December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: WARNING: Serious Pentium Bug
by nobody＠neva.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> wrote: >There is a SERIOUS bug in all pentium CPUs. The following >code will crash any machine running on a pentium CPU, MMX or no >MMX, any speed, regardless of OS (crash as in instant seize, hard >reboot the only cure): > >char x [5] = { 0xf0, 0x0f, 0xc7, 0xc8 }; > >main () >{ > void (*f)() = x; > f(); >} > >This require no special permissions to run, it works fine with >average-joe-userspace permissions. I have verified this, it works. >Demand a new CPU from Intel. This didn't crash my Pentium. Hoax?

6 5

Re: WARNING: Serious Pentium Bug
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> wrote: >>There is a SERIOUS bug in all pentium CPUs. The following >>code will crash any machine running on a pentium CPU, MMX or no >>MMX, any speed, regardless of OS (crash as in instant seize, hard >>reboot the only cure): >> >>char x [5] = { 0xf0, 0x0f, 0xc7, 0xc8 }; >> >>main () >>{ >> void (*f)() = x; >> f(); >>} >> >>This require no special permissions to run, it works fine with >>average-joe-userspace permissions. I have verified this, it works. >>Demand a new CPU from Intel. > >This didn't crash my Pentium. Hoax? Absolutely not. It crashed mine and is a major bug. It doesn't seem to affect the PPro, though, and not the P2 due to its relation to the PPro. It might be fixed in later Pentiums, which begs the question of why Intel didn't issue a recall back then. Supposidly they were informed about it months ago. Read comp.sys.intel.

3 2

Money Laundering Nonsense.
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Note- cypherpunks: reply by mail, I'm not on the list any longer. Chicago Tribune Monday, November 10, 1997 Money Laundering law netting more small fry. Prosecutors putting new tool to work. A sentencing weapon Congress intended for use against drug lords is being wielded against other defendants. Judges and others say this has diminished legal fairness. By Jan Crawford Greenburg Washington Bureau Washington- Jose Caba considered himself a hardworking, law-abiding man, and immigrant who built a business selling groceries in a poor Brooklyn neighborhood. But when he started illegally redeeming food stamps and depositing the proceeds into a bank account, prosecutors thought otherwise. They accused him of money laundering and sought a harsh sentence. Caba, who thought he was only bending administrative rules, isn't the kind of criminal Congress had in mind when it decided to give prosecutors a weapon to bring down powerful drug lords. Nevertheless, he is one of a growing number of defendants who commit routine fraud and find themselves facing big-time charges of money laundering. [...] More and more prosecutors are invoking [money laundering statutes] in simple fraud, bribery and embezzlement cases, a trend that doesn't sit well with many federal judges or the U.S. Sentencing Commission. In a strongly worded report, the commission... is recommending that the sentences for money laundering be reworked. The penalties are unfair, the commission said, because they often vastly exceed the seriousness of the crime. Caba would have faced 2 to 2 1/2 years in prison for food stamp fraud, but because he deposited the funds in a bank- thereby meeting the definition of laundering the money- he was looking at 10 to 12 years. [...] Nationally, statistics show a marked increase in money laundering cases. In 1995 prosecutors charged 1700 people with money laundering, up from 250 in 1990. More than half of the defendants charged in 1995 were involved in non-drug related crimes. Critics say the charged is used even more than the figures show because prosecutors threaten defendants with the charge to get them to plead guilty to the underlying crime. "It has tremendous implications in the criminal justice system because prosecutors can use it as a tremendous bargaining stick..." said Gordon Greenberg, a defense attorney and an expert on money laundering. "Every single crime, theoretically, can be converted into money laundering because the statute is that broad." What's more, prosecutors in some areas routinely file the charge, while others decline to do so. As a result, "proportionality is lost and appropriate uniformity is lost," said Jonathan Wroblewski, director of legislative and public affairs for the sentencing commission. [] stiff sentences also apply to defendants who make no attempt to cover up their proceeds. Caba laundered money by depositing it into a bank, even though his deposits were by check and he paid taxes on his proceeds. "For all intents and purposes, if you use your ill-gotten gains, it's money laundering." said Alan Chaset, a lawyer who chairs the American Bar Association's committee on sentencing guidelines. "If you take money and put it in a bank and then withdraw it and buy a stick of gum, it's money laundering." Some judges refuse to impose the sentence in cases where there was no elaborate scheme to conceal the money, such as a 1994 case in which prosecutors charged a defendant with money laundering when he put cash from drug sales into a shoe box. [...]

