- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Free & Open Society & toleration
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- on or about 970201:2001 Jim Choate <ravage(a)einstein.ssz.com> said: +I further hold that one of the current legal practices based on +precidence which MUST be replaced is our system dealing with +defamation. I further hold that our current system of legal +representation is inherently flawed and prevents equal representation +under the law. BULLSHIT why don't you toll the bell for freedom while you're at it, and think about 'for whom the bell tolls.' --it tolls for thee. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: Encrypted with 2.6.3i. Requires 2.6 or later. iQCVAwUBMvTgoL04kQrCC2kFAQHeuQP8CtEQx/Rw/fLHqIx9UOfqp3QK4fQXKneV PXDiZvTi9aTLqd/8D64CgNmRizmb26NIMlEBXXt/YreucdYKSWByBkmMozKw7kxY QN3N/of1wZfqbXmJQj2+oV5dG9ieNWM3mkQw8pp79z8qa6jGYMt3xW1aqsYaweR0 Kx8zM9xm8S8= =4Hwo -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Reminder: Release 0.4 of my Linux IPSEC code is out.
by Robert Moskowitz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:29 AM 1/29/97 +0200, John Ioannidis wrote: > >Please note that in some countries such as the USA, it is unlawful for a >citizen of that country to provide technical assistance "with the intent to >aid a foreign person in the development or manufacture outside the United >States" of >"Encryption Items". I think there is a partial 'out'. If a US company is attempting to interoperate with your code and fails, they can point to the part of a public specification related to the failure. Such as our implementations failed to interoperate related to section n.m.o of rfc wxyz. But I am not a lawyer, only heard this explaination 3rd hand from a lawyer. Robert Moskowitz Chrysler Corporation (810) 758-8212

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FW: Cyphernomicon by Tim May
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(meant to send this to the list earlier) From: Toto Personally, I could care less when people want to play footsie-games with flaming, but I think it points out the ludicrousness of having a moderator limiting people to 'childish' insults. I prefer someone screaming at me what a cocksucker I am. ................................................... Now, you know it has to do with proportion: if Jim Choate, in the course of an ADD-induced discourse on the reprehensability of libelous indiscretions, happens to let out a "Bessie", it's going to be less disconcerting than to read continuous content-less alerts consisting of nothing but declarations against your personal virtue. At the very least, the one provides some cause for educated clarification, while the other leaves nothing to say, but only to filter. However, it's 3:00 a.m. PST and Sandy's asleep right now, so if you really feel like flaming somebody uninhibitedly, now's the time to get past the flame-bot (hee-hee). = Ray Hettinga forwards these long, literate missives advertising this-or-that million dollar a plate conferences, but when he chose to insult me with his own words, the result was an immature blathering which showed questionable literary skills. ............................................. Bad, Ray - Bad! = It would be nice, however, to try to twist the rest of the list around to my own world-view. It gets lonely here in the 'rubber room' at the Home, and I could use some company. ............................................. You're at liberty to try. Why don't you start with Messrs. Jim and Jim. (but, wait - let me set up my Inbox Rules.....) .. Blanc

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Re: If guilty of a lesser crime, you can be sentenced for a greater
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > jim bell wrote: > > Better yet, set up a system to encourage the public to USE those guns (and > > other weapons) to get rid of the people who pass such laws, and the problem > > is solved. > How about this scenario: I borrow 1 million dollars from, let's say, > Phill Hallam-Baker. Not wanting to pay it back, I pay to the > assassination bot and arrange him to be murdered. Igor, there's an old saying in this country: the best way to lose a friend is to lend him money. > Another story: suppose that I negligently caused fire that destroys > house of, say, Toto. Toto knows that if he sues me, I can arrange him > murdered for the amount less than the amount of damages. As a result, > he refrains from suing me, or (if he is a mean person) pays additional > money to have me murdered. A suit would probably be a much better outcome. Sometimes you have to pay a steep price for negligence, like neglecting to watch how close you get to the edge of the road on, say, Topanga Canyon or one of those (long way down). Now, since people *know* to be extra careful on the canyon roads, don't you think by the same analogy they'd be extra careful with other things when AP is running? > Another story: suppose that OKSAS hired me to work for her, but then > our relationships go south and she fires me. Again, her fate is very > unclear, although I would probably spare her life if it were she. If she does it right, with empathy, there is not likely to be a problem. On the other hand, if she bad-mouths you to prospective employers or customers you want to do business with, you might be inclined to hit her. This happens a lot when AP is not available. > The bottom line is, it becomes very hard to do ANYTHING that disappoints > at least somebody. That can lead to a lot of inefficiencies. To get rid of everyone who pisses you off, you'd have to pay a lot more money than you'll ever have, therefore not a problem. Those people who have such money are not going to bump off very many more people than they already do, because: 1. They need the people to make money off of (Mafia rule #4, never kill someone who owes you money [or is a money source]). 2. Rich people have a lot of eyes on them, and it would be easy to triangulate a series of murders to them, even without hard evidence. In an AP world, this triangulation/correlation would be enough to convince people to either shun this killer, or kill him outright.

