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> > Phone booths already don't accept calls, by State Fiat. You think
> > detecting and dropping modem calls from a CO is tough?
> It's just a matter of designing a (software ?) modem that will, instead of
> whisling and peeping, emulate soccer mom chatter. Lower rates, but
> undetectable.
i had this idea 3 years ago and haven't done anything with it,
so perhaps someone here might actually be able to make headway,
or at least shoot it down. unfortunately, this irc session log
is the best description that i can find anywhere, sorry for the
format...
-a
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Log taken from xchat session on 29 Nov 1999:
[14:33:49] <attila> yyyy
[14:34:43] <attila> i have this fucking killer idea. i'm totally fried because i've
been up all night so i can't explain it as well as i want to
[14:35:16] <attila> but which do you prefer, just on a gut level aesthetic reaction:
cryptotalk, cryptospeak, cryptovox
[14:35:23] <attila> xxxx, you doo
[14:35:28] >xxxx< wake up
[14:35:38] <xxxx> yes
[14:35:39] <xxxx> whgat
[14:35:50] <xxxx> i'm so mentally and spiritually drained
[14:35:57] <attila> look at what i just said
[14:36:10] <yyyy> hmm, cryptovox cryptospeak then cryptotalk
[14:36:14] <attila> i have an insanely good idea.
[14:36:15] <xxxx> yeash
[14:36:18] <attila> so you like cryptovox too, huh
[14:36:21] <attila> i like cryptovox
[14:36:24] <attila> i need a fucking laptop
[14:36:48] <attila> okay, that's three votes for cryptovox
[14:36:51] <attila> i like it best
[14:37:17] <attila> my god i am lagged to holy fucking shit
[14:37:19] <yyyy> are you going to register cryptovox.com ?
[14:37:26] <attila> yes. zzzz may kill me but i have to do it
[14:37:35] <attila> so here's the basic underlying idea
[14:37:47] <attila> end to end encryption using phonemes spoken very quickly as the
transport
[14:38:01] <attila> so you could hold your laptop/pda up to your cellphone or a
payphone and have it speak ciphertext
[14:38:09] <attila> to a similar box on the other end
[14:38:18] <attila> thus obviating the need for crypto in the phone or in the phone
network
[14:38:48] <attila> i'm positive that you could come up with a variety of algorithms
for stringing together phonemes that would hold up well over a noisy channel
[14:39:06] <attila> and speak them and recognize them fast enough on the other end to
make it reasonable
[14:39:08] <yyyy> hmm, interesting. How would you decode it ?
[14:39:12] <attila> same thing
[14:39:18] <attila> you have a little pda or laptop let's say
[14:39:24] <attila> you hold it up to the phone or whatever
[14:39:28] <attila> they talk
[14:39:35] <attila> it's basically a modem but using speech
[14:39:59] <yyyy> what kind of bandwidth do you think you could get ?
[14:40:09] <attila> i have to experiment
[14:40:18] <attila> but imagine a little palmpilot sized gizmo
[14:40:24] <attila> you can talk to it
[14:40:33] <yyyy> but its not as important as sending a secure message.
[14:40:36] <attila> it can talk to computers via ir or 10bt or whatever
[14:40:53] <attila> it can receive and transmit files or spoken messages you dictate
[14:41:05] <attila> it works over any phone connection
[14:41:10] <attila> even a crappy one in an airport
[14:41:14] <attila> with no connectors
[14:41:20] <attila> it uses strong crypto
[14:41:38] <attila> that's why i wanted to borrow a voice modem
[14:41:54] <attila> but it just hit me while i was lying in bed trying to fall asleep
how it could all work
[14:42:07] <attila> the thing is, there are crypto phones
[14:42:10] <attila> but no sdks
[14:42:13] <attila> or nothing you or i could get
[14:42:21] <attila> because the gov't is paranoid about opening it up
[14:42:29] <attila> bellatlantic SAYS digital pcs is secure
[14:42:31] <attila> but fuck that
[14:42:40] <attila> the only way you can have personal privacy is with string
end-to-end crypto
[14:42:52] <attila> and if you did the cryptovox thing everyone in the world could
have it
[14:43:06] <attila> s/string/strong/
[14:43:10] <attila> you see what i mean?
[14:44:01] <attila> i imagine the crpytovox phoneme thing sounding like a bunch of "la
vo cha fi gu wa si ha mo" type syllables spoken very quickly
[14:44:13] <attila> it would take a bit of fucking around to figure out what the
parameters are
[14:44:24] <attila> don't tell anyone about this
[14:45:02] <attila> you could prototype this on a laptop with a halfway decent sound
card and a cell phone
[14:45:41] <attila> i can imagine the demo
[14:45:42] <yyyy> ok, but why not just have 2 modems and some crypto software ?
