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Darknets Coming Soon?

Anonymous Stalwart writes "CIO.com is running a story on darknets and their implications for security. With the ruling against Grokster, darknets seem poised to become a reality. How this will impact the future of the workplace, from top-level IT/IS managers all the way to non-IT jobs will depend on how the tech community that is developing this technology treats it."

288 comments

  1. How Fitting by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
    1. Re:How Fitting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      It's simply amazing to me how that joke just keeps getting funnier.

    2. Re:How Fitting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Aha! You just gave a proof that a darknet exists on Slashdot. We just can't see it. But this article got propably a thousand dark wannabe first posts already.

    3. Re:How Fitting by Conanymous+Award · · Score: 1

      Darknets - the Dark Side of the Internets!

    4. Re:How Fitting by DavidHOzAu · · Score: 1

      Aha! You just gave a proof that a darknet exists on Slashdot.
      I've know about that one for a long time. If you want to join the party, click here.

      We just can't see it. But this article got propably a thousand dark wannabe first posts already.
      I wonder how they compare to this post?

  2. Ok, real response by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Shouldn't the first sign "something" is up be an increase in bandwidth?
    Once you know its happening, you know you have to identify the problem.

    Unless somebody can root all the routers and IDS systems for every OS along the way, these darknets will always be detectable.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
    1. Re:Ok, real response by agraupe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Even if the darknets are detectable, it still won't be possible to monitor traffic on them. There is still the matter of encryption that will provide relative security to the users.

    2. Re:Ok, real response by l3v1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The point is not hiding the network's existence, but hiding the traffic and the data itself. No use in you yelling "something's going on here" if you have no clue what it is.

      --
      I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
    3. Re:Ok, real response by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      YOu get on the phone or send an email to the owner of the machine and enquire just why there is a shitload of bandwidth coming from their station.
      If theres not a reasonable response then you disconnect them from the net.

      Simple as, this isn't some home user we are talking about, its a corporate system and the company owns the bandwidth.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    4. Re:Ok, real response by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unless somebody can root all the routers and IDS systems for every OS along the way, these darknets will always be detectable.

      Technically, they can look like any kind of encrypted connection, HTTPS, SSH or whatever. Besides, I think the idea of Darknets is flawed to begin with. It is taking current anonymous P2P networks (Freenet, Ants, I2P etc.) and tying both hands behind their back by no longer allowing all-to-all connections, but only connections to people you trust. That pretty much precludes any sensible routing and load balancing because people are selecting the available routes, and you can't create new connections. Say you are the only person with access to two different social groups, all info must flow over your connection creating a huge bottleneck that the software is not allowed to compensate for.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    5. Re:Ok, real response by mr_z_beeblebrox · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Shouldn't the first sign "something" is up be an increase in bandwidth?

      Try monitoring a campus network where you have several thousand users and an obscenely large amount of bandwidth. Oh, and you have live research data being generated on campus and moved to places like the NCSA etc... Bandwidth consumption may vary by tens of megabytes by the minute. So I ask you, in that situation (which I work in) what is an "increase in bandwidth" a sign of?
      I don't understand why this article has such a tin foil hat slant to it. Darknets tell nothing about acceptable use, they primarily identify malware and misconfigurations.

    6. Re:Ok, real response by mr_z_beeblebrox · · Score: 1

      I don't understand why this article has such a tin foil hat slant to it. Darknets tell nothing about acceptable use, they primarily identify malware and misconfigurations.

      Well, TFA took over 10 minutes to load so now that I have RTFAd I guess the darknets to which I refered are different than the author. However, the bandwidth comment stands.

    7. Re:Ok, real response by canuck57 · · Score: 1

      these darknets will always be detectable.

      While technically true, and usually is you can't tell what is going down the darknet. All you might get is a pair of IP address and quantity of traffic. So far many popular darknet's do not use crypto but many do. It is as simple as IPSec between two or more points. In fact, it is possible today to setup a completely private virtual network of friends over the internet by just configuring the operating environment.

      Here is the problem for authorities and I/T security, there are as many legitimate uses to do this. You might get a warant to find out the person was working at home or downloading licensed software or data from a friend to do work.

      That is why Sony rootkit'ed peoples PCs, as at the end points in a darknet you can monitor it. It gets embarasing to haul grandma's to court for watching family videos. Or they might be playing a peer-to-peer game. BTW, I think what Sony did was wrong.

    8. Re:Ok, real response by archeopterix · · Score: 4, Informative
      Besides, I think the idea of Darknets is flawed to begin with. It is taking current anonymous P2P networks (Freenet, Ants, I2P etc.) and tying both hands behind their back by no longer allowing all-to-all connections, but only connections to people you trust. That pretty much precludes any sensible routing and load balancing because people are selecting the available routes, and you can't create new connections. Say you are the only person with access to two different social groups, all info must flow over your connection creating a huge bottleneck that the software is not allowed to compensate for.
      This is true as the implication of "invite-only". There is, however, a middle ground between the current p2p mainstream and true darknets - encryption + origin hiding routing (onion or ants routing), but no invite-only. MUTE is like this.
    9. Re:Ok, real response by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not in the corporate environment - the IT department will simply challenge you to explain why you're using so much more bandwidth than anyone else. If you can't, you either stop or face disciplinary action. At my company that sort of thing could possibly be grounds for sumamry dismissal; ymmv.

    10. Re:Ok, real response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not true, entirely. An invite only darknet could easily implement levels of trust.

      For instance, if user a trusts user b, and user b trust c, and c trusts d, and user a has a share level trust of 1 and a view level trust of 2, (assuming each client has similar settings) then:

      user a will be able to connect to users b and c, but not d, to get files, while only user b can retrieve files from them.

      Bottlenecks may be lessened in this manner at the same time each user gets to set a predetermined 'risk level'. I believe the only thing that would require a direct connections between users a and b would be the retrieval of a CA Cert (or some other such 'public' method of asserting trusts), and timed based refreshes of b's list of trusted peers.

    11. Re:Ok, real response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Say you are the only person with access to two different social groups, all info must flow over your connection creating a huge bottleneck that the software is not allowed to compensate for.

      We found a way around that issue. Feel free to drop in and see for yourself: http://anonetnfo.brinkster.net/

    12. Re:Ok, real response by Florian+Weimer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Try monitoring a campus network where you have several thousand users and an obscenely large amount of bandwidth.

      I have done this and it is much easier than you think. Warez traffic (let's drop this "darknet" term, I always think that it's an end-user-empowered network run over dark fibers) doesn't follow the typical 24-hour cycle in the traffic pattern. The number of legitimate hosts with such a traffic pattern is pretty small in my experience, so it's quite possible to spot the offenders.

      Of course, as a network admin, there isn't much you can do when the host admin says that periodic transfers of multiple GB are perfectly legitimate and done for research purposes. But detection is not the real obstacle.

      Part of the real issue is that so much traffic on research networks is filesharing and warez crap. If you started to enforce an AUP, the bandwidth would drop to minuscule levels, and you wouldn't have any plausible justification whatsoever for those fat pipes. And people feel they need them because of the dick size wars at some research conferences.

    13. Re:Ok, real response by 1u3hr · · Score: 3, Insightful
      ot in the corporate environment - the IT department will simply challenge you to explain why you're using so much more bandwidth

      TFA was focused on corporate espionage, which wouldn't necessarily consume huge bandwidth. Besides corporate types thnk nothing of sending huge files (video presentations, eg) around, so even sneaking out big files wouldn't necessarily make a blip. Of course, USB dongles and such are a much easier and right-now threat in that regard.

    14. Re:Ok, real response by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Part of the real issue is that so much traffic on research networks is filesharing and warez crap. If you started to enforce an AUP, the bandwidth would drop to minuscule levels, and you wouldn't have any plausible justification whatsoever for those fat pipes. And people feel they need them because of the dick size wars at some research conferences.

      In other words, massive copyright infringement drives the demand for more bandwith, which drives research, investment and competition, benefitting the society enormously in the form of better technology (both communication and processing, since you need processing power for routing), better communication infrastructure, and cheaper prices for both. I see this as yet another reason for weaker, not stronger, copyright laws.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    15. Re:Ok, real response by Qzukk · · Score: 1

      Shouldn't the first sign "something" is up be an increase in bandwidth?

      Thats also the sign of a new spam source, or a new exploit in the wild, or that your little brother just discovered bittorrent. All it has to do is remain below the level of the rest of the noise out there.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    16. Re:Ok, real response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The biggest darknet is already in place

      e-mail - the orginal p2p application :P

    17. Re:Ok, real response by michaelaiello · · Score: 1

      One of the folks in my research lab has built a system attacking this exact problem.

      NABS uses machine learning to detect the type of traffic by properties of the payload, at the end of the day it dosen't matter what kind of protocol your running, once an admin sees it they can just tag it.

      Nabs is a network abuse detector. It allows a network to define and enforce a use-policy based on bandwidth and content type. It uses statistical properties of packet payloads to robustly and efficiently identify content types of network flows and monitor the flows for any deviations from the use-policy. Nabs does not depend on well-known port bindings or application specific headers to determine content types. Nabs has been tested on OC3 lines and work is ongoing to scale the system to even higher speeds. http://isis.poly.edu/projects/nabs/

    18. Re:Ok, real response by Rich+Klein · · Score: 1
      Shouldn't the first sign "something" is up be an increase in bandwidth?

      Darknets increase bandwidth? That's awesome! All hail darknets!
      --
      -Rich
    19. Re:Ok, real response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You and the OP are both right. Blips in bandwidth useage tell you nothing about actual use, as you say. As an administrator, though, do you or should you care about anything other than bandwidth useage? I am a network administrator for a largish college myself, and I could really care less about how people use our network, as long as they don't impinge on other people's use. It's not my job to be net cop, judge, and jury, and I don't want it to be. So in that sense the OP is right - you know there's something going on that you care about if bandwidth useage becomes a issue. That's the only thing we really monitor where I work. If you exceed a certain useage threshold, you get clamped. Simple and non-judgemental. I don't work for the RIAA, the MPAA, the federal government, or any other entity with a legal interest in people's use of network resources. They can pay for their own detectives.

      (As an aside, the recent expansion of CALEA to include private institutions like libraries and universities means I very well might be compelled to facilitate spying on people. I will become a de-facto informant working for the federal government. As an American, I find it extremely unsettling to experience what it must have felt like to live in post WWII East Germany.)

      I really wonder how long it will be before some patronizing judgemental network administrator (or their employer) gets sued for abridging their user's rights. Sure, there's the "it's a private network, we have the right to rule with an iron fist" argument. There's also the argument that there are in fact limits to the control private enterprises can exert on their employees. Never mind paying students.

