July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

[serval-project-dev] Re: Serval Mesh
by Paul Wolstenholme 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Congratulations to the team on all the good work done to date. Paul Gardner-Stephen wrote "we also have ideas about how to provide financial incentive for users to participate fully in the mesh, but I am not in a position to describe that fully right now." I have been musing about exactly that issue (encouraging fair participation in a mesh network) for some time. This therefore seems to be a good time to introduce myself to the group and offer an alternative point of view: My background is that of an electrical engineer involved in communications and control systems, including product design. Don't let this first posting fool you. I have no political leanings or agenda and don't believe my suggestions here would apply to human society - just to a 'society' of meshed nodes... When designing a communication protocol, it is convenient to draw from and adapt our existing experience. I prefer to think of how cooperative people might interact with each other as a model for how mesh nodes might interact cooperatively. The use of currency in our society is a very familiar concept and we understand how it can encourage a degree of fairness in how we interact. Paul G-S has already noted some of the difficulties in implementing a currency electronically. I would like to add my observation that the use of currency doesn't result in the fair sharing of resources anyway since it results in very rich and very poor people. Perhaps we should be looking for a better solution both in terms of ease of implementation and the ability to achieve the desired outcome. So what traits of cooperative people can be applied to mesh nodes? Some people like to give away a proportion of what they have or receive for the purpose of helping others. The open source community who give the fruits of their spare-time labours for all to use are certainly an example. Some believe that new arrivals from other places should be considered worthy recipients for such generosity. Indeed, the open source community is known for welcoming newcomers and investing time in helping them learn to cooperate within the community. If mesh network nodes behaved in the same sort of way, we start to think of nodes that roam to a new network as a guest to welcome rather than a foreigner who shouldn't participate until his currency is converted. If we accept the concept of mesh nodes giving some service to other nodes for free, we are free to look at payment for service in a different way. By giving service (such as relaying messages) without agreeing a price and demanding verifiable payment beforehand, I expect the protocol could be simplified. That is not to say there is no payment. It is fair that the recipient of service offer a similar amount of service in return. Users that do play fairly in all respects increase the trust that the service provider has in the service user. It would be fair for a node to save most of its resource (bandwidth or battery energy) to serve nodes it trusts. The resources a node gives away without being paid in return could be limited to a fraction of the available resource. So the next question is as to what should constitute payment. For communication within a mesh network, a promise to relay messages should be payment enough for messages relayed. But how long does the promise need to be valid for? Traditional currency holds its value indefinitely while slowly losing value through inflation - all of which is difficult to model electronically. Realistically, a node that promises to relay messages isn't necessarily capable of keeping such promises for longer than the charge in its battery. Perhaps all such promises should be time-limited and expire if not used. I believe the time limit will help with record keeping - although I'm not sure how long the time limit should be. The more enduring record, however, should be the level of trust that one node has for another following many successful transactions. If the nodes in our mesh network behaved in this way, it would encourage a system where high users of communication traffic (meaning nodes sending lots of messages or sending messages over many hops) need to provide high levels of service to others in order to be trusted enough to get the service they want. If trust is built slowly, greed would be discouraged in the long term. This would not stop a highly trusted node from successsfuly requesting high levels of service on the odd ocassion when it is required. I could go on with musings about sharing credit (or promises of service) with those that are highly trusted or giving it away before it expires, but these are just thoughts for now. Proper modelling and implementation are beyond what I can envisage so far. I've never claimed to be good at presenting my ideas but I would be interested in hearing the shortcomings in this concept - and how they might be overcome. Personally, I think using the concept of trust means we can get away with short-term promises of service rather than standardising a currency. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Serval Project Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to serval-project-developers(a)googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to serval-project-developers+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/serval-project-developers?hl=en. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: [tor-talk] Forbes article: Tor and Bitcoin
