December 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Tor 0.0.9rc6 is out (fwd from arma@mit.edu)
by Eugen Leitl 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

----- Forwarded message from Roger Dingledine <arma(a)mit.edu> -----

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Unintended Consequences
by Major Variola (ret) 05 Dec '04

05 Dec '04

At 04:44 AM 12/2/04 -0500, R.A. Hettinga wrote: >John Ross' "Unintended Consequences" is a classic of the, um, gun culture, >:-) and a great read. Made me want to name my first mulatto "Gonorreah" fer sure :-)

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Immediate Exception
by R.W. (Bob) Erickson 04 Dec '04

04 Dec '04

Observe the subtle balance of the moment Be aware of danger in short term bias, hyberbolic discounting and cognitive priming. Understand that each and every thing we know is framed by others expectations and fears We are, each of us,in our diversity and self doubts only stuff that matters. Our view from the nexus of personal tangles and the social alienation in which we become ourselves cannot be generalized away.There is no average, no scalar at all We are all, each single one of us, much more than words and more many, than one Be kind to yourself, but never forget you're kind Other people are the only reason for anything So give not into the temptation of abstract authority For the rule following consequence is misery and death Cooperation is always needful work For as surly as civilization trumps ideology, the top down view is mortally flawed Not only is the illusion deceiving it degrades us all Always know when to resort to chaos To keep the rules dynamic Our competency is orthodox But our freedom is escape >From the tyranny of rules Methodology enables Analysis Abstractions enable Truth But the beauty of life Is the immediate exception

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Liquidnet: "Anonymous" institutional transactions
by R.A. Hettinga 04 Dec '04

04 Dec '04

<http://www.liquidnet.com/company/> The Company Why Use Liquidnet Membership News and Stats Careers Contact Us About Liquidnet :: Senior Management :: Board of Directors :: Liquidnet Europe Liquidnet is successfully redefining institutional trading. Launched in April 2001, Liquidnet was built exclusively for institutional trading. After only three years, we are now ranked as one of the top 14 largest NYSE institutional brokers and the 15th largest NASDAQ broker* respectively. The Liquidnet global community has grown to represent more than $6.8 trillion in equity assets under management. Liquidnet's unique model brings natural buyers and sellers together and enables them to anonymously negotiate trades among each other, without intermediaries or information leaks. Liquidnet's institutional Members trade large blocks of small-, mid- and large-cap stocks easily, efficiently and with little to no market impact costs. The result is the industry-leading average execution size of more than 42,000 shares since inception, with 50% of all executions done at the mid-point and 92% done within the spread. Liquidnet, Inc. is a registered broker/dealer, headquartered in New York City. Liquidnet Europe Limited is regulated by the Financial Services Authority and is headquartered in London. * Based on Plexus Group analysis (03Q3 - 04Q2) November 29, 1999 Liquidnet Holdings, Inc. founded January 10, 2000 Liquidnet, Inc. founded April 10, 2001 Liquidnet launches in the United States with 38 Member firms April 16, 2001 Liquidnet completes first week of trading with an average execution size of 86,000 shares June 12, 2001 Liquidnet Europe Ltd. founded October 23, 2001 Liquidnet executes its 500-millionth share March 8, 2002 Liquidnet signs first European Member April 4, 2002 Liquidnet executes its one-billionth share June 3, 2002 100th Member firm goes live August 2002 Liquidnet recognized by Plexus Group as one of the largest institutional brokers for NYSE-listed stocks November 2002 Liquidnet recognized by Plexus Group as one of the largest institutional brokers for NASDAQ stocks November 20, 2002 Liquidnet Europe launches, providing fund managers with access to six global markets - UK, French, German, Swiss, Dutch and US December 31, 2002 Liquidnet ends year with 136 live Members and completes strongest quarter to date, executing 426 million shares January 30, 2003 Liquidnet executes its two-billionth share October 14, 2003 Liquidnet executes its largest single US equities trade to date -- 2.83 million shares. November, 2003 Liquidnet ranked as the 5th and 10th least expensive trading venue for NYSE and Nasdaq stocks, respectively, by Elkins/McSherry. December 16, 2003 Value traded in Liquidnet since inception reaches $100 billion. December 22, 2003 Liquidnet breaks its single day record for US volume, executing nearly 29.5 million shares. January, 2004 Liquidnet ranked as one of the Top 20 largest NYSE brokers in the Plexus Group universe of 1,500 brokers. January 21, 2004 July 29, 2004 October 21, 2004 Liquidnet breaks its single day record for US volume, executing more than 30 million shares. Liquidnet brings anonymous block trading to Canada Liquidnet Honored as the 5th Fastest Growing Private Company in America by INC. MAGAZINE and THE fastest growing private Financial Services company. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Aide takes blame for tax return provision
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Dec '04

