- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Automatic Rant generator
by ab411＠detroit.freenet.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jonathon Blake <wd803(a)freenet.victoria.bc.ca> writes: [ Various words of Tim May, Martin Hamilton, Monty Harder, Harry Bartholomew, and myself elided. ] [ Re: plotters and Metafonts: ] > > Making the little problem Tim presents, a major headache for > somebody else --- handwriting analysts. >... > Actually, True Type fonts of your handwriting are available, > for any platform that accepts that font type. > It needs to be more complicated than this, however, because if just a font is used then each 'e' looks like every other--easy to detect. > Tim May > Of course this is also similar to the "style > Tim May > detectors" we so often talk about. > > I don't remember the program name, but there is software > available now, that analyzes a document, and figures out who > wrote it --- based on the frequency count of the letters of > the alphabet. Secondary measures are frequency counts of > letter pairs. Words, phrases, sentences etc are totally > ignored. So what you'd need to do here, to pass your pseudo- > Turing Test is a program that generates different statistical > results, for allegedly different people. Interesting. I've not heard of this. The situation bears a great similarity to stego--you need to emulate a statistical pattern to make it undetectable, and if your opponents statistics are more sophisticated than yours, you'll be found out. [ Re: Introducing simulated spelling and typographical errors: ] > > Actually, the usual give away, is in letter and letter pair > frequencies --- not spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, > etc. > > However, there a technique called _Scientific Content > ANalysis_ that looks at how things are said, to judge their > "truthfulness." A good program will not show that the text > was randomly generated, nor show that the author is off-the- > wall, so to speak. Then again, what are the chances that Congressional staffers will be using such sophisticated methods to sort out the 'astroturf'? If a staffer is suspicious but then sees "recieved" and "I been" and "heplful" and decides, "Okay, this was written by a human," well, that's Good Enough for Government Work, as they say. -- David R. Conrad, ab411(a)detroit.freenet.org, http://web.grfn.org/~conrad/ Finger conrad(a)grfn.org for PGP 2.6 public key; it's also on my home page 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: Stego-Rants ?
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Which of the following is the cleartext? > 1. Bit and byte dropout can significantly impede communication. > 2. Flower and shrub planting can greatly enhance landscaping. > 3. Word and phrase substitution can hopelessly disguise meaning. > 4. UFO and space-alien belief can seriously damage credibility. > If you *presume* my context, you easily identify (3). If only the wordlists > that translate between (1), (2) and (4) were available for your inspection, > you would be up the creek but you wouldn't know it. > Yes, this is aba's "exxon" at work again, and yes, it seems to me that > deniability through other-plausible-meaning is viable as a form of stego. > Grammatical correctness is easy to maintain, and care in choosing words can > preserve much apparent meaning. > Bolivar This class of code is fairly old. In 'The Codebreakers' an incident is recounted (I think from WW2). A suspected spy in the US was sent a cable from overseas, reading 'Our father is dead'. This was intercepted, and the censors, suspecting a stego'd message, substituted 'Our father is deceased'. The suspected spy immediatly sent back 'Is father dead or deceased?', and was arrested. The book contains many fascinating stories of stego and attempted stego, including mailed knitting patterns, crossword puzzles, drawings, sports statistics, etc. On the eve of Pearl Harbour, the wife of a Japanese diplomat in Oahu sent a long message to Japan describing in detail the many kinds of flowers blooming at that time in Hawaii. It was sent through non-diplomatic channels, and authorities suspecting it contained stego, failed to deliver it. After the war it came out that she did regular gardening columns for a Japanese magazine, and the message was entirely innocent. Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation trei(a)process.com

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Re: RE: Stego-Rants ?
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: "Peter Trei" <trei(a)toad.com> > The book contains many fascinating stories of stego and attempted > stego, including mailed knitting patterns ... It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. /r$

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Re: Commercenet document on cryptography
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> http://www.commerce.net/information/position/position.062695.html Thanks to Steven for mentioning this -- it's a great paper. Send it to your gov't representatives. /r$

