September 2014 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

About STELLARWIND and other mysterious classification markings
by coderman 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

http://electrospaces.blogspot.nl/2014/09/about-stellarwind-and-another.html [ ... a good read; go do so now! ] for the TL;DR crowd: """ In the end, it doesn't make much difference whether STELLARWIND is a control system on its own, or a sub-system of COMINT, but it is remarkable that for such an important program, the people involved apparently also weren't clear about it's exact status and how to put it in the right place of a classification line. More important though is that the declassified documents show that besides the STELLARWIND program, there's at least one COMINT-compartment with at least one sub-compartment that protect similar or related NSA collection efforts which are considered even more sensitive, but about which we can only speculate. """

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Fwd: RFC 7359 on Layer 3 Virtual Private Network (VPN) Tunnel Traffic Leakages in Dual-Stack Hosts/Networks
by coderman 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

direct draft at: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7359.txt -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: RFC 7359 on Layer 3 Virtual Private Network (VPN) Tunnel Traffic Leakages in Dual-Stack Hosts/Networks Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 18:23:00 -0700 (PDT) From: rfc-editor(a)rfc-editor.org Reply-To: ietf(a)ietf.org To: ietf-announce(a)ietf.org, rfc-dist(a)rfc-editor.org CC: drafts-update-ref(a)iana.org, rfc-editor(a)rfc-editor.org A new Request for Comments is now available in online RFC libraries. RFC 7359 Title: Layer 3 Virtual Private Network (VPN) Tunnel Traffic Leakages in Dual-Stack Hosts/Networks Author: F. Gont Status: Informational Stream: IETF Date: August 2014 Mailbox: fgont(a)si6networks.com Pages: 12 Characters: 26506 Updates/Obsoletes/SeeAlso: None I-D Tag: draft-ietf-opsec-vpn-leakages-06.txt URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7359.txt The subtle way in which the IPv6 and IPv4 protocols coexist in typical networks, together with the lack of proper IPv6 support in popular Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnel products, may inadvertently result in VPN tunnel traffic leakages. That is, traffic meant to be transferred over an encrypted and integrity- protected VPN tunnel may leak out of such a tunnel and be sent in the clear on the local network towards the final destination. This document discusses some scenarios in which such VPN tunnel traffic leakages may occur as a result of employing IPv6-unaware VPN software. Additionally, this document offers possible mitigations for this issue. This document is a product of the Operational Security Capabilities for IP Network Infrastructure Working Group of the IETF. INFORMATIONAL: This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. This announcement is sent to the IETF-Announce and rfc-dist lists. To subscribe or unsubscribe, see https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce https://mailman.rfc-editor.org/mailman/listinfo/rfc-dist For searching the RFC series, see https://www.rfc-editor.org/search For downloading RFCs, see https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc.html Requests for special distribution should be addressed to either the author of the RFC in question, or to rfc-editor(a)rfc-editor.org. Unless specifically noted otherwise on the RFC itself, all RFCs are for unlimited distribution. The RFC Editor Team Association Management Solutions, LLC -- Fernando Gont e-mail: fernando(a)gont.com.ar || fgont(a)si6networks.com PGP Fingerprint: 7809 84F5 322E 45C7 F1C9 3945 96EE A9EF D076 FFF1

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SpyFiles 4
by coderman 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

"Today, 15 September 2014, WikiLeaks releases previously unseen copies of weaponised German surveillance malware used by intelligence agencies around the world to spy on journalists, political dissidents and others." - https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles4/index.html get it while it's hot!

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DOE quantum encryption & Google quantum computation research
by Gregory Foster 11 Sep '14

11 Sep '14

GCN (Sep 10) - "DOE, Google [independently] back quantum computing research": http://gcn.com/blogs/pulse/2014/09/doe-google-quantum.aspx > The Department of Energy is investing in a project to speed the development of unhackable quantum encryption technology that will protect the country's power grid from cyberattack. > > Under the DOE's Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems program, the nation's top program for grid security, San Diego startup Qubitekk was awarded $3 million to work in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of Texas at Austin, Sandia National Laboratory and Pacific Gas & Electric to develop practical quantum security for the nation’s power grid. > > Qubitekk, founded in 2012 to commercialize technology required to speed the adoption of quantum computing, recently announced the availability of the world's first plug-and-play entangled photon generator, the QES1. Like the transistors at the hearts of classical computers, the QES1 enables the flow of information through quantum computers and quantum encryption products – both of which the company is currently developing. > > Meanwhile, Google is planning to build its own quantum computer. The Quantum Artificial Intelligence team at Google is launching a hardware initiative to design and build new quantum information processors based on superconducting electronics, according to a Google+ post by the lab team. Google also announced that John Martinis and his team at UC Santa Barbara will join Google in the initiative. > > Google has been working with D-Wave Systems, maker of the quantum computer being tested by the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Martinis will try to make his own versions of the kind of chip inside a D-Wave machine. > > The Google Quantum AI team will test “new designs for quantum optimization and inference processors based on recent theoretical insights as well as our learnings from the D-Wave quantum annealing architecture,” Google said. The company will continue to work with D-Wave scientists and to experiment with the 512-qubit “Vesuvius” machine at NASA Ames that will be upgraded to a 1000 qubit “Washington” processor. gf -- Gregory Foster || gfoster(a)entersection.org @gregoryfoster <> http://entersection.com/

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Obituary: Hal Finney | The Economist
by Robert Hettinga 10 Sep '14

10 Sep '14

http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21615469-harold-finney-futurist-and-… Hal Finney AS IT turned out, Hal Finney was not Satoshi Nakamoto. But for a short while, at least, some people thought he might be. “Satoshi Nakamoto” is the most famous non-person on the internet. The name is a pseudonym, meant to hide the shadowy programmer (or programmers) behind Bitcoin, a computerised currency designed to liberate money from the control of any central bank. Speculating about his true identity is a popular pastime in some of the more esoteric corners of the web. Still, Mr Finney was a good guess. As a cryptographer and a programmer he had the skills, for Bitcoin relies on cryptography to function. Having been an early adopter (he was, with the fabled Mr Nakamoto, a partner in the world’s first ever Bitcoin transaction) he certainly had the pedigree. And he had the beliefs, too. He was one of the original “cypherpunks”, a small, influential band of cryptographers, philosophers and programmers who, in the early 1990s, helped stamp the early internet with its culture of rebelliousness, distrust of government and optimistic belief in the liberating power of technology. Two decades before Edward Snowden put the subject on front pages the world over, the cypherpunks were discussing how the coming age of the internet would allow governments and companies to pry ever more deeply and easily into the lives of their citizens and customers. But that same computer revolution would also hand ordinary people the power to fight back against the organisations that presumed to run their lives. Until that point, good quality encryption had been something available only to spy agencies and big companies. Computers would give people the power to carve out a mathematically guaranteed refuge from the powers that be, and to have a conversation that was provably, reliably private. For Mr Finney, who had spent his high-school years imbibing the supercharged libertarianism of Ayn Rand, and who was now earning a living writing video games, that was a heady challenge. He accepted it with gusto. “Here we are faced with the problems of loss of privacy, creeping computerisation, massive databases, more centralisation,” he wrote. “[But] the computer can be used as a tool to liberate and protect people, rather than to control them.” His aim was clear: “The work we are doing here, broadly speaking, is dedicated to this goal of making Big Brother obsolete.” He began helping, unpaid, with a program called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), putting in enough hours that it became a second job. It was well-named: even today, messages scrambled with it are thought to be unbreakable (Mr Snowden used PGP for his e-mail exchanges with the journalists to whom he leaked his documents). In 1991 Phil Zimmermann, PGP’s chief developer, uploaded it to the internet. America’s spies were aghast. Exporting encryption—which was classed as a weapon—was illegal. And here a group of self-proclaimed techno-liberators were proposing to just hand it over to anyone in the world—diplomat, criminal, teenager—who wanted it. When the legal kerfuffle died down, Mr Zimmermann hired Mr Finney as his new company’s second-ever employee. Suspended animation For a long time he ran a free “remailer”, a server designed to forward e-mail anonymously, no questions asked, to anyone in the world. Whose business was it, after all, what people wanted to send to each other, except the sender and the recipient? His interests extended beyond privacy. He was fascinated by the sorts of futures that technology might unlock, speculating about everything from how morals evolve in rich societies to when clean energy might finally displace fossil fuels. Away from the screen, he was chatty and gregarious, a keen skier and runner. He had to stop in 2009, when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND). The illness gradually paralyses its victims, but, with characteristic logic, Mr Finney pointed out that it was not a death sentence—even when those muscles necessary for breathing gave out, life could carry on with the aid of a mechanical ventilator. He was surprised, he said, to discover that most people with the disease “chose” death instead. After all, MND robs sufferers only of their bodies, not their minds, and for him it was the mind that mattered. His interests went beyond computers and coding, to sociology, psychology and how technology might improve society. As long as there was a way to communicate with the outside world—even if it was only by having a computer interpret the twitchings of a facial muscle—he wanted to endure. When even that became difficult, he put a final plan into action. In accordance with his wishes, he was disconnected from his ventilator. As soon as he had been declared legally dead, technicians from a firm called Alcor froze his body in liquid nitrogen. He became one of a few hundred people who have elected to have their bodies stored until medicine advances to the point where it can safely revive them and cure their original ailments. It sounds (and is) science-fictional, and Mr Finney was under no illusions about the prospects of waking up again. But placing his faith in a technology that has yet to be invented was a rational gamble for a committed techno-optimist. And besides, a slim hope is better than none at all.

