July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

None
by Asymmetric 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

> I do understand how both types work, however, the opportunity for > subterfuge is always present. I was making a point that the assumed > security of a remailer should not factor in if you intend to put yourself > at risk. Assumptions are dangerous all over the place, and if your > assumption could get you into trouble, it's better to verify it or not > instead of just proceeding blindly, if at all possible. Even if you trust each remailer to "do the right thing" only 10% of the time, by chaining 10 such remailers the probability of having your identity revealed is only 1 in 10^10 - assuming that the remailers are independent. [That secondary assumption can be improved by chosing remailers in different countries.] > What is the outrageous claim? That someone could purposely set up an > insecure remailer, claim that it's secure, and that people could then > unwittingly use it to incriminate themselves? No - that by using an open-relay mailer you get the same anonymity as using a Type 1 / Type 2 remailer. > and honestly my comment about faking > the return addresses was in no way to say that this method could replace > remailers Funny, that's how it looked for everyone. Admit it - you said something stupid. [Even I admit I'm wrong sometimes. <g>] > I'm going to stop myself here.. The original email I sent was simply a > question about what could be done to possibly quell the flow of spam > generated by this list, followed by a few suggestions. It's gotten utterly > out of hand because somebody apparently took it as a personal attack, and > responded with a series of attacks of his own. Most of the regular subscribers are tired of the complaints (which are usually worse - as in more and bigger - than the spam). > As I said before, if [you] (the reader on the list) don't want to hear > these questions, then what's good for the goose is good for the > gander. Filter my emails if you like; It'll be a lot easier for you to > filter them automatically than it will be to filter the spam messages in > any event. I don't use any (deleting) filters; I read about 500 messages each day, and it only takes me 2-3 hours. A friend of mine reads around 2,000 messages each day. It's not such a big deal. > Instead, I received another nasty letter, and then a few days later a call > from my upstream provider. They denied her request to deliver up my name > and address, but told me that if I didn't take the information down that it > would be a violation of the service agreement, and that they would > disconnect the frame relay. I explained to their (the ISPs) lawyer the > situation, and that they did not actually own the copyrights in > question. He responded with "I know, but considering their history, they > are very willing to take us to court over this, and honestly we don't want > to deal with that. Take it down or we shut you down, we don't care who's > right, we just don't want a lawsuit." Yep. Same thing - the fear of lawsuits - is why we were warned, when we came to the US, to not even look at our female colleagues: even a hint of a lawsuit would make our employer send us back to our country in a heartbeat - whether we're guilty or not. [They wouldn't care.] US sucks a lot. Too bad this is where the money is :) > Needless to say, faced with the entire site being removed, I removed the > materials. One word: Freenet. See http://freenet.sourceforge.net > I see. But trying to find a way to save even more time and bandwidth by > even attempting to figure out a solution to this problem is not as valuable? No. There already is a solution: the client filters everything. Wait, there's also a second one: build your own cypherpunks node. [The second one is even better.] > It comes down to a simple bit of confusion on my part. I cannot understand > the mentality of someone who has the time and resources to effectively > combat the spam on this list, and yet who does not have the time or > resource to either respond in a somewhat civil fashion, or to just delete > the message along with the rest of the refuse. Spam takes <1 second to identify and delete. > You seemed to be a bit more level headed, so while I still totally disagree > that it's a waste of time to try and figure a way around this problem, I > haven't utterly lost respect for you as I have with Tim. "Pillar of the > community" or not, the guy is an utter asshole. Here I agree with you :) Mark

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(no subject)
by dspitz＠voyager.net 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

# Mail sent to leave-4freeteen-2042227m was converted to these commands: unsubscribe 4freeteen cypherpunks(a)toad.com confirm end # This is the text of the message that triggered the action:

