Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-20 Thread amp


On Sat, 19 Feb 2000, Tim May wrote:

>It's also a waste of time to write FAQs, I've concluded. I suspected this
>before, but now I know it for sure. Those who most need to read a FAQ are
>usually the least likely to do so. Those who read widely don't _need_ a
>FAQ. FAQs are thus mostly useful for providing etiquette tips to newbies,
>telling them where to find archchives, pointing out books they should read,
>etc. All third grade stuff.

I have to disagree with you in part here. Your points are well taken as
many (most?) people are too lazy to look stuff up or haven't yet learned
how to use search engines efficiently. One problem with a lot of FAQs is 
that they are spread all over the damned place and thus it can be hard
to locate a current version of the FAQ for a given issue. I ran into 
this problem the other day when attempting to set up a CDRW on my 
linux box (which btw still isn't working correctly. if anyone out 
there is knowledgable about such things, I'd appreciate some assistance)
The LDP (Linux Documentation Project) is a step in the right direction
for Linux related FAQs. A quick trip to http://www.linuxdoc.org/ will 
allow you to find most FAQs, docs and HOWTOs that you might need, though
many are not as useful as they might be.

Perhaps those interested in furthering other subjects could band 
together and institute a site at www.documentation.org that would
be a repository of information on various subjects. 

-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.zeugma.nu/

print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0


Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-19 Thread John Young


Tim May wrote:

>Cryptome site (and sites that preceeded this exact
>name). 

Wah, I didn't know that. I'd like to credit those. Indeed, giving
credit is what keeps Cryptome going, for nearly all of it comes 
from contributions by others, especially Cypherpunks and
its offshoots and graduates.

Is there a copy available of that '92 handout?

Moreover, were the early Cypherpunks archives ever
located after biblio's archive vanished? I subbed in the summer
of '94 (thanks to Steve Levy's piece) and arranged to have most of
everything since then 86ed on Mars. That 92-94 period should be 
recovered if possible, though maybe not advertised. A private 
distribution would be beneficial. If anyone has the stuff, I'll make
CDs. Wait, if this is incriminatory, forgetaboutit.




Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-19 Thread Tim May


At 6:55 PM -0800 2/19/00, John Young wrote:
>This list is the first place I heard of Echelon, and a lot of other
>things, from crypto to TEMPEST and more. Maybe it's not at
>the moment at its peak level on politico-technology, but nuggets
>continue to appear, particularly those which provide a densepack
>of information dressed up with enlightening critique, context
>and history. Thanks for those, Tim, and to all who take the
>time to lay out what may be familiar to you but continually
>beneficial to others.

Sadly, most of the stuff in the past half dozen years is nothing new to
those on the list in the '92-'94 period. All of the Minaret, TEMPEST, etc.
sort of stuff was actually covered in a handout/glossary compiled by me,
with inputs from Eric Hughes, for the first Cypherpunks meeting in '92.

I'm not saying this to knock folks like John here, who has clearly done a
fantastic job with his Cryptome site (and sites that preceeded this exact
name). The point being most of what gets discussed these days is just a
rehash of old stuff. And that only a very few "recruits" have gone on to
further what we started with. You know the names, as they are the folks who
keep generating new stuff on ciphers, smart cards, attacks, etc.
>
>Tim, perhaps your novel evolved into Cyphernomicom, a jewel
>of narration, chockfull of scary, thrilling, enlightening techno-threads,
>perhaps the most richly-featured hypertext to appear.
>
>Is there to be a sequel? Okay, okay, fuck me.

Nope. Like many who birth a novel or a painting, I was glad to be done with
it. It consumed about a year out of my life, working on it nearly every day
and having it looming over me.

And I ended up being dissatisfied with the structure. It was neither the
prose narrrative it might have been, or the simple encyclopedia it should
have been. (A simple alphabetical organization of terms, ranging from
mundane crypto to abstracto technopolitical, would have been just as useful
an organization, and much more maintainable. New entries could have been
added by anyone, for example. I regret that I chose to write an
indiosyncratic realization of my thoughts instead of a simple, albeit
large, encyclopedia.)

It's also a waste of time to write FAQs, I've concluded. I suspected this
before, but now I know it for sure. Those who most need to read a FAQ are
usually the least likely to do so. Those who read widely don't _need_ a
FAQ. FAQs are thus mostly useful for providing etiquette tips to newbies,
telling them where to find archchives, pointing out books they should read,
etc. All third grade stuff.

