- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Apartment complex burnt down... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 20:53:02 -0800 > From: nobody(a)cypherpunks.ca (John Anonymous MacDonald) > > Suppose Bob lives in an apartment complex. By accident the whole building > burns down. > > Bob manages to escape, but all his papers, including passport, IDs, > credit cards, acount numbers, etc etc gets destroyed. > > What can Bob do? Would the government help him? > > It seems like he'd be in a really unfavorable position... I was there 2 years ago. The Red Cross is about the only group you can count on other than family, friends and a church (if you happen to belong to one). Getting another drivers license was a easy operation. Head down to the local DPS office and request a replacement card for a lost license. The titles and such for property and auto were tedious but not impossible. I didn't need to show anything other than my drivers license and pay the requisite fees to obtain new copies of the deeds. In general the governmental types of documents and such were easy to replace. I personaly had all the necessary copies of the documents I needed within a month or so. The personal items were impossible to replace and caused the most emotional turmoil. In many parts of the country the Red Cross is delepeted both in operating funds and volunteers. If you can, please consider giving them your support. I personaly didn't use them but both my roomies did. Jim Choate

1 0

Black markets vs. cryptoanarchy
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cryptoanarchy will have arrived when you can openly _advertise_ these services and still stay in business indefinitely. Most of the things we talk about - even Jim Bell's assassination market - already exist, but they cannot be advertised. You have to go looking for them, at some risk to both buyer and seller. If the seller is visible enough for you to find him, he is visible enough to get caught. For example, there is plenty of 'pirate' material on the net, but it tends to go away as soon as the addresses become well-known. Cryptoanarchy will be here when you can advertise yourself as a distributor of pirate software (or anything else you want to sell), do business with a publicly known contact address, and still not get caught. 'Black markets' exist due to the inability to do this. Currently the techniques of anonymity are limited to two: indirection for source anonymity and broadcast for recipient anonymity. We are more or less where crypto was before the invention of public key. You can gain security by spreading risk among multiple parties (key distributors for crypto, or remailers for anonymity) but you can't 'make your own anonymity' like you can make your own security with public key crypto. A theoretical discovery is needed particularly in the area of recipient anonymity. Good sender anonymity and weak recipient anonymity leads to 'hit and run' behavior such as spamming email and newsgroups, but not to anonymous markets. Mike > >Crypto-anarchy benefits the poor more than the rich. The underlings > >of society are going to love it. > > In fact, they basically already practice it. Not with computers, of course, > but in terms of not reporting cash income, not reporting tips, engaging in > barter work with others, and gambling in various non-sanctioned markets. > > (Numbers games and sports betting are huge markets. Interestingly, such > markets also validate much of what we say about "reputations." After all, > when was the last time you heard about a bookie being sued in court for not > paying up? And private justice is administered, as welshers are disposed of > directly, without a long, expensive trial. Nearly everything in "crypto > anarchy" has direct parallels in "underworld and black markets." Some say > they are really the same thing. Perhaps.) > > --Tim May

9 12

Re: Information [for new PGP user]
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adamsc wrote: > On Thu, 07 Nov 1996 07:08:52 -0800, Dale Thorn wrote: > >> >> > I'm a new Cyberpunk! > >> Probably wearing a set of Ono-Sendai eyeballs.... > >> >> > Last, I would like to know once and for all, is PGP compromised, is > >> >> > there a back door, and have we been fooled by NSA to believe it's secure? > >> You can read and compile the source code yourself. > >Really? All 60,000 or so lines, including all 'includes' or attachments? > >I'll bet you can't find 10 out of 1,000 users who have read the total source, > >let alone comprehended and validated it. > That's not necessary - it's the fact that it's possible that matters; most > of us are content to trust the various people who actually have. However, > I'd probably be inclined to look into it seriously if I was going to use it > on anything incriminating or potentially linked to my checkbook... My main point, which is really difficult to make, since software issues are so complex today, is that I've been involved with projects on a similar scale as PGP, where several programmers contributed code to a particular executable program, and when this is the case (especially where the source is not obvious as would be data entry code and the like), it's just not practical for one person working alone, unpaid, to break the source down into manageable chunks and study it and make enough notes so that every portion of it is clearly understood and validated. People in the past have discussed 50 million line Fortran programs to set up jet training simulators and so forth, and by comparison a 60,000 line source in 'C' might look doable, as far as complete annotation is concerned. To illustrate the point, then, I recently had a chance to estimate the cost of converting a non-'C' program to 'C', which would result in a 'C' program of about 6,000 lines, or about 1/10 the size of PGP. My best guess was about 500 to 1,000 hours, and to analogize that to PGP, where I wouldn't be writing or converting code ostensibly, just annotating it, I would still guess 2,500 to 5,000 hours, if the job were done correctly and thoroughly. If the job is not practical/feasible, then IMO I can say it's not doable. OTOH, if some one or a handful of people wanted to make the source code of PGP really accessible to the masses (of programmers at least), they should start with a plan to make sure it's broken down into a heirarchy of functions so that: 1. No one function is too large (say, no more than 50 lines or so). 2. All functions use reasonably short variable names (ex: 'iTrapon'). 3. Variable names are consistent in capitalization. 4. Function names follow the heirarchy and are logically intuitive. 5. Constant and #define names follow a heirarchy as well. 6. Where a choice is possible between setting out a construct that (visually speaking) looks very complex and is difficult to follow, and making it simpler, take the simpler path.

