November 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Why you keep losing to this idiot
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

This comes from an old joke. A grand master, in the middle of a chess match, jumps up onto the table, kicks off all the pieces, and screams, almost unintelligibly, "Why must I *lose*, to such *idiots*!!!". :-). Cheers, RAH ------- <http://slate.msn.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2109079> Simple but Effective Why you keep losing to this idiot. By William Saletan Updated Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2004, at 12:05 AM PT 12:01 a.m. PT: Sigh. I really didn't want to have to write this. George W. Bush is going to win re-election. Yeah, the lawyers will haggle about Ohio. But this time, Democrats don't have the popular vote on their side. Bush does. If you're a Bush supporter, this is no surprise. You love him, so why shouldn't everybody else? But if you're dissatisfied with Bush-or if, like me, you think he's been the worst president in memory-you have a lot of explaining to do. Why don't a majority of voters agree with us? How has Bush pulled it off? I think this is the answer: Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. Bush is a very simple man. You may think that makes him a bad president, as I do, but lots of people don't-and there are more of them than there are of us. If you don't believe me, take a look at those numbers on your TV screen. Think about the simplicity of everything Bush says and does. He gives the same speech every time. His sentences are short and clear. "Government must do a few things and do them well," he says. True to his word, he has spent his political capital on a few big ideas: tax cuts, terrorism, Iraq. Even his electoral strategy tonight was powerfully simple: Win Florida, win Ohio, and nothing else matters. All those lesser states-Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire-don't matter if Bush reels in the big ones. This is what so many people like about Bush's approach to terrorism. They forgive his marginal and not-so-marginal screw-ups, because they can see that fundamentally, he "gets it." They forgive his mismanagement of Iraq, because they see that his heart and will are in the right place. And while they may be unhappy about their economic circumstances, they don't hold that against him. What you and I see as unreflectiveness, they see as transparency. They trust him. Now look at your candidate, John Kerry. What quality has he most lacked? Not courage-he proved that in Vietnam. Not will-he proved that in Iowa. Not brains-he proved that in the debates. What Kerry lacked was simplicity. Bush had one message; Kerry had dozens. Bush had one issue; Kerry had scores. Bush ended his sentences when you expected him to say more; Kerry went on and on, adding one prepositional phrase after another, until nobody could remember what he was talking about. Now Bush has two big states that mean everything, and Kerry has a bunch of little ones that add up to nothing. If you're a Democrat, here's my advice. Do what the Republicans did in 1998. Get simple. Find a compelling salesman and get him ready to run for president in 2008. Put aside your quibbles about preparation, stature, expertise, nuance, and all that other hyper-sophisticated garbage that caused you to nominate Kerry. You already have legions of people with preparation, stature, expertise, and nuance ready to staff the executive branch of the federal government. You don't need one of them to be president. You just need somebody to win the White House and appoint them to his administration. And that will require all the simplicity, salesmanship, and easygoing humanity they don't have. The good news is, that person is already available. His name is John Edwards. If you have any doubt about his electability, just read the exit polls from the 2004 Democratic primaries. If you don't think he's ready to be president-if you don't think he has the right credentials, the right gravitas, the right subtlety of thought-ask yourself whether these are the same things you find wanting in George W. Bush. Because evidently a majority of the voting population of the United States doesn't share your concern. They seem to be attracted to a candidate with a simple message, a clear focus, and a human touch. You might want to consider their views, since they're the ones who will decide whether you're sitting here again four years from now, wondering what went wrong. In 1998 and 1999, Republicans cleared the field for George W. Bush. Members of Congress and other major officeholders threw their weight behind him to make sure he got the nomination. They united because their previous presidential nominee, a clumsy veteran senator, had gone down to defeat. They were facing eight years out of power, and they were hungry. Do what they did. Give Edwards a job that will position him to run for president again in a couple of years. Clear the field of Hillary Clinton and any other well-meaning liberal who can't connect with people outside those islands of blue on your electoral map. Because you're going to get a simple president again next time, whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that president will be from your party or the other one. 9:33 p.m. PT: That proviso about the exit polls matching the returns is looking quite a bit more important now than it did three hours ago. Bush has Florida and Colorado in the bag. All scenarios for a Kerry victory now require Ohio. Kerry led 51-49 in the Ohio exit