[14:46:14] <attila> because you don't always have something you can plug your computer
into
[14:46:25] <yyyy> I guess you could leave voicemail to people with a secure message.
[14:46:36] <yyyy> and answering machines.
[14:46:37] <attila> well, the idea is if everyone's carrying around a cryptovox voice
pad
[14:46:48] <attila> they can just hold it up to whatever phone is handy
[14:47:03] <attila> or eventually it could be integrated with a phone. but the idea is
that it turns anything into a secure medium
[14:47:14] <attila> anything
[14:47:22] <yyyy> so could it to interactive conversations, or just 1 message at a
time.
[14:47:48] <attila> i was envisioning it being a little bsd box internally with cfs
and a speech interface. it could store as many messages as it could hold
[14:47:51] <attila> or do streaming
[14:48:03] <attila> streaming is sort of like one of those old voice modifiers
[14:48:15] <attila> and if it could talk things out
[14:48:18] <attila> like, you're on the go
[14:48:21] <attila> you're in an airport
[14:48:37] <attila> you call in, someone's sent you a private email with a word
document attached
[14:48:48] <attila> you're in the phonebooth at the terminal
[14:49:00] <attila> there is cryptovox at both ends
[14:49:05] <attila> the other end at the office is a voice modem let's say
[14:49:08] <attila> for this scenario
[14:49:20] <attila> cryptovox sw is listening
[14:49:26] <attila> you tell your cryptovox to download your mail
[14:49:45] <attila> it talks (maybe in plaintext english for all i care) to the
cryptovox on the other end to set up the connection
[14:49:53] <attila> then they exchange session keys with diffie hillman or whatever
[14:50:04] <attila> and use 3des to encrypt the data stream and cryptovox turns it
into phonemes
[14:50:08] <attila> and speaks it quickly
[14:50:24] <attila> your cryptovox has your mail (still encrypted). it has your
private keys stored on it (in cfs)
[14:50:32] <yyyy> I think it would be interesting to see what kind of bandwidth you
can get with phonems.
[14:50:40] <attila> it tells you "you have one new mail consisting of an ms word
attachment; shall i decrypt and read it to you?"
[14:50:42] <yyyy> it is interesting.
[14:50:45] <attila> if you say yes, it asks you for your pass phrase
[14:50:49] <attila> it decrypts
[14:50:57] <attila> and reads it to you (preferably over headphones for privacy but
whatever)
[14:51:02] <attila> decoding the msword doc
[14:51:21] <yyyy> I wonder how hard is it to identify you by your voice alone.
[14:51:27] <attila> not
[14:51:30] <attila> i've been looking into this
[14:51:36] <attila> there are a variety of techniques
[14:51:43] <attila> but more important, i know the guys who really have that shit down
cold
[14:52:00] <attila> then i was thinking of additional modes of interaction on top of
the base cryptovox idea
[14:52:07] <attila> an architecture for patching together communciations media
[14:52:12] <attila> here's another scenario
[14:52:26] <attila> i'm at the machine room. there's a machine there with a sound card
but no phone handy
[14:52:56] <attila> i tell the operator irc robot (via a speech command perhaps but
whatever) to patch me through to yyyy
[14:53:03] <attila> it doesn't see you on so it figures you're on you're cell
[14:53:23] <attila> it connects (via an ssl/ssh/ipip/whatever tunnel) to foo, where
there's a voice modem
[14:53:30] <attila> it calls your cell phone
[14:53:37] <attila> at this point, i have two choices
[14:53:55] <attila> i can type things out to say on irc and it will synth them as
voice over the voice modem to you
[14:53:57] <attila> (assuming you answer)
[14:54:17] <attila> or i can talk and it chops up the audio stream and sends it to baz
and we play little chops of .wav files at you
[14:54:21] <attila> likewise in the other direction
[14:54:24] <attila> now, we're talking
[14:54:32] <yyyy> yeah, I can see a use for that.
[14:54:40] <attila> and i say (or type) "hey yyyy, i have this great idea. can i send
you some encrypted bits?"
