Cryptography-Digest Digest #196, Volume #13 Tue, 21 Nov 00 06:13:00 EST
Contents:
Re: A Simple Voting Procedure (David Schwartz)
Re: A Simple Voting Procedure (David Schwartz)
Re: A Simple Voting Procedure (Paul Rubin)
Re: A Simple Voting Procedure (Paul Rubin)
Re: A Simple Voting Procedure (David Wagner)
Re: A Simple Voting Procedure (David Wagner)
Re: A Simple Voting Procedure (David Wagner)
Re: A Simple Voting Procedure (David Wagner)
Re: Cryptogram Newsletter is off the wall? (Benjamin Goldberg)
Re: XOR: A Very useful and important utility to have (Richard Heathfield)
Re: DES assistance, please? ("kihdip")
Re: A Simple Voting Procedure (Jon Haugsand)
Archives ? (Mark Harrop)
Re: vote buying... (Paul Rubin)
Re: More about big block ciphers (Manuel Pancorbo)
Re: Archives ? (Dido Sevilla)
Re: The SHAs (Vernon Schryver)
Re: Question regarding OS's. (Paul Crowley)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Simple Voting Procedure
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 19:13:23 -0800
Paul Rubin wrote:
>
> David Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > You can have a system where the voter both can and cannot provide help.
> > Consider, for example, a system where the voter gets an electronic
> > receipt which he can either keep or throw out. Or you can have a system
> > where there are 'dummy' receipts that look genuine in all ways to
> > officials and wherein a voter can produce a dummy or the real receipt
> > and an official couldn't tell which is which. So just because the voter
> > can help if he chooses to, it does not follow that the voter can be
> > compelled to help.
>
> Huh? What are receipts like that good for?
I don't understand why you won't answer my question. I'd be happy to
debate this issue with you, but I'd also like the answer to my question.
> Dudley Do-right (good guy) and Snidely Whiplash (bad guy) have an
> election. Dudley wins by a 3-vote margin. 1000 of Snidely's
> supporters get together with their dummy receipts and go on TV saying
> the election was rigged. They produce their dummy receipts that show
> they voted for Snidely and yet the official rolls (when decrypted by
> the dummy receipts, which they claim are real receipts) show they
> voted Snidely.
>
> Receipts that don't prove anything aren't worth anything.
The receipt would prove that some particular voter voted some
particular way (assuming the signature on them checked). So if you could
produce 1,500 receipts for Dudley Do-right and you know there were only
1,300 dummy receipts issued for Dudley, you'd know that some 300 people
voted for him, but not which. You could then check all 1,500 of the code
numbers on those receipts and make sure they showed up counted under
Dudley.
So they do prove something -- that either someone voted for that
candidate or there's a dummy vote outstanding for that candidate. But
they don't even prove that anyone voted for him and much less do they
prove who voted for him.
But I really didn't want to get into another round of refuting
arguments from lack of imagination. I really wanted an answer to my
question -- do you have an objection to a system where an election
official and a voter can, with mutual consent, establish how a voter
voted and whether his vote was correctly tabuluated for the candidate he
voted for?
DS
------------------------------
From: David Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Simple Voting Procedure
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 19:14:54 -0800
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> David Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > What a non-sequiter! Who said the voter can't trivially make
> himself
> > unable to help if he wants to? Can you please answer the question I'm
> > asking.
>
> How about this.
>
> Captain of the Guard comes knocking on your door, points a gun at your
> head and politely requests your assistance is solving whether or not
> you voted a particular way. If you voted wrong he'll shoot you, if you
> refuse to cooperate he'll shoot you. I personally would not want it to
> be possible to forcibly coerse someone like that. Also if you cannot
> prove how you voted, someone cannot reliably buy your vote.
> Joe
They can do that now. The Captain can insist you present a photograph
of yourself filling out the ballot. Of course, you may not have made a
photograph.
Besides, you can always present someone else's receipt. The Captain has
no way of telling whose receipt that is. One could even create any
number of dummy receipts for that purpose.
