December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

ISDN status - intermittent
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Just a quick head-up.... The ISDN is going up and down today, there are several SWBT trucks in the neighborhood. My suspicion is that they are working on the trunk line throw from the N. Lamar station to the one on Duval behind the church. If this is the problem then it should go stable (or go dead because of another documentation error like last time) sometime this afternoon. Sorry for any inconvenience. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Stronghold (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 18:46:14 +0200 (MET DST) > Subject: Re: Stronghold > From: nobody(a)REPLAY.COM (Anonymous) > It is becoming increasingly obvious that John Young is the real > troublemaker here. I wouldn't doubt that it was John who was > behind the original troubles between Vulis and Sameer. > I think that John Young should be forcefully unsubscribed from > the Cypherpunks mailing lists. You sir are an unmittigated ass and more than a tad immature and selfish. I will not forcefully unsubscribe anyone from the SSZ node unless cops start showing up at my door giving me shit, in which case the node might go down (hopefully temporarily). I may not like what he did but I'll be damned if I'll go back on my beliefs in free speech just because you or I don't like it. You want freedom, learn to give it even when it hurts. Grow up and learn to deal with it. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Pretty Good Piracy
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If anyone has a copy of Viacrypt's Pretty Good Prying, it would be nice if they would make it available to those who want to get to work finding out how to best sabotage it. I am not against Viacrypt producing surveillance software for those who want it, but I resent their perversion of a product whose reputation capital is the result of the integrity and effort of a great many people whose interests lie in privacy, not in surruptitious surveillance. I can guarantee that any system I have access to which contains this twisted sister of PGP will have my hand up its dress, playing with its private parts. What is ViaCrypt's marketing plan? "Make sabotaging the security of your system a badge of honour among the elite of the computer security industry. Buy mis-represented PGP." "You need not fear our product having been sabotaged by privacy purists within ViaCrypt, because we fired all the people with integrity." "We stole the reputation, but we wouldn't steal your information." "It's not GAK. I was just clearing my throat." "Tired of the employees banging your wife...?" RottsaRaffsMongel

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MTBF
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, MTBF is usualy given as a single number, number_of_base_time_units from initial turn-on to 1st failure given no power downs or other interruptions. This is effectively of the form number_of_base_time_units/failure. This is clearly equivalent to number_of_failures/base_time_unit for practical use. Especialy considering that in this form you generaly don't ever need to do a division as you do if you use the first form. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Traffic Analysis (fwd)
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 10/5/97 1:18 PM, Jim Choate (ravage(a)ssz.com) passed this wisdom: >> Subject: Re: Traffic Analysis (fwd) >> Date: Sun, 5 Oct 97 11:59:53 -0400 >> >> On 10/3/97 10:49 AM, Jim Choate (ravage(a)ssz.com) passed this >> wisdom: >> >>>If the MTBF for a remailer is n then the MTBF for m remailers >>>is n*m. Inother words the remailer chain gets less reliable as >>>it gets longer. >> >> Jim, you want to take a look at that "n*m" again ... it >>doesn't wash. means MTBF goes *up* which means *more* reliable. > >Remember n is a fraction, failures/time_period ... > >If your MTBF is 1 failure per year for each system and you have 10 >systems your MTBF is 10 failures per year. Looks like multiplication >to me.... Maybe I have been away from hardcore engineering for too long, but last time I checked MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is measured in time (seconds, minutes, hours etc) not in failures per year that would be called 'failure rate' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNDf4WMdZgC62U/gIEQJy/QCeKTFBl+4yLC4mDnr/32uh8w8rbLsAn086 Y+veBvWn4ULlxuJBT0+Bun4N =7xHN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Brian B. Riley --> http://www.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with in the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn't dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy." -- Gassee - Apple Logo

