- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

backtracking.....
by Bernardo B. Terrado 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Could someone point or tell me where and what good backtracking problems could I get (then I'll implement it in parallel). e.g. queen's tour knight's tour Could you give me new and interesting ones. Thank you very much.

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Manage your Assets, Simplify your Life---- Extensis Portfolio 4.0
by listmaster＠extensis.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Introducing the Newest Version of our Asset Management Software-Extensis Portfolio 4.0 http://www.extensis.com/products/Portfolio/ - Organize your assets -images, text, photos, multimedia- for instant-access - NEW! Import information from other databases - NEW! Robust scripting now facilitates database and internet publishing - NEW! Slideshow feature provides full-screen display of images - NEW! Scalability with Portfolio Server 4.0 ensures lightening-fast access for workgroups Extensis Portfolio 4.0 and Portfolio Server 4.0 will help you manage and organize your digital assets. Digital assets include digital images, artwork, presentations, multimedia, photos, or other graphic documents that need to be organized and shared. Extensis Portfolio 4.0 offers you a place to catalog, view, manage, select, search and even share digital content among multiple users. Find the images you need, find them fast, share them with partners around the globe all through your network or the Web with NEW Portfolio 4.0 and Portfolio Server 4.0. Create database fields that match your business with Portfolio's unlimited custom fields. Then, import your assets from other databases for a centralized asset management system. With Portfolio's advanced searching features, you will never hunt-and-peck for your images again. And with Portfolio's built-in scripting you can automate regular tasks, such as Internet and database publishing-in no time. Portfolio 4.0 is the only scalable solution that allows you to start with as few as one user (using the stand-alone client software) and add more users (by adding additional clients; without requiring a server) as your needs grow. For larger workgroups, the NEW Portfolio Server 4.0 will enable dozens of users to access your assets without a loss of performance. Portfolio Server can be inserted into a workgroup at any time, without the need to replace the existing Portfolio 4.0 client (single-user) versions. Plus, the NEW Portfolio Server 4.0 arrives with 5 free copies of Portfolio 4.0- a value. Streamline your work, build your assets, and simplify your life-Extensis Portfolio 4.0 To download a FREE demo, get information, or to buy on-line, visit http://www.extensis.com/products/Portfolio/ Or call Extensis at 1(800) 796-9798 Ext. 404 or (503) 274-2020 Ext. 404. Portfolio 4.0 System Requirements: Macintosh Mac OS 7.5.3 - 8.5 PowerPC, 32 MB of RAM Windows Windows 95, 98 or NT 4.0 Pentium, 32 MB of RAM Portfolio Server 4.0 System Requirements Windows Win NT 4.0, Pentium, 32 MB RAM Macintosh Macintosh version available late 1998 PS. We have made every effort to ensure this message is being sent only to people who have expressed interest in Extensis products. If we have sent this to you in error, please accept our apologies and reply with "REMOVE" in the subject line for automatic exclusion from future communications. If you know someone who would like to be on our mailing list have them send an email to listmaster(a)extensis.com with "ADD" in the subject line and their email address in the body. P.P.S. This message is intended for North American customers. If you are located outside of North America and have received this message, please visit www.extensis.com/purchase/ to find the nearest local distributor in your country.

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FW: Death, Politics and the Net
by Matthew James Gering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

...and I was just thinking the other day it would be cool to create a government blocking service maintaining a list of disallowed IPs and providing a click-thru redirect agreement complete with legal enforcement. ;) Matt -----Original Message----- From: James S. Tyre [mailto:j.s.tyre@CYBERPASS.NET] Sent: Friday, October 23, 1998 2:59 PM To: CYBERIA-L(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: Death, Politics and the Net [There *is* a cyberia connection in here, somewhere, I think.] I'm sure you all (in the U.S., at least) have heard of the murdered Tennessee state senator, and that his opponent in the upcoming election is now charged with the crime. Well, turns out that the boys aren't just from anywhere in TN, but from Putnam County, home of the cookie-monster suit between the local guvvies and the Putnam Pit <http://www.putnampit.com/>. So, always interested in alternative viewpoints, thought I'd see what the Pit had to say, in it's own inimitable way. Found that its home page now says what follows. Thought it might interest some, for reasons unrelated to the alleged crime. ---- Welcome to The Putnam Pit online Because of the costs associated with producing The Putnam Pit caused by local government civil rights violations, government officials, employees and their agents may no longer access this site without a subscription. This site is a private forum. It is private property and protected by copyright law and the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution. If you do not work for or represent the Cookeville or Putnam County, Tenn., governments, are not using a government computer or government Internet account and agree no portion of any material posted here will be made available to the governments of Cookeville or Putnam County, Tenn., or their agents, click here for free access. Notice to employees, officials or agents of the Cookeville or Putnam County, Tenn., governments, and those using a government computer or government Internet account: If you are an employee, official or agent of the Cookeville or Putnam County, Tenn., governments, or you are using a government computer or government Internet account you must purchase a subscription to access The Putnam Pit. A subscription costs $20 and may be obtained by sending a check to The Putnam Pit, P.O. Box 1483, Cookeville, Tenn. 38503. If you access any page of the material managed and owned by The Putnam Pit, Inc., without a subscription, you agree by that access to pay $500 per incident of access to each page accessed every time you access it. You further agree to waive all rights to contest collection of any debt thereby incurred, and enter into this agreement on behalf of the government entity on whose computer or through whose Internet account your access was facilitated. You further represent by clicking below and accessing The Putnam Pit's private and copyrighted property to allow The Putnam Pit or its agents to inspect the hard drive of your computer to determine the number of times the site was accessed according to he terms of this contract to determine the amount owed. click here

