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[ISN] Hackers: Under the hood - Peiter Mudge Zatko
by InfoSec News 26 Apr '04

26 Apr '04

http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/security/0,39023764,39116620-6,00.htm Name: Peiter Mudge Zatko Handle(s): Mudge, PeiterZ Marital status: Single Current residence: New England, USA Job: Chief Scientist, Intrusic First computer: Tektronix 4051 Best known for: Creating L0phtCrack Area(s) of expertise: "Thinking outside of the box" It's hard to tell if Peiter Mudge Zatko was born eccentric or whether he's just a stickler for privacy. Take the response to ZDNet Australia's request for his age as an example: "[I'm] not trying to be coy, but my age, race, religion, etcetera, are always items I try not to divulge. The rationale is probably quite different than what most people infer. It is as follows: without irrelevant information such as skin colour and the aforementioned items, people are stripped of data that normally would encourage functional fixation." It seems Zatko's brain has been over-clocking from a very young age. "When I was growing up, around the age of five or so, I couldn't wrap my head around 'life'. "The notion of death being an accepted unknown without any further details drove me bonkers," he told ZDNet Australia. Some may argue that existentialist dilemmas such as these belong to adults, or at the very least in the adolescent domain. But Zatko was introduced to a myriad of advanced concepts at an extremely tender age. "In my crib, as an infant, my father sanded down the edges of early 60s-type computer components ... like the face plates of systems with glowing [amber] numeric 'vacuum tube style' readouts," he recalled. The way Zatko speaks of him suggests that his father was his mentor in life. "I asked my father what he believed in -- what his religious beliefs were. He refused to tell me. Instead, he started taking me to churches of different denominations each Sunday and would ask me what my interpretations were. "Several years later I came up with my own 'codified' religious beliefs," Zatko said. And he's fanatical about getting the job done. "Anything that I do, I must engross myself in totally," he said. To Zatko, there's no distinction between work and personal life, and readily admits that his life knows no balance. "There's also no difference between business and personal relationships. When I decided to get into Golden Gloves Boxing and Muay Thai [boxing] it was to master them. When I deal with computers it is to entirely comprehend the socio-psychological interactions and weaknesses they introduce," he revealed. His parents, while educated, came from fairly blue-collar backgrounds. He said his mother "experienced the depression" while his father grew up working on a farm. As a child, Zatko was given musical training, and was taught science and mathematics while maintaining a "respect for manual labour and living off the land". He still holds dear to his heart the values his parents instilled in him while growing up. "I was intentionally given freedom and a feeling of independence at a young age. In looking back the rationale was obvious: learn decision making and life choices while you are still able to be protected paternally," he explained. "I watched people self destruct at the tail-end of high school and in college -- where it was obvious that that was their first taste of freedom." In 2000, Zatko was invited to participate in a security summit chaired by former US President Bill Clinton. "I was afforded the rare opportunity to hang out with him afterwards and engage in some private conversations," he said. "I have tons of stories but they're too long." As one of the founding members of grey hat outfit L0pht Heavy Industries -- which later became the foundation for security firm @Stake -- he was responsible for the creation of L0phtCrack, a product still sold by @Stake. L0pht Crack is a simple product and a remarkably affective password cracker for Windows-based systems. Zatko insists he wrote it to prove a point and not for commercial reasons. "When I first created and wrote it, one of the goals was to show that the Microsoft systems being deployed could not embody 'secure' encrypted passwords ... not that there were some passwords that were stronger than others. "This didn't mean that people should not use Microsoft technology but rather they should understand where their security perimeters needed to be in order to take advantage of the [Microsoft] platform without exposing undue risk to infrastructures," he said. "Is something like L0phtCrack still useful? Yes. Is this an example of people misinterpreting what a tool is showing them and potentially having a false sense of security because of it? Unfortunately, the answer is again yes," he added. Zatko believes that example -- the misuse of a tool like L0phtCrack -- applies to many security products. He has some advice to help improve the situation, though: "Share, be open, communicate, ask questions to all, share the answers that help you with [everyone], do not think in black and white, do not hurt others or yourself. Improve the world, not your own self image -- the former is possible, and the latter is not accomplished without being a part of the former." -- Patrick Gray _________________________________________ ISN mailing list Sponsored by: OSVDB.org --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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[ISN] Hackers: Under the hood - Peiter Mudge Zatko
by InfoSec News 26 Apr '04

