Re: Cryptogram: Palladium Only for DRM

2002-09-19 Thread David Wagner

Peter N. Biddle wrote:
>[...] You can still extract everything in Pd via a HW attack. [...]
>
>How is this BORE resistant? The Pd security model is BORE resistant for a
>unique secret protected by a unique key on a given machine. Your hack on
>your machine won't let you learn the secrets on my machine; to me that's
>BORE resistant.  [...]

Yes, but...

For me, BORE (Break Once Run Everywhere) depends on the application.
You can't analyze Palladium in isolation, without looking at the app,
too.  It doesn't make sense to say "Palladium isn't susceptible to BORE
attacks", if the applications themselves are subject to BORE attacks.

For example, if a record company builds an app that stores a MP3 of
the latest Britney Spears song in a Palladium vault, then this app
will be susceptible to BORE attacks.  Extracting that MP3 from any one
machine suffices to spread it around the world.  It won't comfort the
record company much to note that the attacker didn't learn the Palladium
crypto keys living on other machines; the damage has already been done.
Palladium doesn't make DRM resistant to BORE attacks.  It can't.

In short, there are some applications that Palladium can't make
BORE-resistant.  Some apps (e.g., DRM) are simply fundamentally fragile.

Maybe a more interesting question is: For which apps does Palladium
provide resistance against BORE attacks that is not available by other
means?

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Sun donates elliptic curve code to OpenSSL?

2002-09-19 Thread Perry E. Metzger


According to this:

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2002-09/sunflash.20020919.8.html

Sun is donating some elliptic curve code to the OpenSSL project. Does
anyone know details that they would care to share on the nature of the
donation?

-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: Cryptogram: Palladium Only for DRM

2002-09-19 Thread Peter N. Biddle

Hi Nomen

I am sending to crypto only as I am not on any of the other aliases you sent
to. Feel free to fwd.

How about "hacked" instead of "broken"? Broken implies that a machine
doesn't work; hacked implies it has been changed somehow but that it still
works. Let's say that a hacked Pd machine is a machine whose root keys have
been discovered through any means outside of the security model for that
machine. So a machine designed to give up its keys or to take keys in from
an outisde source isn't hacked. A machine whose security model includes
protecting the keys from everything, but whose keys have become known, is a
hacked machine. I can certainly imagine situations where Pd will be on a
hacked machine and won't know it.

Once the machine has been hacked, a user (or process, or piece of SW, or
whatever) can unlock all secrets which use the local keys as root keys. So
the symmetric keys used to protect a given piece of data would be
compromised, and all data which uses the same symmetric key can now be
unlocked. Rather than having to hand someone data, you could hand them keys
(presuming they have the data already). The "less global" a secret, the less
vulnerable it is to key hand-offs, but if more than one existence of
something is protected by the same key, that key represents an easily
distributed attack.

Even in cases where a given piece of data is secured with a unique key or
keys, once you have hacked those keys (or more likely the root keys used to
gen those keys) you can decrypt the data itself.  If all data in the world
only existed in Pd virtual vaults and was encrypted using different unique
keys, the data itself is still it's own secret. You can still extract
everything in Pd via a HW attack. Now rather than hand off the keys, you
hand off the data.

How is this BORE resistant? The Pd security model is BORE resistant for a
unique secret protected by a unique key on a given machine. Your hack on
your machine won't let you learn the secrets on my machine; to me that's
BORE resistant. Any use of Pd to protect global secrets reduces the BORE
resistance for the information protected by those secrets.

Only the Pd nexus (sorry, new name for the nub, er I mean TOR, er I mean
secure kernel, ...) knows each applications secrets, and it protects those
secrets from everything else absolutely. The nexus won't analyze data and
decide if it should or shouldn't be there; no Pd DRL's. (A DRM scheme on top
of Pd could enforce DRL's for content within its own vault, of course, but
it can't cross the vault boundary to try to enforce a DRL in someone else's
vault.) The goal is to protect data for whomever is asking for protection,
and to keep that data secure for that application. (I must note that we are
basing our design on existing US law. Should the law change and require
different behaviors, or should other countries require different behaviors,
we will need to find a way to comply.)

Palladium systems won't seek out and destroy anything, either locally or
remotely. Additionally the nexus has no understanding of what "legitmate" or
"illicit" means, so Pd really couldn't do this if it wanted to (it doesn't).
Data will be protected by Pd (in memory; on disk). Only applications with
the right hash (or those named by the original hashee) can access any given
piece of data.

