Known data havens for pirates? Doubtful
I forget who wrote:
blame them. Copyrighted data on a server in a jurisdiction that doesn't acknowledege the copyrights - a prime use for Data Havens when they come of age.
I suppose you _are_ aware that the US has threatened China with punitive duties on $100 BILLION dollars worth of trade, and that China has started holding some show trials (without shutting down its state-owned CD-piracy factories). It's not going to be easy to find a country more willing and able to ignore international copyright law (Berne Convention etc) than China; however, despite howls of protest even China is likely to knuckle down eventually. What may be likely is distributed piracy markets, such as described in Tim's BlackNet spoof. Read my earlier post on what Lance Rose thinks. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "In between the breaths is rishab@dxm.ernet.in the space where we live" rishab@arbornet.org - Lawrence Durrell Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA
rishab@dxm.ernet.in wrote:
factories). It's not going to be easy to find a country more willing and able to ignore international copyright law (Berne Convention etc) than China; however, despite howls of protest even China is likely to knuckle down eventually. What may be likely is distributed piracy markets, such as
In the foreseeable future (10 years?) there will exist jurisdictions that, even after signing this or that convention, will be more or less lax about pursuing violators. Thus I still believe, despite China's awaited submission, that the Internet and 28.8 modems (and abundance of disk space) are real threats to holders of copyright who want to protect every penny. Encryption (by the way, how long might it take to IDEA-encrypt a 2 MB .zip file? I never tried) will make it practically impossible to find and prosecute at least private copyright abuse. They won't use thumb- screws to obtain the key to your SecureDrive just on suspicion of infringement (except possibly in Singapore). The present situation, as we all know, is that few people are willing to pay for such software as games if they can get a (cracked) version for free. I think this attitude will expand to most software. The real war will be faught between protectors and crackers (since it is usually not convenient to export an opened, installed version to another system - and more so the bigger and directory-spreading the program is). Actually, a sort of data haven for cracks already exists. If you live in a jurisdiction where cracks are illegal to advertize (let alone use) they can be hard to find on your local BBS, but with an Internet feed (or long distance modem calls) it's no problem at all. (For those who don't believe in the shareware concept I recommend the Norwegian nag-eliminator 'Buster' - although you need the registered version for the latest versions :-) Mr La Macchia got caught. How many didn't? Look at the IRC Undernet: wArEz-bots all over the place - and I bet the net.cops are lagging in bot comprehension (unfortunately, so am I...). And there is talk about this Secure-IRC. Mats
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In list.cypherpunks, asgaard@sos.sll.se writes:
(by the way, how long might it take to IDEA-encrypt a 2 MB .zip file? I never tried)
Me, neither. Let's find out.... [1] d:\doom>dir tt.zip Volume in drive D is unlabeled Serial number is 0000:13FD Directory of d:\doom\tt.zip tt.zip 2292723 1-18-95 22:06 2,292,723 bytes in 1 file(s) 2,293,760 bytes allocated 4,853,760 bytes free [1] d:\doom>timer^pgp +armor=off +compress=off +textmode=off -c tt.zip ^ timer Timer 1 on: 22:16:16 Pretty Good Privacy(tm) 2.6.2 - Public-key encryption for the masses. (c) 1990-1994 Philip Zimmermann, Phil's Pretty Good Software. 11 Oct 94 Uses the RSAREF(tm) Toolkit, which is copyright RSA Data Security, Inc. Distributed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Export of this software may be restricted by the U.S. government. Current time: 1995/01/19 04:16 GMT You need a pass phrase to encrypt the file. Enter pass phrase: Enter same pass phrase again: Just a moment... Ciphertext file: tt.pgp Timer 1 off: 22:18:42 Elapsed: 0:02:26.05 '+textmode=off' is probably overkill, since PGP recognizes the non-text content. But my config.txt has armor and compress turned on. Compressing almost doubled the time to encrypt, and armor gave me 39 *.asc files. - -- Roy M. Silvernail -- roy@cybrspc.mn.org will do just fine, thanks. "Does that not fit in with your plans?" -- Mr Wiggen, of Ironside and Malone (Monty Python) PGP public key available upon request (send yours) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQCVAwUBLx3pkBvikii9febJAQFfgwP+MkpU2xv9zUPyYIYtzvsTUzSSdjcVi4Dd 8PW8AmVFCu2xHI0Zce8CCh3/i+ZMK15E6xvoFdESwS3mkz9DIBZZ/JfyPu0kQ4Lc H76HHoBQNyW00K4Alzfa1rkvyiot8j3KjagpOcCazMlCsKfbZ/xa8PSt8ae8H2k5 RpoZ3o8H87k= =FGL8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
In the world according to rishab@dxm.ernet.in:
I forget who wrote:
blame them. Copyrighted data on a server in a jurisdiction that doesn't acknowledege the copyrights - a prime use for Data Havens when they come of age.
