September 2015 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Subject: Re: Bitnation system. Looks interesting.
by tigrutigru＠gmail.com 02 Oct '15

02 Oct '15

It seems like there's a confusion between contracts and cryotocontracts? > On 10 Sep 2015, at 7:19 am, cypherpunks-request(a)cpunks.org wrote: > > Send cypherpunks mailing list submissions to > cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://cpunks.org/mailman/listinfo/cypherpunks > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > cypherpunks-request(a)cpunks.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > cypherpunks-owner(a)cpunks.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of cypherpunks digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Bitnation system. Looks interesting. > (Lodewijk andré de la porte) > 2. Re: Bitnation system. Looks interesting. (Bryan Bishop) > 3. Re: Bitnation system. Looks interesting. (Martin Becze) > 4. Repbin release v0.0.2 (ryan.pear(a)ownbay.net) > 5. Re: Repbin release v0.0.2 (jim bell) > 6. Re: How Putin Controls the Internet and Popular Opinion in > Russia (rysiek) > 7. Re: How Putin Controls the Internet and Popular Opinion in > Russia (Juan) > 8. Re: Repbin release v0.0.2 (rysiek) > 9. Hostages for Sale on Telegram (Rich Jones) > 10. Re: Hostages for Sale on Telegram (Ben Mezger) > 11. John McAfee Runs For US President In 2016 Under Cyber Party > (grarpamp) > 12. Re: Hostages for Sale on Telegram (grarpamp) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2015 18:30:53 +0200 > From: Lodewijk andré de la porte <l(a)odewijk.nl> > To: Mirimir <mirimir(a)riseup.net> > Cc: "cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org" <cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org> > Subject: Re: Bitnation system. Looks interesting. > Message-ID: > <CAHWD2r+C+NXJ3Q-W=Bt5T+9=3ncfUwjvQVmT7Gqdn56MDydvyA(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > It's documentation is overly verbose, speculative, assuming and unclear. > > I love the idea of providing services that the government usually tends to. Everyone loves ideas that Bitnation put their brand on. > > I somewhat know what marriage before God means. I somewhat know what > marriage before the State means. I have no idea what marriage before the > Blockchain means. Probably no more than lovers' tree-carvings. Exactly. Proof-of-existence. I don't understand what it has to do with Bitnation brand. Someone just wants to look cool. What exactly Bitnationare building? > > Relationship to reality is the hardest part - it's also where things like > enforcement starts turning it's ugly head. > > I'd argue marriage before state is an artifact of the marriage between > church and state. Relationships, commitments, etc, these would be better > explained in contract. Yes. Obligations can be explained. Still people go to courts and dispute contracts. These are text. > Contracts can go onto a blockchain. Contracts which go on the blockchain have nothing to do with legal contracts. Parts of the text (legal) contracts can be hooked to a smart contract I guess. I guess if a married couple has a dispute over digital property or btc in a wallet, let's say a script can manage it, but how the script (smart contract) will know who in this particular dispute did what. Even with no details and subtleties involved. > Generic. Neat. > Unpretentious. > > Bitnation is fascinating, thought provoking, but it seems somewhat off. Ideas are nice. They're not necessarily coming from Bitnation. Proof of existence, or Blockchain ID for example were existing ideas which had functioning prototypes. They just don't make it sound grandiose. Bitnation has a claim to be a software project and afaik has a presale of a currency - either premined or non existent - I don't remember. I'm fine with that type of crowdfunding if there is some sort of product or a service behind it or an attempt to build it. I don't think that contemporary art project should pretend to be a software project or pretend that it can realistically offer serious services or replace existing ones. It's cool as a concept project. >

2 2

Allegedly Volkswagen cheated to both governments and lusers
by Georgi Guninski 02 Oct '15

02 Oct '15

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/25/vw_pollution_just_the_tip_of_the_ic… <quote> Volkswagen is being rightly condemned from all directions, as its methods were particularly cynical: its engine software would sense when the car was in a test environment and cut back NO_x output temporarily. As soon as the car was no longer under test, the car would change mode and emit huge amounts of NO_x. This wasn't done for no reason – if a machine is allowed to generate NO_x freely, it can be very fuel-efficient – and thus, of course, its carbon emissions can be very low too. </quote> Comment: Probably best defense for VW lawyers is: "We got hacked and the hack made this. We take sickyouareity seriously"

5 13

tox
by Juan 02 Oct '15

02 Oct '15

I've been playing with tox(thanks rysiek!) and it looks rather interesting. I noticed however that it's not listed here https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard Maybe somebody who knows somebody at eff could drop them a message? Also, apart from retroshare (and tox), is there any other p2p messaging network?