      As a rule, it seems students have too many other obligations and distractions to get too caught up in how school administrators sometimes walk all over them. Too bad.

    20. Re:Ok, real response by Florian+Weimer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In other words, massive copyright infringement drives the demand for more bandwith, which drives research, investment and competition, benefitting the society enormously in the form of better technology (both communication and processing, since you need processing power for routing), better communication infrastructure, and cheaper prices for both. I see this as yet another reason for weaker, not stronger, copyright laws.

      Interesting line of thought. But I don't think it's compelling. Contemporary file sharing protocols (especially the search component) are often rather inefficient. Making file sharing clearly legal would make it possible to offer more centralized services supporting it (where it makes sense), which would increase efficiency and reduce bandwidth usage.

      On the other hand, if you outlaw file sharing completely and enforce it rigorously, as a user, you'd have to tunnel all file sharing traffic over secure anonymization networks (similar to what Tor does). Each packet would run back and forth through the network, in order to obscure its sender and receiver, tremendously increasing bandwidth requirements. So, following your argument, truly fascist copyright laws would advance networks even more.

    21. Re:Ok, real response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not. Most corporate types don't even allow end-to-end internet connectivity onto their networks. They force all email traffic to go through particular relays that scan for viruses, and depending on the industry, check for specific classes of keywords, and block mail to certain domains. They block any email over certain sizes or to too many recipients.

      A friend was streaming music at his new job recently. In less than a day they came to find out what he was doing. His 128kbit stream was 30% of the total bandwidth in use at the location, which has 300 people. Bandwidth heavy activity is noticed fast. These companies aren't running your typical consumer level 5 Mb cable modems. They are paying thousands of dollars a month for two or three megabit connections.

      Finally what exactly do people think will happen when they start participating in these "darknets" (which is a stupid fucking use of the name since it already has a definition)? You cross from being a generic p2p open and free music/warez/porn swapping activity into being an invitation only secret cartel. You end up pissing off one of your members and he rats you out to the local federal prosecutor. Instead of having to make the decision to settle with the RIAA for $3,000 you get to make the choice of pleading guilty to racketeering charges and going to prison for three years and paying a $250,000 fine. You will have to get permission to leave the state, forget about travelling out of the country. And the prohibition from working in several large industries might make it hard to get a job.

    22. Re:Ok, real response by po8 · · Score: 1

      If you want to try monitoring your high-bandwidth campus network let me recommend our open source solution, Ourmon. We've been using it for several years with good results.

    23. Re:Ok, real response by spazimodo · · Score: 1

      Well, one option would be to go with wireless MANs (tech has caught up to the point where l0pht's guerrilla net is now feasible on a pretty large scale) as the intracity transfer network, and which used a whole bunch of hosts on the MAN as ingress/egress points to the larger Internet.

      Traffic modeling could be used to insure that the traffic sent across the Internet is not only encrypted, but that it looks like some other sort of traffic (fake game server or web cam traffic or something, anything that has packets flowing 24/7)

      (obviously this is an assload of work and would only make sense if it's done just for the sake of building a cool-ass private city wide wireless network or because shit from the handmaids tail is coming true)

      --

      Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
      Millennium Crisis Line: 0890 900 2000 [calls cost 50p/min]
    24. Re:Ok, real response by xquark · · Score: 1

      I think people are getting darknets and dark-matter confused. One is something
      that is there but has not been seen with the naked eye, but rather its effects
      on its surrounding entities enable one to extrapolate its existence, where as
      the other uuhmm... wait they're one in the same thing....

      OK news flash darknets and dark-matter are one in the same people!

      Hence I for one would like to welcome our new dark-slash-net-slash-matter overlords!

      Arash

      --
      Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
    25. Re:Ok, real response by mr_z_beeblebrox · · Score: 1

      If you want to try monitoring your high-bandwidth campus network let me recommend our open source solution, Ourmon. We've been using it for several years with good results.

      I might take a look at that, but for clarification I didn't mean to imply that we can't monitor the network. My point was simply that a 'blip' in bandwidth is in and of itself meaningless and not 'the way' to monitor.

    26. Re:Ok, real response by shmlco · · Score: 1
      "Even if the darknets are detectable, it still won't be possible to monitor traffic on them."

      No, but if darknets are detectable, I can just not pass the traffic. Or, perhaps, simply give the packets an exceedingly low priority.

      So yeah, you might get your downloaded music... eventually.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    27. Re:Ok, real response by crazyphilman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Umm... NO.

      Unless you are actually ENGAGED IN RACKETEERING, you will not be charged with it. Wielding the equivalent of a Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring is still not illegal.

      Here's some clarification of "racketeering" from Dictionary.com:

      Main Entry: racketeering
      Pronunciation: "ra-k&-'tir-i[ng]
      Function: noun
      1 : the extortion of money or advantage by threat or force
      2 : a pattern of illegal activity (as extortion and murder) that is carried out in furtherance of an enterprise (as a criminal syndicate) which is owned or controlled by those engaged in such activity --see also Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in the IMPORTANT LAWS section --compare ORGANIZED CRIME

      --
      Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
    28. Re:Ok, real response by Hast · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree with you that it's quite easy to monitor data, even on the scale we see here. And let's be clear, there is no need to actually monitor the data. You only need to monitor the amount of data in order to find these darknets. Furthermore, even if you sometimes fail to achieve 100% of data logging that doesn't matter since you'll randomly drop packets from your data loggers and thus the darknets will still shine like beacons of bandwidth. One trick is to look for bandwidth during the off-hours. Typically traffic is low during the night, but people that download a lot typically maintain this during all hours. So during the day there might well be way too much information to parse, but during the nights only the "usual suspects" are working.

      However, as I was previously involved with such logging (as an admin for a small student network) I toyed with the idea of making a more advanced darknet. Usually logging and tracking are based on the assumption that the darknets are operating on usual IP adresses, naturally this isn't necessary. Eg you could let multiple computers on one subnet create a new virtual host together. You would then load balance the darknet over all of these hosts. And this loadbalancing could be made using non-standard IP packets. The idea is that if you were to look at any specific stream of traffic it wouldn't make sense. Only when you correctly put them together are they correct.

      I mentioned previously that you only log the actual data lengths. Theoretically you can make communication channels using elaborate port knocking which would circumvent this. Eg you could use port knocking to transmitt data, in a similar manner as morse code. So you are not really sending any data in packets, you are just "knocking on the ports" of the other computer in a manner which signifies a message. Inefficient as hell, that's for sure, but hard to detect unless you know what to look for.

      The extreme version of this would be to hook up one computer to a central switch on a logging port and hide it. The idea is that this computer would be able to intercept all network transmission on a network and furthermore to allow it to send data on all these ports. That would allow for a pretty extreme variant of the above "multiple computers on a subnet" as suddenly you really have one computer that is hooked in on the entire subnet. This allows it to loadbalance over all of the subnet essentially making it "invicible" to most basic data logging analysis.

      I'm sure people who actually spend a lot of time analysing IP data can think of even more subtle and hard to find ways of creating hidden communication channels.

    29. Re:Ok, real response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First, you are confusing the ISPs and the AA's. If the ISP does that to 100 users in a month, that's a $5000 hit (gotta give them a refund unless you can prove that they broke the ToS which generally don't state a bandwidth cap) and those users aren't coming back. Is the relevant AA willing to cough up the difference? Personally, I doubt it.

    30. Re:Ok, real response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      any reason why:

      tar czvf libs.tgz warez/ ; scp libs.tgz $host:/tmp/ ; tar zxvf libs.tgz ; burncd /tmp/warez ; rm -rf /tmp/libs.tgz warez ; eject; exit

      wouldn't work in this situation?

      Yeah, I know it's different to running a server on campus, but so long as you've got a decent amount of network storage some, it should be ok no?

    31. Re:Ok, real response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      God... you guys are retarded!

    32. Re:Ok, real response by larytet · · Score: 1

      you can also check Rodi - it can work as a members only hub and as a public network in the same time. for example Rodi client can search/download content from the public domain while providing only limited access to the locally published content.

    33. Re:Ok, real response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you do not get geek humor then you not hang out in the middle of a population of geeks. Go hang out in a Young Republicans club or something.

        - Not the original poster

    34. Re:Ok, real response by xquark · · Score: 1

      All I can say is that it takes one to know one! :D

      Arash

      --
      Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
  3. I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by Sgt_Astro · · Score: 0, Redundant

    What the heck is a darknet?

    1. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by MrByte420 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      WOW! The media has discovered VPN's

      --
      If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
    2. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      A Darknet is a private virtual network where users only connect to people they trust. Typically such networks are small, often with fewer than 10 users each. In its most general meaning, a Darknet can be any type closed, private group of people communicating, but the name is most often used specifically for file sharing networks.

      Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet

    3. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by rholliday · · Score: 3, Informative

      That was a short, almost pointless article. Basically amounted to "use standard security practices."

      I found this article about "darknets" that I found informative, even though it's a book ad.

      --
      Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
    4. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only those who didn't read the article are asking that! ;-)

    5. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      What the heck is a darknet?

      The first rule of the darknet is that you never talk about the darknet!

    6. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by doublebackslash · · Score: 1

      Is it not obvious?

      N Qnexarg vf n cevingr iveghny argjbex jurer hfref bayl pbaarpg gb crbcyr gurl gehfg. Glcvpnyyl fhpu argjbexf ner fznyy, bsgra jvgu srjre guna 10 hfref rnpu. Va vgf zbfg trareny zrnavat, n Qnexarg pna or nal glcr pybfrq, cevingr tebhc bs crbcyr pbzzhavpngvat, ohg gur anzr vf zbfg bsgra hfrq fcrpvsvpnyyl sbe svyr funevat argjbexf.

      Gur grez bevtvangrq sebz Gur Qnexarg naq gur Shgher bs Pbagrag Qvfgevohgvba, na negvpyr ol Crgre Ovqqyr, Cnhy Ratynaq, Znephf Crvanqb, naq Oelna Jvyyzna, sbhe rzcyblrrf bs Zvpebfbsg. Gurl nethrq gung gur cerfrapr bs gur qnexarg jnf gur znwbe uvaqenapr gb gur qrirybczrag bs jbexnoyr QEZ grpuabybtvrf. Guvf grez unf fvapr frra hfntr va znwbe zrqvn fbheprf, vapyhqvat Ebyyvat Fgbar, Gur Rpbabzvfg, naq Jverq zntnmvar, naq vg vf nyfb gur gvgyr bs n obbx ol W.Q. Ynfvpn.