In any event, this wasn't what this thread was about. This is a
irrelevant tangent. This thread was about establishing requirements, not
about figuring out how to meet them.
DS
------------------------------
From: Paul Rubin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Simple Voting Procedure
Date: 20 Nov 2000 19:35:20 -0800
David Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> They can do that now. The Captain can insist you present a photograph
> of yourself filling out the ballot. Of course, you may not have made a
> photograph.
No he can't (unless you voted by absentee ballot). You normally vote
in an enclosed voting booth and cameras are not allowed in the polling
areas. Also, we're assuming the election was honestly conducted and
the Captain didn't come into power until sometime later.
In most states, absentee voting is nominally permitted only if you're
unable (not just unwilling) to vote at the polls, but more and more
people are voting absentee just as a convenience (avoid standing in
line etc). This is bad.
------------------------------
From: Paul Rubin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Simple Voting Procedure
Date: 20 Nov 2000 19:36:33 -0800
David Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> But I really didn't want to get into another round of refuting
> arguments from lack of imagination. I really wanted an answer to my
> question -- do you have an objection to a system where an election
> official and a voter can, with mutual consent, establish how a voter
> voted and whether his vote was correctly tabuluated for the candidate he
> voted for?
Yes, I object to that. I've already told you that at least three times,
and explained the reason.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Wagner)
Subject: Re: A Simple Voting Procedure
Date: 21 Nov 2000 03:56:45 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Wagner)
David Schwartz wrote:
> Your answer didn't address my question about whether an official could
>or couldn't pair a vote with the voter WITH THAT VOTERS HELP.
Yes it did! See the vote buying thread. If a voter can reveal
his vote, he can sell his vote...
If revealing a voter's vote is an extremely public process, then
this may deter vote buying. But special precautions surely have
to be taken.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Wagner)
Subject: Re: A Simple Voting Procedure
Date: 21 Nov 2000 03:58:14 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Wagner)
David Schwartz wrote:
> You can have a system where the voter both can and cannot provide help.
>Consider, for example, a system where the voter gets an electronic
>receipt which he can either keep or throw out. Or you can have a system
>where there are 'dummy' receipts that look genuine in all ways to
>officials and wherein a voter can produce a dummy or the real receipt
>and an official couldn't tell which is which. So just because the voter
>can help if he chooses to, it does not follow that the voter can be
>compelled to help.
Yes, it's an interesting idea. But this does seem hard to implement.
Note that it is NOT ok if your proposed voting system has the property
that it allows a voter to change his vote after the fact. This makes
it substantially harder to implement the `dummy' receipt notion above.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Wagner)
Subject: Re: A Simple Voting Procedure
Date: 21 Nov 2000 03:58:27 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Wagner)
David Schwartz wrote:
> Now, the question I'm asking is, is there any objection to a system
>where the voter and an official can, with mutual consent, determine how
>the voter voted?
Yes. Vote buying.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Wagner)
Subject: Re: A Simple Voting Procedure
Date: 21 Nov 2000 04:00:11 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Wagner)
David Schwartz wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> Captain of the Guard comes knocking on your door, points a gun at your
>> head and politely requests your assistance is solving whether or not
>> you voted a particular way. If you voted wrong he'll shoot you, if you
>> refuse to cooperate he'll shoot you. I personally would not want it to
>> be possible to forcibly coerse someone like that. Also if you cannot
>> prove how you voted, someone cannot reliably buy your vote.
>
> They can do that now. The Captain can insist you present a photograph
>of yourself filling out the ballot. Of course, you may not have made a
>photograph.
But people today don't routinely take such photographs.
In your proposal, people would routinely generate such receipts.
This makes a difference. After-the-fact attacks are important to
defend against.
------------------------------
From: Benjamin Goldberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Cryptogram Newsletter is off the wall?
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 06:16:31 GMT
David Crick wrote:
>
> Roger Schlafly wrote:
> >
> > A lot of paper contracts have these problems. Yes, I have signed
> > paper contracts that I have never read, and most other people
> > have also. Almost no one read insurance forms, loan agreements,
> > lease agreements, etc.