Much of what was developed for my novel was about how data havens could
work, how untraceable contract assassinations would work, digital escrow,
time-released crypto, perpetual trusts, etc. A lot of this made it into the
posts I wrote for the Extropians list, circa '92-94, and for the
Cypherpunks list, circa the same period. Some of these ideas are described
in the Cyphernomicon, though usually only in sketchy detail.

>Bamford's supposed to have one coming, now how long has that
>been rumored? Jeffery Richelson's got a piece on Echelon due out
>shortly in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, or is it out now?

The Bamford second edition is said to be much more detailed than the
pitiful second edition of Kahn's "The Codebreakers."

It's been reportedly coming out for several years now.

And Steven Levy's book on crypto is still not out. (I think I was
interviewed for it in '93 or so...I hope he plans to reinterview me before
using words that are 8 years out of date!)

A French paranoid would say that the NSA has bought U.S. publishers, and
probably Amazon.com as well.


--Tim May






-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Timothy C. May  | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.




Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-19 Thread Tim May


At 6:55 PM -0800 2/19/00, John Young wrote:
>This list is the first place I heard of Echelon, and a lot of other
>things, from crypto to TEMPEST and more. Maybe it's not at
>the moment at its peak level on politico-technology, but nuggets
>continue to appear, particularly those which provide a densepack
>of information dressed up with enlightening critique, context
>and history. Thanks for those, Tim, and to all who take the
>time to lay out what may be familiar to you but continually
>beneficial to others.

Sadly, most of the stuff in the past half dozen years is nothing new to
those on the list in the '92-'94 period. All of the Minaret, TEMPEST, etc.
sort of stuff was actually covered in a handout/glossary compiled by me,
with inputs from Eric Hughes, for the first Cypherpunks meeting in '92.

I'm not saying this to knock folks like John here, who has clearly done a
fantastic job with his Cryptome site (and sites that preceeded this exact
name). The point being most of what gets discussed these days is just a
rehash of old stuff. And that only a very few "recruits" have gone on to
further what we started with. You know the names, as they are the folks who
keep generating new stuff on ciphers, smart cards, attacks, etc.
>
>Tim, perhaps your novel evolved into Cyphernomicom, a jewel
>of narration, chockfull of scary, thrilling, enlightening techno-threads,
>perhaps the most richly-featured hypertext to appear.
>
>Is there to be a sequel? Okay, okay, fuck me.

Nope. Like many who birth a novel or a painting, I was glad to be done with
it. It consumed about a year out of my life, working on it nearly every day
and having it looming over me.

And I ended up being dissatisfied with the structure. It was neither the
prose narrrative it might have been, or the simple encyclopedia it should
have been. (A simple alphabetical organization of terms, ranging from
mundane crypto to abstracto technopolitical, would have been just as useful
an organization, and much more maintainable. New entries could have been
added by anyone, for example. I regret that I chose to write an
indiosyncratic realization of my thoughts instead of a simple, albeit
large, encyclopedia.)

It's also a waste of time to write FAQs, I've concluded. I suspected this
before, but now I know it for sure. Those who most need to read a FAQ are
usually the least likely to do so. Those who read widely don't _need_ a
FAQ. FAQs are thus mostly useful for providing etiquette tips to newbies,
telling them where to find archchives, pointing out books they should read,
etc. All third grade stuff.

Much of what was developed for my novel was about how data havens could
work, how untraceable contract assassinations would work, digital escrow,
time-released crypto, perpetual trusts, etc. A lot of this made it into the
posts I wrote for the Extropians list, circa '92-94, and for the
Cypherpunks list, circa the same period. Some of these ideas are described
in the Cyphernomicon, though usually only in sketchy detail.

>Bamford's supposed to have one coming, now how long has that
>been rumored? Jeffery Richelson's got a piece on Echelon due out
>shortly in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, or is it out now?

The Bamford second edition is said to be much more detailed than the
pitiful second edition of Kahn's "The Codebreakers."

It's been reportedly coming out for several years now.

And Steven Levy's book on crypto is still not out. (I think I was
interviewed for it in '93 or so...I hope he plans to reinterview me before
using words that are 8 years out of date!)

