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Deschall Fwd: WE FOUND IT!
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 17:01:16 -0400 To: dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu From: Kent Borg <kentborg(a)borg.org> Subject: Deschall Fwd: WE FOUND IT! Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Kent Borg <kentborg(a)borg.org> 56-bit DES has now been publicly cracked! In a chaotic volunteer effort, no less. Cool! -kb, the Kent who's Macintosh searched quite a few billion keys, but did not find it. << start of forwarded material >> ** Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 13:46:19 -0600 ** From: Rocke Verser <rcv(a)dopey.verser.frii.com> ** To: deschall-announce(a)gatekeeper.megasoft.com ** Subject: WE FOUND IT! ** Sender: owner-deschall-announce(a)gatekeeper.megasoft.com ** Precedence: bulk ** ** -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ** ** "Strong cryptography makes the world a safer place." ** ** That's the message RSA has been waiting for us to decipher. ** And we did it! ** ** The correct key (8558891AB0C851B6) was reported to RSA Data Security ** shortly before midnight last night (Mountain Time). RSA's automated ** server acknowledged our win! ** ** The winning computer is a Pentium 90MHz, operated by iNetZ Corporation ** of Salt Lake City, Utah. Their employee, Michael K. Sanders, was the ** individual who was running the DESCHALL client. ** ** Congratulations, Michael. And congratulations to all who participated! ** ** ** Many thanks are due, all around. ** ** Special thanks to Justin Dolske and Matt Curtin, who took enormous ** pressure off of me, early in the project; and who have kept the client ** archives, mailing lists, and gateways humming right along; and who ** diligently responded to *so many* questions on the mailing lists. ** Thanks very much! ** ** Special thanks to Darrell Kindred and Andrew Meggs, whose programming ** skill in their respective fields (fast bitslice clients and fast ** user-friendly Mac PPC clients) is unmatched! ** ** Special thanks to Karl Runge, who has spent many evenings into the wee ** hours (is 5 AM wee?) to develop some outstanding stats and to make sure ** those stats were posted each morning! ** ** Special thanks to Jeff Simmons, and others, whose names tragically ** escape me, who did some early publicity to get the project rolling! ** ** Special thanks to the other developers, Guy Albertelli and Kelly ** Campbell. Guy performed a number of "ports", and Kelly produced the ** first Mac client. ** ** Thanks to countless others, who devoted not just their CPU cycles, but ** their boundless energy as well. ** ** ** I offer both thanks and consolations to our only public "competitor", ** SolNET. ** ** Magnus and Fredrik: As I have said before, SolNET is a class outfit. I ** never once heard you disparage your competition. We thank you! ** ** In a sense, the "win" belongs to all of us, who contributed CPU cycles ** and clients and ideas and innovations. We searched less than 1/4 of the ** keyspace. Worldwide, over half of the keyspace was searched. A ** DESCHALL client may have found "the" key, but you deserve credit for ** helping to bring the "expected date of completion" significantly ahead. ** ** Your Web site gave us a goal to shoot for. A goal which we never met. ** Your clients had many features our users wished for. There is no shame ** in not finding the key. But I know the anguish you must feel after ** putting your hearts and souls into a project for 3-4 months, and not ** being "the" winner. ** ** In my eyes, everyone who participated, whether working for the DESCHALL ** team or the SolNET team is a winner! ** ** ** Last but not least, thanks to my dear wife, Myra, who allowed me to ** engage in this project (when I should have been looking for my next ** contract programming job); and to her and my children, who tolerated ** the disruption to our household routine caused by this project. ** ** ** - - Rocke Verser, DESCHALL organizer, rcv(a)dopey.verser.frii.com ** ** -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- ** Version: 2.6.2 ** ** iQCVAwUBM6g4wXI7TKUAAAABAQGNrwQAyuvPPGgIaRMmveI/9MwbTq6SbNerD4A3 ** VluN2EW+GCvT1UiyTV2eQ3tJB+9f5RUVnQ77rqsVvME1Go0M1Vckq0VPzBdMYWgq ** laNv8tf4LEkSyu2LrfoLONyvrNmcByRmO8Bwt/QtqICK4gFpXcnoWXaCz4NG6iZf ** 6NtPgJnQh6o= ** =I+bG ** -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ** << end of forwarded material >> -- Kent Borg H: +1-617-776-6899 kentborg(a)borg.org W: "The language seemed pretty natural to me. I talk a lot like that." - My Minnesota mother Helene commenting on "Fargo" For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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Re: The Tao
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rabid Wombat wrote: > > The Tao of heaven is like the bending of a bow. > The high is lowered, and the low is raised. > If the string is too long, it is shortened; > If there is not enough, it is made longer. I had a boyfriend like that once. TruthMistress

