- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

[>Htech] A gift for language (fwd)
by Eugene Leitl 23 Dec '01

23 Dec '01

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.leitl.org 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 00:11:10 -0500 From: Brian Atkins <brian(a)posthuman.com> Reply-To: transhumantech(a)yahoogroups.com To: "transhumantech(a)yahoogroups.com" <transhumantech(a)yahoogroups.com> Subject: [>Htech] A gift for language You can use winzip to determine what language or even what author a small piece of text is from: http://pil.phys.uniroma1.it/~loreto/press.html (I got this from new scientist dead tree, but this .ps file is all I can find quickly) -- Brian Atkins Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.singinst.org/ ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Access Your PC from Anywhere - Full setup in 2 minutes - Free Download http://us.click.yahoo.com/1GUySC/E6eDAA/ySSFAA/PMYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -----BEGIN TRANSHUMANTECH SIGNATURE----- Post message: transhumantech(a)yahoogroups.com Subscribe: transhumantech-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: transhumantech-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com List owner: transhumantech-owner(a)yahoogroups.com List home: http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/transhumantech/ -----END TRANSHUMANTECH SIGNATURE----- Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

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Re: More on remailers
by Ryan Lackey 23 Dec '01

23 Dec '01

> What do you mean, "no client software"? How do you propose to get > secure anonymous mail without client software? I'm arguing that with less anonymity than the current mixmaster network, but with greater ease of use, you could have superior experiences. Specifically using standard MUAs, like MS Outlook, which include SMTP-TLS and IMAP-SSL; operate as a normal user, with the normal MS-default MUA, connecting to a remotely maintained mailserver which filters attachments, keeps no logs, and is optionally implemented in tamper-resistant hardware with published code. Located in a jurisdiction and a network environment where, provided an AUP is complied with, subpoenas or denial of service are at least as unlikely as shutdown of the aggregate of most major mixmaster remailer nodes today. "Click here for an offshore anonymous mailbox" is a lot easier than reading even a simple description of mixmaster remailer theory. Sheep use it in unencrypted-message, unencrypted-mailbox, pseudonymous, linkable, communicate-via-SSL, download-on-message-receipt mode. Wolves can operate in a way which is indistinguishable to casual observation, but with encrypted message contents, and possibly with redirection via reply-blocks through remailers, or remailed to an address through the remailer network normally, or encrypted and deposited to a web server which also contains mailing list archives in SSL, or to a usenet group with wide distribution. I want something *I* would use, ultimately. I both trust myself not to violate my own privacy, and am lazy on a day to day basis. > 2-way communications Oh, certainly group-mediated communication is interesting -- and the Beale Screamer incident was one of the few highly worthwhile uses of remailers I've seen since running one. I'm concerned that if remailers have only a bad rep, it will be easier to criminalize their operation, and they will be persecuted more by network administrators (rather than operated, or at least benignly ignored) IRC servers are already prohibited on various colo/leased circuits, even though they're legal, due to technical and social issues.. Same with spam. Users won't be drawn to use technology which has a reputation of being used primarily for harrassment; if sending an anonymous message to someone is more likely to have it ignored or otherwise not taken seriously than sending a non-anonymous message. Already (from reading abuse(a)remailer.havenco.com) I've seen that a lot of abuse@network addresses refuse to act based on messages sent via anonymous remailers. If they were instead sent through a pseudonymous system with some accountability/linkability/cheap-way-to-do-reputation, or indistinguishable from non-remailer mail (by hosting domains and sending under that domain), or a 2-way system where the abuse desk could contact the user making a complaint and interact, they'd be taken more seriously. I'd like anonymous email to accomplish something more than just sending messages anonymously to one another as today; I'd like it to serve as an example of why cryptography, anonymization, and other techniques are things which should be widely supported. For that to happen, someone needs to be able to communicate why it should be used in a convincing way to reporters, show them how to use it, and then convince the mass-market that participating in some way is something they should be doing. "If you support freedom of speech, send anonymous email through mixmaster remailers" is less likely to work than "if you support freedom of speech, make sure your ISP supports "secure (ssl) mail" and click the "use SSL" option in your copy of MS Outlook. SSL for http has done a good thing by getting people to associate crypto and (financial) privacy and security; pushing SSL email could do the same thing for privacy. Recent hassle over 802.11b encryption, open networks, etc. is perhaps an inspiring sign -- once it became widely reported (due initially to pete shipley coming up with a cute name for something he was doing, I think), it became "the cool thing" to use encryption on your 802.11b network; the WEP break notwithstanding, people went from using no crypto to lame-but-better-than-nothing crypto in larger numbers per unit time than I've seen before. I don't really care about privacy for random stupid people as an end in itself, but I need the cover traffic. Rather than making people smarter, I'd rather make the crypto stupider, or at least easier to use poorly. (when ecash happens, this will be even more important, but luckily paying people anonymously and doing unobservable