- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Spread Spectrum Nets (Way to do safely)
by Robert J Woodhead 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Succinctly, use the purloined letter technique -- hide it in plain sight. There are RF bands set aside for unlicensed low-power operation; some new phones use spread-spectrum techniques in these bands. Build and sell wireless ethernet nodes that talk using these techniques. Customers will demand strong encryption to prevent their data leaking out and outsiders sneaking in, so you have a good reason for adding this to the product. Develop a robust set of protocols that automatically manage the net, which is logically dynamic (movement of nodes and episodes of interference are logically equivalent to dynamic modification of the topology of the net. You can consider each node to be on N ethernets, where N is the number of nodes it is currently able to talk to, each ethernet having only two members.) Now the kicker; the nodes can be programmed to only talk to other nodes known to them (ie: the office work-group, building, etc), or to freely accept and route messages from "alien" nodes. Given a population of "liberal" message passing nodes, one can then add a new layer of routing protocols that do regional networking, with dynamic re-routing as needed. Purchasers of the wireless nodes should be encouraged to enable the "pass-through" option, and the protocols should guarantee that assisting in the passing on of messages does not affect local net performance. If you do it this way, you'll succeed much faster because people will be paying you to do it. You'll have more money for R&D, and you'll have a lot more people bitching if someone tries to take your toys away. The protocol design is, as they say, left as an exercise to the reader. It isn't all that difficult.

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Too Many Messages? Not!
by Arthur Chandler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As the culprit who started the "Native American Encryption" thread, I'd like to speak out in thanks and in favor of many answers to a question. It's true that lots of folks correctly identified Navajo as the source pf the language used. But lots of other details came in, one post at a time, that clarified the picture, and made it both more accurate and more interesting to folks interested in this fascinating chapter in the history of coding. The fact that Navajo was originally all-oral, but is now written; that the talkers used a compound of Navajo and on-the-fly slang; that real-language systems are immeasurably harder to crack than encrypted messages if you don't know they are real-life languages; etc. etc. -- I for one got a great deal out of the thread, including some references to follow up on. And all this has made me wonder if real-life languages, as opposed to algorthymic encryption schemes,.... Well, that's another thread.

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Re: Spread-spectrum net (vulnerability of)
by swc＠uc1.ucsu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

PCS is coming. It will support data communications at moderate rates to and from portable (handheld) units. We may achieve some gains by simply using PCS with encryption. You (I don't know who:-) may object: every PCS unit will have an ID will hich will be traceable to a person. But this need not be so. What if XYZ cmpany were to buy thousands of PCS units to issue to its independent agents and accept billing responsibility for all of them? XYZ could use anonymous account registration and pseudonyms from there on out. Thus the telcos and PCS operators get paid (by XYZ corp.) without having to know who the individual unit users are. XYZ can cut off an anonymous user who fails to pay his bill by telling the telcos/PCS operators to stop accepting calls from that ID (nobody needs to know who the deadbeat connected to that ID is). As long as there is sufficient prepayment by unit users to XYZ, that meritorious company can avoid losing its shirt to repeat deadbeats who keep registering (anonymously) for new accounts, running up big bills and not paying. What important point am I missing here? Thanks in advance to all the professional flamers out there who will make it clear to me :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stuart W. Card, Consultant, Card & Associates -- Research & Development Box 153 RR 1 Newport Rd Utica NY 13502 315-735-1717 / FAX -8469 swc(a)uc1.ucsu.edu or cards(a)top.cis.syr.edu "Who is John Galt?"

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Re: Native American Encryption?!
by koontzd＠lrcs.loral.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Navajo (Navaho) Indians. Referred to as Code Talkers. I believe you'll find something in David Kahns "The Code Breakers". They were used in tactical situations. To break an otherwise unknown language would require context, such as good traffic flow analysis and otherwise good intelligence. I beleive there was a program on A&E (TV) on the Navajo code talkers in the Pacific (WWII). Navajo code talkers used lots of colloquilisms and all new each other more or less. You could have ended up attacking language code in sets between two code talkers.

