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Internetworked crimes against humanity [was: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market]
by coderman 30 Nov '13

30 Nov '13

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 3:30 AM, alex wright <wrightalexw(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Not to mention all the horrific typos. The pain grammar school teachers > suffer as a result of anonymous, uninhibited and over caffeinated anarchists > is one of the silent tragedies of our times. the Social Media Internet Generation has bequeathed unto the future untold generations this intentionally careless and crass accosting of common courtesy; unceasing, forever. not just archived, but cultivated and analyzed, repeatedly, as some part of a magnificent and meandering machine learning corpus across the cloud... (~_~;) . o O ( weeping silently for humanity )

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bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)
by Jim Bell 29 Nov '13

29 Nov '13

We can certainly agree on that! The new currency should be as anonymous as Zerocoin. (I can think of an application that will require robust anonymity.) Jim Bell ________________________________ From: David Vorick <david.vorick(a)gmail.com> I have faith that additional cryptocurrencies will be launched/released that are substantially better and different from bitcoin. Bitcoin is just the beginnning, and ultimately I don't think it will make more than a few years farther before there is an unquestioned replacement. On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 1:53 AM, James A. Donald <jamesd(a)echeque.com> wrote: On 2013-11-26 11:43, David Vorick wrote: > >Andy, the problem isn't the denomination, the problem is that Satioshi >>has 5% of all the currency, and the Winklevoss twins have another 0.5%. >>If bitcoin becomes worth 100 trillion dollars, they've got a solid 500 >>billion for being nobody and doing nothing. That's a problem to me. >> >Five hundred billion for freeing the world financial system from US domination without bloodshed. Sounds mighty cheap to me. > >I am, however worried that bitcoin can be dominated by a small group. As the total transaction volume increases, the number of people that are full and equal participants in recording and facilitating transactions must diminish. > >This was my original objection, scaling failure, way back in the beginning, and it is now coming true. > >But even if my worst fears are realized, that is still a whole lot better than what we have now. > > >

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Re: DEF CON 19 - hackers get hacked! , DEF CON 20 was not DRT
by coderman 28 Nov '13

28 Nov '13

no, DC20 was not DRT. then i would feel bad for getting my ass handed to me... (when i discover the codename for my retribution, it shall become my headstone..)

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MONKEY PUZZLE timeline / history
by coderman 27 Nov '13

27 Nov '13

per document cloud (mirror at http://cryptome.org/2013/11/nsa-microsoft.pdf) MONKEY PUZZLE version 6 active as of Nov 2009. when was first iteration of this effort fielded? other versions? *sacrifices more chickens to the "Snowden Release Gatekeepers" (TM)*...

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NSA TAO Botnet
by CJ Knight 27 Nov '13

27 Nov '13

I noticed this published here in the UK; the Guardian's drip-feeding apparently didn't deem this one important enough for them to run. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/25/nsa_botnet/ "Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports that the elite NSA TAO (Tailored Access Operations) hacking squad had used malware to establish a zombie army with tentacles all across the world. The malware serves as a sleeper agent on compromised PCs, waiting months or longer before it activates and begins harvesting data. This stolen information is covertly fed into the NSA's voracious data processing apparatus. The malware (or "implants" in the lexicon of the NSA) is slung onto compromised machines using Computer Network Exploitation, or hacking, tactics." </snip> Regards, CJ

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Re: [Cryptography] Email is unsecurable
by grarpamp 25 Nov '13

25 Nov '13

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 1:01 AM, ianG <iang(a)iang.org> wrote: > On 23/11/13 15:30 PM, Ralf Senderek wrote: >> On Sat, 23 Nov 2013, David Mercer wrote: >> >>> But of course you're right about actual current usage, encrypted email >>> is an >>> epic fail on that measure regardless of format/protocol. >> >> Yes, but it's about time we do something about that. Do we *exactly know >> why* it is such a failure? > > It's an interesting question, and one worth studying for pedagogical > motives. From my experiences from both sides, it is clear that both sides > failed. But for different reasons. > Hence, I've concluded that email is unsecurable. Obviously. It will never be able to escape the non-body header content and third party routing, storage and analysis with any form of patching over today's mail. And it's completely ridiculous that people continue to invest [aka: waste] effort in 'securing' it. The best you'll ever get clients down to is exposing a single 'To:' header within an antique transport model that forces you to authenticate to it in order to despam, bill, censor and control you. That system is cooked, done and properly fucked. Abandon it. What the world needs now is a real peer to peer messaging system that scales. Take Tor for a partial example... so long as all the sender/recipient nodes [onions] are up, any message you send will get through, encrypted, in real time. If a recipient is not up, you queue it locally till they are... no third party ever needed, and you get lossless delivery and confirmation for free. Unmemorable node address?, quit crying and make use of your local address book. Doesn't have plugins for current clients?, so what, write some and use it if you're dumb enough to mix the old and new mail. The only real problem that still needs solved is scalability... what p2p node lookup systems are out there that will handle a messaging world's population worth of nodes [billions] and their keys and tertiary data? If you can do that, you should be able to get some anon transport over the p2p for free. Anyway, p2p messaging and anonymous transports have all been dreamed up by others before. But now is the time to actually abandon traditional email and just do it. If you build it, they will come.