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Secure Courier and Amex Card
by nobody＠valhalla.phoenix.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mountain View, Ca., July 18 -- With the support of Intuit and MasterCard International, Netscape Communications has announced Secure Courier, an open, cross-platform digital envelope. The new protocol allows secure transfer of credit card, debit card and micro-transactions across the Internet. Secure Courier is an open, cross-platform protocol, meaning it will operate in Macintosh, Windows, and Unix operating environments common to Internet traffic. Specifications for this new protocol are currently available from Netscape's World Wide Web site at http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/credit.html . _________________________________________________________ New York, NY, July 18 -- American Express' Travel Related Services Company said it is establishing relationships with four technology companies for secure Internet credit card transactions using the American Express card and the Optima card. The four companies involved, CyberCash, First Virtual Holdings, Netscape Communications Corporation, and Open Market, have different ways of securing transactions over The Internet's World Wide Web.

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Re: punk's not dead!
by Andrew.Spring＠ping.be 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>hello? i'am new on this stuff, help me! Sorry, this a mailing list for Country & Western music. -- Thank you VERY much! You'll be getting a Handsome Simulfax Copy of your OWN words in the mail soon (and My Reply). <Andrew.Spring(a)ping.be> PGP Print: 0529 C9AF 613E 9E49 378E 54CD E232 DF96 Thank you for question, exit left to Funway.

