HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rschnapp@metaflow.com (Russ Schnapp)
Subject: Re: AT&T news release
Organization: Metaflow Technologies Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:54:01 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.155103.16454@cis.ohio-state.edu>, bonk@elm.cis.ohio-state.edu (gregory j bonk) writes:
|> I was sent this from a broadcast to AT&T employees.
|>  Thought you might be interested.....
|>    
|>          *** AT&T today announced a high-power, all-digital cordless phone 
      . . .
|>          AT&T's spread-spectrum, frequency-hopping architecture, which is 
|>          patent-pending, actually avoids interference by "hopping" the 
|>          radio signal among 50 of the available 173 channels during a 
|>          conversation.  

I've heard about frequency hopping and spread spectrum stuff for over a
decade now.  It sounds like a great idea, but I have never bothered,
for some reason, to ask two basic questions:

1)  How does it increase range without increasing effective radiated
power?  If it's simply a matter of raising the effective
signal-to-noise ratio, how does it accomplish that?

2)  How do the transmitter and receiver agree on the hopping sequence,
and how do they synchronize?

If this is too far off-topic (and I suspect that it is), accept my
apologies and email explanations (or references, if you think I should
be doing my own research) directly to me.  
-- 

...Russ Schnapp
BIX: rschnapp           Email: netcom!metaflow!rschnapp or rschnapp@metaflow.com
Metaflow Technologies   Voice: 619/452-6608x230;  FAX: 619/452-0401
La Jolla, California    Unless otw specified, I`m speaking only for myself!
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain)
Subject: Re: Anti-spoofing protocol?
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 05:48:57 GMT

karn@servo.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn) writes:
: In article <1993Jan4.215027.17258@netcom.com> rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain) writes:
: >This all assumes that you have a secure means of getting your public key
: >to the other or an authenticated one.  Both seem equivalent in the end
: >to swapping a secret key to me.  This makes me question the fundamentals
: >of PK actually.
: 
: Why do you say that? An authenticated channel is much easier to get
: than an authenticated and secret channel. I can get pretty good
: authentication right now by calling up somebody on the phone whose
: voice I know well and exchanging MD5 hashes of whatever information we
: want to authenticate (e.g., a public key).  I could care less if
: somebody eavesdrops this call, but I certainly *would* care if we were
: exchanging secret DES keys instead.
: 

Phil,

Because even though it is much easier now that need not be true very
long.  DSP advancing as it is, I don't think that voice validation is a
very good thing to count on even though it is the best I can come up
with.  It is far from spoof-proof, just non-trivial.  I can envision a
DSP based system that does a frequency domain transformation to convert
the spectral content of one voice to another in real time.  You are
left of course with the nuances of voice that remain but I'll bet that
if the spectral transformation were performed those nuances would be
overlooked for the most part.  Hell, just do a simple frequency shift
of a voice and you probably will not recognize the speaker even if
well known.  Whether the converse is true, false recognition, I don't
know because I have never heard it but I just have a feeling.

Bob
-- 
Bob Cain    rcain@netcom.com   408-358-2007

    'The meek shall inherit the earth--the rest of us will move on..'
                                                    Sameer Parekh


               PGP 1.0 or 2.0 public key available on request.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: RSAREF and RIPEM now available via anonymous FTP
From: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin)
Date: 7 Jan 93 23:54:37 GMT
 <1993Jan07.202702.20110@convex.com> <1993Jan7.222422.11146@netcom.com>
Organization: Beckman Instruments, Inc.

In <1993Jan7.222422.11146@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:


>Ed Hamrick raises the new question of whether a book available at
>B. Dalton's, which contains the DES code, is exportable.

>From memory, I think at the time of the Pentagon Papers case, and again
>when some "little" magazine published plans for building your own
>A-bomb, the courts ruled that prior restraint was not permitted, but
>that the government was free to act after publication.

My recollection was the the government took no further action against "The
Progressive" in the A-bomb case, after the courts ruled prior restraint was
not permitted.  I don't recall whether they just gave up or the courts
ruled that the goverment could NOT take any action.


