- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re:
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Conrad wrote: >Could they write code that could fabricate notes from giberish? >What if you encrypted a love letter and they 'decrypted' a drug deal? > That would be rather easy to acomplish with a secret algorithm. Still possible, but not quite as easy with a published one. I am sure it will be done. >Also, on the national ID card issue, I was involved in bar codes >(machine readable labels) and came across really small (grain of >rice sized) transponders with ID number encoded. These could then be >machine (transducer) readable. They were glass coated and had >various industrial applications. I have since read that they have >implanted them in pets to identify them if they run away. Next step >would be implanting them in people. You would then have an absolute >way to ID people (short of surgery). > I think this is the real problem that awaits us. While I do not believe that society is quite ready for it to be broadly deployed, I think that it inevitably will happen. First to monitor conviced criminals (to make sure that rapist really stays away from schools), then children (in case they get abduced), soon afterwards everyone else. And you know what? The public will _ask_ for it. Picture of happy shopper. "Citibank transducer (TM). Now nobody can use my account without my knowledge and best of all -- I don't have to remember to bring a card. I can't understand why not everyone is doing it." Jingle. -- Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> PGP public key by finger

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Cypherpunks = soc.women.... ?
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Newsweek cover on sexism on the Net may have basis; there may be a need to discuss these issues; an occassional post on the subject may be useful on this list -- but 40k? Please move this to soc.women.attitudes or alt.fan.true-lies or something. Funny. Our resident editor, Perry, is usually pretty quick on the draw with scathing "what's this to do with crypto" messages. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Re: Voice/Fax Checks
by Pierre Uszynski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A couple of pointers on current outfits trying to undercut the "transaction cost", none of them the ultimate we all root for, but nonetheless. hfinney(a)shell.portal.com writes > Robert Hettinga writes: > > >I've gotten stuck on > >exactly how to "*undercut*" the transaction costs of existing methods. Got > >any ideas? > > It's pretty clear that credit cards don't work for some of the transactions > people want to do: > [...] > It's not that easy for a mail-order shoestring startup to get the ability to > accept VISA cards. Because of the danger of fraud, the credit card companies > like to see a storefront and/or some previous history. Someone who writes a > nifty PGP shell and wants to sell it for $10 per will have this problem. It's actually getting easier. Small card service outfits have noticed the problem. They have looked at the danger of fraud, and when accepting a new company, still conduct a sufficient investigation (so they claim :-). They have also looked at the way small outfits operate. The result is that it seems it is now possible for "home businesses" like BBS's or software sellers to get cheaper service than store fronts. It comes out to something like $25 a month + 2.5-3% per charge ($0.20 minimum per charge, $25 minimum per month) + equipment, roughly, for VISA and Mastercard. As an example, in the San Francisco area, try ... errr... <grumble>... (Darn it, I buried that guy's card... try the phone book :-) > 3) People who don't like giving out their credit card numbers to an unknown > email address. Or to a small random unknown business... Which is a problem even if everybody could accept VISA, as you mentioned. Others already mentioned on the list the 1-900 phone based "netcash" <shrug> service described in July 1994 Boardwatch Magazine. You call the 900 number with your modem, you get a random string for it, and your phone company bills you $10 (info at netbank-info(a)agents.com) You then can get change (down to $0.25 strings), do on-line validation of transactions, and eventually redeem the strings, minus a 20% redemption fee. In addition to that one service, I already heard of two others that cater in particular to BBS's, similar system where you get billed $10 for a 900 call, and get a random string to use as a voucher. These two don't let you "get change" or any similar facility, but they let small businesses get rid of the "collection" process, for a fee. In all these cases, the fee is around 20-25%, so there may be space for competition (I don't have the coordinates for these, just know where to ask). That was/is actually the strong point of the French Minitel system (as much as I can't stand that piece of plastic ****): Minitel services are accessed (mostly) through 900 style numbers, and France Telecom handles all the billing and collection for the Minitel service providers, allowing charges as low as 7 cents per call to a service (most are much higher, WAY higher). We already discussed the "phone check" idea, even Western Union advertised it, and maybe even provides it :-) Clearly all these systems have disadvantages, and are some way from what some of us want, but they show that the current "billing" services are not standing still, and are working on this access barrier to credit card payment. Clearly too, they don't seem to be working in the direction we want. Pierre. pierre(a)shell.portal.com

