- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

No Subject
by Anonymous 20 May '93

20 May '93

Personally, I think that this is required reading. Practically, I'd like to think that most of you folks will comment and edit this document to the point where each and every one of us will be proud to sign our _names_ to it. Please forgive me for adapting a consecrated public document for this venue, however I feel that this is the best adaptive vehicle for this statement. #include_statement THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM GOVERNMENTALLY IMPOSED CRYPTOGRAPHY Proposed to Cypherpunks-at-large, May 20, 1993 When, in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to disregard and challenge the communicative and neo-political bands which have connected them with their Government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the opposition. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Communications should be designed equally and, that they are endowed by their creators with certain unalienable technical aspects, that among these, are Privacy, Communications Liberalism, and the pursuit of Cryptographic Freedom. That, to secure these rights to publicly available crypto, the Government which was once instituted among Men, and derived their just powers from the consent of the governed, that, whenever any Form of Government once became destructive of these ends, it was once the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Communications Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind is more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evidences a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government abuses and to provide new Guards for their future communications security.--- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Cryptographic soldiers; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to attempt to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present President of The United States of America is a brief history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny and imposition over individual rights to communicative privacy. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has implemented a policy which may possibly usurp the citizens privacy in electronic communications, which at least, will indeed submit private communications to unjust scrutiny under his agencies surveillance. He has attempted to impose these standards without academic or public scrutiny. We have not been wanting in attentions to our cryptographic practices; this is true. It does not, however, indicate that we are guilty of crimes of any sort. We have alerted our governmental representatives, from time to time, of attempts made by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our professional and private idealisms. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our united objection, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the Cryptographic partners resident in the computing networks and establishments, in General Consensus, Assembled, appealing to the legislative bodies of the United States of America for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Names, and by Authority of the good People of the Networks, solemnly publish and declare, That the computer community is, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent of governmentally imposed cryptographic restrictions; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the proposals implemented by the National Security Agency, The National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Clipper purveyors by-and-large, and that all political connection between them and the United States of America, and ought to be, totally dissolved: and that, as Free and Independent communicators, they have absolute rights to private electronic communications without Governmentally imposed sanctions which may unethically submit their communications to Governmental scrutiny. And, for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our sacred Honor. Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

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No Subject
by nobody＠soda.berkeley.edu 20 May '93

20 May '93

TEMPEST Information (Might be a bit old) ---------------------------------------- HETRA Computers Inc. George Brazel 45472 Holiday Dr. #1 Sterling, VA 22170 Vox: (703) 709-0800 Fax: (703)709-8181 [God I love this list] =8^(

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TEMPEST
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 20 May '93

20 May '93

> Where can I find more info about tempest? Is it a roomwide thing, is it > implemented in the cables and housings, or what? I understand that the > purpose of Tempest is to prevent people from spying on you via electronic > emissions detection. Is this just a glorified Faraday cage? Both techniques are used. You can either buy TEMPEST-designed equipment, which is designed for low emissions, separation of signals between classified and unclassified components, shielded cables, etc., or you can build a shielded box or room and use special filtered power supplies, fiber optics, etc. The exact standards are classified, but they're a lot stricter than FCC Class A or B. The shielded-room vendors out there also sell to the electromagnetic-compatibility- testing market, who want to have nice quiet rooms to measure emissions from their equipment in. Last time I saw one of these rooms built, about 5 years ago, typical construction used plywood sheets with thick sheet metal on each side, fancy connectors between plywoods, copper-wool crammed in any cracks, and special waveguide meshes for air vents and fiber-optic communication cables, and gives about 100-120 dB shielding for frequencies up to about 1-10GHz. Twenty years ago, typical construction used copper screening and was good to ~60dB. About 3-4 years ago, the typical cost for a TEMPEST PC was ~$4000 more than the non-TEMPEST equivalent, and the equipment was maybe 1 year behind the commercial models due to integration and testing time. TEMPEST mini-computers, if they were small enough, generally took the approach of putting the standard versions of the machine in a box built like the TEMPEST rooms; TEMPEST PCs had a somewhat more integrated design, though they were starting to use commercial motherboards. Bill Stewart

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Re: MCI, Sprint or bust ...
by jordan＠imsi.com 20 May '93

20 May '93

>>> what makes more sense is to buy some at&t shares ... Looks like someone did that. AT&T is up about $8 in the past four days, up another 4.8% today ... /jordan

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Where are the key servers?
by poier＠sfu.ca 20 May '93

20 May '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi.. What are the address(es) of the worldwide key server(s)? I thought I had them around here somewhere.... thx 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 \== ==/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBK/rXky0bkpXW3omvAQHvNAQAjQ1yBeBEp2bjd+nx0eq33YO68wAN+V1c mSZIWPnFDXCsJoBB3Ol7T9pzENr0kCH7EtvetyrwFhbzQYrIUPFs34hPs7AgMcYj OXB82X8wQ38KaQJTcyL3eLkbegrnxdYzU8kLKgGVs6QCQqHGE8ZG0WlSntXZHcYy xbZqaIYndsg= =uT12 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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tempest
by trimm＠netcom.com 19 May '93

19 May '93

Reply to TO1SITTLER re: tempest TEMPEST is NACSIM 5100A (there are some new numbers which I can't remember), a NSA specification for the emission of compromising EMI from computers and other digital data processing equipment. It is a Faraday cage, except that they divide the system into "black" noise circuits and "red" noise circuits. An example of black emissions would be the constant 50 KHz signal emitted by a switcher power supply, that contains no useful information. You can emit as much black as you want. You cannot emit ANY red information, that is, CRT guns, data busses, data transmission lines, etc. Red information can be reconstructed easily bu passive interception. Your PC, for example, has a monitor that emits enough information to allow unintended interception up to a mile away. If you need more details, write back. Gary trimm(a)netcom.com --

