- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Software vs Money Laundering
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:48 AM 9/13/95 -0400, John Young wrote: > Can artificial intelligence be used to combat crime by > ferreting out money laundering? Officials at law > enforcement, defense and intelligence agencies like to > think so. They have suggested creating a sophisticated > computer program to screen records of the more than > 700,000 electronic money transfers involving U.S. > institutions each day and to flag suspicious ones for > further investigation. By using AI, they hope to stop > some of the $300 billion in profits from drug deals and > other illegal activities that they estimate is laundered > world-wide each year. But in a report issued yesterday, > the congressional Office of Technology Assessment says > any such plan would face considerable obstacles. > [Cyberian Joel Reidenberg, an OTA advisor, is quoted.] > Not the least of which is that money launderers can use "AI Software" to generate a stream of real and dummy money transfers that emulates "normal" money transfers. Not to mention the fact that monopoly money transfer networks that can be surveilled by the Feds (FEDWIRE and SWIFT) are not long for this world. They will be replaced by encrypted, open, net-based systems. DCF "Yes Virginia, one *can* have an encrypted, open system. In fact, that's the best way to have an open system."

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Re: Scientology tries to break PGP - and
by ab411＠detroit.freenet.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Henry W. Farkas <hfarkas(a)ims.advantis.com> writes: >On Tue, 12 Sep 1995, S. Keeling wrote: > >> I would just like to point out that, when a LEA comes to you >> to get at the contents of your computer, (s)he is not going to >> patiently wait while your system wipes the offending evidence off your >> hard disk. ... >> they can work from the copy. Besides, you do have backup tapes laying >> around all over the place, don't you? > >They have to decrypt the file sometime if they want it's "contents". > >I use the -w option when encrypting. After encryption, the "dummy" file >(would be) embedded and the plaintext is wiped. ... And the idea is that on decrypting with the 'wrong' key, it outputs the dummy file rather than the real plaintext, correct? > ... Don't back up plaintext and what is the problem here? >Where will they get the "real" data from? What does it matter where the >decryption takes place? ... Why would they use your copy of the program to decrypt the file? They could just use a version that lacked this 'feature'. Of course, they still couldn't get at the real plaintext unless you gave them the key, but you are right back to the same old standoff where they say, "Give us your key," and you (try to) say, "No." -- David R. Conrad, conrad(a)detroit.freenet.org, http://www.grfn.org/~conrad Hardware & Software Committee -- Finger conrad(a)grfn.org for public key Key fingerprint = 33 12 BC 77 48 81 99 A5 D8 9C 43 16 3C 37 0B 50 No, his mind is not for rent to any god or government.

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Re: Whitehouse "dissident" web site monitoring?
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:03 PM 9/12/95 -0400, Brian Davis wrote: >Unbelievable!!! To add to this distressing truth, I have learned that >the White House also subscribes to a number of newspapers and periodicals >which are reviewed for things of interest to the Administration and to >the President. I I I I I I ammmmmmmmmm shocked! The government, as you no doubt know, sometimes operates under different rules. Thus when the "Red Squad" (Intelligence Division) of the New York City Police (located in that big building on the North side of Vandam between Greenwich and Houston BTW) was sued for maintaining files on "lawful protest groups" they entered into a consent agreement to refrain from this sort of thing. Later, the courts said that this agreement meant that the cops couldn't even listen to WLIB radio (NYC's favorite radical African-American station) to find out in advance where rallies were going to be. Since the White House is doing this reading of sites with public funds and since that institution is the most powerful in the world --- it can nuke its enemies, for example --- people are naturally interested to discover if they are the subject of an investigation. This is a demonstration of the unintended effect of electronic surveillance technology. The fact is that it can do more harm to the authorities than to the public. The Nixon Tapes/The Thompson Square Park Riot Video/The Rodney King Video. Since those in power are more interesting than ordinary people, they represent a more "target-rich environment." Information about their activities has greater commercial value and is thus more likely to see the light of day. DCF "There are more of us than there are of you."

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Re: An opportunity not to be missed
by David C. Lambert 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Thomas Grant Edwards <tedwards(a)Glue.umd.edu> wrote: > The Religious Right brings their agenda to the public spotlight > because they become incredibly involved in local politics on a > nationwide basis and have the knowledge, means, and money to > influence politics at this level. Very few people who are outside > the political process realize the amount of organization, dedication, > and dollars required to achieve political validity. This is a well made point, and I certainly do not claim to be one of those who has an internal understanding of the political process. I submit that the frenzied coverage of the presidential campaign *severely reduces* the required knowledge, means and money, needed to raise issues to the fore, and that furthermore, a lot of the "means and money" that you mention are used for communication and organization. Of course, an organized campaign on the Net is essentially free, but for the cost in time. It is my opinion that the political power of the Net is just starting to awaken, and that a perception of impotence in the political process, is just that - a perception. David C. Lambert dcl(a)panix.com (finger for PGP public key) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMFcpYKpplsfgM88VAQF8lgP8CViP3ggK68e5l6KGTqcI/2uHp0cP6z9t a2etUdxH0QBuyWu3MVVsWuB+6n6QcRSO69rh0E/U5apzqJoPMdirbLt8B/cMdsAg yY4vfEhGLZkuG5470uP9GKR6TF00YiZmfIoXtfDJPmbfcRwj018S1xe7myeGyLJm ARpzGgrYR30= =r3ff -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Whitehouse "dissident" web site monitoring?
by patrick＠Verity.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Sure. I'll respect their privacy as much as they, and the > organizations they oversee, respect mine. I'll use as the > respresentative organizations the IRS and the Social Security > Administration, which respects my pricvacy so much that they use > prison inmates to process paperwork. > > If I was in a nasty mood, I'd add the USPS. > > Sarcasm aside, they show no interest in other people's > privacy. Why should we go out of our way to do anything but show them > how bad the situation is? > > Adam Oh please! Some clerk browses the internet and you don't want to respect their privacy because of the IRS? This makes sense how? I suppose that you're going to dig up information about me and spread it around the internet because you have issues about the company I work for? Suppose someone did something bad to you and justified it by saying that harvard is an elitist school that once did something bad to their uncle. Patrick _______________________________________________________________________ / These opinions are mine, and not Verity's (except by coincidence;). \ | (\ | | Patrick J. Horgan Verity Inc. \\ Have | | patrick(a)verity.com 1550 Plymouth Street \\ _ Sword | | Phone : (415)960-7600 Mountain View \\/ Will | | FAX : (415)960-7750 California 94303 _/\\ Travel | \___________________________________________________________\)__________/

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Re: Scientology tries to break PGP - and fails?
by Andrew Loewenstern 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tom Rollins writes: > If this is the file that the Co$ is trying to crack, then what the > is being asked for is a pass phrase that can be handed to the Co$ > that will pass the PGP valid key check and still not decrypt the > data to anything usefull. Well, I don't have the PGP 'conventional' encryption format memorized, but there is probably a constant after the IV that is prepended to the data. The constant is used to determine if the key is correct. Since the conventional encryption runs in CFB mode and there is a full block of random IV at the beginning of the file, it is extremely unlikely that a key could be found that would properly decrypt only the first two blocks while leaving the rest unreadable... > If Larry Wollersheim does have the valid key. It would be a simpler > process to know what fake key to use and work it backwards through > the MD5 to arrive at an ascii string to produce the fake key. Not really. Even if you could find an IDEA key that would produce the desired output it would be hard to find a passphrase that would produce that key when hashed. One of the properties of one-way hash functions is that it is difficult to find a plaintext that produces a given hash. Hence the term 'one-way'.... Even if you did find a passphrase (which, if MD5 is strong, would require something like 2^64 operations), it would likely be long, have 8-bit chars, and would be impossible to type in. It would be tough to convince anyone that it was the real passphrase. andrew

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Text tracking
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 11 Sep 1995 owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com wrote: > Hal Finney wrote: > > > I'm not sure how to do it for software, but for novels it > > should be easy to fingerprint. Every couple of pages the > > author writes a sentence twice in different forms. This would > > not take a great deal of extra effort on the part of the > > author. > > Perhaps. Some authors might be offended by the idea that > using a different form of a sentence doesn't affect the work. Examples of "text tracking" in documents where language specificity is important (legal, scientific) are typically marked with changes in the justification scheme, i.e. the number of spaces to the right, number of lines to a page, number of pages total, etc. etc. Clearly it is much more difficult to apply in digital schemes, but consider that in order to modify the scheme to avoid traceback to the distributer, one of two conditions must exist. 1> The distributer must be close to the initial release point. (If not, then all documents ABOVE the distributer in the chain will be text tracked, and all the documents BELOW the distributer will not. Clearly this will brand the distributer). 2> The distributer must be entirely outside the 'legal' distribution scheme. Remember also that uniform modification of text tracking methods is itself identifying unless several 'illegal' distributers are using the same sanitizing method. The same way you can get surgery to have fingerprints removed, but the resulting scars make you all the more identifiable.

