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No Subject
by Anonymous User 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

_______________________ Copyright EMAP Computers, 1995 Network Week, London, Vol 1 No. 8, 25 October 1995 Page 1 Lead Electronic cash card system faces possible legal action MONDEX BLOWS USERS ANONYMITY By Gavin Clarke and Madeleine Acey Mondex faces possible legal action after admitting transactions made with its supposedly anonymous electronic cash cards can be traced. Launched in December by Natwest, Midland and BT, the electronic card was promoted as easy to use and as anonymous as cash, with no trace being left. It was perceived that a significant percentage of the public avoided credit and debit cards because they preferred their spending habits to remain private. Simon Davies, Visiting Professor of Law at Essex University, has lodged a complaint with the Trading Standards Board demanding that Mondex change either the retailers card readers or its promotional material. It has been revealed that the readers keep records of up to 500 cards identities. The customers can keep a record of ten transactions. The retailer sends the money to the bank through a 9,600 modem-based Mondex phone Rob Jameson, Mondex project manager for the pilot in Swindon, said we can certainly trace where cards have been used. There are degrees of control that Im not prepared to discuss. There are other mechanisms in place but I dont want to go into that. Davies said this contradicted previous Mondex publicity material. It said In everyday use Mondex transactions are anonymous, just like cash A Mondex spokesperson denied last week that the company said its card offered anonymity. But the same spokesperson said in February 1994 that the cards anonymity would appeal to those with a cash psychology, such as cab drivers and other cash-in-hand business people. Mondex entered a new phase last week with the launch of specially designed public telephones that will allow its 8,000 Swindon trial customers to re-load their cards from their bank accounts. The Data Protection Registrar said people using Mondex and other smart cards should be made aware of the uses to which their card information will go. ---------- Photo of Mondex promotional material and caption : Mondex card use can be traced, despite claims of anonymity. ends --

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Re: e-mail, business and privicy
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:15 PM 10/27/95, WOOD(a)VAX2.ROCKHURST.EDU wrote: >An old subject, but could someone please give me a pointer >to the legalities of reading other peoples mail in the working >environment. > >Many thanks, I doubt many others will offer answers to this one, so I will. The usual way to get authorization to read the mail of other people is to be officially deputized as a member of the Citizen's Morality Watch. Your local law enforcement office, or the FBI, can help you fill out the paperwork and get you the badge and ID card. (I signed up early, and have one of the ID cards signed by William Webster.) Once deputized, you are authorized to read whatever mail you may think a threat to the public consciousness. And when GAK arrives, you'll be duly authorized to gain access to escrowed keys. And to escrowed house keys, escrowed car keys, and escrowed diaries. This will finally give us the same measure of security that the Soviets had when babushkas and KGB men read one's mail, and that the Iranians now have with the Islamic Purity Patrols on the streets of Teheran. --Klaus! von Future Prime, avatar

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Re: How can e-cash, even on-line cleared, protect payee identity?
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <199510260424.OAA12383(a)sweeney.cs.monash.edu.au>, jirib(a)sweeney.cs.monash.edu.au (Jiri Baum) wrote: > What you'd really want is for Alice to pay for the new coins in ecash. Right. > I'm wondering whether a "coin-changer" would be easier or harder to > set up than a "bank" (from regulatory point of view). I don't think it would be any easier to set up. Harder perhaps, since its sole purpose is money laundring. However, if there are several Ecash currencies there is a legitimate need for Ecash currency arbitration. Who is to stop the following protocol? US Ecash -> Swedish Ecash Swedish Ecash -> US Ecash The resulting coins are no longer traceable unless the repayer cooperates. The repayer (or in this case currency arbitrator) keeps of course a percentage at each transaction. No different than a Casa de Cambio. It can be set up anywhere and even be done anonymously. I am working on an implementation. - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMJENOCoZzwIn1bdtAQETtQGA1c2lAxu2HcrudvQ7OgIrJptiDBueqVM5 uYIuB4n0fNzv6kdh+LYqctKj2BzOlE22 =a7mC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Linux security issues
by Rev. Mark Grant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Thu, 26 Oct 1995, Bill Frantz wrote: > However, the pass phrase is not the only dangerous information. > Intermediate forms used for decrypting the RSA private keys, and the > decrypted RSA private keys also have to be protected. The logic of PGP > requires that it keep at least one of these around for a long time, so it > will probably be written to swap space. Couldn't you use mmap() to map a disk file into your address space, keep all your secret data in that part of the address space, and then carefully wipe that file before exiting ? I guess you'd then have the problem that people could just read that file (if they had the priviledges to do so) to find all the secret data rather than having to trawl through the swap file though.. and you'd still have to worry about disk buffering. So it probably wouldn't be a big improvement. Mark