by Gregory Maxwell 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 11:51 PM, grarpamp <grarpamp(a)gmail.com> wrote: > http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/06/19/torwallet-sparks-trust-wi… A word to the wise: Perhaps this is an earnest effort, but it's impossible to tell. From appearances it is indistinguishable from a scam which will accrue a large amount of third party owned bitcoin and either vanish or get "hacked". Promotion on the Forbes.com site shouldn't be taken to signify any evidence of reputability. I've seen first hand that they do not do much research for this sort of thing, and articles there have previously plugged services operated by people known to have stolen from others. Anonymity can an important tool for social good, but it can also be misused people should take great caution in handing over control of valuable information to parties that operate under the veil of anonymity. Many people have been robbed under similar circumstances. The open source Bitcoin client software runs excellently over Tor. If you want to use Bitcoin anonymously its a good combination and you don't need services like this website. The next major release of the Bitcoin software will feature much better support for inbound connections in hidden services and automatic hidden service peer discovery, making it work even better. _______________________________________________ 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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Re: [tor-talk] blocked exit node IP because of spam
by Gregory Maxwell 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 3:32 PM, Sam Whited <sam(a)samwhited.com> wrote: > Tor is designed to keep people anonymous; this works for both the good > guys, and the bad. This isn't something the Tor Project needs to fix There are things the tor project and surrounding community could do to help here. For example, If I could anonymously donate $10 to a charity and in return receive a persistent nym which I could use to get around those kinds of blocks... I'd be hesitant to misbehave and get my nym blocked. (And forums should feel good about whatever small residual amount of spammers who do buy donation nyms, because even though they spam their need to keep buying nyms support the charities). But no practical software infrastructure exists for this sort of thing today. And until it does any education/advocacy will not go too far because it doesn't offer much in terms of real alternatives. "It's not really so bad." "Yes it is, or we wouldn't have bothered putting in the blocking in the first place" "er.." _______________________________________________ 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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[johnmacsgroup] Computer Voting Expert, Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, Ousted From Elections Conference
by John F. McMullen 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Computer Voting Expert Ousted From Elections Conference Lynn Landes freelance journalist www.EcoTalk.org Denver CO Aug 1 - Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, a leading expert in voting machine security, had her conference credentials revoked by the president of the International Association of Clerks, Records, Election Officials, and Treasurers (IACREOT), Marianne Rickenbach. The annual IACREOT Conference and Trade Show, which showcases election systems to elections officials, is being held at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Denver all this week. Mercuri believes that her credentials were revoked because of her position in favor of voter-verified paper ballots for computerized election systems. "I guess in a very troubling way it makes sense that an organization like IACREOT, that supports paperless computerized voting systems, which are secret by their very design, would not want computer experts who disagree with that position at their meetings." Dr. Mercuri said that her credentials were approved for the first three days of the conference. She attended meetings of other groups and visited the exhibitors hall. But it was only on Thursday as she sat down to attend her first meeting at the IACREOT that President Marianne Rickenbach took Mercuri out of the room and told her that her credentials were being revoked. Rickenbach said that Mercuri had not filled out the forms correctly. Mercuri protested, but was refused reinstatement. David Chaum, the inventor of eCash and a member of Mercuri's 'voter-verified paper ballot' group, had his credentials revoked on the first day of the conference. On the second day his credentials were partially restored. Chaum was allowed to visit the exhibitors hall, but not attend the IACREOT meetings. Rickenbach was unavailable for comment as of this report. Mercuri can be reached at the Adam's Mark Hotel through Saturday. --------------------------- "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra "Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson "Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" - Pierre Abelard "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -- Arthur C. Clarke "Bobby Layne never lost a game. Time just ran out." -- Doak Walker John F. McMullen johnmac(a)acm.org ICQ: 4368412 Fax: (603) 288-8440 johnmac(a)cyberspace.org http://www.westnet.com/~observer NOYFB,P ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for Your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at Myinks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/sO0ANB/LIdGAA/ySSFAA/XgSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: johnmacsgroup-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- 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'

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Re: [liberationtech] Fw: Concept for takedown-resistant publishing