03 Dec '04

<http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041203-124037-3201r.htm> The Washington Times Aide takes blame for tax return provision Washington, DC, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Language in the omnibus spending bill giving congressional staff access to U.S. tax returns was inserted by a mid-level aide, not a member of Congress. Richard Efford, a 19-year veteran of the House Appropriations Committee staff, said he was responsible for the controversial provision, which critics characterized as an invasion of privacy. Efford said he did not consult with Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ernest Istook, R-Okla., before including the language, which he said was simply an attempt to give committee staff the authority to enter Internal Revenue Service facilities to inspect how taxpayer funds were being used. He said the genesis of the provision was the IRS' objection to his request to visit a tax return processing facility. "They said if someone's return was up on a computer screen and you glanced at it there would be a release of taxpayer information," a breach of privacy laws the IRS could not accept, Efford told the Washington Post. The provision's existence became known just hours before a vote on the spending package. It set off an uproar that led congressional leaders to hold off on sending the bill to the president's desk until the provision could be struck from the bill. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Quantum memory for light
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Dec '04

03 Dec '04

<http://www.physorg.com/news2227.html> PhysOrg Nano and Quantum Physics Technology Applied Physics Space and Earth science Electronic Devices Striking Research and Developments Quantum memory for light December 03, 2004 Realization of quantum memory for light allows the extension of quantum communication far beyond 100 km In the macroscopic classical world, it is possible to copy information from one device into another. We do this everyday, when, for example, we copy files in a computer or we tape a conversation. In the microscopic world, however, it is not possible to copy the quantum information from one system into another one. It can only be transferred, without leaving any trace on the original one. The manipulation and transfer of quantum information is, in fact, a very active field of research in physics and informatics, since it is the basis of all the protocols and algorithms in the fields of quantum communication and computation, which may revolutionize the world of information. In the work published in Nature, November 25, 2004, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen have proposed a scheme to transfer the quantum state of a pulse of light onto a set of atoms and have demonstrated it experimentally. ------ Image: Experimental set-up: Atomic memory unit consisting of two caesium cells inside magnetic shields 1 and 2. The path of the recorded and read-out light pulses is shown with arrows. (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics / Niels Bohr Institute Copenhagen) ----- In the experiment, a pulse of light is prepared in a certain quantum state whose properties (polarization) are randomly chosen. Then, the light is sent through a set of atoms which are contained in a small transparent box (an atomic cell) at room temperature. In the cell, the light and atoms interact with each other, giving rise to an "entangled" state in which the two systems remain correlated. After abandoning the atomic sample, the pulse of light is detected. Due to the fact that the light and atoms are entangled, the process of measurement on the light affects the quantum state of the atoms in such a way that they acquire the original properties of the light. In this way, the state of polarization of the photons is transferred into the polarization state of the atoms. This "action at a distance", in which by performing a measurement on a system it affects the state of another system which is at a different location is one of the most intriguing manifestations of Quantum Mechanics, and is the basis of applications such as quantum cryptography or phenomena like teleportation. In order to check that the transfer of polarization has indeed taken place, the researcher measured the polarization of the atoms at the beginning of the experiment and compared it with the original state of polarization of the light. In the experiment, these two polarizations coincided up to a 70% of the time. The main reason for the imperfections where the due to spontaneous emission, a process in which the atoms absorb the photons but then emit them in a different direction such that they do not go towards the photo-detector. A question that the authors of the paper had to carefully analyze was to what extent 70% percent of coincidence is enough to claim that the process was successful. Or, in other words, could they obtain the same result by measuring the state of polarization of the photons and then preparing the state of the atoms accordingly? The answer is no. Due to the basic properties of quantum mechanics, the state of polarization of a laser pulse cannot be fully detected. Due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, it is impossible to measure the full polarization exactly. In fact, as some of the authors together with K. Hammerer and M. Wolf (from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) have recently shown, the best one can do using this latter method would be 50%. This implies that the experiment indeed has successfully demonstrated the transfer beyond what one could do without creating the entangled state. The current experiment paves the way for new experiments in which the information contained in light can be mapped onto atomic clusters and then back into the light again. In this way, one could not only store the state of light in an atomic clusters, but also retrieve it. This process will be necessary if we want to build quantum repeaters, that is, devices which will allow the extension of quantum communication far beyond the distances (of the order of 100 km) which are achieved nowadays. Original work: B. Julsgaard, J. Sherson, J.I. Cirac, J. Fiurasek, und E.S. Polzik Experimental demonstration of quantum memory for light Nature 432, 482 (2004) Source: Max Planck Institute -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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They've Got Your Number
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Dec '04