9 22

CloudFlare Keyless SSL WAS Re: Snowden on the Twitters
by Travis Biehn 01 Oct '15

01 Oct '15

An oldie, somewhat OT. I enjoyed CF's bit of engineering here - of course CF is still a point where they are working with injectable plaintext. At least they don't have your private key material. https://blog.cloudflare.com/keyless-ssl-the-nitty-gritty-technical-details/ What would be solid is if there were a browser module that did several things: Eliminated JavaScript dynamic calls (eval, new function(), setTimeout, setInterval, so on.) Eliminate 3rd party assets. Allowed web assets to be signed. Allowed sets of web assets to be versioned (and attested to by 3rd parties.) Dynamic HTML and JS (read, non-static HTML & JS) would not be supported. The combination of signing, versioning and lack of dynamic features paves the way for uninjectable, client-side in browser encryption/decryption. Something AFAIK we cannot do today. Is anyone working on it? -Travis On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 11:23 AM, Georgi Guninski <guninski(a)guninski.com> wrote: > On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 01:26:18AM -0400, grarpamp wrote: > > https://twitter.com/Snowden > > How this scores on twatter: > > 1.03 meeelion followers for about 23 hours on twatter? > (not sure about the error terms). > > -- 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>

3 6

US Pres Candidate Carly Fiorina Supplies NSA, Spying, Torture, Warmongering and Bankruptcy
by grarpamp 30 Sep '15

30 Sep '15

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/carly-fiorina-i-supplied-hp-servers-for-ns… https://www.yahoo.com/politics/carly-fiorina-defends-bush-era-torture-and-s… http://politics.slashdot.org/story/15/09/29/220239/carly-fiorina-i-supplied… According to an article at Motherboard, shortly after 9/11, NSA director Michael Hayden requested extra computing power and Carly Fiorina, then CEO of HP, responded by re-routing truckloads of servers to the agency. Fiorina acknowledged providing the servers to the NSA during an interview with Michael Isikoff in which she defended warrantless surveillance (as well as waterboarding) and framed her collaboration with the NSA in patriotic terms. Fiorina's compliance with Hayden's request for HP servers is but one episode in a long-running and close relationship between the GOP presidential hopeful and U.S. intelligence agencies. $500 billion over ten years by one estimate—and an upgrade of “every leg of the nuclear triad,”

2 1

Windows TrueCrypt Fatally Flawed
by Brenda Fernández 30 Sep '15

30 Sep '15

Windows TrueCrypt Fatally Flawed Posted on September 30, 2015 <http://qntra.net/2015/09/windows-truecrypt-fatally-flawed/> by Bingo Boingo <http://qntra.net/author/bingoboingo/> Continued research after the first TrueCrypt audit yielded inconclusive results has discovered fatal privilege escalation vulnerabilities allowing for complete takeover <http://www.itworld.com/article/2987438/newly-found-truecrypt-flaw-allows-fu…> (archived <https://archive.is/tJSlv>). So far this is known to affect TrueCrypt on Windows boxes <http://qntra.net/2015/08/windows-10-banned-from-numerous-torrent-trackers/>, but there is still potential for other flaws to be discovered in TrueCrypt on other platforms. Details of the vulnerabilities are not yet disclosed, but this supports the possibility that it may not be possible at all to develop software offering any level of security on the Windows platform. This entry was posted in News <http://qntra.net/category/news/>, Software <http://qntra.net/category/software/>. Bookmark the permalink <http://qntra.net/2015/09/windows-truecrypt-fatally-flawed/>. One thought on “Windows TrueCrypt Fatally Flawed” 1. Bingo Boingo says: September 30, 2015 at 12:44 am <http://qntra.net/2015/09/windows-truecrypt-fatally-flawed/#comment-62417> Further: The VeraCrypt derivative forked from TrueCrypt though this particular issue was reportedly patched, likely continues to posses undiscovered security issues. -- Brenda Fernández me(a)brendafernandez.com GPG: CE5BEE6C81FCA4D4 <http://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xCE5BEE6C81FCA4D4>