26 Apr '04

http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/security/0,39023764,39116620-6,00.htm Name: Peiter Mudge Zatko Handle(s): Mudge, PeiterZ Marital status: Single Current residence: New England, USA Job: Chief Scientist, Intrusic First computer: Tektronix 4051 Best known for: Creating L0phtCrack Area(s) of expertise: "Thinking outside of the box" It's hard to tell if Peiter Mudge Zatko was born eccentric or whether he's just a stickler for privacy. Take the response to ZDNet Australia's request for his age as an example: "[I'm] not trying to be coy, but my age, race, religion, etcetera, are always items I try not to divulge. The rationale is probably quite different than what most people infer. It is as follows: without irrelevant information such as skin colour and the aforementioned items, people are stripped of data that normally would encourage functional fixation." It seems Zatko's brain has been over-clocking from a very young age. "When I was growing up, around the age of five or so, I couldn't wrap my head around 'life'. "The notion of death being an accepted unknown without any further details drove me bonkers," he told ZDNet Australia. Some may argue that existentialist dilemmas such as these belong to adults, or at the very least in the adolescent domain. But Zatko was introduced to a myriad of advanced concepts at an extremely tender age. "In my crib, as an infant, my father sanded down the edges of early 60s-type computer components ... like the face plates of systems with glowing [amber] numeric 'vacuum tube style' readouts," he recalled. The way Zatko speaks of him suggests that his father was his mentor in life. "I asked my father what he believed in -- what his religious beliefs were. He refused to tell me. Instead, he started taking me to churches of different denominations each Sunday and would ask me what my interpretations were. "Several years later I came up with my own 'codified' religious beliefs," Zatko said. And he's fanatical about getting the job done. "Anything that I do, I must engross myself in totally," he said. To Zatko, there's no distinction between work and personal life, and readily admits that his life knows no balance. "There's also no difference between business and personal relationships. When I decided to get into Golden Gloves Boxing and Muay Thai [boxing] it was to master them. When I deal with computers it is to entirely comprehend the socio-psychological interactions and weaknesses they introduce," he revealed. His parents, while educated, came from fairly blue-collar backgrounds. He said his mother "experienced the depression" while his father grew up working on a farm. As a child, Zatko was given musical training, and was taught science and mathematics while maintaining a "respect for manual labour and living off the land". He still holds dear to his heart the values his parents instilled in him while growing up. "I was intentionally given freedom and a feeling of independence at a young age. In looking back the rationale was obvious: learn decision making and life choices while you are still able to be protected paternally," he explained. "I watched people self destruct at the tail-end of high school and in college -- where it was obvious that that was their first taste of freedom." In 2000, Zatko was invited to participate in a security summit chaired by former US President Bill Clinton. "I was afforded the rare opportunity to hang out with him afterwards and engage in some private conversations," he said. "I have tons of stories but they're too long." As one of the founding members of grey hat outfit L0pht Heavy Industries -- which later became the foundation for security firm @Stake -- he was responsible for the creation of L0phtCrack, a product still sold by @Stake. L0pht Crack is a simple product and a remarkably affective password cracker for Windows-based systems. Zatko insists he wrote it to prove a point and not for commercial reasons. "When I first created and wrote it, one of the goals was to show that the Microsoft systems being deployed could not embody 'secure' encrypted passwords ... not that there were some passwords that were stronger than others. "This didn't mean that people should not use Microsoft technology but rather they should understand where their security perimeters needed to be in order to take advantage of the [Microsoft] platform without exposing undue risk to infrastructures," he said. "Is something like L0phtCrack still useful? Yes. Is this an example of people misinterpreting what a tool is showing them and potentially having a false sense of security because of it? Unfortunately, the answer is again yes," he added. Zatko believes that example -- the misuse of a tool like L0phtCrack -- applies to many security products. He has some advice to help improve the situation, though: "Share, be open, communicate, ask questions to all, share the answers that help you with [everyone], do not think in black and white, do not hurt others or yourself. Improve the world, not your own self image -- the former is possible, and the latter is not accomplished without being a part of the former." -- Patrick Gray _________________________________________ ISN mailing list Sponsored by: OSVDB.org --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: Is there a Brands certificate reference implementation?
by An Metet 26 Apr '04