03 Dec '04

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/phreakers_pr.html> Wired 12.12: They've Got Your Number your text messages and address book, and a way to bug your calls. Why spam, scams, and viruses are coming soon to a phone near you. By Annalee NewitzPage 1 of 4 next ; It's a beautiful afternoon in Shepherd's Bush, a bustling neighborhood on the outskirts of London, and Adam Laurie is feeling peckish. Heading out of the office, he's about to pick up more than a sandwich. As he walks, he'll be probing every cell phone that comes within range of a hidden antenna he has connected to the laptop in his bag. We stroll past a park near the Tube station, then wander into a supermarket. Laurie contemplates which sort of crisps to buy while his laptop quietly scans the 2.4-GHz frequency range used by Bluetooth devices, probing the cell phones nestled in other shoppers' pockets and purses. Laurie, 42, the CSO of boutique security firm the Bunker, isn't going to mess with anyone's phone, although he could: With just a few tweaks to the scanning program his computer is running, Laurie could be crashing cell phones all around him, cutting a little swath of telecommunications destruction down the deli aisle. But today Laurie is just gathering data. We are counting how many phones he can hack using Bluetooth, a wireless protocol for syncing cell phones with headsets, computers, and other devices. We review the results of the expedition in a nearby pub. In the 17 minutes we wandered around, Laurie's computer picked up signals from 39 phones. He peers at his monitor for a while. "It takes only 15 seconds to suck down somebody's address book, so we could have had a lot of those," he says at last. "And at least five of these phones were vulnerable to an attack." The "attack" Laurie mentions so casually could mean almost anything - a person using another person's cell to make long distance calls or changing every phone number in his address book or even bugging his conversations. There are, he says, "a whole range of new powers" available to the intrepid phone marauder, including nasty viral attacks. A benign Bluetooth worm has already been discovered circulating in Singapore, and Laurie thinks future variants could be something really scary. Especially vulnerable are Europeans who use their mobile phone to make micropayments - small purchases that show up as charges on cell phone bills. A malicious virus maker bent on a get-rich-quick scheme could take advantage of this feature by issuing "reverse SMS" orders. Bluetooth security has become a pressing issue in Europe, where the technology is ubiquitous. The problem will migrate to American shores as the protocol catches on here, too. But in the long run, Bluetooth vulnerabilities are manageable: Handset manufacturers can rewrite faulty implementations, and cell phone users will learn to be more careful. A far bigger security nightmare for the US is Internet telephony, which is fast being adopted for large corporations and is available to consumers through many broadband providers. Voice over IP is, by design, hacker-friendly. No enterprising criminals have dreamed up a million-dollar scam exploiting VoIP technology yet. But when they do, it likely won't be something a simple patch can fix. Bluetooth hacking is technically very different from VoIP hacking, but they're both surging for the same basic reason. Increasingly, telephones have become indistinguishable from computers, which makes them more useful, but also more vulnerable. VoIP, which routes calls over the Internet, gives users the power to port their phone number anywhere, package voice messages into MP3s and receive them as emails, and make cheap international calls. Yet VoIP, like Bluetooth, exposes your telephone to the same ills that regularly befall a desktop box - worms, spam, crashes. "It's not like we've fixed the vulnerabilities on computers," says security expert Bruce Schneier, author of Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World. "The phone network used to get its security from being closed, but VoIP phones will be just as bad as computers." Many of today's hacks work because the traditional phone system was built on the premise that only large, monopolistic phone companies would be using it, and they would all play by the same rules. But the network isn't the telcos' private sandbox anymore; it can be manipulated and controlled by anybody who understands basic computer networking. The people who know this best are a new generation of phone hackers - aka phreakers - who aren't interested in following the rules. They're busy ripping apart the latest phones to discover what can make them turn against their owners. As the phone companies and handset makers lumber along, we can only hope that the phreaks in white hats figure out some fixes before the blackhats move in for the kill. Laurie, whose laptop is now packed with information from vulnerable cell phones in the Shepherd's Bush, has become infamous in Britain for conducting a similar experiment in the House of Parliament, where he had the opportunity (which he didn't take) to copy the address books and calendars of several prominent