- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Netsacpe's Offical Response
by Glenn Powers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Originally From shank(a)netscape.com Thu Aug 17 11:42:39 1995 Received: from lydia.bradley.edu (root(a)lydia.bradley.edu [136.176.5.15]) by spectrum.bradley.edu (8.6.12/8.6.9) with ESMTP id LAA02511 for <gpowers(a)spectrum.bradley.edu>; Thu, 17 Aug 1995 11:42:36 -0500 Received: from bradley.bradley.edu (daemon(a)bradley.bradley.edu [136.176.5.10]) by lydia.bradley.edu (8.6.9/8.6.9) with ESMTP id KAA02851 for <gpowers(a)lydia.bradley.edu>; Thu, 17 Aug 1995 10:39:21 -0500 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by bradley.bradley.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA01320 for gpowers(a)lydia.bradley.edu; Thu, 17 Aug 1995 10:39:18 -0500 Received: from neon.netscape.com (neon.netscape.com [198.93.92.10]) by bradley.bradley.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA01310 for <gpowers(a)bradley.edu>; Thu, 17 Aug 1995 10:39:12 -0500 Received: from [198.93.94.118] (Shank.mcom.com [198.93.94.118]) by neon.netscape.com (950215.SGI.8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id IAA26102 for <gpowers(a)bradley.edu>; Thu, 17 Aug 1995 08:38:34 -0700 X-Sender: shank(a)pop.mcom.com Message-Id: <v02110107ac5914142373(a)[198.93.94.118]> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 08:44:45 -0700 X-PH: V4.1@bradley To: gpowers(a)bradley.edu From: shank(a)netscape.com (Peter Shank) Subject: Netscape security Glen, We're sending this response to the press and interested parties; it may also get posted on home.netscape.com. Best regards... -Peter Late Tuesday evening a person from France posted a news article to the hacker community claiming success at decrypting a single encrypted message that had been posted as a challenge on the Internet sometime on or before July 14, 1994. His response to the challenge is described in an email that has been forwarded widely across the Internet. What this person did is decrypt one encrypted message that used RC4-40 for encryption. He used 120 workstations and two parallel supercomputers for 8 days to do so. As many have documented, a single RC4-40 encrypted message takes 64 MIPS-years of processing power to break, and this roughly corresponds to the amount of computing power that was used to decrypt the message. Important points to understand: 1. He broke a single encrypted message. For him to break another message (even from the same client to the same server seconds later) would require *another* 8 days of 120 workstations and a few parallel supercomputers. The work that goes into breaking a single message can't be leveraged against other messages encrypted with other encryption keys. 2. The standard way to determine the level of security of any encryption scheme is to compare the cost of breaking it versus the value of the information that can be gained. In this case he had to use roughly $10,000 worth of computing power (ballpark figure for having access to 120 workstations and a few parallel supecomputers for 8 days) to break a single message. Assuming the message is protecting something of less value than $10,000, then this information can be protected with only RC4-40 security. For information of greater value, currently available RC4-128 security should be used. 3. Inside the US, software can support a range of stronger encryption options, including RC4-128, which is 2^88 times harder to break. Meaning that the compute power required to decrypt such a message would be more than 1,000,000,000,000 (trillion) times greater than that which was used to decrypt the RC4-40 message. This means that with forseeable computer technology this is practically impossible. So in conclusion, we think RC4-40 is strong enough to protect consumer-level credit-card transactions -- since the cost of breaking the message is sufficiently high to make it not worth the computer time required to do so -- and that our customers should use higher levels of security, particularly RC4-128, whenever possible. This level of security has been available in the U.S. versions of our products since last April. Because of export controls it has not been available outside the U.S. We would appreciate your support in lobbying the U.S. government to lift the export controls on encryption. If you'd like to help us lobby the government send email to export(a)netscape.com. Finally, we'd like to reiterate that all this person has done is decrypt one single RC4-40 message. RC4 the algorithm and products which use the algorithm remain as secure as always.

