- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Nixon, Johnson, and the Dollar
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Sandy Sandfort "When the government makes any announcement (ESPECIALLY a denial), you should figure out what the government is trying to get you to do. . . . . . " ...................................... I think this is what is called "providing incentive" or in corporate-speak, "incentivization" (when they make an announcement and you take the kind of action which they intended you should). Blanc

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Re: Key length security (calculations!)
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

solman(a)mit.edu writes (quoting someone else initially): >> You mention Shamir, etc. However I would point out that even if any of the >> original RSA mathematicians found a better factoring algorithm, they'd be >more >> than likely to keep it under lock and key. The obvious reason is that their >> money supply depends on such an algorithm being suppressed. >What about Shamir's triple pass key exchange protocol (explained briefly >below). Its the perfect key exchange algorithm. It obsoletes Public key >systems entirely as long as you only need to exchange keys and not >authenticate. I'd say that is pretty decent evidence that he does still >do things to help the field when it might hurt RSADSI. (although I wouldn't >say the same thing about all of them) I suspect this protocol is covered by the Diffie-Hellman patent, which is quite broad, covering many sorts of key exchanges. Diffie-Hellman is now owned by PKP, the sister company to RSA. If so, Shamir has not undercut his own financial interests by this work. (Also, this does not obsolete PK since it requires several exchanges before communication can occur, making it inappropriate for high-latency communications, such as for most email.) Hal

