August 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Mitigating Dangers of Compromised Anonymity
by Adam Shostack 31 Aug '02

31 Aug '02

I'd like to suggest that while this may be fun, usability and getting millions of users to see that remailers are useful to them is a more useful goal. The anonymity set provided by the current extant systems is too small to protect anyone against anyone who is willing to kill or disapear people as part of their attacks against the remailers. Oh, yeah, and incidentally, if you build this system, the attacker can simply add a bit of rubber hosing to their remop elimination program. Adam On … [View More]Fri, Aug 30, 2002 at 06:14:32PM -0700, Meyer Wolfsheim wrote: | Operating an anonymity service or providing privacy enhancing | technologies to the public poses potential risks to the provider if | sufficiently motivated entities wish to prevent the availability of such | technology. | | In particular danger are individuals whose meatspace identity and nyms are | not publicly linked. If the attacker is able to compromise a nym and | silence the individual in meatspace, other anonymity providers and the | general public will have no way of knowing that this has occurred. | | This is information that is important to the public (who will want to know | if a remailer's operator has disappeared, though his remailer is still | operating) and to the other operators (who may be next.) | | Given the practice of remops hiding their identities, it would be somewhat | difficult to connect the sudden tragic death of a quiet computer | programmer in Arkansas with the abrupt silence of the operator of a | remailer in New York, whose ID is unknown to all but a very few.[1] | | Given the necessity of providing on-going administration for a remailer | server, and the lack of a viable IP-level anonymity system, a remop's | identity is almost surely known to any attacker who can observe network | traffic. Operating a remailer while concealing one's name from the general | public makes it easier for this attacker to hide one's disappearance from | the public, or delay their knowledge. Still, there are many compelling | reasons to operate an anonymity service or provide anonymity software | without revealing one's name. It would be desirable for a remop to be able | to do so without putting himself at greater than normal risk. | | Discussions with some members of the remailer operator community [2] have | lead me to propose the following "I am alive" monitoring system for | anonymous members. Although it was designed with remailer operators in | mind, this system could benefit other groups which face problems similar | to the ones described above (such as human rights workers and people with | Muslim-sounding last names who have recently emigrated to America). | | | "I'm not Dead Yet" | | 1. This system assumes that a stable, reliable monitoring server can be | operated in a fixed location on the Internet. | | The server stores a list of email addresses it is monitoring, a public PGP | key for each nym, and a datestamp "s" (which is a number in seconds) for | each nym. | | The server is configured with an "allowed silence period" variable "T", | which is an integer equal to the number of days a monitored member may be | without contact with the server and still be considered safe. | | 2. Users add themselves to the system by sending a signed administrative | request to the server's email address and providing the public key to be | used. Updates to the personal information for that nym can only be changed | by further administrative email requests signed by the same key. | | 3. The monitoring server publishes a unique random nonce each day on its | website and posted to USENET (in a suitable place such as | alt.privacy.anon-server). | | The server will store a rolling list of nonces and their issuance date for | the duration of T. | | 4. Members being monitored obtain this nonce, sign it with the key held by | the server, and submit an "I am alive" notification. | | 5. Upon receipt of this notification, the server resets the datestamp s | equal to the nonce issuance time. | | 6. If age of s (present time in seconds minus s) for any nym entry reaches | (T-3)*86400, the nym address is pinged with a message -- "Are you alive?". | If the nym's owner were alive and had simply forgotten to check in, he | could respond within three days to avoid a false alert. | | 7. If the age of s reaches T*86400, a "Missing Nym" alert is issued, | either to all of the other members of the monitoring service, a separate | alerts list, or a public forum. | | 8. The missing nym owner can declare a false alert by checking in through | the normal fashion. (There's an application for reputation tracking on | nyms who cry wolf). | | Notes: | | a) Nym owners will wish to communicate with the monitoring server | through anonymous remailers, as to avoid revealing their identities to the | monitoring system. | | b) This system makes no distinction between nyms and true names. It can | monitor email addresses of either. This could provide a useful system even | if one is not using a real nym. | | c) The PGP keys supplied to the nym server for purpose of ID verification | should be signing-only keys not used for any other purpose. This will | eliminate justification for a legal or quasi-legal entity to seize the | key. If a member is in the position to have his keys demanded from him, | it will be obvious that this is only being done for one purpose: so that | the public can be tricked into thinking he is alive and free (when | presumably he will not be.) This should aid him in his decision to comply | or not. | | | -MW- | | -- | | [1] Anonymity software developers who publish their products anonymously | are also potentially at risk. RProcess, the author of a popular Windows | remailer client and a Mixmaster-compatible Windows remailer server | suddenly "disappeared" from alt.privacy.anon-server a little over two | years ago. His absence was noticed almost immediately, because he had been | involved in several discussions and a major project at the time of his | disappearance -- but had he been a remailer operator or a developer with | little direct interaction with the public, he may have not been missed. | | [2] Peter Palfrader, Roger Dingledine, Len Sassaman, and Eric Arneson | contributed suggestions to this system. Bill Stewart provided the initial | suggestions. | -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume [View Less]

