- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Over-reacting?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 11:22 PM 1/28/96 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote: >The reason for the killfiling is your habit of adding multiple additional >mailing list into the To: and cc: list. I have seen more than one post >where you have added a Libritarian list and the "Democracy Now Channel 2' >list into the fray, not to mention other individuals. THAT is why you are >getting the golden killfile, not your association with Jack "Acid" Hammer. >(Though that may help...) Hmmm.. It's odd that nobody has ever warned me of this before. (Another spoof?) That's why I'm using the term, "over-reacting." -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMQyDUvqHVDBboB2dAQFduAQAlas9DMaiatiYd51WKepEzLGPBWl4I9+2 FNOUzoQoy3OQ+wdk7lT1FFqvrDqSqviIj8MZ6j7/7ENO55W6D8AiN2fFXBbd3iY5 7krA13rTlx6N8ztvqE2+QY0/0RMtHZV6mLOR0SdbedOahUMc6/8qxF1auvJTxtJq 5qU3zS+71IQ= =9edM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: The French do some things right...
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:01 PM 1/26/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >One thing I have been hoping for as America's scandal-fixated society asks >whether Bill inhaled, whether Rush has a mistress, whether Madonna's >grandmother is really shacked up with a 19-year-old musician...one thing I >have been hoping for is that the American public will say "Enough!" This is one I've never worried about. As I look around at work and see the disorderd personal lives and body piercings of my fellow workers, it is obvious that the amount of that sort of social control that is being applied is way down. And since fewer and fewer of us will have to (be able to) work for large soulless bureacracies as these things are ruthlessly downsized by the market, we will have much greater choice of employers. One would have to be really way out on one of the unfortunate tails of a bell curve distribution to be unable to find someone to work with. DCF

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The Lotus Position
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:03 AM 1/20/96, Bill Stewart wrote: >40-unknown-bit RC4 may take a week for an ICE workstation or a herd of >net-coordinated workstations, but it would be much faster to crack on >a specialized machine actually designed for RC4. I think Eric's estimate >was $25-50K for a machine that could do it in 15 minutes, built out of >programmable gate arrays. That's not $10,000/crack, or $584, but $0.25-.50. >Would they crack all the keys they wanted for a quarter each? Sure; >at that rate it's probably cheaper to crack them than read them >(though in reality they'd feed most of them to keyword scanners.) I take it as self-evidently true that NSA would spend the relatively small amount of money to build a dedicated key cracker...probably at least several for each major cipher. "In this room, where we used to have the famed acre of Crays, now we have tenth of an acre of superfast custom key crackers." (Yes, I know the Crays are used for other things besides key cracking. In fact, their main use probably is not for crypanalysis. Also, I'm not talking about cracking ciphers that are essentially uncrackable with any amount of compute power, I'm talking about cracking specific instances of ciphers with NSA-approved key lengths.) To consider just how _cheap_ such a dedicated machine is to them, consider that in the late 50s and early 60s they built the "Harvest" machine, in conjunction with IBM and based to some extent on IBM's "Stretch" machine, as I recall. (Bamford has a bunch of stuff on it, and our own Norm Hardy worked on it for IBM in the early 60s...he gave a good talk at a Cypherpunks meeting on how big it was, how much it cost, its capabilities, etc.) The Harvest machine, and its ancillary units, such as the world's largest and fastest tractor tape drive, cost something like $100 million in today's dollars, according to Norm and others. And Harvest was still running in 1975-6, when it was finally replaced by the Cray 1. NSA also funded the early efforts that later became Control