April 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Crypto in Baghdad--Jaguar and Saddam's Bunker
by Morlock Elloi 09 Apr '03

09 Apr '03

> Don't believe the myth that sellers can crack everything they There are two fronts in the crypto war. One is the between professionals who don't really waste time reading popular press and associated crypto-propaganda. It's highly probable that even minor principalities and their dictators have sufficient access to the basic crypto expertize - and practical implements like PGP source code. For less than a $1000 one can put together quite secure pgpfone over POTS, radio or whatever. I don't think that anyone today reads anyone else's big secrets. What happens in the field, among ordinary mercenaries is another issue - small portable secure communicators are probably more common in us forces than among taliban. Another front is more interesting, it's the current strategy against crypto for the masses. The strategy is a very good one and it works better than anything before: the crypto is simply not mentioned at all. In my own experience, more lay people were aware of crypto issues in mid-90ties than today. By forcing it below the radar of pop interest, the crypto was dealt the strongest blow so far. The discrepancy between perils of data harvesting and awareness of it is rising. This falls. I guess, in the Big Lie axiom: the bigger the lie, the more will believe it. ===== end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com

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Throw Sadam off the train
by Tyler Durden 09 Apr '03

09 Apr '03

Well, of course CNN is showing all of the Iraqis pulling down the Saddam Hussein statues. What they SHOULD do is take the real Saddam (or one of his clones) and throw him to the Kurds. CNN could show the Kurds tearing Saddam to shreds like a pack of Wolves. A very fitting ending to the turd as well as Grade-A primo agit-prop for the masses. -TD _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

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RE: 'Peking' vs 'Beijing'
by Tyler Durden 09 Apr '03

09 Apr '03

Well, it should be pointed out that learning to read Chinese is not so unlike learning to read phonetic languages as one might think. Remember first of all that Chinese does not have "2,000 letters". Each of the characters is a word, or in some cases two or three characters form a word. Each character is also made up after an assembly of "radicals", or basic building blocks (actually, only one of the sub-characters is referred to as 'the' radical, and that's how they look up a character in a Chinese dictionary). And remember that when learning to read, being able to pronounce the word based on its letters does little for you (when you're small) unless you know the meaning of that word. So young Enlglish readers have to learn word-by-word just like young Chinese readers. The english readers get some help by being able to sound out the word, but the Chinese reader can possibly pick out the radical and get something of a hint. That said, it IS harder learning to read and write in Chinese, and this is why Beijing has indicated its desire to put away the characters one day. (But that will never happen.) The reading ramp-up curves occur fairly similarly in east and west, from what I've been able to tell, but the western curve seems to move towards an asymptote in HS while Chinese seems to remain linear up through part of college. -TD >From: "Trei, Peter" <ptrei(a)rsasecurity.com> >To: Steve Furlong <sfurlong(a)acmenet.net>, "'Jim Dixon'" <jdd(a)dixons.org> >CC: cypherpunks(a)minder.net >Subject: RE: 'Peking' vs 'Beijing' >Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 13:52:50 -0400 > > > Jim Dixon[SMTP:jdd@dixons.org] > > > > > > On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Steve Furlong wrote: > > > > > The cost of this cross-language literacy is years in school spent > > > memorizing a few thousand characters to develop basic literacy. > > > Oriental schools typically emphasize memorize-drill-repeat, with > > > individuality and inventiveness discouraged. Surely a part of that > > > emphasis comes from the needs of learning their atrocious written > > > language. The cost is too high. > > > > I don't think that anyone who has learned to read and write one of the > > languages based on Chinese characters would agree that they are > > "atrocious". If your native language is written using a western >alphabet, > > characters are hard to learn. But once learned, they are conveniently > > concise. > > >What I'd be curious to know is at what age an average person's reading >ability catches up with their speaking ability, in the different systems. > >In English, children are usually equally fluent in the written and spoken >forms by the age of 8, and often earlier. At that point, they've >essentially > >mastered written language, and further progess depends mainly on the >rate with which they acquire spoken volcabulary, grammar, and context. >(The main drag is English's highly irregular spelling, which effects >writing ability much more than reading. More regular languages such as >Italian do not have this problem - there are no spelling bees in Italy as >they would be pointless.) > >By the time an average American child is 9, they can read and >the newspaper without any difficulty. Can an average >Chinese or Japanese child do this? > >While I wouldn't use the word 'atrocious', I think a case can be made >that the fewer years required to master literacy, the more time >available for other learning. > >I'm told the Korean Hangul is even better than Western alphabetic >systems - only 24 characters are in use, and it's not unusual for >children of 2 or 3 to read and write. > >See: >http://www.sigmainstitute.com/koreanonline/hangul_history.shtml > >Peter Trei _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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Re: Crypto in Baghdad--Jaguar and Saddam's Bunker
by R. A. Hettinga 09 Apr '03

09 Apr '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 When the strike first happened, my brother, who has cable, heard this Jaguar stuff on Fox, called me up about it. I told him then that lots of so-called "encrypted" telephony, like GSM, had big gaping holes, that something older than that probably didn't have a sufficient keysize to survive Moore's Law, and that they probably didn't *need* a back door. Also, I told him that just listening for enough undecipherable telephone traffic would give you sufficient impetus for a kinetic denial of service attack, and that that's what probably happened. Nothing I've heard since, here or elsewhere, dissuades me of any of the above. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0 - not licensed for commercial use: www.pgp.com iQA/AwUBPpRrVcPxH8jf3ohaEQJ/zwCcDx4V3gdkEdm+uVO5Hb4GG0ud5NUAn2AL guk1CcEBdEXcCfDTG+ex7+/P =//Ud -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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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Re: 'Peking' vs 'Beijing'
by Tyler Durden 09 Apr '03

