Real or Not ?

I snagged this off a news group this AM.. comments??

A lot of people think that PGP encryption is unbreakable and that the
NSA/FBI/CIA/MJ12 cannot read their mail. This is wrong, and it can be a
deadly mistake. In Idaho, a left-wing activist by the name of Craig Steingold
was arrested  _one day_ before he and others where to stage a protest at
government buildings; the police had a copy of a message sent by Steingold
to another activist, a message which had been encrypted with PGP and sent
through E-mail.

 Since version 2.1, PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") has been rigged to 
allow the NSA to easily break encoded messages. Early in 1992, the author, 
Paul Zimmerman, was arrested by Government agents. He was told that he 
would be set up for trafficking narcotics unless he complied. The Government 
agency's demands were simple: He was to put a virtually undetectable 
trapdoor, designed by the NSA, into all future releases of PGP, and to
tell no-one.

 After reading this, you may think of using an earlier version of 
PGP. However, any version found on an FTP site or bulletin board has been 
doctored. Only use copies acquired before 1992, and do NOT use a recent 
compiler to compile them. Virtually ALL popular compilers have been 
modified to insert the trapdoor (consisting of a few trivial changes) into 
any version of PGP prior to 2.1. Members of the boards of Novell, Microsoft, 
Borland, AT&T and other companies were persuaded into giving the order for
the modification (each ot these companies' boards contains at least one
Trilateral Commission member or Bilderberg Committee attendant).

 It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it.
The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation",
in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The
result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above 
2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC
with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into
itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler
is older than from 1992.

The one-and-only anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com once stated:
! I snagged this off a news group this AM.. comments??

[ Part of previous message deleted ]

!  It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it.
! The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation",
! in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The
! result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above 
! 2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC
! with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into
! itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler
! is older than from 1992.

I vote for Bogus,  since it resembles too much a  story from the ancient
days of UNIX.

This story  stated that Ken  Thompson modified  the UNIX CC  compiler to
include  a trapdoor  in  each version  of  (I think  it  was) the  login
program, thus ensuring the placement of a trapdoor enabling him to enter
each  and every  system.   After  that (since  all  compiler passes  are
written in C)  he modified the compiler to include  this code (to modify
the login  program) into the  compiler and compiled the  compiler, after
which he destroyed the original sources.

Hope this story will not become the next "Good Time Virus" story or some
similar hoax...

-- 

GreetZ,
Unicorn.

==== _ __,;;;/ TimeWaster on http://www.IAEhv.nl/users/hvdl ============
  ,;( )_, )~\| Hans "Unicorn" Van de Looy   PGP: ED FE 42 22 95 44 25 D8
 ;; //  `--;   GSM: +31 653 261 368              BD F1 55 AA 04 12 44 54
'= ;\ = | ==== finger hvdl@sequent.com for more info ===================

anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com writes:
> 
> I snagged this off a news group this AM.. comments??

> 
> NSA/FBI/CIA/MJ12...Craig Steingold......Trilateral Commission....
> Bilderberg Committee


Heh.  They forgot the Black Heliocopters manned by agents of
the UN/New World Order, and the Greys from Zeta Reticuli..

It's a hoax, with several clues that it is a hoax in it.

Of course you're welcome to prove me wrong by disassembling
a PGP binary.  Examination of the random numnber generator, IDEA
key setup, or RSA key setup vs what's in the source code
should show if something fishy is going on.


-- 
Eric Murray  ericm@lne.com  ericm@motorcycle.com  http://www.lne.com/ericm
PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03  92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF

On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Eric Murray wrote:

> Heh.  They forgot the Black Heliocopters manned by agents of
> the UN/New World Order, and the Greys from Zeta Reticuli..
> 
> It's a hoax, with several clues that it is a hoax in it.
> 
> Of course you're welcome to prove me wrong by disassembling
> a PGP binary.  Examination of the random numnber generator, IDEA
> key setup, or RSA key setup vs what's in the source code
> should show if something fishy is going on.