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Re: cryptography eliminates lawyers?
by dsc＠swcp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Black Unicorn wrote, >But won't clients insist on proper credentials in one form or another? Yes. >Doesn't the practicality and accountability of a centralized authority >(or several authorities) provide the best answer to this? No. >Who is going >to accept my signature promising that I did indeed get a law degree and >pass the bar? Very few. Certification can be from multiple private and government organizations and might vary depending on the type of legal service (or other lawyer service) needed. Licensing can only be done by an entity that can use physical force to prevent buying and selling legal services. >I don't see how the net will eliminate the basic need for highly >qualified professionals and the proof that they have credentials. It won't. The needs might shift a little but they will be there. >Perhaps diplomas and such will be transfered into digital signatures for >the institutions, but I can't see how this "cracks" any "monopoly." >Perhaps the monopoly is shifted to those who have diplomas, rather than >those "licensed to practice" but so what? It might "crack" government enforced monopoly. Should a market monopoly survive some form of crypto-anarchy it would be in the form of a certification entity that does such a good and efficient job that it is very hard to break into the business. Not so bad if it happens, but much more honest, efficient and softer-edged than "licensed to practice". I suspect that people have needs for varying levels and varying specializations so that several kinds of certifications may develop and might be supplied by multiple entities. I suspect that many people would want a certification that a lawyer meets the usual licensing requirements of the outside world. Who knows, maybe that would be the most popular kind. But it won't be the only kind. Dar =========================================================== Dar Scott Home phone: +1 505 299 9497 Dar Scott Consulting Voice: +1 505 299 5790 8637 Horacio Place NE Email: darscott(a)aol.com Albuquerque, NM 87111 dsc(a)swcp.com Fax: +1 505 898 6525 http://www.swcp.com/~correspo/DSC/DarScott.html ===========================================================

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Re: Digital Fingerprinting
by patrick＠Verity.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > Then, in W.Ky., as in Stockbridge, "You can get > > anything you want..."? :) > > I'd stick with: > *********************************************** > You can't always get what you want 1 > but if you try > sometimes, sometimes you get what you need. 2 > *********************************************** > > 1 ability to dump garbage where you want > 2 a better appreciation for the environment > :-) Why do I feel like I'm sitting on the group W bench? Patrick _______________________________________________________________________ / These opinions are mine, and not Verity's (except by coincidence;). \ | (\ | | Patrick J. Horgan Verity Inc. \\ Have | | patrick(a)verity.com 1550 Plymouth Street \\ _ Sword | | Phone : (415)960-7600 Mountain View \\/ Will | | FAX : (415)960-7750 California 94303 _/\\ Travel | \___________________________________________________________\)__________/

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CAGK rationale (was: Re: GAK/weak crypto rationale?)
by cme＠acm.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 17:52:22 -0400 (EDT) >From: Brian Davis <bdavis(a)thepoint.net> > In our district, we >managed to convict almost 20 people in an investigation of the state >legislature, including the now-former Speaker of the House and > 6 other >legislators. Bribing lobbyists took hits, etc. > >Particularly effective were the court-approved video and audio tapes of >the Speaker taking a bribe in exchange for certain action on legislation >and responding to the bribing party: "Well bless your heart." >That has become the office's mantra. Clearly, the world needs CAGK -- Citizen Access to Government Keys -- with all gov't officials forced to use keys held by various newspapers and other watchdog agencies.... The video and audio bugs aren't part of the wiretap process so they don't apply here. - Carl +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)acm.org http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | |PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | | ``Officer, officer, arrest that man! He's whistling a dirty song.'' | +----------------------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison -+

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