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Re: Technolgies of Political Control (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I would like to suggest that you reconfigure your editor so it actualy puts in LF/CR's so that it doesn't show up as one long line... Any editing errors are mine. Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 17:46:02 -0800 > From: Steve Schear <schear(a)lvdi.net> > Subject: Re: Technolgies of Political Control > At 6:47 PM -0500 1/25/98, John Young wrote: > >Thanks to Axel Horns and Ulf Möller we offer an excerpt > >of the draft European Parliament report on global > >surveillance cited in news reports recently: > > > > An Appraisal of Technolgies of Political Control > >Scientific and Technological Options Assessment > > Working Document (Consultation version) > > PE 166 499 > > Luxembourg, 6 January 1998 > > The report makes mention of built-in surveillence feature in CCITT compliant ISDN products. ""What is not widely known is that built in to the international CCITT protocol is the ability to take phones 'off hook' and listen into conversations occurring near the phone, without the user being aware that it is happening." Seems like an awful lot of CP using ISDN gear should beware. Many ISDN devices are firmware based. Might this not spawn a number of good crack projects to remove this feature from popular products. I use an Ascend P25. The docs say its CCITT compliant. Sooo does it enable this form of surveillence? Enquiring minds want to know. > All phones can be forced to do this. Even POTS. It's a commenly known 'feature' by most folks in the telecom industry for the last 30+ years. Commen defeat is to leave the phones unplugged or place them next to a radio or television. Then if you want to have a secure conversation go to another room, or better yet take a long walk in your neighborhood at low-traffic times.

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Welcome to our WebBoard!
by webboard＠netstrike.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thank you for participating in our conferencing system, Random Q.. Please save this message. It contains important information, such as your login name and password (see below). Our web conferencing offers online Help for all major features. If you have questions about a feature, look for the help button on the menubar or post a message asking for help (Click "Post" on the menubar). You may also want to try features such as email notification, spell checking, file attachments, and more. Here is your login information. Be sure to keep it somewhere safe! Your Login Name: cypherpunks Your Password: cypherpunks You can change your password, email address, and other items by clicking the "Profile" button on the menubar. Please be sure to come back and visit us at: http://max.netstrike.com:8080/~1 We hope you enjoy participating in our conferences! Sincerely, WebBoard Administrator

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Re: Announcement: RPK InvisiMail released on 12 Jan, 1998
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was amused to receive two mail messages back-to-back, one from Peter Gutmann talking about New Zealand having one of the strictest formal export controls in the world, and one from RPK New Zealand talking about how their encryption product is not export-controlled because it's from NZ, not the US, and how their RPK Fast Public Key Encryptonite(tm) Engine is the strongest crypto in the world. Either they haven't bothered asking for export permission, or they asked in such a way that the export bureaucrats didn't notice it was crypto and regulated by their crypto export preventers, or their crypto somehow falls through the cracks, e.g. by using an algorithm with public keys shorter than 512 bits (works for ECC, not RSA) and private keys shorter than 40 bits (or 41 on a good day), or perhaps passes the "snake oil test" for export permission. I suppose it's possible that the NZ Export Bureaucrats have lightened up since Peter's last dealings with them, but it's not likely. >--------------- The mail, referencing www.invisimail.com >RPK New Zealand Ltd. in a joint venture with Virtually Online Ltd. >has released RPK InvisiMail, a standards-based e-mail security >application for use with Internet mail software (SMTP/POP3). >The product offers the strongest encryption available anywhere in >the world. Since it was built outside the United States, >it is also available all over the world with strong encryption. >RPK InvisiMail is also the easiest product of its type >to setup and use which makes it quite unique. ========= From Peter Gutmann's web page This policy has resulted in New Zealand enjoying the dubious distinction of having the strictest export controls on earth, with everything ranging from crypto hardware down to software, library books, computer magazines, and journals being restricted from export. It's not even possible for a university to publish academic research without prior permission from a government agency, and the requirements for obtaining this permission are structured to ensure that they can never be fulfilled. You can find the information on: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/policy/ ============================== Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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Video & cryptography...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I was in a discussion with several people regarding the rate if improvement of current video production equipment and how it would effect the veracity of video images of all sorts in future legal cases. Is anyone aware of anybody working on a mechanism to digitaly sign video and photographs (a cool app of stego I suspect)? This would alleviate a great deal of mistrust for security video cams and such. What I had in mind was the manufacturer puts a unique key in each machines rom's and when each image comes in a signature of the image and the key is stored in the interframe retraces that are normaly not shown (ala videotext). I asked a couple of people in the biz that I know and it seemed a new concept to them. Just a thought... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Paper withdraws story of Clinton sex 'witness' [fwd - infobeat]
by Vipul Ved Prakash 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

*** Paper withdraws story of Clinton sex 'witness' The Dallas Morning News withdrew its Internet report Tuesday that a Secret Service agent was ready to testify seeing President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in a compromising situation. The Dallas paper took the report off its online edition and posted a statement saying its source for the story had told them his information was wrong. The paper had carried a front page report on its electronic Web site saying the agent had spoken with independent counsel Kenneth Starr's staff and was ready to testify as a government witness in the sex scandal engulfing the White House. But within 4 hours the paper had pulled the report and replaced it with a statement which said "the source for the story, a longtime Washington lawyer familiar with the case, later said the information provided for that report was inaccurate. See http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=7164923-842 Maryland officials say Tripp may have broken law, See http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=7159919-bc9 -- #!/usr/bin/perl eval unpack u,'J)",](DIU<W0@06YO=&AE<B!097)L($AA8VME<EQN(CMP<FEN="!T:6UE'; ========================================================================== Vipul Ved Prakash | - Electronic Security & Crypto mail(a)vipul.net | - Web Objects 91 11 2233328 | - PERL Development 198 Madhuban IP Extension | - Linux & Open Systems Delhi, INDIA 110 092 | - Networked Virtual Spaces

