July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

[IP] US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

________________________________________ From: jsq(a)internetperils.com [jsq(a)internetperils.com] On Behalf Of John S. Quarterman [jsq(a)quarterman.org] Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 11:17 AM To: David Farber Cc: John S. Quarterman; ip Subject: Re: [IP] US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search Dave, for IP: The New Yorker article is available in HTML now: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/01/21/080121fa_fact_wright Bruce Schneier has nailed the "security vs. privacy" canard that McConnell promotes: "The debate isn't security versus privacy. It's liberty versus control." http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/01/s… And while people may think that AT&T should worry about losing liability protection if it filters all traffic, if McConnell's plan goes through AT&T and other telcos and cablecos will be able to wrap themselves in the flag while they're doing it: http://riskman.typepad.com/peerflow/2008/01/policing-cybers.html -jsq > From: Rich Kulawiec [rsk(a)gsp.org] > Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 6:41 PM > To: Fergie; David Farber; Richard Forno; Lauren Weinstein > Subject: US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web sear > ch > > Quoting from: > > http://rawstory.com/news/2007/US_drafting_plan_to_allow_government_01 > 14.html > > National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up > plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate > on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according > to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today. > > Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "will be a > walk in the park compared to this," McConnell said. "this is going > to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we're going > to screw around with this until something horrendous happens." > > The article, which profiles the 65-year-old former admiral > appointed by President George W. Bush in January 2007 to oversee > all of America's intelligence agencies, was not published on > the New Yorker's Web site. (It can be read here in pdf). > > [...] > > The PDF link points to: > > http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/WashWire.pdf > > which I'm unable to access at the moment. > > ---Rsk ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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<nettime> The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks
by nettime's avid reader 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Choice Quote: "Remember: this is all being done not only without any charges or convictions, but also any real prospect of charging them with a crime, because they did nothing illegal." The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks Monday, Dec 6, 2010 12:07 ET http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/inde… Just look at what the U.S. Government and its friends are willing to do and capable of doing to someone who challenges or defies them -- all without any charges being filed or a shred of legal authority. They've blocked access to their assets, tried to remove them from the Internet, bullied most everyone out of doing any business with them, froze the funds marked for Assange's legal defense at exactly the time that they prepare a strange international arrest warrant to be executed, repeatedly threatened him with murder, had their Australian vassals openly threaten to revoke his passport, and declared them "Terrorists" even though -- unlike the authorities who are doing all of these things -- neither Assange nor WikiLeaks ever engaged in violence, advocated violence, or caused the slaughter of civilians. This is all grounded in the toxic mindset expressed yesterday on Meet the Press (without challenge, naturally) by GOP Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said of Assange: "I think the man is a high-tech terrorist. Hebs done an enormous damage to our country, and I think he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And if that becomes a problem, we need to change the law." As usual, when wielded by American authorities, the term "terrorist" means nothing more than: "those who impede or defy the will of the U.S. Government with any degree of efficacy." Anyone who does that is, by definition, a Terrorist. And note McConnell's typical, highly representative view that if someone he wants to punish isn't a criminal under the law, then you just "change the law" to make him one. But that sort of legal scheming isn't even necessary. The U.S. and its "friends" in the Western and business worlds are more than able and happy to severely punish anyone they want without the slightest basis in "law." That's what the lawless, Wild Western World is: political leaders punishing whomever they want without any limits, certainly without regard to bothersome concepts of "law." Anyone who doubts that should just look at what has been done to Wikileaks and Assange over the last week. In this series of events, there are indeed genuine and pernicious threats to basic freedom and security; they most assuredly aren't coming from WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. People often have a hard time believing that the terms "authoritarian" and "tyranny" apply to their own government, but that's because those who meekly stay in line and remain unthreatening are never targeted by such forces. The face of authoritarianism and tyranny reveals itself with how it responds to those who meaningfully dissent from and effectively challenge its authority: do they act within the law or solely through the use of unconstrained force? * * * * * Yahoo News!' Michael Calderone has a very good article documenting how major American media outlets -- as always -- snapped into line with the authorities they serve by ceasing to use the term "whistle-blower" to describe WikiLeaks. One encouraging development is the emergence of hundreds of "mirror- WikiLeaks" sites around the world which make abolishing WikiLeaks pointless; that's a good model for how to subvert Internet censorship efforts. Those interested in doing that can find instructions here. And here is a well-done site which asks: "Why is WikiLeaks a Good Thing?" UPDATE: Just to underscore the climate of lawless initmidation that has been created: before WikiLeaks was on many people's radars (i.e., before the Apache video release), I wrote about the war being waged on them by the Pentagon, interviewed Assange, and urged people to donate money to them. In response, numerous people asked -- both in comments and via email -- whether they would be in danger, could incur legal liability for providing material support to Terrorism or some other crime, if they donated to WikiLeaks. Those were American citizens expressing that fear over an organization which had never been remotely charged with any wrongdoing. Similarly, I met several weeks ago with an individual who once worked closely with WikiLeaks, but since stopped because he feared that his country -- which has a very broad extradition treaty with the U.S. -- would arrest him and turn him over to the Americans upon request. He knew he had violated no laws, but given that he's a foreigner, he feared -- justifiably -- that he could easily be held by the United States without charges, denied all sorts of basic rights under the Patriot Act, and otherwise be subject to a system of "justice" which recognizes few limits or liberties, especially when dealing with foreigners accused of aiding Terrorists. All the oppressive, lawless policies of the last decade -- lawless detention, Guantanamo, disappearing people to CIA black sites, rendition, the torture regime, denial of habeas corpus, drones, assassinations, private mercenary forces, etc. -- were designed, first and foremost, to instill exactly this fear, to deter any challenge. Many of these policies continue, and that climate of fear thus endures (see this comment from today as but one of many examples). As the treatment just thus far of WikiLeaks and Assange demonstrates, that reaction -- though paralyzing and counter-productive -- is not irrational. And one thing is for sure: there is nothing the U.S. Government could do -- no matter how lawless or heinous -- which (with rare exception) would provoke the objections of the American establishment media. UPDATE II: Those wishing to donate to WikiLeaks can still do so here, via Options 2 (online credit card) or 3 (wire to bank in Iceland). UPDATE III: One more, from CNET, roughly 30 minutes ago: As the article says, this is "a move that will dry up another source of funds for the embattled document-sharing Web site." Remember: this is all being done not only without any charges or convictions, but also any real prospect of charging them with a crime, because they did nothing illegal. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime(a)kein.org ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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<nettime> The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks
by nettime's avid reader 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Choice Quote: "Remember: this is all being done not only without any charges or convictions, but also any real prospect of charging them with a crime, because they did nothing illegal." The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks Monday, Dec 6, 2010 12:07 ET http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/inde… Just look at what the U.S. Government and its friends are willing to do and capable of doing to someone who challenges or defies them -- all without any charges being filed or a shred of legal authority. They've blocked access to their assets, tried to remove them from the Internet, bullied most everyone out of doing any business with them, froze the funds marked for Assange's legal defense at exactly the time that they prepare a strange international arrest warrant to be executed, repeatedly threatened him with murder, had their Australian vassals openly threaten to revoke his passport, and declared them "Terrorists" even though -- unlike the authorities who are doing all of these things -- neither Assange nor WikiLeaks ever engaged in violence, advocated violence, or caused the slaughter of civilians. This is all grounded in the toxic mindset expressed yesterday on Meet the Press (without challenge, naturally) by GOP Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said of Assange: "I think the man is a high-tech terrorist. Hebs done an enormous damage to our country, and I think he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And if that becomes a problem, we need to change the law." As usual, when wielded by American authorities, the term "terrorist" means nothing more than: "those who impede or defy the will of the U.S. Government with any degree of efficacy." Anyone who does that is, by definition, a Terrorist. And note McConnell's typical, highly representative view that if someone he wants to punish isn't a criminal under the law, then you just "change the law" to make him one. But that sort of legal scheming isn't even necessary. The U.S. and its "friends" in the Western and business worlds are more than able and happy to severely punish anyone they want without the slightest basis in "law." That's what the lawless, Wild Western World is: political leaders punishing whomever they want without any limits, certainly without regard to bothersome concepts of "law." Anyone who doubts that should just look at what has been done to Wikileaks and Assange over the last week. In this series of events, there are indeed genuine and pernicious threats to basic freedom and security; they most assuredly aren't coming from WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. People often have a hard time believing that the terms "authoritarian" and "tyranny" apply to their own government, but that's because those who meekly stay in line and remain unthreatening are never targeted by such forces. The face of authoritarianism and tyranny reveals itself with how it responds to those who meaningfully dissent from and effectively challenge its authority: do they act within the law or solely through the use of unconstrained force? * * * * * Yahoo News!' Michael Calderone has a very good article documenting how major American media outlets -- as always -- snapped into line with the authorities they serve by ceasing to use the term "whistle-blower" to describe WikiLeaks. One encouraging development is the emergence of hundreds of "mirror- WikiLeaks" sites around the world which make abolishing WikiLeaks pointless; that's a good model for how to subvert Internet censorship efforts. Those interested in doing that can find instructions here. And here is a well-done site which asks: "Why is WikiLeaks a Good Thing?" UPDATE: Just to underscore the climate of lawless initmidation that has been created: before WikiLeaks was on many people's radars (i.e., before the Apache video release), I wrote about the war being waged on them by the Pentagon, interviewed Assange, and urged people to donate money to them. In response, numerous people asked -- both in comments and via email -- whether they would be in danger, could incur legal liability for providing material support to Terrorism or some other crime, if they donated to WikiLeaks. Those were American citizens expressing that fear over an organization which had never been remotely charged with any wrongdoing. Similarly, I met several weeks ago with an individual who once worked closely with WikiLeaks, but since stopped because he feared that his country -- which has a very broad extradition treaty with the U.S. -- would arrest him and turn him over to the Americans upon request. He knew he had violated no laws, but given that he's a foreigner, he feared -- justifiably -- that he could easily be held by the United States without charges, denied all sorts of basic rights under the Patriot Act, and otherwise be subject to a system of "justice" which recognizes few limits or liberties, especially when dealing with foreigners accused of aiding Terrorists. All the oppressive, lawless policies of the last decade -- lawless detention, Guantanamo, disappearing people to CIA black sites, rendition, the torture regime, denial of habeas corpus, drones, assassinations, private mercenary forces, etc. -- were designed, first and foremost, to instill exactly this fear, to deter any challenge. Many of these policies continue, and that climate of fear thus endures (see this comment from today as but one of many examples). As the treatment just thus far of WikiLeaks and Assange demonstrates, that reaction -- though paralyzing and counter-productive -- is not irrational. And one thing is for sure: there is nothing the U.S. Government could do -- no matter how lawless or heinous -- which (with rare exception) would provoke the objections of the American establishment media. UPDATE II: Those wishing to donate to WikiLeaks can still do so here, via Options 2 (online credit card) or 3 (wire to bank in Iceland). UPDATE III: One more, from CNET, roughly 30 minutes ago: As the article says, this is "a move that will dry up another source of funds for the embattled document-sharing Web site." Remember: this is all being done not only without any charges or convictions, but also any real prospect of charging them with a crime, because they did nothing illegal. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime(a)kein.org ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: [ZS] Re: looking into cjdns
by Spencer Campbell 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 8:18:06 AM UTC-7, The Doctor [412/724/301/703] wrote: > It has an implementation of routing (several, actually) but ultimately > it sets up a separate wireless network from the ones we're used to. > My impression is that Byzantium's ad-hoc mesh network would look a whole lot *like *the networks we're used to, though. If it grew big enough. Am I mistaken? Maybe Byzantium doesn't scale the way I've assumed it does, and you'd end up with a sort of "clumpy" situation, where you have less of a global Internet and more of a smattering of smaller imperfectly-connected internets. I guess that's implied by the emphasis on wireless connections -- hard to get WiFi across continents. It seems clear that cjdns is intended to scale to arbitrary sizes. So, the infrastructure goes down and you rely on Byzantium until the new infrastructure (based, perhaps, on cjdns) comes online? Is that the idea? Seems like it'd be more efficient to just give the emergency system the ability to "grow up" into a new status quo. Then I wouldn't have to install a new distro when the post-post-apocalypse rolls around. You have to be practically there already, given that Byzantium interfaces with the contemporary Internet without complaints, yeah? (Thanks for humoring me. I hope my profession of ignorance is less painful for you than it is for me.) -- -- Zero State mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/DoctrineZero ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: Bitcoin v0.1 released
by hal＠finney.org 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Satoshi Nakamoto writes: > Announcing the first release of Bitcoin, a new electronic cash > system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending. > It's completely decentralized with no server or central authority. > > See bitcoin.org for screenshots. > > Download link: > http://downloads.sourceforge.net/bitcoin/bitcoin-0.1.0.rar Congratulations to Satoshi on this first alpha release. I am looking forward to trying it out. > Total circulation will be 21,000,000 coins. It'll be distributed > to network nodes when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half > every 4 years. > > first 4 years: 10,500,000 coins > next 4 years: 5,250,000 coins > next 4 years: 2,625,000 coins > next 4 years: 1,312,500 coins > etc... It's interesting that the system can be configured to only allow a certain maximum number of coins ever to be generated. I guess the idea is that the amount of work needed to generate a new coin will become more difficult as time goes on. One immediate problem with any new currency is how to value it. Even ignoring the practical problem that virtually no one will accept it at first, there is still a difficulty in coming up with a reasonable argument in favor of a particular non-zero value for the coins. As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all the wealth in the world. Current estimates of total worldwide household wealth that I have found range from $100 trillion to $300 trillion. With 20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million. So the possibility of generating coins today with a few cents of compute time may be quite a good bet, with a payoff of something like 100 million to 1! Even if the odds of Bitcoin succeeding to this degree are slim, are they really 100 million to one against? Something to think about... Hal --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com

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Re: [IP] more on U.S. passports to receive RFID implants
by Edward Hasbrouck 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

starting in October 2006 [priv] >From: "Lin, Herb" <HLin(a)nas.edu> > >*Front* cover? Does that mean that if I hold the passport the wrong >way, the skimmer will have a free ride? > FWIW: (1) The sample RFID passports that Frank Moss passed around at CFP, which looked like <http://travel.state.gov/passport/eppt/eppt_2501.html>, had the RFID chip (which was barely detectable by feel) in the *back* cover. The visible data page was/is, as with current passports, in the *front* cover. This is not compliant with the ICAO specifications, which recommend having the chip in the same page as the visible data, to make it more difficult to separate them. I can only guess that it was hard to laminate the visible data without damaging the chip, if it was in the same page. But it's interesting in light of the importance supposedly being placed on compliance with ICAO standards. (2) Moss had 2 sample RFID passports, 1 with and 1 without the shielding. He cliamed it was a layer in the entire outer cover (front and back), but it wasn't detectable by feel. I have more threat scenarios for the latest flavor of RFID passport at: http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/000869.html ---------------- Edward Hasbrouck <edward(a)hasbrouck.org> <http://hasbrouck.org> +1-415-824-0214 ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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[IP] more on U.S. passports to receive RFID implants starting in
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

October 2006 [priv] X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.734) Reply-To: dave(a)farber.net Begin forwarded message:

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Re: Bitcoin v0.1 released
by hal＠finney.org 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Satoshi Nakamoto writes: > Announcing the first release of Bitcoin, a new electronic cash > system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending. > It's completely decentralized with no server or central authority. > > See bitcoin.org for screenshots. > > Download link: > http://downloads.sourceforge.net/bitcoin/bitcoin-0.1.0.rar Congratulations to Satoshi on this first alpha release. I am looking forward to trying it out. > Total circulation will be 21,000,000 coins. It'll be distributed > to network nodes when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half > every 4 years. > > first 4 years: 10,500,000 coins > next 4 years: 5,250,000 coins > next 4 years: 2,625,000 coins > next 4 years: 1,312,500 coins > etc... It's interesting that the system can be configured to only allow a certain maximum number of coins ever to be generated. I guess the idea is that the amount of work needed to generate a new coin will become more difficult as time goes on. One immediate problem with any new currency is how to value it. Even ignoring the practical problem that virtually no one will accept it at first, there is still a difficulty in coming up with a reasonable argument in favor of a particular non-zero value for the coins. As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all the wealth in the world. Current estimates of total worldwide household wealth that I have found range from $100 trillion to $300 trillion. With 20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million. So the possibility of generating coins today with a few cents of compute time may be quite a good bet, with a payoff of something like 100 million to 1! Even if the odds of Bitcoin succeeding to this degree are slim, are they really 100 million to one against? Something to think about... Hal --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com