Unless of course the program you're using to view the disassembled 
instructions has also been altered by the TriLats. And make sure you use 
any pre-1992 compiler on a pre-1992 operating system on a computer that's 
not hooked up to the Net or even located where NSA agents can get to it.

"Steingold" was a nice touch.

-Declan


// declan@eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan@well.com //

> Unless of course the program you're using to view the disassembled 
> instructions has also been altered by the TriLats. And make sure you use 
> any pre-1992 compiler on a pre-1992 operating system on a computer that's 
> not hooked up to the Net or even located where NSA agents can get to it.

For what its worth I have a copy of DOS 3.3 running Borland Turbo C 1.0
with the original Turbo Debugger/Assembler on an IBM Model 30 that has
never been hooked up to the Net.

Any takers? :)

Ben.
____
Ben Samman.................................................ben@edelweb.fr
Paris, France                      Illudium Q36 Explosive Space Modulator

On Wed, 28 Aug 1996 anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com wrote:

> I snagged this off a news group this AM.. comments??
> 
[snip]
> 
>  Since version 2.1, PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") has been rigged to 
> allow the NSA to easily break encoded messages. Early in 1992, the author, 
> Paul Zimmerman, was arrested by Government agents. He was told that he 

The author of PGP is PHILLIP Zimmermannm not Paul.

This file has been making the rounds for a few years now...it was first 
posted to one of the humor newsgroups, but pops up every now and then on 
one of the more serious places, like here.  It's bogus.

---

Zach Babayco

zachb@netcom.com  <----- finger for PGP public key
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/4127

>I snagged this off a news group this AM.. comments??
>
>A lot of people think that PGP encryption is unbreakable and that the
>NSA/FBI/CIA/MJ12 cannot read their mail. This is wrong, and it can be a
>deadly mistake. In Idaho, a left-wing activist by the name of Craig Steingold
>was arrested  _one day_ before he and others where to stage a protest at
>government buildings; the police had a copy of a message sent by Steingold
>to another activist, a message which had been encrypted with PGP and sent
>through E-mail.


I suppose this part could be true.
>
> Since version 2.1, PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") has been rigged to
>allow the NSA to easily break encoded messages. Early in 1992, the author,
>Paul Zimmerman, was arrested by Government agents. He was told that he
>would be set up for trafficking narcotics unless he complied. The Government
>agency's demands were simple: He was to put a virtually undetectable
>trapdoor, designed by the NSA, into all future releases of PGP, and to
>tell no-one.

Phil Zimmerman has been shown to be a person of remarkable personal
integrity and
since he was up on and beat charges of illegally exporting munitions, I
some how find a
lame threat of a frame up for narcotic trafficking as making him cave to
the "shadowy" government
wishes a bit hard to swallow.


>
> snip<
> Members of the boards of Novell, Microsoft,
>Borland, AT&T and other companies were persuaded into giving the order for
>the modification (each ot these companies' boards contains at least one
>Trilateral Commission member or Bilderberg Committee attendant).

Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot that the all powerful TC was behind it all, so of
course its true.

>
> It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it.
>The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation",
>in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The
>result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above
>2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC
>with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into
>itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler
>is older than from 1992.

Somehow, I just don't see the FSF collaborating and caveing to threats.
Also please note that
all of this code under discussion has been and is constantly being reviewed
by some of these here fine folks
and thus far, ain't no one found this often rumored secret back door, but
then again, I am quite sure the TC is behind the coverup.

have a day
in fact,
they're cheap, have 2

chipper

[deletia -- PGP being Trojanized since 2.2]

>From what I heard, it was bad key distrubtion and infiltration which did
the person in, rather than pgp being broken.

If PGP was broken, it would be definitely found by now.

