DirecTV Hacker Is First Person Convicted Under DMCA
http://www.nbc4.tv/technology/2502786/detail.html DirecTV Hacker Is First Person Convicted Under Digital Millennium Copyright Act Man Faces 30 Years In Prison, Millions In Fines For Selling Illegal Hardware UPDATED: 1:51 p.m. PDT September 22, 2003 ... Spertus said Whitehead -- also known as Jungle Mike -- paid a co-conspirator $250 a month to continually update software to circumvent the latest DirecTV security measures. Whitehead then used the software to create and sell modified DirecTV access cards, the prosecutor said. The conduct violated the DMCA, which bars trafficking in technology primarily designed to get around security measures to access a copyrighted work. ... Copyright 2003 by NBC4.tv. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. No fair uses of this material may be made. (I added that last sentence myself.) - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: quantum hype
I'm always stuck on that little step where Alice tells Bob what basis
she used for each photon sent. Tells him how? They need integrity
protection and endpoint authentication for N bits of basis. Is the
quantum trick converting those N bits to N/2 privacy-protected bits
really as exciting as it's made out to be?
They need integrity and data origin authentication, but not
confidentiality. This is what is referred to as the public channel
in QC papers. The standard approach (in papers) is to use universal
hashing. This is just math, with no quantum aspects. But, it enables
authenticating an arbitrarily long string of bits with a single key,
just like one can MAC a long message with HMAC-SHA1.
The difference is that because of the hash construction there are two
key property changes from an HMAC such as used in IPsec:
One can prove that the odds of a forgery are vanishingly small (1 in
$2^{n-1}$ for n bit keys, or something like that), even with an
adversary with infinite computional power.
You can only use the key once (or perhaps twice). Otherwise, an
adversary can recover it. This results in needing a constant stream
of authentication keying material.
Whether these two properties are a good tradeoff from HMAC in practice
for any particular situation and threat model is an interesting
question.
See Universal Classes of Hash Functions, by Carter and Wegman,
Journal of Computer and System Sciences 18, 143-154 (1979) for the
canonical paper on universal hashing.
--
Greg Troxel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: End of the line for Ireland's dotcom star
Why is it that none of those 100-odd companies with keys in the browsers are doing anything with them? Verisign has such a central role in the infrastructure, but any one of those other companies could compete. Why isn't anyone undercutting Verisign's prices? Look what happened with Thawte when it adopted this strategy: Mark Shuttleworth got to visit Mir! And Thawte got bought by Verisign, so no more competition... Interestingly, last time I checked, it was cheaper to buy from Thawte than it was from Verisign directly. --Anton - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: End of the line for Ireland's dotcom star
At 1:15 PM -0400 9/24/03, Anton Stiglic wrote: Interestingly, last time I checked, it was cheaper to buy from Thawte than it was from Verisign directly. Oh. That's easy. The certificate doesn't say Verisign on it. The mystification of identity is a hallmark of any hierarchical society. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Can Eve repeat?
At 08:34 AM 9/24/03 -0400, Greg Troxel wrote: A consequence of the infinite CPU assumption is that ciphers like AES, hash functions like SHA-1, etc. are all considered useless by the purist QC community. Thus, people talk about doing authentication with families of universal hash functions. This has the practical problem that the original (courier-transported) secret keying material for authentication is used up, and the typical scheme talked about is using some of the agreed-upon QKD bits to replenish the authentication keying material. This does not seem very robust. Those couriers are carrying one-time pad CDs, in a QC world. Do not try to pet their dogs, BTW. - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: End of the line for Ireland's dotcom star
Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Why is it that none of those 100-odd companies with keys in the browsers are doing anything with them? Verisign has such a central role in the infrastructure, but any one of those other companies could compete. Why isn't anyone undercutting Verisign's prices? Look what happened with Thawte when it adopted this strategy: Mark Shuttleworth got to visit Mir! Maybe that was a one shot deal, but clearly these keys are not being utilized up to their economic potential. Is there some behind the scenes coercion? Contractual limitations? Will Microsoft pull the keys if someone tries to compete with Verisign? What's the deal? No-one ever got fired for buying Verisign. Unfortunately in order to understand that buying your certs from anything but the cheapest CA present is a waste of money, you need a certain amount of understanding of how PKI (or at least certificate manufacturing, as currently practiced) works. Verisign have invested an enormous amount of time and money into communicating the message that it ain't secure if it doesn't say Verisign, and that's been very effective. I have, very occasionally, run into people who've told me how they managed to locate a CA that sold them their certs for $29.95/year instead of $495/year, but this is very much the exception to the rule. Peter. - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: why are CAs charging so much for certs anyway? (Re: End of the line for Ireland's dotcom star)
Adam Back wrote: You'd have thought there would be plenty of scope for certs to be sold for a couple of $ / year. Excuse me? Why are they being sold per year in the first place? It's not as if there are any root servers to run! Outrageous! :-) iang - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: why are CAs charging so much for certs anyway? (Re: End of the line for Ireland's dotcom star)
