- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Nextgen G* Traffic Analysis Resistant Overlay Networks (re Tor stinks)
by grarpamp 29 Oct '19

29 Oct '19

On 10/26/19, Punk - Stasi 2.0 <punks(a)tfwno.gf> wrote: > > 2005 Low-Cost Traffic Analysis of Tor > https://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/cache/torta05.pdf > > > "By making these assumptions, the designers of Tor believe it is safe to > employ only minimal mixing of the stream cells... > > ...This choice of threat model, with its limitation of the adversaries’ > powers, has been a subject of controversy... > > ...Tor, on the other hand assumes a much weaker threat model.. > > ...we show that even relatively weak adversaries can perform > traffic-analysis, and get vital information out of Tor. This means that even > non-law-enforcement agencies can significantly degrade the quality of > anonymity that Tor provides, to the level of protection provided by a > collection of simple proxy servers, or even below." > > ------- > > my comment : the attack is based on monitoring the latency of a node while > sending an attacker controlled stream through it > > > "Tor exhibits the worst possible behaviour: not enough interference to > destroy individ- > ual stream characteristics, yet enough to allow the remote measurement of > the node’s load." > > > Maybe some tor fanboi knows if this has been somehow fixed? Tor, perhaps as result of years of such papers and posts, is attempting to incorporate some traffic noise, search there for "netflow" and "padding", however the breadth of its application may not be enough to close out many of the traffic analysis papers. People should look more closely at that work and analyse its results. > Anyway the article makes it clear that simple cover traffic in not enough > to defend against timing attacks. This may be one of the papers that may outlines why, in a fill padding chaff wheat network, or even any network, that every node also needs to reclock the input it receives into its output, else adversary can see the perturbations it applies to a nodes input reflected in its output, and or see the natural perturbations the internet itself imparts, and those of the users own traffic patterns, carried through end to end without mitigation. Also why, similar to some Bittorrent and other protocols, overlay nodes should probably drop contracts they have with other peer nodes that do not fulfill input performance expectations. ie: Bittorrent nodes (clients) ignore nodes that send corrupted datas... overlays should drop peer nodes that exhibit non conformant traffic characteristics... such as unclocked, bursty waves, etc that was not agreed to, that would present risk to observability. ie: First, don't accept sketchy peers trying to send you suspect waveforms to carry, and Second, do not forward anything on through you to another node without conforming and reclocking it, don't be so busy or partition attacked that your node can't uphold that thus becoming a risk to the net, sleep and reestablish your node into the net later. Since an overlay network does not yet own the underlying internet hardware (and there is not yet full time crypted link rate fill HW RFC), this must be done in nodes CPU versus at the NIC PHY over the cable. You can get closer to Layer0 with #OpenFabs #OpenHW #MeshNets #GuerrillaNets. Note also there is a difference in design thinking approaches between say... - Cover traffic, meaning traffic laid over or filling in gaps in wheat. The wheat ends up being awarded a variety of mental biases and design assumptions in its favor which could prove controlling and exploitable. - Base fill traffic, meaning a base of fill [at linerate, fulltime, regulated], such that when wheat is ready to pass, the wheat packet is substituted in for the fill packet. The fill security aspect is mentally biased for, such that it should continue to hold regardless whatever wheat or active adversary crap is attempted to be sent over or at it. There's something to be said for "store and forward" overlays on the order of hours to days... file storage, email / nntp. Unfortunately they're no good for anything interactive realtime... IRC, urgent messaging, website queries, transactions, voice, video. There's also consideration to make on whether an interactive realtime network should also provide, if needed, a store and forward layer, or treat it as just another app riding on top, as all realtime nets do today. Or whether to cripple either s+f or realtime to preclude use of the other over them. ie: Tor is somewhat crippled by TCP only. Whereas I2P/Tor+OnionCat, CJDNS, Phantom enable UDP etc by providing a full IPv6 stack. Other overlays have similar restrictions and capabilities, most not intentionally preclusive, instead being just "We want to create a net to do X (say send an email)" and the net just ended up being useless for anything else. Keep in mind, once you have a cryptographically strong analysis resistant general purpose overlay transport network (ie: internet stack), you can run anything over it. Don't be afraid to create an AF_OVERLAY if needed to accomplish that. If the overlay network is truly good, people will get todays applications ticketed, patched, and compiled with that option to inferface with them.