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Electric Communities (was: COS_sec)
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FWIW, this is the company I work for. Not a bad article; more info is available at: http://www.communities.com/. Three of the nine people who work here are long-time subscribers to this list... I was recruited at a c'punks Bay Area meeting. --doug "member of the cryptographic staff" barnes > Electric Communities began work began in 1993 on the > Cyberspace Operating System, or COS, designed to manage > the resources of shared computing -- like security and > bandwidth -- just as operating systems like the > Macintosh OS or Windows 95 manage resources inside a > desktop PC. The team is inventing some technology, > including a programming language (compatible with Sun > Microsystems' new Java language for Internet > applications) and a design concept for software building > blocks which it is in the process of patenting. In > addition, staff cryptographers are weaving encryption > throughout the system to make it absolutely secure and > private. > > > COS_sec (6 kb)

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Rabin Patents.
by hallam＠w3.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anyone know who is currently claiming Patent rights over the Rabin public key encryption and signature schemes? Is it RSADSI or Cylink ... or both? Phill

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Re: CJR returned to sender
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:43 PM 10/26/95, Jeff Weinstein wrote: > The ITARs are currently keeping us(Netscape) from distributing >our US-only products to people within the United States. We have >asked for clarification from the government about network distribution, >such as how much verification of location and citizenship of the >recipient we must do, and have yet to receive a response. That >makes it more than just an export issue, at least for us. And I agree that this is a much more important issue than whether a t-shirt can get an OK for export or not. If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately granted, what useful information will be derived, or what implications for Netscape's question will be discovered? If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately denied, ditto? Distribution over networks--which is happening every day, and which is happening every time the Cypherpunks list contains code fragments and other useful comments on crypto tools--is a much more serious issue. The t-shirt joke is unlikely to help. (For all those who commented that wearing the munitions shirt is rilly, rilly kool, I say "Great!" Wear it in the mosh pits, just lie to people about how the t-shirt "has been classified as a munition." It hasn't been as of this writing.) --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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POINTER: The Money Laundromat
by Damaged Justice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

J. Orlin Grabbe's essay, "The Money Laundromat", as published in the November 1995 issue of Liberty, was sent to me via e-mail by someone who prefers to remain anonymous. After checking for accuracy against my own hard copy, I have posted it to the following Usenet newsgroups: alt.security.pgp alt.society.sovereign alt.society.anarchy talk.politics.crypto I will be making this article available on my Web page shortly as well. The article covers both the threat and the promise of digicash, with much detail devoted to electronic surveillance and financial tracking via PROMIS software. This single paragraph summarizes rather well: "...the coming battle over financial footprints is inevitable, and perhaps inevitably bloody. But in the end it is the money laundering regulations that will have to go. For one thing, advances in the technology of anonymity are putting financial privacy within the reach of everyone. For another, there is a growing awareness that the existing laundering statutes have little or no effect on terrorism or drug-dealing, but instead are related to an upswing in government-sponsored harassment of targeted political groups." -- http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~frogfarm ..for the best in unapproved information S..O).... The statist wields a bad law! -- More -- @.../.".. You quickly protect your money pouch! -- More -- .$*...].. The statist vanishes in a puff of smoke. "Greedy bastard!"

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Returned mail: warning: cannot send message for 4 hours (fwd)
by Moroni 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 19:45:02 -0400 From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON(a)prufrocks.scranton.com> To: moroni(a)prufrocks.scranton.com Subject: Returned mail: warning: cannot send message for 4 hours ********************************************** ** THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY ** ** YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE ** ********************************************** The original message was received at Fri, 27 Oct 1995 15:38:29 -0400 from moroni@localhost ----- The following addresses had delivery problems ----- majordormo(a)toad.com.uc.edu (transient failure) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours Will keep trying until message is 5 days old ----- Original message follows ----- To: majordormo(a)toad.com.uc.edu From: Moroni <moroni(a)prufrocks.scranton.com> Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 15:38:27 -0400 (EDT) subscribe Cypherpunks Deirdre A. Greene

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Re: newsweek oct 30 Levy digital cash article
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Vlad the Inhaler writes: > >you apparently didn't notice but there were some other posts on this >list about writing down the random seed that a person used to generate >the cash, and then being able to restore the cash somehow based on knowing >the random seed, however privacy is sacrified in this case apparently. >this with the Chaumian implementation, from what I understood. > I would not say that privacy is "sacrificed" if, in fact, Digicash has implemeneted this "write down the original random seed" backup method. Worst case scenario -- you write down the seed, and when the police break down your door, they find that you've written it down. Well, if things have progressed to that point, you're in pretty serious trouble anyhow, and if you're expecting this to happen you have a simple remedy -- back up & encrypt your wallet rather than writing the seed down. Or, put the seed in a little text file, encrypt the text file, and back it up. I suspect, however, that this means that the Digicash wallet doesn't pick up new bits of entropy to "groom" it's random state. Also, it was unclear where this state came from, but it's hopefully not just text entered by the user. (I could see getting the state from something like keystrokes or mouse clicks, then having the user write down a checksummed, error-corrected string as a preferred alternative.)

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