- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

17 Dec '03

From: christopher(a)nescio.zerberus.de (Christopher Creutzig) > I think I have realized a serious flaw in PGPs key-handling. This may > lead to people using and signing bogus keys despite the usual security > measures. > > The problem is that PGP fails to differentiate between two keys sharing > the same 64-bit-Key-ID. It is not a real problem to generate a key with a > given key-ID (just take a prime, invert the desired key-ID modulo this > prime and look for another prime whose lower bits are the same as in the > number you just calculated), so the following attack would be possible: PGP checks specifically for the case of keys whose IDs match but the keys themselves differ. It has always been obvious that keys can easily be synthesized with given IDs. I added this warning in version 2.0 about four years ago, in the keyadd code: "\n\007Warning: Key ID %s matches key ID of key already on key ring '%s', but the keys themselves differ. This is highly suspicious. This key will not be added to ring. Acknowledge by pressing return: " > If the owner of the correct key does not give a fingerprint, but rather > a disk with the correct key to the person you are trying to fool, his or > her pgp won't ring alarm bells when reading the key (apart from possibly > a failed signature), but rather will tell him the key is already there. As you can see, it does in fact literally ring an alarm bell - the "\007" above is the ASCII bell character. Disclaimer: I have not worked on PGP since version 2.0 so possibly my code has been changed or eliminated, but I think that is unlikely. Hal Finney

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Microchip Technologies and Nanoteq
by Arley Carter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Microchip Technologies, the "PIC" people, according to the grapevine is introducing smart card products apparently based upon Nanoteq's algorithm's. Microchip calls it "Keeloq Code Hopping". Bruce Schneier's short description of the Nanoteq algorithm (p 390 2nd edition Applied Crypto ) is not too favorable. I'm not sure how code hopping interacts or is used in the system. Can anybody shed further light on this subject and the viability of this cryptographic system? Regards: -arc Arley Carter Tradewinds Technologies, Inc. email: ac(a)hawk.twinds.com www: http://www.twinds.com "Trust me. This is a secure product. I'm from <insert your favorite corporation or government agency>."

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Re: PPV Descrambler (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > > "This is cypherpunks. Not Cable-TV-Piracy-Punks." > > Cable-TV-Piracy-Punks? Who's this guy? I asked for a text file (for > informational purposes of course). Oh and David K. Merriman, PPV is > not on cable. > Video Scrambling & Descramblin for Satellite & Cable TV R.F. Graf & W. Sheets ISBN 0-672-22499-2 $31.95 PPV is on the Austin, TX cable systems. Several varieties even.

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RE: What backs up digital money?
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: Perry E. Metzger > >I'd say that anything directly dealing with digital cash, its >implications, deployment, and technical issues associated with >it. General discussions of whether the Federal Reserve is a bunch of >evil old men and the like are what are out of bounds. [...etc.] .................................................................. So you mean rather than merely, or only, complaining that things have not, or are not, working right (in our favor, to our benefit), because of what Evil Old Men have done to the system as it now operates, the discussion should go in the direction of: . "doing something about it", or . ideas on methods and techniques which would work, which could . make a difference (potentially, hopefully) towards the success of techie systems which would result in greater personal, individual control, also including perhaps: . clarifications on why, in spite of the resistance of those who are apprehensive about the break-down of law&order, these are a "good thing" to promote and implement (for those who don't "get it"), . aiming more at postive improvements and successes in the future, rather than focusing too much on past mistakes, failures, injustices (where the reader could wonder, "so how does this relate"). ...or something like that. .. >Blanc

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have ANY code for DES or RSA encryption for use on a PIC microcontroler? A friend and I are developing an ASCII terminal (dumb term) that encrypts data going to the serial port and decrypts data coming from the serial port, so you could successfully send a message over a modem and have it automatically encrypted\decrypted. We have all the hardware almost done, but we are having a hell of a time writing the code for the encryption... Thanx in advance... l8r, -MeRC merc(a)redrose.net -or- merc(a)success.net -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUAMUC05tnn3Dsf47p5AQE6AAP9E/JebLn1UtkOk41IGw/i4XHKckVcI6RH ptBMucqx01sSTxaR8tXPmmkKjz5f3xndxepbbs6nKfoNuSaODWSirOlNvt3i1DWL iUmB9+rUYmwwlpD7t6qyy2XzsAxO/M/nFT4ZxO8wi96nR/Rmp00LvCoK+YcjgQnj HReyQrIl4X+ZAI0DMUCzOgAAAQQAv6IH+OnLeP+chsgwymSVKqsXHO1xwJLxs657 Cf3miDM3mNBB/qmRziQ1zHeC/nXgaGhR7eAdidL6MngDXl6+cw4Z5xXvenu5MpEW zpZpwDK5/XwuvCIexQP2eHIb2Ms6vna7fUoaHGrrV4844KIVg+E36ZgWT1ZP2efc Ox/junkABRGwAYe0I01pY2hhZWwgRC4gV2hpdGUgPG1lcmNAc3VjY2Vzcy5uZXQ+ sAED =ZbPJ -----END PGP MESSAGE-----

