November 2000 - cypherpunks-legacy

CDR: Re: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
by Jim Choate 07 Nov '00

07 Nov '00

On Mon, 6 Nov 2000, Tom Vogt wrote: > Jim Choate wrote: > > > but on the other hand, we *do* want to keep cracking legal (at least to > > > some extend) because otherwise what is left of security in cyberspace > > > will quickly vanish into oblivion, right? > > > > What security? I've never had or made any claims that cyberspace was > > secure. Even in its nascent days. > > you're right. that's why I said "what's left of it". But if it wasn't ever there how can there be any left of it? > > Are you possibly confusing 'privacy' (which has the same issue) and > > 'security'? > > no. the argument is: if you make probing illegal, we'll see even more > (and *much* more) "security through obscurity" - because figuring out > that this crap is insecure will land you in jail. Going to jail won't stop anyone from figuring it out if that's what they want. I would be so bold as to suggest that if they make it illegal then you'll see a significant rise in the behaviour, along with increased use of anonymous remailers and Open Source software than can be kludged. ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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CDR: Re: PipeNet protocol
by Adam Back 07 Nov '00

07 Nov '00

[Doh! Did it again from the r00t.besiex.org account. Sorry for the duplicate.] Wei wrote: > > However I think this scheduling algorithm would have the side effect > > of making this variant of PipeNet very vulnerable to DoS attacks. > > Any user can arbitrarily delay packet delivery for the entire > > network by ceasing to send packets. > > > > It would also seem that performance would degrade badly to > > effectively the performance of the worst ping time link. > > That is all true. I guess what you meant by "insufficient" is in terms > of performance and defense against DoS attacks, not defense against > traffic analysis. Adam Shostack made the comment about insufficiency of padding in PipeNet you're referring to. I discussed insufficiency of padding in the _freedom network_ as a traffic analysis countermeasure in email with some folks who can speak up if they wish. This is because freedom does not use the synchronous approach for performance reasons and hence some active attacks remain even if you had end-to-end padding between client and exit node. End-to-end padding in the PipeNet synchronous mix-net does appear to be sufficient to provide good security against traffic analysis, but it has the DoS vulnerability and performance problems we discussed in the last pair of posts. > There is a hope, however, that the performance and DoS problems of > PipeNet could be solved in the future through other means. The > performance issue is easier, since it just requires the underlying > network to have better reliability and guarantee of service. The DoS > problem could be solved if the underlying network is protected > against DoS. Then we can require each user to place a large deposit > on each node, which would be used to compensate everyone else for > any delay caused by that user. It seems to me that with the current internet TCP properties you would have to distinguish network congestion from DoS attempts, which is not generally possible. Even if the Quality of Service (QoS) protocols were implemented and widely deployed, people still put backhoes through cables or have catastrophic equipment failures now and then. I suppose you could have compensation or insurance from the QoS enabled service provider and use that compensation to compensate you for the loss of the anonymity network good behavior bond. > I think a protocol that has good performance, defense against DoS > attacks, and defense against traffic analysis may not exist. There > may not even be a viable protocol that trades off between these > properties. Well if we look at the problem there are three properties we desire the system to have: 1. high security (idealised resistance to traffic analysis) 2. performance (reasonable performance which doesn't degrade as the network grows) 3. DoS resistance (reasonable resistance to DoS -- DoS or network outages should be local and not take out the entire network) It seems to me that we can have at most 2 of those. PipeNet provides 1, but not 2 or 3. Freedom provides 2 and 3, but is vulnerable to some active atacks even with end-to-end link padding. The other thing we could do is move content inside the network -- much of the traffic analysis material comes from the fact the exit traffic is in the clear. For example if many web servers supported connections from the freedom cloud using freedom protocol, and nodes in the network did per hop padding using a modified PipeNet scheduling algorithm where you would try to use PipeNet scheduling, but instead of delaying, if a packet didn't arrive in time, you would send some cover instead on a hop by hop basis. Then you package this thing as an accompanying apache server and encourage lots of people to run it. Obfuscation writes: > What if you eliminated the anonymity of caller to receiver, and only > tried to achieve traffic analysis resistance. That is, a receiver > can find out who is calling him, but if the caller and receiver are > honest and desire privacy, a third party cannot find out they are > communicating. > > Does this allow for a more efficient design? Can the intermediate > switch nodes now handle delays by inserting dummy traffic, which can > only be recognized as such by the other end (caller or receiver)? That coincidentally sounds quite similar to what I described above. However it doesn't seem you gain much from the recipient knowing who the sender is, beyond the change in definition allowing you to define that the class of attacks that require compromise of the recipient moot. The main difference which appears to help is that the recipient is part of the network, and can be relied upon to run software. Adam

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CDR: Re: US report urges Arafat to use torture for peace
by Allen Ethridge 07 Nov '00

07 Nov '00

On Monday, November 6, 2000, at 10:59 PM, Harmon Seaver wrote: > fist sized rocks ... using the old thong slings like David > used to slay Goliath. Now there's an ironic reference.

