waashk/20ng huggingface dataset:
As of yet, there has been no description of the general principles behind the Clipper proposal. For example, is this a public key system or a private key system? If the latter, then I don't see how the system could work (given that the keys are tied to the device and not the person).  Further, the escrowed 80-bit keys are split into two 40-bit chunks. I would guess that the availability of one of these 40-bit chunks and a reasonable key-search machine, would allow you to read the traffic. I'm not suggesting that this is a deliberate weakness of the system, but it does make you think. Of course, this is easily fixable by  giving out two 80-bit chunks which could be x-ored to generate the  real 80-bit key.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----  > Why do we hackers care about the Clipper chip?  Do we give a shit > about anybody's privacy accept our own?  And perhaps not even our > own; are we so smart that we always know when we're talking to > somebody who has a wiretap on their phone?  I find this a very disturbing view!  Yes, we DO care about EVERYONE's privacy... Even if "they" don't know it. What happens if the gov't starts creating legislation such that the Clipper and such technologies become the only "legal" encryption forms?  What happens when the Clipper is the *ONLY* type of encryption chips available to the masses?  Sure, you might have your own method of encryption, but if you don't have anyone else to talk to, what use is it?  You can't assume that EVERYONE will be as open as you appear to be about encryption.  The point here is not the specific instance of the Wiretap Chip. Rather, it is like having the government telling you that they want a copy of your house key, safe-deposit box keys, etc., and telling you that "they wont use them unless its totally neccessary."  I sure wouldn't want that.  Why should encryption be any different?  - -derek  PGP 2 key available upon request on the key-server: 	pgp-public-keys@toxicwaste.mit.edu  -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2  iQBuAgUBK9RxVjh0K1zBsGrxAQHd8ALEDi3Ear7rEmr1UHuxqv2YIblH6px6VXnb +sJLcUGzZxTCfxbRqIf7msLp98p0EvYYnLZbbORyVhfSzyyHYHeQqQILHEK3LPQE aP29+od6YZrCCHarNRS024E= =Ftek -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
In article <899@pivot.sbi.com> bet@sbi.com (Bennett Todd @ Salomon Brothers Inc., NY ) writes: > >I heard about this solution, and it sounded good. Then I heard that folks >were experiencing times of 30-60 seconds to run this, on >reasonably-configured workstations. I'm not willing to add that much delay >to someone's login process. My approach (etherfind|compress, skip 10K) takes >a second or two to run. I'm considering writing the be-all and end-all of >solutions, that launches the MD5, and simultaneously tries to suck bits off >the net, and if the net should be sitting __SO__ idle that it can't get 10K >after compression before MD5 finishes, use the MD5. This way I could have >guaranteed good bits, and a deterministic upper bound on login time, and >still have the common case of login take only a couple of extra seconds. >  53 seconds to hash 20M of core (I bet I know who the source of your information is!). No, it's not acceptable if it's part of your login process. But if you are going to use network traffic as the source of pseudo-random information, do the right thing and pass it through a cryptographic hash function, not a compressor. Aside from the fact that it will run faster, it will give better results (think of a cryptographic hash as a function that "distills" randomness). Something along the lines of  	etherfind -t -x -n  | dd bs=1k count=10 2>/dev/null | md5 should do the trick. -t gives you timestamps, and the lack of -u makes sure that dd does not get ten lines as opposed to ten K. The above takes a couple of seconds on a lightly-loaded ethernet.  >-Bennett >bet@sbi.com
In article <C6DEo6.uyE@watson.ibm.com>, basturk@watson.ibm.com (Erol Basturk)  writes:  |>                          So, the question is: has a "fast" hash |> function been designed for hardware implementation ?   Yes, you can use a stream cipher chip to hash data with only slight  modification. See:  `A fast cryptographic checksum algorithm based on stream ciphers', X Lai, RA Rueppel, J Woolven, Auscrypt 92 pp 8-7 to 8-11.
