August 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

moderated cryptography list
by pmetzger＠lehman.com 18 Dec '03

18 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 18 Dec '03

18 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 18 Dec '03

18 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 18 Dec '03

18 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 18 Dec '03

18 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 18 Dec '03

18 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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Needed a WiFi "FidoNet"
by Steve Schear 02 Sep '03

02 Sep '03

It would seems that the means may soon be at hand for using WiFi, or WiFi-like, equipment to create ad hoc, meshed, non-commercial networks. These, I believe would present particular difficulties for monitoring (law enforcement and otherwise) since routing and interconnections would be dynamic and there would be no ISP nor (potentially) any use of the Internet backbone. The DoD funded some research in the 80s and 90s (e.g., SRI's Packethop and MeshNetworks) which resulted in Metricom, Tetherless Access and Nokia's RoofTop's networks. Now some students at MIT have taken up the cause http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/print_version/wo_guizzo082903.asp. If a digital bearer cash system were to become available a means for pricing bandwidth and encouraging the establishment of such an infrastructure could well follow. steve "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -- Arthur C. Clarke

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[Full-Disclosure] JAP back doored
by error 02 Sep '03

02 Sep '03

This is a terrible day for privacy advocates that used the once (perhaps never true) "anonymous" Java Anonymous Proxy. According to a story ( http://theregister.co.uk/content/55/32450.html) by The Register (It was also posted to ("http://securityfocus.com/archive/1/334382/2003-08-18/2003-08-24/0) BugTraq) JAP was back doored by court order. It was a forced upgrade (after a service interruption) to monitor "one site" that continues to be unnamed. How sad it is when a group have a motto of "Anonymity is not a crime." and then hand logs to the police without a word? Clearly if they are able to defend themselves on alt.2600 (http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&frame=right&th=f4ef43 f695ca29e8&seekm=3f3d3740%241_1%40news.vic.com#link10), they aren't under a gag. Read it and weep. -- error <error(a)lostinthenoise.net> [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/RENAMED-99 which had a name of signature_asc.RENAMED-99]

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Re: "domestic terrorism", fat lazy amerikans & ducks
by R. A. Hettinga 02 Sep '03

02 Sep '03

At 10:25 AM -0400 8/26/03, Sunder wrote: >I'm "afraid" of the oil companies Ah. You're afraid of markets. That makes you a socialist. *You*'re a terrorist, Sunder. ;-) Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- 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: "Terror Reading"
by Steve Schear 02 Sep '03

02 Sep '03

At 10:48 AM 6/26/2002 -0400, Kathleen Dolan wrote: >>In many states, it is illegal to store records showing who borrowed a >>book from a public library. Maryland, for example, requires destruction of >>the record after a point and even backups cannot be accessed without a >>court order. >> >>KAD > >Say a public library implements a policy of replying positively to all >such inquiries, that is, if asked by a patron the db admin will tell them >when their account is free of such inquiries. If a request does come in >then the db admin can either: fail to respond (monitoring implied), tell >them they are being monitored (violating the law) or lie and say they are >not even if they are. So, can the Feds require a librarian to lie to a >customer who inquires whether their library usage is being monitored? Looks like at least one library is trying a variation the method I suggested... "The Patriot Act also prohibits libraries and others from notifying patrons and others that an investigation is ongoing. At least one library has tried a solution to "beat the system" by regularly informing the board of directors that there are no investigations. If the director does not notify the Board that there are no investigations, it can serve as a clue that something may be happening. " http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1706/1/41 steve A foolish Constitutional inconsistency is the hobgoblin of freedom, adored by judges and demagogue statesmen. - Steve Schear

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