finance is a compelling end-user application, given a good ui) > [email vs. communicating anonymously] Oh, I certainly agree on this -- I'd love to see a great p2p system which protected privacy while moving *large* files (upper bound, say 1GB DivX movies). Trading pr0n warez DivX is a compelling end-user app. Yet, for these, latency *is not* as serious a concern as human interaction. If I were designing the ultimate p2p system, I'd do: [note: this is a 6 paragraph digression from the topic at hand] * Small fast 2-way anonymous interactive network for sending control information...maybe the lower bound is being able to do 100bps constant-rate to the cloud of actual information, constantly send dummy traffic. * Searches which operate remotely, so you don't need to download index info from every server, just results * High-bandwidth, async, high-latency transport for sending files. Maybe multicast, using a multicast transport. I can do VSAT in US/EU for something like USD 3k/month to broadcast 34Mbps...you could broadcast a stream of random encrypted data and then distribute keys separately after the file is distributed widely. (it's called "Usenet", and there are a bunch of VSAT-based usenet delivery services, a friend of mine used to run one). Just auto-couriering stuff onto rooted servers and publishing the URL over the 2-way anonymous network is probably fine, if the end-user's anonymity is not required. * The ability to do something like say "I want all kiddie porn featuring anal penetration of older than 3 but younger than 6, wearing red t-shirts" and have these files appear over the next 6 months -- "subscribe" to a search, vs. doing a search repeatedly. (Ideally you'd request files in a way where you offer ecash for them...if I want a CD, I might be willing to pay enough to make it worthwhile for someone to purchase, encode, and upload it, then recursive auctions and all that...) (all of these concepts have been discussed or used in various p2p systems...I only mention them as a way to avoid the necessity for a low-latency, high-bandwidth, high-anonymity channel for every single user of a file sharing system) [end digression] I think "email", which I take to mean "15 second to 5 day latency, under 40KB, armored text unidirectional messaging with rfc822 headers prepended, no return receipts or delivery confirmation, best effort, store and forward, delivery-time-uncertain" is a pretty general technology. Unless you're concerned about reliable delivery and receipts, or substantially deviating from anonymous-mix-email's latency/bandwidth regime, I don't see much point in doing anything but email. MTAs don't suck that much these days -- postfix is a lot better at what it does, specifically, than any "cypherpunk" I've ever seen. Building a tolerable p2p system which used *just* mixmaster and rooted cablemodem-hosted boxes would be entirely possible, but pretty boring. Pipenet is very interesting; I'd certainly run few 10Mbps nodes for experimental value. But it would be hard to do cost-recovery on a pipenet except for small (control?) data, or multicast. Until the risks of being identified as an end-user in the warez game are increased to criminal, and the profusion of easily-routed throwaway servers dries up (hah), there won't be a way to charge enough to make it worthwhile for unicast media object transport. Realtime chat, though, would be a killer app for pipenet -- fairly multicast, low bitrate, 512Kbps DSL users could be first-class nodes, "legally compelling" (it's user to user human speech, so courts are less likely to be able to categorically hate on it enough to shut down nodes), lots of users (I'm sure you could get 100k users for the new cool kids IRC replacement, with end to end security, on the fly group creation, less key management/channel management issues than irc, group chat, good clients, ease of installation, etc. with no trouble, and maybe a few million users over time. Add some bots, which can migrate, and it starts to be really interesting.) I'd always assumed all nodes on a pipenet were first-class; if you're talking about a pipenet with leaves, then yeah, you'd want a constant-bitrate channel in. Raph was disliking gale's lack of anonymity; anonymous realtime human-human and group messaging is probably more reasonable than I thought at the time. The unimplemented but academically-interesting alternate mixes proposed would maybe be just as good as a pipenet; ideally you'd be deploying all of these in a framework which allowed different transports, but provided common keying, addressing, and external API. Maybe I've contradicted my earlier argument against interesting new p2p software -- I think for "bread and butter" secure *email* you might as well use a decent SSL mail server with optional ubobservable I/O instead of mixmaster, but for something closer to chat, the new stuff might be interesting. Mixmaster is in the middle ground between the two; it should go to one side of the road or the other. > [ecash needing something other than mail as transport] If you're doing an ecash system which has >8KB/message and more than, say, 5 exchanges per transaction, you're doing something wrong. And the aforementioned latency/anonymity slider is just as easy to shift on an SMTP based system as on any other protocol as transport. You need protocol-specific cryptographic receipts as part of the protocol anyway (which various values serve as), so really you could just use [encrypted-payload] UDP [multicast], but whatever. I think ecash will ultimately have many transports, but one of them should almost certainly be PGP-encrypted email which looks exactly like any other PGP-encrypted message, back and forth with an ecash server attached directly to a remailer, where every message fits within the remailer standard mail sizing. The pipenet/chatnet solution would probably be suitable for ecash protocol communications as well. -- Ryan Lackey [RL7618 RL5931-RIPE] ryan(a)havenco.com CTO and Co-founder, HavenCo Ltd. +44 7970 633 277 the free world just milliseconds away http://www.havenco.com/ OpenPGP 4096: B8B8 3D95 F940 9760 C64B DE90 07AD BE07 D2E0 301F