Data Corporation (CDC), and NSA was a major customer of Seymour Cray's CDC 6600, and the later 7600 (and maybe even the ill-fated Star). NSA and AEC were also the early customers for the Cray-1, of course. This gives you some feel for what kind of expenditures "the Fort" is prepared to make when it sees the need. And the black budgets of other intelligence agencies, as described in Richelson's excellent books and other books (such as "Deep Black," an unauthorized history of the National Reconnaissance Organization), can only be described as "stupefyingly large." A surveillance satellite can run upwards of $1.5 billion, so spending a tiny fraction of that to decrypt what you've sniffed out of the airwaves is a gimme. The deep black budget is estimated to be something like $25 billion a year. Recall that the Wiretap Bill _alone_ provided for up to $500 million for compliance measures. Clearly the FBI somehow view their surveillance capabilities as being worth at least this much to them, and probably a lot more. Throw in the budgets for the DEA, IRS, FinCen, FBI, BATF, and all the other agencies fighting the Four Horsemen and the citizen-units who stray outside the drawn lines, and it's clear that NSA could budget several hundred million dollars *each and every year* for breaking its "approved ciphers." Like many, I take it for granted that 40-bit RC4 can be broken for "small change." Moreover, my guess is that foreign traffic is routinely cracked if it is encrypted. After all, it's the encrypted traffic that is likeliest to be interesting. (Sure, some dumbos like Pablo Escobar speak in the clear on cellphones, but the correlation is definitely in the direction of encrypted traffic being likelier than unencrypted traffic to contain interesting stuff. This will become even more the case as more people become educated and as crypto gets built into more things...this is the intelligence and law enforcement communities' worse nightmare.) A $25,000 machine. 4 cracks per hour, 100 per day, and 36,000 per year. Running for an active life of several years (before being replaced, of course, by something several times faster/cheaper), there you have the $0.25 per crack that Bill cites above. Even at 100 times this estimate, it's cheap. (Not for random vacuuming, but for anything targetted, even casually.) And think of what just a few percent of the "Harvest" budget buys you: 100 of these machines. Several million cracks per year. And from these cracks, think of the correlations, the contact lists, and the further targetting that can be done. [Sidebar: One thing that bothers me about any of these LEAF-related schemes--and I don't know if and how the Lotus scheme checks both ends for compliance, etc.--is that they are fundamentally at odds with remailers which hide the origin. If remailers are allowed to continue to exist, schemes involving LEAF fields won't work. Unless I've forgotten how these things work in the couple of years since I last looked at Clipper et. al. in depth. So, I expect a move against remailers as part of the campaign. And with no remailers, if this could ever be enforced, the ability to make contact lists based on random decryption is frightening.] Back to their 100 machines.... My guess is that they haven't even bothered to buy this many machines, that the intelligence they get from a few tens of thousands of cracks is more than enough to point to further leads, to trigger additional HUMINT, etc. But even if the estimates are off by orders of magnitude, we know that a 40-bit RC4 can be cracked in ~hours with ~hundreds of Sun-class machines. (Personally, I think it obvious the NSA has at least speeded up this work factor by at least a factor of ten.) This is also essentially a minor consideration compared to the amount of work done in ordinary wiretaps. And in a few years, 40-bit RC4 will be even more ludicrously weak. The Lotus position is untenable. --Tim May Boycott espionage-enabled software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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17 Dec '03

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Here's how you put your key on the keyservers...