politicians. That excursion resulted in a mandate that all Bluetooth devices be turned off in the House of Parliament. As the inventor of "bluesnarfing," a hack that uses Bluetooth to peek at data stored on cell phones, Laurie is dedicated to publicizing the danger of a wide-open Bluetooth connection. A bluesnarf attack can identify an unprotected phone and copy its entire address book, calendar, photos, and any other information that happens to be inside. Using a bluesnarf program, a phreak can also crash any phone within range by using Bluetooth to broadcast what Laurie calls "a corrupted message." Bluesnarf was born after Laurie scrutinized the code running some Bluetooth headsets his staff was using. He wasn't happy with what he found. "Gaping security holes," he says with a frown. Rebuffed by the cell phone companies to which he reported the problems, he conceived of bluesnarf as a publicity stunt, a tool that would dramatize the danger of owning these phones. Compounding Bluetooth's technical vulnerabilities are problems with the way people use it. Most folks leave Bluetooth on all the time, often because they don't bother to learn how to turn it off. Even tech-savvy types tend to keep their connections open. "People have heard about 'toothing,' where strangers send each other flirtatious messages via Bluetooth," he says. Hoping to get toothed, they risk an entirely different kind of penetration. The risk doesn't end with snarfing. Another way to use Bluetooth to hijack a phone completely is bluebugging, and Laurie gives me a quick demo. He runs the bluebug software on his laptop, and it quickly locates an Ericsson t610 phone he's set on the table between us (not all phones can be bluebugged, but this model can). His computer connects to the phone and takes it over, remotely. Tapping the keyboard, Laurie sends the t610 a command to ring up the phone on his belt. It bleeps. He answers. We've got a bluebug. Invented by Austrian researcher Martin Herfurt earlier this year, bluebugging is the perfect weapon for corporate spies. Let's say you and I are competing for a big contract with an oil company. I want to hear everything that happens in your meeting with the VP of Massive Oil Inc., so I hire a blackhat phreak to take over your cell phone. Once he's bluebugged it, I tell him to have your mobile call mine. The phone that's sitting in your jacket pocket is now picking up everything you and the VP say during your conversation, and I can hear the prices you're quoting as clear as a bell on my own phone. "A cell phone is the ultimate well-engineered bugging device," Laurie says. Unlike bluesnarfers, who need only some gear and know-how, the bluebugger first has to get your cell phone to pair with his computer, establishing a "trusted" data link. Laurie explains one crafty way to make this happen. "You just say, 'Gee, that's a cool phone, can I see it?'Punch a few buttons to establish the pairing, and hand it back." As soon as the pairing is complete, the bluebugger can commandeer every aspect of the phone. He can initiate calls, send SMS messages, even overwrite the address book and contacts list. Laurie's revelation is disturbing, but the fact that phreakers need to approach and interact with their intended targets significantly cuts down on the number of victims. Yet British security consultant Ollie Whitehouse, whose Bluetooth-hunting program Redfang has made him a celebrity among phreakers, describes another a way to bluebug - a method that doesn't demand the eavesdropper come into physical contact with the target's phone. In this case, the trick is to sniff the data traffic traveling to and from a Bluetooth phone when it's pairing with another device, like a headset. Armed with this information, an attacker can bluebug the phone by pretending to be the trusted device with which it regularly networks. Cell phone companies argue that bluesnarfing and bluebugging are minor threats because Bluetooth is designed to work only over short distances, 20 feet or less, requiring attackers to be close to their targets. Enter the Bluetooth sniper rifle. Made from $200 worth of off-the-shelf parts, the sniper is a Bluetooth antenna optimized for long-distance use. It can send and receive faint signals at more than a thousand yards. With the sniper - or a wireless weapon like it - bluesnarfers and bluebuggers no longer have to be in the same room as their targets. "By smashing any notion that distance is an issue," says 24-year-old inventor Jon Hering, a student at the University of Southern California, "we showed that bluebugging is a real-world threat." Surely the phone companies must be doing something to protect us from all this. Keith Nowak, a spokesperson at Nokia, suggests "just turning off Bluetooth - or switching into hidden mode." Whitehouse laughs at that advice. Redfang, his signature phreak tool, is specifically designed to find Bluetooth devices in hidden mode. And given that so few people actually do turn off Bluetooth, their phones are susceptible to countless hacks - ones that Hering's sniper rifle could launch from half a mile away. The Default Radio boys, rock stars in the phreak underground, are onstage at DefCon, the