December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: e voting (receipts, votebuying, brinworld)
by Tim May 02 Dec '03

02 Dec '03

On Nov 25, 2003, at 11:21 AM, Trei, Peter wrote: > Tim May [mailto:timcmay@got.net] wrote: > > >> On Nov 25, 2003, at 9:56 AM, Sunder wrote: >>> Um, last I checked, phone cameras have really shitty resolution, >>> usually >>> less than 320x200. Even so, you'd need MUCH higher resolution, say >>> 3-5Mpixels to be able to read text on a printout in a picture. >>> >>> Add focus and aiming issues, and this just won't work unless you >>> carry >>> a >>> good camera into the booth with you. > >> 1. Vinnie the Votebuyer knows the _layout_ of the ballot. He only >> needs >> to see that the correct box is punched/marked. Or that the screen >> version has been checked. > > I realize you big city types (yes, Tim, Corralitos is big compared to > my > little burg) have full scale voting booths with curtains (I used the > big > mechanical machines when I lived in Manhatten), but out here in the > sticks, > the 'voting booth' is a little standing desk affair with 18 inch > privacy > shields on 3 sides. If someone tried to take a photo of their ballot > in one > of those it would be instantly obvious. > > All I want is a system which is not more easily screwed around with > then > paper ballots. Have some imagination - you could, for example, set > things > up so the voter, and only the voter, can see the screen and/or paper > receipt > while voting, but still make it impossible to use a camera without > being > detected. But how could a restriction on gargoyling oneself be constitutional? If Alice wishes to record her surroundings, including the ballot and/or touchscreen she just voted with, this is her business. (I fully support vote buying and selling, needless to say. Simple right to make a contract.) I wasn't endorsing the practicality of people trying to use digital cameras of any sort in any kind of voting booth, just addressing the claim that cellphone cameras don't have enough resolution. Even 320 x 240 has more than enough resolution to show which boxes have been checked, or to mostly give a usable image with a printed receipt. As for creating tamper-resistant and unforgeable and nonrepudiable voting systems, this is a hard problem. For ontological reasons (who controls machine code, etc.). I start with the canonical model of a very hard to manipulate system: blackballing (voting with black or white stones or balls). Given ontological limits on containers (hard to teleport stones into or out of a container), given ontological limits on number of stones one can hold, and so on (I'll leave it open for readers to ponder the process of blackball voting), this is a fairly robust system. (One can imagine schemes whereby the container is on a scale, showing the weight. This detects double voting for a candidate. One lets each person approach the container, reach into his pocket, and then place one stone into the container (which he of course cannot see into, nor can he remove any stone). If the scale increments by the correct amount, e.g, 3.6 grams, then one is fairly sure no double voting has occurred. And if the voter kept his fist clenched, he as strong assurance that no one else saw whether he was depositing a black stone or a white stone into the container. Then if the stones are counted in front of witnesses, 675 black stones vs. 431 white stones is a fairly robust and trusted outcome. Details would include ensuring that one person voted only once (usual trick: indelible dye on arm when stones issued, witnesses present, etc. Attacks would include the Ruling Party depositing extra stones, etc. And consolidating the distributed results has the usual weaknesses.) Things get much more problematic as soon as this is electronified, computerized, as the normal "ontological" constraints evaporate. Stones can vanish, teleport, be miscounted, suddenly appear, etc. Designing a system which is both robust (all the crypto buzzwords about nonforgeability, satisfaction of is-a-person or one-person constraints, visibility, etc.) and which is also comprehensible to people who are, frankly, unable to correctly punch a paper ballot for Al Gore, is a challenge. I'm not sure either Joe Sixpack in Bakersfield or Irma Yenta in Palm Beach want to spend time learning about "all-or-nothing-disclosure" and "vote commitment protocols." I know about David Chaum's system. He has gotten interested in this problem. I am not interested in this problem. Moreover, I think working on electronic voting only encourages the political process (though implementing wide computer voting and then having more of the "winning totals posted before polls close" exposures of shenanigans might be useful in undermining support for the concept of democracy, which would be a good thing.) I don't say it's not a security problem worth thinking about. It reminds me a lot of the capabilities stuff, including Granovetter diagrams and boundaries. Probably a nice category theory outlook on voting lurking here (e.g., voting as a pushout in an appropriate category, or something whacky like that). Electronic voting of the type being pushed now is going to cause some major loss of faith in the system when some scandals emerge (and when even analyzing the protocols and talking about what one has learned results in a "cyst and decease" order from Diebold and that ilk).