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Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
by Ian G 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On 11/06/11 7:42 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 02:16:55AM -0000, John Levine wrote: >> In article<021CCBA9-9203-4896-8412-481B94595B20(a)cs.columbia.edu> you write: >>> http://gcn.com/articles/2011/06/09/bitcoins-digital-currency-silk-road-char… >> >> I wouldn't call bitcoins digital cash. They're more like digital >> tulip bulbs, or bearer shares of theglobe.com. >> >> Whatever they are, it's a self limiting problem since the bubble will >> burst soon enough. > > Unlike fiat currencies, algorithms assert limit of total volume. > And the mint and transaction infrastructure is decentral, so there's > no single point of control. These both are very useful properties. Cryptographically and computer-science-wise, very elegant. But that doesn't mean they are useful properties to any particular application. We expect money to be a store of value, among a few other things. BitCoin has nothing in it that speaks to that goal, that I can see [0]. This anti-property would however make it more ideal for a bubble [1]. Quite how to fix that and retain the decentralised control aspect, I'm unsure. The essence of a contract is that someone delivers something to someone else; without that first party (which speaks to centralisation at some level) it is hard. Can we have a community promise that maintains in a distributed contract? And delivers a store of value? I'm not sure. It's certainly an interesting thought experiment, I think I can see how to make it work, but not in the current circumstance. > I don't expect Bitcoin to be it, but it is definitely a predecessor > to a number of such currencies which will become practical both > for machines and people. That could be! At an architectural level, I think that community is far too obsessed with the "big bad government" scenario when it comes to money issuance [2]. And looking for ways around this, when money is a far more complex subject than just one attacker. In this sense, DigiCash and BitCoin are cypherpunk bubbles [3]. When we run out of geeks to be fascinated with the cryptographic elegance, the currency will collapse. iang [0] It may be that people see decentralisation, and the algorithmic control over volumes as being that store of value. But this is to confuse the primary requirement (store of value) with the secondary governance techniques used by some issuers (i.e., governments) who have a particular flaw of inflation to deal with. IOW, BitCoin's design might be more appropriate if it were run by a government, perversely. [1] E.g., tulip bulbs were not a store of value (I don't think they could last over the season, they had to be grown that season) whereas it is extremely rare for housing "bubbles" to collapse more than half their peak. And normally it's like 10-20% of their peak, which is not really a bubble, just a correction from a bit too much exhuberance. [2] David Chaum made the same mistake when he replicated the hand-to-hand payments transaction in blinding digitial coins. His obsession with preserving the privacy feature implemented in the h2h method led to a very elegant cryptographic breakthrough, but took him too far away from the meaning of money and the consumer's real needs in making trade & transactions. A privacy thing that isn't used as money isn't much use. For another small example, the geeks amongst us insisted on client programs to manage the money, but the world transacts these days on browser access (Which by the bye requires some form of client-server architecture). Which can be seen with Paypal; oldtimers will recall it was originally a client program on Palm Pilots doing hand-to-hand transfers. [3] and, the various other ne'redowellers in there. ----- 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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[cryptography] Fwd: [TLS] Fwd: New Non-WG Mailing List: therightkey
by Marsh Ray 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [TLS] Fwd: New Non-WG Mailing List: therightkey Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:26:18 +0000 From: Stephen Farrell <stephen.farrell(a)cs.tcd.ie> To: saag(a)ietf.org <saag(a)ietf.org>, pkix <pkix(a)ietf.org>, tls(a)ietf.org <tls(a)ietf.org>, dane <dane(a)ietf.org> FYI please sign up if interested but wait a few days to give folks a chance to sign up before starting in on discussion. Stephen & Sean. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: New Non-WG Mailing List: therightkey Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:23:58 -0800 (PST) From: IETF Secretariat <ietf-secretariat(a)ietf.org> To: IETF Announcement list <ietf-announce(a)ietf.org> CC: therightkey(a)ietf.org, turners(a)ieca.com, stephen.farrell(a)cs.tcd.ie A new IETF non-working group email list has been created. List address: therightkey(a)ietf.org Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/therightkey/ To subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/therightkey Purpose: A number of people are interested in discussing proposals that have been developed in response to recent attacks on the Internet security infrastructure, in particular those that affected sites using TLS and other protocols relying on PKI. This list is intended for discussion of those proposals and how they might result in potential work items for the IETF. One short-term outcome may be the holding of a non-wg-forming BoF at IETF-83. For additional information, please contact the list administrators. _______________________________________________ TLS mailing list TLS(a)ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tls _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- 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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None
by Asymmetric 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