[14:54:55] <attila> and, since you have your cryptovox in your car as you rocket down
route 128 at 120 mph, you say "sure"
[14:55:04] <attila> and plop your cell on top of your cryptovox
[14:55:17] <attila> i tell the cryptovox bot at foo to send you a file
[14:55:21] <attila> it negotiates with your cryptovox
[14:55:25] <attila> boom, you have the file
[14:55:31] <attila> see, multimodal communication
[14:55:36] <attila> we can switch back and forth between bits and voice
[14:55:44] <attila> the file is there now in your cryptovox
[14:56:02] <attila> and you pick up your cell and say "thanks, asshole".
[14:56:03] <yyyy> didn't xerox try to do something like this with paper ?
[14:56:14] <attila> you then play the file to yourself in your car in private
[14:56:17] <attila> you have some thoughts
[14:56:38] <attila> so you either record annotations as you're listening to my lunatic
ravings or you record a short message afterwards or fuck it, you just call back the
voice modem
[14:56:48] <attila> or you tell your cryptovox "patch me through to attila wherever
the fuck he just was"
[14:56:54] <attila> it dials (dtmf) your cell
[14:57:32] <attila> the voice modem answers, the cryptovox in your car tells the one
in my house (remember, it's always listening to the voice mdoem for a certain blarf of
phonemes) that you want to talkt to me
[14:57:49] <attila> a private irc /msg ends up getting sent to me as i'm swearing in
the machine room with no phone
[14:57:53] <attila> i say "yeah, okay, put him through"
[14:58:09] <attila> you say "nice work, attila, but you still suck, and i want to tell
you why in private"
[14:58:15] <attila> you tell your cryptovox to go into streaming mode
[14:58:24] <attila> and we have a (choppy but functional) conversation
[14:58:28] <yyyy> sounds like there are lots of usable parts in this.
[14:58:32] <attila> or you play back the message you recorded
[14:58:40] <yyyy> each part would be useful by itself.
[14:58:42] <attila> yup
[14:58:49] <attila> the underlying thing is the cryptovox though
[14:59:03] <attila> the api should be open and some version (for unix) of the
cryptopad sw should be opensource
[14:59:10] <attila> the little gizmo is a propduct you sell
[14:59:16] <attila> lots of possible services and add ons
[14:59:53] <yyyy> say I'm at home and I just want to talk to you and I don't want to
pay the long distance.
[15:00:02] <yyyy> since we both have adsl, it should work.
[15:00:14] <attila> i dunno, maybe i'm just totally pegged because of lack of sleep,
but it hit me like a ton of bricks while i was lying in bed that this could really work
[15:00:19] <attila> right, ip phone is the most trivial use of this
[15:00:23] <attila> but there are already ip phones
[15:00:28] <attila> we could do that to or just interface
[15:00:38] <attila> i want the architecture to be flexible and open enough that it
creates a whole industry
[15:00:47] <attila> what do you think?
[15:00:48] <yyyy> right.
[15:00:55] <attila> am i insane or should i reg cryptovox.com?
[15:01:02] <yyyy> I think it is interesting.
[15:01:05] <attila> btw, there's no way the gov't could regulate this
[15:01:10] <attila> just use exportable crypto
[15:01:18] <attila> or fuck them, use whatever. plugins.
[15:01:33] <attila> dream up your own fucking cipher. who cares. the point is it works
over 100 year old technology
[15:01:38] <yyyy> I don't know much about speech.
[15:01:46] <attila> i know a bit more now than i did a month ago
[15:01:51] <attila> i've been playing with sphinx and festival
[15:01:55] <attila> i have ircbots now that talk to me
[15:01:56] <attila> here
[15:02:00] <yyyy> what is festival ?
[15:02:06] <attila> speech synthesis system from cambridge
[15:02:28] <attila> i've been looking at sphinx2 and talking to some of the grad
students/recent grads about various issues
[15:02:30] <attila> like voiceprinting
[15:02:34] <yyyy> does it use a dictionary ?
[15:02:47] <attila> which, sphinx?
[15:02:55] <yyyy> festival ?
[15:03:08] <attila> it uses phonemes and a pretty flexible scheme for turning them
into sounds
[15:03:09] <yyyy> do you have a www pag e?
[15:03:11] <attila> you can come up with new voices
[15:03:13] <attila> yeah, hold on
[15:03:51] <yyyy> so when I said something via q, it could sound like me ?
[15:03:59] <attila> computer, festival?
[15:04:00] <computer> i don't know, attila
[15:04:25] <yyyy> I'm so far behind on looking into cool stuff.
[15:04:39] <attila> motherfucker
[15:04:40] <attila> hold on
[15:05:00] <attila> computer, festival is at
http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival.html
[15:05:12] <attila> it could be improved on
[15:05:15] <attila> there are definite issues
[15:05:32] <attila> but they're not really ahrd
[15:05:37] <attila> the architecture is all in my head right now
[15:05:40] <yyyy> what's the zip where you are ?
