May 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: whitehouse.gov taken over? Cheese-eating surrender monkeys.. .
by Trei, Peter 05 May '03

05 May '03

> Bill Stewart[SMTP:bill.stewart@pobox.com] > > > At 09:28 PM 05/03/2003 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: > >On Sat, 3 May 2003, Major Variola (ret) wrote: > > > At 07:15 PM 5/3/03 -0400, Adam Shostack wrote: > > > >Please register to participate. > > > >http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030430-26.html > > > Please tell me someone played a DNS game. > >Not at all: this is to be expected after the three minute hate... > > Oh, right, who's today's target? Are we still practicing hating Saddam, > or is it Bashar al-Assad this week, or the French? > > Tim and Peter have been discussing the origins of > "Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys" and the general hatred of the Frogs, > but I've got to disagree with Tim's assertion that it's been going on > for a long time. Sure, there's been some low-level dislike, > and Jay Leno's always made fun of their liking for Jerry Lewis, > and Parisians have a reputation for being as rude as New Yorkers, > but it seemed like there was such as rush of anti-French surrender jokes > and anti-French political commentary that it's more than just coincidence; > it seemed like the meme was being pushed hard and fast by somebody. > > Perhaps the meme was just sitting around from DeGaulle's time, > waiting to be triggered by France's lack of participation in US > Unilateralism > and unwillingness to join the COW coalition this time. > But it didn't seem that way. > American distaste for the French was not very strong till recently; but goes back a long way. The "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" line goes back to 1995, as I showed - even then it was uncontroversial. As long as I can remember, there has been a love-hate relationship. This is based on the notion, held by many French and some Americans, that France has a superior, more sophisticated culture than the US. Some Americans just accept this, others see vast pretentiousness. Examples: "An American in Paris" (1951) - uncritical acceptance. "Funny Face" (1957) - Young Audrey Hepburn accepts until Flostre's real intentions towards her become all too obvious. Mark Twain had a LOT to say about the French - check http://www.twainquotes.com/French.html For an interesting essay on the evolution of European attitudes towards the US, try: THE UNLOVED AMERICAN by SIMON SCHAMA Two centuries of alienating Europe. > http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030310fa_fact > Peter Trei

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delusional US quarantines, Denver bioattack, sim
by Major Variola (ret) 05 May '03

05 May '03

The unfolding situation precipitated a series of increasingly stringent containment measures. By the end of the first day, the Expert Committee issued a travel advisory restricting travel in 16 Denver Metro counties. But, one person noted, "the public was not [heeding] the voluntary travel advisory." Some people, in fact, were reported to be racing out of the state. As part of the travel advisory, persons were advised to stay home unless they were close contacts of diagnosed cases or were feeling sick, in which case they were directed to seek medical care. As one observer noted: "They told 1 million people to stay in their homes. How would we have enforced this?" When asked what would be possible if the situation actually required it, the police and National Guard responded to the Expert Committee that they would be unable to keep people at home. Another participant commented that by the end of the exercise, "people had been asked to stay in their homes for 72 hours...How were they were supposed to get food or medicine?" "With borders closed, how were we planning to feed 4 million people?...Many of the control measures ordered were delusional." http://www.hopkins-biodefense.org/pages/news/quarter2_2.html

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Congresscritters get SARS briefing
by Declan McCullagh 05 May '03

05 May '03

In preparation for the hearing beginning at 2:00 p.m. on May 7, 2003, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a Member Briefing on SARS at 1:30 p.m. in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building. Dr. David L. Heymann, Executive Director, Communicable Diseases, World Health Organization (WHO), will brief Members via videoconference hookup from Geneva, Switzerland. This even event will be open to the public and webcast live. For the latest information, please visit http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/markups/05072003Markup919.htm

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mil-style intrusion sensors in city parks
by Major Variola (ret) 05 May '03

05 May '03

'Smart Park' Is Keeping Watch Surveillance cameras, infrared sensors and other high-tech gadgets help monitor facilities. To civic planners in Glendale, Palmer Park has everything a recreation area needs kiddie swings, walking trails and infrared sensors concealed in the shrubbery. If someone scales the fence after the park closes at 10 p.m., more than a dozen electronic sentries whirl into action. One foot on the manicured lawn triggers the sprinklers, while the sensors set off alarms at the park rangers' headquarters. <snip> http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-parks5may05,1,2646721.story?coll=la… Of course, tripping the sensors without going inside the park would be entertaining...