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ANNOUNCE: bruteRC4, 40 bits all swept
by aba＠dcs.exeter.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well we have demonstrated that 40 bit RC4 can be brute forced in around a weeks compute time. (We've also learned a list of thinks to fix for the next attempt as no key was forthcoming :-|, details on why not and what is being fixed to ensure this doesn't happen with a future RC4-40 or with the coming 40+88 SSL brute forceing are given below) The problems are logistic, human error, etc, from a compute time point of view it *really* was a full sweep of a 40 bit keyspace. And on average you would expect to sweep in half this time. The bulk of the work was done in under one weeks compute time, but problems with people forgetting to acknowledge what they swept, meant that 3 or 4 people swept the remaining key space over, which slowed down this announce. Here's the hall of fame, for bits/percentage swept per identifiable contributer (this is tallied by acknowledgement, if you swept but did not acknoweldge quickly enough or at all, that work won't show as the last keyspace was re-swept to hurry things up. The first acknowledgement to be recieved counts, the rest get ignored). bits/40 percent contributer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 37.2 bits (14.063%) Jon Shekter <jshekter(a)alias.com> 36.4 bits (8.081%) Alvin Brattli <alvin(a)phys.uit.no> 36.1 bits (6.909%) anonymous 36.1 bits (6.836%) Dan Bailey <merzbow(a)ibm.net> 36.1 bits (6.812%) Piete Brooks <Piete.Brooks(a)cl.cam.ac.uk> 35.6 bits (4.688%) Loren Rittle <rittle(a)comm.mot.com> 35.6 bits (4.663%) Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> 35.4 bits (4.102%) Eric Young <eay(a)mincom.oz.au> 35.4 bits (4.004%) Fred <admin(a)dcwill.com> 35.3 bits (3.809%) Martin Hamilton <martin(a)mrrl.lut.ac.uk> 35.2 bits (3.711%) Kevin Wang <kwang(a)blackbox.punk.net> 35.0 bits (3.125%) Richard Martin <rmartin(a)alias.com> 34.7 bits (2.490%) Dan Oelke <droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com> 34.3 bits (1.978%) Branko Lankester 34.0 bits (1.611%) Simon McAuliffe <sai(a)comp.vuw.ac.nz> 34.0 bits (1.562%) Mike Gebis <m-gebis(a)uiuc.edu> 33.8 bits (1.392%) Pat Finerty <zinc(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> 33.8 bits (1.367%) <hodgeman(a)csd.uwm.edu> 33.5 bits (1.123%) Panu Rissanen <Panu.Rissanen(a)lut.fi> 33.4 bits (1.001%) Paul Bell <pjb(a)23kgroup.com> 33.3 bits (0.977%) Matt Thomlinson <phantom(a)u.washington.edu> 33.3 bits (0.952%) Will Kinney <kinney(a)colorado.edu> 33.2 bits (0.903%) T J Hardin <hardin(a)cyberspace.com> 33.2 bits (0.879%) Patrick May <pjm(a)ionia.engr.sgi.com> 32.8 bits (0.684%) Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer(a)cnam.fr> 32.7 bits (0.635%) anonner 32.5 bits (0.537%) Matt Pauker <mpauker(a)peganet.com> 32.5 bits (0.537%) Ed Kern <ejk(a)digex.net> 32.5 bits (0.537%) Andrew Kuchling <andrewk(a)cst.ca> 32.5 bits (0.537%) <rmtodd(a)mailhost.ecn.uoknor.edu> 32.4 bits (0.513%) <somogyi(a)digmedia.com> 32.3 bits (0.488%) Jon Baber <jbaber(a)mi.leeds.ac.uk> 32.2 bits (0.439%) Bryce Boland <bryce(a)cybernet.co.nz> 32.0 bits (0.391%) Thad Beier <thad(a)thresher.uucp.netcom.com> 32.0 bits (0.391%) Per Stoltze <stoltze(a)fysik.dtu.dk> 32.0 bits (0.391%) Glenn Powers <gpowers(a)bradley.edu> 32.0 bits (0.391%) <janzen(a)idacom.hp.com> 31.8 bits (0.342%) Mike Bailey <bailey(a)computek.net> 31.7 bits (0.317%) Robert Hayden <hayden(a)krypton.mankato.msus.edu> 31.7 bits (0.317%) John Limpert <johnl(a)radix.net> 31.6 bits (0.293%) Opus 31.6 bits (0.293%) Mark Rogaski <rogaski(a)phobos.lib.iup.edu> 31.6 bits (0.293%) <josh(a)silicon.net> 31.5 bits (0.269%) Michael Bacon <mbacon(a)dfw.net> 31.3 bits (0.244%) Jim Gillogly <jim(a)acm.org> 31.3 bits (0.244%) David Zuhn <zoo(a)armadillo.com> 31.2 bits (0.220%) Russell Ross <rross(a)sci.dixie.edu> 31.2 bits (0.220%) Don Kitchen <don(a)cs.byu.edu> 31.0 bits (0.195%) Scott Renfro <csylvix!srenfro(a)cuok.cameron.edu> 31.0 bits (0.195%) Planar <Damien.Doligez(a)inria.fr> 30.8 bits (0.171%) Matt <panzer(a)dhp.com> 30.8 bits (0.171%) Joe Thomas <jthomas(a)access.digex.net> 30.8 bits (0.171%) Adrian Thomson <a.thomson(a)nexor.co.uk> 30.6 bits (0.146%) Michael Axelrod <mja(a)cacs.usl.edu> 30.6 bits (0.146%) Mark Eichin <mark(a)kitten.gen.ma.us> 30.6 bits (0.146%) Jason Burrell <jburrell(a)crl.com> 30.3 bits (0.122%) Will Ware <wware(a)world.std.com> 30.3 bits (0.122%) Kevin Maher <kmaher(a)ucsd.edu> 30.3 bits (0.122%) Josh Sled <jsled(a)cello.gina.calstate.edu> 30.3 bits (0.122%) Checkered Daemon <cdaemon(a)goblin.punk.net> 30.3 bits (0.122%) Andrew Roos <andrewr(a)realtime.co.za> 30.0 bits (0.098%) Jason Weisberger <jweis(a)primenet.com> 30.0 bits (0.098%) <pdlamb(a)iquest.com> 30.0 bits (0.098%) <matt(a)comp.vuw.ac.nz> 