venerable hacker conference that's sort of a cross between the Ozzfest mosh pit and an after-hours party for NSA agents. Wearing baseball caps, T-shirts, and baggy jeans, the boys are doing a live version of their phreak-friendly streaming-audio talk show. The long table in front of them is covered with telephone equipment and computers. A Defaulter using the nom de phreak Lucky225 steps up to the mike. With a phone tucked between his ear and shoulder and the keyboard under his fingers, he looks like a cross between a DJ and a telephone line repairman. Lucky regales the audience with a tale about his favorite VoIP hack: He can make a VoIP phone display whatever caller ID number he chooses. To prove his point, he tells us he can impersonate "Jenny," the girl from the pop song by Tommy Tutone. Earsplitting static issues from the speakers, and suddenly we hear a thunderous dial tone. Lucky has routed his VoIP phone through the sound system. He dials MCI's caller ID readback line, a service that identifies whatever number you're calling from. A robotic voice slowly intones Lucky's number: "eight-six-seven-five" - the crowd erupts, screams of laughter mingling with groans - "three-zero-nine." Having demonstrated his power over caller ID, Lucky proceeds to tell the phreak-packed auditorium how he spoofed the number. Turns out the whole thing is a social hack. A few days before, he called his service provider, Vonage, and told them he wanted to port all his cell phone calls to the Internet phone connected to his computer. His cell number is 867 5309, he lied, and Vonage believed him. Now it's rerouting all calls made to Jenny on the Vonage network to Lucky. Naturally, Vonage also set the caller ID on Lucky's VoIP phone to Jenny's number - so any time he dials out, it looks like he's calling from 867 5309. A lot of systems depend on receiving accurate caller ID - credit card-activation lines, voicemail systems, even 911. So being able to control what a called party sees after you dial can be a potent weapon. Armed with your caller ID, an identity thief could order a new ATM card, activate it over the phone, and use it to empty your bank account. And, given that many voicemail boxes will play their contents to any phone with the right caller ID, you could be opening up your private life to anyone with a Vonage phone. After the show, I ask Lucky why he got into the phreak scene. "Well," Lucky deadpans, sketching out plans for a network of cans and rubber bands, "I wanted to start this elastic-based phone system " He's a prankster, but with a purpose - to make clear to the public that VoIP is a privacy nightmare. "Yup," he concludes, still pondering voice over elastic, "I think this tin can shit is really going to take off." Steve Wozniak, the Apple computer pioneer whose phreak days began in the 1970s, says pranks are what it's all about. "Those of us who have the phreaker mentality see playing with the world as fun, but in these times it's hard for people to see us as harmless." Maybe so, but Vonage doesn't seem too concerned. When I contact the company later to find out whether they know about Lucky's caller ID trick and what they are doing to stop it, executive VP Louis Holder admits they're not doing anything. "We allow people to do what he did," Holder says. "We give people a temporary phone number before we verify it with the phone company, and verification takes a couple of weeks. Somebody could pick the White House number and pretend to be the president." Today's phreaks have the power to crash the phone system - but they also have the power to rebuild it. Lucky's joke about creating his own network out of tin cans and rubber bands isn't that far from the truth. Slestak, Da Beave, and GiD are the crew behind Florida-based Telephreak.org, a free VoIP service that they've built to run on a roll-your-own, open source private branch exchange (PBX) system called Asterisk. Typically used by businesses, a PBX consists of computers that route calls between what amounts to a phone intranet and the public telephone system. A company using a PBX might pay for 100 lines that service 500 employees, linking callers to the outside world, voicemail, or conferences by dynamically connecting phone calls using whichever landlines are open. In the past, all these connections would be managed by the phone company or a proprietary, closed black box in the server room. But with Asterisk, there's no need for the phone company to manage your lines anymore. You can do it yourself. The Telephreak crew has created its own private phone company for themselves and their friends - one that never sends a bill. Dial an access line to check voicemail, create conference calls, forward calls to other phones, even get a new number. And never pay a cent. Currently, there are several hundred voicemail accounts, and the system can handle a hundred simultaneous calls. Although the Telephreak crew has to pay for connectivity to Ma Bell, the amount is so negligible that they're willing to eat the money. It's a small price to pay for freedom. I'm talking to them on a Telephreak conference call, and the sound is a little fuzzy. Beave, identifiable by his slight southern