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Re: Photuris Primality verification needed
by William Allen Simpson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: "Brian A. LaMacchia" <bal(a)martigny.ai.mit.edu> > > Recently, someone asked for a smaller prime of only 512-bits for speed. > > This is more than enough for the strength of keys needed for DES, 3DES, > > MD5 and SHA. Perhaps this would be easier to have more complete and > > robust verification as well. > > Our practical experiences with discrete logs suggests that the effort > required to perform the discrete log precomputations in (a) is slightly > more difficult than factoring a composite of the same size in bits. In > 1990-91 we estimated that performing (a) for a k-bit prime modulus was > about as hard as factoring a k+32-bit composite. [Recent factoring work > has probably changed this a bit, but it's still a good estimate.] > Thanks. I have added the [from Schneier] estimate e ** ((ln p)**1/2 * (ln (ln p))**1/2) and number field sieve estimate e ** ((ln p)**1/3 * (ln (ln p))**2/3) to the Photuris draft, with a small amount of explanation. Hilarie Orman posted that 512-bits only gives an order of 56-bits strength, 1024-bits yeilds 80-bits strength, and 2048 yields 112-bits strength. I do not have the facilities to verify her numbers. As most of us agree that 56-bits is not enough (DES), the 512-bit prime seems a waste of time and a tempting target. I'd like to drop it, but Phil is inclined to keep it with a disclaimer. Bill.Simpson(a)um.cc.umich.edu Key fingerprint = 2E 07 23 03 C5 62 70 D3 59 B1 4F 5E 1D C2 C1 A2

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ecash speed
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A few days ago I got my ecash account set up with the Mark Twain bank. Presently only one merchant is officially listed at <URL: http://www.marktwain.com/shops.html>, Delorie Software. As I understand it, only people with merchant accounts are eligible to be listed here. However, you don't have to have a merchant account to receive ecash or to set up shop software. If anyone else has set up a shop to receive Mark Twain ecash using a user account, perhaps they could post here and we could keep a list of unofficial vendors. The other thing I wanted to write about is ecash speed. One idea people have had is to use ecash for micropayments, such as one cent to read a web page. The question is, is the current ecash software sufficiently fast for this? Maybe someone could set up a site using either Twain ecash or DigiCash ecash which actually charged you a penny for each page you browsed around. It would be interesting to see how much of an obstacle it presents in browsing the web. The impression I've had from the few times I've used ecash is that in fact it does slow things down way too much for this to be practical. But it would be good to actually do the experiment. One reason I was thinking about this is reading a new paper by Rivest and Shamir, <URL:http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/RivestShamir-mpay.ps>. It is about a couple of proposed systems for micropayments, specifically oriented towards the penny-per-web-page model. They are offline systems, designed so that a minimum of calculation is done by the vendor, user and bank. So they should be very efficient. However, the big problem is that they are not anonymous. The cash tokens are recognizable by the bank when spent tokens are sent in by the vendors - the bank knows who spent them. Maybe for penny level transactions that is not a big deal, although if for-pay web browsing becomes common then it does seem like it would present a privacy threat. Every web site you visit (not the specific pages, but the overall site names) would be known by the bank - quite a significant piece of marketing data. The point is that if the anonymity afforded by ecash is too costly in terms of time, then we may end up stuck with a non-anonymous system simply because that is the only one efficient enough to work. It would be good to find out if that is a serious problem. Hal Finney

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Lotus Notes RSA Implementation Question
by bglassle＠kaiwan.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I am currently considering using Lotus Notes for a group-ware solution where security is of great importance. I have studied Notes documentation regarding thier implementation of the RSA encryption library, but it leaves some unanswered questions. If anyone on the list has knowledge of the following items, I would be very gratefull. 1) What is the key size used by the USA licensed version? 2) Considering RC4 is a proprietary scheme, have there been any concerted efforts to validate it's strength or lack of? If so, could you give a pointer to any documents I could review. ...Bob Glassley -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMKBVtW7xvKhVs/sNAQHCowP+LF2stvSPzatDfAkKx2DfU8sH5S7p6KwN PwDEak9it1Uq0eALHWVTc3VZ3WYY+6XIjYNnNyfdKsgehXb+2dVEgjz1qbHyK+uE 3JhlYOeCfBcXUrTbilAoYXghJHvrpJq8z+Pa6u2W5Wgxks+t9MYzjV3YKLM2Nj6Z y6jbBUcyyNc= =TN1O -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Newt on Crypto
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From John Young's posting CYB_lip of a column from the Washington Post > "At some point in the not-very-distant future," said > Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in an August interview in > Wired with computer guru Esther Dyson, "somebody is going > to have encryption you can't break.... Governments are not > going to be able to stop it." Newt's an optimist (from the government perspective.) At some point in the not-very-distant future, _everybody_ is going to have encryption the government can't break! #--- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 #---