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Re: Card Playing Protocol? (fwd)
by Arsen Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 01:19:02 -0400 (GMT+4:00) From: Arsen Ray Arachelian <rarachel(a)prism.poly.edu> To: "Roy M. Silvernail" <roy(a)sendai.cybrspc.mn.org> Subject: Re: Card Playing Protocol? On Wed, 20 Jul 1994, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: > The effect could be different. I use i there because I want to traverse > the deck from one end to the other, and exchange each card with a > randomly selected card from the unprocessed remainder. This algorithm > goes back to my 8-bit days, when speed was everything. Although some > cards might be handled twice (probably about 35%, but I haven't done the > math), each position in the deck is filled only once (except the last > one, which is forced from the other 53). > > A card in position X will, in its turn, be moved to a random position > between itself and one end of the deck. But that card is also subject > to being 'picked from behind' when an earlier card is exchanged. So any > given card may end up on either side of its beginning location. > > But I think there's something to what you're saying. I can't articulate > it, but I get a sense that the single-pass algorithm might have a > definable shape The issue is this: at the start a card has a 1/54 chance of being swapped with >ANY< card. The second card has a chance of 1/53 of being swapped with >ANY< card, the third, a chance of 1/52... the 50th card has a chance of 1/4, ... the 53rd card has a 1/2 chance of being swaped with the last card or remains in its place (swapped with itself.) So what I'm getting at is that the cards at one end of the deck have more "mobility" than the cards in the other end of the deck. The 1st cards have a more spread out distribution so they have LESS of a chance of being swapped out with the cards at the back of the deck. The cards at the back of the deck have a very tight space from which to be swapped. Therein lies the problem of sorting. As for SPEED, in the eight bit days, it would be faster to do a MOD with a CONSTANT number than with a variable. Why? Because the compiler can find ways of optimizing the MOD via right shifts and substractions rather than using repeated substraction alone. There was some challenge somewhere to come up with ways of dividing numbers via shifting and substraction some time ago. I'm sure the division for 54 is faster than a general integer divide by substraction. It's hard to figure out how to divide by 54 via shifting, however, it would do wonders for an eight bit machine. These days, some machines have integer/floating division right in the CPU that's just as fast or almost as fast. With FPU's, even faster than shifting. :-) Let's see... how do I break 54 down.... hmmm.. Okay, if we trash the jokers it becomes easier: 52/4 == 52>>2. This equals 13. Now 13 being a prime can't be divided... I guess this is one way of looking at the card value and stripping off the suite. However, having divided by 4, you saved yourself four times the work already. So you take your picked card C and substract C>>2 from it. If the result is positive, you've got a remainder to a division by 4. You then substract 13 until you would get a negative value if you did one more substraction. The left over value is the mod 54 (I think. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Anyhow, this is moot as you don't need to do this by hand anymore anyway.. :-) Besides, if you want to cheat a bit, you can always take lrand() &0x0000003F which would give you a range from 0 to 63, and if you should get a value larger than 53, you substract 54 from it. :-) Since all you want is a random number from 0 to 53, it doesn't much matter. I guarantee that this is faster than division on most of the common machines anyway. :-) > An interesting thought. Guessing a card's location is pretty tough, > though. I was thinking more of seasoned players noticing the absence of > patterns they had become accustomed to. I know I saw some definite > trends when I was an avid Cribbage player. Yes, but an AI could also be trained with these patterns. A neural network attached to a tracking engine that keeps track of his hand and guesses at his opponents hand and the "odds" of what cards can come up next against the odds of what he needs to win with isn't easy, but if done right, it can prove a formidable opponent for the beginer poker player. :-) It would be matched by seasoned players undoubtedly. However, what I'm getting to here is an automated digital cash paying/payed casio dealer. That is you could set up a telnet site where others can gamble against your computer. (I'll leave the legalities of this to others :-) If this machine is done the right way, even with mental poker and even if it can't cheat you, it's still a very good card shark. You could charge say, half a ghostmark or whatever per 10 games just to play, plus a minimum bet of one ghostmark per hand with doubling/raising/etc being allowed. Hell, if you really want to get sick, you can have the AI keep databases of the player's past patterns and how he ticks. Unless players use random anonymous packet bouncers, such AI's could be properly used to run a real cypherspace <g> casino. I'm sure if we look up some mobsters and give them this idea they'd be happy to implement it once digital cash appears in wide use. Of course we're talking about ten years in the future, or never if digi cash never makes it... Don't however think that this can't be done. There are chess games that "think" ahead. If programmed with the right set of fuzzy rules and given extensive databases as to the opponents past moves/prefrences/bluffs/etc, such an AI would be a great card shark. Of course our player may decide to write a better auto-player and have it play against another AI. :-) But hey, if we're going to have smart agents, their owners can be "backers" as there are for real gamblers out there already. :-) > In poker, each hand gets a fresh shuffle. Blackjack will exhaust the > deck to a certain point and then shuffle. Depending on the house, Yep.. the reason I asked was because in high school we played by almost no rules. We'd have games where the "odd" numbered cards were wild, picture cards wild, etc.... shit like that was common place... I guess it's bastardisation, but hey, it was fun and not for money. And we didn't reshuffle often. BTW: Idea to prevent dealer cheating while shuffling the deck: Alice Builds the deck from Ace of Spades to King o'Diamonds, encrypts it, shuffles it herself, passes it to Bob, who shuffles it again, and encrypts it, then passes it to Alice who picks her hand, etc. If the cards are shuffled between every hands, this would prevent an AI from keeping tack of the odds of unplayed cards.

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900 Mhz. cordless phone with encryption
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can anyone recommend a good 900 Mhz. cordless phone with some sort of voice encryption or scrambling? My most important objective is maximum range from the base unit, but I'd also like some privacy, too. Thanks.

