- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: bi-directional dining cryptographers
by Phil Fraering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm rereading my mail at once; I've forgotten if I told you this already. Anyway, I just presupposed the same protocol outlined by Chaum in his paper. It's disruptable, but so's any DC-net to begin with. DC-nets presuppose a fair amount of co-operation between their participants. I'd also like to point out that this system indicates that during an attack/disruption on a traditional dc-net, the disruptor can tell what the original person was trying to send, even though noone else can. And then perhaps XOR the data with something offensive, and if the original sender tries to re-send, broadcast the result of the XOR, resulting in a total net output of the offensive material. I'm sure someone's going to try that sooner or later. Phil

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WSJ on remailers...
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The WSJ has a article on anonymous remailers buried in the B section. It is pretty straightforward and ends up quoting some Finnish police officer saying that they're not going to go raiding remailers on any suspicion. They'll need a real crime. -Peter

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Re: Root Causes Roots
by liberty＠gate.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Professor Froomkin writes: >Jim didn't take my Con Law I course. True, and from what I hear, I regret not taking it. > >In message <199507161819.OAA06090(a)bb.hks.net> Jim Ray writes: >[cuts throughout] >> >> Amendment IX -- "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights >> shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." > ^^^^^^^ >> [The right to write code was among many rights NOT enumerated.] >> > >Very hard to argue that the right to write code (as opposed to, >say, the right to write in code) A distinction my feeble mind fails to grasp, as doing the one is required in order to even make the other possible. [Now all can see why I had so much trouble in law school.] >existed in the late 18th century; A short trip to:"CME's cryptography timeline" [Recently suggested on this list] and found at URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/cme/html/timeline.html Reveals some interesting code-history. [In case the good professor or others on the list are without a SLIP/PPP connection, a not-so-short excerpt from CME's cryptography timeline follows]: _____________________________________________________________ - - From David Kahn's ``The Codebreakers'': ``It must be that as soon as a culture has reached a certain level, probably measured largely by its literacy, cryptography appears spontaneously -- as its parents, language and writing, probably also did. The multiple human needs and desires that demand privacy among two or more people in the midst of social life must inevitably lead to cryptology wherever men thrive and wherever they write. Cultural diffusion seems a less likely explanation for its occurrence in so many areas, many of them distant and isolated.'' [p. 84] The invention of cryptography is not limited to either civilians or the government. Wherever the need for secrecy is felt, the invention occurs. However, over time the quality of the best available system continues to improve and those best systems were often invented by civilians. Again, from David Kahn: ``It was the amateurs of cryptology who created the species. The professionals, who almost certainly surpassed them in cryptanalytic expertise, concentrated on down-to-earth problems of the systems that were then in use but are now outdated. The amateurs, unfettered to those realities, soared into the empyrean of theory.'' [pp. 125-6] In the list to follow (until I learn how to make tables in HTML), each description starts with (date; civ or govt; source). Sources are identified in full at the end. about 1900 BC; civ; Kahn p.71; an Egyptian scribe used non-standard hieroglyphs in an inscription. Kahn lists this as the first documented example of written cryptography. 1500 BC; civ; Kahn p.75; a Mesopotamian tablet contains an enciphered formula for the making of glazes for pottery. 500-600 BC; civ; Kahn p.77; Hebrew scribes writing down the book of Jeremiah used a reversed-alphabet simple substitution cipher known as ATBASH. (Jeremiah started dictating to Baruch in 605 BC but the chapters containing these bits of cipher are attributed to a source labeled ``C'' (believed not to be Baruch) which could be an editor writing after the Babylonian exile in 587 BC, someone contemporaneous with Baruch or even Jeremiah himself.) ATBASH was one of a few Hebrew ciphers of the time. 487 BC; govt; Kahn p.82; the Greeks used a device called the ``skytale'' -- a staff around which a long, thin strip of leather was wrapped and written on. The leather was taken off and worn as a belt. Presumably, the recipient would have a matching staff and the encrypting staff would be left home. 50-60 BC; govt; Kahn p.83; Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) used a simple substitution with the normal alphabet (just shifting the letters a fixed amount) in government communciations. This cipher was less strong than ATBASH, by a small amount, but in a day when few people read in the first place, it was good enough. <SNIP! Off to some [slightly] more modern times.