- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

PGP progress report
by L. Detweiler 23 Jul '93

23 Jul '93

A query was made about the Macintosh version of PGP and the bug fixes in 2.3. There was a bug in random number generation routines apparently introduced in a recent version that caused some decrease in security of the process but nothing seriously weakening. The Macintosh version is developed mostly independently of the `official' PGP version and the bug is not present in the 2.3 release. The 2.3a PGP release fixes the bug. PRZ writes, `The security problem was mostly theoretical, not a practical one for most scenarios.' (more information below). Queries were made about the effort to streamline the Macintosh user interface. In general, this has been underway for a long time in slow but consistent progress (the improvement from say 2.1 to 2.2 was significant). In MacPGP 2.3 a new online help system has been added based on Norstadt's excellent Disinfectant code (a system which exceeds the sophistication of many commercial software packages). There is an announcement currently on sci.crypt for the FTP site. All GUI versions of the PGP code are somewhat limited in sophistication by internal organization of PGP code toward the `teletype output' mindset. A major effort is underway to remodularize the code to internally encapsulate algorithms from the input & output (user interface) to make future GUI versions more accessable to programmers, and ultimately with new versions for users. A Windows version is in the works. PGP-RSAREF negotiations are plodding along with J. Berman of EFF as an intermediary. The developers are unsure of the reasons for the slow pace. J. Bidzos is supposed to make a major public announcement on this avenue very soon. Finally, some concern has been raised about bugs in the PGP code. The various developers are aware of the slightly disconcerting quality control on recent versions. One of the most direct ways that PGP users can help improve the quality of the software is to volunteer to beta-test versions on their platform in a timely manner at the release of new versions. Surprisingly few volunteers are available. If you would like to contribute in this area, please send mail to prz(a)acm.org. Following is information from Z. Fiedorwicz, the MacPGP developer. (Feel free to redistribute my message in its entirety.) ===cut=here=== Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 10:08:33 -0500 From: Zbigniew Fiedorowicz <fiedorow(a)math.ohio-state.edu> Subject: MacPGP 2.3 randseed bug fix There is a small bug in MacPGP 2.2 and MacPGP 2.3 in the handling of the randseed.bin file used in the generation of the random session IDEA keys used to encrypt outgoing messages. (This bug is also present in the Unix and MS-DOS versions.) Due to this bug only the first four bytes of the 24 byte randseed.bin file are ever read into memory. Since MacPGP also uses keyboard and mouse timings to generate random bytes, this does not give rise to any predictability which could easily be exploited for cracking MacPGP messages. While a special bug fix version 2.3a was released for the Unix and MS-DOS versions of PGP, this was necessitated by the presence of several other bugs NOT present in MacPGP 2.3 (eg. verification of clear-signed messages didn't work). Hence NO version 2.3a release of MacPGP is planned. If you are concerned by this bug, you can fix it by hand with ResEdit following the instructions below. The usual precautions when using ResEdit apply: FIRST MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF MACPGP 2.3 The patch: open the CODE 4 using the Hex Editor (under the Resource menu). Then using the Find menu, find the following offsets in CODE 4 and apply the patches indicated: Offset 0005E8 4878 0004 4878 0001 ^^^^ 0018 <--- replace 0004 by 0018 0005F8 5980 4FEF 0010 640A ^^^^ 5180 <--- replace 5980 by 5180 Then choose "Save" under the File menu. Exactly the same instructions apply to MacPGP 2.2 as well. Technical Explanation: The bug is caused by a single line in the open_strong_pseudorandom(byte key[16], byte buf[24]) function in the crypto.c module: if (fread(buf,1,sizeof(buf),f) < sizeof(buf)) /* empty file? */ ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ Since buf is an argument to the function, it gets reinterpreted by the C compiler as simply char *buf and hence sizeof(buf) is taken to be 4 instead of 24 as intended. This line of C gets compiled into the following machine/assembly code: 0005E6: 2F0C MOVE.L A4,-(A7) 0005E8: 4878 0004 PEA $0004 0005EC: 4878 0001 PEA $0001 0005F0: 2F2E 000C MOVE.L $000C(A6),-(A7) 0005F4: 4EAD 067A JSR $067A(A5) 0005F8: 5980 SUBQ.L #$4,D0 0005FA: 4FEF 0010 LEA $0010(A7),A7 0005FE: 640A BCC.S *+$000C ; The patch converts this to 0005E6: 2F0C MOVE.L A4,-(A7) 0005E8: 4878 0018 PEA $0018 0005EC: 4878 0001 PEA $0001 0005F0: 2F2E 000C MOVE.L $000C(A6),-(A7) 0005F4: 4EAD 067A JSR $067A(A5) 0005F8: 5180 SUBQ.L #$8,D0 0005FA: 4FEF 0010 LEA $0010(A7),A7 0005FE: 640A BCC.S *+$000C ; which corresponds to if (fread(buf,1,24,f) < 8) This is of course still not quite right, but unfortunately there is no SUBQ.L #24,D0 instruction. (SUB.L #24,D0 is a 4 byte instruction which would mess up relative offset references all over CODE 4.) However the chances of this causing any problem are extremely small.

