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SURFPUNK Technical Journal 097
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 93 22:28:34 PDT
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From: surfpunk@versant.com (onpx ba gur nve)
To: surfpunk@versant.com (SURFPUNK Technical Journal)
Subject: [surfpunk-0097] PRZ: trouble brewing
# In Starfleet, all communications are encrypted
# automatically. Although there is no honor in
# knowledge gained through stolen transmissions, some of
# our enemies have no honor. A true Klingon does not
# "sneak"-he shouts into the face of his enemy. But I have
# seen many types of dishonor, and so I am prepared for it.
#
# --Lieutenant Worf, chief of security, U.S.S.Enterprise
# "20th century computers and how they worked"
# by Jennifer Flynn
# From: Brian D Williams <talon57@well.sf.ca.us>
#
This issue has three articles by Philip R Zimmerman (the author of PGP):
-- testimony to U S House subcommittee [12oct93]
-- DES Key Search Paper
-- Statement from Zimmermann on PGP investigation [19sep93]
The first piece will be given in testimony this Tuesday.
The second article is true. We've seen the details of this design at
the Mountain View Cypherpunks meeting, and DES is dead. The
alternative to PGP is to use PEM, in which your plaintext is encrypted
with a session key using simple DES. If DES is dead, then PEM, as it
is defined today, is also dead.
Most of you already know about the grand jury supoenas to companies
that had something to do with PGP; these were about three weeks ago.
If so you're probably seen the last piece.
Perhaps most of you have not donated to Phil's legal defense.
Here is his request, from the last article below. As cypherpunks
say, Cryptography is Economics, and for PGP users, this case
should be a worthy investment. -- strick
Those wishing to contribute financially or
otherwise should contact either me or Philip L.
Dubois, Esq., at dubois@csn.org or by phone at
303-444-3885 or by mail at 2305 Broadway,
Boulder, CO, 80304.
Donated funds will be kept in a trust account,
and all contributions will be accounted for.
-- Phil Zimmerman
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Zimmermann testimony to House subcommittee
To: cypherpunks@toad.com (Cypherpunks)
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 93 11:57:54 MDT
From: Philip Zimmermann <prz@acm.org>
Reply-To: Philip Zimmermann <prz@acm.org>
Testimony of Philip Zimmermann to
Subcommittee for Economic Policy, Trade, and the Environment
US House of Representatives
12 Oct 1993
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Philip
Zimmermann, and I am a software engineer who specializes in
cryptography and data security. I'm here to talk to you today about
the need to change US export control policy for cryptographic
software. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here and
commend you for your attention to this important issue.
I am the author of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), a public-key encryption
software package for the protection of electronic mail. Since PGP
was published domestically as freeware in June of 1991, it has spread
organically all over the world and has since become the de facto
worldwide standard for encryption of E-mail. The US Customs Service
is investigating how PGP spread outside the US. Because I am a
target of this ongoing criminal investigation, my lawyer has advised
me not to answer any questions related to the investigation.
I. The information age is here.
Computers were developed in secret back in World War II mainly to
break codes. Ordinary people did not have access to computers,
because they were few in number and too expensive. Some people
postulated that there would never be a need for more than half a
dozen computers in the country. Governments formed their attitudes
toward cryptographic technology during this period. And these
attitudes persist today. Why would ordinary people need to have
access to good cryptography?
Another problem with cryptography in those days was that
cryptographic keys had to be distributed over secure channels so that
both parties could send encrypted traffic over insecure channels.
Governments solved that problem by dispatching key couriers with
satchels handcuffed to their wrists. Governments could afford to
send guys like these to their embassies overseas. But the great
masses of ordinary people would never have access to practical
cryptography if keys had to be distributed this way. No matter how
cheap and powerful personal computers might someday become, you just
can't send the keys electronically without the risk of interception.
This widened the feasibility gap between Government and personal
access to cryptography.
Today, we live in a new world that has had two major breakthroughs
that have an impact on this state of affairs. The first is the
coming of the personal computer and the information age. The second
breakthrough is public-key cryptography.
With the first breakthrough comes cheap ubiquitous personal
computers, modems, FAX machines, the Internet, E-mail, digital
cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), wireless digital
networks, ISDN, cable TV, and the data superhighway. This
information revolution is catalyzing the emergence of a global
economy.
