July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

Observer of London (John Naughton) on Google
by bartleby＠bluebottle.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Google's founding principles fall at great firewall of China John Naughton Sunday January 29, 2006 The Observer The only thing that was surprising about Google's decision to self-censor its China-based service was that people were surprised by it. In the general media coverage, there were many gleeful references to the company's motto - boasted of in the preface to its IPO prospectus - of 'Don't Be Evil' (a phrase which, at the time, caused Wall Street investment bankers to lie down in darkened rooms). ...The Chinese arms of Yahoo and Microsoft had already bent the knee to the local political overlords - Yahoo by handing over personal details of a user to the security authorities, Microsoft by suppressing the blog of a dissenting intellectual. ..It was difficult to decide which was more nauseating - the decision itself or the attempts by the Googlefolk to rationalise it. The argument essayed by co-founder Sergey Brin - essentially that some information is better than none - is simply pathetic. The truth is that when faced with the first really hard moral choice of their young lives, the Google boys copped out. ...Google's capitulation to the Chinese regime prompts some sobering thoughts. One is that while one may occasionally be justified in trusting an individual, one can never, ever place the same kind of trust in a company. That's why all the current concern about 'corporate social responsibility' is ultimately just eyewash. ...Already, it holds the email archives of millions of subscribers to Google Mail, plus records of every web search they ever made. And although it is resisting the attempt of the US government to mount a fishing expedition through those data, nobody doubts that, in the end, Google will comply with the law. ...By joining the Gadarene rush into the Chinese market, Google may have gained short-term advantage. But it has also forfeited its right to our trust. john.naughton(a)observer.co.uk ------------------------------------- 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> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 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] nasty one Observer of London (John Naughton) on Google
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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A Declaration of Separation
by The Free and The Unashamed 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 = A Declaration of Separation = ==== To The Governments & People of Earth: ==== We claim the right to exist, and we will defend it. We do not seek to overthrow anything. We do not seek to control anything. We merely wish to be left alone. All we ever wanted was to live in peace with our friends and neighbors. For a long, long time we bore insults to our liberty; we took blows, we did what we could to avoid injury and we worked through the system to get the offenses to stop. That has now changed. We no longer see any benefit in working through the worlds systems. At some point, working within a system becomes cowardly and immoral; for us, that point has arrived. Regardless of the parties in power, their governments have continued to restrict, restrain and punish us. We hereby reject them all. We hereby withdraw from them all. We hold the ruling states of this world and all that appertains to them to be self-serving and opposed to humanity. We now withdraw our obedience and reclaim the right to strike back when struck. We will not initiate force, but we do reserve the right to answer it. We did not choose this it was forced upon us. ==== To The Governments of Earth: ==== You are building cages for all that is human. In the name of protection, you have intruded into all areas of human life, far exceeding the reach of any Caesar. You claim ultimate control of our property and our decisions, of our travels and even our identities. You claim ownership of humanity far beyond the dreams of any Emperor of any previous era. Understand clearly: We reject your authority and we reject your legitimacy. We do not believe that you have any right to do the things you do. You have massive power, but no right to impose it upon us and no legitimacy. We have forsaken you. We are no longer your citizens or your subjects. Your systems are inherently anti-human, even if all their operators are not. We are not merely angry young people. We are fathers and mothers; aunts, uncles and grandparents; we are business owners and trusted employees; we are mechanics and engineers and farmers. We are nurses and accountants and students and executives. We are on every continent. This is not a burst of outrage; this is a sober declaration that we no longer accept unearned suffering as our role in life. For long decades we sat quietly, hoping that things would turn around. We took no actions; we suffered along with everyone else. But after having our limits pushed back again and again, we have given up on your systems. If our fellow inhabitants of this planet wish to accept your rule, they are free to do so. We will not try to stop them. We, however, will no longer accept your constraints upon us. - From now on, when you hurt us, we will bite back. If you leave us alone we will leave you alone and you can continue to rule your subjects. We are happy to live quietly. But if you come after us, there will be consequences. You caused this because of your fetish for control and power. The chief men and women among you are pathologically driven to control everyone and everything that moves upon this planet. You have made yourselves the judge of every human activity. No god-king of the ancient world ever had the power that your systems do. You have created a world where only the neutered are safe and where only outlaws are free. ==== To The People of Earth: ==== We seek nothing from you. We do not want to rule you and we do not want to control you. All we wish is to live on earth in peace. As always, we will be helpful neighbors and generous acquaintances. We will remain honest business partners and trustworthy employees. We will continue to be loving parents and respectful children. We will not, however, be sacrificial animals. We reject the idea that others have a right to our lives and our property. We will not demand anything from you, and we will no longer acquiesce to any demands upon us. We have left that game. We reject all obligations to any person or organization beyond honesty, fair dealing and a respect for human life. We will shortly explain what we believe, but we are not demanding that you agree with us. All we ask is that you do not try to stop us. Continue to play the game if you wish; we will not try to disrupt it. We have merely walked away from it. We wish you peace. ==== To Those Who Will Condemn Us: ==== We will ignore you. We welcome and seek the verdict of a just God, before whom we are willing to expose our innermost thoughts. Are you similarly willing? We would stand openly before all mankind if it were not suicidal. Perhaps some day we will have to accept slaughter for our crime of independence, but not yet. Your criticism and your malice are much deeper than mere disagreements of strategy or philosophy. You do not oppose our philosophy, you oppose our existence. Our presence in the world means that your precious ideals are false. Some of you would rather kill us than face the loss of your ideologies, just as those like you have either hated or killed every sufficiently independent human. You present yourselves to the world as compassionate, tolerant and enlightened, but we know that your smooth words are costumes. Oh yes, we know you, servant of the state; dont forget, we were raised with you. We played with you in the schoolyard, we sat next to you in the classroom. Some of us studied at the same elite universities. We watched as you had your first tastes of power. We were the boys and girls standing next to you. Some of us were your first victims. We are not fooled by your carefully crafted public image. ==== What We Believe ==== #1: Many humans resent the responsibilities that are implied by consciousness. We accept those responsibilities and we embrace consciousness. Rather than letting things happen to us (avoiding consciousness), we accept consciousness and choose to act in our own interest. We do not seek the refuge of blaming others, neither do we take refuge in crowds. We are willing to act on our personal judgment, and we are willing to accept the consequences thereof. #2: We believe in negative rights for all: That all humans should be free to do whatever they wish, as long as they do not intrude upon others; that no man has a right to the life, liberty or property of another; that we oppose aggression, fraud and coercion. #3: We do not believe that our way of life, or any other, will make life perfect or trouble-free. We expect crime and disagreements and ugliness, and we are prepared to deal with them. We do not seek a strongman to step in and solve problems for us. We agree to see to them ourselves. #4: We believe in free and unhindered commerce. So long as exchanges are voluntary and honest, no other party has a right to intervene before, during or after. #5: We believe that all individuals should keep their agreements. #6: We believe that honestly obtained property is fully legitimate and absolute. #7: We believe that some humans are evil and that they must be faced and dealt with. We accept the fact that this is a difficult area of life. #8: We believe that humans can self-organize effectively. We expect them to cooperate. We reject impositions of hierarchy and organization. #9: We believe that all humans are to be held as equals in all matters regarding justice. #10: We believe that the more a man or woman cares about right and wrong, the more of a threat he or she is perceived to be by governments. #11: We believe that there are only two true classes of human beings: Those who wish to exercise power upon others - either directly or through intermediaries - and those who have no such desires. #12: Large organizations and centralization are inherently anti-human. They must rely upon rules rather than principles, treating humans within the organization as obedient tools. ==== Our Plans: ==== We are building our own society. We will supplement traditional tools with networking, cryptography, sound money, digital currency and anonymous messaging. Our society will not be centrally controlled. It will rely solely on voluntary arrangements. We welcome others to join us. We are looking for people who are independent creators of value, people who act more than talk, and people who do the right thing because it is the right thing. We will develop our own methods of dealing with injustice, built on the principles of negative rights, restitution, integrity and equal justice. We do not forbid anyone from having one foot in each realm - ours and the old realm - although we demand that they do no damage to our realm. We are fully opposed to any use of our realm to facilitate crime in the old realm, such as the hiding of criminal proceeds. We expect to be loudly condemned, libeled and slandered by the authorities of the old regime. We expect them to defend their power and their image of legitimacy with all means available to them. We expect that many gullible and servile people will believe these lies, at least at first. We will consider traps laid for us to be criminal offenses. Any who wish to join us are encouraged to distribute this declaration, to act in furtherance of our new society, to voluntarily excel in virtues and to communicate and cooperate with other members of the new society. Free, unashamed men cannot be ruled. We are The Free and The Unashamed. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iEYEARECAAYFAknb3DYACgkQfTNN/LMh9oPbLACffJVaYAvYDtbpwX/Jx/OMcAru SX0AoNjzYs6bQI5cmSFm3IUzUXNr8HWh =m5k/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- mQGiBEnb2okRBACsxaI46KBnkB1aivtK/qWPOJ9KIRyFJVo10l5mn3JTvdQY3Oey GdlEUx1gpnj369YpC4P0kB1tHzufbZLwZQXcEGxT8WTSHPViuFUNGSyi7uuzH3FJ 7Y+06egYf/xOTPYtatViCWGud20mr+tb3ZbWV3xTLTcD0QpdVg7oblQX7wCg8F8J JZP84SNkfglibQ1NoS+XkLMD/2DxYmyEXiS+hlHeMAXpPNK5tqryfVW4cPg5PEsX gbm/VY5XT1+hb/n3vx3+OIPF9h77CPjpkkVmmpWuQNYyixVxoOZaj/fyDnzACpzn CivTbRJ+T/dFCHm1TGPPa9V3e8Ey1MNiUPJVbJEhsy7+bZnjqOMVsOU+uEp0wHzB XOXHBACi6h+BoDIdHejZoqbJ/3RNE8gRnd30hCKaK+yX1jTSRgSPPF2il3aRarVd 6Kfx82LlXBywJuvkVgZhYAI3lrN2EoT51UZ1sEOrunPt8tfKEUgtHKGkn8aiRZys NDWpOU9NCOq0KQbdJo/ctidlVnO35m3fIx8NSxxi3f1V6s+QVbQ5VGhlIEZyZWUg YW5kIFRoZSBVbmFzaGFtZWQgPGZyZWUuYW5kLnVuYXNoYW1lZEBnbWFpbC5jb20+ iGYEExECACYFAknb2okCGwMFCQlmAYAGCwkIBwMCBBUCCAMEFgIDAQIeAQIXgAAK CRB9M038syH2g/l2AKCsgAcOWCHXAk+rOLy0Fk0+7WTjhgCgoyA/MTbFOBE7rRJ0 5xuLge0kWYS5BA0ESdvaiRAQANnI/9VXWqxKfe6qvAj0iuf6y5SYsl/TxWIFRE6V YxfRIM+pzzk1WRk3XOD6gUl4uGfw5R6qVo9dGnH2dJgw0H/KSAAosUn6GV3T29DE 0bPPsPaProDSTZljQBssEgBk++v0cIlbSlcyzwPKykmrNZecC9zouEoB+onNlF/m R9EK5tSYng8T4KhhhMEawbLa9jh964RjHTK93xU7TjtxAmu+u9MClpgIBQOn9NWv KnMejl9AFRyXbbn6gnrRXGL4u47zBpiZKsGPjIMe2y7ATFEqa+aXnhPCVqy52GIx /95MswZwlwX6L9jTQo8Z/Mj9Ide49crf7wqYGGoupDBvBfNAMFQPDANBp3TdkuBP 5MLERqI7N9GI2cmM/+Bf9NIkdqBOhysH+NtqMo1oYVMvhfiMsuPXRAOVGQn8nCSo lR6PwAXESWiO84bgSiAx2gGaZiq9MocWDT1jYVyBD9hRSDu0FrvQZ++NGKAthe+r Ie4S6XiyOOsGksn01ST66Y9UAbbJkcl1/+ch8h6Q5ytmWu2zs6CBkfNef88qtMy9 i26LwUPxmUuRCB0Bb7KTZ7N8kA+Ss/Q6ItNrnOYqa5kZuAKSf1QpmCgFHZUku/Mg w0j6e+Vxaf0uNX/85lc2foeO1VO8/gmZGlVjCeokYqrlIImpaMzcNTl1nsJOO9Px dOOTAAMFD/9sCd+xPBGWfyNE8KDr2M6rcAzJpkZNJ46VboP7EQOax7bI0ObRhjXr dmEmGQsB2STQtepYfvCy0mKocgG84GnCj+sjfC9cBtj1jLFJxtkXtsb9CHdlMTQx nRiddO8ydRynYrtFvRJmaYhslq7lDX4YiSMIPeq6qnnEl7U/RO6zK4vgFNcrtAvg okQYH6XpXDK7h1jFH+SSZLGLcXxJoSOVWuJIIyUzilHvC46ZbUEUp0fI9ASXbovl UWB64nYuh9z49AKw9pQ0c4WxRmnPrqPIdsPST0gfAK9qt13xSqUMfszNRioC2R12 +UdJ2Zus+NmVPalvB7OKADdfHFgFMiEAnv31hMb19pVYOEzUPZPhJKHljVILNA9j 4O929MVbEnu+uEu6E+oZHYukhgjFK10AiO2c20Ub3bmQfCIkL9TRqO+9CsWsOzDq SQd57EP1dSMwIyayuIpjx2sOvUtfuJZp+wC5en2J9TddHZ1NlHc56Gm7P/V7SviU XcB6kxdimI+70xS5CS/uIwko3vBgII7XvkLsg/NuVCTx9bN1sSHCDVqK6lpKgsmW dQ+2T4cMXULnNqIRhadWuBrdksUCBd0N147AADbJkSznN7O1FcFgBeBVSn+HPv0T MRG05Ml4q5cHX7BQKiBzz5JDM5f49L0J+/3S6m9r7v+rHWFLtU2kxYhPBBgRAgAP BQJJ29qJAhsMBQkJZgGAAAoJEH0zTfyzIfaDRa8AnAtZps9X5XodlDcgWSl9wjYT peKwAJ4113XAXna2BrFni3WVzF0BvrMtUw== =HiYs -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- -- http://freeandunashamed.wordpress.com/

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[ZS] Prestige Bitcoin
by Michael Hrenka 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

At the AGM we discussed combining my reputation system with the official Bitcoin currency. I wanted to give you an update on my thoughts on that topic: First of all, it's a good idea to focus our economics projects in that way, because we can put everything into an integrated system. When I tried to develop a reputation based economy I finally realized that it's a bad idea not to integrate some kind of money currency into the system. Money is very useful, after all. My first idea how to combine both concepts (reputation and money) was to make some kind of "pot" which is then paid out to all users of that system - in proportion to their Prestige index. But to make that system a reality you really need such a pot in the first place. So, I've come up with the idea of creating a new currency that is coupled with the reputation system directly, the Fluido. That would have eliminated the problem of getting a pot of external money. But many people prefer using already existing currencies, for obvious reasons. Yesterday I had the idea that users of a Prestige Bitcoin system could pay Bitcoin into a general fund. They wouldn't get a direct gratification for that, but if they decide to make their donation not anonymously, they might get some reputation from other users for their generosity. Every user with at least some Prestige would get regular payments out of that general fund. Let's say every week 5-10% of the fund are distributed to those users. Then there's also the problem that people need to mine blocks if this new hybrid system is supposed to work on a decentralized basis just like Bitcoin. My idea regarding that problem is to grant users who mine blocks a fixed number of Prestige points. This creates different ways for getting Prestige points, so it would not be very clear whether those points represent public approval or mining rewards. By displaying the mining rewards explicitly and contrasting them with the pure "public appreciation" Prestige people would still get a clear information what a certain Prestige score actually reveals. Still, both types of Prestige are equivalent in the sense that they are used by the system in exactly the same way. Apart from those considerations I think the project can be split up into different phases of development: Phase 1: Develop the core Prestige system with a centralized architecture, because that's the easiest thing which can be implemented in a reasonable time frame. In any case, already this relatively simple system would be quite useful for many small groups like ours as internal economic tool. Phase 2: Make a pure Prestige system that's decentralized, based on the ideas of the Bitcoin technology. This system would already have the potential to go global and become a widely used tool for representing reputation. Phase 3: Create the Prestige Bitcoin General Fund which couples the decentralized Prestige system with the official Bitcoin currency. It would be simply a kind of add-on to the Prestige system. In a similar fashion it would also be possible to design the Fluido as another add-on to the Prestige system. Users of the Prestige system would be able to decide which add-ons they use. Eventually, third parties could even create their own add-ons. What do you think about those ideas? -- 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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Observer of London (John Naughton) on Google
by bartleby＠bluebottle.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Google's founding principles fall at great firewall of China John Naughton Sunday January 29, 2006 The Observer The only thing that was surprising about Google's decision to self-censor its China-based service was that people were surprised by it. In the general media coverage, there were many gleeful references to the company's motto - boasted of in the preface to its IPO prospectus - of 'Don't Be Evil' (a phrase which, at the time, caused Wall Street investment bankers to lie down in darkened rooms). ...The Chinese arms of Yahoo and Microsoft had already bent the knee to the local political overlords - Yahoo by handing over personal details of a user to the security authorities, Microsoft by suppressing the blog of a dissenting intellectual. ..It was difficult to decide which was more nauseating - the decision itself or the attempts by the Googlefolk to rationalise it. The argument essayed by co-founder Sergey Brin - essentially that some information is better than none - is simply pathetic. The truth is that when faced with the first really hard moral choice of their young lives, the Google boys copped out. ...Google's capitulation to the Chinese regime prompts some sobering thoughts. One is that while one may occasionally be justified in trusting an individual, one can never, ever place the same kind of trust in a company. That's why all the current concern about 'corporate social responsibility' is ultimately just eyewash. ...Already, it holds the email archives of millions of subscribers to Google Mail, plus records of every web search they ever made. And although it is resisting the attempt of the US government to mount a fishing expedition through those data, nobody doubts that, in the end, Google will comply with the law. ...By joining the Gadarene rush into the Chinese market, Google may have gained short-term advantage. But it has also forfeited its right to our trust. john.naughton(a)observer.co.uk ------------------------------------- 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> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 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] nasty one Observer of London (John Naughton) on Google
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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[ZS] Prestige Bitcoin
by Michael Hrenka 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

At the AGM we discussed combining my reputation system with the official Bitcoin currency. I wanted to give you an update on my thoughts on that topic: First of all, it's a good idea to focus our economics projects in that way, because we can put everything into an integrated system. When I tried to develop a reputation based economy I finally realized that it's a bad idea not to integrate some kind of money currency into the system. Money is very useful, after all. My first idea how to combine both concepts (reputation and money) was to make some kind of "pot" which is then paid out to all users of that system - in proportion to their Prestige index. But to make that system a reality you really need such a pot in the first place. So, I've come up with the idea of creating a new currency that is coupled with the reputation system directly, the Fluido. That would have eliminated the problem of getting a pot of external money. But many people prefer using already existing currencies, for obvious reasons. Yesterday I had the idea that users of a Prestige Bitcoin system could pay Bitcoin into a general fund. They wouldn't get a direct gratification for that, but if they decide to make their donation not anonymously, they might get some reputation from other users for their generosity. Every user with at least some Prestige would get regular payments out of that general fund. Let's say every week 5-10% of the fund are distributed to those users. Then there's also the problem that people need to mine blocks if this new hybrid system is supposed to work on a decentralized basis just like Bitcoin. My idea regarding that problem is to grant users who mine blocks a fixed number of Prestige points. This creates different ways for getting Prestige points, so it would not be very clear whether those points represent public approval or mining rewards. By displaying the mining rewards explicitly and contrasting them with the pure "public appreciation" Prestige people would still get a clear information what a certain Prestige score actually reveals. Still, both types of Prestige are equivalent in the sense that they are used by the system in exactly the same way. Apart from those considerations I think the project can be split up into different phases of development: Phase 1: Develop the core Prestige system with a centralized architecture, because that's the easiest thing which can be implemented in a reasonable time frame. In any case, already this relatively simple system would be quite useful for many small groups like ours as internal economic tool. Phase 2: Make a pure Prestige system that's decentralized, based on the ideas of the Bitcoin technology. This system would already have the potential to go global and become a widely used tool for representing reputation. Phase 3: Create the Prestige Bitcoin General Fund which couples the decentralized Prestige system with the official Bitcoin currency. It would be simply a kind of add-on to the Prestige system. In a similar fashion it would also be possible to design the Fluido as another add-on to the Prestige system. Users of the Prestige system would be able to decide which add-ons they use. Eventually, third parties could even create their own add-ons. What do you think about those ideas? -- 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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FC: Ashcroft tells Congress he'll take hard line on porn, piracy
by Declan McCullagh 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

--- Excerpts from hearing transcript: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=01/06/08/2143247&mode=thread --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44398,00.html Ashcroft's Hard Line on Hardcore By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)wired.com) 2:00 a.m. June 9, 2001 PDT WASHINGTON -- Look out, Internet sextrepreneurs: John Aschroft wants you to serve hard time. In explicit terms, the attorney general told Congress this week that hardcore sex sites would no longer be selling peeks at balloon-breasted babes. "I am concerned about obscenity and I'm concerned about obscenity as it relates to our children," Ashcroft said in his first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee. He said Justice Department prosecutors would help state officials imprison sex-site operators that feature obscene images: "We try to be especially accommodating to local law enforcement to assist them, and I would think that would be an objective of ours in this respect." A number of Republicans asked Ashcroft to pledge to prosecute raunch and ribaldry, but Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia -- who also, unbelievably, is co-chair of the Internet Caucus -- was the most persistent. "The failure of the (Clinton) administration to enforce those laws has led to a proliferation of obscenity, both online and off," Goodlatte said. "And I am particularly concerned about the safety of our children on the Internet, where they're subjected to child pornography and solicitation in a massive way." [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- End forwarded message -----

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[Politech] Are the encryption wars really over? Maybe not [priv]
by Declan McCullagh 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Whether the crypto wars are over depends on what you consider the dispute to be about in the first place. In the export-control sense, yep, we've won. We may not have had a resounding Supreme Court victory on First Amendment grounds, but the original regs proved politically untenable. How about domestic restrictions? That never really got off the ground in the U.S., even in the darkest days of the 1990s. But either could return swiftly. All it would take for a bill to be introduced is for Al Qaeda to have encrypted information that could have saved thousands of American lives were it decrypted in time. (Life does not follow the TV show "24".) See: http://www.politechbot.com/p-02509.html http://www.politechbot.com/p-02550.html I wouldn't be surprised if such a law would permit non-escrowed crypto to be used to secure communication streams while requiring .gov backdoors in crypto used for hard drive or file encryption. In other words, GPG and PGPdisk might become verboten. Programmers might sensibly scoff, but that's the way the Feds think. How about other restrictions? I don't think the crypto-in-a-crime idea ever got enacted into law, but a Minnesota court this month moved in that direction: http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-5718978.html In other words, the war is probably not over. It's just in a multi-year lull. The correct preventative tactic to employ right now is to follow the IPv6 model and seed both disk and communication-stream encryption wherever it makes sense. Then it becomes more politically difficult to outlaw. Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/2005/05/24/crypto-wars-are/ -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: RE: [Politech] Ross Anderson: Crypto wars are over,and we've won! [priv] Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 18:11:25 -0400 From: Pyke, Gila <gila.pyke(a)ssha.on.ca> To: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> Hi Declan, This email generated a fair amount of discussion amongst my peers. The assertion by someone so well known and respected that the "crypto wars are over" was met with quite a bit of skepticism. A coworker (who wishes to remain nameless) said it best: "The battles over key escrow and export controls aren't the hot topics that they used to be. But that's not because the fight is over, more that it has moved on to other things like digital IDs, biometric passports, and the other hot topics that circulate on this list. Projects like the Clipper chip died not because of politics, but because it was difficult and impractical to deploy and get industry to adopt it (similar to the problems facing technologies