November 2019 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Iran Cuts Internet, Toosheh SDR, Appelbaum
by grarpamp 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1195775905907576832 https://twitter.com/Maryamtaban12/status/1195792928934944768 * Down with Dictator * Down with Rouhani (President) * Down with Khamenei (Supreme Leader) "The Iranian government forces all ISPs in the country to be singlehomed to, and be downstream of, DCI, the government run ASN. If you don't do this, you don't get an international transit connection, and men with guns come to take your routers and arrest you." https://twitter.com/radiojibi/status/1195802219884503040 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toosheh Jacob Appelbaum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIvt9snFQig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qa8SRN86V8

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iqnets: opportunistic XYZ, e.g. "begin xmit"
by Zenaan Harkness 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

Every round trip between 2 peer nodes incurs 2x the average link latency. Google did substantial design and testing for various TCP HTTP(s) speedups. One of the concepts ISTR bandied about was opportunistic data sending - as long as the server is happy with the initial packet(s) sent by the client, and the client has included its initial request(s) into those initial packets, then the server begins to transmit data to the client, without waiting for ACKs of ACKs and further requests. The concept, at least as I understand it, is to, where possible, include initial data/ link set up/ etc requests, as early as feasible in the p2p link establishment packets, to minimize or eliminate round trips and thereby drastically reduce at least initial latency, and possibly also additional latency. For example think of a web page which contains hrefs to content, which the client only knows exist when it receives the base web page, so then of course must otherwise make a new request for the content identified - if the server knows what the client will need to ask for, it can automatically/ opportunistically send that data, without waiting for the obvious request. There may be peer node negotiation for different types of opportunism, e.g.: - on first ever new node contact, nodes may choose to auto (opportunisticly) hand out X cache undertaking/ promise - nodes may request "may I opportunisticly assume I may begin a "bulk fill" link with you, if I need (or am requested) to do so? - certain types of opportunism may be enabled by default, unless overridden by conf - other types of opportunism may only (by default) occur by nego - we ought be diligent in attempting to identify all possible types of opportunism that overlay nets may utilise/ provide for - we that we may opportunisticly optimize for as much opportunism as possible - everything possible to minimize number of round trips - algos which scale linearly (or better) with time, rather than b/w, and rather than exponentially in any unit A thought giving rise to the above is that notwithstanding our best efforts to stay "optimally" below link b/w and other limits, for many reasons any of these attempts will, at different times, fail. A link at a b/w of say 2MiB/s may oscillate or otherwise vary over time, up to 2MiB/s. When we are xmitting at say 1.95MiB/s, and phys nodes out of our control (such as an ISP's router) shape downwards, even temporarily, UDP packets get dropped. In many, most or all cases to start with, we will not have QoS at the (from our overlay net point of view) physical network layer. - This means we may have minimal to no control over which UDP packets get dropped. - This QoS issue is a fundamental area we need to expand our understanding of. - Longer term, iqnets shall be a motivator to end users, ISPs and GT-* folks, to push QoS down to the link layer. - When we do achieve internet wide QoS contracts at the network layer, a privacy issue (depending on your threat model) will be which QoS modes to utilize - e.g. you may be better off using "bulk fill", rather than "telephone audio" class QoS, in order to better hide your important phone call. - notwitstanding use cases and threat models, we don't fail to maximise provision for QoS, just because some use cases won't use it

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Re: The Cypherpunk's 1995 Archive has been forged, and what are we going to do about it? (was:Re: Could someone add news of Cypherpunks Archive...
by jim bell 09 Dec '19