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Cheney badly needs killing.
by Matthew X 31 Aug '02

31 Aug '02

"Highly risky and wrong" is one assesment of the groundhogs spittle laced declaration of war.Declaring the US in 'mortal danger' like a cross between JE Hoover and tricky dickie on speed,the veep dished up some rubber platitudes to go with the rubber chicken;he should have remembered that you are what you eat. I trust chicken hawk will be on the next geriatrics menu.Garnish with a little valium. "The monopoly on the decision and action in this question lies with the United Nations," said … [View More]Edmund Stoiber, conservative candidate for chancellor There seems to be a little mutiny among the 'usual suspects.' The US is resembling nothing so much as a pitiful helpless giant,cyclops has been gored and the sheep are hiding all those escaping argonauts.If he's lucky he may live...for a while. 52 per cent of Labour supporters believe Britain ought not to support any military action against Iraq.Thats even slightly higher down here I believe,a clear majority against,all the way with the USA.Maybe not,"YANKEE go HOME",just yet but it's only been a year so far in the 'war on Terra.' "Using force or threats of force is unhelpful in solving the Iraq issue and will increase regional instability and tensions," Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan was quoted as saying in Beijing. Taku Yamasaki, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said that Tokyo had a duty as an ally to oppose Washington. "If the U.S. attacks alone it will produce distrust of the United States throughout the world," Yamasaki said. "As an ally, we should oppose this." India, a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, said its opposition to a war on Iraq had not wavered. "There is a consistency in our policy, and it is not going to change in the next few days or weeks," a foreign ministry official said. In the Middle East, U.S. foes, or nations branded by Washington as sponsors of international terrorism, denounced American threats against Iraq in predictably harsher terms. Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa Mero said his country, along with Iraq and all Arabs, would view any U.S. strike as part of "policies that seek more U.S. hegemony and to inflict harm not just on the people of Iraq but the Arab nation as a whole," Syria's state media reported. Iran, like Iraq branded by Bush as a member (with North Korea) of an "axis of evil," reiterated its opposition to any U.S. attack on Iraq. Iranian President Mohammad Khatami urged an "arrogant" Washington to drop its hostility and improve ties with Iran, saying his country would defend itself if it too came under threat. "We hope Iraq will not be attacked, and if this occurs we hope that (America) will not try its luck by attacking other countries and realize that American public opinion will not tolerate this policy for very long," Khatami said. A global Maniac cop running around starting wars will not be long for this world,pr [View Less]

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Yes to a libertarian Europe from below.
by Matthew X 31 Aug '02

