- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Crypto CD UpDate (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > It pains me to often be the one who throws cold water on what seems to be a > good idea, and what comes from a well-intentioned person. But I have to > call 'em as I see 'em. And maybe I'm wrong. But here are my thoughts. You know you love it...;) > 1. The CD-ROM "freezes" the various programs, archives, etc. at the moment > the files are finalized and the CD-ROMs are pressed (or burned individually > on a CD-R, at somewhat higher per-copy price). If the author of the CD-ROM > is not committed to updating the CD-ROM at frequent intervals--say, every > few months--then the programs will exhibit "version decay" and be nearly > useless. > The next point is the reason. I do soho consulting and I help provide several of my customers with software of various nature. One thing I have come to realize is that they are not interested in being in the fast lane. They are secure in knowing that the software behaves in a predicible way (not necessarily designed that way either). A large part of this attitude is based in their not being computer anything sorts. I find CD's a great way to keep libraries of old software that sometimes comes in handy. > 2. The Web does a better job at making the latest versions instantly > accessible. True, a CD-ROM will generally have faster access, but I care > more about getting the _latest_ version of PGP, even if takes a minute or > two to snarf off the Web. That I could get an _older_ version of PGP in > fractions of a second off this CD-ROM is not compelling to me. (And > fractions of a second is too charitable: in actuality, I'd have to locate > the CD-ROM, dismount anything already mounted, mount the CD-ROM, search it > for "PGP," etc. Probably not even faster than using Alta Vista and > downloading.) Yes, except it is much easier to track my access to the web than my CD-Rom. > 4. The Web approach allows powerful search engines, links from other pages, > and--importantly--multiple jurisdictions. The PGP could come from the U.S., > the Digital Postage code from Sweden, and so on. And, again as noted in # > 1, the developers could keep improving and iterating the code. CD's are great advertising.

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Re:
by David K. Merriman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 04:42 AM 03/28/96 -0800, Anonymous wrote: >At 12:21 AM 3/28/96, Syed Yusuf wrote: >>If a person who speaks three languages is tri-lingual >>If a person who speaks two languages is bi-lingual >> >>What do you call a person who only speaks one language? >> >>---------------------answer follows: >> >>An American. > >Or our version: > >What do you call a person who has to learn English as a second language in order to compete in the world? > >A foreigner. > >(Sorry for the insult, but it seems that this thread is bringing out insults from foreigners of all sorts.) > >--Tim > > >Dont be sorry! > >Foreigner can atleast speak broken English. Can American speak broken foreign language? As a matter of fact, I speak broken Tagalog, broken Japanese, pidgin Korean, and and can generally make myself understood in Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Spanish, and French. Oh, yes, I'm also fluent in Aussie :-) Dave Merriman -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMVoK/8VrTvyYOzAZAQHrXAP/ZMOgx+VkqHXCQHBFXIdVVHzlCcJIo3L6 2LyqMnY0cJ5ZFD8mCNsBTTe2DAXFpN1WV03JFym/JIxAuL0TQuN0WKZ2HFSuk997 AZPo21whZbXVQlRGrr6JjiR8p2nqHMMBpNC2bfr2r/rny7UmnGGp8C1e6crPtrQF PiyDbd20zbM= =Swae -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------- "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." P. J. O'Rourke (b. 1947), U.S. journalist. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> http://www.shellback.com/personal/merriman/index.htm

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DES or RSA on a PIC
by MeRC 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have ANY code for DES or RSA encryption for use on a PIC microcontroler? A friend and I are developing an ASCII terminal (dumb term) that encrypts data going to the serial port and decrypts data coming from the serial port, so you could successfully send a message over a modem and have it automatically encrypted\decrypted. We have all the hardware almost done, but we are having a hell of a time writing the code for the encryption... Thanx in advance... l8r, -MeRC merc(a)redrose.net -or- merc(a)success.net -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUAMUC05tnn3Dsf47p5AQE6AAP9E/JebLn1UtkOk41IGw/i4XHKckVcI6RH ptBMucqx01sSTxaR8tXPmmkKjz5f3xndxepbbs6nKfoNuSaODWSirOlNvt3i1DWL iUmB9+rUYmwwlpD7t6qyy2XzsAxO/M/nFT4ZxO8wi96nR/Rmp00LvCoK+YcjgQnj HReyQrIl4X+ZAI0DMUCzOgAAAQQAv6IH+OnLeP+chsgwymSVKqsXHO1xwJLxs657 Cf3miDM3mNBB/qmRziQ1zHeC/nXgaGhR7eAdidL6MngDXl6+cw4Z5xXvenu5MpEW zpZpwDK5/XwuvCIexQP2eHIb2Ms6vna7fUoaHGrrV4844KIVg+E36ZgWT1ZP2efc Ox/junkABRGwAYe0I01pY2hhZWwgRC4gV2hpdGUgPG1lcmNAc3VjY2Vzcy5uZXQ+ sAED =ZbPJ -----END PGP MESSAGE-----

