- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

pgp 2.6.1 circumventing legal kludge
by 0x7CF5048D＠nowhere 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have examined the source to the latest modification to pgp2.6 pgp2.6.1. It appears that the +legal_kludge command parameter remains as also does the bug that prevents this code from working! (Value is used instead of Flag.) One would have thought that the bug would have been fixed or the legal kludge code would have been removed in pgp2.61. The existence of this bug was widely publicized. Perhaps the authors wish there to continue to be a way to circumvent the kludge, but can not be seen taking explicit action to fix the bug. The bottom line is that to encrypt a message to be sent to someone with an earlier version of pgp such as pgp 2.3a, one should disable the legal kludge by using the following command line: pgp +cert_depth=0 +legal_kludge=off +cert_depth=4 -eat file them My program in noklg.zip is a way to use the above feature to cause pgp to be compatible with earlier versions of pgp without the extra typing. (It supports MSDOS and OS/2). You can set up the program so that pgp shells and other programs work as originally designed, but encrypting files compatible with earlier versions of pgp. I wish that someone would store this program in at a public ftp site. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLninbg2Gnhl89QSNAQEB7QP+L2iA+ha2KCfH31O2OoG6syIWWNc7f76e rx5lQ3HpufkVIqhvw+Ff1FWR5aWIPZ2ZKfYAAHjpDiTRMJIMOs2dalx30Hjn/Jyw X6cEIGzywRpRx8oX+kX5BhxM93IblP1mHAe1e17jiwgBXfbX1yj4/loxL8aHv/cB LYB0F2go2C0= =qN3q -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Wiretap Emergency
by Rick H. Wesson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

mail -v -s "This is a test." Barton.Joe(a)house.gov < test ibd{wessorh}150: Warning: alias database /etc/mail/aliases.pag out of date Barton.Joe(a)house.gov... Connecting to mercury.house.gov. (smtp)... 220-mercury.house.gov mail server ready at Fri, 16 Sep 1994 00:15:25 -0400 220 ESMTP spoken here >>> EHLO ar.com 250-mercury.house.gov Hello ar.com (internex-ibd.ar.com) pleased to meet you 250-HELP 250-SIZE 1714821120 250-8BITMIME 250-XONE 250 XQUE >>> MAIL From:<wessorh(a)ar.com> SIZE=118 250 <wessorh(a)ar.com>... Sender ok >>> RCPT To:<Barton.Joe(a)house.gov> 250 <Barton.Joe(a)house.gov>... Recipient ok >>> DATA 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself >>> . 250 AA187868926 Message accepted for delivery Barton.Joe(a)house.gov... Sent (AA187868926 Message accepted for delivery) Closing connection to mercury.house.gov. >>> QUIT 221 mercury.house.gov closing connection OK Lets get to work boys and girls..... -Rick

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Re: RC4 Legal Issues
by rparratt＠london.micrognosis.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Phil Karn <karn(a)qualcomm.com> wrote: > This was my understanding *before* the recent jury decision in the > Microsoft vs Stac Electronics countersuit. When Stac sued Microsoft > for infringing their patents on disk compression, Microsoft > countersued Stac for trade secret infringement for having > reverse-engineered some hidden system calls in MS-DOS. Not only did > the jury uphold Stac's bogus software patent, but they also found in > favor of Microsoft on their ridiculous trade secret accusation! > > Needless to say, this creates a very troubling precedent. Now you can > now apparently infringe a trade secret merely by examining fully > public information (e.g., commercially available object code.) Do juries get to decide on points of law and create precedents in the US legal system? No wonder you have such odd laws. In the UK, legal argument is taken by the judge in the absence of the jury, (and in most civil cases there is no jury anyway -- I think that we only have juries in criminal cases and libel, but someone more knowledgable may be able to correct this). Anyway, the role of the jury is to decide on the facts e.g: A says X, B says Y, who do we believe? Also, the ability of judges in lower courts to create precedents is restricted. A case like Microsoft v Stac would end up going right up through the appeal process. -- Richard Parratt.

