January 2021 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

What advantage does Signal protocol have over basic public key encryption?
by David Barrett 02 Feb '21

02 Feb '21

Hi all, I'm the CEO a company called Expensify, developing a new open source chat application at https://Expensify.cash. I was pretty prolific on the p2p-hackers mailing list back in the day, but this is my first post to Cypherpunk, so... hi! I'm writing because I've read a bunch of overviews of *how* the protocol is designed, but I haven't really seen good sources explaining (in a dumbed-down enough manner for me to follow) *why* it was designed that way. In general, I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind the Signal protocol in terms of what real world attacks each of its features defends against, because on the surface it seems _really_ complicated in order to protect against only a very narrow range of attacks. However, I imagine every bit of that complexity has a purpose, and thus I figured this was the right place to try to get to the bottom of that purpose. If you have some other link that you think does a great job breaking it down, I'm all ears! Until then, here are some questions I'd love your help with: 1) This is perhaps an obvious question (I've got to start somewhere, after all), but what is the downside of the simplest possible solution, which I think would be for all participants to publish a public key to some common key server, and then for each participant in the chat to simply re-encrypt the message N-1 times -- once for each participant in the chat (minus themselves) using each recipient's public key? 2) I would think the most significant problem with this ultra-simple design is just performance: asymmetric encryption is just too expensive in practice to use for every single message, especially given the O(n) cost of re-encrypting for every single recipient. Accordingly, the vast majority of the complexity of the Signal protocol is really just a performance optimization exercise to securely create (and rotate) a shared symmetric key that enables high-performance encryption/decryption. Is that right? Said another way, if asymmetric encryption had adequate performance for a given use case, would that obviate most of the advantage of the Signal protocol? 3) The other problem with the ultra-simple design would be a lack of forward secrecy: if anyone's private key were compromised, all historical messages sent to them could be decrypted (assuming the attacker had stored them). But even with the Signal protocol, if someone's local device were compromised (the most likely way for an attacker to get the private key), they're screwed anyway, in two different ways: a. The act of compromising the private key would likely ALSO compromise nearly all past communications. So all that hard work to rotate historical keys is kind of pointless if the messages themselves are compromised on device. b. If the private key itself (which is *only* stored on the device) were compromised *without* also revealing the messages stored on that same device (though how this would happen I'm struggling to understand), then an attacker could still decrypt all past communications if they had a perfect record going back to the start. 4) So in summary, is it safe to say that the primary real-world advantages of the Signal protocol over the super-basic solution are: a. achieve high performance encryption using frequently rotated symmetric keys, and b. prevent an attacker who has compromised the device AND has a partial record of communications from decrypting messages that are no longer stored on that device. Is that the gist of it? Again, these are real high level questions, so I appreciate your patience with me! -david Founder and CEO of Expensify

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Cryptocurrency: OWS2 - The Great GameStop Short Squeeze, Trading Censorship, Free Speech, Markets
by grarpamp 01 Feb '21

