June 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

moderated cryptography list
by pmetzger＠lehman.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, all. I'm looking for a site willing to host a high-quality moderated cryptography mailing list which I am thinking of starting up. The list would be designed as a low volume, high readership, high quality source for 1) In-depth technical discussions of cryptography 2) Announcements of cryptographic products 3) Announcements of news items of interest to the cryptography community. 4) VERY limited numbers of postings on the social implications of cryptography, and I mean VERY limited. All postings would be explicitly approved by the moderator before going out to assure quality. Yes, that means fascistic restriction of your capacity for free speech, in exchange for not being overwhelmed with garbage every day. It is ultimately envisioned that should the list be a success I would try to move it to a moderated Usenet newsgroup. If you think that such a list is a Good Thing, and you can host it (which requires that you have a good internet connection and root access or similar on the machine in question), please let me know. I'll do all the work, and the crypto community will thank you tremendously. Perry Metzger

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Re: Anarchy Gone Awry (fwd)
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This post is a perfect example why the two lists should be kept seperate and not merged. This sounds to me like it belongs on alt.politics.data- highway. -uni- (dark)

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Re: CHAUM CHIMES IN
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: 08 Sep 93 16:30:55 EDT >From: Sandy <72114.1712(a)CompuServe.COM> >Subject: CHAUM CHIMES IN >Message-Id: <930908203054_72114.1712_FHF95-2(a)CompuServe.COM> ..From: > SANDY SANDFORT Reply to: ssandfort(a)attmail.com [ . . . ] >Of course, the next letter to the editor calls for the adoption >of systems to track every vehicle at all times. The genius who >wrote the letter, thinks it would be a good way to prevent >nuclear, biological or chemical terrorism. Geeeeez. It was signed by Dorothy Denning, right? Actually, they should take that to its full conclusion. We need implants in every individual, broadcasting to the local surveillance agency, giving not only location but also every word spoken in the vicinity. It could also do a chemical analysis of the air in the neighborhood. It should also have a radiation counter. It should also monitor the host body, looking for signs of anger or sexual arousal? How else will we be guaranteed safe from mad bombers, rapists and child molesters? How else will our big budget LE agencies be able to protect us? I know. When it's finally adopted, worldwide, they'll call it the Ellison Plan. :-( - Carl

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Stegno and DAT and digital music...
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In this week's Sunday NYT, Hans Fantel, their music guy, writes at length about the new "dithered" CD's and how the guys have improved the sound. He says that the original CD format was limited to 16 bits of sound because of costs. But many audiophiles reacted very negatively to the tinny, metalic quality to the music. For this reason, the companies have developed 20 bit DAT recording tape and then come up with ways to "dither" this into 16 bits. I am curious if anyone knows the details of these algorithms. Also, his point suggests that flipping the least significant bit of 16 bit music may not be imperceptable to some ears. If the classical music starts to sound tinny then there might be something subversive in the least significant bits. -Peter Wayner

