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Unregistered
by Thomas Shaddack 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

Found this on the Net couple years ago. Then it vanished. In the light of the INDUCE Act, or whatever it's called now, it is becoming quite relevant... Question for the crowd: In the setting described below, how could one perform a successful long-term disobedience? Original URL: www.keshet.f2s.com/unregistered.html Downloaded Sep 1 2001 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unregistered Dark and drizzle, we pulled up in front of the living block; we had a an AC tip on one of the residents -- nothing concrete, maybe trafficking in illegal copies, maybe just pron, we weren't sure. "Can I help you?" our suspect asked, innocently enough, as he opened the door. "Yah, we got a warrant - need to scan your disk." I held up the warrant in one hand while the other reflexively went for the scanner. "What seems to be the problem officers?" he says... boy if this guy is hiding something he sure can act it. This is the point when I watch the suspect most closely -- looking not just for fear or guilt, but any kind of movement which may trigger an erase mechanism. "Nothing special," I try to smooth him over, "just a routine search, maybe we just got a bad tip." "Well, okay.." he didn't seem too sure of his ground. I didn't like it, he should be outraged, or afraid or something. My partner printed up a receipt while I activated the scanner. 3 seconds later I'm looking at the output, scratching my head- no contraband on the disk but the scanner flagged some unusual files. "What's this?" I ask the guy, showing him the readout. "Oh, those are mine," he said with such an innocent look I was caught off balance. I connect to Central and send the digital signatures for look-up & verify.. Central drew a blank. "Unknown registry authority" was the response for each one of the signed executables. "Where did you get these?" I ask the suspect while copying the binaries into quarantined flash for later dissection. "Those? I made them." Again that look of pure innocence. I was getting a creepy feeling at the back of my neck. "Whadd'ya mean, you made them? Look, we're gonna find out where those execs came from and what they do.. it's gonna start getting real unpleasant in here real fast if you don't start coming up with answers quick!" I don't like coming down heavy so fast on a guy, but these files were starting to give me the creeps. "Look man, I'm a programmer - that's what I do. I can show you the source & compile it for you if you like..." Stunned, I look at the guy, my partner's already going for a tackle with the cuffs. "You got a compiler in here!?" I shout at him. "Jesus HC," I'm swearing at myself for being so slow. "Call Central!" I'm yelling at my partner while I signal for backup, "tell 'em to put a packet freeze on the whole damn block! Tell 'em we got an unregistered compiler!" I swear to God, even while they were hauling him away & forensics were scanning the building, he still had that innocent look on his face -- like he didn't even know what was going on. All Text and Art Original Material Copyright © 2001 <a href="mailto:siteinfo@kashat.net">keshet</a>

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my name is Doe, John Doe
by Eugen Leitl 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

Has anyone ever legally changed his name to John Doe, and documented the results, if any? -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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Silicon carbide in the machine
by Major Variola (ret) 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

At 04:20 PM 6/28/04 +0200, Nomen Nescio wrote: >From: a.melon@ >Major Variola (ret) (mv(a)cdc.gov) wrote on 2004-06-27: >> Any signal you put out is trackable to you geographically, whether its >> a cell or GPS frequency. > >A GPS receiver doesn't broadcast its location. GPS works purely by >analyzing the signals received from satellites. This is probably a design >goal for military use, as well as a consequence of power requirements. Yes. But a jammer will draw a Hellfire. >There is no such thing as a GPS frequency. I beg to differ, there are (perhaps >1) RF freq assigned to the Constellation. It seems that for CDMA or >WCDMA phones the location service is defined in terms of messages on the >normal network layer, see a Google search for "position determination service >order". Yes its cheaper and allowed (for now) to triangulate (to what, 100m?) using physics; but GPS will become cheaper and cheaper.

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your papers please
by Major Variola (ret) 28 Jun '04

28 Jun '04

>Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 01:23:43 -0400 >From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> >To: politech(a)politechbot.com >Subject: [Politech] More on open letter to PFIR on "Whois" privacy [priv] >My own views, for what they're worth, are in a column here: >http://news.com.com/Privacy+reduction's+next+act/2010-1028_3-5155054.html > >An excerpt: >If you buy a domain name, current regulations created by the Internet >Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) say you must make >public "accurate and reliable contact details and promptly correct and >update them during the term of the...registration, including: the full >name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and fax >number." >Who wants to make that kind of personal information public for the >benefit of spammers, direct marketers and snoops? You shouldn't have to >publish your home address--and other personal details--to everyone in >the world just to own a domain name. And if you decide to lie by typing >in "1 Nowhere Road," I don't see why you should be punished for >attempting to protect your and your family's privacy. >There are plenty of legitimate reasons why domain name holders might >leave their address blank. [...] >These rights to anonymity are enshrined in the Bill of Rights, both in >the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, and in the >Ninth Amendment, which was intended to curb government's power. [...] > >-Declan D McC is right on the mark, as usual. D McC is a national treasure, in the Nip sense. You rape the constitution, we go for head shots. Any questions, punk?

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Re: [Politech] Privacy Villain: No-fly stonewallers at FBI, TSA [priv]
by Major Variola (ret) 28 Jun '04

28 Jun '04

At 01:44 PM 6/24/04 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Subject: [NCCP] Privacy Villain: No-fly stonewallers >Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:59:12 -0400 >From: J Plummer <jplummer(a)consumeralert.org> > > >Privacy Hero of the Week: >No-fly stonewallers > >By James Plummer > >US District Court Judge Charles Breyer for Northern California ruled this >week that the FBI and the Transportation Security Agency have been >illegally stonewalling Freedom of Information Act requests by travelers >demanding details on the so-called "no-fly" list which grounded them. ><http://www1.law.ucla.edu/~volokh/blog_data/gordon.pdf> > >The action was brought by two antiwar activists and journalists who were >detained at San Francisco International Airport because their names were on >the list. Rebecca Gordon and Janet Adams demanded information about the >list, including how many people are on it, and how travelers get added or >removed. > >Both agencies repeatedly claimed such information was classified and >"sensitive." Judge Breyer ruled such claims were "frivolous" and said the >government "has not come close" to meeting its legal obligations. Gordon, Adams, and Breyer are American Heroes. For the rest, I'll bring the rope.

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We're jamming, we hope you like jammin' too
by Major Variola (ret) 28 Jun '04

28 Jun '04

At 05:51 AM 6/29/04 +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote: >On Mon, 28 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: >> Yes. But a jammer will draw a Hellfire. > >A $50 jammer for a $500,000 missile. Sounds like a fair trade to me. ;) During the Yugo colonization, microwave ovens with their doorlocks disabled were used as spoof targets. >Which is good, because once the adversary starts relying exclusively on >GPS and lets the other monitoring systems decay, we have easier way to >"deny that service" from our handhelds. Physics is more difficult to cheat >than chips. Agreed, single points of failure are Allah's gift to mankind.

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GeoEcon: Fahrenheit 9/11 -- Sticking the Motorcycle's Irony Gauge
by R. A. Hettinga 28 Jun '04

