- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Penet Bites the Dust
by mpd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

An interesting Net tidbit. Note that the "International Conference on Child Sexual Exploitation" in Stolkholm which served as a platform for these accusations and various coordinated stories in numerous media outlets is simply a circus put on by ECPAT, a well-known pressure group whose propaganda is modeled after the now-defunct National Coalition on Pornography, and whose spurious and laughable claims about child pornography and vast pedophile conspiracies would fill volumes. The only odd thing here is that the mainstream press is presenting this gathering with a perfectly straight face, as if it were some sort of credible event, which of course it is not. ----- HELSINKI (Reuter) - A Finnish Internet specialist said on Friday he was closing his remailer, or anonymous forwarding system, after rejecting allegations it was being used as a conduit for child pornography. Johan Helsingius, whose remailer is one of the largest in the world with over half a million users, said in a statement he was closing down the system because the legal issues governing the Internet in Finland are unclear. ``The legal protection of users needs to be clarified. At the moment the privacy of Internet messages is judicially unclear,'' said Helsingius, who said he set up and ran the remailer in his free time partly as an initiative to help abused children. Internet remailers are computers which receive and forward messages with a pseudonym or anonymous source. There are about five large ones in the world, and they exist to enable anonymous discussion of sensitive subjects -- for instance by victims of child abuse, potential suicides or people in politically repressed societies. Helsingius, supported by Finnish police, earlier this week dismissed claims in Britain's Observer Sunday newspaper that his remailing system handled up to 90 percent of child pornography on the Internet. ``I have also personally been a target because of the remailer for three years,'' he said on Friday. ``Unjustified accusations affect both my job and my private life.'' The newspaper reported the charges, by a U.S. policeman and FBI adviser, as Belgian police were investigating horrific child sex crimes and ahead of an international conference in Stockholm on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. In Helsingius's statement, Helsinki police sergeant Kaj Malmberg was quoted as saying he had found no evidence of child porn being transmitted from Finland. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

1 0

Re: MUD anyone?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:27 PM 8/30/96, Jon Leonard wrote: >Tim May wrote: >> I second many of the comments about the difficulties in coding a reasonably >> plausible game or MUD for exploring list ideas. > >["Crypto Anarchy Game." value and difficulties stuff snipped] > >> Coding nearly any of the core cryptographic concepts for use in an online >> game, even without a real crypto core (e.g., using other trust mechanisms) >> is likely to be almost as big a job as actually coding the concepts for >> real-world use. Could be very educational, and a useful dry run for later >> real-world reification of concepts, but by no means easy. > >I don't think it's quite that hard, so I tried to implement asymetric key >cryptography: > >20 minutes, to write and debug: Well, cryptography (per se) is the most basic, and in some sense simplest, part of the whole thing: the "semantics" of crypto are well-understood (even if not to the snake oil salesmen and repeated inventors of one time pads). Consider that PGP was basically a realization (others existed, natch) of ideas that were almost 20 years old. Some much harder (to me) protocols: fair coin tosses, blinded coins, oblivious transfers, digital cash in all its many forms (and issues), DC-Nets, and so on. Sure, bits and pieces are codable--and have been--but a comprehensive package is tough to write. Wei Dai's and Matt Blaze's libraries are excellent, I hear, but are not targetted at creating these building blocks for crypto anarchy. And the social and organization assumptions coded into software is a major issue to think about. Some Scheme or C code doing part of these things will likely not be real useful. Your code is admirable. I did the same thing in Mathematica, a few years ago when I was still interested in the innards of RSA. (It took me longer than 20 minutes to write, though...but I also got to play around with big primes, the basic number theory stuff, etc. A useful learning experience.) But implementing more recent cryptographic building blocks seems more than an order of magnitude harder. (If you can implement a reasonably robust bank-digicash system in 10 x 20 minutes = 3.5 hours, I'll be impressed. Merely speccing what it should do and how it should behave in various situations would take far, far longer than this. Just my view. Maybe I'm wrong.) >It is a big project, but the big part is writing the MUD, not adding the >crypto-anarchy stuff to it. I'm writing a MUD anyway, and have been off >and on for over a year. Mark Grant's message made me think about what it >would take to add the features I wasn't already planning on. Depends on what you mean by "crypto-anarchy stuff." As I see it, it means building a reasonably robust economic system, a market or agora with various transaction mechanisms built in. Sort of a cross between "SimCity" and Vinge's "True Names." >I'm still interested in ideas as to what primitives I should fake. > >> And as Jim Bell noted, there are all sorts of costs which are not properly >> accounted for. I would not, for example, expect anything interesting to >> emerge out of the simulation of "assassination politics" in such a game, as >> the costs, dangers, moral issues, and whatnot are not properly >> accounted-for in such a MUD-type simulation. (No more so than in a fantasy >> role-playing game, where characters die routinely...) > >After I think about it more, I realize that a MUD simulation can't show >that something like "assassination politics" wouldn't work. At best it >can show that it does or doesn't work in that particular environment, >leaving open the question of what key difference between MUD and reality >might change the result. Still, it would be interesting to see how it >worked, or why it didn't. Even if well-implemented (a _lot_ of effort), I doubt it would say anything more about the real-world aspects of some future crypto-anarchic world than, say, playing "Risk" or "Diplomacy" has meaningful things to say about how nations form alliances and go to war with other nations. Or as much as playing "Monopoly" teaches one about actual business and economic interactions. (Before defenders of these games jump in with comments about how useful and enjoyable these games are, sure, some knowledge is gained. But huge differences are obvious. A conclusion drawn from playing these games will not hold up in the real world. I expect the same is true of "assassination politics.") --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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