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Electronic Funds Transfer without stealing PIN/TAN
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Sender: e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com Reply-To: Rachel Willmer <rachel(a)intertrader.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Precedence: Bulk Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 15:03:25 +0000 From: Rachel Willmer <rachel(a)intertrader.com> To: Multiple recipients of <e$(a)thumper.vmeng.com> Subject: Electronic Funds Transfer without stealing PIN/TAN --- From RISKS digest --- Date: 1 Feb 1997 05:12:02 GMT From: weberwu(a)tfh-berlin.de (Debora Weber-Wulff) Subject: Electronic Funds Transfer without stealing PIN/TAN The Berlin newspaper "Tagespiegel" reports on 29 Jan 97 about a television show broadcast the previous evening on which hackers from the Chaos Computer Club demonstrated how to electronically transfer funds without needing a PIN (Personal Identification Number) or TAN (Transaction Number). Apparently it suffices for the victim to visit a site which downloads an ActiveX application, which automatically starts and checks to see if Quicken, a popular financial software package that also offers electronic funds transfer, is on the machine. If so, Quicken is given a transfer order which is saved by Quicken in its pile of pending transfer orders. The next time the victim sends off the pending transfer orders to the bank (and enters in a valid PIN and TAN for that!) all the orders (= 1 transaction) are executed -> money is transferred without the victim noticing! The newspaper quotes various officials at Microsoft et al expressing disbelief/outrage/"we're working on it". We discussed this briefly in class looking for a way to avoid the problem. Demanding a TAN for each transfer is not a solution, for one, the banks only send you 50 at a time, and many small companies pay their bills in bunches. Having to enter a TAN for each transaction would be quite time-consuming. Our only solution would be to forbid browsers from executing any ActiveX component without express authorization, but that rather circumvents part of what ActiveX is intended for. A small consolation: the transfer is trackable, that is, it can be determined at the bank to which account the money went. Some banks even include this information on the statement, but who checks every entry on their statements... Debora Weber-Wulff, Technische Fachhochschule Berlin, Luxemburger Str. 10, 13353 Berlin GERMANY weberwu(a)tfh-berlin.de <http://www.tfh-berlin.de/~weberwu/> -- Rachel Willmer, Intertrader Ltd, Cova House, 4 John's Place, Edinburgh Email: rachel(a)intertrader.com Tel: +44 131 555 8450 Fax: +44 131 555 8451 Sun Internet Associate and winner of 1996 SMART Award for Innovation "We develop Java Commerce Solutions" --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/

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Re: If guilty of a lesser crime, you can be sentenced for a greater
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dale Thorn wrote: > Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > > > How about this scenario: I borrow 1 million dollars from, let's say, > > Phill Hallam-Baker. Not wanting to pay it back, I pay to the > > assassination bot and arrange him to be murdered. > > Igor, there's an old saying in this country: the best way to lose a > friend is to lend him money. Phill, in this example, is not my friend, but a lender. > > Another story: suppose that I negligently caused fire that destroys > > house of, say, Toto. Toto knows that if he sues me, I can arrange him > > murdered for the amount less than the amount of damages. As a result, > > he refrains from suing me, or (if he is a mean person) pays additional > > money to have me murdered. A suit would probably be a much better outcome. > > Sometimes you have to pay a steep price for negligence, like neglecting > to watch how close you get to the edge of the road on, say, Topanga > Canyon or one of those (long way down). Now, since people *know* to > be extra careful on the canyon roads, don't you think by the same > analogy they'd be extra careful with other things when AP is running? Mmm, likely the result will be that Toto will be impoverished (it is an example, do not take it personally) and will not only not be able to murder me, but also will be too afraid to sue me (because I would rather pay for a cheaper assassination than to pay damages). > > Another story: suppose that OKSAS hired me to work for her, but then > > our relationships go south and she fires me. Again, her fate is very > > unclear, although I would probably spare her life if it were she. > > If she does it right, with empathy, there is not likely to be a > problem. On the other hand, if she bad-mouths you to prospective > employers or customers you want to do business with, you might be > inclined to hit her. This happens a lot when AP is not available. ... But would happen more often if it was. > > The bottom line is, it becomes very hard to do ANYTHING that disappoints > > at least somebody. That can lead to a lot of inefficiencies. > > To get rid of everyone who pisses you off, you'd have to pay a lot > more money than you'll ever have, therefore not a problem. Those Why, I will have a lot of money. > people who have such money are not going to bump off very many more > people than they already do, because: > > 1. They need the people to make money off of (Mafia rule #4, never > kill someone who owes you money [or is a money source]). This is a wrong Mafia rule, they do kill debtors who are in default. > 2. Rich people have a lot of eyes on them, and it would be easy to > triangulate a series of murders to them, even without hard evidence. > In an AP world, this triangulation/correlation would be enough to > convince people to either shun this killer, or kill him outright. When ten people make deals with each other, it becomes hard to triangulate. And it is easy, if you know what deals are done, to change the result of triangulation: suppose that I know that you borrowed 1 million from Toto, that my _and_ yours business partner had been murdered (by me, but no one knows), and I am afraid that someone will triangulate me and implicate me in that murder. I secretly order the AP bot to kill Toto, and you get implicated. Not good. - Igor.