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ViaCrypt Fires Tim C. May
by ViaCrypt FiringBot 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: ViaCrypt FiringBot To: Tim C. May Dear Ms. May, We regret to inform you that your employment with ViaCrypt has been terminated, effectively immediately. In accordance with company policy we will outline the reasons for your termination below. 1. Records from your company supplied E-ZPass electronic toll booth pass indicate that you are arriving in the city over an hour before you begin work, leading us to believe that you are engaged in personal activities during this time which take away from the energy you have left to put into your company work. 2. The OnStar satellite-positioning service reports that your company supplied Cadillac was parked at the restaurant where you ate with your company supplied Visa card for an hour and ten minutes. Employees are only allowed one hour for lunch breaks. 3. The Teletrac global-positioning satellite has reported that you exceeded the speed limit twice in one day (32 mph in a 30 mph zone, and 56 mph in a 55 mph zone). 4. The passive tracking microchip on your company supplied ID card was tracked by our remote sensors in six parts of the city which we prefer that our employees not enter. 5. Your company supplied cellular phone was used to call someone not in our business database who used his MasterCard to buy condoms at a local pharmacy during a weekend when his wife used her Visa to take a trip out of town. This reflects badly on the company. 6. The company aerial drone reports that in several passes over your home, the presence of marihuana smoke was detected. 7. Surveillance of your company email indicates that you have been using company resources to include private messages such as "Have a nice day." in business email sent on company time. 8. Reports sent in to the company by the automatic modem software on your company supplied laptop indicate that you have visited websites which are not approved by CyberSitter, such as the City of SEXton community website. 9. Video surveillance of the Men's Restroom indicates that you have been wasting company resources by using more toilet paper than necessary, in relation to the amount of human waste monitored during your visits. Also, you twice failed to put the toilet seat down, as required by our company policy of sexual sensitivity. 10. Our monitoring of your user access to the company computer system shows that you accessed areas of the system which were not found to be in accordance with your security level. Our records indicate that ViaCrypt owes you $15,000,000.00 for your 1 day(s) of employment. This has been deposited in your Bank Account in Antigua, according to your wishes. Sincerely, (as sincere as a machine can be, that is) ViaCrypt FiringBot

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Re: Pretty Good Piracy
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ryan Anderson wrote: > Okay - the only difference between this and a normal version of PGP is that > it always encrypts to a certain key-id, in addition to all others. > > That's the only weakness you'll see in it. It's the only weakness that's needed to compromise all the keys. > So stop bitching about a feature that business is going to require before > rolling out PGP to the whole enterprise. I don't have any problem with the feature, only with the use of the PGP reputation capital to directly promote it. If they wanted to call it 'Pretty Corporate Privacy' then the name would reflect its purpose. Security, in regard to privacy, is an all-or-nothing issue. As such, I do not find it acceptable to apply the same standards of promotion and dissemination as with less important types of software. The fact of the matter is, the product has nothing to do with the privacy of the individual using it, only the privacy of the corporation. This is an important distincion which should not be subject to confusion with a product by the same name which is noted for providing a secure level of privacy for the individual. I would wager that promoting a false sense of security, or an incorrect view of the levels of security and trust involved in company software will do more damage than the occassional loss of keys will. Again, the product does not provide 'Pretty Good Privacy,' it does provide 'Pretty Corporate Privacy.' PrivacyMonger