by Daniel Margo 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Let me try to explain what is and isn't technically difficult about this idea. Feel free to pass it around. I have cc'd the liberationtech list. Torrent is an open protocol. There are numerous open source torrent libraries. Opera can download torrents natively, for Firefox there are extensions to do this, and so far as I know every browser has some kind of plug-able framework for MIME type (Internet media type) handling. To have a browser download and then open a torrent of a page is totally realistic, and probably not that much code. The problem is that this is not the actual technical challenge. The actual challenges are these: 1. Name resolution: How do I find the torrent file, and then the P2P cloud itself? 2. Updates: How do I share a Web site as a living, updating document? 3. Server backend: Is it realistic to run a modern Web site without a client-server relationship? 1. Name resolution comes in two parts: finding the torrent file, and then finding the actual P2P cloud. Web sites like The Pirate Bay function as name resolution services for finding torrent files, but obviously any single such server can be blocked. What I presume we actually desire is a name resolution service just like DNS for Web sites: you type in a URL, it gets resolved to a torrent file. URLs have a hostname and a path, e.g. "www.hostname.com/path/to/torrent.file". "www.hostname.com" is resolved by DNS to a server, and then "/path/to/torrent.file" is resolved by that server. So unfortunately, you don't gain any takedown resistance by hosting your torrent file at "www.myserver.com/my.torrent", because if "www.myserver.com" is taken down, then "/my.torrent" can't be resolved. So what you would actually need is for DNS to provide hostname resolution directly into torrents. This is a sweet idea, but changing DNS is hard. Even if you could do that, well, what's in a "torrent file"? A torrent file contains information to get you joined into the P2P cloud; specifically, it contains the address of a tracker, a central server that gates entry into the cloud. If the tracker is down or blocked by some technology, you can't enter the cloud. This is primarily a weakness of the BitTorrent protocol, and not the idea itself; there are extensions to BitTorrent and other P2P protocols that are resilient to this weakness. But fundamentally, finding your way into the P2P cloud is an act of name resolution to find other peers in the cloud, which is most easily done by a name resolution server, in this case the tracker. If we're going about making changes to DNS, probably the most technically sane (but politically unrealistic) solution would be for DNS itself to provide tracking capability for the cloud. Again, that is a sweet idea, but changing DNS is hard. I don't mean to suggest these issues are insurmountable, merely that this is the actual Hard Part. 2. In order to support dynamic content there has to be a cryptographic distinction between updates coming from the legitimate publisher of the site (Alice), and subterfuge coming from Evil Eve. Cryptographic authentication might be authenticated by the data being shared (e.g. this data is signed by Alice, and everybody knows her signature) or by the P2P network itself (e.g. in addition to sharing the torrent, the servers also provide a distributed authentication service that will only accept updates signed by Alice). I am by no means an expert on this subject, so I will refrain from talking about it extensively, but I bring it up merely because cryptography is non-optional for any dynamic scheme, and I'm not aware of any update-able, cryptographically-secured P2P torrents. It sounds like maybe they should exist? It also sounds Hard, and Google isn't turning anything up. Again, I'm not suggesting these issues are insurmountable; in some sense Google Docs does all this. But they do it with a pretty sophisticated backend that glues many technologies together (I guarantee Google has a killer internal name resolution and authentication service), and I have no idea how Hard it would be to make those parts takedown-resistant (in the sense that there are no central servers. There are unquestionably central servers at Google). 3. The real elephant in the room is that modern Web sites are best thought of as programs, not files, and program distribution is infinitely harder than file distribution. When you visit a Wordpress blog, what you appear to receive is an HTML file: but in actuality that HTML was streamed by a PHP script running on the server talking to a MySQL database. The number of layers in this onion is arbitrary; it's anything you could run on a computer. Arbitrary code, or I could hook MSPaint up to the thing if I wanted it enough. Distributing *and executing* arbitrary code like this is Quite Possibly Impossible, and if it is possible it is Very Far Away. At any rate, BitTorrent can't do this. The word "arbitrary" is important. In specific cases, you can certainly find a case-specific resolution. Diaspora is building something like a distributed social network "program", and I do honestly believe that with a lot of code and hard thinking, you could distribute a Wordpress blog's backend on P2P. It would probably require a total rewrite of Wordpress such that it wouldn't even be the same piece of software, and you would have to solve the other Hard Problems above, but I think it is technically possible at this time. But in the general case, you might have more luck working towards a Singularity and then asking the Machine-Gods for an answer. What seems more realistic to me is taking snapshots of a Web site and distributing those as files instead, rather