3 2

And here it is - In UN Speech Putin Blasts US Foreign Policy
by Zenaan Harkness 29 Sep '15

29 Sep '15

In UN Speech Putin Blasts US Foreign Policy http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/un-speech-putin-blasts-us-foreign-pol… (includes full official transcript) And, as the image tells, Obama not happy: http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/multinational-deal-may-allow-assad-st… "Multinational Deal May Allow Assad to Stay" (Many quotes I am tempted to quote, but better is enjoy the fullness of this blessing in action. The world be grateful. Z)

2 1

What CBS Edited out of Putin's Interview [on "60 Minutes"]
by Zenaan Harkness 29 Sep '15

29 Sep '15

So, what was edited from Putin's rare "60 Minutes" interview on CBS? Those bits embarrassing to USA government it seems - who would have thought ... Enjoy, Zenaan "What CBS Edited out of Putin's Interview" http://russia-insider.com/en/media-criticism/what-cbs-edited-out-putins-int… A full transcript and a youtube link is here: "UPDATED: "We know everything" - Putin's interview on American CBS PLUS what was cut from the interview" http://fortruss.blogspot.si/2015/09/putins-interview-on-american-60-minutes…

1 0

Fwd: EPA opposed DMCA exemptions that could have revealed Volkswagen fraud
by Zenaan Harkness 29 Sep '15

29 Sep '15

Not new but on topic at the moment - DMCA is about control of end consumers/ users, not about copyright (or rather, it's abuse of copyright). ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Free Software Foundation <info(a)fsf.org> Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 19:40:48 -0400 Subject: EPA opposed DMCA exemptions that could have revealed Volkswagen fraud Dear Mr Harkness, We have written previously about the [organizations and individuals][1] who opposed exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions. These drones oppose the rights of users to backup, modify, and study the software and devices that we own. The DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions create legal penalties for simply accessing your software under your own terms, and raises those penalties even higher should dare to share the tools needed to do so. It creates real penalties for anyone who wants to avoid Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) controls. The granting of exemptions to these totalitarian rules is a broken and half-hearted attempt to limit the damage these rules bring, granting for 3 years a reprieve for certain specified devices and software. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) side-stepped this process and [sent a letter][2] separately directly to the Copyright Office. In the letter they argued that users should not be able to access and modify the software on their own vehicles. In their estimation, this would enable users to violate emissions controls. So it would be better for them if the hammer of the DMCA remained hanging over the head of every user or researcher who wanted to access the software on their vehicle. Of course, just a few months after telling the Copyright Office that users couldn't be trusted with access to their devices, the EPA revealed a major scandal involving Volkswagen. It turns out that Volkswagen had for many years cheated the emissions test performed by the EPA. Volkswagen had surreptitiously included some code in their diesel vehicles that would detect the EPA's tests and have the car change its performance in order to meet EPA mandates. Once the test was over, the code would revert the vehicle to its normal, high-polluting functioning. This scam apparently went on for years before it was detected by researchers. Of course the irony is that if users and researchers had the right to access the software on their cars, they might have discovered this fraud years ago. As Eben Moglen, founder of the [Software Freedom Law Center][3] [noted][4] "If Volkswagen knew that every customer who buys a vehicle would have a right to read the source code of all the software in the vehicle, they would never even consider the cheat, because the certainty of getting caught would terrify them.” Volkswagen is already a contributor on the kernel Linux, and as Bradley M. Kuhn, President and Distinguished Technologist of the [Software Freedom Conservancy][5] pointed out it is likely that Volkswagen vehicles already contain some free software. But some is not all, and clearly they kept much of their software secret in order to hide their scam. If all the software on the vehicles was free software they never could have perpetrated this scheme. Researchers also could have discovered the fraud had they not been hindered by the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, as Kit Walsh of the Electronic Frontier Foundation [argued][6]. The EPA of course failed to understand all this when drafting their letter promoting the use of DRM. But there is a more galling fact at play here. What the EPA argued in their letter was that the exemption should not be granted under the DMCA as a means for enforcing efficiency standards. That clearly isn't the stated purpose of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, and highlights one of the fundamental problems with DRM. That a government agency would try to commandeer the DRM of private actors, not to enforce copyright but as a means to enforce something wholly unrelated, demonstrates a central truth: DRM is not about copyright; it's about control. It's about dominating users. It's about spying on them. It's about installing [rootkits][7] onto their computers. It has nothing to do with rights, and everything to do with restriction. We can't let governments and corporation use DRM to take over our lives. This is what you can do today to fight back: If you microblog, please share the following message (or your own) with the hashtag #DRMshame. We strongly suggest that if you use [Twitter][8] to publicly call the EPA and Volkswagen out, you do it in a way that avoids using proprietary software: * @EPA You should be ashamed of yourself for trying to use Digital Restrictions Management #DRMshame <https://u.fsf.org/fraud> * @VW All software on your vehicles needs to be free software without DRM to restore our trust #DRMshame <https://u.fsf.org/fraud> Here's what else you can do.: * Join the [Defective By Design][9] mailing list to keep up to date on the on-going fight against DRM. * To help fund our work, consider [donating to the FSF][10]. Happy hacking, Donald Robertson Copyright and Licensing Associate [1]: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/meet-the-drm-drones [2]: http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/USCO-letters/EPA_Letter_to_USCO_re_1201.pdf [3]: https://www.softwarefreedom.org/ [4]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/nyregion/volkswagens-diesel-fraud-makes-c… [5]: https://sfconservancy.org/ [6]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/researchers-could-have-uncovered-volk… [7]: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/sony [8]: https://www.fsf.org/twitter [9]: https://defectivebydesign.org/join [10]: https://donate.fsf.org -- * Follow us at <https://status.fsf.org/fsf>. * Subscribe to our RSS feeds at <https://fsf.org/blogs/RSS>. * Join us as an associate member at <https://www.fsf.org/jf>. Sent from the Free Software Foundation, 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor Boston, Massachusetts 02110-1335 United States

