- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

PGP is NOT availble from NITV anymore!
by Stanton McCandlish 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

Due to threats of legal action from RSA, I have had to remove PGP from my system. Some time when I get the mess sorted out, non-patent-infringing PGP/RSA/[your-fave-crypto-here] utilities, such as mail scripts, will still be available, and I will post a message with the detail. I repeat, PGP *IS NOT* available from NitV-BBS any longer. Do not call for it you will be wasting your money and time. Sorry, but the law is the law. - S. McC. -- Testes saxi solidi! ********************** Podex opacus gravedinosus est! Stanton McCandlish, SysOp: Noise in the Void Data Center BBS IndraNet: 369:1/1 FidoNet: 1:301/2 Internet: anton(a)hydra.unm.edu Snail: 8020 Central SE #405, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 USA Data phone: +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400 v32bis, N-8-1) Vox phone: +1-505-247-3402 (bps rate varies, depends on if you woke me up...:)

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Limbaugh & Liddy
by Xiao Zhou 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

>> In <9304231457.AA22562(a)gmuvax2.gmu.edu>, 7025aj(a)gmuvax2.gmu.edu writes: >> |> >> |> send him [Limbaug] some convincing words, please? >> |> >> |> G. Gordon Liddy would be another good target, but I don't know his address > >cp(a)jido.b30.ingr.com (Serrzna Penvt Cerffba) [!Is that real rot13!?] replies: >> My guess would be that Liddy and Limbaugh would both be very >> happy about the Tapper chip proposal... 1) Any publicity is good for us. These guys need controversy, and we've got it. 2) There's the 'international competitiveness' issue. 3) These guys hate Clinton to Schiminton. 4) Even if they pick the other side, we look good. 5) Larry King would of course be better, but is he returning your calls?

