- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

Anonymous code name allocated. (fwd)
by szabo＠netcom.com 12 Aug '93

12 Aug '93

Looks like everybody who sent mail to cypherpunks lately (T=?) got signed up by anon.penent.fi. Forwarded message: > From daemon(a)anon.penet.fi Wed Aug 11 17:54:43 1993 > [you've been signed up, blah blah] > If you want to use a nickname, please send a message to > nick(a)anon.penet.fi, with a Subject: field containing your nickname. But "nick" is already my name! (insert Marx Bros. routine here) szabo(a)netcom.com

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under pressure from University Computing svcs,
by The Phantom 12 Aug '93

12 Aug '93

I'm going to have to shut down the phantom remailer. Seems someone complained about a remailed message. I got a copy of the message, and it didn't seem to bad to me, but I've gotta go with what UCS says. As of today, the phantom remailer (phantom@mead) is hereby out of service. Matt Matt Thomlinson Say no to the Wiretap Chip! University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. Internet: phantom(a)u.washington.edu phone: (206) 528-5732 PGP 2.2 key available via email or finger phantom(a)hardy.u.washington.edu

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Privacy-friendly auditing
by szabo＠netcom.com 12 Aug '93

12 Aug '93

Tony Hamilton: > It is nearly impossible to acquire statistics > on the %ROI and %STDEV on individual investment strategies. This can be > for a number of reasons. Some people, such as yourself, are not willing > do publicly divulge specifics. More often, in all likelihood, those figures > divulged are inaccurate or biased in some way. Sounds like another use for the hypothetical Auditing Protocol recently mentioned on the cypherpunks list. The problem is to figure out a way to audit the accounts of a bank, to determine if there are sufficient reserves, without divulging information on the accounts therein, or having to trust an outside auditing agency with the accounts' privacy. If such a protocol could be discovered it might also apply to this problem (or vice versa), how to audit the returns of an investment fund or strategy, without revealing information on the participants in such a fund, or revealing the specific strategy. One approach might be to express the strategy as a unique string which hashes to a unique digital signature, which can then be published along with the returns. Has anybody thought of a more formal way to express this problem? Ways to audit a bank without divulging customer privacy were also discussed at that July Bay Area cypherpunks meeting, and I'll bring up the question again this Saturday. >[figures from govn't & schools relatively unbiased] Governments are quite biased by political concerns, eg the desire to raise taxes and spending, to make themselves look good for elections, etc. Schools have to worry about their government and corporate sponsors, and both worry about political popularity & correctness, which is hardly unbiased. For example the Luddite reaction against program trading after the '87 crash, the reaction against corporate takeovers by "uppity Jews" like Milken in the 80s, etc. along with the biased statistics used to make cases for arguments against "junk" bonds, program trading, etc. Most importantly, these government and university people have no incentive to get it right, while S&P et. al. make their business on their reputation of getting it right. If it was discovered somebody was bribing S&P to cook the books you could be sure their competitors would make a Big Deal about it. In cases where there is no long-standing reputation on the line (and no trustworthy auditors, whether agencies or algorithms) I join you in being dubious about investment claims. Nick Szabo szabo(a)netcom.com

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Re: Clipper trapdoor?
by smb＠research.att.com 12 Aug '93

12 Aug '93

Consider the following hypothetical: Iraqi agents smuggle Clipper phones out of the U.S. Saddam Hussein uses them to communicate with his military commander in Basra. NSA intercepts the communications. Question: How does NSA decrypt the messages? You raise a valid point. I think there are several possible answers. First, of course, since the key escrow mechanism has not yet been established, an exception could be written into the procedures. (And whether they would be established by law or executive order remains to be seen.) There might be some clause saying, ``NSA may have access to escrowed keys, provided that they certify that the targets of their surveillance are foreign powers, as defined in the FISA. If, upon decryption, it is determined that a U.S. citizen's conversations have been intercepted, the procedures of the FISA for such eventualities will apply.'' Yes, they could abuse such a clause -- but by that logic, they could be listening in to cleartext domestic phone calls today. (And of course, there have been such abuses.) A second possible answer is for export phones to come from a separate production run, using a different family key. These would be export-only, and you'd never get a license to export a ``secure'' model. For U.S. residents to make an encrypted phone call to such a site, either they, too, would need such a phone, or they need some way to interoperate with a phone with a different family key. The obstacle there is the verification procedures such phones have, to guard against bogus narc headers being inserted. I'm not certain whether or not such a solution can be found. --Steve Bellovin

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final post
by Kragen Sittler 11 Aug '93

11 Aug '93

Looks like the sands of time are running out on my account. If there is someone here who can inform me of a service provider for internet access in Albuquerque, NM, tell me about it. It's been nice being here and listening to the discussion, even contributing occasionally. Hopefully I wasn't too shy or too mouthy. See y'all in my next account. Kragen Xentrac finger me for other contact points.

