July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

Phil Zimmerman and voice encryption; a Skype problem?
by Steven M. Bellovin 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

There's an article in today's NY Times (for subscribers, it's at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/technology/22privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin ) on whether Phil Zimmerman's Zfone -- an encrypted VoIP package -- will invite government scrutiny. There doesn't seem to be any imminent threat in the U.S.; the one concrete example mentioned -- the British plan to give police the power to compel individuals to disclose keys -- doesn't threaten Zfone, because it uses Diffie-Hellman for (among other things) perfect forward secrecy and doesn't even have any long-term keys. (See draft-zimmermann-avt-zrtp-01.txt for protocol details.) The fascinating thing, though, was this sentence near the end of the article: But at a conference last week in Cyprus, German officials said they had technology for intercepting and decrypting Skype phone calls, according to Anthony M. Rutkowski, vice president for regulatory affairs and standards for VeriSign, a company that offers security for Internet and phone operations. The Berson report says that Skype uses AES-256. NSA rates that as suitable for Top Secret traffic, so it's presumably not the cipher. Berson analyzed a number of other possible attack scenarios; the only one that seems to be possible is an active attack plus forged certificates. If Berson's analysis was correct -- and we all know how hard it is to verify cryptographic protocols -- that leaves open the possibility of a protocol change that implemented some sort of Clipper-like functionality. A silent change like that would be *very* ominous. --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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Re: ADMIN: no money politics, please
by zooko 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Hey folks: you are welcome to discuss money politics over at the p2p- hackers mailing list: http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers I'm extremely interested in the subject myself, having taken part in two notable failed attempts to deploy Chaumian digital cash and currently being involved in a project that might lead to a third attempt. Regards, Zooko --- http://allmydata.org -- Tahoe, the Least-Authority Filesystem http://allmydata.com -- back up all your files for $10/month --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com

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Re: Two convicted in U.K. for refusal to decrypt data
by Adam Funk 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On 2009-08-13, David SMITH wrote: > So the people who come on gnupg-users asking for help because they've > forgotten their passphrase or accidentally deleted their ~/.gnupg > directory don't exist? > > I guess that's a new way of replying to them: "You don't exist". > > Not forgetting the possibility of malicious intentions - trying to > frame > someone by putting encrypted data onto someone's computer and tipping > off the authorities. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,2073974,00.htm In a stunt organised by the civil liberties group Stand, The Home Secretary Jack Straw was sent details to a crime Sunday that could earn him up to two years in prison if the controversial e-commerce bill were made law. ... According to Stand an encrypted email was sent to Mr Straw Sunday afternoon containing a confession to a real crime. The key to decrypt the message will be in Mr Straw's name. Stand will tip off the Metropolitan Commissioner of Police Monday, informing him that Mr Straw has important information about a crime. If the e-commerce bill were in place, Straw would be required to hand over the decryption key or face up to two years in prison. "In principle, under the bill, Jack Straw would have to prove he never had the key in the first place. We are hoping this will help him understand that this is unworkable, an intolerable reversal of the burden of proof and against the Human Rights Act," Says Malcolm Hutty, spokesman for Stand. (September 1999) _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users(a)gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users