But this renaissance in electronic digital communication brings with
it a disturbing erosion of our privacy. In the past, if the
Government wanted to violate the privacy of ordinary citizens, it had
to expend a certain amount of effort to intercept and steam open and
read paper mail, and listen to and possibly transcribe spoken
telephone conversation. This is analogous to catching fish with a
hook and a line, one fish at a time. Fortunately for freedom and
democracy, this kind of labor-intensive monitoring is not practical
on a large scale.
Today, electronic mail is gradually replacing conventional paper
mail, and is soon to be the norm for everyone, not the novelty is is
today. Unlike paper mail, E-mail messages are just too easy to
intercept and scan for interesting keywords. This can be done
easily, routinely, automatically, and undetectably on a grand scale.
This is analogous to driftnet fishing-- making a quantitative and
qualitative Orwellian difference to the health of democracy.
The second breakthrough came in the late 1970s, with the mathematics
of public key cryptography. This allows people to communicate
securely and conveniently with people they've never met, with no
prior exchange of keys over secure channels. No more special key
couriers with black bags. This, coupled with the trappings of the
information age, means the great masses of people can at last use
cryptography. This new technology also provides digital signatures
to authenticate transactions and messages, and allows for digital
money, with all the implications that has for an electronic digital
economy. (See appendix)
This convergence of technology-- cheap ubiquitous PCs, modems, FAX,
digital phones, information superhighways, et cetera-- is all part of
the information revolution. Encryption is just simple arithmetic to
all this digital hardware. All these devices will be using
encryption. The rest of the world uses it, and they laugh at the US
because we are railing against nature, trying to stop it. Trying to
stop this is like trying to legislate the tides and the weather. It's
like the buggy whip manufacturers trying to stop the cars-- even with
the NSA on their side, it's still impossible. The information
revolution is good for democracy-- good for a free market and trade.
It contributed to the fall of the Soviet empire. They couldn't stop
it either.
Soon, every off-the-shelf multimedia PC will become a secure voice
telephone, through the use of freely available software. What does
this mean for the Government's Clipper chip and key escrow systems?
Like every new technology, this comes at some cost. Cars pollute the
air. Cryptography can help criminals hide their activities. People
in the law enforcement and intelligence communities are going to look
at this only in their own terms. But even with these costs, we still
can't stop this from happening in a free market global economy. Most
people I talk to outside of Government feel that the net result of
providing privacy will be positive.
President Clinton is fond of saying that we should "make change our
friend". These sweeping technological changes have big implications,
but are unstoppable. Are we going to make change our friend? Or are
we going to criminalize cryptography? Are we going to incarcerate
our honest, well-intentioned software engineers?
Law enforcement and intelligence interests in the Government have
attempted many times to suppress the availability of strong domestic
encryption technology. The most recent examples are Senate Bill 266
which mandated back doors in crypto systems, the FBI Digital
Telephony bill, and the Clipper chip key escrow initiative. All of
these have met with strong opposition from industry and civil liberties
groups. It is impossible to obtain real privacy in the information
age without good cryptography.
The Clinton Administration has made it a major policy priority to
help build the National Information Infrastructure (NII). Yet, some
elements of the Government seems intent on deploying and entrenching
a communications infrastructure that would deny the citizenry the
ability to protect its privacy. This is unsettling because in a
democracy, it is possible for bad people to occasionally get
elected-- sometimes very bad people. Normally, a well-functioning
democracy has ways to remove these people from power. But the wrong
technology infrastructure could allow such a future government to
watch every move anyone makes to oppose it. It could very well be
the last government we ever elect.
When making public policy decisions about new technologies for the
Government, I think one should ask oneself which technologies would
best strengthen the hand of a police state. Then, do not allow the
Government to deploy those technologies. This is simply a matter of
good civic hygiene.
II. Export controls are outdated and are a threat to privacy and
economic competitivness.
The current export control regime makes no sense anymore, given
advances in technology.
There has been considerable debate about allowing the export of
implementations of the full 56-bit Data Encryption Standard (DES).
