlhit.htm TrafficMonger

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Kill a Fag, Go to Congress / Was--Re: Disinformation in L.A.
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tom Allard wrote: > > Didn't her boss's murderer walk on the charge by using the defence > > that he ate too many Twinkies? > > No political intrigue here... > > That was the defense, yes. Dan White was a former cop and treated like a > hero by fellow cops. The prosecution never really challenged the Twinkie > defense, nor did they bring up politics or homophobia as motives. With a > prosecution like that, who needs a defense? I remember that it was seen as being a message to the gay community that they were getting too "uppity" for their own good. (I wonder how they got that idea? <former cop kills a queer, gets treated like a hero, prosecuters play with Little Peter while he gets off for eating too many Twinkies, and Swinestein is waiting in the wings to do an "LBJ">.) The government is a lot like the Mob--other politicians can't really trust you until you've whacked somebody and they have it to hold over your head so that you'll play along. SwineMonger

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by helpers＠prep.future.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: The War is Underway
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- \At 10:44 AM 5/10/97 -0800, Tim May wrote: >This is the "race to the fork in the road" I have long talked about. The >future will be pulled between two attractors, with essentially no middle >ground >At one side lies a surveillance state >At the other side lies crypto anarchy Except that their branch of the "fork" is illusory. It depends on public support and physical powers they lack. The reason that I'm a technoptimist is *not* because I think that modern technology is an all-powerful mechanism which has shattered the control capabilities of the coercive state apparatus. The really beautiful thing is that today's technology is merely piling onto a pre-existing trend which favored individual choice. Things were already trending towards markets and self government long before crypto and the Internet hit the front pages. Even mainframe computers helped. If you look at the graphs, you'll see that computers started forcing institutional downsizing as early as the late '60s in the U.S. and Britain. Mechanical technology and the wealth it produced was sufficient to get things going. Since the Second World War, people have been getting wealthier and hence more powerful. First here in America and later spreading throughout the worlds like a health-giving virus. Remember, it's not just technology. If I can move and trade in a very efficient market, I have a lot more power than someone with my same level of wealth in a primitive society with limited capabilities. Cheap radios (the first micro technology product) and jet engines helped push things along as much as anything. The slow development of market institutions which, today, give individuals the power to buy, sell, and lease almost any good or service eventually reached a critical point as well. Rich people are *much* harder to push around than poor people. (If you push them too much, they just leave.) So factories produced wealth which produced power which automatically increased individual choice. You will note that the 60's happened, for example. As time went on, markets spread, tyranny contracted and people became harder and harder to control (for good or ill). Pile crypto and the Net onto this trend, and you get an accelerated beneficial movement towards enhanced personal choice. Obviously, "the generation that was born into bondage in Egypt cannot enter the Promised Land." They have to die off before the changes can become obvious to all. The Net can help in this by changing our cultural and social environment so much that it allows us to, in the words of yet another Timothy, "Metaprogram the human biocomputer." I must say, however, that I find it hard to believe that other people can't see the amazing progress that we've made in the last decade. The utter destruction of totalitarian communism, the transformation of Latin America from 26 dictatorships and 1 democracy a few years ago to 26 (more or less) democracies and 1 dictatorship today, the liberation of the Forex markets, the ideological dominance of market liberalism, the Death of the PTT communications monopolies, the deregulation of transportation, the lowering of trade barriers, etc. Note that last month, Mongolia became the first country since the dawn of the nation state to abolish all tarrifs and quotas. Now if you can just get to it, you can trade freely. The control capabilities of the government depend on the attitude of the people. If they support the government or are intimidated by it, they will obey. Today, support for most OECD governments is at historic lows. Cynicism about government policies is widespread. And the simple ignoring of rules and regs is "out of control." DCF "You don't have to be nice to nation states you meet on the way up if you're not coming back down." -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQCVAgUBM3os3YVO4r4sgSPhAQHTRgQAvXFT8D+v2rpRe1d6bev87ODWCm4Pr1HS 0akwfOIBdGcCIWzRVRywTe1uBkMlnP2rXg819q+LLMkLK2J0Oma0zCPbCOqG8OSd aChGNuLq1106YjRPGXsbpKOBugbpW5AgLXUlUXtwjMBJzoZ9GNRCQDJlGCHuO0Q3 gDVw2CRSW6A= =33tc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Rwanda and "anarchy"
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: > On Tue, May 13, 1997 at 08:21:13PM -0800, Tim May wrote: > > At 6:34 PM -0800 5/13/97, Kent Crispin wrote: > > > > >First of all, it neglects to consider that governments may have > > >prevented more murders than they caused. This is unknowable, since > > >we don't have any worthwhile control cases. (I suppose we > > >might examine a state of anarchic chaos (eg Rawanda) and compare the > > >percentage of murders...but such cases are symptoms of other human > > >ills, and cannot be used as a meaningful comparison, I believe.) > > > > Rwanda (or Ruwanda, or...) is a _very_ poor example to pick, as this was > > not any kind of anarchy such as any of us have ever advocated. Rather, > > Rwanda was a near-textbook example of one tribal faction (Hutus or > > Tutsis) coming to power and inititiating a pogrom against the rival > > faction (Tutsis or Hutus). > > > > Calling this an "anarchy" is comparable to calling the pogrom by the > > Third Reich against Jews, gypsies, cripples, and others an example of > > anarchy. > > Nonsense. > > "anarchy n. the absence of government or control, resulting in > lawlessness. 2. disorder, confusion" -- Oxford American Dictionary > > Which part of that would you say didn't apply to Rwanda? I would say "none." Tim is essentially correct. Ironically, we know he's correct thanks to the United Nations and Judge Goldstein's International Criminal Tribunal, which Tim would oppose. (The answer to bad government is more government?) Jean-Marie Higiro was Rwanda's Minister of Telecommunications. He saw the radio turn into a tool of totalitarian propaganda. The killings were encouraged and organized by the government. He was there. Lindsey Hilsum was the only English-speaking reporter in Rwanda when the killings started. She described the situation as "anarchy" because she did not understand the language or the political situation. She later retracted that story, and spent several more months in Rwanda and Burundi documenting what really happened. She eventually testified before the ICT on what she saw. I think she's a really cool person. Raymond Bonner joined Lindsey in Rwanda later. You might recognize his name -- he's the guy who was fired by the New York Times because the Reagan Administration didn't like his reporting on human rights violations in El Salvador. Gilles Peress is a French photojournalist who documented the genocide in Rwanda both for himself and for the ICT. I met these folks and browsed the relevant documentation, recordings, and photos on April 11th. I believe them when they say it was planned. Blaming it on "evil government," though, is ludicrous. There was quite a lot more going on. If you want to look at anarchic chaos, try, maybe, Albania, or Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict. But even in those cases, the violence had specific targets for specific reasons. It wasn't unstructured anarchy, and it didn't last long. For all the press, there were few deaths in either case. > In fact, the correlation between anarchy and war is very strong, for > obvious reasons. Perhaps that is why most intelligent people don't > consider anarchy a desirable state of affairs. There is no such thing as anarchy, and there never will be. -rich http://www.stanford.edu/~llurch/

