December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

money laundering book review
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

some new books that might be of interest to some cpunks ------- Forwarded Message Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 11:59:12 -0400 From: Kris Millegan RoadsEnd <RoadsEnd(a)AOL.COM> Subject: Fwd: piml] Free Life Commentary - The New World Order To: CTRL(a)LISTSERV.AOL.COM - --------------------- Forwarded message: From: ke4yqz(a)mindspring.com (Roger Cravens) To: c-news(a)world.std.com, piml(a)mars.galstar.com Date: 97-09-30 16:54:38 EDT >From: "Chris R. Tame" <Chris(a)rand.demon.co.uk> >Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 19:45:58 +0100 >Subject: Free Life Commentary - The New World Order >To: libnw(a)circuit.com (Multiple recipients of Liberty_NW) > >I hope the third issue of my colleague Sean's Free Life Commentary will >prove of interest. > >Chris R. Tame >Director >Libertarian Alliance > > ------- Forwarded message follows ------- > >Free Life Commentary >Editor: Sean Gabb >Issue Number Three >29th September 1997 > >========================== >"Over himself, over his own mind and body, >the individual is sovereign" >(J.S. Mill, On Liberty, 1859) >========================== > >Free Life Commentary is an independent journal of comment, >published on the Internet. To recieve regular issues, send >e-mail to Sean Gabb at old.whig(a)virgin.net > >Issues are archived at http://freespace.virgin.net/old.whig/ > >Contact Address: 25 Chapter Chambers, Esterbrooke Street, >London, SW1P 4NN; Telephone: 0181 858 0841 > >========================== > > On the New World Order: > Two Book Reviews > by Sean Gabb > > > > International Efforts to Combat Money Laundering > William C. Gilmore (ed.) > Grotius Publications Limited, > Cambridge, 1992, 335pp, 48 (pbk) > (ISBN 0 521 46305 X) > > Money Laundering: A Practical Guide to the New >Legislation > Rowan Bosworth-Davies and Graham Saltmarsh > Chapman & Hall, London, 1994, > xii and 304pp, 49.50 (hbk) > (ISBN 0 412 57530 2) > > >The first of these books is a collection of treaties, plus other >documents, concerned with the international fight against >money laundering. The second explains how these treaties >have been enacted into, and are enforced under, the laws of >the United Kingdom. Both works will repay the closest >study. In clear detail, they show the growth of what must >be called a New World Order, and how, without some >interposing cause, this may produce a universal slide into >despotism. > >The fight against money laundering begins with realising >that the "War on Drugs" has been lost. When goods are >portable and easily concealed, and when demand for them is >strong enough to bear almost any cost of bringing them to >market, the main effect of prohibition will be to put a >bounty on crime. For all the efforts of the past three >generations, illegal drugs are available in most high security >prisons. In much of the West, street prices have been >stable or even falling since 1980. > >The official response, however, has not been to give in and >legalise the trade, but to expand the War to a front where >previously there had been few hostilities. While keeping up >their efforts against the trade itself, the authorities have >turned increasingly to confiscating its proceeds. This new >approach has three alleged benefits: > >First, it will deprive criminals of their incentive to enter >and remain in the trade; > >Second, it will allow the punishing of those in charge of the >trade - people who never touch or see illegal drugs, but to >whom the main profits ultimately flow; > >Third, it can make the War on Drugs self-supporting, and >perhaps yield a surplus for other public spending. > >There is, however, one practical difficulty. Before the >authorities can confiscate the money, they must find it. To >do this, they must keep it from being merged beyond recall >into the general flow of investment. This involves ending >bank secrecy and imposing a mass of financial regulation. >Now, most people - especially the rich - dislike having their >lives pried into. Nor do banks like higher costs and >limitations on what business they can do. And so, given >the present freedom of capital markets, no government >acting alone can afford a strict policy of confiscation. It >would, sooner or later, cause a flight of transactions to >more liberal places. > >The solution has been to try making everywhere in the >world equally illiberal. Such was the purpose of the >United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in >Narcotic Drugs and Narcotic Substances, signed in Vienna >in December 1988 [full text in Gilmore, pp.75-97]. This is >one of the most important international treaties of the past >50 years. It not merely requires its signatory states to >criminalise the laundering of drug money, and to confiscate >it where found, but lays down so far as possible a common >wording for the criminal statutes, and a common mode of >enforcement. It also requires full and prompt cooperation >between the signatory states for the enforcement of these >laws anywhere in the world. > >The Convention had little direct or immediate effect on >British law. Many of its requirements, indeed, had already >been met in the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986. Most >others were only met in the Criminal Justice Act 1993, >which enacts the European Community Directive of 1991 >on the Prevention of the Use of the Financial System for the >Purpose of Money Laundering [full text in Gilmore, >pp.250-67]. This itself derives from the Vienna Convention >only through the