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Re: Telephone switch capacity -Reply
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:43 PM 11/3/95 -0800, Rich Graves wrote: > Of course the FBI doesn't have the staff to listen to all these lines, and > they need an individual court order to authorize each individual > interception, so this numbers game is a bit of a joke. This is false: The FBI is legally authorized to intercept phone lines by court order "or other lawful authority". >From the money it would seem that "other lawful authority" intercepts vastly exceed court ordered intercepts. You will recall the vast outcry in the liberal lapdog press when this vast new power was given to them -- You don't recall it?! Neither do I. This is one of the many vast extensions of government power that we see come down at a steadily increasing rate, to the accompaniment of total silence from a compliant and submissive mass media. > There is no controversy about the number of wiretaps that have been > authorized, except as manufactured by the Spotlight folks and other > conspiracy loons. If the only taps are court ordered wiretaps, it would seem we are paying about half a million to a million dollars per wire tap, which is a shade expensive even for government work. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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The Crypto Applications we would rather not talk about
by anon-remailer＠utopia.hacktic.nl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous remailer and PGP Unusual applications I dont know if anyone else caught it last year but High Times discovered anonymous remailers and PGP for an article last year for anonymous remote control of grow rooms. PGP Wins again? and lately the thule people(bigoted and racist Nazis) have been learning to protect themselves also according to news reports from germany. Crypto and Privacy tools protect everyone from the hero to the anti-hero... the technology itself is neutral I wonder how long it will be before we hear news reports of some of the governments people being caught using internet casinos from the white house network. On other notes CCCF(the chaos computer club France) was shown to have had a high level plant from the french intel services, The founder of the CCCF himself. this story seems to repeat itself over and over when you are doing something of which the authorities DONT approve they WILL attempt to infiltrate and subvert from the inside. The answers are there and have been published in most books on tradecraft, 3 person cells organized as pyramids. Anonymous remail tech and crypto make this system possible with out Face to face contact. When does this lesson finally get learned? anon

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Re: Video as a source of randomness
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:51 PM 11/4/95, Bill Stewart wrote: >Pointing the camera at a snowy TV or out the window or at a cat playing >with catnip can generate much more randomness if you need it. Which would make that "dev/cat," right? --Klaus!

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Re: on topic!!
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:17 PM 11/4/95 -0800, VZNuri wrote: >if there were two key elements here, these conversations would probably >largely go away (instead of continually reappear) >- an unambiguous charter >- an active moderator > >unfortunately I suspect that a moderator does exist but he "prefers >to remain anonymous" ("pseudonymous"?). imho that is precisely >how *not* to succeed as a moderator. As an alternative, there was the Cypherwonks list, which worked just that way, and such conversations did rapidly go away :-) What's evolved here instead are a couple of filtered lists, such as cp-lite, where you can get the conversations that one or another monitor considers relevant instead of the whole firehose. It seems to work reasonably well for a lot of people. #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #---

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Re: consumer products that make nice sources
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:46 PM 11/3/95, Brad Dolan wrote: >The tag on my Montana Sunshine Radon Mine radon pillow is a little blurred. >I think the following is the right phone number. > >Sunshine Mine is an amusing concept. People pay money to go breathe radon >there, while others are spending much money avoiding radon. > >Anyway, the pillows make nice sources and good conversation pieces. I'd say they make poor sources. Far too large. A smaller source has better access to the detector without adding much to the overall background the user is exposed to. (I'm not saying low-level uranium or thorium sources are much of a hazard, but the fluence presented at the detector is very low for such an extended source.) It depends on the detector type (alpha, beta, gamma, neutrino?), but high count rates can be obtained in a variety of ways. (Don't get too high a count rate, or the dead time characteristics of the pulse-height analyzers will introduce spurious correlations that decrease entropy--I mention this to show that even radiation detector sources of entropy have non-random issues to take into account.) --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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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Re: The Crypto Applications we would rather not talk about
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:00 AM 11/5/95, Nathan Loofbourrow wrote: > > The answers are there and have been published > > in most books on tradecraft, 3 person cells organized > > as pyramids. > >I've read only fictional accounts about the 3-person cell. Any >pointers to nonfiction material? "Tradecraft" didn't seem to be the >magic keyword in the local card catalog. It's easy to work out the relationships from first principles...I'm not sure what a book would add to your understanding. I suspect Kahn's "The Codebreakers" contains at least a brief mention of cell organizations, thought that was not Kahn's focus. Or, look at any of the various books on Soviet spy rings in the U.S., or various spy rings in WW II. For example, I think the true-life book "I Led Three Lives" might still be available--it was the basis of a t.v. show I used to watch in the early 60s. (The t.v. show presumably went to the same Politically Incorrect resting place as "Amos and Andy," mourned by Sapphire, The Kingfish, and me.) --Tim Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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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Re: ADDRESS DATABASE? (fwd)
by Charles Gimon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From toad.com!owner-cypherpunks Thu Dec 14 17:36:57 1995 > Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 14:50:19 -0800 (PST) > From: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort(a)crl.com> > > So far, no one has come up with anything stronger than specula- > tion about my database question. Some "anonymous" told me how > easy it was to buy *phone numbers* on CD-ROMs. Great, but I > didn't give the guy my phone number. > It was probably a shrewd guess on the part of the phone peon, combined with a fresh database from the telephone company. Are there many people in your zip code with the same last name as yourself? If not, that pretty much answers your question right there. When you pull a credit report from TRW's database, the only information TRW needs is the first four (?) letters of the last name, the initial of the first name, the numeric part of the address, the first character of the street name, and the zip code. I'll leave it to the experts in information theory to explain that in rigorous technical detail. Given only a last name and a zip code, I wouldn't be surprised if you found the proper individual most of the time. (If you're in Minnesota and you're looking for Swenson in 55419, you may need more info, but not much.) Another anecdote to add to the pile: I moved to a new apartment last May. For various reasons, I got an unlisted number, and had my credit card bills and magazine subscriptions sent to a mail drop (MBE). The phone, gas, electric and cable bills went to the new apartment, not to the mail drop. I didn't get any junk mail at the new apartment until a couple of weeks ago--right after I changed my subscription to Byte to come here (now I'm getting AOL disks, etc.). Before that, I got no junk mail here (except from the phone or cable company). I get almost no telemarketing calls; I used to get at least one a night with a listed phone number. My experience appears to be that credit card and magazine companies sell lists; utility and cable companies don't. Mass mailers must not get unlisted number customers on the lists they get from the phone company. Again, this is only from my experience, all disclaimers apply. And all this has no relevance whatsoever when you bring the government into the picture. Crypto relevance? Well, I did mention information theory...

