July 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: GPS blackbox tracking
by Trei, Peter 29 Jul '03

29 Jul '03

> Harmon Seaver[SMTP:hseaver@cybershamanix.com] wrote: > > Before this, AFAIK, we only had to worry about getting a GPS > transmitting > device planted on our vehicles, which would be bulky enough to spot fairly > easily by anyone checking out the cars underside, etc. Here's one that > doesn't > transmit, just records where you go, and that info can be retrieved later > ala > bluetooth from 30 feet away. > > http://www.blackboxgps.com > > Harmon Seaver > Of course, if you have one of the newer 'enhanced 911' cellphones, you've done their work for them. Peter

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GPS blackbox tracking
by Harmon Seaver 29 Jul '03

29 Jul '03

Before this, AFAIK, we only had to worry about getting a GPS transmitting device planted on our vehicles, which would be bulky enough to spot fairly easily by anyone checking out the cars underside, etc. Here's one that doesn't transmit, just records where you go, and that info can be retrieved later ala bluetooth from 30 feet away. http://www.blackboxgps.com -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com

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Random numbers hit and miss: Maths pinpoints cause for faulty computer simulations. (fwd)
by Jim Choate 29 Jul '03

29 Jul '03

http://www.nature.com/nsu/030728/030728-1.html -- ____________________________________________________________________ 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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[eff-austin] Nonprofit Hackers Who Broke Windows (fwd)
by Jim Choate 29 Jul '03

29 Jul '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 04:46:34 +0000 Subject: [eff-austin] Nonprofit Hackers Who Broke Windows The Hackers Who Broke Windows By SecurityFocus Posted: 25/07/2003 at 07:48 GMT The Last Stage of Delirium, the hacking group that laid open nearly every version of the Windows operating system last week, could use a little sleep, writes Deborah Radcliff of SecurityFocus. Since going public with the RPC buffer overflow bug that some are describing as the worst Windows security hole in history, the group has been caught in a media frenzy. The hubbub has been just as bad as when, in April, 2001, LSD broke Argus Systems' PitBull security software in a contest for $50,000 in cash. (After the media glare faded, the team was stiffed for $43,000 of the prize money.) Then, as now, the work and its media aftermath kept them up at night when they'd rather be home with their families, said Tomasz Ostwald, one of the four founders of LSD, during a phone interview at 9:00 at night, Poland time. "This has been going on for three weeks. We had to work all weekend, even Sunday," he said with his thick Polish accent. "We're still taking at least two media calls a day." Delirium was dreamed up in 1996 by four security engineers who'd just graduated the master's of computer science program at Poznan University of Technology in Western Poland. Now all between the age of 27 and 28, they manage the security infrastructure for an academic and scientific supercomputing center in the university town of Poznan, where they all live. They also do security engineering consulting and penetration testing for other clients. By night, they crack software. Their day jobs are not to be confused with the work they do with LSD, says Ostwald. And even though they liken themselves to other hacking groups such as the Cult of the Dead Cow, don't call the LSD members hackers: They'd like you to call them security engineers instead. But in the truest sense, these engineers are indeed hackers. What's different between their non-profit group and a number of earlier code cracking groups is the way they conduct themselves. Along with their technical skills, these researchers possess unusual business and media savvy, say their peers. "The LSD team always seems to find problems in critical core technologies," says Chris Wysopal, director of research and development for @stake, Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., which also does vulnerability testing on software applications. "They handle themselves professionally with the technology community and are able to span the cultural and language barriers between Poland and the U.S." The LSD's research is also impeccable (for example, a 50-page paper that exposed implementation vulnerabilities of Java) -- far better than anything produced by the l0pht, the hacking group that grew up to become @stake, Wysopal adds. Exploit Controversy But LSD hasn't completely escaped criticism. In March, the group put itself at the center of a controversy when it released exploit code for a Sendmail vulnerability discovered by Internet Security Systems. "As a security vendor, we don't think it's good business to post exploit code because it enables bad guys to break into systems," says Chris Rouland, vice president of ISS's X-Force team in Atlanta. Ostwald says the group decided to release the Sendmail exploit code because ISS was overstating the threat posed by the bug. "When a threat is overestimated, it makes it hard to perform appropriate risk management. So we put the exploit code out for testing and proved that the threat was not as serious as the vendors claimed," Ostwald says. Off the record, at least one security company now criticizes LSD for not posting exploit code for the Windows RPC bug. "How do you prove the bug without the code?" the source said. But because the bug affects so many of the Windows operating systems, releasing the exploit code would not have given IT managers enough time to patch, counters Ostwald. Wysopal agrees. "If [they] released the code to the Windows buffer overflow attack too soon, we'd have another SQL Slammer on our hands," says Wysopal. Besides, people are already developing the exploit code anyway, says Tim Mullen, CIO of AnchorIS.Com, and a SecurityFocus columnist. And Rouland says ISS had developed exploit code four hours after news of the bug was released to the public. When they're not trapped between the proverbial rock and hard place of releasing or not releasing exploit code, LSD members are generally praised -- even by ISS -- for the way they conduct themselves professionally. The group now enjoys even-handed relationships with vendors. That wasn't always the case, says Ostwald. "In the past two years, we've observed improvements in the way software and anti-virus vendors respond to our findings." Delirium contacted Microsoft's security response center through its Secure(a)Microsoft.com address on June 27, says Stephen Toulouse, security program manager for Microsoft's response center. "From our standpoint, the entire process with them [LSD] was completely professional. And we appreciate them not posting the exploit code to give our customers a fair chance to install the patch," Toulouse says. If there's one niggling problem with the group's image, it's their name. Ostwald says he can't remember how they came up with "The Last Stage of Delirium." "But lately," he says. "We've been thinking we should change it." http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/31957.html _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail

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Shot in the Dark
by R. A. Hettinga 28 Jul '03

28 Jul '03

We talked about this stuff here several years ago. Now, like everything else, Moore's "law" and wirelessness have had their effects on things... Cheers, RAH ------- <http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/print_version/prototype0703.asp> Wireless sensors listen for gunfire. (Photo courtesy of Proxity Digital Networks) Shot in the Dark If a gun goes off in an abandoned junkyard, does anyone hear it? The police do, at least in the handful of U.S. cities equipped with gunshot detection sensors, which listen for weapons' acoustical signatures and clock the arrival of sound waves to triangulate their origin. But these sensors must be plugged into telephone lines, meaning they can't be installed in out-of-the-way places, and a separate detector is needed every 300 to 400 meters to produce accurate results. Now New Orleans, LA-based Proxity Digital Networks is testing battery-powered detectors that can be clamped onto trees and poles and that communicate wirelessly with communications towers up to five kilometers away. The Tulsa County, OK, sheriff's department is testing the system, which transmits information on the location of gunfire to officers on patrol. It can even identify specific types of weapons, which helps police "dispatch a more effective response team specific to the situation," says Tulsa County ! sheriff Stanley Glanz. -- ----------------- 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: Dead Body Theatre
by Tyler Durden 28 Jul '03

28 Jul '03

Tim May wrote... "Of course, when this happens all those employed in these "sweatshops" in Bangladesh, Malaysia, etc. will be unemployed. What, do people think shutting down the garment factories means the workers will get jobs at Intel and Microsoft? Or that somehow their wages will be increased to economically-unsupported levels for their country/ Duh. I'll chortle as yuppies and GenXers may more for inferior clothing while millions in Bangladesh and Malaysia starve to death over this "save the poor people!" scam." No doubt if this movement gets big enough to basically become a religion (like everything in the US) then this will start to happen. But fixing the conditions at 3rd world sweatshops will have very little impact to the cost of those goods. What's being discussed are things like ensuring that toxic gasses are not being spewed into the workplace (China), or moving workers towards a living wage (Haiti), or workers actually getting paid for the agreed upon wages (New York City). Right now the issue of 3rd world sweatshops has very little to do with economics per se. The unfortunate thing, however, may be that international Marxist groups will make addressing these issues a priority (at least in terms of their rhetoric). And even though the Marxists will in the long run probably make conditions even worse, the failure to address these issues now may empower Marxists throughout certain parts of the world. Hell...if I found a local factory was regularly grinding up children in the machinery, I'd probably go and take up arms with them (or pay to have weapons drop-shipped to them). Of course, I'm thinking Sr Donald and other knee-jerkers will equate that with being a Marxist. But I do believe it is encumbant upon us capital-ists to address these issues before the system as a whole gets tossed out, at least for a while. -TD >From: Tim May <timcmay(a)got.net> >To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com >Subject: Re: Dead Body Theatre >Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 14:22:11 -0700 > >On Sunday, July 27, 2003, at 11:20 AM, James A. Donald wrote: >>This is the same moron marxism as expressed in the word >>"sweatshop": To a naive and ignorant socialist it seems that if >>each man selfishly pursues his own desire, the result will >>necessarily be chaos and hardship, that one person's plan will >>naturally harm those that are not part of it, hence such >>phrases and concepts as "sweatshop" which presuppose that one >>man producing a plan to create value and another man providing >>equipment to implement that plan, has somehow magically made >>the workers in a poor country worse off, that saving, >>investment and entrepeneurship is unproductive, that >>investment, particularly investment by rich people creating the >>means of production in poor countries, is a plot to swindle the >>poor, a scam, a transfer from poor to rich. >>\ > >The move to "boycott stores selling sweatshop products" is gathering steam, >so to speak. Stores like The Gap, Old Navy, Target, etc. are making plans >to stop buying from so-called sweatshops. > >Of course, when this happens all those employed in these "sweatshops" in >Bangladesh, Malaysia, etc. will be unemployed. What, do people think >shutting down the garment factories means the workers will get jobs at >Intel and Microsoft? Or that somehow their wages will be increased to >economically-unsupported levels for their country/ > >Duh. I'll chortle as yuppies and GenXers may more for inferior clothing >while millions in Bangladesh and Malaysia starve to death over this "save >the poor people!" scam. > >As for the standard of living issue, I _do_ think the standard of living >has declined over the past 40 years, aside from some availability of high >tech products and medical care. Most of my employed friends are working >half again as many hours as my father worked, are spending twice as much >time sitting in traffic, and are living in smaller houses than my parents >and my family lived in. And they are paying several times the tax burden. >If the wife works, which was rare in the 1950s and into the early 60s, and >they have children, then they may be paying a further substantial hit on >childcare and nannies. > >I would not want interference to stop free transaction in jobs, but it's >disingenuous to ignore the fact that many today are working two jobs, or >very, very long hours, to maintain a house that is generally smaller than >in years past. > >(Yeah, there are are a lot of McMansions. But many engineers in their 30s >are still living in crappy apartments. And working 50-hour weeks, at >minimum, with hours per day spent sitting in traffic. And on call with >cellphones and laptops. And taking work home. And checking their e-mail >every night and weekend. And paying 50% or more of what they make in >federal income taxes, state income taxes, passed-on property taxes, sales >taxes, energy taxes, highway taxes, and Socialist Security taxes. And what >they earn in investments, after paying taxes on income, is taxed a second >time, even if the alleged investment gains are mostly due to monetary >devaluation.) > >You often let your intense hatred of Marxism blind you to the very horrific >situation we now face. > >--Tim May _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail

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Re: Dead Body Theatre
by Tim May 28 Jul '03

28 Jul '03

On Sunday, July 27, 2003, at 04:18 PM, James A. Donald wrote: > -- > On 27 Jul 2003 at 14:22, Tim May wrote: >> As for the standard of living issue, I _do_ think the >> standard of living has declined over the past 40 years, aside >> from some availability of high tech products and medical >> care. Most of my employed friends are working half again as >> many hours as my father worked, are spending twice as much >> time sitting in traffic, and are living in smaller houses >> than my parents and my family lived in. And they are paying >> several times the tax burden. If the wife works, which was >> rare in the 1950s and into the early 60s, and they have >> children, then they may be paying a further substantial hit >> on childcare and nannies. > > When Palo Alto was developed, it was for the most part where > the poor people lived, while the rich people in San Francisco > could no longer afford their parents houses. This is so untrue as to be ridiculously silly. I don't know for certain which decades you are referring to as "when Palo Alto was developed," as it was developed from the decades when Stanford was being established, then when Varian and H-P were being established, then when Lockheed and Fairchild were going strong, then when the chip companies of the 60s and 70s were operating, and so on. However, since Palo Alto was essentially "built out" by the late 1960s, when the last of the Eichlers (*) were finished, I'll address several of these periods: (Eichlers are a style of house laid on a slab, with relatively little insulation, lots of glass, etc. These typically sold for about $20K during most of the late 50s, early to mid 60s.) * during the build up of "Professorville" and the other professional-oriented parts of PA, the houses were built by well-paid (for the time) professors. Numerous mansions along University Ave., for example. With lesser houses near Colorado, California, Embarcadero, etc. Even at this time relatively few of the residents were "unable to afford San Francisco." * during the post-WWII employment by Varian, H-P, Fairchild, and others, a typical engineer made about $12K per year (varied over the years, of course) and the houses cost about $20K. Taxes were a very small fraction, maybe $1.5K per year, total, including federal, state, local, sales, energy, road, etc. * when I moved to the area in 1974, salaries were about $15K, averaged over educational status, and houses were about $30K. Taxes were dramatically higher, even for lowly-paid starting engineers. The welfare state was in full swing, with more and more people ("of color") simply not working at all, or claiming disability, or hacking the system to extract more handouts for having more children, etc. Interestingly, at this time, in 1974, San Francisco was a much less expensive place to live in than Palo Alto or Los Altos or even Sunnyvale were. While there were probably some engineers living in Palo Alto whose parents lived in Pacific Heights (a wealthy area of SF) and who thus could not afford to live as there parents had, I saw maybe only one of these folks during my years at Intel. Palo Alto, even though built out, was like a lot of towns that had been built out. > > There is an appalling housing crisis here in Silicon valley, > caused by the fact that most of the land is off limits to > development. This is simply not so. Most of the steep hillsides in watershed areas are not developed, but this is common in many cities, in many countries. And the "housing crisis" is roughly comparable in many places I have lived in or spent time or visited. Examples include Portland the areas west of it (plenty of land, but very similar problems), San Antonio, Albuquerque, Northern Virginia, most of southern Florida, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, and nearly all of LA. And from reading news reports and talking to friends, things are much the same in many other parts of the country. In almost no place even remotely near a large city or suburban area can one buy a house for about 1.5 times a typical local salary for an engineer or comparable college graduate. A more important problem than "all the land is off limits" is "every worker costs a lot" plus "every permit costs a lot." This is largely due to massive taxation at nearly every level. --Tim May