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People getting high == "threat to homeland security"
by Declan McCullagh 02 Dec '03

02 Dec '03

Query: What, nowadays, is *not* a "threat to homeland security?" 1. Airport drug bust heightens debate over non-federal forces By Chris Strohm A recent drug bust at Kennedy International Airport shows that the use of workers from private companies in sensitive security jobs poses a substantial risk, federal airport screeners argued Monday. Government agents arrested 20 baggage and cargo handlers at Kennedy last Tuesday and charged them with slipping tens of millions of dollars worth of cocaine and marijuana past security checkpoints during the last decade. Authorities said the workers were employed by American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines and five smaller companies: Globe Ground North American, Evergreen Eagle, Hudson General, Swissport USA and Flying Foods. The operation represented "a potential threat to homeland security," said Michael Garcia, acting head of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Full story: < http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1203/120103c1.htm > http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1203/120103c1.htm

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Re: [johnmacsgroup] Diebold query for the Group
by R. A. Hettinga 02 Dec '03

02 Dec '03

[cc'd to cryptography (where clues reside...), and to cypherpunks (yeah, I know, don't feed the animals :-))] At 8:32 PM -0800 12/1/03, Donald L. Luskin wrote: >I see that Krugman's column today is about Diebold and his voting >machines. I recall that this discussion group had a thread going about >that several weeks ago that seemed quite involved, but I never read it. >Would someone be so kind as to remind me what that was all about? >Thanks! Coming from someone whose primary interest is (still?...) financial cryptography these days, and internet bearer financial cryptography in particular, the answer here is a simple -- if you will -- paradox: ---> You cannot have a perfectly secret electronic vote unless everybody can sell their votes. <--- The most anonymous protocols for electronic voting are the same protocols that were invented for electronic bearer transactions like anonymous digital cash, bearer bonds/stock, etc. You're given a unique, anonymous, blinded, non-forgeable glop of bits, which you produce in exchange for a single operation of the voting protocol at the time of your vote. The problem is, you can sell said glop of bits -- for, say, another glop of bits representing a requisite amount of cash in the fiat, or commodity-backed, currency of your choice. Thus, more important, and to turn the above paradox on its head, the *only* way you can prevent the sale of that glop of bits is with some form of direct observation of the voter, complete with is-a-person identity schemes and/or other forms of virtual state-sponsored proctology. As an anarchocapitalist, of course, selling votes is fine by me. Monopolies on force are evil anyway, so selling my franchise for a mess o' pottage doesn't carry nearly the moral suasion that it used to. Moore's law and the internet can't price force-monopoly out of business fast enough, if you ask me. But, for your average demopublican (okay, I vote congenitally Republican, somebody stop me, I know it only encourages them -- but then again I go to church, too, silly atavist me...) selling votes is the highest sacrilege against the State there is. Something on the order of eating the wafer before the wine, or vice-versa, or whatever. For anarchocapitalists, selling your vote (aka equity), is something you're *supposed* to be able to do, something you're *honor-bound* to do, borrowing "votes", if necessary, and selling them *short*... Cheers, RAH Whose last Financial Cryptography conference, in the Caymans in 2001, was spent pointing out that the previous "stolen" election was not a *financial* problem, 4 hours of the best and brightest's vociferous disputation through lunch to the contrary. "Camels, fleas, and princes exist everywhere." -- Persian proverb "The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations." -- David Friedman, _The_Machinery_of_Freedom_ "No matter who you vote for, the government gets elected." --Lizard, fronting an old chestnut, he says "When I was your age we didn't have Tim May! We had to be paranoid on our own! And we were grateful!" --Alan Olsen -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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'

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ZDNet UK - News - North Korea launches 'secure' email (fwd)
by Jim Choate 02 Dec '03

02 Dec '03

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39118217,00.htm -- -- Open Forge, LLC 24/365 Onsite Support for PCs, Networks, & Game Consoles 512-695-4126 (Austin, Tx.) help(a)open-forge.com irc.open-forge.com Hangar 18 Open Source Distributed Computing Using Plan 9 & Linux 512-451-7087 http://open-forge.org/hangar18 irc.open-forge.org James Choate 512-451-7087 ravage(a)ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.com

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Chaum's hand?
by Major Variola (ret) 02 Dec '03

02 Dec '03

Take a look at http://www.chaum.com/images/Photo_of_David.gif and tell me his hand isn't photoshopped. Is this for security reasons, or is his hand malformed?

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25x faster RFIDs
by Eugen Leitl 02 Dec '03

02 Dec '03

Infineon has just released new RFID silicon with 25x the speed. Available in quantities starting 2004. It's 13.56 MHz (Phase Jitter Modulation, 8 channels), and can read up to 500 tags/s (limit hitherto 30 tags/s). No idea about the package size nor the reading range. Use a dekrautizer of your choice: http://golem.de/0312/28756.html -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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Re: Silly Linux Kernel Bug
by Major Variola (ret) 02 Dec '03

02 Dec '03

At 01:09 AM 12/2/03 -0800, Eric Cordian wrote: >As reported today on Slashdot, in linux kernels prior to 2.4.23, it is >possible to map the kernel into user space with brk(), since apparently no >one ever bothered to check that the argument passed was in the lower 3 gig >of the address space. Question from a BSDer: Was this bug in the NSA's secure version?

