July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

Wikipedia & Tor
by Arrakis Tor 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

This is a conversation with Jimmy Wales regarding how we can get Wikipedia to let Tor get through. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Anyone with a port 80 can vandalize your website. Yes, but we notice that we can control a significant amount of vandalism by blocking ip numbers which have proven to be particularly problematic. TOR servers are among the absolute worst. And TOR operators don't seem to care. We go to the trouble > to block all the file sharing clients, and often abused ports and > protocols like IRC. Many of us typically block ports which do not have > any legitimate reason for being used. If all it take is a port 80 to > vandalize the wikipedia, of which port 80 is a public service, then > there is no point in discriminating against Tor users since every IP > is an equal opportunity offender. Equal *opportunity*, but we have very strong empirical evidence here. TOR ip numbers are the worst offenders that we have seen. People use TOR specifically to hide their identity, specifically to vandalize wikipedia. > You say that tor is quite irresponsibly managed. How would you propose > we manage tor servers differently? Ban users who vandalize wikipedia. That'd be a start. Rate limit edits at Wikipedia, that'd be good. Write an extension to your software which would help us to distinguish between "trusted" and "newbie" Tor clients. I completely fail to comprehend why Tor server operators consistently refuse to take responsibility for their crazed users. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.leitl.org 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]

1 0

[IP] Summarized -- Warrantless NSA program involved massive data
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

collection (NYT) X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.746.2) Reply-To: dave(a)farber.net http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials. The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. ...One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic "switches," according to officials familiar with the matter. ...Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e- mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda. ...The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system, developed by the Pentagon for tracking terror suspects, and the Department of Homeland Security's Capps program for screening airline passengers. ...But the Bush administration regards the N.S.A.'s ability to trace and analyze large volumes of data as critical to its expanded mission to detect terrorist plots before they can be carried out, officials familiar with the program say. ...A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists. "All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active involvement in that area," said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets. ...The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many international-to-international calls are also routed through such American switches. ...Now that foreign calls were being routed through switches on American soil, some judges and law enforcement officials regarded eavesdropping on those calls as a possible violation of those decades- old restrictions, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for domestic surveillance. ...But the N.S.A.'s backdoor access to major telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency's operational capability, according to current and former government officials. ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- 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]

1 0

Re: [liberationtech] Google Hangout the new, better skype? Was Re: Skype redux
by Adam Fisk 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

> > I sympathize with your frustration about Google and other companies' > unwillingness to talk about their interception capabilities. In the > particular case of Hangouts, it seems clear that the Hangout data is > encrypted only between the user and Google, and not end-to-end. That doesn't appear to be the case, Seth. See: https://developers.google.com/talk/call_signaling#Encryption -- Adam pgp A998 2B6E EF1C 373E 723F A813 045D A255 901A FD89 -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech ----- 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

1 0

[tor-talk] We're looking for another dedicated core Tor developer
by Roger Dingledine 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Your job would be to work on all aspects of the main Tor network daemon and other open-source software. This would be a contractor position for 2012 (starting as soon as you're ready and with plenty of work to keep you busy), with the possibility of 2013 and beyond. Being a core Tor developer includes triaging, diagnosing, and fixing bugs; looking for and resolving security issues; and working collaboratively with coworkers and volunteers on implementing new features and protocol changes at every stage from design to maintenance. We'd also need help making our code more scalable, testable, and maintainable. Sometimes, we need to drop everything and scramble to implement last-minute anticensorship schemes, or to deploy urgent security updates. You'd also be reviewing other people's code and designs, and looking for ways to improve it. For an idea of the breadth and depth of the work you'd be doing, have a look at the ChangeLog file from the Tor source distribution: https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/blob/HEAD:/ChangeLog See our new jobs page for details: https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs.html.en --Roger _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- 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