26 Apr '04

Steve Furlong writes: > Does anyone know of a reference implementation for Stefan Brands's > digital certificate scheme? Alternatively, does anyone have an email > address for Brands so I can ask him myself? (I haven't gotten anything > back from ZKS's "contact us" address. But I don't know if Brands is > still at ZKS.) I will give you some pointers, but in exchange, Steve Furlong, you are commanded to fix your cypherpunks archive at http://archives.abditum.com/cypherpunks/index.html. Despite your comments on the web page as of February 13, none of the year 2004 links work. You were already pointed to www.credentica.com, but it's not a very informative page, is it? Just a logo and a mailto. Well, there is at least some "hidden" content, at http://www.credentica.com/technology/technology.html. This has a paper on Brands' technology and some information on his book. In late 2002 I saw email from Brands with two return addresses, brands(a)credentica.com and sbrands(a)videotron.ca. As for implementations, there was library called NCash created by Swedish student Niels MC6ller, described briefly at http://www.lysator.liu.se/~nisse/hacks.html: "For my master of science thesis, I implemented an offline digital cash system invented by Stefan Brands. I haven't done anything about it since I got my MSc degree, but the information about it is still available." Well, the information isn't available, not there, anyway. But if you hunt around, you can find an announcement about NCash at http://www.privacy.nb.ca/cryptography/archives/coderpunks/new/1998-02/0008.… and the source code plus a technical paper are at http://munitions.vipul.net/dolphin.cgi?action=render&category=09. The good news is that the source code is available; the bad news is that it is written in Pike. No, I'd never heard of it, either. Apparently it is some Swedish language that was all the rage back in 1997. However it seems to be a pretty straightforward language, kind of Pythonish with a C like syntax, so it might be feasible to port it to something more modern, probably Python. Or you could get the latest Pike interpreter and see how well they've maintained backwards compatibility all these years. According to the announcement, you'll also need the Pike crypto library, but my guess is that it's been incorporated into the Pike package by this time. I'm sure you're aware that Brands credentials are patented up the wazoo. Like Chaum, Brands prefers to publish his work in the pages of the U.S. Patent Office. That's why they're both so rich.

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How to WASTE and want not
by R. A. Hettinga 25 Apr '04