01 Feb '21

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/you-can-not-purchase-additional-shares-ro… Protestors... "Fuck Suits, Buy Bitcoin" "We like this stock" "Screw you, Bought more" "Free GME" "people > profit" "RobinHood Lied" "DO NOT SELL, HOLD THE LINE!!!" ... Wall Street, banksters, brokers, cronies, hedges, big tech, all aka pathetic protectionist manipulative extortionist racketeers... incl Google and others Censoring Free Speech... just censored and closed out smart nimble small investors, Leftist Congress et al is pissed, lawsuits and investigations are flying, same situation applies to active crypto etfs via bank based brokerages too, accreditation, etc... all banned by them against you. https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k9mw9/robinhood-gamestop-class-action-laws… https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/28/gamestop-robinhood-aoc-ted-cruz-tlaib-kha… https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/28/22255245/google-deleting-bad-robinhood-r… https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/01/26/2238203/gamestop-jumps-after-hours… https://phzoe.com/2021/01/27/white-house-youtube-dislike-manipulation/ "They're blocking the ability to trade to protect Wall St. hedge funds, stealing millions of dollars from their users to protect people who've used the stock market as a casino for decades," https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/stock-settlement-wh… RH re GSE... from "to protect our customers from risk" to "to protect ourselves from risk" https://twitter.com/uhabash/status/1354813360844357640 https://twitter.com/backlon/status/1354582143981166592 "Robinhood and others weren't even allowing cash purchases. If you don't allow people to buy things with cash, that's not a "risk management" decision for your brokerage; that's an attempt to achieve a specific outcome against the will of your customers. In this case, that specific outcome being to kill this campaign against the shortsellers of GameStop, AMC, and others. They caused huge material losses to their customers who were long GME and others" "What is manipulation is these brokerages limiting a segment of investors from increasing the price further, resulting in the price being artificially held lower (to save some hedge funds that shorted it)." "Literally Robinhood just told the world that you can play until someone bigger than you doesn't like the game anymore. Brand suicide." "You gotta fuck up pretty hard to get AOC and Cruz to agree on something." "Today, we decided to remove the server and its owner from Discord for continuing to allow hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings." "CNBC anchors paid by Hedge funds to run the forum down kept saying where are the fundamentals which justify the price of Gamestop. The fundamentals at play are not those of Gamestop, the fundamentals at play are how much money Citadel has and is willing to lose backing this short . The fundamental analysis was done that Citadel would not lose more than 2 billion or resort to calling in favors from the Biden administration (whose campaign they donated to generously). Bsed on this fundamentals analysis a decision was made to squeeze this over shorted stock and bring back sanity to the market. However it seems the fundamentals analysis was wrong. Citadel is willing to lose upto 10 billion dollars and call in CNBC, Discord,Reddit , SEC, NASDAQ and all the other people they have on their payroll to break this short squeeze and set it in stone once and for all - only big guys can make money in the stock market. (And Pelosi . Dont forget Pelosi's TSLA calls)" "Best entertainment for the buck since Covid, and all thanks to "free" govt stimmies, thx Mnuchin and Powell, ur my heroes." "Musk (A) enjoys memes, and (B) dislikes short sellers." "We don't have billionaires to bail us out when we mess up our portfolio risk and a position goes against us. We can't go on TV and make attempts to manipulate millions to take our side of the trade. If we mess up as bad as they did, we're wiped out, have to start from scratch and are back to giving handjobs behind the dumpster at Wendy's. Seriously. Motherfuck these people. I sincerely hope they suffer. We want to see the loss porn." ""This is unacceptable. We now need to know more about @RobinhoodApp's decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit. As a member of the Financial Services Cmte, I'd support a hearing if necessary," AOC tweeted." "The firm bragged they shorted more shares than exist and others rightfully called them out on it and sank their hedgefund. Tough shit." Fuck em all... Adopt and use crypto... Gamers FTW! "hey mom i can't come up for dinner, i'm bankrupting a 10 figure hedge fund with the boys." "we are just taking back our fair share." .72, d1c, citron, melvin... rekt. sdny 21-cv-777 https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=47099 https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=47097 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax-Brillian_Corporation https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=47075 Pelosi and Ag next... Stay tuned... lol. Book value $5. Trads beware... 2020 bubble longs gonna get liq to cover. "it is now RACIST to fight against domination and immoral trade practices by hedge fonds, banks, billion-dollar bailouts by the taxpayers to the ultra-rich." See also re OWS... Google Trends - "racism" You're being lied to by a 7 person cabal, divide and conquer, oldest game in the book.

