- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

PayPal enforces spy or die
by grarpamp 22 Jun '16

22 Jun '16

https://seafile.de/en/important-infos-about-app-seafile-de-and-licensing-pu… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11944011 PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as all our customers’ files for illegal content. They have also asked us to provide them with detailed statistics about the files types of our customers sync and share on https://app.seafile.de Since complying with this demand would violate German / European data protection laws (and also be morally wrong in our opinion) we have declined to comply with this demand.

2 2

the fall of the USA's Magnitsky Act (a massive conviction without trial)
by Zenaan Harkness 22 Jun '16

22 Jun '16

The Magnitsky Act is one foundation for the Western "taking it on faith" litany of assumptions leading to action which is disgraceful towards Russia, indicting of the West and its so called 'leaders', and facilitating the media to spoon feed the public with again more assumptions that Russian government/ Putin is despotic, does really bad things like stealing money from 'innocent ex-pat investment bankers' and arresting, torturing and murdering whistleblowers. "A lie will circle the world before the truth puts its boots on." But when the truth finally gets going, those chickens will come home to roost. For anyone who has bought into this particular thread of the Western regime, this documentary, when it's available, is going to be important to watch. The hysterics arising from the Putinism "Russia is not the kind of a country that extradites human rights champions. (Россия не та страна которая выдаёт борцов за права человека.)" can be enjoyed just that little bit more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putinisms The extent of the efforts at various levels and from various (Western) parliamentarians to suppress this documentary, leaves a bad taste indeed. The linked prior article about the first cancelled screening is worth reading too and sets a fuller stage (besides providing a text book case of the Streissand effect): http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/empty-seat-william-browder-once-again… And this whole Magnitsky saga is highly topical in respect of a certain days of our lives opera occurring in other forums over the last week or so: "We heard about the inconsistencies of the Magnitsky narrative that Browder has peddled in all venues, and the eureka moment of the film maker that led him to change the message of his film mid-way through production into what ultimately became a scathing critique of Browder, and also a serious critique of the entire concept of applying personal sanctions against alleged human rights abusers without due process, as was the case in the compilation of the Magnitsky List." --- Advance Review of Devastating Film About Bill Browder Which He Tried to Suppress Gilbert Doctorow http://russia-insider.com/en/exclusive-advance-review-devastating-film-abou…

1 1

anarchic money options?
by Zenaan Harkness 22 Jun '16

22 Jun '16

Whilst Putin and Russia, BRICS nations and south east Asia in particular are working as diligently as they can toward a post-hegemonic world order, what are the anarchists planning? The P/E, debt to equity, national debt and private debt levels in the USA are simply not sustainable past 2024 mathematically, and most likely 2020 or earlier. That is, when you can no longer make interest payments, you go bankrupt, and if you're the FED printing as much QE money as you can possibly get away with, when you hit the wall, you take the entire currency with you. Earlier emails have linked to graphs which show this tax receipts vs US govt debt wall has an absolute end date of 2024, but most likely confidence in the US dollar will collapse well prior to then. So. Turmoil and upheavel when that moment comes. And some are well prepared to survive short to medium term food, water and shelter problems. Many are not. Some others have been and continue to put away tonnes of gold (Russia, China and other nations) whilst the sleepy democratic upstanding nice ones doddle along as though nothing's changed, like Canada who sold out 99.999% of their state gold reserves. The good news is that during such upheavel and crises, opportunities arise for very limited numbers of individual humans - mostly for those who prepared in advance. Now, those who are more than one can make more hay when the opportunities arise. To the hard core anarchists, the pioneers (not the settlers, and probably not even the squatters, only the hard core pioneers) - if you want to sieze the day, the best way to do so is to plan well in advance. My thoughts? Well, for broad acceptance of any political system of human interaction, broad acceptance (by those you communicate with in your broader communities) is of course required. Amidst the chaos and turmoil survival will dominate a human's every thought. Any advance planning, to be successful, must embrace the realities to come. Those who will be able to speak with clarity, having imbibed the understandings of the existing foundations (constitutions, amendments, money and its control), and considered well possible futures, may be able to inspire others to "a better future". But that can hardly be possible by sitting around hoping for someone else to do so. "Better" foundations must be practical, straightforward to the mind - you will have to communicate them with sheep after all, and ought be discussed and thrashed out and options and alternatives considered, well in advance. Community arises in interaction of humans, be it action, communication or contention (verbal and physical). Without powerfully simple yet constructive conversations arising between millions of people (USA has ~300 million population), then a new system shall be imposed, instituting babylon once again. And the sheep shall be shorn. What futures can even be communicated? We must start somewhere...

