- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

effective and fully decentralized means we're all Fort Knox [was: Cryptsy theft->bankruptcy]
by coderman 20 Jan '16

20 Jan '16

On 1/19/16, dan(a)geer.org <dan(a)geer.org> wrote: > ... > Bitcoin Heist Steals Millions from Exchange full decentralization a double edged sword, for sure. if we're all sovreign bankers and multi-national producers, perhaps Snowden threat model not so outlandish? first disable passive Eve, then deny Mallory her middle, finally defend the edges from Black Burglary... sounds trivial! ;) best regards,

1 0

Fwd: [Cryptography] A possible alternative to TOR and PrivaTegrity without backdoors
by grarpamp 20 Jan '16

20 Jan '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bill Cox <waywardgeek(a)gmail.com> Date: Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 9:38 AM Subject: [Cryptography] A possible alternative to TOR and PrivaTegrity without backdoors To: "cryptography(a)metzdowd.com" <cryptography(a)metzdowd.com> This is an old idea, but perhaps now there might be more reason to consider it. I currently call this idea Alias. Here's my dumb data-dump on it. Thoughts? Alias is a concept for a TOR-like Internet protocol supporting free speech and user privacy, but without encouraging the worst evil behaviors. Exit Nodes are replaced with Public Gateways, which sponsor users. The definition of evil behavior is defined by the Public Gateways and operators of routing nodes. Users would be encouraged to use good behavior, as their public alias would develop a reputation over time. Anonymity would be protected, but a user's Public Gateway and any routing node could refuse to route data for aliases with poor reputations. TOR was created with a lofty goal: to support free speech. Unfortunately, TOR has drawn attention from governments and law enforcement, as it could be used to protect some of the worst activities, such as contract killing, and the slave trade. TOR Exit Node operators generally follow a strict policy of never looking at traffic, because simply observing this traffic would require Exit Node operators in most countries to regularly contact law enforcement to report crimes. PrivaTegrity is an alternative protocol to TOR, which aims to find a balance between protecting free speech and protecting the world from the worst behavior. Unfortunately, the PrivaTegrity inserts encryption backdoors. Alias Design: This is very much a dumb idea in the half-baked stage. Feedback and ideas are welcome. Alias would be a fork of TOR, and route Internet traffic from a user's machine through a couple of Routing Nodes, to a Public Gateway, which replaces the Exit Node. The Public Gateway would have an account for the user, under a pseudonym used on Alias network by the user, called his alias. The Public Gateway should keep an email contact address for the user, similar to regular accounts on various web sites. In Alias, user aliases would have trackable reputations, and the reputations of user aliases would be combined into a reputation for a Public Gateway. At a minimum, incident reports would be used to compute user reputations. Exactly how this works is TBD, but the goal is to cause gateways with very poor reputations to be effectively blacklisted by routing nodes, and for users with poor reputations to be dropped by reputable gateways. Users could move their alias from one gateway to another when needed, but they could not erase what their previous gateway knows about there identity. The Gateway would not know a user's location, and in many cases will know nothing other than the user's reputation and email address. When requested by a government authority, at a minimum, a gateway can drop support for a user alias, causing that alias to try to find a new gateway that will agree to sponsor it. Participants who act as routing nodes in Alias would be able to select what sort of reputations they require from aliases and Gateways to allow traffic to be routed through them to those gateways. They could, for example, choose to not route data for any gateway with a high reputation for routing to pornography sites. I compare the TOR, PrivaTegrity, and Alias concepts in several "threat cases" below: Threat Case: Governments Overreact to Terrorism In this case, we assume all the governments involved have decided to share all user network traffic in a mass surveillance program. The user Alice has something to say, such as wanting to tell the world that the mass surveillance program exists. TOR: Alice succeeds in using TOR to log into various blogging sites and publishes her knowledge about the surveillance program. Unfortunately, TOR provides limited defense against the Men in Black (MiB), and Alice may be arrested. The MiB is assumed to compromise TOR in various ways, such as operating many Exit Nodes and monitoring meta-data such as packet timing and size between nodes. PrivaTegrity: With the assumption that all governments involved are colluding, Alice is revealed directly, without having to subvert the protocol. Alias: Alice needs a Public Gateway to sponsor her. She can choose a gateway with a reputation of sponsoring free speech, such various newspapers, in a country that is not participating in the mass surveillance program. When Alice posts what she knows to various blogs, the Public Gateway (newspaper in this case) will be the the one defending her anonymity. In any case, even if the newspaper is forced to reveal what they know about Alice, they never knew her location. Conclusion: Alias seems to provide better protection of free speech in this case. Threat Case: A Single Government Blackmails the Rest Suppose one of the governments involved decides to use it’s influence in the protocol to blackmail one or more of the other governments involved into agreeing to some political agenda. TOR: If the government were the USA, it might have unique powers to track users through the TOR network. If true, the USA could refuse to reveal a French suspected terrorist unless the French government share mass surveillance data collected on it’s citizens. Is this sort of thinking too paranoid? PrivaTegrity: With nine separate governments who must collude to expose a user, it is possible for any one of the nine to blackmail the rest. For example, if tracking down a particular user is of critical importance to one government, another could demand certain trade policies be agreed to before allowing that user to be revealed. Alias: A country containing the Public Gateway sponsoring a user might make political demands from another country before agreeing to force the Public Gateway to reveal a user’s email address. However, this coercion is weaker than weaker than the TOR case because there is no country with majority control, and weaker than the PrivaTegrity case because a government can coerce cooperation only from Public Gateways in its country. Conclusion: While none are immune to this threat, Alias seems to perform better in this case. Threat Case: Hackers Compromise the Network In this case, a group of hackers wants to reveal the identity of a particular user. TOR: There is little chance that the attacker can hack all the nodes from the user to the Exit Node, and since the Exit Node has no information about the user, there seems to be little chance that the hacker can reveal the user’s identity, short of bugs in the protocol. PrivaTegrity: While hackers might hack one or more of the nine governments, it would be a considerable task for the hacker to hack them all. However, it is possible, and this is a weakness vs TOR. Alias: The hacker need only hack the user’s chosen Public Gateway, which is a considerably simpler task than with PrivaTegrity. Conclusion: Hackability of Public Gateways is a significant weakness for Alias compared to the other two. Threat Case: Evil Users Secretly Collude In this case, suppose there is strong evidence that several evil users wants to collude to do something terrible, and they want to communicate anonymously. For example, they could be running a contract-killing business or enslaving people and selling them on the Dark Web. TOR: Unfortunately, evil behaviors have been enabled in some cases over TOR. PrivaTegrity: The users involved in such evil activities can have their communication secretly wiretapped. This is a strong capability for law enforcement in this case. Alias: Assuming reputable Public Gateways are used, most of the users’ emails would be revealed to law enforcement. This is weaker than a wiretap. Conclusion: In the case of severe evil, PrivaTegrity performs the best, Alias next best, and TOR the worst. Threat Case: Somewhat Evil Users Secretly Collude What is evil vs good is highly subjective, and getting people to agree can be difficult. In this case, the users are engaged in what most reasonable people consider evil. For example, consider illegal trade in ivory, which could lead to the extinction of wild elephants. TOR: Users trading in ivory likely would benefit from using TOR. PrivaTegrity: Having to get cooperation from nine governments may be too painful when tracking down a single ivory trader, and the ivory trader likely could use PrivaTegrity to their advantage. If, on the other hand, the nine governments put in place a rapid rubber-stamp process to enable going after small-time criminals, then this capability can be highly abused. Alias: Ivory traders would avoid using Alias through reputable Public Gateways, since their identities could easily be revealed¸ and the sites the traders visit to buy/sell ivory would not likely be very reputable, lowering their alias' reputation. Conclusion: Alias seems to perform better at determine somewhat evil behaviors. Bill _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