P

- Original Message -
From: "Nomen Nescio" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 5:10 PM
Subject: Re: Cryptogram: Palladium Only for DRM


> Peter Biddle writes:
> > Pd is designed to fail well - failures in SW design shouldn't result in
> > compromised secrets, and compromised secrets shouldn't result in a BORE
> > attack.
>
> Could you say something about the sense in which Palladium achieves
> BORE ("break once run everywhere") resistance?  It seems that although
> Palladium is supposed to be able to provide content security (among
> other things), a broken Palladium implementation would allow extracting
> the content from the "virtual vault" where it is kept sealed.  In that
> case the now-decrypted content can indeed run everywhere.
>
> This seems to present an inconsistency between the claimed strength of the
> system and the description of its security behavior.  This discrepancy
> may be why Palladium critics like Ross Anderson charge that Microsoft
> intends to implement "document revocation lists" which would let Palladium
> systems seek out and destroy illicitly shared documents and even programs.
>
> Some have claimed that Microsoft is talking out of both sides of its
> mouth, promising the content industry that it will be protected against
> BORE attacks, while assuring the security/privacy community that the
> system is limited in its capabilities.  If you could clear up this
> discrepancy that would be helpful.  Thanks...
>

--

Re: Fwd: Physics News Update 605 - liquid crystal random numbergenerator

2002-09-19 Thread Bram Cohen

Charles McElwain wrote:

> >James Gleeson, a physicist at Kent State
> >University (330-672-9592, [EMAIL PROTECTED]) has come up with a
> >cheap, fast solution.  He shoots laser light into a sample of liquid
> >crystals.  But because the sample is subject to a turbulent flow, causing
> >haphazard fluctuations in the orientation of the liquid crystals, the
> >digitized transmitted light coming from the sample represents a stream of
> >random numbers.

There's no way a laser's going to be cheaper than a Johnson noise
generator.

Really, the random number generation has been solved - use a Johnson noise
generator for the random bits, and (not withstanding /dev/random's
suboptimal behavior) put them through a cryptographic device which will
spew out indefinite amounts of random numbers once it's gotten
sufficiently seeded.

-Bram Cohen

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"
-- John Maynard Keynes


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Fwd: Physics News Update 605 - liquid crystal random numbergenerator

2002-09-19 Thread Charles McElwain

>Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 14:27:56 -0400
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Physics News Update 605
>
>PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE
>The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
>Number 605  September 18, 2002   by Phillip F. Schewe, Ben Stein, and James
>Riordon
>
>[...]
>FAST, CHEAP RANDOM NUMBERS.   The keys needed to encrypt credit card
>transactions and other crucial information floating in cyberspace often rely
>on an infusion of random numbers.  Generating true random numbers is
>actually harder than it seems since the generation process generally follows
>some deterministic algorithm, permitting the possible reappearance of
>unwanted predictability.  James Gleeson, a physicist at Kent State
>University (330-672-9592, [EMAIL PROTECTED]) has come up with a
>cheap, fast solution.  He shoots laser light into a sample of liquid
>crystals.  But because the sample is subject to a turbulent flow, causing
>haphazard fluctuations in the orientation of the liquid crystals, the
>digitized transmitted light coming from the sample represents a stream of
>random numbers.   Gleeson believes that because his device depends on
>standard liquid-crystal-display technology, his compact device can be used
>for many processes requiring random-number generation.  (Applied Physics
>Letters, 9 September 2002.)
>
>***
>PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE is a digest of physics news items arising
>from physics meetings, physics journals, newspapers and
>magazines, and other news sources.  It is provided free of charge
>as a way of broadly disseminating information about physics and
>physicists. For that reason, you are free to post it, if you like,
>where others can read it, providing only that you credit AIP.
>Physics News Update appears approximately once a week.


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Re: Cryptogram: Palladium Only for DRM

2002-09-19 Thread José Azevedo

People just keep piling up reasons to justify the SW suicide this is taking.

Perry is very right when he explains that a company that payed a certain
number of licenses has the right to deal with them in a manner that they
could be used in the purpose they were bought to. If a company spends a few
thousand dollars on hardware and software, it has every right to use that
software in a way that reachs it's purpose in the quantity that it was
licensed too. However, it is condemnable that a company can make use of 100
when they licensed 10, a model in wich many companies still incur.
But if someone tells me i have to pay an extra server license because i need
to install that SW in a brand new system, in preparation to replace the
older one in a 24x7 enviroment, i can tell you that is not going to happen.
And do you know why? Because there are ALTERNATIVES!
That's why market is such a beautifull place. When some product becomes too
screwy with itself, someone puts out another, different, and sometimes the
difference is the key to success, not just the improvement. Sometimes it
just needs to be a little different.

In a world where there are plenty of alternatives, i don't give a damn for
M$ and their bull, just because the time i have to license every step i make
on a computer is the time i go for the alternatives. And my friends, we know
that there are alternatives. And if M$ is great it is because we make it
great, and we can make it smaller again, and we can even create other SW
monster, we have the power to.
M$ is not even the best solution around, it's probably the one that most
people know about. That can also change.

