December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Could E.M. Cordian be Matt Blaze in Disguise? (Nah!)
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: rah(a)pop.sneaker.net Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 00:47:21 -0500 To: Vin McLellan <vin(a)shore.net>, dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> Subject: Re: Could E.M. Cordian be Matt Blaze in Disguise? (Nah!) Cc: Matt Blaze <mab(a)research.att.com> Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> At 12:31 AM -0500 on 11/15/98, Vin McLellan wrote: … [View More]

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penis test #1
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

penis test one

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List Test
by whgiii＠gulf.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just another test, sorry. -- --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.openpgp.net 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 5.0 at: http://www.openpgp.net/pgp.html ---------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Could E.M. Cordian be Matt Blaze in Disguise? (Nah!)
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

:-) --- begin forwarded text To: Vin McLellan <vin(a)shore.net> cc: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com>, dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Could E.M. Cordian be Matt Blaze in Disguise? (Nah!) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 05:33:22 -0500 From: Matt Blaze <mab(a)research.att.com> That you for CCing the enclosed message. I must admit that I'm rather puzzled by it. This is the first I've head of an "E.M Cordian," or for that matter "M.F. Tones" or "Mr. Rogue." I am quite sure, … [View More]however, that I am none of these people. I have also never seen, or claimed to have seen, any description of the RSA algorithm, other than the the recently declassified public key historical material from GCHQ, that predates R, S and A's original paper on the subject. I don't subscribe to the cypherpunks mailing list (or, for that matter, DCSB), and I've only just now scanned over the web page mentioned in your message, so I'm unclear as to what might be going on. Perhaps someone is confused about the $7.00 "better DES challenge" that I offered last year (which was solved this year by the EFF DES brute force hardware). Whatever this is about, however, I assure you that any use of my name in connection with a solicitation for funds for some sort of "analytical DES cracking" effort, or any suggestion that I'm involved in such a project, is absolutely false and perhaps fraudulent. Feel free to forward this as you see fit. Thanks -Matt Blaze > Out on the Cypherpunks List, "Anonymous" claimed to reveal the real >identity of E.M. Cordian, the organizer of the DES Analytical Crack. See: >http://www.cyberspace.org/~enoch/crakfaq.html > >>Shouldn't we be using "Mr. Cordian's" real >>name? Matt Blaze (mab(a)research.att.com) also >>occasionally known as "M.F. Tones", and even less >>often as "Mr. Rouge" (There should be an accent mark >>there actually). > > In response, Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> declared: > >>Just to clear the air a smidge. >> >>If Matt Blaze says he's looking for an algebraic inverse to DES, I tend to >>believe him... > > Jeeze, Rob! This is your attempt to help "clear the air?" > > I do not for a moment believe that Eric Michael Cordian ><emc(a)wire.insync.net> is a pseudonym for Matt Blaze <mab(a)research.att.com>! > > You should maybe query Matt directly <mab(a)research.att.com> before >you endorse E.M. Cordian as Matt Blaze in drag. You could confuse a whole >lot of people who trust your insider knowledge of these steamy Net Affairs. > > To anyone familiar with Blaze's essays, speeches, & on-line posts, >a scan of Mr. Codrian's FAQ and published comments should make it apparent >that this suggestion is unlikely, if not perposterous. > > The real Matt Blaze would also not be making these absurd and false >claims that some mysterious "book" describing a cryptosystem identical or >equivalent to the RSA public key cryptosystem was published "years" before >Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adelman first published their RSA PKC >algorithm in April, 1977. (It's well documented in the Cypherpunk >archives, Codrian assures us;-) > > There was no such book. Cordian's statement is just not true. The >real Matt Blaze -- the guy who wrote the pithy Afterward to Schneier's >Applied Cryptography,II -- would know that this is not true. > > (Actually, I'd bet that even Robert Hettinga knows that this is >untrue.) > > Mind you, if the real Matt Blaze announced that he was seeking $500 >from twenty people to fund a private research project which he felt had a >meaningful chance of casting DES as a NP-hard combinatorial problem and >attacking it with an appropriate combinatorial algorithm, I'd send a check >off tomorrow. > > The real Matt Blaze would not have 15 donors -- as Mr. Cordian >reports -- but be stimied on how to get five more. > > I wish Mr. Cordian well in his algebraic attack on DES -- but, >unfortunately, he is not the real Matt Blaze. Not even a near-clone. > > We could do with a few more professionals with Blaze's talent, >energy, and integrity in general circulation. > > Suerte, > > _Vin > >----- >"Cryptography is like literacy in the Dark Ages. Infinitely potent, for >good and ill... yet basically an intellectual construct, an idea, which by >its nature will resist efforts to restrict it to bureaucrats and others who >deem only themselves worthy of such Privilege." >_ A Thinking Man's Creed for Crypto _vbm. > > * Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin(a)shore.net> * > 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, MA 02150 USA <617> 884-5548 > > --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' [View Less]