1 0

Re: Universal Service for the Net: Why it's a bad idea
by Frank Willoughby 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:53 AM 11/8/96 -0800, Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> wrote: 8< [snip] >* Why should a Beverly Hills high school get a discount of 20 percent? > Can't they afford to pay for ISDN? Depends on how their telco's tariffs are set up. Here in Indiana, we have a monopoly called "Ameritech" who, out of the kindness of their hearts, charges ***per-minute*** ISDN rates. Expect costs of over $600/month for a permament connection (one line) to the Internet. Beverly Hills High School *might* be able to afford it. Most other places can't. <sigh> Best Regards, Frank Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. -- Rich Kulawiec <standard disclaimer> The opinions expressed above are of the author and may not necessarily be representative of Fortified Networks Inc. Fortified Networks Inc. - Vendor-Neutral Information Security Consulting http://www.fortified.com Phone: (317) 573-0800 FAX: (317) 573-0817 Home of the Free Internet Firewall Evaluation Checklist

3 2

Re: a retort + a comment + a question = [RANT]
by SUCRUM22_at_INDY-ADP＠smtp-gw.cv62.navy.mil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------------------------------------------------------------------- dave kinchlea wrote: >As said in "Hair" (the movie), "Don't do it for me man, 'cause >if the shoe was on the other foot, I wouldn't do it for you!" >It's a lie anyway, you do it for yourself. That's an _easy_ judgment to make (and i definitely have to stop adding anecdotes from my life in these things!), but you missed the point - the freedoms the Cpunks diligently try to preserve (or seem to want to create...) are protected _by_ the military. who was it that said: "law, without force, is impotent" -? keep in mind that even "bad" laws have to be enforced. you can scream all you want about "good, strong" cryptostuffs, but if the phone lines are slashed, the satellite links are down, the elcerticity is off and you've got a foreign soldier waving a .45 around - just how are you going to boot up that pretty little computer and make it encode information for you, much less get it anywhere? anarchy implies ruthlessness - you going to practice cryptostuffs from a prison cell? was i assuming that you've read the book and/or seen the broadway play, "Hair"? OHHHHH - i'm sorry - you saw the _movie!_ shame on me. ---------------------- SUCRUM22(a)cv62.navy.mil ----------------------- a calculated risk based on the possible consequence of an action is better than a haphazard one based on poor judgment or ignorance --------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't confuse my views with those of the DoD or the United States Navy

3 2

Re: No More
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Sat Nov 09 19:21:54 1996 > I want take off mail list Oooh. Gotta be a few good stego bits in that one. - ----- David E. Smith, P O Box 324, Cape Girardeau MO USA 63702 dsmith(a)prairienet.org http://www.prairienet.org/~dsmith send mail with subject of "send pgp-key" for my PGP public key "Better living through chemicals" - unattributed -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMoUuNTVTwUKWHSsJAQHdYgf+OKNAADSBz+qpjD+u+qqZWPUmAuyQhUGd jsn/TQG/1gXctoAin5S3VYha1uzt2Pd5xNqUZfpjzP99qDalbtElaROfSo1MoWqj lL1oencAMW9lIfNNQVzRj2B+eHfpBUo33/Fq25xRktPCAgwhrU6Q1Bc2q4p8nxbG d65iexqo8CYwMzwnGarl+D7OKXaLZtsZt1JIHcc70KyTB5OaRaVK7pGcu6YTdAS4 0jLfxHJZuDt6p0AcWm+ie2yqRkwEKryB8AFQ6r9wFoCFp0VNuh6dxmY2qn15A9BD D/BjreSvQcFCcctHOuTHZDTuMPAZZTWCaR/ImlLLy3iCMcICjCRMJQ== =wrw5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 1

