- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

Re: CryptoStacker, long
by Doug Porter 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

RYAN Alan Porter (unrelated AFAIK) asks: > 2) How the hell to intercept the read/write routines? I can help with the guts of DOS, BIOS, network interfaces, etc. My development time is committed, but feel free to email me with questions, folks. The simplest approach is probably Microsoft's Network Redirector interface. It's used for MSCDEX, and just about every LAN OS except Novell's, including Microsoft's own LAN Manager. A good reference is "Undocumented DOS" by Andrew Schulman et al. This is the only option discussed here I haven't used personally. It looks ideal for this application. Another possibility is hooking the DOS API itself. This certainly works well; it's the way Netware does it. I've found it a lot of work. See IBM's "Disk Operating System" manual for details. There was a mainframe manual by the same name, so be sure you're getting the PC version. Just under DOS itself is what Microsoft officially refers to as Device Drivers. Device drivers actually can be hooked in at many levels, of course, not just here. In this context MS calls disk drives "block devices". Block device drivers, or character device drivers for that matter, are not at all tough to write. They're probably a good second choice after the Network Redirector. A reference is the book "Writing MSDOS Device Drivers" by Robert Lai. DOS internally often calls software interrupts 25 and 26 for disk io. These are apparently inconsistent from DOS version to version. Skip this layer. If you need to go this far down, go all the way to INT 13. The lowest level of disk io short of hardware is INT 13. A good reference is Phoenix's "CBIOS Reference Manual". Watch out for quirks in INT 13's stack handling. There's also a good bit you have to do to keep DOS and your driver from tripping over each other. Unless others feel it's appropriate to use this bandwidth, email me for details. Doug

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Re: WH email petition.
by smb＠research.att.com 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

> they've just gotten smarter about how they do it... Based on my past > experience, your name will be collected -- but just as a person > interested in certain issues, so that you can be solicited for funds > on certain issues. Does this really happen? WOW! Does it happen? Sure did circa 20 years ago, when individual members of Congress had much less computing capacity. I wrote to members of the House Judiciary committee demanding the impeachment of a certain unindicted co-conspirator. Over the next few years, I received a variety of funds solicitation letters, as some of those folks tried to move on to bigger and better offices. The letters invariably spoke of the members' ``bravery and courage of conviction'' during the Watergate investigation, and noted my interest in that subject...

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Re: Crypto anarchy in a VW? (not the bug)
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

> >There are a lot of ways to get a signal around the world without using a > >satellite, ask any amateur radio enthusiast. I thought the motivation for satellite at the beginning of this discussion was that it's extremely hard to find out WHO sent a transmission to a satellite - everybody's got a dish pointed UP at the same destination, the FCC isn't likely to go flying helicopters around to locate transmissions that could have come from anywhere in the country, and there's really nothing to direction-find on, and the receivers can similarly be anywhere, since it's a broadcast network. If the satellite uses some kind of protocol such as AlohaNet, you get reasonable shared utilization. (Of course, the alternatives to direction-finding are to go after the bird's owners, or to jam the transmission channel.) Moon-bounce offers similar advantages, and there aren't any owners to trace :-), though jamming is still possible. Another technique that's pretty obscure, and relatively low data rate, but pretty hard to trace, is meteor-burst, which reflects signals of the ionization trails left by micrometeors. Typical systems a few years ago transmitted at 4800 baud, getting effective throughput of maybe 300 bps, since the channel isn't constant. It was used for applications like sending snow depth reports back from mountains, since it needs very little power and isn't particularly bothered by weather conditions. Are networks like amateur packet radio hard to trace, assuming enough repeaters are around? > One of the really great techniques I've hear about recently is a data > channel that runs at 90% T1 speed over the ~900 MHz spread spectrum NCR WaveLAN, which is now also being OEMed by DEC, runs spread spectrum at (I think) 2 Mbps, and can use an optional DES chip for encryption. The PC cards are compatible with some vanilla Ethernet card, so it uses standard Ethernet protocols. In broadcast mode, range is only a few hundred meters, depending on building configurations, but it can also be used with a directional antenna to get 5-6 mile range. Bill Stewart

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remailer flakiness
by Eli Brandt 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

