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RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
by Tyler Durden 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

Hum, well, I always kind of thought May felt/wrote that some dis-assembly of the state was inevitable given the possibility of strong crypto, and even in China I would maintain that there's already enough computer power+anonymity that encrypted communications can/will occur. (Remember, China is BIG...as big as the mainland US plus Alaska, and much of it far less accessible...and let's not forget that there are areas the size of Western Europe where Han dominance is not particularly appreciated.) I tend to agree, though that the bootstrapping process can be greatly retarded in the presence of a heavy police state....but above a certain threshold it can unfold quickly. What I wonder if whether W and his buddies were up late drinkin' one night and figured out that we were nearing the threshold you speak of, a threshold they believed they had to save humanity from. I mean, what if just anyone could send any message they wanted without their government listening in? Someone's gotta be in charge, after all, and it better be us and not the ragheads 'cause God loves US and plans on sending all of them to hell unless they see the error of their distinctly non-American ways. -TD >From: "Major Variola (ret)" <mv(a)cdc.gov> >To: "cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net" <cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net> >Subject: RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan >Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:45:00 -0700 > >At 09:45 AM 9/15/04 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote: > >Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at >self-preservation. > >Does this contradict the widely-held Cypherpunk belief in the >inevitability > >of deterioration of the state? > >"We" have always held that a sufficiently policed state can defeat >crypto. >If the RIAA could put a vidcam in your computer room, things are easy. >If crypto is illegal, things are easy. (We have remarked on how, >modulo stego, crypto traffic is trivial to detect with any entropy >measure. Got PGP headers?) > >China is a police state. A state with freedom of expression ---which >does >not include much or all of Europe--- is less so. China is also a >nukepower, >so it is likely to persist. _________________________________________________________________ Get ready for school! Find articles, homework help and more in the Back to School Guide! http://special.msn.com/network/04backtoschool.armx

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Award#0442154 - Surveillance, Analysis and Modeling of Chatroom
by Major Variola (ret) 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

At 05:41 AM 9/15/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >NSF Award Abstract - #0442154 Yeah, this is Science (snicker)... >Surveillance, Analysis and Modeling of Chatroom Communities > Abstract > The aim of this proposal is to develop new techniques for information >gathering, analysis and modeling of chatroom communications. First, the >investigator and his colleague consider graph-less models to capture the >structure of chatroom communications. In particular, the investigators >study how to develop a multidimensional singular value decomposition buzzword alert >approach for component analysis of chatroom communication data. Second, the >investigators develop new visualisation techniques to display the buzzword alert >structural information found in the first step. > Internet chatrooms provide an interactive and public forum of >communication for participants with diverse objectives. Two properties of >chatrooms make them particularly vulnerable for exploitation by malicious >parties. First, the real identities of the participants are decoupled from >their chatroom nicknames. As if email doesn't share that property? You really think I work for cdc.gov? Second, multiple threads of communication can >co-exist concurrently. What a fucking concept... Although human-monitoring of each chatroom to >determine "who-is-chatting-with-whom" is possible, it is very time >consuming, hence not scalable. Thus, it is very easy to conceal malicious >behavior in Internet chatrooms and use them for covert communications >(e.g., adversary using a teenager chatroom to plan a terrorist act). How about teenagers planning terrorist attacks? Or terrorists' senior proms? This >project aims at a fully automated surveillance system for data collection >and analysis in Internet chatrooms to discover hidden groups. Use textual stego, mofo. Thus, the proposed system could >aid the intelligence community to discover hidden communities and >communication patterns in chatrooms without human intervention. A pretty good argument for broadcast stego. > This award is supported jointly by the NSF and the Intelligence Community. I bet. They already 0wn the fucking IX points, and can grab the DHCP records; don't you think the spooks already do this, and more? Look at Orion Sci, which graphs gangs. Extrapolate to IP. If these bozos were better they wouldn't be in Troy.

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RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
by Major Variola (ret) 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

At 09:45 AM 9/15/04 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote: >Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at self-preservation. >Does this contradict the widely-held Cypherpunk belief in the inevitability >of deterioration of the state? "We" have always held that a sufficiently policed state can defeat crypto. If the RIAA could put a vidcam in your computer room, things are easy. If crypto is illegal, things are easy. (We have remarked on how, modulo stego, crypto traffic is trivial to detect with any entropy measure. Got PGP headers?) China is a police state. A state with freedom of expression ---which does not include much or all of Europe--- is less so. China is also a nukepower, so it is likely to persist.