I suppose you _are_ aware that the US has threatened China with punitive duties on $100 BILLION dollars worth of trade, and that China has started holding some show trials (without shutting down its state-owned CD-piracy factories). It's not going to be easy to find a country more willing and able to ignore international copyright law (Berne Convention etc) than China; however, despite howls of protest even China is likely to knuckle down eventually. What may be likely is distributed piracy markets, such as described in Tim's BlackNet spoof.
One of the major features of the Uraguay round of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) is a large revision of internation patent and copyright law (which is currently de facto non-existent in many countries). Intellectual copyrights are still somewhat vague in the current agreement, but there will be a course for hearing through the WTO (World Trade Organization). In the case of Asian countries, APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Conference) is laying out intellectual property right regulations for conference members (the US, Canada, and most of the Pacific Rim including China). Though these agreements are still a long way from clearing up copyright disputes and their enforcement remains dubious, they should help to stop such blatant infractions of copyright status. Of course, one need not look to China for copyright violations, just take a look at all the video tape pirates in New York or other cities ... |Robert -- Robert Seymour rseymour@reed.edu Reed College Artificial Life Project NeXTmail, MIME, PGP accepted WWW Pages
The comments about data havens have been interesting to read. Being the analytic-retentive type, I like to view things as tables and graphs, of such things as: who knows location (nobody, some, everybody) vs. types of data supported, for example. But I won't make such a table here, now. [Note on my responses. Netcom is not accepting mail connections, so Cypherpunk mail basically doesn't arrive from the early morning to very late in the evening. This has to do with toad not using "MX mail records," as near as we could figure out. Please don't send suggestions, as I can't get either toad or Netcom changed. I merely point this out to explain why I basically am out of the debate during the day. The information highway is becoming a dirt road.] I mainly agree with Rishab's point: the idea of a known, fixed location that carries Infocalypse material is deeply flawed. Data havens just won't be in known locations, at least not primarily. While I found Bruce Sterling's "data havens" in the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia interesting and provocative, they made no sense as viable, stable entities. No site which is _known_ to be a Warez site, a bootleg Nazi medical data site, a copyright violation haven, etc., will last for long. Whether knocked out as a result of a U.N. Resolution (infinitely easier than zapping Saddam), or sabotaged the way the French SDECE hit the "Rainbow Warrior," or merely subverted at ground level, the site cannot last. "The Center cannot hold." Fortunately, there is no reason for data havens to be in fixed locations. Or in traceable, identifiable locations. My BlackNet thought experiment was much more than a mere Gedanken experiment: as many of you learned, it was/is a real key, and 2-way communication has happened. Of course, you mostly all know I was the instigator (and those who don't haven't followed the debate and/or haven't read the Cyphernomicon section on BlackNet). rishab@dxm.ernet.in wrote:
I suppose you _are_ aware that the US has threatened China with punitive duties on $100 BILLION dollars worth of trade, and that China has started holding some show trials (without shutting down its state-owned CD-piracy factories). It's not going to be easy to find a country more willing and able to ignore international copyright law (Berne Convention etc) than China; however, despite howls of protest even China is likely to knuckle down eventually. What may be likely is distributed piracy markets, such as ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ described in Tim's BlackNet spoof. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yes, this is the way to go. The data havens have a location that is a public key in cyberspace. Think of it as one entity placing an anonymous, untraceable classified ad in a newspaper, readable by many, and others placing ads in response. A two-way communication channel is thus opened up, without regard for the physical location of each, the nature of the communication, the data to be transferred, etc. All of that is just detail. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay
The comments about data havens have been interesting to read. Being
[ .. ]
Yes, this is the way to go. The data havens have a location that is a public key in cyberspace. Think of it as one entity placing an anonymous, untraceable classified ad in a newspaper, readable by many, and others placing ads in response. A two-way communication channel is thus opened up, without regard for the physical location of each, the nature of the communication, the data to be transferred, etc.
All of that is just detail.
Hmmm... then why use a data haven at all? Split the file into small pieces, encrypt each and post each piece in a newsgroups (the pieces may even be posted as small garbles of data in sigs?). When you need to recover the file checksites which archive those newsgroups. Just a thought. It's probably quite doable for small files. Another idea: use encryption/secret sharing combined with steganography and upload copies of the said files to various ftp-sties or BBS's. (It may be that this is more secure than data havens, since few SysAdmins would bother checking for steganographically hidden files...)
--Tim May
Rob
participants (6)
-
Mats Bergstrom -
rishab＠dxm.ernet.in -
Robert Rothenberg -
roy＠cybrspc.mn.org -
rseymour＠reed.edu -
tcmay＠netcom.com