poll this afternoon. But he also led 51-49 in the Florida exit poll, and we've seen what happened there. Nationwide, the exit polls had Kerry up 51-48. But with 80 million votes counted already, it's Bush who has a 51-48 lead. So at this point, the exit polls are at best meaningless. Or worse, if you're a Democrat, the six-point gap between what the exit polls predicted for Kerry nationally and what the returns show so far means that in Ohio, a two-point lead for Kerry in the exit poll foreshadows a Bush win by as many as four points. In New Mexico, two-thirds of the precincts have reported, and it doesn't look good for Kerry: He's down 51-48. So even if he takes Iowa, where he's now leading with two-thirds of the vote tallied, he'll have to win either Nevada, which has just begun counting, or Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, he's hanging on to a 14,000-vote lead-that's a single percentage point-with half the precincts reporting. If Kerry holds that lead in Wisconsin and closes what is now a 120,000-vote Bush lead in Ohio, he's the next president. Or if he holds his lead in Iowa and picks off Nevada, he can get the same result-but not without Ohio. Three-quarters of the precincts in Ohio have now reported, and Kerry still trails by 126,000 votes, about 3 percent of the total. I don't think he can pull it off. But I've been wrong so many times now that I'd be happy-no, really, in this case I would be positively delighted-to be proved wrong again. 7:38 p.m. PT: I should have mentioned before that if Bush wins both Ohio and Florida, he needs only Colorado to get to 269. So that's just two states where he needs the exit polls to be off. But in both cases the error has to be at least two points, in each case it has to be in his direction, and the Colorado exit poll can't be off in the other direction. Let's simplify the calculations. Bush starts with a floor of 213. He leads by one point in the exit poll in Colorado, so let's assume he takes that state, putting him at 222. Here are the remaining states in which Bush trails in the exit polls by fewer than 6 points: Nevada (Bush down 1), Iowa (Bush down 1), Florida (Bush down 2), Ohio (Bush down 2), New Mexico (Bush down 2), and Wisconsin (Bush down 3). That's it. Those are all the states Bush has to work with. If he wins them all, he gets to 296. So Kerry can lock up the election by taking any 28 electoral votes from that group. Here are the combinations that will do the job for Kerry: 1) Florida and any other state. 2) Ohio and Wisconsin. 3) Ohio and any two of the little three: Nevada, New Mexico, and Iowa. Two other variables could be in play. If Kerry takes Colorado, he can wrap up the election by taking a combination of Wisconsin and two of the little three. He won't have to win Ohio or Florida. But if Bush stages an upset in Hawaii, Kerry will have to take one of the little three in addition to Ohio and Wisconsin-or he'll have to take Ohio, Iowa, and either Nevada or New Mexico. Those are the scenarios for now. I'll revisit them as the returns come in and the options narrow. 6:08 p.m. PT: We can't be sure how far tonight's returns will ultimately vary from the late-afternoon exit-poll numbers (see this "Press Box"). But with that understood, let's talk about what the numbers mean, if true, for the electoral map. Bush gets to 189 electoral votes with no problem. Assuming he takes Virginia, he's at 202. With Missouri, where he's 5 points up in the exit polls, he's at 213. Now he needs Colorado. I never took this state seriously as a problem for him, but the afternoon numbers suggest it might be: He's up just a point there. Let's assume he takes it. Now he's at 222. At this point, he has run out of states where he's leading in the exit polls, and he's still looking for a combination of 47 electoral votes to get him to 269. (He wins in the House if it's a tie.) The next best shots are Nevada and Iowa, where he's down a point. Let's say he takes them, too. Now he's at 234, still 35 electoral votes away-and he has run out of states where he's trailing by a single point. He'll have to start winning in places where he's trailing by two. How about New Mexico? Let's give him that. Now he's at 239, but that's still not enough to win the election even if Florida comes around. He'll have to capture the other state where he's down two in the exit polls: Ohio. It seems a bit unfair, making him win a state with 20 electoral votes just to get the three he needs for a tie. Wouldn't it be easier to package Florida or Ohio with Wisconsin? Either combination gets him to 269 or beyond, so let's try that. Colorado plus Nevada plus Iowa plus New Mexico plus Wisconsin plus either Ohio or Florida. For those of you doing the math at home, that's a Bush sweep of five states where the exit polls have him trailing, without losing a single state in which he leads. In three of those states, Bush's winning scenario requires the exit polls to be at least two points off. In Wisconsin, it requires the exit polls to be at least three points off. And it gets uglier from there. Because if even one of these breaks doesn't go Bush's way, there is no remaining state on the board in which he trails by less than six in the exit polls. Bush can win this thing, but he'll need a lot of luck. More than he'll get, if you ask me. William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. -- ----------------- 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: This Memorable Day
by Tyler Durden 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

