- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

RE: Webs of Trust vs Trees of Trust
by Pat Farrell 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

In norm(a)netcom.com (Norman Hardy) writes: >This is much ingrained in all of the legally mandated security >systems that I am aware of. It assumes, at first glance, that there >is a root, an inner sanctum, which is totally trusted by all. > >It is a pervasive mind-set in military security. While I can't claim to understand the military mind set, I can believe that it is pervasive. It is also at best simplistic. Under the "new world order" we must forge aliances according the the needs of the situation, so that the trusted aliance's members vary over time. Economic aliances have similar dynamics, with trust and allegiance changing. The government's view seems to be that trust is transitive. I believe that it can't be, because the world is not a simplistic heirarchy that starts with Billery and flows down. The tree of trust also ignores international exchanges, as Billery's signature means far less to an European than to a US citizen. There was a recent article about a ring of college students in Texas selling forged driver's licenses. They used Montana and Idaho as samples, with the expectation that a bouncer in a Texas bar wouldn't know a real Idaho license if he saw one. Seems like the value of a US-based signature would be lowered in Sydney or Delhi in a similar manner. More importantly, I expect that digital signatures will be used for commercial transactions accross the net. This means that there is money involved, and with a tree of trust, the higher level trees are _worth_ bribing, forging, and perhaps killing for. Once a high level node is compromised, all lower nodes are worthless. This is why we need a serious education effort for the "decision makers" in the government. 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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No Subject
by ah＠uknet.ac.uk 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: The Family Key Newsgroups: ml.cypherpunks In-Reply-To: <199304211229.AA28337(a)sun.Panix.Com> Organization: Dunathad Cc: In article <199304211229Y.AA28337(a)sun.Panix.Com> wrote: >I think the largest weakness in the whole Clipper scheme, and >I am not sure If I am right about this is,.... >... >Thus, the NSA will be able to maintain an active traffic pattern >analysis of ALL communications sent via the Clipper chiped devices. > >I think in many ways that traffic watching can and does often reveal >more information about someone than at time listening in to what >is actually being said. > I can't help feeling that they'll be looking for a little more, an edge; not enough that their promises to the executive are broken, but enough to get an edge if they need to decrypt without the key. No offense against the NSA of course, but that's how I'd expect the British to work "in the National Interest". Rgds Alan --- Alan Hunter Johnson Hunter Ltd Isle of Islay, Scotland A.Hunter(a)dunaad.co.uk fax: +44-496-2336 voice: +44-496-2286

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The Family Key
by Harry Shapiro 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

I think the largest weakness in the whole Clipper scheme, and I am not sure If I am right about this is,.... The NSA knows the family key (the key that is built into each chip; or perhaps large meta batch of chips). The family key encrypts the Law Enforcement Block [LEB] of the message, which contains the serial number for the chip in the device being used to communicate. This key is known to NSA. Thus, the NSA will be able to maintain an active traffic pattern analysis of ALL communications sent via the Clipper chiped devices. I think in many ways that traffic watching can and does often reveal more information about someone than at time listening in to what is actually being said. The big point here is the the press release claims that the Clipper chip doesn't provide anything more than what Law Enforcement already has. That is not true. What they get is a complete serialized, accurate method of traffic analysis. Note: Denning claims that a proper order to wire tap an encrypted communication will be "gotten" prior to decoding the LEB. Then a second batch of paper work will be processed once the serial number is revealed to get the encrypted/escrowed keys. -- Harry Shapiro habs(a)panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991

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Lets connect the meetings together
by crunch＠netcom.com 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

I propose that the E. Coaster Cypherpunks connect via computer to the one on the West Coast on the 24th. Perhaps on a private IRC channel, but doing it via encryption would be the best.

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Meets 'n Greets
by fergp＠sytex.com 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

On Tue, 20 Apr 93 10:54:00 -0700, Eric Hughes <uunet!soda.berkeley.edu!hughes> wrote - EH> ANNOUNCEMENT EH> ============ EH> Ad Hoc Cypherpunks Meeting on the recent Wiretap Chip proposal. EH> Where: Cygnus Support, Mt. View (directions follow) EH> When: 12:00 noon sharp - 6:00 p.m. EH> I'm mad as hell. I know that a lot of other folks are too. You're right, Eric -- we are mad as hell, too. But I'm not about to jump on a flight to the west coast to simply share strategies. The fact that I would even consider it negates the functions which we are working towards, no? I propose that us east coasters organize and meet as well. Pat and I are DC bourne, for those interested, I'd like to propose a DC local meeting. Suggestions? Keep in mind that I'm in NYC during the week, so my only available meeting times aare on the weekends. (By the way, lets get our shit together DC'ers. We need technologists, not lacidaisical idealisms.) Your DC based Cypherpunk group is hereby established. BTW, if anyone noticed, the EFF is drawing some serious fire by the public press. "Sold out to commercialism", one headline reads. Cheers. Paul Ferguson | Uncle Sam wants to read Network Integration Consultant | your e-mail... Alexandria, Virginia USA | Just say "NO" to the Clipper fergp(a)sytex.com | Chip...

