- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: VISA Electronic Purse
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>Gosh, how many Real Men are going to carry an electronic "purse?" > >Probably the same number of Real Women that are going to carry an >electronic "wallet". > >Eric Most women I know carry a "wallet" in their "purse".

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Re: Hack Microsoft?
by todd＠lgt.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ray scribes: > Microsoft recently got C2-security status approved for Windows NT by >the National Computer Security Center, a division of the NSA. They >are supposed to put systems through "laborious testing and review" before >they approve C2. Not so laborious, the brunt of C1 and C2 testing is accomplished by a test suites that do topical levels only. The issue is that there is a NCSC engineer watching it happen. Hence if oit passes it is "blessed". As per the orange book itself, C2 is about the lowest level of "Secure" that you can get. In fact if Microsoft had gone to the trouble of a B1 or B2 rating this would have been impressive but since most systems analysts have not been familiarized with the levels of system accounting and access control/logging that represents the various levels of "Orange Book" Rating it is somewhat superfluous. >So, if one can find bugs in NT's security, one can >toss a little more egg on the NSA's face and the sham that part of >their activies to *help* to secure american computers. A simple >violation of NT's C2 status would be to demostrate a flaw in it's >memory protection implementation. >Personally, I think NT is >*riddled* with bugs waiting to be discovered. Hell, even the >NT "service pack" is included in the C2 status, which I bet >has plenty of holes. No Doubt; NT should be easily hacked in the upcomming months by any number of mortals let alone the gods themselves. What UNIX has that NT doesn't (which makes it more vuknerable to attack) is 20 more years of evolution, More copies, everybody knows it (at least in our group)... As per NT's orange book C2 Rating... C2 is about the lowest level of Secure that you can get. In fact I personally am unimpressed, rather it is a box on an RFQ that gets checked Very few people run C anything sites in reality. If Microsoft had gone to the trouble of a B1 or B2 rating this would have been cool but since most system's analysts have not been familiarized with the levels of system accounting and access control/logging that represents the various levels of "Orange Book" Rating it is somewhat superfluous. This is especially true since the Folks at the FRB and FDIC/FSLIC orgaizations are more likely to require B2 or the like on the National Standards for "blessed" commerce Engines (I wonder what the FSTC has to say about this?). Seems to me like the "Evil Empire" is just puffing it's chest for a very very small market... IMHO - Military sites passing real classified data usually are not run on anything as low as C2. If you want a secure os, look at the Harris Computer Corp's B1-Certified version of ES/MP UNIX (they call it CX/SX). FOUO - For Official Use Only sites often run C1/C2 based OS's for Audit training but are usually not part of the Trusted Computing Base and as such not real threats. Still the most common problem is human not the OS. Not the actual OS itself,. > > If Cypherpunks can find flaws that the NSA can't, or won't divulge, >what does that say about their so-called COMSEC ability. Not necessarily on the NSA, you have to start somewhere and they do a good job as far as NIST and NCSC efforts are concerned. If you can do better then you have a good career in commercial cracking or will have lots of time on your hands (Federal Food is the Pits, and the golf course is gone from Lompoc!). > >-Ray > > > > Regards, T. S. Glassey Chief Technologist Looking Glass Technologies todd(a)lgt.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQB1AwUBMFu5E6gNRnWhagU5AQHI+gL+Mwpcd3lAWd8FF06qcG6rnLhIYveHW71a XC7xh1T0uu8qnYX31yMp17OG28jWpKUbWec1IM9/eXOi+gInA7rKICWczV8zo9Z0 0puxjRRN7yO4KfRb3cPpk+r0p6pDg01Y =bTYb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: SSL search attack
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:25 9/1/95, Daniel R. Oelke wrote: >> >> I see nothing wrong with the concept of being allocated an initial chunk >> and having the scan software attempt to ACK it when 50% of it has been >> searched. A successful ACK would allow the releasing of a new chunk (in >> response) equal in size to the returned chunk. A failure of the Server to >> accept the ACK would trigger a retry at set intervals (such as 75% and 100% >> or 60/70/80/90/100%) until the Server responds. Thus the scanner is always >> in possession of a Full Sized Chuck to scan (so long as the Server accepts >> an ACK before the 100% done mark) and temporary failures will not stop the >> process of a scanner as currently happens. >> > >The only way this can work is if the server is told it is a 50%/75%/etc >size ACK, and then latter the server is ACKed for the full 100%. > >Why? Because what happens if the client dies immediately after doing >the ACK - maybe only 51% of that space has been searched, yet >the server has already seen an ACK for it. I thought that the ACK gives starting location and number of segments. If I get 500 segments and ACK at the 50% point I am sending an ACK for the Starting Point and 250 Segments (the unprocessed part would then ACK Start+250 for 250 when done) Just as of I had only gotten 250 in the first place and was also given the next 250 Segment Chunk (ie: I was "Next Requester" after my original allocation of 250). >IMO - a % ACK is to much complexity and extra work on the server, >which is already having trouble keeping up. No - It is the same load if you allow the first request to be twice the size of the subsequent requests. If you ask people to request 30 minutes worth of segments, there is no difference in load (if the Server responds to each ACK when first attempted) if they start each run with a 1 hour chunk (ie: 2X Chunk) and check in every 30 min to ACK a Chunk (and to get the one to be worked on in a half an hour [and when you are 30 minutes away from your shut down time, just ACK and do not request another chunk]) and just getting a X sized chunk at your initial connection. In the 2X method, you still have a X sized Chunk to work on for the next 30 Minutes if the Server is ignoring your ACK attempt (and when that Chunk has been scanned you return both and get two more). This is hitting the Server once every 30 minutes and NOT pounding away at it until you get an ACK through (and more get more work) since you have no need for another chunk immediately (as you would with the X sized Chunk every 30 minutes method) and thus have no need to retry on a connect failure.