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Federal Control of Financial Transactions
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As regular readers will be aware, Tim May and I have been sparring with each other about the risks of various control strategies that the world's governments may deploy. I thought it might be helpful to make one of his fears concrete so that we can analyze it. I trust that I am not putting words in Tim's mouth. The major concern is the same one mentioned in the Book of Revelations: "REV 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: REV 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." So the Feds deploy a card (smart or dumb) that has to be used for most transactions and lets them track everything we do. Tourists are brought into the system through the use of temporary cards (or the machine-readable strip on their passports which already includes a space for a national ID number.) How is this most likely to come about? I consider force majeure to be unlikely. It would be rough to get Congress to impose a burden like this on businesses (who would have to completely wire themselves) in a formal vote. It is not necessary to do this in any case since they know they can't snag everyone into the system. They just want to capture most of the transaction data. If they can do it administratively without involving Congress in controversy, they will use that approach. Clipper and the Post Office agitprop on the US Card give us a possible scenario. The P.O., desperate to find a reason to exist as its core business drains away to the wires and private carriers, would like to become the primary digital signature authorizers for the U.S. It claims to be able to put millions of "US Cards" in the hands of happy shoppers within months of the go-ahead. (Assuming they use FedEx for the actual *shipments* of course). The recently attempted "Clipper maneuver" of game strategy (government preemption by standard setting rather than by direct application of force) shows us how the US Card system might be actually deployed. The government adopts the standard it likes and tries to make it the de facto standard by requiring it for most official business. An instant market is thereby created. No congressional action required. Similarly, the government might try to preempt the market for digital signature and commercial encryption technology by deciding to make anyone who wants to use a digital signature system in dealings with the government use the Post Office or some such agency as the signature authenticator. Thus bids, purchasing, benefits, and taxes could all require your "US Card" registered at your local post office. The government would then hope that commercial users who would need to use the government's system for tax filings anyway would also use it for its ordinary dealings with the public. Then if a health care bill drafting you into a "universal coverage" army is ever passed, the "US Card" also becomes the Health Security Card you will have to show to get a job in the US. Thus, all sorts of authentication transactions would pass through the powerful and efficient post office data network and the ex-countercultural/born-again control freaks Inside the Beltway could get their jollies tracking your employment and purchases. What's the big hole in this frightening scenario? Ask yourself one question. Why is the Post Office looking around for some useful work these days? Didn't they have a monopoly guaranteed by the Federal Government for more than 100 years? If they couldn't make a go of it with a pure coercive monopoly during a time of slower commercial activity, what makes them think that they can compete *without* a genuine coercive monopoly in a time of constant change. Governments have proved over and over again that they can go broke running "guaranteed" money spinners like state lotteries and such. They don't stand a chance in a marketplace that will break the hearts of the brightest people this planet has ever produced. What has recent history established? Governments are weaker. Why didn't the Amin mandate Clipper? No political ability to do so. Why are banks and telecoms being deregulated in nearly every country on earth (in spite of propaganda about "risks" and "public needs"? Why have exchange controls (a common feature of life a generation ago) become impossible almost everywhere on earth? Is it "free market ideology" that has triumphed or did the *reality* of markets rather than the *idea* of markets hit governments on the head. To those who romanticize the power of the State in the modern world I ask, why doesn't Clinton impose wage and price controls, exchange controls, tariffs, and a full-blown industrial policy? Why doesn't he nationalize the steel industry, guarantee jobs for all, confiscate all estates above $100,000, impose 95% income taxes on those making more than $40,000/year, and all of the other proposals that were popular earlier in this century? I doubt that he is restrained because of his deep commitment to human liberty. He doesn't do it because he can't. Markets wouldn't put up with it. His government would be destroyed (by capital flight.) In this connection, I invite everyone to read the excellent profile of Japan in last week's Economist. It discusses the current and growing Japanese commitment to deregulation and what is driving it. That issue is a keeper anyway because of an article on commerce on the Internet and (as has been mentioned before) the use of the word "anarcho-capitalism" in an article comparing Thailand and Singapore. Assuming that the government were to attempt to establish a Post Office mediated digital authentication system, there is no guarantee that it would work. Foreign users would presumably use foreign systems to authenticate their transactions. Some of these systems might be run by privatized foreign PTTs or by others. Note that since banks and credit agencies will still have to approve the transactions anyway (to make sure you've got the dough), they may decide to use other systems for signature authentication. It would not really cost them any more. Since information is cheap, setting up a system to use several authentication systems is almost as easy as setting up a system to use one. (Particularly since you have to do it anyway.) It is difficult to imagine the P.O. being able to compete in the cutthroat world of credit processing. Recall that even today, there are companies that pick up and deliver your mail to the P.O. to speed the process along. Similarly, expediters may interpose themselves between the customer and the P.O. to speed authentication in the even that the P.O. network is slow or inefficient (likely). Here again, Clipper gives us some hints as to how the attempted market cornering might work out in practice: The Admin is currently floating stories about perhaps withdrawing Clipper in favor of "wider discussions" with the industry. Clipper is already painfully obsolete and it isn't even shipping in quantity. Inefficient government monopolies create marvelous profit opportunities for markets to arbitrage the gap between cost and price. In a highly efficient networked world, it will be very difficult for governments to compete. DCF Why Pizza Hut should hire *me* as their spokesman: "Why does Pizza Hut oppose mandatory, employer-paid health insurance in the US even though we are forced to pay it in Japan and Germany? We support the principle of cultural diversity under which different societies experiment with different methods of social organization. Germany and Japan have chosen one road, we have chosen another. Pizza Hut would not voluntarily impose on our US customers the burden of the very high food costs that the agricultural policies of Germany and Japan impose on their citizens. Similarly, we would not choose to impose on our US employees the burden of bureaucratically designed employment contracts. Pizza Hut supports the right of our customers to enjoy the least expensive and best pizza on earth and the right of our employees to bargain with us collectively and individually concerning the conditions of their employment."

