From: "Attila T. Hun" <attila@hun.org>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 17:14:36 +0800
To: Adam Back <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: consensus on pgp? can we consolidate for action?
Message-ID: <19971016.032545.attila@hun.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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    two of the things I was trying to do in my rant "GET WITH
    IT" on the issues may not have been clear:

     1. as Tim says, let's make sure the OpenPGP standard (which
        in itself I did not address) is for PGP by itself, none
        of the peripheral issues or means of implementing
        GAK/CAK/CMR or the rest of the faloderol.  now, if PGP,
        under market pressure wishes to allow hooks for each of
        the sins from the necessary to the unpardonable GAK
        --that is a business decision.

     2. as far as the proposed SNMP "enforcer" --that is also a
        business consideration.  however, the more PGP is
        willing to listen to some of our voices of reason[1], 
        the more likely PGP is going to be in the rather 
        enviable position which at least permits companies to 
        make a choice.

            [1] by and large, despite the polarity of the
            arguments, this issue with PGP has been one of our
            memorably sane and polite debates with so many
            threads I may need to establish a separate text
            retrievable database!  and it involves one of our
            most emotional issues:  privacy.

    the second point is critical to our interests as well as for
    PGP's stand in the industry as a whole. if the SNMP enforcer 
    product is carefully designed, it can not only provide 
    warnings for each level of security but even more 
    importantly, it does not necessarily need to provide GAK
    functionally in the standard product:

        browsers use plugins --so why not security level 
        plugins for the "Bad Daddy" SNMP enforcer?

    essentially, the SNMP is a network connected, ie- 
    communication system, supervisor to one or more "clients"
    scattered anywhere in the network which recognizes Bad 
    Daddy. some of the PGP control functions are basic, but the
    rest should go on plugin, each relating to a different level
    of sin, forgivable to abominable.

    likewise, the local PGP crypto engine should be built around
    plugins. in this manner, anyone concerned with privacy can 
    easily check for the presence of the dirty little black 
    boxes, or hopefully PGP will display a panel of "features"
    (if you can ever call invasion of absolute privacy that).

    plugins today are a nobrainer.

    personally, I would not be willing to endorse a system which
    gives the SNMP Bad Daddy the ability to retrieve my secret
    keys and PGP should permit holding my secret keys on a flop
    of some type -in other words specify a separate location 
    for the secring which we can not do now unless we move the 
    rest of PGP environment (at least as far as I have read). 

    however, if I am stupid enough to put them in a network
    accessible position for the superuser to scarf -- that's my
    problem. for use on network machines, I have a c program 
    which is effectively a one time pad to make the ring 
    accessible for as short a time as possible. I was writing
    a c code supervisor which took care of this task rather 
    neatly with an out of place checksum passwd for the pad 
    keys but have been sidetracked.

    I think we have all pretty much agreed on the necessity of
    separate signature, communication, and storage keys; Adam
    Back convinced me rather quickly (I was using only a
    separate storage key). there is less agreement on the 
    effectiveness of GAKing the communications key since some
    form of DH session keys could be deployed and mail is
    transient; eg: GAK only serves the Fed in this case, which, 
    of course, is what they want.

    I have not seen any further discussion on my suggestion to
    create a sendmail type daemon which implements DH between
    mail clients. this, of course, is on the presumption that DH 
    is a wrapper for an already encrypted packet, 

    I also agree with Adam's design on isolating the recovery 
    aspect from possible GAK outreach. although I will cop a
    plea to sometimes in the back and forth Adam was grasping
    for something which was never going to be there <g>

    bottom line: I think the consensus has already formed that
    PGP is not going to be the pristine voice crying in the 
    wilderness we all hoped to hear; now the issue is, how can
    we shape the product to have a) the most flexibility, 
    realizing full well there will be brain dead organizations
    who will insist on ordering GAK; and b) have the fewest
    potholes unknowingly enabling some level of pseudoGAK, etc.]
    again, that means focusing the pressure on PGP to keep the
    basic crypto engine pristine, and do the dirty work in Bad 
    Daddy --and use "visible" plugins.

    I can only presume PGP 5.5 is a fair ways down the pipe to
    delivery, complete with its Big Daddy SNMP enforcer; this 
    will make it all the harder to influence changes as PGP, Inc.
    appears to have grown enough in size to contain too many
    non-caring v/v real privacy (I have nothing to hide type 
    ignorance), and even more disappointing, not only technically
    ignorant, but distrustful of technology bureaucrats that 
    arrive with corporate growth -focused on 

        a)  closing off the design cycle; 
        b)  stifling the debate over methods; 
        c)  shipping product (oh, hell, we can listen to their
            complaints and make changes later...); and,
        d)  recover the vulture capital investors money.  

    if the foregoing is true, I hope PRZ has the good sense to
    take a walk, selling his stock (to do otherwise would be
    complicit in the deception of PGP's reputation capital).

    regardless of the above, if we as a group, with reasonable
    consensus, are willing to make an assault on the powers that
    be at PGP, Inc. including whatever relevant public publicity
    to heat the fire, there may be action.  hell, if we could 
    afford it (or Tim feels _real_ generous <g>), buy a NYTimes 
    page and all of us sign the "selling out our the constitution"
    with cute little graphics of children being tortured for 
    their keys.

    another point to consider:  if a majority of cypherpunks as
    a group are willing to "endorse" the pgp product, that may 
    be an issue worth discussing with pgp.  the only problem
    may be the level of the outside managers and bean counters
    which hold down the front offices, totally ignorant of 
    anything but feeelthy money; or, more probable, some cp
    subset who have been the primary contributors historically
    on these issues, and I think most of us know who the primary
    thinkers are on this issue are.  obviously we must be fully
    informed and our opinions assessed --even with divergences.
    in the end, I would like to think decisions could be settled
    by consensus, rather than Supreme Court style. <g>

    if we (and I say this as: "who's this we...")....

    despite the cynical contempt with which the mass media often
    displays to our attitudes, even resorting to name calling,
    reputation capital is not necessarily gained from main line
    press popularity, and certainly not from government
    "popularity" in this issue [particularly cogent to those of
    us "fortunate" to have received the IRS spam].  FWIW

    of course, I may be presumptuous PGP would even want to hear
    from us, let alone have any form of "Cypherpunks Inside" 
    (yuk) label on the box! particularly with the round robin 
    multi-teaming of the sleepless Jon Callas.

        this has been an attila rant...

        attila, out, one more time....

    and: it aint over 'til the fat lady sings, vahalla burning!

 "attila" sig: 1024/C20B6905/23D0 FA7F 6A8F 6066 BCAF AE56 98C0 D7B0 

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