waashk/20ng huggingface dataset:
In article <C5y746.73K@vcd.hp.com> johne@vcd.hp.com (John Eaton) writes: <Paul Robichaux (robichau@lambda.msfc.nasa.gov) wrote: <:  <: As a private citizen, I would feel much more "secure in my person and <: papers" knowing that an organization committed to individual civil <: liberties- the ACLU and the NRA come to mind- was safeguarding half of <: my key. Both the ACLU and the NRA are resistent to government pressure <: by the simple expedient fact that they are not supported, funded, or <: overtly controlled by the government. <: -------------------------- <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?  Congress isn't forced to do ANYTHING.  Not even follow their own rules, if it isn't expedient.  If caught with their collective pants down, they make some funny noises, perhaps crucify a skapegoat or two, then continue business as usual.  I notice those senators involved with the S&L Scandal weren't hurt too much, if at all.  DeConcini's personal stake in suppliers to those big Aerostats hasn't affected his credibility at all, inside Congress, at least.  He is still pushing his police state agenda...  <The problem is that laws can change. Congress may pass a law setting <up an escrow agency with instructions that keys are private. Some <future congress may change that law. Suppose pre-nazi Germany had <a clipper system. Do you think the escrow agencies would have <told Hitler that he could not have the keys without a valid  <court order?  It will be like the old saw in New Jersey and New York, Chicago, etc when the politicians PROMISED that this spiffy new gun registration law will NOT be used for future confiscation purposes.  Sure enough, a few years later, when they WERE used JUST FOR THAT PURPOSE, and folks complained, the response was "Well, *I* didn't make that promise..." Some politicians may not even wait a few years...  Escrowed keys would have the same assurances of security.  Besides, if someone wants to snoop, how are YOU to know - you don't think they will send you a letter saying "We are now snooping on your private conversations...", do you? What are the assurances the escrow people will not be FORBIDDEN to report any access attempts for one's keys?  So much for government assurances of privacy.  <In effect you must set up escrow agencies as a fourth branch of <the goverment and isolate them from any outside interferance.  <They will be able to directly tap into Federal funds with no <accountability to anyone except through a court challenge.  How?  The Feds will just change the law, or just ignore it.  Nothing new here...  They got the muscle, the resources, the guns...  As an aside, since export of crypto is verboten because of ITAR, shouldn't the Second Amendment also come into play here?  <John Eaton <!hp-vcd!johne
I recently published a new privacy-protecting off-line electronic cash system as a technical report at CWI. Being a PhD-student at David Chaum's cryptography-group, our group has a long history in research in the field of privacy-protecting cash systems.  The report is called CS-R9323.ps.Z, contains 77 pages, and can be retrieved from  ftp.cwi.nl   (192.16.184.180)  from the directory pub/CWIreports/AA. The postscript-file is suitable for 300dpi laserprinters.  ==================================================================== ABSTRACT (from coverpage): We present a new off-line electronic cash system based on a problem, called the representation problem, of which little use has been made in literature thus far. Our system is the first to be based entirely on discrete logarithms.  Using the representation problem as a basic concept, some techniques are introduced that enable us to construct protocols for withdrawal and payment that do not use the cut and choose methodology of earlier systems. As a consequence, our cash system is much more efficient in both computation and communication complexity than any such system proposed previously.    Another important aspect of our system concerns its provability. Contrary to previously proposed systems, its correctness can be mathematically proven to a very great extent. Specifically, if we make one plausible assumption concerning a single hash-function, the ability to break the system seems to imply that one can break the Diffie-Hellman problem.     Our system offers a number of extensions that are hard to achieve in previously known systems. In our opinion the most interesting of these is that the entire cash system (including all the extensions) can be incorporated in a setting based on wallets with observers, which has the important advantage that double-spending can be prevented in the first place, rather than detecting the identity of a double-spender after the fact. In particular, it can be incorporated even under the most stringent requirements conceivable about the privacy of the user, which seems to be impossible to do with previously proposed systems. Another benefit of our system is that framing attempts by a bank have negligible probability of success (independent of computing power) by a simple mechanism from within the system, which is something that previous solutions lack entirely. Furthermore, the basic cash system can be extended to checks, multi-show cash and divisibility, while retaining its computational efficiency. ====================================================================  Cryptographers are challenged to try to break this system!    I made a particular effort to keep the report as self-contained as possible.  Nevertheless, if you have any questions, please e-mail to me and I will try to reply as good as I can. Any comments are also welcome!  Stefan Brands,