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Re: Cypherpunks Press release
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I guess you all know how much I hate this "who will be our spokesman?" thread, but my opinion has been explicitly asked, so I will again comment. Hopefully, adding a few new points. At 6:55 AM 9/26/95, Craig Hubley wrote: >Damn fine idea, but how do a bunch of (p)anarchists choose a mouthpiece ? >Should we assign someone to be 'our' lawyer ? > >I'd volunteer to be 'spokespunk', I've certainly been interviewed for TV and >print enough, and know how to handle and present myself to the press, but if >this is considered an 'honor' rather than a 'pain in the ass and potential >legal lightning rod' then I'd like to suggest someone with a longer pedigree >who has been writing more code lately take it on. Tim ? I've turned down several recent chances for interviews, for these reasons: 1. I feel the people doing the work should be interviewed, not just someone who has some visibility (whatever mine might be). If PGP is the issue, then they should talk to those working on PGP. If anonymous remailers are the issue, etc. If, by some chance, they are interested in things I have directly worked on or written extensively about, then maybe they should interview me. (Although for other reasons I refused to have my name attached to the cover story in "Information Week" about "Internet Theft," BlackNet, etc.) 2. Location, location, location! The media foci are Washington, New York, and San Francisco, at least for our area of interest. Occasional forays into Austin, Miami, L.A., etc. This is where the taped interviews are done. Several "crews" recently in SF wanted "sound bites" and "video bites" from people like me. I refused, pointing out the wastefullness of my time in driving 100 miles over mountain roads to SF, fighting parking problems, waiting around, and ending up with a 7.89 second clip of me saying something scripted. (In February I stupidly agreed to travel to LA for a filming of a BBC show about encryption. Left at dawn, drove to San Jose, flew to LA, took shuttle to Hollywood, waited around for several hours while crew finished taping Alvin and Heidi Toffler, set up my laptop, was interviewed by show's producer, agreed at her repeated prodding to say "I am a Cypherpunk." Got back to my house at midnight. Guess what they used? The stupid line "I am a Cypherpunk" and maybe about 20 seconds of other random comments. This is what we face, as other high tech shows I see have the same disjointed, out-of-context flavor.) The point? These "journalists" are tuned to looking for catchy quotes, all the more so on video than in print. Text journalists can handle complex themes much better than video reporters can, for many and oft-discussed reasons. (Even more disgusting than this was a more recent appearance of a BBC film crew at a Cypherpunks meeting. They wanted to "stage" the news, to have the meeting discuss a 2-year-old topic, because that's what their script called for. I got up and left, as did several other people. I haven't seen this BBC show, but I gather from a URL that this is the one that has "performance art" examples of crypto....) Any "spokesman" needs to be easily accessible when they need a "filler quote," or a "reaction quote." However: 3. THERE IS NO SPOKESMAN, THERE IS NO CENTRAL OFFICE, THERE IS NO BOARD OF DIRECTORS! With no organization, no office, no coordination, we cannot "feed the media machine" the way it expects to be fed. Nor can we "elect" such folks. I didn't help start this list--not that this gives me more moral sway--in order that J. Random Volunteer will start speaking for "our beliefs" or will start explaining "our goals" and "our plans." Far better that journalists like Steven Levy and John Markoff subsribe to the list, or to condensations by people like Eric Blossom, and then deal directly with the experts in some area. Thus, on the latest Netscape flaw, they would contact Ray Cromwell directly, not deal with the press releases written by J. Random Volunteer. Anarchy is part of our charm. More importantly, part of our theme. Face it, we don't have a press office, we don't have staffing, and--most importantly--there is no one out there who speaks for me. A spokesman for the Cypherpunks is an oxymoron. --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Insecurity in WWW oriented security
by Tim Scanlon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wanted to share an experience with folks on the list that points to the relavince of what c'punks have been doing looking at the Web encryption & security issues like we have. I was approached by a headhunter yesterday who wanted me to do the security for a hospital connected to the net. Straightforward stuff one would think. My inital reaction was fairly positive, and I responded that I didn't think I would have much trouble with the task as long as they had a resonable setup internaly etc. etc. (I'm not a big beliver in hard & crunchy -> soft & chewey when your accounting or other critical data is part of what can be chewed up...) Well at that point it got interesting. He told me that said client was asking as a part of their requirments that they be able to do "Secure transactions using HTML & Netscape". My reaction was somwehere allong the lines of "What do they mean by `secure transactions'!! Are they aware that the state of encryption for WWW is really poor at best right now? I told him that I thought this might not be such a hot idea, and that my interest in this whole thing would hinge totaly upon exactly what sorts of transactions they wanted to do using web servers and the like. And that depending on the answer to that, I would or would not be intrested in the whole thing. The reason for my hesitation? I don't want blood on my hands over a setup that is by definition currently in a state of very poor security. And right now I have no idea if they want to transfer MasterCard's or MRI's. But I do know that depending on what it is they're planning, it might not be a place *I* want to be. Besides being damned frightening, this points to a trend in network evolution. Organizations are planning these sorts of moves and utilizations of the technology with little thought to the possible consequences of it. And if the FBI ends up busting some psyco in the future for tampering with the transactions of MRI data, x-rays, or any of a million other possibilities, I seriously doubt that Loius Freeh will be stepping forward to remind us all of the need for robust security. Instead, it is far more likely that he would argue that it was another example of the need for increased monitoring of the internet and controls on cryptographic solutions. I found aspects of the whole conversation, juxtaposed with what has been going on lately with the list chilling to say the least. Tim Scanlon ________________________________________________________________ tfs(a)vampire.science.gmu.edu (NeXTmail, MIME) Tim Scanlon George Mason University (PGP key avail.) Public Affairs I speak for myself, but often claim demonic possession