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ZDNet: Top Linux developer on Intel chip security problems: 'They're not going away.'
by jim bell 29 Oct '19

29 Oct '19

ZDNet: Top Linux developer on Intel chip security problems: 'They're not going away.'. https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-linux-developer-on-intel-chip-security-pr…

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SeaSteading: Space and other Legal Voids re Secession, Purchase, Sovereignty, FreeState
by grarpamp 28 Oct '19

28 Oct '19

https://phys.org/news/2019-10-space-major-legal-void.html https://maxius.nl/verdrag-van-de-verenigde-naties-inzake-het-recht-van-de-z… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371711

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UDP based data xfer protocols
by Zenaan Harkness 28 Oct '19

28 Oct '19

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IQNets: p2p link negotiation - bandwidth management
by Zenaan Harkness 28 Oct '19

28 Oct '19

A link between two peers B and C, may not naturally sustain the hoped for bandwidth. Active link management, and whole-of-interfaces management, may be required to achieve required b/w and latency stability, e.g.: - In the face of a node in a household with a single ADSL router shared by multiple co-tennants. - In the face of links up/down shaped outside of our control (e.g. by an ISP/ any middle device in the p2p link's physical path) It may be that we shall manifest Internet wide, RFC based, active QoS and traffic management - but that's in the longer term; in the short term, we must optimize for an end user node's present reality. A user space TCP/IP stack provides for experimentation.

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Cryptocurrency: Nice Rock ;)
by grarpamp 28 Oct '19

28 Oct '19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_ymZbwy9TY

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Tulsi Gabbard: the US has sponsored Al Qaeda terrorists for its objective of overthrowing the government in Damascus - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 28 Oct '19

28 Oct '19

Tulsi Gabbard, a Hindu woman from Hawaii (minority alert), USA army Major (MIC alert), Democratic presidential candidate ("democracy" alert), is once again storming the DNC's public debates, calmly levelling with the American people and the world about at least some of the evils of the North American empire. Tulsi Gabbard Needs To Be Stopped... She's Telling People The Truth About US Wars https://www.zerohedge.com/political/tulsi-gabbard-needs-be-stopped-shes-tel… https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/10/18/tulsi-nails-national-tv-u… ... “Donald Trump has blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that started in 2011… along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing and cheer-leading this regime-change war.” ... The other 11 Democratic candidates on the stage during the TV debate looked agog after Gabbard’s devastating and calmly delivered statement. All the others have proffered the false narrative that US forces are in Syria to “fight terrorism”. They deplore Trump’s announcement last week to pull back US troops from northeast Syria because, they say, it will undermine the fight against Islamic State (IS or ISIS) and other Al Qaeda affiliates. They also condemn Trump for “betraying Kurdish allies” by his partial troop withdrawal. President Donald Trump talks about “ending endless wars” and “bringing our troops home”. But he still premises his views on a credulous belief that the US under his watch “defeated ISIS 100 per cent”. In that way, he essentially shares the same corny view as the Democrats and media that America is a force for good, that it is the “good guys wearing white hats riding into the sunset”. On the other hand, Gabbard stands alone in telling the American people the plain and awful truth. US policy is the fundamental problem. Ending its regime-change war in Syria and elsewhere and ending its diabolical collusion with terror groups is the way to bring peace to the Middle East and to spare ordinary Americans from the economic disaster of spiraling war debts. American citizens need to know the truth about the horror their government, military, media and politicians have inflicted not just on countries in the Middle East, but also from the horrendous boomerang consequences of this criminal policy on the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Americans, including millions of veterans destroyed by injuries, trauma, suicide, and drug abuse. ... A major online poll by the Drudge Report found that she stole a march on all the other candidates, winning approval from nearly 40 per cent of voters. Top ticket candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden were trailing behind with 7 per cent or less. Gabbard has clearly struck a deep chord with the US public in her honest depiction of American wars. Despite her shattering exposé and seeming appreciation by the public, most mainstream media tried to bury her after the TV debate. Outlets like Vox and CNN declared that Warren was the winner of the debate, whose talking points were mainly about domestic policy issues. Like the other candidates, Warren plies the propaganda narrative of US forces “fighting terrorism”. Vox even slated Gabbard as “a loser” in the debate and claimed she had made “blatantly false” statements about the US’ role in Syria. Other mainstream news outlets chose to ignore reporting on Gabbard’s demolishing of the official propaganda about American wars. Earlier this week, CNN and the New York Times smeared her as a “Russian asset” and an “apologist for Assad”, referencing a visit she made to Syria in 2017 when she held talks with President Assad. The Democratic National Committee is claiming that Gabbard does not have sufficient support in polls it deems worthy for her to qualify for appearing in the next TV debate in November. ...