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Re: Detweiler Remailer filtering
by qwerty＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hal told the oral history of my remailer as... >I suggest, then, that you run a remailer (it only costs $20 a month on the >system I use), and publicize the fact that Detweiler can use yours with >impunity. Set up a mail-to-news gateway that other remailer operators can >use so that they don't have to worry about the consequences of abuse. >It's easy to talk about sacred ideas, but perhaps not so easy to keep an >unpopular and misunderstood remailing infrastructure in place. "Xenon" >also accused us of hypocrisy, started up a remailer, and stopped it in just >a couple of days faced with these kinds of problems. However, I experienced *no* abuse of my remailer, I being at the time on fairly good terms with Mr. Detweiler. (I had a single amusing "abuse" in which the person told someone in personal anonymous mail that their continued us of their IP number was a copyright violation and would be procecuted. Guy just didn't have a sense of humour.) I did not accuse anyone of hypocrisy. All I said was that a simple quick fix solution of blocking his known address would ONLY MAKE THINGS WORSE, since then he would forge mail instead. Besides, fight him and he'll fight back with renewed energy, I reasoned. I also thought it was sort of funny to see all the propellor-beenie types yelling at the top of their lungs about some inappropriate posting in their oh so precious newsgroups, and said that his posts could be called performance art. I said we needed an *abuse* filter not a Detweiler filter. This of course got me flamed :-). I shut down qwerty-remailer, after perhaps a month of operation, due to two reasons. I felt moderated remailers were necessary (until Usenet is "fixed" to catch such abuses in some open moderation scheme) and did not have the *time* to moderate qwerty. The major reason however was the public threats of other remailer operators sending *their* abusive user's mail through qwerty-remailer when I refused to block Detweiler's address! That threw me for a loop. Wow. Nasty situation that was, and an isolated remailer is not an effective one. I also was not at all effective at trying to gather FULL information about the existing remailers, and my "Full Discosure Remailer List" is still incomplete, as well as now outdated. -=Xenon=- P.S. If anyone is interested in a few radical essays on remailer/internet security from an output larger than the internet, see the Rant Series on ftp.netcom.com in /pub/qwerty/Writings. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLinKgQSzG6zrQn1RAQE7JwQApnXmm35jUxq0QyAYEN+pJgPxnQE5Jcqz RJfMKNjNT/1LDkgRvKoJxCoYfzd9ga/nQvIZczwefAPI2Ko8Q7bLMh1zm/txZzN7 RnCVd8Hdhq9UpPue3rwZ037jRc6K/XTEwgeKT9Ct3tmIJDbu5FyMqsK4asT4fgFi b/8h2TZG7ks= =FemC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Card Playing Protocol?
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

rarachel(a)prism.poly.edu writes some interesting looking details on crypto cards, but I am too exhausted to make sense of it tonight. I am not ignoring it. Thanks, -kb -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 35:00 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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Re: Card Playing Protocol
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

rarachel(a)prism.poly.edu writes about problems with card protocols, >Anyway, you can ask him about it, his address is rvslyke(a)prism.poly.edu I will once I am sure I will understand the answer. Thanks, -kb, the Kent who does have some reading ahead of him -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 35:00 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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Encrypting fax machine
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Pointer: Encrypted fax patent Publication: The New York Times, July 18,, 1994; Business Section D; Patents column; p. D2. Title: A small Company offers a scanning device to make faxes private by encoding their computer bits. By: Sabra Chartrand Some excerpts: The Kryptofax Corporation . . . was set up to sell a scanning device that uses encryption algorithms to turn fax text into indecipherable dots on a page. *** Then the most critical thing is to provide a password, says Richard Varga, a former computer programmer who is the president. *** The encoded page emerges with the title and addressee name appearing in plain language at the top. The rest is a grid of random dots. *** As the [receiving] Kryptofax machine reads the encrypted grid, it begins simultaneously to print a decrypted version of the page. *** We use an encryption algorithm called seeded pseudo-random number generator, Mr. Varga said. The company chose that algorithm because it is in the public domain, he added. *** The Kryptofax Corporations's patent is 5,321,749.