In article <116530@bu.edu>, uni@acs.bu.edu (Shaen Bernhardt) writes:  |> I am a conserveative believe it or not.  A law and order conserveative. |> But the move to a centralized authoratarian regime really scares me, |> mostly because I know you cant go far wrong underestimating the |> intelligence of the American people.  Tell them it's going to keep |> them safe from drug dealers and terrorists, and they will let you |> put cameras in their home.   There is one point I'd like to make, that most people seem to have forgotten. That is that one of the underlining principles in the Constitution is a DISTRUST of governmental authority and control. All those "checks & balances" is because they realize that you should distrust those in power. What everyone seems to have forgotten as well is the original reason that the Bill of Rights guaranteed the right to bear arms. It's inclusion was not to allow you to protect yourself against other citizens, but to prevent the government from taking away your only means of protecting yourself from an armed and aggressive government. Its hard to oppress your citizenry when its armed against you.  I am not a fanatic, I'm a retired Naval officer. Because I have spent so much time defending it, perhaps I understand its "purpose" as well as its "plan".
In article <15469@optilink.COM> brad@optilink.COM (Brad Yearwood) writes: >Finally, because there is essentially no possibility of intercepting in >realtime the scrutable content of communications between stolen instruments, >there will exist strong motivation to record and archive _all_ communications >in the network for ex-post-facto scrutiny (once some criminal act is >discovered, and the instruments involved have been identified).  It seems likely to me that that a large subset of encrypted communications would be archived to tape so they could be read if sometime in the future probable cause arises and a warrant is obtained.  I can even imagine this being found legal and constitutional, since nothing is actually listened to until a valid warrant is issued and the keys are obtained.  Imagine archiving all pay-phone conversations, so if someone turns out to be a drug dealer, you can listen to all their past drug deals.  And archive calls to/from suspected Mafia members, potential terrorists, radicals, etc.  Imagine the convenience for the police of being able to get a warrant now and listening to all the calls the World Trade Center bombers made in the past year.  Since archiving would be such a powerful tool and so easy to do, why wouldn't it happen?
In <strnlghtC5nrHw.1qB@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:  >In article <115863@bu.edu> uni@acs.bu.edu (Shaen Bernhardt) writes:  >> >>I wish I could agree with you.  Ask yourself this.  Why would any private >>sector entity wish to buy a crypto system that was KNOWN to be at least >>partially compromised? (Key escrows in this instance)  Why would any >>private sector entity wish to buy a crypto system that had not been properly >>evaluated?  (i.e. algorythm not publically released) >>The answer seems obvious to me, they wouldn't.  There is other hardware out >>there not compromised.  DES as an example (triple DES as a better one.)  >What follows is my opinion. It is not asserted to be "the truth" so no >flames, please.  It comes out of a background of 20 years as a senior >corporate staff executive in two Fortune 50 companies.  No wonder American businesses are going down the tubes! :-|  >I'd be happy to use a crypto system supplied by the NSA for business, if >they told me it was more secure than DES, and in particular resistant to >attempts by Japanese, French, and other competitive companies and >governments to break.  (It's NIST, not NSA.  NSA is not supposed to have anything to do with this.) They didn't say that.  They said is was better than some commercial-grade encryptions.  I, for one, wouldn't trust them if they did, unless they release the algorithm for investigation.  >I'd be happy to do so even with escrowed keys, provided I was happy about >the bona fides of the escrow agencies (the Federal Reserve would certainly >satisfy me, as would something set up by one of the big 8 accounting firms).  Maybe the ACLU and EFF.  (It would have to be a non-profit, so the big 8 would be out.)  >I'd trust the NSA or the President if they stated there were no trap >doors--I'd be even happier if a committee of independent experts examined >the thing under seal of secrecy and reported back that it was secure.  I wouldn't trust the NSA.  I think I would trust the President on this, but I'm not certain he would be told.  >I'd trust something from the NSA long before I'd trust something from some >Swiss or anybody Japanese.  That's your problem.  >This may seem surprising to some here, but I suggest most corporations would >feel the same way. Most/many/some (pick one) corporations have an attitude >that the NSA is part of our government and "we support our government", as >one very famous CEO put it to me one day.  I want to emphasize the I am not speaking for Beckman Instruments at this point.  However, we are an international company, and I would like to think that our customers come first, ahead of our government's whims.