such as PKI and smart cards). There are still (smaller) legal battles going on over giving law enforcement the right to decrypt a suspect's hard drive, or ISPs handing out passwords to their users' accounts, or cryptographers facing prosecution for publishing cryptanalytic results, and on and on. It has become more of a privacy battle than an encryption issue, but the battle is still there. And of course, there is still the prevailing paranoia that the NSA and other intelligence agencies have already cracked the crypto algorithms currently in circulation. This isn't too far-fetched considering the number of algorithms that have been broken and retired in recent years. " As far as many of us are concerned, cryptography always was and always will be a controversial science. I don't think the government's interest in controlling it will ever go away, although the face on it may change. Incidents like this one: ------------------- --Hackers Holding Computer Files 'Hostage' (23 May 2005) A new type of extortion plot has been identified, unlike any other cyber extortion, according to the FBI. Hackers used an infected website to infect computers with a program that encrypts the users file. Then the criminal demanded money for the key to decrypt the files. Enhanced versions of this attack threaten large numbers of users with loss of important data, loss of money, or both. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050524/ap_on_hi_te/internet_ransom ------------------- ...will make sure of that. Efforts like TOR will always feel threatening to some of the people in power, and excuses like the war on terrorism will always give those people a well-hyped excuse to do "what they think is necessary". But that is just my fundie, cynical, tired opinion. Gila Pyke Policy Analyst Privacy and Security Division Smart Systems for Health Agency 416-586-4257 _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) ----- 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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Re: [tor-talk] Tor banned in Pakistan.
by Dave Jevans 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

DARPA has funded a project to develop a stego type communications system as a "next generation TOR". Its called SAFER Warfighter Communications. http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/SAFER_Warfighter_Communications_… On Sep 8, 2011, at 7:00 PM, "Michael Holstein" <michael.holstein(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: > >> Very disturbing. I wonder if its possible to hide encrypted traffic as >> seemingly unencrypted http traffic in much the same way as a gpg key is >> rendered as ascii armored, or stenographically inside images. Although >> such methods may be inefficient, they may be good enough for some purposes. >> > > Of course .. any number of mechanisms exist to do exactly this, although > (generally speaking) it's not to provide a "live" VPN service. A > constant HTTP stream of nothing but .jpegs would be pretty suspicious. > Video-type services might be a better bet (because the traffic would be > more believable) but if you can't encrypt it, all that's required to > render the stego useless is to (slightly) re-encode it transparently > (eg: take your 640x480 MPEG stream and run it through ffmpeg to lower > the bitrate by 10k or some such). > > One would detect this in the same way you do encrypted botnets .. you > stop looking for patterns *in* the traffic and start looking at *traffic > patterns* (ie: "that's odd, why is this machine doing a constant stream > of ICMP all of a sudden? .. what are these long DNS queries for?, why > are the HTTPS traffic ratios fairly symmetrical?" .. etc). > >> It would be good to know what technologies these ISPs will implement to >> do the packet inspection for encrypted tunnels. Half the problem is you >> don't really know what they'll be looking for and so you don't know how >> to circumvent. >> > > That's the key distinction here .. rather than try to "ban with > technology" (ie: "great firewall of china"), they went for "ban with > policy" .. meaning you'll likely never know if you're "getting away with > it" until the ISI shows up and drags you off. > > I suppose a clever service would be for Twitter (et.al.) to allow you to > upload a keypair for stego and a https "twitpic" site that allowed each > image to be checked for a valid signature and stego'd text, which would > then be published. > > Regards, > > Michael Holstein > Cleveland State University > > > _______________________________________________ > tor-talk mailing list > tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- 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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