I've been off the net for a few weeks, and my remailer's been running on auto-pilot. Checking my mail, I found that a number of messages for the remailer had ended up in my mailbox instead. However, logs also indicate that a fair bit of traffic went through the remailer, apparently successfully. A test of the remailer turned up no problems. If anybody knows or suspects that a message sent through me did indeed not get through, I'll bounce all of it back to myself for reprocessing. Otherwise, this might result in mail duplication. Eli ebrandt(a)jarthur.claremont.edu

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Solidarity (kudos)
by fergp＠sytex.com 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I couldn't resist the opportunity to x-post this to the list, especially now that it makes me feel foolish for once suspecting the possibility of foul play at UUNet. My hat is off to Nat and all the folks at UUNet Technologies who share his views. Kudos. 8<------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------- From: nrh(a)daimajin.UU.NET (Nat Howard) Newsgroups: alt.privacy.clipper Subject: another letter to the president Date: 2 Jun 1993 19:41:01 -0400 Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church, VA, USA Lines: 41 NNTP-Posting-Host: daimajin.uu.net Summary: dump clipper Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 12:49:46 EDT To: PRESIDENT(a)WHITEHOUSE.GOV, VICE.PRESIDENT(a)WHITEHOUSE.GOV From: Nat Howard <nrh> Subject: Clipper initiative of 4/16/93 Sirs, As a citizen working in the communications field, I am gravely concerned by the 4/16/93 Clipper Chip initiative. I believe that the initiative as proposed cannot accomplish its stated goals, and will, if carried out, be poisonous to American business attempts to compete in the secure communications field. Far more important is the apparent denial in the press release of our First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendment rights: ... nor is the U.S. saying that "every American, as a matter of right, is entitled to an unbreakable commercial encryption product." I urge you to consider these actions instead: 1. Lift export controls on all cryptographic hardware and software. 2. Have the NSA work with NIST to produce a publicly-described algorithm, suitable for either hardware or software implementation, that can serve for the next 15 years as a follow-on to DES. 3. Find some fair and legal way so that all US Citizens can use, royalty-free and without other restriction, the public-key algorithms now patented by PKP. A lot of us have hopes for the human rights aspect of the Clinton-Gore ticket. Please don't let us down: withdraw, abandon, or greatly modify the Clipper Chip initiative. I emphasize that I speak here as a private citizen, and my remarks don't necessarily reflect the feelings of UUNET. 8<------- End of Forwarded Message --------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBLA4NhZRLcZSdHMBNAQGJjQP/Ty6YCVBsrNfmfWiuyRK/GWHvwkLBy5tE bJOUmwnyP2nD/febFSeIPSoheKEpvVNg6nZUM7BTNPAQ5SM+papyujs5NtQNbiGT TLLS55K0X+904Iszn3ROzc/QJNaQ/RSj+7vuI+yq3L9dTcOrbKNpnU/KePkISeIp toFDESkZDnY= =F+B7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Paul Ferguson | The future is now. Network Integrator | History will tell the tale; Centreville, Virginia USA | We must endure and struggle fergp(a)sytex.com | to shape it. Stop the Wiretap (Clipper/Capstone) Chip.

