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18. Loose Ends and Miscellaneous Topics
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18.1. copyright
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THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
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1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
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See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
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use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
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name on my words.
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18.2. SUMMARY: Loose Ends and Miscellaneous Topics
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18.2.1. Main Points
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18.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
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18.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
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18.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
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- I hate to have a section like this, but there are just some
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things that don't seem to fit neatly elsewhere
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- hopefully you found this topics with your editor search
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tools
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18.3. Quantum Cryptography
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18.3.1. "What is quantum cryptography?"
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+ Two main flavors:
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+ secure channels exploiting the Uncertainty Principle
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+ Brassard, Bennett, fiber optic lines, short distances,
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detects tapping
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+ Quantum cryptography
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- bits can be exchanged-albeit at fairly low
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efficiencies-over a channel
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- with detection of taps, via the change of
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polarizations
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+ Stephen Wiesner wrote a 1970 paper, half a decade
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before the P-K work, which outlined this-not
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published until much later
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- speculate that the NSA knew about this and
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quashed the publication
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+ factoring of numbers using a strange Many World
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interpretation
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- Shor
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+ hearkens to my spoof about Russians
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- I never knew I hit so close to the mark!
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18.3.2. "What about _quantum cryptography_?"
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+ Exploiting Uncertainty Principle to make untappable
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communication lines. (More precisely, tapped lines give
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indication of having been tapped.)
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- Bennett and Brassard
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- faint flashes of light in a fiber optic cable used;
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polarized photons
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- Alice and Bob go through a protocol that involves them
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picking Linear or Circular Polarization (LP or CP); can't
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be simultaneously measured...
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-
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- Not likely to be important for a long time.
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- An additional tool, or crypto primitive building block.
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18.4. Chaotic Cryptography
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18.4.1. the oscillator scheme was broken at Crypto '94
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18.5. Neural Nets and AI in Crypto
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18.5.1. "What about neural nets and AI in crypto?"
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- Of limited use, at least in breaking modern ciphers. Marvin
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Minsky once said that if you don't understand how to solve
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a problem, adding randomness usually doesn't help.
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- The shape of the solution space is very spiky, very poorly-
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suited to hill-climbing or divide-and-conquer methods
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+ Neural nets are not likely to do well with modern ciphers
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(e.g., RSA, IDEA, DES, etc.), mainly because of the shape
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of the solution space. Instead of the "rolling hills and
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valleys" that neural nets (and related methods, such as
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genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, etc.) do well in,
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the solution space for modern ciphers offers very little in
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the way of "learning" opportunities: you either have the
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solution (the key), or you don't.
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Think of a needle standing up from a flat plain...a NN or
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any other hill-climber could wander for years and never
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find it. Well-designed modern ciphers like RSA and IDEA
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appear to admit no analysis based on "nonrandom"
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properties. If anybody has found shortcuts to factoring the
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modulus in RSA, for example, they haven't let on.
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I suspect there are uses in peripheral aspects, such as
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guessing passwords (when people have not picked high-
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entropy passwords, but have instead used familiar names).
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Or in traffic analysis. Those who munch on lots of traffic
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may well be using neural nets, custom signal processing,
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etc. to "prepare" the captured traffic for further
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analysis. A safe bet, in fact.
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But the move in modern cryptology is definitely away from
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using anything with "structure" that can be learned. Put
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another way, neural nets and such work well in structured
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environments, where there's something to _learn), but not
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in the high-entropy, seemingly random world of encrypted
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data.
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+ AI may be useful in other areas
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- protocol generation
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- SIGINT
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18.5.2. Evolutionary or Genetic Programming
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- a la Holland, Koza
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- RNGs
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18.6. Miscellaneous Advanced Crypto Ideas
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18.6.1. "Why have provably "NP-complete" problems not found uses in
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crypto?"
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- One of the great Unresolved Mysteries! Or the Holy Grail,
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if you will.
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- The issue is why have provably hard (or NP-complete, to be
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more accurate) problems not been used? (Factoring is not
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known to NP-complete...experts can correct my phrasing here
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if I'm misstating things.)
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- It would be nice if a provably hard problem, such as the
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domino tiling problem, or 3SAT, or other such things out of
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Garey and Johnson's book on NP-Completeness could be used.
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This would increase confidence in ciphers still further.
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18.6.2. "Can cellular automata, like Conway's "Game of Life," be used
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for cryptography?"
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- Stephen Wolfram proposed use of cellular automata for
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crytography some years back; his collection of essays on
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cellular automata contains at least one such mention. Many
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people suspected that 1D CAs were no stronger than linear
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feedback shift registers (LFSRs), and I recally hearing a
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couple of years ago that someone proved 1D CAs (and maybe
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all CAs?) are equivalent to LFSRs, which have been used in
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crypto for many years.