      Jura hfrq gb qrfpevor n svyr funevat argjbex, gur grez vf flabalzbhf jvgu gur creuncf zber jvqryl hfrq Sevraq-gb-sevraq - obgu qrfpevovat argjbexf jurer hfref pbzchgref funer svyrf bayl jvgu gehfgrq sevraqf. Gur zbfg jvqrfcernq svyr funevat argjbexf yvxr Xnmnn, naq rira urnivyl rapelcgrq argjbexf yvxr Serrarg, ner abg qnexargf fvapr crref jvyy pbzzhavpngr jvgu nalobql ryfr ba gur argjbex. Gur creuncf zbfg jvqryl hfrq qnexarg fbsgjner vf Ahyyfbsg'f JNFGR. Gur qrirybcref bs Serrarg unir fgngrq gung gurl ner jbexvat ba n arj irefvba gung jvyy or n qnexarg, juvpu hayvxr glcvpny Qnexargf, jvyy or pncnoyr bs fhccbegvat cbgragvnyyl zvyyvbaf bs hfref hfvat na nccyvpngvba bs fznyy jbeyq gurbel.

      Rneyl irefvbaf bs Nccyr'f vGharf nyybjrq hfref gb fcrpvsl gur VC bs n erzbgr fhoarg naq funer gurve zhfvp jvgu hfref va gung fhoarg va n Qnexarg yvxr snfuvba. Arjre irefvbaf qvfnoyr gung shapgvbanyvgl, ohg fgvyy nyybj hfref gb fgernz zhfvp jvguva gurve bja fhoarg; unpxf fhpu nf bheGharf nyybj hfref ba gur fnzr vGharf argjbex gb qbjaybnq rnpu bguref' zhfvp jvgu ab ybff bs dhnyvgl.

      Gur pbzchgre tnzr Fcyvagre Pryy: Punbf Gurbel zragvbarq n vagrerfgvat pbaprcg sbe n jveryrff Qnexarg gung hfrq aba-fgnaqneq serdhrapvrf, cbffvoyl vyyrtny hayvprafrq barf, gb znxr vg irel qvssvphyg sbe nal fvtany gb or vagreprcgrq. Jvgu fbcuvfgvpngrq uneqjner naq hfr bs fcernq-fcrpgehz enaqbz serdhrapl ubccvat bire n ynetr serdhrapl onaq bs, fnl, 900ZUm gb 10 be rira 50TUm, guvf pbhyq or n irel rssrpgvir zrgubq bs frphevgl, naq vaqrrq vf fvzvyne gb gur enaqbz serdhrapl ubccvat gung vf hfrq ol zvyvgnel enqvbf gb znxr fvtany vagreprcgvba irel qvssvphyg.

      So simple...

      --
      md5sum /boot/vmlinuz
      d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e /boot/vmlinuz
    7. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by cecil_turtle · · Score: 1

      Gunaxf sbe gur rkcynangvba, ohg qbrf rirelguvat ba n qnexarg unir gb or EBG-13 rapbqrq?

    8. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://anonetnfo.brinkster.net/ if you are interested in seeing for yourself.

      We feel our security model doesn't warrant an "invite only" position.

    9. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #!/usr/bin/ruby

      ### BEGIN FUNCTION DEFINES
      def caesar text, rotation
          str = ""
          text.each_byte do |c|
            if( c > 64 && c 96 && c \n"
        exit(1)
      end

      file = ARGV[0]

      begin
          text = open(file).read
      rescue
          $stderr.print "No such file #{file}.\n"
          exit(1)
      end

      print "=========ORIGINAL=========\n#{text}\n"

      print "===========NEW============\n"
      smallest = -1
      besttext = ""
      wholetext = ""
      if(text.length > 8192)
          #only use a sample of the text. Probability of being right is near 100%
          wholetext = text
          text = text[0..8192]
      end
      rot = 0
      (1..26).each do |rotation|
          plaintext = caesar(text,rotation)
          temp = plaintext.tr('^a-zA-Z0-9 ','')
          wrongcount = `echo "#{temp}" | ispell -l`.size
          if(wrongcount.to_i smallest || smallest == -1)
            smallest = wrongcount
            besttext = plaintext
            rot = rotation
          end
      end
      print "Best misspelling count: #{smallest} with rotation #{rot} "
      if(wholetext != "")
        print "on sample of 8192 characters.\n"
        print caesar(wholetext,rot)
      else
        print "on whole article.\n"
        print besttext
      end
      print "\n"

      ### END MAIN EXECUTION

    10. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

      C erb-y gbe.poyabew ,day-o yday .bjpflycrb frg-p. gocbiZZ s[)

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    11. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      er..

      #!/usr/bin/ruby

      ### BEGIN FUNCTION DEFINES
      def caesar text, rotation
          str = ""
          text.each_byte do |c|
            if( c > 64 && c < 91)
              str << sprintf("%c",((c-65+rotation)%26)+65)
            elsif (c > 96 && c < 123)
              str << sprintf("%c",((c-97+rotation)%26)+97)
            else
              str << sprintf("%c",c)
            end
          end
          str
      end

      ### END FUNCTION DEFINES

      ### BEGIN MAIN EXECUTION

      if(ARGV.size != 1)
        $stderr.print "Usage: #{$0} <file>\n"
        exit(1)
      end

      file = ARGV[0]

      begin
          text = open(file).read
      rescue
          $stderr.print "No such file #{file}.\n"
          exit(1)
      end

      print "=========ORIGINAL=========\n#{text}\n"

      print "===========NEW============\n"
      smallest = -1
      besttext = ""
      wholetext = ""
      if(text.length > 8192)
          #only use a sample of the text. Probability of being right is near 100%
          wholetext = text
          text = text[0..8192]
      end
      rot = 0
      (1..26).each do |rotation|
          plaintext = caesar(text,rotation)
          temp = plaintext.tr('^a-zA-Z0-9 ','')
          wrongcount = `echo "#{temp}" | ispell -l`.size
          if(wrongcount.to_i < smallest || smallest == -1)
            smallest = wrongcount
            besttext = plaintext
            rot = rotation
          end
      end
      print "Best misspelling count: #{smallest} with rotation #{rot} "
      if(wholetext != "")
        print "on sample of 8192 characters.\n"
        print caesar(wholetext,rot)
      else
        print "on whole article.\n"
        print besttext
      end
      print "\n"

      ### END MAIN EXECUTION

    12. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by SteeldrivingJon · · Score: 1

      The article says it's not a VPN.

      Maybe a darknet is UUCP running on voice-line modems.

      --
      September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
    13. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1
      Or just
      #! /bin/sh
       
      tr ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx yz NOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk lm
      Less flexible, but gets the job done, and you don't need to install anything.

      And, by the way, the whole thing that starts in tr is a single line.
      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    14. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by cecil_turtle · · Score: 1
      Why not just:
      tr A-Za-z N-ZA-Mn-za-m
    15. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      The first rule of the darknet is that you never talk about the darknet!

      The second rule is that all articles about it will be slashdotted.

      And the third rule is that you cannot ask for a server mirror.

    16. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1
      > Thanks for the explanation, but does everything on a darknet have to be ROT-13 encoded?

      No, of course not. ROT-13 is the crypto equivalent of leaving the key under the doormat. The biggest use of it I've seen is in discussion groups to "hide" spoilers like movie endings or some such. A real darknet requires reasonably strong crypto. If the RIAA can pick up your traffic with a packet sniffer and trivially decode it, what's the point of doing it in the first place?

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    17. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by rizole · · Score: 1

      That's the wrong question - The question is:
      What the heck is Google?

    18. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 1
      If the RIAA can pick up your traffic with a packet sniffer and trivially decode it, what's the point of doing it in the first place?
      Doesn't matter how useless the encryption is, it's still a DMCA violation. Since your comments are copyrighted automatically in most western countries, and they're encrypted, the RIAA is breaking a copyright protection mechanism in order to read your content. Just make sure you put in your own comments on a reasonably frequent basis, rather than just sharing MP3s, and it's their ass in the sling....
      --
      "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
    19. Re:I know the question we're all asking ourselves: by aaza · · Score: 1
      The first rule of the darknet is that you never talk about the darknet!

      The second rule of the darknet is that you do NOT talk about the darknet!

      --
      In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
      In practice, however, there is.
  4. Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Informative

    The "Grokster" ruling says that network operators can be liable for users illegal network abuse when operators promote abuse. It's a stupid ruling, but limited. And its standards for proving promotion are unfounded, really allowing just "appreciation" of abuse, without any evidence of public promotion. But operators which do not include even internal organizational acceptance of abuse, which promote only legal use, which offer even minimal protections of abuse, rather than any internal corporate policies which rely on the abuse, are not threatened. The sloppy evidential and jurisprudential standards in that landmark ruling will make it much more expensive for legit operators to remain safe, as they're sued willy-nilly by vengeful media corporations. But the mass media story that "P2P is now illegal" ought to get no promotion on geek sites like Slashdot. If you're going to run a darknet, why not just leave out the abuse promotion, and let your P2P flag fly?

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Dark Ambition by theonetruekeebler · · Score: 5, Interesting
      With due respect, it's not a particularly stupid ruling. Grokster did in fact promote its product as a way of doing something illegal. The Supreme Court agreed that doing so exposed them to liability. If Sears/Craftsman promoted its crowbars as "The Burglar's Best Friend," they'd be liable for that, right? If Louisville Slugger had a booth at the local skinhead rally, promoting its bats as the perfect fag-bashing tool, they'd be liable for that, too. It's that simple---promote an illegal use, accept responsibility for illegal use. Why shouldn't Grokster be liable for promoting the illegal use of its products?

      I have no problem with uniformly enforcing product liability laws. My problem is with the insanity of today's copyright laws. TFA was very sloppy starting off with a falsehood like

      The Supreme Court might have stirred up a bigger problem than it settled when it ruled last June that file-sharing networks such as Grokster could be sued if their members pirated copyrighted digital music and video.

      The Supreme Court said no such thing. But the RIAA/MPAA will of course do everything they can to take a mile from this very straightforward inch.

      --
      This is not my sandwich.
    2. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The Supreme Court found that Grokster "promoted" abuse solely on evidence that Grokster employees planned to use growth from abuse in scaling their network, and considered ways to use that abuse. They did not find any evidence that Grokster publicly promoted abuse. They found "intent" by a corporation, which is not a person who can "intend" (even if you believe that a person's intent can ever be proven). Hence my comment that Grokster "appreciated" abuse, but did not promote it.

