December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

PGP Crack Successful !!!
by DeclanMcCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://pathfinder.cum/netly/forgeries/709PGPCRACK.html The Netly News June 22, 1997 2048-bit PGP Cracked!!! by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.cum) In an astounding turn of events, only days after the DES Challenge lay broken on the floor of crypto opponents, the crypto community has been rocked by the breaking of a 2048-bit PGP 5.0 cyphertext that was posted to the Cypherpunks mailing list by Pearl Harbor Computers in the "PGP Crack Challenge." Alec McCrackin, a Cypherpunk, posted the solution to the challenge a matter of minutes after the post containing the cyphertext arrived on the list. Although McCrackin was tight-lipped about the means used to decypher the challenge data, several anonymous Cypherpunk sources indicated that it has been known for months that PGP encrypted files could easily be read by using the backdoor in the Stronghold encryption software to decipher PGP files. "Cypherpunks can't write code." stated a Kook of the Month winner who prefered to remain anonymous. "I posted the solution to the list back in '92." stated another anonymous Cypherpunk source. "Check the archives." The source went on to add that he thought it was very suspicious that the contest was won by the person acting as the Trusted Third Party who was holding the secret key used to encrypt the message in escrow. Alec McCrackin, the Trusted Third Party and contest winner, expressed surprise and dismay that anyone would raise the question of abuse of authority in the matter. "Key escrow was needed in order to meet the legitmate needs of contest enforcement." McCrackin said. "Without key escrow, there would be no means to guarantee that the contest data did not contain child pornography or drug trafficking information." A company spokesman at PGP Inc. stated that the company did not forsee any major downturn in company revenue, since PGP Inc. had recently acquired rights to a leading source of SpamBot technology. Phil Zimmerman, who was forced out of the company as a condition of the acquisition agreement, said of his replacement, "Dimitri is a cocksucker." A reporter from Markets Magazine claims to have gotten inside information about the PGP crack, but can't remember what his source actually said. "I do remember his name, though. It was Bob Hettinga." the reporter stated. When asked what import this news had for the Clinton administration's plans for crypto export policy, a secret Whithouse source who has had me over for dinner several times with some of D.C.'s most prominent movers and shakers (and who lets me drive his Mercedes every time I give him a favorable mention in an article) said, "To tell the truth, most of us have been encrypting details of our dirty deals with PGP, so we may not be around long enough for our views to matter." ------------------------- DeclanMcCullagh Time Ink. The Nutly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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Re: [EFGA] WE won our court case!! (fwd)
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart wrote: > the distributed internet project to crack > the DES Challenge key succeeded on the day that the Senate committee > was trying to tell us that 56kbps should be plenty for anybody. What an amazing coincidence. RSA works in mysterious ways. MysteryMonger

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Re: [STEGO] Quadratic residues
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

`A pen is mightier than a sword', not to mention Timothy C[ocksucker] Mayonnaise's pea-sized penis. He would be better served by a safety razor, possibly applied in a bathtub filled with warm water (something he has surely never been into). ((__)) Timothy C[ocksucker] Mayonnaise (00) (o__o)

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Re: "Fuck tha EFF": New banner for Netscum page
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Aaron Marquez <marquez(a)pacbell.net> writes: > I find it curious that when the EFF was silent about the netscum page, the > majority of you were supportive of the EFF, but as soon as the EFF said that > they weren't interested in being associated with the netscum page, the party > line suddenly became "the EFF is a bunch of corporate whores..." This is a lie, like everything else Aaron Marquez says. We've been condemnding EFF at least since October 96, when we caught one of the cocksuckers in charge of it in blatant censorship. > What explanation can there be for such a quick 180 other than to conclude > that you're suffering from a big case of sour grapes? And at any rate, how > does EFF-bashing on a mailing list advance the cause of electronic freedom? > I think it's been made obvious what you think of the EFF, why repeat it over > and over to people who already know? This is a lie (see above). Dave, why did you subscribe this Cabal stooge to this mailing list without announcing it? :-( > >If one dislikes the "National Socialists", the closet historical analogue > >of the Usenet Cabal, it doesn't follow that one is against socialism. > > I disagree that the so-called Usenet Cabal is akin to the National > Socialists. Marquez is not even amusing - just a Cabal liar. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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cypherpunks PR fluff-ups (was Re: Garbled in transmission.)
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sameer Parekh <sameer(a)c2.net> writes: > ET <emergent(a)eval-apply.com> writes: > > I can't remember it word for word, but it went like this: > > "If you're going to decrypt financial transactions you'd better > > be prepared to get 1000 computers and spend 3 months on > > the project." > > Not at all surprising, considering the wording of Rocke's > press release. I agree. He didn't even mention the possibility of hardware cracks, nor estimates of times to break DES with hardware. 10,000 people burn more CPU than ever managed by a distributed effort in history, and the PR is poorly managed. You need to invest some of that effort in PR. Why no mention of the fact that the crack cost $10,000 (the prize money). And what happened to the prize money? (Who won it? Did the guy finding the key? Or did something boring like giving it to GNU or EFF happen to it?) Why no source code? Some general comments about the crack: Many of the people involved in running the cracks seemed more concerned with their own glory, or with getting their name in lights to enhance their consulting rates, or the technical interest of it, or control freakish tendencies over the management of it, arguing over how best to design the software to conceal the key from the finder of the key! etc, than in making a political statement about the weakness of DES. Seemed like few of them were cypherpunks at heart. This reflected itself I think in the complete hostility to giving the prize money to the winner, the fact that several of the cracks wouldn't reveal the source code, nor their techniques. The earlier cracks the cypherpunks as a group were involved in (netscape breaks) were much more open (source code was released, and benefited from release by others contributing speed-ups). There was none of this attitude which I detected amongst some of the DES groups of excluding others from a small groups organisational effort, because that group wanted the lime-light. Adam -- Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