Yes, there is a good reason for CAs to charge so much for certs. I hope this posting is able to set this clear once and for all. FOREWORD: It's often said that a good lawyer should be able to argue both sides of an issue... Though I am not a lawyer, I believe it is instructive to see things from all perspectives. My answer may help see things from the CA side and IMO does not contain any exaggeration. Of course, to properly answer the question I would need to write a CA Business Plan, which should contemplate the various pros, cons, pricing, and contingency plans. However, without daring to use much time in such a dubious endeavor, let me just briefly discuss the CA business model in order to better motivate the pricing strategy answer. 1. Product Liability to Clients: Zero. CAs provide certificates that have zero content, zero warranties, zero assurances and, hence, zero liability under any law system. This is a very good point for CAs, and it is difficult to imagine a legal business that could get to so close to this goal. Perhaps, chiromancy with consenting adults over a phone line could be similar, but with a lesser market. 2. Contract Liability to Users: Zero. Since the certificate's users (ie, historically known as the relying-parties) are not the ones that paid for the certificate to the CA (ie, the certificate was paid for by the subscriber), this means that the CA has no responsiblity or contractual obligation whatsoever to the certificate's users, hence zero liability. 3. After-Sales Support: Almost Zero. This is also a very good point. There is no maintenance, set-up, compatibility or other post-sales questions to worry about. The product also self-destructs so to say after a period of usually one year, so there is not even a marginal need to maintain compatible systems for diagnosis after one year. Regarding the eventual need to revoke a certificate, here we are forced to say that after-sales support is almost zero. However, that is not a serious issue because certificate revocation has also no warranties or assurances, hence this freely provided service has no liabilities or obligations to the CA, not even to be expedite. 4. Product Recall: Zero. The subscriber cannot send back an issued certificate and decide to cancel his order because the certificate does not work on the new Gizmo v4.0 or equivalent browser, or just because it does not like it any more. Once the product is sold, the revenues are liquid. 5. Technical Regulation: Almost Zero. Certificates are technically regulated by X.509 but X.509 is very tolerant on almost all issues except purely syntatic issues which are handled blindfolded by software. Further, CAs can issue their very own operating laws (CPS - Certificate Practice Statement) according to their needs and profit rules. They can define all their operating parameters. 6. Legal Regulation: Almost Zero. The CA's CPS must be accepted by the client and the CA can change it at will, at any moment. Legislation, such as Illinois', already consider such self-made laws as legally binding in lieu of any legislation's mandated procedures (see a typical CA CPS). 7. Legal Mandatory Use: Possible. This is a very positive point for CAs. Legal initiatives may make it mandatory to use CAs (eg, TTPs) in order to allow certificates to be deployed. So, CAs would have captive markets in this positive scenario and the client would not be able to decide not to use a CA. 8. Matched Sales: Strongly Enforced. A CA can reach profitable agreements with a wide array of partners, such as financial agents, software producers, content providers, etc., in order to render its certificates strongly matched to the partner's products or services. This is easily cryptographically guaranteed and sounds reasonable when explained to customers. For example, software producer ACME can easily decide that its product Gizmo will only accept plug-ins signed by a specific CA -- allowing several legal avenues for matched sales. 9. Product Price: At Will. There is no reference in price for an array of 2 Kbytes. It can range from $5.00 to $500.00 or beyond. Since the market also has to accept matched sales as a natural procedure in this case, it is not difficult to organize different product classes so that essentially the same array of 2 Kbytes can have very profitable margins for high-end (ie, expensive) applications. 10. Insurance: Paid By The Client. To cover for those few cases where the CA could still be liable (ie, gross negligence, employee collusion, fraud, etc.) to its clients, it is accepted to ask for the client to pay for insurance against the CA's acts. Since the users have no coverage (they are not part of the contract and they are not considered innocent bystanders as with car accidents), such insurance will need to cover only the client. PRO SUMMARY: CAs make very good sense as businesses, shareholder's
Re: why are CAs charging so much for certs anyway? (Re: End of the line for Ireland's dotcom star)
On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 05:40:38PM -0700, Ed Gerck wrote: Yes, there is a good reason for CAs to charge so much for certs. I hope this posting is able to set this clear once and for all. [zero risk, zero cost, zero liability, zero regulatory burden] 9. Product Price: At Will. There is no reference in price for an array of 2 Kbytes. It can range from $5.00 to $500.00 or beyond. Uh? The why argument you give is basically price gouging? That was my point and why I said I don't see any reason cert prices with reasonable competition couldn't fall to a few dollars/year. (Ian: recurring billing is because they expire). Adam - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: why are CAs charging so much for certs anyway? (Re: End of the line for Ireland's dotcom star)
Hi Adam, That was my point and why I said I don't see any reason cert prices with reasonable competition couldn't fall to a few dollars/year. I believe they have, at least to a large degree. InstantSSL (www.instantssl.com) sell 128-bit certificates for $49USD/annum. Certainly far cheaper than the VeriSign or Thawte equivalent. This is their 'base' level service which comes with a $50USD warranty, email based support and a 30 day refund/reissue policy. One of our clients uses one of their certificates and we haven't had an issue with it. Cheers, Joel = Joel Sing | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 0419 577 603 = I'm not worried about Artificial Intelligence, when they invent Artificial Stupidiy, then I'll be scared. I'm sorry Dave, I don't feel like doing that. ~Unknown - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