      I don't believe that people who promote illegal acts, whether advertising products or mere advocacy, are liable for the actions of those who take them up on their promotion. I do believe that their free speech can be found to be contributory, a lesser liability, when they have either demonstrated expectations of satisfaction of their promotion, clearly reasonable expectations, willful neglect of developing prior expectations, or even negligent passive ignorance of such expectations. Yelling "fire" in a crowded (nonburning) theater is a lesser crime than shoving someone down the stairs. Liability, especially liability for speech to people with freedom of choice, is not quite so simple. The Supremes have made such speech even more complicated, by ignoring its absence, and finding liability where criminals act without even the speech, just the benefit. That's an economic argument, but not a legal one. And the economics of the industry now employ the prohibitive expense to keep new distributors they don't control out of the competition. With the Court as their enforcer.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    3. Re:Dark Ambition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On the "darknet" that I am a member of I claim common carrier status. It is not my resposibility to look after the traffic that goes over my connection. No different than Sprint, Level 3, uunet (are they still around?), etc.

      http://anonetnfo.brinkster.net/ -- the internet the way it _should_ be.

    4. Re:Dark Ambition by More+Trouble · · Score: 1
      They did not find any evidence that Grokster publicly promoted abuse. They found "intent" by a corporation, which is not a person who can "intend" (even if you believe that a person's intent can ever be proven).

      Hm. With that kind of logic, I guess gun some gun manufactures could be found libel.

      :w
    5. Re:Dark Ambition by TimBrady · · Score: 1

      The Supreme Court found that Grokster "promoted" abuse solely on evidence that Grokster employees planned to use growth from abuse in scaling their network, and considered ways to use that abuse. They did not find any evidence that Grokster publicly promoted abuse. They found "intent" by a corporation, which is not a person who can "intend" (even if you believe that a person's intent can ever be proven). Hence my comment that Grokster "appreciated" abuse, but did not promote it.

      That's just not true. Grokster publically advertised that it could be used for trading copyrighted materials. They even advertised specific copyrighted materials that were available for download. See Duke's analysis.

      They say, among other things:
      "Similarly, Grokster sent users a newsletter promoting its ability to provide particular, popular copyrighted materials." ...

    6. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      libel/liable: fraudian slip ;)?

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    7. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      The two references in that Duke analysis to express promotion by Grokster of abuse are the first mention I've seen of actual public promotion. Do you have any links to the actual newsletter, so I can see for myself what qualifies as promotion?

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    8. Re:Dark Ambition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. That was a heinous pun. :)

      I had to go back and re-read it, because the first time I read your post I just dismissed it as YASSM (Yet Another Slashdot Spelling Mistake). Then it percolated in my brain for a minute ("Did he REALLY say that? I mean, there was an emoticon and everything...") and I came back to your post and had a good laugh. Congratulations :)

            -AC

    9. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      "YASSM"? If you're going to obsequiously agree, do you have to SHOUT?

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    10. Re:Dark Ambition by TimBrady · · Score: 1

      I don't know where you could find it -- conceivably Grokster would have taken down any copy of it on their own website.

      I just reviewed this case in a class I'm taking called Computers and the Law, and our teacher expressely stated that Grokster had promoted trading copyrighted materials as one of their main selling points. A quick Google turned up the Duke review as confirmation of this. If you read the actual case on LexusNexus they say that their ruling is narrow and based on the fact that Grokster encouraged violation of copyright. So it's not nearly as bad as it seems, and is, like other posters have said, very much a straight forward liability case.

    11. Re:Dark Ambition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dont you mean freudian slip?

    12. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Well, I don't know - I'd expect the newsletter, the actual overt act of public promotion on which the entire Grokster decision is based (along with a lot more inferred reasoning), to be available from more sources than just Grokster, the defendant. I also expect more compelling backup than a teacher echoing the uncited assertion of a lawschool review. The law community is full of echo chambers. When I find the actual evidence, I'll judge for myself. That's the beauty of our law system, and our computers: we can look at the evidence ourselves, and tell whether the judges made a sound decision, rather than just take the word of a team of experts, with a mysteriously missing basic evidence. When I see the actual newletter, I'll reconsider.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    13. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Is that some kind of freudian slap?

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    14. Re:Dark Ambition by TimBrady · · Score: 1

      I think you misunderstood. My 'teacher' is actually my professor, a lawyer who works in cyberlaw on copyright and trademark cases. He is probably a pretty good lawyer, since he is also a professor at Yale. He would certainly know the evidence presented in this case.

      Likewise, I found the Duke review as something to link to, since I can't link you to the actual case on LexusNexus (it's subscribers only). The decision of the actual case is what we read in class, and is what my professor cited. I've read the case -- it specifically says the reason Grokster is guilty is that they advertised copyright violation as a reason to use their service. That's straight from the judges who made the decision, so even though I can't find the actual newsletter, I'm fairly certain this is not just a poor reinterpretation.

      Anyway, good luck finding the original advertising. Perhaps the wayback machine has copies of the Grokster newsletter's somewhere -- assuming they had copies on their website at some point.

    15. Re:Dark Ambition by 10101001+10101001 · · Score: 1

      So, if I'm reading you correctly, it'd be copyright infringement by Microsoft if Microsoft planned/appreciated the benefit from piracy of their operating system? To some extent, that seems like a thought crime. After all, car makers must know some are used for drug smuggling, some gun makers must known guns are used for murder, and some ice cream sellers must know some of their ice cream is going to be used by a pedophile. I really just don't see where the line will actually be drawn; will it have to be conscious appreciation and can even your disgust over the immorality of actions be enough to some counter any subconscious appreciation? Inquiring minds want to know.

      --
      Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
    16. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Well, I don't think so, but apparently the Supreme Court does. However, Microsoft does make a lot of noise ("public promotion") of antipiracy efforts, BSA, etc. But it does seem that a clever lawyer could hoist MS by Grokster's petard. OTOH, Microsoft was supposedly hoist by its "monopoly" petard in a huge, definitive loss 5 years ago. But the law, even when straightforward in victory, doesn't seem to apply to Microsoft, even when they lose.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    17. Re:Dark Ambition by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 1
      I don't believe that people who promote illegal acts, whether advertising products or mere advocacy, are liable for the actions of those who take them up on their promotion.

      Really? So you think that (say) if someone were to incite a bunch of high-school kids to trash their local MacDonalds, said person should not bear some legal responsibility? I think you would find that 99% of the adult population would disagree with you!

    18. Re:Dark Ambition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I find the actual evidence, I'll judge for myself.

      The sad thing, though, is that you have apparently already made up your mind about what to think about this case. From your original post:

      The Supreme Court found that Grokster "promoted" abuse solely on evidence that Grokster employees planned to use growth from abuse in scaling their network, and considered ways to use that abuse. They did not find any evidence that Grokster publicly promoted abuse.

      Here you claim to be rather certain about something which you know nothing about. When other posters come forth and challenge this claim, you try to twist it into sounding like you're just maintaining a skeptical attitude, when in fact the contrary was the claim -- you wanted to much to believe that the **AA were evil and this ruling was evil that you didn't care to actually look into the case at all. You just spout whatever nonsense you feel like, and then you have the stomach to pretend you're approaching this with an open mind?

      And for that you were modded 5. Business as usual here at Slashdot, I guess.

    19. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      I think that if you would read my next sentence, responsible adults would agree with me:

      "I do believe that their free speech can be found to be contributory, a lesser liability, when they have either demonstrated expectations of satisfaction of their promotion, clearly reasonable expectations, willful neglect of developing prior expectations, or even negligent passive ignorance of such expectations. Yelling "fire" in a crowded (nonburning) theater is a lesser crime than shoving someone down the stairs."

      Arguments like yours might work with an angry mob, but not with me.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    20. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Of course I made up my mind on the available evidence, which I looked into in detail. Then I was shown counterexamples which cite other evidence that is mysteriously unavailable. Citations alone are not enough. When I get the actual evidence, I will judge it. Sadly, your post is precisely the kind of selfserving bullshit you're trying to frame me with. Precisely what I expect from Anonymous Cowards arguing with me with insulting, unbased comments. If you've got anything but total bullshit, settle it now by pulling this vaunted "Grokster newsletter" out of your anonymous ass. Otherwise shut up. My mind is not open to anonymous bullshit attacks.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    21. Re:Dark Ambition by Alsee · · Score: 1

      I agree with you that the supposed "evidence" presented within the Supreme Court Ruling is total bullshit. I particularly [sarcasm]love[/sarcasm] the way they complain about the Grokster name being a derivative of Napster.

      Based on the other poster's clims I have been trying to dig up documentation and I found sort of half support for his claim. I have been entirely unable to dig up the actual Grokster materials to be able to evaluate them for ourselves, but I have located a document from the case that at least makes specific claims about specific Grokster materials that could (if accurate) present a real problem for Grokster.

      MGM_v_Grokster Petitioners_brief.pdf

      Note that the text page numbering and the PDF viewer page numbering are different, so I will list both.

      Look to the second half of the second paragraph on text-page-7 / PDF-page-22 through the first paragraph on text-page-8 / PDF-page-23. Specifically it cites such things as promotional materials advertizing their network searches returning more Madonna songs than competitior networks. In other words specifically promoting superior infringment capability as a selling point.

      If the cited examples are accurate (and as I said I cannot locate the actual referrenced materials) it seems like Groster may indeed have been careless. I still think the Groster case is a very troubling and dangerous outcome, opening the door for P2P and other technologies to be driven to bankrupcy and exterminated through baseless malicious litigation, but at least the examples listed there are not as ludacris as the BULLSHIT arguments against Groster that actually appeared in the Supreme Court ruling.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    22. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      I have to say that the "Grokster newsletter" remaining mysteriously unavailable to any but the complaining attorneys and the deciding justices makes it seem fabricated. We're talking about "public promotion" to a global network of millions of users. How could it possibly not be caught in some archive or another, like Google or its myriad little reflections? I mean, Grokster et al are themselves giant decentralized persistent memories, nearly impossible to expunge of even meaningless gibberish seen by no one. And now all the Slashdotters reading this thread, including those I presume are always yapping at my tiniest inconsistency or mistake, real or imagined, in my posts, haven't found it to show me up. I feel even more strongly that until it's produced, I'll decline to believe it even exists, let alone proves anything about Grokster's liability.

      So maybe that's all good news. If the case was decided on nonexistent evidence at the core of the decision, can the case be thrown out? How does one do that? If I were Grokster, I'd call for a mistrial. The absence of such action on their part does not prove they accept the newsletter exists, just they accept the verdict - usually a given after the Supremes sing the final verse. But what about the rest of us who have to live with it? Like we have to live with the Napster towel-throwing to BMG, right before the Napster payoff by BMG? Or the MP3.com destruction by the RIAA? All of which sew together an unjust framework for content rights and use in the digital age. The rest of us have to start unraveling that web by pulling its threads. How to snag the ripcord?