25 Apr '04

<http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/04/25/8454965> Infoshop News - How to WASTE and want not posted by j1o2n3a4s5 on Sunday April 25 2004 @ 05:14PM PDT WASTE would have to be pretty close to what you'd come up with. WASTE provides a way for you to create secure ad hoc p2p mesh networks with little technical setup and iron clad communications via link level Blowfish encryption and authentication via RSA public key cryptography. It allows secure instant messaging, group chat, file sharing, browsing and transfer. Everything you need to get some substantive work done, not to mention students or corporate techies just needing to communicate without interference. From the software itself, "WASTE is a tool that is designed to permit secure distributed collaboration and communications for small trusted groups of users." And it's back - resurrected like Lazarus in January - even after the assembled might of AOL tried to shut it down. This is how it was: Jonathan Frankel, the coding wunderkind, grunge poster child and "Benevolent Dictator" of Nullsoft, acquired in 1999, was behind its wildly popular free music player WinAMP (because it "really whips the llama's ass"). For an encore, he came up with Gnutella the p2p network of choice for quite some time. AOL ordered him to kill of the project so he came up with something even better. In a flurry of coding as artistic self expression and self-respecting hacker protest, he came up with WASTE. He GPLed it, put it online, sat back - and watched the fur fly. WASTE was an instant hit. Downloaded, dissected and analyzed across the Internet, all reports were favourable. AOL was not, however, amused, claiming it its intellectual property rights were being infringed, shut down the site, chastised Frankel and posted an online page demanding that all code downloaded from the site should be destroyed because of IP violations. Frankel left AOL over the whole issue. You have to respect the guy. But they were too late. WASTE was out in the wild, as well as example clients for windows and limited servers for BSD and OSX. It was only a short amount of time until the project re-emerged, re-implemented on sourceforge. Already a Mac OSX version 1.0 has been ported and has been available for download since September of last year. WASTE 1.4 alpha 3 hit the air April 15th. New documentation was added soon after that and 1.4 is shaping up nicely with new features. Why call it WASTE Yet another nod to coolness. WASTE is taken from Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 where WASTE is a renegade underground postal system operating in plain sight of the status quo undetected. The acronym itself is "We Await Silent Tristero's Empire." Even the horn on a stamp icon used in the application is a nod to the stamps used by WASTE in the Pynchon story. Defiant yells from the underground are all over the program, making you wonder whether software can't be reclassified as the new legitimate form of popular dissent. Even the port WASTE uses for communications is a slap in the face of a growing repressiveness in the corporate monoculture. Port 1337 is hacker do0D speak for "Leet" or elite. An awful lot of subtext for a piece of software. While the project hasn't produced a huge volume of code lately, the authors state "We have been experimenting with technologies to create a more feature rich program instead of releasing betas." Even now, the WASTE clients to date are eminently usable and are providing even non-technical users who understand the basic concepts a way to create secure mesh P2P networks. There's a clear wizard for key creation and a simple interface for connecting and interacting with the other members of your mesh. Version 1.4 promises even more features. If you're worried too much bandwidth might give away file trading activities you can even throttle down the bandwidth to make your traffic indistinguishable from normal encrypted network traffic. Students that have been beaten over the head by the RIAA and university administrators are now creating darknets - encrypted file sharing mesh network between themselves. Because the communications are secure, no one can tell what sort of files they're trading, or even if it is files they're trading even if they are RIAA or DMCA bloodhounds. But that's not where WASTE's true value lies. The real potential is for activist groups, not-for-profits and people who need privacy in a world becoming increasingly more hostile to their activities. Like Zimmerman's PGP before it, WASTE is another example of one of those empowering grassroots tools which provides a direct affirmation of personal freedoms, rights and the sanctity of individual privacy: a simple way for the technically unsophisticated to self-service ad hoc secure networks without a huge IT overhead and expensive hardware or software. Activists can collaborate online in a secure manner in real time without fear of eavesdropping. WASTE is a holy grail for a number of organizations working hard to trying and make things better for everyone. Make security transparent and easy to use, and everyone will be using it. In a modern atmosphere that' is growing increasingly hostile to individual privacy and tending towards the criminalization of legitimate dissent and protest, WASTE has the potential to be the next tool that levels the playing field for individuals and activists alike. Want to get started You can download the latest binaries for Windows and Mac OSX or take a look at the source from sourceforge. A great documentation guide - in case you have trouble with WASTE - is also available from hummus and pita. Source: http://p2pnet.net/story/1295 -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Cracking secrets
by R. A. Hettinga 25 Apr '04