Council of Europe Convention on >Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the >Proceeds from Crime 1990 [full text in Gilmore, pp.177- >91]. Even so, this country is fast becoming a financial >police state of the kind agreed at Vienna - and where the >process cannot be traced to the Convention, it can be traced >to the same international pressures of which the Convention >is itself a result. > >Let me explain. When I talk about a New World Order, I >do not mean some grand conspiracy of bankers, or Jews, or >Illuminati, or even - with far more probability - the >American Government. There are countries where policy is >largely dictated from outside. But for rich and powerful >countries, the truth is more complex. Most international >obligations imposed on this country, for example, were not >only consented to by our rulers, but were usually proposed >by them, and are enforced by agencies in which our own >countrymen often occupy senior positions. > >Where others see conspiracies, I see public choice >economics. Whenever a government tries to do something >dangerous or unnecessary, like banning drugs or educating >the poor, it must set up an agency through which to spend >the allocated funds. Once employed, the agents will - as if >directed by an invisible hand - start to find more and more >justifications for expanding their status and numbers. They >collect the statistics. They know which ones to publish and >which to hold back. They are the politicians' first and >favoured source of advice. They have their pet journalists. >They trade favours with the relevant interest groups. They >know exactly how to give themselves a pleasing life, and >how to see off threats to it. Unless the money runs out, or >the public turns really nasty, they can write their own >budget cheques. > >By natural extension, the same is now happening at the >international level - though with potentially far worse >consequences. In the first place, there is limitless money: >budgets would need to swell unimaginably large to reach >even one per cent of gross planetary product. In the >second, public anger seldom crosses borders; and, if all else >fails, the politicians and bureaucrats in one country can >shelter behind the excuse of treaty obligations that cannot be >unilaterally be cast off - not, at least, without consequences >more horrible than words exist to describe. Third, the >enforcement of international treaties means the growth of >what is in effect an international bureaucracy. The local >enforcers of a treaty may be citizens of the signatory states, >who will live and work in their home countries, and may >even occupy positions in the domestic administration. Yet >these are people who, by virtue of the agreements they >enforce, and the contacts they make and maintain in other >countries, are members of an international order. And, in >at least the case of money laundering, they will share an >agenda that is often deeply hostile to their native >institutions. > >This can be seen - expressed with almost naive honesty - in >the book by Messrs Bosworth-Davies and Saltmarsh. Both >are British police officers: the latter is a departmental head >at the National Criminal Intelligence Service. Both take it >for granted that the world needs an international police >force. Both are unable to believe that anyone can >disinterestedly object to the necessary harmonisations of >law, and the corresponding abolition of Common Law >protections. They "know one senior clearing banker who >has described this [money laundering] legislation as the >nearest thing he has experienced to >'McCarthyism'...".[p.172] Of course, they see things >differently. The legislation > > discloses, on mature reflection, a set of carefully > structured laws which, with good will, due > diligence and a modicum of responsible attention > from the industry as a whole, should not prove > too burdensome. Indeed, the authors believe that > some of the regulatory requirements have been > diluted too much already, in a misguided attempt > to placate the sensibilities of certain sectors of the > industry....[Ibid.] > >With people like this advising the politicians and lecturing >the rest of us, little wonder the Drug Trafficking Offences >Act predates the Vienna Convention by two years! Though >they will hotly disagree - and even perhaps consider a libel >writ - Messrs Bosworth-Davies and Saltmarsh cannot be >regarded as our countrymen. More at home in a gathering >of Bulgarian or Filipino police chiefs than with any of us, >they are foreigners with British passports. > >Somewhat less honest, though still interesting, is the >Explanatory Report of the Committee of Experts who >drafted the Council of Europe Convention [full text in >Gilmore, pp.192-237]. Though formally subordinate to a >committee of the various European Ministers of Justice, >these experts plainly saw their first duty as lying elsewhere. >Call it "the international community" or their own order, >their duty was collective and not to any single country. > >Look at their dislike of the narrow focus of the Vienna >Convention. They wanted something that would also allow >confiscation for > > terrorist offences, organised crime, violent crimes, > offences involving the sexual exploitation of > children and young persons, extortion, > kidnapping, environmental offences, economic > fraud, insider trading and other serious offences. > [Gilmore, p.204] > >But they had to concede that not every European country >might like its own laws against these acts to be written by >an international committee. And so they allowed each >signatory state to reserve whatever of these acts to