- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Re: [tor-talk] Using SDR
by wirelesswarrior＠Safe-mail.net 09 Feb '16

09 Feb '16

-------- Original Message -------- From: Sean Lynch <seanl(a)literati.org> Apparently from: cypherpunks-bounces(a)cpunks.org To: tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org Cc: cypherpunks(a)cpunks.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Using SDR Date: Sat, 06 Feb 2016 20:40:21 +0000 > On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 7:23 PM coderman <coderman(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On 2/5/16, Sean Lynch <seanl(a)literati.org> wrote: > > > ... Radio is being used right now to provide anonymity, but it's being used[1] > > > to hide endpoints similar to the duct-taped payphone trick depicted in > > > Hackers, in order to avoid attacks like the one used to capture Ross > > > Ulbricht without giving him a chance to wipe his computer (they snuck up > > > behind him and pinned his arms, but they would have just rushed him had > > > that not been possible). If you use a device like the ProxyHam and you sit > > > somewhere where you can see it, there's a reasonable chance you'd spot > > > someone who's trying to find you, giving you a chance to hit your panic > > > button and escape. > > > > this assumes you're keeping it under constant supervision, of course :P > > > Indeed. Having a spotter there is probably the best solution. > > Alternatively, if you aren't too clumbsy or forgetful, is to have a some sort of hidden/innocuous band tied to you and to your device (e.g., a laptop) that when pulled too hard (like a grenade pin) starts the wiping process. So if you are jumped/pinned the process starts before the attackers realize it. > > > > > > The older, lower-tech version of this trick is to use a high-gain antenna > > > like the Cantenna or a Yagi to use a public wifi AP from a stealthy, > > > defensible location. The problem with this is that this presents no > > > challenge to RDF (radio direction finding) equipment designed for WiFi. > > > That's the big advantage of the ProxyHam, since whoever is looking for you > > > probably won't know in advance what frequency you're using. And solving > > > that problem in a general way requires MUCH more expensive gear than just > > > locating WiFi clients. > > > > one of my favorite tricks, but rather rude in spectrum, > > is setting high power amplifier to maximum. DF tends to see this > > signal arriving from all around... *grin* > > > > this introduces it's own trade-offs, of course. > > > This is why you use an attenuator. I wouldn't think law enforcement DF equipment would be fooled by such a thing, since for example FCC will often be looking for people who are outputting too much power, which on the ham bands is going to be multiple kilowatts (I think they've mostly given up on CB except when it starts interfering with licensed users). > > > > > > It MAY be possible to use SDR to achieve LPI while still remaining within > > > > if you're building LPI, you don't give a fuck about the FCC (compliance). > > by definition, if they've found you, you fucked up! > > > > +1 > > > > > Perhaps, but I'm not about to suggest that anyone break the law. > > > > > > Actually, that gives me an idea: MIMO precoding[2] (versus spatial > > > multiplexing, which is useless for your purposes). MIMO precoding devolves > > > to beam-forming in the absence of reflectors like buildings, but in an > > > urban environment, you get a complex combination of signal paths, > > > > > > MIMO precoding requires a "training" phase where they discover one another > > > by transmitting some easily "locked-onto" signal so that each receiver can > > > find the other transmitter independently. > > > > it is now possible for a professional's budget to accodomate the SDR > > equipment necessary to do this type of phase sync'ed active beam > > forming MIMO transmission, and not all methods require the training > > phase. in fact, omission of this (by out of band training, in a sense) > > in a method of "keying" phased delivery of UWB MIMO in a way more > > likely to achieve LPI. > > > > A related LPI method is to use a separate, well disciplined, carrier (in-band, co-located or not) that participant devices listen to and use the sync their clocks and/or their codes. If used carefully Eve won't know about it and will find it too difficult to synch in time catch Alice and Bob's comms. > > > > > How do you train out of band? By modelling the environment? That's an interesting thought, and I suspect Google Earth has enough data to be able to do it in a lot of places. Are you aware of free or inexpensive software packages for doing this? > > > > > synthetic aperature millimeter wave vision systems are also pushing > > along this boundary, for cross-pollination of suitable phased sync'ed > > UWB MIMO signal processing. > > > Aren't you just talking phased array for something like this though? Or do you mean using phase information from the receive antennas to reconstruct the environment rather than using phasing at the transmit side to steer your beam? That's a very interesting idea since it can give you a 360 degree view with no need to steer your beam, in the same way that some blind humans can use clicks to get a picture of their entire environment. (I use humans and not bats because I think bat sonar is pretty directional, whereas human ears can localize sound quite precisely without any need to turn one's head.) > > Beam stearing be accomplished much cheaper than via a phased array using nearfield plasmas to block or steer the beam. For example, a vertical cluster of flourescent tubes surrounding a simple dipole can, with proper circuitry, quickly switched so that only one of the tubes is "off" (transparent) at a time allowing incoming/outgoing signasl to only propagate in that direction. The other tubes are "on" and reflect the signals. > > > > > i could go on, if you're curious, but perhaps on another list? :) > > > This is definitely an area I'm interested in, so I'd love to hear more of your ideas, as may Jeremy, so if it's beyond what is generally tolerated on this list, private email would be fine, or if you have a list in mind I'd be happy to subscribe if I'm not already. > >

2 1

Assange to Surrender to Brits, Snowden was to be Rendered via Danes
by grarpamp 09 Feb '16

09 Feb '16

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/695084493825273856 I shall exit the embassy at noon on Friday to accept arrest by British polic. http://www.thenational.scot/news/secret-us-flight-flew-over-scottish-airspa… N977GA was previously identified by Dave Willis in Air Force Monthly as an aircraft used for CIA rendition flights.

3 4

UK Imperialists Assert Snoops and Bobbies Over US, US Colony Agrees
by grarpamp 09 Feb '16

09 Feb '16

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/02/05/1457229/uk-wants-authority-to-s… http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/02/04/uk-wants-authority-serve-warr… British and U.S. officials have been negotiating a plan that could allow British authorities to directly serve wiretap orders on U.S. communications companies in criminal and national security inquiries, U.S. officials confirmed Thursday. The talks are aimed at allowing British authorities access to a range of data, from interceptions of live communications to archived emails involving British suspects, according to the officials, who are not authorized to comment publicly. ... Under the proposed plan, British authorities would not have access to records of U.S. citizens if they emerged in the British investigations. Congressional approval would be required of any deal negotiated by the two countries.

2 1

Re: [tor-talk] Using SDR
by wirelesswarrior＠Safe-mail.net 09 Feb '16

09 Feb '16

You can find my latest slides at http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=03580328025747098705

1 0

More on political correctness gone mad - The Saker - why i use the term anglozionist and why its important
by Александр 09 Feb '16

09 Feb '16

Zenaan, I think we must say (also) the following before starting this thread: > ""Before going any further, let me also immediately say that I am not > talking about Jews or Anglos as a group, but I am referring to the top 1% > within each of these groups. Furthermore, I don’t believe that the top 1% > of Jews cares any more about Israel or the 99% of Jews than the top 1% of > Anglos care about the USA or the Anglo people"". > The "plain" anglos/jews should not be insulted by this term (Anglo-Zionist). It's not about the nations, but about a rotten ideology of the ruling elites of these nations/coming from these nations (and about those blind/scum people supporting them). It is crucial to remember because i see many people get insulted by this term (yes, we are emotional beings) instead of focusing on what it is about. > Zenaan Harkness Sun, 07 Feb 2016 14:54:12 -0800 > > OK, I'm going to take the /dev/zero redirections. > > This article is rational, as far as I can tell, but hey, my powers of > ascertaining rationality m > > ay well not match yours. > > I say this is on-topic regarding the political correctness gone mad > discussions. On topic as in, bang on topic. But to limit the fallout > from posting such filth, here's just the link: > > http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/why-i-use-term-anglozionist-and-why-i… > > > Trigger words used - anglozionist and plenty more, so if that's not > for you plug your ears now, cover your eyes and fuck off to your > cotton wool world.

1 0

More on political correctness gone mad - The Saker - why i use the term anglozionist and why its important
by Zenaan Harkness 08 Feb '16

08 Feb '16

OK, I'm going to take the /dev/zero redirections. This article is rational, as far as I can tell, but hey, my powers of ascertaining rationality may well not match yours. I say this is on-topic regarding the political correctness gone mad discussions. On topic as in, bang on topic. But to limit the fallout from posting such filth, here's just the link: http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/why-i-use-term-anglozionist-and-why-i… Trigger words used - anglozionist and plenty more, so if that's not for you plug your ears now, cover your eyes and fuck off to your cotton wool world.