twang, tells me he's working on ironing out the bugs. It's a little strange to know someone is manipulating your phone connection while talking to you. Suddenly, the sound is perfect. We've been rerouted. Slestak's voice comes in loud and clear: "My connection to you guys right now is going across a cordless phone with a box to the server, then to Telephreak. My dial tone is coming from the West Coast." One of the best things about building your own PBX is that you can do what Slestak calls "chemistry experiments" with the phone system. Some PBX phreakers, like Telediablo, even provide a caller ID spoofing service: With it, there's no need to lie to Vonage - you simply call up Telediablo's PBX, plug in the number you want to use as your caller ID, then dial the party you want to trick. When I try out his little hack, I pick the number 666 6666. Next, I key in a nearby friend's number. It rings. My friend shows me his caller ID window: Now I feel like a phreak. Instead of displaying my number, his phone is displaying the devil's digits. There are other PBX tricks - like caller ID unmasking, which can sometimes reveal the actual phone number of a caller, regardless of whether they've paid to have their number blocked. So if you think you're anonymous on the telephone system, think again. Probably the most unsettling discovery made by whitehat phreakers is that VoIP providers and wireless companies are willing to peddle phones and services that they know perfectly well are vulnerable to all kinds of attacks. After several months of bad publicity in the UK, where Laurie and Whitehouse are based, the cell phone companies are responding. Nokia and Sony Ericsson have issued patches, and Motorola says that its security flaws have been fixed in the newer models. And upstart VoIP provider Skype is marketing built-in encryption. Meanwhile, the Bluetooth Consortium - a group of industry leaders, including Nokia and Sony Ericsson, whose products incorporate Bluetooth - focused explicitly on security at its UnPlugFest in Germany last month. At the meeting, security experts (including Laurie) rated each company's phones in terms of their resistance to common attacks. Still, nobody is tracking bluesnarf or bluebug attacks to measure the extent of the problem - nobody but the whitehat phreaks themselves. Whitehouse has written a program he calls Sweet Tooth that can detect the signature radio signals sent by bluesnarfers. Modeled on honeypot programs that law enforcement and security analysts use to detect hackers on the Internet, Sweet Tooth could provide accurate statistics on how prevalent bluesnarf attacks really are. The program is ready for action, says Whitehouse. The question now is whether law enforcement and the phone companies will actually deploy it, however. Ignoring the problem is not going to make it better - especially because phone hacking is only going to get easier. Bluetooth phreaking is just the beginning. The holes will get patched, but the problem won't go away, because all the tools that hackers have spent decades developing will now be repurposed to hijack your phone. Next-generation handsets will have three entry points for the blackhats: If a snarfer can't suck down your data with Bluetooth, he'll try your Wi-Fi port, and if that doesn't work, infrared. "I guess that's the price you pay for convergence," Whitehouse says. -------- The Great Cell Phone Robbery How security flaws in today's mobile phones could add up to tomorrow's perfect crime. Step 1: Approach A virus-spreader enters Heathrow Airport toting a briefcase with a laptop and an external antenna. The rig can sniff Bluetooth signals from up to 20 feet away - and with just a bit of hacking, it can be modified to send and receive signals over much greater distances. Step 2: Discover Using a program like bluesnarf, the laptop automatically finds Bluetooth phones with firmware vulnerable to remote takeover. This process is completed in less than 15 seconds. Step 3: Take over The laptop sends a program to all the vulnerable phones. Disguised as a game or a marketing promotion, the program is really a Trojan horse hiding a nasty virus. Once the user launches it, the virus hijacks the phone's operating system, taking over basic functions like dialing and messaging. Step 4: Propagate The target phone is now infected, and it reacts by broadcasting the virus to other vulnerable Bluetooth phones within 20 feet. Within minutes, thousands of phones can be infected. Step 5: Steal Commandeering the phones' SMS system, the virus uses a popular European micropayment system called reverse SMS to transfer 10 euros from each phone to a temporary account in Estonia. The virus requests the transfer and stays in control until it can confirm the order. The account is closed long before any user sees the charge reflected on the monthly bill. Annalee Newitz (annalee(a)techsploitation.com) a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote about dating optimizers in issue 12.06. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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The Source of Hitler's Success
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Dec '04