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Another SSL breakage...
by aba＠dcs.exeter.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- All hell seems to have broken loose whilst I was lazing on the beach yesterday. SSL breakings, big name newspaper newsreports (of varying degrees of accuracy), and much ITAR bashing (yay!) or perhaps that should be nooooh! 'cos I might be doing myself out of work as a UK crypto hacker (as John Hemming said in the article Robert Hettinga forwarded) if we loose the fun advantage of being in the free world, and not having to follow the ITAR nonsense. Anyway, congratulations Damien! As Hal said, another group was working on the SSL challenge (albiet just for software testing purposes). Here's the story.... on Tue, 15 Aug 1995 10:43:15 +0200 I recieved this from David Byers <davby(a)ida.liu.se>: > Eureka! > > Encrypted Master Key: 7ef0961fa6 > > [...] So who was first? David hit it Tue 10:43 GMT+2. Doesn't matter, the more the merrier, and the better to demonstrate the silly ITAR export restrictions. This was a trial run at breaking it which two people had done just to check if their respective software was working correctly. It appears that it was :-). This testing was some of the reason for the slowness in getting the group effort started, we were very keen to ensure it really would work, and that the software was working perfectly. Disappointment with the RC4 bruting demonstrated the importance of checking first. On with the story, Davids eureka arrived Tuesday, I tinkered with it some, but was interpreting it wrongly and left it for that day, then I was away yesterday (at the beach with wife and kids, nice weather over here), and figured out how to apply the key this morning (with a bit of prompting from Hal as to what I was doing wrong), just after reading Damien's announce on cpunks, where he independently bruted it on a farm of workstations. Here's the output, with the "Mr Cosmic Kumquat" from "SSL Trusters Inc": > PPOST /order2.cgi HTTP/1.0Referer: https://order.netscape.com/order2.cgi > User-Agent: Mozilla/1.1N (Macintosh; I; PPC) > Accept: */* > Accept: image/gif > Accept: image/x-xbitmap > Accept: image/jpeg > Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded > Content-length: 472 > > source-form=order2-cust.html&order_number=31770&prod_80-01020-00_Mac=1&carrier_code=UM&ship_first=Cosmic&ship_last=Kumquat&ship_org=SSL+Trusters+Inc.&ship_addr1=1234+Squeamish+Ossifrage+Road&ship_addr2=&ship_city=Anywhere&ship_state=NY&ship_zip=12345&ship_country=USA&ship_phone=&ship_fax=&ship_email=&bill_first=&bill_last=&bill_org=&bill_addr1=&bill_addr2=&bill_city=&bill_state=&bill_zip=&bill_country=USA&bill_phone=&bill_fax=&bill_email=&submit=+Submit+Customer+Data+ (I won't bother formating it more cleanly as Damien has already done the honors). I think a group effort ought to be done now that we are confident of the software, just to see how darn fast we (cypherpunks as a group) can knock off SSL keys. (This one was done by 2 people for testing purposes, and independently by Damien (who we didn't know was working on it)). I'd really like to work up to a really meanly few hours breakage, as it looks that much more impresive. The next media release ought to be of a steady offer, of the form, cpunks break keys in x hours, where x is a very small number. And not just break one key, but will break lots of keys, as required, until something is done about it (ITAR) :-) Eric Young is currently away on holiday, but I have his machine stats from earlier email, where he explained the hardware he was testing on. Eric swept 8000 - FFFF, and David 0000 - 7ef0 (where he hit the key) Machine stats for this bruting: 1 x 16k processor MasPar MP-1 - 1.5M keys/sec 4 CPUs of R4400 200mhz - 24000 keys/sec 4 CPUs of sparc 60mhz - 17500 keys/sec 2 CPUs of sparc 50mhz - 14800 keys/sec 1 CPU of Pentium 75mhz - 10200 keys/sec 1 CPU of Alpha - 10000 keys/sec 2 CPUs of 88100 - 8000 keys/sec 1 CPU of 88000 - 3500 keys/sec 1 CPU of R3000 36mhz - 3800 keys/sec 49 CPUs of 486DX 50mhz - 3780 per src The workstations total: - 424,320 keys/sec, and the Maspar 1.5M keys/sec on it's own. The 0000 - 