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(fwd) Russians Break RSA?
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friends, I just grabbed this of the ClariNet news feed on Netcom...I'm not supposed to forward anything from this service (so don't tell Brad Templeton!), but this appeared to be too important not to pass on as quickly as possible. Apparently those rumors that the Russians, always topnotch mathematicians, had developed public key crypto in the 1950s or early 60s are true--my hero Kolmogorov developed this when he was technical director at Kryptogorodok, the secret city of Soviet cryptographers hidden in the Urals (and first visited by an outsider, Stephen Wolfram, only a couple of years ago). Here's the report on a news conference announcing the cracking of their Kolmogorov system, which is equivalent to our own RSA. I haven't had a chance to talk to John Markoff, who was at the press conference, to get his comments. --Tim > Xref: netcom.com clari.world.europe.eastern:2783 > clari.news.hot.ussr:3792 > clari. > news.trouble:3258 clari.science.crypto > Path: netcom.com!bass!clarinews > Approved: doug(a)clarinet.com > From: clarinews(a)clarinet.com (AP) > Newsgroups: > clari.world.europe.eastern,clari.news.hot.ussr,clari.news.trouble,clari.sc > ience.crypto > Distribution: clari.apo > Subject: Russian Mathematicians Announce Breakthrough > Keywords: Europe Cryptography RSA > Copyright: 1994 by The Associated Press, R > Message-ID: <russia-cryptoUR7f0_4ME(a)clarinet.com> > Date: Fri, 1 Apr 94 10:40:19 PST > Expires: Mon, 18 Apr 94 12:40:19 PDT > ACategory: international > Slugword: Russia-Crypto > Priority: regular > ANPA: Wc: 116/0; Id: V0255; Src: ap; Sel: -----; Adate: 03-14-N/A > Codes: APO-1103 > > > MOSCOW (AP) -- At a press conference held minutes ago in a > crowded hall, Russian mathematicians announced that a breakthrough had > been made nearly a decade ago in the arcane branch of mathematics > known as "cryptography," the science of making messages that are > unreadable to others. > Leonid Vladwylski, Director of the prestigious Moscow Academy > of Sciences, called the press conference yesterday, after rumors began > circulating that noted Russian-American reporter John Markoff was in > Russia to interview academicians at the previously secret city of > Soviet cryptographers, Kryptogorodok. The existence of Kryptogorodok, > sister city to Akademogorodok, Magnetogorsk, and to the rocket cities > of Kazhakstan, had been shrouded in secrecy since its establishment in > 1954 by Chief of Secret Police L. Beria. Its first scientific > director, A. Kolmogorov, developed in 1960 what is called in the West > "public key cryptography." The existence of Kryptogorodok was unknown > to the West until 1991, when Stephen Wolfram disclosed its existence. > American cryptographers initially scoffed at the rumors that > the Russians had developed public-key cryptography as early as 1960, > some 15 years prior to the first American discovery. After interviews > last year at Kryptogorodok, noted American cryptographers Professor > D. Denning and D. Bowdark admitted that it did seem to be > confirmed. Professor Denning was quoted at the time saying that she > did not think this meant the Russians could actually break the > Kolmogorov system, known in the West as RSA, because she had spent > more than a full weekend trying to do this and had not > succeeded. "Believe me, RSA is still unbreakable," she said in her > evaluation report. > Russia's top mathematicians set out to break Kolmogorov's new > coding system. This required them to determine that "P = NP" (see > accompanying article). Details are to be published next month in the > journal "Doklady.Krypto," but a few details are emerging. > The Kolmogorov system is broken by computing the prime numbers > which form what is called the modulus. This is done by randomly > guessing the constituent primes and then detonating all of the > stockpiled nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union for each "wrong > guess." In the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, > invented in 1949 by Lev Landau (and later, independently by Everett > and Wheeler in the U.S.), all possible outcomes of a quantum > experiment are realized. > As Academician Leonid Vladwylski explained, "In all the > universes in which we guessed the wrong factors, we were destroyed > completely. But since we are obviously here, talking to you at this > press conference, in this universe we have an unbroken record of > successfully factoring even the largest of imaginable numbers. Since > we are so optimistic about this method, we say the computation runs in > "Nondeterministic Pollyanna Time." Allow me to demonstrate..." > > [Press Conference will be continued if the experiment is a success.] > > MOSCOW (AP), ITAR-Tass, 1 April 1994 > > > -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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RE: anon-mail article in LA Times
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Eli Brandt <ebrandt(a)jarthur.cs.hmc.edu> writes: > Today's L.A. Times had an article, > [stuff elided] > Pretty good article, > with less than the usual amount of confusion. Today's Washington Post's Business section (page F2) has the same article by Michael Schrage. He is acknowledged as a LA Times columnist. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: Cryptography banned in the Netherlands....
