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Technical difficulties with AP [AP NOISE]
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Aside from details like dead bodies, vendettas, and government suppression, there are technical complications with Assassination Politics that make it more than the simple job Jim Bell is imagining. Some of them provide ways to defend against AP, and turn it into more like Extortion Politics. [Do I _really_ want to bring up more discussion of AP? Not sure, but if it's clear that it won't work very well, it'll be less likely for the government media to freak about :-)] Let's look at the critical part of the problem - paying the assassin. The model we've generally been using is that the players are the victim, the escrow agent who manages the system, an enthusiastic public, and the assassin or assassins who are competing for the jackpot. I can see three approaches to identifying the correct payee: 1) Payee provides physical evidence to the escrow agent - the traditional approach doesn't work here: since the escrow agent is anonymous, so you can't mail him the victim's wallet or finger with well-known fingerprint or whatever. 2) Assassin leaves physical evidence at the scene which the news media would be likely to report, which payee confirms with escrow agent, presumably committing in advance (e.g. after the event, the payee sends a key which allows the escrow agent to decode the encrypted message that said "I'm leaving a note on the body saying 'Jacques De Molay is Avenged - Assassin's Guild Member #32767'.") Works fine for the first couple of assassinations, but after a while the police will catch on and stop revealing kinky details to the media. 3) The main solution has been the gambling deal - it's just a lottery on the date of death of the victim, which presumably the payee will win because he knows when the assassin will strike. For a lottery to be effective, prospective assassins need to be able to determine how much the jackpot is and who the victim is, so they can place their bets and be the closest winner. But the prospective victim can also play, individually or as part of an insurance pool (which is especially valuable for victims like "the first IRS agent to be assassinated".) Obviously you don't want to just bid up the price on your own head, so it needs to be accompanied by publicity that the IRS Agents' Benevolent Association is placing a large number of small bets every day to maximize the chances that _they_ will collect the money rather than the assassins. If the times that the bets are for are published, you can beat this, but you also invite speculators to be small bets just before and after your bets, so it becomes a mishmash and perhaps a race condition. If the times aren't published, the assassin can make lots of bets surrounding the planned date of the hit, which is also a warning to the prospective victim to be careful if the bets on his demise start increasing rapidly. This does make the AP lottery somewhat of an extortion deal - by advertising that someone is a target, you're forcing them to continually make lots of bets. But if they've got any way of tracing money, even partially, it'll help them find the escrow agent, who can then be targeted for justice of one sort or another. You're also forcing the assassin to make lots of bets, though in a jackpot system the successful payee will recover most of it. To some extent the defense can be fought if the escrow agent wants to establish a minimum bet, say $100, which an assassin can afford to make a few of for the targeted day, but the victim can't keep paying too much. This also reduces the since of the potential better pool, and therefore reduces the jackpot and the attractiveness of the job to the assassin. Lots of people might be willing to spend $5 to contribute; $100 bets are much fewer, especially if there are enough targets to successfully overthrow a government. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: crypto anarchy vs AP
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:06 PM 9/26/96 -0500, snow wrote: >Mr. Beck said: >> Been reading the AP thread, and thought I'd donate some of my views. > >> the Internet. You'd just cause the government to panic, and this >> would have negative effects, it would take ages for them to calm down, >> and the laws they'd pass in the mean time would mean a near certainty >> of mandatory GAK as a condition to switching the Internet back on. >> (Before someone takes me to task for the impossibility of switching >> the Internet off, it all depends on the level of government panic. >> More specifically perhaps they would disconnect key backbones, and >> ISPs briefly while they rushed into effect a few presidential decrees >> outlawing non GAKed crypto, anonymous ecash, remailers, PGP, DC-nets, >> etc.) > > This would be cutting their own throats. There is SO much commercial >and government traffic going across "The Net" that many businesses would >scream bloody murder, and the government would have MASSIVE trouble with >it's agenda. Yes, that "they'll cut off the Internet!" talk doesn't seem to be very practical. Society very quickly develops dependency on inventions. Try to take away their computers and they'd scream; take away their telephone and it'd be worse! Give Internet another couple of years and 50% of big business would be severely impacted should it be cut off. Wait five years and the world would practically stop rotating without Internet. On a related issue, GPS (global-positioning system) contains a de-accurizing mis-feature called S/A, which adds a little error to the location as detected by a receiver. Ostensibly, it was added so that this could be turned on in wartime, to deny the enemy the ability to make 10-meter fixes. Turns out that it was kept on all the time, probably because if it WASN'T it would become politically impossible to de-accurize the system even in wartime. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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[CRYPTO], or hash, anyway
by P. J. Ponder 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I need a copy of the appendix to the SHA FIPS pub (180-1?) that has the three test texts and corresponding SHA hashes, so that I can test an SHA implementation I'm working with. I have tried the NIST site, and can't seem to get through. If anybody has this test deal, or knows where it is out there on the net somewhere, please let me know. Thanks in advance. (My problem is I keep getting different hashes between an MS-DOS version I'm running and one running on a Linux box, when I ftp the same files back and forth. @#$%. I thought maybe I was having problems with some kind of Line-feed vs. Carriage Return/Line-feed conversion deal, but it also generates different hashes on binary files. So I thought I would test the Linux and the DOS one against the specs in the FIPS, and see which one is hosed up.) -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ to unsubscribe, send to majordomo(a)toad.com a message that reads: unsubscribe cypherpunks in the message body, not the SUBJECT: line. -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

