December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

reptilian politicians
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>November 12th, 1998 the Toronto Board of Health announces they > want to ban private >owner ship of snakes, turtles, any and all exotic pets. >Reaction of pet owners was immediate. In this city of just under 3 >Million people, most said they would not abide by the law and >hide their beloved pets. In california, possession of a ferret is illegal. But its illegal for people eat california horses. Or burros, senators, and other asses. Those in the Ferret Underground (TM) find that horsemeat is now cheaper, and the furry ones love it. --Weasels ripped my flesh

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Rememberance Day 1998.
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

================= forwarded from CFD V2 #696 ============ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 06:03:49 -0600 From: Dan MacInnis <dan.louise(a)sympatico.ca> Subject: Rememberance Day 1998. It is past eleven O'clock here. It is November 11th, 1998. On this date every year my mind always returns to thoughts of my uncle, whose body, it's elements long ago returned to the earth, the dust undisturbed in a European grave, the man for whom I was renamed when the sad news reached my mother and grandfather on that early spring morning many years ago. Even as child their wet faces impacted me, forever. It drifted today to Ottawa, where I once stood cold but proud close to one Paul Hellyer, then Minister of National Defense under the Honorable Prime Minister Lester Bowles Pearson. It was Rememberance Day, Paul was delivering the obligatory service beside a Cenotaph, the soldiers, sailors and airmen stood at ease waiting for the ceremonies to end, pretending to listen to his resonant, educated voice. It was a bitter cold day, I knew they would prefer to be at their homes, or in their messes or just anyplace but on parade that day. I was proud to be associated with a government, indeed a country even, with such diversity, such room for individuals to work, play and overcome the challenges each would experience. It honestly was a Free Canada, individuals could aspire to whatever their imaginations deemed them worthy to become. Later that evening, at a Military function, a member of the RCAF suggested to me, each of us with the government issued glass in the right hand, white serviette properly wrapped around it to keep the hand warm and dry for handshaking, that someday he expected I would be Minister of National Defense. Sadly enough, we both believed it. But today is November 11th, 1998, at about 11:50 AM. My pride in the Liberal Party of Canada has been shattered. My belief that issues like Conscription, which polarized our founding peoples for two generations, would never surface, ever again, gone. My belief that MY PARTY stood for individual rights, the only force that would stand between the Elite's and the common person, gone. Forever. So it a doubly sad day for me. My uncle, and my Party. Bill C68 has intruded into the lives of so many Canadians, and if left to stand as is, will undermine everything I stood there that cold Ottawa morning to pay tribute, and everything my uncle died for in that foreign field so long ago. He died with no idea the rifle he carried to fight for our freedoms would become such a divisive symbol a few short years later. On this morning I shall not revisit the implications of C68. Rather, I will ask those struggling to preserve out heritage to continue the fight. Do not surrender. Then, when it becomes our time to let our earthly possessions go, when our bodies begin the journey back to the dust from whence they came and our spirits return to source, perhaps the cold white silk of the casket or the sides of the urn holding our ashes will be a bit warmer knowing we did all we could for those who follow. Anything less of us would be shameful.

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RE: Rivest Patent
by Harvey Rook (Exchange) 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's a little bit more complicated than that. RC-6, which also uses data dependant rotations is patent free. Harv. > -----Original Message----- > From: Eric Cordian [mailto:emc@wire.insync.net] > Sent: Friday, November 13, 1998 11:25 AM > To: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net > Subject: Re: Rivest Patent > > > JYA writes: > > > Ron Rivest received on November 10 "US Patent 5835600: > > Block encryption algorithm with data-dependent rotations:" > > http://jya.com/rivest111098.htm (22K) > > So we can't use the rotate instruction with a data-dependent shift > count in a block encryption algorithm without a license from Ron? > > Foo on that. > > -- > Sponsor the DES Analytic Crack Project > http://www.cyberspace.org/~enoch/crakfaq.html >