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Remail: errors
by HFinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have been out of town for the last week, so I missed some CP mail. It looks like some good things are happening with remailers, though. Kudos to Karl, Sameer, and the others for their work! I have received many messages to my remailer in the last week which came from remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu, which were PGP-encrypted apparently in an effort to get my remailer to send them. They did not work, though, because there was no "Encrypted: PGP" header to trigger the remailer's decryption. This can be arranged by creating the message something like this: ======================================================== :: Request-Remailing-To: hfinney(a)shell.portal.com :: Encrypted: PGP - -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- <rest of message> - -----END PGP MESSAGE------ ======================================================== This would then be sent to remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu. I don't know whether the multiplicity of such erroneous messages is just due to one person stubbornly re-trying, or whether there is an error in one of the new programs for creating chained remailer messages. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBLJaNuKgTA69YIUw3AQHrNwQAowMEQwuH6YyHoj6T7AqZFLNdTf+eqJ9L LhAatHS94nmC1smkfVNq0dZmigmkvBdMNEPlBZemmxALz+KJw6OSY/ULSBmuVNEq 5rJANh3XimoJWqLISy2lZiuC5Fw2R7UvRadcdM94pncSVvev92Fyf7CqEOOtrGAK PUzRds7BVNo= =FpLa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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more than spread spectrum
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There are alternatives to spread spectrum, if we're threatened with loss of freedom to communicate. We could lay our own wires/fibers. We could set up a mesh network of infrared lasers through the air. Last time I looked, there were no laws against shining lights out your window as long as they didn't bother anyone. An infrared laser could hardly bother anyone. We could produce a line of cheap cards to plug into a PC which would do packet routing, using a variety of physical links -- our own wires, lasers, very low range radio, .... Each card would connect to three or more neighbors and become part of the global mesh. Adaptive routing with no global map would suffice for the card and would keep the whole system peer-to-peer with no need for central control and no chance for central tapping. Of course all of these solutions require a high density of users. A college campus might be the right place to start. We could then branch out to cities. I suspect that a place like Chicago or NYC with high rise apartments might be the place to start -- many options for line-of-sight communications. The benefit isn't just for Cypherpunks. It's a free network for the masses -- like the original USENET (with each user donating routing and store/forward) but with unrestricted, low-range, continuously operating physical links. I'll volunteer to do the software for the node card. Does anyone have hardware design/fab to donate to the effort? - Carl

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Is Hatch a Mormon or a crypto Satanist?
by Major Variola (ret) 02 Jul '03

02 Jul '03

At 07:36 PM 6/20/03 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote: >"Except Utah is not in the South by anybody's definition." > >Also as it happens I saw that WIERD Temple downtown there, and asked "Sister >Johnson" if she really believed God was a guy kicked back in a Laz-Z-Boy on >the planet Kolab. She could not tell me decisely that this was not the case. > >Is Hatch a Mormon? Surely you jest. Anyone in any office in Utah is a Mormon. And most of the profs at the universities there. Good luck trying to buy a beer, BTW. If they didn't own Utah, they would be firebombed faster than you can say Janet Reno. They only got to own Utah because they Judased their own religious beliefs (polygamy) to suck up to the rest of the (puritan-based) country. I have no beef with anyone practicing their mental illnesses privately, but when they use the violence of the State to coerce others, they need killing. --- Reminds me of when a sociologist was interviewing a southern farmer: Why do you think the murder rate is higher in the south? I guess more southerners need killin'. as told by Aaron Evans

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Re: Is Hatch a Mormon or a crypto Satanist?
by Tyler Durden 02 Jul '03

02 Jul '03

Variola wrote... "Surely you jest. Anyone in any office in Utah is a Mormon. And most of the profs at the universities there. Actually I was kind of joking. I was gently implying that anyone that adhered to a religion where God is a human being on the planet Kolab can't be super-bright. But then again, the CEO of Corvis is a Mormon and he's not an idiot, though he is by every account a megalomaniac and rather sociopathic. "Good luck trying to buy a beer, BTW." Actually on Thursday night I found a good little brewpub just a few blocks from that Temple (and that's their world HQ, BTW). There were a couple of others even closer, but they were hidden in a backalley like a speakeasy...kind of amusing. But the Mormons themselves (like SLC) are strangely banal...I was wondering where 'Landrew' was. Also, absolutely no caffeine, either. When they told me true Mormons would never knock back a good cappucino I told them that was simply too much for any good NYC boy to bare. -TD >From: "Major Variola (ret)" <mv(a)cdc.gov> >To: "cypherpunks(a)lne.com" <cypherpunks(a)lne.com> >Subject: Is Hatch a Mormon or a crypto Satanist? Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 >10:24:04 -0700 > >At 07:36 PM 6/20/03 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote: > >"Except Utah is not in the South by anybody's definition." > > > >Also as it happens I saw that WIERD Temple downtown there, and asked >"Sister > >Johnson" if she really believed God was a guy kicked back in a >Laz-Z-Boy on > >the planet Kolab. She could not tell me decisely that this was not the >case. > > > >Is Hatch a Mormon? > >Surely you jest. Anyone in any office in Utah is a Mormon. And most of >the profs >at the universities there. Good luck trying to buy a beer, BTW. > >If they didn't own Utah, they would be firebombed faster than you can >say Janet Reno. >They only got to own Utah because they Judased their own religious >beliefs (polygamy) >to suck up to the rest of the (puritan-based) country. > >I have no beef with anyone practicing their mental illnesses privately, >but when they >use the violence of the State to coerce others, they need killing. > >--- >Reminds me of when a sociologist was interviewing a southern farmer: >Why do you think the murder rate is higher in the south? >I guess more southerners need killin'. >as told by Aaron Evans _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

