- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Article in the Guardian (UK) about Hal2 not bad ....
by piete.brooks＠cl.cam.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 08:00:07 +0100 From: Piete Brooks <Piete.Brooks(a)cl.cam.ac.uk> An article by Azeem Azhar on page three of today's "The Guardian Online" (he tells me it is available only in paper form !) is fairly positive. He puts over the main point: "since US government regulations prevent the export of software that uses stronger cryptographic techniques".

1 0

ASN.1 AND KERBEROS VERSION 5
by jis＠mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Sat, 2 Sep 1995 13:55:38 -0400 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: jis(a)mit.edu (Jeffrey I. Schiller) Subject: ASN.1 and Kerberos version 5 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Perry E. Metzger writes: >I've heard people associated with the decision to use ASN.1 in >Kerberos V say it was a mistake. Frankly, I think ASN.1 is a blight >which should be exterminated from the planet. I'll say it. I was the person who pushed for the use of ASN.1 in Kerberos version 5. I had this disease at the time that made me think that ASN.1 was a good idea. I got better, unfortunately we have been living with the results of my braino for quite some time now... poor Ted. However, the problem with ASN.1 isn't its waste of space (which actually isn't that bad for a mechanism for encoding arbitrary objects). The problem is that it is the product of a standards making process that didn't (and doesn't) value interoperability. Adherence to the ISO specifications does not guarantee interoperation. Instead regional "workshops" negotiate aspects of implementations to obtain interoperation. What does this mean for ASN.1? It means that the definition of ASN.1 is a bit abstract (as its name implies). Problems result when two organizations (say MIT and OSF!) attempt to implement from the specification in ASN.1 but use different ASN.1 compilers and things then don't work. Arguments then ensue about whose compiler (or manually written parsing code) is "correct" in terms of doing the right thing with ASN.1. This is particularly so when using DER (for Distinquished Encoding Rules) which is itself an after-thought added to ASN.1 later in the process. It is required in order to verify digital signatures (which have to be computed on the "encoded" form of an object because there is no good way to calculate a signature on an "abstract" object). If the Kerberos specification said: "pub this byte here and that one there" none of these arguments and problems would happen. -Jeff -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMEiaf8UtR20Nv5BtAQFzNAP/Q/LuIMbxAPAp64Kn2PSPd600TYlRAUJh QbsuL/iRhGXWrxSjsFzkcr6e3sIpSFggxglFU38TJT/DG2AD8MOid3Uj4pRJVbyo z7Au0Vp1NiotmRBHq2udItzJ7LLPM0j38FHQenqPs9mkX2Cq5kVgGUBO94HabEuE S9XPCgV8E1Q= =kTyw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

RE: CRYPTOGRAPHY ELIMINATES LAWYERS?
by alano＠teleport.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Sat, 09 Sep 1995 12:41:12 -0700 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: Alan Olsen <alano(a)teleport.com> Subject: Re: cryptography eliminates lawyers? At 02:44 PM 9/8/95 -0400, you wrote: >We wish! We really wish! "Fill that lawyer with a few more slugs of encryption!" The argument that encryption will free us from all the legal ills of the world is pretty specious. If anything it will make more work for lawyers as the non-clue-endowed portion of the world tries to come to terms with the new technology. They will make rules and subsets of rules and exeptions to rules and variations to interpetations of rules that will make the current set look like the rules to "chutes and ladders". Part of the job of the lawyer class is to guarentee the existance of work for other lawyers (as well as themselves). It does not depend on what the medium of exchange is. Lawyers and government forces will try and figure out some way to try and extract it from you. The government is trying very hard to keep any scrap of power from creeping away from them. You can bet that they will try every thing they can think of, rational and irrational, to regulate and control the wilds of cyberspace. They will pump up every imaginary boogieman to help them get the public to swallow what they are fed. By the time they figure out they have been had, it will be too late. Cypherpunks must be the syrup of ipecac to the governments dose of poison to the body politic! (I need to start drinking more coffee in the morning. I cannot believe I wrote that...) Unfortunatly the public does not thrive on logic. They had been trained to react emotionally to things and not react logically. I am not certain what can be used to get them to realize why they need encryption. Dispelling the bogeymen is none need. The other thing is that the tools need to be made as simple as possible. The current tools for use require a fair bit of technical understanding. Until they have an integrated front-end that makes it about as easy to use as America On-Line, encryption will not gain widespread usage. This is the type of code that needs to be written. Making integrated tools like newsreaders and mail programs that support strong encryption directly is what is needed for widespread use. (As well as being usable programs in and of themselves. Many of the programs for news and mail are crap.) Making cryptography a "cool and fun thing to use" will help dispell many of the myths and may help to defuse the government created bogey men. (Of course they will claim that it aids "criminals and terrorists", but to them EVERYONE is a criminal and a terrorist.) | Visualize whirled keys | alano(a)teleport.com | |"It's only half a keyserver. I had to split the | Disclaimer: | |other half with the government man." - Black Art | Ignore the man | | -- PGP 2.6.2 key available on request -- | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano | <fnord> |

