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Re: [cryptography] How big a speedup through storage?
by grarpamp 20 Jun '14

20 Jun '14

On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 3:23 PM, Jeffrey Goldberg <jeffrey(a)goldmark.org> wrote: > On 2014-06-19, at 10:42 PM, Lodewijk andré de la porte <l(a)odewijk.nl> wrote: > >> With common algorithms, how much would a LOT of storage help? > > Well, with an unimaginable amount of storage it is possible to shave a few bits off of AES. > > As {Bogdanov, Andrey and Khovratovich, Dmitry and Rechberger, Christian} say in Biclique Cryptanalysis of the Full AES (ASIACRYPT 2011) [PDF at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/cryptanalysis/aesbc.pdf ] > > "This approach for 8-round AES-128 yields a key recovery with computational complexity about 2^125.34, data complexity 2^88, memory complexity 2^8, and success probability 1.” > > It’s that 2^88 that requires a LOT of storage. I’m not sure if that 2^88) is in bits or AES blocks, but let’s assume bits. Facebook is said to store about 2^62 bits, so we are looking at something 2^26 times larger than Facebook’s data storage. 8 rounds, lot more to go. >> I know this one organization that seems to be building an omnious observation storage facility, > > Any (reliable) estimates on how big? I believe the square footage is public, if not guesstimate by parking spaces etc in JYA's sat photos. Then fill it to the brim with nothing but 6TB drives, less some space for racks, aisles, power, network at say 50% better density than industry best [1]. That's your physical upper bound. $10M in drives at consumer pricing will get you a raw 177PB, or 236PB at double the space and power. Or $1B for 17EB. Budget is an issue. Give it a shot on paper, best estimate wins... [1] If all you care about is storage, you plug drives into tiny custom storage fabric asics and present giant block devices at the end of each row or room, not into bulky servers. Commodity CPU's have 64bit address space, ZFS covers that. Or go custom access/compute on your data as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Capacity

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Assange
by Александр 20 Jun '14

20 Jun '14

http://rt.com/op-edge/167324-assange-wikileaks-human-rights/ http://rt.com/op-edge/163608-assange-god-lonely-man/

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Ars Thecnica TrueCrypt Disinformation Article ???
by Jose Damico 20 Jun '14

20 Jun '14

This article from Ars (http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/06/following-truecrypts-bombshell-advi…) ****** Following TrueCrypt’s bombshell advisory, developer says fork is “impossible” TrueCrypt developer withholds permission, suggests "starting from scratch." ****** Seems to be a text inserted by some Intelligence Agency, as part of a disinformation agenda, with the aim of sowing fear in those who has interest in fork TrueCrypt. For me, there are no real facts demonstrated in the article. Also at end of the day, some organization or institution must claim the ownership of truecrypt in order to protect its interests over the source code. Am I right? What do you think? yap

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Introduction to crypto
by Ankit Kulshrestha 20 Jun '14

20 Jun '14

Hey guys, This is my first post at cypherpunks... I'm new to the field of crypto and have done only some basic crypto work.I was wondering if you could provide me some papers on crypto and network security ... I'm working on developing secure embedded devices this summer

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Tell a lie, remove the gear: How the NSA covers up when cable taps are found
by jim bell 19 Jun '14

19 Jun '14

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/tell-a-lie-remove-the-gear-how-t… Tell a lie, remove the gear: How the NSA covers up when cable taps are found Get caught, remove the evidence, and come up with a plausible cover story. by Nate Anderson - June 19 2014, 10:56am PDT23Der Spiegel via Edward Snowden via NSA Sometimes, the spooks do get caught. German magazine Der Spiegel yesterday revealed a new slide (PDF) from the Edward Snowden document cache that offers a tantalizing glimpse of what it looks like when someone stumbles on an intelligence agency cable tap. The NSA's Special Source Operations (SSO) branch isn't in the business of computer hacking but of cable tapping; its logo shows an eagle flying above the globe and clutching a string of wires in its talons. These taps, each obscured with a codename, are often made deep within the network of telecom providers and often with the cooperation of key executives. But sometimes non-cleared people start raising questions about just what might be going on, as was the case with AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, who revealed an NSA "secret room" in San Francisco. On March 14, 2013, an SSO weekly briefing included a note regarding such a discovery. The unit had been informed two days earlier that "the access point for WHARPDRIVE was discovered by commercial consortium personnel. Witting partner personnel have removed the evidence and a plausible cover story was provided. All collection has ceased." According to Der Spiegel, Wharpdrive was a fiber-optic cable tap (underseas fiber is often laid by consortia of companies, so it's possible this took place at an onshore landing point for such a cable). Employees from one of the companies involved—though not the company that had a relationship with NSA and the German intelligence agency BND—apparently noticed some unusual gear and commented on it. In response, the company involved with the NSA ("witting partner personnel") removed the tap and made up a story to explain what the gear in question had been doing. Though the NSA lost access to Wharpdrive, it wasn't for long. Der Spiegel cites additional documents in its possession and says that "a team was quietly put together to reinstall the program."