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[IP] NSA report
by Eugen Leitl 23 Nov '13

23 Nov '13

----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <dave(a)farber.net> ----- Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 14:56:20 -0500 From: Dave Farber <dave(a)farber.net> To: ip <ip(a)listbox.com> Subject: [IP] NSA report Message-ID: <CAKx4trhUOu7dOpsXqKO=JFWg6L9sCwKv1fqL-Dx1wwqmNMHBVQ(a)mail.gmail.com> Reply-To: dave(a)farber.net [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/> ------------------------------ November 22, 2013 N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More PowerBy JAMES RISEN<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/james_risen/in…> and LAURA POITRAS WASHINGTON — Officials at the National Security Agency<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/nationa…>, intent on maintaining its dominance in intelligence collection, pledged last year to push to expand its surveillance powers, according to a top-secret strategy document. In a February 2012 paper<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/11/23/us/politics/23nsa-sigint-stra…> laying out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence operations, which include the agency’s eavesdropping and communications data collection around the world, agency officials set an objective to “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more fully to the information age.” Written as an agency mission statement with broad goals, the five-page document said that existing American laws were not adequate to meet the needs of the N.S.A. to conduct broad surveillance in what it cited as “the golden age of Sigint,” or signals intelligence. “The interpretation and guidelines for applying our authorities, and in some cases the authorities themselves, have not kept pace with the complexity of the technology and target environments, or the operational expectations levied on N.S.A.’s mission,” the document concluded. Using sweeping language, the paper also outlined some of the agency’s other ambitions. They included defeating the cybersecurity practices of adversaries in order to acquire the data the agency needs from “anyone, anytime, anywhere.” The agency also said it would try to decrypt or bypass codes that keep communications secret by influencing “the global commercial encryption market through commercial relationships,” human spies and intelligence partners in other countries. It also talked of the need to “revolutionize” analysis of its vast collections of data to “radically increase operational impact.” The strategy document, provided by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, was written at a time when the agency was at the peak of its powers and the scope of its surveillance operations was still secret. Since then, Mr. Snowden’s revelations have changed the political landscape. Prompted by a public outcry over the N.S.A.’s domestic operations, the agency’s critics in Congress have been pushing to limit, rather than expand, its ability to routinely collect the phone and email records of millions of Americans, while foreign leaders have protested reports of virtually unlimited N.S.A. surveillance overseas, even in allied nations. Several inquiries are underway in Washington; Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the N.S.A.’s longest-serving director, has announced plans to retire<http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/us-usa-nsa-transition-idUSBRE99F1…>; and the White House has offered proposals to disclose more information about the agency’s domestic surveillance activities. The N.S.A. document, titled “Sigint Strategy 2012-2016,” does not make clear what legal or policy changes the agency might seek. The N.S.A.’s powers are determined variously by Congress, executive orders and the nation’s secret intelligence court, and its operations are governed by layers of regulations. While asserting that the agency’s “culture of compliance” would not be compromised, N.S.A. officials argued that they needed more flexibility, according to the paper. Senior intelligence officials, responding to questions about the document, said that the N.S.A. believed that legal impediments limited its ability to conduct surveillance of terrorism suspects inside the United States. Despite an overhaul of national security law in 2008, the officials said, if a terrorism suspect who is under surveillance overseas enters the United States, the agency has to stop monitoring him until it obtains a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. “N.S.A.’s Sigint strategy is designed to guide investments in future capabilities and close gaps in current capabilities,” the agency said in a statement. “In an ever-changing technology and telecommunications environment, N.S.A. tries to get in front of issues to better fulfill the foreign-intelligence requirements of the U.S. government.” Critics, including some congressional leaders, say that the role of N.S.A. surveillance in thwarting terrorist attacks — often cited by the agency to justify expanded powers — has been exaggerated. In response to the controversy about its activities after Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, agency officials claimed that the N.S.A.’s sweeping domestic surveillance programs had helped in 54 “terrorist-related activities.” But under growing scrutiny, congressional staff members and other critics say that the use of such figures by defenders of the agency has drastically overstated the value of the domestic surveillance programs in counterterrorism. Agency leaders believe that the N.S.A. has never enjoyed such a target-rich environment as it does now because of the global explosion of digital information — and they want to make certain that they can dominate “the Sigint battle space” in the future, the document said. To be “optimally effective,” the paper said, “legal, policy and process authorities must be as adaptive and dynamic as the technological and operational advances we seek to exploit.” Intent on unlocking the secrets of adversaries, the paper underscores the agency’s long-term goal of being able to collect virtually everything available in the digital world. To achieve that objective, the paper suggests that the N.S.A. plans to gain greater access, in a variety of ways, to the infrastructure of the world’s telecommunications networks. Reports based on