- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Imminent Death of the Internet, GIF at 11
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For several months (years?) Bob Metcalf has been predicting that the Internet will self-destruct from overload. His argument appears to follow one of Gordon Bell's maxims: "anyone can predict the future: all you need is semi-log paper and a ruler." As I understand it, Metcalf's argument is that network load (messages, packets) is growing exponentially, while network bandwidth (fiber capacity, switch performance) is growing linearly. At some point, these two curves cross -- and demand will exceed capacity. There are two solutions to this problem: either there will be a fundamental change in the way messages move on the Internet (i.e. they don't all have to pass through Mae East and/or Mae West) or there will be a fundamental change in the way we use the Internet. We certainly are seeing changes in the way we use the network. When I "got on the net" in the late 1970's, I was on two mailing lists (SF-Lovers and Human Net) and could read *all* of Usenet traffic in an hour or two. In the late 1980's, Usenet traffic totalled about 10 MB/Day. Now, I'm on a handful of work-dependent, low bandwidth mailing lists, one high-bandwidth, high noise mailing list, almost never read Usenet and wouldn't dare attempt to support a Usenet newsserver. Today, it takes longer for me to read mail on an office Internet or 28.8 modem at home, than it did in 1980 on a 2400 baud modem. To make a long story short, I suspect that we will be much more selective in what we access on the net; we may hire editors (or form communities that share "interesting stuff", each person serving as one member of an informal editorial board). We will also see organizations (companies or professional societies) funding network-based publications to communicate matters of common interest. (There are a number of these already, Risks Digest being possibly the most important.) So, in one sense, Metcalf is right; the Internet will self-destruct. However, in another sense, he is wrong; the information carried on the Internet will still be distributed, but probably in a different form. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

3 3

Re: talker
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 08 Sep 1996 11:09:07 -0400, Wayne H. Allen wrote: >> cypherpunks are *not* crackers; this is a crytographic >> and political issues relating to cryptography mailing list. > Well maybe, political issues galore certainly, but very very little >to do with cryptography. I mean what does TWA 800 have to do with this >list. I mean lets be completely honest here, whatever the original >purpose of the list was for its been allowed to shift away from its >intended purpose considerably. True, but something like TWA800 has a lot more relevency to the "political issues" part mentioned above. A Big-Brother database being setup seems on-topic... - "'Anonymity is bad,' says a source who wishes to remain anonymous." - Nuff' said. * Home: Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp * Autoresponder: send email w/subject of "send resume" or "send PGPKEY" * Work: cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 | (619)689-6579 * Member in good standing of the GNU whirled hors d'oeuvre

1 0

[NOISE] Far-reaching tentacles . . . ?
by abostick＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Found in the news: (SACRAMENTO)- The principals of six Sacramento area schools have received 46 used computers that were renovated by inmates at Folsom Prison. Warden Theo White delivered the machines after they were given a reprieve from the scrap heap. The prison obtained the donated personal computers from the non-profit Detwiler Foundation... which began working five years ago to bring new technology into the state's classrooms. [Would you want *YOUR* CHILDREN to use computers that had been HACKED by CONVICTED CRIMINALS????] -- Alan Bostick | Usenet is living proof that if you analyze a mailto:abostick@netcom.com | blackbody spectrum for semantic content you get news:alt.grelb | "Call 1-800-HOT-GIRL now!" http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick

1 0

Re: Imminent Death of the Internet, GIF at 11
by Alexander 'Sasha' Chislenko 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:40 AM 9/7/96 -0700, Martin Minow <minow(a)apple.com> wrote: >For several months (years?) Bob Metcalf has been predicting that >the Internet will self-destruct from overload. His argument >appears to follow one of Gordon Bell's maxims: "anyone can predict >the future: all you need is semi-log paper and a ruler." As I >understand it, Metcalf's argument is that network load (messages, >packets) is growing exponentially, while network bandwidth (fiber >capacity, switch performance) is growing linearly. At some point, >these two curves cross -- and demand will exceed capacity. > I would add one word into that Gordon Bell's maxim: "anyone can predict the SHORT-TERM future: all you need is semi-log paper and a ruler." Rulers are liner-extrapolation predictors; the only predictions with still lower intelligence are pointers - with the assumption that things are going to always remain the same. Unfortunately, these two kinds of prediction methods populate most of the human "visionary" landscape, with rare flowers of visionary minds elevating above it - Metcalf's doesn't seem to be one of them. This very observation on the population/food dilemma was made by Malthus quite a while ago. However, both population and food are still here, and natural resources are no longer a serious limiting factor for the production of food. If you notice that your attempt to extend your ruler farther than it can go, will not work, it's a good prediction of a breakdown - *of the ruler*, not the system you are trying to measure. The role of a visionary is not to mistake the horizon of current trends for the horizon of the world, but look ahead and predict future trends - and advise what should be done to adapt to the imminent transitions. An important observation for the net traffic/bandwidth "crisis" is that human ability to perceive textual and visual information remains pretty much the same. Addition of graphics, video and sound to the Net, as well as the growing number of users, increase the bandwidth, but this all has (though still distant) saturation point - say, 24 hour-a-day single-channel video feed to every human and his dog. (Inter-machine communications do not have this limit though). Already, most of the newsfeed coming to any single server, is never read by anybody; this is also the fate of most messages from 60 or so mailing lists coming to my PC. A solution here, that will be also quite instrumental for many future problems, is not to send messages that are not going to be read - i.e., server-side filtering agents; I have been suggesting collaborative message filtering (see proposal on my home page) for more than 5 years now - only to find people who could help implement it, uselessly running around the Net whining and waving their stiff rulers. Of course, there are also other methods of making Net traffic more intelligent and robust; if Internet was recognized as the most revolutionary development in the evolution of the global ecology of intelligence, and if there existed some mechanism for turning truly visionary ideas on the Net's evolution into changes in its structure, then, well, things would be much better. <x-rich></x-rich><x-rich> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Chislenko <<sasha1(a)netcom.com> www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html Firefly Network, Inc.: <<alexc(a)firefly.net> www.ffly.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- </x-rich>

1 0

Mailing list
by Webeus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, I have been away for over 2 months and in returning find that alpha.c2.org is lo longer. Can you suggest an alternative, FAQ's etc ?? Thank you Webeus

1 0

TWA 800 - hit by an unarmed US missile?
by Vincent Cate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A collision with an unarmed missile would explain why they are not finding much evidence of high explosives (the pitting, ruptured metal, and residue). If a missile going at supersonic speed hit a 747 in the underbelly, near a fuel tank, I sure believe that it could take out the 747. If it was coming toward the 747, not catching up to it from behind, the collision speed would be the addition of the two speeds. In this case a soft civilian airplane would not stand a chance. Civilian airplanes are designed to survive collisions with birds, but not supersonic missiles. If the Navy was firing missiles in this area, it really does seem like the press should be checking out this angle. -- Vince

