- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

holiday
by Brian D Williams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. Party on! Brian Williams

3 2

Re: Give me your password- OR ELSE!
by Jef Poskanzer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Watch the nightly news or if you want to be really anal about it look up >statistics about the increase in violent carjacking. Actually, I did that. Turns out the supposed increase that got all the media attention was solely due to the SFPD establishing a new statistical category. The actual number of incidents has not changed significantly. --- Jef

1 0

Schneier's _Applied Cryptography_
by kkirksey＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>BTW, schneier is literally a FAQ for cypherpunks. >Fantastic book. Cough up the money for it... I'll second that motion! Waldenbooks just got my copy of _Applied Cryptography_ in yesterday, and I've pretty much had that book in my hands every minute I've been awake since. Definitely required reading. Ken ============================================================================= Ken Kirksey kkirksey(a)world.std.com Mac Guru & Developer ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest. - Mahatma Ghandi

1 0

Re: strong crypto => increase in rubber-hose attacks?
by kkirksey＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Assume you use strong crypto to protect your secrets. > >Assume a lot of people start using crypto to protect their secrets. > >Assume there are people who want to discover these secrets. > > >Might we some day see an increase in the number physical attacks as bad guys >resort to rubber-hose methods to get at the keys that protect the secrets? Now Jim, you wouldn't be implying that our big warm fuzzy government would EVER resort to using methods like that on it's own citizens, would you? :-) Not possible, unless you count Waco, Ruby Ridge, Ken Ballew, John Lawmaster, no-knock search warrants, ad infinitum... Seriously, I think you may be right, although physical security has always seemed to me to be the weakest link in any crypto chain. All I can say is that scenarios such as you envision simply point out the wisdom of always going armed. Or did I read to much Heinlein when I was a kid? :-) Ken ============================================================================= Ken Kirksey kkirksey(a)world.std.com Mac Guru & Developer ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest. - Mahatma Ghandi

1 0

PC Based One-Time Pad
by kkirksey＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

While I was reading though _Applied Cryptography_ last night, a thought struck me (no damage): Why hasn't anyone come up with a good Mac or PC based One-Time Pad system. I'd envision it working something like this: * A 1.4 Meg floppy with a single file, or multiple files, of random bits. 2 copies, one for sender and one for reciever. * The first few bytes of the cyphertext file will contain the name of the pad file used, possibly the volume name where the pad file is stored, and the starting offset within the pad file. It seems like this would be a fairly easy system to implement, but since no one (to my knowledge) has yet done so, there must be something I'm missing. :-) Secure distribution and storage of the pad disk could be difficult, but not insurmountable. The only hurdle that comes to mind is that filling a 1.4 meg floppy, or even a 700k floppy, with a sequence of TRULY random bits might be difficult and/or very time consuming. Any thoughts? Ken ============================================================================= Ken Kirksey kkirksey(a)world.std.com Mac Guru & Developer ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest. - Mahatma Ghandi

1 0

Forwarded Article
by russell＠eternity.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'll write more on the (I think successful) ECFP '93 later; for now... -- Russell This article was forwarded to you by russell(a)eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell Earl Whitaker): --------------------------------- cut here ----------------------------- Xref: demon alt.wired:1244 demon.local:6413 sci.crypt:10110 uk.politics:7717 alt.security.pgp:5994 Newsgroups: alt.wired,demon.local,sci.crypt,uk.politics,alt.security.pgp From: russell(a)eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell Earl Whitaker) Path: eternity.demon.co.uk!demon!eternity.demon.co.uk!russell Subject: MEDIA: PGP covered in London *Guardian* 25 Nov 93 Organization: Extropy Institute Reply-To: Russell(a)eternity.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Simple NEWS 2.0 (ka9q DIS 1.24) Lines: 24 Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1993 17:34:57 +0000 Message-ID: <754248897snz(a)eternity.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet(a)demon.co.uk Thursday, 25 November 1993: All Londoners interested in the issue of communications privacy should pick up today's *Guardian*: in the Computers section is an article by Wendy Grossman, "Enter the crypto factor", subtitled "How computers could give us back the privacy that computerisation has taken away". The article discusses the "export problems" at the centre of Phil Zimmermann's recent troubles. Good job, Wendy! [She can be reached, by the way, at 70007.5537(a)compuserve.com.] -- Russell Earl Whitaker whitaker(a)eternity.demon.co.uk Communications Editor AMiX: RWhitaker EXTROPY: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought Board member, Extropy Institute (ExI) Co-organizer, 2nd European Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, London, October 1994 --------------------------------- cut here -----------------------------