One presumes the system could work as follows:  a) Blank clips are manufactured by Mykotronx and VLSI.  The number produced is carefully audited and they are shipped to the first escrow house.  It programs the chips with its half the key, and prints out a paper slip with the key half and non-secret chip serial number.   The reams of paper are filed in locked boxes in the vault, a fuse is burnt in the chip so that the key is now unreadable.  The chip then goes to the next escrow house, where the same thing is done.  This continues through N escrow houses, perhaps, could be more than 2.  The last one provides the chip to the cellular phone maker.  And yes, this has to be a public key system or it would be almost impossible to handle.  It might not be RSA, but that does not mean that PKP doesn't get paid.  Until 1997, PKP has the patent on the general concept of public key encryption, as well as the particular implementation known as RSA.
In article <1993Apr26.104320.10398@infodev.cam.ac.uk> rja14@cl.cam.ac.uk (Ross Anderson) writes: >whughes@lonestar.utsa.edu (William W. Hughes) writes: [ideas that are claimed not to work deleted...]  How about putting your system inside a faraday cage?  Even I could build one... /Jim
>As for my impressions of the whole scheme It seems that instead of trying to >ban strong crypto, they are trying to co-opt it. Their contention that they  >need to keep the algorythm secret to protect the security of the key >registration suggests possible inherent weakness to the algorythm. More likely >is that they dont want anyone constructing black market devices which dont  >have the keys registered. Anyone else notice that in their Q&A session, they  Preventing black market chips w/non-escrowed keys IS exactly what they mean by protecting the security of the key escrow system.  There are two parts to the security of such a system:        (a) Preventing decruption by unauthorized personel     (b) Assuring that the gummit can always decrypt clipper         traffic when it authorizes itself to do so.  Of course, the ministry of propoganda will do a lot of tallking about (a) and very little about (b).                                          rob boudrie                                         rboudrie@chpc.org
In article <WCS.93Apr17034914@rainier.ATT.COM>, wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (Bill Stewart +1-908-949-0705) writes: |>    The Attorney General will procure and utilize encryption devices to |>    the extent needed to preserve the government's ability to conduct |>    lawful electronic surveillance and to fulfill the need for secure |>    law enforcement communications.  Further, the Attorney General |>    shall utilize funds from the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture |>    Super Surplus Fund to effect this purchase.  This is a very curious thing to say. STU-IIIs (NSA-designed secure telephones cleared for classified traffic) are already readily available to law enforcement agencies. Word has it they're standard in every FBI office, for example.  Something like several hundred thousand of these phones exist in all. They are clearly the US government standard.  So why does the DoJ need to buy new phones that, unlike STU-IIIs, will not be certified for classified traffic, and in all likelihood will not be compatible with existing STU-IIIs?  Unless, of course, they're gearing up for large scale decryption of civilian Clipper users, and they need compatible hardware...