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CDR: RE: RISKS: New Jersey shuts down E-ZPass statement site after
by David Honig 06 Nov '00

06 Nov '00

At 09:48 AM 11/6/00 -0500, Trei, Peter wrote: >Of course, EZ-Pass could have been designed so that the >device was anonymous, and prepaid stored value (bought >for cash) smartcards used to meter access. > >It would probably have worked out cheaper as well, since the >accounting overhead goes away, and they make intereset on >the float of unused cards.... AAAAGH! PT is channelling RAH!! The horror, the horror... :-) to both

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CDR: Re: Here's an interesting twist on gun control ...
by Steven Furlong 06 Nov '00

06 Nov '00

> Yes, while it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to >pass this law, how could it be unconstitutional as a local or state >statute? I'm not sure it would be unconstitutional for the federal gov't to pass such a law, unless you rely on the widely-ignored 10th Amendment. (The Federal gov't has only those powers specifically granted to it by the Constitution; clearly we, in these enlightened times, need no such constraints on the operations of our benevolent Big Brother.) (And that was sarcasm, for Tim and the other sarcasm-impaired.) The supremes have decided, in their wisdom, that the amendments to the federal constitution apply to the states as well. Thus, the 1st amendment prohibits states as well as the feds from regulating speech. > While I admit it seems like a foolish law (akin to requiring a citizen >to vote), I hardly see how it would require 'a killing'. No, I agree with Tim, they need killing. I'd put them on the list, but below the gun grabbers. No one says the list can't be prioritized. I suppose it's possible that they were simply making a point, with the collusion of the vast majority of their residents. >Also, given their >views, killing them may not be as easy as others who are unarmed. ;-) Heh, not likely to be true. Most or all "public figure" gun grabbers seem to have bodyguards, or special dispensation to carry handguns because of the risks inherent to being a public figure, or whatever. Politicians, of course, are not to be held to the same standards as the little people. In NYC, a fair number of actors and such are able to get the almost-impossible-for-the-common-swine carry permits, for themselves or their associates. I saw a list a couple of years ago, and, no, I don't have a cite. Same for Los Angeles. Need it be pointed out that many of these actors use their fame to rail against the proliferation of guns? In the late 80's, IIRC, a famously anti-gun columnist from Chicago, IIRC, Carl Rowen, IIRC, was found with an unlicensed pistol; he'd heard a late-night disturbance outside his apartment, went outside with gun in hand, and was caught by the cops. He at least had the limited grace to write a column describing the incident and stating that his pubicly-stated position might not be entirely consistent with what he felt was best for himself. -- Steve Furlong, Computer Condottiere Have GNU, will travel 518-374-4720 sfurlong(a)acmenet.net

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CDR: NEW
by Bela Vass 06 Nov '00

06 Nov '00

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CDR: PipeNet protocol
by Adam Back 06 Nov '00

06 Nov '00

Wei Dai wrote: > On Thu, Nov 02, 2000 at 10:14:24AM -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: > > Actually, I'm unconvinced that even pipenet style padding is > > sufficient. Looking at the work on traffic analysis thats been done, > > we're in about 1970. We have one time pads (dc-nets), and some other > > stuff, but we don't have a DES to analyze. We have an adversary who > > has spent a long time learning how to do this well. > > I'd prefer if people talked about PipeNet style traffic scheduling > instead of PipeNet style traffic padding. What's really important to > PipeNet security is that the timing of packets don't leak information, > and padding is just a part of what's necessary to achieve that kind > of timing. So I'd agree with you that padding by itself isn't sufficient, > but I'd be interested in hearing more if you think PipeNet as a whole > isn't sufficient. For those that don't know about PipeNet Wei has a description here [1]. PipeNet is a synchronous mix-net where users stay connected and consume bandwidth 24x365 to avoid revealing when they are using it. PipeNet's synchronous behavior would be implemented on top of TCP with it's best-effort service by using the following scheduling algorithm (from [1]): | Each node expects one packet from each link id in each time unit. | Extra packets are queued for processing in later time units. | However, if a node does not receive a packet for a link id in a | particular time unit, it stops normal processing of packets for that | time unit and queues all packets. This ensures that any delay is | propagated through the entire network and cannot be used to trace a | particular connection. This is to defend against active attacks delaying packets to observe the effect on the network and hence trace routes. However I think this scheduling algorithm would have the side effect of making this variant of PipeNet very vulnerable to DoS attacks. Any user can arbitrarily delay packet delivery for the entire network by ceasing to send packets. It would also seem that performance would degrade badly to effectively the performance of the worst ping time link. (PipeNet uses mixing at each node.) Perhaps there are some engineering trade-offs you could make if you were to try to practically implement PipeNet. Adam [1] http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai/pipenet.txt

