- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Re: new idea for random number generation
by \0xDynamite 27 Sep '17

27 Sep '17

On 8/4/17, Randydandy <randydandy(a)randydandy.de> wrote: >> Would not a coin flip with the exact same initial parameters (height, >> force, deterministic air currents, and striking surface) have the same >> result? >[...] > The problem with your algorithm is that there are no parameters that > would be unknown. Only if you get randomness from another source as > parameters which makes this pseudo random. Okay, I should know this, but who came up with the idea of using random-number generators for ciphers anyway? Most XOR ciphers (which is unbreakable if, for example, you use a key as long as the text) use a key as a source, AFAIK. Anyone have a reference? Now, chaotic functions are known mathematically to be "topologically complete" (I believe that's the term I learned) -- that means they will cover every number in the range. An amazing feat: consider if you're using 2^63 (which will fit in ONE world) to express your real number in the logistic function. Your chance of landing on a already visited number is 9.22^308 -- beyond the scale of indexing every atom in the universe. So, in theory you have both an UNBREAKABLE and PRACTICAL cipher method: use the logistic function to make a pseudo-random number generator, think of unique words that you can transform into your seed values, and communicate those "humane" keys to your recipient. How can you possibly break this (apart from psychological tactics of guessing the words used to create the seed values)? Marxos

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Re: [Cryptography] Crypto basic income
by grarpamp 27 Sep '17

27 Sep '17

> https://medium.com/@guilhermepcampos/universal-crypto-basic-income-460fc462… > http://github.com/the-laughing-monkey/cicada-platform > https://blockchainhub.net/blockchain-oracles/ Cryptocurrency UBI effect already happens to holders during adoption phase, "it keeps going up" vs others on forex, but thereafter upon steady state it appears - they have to invest it to earn as with any fiat into stock / bond / biz - mechanical coin deflation could also effect an apparent UBI of purchase power up relative to other forex coins And since "growth" is a bit critically closed loop concerning Earth, one needs to think about time horizon in which present day UBI thinking would remain valid vs asymptotic average circular subsistance. > Do you think it will be possible, at some point, to have some sort of biometric public key infrastructure, where public and private keys are directly pegged to a persons biometric details? DNA has enough bits to create a unique / dependant key, DNA authentication is still slow, reprogramming is possible but as yet undeveloped nonproduction tech. > Could biometrics completely replace the need for passwords? Passwords are supposed to be held in secret mind, and rubberhose is supposed to be forbidden crime. Biometrics are dusted along your path to the point of easy failure. > If compromise of biometric details occurs, how would one go around to solve this, since it's not possible to, for example, create a new fingerprint for a person? See in mind above. If you want more bits there, then you have to legally expand to allow extension of mind into devices, whether carried droids, injected hw sec modules, or neural implant arduinos. > users might well be effectively forced to provide > DNA samples in various places. (E.g., if a government were to require > a DNA sample before issuing a driver's license or passport.) This in > itself might be ok *if* one were to trust an elected government -- and > all future governments -- not to misuse or mission-creep-use the sample > for unrelated things. > > But once that database exists, history shows that mission creep is very > likely, including nonconsentual or forced-"consentual" commercial uses. > The classic example is an insurance company buying (enough of a government > to allow) access to the database and then using it to deny life insurance > coverage to anyone with a high-risk-of-disease DNA profile. (This is > already an issue with medical records, where it's essentially impossible > to buy individual life insurance in the US or Canada without "consenting" > to the Medical Information Bureau > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIB_Group > searching one's medical records.) > Who out there can't wait until AFIS gets pwn'd? Keeping in mind such entities are extremely likely to be keeping civilian background biometrics forever too. Beware what you create.

