- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: tyranny of corporations (was: Corporate Nations)
by Steve Schear 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The hitman image certainly rings true for some top execs I've met. I recall a session with a corporate sociologist many years ago (the company was going through one of those team-building bullshit affairs). I had completed a psychological profile tests and we were reviewing the results. She was given to occasional black humor and on this particular occasion told me she has some good news and some bad news, asking which I prefered hearing first. I selected the good news, whereupon she said that my profile was an exact match with those who reach the highest levels of the corporate world. Then the bad news, its also the profile of a master criminal. I kid you not. As to hyperindividualism, Robert Bork covered this topic in his recent book Slouching Toward Gamorah. In it he identified two idiological diseases infecting America: radical equality and radical egalitarianism (i.e., hyperindividualism). Both, in his opinion, are a result of a warped evolution of 20th Century liberalism. Since many in our society seek to emulate these hitmen (i.e., get a piece of the rock at any cost) and have no more scruples themselves than those to whom they aspire, anonymous betting pools could harness the more extreme members in a populist fashion to counterbalance our new age robber barrons and politicians. The solution to hyperindividualism isn't regulation (which can be blunted or co-opted by those with the bucks) but allowing those below to profitably advance at the expense of those at the top. Dynamic equilibrium in a new marketplace. Sort of like the way Klingons get field rank advancements. --Steve

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At a Comic Shop near you...
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This may or may not be of interest... Spy v.s. Spy action figures are now available! There is a black spy and a white spy (sorry, no grey spy). Each comes with lots of gadgets (knives, blackjacks, saws and a bomb). Each spy has "bomb throwing action". They are distributed through comic shops at the moment. They sold out pretty quick where I got mine, so you will not want to wait if you want one. --- | Bill Clinton - Bringing back the Sixties one Nixon at a time! | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | | | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com|

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DSA for encryption
by Bennett Haselton 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I'm working on an enhancement to a Web-based program that allows you to circumvent proxy server censorship by sending a request for a Web page to a computer in the outside world that is not blocked by the proxy, and having that computer re-send a copy of the banned page back to you. The current version of the software, written by Brian Ristuccia this past summer, is at http://ians.ml.org:8801 where you type a URL into the form, submit it, and the resulting page has a URL like: http://ians.ml.org:8801/aHR0cDovL3d3dy55YWhvby5jb20= instead of http://anon.free.anonymizer.com/http://www.yahoo.com/ which is what Anonymizer gives you, which makes it obvious what you were looking at to anyone who looks through the proxy server logs. Of course, any manufacturer of Internet censorship proxy server software could easily add ians.ml.org to their list of blocked sites (as they have all already done with Anonymizer), so the idea would be for people to get their friends to set up port-forwarding programs on computers that were not blocked by the censoring proxy, and those could be set up to relay requests between the IANS server and the computer behind the proxy server. The general outline for this scheme is at http://www.peacefire.org/bypass/Proxy/ and the current version of IANS ("Internet Alternate Name Space") is part of the way towards implementing this (theoretically) bulletproof solution. The major pending improvements to the IANS software are (1) the URL is not truly encrypted; the garbled characters in the URL above just represent some basic scrambling to evade detection by people who sweep their proxy server log files for keywords, (2) even if the URL were really encrypted, when you first fill out the form, the URL is submitted to IANS in the clear, so it could be detected by any censoring proxy server that logs data submitted by GET or POST. One Internet censorship proxy server called SmartFilter already does this and blocks you from submitting *any* banned URL's using GET or POST, so IANS does not work with SmartFilter, for example. I am working on a JavaScript form that could be used on the client side to solve this problem. We would like to use DSA to encrypt the requests sent using IANS, since I've heard DSA can be used for encryption without royalties, unlike, for example, RSA. Does anybody know of a Web page that explains how the DSA algorithm can be used for encryption, as opposed to message signing and authentication? I found a page at http://www1.shore.net/~ws/Extras/Security-Notes/lectures/authent.html that describes the DSA algorithm for signature verification. I have looked very hard but have been unable to find a page about how to use DSA for encryption. Can anyone help? I know there is software like GNU Privacy Guard that implements DSA for encryption, but the source code is 3 megabytes and I was hoping there was a page that explains the process more simply than that. -Bennett bennett(a)peacefire.org (615) 421 5432 http://www.peacefire.org

