September 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Geopolitical Darwin Awards
by Major Variola (ret) 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

At 09:27 AM 9/14/04 -0400, John Kelsey wrote: >>From: "Major Variola (ret)" <mv(a)cdc.gov> >>Removing chunks with dynamite is trying rather hard for a Darwin award. > >As far as I can tell from what's reported in the new, a great deal of North Korea's daily operation fits that category. How about Iran stating that they're messing with UF6, when Israel[1] is a known pre-emptive bomber of Facilities to the East? That's pretty much tickling the dragon. [1] A wholly 0wn3d subsidiary of the US. Or perhaps vice-versa.

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RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
by Tyler Durden 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

"We hope that the mislabelling of Freegate is a simple mistake, soon rectified, rather than yet another example of an IT firm helping Beijing implement restrictions." I'd say this was naive, but they give an example after this that shows they know the score. Symantec wants in to China and their $$$, and Jong Nan Hai holds the key. Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at self-preservation. Does this contradict the widely-held Cypherpunk belief in the inevitability of deterioration of the state? Perhaps from a Crypto-anarchy perspective, there's a bootstrap point: once there exceeds a certain level of state info-control, it's very hard to get rid of it. Below that level it seems the state can't hold on. (Perhaps W is a little smarter than we thought!) -TD >From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net, cryptography(a)metzdowd.com >Subject: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan >Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 00:38:32 -0400 > ><http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/symantec_targets_freegate/print.html> > >The Register > > > Biting the hand that feeds IT > >The Register ; Internet and Law ; Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs ; > > Original URL: >http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/symantec_targets_freegate/ > >Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan >By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk) >Published Tuesday 14th September 2004 18:10 GMT > >Symantec has labelled a program that enables Chinese surfers to view >blocked websites as a Trojan Horse. Upshot? Users of Norton Anti-Virus >cannot access Freegate, a popular program which circumvents government >blocks, the FT reports. > >Freegate has 200,000 users, Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT >(http://www.dit-inc.us)) its developer, estimates. It lets users view >sites banned by the Chinese government by taking advantage of a range of >proxy servers assigned to changeable internet addresses. But a recent >update to Symantec's AV definition files means the latest version of >Freegate is treated as malware and removed from systems protected by >Norton. Short of disabling Norton AV, users would have little say in this. > >A Symantec staffer in China told the FT that Norton Anti-Virus identified >Freegate as a Trojan horse, but declined to provide a rationale for such a >definition. The absence of an explanation from Symantec raises concerns. We >hope that the mislabelling of Freegate is a simple mistake, soon rectified, >rather than yet another example of an IT firm helping Beijing implement >restrictions. > >History provides as least one example >(http://www.vmyths.com/rant.cfm?id=316&page=4) of the AV industry extending >favours to China that it would normally withhold. AV firms normally keep >virus samples under lock and key. But suppliers agreed to hand over virus >samples to the Chinese government a few years ago as a condition of trading >in the country. These samples could be easily found on the net but the >incident illustrates a precedent of China being treated as a special >exception. >-- >----------------- >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' _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement

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Keith Henson Needs Help (fwd)
by J.A. Terranson 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

