May 2012 - cypherpunks-legacy

[drone-list] Drone Summit: Why the FAA Should Regulate Drones
by Eugen Leitl 08 May '12

08 May '12

----- Forwarded message from Amie Stepanovich <stepanovich(a)epic.org> -----

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[drone-list] Flying 3D Eyebots.
by Eugen Leitl 08 May '12

08 May '12

----- Forwarded message from The Doctor <drwho(a)virtadpt.net> -----

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LibGen embargo lifted
by Eugen Leitl 08 May '12

08 May '12

This is what a little bird just tweeted me. Notice that I'm not associated with the project in any way. I don't know the people involved. I have no idea who or where they are. I'm just a fan. Just as with the funny little bird, don't attach my name to it. ----------------------snip-------------------------------------- (please strip any personally indentifying information when redistributing -- thanks) Now that the seeding has gone live I can tell what this is about. Library Genesis, an 832 k volume scientific/technical library -- consider it the new virtual library of Alexandria, if you wish -- has set up a dedicated system for seeding in order to encourage people to distribute the entire corpus and set up local mirrors (which can be on a private LAN or even on your home NAS, with a web interface accessible from a wireless tablet device so that thou dost not anger the Ents). The torrents are here: ftp://free-books.us.to/repository_torrent/ and also here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3097273/Library%20Genesis/0-832.7z in one archive in 7zip format. Notice that each torrent expands into a directory of roughly 10 GBytes. Unless you have 10 TByte space (spread over multiple volumes) and can download the whole thing I suggest that people here agree on a numeric range (~1 TByte storage = ~100 torrents) so that they at least can pool the data later. I have no idea how long the seedbox will stay up. Notice that this alone will give you only a giant pile of files in directories which are named by their individual md5 hashes. You will need a web server with PHP and some SQL database and the sources of LibGen, which are open source and freely available. There are appliances running from an USB stick under Windows though, assuming you feed them the location of the files in a config file. The souces are sufficiently flexible so that they can deal with individual ranges of directories on different volumes -- no need to do it on a giant single RAID. Notice that the library will function immediately also with plenty data missing, though latter will result in frustration since you'll likely run into many dead links. As you see, they start with r_0000 and go up to r_836000 at the moment. CAVEAT: Before you fire up your favorite BitTorrent client, please consider potential liabilities you'll be exposing yourself to. All IP addresses in a torrent swarm are public, so if there's something in the torrent somebody thinks they have the rights for and they think they can persecute in your jurisdiction -- and with 10 TBytes total, the probability is quite high -- then don't do it. Things that are right are not necessarily legal, and vice versa. </IANAL> <-- please take this very seriously If you think you know people who would want to participate in the Great Replication Event of the NeoAlexandria aka LibGen, feel free to pass on this message. Notice that a LibGen appliance in higher education centers of the developing world would be a Very Good Thing indeed, so if you know people with sufficient funding (a 10 TByte NAS box and a few decent 10" Android tables will probably cost less than 5 kEUR, which is a steal given that it gives you access to a treasure trove of scientific/technical literature) then feel free to pitch them the idea.

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[liberationtech] Information Technology and Homeland Security Special Issue IJEP
by Eugen Leitl 08 May '12

08 May '12

----- Forwarded message from Yosem Companys <companys(a)stanford.edu> -----

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[ZS] Prestige Bitcoin
by Eugen Leitl 07 May '12

07 May '12

----- Forwarded message from Michael Hrenka <metahorse(a)googlemail.com> -----

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BitCoin funded debit cards
by Eugen Leitl 07 May '12

07 May '12

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/05/07/bitcoin-funded-debit-card… Bitcoin Funded Debit Cards Yes, itbs entirely possible to fund your existing debit card, or credit card, with your accumulated bitcoin. And I donbt mean that you are shipped a generic, low-limit prepaid VISA or Mastercard from some anonymous reseller. I mean that you convert bitcoin online to dollars or euros and the funds are available to spend with a card that you are most likely already holding in your wallet. Why is this so significant? Itbs important because it leverages a little-known type of transaction that is available on the VisaNet system called bOriginal Credit Transactionb. The other major card payment networks have a similar feature too. These transactions act like a refund or credit transaction when you return an item to a store except that they donbt have to be associated with an original purchase. Essentially, they enable your card to be a two-way payment device. Surprisingly, not many financial institutions have taken advantage of this feature yet but I expect that to change. Visa Personal Payments, already offered by financial institutions outside the U.S., became available in the U.S. market last year marking the first time that a major payment network has introduced a global requirement for account issuers to accept incoming funds. Itbs the technology behind now-merged P2P service providers ZashPay and Popmoney. Previously, it was cumbersome for bitcoin account holders to transact in national currencies because they had to go through one or more exchange and then wait further for funds to arrive in a bank account or other intermediary like the formerly bitcoin-friendly Paxum. Now these personal payments are being offered by e-currency exchanges as a way to provide easy worldwide access to e-currency account balances most notably by AurumXchange. The digital currency exchange operated by Dominica-based Aurum Capital Holdings, Inc. supports bitcoin as well as Liberty Reserve, Pecunix, Perfect Money, and c-gold and they offer two choices for cashing out into a card-based product. The first option is the Withdraw2Card service that does not require any sender identity verification. Requiring only the destination card number and expiration date (name and CVV code are not required), funds can be transferred to any credit or debit card in any country in the world. If the destination account currency is not dollars or euros then it will be converted to the native currency automatically. Service fee is $9 plus 1.99% (for MtGox USD) with a $1,000 maximum transfer amount and you should not send more than the credit cardbs limit. The bitcoin portion of the transaction is accomplished through the use of redeemable coupon codes from the popular bitcoin exchanges that act as digital bearer certificates. According to AurumXchange, they plan to offer direct two-way convertibility for bitcoin in the near future so you wonbt need the redeemable code. This service is ideal for regions of the world where a large majority of the population may not have bank accounts or where international wires are cost-prohibitive. AurumXchangebs General Manager Roberto Gutierrez explains, b The service so far has been tremendously popular. Just counting countries alone where people donbt have access to bank accounts or foreign wires are highly taxed or scrutinized, such as Africa, Brazil and China to name a few, we have processed over 3,000 orders since we started a few weeks ago. North American and European customers have been using the service quite a lot as well especially for small transactions that would otherwise be too expensive to conduct through means such as international wire transfers.b The second option is the AurumXchange Premium Mastercard issued through North Carolina-based Four Oaks Bank which comes with instant funds availability. After a $24.99 two-year membership fee, the card will be shipped for free anywhere in the world via first class mail. OKPAY is another interesting provider in the bitcoin debit card space. They offer the OKPAY Debit Card which is issued by CSC24Seven.com Limited, a financial institution licensed by the Central Bank of Cyprus to issue cards. Founded in 2007, OKPAY, Inc. is a subject of British Virgin Islands (BVI) regulations. Now that they have completed their bitcoin integration into the OKPAY system, it is possible to fund your OKPAY account directly with bitcoin, withdraw via bitcoin, and use bitcoin as a payment option for purchases of goods and services. Although, they do not offer the Original Credit Transaction feature to any card, they will provide timely and direct conversion of bitcoin to their proprietary Mastercard product. By removing friction from the process, bitcoin becomes easier to spend overall because not every merchant will accept bitcoin directly for payment yet and not all transactions demand irreversibility and privacy. Logically as a consumer, you may still want your VISA chargeback rights for certain purchases. The Original Credit Transaction is an excellent way to leverage the legacy card payment network to facilitate the growth of the bitcoin network and these two exchangers are in the vanguard. Follow author on Twitter.

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The Internet Kill Switch; With Global Wiretapping Capability?
by Eugen Leitl 07 May '12

07 May '12

http://www.pastie.org/3867284 The Internet Kill Switch; With Global Wiretapping Capability? One company to rule them all One company to find them; One company to bring them all And in the darkness bind them Recently run any whois queries on Google? No? How about Facebook? MSN, or Hotmail? Yahoo? You might be surprised, comparing the results. Nice, innit? See the "Last Updated" part also. The brand-protecting, anti-piracy company MarkMonitor Inc. has had all these DNS names under its control for several months now. They also control the Wikimedia name services, even though that doesn't show up on the Wikimedia.org whois record. There are many others. Apple.com falls under their jurisdiction, as does ubuntu.com. Nokia.com? Yep, under MarkMonitor. See a pattern here? MarkMonitor also is a trusted Certificate Authority; they have, in essence, the means to fabricate safe-looking SSL connections for you, to whichever host they want. Your browser will not sound any warnings of possible man-in-the-middle attacks. MarkMonitor is a company that can own most people's "Internet" in minutes. It now controls all three top free e-mail providers directly, and I suppose it's safe to say, most currently active social media sites too. See for yourself. Whois yahoo.com, whois google.com, whois gmail.com, whois facebook.com, whois fbcdn.com, whois hotmail.com, whois msn.com... the list seems endless. How'd all this happen? This company has acquired complete access to monitor, eavesdrop, censor and fake any user of these popular Internet services in about one year (2011). In almost complete silence. For several of the sites, it also provides "firewall proxy" services, which means it is actually paid to intercept all communications. In and out. The situation reminds me of Joseph Lieberman's 2010 initiative to create an "Internet kill switch" for the U.S. The government only needs to control this one company, and most social media, most free e-mail, most search engines will be under its control. Not to mention most operating systems, for both computers and mobile devices. Not only inside U.S., but globally. One company to rule them all. I, for one, would like to ask; WTF is going on? How did these guys, this relatively small domain-hogging and pirate-chasing company, get the resources to simply acquire the DNS records of all the most popular Internet services? How can this be so totally ignored by the media, and even privacy advocates? Even conspiracy theorists seem to be completely ignoring the situation. Secure communication is an illusion Only one company to rule them all? As if all this doesn't sound bad enough, the problem is far more widespread. MarkMonitor could easily act as a global "kill switch" for the sites under its rule. But as it turns out, most anyone with some resources could just as easily impersonate MarkMonitor itself. Because, as one might have noticed in the past few months, the whole SSL certificate scheme is broken. Not in a technical sense - there's no known inherent weakness in the algorithms. But the whole SSL protection is based on trust, and that trust has failed us. According to several sources, SSL CA certs are routinely given out to anyone willing to pay for them. As The Register points out in its analysis on TrustWave spying scandal: "Those defending Trustwave suggested that other vendors probably used the same approach for so-called "data loss prevention" environments - systems that inspect information flowing through a network to prevent leaks of commercially sensitive data." ... "In fact Geotrust was openly advertising a 'Georoot' product on their website until fairly recently." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/14/trustwave_analysis/ Oh, so the ability to impersonate anyone is normal day-to-day practise for big business? Just imagine what government agencies must be doing - for example in Sweden, where the military intelligence organisation FRA has the mandate to monitor all traffic across borders. Who can seriously claim they trust all the hundreds of different CA companies, several of which have been caught red-handed with selling out their customers' security, or covering up very serious breeches (up to and including their root certificates being stolen). http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/04/06/eff-uncovers-further-evidence-of… MarkMonitor is a "brand-protecting" company. Traditionally its business has been reserving domains to protect brands. You buy its service, it makes sure that nobody else can have "mybrandsucks.com". Also, they're an anti-piracy outfit. Their entire business is based on protecting IP. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/markmonitor-to-exhibit-at-internet-tech-po… Just saying, someone should probably question them and their customers. Why does Google, who always "do things themselves", externalise these vital parts of its network? How come all the competing phone and OS vendors, who sue each other all the time, suddenly trust this one company? And then there's all those competing social media companies, who practically thrive on what others call "IP theft", including their users sharing text, images, music, videos and links? Big questions. Defy common sense. Need answers.

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