5 4

towards an eternity service
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[the relevance of this to remailer-operators, is that my example prototype architecture for discussion relies heavily on mixmaster remailers] Ross Anderson's eternity service (postscript paper somewhere on http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/) is a distributed file system with the criteria that it should not be possible to delete information from it. The paper outlines ways that you might go about doing this, and gives as a design goal that it should not be possible even for concerted government attacks to remove information from the service. Roughly the approach described is to have anonymous servers with secret shared data. The server doesn't know what it is serving, and the server charges per Mb/year of data storage. This seems a pretty interesting idea, as it would be a great boon to free speech to be able to reliably publish information that would survive attempts to "unpublish" it, which seem to be gaining in popularity. Notable recent examples of such attacks being Scientologist attacks on distribution of it's `scriptures', the German governments banning of nazi revisionist material, and the impending possibility of a repeat of the CDA at a (US) state level. I think it is desirable to get something working now, even if it is far short of the design criteria Anderson describes. A working model would provide something on which to base discussion of improvements, and would also be an interesting experiment to see the sorts of uses such a system would be put to, and the political reaction to it's uses. The following doesn't depend on, but would be helped by having direct socket delivery of packets (for performance) in the mixmaster remailer-net and forward secrecy (for resilence to attack). The idea comes in two parts, the first part, an anonymous www proxy using mixmaster to deliver packets, is present to provide cover traffic for real eternity system requests, the second part describes a way to acheive an eternity like system with the traffic mixed in with part 1 traffic, so that the two types of traffic can not be distinguished by attackers. 1. anonymous www proxies over mixmaster The stated design goal for this part (it's partly a cover goal, though useful in its own right) is to ensure that users can access publically accessible www pages without divulging their identity to the sites they are accessing, or even to an attacker who is monitoring net traffic. The user wants to hide which sites they are accessing, and what information they are accessing. No attempt is made to conceal the identity of the www sites accessed, a normal URL is used to access them. This is basically just like www.anonymizer.com, except that traffic is routed over the mixmaster net. An http <-> mixmaster interface would be added to the existing mixmaster. You add a blip in the line for outgoing traffic on your own machine which converts all outgoing http requests into mixmaster packets and feeds them into the remailer network. You choose random chains to get to the http servers. The delivered packet at the exit remailer node is a new mixmaster packet type, a http request type, rather than a request to email to an individual, or post to a newsgroup, it results in an (where possible SSL encrypted) http request being made to the specified http server. Also included with the request is a mixmaster reply chain, so that the exit mixmaster node can route the return the requested www pages, and SSL session traffic back to the originator. As you might imagine if this became popular, it could generate a lot of traffic. For a practical system I think it's inevitable that you'd need to provide some financial incentive for the mixmaster operators to subsidize their T3s :-) So you would need to incorporate per hop payments, for the remailers. This could be a relatively small payment, but is just there to ensure that they have the money to increase their bandwidth if the demand requires it. I think that about explains part 1. 2. an eternity like system built on this system There are a couple of extra requirements for the eternity system, firstly that the address of the www site must be concealed also, and secondly that the data is secret shared across multiple eternity www sites. The first requirement can be met by the anonymous eternity www sites publically posting to a newsgroup (via a mixmaster remailer of course:-) a mixmaster chain pointing at themselves. To reduce the problem of the flood attack for finding the endpoint of a chain, firstly some of Peter Allan's suggestions on extra cover traffic, and on adding extra hops to increase cover traffic should help, but ultimately this only makes a longer concerted flood necessary to find the output. I don't see any easy solution to the flood attack, the only _real_ answer is a DC net. A slightly simpler, but less robust solution would be to find ways to have fixed levels of traffic between nodes in the remailer network. Surplus traffic at entry points could be rejected, so that the sender knows to try another remailer. The other requirement for eternity is that the data should be secret shared. If all the eternity www servers publish their reply blocks, the user sends requests to a number of the eternity servers selected randomly. Choose the number so that it is likely that you will get the required k of n shares, given that there are n servers, and they all hold shares in the data, and that k of n shares are required to recover the secret. You also need to ensure that the exit mixmaster which is acting as a http forwarder server can't tell whether it is making an eternity system request or an anonymous www proxy request. The fact that http traffic is blindly forwarded means that if the http request is SSL encrypted the http forwarding mixmaster remailer will not know the contents of the traffic, and so will not be able to distinguish traffic type: eternity or anonymous proxy. As the eternity www servers don't know what the data in the shares they are holding is, they can't provide the indexing facility directly. Rather ordinary www pages, and other eternity www pages can be used to collect links to interesting eternity pages. In otherwords, it's decentralised, as is the www, and any indexing left up to the authors of eternity hosted www documents, or anyone elses indexing to interesting links. A compromise technology which would greatly simplify access to the service would be public www proxies or gateways to the eternity service, so that no new software was required for the client. This would serve a similar role to WWW based remailers. The scheme is complex in places but basically requires no new technology, at least for a crude implementation, without the finer points. What can be missed out in a first pass implementation, and deferred for later incremental improvements: ecash postage to pay for remailer resources fixed traffic between remailers payment for www sites (anonymous www proxy and eternity service) oblivious transfer to setup shares so that leaves the following to be done: blip in the line which routes http requests over mixmaster mixmaster reply chains for return http traffic secret sharing of data to send to eternity www servers periodic posting of mix reply blocks by eternity www servers public access www proxy, or www-cgi based gateway comments, volunteers? Adam -- exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

2 1

Re: ASEAN nations generally pro-censorship
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> _________________________________________________________________ > ASEAN FORUM AGREES ON NEED TO POLICE THE NET > __________________________________________________________________________ >[...] > But the statement suggested there was no agreement on a uniform > approach to policing the Internet. One could argue that the hundred years war was in substantial part the result of regulatory arbitrage against attempts to censor the printing press, that it was in large part an unsuccessful attempt to create a uniform standard of censorship by force of arms. History suggests that there *wont* be a uniform approach on policing the net. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