[15:05:40] <attila> i can see it
[15:05:43] <attila> 15232
[15:05:53] <yyyy> I'll send you the voice modem.
[15:06:11] <attila> 352 roup ave
[15:06:12] <attila> okay
[15:06:27] <attila> what i need to do is get a hold of a laptop somehow. must think
about it.
[15:06:43] <attila> and a cell phone, though i can use a landline for testing, and
that's probably fine
[15:07:04] <attila> anyway, that's details
[15:07:23] <attila> the thing about this is, the demo is just a killer. you ask one of
the people you're pitching to for their cell phone number
[15:08:07] <yyyy> itsy would be great, I think it has sound.
[15:08:09] <attila> yes
[15:08:10] <attila> itsy
[15:08:13] <attila> that's what i was trying to think of
[15:08:19] <attila> that's EXACTLY what you need for this
[15:08:22] <attila> it does have good osund
[15:08:30] <attila> it was dreamt up PRECISELY for this app
[15:08:41] <attila> shit. there's probably no way i could get my hands on one
[15:09:18] <attila> i'm sort of feverish with this idea right now. this has all been
tumbling around in my brain for a month now
[15:09:27] <attila> ever since i got sphinx2 to work here and started fucking around
with my gang of bots
[15:09:37] <attila> and then this guy bought me cryptonomicon
[15:09:45] <yyyy> computer, sphinx2 ?
[15:09:45] <computer> wish i knew, yyyy
[15:09:47] <attila> and all of a sudden i just saw this great thing.
[15:09:52] <attila> er, i've got it here
[15:09:53] <attila> hold on
[15:13:57] <attila> i can take you through how to set up a language model
[15:14:05] <attila> i need to get alsa working on reason
[15:14:13] <attila> because full duplex audio doesn't work so well with oss
[15:14:18] <attila> the oss that comes for free, that is
[15:14:26] <attila> but i'm told by all who know these things that alsa >> oss
[15:14:44] <attila> so honestly, am i insane?
[15:14:51] <yyyy> yes!
[15:14:58] <attila> i mean, can you see it?
[15:14:59] <yyyy> but that's not bad.
[15:15:11] <attila> personal, strong crypto for everyone on the planet
[15:15:19] <attila> there are no secure channels, only secure endpoints
[15:15:41] <attila> it should cost $50-$100 retail within 5 years
[15:15:51] <yyyy> yeah, but I don't matter, non techies need to get it too.
[15:16:30] <attila> that's the point
[15:16:32] <attila> grandma should have it
[15:16:41] <yyyy> right.
[15:16:43] <attila> so she can tell her friends how to cheat at pinochle securely
[15:16:50] <attila> xxxx, you're awfully quiet
[15:16:55] >xxxx< wake up we're talking crypto
[15:17:58] <yyyy> once you have one, you should use it all the time, not just when you
want to tell soemone a secret.
[15:18:11] <attila> well, that's right. that's why it's small and portable in one
manifestation
[15:18:21] <attila> (and just a software package that runs on your desktop at home
with a voice modem in another)
[15:18:38] <attila> i mean, you could say something into it driving somewhere in your
car
[15:19:04] <attila> and when you get to the mall, you use cryptovox to tell your
friend you're meeting there where you hid the kilo of grass
[15:19:18] <attila> unless the police can crack 3des, you're safe
[15:19:28] <attila> or whatever cipher you're using
[15:26:46] <yyyy> go get some sleep.
[15:27:57] <attila> i don't know if i can. i'm wired
[15:28:06] <attila> i hope i'm not insane
[15:28:50] <attila> the thing is, i think everyone's thinking digital encryption
[15:28:52] <attila> voice over ip
[15:28:59] <attila> i'm thinking textual encryption. ip over voice
[15:29:04] <attila> sort of
[15:29:09] <attila> you could do ip over voice like that i guess
[15:29:14] <attila> but you don't really want to
[15:29:17] <attila> i mean, that's what a modem does
[15:29:25] <attila> this is sort of like a personal modem
[15:29:47] <attila> that is always there and whose use can be interleaved with other
forms of communication seamlessly
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- --
attila %% member, st.Alphonsos collective %% unix,tcp/ip,security,hard bits
gpg 4FFCBB9C fingerprint A9A1 FD2A 2EFC 70B6 1036 F966 AFCF 222D 4FFC BB9C
key on keyservers and at http://www.stalphonsos.com/~attila/gpgkey.txt
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