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Zero-Knowledge Open-Sources Linux Client
jailbreakist writes "Zero-Knowledge Systems, a Montreal based privacy software company, has released the source code to their Linux client. The software in question provides anonymous web browsing, pseudonymous email, form filling, cookie management and more. You can get the source at opensource.zeroknowledge.com. The source is available under the MPL, and our clientshim and Yarrow (random number generation) implementations are under GPL." A while ago, we had covered Mike Shaver's move to ZK.
The idea here is not that you trust us. The idea is that you don't have to. The name isn't just self-deprecation: the Freedom system is designed to protect us from knowing things about you, as well as protecting you from having us -- and others -- know things about you. The whitepapers cover this approach[*], and the limitations of it, so I won't bore you with the details here.
[*] though they focus on the 1.0 technology, the issues remain largely the same. The biggest change is in the mail system, where the removal of ``reply blocks'' removes the chain-of-warrants attack from that part of the system.
- Both authors and readers of information stored on this system
may remain anonymous if they wish.
- Freenet does not have any form of centralized control or
administration.
- It will be virtually impossible to forcibly remove a piece of
information from Freenet.
- Information will be distributed throughout the Freenet network
in such a way that it is difficult to determine where information
is being stored.
- Anyone can publish information. They don't need to buy a domain
name or even a permanent Internet connection.
- Availability of information will increase in proportion to the
demand for that information.
- Information will move from parts of the Internet where it is in
low demand to areas where demand is greater.
For more info: http://freenet.sourceforge.net/The freenet FAQ
RFC1925
One of the primary features of the Freedom system is that it provides IP obscurity: people see your traffic originating at one of the Freedom network ``wormholes'', not from your real IP address. Is that not clear from the whitepapers?
"Freedom uses an untraceable transaction system that prevents the association of user identity information revealed during the purchase of a Serial Number
(for both cash and credit card transactions) to be connected in any way with any Nyms that are created."
read their privacy statement
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
If you had read the material on Freedom, you'd know that the serial number is used to purchase 'nyms', which cannot be traced back to you (read the white papers on the ZKS site for a description of the nym system.) All that anyone would know is that you'd purchased a Freedom serial number, nothing else. If you don't want even that on your record, I suspect that ZKS would even do a money-order transaction. Keep in mind that if "they" are watching you, then a sniffer on your internet access is going to show that you're running an encryption program, so "they" will already be suspicious.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
As I understand it from the CEO a few months ago, the serial number does not even allow ZK to trace it back to you. They supposedly don't keep track of any of the serial numbers, it's all done on the client side.
Also regarding how it works, it's a kind of "onion" system. Let's say A wants to send a bunch of packets to B. The first thing that A has done upon setting up ZK is to choose up to 3 gateway servers for ZK, call them G1, G2, G3, in that order.
For each packet sent out by A, it will do the following:
- Put header with destination address to B
- Encrypt packet with G3's public key
- Add header with destination address to G3
- Encrypt the whole thing with G2's public key
- Add header with destination address to G2
- Encrypt the whole thing with G1's public key
- Add header with destination address to G1
Then it will send it using the first destination address. At each gateway, one layer will be peeled off using the private key, the destination address read, and the packet will be sent forward.
The cool thing about this is that at any point in the path, if someone intercepts and somehow knows the private key of a gateway, it can only figure out the previous and next hops, not the whole path.
Of course, if B has PGP or anything like that, nothing stops you from also encrypting the packet with B's public key.
The ZK system is an addition to this, providing anonymous transfer, not encryption of data.
It does take a performance hit to do all that, but it's not that bad. I just wish they made it free.
The importance of a good random number generator is often overlooked. Since symmetric (== fast)session keys are mostly randomly generated (and then encrypted by the asymmetric (==dog slow) user keys) if the the random number generator is weak, this can undermine the whole system's security.
You all recall that netscape's already paltry 40 bit encraption actually only had something like 14 bits of entropy, because so many bits came from the easily guessable clock (or something like that).
Anyway, Yarrow is from the always popular counterpane people. I haven't had a look at it myself yet, so if anyone has given it a gander, a summary would be well appreciated.
You can find out more here: .hu t.fi/Opinnot/Tik-110.501/1995/zeroknowledge.html
http://www.tml
I have no idea if any part of Zero Knowledge Inc.'s sytems use zero knowledge proofs or whether they just chose it for its cool name and vague relevancy.
In first issue of Help Net Security newsletter (named Default for some strange reason that bugged us for along time), published on Friday 13 August 1999, one of our editors was Jordan Socran from Zero Knowledge Systems. His first piece was about ZKS and its history, so it is very interesting to read it...
URL:
http://www.net-security.org/ tex t/articles/zks.shtml
I'll also try to find out an old interview I did with them, when Freedom wasn't even created, where he talks about future plans etc. I'll add the URL to this thread...
Cheers
The only reason I kept a windows 98 box around was to run freedom. Looks like I can format that thing now.
Freedom is great. No one can trace your identity. If someone complains, they can trace it back to your nym and shut down the nym, but they can't trace the nym to you. When you buy a serial number, you get 5 nyms, or as I call them, 5 mistakes before you have to buy another serial number. You can do email, using your nym@freedom.net which is totally untraceable to anyone, unless you are stupid and put a signature in it. You can use IRC, ssh, telnet, www, and pretty much anything else that is a simple port to port connection. It's all anonymous, remote machines see a connection from an IP owned by zero knowledge, not from you.
I gladly fork out money for this service. If more people pay for it, ZK can afford to put in more servers and better servers to increase the performance of their network. It can be slow at times, but I only turn it on when I need it.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
I've been looking at Freedom for a long time. In fact, I was a beta tester for all of three minutes, until the beta software somehow managed to complately hose my ability to connect to the Net--I have no idea how it managed to do it, but it was probably because I had some funky firewalls installed at the time. Anyway, what I want to know is this: How can it possibly be anonymous, in a country like the U.S.? Don't you guys get calls from law enforcement agencies all the time, and it it's really anonymous aren't those law enforcement types very, very angry? Why isn't the Web or USENET flooded with copyright violations, harrassments, and child pornography coming from Freedom, if it's really that anonymous? Or has there been a problem with that, and I just haven't heard?
/. Interview topic some time...
I'm very curious. Please let us know. Maybe an interview with ZKS would be a good
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
So you will need a serial number to use the "privacy services". Where's my privacy if you can track me down to a serial number? It's worst than the Pentium 3 serial number, because you only used it at one computer. If I want to use this software at different places then I should move with my serial number. Or purchase another.
Food for thought.
The tokens are all identical. No traces can be done on the token, and the token can't be linked to the serial number or the nym it is exchanged for.
All of this is explained in the Zero-Knowledge white papers. Zero-Knowledge is commited to providing privacy.