July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

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/ **************************************************************************

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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/ **************************************************************************

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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/ **************************************************************************

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Re: [liberationtech] "Chinas Internet?"
by Martin Johnson 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

The majority of Internet users in Mainland China spend 100% of their online time on Chinese websites. Google+, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogspot and many more (see https://en.greatfire.org) are completely blocked in Mainland China. Most other foreign websites are both considerably slower than domestic ones, and subject to keyword-based blocking of certain URLs. The majority of Internet users outside Mainland China spend 0% of their online time on Chinese websites. This is not just a language issue - there are a lot of Chinese-speaking people outside of Mainland China, and several Chinese websites have English-language interfaces. It's also because they are slow. The Great Firewall slows down traffic in both directions. Concern with censorship may also discourage some users, as seen recently regarding WeChat. In this sense, there is a Chinese Internet or a Chinanet, as opposed to the rest of the Internet. They are not completely cut off from each other, but in practice there is little communication between the two. Unfortunately. Martin Johnson Founder of GreatFire.org | FreeWeibo.com | Unblock.cn.com PGP key <https://en.greatfire.org/contact> On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Nadim Kobeissi <nadim(a)nadim.cc> wrote: > Most likely it's bad writing. What they likely meant by "China's Internet" > is China's social network sphere, such as Sina Weibo communities and so > on... > > > NK > > > On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 10:53 PM, Brian Conley <brianc(a)smallworldnews.tv>wrote: > >> Photos of the dead sailors, their bodies gagged and blindfolded and some >> with head wounds suggesting execution-style killings, circulated on Chinabs >> Internet. >> >> From: >> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/world/asia/chinese-plan-to-use-drone-high… >> >> I know about the GFW of course, but anyone know the exact meaning of >> nytimes referencing "China's Internet" as opposed to "was circulated in the >> Internet by Chinese citizens?" >> >> -- >> 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 > -- 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