03 Dec '04

--- begin forwarded text

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A Plan for Liberty
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Dec '04

03 Dec '04

<http://www.theanarchistalternative.info/plan/> A Plan for Liberty We yearn to experience a zero-government society (ZGS.) But how can we cause it to happen? Opinions differ quite widely, and that suggests nobody really knows. Given that it would be unique in human experience, that's unsurprising. Proposals tend to group into four: 1. Enjoy life and do nothing, confident that eventually the State will implode of its own accord, by the inexorable laws of economics 2. Work to reduce the State gradually, by any of a variety of means such as political activism, tax and other resistance 3. Found a free society beyond a frontier, where no existing State is operating 4. Educate opinion leaders, so that they will help us change our existing society. I'm not convinced about #1, because the laws of economics have operated for thousands of years but as far as we know have never yet caused a State to implode. They did, it's true, pull the props from under the Soviet one, but only because its leaders were so dumb as to flout them deliberately, for the first time ever; other governments have been smart enough to allow cows to live, in order to milk them. Thus, this option could involve a very long wait. Option #2 is praiseworthy, but to my mind takes too little account of the awesome power of government to close down any resistance as soon as it shows promise of success. We're familiar with the political freeze-out, for example; very skilfully, Libertarians are prevented from getting elected. Those who lead tax revolts are silenced. Option #3 would be great, except that no frontiers exist any more, or not on this Planet except for regions so barren and cold that normal life would hardly be feasible. Additionally even if a ZGS were to prosper in Antarctica, for example, what is to stop those States most shamed by its success and appeal from nuking it out of existence? Fears of melted ice? Option #4 holds more promise, but so far has made very modest headway and suffers from one flaw: no plan exists (to my knowledge) to bring about an intellectual conversion of everyone in society - only of the leaders. The usually-unspoken assumption is that once the elite sees the way to go, they will take everyone else along; by force (eg by a majority-vote plebiscite) if necessary. I have in the past made just such a proposal. Somehow, though, that seems to sit ill with our self-ownership, no-force axiom. So this paper proposes a new and ambitious variation on Option 4: universal re-education which will result in a fully anarchist America by the year 2027. It rests upon the following assumptions: 1. All humans are rational, thus open to reasoned persuasion 2. The free market (market anarchism) is the only rational system 3. A thorough yet simple course can be designed, to teach such a system on line 4. Once he understands it, every new anarchist will want to help teach it to others Those assumptions should be checked. All are critical, but here are remarks about the first two. The Nature of a ZGS A free society would consist only of people who wish to belong to it - who transact with other people only by means of contracts they wish to make. Therefore, everyone - not just some - must be shown its virtues, and desire them. Given that the first ZGS must occupy some geographic area currently in control of a government, only two alternatives exist: (i) 100% of that population be re-educated so everyone volunteers, or (ii) Some volunteer and the rest are made to move out! - a step hardly consistent with our nonagression axiom. I wondered about that possibility that a very small residue of ineducable statists remained, intransigent. Must they be forced out? - I think not. Nobody in the free society would (being well-educated) elect to trade with them except under the terms of proper contracts, and so they would either sign those contracts (to use somebody's road, for example, or to buy someone's potatoes) or leave of their own accord. It would be possible to live as a hermit with a veggie garden and no human interaction, but statists are not made of such hardy stuff so I predict it would never happen. So it seems to me our aim should be for 100%, and that is a new proposition, a higher aim than anarchists have previously proposed. Society is Not an Onion It's often observed that a cultural or intellectual change needs to be made by approaching society as if it were an onion; convert the outer (most open-minded, leader-thinker) layer first, then peel off the next, and so on until no further persuasion is possible. Certainly, we may suppose that somewhere in there is to be found a hard, resistant core of government junkies who would starve rather than work for their own living; and certainly, everyday experience tells us that some listen better than others. However, a satisfactory plan for moving to a ZGS must involve everyone; anything less will just not do. Therefore, it must not be limited to converting just the outer "layers." The population concerned might occupy one existing State, such as Montana or New Hampshire, or it might encompass the United States in total, or some region of intermediate size; but given the FedGov's history of liquidating States which secede, it seems to me we should aim for the lot. Then, there'd be no nearby residual government strong enough to do any liquidating. There, then, is the aim: to re-educate some 300 million Americans in a time period short enough for most of us now living to enjoy the fruits of success. How might it be done, given that pro-government interests control almost all the means of communication? Universal Re-Education It's a tall order, indeed. 300 million students with a median IQ of 100, to be helped to understand thoroughly that they are their own exclusive self-owners, with inalienable rights. That they have absolute freedom to make voluntary agreements with others but none at all to submit others to their own will. That there are certain immutable principles of real-world (Austrian) economics, that will operate to bring a vast range of undreamed-of benefits. That there is no rational alternative to a free market; that government and all its works are absolutely mythical, absolutely irrational. And this inversion of 8 generations of government brain-washing is to be accomplished in 2 or 3 decades. Isn't the "order" a tad too tall? I dont think so (or I'd not be writing this) - primarily because I believe that there really is no rational alternative to a free market; thus, since humans are rational in the sense that we have the ability to reason logically, once both the correct fundamental premises and the way free-market concepts derive from them are patiently and properly spelled out to him everyone will accept them. If the reader doubts that, let him produce a rational alternative to the free market! and if my premise is wrong that humans are rational at root, then abandon all hope and go drink and make merry, for tomorrow we die. So consider: supposing an interactive course were put together, thoroughly to cover the ground above, but simple enough for a 100-IQ person to master. How long would the learning take, given strong motivation and well-focussed attention? Experienced on-line educationalists are welcome to show otherwise, but I suggest the answer is something between 100 and 1,000 hours of concentrated study. An average of 500, perhaps; and if the motivation is strong enough that means 100 days without 5 hours viewing government licenced television. A third of a year, or two thirds for those with the fewest learning skills. Notice the two key prerequisites: a well-designed, interactive course and a way systematically to motivate the students. I'm going to focus on the second of those, for I think there are quite a number of articulate anarcho-capitalists