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The Detweiler Files on FTP
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to Joichi Ito and Robert Hayden, The Detweiler Files should now be available by ftp at: eccosys.com/pub/incoming vorlon.mankato.msus.edu/pub/cypherpunks It includes an earlier CRaP post from Detweiler: > From: vikram!an12070(a)anon.penet.fi (Cryptoanarchist Assassination Squad ) > X-Anonymously-To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 15:56:58 UTC > Subject: Surrender or Die > There has been some extremely strong speculation as to our > identity lately. It's time for us to identify ourselves. We are > Operation CRaP, the Cryptoanarchist Repression and Poison, and > we have infiltrated your own conspiracy to the most sensitive > levels. L.Detweiler retypes most notes to prevent style analysis > and inference detection that would lead to our identities. > We have infiltrated the *interesting* mailing list, have a > 'bug' planted at crl.com, and a brilliant spy in one of your > ... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Expose on North's Arm Smuggling
by nym＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some people have kindly sent me email encouraging me to stay. I'm still vacillating, but thought you might be interested in this. I got this from the same place that last message came from, a sort of "psychic exploration" list (also deeply interested in world/government events). Again, probably from a Fidonet channel originally. **** (From): NYT(a)NYXFER.BLYTHE.ORG (To) : ALL System: SNET Conf. : 0009 - CONSPIRACY Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit From: Paul DeRienzo <pdr(a)echonyc.com> VIRTUAL RADIO NETWORK 184 Underhill Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11238 Tel: 718/622-9660 Fax: 718/622-9781 Executive Director: Andrew Leslie Phillips July 14, 1994 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRESS CONTACTS: Curtis Ellis 212/580-2156 or Andy Wandzilak 718/622-9660 THE CLINTON-NORTH CONNECTION: A live press briefing Wednesday, July 27th 7:00 pm The Virtual Radio Network will host a live press briefing, open to the public, that will reveal Senate-hopeful Oliver North's million dollar international arms and drugs smuggling operations out of Central America into the United States through a covert airstrip at Mena, Arkansas protected by then Governor Bill Clinton. Two high level former government officials have agreed to appear together in this Virtual Radio Network news making background briefing to reveal their eyewitness accounts including: - Why presidential candidate Clinton would not attack President Bush's Iran-Contra record. - How Bill Clinton protected Oliver North's Iran-Contra weapons for drugs operation at Mena, Arkansas. - Oliver North's direct connections and support of DEA documented drug smugglers at El Salvador's Illopango airstrip which was used as a CIA-contra resupply point. The briefing will be held on Wednesday, July 27th, 7 PM at The Greenwich Village School, 6th Avenue and 11th Street, Manhattan. Tickets for the public are $8 to benefit Virtual Radio Network's Producers Fund. For public Information and Reservations: 718/ 857-8902. * Celerino Castillo was the Drug Enforcement Administrations senior agent in El Salvador from 1985 to 1991. He reported to top federal officials in 1986 about cocaine flights used to supply the contras by the "North Network." He told the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Edwin Corr, now retired and teaching at the University of Oklahoma, and then Vice-President George Bush about the drug smuggling operation but could get no federal official to act on his information. Celerino Castillo and Dave Harmon's, book "Powder Burns" will be released this summer, by Mosaic Press 1-800-387-8992 Terry Reed, an eight year veteran in U.S. Air Force intelligence in Southeast Asia. He was recruited by Colonel Oliver North to train Contra pilots at Mena, Arkansas in an operation named "Jade Bridge." In 1985, North chose Reed to set up a CIA proprietary, Maquinaria International, in Mexico to serve as an arms warehouse and trans-shipment point for weapons. When Reed learned he was also transmitting cocaine he tried to resign and return to the U.S. but his life was threatened and a warrant was issued for his arrest. An FBI/CIA manhunt ensued. Employing skills learned as an intelligence officer, Reed and his family fled over a six- month, 30,000 mile odyssey through 48 states. In November 1990 Reed was acquitted. He has gone to court to seek redress for violations of his civil rights. Terry Reed and John Cummings book "Compromised" published by S.P.I Books/Shapolsky Publishers Inc. 212-633-2022 Terry Reed and Celerino Castillo will be available for interviews. Call Curtis Ellis, 212-580-2156 Virtual Radio Network. - -- + 212-675-9690 NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE 212-675-9663 + + Since 1985: Information for the Rest of Us + + GET INFO from ftpmail%transfr(a)blythe.org + + e-mail: nyt(a)blythe.org info: info(a)blythe.org + GLENDA STOCKS | FidoNet 1:330/201.0 SearchNet HeadQuarters | InterNet GS(a)rochgte.fidonet.org Snet Mailing List info, SEND | Data: 508-586-6977 / 617-961-4865 info snet-l TO | Download SEARCHNT.ZIP For Info! majordomo(a)world.std.com | Voicemail: +1-617-341-6114 Searchnet.zec(a)channel1.com | FidoNet CHANNELS, & I_UFO moderator * RM 1.3 00257 * when's the last time you called your Higher Self? ------- End of Forwarded Message

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oops
by nym＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Oops. I meant to send that last message to Perry Metzger only but my mail software automatically cc:ed the list. My apologies for wasting bandwidth.

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