3 2

Re: **"OuR" Project press release** (fwd)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Forwarded message: >> Subject: (Fwd) Re: **"OuR" Project press release** >> Priority: normal >> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.23) >> Pulled this off of the net. The was even better than SkyeDance IV ;-) >> ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- >> Paul Robinson & Ken Mizoi wrote: >> > To All Fellow Rocketeers: [stuff deleted] >> > Unfortunately, the rocket failed to deploy its recovery systems and >> > accelerated to over Mach 1 and impacted into the sand dunes several >> > miles away. There was a loud sonic boom heard by all that literally >> > shook the earth. In fact, instead of the nominal "hole and fin slits" >> > seen in previous impacts, there was a twenty foot diameter area with >> > large chunks of sheared earth as if a high energy charge had been >> > detonated under the ground. The rocket was not recovered, but several >> > pieces of metal, fiberglass, and burnt Nomex were found indicating the >> > ejection charges did in fact fire. >> > Once again, the "OuR" Project members wish to express sincere thanks >> > to all those who listened, donated, and gave their support who were >> > not specifically named. This project would not have flown if were not >> > for the "believers" and the tremendous team spirit. Only they know >> > the sweat and the number of hours it takes to fly such a rocket. >> > Members of the "OuR" Team >> ----------------- >> Stu Barrett >> e-mail: stu(a)zilker.net Recommendation for the next one: Rather than try to brute force an LEO from about sea level, how about lofting the rocket by balloon up to a starting altitude of, say, 100,000 feet, and letting'er'rip from there? (this is probably not a new technique...) Using a hydrogen balloon, a cubic meter of balloon volume would loft 1.2 kilograms at sea level, although only 1/50th of that at 100,000 feet, or 25 grams. A 700-pound (320 kilogram)rocket would require 12,000 cubic meters of envelope volume, discounting the weight of the balloon itself, equivalent to the volume of a cube 25 meters on a side. Obvious advantages: First, you're 20 miles closer to an LEO altitude of about 200 miles or so, a considerable advantage. Even more important, my back-of-the-envelope calculation says that at 100,000 feet, you're above about 98% of the atmosphere. There'd be a minor advantage if you managed to find a 300 mph easterly airstream just before launch. (Derived from the numbers included in the original note, I assume that the average upward speed is 1000 feet per second, and a top speed of about 2000 feet per second reached at an altitude of about 10,000 feet (Mach 2). This peak velocity occurs when the barometric pressure is not greatly different than sea level, which is a huge waste of energy. I'd like to see the real numbers, or at least a simulation. Could they re-run the simulation for a starting altitude of 100,000 feet?) And I don't think they have a prayer of doing an LEO without substantially increasing the proportion of fuel in the rocket from their current 35%, and possibly doing a two-stage rocket. I'd like to hear much more about this. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