4 7

Re: freedom is a gentle SeppuKuma
by coderman 19 Jan '16

19 Jan '16

SeppuKuma also offers 23 very different methods one can choose to end their life, including Everlasting Sleep (lethal injection), Pillow Kisses (suffocation), Peaceful Breath (helium asphyxia) and Sleepy time Hug which is where the robotic bear strangles its partner until their pulse stops for 15 minutes. All of these attributes enable the SeppuKuma to give it’s patient the power to choose how they get to end their own life. - http://www.iflscience.org/japan-engineers-design-robotic-bear-to-aid-in-ass…

3 5

Avoid beta testing medical drugs, you can die
by Georgi Guninski 19 Jan '16

19 Jan '16

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/french-drug-trial-leaves-… ---- Six people participating in a clinical trial for an experimental drug have been hospitalized after a “serious accident,” France’s Health Ministry said. One of the people is on life support and is considered brain dead, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement on Friday. ----- Drugs reach software quality.

3 3

US Pres Cand's Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley... All For Crypto Backdoors, Secret Negotiations
by grarpamp 19 Jan '16

19 Jan '16

http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/01/18/1659205/clinton-hints-at-tech-industr… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti2Nokoq1J4&t=2h27m08s http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/01/18/hillary-clinton-hints-at-apple-f… At the Democratic presidential debate last night, Marques Brownlee asked the candidates a pointed question about whether the government should require tech companies to implement backdoors in their encryption, and how we should balance privacy with security. The responses were not ideal for those who recognize the problems with backdoors. Martin O'Malley said the government should have to get a warrant, but skirted the rest of the issue. Bernie Sanders said government must "have Silicon Valley help us" to discover information transmitted across the internet by ISIS and other terrorist organizations. He thinks we can do that without violating privacy, but didn't say how. But the most interesting comment came from Hillary Clinton. After mentioning that Obama Administration officials had "started the conversation" with tech companies on the encryption issue, one of the moderators noted that the government "got nowhere" with its requests. Clinton replied, "That is not what I've heard. Let me leave it at that." The implications of that small comment are troubling.