> I do understand how both types work, however, the opportunity for > subterfuge is always present. I was making a point that the assumed > security of a remailer should not factor in if you intend to put yourself > at risk. Assumptions are dangerous all over the place, and if your > assumption could get you into trouble, it's better to verify it or not > instead of just proceeding blindly, if at all possible. Even if you trust each remailer to "do the right thing" only 10% of the time, by chaining 10 such remailers the probability of having your identity revealed is only 1 in 10^10 - assuming that the remailers are independent. [That secondary assumption can be improved by chosing remailers in different countries.] > What is the outrageous claim? That someone could purposely set up an > insecure remailer, claim that it's secure, and that people could then > unwittingly use it to incriminate themselves? No - that by using an open-relay mailer you get the same anonymity as using a Type 1 / Type 2 remailer. > and honestly my comment about faking > the return addresses was in no way to say that this method could replace > remailers Funny, that's how it looked for everyone. Admit it - you said something stupid. [Even I admit I'm wrong sometimes. <g>] > I'm going to stop myself here.. The original email I sent was simply a > question about what could be done to possibly quell the flow of spam > generated by this list, followed by a few suggestions. It's gotten utterly > out of hand because somebody apparently took it as a personal attack, and > responded with a series of attacks of his own. Most of the regular subscribers are tired of the complaints (which are usually worse - as in more and bigger - than the spam). > As I said before, if [you] (the reader on the list) don't want to hear > these questions, then what's good for the goose is good for the > gander. Filter my emails if you like; It'll be a lot easier for you to > filter them automatically than it will be to filter the spam messages in > any event. I don't use any (deleting) filters; I read about 500 messages each day, and it only takes me 2-3 hours. A friend of mine reads around 2,000 messages each day. It's not such a big deal. > Instead, I received another nasty letter, and then a few days later a call > from my upstream provider. They denied her request to deliver up my name > and address, but told me that if I didn't take the information down that it > would be a violation of the service agreement, and that they would > disconnect the frame relay. I explained to their (the ISPs) lawyer the > situation, and that they did not actually own the copyrights in > question. He responded with "I know, but considering their history, they > are very willing to take us to court over this, and honestly we don't want > to deal with that. Take it down or we shut you down, we don't care who's > right, we just don't want a lawsuit." Yep. Same thing - the fear of lawsuits - is why we were warned, when we came to the US, to not even look at our female colleagues: even a hint of a lawsuit would make our employer send us back to our country in a heartbeat - whether we're guilty or not. [They wouldn't care.] US sucks a lot. Too bad this is where the money is :) > Needless to say, faced with the entire site being removed, I removed the > materials. One word: Freenet. See http://freenet.sourceforge.net > I see. But trying to find a way to save even more time and bandwidth by > even attempting to figure out a solution to this problem is not as valuable? No. There already is a solution: the client filters everything. Wait, there's also a second one: build your own cypherpunks node. [The second one is even better.] > It comes down to a simple bit of confusion on my part. I cannot understand > the mentality of someone who has the time and resources to effectively > combat the spam on this list, and yet who does not have the time or > resource to either respond in a somewhat civil fashion, or to just delete > the message along with the rest of the refuse. Spam takes <1 second to identify and delete. > You seemed to be a bit more level headed, so while I still totally disagree > that it's a waste of time to try and figure a way around this problem, I > haven't utterly lost respect for you as I have with Tim. "Pillar of the > community" or not, the guy is an utter asshole. Here I agree with you :) Mark

