February 2017 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Re: [tor-talk] Tor Project Corporate Document FOI Request
by grarpamp 05 Mar '17

05 Mar '17

On 8/8/16, Ken Cline <cline(a)frii.com> wrote: > "various Licenses and Certificates held" A corporation can be issued, issue, and hold, various licences and certs, be they from or to, private or public entities, governments, or persons. Could be... vendor / reseller, awards, permission to bid / let [govt or other] contracts, provide services, etc. Use your imagination. TPI knows what it does or doesn't hold. And TPI can be transparent by listing them all proactively instead of requiring community go on phishing expedition for them by name. > "form blanks to be signed by new parties of all types" TPI has surely asked folks to fill out or sign, and been asked itself, regarding NDA's / [de]briefings, pre / during / post employment blanks, template blanket MOU's, etc. Use your imagination. TPI operates a corporate "office", a corporate office has form blanks for all sorts of uses. In particular when liasing with or initiating new parties of all types. As with the "new docs" someone posted for the future, folks are interested in seeing any similar docs applicable to the past. Only TPI knows what they were named. Those of employment and [process] acknowledgement are certainly higher than stupid petty cash and phone memo forms, come on now :) > [http://corp.sec.state.ma.us/corpweb/CorpSearch/CorpSearch.aspx] > "Articles Of Incorporation", "Charter", "Bylaws", and "Operating Agreement". > Except for Bylaws, these named documents do not exist. No, the state mandated Articles and Annuals exist there. NO!, the bylaws (another name for operating agreement), a highly relavant thing for transparency, do not seem to exist anywhere. Whatever other major structural and procedural docs may exist, who knows. Those are just some of the common names for them. Other people can add other names. Worth nothing is that whether or not any doc is [required to be] filed with government agencies, and whether or not it is publicly available from them once filed... is different from what TPI may choose to publish on its own for the community. > You will find their > Articles of Organization and Annual Reports, which contain relevant > information. Regardless, whatever is publicly available or FOIA-able on a government site should also be posted for transparency on TPI as well. > Others are on the Tor Web site itself: > ("List of Officeholders", "Executives", It's not necessarily clear, in a classically hierarchical org chart sort of way, who held all the various high titles and when. > "Voting Members" NO!, voting and election does not appear to be detailed at all anywhere. Only opaque references to "duly elected" and "adopted". And "member" often means certain things in corporate law as well. > Of course, there are no shareholders While "non-profit" (its own curiosity to be sure), may hold certain meaning and requirements in certain jurisdictions, the extension of that to concepts of founding / holding parties and redistribution, optionally to achieve "non-profit", may be different. Links to law refs on the topic could be useful for those that didn't already notice a reference to the possibility of that in the Articles (under powers). > precisely which people have voting power will be > detailed in the Articles of Organization or Bylaws. Pointless when the AOI says nothing there, and the bylaws aren't available. Nor can community be expected to wade through MA/US law to see if any particular "Officer" or "Director" is granted unwaivable voting rights under law. > Still others appear not yet available. Yes. > patience in obtaining the audited 2015 financials. If TPI's release of particular docs is governed by requirement of law, that's different. But if community can FOIA same from govt, there is no such requirement, and TPI should transparently publish. > "Meeting Minutes covering years 2010 ~ 2015" should be available. > I would contact the Tor Project directly (Executive Director's office, > maybe). No user, donor, or interested party should be pushed / required to go private fora like that. It's their right to ask in public, to do so by proxy person or tor etc, and to retain their motivations. And whatever TPI does with such requests is up to TPI. If it's transparent with servicable open fora, it's a non issue. It's also silly to be fielding multiple same requests when a single transparent proactive publication of same will serve everyone. Yes, minutes are very important for transparency. It's extremely unlikely the ED's office did not know, or was not informed, within no more than a few days of the request, probably more like a few hours. Certainly not a few weeks. > The issue you > filed in the tracking system was given medium priority, which seems proper Few could have problem with that. As before, only with lack of ack and general plan of reply. > your request It should not be considered mine, but a presentment of some community voices / ideas / tasks gone forgotten / unattended over time, into a more prominent and useful form. And with recent events pressing... journalists could easily be added to list of supporting and interested parties. Others are welcome to carry the request forward.