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SAIC in MD
by anonymous＠freezone.remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

URL: http://www.saic.com/business/locations/md.html **** Business Directory **** _________________________________________________________________ SAIC IN MARYLAND * Abingdon + Abingdon/Continental Drive (Loc. 591) * Annapolis + Annapolis/TRG (Loc. 178) + Annapolis/WOR (Loc. 241) * Baltimore + Baltimore/White Marsh (Loc. 221) * Bethesda + Bethesda/CHCS (Loc. 498) * California + California/SCT (Loc. 827) * Columbia + Columbia/Ideas Group (Loc. 905) + Columbia/MSO (Loc. 473) + Columbia/SSIG (Loc. 315) * Fort Ritchie + Ft. Ritchie (Loc. 700) * Frederick + Frederick (Loc. 519) + Frederick/FCRDC (Loc. 970) + Frederick/PAI (Loc. 512) + Frederick/PAI Amin. Office (Loc. 575) + Frederick/Spectrum Drive (Loc. 750) * Gaithersburg + Gaithersburg/Professional Drive (Loc. 134) + Gaithersburg/QUINCE DIAMOND (Loc. 725) + Gaithersburg/UTILITY SVCS (Loc. 555) * Germantown + Germantown/Century Blvd. (Loc. 292) + Germantown/BELLEMEADE III (Loc. 854) * Hagerstown + Hagerstown/DTG (Loc. 652) * Hanover + Hanover/Ashton Road (Loc. 745) * Joppatowne + Joppatowne/SAIC (Loc. 220) + Joppatowne/TDG (Loc. 303) * Lanham + Maryland/SYNTONIC (Loc. 860) * Laurel + Laurel/GSC (Loc. 661) * Rockville + Rockville/ NSI (Loc. 953) * Silver Spring + Silver Spring/ADELPHI (Loc. 908) + Silver Spring/WHITE OAK (Loc. 563) * Towson + Towson/JHK (Loc. 803) * Westminister + Westminister/RE WRIGHT (Loc. 930) _________________________________________________________________ Copyright SAIC Home _________________________________________________________________ Last updated on 09-07-95