Well, this may actually be less hard than we thought. Indeed, it's the one vaguely silver lining in this toxic cloud. Outsourcing to India will actually add a lot to world stability. Of course, we'll loose a lot of jobs in the process, but in the long run we'll eventually have another strong trading partner like Japan or France or the Dutch. Bush will sell us out to big business and all of the less-well-off will suffer like crazy in the process, but it will actually make things better in the long run. The only thing we need to worry about is not melting the ice caps in the process. -TD >From: John Kelsey <kelsey.j(a)ix.netcom.com> >To: Nomen Nescio <nobody(a)dizum.com>, cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day >Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:13:28 -0500 (GMT-05:00) > > >From: Nomen Nescio <nobody(a)dizum.com> > >Sent: Nov 3, 2004 6:50 AM > >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net > >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day > >... > > The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make > >people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the > >world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world > >hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all > >the problem that leads to. > >Ahh. So all we have to do to end terrorism is to end poverty, injustice, >and inequality all over the world. *Phew*. I thought it was going to take >something hard. > >--John _________________________________________________________________ Get ready for school! Find articles, homework help and more in the Back to School Guide! http://special.msn.com/network/04backtoschool.armx

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DIMACS Workshop on Markets as Predictive Devices (Information Markets)
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

--- begin forwarded text

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U.S. stocks surge as Bush heads for victory
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

--- begin forwarded text <snip...> Midday Report http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?column=Newswatch&dist=nwtam&sitei… <snip...> Current levels on US market indices at 11:40 am ET Nov 3, 2004 Last Change DJIA 10,182.39 +146.66 S&P 500 1,146.41 +15.85 NASDAQ 2,013.30 +28.51 10-Year U.S. T-Bond 4.13% +0.053 <snip...> --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- 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: This Memorable Day
by John Kelsey 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

>From: Nomen Nescio <nobody(a)dizum.com> >Sent: Nov 3, 2004 6:50 AM >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day ... > The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make >people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the >world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world >hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all >the problem that leads to. Ahh. So all we have to do to end terrorism is to end poverty, injustice, and inequality all over the world. *Phew*. I thought it was going to take something hard. --John

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Re: This Memorable Day
by Nomen Nescio 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 R.A. Hettinga: > You're gonna love this one: You can't have "terrorism" without > state sponsors. Nonsense! Are you in junior high? > We take out (by whatever means at hand...) state sponsors of > terrorism, and, hey, presto, no terrorism. Iraq. Syria. Iran. > Libya. Doesn't look so hard to me. Oh. That's right. Libya rolled > over. > > Americans -- actually westerners in general -- may win ugly, Peter, > but, so far, they win. This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those are inequalities and injustice anywhere. As long as the most powerful nations of the world continues to exploit the earth's resources without taking appropriate considerations to other nations the wrath and dismay of people elsewhere will always persist. Not understanding this or simply neglecting it will further add to the negative feelings and opinions and fuel extremism. The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all the problem that leads to. Continuing being arrogant and policing the world without listening to the oppressed people in the middle east and elsewhere will never ever eradicate terrorism. You may may or may not be able to reasonable confidently hinder most terror deeds (but only after having turned also the western civilization into police states) but you cannot stop the oppressed man from growing the hatred i his mind. If you do not understand this you are not only unintelligent IMNSHO but also part of the problem itself. You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. (Malcolm X) Johnny Doelittle -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Tom Ridge Special v1.01 iQA/AwUBQYicHzVaKWz2Ji/mEQJ/KgCeJaL0A7KEtXrdg6DmER5yGHwhJWEAoNA/ 96lJo2JRLf4zWoOTjELrPQB4 =Uq+t -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Diebold
by Eugen Leitl 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

So, we know Diebold commited vote fraud. Irregularities, my ass. Why did Kerry just roll over? The second time, after Gore? This just doesn't make sense. There's been over a year to prepare. Or is the entire process just a charade? -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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Re: This Memorable Day
by Tyler Durden 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