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Re: [silk] Bitcoin
by Suresh Ramasubramanian 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Wednesday 18 May 2011 04:51 PM, Alaric Snell-Pym wrote: > I know what you mean about those German geeks, but there's plenty of > British ones too - they tend to be the tall, thin ones with ponytails! Eh - not as many encryption is the silver bullet types as the germans :) And good points - just went back to read your blog post. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: [silk] Bitcoin
by Suresh Ramasubramanian 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Wednesday 18 May 2011 04:51 PM, Alaric Snell-Pym wrote: > I know what you mean about those German geeks, but there's plenty of > British ones too - they tend to be the tall, thin ones with ponytails! Eh - not as many encryption is the silver bullet types as the germans :) And good points - just went back to read your blog post. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: When anyone can publish, who's a journalist now?
by Anuj Desai 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Declan, Your readers might be interested in knowing that many courts have been forced to deal with the question, "Who is a journalist?" over the years in circumstances similar to what appear to be Ms. Leggett's. Several states have laws, known as shield-laws, that specifically protect journalists from testifying in certain circumstances, and those laws often contain definitions of "journalist" or "reporter" or "media". In addition, the First Amendment provides a separate protection. In the statutory context, the courts are of course bound by the legislative definitions of who is a journalist. These definitions vary from state to state, but in most states depend upon some sort of professional affiliation. Under the First Amendment, however, courts have been much broader, focusing primarily on whether the person claiming the journalist's privilege had an intent to disseminate the information to the public **at the time s/he gathered it**. Bearing in mind the Supreme Court's admonition that "Freedom of the press is a 'fundamental personal right' which is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. ... The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion,'" Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 704 (1972) (quoting Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 450, 452 (1938)), courts have been unwilling to restrict press rights to the institutional press. Although the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the question, "Who is a journalist?" in the context of the journalist's privilege (indeed, the fear that courts would have to deal with it was part of the majority's rationale for *not* granting the privilege in the seminal Branzburg case), many federal courts have addressed it, with varying results depending on the circumstances. See, e.g., In re Madden, 151 F.3d 125 (3d Cir. 1998); Schoen v. Schoen, 5 F.3d 1289, 1293-94 (9th Cir. 1993); Von Bulow v. Von Bulow, 811 F.2d 136 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1015 (1987); Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 563 F.2d 433 (10th Cir. 1977); Blum v. Schlegel, 150 F.R.D. 42 (W.D.N.Y. 1993); Apicella v. McNeil Labs., Inc., 66 F.R.D. 78, 84-85 (E.D.N.Y. 1975). This is not to say that answering the question is simple in any give circumstance, but simply to note that courts have been doing it for a long time. One other point that should be clarified in light of this post is that, in every jurisdiction, the journalist's privilege is a *qualified* privilege and yields to the needs of evidence-gathering in many cases. No one, not even a New York Times reporter [I use the NYT rather than Wired because we know that some would question your own status as a journalist :-) ], gets the privilege in every circumstance. The person attempting to force a journalist to testify in the face of the privilege simply has to show that 1) the information they seek is relevant to the lawsuit for which they are seeking it; 2) their suit is not frivolous; and 3) they have exhausted all other reasonable means of obtaining the information (or some other similar variation of this three-part test). So, even having a broad definition of "journalist" does not completely open the door to an unfettered right to refuse to testify. -Anuj Anuj C. Desai University of Wisconsin Law School 975 Bascom Mall Madison, WI 53706 acdesai(a)facstaff.wisc.edu **********

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RE: When anyone can publish, who's a journalist now?
by Matthew Pemble 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 What about (fully recognised and published) part-time journalists? I have a monthly column in a trade magazine. It takes up about 2% of my working time. What protection should that material have and, considering that they are compiled using the same systems, how does that affect the 98% of my work which is as a security consultant? Actually, as I am a Brit, there is no protection at all but consider the hypothetical case. - - -- Matthew Pemble -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 7.0.3 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> iQA/AwUBO40PG2rvMjpl5yaUEQKE1gCgzTnJqTTqx9cf/jpx71opj4B/CDIAoPeJ iI5aJcRTKlpp3Yq6XHYGL9JY =LMTe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- **********