1 0

PHIL ZIMMERMANN/AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL?
by gjeffers＠socketis.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Fri, 01 Sep 1995 02:16:20 -0500 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: gjeffers(a)socketis.net (Gary Jeffers) Subject: Phil Zimmermann/Amnesty International? Phil Zimmermann/Amnesty International? I was wondering if the Zimmermann case would be a proper concern of Amnesty International. Phil is obviously a political dissident. His persecution is obviously political. If Phil got support from Amnesty Int'l, then his persecution could be a big embarrassment to the Federal gov't. He has a lot of supporters and taking up his cause could be a big promotional for Amnesty International. The Feds might feel forced to drop the matter early. Any ideas? Gary Jeffers

1 0

NIST ESCROW PAPERS - NOW WEB AVAILABLE
by joelm＠eskimo.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 07 Sep 1995 21:28:59 -0700 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: Joel McNamara <joelm(a)eskimo.com> Subject: NIST Escrow Papers - Now Web Available Several of the scanned hand-outs (courtesy of John Young) for the NIST Septembe http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm Papers include: The outlines of meeting topics of Raymond Kammer of NIST and Michael Nelson of Discussion Paper No. 4, "Example Potential Solutions for the Draft Export Crite The Business Software Alliance's dissenting blast at the government's key escro Trusted Informations Systems's "Thoughts on the NIST Escrow Issues Meeting Disc TECSEC Incorporated's "Private Escrow Key Management: A Method and its Issues." Dorothy Denning's "Comments on Draft Criteria for Software Key Escrow Exportabi

1 0

Re: NYT on Netscape Crack
by David_A Wagner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <9509201034.AA10521(a)prakinf.tu-ilmenau.de> you write: > Is it a good idea to use different (unrelated!) seeded PRNG's for the > challenge data (which can be seen by sniffing) and the masterkey (which > should never leave out of client's memory? No. If the master key PRNG is poorly seeded, this is still exploitable: for instance, there is a lot of redundancy in most plaintext, and this can be used to check each candidate key value. Just use a cryptographically secure PRNG seeded with enough entropy.

1 0

Clipper: the definitive meme
by jim＠rand.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Mon, 11 Sep 95 08:26:42 PDT From: Jim Gillogly <jim(a)rand.org> T-shirt!! T-shirt!! Jim Gillogly Trewesday, 20 Halimath S.R. 1995, 15:26 ------- Forwarded Message From: wtshaw(a)aol.com (WTShaw) Newsgroups: talk.politics.crypto Subject: Re: Impressions of the NIST meeting Date: 11 Sep 1995 04:50:27 -0400 In the world of Jet-Age crypto, the government offers up a biplane, and seek to reserve the second seat for themselves. ------- End of Forwarded Message