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cypher punks (fwd)
by Warren Keith Russell 11 Aug '93

11 Aug '93

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 17:16:21 -0700 From: Kevin Kelly <kk(a)well.sf.ca.us> To: keru(a)cpu.us.dynix.com Subject: cypher punks I heard you were asking about online versions of Levy's WIRED article. I'm the editor of WIRED. It's available in an e-text version in the WIRED folder on American Online, but not elsewhere at the moment. In a few months WIREDs' gopher site will be up. My own article in WER is not yet ready for ftp world. I'm finishing a book of which that is one chapter, and I need to focus on that before geting stuff up on the net. -- Kevin Kelly kk(a)well.sf.ca.us

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voluntary compliance
by fnerd＠smds.com 11 Aug '93

11 Aug '93

An interesting statement from the Skipjack proponents is that its use will be voluntary, and there's nothing that the citizen using it will be required to divulge (he doesn't even know the key and they do), and therefore no one's rights are being violated. Assume for the moment that that will remain true. They just want to encourage voluntary compliance. This is an interesting point. How much encouragement counts as coercion? Is it okay if they tax a dollar from a million people and offer the million to you for your information? Is it okay if they make it illegal to sell non-compromised phones (i.e., you don't have to use Skipjack, you can go unencrypted or roll your own)? These people are purposely, avowedly, trying to "encourage" us to do something they have no legal right to require. Why is that okay? Other than asking us as "good citizens" to do something, how is slanting the incentives okay? Do we have the right not to be nudged? -fnerd quote me

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Clipper trapdoor?
by David Sobel 11 Aug '93

11 Aug '93

Clipper trapdoor? Peter Wayner <pcw(a)access.digex.net> writes: >My general impression is that the system is secure. Many people >have played paranoid and expressed concerns that the classified >algorithm might be hiding a trapdoor. It became clear to me that >these concerns were really silly. There is a built-in trapdoor >to be used by the government when it is "legal authorized" to >intercept messages. The NSA has rarely had trouble in the past >exercising either its explicitly granted legal authority or >its implied authority. The phrase "national security" is a >powerful pass phrase around Washington and there is no reason >for me to believe that the NSA wouldn't get all of the access >to the escrow database that it needs to do its job. Building in >a backdoor would only leave a weakness for an opponent to exploit >and that is something that is almost as sacrilidgeous at the NSA >as just putting the classified secrets in a Fed Ex package to >Saddam Hussein. This raises an interesting question and I draw a totally different conclusion. If, as we have been told, the only way for an agency to obtain the escrow keys is to present a court order, than NSA needs to obtain such an order to decrypt *any* communication it intercepts. I don't really understand what Peter means when he says that "NSA has rarely had trouble in the past exercising either its explicitly granted legal authority or its implied authority. The phrase 'national security' is a powerful pass phrase around Washington and there is no reason for me to believe that the NSA wouldn't get all of the access to the escrow database that it needs to do its job." Does this mean NSA would, in fact, obtain a warrant in order to "get all of the access to the escrow database that it needs to do its job"? If so, this would represent an unprecedented change in the way NSA does "its job." NSA has no domestic law enforcement authority, so it would obviously never be in a position to obtain a law enforcement wiretap warrant under Title III. The only possible way for NSA to obtain a warrant would be under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). But the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which issues warrants under FISA, has ruled that FISA's provisions limit the authority to conduct electronic surveillances to the U.S. in a geographic sense as defined in sec. 101(i). The drafters left to another day the matter of "broadening this legislation to apply overseas ... because the problems and circumstances of overseas surveillance demand separate treatment." In the Matter of the Application of the United States for an Order Authorizing the Physical Search of Nonresidential Premises and Personal Property (1981), footnote 1 (citations omitted). Consider the following hypothetical: Iraqi agents smuggle Clipper phones out of the U.S. Saddam Hussein uses them to communicate with his military commander in Basra. NSA intercepts the communications. Question: How does NSA decrypt the messages? Note that neither Title III (law enforcement) nor FISA (U.S.-based) apply to this situation, so we have to assume that NSA will not have a court order to obtain the escrow keys. I have to conclude that NSA would not be putting this technology out into the world *unless* it did, in fact, have some way to decrypt messages *without* access to the escrow keys. Am I missing something? David Sobel CPSR Legal Counsel

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re: Secure voice software issues
by thug＠phantom.com 11 Aug '93

11 Aug '93

Paul, I noticed you mentioned that you will be using key rings in your cryptophones, so here's an idea I think would be great for cryptophones. This is a simple solution to the key-exchange problem. Cryptophone users would not need to exchange keys beforehand nor need to store other people's public keys on their cryptophone. - Every cryptophone user has a public and private key pair (like in RSA or PGP) - When a person calls another person, the phones automatically exchange their public keys before the voice conversation begins. Obviously the private keys are never transmitted. With this method, all one needs to initiate a secure telephone conversation is the phone number of whoever you're calling, just like using a regular telephone. I am assuming this is how Clipper/Skipjack phones would do this. I hope your cryptophone software does this as well, since I don't want to or need to keep keyrings full of public keys of everyone I might ever have to call. Thug

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Re: Clipper trapdoor?
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 11 Aug '93

11 Aug '93

>Note that neither Title III (law enforcement) nor FISA (U.S.-based) apply >to this situation, [...] >I have to conclude that NSA would not be putting >this technology out into the world *unless* it did, in fact, have some way >to decrypt messages *without* access to the escrow keys. Which is why they probably already have a draft for a bill to get escrowed keys without a warrant for national security reasons. They would want the whole escrow process set up before they announce this, of course. If they can't get this kind of bill passed, then they probably will not approve the technology for export. Alternatively, the escrow process may be written with specific wording that it applies only to US citizens leaving a convenient escrow process trap-door. This makes the Privacy Clipper difficult to sell overseas, but specially made chips for export might be compromised anyway with weak random seeds. Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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