Re: The Packwood Memorial Diary Server
Jim choate writes:
The courts could then assume that the purpose of the server is to collect and store documents in such a way that there is a priori intention to prohibit legal agents from accessing said data under court ordered supeona. This qualifies as a conspiracy in every legal jurisdiction that I know of. It also opens the sysadmin open to prosecution as well.
Won't float in any pond I know of...
Are there really no countries in the world that would permit such a server? How depressing. If true, I guess the next question becomes: How can you offer a service to the Internet, but make it impossible for a Bad Guy to physically locate you? Perhaps the server shouldn't stay in any one location for very long. Bring it up and post an Internet address. Operate for a few days, then shut it down and move to some new location, with a new Internet address. Sounds possible, but damned inconvenient. A wireless connection would help. The server host could be in a van or RV or something. <sigh> Jim_Miller@suite.com
On Wed, 26 Jan 1994, Jim Miller wrote:
If true, I guess the next question becomes: How can you offer a service to the Internet, but make it impossible for a Bad Guy to physically locate you?
In The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling there is a very short summary of a speech by Donn Parker, presumably The Great Bald Eagle Of Computer Crime, at a secutity conference. He had mentioned Phantom Nodes on the Internet as a possible future 'problem'. I guess this might be related.
Mats Bergstrom <matsb@sos.sll.se> writes:
On Wed, 26 Jan 1994, Jim Miller wrote:
If true, I guess the next question becomes: How can you offer a service to the Internet, but make it impossible for a Bad Guy to physically locate you?
[In] a speech by Donn Parker, presumably The Great Bald Eagle Of Computer Crime, at a secutity conference. [Parker mentions] Phantom Nodes on the Internet as a possible future 'problem'. I guess this might be related.
This has been an idea of sorts that I have been tossing around to Doug down here over bagels and coffee; how to decouple the server from any single physical host or subset of hosts in a cooperating pool. There is some interesting work in secure multi-party computation protocols that might be coupled with a distributed MUD-like server to create a system that can act as an information server or broker without needing a specific physical location. It would take some hacking to get things to work together, but it might be possible to create a network of servers that listen for RPCish requests from various other members of the network and together they might provide enough ambiguity regarding where the actual server resides. It would take some work, but it should be possible... jim
Jim Miller writes:
Jim choate writes:
The courts could then assume that the purpose of the server is to collect and store documents in such a way that there is a priori intention to prohibit legal agents from accessing said data under court ordered supeona. This qualifies as a conspiracy in every legal jurisdiction that I know of. It also opens the sysadmin open to prosecution as well.
Are there really no countries in the world that would permit such a server? How depressing.
If true, I guess the next question becomes: How can you offer a service to the Internet, but make it impossible for a Bad Guy to physically locate you?
This is what digital mixes are aimed at, of course. Not just protecting mail against traffic analysis, but creating fully anonymous transaction system--it follows, does it not, that a fully anonymous 2-way system means Alice doesn't know who Bob really is, or where his site is located? As a concrete example, does anyone know where the "BlackNet" site is? Or "Sam Hill," or any of the other various pseudonyms? With good mixes (along the lines of the second generation remailer I wrote about recently) and 2-way communication (more on this in a minute), the "truly anonymous server" is possible and even imminent. How is anonymous 2-way communication possible? Several ways: - prepaid mailers, good for sending a packet to a destination. With the final address nested insided a series of encrypted packets, no mix along the way can identify Bob without extensive collusion with other mixes. (The last remailer can in theory identify Bob, but he has no idea what is being sent, or even that Bob is the "final recipient." Indeed, Bob just looks like yet another remailer. Standard "Mixes 101" stuff.) - pools, a la the pools used by Miron Cuperman and by my own BlackNet experiment. Not a fast 2-way communication system, but it works. - a Penet-style 2-way system, with additional security. Multiple Penet-style remappers could handle name translations and only collusion between them would reveal real identities. (And more sneaky methods can be used to lessen this chance, too.) There are probably other known methods, and others still to be invented. An "anonymous anonymous ftp" system is certainly feasible. The prepaid mailer ideas would also fit in with digital postage ideas. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | 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.
participants (4)
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Jim McCoy -
jim＠bilbo.suite.com -
Mats Bergstrom -
tcmay＠netcom.com