unsubscribing info; pcmcia, anyone?

> Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 14:50:00 -0600
> From: Nemesis <richier@Onramp.NET>
> To: cypherpunks@toad.com
> Subject: (no subject)

> How do i get off the mailing list??????

reply follows-------------------------------------------------------

to unsubscribe from the cypherpunks mailing list, send to:

		majordomo@toad.com

an e-mail message with the following text in the body of the message:

	unsubscribe cypherpunks richier@onramp.net

--
buenas suerte, nemesis.

p.s. -- a little hint: if your mail reader lets you save messages rec'd 
in folders or some such thing, you should save all the messages you get 
from mailing list software (like the first two messages you got from 
cypherpunks) in a sepaprate folder (like one called 'lists'.) Then you 
will be able to go back and unsubscribe or sign off when you want.

I'm thinking of putting the how to unsubscribe info for RFC-Dist and 
IETF-Announce (and maybe c.punks) in a .sig file - but I hate sigs so.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

obligatory crypto comment: has anyone looked at the iPower card and 
gotten one to play with? Where else could one get a PCMCIA card that was 
programmable and had a little memory on it? How hard would it be to make 
one - in other words, what could we get the cost down to for an 
encrypting pcmcia card? there couldn't be much to it, really, could there?
------------------------------------------------------------------
latest word from the other room: Buchanan 27%, Dole 26%, Lamar 13%

P.J. Ponder wrote:

| obligatory crypto comment: has anyone looked at the iPower card and 
| gotten one to play with? Where else could one get a PCMCIA card that was 
| programmable and had a little memory on it? How hard would it be to make 
| one - in other words, what could we get the cost down to for an 
| encrypting pcmcia card? there couldn't be much to it, really, could there?

	I got one, its very badly documented; theres some source in
Visual basic for windoze.  I haven't had time to track down real docs
so I can do anything.  Anyone know who I can call to get real
documentation?

Adam


-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume

On Thu, 22 Feb 1996, Adam Shostack wrote:

> P.J. Ponder wrote:
> 
> | obligatory crypto comment: has anyone looked at the iPower card and 
> | gotten one to play with? Where else could one get a PCMCIA card that was 
> | programmable and had a little memory on it? How hard would it be to make 
> | one - in other words, what could we get the cost down to for an 
> | encrypting pcmcia card? there couldn't be much to it, really, could there?
> 
> 	I got one, its very badly documented; theres some source in
> Visual basic for windoze.  I haven't had time to track down real docs
> so I can do anything.  Anyone know who I can call to get real
> documentation?
> 

We've been doing some work with the thing and have actually got a crypto 
product built for a customer.  Some things to know:

1.  It' unbelievably slow.  Key generation on this things takes an order 
of magnitude longer than what you see in the "average" PC environment.  
Encrypt/decrypt times are equally extended, but aren't that obnoxious if 
5-20 second/'average' e-mail message lag times don't torque your user.

2.  Buy the PersonaCard API Developer's Kit or you're hosed.  It's the 
only real source of relevant data.  It's got Visual C++ source in it, 
etc.  You also can then contact Nat-Semi with questions.  You can order 
the thing (I think it's around $100, but I'm not sure) from:

iPower Technical Support
iPower Business Unit
National Semiconductor Corporation
1090 Kifer Road, Mail Stop 16-225
Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3737

3.  The drivers suck.  They appear to be essentially a "protocol stack" 
that gets loaded into memory (LOTS of memory) and then they conflict with 
just about everything.  Lock ups are common.  These things have to load 
in sequence, before anything else, or they won't work.  We have not been 
able to get them to peacefully coexist with any other PCMCIA drivers, nor 
with such things as CD-ROM drivers or tape backup drivers.

Summary:  A fun thing to play with, interesting toy, but probably not 
something you can actually make useful (yet).

Enjoy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
|So, I went walking through the street.   |Mark Aldrich                 | 
|I saw you strung up in a tree.           |GRCI INFOSEC Engineering     | 
|A woman knelt there, said to me,         |maldrich@grci.com            | 
|Hold your tongue, man, hold your tongue. |MAldrich@dockmaster.ncsc.mil | 
|_______________________________________________________________________| 
|The author is PGP Empowered.  Public key at:  finger maldrich@grci.com |
|    The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author     | 
|         and my employer gets no credit for them whatsoever.           | 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am just assuming that the Association (PCMCIA) has a way of distributing
specs, etc. I also assume they have a web page and all that, maybe 
even a citizen-unit subscribed to this mailing list who probably could
point us in the right direction.  I think PCMCIA cards offer a lot of
potential as wallets and general purpose privacy prophylaxis engines.
I don't know anything about the technology, but the device drivers, et al,
could be publicly reviewed and recompiled on trusted machines, presumably,
and the device itself could be tested (I assume) with a publicly 
available routine that once again one could install from source, etc. 

how much do the slots cost to add on to pc's that don't already have them?
Is there a parallel interface, for instance, that can plug into a 
printer port?
--
PJ
------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, 22 Feb 1996, Adam Shostack wrote:

> P.J. Ponder wrote:
> 
> | obligatory crypto comment: has anyone looked at the iPower card and 
> | gotten one to play with? Where else could one get a PCMCIA card that was 
> | programmable and had a little memory on it? How hard would it be to make 
> | one - in other words, what could we get the cost down to for an 
> | encrypting pcmcia card? there couldn't be much to it, really, could there?
> 
> 	I got one, its very badly documented; theres some source in
> Visual basic for windoze.  I haven't had time to track down real docs
> so I can do anything.  Anyone know who I can call to get real
> documentation?
> 
> Adam
> 
> 
> -- 
> "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
> 					               -Hume
>