> 1564; civ; Kahn p.144(footnote); Bellaso published an autokey cipher improving on the work of Cardano who appears to have invented the idea. 1623; civ; Bacon; Sir Francis Bacon described a cipher which now bears his name -- a biliteral cipher, known today as a 5-bit binary encoding. He advanced it as a steganographic device -- by using variation in type face to carry each bit of the encoding. 1585; civ; Kahn p.146; Blaise de Vigenère wrote a book on ciphers, including the first authentic plaintext and ciphertext autokey systems (in which previous plaintext or ciphertext letters are used for the current letter's key). [Kahn p.147: both of these were forgotten and re-invented late in the 19th century.] [The autokey idea survives today in the DES CBC and CFB modes.] 1790's; civ/govt; Kahn p.192, Cryptologia v.5 No.4 pp.193-208; Thomas Jefferson, possibly aided by Dr. Robert Patterson (a mathematician at U. Penn.), invented his wheel cipher. This was re-invented in several forms later and used in WW-II by the US Navy as the Strip Cipher, M-138-A. 1817; govt; Kahn p.195; Colonel Decius Wadsworth produced a geared cipher disk with a different number of letters in the plain and cipher alphabets -- resulting in a progressive cipher in which alphabets are used irregularly, depending on the plaintext used. 1854; civ; Kahn p.198; Charles Wheatstone invented what has become known as the Playfair cipher, having been publicized by his friend Lyon Playfair. This cipher uses a keyed array of letters to make a digraphic cipher which is easy to use in the field. He also re-invented the Wadsworth device and is known for that one. 1857; civ; Kahn p.202; Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort's cipher (a variant of what's called ``Vigenère'') was published by his brother, after the admiral's death in the form of a 4x5 inch card. 1859; civ; Kahn p.203; Pliny Earle Chase published the first description of a fractionating (tomographic) cipher. 1854; civ; Cryptologia v.5 No.4 pp.193-208; Charles Babbage seems to have re-invented the wheel cipher. 1861-1980; civ; Deavours; ``A study of United States patents from the issuance of the first cryptographic patent in 1861 through 1980 identified 1,769 patents which are primarily related to cryptography.'' [p.1] 1861; civ/(govt); Kahn p.207; Friedrich W. Kasiski published a book giving the first general solution of a polyalphabetic cipher with repeating passphrase, thus marking the end of several hundred years of strength for the polyalphabetic cipher. 1861-5; govt; Kahn p.215; during the Civil War, possibly among other ciphers, the Union used substitution of select words followed by word columnar-transposition while the Confederacy used Vigenère (the solution of which had just been published by Kasiski). 1891; govt/(civ); Cryptologia v.5 No.4 pp.193-208; Major Etienne Bazeries did his version of the wheel cipher and published the design in 1901 after the French Army rejected it. [Even though he was a military cryptologist, the fact that he published it leads me to rate this as (civ) as well as govt.] <SNIP> ______________________________________________________________ End of copy from "CME's cryptography timeline." Thanks [and apologies] to David Kahn, whose 1960s book is well worth buying, even today. ______________________________________________________________ Professor Froomkin continues: >hence it is hard to argue that it could be "retained" >today. In view of the foregoing timeline excerpts, I would respectfully disagree. > >Assuming that the ninth amendment has, or could have, teeth, [I am certain it _would_, with ballot-access-fairness reform, but that's a side issue, like abortion, that should *not* occupy this list. I am, however, quite willing to discuss it by private e-mail. JMR] >it >is unlikely to go beyond rights existing or closely analogous to >those held by "the people" [free white males, more likely] at >the time of the amendment's ratification. Just as well if you >think about it carefully. Careful thought reveals a atrong suspicion that the "3/5ths people" [slaves] had more use for crypto at the time than free white males did, but I doubt much, if any, evidence of that activity was preserved, and I'm sure it was _forcefully_ discouraged if ever discovered...My point is, slaves, or those who live in fear of eventual slavery, for whatever reason, have a strong affinity for cryptography. Note, for example, early use [mentioned in the timeline above] by the Jewish people. JMR Regards, Jim Ray "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." Voltaire -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Freedom isn't Freeh iQCVAwUBMAqmcG1lp8bpvW01AQFfHwP6AxRCwCIunx0GDuRkG5EZTjvkdPOIqaJd SAAdjHI12faTTL965zeNLw1ws/5/d+INC5U+j1i3mtRbBzb3rYZTRxtb3wmze0jR cQZblne2Q1jt1teH0xghFrrC3iPkIV9ILf5IdRafv1xqx/cv4/fuUpWb/89nCDzC U/mCFmCWNYE= =/+5k -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Root Causes
by terrell＠sam.neosoft.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >From: Michael Froomkin <Michael(a)umlaw.demon.co.uk> >Jim didn't take my Con Law I course. > >In message <199507161819.OAA06090(a)bb.hks.net> Jim Ray writes: >[cuts throughout] >> >> Amendment IX -- "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights >> shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." > ^^^^^^^ >> [The right to write code was among many rights NOT enumerated.] >> > >Very hard to argue that the right to write code (as opposed to, >say, the right to write in code) existed in the late 18th >century; hence it is hard to argue that it could be "retained" >today. What about Jacquard loom cards? Buford C. Terrell 1303 San Jacinto Street Professor of Law Houston, TX 77002 South Texas College of Law voice (713)646-1857 terrell(a)sam.neosoft.com fax (713)646-1766