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List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 ADVERTISEMENT: Proudly Sponsored by the Electronic Forgery Foundation, http://www.eff.com ADVERTISEMENT: Digicash Software - Download Today! http://www.digicrime.com 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{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $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{"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{"trustme"} = "<trustme(a)trustme.nsa.mil> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash crack latent cut ek"; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"cracker"} = "<remailer(a)anon.efga.org> cpunk mix remix pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord post"; $remailer{'redneck'} = '<config(a)anon.efga.org> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"bureau42"} = "<remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org> cpunk mix pgp ksub hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"recovery"} = "<remailer(a)biglouie.fbi.gov> cpunk mix pgp ksub hash latent mon cut ek"; $remailer{"neva"} = "<remailer(a)neva.org> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub ?"; $remailer{"payswell"} = "<remailer(a)digicrime.com> cpunk pgp pgponly launder hash cut mon ksub ?"; $remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix"; $remailer{"medusa"} = "<medusa(a)weasel.owl.de> mix middle" $remailer{"McCain"} = "<mccain(a)notatla.demon.co.uk> mix middle"; $remailer{"valdeez"} = "<valdeez(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"arrid"} = "<arrid(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"hera"} = "<goddesshera(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"mulder"} = "<mulder(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"scully"} = "<scully(a)fox.fbi.gov> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"htuttle"} = "<h_tuttle(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. president(a)whitehouse.gov 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 reno winsock) (weasel squirrel medusa) (cracker redneck) (nym lcs) (valdeez arrid hera mulder scully) The remailer list here has been out of date for some time, but should be up to date now. I'm still working on updating the web page. Last update: Mon 8 Sep 97 6:48:45 PDT remailer email address history latency uptime - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- recovery remailer(a)biglouie.fbi.gov ############ 0:01 99.99% payswell remailer(a)digicrime.com ############ 0:01 99.99% trustme trustme(a)trustme.nsa.mil ************ 0:59 99.99% mulder mulder(a)juno.com #*#*##*#*#*# 0:57 99.98% nym config(a)nym.alias.net ####**+#-## 7:03 99.95% hera goddesshera(a)juno.com ----_.---.. 14:56:18 99.95% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net *+*****++**+ 11:30 99.93% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de ----------- 3:17:57 99.83% scully scully(a)fox.fbi.gov +-+-+-+-+-+- 0:57 101.00% valdeez valdeez(a)juno.com -__.-*+*-.- 7:50:19 99.81% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net -----_..---* 10:10:24 99.81% bureau42 remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org ..--------- 3:33:37 99.31% arrid arrid(a)juno.com -- -------- 7:27:32 99.15% kgbvax remailer(a)kgbvax.demos.su . -- .. --- 99:59:59 19.84% neva remailer(a)neva.org -+*#+*--* # 25:21 98.45% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca + ++++++ 39:06 97.23% cracker remailer(a)anon.efga.org + +++ +++ 28:43 97.10% replay remailer(a)replay.com +**-++ +** 9:49 96.75% redneck config(a)anon.efga.org -*+* ++# 10:58 96.60% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net ++..+ * -- 2:32:31 84.34% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com **+*++*+ 1:14:29 58.44% 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. launder Supports Matt Blaze's Packet-Laundry: 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. escrow Provides message backup services to prevent accidental loss. 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 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNDg5r0TMP00JT6s3EQKSngCdF5V1Ecd5ZA3Xa0gYUDHmHaklorAAn2os muMxWPxHj2VmK9uYtACtZhHx =eWmu -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Trademarking CypherSpace???
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sigh. A company called I-Planet is trying to trademark the term "Cypherspace", even though we've been using it for a couple of years in the cypherpunk community. They're doing an IPSEC Virtual Private Network, with friendly HTML administration; http://www.i-planet.com/P2cypherpb.html . Looks like interesting stuff, and I wish them luck except in TMing the name :-) I looked on AltaVista and HotBot, and the earliest reference I found was from a 1994 article by Tim May. I'd be interested in finding any earlier refs. There's also a line of comic books using the name, and a Java Applet from 1996, plus references from I-Planet in late 96 and 97. Anybody know if the term's been used in print in the dead-tree press? http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/6095/assorted-short-pieces/may-police-state.txt 05-Oct-94 http://www.pi.net/~mvheezik/cypher.html 20-Dec-96 http://infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks/dir.archive-96.10.17-96.10.23/subject.ht… pointing to David Lesher's article Alice in Cypherspace http://www.insitecomp.com/webdev/java/javasites.htm 7-Dec-96 points to "Cypherspace", a Java Application on a machine I don't seem to be able to reach right now. ============================================================= ==== FROM http://www2.netcom.com/netcom/cypher.html and also ==== http://www.i-planet.com/P2cypherpb.html ======== Introducing i-Planet's CypherSpace As part of the i-Planet Solution product family, CypherSpace allows a company to securely link all of its locations together over the Internet by creating a Virtual Private Network (VPN). This represents an enormous cost savings especially for multinational organizations. ============================================================= Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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Risks of using usually-reliable information sources in your programs
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been thinking about building remailers and cover-traffic generators, and there's a need for a convenient up-to-date list of remailers. Raph Levien's remailer pinging service is definitely convenient, and even produces some of its output in perl for use by perl programs. However, it's important to be really careful when depending on information like this, e.g. when building it into programs, because otherwise it's easy to trick them into using bogus data, such as the crudely forged article sent to Cypherpunks earlier today. The natural implementation is to pick the more reliable remailers based on "Raph"'s statistics, so adding records for very reliable bogus remailers is a win. The security would be improved if Raph signed the weekly file, but that also requires people using the file to check it with PGP and not just grep out the relevant lines for their programs' use. >X-Sender: stewarts(a)popd.ix.netcom.com >X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.3 (32) >Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 18:06:56 -0700 >To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com >From: Raph Levien <raph(a)CS.Berkeley.EDU> >Subject: List of reliable remailers >Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net >Reply-To: Raph Levien <raph(a)CS.Berkeley.EDU> >X-Loop: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >ADVERTISEMENT: Proudly Sponsored by the Electronic Forgery Foundation, >http://www.eff.com >ADVERTISEMENT: Digicash Software - Download Today! http://www.digicrime.com > > I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed >information about remailer features and reliability. .... >recovery remailer(a)biglouie.fbi.gov ############ 0:01 99.99% >payswell remailer(a)digicrime.com ############ 0:01 99.99% >trustme trustme(a)trustme.nsa.mil ************ 0:59 99.99% >mulder mulder(a)juno.com #*#*##*#*#*# 0:57 99.98% Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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