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Oct. 30 column -- playing out the clock
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Resent-Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 23:24:55 -0700 Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:16:50 -0800 (PST) X-Sender: vin(a)dali.lvrj.com Mime-Version: 1.0 To: vinsends(a)ezlink.com From: Vin_Suprynowicz(a)lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz) Subject: Oct. 30 column -- playing out the clock Resent-From: vinsends(a)ezlink.com X-Mailing-List: <vinsends(a)ezlink.com> archive/latest/579 X-Loop: vinsends(a)ezlink.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: vinsends-request(a)ezlink.com FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 30, 1998 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Gamely playing out the clock in a hopeless contest Every even-numbered year, literally scores of candidates come trooping through the offices of the newspaper where I work, seeking our endorsement for every office from constable or justice of the peace, to governor or U.S. senator. Playing out the game by the established rules, we cross-question them on their little memorized spiels about how they "respect the Second Amendment" and "want to make government more efficient and more responsive to the people's needs." By and large, those candidates who start out insisting they "respect the Second Amendment" will quickly agree with any new hare-brained scheme you can propose to register or restrict where folks can carry guns, or to ban people from owning "really dangerous" semi-automatic weapons or concealable handguns, for which "obviously no one can have a legitimate use." (Uzis seem to be a favorite weapon for which "no one can have a legitimate use" this year. The only ones available in local gun shops are semi-autos, of course -- essentially a 9mm handgun with a shoulder stock.) Naturally, those who "want to make government more efficient" can rarely name a single government office or program they'd close. But every year, a few candidates show up who actually understand a little economics, have read the Constitution, and volunteer that the purpose of government is to protect individual rights. Pinching ourselves and wondering how they "slipped through," every year we celebrate these few brave souls in our editorial pages. Many people vote for them. And then what happens? Taxes go up, more laws are passed, government grows more intrusive, and our rights are eroded faster than ever. How come? Well, of course, not all the candidates we endorse get elected. A certain number of incumbent redistributionists are "automatically" returned by the voters, no matter what we say or do. Fine: A newspaper has no dictatorial powers, nor should it. But what's more discouraging is how little difference these well-intentioned people seem to make even if they do get elected to the state legislature, or the Congress, or wherever they're headed. I've been in the newspaper business for 25 years. Call me a cynic -- I'll respond that it's simply an objective observation: No matter who we elect, it doesn't matter any more. Government is a machine that crunches anyone you send into it into a cog or gear of the required shape and size to keep the machine running and growing. Why are fewer and fewer folks registering to vote, or showing up at the polls? Vote for the most radical of Libertarians, he will get 4 percent of the vote, and nothing will change. They still won't let him into the TV debates next year, and no corporation will hand him the protection money which we still daintily call "campaign contributions." Vote for (start ital)and elect(end ital) the most radical-sounding "less government" Republican you can find, and the best result will be a government that grows at the rate of 7 percent next year, instead of 8 percent. You will still have to get fingerprinted to obtain your new driver's license, there will still be armed soldiers at the airports strip-searching people "to prevent terrorism and drug-running" (starting next year), and your take-home pay will still be a smaller percentage of your gross earnings next year than it was last year. Oh, these things are never accomplished overnight, say the eternal optimists. Besides, these are all just a bunch of cynical generalities. OK: Let's get specific. in my next column, I will present you with five or six races in which the Las Vegas Review-Journal -- largest newspaper in Nevada -- has made loud, strident, forceful endorsements in Election '98. The five or six candidates the newspaper endorsed may astound you with just how dedicated to personal liberties and limited government they sound, given that they are all "electable" (that is to say -- from one of the "major parties.") But if each voter could personally interview every candidate on his or her Nov. 3 ballot for half-an-hour apiece, not allowing them to get away with any slick double-talk, I daresay you too could find and vote for five or six "viable" candidates in your own town and state who sound just as "libertarian." Then you too could have the experience of seeing them go to the capital and vote for new tax hikes and more gun control laws, vote to send away harmless minority kids for even longer terms in the pen for "getting high" on harmless vegetable extracts, authorize more restrictions of our economic freedom and invasions of our privacy, and then give you a look of shock when you tell them you're disappointed. "But that bill had some good stuff in it!" they will insist. "No bill is perfect. You always have to compromise on something to get things done. We had to make our gun licensing rules just a little stricter, in the hopes our permits will now be recognized by other states. And as for the fingerprinting for the new driver's license, most people favor that, since it will make it much harder for someone else to cash your checks if they're stolen." Next time: five excellent and "viable" candidates, and why voting for them probably won't make a bit of difference at all. Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin(a)lvrj.com. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin(a)lvrj.com The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John Hay, 1872 The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943 * * * --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.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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SNET: [FP] Microsoft puts smart card on table
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: st005940(a)brandywine.otago.ac.nz Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 16:08:19 +1300 To: snetnews(a)world.std.com From: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> (by way of jeremy.compton(a)stonebow.otago.ac.nz (Jeremy Compton)) Subject: SNET: [FP] Microsoft puts smart card on table Sender: snetnews-approval(a)world.std.com Precedence: list Reply-To: snetnews(a)world.std.com -> SNETNEWS Mailing List ====================================================================== SCAN THIS NEWS 10/26/98 Microsoft puts smart card on table http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C27923%2C00.html?dd.ne.tx.fs6.1026 By Tim Clark Staff Writer, CNET News.com October 26, 1998 Update: Microsoft tomorrow will announce an extension of its Windows operating system for smart cards, a company spokesman said today. Smart cards, which have very limited memory and processing power, are about the size of a credit card and embedded with a computer chip. The technology is used for storing data on mobile phones, banking online, and paying for phone calls and public transit fares. Microsoft vice president Paul Maritz is scheduled to announce the operating system initiative tomorrow at Cartes 98, a conference on smart card technology in Paris. A new system from Microsoft could bring more acceptance of smart cards in the United States. Smart cards have been used in Europe, which holds more than 80 percent of the market, but have been slow to progress in America, at least in part beacuse of the lack of a standard operating system. Microsoft is bidding to enter that arena, but Sun Microsystems is already active in that space with its JavaCard specification. In addition, Mondex, an e-cash company controlled by MasterCard has its MultOS system designed so cards with different operating systems can work together. The company's interest in smart cards parallels its strategy with Windows CE, a stripped-down version of its PC operating system for consumer electronics devices. In April, Microsoft announced