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FAX on Internet
by L. Detweiler 23 Jul '93

23 Jul '93

Here's some information on using the Internet to fax messages. This gives me a lot of ideas. First, there was some talk here about encrypting FAXes. Since somebody is already getting the data on the internet, this would be trivial for someone to do here with PGP. Secondly, I don't know if they are using mail or FTP to transmit, but if they converted it to mail we could have `anonymous faxes' by coupling with the cypherpunk remailers (then to a receiver site that supports the FAX service via email reception). Finally, it seems to me that this is the first glimmer of a very massive new market opening up. Maybe the first entrepreneurs in cyberspace will be developing this service. Digital cash will be extremely useful here. So far, no one has told them `no' (`is this legal?' he asks) but I'm sure there's a lot of people that will be mighty upset by all this stellar progress! The problem with services like these is that once they become wildly successful and popular the weasels whine and clamp down. Note the developers are also behind the Internet Radio. Boy, when a universal network is built where commercial activity is not considered some kind of shady taboo, our economy is going to just GO CRAZY and EXPLODE. I'd like to set up a hypertext library with modest transaction charges, and will do so once the opportunity is there (BTW, also heard that Brewster Kahle, major mastermind between WAIS, has formed his own company and is now marketing workstation `electronic printing presses'.) All the elements are there. We're all dressed up and ready to go, with no way to get there! Somebody go and kick your legislator, and phone and cable company reps! - ------- Forwarded message Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 07:04:57 -0800 From: farber(a)central.cis.upenn.edu (David Farber) Subject: actually it is really an experiment and should be viewed as one but .. From: the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow <geoff(a)radiomail.net> Today's SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS Business Section had the following front page story (From the New York Times - by John Markoff): "USERS AVOID FAX COSTS WITH INTERNET MESSAGES" The dividing line between paper facsimile documents and electronic mail is vanishing. Thanks to the volunteer efforts of a group of computer network designers, the network of networks known as Internet now permits users to send an e-mail message to be printed out on fax machines at a growing number of sites around the world. Because transmission charges on the Internet are minimal compared with those of the long-distance phone calls normally used for faxes, the system is a cheap way to send faxes across the country or around the world. To use the system, begun this month as an experiment in remote printing, computer mail users include a fax telephone number in the address portion of their message. The message, which may include both text and graphics, will then be automatically routed to a site that has agreed to serve a local geographic ``cell'' for delivery of the fax message. So far, participating regions include all of Japan, Australia, the Netherlands and Ireland, and in the United States, metropolitan Washington, Silicon Valley and parts of the San Francisco Bay area, as well as other pockets of the country. Leading the project is Marshall T. Rose, a computer communications consultant at Dover Beach Consulting in Mountain View, Calif. He has worked with another Internet researcher, Carl Malamud, who has created Internet Talk Radio, a weekly commercial audio program that is distributed internationally and can be played on computer work stations. The fax cell sites are computers on the Internet that are also connected to inexpensive computer-controlled fax modems that can route the files to virtually any fax machine. Each site can designate the size of the area that it will serve - whether an entire city or just the fax machines within a particular company. So far, in keeping with the utopianism that still permeates Internet culture, none of the fax middlemen and -women are charging for their services. Rose noted that the blurring of fax and electronic mail would raise thorny questions. ``Is this global and local bypass of the telephone companies using the Internet?'' he asked rhetorically. ``Is this legal? We need to think about this.'' (Information on Internet Fax Bypass can be obtained by sending a message to tpc-faq(a)town.hall.org) ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Re: forged mail
by karn＠qualcomm.com 22 Jul '93

