Cryptography-Digest Digest #674, Volume #13 Sun, 11 Feb 01 08:13:00 EST
Contents:
Re: The Kingdom of God (PennGwyn)
Re: OverWrite freeware completely removes unwanted files from harddrive (Anthony
Stephen Szopa)
Re: OverWrite freeware completely removes unwanted files from hard drive (Anthony
Stephen Szopa)
Re: Purenoise defeats Man In The Middle attack? (David Schwartz)
Re: NPC (Bryan Olson)
Re: CipherText patent still pending (Bryan Olson)
Re: RSA is not secure in many instances... ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: ith bit of an LFSR sequence? (Rob Warnock)
Re: Password authentication with symmetric key exchange
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: CipherText patent still pending (Mok-Kong Shen)
Re: CipherText patent still pending (Mok-Kong Shen)
Re: Scramdisk, CDR and Win-NT (Daniel James)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (PennGwyn)
Crossposted-To: alt.security,comp.security,alt.2600
Subject: Re: The Kingdom of God
Date: 11 Feb 2001 09:21:27 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In article <963tf7$aip$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
>1. When he was on earth, Jesus taught his followers to pray for God's
>Kingdom.
I am unaware of reliable evidence that Jesus was ever on earth, or had
followers, or what he taught them. I am reluctant to assume that you were
present.
>A kingdom is a government that is headed by a king.
I think it would be more accurate to say that a kingdom is a region whose
Head of State is a king OR QUEEN. Recall that in New Testament times, the
"kingdoms" of the Middle East were provinces of the Roman Empire.
A MONARCHY is a government that is headed by a king or queen. A KINGDOM is
not.
>God's Kingdom is a special government. It is set up in heaven and will rule
>over this earth.
This is unprecedented. Monarchies rule over kingdoms; empires encompass
multiple regions which may or may not, individually, be kingdoms.
According to your opening sentence, Jesus' follwers were not taught to pray
for God's monarchy or empire, only for his kingdom -- which, as far as I can
see, can only mean Heaven itself.
>It will sanctify, or make holy, God's name.
So God's name is not ALREADY holy? I'm sure you'll find plenty who have
trouble with THAT blasphemy.
>It will cause God's will to be done on earth as it is done in heaven.
Kingdoms don't "cause" events, either.
>http://www.watchtower.org/library/rq/index.htm
And the relevance to "sci.crypt,alt.security,comp.security,alt.2600" is what,
exactly?
--
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Version: 3.12
GIT/O d+(-) s:+ a? C++(+++) U@ P@ L+ !E W@ N++ o+ K+ w+++<$ !O M+ !V PS++ PE
Y+ PGP@ t@ 5+ X- R++< tv+ b++ DI++ D G+ e++ h---(-) r? y+++(+*)
======END GEEK CODE BLOCK======
------------------------------
From: Anthony Stephen Szopa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.hacker
Subject: Re: OverWrite freeware completely removes unwanted files from harddrive
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 02:11:46 -0800
Andreas Gunnarsson wrote:
>
> [talk.politics.crypto and alt.conspiracy removed from crossposting]
>
> Tom St Denis wrote:
> > I am a student in security and computer science. Could I see your source
> > code? I want to learn how this stuff all works!
>
> On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, Anthony Stephen Szopa wrote:
> > Read the description in the Help Files at http://www.ciphile.com or
> > the instructions with the OverWrite software and read the link that
> > JA Malley posted.
>
> I checked the web pages, but I can't find any description for how the
> program ensures that the multiple overwrites actually take place. There
> are several ways it could fail for a naive implementation:
>
> - The OS may allocate new disk blocks when writing the patterns, leaving
> the old data unaltered
> - The OS may cache the writes, only actually writing the last pattern to
> disk (or not even that if the file is removed afterwards)
> - The SCSI controller may cache the writes
>
> I'm interested in how you've solved this.
>
> Andreas
>
> --
> Andreas Gunnarsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> +46 31 7014268
I don't see what you suggest could happen happening.
