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Triangle Boy Lives
mlinksva writes: "Safeweb cancelled their free service late last year, but their P2P anonymizing proxy, Triangle Boy, has been spotted in the wild (south of Fort Worth, Texas). 'Because of its stealth nature, the P2P software does not show up in reports from many filtering products and the administrator doesn't even know the problem exists and has no way to check it.'(via UniteTheCows)."
I can understand the concern that people have over Triangle Boy, but one must consider something important (in terms of the school in the article, anyway): Filters in schools are put in place primarily to prevent students from accidentally accessing some content that the parents may sue over. That, and to prevent kids from wasting their schooltime sending emails. However, to make use of the Triangle Boy, one must a) know how to use it, and b) have a specific reason for accessing blocked material. I don't see the liability issue there - its a piece of "stealth" software that the student, of his own free will, has used - despite acceptable measures to prevent he or she from doing so.
*shrug* Just a thought.
According to this article it works by spoofing the the source address. I know at least my firewall would block that.
And furthermore, it needs to contact a server somewhere (that is, another PC running triangle boy). Now, unless they rely on word-of-mouth to tell people where those servers are, they would have to have one or more (easily blockable) servers to hand out IP-addresses and port numbers to connect to.
I don't know what's the most frightening part. That administrators think they must block users instead of simply having strict but reasonable rules that people will understand and follow? That windows let users install programs like triangle-boy without administrator privileges (or that administrators regularly give users administrator privileges). That most commercial firewalls don't block spoofed addresses? That administrators who for some reason want to lock users in don't know about Triangle boy?
I google searched for Triangle Boy... and found articles about it... and some stuff saying that the source code was released...
But I gave up trying to find it.
Anybody wanna post where to get it?
Also looking for it on p2p networks...
haven't found it yet
squid support the 'CONNECT' method which allows forwarding of arbitrary tcp connections (that's how it supports https).
Clever users will also note that you can tunnel this over just about any port you want. Make this an encrypted tunnel and no filter in the world will detect it.
Unless the filter just blocks all encrypted connections to unknown sites.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
"Dave Salch, CTO of 8e6 Technologies, said because of its stealth nature, the P2P software does not show up in reports from many filtering products and the administrator doesn't even know the problem exists and has no way to check it."
." I seem to have gone off on a rant....
It seems to me that if the Administrator isn't even aware that it's happening, it must not be too much of "a problem", at least not yet. It's obviously not bringing the network down. Of course as the P2P network grows it might become a problem if users do not act responsibly.
Of course network usage is only part of the equation. Using the network to steal intellectual property is already being used as justification by the entertainment industries to ram digital rights management enabled hardware down out throats.
Yeah, we all know it is really about profits, being able to prevent people from exercising their fair use rights and thus artificially create a market where the music and video industries can charge us for every piece of music we listen to or video that we watch. Eventually we'll all have to pay EVERYTIME we listen to music or view video because it will all be a service. We will pay each month a little for this service and a little for that service.
We won't own CDs and DVDs any more. In their infinite corporate wisdom, the remaining few largest corporations that haven't been gobbled up by other mega-corporations, will simplify our lives by removing the burden of actually owning anything. Won't that be wonderful! Just like John Lennon said "no possestions. .
I think my original point was that the
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Excellent statement.
It won't be long before our ISPs consolodate into one company, and we'll have to do the same type of software on our dial-up and broadband connections at home to let us access news and information that wasn't spoon-fed to us by Disney/AOL/TW/MSN.
And if you're a sociologist doing online research of, for example, the impact of evolving internet connectivity in middle-eastern countries, you might want some encryption as well, to avoid that visit from your friendly local FBI agents.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
"Software that promises users anonymity on the Web has caught the eye of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's nonprofit venture capital company, In-Q-Tel, which says the technology can help the spy agency fulfill its mission."
From http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,41462,00 .asp Feb 13, 2001.
If you are wondering what 'mission' they are referring to:
"Internet May Threaten National Security:
Wars of the future may be fought with viruses and hack attacks, not with guns and bombs, studies say. During the next 15 years, the U.S. will face a new breed of Internet-enabled terrorists, criminals, and nation/state adversaries that will launch attacks not with planes and tanks, but with computer viruses and logic bombs, according to two reports released last month."
That from http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,37483,00 .asp. January 4, 2001.
Open source or not, I wouldn't choose to use this software...