than trying to distribute the actual Web site program. That's why we designed Mirror As You Link to work that way. These are all the hard issues I can think of, as a technical person with some distributed systems background. There may be others, since in some cases we're really exploring uncharted waters here. - Daniel Margo On 02/02/2012 10:40 AM, Kendra Albert wrote: > Some interesting stuff > > --- > Kendra Albert > > Research Assistant to Jonathan Zittrain > Berkman Center for Internet and Society > Harvard University > > Forwarded message: > >> *From:* Jonathan Zittrain <zittrain(a)law.harvard.edu> >> *To:* Rob Faris <rfaris(a)cyber.law.harvard.edu> >> *Cc:* emstark(a)gmail.com, Kendra Albert >> <kalbert(a)cyber.law.harvard.edu>, Alicia Solow-Niederman (Google Docs) >> <asolowniederman(a)gmail.com> >> *Date:* Wednesday, February 1, 2012 6:08:49 PM >> *Subject:* Re: Fwd: [liberationtech] Concept for takedown-resistant >> publishing >> >> thanks >> >> At UTC-5 03:51 PM 2/1/2012, Rob Faris wrote: >>> I have no idea if this has any merit - but think of you when I see >>> content mirroring. >>> >>> >>> -------- Original Message -------- >>> Subject: [liberationtech] Concept for takedown-resistant publishing >>> Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:49:42 +0100 >>> From: Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) <lists(a)infosecurity.ch> >>> <mailto:lists@infosecurity.ch> >>> To: liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu >>> <mailto:liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu> >>> >>> >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> with a brainstorming with various persons it went out an idea of a >>> concept of a takedown-resistat publishing system for website. >>> >>> I'm writing here to submit the concept idea to contribution/critics, >>> maybe someone will do it someday (if feasible). >>> >>> I tried to abstract two concept: >>> >>> a) What is a website? >>> A website is a set of information (text/images) that can be accessed by >>> a user trough a web browser. >>> >>> b) What do you need to be takedown-resistant? >>> Have a lot of mirrors, on as many server as possible around the globe. >>> >>> c) How do you make a lot of mirror available? >>> By making use a very simple and diffused technology for the mirroring, >>> possibly something that's already diffused across a lot of users. >>> >>> d) Which is the most known/used information distribution/mirroring >>> system used nowday? >>> >>> Bittorrent P2P system. >>> Bittorrent is the system that today is most used to do file-sharing, >>> de-facto spreading, distributing, mirroring files. >>> Bittorrent software is widely available and heavily diffused among >>> users. >>> >>> So, if it would be possible to let a browser easily access the content >>> available on bittorrent, it would be possible to easily create a >>> scalable, distributed and resistant network of mirrors capable of >>> resisting takedown. >>> >>> Obviously this require: >>> - That the content on bittorrent should be file containing all the >>> elements of the website glued together >>> - That the web browser should have capability to access a such content >>> on Bittorrent >>> >>> I am not entering into the technological discussion, if it's feasible or >>> not feasible (maybe not, maybe yes). >>> >>> As a concept, what do you think? Other ideas/extensions? >>> >>> -naif >>> _______________________________________________ >>> liberationtech mailing list >>> >>> liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu <mailto:liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu> >>> >>> Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: >>> >>> >>> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech >>> >>> If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once >>> you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail >>> batched in a daily digest?" >>> >>> You will need the user name and password you receive from the list >>> moderator in monthly reminders. >>> >>> Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. >>> >>> Please don't forget to follow us on >>> >>> http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech <http://twitter.com/#%21/Liberationtech> > _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/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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Re: [tor-talk] blocked exit node IP because of spam
by antispam06＠sent.at 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Sun, Jul 1, 2012, at 15:32, Sam Whited wrote: > On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 3:17 PM, || N#NN || <manostienen(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > So spammers abuse tor... > > Yes, they always have, and probably always will. I feel there is a need to dispell some wonderful magic of the modern society: the World has always been large. Even if it takes a lot less to cover large distances, the World is still large. And that might mean, among others, diverse too. A second spell of the modern society is safety. The World has always been both comfortable and unsafe in various proportions. There are cries about protecting someone or something. But that was never ever in history a given. Oh, food should be free of additives like in the good old days. Actually in the good old days it was a lor more probable to eat rotten meat and not have the faintest idea that going vegan was an option. Sure, for the demigods breed in the last decades the spectre of cancer might mean dying of fear, but less than a century ago rotten food would mean potential death tomorrow as an alternative to starvation today. Phobos had a wonderful article about this recently on