--
Arthur L. Rubin: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (work) Beckman Instruments/Brea
216-5888@mcimail.com 70707.453@compuserve.com arthur@pnet01.cts.com (personal)
My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.
My interaction with our news system is unstable; please mail anything important.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: DES (Was: Re: 800MHz
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 06:00:13 GMT

In article <1993Jan10.050811.3740@ils.nwu.edu> mccoy@ils.nwu.edu (Jim Mccoy) writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.163011.23230@csi.uottawa.ca> cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne) writes:
>> [regarding the ability of the NSA to break DES encoded messages...]
>>
>>If that $56 figure is faintly accurate, then I expect that the NSA
>>must have some rather high-speed hardware, probably specialized to
>>DES, that costs quite a bit less than anyone expected.  I would have
>>expected a somewhat higher bill.
>
>Well, to the best of my knowledge the NSA has one of the largest
>collections of supercomputers (Y-MPs, etc.) in the world.  This is thier
>job after all, to crack codes.  In all the various conspiracy theories and
>other guesses regarding DES and the NSA, it should be noted that DES was at
>one time used for secure encryptin of files for some branches of the
>government (the "standard" in DES... :) and was decertified for this role
>as scheduled.  Few ciphers will last forever.  In time even the 1024 bit
>public keys people consider secure now will be crackable for $56.  

It doesn't surprise me AT ALL that the NSA would have "lotsa
supercomputers."  That kind of goes with the territory.  It also
doesn't surprise me that they can consider breaking DES.  With the
kind of computing horsepower they've got, brute force can't be THAT
hard.

What DOES surprise me a little is the pricetag of $56.

Cray Y-MPs don't come cheap.  Even the power bill for a year isn't
cheap :-).

I guess that my point is that if the price is a "mere" $56, then it
must not take much computer time to crack it.

I'm not aware of the current Cray pricing - I seem to remember it
being in about the $10 million range for some of the older models.

You've got to divide $10 million by quite a LARGE number of messages
in order to get that $56 figure.  (Try 178571 on for size...)

Even if they ignore the capital cost, and only consider the cost of
maintenance and the price of having staff people to keep the system
humming, that still probably comes to a good few hundred thousand $.
At that rather lower rate, they'd still have to be breaking HUNDREDS
of DES messages per day, on the ONE computer, with ONE set of staff.

If it "only" costs $56, then they must have some CHEAP ways to break
DES, unless they're COMPLETELY ignoring the cost of computer
resources.  In short, for $56 a pop, they can't be using brute force.
Maybe they can use differential analysis.  Maybe they can use
something analogous to D.A.  But for $56 per pop, they're either
lying, or they have SOME "silver bullet."

-- 
Christopher Browne                |     PGP 2.0 key available
cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca           |======================================
University of Ottawa              | Genius may have its limitations, but
Master of System Science Program  | stupidity is not thus handicapped.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: WordPerfect and US crypto laws
From: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin)
Date: 5 Jan 93 21:21:21 GMT
Organization: Beckman Instruments, Inc.

In <bontchev.726254411@fbihh> bontchev@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Vesselin Bontchev) writes:

>ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering) writes:

>> As far as I know, US laws forbid the export of cryptographic
>> software. However, WordPerfect contains a (very simple and insecure)
>> cryptographic feature. And WordPerfect is exported from the US with
>> this feature. Why is this legal? Is it because the code is so
>> easily broken? Is this the very reason for making the code so
>> incredibly simple?

>If I understand it correctly, the US -laws- do NOT forbid anything
>like that. Instead, there are some export -regulations- (which are not
>laws) that state that it is forbidden to export/import crypto software
>without a license. Can anybody who has access to the full text of ITAR
>tell us whether it contains a definition for "crypto software"? My
>guess is that it doesn't and the Department of State keeps the right
>to decide what is crypto software and what isn't. They probably try to
>be reasonable and allow the export of weak crypto systems without a
>license by saying that they are not strong enough to be considered
>crypto software. Note again that this is just my wild guess - I am not
>familiar with the US legal system. Let's hope that somebody more
>competent than me will provide the necessary explanation.

Two points.

Regulations, in this case, have the force of law unless/until they are
shown to be inconsistent with the authorizing law or otherwise illegal.

Dave, I believe, claimed that the "software" is defined in the preamble to
the regs, (or something like that).  I don't know if "crypto software" is
defined in the regs, in the law, or somewhere else entirely.  (If it's
somewhere else, the regs are probably unconstitutionally vague or do not
cover PGP).
--
Arthur L. Rubin: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (work) Beckman Instruments/Brea
216-5888@mcimail.com 70707.453@compuserve.com arthur@pnet01.cts.com (personal)
My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.
My interaction with our news system is unstable; please mail anything important.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain)
Subject: Re: Motorola 'Secure-Clea
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 08:32:01 GMT

Owen.Lewis@purplet.demon.co.uk (Owen Lewis) writes:
:  -=> Quoting Ted Dunning to All <=-
: 
:  TD> ......... simple speech inversion really shouldn't be called a
:  TD> security device.
: 
: 
: 
:  Exactly so. I couldn't have put it better.
: 

What about the modern analog devices that use split band inversion where
one of 32 programmable split points in the voice band may be selected
and changed at 60 Hz or faster at "random?"  Two separate inversions
are performed, one for the lower sideband and one for the upper
sideband around the split point.  This seems *much* harder.  This topic
has come up before but perhaps we have new readers.  Does anyone have
any actual knowledge of or experience at trying to decode such a
signal?  With such short segments it seems to me that only brute force
"try the possibilities" could work and the combinatorics are rather
formidable with 32^60 or 2E90 possibilities in each second's worth of
speech. 