A French paranoid would say that the NSA has bought U.S. publishers, and
probably Amazon.com as well.


--Tim May






-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Timothy C. May  | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.




Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-19 Thread John Young


This list is the first place I heard of Echelon, and a lot of other 
things, from crypto to TEMPEST and more. Maybe it's not at 
the moment at its peak level on politico-technology, but nuggets 
continue to appear, particularly those which provide a densepack
of information dressed up with enlightening critique, context
and history. Thanks for those, Tim, and to all who take the
time to lay out what may be familiar to you but continually
beneficial to others.

Tim, perhaps your novel evolved into Cyphernomicom, a jewel
of narration, chockfull of scary, thrilling, enlightening techno-threads, 
perhaps the most richly-featured hypertext to appear.

Is there to be a sequel? Okay, okay, fuck me.

Bamford's supposed to have one coming, now how long has that 
been rumored? Jeffery Richelson's got a piece on Echelon due out 
shortly in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, or is it out now?



Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-19 Thread Tim May


At 5:58 PM -0800 2/19/00, John Young wrote:
>Very well, your rebuttal would be an informative addition
>to the file, if you don't object.
>

>
>Wayne Madsen is quoted today in Canada's National Post that
>the EU hearings are a joke. That all nations spy on each other
>and only a fool thinks otherwise:

Obviously. Most of Echeleon is not even very new. I read Bamford's "The
Puzzle Palace" when it first came out, around 1983. Minaret, US-USA, Alice
Springs, etc. With later details filled in: Task Force 57, Nugan-Hand Bank,
Banco Ambrosiano, and on and on. Some of the details are newly updated, but
mostly this was all implicit in the Bamford book...the listening posts
around the world, the deals with Western Union, ITT, etc. The UK-USA mutual
espionage deals to skirt the letter of the law, the Canberra-Alice Springs
murders and shenanigans, the role of SAIC, Kissinger Associates, and other
Task Force 57 staffers, and so on. Old beer in new bottles.

(I was working on a novel about NSA machinations and high tech in the
period 1988-1991. Stuff about NSA commercial espionage to run investment
pools. I eventually ran out of gas on this techno-thriller, but the preps
and research fleshed out the bones of crypto anarchy and helped lead to our
first meetings in '92. So this is why Echelon just looks like old beer in
new bottles. But I understand the journalists are now in a tizzy, so I
guess some here are, too.)

>
>Would that San Diegian be the gent who bragged of snagging
>Mitnick?

Rots of ruck.

BTW, there was a poorly written (or perhaps poorly translated) French
techno-thriller back in the late 80s, early 90s. I forget the title. Maybe
something like "Cyberwar." Or perhaps "Infowar." About a supercomputer with
special instructions to leak data when a weather service report had some
city's temperature at a precise value, e.g., "23.8 C."

I mention this because there are a lot of flaky theories used as the basis
for some flaky thriller novels. (I like to think the thesis of my 1988-91
projected novel was a helluva lot more grounded in real technology than
most of these novels are.)

This latest French report about "Operation Wintel" is cheesier than most.
So "fromagey" that I'm inclined to think _IT_ is the NSA's plant.

(Were I the NSA and hoping to subvert systems to my own end, I'd have made
the guy I threatened to kill in his company's parking lot an even better
deal: make your systems subtly attackable by us, both your crypto and your
Verisign products, and we'll not only let you live, we'll also let you
become a billionaire. Not that I'm saying this might have happened, just
that this is a much more obvious point of attack. It's all Greek to me.)

Putting these backdoors/snoopers into either the DOS derivatives or the x86
derivatives is just plain inefficient and too exposed. The code for both is
just too visible. Any introduced flaws must be subtle.

My strong hunch is that they are not there.

Which is not to say Europeans, Asians, and Free Americans should not be
worried about Echelon. They obviously should be. And they should be using
absolutely first-rate crypto code.

Gee, whatever happened to all that crypto code supposedly coming out of
Europe? Big news about 3 years ago, that PGP had been gotten out in source
code...I don't see NAI emphasizing this anymore. Ditto for RSA's foreign
development labs. The lack of strong crypto coming out of Europe is
something the Europeans can and should be talking about, not weird shit
about Intel chips having special NSA access.