the Tor blog [https://blog.torproject.org/blog/real-name-internet-versus-reality] but people still expect that terrorism should come from a virtual entity far far away and not from the local corrupt cop [http://socialistworker.org/2012/06/21/nypd-kills-again] Myself I'm not shure all spammers turn a profit, but they all are ready to employ every mean available to push their merchandise. This doesn't mean checking the identity would do any good as they can impersonate anybody if willing. But that goes to the third issue of the modern society: mistaken an identity with a number. That would pretty much go with Michel Foucault and his prison society, because most people see themselves as obedient inmates. They are the national ID number or the SSN. And not much more. That's why there was so much fuss about the birth certificate of a presidential candidate and less about what the man was about to do. Back in the days when there was no registration people would build up some fame and invoke some ancestry. Or they were practically nobody. Up to a certain point in history everybody was an anonym and only few could break through to become somebody. Superficially things seem to have reversed, but it's a fake assumption. I still can't differentiate most of the people I pass each day. They are still nobodies. But they are proud to show a number: proof of uniqueness. > Tor is designed to keep people anonymous; this works for both the good > guys, and the bad. This isn't something the Tor Project needs to fix > except through continued marketing and education. I'd suggest emailing > the administrator of the forums you're having trouble with (and > possibly the IP blacklist site) and explain what Tor is, a bit about > how it works, and exactly why it's beneficial for them to whitelist > Tor exit nodes. Maybe you can convince them to change their minds. Actually blocking Tor won't help. A few sane filtering measures do. Have people create an account. Have someone take a look at that list from time to time. Generated or random users usually can be flagged easily. Ask people to do some customization to the account before posting. Quarantine the first few messages or a certain amount of time. Have a button or link called breportb and let the other users report messages. Quarantine the account and ask for an explanation from the offender. Blocking IPs makes sense only when you are Wikipedia and have a mission to let the government agencies have their fair chance of tweaking the facts. As I've never seen anything resembling closer the official newspaper of Airstrip One than Wikipedia. I don't feel Tor is designed to keep people anonymous. Tor is more of a hack to give back some privacy. To bring things more in line with the romantic image of the Internet. Because people want to see the Internet as a nice place where people go to share ideas and not what it is: a military project hack done by some unimaginative blokes who were happy to have things working so they could go to video games arcade or just sleep. Most of the protocols used to connect computers are horribly designed by people who can barely understand the concept of consequence. Probably it's not their fault as the educational system everywhere splits the curricula into sciences and humanities. And all the philosophy and ethics are given to the people with no tech background. _______________________________________________ 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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[johnmacsgroup] Computer Voting Expert, Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, Ousted From Elections Conference
by John F. McMullen 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Computer Voting Expert Ousted From Elections Conference Lynn Landes freelance journalist www.EcoTalk.org Denver CO Aug 1 - Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, a leading expert in voting machine security, had her conference credentials revoked by the president of the International Association of Clerks, Records, Election Officials, and Treasurers (IACREOT), Marianne Rickenbach. The annual IACREOT Conference and Trade Show, which showcases election systems to elections officials, is being held at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Denver all this week. Mercuri believes that her credentials were revoked because of her position in favor of voter-verified paper ballots for computerized election systems. "I guess in a very troubling way it makes sense that an organization like IACREOT, that supports paperless computerized voting systems, which are secret by their very design, would not want computer experts who disagree with that position at their meetings." Dr. Mercuri said that her credentials were approved for the first three days of the conference. She attended meetings of other groups and visited the exhibitors hall. But it was only on Thursday as she sat down to attend her first meeting at the IACREOT that President Marianne Rickenbach took Mercuri out of the room and told her that her credentials were being revoked. Rickenbach said that Mercuri had not filled out the forms correctly. Mercuri protested, but was refused reinstatement. David Chaum, the inventor of eCash and a member of Mercuri's 'voter-verified paper ballot' group, had his credentials revoked on the first day of the conference. On the second day his credentials were partially restored. Chaum was allowed to visit the exhibitors hall, but not attend the IACREOT meetings. Rickenbach was unavailable for comment as of this report. Mercuri can be reached at the Adam's Mark Hotel through Saturday. --------------------------- "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra "Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson "Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" - Pierre Abelard "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -- Arthur C. Clarke "Bobby Layne never lost a game. Time just ran out." -- Doak Walker John F. McMullen johnmac(a)acm.org ICQ: 4368412 Fax: (603) 288-8440 johnmac(a)cyberspace.org http://www.westnet.com/~observer NOYFB,P ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for Your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at Myinks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/sO0ANB/LIdGAA/ySSFAA/XgSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: johnmacsgroup-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- 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'