other documents previously leaked by Mr. Snowden showed that the N.S.A. has infiltrated the cable links<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/technology/nsa-is-mining-google-and-yahoo…> to Google and Yahoo data centers around the world, leading to protests from company executives and a growing backlash against the N.S.A. in Silicon Valley. Yet the paper also shows how the agency believes it can influence and shape trends in high-tech industries in other ways to suit its needs. One of the agency’s goals is to “continue to invest in the industrial base and drive the state of the art for high performance computing to maintain pre-eminent cryptanalytic capability for the nation.” The paper added that the N.S.A. must seek to “identify new access, collection and exploitation methods by leveraging global business trends in data and communications services.” And it wants to find ways to combine all of its technical tools to enhance its surveillance powers. The N.S.A. will seek to integrate its “capabilities to reach previously inaccessible targets in support of exploitation, cyberdefense and cyberoperations,” the paper stated. The agency also intends to improve its access to encrypted communications used by individuals, businesses and foreign governments, the strategy document said. The N.S.A. has already had some success in defeating encryption, The New York Times has reported<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.html>, but the document makes it clear that countering “ubiquitous, strong, commercial network encryption” is a top priority. The agency plans to fight back against the rise of encryption through relationships with companies that develop encryption tools and through espionage operations. In other countries, the document said, the N.S.A. must also “counter indigenous cryptographic programs by targeting their industrial bases with all available Sigint and Humint” — human intelligence, meaning spies. The document also mentioned a goal of integrating the agency’s eavesdropping and data collection systems into a national network of sensors that interactively “sense, respond and alert one another at machine speed.” Senior intelligence officials said that the system of sensors is designed to protect the computer networks of the Defense Department, and that the N.S.A. does not use data collected from Americans for the system. One of the agency’s other four-year goals was to “share bulk data” more broadly to allow for better analysis. While the paper does not explain in detail how widely it would disseminate bulk data within the intelligence community, the proposal raises questions about what safeguards the N.S.A. plans to place on its domestic phone and email data collection programs to protect Americans’ privacy. N.S.A. officials have insisted that they have placed tight controls on those programs. In an interview, the senior intelligence officials said that the strategy paper was referring to the agency’s desire to share foreign data more broadly, not phone logs of Americans collected under the Patriot Act<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/usa_patriot_…> . Above all, the strategy paper suggests the N.S.A.’s vast view of its mission: nothing less than to “dramatically increase mastery of the global network.” Other N.S.A. documents offer hints of how the agency is trying to do just that. One program, code-named Treasure Map, provides what a secret N.S.A. PowerPoint presentation describes as “a near real-time, interactive map of the global Internet.” According to the undated PowerPoint presentation, disclosed by Mr. Snowden, Treasure Map gives the N.S.A. “a 300,000 foot view of the Internet.” Relying on Internet routing data, commercial and Sigint information, Treasure Map is a sophisticated tool, one that the PowerPoint presentation describes as a “massive Internet mapping, analysis and exploration engine.” It collects Wi-Fi network and geolocation data, and between 30 million and 50 million unique Internet provider addresses — code that can reveal the location and owner of a computer, mobile device or router — are represented each day on Treasure Map, according to the document. It boasts that the program can map “any device, anywhere, all the time.” The documents include addresses labeled as based in the “U.S.,” and because so much Internet traffic flows through the United States, it would be difficult to map much of the world without capturing such addresses. But the intelligence officials said that Treasure Map maps only foreign and Defense Department networks, and is limited by the amount of data available to the agency. There are several billion I.P. addresses on the Internet, the officials said, and Treasure Map cannot map them all. The program is not used for surveillance, they said, but to understand computer networks. The program takes advantage of the capabilities of other secret N.S.A. programs. To support Treasure Map, for example, the document states that another program, called Packaged Goods, tracks the “traceroutes” through which data flows around the Internet. Through Packaged Goods, the N.S.A. has gained access to “13 covered servers in unwitting data centers around the globe,” according to the PowerPoint. The document identifies a list of countries where the data centers are located, including Germany, Poland, Denmark, South Africa and Taiwan as well as Russia, China and Singapore. Despite the document’s reference to “unwitting data centers,” government officials said that the agency does not hack into those centers. Instead, the officials said, the intelligence community secretly uses front companies to lease space on the servers. Despite the N.S.A.’s broad surveillance powers, the strategy paper shows that N.S.A. officials still worry about the agency’s ability to fend off bureaucratic inertia while keeping pace with change. “To sustain current mission relevance,” the document said, Signals Intelligence Directorate, the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence arm, “must undertake a profound and revolutionary shift from the mission approach which has served us so well in the decades preceding the onset of the information age.” James Risen reported from Washington, and Laura Poitras from Berlin. ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/25094221-ddf8422b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message -----