At a recent academic cryptography conference, Michael Wiener of Bell
Northern Research in Ottawa presented a paper on how to crack the DES
with a special machine. He has fully designed and tested a chip that
guesses DES keys at high speed until it finds the right one.
Although he has refrained from building the real chips so far, he can
get these chips manufactured for $10.50 each, and can build 57000 of
them into a special machine for $1 million that can try every DES key
in 7 hours, averaging a solution in 3.5 hours. $1 million can be
hidden in the budget of many companies. For $10 million, it takes 21
minutes to crack, and for $100 million, just two minutes. That's
full 56-bit DES, cracked in just two minutes. I'm sure the NSA can
do it in seconds, with their budget. This means that DES is now
effectively dead for purposes of serious data security applications.
If Congress acts now to enable the export of full DES products, it
will be a day late and a dollar short.
If a Boeing executive who carries his notebook computer to the Paris
airshow wants to use PGP to send email to his home office in Seattle,
are we helping American competitivness by arguing that he has even
potentially committed a federal crime?
Knowledge of cryptography is becoming so widespread, that export
controls are no longer effective at controlling the spread of this
technology. People everywhere can and do write good cryptographic
software, and we import it here but cannot export it, to the detriment
of our indigenous software industry.
I wrote PGP from information in the open literature, putting it into
a convenient package that everyone can use in a desktop or palmtop
computer. Then I gave it away for free, for the good of our
democracy. This could have popped up anywhere, and spread. Other
people could have and would have done it. And are doing it. Again
and again. All over the planet. This technology belongs to
everybody.
III. People want their privacy very badly.
PGP has spread like a prairie fire, fanned by countless people who
fervently want their privacy restored in the information age.
Today, human rights organizations are using PGP to protect their
people overseas. Amnesty International uses it. The human rights
group in the American Association for the Advancement of Science uses
it.
Some Americans don't understand why I should be this concerned about
the power of Government. But talking to people in Eastern Europe, you
don't have to explain it to them. They already get it-- and they
don't understand why we don't.
I want to read you a quote from some E-mail I got last week from
someone in Latvia, on the day that Boris Yeltsin was going to war
with his Parliament:
"Phil I wish you to know: let it never be, but if dictatorship
takes over Russia your PGP is widespread from Baltic to Far East
now and will help democratic people if necessary. Thanks."
Appendix -- How Public-Key Cryptography Works
---------------------------------------------
In conventional cryptosystems, such as the US Federal Data Encryption
Standard (DES), a single key is used for both encryption and
decryption. This means that a key must be initially transmitted via
secure channels so that both parties have it before encrypted
messages can be sent over insecure channels. This may be
inconvenient. If you have a secure channel for exchanging keys, then
why do you need cryptography in the first place?
In public key cryptosystems, everyone has two related complementary
keys, a publicly revealed key and a secret key. Each key unlocks the
code that the other key makes. Knowing the public key does not help
you deduce the corresponding secret key. The public key can be
published and widely disseminated across a communications network.
This protocol provides privacy without the need for the same kind of
secure channels that a conventional cryptosystem requires.
Anyone can use a recipient's public key to encrypt a message to that
person, and that recipient uses her own corresponding secret key to
decrypt that message. No one but the recipient can decrypt it,
because no one else has access to that secret key. Not even the
person who encrypted the message can decrypt it.
Message authentication is also provided. The sender's own secret key
can be used to encrypt a message, thereby "signing" it. This creates
a digital signature of a message, which the recipient (or anyone
else) can check by using the sender's public key to decrypt it. This
proves that the sender was the true originator of the message, and
that the message has not been subsequently altered by anyone else,
because the sender alone possesses the secret key that made that
signature. Forgery of a signed message is infeasible, and the sender
cannot later disavow his signature.
These two processes can be combined to provide both privacy and
authentication by first signing a message with your own secret key,
then encrypting the signed message with the recipient's public key.
The recipient reverses these steps by first decrypting the message
with her own secret key, then checking the enclosed signature with
your public key. These steps are done automatically by the
recipient's software.
--
Philip Zimmermann
3021 11th Street
Boulder, Colorado 80304
303 541-0140
E-mail: prz@acm.org
________________________________________________________________________
Source: privacy mailing list (?)