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Re: [liberationtech] Fw: Concept for takedown-resistant publishing
by Daniel Margo 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Let me try to explain what is and isn't technically difficult about this idea. Feel free to pass it around. I have cc'd the liberationtech list. Torrent is an open protocol. There are numerous open source torrent libraries. Opera can download torrents natively, for Firefox there are extensions to do this, and so far as I know every browser has some kind of plug-able framework for MIME type (Internet media type) handling. To have a browser download and then open a torrent of a page is totally realistic, and probably not that much code. The problem is that this is not the actual technical challenge. The actual challenges are these: 1. Name resolution: How do I find the torrent file, and then the P2P cloud itself? 2. Updates: How do I share a Web site as a living, updating document? 3. Server backend: Is it realistic to run a modern Web site without a client-server relationship? 1. Name resolution comes in two parts: finding the torrent file, and then finding the actual P2P cloud. Web sites like The Pirate Bay function as name resolution services for finding torrent files, but obviously any single such server can be blocked. What I presume we actually desire is a name resolution service just like DNS for Web sites: you type in a URL, it gets resolved to a torrent file. URLs have a hostname and a path, e.g. "www.hostname.com/path/to/torrent.file". "www.hostname.com" is resolved by DNS to a server, and then "/path/to/torrent.file" is resolved by that server. So unfortunately, you don't gain any takedown resistance by hosting your torrent file at "www.myserver.com/my.torrent", because if "www.myserver.com" is taken down, then "/my.torrent" can't be resolved. So what you would actually need is for DNS to provide hostname resolution directly into torrents. This is a sweet idea, but changing DNS is hard. Even if you could do that, well, what's in a "torrent file"? A torrent file contains information to get you joined into the P2P cloud; specifically, it contains the address of a tracker, a central server that gates entry into the cloud. If the tracker is down or blocked by some technology, you can't enter the cloud. This is primarily a weakness of the BitTorrent protocol, and not the idea itself; there are extensions to BitTorrent and other P2P protocols that are resilient to this weakness. But fundamentally, finding your way into the P2P cloud is an act of name resolution to find other peers in the cloud, which is most easily done by a name resolution server, in this case the tracker. If we're going about making changes to DNS, probably the most technically sane (but politically unrealistic) solution would be for DNS itself to provide tracking capability for the cloud. Again, that is a sweet idea, but changing DNS is hard. I don't mean to suggest these issues are insurmountable, merely that this is the actual Hard Part. 2. In order to support dynamic content there has to be a cryptographic distinction between updates coming from the legitimate publisher of the site (Alice), and subterfuge coming from Evil Eve. Cryptographic authentication might be authenticated by the data being shared (e.g. this data is signed by Alice, and everybody knows her signature) or by the P2P network itself (e.g. in addition to sharing the torrent, the servers also provide a distributed authentication service that will only accept updates signed by Alice). I am by no means an expert on this subject, so I will refrain from talking about it extensively, but I bring it up merely because cryptography is non-optional for any dynamic scheme, and I'm not aware of any update-able, cryptographically-secured P2P torrents. It sounds like maybe they should exist? It also sounds Hard, and Google isn't turning anything up. Again, I'm not suggesting these issues are insurmountable; in some sense Google Docs does all this. But they do it with a pretty sophisticated backend that glues many technologies together (I guarantee Google has a killer internal name resolution and authentication service), and I have no idea how Hard it would be to make those parts takedown-resistant (in the sense that there are no central servers. There are unquestionably central servers at Google). 