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wanted SueDNym messages
by Arsen Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If you have copies of the posts posted by Sue D Nym, please pass them my way. I have a new toy I'm working on and I just fed it D*weiler's messages to it as archived by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. I'd like to feed it Sue's message and see what it comes up with. Also send any other suspected or actual D*weiler messages. BTW: This new toy is now in Alpha testing. It's called M E D U S A's T E N T A C L E S. (I'm deliberatly munging up the names with spaces and such to get around your kill files as I belive this program may be of use to you, especially if you have our friend Det in your kill file. (I feel like I can't say the name of demon for fear of summoning it. :-) This is more like for the fear of killing this message. <g>) Thanx for your time.... Ain't Fuzzy Logic Grand?

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Re: Schneier
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tim werner <vikram!werner(a)mc.ab.com>: > I ordered [Schneier's] book, when it first came out, from the local Borders book > store. When I went to pick it up, they told me that if I decided to buy it > I could not return it, since it was not a book that they would otherwise > not stock it > Today I was there checking out the computer books, and they had a copy on > the shelf, so I guess it was in enough demand that they decided to stock it. I found a few copies in a local bookshop the other day. When it first came out, I thought I'd have to order it, and was pleasantly surprised to find it already in stock. But then I buy books on discount from an academic distributor, so that was probably to be expected. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Re: Card Playing Protocol? (fwd)
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I thought of a simpler way to attack the blackjack protocol proposed by Karl, where the dealer shuffles the cards, commits to a hash, and then the player checks the hash at the end of the deck. Simply, this allows the dealer to stack the deck. He can put the cards in any order he wants, claiming he is shuffling them, commit to that, and the player will confirm that the hash matches at the end. Meanwhile the dealer wins every hand. So this won't do. An easy fix would be for the player and dealer to mutually choose a random seed for a PRNG that is then used in a specified algorithm to choose the cards of the deck. The dealer would commit to the hash of his part of the seed but would not reveal his part until after the deck is played out. The player's seed and the dealer's are then combined and the player can reconstruct the sequence of cards which should have been played. Again, this is only suitable for a one-dealer-one-player game since other- wise the dealer can collude with some subset of the players and tip them off to what cards are coming up. Hal

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Travelling ants
by Ben Goren 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A recent RISKS digest had an article that described a computer that simulated a colony of ants with independent software units that interacted in certain ways. The article said that the "ants" were able to find an efficient solution to the traveling salesman problem. Wouldn't such a system be perfect for a public key cryptosystem? It seems that mechanisms already designed for knapsack algorithms would work; it would remain to be worked out if the traveling salesman problem has the same cryptographic problems as the knapsack problem. b& -- Ben.Goren(a)asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music net.proselytizing (write for info): We won! Clipper is dead! BUT! Just say no to key escrow. And stamp out spamming, too. Finger ben(a)tux.music.asu.edu for PGP 2.3a public key. du says to finger remailer-list(a)chaos.bsu.edu and > that account does not exist. Chael Hall changed operating systems on chaos and hasn't reinstalled the finger thing yet. You can get the list by sending mail to mg5n+remailer-list(a)andrew.cmu.edu

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Travelling ants
by sglass＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Operating System: SunOS 4.1.3 Site: netcom4 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1796 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- | From: Ben Goren <ben(a)Tux.Music.ASU.Edu> | Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 10:24:48 -0700 (MST) | Subject: Travelling ants | | A recent RISKS digest had an article that described a computer that | simulated a colony of ants with independent software units that | interacted in certain ways. The article said that the "ants" were able to | find an efficient solution to the traveling salesman problem. I bought Rudy Rucker's Hacker and the Ants (0-688-13416-5) in May. Jerzy Rugby's an artificial life hacker who battles millions of "strange viral pests appearing from out of nowhere to wreak havoc throughout the net" in his quest for truly intelligent robots. I really enjoyed the story. Like Stephenson, Rucker makes cyberspace a blast. Recommended buy. Remember folks, don't allow 0xdef6 as the Godel sentence if you're into this kind of thing. | Wouldn't such a system be perfect for a public key cryptosystem? It seems | that mechanisms already designed for knapsack algorithms would work; it | would remain to be worked out if the traveling salesman problem has the | same cryptographic problems as the knapsack problem. I wonder if e$ fundraising could support grants to investigate good ideas? | b& Sheldon - -- sheldon glass | "... if you think ah *enjoy* steppin an fetchin an sglass(a)netcom.com | talkin this way, you crazy." #include <std.disclaimer> | finger for PGP key from _Wetware_ by Rudy Rucker -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLjFfPDl9PRHQ3ZZVAQHJvQP+ILCjhhJ8wixQum85yGzEVU8/R69ZGBXl RuOgLIIaVf/uajgl3B3/ILBRUR3n2W7iZpniTX4zQaTtkkcJPINE9iLHpVK+D0jK 40dkxeLP2q4Iz42NetBlvd4Ud+AXO5rl9lc1KUbOUY2O5SpEEV74XL72cNiXF0bd ESk0gUda4TU= =TOrZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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