December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Who's ahead: NSA or the private sector?
by Bill Stewart 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

That's not really a meaningful question. We can write codes they can't crack. They can write codes we can't crack. The cats are out of the bag, and David Aaron can't herd them back in. In some sense, the NSA is ahead of academia, because academia publishes, so they can read everything the Good Guys have done (less six months waiting to get published in journals :-), while the NSA seldom publishes. (There are also corporations doing non-published crypto work, but not much - they also see the value of open system review. And the KGB may have been good as well, but they're not in our face, and we can write codes the Russians and French can't crack either.) The NSA has almost certainly done more work on analyzing obscure Russian cryptosystems, but who knows how much of that is just brute force. But the real problems these days are engineering, not science*, so it's probably worth spotting them a few bits of keyspace just in case. The NSA is better able to come up with a few million dollars to build custom key-cracking hardware than industry is, so we have to presume they can do at least as well as a Wiener machine for cracking DES; they're certainly better at eavesdropping on calls than we are. I don't know if we can coordinate more workstations for a distributed crack, but they _could_ issue the FedCast Secure Screen Saver for all federal PCs; the only question is how much time would it spend cracking keys and how much grepping for suspicious files :-) There may still be radical changes in factoring technology, especially as computers get faster, but I doubt they'll do more in practice than force us to use longer keys, unless someone proves P=NP in the far mythical future or proves that factoring is in or near P. The interesting questions are at the boundaries of strong crypto and weak crypto - 40 bits is a nasty joke, DES is still interesting for things that don't have too much money riding on them, Skipjack is probably strong enough for a few years unless there's a second back door next to the one with the big "Cops Only" neon sign. How strong can we make something and still get export permission? Do we care? What are the threat models for different "Key Recovery" scams, and are we willing to write deliberatlely weak code to collaborate? Are the non-RSA public key systems good enough until the patent expires? There are some boundary problems that are interesting for non-political reasons - now that every toaster and digital wristwatch has an IP address and a few KB of RAM, what kind of useful crypto will fit in them? Key distribution is still interesting - how do you make a system that's convenient enough to use and secure enough to work? And distributed cracking systems are interesting, though the main uses for them are for cracking known-weak cryptosystems. Then there's the field of secure databases, which I think has both practical potential and scientific merit - how do you mix data together without leaking the secure stuff to unauthorized users, either directly or through combining lots of non-privileged data. [*Borrowing from Matt Blaze gratefully acknowledged.]

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RE: remailer-operators DEA agents?
by Butler, Scott 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

> >Again, I am only on the Flames list. So why was this message sent to the >Flames list? Because someone responded to a Vulis post? Is a response to a >Banned Message now grounds for rejection? > After whinghing about Dimitri and about people sending flames to the list, you only subscribe to the flames-list.... you just don't make sense Timmy. Scott

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RE: MODERATION
by Butler, Scott 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Sandy writes: > >C'punks, > >I'm ending my participation in the moderation of the list. Well that was short and ..... errr bitter! > It would have been an interesting experiment if list members had >been open minded enough to give it a good faith effort. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There's a difference between being open minded and gullible Sandy. Nothing like ducking and running away when your little game didn't turn out the way that you wanted it to! This is not a flame, it is my opinion but none the less I'm sure that it will end up in the flames list or be conveniently lost in the masses of mail that John's majordomo receives every day. Scott. >

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What's next?
by Thomas Koenig 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Now that we appear to be at a sustainable 300 MK/sec (which I could hardly believe at first :-), is there any chance we could be attacking the 56-bit DES key next? DES is rumoured to be faster than RC5; also, there are likely to be optimized assembler versions out there already. We could also make better use of 64-bit architectures, since DES uses 64-bit blocks. However (and this is a very big however), that's still a keyspace of 7.2*10^16 keys to search. Assuming 10^9 keys/second (three times our current speed, which may be attainable with a good DES implementation) that's still a bit over two years; too long by a factor of 10 or so. Soo.... How fast are current DES implementations? People could try des.c from the ssh distribution as a starting point. How much more computing power could we bring online? Do people have optimized DES for Alpha, UltraSparc, HP 8000 and all the other nifty 64-bit architectures? Does it make sense to use MMX or equivalent for DES? -- Thomas Koenig, Thomas.Koenig(a)ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25(a)dkauni2.bitnet. The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic diagram.