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

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart compared the PR of RPK New Zealand's crypto to Peter Gutmann's claims for NZ export controls. This contrast confirms the report a few days back that any commercial crypto product that receives export approval from any country is probably compromised notwithstanding the manufacturer's claims otherwise. Not that it's news here, but this appears to be the unpublished requirement for granting of approvals, case by case. Either cooperate or face indefinite delays. As Peter noted some time ago, this is what he was running into when he could not get a clear answer about NZ regulations, and parallels reports of similar experiences in the US, UK and other countries. There is a similar current thread on UK Crypto about the difficulty of getting a straight answer about crypto policy from HMG while observing the success of cooperating crypto manufacturers. It will be interesting to see how hard Congress pushes in the new session to expose what the Administration is up to behind BXA's closed doors in contrast to open accounts. And, what will be revealed (and concealed) bit by bit from the horse-trading of the Bernstein, Karn and Junger cases.

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Re: FSTC - Request for Info
by John Curran 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:05 AM 9/2/95, Todd Glassey, Chief Technologist, Looking Glass Technologies wrote: >Hi all, > I am now looking for pointers into this mystical coonsortium of financial >wizards... A good place to start is the FSTC WWW pages: http://www.llnl.gov/fstc /John

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Re: A problem with anonymity
by David Murray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 05:15 PM 9/1/95 -0700, you wrote: >At 10:45 AM 9/2/95, David Murray wrote: >>[Akerlof, if I remember my economics right (and I am confident that I will >>be corrected if I don't) analysed a market for used cars. ... >>... So the only cars for sale would be lemons :-)] > >I haven't encountered this example, but it clearly misses some important >real-world issues. ... >Like a lot of simple game-theoretic models, the application to the real >world is quite different. True. But it does make the point that, in a perhaps surprising way, the bad can drive out the good. [I certainly don't want to get into any kind of normative v. postive methodological debate.] The lesson is not that "You can never find a decent used car", but that, in a market with particular characterisics (particularly with regard to what information is available to whom), lemons drive out the good. This just means that owners of good used cars offer them for sale in a market where pre-purchase checks are possible, etc.. But this is to concentrate on the example, not on the substance... >But I certainly agree that crypto will reignite interest in analyses of >such game theory questions. Another way of viewing anonymity vs. >non-anonymity is that knowing the True Name of a party with whom one trades >is just _one element_ of a transaction. By no means is it essential. I guess I was using True Name somewhat unusually. I didn't mean "True Name= state approved unique identifier of a human being" so much as "True Name<> easily discardable/transferrable/sellable digital pseudonym". I certainly did not mean to imply that net.commerce is impossible, or that it would only take place on the basis of True Names, however defined. Rather I was commenting that one pervasive feature of non-net.commerce is the ability to track down someone that owes you something and sue them/beat it out of them. You can't do this to a digital pseudonym. As you rightly pointed out, you can't do this to someone who escapes to South America, or to the guy who runs the market stall that won't be there tomorrow. So you take a bond, or you take your chances. I still think that, because of the (perfect) ease with which net.rep's are transferrable/cash-in-able, the chances you take in the digital domain are so much higher as to be (almost?) qualatatively different. >>If you can't rely on the unsecured promise of a digital pseudonym, and you >>can't accept reputation as 'security', how do you extend credit? > >I am willing to extend some amound of credit to PrOduct Cypher, Black >Unicorn, etc., based on their past reputation and on the fact that I can >show to others the transactions into which their pseudonyms entered and >thus expose them if they default. Now _how much_ I'm willing to extend is >of course a more complicated issue, but the principal is still there: a >purely digital pseudonym, with no possibility of being tied to a True Name, >can still be extended credit....I just said I would do so. This would, of course, allow PrOduct Cypher (for example) to cash in on hir rep. [Hir - never thought I'd see myself use it: ughhhhhhh <shiver>]. But, unlike the unscrupulous stall owner, who would