- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

PC Based One-Time Pad
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <199311251654.AA02190(a)world.std.com> kkirksey(a)world.std.com "Ken B Kirksey" writes: > While I was reading though _Applied Cryptography_ last night, a thought > struck me (no damage): Why hasn't anyone come up with a good Mac or PC based > One-Time Pad system. Because they're trivial to write. I could do one in less that 15 minutes. > It seems like this would be a fairly easy system to implement, but since > no one (to my knowledge) has yet done so, there must be something I'm > missing. :-) Because very few people can be bothered driving half way across the country to deliver the OTPs. It's *way* too much hassle for day to day use of the kind we use pgp for. And if someone *is* doing it for real security (like say AT&T shipping around their secure phone circuit diagrams because they don't trust clipper :-) ) then they're *not* going to be mentioning it in passing on usenet news groups... G PS No, you *don't* send them in the mail. But you knew that, right? -- Personal mail to gtoal(a)gtoal.com (I read it in the evenings) Business mail to gtoal(a)an-teallach.com (Be careful with the spelling!) Faxes to An Teallach Limited: +44 31 662 4678 Voice: +44 31 668 1550 x212

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IEEE Article Speaks Out Against Clipper/Key Escrow
by jdwilson＠gold.chem.hawaii.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CP's: Check out IEEE Computer November 1993, V26,#11 pp 76-78, wherein the Com- mittee On Public Policy states, among other things, "Very serious consti- tutional questions exist. The government's key escrow initiative may violate the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the US Bill of Rights" "Better methods already exist...Moreover, encryption software (including DES and RSA algorighms and the user-ready and popular Pretty Good Privacy secure message system) is freely downloadable from public networks around the world." "Reconsideration is in order. The administration should halt the intro- duction of its key escrow system and reconsider this half-baked scheme, which was hatched during the previous administration. And Congress should mandate a serious, open, public review of cryptography policy and its implication for society." Pretty clear statement of opinion from a body of IEEE, eh? -Jim

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HELP: EFF BBS Project needs your support!
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please pardon the wide cross-posting (some of which are actually mailing lists), but all of these newsgroups involve issues with which EFF deals, and we hope the readers of these groups will support EFF's BBS project. EFF needs to set up a bulletin board system, to be called "Outpost - EFF Online", to help spread the word to people in the BBS community, most of whom do not have access to the resources of the net, on: cryptography privacy activism civil liberities online networking national information infrastructure open platform principles censorship laws that affect computer users ITAR restrictions telco/cable mergers internet access many-to-many communication virtual communities cyberspace digital telephony bbs seizures online resources and more... WHAT WE NEED: We need donations of funds and equipment. We already have BBS software (Digital Dynamics has donated their Synchronet BBS package), but still need a platform to run it on, including basic PC system, modems, tape backup, monitor, hard drive, etc. If you'd like to contribute to this project, please contact mech(a)eff.org (Stanton McCandlish, EFF Online Activist/SysOp, 202-347-5400 voice, 202-393-5509 fax, EFF - 1001 G St. NW, Ste. 950 E, Wash. DC 20001) All donations are tax deductable, and any donations of funds or hardware worth $40 or more will get the contributor a one-year membership in EFF. All contributors will be listed in a "thank you" note in an upcoming Effector Online (EFF's electronic newsletter), and permanently on the BBS itself. Great advertising! Thanks for reading, and thanks for your assistance!

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Improved DH system.
by loki＠nately.UCSD.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have been told that there is a new improved version of DH key exchange, which is authenticated. Could someone give me the reference, and/or tell me what it is all about?........ Diffie?? I was not clear on what it is that I am working on. We are trying to build a cheep secure phone for the masses (read brainless). We are looking for black box brainless operation. I will provide more info about the project on request. ---------------------------------------------------------- Lance Cottrell who does not speak for CASS/UCSD loki(a)nately.ucsd.edu PGP 2.3 key available by finger or server. "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come." --Nietzsche ----------------------------------------------------------

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Re: value of privacy?
by baumbach＠atmel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> example, it doesn't _hurt_ me to get targeted junk mail, but I find it > unsettling that direct marketers know enough about me to send the 'right' > mail. I see it this way; 'they' make decisions about me and initiate a > relationship with me without my knowledge or consent. The relationship is > artificial and uneven; 'they' know more about me than I know about 'them'. An idea that I have never used, but was suggested to me by my father, goes like this: RING RING me: Hello ??: Mr. Peter Baumbach, I am calling from ICK inc. to offer you .. me: Excuse me, but I am busy right now. Could you give me your name and home phone number, and I will call you back later? ??: Huh? I can't give you my home number, that's private. me: But you know my name and number. This hardly seems fair.