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Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
by Ian G 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On 11/06/11 7:42 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 02:16:55AM -0000, John Levine wrote: >> In article<021CCBA9-9203-4896-8412-481B94595B20(a)cs.columbia.edu> you write: >>> http://gcn.com/articles/2011/06/09/bitcoins-digital-currency-silk-road-char… >> >> I wouldn't call bitcoins digital cash. They're more like digital >> tulip bulbs, or bearer shares of theglobe.com. >> >> Whatever they are, it's a self limiting problem since the bubble will >> burst soon enough. > > Unlike fiat currencies, algorithms assert limit of total volume. > And the mint and transaction infrastructure is decentral, so there's > no single point of control. These both are very useful properties. Cryptographically and computer-science-wise, very elegant. But that doesn't mean they are useful properties to any particular application. We expect money to be a store of value, among a few other things. BitCoin has nothing in it that speaks to that goal, that I can see [0]. This anti-property would however make it more ideal for a bubble [1]. Quite how to fix that and retain the decentralised control aspect, I'm unsure. The essence of a contract is that someone delivers something to someone else; without that first party (which speaks to centralisation at some level) it is hard. Can we have a community promise that maintains in a distributed contract? And delivers a store of value? I'm not sure. It's certainly an interesting thought experiment, I think I can see how to make it work, but not in the current circumstance. > I don't expect Bitcoin to be it, but it is definitely a predecessor > to a number of such currencies which will become practical both > for machines and people. That could be! At an architectural level, I think that community is far too obsessed with the "big bad government" scenario when it comes to money issuance [2]. And looking for ways around this, when money is a far more complex subject than just one attacker. In this sense, DigiCash and BitCoin are cypherpunk bubbles [3]. When we run out of geeks to be fascinated with the cryptographic elegance, the currency will collapse. iang [0] It may be that people see decentralisation, and the algorithmic control over volumes as being that store of value. But this is to confuse the primary requirement (store of value) with the secondary governance techniques used by some issuers (i.e., governments) who have a particular flaw of inflation to deal with. IOW, BitCoin's design might be more appropriate if it were run by a government, perversely. [1] E.g., tulip bulbs were not a store of value (I don't think they could last over the season, they had to be grown that season) whereas it is extremely rare for housing "bubbles" to collapse more than half their peak. And normally it's like 10-20% of their peak, which is not really a bubble, just a correction from a bit too much exhuberance. [2] David Chaum made the same mistake when he replicated the hand-to-hand payments transaction in blinding digitial coins. His obsession with preserving the privacy feature implemented in the h2h method led to a very elegant cryptographic breakthrough, but took him too far away from the meaning of money and the consumer's real needs in making trade & transactions. A privacy thing that isn't used as money isn't much use. For another small example, the geeks amongst us insisted on client programs to manage the money, but the world transacts these days on browser access (Which by the bye requires some form of client-server architecture). Which can be seen with Paypal; oldtimers will recall it was originally a client program on Palm Pilots doing hand-to-hand transfers. [3] and, the various other ne'redowellers in there. ----- 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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[cryptography] Fwd: [TLS] Fwd: New Non-WG Mailing List: therightkey
by Marsh Ray 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [TLS] Fwd: New Non-WG Mailing List: therightkey Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:26:18 +0000 From: Stephen Farrell <stephen.farrell(a)cs.tcd.ie> To: saag(a)ietf.org <saag(a)ietf.org>, pkix <pkix(a)ietf.org>, tls(a)ietf.org <tls(a)ietf.org>, dane <dane(a)ietf.org> FYI please sign up if interested but wait a few days to give folks a chance to sign up before starting in on discussion. Stephen & Sean. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: New Non-WG Mailing List: therightkey Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:23:58 -0800 (PST) From: IETF Secretariat <ietf-secretariat(a)ietf.org> To: IETF Announcement list <ietf-announce(a)ietf.org> CC: therightkey(a)ietf.org, turners(a)ieca.com, stephen.farrell(a)cs.tcd.ie A new IETF non-working group email list has been created. List address: therightkey(a)ietf.org Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/therightkey/ To subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/therightkey Purpose: A number of people are interested in discussing proposals that have been developed in response to recent attacks on the Internet security infrastructure, in particular those that affected sites using TLS and other protocols relying on PKI. This list is intended for discussion of those proposals and how they might result in potential work items for the IETF. One short-term outcome may be the holding of a non-wg-forming BoF at IETF-83. For additional information, please contact the list administrators. _______________________________________________ TLS mailing list TLS(a)ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tls _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- 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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[cryptography] Is this a feature?
by Jeffrey Walton 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

