December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

ANNOUNCEMENT: RPK SECURITY'S "SAFECRACKER CHALLENGE" INVITES USERS TO "BREAK" RPK ENCRYPTONITE ENGINE AND WIN $10,000
by Jack Oswald / CEO / RPK Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You have received this message because at some time in the past your name was submitted to our e-mail mailing list database. If you do not wish (or no longer wish) to receive announcements, updates and news concerning the RPK Encryptonite Engine or the RPK InvisiMail e-mail security products, please forward this message to remove(a)rpkusa.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTACT Paula Miller Lyn Oswald Nadel Phelan, Inc. RPK Security Inc. 408-439-5570 x277 212-488-9891 paulam(a)nadelphelan.com lynoswald(a)rpkusa.com RPK SECURITY'S "SAFECRACKER CHALLENGE" INVITES USERS TO "BREAK" RPK ENCRYPTONITE ENGINE AND WIN $10,000 SAN FRANCISCO, CA. October 21, 1998 - RPK Security, Inc. (www.rpkusa.com) a technology leader in fast public key encryption, announced today the "SafeCracker Challenge", a contest offering US$10,000 to the first person who breaks the technology behind the company's uniquely fast public key cryptosystem, RPK Encryptonite Engine. In order to receive the cash reward, participants must download the encrypted test document and test public key from RPK Security's website, www.rpkusa.com, and then submit via email the private key that corresponds to the current test public key, or the correctly decrypted test document. "We're launching the SafeCracker Challenge to demonstrate that the RPK Encryptonite Engine provides the most secure, fast and flexible public key system on the market today," said Jack Oswald, president and CEO of RPK Security. "Recently patented in New Zealand and the US, the technology behind the RPK Encryptonite Engine is based on the same mathematics as Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange, a widely used algorithm for creating secure network-based communications systems, and is highly respected by security experts." The RPK Encryptonite Engine is a uniquely fast public key algorithm for encryption, authentication and digital signatures. It offers a combination of the benefits of commonly used public key systems (ease of key management, authentication and digital signatures) and the high performance characteristics of commonly used symmetric or "secret key" systems. Developed outside of the U.S., the RPK Encryptonite Engine is available globally with strong encryption, unlike competing products that are restricted by U.S. export regulations. ABOUT RPK SECURITY Founded in 1995, RPK Security, Inc. is a technology leader in fast public key cryptography. Its flagship RPK Encryptonite(tm) Engine, a uniquely fast and strong public key encryption technology, is available worldwide in custom hardware and software toolkits on multiple platforms. Developed from widely accepted security mathematics and techniques, the RPK Encryptonite Engine is easily embedded into new and existing hardware and software applications. RPK's cryptographic research and product development is based in New Zealand, Switzerland and the U.K, with worldwide sales and marketing operations in San Francisco, CA. Visit RPK's website at www.rpkusa.com or call (212) 488-9891.

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Re:
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's an idea. FUCK OFF! Why don't you go stick a Y2k bowling ball up your ass, and never post here again, you degenerate piece of shit! Or better yet, take every member of your administrative research department, march them up to the roof of the highest building in Silicon Valley, and push them all off! Then throw yourself off, you spineless maggot! The only letters I'm looking for are the ones signed by Janet Reno to the BATF to march in and kill your entire employee base. Please let me know when those arrive. At 12:55 PM 10/21/98 +0000, nations(a)freewilly.com wrote: > 10/21/98 > >Y2K Solution! >8 Pine Circle Dr., Silicon Valley, Calif. > >OTC Company "TCFG" 21 st. Century Frontier Group has >through several members of their administrative research >department leaked vital information about their companies >efforts. > >Everyone was tight lipped and interviews were refused, >and through un-named sources we have learned that the >technology and software solution are in the process of >being patented! > >In over 1640 trials, using various data systems the use >of the new technology and software solved the Y2K >problem 100% of the time. > >This small publicly traded company "TCFG" which is just >3 years old is through various sources now negotiating >with the "Big Boys"! > >"TCFG" the letters to look for..... > > > > > > > > > > > > >

