July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

[IP] more on Department of Homeland and Security wants master key for DNS
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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Big Brother would be envious...
by Thomas Leavitt 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

You might wear computing's next wave By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer /Fri Oct 12, 4:01 PM ET/ <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071012/ap_on_hi_te/wearable_computing> [...] Graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab had black plastic badges around their necks that analyze multiple factors b including motion and speech patterns b to detect the level of engagement two people are exhibiting in a conversation. Information gathered from the badges, which weigh just a few ounces and are a bit smaller than a deck of cards, can be sent wirelessly to a computer or a phone to give their wearers helpful tips. Sales reps could be advised that a customer's interest seems to be waning. A doctor could be alerted to indications of depression in a patient being monitored remotely. [...] .. or, schools could require students to wear them, and then automatically alert the teacher when a student ceases paying attention. Or school administrators when a particular teacher's students consistently failed to remain engaged. Managers could be alerted when customer service reps. don't appear to be displaying an appropriate level of engagement with the customer, or when a sales associate doesn't meet the requisite level of cheeriness (although I'd guess that voice stress analysis is already doing this for telephone customer service reps). The possibilities are endless. The article suggests the could be used to analyze for "social network analysis" inside corporations... even more reasons to avoid corporate America in my book. Thomas ------------------------------------------- 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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[Dewayne-Net] Big Brother would be envious...
by dewayne＠warpspeed.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

[Note: This item comes from reader Thomas Leavitt. DLH]

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[IP] Big Brother would be envious...
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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Re: [liberationtech] Forbes recommends tools for journalists
by Danny O'Brien 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 10:49:33AM -0700, frank(a)journalistsecurity.net wrote: > If anyone here has any thoughts about the tools recommended in this > Forbes piece, please speak up. The piece gets specific with > recommendations form Ashkan Soltani, a technologist who I do not think > is on this list, about half way down. Again, any thoughts would be > welcome. Thank you! Frank The reference to Glenn's "Create your own SSL certiiate" article is weird; what he talks about in that Ars Technica piece not a replacement for a VPN by any means, and I think the reference would just confuse anyone who was not technical. I think these days you have to tie Forbes' (good) advice not to save everything with an encouragement to use full disk encryption. We're in an awkward space right now where we can't fully guarantee that data gets deleted off a modern flash (SSD) drive, even with previously strong deletion tools. And forensics software is good enough to pick up a lot of local clues about what you've used your own computer for, even if you think you've turned off all logs and removed the saving of sensitive data. Minimize what you record, but also encrypt. I'd be cautious about explicitly recommending Word's encryption as they do -- if you save encrypted docs in 97/2000 mode, they're instantly breakable, and there are dedicated tools out there to break later versions. I don't know whether they exploit later weaknesses, or are just fancy password crackers. http://www.elcomsoft.com/aopr.html?r1=Openwall Usual provisos about Skype (and Silent Circle to a certain extent). It's *really* hard to permanently recommend particular products, without at least making the statement "Keep an eye for news that the tools you use are vulnerable, and keep the software updated." We really need to stop making this exclusively about the tools, and make it more about the practices, and tools that can reinforce those practices. This article isn't that bad at all about that -- but you want to be able to get people to a point where they can tell themselves whether a package looks like snake oil or not. d. > > http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/12/07/dear-journalists-at-vice… > > TECH | 12/07/2012 @ 1:33PM |24,858 views > Dear Journalists at Vice and Elsewhere, Here Are Some Simple Ways Not To > Get Your Source Arrested > > You forgot to scrub the metadata, suckers. > > Computer security millionaire John McAfeebs surreal flight from > Belizean law enforcement came to an end this week when he was detained > (and then hospitalized) in Guatemala, as has been widely reported. A > piece of the story that hasnbt been included in much of the reporting > is how authorities figured out that McAfee b who was wanted for > questioning in the shooting death of his neighbor b had fled Belize > for Guatemala. McAfeebs location was exposed after he agreed to let > two reporters from Vice Magazine tag along with him. Proud to finally be > in the thick of a story rife with vices b drugs, murder, prostitutes, > guns, vicious dogs, a fugitive millionaire and his inappropriately young > girlfriend b they proudly posted an iPhone photo to their blog of Vice > editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro standing with the source of the mayhem in > front of a jungly