In article <1993Apr22.105915.5584@infodev.cam.ac.uk> rja14@cl.cam.ac.uk (Ross Anderson) writes: >res@colnet.cmhnet.org (Rob Stampfli) writes: >> Wouldn't a a second monitor of similar type scrolling gibberish and adjacent >> to the one being used provide reasonable resistance to tempest attacks? >We've got a tempest receiver in the lab here, and there's no difficulty in >picking up individual monitors. Their engineering tolerances are slack enough >that they tend to radiate on different frequencies. Even where they overlap, you >can discriminate because they have different line synch frequencies - you can >lock in on one and average the others out. > >The signals are weird in any case, with varying polarisations and all sorts >of interactions with the building. Just moving a folded dipole around is also >highly effective as a (randomised) means of switching from one monitor to >another, > Hell, just set up a spark jammer, or some other _very_ electrically-noisy device. Or build an active Farrady cage around the room, with a "noise" signal piped into it. While these measures will not totally mask the emissions of your equipment, they will provide sufficient interference to make remote monitoring a chancy proposition, at best. There is, of course, the consideration that these measures may (and almost cretainly will) cause a certain amount of interference in your own systems. It's a matter of balancing security versus convenience.  BTW, I'm an ex-Air Force Telecommunications Systems Control Supervisor and Telecommunications/Cryptographic Equipment Technician.
In article <1993Apr22.170418.15799@news.eng.convex.com> gardner@convex.com (Steve Gardner) writes:  >In article <strnlghtC5t3K6.InF@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes: >>>After the Waco Massacre and the Big Brother Wiretap Chip, any tactic >>>is fair. >> >>This is pernicious nonsense! >	In what way David?  Our government is totally out of control, >	whether you realize it or not.  I know you find it painful to >	think of your old buddy Uncle Sam as evil but it's true.  Other >	democracies have fallen before.  Ours is on its way and knee-jerk >	sheep that instinctively trust government are helping it slide. >	Power corrupts David, why is that so hard to understand? >  That wasn't my point. My point is that your implied position about the "Waco Massacre" is an assertion cum political position. According to a CNN poll, about 86% of Americans think the FBI acted properly, and a majority think they should have done it (the tear gas) a lot sooner. A large majority also believe the FBI was not at all responsible for the death of the victims, Koresh was. (Let's avoid the kind of fruitless argument of the sort If A hadn't X'd, then B might not have Y'd....)  What you call the "Big Brother Chip" is right now a proposal under discussion, and it is not yet clear that strong crypto is going to be banned.  Therefore neither justifies "any tactic is fair." Thus the statement is nonsense. It is pernicious, because "any tactic" can lead to damaging others.  As I see you know from the tone of your reply, there's nothing personal intended.  David
In article <C5y746.73K@vcd.hp.com> johne@vcd.hp.com (John Eaton) writes:  >Thats one problem that has so far been overlooked. These two escrow >agencies will have to create a secure database and service the >input and output of Keys. Who pays for this? If they refuse an >illegal request from some congressman to deliver a key can their >budget by cut to punish them? Will congress be forced to fund >them forever? >  The easiest way is a user fee for each clipper chip manufactured. This makes the funding separate from government.  It also has the neat side property that if the chip doesn't catch on, the scheme breaks down, and the government is back to the drawing boards, assuming that they haven't prohibited alternatives in the meantime.  In fact, maybe this should be part of the "official" system. Before the government is allowed to move this past the "experimental" stage, they should have to demonstrate economic viability by mass adoption. The government is very fond of demonstration projects proving feasibility in the use of government funds for social programs--they should have to make a similar feasibility demonstration (on economic viability cum acceptance terms) for this baby as well. Let's put it to the only vote that counts--a marketplace vote among those who have to pay for it.  David
