- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Encouraging News - France
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: > >I should've added to my last post that not only am I skeptical that >citizens in France will be able to use truly strong, unbreakable crypto, >but that the "encouraging news" is quite likely just the opposite. > >No solution which involves key escrow or "mandatory voluntary" key recovery >is "encouraging." Tim's nailed this. Expect the US, and other Wassenaar signators, to announce similar regulations ostensibly in support of privacy and commerce that will include GAK to assure public and national security. This is House National Security Committee chair Solomon's position, the next stop for SAFE, and as TM notes, where it will be further eviscerated to fit TLA requirements. This is the public policy agenda of the McCain-Kerry Bill. This is BXA's goal in the current draft regs circulating for comment, and probably what's coming in the Wassenaar implementation, while it engenders complicity from commercial license seekers with one-by-one approvals. This is DoJ's argument in Bernstein for controlling object code while avowing total support for academic freedom and freedom to publish print in deference to the 1st Amend. It looks as though the fall crypto campaign is about to open with a rush, worldwide. Stories being fed to journalists, draft regs being dealt to collaborators, license approvals for sure bettors. Up-yours to all the rest who don't want to, in smooth-tongue Stewart Baker's phrase, "French kiss NSA/BXA."

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No Subject
by bureau42 Anonymous Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Rabid Wombat wrote: > > On Mon, 1 Sep 1997, Anonymous wrote: > > > "Smak" delivered an encrypted CD containing over 100,000 stolen > > credit card numbers. After the validity of the credit card information > > was confirmed through decryption of the data on the CD, "Smak" was > > taken into custody by the FBI. > > > > And the 100,000 people were immediately notified that their credit > > cards had been compromised? I fucking doubt it. Better to screw over > > 100,000 citizen-units than expose the incompetence of a few companies > > and the government's fight against strong encryption and computer > > security. > > I was recently notified by a bank that issued one of my credit cards that > my card number had been sold, along with thousands of other account > numbers, to an undercover FBI agent. The bank canceled my account, opened > a new one, and overnighted a replacement card. No big deal, and no loss > to me. > > OTOH, it *might* have been in response to a different incident. Keep > those paranoid rants coming. Why don't you tell us the name of the company that has such lousy computer security that your credit was placed in jepoardy, so that we can decide if we want to avoid doing business with them? RantMonger

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Re: H/W v S/W encryption Constitutional challenge --The Next Generation
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:05 PM 8/29/97 +0000, Attila T. Hun wrote: ... > your suggestion of an interpretive language is a good idea if it > creates an easily understood body of code. perl? powerful, but > even more cryptic than C --sometimes I think perl is too powerful > <g>. > ... What about Cobol. I hated it and have fortunately forgotten everything that I learned. ( hated having to make sure I had to start on the right space for this bit or that bit, it was my first experience with such constraints, I had to learn on a hobbled editor/compiler, the for sale version which was not included with the book cost more, I already had the computer theory basics and so didn't need to learn about I/O basics, basic diagram of computers, flow charts, etc., I hated trying to type in all that extra as I am a firm believer in the use the letters until you run out of letters for variable names school.) What I do remember was that it was described to us, (the class), as being designed so that it was an easy read. If you chose your variable names right, supposedly anyone could follow it. The language is compiled which means that although it might be harder to convince the judge that it is speach, it will run faster. The language is well distributed, so is about equal to C and others in that reguard. The language was originally popular due to the DOD, which required a Cobol compiler bwe available for every computer they bought for a while. (Oh, the history that you learn in Software Engineering Class.) This last fact makes it more of an insult to those who claim national security as the reason for suppression. Whatever the language, it would have to be well documented in the code so that a layman could follow it easily enough. If the language could be written in a scripting language designed for the average computer user, all the better. Could PGP5.0 be rewritten in Hypertalk for Hypercard for Macintosh? That language was designed to be readable by anyone. The program would be as slow as molassis, ten times longer in the source, but still. Merely my suggestion. I like C as well, though I'm very rusty, having not written anything of length since the end of the semester in which I took the class, and then no more then two pages of source per assignment.

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Dishonest banks & ecash
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've been doing some ecash reading. The threat model is the dishonest user or 3rd party who tries to mint the stuff. Any work been done on the problem of the dishonest bank (a la Bcci) that tries to mint the stuff? A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | mfroomki(a)umiami.ir.miami.edu U. Miami School of Law | P.O. Box 248087 | It's hot here. And humid. Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | See (soon to move to its real home): http://www.law.miami.edu/~mfroomki

