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Re: Anthrax on the 'net [Was Re: Fear of Flying -- from HotWired ]
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:14 PM 9/17/96, Mike Fletcher wrote: > The Frank Herbert (of _Dune_ fame) book _White Plague_ comes >to mind. Basically a molecluar biologist's wife and kids are killed >by an IRA bomb while visiting Dublin. He snaps and creates a plague >which kills women (men are carriers) as revenge. All without using >that nasty Internet (in fact, the book was written back before even >ARPAnet). A _very_ minor correction. My copy of "The White Plague" is not handy, but I distinctly recall reading it circa 1980-1, certainly no earlier than 1977-8. The ARPANet was going strong by then. Newsgroups were getting started around 1980, give or take, as I recall. But of course I agree that "The White Plague" was written long before "The Net" became a household name. (Interestingly, Herbert was computer-literate, and he even wrote a book about using PCs, circa the late 70s....something like "Nailing Jelly to a Tree.") --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Snake-Oil FAQ
by Krenn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- It would be nice to have a list of actual products which are deemed potential snake-oil. Such a list could be maintained anonymously through a nym to avoid all the annoying legal problems with commenting on another's product. Though truth is the best defense against libel charges, it would be very annoying to be sued or some such by some hairbrained snake-oil peddler. Krenn -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMj84gEnqfwPpt/QVAQEWZAP9EZ7+3dQol+ZBLYQIiEk8f8avKDje5LBh EmE5GVxFXDgD9wAmcccMMuVxxCaUhN0kc8Q4StQ4aZGjwdrCGouHq4aNJdd73ERP vuk+VpQrlUwSvwwPlfXKUIQrM1PHfNigXrS5OrsQe/H/GjLw2lFa/WI2urR2Cuqg oMmtuQKrJik= =r2wq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Systems/Communications Security Positions in the South Bay
by steve＠tsearch.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I know someone is going to get PO'd about this, but I didn't know how else to get these in front of you in a timely manner. These positions are critical and interesting parties can interview next week, please read on: --------------- One of the Nation's leaders in Systems and Communications security is seeking several talented engineers to join their South Bay Development/Consulting facility to develop Internet/WWW Commerce Software. As a Software Developer on this project you will be responsible for the development of Electronic Commerce Software that spans the World Wide Web, e-mail, distributed applications, security, cryptography, O/S security, and Internet protocols. Qualified candidates should be experienced system software developers with three years development experience including several of the following areas: Unix, NT, TCP/IP, network protocol development, distributed application development, applied cryptography. For more information on this and other opportunities send a resume/email to steve(a)tsearch.com -------------------------- 2. One of the Nation's leaders in Systems and Communications security is seeking several talented engineers to join their South Bay Development/Consulting facility to develop Distributed, CORBA-compliant Software. As a Software Developer on this team you will join a new project spanning distributed object applications, CORBA ORB services, CORBA security, O/S security, a network protocol development. An existing high security O/S's distributed system capabilities are being extended to provide object request brokerage. New security components for access-controled inter-ORB interoperability are being developed. New and existing security mechanisms are being integrated for these components. This position requires strong system software development experience with at at least three years development experience including several of the following areas: CORBA, Unix, firewalls, TCP/IP, network protocol development, object-oriented software development, distributed application development, Mach, Kerberos, DCE, trusted systems, multi-level security. For more information on this and other opportunities send a resume/email to steve(a)tsearch.com -------------------- 3. One of the Nation's leaders in Systems and Communications security is seeking several talented engineers to join their South Bay Development/Consulting facility as Network Security Consultants. There are 4 positions requiring 2-4, 4-6 (2), and 6+ years of experience respectively. As a Network Security Consultant you will: - discuss network configuration and hacker threats with system administrators - understand issues related to network security policies and procedures - identify effective approaches to security issues of multi-platform systems, corporate LANs, and Internet systems - identify, understand, and effectively communicate risks, and tradeoffs between security requirements and user productivity and system performance - provide input for training materials that address customers' specific policies, network configuration, and risks - operate independently to perform customer relations and project management for some projects, including