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Re: [tor-relays] Individual Operator Exit Probability Threshold
by grarpamp 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

>> :> what the current value of "global" is but I should hope it's well above 5%... >> :I'm curious about what you mean by "global" here, and how it relates to >> :[potentially] malicious operators (suspicious relays of which are >> :frequently thrown off the Tor network). >> >> "global" as in a global passive adversary Global is relative, it can mean at a scale having wide enough coverage physical or logical, to achieve your goals, against from 1 to all users, in sufficient time. It probably doesn't mean 1 node or tap, or quite 10, but up towards 100 / 500 / 1000 becomes interesting to think about. Similarly probably not for $5000, yet $50000 to $10M becomes a project. Physical may mean literally distributed about the Earth. Logical may mean piled in one datacenter taking part in the random functions of a target network, such as DHT abuse. >> though I suppose running nodes is an active adversary. Depends on what's being done with those Sybil nodes. Listening, traffic analysis, recording, decryption... that's passive. Modification, inject / drop, perturb, exploit... that's active. There are successful attacks in both modes of operation. > If an adversary is a global passive adversary, surely that would mean > that they are for all intents and purposes seeing pretty much all of the > traffic? > > I think it is worth remembering that there isn't evidence there is a > global passive adversary at the moment, even if certain agencies and > organizations clearly aspire to be one. If anyone seriously thinks that GPA / GAA scale adversaries do not exist, or are not actively in effect and growing with intent, they need to get their head out of their ass and digest the news dating back to at least Snowden. Even simple University level research groups have published effective production low cost small scale Sybil attacks on tor. (Sybil may also include infiltration of global code repositories.) Learn about how internet backbones work, lack of per link level encryption and fill traffic, Tier-1 vantage points, dozens of suspect hops in a traceroute, etc. How entities and people bend over backwards to give data away under the legal or $dollar table with wink and nod. Read up what NSA, GCHQ, FVEY, DEA, et al are doing with $Billions, PATRIOT partnerships, manganese nodules, etc. In a sense, "global" may sometimes distill down to meaning the same "global amounts of money" spread at a problem via various vectors to achieve similar results. Threats involving large scale deployment of $money, nodes, and actors against tor and other networks are real and secretive. Secrecy requires gauging their effectiveness by analysis of leaks, court cases, parallel construction, whispers and canaries, whitepapers, human resources, code and deltas, and news media. The fun part beyond that is in figuring out how to defeat them and then doing exactly that :)

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Help me test something
by jim bell 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

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Outreachy - Internerships for Underrrepresented People in Tech
by He's a dude, She's a dude, We're all dudes 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

> Cecilia Tanaka cecilia.tanaka at gmail.com > Sat Sep 23 17:35:09 PDT 2017 > > internships are open internationally > to women (cis and trans), trans men > Please do not send your hateful, sexist, and racist (((news))) to this list. > Interns are paid a stipend of $5,500 [for three-months] > $11.45hr is shit. Interns need at least $20hr. Apple, Intel, and Microsoft all pay $40+hr. How is this a good thing ? > no "whites" allowed > And "whites" are less than 10% of the global population, yet they are not a "minority" to you shitbags. > underrepresented backgrounds > If you want to increase the representation of women and the likes in certain industries, I hear they are underrepresented in coal mining, garbage collecting, and workplace deaths, to name a few. Why is this not a gap you seek to fill ? > "Don't let anyone rob you of [anything]." > Yet you do exactly that with shit like this. You have been reported for hate crime.

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Let's try again...Buy Bitcoin NOW.
by jim bell 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

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Buy Bitcoin NOW.
by jim bell 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

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Fwd: [Cryptography] Zerocash: Addressing Bitcoin's Privacy Problem GoogleTechTalks
by grarpamp 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

