September 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

[p2p-hackers] Re: desiderata and open issues in ent (fwd from myers@maski.org)
by Eugen Leitl 30 Sep '03

30 Sep '03

----- Forwarded message from "Myers W. Carpenter" <myers(a)maski.org> -----

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[s-t] File sharing vs Bandwidth sharing (fwd from amerritt@spasticmutant.com)
by Eugen Leitl 30 Sep '03

30 Sep '03

----- Forwarded message from Spastic Mutant <amerritt(a)spasticmutant.com> -----

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Motorola Security Chips
by Tyler Durden 30 Sep '03

30 Sep '03

These seem to be actual chips. Anyone know of companies selling Crypto apps for Network processors? If so, which is deemed more secure by Cypherpunks...software apps on network processors or outboard chips? (Am I correct in assuming that a crypto app on a network processor is not any easier to view or examine that a crypto ASIC?) -TD Motorola Locks Down Chips -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT - message board) has become the latest vendor to integrate security into its microprocessors, continuing the trend of putting encryption acceleration on-chip. The company announced eight new varieties of its PowerQuicc processors today, grouped under the family names MPC885 and MPC8272. Four of the eight include security. Specifically, Motorola is enhancing some of its PowerQuicc chips with the encryption functions found in its S1 line of security co-processors, which the company introduced in 2000. (see Motorola Processors Integrate Security ). The idea is to speed up security processing. Encryption involves doing math with unusually large numbers, a task that can bog down a general-purpose processor. So, several companies, including Cavium Networks Inc., Corrent Corp., and Hifn Inc. (Nasdaq: HIFN - message board), have developed specialty hardware for the task. These chips are often called co-processors, as they're meant to sit alongside a microprocessor. Naturally, processor companies believe they can further speed things up -- and save OEMs a bit of money -- by merging the co-processors into their own chips. Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM - message board), Integrated Device Technology Inc. (IDT) (Nasdaq: IDTI - message board), and PMC-Sierra Inc. (Nasdaq: PMCS - message board) are adding security to their microprocessors; and Agere Systems Inc. (NYSE: AGR.A) and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC - message board) have done the same with some of their network processors (see Vendors Add Security to MIPS Chips and Intel Moves on Security ). PowerQuicc tends toward a lower-end market than those processors, however. The product line, consisting of a few dozen chips, spans applications from access modems to edge-network equipment. In addition to the usual speed and cost arguments, Motorola is hoping to gain an edge from its greater experience with ATM and Ethernet. "We can attack kind of the next-generation security processors," says Matthew Short, head of security applications for Motorola's networking and computing systems group. The integration trend doesn't necessarily mean the end of co-processors. Motorola and Broadcom plan to continue selling their co-processors. And Short notes that chips such as Corrent's will continue to serve high-end applications, where integration becomes too cumbersome. "Corrent's kind of a different beast. It's pretty high-end. We even recommend them to go with C-Port," he says, referring to Motorola's line of network processors. The new PowerQuicc chips are due to begin sampling next month, with volume production slated for the second quarter of 2004. Craig Matsumoto, Senior Editor, Light Reading _________________________________________________________________

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Wipe your Lamo notes now
by Major Variola (ret) 29 Sep '03