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Re: FC: When anyone can publish, who's a journalist now?
by terry.s＠juno.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Hi Declan! On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 11:01:30 -0400 Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> writes: > Now the thought experiment is this: If the Profession of Jornalists > (PoJ) chooses to defend the proposition that anyone who wants to be > one automatically is one, then whether I am today a journalist or not is > a role decision that presumably I get to make, both to adopt the role > and to rescind the role, according to my whim. As the role has and > claims substantial privileges, what bargain would the PoJ offer to society > at large to justify, whether politically or morally or economically, > the extension to the many what had heretofore been special privileges > afforded to the PoJ few? In other words, if the right claimed is to > not tell law enforcement what one knows today in exchange for the > promise to eventually tell the entire public that part of it that can > be woven into a readable narrative, then the terms of the bargain > are at least clear. This sounds very much like an issue of who is clergy, protected by privilege of extending confidence and being exempt from compelled testimony. Unlike for physicians, and subject to many quirks lawyers, there can be no legitimate form of professional licensing for clergy, and likewise for journalists. In some religions there is a hierarchical structure of central authority which defines clergy and issues judicially reviewable credentials, or not (just as for press). In others, everyone is considered clergy, with only a distinction of who also obtains credentials from an IRS (of all agencies) sanctified supposed authority, or who functions as such in a professional as opposed to other role. More ethical states wrestle with legal ambiguity defining clergy, while other states try to pretend no one is clergy unless individuals license their religious rights with those problem states. The suggestion that a church with lay deacons acting as clergy cannot extend clerical legal status to other than professional employee clergy has been litigated, with findings that law cannot legally make such distinctions Constitutionally. The issues of a religion where many practitioners do not associate with an IRS approved corporate church, while most practitioners are acting as clergy to self if not also others, have not yet been resolved such that our legal system deals with current reality of legal fact. Journalistic privilege of confidence is very similar to that for clergy, with one set of issues that differ. Due to traditions of clerical counseling, clergy in many states are exempt from medical licensing laws regarding practice of Psychology. In turn, law in some states subjects clergy to compelled reporting of verified or suspected child and/or elderly abuse, as it does for doctors, teachers, social workers, etc. Clergy can also generally be sued for malpractice in such counseling if offered to others. The same issue exists with clergy as journalists of a supposed public service embedded in the profession as the historic rationalization for special legal status. At the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, most states either still were or had recently been theocracies, and retained traits of such church control of state. Some of those survive today despite the 14th Amendment making that illegal as of 1868. Splinter religion clergy not associated with large corporate churches presumed to somehow offer quasi-theocratic government public services may parallel the direction the specialty press has gone. Are the millions of minor variants of thousands of documented religions now present in the USA akin to the nature of press to now narrowcast to special interest groups, rather than mostly be a key element of linking government to the populace broadly? In either case it's easy to argue that neither clergy or press are universally today serving their historic traditional roles in society. It's equally easy to argue they deserve the same Constitutional protections long standing, as the roles under which press or clergy exist, whether serving narrow or broad audiences in particular cases, are adapted to the exponentially increased diversity of today's populace. Terry ********** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- End forwarded message -----

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FC: Replies to "When anyone can publish, who's a journalist now?"
by Declan McCullagh 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-02445.html **********

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Re: [s-t] privacy and caution digest #2
by Bryan O'Sullivan 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Mon, 2003-10-27 at 14:49, Nick B wrote: > Nobody, but nobody, builds _anything_ electronic from the ground up. > Not me, not you, not Apple, not Microsoft, not Sony, not Intel, not > the NSA. [Apple,] Sony, Intel and the NSA get closer by fabbing their > own silicon. No Such Agency doesn't fab much of anything; they can't afford to. They and their ilk are far more interested in things like FPGAs and adapting numerical algorithms to COTS SIMD hardware, such as graphics processors (a la http://www.gpgpu.org/) > Who knows > what sort of spyware those tools are adding? Don't be silly. The amount of computation you need to do to get a circuit of any useful complexity to do something predictable is enormous. You can't stuff a thousand CPUs and 200 engineers into an Applied Materials mask etch machine, so that they can rig a WiFi card and antenna onto your PS2's vector chip without Sony finding out. Even if you could, how would they talk to the evil animalcules inside the Novellus metal deposition machine in the facility next door, so the right traces get metallised? Never even mind that automatically figuring out what a bunch of geometry in a set of masks represents is vastly harder than reverse compilation for software. > It is actually quite hard. And if anybody > ever does implement it really well, they can win, in principle even > against projects like Plan 9 No they can't. Identifying something as "a compiler" and instrumenting the right code is impossible for automated systems. <b -----------------------------------------------------------

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