TJOAUC 1-7

Recently received by email:
  =======================================================================
 
  THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN UNDERGROUND COMPUTING / Published Quarterly
  ======================================================================
  ISSN 1074-3111         Volume One, Issue Seven        January 17, 1994
  ======================================================================
    available for download as jauc1-7.zip of 180Kbytes from

   ** ftp site: etext.archive.umich.edu    /pub/Zines/JAUC
   ** ftp site: ftp.fc.net                 /pub/tjoauc

    of cp interest I thought:


 Call Security / Voice Crypto FAQ                     Neil Johnson

 Telecommunications Security                          Howard Fuhs

    and seen here first:

 My Life As An International Arms Courier             Matt Blaze

    lots more deleted for brevity,
    listed in the titles.txt file in the .zip

On Sun, 22 Jan 1995, Harry Bartholomew wrote:

>  Call Security / Voice Crypto FAQ                     Neil Johnson

	This guy showed up in sci.crypt back in November of '94, with the 
"Call Security" program. It had some new unknown public-key algorithm in 
it that he had designed himself. He raved about the security of his 
program, and "Why wait for Voice PGP! Secure Voice is here now!". Just to 
show how secure his new algorithm was, he posted a challenge example, and 
asked for people to break it.

	Don Coppersmith posted the answer to the challenge the next
morning. It took thirty lines of Scheme code and about a minute on his
RS/6000. The only reason it took him so long to post it was that he saw 
the challenge at the start of work that day, and not when it was posted 
the night before. :-)

	Insert obligatory warning about snake-oil here.

Michael
--
Michael Handler                                         <grendel@netaxs.com>
Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics                   Philadelphia, PA
PGP Key ID FC031321  Print: 9B DB 9A B0 1B 0D 56 DA  61 6A 57 AD B2 4C 7B AF
"Toi qui fais au proscrit ce regard calme et haut" -- Baudelaire * Skotoseme

> >  Call Security / Voice Crypto FAQ                     Neil Johnson
> 
> 	This guy showed up in sci.crypt back in November of '94, with the 
> "Call Security" program. It had some new unknown public-key algorithm in 
> it that he had designed himself.

    I recall the event in sci.crypt, though not the names involved.
    The article in TJOAUC is a "FAQ" by someone named Neil Johnson
    (njj@pokey.mc.com) who thanks David Colston and Charlie Merritt
    "the authors" for sharing info...

    The FAQ states boldly:
    "CS uses QPK Quick Public Keys by David Colston.  This public
    key system has been reviewed by Whit Diffie, Gus Simmons (Sandia
    Labs), and posted on sci.crypt."

    and on the next page:
    "8. Is it really secure? You, decide!

    Well, the public keys system used by Call Security, QPK
    (Quick Public Keys) by Dave Colston has survived peer review.
    This is good"

    Are these statements false?  Should someone call for a retraction?

# > 
# > 	This guy showed up in sci.crypt back in November of '94, with the 
# > "Call Security" program. It had some new unknown public-key algorithm in 
# > it that he had designed himself.
# 
# 
#     and on the next page:
#     "8. Is it really secure? You, decide!

okay, I've decided!    --strick