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[tor-talk] Tor Weekly News — August, 14th 2013
by Eugen Leitl 14 Aug '13

14 Aug '13

----- Forwarded message from Lunar <lunar(a)torproject.org> ----- Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 08:46:07 +0200 From: Lunar <lunar(a)torproject.org> To: tor-news(a)lists.torproject.org, tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org Subject: [tor-talk] Tor Weekly News — August, 14th 2013 User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Reply-To: tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org ======================================================================== Tor Weekly News August 14th, 2013 ======================================================================== Welcome to the seventh issue of Tor Weekly News, the weekly newsletter that covers what is happening in the fast-paced Tor community. New Tor Browser Bundle releases ------------------------------- Mozilla released Firefox version 17.0.8esr [1] on August 6th, fixing several release critical bugs. Three days later, the stable, beta and alpha versions of the Tor Browser Bundle were updated, along with Tails (see below). The stable 2.3.25-11 and 2.4.15-beta-2 also updates HTTPS Everywhere, PDF.js, NoScript and libpng to their latest version. Both bundles had a localization issue which was fixed in the subsequently released 2.3.25-12 and 2.4.16-beta-1 [2]. Before updating your browser to the latest version, please pause and admire the enhanced download page [3]. Kudos to J.M. Todaro for the design and patches [4] and Andrew for the final integration. The pluggable transports bundles have also been updated to 2.4.15-beta-2-pt1 [5]. Like previously, they contains flash proxy and obfsproxy configured to run by default. Using flash proxy requires a few extra steps [6], as before. For more experimental matters, the new 3.0 series has seen the release of alpha3 [7]. On top of the previous updates, several other small improvements were made: in the new launcher and build system, in fingerprinting fixes and in a possible anonymity threat for Windows users coming from cloud anti-virus solutions [8]. This is another opportunity to play with the new build system that should produce byte-to-byte identical results. Please have a try [9] and report any discrepancies with Mike Perry’s builds. [1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/17.0.8/releasenotes/ [2] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/new-tor-02416-rc-packages-and-updated-stab… [3] https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en#downloads [4] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/pluggable-transports-bundles-2415-beta-2-p… [5] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/FlashProxyHowto [6] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/2109#comment:7 [7] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-bundle-30alpha3-released [8] https://bugs.torproject.org/9195 [9] https://gitweb.torproject.org/builders/tor-browser-bundle.git/blob/HEAD:/RE… Tails 0.20 has been released ---------------------------- The 32nd release of Tails is out [10]. It fixes several security issues, and all users are advised to upgrade [11]. Among other small bugfixes, minor improvements and translation updates, this release tightens the security around Pidgin — by removing support for protocols other than IRC and XMPP — and restricting access to the ptrace(2) system call for unprivileged users. Download [12], burn, and upgrade [13]! [10] https://tails.boum.org/news/version_0.20/ [11] https://tails.boum.org/security/Numerous_security_holes_in_0.19/ [12] https://tails.boum.org/download/ [13] https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_steps/usb_upgrade/ New release candidate for the 0.2.4 tor branch ---------------------------------------------- Roger Dingledine announced the release of tor 0.2.4.16-rc [14], the latest incarnation of the 0.2.4 series. This release include several major and minor bugfixes. The most important one is probably a crash that can be triggered remotely via badly formatted INTRODUCE1 cells. Roger advises: “Anybody running a hidden service on the experimental 0.2.4.x branch should upgrade”. Erinn Clark has updated the beta version of the Tor Browser Bundle [2] for a wider audience of testers. [14] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2013-August/029344.html About Tor Browser usability --------------------------- Last week events [15] sparked a good amount of discussions on Tor Browser usability. Several discussions on tor-talk and in other places revolved around the idea that “JavaScript should be disabled by default”. scarp wrote a good summary [16] on why it is not so simple: “I understand that JavaScript was enabled globally in the Tor Browser Bundle for usability reasons as well as to prevent browser fingerprinting. […] If the torproject were to disable it by default, that would not ensure that users are protected in the future by similar methods. Sites can be written in a way that if you do not allow JavaScript they simply won’t work at all. If I was writing an exploit I’d do this to frustrate users so hopefully they enable JavaScript and accept my exploit.“ Roger Dingledine also improved [17] the relevant question in Tor FAQ [18]. One possible solution to satisfy contradicting requirements would be to add a “security slider” [19] that would allow users to easily trade off web compatibility over security. The slider would have three or four different positions that would gradually deactivate more and more features of the browser. One has to understand that the “most secure” should probably disable loading of any pictures. This also impacts the Tor Browser anonymity set but this is probably a trade off that can be afforded given the actual size of the Tor Browser user base. scarp had also pined another big usability problem related to updating: “This exploit wasn’t new. […] Users running the latest Tor Browser Bundle didn’t have any issues as their browsers had been patched. It is inappropriate for a web browser to not be automatically updated.” Nick Mathewson went back [20] on the latest plan that was discussed during the last summer dev. meeting [21] to simply build upon Firefox update mechanism. The next step is to do a proper review. Hopefully, given it is “mature and widespread” and has been “proven to update Firefox”, we will not “run screaming for the hills” when looking at the disadvantages. On a more general level, an unexpected comment came from Brendan Eich (Mozilla’s chief technology officer) on Twitter [22]: “Maybe we should just adopt, support, and bundle Tor in Firefox...” David Dahl subsequently opened a bug report in Mozilla’s tracker to discuss a way forward [23]. Mike Perry commented on a thread [24] on the liberationtech mailing list: “In short, I am excited by this news, and I look forward to improving our communication and cooperation with Mozilla on this front.” [15] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-weekly-news-%E2%80%94-august-7th-2013 [16] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2013-August/029266.html [17] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2013-August/029364.html [18] https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#TBBJavaScriptEnabled [19] https://bugs.torproject.org/9387 [20] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2013-August/005228.html [21] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2013SummerDevMee… [22] https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/364265592112414720 [23] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=901614 [24] https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-August/010650.ht… Tails 2013 summit ----------------- The Tails team has sent a report on their 2013 development summit [25] for which “a bunch of people spend a dozen days together in July”. Read the report in full for all the details. Some highlights: task tracking have been moved to Redmine [26], tasks fit for new contributors has been better identified [27], progress has been made to move Tails to the current Debian stable release [28], the roadmap has been updated [29]. Communication channels are going to change a little bit “to ease involvement of new contributors, to make more workload sharing possible, and to be able to provide better user support”. As a start a new user support mailing list was created [30]. Subscribe if you have questions or want to help fellow Tails users. A lot of discussions revolved around “the growth of the project: given the growing number of users and our super-short release cycle, it is a challenge to keep the project sustainable and maintainable in the mid/long term.” Give the current project exposure, the report rightfully concludes: “Tails is living decisive times, so we expect the next year to be pretty interesting. You can perhaps make the difference, so do not hesitate joining the dance [31]!”. [25] https://tails.boum.org/news/summit_2013/ [26] https://labs.riseup.net/code/projects/tails [27] https://labs.riseup.net/code/projects/tails/issues?query_id=112 [28] https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/6015 [29] https://labs.riseup.net/code/projects/tails/roadmap [30] https://tails.boum.org/support/tails-support/ [31] https://tails.boum.org/contribute/ Three new proposals ------------------- On Monday, Nick Mathewson robbed everyone of his “I’m a little teapot” performance [32] by releasing the following three new proposals: Proposal 219 [33] has been written a year ago by Ondrej Mikle. It is currently at draft stage. Its goal is to make Tor support any DNS query type and also support full DNSSEC resolution. The latter is important as it provides “protection against DNS cache-poisoning attacks” but is made tricky given a routine hostname resolution with DNSSEC “can require dozens of round trips across a circuit”. In another draft proposal [34], Nick Mathewson describes a plan for a smooth transition from the current 1024-bit RSA keys used for router identity and TLS links to Ed25519-SHA-512 [35] keys. Several small details still have to be ironed out. This proposal does not address hidden service keys. They will have to be addressed in another proposal once an agreement has been reached regarding the best crypto scheme [36]. Now that the ntor onionskin handshake [37] has been implemented in 0.2.4, we could get better forward secrecy by having clients top sending CREATE_FAST cells. Nick Mathewson has issued proposal 221 [38] to detail the reasons and the implications of such change. All these proposals are now up for discussions on the tor-dev mailing list. [32] https://twitter.com/nickm_tor/status/365527533627777025 [33] https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/blob/HEAD:/proposals/219-expanded… [34] https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/blob/HEAD:/proposals/220-ecc-id-k… [35] https://bugs.torproject.org/8106 [36] http://ed25519.cr.yp.to/ [37] https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/proposals/216-nt… [38] https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/blob/HEAD:/proposals/221-stop-usi… Miscellaneous news ------------------ Jens Kubieziel researched how to get a GnuPG version for Windows in a secure way [39], something needed for users that would like to properly verify the Tor Browser Bundle signatures on Windows systems. [39] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2013-August/029256.html George Kadianakis wrote on “how to deploy your very own pluggable transport” [40] explaining what to do before, while and after coding a new pluggable transport. Given they were designed to be “pluggable”, “it should be easy to write new [ones]”. So be sure to read these advices and start experimenting! [40] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2013-August/005231.html A new round of GSoC reports arrived to the tor-dev mailing list: Johannes Fürmann about EvilGenius [41], Cristian-Matei Toader about Tor capabilities [42], Hareesan about the Steganography Browser Extension [43], and Kostas Jakeliunas about the searchable metrics archive [44]. All of them seems to be making good progress. Let’s wish them success for the last six weeks! [41] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2013-August/005237.html [42] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2013-August/005238.html [43] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2013-August/005243.html [44] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2013-August/005244.html More reports came from the July 2013 wave: the Tor Help Desk by Runa Sandvik [45], and Moritz Bartl [46]. [45] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2013-August/000310.html [46] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-reports/2013-August/000311.html Andrew Lewman gave a talk during the US National Network to End Domestic Violence’s (NNEDV) annual technology summit. His presentation [47] covered “a quick overview of Tor, why I’m here talking about domestic violence and intimate partner abuse, and what we’re doing to help.”. Be sure to read his report [48] in full. [47] https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/presentations/2013-07-30-NNEDV-Pres… [48] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/nnedv-tech-summit-2013-report Thanks to Paul Templeton from CoffsWiFi [49], and nsane [50] for running new Tor website mirrors. [49] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-commits/2013-August/060352.html [50] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-commits/2013-August/060583.html Several people are trying to assemble localization teams for Tails: Miriam Matar for Arabic [51], irregulator for Greek [52], hemlockii for Turkish [53]. Tails policy regarding website translations [54] specifies that “a team of translators, not just one person, is necessary”, so please join if you can help! [51] https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-l10n/2013-August/000637.html [52] https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-l10n/2013-August/000646.html [53] https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-l10n/2013-August/000652.html [54] https://tails.boum.org/contribute/how/translate/ Help Desk Roundup ----------------- Below is a summary of some frequent questions received at the Tor help desk this past week: Users are frequently confused by the message they receive from GetTor. Currently the Tor Browser Bundle is too large to send over GetTor, so users instead receive three mirrors with a link to a page with all available translations of the Tor Browser Bundle. Many users email the help desk unsure of what this page means or which package they need. A number of users asked whether or not they needed to disable JavaScript in the Tor Browser Bundle. While the vulnerability in Firefox does not affect the latest Tor Browser Bundle, disabling JavaScript globally will reduce one’s risk of being affected by future JavaScript exploits. Users were asked to choose for themselves between greater protection inside the browser or a browsing experience with more functionality enabled. Upcoming event -------------- Aug 14 | Roger at 22nd USENIX Security Symposium | Washington, DC, USA | https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity13 This issue of Tor Weekly News has been assembled by Lunar, malaparte, mttp, Phoul, Tails developers, David Fifield, Nick Mathewson, and Karsten Loesing. Want to continue reading TWN? Please help us create this newsletter. We still need more volunteers to watch the Tor community and report important news. Please see the project page [55], write down your name and subscribe to the team mailing list [56] if you want to get involved! [55] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/TorWeeklyNews [56] https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news-team -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org To unsusbscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: [cryptography] LeastAuthority.com announces PRISM-proof storage service
by Eugen Leitl 14 Aug '13

14 Aug '13

----- Forwarded message from Nico Williams <nico(a)cryptonector.com> ----- Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 15:10:36 -0500 From: Nico Williams <nico(a)cryptonector.com> To: ianG <iang(a)iang.org> Cc: cryptography(a)randombit.net Subject: Re: [cryptography] LeastAuthority.com announces PRISM-proof storage service On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 12:02 PM, ianG <iang(a)iang.org> wrote: > Super! I think a commercial operator is an essential step forward. A few points: - if only you access your own files then there's much less interest for a government in your files: they might contain evidence of crimes and conspiracies, but you can always be compelled to produce those - if you share files then traffic analysis will reveal much about what you're up to, and there may be much interest in getting at your files' contents. - commercial operators who give you software to run can compromise (or allow governments to compromise) you even if they are not technically an end-point[*] for your end-to-end protocols. - it's really not easy to defeat the PRISMs. the problem is *political* more than technological. - i'm not trying to detract from Tahoe-LAFS -- it's a spectacular idea, I wish it well, and I generally endorse filesystems of this sort. [*] In Tahoe-LAFS, ZFS, and any other similar filesystems, there is only one end-point: the client(s); the server, in particular, is NOT an end-point. Nico -- _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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[liberationtech] Zwiebelfreunde take over popular onion.to Tor gateway
by Eugen Leitl 14 Aug '13

14 Aug '13

----- Forwarded message from Moritz Bartl <moritz(a)torservers.net> ----- Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 20:59:22 +0200 From: Moritz Bartl <moritz(a)torservers.net> To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> Subject: [liberationtech] Zwiebelfreunde take over popular onion.to Tor gateway User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130623 Thunderbird/17.0.7 Reply-To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> Hi Libtechies, I hope you don't mind me putting this press release here. Please spread if you like it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Zwiebelfreunde take over popular onion.to Tor gateway (Dresden, 13.8.2013) The non-profit organization Zwiebelfreunde e.V. is known for the “Torservers” project, which over the past years has grown into a global network of organizations that maintain server infrastructure for the open anonymization network Tor. Today, Zwiebelfreunde has taken over a very popular web gateway for Tor hidden services, onion.to. Tor hidden services provide anonymity for website owners, mail providers, chat systems and other Internet services. Hidden services are designed to be accessed using Tor Browser, which additionally provides anonymity for users of the service. Web gateways such as onion.to provide a convenient way to reach hidden services using a regular browser without having to install Tor. A side effect is that the broad world of hidden services are exposed to search engines and can thus be indexed and found. The trade-off is that users lose anonymity: Both the gateway and the hidden service can track users across visits, and determine the user's IP address. That is why Zwiebelfreunde strongly encourages people to download Tor Browser instead. “By exposing hidden services to the public, we hope to attract even more users and widen the spectrum of available services within the Tor network.”, says Zwiebelfreunde founder and president Moritz Bartl. “I can imagine privacy-friendly email services to be based fully on hidden services in the future, for example.” The current gateway server is located in Iceland, and another one will be added in the near future. https://www.onion.to/ An example hidden service can be found at https://duskgytldkxiuqc6.onion.to/ # Zwiebelfreunde e.V. The German non-profit association Zwiebelfreunde e.V. serves as a platform for projects in the area of safe and anonymous communication. The organization facilitates and participates in educational events about technological advances in the area of privacy, and connects professionals to spread knowledge and experience on these fields. “Zwiebelfreunde” is German for “Friends of the Onion”, as a reference to Onion Routing, the name of the concept behind Tor for anonymizing communication: Messages are passed through relays that each removes one layer of encryption, like peeling the skin of an onion. Contact # Contact Moritz Bartl Zwiebelfreunde e.V. c/o DID Dresdner Institut für Datenschutz Palaisplatz 3 D-01097 Dresden Germany press(a)torservers.net Tel.: +49-(0)351 / 212 960 18 Fax.: +49-(0)911 / 308 4466 748 http://www.torservers.net/ http://www.twitter.com/torservers/ -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys(a)stanford.edu. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: [liberationtech] Swiss VPNs
by Eugen Leitl 13 Aug '13

13 Aug '13

----- Forwarded message from Moritz Bartl <moritz(a)torservers.net> ----- Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 15:25:45 +0200 From: Moritz Bartl <moritz(a)torservers.net> To: liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Swiss VPNs User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130623 Thunderbird/17.0.7 Reply-To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> On 13.08.2013 14:20, taxakis wrote: > Oligarchs and privacy advocates have something in common. > If you got a better place, please name it. I don't. I still believe we should stop being naive and promote Iceland or Switzerland, just because we think they offer better privacy. In general, just because you read something in the news, don't just believe it. I never said Germany was a better place. Yes, I should have quotable sources at hand, but at the moment I don't. A good address for a more detailed answer would be the Chaos Computer Club Switzerland, http://www.ccc-ch.ch/ , and, for Iceland, try the people behind IMMI, https://immi.is/ . The interesting part about Iceland is that there is a slight chance of *making it* a privacy-friendly jurisdiction. It is not, yet. If media always convey the picture of a privacy-friendly country, its own politicians will start believing it and fight for it, hopefully. -- Moritz Bartl https://www.torservers.net/ -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys(a)stanford.edu. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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[cryptography] Certificate Transparency Hack Day
by Eugen Leitl 13 Aug '13

13 Aug '13

----- Forwarded message from Ben Laurie <ben(a)links.org> ----- Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 11:17:04 -0400 From: Ben Laurie <ben(a)links.org> To: Crypto discussion list <cryptography(a)randombit.net>, UK Cryptography Policy Discussion Group <ukcrypto(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk>, "dnssec-deployment(a)dnssec-deployment.org" <dnssec-deployment(a)dnssec-deployment.org> Subject: [cryptography] Certificate Transparency Hack Day The Certificate Transparency hack day will take place at Google’s London offices on Wednesday, the 28th of August, 2013. Please sign up on this form<https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/forms/d/1jvO5OdkvRhyTV6XU4Q-YaRKlTSF7r…> by August 22nd, to let us know you plan to attend. Where & When: The hack day will be at Google’s offices in Belgrave House, 76 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 9TQ<https://plus.google.com/110793544615967733816/about?gl=uk&hl=en&e=EnableEve…> . Breakfast is at 8:30am, badges will be handed out at Belgrave House reception. The day itself will start with Ben’s introduction at 9am, ending by 6pm, with a lunch break at around 1:30pm. There’ll be drinks at a nearby pub afterwards. What to prepare: In order to make the most of the time we have on the day, you’ll need to do a little preparation. Please bring your own laptop with either: * A copy of the CT repository<http://code.google.com/p/certificate-transparency/>- check you have all the necessary dependencies and are able to compile it(instructions here<https://code.google.com/p/certificate-transparency/source/browse/src/README>), or * A copy of CT development Linux VMware image (available with instructions here <https://sites.google.com/site/certificatetransparency/hackday>) Regards, Ben and the Certificate Transparency team at Google _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Information theoretically secure communication networks
by John Preston 12 Aug '13

12 Aug '13

Hi all, Long-time follower, first time poster. I have an interest in darknets and saw this paper (http://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2013/papers/4977a080.pdf) today in a message under "Freedom Hosting Owner Arrested, Tormail Compromised, Malicious JS Discovered", which naturally got me quite worried. It did remind, however, about a few ideas I have had in the past about guarantees of anonymity in a network. Consider a broadcast network: an eavesdropper cannot tell who a message is intended for from just the transmission itself. By using asymmetric encryption, the contents of the message can also be made unreadable to the eavesdropper and all unintended recipients, still preserving perfect single fact anonymity. Over time, an attacker could determine the intended recipient by looking at who sent messages within a certain time frame from receiving a message: the information gain from this is increased substantially if certain information about the protocol of the messages is known (e.g. if we're anonymising a real-time protocol, timed traffic analysis can reveal an intended recipient with a high degree of certainty). This can be defeated by including noise in the network: peers constantly produce garbage packets. I believe that this would yield information theoretically secure anonymity, as an attacker is looking for hay in a haystack, so to speak. Obviously, the problem with this protocol is that it is horrendously inefficient. I am inclined to believe that we can preserve the anonymity properties of this protocol while reducing its network load, in exchange for reliability. The original protocol implies that the intended recipient will always get the message, but if we allow for the possibility of delivery failure we can reduce traffic. The protocol I propose is thus as follows: peers send hop-to-hop encrypted packets to a subset of the other nodes on the network. Each packet contains the payload (encrypted for the intended recipient) and a TTL counter. If a peer cannot decrypt the payload, the message is not intended for them and so the TTL is decreased and the new message is then broadcast out to another random subset of the peers on the network. Again, we include noise packets. For a TTL of t and a subset network ratio of s, we thus expect ts transmissions for a single packet, where we intend ts < n so as to obtain a more efficient solution. Other possible considerations are non-fully connected networks, although I believe that a theoretically secure routing protocol must fulfil at least one of the two axioms: 1) all peers must eventually receive the message; or 2) the message is not guaranteed to reach its intended recipient. Thoughts? Also, is there any literature on or implementations of theoretically secure networks?