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Tim May in a box.
by mattd 23 Dec '01

23 Dec '01

Matts monetarism is an advance on Milton Friedmans;Everyone a mint means the govt no longer has to keep a tight fist on the money supply.Its supply of money is rapidly depleted as no taxes come in.All attempts to collect tax meeting stiff resistance ranging from civil and passive disobedience all the way up to the disappearance's of several highly placed IRS agents.I'm confident enough now to offer 100,000,000$ BUMs or US dollars for the head of GWB.While the remailer threads been interesting,the fact that one of the very first in would be Soprano waste management's APster for hitmen. Fascist celebrities,crypto-fascists,the entire oligarchy would be wiped out almost overnight.Where the hell are they going to fly to that's not online? Funny if they all wound up in Afghanistan.Might help the local economy recover.The mexican wave of crypto-anarchy will sweep all nations before it.When you see the lungs of America collapse and the life pass out of the last empire,who will stand against that power?Everyone with a computer is a remailer.Everyone can become a mint with the knowledge that reputations,financial especially,will be measured in negative terms such as AP nominations.Such is life. Cruel are the times when we are traitors and do not know ourselves;When we hold rumor from what we fear,yet know not what we fear, but float upon a wild and violent sea each way...and none. Macbeth.

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Re: More on remailers
by Incognito Innominatus 23 Dec '01