8000 sweep was finished Aug 11 (he might have finished a day or two earlier, that's when he replied to my question as to how he was getting on. He left for his holiday after that email. The MasPar sweepings were going fast, swept 0000 - 795d (this was sometime before the 11th Aug) but someone else wanted the machine, so a pause ... and then (presumably Tues morning) 795d - 7ef0 and bang he hit it. We were getting worried about the possibility of software failure by then as we'd already swept 8000 - FFFF and 0000 - 795D accounting for 97.4% of the key space. It was hiding away in the last bit of unswept keyspace. Luck of the draw... A few quick calculations: The maspar alone could do the entire keyspace in 8 1/2 days, or an expected average time of ~100 hours. I believe I'm right that there would be lots of organisations which would sell you idle maspar hours for a lot less than $100 / hr. Heck you could do it with PC's, if they (WSJ article) think it's worth $10k all I can say is "give me the $10k", and I'll do it and make a handsome profit. The workstation farm, at 424k keys/sec could do the job in 30 days, or 15 days average. The workstation farm was only used to sweep half the key space, and was used overnight (12 hours) and weekends (61 hours) only as people were using the machines during the day. Could it have been done with out anyone knowing? Hell, yes - it was in fact, no announce was made as it was just testing etc. Adam - -- HAVE *YOU* EXPORTED RSA TODAY? --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ - --rsa--------------------------8<------------------------------- #!/bin/perl -s-- -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-3-lines-PERL $m=unpack(H.$w,$m."\0"x$w),$_=`echo "16do$w 2+4Oi0$d*-^1[d2%Sa 2/d0<X+d*La1=z\U$n%0]SX$k"[$m*]\EszlXx++p|dc`,s/^.|\W//g,print pack('H*',$_)while read(STDIN,$m,($w=2*$d-1+length($n)&~1)/2) - -------------------------------8<------------------------------- TRY: rsa -k=3 -n=7537d365 < msg | rsa -d -k=4e243e33 -n=7537d365 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i iQCVAwUBMDNbnSnIuJ1VakpnAQHe9AP8DJBhZ8LyRNx7PO1GY076Cap+xzdS0/ys WE/tdm0GBfjqxvjtar85mmc1hZVPCn1m5Swsflk2ZpieLbwUzHz+g1ciW3IiZu1Y 8Qc2HJxWRrez3J5CeiMHgMJl6Bj6vF5XAWLW0v6NpujbOR9XuIjsKnH3jKvkhLF5 z0u7Oui0AX0= =nkmn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Denver area meeting, SUNDAY, 8/20, 2 pm
by adwestro＠ouray.cudenver.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This one is on SUNDAY, 2 pm, at the Tivoli Food Court (at least initially). Send email for directions, etc. Alan Westrope <awestrop(a)nyx10.cs.du.edu> __________/|-, <adwestro(a)ouray.cudenver.edu> (_) \|-' 2.6.2 public key: finger / servers PGP 0xB8359639: D6 89 74 03 77 C8 2D 43 7C CA 6D 57 29 25 69 23 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Exon blows goats...but I suspect you already knew that. iQCVAwUBMDOBpVRRFMq4NZY5AQEnVAP8CLg9z5AwjIw0ouJtxPPr6CUytFOeVPrt cMrEm8MRUt0ay0S4F+TGMq1npcF8pxdU0jwWk9EBj+1XvTOKVpEED+kp8shafsVj qlWGplAVUHMTF19H1VAByoz7j3VGMB2zmdNDm2ifDMNzR5Di81o7CeyvQT0sZ6zt 5XGWmHkoX3g= =GD3W -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: NSA Lawyers Believe ITARs Would be Overturned if Tested in Court (fwd)
by Vincent Cate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My arms trafficker page has been up since April 26th. We have 838 arms traffickers and a public file with a list of 360 "known arms traffickers". It was mentioned on CNN. So far, nobody from the NSA or anywhere else has complained. I am sure if this went to court they would loose. They have to claim that clicking a mouse button on a web form so that 3 lines of text go back to where they just came from, makes someone a criminal. "May it please the court, the charge against these 838 criminal clickers is international arms-trafficking." In a country where a double murderer can walk? I am sure they realize this, which is why I feel it is safe for me to do this (also I believe that EFF etc would so love to have my case as a test case that they would pay my legal bills). -- Vince Cate http://online.offshore.com.ai/arms-trafficker/ http://online.offshore.com.ai/publicity/cnn.html