1 0

Re: www.commentary.unabomber
by carolann＠censored.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Go FrogFarm Go! From: Damaged Justice <frogfarm(a)yakko.cs.wmich.edu> Subject: Re: www.commentary.unabomber To: carolann(a)censored.org Date: Wed, 20 Sep 1995 20:03:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Angst-Level: Fair to Middlin' X-Authentication-Vegetable: Aardvark X-NSA-Food: narcotics anarchy bosnia encryption assassinate X-Thrash-Confirmation: Ahh! Hippy on a stick! Organization: Somewhere just far enough outside of your jurisdiction Reply-To: frogfarm(a)yakko.cs.wmich.edu Yes, it's a complete version. I've also started a rudimentary rebuttal/ commentary page at http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~frogfarm/unabuttal.html - -- frogfarm(a)yakko.cs.wmich.edu (Damaged Justice) is officially declared Unmutual s..O).... The smurf wields a hypodermic! -- More -- I like women who @.../.".. You destroy the smurf! -- More -- are *strong*, in .$*...].. You feel self-righteous! <B>every</B> sense of the word. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMGCvXIrpjEWs1wBlAQFHWAP9Fnf7patTds/KSr6EssfDgZvZKSQiTSqT ddK52W1cbAI+oJT46v0rX2Z7gQeibjHu64jCpQLj7df62p11RD7ElseD9EOJLjUX wUOy5+ap9+dbdr1FViWgwG+B6qExmrduZTsJ3jHz8Fq6cxd8e5iRW+R61wT4Ph1W wZtDiMrUpIE= =UQy3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Member Internet Society - Certified BETSI Programmer - Webmistress *********************************************************************** Carol Anne Braddock (cab8) carolann(a)censored.org 206.42.112.96 My Homepage The Cyberdoc *********************************************************************** ------------------ PGP.ZIP Part [017/713] ------------------- M8H,),S$8G>&.WP(8IRA`-M['+`Q%&_C"">5-F%LX@<_Q$;*P'',Q$Z/AA[8M MF=O0H+*%(-S%&>S%+FS&<LS%3(Q&#W1"<]2%`H^;,]^1C$'HBN8PX$4SYAU^ MPGD<Q0ZLA0D+,`MCT!LA**4M[-JPAK9F?40!AJ,CW"'%DR#:'9?Q)3[%<DQ` ------------------------------------------------------------- for next chunk to export --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/export/

1 0

Selling our spin. was: Cypherpunks Press release
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kevin L Prigge <klp(a)gold.tc.umn.edu> writes: > Does anyone know exactly how the press contact thing works? My impression > is that a reporter/journalist stumbles on to someone who knows something > about a particular area, and is willing to be interviewed. Then the next > time a story comes along that deals even slightly with that subject, the > reporter will tend to contact that person. I think the "exact" process varies with the journalist. But you have it generally correct. The press runs on reputations. When a writer gets a story, they look for "reliable sources" to contact. Reputations are based on a lot of things, including knowledge, speaking ability, looks and the ability to emit a sound-bite that is interesting. it is a strange process. I mean, I even got on CNN during the Morris worm. Tim is right, there is no "we" here. We can't have an official spokesperson, we don't agree on much. But we can work from the ground up. There are a number of serious cryptographers on the list, or at least friendly to the list when the S/N ratio makes sense. With a little work, we should be able to find a fairly long list of media contacts. We can even make it media friendly. >From people I've personally seen recently, we could have Doug Humphrey of Digex (nice to have a security-related company President) Bob Stratton of UU.Net (corporate security wiz) Carl Ellison of TIS (usually on c'punks light and at all DCcp meetings) probably others at TIS such as Ken Mendelsen or Steve Walker For the political side, the folks at EFF, CDT, EIPC, etc. And there are others that could be good contacts, such as William H Murray of Delloite and Touche, Matt Blaze of [Bellcore|BellLabs] It might take a while to get permission for referal, but I expect that most security consultants would consider being quoted in mainstream press to be good advertizing. If we make it easy, anyone would be willing to take advantage of the resource. We should also inclue a representative sample of folks who disagree with us. Any real list should include Dorothy Denning and other supporters. We can simply stack the deck. We can make sure that the mainline journalists know where to look, and make sure that CDT, EFF, ACLU, and EPIC have references that are ready when they are asked for referals. Assuming my web server recovers from the mention in comp.risks, I'm more than willing to accept suggestions and have a "security spokes-folks" page. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student http://www.isse.gmu.edu/students/pfarrell Info. Systems & Software Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP key available on homepage #include <standard.disclaimer>

1 0

SALT LAKE CITY
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

C'punks, Anyone on this channel live in or near Salt Lake City? I'm planning my trip across the continent, and I'm looking for a place to spend the night in the Salt Lake area. Any takers? S a n d y

1 0