September 2014 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Radical-safest TLDs in 2007
by Douglas Lucas 02 Oct '14

02 Oct '14

I have a historical question. In 2007, anywhere from January to September, what TLDs were regarded as the most pirate-friendly or journalism-friendly or safest from takedowns of whatever stripe, e.g. the sort of DHS DMCA takedowns we have now, etc.?

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Fwd: [Cryptography] "Spy Agencies Urge Caution on Phone Deal"
by grarpamp 02 Oct '14

02 Oct '14

Number portability and more... trivially redirected to anywhere for MITM... courtesy Neustar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSTN_network_topology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing_in_the_PSTN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_number_portability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RespOrg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll-free_number_portability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neustar http://www.npac.com/ http://leap.neustar.biz/ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jerry Leichter <leichter(a)lrw.com> Date: Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 11:51 PM Subject: [Cryptography] "Spy Agencies Urge Caution on Phone Deal" To: Cryptography <cryptography(a)metzdowd.com> Not directly crypto-related, but an example of the tangle of relationships that drive surveillance: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/us/spy-agencies-urge-caution-on-phone-dea… reports on a backstage argument going on in Washington about a special network/database - oddly never named in the article - that "rout[es] millions of phone calls and text messages in the United States". Apparently this was a system created back in the late 1990's to implement number portability. It's not clear from the article whether it's a database of number-to-carrier mappings, or actually routes call based on such a database. A small Virginia company named Neustar created the system and has managed it ever since. Recently, the major carriers recommended to the FCC that Neustar be replaced by Telcordia, an American subsidiary of Ericsson, which allegedly can do the job more cheaply. The "intelligence community" has been pushed to leave the job in Neustar's hands, claiming that letting a European company run the system would leak important information about how US surveillance of the phone networks is implemented. Neustar, obviously no stranger to the Washington inside game, has hired good ol' Michael Chertoff to represent them. The bullshit and inside baseball and lobbying here runs so deep you can't see bottom. And underneath it all, another piece of the vast tapping network we've built in the US in the last 12 or so years is revealed, just a little bit. -- Jerry

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Re: Email encryption for the wider public
by Henry Augustus Chamberlain 01 Oct '14

01 Oct '14

Hi all, Some very interesting points so far. To avoid making this email too long, I'm going to reply without quoting - I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone. Regarding the memorability issue, all I can say is that end-to-end encryption really does require sharing 100+ bit keys - it's essential! You may be able to memorise your email address at the moment, but that's only half the story, since you can't memorise your public key! I can't solve every problem with PGP, but I still think this proposal solves a fair few of them. In some cases it improves on PGP, and in the other case it's at least no worse: you can still use online institutional directories etc if you want. Don't forget all the advantages this scheme could bring! Simplicity and transparency for the end user is really important! They're more likely to understand the significance of a public key if it forms part of the address (despite not understanding why it has to be this way). Perhaps it doesn't help Derek's mum - nor my mum, for that matter - but there are plenty of people for whom PGP is to complex whereas this scheme would be manageable. If you wish, you can send some emails encrypted and others unencrypted, just like you can with PGP - in this case, you'd just need two addresses (which is surely no worse than PGP, where you have an address and a key). Regarding telephone conversations: if it's with a mobile phone, perhaps a text message would work; if it's a landline, you probably have internet access, so an initial unencrypted email would work if you're not worried about man-in-the-middle attacks. (If you are worried about such attacks, then a bit of effort might be required, beyond just rattling off a short email address over the phone.) By the way, I'm suggesting printable characters to encode the key, not arbitrary bytes. An alphanumeric character stores nearly 6 bits (or 5 if it isn't case-sensitive), so 256-bit keys would require around 50 characters. Email standards allow 64 characters for the local part of the address, so there's room for error-correction too. Regarding the point about forged email addresses: for cryptography to work, you need to identify people using their keys, not their addresses. With PGP, you could send an email to my mum, using my email address but the wrong signature; if my mum is just relying on the email address, then that defeats the purpose of PGP. Of course, most PGP systems compare the key with that stored in the address book; a similar system can be used for my proposal, but with the advantage that forged emails don't give rise to the situation where the address is known but the key is unknown, which might lead a naive user to assume something's broken with the crypto software. Regarding webmail... I still haven't solved that one. Maybe there's an inherent contradiction in trying to include webmail in an end-to-end encryption system. I like the idea of using the "address+key(a)gmail.com" technique, although it does contradict the idea of "identify people using the key, not the address". Also, in my original proposal, I suggested using the private key (instead of a password) to login to the email server. I reckon Gmail is unlikely to allow that in the near future :) Best wishes, Henry