25 Apr '04

<http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2004042600110200.h…> <snip...> Cracking secrets A WHOLE book of secrets is what S.C. Coutinho gives in The Mathematics of Ciphers, published by Universities Press (www.orientlongman.com) . "A leisurely journey, with many stops to appreciate the scenery and contemplate sites of historical interest", the author promises to reach the final destination - RSA system of cryptography. Since the work has grown out of lectures to first-year students of computer science, there is no presumption of mathematics knowledge. "Cryptography is the art of disguising a message so that only its legitimate recipient can understand it." That should explain why we don't understand many election speeches. Perhaps the `twin sister' of cryptography could help, cryptoanalysis: `the art of breaking a cipher'. The most widely used public key cryptosystems is RSA, invented in 1978 by Rivest, Shamir and Adleman. Put simply, "every user has a personal pair of primes that must be kept secret" though the product of these primes is made public. What's the big deal, you might ask; factor the product and you would get the two prime numbers, won't you? "However, if the primes have more than 100 digits each, the time and resources required to factor `n' are such that the system becomes very hard to break." This is the trapdoor of RSA - computing product is easy, not factoring. For this, the `exact computation' of computer comes handy. Greeks distinguished between logistics (the science that deals with numbered things, not numbers) and arithmetic (nature of numbers with the mind only). The book is full of stories that would make you like math and computing too. For instance, geometry originated in Egypt where the pharaoh distributed land to people in rectangular plots on which he levied an annual tax. "If the Nile swept away part of the plot, the surveyors had to be called in to calculate how much land had been lost." Because the owner would be eligible for a reduced tax, proportional to the land lost. To find primes from the ocean of numbers, you can use the `sieve of Erathostenes', named after a Greek mathematician born around 284 BC. He was nicknamed `Beta' because his contemporaries believed that he hadn't reached a truly eminent position. When you apply the sieve to a list of positive integers, composite numbers pass through but primes get retained. Good read for the vacation to sharpen your numbers. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Is there a Brands certificate reference implementation?
by Steve Furlong 25 Apr '04

25 Apr '04

Does anyone know of a reference implementation for Stefan Brands's digital certificate scheme? Alternatively, does anyone have an email address for Brands so I can ask him myself? (I haven't gotten anything back from ZKS's "contact us" address. But I don't know if Brands is still at ZKS.)

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Blind signatures with DSA/ECDSA?
by An Metet 24 Apr '04

24 Apr '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Here is the blind DSA signature based on MacKenzie and Reiter, http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~reiter/papers/2001/CRYPTO.pdf, in graphical form. Recall that a DSA public key is p, q, g, y; private key x; signature on hash h is: Choose k < q r = g^k mod p mod q s = rx/k + h/k mod q Output (r,s) Here is the blind signature protocol, with Alice, the recipient, on the left and Bob, the signer, on the right: Alice (recipient) Bob (signer) - ------------------------------------------------ Choose k2 < q z2 = 1/k2 mod q Send r2 = g^k2 mod p <--------------------------- Choose k1 < q r = r2^k1 mod p mod q Send a=E(r/k1 mod q) and b = E(h/k1 mod q) and ZKP --------------------------> Check ZKP Choose d < q^5 Send c = a '*' x*z2 '+' b '*' z2 '+' E(d*q) <--------------------------- s = D(c) mod q Output (r,s) Here, E() and D() represent encryption and decryption in a homomorphic encryption system like the Paillier encryption. Only Alice knows the private key, but Bob is able to multiply encrypted values by scalars (indicated by '*' above) and to add encrypted values (indicated by '+' above). ZKP sent by Alice in the 2nd step is a zero knowledge proof that the two encrypted values are known and are < q^3. (Actually the values are less than q but the standard ZKP for this has some slop in it, which is OK for this purpose.) Bob operates on the two homomorphic encryptions of r/k1 and h/k1. He multiplies the first by x/k2 and the second by 1/k2 and adds them to get rx/k + h/k mod q (where k = k1*k2), exactly as required for the signature. Then he adds the large multiple of q to fully hide his secret x value. One interesting thing about this protocol is that it may escape the Chaum blind signature patent, US 4759063, for two reasons. First, the Chaum patent covers three step blinding, while this is a four step process. In the regular Chaum blind signature there is no need for the initial step where the signer sends an initial r2 value. That step is crucial here; k2 must be fresh for every signature or the signer's key is leaked. Second, the Chaum patent describes the signer's operation as performing a public key digital signature operation. This is in fact how the Chaum blind signature works; the signer does do an ordinary RSA signature operation. But in this case, the signer performs a completely different transformation, working with two homomorphically encrypted values in an unusual way. This is not a conventional digital signature operation. Therefore this type of blind signature should escape the patent. Of course the patent expires in a little over a year so it is largely moot now anyway. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQFAirIcHIAd9K7kkjIRAk/nAJ0cIxTYSudiKd0rrXv/T1kUuMHbjQCfSaya NmVhsnuT/jBeqf5eVIx2FaI= =x3ps -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: [IP] One Internet provider's view of FBI's CALEA wiretap push
by Steve Schear 24 Apr '04