Give us a specific example where you have written source code that
says to open a file and write to the file where the computer did not
carry out this instruction.
------------------------------
From: Anthony Stephen Szopa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: talk.politics.crypto,alt.hacker,alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: OverWrite freeware completely removes unwanted files from hard drive
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 02:16:31 -0800
Hit1Hard wrote:
>
> Anthony Stephen Szopa wrote:
> >
>
> > So where are these technological sophisticates: these brain drained
> > mental armchair hackers, now?
> >
>
> They make sure the "crucial" information on the HD is encrypted with
> their own encryption software.
> wich is not placed on the system HD's.
> Oh. And the swapfile is empty.
>
> >
> > Thanks for the grilling.
>
> anytime.
>
> --
> Hit1Hard
You seem to have changed the topic of this thread.
The thread is about overwriting confidential data on a hard drive.
It is a given that there is confidential data on the hard drive
that one desires to make unrecoverable.
Of course, if there is no confidential data on the hard drive then
there would be no need to overwrite confidential data that does not
exist.
Hit one hard for me while you're at it.
------------------------------
From: David Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Purenoise defeats Man In The Middle attack?
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 02:20:56 -0800
Michael Brown wrote:
> However, hasn't it been proved that without prior information known only to
> the two people, MITM attacks are impossible to defeat?
I don't see why this is difficult. Suppose their client software comes
with their server's public key built in. The software itself is sent to
you through an HTTPS connection and is signed with their public key
which is itself certified by a CA. When you talk to the server (which
you know thanks to its key being built into your client), it gives you
the public keys of various different people you want to talk to. Those
people can then prove their identity to you on direct connection. The
MITM can't reproduce their keys.
DS
------------------------------
From: Bryan Olson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: NPC
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 10:31:54 GMT
Peter Shugalev:
> Some materials I have says an interesting thing (but
> now I think of it as a really bad idea). It states that
> current hypothesis is that P=NP*co-NP. But if so, it ruins
> all the cryptography. I tried to contact the author, and
> I'm waiting for reply.
Let us know. That's certainly not what I thought to be
the current best-guess of most experts.
> One more thing: and what about completeness in the class
> NP*co-NP?
Last I checked (several years ago) there were not really
any interesting completeness results. I thought the
classes that theorems could relate were awkwardly
contrived.
> > And so a proof that breaking it is NP-hard would
> > also prove NP!=CoNP.
> Why? The problem could just sit in NP, co-NP (no
> matter if they are equal) and not in P.
Because of a typo, sorry. Of course showing a CoNP
problem (that is, a problem poly-time reducible to
deciding a language that is in CoNP) to be NP-hard
would prove NP=CoNP.
--Bryan
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: Bryan Olson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CipherText patent still pending
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 10:56:35 GMT
Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
>
> Bryan Olson wrote:
[Bryan:]
>>>>> Experts teaching writing say to write every day. I've never
>>>>> heard an expert cryptologist recommend cipher design as an
>>>>> exercise.
[...]
> There seems to be a misunderstanding here due to presumably
> my poor formulation. My quoted sentence above simply
> served as sort of apology for my inability to clearly
> interpret the paragpraph of your previous post. It was
> then followed by my two 'conjectured' interpretations with
> my corresponding responses.
The intended meaning that your analogy,
| But don't you
| see that at schools the pupils are continuing to write
| compositions (after you have left school)? Should they
| stop writing??
was nonsense. Writing is a good exercise, unlike designing
a cipher.
[...]
> I like to take
> the oppotunity to say a few words that are not addressed
> to you ...
No one is in this thread is saying not to answer sincere
questions from newbies or anyone else. What hurts
sci.crypt is the no-nothings giving answers, not asking
questions.
[...]
> > > That's why I am not an expert but only a very humble
> > > learner
> >
> > Then take Schneier's advice. All the experts I know
> > say much the same.