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Re: What was the quid pro quo for Wassenaar countries?
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One thing which came to me recently when I was trying to figure out what sort of gun the US held to the rest of the world's head to get them to agree to this: Could the Wassenaar outcome have been a sign of Echelon in action? Consider this: Delegates from each country have been travelling to Vienna for some months now to negotiate their countries position. During the negotiations, they'll be contacting their governments via phonecalls carried over microwave trunks, satellite links, or undersea cables to discuss the progress of the negotiations and what position they should take. Just like the negotiations which lead to the Five-Power Treaty in 1921, if one country had the ability to intercept all the other countries communications it would know how far they could be pushed, and where the most resistance was likely to come from, allowing greater amounts of "persuasion" to be concentrated on them. I can't think of a more appropriate application of Echelon (use worldwide surveillance technology to perpetuate the usefulness of worldwide surveillance technology), and it would go some way towards explaining the very peculiar agreement which was reached. Peter.

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FWD: Read this. Now. And *act* on it. (was re: Building cryptoarchives worldwide to foil US-built Berlin Walls)
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's time, folks. They can't win if we do anything at all, but they *will* win if we do nothing. Robert Hettinga --- begin forwarded text X-Authentication-Warning: toad.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: cryptography(a)c2.net, gnu(a)toad.com Subject: Building crypto archives worldwide to foil US-built Berlin Walls Date: Mon, 07 Dec 1998 15:23:54 -0800 From: John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> Sender: owner-cryptography(a)c2.net The US Wassenaar initiative is an attempt to deny the public not only all future strong crypto developments, but all existing ones. As today's message from Denmark makes clear, the freedom-hating bureaucrats are threatening to prosecute a citizen merely for publishing PGP on his web page. Let's at least ensure that they don't eliminate *today's* strong crypto, by replicating crypto archives behind each Berlin Wall they threaten to erect. Today we depend on a small number of archives (in a small number of countries) containing source and binaries for PGP, SSH, Kerberos, cryptoMozilla, IPSEC, and many other useful crypto tools that we use daily. Let's replicate these archives in many countries. I call for volunteers in each country, at each university or crypto-aware organization, to download crypto tools while they can still be exported from where they are, and then to offer them for export from your own site and your own country as long as it's legal. (The Wassenaar agreement is not a law; each country has merely agreed to try to change its own laws, but that process has not yet started.) And if at some future moment your own government makes it illegal for you to publish these tools, after all your appeals are denied, all the pro-bono court cases rejected, and all the newspaper coverage you can get has been printed, then restrict your web site so that only your own citizens can get the tools. That'll still be better than the citizens of your country having NO access to the tools of privacy! (I suggest putting these tools on a Web site on a machine that you own, rather than on a web site where you buy space from someone else. That way there'll be nobody for the freedom-squashers to threaten except you.) I'm sure that John Young's excellent http://jya.com site will be happy to provide an index of crypto archives around the world, if people will send him notices at jya(a)pipeline.com as your sites come up. (Each archive should locally mirror this list, so that we won't depend on a single site.) Rather than having their desired effect of squelching crypto distribution, perhaps their overbold move can inspire us to increase strong crypto distribution tenfold, by making it clear to the public that if you don't keep a copy on your own hard drive, the governments of the world will be merciless in scheming to deny you access to it. And if crypto developers have to publish on books, or rely on smugglers to get crypto from country to country, then at least each country will have its distribution arrangements already ready for when the book is scanned or the smuggler arrives. John Gilmore --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.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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NEW Reuters story (fwd)