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Re: So, what crypto legislation (if any) is necessary?
by shabbir＠vtw.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Lucky Green writes: >At 2:08 3/26/96, Shabbir J. Safdar wrote: > >It is a widespread myth that wiretaps require warrants. Court ordered >warrants are not required for a wiretap. They have not been required since >the Digital Telephony Bill passed. (see below) >That the net, the media, and even >attorneys are so blissfully unaware of this, even years after the provision >doing away with requiring warrants became law, is one of the finest >examples of cognitive dissonance you are ever likely to find. It is too >disturbing to believe it, so the mind ignores the facts. When everyone in the world seems to disagree with you, isn't it a good idea to check the facts? >Excerpt from the Digital Telephony Bill (deleted) [..] >"My supervisor approved it" may well suffice. Your misunderstanding of how interceptions are done is dangerous to what is otherwise a rational, intelligent argument. Indeed, there are ways to conduct a wiretap without a judge. They require dispensations from people like the Attorney General, for example. And this is certainly not a normal practice. There are a lot of reasons to object to DT, but this is not one of them. -Shabbir J. Safdar * Online Representative * Voters Telecomm. Watch (VTW) http://www.vtw.org/ * Defending Your Rights In Cyberspace

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Re: Let's *NOT* "Raise their Awareness"
by David K. Merriman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 12:23 AM 03/27/96 -0800, Charles Bell wrote: >On Tue, 26 Mar 1996, David K. Merriman wrote: > > >Yes, and some years ago a State legislature (I forget which) passed a >resolution setting the value of pi at exactly 3. I'm not sure how they >planned to enforce their will. Do you know how the Texas judge means to >enforce his? Frankly, no. I would suspect some kind of visits from Child Welfare, or somesuch - fruitless though it may be. Dave -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMVjxCsVrTvyYOzAZAQFWfAP7BQTesPRwoK+ubvFxLg36tq634FdFAlue 5sMZO1D2yBfHEHsHyfpR7RBB2DrP8vqTjrcZjz9ctxg7ph5/sqYUWf37xkKbyLu2 byJMWfZhZDXIwDyhWU3RmJOUL+loisDzP7uNZtjoodJLro/QceSR4sqdgWa4xl59 eiPapVoaXdU= =1+fS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------- "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." P. J. O'Rourke (b. 1947), U.S. journalist. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> http://www.shellback.com/personal/merriman/index.htm

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Readme
by jic 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

<HTML><PRE><A HREF="http://www.wh0re.net/"> Click here!!</A></PRE></HTML>

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y2k: 37% govt computers
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- Forwarded Message Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 07:04:43 -0600 To: believer(a)telepath.com From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Y2K-37% of most critical gov't computers will not be updated in time Source: Los Angeles Times Thursday, March 5, 1998 House Panel Warns of Year 2000 Computer Crisis By RALPH VARTABEDIAN, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON--In the most dramatic warning yet of an impending computer crisis in the government, a congressional panel said Wednesday that 37% of the most critical computers used by federal agencies will not be updated in time to handle dates in the year 2000 and will be subject to widespread failure. The estimate calls into sharp question past assurances by the Clinton administration that it is moving quickly enough to avert serious outages that could undermine military forces, benefit payments to the public and the nation's air transportation system, among much else. With just 666 days left until the year 2000, a slew of reports and investigations in recent weeks have raised serious concerns that the government is not acting fast enough to avoid serious problems. The executive branch has almost 8,000 computer systems that are considered critical to government operations, and nearly 3,000 of them will not be able to read dates in 2000, according to the report issued by the subcommittee on government management, information and technology of the House Government Operations and Oversight Committee. The computers will either shut down or spew out erroneous data. California Rep. Steve Horn (R-Long Beach), the subcommittee chairman who has taken the lead in Congress in solving the problem, issued a "report card" along with the new report that gave the federal government a D-minus in its efforts to avoid a crisis. "Failure is intolerable," Horn said. The year 2000 problem results from widespread use of two digits in software to designate years. Computers assume that every year starts with "19," so when 2000 arrives, they will interpret "00" as the year 1900. President Clinton created a White House panel on Feb. 4 to lead the government's efforts in solving the problem and appointed John A. Koskinen, former deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget, to lead the effort. But Koskinen has not yet started his work, and his panel has hardly gotten off the ground after 28 days, according to Horn's staff. White House press officials did not respond to queries about Horn's report. As the scope of the government's problems become clearer, the cost to avert a crisis is also growing. The Office of Management and Budget had long insisted that the problem would cost a little more than $2.3 billion to fix, but that figure has been growing over the last year. Its most recent estimate pegged the cost at $4 billion. Horn estimated that the government is facing a cost of $10 billion. Copyright Los Angeles Times ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: subscribe ignition-point email@address or unsubscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Your Web Site's Findability
by poc＠search-engine-help.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Random Number Testing
by Fred 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