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Re: Automated Rant Generators and Letter Generators
by tcmay＠sensemedia.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:29 PM 7/17/95, Harry Bartholomew wrote: >> >> Cypherpunks could probably have an effect on hastening this "denial of >> service" attack on the efficacy of letter-writing by releasing an >> easy-to-use package that does all this letter writing at the click of a >> button....just type in some key words, for the topics, and it does the >> rest. >> >> An interesting project, actually. >> >> --Tim May >> > A final step might be to interface the output to old pen plotters > like my HP7470A with an ascii-to-handwriting program. Akin to > the White House souvenir signature generator, but with a set of > parameters to mimic different "hands". Knuth's Metafont tricks > come to mind. By the way, I should first say that I have nothing against letter writing, and my comments about "hastening" a "denial of service" attack on letter-writing are mostly just out of general interest. Bart's comments about using Knuth's typographic work are interesting, to the extent that letters need to look handwritten. In the Mac market, it's possible to send in some handwriting samples and get back a font that emulates the handwriting! I don't think the pen plotter is actually needed--and few people would use it--as most faxes can be emulated with laser printers (due of course to the limited dots per inch resulution). In fact, most fax modems can directly fax from any screen that can produce printed output. So, the combination of handwriting fonts, automated rant generators (of varying rabidities), and fax capabilities gives a pretty good start. Using lots of handwriting samples, various other fonts, and a mix of styles in the letters will help. Anyway, where this all gets interesting is the following: * Can a kind of Turing Test be tried here? That is, in this limited domain of "letters to the editor/Congressmen," can a letter generator be implemented which generates letters effectively indistinguishable from letters and faxes generated by actual human beings? ("Effectively indistinguishable" in the sense that a human reader could not sort a set of letters into human- and machine-generated subsets with statistically significant certainty better than guessing). Of course this is also similar to the "style detectors" we so often talk about. The crypto relevance has to do with detecting patterns in letters and rants, in emulating these patterns, and (perhaps) in speeding up lobbying. (Though I agree that widespread adoption of automated letter-writing, such as the direct mail folks are already doing, will eventually just kill off letter writing as a means of lobbying.) This may also hasten the adoption, someday, of digital signatures. Congressmen and their aides may check incoming letters against databases of their consituents who have "registered" with them (lots of issues here). Merely counting the "yes" and "no" letters has long been problematic, as the Republicans have been leading in direct mail campaigns since at least the mid-70s (recall Richard Viguerie...). Increased automation will just make it even more obvious. --Tim May .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)sensemedia.net | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: ECM list.
by bigdaddy＠ccnet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >I'm also considering other strategies for gaining e$-- offering a service >on the DigiCash "cybershops" page, or just going to all my e-mail using >friends, showing them how to get their free e$100.00, and then begging them >to give me half of it. (Finder's fee? Friendly gift?) Why not offer an anonymous proxy of some kind for e-cash? You can charge per connect or per unit of time, simply to demonstrate the concept. The techniques developed for remailers(breaking up messages...accepting PGP- encrypted destinations...varying times...so on) could find an application here. If a chain could be constructed, it would help protect the identity of the user(assuming no collusion between operators). The problem is, as always, to write the code. Not to mention the ethical/possibly legal question of selling anonymity... Another possible service: selling gems of wisdom in pieces. Find or write a gem of wisdom...taking into account copyright laws and so forth. Then set up a storefront via telnet or http...a sort of kiosk. Customers can then buy secrets or portions of secrets...or percentages. Use a secret splitting algorithm to allow people to 'split the cost' of a secret and then get in touch with each other through anonymous remailers set up for that purpose by your kiosk. Depending on the information you're selling(whether it be the secret key for BlackNet or simply the contents of your CD collection), you could earn some e-cash this way. An all-or-nothing-disclosure-of-secrets protocol might also come in handy. Again, the problem is sitting down and writing the code. Has anyone made any significant efforts toward either of these yet, with or without CD$? David Molnar -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMApx1+FDHpuTkgoVAQEo/Af/cmZPKI1Uk/hFbTwuQwcZbDagnAHpZkqZ WdJMUe/4RxOymB5mnfvM7bl4S4x5BrUJJ6mepQwq0/39PiJRWAJFJFnhuZoIin5o I5KCOTNQMVNdJLL7iTtZJEqrIEGhfq2lrRpbyc1wPGj+9l7tWlSfTXLl+E0z6MtZ OWEJ0mzP4eG5TQJEtObAqD5QYOhHngEN96NMYDUv6gYzZROx3zovYqrFFrJt8zr1 HkxZzpA/rGHdoCAeViLAqO42o18zRvu8j0i7VIXI/rx6rOQ6gCDs4tgjMH1BSQH4 3rMfxb0KB8Vlmd1AL1OzvhRSy9cbBvdX2D+iOC7sZQ755JBRwJKd2Q== =9YVg -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- lo...look to the sig, for there will be no sign