31 Aug '02

Synchronicity in the library with a hammer. "Cell member Marwan Al-Shehhi, who investigators believe piloted the second airliner to strike the trade center, had a conversation in April or May 2000 with a female librarian in which he mentioned the trade center as a target, Nehm said. "There will be thousands of dead," Al-Shehhi, originally from the United Arab Emirates, told the librarian, according to Nehm. "You will all think of me." The librarian later came forward as a witness, … [View More]according to the federal prosecutor's office, which declined to identify her or say when she provided the information." Libertarian Europe an Oxymongo? No! No to capitalist globalisation No to militarism No to Fortress Europe No to the extension of police powers Yes to a libertarian Europe from below FROM http://www.ainfos.ca/ainfos12806.html ________________________________________________ > From: "chekovfeeney" <chekovfeeney(a)yahoo.com> Libertarians / anarchists against Nice Founding meeting for National Campaign Anarchist and libertarian groups and individuals from all across Ireland are meeting in Dublin on Saturday 7th September to found a campaign against the Nice Treaty. This follows on from local discussion that have already taken place in Dublin, at Ecotopia, the anarchist summer camps etc and on the Irish anarchism list. At this stage it looks like the campaign will include the WSM, ASF, AF, Cork Anarchist Alliance and individuals from RTS, Gluseacht and other groups and individuals involved in the Grassroots Gatherings. Discussions to date indicate that the probable basis of the campaign will be on the following points, although the exact wording etc is to be worked out. No to capitalist globalisation No to militarism No to Fortress Europe No to the extension of police powers Yes to a libertarian Europe from below Up to now the right have made most of the running with the No vote. We see a need for a libertarian No campaign that argues for a No vote on a libertarian basis. This is not just about defeating the referendum it is also about making the defeat a progressive one rather then one based on the sort of racist rhetoric that so far has dominated the debate. So we strongly encourage all anarchists and libertarians in Ireland, north and south, to attend this meeting. It will take place at 14.30 hours in the Teachers Club, 35, Parnell Square, Dublin on Saturday 7th September. We don't want a campaign where some group turns up at the first meeting with the campaign posters and leaflets already printed out. So please bring along draft posters and ideas for the campaign. A draft leaflet for discussion will be prepared on the Irish Anarchism list in the week before the meeting on the basis of drafts emailed to that list. So if you want to take part in that process be sure to join Irish Anarchism. This draft will then be amended at the meeting itself. We hope to print and distribute tens of thousands of leaflets in the run up to the referendum, again the number that we do will depend on your involvement. For more details or to add items to the agenda or if you can't make the meeting but want to receive any material produced please contact Chekov at chekovfeeney(a)yahoo.com or ring/SMS us at 087 7939931. To take part in the ongoing discussion about the anarchist campaign email irishanarchism-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com The evening after the meeting there will be a fundraiser for Reclaim the Streets. On Sunday there will be an RTS creativity session to prepare banners etc for the party on the 22nd so if you are travelling from outside Dublin you can make a weekend out of it. Various anarchists have already begun working on the referendum, and already there are some web pages up and some more in preparation. This includes the page at http://struggle.ws/about/nice.html which now includes some detailed briefing documents on the Nice treaty as well as links to the various official documents and other relevant articles. If you know of material that should be linked from that page or other Irish libertarian pages on Nice please email details of them to revolt(a)newmail.net. Again the founding meeting will be at 14.30 hours in the Teachers Club, 35, Parnell Square, Dublin on Saturday 7th September. Make sure YOU are there! -- -------- http://anarchism.ws New global anarchist index http://www.struggle.ws 3000 + pages on anarchism, Ireland, Zapatistas revolutionary history and struggles around globalisation [View Less]

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The most extreme measures.
by Matthew X 31 Aug '02

31 Aug '02

Moments after the Sept. 11 attacks, a U.S. air defense commander considered sending pilots in unarmed Air Force fighter jets on suicide missions to ram any other hijacked planes. No such missions were ordered, nor did the commander, Air Force Col. Robert Marr Jr., ask his superiors in the North American Aerospace Defense Command for authority to issue such orders. "It was a thought that went through his mind," said Marr's spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Kacey Blaney. Marr said yesterday that the … [View More]

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Jeff Gordons getting paranoid.
by Matthew X 31 Aug '02

31 Aug '02

Well wouldn't you? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13583-2002Aug29.html Credit cards provide easy access to offshore funds and accounts in tax haven countries that allow income to be hidden. Josh's ear is in the mail. "Who wants to participate to help form what will be the LAST revolution on earth, the one that'll take down ALL the governments? James Dalton Bell."