primary responsibility for written deliverables - provide oversight for a number of projects managed by others, - perform business development and expand customer base, with assistance from junior colleagues. These positions require strong system software development experience with UNIX and NT platforms, as well as some of the following: network protocols, firewalls, network security vulnerabilities, applied cryptography, access control, risk assessment, security policies. For more information send a resume/email to steve(a)tsearch.com ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] Steve Dyson Technology Search International Consultant 25 Metro Drive, STE 238 steve(a)tsearch.com San Jose, CA 95110 VOICE 408.437.9500 FAX 408.437.1033 "...dockin-doid, dockin-doid.........dockin- doid" ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

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Quantum Computers
by John K Clark 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In the April 12 1996 issue of Science there is an article on Quantum Computers. It makes clear that a practical Quantum Computer has not been proven to be possible, nevertheless the article had a very optimistic tone, an optimism I did not see just one year ago. If such a machine could be built the ramifications are mind boggling. When a conventional 64 bit single processor computer performs an operation, it does it on ONE 64 bit number at a time. When a 64 bit (actually a 64 qubit) single processor QUANTUM computer performs an operation it does it on ALL 64 bit numbers at the same time, all 2^64 of them, more than a billion billion, and any increase in the number of qubits the computer can handle will increase it's already astronomical power exponentially. It gets even wilder, because the quantum mechanical state of the matter in the machine's memory determines the output, Seth Lloyd of MIT thinks you could run the machine in reverse and the result would be a quantum mechanical micromanipulator. Despite this enormous increase in performance and a possible short cut to Nanotechnology, most weren't very interested because it didn't seem like a Quantum Computer could ever be built. The slightest error or interaction with the outside environment would render the machine inoperative, conventional error correcting codes don't work for in the quantum domain and most said that correcting codes for quantum mechanical information was impossible. They were wrong. Late last year Peter Shor of ATT showed how to encode a piece of quantum information in a 9 qubit system so that the information is retained even if there is an error in one of the 9 qubits. A few months later researchers at IBM refined Shor's technique so that only 5 qubits was needed, and found ways to correct for multiple errors. The trouble was, although Shor's idea worked well for storing and transmitting quantum information without error, it did not work for the actual calculation, many thought that surely was impossible. It turns out they were wrong about that too. In the August 30 1996 issue of Science is an article by J. I. Cira, T. Pellizzari, and P. Zoller entitled "Enforcing Coherent Evolution In Dissipative Quantum Dynamics". They propose a Quantum error correcting scheme with modest computational overhead that would dramatically increase the number of quantum logic gates the machine could have before errors made it unreliable. If p is probability that a single gate will fail, then without error correction a Quantum Computer can only have 1/p gates as a practical matter. With this new quantum error correcting code it can have 4/p^2 gates before errors overwhelm it. For example, if the probability that one gate will fail is .09 then if you have no error correction your Quantum Computer better not have more that 11 logic gates, with this new error correcting idea it could have 494 logic gates without making more errors than the 11 did. Until very recently the only useful program known to be able to run on these machines was one to factor large numbers for code breaking. Unfortunately there are problems, to factor a 100 digit number the machine would need to perform millions of quantum logical operations without being effected by the outside environment, even with the newly discovered quantum error correcting codes that would not be easy to do, not for that many operations. In the August 23 1996 Science is a fascinating research article by Seth Lloyd called "Universal Quantum Simulators". Lloyd has found a way for quantum computers to do something far, FAR, more useful than factoring numbers, and is much easier for the machines to do too. In quantum mechanics it's often possible in theory to predict what something will do but not in practice because of computational complexity, that's why Chemists must still perform experiments. To simulate the behavior of N electrons, in a conventional computer you would need memory space and computation time proportional to 2^2N. Just to figure out what's going on with 40 electrons, like those found in a medium sized atom, you would need to perform 10^24 operations. It's no wonder that Chemists keep their test tubes. Lloyd found a way to perform