by Jukka E Isosaari 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 23:50:55 +0000 From: Dave Bird <dave(a)xemu.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: ukcrypto(a)maillist.ox.ac.uk To: ukcrypto(a)maillist.ox.ac.uk Subject: NEW Reuters story In article <896C7C3540C3D111AB9F00805FA78CE2013F85F3@MSX11002>, Brown, R Ken <brownrk1(a)texaco.com> writes >r [sent to crytpo list, and to CIV LIBS DISCUSS] Yahoo! News http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/wr/story.html?s=v/nm/19981203/wr/ privacy_1.html Thursday 3 December 1998 12:38 PM ET Europe readies police techno-surveillance law By Niall McKay SAN FRANCISCO (Wired) - The European Union is quietly getting ready to approve legislation that will allow the police to eavesdrop both on Internet conversations and Iridium satellite telephone calls without obtaining court authorization. The legislation is part of a much wider memorandum of understanding between the EU, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway, a nonmember European nation. That agreement allows authorities to conduct telecom surveillance across international borders, according to a Europol document leaked to members of the European Parliament. ``Security measures are often necessary in the cases of terrorism or organized crime,'' said Glyn Ford, a member of the European Parliament for the British Labour Party and a director of the EU's Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs Committee. ''But what we need is some sort of democratic control. It seems to me that many security services are a law unto themselves.'' That will presumably be a topic of discussion when the European Council of Ministers meets behind closed doors Thursday to update a 1995 wiretap agreement known as the Legal Interception of Telecommunications Resolution. If approved, it would permit real-time, remote monitoring of email, as well as of calls placed on satellite telephone networks such as those maintained by Iridium and Globalstar. Unlike most laws in Europe, the agreement will allow law enforcement to listen in without a court order. ``This is a US export,'' said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. ``It's a European version of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.'' The act, passed in 1984, was intended to allow law enforcers to tap the digital lines of tomorrow, just as they tap analog phone lines now. Ironically, in September, the European Parliament called for account- ability of Echelon, the US National Security Agency's spying network that is reportedly able to intercept, record, and translate any electronic communication-telephone, data, cellular, fax, email, or telex. Under European law, representatives of each member nation can pass legally binding resolutions. Further, the resolutions don't require the approval of either the European Parliament or the individual parliaments of EU members. Many European Parliament members are outraged that the Council of Ministers has been acting in secret. They are especially concerned about the inclusion of non-EU nations in the agreement. Patricia McKenna, a representative for Britain's Green Party, will raise the issue in Parliament this week. She also intends to ask Europe's Justice and Internal Affairs Council to ''justify the secrecy and lack of consultation surrounding these initiatives.'' McKenna is requesting what she described as an ``open debate on the crucial and far-reaching measures, with enormous potential impact in the realm of privacy.'' Another member of the European Parliament believes that the so-called ``update resolutions'' will have staggering implications for personal privacy. ``This legislation is not just a technical update,'' said Johannes Voggenhuber, an Austrian representative for the European Parliament. ``It places the onus on the telecommunications carrier to provide a watertight back door to police.'' The European Council for General Security prepared the amendment with technical assistance from the FBI, according to the Europol document leaked. The four major satellite telephone operators-Iridium, Globalstar, Odyssey, and ICO-will be required by the law to provide access to European law enforcement through ground stations in France, Italy, England, and Germany. Iridium officials could not be reached for comment. It is unclear how the memorandum of understanding will affect US citizens. ``I find it very hard to believe that a foreign nation-any foreign nation-could eavesdrop on US citizens,'' said John Pike, a security analyst with the Federation of American Scientists. ``It's one thing for the FBI to try and track terrorists across international borders, but it's entirely another to let Europeans tap US citizens' telephones.'' The FBI would neither confirm nor deny any relationship between the United States and the other nations involved in the memorandum of understanding. However, Rotenberg said such provisions are already in place under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. While the new European law is being sold to EU member states as a means of combating what the legislation calls ``serious and organized'' crime, there is no clear definition of this phrase. ``It simply concerns any punishable offense,'' said Tony Bunyan, director of Statewatch, a European civil liberties group. (Reuters/Wired) |~/ |~/ ~~|;'^';-._.-;'^';-._.-;'^';-._.-;'^';-._.-;||';-._.-;'^';||_.-;'^'0-|~~ P | Woof Woof, Glug Glug ||____________|| 0 | P O | Who Drowned the Judge's Dog? | . . . . . . . '----. 0 | O O | answers on *---|_______________ @__o0 | O L |{a href="news:alt.religion.scientology"}{/a}_____________|/_______| L and{a href="http://www.xemu.demon.co.uk/clam/lynx/q0.html"}{/a}XemuSP4(:)