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    23. Re:Dark Ambition by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 1
      You have contradicted yourself. First you say that you say you think they are not liable. Then you say that "their free speech can be found to be contributory, a lesser liability". A lesser liability IS a liability.

      Besides, my point was about what the general population would think that the legal system should do. Your typical citizen doesn't know or want to know about the legal distinctions. He / she simply knows that people who incite other people to do "wrong" things deserve to be punished. The problem is that there is no consensus on what is "wrong" in this context.

      But returning to what I said. In hindsight, there probably is a significant minority of US citizens who firmly believe that the doctrine of Free Speech should absolve them of legal responsibility for just about everything they say, except shouting "Fire". And the consequences for US society are plain to see.

    24. Re:Dark Ambition by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 1

      s/in this context/in the context of music copying/

    25. Re:Dark Ambition by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      That's some pretty fancy parsing for someone who posts " s/in this context/in the context of music copying/", even in retrospect. I made the distinction between "liability" and "contributory liability", very clearly. If you can't tell the difference, even when it's spelled out for you, you have no business speaking for "the average citizen", adults who typically can tell the difference between forcing and encouraging another adult to do something. Would you also say those "average citizens" want to see every "wrongdoer" executed? Of course not.

      You're just parsing, selectively quoting and selectively choosing your own averages and consensus. Techniques that can win an argument before an unsophisticated audience. But they don't add up to any argument by you to me.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    26. Re:Dark Ambition by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 1
      I'm not going to address your insults and attempts to prove that you are smart, but ...

      ...adults who typically can tell the difference between forcing and encouraging another adult to do something.

      That is the nub of the issue. There are situations where this distinction between forcing and encouraging is blurry; e.g. when one party is manipulating the other. There are also situations where the person who incites a wrongful act deserves more blame than any single individual who commits the act; e.g. when someone incites a race riot.

      Both of these apply in this case. The P2P operators are (arguably) implicitly encouraging foolish and impressionable young people to break the law ... and indirectly making money out of this. And the P2P operators are (arguably) more to blame for the total "harm" to the record companies than any one of the file sharers.

      It is debatable whether the illegal music copying is "wrong" and whether the actual "harm" claimed by the record companies is real. But the fact that Grokster settled for $50M says that they know who the courts would have "blamed" and "punished". In the face of this, legalistic quibbling about "liability" versus "contributory liability" is irrelevant.

  5. the RIAA needs to be careful... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    by prosecuting unencrypted networks like eDonkey, bittorrent, etc. they're only enforcing users to search for encrypted ways to transmit data. And I don't think encouraging encryption is gonna be any good for national security.

    Just a thought.

    1. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by Arkan · · Score: 1

      I see your "national security" for a "totalitarian government", and raises a "privacy protection". Take that!

      --
      Arkan, fed up of people ready to give away freedom for security

    2. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by Homology · · Score: 1
      And I don't think encouraging encryption is gonna be any good for national security.

      Oh man, even for a /. comment this is a silly comment. You don't to encourage use of https when doing online banking or buying from an Internet store? Administrators should use telenet than ssh? Of course, bye bye VPN.

    3. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RTFA, moron. He's NOT talking about https.

    4. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by Halfbaked+Plan · · Score: 1

      And I don't think encouraging encryption is gonna be any good for national security.

      Sure, it will be. The use of encryption will be a signal of dubious opportunity and law enforcement will know who to swoop down on: anybody generating encrypted traffic.

      The problem will be that the real crooks will just use stenanography. But they already do. So there won't be any new problems.

      --
      resigned
    5. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In TFA they are talking to chief scientist from Lockheed. Ever worked with any security folks from there?
      I have, the king of the paranoid freaks! There's nothing to see here folks, move along....

    6. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by WindBourne · · Score: 1
      And I don't think encouraging encryption is gonna be any good for national security.

      Unless of course, ppl are using encryption methods that the gov. has the ability to crack in a realtime approach, and ppl talk more and do not attempt to hide the data in any other way. Then this will allow the gov. to easily seperate the signal from the noise, as the encrypted packets says where to look.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    7. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by Homology · · Score: 1
      RTFA, moron. He's NOT talking about https.

      Ignorant AC. The https protocoll uses encryption, and various P2P/IM/VPN can use https to send/recieve data.

    8. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by jacksonj04 · · Score: 1

      "people" not "ppl". With your signature as it is I'm amazed that you can revert to txtesque.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    9. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by jamstar7 · · Score: 1
      Cops are lazy.

      Considering their caseloads generated by making anything and everything illegal, cops are getting swamped with cases. By tweaking the laws, the government makes it easier for them to clear these cases, so, by generating encrypted data, you automatically paint yourself as a target for law enforcement/national security risk/whatever. The old saw of 'Why do you need encryption if you've nothing to hide?' comes immediately to mind. The government and law enforcement types prefer everything out in the open. They want smoking guns they can point to in order to make their cases.

      Personally, I think what this country needs is less idiotic laws instead of more. And I believe I need more privacy from the government, not less. The government seems to stand on one principle that is in total error: the belief that they have no oversight. My government is SUPPOSED to work for ME. I'm the guy paying their paychecks. And you bet I vote.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    10. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by BlurredWeasel · · Score: 1

      Virtual Public Network!

    11. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by Omestes · · Score: 1

      The thing is, if more and more people use encryption, it will get harder and harder to find the signal (illegal activity) from the noise (legitimate encrypted network traffic). Encryption is slowly leaving the geek circle, every email program has an encryption tick box now, ditto with IM clients, and a lot of websites that allow for authentication. In a couple years most things will be encrypted.

      And how, pardon my naivety, does one go about telling what is encrypted traffic from non-encrypted traffic? Can't you just mask encryption as raw data transfer, isn't that the goal of encryption? It sort of loses its point when you flag the data as "Hey! Look at me! I'm encrypted!" it screams "CRACK ME!".

      Back, well more so, on topic, would DC++ be considered a darknet? It is a limited network (if the hub is passworded), based on trust. Wouldn't any VPN be considered a darknet? Or most VoIP schemes?

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    12. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by name773 · · Score: 1

      sometimes people don't mean exactly what they say; context clues come in handy when this happens. he was talking about people using encryption even when it's only more overhead because they're afraid of legal prosecution. although i'm finding that it's much easier to avoid breaking the law than it is to break the law and cover it up properly

    13. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by shmlco · · Score: 1
      "My government is SUPPOSED to work for ME. I'm the guy paying their paychecks."

      And when the cop comes with an arrest warrent you'll finally get to see what you're paying for...

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    14. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by lolocaust · · Score: 1

      Yeah, all they have to do is make encryption illegal unless you have the proper authority to do so. After all if you're using encryption you must have something to hide..

      --
      Why does my post history abruptly stop? I want to laugh at the stupid things I posted as a kid.
    15. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by handslikesnakes · · Score: 1
      although i'm finding that it's much easier to avoid breaking the law than it is to break the law and cover it up properly
      Well lookie here, we got us a collaborator. One last cigarette?
    16. Re:the RIAA needs to be careful... by name773 · · Score: 1

      nah, i don't smoke.

  6. Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by ThatGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, only 3 comments posted, and the link is already hosed.
    As reported by Darknet dot com, a darknet is nothing more than a place where illegal communication (filesharing/hacking talk/speaking badly of the US president) can take place.
    I don't see how darknets will make things any different. For years we've had gopher, IRC and other communication channels that have been below the vision of the management elite.
    I think lawyers are starting to learn that techies can't be bullied as easily as most, because techies are able to build new infrastructures. Instead of giving up, techies take threats as a challenge or motivation to dive further and further away from public vision.

    --
    What are you eating? isItVeg?.
    1. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Well, only 3 comments posted, and the link is already hosed."

      Perhaps people are R-ingTFA before posting - except the guy who said "what is a darknet"! I know, amazing.

    2. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Give me one port, give me one port mister, give me one port out the door ...

      Give me one port, give me one port mister, and I won't be back for more ...

    3. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >> a place where illegal communication (filesharing/hacking talk/speaking badly of the US president) can take place

      Oh, a place like say... /.?

    4. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by william_w_bush · · Score: 1
      I think lawyers are starting to learn that techies can't be bullied as easily as most, because techies are able to build new infrastructures. Instead of giving up, techies take threats as a challenge or motivation to dive further and further away from public vision.


      while lawyers otoh, get paid by the hour. sit back and grab a beer, this fight ain't going nowhere.

      seriously, it's like the cold war, it's against lawyers interests for either side to win, endless escalation is killer for billable hours. this kind of thing has been happening in every field of industry, blame the US for producing way too many of the vermin.
      --
      The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
    5. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NOVEMBER 1, 2005 | CIO MAGAZINE
      FILE SHARING
      Spies in the Server Closet
      BY MICHAEL JACKMAN

      Advertisers

      The Supreme Court might have stirred up a bigger problem than it settled when it ruled last June that file-sharing networks such as Grokster could be sued if their members pirated copyrighted digital music and video.

      Since then, some programmers have announced they would pursue so-called darknets. These private, invitation-only networks can be invisible to even state-of-the-art sleuthing. And although they're attractive as a way to get around the entertainment industry's zeal in prosecuting digital piracy, they could also create a new channel for corporate espionage, says Eric Cole, chief scientist for Lockheed Martin Information Technology.

      Cole defines a darknet as a group of individuals who have a covert, dispersed communication channel. While file-sharing networks such as Grokster and even VPNs use public networks to exchange information, with a darknet, he says, "you don't know it's there in the first place."

      All an employee has to do to set one up is install file-sharing software written for darknets and invite someone on the outside to join, thus creating a private connection that's unlikely to be detected. "The Internet is so vast, porous and complex, it's easy to set up underground networks that are almost impossible to find and take down," says Cole.

      He advises that the best--and perhaps only--defense against darknets is a combination of network security best practices (such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems) and keeping intellectual property under lock and key. In addition, he says, companies should enact a security policy called "least privilege," which means users are given the least amount of access they need to do their jobs. "Usually if a darknet is set up it's because an individual has too much access," Cole says.

    6. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by oztiks · · Score: 1

      The Darknet is a relatively new concept. The term was coined in a scientific paper four Microsoft researchers released in November 2002 at a computer conference.

      Ohhh gawd save our souls, microsoft _DID NOT_ coin this term togeather its an old school IRC term thats as old as the term efnet ...

    7. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

      Except that if you speak badly of the US president, Java, or a few other favorites, you get modded down, severely reducing the effectiveness of your communication.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    8. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      blame the US for producing way too many of the vermin.