Combine this with spread spectrum or Pulson modulation and, well....

What's Pulson modulation?  It is a method where the signal is impressed
on a carrier that is a sequence of pseudo randomly spaced 1.5 ns pulses
by dithering the pulse position about its expected position.  In theory
this can only be demodulated by a receiver that knows the pseudo random
spacing of the carrier pulse train.  A transceiver has been
demonstrated by Pulson Communications using a pulse train centered at
1.9 GHz with a 100% pseudo random modulation of the pulses about the
center period (before dithering.)  Now that I think about it, a PRN
that can spit out a new number every 500 ps sounds rather difficult.
Not to mention the method for controling the pulse position that
rapidly.  Well, they say they have done it anyway.

Bob
-- 
Bob Cain    rcain@netcom.com   408-358-2007

    'The meek shall inherit the earth--the rest of us will move on..'
                                                    Sameer Parekh


               PGP 1.0 or 2.0 public key available on request.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: hal@gateway.mitre.org (Hal Feinstein)
Subject: How to get a copy of NIST pub
Organization: Mitre Corporation, McLean, VA
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 00:23:40 GMT


To get a copy of  NIST's special publication Public Key Cryptography
(NIST special publication 800-2) you have to buy it from the US 
government printing office. The best I can find is the usual 
boiler plate: superintendent of documents, US government printing office
washington, DC. 20402. I ordered my copy through an telephone order
line that they have. But I had a detailed flier number to do it with.
You might try to see if the clerk on the other end of the telephone
can help you out. Its in NISTS reports on comptuer security series
code number  NSPU2.
From: jani.patokallio%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Jani Patokallio) 
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: DES (Was: Re: 800MHz
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:34:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Advanced Computer Concepts BBS, New Rochelle, NY 914-654-1981
Reply-To: jani.patokallio%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Jani Patokallio) 

In message <23.2B4A0D74@purplet.demon.co.uk> Owen Lewis <Owen.Lewis
purplet.demon.co.uk> said:
->  Another "likelihood theory":
-> 
->         What first world government permits the use of DES for the protection 
->         of classified material? Does the US government? I believe not.
-> 
->  And while we are discussing theories, I believe James Bamforth, the NSA 
->  watcher, went on record some time ago with a claim that the cost to the US 
->  taxpayer for breaking each DES ciphertext is $56. Can anyone supply the  
->  assumptions from which he must have made this extrapolation?

If the US has 250,000,000 people, the total cost is therefore 
14,000,000,000 (14 trillion) dollars per ciphertext.  Even if around a
third of those people do not pay taxes, I think Mr. Bamforth was exaggerating
a little.

--
Jani Patokallio                  |  "Ignorance is the soil in which belief
acc1bbs!jani.patokallio@ssr.com  |   in miracles grows."  -R. G. Ingersoll
---
 . AME 1.07 . 
                                    
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: mkwan@cs.mu.OZ.AU (Matthew Kwan)
Subject: LOKI status
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 04:53:38 GMT

I've been a bit out of touch with crypto research for the past
year, and I was wondering if anyone knows the current status of
the LOKI (1991 version) block cipher. In particular, has it been
broken since it was re-designed 18 months ago?

I didn't make it to AUSCRYPT'92, but I heard that there were
a few papers involving cryptanalysis of LOKI. Can anyone give
me a (very brief) summary of what those papers achieved?

For those of you not familiar with LOKI, it is a 64-bit block
cipher similar in structure to DES, but with a 64-bit rather
than 56-bit key. It was originally developed by Lawrie Brown
at the University of NSW in 1989, then broken and re-designed
by me in 1991. Although I'm no longer involved in the design of
cryptosystems, I'm really curious to see whether my changes have
survived the test of time ;-)

By the way, is the creation of sci.crypt.research going ahead?
It would have my vote at least.

---------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Kwan
The Preston Group Pty Ltd
Telephone : +61 3 428 8899
Facsimile : +61 3 427 1969
email : mkwan@cs.mu.oz.au
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Federal Taxes -- Online? Encrypt/Decrypt part of the Package?
From: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin)
Date: 4 Jan 93 18:53:56 GMT
Organization: Beckman Instruments, Inc.

