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Jan 13 CA bay area meeting - time
by mrm＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sorry! I forgot to mention that the meeting is held from 12 noon to 6 p.m. Date: Saturday January 13 Time: 12 noon - 6 p.m. Location: Building 21, Sparcy's cafeteria, Sun Microsystems Agenda: YOUR NAME HERE! (hint hint) Food: Bagels provided. Feel free to bring lunch to munch. Directions: Take 101 to Amphitheater Parkway. At the end of the exit ramp, turn left at the light onto Charleston. (This street is also known as Garcia.) After about 1/3 mile, turn right onto the side street. This will be the first city side street on your right, as you drive down Charleston/Garcia. In about 2 or 3 blocks, you'll see purple signs for Building 21 of Sun. If anyone driving down from SF or Berkeley can pick up Ian at the SF airport that would be way groovy. Marianne mrm(a)netcom.com mrm(a)eng.sun.com

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Re: NSA says strong crypto to china??
by zinc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 7 Jan 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: > Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 11:43:40 -0800 > From: Timothy C. May <tcmay(a)got.net> > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Re: NSA says strong crypto to china?? > > At 10:37 AM 1/7/96, Alex Strasheim wrote: > > By the way, this is related to why I think you folks should all be > supporting the "flat tax" and similar proposals. (Especially the proposal > to end the double taxation of corporate income: tax the company and not the > individual shareholders, or vice versa, but don't first tax the income to > the corporation and then tax the distributed income/dividends/capital gains > again.) you think that's a bit ridiculous? i'm paid via an NIH grant given to my adivisor by the govt. this stipend is taxed. it didn't used to be (started to be taxed around '86 i believe). why the hell doesn't the govt just save everyone the trouble and pay me less. i'm sure they could get rid of a couple of IRS people this way. -pjf patrick finerty = zinc(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu = pfinerty(a)nyx.cs.du.edu U of Utah biochem grad student in the Bass lab - zinc fingers + dsRNA! ** FINGER zinc-pgp(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu for pgp public key - CRYPTO! zifi runs LINUX 1.2.13 -=-=-=WEB=-=-=-> http://zifi.genetics.utah.edu

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Re: Revoking Old Lost Keys
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Shostack <adam(a)lighthouse.homeport.org> wrote: I wrote: > | PGP should give a warning when the key passes the expiration date. It > | should not prevent you from using it, but should remind you that the > | key is rather old, and that the owner may have moved, etc. [..] > Expire should mean expire, i.e., no longer valid, useful or > useable. If you want to have a 'depreciated after' and an expire > date, that might be useful, but it seems more like feeping creaturitis > to me. It adds bulk to every key, when a better solution would be to > have keys automatically deprecitated some time before they are due to > expire. The reason I think a warning option is good (really, 1 bit bit flag for warn rather than kill... that's "bulk" to every key?) is so that if for whatever reason the key is used (say I am unable to get a newer key for you but really need to send you a private message) I have something to use... and you, if you choose to hold onto old keys, can decrypt it. If not, the sender was warned. > Also, the ability to extend the life of a key is fraught with > danger. The longer a key is around, the more likely it is to become > comprimised. The user might not be aware that the key is comprimised. > Better to have an unchangeable date. (On a more technical level, > allowing users to change the expiry date on a key means that the key's > expiry date is not signed by the signatories, and an opponent who > comprimised a key could simply change the expiry date on that key and > send it to the servers, so that it would continue to be used, and your > opponent could continue to read all your communications.) > > Adam > > -- > "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." > -Hume > > > --- "Mutant" Rob <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a blank message with the subject "send pgp-key" (not in quotes) for a copy of my PGP key.

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Re: "Re: NSA says strong crypto to china??
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:50 PM 01/07/96, Timothy C. May wrote: >As when the Cossacks who fled the U.S.S.R. after the war and pledged to >help the West fight Communism were returned by the British to Stalin, where >they were executed. (I was reminded of this by the latest Bond movie, where >Bond avers, "Not exactly Britain's finest moment.") The Kurds in Iraw during the Persina Gulf war is an analagous situation. The Kurds supported and assisted the U.S. government during the war. Really pro-U.S.. At some point near the end of the war, though, the U.S. just started ignoring them, and Hussein started bombing them and killing huge numbers of them.

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RE: NSA says strong crypto to China?
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Alex Strasheim[ (...)But I don't necessarily look at the NSA as an enemy. Right now we're on opposite sides of an important issue, and I think they're doing a lot of damage. But I tend to think that they believe what they're doing is in the national interest. They're trying to defend democracy -- our democracy, at least. "The" NSA is not a constant, a body which remains the same regardless of the individuals working within it. The character of the agency, I expect, would change with the individuals. The agency is not designed to be dangerous to citizens. But their mileage could vary depending upon the leadership, upon their grasp of its purpose. That's what this list is all about: we're trying to impose certain civil liberties on the world using a strategy that's based on anarchy theory. That theory tells us that if we can distribute tools and establish standards we'll secure privacy and free speech rights regardless of what governments do. That's a very startling idea, and I believe it's sound. I believe that it's possible to impose the first ammendment on the entire world by distributing crypto software. But realize that these software tools and what they make possible (first amendment ideas, anarchy) are not being "imposed" - they're being selected/accepted by the users by a process of conscious individual decision, not by a blanket policy imposition handed down from 'above' (you *will* use crypto, and you *will* like it). I don't think the NSA is out to suppress our liberties. They're trying to protect the nation. Their problem is that they're operating under an old, obsolete paradigm. (.......) But the question is, why are they operating under obsolete paradigms? Why aren't they paying attention to what they are doing, to what is intelligently appropriate, to the philosophical ideals of the nation they're representing? (and therefore who or what are they *really* trying to protect) .. Blanc