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Re: A top-down RPKI model a threat to human freedom? (was Re: Level 3's IRR Database)
by Martin Millnert 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Alex, On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 4:57 PM, Alex Band <alexb(a)ripe.net> wrote: > On 1 Feb 2011, at 22:20, Owen DeLong wrote: >> RPKI is a big knob governments might be tempted to turn. > > Of course we looked into this, cause we're running our service from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The possibilities for law enforcement agencies to take measures against the Resource Certification service run by the RIPE NCC are extremely limited. Under Dutch law, the process of certification, as well as resource certificates themselves, do not qualify as goods that are capable of being confiscated. > > Then of course, the decision making process always lies in the hands of the network operator. Only if a government would mandate an ISP to respect an invalid ROA and drop the route, it would be effective. > > So *both* these things would have to happen before there is an operational issue. Like you've seen in Egypt, pulling the plug is easier... > > YMMV on your side of the pond. > > Alex Band > Product Manager, RIPE NCC As others pointed out, and as we especially have seen the past 10 and a half years, laws can easily change. I too believe it is somewhat necessary to have 'control' over the IPv4 prefix distribution in order for the RIRs to continue being Registries. I understand and share the RIRs concern regarding this. I also do believe we can expend at least two years (just to put a number out there) more to make a system that is robust also against censorship, that everybody can feel comfortable to trust. Operational impact and cost, I believe, will be quite minor during this time. In fact, I believe it is an investment that apart from being necessary (IMO), will actually pay off, because only with a system that people trust, will most network operators enable it by their free will, which ought to be the goal for *everybody* involved. (Lest the dystopian future takes hold, of course.) Once a reliable system exists, I would be the first one to enable it on my routers, and wouldn't shed a tear if illegitimately acquired or traded routing information was lost at that time. And to be extremely clear, nobody is suggesting that they do not trust the people working at RIPE or any other RIR to do a good job here but at the same time, "we are all human". We have a, in my opinion, very big responsibility towards future generations in (re-)designing the Internet in a way that continues to keep it open and robust towards failures of various sorts. Even that of a single RIR. Regards, Martin ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: A top-down RPKI model a threat to human freedom? (was Re: Level 3's IRR Database)
by Martin Millnert 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Alex, On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 4:57 PM, Alex Band <alexb(a)ripe.net> wrote: > On 1 Feb 2011, at 22:20, Owen DeLong wrote: >> RPKI is a big knob governments might be tempted to turn. > > Of course we looked into this, cause we're running our service from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The possibilities for law enforcement agencies to take measures against the Resource Certification service run by the RIPE NCC are extremely limited. Under Dutch law, the process of certification, as well as resource certificates themselves, do not qualify as goods that are capable of being confiscated. > > Then of course, the decision making process always lies in the hands of the network operator. Only if a government would mandate an ISP to respect an invalid ROA and drop the route, it would be effective. > > So *both* these things would have to happen before there is an operational issue. Like you've seen in Egypt, pulling the plug is easier... > > YMMV on your side of the pond. > > Alex Band > Product Manager, RIPE NCC As others pointed out, and as we especially have seen the past 10 and a half years, laws can easily change. I too believe it is somewhat necessary to have 'control' over the IPv4 prefix distribution in order for the RIRs to continue being Registries. I understand and share the RIRs concern regarding this. I also do believe we can expend at least two years (just to put a number out there) more to make a system that is robust also against censorship, that everybody can feel comfortable to trust. Operational impact and cost, I believe, will be quite minor during this time. In fact, I believe it is an investment that apart from being necessary (IMO), will actually pay off, because only with a system that people trust, will most network operators enable it by their free will, which ought to be the goal for *everybody* involved. (Lest the dystopian future takes hold, of course.) Once a reliable system exists, I would be the first one to enable it on my routers, and wouldn't shed a tear if illegitimately acquired or traded routing information was lost at that time. And to be extremely clear, nobody is suggesting that they do not trust the people working at RIPE or any other RIR to do a good job here but at the same time, "we are all human". We have a, in my opinion, very big responsibility towards future generations in (re-)designing the Internet in a way that continues to keep it open and robust towards failures of various sorts. Even that of a single RIR. Regards, Martin ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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