      That's the most reasonable bit of U.S.-bashing I've heard yet on Slashdot. At least you didn't single out all of us as being warmongers or evil or Bush-lovers or whatever. And you're right: we're becoming a remarkably litigious society. Not that I have any idea how to cure the problem.

      But your average corporate attorney isn't the problem, he or she is simply a tool, and a symptom of a larger problem. It is bad law, admittedly written by a bunch of lawyers (collectively known as "Congress"), combined with corporate executives who see nothing but dollar signs. Corporate lawyers just don't sit around suing people and companies for fun: somebody has to pay them to do it, and pay them handsomely. Those people are the ones you need to worry about.

      You know, like the good folks in charge of Lexmark, Diebold and DirecTV. Laws like the DMCA just gave them an opportunity to put their lawyers to work. All Congress did was give a loaded gun to a bunch of idiots.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    9. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by Tekgno · · Score: 1

      While US bashing is can be good fun now and then it is not the worst when it comes to litigation. Yugoslavia, Tanzania, Australia, New Zealand and Canada all rank higher on a per-capita basis.

    10. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by BeerCat · · Score: 1

      we're becoming a remarkably litigious society. Not that I have any idea how to cure the problem.

      The obvious, if paradoxical, solution is to sue anyone prepared to resort to litigation....

      Um...

      I'll get my coat

      --
      "She's furniture with a pulse"
    11. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by mpeg4codec · · Score: 1

      You can speak badly of the president all you want in any public forum. That falls under the prime First Amendment right: freedom of speech. However, it's a whole different ballgame if you start making direct threats to the safety of the president.

      Of course, I'm assuming you're talking about the United States. Other countries with a president as head of state may not have the same freedom of speech clauses in their governing documents.

    12. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that if you speak badly of the US president, Java, or a few other favorites, you get modded down, severely reducing the effectiveness of your communication.

      Speaking badly of George Bush will get you modded down?

      Maybe your slashdot in Bizarro dimension doesn't reward Bush-bashing but this here slashdot is clearly riding the Bush-bashing bandwagon.

      Bash bush and expect a +5 insightful or funny depending on whether the moderators sprayed caffinated beverage from their nostrils as they purveyed your prose.

    13. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by Ralp · · Score: 1
      I'll get my coat

      Surely you mean your suit.
    14. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by moosesocks · · Score: 1

      I don't see how darknets will make things any different. For years we've had gopher, IRC and other communication channels that have been below the vision of the management elite.

      Dude. If gopher is the only way you can support your argument, no matter what that argument is, you really need to reevaluate your position :-)

      But seriously. The US Government was one of the biggest supporters of Gopher. I'd hardly call that 'below the vision'.

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    15. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by Poligraf · · Score: 1

      If you want to find a true culprit behind the proliferation of greedy lawyers, blame Nader. The bastard is nothing but a trial lawyer disguised as a human being ...

      --
      Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
    16. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by oldfogie · · Score: 1

      But your average corporate attorney isn't the problem, he or she is simply a tool

      They are tools, all right...

      They are people, and therefore can and should be held responsible for their actions.

      They can, at any time, say "That's evil, I won't do it." And leave.

      But they don't, they are just as bad as the geedy bastards they work for, and should be held just a liable.

      Bill

    17. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1

      I never said otherwise ... but if you want to truly solve a problem you get to the root of the problem, and lawyers aren't the root. Sure, corporate attorneys do a lot of bad things and it would be nice if some of them got some jail sentences, but if you don't get rid of their lords and masters it won't make any difference.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    18. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am told that the main difference between common law (as used in the USA and most former Brittish colonies) and civil law (as used in most of the Rest of the World) is that common law places more emphasis on precedent, whereas civil law places more emphasis on written law. Precedent is a lot vaguer and a lot less organized than written laws. Thus, it's harder to predict the outcome of a suit without trying under common law than it is under civil law.

      Another thing that sets the USA apart in a legal sense is that the losing party is not generally made to pay (part of) the winning party's legal costs. This makes it less costly to start a lawsuit that you're not sure you will win, and favors those with lots of money; they can simply make the case drag on until the other party runs out of money to pay their lawyers.

      I (being a rather know-it-all European) perceive these two things as problems of the American legal system. Perhaps correcting these issues will lead to a saner legal climate.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    19. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by analog_line · · Score: 1

      Instead of giving up, techies take threats as a challenge or motivation to dive further and further away from public vision.

      The thing is, that's exactly what the RIAA, MPAA, and sundry want.

      They are not so stupid to think that they can stop all copyright infringement. What they want to do is force it out of the light, so you have to take more effort than they believe it is worth to steal it than it would take to just pay them for it in the manner they want you to.

      Moving file-sharing et al into the underground, where you need the secret passwords and handshakes is just fine by the people running the show. Joe Consumer doesn't know about the secret networks, and if the people running them are smart, they're not going to invite Joe Consumer, because more than likely, he'll blab about his super special friends and their formerly secret network won't be so secret anymore. These days any idiot can download Limewire or whatever and get whatever file they damn well please. Make it all underground, and Joe Consumer has to go to the copyright cartels for whatever because he ain't getting into the super secret snobby techie club.

    20. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (Before commenting my bad English, please keep in mind it is just my 2nd foreign language. Btw. how many do you speak? :] )

      If I am not mistaken, the US legal system is based on the German one, where you can sue just about anyone for anything.
      This is good.

      The bad thing that you forgot to embrace is proportion.
      Should I really get X million dollars just because I hurt myself on a product that company Y produces?

      Maybe it is really just enough that I should get compensation for my medical bill and my loss of work time, maybe x2 to compensate for my trouble.

      And maybe the company should be instructed to fix the problem within a reasonable timeperiod under the threat of paying fine to the govertment.
      Yes, that way you still get the pressure on the company and you also get reasonable compensation.

      The effects of making unproportional amounts of money available to anyone with a layer an a half-ass courtcase is what you have in the US today.

      Just my 0.05

    21. Re:Darknets? Blame the RIAA!!! by fallen1 · · Score: 1
      ...a place where illegal communication (filesharing/hacking talk/speaking badly of the US president)...

      Well, out of all the things you listed the only thing NOT (technically) illegal is speaking badly of the President of the United States. It is guaranteed under freedom of speech. The thing you can, but should not do unless you wish to visit with the Secret Service and FBI for a while, is say something to the effect that you are going to (or want to) KILL the President. That is a basic no-no and "they" will be in contact with you asking questions.

      --

      Dream as if you'll live forever.
      Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
      ~Anonymous~

  7. What is a darknet?... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    What the heck is a darknet?

    I thought it was rather obvious from the article.
    some programmers have announced they would pursue so-called darknets. These private, invitation-only [p2p/file-sharing] networks can be invisible to even state-of-the-art sleuthing.
    - The Wolfkin
    1. Re:What is a darknet?... by VENONA · · Score: 1

      Um, we've had darknets pretty much since we've had networks. At least IP networks.

      There's prior usage of the term as an unpopulated region of your IP space. Security people use the term and concept a lot in intrustion detection systems, etc. For instance, if you're not knowingly using a block of IP numbers, any attempted non-broadcast traffic involving that block needs to be investigated. You could have a missconfigured, rogue or compromised host.

      Possibly (as OP indicated) it can all be traced back to the P. Biddle, P. England, M. Peinado, and B. Willman (Microsoft) paper presented at 2002 ACM Workshop on Digital Rights Management, which Cory Doctorow used as Exhibit A in his presentation to Microsoft presentation. The for ease of searching, the title is "The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution." Most popular engines turn it up near the top of results.

      Of course the media have completely seized upon the term, because it sounds eviiil. True geeks will have to know both definitions. The current media usage does indeed sound more like a VPN to me. I wish the four Microsofties above hadn't used the term. It's not as accurate in their sense as in it's original sense.

      --
      What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
  8. Not necessarily illegal by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A Darknet is a private virtual network where users only connect to people they trust. That's it. It can be used for good or evil.

    1. Re:Not necessarily illegal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      well what is by definition illegal?

      i use anonet (a collaboritive, trusted, encrypted vpn, peer to peer network) to bypass government censoring, this would make my actions illegal right? yes, illegal to that country i'm bypassing their censorship.

    2. Re:Not necessarily illegal by drsquare · · Score: 1

      Not necessarily illegal, but I hardly think they're being used primarly to trade legal files.

    3. Re:Not necessarily illegal by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Some of the may be. Perhaps most of them. A darknet looks like a good way to run a Virtual Private Network, e.g. You could, if you chose, even consider a darknet to be JUST a particular design of VPN.

      This implies that every application for a VPN could be examined to see whether or not a darknet could do the job better.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  9. Article Text && Coral Cache URI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.cio.com.nyud.net:8090/archive/110105/tl _filesharing.html

    ---
    FILE SHARING
    Spies in the Server Closet
    BY MICHAEL JACKMAN

    The Supreme Court might have stirred up a bigger problem than it settled when it ruled last June that file-sharing networks such as Grokster could be sued if their members pirated copyrighted digital music and video.

    Since then, some programmers have announced they would pursue so-called darknets. These private, invitation-only networks can be invisible to even state-of-the-art sleuthing. And although they're attractive as a way to get around the entertainment industry's zeal in prosecuting digital piracy, they could also create a new channel for corporate espionage, says Eric Cole, chief scientist for Lockheed Martin Information Technology.

    Cole defines a darknet as a group of individuals who have a covert, dispersed communication channel. While file-sharing networks such as Grokster and even VPNs use public networks to exchange information, with a darknet, he says, "you don't know it's there in the first place."

    All an employee has to do to set one up is install file-sharing software written for darknets and invite someone on the outside to join, thus creating a private connection that's unlikely to be detected. "The Internet is so vast, porous and complex, it's easy to set up underground networks that are almost impossible to find and take down," says Cole.

    He advises that the best--and perhaps only--defense against darknets is a combination of network security best practices (such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems) and keeping intellectual property under lock and key. In addition, he says, companies should enact a security policy called "least privilege," which means users are given the least amount of access they need to do their jobs. "Usually if a darknet is set up it's because an individual has too much access," Cole says.

    ---

  10. Darkness Comming Soon by aurb · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Who else read it as Darkness at first time?

  11. was always going to happen by external400kdiskette · · Score: 0

    p2p cant be stopped because there's to many people using it and using it anyway and you cant arrest everyone and most people haven't stopped because a few people get arrested every now and then with a "it's unlikely to happen to me mentality". now as a natural consequence the same programmers who've made open source p2p programs in the past are still around and will just focus their future efforts on cloaking and de-centralized networks.