its own >legislative process. > > The experts agreed, however, that such states > should review their legislation periodically and > expand the applicability of confiscation measures, > in order to be able to restrict the reservations > subsequently as much as possible. [Ibid.] > >And this is only the beginning. As yet, the shape of world >government exists barely in outline. But the tendency ought >to be plain. Power is moving from national - and mostly >democratic - governments to unaccountable and even >invisible bureaucracies. Liberal institutions that are often >the work of ages are being hammered into the transmitters >of unlimited power. We are beginning to known how >people in the Greek city states felt after absorption into the >Roman Empire. > >When the American militiamen cry out that the United >Nations is about to invade in black helicopters and plant >microcomputers in their bottoms, I am at least sceptical. >This is not the New World Order that I see. What I do see >is actually worse. We can shoot the helicopters down, and >dig out the microcomputers, and put the ringleaders on >trial. We can go about playing the hero of our choice from >Star Wars. But in the real world, there is no Death Star to >blow up - no Darth Vadar to push into the void. There is >just a huge, elastic network of people, all acting in what >they believe is the public good, most with some degree of >public support. > >How this kind of despotism can be resisted is another >question, and I have said enough already. But I will repeat >- the books here reviewed do repay a very close study. At >the very least, it is useful to see the enemy's future plan >laid out in such detail. > >Sean Gabb > >========================== >If you like Free Life Commentary, you may also care to >subscribe to my longer, hard copy journal: > >Free Life >The Libertarian Alliance >25 Chapter Chambers >London SW1P 4NN > >A 10 Pound subscription buys you four issues. > >========================== >Legal Notice: Though using the name Free Life, this >journal is owned by me and not by the Libertarian Alliance, >which in consequence bears no liability of whatever kind >for the contents. >-- >Sean Gabb | "Over himself, over his own | >E-mail: old.whig(a)virgin.net | mind and body, the individual| >Web Page: | is sovereign" | >http://freespace.virgin.net/old.whig/ | J.S. Mill, On Liberty, 1859 | > >-- >Chris R. Tame, Director >Libertarian Alliance | "The secret of Happiness is Freedom, | >25 Chapter Chambers | and the secret of Freedom is Courage" | >Esterbrooke Street | Thucydides, Pericles' Funeral Oration | >London SW1P 4NN >England >Tel: 0171 821 5502 >Fax: 0171 834 2031 >Email: chris(a)rand.demon.co.uk >LA Web Site: http://www.digiweb.com/igeldard/LA/ >Free Life Web Site: http://freespace.virgin.net/old.whig > > >+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >LIBERTY NORTHWEST CONFERENCE Fidonet 1:346/16 (208) 267-9851 >"The only libertarian-oriented political discussion conference on >the Fidonet Backbone..." SysOps AREAFIX: LIB_NW >Visit Liberty Northwest on the Web: http://www.saldivar.com/lib_nw/ >Subscribe: libnw-on(a)circuit.com -- Unsubscribe: libnw-off(a)circuit.com > >...Liberty is never an option... only a condition to be lost >+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > ******************************************************************** * Liberty is NEVER an option ... only a condition to be lost! * * http://www.jbs.org * ******************************************************************** * Roger Cravens, SYSOP * * South East Signals Intelligence Group BBS: (770-) 942-1089 * * Atlanta, GA * ******************************************************************** * Signals Intelligence: "... and the truth will set you free"! * ******************************************************************** ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Re: Encrypting Pagers is Easy! [Overview, technical tradeoffs, crypto]
by Gold Dot 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Y'all: Since I design pagers for a living, I thought I might comment on encryption in pagers. I've been thinking about encryption in pagers for several years now. RC4 was suggested, and it is probably a good choice for the low end microcontrollers used in pagers. The problem with encryption in pagers is not algorithms, hardware, software or even technology. The problem is getting awareness that there is a problem transmitting pages in the clear. Most people have no clue and I've seen not one request from a customer (meaning large paging companies) for encrypted pagers. A few more well-publisized hacks will help, though. Code space is at a premium in a pager, so widespread awareness of the inherent insecurity of paging protocols will be necessary to get encryption into the products. So, here's a project for any hacker with time on their hands. Input the audio signal from a garden variety scanner into your sound card (just about any variety will do) and decode the signal. It's just 4 level FM. I'd do it myself, but I value my job. :-) Or, if you're lazy and have money, buy yourself a SignalPro and decode two channels simulaneously. Then, scan paging systems in strategic locations and post the juicy tidbits to the 'net. TTFN, Gold Dot golddot(a)nym.alias.net "Gold is money, and nothing else is." -- some dead guy

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index.html