>
> Excepting in educational institutions, learning is a
> process that is influenced/constrained by a number of
> (mostly exterior) factors and each learner has to make
> a good decision as to the way that probably suits him
> the best. My personal opinion ...
If you get some results like Schneier and his team, then
someone might care about your personal opinion.
[...]
> > > However, I haven't sofar seen any
> > > posts in the group on suggestions of new methods of
> > > analysis or improvements of old ones, at least in the
> > > proper sense.
> >
> > Read Wagner, Gillogly, Wooding, Hopwood, Flurer (and
> > others of course, I'm not great with names.)
>
> Sorry, I might have simply gravely overlooked. I don't
> remember to have seen a (really) new method of attack of
> any (respectable) cipher or an (essential) improvement of
> old ones in posts in our group.
Then I recommend you read and study more, and write less.
Of course that's up to you.
[...]
> Since you are an expert [...]
But Mr Shen, you've written so much more on cryptography
than have I.
--Bryan
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: RSA is not secure in many instances...
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 11:14:08 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Douglas A. Gwyn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> You guys lost me. So what is the status of:
> > If c has a small cycle, then m can easily be recovered.
> How likely is it?
I thought you of all people was familiar with Euler's theorem. ;-)
You could, at least in theory, calculate an upper bound for the
propability. It is Sm/phi(pq), where Sm is the sum of all phi(k) for 1
< k < m and gcd(k,pq) = 1, and m is the minimum order of an element
with "large" order (what ever you desire that to be).
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rob Warnock)
Subject: Re: ith bit of an LFSR sequence?
Date: 11 Feb 2001 11:24:55 GMT
[Sorry for the delayed reply...]
David Wagner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
+---------------
| Rob Warnock wrote:
| >David Wagner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
| >| [...] the i-th successor of a state s is x^i * s mod p(x), [...]
| >
| >But you can, of course, use the usual square-and-multiply techniques
| >on the powers of the matrix M, too.
|
| Of course. But multiplying two nxn matrices requires O(n^3) bits
| operations, whereas multiplying two elements of GF(2^n) requires
| O(n^2) bit ops. That's why I predicted that the polynomial method
| may be faster than the matrix method. Did I overlook something?
+---------------
No, I don't think so. I was just exploring a little further an
alternative way of looking at it that I've found useful in the past.
Hmmm... There *is* perhaps one advantage to the matrix method in the
special case that you need to compute many state successors for some
given "i", which is that you only have to compute Mi = M^i once, then
you can use Mi over & over to compute the i'th successor to *any* state
"s" by simply multiplying Mi x s, which only takes n^2 bit ops (if you
consider an AND+XOR as "one op", the way DSP people consider multiply-
and-accumulate as "one op"). This may be useful in some specialized
applications, especially since -- if the power of M is *completely*
fixed -- the entire multiplication can be done in hardware in one clock
cycle [as mentioned before, by writing M^i out as a lattice of XOR gates].
But YMMV...
-Rob
=====
Rob Warnock, 31-2-510 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
SGI Network Engineering <URL:http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/>
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy. Phone: 650-933-1673
Mountain View, CA 94043 PP-ASEL-IA
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Password authentication with symmetric key exchange
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 11:28:30 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Thomas Wu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Perhaps you'd get a better response if you could say how this protocol
> is an improvement over the existing standard strong password
authentication
> protocols like SRP, SPEKE, or PAK, in any way, such as security or
> performance. From glancing at your brief description, it appears to
> use a "public system key", so it doesn't offer any performance
> advantage over the status quo, and it appears to be breakable by an
> eavesdropper with a dictionary.
For short, the server challenges the client with a 64-bit salt, and the
client replies with the correspondingly salted hash value of the
password. The improvement is that Steak is MAC (or rather something
similar) and cipher two-in-one, so you should get a performance
benefit.