1 0

Re: Freeware SET?
by Donald E. Eastlake 3rd 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The SET reference implementation was written only with a concern for protocol correctness and essentially no concern for operational usability. It is not clear to me that a product could be based on it without a lot of additonal work. But I suppose it might be useful for hacking... Donald On Sat, 8 Nov 1997, Robert Hettinga wrote: > Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 10:12:49 -0500 > From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> > > > Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 04:49:34 +0100 (CET) > From: Lucky Green <shamrock(a)cypherpunks.to> > To: cypherpunks-announce(a)toad.com, cypherpunks(a)algebra.com, > cryptography(a)c2.net, andrada(a)earthlink.net, andrea.liles(a)nike.com > Subject: Bay Area Cypherpunks meeting announcement > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net > Reply-To: Lucky Green <shamrock(a)cypherpunks.to> > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Tomorrow's Bay Area Cypherpunks meeting will be held at the offices of > C2Net Software in Oakland. > > Agenda: > o Andrea Liles will present some cool new ideas about virtual CA's. > > o Lucky Green will demonstrate the Dumb Mouse, a universal chipcard > reader, and associated analysis/manipulation software. If you are at all > interested in smartcards, especially smartcards for crypto and > authentication purposes, you don't want to miss this one. If there aren't > too many attendees, we will host a workshop. Attendees are encouraged to > bring any smartcards in their possession and discover what is /really/ > happening on the card. The Cypherpunks Smartcard Developers Association > will accept smartcard donations after the workshop. > > o Cypherpunks Tonga will announce the release of BSAFEeay, a BSAFE 3.0 API > compatible crypto library based on SSLeay. > > o Cypherpunks Tonga will then combine BSAFEeay with the freeware SETref > (which requires BSAFE for the underlying crypto) and demonstrate the first > ever globally available *freeware* SET solution. > > Location: > C2Net Software > 1440 Broadway > 7th Floor > Oakland, CA > > Date/time: > Saturday, 11/8, noon > > Directions: > By BART: > Exit the system at 12th Street Oakland. Walk north on Broadway one block. > 1440 is on the right side of the street. > > By car: > http://www.mapquest.com/ > Choose "Trip Quest" from the menu. > > - -- Lucky Green <shamrock(a)cypherpunks.to> PGP v5 encrypted email preferred. > "Tonga? Where the hell is Tonga? They have Cypherpunks there?" > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: PGP 5.0i > Charset: noconv > > iQA/AwUBNGPhYvXUPTw3WtkkEQKztACeIQwx4voyUVIP6u1HmosCWklX7osAnROD > TTJn3K2jCIrKUQtOc5Z3oW1P > =byR/ > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > --- end forwarded text > > > > ----------------- > Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox > e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA > "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, > [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to > experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' > The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ > Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/> ===================================================================== Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1 978-287-4877(tel) dee(a)cybercash.com 318 Acton Street +1 978-371-7148(fax) dee(a)world.std.com Carlisle, MA 01741 USA +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA) http://www.cybercash.com http://www.privacy.org/ipc

1 0

Motorola Boo-Boo
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the discussion of the Intel F00FC7C8 problem, it was alleged that the instruction "unlk a7" will lock up a Motorola 68040 CPU even from user mode. Would someone care to test this on an old MAC? Is anyone aware of non-privileged instructions which kill other popular CPUs, like Alphas, SPARCS, and MIPS? -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

1 0

new intel verification circuit & crypto
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John Dvorak has an interesting column in a recent PC magazine on the possibility that Intel has created some new circuits in its new chips that would allow alteration by software. this is to deal with a "verification crisis" in which the complexity of their large chips is outstripping their ability to test for flaws and make them perfect. according to Dvorak the scheme would allow Intel to release a software program that would actually alter the circuitry of the chip. information at this point is very limited; Dvorak says that Intel doesn't want to announce the scheme for fear that it may not work in an embarrassing scenario. he says that the scheme is protected using cryptographic algorithms, so that hackers would be prevented from altering the chip. he raises the spectre of a virus that could do permanent, irreparable damage to the chip. however, I have some big red flags going off in my brain the more I think about this. it seems to me that no matter what kind of cryptography is used on the chip, there is the possibility of reverse engineering via dissassemblers & debuggers etc. if the software is distributed widely. hackers have long experience with this, and I suspect if a fix was released, the code could be cracked quite readily. the only other possibility is that Intel would require people to bring the chip into a service dealer. but this would decrease the utility and convenience of the fix feature, and I doubt they could protect the distribution of the software in this case either. anyway, an interesting topic of conversation for this list, no?

1 0

Infowar circa 1850
by nobody＠neva.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- "Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West" by Cormac McCarthy The Reverend Green had been playing to a full house daily as long as the rain had been falling and the rain had been falling for two weeks. When the kid ducked into the ratty canvas tent there was standing room along the walls, a place or two, and such a heady reek of the wet and bathless that they themselves would sally forth into the downpour now and again for fresh air before the rain drove them in again. He stood with others of his kind along the back wall. The only thing that might have distinguished him in that crowd was that he was not armed. Neighbors, said the reverend, he couldnt stay out of these here hell, hell, hellholes right here in Nacogdoches. I said to him, said: You goin to take the son of God in there with ye? And he said: Oh no. No I aint. And I said: Dont you know that he said I will foller ye always even unto the end of the road? Well, he said, I aint askin nobody to go nowheres. And I said: Neighbor, you dont need to ask. He's a goin to be there with ye ever step of the way whether ye ask it or ye dont. I said: Neighbor, you caint get shed of him. Now. Are you going to drag him, *him*, into that hellhole yonder? You ever see such a place for rain? The kid had been watching the reverend. He turned to the man who spoke. He wore long moustaches after the fashion of teamsters and he wore a widebrim hat with a low round crown. He was slightly walleyed and he was watching the kid earnestly as if he'd know his opinion about the rain. I just got here, said the kid. Well it beats all I ever seen. The kid nodded. An enormous man dressed in an oilcloth slicker had entered the tent and removed his hat. He was bald as a stone and he had no trace of beard and he had no brows to his eyes nor lashes to them. He was close on to seven feet in height and he stood smoking a cigar even in this nomadic house of God and he seemed to have removed his hat only to chase the rain from it for now he put it on again. The reverend had stopped his sermon altogether. There was no sound in the tent. All watched the man. He adjusted the hat and then pushed his way forward as far as the crateboard pulpit where the reverend stood and there he turned to address the reverend's congregation. His face was serene and strangely childlike. His hands were small. He held them out. Ladies and gentlemen I feel it my duty to inform you that the man holding this revival is an imposter. He holds no papers of divinity from any institution recognized or improvised. He is altogether devoid of the least qualifications to the office he has usurped and has only committed to memory a few passages from the good book for the purpose of lending to his fraudulent sermons some faint flavor of the piety he despises. In truth, the gentleman standing here before you posing as a minister of the Lord is not only totally illiterate but is also wanted by the law in the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Oh God, cried the reverend. Lies, lies! He began reading feverishly from his opened bible. On a variety of charges the most recent of which involved a girl of eleven years - I said eleven - who had come to him in trust and whom he was surprised in the act of violating while actually clothed in the livery of his God. A moan swept through the crowd. A lady sank to her knees. This is him, cried the reverend, sobbing. This is him. The devil. Here he stands. Let's hang the turd, called an ugly thug from the gallery to the rear. Not three weeks before this he was run out of Fort Smith Arkansas for having congress with a goat. Yes lady, that is what I said. Goat. Why damn my eyes if I wont shoot the son of a bitch, said a man rising at the far side of the tent, and drawing a pistol from his boot he leveled it and fired. The young teamster instantly produced a knife from his clothing and unseamed the tent and stepped outside into the rain. The kid followed. They ducked low and ran across the mud toward the hotel. Already gunfire was general within the tent and a dozen exits had been hacked through the canvas walls and people were pouring out, women screaming, folk stumbling, folk trampled underfoot in the mud. The kid and his friend reached the hotel gallery and wiped the water from their eyes and turned to watch. As they did so the tent began to sway and buckle and like a huge and wounded medusa it slowly settled to the ground trailing tattered canvas walls and ratty guyropes over the ground. The baldheaded man was already at the bar when they entered. On the polished wood before him were two hats and a double handful of coins. He raised his glass but not to them. They stood up to the bar and ordered whiskeys and the kid laid his money down but the barman pushed it back with his thumb and nodded. These here is on the judge, he said. They drank. The teamster set his glass down and looked at the kid or he seemed to, you couldnt be sure of his gaze. The kid looked down the bar to where the judge stood. The bar was that tall not every man could even get his elbows up on it but it came just to the judge's waist and he stood with his hands placed flatwise on the wood, leaning slightly, as if about to give another address. By now men were piling through the doorway, bleeding, covered in mud, cursing. They gathered about the judge. A posse was being drawn to pursue the preacher. Judge, how did you come to have the goods on that no-account? Goods? said the judge. When was you in Fort Smith? Fort Smith? Where did you know him to know all that stuff on him? You mean the Reverend Green? Yessir. I reckon you was in Fort Smith fore ye come out here. I was never in Fort Smith in my life. Doubt that he was. They looked from one to the other. Well where was it you run up on him? I never laid eyes on the man before today. Never even heard of him. He raised his glass and drank. There was a strange silence in the room. The men looked like mud effigies. Finally someone began to laugh. Then another. Soon they were all laughing together. Someone bought the judge a drink. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNFf3Xj7jyGKQlFZpAQFAVwgAnY5GGhOnj97T7fUzmNF1fSthVoVOSLr7 8pVFBUOdTXgKGtDmlr+TqaEzkdEzxJMUE+ACA6uGb/LwmyIhxnPYwRqfhWBjOHD3 /Y1uDVan81uVAtCgIZeOxOTskoM0hE3N3qxNSiITutbM2fxZiiUH1kWTs1+JuyLp h1sfwyzV4UL4sG6fZRKdf+4Mtg7jZvOJNbjKtzp7A19zxfLuLawM6DC31OlnDduw wdSWvv3CG/rOyExeCUtD/sTunPF4a7nsRb7mZQfj564ibvhbrKFcUv/z1lo7X06I yCC4JTOshBBmkzc6PNuUGc7hRGeghoXjHw1cClGjiOlr1HDoxdVVvg== =hKGE -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: apropos list talk and our culture
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Steve Schear wrote: > At 8:06 AM -0700 10/29/1997, Tim May wrote: > >At 5:38 AM -0700 10/29/97, Brad Dolan wrote: > >>"Michael Hays" is a new CBS series about a U.S. District Attorney. Last > >>night's episode was about how a radio talk-show host incited a listener > >>to kill a BATF agent and was brought to justice. DA convinced a jury > >>that some things were "more important" than the first amendment. > > Wouldn't it be interesting if someone incited a Net listener/reader to kill > the producer of this "Michael Hays" episode in a "life immitates art" > situation? Has anyone on the list taken the time to estimate the percentage of TV shows (news/entertainment/etc.) which seem to mostly serve to help indoctrinate the masses with New World Order Speak? e.g. - Surveillance == Security / Police == Protection VideoCatchingCriminals III (or somesuch), is due out soon. C-16, Jag, Michael Hayes, Cops, ad infinituum, and not a one of them showing a citizen with a toilet plunger sticking out of his or her asshole. Even Jenny Jones, et al, are doing shows where parents video-spy on the babysitter, husbands video-spy on their wives, etc. If "Total Surveillance is your Friend!" then why were there no video cameras in the restroom of the NYC police precinct? Cypherpunk Action Project or just my insanity?: Are there any list members who were kicked out of the US Armed Forces after only one day and are now full-fledged members of the paramilitary? Why don't you go bomb a federal building with a day-care center in it, and see if the government and media blame it all on the US Armed forces? You know, kind of a "life imitates fascism" situation. ImitationMonger