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whoah
by Eugen Leitl 23 Nov '13

23 Nov '13

https://blockchain.info/tx/1c12443203a48f42cdf7b1acee5b4b1c1fedc144cb909a3b… http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1r87p5/omfg_what_is_going_on/

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NSA Global SIGINT Power to Generate Profits and Pay
by John Young 23 Nov '13

23 Nov '13

The NSA SIGINT Strategy 2012-2016 pretty well covers all the comsec and crypto initiatives to covertly exploit people, cryptographers, anonymizers, informants, planted spies, security firms, networks, governments, nations, friends, lovers and citizens. Not sure leaks, lawsuits and protests will deter this bounty of profits for the comsec industry, unless the public is aroused to demand the 3 branches grasp the nettle, and all those making money from this deception operation decide to give up their profits, perks and prestige. I mean those on the comsec and crypto lists, those participating in standards committees, those enjoying contracts and grants in think tanks and universities, those in law firms and public interest orgs, those in the media and academia, those in non-spy gov agencies, pretending to be in opposition as they scramble to rejigger their products and sales pitches, to exploit what is being fabricated to diminish Snowden's revelations with new forms of secrecy, technology, law, regulations, bribery, lobbying, grants, contracts, list lurking, online and offline spying, break-ins, the usual kaboodle, to assure the NSA goals are fulfilled. http://cryptome.org/2013/11/nsa-sigint-strategy-2012-2016.pdf [Excerpt] SIGINT Goals for 2012-2016 1. (U//FOUO) Revolutionize analysis fundamentally shift our analytic approach from a production to a discovery bias, enriched by innovative customer/partner engagement, radically increasing operational impact across all mission domains. 1.1. (U//FOUO) Through advanced tradecraft and automation, dramatically increase mastery of the global network 1.2. (U//FOUO) Conduct original analysis in a collaborative information space that mirrors how people interact in the information age 1.3. (U//FOUO) Disseminate data at its first point of relevance, share bulk data, and enable customers to address niche requirements 1.4. (U//FOUO) Drive an agile technology base mapped to the cognitive processes that underpin large scale analysis, discovery, compliance and collaboration 2. (U//FOUO) Fully leverage internal and external NSA partnerships to collaboratively discover targets, find their vulnerabilities, and overcome their network/communication defenses. 2.1. (U//FOUO) Bolster our arsenal of capabilities against the most critical cryptanalytic challenges 2.1.1. (S//SI//REL) Employ multidisciplinary approaches to cryptanalytic problems, leveraging and integrating mid-point and end-point capabilities to enable cryptanalysis 2.1.2. (S//REL) Counter the challenge of ubiquitous, strong, commercial network encryption 2.1.3. (TS//SI//REL) Counter indigenous cryptographic programs by targeting their industrial bases with all available SIGINT and HUMINT capabilities 2.1.4. (TS//SI//REL) Influence the global commercial encryption market through commercial relationships, HUMINT, and second and third party partners 2.1.5. (S//SI//REL) Continue to invest in the industrial base and drive the state of the art for High Performance Computing to maintain pre-eminent cryptanalytic capability for the nation 2.2. (TS//SI//REL) Defeat adversary cybersecurity practices in order to acquire the SIGINT data we need from anyone, anytime, anywhere 2.3. (S//SI) Enable discovery capabilities and advanced tradecraft in the collection architecture to enable the discovery of mission-critical persona, networks, accesses, signals and technologies 2.4. (S//SI) Integrate capabilities into the mission architecture, deepen workforce skill base in advanced network and signals analysis, and optimize processes and policies for the benefit of discovery 3. (S//SI//REL) Dynamically integrate endpoint, midpoint, industrial-enabled, and cryptanalytic capabilities to reach previously inaccessible targets in support of exploitation, cyber defense, and cyber operations 3.1. (C//REL) Drive the SIGINT mission architecture to underpin synchronized, integrated, multi-capability operations, extending it to mission partners 3.2. (TS//SI//REL) Integrate the SIGINT system into a national network of sensors which interactively sense, respond, and alert one another at machine speed 3.3. (U//FOUO) Continuously rebalance our portfolio of accesses and access capabilities based on current and projected contributions to key SIGINT missions 3.4. (S//SI//REL) Identify new access, collection, and exploitation methods by leveraging global business trends in data and communications services [End excerpt]

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Tor for the masses
by dan＠geer.org 23 Nov '13

23 Nov '13

http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/21/pogoplug-packages-tor-for-the-mass-market… leading to https://pogoplug.com/safeplug --dan

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