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thoughts on RC4
by perry＠imsi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been looking at the RC4 (or alleged RC4) code a bit. Unlike most ciphers, RC4 doesn't seem to have any particular word length dependancies in its principles. That is to say, a cipher like IDEA has lots of magic numbers involved, but RC4 does not, which means that one could, in principle, extend it from being byte oriented stream to being word oriented stream without causing particular harm. (It would, of course, become incompatible, but thats not a real issue.) Can anyone see any reason why one could not change RC4 to being a word oriented stream cipher, call it "ERC4"? The reason I ask is because this would speed things up by a factor of four on 32 bit machines, which would mean modest hardware could possibly break 100mbps speeds. The 64 bit extension on 64 bit RISC processors could go far, far, faster still. This is a real consideration in the protection of network traffic, where extremely fast encryption in software has been a stumbling block. Perry

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RC4 Legal Issues
by Patrick G. Bridges 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

So what does the publication of the reverse engineering of RC4 mean legally? AT&T claimed trade sevret and copyright protection over code that was pretty well known in the BSDI case... Can RC4 still be construed as a trade secret or proprirtary to RSADS and Bizdos or are, as I understand from previous messages, we free to use RC4 now (ignoring the submarine patent issue)?

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Radio Them Back to the Stone Age
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarding List FOP mail by: u2re9toh(a)crrel41.crrel.usace.army.mil (Tim Horrigan) on Fri, 16 Sep 8:22 AM ------------------- At 22:52 9/15/94 -0400, Judith Frederika Rodenbeck wrote: >The medium we >are using can be like radio, like the psyop single-frequency cheapies we >dropped across Vietnam, which a person could only retune by opening up and >diddling with solder. They dropped such radios on Haiti last night as well. Most of them were picked up immediately by the cops and carted away somewhere, according to an NPR reporter. The NPR reporter found this out by listening to the police-band transmissions on his scanner (which seems ironic somehow.) *** TIM HORRIGAN, Climate Data Lab, USACRREL, Hanover, NH 03755 internet: horrigan(a)hanover-crrel.army.mil horrigan(a)crrel41.crrel.usace.army.mil [or whatever weird crap turns up as my return address UNLESS it implies that I'm at "@crrel41.BITNET", which is a nonexistent Bitnet domain!!!!] alt internet: Timothy.Horrigan(a)bbsmail.magpie.com ph: (603) 646-4432 (603) 646-4100 ***

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RC4 discsussion also belongs on sci.crypt
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's something of a tribute to the success of the Cypherpunks list that so much of the discussion about RC4 is happening here, rather than on sci.crypt. However, if we want the source code to get published, the discussion probably needs to to at least be echoed in sci.crypt and similar public fora/forums^H^H^H^H^H places. A journalist I know has expressed frustration that more of the RC4 discussion is not going on a more public place. --Tim -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: The mother of all FAQs
by merriman＠metronet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Rishab Aiyer Ghosh writes: > >Yes, "FAQ" is a misnomer (a miscyphernomer?). And as long as it is, it >won't answer questions that get asked here, such as: > >"I've looked for a FAQ on versions of RC4 that run on the Amiga, and I >can't find anything." > >(Well, I'm kidding about this one, but similarly obscure questions do >come up. Rishab is right that most "FAQs" are becoming much more than >that. It seems to me we need a new term.) > Knowledgebase? Reference? Dave Merriman - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Finger merriman(a)metronet.com for PGP/RIPEM public keys and fingerprints. Unencrypted Email may be ignored without notice to sender. PGP preferred. Remember: It is not enough to _obey_ Big Brother; you must also learn to *love* Big Brother.

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NYT/Markoff article on RC4
by Brian A. LaMacchia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

An article by John Markoff on the release of RC4 source code just came over the NYT wire. It's coded "financial;" I expect it to appear in Saturday editions. Doesn't say much we don't already know (quotes the RSADSI statement that "...its publication is a gross abuse of the Internet."). The article does mention this list, which is called, "a specialized computer network mailing list of computer researchers who oppose the Government's stringent controls on data encryption technology." There's a bug in the article: it says the code was first circulated on Tuesday, Sep 13, and was posted via an anonymous remailer in the Netherlands. I assume Markoff is talking about the message: Message-Id: <199409132036.AA24724(a)xs1.xs4all.nl> Subject: RC4 ? To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: nobody(a)vox.xs4all.nl (An0nYm0Us UsEr) The "Thank you Bob Anderson" message (which was the first posting of the RC4 code that I saw) was posted last Friday, Sep 9, via the anonymous remailer at jpunix.com. --bal

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Re: RC4 - A response from RSA Data Security, Inc.
by Jim Gillogly 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: jim(a)RSA.COM (Jim Bidzos) > Any person or > entity that acquires, discloses or uses this information is subject to > criminal and civil penalties including an injunction, compensatory > damages, punitive damages and payment of RSA's attorneys fees. Let's count the entities that have acquired this information. What're the most recent valid Usenet survey numbers from Brian Reid about the distribution of sci.crypt? Collecting a dollar from each of these entities would pay the salaries at RSA for a while... Jim Gillogly 26 Halimath S.R. 1994, 04:24

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