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Offline reading
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just finished (last night) Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove. Before that I read Out of Control by Kevin Kelly. Both were recommended by folks on this list, and both were very good. Does anyone else care to share thoughts on books they're read recently? I'm looking for anything interesting. Also, could anyone recommend a good intro to F.A. Hayek's work? (in or out of print; Boston has many good used bookstores.) Adam -- Adam Shostack adam(a)bwh.harvard.edu Politics. From the greek "poly," meaning many, and ticks, a small, annoying bloodsucker.

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Re: cryptx spam - des-based program.
by Ian Grigg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart said: > I got spammed by someone selling Cryptx, a DES-based encryption program. Sheez, not only spam, but perverting our good name! Cryptix is good strong stuff, they are simply hoping to confuse customers by dropping a vowel. -- iang systemics.com FP: 1189 4417 F202 5DBD 5DF3 4FCD 3685 FDDE on pgp.com

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Please Remove
by contest 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please remove setzer(a)wl.net from this mailing list

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FUCK! how do i unregister from toad.com or the 2 other server ?%
by Martin M 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am tired, i am registered to 3 cypherpunks server and tired or receiving 40-50 new message each day! Please someone reply! Martin mgmicro(a)usa.net

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Re: Cypherwaffle on spoofing
by jrk＠sys.uea.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Arthur Chandler writes: > What I find odd is the number and vehemence of posts ON A LIST DEVOTED >TO ENCRYPTION saying "Hey, it's a fact of life, accept it" -- even >dragging out Machiavelli's profoundly mistaken "if you can't enforce >it, don't prohibit it." "It's a fact of life" is a fact central to the, ahem, cypherpunk cause. Virtual personas are here. The only question is how this will change the way people deal with each other over the net. >Of all the groups on the Internet, I would >think that this one would be in a special position to say "put your >digital John Hancock on your post if you want to to taken seriously." That is one possibility: people start signing posts with IDs that verifiably mean something over a wider range of net and RL spaces than just a single small world like cypherpunks(a)com.toad. Personas which consist only of postings here might come to be taken less seriously, even if their content appears useful and constructive. I do not see what authoritarian action is needed, desirable, or practical. I would rather see a consensus emerge over how to behave in this new environment. I notice you didn't sign your post. Can I conclude that you do not want it to be taken seriously? -- ____ Richard Kennaway __\_ / School of Information Systems Internet: jrk(a)sys.uea.ac.uk \ X/ University of East Anglia uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk \/ Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.

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Re: Uniqueness and "is-a-person" credentials
by hal＠alumni.cco.caltech.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I remembered about is-a-person credentials after I posted. I had thought this idea came from Chaum but I didn't see it in his 1985 paper. I don't recall the details of this credentialling mechanism, so take what I say here with a grain of salt. I hope someone can post a cite. One point is, there is no need to associate these with states. Private corporations could easily issue is-a-person credentials. You show up and let them take your thumbprint (retina print, DNA scan, ...), and they give you the credential. They don't need to know your name, just that you don't already have a credential. (The different agencies would have to share a database as is done in many industries today.) Then, if L. Detweiler wants to accuse Eric and Jamie of being the same person, they can disprove it by exhibiting their different is-a-person credentials. (They might not "exhibit" them, they might use some kind of zero-knowledge proof to show they are different.) If anonymity and spoofing get to be too bad a problem, most people may refuse to have net.dealings with anyone who is not willing to show an is-a-person credential. Among your pseudonyms, only one can show it, otherwise they will be linked. This would force all but one of your pseudonyms into second-class citizenhood on the net. This may seem unfortunate, but as those who just got through flaming Detweiler remind us, if something like this is possible then just because you don't like it, that won't stop it from happening. It may be that in the future the net is not a very anonymous environment, just because the technology exists to catch spoofers. L. Detweiler may get his wish after all. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com

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