09 Dec '19

I'm going to put this response onto the Cypherpunks list, so that everybody learns what is going on. You said, "I don’t think they were intentionally edited by anyone." That may very well be because you haven't checked. Would you know what to look for, if I hadn't told you? Probably not. I am apparently the first person in about 16 years to have identified this problem. And the reason I discovered it was simply that I was looking for a very specific piece of information that I knew should have been in it: The date of the first appearance of Part 1 of my Assassination Politics essay, which as I had vaguely recalled should have been somewhere in February or March 1995. And parts 2-6 should also have appeared in the 1995 archive. I didn't place it there: It was copied by a person whose name I don't recall (maybe I never knew it...) from the Digitaliberty email list, run by Bill Frezza. There was a huge amount of discussion of it in mid-1995. You can even find many references in 1996, but essentially nothing in 1995. I looked for this, and was shocked by what I saw (or more precisely, DIDN'T see): It is quite obvious now what happened: With a tiny number of exceptions in November and December 1995, all messages with the strings "Jim Bell", "jimbell(a)pacifier.com", " AP ", and "Assassination Politics" simply didn't appear. Someone had intentionally removed them. The fraud had been so minutely done that any appearance of the string ' ap ' that meant "Assassination Politics" had been removed, and the very few that meant "Associated Press" remained. Not an accident. Quite intentional. I think you owe it to the other users of the Cypherpunks list (then and now) to correct your "I don’t think they were intentionally edited by anyone." to "I agree it's obvious that 1995's archive was forged". And "I will help you to figure out who did it." It only takes your recognition that those strings had to appear, heavily, in the data and nevertheless they did do not. Check for the appearance of those strings in 1996, to see what the "normal" situation should have been. A few minutes of text searching will confirm all this. You could easily do this by talking to other people who were aware of what happened on the Cypherpunks list in 1995. Declan McCullagh was one; the names of the others are obviously available in the 1995 and 1996 archive itself, including the email addresses (at least, their email addresses then) of those very people. They will all agree that those strings, at the very least, are missing. And you won't find an 'innocent' explanation, no matter how hard you try. This cannot possibly have been by accident. And you are virtually certain to have been in contact with the person who did that fraud, or at least one who knew what was going on. You probably have archives, possibly on 'retired' hard drives. Or the people who gave the data to you. Eventually, we will find the answer. With a little searching, I can see that you work in the 'security' field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Lackey You are, therefore, well-qualified for this task. And you should want to ensure that your reputation is upheld with your handling of this matter. Jim Bell On Friday, November 22, 2019, 07:33:24 PM PST, Ryan Lackey <ryan(a)venona.com> wrote: The archives I have were built from source files provided by Hugh Daniel and possibly some other sources (John Young? my own node?). It’s entirely possible they aren’t comprehensive for a variety of reasons (nodes being out of sync, corruption, inconsistent formatting, whatever). I don’t think they were intentionally edited by anyone. That’s all the information I have, and sorry I can’t help you. On Nov 22, 2019, at 23:19, jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> wrote: ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com>To: "cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org" <cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org>; grarpamp <grarpamp(a)gmail.com>; Tom Busby <tom(a)busby.ninja>; rlackey(a)venona.com <rlackey(a)venona.com>; rlackey(a)mit.edu <rlackey(a)mit.edu>; rlackey(a)cloudflare.com <rlackey(a)cloudflare.com>; rlackey(a)hotmail.com <rlackey(a)hotmail.com>; rlackey(a)gmail.com <rlackey(a)gmail.com>; rlackey(a)cryptoseal.com <rlackey(a)cryptoseal.com>; declan(a)well.com <declan(a)well.com>Sent: Friday, November 22, 2019, 10:59:03 AM PSTSubject: Re: The Cypherpunk's 1995 Archive has been forged, and what are we going to do about it? (was:Re: Could someone add news of Cypherpunks Archive... https://rocketreach.co/ryan-lackey-email_255468 - @mit.edu - @venona.com - @cloudflare.com - @hotmail.com - @cryptoseal.com - @gmail.com I am including Ryan Lackey in this thread, since he seems to have been involved in the Cypherpunks archive during the relevant time frame. Ryan, I have discovered extensive data omissions in (at least) the 1995 Cypherpunks data archive. These errors or omissions seem to have existed as early as 2003. They have been discussed for a few weeks on the Cypherpunks list. There is an almost total omission of emails between the dates of about February 14, 1995, and July 10, 1995. Furthermore, from July 11 1995 onwards to the end of 1995, there are almost no strings like this: "jim bell", "jimbell(a)pacifier.com", " AP ", "Assassination Politics". Yet, there are thousands of other messages. It appears that emails containing such strings, and possibly others, have been carefully excised from the database, Curiously, the very few (15?) instances where " AP " appears are almost entirely referring to the Associated Press, not Assassination Politics, So, this editing could not easily have been done with a simple, blind string-search: It probably would have had to include careful human assistance. We'd like to hear of your recollection of the history of the Cypherpunks Archive, how it came to be, etc. Jim Bell On Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 01:43:48 PM PST, jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Still no response. And, I don't see any enthusiastic efforts from others currently on CP to contact any other journalists or previous CP people to help uncover this mystery. Will this become embarrassing? Yes. Jim Bell On Monday, November 18, 2019, 10:42:26 AM PST, jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Well, I sent out an email to Declan McCullagh, declan(a)well.com, and so far no reply. At least openly, there would not appear to be any reason he should resist the idea of returning and helping us figure out what happened with the faked 1995 archive. He apparently continues to write news articles, https://muckrack.com/declan-mccullagh/articles , and at least from their titles they sound well-meaning. This would certainly amount to a big story, and he certainly can't claim the subject isn't interesting given the history of his articles. However, his position stated to me in about March 2002 (about the time I was transferred to USP Atwater California; I had been at USP Lompoc for a few months before that) was initially that he was going to visit (because he was attending an event somewhere in the Bay area, as I recall), but after that he didn't bother to show up and it wasn't the reason he claimed: 'something came up': In fact, he didn't even fill out and return a (necessary) Visitor's application, which would have been automatically approved. So, evidently, Declan had decided weeks before that he had no intention of visiting me: Without that form and routine approval, he would not have been allowed to visit. He knew that. So, I request that as many people as possible contact him and make this request directly. He may feel uncomfortable, but he has a degree of responsibility, at least as a participant in the Cypherpunks list in 1995-96 and probably beyond, and as a witness, and as a person who no doubt reported the government's line during 1997-2002, but didn't bother to do anything to publicize my side of the story. And in the end, I had done probably 12 more years in prison BECAUSE my story hadn't been told. Declan should contact the people involved with the Cypherpunks archives, or keeping of the data. I am confident that it wouldn't take long to figure out what happened. Jim Bell

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[announce@announce.puri.sm: [Announce] Librem 5 Updates and Pre-order Discount till 31 July 2019]
by Zenaan Harkness 08 Dec '19

08 Dec '19

Librem5 getting close to launch. 5 year old excitement meter going off the scale :D Another step in the FLOSS full stack including hardware. Good luck fellow Souls and always, create your world :) ----- Forwarded message from Purism Announcements via Announce <announce(a)announce.puri.sm> ----- From: Purism Announcements via Announce <announce(a)announce.puri.sm> Reply-To: feedback(a)puri.sm, Purism Announcements <announce(a)announce.puri.sm> Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2019 14:53:33 +0100 Subject: [Announce] Librem 5 Updates and Pre-order Discount till 31 July 2019 Pre-order Your Librem 5 before 31 July 2019 and save $50 <https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/> For a limited time pre-order a Librem 5 and save $50 on the final retail price. /Discount ends 31 July 2019./ Librem 5 Homescreen <https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/> *Specifications:* * Display : 5.5″ – 5.7″ HD display * Processor: iMX8M Quad CPU * Memory: To Be Unveiled Soon * Storage : 32 GB eMMC internal storage * Wireless : 802.11abgn 2.4 Ghz / 5Ghz + Bluetooth 4 * Baseband : Gemalto PLS8 3G/4G modem w/ single sim on replaceable M.2 card * GPS : TESEO LIV3F multiconstellation GNSS receiver * Smartcard: yes for 2FF format smart cards * Speaker : at least one * External Storage: microSD storage expansion * Accelerometer: 9-axis IMU (gyro, accel, magnetometer) * Front Camera: To Be Unveiled Soon * Back Camera w/LED flash: To Be Unveiled Soon * Vibration motor: yes * Charging: USB C connector for charging, USB client function, USB host function, power delivery * Battery: User replaceable – To Be Unveiled Soon Get your $50 Librem 5 discount <https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/> July 2019 Librem 5 Update <https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-july-update/> Since the last update the Librem 5 team made a number of UI and stability improvements to the core applications. Read the Librem 5 July update blog <https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-july-update/> post to find out more - here are some screenshots of the amazing results. Librem 5 Contacts App <https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-july-update/>Librem 5 Phone App <https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-july-update/> Video Series: Runs on Librem 5 <https://puri.sm/posts/runs-on-the-librem-5-smartphone-week-3/> 1 <https://puri.sm/posts/runs-on-the-librem-5-smartphone-week-3/>Runs on Librem 5 <https://puri.sm/posts/runs-on-the-librem-5-smartphone-week-3/>1 <https://puri.sm/posts/runs-on-the-librem-5-smartphone-week-3/> Our "Runs of Librem 5" video series has been growing in popularity. We've compiled a handy YouTube playlist <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFRbOvZvxM&list=PLbi9Ij0Mdq2uxxeNKxHvu_ScZ…> and weekly summary posts on our blog (week1 <https://puri.sm/posts/runs-on-the-librem-5-smartphone-week-1/>, week2 <https://puri.sm/posts/runs-on-the-librem-5-smartphone-week-2/>, week3 <https://puri.sm/posts/runs-on-the-librem-5-smartphone-week-3/>) for you to get caught up with all the Linux desktop apps we're running on our devkits. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Purism <https://puri.sm/> Thanking you for your support, — the Purism team (feedback at puri.sm) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note: contents of this email are CC-by-SA; feel free to forward it to friends! /To remove yourself from our announcements list, simply email announce-leave(a)announce.puri.sm <mailto:announce-leave@announce.puri.sm> and you will automatically be instructed how to unsubscribe./ _______________________________________________ Purism Announce mailing list http://announce.puri.sm/listinfo/announce ----- End forwarded message -----

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Virgil Griffith - Crypto Advocate and Educator Arrested at LAX from DPRK
by grarpamp 03 Dec '19

03 Dec '19

https://virgil.gr/ https://twitter.com/virgilgr #FreeVirgil Adopt Distributed Privacy Cryptocurrencies https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-arrest… https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1222646/download https://twitter.com/SDNYnews/status/1200478952520859648 10:17 AM - 29 Nov 2019 USA Berman: As alleged, Virgil Griffith provided highly technical information to North Korea, knowing that this information could be used to help North Korea launder money and evade sanctions. "GRIFFITH was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport yesterday and will be presented in federal court in Los Angeles later today. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman stated: "As alleged, Virgil Griffith provided highly technical information to North Korea, knowing that this information could be used to help North Korea launder money and evade sanctions. In allegedly doing so, Griffith jeopardized the sanctions that both Congress and the president have enacted to place maximum pressure on North Korea's dangerous regime." Assistant Attorney General John Demers said: "Despite receiving warnings not to go, Griffith allegedly traveled to one of the United States' foremost adversaries, North Korea, where he taught his audience how to use blockchain technology to evade sanctions. By this complaint, we begin the process of seeking justice for such conduct."

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The Fed' shills for world's greatest tax - Carbon Hoax - 'Member the Fed - [MONEY] [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

The Federal Reserve Bank, neither federal, nor reserve, nor constitutional, is once again shilling for a global tax of some sort, any bloody sort, just bring the damn tax in already (thank you Greta Thunderburger!) Now why, oh why, would the Fed be shilling for a global tax? Perhaps because they're starting to pump such volumes of voluminous fiats that "full faith and credit" is possibly going to come a gutser? Perhaps the ginormous money printing is causing imbalances where too much money is going (or about to go) into the hands of the populace (UBI I hear you correctly say)? Or perhaps it's just plane sheer unbridled greed and control instincts of the central Bankers Gone Wild? Whatever it is, we know firstly it's a firetrucking hoax, but hey, what's new? Fed Warns Climate Change Is A Major Threat To The Economy https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/fed-warns-climate-change-now-major-threat-… https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/speeches/2019/sti191107 ... "The U.S. economy has experienced more than $500 billion in direct losses over the last five years due to climate and weather-related events. In addition, climate change has significant consequences for the U.S. economy and financial sector through slowing productivity growth, asset revaluations and sectoral reallocations of business activity" ... Nonetheless, real impacts are already being felt and we must develop the tools to assess and manage them." Impacts... like a 16-year-old girl with Asperger's syndrome dictating monetary, fiscal and social policy? ... At least Greta Thunberg will be happy for a few years before the social catalysm that results from the Fed's final act of idiocy means that eating the rich - and just about anyone else - will be more than just a figure of speech.

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Low speed, p2p, wireless as a secure alternative to SMS and Signal-like services.
by Steven Schear 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

By choosing a different physical transport means a different and, I maintain, better set of security tradeoffs become available. Unlike approaches which invariably depend on the Internet and heavily monitored commercial gateways, I propose using infrastructure-less or non-permissioned commercial, single-hop, relays. It's not the electromagnetic spectrum isn't also monitored but that the efficacy of that monitoring is, unlike the former environment, much more limited by physics, channel conditions, information theory and the proper application of tradecraft by possible targets. Both as a hobbyist and professional I've delved into the practicality of utilizing and building on commonly available, even consumer grade, Software Defined Signal Processing (SDSP, the use of the term SDR is verboten in my world due to its inherent regulatory implications) hardware and open source software. My investigations (some openly shared at Cypherpunk-oriented tech conferences) have led me to believe that even a moderate uptake of these SDSP technologies would effectively neutralize most or all SIGINT against parties who aren't already the subject of individual targeting. These technologies aren't some magical new creation but rather the integration and adoption of ideas already well studied and reported in academia but whose implementations are often not openly available for tailoring and testing, mostly due to unfounded fears of regulatory actions. To be continued...

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Re: Virgil Griffith - Crypto Advocate and Educator Arrested at LAX from DPRK
by John Young 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

Virgil Griffith v USG https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1222646/download

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tor stinks, take #376029
by Punk-Stasi 2.0 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

https://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/cache/active-pet2010.pdf "Suppose the adversary runs just two routers. If we take into account the way Tor chooses circuits, the size of the network ], and the number of users observed on Tor in one day , we expect the adversary to compromise 15 users at least once in that day. If the adversary provides the top two routers by bandwidth, the expected number of compromised users increases to 9464.1 Thus, the system provides poor anonymity against a wide variety of realistic opponents, such as governments, ISPs," that comes directly from supreme scum-master syverson himself. What's really astounding is that at the same time syverson and the rest of tor shitbags advertise tor as a means for people to "protect themselves against traffic analysis". "

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Cryptocurrency: Anonymous to Invest $75M of Crypto to Develop Privacy Coins and Anon Tech
by grarpamp 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

> Is there a location at which these proposals have been published? They are not currently publishing the applications by default because they currently view that as harming potential startups. Though you can send them project press releases for publishing to: chris_unknown_fund(a)protonmail.com There are probably no third party locations because most proposals are likely to be from typical "startup" space that is usually trying to secretly extract money from each other and the market, than giving good things to the world. > Has anyone proposed what we propose doing, building > an anonymization network... done-right? Unknown. But if you're serious about doing anything with them you need to get at least some kind of hello application in now because they have a lot of apps in the pipeline, and they say applications are closed. So it'll have to be something good to bypass the rest. As to some recently mentioned ones... 1) A new general purpose secure *PA resistant internet overlay transport network built from good current and new research, including use of pluggable RF module tech. Many apps can ride. And it should be designed to be a factor stronger than tor, i2p, and all the rest are today. 2) An OpenAudited OpenFab building OpenHW (including CPU, GPU, ASIC, RF, Phones), to run all the OpenSW on. 3) There should be an application for strictly a cryptocurrency... distributed, privacy in protocol by default, cpu transaction mined, no 100GB's of blockchain history only a UTXO state db, and strictly serving only the "currency / money / cash" function, fast lightweight hard, no premine, no support for tokens, contracts, data, or any other bloatware at all, just a plain old fashioned single purpose cash. Maybe multisig and timelock for safer holding, but that's it, the less the better will yield recognition as purely money and reach primary goal of cryptocurrency adoption faster therein. It must be capable of running over anonymous overlay networks. 4) And an application for a genuine fully distributed cross-chain DEX (CCDEX) is a remaining tech that is desperately needed to help complete the cryptocurrency function space. It must be capable of running over anonymous overlay networks. Few want to do 1, 3, or 4, because when done right, there's no profit or control over other people for them to have, and that's how it should be. Though 2 can profit once it gets running, it would be better if it spent its profit to seed independant redundant copies of itself and or other needed projects. So far most of the online chatter seems to be about getting yet more pointless shitcoins off the ground than working on fundamental underlying tech the fund, or at least some of us, would like to see. I'd even help review some of the apps but I'm not in that loop. https://www.unknown.fund/ https://twitter.com/fund_unknown anon_fund(a)protonmail.com chris_unknown_fund(a)protonmail.com

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