29 Sep '03

http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/187 The Subpoenas are Coming! By Mark Rasch Sep 29 2003 05:00AM PT Frequent readers of this space know that I am no apologist for hackers like Adrian Lamo, who, in the guise of protection, access others' computer systems without authorization, and then publicize these vulnerabilities. When Lamo did this to the New York Times, he violated two of my cardinal rules: Don't make enemies with people appointed for life by the President of the United States; and don't make enemies of people who buy their ink by the gallon. Now, in the scope of prosecuting Lamo, the FBI is doing the hacker one better by violating both of these precepts in one fell swoop. The Bureau recently sent letters to a handful of reporters who have written stories about the Lamo case -- whether or not they have actually interviewed Lamo. The letters warn them to expect subpoenas for all documents relating to the hacker, including, apparently, their own notes, e-mails, impressions, interviews with third parties, independent investigations, privileged conversations and communications, off the record statements, and expense and travel reports related to stories about Lamo. In short, everything. The notices make no mention of the protections of the First Amendment, Department of Justice regulations that restrict the authority to subpoena information from journalists, or the New York law that creates a "newsman's shield" against disclosure of certain confidential information by reporters. Instead, the FBI has threatened to put these reporters in jail unless they agree to preserve all of these records while they obtain a subpoena for them under provisions amended by the USA-PATRIOT Act. The FBI doesn't want the reporters talking to anyone, because that would supposedly harm the ongoing criminal investigation. The government also officiously informed the reporters that this is an "official criminal investigation" and asks that they not disclose the request to preserve documents, or the contents of the letter, to anyone -- presumably including their editors, directors, or lawyers -- under the implied threat of prosecution for obstruction of justice. That's why you're reading about the letters for the first time here. They do this despite the fact that, had they actually obtained and issued a subpoena for these documents, the federal criminal procedure rules would have prohibited the imposition of any obligation of secrecy unless the Justice Department obtained a "gag" order on the press -- a rare event indeed. All of this began the day after the Attorney General advised all United States Attorney's Offices to prosecute each and every criminal offense with the harshest possible penalties, instead of the previous policy of prosecuting cases with the penalties that most accurately reflect the seriousness of the offense. Thus, journalists be forewarned -- your government may be seeking to throw the book at you! Believe it or not, this isn't even the worst of it. Patriot Games The demand that journalists preserve their notes is being made under laws that require ISP's and other "providers of electronic communications services" to preserve, for example, e-mails stored on their service, pending a subpoena, under a statute modified by the USA-PATRIOT Act. The purpose of that law was to prevent the inadvertent destruction of ephemeral electronic records pending a subpoena. For example, you could tell an ISP that you were investigating a hacking case, and that they should preserve the audit logs while you ran to the local magistrate for a subpoena. It was never intended to apply to journalist's records. Similarly, the letters go on to inform the reporters that the FBI intends to get an order for production of records under the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act, a statute that applies only to ISPs. Citing that law, they insist that the journalist is mandated to preserve records for at least the next three months and possibly longer. This demand is all the more egregious in that it comes more than a year after the articles and interviews first appeared -- after any actual Internet logs would have been routinely deleted. [...] _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)

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Re: Motorola Security Chips
by Major Variola (ret) 29 Sep '03

29 Sep '03

At 03:58 PM 9/29/03 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote: >These seem to be actual chips. Anyone know of companies selling Crypto apps >for Network processors? What do you mean "crypto apps"? In some cases you can get support for the crypto hardware in a version of say VxWorks etc which makes it easier. Perhaps you can get as much as full IPSec since RTOS companies often sell IP stacks too. Particularly important when say your SOHO OEM customer doesn't have massive resources or expertise. "Buy our chips, we'll get WindRiver to give you price break, all you do is recompile with #define NUMPORTS set to the number of RJ-45s on the thing" Core or edge, baby? NPU is a marketroid term. What's called a "network processor" might range from an Intel IXP w/ hardware AES (and everything else including mbuf ops), that can do line-rate SONET, for a few hundred $; or an IDT 100 Mhz MIPS with a DES core and ethernet i/f glued on for $10 for your 10Mbps home router. All of them come with some kind of software and/or partnerships with software/OS vendors --hard to sell silicon without that. At least, drivers for common OS. The hardware vendor's problem is this: You have all these transistors to do something with. May as well add crypto to netstuff, just like graphics ops got added to gamestuff. Transistors are free and integrating functions might give you an edge over the competition for a while. When was the last time you shopped for a floating-point co-processor? Eventually innovation becomes a "checkbox" item. Eventually chips will come with cup-holders and power-mirrors. If so, which is deemed more secure by >Cypherpunks...software apps on network processors or outboard chips? (Am I >correct in assuming that a crypto app on a network processor is not any >easier to view or examine that a crypto ASIC?) You add hardware accelerators on chips with other functions to increase crypto-app *performance*. Rarely, you/NSA buy it because its immutable, so you avoid certain problems. (Problems mostly solved by integrated ROMs for your CPU.) Mostly you buy for performance. *Any* black box is less trustworthy than code you can read; however, have you read your OS or compiler recently? Before you claim that others have, Have you realized that trust isn't transitive yet? And are you sure your "generic" black-box CPU (that runs your ever-so-carefully hand-inspected code) hasn't any interesting tricks hidden inside? F00F! If you want complete transparency, use a soft CPU core on an FPGA so nothing (but the FPGA fabric) is opaque. As a paran^H^H^H^Hcypherpunk, you might design your system to use a few FPGAs (purchased from different vendors as anonymously as possible) identically configured and have them vote. Don't have them vote using Diebold machinery, though :-) >Motorola Locks Down Chips > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT - message board) has become the latest vendor to >integrate security into its microprocessors, continuing the trend of putting >encryption acceleration on-chip. ... >Naturally, processor companies believe they can further speed things up -- >and save OEMs a bit of money -- by merging the co-processors into their own >chips. Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM - message board), Integrated Device >Technology Inc. (IDT) (Nasdaq: IDTI - message board), and PMC-Sierra Inc. >(Nasdaq: PMCS - message board) are adding security to their microprocessors; >and Agere Systems Inc. (NYSE: AGR.A) and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC - message >board) have done the same with some of their network processors (see Vendors >Add Security to MIPS Chips and Intel Moves on Security ).