Licensing of SW is dying because someone can make people believe HW and SW
are the same thing, but they aren't and that is a fact. HW is supposed to
last and SW is supposed to work. So, a 1 on 1 licensing is something that
will never be apliable in a real world with real problems.
Well, unless a messiah comes that can break every stupid crack M$ has on
their products, then the world would be perfect. But there it is, this isn't
a perfect world after all.

By the way, godbless cardioreaders aren't M$, or else we would be paying for
every heartbeat when we are in the hospital.

Good work everybody,
JFA




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Gary Shapiro: P2P File Sharing is Legal and Moral

2002-09-19 Thread Seth Johnson


(This essay hits many very effective points.  One of the key
things that needs to be borne in mind, however, is the fact
that technological proposals currently on the table are
implementations of the notion, foreign to American society
and jurisprudence, of creators' "moral rights" -- a term
basically saying that creators dictate how information may
be used.  This essay nevertheless clearly represents a very
significant step forward in the discourse.  Forwarded from
POLITECH.  -- Seth)


 Original Message 
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 22:35:19 -0700
From: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Some background:
http://www.ce.org/press_room/press_release_detail.asp?id=10027
http://www.ce.org/press_room/speech.doc
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-958324.html?tag=cd_mh

File photo:
http://www.mccullagh.org/image/d30-25/gary-shapiro.html

-Declan

---

Speech by Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer
Electronics Association.

The Campaign to Have Copyright Interests Trump Technology
and Consumer Rights

We are at a critical juncture in history when the inevitable
growth of technology is conflicting with the rising power
and strength of copyright  owners.  How we resolve this
tension between copyright and technology will  define our
future ability to communicate, create and share
information,  education and entertainment.

Today I would like to share with you my views on this
situation and the  questions we must confront as we wind
through this confusing, but historic  maze.

There is no doubt that this era’s rapid shift to digital and
other  technology is changing the rules of the game.
Reproduction, transmission  and storage technology all are
progressing exponentially, resulting in an  unprecedented
power to copy, send and save all forms of media.
Reproduction  technology has become incredibly cheap and
reliable. Transmission  technology, including satellite,
cable, broadcast, wired or wireless, and  often connecting
through the Internet, has linked everyone at ever 
increasing speeds and competitive pricing. Storage
technologies also  quickly have expanded in capacity as
total storage media costs have plummeted.

With each new technology, the fears of the music and motion
picture  industries have grown. With television and the VCR,
it was going to be the  end of movies. With CDs and
cassettes, it was the supposed harm from  real-time
transfers and one-at-a-time copies. Today’s technologies
make  these perceived threats seem naïve and harmless. With
high-speed  connectivity and the Internet, it’s not buying a
CD and making a copy for a  friend; it’s downloading from a
stranger or making available thousands of  copies with the
touch of a keystroke.

The growth of reproduction, storage and transmission
technology has  terrified copyright owners. The RIAA claims
that 3.6 billion songs are  downloaded each month. The RIAA
also estimates that $4.5 billion has been  lost by the music
industry due to pirating. And the motion picture industry 
also sees the writing on the wall. Fox Group CEO and News
Corp. President  Peter Chernin in an August 21 keynote
speech at an Aspen conference claimed  that Spiderman and
the latest Star Wars movie were downloaded four million 
times following the weekend after their release.

Based on these and similar threats the content community has
gone on a  scorched earth campaign ­ attacking and burning
several new recording and  peer-to-peer technologies. They
have used the Congress, media and courts to  challenge the
legality of technology and morality and legality of 
recording. In the same Aspen speech, Chernin attacked
computers as  untrustworthy and the Internet as primarily
used for pornography and  downloading.

I believe that hardware and software companies have a mutual
interest in  working together, so that they can sell more
products. For years, consumer  electronics companies have
been working with both the recording and motion  picture
industries on developing technological measures that meet
the needs  of both industries. For instance, the DVD
standard includes anti-copying  protection. It also includes
an anti-fast forward technology designed to  ensure
copyright warnings are shown, but instead is being used to
require  consumers to sit through movie previews. CE
companies also have provided  digital interfaces that allow
consumers to share content among their own  devices while
restricting unauthorized redistribution to the Internet. By 
protecting content at the source, content providers can be
assured their  intellectual property rights are respected,
while consumers can enjoy  unimpeded personal use. However,
source protection should not be used to  mislead consumers
to purchase CDs that can only be played on certain CD 
players.

Indeed, despite the cooperative efforts, the copyright
community has  declared war on technology and is using
lawsuits, legislatures and clever  public relations to
restrict the ability to sell and use