- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

CERT: the letter from CERT to berkeley.edu admin
by Eric Hughes 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

Here, in its almost full glory, is the letter that CERT sent to the admin at berkeley. I've removed the addressee, since there's no need to involve that person. I have not, however, removed the name of the sender. Don't you just love that phrase "illegal trading of commercial software"? Eric ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: <someone>@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Subject: Possible abuse of anonymous FTP area on berkeley.edu host(s) Organization: CERT Coordination Center From: cert(a)cert.org Date: Wed, 02 Jun 93 16:56:55 -0400 Hello <someone>, I am a member of the CERT Coordination Center. CERT provides technical assistance in response to computer security incidents. Would you please forward this report to the appropriate system administrator(s)? We have been passed information that indicates that the anonymous FTP archive on the following host(s) may be in use by intruders for illegal trading of commercial software: >>>>>>> soda.berkeley.edu /pub/cypherpunks We have not confirmed this information, nor have we identified that the anonymous FTP configuration on the above-listed host(s) is open for abuse. While anonymous FTP areas can be put to good use, the intruder community makes use of them to illegally trade commercial software and other information. Intruders often create "hidden" files or directories in order to conceal their activity. On UNIX hosts, directory and file names of a form such as "..." (dot dot dot), ".. " (dot dot space space), or "..^G" (dot dot control-G) may be used. In some cases, intruders have abused anonymous FTP areas to such an extent that file storage has been exhausted and a system crash or denial of service has resulted. We would encourage you to check your anonymous FTP archive for any such "hidden" files or directories by using the "ls -laR" command. We would appreciate feedback on the name of any software packages found at your site and the number of accesses to that software, if that information is available from your logs. Please e-mail a summary of this information to "cert(a)cert.org" before deleting any such files and directories from your archive. For your information, I have appended some suggestions for anonymous FTP configuration. Thanks for checking into this incident, and please don't hesitate to contact us if we can be of any assistance. Katherine T. Fithen Technical Coordinator CERT Coordination Center Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 Internet e-mail: cert(a)cert.org (monitored during business hours) Telephone: 412-268-7090 (answers 24 hours a day)

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Mail Gateway
by Kent Hastings 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

Mail Gateway Is there a secure (and/or cheap) STMP or UUCP e-mail gateway program to rival Microsoft Mail 3.0 with Gateways. I hear MM3 with a gateway runs $4,000. Be nice if it notified recipients when new mail arrives. Kent - kent_hastings(a)qmail2.aero.org

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Re: CERT: the letter from CERT to berkeley.edu admin
by karn＠qualcomm.com 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

This seems to imply pretty strongly that the issue is not PGP, it's the possible abuse of the cypherpunks upload area if it is world writeable. Having CERT go specifically after the distribution of PGP would be pretty amusing considering the several PGP keys I have on my keyring from CERT people. Phil

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CERT: the letter from CERT to berkeley.edu admin
by Eric Hughes 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

>Any public spooling directory is fair game for their antics. [...] >My guess is that your CERT problems have NOTHING to do with >PGP distribution. There is only one directory on the cypherpunks site that is writable, and that is the incoming directory and it's not readable. I still don't know what the real accusation is. CERT is straight out of a Kafka novel in this regard. Maybe it's PGP, maybe it isn't, but they don't seem to be offering that information. Eric

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Re: rot-13 on echomac
by A1 ray arachelian 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

Forwarded message:

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re: Getting on CERT's "Most Dangerous" List
by Peter Honeyman 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

i thought cert was part of sei (software engineering institute), a pentagon entity run by carnegie-mellon. peter

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Re: a great revelation from the bowels of NSA
by smb＠research.att.com 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

>>"We tried to come up with a technique that would not require >>legislation," said Clint Brooks, advisor to the director of the >>National Security Agency, >Another ominous, foreboding quote. I think this neither ominous nor foreboding. This statement was apparent within a week or so of the original announcement. The only thing new about it is that it confirms what I've thought for over a month: that the executive branch is trying to do an end run around the legislature. Well, it could be innocent; it just takes longer to get legislation passed. Yeah, that's it... Of course, NSA does have another option -- they can disclose how cheaply they can crack DES. (That they can crack it I don't doubt; my only question is what it costs them per solution, including amortization of capital costs.)