1 0

Re: [tor-talk] Debian Developer, removed since 2016-06-18 *Appelbaum*
by Zenaan Harkness 22 Jun '16

22 Jun '16

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 01:36:54PM +0300, ja.talk wrote: > https://nm.debian.org/public/person/error > > Jacob Appelbaum > > Account name > error > > OpenPGP fingerprint > 043E 0E69 DD56 BA59 5905 8756 90BC 9192 B062 91B2 > > Status > Debian Developer, removed since 2016-06-18 Debian is not, and never has been, about justice. Debian developer voting base has public foundations which fail to have any separation of powers - just a single public "community" executive/ power of authority, with no formal nor rigorous nor easy to identify appeal/ right of reply/response process. Debian is not about human rights. Debian is not about justice. Without foundations of human rights and justice, Debian fails fundamentally to provide an effective --long term-- foundation for effective community. Debian is about their operating system/ software distribution and packaging, and the whims of the developers who are the only ones who get to vote on anything. See Debian's Social Contract, which is all about (free libre) software, its utility and benefits, and even their "3. We will not hide problems" clause is purely utilitarian and software based, and has nothing to do about humans, rights, justice nor ethics! : https://www.debian.org/social_contract and Debian's Code of Conduct : https://www.debian.org/code_of_conduct Debian fails to have any of: - due process - separation of powers - right to respond - right to appeal - ethical foundation - principled foundation other than utility And before you leap in with an excessively quick "oh, you can respond, just send an email" - take notice, if it is not written into the foundation rights, there is no such right in operation in Debian! So take your false beliefs and read Debian's foundation documents again before embarrassing yourself publicly. --- Fundamentally, with only a "be excellent to each other" hippy ethos, tyranny can (and I say in the long term shall) reign supreme; despots can hide, well intentioned idiots can pave abundant roads to hell, and all without realising their mistakes nor the years of damage to their hailed "community", since that damage is predominantly unseen. Debian is no friend to ethics nor justice nor fundamental community building principles - nothing more than the grandiose principle of "Utility"! Yes, "free libre software" is indeed more useful than proprietary closed source software. You heard it here first. Debian? An excellent operating system for a certain category of individual. Just don't expect your idea of community to remotely prevail within the "Debian" project.

4 4

Russia Fucks Your Crypto Too
by grarpamp 21 Jun '16

21 Jun '16

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/06/20/2231208/russian-bill-requires-encry… http://www.dailydot.com/politics/encryption-backdoor-russia-fsb/ http://www.currenttime.tv/a/27809255.html A new bill in the Russian Duma, the country's lower legislative house, proposes to make cryptographic backdoors mandatory in all messaging apps in the country so the Federal Security Service -- the successor to the KGB -- can obtain special access to all communications within the country. [Apps like WhatsApp, Viber, and Telegram, all of which offer varying levels of encrypted security for messages, are specifically targeted in the "anti-terrorism" bill, according to the Russian-language media. Fines for the offending companies could reach 1 million rubles or about $15,000.] Russian Senator Elena Mizulina argued that the new bill ought to become law because, she said, teens are brainwashed in closed groups on the internet to murder police officers, a practice protected by encryption. Mizulina then went further. "Maybe we should revisit the idea of pre-filtering [messages]," she said. "We cannot look silently on this." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXb4Ka2ygwU The train went on and on ...

2 1

US Congress NSLs FBI to Please Think of the Orlando's
by grarpamp 21 Jun '16

21 Jun '16

https://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/06/21/0543212/invoking-orlando-senat… http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-fbi-emails-idUSKCN0Z7056?feedType=R… U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the FBI's authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information. The move, made via an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to respond to last week's mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on Monday. Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital spying powers. The amendment would broaden the FBI's authority to use so-called National Security Letters to include electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails' senders and recipients. NSLs do not require a warrant and are almost always accompanied by a gag order preventing the service provider from sharing the request with a targeted user. The amendment filed Monday would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on "lone wolf" suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. A vote is expected no later than Wednesday, McConnell's office said. Last week, FBI Director James Comey said he is "highly confident that [the Orlando shooter] was radicalized at least in part through the internet."