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Re: Info Age Crime Terror and War
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: > At 9:09 AM -0800 11/13/98, John Young wrote: > > Senator Kyl has issued a long report, "Crime, Terror & > > War: National Security and Public Safety in the Information > > Age," ... > > http://jya.com/ctw.htm (97K) > > I'll address one section, near the end of the report: > ... While I wholeheartly believe that the open-minded and interested public would want to hear these mindless rants responded to with some rationality and reason, I don't believe, for a moment that Kyl & gang are serious about debating anything. (Ok, there is a TEENY chance he is just confused.) My money on the claim that these are yet more rhetoric thrown out to confuse as many people who are easily taken over by sound bites as possible. It's not as easy to explain the practical reasons why crypto restrictions are unenforcible and unreasonable, but it's easy to trumpet the national security cause and to raise the spectre of police not being able to protect lil' Johnny and Mary. What I was hoping for from the pro-crypto ads was something like this: 1. Lil' Suzy writes E-Mail to Lil' Mary to meet at the mall at some well-lighted public place. 2. Child molestor X intercepts E-Mail, but it's weak 40-bit encryption, and he breaks it. 3. Mr. X forges E-Mail from Mary to Suzy changing the meeting location to some dark corner A, and forges E-Mail from Suzy to Mary changing the meeting locaiton to some dark corner B. 4. Mr. X's co-conspirators, Mr. Y and Mr Z intercepts Mary and Suzy at the respective dark corners ... they scream for help ... no one answers at either location ... fade to black ... This is the sort of stuff that would really counter the stupid rhetoric from Sen. Kyl. Ern

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U.S. Attorney Morgenthau on Money Laundering
by David Watts 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

