- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Returned mail: User unknown
by Mail Delivery Subsystem 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

----- Transcript of session follows ----- While talking to RoseBud.EE.UH.EDU: >>> RCPT To:<nobody(a)rosebud.ee.uh.edu> <<< 550 <nobody(a)rosebud.ee.uh.edu>... User unknown 550 nobody(a)rosebud.ee.uh.edu... User unknown ----- Unsent message follows ----- Received: by eff.org id AA00334 (5.65c/IDA-1.5/ident for nobody(a)rosebud.ee.uh.edu) Thu, 17 Jun 1993 16:05:38 -0400 (ident-sender: mnemonic(a)eff.org) From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic> Message-Id: <199306172005.AA00334(a)eff.org> Subject: Re: Contempt of court To: nobody(a)rosebud.ee.uh.edu Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 16:05:37 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <9306171750.AA02648(a)toad.com> from "nobody(a)rosebud.ee.uh.edu" at Jun 17, 93 12:52:05 pm Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1440 nobody writes: > People should not be able to be forced by a subpoena duces tecum to provide > incriminating documents. The fifth amendment protection against self- > incrimination normally extends to personal papers. There are cases > which show that corporate officers cannot avoid turning over corporate > papers even if they incriminate themselves, but personal papers are > provided much wider protection. This is true, but it's not precisely the issue with regard to encryption keys. > But none of these involve giving testimony against themselves. Producing > a personal diary or notes which provide incriminating testimony should > be protected by the fifth amendment. Providing the key would not be seen as legally identical to providing the unencrypted document. > By this reasoning, someone may be able to be forced to reveal an encryption > key, since that is not testimony. But if the resulting documents, when > decrypted, are personal and contain damaging, incriminating statements, > they would not be usable in court. To introduce them in court against > the wishes of the defendant would be a clear violation of his fifth > amendment rights. Unfortunately, this has not been Fifth Amendment law for a long time. If a search and seizure takes place at your house, and the investigating agents find your diary, they can use it against you. If the diary is in code, they can attempt to decode it. --Mike

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Re: Weak steganography
by bear＠eagle.fsl.noaa.gov 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

Eric Hollander writes: >Another problem is that encrypted files look different from executable >files. Encrypted files have a uniform histogram (that is, all 256 different >possible byte values are equally frequent), but exe files do not. The >appending of an encrypted file to an executable file will be very obvious. So write an encryption routine that wastes bandwidth but outputs executable code. You could even encapsulate it within procedures which randomly call one another, to make it look more like real code. (Your encrypted data would be limited to shuffling data between registers and operations within registers, e.g.: mov ax, bx add ax, cx mov bx, dx or ax, bx It's not a crime to write bad assembler code... yet. A nice piece of misdirection would be a homebrew compiler for some really bizarre language. A compiler which produces output remarkably like the output of your encryption program. If someone asks why you are only using a small subset of the instruction set, you shrug and claim that optimized code generation is on your "to-do" list. Bear Giles

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Re: fast des
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

how fast is fast des these days? (i have measured over 2 mbps on decent workstations.) i was in a meeting today attended by someone from nsa who said that 2.4 gbps des chips exists today. (he got real silent after blurting this out. hmm.) 2.4 gbps is 37.5 million des per sec. it is probably not much challenge to put together a 65,536 element machine, which would run at 2.5 trillion des per sec. if i have my arithmetic right, this could exhaustively test the space of 56 bit keys in about eight hours. I don't know of any 2.4 gbps DES chips, but DEC has built a 1 gbps chip. They've even published a technical report on it, though I don't have the number handy. But there's more to know than simply the raw speed. First of all, most real DES chips -- i.e., those designed for encryption, rather than brute-force cryptanalysis -- are optimized for encrypting large blocks of data. Key-loading is a different operation, and that might not go nearly as fast. Any hardware assists (i.e., DMA) would be for the data, not for the next key to use on the same block of data. Second, what does this chip cost? If it costs, say, 10x what the DEC chip costs, it's not cost-effective; you can build your DES-cracker more cheaply with the slower chips. (The DEC TR gave cost figures for DES-cracking...)

