June 2016 - cypherpunks@lists.ogf.org

US Congress NSLs FBI to Please Think of the Orlando's
by grarpamp 21 Jun '16

21 Jun '16

https://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/06/21/0543212/invoking-orlando-senat… http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-fbi-emails-idUSKCN0Z7056?feedType=R… U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the FBI's authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information. The move, made via an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to respond to last week's mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on Monday. Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital spying powers. The amendment would broaden the FBI's authority to use so-called National Security Letters to include electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails' senders and recipients. NSLs do not require a warrant and are almost always accompanied by a gag order preventing the service provider from sharing the request with a targeted user. The amendment filed Monday would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on "lone wolf" suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. A vote is expected no later than Wednesday, McConnell's office said. Last week, FBI Director James Comey said he is "highly confident that [the Orlando shooter] was radicalized at least in part through the internet."

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what 'Tor' actually stands for - do you want a brown t-shirt?
by juan 20 Jun '16

20 Jun '16

dingledine : "Also, yes, this mailing list has gotten out of control. We are all distracted doing more urgent things, but I think we should soon find the time anyway to proceed to the "clean up our lists" plan." boyce : "Due to the extreme amount of off-topic posting (centered around a handful of users), there's much discussion about whether to replace tor-talk with a moderated list" me to boyce : > are you brownshirts going to 'moderate' the cpunks mailing > list too? his reply : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIoMfVNVx4g

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Re: [tor-talk] Question for those who say "Tor is pwned"
by Zenaan Harkness 20 Jun '16

20 Jun '16

> I see a lot of people talking about how Tor is pwned by the US > Government and is insecure 'by design'. I'm assuming that they know > this from a thorough analysis of the source code, which I freely admit > I haven't done. So, since you guys actually have taken the time to > audit the source and find the vulnerabilities that would allow Tor to > be so easily pwned, could you explain it to me and, preferable, post > relevant sections (or links to sections) of the source you're basing > your statements on? It's foundation design issues. And hardware level network issues. The code is generally (in the public conversation anyway) assumed to be "best effort, bugs fixed relatively soon after they arise". > I'd really like to investigate these vulnerabilities myself but the > code is too massive for one person to realistically audit by > themselves so links would be very helpful. Again, you will need more nuance than "has the code been audited" if you really want a relevant answer. There's a lot of research out there, and also logic and discussions which are straightforward to follow. Next, once you've done some investigation, you start to come across a few interesting factoids of note such as: - lack of network chaff is a fundamental limitation, and problem for privacy (for those who need it) given current known data collection capabilities of the "five eyes" - all network meta data, and there is evident (I'm not about to search the lists, but you only need to search 2.5 years (the time I've been watching)) resistent within "Tor project proper" to making this particular fundamental improvement happen; - arguments are put such as "oh there are no studies proving the benefits of network chaff" and the obvious "we don't have a budget for that (yet) but we encourage contributions" - persistent push back against bittorrent over Tor, including threatening offlist email attacks against those who suggest as much; BT over Tor would provide some chaff, simply by increase of volume, load, unpredictability of end clients, for example. - just watching TBB's behaviour has been interesting - some days, when I open up say 5 tabs for 5 different news websites using the "open all bookmarks from this folder as tabs" function, they all essentially start to load simultaneously, but other days/times, each tab loads distinctly sequentially, which to my mind is a dead giveaway that my current on-ramp is part of some sort of profiling (read 'deanonymising') - configurable latency randomization is another technical improvement which has been bandied around for years, and sounds easy to my programmer mind in practice, but has yet to see anything like the light of day There is ample room for an alternate dev team. Unfortunately, the US DoD are the ones providing almost all the funding, so they get to continue to control Tor development. If you are a big funder, start a whole new dev team, in a -completely separate jurisdiction (if that's possible). I know of an apparently well intentioned and productive man who may be close to ideal to set up and lead such a team :) Also, fundamentally we need a physical layer network which individual humans in their homes and offices, actually control - that is, shift the entire network to a "dark fibre" concept, where suburbs have random connections to one another, neighbours connect to one another with ethernet, wireless and more. If you don't own it, you don't control it. If you don't control it, it --will-- be used against you. This is a long term (say 20 year) plan, but it's the only long term option if we want to achieve anything resembling a genuine network of the people which honours privacy and anonymity of communication. By virtue of our capacity and existence and by the blessing of our cognizance of these things, we humans are with the right to anonymous and private communication. We have the right. I encourage you to work towards a world where many can live the right.

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Food for thought
by grarpamp 20 Jun '16

20 Jun '16

On 6/18/16, Mirimir <mirimir(a)riseup.net> wrote: > Still, I'm left with a poor impression of just about everyone > involved. I don't mean to blame anyone. But damn, the Tor community > during the past few years comes across as a soap opera! And the code > that came out of that soap opera is what people are counting on? > Seriously? > > But OK, maybe they "do good work". Soap Operas... funded by various interests, keeping you entranced and stupid since the 1950's.