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Hal Finney cryopreserved
by Eugen Leitl 10 Sep '14

10 Sep '14

http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2014-August/082585.html Max More max at maxmore.com Thu Aug 28 18:41:54 UTC 2014 Previous message: [ExI] It's alive? Next message: [ExI] Hal Finney being cryopreserved now Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] I am both sad and happy to tell you that long-time Extropy Institute/Extropy magazine/Extropy chat list member -- and honored cypherpunk and Bitcoin pioneer – was declared clinically dead this morning and is now being cryopreserved. Hal was diagnosed with ALS five years ago. He made it clear that once he lost the ability to communicate, he did not want his vital functions supported any further but should be allowed to cease functioning and promptly be cryopreserved. Hal and Fran Finney arrived in Scottsdale, Arizona on Tuesday where he was checked into ICU of a hospital near Alcor. After administration of drugs to ensure no consciousness, his ventilator was removed. Although the doctors expected all breathing to cease within an hour, Hal’s body kept going until shortly before 9:00 am this morning, August 28, 2014. Immediately after pronouncement of legal death, Alcor’s standby team went into action, restoring circulation, ventilation, administering an array of medications, and initiating external cooling. Surgery is currently underway to enable us to replace Hal’s blood and interstitial fluids with cryoprotectant. Once perfusion is finished we will be able to plunge Hal’s temperature down past the freezing point without any significant ice formation. Once he is down to around -110 degC we will slow cooling and take a couple more days to reach the final storage temperature of -196 degC. After that, Hal will be placed in long-term storage and cared for until the day when repair and revival may be possible. Hal’s wife, Fran (also an Alcor member) has stayed by Hal’s side throughout and is observing our procedures firsthand. Since Hal is open about his Alcor membership and said that he would be happy for us to tell people about his choice if it might be good for cryonics, we will be issuing a press release, as well as writing something more extensive for *Cryonics* magazine and elsewhere. If you have thoughts on Hal and his life and work, please send them to me. Hal, I know I speak for many when I say that I look forward to speaking to you again sometime in the future and to throwing a party in honor of your revival. --Max -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosop… President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation

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"Fake" Comsec Found Everywhere
by John Young 08 Sep '14

08 Sep '14

Anxiety and fears about loss of privacy through surreptitious and ubiquitous technology, with concomintant rise of advocates of defenses, parallels the age-old scam of the devil inside humans attacking faith in god(s) requiring constant remediation by religion, in particular by buying into costly, elaborate edifices, ceremonies, couture, sermons, damnations, excommunications, informants, behavior police, burning of witches, celebrations of saints. Remind of the crypto wars still raging? Comsec might be seen as a cult of fetishistic technology, crypto its sacred text of salvation and protection from demons forever being publicized by the preachers of how to hide your sins from the sin spies, the main sin being apostasy about national security armed to the max with weapons of mass punishment of disbelievers of of one's own faith against that of competitors, especially competitiors setting up subversive storefronts of alternative faiths. Worse of all, the crypto-rebels writing their own code of sin and salvation, defying authorities, seducing youngsters, leaking secrets of the official corruption, mocking official old gods in favor or new ones home-brewed on the electronic frontier. Snake oil is as old as snakes whispering to naked apes once happy copulating without devils or gods hurling sand into the amply lubricated in and out to make new copulants free of imaginary fears and anxieties that pleasure is bad, don't seek it without permission, don't do it unless paid in advance, don't dream of it or the devil wins, don't self-satisfy or narcissism destroys. Right here are some helpful aids to control your urges by allowing experts to tell you what's right and wrong. You will need this protection inside and outside, everywhere, all the time. Let us pray. Your wallet please.