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Software infrastructure
by nobody＠soda.berkeley.edu 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Subject: Software infrastructure I like Eric's idea of a terminal program which can support encryption easily. Here are some thoughts. As Eric indicates, the issue is not so much building encryption into the program but rather of having _hooks_ by which extra functionality can be added. Encryption should be just one capability. Another might be to automatically drop into a stand-alone zmodem package like dsz or gsz so we don't have to re-implement zmodem ourselves. We had some related discussion on this last year when we were talking about the "crypto dongle". This was going to be a black box which would sit on the serial line between your PC and modem (or terminal and host computer) and would do encryption/decryption as the characters passed through it. Doing it in the terminal program, I could envision a hook which watched constantly for particular strings to be received from the host, like "-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----". Several such watchdogs could be active at once. When one of them matches, it fires off a program. Or perhaps it just starts logging the incoming data to a file, and when it matches another string it fires a program. A simple scripting language could control these activities. The result would be that when you receive an encrypted message, you just list it out to your terminal and then, automatically, PGP fires up and asks you for your pass phrase (unless you SET it ahead of time in the PC's environment). It then displays the message for you. This simple model has several deficiencies. When I log into a Unix system, or Compuserve, or Portal's "Online" service, and read my mail, it is often shown to me a page at a time. This is so that I can read long messages more easily. Then after each message I can delete it, save it, reply to it, etc. If I do reply or if I want to create a new message it will drop me into a text editor to compose the message. The result is that the mail program you are running on the host computer may do some munging on the PGP message, like inserting "Press RETURN for next page" or perhaps some terminal control characters. These would have to be filtered out before PGP could run on the file, or you would have to be able to suppress them when you read this message. Also, assuming we could capture the message and run PGP on it automatically, the resulting decrypted message will have to be saved and given a file name. Then if the user wants to reply to it he is going to have to leave his terminal and run an editor. (At least, that's what I have to do now.) Plus, this only deals with the message-receiving problem, not the sending problem. I'm not sure what the solution is. Maybe the PC program needs to be more than a terminal program, and become more of a whole mail-processing program. Maybe you should just download your mail file en masse from the host to your PC, pre-process it to replace (in place) the incoming encrypted messages with plaintext versions (annotated to show validated signatures), then run a PC program which will display one message at a time, let you reply, save, etc. This way the decryptions are done before you even look at the mail file and incoming encrypted mail is treated on a first class basis (the same as other mail). Then for outgoing mail you'd like to be able to drop into a user-defined editor which is run with a command line causing his file to be saved to some temp file name. Then we can automatically encrypt the outgoing mail for him based on the destination, add a remailer chain if requested, etc. Then he gives a command and all his replies and new mail are uploaded and sent. This would be pretty tough to do since there are so many different ways of sending and receiving mail on host computers. This would again have to be a customizable part of the program, where we could provide modules to deal with the common cases of Unix running "mail", elm, mh, etc., and perhaps some of the commercial services. BBS's would ideally be handled as well. Hackers could contribute scripts for supporting their favorite mail system. I don't know anything about SLIP, or POP, or any other fancy ways of hooking a PC up to a workstation. I just use it as a terminal. Would these other protocols help solve the problems above, problems of how we marry an encryption program which must run on the PC with mail-handling programs which run on another computer? Hal Finney 74076.1041(a)compuserve.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBLAwkEagTA69YIUw3AQEuxQQAjeC/gwPHkLQZ0IladVRxiRdgARdE7ziu WWdmsHpaZ2tlq8wAXpSFbMpSZ3MS1U1TT/c/wB2DJOCuWkhs2y6WYoZiqrHz3hjA JyBSkpM1F3dYcZ8MchrjLZsur9KwXe0mIvM7VMu2Fdq+sMMgNwzEzqJoWhulAsnl weuBaeOjv7k= =zEUv -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Crypto anarchy in a VW? (not the bug)
by Mark 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

>Another possibility until then, and one that would be fun for people who >like to play with EPROMS, is a card that had a cable leading to an external >EPROM socket that you could lay on your desk or on top of the case or >wherever. You burn your keys for the HD into a chip and use it as a key, >physically inserting the chip in the socket each time. There are lots >on new ways to make chips easy to plug in and out, I'm sure it wouldn't >be too hard. Heh, I have a system liek this, designed by Viglen in the UK. It was/is originally from the BBC micro to allow easy use of swapping over 'sideways' ROMS instead of opening the case. It's basically a ribbon cable with a 28way rom socket on the end with a edge connector socket on the other. Each ROM is enclosed in it's own sturdy tiny black package with an edge connector that slots into the socket that is mounted in the 'ashtray' of the Beeb. You could easily copy the idea with a rom socket, a length of ribbon cable and a ZIF socket to allow easy usage. The Viglen has pin protection so you dont spike the thing, so it's able to be used on the fly without power cycling. One thing about ROM's, they're faster than disks....easier to hide too :) >I still don't see why all of the actual encryption couldn't be done in >software though... Me either, apart from TEMPEST issues...Linux comes with slot in file system modules (as detailed in a letter to Jim) that you can easily adapt to your own uses. Ive been playing around with this idea for a while. Adding a desfs(tm) (me :) to a linux kernel is not going to be that hard I think.. (touch wood). Mark mark(a)coombs.anu.edu.au "liek", "smiel" and "soar" are derivatives of JenSpeak(tm). Spread the word.