    1. Re:was always going to happen by TubeSteak · · Score: 3, Funny
      "p2p can't be stopped"
      Tell that to the Great Fire Wall of China
      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    2. Re:was always going to happen by arevos · · Score: 1

      I don't think the Great Firewall would be particularly effective at blocking content that is designed not to be blocked.

    3. Re:was always going to happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      P2p could be easily stopped if Internet Providers were regulated like Telco's and end-users were only provided with the equivalent of POTS access (via proxied ports: maybe an HTTP port, email and some others).

      To get full net access could require a government license. Just as the government licences the airwaves, they could license IP space in the US. After all, since most of the US is still on IPv4, the argument could be made it is a limited resource and needs to be managed/regulated by the government. I'm sure there would be some constitutional issues to work out, but they could be worked out in Version 3 or 4 of the Patriot act -- come on, use your imagination.

      Modems? You don't think DSP technology can detect illegal or unlicensed modem usage over regular phone lines? That won't work.

      p2p can't be stopped? You really aren't using your imagination.

      Posting this anon, as I don't want to be associated with this sick idea... :-|

    4. Re:was always going to happen by ScottCooperDotNet · · Score: 1

      I don't think they've been told of the wonders of Britney Spears, Nickelback, and Democracy!

    5. Re:was always going to happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like Skype?

      There's an article up on /. today discussing exactly how China plans to block Skype. Last I checked, it was designed to navigate firewalls and routers transparently.

    6. Re:was always going to happen by arevos · · Score: 1

      It's designed to get around NATs and firewalls, but this is not the same as creating a protocol that's designed to be difficult to see.

      For instance, WASTE, IIRC, sends a random n-byte encryption key the moment a client connects. The client and server then use this key to obscure the handshake of public keys. To the outside observer, it looks like a stream of random bytes; there isn't any substrings to recognise.

      To stop WASTE, you'd either need to implement a whitelist, or spend a large amount of computing power checking for keys if no pattern is found. You improve this further by embedding a hard-coded password in each new release; to block this type of protocol, one would need to alter your firewall each time a new client version is released.

      One could go even further by masking your protocol using a HTTPS handshake. You'd then either have to ban HTTPS and thus prevent people from shopping and banking online, or you'd have to maintain a whitelist of trusted sites, which again would seriously hamper Internet business growth.

      Unless you're willing to set up a carefully audited whitelist of trusted sites, you can't stop a protocol designed not to be stopped.

  12. Darknets by ledow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For those that are asking, a darknet is used in this context as a closed P2P system (i.e. you, your mates, your mates' mates and others by invitation only sharing what you have with each other over the internet).

    Reminds me of something me and my brother used to do. We wanted to play a game online over the Internet but didn't want to sign up to yet-another online gaming service (The Zone or something it was called). We both had legit copies of the game, we both had internet connections and we just wanted to play online against each other. We couldn't do a straight TCP/IP connection for some reason or another so the only options left in the software were LAN, Modem or this Zone thing.

    So what we did was set up PPTP between our routers, assigned nearby IP addresses on both sides that routed across the connection and played a "LAN" game over the Internet. As far as I can see this was a type of darknet if you like.

    If we'd had non-legit copies, many games of the era would let you plan LAN without the CD so long as one player had the CD but not across the Internet. Or, say we'd cracked or VirtualCD'd the CD so that neither of us had a legit copy but could still play online. Then this sort of "PPTP darknet" would be used to let groups of friends without the legit CD to play over the Internet without needing the authorisation or intervention of the person running the gaming servers.

    A further thought, bringing it up to the modern day, would suggest that things like Steam could be played over this sort of "PPTP darknet" as a LAN game (connecting to PC's spread over the internet, all disconnected from the "real" internet and bypassing restrictions on who / what is allowed to play)?

    It's a interesting idea, sort of like a hidden black market for the internet (which I'm assuming is where the name comes from). As companies crack down on people lending movies to their friends and similar other quite legitimate activities, things like this are going to appear, translated from the real world where this happens all the time to the Internet.

    It seems to me that these sorts of things have existed for a while, though. I've heard that things like paedophile rings are already using such tactics? Detection is much, much harder than for a centrally administered P2P network. The only way to detect is to infiltrate the network itself, which is basically social engineering?

    1. Re:Darknets by beware1000 · · Score: 1

      these days hamachi does that job pretty well.

    2. Re:Darknets by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Well, if I read it like you then this is basicly a no-news item. If Darknet == private network, then it is essentially nothing more than existing solutions going back as far as "social" p2p networks in the 1970s, one sends by irc to another by e-mail etc. I believed Darknets were to provide an anonymous network on top of trusted peers (your friends). Networks that are only private do nothing if they don't prevent going "upstream". Imagine the RIAA going "Ok, cooperate with us and turn in your peers for a normal settlement, or we'll sue you for $150,000/song without mercy." Which would you choose?

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Darknets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >> a darknet is used in this context as a closed P2P system (i.e. you, your mates, your mates' mates and others by invitation only sharing what you have with each other over the internet).

      >>The only way to detect is to infiltrate the network itself, which is basically social engineering?

      You've nailed the core of the matter: as your closed circles of friends expands to include your mates, your mates' mates, etc, the probability that someone in the circle is an idiot rapidly approaches 100%. Someone blabs to the wrong person and your sekrit network is hosed.

      And the usual litmus test applies: there's an idiot in *every* crowd. So if you look around and don't see one...

    4. Re:Darknets by atokata · · Score: 1

      Ditto me-- A group of friends and myself all migrated to IpCop (http://ipcop.org/ routers for our home networks a couple years back, because of its super-easy-to-use IpSec VPN capability. Allows us to do productive and important things, like playing network games. Hell, I've even used it for more boring, business uses, like moving word documents between a small office and telecommuter's homes.

    5. Re:Darknets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The trouble with invite only darkents, is the same problem that occurs in criminal organizations. Inevitably, someone from the law-enforcement world gains enough trust to be admitted into the circle and the game is up.

  13. Once a upon a time by oztiks · · Score: 1

    Not being a united states citizen so i dont know usa ammendments off by heart but arnet these supposed 'darknets' also protected by the 2nd ammendment, freedom to associate? I belive ever since the dawn of chatlines such as IRC this prohibited the FBI from overseeing private networks in the 1st place? Im sure there are someone can shed more light in this particular issue.

    1. Re:Once a upon a time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The second amendment is the "Freedom to shoot people" one. I'm not sure there's an explicit "Freedom of association" in the Bill of Rights, though many would argue that virtually everything that limits association also limits speech, and therefore would be a violation of the first amendment.

      That said, the Communist Party was explicitly banned in the US in the 50s, and membership was a criminal offense, and from memory, that was ruled constitutional.

    2. Re:Once a upon a time by oztiks · · Score: 1

      Yeah, i typed "freedom to assoicate" in to google and i got this as no 1 :)

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_associatio n

    3. Re:Once a upon a time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most US citizens don't know the Constitutional amendments either. The 2nd amendment protects the right to bear arms, which isn't relevant to Darknets...yet. The 1st amendment protects the right of free assembly but, like every law, it is only words. The law enforcement agencies are not motivated to protect individual rights, nor are corporations. Within the government, only the courts really defend those rights, and then only if they choose to. Ultimately the defense of those rights lies on the backs of the citizens themselves...hence the rationale behind the 2nd amendment.

    4. Re:Once a upon a time by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

      The 2nd amendment protects the right to bear arms, which isn't relevant to Darknets...yet.

      Or not anymore. They scratched the article that said encryption was considered ammunition, right?

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    5. Re:Once a upon a time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not being an English speaker either I guess. The word is amendment...

  14. They'll Never Learn! by TheZorch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can't teach the RIAA anything. They think they can stop P2P file sharing but the truth is all their legal efforts are driving it underground...where it was before Napster appeared.

    There are a lot of very talented techies out there who can come up with some astonishing new tech. A fully encrypted P2P service that masks a user's IP address would make it hard for "the man" to find those who are illegally filesharing. Also, the hacker community can adapt to changing situations faster than any corporation. This is because they aren't hindered by office politics, ethics, patant and copyright compliance and legal compliance. They operate above the law, so it was really no surprise to me when Slashdot ran the story of the trojan that exploited the cloaking ability of Sony's DRM.

    I wasn't surprised one bit.

    Because of Grokster and others the RIAA bring down a new, bigger, and better P2P service will emerge with multiple layers of custom encryption, IP address masking, and no central server that can be distrupted. You could even block ports at the ISP level and they'll adapt again to support multiple ports at once. Its a loosing battle they just don't get it yet.

    Why do you think Internet Security and Antivirus Industies are racking in so much money these days. They DON'T want to see the hacker put in jail because if all the security threats cease and no more viruses are being made they are all out of a job. It a multi-billion dollar industry.

    The RIAA is utter and completely out of their league.

    --
    Michael "TheZorch" Haney
    thezorch@gmail.com
    http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
    1. Re:They'll Never Learn! by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Oh, bollocks. If Darknets become the future of P2P, the RIAA and its members are going to high-five one another and say "We did it!"

      The issue with P2P is that it's a way for a single person to distribute a piece of music to potentially millions of anonymous strangers. That hadn't existed before, and it was, by and large, mostly used for piracy. People took copyrighted materials whose producers were relying upon sales (and realistically have no alternatives) to pay for the costs of production and, without permission, used Napster and its successors to distribute it instead.

      That's what got the music industry in a panic. Suddenly content that could, previously, only be accessed under relatively controlled conditions was available, on a on-demand basis, to anyone who wanted it, without the receivers having to contribute a penny to the costs of production. While some Slashdotters have argued the additional publicity might have generated sales as people were exposed to content they wouldn't otherwise have been, it's also a fact that many, possibly even most, P2P users used P2P to build music collections directly, bypassing the usual pay-for-CDs routes. I know such people, and I know more people who I can definitely say didn't pay money they otherwise would have done, than people who bought CDs purely on the basis of being exposed to the content via P2P that they wouldn't otherwise have been.

      What Darknets do is they reduce the numbers involved considerably, and return music-redistribution to the limited scales we saw in the days of home taping. The participants know one-another. Downloadable music libraries become limited to those of a small group of friends. It ceases to be possible for millions of people to be able to download a song illegally the day after it goes on sale.

      Darknets represent a victory for the recording industry. Oh, they'll continue to chase them, if only to keep the numbers down and limited and prevent a single darknet from becoming large enough to constitute a threat, but over-all, darknets will never be as damaging, in practice, as Napster and its successors.

