- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Plundervolt: Intel CPUs Hacked... Again - SGX
by grarpamp 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

https://plundervolt.com/ https://github.com/KitMurdock/plundervolt https://github.com/intel/Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-Files https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security-center/advisory/intel-sa-0… Academics from three universities across Europe have disclosed today a new attack that impacts the integrity of data stored inside Intel SGX, a highly-secured area of Intel CPUs. The attack, which researchers have named Plundervolt, exploits the interface through which an operating system can control an Intel processor's voltage and frequency -- the same interface that allows gamers to overclock their CPUs. Academics say they discovered that by tinkering with the amount of voltage and frequency a CPU receives, they can alter bits inside SGX to cause errors that can be exploited at a later point after the data has left the security of the SGX enclave. They say Plundervolt can be used to recover encryption keys or introduce bugs in previously secure software. Intel desktop, server, and mobile CPUs are impacted. A full list of vulnerable CPUs is available here. Intel has also released microcode (CPU firmware) and BIOS updates today that address the Plundervolt attack [by allowing users to disable the energy management interface at the source of the attack, if not needed]. Proof-of-concept code for reproducing attacks will be released on GitHub.

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ShadowSocks: Doubi of SSr Nabbed Under Twitter Questions
by grarpamp 11 Dec '19

11 Dec '19

https://mobile.twitter.com/robert_spalding/status/1134797195771863041 Is Twitter leaking user phone numbers to the Chinese police, or have they been hacked? People are being called in for questioning about their Twitter activity. 5:21 AM - 1 Jun 2019 https://amp.ft.com/content/afd44222-5c34-11e9-9dde-7aedca0a081a Chinese authorities step up crackdown on Twitter users Police warn people for liking posts that insult leaders or even opening an account. " Here is a story what has happened to Doubi (SSr developer.) He was a very well aware of anonymity risks, and he evaded police for years on end. China literally tried to do geolocate him by turning off the internet in entire cities, but to no result. He caught on to that, and started randomising his release timing, and avoiding releasing "hotfixes". So, the entire Chinese police and MSS been looking him for 4-5 years. What has happened? A few month before his arrest, he registered a Twitter handle with a throwaway SIM card. Those are being usually sold by "grannies" in Chinese 2nd tier cities who peddle things like fake tax receipts, anonymous train tickets and such. China either hacked Twitter, or had somebody bribed there, and they got the number. They then tracked down the granny who sold him the SIM card, and went on and checking every person door to door in that small town. Then, they found him. He got 5 years prison, and 4 years of laogai (gulag) Basically Twitter got pwned big time, and now denies it because GDPR will ruin them if breach is proven. Here is what Doubi's online followers figured: State security got all phone numbers used for Twitter phone verification up to May 2019 and possibly till July. Twitter haphazardly closed the breach in complete secrecy. API hole explanation is excluded as people with 100% private accs got police visits. People with foreign SIM cards also got into trouble. So the explanation that China compromised Twitter's SMS providers is also excluded, as its improbable that they did it in 4+ countries. 2016 breach is also out of question. The only explanation is that they got hold on a big piece of their user DB, or, worse, they have an active infiltrator in Twitter, or Twitter voluntarily cooperated. "

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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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Yahoo News: Rights activists warn on weakening encryption
by jim bell 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

Yahoo News: Rights activists warn on weakening encryption. https://news.yahoo.com/rights-activists-warn-weakening-encryption-150704001…

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MIT Technology Review: Cops see an encryption problem. Spyware makers see an opportunity.
by jim bell 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

MIT Technology Review: Cops see an encryption problem. Spyware makers see an opportunity.. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614898/cops-see-an-encryption-problem-sp…

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Tom's Hardware: Arm China Will Make Chips With ‘State-Approved’ Cryptography
by jim bell 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

Tom's Hardware: Arm China Will Make Chips With ‘State-Approved’ Cryptography. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/arm-china-will-make-chips-with-state-appr…

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Phys.org: In surprise breakthrough, scientists create quantum states in everyday electronics
by jim bell 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