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Tough Choices: PGP vs. RSA Data Security
by Hal 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim May writes: > I suggest that we as a community seriously reconsider our basic support for > PGP. Not because of any flaws in the program, but because of issues related > to Clipper and the potential limits on crypto. I see several problems with this proposal. 1. It's not clear what it means to "reconsider our basic support for PGP." What exactly is Tim proposing? That people stop using PGP? That they phase out their use of it as legal products become available? I'd like to see some clarification. 2. More generally, what about the issue of our advocating and supporting other possibly infringing actions? Which ones do we stop? Just those that upset Jim Bidzos? He claims to have patents that cover many more activities than RSA, including patents which cover the very idea of public key encryption, and patents on Diffie-Hellman key exchange and virtually any conceivable variation. Should we respect all of these now? 3. David Chaum apparently has U.S. patents on many key features of digital cash. It looks like we would have to stop working on that, too, by this reasoning. 4. What reasonable alternatives to PGP exist? Is RSAREF really usable on a PC? I tried an early version and it was terribly, terribly slow. PGP is just barely fast enough. A "legal" version of PGP which uses RSAREF will presumably be considerably slower. 5. I am not as convinced as Tim that RSADSI is truly, positively, certainly on our side. Why is it that RSAREF has such a weak conventional encryption algorithm (DES, with 56-bit keys)? RIPEM has been out for many months, and people have been asking for IDEA or triple DES all that time. Bidzos has supposedly said he'll give permission for improvements. Yet as far as I know RIPEM still only has this small key size, a key size which persistent rumors say can be broken by government computers. When Bidzos permits RSAREF to run a conventional encryption algorithm with a secure key size I will give more credence to the view that he wants people to have strong encryption. 6. How is it that one company has collected virtually all of the patents on cryptographic technology in this country? Jim Bidzos controls patents on public-key encryption in general, RSA, Diffie-Hellman key exchange, ElGamal signatures and encryption, and several others. I can't help noticing that it would be an extraordinarily convenient arrangement for the government if such a company existed and were secretly working against public use of cryptography while publically pretending to be doing all they can to bring this technology to a reluctant market. I still have not seen any specific public action by Bidzos which would invalidate this possibility. Yes, he has engaged in this widely publicized tiff with NIST over the Digital Signature Standard, and he's made some statements against Clipper. But where are the lawsuits? Is AT&T receiving the same threatening letters that Stanton McCandlish received when he said he was distributing PGP from his BBS? 7. Extrapolating from the widespread acceptance of PGP, which is free, to conclude that there is a market for a commercial encryption product which costs money is pointless. Granted, some of us may spend a lot of time talking about PGP and thinking about these issues, but most PGP users just downloaded it from a BBS or the net. There are a lot of things they'd spend $100 on before they would buy an encryption program. One of the things that attracted me to Cypherpunks is that they take steps to make these tools available without worrying about upsetting the power structure. David Chaum may object to our implementing digital cash. Jim Bidzos may object to our using RSA, or Diffie-Hellman, or almost anything else having to do with cryptography. If we're going to start looking over our shoulder and not doing anything which powerful people object to then we might as well pack up and go home. Almost everything we have talked about over the last six months infringes somebody's patents in this country. I really don't see what role a group like ours has if we have to tiptoe through the minefield of intellectual property protection which permeates the field of cryptography. Are we to become a bunch of unpaid consultants for RSADSI, writing code which they will then make profits on? Phil Zimmermann has done more to put strong cryptography into the hands of people all over the world in two years than Bidzos has managed in ten. He has faced lawsuits by Bidzos and has undergone considerable personal sacrifice in getting this software out. People talk about this "feud" as though the two are equally guilty, and ask (like Rodney King) "can't we all just get along?" But this is a cop-out. To me there is clear asymmetry in their dispute in terms of who asserts their power and who is trying to empower individuals. Look at what Tim is suggesting. We abandon PGP, not because it is a bad program; not because its author has behaved unethically; not because it has failed in its goals; but because Jim Bidzos is throwing his weight around and we don't want Jim to be unhappy. If Jim were to accept that PGP was no more threatening to his patents than RSAREF then the problem would be solved. I presume that Tim has decided that this won't happen, so now he suggests Plan B, that we abandon PGP. I have to suggest that the real obstacle to the wide deployment of strong cryptography remains Jim Bidzos. He has the power, by a single stroke of a pen, to do more to encourage the spread of cryptography in this country than any other single person (including Bill Clinton). All he has to do is to issue a policy statement that since PGP is freeware it falls under the PKP policy allowing use of the patents for noncommercial use. Presto - PGP is legal, and one of the main obstacles to its spread is eliminated. I agree with Tim that we need to look closely to see who our real enemies are. Perhaps Bidzos is a charming person. I've never met him. Certainly the bay area Cypherpunks seem to be falling under his influence. From my perspective I find this cozying up to the PKP/RSADSI power structure to be rather alarming. I don't think it is a good direction for the group. Hal Finney 74076.1041(a)compuserve.com hal(a)alumni.caltech.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBK9/UvKgTA69YIUw3AQGCrgQAi2980bgg4eHAoIbRUtEtT05V7+50UH16 erkzERI8ot+uk0soXPsM53YlVVAvSYVmLY5Ine862RWG0TUldq1O99CbnCet6Da9 /NWVUQCAoKrUuwj7Cetyf84wE4Fof6tbugOtXhke26WXZXhEIIsSdgKBzaDdc/LD y0zU/abZ9Es= =IKKf -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Raving on...
by geoffw＠nexsys.net 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

I tend to agree with this guy, tread very carefully, we want to inform NOT proslitize. Ravers will get turned off real quick if you come on as something they MUST do. Offer information, answer questions and most of all be considerate of the fact that many people DONT know about the net or e-mail and that there may be some initial distrust from young ravers who don't know who you are because of your age, (and older guy wantin me to type some stuff into a computer? Humf, smells like DEA to me!) So go easy on folks at these things. You might want to find someone who is heavy into the Scene to go with you the first couple of times, to smooth the acceptance factor. Currently I'm way to busy with other aspects of the Scene to do this, you might want to contact some people on: sfraves(a)soda.berkeley.edu who regularly deploy VRAVE (an IRC like program for the international rave community) at raves in the Bay Area. To subscribe send a message to sfraves-request(a)soda.berkeley.edu, I've cross posted some of your mail so they are well aware of what you want to do. sfraves has been around for about a year, they are an integral and trusted part of the House Family, you might want to co-ordinate with them before you start a major campaign. I know they are working on getting the average raver signed onto e-mail. Hope this helps. ----- Begin Included Message -----

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Re: A link encryption protocol to crytique ;-)
by Sy Verpunc 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