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Award from Computer Press Ass'n (shameless self-congratulation)
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just learned that Brock Meeks and I won the top award for "Best Online Feature" from the Computer Press Association during its 12th annual awards ceremony in New York City. Our winning article was the investigative story "Keys to the Kingdom" that exposed the hidden agendas of so-called blocking software programs. It ran in CyberWire Dispatch last July. The judges said we had: "produced an investigative piece on a serious and important subject--a rare feat in any media. 'Keys to the Kingdom' revealed that parental control software--which ostensibly filters out pornographic Internet sites--actually restricts access to all types of material both innocuous and important. Thus, software users unwittingly restrict their rights of free speech and access to information. This story, colorfully written and packed with details, raised this important issue to the online community and resulted in high profile follow-ups with mainstream media such as the Washington Post, New York Times and the Wall St. Journal." Our article is at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Declan_McCullagh/cwd.keys.to.the.kingdo… 6.article -Declan ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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Re: Award from Computer Press Ass'n (shameless self-congratulation)
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Congrats Declan, and Brock. The best blow-by was that "colorfully written and packed with details." Too bad, that ass-kiss o'death "high-profile follow-up with mainstream media."

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We Close All Sales For You!!!
by computermas＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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INFORMATION
by twinsvideo＠infosel.net.mx 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

donn't think that i'm lame or somthin' but i realy need information on how to hack so, could you please tell me how to hack and what do i need in order to hack. don't worry i won't get into trouble. please hurry it's urgent. T H N X A L O T ! ------------------------------------- Name: twins video,s.a. de c.v. E-mail: twinsvideo(a)infosel.net.mx Date: 18/06/97 Time: 6:46:10 PM This message was sent by Chameleon -------------------------------------

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HACKERS SMASH U.S. GOVERNMENT ENCRYPTION STANDARD
by sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