1 0

Re: Self Preservation and Irreversible Decline [was: Electronic Freedom Foundation selective in support of freedom]
by Zenaan Harkness 07 Feb '16

07 Feb '16

This one got lost to the wrong reply button, and I have an addition now too... On 1/17/16, Zenaan Harkness <zen(a)freedbms.net> wrote: > On 1/17/16, coderman <coderman(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> On 1/15/16, Zenaan Harkness <zen(a)freedbms.net> wrote: >>> ... >>> I guess that's the ultimate propaganda success really - not being >>> aware that your country is always at war, and pretty much always has >>> been. War is the ultimate rejection and domination of the sovereignty >>> of other nations and individuals. >> >> next question: >> can you have nation states without war? > > That would require a truly benevolent 'dictator' at the top ... Gandhi > when prime minister of India was shot by one of his own security > guards, the Israeli prime minister who got in on a "peace with > Palestinians" platform some years back got shot (by an Israeli), the > only two US presidents who (attempted to) print greenbacks rather than > borrow from the banks (i.e. reclaim the government's constitutional > money power), got shot, ... > > the odds for such leaders don't look so good... > > On the other hand, Iceland has jailed at least 26 bankers so far: > http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iceland-has-jailed-26-bankers-why-wont-… > > so perhaps there's hope... they ousted two full parliaments to get > there though, to full new elections and finally a year(?) long > population-wide new constitution creation which on the face of it > appears to be genuinely by the people themselves, and also clearly > -for- themselves, having rejected any bail-in or bail-out for the > failed commercial private banks that brought that country to its > financial knees. > > Seems a genuinely community-based groundswell is needed for genuinely > 'good' change, if nothing else... In iceland, some portion of mortgage debts were forgiven also: "Reports from 2012 (many of which were written by U.S. media outlets) noted that while Iceland forgave a large amount of mortgage debt in order to boost the economy's recovery from a financial crisis, this action did not entail entirely wiping out all home mortgages held by all citizens of Iceland. Rather, it involved forgiving a portion of some mortgage debt that was tied to inflation:" http://www.snopes.com/iceland-debt-forgiveness/ Sad thing is, a great story got bullshitted by sensationalist crap news, and so Snopes has a field day saying how false it all is, although they do provide the above quoted paragraph to their credit.

1 0

Re: [tor-talk] Using SDR
by coderman 07 Feb '16

07 Feb '16

On 2/5/16, Sean Lynch <seanl(a)literati.org> wrote: > ... Radio is being used right now to provide anonymity, but it's being used[1] > to hide endpoints similar to the duct-taped payphone trick depicted in > Hackers, in order to avoid attacks like the one used to capture Ross > Ulbricht without giving him a chance to wipe his computer (they snuck up > behind him and pinned his arms, but they would have just rushed him had > that not been possible). If you use a device like the ProxyHam and you sit > somewhere where you can see it, there's a reasonable chance you'd spot > someone who's trying to find you, giving you a chance to hit your panic > button and escape. this assumes you're keeping it under constant supervision, of course :P > The older, lower-tech version of this trick is to use a high-gain antenna > like the Cantenna or a Yagi to use a public wifi AP from a stealthy, > defensible location. The problem with this is that this presents no > challenge to RDF (radio direction finding) equipment designed for WiFi. > That's the big advantage of the ProxyHam, since whoever is looking for you > probably won't know in advance what frequency you're using. And solving > that problem in a general way requires MUCH more expensive gear than just > locating WiFi clients. one of my favorite tricks, but rather rude in spectrum, is setting high power amplifier to maximum. DF tends to see this signal arriving from all around... *grin* this introduces it's own trade-offs, of course. > If you're concerned about someone coming after you with much more capable > RDF equipment, you are now talking about LPI (low probability of intercept) > communications. This could be something as simple as a longwave infrared > optical link, which won't show up on regular CCD or CMOS camera even > without an IR filter. free space optics rides again!! :P > With SDR you might use some form of non-sinusoidal > spread spectrum with extremely high processing gain so you'll be well below > the noise floor and your carrier won't be recoverable using autocorrelation > techniques. Some UWB techniques fall into this category, though because > "legal" UWB is required to be confined to a narrower bandwidth, it's > probably detectable. right, UWB is the solution here with privacy and authenticity at the physical layer (not above MAC, or other deferred placement in stack) > It MAY be possible to use SDR to achieve LPI while still remaining within if you're building LPI, you don't give a fuck about the FCC (compliance). by definition, if they've found you, you fucked up! > Actually, that gives me an idea: MIMO precoding[2] (versus spatial > multiplexing, which is useless for your purposes). MIMO precoding devolves > to beam-forming in the absence of reflectors like buildings, but in an > urban environment, you get a complex combination of signal paths, > > MIMO precoding requires a "training" phase where they discover one another > by transmitting some easily "locked-onto" signal so that each receiver can > find the other transmitter independently. it is now possible for a professional's budget to accodomate the SDR equipment necessary to do this type of phase sync'ed active beam forming MIMO transmission, and not all methods require the training phase. in fact, omission of this (by out of band training, in a sense) in a method of "keying" phased delivery of UWB MIMO in a way more likely to achieve LPI. synthetic aperature millimeter wave vision systems are also pushing along this boundary, for cross-pollination of suitable phased sync'ed UWB MIMO signal processing. i could go on, if you're curious, but perhaps on another list? :) best regards,