28 Jun '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Fahrenheit 9/11 -- Sticking the Motorcycle's Irony Guage The Geodesic Economy Robert Hettinga 6/28/04 Roslindale, MA -- I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 last weekend -- after extensive promises of good behavior beforehand -- with my wife, who is, as most people know by now, a very liberal Democrat. As a congenital Republican, of course, I felt like a Jew going to see Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will", but, like a Jew going to "Triumph", or Churchill reading "Mein Kampf", or Reagan and Thatcher reading "Das Kapital", I suppose I went there in the spirit of knowing one's enemies, like Sun Tsu says. Knowing most of the scene-by-scene refutations long before I saw them on the screen, the movie quickly became a stupor of anti-climacticism as the usual chestnuts reeled by: Saddam a creature of the CIA, the Bushes creatures of the Awl Bidness and the Saudis. War for Oil, House of Saudi-Bush, and the Afghan Pipeline, oh my... I kept looking for new stuff, but, in requiem for my ability to suspend disbelief, there was nothing there that I hadn't seen on Free Republic, much less on the cypherpunks list, many times before. Michael Moore does make a great buffoon, obviously, or they wouldn't give him money to make his otherwise obtuse epics. Reprising the usual troll through his union-and-government-"program"-decimated -- and, for him, fictional -- "hometown" of Flint, MI, cataloging the evils of capitalism on same, same as it ever was, just didn't do it for me the third time around after "Roger and Me", and "Bowling for Columbine". It's probably why we didn't get so much Mike-jinks in front of the camera this time either. Even in his own editing-room, Michael surely can see himself that he's just not funny anymore, a bit of an old hat, or, in his case, an old UCLA Film School gimmie cap. However, I must say his ritual cinematic abuse of a "conservative democrat" welfare queen turned "job outreach worker" turned fobber-of-one's-firstborn-son's-upbringing-onto-the-Army turned grieving war-mother was considerably above par for his propagandistic oeuvre, and he's to be commended for upping his game so considerably in light of his lofty target. Speaking of which, who's next, one wonders? First a hack Auto-Bureaucrat in the form of Roger Smith, then a pre-Alzheimer Moses-Clutching-a-Brown-Bess in the form of Charleton Heston, now an Andover-Softball-Commissioner stealth-Bonesman fighter-pilot MBA turned aw-shucks Nuke-ular President in the form of George not-Herbert Walker Bush. Should we expect an attack on the Pope next, if he's still alive? Thatcher? Or, better, after they both go, how about a post-mortem Marxist trifecta of John-Paul, Thatcher, and Reagan? I can't wait for the resulting -- with apologies to Limbaugh - -- Moore-Gorebasm: "See, it really *was* Mikhail Gorbachev that ended the Cold War..." Restrained mirth, indeed. Don't bring that Cherry Icee into the theater and plan to drink it there on peril of your sinuses, is all I have to say. Seeing the discussion about this movie and the forthcoming election on the cypherpunks list and elsewhere reminds me of something that occurred to me during the 2000 Florida recount: it's as if, like all political/economic schema, crypto-anarchy, anarchocapitalism, whatever we end up calling it, requires a certain energy state (higher or lower, again-whatever) than existed in its once-and-future status quo ante. In the inverse of the way that gravity overcomes degenerate electron pressure to collapse atoms and molecules into the neutronium of a neutron star, or degenerate neutron pressure is overcome to collapse very atoms themselves into a black hole, when something in the "real" world shows us just how far from our goal of freedom from government we really are, we all get dragged back to our previous political states, grasping for what we used to believe, like a bunch of deathbed-reconverted ex-atheists. I figure if monopolies on force weren't possible, and the state wasn't our sole-source war contractor, then, by very definition, nation-states would hold the same role that religion, or aristocracy, or sports teams or, of course, movie-stars, do today -- a rooting interest, and nothing more. Fix the cause, inefficient markets and excessive transaction cost, and whatever undesired effects, like uninitiated force by kleptocracies, theocracies, whatever, will stop. To be replaced, preferably, by the use of force in free markets, at probably lower gross "transaction costs" in violence, since it costs less to buy in fact. Violence is conserved, it always is, but it would be spread out into more, less violent, events, most of them, hopefully, financial instead of physical. Take your fight to the market, boys, or you'll *really* piss us off, and all that. However, in the short term, I'm *very* realistic. In other words, the state *still* owns the roads. :-). Since someone came over here and proved that they can kill me, personally, because of who I am, and what I believe, because of what I have that they don't have -- or, in the case of freedom, apparently, what I have that they don't even appear to want -- they, frankly, deserve to die before I do. If that means hiring a bunch of volunteers to go over and kill them in their beds before they try to kill me in mine, cool. The fact that those volunteers are paid for with money extorted from me at the point of a gun is just a happy coincidence, since most of that extorted money gets used for stuff I could really give a damn about otherwise. Which brings us to Mr. Moore himself. He is, as most people probably know, not really from his putative "home town" of Flint. He's actually from Davison, a richer, lily-white bedroom suburb, raised as "petit-bourgeois" as they come, and raised, go figure, just like most "liberal"/commies have been through the ages, from Lenin to Mao, from Guevara to Castro. I'm sure he fancies himself quite the revolutionary, now, having gone from one-man "alternative" newspaper publisher/editor/reporter/ad-salesman to Cannes Palm d'Or presumptive deca-millionaire in less than two decades. I agree with the idea that most people have already made up their minds even this early, and they aren't going to change their vote because of a so-called "documentary". However, as for Mr. Moore's intended audience, I think the first "coming attractions" trailer that morning in the movie theater said it all. It was for a movie version of, wait for it now... Che Guevara's "Motorcycle Diaries" <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318462/>. So, there I was, in yet another lily-white suburb, Randolph, Massachusetts, in a stadium-seating megaplex, watching this trailer with more than a few erst-and-proto "revolutionaries" of the Moore stripe, all of us, revolutionary or not, watching this trailer for a sort of Young-Hero-of-the-Revolution-Before-the-Revolution crypto-homo-erotic biopic, the red-diaper-baby of all Road Pictures, all of us with straight faces, as if it were just an ordinary movie trailer. White titles on, I kid you not, comrade, red background, and all. Okay, truth be told, *I* had the most evil grin on *my* face, my mirth being severely constrained from actual outright laughter by the aforementioned promise to my wife about remaining, uh, decorous. And yet, and yet, I *do* consider it a measure of progress that as late as a few years ago, in lily-white, yes, liberal, Randolph, Massachusetts, that trailer might have even gotten a smattering of *cheers* from the odd true believer out there. Maybe they aren't cheering for the revolution this time, because, game-faced, they hated Bush so much, but I'd rather err on the side of common sense, even in Massachusetts, and think that actual, uncut, explicit Marxism isn't fun, much less funny, anymore. Or so one would hope. So, invoking the spirit of cypherpunks gone on to other things, and probably over their objection in light of my congenital political belief anyway, I actually *do* hope Moore & Co. make a *pile* of money on this. The motorcycle's irony gauge will get stuck on "full", and us "Republican" anarcho-capitalists will have a good laugh at the stupendous concatenation of idiocy it represents, what a brave new world it is to have such statist monsters in it, and all that. The only thing that would make me laugh harder, of course, would be if Kerry gets elected because of Moore's logico-cinematic prestidigitation at political three-card monte, further declaring itself some kind of "Uncle Mike's Cabin" in leftist self-congratulation thereof. Then, at least, the "Republican", if you will, anarcho-capitalists out there, like me, will go back to work for a change, after 4-plus years of inattention to the point of it all. No, better, thrall. Thrall to the fact that, thank God, Al Gore's not in charge right now, that we can still, so far, kick the living shit out of anybody who dares mess with our stuff, much less kill our friends and neighbors. Certainly our "Democrat" anarcho-capitalist bretheren haven't gotten much done, either, for all their Bush-hating. At least when a Democrat was president, even the "liberals" wanted to smash the state, in their own fashion, and actually worked on it. And even made money, for a while. So. Let's have a competition, shall we? The blind signature patent is almost defunct. Whatever we need, code-wise, is laying around on the floor to be used. We have *lots* of book-entry internet transaction systems to plug into as as depositories, reserves for issues of bearer certificates on the net. Kerry gets elected, Michael Moore gets all the credit, and starts on his Marxist trifecta of trash-movies. And, with a Democrat in charge, we've got at least four years of financial decontrol for ostensible enemies of the state, like say, hawala, because, of course, that would be racist, not to mention there'd be no way for the Chinese to pay the Democratic Party, otherwise. :-). First one to the most money wins. Ready, set... No? I thought not... Cheers, RAH - ------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQOCcK8PxH8jf3ohaEQJu3ACeOHP1fqembZi5WG412cDnHEsDvfwAn08y CwvcyvgOntaJUfB2qgCaH1eH =0EFe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- 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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Type III Anonymous message
by Nomen Nescio 28 Jun '04