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CDR: Wired News Senate scorecard: Democrats beat Republicans
by Declan McCullagh 06 Nov '00

06 Nov '00

Just in time for Tuesday's election, Wired News has compiled a tech scorecard for the U.S. Senate. The list sorted by last name: http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,39923,00.html Sorted by score: http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,39978,00.html Info on House of Representatives scorecard from last month: http://www.politechbot.com/p-01445.html Some interesting results: Democrats did well, nabbing the four top slots, and beating the Republicans 52 percent to 48 percent overall. But Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic VP hopeful, finished with just 38 percent, in the fifth-worst position. Democrat Patrick Moyhihan did the best out of everyone, surprisingly. That was probably because he missed three votes -- on at least one he would probably have gone the wrong way -- but we scored on percentage of cast votes, not possible votes. -Declan #1: A vote to allow the use of electronic signatures. (Yes is 1) #2: A vote for a juvenile crime bill that included Internet regulation (No is 1) #3: A vote for additional H-1B visas. (Yes is 1) #4: A vote to require federal candidates to disclose contributions online within 24 hours. (Yes is 1) #5: A vote to require Internet providers to offer filtering software. (No is 1) #6: A vote to establish permanent trade relations with China. (Yes is 1) #7: A vote to oppose special restrictions on online sales of firearms. (Yes is 1) #8: A vote to create an information-technology-training tax credit. (Yes is 1) #9: A vote to restrict online sales of alcohol. (No is 1) #10: A vote to single out purportedly offensive content online and offline and create a commission to study it. (No is 1)

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CDR: core deletes vote-auction.com
by Tom Vogt 06 Nov '00

06 Nov '00

it seems that core (i.e. the root servers) has deleted the entry for vote-auction.com - while the whois still works and their primary nameserver (in austria) still resolves, a regular lookup returns with "host unknown". rumour has it that core carved in to demand by most possibly the feds. here in europe the sentiment today is that by doing so core has stopped being (if it ever was) an independent and purely technical instance and has entered the realm of politics. for example, no matter whether or not vote-auction.com is or is not illegal in the US, what business has a US court or lea in blocking the site for *me* (in germany) or, for that matter, the rest of the planet?

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CDR: RE: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers
by Gil Hamilton 06 Nov '00

06 Nov '00

James Wilson writes: >Does shifting the cost of millions of dollars every month on to other >businesses, individuals and governments qualify as "significant (heck, >even measurable) harm"? Yes. > >Spam is VERY EXPENSIVE -- this document explains why... >http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?INW19980504S0003 > >Spam has also been defined, *in multiple court cases*, as "trespassing >upon a chattel", as denial of service attacks (from the flood of >bounces from the fake return addresses crippling third party servers, >)fraud and damaging business reputations (when spammers use fake >addresses to blame innocent 3rd party businesses), and as theft of >service. Do you consider trespassing, denial of service attacks, >fraud, damaging reputations, and stealing services ethical behavior? I have no doubt that spam *does* cost millions of dollars every month to handle. However, describing it as "trespassing", "stealing" and so forth is simply an attempt to demonize it with emotionally loaded terms. It's amazing to me that anyone can get away with accusing someone else of "stealing" a resource the accuser is giving away for free. Consider ordinary snail-type junk mail: many think it's annoying, wish they didn't have to deal with it, and often try to block its transmission. Nobody calls it stealing or trespassing, however, because the junk mailer has to pay to send it (in the same way that anyone else has to pay to send a piece of mail). Hence, the obvious solution is to make it *cost money to send mail* (or to use any other network resource). Combine that with automated reputation handling -- charge a small fee to accept mail from "unknown" parties -- and this both reduces spam and shifts the cost of resource usage to those using the resources. Of course, this won't completely eliminate spam -- nor arguably *should* it -- but it has the potential to make it less cost-effective that it is now -- where the cost is effectively zero once you've amassed your list of addresses. This would at least make spammers aim at a more tightly-focused target market. - GH _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.

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