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ANNOUNCEMENT: INVISIMAIL INTERNATIONAL LTD. ANNOUNCES RPK InvisiMail VERSION 3.0
by Jack Oswald / CEO / RPK Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You have received this message because at some time in the past your name was submitted to our e-mail mailing list database. If you do not wish (or no longer wish) to receive announcements, updates and news concerning the RPK Encryptonite Engine or the RPK InvisiMail e-mail security products, please forward this message to remove(a)rpkusa.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTACT Paula Miller Lyn Oswald Nadel Phelan, Inc. RPK Security Inc. 408-439-5570 x277 212-488-9891 paulam(a)nadelphelan.com lynoswald(a)rpkusa.com INVISIMAIL INTERNATIONAL LTD. ANNOUNCES RPK InvisiMail VERSION 3.0 New York, NY, October 21 1998 - InvisiMail International, Ltd., (www.InvisiMail.com) announced today the latest release of its RPK InvisiMail Intro 3.0 and RPK InvisiMail Deluxe 3.0 e-mail encryption products. RPK InvisiMail provides individual e-mail users with the easiest solution for automatically and transparently encrypting e-mail messages and attachments. The first e-mail security product with globally strong encryption, RPK InvisiMail integrates seamlessly with more e-mail products than any other security solution available today. RPK InvisiMail enables authentication of the sender and verifies contents have not been changed in transit. RPK InvisiMail Intro provides fast, secure (607bit) encryption for e-mail messages and attachments, and is unobtrusive allowing e-mail which is sent to non-InvisiMail users to be simply and intelligently passed as a conventional e-mail message. RPK InvisiMail Deluxe adds an even higher level of security (up to 1279bit) and provides features such as e-mail compression that reduces transmission time, and digital message signatures to validate senders. InvisiMail International also offers RPK InvisiMail Enterprise Edition, a strong corporate e-mail security add-in. RPK InvisiMail Enterprise Edition's flexible design allows corporate IT managers to configure e-mail security for individual users, networks and gateways. More Pricing and Availability The RPK InvisiMail Intro version is free. The Deluxe version retails for $29.95 U.S. Both the Intro and the Deluxe versions are available for download from the InvisiMail International web site at www.InvisiMail.com. Pricing for RPK InvisiMail Enterprise Edition is based on the number of seat licenses and starts at $100 per user. ABOUT InvisiMail INTERNATIONAL LTD. InvisiMail International Ltd., founded in 1997, specializes in secure Internet commerce and communications solutions for a wide range of applications. Developed using RPK Security, Inc.'s core technology, the RPK Encryptonite Engine, the InvisiMail range of products supports secure message-based applications including Client Services ECommerce, EDI and others that require absolute confidentiality and the highest security levels. This allows the simplest e-mail systems to become the most powerful business and commerce tools. Contact InvisiMail at www.InvisiMail.com or call +44 1624 611 003. ABOUT RPK SECURITY Founded in 1995, RPK Security, Inc. is a technology leader in fast public key cryptography. Its flagship RPK Encryptonite Engine, a uniquely fast and strong public key encryption technology, is available worldwide in custom hardware and software toolkits on multiple platforms. Visit RPK's website at www.rpkusa.com or call (212) 488-9891.

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PRNGs and testers.
by X1 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, A few questions on Pseudo Random Number Generators... 1. Which are the best software PRNG's available today? 2. Are there any software implementations to test the randomness of a PRNG ? I've looked at Diehard - is there anything else? Thanks, R Sriram.

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Re: "We have to destroy privacy in order to protect privacy"
by Theodor.SCHLICKMANN＠BXL.DG13.cec.be 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What is privacy? Just now the political representatives show the world how protection of privacy looks like in the world's leading Nation. Victim is the President himself who unwillingly has become a benchmark case because of his sexual affairs. Although this is a matter of law, only political strategies are executed. Protection of privacy turns out to be the most important human rights issue in this information technology age. Definition of privacy is difficult. It includes not only data protection; it draws a line at the border where a society is allowed to get concerned about an individual. Louis Brandeis, Member of the Supreme Court, said in 1890: The right for privacy is the right for an individual to live for him/her-self. Protection of privacy includes protection of private information, safety, protection of communication, and protection of territory (house, public space, and work place). Following several articles in American newspapers, privacy at the work place is in great danger. Surveillance is very often made part of the contract with the employer. A Report by the American Management Association says that two thirds of employers are controlling emails and other work at the computer, and are tapping phone calls. Surveillance cameras are used, e.g., to trace movements of employees in company buildings; regular tests for drugs, requests for intimate information and various psychological tests are performed. Many people in the US may believe this is normal. Who tells them that this a violation of privacy rights ? The government ? Bill Gates ? Tim May ? Tim May wrote: >To be more concrete, if I compile lists of who is writing articles on >Usenet, I have no obligation to either purge these records or >show them to others or not sell them or _anything_. The >government cannot get at myrecords except under limited >situations. If companies are using personal data, which they have gathered from open sources, without explicit permission for other purposes than in direct business with that person, then they are violating data protection rules. If the sources are not open, then they are also violating fair competition rules which may be considered to be criminal in some countries. Tim May wrote: >Europe's "data privacy laws," which I have been critical of for >more than ten years now, are an abomination. While the laws >sound well-intentioned, they effectively give the state the power >to sift through filing cabinets and disk drives looking for violations. Sifting through filing cabinets is also clearly a violation of privacy rights. However, does it mean that privacy is uncontrollable? Alternatively, the only protection is not to put any personal data on a network. Use your pseudonym instead. Strong encryption does not help, because the receiver side may not respect your privacy. Theodor Schlickmann