Phys.org: In surprise breakthrough, scientists create quantum states in everyday electronics. https://phys.org/news/2019-12-breakthrough-scientists-quantum-states-everyd…

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Verizon Is Blocking Efforts to Preserve Internet History
by jim bell 10 Dec '19

10 Dec '19

https://www.newsbreakapp.com/n/0NXJykHs?s=a3&pd=02h1yVjC Verizon Is Blocking Efforts to Preserve Internet History Vice Archivists attempting to preserve internet history say that Verizon is undermining their efforts to archive Yahoo Groups ahead of the service’s looming shutdown on December 14.

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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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Facialized: GovtCorp "Struggle" to Force Humans Into ID Control and Slavery Systems, Wheat Parable
by grarpamp 09 Dec '19

09 Dec '19

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2019/12/05/african-countri… Always a wordtwisting "struggle", always for "benefits"... always needless, always a lie to fuck you. You are here... https://www.bedug.com/pics/Fun5/lfdjvhib4gx21.jpg The first thing that visitors to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg see is a wall of identity cards-- the pieces of paper that determined where people could live and work and whom they could love. From the outset, the apartheid regime's ability to discriminate against "nie-blankes" (non-whites) depended on having a robust system of identifying people. The opposite problem confronts most other countries in Africa today. Governments have little idea who their citizens are [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. From a report: African countries struggle for several reasons. One is racial discrimination. Uganda, Liberia and Sierra Leone explicitly withhold nationality from children of certain races and ethnicities. Other countries do so informally by refusing to issue papers. Another reason is a failure by governments to explain to their citizens how they might benefit. Consider birth registration, the most basic form of official identity. South Asia more than doubled its rate of birth registration to 71% between 2000 and 2014. In sub-Saharan Africa the rate dropped by one point, to 41%, over the same period. For poor villagers, going to a government office to register a birth is time-consuming and expensive, especially when officials demand bribes. Some countries charge a fee, which is a disincentive. Others penalize late registrations. One way to encourage people is to link birth registration to benefits such as child-support grants -- something South Africa did with great success. But that approach may also have the perverse consequence of denying payments to the very poorest. Money is another reason many African countries have fallen behind their peers. Extending the state's reach to remote areas can be expensive. So, too, is paying for skilled labour of the sort required to fill in forms accurately and to operate biometric machines. The technology itself is costly, especially for small countries that do not have much buying power. The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existance, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. There has been a concerted effort to erase what remains of the internet from 1992-2001. Nothing truly valuable or important can ever be safely entrusted to any Government. That's because Governments are abstract, psychopathic entities whose prime directive is to survive and to maximize itself. They are intrinsically incapable of caring about people, morality, religion or even their own "laws". domesticate n verb 1 tame (an animal) and keep it as a pet or for farm produce. Øhumorous accustom (someone) to home life and domestic tasks. 2 cultivate (a plant) for food. DERIVATIVES domesticable adjective domestication noun As Yuval Noah Harari points out in "Sapiens", “We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us. The word ‘domesticate’ comes from the Latin domus, which means ‘house’. Who’s the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It’s the Sapiens”. So, asks Harari, what did the wheat offer H Sapiens in return for being domesticated? Not better nutrition, nor security against violence, nor even safety from hunger and even starvation. Just the possibility of multiplying exponentially – the [perhaps rather foolish] definition of biological success. “With time, the ‘wheat bargain’ became more and more burdensome. Children died in droves, and adults ate bread by the sweat of their brows Paradoxically, a series of ‘improvements’, each of which was meant to make life easier, added up to a millstone around the necks of these farmers. “Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? For the same reason that people throughout history have miscalculated. People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions”. Every good harvest tempted people to have more children, but they failed to see the long-term implications. Eating grains weakened their immune systems while being crowded together with farm animals encouraged infectious diseases; and even when they had a surplus of food, that just attracted robbers and enemies so they had to build walls and lose workers to become soldiers. “The trap snapped shut”.

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