- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: RC4
by rross＠sci.dixie.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: Alex Tang <altitude(a)umich.edu> >> I talked with RSA yesterday specifically about free servers and RC4. >> They just said that they would need a business plan for the >> server product. When i said that the product would be free, they started >> talking in circles about how everyone who uses RC4 needed a license (but i >> was asking about the licenses...) I asked flat out "how much would a >> license for RC4 cost for a free server product". They only reponded with >> "Very Expensive", and then went on about a business plan. > >Ask them about the free version of RC4 which is circulating. If they say >it is patented ask them for the patent number. Ask them why you should >pay them big bucks if you can get it for free. Here's their reply to a similar correspondence: >The RC4 algorithm is copyrighted by and intellectual property of RSA Data >Security. For use of this algorithm in a product or service you plan to >sell, you may use the RC4 software implementation from our BSAFE toolkit. >Licenses are not available for other commercial software implementations of >this algorithm other than what is included in our BSAFE toolkit. I wasn't aware that you could copyright an algorithm. Patent, yes, but not copyright. Intellectual property meens secret, right? Aren't there any precendence cases involving propriety schemes that are reverse engineered? I know there have been, I just can't remember what they are. In any case, RSADSI is likely to sue anyone who attempts to use the RC4 code openly, and even if they lose there are considerable legal fees involved for whoever tries it. What if a bunch of people put secure HTTPd servers online at the same time, without any clear trail pointing to the first one? If the RC4 code really is legal to use, this would make it hard for RSADSI to pinpoint anyone to sue, thus eliminating the intimidation factor. By the way, since RSA is such a vocal opponent of the Clipper chip on the grounds of its secret Skipjack algorithm, why does it market secret algorithms like RC4 and RC2? Does this seen like a double face to anyone else? ----------------------------------------------------------- Russell Ross email: rross(a)sci.dixie.edu 1260 N 1280 W voice: (801)628-8146 St. George, UT 84770-4953

4 3

mac share/freeware app for overwriting unused hd space?
by joee＠li.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can anyone point me towards a program that's freeware or shareware that will overwrite all the unused i.e., "trashed" space on my hard drive(s)? I sincerely apologise if this is a faq. I know norton's will do it but I don't presently have that installed on my machine. Thanks oodles, joe j. ercole ny, usa vox: 516.681.3548 e-mail: joee(a)li.net finger for pgp public key

2 1

Re: NRC panel wants questions for Law Enforcement on crypto policy
by mkj＠october.ducktown.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----- Forwarded message from David Lesher ----- >In April, gnu asked: >> Herb Lin called today to ask if the Cypherpunks could come up with a >> list of questions for their panel to ask the law enforcement community >> about crypto policy. They will be meeting with senior law enforcement >> officials like FBI Director Freeh a week or so from now. > >Did we ever get any feedback on this? > >- -- >A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz(a)nrk.com >& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX >Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 >is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433 ----- End of forwarded message from David Lesher ----- I'm glad you brought that up. Having contributed some questions myself, I was hoping to get some kind of feedback. I didn't expect transcripts of any top-secret meetings or anything, but the whole subject seems to have fallen into a black hole; we don't even know whether the meetings ever took place. If possible, it would be great to hear at least general reactions to at least some of the questions and issues we raised. John, did anything ever come of this? Do you have any info at all? --- mkj

3 2

WIL_mil
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Garry Wills, the historian, writes a thought-provoking essay in The New York Review of Books, August 10, 1995, on "The New Revolutionaries," about the militants and the political and social grievances that undergird their movement -- many of which are shared, Will states, by a wide spectrum of the populace discontented with the government: The suspicion that government has become the enemy of freedom, not its protector, crosses ideological lines. Liberals point to FBI plots against American citizens like Dr. King, to CIA experiments with LSD on American citizens, to the Defense Department's use of Americans as guinea pigs in nuclear testing. The right sees assaults on liberty from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Department of the Interior, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Many people resent the fact that government has become a dictator of the terms of societal conduct -- in welfare programs, in affirmative action and other preferential attitudes toward citizens' rights, in schools that seem to have a "multicultural" or antireligious agenda, in confiscatory taxation, in the keeping of elaborate files on citizens' activities, in various agencies' surveillance techniques and bribing of informers. Wills goes on to review these grievances: Taxation. The jury system. Regulations. Police power. Schools. Family. Religion. Citizen militias. Constitutionalism. Corruption. Guns -- discussed at length. And, he summarizes in closing: With the end of the cold war, the justification for government activism has been taken away. If the government is only good for fighting Communists, and it no longer fights Communists, then what good is it? No convincing answer comes from above -- which lends the answer from the depths its new plausibility: It is good for nothing, and citizens must take their own lives in hand again, vindicating their own liberties. Right or wrong, the armed patriots at least have arguments they can believe in wholeheartedly. They take the mood of post-cold war drift, of Perotista resentment, of disillusionment and economic shakiness, of fin de siecle fear, and change it into a plan for doing something about one's gripes. The militias and their supporters are not the most central social symptom of our time, but they are among the more dramatic symptoms of a general crisis of legitimacy. The authority of government can no longer be assumed. It has to be justified from the ground up. Many people who are not militants or conspiratorialists can agree with parts of this analysis. Libertarians wonder why people who keep to themselves should be bothered. It is no longer so "extreme" to believe that our government is the greatest enemy to freedom. We see this in a new hatred of government agents (who fear for their lives in western states). Or in the unprecedented vilification of the head of our government. The fierce contempt for Hillary Rodham Clinton, for the Attorney General (called "Butch" Reno on bumper stickers), for "Condom Queen" Joycelyn Elders, reflects misogyny rebelling against feminism's gains; but it is also a sign that the office of the presidency itself may now incur a contempt as routine as the respect it once commanded. The heaping of filth on the personnel and symbols of government has a delegitimating effect in itself; and the assault is joined to the disillusion, anger, and disorientation that have marked recent electoral behavior. Where the heated deny legitimacy and the cool are doubtful of it, a crisis is in the making. WIL_mil (about 50K, in 3 parts)