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AU Wassenaar Wassenaar changes
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[OK to repost to crypto lists and Cryptome - dant] I spoke this afternoon with one of the Australian delegates at the Wassenaar meeting, an official from the Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Speaking off the record, they confirmed the changes at Wassenaar are pretty much as we know already: - NEW CONTROLS on mass market crypto products (hardware and software); - DEREGULATING all weak encryption products using key lengths up to 56 bits; - EXEMPTING mass market software where the key length is 64 bits or less; - EXTENDING the same mass market exemption to hardware for the first time; - EXCLUDING encryption products that protect intellectual property, such as digital watermarking; - NO DECISION was made about regulating 'intangible' distribution of technology, including Internet downloads. Apparently in the short term the intangibles issue is being considered in other fora (including the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) which includes Australia thanks to Filthy Jabilucre et al). It is still not clear whether the new restrictions are intended to stop public domain software such as PGP*. The DFAT contact said there was no discussion about an intention to stop public domain packages like PGP. They did not think public domain was being restricted. Yet apparently the Australian DoD has expressed the David Aaron view that public domain is subject to the same restrictions as mass market. * PGP is "in the public domain" for the purposes of Wassenaar/DSGL, since the definition states: "in the public domain" (GTN NTN GSN), as it applies herein, means "technology" or "software" which has been made available without restrictions upon its further dissemination (copyright restrictions do not remove "technology" or "software" from being "in the public domain") Note: there is no equivalent definition for "mass market", but the General Software Note (GSN) states it thus: Generally available to the public by being: 1. Sold from stock at retail selling points, without restriction, by means of: a. Over-the-counter transactions; b. Mail order transactions; or c. Telephone order transactions; and 2. Designed for installation by the user without substantial support by the supplier; Dan ===== Dan Tebbutt, Technology Journalist, Melbourne Australia Australian Personal Computer (http://www.apcmag.com) LAN Corporate IT (http://www.lanlive.com) The Australian (http://www.newsit.com.au) Ph: +61-3-9347-8893 Fax:+61-2-9264-6320 Email: dant(a)acp.com.au "The revolution will be televised ... on pay-per-view."

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Alpha Options Newsletter
by feedback＠telescan.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: What was the quid pro quo for Wassenaar countries? (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 07 Dec 1998 08:21:21 -0500 > From: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> > Subject: Re: What was the quid pro quo for Wassenaar countries? > More interesting to Americans, maybe, is that there also appears to be > an effort to boost domestic militia, particularly the religious brand, as the > homefront Bin Laden. The rise of religion-based terrorism is explored at > length in Bruce Hoffman's recent "Inside Terrorism." Hoffman claims that > religious terrorists may be the worst enemies ever, for they do not > believe in political compromise: they want to kill every single opponent, > and have no reservations about using WMD. 5,000 years of human history bears this thesis out. > If this theory is correct (and Hoffman has worked with RAND for years on > the issue) then the menace of terrorism is worse than that hawked during > the Cold War. The enemy is not distant, not even ICBM seconds away, > but rather it lives amongst us, it's our neighbors readying Armageddon not > merely a familiar commie takeover. This is also their biggest weakness. It's one reason the US has never been host to a large movement in the 20th century, outside the racist, anti-communist, and pro-lifers (and the first two are pretty much dead) because your neighbor probably doesn't go to the same church you do, probably not from the same part of the country. The chances of an individual opening up to their neighbor and getting a warm reception for bombing someplace is pretty low. Realisticaly, the only reason the pro-lifers get as warm a reception as they do is so many people see it as hypocritical. It's ok to kill a killer is their thinking, it is after all a form of pre-partum assissted self-defence. > Hoffman says to expect more OKCs around the globe. To be sure, that's > his business to say that. Considering the rate at which they occur now there is zero rational reason to believe these groups will cease any time in the near future. ____________________________________________________________________ If I can put in one word what has always infuriated me in any person, any group, any movement, or any nation, it is: bullying Howard Zinn The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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US attorney notified
by bill payne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Michell was notified that we are in the process of initiating legal action to get the lien removed. Let's hope she has the sense to do what we ask. This matter should have been settled. It is getting WORSE.

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