23 Dec '01

Ryan Lackey writes: > You need to make it easy to join the set (use standard protocols, > no client software, and ideally make it require no user knowledge > of the deeper darker purpose behind it all), and make it worthwhile to > join the set (ideally a non-security non-messaging benefit, like > "cool porn" or whatever) What do you mean, "no client software"? How do you propose to get secure anonymous mail without client software? > 2) 2-way communication is inherently much harder to secure, but > is socially beneficial. Without socially beneficial uses, it's > going to be a long and unpleasant battle, as it will be very hard > to attract users. Regulation is NOT the reason PR matters; > perception by users is. A form of 2-way communication is possible already; this exchange is an example. Private (one to one) 2-way anonymous communication is harder, but in many cases it will be practical to use a group as a mediator. See the various PGP-encrypted posts on sci.crypt to Beale Screamer, who broke a Microsoft digital licensing scheme. Exitence of socially beneficial uses is good for political reasons and perhaps for getting people to run remailers, but has little impact on ease of attracting users. Users will be attracted for their own purposes, whether they are socially beneficial or not. Harrassment or anonymous love letters may not be socially beneficial but they are part of what people want to use remailers for. You seem to be implying that people won't want to use remailers for some good purpose just because they have a bad rep. Do many people really think that way? > 3) "Sending anonymous mail" is *not* a compelling end-user > application on a wide scale; nowhere near "have all the music you > want available for free", "have arbitrary prohibited pornography" > or "pay people anonymously". No, but "communicating anonymously" is a *very* important addition to those other compelling applications you list. As the RIAA and governments crack down, people will want a way for people to trade music or porn without putting their IPs out on the net. Of course, email is not the appropriate transport for these applications. Maybe the conclusion should be that anonymous email should be seen as a special case of anonymous communications. Don't solve anonymous email, solve anonymous comm. A recent message on coderpunks proposed an alternative way to do anonymous mail: use pipenet as a transport for ordinary SMTP email. It was pointed out that timing information could link up the inward and outward connection in pipenet (a problem for any low-latency, transient connection). This could be addressed in part by maintaining several always-on, constant-traffic dummy channels into the pipenet. > 4) Latency must be low. Anonymous (or at least private) online > chat is more interesting to > users than email. Feds own EFnet servers with regularity; people > discuss plenty of interesting things on IRC, vs. most email. But, > anonymous or even encrypted chat systems are a good deal more > complex than mail. Also, low latency is good for messaging. > Normal mail is "near realtime"; mixmaster is anything but. (most > of the people who are likely to be users of anonymity are more > comfortable with chat than email anyway. In fact, many remailer users do preferentially choose low-latency remailers (partially because there tends to be a correlation between low latency and high reliability). And it makes online exchanges easier. Our various "Nomen Nescio" commentators are going through a remailer with only 5 minute latency. The problem is that low latency, low enough for chat, file exchange, web browsing etc. introduces many new technical challenges in terms of preserving anonymity. Still it is so much more useful that it would seem that working on solving those problems would be a better use of effort than doing anonymous email better. And as noted above, a remailing system might result for free. > (indeed, "develop e-cash to use as postage for remailers" is kind of > putting the cart before the horse; "develop remailers to use to > transport intermediate results of electronic cash operations" is the > proper causality, I think) Again, true with the proviso that it is not anonymous email you want, but a general form of anonymous connectivity.

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"True Names", Tims approaching singularity.
by mattd 23 Dec '01

23 Dec '01

>>It goes without saying that anyone attempting a real digital cash system must do so with no traceable nexus to himself, his programmers, his assets, or his physical nexus. Freezing of assets under earlier FinCEN and money-laundering laws would be the least of his worries.<<Timmy May >>By "classical" thinking, "Assassination Politics" would have to be the best, tightest-security, more protected organization that has ever existed on the face of this planet. Just about EVERY powerful person would want to kill anybody who had anything to do with such a system. The codes would have to be unbreakable, the remailers would have to be certain, but most importantly, each and every participant would have to be perfectly anonymous to even have a prayer of pulling it off. Especially the operators of such a system. Especially them.<<Jimmy Bell >>I don't disagree with your view. The nature of the upcoming battle is becoming clear. This is one reason I have been hoping in recent years that someone simply wipes out Washington, D.C. Vaporizing the millions of statists and liberal fascists who work in that viper pit would be a public good. If some innocents die, big deal. They should get out while they can. If they don't, think of it as evolution in action.<< Dont mess with,"extremely dark markets,"just approve the murder of innocent millions.May as OBL.No morals and ultimately no reason.Chest thumping and showboating from an alpha baboon whose rainbows fading.Those in the employ of the state should get out before the "extremely dark markets"start.Tim should just get out. >>...the vaporization of Greater Washington would go a long way toward ending this War on (Some) Drugs. Let's just hope the reports that UBL and Al Quida smuggled two RP-59 suitcase nukes to the West are correct. Tim and his buddy heiney,cold nuclear warriors.Hopefully tim will be buried in a lead lined coffin soon,real soon.I have friends in DC.you fucking west coast bill white.Those ninja you see coming for you might not be feds.Im mailing you some good ol aussie plutonium.Knock yourself out.

