[Noisebridge-discuss] Deep Crack

[Jacob Appelbaum]

Hi *,

I had a conversation with John Gilmore today about picking up Deep
Crack. During our discussion, I asked John about donating the machine
and about a receipt and so on. To my surprise, he isn't ready to
transfer ownership of the machine to Noisebridge at this time. This
outright solves any tax concerns, although such concerns would have been
John's burden anyway (it's up to him to value the item, not us -- we
just confirm that we received an item).

I'm going to lead a time limited project involving Deep Crack. The goal
of this project will be to understand the history of the politics
surrounding DES, a study of the machine itself and we'll hopefully also
actually crack some DES keys at some point during this project. I hope
we can find something in the wild to crack (found ciphertext, is that
like found art?) but I'm also happy to attempt to crack a specially
crafted message just for the purposes of learning! I'm open to other
topics and I think it's a good way for people to be introduced to
attacking crypto systems. When I was younger, I was really inspired by
the Cypherpunks movement and specifically by John's work. To have Deep
Crack in our space is probably the greatest honor Noisebridge has received.

Andy, Leif, Vlad and myself will meet with John tomorrow evening. We'll
pick it up in Vlad's truck and we'll bring it to Noisebridge shortly
after 6PM. If you'd like to help unload it and move it into the space,
your physical labor would been very appreciated tomorrow evening!

If we don't use Deep Crack, it's silly to have it around. If we're going
to study and learn from it, it's apparent that it will be useful. If we
do use and benefit from it, it will be apparent to everyone, and perhaps
someday I would even have the guts to ask John for it on a permanent
basis. I find it _really_ inspiring to imagine our space housing the
fastest unclassified special purpose DES cracking machine in the world.
After ten years, it's still the fastest (it's not the cheapest
obviously)! I really want to emphasize something special about having
this machine at Noisebridge over say, a museum: We're going to use it
and we're going to learn from it! I firmly believe that it will inspire
other people to learn about cryptography in a really serious way. I hope
that someone who has no interest in cryptography can come and touch the
machine, to see it run and to take part in our project. It doesn't
belong in a museum yet. The battle over other weak crypto systems is
_far_ from over. This machine is still useful and still relevant for
todays systems! The current battle over GSM security seems relevant in
some ways and very different in others.

It appears that there is an interest from many people at and around
Noisebridge. I'm really excited about this project and I think it's
great that so many awesome people have expressed support. If you'd like
to help, please let me know on the list or off the list! Perhaps we'll
make a sublist about cryptography in general?

From a legal perspective, I do not believe that being near the Deep
Crack machine is going to pose a problem for non-US citizens. Deep Crack
was famously run a number of times, it even won awards for these runs! I
might add that it was quite the spectacle, so it wasn't simply
unnoticed! I have stood next to a non-US citizen holding a part of the
machine. As I understand it this is not a violation of ITAR in spirit or
in the letter of the law. I'll talk with John about this tomorrow too.
He has spent a long time fighting ITAR and is probably the best person
on the planet to talk with about it.

I do however believe that a non-US citizen should not attempt to run or
use the machine. This issue will not preclude any such persons from
_learning about the machine_ or its history.

I will attempt to talk with the relevant legal minds at the EFF and
until then, I ask that people who have a concern about their respective
visa situation to not touch the machine. It seems clear to me that if
you're not sure if you should touch such a system, please be reasonable
and do not do so.

Here's a nice link that can lead you to a lot information about Deep Crack:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFF_DES_cracker

Best,
Jake

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 155 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://www.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20091007/df3ebc24/attachment-0002.sig>