>
> While I agree with what you are saying, the distinction here is that
> the signer CHOSE not to read the paper contract.
>
> What Bruce is saying, I believe, is that you can THINK you are
> signing what is being presented, but in fact you could be signing
> something different.
>
> I guess it's one of those "cheating attacks" that don't necessarily
> attack the algorithms, etc directly, but uses other, more subtle
> means to achieve the compromise.
Would a paper and ink analogy be slipping a sheet of carbon paper
beneath a contract, and having another, different contract beneath?
Like the potential problem being discussed in electronic signatures, the
enemy isn't actually forging your signature; you are in fact doing the
signing yourself... but you're signing something you did not intend to
sign.
--
There are three methods for writing code in which no bug can be found:
1) Make the code so straightforward that there are obviously no bugs.
2) Make the code so complicated that there are no obvious bugs.
3) Insist that any apparent bugs were really intentional features.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 06:34:30 +0000
From: Richard Heathfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: talk.politics.crypto,alt.hacker,alt.computer
Subject: Re: XOR: A Very useful and important utility to have
Antonio Varni wrote:
>
> Guy Macon wrote:
> >
> > Anthony Stephen Szopa wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >XOR: A Very useful and important utility to have
> > >
> > >A few people in this news group said any XOR program is less than
> > >useless.
> > >
> >
> > Balderdash. What people have said is that *YOUR*
> > XOR program is less than useless. Which it is.
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > [1] It's 156KB zipped. Bloatware Alert! Bloatware Alert!
>
> Exactly. A program to do this XORing can be written in under 20 lines
> in python or perl -- I've seen utilities that do this in C in about 200
> lines. They are all open source.
In fact, at least three and possibly four such programs have been
produced *in this thread* !! Including one written by Andre, one by
proton, was it?, one by me (if you don't count my Windows joke program),
and I think Tom may have done one too.
--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place." - Dennis M Ritchie, 29 July 1999.
C FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
K&R answers, C books, etc: http://users.powernet.co.uk/eton
------------------------------
From: "kihdip" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DES assistance, please?
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 08:18:31 +0100
At page 134 in NIST special publication 800-17, you'll find round results:
http://csrc.nist.gov/nistpubs/800-17.pdf
Kim
------------------------------
From: Jon Haugsand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Simple Voting Procedure
Date: 21 Nov 2000 09:09:53 +0100
* David Schwartz
> Your answer didn't address my question about whether an official could
> or couldn't pair a vote with the voter WITH THAT VOTERS HELP. I don't
> think an oppressive regime could count on its opponents help!
But it can count on its supporters. If all supporters reveale their
votes, what's left is... (Negative information is also information.)
--
Jon Haugsand
Norwegian Computing Center, <http://www.nr.no/engelsk/>
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Pho: +47 22852608 / +47 22852500,
Fax: +47 22697660, Pb 114 Blindern, N-0314 OSLO, Norway
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 19:51:00 +1100
From: Mark Harrop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Archives ?
Hi all....
I am doing a Crypto Uni course and would like access to ALL the archives
from this group, preferably as far back as possible.
Is this possible ?
As I am accessing this group via email, I would appreciate
a reply to my email address if possible.
I really hope you can help, and thanks for your time !
Cheers!
Mark Harrop
[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:>
Moderator of the following Programming Lists:
Send a empty message to:
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------------------------------
From: Paul Rubin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: vote buying...
Date: 21 Nov 2000 00:52:06 -0800
Shawn Willden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> It's interesting to note that the voting schemes we currently use fail this
> test as well. If I want to buy your vote, I just have you request an
> absentee ballot which I fill out for you and mail in. Maybe this isn't an
> important test.
Yes, absentee ballots have been abused more and more in recent
elections, including in vote buying and vote trading schemes. I
believe measures should be taken to curb such abuse. In most states
voting is allowed only if you CAN'T vote at the polls (e.g. you will
be away from your district on election day). But people routinely
ignore this rule and vote absentee to avoid the trip to the polls.