Besides forwarding the below, let me point out (for those few who aren't familiar with this case) a few choice tidbits (taken from the web site that has been tracking this case since it's inception, http://www.operatingthetan.com/ ): "On 26 Apr 2001, Keith Henson was convicted of "interfering with a religion", a misdemeanor under California law, for picketing outside Scientology..." "At trial, the judge threw out all Henson's witnesses, disallowed any testimony about his reasons for picketing the cult, and allowed the prosecution to present excerpts from Henson's Internet postings out of context; the Scientology witnesses also committed perjury which Henson was unable to rebut." The worst part of all this is that the underlying charges of "terrorism" were based on this *obviously* sarcastic thread from usenet: http://www.operatingthetan.com/evidposts.txt This is an incredibly serious abuse of our so-called "justice system" - anything you can do to help Henson out may come back to help *you* out someday. No none of the cosmic karma crap, but I guarantee you that if we allow people to be imprisoned for making jokes that are politically offensive, by specifically preventing them from presenting any exculpatory evidence at trial (a rapidly increasing practice in our "courts"), we will *all* suffer for it. Send mail. Physical mail! Ask your friends to do it too. The only thing more important than getting the angry little midget monster out of the White House are these kind of incredible abuses of the system. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin(a)mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them." Osama Bin Laden - - - "There aught to be limits to freedom!" George Bush - - - Which one scares you more? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 00:16:46 -0400 From: R. A. Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net, cyberia-l(a)listserv.aol.com, nettime-l(a)bbs.thing.net Subject: Keith Henson Needs Help <http://www.kuro5hin.org/print/2004/9/14/32340/5809> kuro5hin.org || technology and culture, from the trenches Keith Henson Needs Help (MLP) By Baldrson Wed Sep 15th, 2004 at 07:42:14 AM EST For those who don't know him, Keith Henson co-founded the L5 Society, was President of Xanadu Corporation and was a featured character in The Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over the Edge. He's about to be deported from Canada to the United States where he faces time in the infamous California prison system. Recently on the cryonics mailing list Keith Henson issued a plea for help: ... at this point I am a "failed refugee." The only thing that can keep me from being deported to the US on short notice is an appeal to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Her office gets 15,000 letters a week so it takes a well known case to reach the level where it gets attention. What is going on here and why should anyone care? The short story is that Keith has been fighting against Scientology and as a result ended up fleeing the United States to Canada to avoid a misdemeanor conviction brought against him by Scientologists. Here's the prosecuting attorney's speech given the jury on the charges: Now, His Honor read to you in the beginning of the case that the defendant has been charged with three counts. First count is -- now, these are numeric numbers and they mean nothing to you, so I will give you names for what they are. The first one is 422, violation of Penal Code Section 422. And 664/422 and 422.6. Now I'll give them names. 422 is terrorist threats. Now, that conjures up images of Beruit or the Twin Towers bombing, but that's not what it means. It just means a threat that causes someone terror, that frightens people. That's what Count One is. Count two is 664/422, is the attempt, the attempt to do the exact same thing, to cause to threaten, to attempt to threaten and cause terror or frighten someone. And the last count is 422.6. And that's essentially defined as the interference with someone's rights guaranteed by the Constitution, their civil rights, and in this case the right to practice their religion without fear. Essentially 422.6 is a hate crime. Now, let's talk about the first count, and we'll go count by count. The first count, 422, again I told you was just threats that caused people to be afraid. Essentially the elements are these: Number one, there has to be somewhat of a threat. There has to be a threat. The person has to intend there to be a threat. And lastly, that the victims have a reasonable fear. However, the person doesn't have to have to want to carry it out. There has to be no intention to carry out the threat. Keith's been in Canada for a few years and is trying to remain there as a refugee. Well, I'll confess my bias. Although Keith and I have known each other since the early days of the L5 Society, we have serious disagreements on a lot of things -- not the least of which are many opinions about Jews, genes and memes etc. More immediately relevant is the fact that I just don't "get" Keith's fight against Scientology. Scientologists seem like a joke to me and IMHO people who get involved with them suffer about as much but no more than people who get involved with New York City nightlife. Be that as it may, I personally don't like seeing anyone spend time in a US, let alone California, prison system. I once refused to testify against a young Hispanic after he had stolen my car because, despite the fact that he would be more protected than a man of my ethnicity in a California prison, he would nevertheless be subjected to a substantial likelihood of being "punked out". That's not my idea of justice. Keith is an old guy -- unlikely to be punked out despite the fact that he's a non-violent 'white guy' -- but he's the kind of guy who probably wouldn't do well in a California prison. As I said, we have serious differences but I've known him for decades, and his going into a California prison doesn't sit right with me anymore than it does with a young Hispanic kid who I don't know. The US now incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than does any other country. That's quite an accomplishment for a system known world-wide to also be a source of racist sexual sadism. So quite honestly I don't care what Henson has or hasn't done. He doesn't belong in a US prison. No one does. Even the best of US prisons still will extradite to the worst of US prisons. There are precedents for refusing to extradite criminals from Canada due to conditions in the US prison system. For example, assistant U.S. attorney Gordon Zubrod from Harrisburg, PA made the following public statement to 3 suspects who fled to Canada (this statement was captured for the public record during a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interview): "You're going to be the boyfriend of a very bad man if you wait out your extradition." After that it was very hard for the Canadian authorities to justify extraditing the suspects to the US. Now, agreed, it is rather unusual for a federal official to lose his grip this way, but everyone knows this is exactly the sort of power that "law" enforcement officials wield over criminals in the US. Why does it take a federal official slipping up royally like that to get asylum? To make matters worse, Keith claims he has been threatened with abuse in prison by Scientology zealots: "And cult agents have made fairly clear public threats that I would not survive jail." Is Keith making this up? Not likely. Scientologists aren't known for their tact, any more than are federal attorneys. Anyway, back to the question: Why should you care? Maybe you don't like Scientology. Maybe you like Keith. Maybe you just like to mess with the California government. Whatever, Keith Henson is asking for help and he quite probably actually needs it. Full discussion: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/9/14/32340/5809 -- ----------------- 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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jpegs are vectors
by Major Variola (ret) 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3661678.stm Image flaw exposes Windows PCs Computer users could be open to attack from malicious hackers because of the way that Windows displays some images. A buffer overrun of course. But this is even better than the PNG vulnerability reported earlier this year. All your service packs are belong to us.