a version of Windows CE for automobiles, gas pumps, industrial controllers, and other uses. The smart-card initiative seeks to go after even smaller, cheaper devices--particularly when rival Sun is targeting the same business. The Microsoft spokesman said card developers could use existing Windows tools to work with their software. The annual Paris show is a major showcase for the smart card industry. Schlumberger, a major French manufacturer of smart cards, today unveiled new software for its cards that transforms a smart card into a security device to identify its holder. Many PC makers have said they will produce machines with smart-card readers built in, a capability that Microsoft has provided in its desktop PC operating systems. Microsoft has a certification and logo program that indicates smart card systems work with Windows NT. ======================================================================= Don't believe anything you read on the Net unless: 1) you can confirm it with another source, and/or 2) it is consistent with what you already know to be true. ======================================================================= Reply to: <fingerprint(a)networkusa.org> ======================================================================= To subscribe to the free Scan This News newsletter, send a message to <majordomo(a)efga.org> and type "subscribe scan" in the BODY. Or, to be removed type "unsubscribe scan" in the message BODY. For additional instructions see www.efga.org/about/maillist.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Scan This News" is Sponsored by S.C.A.N. Host of the "FIGHT THE FINGERPRINT!" web page: www.networkusa.org/fingerprint.shtml ======================================================================= -> Send "subscribe snetnews " to majordomo(a)world.std.com -> Posted by: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> (by way of jeremy.compton(a)stonebow.otago.ac.nz (Jeremy Compton)) --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.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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Oct. 29 column -- twilight of an era
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Resent-Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 23:21:30 -0700 Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 22:13:20 -0800 (PST) X-Sender: vin(a)dali.lvrj.com Mime-Version: 1.0 To: vinsends(a)ezlink.com From: Vin_Suprynowicz(a)lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz) Subject: Oct. 29 column -- twilight of an era Resent-From: vinsends(a)ezlink.com X-Mailing-List: <vinsends(a)ezlink.com> archive/latest/578 X-Loop: vinsends(a)ezlink.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: vinsends-request(a)ezlink.com FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 29, 1998 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Twilight of the Gods We seem to be entering the twilight of an era. Changes in our society -- consider the erosion of personal liberties, and even the notion that sticking up for our personal liberties is a good thing ("He wouldn't give his Social Security number when he tried to register to vote? He owned an unregistered firearm? He wouldn't volunteer any information on his tax form? Then he deserved whatever happened to him. I'm sorry they burned up the wife and baby, too, but he brought it on himself") -- have been occurring incrementally over the past 86 years. Hence, the popular notion that future change will continue to be equally gradual. Even "legitimate" Libertarian Party political candidates now patiently explain to me that since the current police/welfare state took 60 to 90 years to put in place, there's no sense alarming anyone by shouting radical ideas about legalizing heroin or machine guns. No, no. These "modern" Libertarians -- respectable middle-aged entrepreneurs in respectable coats and striped ties -- patiently explain that they only wish to move us back toward slightly less government, slightly lower taxes, and the restoration of a few personal liberties at a time. Nothing for anyone to get frightened about. The problem is, neither human nor geologic history seem to bear out this notion of a pendulum swinging steadily back and forth. The era of the swamp-dwelling dinosaurs seems to have continued for hundreds of thousands of years without much change. But ice core samples and ocean sediments now indicate the freeze that killed them may have taken as few as five years. Social and political change in France was pretty gradual from 1480 to 1780. Would one thus have been safe in assuming that things wouldn't be likely to change much from 1780 and 1795? A whole lot of folks went to the guillotine based on that assumption. Our ability to sense the imminent end of an era is seriously hampered by a part of human nature modern psychiatry calls "denial." The loss of familiar things -- even if we know in our hearts they are rotten -- is frightening. Thus, we tend to hope the signs are wrong, and to cling to what is familiar. Is this another one of these rants about how the inability of our computers to process the date "2000" is going to cause an instant reversion to the Stone Age? No -- though such computer malfunctions and shutdowns certainly will occur, creating pockets of panic and accelerated uncertainty about just how reliable our "foolproof" government and economic "systems" really are. But the number of things that are rotten in America -- and thus in "Western civilization" -- has simply grown too large. And as each one fails, it will help to pull down the next. Large dams do not develop small leaks. We could talk about the imminent collapse of the largest, most profligate, most unproductive and socially poisonous make-work social engineering scheme ever devised, the mandatory government youth propaganda camps (you may call them "public schools.") When the cost of things that don't work exceeds what people can pay, they just walk away. That's why the stone temples of the Maya were abandoned long before Cortez showed up, and why most of the nuclear submarines of the Russian Navy now sit rusting at their piers. There was never any popular vote to "shut down the Soviet Navy." Everyone just went home. We could talk about the inevitable failure of the little Dutch boy sticking his fingers in the financial dikes of Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Brazil -- the International Monetary Fund, the failure of which is likely to soon bring down another 20th century institution which we have come to assume could never fail, the vast leveraged Ponzi scheme known as "government chartered fractional reserve banking." (Imagine an evil wizard made the stock market disappear, along with your stockbroker and your bank. For awhile, you might wonder what you would live on in your "retirement." Then it would dawn on you: What "retirement"? "Retirement" at a fixed age was a notion introduced by the 19th century socialists, who believed there was a fixed number of jobs in the world (duh), and that the only way to guarantee work to the young was therefore to "pension off" the oldsters. "Retirement" is a completely artificial invention.) I could talk about the schools or the banks, scrambling around insisting it's not their fault; it's our fault for being too "greedy" to hand them ever-larger "bailouts." But I won't. Instead, since it's election time, I will talk about why the great experiment called "participatory democracy" is failing. Next time -- interviews with virtually every candidate in Southern Nevada produced five or six outstanding prospects this year: Why voting for them isn't likely to make a bit of difference. Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin(a)lvrj.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/. The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin(a)lvrj.com The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John Hay, 1872 The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943 * * * --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: IP: Uncle Sam Wants Spooks.
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:04 PM 10/26/98 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote: > "We teach a concept called open source and > public domain intelligence -- that is, taking what > is in the public domain and creating new > knowledge by analysis and interpretation," he So does John Young, EFF, FAS, etc. > Applying for a job with the CIA is easy: Send a > resume. The CIA scans the resumes it gets Applying for a job with the NSA is easier. Just fax your resume. Doesn't matter where.