Furthermore, since Steak is error propagating and the hash value is
salted, an eavesdropper would not necessarily be helped by a dictionary.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: Mok-Kong Shen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CipherText patent still pending
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 13:10:22 +0100
"Douglas A. Gwyn" wrote:
>
> Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
> > Analysis used to play a fairly strong role in classical
> > crypto literatures. I personally find this deficit in
> > modern textbooks to be deplorable.
>
> Most of the modern textbooks (as opposed to lay introductions)
> cover so-called "linear cryptanalysis" and "differential
> cryptanalysis", as well as "meet-in-the-middle" attacks,
> how to crack the knapsack system, and various simple attacks
> against public-key based protocols. The sad fact is that
> there has been little public progress in effective
> cryptanalysis of most modern ciphers, especially general
> attacks suitable for survey textbooks.
My wish is that the textbooks would devote more spaces
to analysis, thus making the topics easier to be
captured by more readers. (I am aware, though, that there
is also the problem of limitation of the size of books,
imposed by the publishers for sales reasons). It may very
well be due to my low IQ, but I often have the feeling
that the materials do not give me the amount of help I
would have desired.
>
> > ... My personal opinion about analysis is that,
> > while it is a necessary foundation, it is, due to
> > limited total time available, uneconomical to spend
> > all time for the subject to that, trying to attack a
> > very large number of the older ciphers. For it is the
> > essence/principle of the attacks that is to be captured
> > and not the number of successful attacks that is
> > important.
>
> Unfortunately, it is nearly *impossible* to learn some
> of the most important cryptanalytic principles without
> investing hard work into trying to crack actual systems.
> Like many important insights, you have to experience
> satori before you adequately understand; merely being
> told the principles won't resonate properly. I suggest
> working your way up to and through the Zendian problem
> before worrying about more, newer cryptanalytic
> technology. It has a lot to teach via practical
> experience.
Certainly very true. The classical materials should not be
neglected by learners. Further, almost all 'useful' stuffs
in life have to be learned with 'practice' (exercises) and
never never through just taking a glace at them. My point
is merely that, since the accumulation of knowledge goes
sort of exponentially, the learners have increasingly
bigger difficulties to devise an optimal schedule of study.
This applies to ALL branches of sciences, even knowledges
that are commonly not counted under that term. I hope
the following analogy is not incorrect: In mathematics,
logic could be considered to be lying at the foundation
of that field. Yet it would be (because of time) impossible
for a student to gain a very solid foundation of logic
before starting to delve into the other subjects, for
that would have constituted a large portion of his four
or five years time of study. A real story I happened to
know is that once a math prof in a course for first
year students spent an entire(!) semester to deal with
the foundations of the number system with the result that
these after the course were unable to tackle the exam sheets
of a similar course where the stuffs were more 'balanced',
including in particular the differential and integral
calculus. As I said, I know the very high importance
of the knowledge of analysis in crypto, but I believe that
the learners should (also) have excercises in design.
>
> > Sorry, I might have simply gravely overlooked. I don't
> > remember to have seen a (really) new method of attack of
> > any (respectable) cipher or an (essential) improvement of
> > old ones in posts in our group.
>
> From time to time I've mentioned applicable technology.
> Unfortunately I have to watch what I say about it, and
> be sure that I can point to public sources for the
> information.
>
> For example, hidden Markov models. Have you tried using
> that technology in any cryptanalysis yet?
What I meant in the above quote is that I didn't see
in articles of this group more or less detailed descriptions
(explanations) about (really or presumedly) new methods
of cryptanalysis as sort of 'counterpart' of the rather
large number articles that present (really or presumedly)
new methods of encryption. As is certainly the majority
opinion, most (maybe all, I don't know) new encryption
schemes posted to the group are poor, because most authors
are learners not experts. (Anyway, being a learner,
I would never attempt to 'defend' the strength of the
several humble schemes I have designed.) But I missed
corresponding (with respect to content) posts of
cryptanalysis, either from learners or from experts. It is
my speculation that this could be partly due to the fact
that there aren't enough materials in textbooks about
analysis that enable the learners to comparatively easily
start to attempt such undertakings.