"2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses "revolted", at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough." Are you trollin' m'friend, or have you been smokin' James Donald's ground up toenails? -TD Mao accused the US of being a "paper tiger", and there may be some truth to that. >From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> >To: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com>, cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day >Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:05:19 -0500 > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >At 7:33 AM -0800 11/3/04, John Young wrote: > >The US has not won since WW2. > >Nope. Not at all. > >1. Korea we lost by shoving the commies all the way up to the Yalu >river. And then leaving them to fester behind a still-extant DMZ >until they're almost enough of a "nuisance", to lots of people, >including the now-almost-former-communist Chinese to worry over. > >2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses >"revolted", at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed >up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar >daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent >something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough. > >The Cold War we lost by... Wait a minute. We didn't lose. See 1., and >2., above. > >That leaves us, what, John? Grenada? Panama? Hell, Columbia? Oh. >Right. Lebanon. Tell ya what. Let's start the clock on this war at, >say, the assasination of Bobby Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan, include the >Beiruit truck bombing by reference as a battle, and see how we stand >in a decade or so, shall we? > >C'mon, John. Think faster, or something. > >Cheers, >RAH > > > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >Version: PGP 8.0.3 > >iQA/AwUBQYjzo8PxH8jf3ohaEQLrKACgpPVvDmuAS+ZE/9OAwZBAneLGztIAn2TK >eVqIGmJf1iLvKLe55TuIgQYf >=SOlw >-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > >-- >----------------- >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' _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee. Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

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RE: Musings on "getting out the vote"
by Major Variola (ret) 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

At 12:11 PM 11/2/04 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: >And they seem to believe there's going to be a huge difference between Kang >and Kodos. If you vote for Kang, the terrorists have won! Besides, without paper (ie physical) evidence, how're you gonna prove that Kang won? At least I live in a blue state. The reds, you've earned what you've earned. Those FONY baseball caps were getting passe, anyway.

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Re: "Scan design called portal for hackers"
by david koontz 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

>>> Peter Gutmann <pgut001(a)cs.auckland.ac.nz> 2/11/2004 11:30:36 p.m. >>> >David Honig <dahonig(a)cox.net> writes: >>EETimes 25 Oct 04 has an article about how the testing structures on ICs >>makes them vulnerable to attacks. >A link ) would >have been useful... >>The basic idea is that to test a chip, you need to see inside it; this can >>also reveal crypto details (e.g., keys) which compromise the chip. >The JTAG interface is your (that is, the reverse engineer's) friend. This is >why some security devices let you disconnect it using a security-fuse type >mechanism before you ship your product. Of course that only works if (a) the >device allows it, (b) you remember to activate it, and (c) your attacker isn't >sufficiently motivated/funded to use something like microprobing or a FIB >workstation to bypass the disconnect. Historically BIST has been more attractive for crypto hardware because you can also use it for assurance testing prior to use. Invoking it can be hard coded into device initialization. If JTAG is present, you don't have to have internal scan. If you have internal scan you could have a zeroize on entering test mode. This prevents scan chains from being capable of being used to save as well as restore state. If and when is it a problem? If you were to examine FIPS PUB 140-2, 4.5 'Physical Security', 'Table 2 Summary of physical security requirements' and section: 4.5.1 General Physical Security Requirements ... SECURITY LEVEL 1 The following requirements shall apply to all cryptographic modules for Security Level 1. * The cryptographic module shall consist of production-grade components that shall include standard passivation techniques (e.g., a conformal coating or a sealing coat applied over the module's circuitry to protect against environmental or other physical damage). * When performing physical maintenance, all plaintext secret and private keys and other unprotected CSPs contained in the cryptographic module shall be zeroized. Zeroization shall either be performed procedurally by the operator or automatically by the cryptographic module. --- Meaning for a cryptographic module boundary at the chip level, the keys should have been zeroized before physical access. ---- ... SECURITY LEVEL 3 In addition to the general requirements for Security Levels 1 and 2, the following requirements shall apply to all cryptographic modules for Security Level 3. * If the cryptographic module contains any doors or removable covers or if a maintenance access interface is defined, then the module shall contain tamper response and zeroization circuitry. The tamper response and zeroization circuitry shall immediately zeroize all plaintext secret and private keys and CSPs when a door is opened, a cover is removed, or when the maintenance access interface is accessed. The tamper response and zeroization circuitry shall remain operational when plaintext secret and private cryptographic keys or CSPs are contained within the cryptographic module. --- Meaning that physical access will cause zeroization. This would imply zeroization on test mode activation on a JTAG interface on a single chip cryptographic module. You start getting real security at levels 3 and 4, the certification criteria comes from the Commercial COMSEC Evaluation Program (CCEP). Am I worried someone is producing chips that aren't protected? No. I'm more concerned that implementations (systems) aren't properly designed, tested and certified. "They got AES, we got AES" is just a form of snake oil. NOTICE: This message contains privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the addressee named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that you must not disseminate, copy or take any action in reliance on it. If you have received this message in error please notify Allied Telesyn Research Ltd immediately. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender has the authority to issue and specifically states them to be the views of Allied Telesyn Research. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com

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