background, saying, b We are with John McAfee right > now, suckers.b > > With that posting, they went from chroniclers of vices to inadvertent > narcs. They left the metadata in the photo, revealing McAfeebs exact > location, down to latitude and longitude. McAfee tried to claim hebd > manipulated the data b a claim that Vice photographer backed up on > Facebook in a posting hebs since deleted b but then capitulated, > hired a lawyer, and tried to claim asylum in Guatemala. Guatemalan > authorities instead detained McAfee for entering the country illegally. > All of which was dutifully reported by the Vice reporters, with no > mention of their screw-up. Mat Honan at Wired excoriated Vice for its > role in events: > > This was deeply stupid. People have been pointing out the dangers of > inadvertently leaving GPS tags in cellphone pictures for years and > years. Vice is the same publication that regularly drops in on > revolutions and all manner of criminals. They should have known better. > > And they have the resources to do it better. Vice is a $100 million > operation. > > Then, it followed up this egregiously stupid action with a far worse > one. Vice photographer Robert King apparently lied on his Facebook page > and Twitter in order to protect McAfee. Like McAfee, he claimed that the > geodata in the photo had been manipulated to conceal their true > location. b& > > But the coverup, as always, is worse than the crime. In claiming the > geodata had been manipulated when it had not, Vice was no longer just > documenting. Now it was actively aiding a fugitive wanted for > questioning in the murder investigation of his neighbor Gregory Faull, > who was shot dead at his own home. > > Via How Trusting In Vice Led To John McAfeebs Downfall b Wired. > > It was indeed deeply stupid. Journalists are professional dealers in > information but many are terrible about protecting it. While willing to > go to jail to protect their sources, journalists may wind up leaving > them exposed instead through poor data practices. In a New York Times > editorial last year, Chris Soghoian, now chief technologist at the ACLU, > warned that b secrets arenbt safe with journalistsb explaining that > b the safety of anonymous sources will depend not only on > journalistsb ethics, but on their computer skills.b > > There are three very basic things journalists should be doing to shield > their sources: > > Scrubbing metadata from photos, documents and other files. > Resisting the desire to save copies of everything. > Encrypting communications. > > Technologist Ashkan Soltani walked me through some simple tools for > doing this. Theybre not foolproof, but theybll make it a little less > likely that your blog post will wind up sending the person youbre > profiling to jail (unless thatbs your intent). > > > 1. Scrubbing metadata. > > b All files b photos, Word docs, PDFs b include some kind of > metadata: author, location created, device information,b says Soltani. > If you leave the metadata attached, you run the risk of exposing private > information about the person who gave you the file, or, in the case of > Vice, the location of the person trying to keep his location under > wraps. > > Before you share a Word doc with the world that a source sent you, run > it through a scrubber. Otherwise, it may reveal where the doc was > created, who authored it and anyone who has ever made changes to it. > Therebs Doc Scrubber for Microsoft Word. > For PDF docs, use a tool like Metadata Assistant. Or use Adobe > Acrobatbs b Examine Documentb tool which will scan the doc for > hidden information. > For photos, think about turning off geotagging on your phone or digital > camera so that the information doesnbt get included in the first > place. Youbll usually do that in your phonebs b Location > Settings.b Instructions here. > You can run your photos through a metadata scrubber. Or, if you donbt > care much about the resolution, you can just take a screenshot of the > photo and use that metadata-free version. > Some photo-hosting services do you the favor of scrubbing metadata. > Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all have this privacy-protective measure > in place. > > 2. Resisting the desire to save copies of everything. > > We live in a time when itbs easy to save everything, meaning webve > all become digital hoarders. Why delete an email or chat when you can > just archive it? It could come in handy later. Or it could come back to > bite you later. > > b Disable chat logs in whatever program youbre using, Gmail or > Skype,b says Soltani. In Gmail, that means switching chats to b off > the record.b In Skype, it means turning off the feature that > automatically saves your chats to anywhere you log in. (Added privacy > bonus: That could keep your boss from winding up getting his hands on a > sexy chat you had on your home computer.) > If you need to keep a record of a chat, save it as a Word file on your > own computer, and encrypt it. > b Donbt keep emails around for years and years,b says Soltani. > b Practice better data hygiene.b > Soltani says journalists and sources might consider setting up temporary > email accounts to communicate about a story, and then to delete the > accounts after the storybs complete. He compares it to using a burner > cell phone. > 3. Encrypting your communications. > > This may be the most labor intensive of the recommendations from > computer security professionals, but if itbs important that your > communications with someone not be compromised, itbs worth it. This > means your emails will appear as gibberish to anyone you donbt want > reading them. Had David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell encrypted their > emails to one another rather than saving them in a drafts folder, their > exposing themselves to each other wouldnbt