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Problems at PGP?
by Steve 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hot Off The Press http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,10660,00.html Pretty Good Privacy CEO quits By Dawn Yoshitake May 14, 1997, 11:30 a.m. PT Security software firm Pretty Good Privacy announced today that its chief executive and president has resigned as the company mature from its start-up status. Thomas Steding, CEO, president, and a PGP founder, will now become a company adviser. The CEO position will be phased out, the company said. "This was a decision by the board and the executive staff. It seemed the right time," spokesman Mike Nelson said. "We're moving out of a start-up mode and into pursuit of the corporate marketplace. This was a minor adjustment to the staff." Nelson added that Steding will continue to advise the company on team-building and moving its operations quickly. Phillip Dunkelberger, former vice president of sales, will now become president and be responsible for the company's daily operations. Dunkelberger will also become a board member. Jonathan Seybold, a PGP founder, has been named chairman of the company. Nelson said the company is on target with its product development and sales and profitability targets, and will review where it stands financially and with its product lineup before setting a future course for an initial public offering. PGP, which has been in operation for a year, is scheduled to begin open beta testing for its Personal Privacy version 5.0 tomorrow. The commercial version is slated to be released later this month. Meanwhile, the crypto company has initiated a few acquisitions. One of its most recent was the March buyout of Zoomit, a directory technology that combines private intranets, pubic extranets, and the Internet. -- A picture tells a thousand words. Stego -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS/IT/S d--() s+: a-- C++++(++)$ ULS+++@ P++@ L+(++)$ E- W+(+++)$ N++$ !o K-? w++(+++)$ !O+>++ !M !V PS+(+++)@ PE(++)@ Y++$ PGP@ t+@ 5++@ X++>$ R+++>$ tv+@ b+@ DI+++>$ D+++@>$ G@ e++@>++++ h r* y+ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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RSA v. PGP Complaint Correction
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Due to a transmittal error the latter half of the RSA v. PGP complaint was omitted from our offering this morning. The full complaint is now available at: http://jya.com/rsavpgp.txt (21K)

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Information request
by DataET Research 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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