by dmandl＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> I have always thought that the Netherlands was a very liberal country. >> But now the government is proposing a law that totally outlaws the use >> of encryption methods. > >Actually, these are quite consistent. Much of the ``liberal'' agenda >relies on government, whether to impose taxes to support welfare, or to >enforce political correctness, or whatever. But the continued >effectiveness of government (and other large institutions) is threatened >by strong cryptography. > > John E. Kreznar | Relations among people to be by > jkreznar(a)ininx.com | mutual consent, or not at all. Right, as opposed to conservatives, who are happy to have people "threaten the effectiveness of government and other large institutions." So, among "liberals" we can include Reagan, J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, and Nixon, all of whom took some pretty extreme steps to silence critics of "government and other large institutions," up to and including political assassinations. Tell CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) that the hundreds of break-ins and phone taps by the FBI in the mid-80's were intended to make sure that the former didn't increase the effectiveness of the U.S. government too much. Refresh my memory: which country has been destroying lives and seizing millions of dollars' worth of private property for over a decade in a fascistic "War on Drugs"? In which country can people buy, sell, and smoke pot openly without police harrassment of any kind? Which "politically correct" president forbade a Canadian filmmaker who made a film critical of the U.S. government to show that film here unless it had the label "Propaganda" attached to it? I'm no lover of "liberals" (though for very different reasons from you, to be sure), but this is utter nonsense. Do people really believe this stuff? -- Dave Mandl dmandl(a)panix.com

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RE: RMorality and Ethics (was Pseudonym's and Reputation)
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Curtis D. Frye Attempted translation: Morality is both individual and situational, and must not be externally imposed as the imposition would violate individual sovereignty. Thanks, Curtis. For some reason, I kept reading the first sentence as: "Morality is the ablility to differentiate between right and wrong, without detonation." Which, I guess, would be another good translation. Blanc

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MAIL: remailer list
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The only change to the list is a new section briefly describing three other services: Miron Cuperman's, Matt Ghio's, and Jay Prime Positive's. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Cypherpunk anonymous remailers, 4/1/94 Q1: What are the anonymous remailers? 1: remailer(a)chaos.bsu.edu 2: nowhere(a)bsu-cs.bsu.edu 3: hh(a)soda.berkeley.edu 4: rperkins(a)nyx.cs.du.edu 5: hal(a)alumni.caltech.edu 6: ebrandt(a)jarthur.claremont.edu 7: catalyst(a)netcom.com 8: remailer(a)rebma.mn.org 9: hfinney(a)shell.portal.com 10: remailer(a)utter.dis.org 11: remail(a)extropia.wimsey.com NOTES: 1-4 no encryption of remailing requests 5-11 support encrypted remailing requests 11 special - header and message must be encrypted together 8,10,11 introduce larger than average delay (not direct connect) 1,2,8,10,11 running on privately owned machines 3 features USENET posting 11 features anonymous pools ====================================================================== Q2: What help is available? Look in ftp://soda.berkeley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/remailer (soda.berkeley.edu = 128.32.149.19) chain.zip - program that helps with using remailers dosbat.zip - MSDOS batch files that help with using remailers hal's.instructions.gz - in depth instruction on how to use hal's.remailer.gz - remailer code pubkeys.tar.gz - public keys of remailers which support encryption pubkeys.zip - MSDOS zip file of public keys scripts.tar.gz - scripts that help with using remailers Or try to gopher to chaos.bsu.edu and look in "Anonymous Mail"/Remailer Instructions" ====================================================================== Q3. Other Services: 1. Miron Cuperman's anonymous pool. To subscribe, send mail to pool0-request(a)extropia.wimsey.com. Mail sent to pool0(a)extropia.wimsey.com will be sent to all subscribers of the anonymous pool. 2. Matt Ghio's pseudo-account remailer. Send mail to mg5n+getid(a)andrew.cmu.edu You will receive an encrypted mail address of the form mg5n+eaxxxxx(a)andrew.cmu.edu Mail sent to this address will be forwarded to you. 3. Jay Prime Positive's mail pool Send mail to jpp=0x123456(a)markv.com, and the mail will be encrypted with the key matching 0x123456, and sent to alt.test with a subject line of "Ignore 0x123456" To add a key, send to jpp=poolnew(a)markv.com. The body of the message should contain the public key in pgp format. If there is a key clash, a message with the subject "Ignore jpp=poolnew key already in use" ====================================================================== Q4. Email-to-Usenet gateways? 1: group-name(a)cs.utexas.edu 2: group.name.usenet(a)decwrl.dec.com 3: group.name(a)news.demon.co.uk 4: group.name(a)news.cs.indiana.edu 5: group-name(a)pws.bull.com 6: group-name(a)ucbvax.berkeley.edu NOTES: * This does not include ones that work for single groups, like twwells.com. * Remember to include a Subject: with your post, may cause failures if missing #6 blocks from non-berkeley sites (so use the berkeley remailers :-) ====================================================================== This is the remailer.data file I use with pingmail, a script for pinging anonymous remailers: 01:n:remailer@chaos.bsu.edu 02:n:nowhere@bsu-cs.bsu.edu 03:n:hh@soda.berkeley.edu 04:n:rperkins@nyx.cs.du.edu 05:y:hal@alumni.caltech.edu 06:y:ebrandt@jarthur.claremont.edu 07:y:catalyst@netcom.com 08:y:remailer@rebma.mn.org 09:y:hfinney@shell.portal.com 10:y:remailer@utter.dis.org 11:s:remail@extropia.wimsey.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLZwz4YOA7OpLWtYzAQGGeQQAuyFqwdZOzFxndIfsCxkU2UMLUCpaRTY6 AVt3KB7uk3YcEYrghxyZhlMcSJp6TywZGfaQbE9edCc4HEMJeUXicVHYgtbazXXm a9gIbSNXb+PTsJMjlqb6fk2uzOq+u2C3RscN8Gh3EVvOg2UVx2PaFcmeGGRRRVQa TrthaeDGjhI= =Loon -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Patent expiration