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- Wolfram's book is "Theory and Applications of Cellular
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Automata," 1986, World Scientific. Several papers on using
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CAs for random sequence generation. P. Bardell showed
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in1990 that CAs produce the outputs of LFSRs.) Wolfram also
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has a paper, "Cryptography with cellular automata," in
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Proc. CRYPTO 85.
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- Intuitively, the idea of a CA looks attractive for "one-way
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functions," for the reasons mentioned. But what's the
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"trapdoor" that gives the key holder a shortcut to reverse
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the process? (Public key crypto needs a trapdoor 1-way
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funtion that is easy to reverse if one has the right
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information).
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18.7. Viruses and Crypto
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18.7.1. "What's the connection between Cypherpunks and viruses?"
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- Like, dewd, it's so kool.
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- Beavis 'n Butthead use PGP (actually, Eric Hughes proposed
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at one point that we suggest a crypto tie-in to the
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writers)
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- There's only peripheral connection.
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- Viruses can be spread with anonymous remailers, but digital
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signatures can be used to safeguard software. Signed
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software, no mods allowed.
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18.7.2. "What about the "encryption viruses," like KOH?"
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- (A little far afield, but the issue does come up.)
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- Somebody asked about this on sci.crypt and Vesselin
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Bontchev said: "This topic has been debated to death in
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alt.security.pgp, when somebody posted KOH, without even a
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warning that it is a virus.....Both viruses indeed use the
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IDEA cipher - the same that is used both by SecureDevice
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and SecureDrive. However, the viruses pose some significant
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threats to the integrity of your data, exactly because of
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their viral replication means.....Also, if you aquire it by
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viral means, you do not get the doumentation and one
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utility, both of which are essential for the proper usage
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of the product - thus proving one more time that its viral
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capabilities are unnecessary and harmful. Also, the virus
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does not come in source, which means that it could have
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some hidden backdoors or simply security flaws, and you
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have no way to check this or to fix them. At last, in some
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cases the virus could destroy valuable information during
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its replication process."
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- "In short - don't use them. You will gain nothing over
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using
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stand-alone encryption programs, and you'll expose your
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data's
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integrity to significant risks. Those viruses are
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completely useless
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and even harmful; they have been created with the only
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reason to
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condone the illicit activities of the virus writers, by
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claiming that
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computer viruses can be "useful"." [Vesselin Bontchev,
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sci.crypt, 1994-08-31]
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18.7.3. "What about viruses? Are there any ties to crypto and
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Cypherpunks themes?"
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- No direct link that any of us see clearly. Occasionally a
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virus fan sees the "punks" name and thinks we're involved
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in writing viruses. (Actually, a few folks on the list have
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virus expertise.)
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- Crypto may protect against viruses, by having code signed.
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And the reliance on self-responsibility and self-protection
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is in contrast to the legal approach, which tends not to
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work too well for virus protection (by the covert nature of
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many viruses).
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18.7.4. "What interests do Cypherpunks have in viruses?"
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- Not much, though the topic comes up periodically.
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- Some overlap in the communities involved.
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- And there are some virus methods which use forms of
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encryption.
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- Also, digital signatures on code can be used to ensure that
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code has not been modified since being released by the
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original author.
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18.8. Making Money in Crypto
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18.8.1. "How can I make money in crypto?"
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- crypto experts are hired by software companies
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+ start up companies
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- a tough road
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- not clear that even Phil Zimmermann has made money
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- and even RSADSI is facing a challenge (hasn't gone
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public, not a cash cow, etc.)
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- There may be an explosive growth--the phase change I often
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talk about--and many opportunities will emerge. But, having
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said this, I still don't see obvious opportunities right
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now. And starting a company based on hope and ideology,
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rather than supplying a real market or pushing real
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technology (market pull vs. technology push argument) seem
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misguided.
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18.9. The Net
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18.9.1. Limitations of the current net
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- interoperability
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+ subsidized, not pay as you go
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- makes spamming inevitable, doesn't allocate resources to
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those who want them the most
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- this will require digicash in a better form than most
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users now have access to
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- sysadmins get worried
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- encryption sometimes banned
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- common carrier status not clear
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- general cruftiness of Net ("imminent death of Usenet
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predicted")
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18.10. Duress Switches, Dead Man Switches
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18.10.1. "What about "duress" codes for additional security?"
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- Where a harmless decrytion can be done, or an alarm sent.