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Re: Tor DNSBL
by Seth 18 Jun '14

18 Jun '14

On Tue, 17 Jun 2014 09:21:12 -0700, Scott Blaydes <scott(a)sbce.org> wrote: > Started running a Tor relay node yesterday and found myself on the DAN > TOR DNS Blacklist. Just wondered if anyone else running a node had any > issues with email while running a relay node on the same server? Yes, I've had a handful outbound emails bounce because of that stupid blacklist. (I run a Tor relay and mail server from home on the same public IP) Guy running the blacklist won't even allow you view his dumb-ass blacklist web page (https://www.dan.me.uk/dnsbl) from any Tor exit or *or non-exit relay node* for that matter. Which is just pure idiocy because it takes about 10 seconds to circumvent the block for anybody with two braincells to rub together. (ever heard of GOOGLE CACHE ya JACK-ASS?!!) Just goes to show you the mindset of the person running the thing IMO. As for inbound email to an IP running a Tor relay, I have had zero problems that I am aware of. Just hit up mailgun or sendgrid for a free personal relay account or grab a cheap VPS to relay all your outbound mail through and you're golden. -- Seth Thank you for trimming your replies

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Fwd: [Cryptography] bitcoins over the air
by grarpamp 18 Jun '14

18 Jun '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sampo Syreeni <decoy(a)iki.fi> Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 8:59 PM Subject: [Cryptography] bitcoins over the air To: cryptography-list <cryptography(a)metzdowd.com> In case people are interested in a project of a friend of mine, Joel Lehtonen (aka Zouppen) is on a fast track to implementing Bitcoin transaction and blockchain broadcast over the airwaves. Everything is half done, so he might need some help; at the same time that half-done then also includes half the funding, half the code, and half the negotiation with the Finnish monopoly DVB-T provider, Digita, to actually broadcast the stuff to a couple of million strong. Even if it's just a test, it's already well on its way to happening in a month or so; so it will. If people are willing to chip in, especially with funding, deeper code knowhow, radio-fu, and the rest of the useful ones, do contact him, or me (aka decoy), on FB/G+/IRCNet/freenode, or better yet join #bitcoinradio on the latter. In particular we don't have any idea of how to push transactions back towards the network over any sort of cheap-to-free, preferably universal radio path. If you do, even in a quilted fashion, we'd really like to know. And since the only ones who're really allowed to experiment on them waves today are hams, those of you who possess that qualification, your input is in the direst of needs. Finally, I hope this isn't too much off topic; it *is* about spreading a cryptocurrency and finding its optimal OTA protocols, after all. Not perhaps the most usual stuff on-list nowadays...but certainly the kind of across-the-board architectural stuff the list started out with, in the crypto days of yonder. I hope it fits. -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - decoy(a)iki.fi, http://decoy.iki.fi/front +358-40-3255353, 025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2 _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

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Fw: Lois Lerner's conveeeeeeeeeeniently-lost emails.
by jim bell 17 Jun '14

17 Jun '14

Somebody reminded me... >> Note: I wonder what kind of email system would be: 1. Used by the >> Federal Government. 2. NOT be regularly backed-up. 3. Would lose up to >> two (2) years of emails in a crash. Jim Bell >> [article follows] >I'm sure they'd be able to find backups in a serverfarm in Utah, eh? Excellent point! Although, that Utah operation might not have been functioning in 2011. But presumably the NSA had a smaller operation somewhere else prior to that. So, who wants to REMIND the prosecutors in IRS-gate that somebody else has these emails? Maybe the future for the NSA will be as a type of "super-backwards-Carbonite" operation? But instead of, "Pay us money and we'll back up your emails", it'll be, "Pay us money and we WON'T back up your emails"!!! Jim Bell

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Amazing NSA excuse
by jim bell 17 Jun '14