29.6 bits (0.073%) Mark Grant <mark(a)unicorn.com> 29.6 bits (0.073%) Lou Poppler <lwp(a)mail.msen.com> 29.6 bits (0.073%) Edwin de Graaf <graaf(a)iaehv.nl> 29.6 bits (0.073%) David Conrad <conrad(a)detroit.freenet.org> 29.6 bits (0.073%) Dan Tauber <dat(a)netcom.com> 29.6 bits (0.073%) Alexandra Griffin <acg(a)kzin.cen.ufl.edu> 29.6 bits (0.073%) <pkronenw(a)erc.cat.syr.edu> 29.6 bits (0.073%) <ghazelwo(a)cs.oberlin.edu> 29.0 bits (0.049%) Stuart <stu(a)nemesis.wimsey.com> 29.0 bits (0.049%) Pekka Riiali <Pekka.Riiali(a)lut.fi> 29.0 bits (0.049%) Jeffrey Ollie <jeffo(a)noc.netins.net> 29.0 bits (0.049%) James Hightower <jamesh(a)netcom.com> 29.0 bits (0.049%) Hadmut Danisch <danisch(a)ira.uka.de> 29.0 bits (0.049%) Bob Snyder <rsnyder(a)janet.advsys.com> 29.0 bits (0.049%) <stevet(a)smeg.net4.io.org> 28.0 bits (0.024%) Sang Hahn <sghahn(a)math1.kaist.ac.kr> 28.0 bits (0.024%) Roy Silvernail <roy(a)cybrspc.mn.org> 28.0 bits (0.024%) Ollivier Robert <roberto(a)keltia.freenix.fr> 28.0 bits (0.024%) Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> 28.0 bits (0.024%) L Futplex McCarthy <futplex(a)pseudonym.com> 28.0 bits (0.024%) Jeff Licquia <jalicqui(a)prairienet.org> 28.0 bits (0.024%) J Francois <frenchie(a)magus.dgsys.com> 28.0 bits (0.024%) Brian LaMacchia <bal(a)mit.edu> 28.0 bits (0.024%) Andy Brown <a.brown(a)nexor.co.uk> 28.0 bits (0.024%) Adam Morrison <adam(a)math.tau.ac.il> 28.0 bits (0.024%) <mikew(a)nersc.gov> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 40.0 bits (100.000%) 89 cpunks + x * anonners in 1 weeks compute Report is on the brute-rc4.html page also: http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/brute-rc4.html Problems. --------- But, briefly these are the things which may be responsible for the failure to find a key: a) We weren't sure if we had a known plaintext / ciphertext pair This due to lack of Microsoft Access specs, this was known from the begining, but we thought we'd try it and see. b) Eeek! There was a bug in bruterc4.c for some time which affected Alphas, and possibly other BSD machines. This meant keyspace wasn't being searched when the -v option was used. c) Some people reported that their browser / uuencode software combination meant that cutting and pasting of the uuencode plain text and cipher text files was silently failing due to extra spaces inserted by a flawed pasting operation. d) Human error - it is possible that some keys were unswept - by accident. e) Malicious humans - we don't know, but think this was not a problem. Solutions. ---------- Proposed solutions for future brute forcing efforts (such as the upcoming SSL effort), for respective points above: a) Need better spec of MA, or more experimentation / reverse engineering. For SSL this is not a problem as the SSL specs are openly available and very detailed. b) Write bug free software :-) Test more rigourously on multiple unixs and architectures with a brief test run. c) Use hex numbers in a config file. Ie don't use uuencode on web page. d) We're going to have the programs (bruteRC4.c and bruteSSL.c) produce a checksum on completion. Acknowledgements of swept keyspace must be with checksum. Crude check to reduce chances of mistyped big hex nums. Represent the key space as a 4 digit hex number like this: 1a23, in terms of 24 bit keyspaces, and represent keyspace to sweep in terms of numbers of those, lots of people had difficulty reasoning in log base2 for bits. e) Do nothing yet. If we get lots of compute and it proves to be a problem perhaps implement some redundancy into the system. Coming soon brute force attempt on Hal Finney's brute of 40+88bit SSL. Watch this space, several cypherpunks are hard at work optimising their bruteSSL.c code, and also writing farming software via a system of servers connected via sockets. The WWW page doler will still be available for those with out direct IP. Hal Finney's SSL challenge is here: http://www.portal.com/~hfinney/sslchal.html More on SSL later, but we hoped to give the SSL one a wider announce in sci.crypt, and see how *fast* we can brute 40 bit keyspace. Hope to see your compute in the brute SSL effort when it is announced, Adam -- HAVE *YOU* EXPORTED A CRYPTO SYSTEM TODAY? --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ --rsa--------------------------------8<------------------------------------- #!/usr/local/bin/perl -s-- -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-in-3-lines-PERL ($k,$n)=(a)ARGV;$m=unpack(H.$w,$m."\0"x$w),$_=`echo "16do$w 2+4Oi0$d*-^1[d2% Sa2/d0<X+d*La1=z\U$n%0]SX$k"[$m*]\EszlXx++p|dc`,s/^.|\W//g,print pack('H*' ,$_)while read(STDIN,$m,($w=2*$d-1+length($n||die"$0 [-d] k n\n")&~1)/2) -------------------------------------8<------------------------------------- TRY: echo squeamish ossifrage | rsa -e 3 7537d365 | rsa -d 4e243e33 7537d365

