- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

On Cypherpunks
by StanSquncr 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just want to say, with all the "nobody's" and "anon's" running around attacking folk in private, I feel right at home (just like any other list on the net, the "Know-nothings" are all over the net). And I'd like to apologize for my comments directed towards the list when I first came, I was rather prejudice (against EVERY list) at the time, and my compliments to the cypher's for your apparent open-mindedness. It's cool to be here, Stan, Stan and the Sequencers

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Re: [IRS] Elvis in Escrow
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 15:56 4/16/96, Bill Frantz wrote: >I wonder, how much is NSA's secret key worth? You know, the one they use >to grab the extra key bits that Lotus Notes sends them. Probably a lot more that your tax return. The IRS leaking confidential information is one thing. The NSA losing secret keys quite another. Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, not those of my employer, DigiCash, Inc. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: Bidzos Holds Key / A hacker's paradise
by Alex Strasheim 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone just asked me if it would be possible for the NSA to use a front company to buy crypto patents (or companies that own lots of crypto patents), then simply pull them off the market. When I thought about it I couldn't understand why they haven't done it already. Can whoever ends up with the rsa patent pull rsaref off the market, and retroactively make software that uses it illegal? Or would they just be able to prevent people from writing new code with rsaref?

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No Subject
by bharper＠customcpu.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am very interested in cryptography and all related subjects but I cannot find enough info about it, and am wondering if anyone can please email me anything you know and the basics. Thanks!

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Re: UNSUVSCRIVE Broken - Film last week (fwd)
by fulano＠usa.pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mean? Heck I'm taking notes. Good to here from you {{{{{{{ --<-<-@ }}}}}}}}} -- German E. Hayles

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Re: Article on PGP flaws
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David Lesher <wb8foz(a)nrk.com> Says if > someone gets your randseed.bin they can infer the PRNG output sequence > and your IDEA key. Doesn't develop in any detail. Says the IDEA key > should be chosen from _truly_ random numbers. I fed the result of pgp +makerandom=2000 rnd.pgp into noisesphere.exe Every times, it gives a distribution that looks like a zebra from the top view. Any comments? JFA

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That All.net loon...
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Think of this as an interesting experiment in reputation building, where the bad guys won, and got a lot of business from the ignorant. Remember Fred Cohen, the lunatic who had his telnet port booby-trapped to fire off complaints to root and postmaster? http://www.atria.com/People/dawson/tbtf/archive/04-14-96.html http://www.dhp.com/amusement.html http://all.net/journal/netsec/top.html http://all.net/journal/netsec/9603.html http://all.net/journal/netsec/9604.html I feel so sorry for Keith. He was trolled in a big way. I also found this AMAZING BREAKTHROUGH in preventing IP spoofing very amusing: http://all.net/journal/netsec/9606.html -rich

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Re: why compression doesn't perfectly even out entropy
by Perry E. Metzger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

rick hoselton writes: > At 05:34 PM 4/16/96 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > > >> ...it is possible ... for Hamlet to appear out of a random number generato r, > > >> But even if it came from a completely random source, it would > >> still make a bad one-time pad. > > >No it wouldn't. > > Are you sure you want to claim that the text of Hamlet would make > a good key for a one-time pad? If the text of Hamlet were produced by a truly random number generator, then it would make a fine one time pad. A cryptanalyst seeing patterns in it would have no way of knowing that the patterns were caused by the input being "Hamlet" -- he would have no way to demonstrate that just because the first five hundred words of the key appear to have been "Hamlet" that the rest would be -- and indeed, there would be far more cases where the rest wouldn't be. If, on the other hand, what you are doing is using books as keys for ciphers, then "Hamlet" is a very poor one. > >There is a tiny but nonzero probability that xoring > >your one time pad with your text will result in a cyphertext equal to, > >say, the Bible. Big deal. > > Most unusual, and you're right, its inconsequential. But if you use the > text of Hamlet or the text of the Bible for your KEY to a one-time-pad, > you're very likely to get broken. IF you are using a one time pad system that truly has a random source of keying material, AND the 1 in 2^1460536 event of the key being Hamlet occurred, THEN no, you aren't likely to get broken. Note that the probability of having this happen is astronomically low, but then again, the probability of ANY given one time pad being generated is astronomically low. If you are just picking books off the shelf and playing one time pad with them, yes, you are correct, you will likely be broken. > >If the key is really random, the > >cryptanalyst has no way to tell what the underlying text was. > > But that silly cryptanalyst might not know that you got Hamlet from > your random number generator. He might think you copied it out of a > book! Then, Hamlet stops being a random number. The context changes. I don't think you are considering this clearly. It is far, far more probable for the cryptanalyst, thinking the key was "Hamlet", to get out a plausible but totally bogus text, than it is for the key to actually be "Hamlet". Of course, it is also far, far more probable for you to be stupid than for a random number generator to put out "Hamlet", but if you go around getting rid of RNGs that produce "Hamlet" or anything close, you have in theory given information to the attacker that gives them a slightly better chance of attacking you since your pads are no longer purely random. The reason all this isn't stupid to discuss and actually has some importance is just this fact. If you build a system that discards things that "don't look like they have enough entropy" (which certain people around here have proposed), you are giving the cryptanalyst a very strong piece of information about the key, so your key is no longer totally unpredictable. An irony, but something important to keep in mind. Every once in a while (once in every four billion bits, or so) your random number generator will put out 32 1's in a row if it is functioning properly. Any given small segment of the output of a good RNG might not look "random", but "random" isn't a property of a given number -- it is the property of the infinite sequence itself. Perry

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Re: Quantum computers/Java of a different sort
by Mike McNally 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike McNally poorly edited a forwarded note: > ... junk ... Sorry. -- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Mike McNally -- Egregiously Pointy -- Tivoli Systems, "IBM" -- Austin mailto:m5@tivoli.com mailto:m101@io.com http://www.io.com/~m101 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

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by etmp＠etmp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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