- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

True Randoms
by KINNEY WILLIAM H 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

A little nuclear physics anyone? Seems like one real bitch with roll-your-own cryptography is the scarcity of good random numbers to work with. I've read about various schemes using I/O buffers, or keystroke timing like PGP does (even there, true randoms are referred to as "precious"). So I thought a bit about how one could construct a true random generating box. Went out to Sears and bought a $7 smoke detector, a "Family Gard" model FG888D, and took it apart. What's inside is a 1.0 microCurie chunk of Americium 241 (I checked other models, and they seem to all be AM241, right around the 1 uCi activity range, although I have an older one at home with 5.0 uCi). I did a little research on the isotope in the CRC Handbook and the Brookhaven National Lab's online database, and what I found was pretty interesting: About AM241: Half-Life: 458 years Decay: AM241 ---> (Neptunium 237) + (5.5 MeV alpha particle) 1.0 uCi = 37,000 decays/second average NP237 has a half-life of around 2 million years This is very good design. AM241 has only one basic decay mode, and it decays to an essentially inert daughter product without any intermediate daughters to worry about. Very simple and safe. In addition, the 1.0 uCi activity of the sample makes the decay rate just right for counting alphas with electronic devices -- a 100 KHz sample rate would be overkill for resolving individual alphas. And the half-life is long enough to make the source relatively stable over a reasonable period of use. I took my sample into the lab and it barely registered on the geiger counter, but when I set it up on a scintillating detector, I got about 1200 counts/sec above a background of 25 count/sec. A nice clear signal. Seems to me it would be pretty easy to buy a small solid-state detector and a couple of chips and wire it up to toggle a pin on an RS232 cable, giving a nice true random source -- for instance, assuming the 1200 counts/sec rate I saw in the lab, you could count alphas for 10 milliseconds and send a 1 down the cable if you saw an odd number, a 0 if you saw an even number. Could probably do better than 1200 /sec, too, I bet. Does anyone see a real need for something like this? Any hardware jocks out there who could lend some expertise? Radiological safety data (permissible quarterly intake): AM241 (oral): 7.6 uCi AM241 (inhalation): 3.8E-03 uCi NP237 (oral): 6.2 uCi NP 237 (inhalation): 2.5E-03 uCi In other words, whatever you do, don't smoke it... -- Will

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The first casualty of war
by sneal＠muskwa.ucs.ualberta.ca 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

ld231782(a)longs.lance.colostate.edu writes: >Who Has the Keys? >----------------- > >The evasion of `who stores the keys' makes me wonder. It suggests that >the proposal was poorly crafted (which is true in any case), but, more >likely, IMHO, the scheme is weak enough for the NSA (but maybe not >cops) to break regardless, and hence their casual disregard for this >seemingly monumentally crucial point. It appears that the opposition is using the old rhetorical trick of "begging the question." Rather than stating the important question (which is "Should there be a key registration scheme?"), they jump right over it to "Who will register the keys?". The purpose is to focus debate on the latter issue without anyone stopping to examine the former. However, two can play at that game, as in: "Nobody seems to have thought about what will happen when Clipper is broken." "Developing a system that is "impervious" (to anyone but its developers) required at least four years." Sleazy? Yeah. Not that I'm advocating fighting fire with fire or anything.

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comments on the clipper
by Andrew Loewenstern 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

