July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

[IP] fingerprinting in Japan letter from Privacy Internationa
by David Farber 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

1 0

The use of malicious botnets to disrupt The Onion Router
by Ron Wireman 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

It seems to me that we owe a lot the roughly 1,500 people who donate their bandwidth to our project at any one time. They give us a tremendous gift that allows us to participate in unpopular or even dangerous political speech and debate, to by-pass inappropriately restrictive filters, and to limit the amount of information about ourselves that we reveal to the organizations who run the Internet sites we access. I don't wish to divulge some of the ways in which I've used tor to protect myself, but I'm sure all of you reading this list can think of many examples where it has assisted you in your own life and most of you use it on a frequent basis. All of this comes at the cost of time and money from many volunteers who receive no benefit whatsoever from relaying your traffic for you. It seems to me, however, that even this gracious act of charity may be no match for the types of attacks we may be faced with as we become more popular and, as a result, more of a target. The number of users running tor nodes pales in comparison to the number of computers that may be in any one of the many individual botnets, which are groups of hijacked computers controlled in unison by a single entity. The largest of these botnets ever discovered had over 1,000 times the number of nodes that tor does. What happens when one of these botnets are commanded to join tor all at once and begin harvesting private data that people naively did not encrypt or, worse, replacing all pictures requested with goatse.jpg? These and other malicious acts could easily take place, perhaps even perpetrated by a malevolent government entity, and would cause significant disruption to our router. We must take expedient measures to prevent this type of attack, because as of now, tor is quite vulnerable, perhaps even critically so. The group of computers that make up the official Network Time Protocol pool, a network that is used to provide extremely accurate time synchronization for millions of computers around the world, has a manually administrated list. Since it has about as many nodes on it as tor has, it suggests that maintaining such a list would not be difficult. It seems to me that this would be an excellent way to prevent a node flood attack. Without it, tor will be rot. Awaiting your comments anxiously, Ron Wireman ----- 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

1 0

Bit of justice, all charges dropped against Tor-operator
by M 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Hi all! As I informed this maillist my companys servers (including finnish tor-exit-node) were taken by the finnisih police circa january 2008. They were very rude and called me a pedophile etc. Really nice to know that police is your friend :P... Few days ago I got a letter from the department of justice, they are not going to press any charges 'cause they finally realised that my server was just relaying traffic and that is not a crime. I've been waiting that letter for many months and I'm really glad they finally made a wise decision. Now I'm going to consult my lawyer and possibly going to demand compensation for my losses. I had to buy new servers, restore everything from backups, help the "Central Crime Police" (KRP) because I was'nt using Windows but Debian GNU/Linux and full encryption (aes-cbc-essiv:sha256). Also all the sites, domains and email-services I hosted were down about 48 hours and customers do not like that. Wish me luck =) M ----- 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

1 0

Re: [IP] Your people are growing increasingly worried about a
by Brad Templeton 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

'police state.' For such an educated audience, >Subj: Your people are growing increasingly worried about a 'police >state.' >For such an educated audience, they seem to lack any sense of >proportion, a sense of history or an > awareness of human nature. > Indeed, as you cite, there are many police states and history is littered with ones that have risen and fallen as well. Each time a police state rose, there were those who cried that a police state was coming and were called paranoid. There were those who actively assisted the police state in coming, seeking the security it promised. There were those who assisted the police state in coming, not wanting one, but feeling those who called out the warnings were paranoid. There were those who said and did nothing. Free states are the abberation in the history of mankind. Police states (for the level of technology of the day) the norm. So perhaps when Mr. Ashcroft erodes civil rights, you can make a valid claim that it introduces only a very slight risk of a police state, or is only the start of a trend. How much risk is enough? If events only presented a 1% chance of taking the path to a police state, would you want to tolerate it? Would you find it acceptable to teeter on the edge of a police state, because you were still on the free side of the line? Often, in the defence of free speech, we find ourselves defending people expressing ideas we loathe. Nazis, pedophiles and other scum. We do it not because we welcome a world full of their messages, but because we know that if the Holocaust deniers can publish, we are _really, really_ sure that we can publish. It's not paranoia. ------------------------------------- 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: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

1 0

[IP] Your people are growing increasingly worried about a 'police
by David Farber 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

state.' For such an educated audience, X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.618) Reply-To: dave(a)farber.net Begin forwarded message:

1 0

New Technique Could Trace Documents By Printer
by brian-slashdotnews＠hyperreal.org 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Link: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/14/1742224 Posted by: timothy, on 2004-10-14 18:28:00 from the better-than-a-notch-in-the-e dept. An anonymous reader submits "From [1]this article at Purdue News, 'Researchers at Purdue University have developed a method that will enable authorities to trace documents to specific printers, a technique law-enforcement agencies could use to investigate counterfeiting, forgeries and homeland security matters.' The neat thing is that they are exploiting the characteristics of the print process itself to identify the printer." One of the folks e-mailed me to say that [2]the HP LaserJet 9000dn was one of the big ones tested with. IFRAME: [3]pos6 References 1. http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/2004/041011.Delp.forensics.html 2. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/page.pl?tid=10541 3. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=2936&alloc_id=10685&site_id=1&request_id=2825914 ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

1 0

Re: Kaspersky wants to make Tor illegal and supports a globalized policed internet.
by Jacob Todd 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 04:38:57AM -0700, Kyle Williams wrote: > I just read two articles that moved me to bring this to the attention > of others. Kaspersky Labs thinks anonymity is the problem with the > Internet. > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/16/kaspersky_rebukes_net_anonymity/ > " > In Kaspersky's world, services such asB PsiphonB andB The Onion Router > (Tor)B - which are legitimately used by Chinese dissidents and Google > users alike to shield personally identifiable information - would no > longer be legal. Or at least they'd have to be redesigned from the > ground up to give police the ability to surveil them. That's not the > kind of world many law-abiding citizens would feel comfortable > inhabiting. > " > > He's talking about supporting a police state, where the "law" can > watch everything you do. > > http://www.zdnetasia.com/insight/security/0,39044829,62058697,00.htm > " > [Q:] Are you saying that people often don't understand the > complexities of the work security researchers are involved in? > Consumers, businesses and even governments? > [A:] Governments do understand because they are more and more in touch > with these problems. Enterprises, big enterprises, some of them have > dedicated teams of security experts and they really understand what's > going on. Consumers generally have no clue, but they don't need to > understand. > " > > The only thing that works better than his A/V software is a well > informed and educated user. > My mom didn't know shit about what to do and not to do on the Internet > and downloaded everything that was free, and that's why I would have > to "fix" his computer every few months even though she uses AVG and > SpyBot. Finally I sat her down, explained to her why this was > happening, and told her not to do that anymore if she wanted her > computer to work right. She listened, and hasn't had any serious > problems for a few years now. > > From the same article... > " > [Q:] If you had the power to change up to three things in the world > today that are related to IT security, what would they be? > [A:] Internet design--that's enough. > > [Q:] That's it? What's wrong with the design of the Internet? > [A:] There's anonymity. Everyone should and must have an > identification, or Internet passport. The Internet was designed not > for public use, but for American scientists and the U.S. military. > That was just a limited group of people--hundreds, or maybe thousands. > Then it was introduced to the public and it was wrongb&to introduce it > in the same way. > I'd like to change the design of the Internet by introducing > regulation--Internet passports, Internet police and international > agreement--about following Internet standards. And if some countries > don't agree with or don't pay attention to the agreement, just cut > them off. > " > > This is scary talk from a man who owns the largest anti-virus company > in the eastern hemisphere. Read these articles, and you'll see this > guy talks about a global "Internet police" or "Internet Interpol". > That's serious globalization talk from someone who millions trust to > protect their computers. All they need to do is label some code as > malicious, and it'll be removed from your PC after the next A/V > update....even if you use it to regain lost civil liberties. How long > until Kaspersky labels Tor a trojan or virus? If that happens, then > what? > > People who seek to control society fear society having anonymity, for > it's with anonymity that society can stand up against corruption of > the state when it occurs. The latest Iran election and the actions > that followed are a great example of this, and it's was technology > such as Tor that helped them get the truth out about what was being > done. When was the last time a trojan horse or virus helped a country > regain liberty or help bypass censorship? To treat Tor as such > malware is down right insulting to people's rights everywhere. > > Normally I would never think about the following, but as a developer, > I'm weighing the idea of detecting, disabling, and/or deleting > Kaspersky before installing any of the projects I work on. Such > action should be brought to the users attention, and the action to do > something about it should be evoked by the user. However, if > Kaspersky does go too far and labels Tor as malware, you can be damn > sure JanusVM, *maybe* Tor VM, and Chromium Browser VM will take > automated action to prevent itself from being attacked by Kaspersky > products, and will do so in a very harsh way. > > Something worth noting, today's A/V solutions do not scan inside > virtual machines and would not be able to detect Tor easily. Use > encryption with the VM and it'll be impossible for any A/V product to > scan the data inside. If you use an external anonymity device like > januspa or a linux router + Tor, then you would not feel the affects > of bad A/V software against your anonymity. > > Personally, I will be encouraging everyone I know to stay as far away > from this company and their products simply out of principle at this > point. I had no problem with Kaspersky until I read this. If > Kaspersky is going to treat non malicious software as malware, then we > might as well treat their software with the same regard. > > Spread the word, Kaspersky Labs is not a friend of Tor. > > Best regards, > Kyle > > "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do > nothing." - Edmund Burke > *********************************************************************** > To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to majordomo(a)torproject.org with > unsubscribe or-talk in the body. http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/ Thanks for the link. While I don't see this as a threat in the US, some East Asian countires wouldn't surprise me if they did similar to this. -- Jake Todd // If it isn't broke, tweak it! ----- 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

