Re: crypto for porno users

Hi Jay.

>Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 00:17:47 -0800
>From: Jay Campbell <edge@got.net>
>Subject: Re: crypto for porno users


>A law
>enforcement team would be stepping onto shaky ground if they were forced to
>transfer illegal images/etc to a suspected trafficer before getting evidence
>from him. Entrapment is an ugly concept.

We've been hearing about such things (using the mails) for some time.  I
don't know how the cops avoided entrapment when they posed as kiddie porn
customers or pedophiles when they were doing the AOL sting.

>>3. Encryption of porn would work against the kind of porn distribution
>>	found on the alt.binary.pictures.erotic... newsgroups.  Encryption
>>	requires that recipients be identified.
>
>Not at all .. a porn distributor could generate a key pair, use part A to
>encode the images, and dessiminate part B thru a variety of outlets -
>publicly posted, sold, passed thru an informal network of like-minded
>netizens...

It's that informal network which is the danger to the pornographer.  The
bigger the network, the closer to certainty that it's been infiltrated.

<begin major soap box issue for me>

Strong authentication via crypto does not create a trusted group.  Trust is
a human:human decision -- subject to severe flaws, none of which are solved
by crypto.  [Can you devise a crypto protocol which will prevent or even
just detect adultery, for example?]  With each additional person, there is
a probability of deception.  For this informal network of yours, deception
by any one participant constitutes a security failure.  If you want to
avoid that, therefore, you need to keep the group *very small*.  If it's
that small, then it's not that interesting a target for LE.

<end major soap box issue for me>

>I would argue the exact opposite - strong crypto would tend to minimize the
>effective take, since there's no guarantee that /anything/ on a perp's
>system will be in the clear. I'll let someone else with a better background
>pound on the 'brute force' section.

Ah -- but that's the point I was making.  Crypto gives the appearance of
security -- whether it's in the informal network or with file storage.
It's often a bank vault door on a cardboard house.  For much of what people
do, especially if there's a large net, it's not rational to expect to
achieve security.  But -- if people have done something to achieve
security, they're likely to be fooled into trusting it to be adequate.

Meanwhile, if *everything* on the perp's machine is encrypted, you're
probably in good shape.  That means he'll be required to type passwords too
often -- so he'll either pick a small one or have some machinery which
stores the password.  Both give cryptanalytic advantages.

This isn't a guarantee that *every* perp will be wide open.  Some won't be.
It means that a bunch of perps will be wide open (out of their own
carelessness -- like the breaks into the Enigma net).

The question you need to look at is not the control-freak question which
Freeh seems concerned with:

A)	the probability that some one perp will manage to hide his data

but rather the SIGINT question:

B)	the expected percentage of perps who will fail to hide their data

Have a good day.

 - Carl




 +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |Carl M. Ellison    cme@acm.org    http://www.clark.net/pub/cme            |
 |PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2  |
 |  ``Officer, officer, arrest that man!  He's whistling a dirty song.''    |
 +---------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison (aka Mother) -+

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> >A law
> >enforcement team would be stepping onto shaky ground if they were forced to
> >transfer illegal images/etc to a suspected trafficer before getting evidence
> >from him. Entrapment is an ugly concept.
> 
> We've been hearing about such things (using the mails) for some time.  I
> don't know how the cops avoided entrapment when they posed as kiddie porn
> customers or pedophiles when they were doing the AOL sting.

As I recall, the courts have sent the message to the LE community that it's entrapment if they 
entice someone into doing something that they normally wouldn't do.  If you're a kiddie porn dealer, 
and I as a LE officer entice you to sell me some pictures of that cute 8-year-old doing some geezer, 
then that's not entrapment.  If I, on the other hand, try to pressure you (assuming you are a 
law-abiding citizen) into buying such by either misrepresenting the article in question or by 
threatening you with dire consequences if you don't buy, etc. - in other words, forcing or enticing 
you to do something you normally wouldn't do - *that's* entrapment.
- --
Ed Carp, N7EKG    			Ed.Carp@linux.org, ecarp@netcom.com
					214/993-3935	voicemail/pager
Finger ecarp@netcom.com for PGP 2.5 public key		an88744@anon.penet.fi

Q.	What's the trouble with writing an MS-DOS program to emulate Clinton?
A.	Figuring out what to do with the other 639K of memory.

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I wish we could get off the subject of the kiddie porn , it makes me 
wonder what people on this list are doing when they are not mailing out 
letters. Not to flame ,BUT it is such a serious issue and we all as 
adults and approaching adults should not treat it as an academic issue . 
It is the most victimizing of all crimes and I think of speak for some of 
us when I say that it would be better if we all found a way to get back 
to discussing the problems of cryptography as related to we not 
pornographers.

               Thanks in Advance 
                     moroni

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

> Strong authentication via crypto does not create a trusted group.  Trust is
> a human:human decision -- subject to severe flaws, none of which are solved
> by crypto.  [Can you devise a crypto protocol which will prevent or even
> just detect adultery, for example?]  With each additional person, there is
> a probability of deception.  For this informal network of yours, deception
> by any one participant constitutes a security failure.  If you want to
> avoid that, therefore, you need to keep the group *very small*.  If it's
> that small, then it's not that interesting a target for LE.

Very true.  Authentication, whether strong or weak, merely says that you are who you say you are -
totally different from this "web of trust" I keep hearing about - and that is *it*.  Do you trust me
any more now than before I started signing my postings? 

> Ah -- but that's the point I was making.  Crypto gives the appearance of
> security -- whether it's in the informal network or with file storage.
> It's often a bank vault door on a cardboard house.  For much of what people
> do, especially if there's a large net, it's not rational to expect to
> achieve security.  But -- if people have done something to achieve
> security, they're likely to be fooled into trusting it to be adequate.
> 
> Meanwhile, if *everything* on the perp's machine is encrypted, you're
> probably in good shape.  That means he'll be required to type passwords too
> often -- so he'll either pick a small one or have some machinery which
> stores the password.  Both give cryptanalytic advantages.

It's well-known that most revelations of encrypted information come from "humint", not from 
mathematical finesse with the encryption scheme.  I especially love Oracle's idea of security - when 
submitting SQL to the Oracle back-end, to automate the process, you feed it your user ID and 
password IN THE CLEAR, ON THE COMMAND LINE.  Any weenie can run "ps -ef/ps -ax" and pipe it to 
grep.  The fact that Larry Ellison wont do anything about it seems to me to be idiocy of the first 
order, and that Oracle doesn't know what it's doing.  It's not even a good database product.  Deity 
only knows why people keep buying it, although that's rather off-topic ;)
- --
Ed Carp, N7EKG    			Ed.Carp@linux.org, ecarp@netcom.com
					214/993-3935	voicemail/pager
Finger ecarp@netcom.com for PGP 2.5 public key		an88744@anon.penet.fi

Q.	What's the trouble with writing an MS-DOS program to emulate Clinton?
A.	Figuring out what to do with the other 639K of memory.

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