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+ Examples
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- sending alarm, like an under the counter alarm button
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- decrypting a bank card number for a lesser-value account
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- two sets of books (not strictly a "duress" code, unless
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you view the IRS as causing duress)
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- alarms to associates, as in cells
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- " Having a separate authentication mechanism that is used
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under duress is a very good idea that some existing systems
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already
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employ.... From a systems point of view, it is hard to
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figure out exactly how the system should respond when it
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recognizes a duress authentication....The safe inside the
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ATM machines used by BayBanks (Boston Mass) can be opened
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with two combinations. One combination sends an alarm to
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the bank via a separate phone line (not the one used to
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perform the ATM transaction). The alarm phone line is also
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connected to a conventional panic switch." [Bob Baldwin,
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Duress Passwords/PINs/Combinations, 1993-11-18]
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18.10.2. Duress switches, dead man switches, etc.
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+ "Digital flash paper," can be triggered to erase files,
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etc.
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- (BATF and DEA raiders may have sophisticated means of
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disabling computers)
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+ Duress codes..."erase my files," ways of not giving esrowed
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information unless proper code is given, etc.
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+ "Don't release if I am under indictment"
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- interesting issues about secret indictments, about
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publicity of such cases, access to court records by
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offshore computers, etc.
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18.10.3. Personal security for disks, dead man switches
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+ I have heard that some BBS operators install dead man
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switches near the doors to rooms containing their
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systems...entering the room without flipping the switch
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causes some action to be taken
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- erasing a disk, dumping a RAM disk (a dangerous way to
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store data, given power failures, soft errors, restarts,
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etc.)
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18.11. Can Encryption be Detected?
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18.11.1. "Can messages be scanned and checked for encryption?"
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- If the encryption produces _markers_ or other indications,
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then of course. "BEGIN PGP" is a pretty clear beacon. (Such
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markers assists in decryption by the recipient, but are not
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essential. "Stealth" versions of PGP and other encryption
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programs--such as S-Tools for DOS--don't have such
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markers.)
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- If the encryption produces "random-looking" stuff, then
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entropy measures and other statistical tests may or may not
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be able detect such messages reliably. Depends on what non-
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encrypted messages look like, and how the algorithm works.
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+ Steganography:
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- making messages look like normal ones
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- tucking th ebits in with other random-like bits, such as
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in the low-order bits of images or sound files
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- The practical concern depends on one's local political
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environment. In many countries, mere suspicion of using
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crypto could put one in real danger.
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18.12. Personal Digital Assistants, Newtons, etc.
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18.12.1. "Are there cryptographic uses for things like Newtons?"
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- Probably. Eventually. Digital wallets, portable key
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holders, local agents for access, etc.
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+ Meanwhile, a few encryption programs exist. Here's one:
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- -> nCrypt, the strong cryptography application for
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Newton:
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-> ftp.sumex-aim.stanford.edu/info-mac/nwt/utils/n-crypt-
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lite.hqx
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18.13. Physical Security
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18.13.1. "Can fiber optical cables be tapped?"
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+ Yes. Light can escape from the fiber in bends, and "near-
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field" tapping is theoretically possible, at least under
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lab conditions. Active measures for puncturing cable
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shields and tapping fibers are also possible.
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- "The Fed's want a cost effective F/O tap. My company was
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approached to develop such a system, can be done but not
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cheap like copper wire tapping." [
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domonkos@access.digex.net (andy domonkos),
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comp.org.eff.talk, 1994-06-29]
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- Los Alamos technology? 1990?
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18.14. Attacking Governments
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18.14.1. "termites" (rumors, psy-ops) that can undermine governments,
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followed by "torpedoes" (direct attack)
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18.14.2. WASTE (War Against Strong, Tamper-resistant Encryption).
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18.15. Cypherpunks List Issues
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18.15.1. too much noise on the list?
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- "Of all the lists I'm subscribed to, this is the only one
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that I read
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*every* article in. Even the "noise" articles. Humans
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being what
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they are, the noise is needed to help decide the direction
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of the
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group. Besides, for those of us who are just starting on
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our journey
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through crypto-underworld need the noise to help
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familiarize
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ourselves with how crypto works. I've learned more from
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the informal
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ramblings than I've gathered out of all the formal and/or
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mathematical
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postings to date." [Patrick E. Hykkonen, 5-25-93]
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18.16. Tamper-Resistant Modules
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18.16.1. TRMs--claims that "Picbuster" processor can be locally
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overwritten with focussed or directed UV (OTP)
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18.16.2. tamper-resistant modules have some downsides as well
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- cash registers for ensuring compliance with all relevant
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sales tax, value-added tax (VAT), and rationing rules; a
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tamper-resistant module cash register could be the
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enforcement mechanism for a national security state.