3. The real elephant in the room is that modern Web sites are best thought of as programs, not files, and program distribution is infinitely harder than file distribution. When you visit a Wordpress blog, what you appear to receive is an HTML file: but in actuality that HTML was streamed by a PHP script running on the server talking to a MySQL database. The number of layers in this onion is arbitrary; it's anything you could run on a computer. Arbitrary code, or I could hook MSPaint up to the thing if I wanted it enough. Distributing *and executing* arbitrary code like this is Quite Possibly Impossible, and if it is possible it is Very Far Away. At any rate, BitTorrent can't do this. The word "arbitrary" is important. In specific cases, you can certainly find a case-specific resolution. Diaspora is building something like a distributed social network "program", and I do honestly believe that with a lot of code and hard thinking, you could distribute a Wordpress blog's backend on P2P. It would probably require a total rewrite of Wordpress such that it wouldn't even be the same piece of software, and you would have to solve the other Hard Problems above, but I think it is technically possible at this time. But in the general case, you might have more luck working towards a Singularity and then asking the Machine-Gods for an answer. What seems more realistic to me is taking snapshots of a Web site and distributing those as files instead, rather than trying to distribute the actual Web site program. That's why we designed Mirror As You Link to work that way. These are all the hard issues I can think of, as a technical person with some distributed systems background. There may be others, since in some cases we're really exploring uncharted waters here. - Daniel Margo On 02/02/2012 10:40 AM, Kendra Albert wrote: > Some interesting stuff > > --- > Kendra Albert > > Research Assistant to Jonathan Zittrain > Berkman Center for Internet and Society > Harvard University > > Forwarded message: > >> *From:* Jonathan Zittrain <zittrain(a)law.harvard.edu> >> *To:* Rob Faris <rfaris(a)cyber.law.harvard.edu> >> *Cc:* emstark(a)gmail.com, Kendra Albert >> <kalbert(a)cyber.law.harvard.edu>, Alicia Solow-Niederman (Google Docs) >> <asolowniederman(a)gmail.com> >> *Date:* Wednesday, February 1, 2012 6:08:49 PM >> *Subject:* Re: Fwd: [liberationtech] Concept for takedown-resistant >> publishing >> >> thanks >> >> At UTC-5 03:51 PM 2/1/2012, Rob Faris wrote: >>> I have no idea if this has any merit - but think of you when I see >>> content mirroring. >>> >>> >>> -------- Original Message -------- >>> Subject: [liberationtech] Concept for takedown-resistant publishing >>> Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:49:42 +0100 >>> From: Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) <lists(a)infosecurity.ch> >>> <mailto:lists@infosecurity.ch> >>> To: liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu >>> <mailto:liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu> >>> >>> >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> with a brainstorming with various persons it went out an idea of a >>> concept of a takedown-resistat publishing system for website. >>> >>> I'm writing here to submit the concept idea to contribution/critics, >>> maybe someone will do it someday (if feasible). >>> >>> I tried to abstract two concept: >>> >>> a) What is a website? >>> A website is a set of information (text/images) that can be accessed by >>> a user trough a web browser. >>> >>> b) What do you need to be takedown-resistant? >>> Have a lot of mirrors, on as many server as possible around the globe. >>> >>> c) How do you make a lot of mirror available? >>> By making use a very simple and diffused technology for the mirroring, >>> possibly something that's already diffused across a lot of users. >>> >>> d) Which is the most known/used information distribution/mirroring >>> system used nowday? >>> >>> Bittorrent P2P system. >>> Bittorrent is the system that today is most used to do file-sharing, >>> de-facto spreading, distributing, mirroring files. >>> Bittorrent software is widely available and heavily diffused among >>> users. >>> >>> So, if it would be possible to let a browser easily access the content >>> available on bittorrent, it would be possible to easily create a >>> scalable, distributed and resistant network of mirrors capable of >>> resisting takedown. >>> >>> Obviously this require: >>> - That the content on bittorrent should be file containing all the >>> elements of the website glued together >>> - That the web browser should have capability to access a such content >>> on Bittorrent >>> >>> I am not entering into the technological discussion, if it's feasible or >>> not feasible (maybe not, maybe yes). >>> >>> As a concept, what do you think? Other ideas/extensions? >>> >>> -naif >>> _______________________________________________ >>> liberationtech mailing list >>> >>> liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu <mailto:liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu> >>> >>> Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: >>> >>> >>> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech >>> >>> If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once >>> you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail >>> batched in a daily digest?" >>> >>> You will need the user name and password you receive from the list >>> moderator in monthly reminders. >>> >>> Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. >>> >>> Please don't forget to follow us on >>> >>> http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech <http://twitter.com/#%21/Liberationtech> > _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/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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Re: [tor-talk] blocked exit node IP because of spam