have been exposed to the > world. b This allows you to communicate securely and protects your > messages if your account is compromised,b says Soltani. > > For chat, consider using Adiumbs OTR. > Use a Virtual Private Network or create your own SSL. > Take 30 minutes (more or less, depending on your savvy level) to set up > SMime or PGP for Gmail so that the emails you send from whichever > provider you use are encrypted. The only limitation here: you need to > get the person youbre communicating with to enable encryption as well. > Rather than calling someone from your landline or cell phone, use Skype > or Silent Circle. > *** > > A journalistbs job is to bring information to light. Using these > tools, youbll retain some control over which information gets lit. > > 10 Incredibly Simple Things You Can Do To Protect Your Privacy > > Password Protect Your Devices > Choosing not to password protect your devices is the digital equivalent > of leaving your home or car unlocked. If you're lucky, no one will take > advantage of the access. Or maybe the contents will be ravaged and your > favorite speakers and/or secrets stolen. > > -- > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech ----- 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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by Steven M. Bellovin 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Cryptography <cryptography(a)metzdowd.com> Subject: Re: Tromboning: Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S. On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:32:15 -0400 "R.A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> wrote: > Evidently not just anyone can stick two links together using one box > and three ethernet cards, or whatever, or the Internet Gets Broken. Not quite, but see below. > > Geeze, to paraphrase Grace Slick, I wish I knew BGP. > > (Though, like Grace was at the time, I'm too burned-out a dog these > days to learn those new tricks. Easier to doze off on the veranda > watching the weather go by.) > BGP is indeed complex -- not the theory, but the practice: how it's actually used. Fundamentally, BGP is a way to implement routing *policy*: ISPs (actually, ASs -- Autonomous Systems) use BGP so that traffic they're carrying goes the way it's supposed to, more or less. The metric, of course is money -- what do they get paid for certain traffic over certain paths, compared to others? Among the many criteria that are considered are traffic engineering, load-balancing among different links, reducing latency for certain kinds of traffic, balancing bytes and packets sent and received to certain BGP neighbors, minimizing the number of prefixes you have to carry around in your routers (currently about 240K for the so-called "default-free zone"), AUP restrictions, customer satisfaction, redundancy, regulation, and more. You can't just connect a couple of random Ethernets and have things JFW (Just Work), the way you can with LANs in a building. For one thing, the Internet is too big; OSPF won't handle nearly that many prefixes. For another, no one will (or rather, no one should) let you blindly claim to carry traffic for random prefixes. (The reality of that is quite different and much more crypto-relevant...) RAH: I'm quite certain this won't get to the other lists you've posted to, but feel free to forward this. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

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Lucrative update
by Patrick 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Lucrative release 4 is out. I know many people are used to seeing releases numbered like "0.000001", "0.000002", "2.0.3.0.14.657" etc. but release numbering systems are essentially arbitrary in nature so don't get excited as Lucrative goes toward version 50+. This release is a fairly minor one, but included some changes such as the client name that I wanted to get out as soon as possible. There is also a new development weblog at http://lucrative.thirdhost.com/weblog/. I went through an install with someone over IRC last night and made a blog entry summarizing the install notes. I recommend reading the notes before attempting an install. I am glad to help with an install, drop me a note at patrick(a)lfcgate.com if you have trouble. Some documentation on the various entities in the Lucrative system is now available on the website, http://lucrative.thirdhost.com/documentation.php but more is needed and coming. If Lucrative is interesting to you, please consider helping in any way you can: Feedback Installation reports Suggestions Comments Criticism Feature requests Source code patches Donations Are all very much welcomed. And criticism is more useful to me than praise. My sincere thanks to everyone who has participated so far by installing, testing, providing feedback, spreading the word, and donating. And finally I just received word from SourceForge that the project registration for Lucrative has been approved. Regards, Patrick -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.3 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> mQGiBD5ECKcRBADUvjXHwLtxIyS4AyjBs/dFtN6rdeP18Fhzh1hD5fJwkFevqY9Z I1ASROTh6eXYF7pU5sEvbcPshHyTB41ZtTqZvQvpwWN0fUzOuutuI0mtC5UPp9Rz j47SdWLdEXNHjwnHDCYSyqtqZu8GujGRQybR0eP3NIh/NwbSDUKdgz7IjwCg//Jo UtjP3zUFobm/0UYA+CJ5krED/091x9Js0gwNwvjbzM8DqO+r8qNz0kXI13FkrPRk QNd37lxt6m2m8HZD1WYM2wKwtMzHSwJcWzaDZ/tNc+ppYjzpw0EQCh9FqjGs8Vau guF6PA1M8lJTCcLKaL4e7ynic+PAw5Xa/tdOYgFCG+eLMU5RLvzRCYoOLIjgMJLJ yG98BACAMlDmFVYgC/UKvzZmHfZ5CtCKd8sPfCXrYLu5NeFRE0LR6D6zjzmhi1xX okfreR5o3T/y78VBM98js+m2/+7Z0AElqydeW/RnV1zqwDGjDr9z2MgARf3yLAbs n3BU8Fz61RwvHy6cRkT+2dR2f69QQUSpkupvLwZIGX/iwm4uKLQdUGF0cmljayA8 cGF0cmlja0BsZmNnYXRlLmNvbT6JAE4EEBECAA4FAj5ECKcECwMCAQIZAQAKCRBb mvb9yuOVfaA2AKDAu5tDj9F2KI8cJMrKKkQRAcUyxACg6/bei7lUJH+E5igJqGRx