Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

Peter Hendrickson <ph@netcom.com> writes:
> At 3:30 AM 11/9/1996, Adam Back wrote:
> >Peter Hendrickson <ph@netcom.com> writes:
> >> Where will you keep your secret key?  Remember, when they go through
> >> your house they bring 20 young graduates from MIT who are just dying
> >> to show how clever they are and save the world at the same time.
> 
> > Keep your secret key in your head.
> 
> I think this is hard to do in practice.  I have tried.

You could probably keep a hashing function around plausibly, then you
could do as usual and remember the passphrase and use the hash
function to construct the actual key.

> > Your plausible deniability has to get quite low before it will stand
> > up as "proof" in court.
> 
> My idea is that the lack of noise is used as evidence to get a search
> warrant.  The search warrant is used to get the evidence to put you away
> forever.

Your plausible deniability has to drop below 100%, your data has
deviate from "indistinguishable from normal data distributions" to get
yourself investigated in the first place.

If your stego techniques are any good, the feds will never get beyond
that point.  They will then be left with the option of doing random
`spot-checks'.  Having been on the cypherpunks list probably would
increase your chances of having your system checked.

> > Your real challenge is keeping your stego programs safe.  Boot
> > strapping a stegoed encrypted file system while leaving no stego code
> > lying around isn't that easy.
> 
> Excellent point, especially since you don't have an encrypted virtual
> disk.  Can anybody resolve this?
> 
> > rc4 in C:
> >
> > #define S,t=s[i],s[i]=s[j],s[j]=t /* rc4 key <file */
> > unsigned char s[256],i,j,t;main(c,v)char**v;{++v;while
> > (s[++i]=i);while(j+=s[i]+(*v)[i%strlen(*v)]S,++i);for(
> > j=0;c=~getchar();putchar(~c^s[t+=s[i]]))j+=s[++i]S;}
> 
> (Under 3.3)  I would have a hard time memorizing these programs.  This
> pretty much guarantees that the number of cryptoanarchists will be small.

That program is optimised for size rather than ease of memorizing.

RC4 is an elegantly simple algorithm, and I sumbit that you could
remember it.  Barring that you could just leave around a few
cypherpunks archives, or sci.crypt archives or whatever, and cut and
paste it form one of my posts :-)

Because RC4 is a stream cipher, you shouldn't reuse the key.  However
you shouldn't need to for this application.  You just use it to boot-
strap the real code.

You'd need to put in the appropriate stego decoder (say getting the
bytes from the LSbit of an audio file.  Linux loop back devices
already provide the stego capability directly.  But then linux loop
back devices provide IDEA encryption.  (I'm talking about Ian
Goldbergs patch to the loopback filesystem, which may not have been
folded back in yet).

Also you may be able to get somewhere with algorithms which are
plausible to have coded on your system anway.  Say, RC4 makes a good
PRNG, so what's wrong with having it in a standard library.  That
makes coding RC4 really simple.  Just reseed the PRNG with your key,
and XOR it's output with the encrypted file.

Also I did hear tell that Bruce Schneier was working on a crypto
algorithm which was designed to work with playing cards, for a book
which Neal Stephenson is writing.  Presumably painful to use, but
maybe good plausible deniability, all that you need is a pack of
cards.

> (I am deeply envious of your legal right to post this code, however.
> Now, why was it that we broke away from the Mother Country?)
>
> I would like to see a longer exposition of your approach.  Given
> a hostile environment, how would I operate a small anonymous perl
> coding service using your techniques?  

Once you've bootstrapped to your cryptoanarchists toolkit, you can
have anything you want, even a virtual TCP/IP layer, a hidden level of
TCP/IP in stego data.  TCP/IP itself is a likely candidate for a stego
carrier.  Non-predictable sequence nos are required to stop things
like the spoofing attack, and so are perfectly plausible.

The real pain at the moment is that bandwidth is so darned low.
You're talking 28.8k for most users, and I'd quite merrily pay $2000 a
year for a fractional T1 for personal use, but prices over here are
too high yet.

Once we get to everyone having enough bandwidth, lots of people with
permanent connections, lots of people using video conference software,
audio, downloading feature length films, etc. there's no stopping
crypto anarchy.  The LSbits in that lot would make a fairly responsive
subliminal channel by todays standards.

> Don't forget to tell me how I get paid and when I get to spend my
> "ill-gotten" gains and how nobody will notice that I am doing it.

You get paid in ecash, paid on the BlackNet bank.  You take a holiday
to a tax-haven and get paid off by a getting "lucky" at a BlackNet
affiliated casino.  The casino takes a their "currency exchange fee",
and you get US$.  Translations into paper currencies, I'll admit are
the weak link if you need paper currencies.  

However there are two ways to get anonymous electronic cash, either
you start with anonymous electronic cash, or you add the anonymity
afterwards via `privacy brokers', once there are a few dozen systems,
and trillions flowing around using these systems, it's going to be
hard to keep track of it all.

Adam
--
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