Pyramid schemes and cryptoanarchy
by Clay Olbon II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It seems that pyramid scheme spamming has increased of late (if that is possible!). In my lifetime, I can only remember a single snail-mail instance of a pyramid scheme - over the net it is an entirely different story (although the number of instances is probably proportional to the number of lists I subsribe to). With fully anonymous digital cash will come the ability to develop untraceable pyramid schemes. As a staunch believer in the free market, I find laws against these schemes distasteful, quite hypocrytical (i.e. Social Security), and soon to be unenforceable. Pyramid schemes could be a growth market in a crypto-anarchic world. It is yet another market such as gambling, or the lottery, that could be conducted with anonymity. And it appears to be much more widespread on the internet currently, even without anonymity. And unlike gambling or the lottery, the payoffs could increase greatly should anonymity be available. Now, what is the point of this discussion of pyramid schemes? It is to bring to light yet another area that will be untouchable by governments. And I think that it will help continue the development and proliferation of some of our pet projects, specifically fully anonymous digital cash and remailers. Remailer operators could even fund their operations through pyramid schemes (directly, or indirectly through digital postage stamps). I am not, however, advocating spam. I simply see it as a natural extension of current practice, that may actually provide tangible benefits in the near future. Clay ******************************************************* Clay Olbon clay.olbon(a)dynetics.com engineer, programmer, statistitian, etc. Dynetics, Inc. **********************************************tanstaafl

4 3

ideal secure personal computer system
by tom bryce 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's a question: if one were designing for oneself a secure personal computer system, for use in, say, word processing, spreadsheet, communications, the usuals - what system would one purchase and how would one set it up? For example, on the Mac I would envision this as the ideal system: (1) Get a power mac (2) Partition the hard drive into two partitions: install the system folder on one and a copy of CryptDisk make this the startup partition and make it READ ONLY with aliases to folders you want to be modiyfable (such as Eudora Folder in the sys folder) place these folders on the encrypted partition (3) Completely fill the other partition with a CryptDisk file so there is no room for other stuff to be written. Adjust the partition size if needed. (4) Install a screen saver (such as shareware Eclipse) that will password lock the screen after a few minutes of inactivity, and set CryptDisk to dismount the external partition after a few minutes of inactivity (or longer) This would be a basic setup. If one had more complex ideas, such as setting it up so casual onlookers would not notice the system was protected, you could do things like have a decoy normal partition with system folder to boot from by default, to be bypassed with an external locked system folder disk, after which one could dismount the decoy partition and mount the encrypted partition. If locking the startup volume turns out to be too much of a pain, one could install trashguard from Highware software and set it to triple overwrite deleted files, and otherwise not lock the startup partition. How would things work on Windows 95? I imagine most of the old DOS-based encryption utilities may have compatibility problems with W95. What would a similar ideal system be for a PC? Tom

5 4

Re[2]: a retort + a comment + a question = [RANT]
by SUCRUM22_at_INDY-ADP＠smtp-gw.cv62.navy.mil 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Foley <mycroft(a)actrix.gen.nz> wrote at the end of an enlightening message: >(BTW, does your address @smtp-gw.cv62.navy.mil imply >that that you're actually aboard the Independence?) yes it does. questions/comments can be directed via e-mail to my address as i am already _almost_ off-topic. remember people, i'm playing devil's advocate here. so far, while nothing has really changed my thinking process outright, comments are surely making me think more (assuming that that's the point). ---------------------- SUCRUM22(a)cv62.navy.mil ----------------------- a calculated risk based on the possible consequence of an action is better than a haphazard one based on poor judgment or ignorance --------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't confuse my views with those of the DoD or the United States Navy

1 0

Re: ideal secure personal computer system
by Joel McNamara 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

See the CryptoBook link at http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm While the concepts were originally developed for a laptop, they're easily applied to a desktop machine running Win95. Joel >Here's a question: if one were designing for oneself a secure personal >computer system, for use in, say, word processing, spreadsheet, >communications, the usuals - what system would one purchase and how would >one set it up? > >For example, on the Mac I would envision this as the ideal system: > >(1) Get a power mac >(2) Partition the hard drive into two partitions: > install the system folder on one and a copy of CryptDisk > make this the startup partition and make it READ ONLY with aliases to > folders you want to be modiyfable (such as Eudora Folder in the sys folder) > place these folders on the encrypted partition >(3) Completely fill the other partition with a CryptDisk file so there is no > room for other stuff to be written. Adjust the partition size if needed. >(4) Install a screen saver (such as shareware Eclipse) that will password lock > the screen after a few minutes of inactivity, and set CryptDisk to dismount > the external partition after a few minutes of inactivity (or longer) > >This would be a basic setup. If one had more complex ideas, such as setting >it up so casual onlookers would not notice the system was protected, you >could do things like have a decoy normal partition with system folder to >boot from by default, to be bypassed with an external locked system folder >disk, after which one could dismount the decoy partition and mount the >encrypted partition. > >If locking the startup volume turns out to be too much of a pain, one could >install trashguard from Highware software and set it to triple overwrite >deleted files, and otherwise not lock the startup partition. > >How would things work on Windows 95? I imagine most of the old DOS-based >encryption utilities may have compatibility problems with W95. What would a >similar ideal system be for a PC? > >Tom > > > >

2 1