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Re: Certificates/Anonymity/Policy/True Names
by Alan Pugh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> What about when the CA signing key is stolen, factored, or otherwise falls > into the wrong hands, thereby possibly making every signature made by the CA > worthless, or at least questionable? > > I assume liability will be based on the CA's efforts to ensure the integrity > of the signatures it makes (and therefore the confidentiality of the secret > key components), but what constitutes due diligence? As we all know, > security measures cover a very wide range and can reach ridiculous > proportions on both ends of the spectrum... How much security will be > 'enough' from a legal standpoint...? an excellent point, and one that i'd not seriously considered until i saw your post. given today's legal climate, assuring the confidentiality of a ca's key would be pretty expensive. i suppose burning cd-roms with all transactions would help to document all transactions, but would not be definitive as far as the signatures go. any document signed with the key would really have to be considered valid if the signature itself is to really mean anything in a legal sense. if one were to allege that a signature is not valid, even though it checked out cryptologically, how could one defend against a charge that the secret key had been compromised. you cannot prove a negative. obviously, ianal, but i would think it would be reasonably easy to convince at least one jury member that there is a reasonable dought that the key had been compromised. then again, it might be similar to a claim that a signature has been forged. i think there could be a danger of allowing the confidence in a given piece of crypto to unduly influence a jury of a document's authenticity when the key _had_ been compromised. the 'gee wiz' factor could be fairly significant among juries. given statements like 'you could take all the computers on the planet and let them crunch on it for a billion years would be needed', a jury might miss issues of security. fwiw, my 2 cents... ********************************************* * / Only God can see the whole * * O[%\%\%{<>===========================- * * \ Mandlebrot Set at Once! * * amp * * <0003701548(a)mcimail.com> * * <alan.pugh(a)internetmci.com> * ********************************************* Key fingerprint = A7 97 70 0F E2 5B 95 7C DB 7C 2B BF 0F E1 69 1D

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PGP in UK
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I heard something rather disturbing the other day from someone I do business with. I've been telling this company for 18 months or so about the advantages of PGP and email rather than faxes, and they finally tried it, liked it, and decided to use it a month or so ago. Last week they got a visit from the Department of Trade of Industry and MI5 (or is it MI6?) telling them to stop using PGP or they might find difficulties getting export licences for their products in future. The visitors wouldn't say how they knew this company had been using it. The person who told me about this also said something about a Department of Trade & Industry paper which mentioned that the British Government was going to insist on key escrow for encryption. I had hoped to get a copy of this, but he can't find it at the moment. I'll post the text when I get it if anyone's interested. Anyone else in the UK heard anything about this? - -- B. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQEVAgUBMFGPfeHVHXeXphJJAQFJ0Af/Svh0ifULgpEuauSBPFreDDJoa/a1gcPe ya3CjOde9kVuN0IkBHFubO18MrAO6WbwlhVa/X/pjG4vbSahonpzmgHHfkVW20Gh qlhBwFLElTmOgspSjHJ74sYNUM2YZ+AKOyNwW4ix6woJ0WL0NP+cV8CZv4tdEH4l EI3/FuoFccbkKMk7QYoRPOyj5FI4GiFxVsg1GFOU3r83bxfJDfU2yZdImEBx/Nlc gteizqFTF/QiKckl6f5NzCBzaoIcMw0VLN8dAGLqzDycJtFqGdOPgvgSt1LwXKBs +zJM5Z/laubYm5SiEPy4oVz9N3lT4EOzEtdMEoiSC6IiSDSaURkEAA== =GiY0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.i mQENAi8KzVoAAAEH/2gPfD2Xdw1nDAXtMH/F5iCMrwdXHXolEfOjRP59QP1Yodhb L+NGSNls67+H1us5PP5EpHDbHRy66ExgRK7XdZ/2qz0SsbTG+R6pRIILmMfgd3Nj M6uq1DehdxWPdp4PMC9LNrG2V9QrRGPgpHhr3iDfy+p6JTjW8XCYUXn5POt0wBs2 n/vlowjLf9dVYwUKP58V9gokNsFlGcB08gEbxKa9Y2X7zB3BAlywPVdKVh+BOTCK z1Sofx9Wup0MEXEDEESLDSq/634hzzVx6Kt54cZBbi5nAdPHWlGHZl5vU93A3jPE fh59JXsCZmWKLXMjZtjcIJYkC4hC4dUdd5emEkkABRG0DEIuIERlIExhIFBheokB FQIFEC8g7yzh1R13l6YSSQEBD+4H/ir8R4iw1tWLUuxz6etmV99OhMUYoI5lQnxz 9KARQf4eD3xHPoMw6tHLKOUR8xYS9i2RmkhJrPRzCfD5OKSOBEHuIQEt/+dcbCuw 0fxn9NrU7NjFWwWKQ+0jYikN3hfIWcPmGtyhQ0KSrGfUDo5+rJr5Cy4U6eOooepv gYniecNNVAzQ2KDiWTOZ5zqG3zBAYj6uw8LHvBR1qol2YcJ4s02c4GdAZmzEq49s nDBortKfWUAxZkESBt2tMx8gYq6b38evYJBLXOqEN5Lt/5zf0nG1u0BEWBLaCj55 y8lh1KolVOu808tX9blOrjqwEB12vngjXzf7hHWohrGrrQVT2N4= =5qEt -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Diana: is tcmay cp's official rep?
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Diana: is tcmay cp's official rep? ______________________________________________________________________ "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBNAuM1r04kQrCC2kFAQFIFQP9E8PiFhEHOnRS6YJMBcJsrznMlEr2wZR/ F4fe3hDCxr0cSF4sHIfg96fIxmXrHHR6rjotz/zxEXmkuQdVlpOQ1Lj7HU0o793G EdBCkEQ5Jo50Evv1hC0LKJzPdU09rSKhBfEwDysuLb2UgVkY2Ln4OELjsW5Pq19Y f5KitV/Fb+c= =eZBb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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64 bit crypto
by thad＠hammerhead.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Say that we wanted to use 80 bit RC4 for our crypto application, but we were only allowed to use 64 bit crypto because we lived in some police state that enforced its wishes. Couldn't we modify RC4 easily to provide the same security against brute-force attacks by just running the key-setup phase 65536 times instead of just once? That would slow down the key-setup (on my machine) from 50,000 per second to just over 1 second, but so what? It takes ATT more than 1 second to set up a long distance call, I can wait another second to start the conversation. If our breaking of 40 bit RC4 was a one, then this 64 bit RC4-modified would be a 109,951,162,776, well beyond possibilities that I can imagine. You might say that you could save all 2^64 key tables, but that is a huge amount of data, millions of terabyte-capacity tapes. In the GAK proceedings, I have never heard of any limitation on the algorithm, just that it be public and 64 bits or less. And, of course, have GAK. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me for this kind of technical fix to be immediately outlawed by the aforementioned police state. thad -- Thaddeus Beier email: thad(a)hammerhead.com Technology Development vox: 408) 286-3376 Hammerhead Productions fax: 408) 292-8624