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:42 AM 10/26/98 -0800, Michael Motyka wrote: >> How does this differ from the motives of your ordinary politician? >> >> Post-revolution, will there be caliber limitations when hunting them? > >Hunt all you want. The post-revolution utopia will be administered by >persons of the same mentality as those we have administering our >Democratic Republic now. They will use the same if not more advanced >techniques to acquire and maintain power. "Nature abhors a vacuum", >right? Most of nature is a very high quality vacuum, actually. Governments have not always been so parasite-infested; this disease progresses slowly, numbingly, unnoticed, like leprosy.

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Re: files (was: Re: dbts, etc.)
by dporter＠denova.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Steve Bellovin (smb(a)research.att.com) wrote... > . . . to trace the the perturbations caused to the system. . . > The more anonymity, and the more privacy cut-outs, the > harder this is. . . > To be sure, one can assert that the philosophical > gains -- privacy, libertarianism, what have you -- are > sufficiently important that this price is worth paying. . . Steve, as you point out most of us are driven primarily by practical concerns. This is a philosophy: pragmatism. Beyond mind exercise, philosophy is valuable exactly to the extent it is practical. DBS increases freedom. Increased freedom is practical because it reduces risks -- of confiscation, imprisonment, and death -- and because it usually increases efficiency. All of these pragmatic considerations seem much more important than the ease of maintenance, at least to me. Doug