Fine talk for those doing comparisons of Monero vs the Zcash family regarding privacy etc... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tom Mitchell <mitch(a)niftyegg.com> Date: Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 7:29 PM Subject: [Cryptography] Zerocash: Addressing Bitcoin's Privacy Problem GoogleTechTalks To: cryptography <cryptography(a)metzdowd.com> A google tech talk on YouTube. https://youtu.be/uEdx-pqJg4I "...Google TechTalk, 8/28/17, presented by Alessandro Chiesa Abstract: In Bitcoin, a payment's details are broadcast in the clear, so that anyone can verify its validity. Unfortunately, this violates user privacy and sacrifices coin fungibility. I will describe the Zerocash protocol, which uses zero knowledge proofs to achieve privacy-preserving payments in a Bitcoin-like system. This protocol was recently deployed in the wild, as part of the cryptocurrency Zcash. "About the Speaker: Alessandro Chiesa is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. His research spans the areas of complexity theory, cryptography, and security, and focuses on the theoretical foundations and practical implementations of cryptographic proof systems such as zero knowledge proofs. He is a co-inventor of Zerocash and co-founder of Zcash. He is an author of libsnark, the leading open-source library for succinct zero knowledge proofs. He has received a Ph.D. in computer science from MIT in 2014, and B.S. degrees in computer science and in mathematics from MIT in 2009." ========== Zerocash is not the only one looking at this. Laws that apply to banks protect a lot from all except governments. Will governments balk if this gets too good? -- T o m M i t c h e l l _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

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[WAR] [RUS] -- correction, Russia failed to invade Europe ... again
by Zenaan Harkness 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

Sorry folks, strangely, this one seems like just a false alarm it seems - sadly for the war porn enthusiasts, but thankfully for the EU, the Baltics and especially Poland (‼¡‼), Russia has once again failed to attack Europe under the guise of a military exercise. Oh well, another day, another possibility for Russia to invade Europe ... ** NATO Slitting Wrists After Russian Exercise Ends Without Anticipated Invasion of Europe http://russia-insider.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=fa2faf7034c3c3c413c… ------------------------------------------------------------ by RI Staff on Thu, Sep 21, 2017 After conclusion of the Zapad 2017 military exercises the Russian units participating are packing up and returning to their barracks: Russian troops have started to routinely return to their home bases after the end of the joint Russia-Belarus Zapad 2017 exercises that earlier provoked large-scale hysteria in the West over their nature, numbers and purpose. Units of the Russian Air Force were first to set off for home following the end of the drills, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. BBC, CNN and the Jew York Times all covering this fantastic day for the USA secret services in Syria (... <ahem> ... not) - NO gloating now folks, it's very unbecoming and just not nice!: ** ‘US Secret Services' Tried to Nab 29 Russian Troops in Syria ... and Got Their Butts Kicked - Russian Military http://russia-insider.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=fa2faf7034c3c3c413… ------------------------------------------------------------ by Justin Huebner on Wed, Sep 20, 2017 Now this is something you won't see on NBC nightly news. The Russian military spokesman in this briefing, General Sergei Rudskoi, in a matter-of-fact deadpan, explains that 'US Secret Services’, and their Al Qaeda proxies, had a very, very bad day yesterday. Americans love bombing small, defenseless countries into the stone age, it’s part of their culture like baseball, apple pie, and morbid obesity. One of the things they never do, however, is pick on a country that can fight back. <echoes of James Clapper mumbling "but but, I was told Russians are --easy-- targets"> <"That's where you're wrong, kiddo‼">

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Re: cpunks list relocation imminent (was: Re: moving on)
by Zenaan Harkness 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

Hi Greg, as of this morning, I am no longer receiving any emails from the list - neither my own, nor those of others. Do you know why this might be? Thanks, Zenaan On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:35:04AM -0700, Greg Newby wrote: > Dear cpunks subscribers, > > As discussed on the list last week, Riad S. Wahby is exiting gracefully from hosting the Cypherpunks list at https://cpunks.org > > We have coordinated a transfer of the list to a server I manage, and the configuration appears to be fairly functional. We have put this at cpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org (versus cpunks(a)cpunks.org) > > I will send a test message to the NEW list momentarily, so subscribers will knoow they are getting both. > > Please write back to this list, or directly to me, if you notice any problems or anomalies. The mailman list settings, subscribership, etc. should be the same, except that subscribers since around August 25 are not yet on the new list. > > You can check your list settings and view the archives at the new location: https://lists.cpunks.org/ > > Once everything is confirmed to be functional, we will change from the old list to the new list, and update DNS and server records so the old email address and list URL work on the new location. We've set DNS TTL to expire quickly, once the changeover happens. > > Best, > Greg >

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