: T[i] is generated by a pseudo random process, similar to shuffling a deck of : cards. For each i, fill the vector with the values 0 to D-1. Then two random : indexes (j & k) are chosen (to be different) and the two values at : T[i,j] and T[i,k] are swapped. This can be iterated an arbitraty number of : times (L) to ensure a good "shuffle" of the values. I saw this particularly clueless statement and stopped even trying to follow the rest of it. Still, I made an even more stupid blunder on sci.crypt a few weeks ago myself, so I can't criticise. All I can say is I learned from my mistake and will leave thinking up new crypto schemes to the experts. G

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RE: Tough Choices: PGP vs. RSA Data Security
by Pat Farrell 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

Tim may is starting to sound like a Suit. :-) I agree strongly that we need RSA on our side, not against us. I don't know the history of the animosity between Jim B and Phil Z, but I think it is time to say that water is over the dam. Several folks have suggested here, and in the usual feeds, that it wouldn't appear to be all that hard to take RSAREF and use it as the key exchange engine for a US-legal PGP. Or even to take the PGP source and use it as an enhanced RSAREF. I haven't looked at either source, but I have to believe that someone on the list has. Is there a technical reason why this can't be done? Is there some hidden political reason that it can't be done? The readers of this list are hardcore and facile with techninology. To get the widespread support we need kill the wiretap chip, we need to get "easy to use" strong cryptography into the mass market. I'm writing a Windows-based POP client designed for folks that can't spell SLIP. It should have strong encryption invisibly and automatically. It won't until there is a legal encryption engine with at least the key management of PGP. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: HELP! Some nut is threatening to sue!
by fig＠eff.org 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

At 9:31 PM 4/28/93 -0600, Stanton McCandlish wrote: If it is the Real Shit, It looks like the Real Shit to me, Stanton. I don't know anyone who has stonewalled Bidzos, so I don't know if he has actually taken legal action against a PGP distributor. But that's the guy (assuming it's not forged mail). <<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>> Cliff Figallo fig(a)eff.org EFF Online (617)576-4506 (voice)

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A link encryption protocol to crytique ;-)
by Nickey MacDonald 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