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Re: CNNFN transcript -- EPIC vs. Family Research Council on CDA
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Declan: So when did you turn into Rotenberg's press whore? This 20k transcript you just spammed me with is no different than a hundred other mediocre debates on second-rate news shows that we have all been subjected to since people started whining about the CDA. Boring.

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Re: New Laws in Oregon - "Land of the Legal betatest"
by Ryan Anderson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: > > How do you propose to deal with such things as the Telecommunications Act > > of 1996 (which incidently included the CDA)? I can see a problem where > > one sentence or clause gets thrown out of a major bill (say a compromise > > budget, that someone screwed up one minor ammendment), and if you have > > that happen 3 times in 6 years, you've lost 90% of your senators! I'm not > > saying that your idea isn't without merit, just that it's got a few > > problems that strike me as somewhat major.. > > Please elaborate, as I can't see _any_ problem with eliminating 90% of > the sitting legislature. You've completely missed my point. This would be an on-going problem. Congress can only function with some idea of compromise in it. When you're passing budgets, especially the kind of budgets we have right now, they get big and complicated, I can't see that changing significantly, even with a massive turnover of members. But having no consistency in Congress at all, even for some "good" reps would be horrible. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryan Anderson - <Pug Majere> "Who knows, even the horse might sing" Wayne State University - CULMA "May you live in interesting times.." randerso(a)ece.eng.wayne.edu Ohio = VYI of the USA PGP Fingerprint - 7E 8E C6 54 96 AC D9 57 E4 F8 AE 9C 10 7E 78 C9 -----------------------------------------------------------------------

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RC5 crack
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Been looking at the RC5 crack project. http://rc5.distributed.net/ has loads of flashy graphics, stats, etc. but no instructions! I've got the linux command line client, and I want to take off 16 hours at a time as I am using a dial up slip link, and it insists on taking 20 mins worth. I read the FAQ, nada. Help. Also, no source code. Adam -- 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`

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The Global Fix is In
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The "Meeting of the Eight," formerly the G7, is happening in Denver. Listening to what's coming out of it, it's apparent that the Four Horsemen are front and center. Clinton is speaking of a network of banking and communications policy coordinators, to detect and halt drug dealing, money laundering, and nuclear terrorism. This fits with the details of reports about global wiretapping efforts, about joint intelligence activities, and, of course, with the OECD/GAK laws being proposed, passed, and about to be signed into law about "Key Recovery" and "Trusted Third Parties." The fix is in. It probably won't be long before Stronghold is barred for export from either Britain or RSA (the other one); both Tony Blair and Nelson Mandela are Friends of Bill, so a few phone calls should take care of that little problem. (And Norway and the other Scandinavian countries are part of the global wiretap agreement, so I rather doubt free export of PGP 5.x code out of Norway will be feasible, despite the OCR effort now underway there.) (Not that Clinton will mention Stronghold to Blair...that's far too much microdetail. Jimmy Carter might have gotten involved at that level, but not Bill. Details will be left to underlings.) The call to Japan, probably the visit by David Aaron, stopped NTT's plans for exporting the RSA chip. Anguilla and other "offshore" havens, will be subject to the same kinds of pressure. Mark my words. It's not hopeless. Physical havens are vulnerable, to all sorts of pressures (I doubt many cryptographers want to set up shop in Libya or Iraq, not that these places would be hospitable to Cypherpunks sorts of goals and methods). Going underground, using the untraceable features of cyberspace, may be the last, best hope. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: CDT Policy Post 3.08 - Senate Committee Approves Key Crypto Bill
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 12:18:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: Paul Spirito <spiritop(a)slic.com> Cc: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu, Charles Platt <cp(a)panix.com> Subject: Re: CDT Policy Post 3.08 - Senate Committee Approves Key Crypto Bill I'm much more intersted in looking at the motives not of the minority who voted for ProCODE II, but at who endorsed the final McCain-Kerrey bill and reported it out of committee. Keep in mind that civil liberties and business groups across the spectrum are unanimous in condemning the McCain-Kerrey bill as evil. But which senators on the full Commerce Committee voted against it? Did Ashcroft? Did Burns? -Declan On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Paul Spirito wrote: > 1) The senators who voted for the pro-CODE "compromise" were acting > about as principled as senators normally will.

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