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Kropotkin -vs- Darwin. Humanity, Cooperation and Mutual Aid -vs- Egoism and Pitiless Struggle; Socialism/Communism -vs- Competitive Capitalism/Darwinism. (Russia -vs- West)
by Александр 20 Jun '16

20 Jun '16

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is a book by Peter Kropotkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1902/mutual-aid/ Written partly in response to social Darwinism and in particular to Thomas H. Huxley's Nineteenth Century essay, "The Struggle for Existence", Kropotkin's book drew on his experiences in scientific expeditions in Siberia to illustrate the phenomenon of cooperation. After examining the evidence of cooperation in nonhuman animals, in pre-feudal societies and medieval cities, and in modern times, he concluded that *cooperation and mutual aid, and not Darwin's pitiless struggle, are the most important factors in the evolution of species and the ability to survive.*

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Like Comcast, Google Fiber Now Forces Customers Into Arbitration
by Zenaan Harkness 19 Jun '16

19 Jun '16

So, the endless anarchic public discussion on the benefits of private contracts has put down roots, starts to shoot, and our brave new world with such benefits begins. Wonderful to see how well educated humans do seize the day to bring forth some sanity to this world of corporate greed and selfishness. I have to add though - sheep deserve to be shorn. How can they ever learn any lessons if there were never any opposition to their self indulgent ataraxia. ----- Forwarded message from Slashdot Headlines <slashdot(a)newsletters.slashdot.org> ----- Like Comcast, Google Fiber Now Forces Customers Into Arbitration http://clicks.slashdot.org/ct.html?ufl=3&rtr=on&s=x8pb08,2khay,10sc,9bih,8w… Like Comcast, Google Fiber Now Forces Customers Into Arbitration http://clicks.slashdot.org/ct.html?ufl=3&rtr=on&s=x8pb08,2khay,10sc,kujb,7w… >From the cover-your-arse department An anonymous reader writes: In Google Fiber's updated terms, the company now says they "require the use of binding arbitration to resolve disputes rather than jury trials or class actions." Ars Technica reports: "While the clause allows cases in... Read More http://clicks.slashdot.org/ct.html?ufl=3&rtr=on&s=x8pb08,2khay,10sc,669l,fb…

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good news
by Jens.Stomber＠gmx.de 19 Jun '16

19 Jun '16

Hello, Here is a good news from our mutual friend, just read it here <http://lavibare.safestepstool.org/aectn> Cheers, Jens.Stomber(a)gmx.de

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Interesting Ethereum Dustup
by jim bell 18 Jun '16

18 Jun '16

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-17/blockchain-company-s-smar… Partial quote: Blockchain Company's Smart Contracts Were Dumb 2 JUNE 17, 2016 5:46 PM EDT By Matt Levine There's a fairly incredible trial going on in London right now. The Libyan Investment Authority is suing Goldman Sachs over some trades that they did together. To oversimplify slightly, the LIA handed Goldman a pile of money and signed some complicated contracts describing the circumstances in which Goldman would have to give LIA money back, and how much. And then everyone closed their eyes and counted to 10, and when they opened their eyes, poof, the money was gone. It was $1.2 billion. Libya is mad, and suing. The LIA has various arguments in its lawsuit, but none of them amount to "Goldman owes us money under those contracts." The contracts specified a set of functions that took inputs (mostly, the prices of some bank stocks) and produced as outputs a set of dollar amounts that Goldman was supposed to pay Libya. The specifications in the contracts are perfectly clear; there's no dispute about how to read the contracts, or about how the functions work. Everyone agrees that the total dollar amount produced by the functions is zero. Instead, Libya's arguments take the form of: We didn't really mean what those contracts said. We didn't understand them. We were bamboozled into signing them, overwhelmed by a "swarm" of Goldman bankers, seduced -- literally -- by the bankers' offerings ofinternships and aftershaves and prostitutes. We were unsophisticated, we trusted Goldman to look out for our best interests, we thought the functions were something other than what they turned out to be. Whatever you think about those arguments -- my own views are complicated -- they are definitely the kinds of arguments that are, like, allowed in court. The contracts specifying the functions are important. Ninety-nine-point-whatever percent of the time, derivatives contracts just work: I pay you a premium for a call option, and you promise to pay me if it ends up in the money, and if it does, you do, and if it doesn't, I shrug and walk away. We knew what we were getting into, and we got out of it what we expected. But every so often, people don't know what they're getting into, or what they get out of it isn't what either side reasonably expected. And when that happens, they go to court and argue about it. Usually one side did well out of the deal, and argues that everything's fine and everyone got what they expected; the other side did poorly, and argues that something fundamentally unfair happened and the deal should be altered. [end of portion quoted]

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American Ambassador to Russia in Moscow, Michael McFaul, gives a lesson to Russian students
by Zenaan Harkness 17 Jun '16

17 Jun '16

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/michael-mcfaul-reason-i-tell-people-i… At least this Michael McFaul fellow demonstrates why he was appointed America's US Ambassador to Russia in Moscow (besides imparting some key points about America of course, at least from the American perspective, which is of course good for children to comprehend - to be able to view another's perspective).

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(no subject)
by Ryan Carboni 17 Jun '16

17 Jun '16

https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/743498759892406272

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