3 4

Fwd: Arc of history; ultimate vindication
by coderman 06 Feb '16

06 Feb '16

"Both the journal and the documents she obtained from the government show how her own targeting helped to galvanize her resolve to expose the apparatus of surveillance." they've made fatal errors; miscalculating the blow back of global privacy destruction. against such injustice, some will spend every life hour left in opposition to this moral atrocity. "Nope, Never. Fuck NO!" best regards, --- http://www.wired.com/2016/02/snowdens-chronicler-reveals-her-own-life-under… Snowden’s Chronicler Reveals Her Own Life Under Surveillance Andy Greenberg Security Date of Publication: 02.04.16. 02.04.16 Time of Publication: 9:03 am. 9:03 am Laura Poitras has a talent for disappearing. In her early documentaries like My Country, My Country and The Oath, her camera seems to float invisibly in rooms where subjects carry on intimate conversations as if they’re not being observed. Even in Citizenfour, the Oscar-winning film that tracks her personal journey from first contact with Edward Snowden to releasing his top secret NSA leaks to the world, she rarely offers a word of narration. She appears in that film exactly once, caught as if by accident in the mirror of Snowden’s Hong Kong hotel room. Now, with the opening of her multi-media solo exhibit, Astro Noise, at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art this week, Snowden’s chronicler has finally turned her lens onto herself. And she’s given us a glimpse into one of the darkest stretches of her life, when she wasn’t yet the revelator of modern American surveillance but instead its target. The exhibit is vast and unsettling, ranging from films to documents that can be viewed only through wooden slits to a video expanse of Yemeni sky which visitors are invited to lie beneath. But the most personal parts of the show are documents that lay bare how excruciating life was for Poitras as a target of government surveillance—and how her subsequent paranoia made her the ideal collaborator in Snowden’s mission to expose America’s surveillance state. First, she’s installed a wall of papers that she received in response to an ongoing Freedom of Information lawsuit the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed on her behalf against the FBI. The documents definitively show why Poitras was tracked and repeatedly searched at the US border for years, and even that she was the subject of a grand jury investigation. And second, a book she’s publishing to accompany the exhibit includes her journal from the height of that surveillance, recording her first-person experience of becoming a spying subject, along with her inner monologue as she first corresponded with the secret NSA leaker she then knew only as “Citizenfour.” Poitras says she initially intended to use only a few quotes from her journal in that book. But as she was transcribing it, she “realized that it was a primary source document about navigating a certain reality,” she says. The finished book, which includes a biographical piece by Guantanamo detainee Lakhdar Boumediene, a photo collection from Ai Weiwei, and a short essay by Snowden on using radio waves from stars to generate random data for encryption, is subtitled “A Survival Guide for Living Under Total Surveillance.” It will be published widely on February 23. “I’ve asked people for a long time to reveal a lot in my films,” Poitras says. But telling her own story, even in limited glimpses, “provides a concrete example of how the process works we don’t usually see.” That process, for Poitras, is the experience of being unwittingly ingested into the American surveillance system. On the Government’s Radar Poitras has long suspected that her targeting began after she filmed an Iraqi family in Baghdad for the documentary My Country, My Country. Now she’s sure, because the documents released by her Freedom of Information Act request prove it. During a 2004 ambush by Iraqi insurgents in which an American soldier died and several others were injured, she came out onto the roof of the family’s home to film them as they watched events unfolding on the street below. She shot for a total of eight minutes and 16 seconds. The resulting footage, which she shows in the Whitney exhibit, reveals nothing related to either American or insurgent military positions. “Those eight minutes changed my life, though I didn’t know it at the time,” she says in an audio narration that plays around the documents in her exhibition. “After returning to the United States I was placed on a government watchlist and detained and searched every time I crossed the US border. It took me ten years to find out why.” laura-poitras-whitneyClick to Open Overlay Gallery A Whitney Museum visitor looking at a selection of Poitras’ FOIAed documents framed in a collection of light boxes. Andy Greenberg The heavily redacted documents show that the US Army Criminal Investigation Command requested in 2006 that the FBI investigate Poitras as a possible “U.S. media representative … involved with anti-coalition forces.” According to the FBI