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CNN logo Navigation Infoseek/Big Yellow Pathfinder/Warner Bros Main banner Price Waterhouse rule DOOR-TO-DOOR SCHOOL SALES DEBATED AFTER BOY'S SLAYING Werner October 1, 1997 Web posted at: 10:02 p.m. EDT (0202 GMT) TOMS RIVER, New Jersey (CNN) -- During the school year, it's a scene that takes place across the United States -- children selling merchandise door-to-door, raising money to benefit their schools or activity groups. But now, the rape and murder of an 11-year-old New Jersey boy who tragically knocked on the wrong door has brought renewed attention to the issue of whether door-to-door sales should be discouraged, or even outlawed. Prosecutors say Edward Werner was attacked and murdered by a 15-year-old boy who opened the door at a house in Toms River. Edward hoped to win a walkie talkie by selling the most merchandise in a contest. Authorities say they know of no other connection between the victim and the teen who has been charged -- that it was a "chance encounter" brought about by Edward's door-to-door selling in what a prosecutor describes as a "very safe" neighborhood. The teen-ager was charged Wednesday with murder and aggravated sexual assault. Authorities did not release his name because he is a juvenile. Raising money for the PTA Schools and non-profit groups pull down an estimated $2 billion a year from product sales, and no state has a law restricting door-to-door fund-raising sales by school children. But in the wake of Edward's slaying, a New Jersey legislator has suggested a ban. Neighborhood Ironically, Edward was raising money for the PTA -- though the national Parent Teacher Association has a policy discouraging students from selling merchandise door-to-door. The sales kits provided to the students warned them to sell only to "family, friends and neighbors with whom you are familiar." The Association of Fund Raisers and Direct Sellers, a trade group representing about half of the estimated 1,500 companies that deal with school and youth groups, has also adopted a policy saying it does not endorse door-to-door sales. Instead, the association suggests that children sell to relatives, friends or neighbors they know, while having parents sell to their co-workers, according to Russell Lemieux, the association's executive director. "That's really the bulk of sales in fund raising," Lemieux said. "The instance of a child going door-to-door is quite rare." However, children are often offered incentives that encourage them to sell as much as they can -- incentives which could have a tendency to encourage, rather than discourage, door-to-door sales. "Our members say incentives ... make a big difference," Lemieux said. Robbery thought the motive When he was last seen, Edward had about $200 on him, and police say he had been showing that money to friends. Robbery is believed to have been a motive in his murder, but no robbery charge has been filed. In the wake of the tragedy Edward's school district has banned door-to-door sales, as green ribbons have begun to appear in his memory. Correspondent Christine Negroni contributed to this report. _________________________________________________________________ Infoseek search ____________________ ____ ____ _________________________________________________________________ rule Message Boards Sound off on our message boards You said it... [INLINE] Price Waterhouse rule To the top © 1997 Cable News Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you.

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Secure HTTP servers.
by Jim 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, I just started working vfor a local ISP and they found out, i was on this list and knew a little about crypto. Anyway they seem to have the impression this would qualify me to know something. At any rate, on to the point of the mail. Could someone point me in the right direction for info on secure http servers ?? Also maybe info on which is better than the other ?? Jason

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Re: Remailers and ecash
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 1 Oct 1997, Anonymous wrote: > Bill Stewart wrote: > >Latency is essential to security, though high volume reduces the > >latency that's needed to get a given level of security. > > Latency may be a means to get security in the current remailer design, > but it is a means to the end and not the end itself. This doesn't > mean we shouldn't use latency to get security, but it is undesirable, > like using cinderblocks for construction. The reason I point this out > is that it is important to separate design choices to achieve a goal > from the goal itself. > > If we had a remailer network in which each customer had a constant > bandwidth connection to one or more remailers, you could have zero > latency mail. (Actually, this would be nice to use with those Comsec > phones.) Or use something like anonymous broadcast. Send (fixed sized, constant rate) packets continuously around a fixed set of remailers. Messages may or may not be inserted into these packets, and with encryption it is impossible to tell which node inserted a message (and only until the packet completed the circuit could you tell - inside the machine originating the broadcast). Messages would be resent through the set of remailers, and could be PK encrypted to one of the other nodes. With the broadcast being anonymous, the reciever within the set cannot know who it came from (and theoretically because it is encrypted, no one could know who it is to except the sender, and you can do something to create anonymous target packets). You would still need some mixing for low usage times (or wait for N messages and circulate a control "forward now" message, so that 10 messages come in sequentially and are held, and then at an even interval, 10 messages go out from random nodes.