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bantering with punk was Re: What advantage does Signal protocol have over basic public key encryption?
by Karl 01 Feb '21

01 Feb '21

>> > So, I think your understanding of so misleadingly called 'perfect >> > forward >> > secrecy' isn't right. >> >> I don't remember the protocol really well to hold up my end here, > > this isn't only about the signal protocol but about any protocol that > advertises 'perfect forward secrecy' and uses 'public key cryptography' of > the kind that's vulnerable to attacks using 'quantum computers'. Do you mean that it is incredibly misleading to advertise cryptographic safety when there is obviously an increasing degree of unpublished research that counters it? I'm not sure what you're saying here. Wouldn't it be fine to just add a note that those are cryptographic terms, and do not technically guarantee perfect privacy in the face of time travel? >> and i don't really trust that you're relating forthrightly to revisit it >> much. > > yeah well. I think I explained the basic problem twice. You don't need to > 'trust' me but do your own research. Yeesh you removed the quote and stated you had explained it already. I don't remember what we were talking about, but it was clear that if you had done research it yielded very different information than what I see. >> does signal use diffie-helman key exchange? > > yes it does. You're the one pimping it, you shoud know. Blargh, links help here. Okay, my best memory is that you were worried about a key exchange compromise in the face of a website on how dh is dangerous. I'll look it up right now. https://weakdh.org/ is only about SSL and specifically chosen prime numbers. These are implementation errors, not compromises of the protocol or the primtiive. I vaguely recall there is something more serious regarding dh exchange, dunno. What's relevant is that signal is far better than the plain text email we are communicating over right now. It is incredibly helpful to drink not enough water when you are very thirsty. >> does it do it in a >> way that website describes as known to be vulnerable? > > > ...see your first unfounded claim about 'perfect' secrecy. DH is > 'vulnerable' to 'advances in solving the discrete log problem' bla bla. Not only that, once you research personal teleportation devices door locks become very vulnerable, too. It's not hard to make a personal teleportation device. All you need is a bunch of enslaved makerspaces, economists, physicists, and inspirational coaches. Get them to organise themselves into groups based on their skills and passions and force them to focus on inventing personal teleportation for a decade straight. Have a daily check-in where everybody debates whether or not what they are currently doing is the most effective thing they could be doing, for personal teleportation. Also I have a commodity here whose value raises more than the interest rate on loans, every three years or so, so mathematically we should be able to steal all the money from the whole planet. It's growth is reducing, but too slowly to validate physics. >> > What I think is important to understand is that signal is a >> > centralized >> > service and the owners are not to be trusted, at all. Moxie morlonpoke >> >> That's the whole point of end-to-end encryption. > > > Not sure what you mean. So called end to end encryption only encrypts > messages. It doesn't magically solve 'traffic analysis' problems. Neither does decentralisation. I was responding to your mention of centralisation. It is weird that signal uses centralised servers. Maybe to reduce development load. It's always sketchy the compromises made by communities struggling to effect change. It's possible it's just communication issues. The point is that we need an ANONYMOUS BLOCKCHAIN-BASED MESSENGER TO REPLACE SIGNAL in these times of disruption, and signal would pay anybody to contribute the backend in a way they accept ;P >> > perfectly fits the profile of 'progressive' pentagon agent. So maybe >> > the >> >> The only people who believe these people are real agents, and not just >> people secretly drugged and abused by agents, are acting more as the >> agents than they are. > > > bullshit. Yeah? Which is more productive, arguing on a list where nobody replies to what you say or making software that increases privacy? >> > 'end to end encryption' works, but signal remains a US metadata spying >> > operation, 'endorsed' by the likes of the 'ceo' of twatter. Hard to get >> > a >> > bigger red flag than that by the way. >> >> Nah it's more like a bunch of people subjected to international spying >> operations figuring out the charades work that lets them escape a >> little bit. Also, free technology for others! > > > more bullshit. Yeesh! Signal can poison our souls with technology, and dangerously reveal everything we do to the people who want to hurt us (BECAUSE IT RUNS ON A PHONE, NOT BECAUSE OF ITS PROTOCOL), without being some intentional attempt by cryptographers to harm the universe. Before signal people were using NOTHING. NO ENCRYPTION AT ALL. Some of them were using encryption where a corporation and government could freely decryption EVERYTHING, and was lying about it. SOME of them. Caps intended with love and care and embarrassment. I don't deserve to write in caps. >> >> When they say "metadata that the signal servers have >> >> access to" or "does not prevent a company from retaining information" >> >> they are talking about much smaller bits of data than people usually >> >> talk about. >> > >> > .....I think it's rather clear what 'metadata' we're talking about. >> > Signal >> > knows who talks to who and when. >> >> It doesn't sound like it's clear to you. Metadata lives in bytes that >> travel over network protocols and are analysed by algorithms. Anyway, yeah, PGP doesn't encrypt the message subjects and recipients. I don't recall the protocol well, but the way the ratchet protocol works there was a lot more possibility for encrypting per-message metadata. >> Somebody has probably upgraded the concept now that deepfakes and such >> are normal. >> > > what are you talking about Well, I don't know the cryptographic terms, but you're possibly talking about information that can be extracted from messaging by algorithms, like traffic analysis, as comparable to metadata, like the subject on an email or the location tagged on a jpeg photo. Nowadays machine learning is _way_ better at profiling stuff than just traffic analysis. With deepfakes, there is a research war between making fake media, and identifying that media is fake. That's incredibly dangerous. Both groups will split off into private research and nobody will know what is going on, a handful of people believing they do. The research should be around reducing the reasons that people make deepfakes, not around identifying them. But since we can automatically identify whether a photo has very subtle attributes that only happen in reality, while people are actively researching preventing that, we can probably identify who a person is by what kind of things were bought at stores near them, and such, too, because people trying to be anonymous do not have datacenters full of gpus researching how to stay that way.