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FAQ: Overview of crypto
by szabo＠techbook.com 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

The wiretap chip has generated quite a bit of new interest in learning how to protect our electronic privacy. We need to bring folks up to speed quickly on practical use of crypto, so I'm going to write up some mini-FAQs. Experts, please send me succinct descriptions of PGP, anonymous remailers, the Clipper wiretap chip, GMS, or anything else you feel is an important basic. Alternatively, write up and post your own FAQ, and we'll sort it out later. Here is an overview of computer-based crypto that Bill Stewart posted a few weeks ago. Nick Szabo szabo(a)echbook.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- You can get a proper faq by ftp from rsa.com, in the directory pub/faq. Cryptography = writing stuff only authorized people can read. Real crypto depends on algorithms that are secure as long as the Bad Guys don't know the keys, even if they know everything else. Most of the interesting stuff depends on mathematical processes that take exponential amounts of time, so a 56-bit key would take 2**56 attempts to guess - you can't guess it a bit at a time in 56 steps. Factoring large numbers is believed to take roughly expontential time. M = plaintext message Cyphertext C = E(k, M), E = encryption function, k = key. Plaintext M = D(k, C) ITAR - International Traffic In Armaments Regulations - the US has a bunch of laws about exporting munitions, and crypto hardware and software count as munitions - algorithms are OK, but our Benevolent Govt KNOWS that foreigners aren't bright enough to turn algorithms into code. Lots of flamewars discuss exactly the boundaries, and the laws are contradictory about which bureaucrats are really in control, but nobody's wanted to get thrown in jail for arms dealing badly enough to force a court case .... Appears to apply to importing crypto also, though that hasn't been something anybody's made a big deal about. Other countries besides the US may have major restrictions as well. Alice and Bob - the people sending messages to each other. Eve may be eavesdropping, and Charlie may be around also, Secret-Key Cryptosystem, also called Symmetric-key or private-key - the same key k is used for E and D, or at least a closely related key that's easy to derive if you know the other one. DES = Data Encryption Standard = IBM/NSA-designed secret-key system, very widely used, keys 56 bits long which may be a bit short, some people worry there may be an trapdoor put there by NSA, but if I told you I'd have to kill you :-) Banks use it, for instance. IDEA - a Swiss-written secret-key system, maybe more secure than DES, newer anyway. Patented in Switz but not US, easy licensing. Public-Key CryptoSystem - Encryption key ke and Decryption key kd are related, but in a way that you can't determine kd knowing only ke. ke is called the public key and kd the private key - you can publish ke where everyone can see it and encrypt stuff to mail to you, you can decrypt with private key kd. (If you want to reply, you've got to get their public key.) Public-key algorithms are pretty slow, so generally people use create a random secret key, encrypt their message with a secret-key algorithm like DES, and encrypt the secret key with the recipient's public key; recipient decrypts the secret key with his private key, then uses it to decrypt the message. Digital Signatures - if you can do public-key crypto, then you can do the reverse as well to sign a message - you *decrypt* the message with your private key, and the recipient encrypts it with your public key - if it restores the original message, she knows it's good and knows that *you* sent it, because only you have your private key. For speed, you normally make a "hash" checksum of the message, and sign the hash instead of the whole thing. Some public-key algorithms can only be used for encryption, some only for signatures, some for both but you need different keys. MD-4 and MD-5 - Message Digest hashing algorithms from (?) Rivest, which are thought to be unforgeable, unlike the CRC checksums used by many programs which are easily forged. RSA - A public-key algorithm developed by Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman. It's the only well-known public-key algorithm that does everything everybody wants, including signatures and public-key, that's secure enough that you can't crack it as long as you use reasonably long keys. Unfortunately, it's patented in the US, by Public Key Partners, a company R, S, A, and friends started that owns most of the interesting patents related to public-key. On the other hand, to avoid having the NSA classify their patent right when they applied (the NSA can do that), they published the algorithm before applying, which means that it's