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RE: "trust management" vs. "certified identity"
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:00 PM 1/7/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >Frankly, the notion that a central government would issue proofs of >trustability, via identity cards and the like, is a modern invention. > >(The message of Vinge's "True Names" was partly ironic, that one's True >Name is important primarily in allowing tagging by the government. Ordinary >people rarely need True Names. > >I don't want official proof of my identity. If others want it, let them >make their own arrangements. In the early 1950's Robert Heinlein and his wife Virginia took a trip around the world ("Tramp Royale" recently published by Ace Books). He had to apply for a Passport and got a Certificate of Delayed Birth Registration from Missouri since his county had not kept birth records when he was born. "I breathed a sigh of relief; at last I was me. I had attended school [Annapolis BTW], been commissioned in the armed services, held two civil service jobs, married, voted run for office, drawn a pension and done all manner of things as a flesh-and-blood being through more than four decades, all without having had any legal existence whatsoever." Proof of identity is never needed. Proof of authorization is only needed by one's bankers. The rest is government garbage. Hopefully enough people will learn this and we can reduce the nonsense a bit. DCF "Where are your papers? Sorry buddy, I'm a fundamentalist. I don't go in for that Mark of the Beast stuff. Have you ever read Revelations? You aren't one of those tools of Satan are you?"

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Re: "Microsoft.com" added to my KILL file
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Poor me has to run a mailing list where the *majority* of subscribers are using MS Mail or Exchange. For a partial list of MS Mail/Excahnge bugs relevant to list administrators, fetch my list info file. Send "info win95netbugs" to majordomo(a)lists.stanford.edu. Fortunately, there's been no need to killfile msn.com recently. Microsoft incompetence took care of that at the source. See the January 2nd news article on http://www.zdnet.com/~pcweek/ - -rich - --- [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 iQBFAwUBMPBdIyoZzwIn1bdtAQG1JAF/bcnxMqmR1YAtf3trsGC8o8RKqXUdufrT H93ID8hJvr2bxXtdgqm2cmd5vVerRk5l =gQTE -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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A /dev/random standard is need.
by wlkngowl＠unix.asb.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm revising the DOS NOISE.SYS driver currently. In writing the documentation I am discussing the advantages of such a driver (part of the logic behind writing it). Mainly, a hardware (and to some extent) operating system independent means is needed for generating random numbers. It seems to me that a device driver (at least for DOS, Unix and maybe Amiga or Atari) is the best way to do this. If one has special chips or diodes for generating randomness, a device driver which reads from them can be used. If one lacks such equipment, something like NOISE.SYS or random.c for Linux, or Noiz (which I have not yet look at) can be used. Even then, random.c defines two devices, random (which only returns as many bits as there are fresh bits in the entropy pool) and urandom (which keeps hashing the bits and will return as many as requested.) NOISE.SYS defines only random, which behaves more like urandom above. If there is a standard, it will make it easier to use special hardware since software which reads from a random device can access it. Perhaps a kind of standard should be discussed and created so that cross-platform development is made much easier, and so that features and capabilities can be worked out. Does anybody else see a need for this? --Rob

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Encryption sales ban costs U.S. $60 billion
by dang＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Nothing like boiling things down to the bottom dollar to make the media pay attention. The following brief ran in the business section of the S.F. Examiner: ENCRYPTION SALES BAN COSTS U.S. $60 BILLION NEW YORK U.S. companies will lose as much as 30 percent of the $200 billion in U.S. computer system sales expected in 200 because of federal export laws that limit the encryption of information, a recent study found. The study was sponsored by 13 large U.S. technology companies. The group, known as the Computer Systems Policy Project, includes International Business Machines Corp., the workd's larges computer maker, and AT&T corp., the nation's biggest phone company. "It's the first time anyone has set out to show the real economic impact export laws have," said Jeff Rulifson, director of technology development as Sun Microsystems Inc., one of the study's sponsors. The government prevents U.S. companies from exporting hard-to-break computer codes that turn information, such as files and credit card numbers, into indecipherable material that can be sent across computer networks without fear of tampering. -- quoted without permission.

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Naw, They Can't Censor the 'Net!
by James M. Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friend, A 01 07 96 Scripps Howard newsstory reports that a US tele- communications firm providing Internet access to Jordan was asked by authorities there to install a SCREENING FACILITY so censors could preview ANY messages LIKELY to be PICTURES ! A censor's life in a screening facility can be hard...but the authorities are firm. There's the urgent ...need to prevent the spread of pornography in this con- servative desert kingdom. And that US telecommunications firm? "We agreed with the authorities' request," said GlobeNet's vice-president, Carlton Tolsdorf. "And, by the way, I think we should have the same thing back home in the United States." So it too can be a PICTURESQUE desert kingdom. Cordially, Jim NOTE. The newsstory's headline? ARAB WORLD GRAPPLES WITH THE INTERNET'S BENEFITS, DRAWBACKS. Its dateline? AMMAN, Jordan (Jan 7, 1996 1:22 p.m. EST). Its Nando News online filename? info57_806.html

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