1 0

[tor-talk] We're looking for another dedicated core Tor developer
by Roger Dingledine 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Your job would be to work on all aspects of the main Tor network daemon and other open-source software. This would be a contractor position for 2012 (starting as soon as you're ready and with plenty of work to keep you busy), with the possibility of 2013 and beyond. Being a core Tor developer includes triaging, diagnosing, and fixing bugs; looking for and resolving security issues; and working collaboratively with coworkers and volunteers on implementing new features and protocol changes at every stage from design to maintenance. We'd also need help making our code more scalable, testable, and maintainable. Sometimes, we need to drop everything and scramble to implement last-minute anticensorship schemes, or to deploy urgent security updates. You'd also be reviewing other people's code and designs, and looking for ways to improve it. For an idea of the breadth and depth of the work you'd be doing, have a look at the ChangeLog file from the Tor source distribution: https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/blob/HEAD:/ChangeLog See our new jobs page for details: https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs.html.en --Roger _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- 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

1 0

Re: [liberationtech] NYT: For Syriabs Rebel Movement, Skype Is a Useful and Increasingly Dangerous Tool
by Eva Galperin 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Frank wrote: "Main news here that sticks out for me is that Syrian activists largely seem aware of the risks, yet many are still using Skype due to a lack of alternatives." In my conversations with Syrian activists, this is not the impression I have gotten from them at all. The Syrian activists I have spoken to often believe that Skype is "secure," and they are not aware that there are companies such as Bitek and Bluecoat that sell products to governments that can track the meta-data about their Skype calls--including who they're calling and for how long. Google Hangouts reportedly works in Syria and I would consider suggesting it to Syrians as an alternative to Skype, but most Syrians are not looking for alternatives because they are not aware that there may be a significant security risk. Andrew is right to point out that this is separate from the problem of out malware/out-of-band recording. ************************************************ Eva Galperin International Freedom of Expression Coordinator Electronic Frontier Foundation eva(a)eff.org (415) 436-9333 ex. 111 ************************************************ On 12/4/12 1:13 PM, frank(a)journalistsecurity.net wrote: > This piece from NYT over the weekend should be of interest here, and, > unless I missed it, I don't think it's been yet posted. > > Excerpt: "If the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were Twitter > Revolutions, then Syria is becoming the Skype Rebellion. To get around a > near-nationwide Internet shutdown, rebels have armed themselves with > mobile satellite phones and dial-up modems." > > Quotes CL and EFF's Eva on risks. Main news here that sticks out for me > is that Syrian activists largely seem aware of the risks, yet many are > still using Skype due to a lack of alternatives. > > http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/world/middleeast/syrian-rebels-turn-to-sk… > > For Syriabs Rebel Movement, Skype Is a Useful and Increasingly > Dangerous Tool > By AMY CHOZICK > Published: November 30, 2012 > > In a demonstration of their growing sophistication and organization, > Syrian rebels responded to a nationwide shutdown of the Internet by > turning to satellite technology to coordinate within the country and to > communicate with outside activists. > > When Syriabs Internet service disappeared Thursday, government > officials first blamed rebel attacks. Activist groups blamed the > government and viewed the blackout as a sign that troops would violently > clamp down on rebels. > > But having dealt with periodic outages for more than a year, the > opposition had anticipated a full shutdown of Syriabs Internet service > providers. To prepare, they have spent months smuggling communications > equipment like mobile handsets and portable satellite phones into the > country. > > b Webre very well equipped here,b said Albaraa Abdul Rahman, 27, an > activist in Saqba, a poor suburb 20 minutes outside Damascus. He said he > was in touch with an expert in Homs who helped connect his office and 10 > others like it in and around Damascus. > > Using the connection, the activists in Saqba talked to rebel fighters on > Skype and relayed to overseas activists details about clashes with > government forces. A video showed the rebelsb bare-bones room, four > battery backups that could power a laptop for eight hours and a > generator set up on a balcony. > > For months, rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad have > used Skype, a peer-to-peer Internet communication system, to organize > and talk to outside news organizations and activists. A few days ago, > Jad al-Yamani, an activist in Homs, sent a message to rebel fighters > that tanks were moving toward a government checkpoint. > > He notified the other fighters so that they could go observe the > checkpoint. b Through Skype you know how the army moves or can stop > it,b Mr. Yamani said. > > On Friday, Dawoud Sleiman, 39, a member of the antigovernment Ahrar > al-Shamal Battalion, part of the Free Syrian Army, reached out to other > members