C2Net Software, Inc. 1212 Broadway Oakland, CA 94612 510-986-8770 For Immediate Release HACKERS SMASH U.S. GOVERNMENT ENCRYPTION STANDARD Oakland, California (June 18, 1997)-The 56-bit DES encryption standard, long claimed "adequate" by the U.S. Government, was shattered yesterday using an ordinary Pentium personal computer operated by Michael K. Sanders, an employee of iNetZ, a Salt Lake City, Utah-based online commerce provider. Sanders was part of a loosely organized group of computer users responding to the "RSA $10,000 DES Challenge." The code-breaking group distributed computer software over the Internet for harnessing idle moments of computers around the world to perform a 'brute force' attack on the encrypted data. "That DES can be broken so quickly should send a chill through the heart of anyone relying on it for secure communications," said Sameer Parekh, one of the group's participants and president of C2Net Software, an Internet encryption provider headquartered in Oakland, California (http://www.c2.net/) "Unfortunately, most people today using the Internet assume the browser software is performing secure communications when an image of a lock or a key appears on the screen. Obviously, that is not true when the encryption scheme is 56-bit DES," he said. INetZ vice president Jon Gay said "We hope that this will encourage people to demand the highest available encryption security, such as the 128-bit security provided by C2Net's Stronghold product, rather than the weak 56-bit ciphers used in many other platforms." Many browser programs have been crippled to use an even weaker, 40-bit cipher, because that is the maximum encryption level the U.S. government has approved for export. "People located within the US can obtain more secure browser software, but that usually involves submitting an affidavit of eligibility, which many people have not done," said Parekh. "Strong encryption is not allowed to be exported from the U.S., making it harder for people and businesses in international locations to communicate securely," he explained. According to computer security expert Ian Goldberg, "This effort emphasizes that security systems based on 56-bit DES or "export-quality" cryptography are out-of-date, and should be phased out. Certainly no new systems should be designed with such weak encryption.'' Goldberg is a member of the University of California at Berkeley's ISAAC group, which discovered a serious security flaw in the popular Netscape Navigator web browser software. The 56-bit DES cipher was broken in 5 months, significantly faster than the hundreds of years thought to be required when DES was adopted as a national standard in 1977. The weakness of DES can be traced to its "key length," the number of binary digits (or "bits") used in its encryption algorithm. "Export grade" 40-bit encryption schemes can be broken in less than an hour, presenting serious security risks for companies seeking to protect sensitive information, especially those whose competitors might receive code-breaking assistance from foreign governments. According to Parekh, today's common desktop computers are tremendously more powerful than any computer that existed when DES was created. "Using inexpensive (under $1000) computers, the group was able to crack DES in a very short time," he noted. "Anyone with the resources and motivation to employ modern "massively parallel" supercomputers for the task can break 56-bit DES ciphers even faster, and those types of advanced technologies will soon be present in common desktop systems, providing the keys to DES to virtually everyone in just a few more years." 56-bit DES uses a 56-bit key, but most security experts today consider a minimum key length of 128 bits to be necessary for secure encryption. Mathematically, breaking a 56-bit cipher requires just 65,000 times more work than breaking a 40-bit cipher. Breaking a 128-bit cipher requires 4.7 trillion billion times as much work as one using 56 bits, providing considerable protection against brute-force attacks and technical progress. C2Net is the leading worldwide provider of uncompromised Internet security software. C2Net's encryption products are developed entirely outside the United States, allowing the firm to offer full-strength cryptography solutions for international communications and commerce. "Our products offer the highest levels of security available today. We refuse to sell weak products that might provide a false sense of security and create easy targets for foreign governments, criminals, and bored college students," said Parekh. "We also oppose so-called "key escrow" plans that would put everyone's cryptography keys in a few centralized locations where they can be stolen and sold to the highest bidder," he added. C2Net's products include the Stronghold secure web server and SafePassage Web Proxy, an enhancement that adds full-strength encryption to any security-crippled "export grade" web browser software. # # # Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. Netscape and Netscape Navigator are registered trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation Stronghold and SafePassage are trademarks of C2Net Software, Inc.