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Electronic Commerce: The Future of Fraud
by Bruce Schneier 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This appeared in my November newsletter, CRYPTO-GRAM, but I thought it general enough interest to send it here. Bruce Electronic Commerce: The Future of Fraud Fraud has been perpetrated against every commerce system man has ever invented, from gold coin to stock certificates to paper checks to credit cards. Electronic commerce systems will be no different; if that's where the money is, that's where the crime will be. The threats are exactly the same. Most fraud against existing … [View More]electronic commerce systems -- ATM machines, electronic check systems, stored value tokens -- has been low tech. No matter how bad the cryptographic and computer security safeguards, most criminals bypass them entirely and focus on procedural problems, human oversight, and old-fashioned physical theft. Why attack subtle information security systems when you can just haul an ATM machine away in a truck? This implies that new commerce systems don't have to be secure, but just better than what exists. Don't outrun the bear, just outrun the people you're with. Unfortunately, there are three features of electronic commerce that are likely to make fraud more devastating. One, the ease of automation. The same automation that makes electronic commerce systems more efficient than paper systems also makes fraud more efficient. A particular fraud that might have taken a criminal ten minutes to execute on paper can be completed with a single keystroke, or automatically while he sleeps. Low-value frauds, that fell below the radar in paper systems, become dangerous in the electronic world. No one cares if it is possible to counterfeit nickels. However, if a criminal can mint electronic nickels, he might make a million dollars in a week. A pickpocketing technique that works once in ten thousand tries would starve a criminal on the streets, but he might get thirty successes a day on the net. Two, the difficulty of isolating jurisdiction. The electronic world is a world without geography. A criminal doesn't have to be physically near a system he is defrauding; he can attack Citibank in New York from St. Petersburg. He can jurisdiction shop, and launch his attacks from countries with poor criminal laws, inadequate police forces, and lax extradition treaties. And three, the speed of propagation. News travels fast on the Internet. Counterfeiting paper money takes skill, equipment, and organization. If one or two or even a hundred people can do it, so what? It's a crime, but it won't affect the money supply. But if someone figures out how to defraud an electronic commerce system and posts a program on the Internet, a thousand people could have it in an hour, a hundred thousand in a week. This could easily bring down a currency. And only the first attacker needs skill; everyone else can just use software. "Click here to drop the deutsche mark." Cryptography has the potential to make electronic commerce systems safer than paper systems, but not in the ways most people think. Encryption and digital signatures are important, but secure audit trails are even more important. Systems based on long-term relationships, like credit cards and checking accounts, are safer than anonymous systems like cash. But identity theft is so easy that systems based solely on identity are doomed. Preventing crime in electronic commerce is important, but more important is to be able to detect it. We don't prevent crime in our society. We detect crime after the fact, gather enough evidence to convince a neutral third party of the criminal's guilt, and hope that the punishment provides a back-channel of prevention. Electronic commerce systems should have the same goals. They should be able to detect that fraud has taken place and finger the guilty. And more important, they should be able to provide irrefutable evidence that can convict the guilty in court. Perfect solutions are not required -- there are hundred of millions of dollars lost to credit card fraud every year -- but systems that can be broken completely are unacceptable. It's vital that attacks cannot be automated and reproduced without skill. Traditionally, fraud-prevention has been a game of catch-up. A commerce system is introduced, a particular type of fraud is discovered, and the system is patched. Money is made harder to counterfeit. Online credit card verification makes fraud harder. Checks are printed on special paper that makes them harder to alter. These patches reduce fraud for a while, until another attack is discovered. And the cycle continues. The electronic world moves too fast for this cycle. A serious flaw in an electronic commerce system could bankrupt a company in days. Today's systems must anticipate future attacks. Any successful electronic commerce system is likely to remain in use for ten years or more. It must be able to withstand the future: smarter attackers, more computational power, and greater incentives to subvert a widespread system. There won't be time to upgrade them in the field. Why Cryptography is Harder Than it Looks: http://www.counterpane.com/whycrypto.html Security Pitfalls in Cryptography: http://www.counterpane.com/pitfalls.html Subscribe to CRYPTO-GRAM: http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram.html ********************************************************************** Bruce Schneier, President, Counterpane Systems Phone: 612-823-1098 101 E Minnehaha Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55419 Fax: 612-823-1590 Free crypto newsletter. See: http://www.counterpane.com [View Less]