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Re: More on remailers
by Anonymous 23 Dec '01

23 Dec '01

Ryan Lackey writes: > You need to make it easy to join the set (use standard protocols, > no client software, and ideally make it require no user knowledge > of the deeper darker purpose behind it all), and make it worthwhile to > join the set (ideally a non-security non-messaging benefit, like > "cool porn" or whatever) What do you mean, "no client software"? How do you propose to get secure anonymous mail without client software? > 2) 2-way communication is inherently much harder to secure, but > is socially beneficial. Without socially beneficial uses, it's > going to be a long and unpleasant battle, as it will be very hard > to attract users. Regulation is NOT the reason PR matters; > perception by users is. A form of 2-way communication is possible already; this exchange is an example. Private (one to one) 2-way anonymous communication is harder, but in many cases it will be practical to use a group as a mediator. See the various PGP-encrypted posts on sci.crypt to Beale Screamer, who broke a Microsoft digital licensing scheme. Exitence of socially beneficial uses is good for political reasons and perhaps for getting people to run remailers, but has little impact on ease of attracting users. Users will be attracted for their own purposes, whether they are socially beneficial or not. Harrassment or anonymous love letters may not be socially beneficial but they are part of what people want to use remailers for. You seem to be implying that people won't want to use remailers for some good purpose just because they have a bad rep. Do many people really think that way? > 3) "Sending anonymous mail" is *not* a compelling end-user > application on a wide scale; nowhere near "have all the music you > want available for free", "have arbitrary prohibited pornography" > or "pay people anonymously". No, but "communicating anonymously" is a *very* important addition to those other compelling applications you list. As the RIAA and governments crack down, people will want a way for people to trade music or porn without putting their IPs out on the net. Of course, email is not the appropriate transport for these applications. Maybe the conclusion should be that anonymous email should be seen as a special case of anonymous communications. Don't solve anonymous email, solve anonymous comm. A recent message on coderpunks proposed an alternative way to do anonymous mail: use pipenet as a transport for ordinary SMTP email. It was pointed out that timing information could link up the inward and outward connection in pipenet (a problem for any low-latency, transient connection). This could be addressed in part by maintaining several always-on, constant-traffic dummy channels into the pipenet. > 4) Latency must be low. Anonymous (or at least private) online > chat is more interesting to > users than email. Feds own EFnet servers with regularity; people > discuss plenty of interesting things on IRC, vs. most email. But, > anonymous or even encrypted chat systems are a good deal more > complex than mail. Also, low latency is good for messaging. > Normal mail is "near realtime"; mixmaster is anything but. (most > of the people who are likely to be users of anonymity are more > comfortable with chat than email anyway. In fact, many remailer users do preferentially choose low-latency remailers (partially because there tends to be a correlation between low latency and high reliability). And it makes online exchanges easier. Our various "Nomen Nescio" commentators are going through a remailer with only 5 minute latency. The problem is that low latency, low enough for chat, file exchange, web browsing etc. introduces many new technical challenges in terms of preserving anonymity. Still it is so much more useful that it would seem that working on solving those problems would be a better use of effort than doing anonymous email better. And as noted above, a remailing system might result for free. > (indeed, "develop e-cash to use as postage for remailers" is kind of > putting the cart before the horse; "develop remailers to use to > transport intermediate results of electronic cash operations" is the > proper causality, I think) Again, true with the proviso that it is not anonymous email you want, but a general form of anonymous connectivity.

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Re: America Psycho
by mattd 23 Dec '01

23 Dec '01

>>Given a clone your own kit for an early xmas pressy Im splicing a rotweiller and a Shoat.Ill keep you posted. To paraphrase Mr Shrub,you're a major league ass hole."Witness those little white men practising their alibis."Indeed.