of the rebel group. They were set up at the governmentbs Wadi > Aldaif military base in Idlib, a province near the Turkish border that > has seen heavy fighting, and connected to Skype via satellite Internet > service. > > Mr. Sleiman, who is based in Turkey, said the Free Syrian Army stopped > using cellphone networks and land lines months ago and instead relies > almost entirely on Skype. b Brigade members communicate through the > hand-held devices,b he said. > > This week rebels posted an announcement via Skype that called for the > arrest of the head of intelligence in Idlib, who is accused of killing > five rebels. b A big financial prize will be offered to anyone who > brings the head of this guy,b the message read. b One of our brothers > abroad has donated the cash.b > > If the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were Twitter Revolutions, then > Syria is becoming the Skype Rebellion. To get around a near-nationwide > Internet shutdown, rebels have armed themselves with mobile satellite > phones and dial-up modems. > > In many cases, relatives and supporters living outside Syria bought the > equipment and had it smuggled in, mostly through Lebanon and Turkey. > > That equipment has allowed the rebels to continue to communicate almost > entirely via Skype with little interruption, despite the blackout. > b How the government used its weapons against the revolution, that is > how activists use Skype,b Mr. Abdul Rahman said. > > b We havenbt seen any interruption in the way Skype is being used,b > said David Clinch, an editorial director of Storyful, a group that > verifies social media posts for news organizations, including The New > York Times (Mr. Clinch has served as a consultant for Skype). > > Mr. Assad, who once fashioned himself as a reformer and the father of > Syriabs Internet, has largely left the countrybs access intact > during the 20-month struggle with rebels. The government appeared to > abandon that strategy on Thursday, when most citizens lost access. Some > Syrians could still get online using service from Turkey. On Friday, > Syrian officials blamed technical problems for the cutoff. > > The shutdown is only the latest tactic in the escalating technology war > waged in Arab Spring countries. > > But several technology experts warned that the use of the Internet by > rebels in Syria, even those relying on Skype, could leave them > vulnerable to government surveillance. > > Introduced in 2003, Skype encrypts each Internet call so that they are > next to impossible to crack. It quickly became the pet technology of > global organizers and opposition members in totalitarian countries. And > while Skypebs encryption secrets remain elusive, in recent months the > Assad government, often with help from Iran, has developed tools to > install malware on computers that allows officials to monitor a userbs > activity. > > b Skype has gone from in the mid-2000s being the tool most widely used > and promoted by human rights activists to now when people ask me I say, > bDefinitely, donbt use it,b b said Ronald J. Deibert, director > of Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto that > monitors human rights and cybersecurity. > > Using satellite phone service to connect makes Skype potentially more > dangerous since it makes it easier to track a userbs location, said > Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties > group in San Francisco. > > The Syrian government has b gone from passive surveillance to more > active surveillance in which theybre gaining access to dissidentsb > and opposition membersb computers,b Ms. Galperin said. > > The pro-government Syrian Electronic Army has largely led the response > to early cyberattacks by rebels and overseas sympathizers. At > checkpoints in government-controlled regions, Assad forces examined > laptops for programs that would allow users to bypass government > spyware, several activists said. In cafes where the Internet was > available, government officials checked usersb identification. > > Rebels are starting to suspect that the governmentbs efforts are > paying off. A media activist in Idlib named Mohamed said a rebel > informant working for the government was killed in Damascus six months > ago after sending warnings to the Free Syrian Army on Skype. > > b I saw this incident right in front of my eyes,b Mohamed said. b We > put his info on Skype so he was arrested and killed.b > > In August, an activist named Baraa al-Boushi was killed during shelling > in Damascus. Activists later circulated a report saying that a Saudi > Arabian claiming to support the revolution was actually a government > informant who determined Mr. Boushibs location after a long > conversation on Skype. > > A Skype spokesman, Chaim Haas, said calls via the service between > computers, smartphones and other mobile devices are automatically > encrypted. But just like e-mail and instant messaging can be compromised > by spyware and Trojan horses, so can Skype. > > b Theybre listening to the conversation before it gets encrypted,b > Mr. Haas said. b That has nothing to do with Skype at all.b > > > Liam Stack contributed reporting from New York; Hala Droubi from Dubai, > United Arab Emirates; and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon. > A version of this article appeared in print on December 1, 2012, on page > A12 of the New York edition with the headline: For Syriabs Rebel > Movement, Skype Is a Useful and Increasingly Dangerous Tool. > > SAVE > E-MAIL > SHARE > > -- > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech ----- 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