1 0

Re: [NOISE] Far-reaching tentacles . . . ?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:38 PM 9/8/96, Alan Bostick wrote: >Found in the news: > > > (SACRAMENTO)- The principals of six Sacramento area schools have >received 46 used computers that were renovated by inmates at Folsom >Prison. Warden Theo White delivered the machines after they were given a >reprieve from the scrap heap. The prison obtained the donated personal >computers from the non-profit Detwiler Foundation... which began working ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >five years ago to bring new technology into the state's classrooms. > >[Would you want *YOUR* CHILDREN to use computers that had been HACKED >by CONVICTED CRIMINALS????] Who cares about the convicted criminals? It's the connection to the Detwiler Foundation that would worry me. (Now that's what you call an S. Boxx!) --Medusa

2 1

AST Final Agenda
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, I hope you will be able to join us for our conference in Ottawa next week. Here is the final agenda. Dave PROGRAM ADVANCED SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGIES CONFERENCE II Sponsored by Privacy International Electronic Privacy Information Center September 16, 1996 Citadel Ottawa Hotel and Convention Centre Ottawa, Canada 9:00 am COFFEE AND REGISTRATION 9:30 am WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION: NURTURING THE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY Advanced surveillance functions have become an integral part of widescale information systems used by governments and businesses. Monitoring of the activities of individuals is seen as a desirable - and often technically essential - componennt in many of these systems. Once regarded as purpose-built stand alone innovations, the modern surveillance device for identification, profiling or tracking has been re-invented as a tool for commercial leverage. In these introductory remarks, Simon Davies and Dave Banisar explores the key technical, political, cultural and legal changes that are nurturing the growth of surveillance technologies across the world. o Simon Davies, London School of Economics & Director General, Privacy International oDave Banisar, Electronic Privacy Information Center & editor, International Privacy Bulletin 10:15 am FEATURED SPEAKER: SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGIES OF THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES What kinds of technologies are the intelligence agencies of the world using? Who are they using it against? Are they legally accountable for their actions? Mike Frost, a former spy for the Canadian Security Establishment will talk about his experiences using these technologies to spy on Canadian citizens and the relationship of the CSE to the US National Security Agency. o Mike Frost, Former Intelligence Officer, Canadian Communications Security Establishment & author, Spyworld 11:00 am BREAK 11:15 am SURVEILLANCE AND THE INTERNET SIGINT ONLINE: GOVERNMENT SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE ON THE NET o Wayne Madsen, Author, Handbook of Personal Data Protection >From Fort Meade, Maryland to Cheltenham, England and from Canberra, Australia to Issy les Moulineaux in Paris, signals intelligence (SIGINT) specialists are honing their skills at monitoring digital information. SIGINT agencies everywhere are increasingly throwing their surveillance web over the Internet and other data networks of interest. This session shall examine the methods by which SIGINT agencies conduct such on-line intelligence-gathering activities, including manipulation of encryption systems to exploiting weaknesses in communications architectures, including the use of anonymous remailers, rigging encryption systems, and tampering with the simple network management protocol (SNMP). You will discover that Mae West is more than just a deceased movie star. Datamining the Net: Cookies, Crawlers and Trackers o Simson Garfinkel, author, Practical Unix and Internet Security and PGP: Pretty Good Privacy. A great deal of information is gathered on individuals on the Internet. >From Alta Vista to cookies to digital cash to Web Crawler, sophicated tools to collect, index and process this information are being developed. Simson Garfinkel will discuss these technologies, what information is being gathered and what is being done with it. 12:30 pm LUNCH (provided) 1:30 pm CONSUMERS AND SURVEILLANCE INTELLIGENT VEHICLES AND TRACKING Phil Agre will outline the remarkable variety of technologies of surveillance currently being planned or implemented for road travel. The motivations for these systems are numerous and include logistics, traffic management, law enforcement, pollution control, and marketing. Despite the diversity of motivations, certain unifying themes emerge. The vast majority of the functionalities provided by these systems can be provided anonymously. o Phil Agre, University of California, San Diego GENETICS AS A SURVEILLANCE IDEOLOGY Researches in the field of genetics are still largely dominated by the works of molecular biologists who tend to comprehend reality through the classical Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm which postulates that it is possible to reduce the universe to a mechanical model in which peticular effects can be described as the direct results of specific causes. Such an approach does not acknowledge the fact that human physical and mental health is the result of very complex interactions. Most illnesses and deviant behaviors are multifactorial (physical and social environments are at least as much important as the genetic factors) and polygenic (numerous genes could be involved). In short, there are large probabilities that an individual carrying many "defective" genes may never develop the corresponding illness. Unfortunately, such fields of activities such as risk management, insurance, law and policy-making also work mostly within the Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm. In such a context, genetics can easily be transformed into an ideological justification for surveillance and social control of populations or individuals "at risk" as well as minimizing social and environmental responsabilities. o Pierrot Peladeau, Progesta Inc. & editor Privacy Files 2:45 pm BREAK 3:00 pm SOLUTIONS: PROTECTING PRIVACY IN SURVEILLANCE SOCIETIES A PRIVACY COMMISSIONER CASE STUDY: INTRODUCTION OF A DNA PROFILE DATABANK TO NEW ZEALAND Bruce Slane, Privacy Commissioner of New Zealand, will outline aspects of a new law which came into force in New Zealand last month. The law sanctions the establishment of a DNA profile database for police use in criminal investigations. The law also spells out how blood samples may be obtained from suspects for DNA analysis - voluntarily, by court order, and ultimately by force if need be. Bruce will explain the role of a Privacy Commissioner in scrutinising laws increasing state surveillance using the DNA law as a case study. o Bruce Slane. New Zealand Privacy Commissioner CAN PRIVACY STANDARDS ACHIEVE EFFECTIVE DATA PROTECTION? Privacy standards are becoming an important feature of the privacy protection landscape. The CSA Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information is likely to followed by other attempts to negotiate standards in other countries and at the international level. What are the market and regulatory incentives for the adoption of privacy standards? Can privacy standards exist alongside data protection legislation? What are the minimum requirements for a registration/accreditation system for a privacy standard? o Colin Bennett, University of Victoria 4:30 pm WRAPUP ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MORE INFORMATION More information on the conference will be available at the Privacy International mailing list at pi-news(a)privacy.org (subject: subscribe) or at the PI Home Page at http://www.privacy.org/pi/conference/ottawa/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- REGISTRATION Registration Fees [] Standard - $250 CAN ($175 US) [] Non-profit organizations/Educational - $125 CAN ($75 US) Information Name: ___________________________________________________________ Organization: ______________________________________________________ Address: _________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Phone/Fax: _________________________________________________________ Electronic Mail:_____________________________________________________ Credit card Number/Expiration Date: _________________________________ (Your credit card will be billed by "Diane Publishing" - Do Not Email!) First Virtual Account (include email address)_________________________ Fax Registration form and credit card number to +1 202.547.5482 Send Check or Money Order in $US made out to Privacy International to: Privacy International Washington Office 666 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Suite 301 Washington, DC 20003 USA 1-202-544-9240 (phone) 1-202-547-5482 (fax) pi(a)privacy.org(email) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Privacy International was formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations. With members in more than 40 countries, it has created an international movement that has helped to counter abuses of privacy by way of information technology. Privacy International has conducted campaigns in Europe, Asia and North America to raise awareness about the dangers of ID card systems, military surveillance, data matching, police information systems, and credit reporting. It is based in London, UK, and is administered by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, D.C. Privacy International publishes a quarterly newsletter (the International Privacy Bulletin) and organizes conferences each year on privacy and technology. More information is available at http://www.privacy.org/pi/ The Electronic Privacy Information Center is a public interest research center in Washington, DC. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging privacy issues relating to the National Information Infrastructure, such as the Clipper Chip, the Digital Telephony proposal, medical record privacy, and the sale of consumer data. EPIC is sponsored by the Fund for Constitutional Government, a non-profit organization established in 1974 to protect civil liberties and constitutional rights. EPIC publishes the EPIC Alert, pursues Freedom of Information Act litigation, and conducts policy research. For more information, email info(a)epic.org, HTTP://www.epic.org or write EPIC, 666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 301, Washington, DC 20003. +1 202 544 9240 (tel), +1 202 547 5482 (fax).

1 0