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Five Roses Casino!
by casions＠aol.com 22 Dec '01

22 Dec '01

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Re: More on remailers
by Ryan Lackey 22 Dec '01

22 Dec '01

(wow, this is the most interesting discussion on cypherpunks in months -- thanks Len!) My security philosophy is: 1) You need to make the set of people who can't provably not have sent messages larger than is worth investigating. Ideally, make the set that of all internet users. The set of people who use remailers today is not big enough; the set of people who use a web-based anonymizing gateway easily could be. The set of people who post binaries to usenet may be. You need to make it easy to join the set (use standard protocols, no client software, and ideally make it require no user knowledge of the deeper darker purpose behind it all), and make it worthwhile to join the set (ideally a non-security non-messaging benefit, like "cool porn" or whatever) 2) 2-way communication is inherently much harder to secure, but is socially beneficial. Without socially beneficial uses, it's going to be a long and unpleasant battle, as it will be very hard to attract users. Regulation is NOT the reason PR matters; perception by users is. 3) "Sending anonymous mail" is *not* a compelling end-user application on a wide scale; nowhere near "have all the music you want available for free", "have arbitrary prohibited pornography" or "pay people anonymously". Sending anonymous mail is a niche app but is also interesting as it is the same as "send protocol messages for other protocols, such as electronic cash, anonymously". Until there are real applications which can provide large user communities, communicating automatically, with a high desire for anonymity, the best chance is to create low-effort, not-necessarily-low-security remailer systems which increase the user community to the largest extent, spreading the collusion set even though the average user could be vulnerable. 4) Latency must be low. Anonymous (or at least private) online chat is more interesting to users than email. Feds own EFnet servers with regularity; people discuss plenty of interesting things on IRC, vs. most email. But, anonymous or even encrypted chat systems are a good deal more complex than mail. Also, low latency is good for messaging. Normal mail is "near realtime"; mixmaster is anything but. (most of the people who are likely to be users of anonymity are more comfortable with chat than email anyway. 5) User-Group is as interesting as User-User. If you require something which is opt-in, it will be difficult to communicate with mailing lists. Encrypted group chat is good. Use gale! (www.gale.org) (indeed, "develop e-cash to use as postage for remailers" is kind of putting the cart before the horse; "develop remailers to use to transport intermediate results of electronic cash operations" is the proper causality, I think) Being a wolf in sheep's clothing isn't very useful if you're not surrounded by sheep -- one "sheep" in a desert would look pretty suspicious. However, to successfully be a wolf hiding in a herd requires that you look like a sheep, at least to casual inspection. It does not require that the sheep themselves be equipped to go toe to toe with the shepherd's dog. (rambling level 1, skip if you're bored) I disagree that a remailer user is necessarily identifiable to "users of remailers" using current systems...but if you require a means of payment to send messages, you are increasing the difficulty in avoiding being in that set. (of course most remailer users today are observable in communicating with most remailers) If I were sending a "life or death" remailed message, I would focus on being unobservable and unlinkable -- inject the message into the remailer fabric using 802.11b access "borrowed", or a netcafe, or breaking into an office at night, or sending out a worm which transmits its encrypted payload at some point in the future, or whatever else. (it is important these activities do not draw attention themselves). I'm working on getting an nntp feed sorted out for HavenCo; once that's done, remailer.havenco.com will pick up and drop off messages encrypted in a newsgroup. I'd consider using a web frontend via a web anonymizer; more commercial focus seems to have gone into web anonymization. Assume all network feeds in and out of the top-20 remailers are monitored. (I'm not at all certain mine are, but in general) Being identified as a routine user of anonymous remailers would thus open you up to in-person visits from agents on fishing expeditions, black bag monitoring, etc. Exactly what you don't want if you're operating covertly. A one-off current remailer message isn't a big deal, but if you were to build an *application* on top of remailers, like mailing out kiddie porn to people on request, or software serial numbrs, or running an assassination politics server, the feds would be more likely to step up covert monitoring to try to catch people than to try to shut down the remailers themselves. (perhaps I'm overestimating the intelligence of the FBI, but In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh The enemy more mighty than he seems...) (if this were underway, I think you'd see the remailers they couldn't compromise dropping off due to unseen technical problems, difficulties with upstream ISPs, flooding, spam using the remailer as an exit, or perhaps other actions where the attackers involvement was deniable) But -- none of these attacks compromise remailers themselves. Even if you put the remailers in bank vaults, being identified as a member of the ~500-1000 regular users of remailers, where you need to have a continuing involvement. Thus, in *practice*, I don't see the remailer network of today as being substantially more secure against likely threats than a single very strong remailer which you trust. If I trusted me, I'd be more comfortable using a single-hop remailer accessed via a steganographic channel than in using some DC-net, infinitely-untraceable-internally fabric which only had 500 externally-visible users (of which I'd be one). I've had in testing a simple, secure SSL smtp/pop3/imap/webmail system, which should be ready to go into production shortly. I'm putting more resources into that than into remailers because I think the "market space" occupied by anon.penet.fi is far more socially beneficial than the "market space" occupied by mixmaster remailers. Specifically: (rambling verbosity 2, encouraged to skip) 0) Mixmaster is one-way. This is only good for abuse, and a VERY small number of socially beneficial uses. Even in the cases of "whistleblowing", a 2-way communications method is needed. A two-way system is much more socially beneficial; can more easily keep the service as a whole operating, even if individual accounts are shut off for abuse, by pointing at a large number of "redeeming" uses. It's ultimately a PR and a technical battle, not a legal one. 1) Mixmaster can't provide "AP-level" security, due to small user population and collusion