1 0

Re: [DIYbio] Removing watermarks from pdfs (pdfparanoia)
by Bryan Bishop 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 12:12 PM, Cathal Garvey wrote: > For example, to remove a frontpage, you might need to "explode" the PDF > into images, discard the first image, and recompress into a new PDF. I don't recommend this method, because converting most pdfs into images will cause loss of text. You can delete entire pages in the pdf format by deleting the "stream" objects and modifying the xref table. > To remove text/images embedded on the bottom of each PDF page, you could > do the same except use imagemagick on each image before recompression. Most text in a pdf document is "semantic", surrounded by pdf markup that can be directly deleted. I can imagine there might be one or two cases where publishers are adding an image to a pdf with your ip address, in which case you can delete that single image. However, if the page content is an image itself (no selectable text), then they might have chosen to add the image into the page, in which case the only way to remove the watermark would be to use imagemagick as you say, and draw over the offending image. So far I haven't seen this yet in any of the documents I have read over the years. > Major disadvantage to this route is that it would convert a text + > images PDF (high compression ratio, easy to extract text for re-use) > into an images-only PDF (large file size, poor compression, impossible > to extract text without OCR). right.. > If you can extract text of course, you could try extracting text + > images and perhaps script the creation of an entirely new PDF file. This > is the opposite approach; instead of blacklisting content ("This bit > contains IP address info"), you're whitelisting content ("These bits are > the text and images that form the actual paper"). How would you whitelist content you've never seen before? - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups DIYbio group. To post to this group, send email to diybio(a)googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/diybio?hl=en Learn more at www.diybio.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to diybio+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to diybio(a)googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. ----- 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

1 0

CDR: Re: semi-anon test from a throwaway account part deux
by None 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Jim Choate wrote: > Money order sales are recorded on video camera. [snip] > > A check has your name and address. > > The only way to pay in cash is two either send it through the mail (you > do know about the cash sniffing dogs used at the UPS and airports don't > you?) or stop by in person. Which means that they'll have a receipt and > at least on person who has seen your face. So am I right in saying there isn't, and never really was, a way of making truly anonymous transactions? -------------------------------------- FREE ANONYMOUS EMAIL! Sign up now. http://www.subdimension.com/freemail

1 0

Ian Grigg's Crypto Fiction Choices
by Matthew Gaylor 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