New York Times November 9, 1998, Monday Editorial Desk On the Trail of Global Capital By Robert M. Morgenthau What are the five largest financial centers in the world? Many will name New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. But how many will guess the fifth? It's the Cayman Islands -- or so, at least, its Government claims on its Web site. It's certainly the case that huge companies -- including hedge funds like Long-Term Capital Management -- have made the Caymans their nominal home. And bank regulators in the United States have confirmed that bank deposits on the islands now total about $500 billion, twice the amount of four years ago and more than the amount on deposit in the New York Federal Reserve District. That is about $14 million for every man, woman and child in the Caymans. The financial community there consists of 575 banks and trust companies. More than 20,000 corporations are chartered on the Caymans. What draws so many capitalists to so unlikely a spot? Secrecy, for one thing. In the United States, capital markets are regulated by requiring transparency in financial dealings. The Caymans, by contrast, have no such openness, no tiresome restrictions on the pursuit of wealth. With respect to regulation, the Caymans have won the race to the bottom. Take, for example, Long-Term Capital Management, which had to be bailed out earlier this year. The fund's basic operations are conducted in Connecticut, but it is chartered in the Cayman Islands. The fund kept the details of its borrowings and investments secret -- a result not obtainable where there must be concerns for the curiosity of regulators. The results were disastrous. No one knew the absurd extent to which Long-Term Capital's confident superstars were leveraging their assets -- until the bubble burst. The Caymans' financial secrecy laws make it easy to hide suspect dealings. It is now well known that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, whose collapse in 1991 was the biggest banking scandal in history, took advantage of those laws. Beyond the assistance they lend to criminals, secrecy laws aid reckless acts by high-rolling entrepreneurs. But in fact, most of the ''offshore'' Cayman banks are run not from the islands, but from New York. Amazingly, the Cayman Government Web site itself boasts that, of the 575 banks and trust companies ''based'' in the islands, a full 106 actually have a physical presence there! Resort to these institutions is a simple charade. What would happen if a determined American bank inspector flew to the islands and demanded to see the books of one of these institutions? He would be arrested. It's the law. There is yet another explanation for the remarkable blossoming of financial institutions in the Cayman Islands. The islands have no income tax, no capital gains tax, no value added tax, no sales tax, no inheritance tax and no tax treaties. Sophisticated Americans place billions in Cayman investment vehicles like Long-Term Capital that are carefully structured to reduce American tax liability. Citizens of other countries invest billions there so their incomes will be exempt from American taxes. Commendably, the Treasury Department recently resolved to study ways to keep sham transactions from having an impact on tax liabilities, and the Group of Seven industrialized nations has said that hedge funds should ''possibly'' be subject to disclosure rules. But those are only tentative steps. More can be done. The Cayman Islands are a British dependency, and both the governor and the attorney general are appointed by the British Government. This means Britain can end the laissez-faire practices of the islands. And since, from a financial perspective, the islands are an American dependency, Washington can also stop the offshore shenanigans -- for instance, by imposing more prudent oversight of lenders doing business with Cayman entities. The Caymans are only part of the problem. The Isle of Jersey, the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, Antigua, Liechtenstein, Panama, the Netherlands Antilles, the Bahamas, Luxembourg and, of course, Switzerland all offer ''offshore'' sanctuary. Until action is taken to eliminate these havens, taxpayers and honest players in the financial markets will be at a very unfair disadvantage. _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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nCipher joined KRAP/GAK drive too?
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This arose out of a discussion on ukcrypto about NAI (which PGP Inc is now part of) having recently rejoined the KRA list -- I notice that nCipher are on it too, and there was a earlier exchange on ukcrypto about nCipher... ========= nCipher too are now on the KRAP list (wonder how long for?) Bruce Tober forwards from www.kra.org: > [...] > nCipher Corporation Ltd. nCipher fairly recently made some press release that was commented on on this list as sounding a bit in favour of UK/DTI/GCHQ GAK attempts. Then they claimed that it was just being read incorrectly and the text was neutral and the title that was badly chosen and by hired PR. So nCipher guys, how do you explain the membership of KRAP away? >From the last list discussion, Ian Jackson, who works for nCipher wrote: : We do not have any weakened or GAK products. The Marketing Director : has assured me that we have no plans to produce any. also: : So, in summary, there are no artificial restrictions on the sizes of : keys which can be used, generated or stored by our units, and no : backdoor GAK or key recovery facilities. given the KRAP membership one might have cause to be worry that this may not still be true. Perhaps people using recent nCipher boards or with recent software upgrades ought to read the specs real closely -- to see if it admits to encrypting stuff to GCHQ also! Ian also wrote (in a post marked as not an official nCipher statement): : I personally would feel that putting deliberate backdoors or other : similar things into our products would be highly unethical and I would : have nothing to do with it. and: : This has nothing to do with the spooks or escrow or anything of the : kind. That's what GAK and KRAP is all about -- putting backdoors into products which the government and secret service groups like GCHQ, NSA and ECHELON get the keys to. and: : I do believe that the personal views of senior management at : nCipher - particularly towards the technical end - are opposed to : escrow et al. Perhaps those technical types could have a go at prevailing over whichever marketing type or suit decided to sign up for KRAP. This is not intended to attack Ian, as he seemed pretty much against GAK, and Niko van Someren to some extent too. Not so sure about the other non technical can Someren, but clearly someone in nCipher thinks KRAP and GAK are a good marketing ploy. Otherwise, I figure you're better off giving money to DEC alpha than supporting GAKkers. Alpha's run SSLeay pretty fast. Adam ========= and a second post, with more specifics: ========= I wrote: > nCipher too are now on the KRAP list (wonder how long for?) here we go: http://www.ncipher.com/news/files/press/97/keyrecov.html since May 97! contains such gems as: : We are delighted to support the Key Recovery Alliance," said : Alex van Someren, President of nCipher. so that pin-points at least one GAK enthousiast at nCipher. It also makes for some rather strange contradictions. The flap about nCiphers apparent whole-hearted support for DTI GAK attempts was May this year -- nCipher had already been a paid up KRAP member for a whole year. press release continues (least there is any confusion as to what KRA as an organisation is about): : Encryption makes information readable only to a person holding a : unique "key" which will unlock the data. Encryption is critical to : ensure the security of sensitive information that is either stored : electronically or sent over public networks such as the Internet. : Key recovery is a new method that allows for authorized access : to encrypted information without the need to store or "escrow" : any encryption keys with a third party. Key recovery is an : effective tool to meet commercial, private and institutional needs. institutions obliquely mentioned being presumably the likes of GCHQ and NSA? yet Ian was saying: > : So, in summary, there are no artificial restrictions on the sizes of > : keys which can be used, generated or stored by our units, and no > : backdoor GAK or key recovery facilities. saying there were no key recovery facilities, and : We do not have any weakened or GAK products. The Marketing Director : has assured me that we have no plans to produce any. and no plans to install any. yet this is what KRA is all about, and they were signed up to it already at that time. I suppose someone is now going to try to claim that KRA is all about key recovery for commercial purposes, but not for government -- but this is not the way I understand that KRA came into being at all. I think it is very much a NSA led attempt to further the clipper attempts. If I recall it started in the wake of the NSA/NIST attempts at clipper IV (or whatever number it was at by then) to coerce companies into including software based key escrow. Probably tied up with the permission to use marginally higher key lengths if the company can demonstrate to NSA a plan to introduce GAK in two year time scale (within the US), though I may be forgetting the details. Anyone like to clarify KRAs aims and history? Adam