1 1

"Documenting Hate" Project
by Cecilia Tanaka 04 Mar '17

04 Mar '17

"Documenting Hate" Project: https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/hatecrimes "Have you been the victim of a hate crime? Have you seen others attacked for their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, trans status, disability, or sexual orientation? Tell us about it so we can investigate." - Peter Aldhous https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/hatecrimes-form https://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous/tell-us-about-hate-crimes ------- "Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live." - Mae Jemison

10 23

[GUNS] Teach the children well
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Mar '17

02 Mar '17

A false report doing the email rounds lead to the following snopes page which highlights some alternative, and true, reports which may inspire a few round these parts :) Teach your children well: http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/homeinvasion.asp

1 1

Fwd: [Cryptography] Schneier's Internet Security Agency - bad idea because we don't know what it will do
by grarpamp 01 Mar '17

01 Mar '17

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Henry Baker <hbaker1(a)pipeline.com> Date: Sun, Feb 26, 2017 at 4:16 PM Subject: Re: [Cryptography] Schneier's Internet Security Agency - bad idea because we don't know what it will do To: Ian G <iang(a)iang.org> Cc: cryptography(a)metzdowd.com At 07:26 AM 2/25/2017, Ian G wrote: >Bruce Schneier has recently published an impassioned plea for a United States Federal Internet Security Agency, which would likely gain control of civilian cryptography, among many other munitions. The essay is impassioned, it is much longer than his normal 2 pagers, which signals something - belief, preparedness, foundation? > >http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/01/the-internet-of-things-dangerous-future-… When I was growing up, there was a daily newspaper cartoon entitled "There oughta be a law!" http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/there_oughta_be_a_l… However, after I grew up, studied computer science, and finally understood *undecidability*, I realized that a "legal"/"lawful" solution to every problem was logically and mathematically impossible. Here we are 80+ years after undecidability raised its ugly head and destroyed the "Age of Enlightenment"/"Age of Reason", and yet no legal scholars, lawyers, economists, or public policy people living today have even heard of this concept of undecidability, much less understand that it renders most of their efforts more futile than Sisyphus's. The Clockwork Economy/Clockwork Legal System -- in which bright lines separate good from evil -- has been replaced by a mishmash of hills & valleys separated by fractal "boundaries" which I defy you to characterize in a finite lawbook. I'm embarrassed for Bruce Schneier who certainly should know better; perhaps this is a forgivable error which he will correct soon enough. If not, I should begin to wonder if he's been taken over to the dark side (aka the intel community), where fake news, disinformation and extra-Constitutional excursions are considered honorable pursuits. The bottom line: if you're attempting to oversee/regulate a Turing-complete system (i.e., essentially *every* societal system), adding additional "oversight" turtles to your toppling stack of existing turtles won't help a bit. I.e., if a Halting Problem oracle doesn't exist, you can write all the laws you wish about creating a Halting Problem Agency ("oracle"), but that won't make such an oracle magically exist. Even Abraham Lincoln understood that giving some impossible concept a name doesn't make it exist: When asked "How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?", Lincoln answered, "Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg." Schneier should contemplate Gerald Ford's famous remark: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have." Benjamin Franklin understood that the pursuit of safety/security was a bottomless pit/hopeless exercise: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety". _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

7 10

Re: [Cryptography] jammers, nor not
by grarpamp 01 Mar '17

01 Mar '17

On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 10:19 AM, Jonathan Thornburg <jthorn4242(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 05:21:12PM -0800, Ron Garret wrote: >> Wrapping your gadgets in aluminum foil should be pretty effective >> at (ahem) foiling their attempts to contact a wifi hub. > > Unless your entire home is wrapped in aluminum foil (including > rf-blocking coatings on all windows (permanently closed!)), it's hard > to *use* a {printer, refrigerator, washing mashine, coffee maker, ...} > while said object is wrapped in aluminum foil. :) A single layer of do it yourself aluminum foil is inexpensive, perhaps about 1% at time of construction. Even if windows are skipped, perhaps it would mitigate some driveby attacks such as...? http://www.bing.com/search?q=wall+penetrating+radar Add in some cheap rolldown foil over cloth window shades or plywood shutters and maybe the residents would enjoy quite pre-industrial RF free sleeping hours? This seems easily pilot testable and marketable to both health and spy type of customers.

4 3

Google are f'ing hypocrites
by razer＠freedbms.net 01 Mar '17

01 Mar '17

First they de-associate PewDiePie, then de-monetize Alex Jones, then shadow ban Natural News from all search results after its founder refuses to discredit Alex Jones, and finally they re-monetize PewDiePie! Google - effing hypocritical money grubbing deceptive sluts, ignoring their purported "ethics" except to maximise profit and grease the MSM wheels! It's time to DEMAND that google kick-ban PewDiePie now! Messed up, Rr. Butthurt SJW PewDiePie Attempts to Stop Heroic WSJ Jew Burners http://www.dailystormer.com/butthurt-sjw-pewdiepie-attempts-to-stop-heroic-… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTCDfE_sKnM

6 7

Georgia: Prison sentences for Confederate flag wavers who terrorized child's party
by Razer 28 Feb '17