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Mako Capital shares to triple in next few months, projects research company
by gitpro＠mailcity.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mako Capital shares to triple in next few months, projects research company! Mako Capital intent to merge with Sports Group International and market Spalding Sports Drinks worldwide. OTC BB MAKO 3/4 What do Kiki Vandeweghe, Dorothy Hamill, Joe Namath, Bill Walton, Larry Holmes and Clyde Drexler all have in common? They are all shareholders of a dynamic sports drink company called Sports Group International Mako Capital On October 19, 1998 Mako Capital made a blockbuster announcement … [View More]that was obviously overlooked by the investment community. Mako signed a letter of intent to merge with Sports Group International. Sports Group is a dynamic company with an experienced, proven management team. Sports Group has revolutionary products in the multi-billion dollar sports drink market. We instantly fell in love with their oxygenated water. This is water with seven times the oxygen of H20. It is a big hit with marathon runners and we feel that there is a huge market for this product. They also have newly formulated sports drinks to satisfy every market. Sports drinks designed for kids, women and bodybuilders. They also have powdered products. The key to this company is that their sports drinks are marketed under the Spalding name. Spalding is one of the most recognized names in sports. You cant buy that type of name recognition. We are told that the company has 1.2 million cases pre-sold for 1999 which should bring in more than twenty million in revenue and 15% in profit (approximately 3 million). That would be better than one dollar per share in earnings. Sports Groups management team is headed by Kiki Vandeweghe, the former NBA All Star and Dean Miller, the star executive of Megafoods. As president of Megafoods, Dean saw the company grow from a couple of stores to 70 stores and $800 million in revenue. Realizing that much of the great success behind Gatorade was the advertising campaign featuring Michael Jordan, SGI has procured promotions and endorsements from athletes who are current shareholders like, Clyde Drexler, Kiki Vanderweghe, Bill Walton, Larry Holmes, Joe Namath, Dorothy Hamill and others. Mako Capital has the right combination of great products, a proven management team and a name recognized around the world, which will lead them into the next millenium. We are looking for the stock to trade $2 - $3 short term and $5 - $7 by summer of 1999. For more information contact: Financial Internet Group 800-959-9122 Disclaimer: Mako Capital has paid Freedom Rock Partners 150,000 shares of free trading stock and options to purchase 100,000 shares at $1.00. For more information please see our disclaimer. NOTE: For those on the internet who do not want to recieve exciting messages such as this..... *We strive to comply with all state and federal laws and to send ads only to interested parties. *This ad is not intended for nor do we knowingly send to Washington State residents. * OR CLICK_HERE_TO_GOTO_REMOVE-LIST.COM (http://remove-list.com) Remove-List is a free public service offering to help the general public get removed from commercial mailings lists and has not sent this message. If you want their help please add your name to their list and we you will not receive a commercial email from us or any other member bulk emailer. [View Less]

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100S OF FREE PICS'N'LINKS EVERY DAY!
by STUFFED MON NOV 16 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Non Explosive Weapons
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Richard Danzig, new Navy Secretary, op-eds in the NYT today about the threat of "Non Explosive Weapons (NEW)," posed by WMD and information warfare. http://jya.com/mil-panic.htm He terms them "weapons of mass disruption" which may lead to mass panic and will require the military and law enforcement agencies to unite in a new kind of US national defense, while, you bet, at the same time obeying law against domestic military operations. In passing, he notes that the military has … [View More]