who could design a course of that caliber. I might even take a crack at it myself. Bear in mind: it's not an Econ-PhD course we need here, but something Everyman can master. Interactive, so that we can use the priceless advantage of the Internet (and of CDs, lest government, in panic, close down our web site) - but with some provision for the Unwired among us; a dwindling problem over a couple of decades, but one that cannot be ignored. So, therefore... The Motivation Enormous numbers of students can be motivated to take and graduate from this On Line Liberty School as follows: one at a time, by personal recommendation and monitoring. The principle is far from new, though its vast implications may not have been well counted: each person wishing to activate this Plan will set him- or herself a personal target to... find ONE person per year who will agree to take the course and then do the same; that is, to find one person per year who will agree to take the course and then do the same. Such a personal objective is not at all burdensome. Some friendly monitoring would be needed (to make sure the promise is kept, and to field questions as they may arise) but the great bulk of the tuition would be done by the automated on-line system with self-study. Notice: this process is one of education and replication. That's the whole Plan. The intitial "selling" job may be the toughest part. One would have to find a friend whose mind has not been riveted tight shut by government, and present to him the enormous benefits that would come to him and his family in a ZGS. He won't have to spend any money (or very little) but he will have to invest a bunch of time, and so he'll need to be well sold on the idea. And later, as a graduate, he will have to do such selling himself. It may be necessary to approach several, and select the most willing for the first year - and move on the the others in later years (I say "year"; some will find it feasible to work much faster, but I want to stay conservative here.) Notice, nothing in the Plan would commit the student to do anything, except to learn and then sell and monitor, and of course to salivate for the day when the theoretical society he is learning about will become a reality. That's pretty close to what each of us is doing now. There would be nothing like a "protest action" for him to take, or not until the end stage (see below) when it would be very easy; no risk, no conflict. Now let's see how the numbers would work; and I'll assume that by mid-2005 one hundred of us agree to launch this venture and commence the first cycle of education. By mid-2006, the 100 would have become 200 busy advocates for a ZGS. Then 400 by 2007. Then 800 by 2008 and 3,200 by 2010. Here's some of the rest of the progression: 12,800 by 2012 204,800 by 2016 1.6 million by 2019 26.2 million by 2023 211 million by 2026 Some time during 2027, all 300 million will be converted, well-trained believers in a ZGS and then (or more probably, progressively after 2025) the "end stage" will take place. Hence: in just over two decades, well within the life span of most of us now living, America will consist of 300 million anarchist "sleepers", ready to take peaceful action during... The End Stage Here's the fun bit: how does one predict a singularity? It's never happened before in human history that a whole society wants it to have a very different form, yet is living in the actual world of make-believe, ie rule by government instead of voluntary contracts. Note, we are rightly visualizing the whole of society with that desire; that's what the education will have accomplished. Best I can tell, the entire apparatus of government will simply evaporate. On a single day or during 2 or 3 years, who can say, it will simply cease to exist. Why? Because there will no longer be anyone willing to work for it. There will be a massive, unprecedented walk-out. There will be 80 million John Galts, each saying Take your government job and shove it. Take your government school and turn it into a museum, for I'm going out to learn something. Take your government Tax Mafia, I'm going to earn an honest living - and a far better one. No violence, no bloodshed, no rioting or looting, not even an election. Just history's most massive revolution, done with a whisper, with the ancien rigime expiring like a punctured balloon. No doubt there will be a heap of mopping-up. How will all that real-estate be re-titled? Who will acquire those millions of acres of "government" land? How will the newly-free market evolve, fast enough to feed its members through the first few weeks, as well as (easily) for the rest of their lives? I don't have those answers. But if the end-stage is spread over a year or two starting prior to 2027, as I think it may be, we'll probably find out in time. Summary The assumptions for this Plan to succeed are: 1. All humans are rational, thus open to reasoned persuasion 2. The free market (anarcho-capitalism) is the only rational system 3. A thorough yet simple course can be designed, to teach such a system on line 4. Once he understands it, every new anarchist will want to help to teach it to 1 per year The content of the on line course everyone will study has yet to be fixed but it will include an introduction such as is now at The Anarchist Alternative with a particular stress on benefits, to help confirm the student's decision to start. Graduates will have an adequate practical understanding of philosophy, rights, ethics, and the nature of both government and of life in a ZGS. It will be protected from government sabotage and bypass completely its tight control over conventional communication by being on the Internet for as long as feasible and then upon CDs, distributed one-to-one via the government postal monopoly; hence it will be entirely decentralized, with no one facility for a SWAT Team to knock out. A version not requiring a PC will be developed and offered for sale to the Unwired, though the on-line version would be free. The spread of the knowledge will rely on 1-to-1 recommendation as explained above and so nobody will have to introduce more than 23 others, at the rate of one per year - nor to take any other action except to live a normal life patiently until 2027. The result of executing this plan will be a zero-government America before 2028. I'm looking for volunteers. There's much to do in the next half-year; to set up the course, iron out the wrinkles, anticipate and deal with the objections. Will you join me? Jim Davies November, 2004 Feedback Form To turn this Plan into reality, I need your advice. Please use this handy Form to tell me what you think about it; what needs improvement, etc. Your Name: Your Email Address: Do you share the objective of the Plan, ie to achieve a ZGS in America by 2027? Yes No Are the four assumptions above correct? Yes No If not, which are wrong and why? Is there any flaw in the logic I've built upon them, and if so what? What do you expect to be the main obstacles to overcome? Do you have any skills that might contribute to the creation of the on-line School, and if so what? Would you be willing to donate them, during the next half-year? Yes No If all is in place as planned by mid-2005, will you undertake to find and monitor one friend per year through the School? Yes No Please make any other comments that might help: -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Optical Tempest FAQ
by Sunder 03 Dec '04

03 Dec '04

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html Along with tips and examples. Enjoy, and don't use a CRT in the dark. :-) ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. /|\ \|/ :They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country /\|/\ <--*-->:and our people, and neither do we." -G. W. Bush, 2004.08.05 \/|\/ /|\ : \|/ + v + : War is Peace, freedom is slavery, Bush is President. -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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