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Cyber Harassment of Dissidents
by Matthew X 31 Aug '02

31 Aug '02

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=200859&group=webcast Lots of geek shite,enjoy! Meantime in meatspace... CHIAPAS.Two campesinos from EZLN support bases were assassinated by paramilitary groups in the morning of August 25 in ranchería Amaytik at the independent municipality Olga Isabel. The newspaper La Jornada has reported on the previously announced assassination of two Zapatistas in the Ricardo Flores Magón Autonomous Municipality. The 'official' version, released on … [View More]

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Police that carry Knives.-Basque crackdown.
by Matthew X 31 Aug '02

31 Aug '02

Christine Nixon has foreshadowed random drug and alcohol testing for the members of drug squad A,(or B,one or the other.)Will she also order search's for concealed weapons? And run the sniffer dogs over them? Inquiring minds want to know. http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=32591&group=webcast Basque Clampdown Spanish Government Outlaws Basque Political Party A Spanish Judge has issued an order to suspend Batasuna, a Basque left separtist party, on the basis that it … [View More]is part of ETA (which stands for Basque Fatherland and Freedom). ETA is an armed group struggling for an independent of the Basque Country. Judge Garzon has ordered the closing of all oficial buildings from Batasuna, Batasuna is no longer allowed to organize or to participate in a political event. Garzon also asks for Batasuna's website to be shutdown. This could be the first case of an internet site to be closed by spanish administration. Garzon's decision is based on article 129 from Spanish Penal code. An article specially designed for private associations but it does not mention for political parties. Batasuna has polled with around 10% of the votes representing nearly 48,000 voters in Navarra and a bit more than 143,000 in the Basque Autonomous Region. Batasuna was also present in the northern Basque Country under french administration. At the same time the Spanish Parliament has voted a law to make Batasuna illegal in case it keeps quiet after ETA practices violence. This measure is been critisized by spanish lawyers as they find a breach on basic fondamental rights and the Spanish Constitution. Polls show a split between Spanish and basque public opinion. While Spanish public opinion is in vast majority in support of this law a majority of Basques oppose this law. This means that a law will be applied in the Basque country on the basis that spanish majority prevails over the Basque one. The three parties governing Basque autonomous region (PNV, EA and IU, moderate nationalists and United Left -former communist party-) have shown their opposition to the law. From, monday, 26th of august, police are closing different offices and buildings of Batasuna violent clashes between Batasuna supporters and the national police or the basque autonomous police have broken out. Some offices belonging to the Basque Prisoners Relatives' Association and the association against torture were shut down as well. [ Euskal Herria Indymedia | Batasuna | International Coverage ] [View Less]

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Spectacles of themselves
by Matthew X 31 Aug '02

31 Aug '02

REIMBURSEMENT FOR PURCHASE OF SPECTACLES FOR COMPUTER USE Following discussions over 2000 and 2001 new guidelines have come into operation for eyesight screening and optical correction for members who use screen-based equipment ("SBE"). Under the new guidelines any member who: operates SBE for an aggregate of two hours or more, inclusive of rest breaks, in any day or shift on a regular basis (more than 3 days per week); and / or has experienced or is experiencing visual discomfort as a … [View More]

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Mitigating Dangers of Compromised Anonymity
by Meyer Wolfsheim 30 Aug '02