Okay folx, tear this apart... I running on little sleep, but after thinking about this for a couple of hours (mostly while trying to document it...) I can't see any obvious holes... If no one points out any significant deterrants, I will code this up in C and release the code to the public domain (I'll get it put on soda...) I should comment, that this is not meant to be the best link encryption protocol available... the NSA (or others of their TLA friends) can monitor my sessions if they really want to... but this should at least provide a minor stumbling block... Also, I'm not a math major, so my version of a "technical" description of how to do this may upset the mathematicians among us... I did it the way it is cause it seem straight forward that way... I hope it actually makes sense to someone besides me... I hope it is general enuff (while writing this I had fixed values in mind, like 256 byte packets, so I may have let some of the constants creep in without noticing... I hope not, please point out these things)... Anyway, here it is, for whatever its worth... Oh, for irony's sake, I must admit that it was all the "clipper" discussion that got me thinking, and the use of I1 & I2 reflect this... hehehehe! --- Cut here --- Protocol proposal for a peer to peer encrypted link --------------------------------------------------- The goal of this algorithm was to be fast and not easily subject to a known plaintext attack, as the data bytes in B[] will be highly structured. x^y=the result of x exclusive ORed with y v[x..y]=a vector with positions indexed from x up to y (inclusive) v[i]=index into an an vector v for position i v[]=the list of all values in vector v CRC(v[])=caculate a CRC checksum on the data bytes in vector v N=number of user data bytes per packet D=N+sizeof(CRC(B[])) (for ease in generating I, should be a power of 2) S=D+sizeof(I)*2 B[0..N-1]=the N user data bytes C[0..D-1]=a work buffer filled from B[], CRC(B[]) P[0..S-1]=the outgoing packet K1 & K2=two random "session" keys of length P I=packet rearrange index (range of 0 up to D-1) I1 & I2=the two generators of I (range of 0 up to D-1) T[0..(2^sizeof(I))-1]=array of vectors of size D L=number of times to iterate the shuffle function total size of data D=N + sizeof(CRC(B[])) total size of each packet S=sizeof(I)*2 + N + sizeof(CRC(B[])) Exchanged in advance of any packets being sent (by a public key mechanism for example) are N, sizeof(I), sizeof(CRC(B[])), K1, K2, T. K1 and K2 are generated randomly, but checked to insure that K1[i] does not equal K2[i]. T[i] is generated by a pseudo random process, similar to shuffling a deck of cards. For each i, fill the vector with the values 0 to D-1. Then two random indexes (j & k) are chosen (to be different) and the two values at T[i,j] and T[i,k] are swapped. This can be iterated an arbitraty number of times (L) to ensure a good "shuffle" of the values. To encrypt each packet P: - Generate a random index (I) by generating two random values for I1 and I2 and exclusive OR'ing them together. I is not transmitted as part of the packet - Copy the values in B[i] to C[T[I,i]] for all values of i=0 up to N-1. - Copy the individual bytes from CRC(B[]) into C by indexing T[I,x] for x=N up to D-1. - Form the packet: P[0..D-1]=C[], P[D..D+sizeof(I)-1]=I1, P[D+sizeof(I)..S-1]=I2 - Replace each value of P[i] with P[i]^K1[i]^K2[i] for all values of i=0..S-1. - Transmit P[i] for all values i=S-1 down to 0. Explanatory comments: - Exclusive OR was chosen beacuse it executes so quickly on most machines. - The asumption was that just using a single key K1 would not be strong enough, so thus there are two. - Sending I as I1 and I2 gives more appranent choices of values, without requiring T to be extremely large. This is in hopes of further hindering any known plaintext attacks. - P is transmitted backwards merely so that I1 & I2 arrive first, to aide the decryption process. (Quite honestly this was done to make the above description of the assemblage of P a little easier to write, as putting I1 & I2 in first would have meant more calculation to yield the offsets of the sub parts of P eg. "P[0..D-1]=C[] would have become "P[sizeof(I)..sizeof(I)+D-1]=C[]" which is not as easily understood.) To decrypt each packet P: - As each byte comes in, it is stored into P[i] for values of i=S-1 down to 0. - Replace each value of P[i] with P[i]^K1[i]^K2[i] for all values of i=0..S-1. - I1=P[D..D+sizeof(I)-1]=I1, I2=P[D+sizeof(I)..S-1]. - I=I1^I2. - C[]=P[0..D-1]=C[]. - Copy the values in C[T[I,i]] to B[i] for all values of i=0 up to N-1. - Verify that CRC(B[]) equals C indexed T[I,x] for x=N up to D-1. - If the CRC verifies, the the data values have been transmitted and reside in B[] to be used. --- Cut here --- { God I hope I don't look like too much of a fool... ;-) } --- Nick MacDonald | NMD on IRC i6t4(a)jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca | PGP 2.1 Public key available via finger

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Some ideas, thats all...
by crunch＠netcom.com 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

Who wants to collaborativly work on an information packet containing a collection of the previous reports on the wiretap chip, such as the initial white house statement, CPSR's and EFF's responses, list of questions that were hashed at the last Cypherpunks meeting, etc, etc. A smaller and easier to read infomation packet should be prepared to hand out at raves. These should be fairly simple, easy to read and comprehend while on LSD, and other drugs, and also easy to fold up and tuck in your jacket pockets for later reading. Included might be a diskette containing PGP and a "Bone head" starter "readme" file, with references to additional places where more robust information can be had. I volunteer to check out the rave scene, and do an analysis on how the ravers will respond. :-). I'll also try out various other ways to reach ravers and fill them in. It's most important to point out ways for them to become involved in both spreading the info to others, and if they have computers, how they can use PGP and other encryption software to protect their email and voice calls. In the not to distant future, I will be in various media interviews, and will have opportunity to mention these things, and tell people how they can get more information on what we are doing, and how they can be involved. Anyway, feel free to post this to any other system or network, where appropriate. John D.

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Re: Raving on...
by geoffw＠nexsys.net 29 Apr '93