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Status of GSM Crypto Attacks
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forward from anonymous: Wed, 21 Oct 98 An engineer at a US wireless telecom and a contributor to Cryptologia--has asked me to look into the present status of attacks on the GSM encryption schemes: comp128 (a3a8 authentication, etc.) and, more importantly, the A5.1 and A5.2 voice/data encryption algorithms. After searching the web, I see that you have similar interests in this matter. I've already sent off inquiries to some of the researchers in this area--Ross Anderson, Simon Shepherd and the two Berkeley students (Goldberg and Wagner). So far, I've only heard back from Wagner. Do you have anything interesting to say about this matter--has anything happened since the Spring? Has a consensus been reached on some of the issues discussed in the <http://jya.com/crack-a5.htm> document? I'm trying to get a handle on the present state-of-the art: Where do things presently stand--who is doing the work and what, if anything, has been verified/demonstrated? Has A5 been cracked? What can be said about the possibility of intercepting and decoding an on-air conversation?

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Forwarded mail...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Theodor.SCHLICKMANN(a)BXL.DG13.cec.be > Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 10:12:37 +0200 > Subject: Re: "We have to destroy privacy in order to protect privacy" > What is privacy? The ability to store or archive material without worry of it being distributed without prior permission. The right to tell somebody you won't answer their question or include them in the dicussion, to the extend of asking them to go someplace else so they can't overhear or grab the dialogue. Ultimately it's a societal behavior that is exemplified by citizens not obtaining material that is relevant or related to you without involving you from the beginning. > Although this is a matter of law, only political > strategies are executed. Law == Politics > Protection of privacy turns out to be the most important > human rights issue in this information technology age. Um, actualy Writ of Habeas Corpus is the most important right. Privacy and everything else are moot if your sitting in a jail cell with no hope of release or trial. > Following several articles in American newspapers, > privacy at the work place is in great danger. There isn't any privacy at the workspace. When you hire on to an employer *AND* agree to work on their premises you voluntarily give this up. It is the same situation as if you hire a kiddy-watcher and you video-tape the activity for your protection. If you really want privacy protection in the workplace then insist that detailed limits are included in any contract (pretty much unheard of). ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Women cannot commit rape?
by Tim Griffiths 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

French Supreme Court rules that women cannot commit rape Copyright © 1998 Nando.net Copyright © 1998 Reuters News Service PARIS (October 21, 1998 06:38 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - France's Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that women are unable to commit the crime of rape because they cannot sexually penetrate men. "The material element of the crime of rape is only realized if the perpetrator commits the act of sexual penetration on the person of the victim," it said in its judgment. The court, known as the Cour de Cassation, overturned a lower court ruling that Catherine Maillard could be tried for rape on charges of forcing her underage stepson to have sex with her repeatedly between 1986 and 1992. Maillard could only be tried for "aggravated sexual aggression" against the boy, while his father Michel Deloisy had to be tried for "moral abandonment of a child" instead of the original charge of "complicity in aggravated rape," the court said. With its judgment, the court seemed to contradict an earlier ruling it issued in December 1997 saying that forcing someone to perform oral sex act was legally equivalent to rape. -- Tim Griffiths griffith(a)wis.weizmann.ac.il Center for Submicron Research http://tim01.ex.ac.uk Weizmann Institute of Science (972)-8-934-2736 Rehovot 76100 Israel PGP Public key available - finger tim(a)tim01.ex.ac.uk The real value lies not in what I say or do, but in your reaction to it. -DF