30 Aug '02

Operating an anonymity service or providing privacy enhancing technologies to the public poses potential risks to the provider if sufficiently motivated entities wish to prevent the availability of such technology. In particular danger are individuals whose meatspace identity and nyms are not publicly linked. If the attacker is able to compromise a nym and silence the individual in meatspace, other anonymity providers and the general public will have no way of knowing that this has occurred. … [View More]This is information that is important to the public (who will want to know if a remailer's operator has disappeared, though his remailer is still operating) and to the other operators (who may be next.) Given the practice of remops hiding their identities, it would be somewhat difficult to connect the sudden tragic death of a quiet computer programmer in Arkansas with the abrupt silence of the operator of a remailer in New York, whose ID is unknown to all but a very few.[1] Given the necessity of providing on-going administration for a remailer server, and the lack of a viable IP-level anonymity system, a remop's identity is almost surely known to any attacker who can observe network traffic. Operating a remailer while concealing one's name from the general public makes it easier for this attacker to hide one's disappearance from the public, or delay their knowledge. Still, there are many compelling reasons to operate an anonymity service or provide anonymity software without revealing one's name. It would be desirable for a remop to be able to do so without putting himself at greater than normal risk. Discussions with some members of the remailer operator community [2] have lead me to propose the following "I am alive" monitoring system for anonymous members. Although it was designed with remailer operators in mind, this system could benefit other groups which face problems similar to the ones described above (such as human rights workers and people with Muslim-sounding last names who have recently emigrated to America). "I'm not Dead Yet" 1. This system assumes that a stable, reliable monitoring server can be operated in a fixed location on the Internet. The server stores a list of email addresses it is monitoring, a public PGP key for each nym, and a datestamp "s" (which is a number in seconds) for each nym. The server is configured with an "allowed silence period" variable "T", which is an integer equal to the number of days a monitored member may be without contact with the server and still be considered safe. 2. Users add themselves to the system by sending a signed administrative request to the server's email address and providing the public key to be used. Updates to the personal information for that nym can only be changed by further administrative email requests signed by the same key. 3. The monitoring server publishes a unique random nonce each day on its website and posted to USENET (in a suitable place such as alt.privacy.anon-server). The server will store a rolling list of nonces and their issuance date for the duration of T. 4. Members being monitored obtain this nonce, sign it with the key held by the server, and submit an "I am alive" notification. 5. Upon receipt of this notification, the server resets the datestamp s equal to the nonce issuance time. 6. If age of s (present time in seconds minus s) for any nym entry reaches (T-3)*86400, the nym address is pinged with a message -- "Are you alive?". If the nym's owner were alive and had simply forgotten to check in, he could respond within three days to avoid a false alert. 7. If the age of s reaches T*86400, a "Missing Nym" alert is issued, either to all of the other members of the monitoring service, a separate alerts list, or a public forum. 8. The missing nym owner can declare a false alert by checking in through the normal fashion. (There's an application for reputation tracking on nyms who cry wolf). Notes: a) Nym owners will wish to communicate with the monitoring server through anonymous remailers, as to avoid revealing their identities to the monitoring system. b) This system makes no distinction between nyms and true names. It can monitor email addresses of either. This could provide a useful system even if one is not using a real nym. c) The PGP keys supplied to the nym server for purpose of ID verification should be signing-only keys not used for any other purpose. This will eliminate justification for a legal or quasi-legal entity to seize the key. If a member is in the position to have his keys demanded from him, it will be obvious that this is only being done for one purpose: so that the public can be tricked into thinking he is alive and free (when presumably he will not be.) This should aid him in his decision to comply or not. -MW- -- [1] Anonymity software developers who publish their products anonymously are also potentially at risk. RProcess, the author of a popular Windows remailer client and a Mixmaster-compatible Windows remailer server suddenly "disappeared" from alt.privacy.anon-server a little over two years ago. His absence was noticed almost immediately, because he had been involved in several discussions and a major project at the time of his disappearance -- but had he been a remailer operator or a developer with little direct interaction with the public, he may have not been missed. [2] Peter Palfrader, Roger Dingledine, Len Sassaman, and Eric Arneson contributed suggestions to this system. Bill Stewart provided the initial suggestions. [View Less]

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Re: Cyberpunks: Seattle "Activist" Is Not an Innocent Webmaster
by james sanchez 30 Aug '02