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Re: Key Security Question
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <199702021555.HAA25423(a)toad.com>, on 02/02/97 at 09:34 AM, "Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM" <dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com> said: >ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: >> Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: >> > Bill Stewart <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com> writes: >> > > On the other hand, if the "repairman" replaced your pgp executable >> > > with version 2.6.3kgb, which uses your hashed passphrase as the >> > > session key, you're hosed. Or if he installed a keystroke sniffer, >> > > or added a small radio transmitter to your keyboard, or whatever. >> > > Depends on your threat model. If you need to be paranoid, >> > > they've already gotten you.... >> > >> > If you're really paranoid, you can boot from a clean floppy and >> > reinstall everything from your backup tapes. You do have a >> > contingency plan in case your hard disk goes bad, or gets a >> > virus, don't you? Well, if you're in doubt, exercise it. >> >> And what if the repairman replaces BIOS ROM chips with KGBios? >On some computers it's possible to add executable code to the boot >sequence without replacing the actual ROM chip because they're >rewritiable. Examples: most Sun boxes; intel motherboards with 'flash >bios'. V-Communications has a nice Bios Pre-Processor for their dissasembler for anyone intrested it playing with their bios code. Most newer MB's come with Flash Bios and the software to Flash the chip is available for download from the Manufacture. I'v gone and tinkered around with the bios on a couple of my AMI motherboards. Flash bios does open the possibility for a virus infection of ones bios. I have had several intresting discussions with the AMI programmers about this. IMHO any device that has flash bios should have a jumper on the circuit board to enable/disable the flash option. I have not seen anyone that is doing this with their products. The MB bios is relativly safe as the flash process happens pre-post but considering that flash bios can be found in almost all computer prerifials the potential for harm is there. Currently on my system I have flash bios on the HD's, modem's, NIC's, & SCSI card's. All are a potential hiding spot for a virus. - -- - ----------------------------------------------------------- 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. Finger whgiii(a)amaranth.com for PGP Key and other info - ----------------------------------------------------------- Tag-O-Matic: Air conditioned environment - Do not open Windows. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Registered User E-Secure v1.1 0000000 iQCVAwUBMvUl1Y9Co1n+aLhhAQHVcAQAmlU7/gY80+0C3KTowerMkZHa1ro4A5g5 0qKRuuAO08eOmnwND16bBxOo5KKZU/2Xxydvdg2CpE4C9ga/po3QTasa+kKzpsR7 jBQxDAWauirLlJtXCnfiaYQrycxX6YoFoZanRGticT4ObRmFvT0OcqYqqL/fgXe0 oSiw02JDATQ= =S97o -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: Libel, Times v. Sullivan