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http:--www.cnn.com-US-9710-01-shooting.update-
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CNN logo Navigation Infoseek/Big Yellow Pathfinder/Warner Bros Main banner Visit Regal at Buick.com rule TEEN KILLS 2 AT SCHOOL; MOTHER FOUND DEAD AT HOME Woodham October 1, 1997 Web posted at: 3:38 p.m. EDT (1938 GMT) PEARL, Mississippi (CNN) -- A Mississippi teen-ager slashed his mother's throat Wednesday morning before going on a shooting rampage at his high school that left two students dead and at least six wounded, authorities said. The high school junior, Luke Woodham, was arrested and charged with three counts of murder shortly after the shooting at Pearl High School, about three miles east of the state capital, Jackson. Police Chief Bill Slade choked back tears as he told reporters, "This was a disgruntled girlfriend-boyfriend thing... We talked to the youth. He gave us a statement and his manifesto was that he felt he had been wronged." _______________________________________________________________ A L S O : Message Board: Violence in U.S. Schools _______________________________________________________________ Pearl Mayor Jimmy Foster describes what happened icon 308K/27 sec. AIFF or WAV sound Pearl Police Chief Bill Slade explains what measures will be taken to help traumatized students icon 219K/20 sec. AIFF or WAV sound One student's mother is shocked icon 255KB/19 sec. AIFF or WAV sound A former girlfriend of the suspect was one of two students killed at the school. Slade also said police suspect that the student had killed his mother, Mary T. Woodham, 50, at home earlier Wednesday by slashing her throat. The shooting happened about 8:10 a.m. as buses were arriving at the school. David Williams, a sophomore, said the gunman walked into the commons area inside the front of the school, pulled a rifle from his jacket and opened fire. "He was shooting anybody he could find. He shot at me and hit the staircase," said Mark Wilkerson, a freshman. "I saw fragments going everywhere." Medic offering help One student described the accused youth as reserved. "He was a very quiet person," said Alan Burrow. Four wounded students, ranging in age from 14 to 18, were taken to Rankin Medical Center in Brandon, Mississippi, where one student had already been treated and released. Grieving students gathered in hospital waiting rooms. "The injuries are non-critical gunshot wounds," hospital spokesman Mark Lee said. "In layman's terms they are flesh wounds." Officials shut down the school almost immediately after the shooting and sent all students home. Rhonda Marks, a spokeswoman at River Oaks Hospital, said two students had been brought into the hospital for treatment. Marks did not know if the hospital would receive any more wounded. _________________________________________________________________ Infoseek search ____________________ ____ ____ _________________________________________________________________ rule Message Boards Sound off on our message boards You said it... [INLINE] Visit Regal at Buick.com rule To the top © 1997 Cable News Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you.