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- "observers"
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18.17. Deeper Connections
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18.17.1. In several places I've referred to "deep connections" between
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things like crypto, money, game theory, evolutionary
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ecologies, human motivations, and the nature of law. By this
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I mean that there are deeper, unifying principles. Principles
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involving locality, identity, and disclosure of knowledge. A
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good example: the deep fairness of "cut-and-choose" protocols-
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-I've seen mention of this in game theory tesxts, but not
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much discussion of other, similar protocols.
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18.17.2. For example, below the level of number theory and algorithms
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in cryptology lies a level dealing with "identity," "proof,"
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"collusion," and other such core concepts, concepts that can
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almost be dealt with independent of the acual algorithms
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(though the concrete realization of public key methods took
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this out of the abstract realm of philosophy and made it
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important to analyze). And these abstract concepts are linked
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to other fields, such as economics, human psychology, law,
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and evolutionary game theory (the study of evolved strategies
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in multi-agent systems, e.g., human beings interacting and
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trading with each other).
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18.17.3. I believe there are important questions about why things work
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the way they do at this level. To be concrete, why do threats
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of physical coercion create market distortions and what
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effects does this have? Or, what is the nature of emergent
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behavior in reputation-based systems? (The combinatiion of
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crypto and economics is a fertile area, barely touched upon
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by the academic cryptology community.) Why is locality is
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important, and what does this mean for digital cash? Why does
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regulation often produce _more_ crime?
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18.17.4. Crypto and the related ideas of reputation, identity, and
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webs of trust has introduced a new angle into economic
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matters. I suspect there are a couple of Nobel Prizes in
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Economics for those who integrate these important concepts.
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18.18. Loose End Loose Ends
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18.18.1. What the core issues are...a tough thing to analyze
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- untraceablility as a basic construct has major implications
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+ can often ask what the implications would be if, say:
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- invisibility existed
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- untraceability existed
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- By "tough to analyze" I mean that things are often
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coflated, mixed together. Is it the "reputations" that
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matter, or the "anonymity"? The "untraceability" or the
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"digital money"?
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18.18.2. Price signalling in posts...for further information
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+ When an article is posted, and there is more complete
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information available elsewhere by ftp, gopher, mosaic,
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etc., then how is this to to be signalled without actually
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advertising prominently?
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- why not a code, like the "Geek code" so many people put
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in their sigs? The code could be parsed by a reader and
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used to automatically fetch the information, pay for it,
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etc. (Agents that can be built in to newsreaders.)
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18.18.3. "What should Cypherpunks support for "cable" or "set-top box"
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standards?
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- Caveats: My opinions, offered only to help frame the
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debate. And many of us reject the idea of government-
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mandated "standards," so my phrasing here is not meant to
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imply support of such standards.
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+ Major alternatives:
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+ Set-top box, with t.v. as core of access to "information
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superhighway."
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+ Problems:
|
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- limited number of channels, even if "500 channels"
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- makes t.v. the focus, loses some other capabilities
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- few consumers will have television sets with the
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resolution capabilities that even current computer
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monitors have (there are reasons for this: size of
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monitors (related to viewing distance), NTSC
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constraints, age of televisions, etc.)
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+ Switched-packet cable, as in ATM or even SONET
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(Synchronous Optical Network) access
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+ Advantages:
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- Television is just one more switched-packet
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transmission, not using up the bandwidth
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+ Radical Proposal: Complete deregulation
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+ let cable suppliers--especially of optical fibers,
|
||||
which are small and unobtrusive--lay fibers to any home
|
||||
they can negotiate access to
|
||||
- e.g., by piggybacking on telephone lines, electrical
|
||||
cables, etc. (to remove the objection about unsightly
|
||||
new poles or cables being strung...should not be an
|
||||
issue with fiber optics)
|
||||
- let the market decide...let customers decide
|
||||
+ In my view, government standards are a terrible idea here.
|
||||
Sure, NTSC was an effective standard, but it likely would
|
||||
have emerged without government involvement. Ditto for
|
||||
Ethernet and a zillion other standards. No need for
|
||||
government involvement.
|
||||
- Of course, when industry groups meet to discuss
|
||||
standards, one hopes that antitrust laws will not be
|
||||
invoked.
|
||||
18.18.4. minor point: the importance of "But does it scale?" is often
|
||||
exaggerated
|
||||
- in many cases, it's much more important to simply get
|
||||
something deployed than it is to worry in advance about how
|
||||
it will break if too many people use it (e.g., MacDonald's
|
||||
worrying in 1955 about scalabilty of their business).
|
||||
- Remailer networks, for example, may not scale especially
|
||||
well in their current form...but who cares? Getting them
|
||||
used will allow further refinement.
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue