June 2017 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

The world's most secure password for websites, games and private data.
by Cecilia Tanaka 23 Jun '17

23 Jun '17

The world's most secure password for websites, games and private data. Researched and developed by leading encryption specialists in Europe: https://mostsecure.pw # Bonus For Fun: xkcd - "Password Strength" https://xkcd.com/936 ------- "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

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Phineas Fisher is back... and he b mad!
by g2s 22 Jun '17

22 Jun '17

A Notorious Hacker Is Trying to Start a ‘Hack Back’ Political Movement In August of 2014, a hacker shook the cybersecurity world by exposing the secrets of the infamous government surveillance vendor Gamma Group, the makers of the spyware FinFisher. The hacker jokingly called himself Phineas Fisher, publicizing the hack and taunting the company on Twitter. He also wrote a detailed guide on how he breached Gamma—not to brag, the hacker wrote, but to demystify hacking and "to hopefully inform and inspire you to go out and hack shit." Then, Phineas Fisher went dark. For almost a year, his public profiles remained silent. Given that he had just upset a company that sold tools to dozens of spy and police all over the world, it seemed like a wise move. "For politically minded hackers, Phineas is a legend already." Then, slightly less than a year later, Phineas Fisher came back with a bang. This time, he hacked into the computers of Gamma's competitor Hacking Team, another company mostly known for selling spyware to questionable governments around the world. "Gamma and [Hacking Team] down, a few more to go :)," he tweeted. He followed the hack by taunting Hacking Team through the company's own Twitter account, and then, once again, he went dark for months, until he revealed how he got into Hacking Team. Once again, he called others to action. "Hacking is a powerful tool. Let's learn and fight!" he wrote. On Twitter, he proclaimed on his profile that "our keyboard is our weapon." Last week, he hit his third victim, the union of the Catalan police Mossos D'Esquadra. Accompanying his new hack, he also released a 39-minute how-to video with anti-police songs playing in the background, in which he showed how he got the data. While his latest victim seems like a small catch compared to FinFisher and Hacking Team, it's in line with his political views as an "anarchist revolutionary," and with his larger goal of inspiring other hacktivists to "hack back," as he puts it in his guides. "Everything doesn't have to be big," Phineas Fisher told me in an email. "I wanted to strike a small blow at the system, teach a bit of hacking with the video, and inspire people to take action." His plan might very well be working. With his rare, targeted, and almost "surgical" strikes, Phineas Fisher has a very good chance of inspiring a new generation of hacktivists and "setting the stage for other hackers to follow in his footsteps," according to Biella Coleman, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who's well-known for her study of hackers, hacktivism, and Anonymous. "For politically minded hackers, Phineas is a legend already," Coleman told me. "I don't want to be the lone hacker fighting the system. I want to inspire others to take similar action." Mustafa Al-Bassam, a security researcher and former LulzSec hacker, agreed, saying that the hacker's "strategy and message bares resemblance to many past Anonymous operations, but he's been arguably more effective at it doing it alone." Phineas Fisher is "one of the most intelligent hackers I've seen," and "one of the most inspiring to people in the hacktivist community in recent times—possibly of all time," Al-Bassam told me in an online chat. Coleman said that unlike Anonymous and LulzSec-inspired hackers, Phineas Fisher has been better at choosing targets and justifying his actions with more rounded and sophisticated political and ethical views. For Coleman, the big challenge for the hacker now will be to balance his need not to get caught, with his goal of inspiring others to join his cause. Phineas Fisher, on his part, seems not to be in a rush, though he's been considerably more active online in the last few weeks. "Hacking takes time to learn and get good at," he said, revealing that he first got interested in it when he read an article on Anonymous and LulzSec hacker Jeremy Hammond in 2012. In any case, "it's impossible to know yet" whether his call to hack back has been working, and actually, he doesn't really want to start a "formal movement" a la Anonymous or LulzSec. "But I don't want to be the lone hacker fighting the system," he told me. "I want to inspire others to take similar action, and try to provide the information so they can learn how." With links etc: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkjjnb/notorious-hacker-phineas-…

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Re: CIA Inside... Linksys routers. Advisory issued
by g2s 22 Jun '17

22 Jun '17

-------- Original message --------From: jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> Date: 6/22/17 11:20 AM (GMT-08:00) To: g2s <g2s(a)riseup.net>, cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org Subject: Re: CIA Inside... Linksys routers. Advisory issued From: g2s <g2s(a)riseup.net> http://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=263800 from that url >Linksys issues security advisory following discovery of CIA exploitation >Solution >If users believe their router firmware may have been compromised, Linksys recommends that users download the latest available firmware from http://www.linksys.com/support/ and update your router. >After the update, please perform a factory reset to ensure no remnants of the compromise remain. Instructions on how to do a factory reset can be found here. If users are not able to perform a firmware update or receive an error message during the update, please contact customer support for further instructions. Linksys Official Support - Linksys CherryBlossom Advisory----------------- It isn't clear, but I don't see any indication that these remedial processes actually inform the owner of the router if it has been compromised. Is that an accidental omission, or intentional? Jim Bell Might have a look at the dox attached to the wikileaks page. Linksys is probably just mass patching any possible infected routers and the "whether or not" isn't relevant to the process...imho. Rr >https://wikileaks.org/vault7/#Cherry%20Blossom

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Re: Scanning through walls using WiFi drones.
by Steven Schear 22 Jun '17

22 Jun '17

If you home walls and attic are insulated with, common, aluminized fiberglass batting you're probably already protected. Warrant Canary creator On Jun 21, 2017 1:10 PM, "juan" <juan.g71(a)gmail.com> wrote: On Wed, 21 Jun 2017 18:00:19 +0000 (UTC) jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > http://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/x-ray-drones-can-see-through-walls > > So Jim how would one go about jamming those motherfuckers? Shooting down the drones seems like a good solution, but jamming is more 'subtle'...