1 0

Re: new intel verification circuit & crypto
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The 'other' Deitweler, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: > John Dvorak has an interesting column in a recent PC > magazine on the possibility that Intel has created > some new circuits in its new chips that would allow > alteration by software. this is to deal with a > "verification crisis" in which the complexity of > their large chips is outstripping their ability > to test for flaws and make them perfect. according to > Dvorak the scheme would allow Intel to release a > software program that would actually alter the > circuitry of the chip. InfoWarriors around the globe have already been preparing for 'The Son of Clipper' and 'The Daughter of GAK'. The defenders of Freeh-Dumb know that the key to totalitarian access to communications/information is to slip in the back door of new technolgies via those who develop and produce that technology. The anti-trust actions against Intel are for the purpose of negotiating a foothold in programmable CPU's, etc. The anti-trust outrage against MicroSoft is meant to be a million-dollar-a-day punishment for reneging on their deal to provide GAK hooks in Internet Explorer 4.0. Look for MS and Intel to string the government along in this regard, while delaying long enough to let the Y2K problem force the government's hand in their desire for total control of the Information Highway Robbery system. The battle is for control of the New Electronic Jerusalem. Sincerely, Your 'other brother' Deitweler

1 0

PGP Inc PR cover-up
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wonder about the sudden lull in the pgp5.5 CMR argument: have PGP Inc enforced a blanket ban on participation in list discussion of the topic by their employees? Even our anonymous PGP employees posting via remailers on cypherpunks seem to have stopped. PGP Inc seemed to me to be heavily losing the argument where ever employees have spoken on the topic. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be translating into rejection of the CMR feature, nor of adoption of less dangerous alternatives such as forward secret transport level security, shorter lived encryption keys, and separate storage keys. Perhaps it will take an official government snoop endorsement of pgp5.5 before the danger is acknowledged; by then the damage will have been done. Meanwhile over on ietf-open-pgp: The ietf-open-pgp forum for discussion of development of the now IETF controlled OpenPGP standard seems to have undergone a coo. Cypherpunk Lutz Donnerhacke had pre-empted Rodney Thayer and PGP's Jon Callas draft which had been slow coming by producing a competing draft before them. Lutz's draft was not sympathetic with PGP Inc's CMR, and even included SHOULD features encouraging separate storage keys. John Noerenberg (appointed IETF chair) over-ruled Lutz, and wrested editing of the draft from him, and demonstrated some petty power wielding in over ruling a vote on terminology Lutz had set up -- Lutz had already said he didn't care about the outcome, and just called the vote as a quick way to resolve argument. Now we are waiting for Jon Callas to release the new draft. Wonder whether it will include CMR or not :-) Join in the battle: subscribe by sending email with body "subscribe ietf-open-pgp" to <majordomo(a)imc.org>. The list address for posting articles is <ietf-open-pgp(a)imc.org> Adam -- Now officially an EAR violation... Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

1 0