--Tim May

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Timothy C. May  | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.




Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-19 Thread John Young


Very well, your rebuttal would be an informative addition
to the file, if you don't object.

To pick up on a couple of your points:

There should be a sustained burst of activity from Europe
on the Echelon affair as EuroParl deliberates on it, guided by 
the four 1999 Echelon reports prepared by its technological
research department, STOA. The one most recently featured
for its allegations about Wintel is, "Development of Surveillance 
Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information (an 
appraisal of technologies of political control):"

   http://cryptome.org/stoa-r3-5.htm
   
The Cukier CFP99 report Matthew cited presents a useful summary 
of Echelon-like activities by nations other than the US. 

Wayne Madsen is quoted today in Canada's National Post that
the EU hearings are a joke. That all nations spy on each other
and only a fool thinks otherwise:


http://www.nationalpost.com/news.asp?s2=worlds3=observer&f=000219/210021.html

And Wayne Madsen wrote yesterday of Net intrusions and attacks 
by the USG, with the probability that it carried out the US "hacker
attacks:"

   http://cryptome.org/madsen-hmhd.htm

Which of these charges and countercharges and dismissals
are conventional bread and butter propaganda and which are
new revelations, that may never be known for certain.

Would that San Diegian be the gent who bragged of snagging
Mitnick?

-


Tim May wrote:

>It's probably a boullaibaise (sp?) of paranoid conspiracy theory,
>journalistic sensationalism, piling on, French nationalism, and a desire to
>distract attention away from French industrial espionage. (Recall the
>confirmed report that Air France was bugging commercial travellers.)
>
>PC-DOS was so primitive in 1980, when IBM's Boca Raton division--itself a
>backwater, led by Phil "Don" Estridge--that it is inconceivable that it had
>any "spying" hooks built in. I mean, come on! Besides which, it was written
>initially by Tim Patterson, of Seattle Computer, and only bought hastily by
>MS when it looked like they would get the IBM contract. (So the French
>paranoids would claim that Tim Patterson was operating his little company
>in Seattle with the intent of selling his spy software to MS. Get real.)
>
>PC-DOS, later MS-DOS, was also small enough in those days that nearly every
>function could be analyzed in detail, and the code could be dissected.
>
>Ditto for the chips. I worked for Intel during that period when this
>supposed NSA "Operation Wintel" was being developed, and I can assure you
>that the chips of the day had no particular features of interest to the
>NSA, save for some of the well-known bit twiddling instructions wmight
>otherwise have been. (But a lot less well-suited than it _could_ have been.)
>
>Most compellingly, until fairly recently the Net was primarily run off of
>Sun and similar computers...we all know that, of course. Sniffers on Sun
>networks would have been more interesting (and there's anecdotal evidence
>that a certain San Diegan developed precisely those tools for the NSA).
>
>Arghh..where to continue? Consider that at least several other
>manufacturers of Intel-compatible chips exist. AMD, obviously. But also
>Cyrix/National/Via, and Texas Instruments, and IBM. Did all of them design
>in the "special NSA sections"? Without any of them talking?
>
>(And these are only the recent deals. In the past, Matra/Harris, a
>French-affiliated company, was a producer. Ditto for a bunch of others,

>American, European, and Asian. All of them in on the conspiracy?)
>
>As a paranoid theory, it's not even interesting.
>
>
>--Tim May
>
>-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
>Timothy C. May  | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
>ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
>W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
>"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
> 



Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-19 Thread Tim May


At 12:26 PM -0800 2/19/00, John Young wrote:
>A French intelligence report alleges that Microsoft was
>set up with NSA funding and that NSA imposed MS-DOS
>on IBM, and also alleges that NSA agents are now working
>at Microsoft:
>
>   http://cryptome.org/nsa-ms-spy.htm
>
>The full confidential report has not been published and these
>allegations are made by an intelligence newsletter which
>claims to have seen it. The Age, an Australian newspaper,
>has reported on the topic today -- that account leads the file
>above.
>
>The NSA MS key revelation appears in the reports, and may
>have prompted the intelligence investigation and speculation,
>along with the April 1999 report for Europarl, due to be considered
>by EuroParl in a week, which also warns of Microsoft's and Intel's
>possible cooperation with US intelligence to use Winte as a spying
>tool.
>
>Still, we had not before seen an allegation that NSA was in on
>the gitgo with Microsoft and that DOS had been forced upon
>IBM. Is that old news or new, or merely a French counterattack
>on Echelon-like espionage?