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[ISN] Privacy Group Pushes For Hearings on ECHELON (fwd)
by Jukka E Isosaari 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 06:52:45 -0700 (MST) From: mea culpa <jericho(a)dimensional.com> To: InfoSec News <isn(a)repsec.com> Subject: [ISN] Privacy Group Pushes For Hearings on ECHELON Push for hearings on Echelon: Global spy system needs scrutiny, says rights group http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19981112_xex_push_hearing.shtml Stephan Archer In an effort to create some accountability between the country's citizens and the National Security Agency's top-secret global surveillance system known as Echelon, the Free Congress Foundation is urging that congressional hearings be held concerning the NSA's use of the system. Originally, Echelon was designed to spy on the Communist Bloc during the Cold War. However, since the end of the Cold War, the NSA has used it for other questionable purposes that include spying on the citizens of U.S. allies as well as the citizens of other countries, commercial spying, and even domestic spying. In essence, Echelon works through a series of high-tech spy facilities located primarily in five countries: the United States, Canada, England, New Zealand, and Australia. These countries, which are sworn to secrecy about the project in a secret agreement known as UKUSA, all actively take part in this encroachment of privacy into the lives of the people of the world by collecting virtually all fax transmissions, e-mails, and phone calls. Not even cellular phone calls escape the grasp of the Echelon system. "Obviously, we need to have these capabilities," said Wayne Madsen, who worked in the National COMSEC Assessment Center at the NSA's Fort Meade, Maryland, facility back in the 1980s and is currently a senior fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. As an example of our country's need for the system, Madsen said, "No one can argue about using the system to counter terrorism. Where people will have a problem is where Echelon is used for political and business interests." The Echelon system gets most of its data by collecting all transmissions handled by the Intelsat and Inmarsat satellites, which are responsible for much of the electronic communication that takes place between countries. Earth-bound communication is sucked up and absorbed by other spy satellites that the NSA has launched into space. "It's a huge vacuum cleaner," said Madsen. Once these spy facilities collect the phone calls, e-mails, and faxes, of virtually everyone on earth, the Echelon system sorts them through a kind of filter system known as the Echelon dictionary. This dictionary looks for "flag" words in all of the transmitted communication. While it lets a majority of all collected material pass through its filter, it tags those that may pose a threat and tracks all subsequent communication coming from the source of the original "flagged" message. Concerning Echelon's inherent intrusion on people's privacy, Patrick Poole, the deputy director for the Center of Technology Policy at the Free Congress Foundation, said, "While we understand the need for the intelligence power embodied by Echelon, the indiscriminate use of Echelon presents major threats to liberty not only to U.S. citizens but to citizens around the world." And this threat is real. The foundation's report states that U.S. leaders have, in fact, already abused this awesome technology. For example, the report states the following: "In September 1993, President Clinton asked the CIA to spy on Japanese auto manufacturers that were designing zero-emission cars and to forward that information to the Big Three U.S. car manufacturers: Ford, General Motors and Chrysler." "You can assume that all major U.S. corporations are fed items of interest (via Echelon) from time to time to give them a leg up on international competitors," said Madsen. Although this may be seen as a strategic corporate weapon for American businesses, in reality, it's an example of technology that can get out of hand. For example, former Canadian spy Mike Frost stated in his book, "Spyworld," that in 1981, there was an "accidental" cell phone intercept of the American ambassador to Canada that resulted in the U.S. getting outbid by the Canadians in a grain deal with China. The deal brought in $2.5 billion for the Canadian Wheat Board. With this kind of abuse of Echelon's power, the question as to whether or not the U.S. government has been using this power for political purposes can be easily raised. This question is seemingly answered in the foundation's report. "The discovery of domestic surveillance targeted at American civilians for reasons of 'unpopular' political affiliation -- or for no probable cause at all -- in violation of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution is regularly impeded by very elaborate and complex legal arguments and privilege claims by the intelligence agencies and the U.S. government," the report says. When asked if the system has been used by the U.S. government to spy on its citizens, Madsen told WorldNetDaily that he was sure it has been. "I don't believe that the NSA or the current Administration would hesitate to use this system on American citizens for their own agendas," he said. Outraged by this flagrant abuse of power illustrated by our country's elected officials, Poole said, "While the U.S. is the prime mover behind the Echelon system, it's shameful that the European Parliament is the body holding the constitutional debate in regards to Echelon today." A September 1998 report for the European Parliament by the Omega Foundation said, "Within Europe, all e-mail, telephone, and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency. According to the Omega Foundation report, it is this ability of the NSA that brings major concern to the European Parliament. In an effort to bring the issues surrounding Echelon to the forefront of American politics, the Free Congress Foundation plans to send out a report about Echelon to all of the 500 policy organizations in the U.S. as well as to select members of Congress. These select individuals include members from both the House and Senate intelligence committees as well as House and Senate Constitution subcommittees. Copies of the report will also be sent to the congressional leadership of both parties. Although the foundation is hoping to get some action out of these members of Congress, Poole said that support at the grassroots level of our nation's political structure will be a must if this issue isn't to end up buried by the intelligence committees. "For there to be any account and oversight to the Echelon system, the American people are going to have to contact their elected representatives in order to investigate the abuses that we know have occurred in regards to the Echelon system," Poole said. See Free Congress Foundation's report on Echelon at: http://www.freecongress.org/ctp/echelon.html -o- Subscribe: mail majordomo(a)repsec.com with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]