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[discuss] Tue, Dec 16: EFF-A CyberDawg (fwd)
by Jim Choate 02 Dec '03

02 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 16:36:29 -0600 From: David Nunez <david(a)davidnunez.com> To: discuss(a)effaustin.org Subject: [discuss] Tue, Dec 16: EFF-A CyberDawg Tuesday! Tuesday! Tuesday! Get ready for chills, thrills and bone-crushing spills! More excitement and more mud than ever before! Hear the screaming crowd, hear the crushing of metal, and feel the adrenaline of the CyberDAWWWWWWG! That's right, it's time for CyberDAWWWWWWWWG Madness! Tuesday! Tuesday! TUUUUESDAY! Be there! Please RSVP by sending email to rsvp(a)effaustin.org. EFF-Austin MegaEvent on Dec 16th, 2003 Opal Divine's in Austin (6th and Rio Grande) * 6:00-8:00 - eVoting Dinner Discussion (serious discussion) * 8:00-close - CyberDawg 2003 (wild party) BuyYerOwnDinner for the eVoting Discussion... Light snacks served at Cyberdawg. Cash bar. Everyone showing up gets a free EFF bumper sticker and instigator badge! All new 2004 exclusive EFF-A T-shirts will be on sale. (http://www.eff-austin.org) ===================================================== Calling all cyberhippies, geeks, artists, filmmakers, WiFi Superheroes, technovangelists, computer builders/programmers/networkers/users, robotic mad scientists and their cyborganic chimpanzee lab assistants, liberty-lovin' lawyers, techeductors, wonks, weirdos, walruses, open source hackers, octopodes, and friends of all of the above. Come one, come all, and bring 20 of your friends. This is NOT the event to miss. Please help us by forwarding along this invitation to your friends and fellow cybernauts. ===================================================== EFF-Austin (http://www.eff-austin.org) proudly brings you the CyberDawg 2003 World Tour*** December 16th at Opal Divines in Austin, TX. 6:00-8:00 - eVoting Roundtable: Join Dan Wallach, Computer science professor and security expert from Rice University, for dinner and discussion on eVoting for the December edition of the EFF-Austin Policy Roundtable. Dan Wallach is a member of the team, organized by Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins, which conducted a scathing analysis of the Diebold voting system earlier this year. Dan will discuss the "threat model" for electronic voting. What can go wrong with evoting systems, what was wrong with the market-leading Diebold system, and what can geek activists do about it? 8:00-close - CyberDawg: What happens when you bring together smart, creative, and passionate minds together to do nothing but talk, laugh, and instigate? We're not sure. We think it'll be an earth-shattering event, though... The Singularity, even. What is EFF-Austin? Who's working behind the scenes? What is it up to these days? What madcap adventures are planned for 2004? Calendar of events? How can YOU get involved in the fray? These questions and more will be answered at the Cyberdawg. If nothing else, you'll be in the same room with movers, shakers, and instigators in the Austin Tech/Art/and Cyberliberties scene... That's gotta be worth something, right? ===================================================== *** CyberDawg 2003 will not actually go on a world tour. Just Austin... For that matter, there probably won't be too many thrills, chills, and spills or the gnashing of metal or screaming fans, either. But it will be fun, nonetheless. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: discuss-unsubscribe(a)effaustin.org For additional commands, e-mail: discuss-help(a)effaustin.org

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Big Japanese firms claim encryption breakthrough
by R. A. Hettinga 01 Dec '03

01 Dec '03

<http://www.theinquirer.net/print.aspx?article=10709&print=1> Big Japanese firms claim encryption breakthrough Elliptic curve cryptosystems By INQUIRER staff: Monday 28 July 2003, 07:36 NTT, MITSUBISHI and Hitachi today said they have succeded in developing a more effective type of cryptography based on what the companies call elliptic curve cryptosystems. Earlier this year, the European Union started NESSIE 5, a plan to use next generation cryptography, and chose Camella 6, Misty1 7 and PSEC-KEM as algorithms - developed by Mitsubishi and NTT. NESSIE stands for the New European Schemes for Signatures Integrity and Encryption. Camellia is a 128-bit block encryption algorithm, Misty1 is a 64-bit block encryption algorithm, while PSEC-KEM is an NTT public key encryption algorithm. The firms said that the new project, codenamed CRESERC, creates public key cryptosystems using mathematical operations over elliptic curves. µ -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com

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