22 Jul '93

You should also bear in mind a fatal mistake that most people make when they forge email. They test it first by sending themselves a forged note! I'm told that when the guilty parties are confronted with the sendmail logs, they usually confess quickly... Phil

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setting up a mailing list?
by Dwayne Campogan 22 Jul '93

22 Jul '93

I have been looking for information or a FAQ for setting up a mailing list of my own.. I would like to compose a list that used PGP encryption by default supported a key-server swap like enviorment with online extraction of specific keys, as the server lists are huge and PGP's extract and sort routines often do not work on them and when they do take quit long.. information and direction needed, recommended, and thnaked for.. -Paris

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Webs
by Paul Goggin 22 Jul '93

22 Jul '93

Thomas thus said: >And that is where cryptographically secure models of trust comes in. >If we are going to continue to be coherent in our future virtual world, >we are going to have to "filter out" information which originates from >sources which we do not have a cryptographic web of trust to. I understand the predictament and security that it entails. However, I am not sure as I understand you, that this is a good solution. Let's say if everyone jumps on the cryptographic bandwagon, how does the web of trust help out the end user who's feelings have been hurt? Or if the user is not in the web of trust does that eliminate their information from the field? Sorry, its late and I probably should'nt post but what the hell. Probably get flamed in the morning. >Does this make any sense? I decided for about 2 weeks to accept only PGP messages as authenticated, so to speak -- and it sucked even friends that have PGP and such would not go in for the idea of a total security blanket. Just my .02, probably give another .02 in the next 12 hours. Paul -- R O All Comments Copyright by | Technofetisht A N Paul S. Goggin (1993) | Cypher, Cyber, Chaos V Information Broker | Ergoflux, Interzone E chaos(a)aql.gatech.edu | Carpe Diem: Stop the Clipper wiretap chip Finger account for latest _Phrack_ | Public Key: PGP and RIPEM available For anonymous communication:---> anonymus+4744(a)charcoal.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Title 18 USC 2511 and 18 USC 2703 Protected -- Monitoring Absolutely Forbidden

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No Subject
by technopagan priest 22 Jul '93

22 Jul '93

Recently, there has been some talk on here concerning anonymous remailers and harassment. I don't think we will ever exist in a society where anonymous information sources will be eliminated. Even 50 years ago, the "rumour mill" was the equivalent of the modern anonymous remailer. And yes, harassing rumours got started and hurt people. But the fault, as I see it, lies not so much in those who started the rumour, but more in the people who believed the rumour without trust in the source. And that is where cryptographically secure models of trust comes in. If we are going to continue to be coherent in our future virtual world, we are going to have to "filter out" information which originates from sources which we do not have a cryptographic web of trust to. Does this make any sense? -Thomas (I'm not signing this message on purpose ;)

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Re: ANON: remail abuse
by peter honeyman 22 Jul '93

22 Jul '93

> The reason anonymous remailers are not the same as payphones or junk mail is > that the latter two leave tangible clues behind. While I'm not entirely happy > with the US justice system, it seems to me that given society's current > limitations, a police force of some sort is generally a good thing (if strict > controls are kept on it). (Sorry, I realize that this is a bit of a fringe > opinion in *this* group, but. . . .) Both payphones and mail leave tangible > clues which can be investigated and traced by law enforcement authorities. > Anonymous mail doesn't---at least, not without actually running a process or a > logger on the machine itself. wow, much to disagree with in that paragraph. tell you what, though. since you have such faith in the bloodhounds of the justice system, why don't you post your home phone number here and invite a test of the efficacy of those tangible clues etc.? i haven't a clue, tangible or otherwise, how you would trace a carefully plotted campaign of harrassment, whether by phone or postal mail. perhaps you could elaborate? peter

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carbon copy
by Timothy Newsham 22 Jul '93

22 Jul '93

Forwarded message: > From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Wed Jul 21 17:00 HST 1993 > Resent-Message-Id: <9307220127.AA16447(a)emory.mathcs.emory.edu> > Resent-Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 21:21:11 EDT > Resent-From: <cypherpunks(a)indigo.mese.com> > Resent-To: <CYPHERPUNKS(a)toad.com> > Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 15:36:55 -0400 > From: Peter Wayner <pcw(a)access.digex.net> > Message-Id: <199307211936.AA08235(a)access.digex.net> > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: Simmons Subliminal channels and more... Every single cypherpunk message I am receiving comes in duplicate. The first from cypherpunks list, the second with added header lines as above. Tim N.