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Enter Symbol's Developer Contest at the Palm Computing Platform Developer Conference!!! (revised message)
by palmdeveloper＠palmdevcon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Symbol announces the first annual Symbol SPT 1500 Developer Contest!!!!! You could win a Toshiba Tecra 780 DVD 266 MHz Pentium II Notebook by developing the Best SPT 1500 Application or You could win a EXP PC Card DVD Traveler Bundle by developing the Best Riverbed Scout MTS Application or the Best Puma Satellite Forms Application or the Best IDEAM EZTrak Application. Other cool prizes will also be awarded. Everyone who participates will receive a t-shirt. You must be a registered attendee of the Palm Computing Developer Conference to participate. Winners will be announced at the Conference on December 4. For more details on the contest, and to register for the conference, point your browser to http://www.palmdevcon.com.

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Enter Symbol's Developer Contest at the Palm Computing Platform Developer Conference!!! (revised message)
by palmdeveloper＠palmdevcon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Symbol announces the first annual Symbol SPT 1500 Developer Contest!!!!! You could win a Toshiba Tecra 780 DVD 266 MHz Pentium II Notebook by developing the Best SPT 1500 Application or You could win a EXP PC Card DVD Traveler Bundle by developing the Best Riverbed Scout MTS Application or the Best Puma Satellite Forms Application or the Best IDEAM EZTrak Application. Other cool prizes will also be awarded. Everyone who participates will receive a t-shirt. You must be a registered attendee of the Palm Computing Developer Conference to participate. Winners will be announced at the Conference on December 4. For more details on the contest, and to register for the conference, point your browser to http://www.palmdevcon.com.

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Re: DBS, Privacy, Money Laundering nonsense.
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 11:57 PM -0500 on 11/13/98, Black Unicorn wrote: > If only we could be rid of this pesky cash would could eliminate organized > crime forever. Reminds me of something Vinnie Moscaritolo, my alter ego and Samoan attorney, once said. "'If we could just pass a few more laws' we could all be criminals." Nonetheless, I think that DBS will be much more about economics than privacy or even law. The contrapositive of Unicorn's excellent rant is that the market for money "laundering" and financial privacy is a rediculuously small fraction of the market for economic efficiency. That digital bearer settlement gives us more or less perfect financial privacy if done under certain conditions is much more a happy accident than anything else, just like the cheapest way to do a transaction prior to blind signatures and hash collisions was with book-entry transactions instead of paper bearer certificates. I suppose it *might* turn out that you really *can* do an instantaneously executing, clearing, and settling on-line realtime book-entry transaction, for everything from pico- to quadridollars, and it would be cheaper, both macroeconomically and microeconomically, than a digital bearer one, but I just don't think it's possible at all. And, of course, we wouldn't have coach fare to Cleveland without a bunch of "fanatics" out there, prattling away about slipping the surly bounds of earth, the joy of flight, and all that... ;-). Thank god for the "fanatics", I say, but let's make sure we pay attention to Bill Bradley's adage that it's bad luck to be behind at the end of the game. Whatever is cheapest while still remaining a functional bearer protocol wins, in other words. And, in my book, "functional" means "functionally anonymous". It's just cheaper that way. Having a plane that actually flies is way cheaper than one which just goes fast down the runway, or even one which scoots along nicely off the ground, but only in ground effect. Cheers, Bob Hettinga -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5 iQEVAwUBNk0f7cUCGwxmWcHhAQErBQgAhaFscqaknL0EMnsiKMWYgoHntw88JE2Z 11K8/oyoG/dX8eus5Wqnh05eVY8JWGQ9Fu3C2uXPZbZCa5wh7tjrmIcWOTDgx8kC Sz11IJJLdcWrdTPw7a1sf/WwhyG4f7NVlyVGNqMVuGrBjImsC5TtG2yU39DVME08 ZR3bVdn6egcCDpve+E7RQ0LYWDHxitxYV3RIaCG/wj9zp5JrMPTAvIgbT+J62T8s bYUNJyf7XQnkcT5275VLAzFYy+3KBRuyp9k6uIhBaBGKBNRUw/wBwTB8NoBMPcd8 AT3276SNz1oBA+Z/R0JPRBrRkAfio2o3DFIXoC5NY49ikpBuyOEQHg== =R0aY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.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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