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HIC_rim
by John Young 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

2-10-97 NYT has Page One lead on high resolution commercial "spy satellites," and the welter of political, social, economic and national security consequences as foreign governments, corporations and individuals hire them to invade privacy, secret sites and labs. A nearby story reports on organized crime's shift to new industries, especially those reliant on high technology: calling cards, stock offerings and health care. ----- HIC_rim

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[CRYPTO] Elliptic curves
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Timothy May's father, an idiot, stumbled across Timothy May's mother, an imbecile, when she had no clothes on. Nine months later she had a little moron. /\/\ \ / Timothy May \/

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Codebreakers delivered OK
by peter.allan＠aeat.co.uk 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Gary, Thanks for the book, which arrived safely (last week, when I was on leave and tiling my bathroom). Cypherpunks, In mid-December I asked on this list whether people would recommend buying books from Gary Rasmussen. Message-Id: <9612131954.AA28856(a)clare.risley.aeat.co.uk> Subject: Would you send money to Gary Rasmussen ? I got several replies for, and none against. Thanks to those who replied. I am now pleased to add my data point. He has sent my copy of Kahn's Codebreakers. The delay from mid-December was almost entirely caused by banking issues. Money transfers are not as fast or cheap as I think they should be in 1997. Gary tells me he may in future get equipped to take credit cards. His catalogue contains stuff sure to interest anybody with plenty of time. Here is his comment: > NOTE: An additional benefit of ACA membership is eligibility for discounts > on a selection of new (unused) books on the history and practice of > traditional ciphers, codes, and signals intelligence from Classical Crypto > Books. For a free catalog, send email to RagyR(a)aol.com. -- Peter Allan peter.allan(a)aeat.co.uk

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Re: Who's Censoring Who?
by John Young 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

To Thorn and Cuckoo (great juxtaposition): Your exhortation and rhetoric are deft, but I'm not ready to take sides just yet. In fact, I can't figure what the sides are, if any, in this anti-herd of caterwauling anarchic cats. Instead, I'm relishing and laughing at the spitting and farting contest, and hoping this gameboying will prepare for the genuinely tough battles in high stakes info-wargames. There, wipe and sniff that exhort and rhet.

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Modified Clipper chip - HA!
by Rick Osborne 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

For all of you who didn't see the last X-Files ... Mulder made a visit to The Lone Gunman about breaking into some impenetrable system. Byers points out that "Yeah, that system is pretty hard to get into." Mulder then inquires "well how did you guys get in?". Byers replies cooly: "We used a modified Clipper chip we bought back from the Chinese." I didn't stop laughing for 5 minutes ... :) _________ o s b o r n e @ g a t e w a y . g r u m m a n . c o m _________ "Women. You can't live with 'em. . . and yet they're everywhere."

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List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 18 Dec '03

18 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{"extropia"} = "<remail(a)miron.vip.best.com> cpunk pgp special"; $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{'alpha'} = '<alias(a)alpha.c2.org> alpha pgp'; $remailer{'nymrod'} = '<nymrod(a)nym.jpunix.com> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"lead"} = "<mix(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"exon"} = "<remailer(a)remailer.nl.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"haystack"} = "<haystack(a)holy.cow.net> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"lucifer"} = "<lucifer(a)dhp.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut 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{"balls"} = "<remailer(a)huge.cajones.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"middle"} = "<middleman(a)jpunix.com> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"dustbin"} = "<dustman(a)athensnet.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek mix reord middle ?"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"death"} = "<x(a)deathsdoor.com> cpunk pgp hash latent post"; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"wazoo"} = "<remailer(a)wazoo.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"shaman"} = "<mix(a)mix.nymserver.com> cpunk mix pgp. hash latent cut"; 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) (weasel squirrel) The alpha and nymrod nymservers are down due to abuse. However, you can use the nym or weasel (newnym style) nymservers. The cyber nymserver is quite reliable for outgoing mail (which is what's measured here), but is exhibiting serious reliability problems for incoming mail. The squirrel and winsock remailers accept PGP encrypted mail only. 403 Permission denied errors have been caused by a flaky disk on the Berkeley WWW server. This seems to be fixed now. The penet remailer is closed. Last update: Mon 10 Feb 97 6:46:24 PST remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- nym config(a)nym.alias.net **-#+*#*#*## 1:59 100.00% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca ****** 8:22 99.98% wazoo remailer(a)wazoo.com *+++++ 33:48 99.97% weasel config(a)weasel.owl.de ++++++-++++ 1:05:51 99.84% lucifer lucifer(a)dhp.com ++++++++++++ 37:45 99.78% dustbin dustman(a)athensnet.com ----+-- .+++ 2:42:13 99.65% balls remailer(a)huge.cajones.com +-- **### *# 2:12 99.60% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net ++*+++*** *+ 30:13 99.59% haystack haystack(a)holy.cow.net *#-+###*##* 4:06 99.42% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de ++ +++-+ ++ 1:05:29 99.26% exon remailer(a)remailer.nl.com #* * ## **# 1:21 99.18% middle middleman(a)jpunix.com ---+-. +++ 2:51:34 98.78% replay remailer(a)replay.com +-***+*---+* 27:45 98.57% extropia remail(a)miron.vip.best.com .- ------- 4:46:55 98.08% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net --+- .++ 1:27:14 96.63% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com +_ __.-*+ 22:42:38 93.53% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net ----.--- + 5:48:14 75.89% shaman mix(a)mix.nymserver.com 2:46 9.00% 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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