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Re: ALERT: FBI's Wiretap Bill is Back!
by Brock N. Meeks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Geez, Stanton, if you're going to rip off my story, you might want to give me some credit... or isn't EFF's self-proclaimed "Online Activist and Sysop" into proper journalistic practices of attributing where he gets his information. Just to clear things up, Stanton's message is a poorly rewritten copy of an article I wrote for _Communications Daily_ that ran on Dec. 9. The comments by FBI agent Barry Smith and Ken Raymond were made to me during one-on-one interviews, not open press conferences. There's no way you could have these quotes or this information Stanton unless you first read my story. Next time try giving credit where it's due... Or steal your information from someone not on the Net. Brock Meeks Reporter Communications Daily

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Re: Improved DH system.
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Unfortunately, you can't really do a brainless black box phone with security that's much better than Diffie-Hellman (The "send half the key at a time" variant is somewhat better, but still can be tampered with.) The problem is that to do better security, you need some way to authenticate the Diffie-Hellman exchange. One way is to have a display on the phone which shows the data received, and read it to the other person (which is secure, but not brainless). Another way is to use digital signatures such as RSA on the Diffie-Hellman key parts, which requires some mechanism for users to create keys and distribute them securely, also non-brainless. One way to do this would be to use a central key-distribution server, perhaps based on phone serial number or telephone number or whatever, but that requires a lot of complexity, extra phone calls, etc.; this compromises a certain amount of security, though if it's implemented well enough to be non-spoofable, the major risks are the insecurity that comes from registration and the ability of people who compromise the keyserver (i.e. the government or keyserver-operator) to send incorrect public keys to wiretap victims allowing man-in-the-middle attacks. Another way that's not quite brainless would be to have public keys generated in the phone for signatures, and allow users who want to to exchange keys; you could build some relative of an automatic web of trust if you put enough memory in the phones, but then you'd have to provide memory management etc. which is distinctly not in the brainless category. Bill

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Re: Improved DH system.
by loki＠nately.UCSD.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, you seem to have summerised our thoughts on the matter exactly. We are thinking about sticking a bunch of memory in the phone and keeping track of the last ,say 100, phones called and the public keys that they used. One could use the readback to certify the keys. Some sort of KCA could also be invoked. We are designing the system for easy upgrade and modification. Lance

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USENET on a tape, and future privacy
by nate＠VIS.ColoState.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I was just thinking. My roommate mentioned that he saw an ad for a service available in europe. They send you an 8mm tape evey week that has all the USENET traffic on it. I was thinking that a large corporation thinking of hiring me (or you, you just never know!) could pay some service to scrounge up all the USENET posting you have made for the last, say, 10 years, and run them through a filter to get a feel for the nature of the posts (assuming you were too prolific to have the job-hunters read _al_ of your posts). This really scared me, so I think I will start making more frequent use of the remailers in the future. Just my $0.02 (revalued to $15.00 with recent inflation) - -nate - -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Nate Sammons nate(a)VIS.ColoState.Edu (303) 491-1578 | | Colorado State University -- Computer Visualization Laboratory | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

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One Time Pads $5000|Cheap
by Harry Shapiro 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The cost of write once CD-ROM drives (CD-R) drives is really going down in price. You should be able to get a complete set-up for less than $5000. I would think you could use the CD-R drive to create a bunch of one time pads. Any thought? /HAWK -- Harry S. Hawk habs(a)extropy.org Electronic Communications Officer, Extropy Institute Inc. The Extropians Mailing List, Since 1991 EXTROPY -- A measure of intelligence, information, energy, vitality, experience, diversity, opportunity, and growth. EXTROPIANISM -- The philosophy that seeks to increase extropy.

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