Date: 19 Apr 93 19:57:21 GMT    From: jhart@agora.rain.com (Jim Hart)     "Simply?" "Everyone" should have this attitude?   The only people    who can have this attitude are the most hard-core    computer hackers, who never make phone calls away from their    computer
> Though I think this an overstatement, it does contain a grain of truth. It's  >drug dealers, spies, terrorists, and organized crime figures (assuming  >enough probable cause to convince a judge) who need to be watched, not  >law-abiding citizens.
I am a new reader of sci.crypt I would like to obtain a copy of a public domain program that can encrypt files, preferably using DES, that runs under MS-DOS.  I would also like to obtain a program which will password protect floppy disks, if this is possible.  Thanks.
Gee, I guess they should also have such a repository for house keys, car keys, safety deposit keys, ... :-(  rdl
i don't have FTP and i live in canada ( this means that it would be  illeagle for a U.S. citizen to send the program to me. their gigerment  wishes to restrict its dispersil ) but someone in europe must have ported  a coppy of RSA to the atariST by now.  how do i get a coppy of the RSA  from a non-FTP news feed?
In article <johnson.735023704@trwacs>, johnson@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Steve Johnson) writes: > brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) writes: >>And of course you have to identify yourself to the phone company, and >>since the phone company complies with court orders, they will know the >>magic number of your chip when they sign out a warrant on you, and >>then can present the warrant to the key escrow house.   Lets hope. Years ago a Telecom tech refused to tap a line unless he saw the  warrant. The managment type who told him to do it fired him. The appeal against the dismissal was lost.  >   Who makes them forget and destroy all copies of the key once they've > decided you're not a criminal today?  Just curious.  Good luck.
One of the candidates that has been suggested for a key registration body is the ACLU.  I think this is poor choice.   The ACLU is essentially a group of auditors: they audit how people's civil liberties are administered.  Traditionally, auditors do not like to get involved in the design or operational aspects of things, and with good reason.  When I was a systems programmer, it always infuriated me that the auditors would come in and tell us our implementation stunk from a security point of view, but wouldn't tell us how to fix it.  I always figured they just liked to critcize, without doing the work to help fix the problem.  Then I took a stint as an auditor, and I found out the real reason. Auditors don't like to recommend solutions, because it puts them in a bad position if they have to criticize the implementation later.  The auditee can say, "Well, you told us this way would be OK."  It compromises the independence that is a necessary part of the auditor's job.  Taking the case at hand, suppose ACLU becomes a key half registrar. Suppose that, perhaps through some error on ACLU's part, a key half gets away that shouldn't, and is used to deprive someone of her civil liberties.  The ACLU gets wind of this, and wants to take it to court. But they end up being at the same time on the side of the defendant and of the plaintiff, which is not an easy position to be in.  There are exceptions to the complete independence of auditors: at one place where I worked, when payroll checks were printed, they were signed automatically by a signature drum on the bursting machine.  This drum was kept by the auditors (who also kept the check stock), and was brought down to Data Processing when it was time to do the checks.  I believe the difference between this situation and the key registration situation is that it is fairly obvious when it is time to do the payroll checks:  if they were done yesterday, and someone wants to do them again today, he better be able to produce yesterday's checks so that they can be destroyed.  Determining which of the many requests for key halves are legit is a trickier process, one much more prone to mistakes that could put the ACLU in a protecting-the-client versus protecting-the-ACLU conflict of interest.  As always, my opinions are my own.