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[WIKILEAKS] WikiLeaks wins Amnesty 2009 New Media Award
by Wikileaks Press Office 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/WikiLeaks_wins_Amnesty_International_2009_Media_A… WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE - For Immediate Release Wednesday June 3, 2009 "WikiLeaks wins Amnesty International 2009 Media Award" WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has won the Amnesty 2009 New Media Award for work exposing hundreds of recent extrajudicial assassinations in Kenya. The award was presented last night at a ceremony in London. Four people associated with investigating the killings have themselves been murdered, including noted human rights lawyers Oscar Kingara and John Paul Oulo, who were assassinated driving to an afternoon meeting at the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights in March this year. WikiLeaks first ran its first story on the killings for a week on its fronpage, beginning November 1, 2008. Eventually the story was picked up by print media, starting with Jon Swain from the Sunday Times. Then, earlier this year the United Nations sent a team to Nairobi, lead by Prof. Alston, to investigate. According to AFP, earlier today a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council was told by the U.N Special Rapporteur on extrajudical killings, Prof. Philip Alston, that Kenya's police were a "major stumbling block" for probes into the killings. Prof. Alston also told that 47 member Human Rights Council on Wednesday that "Attacks on those who document abuses do not absolve a government of its obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for extrajudicial executions,". In accepting the award, Mr. Assange stated "It is a reflection of the courage and strength of Kenyan civil society that this injustice was documented. Through the tremendous work of organizations such as the Oscar foundation, the KNHCR, Mars Group Kenya and others we had the primary support we needed to expose these murders to the world. I know that they will not rest, and we will not rest, until justice is done." Source documents * Murder in Nairobi: Wikileaks related human rights lawyers assassinated * Kenya: The Cry of Blood - Report on Extra-Judicial Killings and Disappearances, Sep 2008 * Kenyan assassinations: slain human rights lawyer Oscar Kamau Kingara letter to the International Criminal Court, 1 Jan 2009 * Oscar Foundation - assassinated Kamau Kingara final report - The Veil of Impunity, 9 Oct 2008 * Oscar Foundation letter to Minister for Internal Security over extra-judicial killings in Kenya, 14 Oct 2008 * US Ambassador to Internal Security head over Kenyan assassination Selected reportage * Cooperate with FBI, Raila tells Kenya police * Demonstrators accuse police over disappearance of kin * International Criminal Court will handle politicians but who will tame police * Raila now attacks security agencies * Two Kenyan rights activists shot dead * UN group to probe poll chaos deaths * UN probe indicts Kenya on police killings * UN urges probe into Kenya murders http://wikileaks.org/wiki/WikiLeaks_wins_Amnesty_International_2009_Media_A… +-------------------------------------------------- | Why you receive this mail and what to do with it: | | You are receiving this mail because you were invited to | the Wikileaks Press Release list run by the transparency group Sunshine Press. | | Releases ensure you are aware, before the rest of the world, | of significant geopolitical and other disclosures released | by Wikileaks, an international platform for the first release of | of classified, confidential or censored materials of political, | diplomatic, ethical or historical interest. | | We rely on you to distribute the content of this mail to your | community, industry, press and regulators, to defend us in your | country and to invite people of integrity and commitment via | via https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/wl-press | | Our materials range from secret Guantanamo documents to political | assassinations to confidential reports of children's hospital | corruption, and have spawned tens of thousands of press articles, | many reforms and changed electoral outcomes. | | Releases average one per week but can be higher or lower depending on | events. You can easily set the frequency to monthly or change your | subscription via https://lists.riseup.net/www/sendpasswd/ | | If you know people that have access to sensitive documents of public | interest, tell them about us. We have an unbroken record of protecting | sensitive sources and defeating censorship attacks from all corners of the globe. | See https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:Submissions | | If you are about to release an investigative report or article, we can release the | underlaying source material concurrently to substantiate the allegations, | draw attention away from the true source, deflect legal or censorship | attacks and promote secondary investigations and public awareness. | | Live bank-grade encrypted chat to the office is available via | https://secure.wikileaks.org/chat/irc2.cgi (multiple languages spoken) | | Inquiries for speaking engagements, comment, interventions, | investigations, source-protection and censorship consultations | may be addressed to http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:Contact | | If you are serious about analysis, translation, | legal, coding, network, financial or other contributions, please contact | us via: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:Contact | | See http://wikileaks.org for all other information and | https://secure.wikileaks.org for secure access. ----- 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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For IP: Tracking devices required for hassle-free travel?
by Brett Glass 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Dave: I'm in Manhattan this morning, where -- due to the Federal government's extremely vague claims of increased terrorist risk -- the police are out in force during the morning commute. They're diverting traffic from some normal commuter routes (such as the upper deck of the Queensboro Bridge) and are requiring vehicles to slow down at checkpoints along others (such as the approach to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel). We've seen such checkpoints at Denver International Airport in the past, and have observed that they appear to have little effect other than slowing traffic and inconveniencing travelers. What they could possibly expect to be able to detect, during a second's glance at a moving vehicle, is unclear. What's particularly disturbing about the measures we saw today, however, is that authorities appeared to be pulling over, and singling out for more thorough inspection, vehicles which were not equipped with New York's electronic "E-Z Pass" -- an electronic device which allows vehicle owners to be charged automatically for tolls and parking. Your Interesting People list has, in the past, featured articles describing the increasingly widespread use of E-Z Pass records to track unfaithful spouses, employees, etc. We've seen examples of this sort of invasive "mission creep" before -- in particular, in the increasingly widespread use of the Social Security number for identification purposes of all kinds. But this is something new: It appears that now, when the Federal Government declares an "orange" terror alert, an electronic tracking device has become a requirement for hassle-free travel. One can only wonder if this is the start of an era in which one is detained, harassed, or otherwise branded as a suspected terrorist if at any time one pays via anonymous cash or is unwilling to have his or her movements continually traced and recorded. --Brett Glass [Just like the lack of a frequent flyer number will get you looked at hard at airports djf] ------------------------------------- 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> ______________________________________________________________ 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 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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[IP] Tracking devices required for hassle-free travel?
by Dave Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

1 0

Re: RPOW - Reusable Proofs of Work
by hal＠finney.org 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

A couple of quick responses to the questions on RPOW, as I am at Crypto this week. Taral asked about the attestation. It is based on a root key published in Appendix C of IBM's "IBM 4758 PCI Cryptographic Coprocessor Custom Software Interface Reference", available from http://www.ibm.com/security/cryptocards/html/library.shtml. It is also published on IBM's web page at http://www.ibm.com/security/cryptocards/html/faqcopvalidity.shtml This tells you that the attestation refers to a valid IBM 4758. Further, the attestation contains within it both a hash of the RPOW program, and a set of keys generated by that program. Using the methods described on the rpow.net web site, it is possible to take the RPOW source code and generate a hash which matches that reported in the attestation. This tells you that you have access to the actual source code running on the RPOW server. By studying the source you can confirm that the program never exposes its private keys or allows them to leave the board. This tells you that if you send a message encrypted to the RPOW communications key and get a meaningful response (messages are protected with HMAC), you are talking to the program described in the attestation. Lynn Wheeler mentions the IBM 4758 break by Mike Bond and Richard Clayton described at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/descrack/. This was not actually a break of the 4758 but an exploit of a cryptographic weakness in the application running on the board, which was IBM's CCA support software. RPOW does not use CCA and is not vulnerable to that attack, and IBM has since fixed the CCA. Of course it is possible that RPOW may have vulnerabilities and errors of its own, being my own work and far from perfect. I welcome review and comment on the RPOW source code which is open source and available from rpow.net. Hal Finney --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com --- 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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