1 0

NATO, the finger of death
by Zenaan Harkness 29 Sep '15

29 Sep '15

The english of this author in the following opinion piece is a little broken here and there sorry. --- http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/28-08-2014/128397-nato_demonic-… NATO, the finger of death 28.08.2014 Iraq: Chaos! Libya: Chaos! Syria: Chaos! Whatever NATO touches, turns putrid, rots and dies. Three interventions by the Anglo-Saxon Alliance (UK and US), two by the FUKUS Axis (add France), three interventions by NATO, three destabilized States crawling with terrorists. The responsibility lies at the feet of Washington and its poodle States and the onus is on them to right the wrongs they willfully committed. You messed up, now... Pay for it! Are dogs Vegans? Do you feed goldfish chocolate? Common sense says no in both cases. Common sense also dictates that you do not intervene in highly complex societies with thousands of years of tradition and lore intricately mixed up in a myriad of ethnic and religious mosaics cemented together by a Governing body that understands where the point of equilibrium is to be found and which is kept in its position by the players in the society which it governs. Tweet Print version + - Font Size Send to friend A company of the Portuguese Army was detailed to build a new village for a community in the interior of Angola during the Colonial War*. The company had been instructed to do so because the village had been devastated. The architect based his idea on the downtown area of the capital city of Portugal, Lisbon, reconstructed in straight parallel lines after the earthquake and ensuing tsunami in 1755, which destroyed the city. The community was transported to the village and proudly shown their new home by the Portuguese captain. They ran away. Asked why they didn't like their village, the community leader, or soba, explained: "Our village is based on the circle. We eat sitting in a circle, our homes are circular, we sit outside in a circle in the evenings telling stories, laughing and singing. We take decisions sitting in a circle, it has no head, no beginning and no end. And no dark corners." Can women in Saudi Arabia use forks when they eat? No, because it is considered improper for a woman to put four long and hard prongs in her mouth at the same time because when a man sees this, it gives him unclean thoughts. For those western policy-makers chortling in mirth as they read this, let us now come back to the point of this article, the failed Western policy in Iraq, in Libya and in Syria. Iraq: chaos! Libya: chaos! Syria: chaos! In all three cases, Western politicians outdid one another in sheer arrogance, claiming (so democratically) that "Saddam must go", "Gaddafy must go," and "Assad must go". What we see in these three countries today is the direct result of the criminal intervention by NATO, its two henchmen, the USA and its poodle in chief, the UK and recently, France, which spends its time subserviently crawling around the legs of its Anglo-Saxon NATO masters across the Channel and across the Ocean, when it isn't obediently obeying Germany's calls for austerity. NATO destroyed Iraq, destroyed the State, destroyed the mechanisms of control in a highly complex society whose many ethnic and religious groups co-existed in peace until the West stepped in, after provoking Iraq by getting Kuwait to steal oil in cross-drilling operations, then demonizing the Iraqi Government, then directly interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign State by getting the Shiites in the South to rebel, before the uprising was crushed. This criminally irresponsible approach to foreign policy-making seems to be endemic in the corridors of Whitehall, London and Washington DC, one of Whitehall's most fetid and dysfunctional abortions over the years. There ensued a decade of terrorist activity in Iraq between the First and Second Gulf Wars, in which NATO aircraft strafed fields of cereals and left the country strewn with Depleted Uranium, causing the deaths and malformations of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, before the outrage in 2003 when the Government was overthrown in an illegal military invasion which resulted in around one million deaths (murders) and today, the total destabilization of the State by ISIL, a wonderful feather in the cap for