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Cypherpunks List Info
by cpunk＠lne.com 27 Jul '03

27 Jul '03

Cypherpunks Mailing List Information Last updated: Sep 12, 2002 This message is also available at http://www.lne.com/cpunk Instructions on unsubscribing from the list can be found below. 0. Introduction The Cypherpunks mailing list is a mailing list for discussing cryptography and its effect on society. It is not a moderated list (but see exceptions below) and the list operators are not responsible for the list content. Cypherpunks is a distributed mailing list. A subscriber can subscribe to one node of the list and thereby participate on the full list. Each node (called a "Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer", although they are not related to anonymous remailers) exchanges messages with the other nodes in addition to sending messages to its subscribers. A message posted to one node will be received by the list subscribers on the other nodes, and vice-versa. 1. 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Re: A 'Funky A.T.M.' Lets You Pay for Purchases Made Online
by Steve Schear 27 Jul '03

27 Jul '03

At 00:46 2003-07-25 -0700, Tim May wrote: >On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 07:12 PM, Steve Furlong wrote: > >>On Thursday 24 July 2003 15:50, Tim May wrote: >> >>>In fact, "digicash" strongly suggests David Chaum's "Digicash," >> >>That assumes the reader or listener has heard of Digicash, or of Chaum. >>Not an assumption I'd be comfortable making. > >Agreed, making the assumption that readers here have heard of Chaum or >understand the basic idea of blinded transactions (or dining >cryptographers, or oblivious transfer, or any of the other building >blocks) is no longer warranted. I expect many of the persyns of peircing >now spewing on the list are, like, thinking "that's, like, _so_ nineties." > >As for thinking very general readers or listeners, those not even on the >list, are capable of understanding Chaum or Digicash, that's a fool's >errand. The average nontechnical person knows nothing about how crypto >works, and attempting to explain a DC-Net or a blinded transfer is no more >useful to them than just telling them the currency is based on "magic beans." I've used the graphics and explanations that were in Digicash's Users Guide with non-technicals to great effect. They portrayed blinding using envelope, wax seal and wax token. The token was placed in the envelope and sent to the mint. The envelope represented the blinding function performed by the user's SW. The wax seal: the mint's digital signature pressed onto the envelope and "by pressure" into the enclosed coin which has not been seen by the mint. And the wax token, once removed from the envelope, the un-blinded coin. steve

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old encryption paper
by proclus＠gnu-darwin.org 27 Jul '03

27 Jul '03

What were you doing on 9/11? I was in the act of packaging our first build of GnuPG for the Distribution when the planes hit. It took me a couple of days to clear my head abit and write the GNU-Darwin encryption position paper. When a drumbeat for post-9/11 encryption bans started in the US Congress the very day after the attack, I wrote faster and got help from smart people on the "Free Dmitry" list and elsewhere. Any remarks about any of this? http://www.gnu-darwin.org/war.html IMHO, it is exactly this kind of commentary which scuttled an attack on free encryption software in the wake of the attack. Moreover, the monolith authentication schemes were also laid to rest or driven underground, despite the fact that certain profiteering vendor/stakeholders had inside access in Washington. It might have been a very different Internet today. Most of the commentary about the paper has been positive, except for some criticism of pursuing private keys with warrants. Gosh, I think my head was not as clear as I thought on that point, a fact that time and experience has fortunately remedied. ;-} Anyway, all comments welcome. Regards, proclus http://www.gnu-darwin.org/ -- Visit proclus realm! http://proclus.tripod.com/ -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GMU/S d+@ s: a+ C++++ UBOULI++++$ P+ L+++(++++) E--- W++ N- !o K- w--- !O M++@ V-- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP-- t+++(+) 5+++ X+ R tv-(--)@ b !DI D- G e++++ h--- r+++ y++++ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type APPLICATION/pgp-signature]

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