28 Jun '04

-----BEGIN TYPE III ANONYMOUS MESSAGE----- Message-type: plaintext

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Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
by Major Variola (ret) 28 Jun '04

28 Jun '04

At 07:21 AM 6/26/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: ><http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/26/technology/26ALIB.html?th=&pagewanted=pri…> > >The New York Times > >June 26, 2004 > >For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi >By MATT RICHTEL Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. Remember the 911-locator fascism? So the 'victim' would ask the 'liar' to press a button authorizing disclosure of the approx location. The marketing reason would be to help people find others geographically. But it can also be used to evidence (or not) your location. "Look mom, I'm *not* at the mall or Cheech's house, I'm at the library." Of course all these locations will be in a database which performs a kind of latitude/longitude Name Service so Mom won't have to fire up a browser and go to a mapping page. GPS/911 services + wireless + inet bridging. I wouldn't be surprised if DoCoMo wasn't working on it now..

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And now, USA Today Presents a Word from Horseman #2
by R. A. Hettinga 28 Jun '04

28 Jun '04

<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-06-27-terrorweb-usat_x.htm> USA Today Internet's many layers give terrorists room to post, then hide Terrorists are increasingly using the Internet to spread shocking images and state their demands. In the past month, video and photos of the beheadings of American Paul Johnson Jr. and South Korean Kim Sun Il were posted on Web sites sympathetic to Islamic terrorists. Last week, a Saudi Web site posted a statement from alleged terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claiming responsibility for attacks across Iraq. Weimann says the Web offers terrorists "anonymity, easy access ... and the ability to disappear." By Stephen J. Boitano, AP The sites are often shut down by the governments of the countries in which they're based, but new ones quickly appear. USA TODAY's Mark Memmott talked with an expert on terrorists' use of the Internet, Gabriel Weimann, a senior fellow at the federally funded U.S. Institute of Peace. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Q: Can't terrorists be caught by tracing who posts their messages? A: You can track it. ... The question is, how deep can you go and how far can you go? Let me explain the layers. ... The first layer will be to look at the Web site and see the address. With the address, you can track the server (host computer) that is used - you can see where the Web site is based. That can be done in seconds. It's not a problem. ... That is being done by security agencies and counterterrorism forces all over the world. Q: What's the next layer? A: To know where the message or the video or the announcement or the picture or whatever was sent from. ... If I try to post something on a Web site, I'm using a server, too. There are two servers connected: the server that I'm using and the server that posts it on your Web site. Q: Sounds simple to trace. A: But there are many options. You can access different servers from different domains, which are public. It can be a university library. You go to a public library or a university library or an Internet cafe. Q: So, physically, there's little evidence to find if investigators get to that library or cafe? A: Now we're getting to the third level: the user. Let's say that I find the server that you used. I still didn't get to the individual user. I can say, 'This was sent from a computer in Jakarta' ... or from wherever. It was in a library or a computer network. ... But the user may disappear seconds after posting the message. Usually they do. So the deeper you go, the harder it is to find the user. This is one of the most important advantages of the Internet for terrorists. Anonymity, easy access, free access and the ability to disappear. Q: And if the person who sat at the computer and sent the video out is ever found, who is he likely to be? A: The guy who's posting the messages for the terrorists, or doing the downloading, is like the smallest of actors in the theater. You won't find the scriptwriters. I'm sure modern terrorists are quite aware of the possibility to track them down. So the chains (in their organizations) will be very long, and probably nobody knows who's the third link from him. Q: How do you, and investigators, monitor terrorists' use of the Web? A: It takes time. ... Al-Qaeda right now is moving among 50 different Web addresses. ... You have to follow the psychology of terrorists, the publicity-seeking mind of terrorists. They want you to find (information they put on the Web). They want people who are supporters or potential supporters, and journalists, to find them. To do so they have to publicize the new (Web addresses). They will go into Internet chat rooms and notify people. Q: So you monitor the chat rooms, watching for messages? A: We call it lurking. You sit quietly in a chat room. You do nothing. Just join it and sit quietly in the dark. This is what I do and what my research assistants are doing. You find very important information. (Relevant chat rooms can be found, for example, by performing a Google "groups" search using key words such as al-Qaeda or jihad.) Q: What are the messages like? A: Someone might ask, "Where can I find video of a Chechen slitting the throat of a Russian?" A few lines later, someone will answer, "Go to this Web site, and you'll see it." Q: People are looking for such things, then? A: Yes, and now we're coming to the speed at which things move. Once (terrorists' messages or video) appears somewhere, especially after an execution or dramatic event, within seconds it will be diffused and posted on other Web sites. You can find it within seconds all over the Internet. Even the beheading of Mr. Johnson. It was posted first on an Arab (Web) forum in England. But within seconds, it was also posted on American servers and American Web sites and then worldwide. -- ----------------- 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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