1 0

Re: Reprogramming Beepers?
by William Knowles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Comrade, > Does anyone know how to reprogram a beeper to a new number. Please > Help Brendan The Cypherpunks wouldn't be the list to ask this unless you are using encryption for your RadioMail pagers <g> The best place I could forward you to would be L0pht at: http://www.l0pht.com and there is some information on pagers last I checked. William Knowles erehwon(a)c2.net -- William Knowles <erehwon(a)c2.net> PGP mail welcome & prefered / KeyID 1024/2C34BCF9 PGP Fingerprint 55 0C 78 3C C9 C4 44 DE 5A 3C B4 60 9C 00 FB BD Finger for public key -- Vote for Harry Browne in November -- http://www.HarryBrowne96.org

1 0

Re: Encryption
by droelke＠rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't have a vested interest other than keeping my data safe. A *good* cipher will work, even if someone knows the exact implementation of it. Given complete source code to your cipher, (including the pseudo-random number generator you use) and I could easily crack it with about a week's worth of effort. If you knew anything about cryptography, you'ld know that just giving someone some cyphertext and challenging them to crack is not a valid test of the cipher's strength. Again - go get a copy of Applied Cryptography and don't come back until you have read it. Dan > > Your comments are typical for persons with vested interests. > Attached is a test file so you can have someone try to crack it. In the > meantime, don't assume because I don't use your favorite methods I don't > know what I'm doing. > > Daniel R. Oelke wrote: > > > > Sorry to say this - but your idea stinks. > > > > If you are trying to send something encrypted, your > > receiving party would need the keys, which are the seed > > values of the pseudo-random number generators. > > > > Your adversary could keep trying a whole series of > > different seeds until they found the correct one. > > With a little more work, they could analyze the > > pseudo-random number generator that you used, and > > then work backwards. > > > > Go get a copy of Applied Cryptography Edition II. > > Don't come back until you have read it. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ [ crap deleted ] ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Oelke Alcatel Network Systems droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com Richardson, TX

1 0

RE: Encryption
by Benjamin Suto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm probably the last person who could mention something intelligible here, but assuming this encryption algorithm works, and Joe wants to give Jane a file, how would he tell her how to decrypt it? If he found a "secure medium" to give her the passcode under, wouldn't encrypting it be useless since he could just use that secure medium to send the original file? I think that was the whole point of public key encryption, in that there is no need for a secure medium of any sort, since the public key can only be used to encrypt a message.. that only the private key can decode. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. There are probably other flaws inherent in this encryption system mentioned.. I can imagine that you won't even be able to unencrypt the original message. :) ---------- From: Dale Thorn[SMTP:dthorn@gte.net] Sent: Friday, August 30, 1996 5:00 AM To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Encryption It appears to me that PGP encryption et al is really 1940's technology, albeit fancied up by 1990's computers. Why use keys and cyphers when all you should have to do is maximize the randomization of bits in a script? Big computers should not be able to de-randomize such encoding, since the permutations/combinations would be astronomical after just a half-dozen or so random number initializations, as well as the fact that the bits are relatively undifferentiated (just ones and zeros) and are not maintained with their original bytes, words, paragraphs, or pages? <<File: ATT00003.txt>>

1 0

How To Subscribe?
by kdf＠gigo.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Would someone please netmail me the current subscription procedure? Thanks. JE -- : Fidonet: John Erland 1:203/7707.12 .. speaking for only myself. : Internet: kdf(a)gigo.com

1 0

Re: Netscape 3.0 and encryption choices
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:04 AM 8/20/96 -0700, Ted Cabeen wrote: >In Netscape 3.0, the program allows the user to specify which encryption >standards to allow connections with. It allows encryption with 128-bit RC4, >128-bit RC2, and 156-bit(I think)3DES. Of these three, which would be the >most secure method? The gereral consensus of the experts is that 168 bit 3DES is the best choice. DES has been well studied, 168 bit keys are large enough to be safe, and the ITAR forbids its export. (ITAR also forbids export of 128 bit cyphers as well, but ITAR is the only NSA approved reputation agent for crypto, so we use what we have.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Cave ab homine unius lebri | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | [Beware the man of one | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | book] - Anonymous Latin | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

1 0

Spamming (Good or Bad?)
by Vipul Ved Prakash 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't know if there has been much discussion on the ethics of spamming here? Is spamming free speech? - Vipul

3 2

Husband/Wife jailed for saying Clinton Sucks
by Scottauge＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rush Limbaugh reports: That a husband and wife are being jailed for yelling to Clinton "You Suck". The Secret Service states additional words (yet un-uttered to the rest of us) were mentioned that they deemed threatening. Ahhh, good to live in a free country....

3 2