1 0

PC Based One-Time Pad
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <199311251654.AA02190(a)world.std.com> kkirksey(a)world.std.com "Ken B Kirksey" writes: > While I was reading though _Applied Cryptography_ last night, a thought > struck me (no damage): Why hasn't anyone come up with a good Mac or PC based > One-Time Pad system. Because they're trivial to write. I could do one in less that 15 minutes. > It seems like this would be a fairly easy system to implement, but since > no one (to my knowledge) has yet done so, there must be something I'm > missing. :-) Because very few people can be bothered driving half way across the country to deliver the OTPs. It's *way* too much hassle for day to day use of the kind we use pgp for. And if someone *is* doing it for real security (like say AT&T shipping around their secure phone circuit diagrams because they don't trust clipper :-) ) then they're *not* going to be mentioning it in passing on usenet news groups... G PS No, you *don't* send them in the mail. But you knew that, right? -- Personal mail to gtoal(a)gtoal.com (I read it in the evenings) Business mail to gtoal(a)an-teallach.com (Be careful with the spelling!) Faxes to An Teallach Limited: +44 31 662 4678 Voice: +44 31 668 1550 x212

1 0

IEEE Article Speaks Out Against Clipper/Key Escrow
by jdwilson＠gold.chem.hawaii.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CP's: Check out IEEE Computer November 1993, V26,#11 pp 76-78, wherein the Com- mittee On Public Policy states, among other things, "Very serious consti- tutional questions exist. The government's key escrow initiative may violate the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the US Bill of Rights" "Better methods already exist...Moreover, encryption software (including DES and RSA algorighms and the user-ready and popular Pretty Good Privacy secure message system) is freely downloadable from public networks around the world." "Reconsideration is in order. The administration should halt the intro- duction of its key escrow system and reconsider this half-baked scheme, which was hatched during the previous administration. And Congress should mandate a serious, open, public review of cryptography policy and its implication for society." Pretty clear statement of opinion from a body of IEEE, eh? -Jim

1 0

No Subject
by nobody＠rosebud.ee.uh.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: James Hicks, <71332.747(a)compuserve.com> Well, a couple of nights ago I was sitting here using my modem, I had just finished perusing the C'punks list, when I heard about 5 shots ring out in the alley next to my home. A few lines of garbage zapped across the screen and then the modem was totally unresponsive. Well, I picked up the phone (another line); dead silence. [You guessed it. One of the bullets hit the phone line. ASCII armor was no defense]. Not wanting to go through the night totally out of contact with the rest of the world, I decided to place a call to the phone co. from a nearby neighbors place but decided to sit tight for a few minutes to foil traffic analysis (and give whoever it was running around out there in the dark with the gun a little time to move on). After the sun rose about 10 shell casings were actually found within a few feet of the line break (about 30 residences actually had service interrupted). And It's usually so quiet around here. My neighbor says that a policeman told him that local entrepreneurs will sometimes use fire guns into the air to signal potential customers that they are open for business. Secure communications...who knows? It is _sort_ of digital... >James< 71332.747(a)compuserve.com

1 0

Stego Help Requested...
by Jim choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi everyone, As some of you are aware I have been looking at stego, in particular trying to calculate the maximum feasible message to insert in a given image. I have determined some techniques that help predict this ratio. In the process of testing them I got side-tracked into converting images to other format (RGB > HSV in this case). Since these are linear but not equaly scaled there is some range alteration in the conversion process. It appears that if a RGB image is holding a image it converts to HSV differently and is thus easy to test for. I am in need of some additional data and basiclly clueless where to find it. The data falls into one of the following ways: > source of images in both HSV and RGB format > pd or shareware software that will convert mathematicaly > access to a video color registration set to generate the above database Any help in locating any one of these would be greatly appreciated. Have a Merry Christmas! Ravage Black Leather Monster

1 0