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AOL dumps sender ID
by R. A. Hettinga 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

<http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18483> AOL dumps sender ID @2Brute? By Nick Farrell: Thursday 16 September 2004, 07:25 POPULAR ISP AOL has knifed Microsoft's anti-spam technology Sender ID. According to internetnews.com, AOL has dumped the idea following concerns expressed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), coupled with the tepid support for Sender ID in the open source community. However, AOL says it will press ahead with in favour of the Sender Policy Framework (SPF)which was a component of Sender ID. The company said it will also publish Sender ID files so its users' e-mails are compliant with Sender ID-enabled servers and applications. A spokesman said that AOL also has serious, technical concerns that Sender ID appears isn't backwardly-compatible with the original SPF specification. The full story can be found here. -- ----------------- 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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RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
by Tyler Durden 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

Hum, well, I always kind of thought May felt/wrote that some dis-assembly of the state was inevitable given the possibility of strong crypto, and even in China I would maintain that there's already enough computer power+anonymity that encrypted communications can/will occur. (Remember, China is BIG...as big as the mainland US plus Alaska, and much of it far less accessible...and let's not forget that there are areas the size of Western Europe where Han dominance is not particularly appreciated.) I tend to agree, though that the bootstrapping process can be greatly retarded in the presence of a heavy police state....but above a certain threshold it can unfold quickly. What I wonder if whether W and his buddies were up late drinkin' one night and figured out that we were nearing the threshold you speak of, a threshold they believed they had to save humanity from. I mean, what if just anyone could send any message they wanted without their government listening in? Someone's gotta be in charge, after all, and it better be us and not the ragheads 'cause God loves US and plans on sending all of them to hell unless they see the error of their distinctly non-American ways. -TD >From: "Major Variola (ret)" <mv(a)cdc.gov> >To: "cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net" <cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net> >Subject: RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan >Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:45:00 -0700 > >At 09:45 AM 9/15/04 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote: > >Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at >self-preservation. > >Does this contradict the widely-held Cypherpunk belief in the >inevitability > >of deterioration of the state? > >"We" have always held that a sufficiently policed state can defeat >crypto. >If the RIAA could put a vidcam in your computer room, things are easy. >If crypto is illegal, things are easy. (We have remarked on how, >modulo stego, crypto traffic is trivial to detect with any entropy >measure. Got PGP headers?) > >China is a police state. A state with freedom of expression ---which >does >not include much or all of Europe--- is less so. China is also a >nukepower, >so it is likely to persist. _________________________________________________________________ Get ready for school! Find articles, homework help and more in the Back to School Guide! http://special.msn.com/network/04backtoschool.armx

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Award#0442154 - Surveillance, Analysis and Modeling of Chatroom
by Major Variola (ret) 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

At 05:41 AM 9/15/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >NSF Award Abstract - #0442154 Yeah, this is Science (snicker)... >Surveillance, Analysis and Modeling of Chatroom Communities > Abstract > The aim of this proposal is to develop new techniques for information >gathering, analysis and modeling of chatroom communications. First, the >investigator and his colleague consider graph-less models to capture the >structure of chatroom communications. In particular, the investigators >study how to develop a multidimensional singular value decomposition buzzword alert >approach for component analysis of chatroom communication data. Second, the >investigators develop new visualisation techniques to display the buzzword alert >structural information found in the first step. > Internet chatrooms provide an interactive and public forum of >communication for participants with diverse objectives. Two properties of >chatrooms make them particularly vulnerable for exploitation by malicious >parties. First, the real identities of the participants are decoupled from >their chatroom nicknames. As if email doesn't share that property? You really think I work for cdc.gov? Second, multiple threads of communication can >co-exist concurrently. What a fucking concept... Although human-monitoring of each chatroom to >determine "who-is-chatting-with-whom" is possible, it is very time >consuming, hence not scalable. Thus, it is very easy to conceal malicious >behavior in Internet chatrooms and use them for covert communications >(e.g., adversary using a teenager chatroom to plan a terrorist act). How about teenagers planning terrorist attacks? Or terrorists' senior proms? This >project aims at a fully automated surveillance system for data collection >and analysis in Internet chatrooms to discover hidden groups. Use textual stego, mofo. Thus, the proposed system could >aid the intelligence community to discover hidden communities and >communication patterns in chatrooms without human intervention. A pretty good argument for broadcast stego. > This award is supported jointly by the NSF and the Intelligence Community. I bet. They already 0wn the fucking IX points, and can grab the DHCP records; don't you think the spooks already do this, and more? Look at Orion Sci, which graphs gangs. Extrapolate to IP. If these bozos were better they wouldn't be in Troy.