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No Subject
by TO1SITTLER＠APSICC.APS.EDU 19 May '93

19 May '93

From: SMTP%"Postmaster" 14-MAY-1993 22:58:16.22 To: <TO1SITTLER> CC: Subj: Undeliverable Mail Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 22:58:09 -0600 (MDT) From: Postmaster(a)APSICC.APS.EDU Subject: Undeliverable Mail To: <TO1SITTLER> Bad address -- <drzaphod(a)ncselxsi.uucp> Error -- Nameserver error: Unknown host Start of returned message Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 22:58:07 -0600 (MDT) From: TO1SITTLER(a)APSICC.APS.EDU Message-Id: <930514225807.c83d(a)APSICC.APS.EDU> Subject: Tempest To: drzaphod(a)ncselxsi.uucp X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"drzaphod(a)ncselxsi.uucp" Where can I find more info about tempest? Is it a roomwide thing, is it implemented in the cables and housings, or what? I understand that the purpose of Tempest is to prevent people from spying on you via electronic emissions detection. Is this just a glorified Faraday cage? End of returned message

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false positives
by baumbach＠atmel.com 19 May '93

19 May '93

I have an encryption question: Has anyone tried to create a strong encryption algorithm that cannot be broken by brute force? If the algorithm relied on a dictionary, for instance, then the wrong key could still return something that resembles english. It would be even better if for any arbitrary text, a KEY could be generated which maps the encrypted real message to the arbitrary text. With this system, even if your true key could be figured out (maybe you wrote it on a napkin!), you could easely deny the accuracy of the decryption. A decrypted message would only be useful for information, but never for evidence. This is more of an idea than a question. What do you think? In liberty, Peter Baumbach baumbach(a)atmel.com

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Consider "Working Assets" phone service instead of AT&T
by Marianne Mueller 19 May '93

19 May '93

Another option to AT&T long distance service is something called Working Assets. Quoting from their bill, "Every time you call long distance with Working Assets, a percentage of your charge goes to nonprofit action groups that are working for a better world. These donations are made by Working Assets at no extra cost to you. ... For a list of groups Working Assets has funded in the past, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to 701 Montgomery Street #400 San Francisco, CA 94111 ... You automatically get a discount of up to 15% on interstate calls, depending on your monthly calling volume. And you automatically get a 20% Friendship Discount (indicated by and "F" on the bill) when you call another member of the Working Assets Long Distance network. ... Working Assets is the only phone company to sign the Valdez Principles, committing ourselves to environmental responsibility." (The bills are on 100% postconsumer recycled paper, unbleached, and they plant 17 trees for every ton of paper they use.) You can contact Working Assets by calling 1-800-788-8588 (let's face it, a phone company is going to know your number) or write them at the above address. If you tell them I recommended you, I get $10 off my bill, but you don't have to do that. I'm recommending them because I think they are a great option to AT&T, not because I want $10 off my bill! I chose Amnesty International as the nonprofit that gets donations when I make long distance calls. I think Working Assets has dozens of nonprofits you can choose from. And hey, celebrity endorsement: Ralph Nader goes around urging everyone to sign up with Working Assets. Cheerios, Marianne

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BBSs under fire!
by sneal＠muskwa.ucs.ualberta.ca 19 May '93

19 May '93

Stanton McCandlish writes: >I'd like to invite discussion, either private or listwise, on: Why is >the govt. targetting BBSs? I suspect that a lot of law enforcement agencies are worried about their budgets right now, and in response, they've made a point of going after easy targets with high publicity value: i.e. people who lack resources to mount a strong defense, and who are looked upon with suspicion by the mainstream. BBSs, Branch Davidians, and now health food stores, fall nicely into this category. To be a successful bully, you've got to find victims who can't fight back. Further, if LawEnf can push a lot of hot buttons in their press releases about the raid ("kiddypornterroristdrugdealingmurphybrownpotatoe"), they can count on lots of media attention, which is always good when budget time comes... politicians are reluctant to put the axe to the heroes of the day. I also suspect that Big Brother is becoming peripherally aware that the uncontrolled, unmonitored, and extremely rapid flow of information via "new media" (a disreputable phrase, but there ya go) is a threat to the existing power structure. Alvin Toffler does a good number on this in "Powershift" (nice title, thanks a LOT, Alvin; why don't you just TELL the bad guys what's going on??!). The spooks and their bedfellows (ENCRYPTED OFFENSIVE STATEMENT FOLLOWS Bt Epspuiz Efoojoh mjlft up tbz, "Uif OTB dbo bmxbzt gjmm jo uif ipmft!" END OFFENSIVE STATEMENT) have always counted on being able to keep tabs on who's saying what, and to find and squelch troublemakers that get too far out of line. The proliferation of BBSs drastically increases the number of "pressure points" needed to control information flows in any meaningful way. Add strong crypto to geometrically expanding information paths, and you've got a spook's nightmare. Not only does the head of the NSA have to hire new guys to monitor all the BBSs, but now he's got to buy a bunch more Crays to keep up with the crypto traffic. The poor guy must be swimming in his shorts..."My GOD! What if somebody SAYS something BAD and I DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT??!". -- Steve

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