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Encrypted data across international lines
by L. Detweiler 22 Jul '93

22 Jul '93

From: gdale(a)apple.com (Geoff Dale) >Does anybody have pointers to the actual statutes prohibiting transmitting >encrypted data across international boundries. > >I had an argument with somebody who didn't think this was illegal. This is similar to the question `do any countries prohibit certain kinds of cryptography' that arose after the Clipper announcement suggested that some do. The FCC prohibits the use of codes in amateur radio transmissions, and violations are sufficient to revoke the license. This is enforced by legislation. Also, various countries have rules against using encryption in telegrams. I believe Australia has one, and also Britain. Or maybe it was that Australia had an `official' code under which other codes were illegal. The question is, how are these enforced in practice? I'd like to see a bit of information from the experts on this. What constitutes `codes'? A friend operator told me that, unusual statements, non sequiturs, qualified. Have any operators lost their licenses this way? What is the enforcement like? On a related subject, I recall the discussion here a few months ago about `numbers stations' (or was it sci.crypt?). These are broadcast frequencies where the announcer simply reads off long lists of numbers. They are used for encrypted communication to clandestine operatives, etc. Apparently most are Iron Curtain originating, from what I understand. I saw on TV (nightly news) that there was a great deal of hullaballoo about using the VOA (Voice of America) to send secret communications. A director told a disk jockey to play a certain song and say that it was for a request from `country [x]' where [x] was a very obscure locality in Russia, and the song was unusual. Apparently a disk jockey complained about the practice, and a previous director was against it. A new director was not unequivocally against the practice. There was disagreement on whether the VOA charter allowed it (private analysts saying emphatically no, shady slippery shifty-eyed gov't types saying `well, ...'). If anyone else can expand on this one I'd appreciate it.

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Weaver/BATF trial
by L. Detweiler 22 Jul '93