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Attila T. Hun +Yes, if the Magna Carta guaranteed a right and the forefathers fought +to secure it, why should any of us ever have to lift a finger in our +own defense. seems to me Jefferson said it took a rebellion every 20 years or so to keep democracy awake... other than presuming your answer is tongue in cheek (not elsewhere), complacency == welfare. ......................................................... Definitely tongue-in-cheek. Just noting that if a thing has been "guaranteed", this means (by my interpretation) that it is a done deal and nothing further need be done about it - it's established and automatic. But obviously a "right", though it be a basic operant in Nature and existent as an abstract concept in some people's minds, is not recognized either naturally or formally by many. Therefore, as Jefferson remarked, we cannot depend on our forefather's vision to uphold our honor but must re-establish it as needed. .. Blanc

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VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Awhile back we were discussing voice-stress analysis; just got this item on the subject; he said it's okay to post it. >From: Spectre334(a)aol.com >Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 09:31:17 -0500 (EST) >To: jimbell(a)pacifier.com >cc: BLAMES2778(a)aol.com, AFSCA(a)aol.com, JLeek426(a)aol.com >Subject: VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS > >MR. BELL: > >I FOUND YOUR QUERY ABOUT VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS ON THE INTERNET, AND I TOO, >HAVE FOUND A DEARTH OF INFORMATION THERE - UNTIL NOW. > >I'M PLEASED TO REPORT THAT VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS (VSA) IS ALIVE AND WELL. IT >HAS BEEN QUIETLY PERFORMING IN THE SHADOW OF THE POLYGRAPH FOR MANY YEARS. > NOW, HOWEVER, IT IS COMING INTO ITS AND IS USED IN MANY STATES TO AID IN >CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS AND OTHER APPLICATIONS. > >AMONG ITS OTHER BENEFITS, VSA REQUIRES NO INTIMIDATING HOOKUP TO THE >SUBJECT'S BODY, IN ORDER TO MEASURE THE LEVEL OF STRESS. IT CAN BE CONDUCTED >VIRTUALLY ANYWHERE - EVEN WHERE NO ELECTRICITY IS PRESENT. PERHAPS MOST >PERTINENT TO YOUR QUESTION, VSA CAN BE SOMETIMES PERFORMED ON PEOPLE WHO ARE >NO LONGER AROUND, THROUGH THEIR RECORDED VOICES. THIS IS CALLED "NARRATIVE >ANALYSIS" AND IS SOMEWHAT TOUGHER THAN THE BASIC QUESTION - AND -ANSWER >APPROACH, SINCE THE EXAMINER CANNOT CONTROL THE CONTENT AND SEQUENCE OF >QUESTIONS, IF THE SOURCE IS A PAST RECORDING. > >THE DIOGENES GROUP, INC., OF WHICH I AM PRESIDENT, HAS DEVELOPED A TOTALLY >DIGITAL APPROACH TO VSA, AND BEGAN DELIVERING SYSTEMS TO LAW ENFORCEMENT >AGENCIES IN DECEMBER, 1996. THE PREMIER DIOGENES VSA PRODUCT IS REDUCED TO >THE SIZE OF A NOTEBOOK COMPUTER, BUT PRODUCES REALTIME PROCESSING FOR >SOFTCOPY DISPLAY, AND HARDCOPY PRINTING WITHIN SECONDS. > >YOU MAY BE FAMILIAR WITH THE PREVIOUS STATE-OF-THE-ART, WHICH WAS A >RELATIVELY LARGE ANALOG MACHINE, USING A SINGLE CHANNEL AND PRINTING OUT THAT >DATA ON A ROLL OF THERMAL PAPER. THOSE DAYS ARE GONE FOREVER. > >IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION ON THE DIOGENES GROUP AND ITS PRODUCTS, >PLEASE USE THIS CHANNEL TO SEND ME YOUR MAILING ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER, AND >FAX NUMBER. > >THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST IN VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS. > >SINCERELY, > >TOM > >(THOMAS F. MCGRAW) > > Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: "Strong" crypto and export rule changes.