In article <19APR199313020883@charon.gsfc.nasa.gov> paul@charon.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul Olson) writes: >In article <1qnav4$r3l@transfer.stratus.com>, cme@ellisun.sw.stratus.com (Carl Ellison) writes... >>In article <C5LGAz.250@dove.nist.gov> clipper@csrc.ncsl.nist.gov (Clipper Chip Announcement) writes: >>  >>>Further, the Attorney General >> > [ ... good post describing what is in store for us deleted ... ] > >It's also interesting to note that two months ago Rush Limbaugh said that >Clinton would have the "plumbers" out in force shortly.  Clinton and his >henchmen firmly believe in strong ubiquitous government control.  Anytime a >leader believes in that, the leader will use every means possible to retain >that control and take more. > >WE have to take OUR government back.  Otherwise we will end up living in the >equivalent of a high-tech third world dictatorship.  We have to take >responsibility for ourselves, our personal welfare, and our actions.  I totally agree.  But how do you propose we take government back?  They obviously don't listen to the people or want the people to know who is responsibile for what (a person telnetted the site of the Clipper chip release, to see what the entity 'clipper' was, and got a few lists. BUt when another person tried a bit later, the commands were disabled) Does not sound like an Administration that wants to have any accountability or information they don't control given to the people.  The secret development and implimentation of the Clipper Chip decision further backs that up.  You can bet unaurhorized encryption methods and software will be considered 'terrorist tools' and also subject to civil forfeiture, along with the systems that are running it.  YOU WATCH, SEE IF I AM WRONG.  The government is not going to be very cooperative about the people taking it back.  And they have all the resources, unlimited access to the media for propeganda, and almost all the guns (soon to be ALL the guns if Clinton's agenda succeeds)...   Those that do not play ball?  Waco might be a good example of what to expect...  The warrant (just released) stated the reason for the raid was the BDs spent a very large sum for weapons, over an undetermined amount of time.  I don't recall spending a lot of money on guns, etc being illegal ... yet, that is.  Clinton might go down in history as the worst thing to ever happen to the US of A. ... Now to be known as the 'Peoples Socalist Democratic Republic of America'  (PSDRA).  Big Brother is LISTENING!!!  Hail Big Brother... (and Sister...?)  only ten years late!!!
In light of my recent paranoia concerning government proposals, I'd love to see a UNIX-based encryption scheme that:  1) Kept some files encrypted on the host machine (say, all the files in your    home directory) 2) Used a key system that could not be compromised by eavesdropping over a    modem line.  It seems that this would require modifications to a shell program and a way of telling whether a file was encrypted or not, among other things.  I'd love to know about potential security holes in such a system.  Does such a system exist?  If it were made easy-to-use and readily available, I think it would be a Good Thing(tm).  I realize that this would probably just involve putting a nice front-end on a readily available and very secure encryption scheme, but it should be done.
In <strnlghtC5wHo2.1FK@netcom.com> David Sternlight writes: >In the Clipper case, a representative body of experts is going to be allowed >to audit it, and we'll have assurances (maybe even from the President) that >other than the escrowed keys there are no back doors. While some may not >have confidence in that (I am not among them)
From article <1993Apr22.145106.158@cathy.ijs.si>, by Borut.B.Lavrencic@ijs.si: > In article <gradyC5unp0.D21@netcom.com>,  > grady@netcom.com (1016/2EF221) writes: [...] >> The most popular cipher systems in captured soviet spies was >> the one-time pad, even with the necessity of keeping incriminating >> evidence about, is known to be the only proven unbreakable system. >> Soviet paranoia, right? >>  >> And what do you think the NSA does with its Wullenwebers?  And  >> huge Rhombics pointed embassy row?  And their sites near >> satellite uplink and downlink sites?  Duh. [...] > One case of Slovenian paranoia. >  > Once upon a time a tried to walk over the (famous) Marathon field, not far away  > from Athens. I could not do that mostly becouse the field is now a huge  > antenna farm. Probably a Greek COMINT installation, would you agree?   Are you sure that the field is in the area you found the antenna farm?  The tomb ("Ymvos") of Marathon which Herodotus specifies as near the fighting area is in an area open to the public.  You must be referring to the U.S. army base of "Nea Makri".  It was built by the U.S. in the same manner as bases all over the world (W. Germany, Spain, Philippines, Turkey etc.) were built.  I think it was a telecommunications hub.  Over the recent years U.S. forces have withdrawn from the base and removed all military equipment.  The area is currently under the control of the Greek Navy until the all interested parties (local goverment, central goverment, political parties agree on what should be done with the land (park, recreation area, real-estate.)  (This has nothing to do with cryptography, security and the EFF; I have redirected followups to soc.culture.greek)  Diomidis
>What are the assurances the escrow people will not be FORBIDDEN to >report any access attempts for one's keys?