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Award#0442154 - Surveillance, Analysis and Modeling of Chatroom Communities
by R. A. Hettinga 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

<https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0442154> NSF Award Abstract - #0442154 AWSFL008-DS3 Surveillance, Analysis and Modeling of Chatroom Communities NSF Org DMS Latest Amendment Date September 7, 2004 Award Number 0442154 Award Instrument Standard Grant Program Manager Hans G. Kaper DMS DIVISION OF MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES MPS DIRECT FOR MATHEMATICAL & PHYSICAL SCIEN Start Date January 1, 2005 Expires December 31, 2005 (Estimated) Expected Total Amount $ (Estimated) Investigator Bulent Yener yener(a)cs.rpi.edu (Principal Investigator current) Mukkai S. Krishnamoorthy (Co-Principal Investigator current) Sponsor Rensselaer Polytech Inst 110 8th Street Troy, NY 121803522 518/276-6000 NSF Program 7276 APPROACHES TO COMBAT TERRORISM Field Application 0000099 Other Applications NEC Program Reference Code 0000,7276,9237,OTHR, Abstract The aim of this proposal is to develop new techniques for information gathering, analysis and modeling of chatroom communications. First, the investigator and his colleague consider graph-less models to capture the structure of chatroom communications. In particular, the investigators study how to develop a multidimensional singular value decomposition approach for component analysis of chatroom communication data. Second, the investigators develop new visualisation techniques to display the structural information found in the first step. Internet chatrooms provide an interactive and public forum of communication for participants with diverse objectives. Two properties of chatrooms make them particularly vulnerable for exploitation by malicious parties. First, the real identities of the participants are decoupled from their chatroom nicknames. Second, multiple threads of communication can co-exist concurrently. Although human-monitoring of each chatroom to determine "who-is-chatting-with-whom" is possible, it is very time consuming, hence not scalable. Thus, it is very easy to conceal malicious behavior in Internet chatrooms and use them for covert communications (e.g., adversary using a teenager chatroom to plan a terrorist act). This project aims at a fully automated surveillance system for data collection and analysis in Internet chatrooms to discover hidden groups. The surveillance is done in the form of statistical profiling for a particular chatter, a group of chatters, or for the entire chatroom. The statistical profiles are used to devise algorithms to determine chatters and their partners and answer to queries including (i) "in which chatrooms topic A is discussed", (ii) "who is chatting about topic A in chatroom X", (iii) "is topic A is a hot one in chatroom X" etc. Thus, the proposed system could aid the intelligence community to discover hidden communities and communication patterns in chatrooms without human intervention. This award is supported jointly by the NSF and the Intelligence Community. The Approaches to Terrorism program in the Directorate for Mathematics and Physical Sciences supports new concepts in basic research and workforce development with the potential to contribute to national security. You may also retrieve a text version of this abstract. Please report errors in award information by writing to: award-abstracts-info(a)nsf.gov. Please use the browser back button to return to the previous screen. -- ----------------- 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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Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
by R. A. Hettinga 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/symantec_targets_freegate/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Internet and Law ; Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/symantec_targets_freegate/ Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk) Published Tuesday 14th September 2004 18:10 GMT Symantec has labelled a program that enables Chinese surfers to view blocked websites as a Trojan Horse. Upshot? Users of Norton Anti-Virus cannot access Freegate, a popular program which circumvents government blocks, the FT reports. Freegate has 200,000 users, Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT (http://www.dit-inc.us)) its developer, estimates. It lets users view sites banned by the Chinese government by taking advantage of a range of proxy servers assigned to changeable internet addresses. But a recent update to Symantec's AV definition files means the latest version of Freegate is treated as malware and removed from systems protected by Norton. Short of disabling Norton AV, users would have little say in this. A Symantec staffer in China told the FT that Norton Anti-Virus identified Freegate as a Trojan horse, but declined to provide a rationale for such a definition. The absence of an explanation from Symantec raises concerns. We hope that the mislabelling of Freegate is a simple mistake, soon rectified, rather than yet another example of an IT firm helping Beijing implement restrictions. History provides as least one example (http://www.vmyths.com/rant.cfm?id=316&page=4) of the AV industry extending favours to China that it would normally withhold. AV firms normally keep virus samples under lock and key. But suppliers agreed to hand over virus samples to the Chinese government a few years ago as a condition of trading in the country. These samples could be easily found on the net but the incident illustrates a precedent of China being treated as a special exception. -- ----------------- 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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[i2p] weekly status notes [sep 14] (fwd from jrandom@i2p.net)
by Eugen Leitl 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