the same simulation using just N quantum bits (qubits) and the number of operations the quantum machine must do is proportional to N, not 2^2N as on a conventional computer. In addition, the time required to do the simulation over time t is proportional to t, in other words it can do it in real time, like an Analog computer. A very important feature of Lloyd's algorithm is that it doesn't demand that the Quantum computer be a perfect machine that is totally isolated from the environment, it easily deals with errors. Incredibly, noise from the environment and decoherence can be useful to the computer, it can actually help it simulate noise and decoherence in the system it's simulating. This may help put a stop to all the "End Of Science" books we've been seeing lately. People were saying that it was a waste of time to try to find a quantum theory of gravity because there would be no way to test it. It would be a HUGE calculation, but a thousand qubit quantum computer could do it. Lloyd says we could make a Quantum Computer today with a few tens of qubits and it would "require only minor modifications of current technology". I'd say that's a pretty good start. He also says "The wide variety of atomic, molecular, and semiconductor quantum devices available suggests that quantum simulation may soon be a reality". In a separate development, Lov K Grover of ATT recently found a way for a Quantum Computer to find a piece of information in a random list with N items in just the square root of N steps, not 1/2 N steps, which is the average if you do this on a conventional computer. Apparently the appeal of making a calculation on 2^n numbers at the same time with a machine that only has n qbits is too strong for the military to ignore. In the same issue of Science is an article about the defense department making a 5 million dollar grant to start an institute for Quantum Information and Computing (QUIC). It's charter has 5 aims. 1) Improve quantum algorithms. 2) Improve quantum logic gates. 3) Improve the architecture of Quantum Computers. 4) Improve quantum error correcting codes. 5) Study the general theory behind quantum computation. I find all this very exciting, it must have been like this in the late 1930's when reports trickled in about nuclear fission and the idea occurred to people that a bizarre device like a nuclear bomb might actually be able to exist in the real world. John K Clark johnkc(a)well.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCzAgUBMj9UEH03wfSpid95AQGa4wTwubIy9BE9emWFU1DVaDL7+o7p5Z86OVah iBd3OKgONhJUmodDz5Egq7dwzqLvS2Rc5BQ7UPmT5uezzE/6wxmVDRAqxjJFKWHa 1TJtSv94d/S5HA8RjaAMWpOPOKQUf0KILy+jfoQMrpCLFd0cKM+aQUyhExPN92A7 EyIDQ3RUnAJNYR5JVXUVcEsiDVuPney56ZwkOqx1KAhuTI/Bcdg= =AKnq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: The Expat Tax Is Law - The Door Is Now Closed!
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:11 AM 9/17/96 -0700, Tim May wrote: >It makes me want to just put my stock certificates in my luggage and just >drive on down to Mexico and cross the border (no border checks) and go >from there to some safer haven. > >(However, I imagine the Feds can effectively block sales of my stock--the >stock is still formally only an accounting entry, as stock certificates >are not "bearer instruments." I could probably relocate to a foreign haven >and sell the assets before the IRS would even notice...unless they >computerize. I suspect this is coming.) But since a 10-year old (who is willing to break the law) can defeat their expat tax, what difference does it make. All one has to do is cash out, transfer all funds overseas, follow them, and renounce. Move the funds around a little. It's not tax fraud (no false documents have been uttered -- indeed no documents at all). Just take your marbles and go home. DCF

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Re: "But if it saves just one child."
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:52 AM 9/18/96, "" <pstira(a)escape.com> wrote: >On Mon, 16 Sep 1996, attila wrote: > >> = .The rallying cry heard so often these days: "But if it saves just one >>child." >> = . > > >ACCKKKKKIK. > >SYN >ACK >GAK >BLAH. > >Read some Ayn Rand. >This must end. > >IOW: I call bullshit. I call total bullshit. >The net, fomerly my oasis, needs death. Millie, First, Attila was quoting my comment. Second, this was sarcasm. (Or, variously, facetiousness, tongue-in-cheek, and other varieties of irony.) You really need to learn when someone is _supporting_ your point of view through such uses of irony, rather than going ballistic, Just a Modest Proposal, as it were, he said Swiftly. --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Snake-Oil products
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If this were a board for a commercial monopoly such as the AMA, I could understand (albeit not necessarily agree with) the dire warnings about the people pushing "Snake-Oil" products, if indeed what's being promoted are actual products. The large FAQ sheets are pretty good, actually, like a mini-review of crypto issues, but what is the purpose of the dire warnings in relation to this forum, other than certain parties marking their territory?