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Re: Video & cryptography... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Adam Shostack <adam(a)homeport.org> > Subject: Re: Video & cryptography... (fwd) > Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 17:02:53 -0500 (EST) > | Doesn't this same sort of issue arise from any other digital signature > | process then? There should be nothing fundamentaly different between the > | characteristics of a video camera signing a frame than a person signing > | email. > > It arises in a different context; with a signature on paper, > you're generally indicating that you've read and consented to whats on > the paper, not that you created it. Isn't signing the document at least in theory a participatory creative act? If you don't sign it then it doesn't exist in the same context as if you do. Otherwise why have the signature? If I use a camera to sign a digital image am I not stating that I have viewed and consented to the image being a valid representation of what the lens saw? Seem quite similar to me. > The meaning of a camera signing a > video still is not obvious to me. Is it intended to be 'this is what > we saw through the lens?' or 'this is what really happened?' A mechanism to sign a digital image would provide some base protection against altering the image surreptitously, just as why you sign (and get a copy) of other documentary evidence. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Compaq / DEC buyout (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 14:51:45 -0800 > From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> > Subject: Re: Compaq / DEC buyout (fwd) > This is simply untrue, that DEC historically has been way ahead of Intel. I'm not going to get in a pissing contest with Tim, since he obviously has some connection to Intel... > The Alpha is a different type of chip. Anyone who has analyzed the past few > years, the past decade, and the past couple of decades would have a hard > time making the case that DEC has been ahead of Intel in the overall > combination of design and manufacturing. The bottem line is they are both Von Neumann architectures and can be reduced to a single bit Turing machine. As a result they *most* certainly can be compaired. I have owned Intel and DEC machines since the late 70's. I started out on a DEC PDP 8e in 1976 a friend game me when I was in high school and bought a S-100 Intel 8080 machine about a year later. Since that time I have owned 80186, 80286, 80836, 80486, and Pentium machines as well as PDP 11/03, PDP 11/23, PDP 11/34, & MicroVax II. Given a comparison by date the DEC machines have had a higher clock frequency and generaly been a generation or so ahead of Intel in the capabilities of the hardware. Further, the operating system architectures available on the hardware, until the last 6-8 years anyway, also went to DEC when it came to scalability and usability. The fact that NT was available on both the Intel and Alpha architectures pretty much at the same time makes any further comparison moot except for market share (which I alluded to the main forces in an earlier post). Unix was available on the DEC architectures LONG (what, 20 years?) before it every even thought about being put on a Intel cpu. > As you should know, Intel will be making the Alpha chip, as its > manufacturing capabilities are _overall_ in advance of DEC's. (Beware of Then why isn't the Intel cranking at 500MHz now like the Alpha? Why is every market comparison for the chips shows the DEC staying ahead of the Intel in base clock frequency (I won't even get into architecture efficiencies) for the next 5-8 years? > capabilities...Intel has its own R&D fabs, currently developing 0.13 micron > capabilities...DEC will not be participating in this move to sub-0.20 > micron areas.) I bet now that Compaq has given them the sorts of resources they had to go head to head with IBM from the late 60's to the early 80's that could change pretty quickly, even considering the multi-billion dollar start-up costs of modern fabs. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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"Privacy on the Line"
by Eric Blossom 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm about half way through Diffie and Landau's new book, Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption and have found it quite interesting and entertaining. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Cryptography 3. Cryptography and Public Policy 4. National Security 5. Law Enforcement 6. Privacy: Protections and Threats 7. Wiretapping 8. Communications: The Current Scene 9: Cryptography: The Current Scene 10: Conclusion It's 342 pages including a great section of notes. Computer Literacy has it for $22.50. ISBN 0-262-04167-7 mail order: 408-435-0744 ObWoMD: "8. (p. 82) Distinguishing nuclear explosions from other events, such as large lightning bolts or explosions of meteors in the atmosphere, is not easy. The satellite reacts less to the total energy of the blast than to the form of the flash. Nuclear explosions have a characteristic two-humped flash caused by gamma ray induced formation of nitrogen pentoxide (N2O5). The time between humps is called the "bhang metre" and is characteristic of the type of weapon." Eric

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Processor Architecture Analysis - Reference
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, If you're interested in the basic technology used in many of the current and proposed processor architectures I strongly recommend the following: Advanced Computer Architectures: A design space approach S. Sima, T. Fountain, P. Kacsuk ISBN 0-201-42291-3 ~$50.00 It was published in 1997 and covers various analysis of many of todays CPU's (unfortunately it doesn't do the Alpha) and discusses means to get realistic comparisons between them. It also covers some of the white paper architectures that have come out in the last 3-4 years on proposed architecture upgrades and alternatives. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Planetary rovers, SETI and other musings, was Re: update.356 (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Eric Cordian <emc(a)wire.insync.net> > Subject: Re: Planetary rovers, SETI and other musings, was Re: update.356 (fwd) > Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 22:58:28 -0600 (CST) > > Of course one needn't stop there. If entangled states could be stored > > for several years, instantaneous communication with neighbooring stars > > is a real possibility. > > And in whose local Lorentz frame would such communication be > "instantaneous"? Actualy, if we are talking about instantanious events the event itself is not frame relevant, thought exactly when and where the event occurred may be. Consider an electron when it changes orbitals does so in zero time. So the question that the photon was emitted is not at issue, now where that photon came from and at what clock tick may in fact be. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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