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No Subject
by Rudi Raith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some thoughts on the possibility or well-definedness of banning specific (indecent?) contents on the net (or elsewhere): 1) All contents (files) can be seen as natural numbers. (Use your favourite encoding function.) 2) I suppose that there is a predicate indecent_p(n), which is true if n represents something indecent, false otherwise. (Some implementation of such a predicate could be a police officer arresting you upon presentation of the number to him, yielding true. :-) ) Such numbers may be called "Indecent Numbers", their "posession", "transfer", etc. be banned. 3) Every natural number n can be perceived as the encryption of every other one m (including itself) by some function enc. n = enc(m). (Proof by cardinality) Examples: Trivial enc: "If the number is n, return m." Not so trivial enc: "Take m as a one time pad to encrypt n." 4) As a consequence, every natural number can be perceived as the encryption of an Indecent Number, hence should be banned, shouldn't it? 5) The decimal representation of any irrational number (e.g. pi, e) contains the decimal representation of every natural number somewhere. (Proof by diagonalization.) Hence the algorithm for creating this decimal representation should be banned, too, shoudn't it? 6) Finally I hope this shows what great an achievement to legislation and jurisdiction such banning might become, once established. This creates a universal crime (or vice?), everybody is guilty of automatically without the tedious procedure of seeking evidence. (maybe those not knowing about numbers at all be exempt?) Virtually Yours, Rudi Raith (raith(a)feilmeier.de)

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Re: nym-compoop
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[I have taken the liberty of deleting "speaker(a)leg.state.vt.us" and "villuzzi(a)leg.state.vt.us" from the cc: list, as I think cross-pollinating our list with state asssembly houses is even worse than being "assimilated" by wwwbuyinfo and e$-list.] At 2:35 AM GMT 11/6/95, Stephen Whitaker wrote: >Eating my tasty crow gives rise to another question relating to the timing >and continuity of these threads: How did the first responder on the RE: >134.222.9.1, Simon Spero, reply at 10:48 pm on Nov. 4 to Anonymous' posting >of 7:19AM on Nov 5? Which way is this thing spinnin? Have you heard of time zones? The first message, from Anonymous, was sent from the Replay remailer (in Amsterdam, I recall). Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 07:20:12 +0100 Subject: lp (134.222.35.2)? To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com From: nobody(a)REPLAY.COM (Anonymous) 07:20 in the +0100 timezone is of course 22:20 of the previous day (Saturday) in the -0800 time zone. The reply by Spero was sent Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 22:48:39 -0800 (PST) From: Simon Spero <ses(a)tipper.oit.unc.edu> X-Sender: ses@chivalry To: Anonymous <nobody(a)REPLAY.COM> Looks harmless to me. However, there is increasing evidence the intelligence agencies have managed to open up a portal in time, using the tachyonic devices being manufactured by Tachytronx, of Woodland Hills. These time portals are used by Science Applications to launder money back to eras in which it was needed. One of the major remailers is located on a system called "Portal," which ought to be enough to convince anyone in these paranoic times. --Klaus! von Future Prime, whose chronotransport secrets now stand revealed

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Re: toolkits?
by droelke＠spirit.aud.alcatel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > >Third - provide services to the citizenry. For example - provide > >a public key server. Or how about a digital time-stamping service. > >If the crap was kept out of these services, and they were free for > >anyone to use, then it would advance the idea of encouraging people to > >use crypto in their daily lives. > > > > Now were getting specific. These are things that us ordinary folk can do > which show the 'leaders' how to follow. What software, hardware, > applications, support and sysadmin experience is required and where is it > available on what terms. What are the cash flow opportunities to support > such services? PGP Public key servers - see MIT's key server as a good example. Digital time-stamping service - see Betsie (sp?) from Bellcore as a basis. These are things that are already out there, BUT I think that we can use more services like this. Comercially there probably isn't the demand to support these yet, but I think we have a chicken and the egg problem here. People can't use encryption easily if they don't have good access to the tools, but people won't demand services like key-servers until they start useing the tools. A good service would be to provide and support distribution of of privacy enhancing tools to universities and companies that want them. i.e. have people who will help set up firewalls, PGP, encrypted telnet (pick your flavor), etc. A state wide group that has grants to provide internet connectivity for universities and companies could have a person that does nothing but work with these companies to help incorporate encryption into their networks. For instance, my employeer has hardware engineers putting VLSI designs on tape, and then fed-ex'ing them to the chip manufacturer, because they can't get good encryption set up that allows secured ftp transfers. (and get the manufacturer to agree to the same encryption technology, etc. etc. etc.) Yes - I know that most of this stuff is out there already, but having people *willing* to integrate it for you without charging an arm and a leg would go a long way towards convincing the suits that this is a *good* thing. Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Oelke Alcatel Network Systems droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com Richardson, TX