30 Aug '02

Dear Eric: Although I do not know you, I am replying to you heartfelt cry of sympathy for James Ujaama, the "Seattle activist" you refer to below. I would preface my comments by saying I support civil rights, privacy rights and internet freedom of speech. As for James Ujaama, he is not being held on charges related to his jejune stopamerica.org website (which by the way mischaracterizes the Taliban as supporting education for women: Taliban did not.) Anyway: Ujaama is a black racial … [View More]supremacist "Muslim" convert thug who stockpiled arms, shook down drug-dealers with his "Muslim" extortion gang, beat and brutalized and pistol-whipped real Muslims to gain control of a Mosque, planned to poison the Seattle and Tacoma water supply systems, worked with Semi Osman to collect intelligence on Navy POL stocks in the Puget sound, tried to organize a terrorist training camp with London-based Supporters of Shariah (SOS) in Oregon, supported the SOS "Ultimate Jihad Challenge" website that recruited and trained pro-Al-Qaeda soldiers, hand carried laptop computers to the Taliban/Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (loaded with images and maps of potential terrorist targets in Seattle), and, with his cronies in Seattle, was involved in a chain of reported gang crimes including shootings, beatings, death threats, etc. (there were surely many more than were never reported). Ujaama swore alliegence as a Jihadi to Abu Hamza Al Masri and Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. SOS boss Abu Hamza Al-Masri (convicted in absentia for terrorist attacks in Yemen) is linked with (shoe-bomber) Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui; as well as with Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H.Rap Brown), the Atlanta cop-killer. Al-Amin was also a key members of Al-Masri calls the "Jihad in America" and recruited converts for terror groups including Lashkar-e-Taiba (a Kashmiri Mujahideen group). (On the internet, it is still possible to find the account of Shaheed Abu Adam, recruited by Al-Amin, transported by Al-Masri, and who died a Shaheed in Kashmir.) When Al-Amin was arrested in the copkilling case, Al-Masri noted, in his Al-Jihaad magazine, that Al-Amin and the Jihadis like him would wage Jihad a against the United States until the United States was destroyed or all the Jihadis had become Shaheeds (martyrs). SOS and its ally Al-Muhajiroun supplied as many as 2000 British nationals as soldiers to the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Kashmiri Mujahideen, Chechen Mujahideen, Kosovar Mujahideen, and Bosnian Mujahideen. The silly little website, Stopamerica.org, has nothing to do with the actual charges against Ujaama. Oh, and Ujaama is not a real "well-known Seattle community activist": these days, every Black gangster is deemed to be a "community activist". Ujaama is an affirmative action golden boy, pampered and honored and government-funded (even his business that illegally supplied computers to the Taliban appears to have been government funded), and a beneficiary of the Black racist solidarity that applauds anything that young Black men do: crimes, beatings, extortion, firefights, even terrorism. But in spite of this he was a failure at everything: at school, in each of his businesses. Even though he was honored by the state proclaimed James Ujaama Day for being a "community activist" without visible accomplishments, his twisted sense of entitlement, cultivated by affirmative action, led him into conspiracies and fantasies of destroying America and poisoning the water supply of Seattle. If you want to defend civil rights, pick a different poster boy. Sincerely, James Joseph Sanchez, PhD (Middle East Studies), MLS Seattle P.S.--Having a Master's of Library Science, I oppose, as do all professional librarian associations and every librarian I ever met, any reporting to the police what books people read at libraries. ===== > > > Subject: > Re: Thwarting LE library fishing expeditions > Date: > Fri, 30 Aug 2002 10:56:24 -0700 (PDT) > From: > "Eric Cordian" <emc(a)artifact.psychedelic.net> > To: > cypherpunks(a)lne.com > > Steve writes: > > [...] > > A well-known Seattle Activist, the webmaster of www.stopamerica.org, was > > recently indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of having > "discussions" in 1998 related to the possible setting up of a training > camp in Oregon. It is not alleged that he did anything, merely that he > "discussed," whatever that means, and several years before anyone > flattened any New York skyscrapers. > > One can now get arrested and charged with a laundry list of "terrorist" > crimes for... > > Having the same training as the terrorists > > Having the same radio as the terrorists > > Having links to terrorists > > Having discussions years ago about things that are now considered linked > > to terrorists > > Soon to come, I expect... > > Reading the same books as the terrorists > > Being pissed at the same governments as the terrorists > > Supporting the same social issues as the terrorists > > -- > Eric Michael Cordian 0+ > O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division > "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law" [View Less]

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