"Opera will autorepair damage to the certificate repository, a missing Certificate Authority is considered damage. Opera ships with a list of frequently used certificates, and if any of these are missing they will be added the next time the repository is read from disk. Other certificates will be added from the online repository as needed." - http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1580452 _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- 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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[ PRIVACY Forum ] Toward Pervasive Internet Encryption:
by privacy＠vortex.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Unshackling the Self-Signed Certificate Reply-To: PRIVACY Forum Digest mailing list <privacy(a)vortex.com> Toward Pervasive Internet Encryption: Unshackling the Self-Signed Certificate http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000339.html Greetings. In "http: Must Die! (and The Encryption Solution)" ( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000338.html ), I suggested an accelerated move toward the routine use of encrypted TLS/https: instead of unencrypted http: for Web communications. An issue that cannot be ignored in this regard is the cost and logistics of server security certificates that are natively recognized by popular Web browsers. Certificates are required to enable TLS encryption in these environments, of course. And while the marketplace for commercial certs is far more competitive now than it was just a few years ago, the cost and hassle factors associated with their purchase and renewal are very relevant, especially for larger sites with many operational server names and systems. What isn't widely understood outside of the technical community is that "self-signed" certificates, which can be generated for free by anyone (and with essentially arbitrary expiration dates) can enable these cryptographic systems in a manner very similar to commercial certs. What self-signed certs typically won't provide is the same "web of trust" confirmation (via a widely recognized certificate authority) for the *identity* of a given site. However, in a vast number of applications where absolute identity confirmation is not required (particularly when commerce is not involved), self-signed certificates are quite adequate. Why then are self-signed certs primarily employed within organizations, but comparatively rarely for servers used by the public at large, even where identity confirmation is not a major issue? The primary reason is that most Web browsers will present a rather alarming and somewhat confusing (for the typical user) alert as part of a self-signed certificate acceptance query dialogue. This tends to scare off many people unnecessarily, and makes self-signed certificate use in public contexts significantly problematic. Security purists may bristle at what I'm going to say next, but so be it. I believe that we should strongly consider something of a paradigm shift in the manner of browsers' handling of self-signed certificates, at the user's option. When a browser user reaches a site with a self-signed certificate, they would be presented with a dialogue similar to that now displayed, but with additional, clear, explanatory text regarding self-signed certificates and their capabilities/limitations. The user would also be offered the opportunity to not only accept this particular cert, but also to optionally accept future self-signed certs without additional dialogues (this option could also be enabled or disabled via browser preference settings). If the user declined this option, the browser would continue to treat self-signed certs in the traditional manner. If the option were accepted, future self-signed certs would not trigger the query dialogue. In either case, the use of a self-signed certificate would ideally cause the appearance throughout that session of an appropriate unobtrusive but clearly visible "self-signed cert" notification message or icon. I would also recommend that the browser URL address bar change to a unique color (e.g. light blue or some other acceptable choice) to indicate a self-signed certificate in use. There are obviously significant security ramifications to this proposal to be carefully analyzed, and a range of variations in the ways that something along these lines might be implemented. But I hope that this discussion helps to stimulate explorations regarding the possible desirability and practicality of much larger scale use of self-signed certificates on the Internet, particularly to encourage the transition of routine Web browsing to an encrypted environment. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren(a)vortex.com or lauren(a)pfir.org Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 http://www.pfir.org/lauren Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Co-Founder, NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com _______________________________________________ privacy mailing list http://lists.vortex.com/mailman/listinfo/privacy

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Re: "I Write Mass Surveillance Software"
by Gregory Maxwell 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 5:01 PM, Rich Jones <rich(a)anomos.info> wrote: > http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9kwph/i_am_a_guy_who_writes_covert_so… > Thoughts? > > also, I realized that two of the posts I've made this this list have now > been reddit-related. Sorry about that. But I'd really like to know what you > all make of this. He doesn't give very many specifics, unfortunately. What > do you think his 'sidestepping' is? The hostility on reddit is odd and unfortunate. The obvious sidestepping is MITM-ing connections for users then shove manipulated binaries at them which disable encryption, leak key material, or intercept keystrokes ... or simply perform degradation attacks, either forcing protocols to less secure modes, or simply blocking or massively slowing secure connections to make the user switch to something insecure. These have the enormous downside of being detectable active attacks. Not something you could afford to apply frequently against general public unless you were willing to tip off your primary target that you were watching. Then againb with ISPs like comcast injecting RST packets, would a degradation attack be distinguishable? Less obvious sidestepping would include things like simply monitoring the remote side with the expectation that they won't be as prudent with security as your primary target. Black-helicopter mode sidestepping would be having pre-arranged back doors in popular operating systems or client software. ----- 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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