----- Forwarded message from jrandom <jrandom(a)i2p.net> -----

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Re: Nanometer Bamboo Carbon TEMPEST Protection
by Major Variola (ret) 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

t 10:10 AM 9/14/04 -0700, John Young wrote: >From: "dumbshit" <ffw(a)hkxf.com> >Subject: effectively prevent computer radiation > >especially computer radiation, which does much >harm to human body. Yeah, it really taxes my feng-shei >The main material of FANGFUWANG is active nanometer >bamboo carton. Through Chinese and Japanese experts' many >years research and repeatedly proof, the nanometer bamboo >carbon has the characteristics of being close and porous, and >having strongly absorbable capacity. Hey, my charcoal briquettes have nanometer structure too! Maybe I'll sell them as a stealth coating for chinese bombers! And if taken internally they can remove toxins! How do you say scam for the clueless in Mandarin?

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Spam Spotlight on Reputation
by R. A. Hettinga 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

<http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,1761,a=134748,00.asp> EWeek Spam Spotlight on Reputation Spam Spotlight on Reputation September 6, 2004 By Dennis Callaghan As enterprises continue to register Sender Protection Framework records, hoping to thwart spam and phishing attacks, spammers are upping the ante in the war on spam and registering their own SPF records. E-mail security company MX Logic Inc. will report this week that 10 percent of all spam includes such SPF records, which are used to authenticate IP addresses of e-mail senders and stop spammers from forging return e-mail addresses. As a result, enterprises will need to increase their reliance on a form of white-listing called reputation analysis as a chief method of blocking spam. E-mail security appliance developer CipherTrust Inc., of Alpharetta, Ga., also last week released a study indicating that spammers are supporting SPF faster than legitimate e-mail senders, with 38 percent more spam messages registering SPF records than legitimate e-mail. The embrace of SPF by spammers means enterprises' adoption of the framework alone will not stop spam, which developers of the framework have long maintained. Enter reputation analysis. With the technology, authenticated spammers whose messages get through content filters would have reputation scores assigned to them based on the messages they send. Only senders with established reputations would be allowed to send mail to a user's in-box. Many anti-spam software developers already provide such automated reputation analysis services. MX Logic announced last week support for such services. "There's no question SPF is being deployed by spammers," said Dave Anderson, CEO of messaging technology developer Sendmail Inc., in Emeryville, Calif. "Companies have to stop making decisions about what to filter out and start making decisions about what to filter in based on who sent it," Anderson said. The success of reputation lists in organizations will ultimately depend on end users' reporting senders as spammers, Anderson said. "In the system we're building, the end user has the ultimate control," he said. Scott Chasin, chief technology officer of MX Logic, cautioned that authentication combined with reputation analysis services still won't be enough to stop spam. Chasin said anti-spam software vendors need to work together to form a reputation clearinghouse of good sending IP addresses, including those that have paid to be accredited as such. "There is no central clearinghouse at this point to pull all the data that anti-spam vendors have together," said Chasin in Denver. "We're moving toward this central clearinghouse but have to get through authentication first." -- ----------------- 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: "Forest Fire" responsible for a 2.5mi *mushroom cloud*?
by Major Variola (ret) 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

At 08:59 PM 9/13/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: >If a nuke goes off a few dozen meters under a mountain, is there anyone >there to see it? What is the sound of one mountain moving? You can get dust rising off the mountain ---find the video of the Paki tests. But not a big rising cloud. An underground test is a few *hundred* meters below surface. And sometimes you get a chimney of crumbled rock leading to either a crater or a dome on the surface, depending on the rock type; Nevada is pockmarked with them. But no big cloud.

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Shanghai strives to monitor internet bars
by R. A. Hettinga 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-09/14/content_1979731.htm> www.xinhuanet.com XINHUA online Shanghai strives to monitor internet bars www.chinaview.cn 2004-09-14 10:02:41 BEIJING, Sept.14 (Xinhuanet) -- Shanghai will invest 7 million yuan, or nearly 850,000 US dollars, to monitor internet bars. The monitoring is also aimed at keeping underage youngsters away from the bars. The government will supervise the operations of nearly 1400 bars to make sure they don't stay open past the official closing time of midnight. China Radio International reported Monday. The monitoring is also aimed at keeping underage youngsters away from the bars. The government will foot the bill for the monitoring, which is estimated to be around 2.58 million yuan, or 312,000 US dollars a year, but bars will face stiff penalties if they break the law. Central government regulations limit internet bars to opening only between 8:00am and 12:00 midnight. The monitoring will be in place by the end of the year. -- ----------------- 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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