M. K. Shen
------------------------------
From: Mok-Kong Shen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CipherText patent still pending
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 13:10:28 +0100
Bryan Olson wrote:
>
> Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
> >
> > Bryan Olson wrote:
>
> [Bryan:]
> >>>>> Experts teaching writing say to write every day. I've never
> >>>>> heard an expert cryptologist recommend cipher design as an
> >>>>> exercise.
>
> [...]
> > There seems to be a misunderstanding here due to presumably
> > my poor formulation. My quoted sentence above simply
> > served as sort of apology for my inability to clearly
> > interpret the paragpraph of your previous post. It was
> > then followed by my two 'conjectured' interpretations with
> > my corresponding responses.
>
> The intended meaning that your analogy,
>
> | But don't you
> | see that at schools the pupils are continuing to write
> | compositions (after you have left school)? Should they
> | stop writing??
>
> was nonsense. Writing is a good exercise, unlike designing
> a cipher.
I don't know any practically useful skill/ability that could
be gained without exercises.
>
> [...]
> > I like to take
> > the oppotunity to say a few words that are not addressed
> > to you ...
>
> No one is in this thread is saying not to answer sincere
> questions from newbies or anyone else. What hurts
> sci.crypt is the no-nothings giving answers, not asking
> questions.
What I criticized in the above connection is that certain
people gave NO answers, simply derisions (sometimes even
use bad words), etc. etc. instead. If real help were given,
then these humilations could probably well be accepted as
a 'cost' for the knowledge obtained.
>
> [...]
> > > > That's why I am not an expert but only a very humble
> > > > learner
> > >
> > > Then take Schneier's advice. All the experts I know
> > > say much the same.
> >
> > Excepting in educational institutions, learning is a
> > process that is influenced/constrained by a number of
> > (mostly exterior) factors and each learner has to make
> > a good decision as to the way that probably suits him
> > the best. My personal opinion ...
>
> If you get some results like Schneier and his team, then
> someone might care about your personal opinion.
Being a learner, I don't have the fancy that people
would esteem my personal opinion. But I remember quite
well that there was once a certain MEMO in the group
that caused considerable amount of debate. So acceptance
of opinions of certain experts also appear not to be
unconditionally universal, I suppose.
>
> [...]
> > > > However, I haven't sofar seen any
> > > > posts in the group on suggestions of new methods of
> > > > analysis or improvements of old ones, at least in the
> > > > proper sense.
> > >
> > > Read Wagner, Gillogly, Wooding, Hopwood, Flurer (and
> > > others of course, I'm not great with names.)
> >
> > Sorry, I might have simply gravely overlooked. I don't
> > remember to have seen a (really) new method of attack of
> > any (respectable) cipher or an (essential) improvement of
> > old ones in posts in our group.
>
> Then I recommend you read and study more, and write less.
> Of course that's up to you.
It is up to everyone in this group to post what, how much,
how often. For this group is not a monitored one. This is
indeed one of the points I like to stress.
M. K. Shen
============================
http://home.t-online.de/home/mok-kong.shen
------------------------------
From: Daniel James <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.security.scramdisk
Subject: Re: Scramdisk, CDR and Win-NT
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 12:36:11 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jungle wrote:
> > As long as you accept that you can't 'write on the fly' to the disk,
>
> no, I can't accept this ...
>
> I'm using CD-R/W media for write to SD container on it without any
problems,
> and all files are NOT R/O as you are suggesting,
I think you must be using something like Adaptec's DirectCD to make the
CD-RW look like a normal read/write disk drive. If you're doing that then,
yes, I expect the files you create are r/w.
You should be aware that this doesn't give you a normal CD-formatted disk -
you'll only be able to read it on machines that have suitable software (i.e.
a copy of DirectCD).
It's also not germane to OP's question, as he says he is using CD-R not
CD-RW, and his disks will most definitely be read-only.
Cheers,
Daniel.
------------------------------
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