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Re: log files (was: Re: dbts: Cryptographic Dog Stocks, The Dirigible Biplane, and Sending the Wizards Back to Menlo Park )
by Steve Bellovin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message <3.0.1.32.19981028093825.00a3f2d0(a)pop.bos.platinum.com>, Hal Lockhar > > I hear you saying, "but what if the guy is trying to break into my system." > I would argue, that if you are using strong cryptographic authentication > (whether his identity can be mapped to a human being or not) then either 1) > he will fail, in which case you don't care or 2) he will succeed, in which > case he must have used some technique like stealing a key which cannot be > detected by monitoring. Why do you assume that the flaw that lets the bad guy in is cryptographic? I recently analyzed every CERT advisory ever issued. 85% of them described problems that crypto couldn't fix. Buffer overflow is the culprit du jour, but it's hardly the only one. (This year, the prize for second place -- admittedly a distant second -- went to crypto modules.) > > I raise this point, because I see it as part of a current trend to resist > stong security measures in preference to weak ones. The current industry > facination with weak measures, like firewalls and intrusion detection > systems has caused some people to resist the introduction of strong > measures, such as cryptographic authentication and data protection. The > most popular example of this is the foolish practice of putting an SSL > server, with its vital server private key, outside the firewall in a DMZ. That's only a flaw if you assume that there are other weak points on the Web server that a firewall can protect. If you lock down the host so that only port 80 is exposed (and maybe a cryptographically protected administrative port), what good does the firewall do? The weakest point is probably the CGI scripts, and those have to be exposed in any event. > > But I have also heard system administrators protest the introduction of > cryptographic solutions because some current half measure will no longer > work. There are even misguided individuals who have proposed putting > master decryption keys at vulnerable locations like border routers, so that > messages can be inspected in the fly. There are no panaceas, there is no single technology (and that emphatically includes crypto) that will solve this problem. Defense in depth is our best hope, which means firewalls plus crypto plus IDS plus better operating systems and programming languages. Most of all, it means engineering a solution -- making the right set of tradeoffs, even if unobvious. Let me give an analogy. On most electrical equipment, the ground pin is useless -- *unless* there has been another insulation or air gap failure within the device, a failure that would render the frame "hot". But because of the ground pin, such a failure will instead short the hot lead to ground, tripping the breaker. It thus takes two failures to electrocute someone. *But* -- toasters and other devices with exposed heating elements don't use this technique. Why not? Well, with an exposed electrode, the probability of direct contact with a live wire is much greater. And if you ground the frame of the toaster, there's now a direct, high-quality path to ground that in turn is in contact with the other hand of the poor fool who is poking at a piece of bread with a fork. In other words, what's a safety mechanism in your refrigerator is a danger in your toaster -- and sometimes, that can be true of crypto as well. For another analogy, think of insecurity as entropy. You can't destroy it, but you can move it around. Using crypto moves the problem from the (in)security of the links to the (in)security of the keys. If you can't protect your keys -- and that generally takes much more than crypto -- using cryptography hasn't bought you anything.

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