24 Apr '04

At 07:43 AM 4/23/2004, Trei, Peter wrote: >If you're dealing with a state-level attacker, any >scheme involving explosives or incendiaries would get >the attackee in as much or more trouble than the >original data would. > >This is a hard problem. I suspect any solution will >involve tamper-resistant hardware, which zeroizes >itself if not used in the expected mode. Right, there are at least two workable solutions- Hard drives with user alterable firmware. I surprised that none of the major drive manufacturers seems to have thought about offering a version of their controllers, for substantially more money, that offers this. A retrofit device that screws into the side of the hard drive and is set to inject a corrosive that almost instantly destroys the drive surfaces. The device can be triggered by any number of intrusion detectors or a voice-activated system keyed to the operators voice print. steve

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Re: [IP] One Internet provider's view of FBI's CALEA wiretap push
by Major Variola (ret) 24 Apr '04

24 Apr '04

At 08:51 PM 4/23/04 +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote: >On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, John Kelsey wrote: > >> The obvious problem with multiple levels of passwords and data is: When >> does the guy with the rubber hose stop beating passwords out of you? > >This serves a purpose as well. > >Why would you ever cooperate if you can't expect much from the deal >anyway? Since passphrases are in persons' minds, and minds and wills can be broken, one has to consider the security implications of this. Mil orgs don't assume that prisoners are able to keep secrets under arbitrary duress. Duress layering buys time for your colleages and family in all cases, whether they kill you or not. If they're not killing you, then maybe they'll buy one of the deeper levels of duress layers. If you physically destroy the keys or the data, there is little to gain by torturing you or your family. That is superior to gambling that your deeper duress levels are convincing to the man with the electrodes. An iButton that you could crunch in your teeth to destroy it would be nice...

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Re: [IP] One Internet provider's view of FBI's CALEA wiretap push
by Tyler Durden 23 Apr '04

23 Apr '04

"As for finance itself, there's a reason that I say that financial cryptography is the only cryptography that matters. Since the time of Mesopotamian bullae and grain banks, cryptography has been essential to finance. You can't do one without the other. The more cryptography you do, the more finance you can do, the better off everyone is. It's a virtuous circle." I don't agree, though I'm tempted to. What have nominally been called religious and/or race wars throughout history have almost always had at their core economics, or at least in the western world. It's easy to see how finance might be the underlying reason for lots of nominally non-crypto communications. Your statement is arguably true as t-->infinity. However, I'd bet there are short-term applications for crypto that really matter and yet have no real relationship to $$$ (for instance, what if there was widespread communications and crypto in Nazi Germany...would the holocaust have happened?) -TD >From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> >To: <cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net> >Subject: Re: [IP] One Internet provider's view of FBI's CALEA wiretap >push >Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 12:43:51 -0400 > >At 4:32 PM +0100 4/22/04, Dave Howe wrote: > >There isn't a worldwide ban on breaking CSS - doesn't stop the film > >industry trying to enforce it in the US courts. > >Carl Ellison tells the story about how, with the advent of the longbow, all >these peasants had to get absolution from their local priests for killing >knights. Kill a noble on Wednesday, confess on Sunday, lather, rinse, >repeat. > >Needless to say, the impedance mismatch between reality and dogma resolved >itself. > >The economics of networks outweighs the economics of intellectual property >law. That, too, will resolve itself, just like Clipper did. > > >As for finance itself, there's a reason that I say that financial >cryptography is the only cryptography that matters. Since the time of >Mesopotamian bullae and grain banks, cryptography has been essential to >finance. You can't do one without the other. The more cryptography you do, >the more finance you can do, the better off everyone is. It's a virtuous >circle. > >The internet and Moore's law accelerates cryptographic, and thus financial, >progress. More stuff cheaper. > >Cheers, >RAH > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' > _________________________________________________________________ Lose those love handles! MSN Fitness shows you two moves to slim your waist. http://fitness.msn.com/articles/feeds/article.aspx?dept=exercise&article=et…

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