1 0

Re: Three strikes you're out! for politicians... yeah we wish!
by hal9001＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:27 7/26/95, Scott Brickner wrote: >In message <2751(a)umlaw.demon.co.uk> Michael Froomkin writes: >>> Therefore, the only organization which can hold a >>> senator/representative liable for passing a bad law is the one which >>> passed the law. :( > >>and the voters > >Not in the sense of being able to punish him. The voters may only >withold their support in the next election. Not nearly enough to >deter morons like Exon. Who, unless I'm confusing him with someone-else, is not going to stand for reelection and thus can run amuck with no possible fall-out from the voters.

1 0

Re: Exporting from Canada (was Re: Let's try breaking an SSL RC4 key)
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <m0saTpk-0005BTC(a)nrk.com>, wb8foz(a)nrk.com (David Lesher) wrote: >marc: >> However, goods of U.S. origin are export restricted, unless said >> goods are further processed outside the U.S. so as to result in a >> substantial change in value, so some of the PGP development would >> need to be done in Canada. > >How about compiling it? THAT is "further processing"...... I am not sure that would hold. After all, the disk with the source code to "Applied Cryptography" was denied an export license, because the source code could be compiled into libraries. <What kind of drugs are these people on anyway? They really ought to quit.> - -- - -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMBR5PCoZzwIn1bdtAQGSygGAs0JN64qoFfzC0OEL+yV5p/iWecnTtBeJ Fm8a7jsIqtV+FsQg7ATQRcpSxtDOnbS2 =He6y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

3 2

Crypto: ride from SF on Saturday
by Bruce Schneier 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Is anyone driving from the SF area to Crypto (in Santa Barbara) on Saturday? If so, I would like a ride. Bruce ************************************************************************** * Bruce Schneier * Counterpane Systems For a good prime, call 391581 * 2^216193 - 1 * schneier(a)counterpane.com **************************************************************************

1 0

"Only on the Cypherpunks list..."
by tcmay＠sensemedia.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:00 PM 7/25/95, Nathaniel Borenstein wrote: >Well, only on the cypherpunks list would you be likely to find general >agreement that PGP'ed credit card numbers are "easier" than First >Virtual. Many thousands of extremely naive net citizens are now happy >FV customers, and I seriously doubt that most of them could master PGP >without a full-day tutorial. (We're not talking about rocket scientists >here, folks.) A lot of truth here...sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. After all, only on the Cypherpunks list would you be likely to find general agreement that setting up a separate Intel box running Linux so one can create a suitable mail client is the preferred way to do secure e-mail? (Smileys for the :=)-impaired...I have nothing against Linux, and even browsed the new O'Reilly book recently. But I'm _still_ glad I'm "just a Mac user.") I have no idea what First Virtual's current or future business plans are, but I do expect more solid encryption, a la PGP or "real" RSA (licensed), will be coming soon. I assume FV is planning for this likely development. --Tim May .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)sensemedia.net | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

4 5

Re: Full text of David Chaum's Congressional speech
by Rev. Mark Grant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Thu, 27 Jul 1995, Marcel van der Peijl wrote: > Ecash itself is less > prone to abuse than paper bank notes, because privacy is "one-way," > which means that an extortionist, a seller on a black-market, or the > acceptor of a bribe is forever vulnerable to being irrefutably > incriminated by the party that paid them. Now, I'm not sure of this, but as far as I can see, if I was a blackmailer wanting to receive an untraceable payment I could do the following : I create my ecash serial number/hash I blind it with a random number I send it to the payer Payer blinds it again and sends it to the bank Bank signs it and returns it Payer removes their blinding and returns the result to me I remove my blinding and send it to the bank for payment with no chance of being traced. Will this work ? Mark

1 0

Re: RC4
by Wolfgang Roeckelein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, >I wasn't aware that you could copyright an algorithm. Patent, yes, but not >copyright. Intellectual property meens secret, right? Aren't there any >precendence cases involving propriety schemes that are reverse engineered? Game cartridges (I think sega was involved) Wolfgang --- Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Inf. Voice: +49 261 6509 173 Wolfgang Roeckelein Fax: +49 261 6509 179 WHU Koblenz E-Mail: roeckelein(a)wi.whu-koblenz.de Burgplatz 2 (NeXTmail ok) D-56179 Vallendar WWW: http://www.whu-koblenz.de/~wolfgang/ Germany --rsa--------------------------------8<------------------------------------- #!/usr/local/bin/perl -s-- -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-in-3-lines-PERL ($k,$n)=(a)ARGV;$m=unpack(H.$w,$m."\0"x$w),$_=`echo "16do$w 2+4Oi0$d*-^1[d2% Sa2/d0<X+d*La1=z\U$n%0]SX$k"[$m*]\EszlXx++p|dc`,s/^.|\W//g,print pack('H*' ,$_)while read(STDIN,$m,($w=2*$d-1+length($n||die"$0 [-d] k n\n")&~1)/2) -------------------------------------8<------------------------------------- TRY: echo squeamish ossifrage | rsa -e 3 7537d365 | rsa -d 4e243e33 7537d365 Residents of the USA & France *MUST NOT* include this .sig if following up! *** Residents of France & Russia *MUST NOT* make any use of this -sig ! ***

2 1