Washington and its poodle in chief. Yesterday they were full of bravado as they marched across the border knowing Saddam Hussein (who was keeping al-Qaeda out of Iraq) had no Weapons of Mass Destruction (his mistake was not to arm himself to the hilt) and knowing the Iraqi Armed Forces would not fight back (in the event the invasion was staged, with salvoes being fired over the Iraqi's heads as they retreated to negotiated positions). Today Washington and London are quivering in fear and are too scared to fight ISIL, the monster they created. This same criminal irresponsibility was demonstrated in Libya, where they again intervened, this time joined by that sickening wannabe Napoleon, France, this time not only creating but actively using terrorists on their own lists of proscribed groups, which Muammar al-Gaddafy (the first international leader to issue arrest warrants against al-Qaeda) was fighting. Again, military equipment was deployed against civilian structures, civilians were slaughtered by NATO aircraft, the Libyan water supply system was targeted (war crime), the electricity grid was destroyed (war crime) and the result, once again, was the wholesale destruction of a State. Under the Geneva Conventions, any military intervention must leave the area invaded functioning properly attending to the needs of its citizens. In not managing to guarantee this, the USA and its poodles in Europe have failed miserably in their task and have shirked their responsibilities. They are also responsible for criminal acts breaching every fiber of international law. Their leaders are, in plain English, war criminals and murderers. And now for Syria. Just a few months ago that Nobel Peace Prizewinner Obama in the USA was saying that Assad had to go, obediently parroted by Cameron and Mr. 17 per cent popularity ratings, Hollande. Now, they are considering sending military support to fight off ISIL in Syria, after these very same Western/NATO powers armed, trained and aided terrorists to fight the Government of President Assad, which has wide approval across Syrian society. If it was not so serious, it would be hilarious. But destroying countries and societies has shocking social implications. What these NATO countries deserve is for their boomerang to come back and smack them square in the face, facing their own jihadis, to get a taste of their own medicine, except for the fact that logic dictates that one cannot attack their approach abroad and then wish the same thing on them at home. What these criminally irresponsible powers must do is man up, accept the responsibility for what they have done, and pay to sort out the problems they created, keeping their unwanted troops at home. As those in Whitehall and Washington (let's be honest, Paris really doesn't count, does it?) claim that we live in difficult times and attack those who disagree with their criminal modus operandi, they should be reminded that the evils they face are those of their own creation. Instead of arrogantly ploughing ahead like modern-day imperialists, they would do better to respect international law for once, accept the responsibility for their actions, mind their own business and start behaving with goodwill, instead of malevolence. For those who have been involved in the political and military processes in Iraq, Libya and Syria, they belong behind bars. The mechanisms are already in place, the wheel is turning slowly, and most of them will live long enough to cast looks of fear over their shoulders wherever they may go. Blair already does, Rumsfeld dare not step off an aircraft outside the USA, ditto Powell, Bush, Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. The head of NATO is evil, psychopathic; the hand of NATO is putrid, sociopathic and the finger of NATO is as icy as it is satanic and demonic. It is the finger of death, contaminating everything it touches. NATO is the incarnation of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Conquest, War, Famine and Death. It is the Empire of Evil. *The Colonial War was fought between Portugal and factions in its former colonies Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, from 1961 to 1974; there was no war in Portugal's other African provinces, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Principe Isles. Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey Pravda.Ru

2 2