have to sell the gold watch before he decamped, PC could sell hir rep before the rip-off had been done. This would be a sort of division of labour - rep-builders and rep-exploiters. In cybersapce, you could never tell whether you were dealing with the rep builder (buying a good car) or a rep exploiter (buying a lemon). Yes the rep-exploitation would be a one-shot thing. Within seconds of the sting PC's name would be mud. [And, yes, you could probably tell whether it was one of those two you were dealing with - if it asked for credit, it wouldn't be 'corn or 'pher :-)] But it is the _possibility_ of the scam that would shape the market. By the way, my final question was not rhetorical. I _do_ think methods of extending credit to pseudonyms will be developed. I just think they will be based on (possibly new) types of security interest. An old type of security interest (perhaps the oldest) could be used right away - the pledge. If Bob Pseudonymous pledges $100 worth of digital certificates, I would be glad to lend him $100 (well, perhaps $80 - gotta secure the interest:-) Cryptography might develop other ways of protecting the interests of creditors, while preserving the anonymity of debtors. In fact, I'm certain it will. And I'm just as sure the law/mercantile practice will assist in the process. And like you, I believe it is not only possible, but preferable, that this is done without the interevention/'assistance' of the state. Cheers, Dm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMEftjllo3j8JHzalAQE1OwP+IQTX2hUfJXI8Q7ojgFcKbnvxRLngSyDp rLm0wjZvMoiLwCqwhqn6F3ypTJBD0pS1ZT7ql+rnnEsYtQ75Xu0iJFbnnIY4whNh gB1plcImYms88Rt7VEuCjHZeAMHcV3tPZL9DHQVHZXMwqWKCeyBaImVaEosJTwZj IuZ4HHCi+GE= =V7vf -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: A problem with anonymity
by terrell＠sam.neosoft.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >Subject: Re: A problem with anonymity >From: monty.harder(a)famend.com (MONTY HARDER) > >TC> This is one thing that _bonding_ is designed to partially ameliorate. One >TC> posts a bond which is greater than the amount being carried, or at least is > > A variation of a bond is an escrow agent.... > > Overload Alert: I use "escrow" here in the more mundane sense of > the folks who collect your real estate taxes and homeowners' > insurance from you 1/12th at a time along with your mortgage > payment, for instance. > > If the buyer has a =nonymous= agent to recieve the payment, which is >only released to the seller upon proof(s) of performance (whether in >lump sum or on a schedule of staged payments tied to specific milestones >in a long-term project) then the buyer has someone to go after in the >event of such shenannigans. > >TC> There are still scams and manouvers to thwart this reputation capital >TC> scheme. The agent planning to "defect" (default, split, abscond, renege, >TC> etc.) can try to pile up as many pending transactions as possible, >TC> anticipating that the various transactees will be unaware of each other. > > And the escrow method dynamically scales to meet this threat, whereas >the bond is static. > > Of course, the escrow agent will extract his pound of flesh, just as >any other form of insurance. Such is the nature of life. > Actually, you guys are trying to repeat the whole history of the law merchant (today's commercial law). The basic problem was how can a buyer in one city acquire goods from a seller in another through agents acting at a distance when neither knows the other and neither is willing to risk loss on the transaction. The use of bankers, as either trusted or bonded third parties, acting as escrowees under the control of a letter of credit was the result. Buyer, B, deposits money with the bank, E, with insructions to release the money on proof of receipt of the goods. E gives B a receipt and a written promise to pay. B trades the promise to pay to Seller, S, in exchange for the goods. S, who either trusts E or has access to his bond, is willing to accept E's promise to pay, which he then negotiates. The result is that B and S have a secure transaction without trusting each other, and E gets rich. Notice, we don't care about the reputation or identity of either B or S, and a very few trusted or bonded Es can facilitate many many transacrions. Incidentially, you all are using the word "escrow" correctly. An escrow is an arrangement in which property is deposited with an escrowee to hold until the happening or failure of a contingency, at which time he delivers the property according to the escrow instructions. House sales, in which the seller deposits a deed and the buyer deposits the purchase price pending proof of title is only one kind of escrow. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Buford C. Terrell South Texas College of Law 1303 San Jacinto, Houston, TX 77002 (713)646-1857 terrell(a)sam.neosoft.com +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

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