22 Jul '93

The Washington Post portrayal posted courtesy of P. Ferguson is beyond deeply disturbing, and borders on the horrifyingly shocking. Particularly the sniper aim on Weaver's wife--around her children!--I found brutally, heinously barbarian. One wonders if law enforcement is composed of responsible servants or maurading mercenaries. I'm really stunned not to see any reaction in the popular press so far to this editorial, but I suspect it won't sow ripples but hurtle shearing shockwaves through the media for years to come. However, perhaps just a few weeks have passed since T.C. May admonished and chastised various members for `demonizing' opponents, and then posts a few statements as follows (the sheer bluntness reminds me of the long-dead cries of Murderous Thug on this list, and I feel compelled to respond by blunting the mad, chaotic, rambling, and unfocused shooting): >The killing of that Fed in Idaho was fully justified, as the jury just >confirmed. >The BATF, DEA, Marshal's Service, and their kind have essentially >become a Gestapo-like band of secret police. They raid homes without >proper warrants (Phil Karn has told us of the San Diego case), they >entrap innocents, they use high tech satellite imagery to locate plots >of land they want for various purposes and then trump up charges (the >Oxnard-Santa Monica case where the County wanted a guy's land and then >drew up drug charges, raided him, and killed him...no drugs were >found), and they seize computers and modems of folks like Steve >Jackson without bothering to do their homework. Killing justified? Gestapo-like band of secret police? Yeeks. First of all, please resist the temptation to tar a vast number of law enforcement agents with the same brush under the polarizing heading `they'. It is more dangerous to see enemies everywhere than only somewhere (hm, I think the inspiration for that quote came from your own words). Unless they all showed up at an annual Loot & Pillage Conference and traded techniques and swapped success stories, my suspicions wouldn't be aroused. But as it stands your paragraph starts out with the explosion of `Gestapo band of secret police' and ends with a limp whine of `without bothering to do their homework'. As it stands, there is actually a bit of hostility between different law enforcement branches (best documented, I think, in Hacker Crackdown by Sterling, as in FBI vs. local police forces). This animosity prevents the various groups from wholeheartedly colluding, for which we can be ecstatically thankful for. Yes, the individual agencies are extremely dangerous in some of their recent actions, but this is more adequately explained in terms of local stupidity and imperialism than global malice and conspiracy. Ah, but the most dangerous call comes next: >And perhaps their next target will be "crypto-terrorists" like us. >After all, many of us advocate overthrowing the fascist/socialist >government (I know I do, and many of you do, too), and many of us >believe strong crypto is the key ingredient for bypassing tax systems, >for trading weapons technology details with others (how long before >some of us are charged with aiding and abetting the enemy?), and for >creating a transnational cyberspace. Uhm, I think if law enforcement officials were at all alarmed by our presence we would have encountered rather obvious signs by now. But look how little interference has been erected in front of cypherpunkesque adventurism. Cypherpunk remailers have only gone down for extremely mundane reasons. A rather feeble letter was sent to the operator of soda.berkeley.edu suggesting in the most delicate terms that something might be amiss (for which there was great ensuing fireworks, our nervous-edgy heavy barrage of artillery and cannons aimed at a wandering rabbit). *Nothing* has come of the Mycotronx postings like a Tianamen Square tank-rolling clampdown massacre response by the Establishment. We don't even have the whimper of a single misguided officer pursuing a lone local vigilante justice revenge power trip. We got spectacular coverage in Wired and the New York Times and not even a sneeze from a real red-blooded shifty-eyed Enemy in Black. >The Feds must surely come to see us as the enemy. The `Feds' are actually numerous and disparate agencies, have created their own realities that they live in, and so far have almost, apparently, *completely* ignored the Cacaphony of the Cypherpunks. I believe the situation is that the pillars we are targeting most directly (e.g. the NSA, FBI) are precisely those that are most limited in meeting and engaging us on our terms of warfare of a public-relations campaign. When they say anything in the media they sound absolutely ridiculous -- the FBI with their `a lot of dead bodies lying around' and `cryptography as nitroglycerin,' Denning's `I'm not sure if people should be informed' come to mind. Their clandestine preference is our strongest asset. We can advance by being loud and obnoxious and they cannot (a sort of Perotian-Clintonian relationship). So far I think we have exercised it effectively, galliantly, and perhaps even superbly. But as soon as we make statements that bespeak fanatic paranoia and dangerous and polarizing rhetorical posturing we will be swiftly discredited or hammered. >We need to be as prepared as Randy Weaver was! This is a rather irresponsible and dangerous sentiment and metaphor. I urge you to reconsider. Which cypherpunks are volunteering to barricade themselves from the police in their houses? To defy some court proceedings because of `distrust' of the prosecution? To arm their children with rifles for `defense'? Mr. Weaver was apparently subject to the most grave miscarriage of law enforcement in many years, perhaps only second to the Waco massacre in recent history if reported elements of the recent story hold up. But the fact remains that he refused to go to court and completely defied *our* `system' that has been erected to defend the innocent. He managed to delay going to court by a few months with absolutely disastrous and horrible payment. In fact, one could argue quite convincingly that Weaver was very clearly a victim of his own paranoia. If he had trusted the courts to minimize his plight the gruesome horror show might have been averted. Perhaps not. But are we cypherpunks now going to take on the American Judicial System? Dissolute focus means dissolute energy. Finally, I would like to take up the question of the Weaver Debacle in relation to the nation's media. First, anything this horrendous takes *years* to penetrate and percolate through the American consciousness and media, so we should be patient. It is like the trickle of Chinese water torture--one can go insane in the process. The fallout from the Steve Jackson games case has taken that long. (This is not to discourage public relations but to encourage it.) Secondly, the American public is actually firmly supportive of some of these bloody miscarriages. For example, Reno's approval/popularity soared after her public post-Waco culpability speeches. That is, we have met the enemy, and he is us. We *must* change American attitudes if we are to thwart future egregious law enforcement violations. And in this quest I think there is nothing but grave pallor in elevating Weaver as an epitomizing icon of our cause.

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