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‘Fake’ cellphone towers found in U.S.
by Alfie John 07 Sep '14

07 Sep '14

If you've never considered the threat of baseband attacks to be real, but considered them more of a speculative possibility, speculate no more: http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/08/28/android-security-2/ "The fake ‘towers’ – computers which wirelessly attack cellphones via the “baseband” chips built to allow them to communicate with their networks, can eavesdrop and even install spyware, ESD claims. They are a known technology - but the surprise is that they are in active use. "Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated,” Goldsmith says. “One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found eight different interceptors on that trip. We even found one at South Point Casino in Las Vegas." "What we find suspicious is that a lot of these interceptors are right on top of U.S. military bases." Alfie -- Alfie John alfiej(a)fastmail.fm

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Patents by Harris Corporation
by Gregory Foster 05 Sep '14

05 Sep '14

I have a feeling there are some interesting things amongst these 2,996 patents filed by Harris Corporation, the maker of the Stingray and other IMSI catchers: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fneta… For example, @USPTO (Jul 1) - "#8,768,311 - Intelligent asymmetric service denial system for mobile cellular devices and associated methods": http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fneta… > The system and method prevents reception of calls to a mobile cellular device within a relatively small area or zone, with minimal inconvenience to the public by also permitting outgoing transmissions. The mobile cellular device has a wirelessly settable parameter associated therewith enabling establishment of an inbound call. A selective call blocker includes a receiver, a transmitter, and a selective call blocking controller cooperating with the receiver to determine the wirelessly settable parameter. The selective call blocking controller also cooperates with the transmitter to wirelessly change the wirelessly settable parameter to selectively block an inbound call to the mobile cellular device and without defeating the capability of the mobile cellular device to establish an outbound call. Harris Corporation is a sprawling defense contractor also dabbling in hydrocarbons, so many of these patents will not be germane for the list. Please share what you find that seems relevant to the on-going conversation re: IMSI catchers... gf -- Gregory Foster || gfoster(a)entersection.org @gregoryfoster <> http://entersection.com/

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Paralelni Polis Congress (cryptoanarchist conference) 9-12.10.2014 in Prague / Central Europe
by Pavol Luptak 04 Sep '14

04 Sep '14

Hello, it would be my pleasure to invite all of you to a unique cryptoanarchist conference - Parallel Polis Congress that will take place during 9-12.10.2014 in Prague / Central Europe. * Parallel Polis in theory Parallel Polis is a theoretical concept developed by Czech dissident Vaclav Benda (1942–1999) during the height of communist domination in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. It was translated into English in 1978. Benda argues that in a repressed state, it is impossible to overturn corrupt social, economic and political institutions. Such efforts are futile. Instead, he suggests the creation of new "parallel institutions" that are more responsible to human needs. * Parallel Polis in practice We were impressed by the concept of Vaclav Benda’s Parallel Polis and Timothy C May’s Crypto Anarchistic Manifesto and Cyphernomicon. Embracing the current crypto-technologies we have realized a practical feasibility of these utopian theories and started a unique freedom think tank focused on the promotion of digital freedom, cryptocurrencies, anonymization networks and free markets. For this purpose we decided to rent a big 3-floor house (with almost 1000m2) in the center of Prague (Holešovice) - one floor dedicated to Bitcoin coffee-house, hub and hackerspace called Institute of Cryptoanarchy. :) * Founders of Parallel Polis Parallel polis is 100% state-free project, based on voluntary contributions only of our members and donors. Founding members are people from Czech contemporary-art group Ztohoven (http://ztohoven.com/) see their recent projects Moral Reform (hack of Czech Parliament) http://juraj.bednar.sk/blog/2013/01/06/moral-reform-by-ztohoven-an-ultimate… and Citizen K http://artoftheprank.com/2010/06/19/ztohoven-art-collective-launch-citizen-… and group of cryptoanarchists from Czech and Slovak hackerspaces. * When & Where Parallel Polis Congress takes place in Parallel Polis building (Dělnická 43, Prague) during 9-12.10.2014. If you prefer to take public transport, take the tram number 1, 12, 14, 25, 53 or 54 to the tram station Dělnická. * Parallel Polis Congress and why we need you! Parallel Polis Congress is an opening party of a new era of our freedom. If you want to participate on this event as a speaker, please let me know - if your presentation is interesting, we can cover you all travelling and accommodation expenses (including plane tickets from US). In the case of interest, also please send me: + the name of your presentation + a short description of your presentation (you can have a 30-minutes long presentation with 10 minutes for Q/A or 5-10 minutes lightning talk) + your PGP or S/MIME key if you prefer encrypted communication * Stay in touch http://www.paralelnipolis.cz https://www.facebook.com/pages/Paraleln%C3%AD-Polis/690647371027036 https://twitter.com/Paralelni_polis Thanks a lot and see you in Prague! Pavol -- ______________________________________________________________________________ [Parallel Polis - Bitcoin Coffee House, Hub and Cryptoanarchy hackerspace]

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