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

os <os(a)cs.strath.ac.uk> writes: > >There is not a single foreign language I can think of it that would help me > >in my goals or help anyone I know. > > I have never known anyone being disadvantaged by knowing another language tha > tongue. Tim (and others) miss out the pleasure of using an exotic language in the presense of people who won't understand it. --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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Re: Crypto CD
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:53 PM 3/27/96 -0800, Matthew Ghio wrote: >alano(a)teleport.com (Alan Olsen) wrote: > >>It would be a nice thing to have if it is reletivly complete. Hopefully it >>can be created with a minimum of government interfearence. (But then, I >>have been xpecting alt.binaries.crypto to be created as well...) > >alt.binaries.warez.crypto has existed for a long time (at least on Netcom), >although I haven't seen any posts lately. I suspect many sites deliberately >exclude alt.binaries.warez.* to save disk space. I notice that Netcom takes *EVERYTHING*. (Including the incredibly bogus and silly groups.) Teleport has never, to my knowledge, taken that group. Teleport has since removed all of the remaining warez groups in an effort of moral excess. (After taking all of the groups in existance, including the forign ones that nobody on Teleport reads, and claiming they did not censor groups.) Personally I could care less about the warez groups (it is not as if you could ever find a complete program), but the crypto one would have been nice to see... --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon

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Re: Why Americans feel no compulsion to learn foreign languages
by mike＠fionn.lbl.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mar 27, 1:05pm, Rich Graves wrote: > Undeniably true. I think Tim's point was more, "Who cares? Everyone *I* > want to talk to speaks English." Maybe; & who someone talks to & how they do it is of no particular interest to me. However, he said something else: that foreign language speakers were unavailable to most Americans. This is easily shown to be false. That many other people in our English-speaking community also believe it is interesting. Often, they can provide counterexamples themselves without too much trouble (& you may recall that Tim May did). This says something about this culture. What, I don't know, but it's some kind of cognitive dissonance. It occurs to me that members of certain large language groups in the US, who don't speak English, sometimes make the same statement -- "Everyone I want to talk to speaks X". I don't know why this disclaimer is necessary, but please note that I don't think for a moment that you all are "bad" if your beliefs are in accord with what Tim May wrote. Nor do I think you should go out & learn some random language. > One may quibble with the wisdom or morality of such a statement, but if > the second statement is true in your case, then there is no reason you > should have to learn another language. Most upper-income Americans have no I'm not sure what the "second statement" is you're referring to. Anyway, there are a lot of reasons one might choose to study a foreign language, and many levels of fluency. There are many economic issues that could apply, & some non - economic arguments as well. There are very good reasons not to bother, as well.

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here is an abstract of a report the German newsmagazine Focus published on March 11, 1996 (p. 16) - "Spaete Ermittlungen gegen Techno-Spione" (late/belated investigations against technology spies). I do not include a translation of the whole original text for copyright reasons. "Specialists of the German Federal Police Agency (BKA) have decrypted 44 floppy disks from the former [East German] Ministry for State Security" (MfS). A defector had handed over the floppies to the German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) in spring 1990. The disks contain information on East German spies in former West Germany. Judicial inquiries against 29 suspects have started now. Apparently, the BKA got the data no sooner than 1994. This is because the BND did not tell law authorities about the floppy disks. German federal DAs learned about the data in late summer 1994 by chance. The article does not say whether the defector came over with the keys. - Probably not, otherwise prosecution should have started much earlier. It is likely that the extremely paranoic MfS used a cipher and a key length it believed to be sufficiently strong. According to Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography East Germany was quite aware of DES, it even produced DES chips. Another possibly strong algorithm used in the former Soviet block is GOST (a block cipher derived from the concepts of DES, also described by Schneier). Let us assume BKA specialists have broken the code using a combination of cryptoanalysis, brute force and good luck. They are policemen, not espionage professionals. Further, the BKA is much smaller than the FBI. Imagine what code breaking capabilities a well-funded, big intelligence agency should have then!

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No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi! I have some stupid question about how to implement blind signature. I Know it works as follows: If A wants B to sign X but donot know it is X, A can send X*PK(random) : PK is public key of B Then B signs on message: SK(X*PK(random)) ==> SK(X)*random Then A can obtain SK(X) by SK(X)*random/random My question is when I see how RSA encrypts using PKCS The PKCS block is like this 00 01 FF FF FF FF ... 00 input Then SK(00 01 FF FF FF .. 00 input) . If the input = X*PK(random) then SK(00 01 FF FF FF .. 00 X*PK(random)) will not produce SK(X)*random How to solve this?? Thanks!!

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