1 0

Re: [declan@well.com: [Politech] E.U. Parliament votes to force "data
by Roger Dingledine 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

retention" on telecom, Net firms [priv]] User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i Reply-To: or-talk(a)freehaven.net On Thu, Dec 15, 2005 at 01:20:19AM -0500, Jeffrey F. Bloss wrote: > On Wednesday 14 December 2005 08:00 pm, nile wrote: > > Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe the laws do not require > > holding onto the content of the call/data, just the routing information > > or phone numbers. If so, it's interesting to note that that's exactly > > what Tor is for - defeating _traffic_ analysis. > > It seems to me that traffic analysis is the one major thing Tor is susceptible > to. Being a real time, the Tor network can be compromised by someone who has > the ability to colate ingress and egress traffic, and this legislation gives > the "EU" the ability to sit back and examine an entire regional network at > its leisure. [snip] > Prior to this "broad" loggin being in place it would have been necessary for > Johnny Law to have some prior knowledge. They'd have to suspect Joe, and then > invest the time and resources in logging both Joe and the blog site. Now, > they can simply sift through the already collected data looking for people > who use Tor connections at the same time the blog is accessed. Alas, I think Jeffrey has it right. Tor aims to provide protection in a scenario where the adversary cannot observe the whole network (or a substantial piece of it). The EU data retention directives directly threaten the security that the current Tor design can provide. There are some anonymity designs that aim to provide protection against this strong level of adversary -- see e.g. http://mixminion.net/ -- but they carry unacceptably high latency for Tor-style connections. As I understand it we're still a ways off from understanding exactly what laws will be passed in each country, and only a while after that will we start to understand what each law will mean. It may turn out to be impractical (or illegal) to put out a blanket query to every ISP in Europe saying "please tell me all users who connected to any of the following 1000 IP addresses in this 10 second period". But even so, once we have a sense of what sorts of attacks are likely, we can also start looking at some specialized padding techniques for Tor users to blend together better without paying too high a price in overhead. The goal is not to beat arbitrary statistical attacks, but to increase false positives (and maybe false negatives) with respect to specific attacks. We may also be able to take advantage of the fact that these adversaries are only partial attackers: even in the best attacks they can only observe perhaps half the network. We may be able to arrange things to increase the doubt in their findings -- though as Jeffrey points out, a patient attacker will use statistics to become increasingly convinced that he has found his target. It really is a shame that Europe has chosen to cripple the security of its citizens and companies in this way. The bad people will continue to break laws and not get caught by this (breaking into computers around the world and using them as stepping stones, using open wireless networks, using botnets, you name it), and honest people and organizations in Europe will always be wondering who has broken into their ISP and grabbed their traffic data -- for espionage, for advertising purposes, for stalking, for who knows. This is reminiscent of the U.S.'s earlier crypto export fiasco, when they chose to undermine their position as the world leader in cryptography, as well as ensure that the good guys were vulnerable while the bad guys were safe. I wonder how this one will turn out. --Roger ----- 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]

1 0

Legal FAQs on NSA Wiretaps
by Peter Swire 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Dave: I have written ?Legal FAQs on NSA Wiretaps.? It just went up at www.americanprogress.org/FAQswiretaps and www.peterswire.net. There is a short executive summary, and also more detailed Q&As. The intent is to write for a smart lay audience, and not only for lawyers. The hope is to update over time. It reaches very different conclusions from the ?Myths and Realities about NSA Wiretaps? that the Justice Department posted today. Best, Peter Prof. Peter P. Swire C. William O'Neill Professor Moritz College of Law of the Ohio State University Visiting Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress (240) 994-4142, www.peterswire.net ------------------------------------- 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]

1 0

[IP] Legal FAQs on NSA Wiretaps
by David Farber 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

1 0