On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, Thomas Shaddack wrote:

Yet more info. Let's not overreact before we get complete dataset.

It is worth noting that the notice mentioned below was placed on the JAP website only after the news of the back channel was made public on Usenet and the various security mailing lists. Not the most laudable behavior, to say the least. -MW-

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 09:34:27 +0200 Subject: Re: Popular Net anonymity service back-doored From: nordi To: bugtraq@securityfocus.com, full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com

On Thursday, 21. August 2003 14:05, Thomas C. Greene wrote:

...

It's not secure, and claiming that it is taints anything else they may be doing on behalf of users. They're *still* saying it's impossible for anyone to intercept users' traffic or identify them.

Actually, this is absolutely not what they are saying. When you visit the website of the JAP project http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/ it says in big, red letters:

"Aus aktuellem Anlass weisen wir noch einmal ausdr|cklich daraufhin, dass sich die JAP Software in Entwicklung befindet und noch nicht maximale Sicherheit bietet. (siehe unten ... )"

In English this means something like

"Due to recent events we explicitly inform you of the fact that the JAP software is still being developed and does not yet provide maximum security. (see below ...)"

As I said: big, red letters at the top of their main page. And when you click that "see below" link it says there "Attention! [...] This version does NOT yet implement the security features described above and desired by us. But it does alread protect you against atackers that control the net only locally at one place such as [...] the owner of a mix."

So by the time you download that software you should have already read _two_ statements telling you that JAP is not as secure as it could be. It also tells you that in the current configuration, the JAP people can see all your traffic if they want to: Note that it says it will protect you against "the owner of _A_ mix". But if you take the Dresden-Dresden cascade, the JAP people obviously control _all_ of them. And the above statement already implies that in this case, JAP cannot protect you.

If you still want to use JAP, http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/uma-20.08.03-000/ (in German) tells you how to do it securely: simply use just a single mix that is not controlled by the JAP project and you'll be fine. The court order is only valid for the JAP people, so everybody else in Germany (and elsewhere of course) can offer a non-backdoored mix which will make the cascade secure. This actually means that all cascades but the Dresden-Dresden one are secure.

MfG nordi

-- Denn der Menschheit drohen Kriege, gegen welche die vergangenen wie armselige Versuche sind, und sie werden kommen ohne jeden Zweifel, wenn denen, die sie in aller Vffentlichkeit vorbereiten, nicht die Hdnde zerschlagen werden. Bertolt Brecht, 1952