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Re: WARNING: This Message Actually Contains a Question Reguarding Crypto!
by cvhd＠indyweb.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>A program called F-Secure Desktop for Windows 3.x and Windows 95 is using >Blowfish with 256-bit keys. It is meant for encrypting the files on your >hard disk and it works nicely together with Windows File Manager or >Windows95 shell. I would say it is one of the best strong and easy to use >HD encryption programs (only that it costs $$). Yes, but how "safe" is a 256-bit key with blowfish? Would it withstand the efforts of big bro' ?

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[NOISE, was CRYPTO], or hash, anyway
by P. J. Ponder 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please disregard earlier message about finding copy of the SHA document: FIPS PUB 180-1, I found it at: http://bilbo.isu.edu/security/isl/fip180-1.html Thanks, anyway.

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EFF Distributes Terrorist Information On Internet - Wiretaps Needed!! :-)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The recent electronic newsletter of that suspicious organization calling itself the EFF contains terrorist material: > Received: (from daemon@localhost) by eff.org (8.7.5/8.6.6) id QAA17422 for > effector-comc-exploder; Fri, 27 Sep 1996 16:57:26 -0700 (PDT) > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Comic exploders? How totally un-American. They must be stopped! Because a MIME is a terrible thing to waste.... # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: GPS and other Dual-use technologies
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:34 AM 9/29/96 -0700, Steve Schear wrote: >I used to be an avid RC modeler and have contemplated organizing an >on-going amateur cruise missile contest. The object would be to accurately >deliver various payload weights over courses of various terrain and >distances (perhaps out to a hundred miles or more in the case of Giant >Scale craft). Judging would be based on speed, stealth (noise, IR >emissions and radar cross section) and accuracy. > >Craft are free to use any navigational technology, but must be autonomous >from launch to delivery. To aid navigation I was considering the design of >a substitute differential GPS beacon functionally interchangable with those >offered by the USCG. My device would work on a different frequency, >possibly using very wideband direct sequence spread spectrum (for low >probability of intercept/detection) and be actuated by the missile as it >neared the target in order to refine its position. The data standard for differential corrections is called "RTCM-104", and it's the signal you input into differential-capable GPS receivers. Boxes to generate RTCM-104 are probably relatively cheap, primarily needing a multi-channel GPS receiver and another processor for coding. Differential corrections can, of course, be transmitted on any frequency you'd like, including frequency-hopping if you're really concerned about intercept. (which you won't be...) Incidentally, GPS receivers are getting REALLY small these days, particularly for just the module-level products. A size like about 1 inch by 2-inches is pretty close to state-of-the-art. Power consumption is about 3/4 watt. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Looking for Qualified Individual/Firm to Contract for Cryptanalysis
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Julian Assange <proff(a)suburbia.net> writes: > > I am looking for one or more people (or firms) who are qualified to perform > > world class cryptanalysis work. Please send mail to me at joswald1(a)msn.com > > call in the U.S. at +1 408.479.7874 > > > > Jack Oswald > > > > Find your father's little black book under the couch? Well, I dialed the number out of curisotity (it's in San Diego). The answering machine says "This is Jack Oswald with R.P.K." Sounds gay. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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[CRYPTO] Labeling messages
by nobody＠cypherpunks.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Fart fart fart fart TWA 800 fart fart fart. Tim May fart fart AP fart Taxes fart fart fart. Fart.

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What about making re-mailers automatically chain?
by Geoffrey C. Grabow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Would it be a good idea to have a re-mailer "randomly" decide whether to send the mail to the destination or to another re-mailer. If all re-mailers performed this way, not even the sender would know the path. The chain could be short sometimes and long others. Granted, there is a possibility that every mailer decides to chain instead of sending the message to the recip, but some clever counter tag could keep the number of links to a certain maximum. The "randomness" of this would aid in traffic analysis, and of course each mailer that decides to chain the mail would encrypt under the next mailer's pub key. Any thoughts? G.C.G. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Geoffrey C. Grabow | Great people talk about ideas. | | Oyster Bay, New York | Average people talk about things. | | gcg(a)pb.net | Small people talk about people. | |----------------------------------------------------------------------| | PGP 2.6.2 public key available at http://www.pb.net/~wizard | | and on a plethora of key servers around the world. | | Key ID = 0E818EC1 | | Fingerprint = A6 7B 67 D7 E9 96 37 7D E7 16 BD 5E F4 5A B2 E4 | |----------------------------------------------------------------------| | That which does not kill us, makes us stranger. - Trevor Goodchild | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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