file, a member of the Oregon National Guard serving in Iraq identified Poitras and “a local [Iraqi] leader”—the father of the family that would become the subject of her film. The soldier, whose name was redacted, questioned Poitras at the time, and reported that she “became significantly nervous” and denied filming from the roof. He later told the Army investigators that he “strongly believed”—but without apparent evidence—“POITRAS had prior knowledge of the ambush and had the means to report it to U.S. Forces; however, she purposely did not report it so she could film the attack for her documentary.” One page shown in the Whitney exhibit reveals that the New York field office of the FBI was tracking Poitras’ home addresses, and Poitras believes the reference to a “detective” working with the FBI indicates the New York Police Department may have also been involved. By 2007, the documents reveal that there was a grand jury investigation proceeding on whether to indict her for unnamed crimes—multiple subpoenas sought information about her from redacted sources. (Poitras says that the twelve pages she published in the Whitney exhibition are only a selection of 800 documents she’s received in her FOIA lawsuit, which is ongoing.) Being Constantly Watched Private as ever, Poitras declined to detail to WIRED exactly how she experienced that federal investigation in the years that followed. But flash forward to late 2012, and the surveillance targeting Poitras had transformed her into a nervous wreck. In the book, she shares a diary she kept during her time living in Berlin, in which she describes feeling constantly watched, entirely robbed of privacy. “I haven’t written in over a year for fear these words are not private,” are the journal’s first words. “That nothing in my life can be kept private.” She sleeps badly, plagued with nightmares about the American government. She reads Cory Doctorow’s Homeland and re-reads 1984, finding too many parallels with her own life. She notes her computer glitching and “going pink” during her interviews with NSA whistleblower William Binney, and that it tells her its hard drive is full despite seeming to have 16 gigabytes free. Eventually she moves to a new apartment that she attempts to keep “off the radar” by avoiding all cell phones and only accessing the Internet over the anonymity software Tor. When Snowden contacts her in January of 2013, Poitras has lived with the specter of spying long enough that she initially wonders if he might be part of a plan to entrap her or her contacts like Julian Assange or Jacob Appelbaum, an activist and Tor developer. “Is C4 a trap?” she asks herself, using an abbreviation of Snowden’s codename. “Will he put me in prison?” Even once she decides he’s a legitimate source, the pressure threatens to overwhelm her. The stress becomes visceral: She writes that she feels like she’s “underwater” and that she can hear the blood rushing through her body. “I am battling with my nervous system,” she writes. “It doesn’t let me rest or sleep. Eye twitches, clenched throat, and now literally waiting to be raided.” Finally she decides to meet Snowden and to publish his top secret leaks, despite her fears of both the risks to him and to herself. Both the journal and the documents she obtained from the government show how her own targeting helped to galvanize her resolve to expose the apparatus of surveillance. “He is prepared for the consequences of the disclosure,” she writes, then admits: “I really don’t want to become the story.” In the end, Poitras has not only escaped the arrest or indictment she feared, but has become a kind of privacy folk hero: Her work has helped to noticeably shift the world’s view of government spying, led to legislation, and won both a Pulitzer and an Academy Award. But if her ultimate fear was to “become the story,” her latest revelations show that’s a fate she can no longer escape–and one she’s come to accept. Poitras’ Astro Noise exhibit runs from February 5 until May 1 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the accompanying book will be published on February 23.

2 1

Looks like DHS sabotaged a FOIA request on Cryptome
by Michael Best 06 Feb '16

06 Feb '16

I filed a FOIA request about Cryptome with DHS a while back: Any records relating to Cryptome, also known by its web address of > Cryptome.org, which posts pictures of sensitive sites and potential > security holes as described at > www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/nyregion/mapping-natural-gas-lines-advise-the-pu… > by the New York Times. https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/cryptome-dhs-22647/ Sent through MuckRock on December 1, acknowledged on December 2. Also closed on December 2, according to the DHS FOIA website. No notification or explanation provided, not through MuckRock or to me directly. I say to me directly because they also closed another FOIA of mine without explanation, insisting on opening a new one when I tried to follow up within the 30 days. http://www.dhs.gov/foia-status FOIA # *2016-HQFO-00099* Weird, right?

2 2