JonWienke(a)aol.com writes: > > The "randomness" of the output of my sieve is obviously not perfect. > > However, it will remove bytes from a data stream that "randomness" tests > > describe as "nonrandom". And Perry writes: > You are displaying a profound ignorance of the notion of "random" > here. An individual byte cannot be random or nonrandom. Random is a > statistical property, and therefore can only apply to a mass of > data. The limitation seems to be in the testing process. An inviolable rule of test and measurement is that the testing process must have a higher degree of accuracy and precision than is expected from the item under test. If all you have is a non-graduated stick one meter long, you can't measure increments of less than one meter unless you add some additional resolution to the system (such as a human's judgment that the object is four sticks, plus about another third of a stick, long). Our ability to synthesize pseudo-random data, and the degree to which it approaches true random data, is limited by our ability to discern between the two. If the best testing process available yields the same results for the output of a true RNG and a particular PRNG, what can be done to improve the randomness of the PRNG? How could we tell the difference based on the data itself? About all you could do would be to critique the PRNG or sieving process from an empirical perspective and hope that you weren't introducing some other non-random bias to the system. I'm sure that some perfectly random data would be discarded as being non-random, especially for a small sample size. The sequence HHHHTTTT doesn't look random, but this outcome of 8 flips is equally probable for a "perfect" coin. Do you keep this data or toss it because it doesn't "look" random? If you toss it, aren't you removing entropy from the sample? It may be (relatively) easy to say that radioactive decay is a truly random process and a sieve which discards certain re-occuring values is not. Improving the testing process, and increasing the size of the data used for that testing, will improve the sieve output. However, it looks like an asymptotic situation: the PRNG can approach, but never quite reach, the true RNG case. As long as human analysis and discretion is involved, there will always be a certain amount of non-randomness in the output of a PRNG. My question: if you don't know the source of the data, how can you _really_ determine if it's random enough for crypto use? Given any PRNG string of a certain length, does the fact that I might be able to find that exact same data string buried in a mountain of truly random data mean that it's suitable for crypto use? If you knew that I created the data from the clock of my workstation, then maybe not. But otherwise? Fred <admin(a)dcwill.com>

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Barry Smith (FBI) speaks today 3:30pm at UMBC
by Dr. Alan Sherman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The UMBC Security Technology Research Group presents A Law-Enforcement Perspective on Encryption Policy Barry Smith Supervisory Special Agent, FBI moderated by journalist Peter Wayner 3:30pm - 5:00pm Friday, March 6, 1998 Lecture Hall III University of Maryland, Baltimore County http://www.cs.umbc.edu/events/spring98/crypto.shtml The second lecture and discussion in a two-part forum on encryption policy. Journalist Peter Wayner will introduce and moderate the event, which is free and open to the public. In Part I, freedom activist John Gilmore and Fritz Fielding (Ex-Associate General Councel, NSA) gave their divergent views, focusing on the Burnstein case. Barry Smith will articulate the needs of law enforcement to conduct lawful wiretaps; he will advocate the use of key-recovery techniques to achieve this end as a way that provides adequate privacy to law-abiding citizens. Schedule: The event will begin with a brief (10 minute) introduction by Peter Wayner. Following Barry Smith's talk, which will last approximately 45 minutes, there will be an opportunity to ask questions for approximately 20-30 minutes. Questions: Attendees are encouraged to ask questions in advance by sending email to sherman(a)cs.umbc.edu Directions: Take Exit #47B off interstate I-95 and follow signs to UMBC. LH III is in the Administration Building, adjacent visitor's parking lot near the I-95 entrance to UMBC. Host: Dr. Alan T. Sherman Associate Professor, Computer Science sherman(a)cs.umbc.edu http://www.umbc.edu (410) 455-2666 This event is held in cooperation with the UMBC Intellectual Sports Council Honors College Phi Beta Kappa honors society CMSC Council of Majors IFSM Council of Majors ACM Student Chapter at UMCP

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