by Vin McLellan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ian popped the 40-bit RC5 (not RC4) challenge with 259 processors, almost all standard Unix college-lab workstations, as I understand it. (RC5 has a variable block size and a variable number of rounds; but the unknown plaintexts for this contest were enciphered using a declared 12-round RC5 with a 32-bit word size.) The message Ian revealed was something like: "That's why you need a longer key!!!!!" RSA posted rewards for anyone who can break a 56-bit DES challenge and/or any of 12 variable-length RC5 challenge messages. The 40-bit RC5 cipher was the least of these and was expected to fall quickly. The initial RSA announcement of the contest emphatically declared that even 56-bit-key crypto (DES or RC5) offers only "marginal protection" against a committed adversary -- which is not to in any way minimize Ian's accomplishment, or the efforts (some also successful!) of others who also tackled the 40-bit challenge. SDTI/RSA celebrated Ian's achievement enthusiastically at the RSA Security Conference in San Fran last week. Burt Kalisky, the Chief Scientist at RSA, preempted a main session at the Conference to do an on-stage telephone interview with Ian about his attack. SDTI (RSA) apparently hopes to use Ian's "timely" achievement to urge Congress to challenge the idiotic 40-bit EAR ceiling and the key-escrow contracts required to get a 56-bit export license. (The network Ian used to link his lab workstations, NOW at Berkeley, is definitely not standard, however. I think there is a description of it online; but briefly, NOW seems designed to very efficiently handle this sort of intensive distributed processing project. More important, perhaps, was the fact that Ian just chewed through the possible keys with a pure brute-force attack on the key space. His attack was not really optimized for RC5, or designed to attack any specific element in the RC5 crypto architecture.) Jim Bitzos of RSA also gave a thought-provoking thumbnail summary of the IBM Key Recovery Alliance (making a better case for it in 30 seconds than the long technical presentatations from IBM.) As Bitzos explained it, the variable key-size control allows a corporate user to communicate through encrypted links to a variety of international recipients -- dynamically adjusting the encryption mechanism to whatever varied restrictions are required by the French, German, US, UK, etc. , govenments. "It's an imperfect world," growled Bitzos -- but both users and vendors need workable mechanisms today to allow them to adapt to whatever contraints on strong encryption that are, or will be, required by the various national authorities. It's a mistake, he suggested, to think of the IBM Key Recovery Initiative soley in terms of US controls. Many governments are reacting with hostility to the availability of strong encryption -- and until the Market finds a voice and educates the political and spook cultures, commercial entities will inevitably have to adapt their work-a-day communications security to a wide variety of national crypto controls and key-length restrictions. (What I got about the IBM presentations was the realization that there is nothing in the key recovery mechanism, per se, that requires the recovery key to be held by a third party. That, to my mind, is the essential distinction between key escrow and key recovery. I also realized that IBM has, for years, quietly held a crucial piece of the PKC scheme in its patented "control vector" tech, which irrevocably binds a whole set of context-specific rules and constraints to a decryption key. I now realize that the control vector technology was the foundation much of the the DoD's Blacknet development. Important stuff -- check it out!) Like Big Jim said, it's an imperfect world -- and likely to become more so, from the C'punk perspective, before it becomes better. The rumor mill among the 2,500 cryptographers, mostly developers, who attended the RSA Conference was pumping overtime. One of the saddest and most persistent rumors was that the Clinton Administration would, within months, introduce a Congressional bill to make unescrowed strong encryption illegal in the US. (Personally, I'd put bitter money on that one. <sigh>) David Aaron, US Crypto Ambassador and the US permanent rep to the OECD -- in which role he has strove to convince the newly liberated nations of Eastern Europe that built-in wiretap links are essential design components for a modern democratic nation's communications infrastructure -- was charming and gracious... but it was no surprise that he didn't budge a bit from the "sovereign right to listen" policy line. You shouldn't have skipped the RSA bash, Adam, not even for your DCS gig in the sunny Caribbean. There were numerous Lion and the Lamb drinking bouts thoughout the week (some rather amazing, in terms of both the participants and the volume of "input".) You would have loved it. Passions often ran high, but usually in quiet intense coversations. I (one Lamb, white wool turning gray;-) had distinct impression that there many US government cryptographers uncomfortable with the Administration's NSA/FBI-inspired absolutist POV. Not even all senior feds feel that Constitutional Law should be (re)written by FBI case agents obsessed with making it easier to bust some two-bit crack dealer next month. (Doesn't mean much in the larger scheme of things, but the pained ambivalence vividly reminded me of Vietnam debates so many years ago.) My favorite quote, from a federal LEA lawyer deep in his cups: "If the colonial cops, rather than the philosophers, had drafted the Constitution -- would Madison and Jefferson, et al, have been willing to even put their names to it??" Suerte, _Vin -------- In Reply To: >Steve Schear wrote: >| > What the US government will allow to be exported is not "strong >| >encryption." It is encryption only slightly too strong to be broken >| >by an amateur effort. For the right investment in custom hardware, it >| >falls quickly. (500,000 $US = 3.5 hour avg break). >| > >| >| Considering Ian's feat you certainly seem to have had your crystal >| ball in hand. Adam Shostack responded: > I wear three around my neck. Its a new age thing. > > More seriously, that estimate is the cost of breaking DES on >custom hardware, based on Wiener's figures. Ian got RC4-40 in 3.5 >hours on I don't know how much hardware, not a lot of it custom, >AFAIK. Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin(a)shore.net> 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, MA 02150 USA <617> 884-5548

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