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[eff-austin] [Fwd: [aclulegteam] Re: Biometrics ID bill hearing on Thursday] (fwd)
by Jim Choate 05 May '03

05 May '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 20:25:52 -0500 From: Adina Levin <alevin(a)alevin.com> To: Leaders <leaders(a)effaustin.org>, eff-austin(a)effaustin.org, shenson(a)austin.rr.com Subject: [eff-austin] [Fwd: [aclulegteam] Re: Biometrics ID bill hearing on Thursday] EFF team -- here's a copy of the ACLU fact sheet, and advice from the ACLU's Scott Henson. Call or visit committee members to oppose this experiment in unproven technology and privacy violation. Committee members' offices and phone numbers are listed below. "Worse, SB 945 would expand DPSs use of this information from drivers license authentification to any purpose requiring identity authentification. Other government agencies could do the same thing if they entered into interagency agreements with DPS." I'll submit this to Slashdot. Any other press attention would be useful. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [aclulegteam] Re: Biometrics ID bill hearing on Thursday Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 20:08:23 -0500 From: Scott Henson <shenson(a)austin.rr.com> To: <alevin(a)alevin.com> CC: <aclulegteam(a)yahoogroups.com> References: <3EB57F1E.5070106(a)alevin.com> Adina Any and all groups or individuals who are interested in opposing SB 945 requiring DPS to collect biometric information about every Texas driver should express their opposition not only at the hearing Thursday May 8 at 8 a.m., room E1.020, but if possible should also contact members before and after the hearing to express their opposition. Because we 'missed' opposing this bill in the Senate, we need to gin up as much public opposition to this thing as possible, ASAP. Any media work or other outside game stuff folks want to do is appropriate and would be appreciated. So call out the troops on this one to the extent you can. Find attached a fact sheet I'm turning into an ACLU action alert. Here's the committee members in Defense Affairs: Corte, Frank (R) - CHAIR 4N.06, 463-0646 Campbell, Scott (R) - VICE CHAIR E2.820, 463-0331 Berman, Leo (R) - CBO E2.908, 463-0584 Delisi, Dianne White (R) GW.16, 463-0630 Seaman, Gene (R) E2.406, 463-0672 Mabry, John (D) E2.416, 463-0135 Merritt, Tommy (R) E1.302, 463-0750 Moreno, Paul (D) 1W.09, 463-0638 Noriega, Rick (D) E2.718, 463-0732 Thanks, Scott ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adina Levin" <alevin(a)alevin.com> To: "Leaders" <leaders(a)effaustin.org>; <eff-austin(a)effaustin.org>; <shenson(a)austin.rr.com> Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2003 3:59 PM Subject: Biometrics ID bill hearing on Thursday > SB945 sponsored by Ogden is being heard in the Defense Affairs and > State-Federal Relations > <http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/db2www/tlo/committees/legislation.d2 w/report?LEG=78&SESS=R&CMTECODE=C305&CTYPE=House> > Committee on Thurday. > The bill enables the use of facial, thumb, fingerprints, and other > biometric identifiers for *a broad range of state purposes to > authenticate identity.* > > Several people on this list have professional experience with the > reliability issues with biometric ID. > > ** The legislators don't understand the technology. If you have relevant > information, please let legislators know. ** > > If you'd like to testify or communicate your expertise to the committee > members, please contact Scott Henson at ACLU-TX, shenson(a)austin.rr.com, > who will let you know who's most effective to talk to. > > Or fax a letter to committee members. > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Rent DVDs from home. Over 14,500 titles. Free Shipping & No Late Fees. Try Netflix for FREE! http://us.click.yahoo.com/BVVfoB/hP.FAA/uetFAA/59cplB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: aclulegteam-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type APPLICATION/MSWORD which had a NAME of Oppose SB 945.doc]

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whitehouse.gov taken over?
by Major Variola (ret) 05 May '03

05 May '03

At 07:15 PM 5/3/03 -0400, Adam Shostack wrote: >Please register to participate. > >http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030430-26.html > Please tell me someone played a DNS game.