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Warchalking does not exist: a wager.
by jeremy hunsinger 30 Jun '03

30 Jun '03

Forwarded for a colleague: For background, Warchalking is the use of symbols (marked with chalk) to indicate the presence of a Wi-Fi hotspot. In pure form, the story of warchalking is that there is a subculture of Wi-Fi users that use chalk to communicate with each other about Wi-Fi locations. Hip/cool businesses then co-opted the subcultural warchalking to advertise their own hotspots. More at: http://www.warchalking.org/ My contention is that the first (subcultural) story about warchalking above is entirely a media phenomenon -- it is a beautiful idea, but it doesn't make any sense as a directory service to find Wi-Fi. It is too easy to miss a warchalk mark, and the chalk wears away (or washes away in the rain) too quickly. Warchalking symbols were heavily promoted in the New York Times just *48 hours* after they were first made public on the Web. There was a subsequent wave of media stories about warchalking, giving everyone ideas. Every single occurrence of chalk I've found can be attributed to chalkers who want to self-promote their own mark. So I believe that people *do* rarely make warchalking marks for various reasons (to be cool, to advertise for their own network) but I *don't* believe that people use warchalking marks in a meaningful way to find Wi-Fi. After the conversation with Steve, on December 18th I posted an call to many colleagues around the world asking for verifiable instances of warchalking that work the way that warchalking describes itself. Reports to date: zero. If warchalking worked as a directory location service, shouldn't I be able to find it? I just had a close call -- a friend told me that my office at Oxford had been warchalked. Since it is a WEP (non-open) node and I didn't do it, this could be half of a "true" instance of warchalking! I ran out as soon as I heard but couldn't find the mark. It must have washed away? (Here in England, it is raining.) So I am willing to propose a wager, or a bounty. I'll bet one dollar that warchalking is not a meaningful way of locating Wi-Fi hotspots. To win the bounty, can anyone deliver someone that uses warchalking to locate Wi-Fi hotspots? Caveats: (1) Warchalking done by the provider of the hotspot does not count -- it is supposedly a co-option of the "pure" subculture. I dispute the subculture, not the self-promotion. (2) I am not disputing that wardriving, warwalking, and online hotspot mapping (warchalking with bits in GIS databases, not with chalk) exist as advertised. (Though others have.) My beef here is only about the chalk part. I've made a web page for this bet that has the relevant emails I've sent and some links: http://www.niftyc.org/bet/ As you may have guessed I'm writing a paper about this. Email me if you want a copy when I finish. Thank you for any help! Christian -- http://www.niftyc.org/

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Re: Attacking networks using DHCP, DNS - probably kills DNSSEC
by Steven M. Bellovin 30 Jun '03

30 Jun '03

In message <iluof0gh7vy.fsf(a)latte.josefsson.org>, Simon Josefsson writes: > >Of course, everything fails if you ALSO get your DNSSEC root key from >the DHCP server, but in this case you shouldn't expect to be secure. >I wouldn't be surprised if some people suggest pushing the DNSSEC root >key via DHCP though, because alas, getting the right key into the >laptop in the first place is a difficult problem. > I can pretty much guarantee that the IETF will never standardize that, except possibly in conjunction with authenticated dhcp. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me) http://www.wilyhacker.com (2nd edition of "Firewalls" book)

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