29 Apr '93

> Brian says: > > >Hmm... the problem is I don't think a majority of the people at raves are > >focused enough to concentrate on something as technical as that (I KNOW it > >isn't technical to you and me, but the average raver doesn't even > >know what the word encryption means). HOWEVER, raves ARE the ideal place > >to hand out info about what's going on, something the raver can cling onto > >to read and understand when he's not high on {vibes,music,drug,etc.}. Give > >pointers to where to get more info or where to obtain PGP, and perhaps > >most importantly, WHY THEY NEED IT. Within a certain amount of time, but > >most likely sooner than any of us anticipate, there will be more people with > >email access than without, so "taking the message to the streets" is becoming > >less and less of a fanciful idea.... Speaking as someone who has been a pretty hardcore raver for almost 2 years now my view on this is as follows: 1) Most ravers don't want to be preached to, they do want to be informed though, the best approach is an "access to tools" approach of invite and education. I think that as of right now, not many ravers even have e-mail, although there is a very organized group that does and is strongly networked already. Some of them know about PGP. We have already discussed whether our e-mail lists should be encryped and the idea was rejected by the group at large. Some of us do send encrypted messages back and forth sort of as a novelty, sort of for practice. I think the best thing to do for this organized group is to educate them and at least get them to generate keys for themselves IF THEY WANT TO. Education is important they have to realize that the key is like a bank card password , you don't tell everbody what it is. Many people are in altered states at raves, this is NOT the set or setting to have them generating keys with pass phrases that they have to remember. 2) I am on a drive to "wire-up" the rave community, in the next issue of CyberTribe-5, I have an article on PGP and why ravers should get hooked up to e-mail. The e-mail advantage is clear for many ravers... the ones who are wired always seem to know where the best parties are. Why we need encryption is not as clear. The scene is about openess, we are well aware that LE folks are most likely on our lists, we don't post the truely underground events anymore to public list. We set up phone trees and private e-mail trees for events like the Full Moon Rave. This has been sufficient to keep the authorities from having preknowledge of our events. I personally hope that most organizers learn about e-mail and at least generate keys in case there comes a time that the Scene really needs secure communication between people (I think this time is not too far off). 3) I have seen some activity by the libertarian party around the rave scene in SF. I've thought this to be curious but as I think about it, it makes sense, many ravers would most likely embrace large portions (but not all) of the libertarian ideals. Most ravers are not overtly political in the classic sense of the word. Although there is sort of a "Politics of Ecstasy" :) so to speak, we find that a lot of the problems that the left is still struggling with like, equality for women and people of color (within their own ranks!) are non-issues for us. We don't need affirmative action policies because as a social group, we are intensely homogenous, when you party with people across race,gender,sexual orientation, lines, it become easy to work with them, you naturally build a network of trust that is multi-cultural. As far as capitalism is concerned many young people in the Scene have developed their own companies from the selling of T-Shirts to "other things" that people buy at raves. They have no great love for "taxation" or interfearence by the "State" The scene is forging its own economic web and they are finding that economic co-operation is more productive then traditional competition, e-mail and encryption can help here. Raving IS a social political statement, sort of like the people in (pre) nazi germany who danced to swing,jazz,blues music which the nazis said was a "degenerate" type of music from the negro. You can go to a rave, dance to socialy unacceptable music, confront Authority with a statement but not land in prison (at least not in this country). Ultimately raving is not just another disco, it IS NOT a pick-up scene as most people going for that reason have discovered, it is not even a drug scene although there is drug use at raves (there are also some folks who have sex). The Scene IS about a persons right to CONSCIOUSNESS, knowledge and the right to think what ever thoughts s/he might want to think using whatever tools are at their disposal. The main goal of the raves that I go to are to reach that ecstatic state that some refer to as "The Vibe". This usually happens in the wee hours of the morning after 2 am when all the alcohol drinkers go home. This state is accessable via drugs but you need the beat as well, advanced ravers don't need the drugs any more to go into trance, this type of trance dancing is little understood in the west but is common throughout africa, india and parts of the middle east. 4) OK so the bottom line is I think that a SIMPLE flier informing these young people what is at stake as far as their present and future freedom of thought/speech/privacy sould be handed out. Low on rethoric, high on information. Have a lap-top available for the advanced ones who know/comprehend what PGP is and want to be able to use it. Don't blindly give out floopies, most will never be used. This message has been long but I wanted to INFORM the group who might have had preconceived ideas about the scene. I am willing to answer any questions that anybody might have, off-line. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEXUS SYSTEMS/CYBERTRIBE-5 : Voice:(415)965-2384 Fax: (415)327-6416 Editor/Instigator/Catalyst : Geoff White <geoffw(a)nexsys.net> Production Crew : Universal Movement Trinity <umt(a)nexsys.net> "They might stop the party, but they can't stop the future" --PGP Public key available upon request-- AT&T:Phones with Big Brother Inside, Just say "NO" to the Clipper wiretap chip! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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