http://www.iang.org/crypto_fiction/ Crypto Fiction Crypto novels are not that common. It's an esoteric subject that remains too small to even justify a niche title. Most of the treatments relate to only fringe interests. There is a bit of a revival in crypto interest within the 90's science fiction genre. This can be traced back to authors who are influenced by the net, and geographically, it's clear that the main stars in this revival hail from or are influenced by the bay area and the cypherpunks movement. For what it's worth, and to generate some commissions for Cryptix, I list here some crypto novels I've read. I rate them with bits of entropy, as a sort of reverse correlation with relevance. This rating isn't necessarily a view that this book is good or bad, just that it has a valued combination of readability and cryptology. If you're looking for a present for that pesky relative that keeps asking "so, what is it that you do?" then you may find the answer below. Cryptonominon The leading light in the crypto novel scene has to be Cryptonomicon. This book, the fourth by trail blazing net author Neal Stephenson, is recent, having been published in mid 1999, and remains the only financial cryptography novel I have come across. Cryptonomicon is an achievment, with a deserved 5 random bits of entropy, and it will become the novel against which all others are compared. In brief, Randy Waterhouse and his startup companions embark on laying fibre around the Phillipines. Whilst building, new opportunities arise, chief of which is the combination of a local Sultan who wishes to build a data haven, and a rumour of a mountain of lost gold. What lifts this book out of the ordinary, and indeed, camoflages the fairly simple plot, is the two intertwined threads separated by two generations. Randy's grandfather and a WWII team of crypto scientists work on dampening the Axis' ability to detect the Enigma cracks, coincidentally laying foundations for Randy's attempts to historically decrypt his forbears' trail. This historical story is fascinating, it takes the Enigma story well beyond what has been covered elsewhere. The crypto content is superb. Mathematical basies, Turing and his bicycle, entropy, ciphers, are all woven into the story in a fashion that anyone with high school mathematics could understand. Cryptonomicon has a deeper underlying significance that most will have written off as plot. Along the chase, Randy and his mates discover the opportunity of setting up a private currency, nominally based on the alleged gold. In crisis-ravaged Asia, where currencies fell as systemic failure swept through the banking system, gold- backed currencies, issued over the net, and cryptographically protected from all attackers, is the perfect entrepot forthe issuance of private money. Recall that private currencies disappeared about a century ago, as the newfangled Central Bank idea, born out of Britain, swept the civilised world to mark the 20th century as one of government money and government inflation. For various reasons which we'll gloss over here - read the book - the time of private currencies has come again. But it was not in the prediction of a new financial world that the subtelty of Stephenson's research, and indeed unnamed advisors, shows. It is in the fact that the model he presents for a gold-backed currency is state of the art, in an art that was forgotten a hundred years ago, and indeed was only poorly understood then. Readers could even be forgiven for accusing the art to be stateless, if it wasn't for the existance of at least one tiny Internet private currency, backed by gold. It was these guys, the e-gold private currency, who airshipped me a copy to read and respond. But there is no response possible, as Stephenson got it right. Prospective private currency issuers now have a novel that will save them from countless mistakes, and I now have an answer to that question, "so, what is it that you're doing that takes you so far from home?" Enigma In all the fictional writings of cryptology, the Enigma machine takes pride of place. Enigma, is no different, but touches little on the machine itself. Robert Harris, author of Fatherland, presents a story of spies and intrigue set amongst the paranoic secrecy of Bletchley Park. Like Cryptonomicon, the historical protagonist is a mathematician at the core of the code breaking effort. This story is cryptologically valuable for its description of Bletchley Park, even to the workflow and passage of the information through the now quaint series of human I/O devices, computers, and analysts. As a novel, it is well written and entirely readable, falling within the class of WWII / spies / detectives, and I rate it with 3 bits of entropy. The Last Lieutenant Corregidor features yet again in this novel about the collapse of the island fortress and the plight of the last remaining coding officer. Showing more of the Allies side, The Last Lieutenant, portrays a story of espionage against the communications infrastructure of the Americans in the Pacific. A lot of background, a lot of machinery, and an inside view of the messages sent. Little actual cryptography, but worth some 3 bits of entropy. If you like daring war stories, this one has it all! A Fire Upon The Deep I think Vernor Vinge would have to be my favourite science fiction author, just pipping out Stephenson. A Fire Upon The Deep is a tour de force of 90's science fiction. It actually has very little crypto in it, so it is hard for me to award it more than 3 bits of entropy. The main players ship out of a port with a third part of a one time pad. The other two parts ship via other means - a security precaution. The one time slice never makes it to its destination, but is used later in a last ditch effort to establish comms with the good guys, whilst being chased by the bad guys across the universe. This is not a funny book, but Vinge's humour comes through with a single crypto joke which still makes me laugh. To enjoy the joke, you'll have to buy the book. The Enigma This book is about the machine, and therefore deserves its title. Written by Michael Barak, The Enigma is the story of a con man who is offered a 'dirty dozen' deal: go to Europe and steal an Enigma, and all charges will be dropped. It's actually quite readable as a story, but the crypto component is low to non-existant, unless you like reading descriptions of how the Enigma was constructed. For its irrelevance to the search at hand, it only gets one bit of entropy, but read it nonetheless if you come across it (quite difficult as its out of print, I found my copy at Roy's book club). ### ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt(a)coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************

1 0

CDR: Re: semi-anon test from a throwaway account part deux
by None 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Jim Choate wrote: > Money order sales are recorded on video camera. [snip] > > A check has your name and address. > > The only way to pay in cash is two either send it through the mail (you > do know about the cash sniffing dogs used at the UPS and airports don't > you?) or stop by in person. Which means that they'll have a receipt and > at least on person who has seen your face. So am I right in saying there isn't, and never really was, a way of making truly anonymous transactions? -------------------------------------- FREE ANONYMOUS EMAIL! Sign up now. http://www.subdimension.com/freemail

1 0