I am under the assumption that alt.cypherpunks or alt.privacy.cypherpunks or some such will come into existence shortly. With that in mind, I have decided to create a FAQ of pointers to resources on cypherpunk issues. The goal is to help eliminate the "What is PGP?" and other newbie-questions that are bound to come up even more frequently in a newsgroup scenario. A FAQ such as this has probably long been appropriate, but it didn't really occur to me until just now. Not being a cryptologist or adequate coder, this is one way I feel I can contribute. It's hard to have discussions when people haven't even looked at the background information before piping in. I don't pretend that a FAQ can prevent this, but it's worth a shot anyway. I started typing away about two hours ago and came up with the following. It's pretty shaky since it's late and it's Mardi Gras. Feel free to comment in public or private. Please, Please, Please make suggestions and provide relevant pointers. Obviously, I will be doing a lot of research over the next few weeks to fill in this very bare outline. If you disagree with this or feel its useless... fine. Please tell me and explain all your reasons why. Besides, I'm doing it regardless. Here's what I'm chewing on so far.... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Cypherpunks Resources FAQ version 0.000000001 This document lists resources for readers interested in Cypherpunk issues and goals. The primary intention of this document is to get new readers to the group to explore the background issues which cypherpunks attempt to address. It also includes pointers to many common cryptographic implementations and tools. Furthermore, pointers and instructions for various mailreaders are provided to help users filter out some of Usenet's inevitable noise and glean the most useful information they can from this newsgroup. This FAQ does not attempt to explictly define who the Cypherpunks are or answer questions about the philosophy. That is an exercise for the reader who utilizes the pointers within to find the answers on their own. After exploring these resources, the hope is that the reader will become a more effective and insightful contributor to alt.cypherpunks -- even if he/she is opposed to the goals of the group. This FAQ is propagated monthly to alt.cypherpunks. It can also be obtained be sending email with the subject and/or body "get cpunks faq" to omegam@cmq.com. When information in the FAQ is updated, I will also post a "what's new" message for those who are interested in reading additions/corrections without wading throught the entire FAQ again. -------*********------- Author's Note/Disclaimer ---------*********--------- I maintain this FAQ solely on a voluntary basis. I am doing this because I think it is necessary. It would be contrary to the anarchic nature of the Cypherpunks to attempt to call this an official FAQ of the Cypherpunks group. Anyone who disagrees with the editing decisions and pointer selections I have made in this FAQ is free to. What this means is that you are encouraged to send comments, suggestions, corrections, new questions, and answers to me. I may or may not include them in future revisions of the FAQ. I do ask that somewhere in the subject of your mail redarding this FAQ you include the text "(CFAQ suggest)", so procmail can file such comments appropriately and I can address them in a more efficient manner. If I use your suggestion or answer to a question, I will attribute the reference to you unless you request that I do not. You are free to create your own Cypherpunks-resources FAQ if you don't like mine. - Scott _______________________________________________________________ Omegaman <mailto:omegam@cmq.com> PGP Key fingerprint = 6D 31 C3 00 77 8C D1 C2 59 0A 01 E3 AF 81 94 63 Send e-mail with "get key" in the "Subject:" field to get a copy of my public key _______________________________________________________________ -------*********--------*********---------********--------*********------ Premliminary Outline Section 1 Introduction and General Information? Q1.1 Does this newsgroup have a charter (No but, Tim's "official" charter. Eric's note at end of original toad.com welcome message) Q1.2 How did the group get started? (Need a brief history of group as well as any pointers to early history information and posts, also include pointer to early wired article) Q1.3 What do Cypherpunks want? (May's Cyphernomicon, CSUA Berkely site, Others?) Q1.4 What happened to the toad.com mailing list? Are there archives? (Brief explanation, quote Gilmore's message? point to the usual archives? Note: check and note if arhive site still prevents IE usage) Q1.5 Are there other groups besides Cypherpunks who share these goals. (point to Epic, EFF, etc sites which all have good archival information on political crypto causes even if many cpunks have strong disagreement with some of these groups. also point to Cryptography@c2.net and coderpunks lists) Q1.6 What have the cypherpunks done to advance their goals other that merely talk about them?(Pointers to anon remailers, Linux-IPSEC project, Mykotronx scandal--really need a good pointer here, more. Mention of course that many who call themselves cypherpunks are professionals in the computer security field.) Q1.7 Im interested, what can I do? Pointers to current projects, i distributed DES crack Q1.8 Quick n' Dirty Glossary: ie. GAK, TLA, etc. Section 2 Crypto in Action Q2.1 Pointers galore to PGP resources. Q2.2 Point to Schneir's site and include biblio info on Applied Crypto Q2.2 Point to cryptlib toolkits Q2.3 RSA, of course. Q2.4 pointers to disk encryption utilities for various platforms Q2.5 pointers to Raph's remailer site and other remailer info sites. remailer software. software to make remailer usage simpler (premail, PIdaho) Q2.6 pointers to the various digital cash purveyors and to explanations of how Chaumian digital cash works. Q2.7 pointers to Apache-SSL site and info, Stronghold, Q2.8 SSH Q2.9 Pointers to sites describing how various types of crypto actually work Q3.0 But how do I know if it's good crypto? Point to snake Oil FAQ? Schneir's essay. Use your brain. Section 3 Crypto and the Law Q3.1 Froomkin's site obviously.. John Young's also obvious. EFF has a good archive too. Karn case, others. Q3.2 Pointers to government's current position on crypto. ie. EAR, ITAR Q3.3 Pointers past Clipper failure info. Section 4 Who's who & (recent) History of Crypto. Q4.1 A couple of good general history sites exist. also Codebreakers bibliographical reference. Q4.2 Enigma is a common question, point to relevant sites. Q4.3 Whit Diffie--some interviews etc are available Q4.4 Bruce Schneir same Q4.5 Phil Z and PGP history and interviews. Q4.6 Jim Bizdos Q4.8 Dorothy Denning (go to include the enemy too) Q4.7 Pointers to news on breaks of ciphers Q4.8 NSA site. (Others? I'm getting sleepy, names escaping me at the moment) Question 5 Help! I want to know more but I'm drowning in noise Q5.1 Point to filtered lists in existence Q5.2 news2mail gateways as source of list. mail filtering tools come into good use. point to a bunch of them. Q5.3 Point to kill-file info for various newsreaders and platforms. Possibly include generic examples from own experience and list user's experience who wish to contribute. Specific names will be ommitted of course. Also score information for those interested Q5.4 point to information on other utilities and verification-type schemes _______________________________________________________________ Omegaman <mailto:omegam@cmq.com> PGP Key fingerprint = 6D 31 C3 00 77 8C D1 C2 59 0A 01 E3 AF 81 94 63 Send e-mail with "get key" in the "Subject:" field to get a copy of my public key _______________________________________________________________