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Re: Crypto-making vs Crypto-breaking
by Anonymous 05 May '03

05 May '03

Eric Cordian writes: > Let's see. The mint picks a prime, p, a generator, g, and a random number > k, and publishes (p, g, g^k mod p). > > The mint then signs stuff by raising it to the k power mod p, and not > telling anyone what k is. > > We blind coins by picking a random b, and sending the coin times g^b to > the mint, and after the mint raises it to the k power and sends it back, > we can reverse engineer coin^k. A few years ago I discovered that this allows the bank to "mark" the cash. The bank can use a different exponent k' instead of the exponent k it is supposed to be using, on certain withdrawals. On every deposit, it checks the incoming coin using both k and k', and is able to quietly identify the marked withdrawals. In more detail: during withdrawal, the user submits y * g^b. The bank, to mark the cash, raises it to the k' power rather than the k power. The creates y^k' * g^bk'. The user unsuspectingly unblinds by calculating g^kb and dividing it, leaving y^k' * g^(b(k'-k)). This is what is later submitted to the bank, along with y. The bank, at this point, knows y, k, k', g, and the product above. It does not know b. It can calculate y^k' and divide to get g^(b(k'-k)). It can raise to the inverse power of (k'-k) to get g^b. Now it can multiply by y to get y * g^b. This is the same value which was submitted to be signed in the first place. By keeping a record of the values which were signed using the special k' exponent, the bank can look back and see which one this one is, thereby linking the deposit to the withdrawal, which is exactly what blinding is supposed to prevent. In order to avoid this, the bank can prove that it operated correctly (that is, it raised its input to the same k power that g is raised to in the public g^k value) using a zero-knowledge proof. I believe the latest version of the Lucre software does this. However, it's possible that the Lucre ZK proof is only honest-verifier zero knowledge. An honest-verifier ZK proof is one which is ZK only if the verifier follows the protocol; for example, when it is supposed to choose a random value, it in effect flips a coin. The point of a ZK proof is that a transcript is unconvincing to third parties, because the verifier would have been able to create a fake transcript. He could do so by, in effect, working backwards from chosen results to figure out what his coin flips would have had to be. However, if the verifier chooses his bits using a fixed sequence like a strong PRNG, then when he reveals the transcript, he can also show that his "random" bits were determined by his PRNG seed. This proves that he did not in fact have the flexibility to choose his bits by working backwards, and therefore the proof is convincing to a third party. In this case, the transcript of the "ZK proof" would in fact prove that the bank knew the k of g^k. The transcript is therefore a signature, and in conjunction with the coin, it is arguably a blind signature. Blind signatures are patented until July, 2005. Given that the whole point of this application of Wagner blinding was to avoid the Chaum blind signature patent; that that patent expires in two years; that the current licensee has shown no effort to enforce the patent; that Wagner blinding also risks falling under another patent, on Chaum's undeniable signature; and that the bank's operation even with Wagner blinding looks an awful lot like a blind signature; then why not just use Chaum's blinding? It would be enormously simpler, and safer too. It's far more widely analyzed and there are a number of improvements in the literature.