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UK police chase crooks on CCTV
by Tim Griffiths 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Associated Press via The Wash. Post, Oct 17, 1998 http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/searches/mainsrch.htm#ap Chasing Crooks on Closed Circuit TV http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19981017/V000263-101798-idx .ht ml LONDON (AP) -- An ``intelligent'' computer system that uses closed circuit television to match faces in a crowd to mug shots of known criminals is likely to become London's latest weapon against crime. Scotland Yard and a local council have installed the $100,000 CCTV system on a trial basis in Newham, a poor district in London's East End. Newspapers reported Thursday that the computer system, called Mandrake, is linked to 144 CCTVs in Newham's shopping centers, railway stations and car parks and can scan up to 150 faces at a time and compare them with a database of criminals stored on a computer at the council's headquarters. If there is a match between a face in the crowd and a known criminal, the computer alerts a monitoring team in the town hall, who in turn alert the police. Civil liberties groups said they were alarmed by the new system, but police defended its use. ``The only people entered on to the system will be convicted criminals who, through our intelligence, we believe are habitually committing crimes in the area,'' The Daily Mail quoted police Chief Superintendent Dave Armond as saying. ``If people are not committing crime they have nothing to fear, but if they are among the small minority who are, the message is, 'We are watching out for you.''' The newspaper reported that police initially will use the system to concentrate on catching robbery suspects. In the future, however, it could be used to search crowds for hooligans who stir up trouble at soccer matches. CCTV's developer, Software and Systems International, says the system is accurate enough to discern people hiding behind make-up or eye glasses. And growing a beard won't help either, the company says. Britain has 150,000 close circuit television cameras. While most Britons appear happy the devices are being used to tackle crime, civil liberties groups oppose both the cameras and the facial matching. ``The accuracy of facial mapping like this is limited. You only need a handful of photographs of celebrities to see how different the same people can look in different pictures,'' the Mail quoted Liz Parratt, spokeswoman for Liberty, a civil rights group, as saying. ``Even if you did have a system which worked, it would have to be regulated very carefully to protect people's privacy.'' \ Copyright 1998 The Associated Press -- Tim Griffiths griffith(a)wis.weizmann.ac.il Center for Submicron Research http://tim01.ex.ac.uk Weizmann Institute of Science (972)-8-934-2736 Rehovot 76100 Israel PGP Public key available - finger tim(a)tim01.ex.ac.uk The real value lies not in what I say or do, but in your reaction to it. -DF

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UK police chase crooks on CCTV (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:21:04 +0200 > From: Tim Griffiths <griffith(a)wis.weizmann.ac.il> > Subject: UK police chase crooks on CCTV > Civil liberties groups said they were alarmed by the new system, but > police defended its use. > > ``The only people entered on to the system will be convicted criminals > who, through our intelligence, we believe are habitually committing > crimes in the area,'' The Daily Mail quoted police Chief Superintendent > Dave Armond as saying. ``If people are not committing crime they have > nothing to fear, but if they are among the small minority who are, the > message is, 'We are watching out for you.''' > > The newspaper reported that police initially will use the system to > concentrate on catching robbery suspects. In the future, however, it Excuse me.... Since when does 'suspected of' equate to 'convicted criminal'? Also, in order to wath you (sic) they have to watch everyone - in effect guilty until proven innocent by the computer software. What sort of civil recovery are provided for the inevitable software errors? I bet nadda, and that's wrong too. This is Big Brother Spin Doctor BULLSHIT. We need a law or court ruling pretty quickly in the US that sets the standard that a group of people have no more or less rights than an individual. This will required LEA's to provide probable cause prior to any actions against groups of people (such as this). If they can't audio tape me, or seize my papers and correspondences without a warrant then they bloody well can't video me without a warrant either ,within the context of criminal proceedings. Does anyone know if *any* PAC/SIG/whatever has this as their main political agenda? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- On a similar note, here in Austin they are finishing up with putting hundreds of cameras around town. It isn't long before these sorts of social theory X'ers get their teeth in the shank of American society. We've got(!) to put a stop to this sort of stuff. The law should basicaly ok the use of cameras for vehicular traffic control (this does NOT include execution of speeding infractions and such), this means no police or other LEA's may be involved or view the tapes *without* a warrant. The operators and support personnel should be required to abide by a strict non-disclosure agreement as well. If they notice a wreck or whatever they should notify the relevant emergency personel and *IF* the police serve a warrent only then turn over the tape. This is a perfect example of why I, personaly, believe that a polycratic democracy is the only workable kind in the real world. The 'seperate but equal' doctrine should effect every aspect of a democratic society. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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