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F2F UDP mesh net prototype proof of concept "Covfefe Net"
by Zenaan Harkness 28 Oct '19

28 Oct '19

On Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 03:52:30PM +1100, Zenaan Harkness wrote: > On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 09:06:09PM +0100, Steven Schear wrote: > > Isn't that why networks like i2p exist? > > There is at least 1 attempt to rewrite I2P, and he is not even > interested in the core improvement - chaff fill. > > Tor is fundamentally compromised, as Juan correctly points out: > > - TCP, not UDP, as base protocol > > - no chaff fill > > - independent "core router" operators, e.g. Jacob Applebaum, have > been purged from Tor core group - in a rather brutal public > lynching manner (classic CIA psy op) > > > I2P is not government funded, and so "new user/ high speed internet/ > low latency" experience, is not enticing to said new users. This ought be fixable with a suitably compelling design. > A fundamental difference from Tor's "core high performance routing > nodes" and TCP (connection base mode) compromises (along with chaff > fill), are: > > - mesh network > - UDP connectionless base network > - chaff fill > > For any network, your entry nodes are a fundamental privacy problem/ > issue. > > Tor settled on "choose 1, stick with it for a few months or more, > since the more you hop, the greater the chance you hit a compromised > entry node anyway". > > A fundamental difference for an alternative needs to be F2F - friend > to friend connections. You -must- find meat space humans who join in > your freedom/liberty network, if you want the possibility of not > being immediately GPA statistically sniffed. > > I'll have a look see... OK, most of the bits I am comfortable with, although it will take some weeks to code up a Java GPL3 Linux based proof of concept. This shall be an attempt to establish what we need to know, so will almost certainly be rewritten at least once, as we figure out what we didn't know, and need to do, to make something approaching a "proper" design and implementation. See https://github.com/zenaan/covfefe if you wish to follow along with this exploration. Some basics: - UDP base protocol - at least initially - (lower/ higher/ HTTP tunnel bridges etc later) - 100% P2P, no central auth needed - trust metrics for "friends" (the F in F2F) - configure default provision/ reservation of available bw for friends/ various "trusted peer" levels of trust - the rest can make do with the rest of the available bw - TUN/TAP based, Linux is comfy here (OpenVPN has Windows drivers), this allows ready userspace development iteration - back of envelope calc for 24/7 connection at 8 Kibit/s (1 KiB/s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data-rate_units seconds / day = 60*60*24 = 86400 bytes / day = 86400 * 1 * 1024 = 88,473,600 MiB / day = (bytes/day)/1024^2 = 84.375 GiB / month = ~2.5 - end user node originated routing (similar to Tor) - implies a node needs to know about other nodes - peer nodes provide info about their immediate peers - possibly also about peers they've been informed of - peerInfo contains asserted trust metrics - third hand trust is below first hand trust - meat space trust assertions are primary trust source - with Tor Browser and no local node, user is with high certainty exposed to deep pocketed GPAs running majority of entry nodes - you NEED at least 2, possibly more (need thought on this) "trusted" peers to have sane net entry - Sybil attacks: We are out-competed in any trustLESS network (well funded GPAs); - so we have no option but to establish at LEAST 2, possibly at LEAST more than 2 (idk yet), meat space "trusted" humans, at least for certain or most network entry - in a very real way, in this way CovfefeNet will mirror real relationships in our day to day life - yes, you may choose to trust someone you've never met, but have built a long term communication relationship with online for example - you must decide who and for what purposes, you trust any individual - initial F2F connection is a control socket (UDP) and one or more uni- or bi-directional data sockets (UDP) - If you have NO one you can trust in meat space, you're Shit Outta Luck, sorry... your #1 job is to engage with real live humans and establish actual relationships - you might have to go through a few dozen - or a few 100 - to find the gem you can trust. There is no other way. Sorry about that, but reality is our tutor by default. - serialization (of e.g. control messages), some combo of: - YAML, or a YAML subset - protobufs - DJB's nacl crypto - possibly Linux LUKS volumes for local store - LUKS supports also Veracrypt for Windows compat - STUN etc NAT router port busting libs and protocols - if you want something approaching "secure", don't even consider MS Windows or MacOS - available node bandwidth us known/configured, and/ or established over time - available node bw may drop off a cliff, e.g. when shaped by ISP - available node bw may suddenly rise, e.g. when unshaped by ISP - strict bw control qdisc (Azureus Vuze seems to do rather well) - strict priority queueing for control sockets - possible "realtime" data socket qdisc (QoS) for e.g. phone calls - preference for Friend peers - reserve headroom X KiB/s for friend peers - hand out remaining [CONFIGURED KiB/s] to incoming requests - connect to known contacts/ peers/ "friends" - peer provides set of 1r (once removed) peers, they provide 2r (twice removed) peers etc - additional connections may be made to additionally known peers - maintain peers (metrics) db over time - "friendly" control / intention notifications, optional - "I intend to stay online until T time" - "I seek 2.5 hours at 10KiB/s rt QoS" (e.g. phone call) - "I am about to go offline, in D duration" - possible friend response request "Please give me +10 minutes" - possible responses ACK, NAK, or no response Has anyone here coded, or knows someone who's coded network stream queueing and shaping code for bittorrent or similar? I'm not clear on how best to individually shape (i.e. strictly control) a few thousand UDP connections - think data structures. - Not reading from a peer's incoming port will presumably cause the sender's queue to block up, but we're doing a "request BPS bw for T time period" model, so we can do much better than relying on OS queueing, namely we can stay below "known bandwidth" of our respective (local) physical links Short of direct answers as to functional ADTs (maps, rings, cascading priorities, etc), I shall investigate torrent clients and bone up on qdiscs. Keep in mind, at least primary routing decisions are all made by the origin peer - although the possibility of mid-hop multi path stream setup of some sort might be useful (but imagine your GPA killing your lone origin connection to establish that yes, it's you sending/receiving that particular stream in the middle): Multipath TCP: an overview [2013] https://lwn.net/Articles/544399/ Upstreaming multipath TCP [2019] https://lwn.net/Articles/800501/