> > It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it.
 > >The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation",
 > >in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The
 > >result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above
 > >2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC
 > >with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into
 > >itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler
 > >is older than from 1992.

    Umm, no.  I work for the Foundation in my copious free time.  This
has never happened.  And I just asked Richard about it to be sure.  He
was amused.
    It would be *very* difficult to pass this by anyone.  People at
FSF diff the source code a lot, and we're far from the only ones.

> 
>  > > It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it.
>  > >The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation",
>  > >in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The
>  > >result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above
>  > >2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC
>  > >with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into
>  > >itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler
>  > >is older than from 1992.
> 
>     Umm, no.  I work for the Foundation in my copious free time.  This
> has never happened.  And I just asked Richard about it to be sure.  He
> was amused.
>     It would be *very* difficult to pass this by anyone.  People at
> FSF diff the source code a lot, and we're far from the only ones.
> 

This has been a common joke for years now, the gcc "virus".  Its nothing
more than a troll.

(Its getting boring, however)

>  Since version 2.1, PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") has been rigged to 
> allow the NSA to easily break encoded messages. Early in 1992, the author, 
> Paul Zimmerman, was arrested by Government agents. He was told that he 
> would be set up for trafficking narcotics unless he complied. The Government 
> agency's demands were simple: He was to put a virtually undetectable 
> trapdoor, designed by the NSA, into all future releases of PGP, and to
> tell no-one.

This is wrong, and easily disproven.  There was no way to put a trap
door in PGP because the source code was made publically available.
Modifying every C compiler in the world is just not realistic.

However, the situation has become considerably different with PGPfone.
Source code to PGPfone is kept extremely secret.  A few outsiders may
be given the source to review, but they will not be allowed to compile
and distribute it.  Only binaries of PGPfone compiled by the authors
will be available.  Some interesting portions of the program have even
been intentionally obfuscated to make them extremely difficult to
disassemble and analyze.

With PGPfone, a back would be considerably easier to install...

! I snagged this off a news group this AM.. comments??
! 
! A lot of people think that PGP encryption is unbreakable and that the
! NSA/FBI/CIA/MJ12 cannot read their mail. This is wrong, and it can be a
! deadly mistake. In Idaho, a left-wing activist by the name of Craig Steingold
! was arrested  _one day_ before he and others where to stage a protest at
! government buildings; the police had a copy of a message sent by Steingold
! to another activist, a message which had been encrypted with PGP and sent
! through E-mail.
! 
!  Since version 2.1, PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") has been rigged to 
! allow the NSA to easily break encoded messages. Early in 1992, the author, 
! Paul Zimmerman, was arrested by Government agents. He was told that he 
! would be set up for trafficking narcotics unless he complied. The Government 
! agency's demands were simple: He was to put a virtually undetectable 
! trapdoor, designed by the NSA, into all future releases of PGP, and to
! tell no-one.
! 
!  After reading this, you may think of using an earlier version of 
! PGP. However, any version found on an FTP site or bulletin board has been 
! doctored. Only use copies acquired before 1992, and do NOT use a recent 
! compiler to compile them. Virtually ALL popular compilers have been 
! modified to insert the trapdoor (consisting of a few trivial changes) into 
! any version of PGP prior to 2.1. Members of the boards of Novell, Microsoft, 
! Borland, AT&T and other companies were persuaded into giving the order for
! the modification (each ot these companies' boards contains at least one
! Trilateral Commission member or Bilderberg Committee attendant).

The only true part in this hoax is the extent of corporate and political 
membership in international capitalist organizations like the Council of 
Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers, and hundreds of 
other redundent alike organizations dedicated to making the whole world 
the same.

!  It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it.
! The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation",
! in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The
! result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above 
! 2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC
! with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into
! itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler
! is older than from 1992.

This identical post was included in an issue of Phrack about three or four 
years ago.  So this bogus post is already pretty old.  With all the real 
creepy stuff happening in the world, who needs to make up lies?