SjKrRA65BA0EPkQIpxAQAPkYoH5aBmF6Q5CV3AVsh4bsYezNRR8O2OCjecbJ3HoL rOQ/40aUtjBKU9d8AhZIgLUV5SmZqZ8HdNP/46HFliBOmGW42A3uEF2rthccUdhQ yiJXQym+lehWKzh4XAvb+ExN1eOqRsz7zhfoKp0UYeOEqU/Rg4Soebbvj6dDRgjG zB13VyQ4SuLE8OiOE2eXTpITYfbb6yUOF/32mPfIfHmwch04dfv2wXPEgxEmK0Ng w+Po1gr9oSgmC66prrNlD6IAUwGgfNaroxIe+g8qzh90hE/K8xfzpEDp19J3tkIt AjbBJstoXp18mAkKjX4t7eRdefXUkk+bGI78KqdLfDL2Qle3CH8IF3KiutapQvMF 6PlTETlPtvFuuUs4INoBp1ajFOmPQFXz0AfGy0OplK33TGSGSfgMg71l6RfUodNQ +PVZX9x2Uk89PY3bzpnhV5JZzf24rnRPxfx2vIPFRzBhznzJZv8V+bv9kV7HAarT W56NoKVyOtQa8L9GAFgr5fSI/VhOSdvNILSd5JEHNmszbDgNRR0PfIizHHxbLY72 88kjwEPwpVsYjY67VYy4XTjTNP18F1dDox0YbN4zISy1Kv884bEpQBgRjXyEpwpy 1obEAxnIByl6ypUM2Zafq9AKUJsCRtMIPWakXUGfnHy9iUsiGSa6q6Jew1XrPdYX AAICD/wKwtF7Y4NKBe8PQ6jDbjWziiTv9Ac/EnRTJDQEoqgLa2LyE+6Ahw/VPGvp mfxkD2MKxC9E7kYVmasn6sHnSpvAv3e7O1Bqbo/qLzzCcJQ5VCurZ+elRM1GZ4Oc fM19FPKutb0/JFEv0nrqS4BGkF7WFBbu5dKYl/GIO7Co1mAerFIb719dOwMPVEIz OT08u8uB9jyR8gEElf+CVuNfOUkrUGg4HS4SbmTTrCSz3/8n5PkquSuAyjCB/dwM ZsZwA0/TTR8sDYlmlf9xPj5PGpGnV9OUwfig6eE0eWtRFeasmz0uiX+yp45ABtNh 6EXP/PFaBgXi9omXXjeeFYfpDvmfA6izvTIQfXTV6V9ZWrBfXarM+GQ+6guXWVbd 9fXvmCr982LkzuKQrK1OpRXBMUapXL+tOy/LYzz91InqKKhgPNGa12fvotZ4LzlM iqoM+Hpz5L9B5We1Ph0lD6RBVXDCqd+P8extnY/7AaDy7tC0UghaAaUuEZXJQPIc oQ3QGbpjM0nGe/VZN5EZhljau0NNENFaU56cOpvOhcO04gLGNNc2NS+rIpTMsaHh o1CG90c5zZZJuUbyx0mIHriNQXDgEwunSZPQorKK9KSppyyjeuOyi5F/mBBPXeyT weLhLqLvAr9se/+Z3aQvMADJi8zUZtGggLTw+N9R5XSwtSh2R4kARgQYEQIABgUC PkQIpwAKCRBbmvb9yuOVfWayAKC+mBhHdn1XZ5uH0RocAyJ32hx2kgCePyhB+IqM TjWLDLarQxcPYhbkFi4= =nx1M -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- 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' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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[IP] DNA may tell police the surname of the criminal
by Dave Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: DNA may tell police the surname of the criminal Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 13:09:16 +0000 From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell(a)newcastle.ac.uk> To: dave(a)farber.net Hi Dave: >From today's (UK) Guardian: >How DNA may tell police the surname of the criminal > >Alok Jha >Wednesday February 22, 2006 >The Guardian > >Police will soon be able to predict the surnames of criminals whose >DNA is found at crime scenes, according to research published >yesterday. The technique would only work in finding men, however, as >it is based on identifying similarities in the Y chromosome, which >is passed from father to son. > >The technique relies on research carried out by University of >Leicester scientists into how Y chromosomes have spread through the >British population. They analysed these chromosomes in 150 pairs of >men with the same surname and found that, in a quarter of cases, the >pair had matching Y chromosomes. > >When the most common names were excluded from the list - Smith, >Jones, Williams and Taylor, for example - the chance that two men >with the same surname shared a Y chromosome jumped to 50%. The >research appears in the latest edition of Current Biology. > >Mark Jobling, a geneticist at the University of Leicester who led >the work, said the police would need a relatively small collection >of male DNA - around 40,000 people - to allow useful matches to be >made. "That sounds big but the national DNA database is nearly 100 >times bigger," he said. By matching the Y chromosome details of >unidentified DNA at a crime scene with the database, police would >get a list of potential surname matches. > >"That would allow you to prioritise suspects in your investigation," >said Dr Jobling. "If you have a lot of suspects - say a whole town >or something - you can say we have 50 names, are these names >represented here, if so let's go and interview these people." > >Y chromosomes are passed from father to son mostly unaltered. Once >in a while, they will acquire random mutations as they pass through >the generations. Some parts of the chromosome are known to mutate >less rapidly than others and, by mapping these differences, >scientists can create a tree showing the relationships between >different Y chromosomes. > >"If men fall in different branches of the tree, there's no way they >can be related to a recent male ancestor," said Dr Jobling. "If they >lie within the same branch, there is a chance they are, but it >doesn't prove it. > >"When we do that simple test, we find that a highly statistically >significant excess of pairs share a branch of the tree, much more >than we expect by chance." > >It is a surprising result, since there are plenty of reasons why >people might have the same surname but be unrelated: many names were >founded by more than one man, for example. There is also the issue >of illegitimacy. The researchers predicted that more than 1% of >children were illegitimate in each generation. Over many >generations, this could have built up a significant error. > >"Those two elements would act as a strong force to break any links," >said Dr Jobling. "It was a surprise that by choosing just pairs we >got a clear signal of sharing ancestors." http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1715022,00.html -- School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/ ------------------------------------- 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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by Steven M. Bellovin 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Cryptography <cryptography(a)metzdowd.com> Subject: Re: Tromboning: Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S. On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:32:15 -0400 "R.A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> wrote: > Evidently not just anyone can stick two links together using one box > and three ethernet cards, or whatever, or the Internet Gets Broken. Not quite, but see below. > > Geeze, to