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RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
by Major Variola (ret) 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

At 09:45 AM 9/15/04 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote: >Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at self-preservation. >Does this contradict the widely-held Cypherpunk belief in the inevitability >of deterioration of the state? "We" have always held that a sufficiently policed state can defeat crypto. If the RIAA could put a vidcam in your computer room, things are easy. If crypto is illegal, things are easy. (We have remarked on how, modulo stego, crypto traffic is trivial to detect with any entropy measure. Got PGP headers?) China is a police state. A state with freedom of expression ---which does not include much or all of Europe--- is less so. China is also a nukepower, so it is likely to persist.

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Award#0442154 - Surveillance, Analysis and Modeling of Chatroom Communities
by R. A. Hettinga 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

<https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0442154> NSF Award Abstract - #0442154 AWSFL008-DS3 Surveillance, Analysis and Modeling of Chatroom Communities NSF Org DMS Latest Amendment Date September 7, 2004 Award Number 0442154 Award Instrument Standard Grant Program Manager Hans G. Kaper DMS DIVISION OF MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES MPS DIRECT FOR MATHEMATICAL & PHYSICAL SCIEN Start Date January 1, 2005 Expires December 31, 2005 (Estimated) Expected Total Amount $ (Estimated) Investigator Bulent Yener yener(a)cs.rpi.edu (Principal Investigator current) Mukkai S. Krishnamoorthy (Co-Principal Investigator current) Sponsor Rensselaer Polytech Inst 110 8th Street Troy, NY 121803522 518/276-6000 NSF Program 7276 APPROACHES TO COMBAT TERRORISM Field Application 0000099 Other Applications NEC Program Reference Code 0000,7276,9237,OTHR, Abstract The aim of this proposal is to develop new techniques for information gathering, analysis and modeling of chatroom communications. First, the investigator and his colleague consider graph-less models to capture the structure of chatroom communications. In particular, the investigators study how to develop a multidimensional singular value decomposition approach for component analysis of chatroom communication data. Second, the investigators develop new visualisation techniques to display the structural information found in the first step. Internet chatrooms provide an interactive and public forum of communication for participants with diverse objectives. Two properties of chatrooms make them particularly vulnerable for exploitation by malicious parties. First, the real identities of the participants are decoupled from their chatroom nicknames. Second, multiple threads of communication can co-exist concurrently. Although human-monitoring of each chatroom to determine "who-is-chatting-with-whom" is possible, it is very time consuming, hence not scalable. Thus, it is very easy to conceal malicious behavior in Internet chatrooms and use them for covert communications (e.g., adversary using a teenager chatroom to plan a terrorist act). This project aims at a fully automated surveillance system for data collection and analysis in Internet chatrooms to discover hidden groups. The surveillance is done in the form of statistical profiling for a particular chatter, a group of chatters, or for the entire chatroom. The statistical profiles are used to devise algorithms to determine chatters and their partners and answer to queries including (i) "in which chatrooms topic A is discussed", (ii) "who is chatting about topic A in chatroom X", (iii) "is topic A is a hot one in chatroom X" etc. Thus, the proposed system could aid the intelligence community to discover hidden communities and communication patterns in chatrooms without human intervention. This award is supported jointly by the NSF and the Intelligence Community. The Approaches to Terrorism program in the Directorate for Mathematics and Physical Sciences supports new concepts in basic research and workforce development with the potential to contribute to national security. You may also retrieve a text version of this abstract. Please report errors in award information by writing to: award-abstracts-info(a)nsf.gov. Please use the browser back button to return to the previous screen. -- ----------------- 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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Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
by R. A. Hettinga 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/symantec_targets_freegate/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Internet and Law ; Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/symantec_targets_freegate/ Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk) Published Tuesday 14th September 2004 18:10 GMT Symantec has labelled a program that enables Chinese surfers to view blocked websites as a Trojan Horse. Upshot? Users of Norton Anti-Virus cannot access Freegate, a popular program which circumvents government blocks, the FT reports. Freegate has 200,000 users, Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT (http://www.dit-inc.us)) its developer, estimates. It lets users view sites banned by the Chinese government by taking advantage of a range of proxy servers assigned to changeable internet addresses. But a recent update to Symantec's AV definition files means the latest version of Freegate is treated as malware and removed from systems protected by Norton. Short of disabling Norton AV, users would have little say in this. A Symantec staffer in China told the FT that Norton Anti-Virus identified Freegate as a Trojan horse, but declined to provide a rationale for such a definition. The absence of an explanation from Symantec raises concerns. We hope that the mislabelling of Freegate is a simple mistake, soon rectified, rather than yet another example of an IT firm helping Beijing implement restrictions. History provides as least one example (http://www.vmyths.com/rant.cfm?id=316&page=4) of the AV industry extending favours to China that it would normally withhold. AV firms normally keep virus samples under lock and key. But suppliers agreed to hand over virus samples to the Chinese government a few years ago as a condition of trading in the country. These samples could be easily found on the net but the incident illustrates a precedent of China being treated as a special exception. -- ----------------- 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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