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Re: And the standard continues to lower...
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:17 PM 12/13/95 -0600, you wrote: >Dr. Brian L. Crissey includes in his .sig, courtesy of cactus(a)hks.net >[ much WRT YetAnotherSecureInternetCreditCardPaymentSystem(*tm) deleted ] >> ***Dr. Brian L. Crissey, Chair CS Dpt, Linfield Col., McMinnville, OR 97128 >> (503)-434-2426 brianc(a)linfield.edu >> Professionals built the Titanic, amateurs built the Ark... > >However, the Ark was *designed* by GOD (if you believe the story). Can Dr. >Brian L. Crissey say the same thing about his payment system? He seems to think so... He is so assured as to the security of his system. I am going to ask if I can post his challenge he made to me in private e-mail here. He needs to be taught some basics in security. (I do not have the proper hardware to subvert his scheme. I do have some other ways of subverting it, but that would be telling... (I occasionally assist with the web server on Teleport. Changing his script to collect information would not be difficult...)) I will see if he will let me forward his e-mail to the list. (I will also check with the webmistress on Teleport before I do... She might get pissed if I turned the people on the list onto Teleport's server.) | What is the Eye in the Food Pyramid? | alano(a)teleport.com | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmerman unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | <fnord> |

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BosniaLINK
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

URL: http://www.dtic.dla.mil/bosnia/ BosniaLINK Banner Welcome to BosniaLINK, the official Department of Defense information system about U.S. military activities in Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. This system is provided by the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. All information in BosniaLINK is publicly released information from the U.S. government or NATO headquarters. BosniaLINK contains operation maps, fact sheets, news releases, biographies of key commanders and leaders, and transcripts of briefings, speeches and testimony. It is also hyperlinked to the NATO and State Department information services. _________________________________________________________________ Contents * Maps (Dec 8) * Fact Sheets (Dec 12) * News Releases (Dec 15) * Photos (Dec 15) * Biographies of Key Commanders and Leaders (Dec 15) * Transcripts of Briefings (Dec 15) * Speeches and Testimony (Dec 15) _________________________________________________________________ RELATED SITES FOR BOSNIA INFORMATION Air Force Role in Bosnia NATO U.S. State Department: U.S. Policy on Bosnia Navy News Service: Bosnia Operations _________________________________________________________________ BosniaLINK is provided through the cooperative efforts of the Office of The Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), and the Defense Technical Information Center. This is a government computer system. _________________________________________________________________ DefenseLINK Home

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simple Unix CPU time quantization functions available
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've made available a simple CPU time quantization package that provides a simple interface to encapsulate code blocks that must run in a multiple of a coarse-grained "quantized" amount of CPU time. It is useful in building various on-line cryptographic protocols in which an attacker could otherwise learn key information by observing the time the target takes to perform calculations that use the secret (c.f., Paul Kocher's recent attacks). The basic idea is that you can specify a "quantum" such that at the end of an encapsulated block the CPU will busy-wait until the next quantum multiple. Fine-grained (below the quantum) timing information is thereby denied to the observer (including unprivileged processes on the same machine). The code is quick-and-dirty and only runs on Unix-centric platforms. Test and use at your own risk. There are (basically) no restrictions on the use or distribution of the (very simple) code. Get it from: ftp://research.att.com/dist/mab/quantize.shar The quantize package is also part of Jack Lacy's cryptolib package (watch this space for details). -matt

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