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Re: cypherpunk "Zen" victories
by Doug Hughes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Vladimir Z. Nuri scribbled: > >I was recently marvelling at how much the "cypherpunk agenda" >is being advanced even in light of what would seem to be setbacks. >Particularly in the area of anonymous remailers. We now have a very >major article on remailers and Julf's setup in the NYT that portrays >them in an unbiased, unhysteria-stricken mode. Also in the article, >it quotes the police as regretting their falling victim to >Scientology manipulation and investigating the remailer "without >cause". A major officer is quoted as saying, roughly, "we are >going to need a crime before we investigate in the future". > Could you provide a page, date, and title for this article? I would like to read it but don't get a daily subscription. Muchas gracias Doug Hughes Engineering Network Services doug(a)eng.auburn.edu Auburn University

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Re: "Hey Phil! Stop telling people *not* to use PGP!" (plus: "help me with my PGP problems!") (fwd)
by Robert A. Hayden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Wed, 19 Jul 1995, Bryce Wilcox wrote: [lots of really really good stuff deleted, because I really don't have anything good to add to it] > I am fond of saying that we PGP enthusiasts have two choices ahead of us > within a couple of years: either 5,000 enthusiasts using PGP with > MAXIMAL SECURITY at all times, or 5,000 enthusiasts with MAXIMAL > SECURITY and 10,000,000 computer-illiterate e-mail users using PGP with > push-button interfaces and multi-user remote systems. I said it last week, and I'll say it again. From a sociological standpoint, it's those 10,000,000 computer-illiterate e-mail users that we need to focus all of our efforts towards. Those 5,000 literate people we really don't have to care about. I will say, and this makes for interesting commentary, over the last week or so, I've released those simple scripts for Pine (and today for Tin) that integrate digital signing fairly seamlessly with those programs. I've received about 200 requests since Monday from people asking where to find PGP, asking about similiar scripts for Windoze or Dos or Mac, or thanking me for providing an easier way to do digital signatures. And that was a simple sh script! Imagine if some people with REAL writing ability worked on some programs... Pushing for wide use of digital signatures is one way to get PGP to be a "household" name for people writing on the net. I now sign everything I post and mail. It gets people's attention and interest. Interest leads to use. > The important thing, of course, is the easy-to-use, e-mail-integrated > software (version 3.0, I hope?), but it would also help if Zimmermann's > PGP Doc didn't tell those computer-illiterates to either "become enthusiasts > or don't use it." I think the politics of PGP is stagnated at about two years ago or so. The demographics are no longer accepting to long technical rants. Today's generation of net.user doesn't need 100% security 100% of the time, what they need is "good" security when they want it, but in a way that they don't have to think much about. Sorry if I'm ranting again abotu everything I said last week. I'm in the process of doing research on social evolution using the net as an example of accelerated cultural change. I'm kinda in a specific mindset right now :-). -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: PGP Signed with PineSign 2.1 iQCVAwUBMA1WVjokqlyVGmCFAQEtJgP+JPbrM4KSQGiIznlnghYs1FEizGGhHLJZ +cSz36jatErJ/kFOEsNSwLz0crjdyHtv2v3ojsExTQVgQxzS/U60zwNR+gPxwdr7 bpIoEaZwGtANmsrkUtTqIwEncs7WPAF08ZbbaZpeB58qcvnpAergshrJya7gtOSM Wp8BqFcU+84= =TOLZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ____ Robert A. Hayden <=> Cthulhu Matata \ /__ -=-=-=-=- <=> -=-=-=-=- \/ / Finger for Geek Code Info <=> hayden(a)krypton.mankato.msus.edu \/ Finger for PGP Public Key <=> http://att2.cs.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden

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Adding
by netchaos＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I would like to be added to your list.

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