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Weekly Social, Project Planning, Open Forge - RIP
by Jim Choate 05 May '03

05 May '03

Asymmetric Clustering... Distributed Name Space... Global Sign-on... Guerrilla Networking... Open Source Technology... Do these words make your heart beat faster and your breath go shallow? If so then perhaps you should become involved with Hangar 18. We are a tit-for-tat group of computer hobbyist of a wide range of skills intent on building the next computing infra-structure using Open Source technology. We don't focus on any one form of technology but instead focus on real world applications in grid or large scale distributed computing. Time: May 8, 2003 Every Thursday, excluding national holidays 7:00 - 9:00 pm (or later) http://open-forge.org Location: Buffet Palace, N. Lamar @ I-35 @ Anderson. In the parking lot in front of Hobby Lobby. The location varies from week to week so be sure to check with an active Hangar 18 member (or join the mailing list!) for more information. Identification: We'll be the group with the Plan 9 OS box on the table...;) As some of you who come to the weekly meetings will be aware there has been a cash flow issue regarding the T1 and extending projects through the Open Forge domain. Well it finally came to a head after nearly 18 months of trying to find a way around the issue. Because of cash flow and an increasingly unstable work environment with respect to the other sponsors of the T1 feed it will be phased out over the summer. This does not mean any immediate changes for at least the next 4-6 weeks. It does mean we will lose the T1 and possibly the Phantoms's Mansion site. We will continue to operate the SSZ site and at the appropriate time the resources hosted through Open Forge will be migrated to SSZ. One of the first two things I need to do is up my bandwidth from the current ISDN to a SDSL (~384kb/s both ways v the current 128kb/s total). One nice thing about this transfer is my monthly net feed bill will go down by about $50. So I'm not complaining about that. It also means that I'll take over the operation of the DNS so we will once again have full support for alternate domain names (ie .ssz, .cpunks, etc.). The other aspect will be the tranfer of all the current services (eg mailing lists) over to SSZ. In the interim I'll be working to add new services (eg IRC) on the SSZ site since its clear no such work will happen on Open Forge. We will give at least a couple of weeks notice prior to the change so hopefully it won't take anyone by too big a surprise. Rob and I had been in the proces of upgrading the Open Forge Hangar 18 page. We will continue with that effort but will mirror all material on SSZ so that when Open Forge goes down the transition should be very smooth. This will -not- effect any services or projects other than the basic services on Open Forge. The OAON, 802.11a/b, 802.16, 900MHz repeater, Plan 9 Auth services & namespace, development services (Anyone using Cons currently?), Squeak VRML, etc. will -not- suffer as a result. Further, this will -not- effect the commercial Open Source technology development efforts planned via In Silica other than perhaps allowing us to move forward on some specific projects -earlier- than we had currently planned. -- ____________________________________________________________________ We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" ravage(a)ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.org www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Austin Cypherpunks - Montly Physical Meeting
by Jim Choate 05 May '03

05 May '03

Time: May 13, 2003 Second Tuesday of each month 7:00 - 9:00 pm (or later) Location: Central Market HEB Cafe 38th and N. Lamar Weather permitting we meet in the un-covered tables. If it's inclimate but not overly cold we meet in the outside covered section. Otherwise look for us inside the building proper. Identification: Look for the group with the "Applied Cryptography" book. It will have a red cover and is about 2 in. thick. Contact Info: http://einstein.ssz.com/cdr/index.html#austincpunks -- ____________________________________________________________________ We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" ravage(a)ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.org www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Today in DC...
by Declan McCullagh 05 May '03

05 May '03

BIOTECHNOLOGY National Academies Meeting of the Committee to Review Proposals from former Soviet Biological Weapons Scientists in the FSU, May 5-6. Highlights: 9 a.m. - Open session: briefings by Defense Department, State Department and Civilian Research and Development Foundation representatives Location: National Academies, 500 5th St., NW, Washington, D.C.. Contact: Sara Gray, 202-334-2923; e-mail, sgray(a)nas.edu POLITICS Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations News conference to release previously closed transcripts of executive sessions held by the subcommittee during the McCarthy era. Participants: Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairman, Governmental Affairs Committee; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Donald Ritchie, associate Senate historian Location: 325 Russell Senate Office Building. 9:30 a.m. Contact: Bonnie Heald, 202-224-6134 or Kathleen Long, 202-228-3685 **REVISED**

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