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How worse is the shellshock bash bug than Heartbleed?
by Georgi Guninski 01 Oct '14

01 Oct '14

Recently a bash(1) bug called shellsock died. It affected Apache, DHCP, SSH,qmail,Pure-FTPd and other stuff. Summary of affected: https://github.com/mubix/shellshocker-pocs/blob/master/README.md I find this _much_ worse than the passive Heartbleed. How worse is the shellshock bash bug than Heartbleed?

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Offering free firmware rootkits perhaps even badBIOS
by bluelotus＠openmailbox.org 01 Oct '14

01 Oct '14

Want firmware rootkits, probably more sophisticated than FinFisher's, probably BadBiOS, emailed to you? Hidden .mp3 and ID3 tag embedded in .exif in photos I took. Clicking on the photos does not produce audible sound. Is audio ultrasound? http://www.reddit.com/r/badBIOS/comments/2hd3ia/is_hidden_mp3_in_hidden_exi… JavaScript block, multiple objects, multiple stream objects, OpenAction and JFIF in documents that I scanned into PDF. http://www.reddit.com/r/badBIOS/comments/2gzbt6/infected_music_other_object… Malware hiding in revisions, OLE2 streams and null characters after the end of file of doc files I had created. Null characters after the end of file of tiff files. http://www.reddit.com/r/badBIOS/comments/2h91bb/ole2_streams_in_doc_files_a… I removed ID3 tags from music. Hackers concealed reinserting ID3 tags. http://www.reddit.com/r/badBIOS/comments/2h6nuk/hidden_infected_id3_tags_in…

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Firechat, this «freedom of speech-app» is bogus
by Xavier 30 Sep '14

30 Sep '14

Hello there, Mostly I'm just a lurker here but for once I will ask some questions/make remarks about Firechat. As you may know, this app just got extensive media coverage due to their widespread use in Hong Kong «Occupy-central». Check on the Guardian for example: www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/29/firechat-messaging-app-powering-hong-… So, out of curiosity, I just downloaded the app. Below are my remarks on the process: - You can't directly download the apk from the website. For android, the only link available is from the Google store. As if, if you really need privacy and freedom of speech, the first thing that you do is have a google account linked to your android device. I downloaded the app from Aptoide, but well… - Once you download the app, required permissions include: - Localization - Read contacts - Search accounts on the device How are those permissions necessary ? I just want to connect to nearby people. I don't need firechat servers to point me to those people nor to know where I am or with whom I chat. - Once you launch the app, there comes the cherry on the cake, you need to have properly activated and updated Google Play background services in order to run the app. I suppose that it implies that you must have a Google account linked to your device and that, thanks to the «Search account» permission, Firechat just like Google are perfectly aware of who you exactly are ?? If my goal was just to chat with my neighbors without paying during the Worldcup, that would be fine, but the problem here is that this app is now also marketed in newspapers as a privacy app, thanks to Hong Kong protests. When the product was released a few month ago, I already tried it but abandoned immediately due to those privacy problems. What I want first of all is privacy, not to avoid paying my provider. Now I understand that for Hong Kong people this is a lesser evil solution because they fear an Internet shutdown, but well, I am disappointed to remark that «freedom-of-speech» and «privacy-aware» are so strongly disconnected even in a promising app like this one. Xavier

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Bitcoin mining ASIC decapped
by Peter Gutmann 30 Sep '14

30 Sep '14

In case anyone's interested, this site: http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/bitfury-bitcoin-mining-chip has some photos of what looks like a decapped Bitfury ASIC. It's a pretty unique structure... Peter.