28 Feb '17

So-called "Patriots". Drunk, and "and pointed a shotgun..." at children. Convicted of "Criminal Gang Terrorism". In July 2015, a group of 15 people calling themselves “Respect the Flag” boarded several pickup trucks, each outfitted with Confederate and American flags, and embarked on a drive around Douglasville, Ga., a small city west of Atlanta. Tensions concerning the Confederate flag were already high. Barely a month had passed since Dylann Roof, the avowed white supremacist who had posed with the Confederate battle flag, killed nine black Americans at a church in Charleston. And the small Respect the Flag group went far beyond a display of Confederate pride. Hatred, a Georgia judge said during a sentencing Monday, propelled the group as they descended upon a child’s birthday party, unleashed a storm of death threats and anti-black slurs, and pointed a shotgun. “Their actions were motivated by racial hatred,” said Judge William McClain, of the Douglas County Superior Court, according to the Associated Press. Georgia legislature does not include a law regarding hate crimes. The 10 men and five women who made up Respect the Flag harassed black drivers as well as customers at a Walmart and a convenience store. Then they happened upon a birthday party for an 8-year-old black child. Witnesses told the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group that tracks hate crimes, that after driving the trucks across the property belonging to the child’s grandmother, the men got out of the vehicles and began to yell racial epithets and shout death threats. “They even threatened to kill children at the party,” according to a statement issued by Douglas County District Attorney Brian Fortner in early February. One of the men, 26-year-old Jose Ismael Torres, pointed a pump shotgun at the partygoers, prosecutors said. Several panicked people called the police. “Everywhere you went, 911 call centers were flooded with calls,” the judge said, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. “I was scared,” Melissa Alford, the host of the party, told the Southern Poverty Law Center in October, a few days after the group’s members were indicted. “My first thought was if these people start shooting at us, we wouldn’t be able to get all the kids inside the house in time.” The defendants in the case argued that a party attendee triggered the incident by hurling an object at one of the trucks. Cellphone video taken at the scene showed otherwise, the judge said. “If you drive around town with a Confederate flag, yelling the n-word, you know how it’s going to be interpreted,” the judge said, per Atlanta’s Fox 5. “It’s inexplicable to me that you weren’t arrested by the police that day.” The members of the group, two of whom pleaded guilty, were convicted in early February. Following the convictions, the Douglas County district attorney issued a statement clarifying that this case was not an issue of the First Amendment but of harassment. “Many people tried to make the case about simply flying the Confederate battle flag. However, it wasn’t about that at all,” Fortner said in the statement. “Instead, this case was about a group of people riding around our community, drinking alcohol, harassing and intimidating our citizens because of the color of their skin.” The judge handed down the final two sentences on Monday. Torres was sentenced to 20 years, serving 13 in prison. The mother of his children, Kayla Rae Norton, 25, was sentenced to 15 years and will serve six. After their prison terms, they will be banished from Douglas County. They were found in violation of Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act; Norton was found guilty of violating the act as well as a count of making terroristic threats. The jury convicted Torres of three counts of aggravated assault, one count of making terroristic threats and one count of violating the act. The scene in the courtroom was an emotional one. Both Torres and Norton cried as their sentences were announced, the Associated Press reported. Norton apologized to the victims. One of the victims, Hyesha Bryant, expressed her forgiveness. “I forgive you,” Bryant said. “And to your family, I’m sorry it had to come this far.” http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/28/they-waved-the-confederate-flag-and-a…

1 0

Illinois #TrumpTrain Town Shocked! Shocked I Say!
by Razer 28 Feb '17

28 Feb '17

"...and America was Shocked SHOCKED! America leads the world in shocks. Unfortunately it doesn't lead the word in deciphering the cause of the shocks" ~Gil Scott-Heron 70% of the people in West Frankfort Illinois voted for Trump. Now they're upset one of their longstanding immigrant neighbors, a restaurant manager, is being detained. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/illinois-town-backed-trump-rallies…

1 0

Security error leaves 760 gigs on NY airport servers unprotected for a year
by Razer 28 Feb '17

28 Feb '17

Security error leaves NY airport servers unprotected for a year The backup storage drive hadn't been password-protected since April. The 760 GB of exposed data included TSA letters of investigation, social security numbers, internal airport schematics and emails, according to Chris Vickery, lead researcher from MacKeeper Security Center. He'd discovered the lapse, noting that the backup drive "was, in essence, acting as a public web server." If someone had found their way in, they could access a particular file with usernames and passwords for various devices and systems, which security experts confirmed to ZDNet would open up every component of the airport's internal network to a malicious user. Apparently, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey contracts out management of Stewart Airport to a private company called AvPORTS, which uses a single IT professional to set up and maintain its networks. Obviously, having one person show up twice a month per location to make sure each IT setup is watertight presents opportunities for lapses that go unnoticed. A Port Authority spokesperson noted that an investigation was ongoing, but that no information was believed to have been compromised during the near year-long exposure. https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/24/security-error-leaves-ny-airport-server… https://mackeeper.com/blog/post/334-extensive-breach-at-intl-airport

4 5

Time to put aside the excuses...
by oshwm 28 Feb '17

28 Feb '17

Openfab cometh? https://hackaday.com/2017/02/25/the-fab-lab-next-door-diy-semiconductors/

2 1