17 Jun '14

http://theweek.com/article/index/262945/the-nsa-has-a-shocking-new-excuse-f… "One thing that makes reporting on the NSA so difficult is that you have to deconstruct their statements like Derrida to figure out what they're actually saying. (This is why all responsible people read Marcy Wheeler.) "Luckily, here's an NSA issue anyone can sink their teeth into. It demonstrates the squirmy NSA legal technique, and how by its own logic the agency ought to be broken up or closed altogether. "The background is that the NSA is being sued around the block by all manner of people over the Snowden revelations. Pertaining to a suit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a previous court order had instructed the NSA to preserve data that it had collected under Section 702 of the Amendments Act to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "That order has since been reversed, because the NSA has claimed (in addition to the usual business about how stopping this program will grievously harm American citizens) that it physically cannot store all the information it collects under Section 702. As Andrea Peterson atThe Washington Post reported, the NSA's deputy director, Richard Ledgett, wrote a rather astonishing court filing, in which he said that "a requirement to preserve all data acquired under Section 702 presents significant operational problems, only one of which is that the NSA may have to shut down all systems and databases that contain Section 702 information." (Emphasis added.) Ironically, Ledgett claims that previous privacy restrictions that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court placed on the program necessitate deleting the data the EFF wants preserved. You can practically see Ledgett sticking his finger in the eye of the EFF's legal director. "In any case, as Peterson notes, this puts the EFF in a strange position, since it is now arguing to preserve evidence for legal purposes it would ultimately want destroyed as a policy. "But aside from the legal arcana, this is an excellent example of the Kafkaesque logic that predominates when it it comes to our intelligence agencies. The NSA is almost saying, "We've got your privacy protections in here, honest, but unfortunately it just so happens that these protections mean we have to destroy all this evidence related to your lawsuit." Whatever the situation, it just so happens that the intelligence apparatus is regretfully excused from accountability. Marcy Wheeler is constantly uncovering various iterations of this stuff. "I'm skeptical that the data preservation the EFF is asking for is impossible. But the really troubling possibility is that the NSA is actually right. It's anybody's guess precisely how much data the NSAis shifting around, but it's reportedly in the exabytes overall. So yes, it might be impossible for the agency to store more than a few weeks or so of the data it's collecting. "The NSA's legal squirming is bad enough. But an agency writing itself a blank check to allegedly destroy evidence based on the sheer size and complexity of the possibly illegal program in questionis another thing entirely. There shouldn't be an "unless your dragnet surveillance program is reallybig" exception to the Fourth Amendment.

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Geoff Stone, Obama's Review Group
by dan＠geer.org 14 Jun '14

14 Jun '14

[ disclaimer, Geoff Stone is a friend of mine ] www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/what-i-told-the-nsa_b_5065447.html?… What I Told the NSA Because of my service on the President's Review Group last fall, which made recommendations to the president about NSA surveillance and related issues, the NSA invited me to speak today to the NSA staff at the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, about my work on the Review Group and my perceptions of the NSA. Here, in brief, is what I told them: From the outset, I approached my responsibilities as a member of the Review Group with great skepticism about the NSA. I am a long-time civil libertarian, a member of the National Advisory Council of the ACLU, and a former Chair of the Board of the American Constitution Society. To say I was skeptical about the NSA is, in truth, an understatement. I came away from my work on the Review Group with a view of the NSA that I found quite surprising. Not only did I find that the NSA had helped to thwart numerous terrorist plots against the United States and its allies in the years since 9/11, but I also found that it is an organization that operates with a high degree of integrity and a deep commitment to the rule of law. Like any organization dealing with extremely complex issues, the NSA on occasion made mistakes in the implementation of its authorities, but it invariably reported those mistakes upon discovering them and worked conscientiously to correct its errors. The Review Group found no evidence that the NSA had knowingly or intentionally engaged in unlawful or unauthorized activity. To the contrary, it has put in place carefully-crafted internal proceduresto ensure that it operates within the bounds of its lawful authority. This is not to say that the NSA should have had all of the authorities it was given. The Review Group found that many of the programs undertaken by the NSA were highly problematic and much in need of reform. But the responsibility for directing the NSA to carry out those programs rests not with the NSA, but with the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorized those programs -- sometimes without sufficient attention to the dangers they posed to privacy and civil liberties. The NSA did its job -- it implemented the authorities it was given. It gradually became apparent to me that in the months after Edward Snowden began releasing information about the government's foreign intelligence surveillance activities, the NSA was being severely -- and unfairly -- demonized by its critics. Rather than being a rogue agency that was running amok in disregard of the Constitution and laws of the United States, the NSA was doing its job. It pained me to realize that the hard-working, dedicated, patriotic employees of the NSA, who were often working for far less pay than they could have earned in the private sector because they were determined to help protect their nation from attack, were being castigated in the press for the serious mistakes made, not by them, but by Presidents, the Congress, and the courts. Of course, "I was only following orders" is not always an excuse. But in no instance was the NSA implementing a program that was so clearly illegal or unconstitutional that it would have been justified in refusing to perform the functions assigned to it by Congress, the President, and the Judiciary. Although the Review Group found that many of those programs need serious re-examination and reform, none of them was so clearly unlawful that it would have been appropriate for the NSA to refuse to fulfill its responsibilities. Moreover, to the NSA's credit, it was always willing to engage the Review Group in serious and candid discussions about the merits of its programs, their deficiencies, and the ways in which those programs could be improved. Unlike some other entities in the intelligence community and in Congress, the leaders of the NSA were not reflexively defensive, but were forthright, engaged, and open to often sharp questions about the nature and implementation of its programs. To be clear, I am not saying that citizens should trust the NSA. They should not. Distrust is essential to effective democratic governance. The NSA should be subject to constant and rigorous review, oversight, scrutiny, and checks and balances. The work it does, however important to the safety of the nation, necessarily poses grave dangers to fundamental American values, particularly if its work is abused by persons in positions of authority. If anything, oversight of the NSA -- especially by Congress -- should be strengthened. The future of our nation depends not only on the NSA doing its job, but also on the existence of clear, definitive, and carefully enforced rules and restrictions governing its activities. In short, I found, to my surprise, that the NSA deserves the respect and appreciation of the American people. But it should never, ever, be trusted.

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