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Contempt of court
by nobody＠rosebud.ee.uh.edu 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

Personal opinions: People should not be able to be forced by a subpoena duces tecum to provide incriminating documents. The fifth amendment protection against self- incrimination normally extends to personal papers. There are cases which show that corporate officers cannot avoid turning over corporate papers even if they incriminate themselves, but personal papers are provided much wider protection. People can be forced to produce handwriting samples, where the content of what is written is not significant but the physical writing will be analyzed; they can be forced to produce breath, blood or urine samples; they can be forced to stand in a police lineup, and to repeat words which a witness may have heard a criminal make (but the words do not carry significance); they may be forced to submit to psychiatric evaluation. But none of these involve giving testimony against themselves. Producing a personal diary or notes which provide incriminating testimony should be protected by the fifth amendment. By this reasoning, someone may be able to be forced to reveal an encryption key, since that is not testimony. But if the resulting documents, when decrypted, are personal and contain damaging, incriminating statements, they would not be usable in court. To introduce them in court against the wishes of the defendant would be a clear violation of his fifth amendment rights. By the same token, people are not obligated to keep records specifically to facilitate government investigation of any crime they may have committed. (They are required to keep normal records, such as those relating to the income tax.) It is perfectly permissible for people to destroy their personal records, notebooks, mail, in any way they wish, whether those records would be of use to law enforcement or not. (This is not true, of course, after receipt of a subpoena calling for those records.) "Digital flash paper" should be perfectly legal for all record keeping, whether or not those records would have contained evidence of a crime.

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"RSA sells out" hue and cry (fwd)
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

More from Big Jim at RSA, criticizing the idea that RSA should have licensed "its" algorithms to NIST only on the condition that they not be used for clipper/capstone/key escrow and similar schemes ********* Quoth Jim Bidzos, verily I saith unto thee: **************

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help on hacking
by CWHITCOM＠bentley.edu 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

This is a followup to a request I sent around last week. I have a bit more information now. The request is from a major news organization that is working on a project concerning privacy. They are interested in how one gains access to private and public databases, security measures, etc. If you are interested in helping out, please contact tye(a)nws.globe.com. Coralee By the way, don't forget the Computers and Social Change Conference this Friday and Saturday at Roxbury Community College. There is a wide variety of workshops offered as well as lunch. For more information call Marlene Archer at 617-252-0600.

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Subject lines for remailers
by nobody＠rosebud.ee.uh.edu 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

Another way in which incoming and outgoing messages can be linked up in a remailer is the Subject line. Most of the remailers keep this the same for incoming and outgoing messages. Most of the remailers also have the ability to let the user change the subject line as it goes through the remailer. My "chain" program which I put on soda lets you set the subject line but only in the last remailer of the chain (so that it goes to the destination with the right subject). If more people did that and we also adopted the convention of not having a subject line at all for the mail up to that point, then all mail through the remailers would have no subject and it would all look the same. (Actually, my mailer won't conveniently let me have no subject, so I would either have to have a blank subject or some default string.) Hal Finney 74076.1041(a)compuserve.com

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"RSA sells out" hue and cry
by jim＠RSA.COM 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

Re "source" requirements for Clipper: See my last email to you. ATT, Motorola, etc. are licensed to use RSA and Diffie-Hellman. They are free to use those techniques to manage Clipper keys, as long as they pay their royalties for those techniques, without any contact with us. Or perhaps, when we lciensed them back in the mid and late 80's, we should have limited the use of public key to key management of "future algorithms we approve of?" ********************** END FORWARD *********************************** Draw your own conclusions. I sure will. -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton(a)hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) *

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Contempt of court
by axelrod＠s106.es.llnl.gov 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

I gather that a court can order you to produce the means to decrypt cyphertext that the court has ruled is evidence. This would imply that the giving of the means to decrypt (which could simply be the uttering of a password) is not considered testimony, because you cannot be forced to give testimony under the 5th amendment. Is there a court decision on point for this issue. In another but similar context, can a court order you to give it the combination of a safe, that contains evidence? I suspect, if that is the case, then there is no 5th amendment protection against being so ordered to produce the means to decrypt messages, documents etc.

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Contempt of court
by Duncan Frissell 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

>>>I think that Mr. Frissell's suggestion falls into the category of what >>>I've humbly termed "digital flash paper" mechanisms. >>>My highly esteemed legal opinion is that this could be considered >>>criminal obstruction of justice I call it a network operating system designed to cope with local security breaches. I am not required by law to keep business records in any particular jurisdiction. I am not even required to have access to everything in a business with which I am connected. >>>such a charge might be preferrable to one of Sedition :-)<<< But a charge of Sedition is such a rare honor. It's tough to get the Feds to bring one. One Sedition trial during WWII and one against White Supremicists a few years back. Feds lost both. Besides, if the system is run by non-Americans outside of the US, sedition can't apply (can it? - no treason certainly). (Mike McNally) Duncan Frissell

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