set; mail.havenco.com can and can't -- you need to trust the operator somewhat more unless you encrypt all your traffic, and normal means of access have inbuilt "pooling" in that they're spooled on the server automatically. If you access via covert means, either a general web anonymizer, or encrypted dead-drop, or whatever else, maybe it's a bit better. Of course you can use both for the best of both. 2) Mixmaster is fucking hard to use for 1-way messaging (and all this new stuff about "use electronic stamps, spam filtering, etc." will go even *farther* in the "hard to use" side). mail.havenco.com is easier to use than your isp, because we won't rename accounts when people buy providers out, we support SSL cert based relaying so it works on the road, etc. The rules of getting apps actually deployed: * Provide a tool which supports a compelling application; providing a tool which is useless for the application of "being a first-class but anonymous participant in online foruns", or which is a *great* buggywhip or camel condom, is not the same thing. * Use existing infrastructure and standards to make it easier to develop, configure, and maintain -- don't re-invent TCP every time, don't make users install massive amounts of custom software to do something as simple as send and receive electronic mail with their client, etc. * Incremental improvement and get something out the door quickly, incorporate feedback I think doing interesting new transports inter-remailer is...interesting, especially from an intellectual and academic standpoint. Requiring that users participate as first-class nodes in p2p systems, dc-nets, etc. is going to raise the bar to being a remailer user quite a bit, and lower traffic. Users who can do that kind of investment can already send unobservable, unlinkable, untraceable email with little effort. 3) Mixmaster messaging is unreliable. A professionally maintained mailbox server is highly reliable; even if transports are unreliable, it can retransmit transparently. Abusive apps don't care about reliability; most socially compelling ones do. (latency is an issue too, and without more volume than mixmaster has now, you can't really get away with low latency) 4) Mixmaster is fairly immune to "editorial" action on the part of remops; there are too many of them, it's too difficult to do anything to do them. A centralized system allows various forms of censorship, from accounts being shut off due to AUP violations (spamvertised mailboxes), pressure being placed on the operator, etc. My AUP is simple: - No spam and no use as spamvertised dropbox - No child pornography (due to sealand local regulations) - No files > x KB (where x will initially be something small and increase) (technically enforced) - No attachments or binaries (for now) (technically enforced) - Resource limits (per-day message limits, check limits) (technically) - No mail bombing or other malicious activity (rate-limiting) - dest.blk maintained by server operator on a per-user and systemwide basis - AUP violations result on forfeit of funds on deposit and deletion of account, but no information turned over (initially you must take this on faith/apathy, but later, the management UI will just have a "delete account" button and no way to subvert access control and read mail without breaking hardware tamper-resistance) 5) For a professional ISP, mixmaster is a bitch to maintain, vs. cyrus/postfix/etc. which are designed to scale to lots of users, are easily maintained, etc. 6) Mixmaster has no clear revenue model. A system which is "sticky", with people getting mailboxes, and persistent communications with expectation of support from the server operator, easily allows charging on a bulk basis. "micropayments" are crap. We've already determined people won't pay large amounts for mixmaster remailers because it doesn't support high-value applications and doesn't support any compelling general applications, and collecting small payments is a hassle. There are plenty of ways to expand on a professional offshore secure mail service as well -- think "critical path done well". 7) Having an organization with press/legal/etc. resources supporting a remailer is more likely to get positive PR spin than a loose collection of amateur remailer operators. Also, of course, more risk. 8) Mixmaster as operated now has no love from the network operator community. People are abusing "no servers" accounts, for the most part, to run high-hassle servers on subnets. If *I* were running a $20/month dialup ISP, I'd shut people off for running remailers. It breaks terms of service, which breaks revenue models for network operators. 9) Vanity domains, group messaging, etc. are not possible with mixmaster or reply blocks. 10) Mixmaster has been tried for a while, and seems to "work", but doesn't really do the kind of things which anon.penet.fi did. I'd rather give a different approach a try -- deploy something technically inferior in some ways to mixmaster, but better from a user perspective, and then armor-plate it later. (rambling level 3, even more skipable) I was actually holding off for a while to provide this service commercially because someone else claimed to be working on a public-access mail system which would have also been suitable. However, that system is unlikely to be deployed beyond their insiders, and is a complex scripted thing which doesn't do the specific task I want, so I see no reason to delay. My main concern is minimal support overhead. If I give away free accounts, I fear people will use them for spam dropboxes, and we'll be spending all our time deleting those accounts. Thus, I really need something which has a substantial up-front investment to open an account -- install fee, prepayment, or anti-spam bond; proof-of-human-work; reputation; etc. My initial thought is that I'll give accounts to some well-known people if they want access, and sell accounts for a high but not insane rate -- USD 200/year for an offshore mailbox with SSL web/smtp/pop3/imap access seems reasonable. I will adjust pricing based on demand, resources, etc. I don't actually need to make any money off of this; our colo sales are sufficient, and I can consider it an advertising expense and entertainment for me, but dealing with spam is not entertainment. People who care can use this system in a highly privacy protecting way...encrypt everything with PGP locally, interact entirely via deaddrop, pay for service anonymously, use a domain maintained by havenco vs. one they sign over in a registrar, send messages via remailers as well. People who just want a "secure" offshore mail solution can send cleartext mail over SSL interactions with the server. The second set, I believe, is far larger, and is doing more socially beneficial things with their access, and provides cover traffic for the first set as well. -- Ryan Lackey [RL7618 RL5931-RIPE] ryan(a)havenco.com CTO and Co-founder, HavenCo Ltd. +44 7970 633 277 the free world just milliseconds away http://www.havenco.com/ OpenPGP 4096: B8B8 3D95 F940 9760 C64B DE90 07AD BE07 D2E0 301F