Absentee ballots are also a popular vehicle for fraud. Xavier Juarez
got himself elected mayor of Miami by absentee fraud, and then was
thrown out of office when the fraud was discovered and the absentee
vote was invalidated. (He did not become unemployed though. He was
put in charge of sending out absentee ballots for a certain
Presidential campaign this year, that I guess decided to hire a man
with experience). By cutting down the amount of absentee voting,
the level of practicable fraud can also be reduced.
Apparently under the law, absentee voting is a privilege rather than a
right--I don't think I agree with that, but I can think of some
reforms I'd like to see put in place.
------------------------------
From: Manuel Pancorbo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: More about big block ciphers
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 09:46:28 GMT
In article <8vceh3$a0b$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Tom St Denis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In article <d1fS5.294$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "Manuel Pancorbo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > **** Huge-block cipher BUTTERFLY ****
> >
> > In a previous thread I discussed with some of you about big-block
> ciphers
> > with a feedback stream engine. Now I present my own proposal that I
> name
> > "butterfly". See source code, testvectors, performance test programs
> and so
> > on in:
>
> I already posted why your S0[S1[x xor k) <<< 4] is a bad mixing
> function (when S0/S1 are parallel 8x8 substitutions).
>
> If I misunderstood then I am sorry, but if you are not listening SHAME
> ON YOU!
>
Shame on your eyes or on your news server Tom. I did post an answer to
your objection (11, 17 2000). Again:
<answer> This apply when x is 8-bit and S acts on 8-bits words. But in
this case x is 32-bit and there is 4 8bit-sboxes; so the intermediate
rotation is usefull. </answer>
Of course the mixing is not complete but the cipher is not only its
stream engine but the way this is applied on the packet. Please take a
glance at the source code (bfly.c).
Moreover I performed the Ritter diffusion test on "butterfly" and the
results are those expected for full diffusion encryption.
Manuel Pancorbo.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Dido Sevilla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Archives ?
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 18:00:39 +0800
Mark Harrop wrote:
>
> Hi all....
>
> I am doing a Crypto Uni course and would like access to ALL the archives
> from this group, preferably as far back as possible.
>
> Is this possible ?
>
Try Deja.com. They have archives only all the way to May 1999. There
seems to have been a political shuffle when DejaNews got renamed to
Deja.com, and these archives were removed for some reason obscure to the
public. For older articles from sci.crypt, look at the FTP sites for
the archives listed in the sci.crypt FAQ. However, there has been a
recent posting that says that these archives only go up to 1997, so
there's a gap that's about a couple of years long. And these are
important times. There's been a petition to Deja at:
http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/deja.html
to resurrect the missing archives.
--
Rafael R. Sevilla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> +63 (2) 4342217
ICSM-F Development Team, UP Diliman +63 (917) 4458925
OpenPGP Key ID: 0x0E8CE481
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Vernon Schryver)
Subject: Re: The SHAs
Date: 20 Nov 2000 07:40:02 -0700
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Bob Deblier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Although: Is it Mbytes or Mbits ?
>That's MB(ytes) versus Mb(its). AFAIK these are the standard
>abbreviations.
Yes, but so many people say MB when they mean Mb and vice versa that
everyone with the least experience spells out "Byte" and "bit" except
under rare circumstances where there is no ambiguity.
Vernon Schryver [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Paul Crowley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Question regarding OS's.
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 11:03:13 GMT
Juri wrote:
> Thanks very much for telling me...
> I always wanted to try out unix...since I am
> running nt4 right now. I have used linux a
> little bit and I like what I am seeing.
I don't think there is a "best OS for cryptographers", but in the spirit
of "what toothpaste does Madonna use", there's some OS advocacy on the
home page of one of the AES designers:
http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/~rijmen/index.html
Of course, the fact that I happen to agree in every way doesn't bias me
at all!
--
__
\/ o\ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
/\__/ http://www.cluefactory.org.uk/paul/
------------------------------
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