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Re: Market Value of Web Pages
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 13:28 11/9/95 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote: >With all due respect to Bill--his mention of agorics tells me he knows >something about computational ecologies and markets--, there is no >reasonable way to say what price is "closer to the current market value of >the page content," except by what the market will bear! Tim is absolutely correct that the market determines the current market value. I mentioned some low value items in the current market and he mentioned some high value ones. However, there is not really a problem in paying for high valued web pages (like the $400/photo consultant report he mentions). The various network payment schemes that have been proposed and implemented will handle these quite adaquatly. What concerns me is building systems that can support low-cost high-volume markets. If I have to pay a penny/page, I am going to ask whether Netscape can use a whole gigabyte disk for its cache and have basically a pay/copy system. If the cost is low enough, I will pay/view and avoid stale data in the cache problems. However, there are very few systems where the transaction costs are low enough to support low-cost high-volume markets. Bill ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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This is an Architext Document: Read Carefully!
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:54 PM 11/8/95, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: >A small point of information. I work for Architext, the company that provides >the excite service. We only keep the last two weeks of USENET news around, >and don't keep any archives going further back than that. USENET is just too >damn huge for us to go to the trouble of keeping comprehensive archives around >without good evidence of demand for it among our target audience. Small world. "Architext" is also the hypertext program I use to cross-index many articles. I'm surprised the new company, also called "Architext," picked a name which will increase confusion. ("Architext," BrainPower, Inc., Agoura Hills, CA.) No Cypherpunks relevance, except to show how name collisions can occur. --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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Re: (cpx) Re: ecash speed
by Donald E. Eastlake 3rd 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There is certaily no need for an extra connection from the merchant back to the customer. See draft-eastlake-internet-payment-00.txt. Donald (not on cybpherpunks) On Thu, 9 Nov 1995, Robert Hettinga wrote: > > --- begin forwarded text > > Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 21:08:51 -0800 > From: Hal <hfinney(a)shell.portal.com> > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Re: ecash speed > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Precedence: bulk > > "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> writes: > > >Hal writes: > >> The point is that if the anonymity afforded by ecash is too costly in > >> terms of time, then we may end up stuck with a non-anonymous system > >> simply because that is the only one efficient enough to work. It would > >> be good to find out if that is a serious problem. > > >I suspect that as CPU speed exponentiates this will become less and > >less of a problem. It doesn't especially worry me. > > Consider, though, what happens in the current ecash system if it were > used to charge a penny per page. You would click on a link in your web > browser to go to the new page. It would set the GET request to the > remote server as usual. > > The server would fire up a CGI script which will run the shop software. > That software will make a TCP stream connection back to your ecash wallet > software which is running on the system where your client is. It sends a > request to get payed $.01. Assuming the wallet is configured to > automatically approve such a payment, it will send a one penny coin to > the shop software along the opened link. (This may also involve doing a > PK encryption on the coin as an anti-theft measure; this aspect of the > current ecash system is not documented AFAIK.) > > The shop software then opens a TCP stream connection to the bank, and > forwards the coin there. The bank receives it, and checks the public > key signature in the coin. It then compares the coin against every other > coin which has ever been spent (within the validity period of the coin) > to make sure it is not being doubly spent. If this all checks out it > sends back some authentication message to the original server. The shop > software then delivers the new page to the client browser. > > This all has to happen whenever you click on a link in your browser. > Even with fast CPU's I think the extra step of connecting to the bank, > having it check against all coins, and getting approval will be > considerable for each link traversal. > > Hal > --- end forwarded text > > > ----------------- > Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) > Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 > USA (617) 323-7923 > "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell > >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<< > > > ===================================================================== Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1 508-287-4877(tel) dee(a)cybercash.com 318 Acton Street +1 508-371-7148(fax) dee(a)world.std.com Carlisle, MA 01741 USA +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA)

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