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May day hirstory.The anarchist thread.
by mattd 22 Dec '01

22 Dec '01

The idea of International May Day was conceived in the United States in 1884 at a conference of the Federated Trades and Labour Unions of the United States and Canada. The conference launched an intensive 8 hour day campaign, which was to culminate in wide-spread struggles on the 1st May 1886. The anarchist labour agitators in Chicago in 1886 who came out in support of the workers, who were killed at Mc Cormacks as a result of this campaign, were arrested and five were hung on trumped up murder charges. All were pardoned a decade after their executions. The International Labour Congress, which was held in Paris on the 14th of July 1889, decided to make the 1st of May 1890, "a day of international demonstration". The Melbourne Anarchist Club - Australia's first anarchist organisation, was formed on the 1st of May 1886. Members of the Melbourne Anarchist Club held May Day observations in 1887 and 1888, the only people in Australia to do so. Victoria held its first official May Day celebration on the 1st of May 1890 at an indoor meeting. The first public celebration of May Day in Melbourne was held at the Yarra Bank on the 1st of May 1892 and the meeting was chaired by the Melbourne Anarchist Chummy Fleming. While the Melbourne May Day Committee continues to celebrate May Day in Melbourne with a demonstration on the 1st Sunday after May Day, Melbourne's Anarchists have continued to celebrate May Day on the 1st of May. In 2001, many trade unions based in Melbourne, also celebrated May Day on the 1st of May.Your humble corespondent is under a bond to be of good behavior, for nearly one year, for offences against property of Mc Donalds and BHP Billiton done on that day. It was worth it.Long live Anarchy.

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