It's probably a boullaibaise (sp?) of paranoid conspiracy theory,
journalistic sensationalism, piling on, French nationalism, and a desire to
distract attention away from French industrial espionage. (Recall the
confirmed report that Air France was bugging commercial travellers.)

PC-DOS was so primitive in 1980, when IBM's Boca Raton division--itself a
backwater, led by Phil "Don" Estridge--that it is inconceivable that it had
any "spying" hooks built in. I mean, come on! Besides which, it was written
initially by Tim Patterson, of Seattle Computer, and only bought hastily by
MS when it looked like they would get the IBM contract. (So the French
paranoids would claim that Tim Patterson was operating his little company
in Seattle with the intent of selling his spy software to MS. Get real.)

PC-DOS, later MS-DOS, was also small enough in those days that nearly every
function could be analyzed in detail, and the code could be dissected.

Ditto for the chips. I worked for Intel during that period when this
supposed NSA "Operation Wintel" was being developed, and I can assure you
that the chips of the day had no particular features of interest to the
NSA, save for some of the well-known bit twiddling instructions wmight
otherwise have been. (But a lot less well-suited than it _could_ have been.)

Most compellingly, until fairly recently the Net was primarily run off of
Sun and similar computers...we all know that, of course. Sniffers on Sun
networks would have been more interesting (and there's anecdotal evidence
that a certain San Diegan developed precisely those tools for the NSA).

Arghh..where to continue? Consider that at least several other
manufacturers of Intel-compatible chips exist. AMD, obviously. But also
Cyrix/National/Via, and Texas Instruments, and IBM. Did all of them design
in the "special NSA sections"? Without any of them talking?

(And these are only the recent deals. In the past, Matra/Harris, a
French-affiliated company, was a producer. Ditto for a bunch of others,
American, European, and Asian. All of them in on the conspiracy?)

As a paranoid theory, it's not even interesting.


--Tim May

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Timothy C. May  | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.




Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-19 Thread Matthew Gaylor


John Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>  Is that old news or new, or merely a French counterattack
>on Echelon-like espionage?

[Note from Matthew Gaylor:  Nearly every security expert I know won't 
use Windows on their personal machines.  Everyone is aware of the 
security issues that arise with Microsoft and it is common knowledge 
that many intelligence workers have cover jobs with various 
corporations.  But I don't place complete confidence in the French 
either.  Kenn Cukier formally of Communications Week International 
and now the International Editor at Red Herring had this interesting 
paper on France's spy network.

http://www.cfp99.org/program/papers/cukier.htm

"France reportedly has developed its own "Frenchelon" -- a worldwide 
network of spy satellites and listening stations that systematically 
eavesdrop on communications in the United States and elsewhere. 
Monitoring stations are said to exist in French Guiana, in the city 
of Domme in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, in New 
Caledonia, and in the United Arab Emirates. The information gleaned 
is reportedly used for both political and commercial ends. 
Additionally, some speculate that the French project may mark the 
first step in a pan-European effort to counterbalance the U.S.'s 
global spying capabilities. Germany is said to partially fund 
France's initiative in return for access to the information it 
collects."]


**
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MS Funded/Founded by NSA?

2000-02-19 Thread John Young


A French intelligence report alleges that Microsoft was
set up with NSA funding and that NSA imposed MS-DOS 
on IBM, and also alleges that NSA agents are now working
at Microsoft:

   http://cryptome.org/nsa-ms-spy.htm

The full confidential report has not been published and these
allegations are made by an intelligence newsletter which
claims to have seen it. The Age, an Australian newspaper,
has reported on the topic today -- that account leads the file
above.

The NSA MS key revelation appears in the reports, and may
have prompted the intelligence investigation and speculation,
along with the April 1999 report for Europarl, due to be considered 
by EuroParl in a week, which also warns of Microsoft's and Intel's
possible cooperation with US intelligence to use Winte as a spying 
tool.

Still, we had not before seen an allegation that NSA was in on
the gitgo with Microsoft and that DOS had been forced upon
IBM. Is that old news or new, or merely a French counterattack 
on Echelon-like espionage?