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Re: "Show me an example of terrorists using the Internet or crypto"
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 10/1/97 4:20 PM, Cynthia Brown (cynthb(a)sonetis.com) passed this wisdom: >I agree wholeheartedly. Uncontrolled guns do not solve problems, >they create them. If most households have at least one firearm, it >makes it that much easier for a criminal to obtain one by stealing >yours while you are at work. > >Canada may be regulated to death according to most libertarians, >but I for one like it that way. I can walk alone and unarmed at >night in Ottawa, Toronto, etc. without fearing for my life. Can a >female resident of Washington or New York say the same? Our schools >do not have metal detectorsat the entrances because they are not >needed. I live in the state of Vermont, where we have more guns per household than most of the states in the US. We are one of the only (if not *the* only) states in the Union that permits concealed carry without requiring a permit (with the not surprising exceptions of USG buildings and schools). Our record high murder year was a few years ago, twenty three murders (that high because we had a woman go crazy at the Eveready plant in Bennington and killed five people in one sitting) in more recent years the figure generally stays under ten per year ...three years ago the figure was five and only one of them was with a gun ... a shotgun, not a handgun. We go where we please with little fear as well; It has to do with a frame of mind, a set of values, not with a lack of availability or opportunity. There is something to be said for living in a place where a man can come right down off the hills during deer season and walk into a liquor store with a shotgun to buy a bottle of hooch without drawing a SWAT team! Try that in NYC or Toronto! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNDMWG8dZgC62U/gIEQLX+gCfZ+GzaNlvSx+xQPszw8cD/1VrDxkAoJ7Y aESM15SJSCwdbYKjDRG2zCIi =69FK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Brian B. Riley --> http://www.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day, but give him a case of dynamite and soon the village will be showered with mud and seaweed and unidentifiable chunks of fish." -Joe Chew

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Re: Remailers and ecash (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 18:27:10 -0400 > From: ghio(a)temp0122.myriad.ml.org (Matthew Ghio) > Subject: Re: Remailers and ecash (fwd) > Jim Choate wrote: > > > What besides raising hell anonymously, laundering money, and defeating > > merchant purchase traffic analysis are commercial anonymous remailers good > > for? > > So what are remailers being used for? We are talking commercial remailers here right? <see the quote you used above>. As famous as you are, you don't get to change the rules in the middle of the game. > 1) Private communication in the form of anonymous message pools You don't need anonymous remailers for this since simple crypto will provide just as good private communications security than anonymous remailers will because there is no central choke point where traffic analysis occurs . Now if one of the parties is actualy under surveillance then the anonymous remailers won't help because they will be tapping at the source, if anything it would provide further evidence of the parties complicity in a conspiracy. If you want your communications to stay private (if I understand your use of the word) use encryption and use underground remailers which isn't open to commercial exploitation, or else simply purchase a different account on your current ISP. > 2) Test posts Irrelevant, people don't pay for test posts enough to keep a commercial remailer in business - unless we vastly increase the total traffic level by quite a few orders of magnitude. > 3) Discussion of Macintosh computers irrelevant, people won't pay for this either. > 4) Discussion of obscure religions irrelevant (and I'm a Pantheist, they don't get more obscure than that) since people ain't gonna pay for this unless they are persecuted in their country of residence. If so the easiest thing to do would be to outlaw anonymous remailers (with the same logic they use to oppress the religion). [see #6 for more details on this] > 5) Sharing erotic fantasy stories And you suspect they will actualy pay for this? This line of reasoning I would love to hear more on... > 6) Avoiding censorship in Singapore Let's look at this a moment. I believe we can take as a given that Singapore is a oppressive regime. Furthermore all traffic in Singapore goes through government operated and regulated POP's. In that environment you really want to send traffic to an anonymous remailer? Can you say 'man-in-the-middle', and not only that but all the outgoing traffic from Singapore won't be through an anonymous remailers making it trivial for Singapore officials to determine exactly who to go hassle. So it is clear that the only parties discussing Singapore safely will be outside Singapore which makes the supposition that Singapore is going to come after you a bit suspect. You're talking about a country that outlaws private satellite dishes - get real. Furthermore commercial enterprises are open to much closer scrutiny in areas like Singapore making it even harder to stay in business unless the operator happens to be a government stooly, hardly the stuff of security. My thesis would be that any remailer (commercial or not) in a country with an oppresive regime is the last place you want to consider secure. > 7) Avoiding censorship in Iran See #6. Applies to China, Korea, Iraq, etc. > 8) Discussion of remailers themselves I would also like to see your explanation of exactly why they would pay for this. > 9) Discussion of controvertial political topics (racism, guns, drugs) The only reason that anonymous remailers are useful here is that the originating party doesn't want to deal with the results of being known. The flip side to this is that the reputation of anonymous discussions in these sorts of areas would have little political impact. A person who won't discuss such issues under their own name certainly won't go out and become actively involved in some political movement. Now if your claim is that such activity might hold some weight with an elected official I would appreciate an explanation as well - especialy considering that the anonymity provides just enough 'cover' so that the politician can safely ignore any and all traffic made through this mechanism, "They aren't one of my constituents." If you have some reasoning outside this please share it. > 10) Discussion about a TV show Irrelevant because people won't pay for this. Free remailers are useful for all sorts of mental masturbation, for actual business there doesn't seem to be a lot of uses. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Remailers and ecash (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: Remailers and ecash (fwd) > Date: Wed, 1 Oct 97 23:56:19 -0400 > From: "Brian B. Riley" <brianbr(a)together.net> > >And why does this by any security when it's the header info and > >contents that Mallet looks at, not the frequency. The only thing > >such approaches do is impliment security by obscurity, and that > >ain't security. > > What header info?, its all messages to the remailer with nondescript > info .. from that point the latency and mix takes over. The meaningful > message looks no different from the 'cover' traffic. Mallet will be following the cover traffic, since it is cover there will be no correllation uncovered between input and output traffic because the output traffic header info will either be a small class of destinations used over and over or else it will be chosen randomly using something like a spider on webpages or a usenet newsgroup crawler. Just send the bogus packets to random addresses, talk about spam with a bite... <hint: the LEA's would then instigate an investigation of the randomly selected target, depleting their resources, this might buy you 2-3 days if you got two halves of a clue to rub together> <speculation: anything short of several thousand entries in the bogus destinations will be trivial to track> <obvious: once a bogus address is used and known by the LEA's it will be worthless to send any further packets there> <obvious: all this traffic analysis will be done by computers with very nice databases so it might take one or two agents to review the full traffic set for just about any time frame under review> <speculation: given a determined and well equiped Mallet it should take no more than a week to 10 days to resolve the analysis if the destination party is a small set, say <= dozen, using todays remailers and traffic levels. Previously it was mentioned that one remailer handled about 4300 pieces a day, something Oracle or Sybase wouldn't have a problem with> <speculation: currently remailers are not seriously bothered by the BIG Big Brother's because it is not worth validating the paranoids out there that they are being watched> For the sender to chain from remailer to remailer to destination the destination has to be in the header info somewhere. Now in the most secure system each packet header will only contain the address of the next hop. When the next site gets it the packet contents are de-crypted (otherwise reading the chaining info is trivial) and the contents are uncovered to reveal another packet with the next hop header and another encrypted block. And on and on we go. <Question: Are there any remailer sets that impliment the encrypted nested packet system?> <speculation: an encrypted chain could be made stronger if the next hop header depended on which key was used to decode it. In other words, remailer A's key will produce one next hop address while remailer B's key will send it elsewhere. This is a subset of the different plaintext - same cyphertext problem - a hard problem as I understand it. Find two distinct texts that encrypt with different keys to the same cyphertext> Now if I were tasked with traffic analysis of this sort I would look at each incoming header and each outgoing header. I would look for some sort of correlation (ie some percentage of the time when I see this source address I see this destination address within some period) over time between the steps in the chain. Realisticaly it would take at least a dozen or so transmissions using the same remailer chain before a clear pattern would emerge. In general there are two types of classes in traffic analysis. The first is monitoring of a specific entity involved in the transfer, usualy source or destination. The second is passive traffic monitoring where I simply go from remailer to remailer and find statistical correlation between the various packets in the hope that somewhere somewhen I would come across something of use. <observation: without latency being added simply shuffling the messages will not significantly hamper the analysis. To be most effective the latencies should be randomly chosen. This implies that for best security the content of the traffic should not be greatly time sensitive. It furher implies that such traffic should be over a significant range, at least an order of magnitude say> <suggestion: I learned of the basics of traffic analysis from following the study of dinosaur teeth and trying to determine which type they were. Different dinosaurs leave distinctive but different types of scratches on their teeth. By applying statistics to the measurements it becomes possible to assign them to specific types> The first type is the most commen currently but with the various requests by the FBI and other LEA's it is becoming clear they want to get into the second class of traffic analysis in a big way. Guess they are finding it harder and harder to get the big-wigs like the drug cartels because they use a higher degree of technology than the LEA's do, they're simply out-classed. With the second class they could catch a email (for example) from some end user buying a