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Re: [FoRK] <nettime> Statement: Why Secure Email Provider Lavabit closes down
by Eugen Leitl 12 Aug '13

12 Aug '13

----- Forwarded message from dan(a)geer.org ----- Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 08:43:12 -0400 From: dan(a)geer.org To: Friends of Rohit Khare <fork(a)xent.com> Subject: Re: [FoRK] <nettime> Statement: Why Secure Email Provider Lavabit closes down Reply-To: Friends of Rohit Khare <fork(a)xent.com> Only founders, like Ladar and the Silent Circle folks, can have the combination of integrity and guts that chooses shutdown over complicity. Corporations with significant market capitalization and global footprint simply cannot -- take MSFT / Skype if needing a current example. "The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire." -- Richard M. Nixon _______________________________________________ FoRK mailing list http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: [cryptopolitics] Silent Circle and Secure Email
by Eugen Leitl 12 Aug '13

12 Aug '13

----- Forwarded message from Jeffrey Walton <noloader(a)gmail.com> ----- Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 21:17:42 -0400 From: Jeffrey Walton <noloader(a)gmail.com> To: Jeffrey Goldberg <Jeffrey(a)goldmark.org> Cc: Cryptopolictics Mailing List <cryptopolitics(a)randombit.net> Subject: Re: [cryptopolitics] Silent Circle and Secure Email Reply-To: noloader(a)gmail.com On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 2:43 PM, Jeffrey Goldberg <Jeffrey(a)goldmark.org> wrote: > On Aug 9, 2013, at 11:45 AM, Jeffrey Walton <noloader(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> I'd be interested in hearing more with respect to Silent Circle >> complicity in crimes against the American people if they supplied >> secure email. > > I think you may have missed the point in the Lavabit wording of this announcement. > This was much clearer. "Silent Circle Ends Silent Mail Service To Preempt Surveillance Threats," http://www.darkreading.com/privacy/silent-circle-ends-silent-mail-service-t…: Silent Circle, the global encrypted communications firm revolutionizing mobile security for organizations and individuals alike, today announced it has discontinued its Silent Mail e-mail encryption service in order to preempt governments' demands for customer information in the escalating surveillance environment targeting global communications. Jeff _______________________________________________ cryptopolitics mailing list cryptopolitics(a)randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptopolitics ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: [liberationtech] Secure Android guide?
by Eugen Leitl 12 Aug '13

12 Aug '13

----- Forwarded message from Jerzy Łogiewa <jerzyma(a)interia.eu> ----- Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 17:40:49 +0200 From: Jerzy Łogiewa <jerzyma(a)interia.eu> To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Secure Android guide? X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1283) Reply-To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> I read this: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/09/recycling-bins-are-watching-… "The unique identifying numbers of over half a million smartphones have been recorded by a network of recycling bins in central London. Hundreds of thousands of pedestrians walking past 12 locations unknowingly had the unique MAC address of their smartphones recorded by Renew London." Maybe also it should be added to this list, some thought about MAC and DHCP randomness? Is this feature included in any of tools recommended? -- Jerzy Łogiewa -- jerzyma(a)interia.eu -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys(a)stanford.edu. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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<nettime> Interview with Lavabit's Ladar Levison
by Eugen Leitl 12 Aug '13