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Scanning through walls using WiFi drones.
by jim bell 22 Jun '17

22 Jun '17

http://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/x-ray-drones-can-see-through-walls "Our proposed approach has enabled unmanned aerial vehicles to image details through walls in 3D with only Wi-Fi signals," said Yasamin Mostofi, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UCSB. "This approach utilises only Wi-Fi RSSI [received signal strength indicator] measurements, does not require any prior measurements in the area of interest and does not need objects to move to be imaged."The technique could have applications for search-and-rescue, archaeology or monitoring unstable buildings.It builds on earlier work from the same lab, which pioneered using everyday radio signals such as Wi-Fi for imaging purposes, and had previously used ground-based robots for 3D imaging. The advantage of drones is that they can approach the area from several angles, and create optimised flight paths to collect the relevant data as quickly as possible.In the past, Wi-Fi signals had been used to create 3D images, including in one recent paper from the Technical University of Munich. “Of course, this raises privacy questions,” said Friedemann Reinhard, the leader of that project. “After all, to a certain degree even encrypted signals transmit an image of their surroundings to the outside world. However, it is rather unlikely that this process will be used for the view into foreign bedrooms in the near future. For that, you would need to go around the building with a large antenna, which would hardly go unnoticed.”Drones could change that, with covert surveillance another clear application of the technology. Researchers have previously developed methods of using Wi-Fi signals to detect the movement of people inside buildings. A technology called FreeSense, developed by Chinese researchers, can even identify individuals based on their body shape and the way they walk. Combined with the drones, this could be a powerful tool.However, it could be a while before these devices are peeking into your homes. The real world is a much noisier place, with millions of signals bouncing around. “Enabling 3D through-wall imaging of real areas is considerably more challenging due to the considerable increase in the number of unknowns," said Mostofi. [end of quote]×

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CIA Inside... Linksys routers. Advisory issued
by g2s 22 Jun '17

22 Jun '17

Linksys issues security advisory following discovery of CIA exploitation http://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=263800 https://wikileaks.org/vault7/#Cherry%20Blossom

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a message for the ages, and for all ages - "Putin's lessons in success - Just do it!"
by Zenaan Harkness 22 Jun '17

22 Jun '17

A timeless message from a true life story - one can have no doubt this will be good for all youth, the world over (and likely not only youth). We in "the West" have sadly become experts in complaint and blame, externalisation of our own authority, and attacking rather than building / creating (present company excepted ... of course :) Regards, Z Putin's lessons in success - Just do it! http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/06/putins-lessons-in-success-just-do-it.html

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defense against impugning of character?
by Johnny Eric Williams 22 Jun '17

22 Jun '17

Dear cypherpunks, my character has been recently impugned by CampusReform.org's Anthony Gockowski and I find this unacceptable. The impugned allegations are appearing now in two places I have found: http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9334 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-21/connecticut-professor-calls-whites… Is there a simple mechanism to handle these bigots? I don't mind a legal approach in the courts as that could be an educating experience - but it needs to be something executable in a shorter period of time. Sincerely, John Williams

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defense against impugning of character?
by Fishy 22 Jun '17

22 Jun '17

> Johnny Eric Williams johnny.williams at trincoll.edu > Wed Jun 21 23:50:54 PDT 2017 > > Dear cypherpunks, > I will bite. > my character has been recently impugned > Are these your words ? "It is past time for the racially oppressed to do what people who believe themselves to be 'white' will not do, put an end to the vectors of their destructive mythology of whiteness and their white supremacy system." "I'm fed the fuck up with self-identified 'white's' daily violence directed at immigrants, Muslim, and sexually and racially oppressed people. The time is now to confront these inhuman assholes and end this now." > Is there a simple mechanism to handle these bigots? > Memes. > it needs to be something executable in a shorter > period of time. > Not violence, if that is what you are fishing for. > Sincerely, > John Williams > http://internet2.trincoll.edu/facprofiles/default.aspx?fid=1000710 > Skin color as an identifier is an obfuscation of your true self. "White", "Black", and "Brown" are all labels intended to dissolve associations with your true identity: your ancestral past as a Cuban and African, and your current identity, as an American. Our world is a world made of nations, not colors. Stop being racist, faggot.

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China's Xi notes"how the US economy is crashing, and all this will end with a new world order"
by Zenaan Harkness 22 Jun '17

22 Jun '17

And so it shall be. Russia-China alliance will remake the world --Xi Jinping http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/06/russia-china-alliance-will-remake-world.ht…

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