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Re: Spam blacklist project
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:52 PM 9/17/96 -0400, Rabid Wombat wrote: >I'd say it's a safe bet that the unscrupulous could easily sell a large, >up-to-date list of email addresses of people who DON'T want junk email to >people who want to send such mail. That's why the list should be distributed (as the original poster mentioned) in hashed format - the junk email people would then hash their own list(s), and would know not to send to addresses where the hashes matched. The unmatched hashes addresses on the "block" list aren't otherwise useful to the junk e-mail folks. It's an interesting idea .. but who is going to pay for it? (doh.) -- Greg Broiles | "We pretend to be their friends, gbroiles(a)netbox.com | but they fuck with our heads." http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | |

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Re: The GAK Momentum is Building...
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:00 AM 9/18/96, an12054 (S. Boxx) wrote: >the Clipper proposals are increasingly moving into the >area of "key management". large companies will always >want key management features, to deal with employees who >forget passwords, leave the company, etc.-- face it, this >is a simple reality. essentially all the latest >moves amount to, imho, is the government trying to get >its fingers into these key management infrastructures. Companies wishing to tell their employees how and when they may encrypt communications is something I have no problem with. Corporations do this all the time, and even make various arrangements with other companies for various services. However, making the government a _required_ part of such plans implies a motive that is not at all the same as what companies wish (mostly, disaster recovery). And, as has been noted so many times by so many of us, whatever the motivations for corporate key escrow systems for disaster planning are, there are no motivations for key escrow for _communications_. If the sender dies, or leaves, or whatever, the company can reconstruct his communications from _his_ key. Or the receiving side can reconstruct the recipients messages from _his_ side. The only party interested in having access to "in transit" communications are the wiretappers and SIGINT folks. Think about it. No company I can think of is interested in reconstructing messages from the _actual communications_, only from the keys of employees. The NSA and FBI, however, are _keenly_ interested in reconstructing messages from intercepts, of course, and hence are pushing for escrow of _communications_ keys! Furthermore, the main worry (for me, at least) is that the government hopes to get its Clipper IV scheme accepted (by means of export laws) at some large fraction of important corporate accounts, not the least of which will be Netscape, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Qualcomm, and suchlike major players in the "infrastructure" business. Once most of these have "bought off" on GAK, pressure will be intense to universalize the process, to make it a felony _not_ to use a "Key Authority." (BTW, I predict that the tainted term "key escrow" is now gone from the official lexicon. I haven't seen the Clipper IV proposal, but I surmise that the baggage the term "key escrow" carries means that some more benign-sounding term will be used in the final proposal. Something like "Key Recovery System." You heard it here.) --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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a simple cypher scheme
by sjohnson＠packetengines.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

all, i've been on cypherpunks for about a year a half now, and have wacthed many interesting threads pass by but i've never posited anything. what has brought me out into the open is this : i work for an engineering firm doing asic design, i use pgp ( as do all rational persons ), a co-worker here has come up with a 'cypher' scheme that he would like to use to send code to our clients. the scheme is this : he would take the file of code and pad all lines to the length of the longest line, he would then preform column swaps, and then row swaps, to 'mix up' the file. the person receiving the file would then preform the opposite functions to recover the file. it seems so simple that it can't be good. i've convenced him to use pgp, but i would like some input if possible on why his cypher scheme is not a good one. thanx -stuart Packet Engines - The Industry leader in Gigabit ethernet / o o o o o o o . . . o o ______ _________ ________ ________ __=====__T___ o |DDD[ _______ | | | | | | | |_|| .][__n_n_| | | 802.3 | | ATM | | MPEG | | FDDI | | SCSI | >(________|___|__|_______|_|_______|_|______|_|______|_.|________|_| _/oo OOOOO oo` 'o^o o^o 'o^o o^o`'o^o o^o`'o^o o^o`'o^o o^o` -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ | "all sufficiently advanced || Stuart Johnson | technologies are indistinguishable || Lead Asic Engineer | from magic," || Packet Engines Inc. | --Arthur C. Clarke || sjohnson(a)packetengines.com

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