paraphrase Grace Slick, I wish I knew BGP. > > (Though, like Grace was at the time, I'm too burned-out a dog these > days to learn those new tricks. Easier to doze off on the veranda > watching the weather go by.) > BGP is indeed complex -- not the theory, but the practice: how it's actually used. Fundamentally, BGP is a way to implement routing *policy*: ISPs (actually, ASs -- Autonomous Systems) use BGP so that traffic they're carrying goes the way it's supposed to, more or less. The metric, of course is money -- what do they get paid for certain traffic over certain paths, compared to others? Among the many criteria that are considered are traffic engineering, load-balancing among different links, reducing latency for certain kinds of traffic, balancing bytes and packets sent and received to certain BGP neighbors, minimizing the number of prefixes you have to carry around in your routers (currently about 240K for the so-called "default-free zone"), AUP restrictions, customer satisfaction, redundancy, regulation, and more. You can't just connect a couple of random Ethernets and have things JFW (Just Work), the way you can with LANs in a building. For one thing, the Internet is too big; OSPF won't handle nearly that many prefixes. For another, no one will (or rather, no one should) let you blindly claim to carry traffic for random prefixes. (The reality of that is quite different and much more crypto-relevant...) RAH: I'm quite certain this won't get to the other lists you've posted to, but feel free to forward this. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

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CRYPTO-GRAM, May 15, 2011
by Bruce Schneier 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

CRYPTO-GRAM May 15, 2011 by Bruce Schneier Chief Security Technology Officer, BT schneier(a)schneier.com http://www.schneier.com A free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and commentaries on security: computer and otherwise. For back issues, or to subscribe, visit <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html>. You can read this issue on the web at <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-1105.html>. These same essays and news items appear in the "Schneier on Security" blog at <http://www.schneier.com/blog>, along with a lively comment section. An RSS feed is available. ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* In this issue: Status Report: "The Dishonest Minority" RFID Tags Protecting Hotel Towels News Hijacking the Coreflood Botnet Schneier News Drugging People and Then Robbing Them Interviews with Me About the Sony Hack ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Status Report: "The Dishonest Minority" Three months ago, I announced that I was writing a book on why security exists in human societies. This is basically the book's thesis statement: All complex systems contain parasites. In any system of cooperative behavior, an uncooperative strategy will be effective -- and the system will tolerate the uncooperatives -- as long as they're not too numerous or too effective. Thus, as a species evolves cooperative behavior, it also evolves a dishonest minority that takes advantage of the honest majority. If individuals within a species have the ability to switch strategies, the dishonest minority will never be reduced to zero. As a result, the species simultaneously evolves two things: 1) security systems to protect itself from this dishonest minority, and 2) deception systems to successfully be parasitic. Humans evolved along this path. The basic mechanism can be modeled simply. It is in our collective group interest for everyone to cooperate. It is in any given individual's short-term self-interest not to cooperate: to defect, in game theory terms. But if everyone defects, society falls apart. To ensure widespread cooperation and minimal defection, we collectively implement a variety of societal security systems. Two of these systems evolved in prehistory: morals and reputation. Two others evolved as our social groups became larger and more formal: laws and technical security systems. What these security systems do, effectively, is give individuals incentives to act in the group interest. But none of these systems, with the possible exception of some fanciful science-fiction technologies, can ever bring that dishonest minority down to zero. In complex modern societies, many complications intrude on this simple model of societal security. Decisions to cooperate or defect are often made by groups of people -- governments, corporations, and so on -- and there are important differences because of dynamics inside and outside the groups. Much of our societal security is delegated -- to the police, for example -- and becomes institutionalized; the dynamics of this are also important. Power struggles over who controls the mechanisms of societal security are inherent: "group interest" rapidly devolves to "the king's interest." Societal security can become a tool for those in power to remain in power, with the definition of "honest majority" being simply the people who follow the rules. The term "dishonest minority" is not a moral judgment; it simply describes the minority who does not follow societal norm. Since many societal norms are in fact immoral, sometimes the dishonest minority serves as a catalyst for social change. Societies without a reservoir of people who don't follow the rules lack an important mechanism for societal evolution. Vibrant societies need a dishonest minority; if society makes its dishonest minority too small, it stifles dissent as well as common crime. At this point, I have most of a first draft: 75,000 words. The tentative title is still "The Dishonest Minority: Security and its Role in Modern Society." I have signed a contract with Wiley to deliver a final manuscript in November for February 2012 publication. Writing a book is a process of exploration for me, and the final book will certainly be a little different -- and maybe even very different -- from what I wrote above. But that's where I am today. And it's why my other writings -- and the issues of Crypto-Gram -- continue to be sparse. Lots of comments -- over 200 -- to the blog post. Please comment there; I want the feedback. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/02/societal_securi.html ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* RFID Tags Protecting Hotel Towels The stealing of hotel towels isn't a big problem in the scheme of world problems, but it can be expensive for hotels. Sure, we have moral prohibitions against stealing -- that'll prevent most people from stealing the towels. Many hotels put their name or logo on the towels. That works as a reputational societal security system; most people don't want their friends to see obviously stolen hotel towels in their bathrooms. Sometimes, though, this has the opposite effect: making towels and other items into souvenirs of the hotel and thus more desirable to steal. It's against the law to steal hotel towels, of course, but with the exception of large-scale thefts, the crime will never be prosecuted. (This might be different in third world countries. In 2010, someone was sentenced to three months in jail for stealing two towels from a Nigerian hotel.) The result is that more towels are stolen than hotels want. And for expensive resort hotels, those towels are expensive to replace. The only thing left for hotels to do is take security into their own hands. One system that has become increasingly common is to set prices for towels and other items -- this is particularly common with bathrobes -- and charge the guest for them if they disappear from the rooms. This works with some things, but it's too easy for the hotel to lose track of how many towels a guest has in his room, especially if piles of them are available at the pool. A more recent system, still not widespread, is to embed washable RFID chips into the towels and track them that way. The one data point I have for this is an anonymous Hawaii hotel that claims they've reduced towel theft from 4,000 a month to 750, saving $16,000 in replacement costs monthly. Assuming the RFID tags are relatively inexpensive and don't wear out too quickly, that's a pretty good security trade-off. Blog entry URL: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/05/rfid_tags_prote.html Stealing hotel items: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/31046570 Nigerian case: http://travel.usatoday.com/hotels/post/2010/09/woman-faces-jailed-for-steal… or http://tinyurl.com/3z7p98w RFID chips in towels: http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/gee-how-did-that-towel-end-up… or http://tinyurl.com/6bp4lkr ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* News WikiLeaks cable about Chinese hacking of U.S. networks: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/wikileaks_cable.html Increasingly, chains of evidence include software steps. It's not just the RIAA suing people -- and getting it wrong -- based on automatic systems to detect and identify file sharers. It's forensic programs used to collect and analyze data from computers and smart phones. It's audit logs saved and stored by ISPs and websites. It's location data from cell phones. It's e-mails and IMs and comments posted to social networking sites. It's tallies from digital voting machines. It's images and meta-data from surveillance cameras. The list goes on and on. We in the security field know the risks associated with trusting digital data, but this evidence is routinely assumed by courts to be accurate. Sergey Bratus is starting to look at this problem. His paper, written with Ashlyn Lembree and Anna Shubina, is "Software on the Witness Stand: What Should it Take for Us to Trust it?." http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/software_as_evi.html Interesting blog post on the security costs for the $50B Air Force bomber program -- estimated to be $8B. This isn't all computer security, but the original article specifically calls out Chinese computer espionage as a primary threat. http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2011/04/apt-drives-up-bomber-cost.html A criminal gang is stealing truckloads of food. It's a professional operation. The group knew how wholesale foodstuff trucking worked. They set up a bogus trucking company. They bid for jobs, collected the trailers, and disappeared. Presumably they knew how to fence the goods, too. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/business/15bandits.html The CIA has just declassified six documents about World War I security techniques. (The media is reporting they're CIA documents, but the CIA didn't exist before 1947.) Lots of stuff about secret writing and pre-computer tradecraft. http://www.foia.cia.gov/CIAsOldest/Secret-writing-document-one.pdf http://www.foia.cia.gov/CIAsOldest/Secret-writing-document-two.pdf http://www.foia.cia.gov/CIAsOldest/Secret-writing-document-three.pdf http://www.foia.cia.gov/CIAsOldest/Secret-writing-document-four.pdf http://www.foia.cia.gov/CIAsOldest/Secret-writing-document-five.pdf http://www.foia.cia.gov/CIAsOldest/Secret-writing-document-six.pdf http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2011/04/cia_wwi.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/19/cia-world-war-one-documents-declas… or http://tinyurl.com/6h5e6zg Hard-drive steganography through fragmentation: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028095.200-covert-hard-drive-fragme… or http://tinyurl.com/4xz4vc5 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V8G-51BBKRS-1&_u… or http://tinyurl.com/3cyhves As I've written before, I run an open wi-fi network. After the stories of people being arrested and their homes being invaded based on other people using their networks to download child porn, I rethought that position -- and decided I *still* want to run an open wireless network. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/fbi-child-porn-raid-a-stron… or http://tinyurl.com/3nvokkh http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html The EFF is calling for an open wireless movement. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/04/open-wireless-movement It's standard sociological theory that a group experiences social solidarity in response to external conflict. This paper studies the phenomenon in the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. http://septembereleven2001.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/collins_2004_rituals… or http://tinyurl.com/3oxwkm5 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2004.00204.x/abstract or http://tinyurl.com/3moz2en Good paper: "Loving the Cyber Bomb? The Dangers of Threat Inflation in Cybersecurity Policy," by Jerry Brito and Tate Watkins. http://mercatus.org/publication/loving-cyber-bomb-dangers-threat-inflation-… or http://tinyurl.com/3dcahg3 http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2011/04/are-we-talking-cyber-war-like-… or http://tinyurl.com/3pdmlou Also worth reading is an earlier paper by Sean Lawson: "Beyond Cyber Doom." http://mercatus.org/publication/beyond-cyber-doom "ReallyVirtual" tweeted the bin Laden assassination without realizing it. http://chirpstory.com/li/1288 The Nikon image authentication has been cracked. http://blog.crackpassword.com/2011/04/nikon-image-authentication-system-com… or http://tinyurl.com/4yv49pw http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/28/nikon_image_faking_hack/ Canon's system is just as bad, by the way. http://www.elcomsoft.com/canon.html Fifteen years ago, I co-authored a paper on the problem. The idea was to use a hash chain to better deal with the possibility of a secret-key compromise. http://www.schneier.com/paper-camera.html According to this article, students are no longer learning how to write in cursive. And, if they are learning it, they're forgetting how. Certainly the ubiquity of keyboards is leading to a decrease in writing by hand. Relevant to security, the article claims that this is making signatures easier to forge. I'm skeptical. Everyone has a scrawl of some sort; mine has been completely illegible for years. But I don't see document forgery as a big risk; far bigger is the automatic authentication systems that don't have anything to do with traditional forgery. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/us/28cursive.html Unintended security consequences of the new Pyrex recipe: because it's no longer useful in cooking crack cocaine, drug makers now have to steal better stuff from laboratories. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-03/gray-matter-cant-take-heat or http://tinyurl.com/6967a22 "Operation Pumpkin": Wouldn't it have been great if this were not a joke: the security contingency in place if Kate Middleton tried to run away just before the wedding. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/28/operation_pumpkin/ Bin Laden's death causes spike in suspicious package reports. It's not that the risk is greater, it's that the fear is greater. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/05/osamas_death_ca.html Exactly how did they confirm it was bin Laden's body? http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20439-osama-bin-laden-how-dna-identif… or http://tinyurl.com/3vrate8 http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/02/bin.laden.body.id/index.html Here's a clever Web app that locates your stolen camera by searching the EXIF data on public photo databases for your camera's serial number. http://www.stolencamerafinder.com/ Forged memory: a scary development in rootkits. http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/security/forged-memory-fools-antimalware-a… or http://tinyurl.com/3dpxsyk New vulnerability in online payment system: the connection between the merchant site and PayPal. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028095.600-hackers-trick-goods-out-… or http://tinyurl.com/3q3j4ob http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/145858/caas-oakland-final.pdf In online hacking, we've moved to the world of "steal everything." As both data storage and data processing becomes cheaper, more and more data is collected and stored. An unanticipated effect of this is that more and more data can be stolen and used. As the article says, data minimization is the most effective security tool against this sort of thing. But -- of course -- it's not in the database owner's interest to limit the data it collects; it's in the interests of those whom the data is about. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13213632 Medieval tally stick discovered in Germany. Note the security built into this primitive contract system. Neither side can cheat -- alter the notches -- because if they do, the two sides won't match. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/05/medieval_tally.html "Resilience of the Internet Interconnection Ecosystem," by Richard Clayton -- worth reading. http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2011/04/12/resilience-of-the-internet-in… or http://tinyurl.com/69fcyql http://www.enisa.europa.eu/act/res/other-areas/inter-x/report/interx-report… or http://tinyurl.com/3kkzdmq http://www.enisa.europa.eu/act/res/other-areas/inter-x/report/interx-report… or http://tinyurl.com/3fmskr7 FBI surveillance tools: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/04/CIPAV_Post ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Hijacking the Coreflood Botnet Earlier this month, the FBI seized control of the Coreflood botnet and shut it down: "According to the filing, ISC, under law enforcement supervision, planned to replace the servers with servers that it controlled, then collect the IP addresses of all infected machines communicating with the criminal servers, and send a remote 'stop' command to infected machines to disable the Coreflood malware operating on them." This is a big deal; it's the first time the FBI has done something like this. My guess is that we're going to see a lot more of this sort of thing in the future; it's the obvious solution for botnets. Not that the approach is without risks: "'Even if we could absolutely be sure that all of the infected Coreflood botnet machines were running the exact code that we reverse-engineered and convinced ourselves that we understood,' said Chris Palmer, technology director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 'this would still be an extremely sketchy action to take. It's other people's computers and you don't know what's going to happen for sure. You might blow up some important machine.'" I just don't see this argument convincing very many people. Leaving Coreflood in place could blow up some important machine. And leaving Coreflood in place not only puts the infected computers at risk; it puts the whole Internet at risk. Minimizing the collateral damage is important, but this feels like a place where the interest of the Internet as a whole trumps the interest of those affected by shutting down Coreflood. The problem as I see it is the slippery slope. Because next, the RIAA is going to want to remotely disable computers they feel are engaged in illegal file sharing. And the FBI is going to want to remotely disable computers they feel are encouraging terrorism. And so on. It's important to have serious legal controls on this counterattack sort of defense. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/coreflood/ http://baylinks.com/blogs/?p=181 http://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/04/u-s-government-takes-down-coreflood-botn… or http://tinyurl.com/63qupg8 http://garwarner.blogspot.com/2011/04/bold-fbi-move-shutters-coreflood-bot.… or http://tinyurl.com/3koydsp ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Schneier News Last year, I spoke last year at a regional TED event: TEDxPSU. The talk is now on the TED website. http://on.ted.com/Schneier ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Interviews with Me About the Sony Hack These two interviews are what I get for giving interviews when I'm in a bad mood. For the record, I think Sony did a terrible job with its customers' security. I also think that most companies do a terrible job with customers' security, simply because there isn't a financial incentive to do better. And that most of us are pretty secure, despite that. One of my biggest complaints with these stories is how little actual information we have. We often don't know if any data was actually stolen, only that hackers had access to it. We rarely know how the data was accessed: what sort of vulnerability was used by the hackers. We rarely know the motivations of the hackers: were they criminals, spies, kids, or someone else? We rarely know if the data is actually used for any nefarious purposes; it's generally impossible to connect a data breach with a corresponding fraud incident. Given all of that, it's impossible to say anything useful or definitive about the attack. But the press always wants definitive statements. http://m.kotaku.com/5797602/dont-blame-sony-you-cant-trust-any-networks http://www.20minutes.fr/article/718918/bruce-schneier-une-intrusion-informa… ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Drugging People and Then Robbing Them This is a pretty scary criminal tactic from Turkey. Burglars dress up as doctors, and ring doorbells handing out pills under some pretense or another. They're actually powerful sedatives, and when people take them they pass out, and the burglars can ransack the house. According to the article, when the police tried the same trick with placebos, they got an 86% compliance rate. Kind of like a real-world version of those fake anti-virus programs that actually contain malware. http://au.news.yahoo.com/odd/a/-/odd/9268075/police-dress-up-as-doctors-to-… or http://tinyurl.com/3flomba ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Since 1998, CRYPTO-GRAM has been a free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and commentaries on security: computer and otherwise. You can subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your address on the Web at <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html>. Back issues are also available at that URL. Please feel free to forward CRYPTO-GRAM, in whole or in part, to colleagues and friends who will find it valuable. Permission is also granted to reprint CRYPTO-GRAM, as long as it is reprinted in its entirety. CRYPTO-GRAM is written by Bruce Schneier. Schneier is the author of the best sellers "Schneier on Security," "Beyond Fear," "Secrets and Lies," and "Applied Cryptography," and an inventor of the Blowfish, Twofish, Threefish, Helix, Phelix, and Skein algorithms. He is the Chief Security Technology Officer of BT BCSG, and is on the Board of Directors of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). He is a frequent writer and lecturer on security topics. See <http://www.schneier.com>. Crypto-Gram is a personal newsletter. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of BT. Copyright (c) 2011 by Bruce Schneier. ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* To unsubscribe, click this link: http://listserv.modwest.com/cgi-bin/wa?TICKET=NzM0MzAxIGV1Z2VuQExFSVRMLk9SR… ----- 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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