In article <930419182442.669507@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL>, Grant@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL (Lynn R Grant) writes: |> If we do not trust the NSA to be a registrar of Clipper Chip key halves, |> I would not trust Mitre either.   I wouldn't trust Mitre  for another reason:  remember "The Cuckoo's Egg"?  How great was their security, eh?  NSA - well, with the list of known "turncoats", does it make you wonder how many more unknown  still are there?  (:-) (:-( --  Regards, Uri. 	  uri@watson.ibm.com	 scifi!angmar!uri
In article <strnlghtC5wC3z.Erw@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes: > >psionic@wam.umd.edu, whose parenthesized name is either an unfortunate >coincidence or casts serious doubt on his bona fides, posts a message in >which he seems willing to take the word of a private firm about which he >knows little that their new encryption algorithm is secure and contains no >trapdoors, while seemingly distrusting that of the government about clipper.  I have a couple reasons why I would be more likely to trust this algorithm: 	1. The algorithm will be made totally public, once it is patented. 	2. The keys will NOT be escrowed. Of course if either of these is not true, I will not use this new algorithm. Since I have never seen this new algorithm, I have no idea how secure it is yet.  >I suppose it depends on how paranoid one wishes to be, but how does the >writer know the firm isn't, for example, an NSA front? For purposes of this >message, how do we know "psionic" isn't? > >I don't suggest that, but post this to point out that there is a class of >speculation that has no more truth value, without lots of hard evidence, >than the contrary one. > >By the way, if "psionic" had said, in lower case letters, that the firm >CLAIMS there was no back door, I'd have no problem with that phrasing. > I can't make any judgements about the algorithm itself yet, but I do notice that the creators of this algorithm are being more open about how the thing works, and is willing to make it public, showing that after a bit of scrutiny, any weaknesses will probably be revealed, while we don't know about Clipper.  Doug Holland
The Clipper Chip will have no effect.  Current generation PCs, portable and desktop, all have analog voice -> digital voice and vice versa capabilities.  So, I only need a modem output to the telephone, and I can interpose any encryption screen on my voice traffic I want.  Not even a big deal, but it will pass muster if the have a way of checking whether I am using their Clipper Chip encryption without a full decoding.  I have been chided for stating that Dorthy Denning was intellectually dishonest in the ACM debate and in this newsgroup.  I have previously refrained from suggesting that she is arguing on behalf of consulting clients.  Now, I say that it is clear that Dorthy Denning has been functioning as a lobbyist, not a computer scientist.  She has used legal ethics (truth is what you can convince anyone of), not scientific ethics (truth is understanding the external world).  Maybe we can revoke her ACM membership? 8)  Lew
The cryptographic algorythm MUST be kept secret, or private individuals could make ClipperClones with which they could transmit messages which the feds would not have ready access to.  This is clearly unacceptable.
Quoting pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) in article <1993Apr21.012011.27470@shearson.com>: >Whats the difference between a V.32bis modem and a V.32bis modem?  How fast do the fastest modems go?  How far can voice be compressed?
shirriff@sprite.berkeley.edu (Ken Shirriff) writes:  >It seems likely to me that that a large subset of encrypted communications >would be archived to tape so they could be read if sometime in the future >probable cause arises and a warrant is obtained.  I can even imagine this >being found legal and constitutional, since nothing is actually listened to >until a valid warrant is issued and the keys are obtained.  >Imagine archiving all pay-phone conversations, so if someone turns out >to be a drug dealer, you can listen to all their past drug deals.  And >archive calls to/from suspected Mafia members, potential terrorists, >radicals, etc.  Imagine the convenience for the police of being able to >get a warrant now and listening to all the calls the World Trade Center >bombers made in the past year.  Imagine if this were available during the 1992 elections; instead of clumsily searching through the Clinton passport file, they could have  just done a "voice-grep" (as someone stated earlier) on his telephone conversations for the last 10 years.  I'm not a lawyer and I don't even play one on TV, but intuitively there's something wrong with having one's words archived for possible future use against you.  This possibility frightens me more than any of the talk about the Clipper Chip, right to cryptography, etc.  >Since archiving would be such a powerful tool and so easy to do, why >wouldn't it happen?  I'm afraid it just might.  -nhy  --