the most annoying thing about Juan

[Mirimir]

On 07/21/2016 02:46 AM, juan wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Jul 2016 01:43:58 -0600
> Mirimir <mirimir at riseup.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>>> 	
>>> 	The US military can spy on all the planet - no other
>>> national government can do that. That why they can safely use tor,
>>> and no one else can.
>>
>> What you say is possible. 
> 
> 	Possible?
> 
> 	Do you think that the utah datacenter is fantasy, that the
> 	klein 'disclosures' about ATT are fantasy, that all the
> 	snowden stuff is fantasy, etc? 
> 
> 	Those are not possibilities, those are facts.

Your claims go far beyond any evidence that I've seen.

>> Except, of course, for those with privileged information about US
>> military capabilities ;)
> 
> 
> 	The info is in the fucking public domain. And,  considering
> 	what's in the public domain, even retards should assume that
> 	their 'secret' capabilities are even bigger.

That's a fair argument. But again, you work with what you have.

>> Tor Project says:
>>
>> | Anonymity Online
>> |
>> | Protect your privacy. Defend yourself
>> | against network surveillance and traffic
>> | analysis.
>>
>> | Tor prevents people from
>> | learning your location or
>> | browsing habits.
>>
>> You warn people not to use Tor, because it's useless against US
>> military.
> 
> 	and even against the FBI, actually. Oh, here's more very old
> 	news
> 
> 	'DEA and NSA Team Up to Share Intelligence, Leading to Secret
> 	Use of Surveillance in Ordinary Investigations" 
> 
> 	https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering
> 
> 
>> And as I recall, you also reject Tor on moral grounds,
>> because US military uses it for evil.
> 
> 	I am a libertarian. I correctly recognize the US military as
> 	the biggest threat to civilization on the whole fucking planet. 

We all use knives, which military use to kill. One of my favorites is an
old German gravity knife, used by paratroopers. It's very convenient for
one-handed use.

>> I consider both positions to be irresponsible. Conning people into
>> using Tor recklessly, with insecure setups, is at best irresponsible.
>> If the goal is cover traffic for US military, it's malicious.
>>
>> But frightening people from using Tor, 
> 
> 
> 	I am not frightening anyone. I'm telling people the truth. Had
> 	people like Ulbricht assumed that tor was fucked he wouldn't be
> 	roting in jail right now, for instance.

If he had done it without Tor, he would have been in jail a lot sooner!

It is likely that he pushed his luck too far using Tor.

>> when there are no viable
>> alternatives, is also at best irresponsible. 
> 
> 
> 	You know there are alternatives. You just were promoting
> 	vpns a couple of days ago on tor-talk (and I'm glad you were)

Nested VPN chains are also vulnerable to global adversaries. It may be
that all low-latency anonymity systems that can scale to many users are
vulnerable to global adversaries.

>> Even if Tor is more or
>> less useless against US military, it still protects users against
>> other adversaries. And arguably it even protects most users from US
>> military, if only because they're not important enough to focus on.
> 
> 
> 	Tell that to freedom hosting and all the rest. I can keep going
> 	in circles, you know, constantly refuting your propaganda...

Yes, we do keep coming back to the same circular discussion, don't we?

I'm concerned that Tor is pwned by US military, but I'm not convinced
that rejecting it entirely is the best course.

>>>> So it sounds like just an assumption.
>>>>
>>>>>> It's the same argument that we make about encryption
>>>>>> generally. 
>>>>>
>>>>> 	No it is not. You are *misaplying* the argument. 
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Systems with backdoors can't be secure. And you can't keep
>>>>>> anyone from using anonymity systems without backdoors.
>>>>>
>>>>> 	Yes you can if access to the backdoor requires
>>>>> capabilities that your enemies don't have. 
>>>>
>>>> That's the fallacy about backdoors ;)
>>>
>>>
>>> 	No fallacy. YOU ARE MISAPPLYING THE ARGUMENT.
>>
>> Putting it in caps doesn't make it right :)
> 
> 
> 	You just repeat baseless, wrong assertions, so I'm going to keep
> 	saying that your baseless assertions ARE FALSE.
> 
> 	YOU ARE MISAPPLYING THE ARGUMENT and I already explained why, 
> 	twice. Or perhaps ten times. Tor is backdoored by design. GPAs
> 	have access to the backdoor.

That's not really a backdoor. You argue that Tor is vulnerable to global
adversaries, and was designed that way. But it's not just Tor. It seems
that all low-latency anonymity systems that scale to numerous users are
vulnerable to global adversaries.

>>>> So are you arguing that well-designed backdoors are OK?
>>>
>>> 	They can be OK, and I don't care for any 'general theory'
>>> about backdoors anyway - I'm just talking about or. 
>>
>> I disagree about backdoors generally.
>>
>> But specifically about vulnerability of Tor to global adversaries, you
>> may be right. But also you may be wrong.
> 
> 	Cosmic bullshit.

I'm just saying that you don't know for sure. You may think that you do.
But there's just too much uncertainty. You said as much in another
thread. The issue is what to do when there's uncertainty. We disagree.

>>> 	The 'backdoor' in tor is simply the fact that the US
>>> military has sabotaged the internet.
>>
>> Actually, they pretty much invented it ;)
> 
> 
> 	Oh yes. We lived in the stone age before the US miliary
> 	invented duct tape.

Pretty much ;) At least, initial development of computers was mainly
driven by military.

>>>> Or are you
>>>> just arguing that US military are dumb enough to think so. 
>>>
>>> 	I don't think they are the dumb ones here...
>>
>> ;)
>>
>>>> That
>>>> they're so confident about their superior capabilities?
>>>>
>>>
>>> 	Yep. There's nothing surprinsing about that.
>>
>> I wonder if they have AIs yet. That would be amazing!
> 
> 
> 	Yes, kurzweil is an AI. He's as clever as google's spam filter.

I was pointing to the difficulty of interpreting global intercepts.

>>>>>> As I understand Juan's position, that wouldn't work for him.
>>>>>
>>>>> 	What wouldn't work? 
>>>>
>>>> Let's assume, hypothetically, 
>>>
>>>
>>> 	Sorry Mirimir, if you first acknowledge facts, then I might
>>> 	entertain your hypotheticals. 
>>>
>>>
>>>> that Tor is secure for everyone. And
>>>> let's acknowledge that US military uses it for evil.
>>>
>>>
>>> 	Are you trolling me? 
>>
>> Not at all, Juan :)
> 
> 
> 	Hm, I misread the part about evil? The US military uses tor for
> 	evil, there's nothing 'hypothetical' about that. Is that what
> 	you are saying?
> 
> 	So the only hypothetical part would be tor actually working...

Yes. I thought that was clear.

>>>> If that were so, would you use and recommend Tor?
>>>>
>>>> Or would you reject it, because it's used for evil?
> 
> 	Even if it worked I wouldn't recommend it. 

OK, thanks, that's what I thought.

> 	Although the question is too vague and of course loaded.
> 	
> 	Would a real anonimity network make it possible to actually
> 	cause substantial damage to the government? In that case it
> 	might be worthwhile to try it. Perhaps.

More than damaged, I want to see governments gone.

> 	But would any government create something that can be used to
> 	destroy it? Obviously not, so your hypothetical is just
> 	diversion (in the 'military' sense). Sorry.

Sure they would. Nuclear weapons, for example. Or biological warfare,
which is now pretty much doable at home. Or personal computers and the
Internet :)

>> I'm just wanting to clarify your position.

Thanks.