public-knowledge in most of the world and you can't patent it there, even in places that do allow algorithm patents. Their claims about what techniques their patents cover are *very* broad; if you want to do anything public-key related in the US, you've got to deal with them or carry a BIG lawyer, and so far everybody's chosen to deal with them rather than risk a long expensive difficult court case, or else chosen to ignore or infringe their patent but not sell their products for cash, and hoped to get away with it. RSAREF - an RSA implementation from PKP, which you may use free for personal non-commercial use as long as you agree to follow a set of rules that are much less restrictive than they used to be; you can't export it outside the US and Canada, and can't change the interface without their permission, and a few other terms. Better implementations of RSA's algorithms have been done, but you can use this one free, with their permission. Or you can pay them money and get support for incorporating their techniques into your products. Key certification - Public Keys are usually long - RSA keys are often 1024 bytes. Public keys crypto is only secure if you can be SURE you have the public key for the person you're trying to send a message to, like Bob, and that Eve hasn't handed you HER public key instead - she could be intercepting all your mail to Bob, decrypting it, and re-encrypting with Bob's key. So you need to find a secure way to transmit public keys, where "secure" means it can't be forged without you knowing about it (though anybody can read them.) Publishing in the New York Times classified ads is one approach, as is any other broadcast method you can be SURE everyone gets correctly. Another method is to use digital signatures - somebody you trust, whose public key you can be sure you know accurately, gets Bob's public key from Bob, and signs it with their public-key. Since not everybody knows somebody who knows Bob, the problem can be handled by a chain or hierarchy of key certifications - Charlie signs Bob's, Dave signs Charlie's ... and You know Xerxes yourself. Or George Bush signs all the general's keys, the generals all sign the keys for the colonels under them, the colonels sign for the majors under them, .... and you can check some sergeant's key because it's got a certificate from his lieutenant on up to Bush, and Bush's key is in the Phone Book. PGP - Phil's Pretty Good Privacy program - a nice packaging of this technology that can be used easily to prepare secure email. The original version used RSA and a choice of DES or a home-brew secret-crypto system; the current version uses RSA and IDEA. For certification, the method is non-hierarchical - you have a "keyring" containing public keys you know, maybe with certificates, and you can sign the ones *you* trust and give your signed keyring to your friends. Hierarchies imply the potential for control; this is cooperative anarchy, and there's no chain of people you HAVE to obey to exchange keys. When PGP version 1 first came out, RSA yelled at Phil Zimmerman, the author, and told him he was risking patent infringement lawsuits and such if he didn't cease and desist, so he's no longer distributing it. But some of those SNEAKY FOREIGNERS *somehow* got a copy, and so ongoing development of PGP is taking place outside the US, unhindered by patent problems. Version 2.1 is out, 2.2 real soon. Parts of PGP are probably not covered by PKP's patents, and parts are clearly not covered by ITAR, but some parts are a problem. RIPEM - Mark Riordan's public-key email system, which uses RSAREF to do RSA, so it's legally kosher but not exportable, and is related to the internet Privacy Enhanced Mail stuff that was being developed for a while. Still real new, but probably Pretty Good also; I seem to remember its key certification was more hierarchical. ---- More PGP info - PGP was originally written for a DOS environment (there are problems trusting any system you don't totally control, and it's tough to say you totally control a multi-user system), but it's been ported to lots of things by now, including UNIX and some early Mac ports (work is in progress to make the Mac port feel like Mac-stuff rather than Unix-stuff.) You can get the source, compile it, play with it, and do anything you want that doesn't infringe PKP's patent, so remember not to use it to exchange keys with anyone or send them mail unless you've got a licensing agreement..... Once it's compiled, type pgp -h to get help, and/or read the documentation. Where to get things: The fun place to shop is nic.funet.fi, by anonymous ftp, but if you telnet to an archie server like archie.rutgers.edu (login as archie) you can ask it wher to find anything. Using a US site would be potentially better legally, and also cuts down on the bandwidth used between here and Finland.... Bill Stewart