In <1993Apr23.153320.4568@henson.cc.wwu.edu> n9045178@henson.cc.wwu.edu (Sean Dean) writes:  >But I have no idea of a Compuserve e-mail address...  70277.2502@compuserve.com
My original post was:  >I am building an oracle v6 database to serve as a repository for >information which is considered proprietary or confidential. As such >I want to verify the security of oracle passwords and apply some of >the same security checking techniques we use on our *nix systems. >Specifically I would like to use Crack, or something like it to check >the encrypted data for easily guessed passwords. > >The use of 'Crack' would depend on oracle using the unix password >encryption scheme, does anyone know if this is the case, or what >method is used? > >Any other methods for security checking / audit in the oracle >environment would be much appreciated.  This article will just scratch the surface of a few security considerations, comments are requested. (email: fw@world.std.com) My thanks to the people who responded, both on usenet and from Oracle Corp.  The most common response was to suggest use of oracle audit  features or OPS$ passwords to control access (opinion on OPS$ included suggestions to use and not use). I was also advised to  use table views to refine the granularity of access control.  One important security consideration in networked installations is that OPS$ accounts presume that the client host provides user authentication. Os/2 server OPS$ users are only as secure as the  _least_ secure machine on the network. Hence you should probably  not define any OPS$ accounts on systems with PC's, or limit access  of OPS$ accounts to data with no security concerns. Unix oracle  servers provide for disabling OPS$ access over the network (orasrv option), while relying on host security for local processes.   Internally Oracle provides powerful and well documented (sic)  audit mechanisms which the DBA will use to monitor system and data access. These tools can be used to track the primary security risks from within the Oracle environment.  Oracle password security is based on a proprietary usage of DES encryption. Oracle Corp. states that the algorithm is not prone to cleartext attack. This is a difficult claim to substantiate  since the algorithm is unknown. The concern here is that if users  choose easily guessed passwords. _If_ a cracker can gain access  to your oracle database files through the host operating system,  s/he could extract the 'cyphertext' password data and apply  cryptanalysis techniques to learn the users passwords.  As security risks go, the above scenario is pretty low severity. Certainly once an intruder has access to the raw database files, s/he can access to the data in them. If a cracker _could_ break  the passwords, however, s/he could do substantial damage without alerting the auditing mechanism's, and leaving and audit trail which would point to valid users. At present Oracle (like Unix) provides no native means of ensuring that passwords are not  guessable.   As with all computer security, the most important defense is to  educate users in the safe choice of passwords. These techniques are well discussed in internet rfc#1281 and the Crack manual,  (both available from ftp archive servers) and, UNIX(R) System  Security (Curry, David A. - Addison-Welsey 1992)
In article <2073@rwing.UUCP> pat@rwing.UUCP (Pat Myrto) writes: :If the Clinton Clipper is so very good, why not make its algrithm public :so many people can exchange ideas and examine it, rather than a few :isolated 'respected experts' (respected by whom?  for what?  Perhaps a :certain professor who likes key banks would be one of the selected :experts... this does seem to expand on some ideas the person was :advocating, if I recall :-).  How would anybody know that what the  Actually, I am *completely* baffled by why Dorothy Denning has chosen to throw away her academic respectability like this.  It looks to me like a *major* Career Limiting Move.  There can be very few people who know what she's been saying who take her seriously any more.  I wonder if she landed such a fat fee from cooperation with the NSA in the design and propoganda stages that she doesn't care any more?