by Alan (Miburi-san) Wexelblat 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone has just pointed out to me that the basic PKP patents (D-H especially) expire relatively soon now (the D-H patent was issued in 1980). Seems to me this is a strong motivation for the gov to get Clipper in place now; three years from now all the places that won't use PGP because of legal tangles will be able to use it free and clear! --Alan

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Re: Patent expiration
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone has just pointed out to me that the basic PKP patents (D-H especially) expire relatively soon now (the D-H patent was issued in 1 980). Seems to me this is a strong motivation for the gov to get Clipper in place now; three years from now all the places that won't use PGP because of legal tangles will be able to use it free and clear! --Alan No. The basic patent on public key cryptography and the patent on Diffie-Hellman key exchange expire in 1997 (the former on April 28; the latter on August 18). PGP uses RSA, which is protected until September 19, 2000.

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Re: How Many Games of Chess?
by lefty＠apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>This is tangentially related to crypto. I've been reading A.K. Dewdney's >I was glancing through the chapters on complexity, >computabilty, and minimax trees, and I got to wondering something: how >many possible games of chess are there? I know that it has to be a finite >number, but I'm not sure how to go about finding this number. Any >pointers would be appreciated. It doesn't seem to me that this _can_ be readily calculated in any reasonable amount of time. It's not a simple (realtively) combinatorial problem: the configuration of the board at any given point limits the legal moves in an extremely nontrivial way. I believe I can get you as far as the second move, though: I make it to be twenty-one possible openings and twenty-one responses. -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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Khufu
by John K Clark 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In the April Dr. Dobb's ( page 20 ) it say's that Khufu is insecure because the key is only 64 bits long ; I was always under the impression that Khufu was 512 bits long ( 64 BYTES ). Have I been misinformed? John K Clark johnkc(a)well.sf.ca.us -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLZxbgnwRpTAWSvwVAQEPsgQAyWHDGPJux9eJz4w0jOX7IHWZ1ogvMPKH y4nUOzJDTHtAmmgjmxt+5J4cVKOMtpRMkHMNys+bqn5Cv0cEPf/dH/XSJUBmryNA OHNjfAMSPPXxvUiejH3rXqMqeeIt2XL75BWDoUp2Gx7PJBBcvsGUGSSgo3UHROko R8UpUK278qA= =G7WF -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Number of Legal Chess Games
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On the question someone asked about the number of chess games... My recollection is that a fairly careful calculation of the number of legal games between good players (see Note below) is about 10^140. The number of legal Go games is vastly larger, around 10^700. (Each board position has far more branch positions, the Go board being 19 x 19.) I have a bunch of Go books, and some computer chess books (Levy), but I can't find the calculation referenced. It's not a "plug in" calculation, either, as a lot of empirical cruft (good moves, winning configurations, etc.) gets taken into account. But I think the basic estimate of around 10^140 is well-accepted. It might be as "low" as 10^120 or as "high" as 10^160, for example, but that's the right ballpark, from what I've seen. As a reminder, it is estimated that there are about 10^72 particles in the entire universe. Thus, about 10^60 games of chess for each and every particle in the universe. The situation with Go is even more extreme. Welcome to the strange and exciting world of combinatorial explosion. (Note: If two infinitely powerful agents played, the number would presumably drop, as each would see the implications--chess not being a game of chance--of who made the first move and one side would resign. Lesser agents would have more games, presumably. Even lesser agents, novices, might eventually have _fewer_ games, as the games stumbled into wins earlier on. A novice against a grandmaster should also have far fewer games. as the grandmaster wins quickly. At what point of expertise the "maiximum" number of games exists is an interesting question.) For further info, I'd recommend the many good books on computer chess....I'm sure that some of them sketch out how these calculations are done. I've recently seen several new books on computer Go and computer chess, which technical bookstores and libraries should have. Also, asking on rec.games.chess and rec.games.go might produce better results than here on Cypherpunks. The question might well even be in a FAQ for rec.games.chess...now I'm curious about this and will go check. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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