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Re: "Judgement Proof" and Putting Up or Shutting Up
by jgrubs＠voxbox.norden1.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- mpd(a)netcom.com (Mike Duvos) writes: > > > What's CFR? > Code of Federal Regulations? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: http://norden1.com/~jim/sylvania.html iQCVAwUBMAr8cN74r4kaz3mVAQFZUgP+K/tIieWM1meiSWMfveLeF/LTLc1oLTp/ IftfXZokadfbh9RMvSXfiJvCVHZS/mRa33KG+SCNjt+K0yLWi7JrYFEmepGxFlVn NjcrZdM+lFfNc03ksgOlccZg+o7GlzBNUW3s7yN2/Y2aRss22mfJkhtWvfaqDs7h mYT4tONtNSQ= =Zp8i -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- WebCasters(tm) James C. Grubs jgrubs(a)voxbox.norden1.com 6817 Maplewood Avenue Tel.: 419-882-2697 Sylvania, Oh 43560 Fax: 419-885-2814 Internet consulting, HTML programing, Information brokering

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RE: Stego-Rants ?
by Bolivar Shagnasty 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

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Re: RC4 crack
by dan＠milliways.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 17 Jul 95 21:36:45 +0100 you wrote: > >Yep a telnet port is it for both reporting and getting keys, also the >WWW interface to the same. > >> I'd basicly like to be able to start the program, nice it, slam it >> in the background, and forget about it. > >Adam > Is there an easy way to integrate machines who are not on-net 24-7 into this protocol? Not all of us have dedicated lines.:) Dan Bailey ****************************************************************************** Vote Speaker Newt Gingrich for President!! Dan Bailey Worcester Polytechnic Institute, class of 1997. merzbow(a)ibm.net ******************************************************************************

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Cray Computer liquidating...
by Phil Fraering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

According to a flier from an e-mail list I'm currently unwillingly subscribed to, Cray Computer is going out of business. Any comments and/or crypto relevance? Phil

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