From: Philip Zimmermann <prz@columbine.cgd.ucar.EDU>
Subject: DES Key Search Paper
Michael Weiner presented a paper at Crypto93 that describes a fast
DES key search engine that uses a special inside-out DES chip that
he designed. This chip takes a single plaintext/ciphertext pair
and quickly tries DES keys until it finds one that produces the
given ciphertext from the given plaintext. Weiner can get these
chips made for $10.50 each in quantity, and can build a special
machine with 57000 of these chips for $1 million. This machine can
exhaust the DES key space in 7 hours, finding a key in 3.5 hours on
the average. He works for Bell Northern Research in Ottawa, and
says they have not actually built this machine, but he has the chip
fully designed and ready for fabrication.
This is a stunning breakthrough in the realization of practical DES
cracking. BTW-- note that PEM uses straight 56-bit DES.
________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Statement from Zimmermann on PGP investigation
To: cypherpunks@toad.com (Cypherpunks)
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 93 12:32:28 MDT
From: Philip Zimmermann <prz@columbine.cgd.ucar.EDU>
Cc: dubois@csn.org (Philip L. Dubois)
Some of you may have received my Internet message of a couple of days
ago about the ongoing U.S. Customs investigation of the exportation
of PGP, which has now progressed to the level of Federal Grand Jury
subpoenas. This earlier message was intended by me for distribution
to a very small group of friends who previously communicated their
concern about me and the investigation and asked to be kept
informed. I did not send the message to anyone outside this group.
Unfortunately, I did not adequately assert my desire that the message
not be further disseminated. It appears that the message has gone
completely public. This was not my intention.
My lawyer, Phil Dubois, has been in touch with the Assistant U.S.
Attorney (William Keane) assigned to the investigation. We have no
reason to believe that Mr. Keane is anything other than a professional
and reasonable person. He made it clear that no decision has been
made regarding any prosecution of anyone for any offense in this
matter. Such decisions will not be made for some time, perhaps
several months. Mr. Keane also made clear his willingness to listen
to us (me and my lawyer) before making any decision. It appears that
both Mr. Keane's mind and the lines of communication are open.
My fear is that public dissemination of my message will close the
lines of communication and put Mr. Keane into an irretrievably
adversarial position. Such a result would not serve any of our
interests. My lawyer tells me that nothing irritates a prosecutor
more than being the subject of what he perceives to be an
orchestrated publicity campaign. He also tells me that his
nightmares involve FOAs (Friends Of the Accused), invariably people
with good intentions, doing things on their own. I understand that
the issues involved in this investigation are of the greatest
importance and transcend my personal interests. Even so, I would
rather not turn an investigation into a full-scale federal
prosecution. I ask that everyone keep in mind that the government's
resources are limitless and that mine are not.
Speaking of resources, many of you have offered help, and I am
grateful. Those wishing to contribute financially or otherwise
should contact either me or Philip L. Dubois, Esq., at dubois@csn.org
or by phone at 303-444-3885 or by mail at 2305 Broadway, Boulder, CO,
80304. Mr. Dubois has just got on the Internet and is still learning
how to use it. Donated funds will be kept in a trust account, and all
contributions will be accounted for. If this whole thing somehow goes
away with money left in the account, the balance will be refunded to
contributors in proportion to the amounts of their contributions.
This message can be widely circulated on public forums.
Philip Zimmermann
prz@acm.org
303 541-0140
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
The SURFPUNK Technical Journal is a dangerous multinational hacker zine
originating near BARRNET in the fashionable western arm of the northern
California matrix. Quantum Californians appear in one of two states,
spin surf or spin punk. Undetected, we are both, or might be neither.
________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Interesting bit of Lego exploring produced this
cultural artifact.
Got the Lego 1993 4 kit Value Set (#1967). Smallest
model was a surfer dude with stubble and life
preserver.
Took 1993 Ice Planet 2000 Lego set figure (from #6879,
Blizzard Baron), removed neon orange visor helmet, and
switched it with the surfer's hair.
Helmet looks vaugely VRish, therefore producing the
Lego Surfpunk.
-- Benjamin L. Combee
(wut zeecret plan!)
<combee@prism.gatech.edu>
