Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing
Subject: Re: Just say "No" to key recovery concerns...keep
OpenPGP pure
From: Adam Back <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]
Tim May <[email protected]> writes:
> I'll try a different way of making my points...
> At 9:12 PM -0700 10/14/97, Lucky Green wrote:
> >I can't help but see a difference between enforcing
to encrypt to a
> >default key and storing the user's key outright. IMHO,
the former entails
> >less potential for abuse.
>
> All other things being equal, maybe the former is slightly
less intrusive
> than the latter. But maybe not even this, as the two give
the same results.
> After all, what's the real difference between "all mail,
incoming and
> outgoing, must also be encrypted to a CMR key" and "you
must deposit a copy
> of your key with us"?
CMR keys are the root of all evil in pgp5.5. Without them almost
any
permutation of recovery care to construct would be less useful
to the
GAK'ers, for all the organizational, and inconvenience reasons
Tim
describes. Governments have problems handling complexity.
So make their job complex. If you were one of the people writing
the
IRS tax software back in the 60s, and you were in deep cover,
a
proto-cypherpunk, and were bright enough to see the future
possibilities you would have done all you could to fuck up the
IRS
system. You would have obfuscated the code. You would have put
logic
bombs in it. You would have destroyed the source code
surreptitiously. (Destroying source code has analogies to destroying
keys at earliest opportunity, you are destroying something which
your
enemy needs).
Any bets as to if any of this actually happened on purpose? I
reckon
so.
So, do you all reckon we can make task of fielding GAK impossibly
complex for such a big disorganized government?
Adam
--
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/
print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`
I used to be a bright-eyed young computer guerrilla myself, many
years ago, but I guess I have grown a little less radical as I
have matured, since it now bothers me when youngsters such as
Adam Back attempt to encourage others to sabotage the code of
decent, hard-working programmers.
This matter is of particular concern to me, since Basis, Inc.
initially built the Purchasing and Contracting application in
the IRS National Office, to run under UNIX on Zilogs, with a preSQL
Informix database. Thus Back's intimations of "deep cover
proto-cypherpunks" sabotaging the IRS could quite possibly
cause serious harm to my professional reputation, in light of
the wild-eyed claims made about me in 'The True Story of the InterNet'
manuscripts.
I have grown quite tired of being the target of some half-baked,
delusional psychopath who is making me a character in the bizarre
prevarications which drool from his mind, onto the printed page.
I made the mistake of taking pity on a poor fellow one night in
a Berkeley bar, buying him a few drinks in return for the atrocious
tunes he played on a cheap, pawn shop guitar, and soon found him
showing up on my doorstep every time he hit town, looking for
a handout. Later, I found out that he had forged a letter of recommendation
in my name, in order to help himself get established in the computer
industry. It was very disturbing to discover some of the atrocities
he had done under cover of affiliation with myself and Basis,
Inc., causing me a great amount of legal problems.
Now, after believing that his obsessive-compulsive fixation on
me (because of his affection for my Jack Russell Terriers) was
a thing of the past, I find that he is now pushing some crazy
theory in regard to the Y2K problem, which is really a fairly
insignificant matter that he has blown all out of proportion,
and that he has drawn Adam Back into his madness to one degree
or another.
Mr. Back seems, from what little I know of him, to be a fairly
reasonable individual, but lately he has been sinking into the
same type of illogical rants and conspiracy rhetoric that the
imbecile who calls himself the Author is notorious for. And now
Back is making veiled references to persons connected to 'The
True Story of the InterNet' obfuscating the IRS software code
and planting logic bombs in it.
Of particular concern to me is the fact that I personally had
a hand in a rather innocent affair that resulted in our company
making some coding changes which could possibly be misconstrued
to indicate that we were involved in some type of testing of a
Year2000 bomb in the IRS software code.
One of the requirements for the application we built for the IRS
was that no PO (Purchase Order) could be issued without a signed
Requisition being referenced. Also, no PO could reference a Requisition
issued outside the current fiscal year.
Thus, no PO could be written for a Requisition from the previous
year.
But…the BIG But…the IRS staff had long been doing this…violating
the strict letter of the IRS rules-especially around the beginning
of a new fiscal year.
Lacking a current fiscal year requisition, they referenced one
dated the previous (just closed) fiscal year.
Suddenly, however, our application stopped their usual practice dead in the water, once certain PO's could not be processed because we required reference to valid (current year) Requisitions. We later discovered that the staff had been "cheating" by defeating our system's logic, after we were called in to tighten up all the design's enforcement of logic. Next thing you know, we were asked to relax the logic.
I would like to stress that it is a matter of record that the calendar year related problems were a result of the government specifications and requirements for the application, and not the result of some devious plot on the part of myself or Basis, Inc., to surreptitiously investigate the potential for designing code that would take advantage of the unique problems surrounding the advance from the 1999 calendar year to the year 2000 in order to bring the IRS system to its knees.
Neither was the fact that the garnisheeing of my paycheck by the
IRS stopped shortly after our work on the IRS system started in
any way related to my work on their system. It was merely a coincidence
of timing.
Conspiracy theorists might also make much of the fact that several
Basis applications programmers shortly thereafter took jobs with
the IRS for half of their former pay, but this can be explained
by their desire for the long-term security and benefits that come
with working for the federal government. The fact that most of
them left the IRS and returned to Basis shortly after completing
a major reworking of the calendar year updating system which locked
the IRS irrevocably into two digit year entries indicates nothing
more than the fact that they preferred living on the Left Coast.
People often offer raised eyebrows when discovering that I went
from having my paycheck garnisheed to receiving a $150,000 tax
refund on a $100,000 salary, each year, but this is because they
fail to take into account the fact that my work as a Research
Faculty member for the Center for Policy Alternatives at MIT involved
an interdisciplinary research center with links to Sloan School,
which gave me access to superior financial management advice.
The Center's close relationship to MIT's engineering departments
was in no way connected to any sort of covert government activity,
nor to any secret work on the development of the forerunners of
today's InterNet in a manner that would make it possible for powerful
non-elected Committees and secret Commissions to take control
of a large segment of government and society.
The Center for Policy Alternatives ceased to exist years ago,
and the rumors that the Center was merely moved underground to
secretly work toward establishing organizations such as FEMA,
and the like, are preposterous.
I am really growing sick and tired of the lies and slander that
surround myself and Basis, Inc., as a result of the jealousy of
other major league computer companies over our success at the
peak of the Open Systems computer consulting industry.
The constant insinuations that we cannot be trusted with highly
sensitive systems such as those at the IRS and PacBell, simply
because of our early history as Deadheads, is an insult to our
integrity. To suggest that Acidhead Grateful Dead fans all have
radical political agendas is no more true than suggesting that
all Malcolm X followers are black.
Well, OK, maybe that's a bad example…
Regardless, I would like to put to rest, once and for all, the
preposterous rumors that have been circulating which link myself
and other top computer industry executives to some mythical secret
organization whose aim is to subvert the legitimate machinations
of authority and the established power structure.
I totally deny any connection to 'The True Story of the InterNet'
or to anyone involved in the writing and/or dissemination of the
manuscripts, and I would advise others to do the same.
Copyright TruthMonger <[email protected]>
"Last one seen fixing it, gets the blame."