1 0

what 'Tor' actually stands for - do you want a brown t-shirt?
by juan 21 Jun '16

21 Jun '16

dingledine : "Also, yes, this mailing list has gotten out of control. We are all distracted doing more urgent things, but I think we should soon find the time anyway to proceed to the "clean up our lists" plan." boyce : "Due to the extreme amount of off-topic posting (centered around a handful of users), there's much discussion about whether to replace tor-talk with a moderated list" me to boyce : > are you brownshirts going to 'moderate' the cpunks mailing > list too? his reply : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIoMfVNVx4g

4 4

Re: [tor-talk] Question for those who say "Tor is pwned"
by Zenaan Harkness 21 Jun '16

21 Jun '16

> I see a lot of people talking about how Tor is pwned by the US > Government and is insecure 'by design'. I'm assuming that they know > this from a thorough analysis of the source code, which I freely admit > I haven't done. So, since you guys actually have taken the time to > audit the source and find the vulnerabilities that would allow Tor to > be so easily pwned, could you explain it to me and, preferable, post > relevant sections (or links to sections) of the source you're basing > your statements on? It's foundation design issues. And hardware level network issues. The code is generally (in the public conversation anyway) assumed to be "best effort, bugs fixed relatively soon after they arise". > I'd really like to investigate these vulnerabilities myself but the > code is too massive for one person to realistically audit by > themselves so links would be very helpful. Again, you will need more nuance than "has the code been audited" if you really want a relevant answer. There's a lot of research out there, and also logic and discussions which are straightforward to follow. Next, once you've done some investigation, you start to come across a few interesting factoids of note such as: - lack of network chaff is a fundamental limitation, and problem for privacy (for those who need it) given current known data collection capabilities of the "five eyes" - all network meta data, and there is evident (I'm not about to search the lists, but you only need to search 2.5 years (the time I've been watching)) resistent within "Tor project proper" to making this particular fundamental improvement happen; - arguments are put such as "oh there are no studies proving the benefits of network chaff" and the obvious "we don't have a budget for that (yet) but we encourage contributions" - persistent push back against bittorrent over Tor, including threatening offlist email attacks against those who suggest as much; BT over Tor would provide some chaff, simply by increase of volume, load, unpredictability of end clients, for example. - just watching TBB's behaviour has been interesting - some days, when I open up say 5 tabs for 5 different news websites using the "open all bookmarks from this folder as tabs" function, they all essentially start to load simultaneously, but other days/times, each tab loads distinctly sequentially, which to my mind is a dead giveaway that my current on-ramp is part of some sort of profiling (read 'deanonymising') - configurable latency randomization is another technical improvement which has been bandied around for years, and sounds easy to my programmer mind in practice, but has yet to see anything like the light of day There is ample room for an alternate dev team. Unfortunately, the US DoD are the ones providing almost all the funding, so they get to continue to control Tor development. If you are a big funder, start a whole new dev team, in a -completely separate jurisdiction (if that's possible). I know of an apparently well intentioned and productive man who may be close to ideal to set up and lead such a team :) Also, fundamentally we need a physical layer network which individual humans in their homes and offices, actually control - that is, shift the entire network to a "dark fibre" concept, where suburbs have random connections to one another, neighbours connect to one another with ethernet, wireless and more. If you don't own it, you don't control it. If you don't control it, it --will-- be used against you. This is a long term (say 20 year) plan, but it's the only long term option if we want to achieve anything resembling a genuine network of the people which honours privacy and anonymity of communication. By virtue of our capacity and existence and by the blessing of our cognizance of these things, we humans are with the right to anonymous and private communication. We have the right. I encourage you to work towards a world where many can live the right.

1 0

Food for thought
by grarpamp 20 Jun '16

20 Jun '16

On 6/18/16, Mirimir <mirimir(a)riseup.net> wrote: > Still, I'm left with a poor impression of just about everyone > involved. I don't mean to blame anyone. But damn, the Tor community > during the past few years comes across as a soap opera! And the code > that came out of that soap opera is what people are counting on? > Seriously? > > But OK, maybe they "do good work". Soap Operas... funded by various interests, keeping you entranced and stupid since the 1950's.

1 0

Kropotkin -vs- Darwin. Humanity, Cooperation and Mutual Aid -vs- Egoism and Pitiless Struggle; Socialism/Communism -vs- Competitive Capitalism/Darwinism. (Russia -vs- West)
by Александр 20 Jun '16

20 Jun '16

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is a book by Peter Kropotkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1902/mutual-aid/ Written partly in response to social Darwinism and in particular to Thomas H. Huxley's Nineteenth Century essay, "The Struggle for Existence", Kropotkin's book drew on his experiences in scientific expeditions in Siberia to illustrate the phenomenon of cooperation. After examining the evidence of cooperation in nonhuman animals, in pre-feudal societies and medieval cities, and in modern times, he concluded that *cooperation and mutual aid, and not Darwin's pitiless struggle, are the most important factors in the evolution of species and the ability to survive.*

3 5