In <1i4ou1INNnjn@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bz223@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Danny Guy Frezza) writes:


>	I have a question:  for some who may use a modem to receive their
>tax refunds from the Federal Government, does the Government employ 
>some form of encryption/decryption utility in the delivering/sending of
>sensitive information? It would seem to me they do, but I haven't spoken to
>anyone who has used the modem to receive their refund(s) or other information
>regarding the sensitive nature of taxes, which is private business?

I assume you are referring to "Electronic Filing" (if you are in the US.)

The answer is no.  No encryption.  See IRS pub 1345 or 1346 or 1453 for
details.  (I don't remember which -- call the IRS forms number, ask for the
"practitioner gate", and ask which of those is the requirements for
electronic transmitters.)
--
Arthur L. Rubin: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (work) Beckman Instruments/Brea
216-5888@mcimail.com 70707.453@compuserve.com arthur@pnet01.cts.com (personal)
My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.
My interaction with our news system is unstable; please mail anything important.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: smb@research.att.com (Steven Bellovin)
Subject: Re: Any way to *CREATE* Vcr+ (VCR PLUS) codes??? (please read)
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 01:31:32 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories

In article <29342@oasys.dt.navy.mil>, curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) writes:
> But you can Copyright a table of numbers and show times that you publish
> (which is what they do).  However, it's questionable if they could claim
> infringment if you copied some of those numbers and times and re-publilshed
> them.  I'm sure however, that Gemstar would take you to court if they could
> prove that you copied one of they copyrighted listings, and let the court
> decide. 

It strikes me as improbable that they could enforce such a copyright.
The courts have ruled that to be copyrighted, a work must be a creative
act.  In the particular case I'm thinking of, it was ruled that a phone
book could not be copyrighted, since no creativity went into it.

In this case, there is creativity in how the numbers are created -- but
copyright protects the expression, not the ideas, and an algorithm is
not subject to copyright.  It may be patentable -- but as far as I know,
their patent has not yet been issued.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: dla@athena (Don Alvarez)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Anti-spoofing protocol?
Date: 4 Jan 93 16:05:46 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1993Jan4.104051.23477@qualcomm.com> karn@servo.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.090057.20269@netcom.com> rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain) writes:

>>The problem of detecting a spoof in between two ends of a
>>Diffie-Hellman exchange is unsolved, as far as I know, using any known
>>protocol.

>Why do you say that? You can detect the "ends against the middle"
>attack against DH if the parties sign their DH exchanges (using RSA or
>some other digital signature scheme) and verify them before using the
>DH-generated key to encrypt anything real.

Digital signatures won't solve the problem Robert is posing.  The
problem is how do two parties transition from an initial state of
having no way to communicate securely to a final state of having a way
to communicate securely.

If the two parties can use RSA or some other digital security scheme
to prove their identities, then they have already made that
transition.  Put simply, how did I learn to validate your digital
signature?  Sure, the message has a digital signature, but did you
sign it or did George Bush's evil twin skippy?  If I am confident of
my ability to validate your signature, then we must already be
connected by some form of secure path through which you sent me info
on how to do the validation.  Otherwise skippy could just say "Hi Don, 
this is Phil, my digital signature key is ..."

It's a chicken-and-egg problem: You can't distribute a key in a secure
manner without a prior means of secure communications, but if that
means of secure communications is cryptographic, then it requires the
prior distribution of a key.

-Don.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: m_reymond@zeus.dev.macsch.com (Mike Reymond)
Subject: This is a test
Reply-To: m_reymond@macsch.com
Organization: MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 18:11:13 GMT


This is a test--
Mike Reymond
MacNeal-Schwendler Corp., Los Angeles, CA, USA
m_reymond@macsch.com
(213) 259-4926
Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.radio.scanner
From: rwirthli@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ralph Wirthlin)
Subject: Re: AT&T news release
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 17:38:26 GMT

bonk@elm.cis.ohio-state.edu (gregory j bonk) writes:

>I was sent this from a broadcast to AT&T employees.
> Thought you might be interested.....
>   
>         to one mile from the base.  The AT&T 9530 uses full digital 
>         transmission to encode speech onto a radio signal, much like music 
>         is encoded onto a CD, and to provide clearer sound over a longer 
>         range than cordless phones operating in the 46/49-MHz frequency.  
>         AT&T's spread-spectrum, frequency-hopping architecture, which is 
>         patent-pending, actually avoids interference by "hopping" the 

	
How do you patent something that has been available for the past 30+
years?   

>         and multilevel buildings.  The random selection of 50 of 173 
>         channels, along with digital speech encoding, makes it nearly 
>         impossible to eavesdrop on conversations.  The AT&T 9530 was 

I'd like to know what the channel-switching rate is

Sounds nice, but nothing that NSA should worry about.