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cypherpunks vs. cryptoprivacy
by ggoebel＠sun1.ruf.uni-freiburg.de 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

All, Kragen writes: } I agree with those who think that "CypherPunks" is a bad name for the list. } It brings up negative associations in the minds of outsiders, who are, after } all, the people who we want to influence against the Big Brother wiretap chip Is anyone against changing the name from cypherpunks to cryptoprivacy? Seems to be the general consensus... that cryptoprivacy would be more PC. Unoriginal Thought: couldn't the list/group name be changed to "CP"? o For outsiders, and formally, it could stand for CryptoPrivacy o To insiders... it could still stand for CypherPunks o CP is the opposite of PC (I like that). back to lurking, Garrett -- C. Garrett Goebel <ggoebel(a)sun1.ruf.uni-freiburg.de>

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GSM vs. wiretapping: Australia
by jhart＠agora.rain.com 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

Forwarded from comp.org.eff.talk In article <1993Apr12.081136.1(a)cc.curtin.edu.au>, zrepachol(a)cc.curtin.edu.au (Paul Repacholi) writes: > In article <1993Apr11.175007.10136(a)news.acns.nwu.edu>, jlacour(a)merle.acns.nwu.edu (John LaCour) writes: > Have not seen a proposal like the FBI one yet, doesn't mean it isn't out there > though. One thing that has happened is the delaying of the new GSM digital > mobile phones. It seems that ASIO and friends have been told by GCHQ about > the dificulty of breaking MD5. Info is still a bit thin. You could try posting > to aus.comms. > Please note, I have added aus.comms and aus.politics to this one. I enquired of Austel ( the Australian telecoms regulatory body), and the Federal Atourny Generals Office today. The Telecom GSM trail marketing that started in Brisbane in March has been canceled. GSM will *NOT* be legal in Australia till the use of MD% encryption is changed, or the system is altered to allow monitoring of calls. This is a requirement of the 'Telecomunications Interception Act'( AG perth.) There are also prohibitions on using codes and cyphers in the 'Crimes Act' various state police acts and criminal codes ( thought these would not affect Telecomms, as that is federal jusistiction. I will try to find the acts, and quote the relevent sections on this. There has also been posts on 'pen-recorders' I notice. The .au situation on this is that a commisioned officer of the federal police can give the telco a written notice requiring the supplying of cal info for the date range in the notice. I saw this some monthes ago, and had the impression that this included info *PRIOR* to the notice, info Telecom claims not to have if mear chattels inquire! Strange, wonder where it matterializes from. Note the absence of words like 'warrant', 'judge', 'court' or other such! I think there is a requirement for the commisioner of the FP to include in his anual report to parlament the number of notices issued. All this has been in place in one form or another for decades. I first saw this sort of stuff when I worked in the post office ( ob history: the post offie used to run the phon system in australia years ago ) As I worked both as a night shift telephonist and in the office itself, I had to sign a stack of secrecy stuff, and a copy of the 'Posts and Telegraphs Act' was standard issue. This had a prohibition on "unlawfull codes, cyphers and secret writings" The Comercial Telex Code was the *ONE* allowed code. Any other code used in a telegram *HAD* to be stated on the logment form. Don't know what happened after that. Small country town, never saw one. Only the banks used codes. This would have been Dec '67 or '68 I think. Will try to fill in the gaps, and post a full account later. Note that I will be probably away next week, ( school hols ) so it may be a while. I will also try to get some extra info on use etc. ~Paul

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PGP help?
by Robert Luscombe 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

I am in search of any MSDos (or Windows, but not preferred) offline mail readers, text editors, etc. that work well with PGP-- anything to help me use PGP for everyday email. I use a dial-up internet connection, so i have no choice but to use the remote system's PINE mail reader... if anyone knows of anything that will let me compose and encrypt email locally and format the messages into a .QWK packet for upload, that would be IDEAL, but anything else could still help. (BTW-- i have already posted on alt.security.pgp and nothing ever came of it. So it goes.) --Robert Luscombe Internet: ral(a)telerama.pgh.pa.us Voice:412/488-0941 robert(a)well.sf.ca.us (Finger for PGP Pub Key)

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FAQ: where to get PGP
by szabo＠techbook.com 21 Apr '93

21 Apr '93

Here is a list of PGP sites generated by "archie". I have checked sony.com which has PGP 2.2 but have not checked the other sites. If you know any of these sites to be down, out of date, etc. please let me know and I'll update the list. Also let me know of sites archie did not catch. Strong crypto is available worldwide, but the Clinton Adminstration has threatened to ban it in the U.S. In the age of digitial telecom and fascist governments, strong crypto is your only guarantee of electronic privacy. Get it, learn it, and use it while it's still legal! Nick Szabo szabo(a)techbook.com ----------------------------------------------- /usr2/users/szabo> archie pgp Host sony.com Location: /pub DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Apr 9 20:26 pgp Host quepasa.cs.tu-berlin.de Location: /pub/os/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/unofficial/doc/software FILE -rw-rw-r-- 12121 Feb 2 00:01 pgp Host reseq.regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de Location: /informatik.public/comp/usenet/alt.sources DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Dec 9 01:24 pgp Host ftp.uni-kl.de Location: /pub1/unix/security DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Feb 24 19:24 pgp Host cwdynm.echem.cwru.edu Location: /scriptures/ALL.plain FILE -r--r--r-- 167535 Sep 11 1991 pgp Host goya.dit.upm.es Location: /tmp DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Aug 22 1992 pgp Host walton.maths.tcd.ie Location: /src/misc/pgp-2.0/src FILE -rwxr-xr-x 316640 Oct 18 00:00 pgp Host ftp.uu.net Location: /pub/security DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 512 Mar 9 15:13 pgp Host isy.liu.se Location: /pub/misc DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Mar 11 23:54 pgp Host ftp.luth.se Location: /pub/infosystems DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Jan 27 12:59 pgp Host unix.hensa.ac.uk Location: /pub/uunet/pub/security DIRECTORY drwxr-xr-x 512 Mar 19 07:35 pgp

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