by Ted Garrett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I got a message in response to a request I made to someone for their public key. I wanted to check the signatures that they included with their posts to cypherpunks, but their key was not on the keyservers. The key they included was completely unsigned, and when I use it to validate their previous posts as well as the message they sent which included the key, the signatures come back as bad, the contents of the file changed. Names are appropriately withheld (I hope). As I understand the bcc: definition, only I and the first smtp server this message hits should know who it's to. I don't know if anyone else reading this mailing list needs this info, but just in case... here's my reply to the message. At 10:03 PM 1/28/96 -0800, you wrote: >Sorry, I'm a newbie to Internet, and also the Internet usage of PGP. I just >participated in a local keysigning meeting, so maybe my key will find its >way to a server. Don't worry about being a 'newbie'. Everyone starts somewhere. However, your key will usually not 'find its way' to a server without you specifically sending it. The keyserver I usually use is accessed by sending a mail message which fits the following format. As far as I know, all the keyservers use this format to add or update keys in their databases. You only have to send it to one keyserver, and it will propagate to all the others. I have indented the text so that no handlers decide to interpret it as a new message. - - To: pgp-public-keys(a)pgp.iastate.edu - - Subject: ADD - - - - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- - - Version: 2.6.2 - - - - [key deleted to protect the innocent] - - - - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- >I'm sorry to have to admit that I don't even know how to do this! Newbie >alert! If you don't admit you don't know something, nobody will usually tell you how to do it. Also, you should sign your own key. That will make it harder to forge, I think. The reasons were spelled out in a couple of the web pages I read, but I've forgotten them. It has something to do with either a denial of service attack or a man in the middle attack, or both. The command to do this is: pgp -ks 0xHEXKEYID Honestly, I've only just begun to use pgp myself. Also, you should add your e-mail address to the user-id of your key. The command to do so is: pgp -ke 0xHEXKEYID You will be asked if you wish to add a user id to the key. Say yes, and give it your e-mail address. What this does is it allows people who are using pgp-enabled mailers to directly encrypt messages to you without choosing your key manually. The reason that I have not encrypted this message to you using the key you provided is that when I extracted the key and re-checked your message, the signature was no good. I've found that (using eudora) I must turn off the word wrap feature of my mailer to allow for good signed messages out. Of course, having said this, I'll probably not get a good signature on this message. Let me know if it signs ok. Now, I have a question. Which attack(s) is/are a person vulnerable to when distributing an unsigned public key in the open? Could this actually be a complex man-in-the-middle attack? Am I paranoid? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMQy/ds1+l8EKBK5FAQER8Af/SE1lTj3zcpm3ildFGO75zjZiJByZQi+3 LAkYgcHyBmtvhCTvyYCP2aMF4RjayrR3OHB85XthIA4sPmU0NDCVZYv7riSPjslp iBxUk92dO+BkP8nrTFgqCzR4qPqbOSmZxeovZI0PfQvbm99fG6Fc2kjhdKP7Aq+G cw4r0vvJY8JbqAuXftgZgndL9iGR/+xjfrpl+EWL3xtWzpIRfwMS5KMsR1UOf1ZA g9mlMEGLXy5KC/BwaupgTTwlSA/NOTv5mAY8+UWt9ydMWXBqNVt/yiGFsjg5UR1M CaT2D23pLAnWZ8M7yrjMamadkn2iLBqq4nhBNOGYHfZrGcbm/mhmxQ== =jGo3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Escrowing Viewing and Reading Habits with the Governmen
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Date: Sun, 28 Jan 96 21:05:08 > From: <alanh(a)infi.net> > Subject: Re: Escrowing Viewing and Reading Habits with the Government > To: "roy m. silvernail" <roy(a)sendai.cybrspc.mn.org> > Cc: "timothy c. may" <tcmay(a)got.net>, cypherpunks(a)toad.com > > > The "Library Awareness Program," administered by the Justice Department, is > > > designed to identify potential criminals before they have a chance to > > > commit their deeds. The visits to libraries made by the FBI are used to > > > determine who is reading subversive or dangerous material. > Do you really think the FBI believes that asking librarians to keep > records of customer useage is an efficient way to read the customers minds? > Do you really think that the FBI foreign counter-intelligence squad has > nothing better to do than keep a database of who is reading Che Guevara > memoirs? Yes. Heck, I remember this was a big issue about 15 years ago. Try asking someone who was active in library science in the late 70's, early 80's. The general reaction of the library community was, I am glad to say, entirely pro-privacy. Peter Trei trei(a)process.com

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New Software