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whistle for Whistleblowing!
by L. Detweiler 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

>A quick update: Telecom Finland finally delivered. My uncontrolled, >no-AUP IP connection via EUnet (Copenhagen-Amsterdam-Alternet) went >operational yesterday. The new 486 box also arrived. Expected to go >into 100% service this weekend! Oh, the bright sun is shining through! This is absolutely perfect timing. I just ran rn and what did it have to report? alt.whistleblowing not in .newsrc -- Add unsubscribed? Cypherpunks, alt.whistleblowing has been created! Special thanks to Miron Cuperman, a First Class Grade A Cypherpunk, who took care of the electronic paperwork on this one after reading my desperate posting(s). (I don't understand though, at my site it didn't appear for over a week since the control message was sent out.) If it's not at your site send mail to your news administrator and ask if there's some kind of conspiracy going on to prevent you from seeing it :) I generally *don't* recommend that the Mycotronx postings be sent there (yet), even if someone can set up an untraceable path. I talked to the poster today and he has many plans for them that might be disrupted by any further publicity. In fact, he told me he *accidentally* posted them to the cypherpunks list! He thought it would just go to the `moderator' (Eric Hughes). Explains a bit. Watch for a FAQ to the group (possibly here first) and advertisements in other groups. Also: HOW TO CONTRIBUTE IMMEDIATELY. Find relevant material from any groups you have ever visited and FORWARD IT. Make sure to be very thorough in citing the source and background of the posting. Let the games begin! The doors are open! Fire away, soldiers! p.s. If anyone wants to run an interesting and critical project, I think that the `control' group should be monitored for message cancels in alt.whistleblower, cancelling parties should be *exposed*, and the cancelled postings in particular should be *preserved*.

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E-Mail Baloney, Part 2
by mulivor＠orion.crc.monroecc.edu 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

Here's a press release that came to me yesterday. In particular, see last paragraph. Phil Mulivor --------------------------------------------------------------------- House of Representatives Announces Public Electronic Mail Service To: National Desk Contact: Lance Koonce of the Committee on House Administration, 202-225-7922 WASHINGTON, June 2 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Chairman Charlie Rose and Ranking Minority Member Bill Thomas of the Committee on House Administration announced today the pilot program of the Constituent Electronic Mail System. This groundbreaking new service will allow citizens to communicate directly with their Member of Congress by electronic mail. The House of Representatives has established an electronic gateway to the Internet, the vast computer network that is used currently by over 12 million people worldwide. Participating Members of the House have been assigned public mailboxes which may be accessed by their constituents from their home computers. In addition, many libraries, schools and other public institutions now provide, or soon will provide, public access to the Internet. The Members of the House of Representatives who have agreed to participate in this pilot program are: Rep. Jay Dickey (AR-07), Rep. Sam Gejdenson (CT-02), Rep. Newt Gingrich (GA-06), Rep. George Miller (CA-07), Rep. Charlie Rose (NC-07), Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (CA-13), and Rep. Melvin Watt (NC-12). These Members will be making announcements in their congressional districts within the next few weeks to make their constituents aware of the new service. The Constituent Electronic Mail System represents a significant effort by the House of Representatives to expand communication with constituents. With the tremendous growth of electronic mail over the past several years, and the increasingly inter-connected nature of computer networks, the new service is a natural addition to the current methods of communication available to constituents. At the present time, House Members involved in the pilot program will largely respond to electronic mail messages from their constituents by postal mail, to ensure confidentiality. Constituents of House Members participating in the pilot program who wish to communicate with those Members will be asked to send a letter or postcard stating their interest to the Member's office. The request will include the constituent's Internet "address," as well as that constituent's name and postal address. This process will allow Members to identify an electronic mail user as his or her constituent. The pilot e-mail program will continue until sufficient feedback from participating offices has been collected to allow improvements and modifications to the system. When House Information Systems and the Committee on House Administration are satisfied that the system is sufficiently error-free, other Members of the House will be allowed to add this new service as technical, budgetary and staffing concerns allow. For more information, Internet users are encouraged to contact the House of Representative's new on-line information service. Please send a request for information to CONGRESS(a)HR.HOUSE.GOV. /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

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heh heh.. whoops
by poier＠sfu.ca 03 Jun '93

03 Jun '93

heh <blush> <loosen collar>... sorry about the PGP export thing... I was a bit flaked out this morning what with midterms and all. Musta been thinking of something else. Sorry all Skye -- -----====> Skye Merlin Poier <====----- Undergrad in CMPT/MATH (Virtual Reality) |||| |||| email: poier(a)sfu.ca p-OO <--> OO-q THINK PGP Public Key available on finger \== ==/

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