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Julian Assange Speaks with teleSUR English
by Damian Fossi 30 Sep '14

30 Sep '14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POzBnAT7ZoQ In an exclusive interview with teleSUR English, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has warned Google has “lulled” the world into a false sense of security. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has warned Google and the U.S. government are collaborating to create the most advanced surveillance state the world has ever seen. In a secret meeting in 2011, Assange says he caught a glimpse into the inner workings of the Google “empire,” and its intimate relationship with the U.S. government. “Google is literally in bed with the State Department,” he told teleSUR English in an exclusive interview. -- Damián D. Fossi Salas > ¡Software Libre hasta el 2 mil siempre! http://damian.fossi.me Uso: Debian GNU/Linux con Kernel 3.12.6-libre Linux User: 188464 Jabber ID: dam1an en chat.cpunks.us Twitter.com > http://twitter.com/dam1an

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Manufacturing open hardware
by bluelotus＠openmailbox.org 29 Sep '14

29 Sep '14

http://www.datamation.com/open-source/what-linux-users-should-know-about-op…

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Re: Re: bashing your head against nation-state social engineering
by Subrosa.io 29 Sep '14

29 Sep '14

I think this vulnerability should have been discovered with any kind of basic fuzzing. I have little doubt that this has been discovered and has been exploited in the wild. How is Mirage OS promising and relevant here? ---- On Sat, 27 Sep 2014 14:48:24 -0400 Travis Biehn wrote ---- >From: Travis Biehn <tbiehn(a)gmail.com> >To: Lodewijk andré de la porte <l(a)odewijk.nl> >Cc: "cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org" <cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org> >Subject: >Message-ID: > <CAKtE3zcZ9LuBKvJnFm_RJ3te=MotchXXDioJa17291uHUvFJFg(a)mail.gmail.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > >I'm partial to Joanna Rutkowska's statement that "Security by Isolation" is >the best course followed for -users- of software. [in addition to all the >patching and whatever.] > >Developers of that software, ultimately, are responsible for securing their >stuff. As an aside - separating your complex system into multiple trust >zones, from a development standpoint, is de-rigueur for secure design. > >Security heads have long been decrying cgi-bin. Most of the reason is that >the threat surface is insane - for binaries you have user input that's not >running in some sort of VM [php,perl,ruby,node.js, etc] and existing in >memory entangled with executable instructions. > >Injection attacks, are, of course old-hat. The daemons could have done some >hand-holding in this respect before passing off headers to ENV variables. > >The issue is that 'restricted chars' wasn't defined by a standard interface >between daemon and cgi-bin script. The called function has a completely >arbitrary set of restricted chars. >/bin/bash, of course, isn't written to withstand env attacks - since the >calling user controls the env / and bash is executed under that user's >privileges. >So it is, of a matter of course, inevitable to find vulnerability there. >With one process isolating the client from the env, modifying the env as a >result of the user's whims and then passing off to a sub-process that >trusts the env implicitly. > >It is very unlikely that any TLA 'created' this vulnerability. The notion >is entirely incredible. The existence of vulnerability in such a design is >immediately obvious from anyone who takes more than a cursory look at it. >That isn't to say that this specific attack was trivial to identify - that >is to say from an architecture standpoint it should be evident that the >handoff between httpd and cgi-bin is a location of extreme vulnerability. > >On a related note: Mirage OS looks like it's on a promising tack: >http://www.xenproject.org/developers/teams/mirage-os.html > >-Travis > >On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 12:49 PM, Lodewijk andré de la porte <l(a)odewijk.nl> >wrote: > >> Know what you code, and what you run. Don't be fooled by words and shapes, >> code does what code does, that is all. >> >> We seriously need a way to detach code from mental models to expose hidden >> features. Basically, all computer law is rubbish because everything you run >> on your computer, exploits and all, is something you run by choice. But >> there's no way you could validate the sheer bulk of code. If you want to >> really solve security flaws it'll involve somehow validating the >> possibilities of the code run. >> >> It's a discipline that touches on visualization, automated testing and >> simplification. Simplification meaning, reducing possible states and >> "execution paths". And just making code easier to comprehend. >> >> The problem is that there's either no market for "truly secure" computing, >> or there's just nobody filling the gap. Banks with their Cobol are laughed >> at, mostly, and accused of lacking innovation. They do lack innovation in >> the technical field. And Cobol is definitely not an ideal language. But >> "truly secure" is worth a lot to them. L4 validated is a step in the right >> direction, but catches a lot of wind saying it's still imperfect and >> therefore worthless. >> >> I'm utterly bored by code review. Maybe it'd be better if there were some >> nicer tools to help out. I'm really sure someone has great recommendations >> regarding this. (That don't even require Cobol :) >> > > > >-- >Twitter <https://twitter.com/tbiehn> | LinkedIn ><http://www.linkedin.com/in/travisbiehn> | GitHub <http://github.com/tbiehn> >| TravisBiehn.com <http://www.travisbiehn.com> | Google Plus ><https://plus.google.com/+TravisBiehn> >

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