In article <strnlghtC6BJDw.MID@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes: >Part of the basis for my belief is that we [NSA] have more people, spend much >more money, and have much better hardware than anyone else.  The same could be said for many other goverment agencies, but big budgets, large staffs, and long lead time haven't made many of them into models of effectiveness.  The fact is that those of us outside the inner circles have only James Bamford's word that the people at the NSA use those legendary masses of computers for anything other than reading netnews, like many of us.  The NSA *doesn't* have an impressive record of accomplishments, at least not a public record.  >David Sternlight		  Great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of >						  our information, errors and omissions excepted.
Ben Liberman (ben@genesis.MCS.COM) wrote: : What if clipper is fairly secure but leaves a distinct clipper signature... : that is, what if it's not too difficult to tell that a msg. was clipper : encrypted, even if you can't tell the contents?  In that case, anyone  : who is trying to hide behind anther encryption scheme will stand out : from all of the other traffic and raise a red flag to the NSA, etc.  I think the obvious answer (which may have been posted, but I haven't seen it) is to encrypt your data with some other scheme, then run it through clipper.  The only way the police will be able to detect the other encryption is through a wiretap, so even if they do notice with an illegal wiretap, I have a hard time seeing a judge issuing a warrant for a search to "confiscate" the illegal scheme (assuming that at one day, it comes to this; a worse case) based on an illegal wiretap.  Then again, maybe I am an idealist.  :>  : 	------------    --------    ---------------------- : 	Ben Liberman    INTERNET    ben@genesis.MCS.COM : 	                            ben@tai.chi.il.us
In article <Apr18.194927.17048@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> holland@CS.ColoState.EDU (douglas craig holland) writes: >	With E-Mail, if they can't break your PGP encryption, they'll just >call up one of their TEMPEST trucks and read the electromagnetic emmisions >from your computer or terminal.  Note that measures to protect yourself from >TEMPEST surveillance are still classified, as far as I know.  Note that TEMPEST is the name of the shielding standard.  TEMPEST is not the name of the surveillance technique.
In article <1993Apr22.134214.18517@rick.dgbt.doc.ca> jhan@debra.dgbt.doc.ca (Jerry Han) writes:  >   In this giant bally-ho over this Clipper chip I noticed a rather >   disturbing trend in some of the E-mail and posts I've tossing back and >   forth.    Me too. A tendency on the part of some people to hide their head in the sand.  >   The reason is very simple:  How many people do you want to die in a riot?  >   In a new Civil War?   How many people do you want jailed for their convictions, for their insistence on real privacy? Why sit by quietly while the preconditions for a real civil war are put in place by a short-sighted government.  >   Everybody is jumping up and down and screaming about it, and I'm worried >   that people are going to reach for their hammers and rifles before their pens >   and paper.    The terminal is mightier than the pen :)  >   Can people work within the system before trying to break it?  Examine your >   history books, and find out how many armed revolutions led to Democratic >   (or Democratic style) governments.  I think you'll only find one in over >   five thousand years of written history.  Really? I guess you mean the U.S. revolution. How about England, India, Mexico, France, Holland....  >   That's not very good odds.    You are misinformed. But this whole issue is off the topic.  >   Somebody once said something like: "Armed Violence is meant only to be >   used in response to an armed attack.  It is not meant to be used in >   agression.  This is the difference between self-defence and murder."  When the cops kick in your door for using PGP, tell them that. All we're doing here is exercising our (so-called, rapidly narrowing) right to free speech.   >   I'm probably overreacting.  But what I've read scared me a lot.  I don't >   want my children growing up in a War Zone.  Perhaps you should talk to the government about that. Or are you a disciple of David "The cops are our FRIENDS" Sternlight?  The implied threat of the illegalization of private crypto, the not-so-subtle subtext of the clipper announcement, is what worries me. I don't want my children growing up in a police state.  -Rens  **Disclaimer: all opinions herein are mine and mine alone, and do not               necessarily represent those of any organization with               which I may be affiliated.