12 Aug '13

----- Forwarded message from nettime's secret court staffer <nettime(a)kein.org> ----- Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 23:26:02 +0200 From: nettime's secret court staffer <nettime(a)kein.org> To: nettime-l(a)mx.kein.org Subject: <nettime> Interview with Lavabit's Ladar Levison Reply-To: a moderated mailing list for net criticism <nettime-l(a)mail.kein.org> On an phone interview with CNET and Jesse Binnall, Levison's Virginia-based attorney, about the decision to shutter Lavabit, Levison spoke about the connection between Lavabit and the Patriot Act, how he thinks the laws regarding privacy ought to change, and how the American government is failing to uphold the U.S. Constitution. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57597954-83/lavabit-chief-predicts-long-fi… __What's the key issue here? Why did you shut down Lavabit? Levison: For me it wasn't about protecting a single user, but protecting the privacy of all my users, coupled with the fact that I wasn't able to discuss it publicly. I believe that people have the right to know what their government is doing. I had an issue with me doing what they wanted me to do without them disclosing it. We've had a couple of dozen court orders served to us over the past 10 years, but they've never crossed the line... __Until now? Levison: I can neither confirm nor deny "until now." Are you familiar with the case of Aaron Swartz, familiar with the accusations of prosecutorial misconduct? There may be parallels between that case and this. __If you could write the legislation covering privacy and electronic communication, what would it say? Levison: One of the things that would be nice to come out of this would be that the court shouldn't be able to make binding decisions that are secret. If there's going to be legislation from the bench, so to speak, it needs to be open to review from the American public. Just the idea of secret laws, so to speak, bothers me tremendously. That should almost be a constitutional change. We've shown that some of our most important freedoms can't be trusted to Congress, they need to be placed in the Constitution. Going beyond that, as an Internet service provider, there needs to be a more clear definition of our protections. Right now, as a third-party litigation, we effectively have no rights. There's no legal framework that we can fight with or against anything that is unjust. They're abusing their secrecy to hide their surveillance methods. I think that there's a lot more that will come out, and that needs to come out. I obviously can't tell you what was happening and what I know, and I was uncomfortable with it. I'd rather shut down my service and my primary source of income than be complicit in crimes against the American people. __In the current situation, are there any bright red lines that you wouldn't cross? Levison: It's unfortunate that even our own lawmakers don't have a good understanding of what's going on. Philosophically, I put myself in a position that I was comfortable turning over the information that I had. I built Lavabit in a reaction to the original Patriot Act. I didn't want to be in a position to turn [user data] over without judicial review. Where the government would hypothetically cross the line is to violate the privacy of all of my users. This is not about protecting a single person or persons, it's about protecting all my users. What level of access to this nation does the government have? __How did the Patriot Act influence your e-mail service? It played a big role in how I designed the custom platform. All I needed when somebody registers was a name and a password. I didn't need a real name, address, social security number, credit card number... Why should I collect that info if I didn't need it? [That philosophy] also governed what kind of information I logged. Speaking philosophically, I think people who hold other people's private information and money have an obligation to be more open to the public. That principle of openness has become a key issue. It's definitely become an issue as it relates to some of the recent coverage in the media. The current administration is not being transparent and open about what it is they're doing, even to members of Congress. __How have Lavabit's users reacted? Levison: It's overwhelmingly positive. Some of them are understandably frustrated that I had to shut down without notice. I lost my one and only e-mail account over the past 10 years, as well. I feel my decision was the lesser of two evils. __What happens to your customer's e-mails and data? Levison: I'm looking into setting up a site where users can download their data and set up a forwarding [e-mail] address, but that may take a week or two to set up. That's all I can do until I feel confident that I can resume the service without having to compromise its integrity. I will make it clear that I don't plan to use any encryption for that site. [People] should only use it if they feel comfortable with the information being intercepted. And yes, I do plan to have that disclaimer on the site. Unfortunately, what's become clear is that there's no protections in our current body of law to keep the government from compelling us to provide the information necessary to decrypt those communications in secret. I'm still looking at seeing if that's even logistically feasible -- there's half a billion messages [sent in the 10 years Lavabit operated]. By shutting down the service, I will be losing the infrastructure that I used to support all those people. There's stuff that I can't share with my own lawyer. This is going to be a long fight. __What made Lavabit successful? Levison: Lavabit at the time of the shutdown had 410,000 users, with 40,000 weekly log-ins, 200,000 e-mails sent a day -- 1.4 million e-mails a week. We were in a very narrow category of what I like to call medium-sized providers. Once you get over the 50,000 to 100,000 user threshold, e-mail becomes a very difficult problem of scale. It's why you see so many e-mail providers come and go. We managed to break through that barrier by building a custom platform to handle it. It's similar in architecture to some of the big guys [Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, which combined provide Web mail to more than 1 billion people]. __How did Lavabit get started? Levison: I've been a geek my entire life. I was with a group of college friends of mine, that was how an e-mail service by geeks, for geeks, came about. [It was called] Nerdshack, with an emphasis on security and privacy. It had POP and IMAP access. For a long time we were the only free POP service. __How do you identify yourself politically? Levison: I'm a conservative Republican. I believe in small government and keeping our government out of our business. But I'm from California, and if there's one thing we love in California, it's being able to speak our mind. I love God and guns, too. Texans are big on freedom. I'm probably a blend of [California and Texas] at this point. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime(a)kein.org ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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