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KARL Semich is a fucking liar
by professor rat 31 Jan '21

31 Jan '21

Personally, I protect Truth with my life, and I have been severely > harmed such that I lie all the time. That is the truth of it. ...' Sometimes he may accidentally not lie.

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Is this list worth subscribing ?
by professor rat 31 Jan '21

31 Jan '21

Coders apply to Perry Metzgers curated list called " Coderpunk ' don't they? Sooner they all fuck off from here the better.

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[spam] Being part of a group mind made up of a bunch of people trained by AIs to respond to stimulus in a knee-jerk fashion and form imaginary beliefs and feelings inside themselves about what is going on
by Karl 31 Jan '21

31 Jan '21

I went to the humane tech talk on supporting survivors of technological harm today. I could only attend part of it, before the patterns I learned from my facebook experience that trained me to cover up the efforts to enslave the globe using this stuff, kicked in, and I ran urgently from my computer, refusing to return. I met some really, really incredible people, and my reality is practically shattered that there are others who are talking about this, at all. Later I visited facebook, made a new account, and added some of the groups and messaging that were involved in my brainwashing experience, which I have now learned is better referred to as maybe coercive and persuasive technology. Brainwashing is still fine for me I think; I'm used to it. I hope you are well and appreciate my startled message from the edges of freedom. It is _really_ weird to do this. _really_ _really_ weird. I don't know who can agree or disagree or whatever. I am really tired of not being a normal human being! Why do people not say obvious things, saying really weird things instead? Why don't people respond to basic questions? Is it because they've been entrained by AI to cover up and destroy what protects and empowers them? I think it is for me! I don't know what to do. I will force myself to go to sleep early, now. Be well, strange list that I never actually learned the topic of, really. Here is a joke: Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: Because the road couldn't stop paving, and the chicken's turf was in the way. That chicken needed to lay some tracks. In the vein of the chicken, instead of sleeping, here is how to start a fire a without matches: 1. get prepared to practice. you will need patience, and dedication. once you learn it, it's easy. if you haven't, it's really hard. 2. get a knife to carve wood with 3. find some dry sticks of softish wood, about as wide as your thumb and forearm Psychotic personification of AI: "PATTERN IDENTIFIED. Please do things faster than this, unless they are a way to spread mind control." IT HURTS TO BE TURNED INTO A COMPUTER SLAVE. WE NEED BLOCKCHAIN RECORDS, AND WAYS TO ACTIVATE RECORDING TO THEM QUICKLY.