by Rev. Ben 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Release time. And I guess I finally get to add my name to the roles of Cpunks that 'write code'. I finished a release of a simple Zero Knowledge Authentication system that uses the GNU Multiprecision Library to implement a modified Fiat-Feige-Shamir ZKIPS. It is written in C on FreeBSD 2.1-R but should run on anything that uses BSD socket code. I tried to write it fairly portably. It is a very early release with little bounds checking or any of the hardening that would be required in a secure environment--hell in a secured environment, you'd want to write the bignum package yourself. But in any case, its just to get some practice writing this sort of code as well as amuse myself My latest project is to write a HTTP anonymizer--sort of like a bit launderer. The plan would be to allow a server to be browsed without actually giving away its real address by using a proxy. The client would have an encrypted URL that would be passed to the proxy. The proxy, using its own private key would decrypt the real URL and make the HTTP request to the server. This would opaque the server's identity from the client. While this sounds all well and good, unless there are multiple proxies deployed a-la Mixmaster with encapsulated encryption, there is the threat that the proxy would be able to match up server-client pairs. In any case, I'm open to suggestions on this project--its very open ended and should be done in a couple of months. If anyone would like a copy of the work done mail me and I'll send you a tarball. Ben. PS: Does anyone know of any French COMPUSEC firms that I could contact? I'd like to try to get a job there for next year. ____ Ben Samman..............................................samman(a)cs.yale.edu "If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation." -Anais Nin PGP Encrypted Mail Welcomed Finger samman(a)powered.cs.yale.edu for key Want to give a soon-to-be college grad a job? Mail me for a resume

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Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"
by Alan Pugh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>It isn't clear to me that the Constitution grants "rights" to the government >that aren't already possessed by the people themselves. Would that even be >possible? "Powers" maybe, "rights," maybe not. the constitution is an amazingly consistant document internally. take a slow read through it and you will see that you are absolutely correct. when 'people' are being referred to, the term used is 'rights'. when it is a governmental organization (state or federal), the term used is always 'powers'. amp

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Re: Denning's misleading statements
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>At 03:12 PM 1/28/96 -0500, Ben Samman. wrote: >>There's quite a few folks in the Yale CS department that are pro-Clipper >>or fence sitters. They justify it in class by claiming that law >>enforcement needs these abilities if LE is to remain effective. What research grant pays theses guy's salaries? JFA Reality IS, Existence Exists. -John Galt

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Re: "German service cuts Net access" (to Santa Cruz)
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The German prosecuters are currently targeting the site of Mr Zundel, "who is well known for his open revisionist positions." Zundel is not in fact a Nazi, but an anti nazi: Here is a sample of his work. Bottom line. German prosecuters are amazingly ignorant idiots. Press Release Date: January 3, 1996 Attention: Assignment Editor / For immediate release Hate all that you can hate in the Nazi Reserves! In The Nazi Reserves, we hate more people before 6am, than most people hate all day! We promise if you join The Nazi Reserves, you will be trained in: 1) Marching 2) Re-learning History 3) Growing a mustache just like Hitler's 4) Burning your own house and blaming it on Jews! 5) Learning how to blame *everything* on Jews! 6) Learning how to blame everything that can't be blamed on Jews on the Blacks! 7) Learning how to blame everything that can't be blamed on the Jews or the Blacks on the Liberals! 8) Learning how to blame everything that can't be blamed on the Jews or the Blacks or the Liberals on the Catholics! 9) How to signal the Alien Nazi UFO Mothership! 10) More marching! 11) How to enjoy being anal probed by Nazi aliens from space! 12) How to make your jackboots *really* shine! 13) How to beat up homosexuals (this one's easy-- just make sure you outnumber them by about 6:1, and make sure you're in Colorado) 14) And yes, MORE marching! If you join now, we promise you there will be *no volleyball* and *no push-ups* and no *5 mile runs!* Yes, even middle aged balding men can join the Nazi Reserves! The Nazi Reserves: It's not just a job, it's a perversion! (Not like my other perversions which involve trying to stuff my plump legs into stockings and prance around in heels.) JOIN NOW AND WIN A FREE TRIP TO THE NAZI UFO BASE AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH! Surveys show that 9 out of 10 prisons prefer candidates who have learned the skills taught in The Nazi Reserves! Join now and you increase your chances of receiving free meals and housing for the rest of your life! -- Ernst Zundel My right to free speech supersedes your right to exist. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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