2 1

Tracking GLOMAR
by Michael Best 19 Jan '16

19 Jan '16

Does anyone know about any projects that are collecting or tracking GLOMAR responses? A quick Google search didn't turn anything up, but it could be worthwhile.

2 1

FOIPA adventures
by Michael Best 19 Jan '16

19 Jan '16

It's outside the realm of your usual FOIA requests, but since I'm out of requests for the month (and already bought more than a few extra...) I figured I'd mention it. While posting docs related to the MLK assassination trial <http://that1archive.neocities.org/subfolder1/MLK-assassination-trial.html>, I realized that Loyd Jowers <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyd_Jowers>, who confessed to playing a part in the MLK assassination a few months before his death, surely has an FBI file. The DOJ did a follow-up investigation and their report concluded he and the other witnesses were lying, but it'd be interesting to see what the FBI had on him and what materials the DOJ/FBI referenced beyond the trial transcript. Let me know if you file anything on it, otherwise I'll try to get to it next month (unless I get distracted by other shiny FOIAs/projects/IRL (what do I mean, this listserv isn't real?!?) stuffs). --Mike *coderman* coderman(a)gmail.com <coderman%40gmail.com?Subject=Re%3A%20FOIPA%20adventures&In-Reply-To=%3CCAJVRA1SEFzByw4wA9o0u%3D64QHWJmdLmMtbX_debnhBFPOBSxBw%40mail.gmail.com%3E> *Sun Jan 17 07:47:47 EST 2016* > still have one FOIA left for January; trying to pick a topic... it must > beat this one, in terms of poking bear caliber: > ''' > Records of any communication, agreements, transcripts, memorandum of > understanding, contracts, or other responsive materials relating to > Ibragim Todashev as an Undercover Employee, Informant, or Cooperating > Witness with the Bureau before his death on May 22, 2013 at age 27 in > Florida while being interviewed about his possible connection to a > triple murder in Waltham, Mass., on Sept. 11, 2011. Note that while > the content of conversation may be withheld for privacy and other > reasons, the existence of these conversations or other law > enforcements records may not be concealed. Please search > cross-references for Ibragim Todashev that may reveal such > communication, in addition to primary indexes. Thank you! > ''' > - > https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/inducedbytrap-2348… > best regards,

3 2

TheCthulhu (CthulhuSec)'s Insurance File
by Michael Best 19 Jan '16

19 Jan '16

https://insurance.thecthulhu.com/ > I would like to ask the public for help. My freedom may soon be > compromised, and therefore I require assistance to see out a final stage. I cannot comment on the contents of the container below other than it > contains pdfs, word documents, powerpoints, images and a few sql dumps. > Every person who downloads this for the record is doing a service for > democracy, and should hold people accountable for their atrocities. > When the time comes, I will ensure the passphrase for the container is > published either through myself or by proxy. I am not the only person with > it either. > To my friends out there, here is something to consider: > https://www.intelexit.org > I will not be intimidated. I am not afraid. I know the consequences, and I > accept them. > With the power of democracy, comes the responsibility of defending it from > any threat. SHA1: 2300 C680 5A95 D14A 75C0 9136 D28A 6459 42A6 1027 SHA256: 39D4 3376 8682 0821 36DF BF75 83B5 F6C0 7619 ADF5 8039 403F 9995 > C8FE 0245 DC75 Download links on TheCthuhu's page: https://insurance.thecthulhu.com/

2 2

Chaum Fathers Bastard Child To RubberHose ... PrivaTegrity cMix
by grarpamp 19 Jan '16

19 Jan '16

http://www.wired.com/2016/01/david-chaum-father-of-online-anonymity-plan-to… Now Chaum has returned with his first online privacy invention in more than a decade. And with it, he wants to bring those crypto wars to an end... a new encryption scheme he calls PrivaTegrity ... based on cMix. Chaum wouldn't comment on whether the project... would be commercialized or run as a non-profit. Chaum is also building into PrivaTegrity another feature... a backdoor that allows anyone doing something "generally recognized as evil" to have their anonymity and privacy stripped altogether. Nine server council... a hoseablitly focus point similar to Tor dirauths. In any case... interesting. https://www.scribd.com/doc/294737065/cMix-Anonymization-by-High-Performance…

11 17

CREST: CIA Records Search Tool
by Michael Best 18 Jan '16

18 Jan '16

I'm spending a fair amount of time at NARA II. Any thoughts on how I might be able to automate retrieval of documents from the CREST database? There are about 10 million pages of CIA docs that haven't even been accessed, much less made their way online. Since 2000, CIA has installed and maintained an electronic full-text searchable system, which it has named CREST (the CIA Records Search Tool), at NARA II in College Park, Maryland. *Over 11 million pages have been released in electronic format and reside on the CREST database, from which researchers have printed about 1.1 million pages. **In order to directly access CREST, a researcher must visit the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.* http://www.foia.cia.gov/collection/crest-25-year-program-archive

7 17