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Domain: notnet.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to notnet.org.

Comments · 7

  1. Re:This isn't really a criticism of .NET. by philipdl71 · · Score: 1 · on Whit Diffie Comments On .NET security

    .NET My Services and Passport are evil things. I get the idea that everyone just thinks Microsoft is out to improve programming with .NET and the CLR. This is not the case. There is a major part of .NET a lot of people aren't even aware of. This is the part which was formerly known as HailStorm

    Sure Passport is evil but it is only the gate by which Microsoft wants to hijack your data. HailStorm is by far the most ambitious attempt ever to eliminate privacy online. Microsoft claims that it eliminates the debate of online privacy by advocating consumer choice. I guess this would be true if you trust Microsoft to protect your information, not just from hackers, but also from themselves and of course the Government which will find a legal or illegal way into this thing somehow.

    Read the white paper on Microsoft's plans for .NET My Services. I give Sun the benefit of the doubt right now in developing their plans to compete with this. I would hope since they have the co-inventor of Public/Private key encryption on their side that their solution will not simply be, a big centralized database that Microsoft has cleartext access to.

    I am hoping for some kind of system where if you say want to give a software company access to your Visa credit card you simply add their public key and reencrypt those SOAP objects and you are done. Similar approaches could be taken with anything else. Everyone would have a private key and you could give access to any of your information to anyone else by simply using their key.

    There would be no access controls. You would simply upload your encrypted information to a server somewhere for them to host. I suppose that allowing users to store their private key at a place they trust would have to be a small concession for convenience sake (that is until we can get this done on smart cards or something). But those of us that care about security wouldn't have to do this.

    www.notnet.org

  2. Re:Exactly: by philipdl71 · · Score: 1 · on Dave Winer On Microsoft, SOAP, XML-RPC In NYT
    What we need is a way to supplant HailStorm with a secure way of encrypting and storing information released over a peer to peer network so that no one corporation gets a first hand look at it.

    www.notnet.org

  3. Microsoft Rep. talks about HailStorm at UIUC by philipdl71 · · Score: 3 · on Hailstorm: Changing Society's Privacy Infrastructure
    A Microsoft rep. recently came to the University of Illinois to give a talk about .NET. We were expecting C# and the CLR and we got HailStorm. People were rising out of their seats and telling the rep. of all the inherent security and privacy problems with doing something like HailStorm.

    Shortly afterwards a group of University of Illinois students formed an organization, !NET (Not Net). www.notnet.org

    We plan on spreading awareness about HailStorm as well as designing an open source alternative for it. It involves using SOAP and XML and encrypting data inside XML tags with PGP public keys. You choose what information you want to make available to companies by encrypting your entries with their public keys. Then your encrypted information is stored in an existing peer to peer system which is completely decentralized (possibly freenet) so the whole system can't break down or get hacked. In this way you encrypt your data and an unencrypted copy isn't even stored on your local machine.. no one organization, government or company (Microsoft) has access to your data.

  4. Re:Not that simple by philipdl71 · · Score: 1 · on Hailstorm: Changing Society's Privacy Infrastructure
    Most major corporations are going to jump right on the fucking bandwagon! Microsoft is going to use this thing to gather information about your surfing habits and purchases online and allow you to share that information with companies. They want to be the next AOL. Companies will love it because they will get to market directly to the consumer. Consumers will love it because they will get personally marketed to.

    Read Microsoft's HailStorm Whitepaper www.microsoft.com/net/hailstorm.asp

    !NET (Not Net). People against the .NET platform and HailStorm. www.notnet.org

  5. Re:It's been tried by philipdl71 · · Score: 1 · on Hailstorm: Changing Society's Privacy Infrastructure

    Actually they are planning on charging for HailStorm.. they have already said they will not do ads. Haha I wouldn't store my info on this thing if Microsoft was paying me! !NET.. Students against the .NET platform and HailStorm: www.notnet.org

  6. !NET (Not Net). Don't trust Microsoft. by philipdl71 · · Score: 2 · on Hailstorm: Changing Society's Privacy Infrastructure
    I have been following the HailStorm platform since a Microsoft representative came to my school, the University of Illinois and gave a lecture on it. There was much skepticism expressed during the ACM sponsored talk by almost everyone there about the inherent privacy and security problems with what is now known as HailStorm.

    Centralizing data is a huge problem with HailStorm but also consider the innate problems of storing data on the service. You are going to put your data into HailStorm and Microsoft is going to get a firsthand peek at whatever you put in. They encrypt and protect your information but there is nothing to stop them from giving it away to the government or selling it!

    To make matters worse they are inplementing HailStorm into everything they sell including Windows XP, Office XP, the X-Box, and Hotmail. People will be able to link their Windows XP login with the HailStorm service.

    A group of concerned University of Illinois students has started an organization called !NET (Not Net) to spread awareness of the problems with handing all your personal information to a company like Microsoft to be stored in a centralized datacenter. If Microsoft gets their way they will have the keys to this huge collection of information. We respectfully submit that handing control of this kind of information to one company, organization, or government is a horrible idea.

    We are gathering people and ideas and coding an open source, alternative method of doing HailStorm where the user encodes their data with PGP keys and allows other users or companies access to that data only by signing their data with those companies or individuals' public keys. We have considered a variety of delivary mechanisms including peer to peer networks such as FreeNet. Peer to peer distribution would give the advantage of not consolidating everyone's data in one place and would also ensure that the person who stored the information, the rightfull keyholder, will be the only one that chooses who else can view that information, not Microsoft. More information on our at present unrefined ideas is located at our website www.notnet.org.

  7. !NET (Not Net). Don't trust Microsoft. by philipdl71 · · Score: 2 · on Hailstorm: Changing Society's Privacy Infrastructure
    I have been following the HailStorm platform since a Microsoft representative came to my school, the University of Illinois and gave a lecture on it. There was much skepticism expressed during the ACM sponsored talk by almost everyone there about the inherent privacy and security problems with what is now known as HailStorm.

    Centralizing data is a huge problem with HailStorm but also consider the innate problems of storing data on the service. You are going to put your data into HailStorm and Microsoft is going to get a firsthand peek at whatever you put in. They encrypt and protect your information but there is nothing to stop them from giving it away to the government or selling it!

    To make matters worse they are inplementing HailStorm into everything they sell including Windows XP, Office XP, the X-Box, and Hotmail. People will be able to link their Windows XP login with the HailStorm service.

    A group of concerned University of Illinois students has started an organization called !NET (Not Net) to spread awareness of the problems with handing all your personal information to a company like Microsoft to be stored in a centralized datacenter. If Microsoft gets their way they will have the keys to this huge collection of information. We respectfully submit that handing control of this kind of information to one company, organization, or government is a horrible idea.

    We are gathering people and ideas and coding an open source, alternative method of doing HailStorm where the user encodes their data with PGP keys and allows other users or companies access to that data only by signing their data with those companies or individuals' public keys. We have considered a variety of delivary mechanisms including peer to peer networks such as FreeNet. Peer to peer distribution would give the advantage of not consolidating everyone's data in one place and would also ensure that the person who stored the information, the rightfull keyholder, will be the only one that chooses who else can view that information, not Microsoft. More information on our at present unrefined ideas is located at our website www.notnet.org.