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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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Please Remove
by contest 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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

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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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No Subject
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi everyone, Well, I guess it's official now. I'm going to speak at MacWorld on Thursday the 7th. If your planning to go to MacWorld, feel free to stop by and talk about e$ and financial cryptography on the Macintosh. > ---------------------------------- > * DIGITAL COMMERCE FOR THE REST OF US [Session 92, Thursday 8/7, 4:00-5:15 > pm, World Trade Center] -- What are the fundamental forces in the technology > of digital commerce? What effect will digital commerce have on society? What > are Mac's strengths are in this environment? What are some very specific > things that Apple and the Macintosh community can do, right now, to > participate as a full partner in the development of digital commerce on > public networks? What are the technologies that Mac people should concentrate > on to be first movers in the new geodesic economy? Solo Speaker: BOB > HETTINGA, Freelance Digital Commerce Analyst, e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, > MA 02131; http://www.shipwright.com/ > ---------------------------------- Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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Re: No more NSA supra-computer?
by pcw＠access.digex.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Yesterday I was talking with a friend, and the subject of supercomputers >came up. Naturally, I mentioned the NSA 7000 Y-MP equivalent and Gunter >Ahrendt's list of supercomputers worldwide (finger >gunter(a)yarrow.wt.uwa.edu.au) My friend sent me a note this morning saying >that he couldn't find that machine on Gunter's list; sure enough, it's been >removed. > My guess, and this is only a guess, is that it disappeared for "security" reasons. They have a habit of keeping the smallest bit of light from emerging. For instance, no one knows the "Black" part of the budget. It's classified. But you can take the total budget amount and subtract the non-Black section and get the result. They make you do the math.

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Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
by Jim choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > There is some confusion in terminology here. The brass case is indeed > discarded when the round is fired. Byt 'casing' he means the exterior of > the warhead. The word 'round' is used for both the warhead+gunpowder+brass > and then for the warhead itself. Larger artillery pieces do not use a > brass shell case at all. The round is loaded, and then the powder is > rammed in after it. > That is called the 'jacket' in all the years I have handled weapons that is the only correct term for it. The casing is where the powder goes. We were not talking about artillery pieces in relation to the comment by me on this issue. I know little about artillery, I do know about tanks and aircraft because they are a life long interest for me. > > I can find no reference any U-core round being HE or otherwise carrying a > > charge. In all cases that I am aware of and can find reference to it is simply > > a KE attack on the target where the by products of the impact bounce around > > inside the target grinding up whatever is in there. > > I believe that this is true, except that the 'products of the impact' are > drops of metal and what they do is worse than grinding something up. > -- > Jim Dixon > The pieces in most cases are simply slivers of metal that breaks off the inside of the tank because of hyper-sonic shockwaves. They are not molten and do not in general cause a fire. Other than a lucky hit on a live round with the ammo door open there is little chance of starting a fire.

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