From: Sean Roach <roach_s@alph.swosu.edu>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 05:51:09 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Biological Warfare
Message-ID: <199709172143.RAA12527@www.video-collage.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



I came up with an idea for fighting GAK.  Biological warefare.
This is a tried and true formula for war.
The Europeans used it to great effect against the Native Americans in the
form of Rabies and Smallpoxs.
The Europeans even used a form of it even earlier, throwing the rotting
corpses of dead horses into beseiged cities to spread desease.
The more modern chemical warefare has been used in both world wars and
possibly by Saddam Hussain during the Gulf War.
What I propose is a virus.
For GAK to work, there have to be lines of code in the encryption program to
give the government access.
It has been commented here that anyone who can get the source code can
comment those lines out.
Let's be frank, very few will have that option.
However, a software patch could be made that commented out the offending
code of any given product.  Perhaps also altering some visible part of the
program so that you know that your conversations are now secure.  Perhaps
the addition of a small ascii character to the corner of the screen.
The program that delivers the patch could be made in the form of a rather
innocuous computer virus.  Or, if you prefer, a worm.  This way, the program
can travel the same highways of silicon that the GAKked messages travel to
deGAK the software that it targets whenever it encounters it.
Give the software a relatively short lifespan, on the order of a year or so,
before all copies check thier date and decide to self destruct.  No need for
the virus if the software has been upgraded.  Then you'd need a new version
of the virus.

The project would be a large one as persons would have to get ahold of the
source.  Probably through decompiling it and figuring out what the now
undocumented source does at each step.  The actual virus would be easy to
code by comparison.
This should not preclude fighting the onset of GAK, rather the functional
incorporation of GAK.  What is the government going to do with 50,000
americans who have been using unGAKked software because they didn't know
that it had been infected?
Keep the visual clue as small as possible, maybe an extra period in a line
of periods.  That way an argument can be made for ignorance of the crime.
That is all.