couple of quarters of pot and then chase that chain in reverse. Without the passive second class monitoring they would have never gotten that lead in the first place. Now consider the LEA's think nothing of monitoring a suspect for years if required. I know of one case where the DEA spent 2 years tracking a 'kingpin' for 45 tons of herb. They even brought in specialist from the NSA and military to do covert monitoring for the over-seas participants, including traffic analysis of their communications. <observation: Blackhawks have a pretty nifty electronics system, watching downtown Bagdad via a sat link while flying along playing with Internet email and using your FLIR to not hit the cables between the poles> If they ain't LEA's then a whole new set of options become available. Also consider, if they aren't LEA's then they are probably doing a class one traffic analysis which is only a matter of time to resolve. Considering the current number of anonymous remailers it would not surprise me if the CIA/NSA/Massad/MI5/etc. are not currently monitoring them all. It is a given that countries like Iraq, Singapore, China, etc. are currently doing about all they can to monitor the remailers because they are known to be used by 'terrorist' organizations. It seems to me that many people have an inherent (and unrecognized) assumption that Mallet will have access only to a single remailer and won't bother actualy tracing the traffic. A bad assumption. It is also worth remembering, the government as a whole is quite slow but there are some quite capable individuals. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Forwarded mail... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: Forwarded mail... > Date: Thu, 2 Oct 97 00:09:24 -0400 > From: "Brian B. Riley" <brianbr(a)together.net> > ... nothing personal, but why is it people keep deluding themselves > with the idea that they can shoot to wound. You cannot know what a > shot will do Remember: A gun is like a finger, just point it at what you want to hit. I have met hundreds of great shots in my life, there are many people for whom this sort of behaviour would not be delusional. My grandfather (who you'll hear more about in a minute) used to delight us as small kids by lighting matches stuck in wood fence posts with a .22 pistol from about 50 yds. My cousin from Louisiana likes to shoot squirrels (if you can call it that) by passing the bullet just in front of their nose, causes lung hemorraghes and they just fall off the limb. Me, I always miss or blow their teeny little head off, it's apparently a game of 1/4 inches. I work with an ex-gomer (ie USMC) pilot who is quite phenomenal with his .357 Desert Eagle, his groupings are just about an inch at 25 yds. I have 20/10 eyesight (in one eye now, the L. is blind) and I've been shooting guns since I was 6 years old. By the time I was 12 I was killing Nutria in Louisiana's swamps every summer for bounty with a single shot of .22 from 100+ yds. I once got a nice heart shot on a deer at 400 yds. over iron sites with a .308. I hit what I aim at with a pistol or rifle assuming I have fired it a few times (which if I own the gun is a given). The first thing I do is range a weapon when I buy it. It's also why I practice shooting in groups of 3. Better chance of hitting, and hitting something important. Being shot at doesn't bother me, been there done that several times now, so I don't think that will be much of a factor. I agree a snap shot is inaccurate but if I have time to get the gun and get to my bedroom door nobody is going to get a chance for a snap shot. Hell, if I had a reasonable idea where they were I'd shoot their wormy ass through the wall. I seriously doubt anyone can get to my bedroom without me being warned (my burglar alarm isn't electronic). <hint: if your walls are white and you're faced with a burglar cover yourself with a white sheet (assuming the lights are off and only ambient is available) and stay below waist level moving no more than about 1 ft. at a time and shooting upward. Keep both elbows tucked in and hold the gun in a 2-hand grip, use you ears not your eyes> >... if you shoot someone the odds are pretty high that > you will kill him or seriously injure. If you break into my house at 1AM this is a given. I'll either shoot you or beat you to death with a skillet. If you don't want to die don't break into my house. It's the Golden Rule. There is absolute NOTHING that justifies breaking into my house at any time let alone in the middle of the night. It's called 'cause and effect' unfortunately most folks now a-days just don't seem to have caught the clue. There is a saying that my grandfather tought me (he was a medic in WWI because he was a contientous (sp?) objecter): If you pull a gun on somebody shoot, and shoot to kill. If you can't bring yourself to kill then don't use a gun. > You cannot count on > 'non-lethally' wounding anyone. Who the hell wants to non-lethaly wound a burglar, I'm betting on them flinching when I start yelling at them... > Leg shots have a very high incidence > of hitting bone and deflecting up into the torso and really raising > havoc. A shot to the thigh could easily hit the femoral artery and a > total bleedout Absolutely great reasons to shoot the asshole there. Look, when a person breaks into your house, robs you, rapes you, or whatever they are basicly saying "I am going it on my own, I apply no rules or recognition of civilization. Your life means nothing to me because I am willing to trade it for a few measly bucks". It is silly to try to deal with such people reasonably, if they were reasonable they wouldn't be there in the first place (they'd be home protecting their own possessions). They are a clear and present danger with long-term intent. Save your life and their next victim or your tax dollars to put them in jail and train them to be better criminals, do everyone a favor kill them now. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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