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David Stempler: TSA's Fake Passenger Advocate?
by Bill Scannell 29 Sep '03

29 Sep '03

At a press conference held on the 26th of September 2003, TSA chief James Loy needed someone to extol the virtues of the CAPPS II internal border control system. His choice: 'passenger advocate' David S. Stempler , head of the Air Travelers Association. Stempler obliged, saying that CAPPS II testing was a fine idea and that "(w)hatever's going to be done will have to be done in secret". If Stempler sounds like a boot-licking toady, it's because he probably is: his association appears to be little more than a front for the Cendant Corporation, whose Galileo subsidiary stands to gain a new profit center if CAPPS II is implemented. http://www.dontspyon.us/stempler.html 777 --- 777 777 --- 777 "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

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Re: [Politech] California elections official starts "verifiable voting" blog
by Sunder 29 Sep '03

29 Sep '03

Appropos voting: a very disturbing article is here: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=11811 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Who plans to steal the 2004 US elections? Some people have it figured out By Egan Orion: Monday 29 September 2003, 06:04 AFTER THE VOTING MESS in Florida during the 2000 elections, the US Congress passed the "Help America Vote Act". They should have more accurately entitled it the "Help Steal America's Vote Act" instead. However, at least one journalist has cottoned on to what's happening, and it is simply outrageous. We reprint by permission Chris Floyd's dynamite article at CounterPunch exposing these sordid facts. <SNIP> <<the original story is here: http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd09262003.html >> It's a shell game, with money, companies and corporate brands switching in a blur of buy-outs and bogus fronts. It's a sinkhole, where mobbed-up operators, paid-off public servants, crazed Christian fascists, CIA shadow-jobbers, war-pimping arms dealers--and presidential family members--lie down together in the slime. It's a hacker's dream, with pork-funded, half-finished, secretly-programmed computer systems installed without basic security standards by politically-partisan private firms, and protected by law from public scrutiny. It's how America, the "world's greatest democracy," casts its votes. And it's why George W. Bush will almost certainly be the next president of the United States--no matter what the people of the United States might want. <SNIP> ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :25Kliters anthrax, 38K liters botulinum toxin, 500 tons of /|\ \|/ :sarin, mustard and VX gas, mobile bio-weapons labs, nukular /\|/\ <--*-->:weapons.. Reasons for war on Iraq - GWB 2003-01-28 speech. \/|\/ /|\ :Found to date: 0. Cost of war: $800,000,000,000 USD. \|/ + v + : The look on Sadam's face - priceless! --------_sunder_(a)_sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------

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[mnet-devel] progress implementing emergent networks (fwd from zooko@zooko.com)
by Eugen Leitl 29 Sep '03

29 Sep '03

Is anyone monitoring the anonymous p2p scene? Care for a short summary of developments in the last half a year? ----- Forwarded message from Zooko <zooko(a)zooko.com> -----

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Cypherpunks List Info
by cpunk＠lne.com 28 Sep '03

28 Sep '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. Filtering The various CDRs follow different policies on filtering spam and to a lesser extent on modifying messages that go to/from their subscribers. Filtering is done, on nodes that do it, to reduce the huge amount of spam that the cypherpunks list is subjected to. There are three basic flavors of filtering CDRs: "raw", which send all messages to their subscribers. "cooked" CDRs try to eliminate the spam on that's on the regular list by automatically sending only messages that are from cypherpunks list subscribers (on any CDR) or people who are replying to list messages. Finally there are moderated lists, where a human moderator decides which messages from the raw list to pass on to subscribers. 2. Message Modification Message modification policy indicates what modifications, if any, beyond what is needed to operate the CDR are done (most CDRs add a tracking X-loop header on mail posted to their subscribers to prevent mail loops). Message modification usually happens on mail going in or out to each CDR's subscribers. CDRs should not modify mail that they pass from one CDR to the next, but some of them do, and others undo those modifications. 3. Privacy Privacy policy indicates if the list will allow anyone ("open"), or only list members, or no one ("private") , to retrieve the subscribers list. Note that if you post, being on a "private" list doesn't mean much, since your address is now out there. It's really only useful for keeping spammers from harvesting addresses from the list software. Digest mode indicates that the CDR supports digest mode, which is where the posts are batched up into a few large emails. Nodes that support only digest mode are noted. 4. Anonymous posting Cypherpunks encourages anonymous posting. 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Patriot act power grab in progress
by Major Variola (ret.) 28 Sep '03

28 Sep '03

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=68&u=/nyt/20030927/ts_nyt/ususes… --- M. Atta: An Army of One

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