Going through all the messages on the Clipper, I noticed what may be a flaw that wasn't quite addressed... The family key, which is the same for all devices, is hardwired onto the chip with the algorithm. However, the device serial number and the unit key must be burned into a ROM. This is somewhat like the EIN/MIN burned into the ROM of a cellular phone. Just ask anyone who is familiar with cellular fraud how difficult it is to change the EIN/MIN of the phone. So it should be more than possible for anyone to throw a wrench into the system by using hacked phones that have a random device serial number. In this way it would not be possible for authorities to obtain the proper unit key since the device serial number would not exist in the escrow authority's database or would have the incorrect unit key associated with it. Of course, it is possible that the scheme (i.e. the algorithm and the handshaking) is not secure. Assuming it is not truly secure, I would think that only such agencies as the NSA and FBI would have not only the resources to decrypt Clipper generated communications without the session key, but the resources to keep such equipment from public knowledge (i.e. there is a companion device that breaks such communications). It would most likely be too difficult to keep such equipment secret if it were available to local and state authorities. Furthermore, the whole idea of escrow agents is hogwash to me. How difficult is it to get someone's credit report? How difficult is it to get social security records on a person? Apparently no information held by a government or even private agency like TRW is impossible or even exceedingly difficult to obtain, and anyone wishing to intercept your communications will simply have to buy off the appropriate persons at each escrow authority. To sum up, I think the whole idea stinks. andrew

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Intergraph speaks! (sort of)
by robichau＠lambda.msfc.nasa.gov 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

I just had a nice phonecon with Jim Ruester of Intergraph's public relations department. For those of you who don't follow CAD, Intergraph produces a line of workstations based on the Clipper CPU, a private-label RISC chip that Intergraph acquired from Fairchild some years ago. He hadn't seen the press release, or heard of the wiretap chip. His (predictable) reaction was to say that he'd forward it to their legal department. I asked that he pass any comments back to me for reposting here. A plea: please *don't* call Intergraph and bother them about this. Putting pressure on AT&T (which has announced products based on the wiretap chip) is one thing. Harrassing a company with a similarly named (and trademarked!) product, in the hope that they'll put pressure on the gov't, is nothing more than bothersome. -Paul -- Paul Robichaux, KD4JZG | HELP STOP THE BIG BROTHER CHIP! NTI Mission Software Development Div. | RIPEM key on request.

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Another forwarded message
by TO1SITTLER＠APSICC.APS.EDU 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

From: APSICC::GR2KITTRELL "TOO MANY SECRETS" 18-APR-1993 21:52:10.16 To: TO1SITTLER CC: Subj: Process From: SMTP%"igor(a)e5.ijs.si" 18-APR-1993 18:05:57.69 To: gr2kittrell(a)apsicc.aps.edu CC: Subj: (fwd) Re: Secret algorithm [Re: Clipper Chip and crypto key-escrow] Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1993 01:34:02 +0200 From: Igor Petrovski <igor(a)e5.ijs.si> Message-Id: <199304182334.AA00721(a)kekec.e5.ijs.si> To: gr2kittrell(a)apsicc.aps.edu Subject: (fwd) Re: Secret algorithm [Re: Clipper Chip and crypto key-escrow] Newsgroups: sci.crypt Organization: Open Systems & Networks, ijs, Slovenia Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.1 30/1/93 VAX/VMS V5.5-1; site cathy.ijs.si Path: cathy.ijs.si!arnes.si!scsing.switch.ch!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!haven.umd.edu!uunet!looking!brad Newsgroups: sci.crypt Subject: Re: Secret algorithm [Re: Clipper Chip and crypto key-escrow] Message-ID: <1993Apr17.204850.26711(a)clarinet.com> From: brad(a)clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1993 20:48:50 GMT References: <strnlghtC5LGFI.JqA(a)netcom.com> <jhesseC5LuMC.2Ex(a)netcom.com> <rdippold.735042679@qualcom> Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp. Keywords: encryption, wiretap, clipper, key-escrow, Mykotronx Lines: 24 One presumes the system could work as follows: a) Blank clips are manufactured by Mykotronx and VLSI. The number produced is carefully audited and they are shipped to the first escrow house. It programs the chips with its half the key, and prints out a paper slip with the key half and non-secret chip serial number. The reams of paper are filed in locked boxes in the vault, a fuse is burnt in the chip so that the key is now unreadable. The chip then goes to the next escrow house, where the same thing is done. This continues through N escrow houses, perhaps, could be more than 2. The last one provides the chip to the cellular phone maker. And yes, this has to be a public key system or it would be almost impossible to handle. It might not be RSA, but that does not mean that PKP doesn't get paid. Until 1997, PKP has the patent on the general concept of public key encryption, as well as the particular implementation known as RSA. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366