by antispam06＠sent.at 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Sun, Jul 1, 2012, at 15:32, Sam Whited wrote: > On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 3:17 PM, || N#NN || <manostienen(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > So spammers abuse tor... > > Yes, they always have, and probably always will. I feel there is a need to dispell some wonderful magic of the modern society: the World has always been large. Even if it takes a lot less to cover large distances, the World is still large. And that might mean, among others, diverse too. A second spell of the modern society is safety. The World has always been both comfortable and unsafe in various proportions. There are cries about protecting someone or something. But that was never ever in history a given. Oh, food should be free of additives like in the good old days. Actually in the good old days it was a lor more probable to eat rotten meat and not have the faintest idea that going vegan was an option. Sure, for the demigods breed in the last decades the spectre of cancer might mean dying of fear, but less than a century ago rotten food would mean potential death tomorrow as an alternative to starvation today. Phobos had a wonderful article about this recently on the Tor blog [https://blog.torproject.org/blog/real-name-internet-versus-reality] but people still expect that terrorism should come from a virtual entity far far away and not from the local corrupt cop [http://socialistworker.org/2012/06/21/nypd-kills-again] Myself I'm not shure all spammers turn a profit, but they all are ready to employ every mean available to push their merchandise. This doesn't mean checking the identity would do any good as they can impersonate anybody if willing. But that goes to the third issue of the modern society: mistaken an identity with a number. That would pretty much go with Michel Foucault and his prison society, because most people see themselves as obedient inmates. They are the national ID number or the SSN. And not much more. That's why there was so much fuss about the birth certificate of a presidential candidate and less about what the man was about to do. Back in the days when there was no registration people would build up some fame and invoke some ancestry. Or they were practically nobody. Up to a certain point in history everybody was an anonym and only few could break through to become somebody. Superficially things seem to have reversed, but it's a fake assumption. I still can't differentiate most of the people I pass each day. They are still nobodies. But they are proud to show a number: proof of uniqueness. > Tor is designed to keep people anonymous; this works for both the good > guys, and the bad. This isn't something the Tor Project needs to fix > except through continued marketing and education. I'd suggest emailing > the administrator of the forums you're having trouble with (and > possibly the IP blacklist site) and explain what Tor is, a bit about > how it works, and exactly why it's beneficial for them to whitelist > Tor exit nodes. Maybe you can convince them to change their minds. Actually blocking Tor won't help. A few sane filtering measures do. Have people create an account. Have someone take a look at that list from time to time. Generated or random users usually can be flagged easily. Ask people to do some customization to the account before posting. Quarantine the first few messages or a certain amount of time. Have a button or link called breportb and let the other users report messages. Quarantine the account and ask for an explanation from the offender. Blocking IPs makes sense only when you are Wikipedia and have a mission to let the government agencies have their fair chance of tweaking the facts. As I've never seen anything resembling closer the official newspaper of Airstrip One than Wikipedia. I don't feel Tor is designed to keep people anonymous. Tor is more of a hack to give back some privacy. To bring things more in line with the romantic image of the Internet. Because people want to see the Internet as a nice place where people go to share ideas and not what it is: a military project hack done by some unimaginative blokes who were happy to have things working so they could go to video games arcade or just sleep. Most of the protocols used to connect computers are horribly designed by people who can barely understand the concept of consequence. Probably it's not their fault as the educational system everywhere splits the curricula into sciences and humanities. And all the philosophy and ethics are given to the people with no tech background. _______________________________________________ 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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Re: [drone-list] The Brookings Institution 21CSI
by Gregory Foster 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Brookings (Mar 8) - "The Predator Comes Home: A Primer on Domestic Drones, their Huge Business Opportunities, and their Deep Political, Moral, and Legal Challenges" by Peter W. Singer: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/03/08-drones-singer HT @BrookingsFP: http://twitter.com/BrookingsFP/status/311838729373364225 gf On 3/13/13 8:55 AM, Gregory Foster wrote: > Congratulations to Peter W. Singer, appointed to lead Brookings' new > Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence (21CSI), with > programs focusing on defense policy, intelligence, arms control, and > cybersecurity. > > Brookings (Mar 12) - "Brookings Launches the Center for 21st Century > Security and Intelligence (21CSI)": > http://www.brookings.edu/about/media-resources/news-releases/2013/0312-secu… > > > > HT @peterwsinger: > http://twitter.com/peterwsinger/status/311834859108720640 > > gf -- Gregory Foster || gfoster(a)entersection.org @gregoryfoster <> http://entersection.com/ -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys(a)stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/drone-list ----- 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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