September 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Yahoo! News - Panel to Close Pentagon Terror-Spy Office (fwd)
by Jim Choate 25 Sep '03

25 Sep '03

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=542&u=/ap/20030925/ap_on_go_ca_s… -- -- God exists because mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exist because we can't prove it. Andre Weil, in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles Adieu ravage(a)ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.com www.ssz.com www.open-forge.com

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Re: End of the line for Ireland's dotcom star
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 24 Sep '03

24 Sep '03

Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer <nobody(a)cypherpunks.to> writes: >Why is it that none of those 100-odd companies with keys in the browsers are >doing anything with them? Verisign has such a central role in the >infrastructure, but any one of those other companies could compete. Why isn't >anyone undercutting Verisign's prices? Look what happened with Thawte when it >adopted this strategy: Mark Shuttleworth got to visit Mir! Maybe that was a >one shot deal, but clearly these keys are not being utilized up to their >economic potential. > >Is there some behind the scenes coercion? Contractual limitations? Will >Microsoft pull the keys if someone tries to compete with Verisign? What's the >deal? No-one ever got fired for buying Verisign. Unfortunately in order to understand that buying your certs from anything but the cheapest CA present is a waste of money, you need a certain amount of understanding of how PKI (or at least certificate manufacturing, as currently practiced) works. Verisign have invested an enormous amount of time and money into communicating the message that it ain't secure if it doesn't say Verisign, and that's been very effective. I have, very occasionally, run into people who've told me how they managed to locate a CA that sold them their certs for $29.95/year instead of $495/year, but this is very much the exception to the rule. Peter. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com

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Re: Drunken US Troops Kill Rare Tiger
by Declan McCullagh 24 Sep '03

24 Sep '03

On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 11:23:47AM -0400, Sunder wrote: > And just how are you going to get the kongress-kritters to pass a bill > that would allow the public to push them and other poly-ticks out of > office if they don't perform? That's like asking them to pass a bill that > would limit them from getting raises, soft money, etc... Or restrict political spam. Fat chance. -Declan

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DC Security Geeks Talk: Analysis of an Electronic Voting System
by R. A. Hettinga 24 Sep '03

24 Sep '03

<http://www.cryptonomicon.net/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=463> Cryptonomicon.Net - DC Security Geeks Talk on September 24th Date: Wednesday, September 24 @ 08:10:00 EDT Topic: Events / Special Interest Groups Talk: Analysis of an Electronic Voting System Speaker: Tadayoshi Kohno (JHU and UCSD) Date: Wed, Sept. 24 @ 7:30PM Location: Virginia Tech Falls Church Campus Abstract: Recent election problems have sparked great interest in managing the election process through the use of electronic voting systems. While computer scientists, for the most part, have been warning of the perils of such action, vendors have forged ahead with their products, claiming increased security and reliability. Many municipalities have adopted electronic systems, and the number of deployed systems is rising. For these new computerized voting systems, neither source code nor the results of any third-party certification analyses have been available for the general population to study, because vendors claim that secrecy is a necessary requirement to keep their systems secure. Recently, however, the source code purporting to be the software for a voting system from a major manufacturer appeared on the Internet. This manufacturer's systems were used in Georgia's state-wide elections in 2002, and the company just announced that the state of Maryland awarded them an! order valued at up to $55.6 million to deliver touch screen voting systems. This unique opportunity for independent scientific analysis of voting system source code demonstrates the fallacy of the closed-source argument for such a critical system. Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We highlight several issues including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. For example, common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal. Furthermore, we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered without the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable. We conclude that, as a socie! ty, we must carefully consider the risks inherent in electronic voting, as it places our very democracy at risk. This was joint work with Adam Stubblefield, Avi Rubin, and Dan Wallach. Bio: Tadayoshi (Yoshi) Kohno is a doctoral student at the University of California at San Diego Cryptography and Security Laboratory. He is also affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute. Prior to entering graduate school, Yoshi worked as a cryptography and computer security consultant with Counterpane Systems (now Counterpane Internet Security) and with Cigital. This article comes from Cryptonomicon.Net http://www.cryptonomicon.net/ The URL for this story is: http://www.cryptonomicon.net//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=463 -- ----------------- 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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The Register - European Parliament castrates software patent regs (fwd)
by Jim Choate 24 Sep '03

24 Sep '03

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/33016.html -- -- God exists because mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exist because we can't prove it. Andre Weil, in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles Adieu ravage(a)ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.com www.ssz.com www.open-forge.com

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U.S. court blocks anti-telemarketing list - Sep. 24, 2003 (fwd)
by Jim Choate 24 Sep '03

24 Sep '03

http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/24/technology/ftc_donotcall/index.htm?cnn=yes -- -- God exists because mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exist because we can't prove it. Andre Weil, in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles Adieu ravage(a)ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.com www.ssz.com www.open-forge.com

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Re: Drunken US Troops Kill Rare Tiger
by Tyler Durden 24 Sep '03

24 Sep '03

Don't forget that in ancient greece the populace could vote any leader into exile. My brother believes we should be able to vote any publically elected official directly into jail, no questions asked. -TD >From: Sarad AV <jtrjtrjtr2001(a)yahoo.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com >Subject: Re: Drunken US Troops Kill Rare Tiger >Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 06:30:39 -0700 (PDT) > >hi, > >You may then need to pass a bill that gives you the >right to kick them out of office if they don't >fullfill atleast 50% of what they promised in a given >time frame. > > >Sarath. > > >--- John Kelsey <kelsey.j(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote: > > At 04:37 AM 9/22/03 -0700, you wrote: > > >hi, > > > > > >Vote for some one who promises freedom,democracy > > and > > >development. Is that so hard? > > > > They all *promise* that. > > > > >Sarath. > > > > --John Kelsey, kelsey.j(a)ix.netcom.com > > PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA > > F259 > > > > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software >http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com _________________________________________________________________ Frustrated with dial-up? Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com

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Re: Drunken US Troops Kill Rare Tiger
by Sarad AV 24 Sep '03

24 Sep '03

hi, You may then need to pass a bill that gives you the right to kick them out of office if they don't fullfill atleast 50% of what they promised in a given time frame. Sarath. --- John Kelsey <kelsey.j(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote: > At 04:37 AM 9/22/03 -0700, you wrote: > >hi, > > > >Vote for some one who promises freedom,democracy > and > >development. Is that so hard? > > They all *promise* that. > > >Sarath. > > --John Kelsey, kelsey.j(a)ix.netcom.com > PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA > F259 > > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

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Diebold takes down blackboxvoting.org (fwd)
by Jim Choate 24 Sep '03

24 Sep '03

Who said there were significant differences in corporations and governments...Oh yeah, CACL did....I guess they were wrong...again. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11743 -- -- God exists because mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exist because we can't prove it. Andre Weil, in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles Adieu ravage(a)ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.com www.ssz.com www.open-forge.com

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CNN.com - Report: U.S. youth fail civics basics - Sep. 23, 2003 (fwd)
by Jim Choate 24 Sep '03

24 Sep '03

http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/09/23/civics.education.ap/index.html -- -- God exists because mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exist because we can't prove it. Andre Weil, in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles Adieu ravage(a)ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.com www.ssz.com www.open-forge.com

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