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Oxford University bans clapping to "stop triggering anxiety" - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 28 Oct '19

28 Oct '19

Universities are bringing down the hammer on free expression, to keep their spaces safe for clapping triggered anxiety snowflakes. When will this ongoing madness end? Probably not before the looming USD global financial reset, since TPTB (the (((central bankers and investment bankers))) of the world) want us to stay focused on petty problems, and not the core issue... ... remember the Fed ;) Oxford University Bans Clapping At Student Union Events To "Stop Triggering Anxiety" https://www.zerohedge.com/political/oxford-university-bans-clapping-student… What kind of grudge do British universities have against clapping? Roughly one year after the University of Manchester Student Union banned clapping at its events - choosing to instead ask audiences to use 'jazz hands' to show their appreciation for a performance - students at the University of Oxford are working to "replace clapping" because it could "trigger anxiety." Like their peers in Manchester, they will ask audiences to use silent hand-wave motion called "jazz hands". The motion to "mandate the encouragement of silent clapping" successfully passed in a vote taken by the school's Student Union during their first meeting of the new school year. The ruling will apply at all student union events, and if successful, might spread to over organizations and events at the school. "Jazz hands" is the British Sign Language movement to express applause. It is considered a "more inclusive" gesture. "The policy was proposed in order to encourage the use of British Sign Language clapping during our democratic events, to make those events more accessible and inclusive for all, including people who suffer from anxiety," said Sabbatical Officers Roisin McCallion. And "inclusivity" is one of the universities' founding virtues, Metro UK said. And, of course, it's only a matter of time before "excessively vigorous jazz hands" and any significant vocal expressions are banned with only "gentle waving" allowed, in order to "stop triggering anxiety" in those who are triggered by rapid or vigorous muscular motions... Methinks SOME folks need some counselling...