09 Apr '03

Bill Frantz wrote... "the third Ming emperor, however, restored it as the Imperial seat of the dynasty and gave it a new name, Peking (Northern Capital)." Well, this simplifies things, as it should for an Encyclopedia entry, but it doesn't explain the "Peking" 'transliteration'. As I said before, there is no sound "king" in Mandarin. And indeed, "jing" means capital in Mandarin. So what this paragraph refers to as "Peking" was always pronounced by Chinese as "Beijing" to each other. The British, however, introduced the pronunciation "Peking" for some reason. (I may have the history in one of my books which I'll peruse tonight.) (For the knowledgeable, it might be argued that the pronunciation 'Peking' has Manchurian roots, because the Mings were Manchus. But this is not the case. For one, by the 20th century, the Beijing Court had completely forgotton how to speak Manchu (only a few dozen people still speak it today). For two, Manchu is not a Chinese dialect, but derived by one of the trans-siberian groups. So it would not share the "Bei" sound indicating "northern".) -TD >From: Bill Frantz <frantz(a)pwpconsult.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com >Subject: Re: 'Peking' vs 'Beijing' >Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 10:46:59 -0700 > >From the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1974 edition): > >"More than 2,000 years ago, a site near present-day Peking was already an >important military and trading centre for the northeastern frontier of >China. Not until the Mongol dynasty (AD 1279 to 1368) was a successor city >-- called Ta-tu -- to become the administrative capital of China. During >the reign of the first emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644), Nanking >became the capital, and the old Mongol capital was renamed Pei-p'ing (Peace >in the North); the third Ming emperor, however, restored it as the Imperial >seat of the dynasty and gave it a new name, Peking (Northern Capital). It >remained the capital until the 20th century, when, after the successful >campaign of the Chinese Nationalist troops against warlords in Peking in >1927, Nanking was selected as the national capital, and Peking once again >resumed its old name -- Pei-p'ing -- a name still used b the Nationalist >government in Taiwan." > >Cheers - Bill > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Bill Frantz | Due process for all | Periwinkle -- Consulting >(408)356-8506 | used to be the | 16345 Englewood Ave. >frantz(a)pwpconsult.com | American way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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Logging of Web Usage
by John Young 05 Apr '03

05 Apr '03

Ben, Would you care to comment for publication on web logging described in these two files: http://cryptome.org/no-logs.htm http://cryptome.org/usage-logs.htm Cryptome invites comments from others who know the capabilities of servers to log or not, and other means for protecting user privacy by users themselves rather than by reliance upon privacy policies of site operators and government regulation. This relates to the data retention debate and current initiatives of law enforcement to subpoena, surveil, steal and manipulate log data. Thanks, John --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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Banned Citibank PIN Cracking Documents
by John Young 03 Apr '03

03 Apr '03

We offer some 27 documents on Citibank PIN cracking banned by the British High Court on 20 February 2003: http://cryptome.org/citi-ban.htm Included are the gagging order, affidavits of defendant cryptographers and affidavits of Citibank officials and security personnel. See related message by Ross Anderson, a defendant: http://cryptome.org/pacc.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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RE: Run a remailer, go to jail?
by Trei, Peter 01 Apr '03

01 Apr '03

Derek, etal If you (or anyone) goes, I'm sure we'd all appreciate some notes on what transpired. I understand 17 different bills are being considered at this hearing, so don't blink or you may miss it. Peter Trei > ---------- > From: Derek Atkins[SMTP:derek@ihtfp.com] > > > Dave Emery <die(a)die.com> writes: > > > For those on this list in the Boston area there is a hearing > > scheduled on the Mass Bill at 10 Am in Room 222 of the Mass State House > > in Boston. > > 10am on what date? > > -derek > > -- > Derek Atkins > Computer and Internet Security Consultant > derek(a)ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > The Cryptography Mailing List > Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to > majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com > --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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Re: Run a remailer, go to jail?
by Dave Emery 01 Apr '03

01 Apr '03

On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 01:10:56PM -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > > http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000336.html > > Quoting: > > Here is one example of the far-reaching harmful effects of > these bills. Both bills would flatly ban the possession, sale, > or use of technologies that "conceal from a communication > service provider ... the existence or place of origin or > destination of any communication". > > -- > Perry E. Metzger perry(a)piermont.com For those on this list in the Boston area there is a hearing scheduled on the Mass Bill at 10 Am in Room 222 of the Mass State House in Boston. It was introduced in Mass by a Rep Stephen Tobin of Boston and listed on the state website as "legislation to establish a crime of illegal internet and broadband access" -- Dave Emery N1PRE, die(a)die.com DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass 02493 PGP fingerprint 1024D/8074C7AB 094B E58B 4F74 00C2 D8A6 B987 FB7D F8BA 8074 C7AB --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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[sfs-dev] ANNOUNCE: Patriot S/WAN 1.0 Released!
by R. A. Hettinga 01 Apr '03

01 Apr '03

--- begin forwarded text

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