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ADMIN: upload ettiquette to the cypherpunks ftp site
by Eric Hughes 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

There are a few matters of upload ettiquette for the ftp site. 1. Upload stuff for cypherpunks to pub/cypherpunks/incoming/ and not to the general pub/incoming/ directory. I'll be able to more adequately handle files there. (I can't erase in the other directory.) 2. Whenever you upload something, also upload a short description of what it is you are uploading. I've got a few mystery files there that are on the low priority end of things, since I don't know what they are and I've got plenty of other stuff to do with the archive. 3. Send me mail telling me what you've put up. I don't have any automated software to look at the incoming directory, and so I may not notice. My address is below. 4. Don't bother uploading programs that don't have source code. The mission of the archive site is education. Software distribution is not a purpose, and software without source does not satisfy the educational criterion. Thanks. Eric Hughes cypherpunks ftp site maintainer hughes(a)soda.berkeley.edu

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Re: CryptoStacker
by Doug Porter 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

Some folks have asked that the network redirector, driver, and file system source files from CompuServe be made available via ftp. Two of them, cramdi.zip and rdcf2.zip may not be public domain. I've ftp'd the others to soda.berkeley.edu, as well as rdcf.zip, a public domain earlier version of rdcf2.zip. I'm sure Eric will have them visible soon. I'll contact the authors of cramdi and rdcf2. Doug

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Tuesday's Washington Post
by Pat Farrell 08 Jun '93

08 Jun '93

In Tuesday June 8 Final edition of the Washington Post, Page A12 US Data Decoding Plan Delayed Business and Legal Objections Reviewed by John Schwartz The Federal initiative to establish a new standard for scrambling electronic communications will be slowed until its ramifications can be more fully studied, the official in charge of implementing the program said yesterday. The government's proposed "Clipper Chip" plan, announced on April 16, would create a new national standard for data encryption that would make possible the deccoding and wiretaps by law enforcement and national security agencies. The plan has met with criticism from high-technology industries that argue that the new requirements ould be expensive and hurt the competiveness of their products. Civil liberties advocates see it as a threat to privacy. Raymond Kammer, acting director of the National Institite of Standards and Technology (NIST) - which developed the Clipper proposal with the National Security Agency and is charged with implementing it within the government- delivered the news to a Washington conference attended largly by critics of the Clipper plan. In an interview afterward, Kammer said that the entiore Clipper plan was still being discussed, and if the review revialed unresolvable problems, "maybe we won't continue in the direction we started out." Criticism was sharp at the cryptography and privacy conference sponsored by the Washington office of the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, a public interest group concerned with high-tech issues. One panelist compared Kammer's appearance at the conference to "having a target painted on your chest." Kammer said: "We're not going to close off the process while there's still productive conversation. And its' obvious from the meeting today that ther's still plenty of productive conversation." Pressure has been building on NIST since the WShite House announcement in April. Critics of the plan have flooded the administration with lengthly lists of questions about the new plan, voicing concerns that the proposal might make American products more expensicve, less secure, and less competitive overseas while not hindering criminals. Last Friday, NIST's advirosy panel on privacy issues concluded two days of heated hearings concerning the Clipper proposal with a resolution expressing "serious concerns" sparked by the administrations's proposal. "Things are going too fast." said William Ware, chairman of the Computer System Security and Privacy Advisory Board, a body created under the Computer Security Act of 1987. The NIST panel reported that the government had not conviningly explained the nature of law enforcement problems that would be solved by the Clipper plan, and cited damage the proposal was likely to do to the American software industry. Later that day, White House officials overseeing the Clipper plan met with representatives of industry and civil liberties groups, including the high-tech policy group Electronic Frontier Foundation as well as the American Civil Liberties Union. Administration officials said that the Clipper review would be extended into the fall and that the government would not move beyond its initial plans to buy about 10,000 Clipper-equiped telephones until the review was completed. John Podesta, assistance to the President, said that meeting was part of a continuing dialog with the private sector. "It's time to start ot get answers insteead of the endless quest for questions, Podesta said." ================== Any typos were added in transcription. Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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