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pre-crime National Disruption & Early Engagement Program arrives in the USA - down it comes - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 27 Oct '19

27 Oct '19

Freedom has a price. Free people pay the price for freedom. The rest are slaves. We exist with the right to be presumed innocent. We exist with the right to communicate freely and anonymously. We exist with the right to travel freely and anonymously. Science fiction becomes rights-violating reality: With Little Fanfare, William Barr Formally Announces Orwellian Pre-Crime Program https://www.zerohedge.com/political/little-fanfare-william-barr-formally-an… https://www.mintpressnews.com/william-barr-formally-announces-orwellian-pre… Last Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr issued a memorandum to all U.S. attorneys, law enforcement agencies and top ranking Justice Department officials announcing the imminent implementation of a new “national disruption and early engagement program” aimed at detecting potential mass shooters before they commit any crime. Per the memorandum, Barr has “directed the Department [of Justice] and the FBI to lead an effort to refine our ability to identify, assess and engage potential mass shooters before they strike.” The Attorney General further described the coming initiative, slated to be implemented early next year, as “an efficient, effective and programmatic strategy to disrupt individuals who are mobilizing towards violence, by all lawful means.” More specific information about the program is set to follow the recent memorandum, according to Barr, though it is unclear if that forthcoming document will be made public. ... However, the memorandum differentiates suspected terrorists from the individuals this new program is set to pursue. Barr states that, unlike many historical terrorism cases, “many of today’s public safety threats appear abruptly and with sometimes only ambiguous indications of intent” and that many of these individuals “exhibit symptoms of mental illness and/or have substance abuse problems.” Thus, the goal of the program is ostensibly to circumvent these issues by finding new and likely controversial ways to determine intent. As will be shown later in this report, Barr’s recent actions suggest that the way this will be accomplished is through increased mass surveillance of everyday Americans and the use of algorithms to analyze that bulk data for vaguely defined symptoms of “mental illness.” Barr also suggested the likely courses of action that would follow the identification of a given individual as a “potential mass shooter.” The Attorney General notes that in past cases individuals deemed a violent or terroristic threat before they commit a crime are subject to “detention, court-ordered mental health treatment, substance abuse counseling, electronic monitoring”, among other measures. Ostensibly, the new program would then apply these same practices to individuals in the U.S. that federal authorities believe are “mobilizing towards violence,” as Barr put it. ... Barr went onto say that “warrant-proof encryption is also seriously impairing our ability to monitor and combat domestic and foreign terrorists.” Barr stated that “smaller terrorist groups and ‘lone wolf’ actors” — such as those involved in the series of mass shootings in California, Texas and Ohio that occurred in the weeks after his speech — “have turned increasingly to encryption.” Barr later noted that he was specifically referencing encryption used by “consumer products and services such as messaging, smartphones, email, and voice and data applications.” To overcome the resistance by some private companies — who do not want to renege on their right to privacy by giving the government backdoor access to their devices — and American consumers, Barr tellingly anticipated “a major incident may occur at any time that will galvanize public opinion on these issues.” Shortly after this speech, several mass shootings, including one at an El Paso Walmart took place, which again brought the issue to the forefront of political discourse. As MintPress reported at the time, Barr’s uncanny prediction and a litany of other oddities related to the El Paso shooting left many answered questions about the FBI’s foreknowledge of the event. In addition, the tragedy did appear to serve as the very “galvanizing” event that Barr had anticipated, as the solution offered by President Trump in the wake of the shootings was the creation of a government backdoor into encryption as well as calling for the very pre-crime system Barr formally announced just last week. The pre-crime dragnet takes shape ... [worth reading in its entirety]

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