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Non Explosive Weapons
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Richard Danzig, new Navy Secretary, op-eds in the NYT today about the threat of "Non Explosive Weapons (NEW)," posed by WMD and information warfare. http://jya.com/mil-panic.htm He terms them "weapons of mass disruption" which may lead to mass panic and will require the military and law enforcement agencies to unite in a new kind of US national defense, while, you bet, at the same time obeying law against domestic military operations. In passing, he notes that the military has … [View More]

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DES Trolls
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Vin McLellan, apparently not satisfied with only one flame, makes this response to a very conveniently appearing anonymous remailer troll saying something silly about Matt Blaze: > The real Matt Blaze would also not be making these absurd and false > claims that some mysterious "book" describing a cryptosystem identical > or equivalent to the RSA public key cryptosystem was published "years" > before Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adelman first published their > RSA PKC … [View More]algorithm in April, 1977. (It's well documented in the > Cypherpunk archives, Codrian assures us;-) Here the disingenuous Vin gives his own description of my prior post, which he then proceeds to loudly refute, and I certainly didn't use the word "identical" or the word "equivalent." I stated that descriptions of "that which is now known as RSA" have appeared in print, and that the one-way characteristics of the RSA trap-door function were also previously known. The arguments for invalidation of the RSA patent were based on two central claims. First, that work which contained similar material was distributed by preprint and presented at conferences more than one year before the RSA patent was applied for. This would include the Diffie-Hellman paper on "Multiuser Cryptographic Techniques", the early Merkle-Hellman work, and the Pohlig-Hellman work. The second claim that may be made against RSA is that the system is "obvious." Support for this claim may be found in books dating all the way back to the 19th century which discuss both the cryptographic usefulness of one-way functions, and the factorization of the product of two primes as one example of such a function. Quoting "Cyberlaw": "There are a number of references in the prior art, moreover, to using the problem of factoring composite numbers in cryptography, dating back to the 19th century. "In 1870, a book by William S. Jevons described the relationship of one-way functions to cryptography and went on to discuss specifically the factorization problem used to create the "trap-door" in the RSA system." > There was no such book. Cordian's statement is just not true. Only a complete moron would place himself in the position of trying to prove such an all-encompassing negative. > (Actually, I'd bet that even Robert Hettinga knows that this is > untrue.) People_insulted_by_Vin_in_this_thread++; > The real Matt Blaze would not have 15 donors -- as Mr. Cordian reports > -- but be stimied on how to get five more. If you had correctly read the FAQ, you would see that we have 5 sponsors, and 15 open sponsorships. We are not stimied, we are writing and debugging many thousands of lines of extremely complex code, and do not wish to be distracted by further marketing activities at this time. > I wish Mr. Cordian well in his algebraic attack on DES All together now. "Bwahahahahahahhahaahah!" This concludes my response to Vin, who may now return to his regularly scheduled trolling lessons. Now, if this weren't all hilarious enough, Matt Blaze, who is usually smarter than this, feels an urgent need to leap in with... > Whatever this is about, however, I assure you that any use of my name > in connection with a solicitation for funds for some sort of > "analytical DES cracking" effort, or any suggestion that I'm involved > in such a project, is absolutely false and perhaps fraudulent. Let me state for the record that the DES Analytic Crack Project has made no claims about any of the prople working on it, other than that they are competent implementors of complex algorithms. Matt Blaze is not associated with the project, and if any other crypto notables wish a similar public statement made about them, they have only to email and request it. Sponsorships for the project are being solicited on the basis of the statement of work in the FAQ, and work product to date. They are not being solicited based on any representation that various individuals with recognizable names are associated with the project. Anonymous trolls making such allegations, followed by irate rebuttals by shills, and scientists who should know better, are clearly an attempt at disruption. Continued such antics will be met with an appropriate legal response. -- Sponsor the DES Analytic Crack Project http://www.cyberspace.org/~enoch/crakfaq.html [View Less]

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