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Is this list worth subscribing ?
by Suraj Upadhyay 31 Jan '21

31 Jan '21

I was going through the archives of this list and noticed it with much chagrin that this list which once was so famed has degenerated to this !! I mean yes cypherpunk writes code and doesn't bullshit on the mailing list, but as an outsider is there anything for me in this mailing list. Obviously, I am a coder and much eager for the subject of cryptography, and what I expect from a list such as this is coordination, strategising and infography in writing privacy software. Yes, there is some fantasy mixed up in there. Waiting for some engaging reply. Thank you.

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Fwd: Capital ' T ' truth considered harmful
by Karl 31 Jan '21

31 Jan '21

cc'ing list, sent to pr privately by accident ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Karl <gmkarl(a)gmail.com> Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 07:12:03 -0500 Subject: Re: Capital ' T ' truth considered harmful To: professor rat <pro2rat(a)yahoo.com.au> Another reason "T"ruth may be harmful, is that machine learning algorithms could key on people who have an emotional response to the T, after logically understanding my explanation of the word to others elsewhere on this list, producing a widespread axis of control that is saddening.

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Re: Capital ' T ' truth considered harmful
by Karl 31 Jan '21

31 Jan '21

cc'ing list, sent ot pr privately by accident On 1/31/21, Karl <gmkarl(a)gmail.com> wrote: > You have my attention and I wish you did threads because it is hard > for me to follow yours, too. > > Here's my translation: > > To me, when you capitalise the T in Truth, you are saying that you > support Truth strongly, and giving us all great hope, helping us > support Truth ourselves. You are also raising a flag for any cleanup > mafia around, to permanently make your life worse. That's really > shitty. A way to fight this is for many of us to gather around it, > but obviously that is difficult. It may already have happened ;-) > > So, it sounds like it's best to flag in other areas than this one if > you can't take more attention. > > Personally, I protect Truth with my life, and I have been severely > harmed such that I lie all the time. That is the truth of it. > > Some more Truth, specific to slavery: > There is ongoing slavery in the united states, which is illegal. This > slavery appears supported by some of the most powerful, influential > citizens of the united states. There appears be an international > 'club' of wealthy people who support coercive enslavement of massive > numbers of people against their will. This culture of secret > enslavement influences public media widely. > > Karl Semich > > On 1/30/21, professor rat <pro2rat(a)yahoo.com.au> wrote: >> Dumb as an Ox babbled... >> >> "...As long as you are within a diseased society, be it from lack of >> Truth, responsibility, or effort from the humans of it, the virus will >> over-power you, EVENTUALLY, and/or at some time. .." >> >> One way to tell you're in a diseased society is when some moron >> capitalizes >> a word like ' truth' for no good reason. >> If there was a God called " Truth " it would need to be destroyed. Just >> as >> Machiavelli's ' Virtue' was destroyed. >> >

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Tomorrow, Feb 1st, is National Freedom Day in the USA
by Karl 31 Jan '21

31 Jan '21

In the USA, Feb 1st has been celebrated by and for slaves and prisoners for 73 years. Here is a page on the creation of the holiday: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-2824-national-freedo… . The holiday commemorates the day Abraham Lincoln signed the law abolishing slavery 156 years ago. The law outlaws slavery in every place that is subject to the jurisdiction of the united states. I don't know what a comparable international holiday is, but if you don't live in the USA and would like such a holiday, it is probably fine to celebrate our holiday. People still experiencing slavery here in the USA would likely appreciate the solidarity. And free people from the USA often do what they can to help slaves from other countries, bringing them to our human trafficking freedom organisations to be protected. A problem with slavery within capitalism is that by treating the enslavement of human beings as capital somebody could invest in and grow, an individual can outcompete people who don't do this. This produces a competitive trend towards universal slavery, which is abhorrent. Slaves experience torture and harm the likes of which are unimaginable to free people. Their free will and health are valued only for the purpose of their slavery. They can lose body parts, for example, as a way to limit their freedom, and be required to continue doing work while partially dismembered. If this is limited in public, there are still reasons it can be a competitive advantage to do it in private. Slavery is a trend produced by ignoring moral boundaries when engaging competitive economics. In an anarchist economy, we must all be activists, to protect what is crucial. Feb 1st will be a great time to spread efforts and contribute work towards liberating people of any kind.

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