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AT&T Announcement?
by fnerd＠smds.com 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

> AT&T announced yesterday that will will begin selling devices with these > Clippers in them immediatly. We've been sold down the river by ma bell again. > > Dave Banisar > CPSR Washington Office Does someone know how to get an official-looking printed form of this announcement? I want something to xerox and send in when I switch long distance service. -fnerd quote me

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How tapper works: see alt.privacy.clipper
by david＠staff.udc.upenn.edu 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

If it is not too late, please ignore my previous request for an explanation of how tapper works. I found the answer in alt.privacy.clipper. The missing piece of info was that the session key must be negotiated separately. -- david david(a)staff.udc.upenn.edu

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Mad Musings/Sneath
by fnerd＠smds.com 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

ld231782(a)longs.lance.colostate.edu sez> > > `cypherpunk' actually has some pretty endearing qualities as a name, > and I'd be a bit horrified to give it up, just when I was waiting for > the T shirt ``Cypherpunks do it stealthily'' (secretly? sneakily?). Cypherpunks do it with Sneath. (Sneath is a road near San Francisco.) Hey, did anybody think to just mail the people on that Clipper chip announcements list and ask them how they got on it? -fnerd quote me

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��alt.privacy.clipper
by TO1SITTLER＠APSICC.APS.EDU 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

NOT all of us have usenet! Please keep convercation on cypherpunks! Kragen Sittler

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FWEE!: the importance of being patient
by internaut＠aol.com 19 Apr '93

19 Apr '93

Yo, Apropos of my earlier posting calling for a delay in the establishment of the WB remailer, I herein repost portions of Marc Ringuette's excellent comments from March 26th on Remailer strategies: >>We must address a strategy question before it jumps on us. >>Do we want to be yet another "this remailer exists, let's >>stomp on it" whipping boy, or will another tactic be more >>effective? >> >>I have the following suggestion. Do not announce our >>cypherpunks remailers right away. This is not the right time. >>Instead, announce that we intend, at a later date, to install >>remailers which are "friendly" in the sense that they use a >>special header line, but which will be not be able to be shut >>down. Essentially, Marc and I agree on this issue (if I read him correctly). Marc's point seems to be that prematurely establishing anon remailers such as the WB system before the World is really ready for them will make us vulnerable to attack on a policy level and will significantly dimish the viability of such systems in general, by opening debate on whether or not this is a good idea before most potential users even understand WHAT it is we're trying to do. >>[ My suggestion for how to do this: encourage thousands of >>users who support anonymity to run the software, and make it >>easy for them to do so. Then, thousands of users must be >>kicked out in order to prevent remailers being available! ] This gets back to what I was saying about educating WB users, providing them with friendly software and getting lots of support before going public. >>But, here's the important part, DELAY RELEASE until after a >>waiting period. The delayed release is intended to allow >>concerned network sites and individuals to install filters for >>these messages, and to allow users the time to discuss this >>(and, for instance, to voice their objections to catch-all >>anonymity filters at the news-relay level). It also prevents >>our opponents from achieving a sense of "something must be >>done" urgency. [...] I couldn't have put it better. Opponents are looking for a chink in the theoretical anon armor, and at this point there are many. Calling all remailer specialists... dave ----- ASIDE: I'm not sure how many of you saw the posting about Port Watson in the Bahamas "An Island in the Net...", but it got me to thinking about how many Cypherpunks, Extropians and Libertarians would actually be interested in collaborating on setting up a physical location for the preservation of a secure, encrypted, anon remailing site on an island not legally bound by any nation (ie. no more problems like Julf has). I suppose it's a bit fantastic to consider, but I'm looking into the viability of selling/renting my SF house and moving down there. Anyone want to join me for a meeting on this subject? Would it be appropriate for discussion at the next physical meeting?

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