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Re: Hey
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

bennett_t1(a)popmail.firn.edu wrote: > > :: > Encrypted: PGP > > -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- > Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 > MessageID: yV9u2hakLFv9/SGjemJH0AuGYsBQ1cOE > > hQCMA/HAD1cfk+qpAQQAwuEDcaGfi1QCu84QklmpWe0AtyQUKGvkIuT8cEXt/ePS > G1QAGQBHNRPvsN92ORDxPY5K+JgeS4b8ZpRJ+C9pSFwtzJXyoSaPSWLVLe//GU4y > H+yeO8kMmK2qbbthgDD1D/00sXbrQsqEbIyz2al/bRIFzalS8UHQg4Olg7hTjpGl > AY608e0OyKO78dPdEGeRYH5PwW6BLgppULjR17+Puo0ukIqwcItJlYPx7K2AgNtA > 9sDlymr5h+cMky+BbrFWoi8QZEBrHvhXckXuPWHDlrmxTzd362m2R9G3/4TLlMjK > j6q2TD5DA0CT/g1ETK3J0y+7cFfuGp6oP2PhP27VCBW6maIp1Z35K3yNy7vytrTE > qDuJtcF2lvDAYKBcKr0lk6fBuGfRRZge3ZlAOgo/t5KPSGou/KlkHb2eR20vWqUM > Z2xcTkn5Y+ZJsPb/k9sOe8vKGK38IGYZdv2nj3k7MQvCIIuwAc37XIiC53mWAP8V > mIISGuYa2DgcxkdEy/rW0vd3AbhRzNGHp4u4zpjK/r2kTDGYGBURZFv2dC24KmcT > sgGYqYhYFY2/xmwiQgNKaRlMgrhRJZ8ytLxSCQts1pZhbImf2BFFBNshSIPUiZIn > 4fEPvD0lgJjC7jkkwAjEfN3E8DSCORs7GzKY1/Psr5ZZkEKVezv2blL+5YjYff+H > vfqgXkeGKOgXNUT1lNZZWA== > =wuTx > -----END PGP MESSAGE----- I find this highly unlikely. If you check the archives, you will find that this has been discussed previously on the list, and has been discounted by anyone with a modicum of reason.

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Re: You really do want to volunteer, don't you?
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:38 PM 9/1/97 -0700, Tim May wrote: >This was an actual case, heard by the Supreme Court several years back. Bus >passengers were given the opportunity to volunteer, as noted. Failure to >volunteer was construed as probable cause that contraband was present. > >(No, I don't know the name of the case. My recollection is that it took >place in Florida or one of the Carolinas. Nor do I recollect how the >Supremes decided the case... This sounds like _Florida v. Bostick_, 501 U.S. 429 (1991), on the web at <http://www.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=501&invol =429>. Bill Stewart's summary of the case looked like a good one to me. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

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