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Declan as a Crime Beat Reporter
by lucifer Mixmaster Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> hee, hee, I hope that Declan comes up with an amusing mishmash of your > own life. turnabout is fair play. maybe if he doesn't, someone else > can take a stab at satirizing mr. debauched millionaire playboy > who dabbles in cryptography theory. An interview with cypherpunks founder Timothy C May, Jim Bell and various other Cypherpunks also present. Interview conducted by Declan McCullagh Declan: Tim, can you tell us how you first became interested in the use of cryptography to preserve freedoms supposedly guaranteed by the constitution. Tim: Well, I had just quit working at Intel, where I made more money than all of you put together, when I really started to get interested in cryptography, At the first physical meeting, when John, Eric and I had just founded the cypherpunks, we discussed anonymity, digital cash and compared rifle collections. Jim: Something wonderful is about to happen. Tim: No it isn`t, I thought of anonymous digital assasination contracts first, now everyone calls it AP, and you get all the publicity (Tim reaches for his .45). Declan: Calm down, I`m sure it isn`t that simple. Tim: Yes it is, lets nuke D.C. Dimitri: Tim May blows small children, and is an anti semetic bigot. Graham-John Bullers: I think we should all send Vulis back 10 copies of this Truthmonger: Nuke Ottowa too. Kent Crispin: Nuking anywhere is just an adolescent fantasy Vladimir Z Nuri: I agree Tim May: No it isn`t, go away Kent. Paul Bradley: Yes indeed, nuke London as well. Ray Arachelian: There should be a law against this, surely it`s an infringement of privacy! Dimitri: Ray Arachelian is a dandruff covered censorous purebred sovok forger. Se7en: Lets hack their servers and erase all the kiddie porn. Truthmonger: I propose 3 minutes of silence for Tim McVeigh Dimitri: Ah, so you are trying to censor us then, Truthmonger is really Chris Lewis, who is also really Richard Depew. ObTruthMongerFodder: Tim McVeigh is a murderous cocksucker Hallam-Baker: AP is a murder and censorship scheme. Tim May: I thought of this and wrote an essay on it back in `78 when most of you were still in high school, I probably posted it once, trawl the archives and you shall be enligtened. Jerry K U-Ramos: Break this, because we are so confident in the strenth of our cipher we are giving you a week to cryptanalyse it, if you can`t, it must be unbreakable. Tim May: This offer of a prize for cryptanaysis is highly suspect, I am now placing rifles in strategic positions, lock and load. I remember a similar offer back in `64, before most of you were born, (mumble, mumble, mumble)... Toto: I`m sure the NSA have something to do with it, or is that the CIA, the FBI, the DEA ??? I don`t remember, but it`s some scary TLA composed entirely of men in long black coats. Kent Crispin: Lets be realistic about it, you are all obsessed with assasination. Vladimir Z Nuri: I agree (In a post only 3 seconds later than Kents original one, I wonder how that could happen? ;-)) Declan: None of you understand, I have to attend dinner parties, like the one with Steve and Bill the other night, to get information for my articles. Tim May: I thought of this back in `84 too, I concluded that people should read what I say more carefully, and you *might* sell out in future. Jim Bell: Something wonderful is about to happen Tim May: Jim, you are killfiled for being a loon. Declan: Right, I`m sorry but we appear to have run out of time, we`ll have to go home. Dimitri: So you are trying to censor us then. Declan McCullagh is a cocksucker Tim starts packing the several dozen rifles he brought with him back into boxes. Everyone gets in their cars to go home, except Tim May who brought his tank with him. THE END

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Re: [?????] PGP 5.0 Freeware is available from ???
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <3.0.2.32.19970618192907.007707dc(a)popd.ix.netcom.com>, on 06/18/97 at 07:29 PM, Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> said: >5) Does US law have any say over whether you can import it from > the Nederlands to Turkey? (Not really...) Shhhhhhh... don't tell the State Dept. They think they have a say in what the rest of the world does. Ofcource seeing how many governments cave in to these little fasists bastards it's no wonder they think that they rule the world. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBM6iwCI9Co1n+aLhhAQGa0QP+IaAeYwvUQtVVOC9pKw7n1gYSsZcm9KVE vVcuxiC9E1DU4EAwkbzpUlFweJiVucyaolt92fV1mamb9uBLk68ucg02cjhuXi92 LG4fJb4II9bhSWVxiKNbRrkJkTma/5lNCJaU+wOl28S9TFYfgIVd3JERmCf3nQYX ZdhTf51uet8= =acVF -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [?????] PGP 5.0 Freeware is available from ???
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <3.0.2.32.19970618192907.007707dc(a)popd.ix.netcom.com>, on 06/18/97 at 07:29 PM, Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> said: >5) Does US law have any say over whether you can import it from > the Nederlands to Turkey? (Not really...) Shhhhhhh... don't tell the State Dept. They think they have a say in what the rest of the world does. Ofcource seeing how many governments cave in to these little fasists bastards it's no wonder they think that they rule the world. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBM6ivdY9Co1n+aLhhAQE7NgQAu5zF1HbjYE1ce7Q5bH1bzSw8h6uewcwM v9An7rEKQXQgdF0IPtxKEfr3rkRzF2CmMe/+Gizuz+umLiIfCl9SwLflb0nXgwdx Ftd3NRWQF52sTsS9PhCfs8/4Y7vZA+YjKo8fHHKK0c51px+3eoLHeyDMJCzJvPCM iTU5/3ei+RA= =CoLC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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