      Don't think like a geek. The issue with Napster wasn't that you could physically transfer an MP3 from one person to another. It was that you could rip an MP3, and then it'd be available to millions of people within hours, in a form easily searched for and obtainable on demand. In short, if someone thought "How can I get Rosen and the Hillarycats's latest hit 'Copy me to the moon'", they now had two choices: find the CD and buy it, or download the MP3." That latter method just isn't practical with Darknets.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:They'll Never Learn! by Halfbaked+Plan · · Score: 1

      A fully encrypted P2P service that masks a user's IP address would make it hard for "the man" to find those who are illegally filesharing.

      Yes, but a scheme like that makes it equally difficult for 'peers' to find one another. Unless there is a way to invite in peers. Which law enforcement will penetrate. Same thing all over again.

      --
      resigned
    3. Re:They'll Never Learn! by drsquare · · Score: 1

      Driving it underground is probably beneficial. The harder it is to do something, the fewer people there are who'll go to the trouble. Eventually only hardcore hackers will bother with piracy, most people will switch to legal means of getting their music/films.

  15. And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by theonetruekeebler · · Score: 2, Insightful
    ...treachery. Seriously. If they can't go through a public channel to find wrongdoers (that is, to find unprofitable conditions), they will start using undercover agents to befriend and betray their way into darknets. So basically they'll have spies pose as college students then coaxing real students into inviting them into the henhouse.

    Hell, they'll probably set up a few darknets of their own, as "loss leaders" in their quest to fuck as many people out of as much money as possible. And they'll start a terror campaign, too. Did I say terror? I meant public relations. As in "The Guy You're Sharing Files With Might Be A Cop."

    --
    This is not my sandwich.
    1. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by drsquare · · Score: 1

      Hell, they'll probably set up a few darknets of their own, as "loss leaders" in their quest to fuck as many people out of as much money as possible.

      How are they 'fucking' people out of money by selling CDs? Jesus, you'd think they were going round to people's houses robbing them rather than just doing business. All they're doing is closing down illegal trading.

      In case you weren't aware, piracy is illegal, selling CDs is legal, the RIAA aren't doing anything wrong. If people understood and respected the law, there wouldn't be any need for all this hassle.

      Some people on this site seem to think piracy is acceptable, rather than a petty crime, and think pirates are noble crusaders against the evil corporations, rather than just cheapskates.

    2. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by EvilBudMan · · Score: 1

      That's exactly what I think will happen as well. History has shown this many times in the past.

    3. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by deaddrunk · · Score: 1

      Agreed, although it's extremely hard to feel sorry for such a scummy industry. Perhaps if they did ethics and were about the music more than the money attitudes might be different. Having said that stealing from scumbags still doesn't make it right.

      --
      Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
    4. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by Big+Nemo+'60 · · Score: 1

      Most likely, that's already happening. Law enforcement agencies have set up 'sting' bulletin boards in the Fidonet years, way before the internet became popular.

      Read The Hacker Crackdown

      --
      In the long run we are all dead. - John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946)
    5. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by iggymanz · · Score: 0, Troll

      oh, you're saying the RIAA have never harassed or brought charges against innocent people? you're saying they've never tried to get police power? pry your head out of your ass

    6. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by arevos · · Score: 2, Informative

      A pseudonoymous network system like MUTE or FreeNet would solve this by offering plausible deniability. You can't tell whether your neighbours are requesting illegal files, or whether they are merely unknowingly routing a request from someone else on the network.

    7. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by Reziac · · Score: 1

      So you're saying that the **AA is promoting terrorism? ;)

      Hmm. Is there a lobbyist in the house? we need you to elucidate that concept in Washington.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    8. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by HiThere · · Score: 1

      the RIAA aren't doing anything wrong.

      If you had said the RIAA aren't doing anything illegal. >>, then I'd have said "I don't know you're wrong." You made a very different, and to my mind false, assertion.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    9. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by Bodysurf · · Score: 1
      "they will start using undercover agents to befriend and betray their way into darknets"

      What do you mean, "start"?

      That's exactly what they did in Operation: Decrypt, Operation: SiteDown, and Operation: Buccaneer.

      They rely on the "idiot element".

      It's the people that allow these idiots to infiltrate the group that get busted. It's the groups that can smell the rat that still are out there.

    10. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by Suidae · · Score: 1

      That's easy enough to combat. The music industry would lobby to make it illegal or against home broadband AUP's to route traffic for virtual networks, and they'd probably get it too.

    11. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by arevos · · Score: 1

      I think that would be quite difficult to implement such a law. Grokster only got in trouble because it was deemed to be promoting piracy. The RIAA has tried, and failed, to make P2P illegal. What makes you think they can succeed at making VPNs illegal?

    12. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by SirPavlova · · Score: 1

      It's designed to cause fear, so yes, it's terrorism.

      That doesn't mean anything much though... it's a dirty tactic, but 'terrorism' is an overblown concept. Al Qaeda may be much worse than the **AA, but that's because they're vicious killers into the bargain, not because of the terrorism aspect.

      In other words, I agree with you that the attitude to accusations of terrorism in Washington is ridiculous.

      --
      Yar.
    13. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by squiggleslash · · Score: 1
      It's designed to cause fear, so yes, it's terrorism.
      Does that mean Stephen King is a terrorist?
      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    14. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by Reziac · · Score: 1

      "Does that mean Stephen King is a terrorist?"

      Hmm... now that you mention it, it's certainly within the current legal climate for some moron to read a King novel, then sue King on the basis that his novel caused the moron to suffer fear and stress.

      Upon resetting my tinfoil hat, I was moved to extrapolate this to a legal system where (per another /. discussion re new legislation that would morph civil actions into criminal prosecutions) King could be incarcerated as a terrorist, for causing such suffering in his hapless readers.

      After all, it's not fair to blame the reader just because they didn't have sense enough to put down the book before they hurt themselves. So it must be the author's fault!

      Bah, your remark is no longer nearly as funny as it was without metallic headgear :/

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    15. Re:And the MPAA/RIAA's response will be... by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Yep. The **AA and Al Qaeda use essentially the same tactics; the main difference is one of degree (would you prefer a flogging, or shall we simply execute you?) But wait til some evil software from an **AA member finds its way into a hospital or some other critical infrastructure, there to become the back door for something truly malicious, and the distinction of property loss vs death may become at the very least, rather blurred.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  16. What is a darknet?...(Quack!) by vertaxis · · Score: 0

    If it looks like a Duck,
    and it walks like a Duck,
    and it quacks like a Duck...

    Then it's still a BBS.

    Amazing how people have coined a term for tech and a process that has existed over 20 years.

    In the beginning, there was the BBS.
    A place that may be public or private. Sometimes, found only by word of mouth and invitation.
    Secured only by direct phone connections, and the lack of knowlege by the public.
    Places where like minded people could contrbute to discussion boards and exchange files all in one package.
    Private communities that were open and the members had little fear of the darker forces that we now see prowling the Internet.

    Then, people discoverred the Internet.
    A place that was open, had fat pipes, and fewer rules.
    With UUNet, NetNews(nntp), FTP, Kermit, Gopher, and Veronica.
    Ways to connect and share your files worldwide without paying long distance. ...and BBSes began to die to the more efficient, yet more barren medium.
    It took years to get websites/portals up that came close to matching the functionality and community of the BBS.

    Now, we hear of this story.
    Of ways and places where private communities of like minded people come together.
    People seeking to share files and ideas in private communities with lessened fear of the "dark" forces scanning the Internet for "illegal" content.
    Over encrypted, high bandwidth links provided by the Internet.
    By word of mouth and invitaion only. ..and the circle begins on itself again.

    The crux of the issue is that the more the media companies squeeze the public, the more the public will rail against them. Copyrights extended to a period longer than a human lifetime is too long. The media providers seek to restrict use of "their" works and are trying to quash fair use and collect profits from old works while minimizing investment in new works. The large problem is that there is only one set of Copyright laws and they affect more than just media.

    --
    Fear is the enemy; the one true enemy. {Sun Tzu-The Art of War}
  17. Coming? They've always been here. by venomkid · · Score: 1

    It's the way things were and they way they should have stayed. p2p has been a huge mistake, finally giving authorities and companies good reasons to invade the net, attempt to control it, and even put rootkits on our media to "protect" it.

    Small affinity groups always have and always will be more successful at this type of activity than the general public, even when "competition" from the public draws attention, making it difficult for everyone.

    Honestly, I love watching p2p networks fall.

    --
    vk.
  18. Wrong Premise by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From TFA:

    ``The Supreme Court might have stirred up a bigger problem than it settled when it ruled last June that file-sharing networks such as Grokster could be sued if their members pirated copyrighted digital music and video.

    Since then, some programmers have announced they would pursue so-called darknets. ... And although [darknets are] attractive as a way to get around the entertainment industry's zeal in prosecuting digital piracy, they could also create a new channel for corporate espionage''

    Am I the only one who thinks that if darknets are attractive vehicles for corporate espionage, they would be built no matter what the Supreme Court rules on filesharing?

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    1. Re:Wrong Premise by HiThere · · Score: 1

      They would have come eventually. The question is one of timing...and general usage. If they aren't widely used, then those seriously trying to hide (national and corporate espionage, e.g.), won't use them for even low sensitivity communications. If they are widespread, then they will be widely used (though perhaps only in coded form) for things that aren't too revealing.

      It would seem quite easy to use a more secure method of encryption (say a one time pad), and hide the message by sending it over a darknet. Then if it were intercepted, it wouldn't be considered too significant, and would thus be discarded if it couldn't be read without undue effort. IF the darknet were in wide use. Otherwise some other method for communication would need to be developed. (E.g., steganography in boring porn.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  19. Two definitions by michaelmalak · · Score: 2, Informative
    As usual, a Slashdot story summary haughtily uses new jargon without defining the term. So as usual, I go to Wikipedia to look it up. It seems there are two definitions.

    One definition is an encrypted protocol over the Internet. The other definition is using wireless technologies off the Internet. Oddly, the person quoted in the CIO article was trying to claim that encrypted, closed file sharing over the Internet was nothing like a VPN. That makes no sense to me, especially given the other definition of a darknet (the wireless one off the Internet) really is nothing like a VPN.

    A wireless-off-the-Internet darknet could serve Thomas Paine purposes if the U.S. government ever shuts down the Internet in response to a terrorist attack. An encrypted, closed information sharing network on the Internet could not.

    1. Re:Two definitions by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

      "A wireless-off-the-Internet darknet" Sounds like the mesh network that those MIT(?) kids setup in the offcampus housing to provide internet access. Even if the net connection gets cut, they've still got a really big wireless LAN to play around in.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
  20. We could fall back to the true Darknet by popsicle67 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm talking about snailmail. If it gets right down to it you can fall back to this time honored completely private way of transporting any files you wish to share. It also has the advantage of carrying a federal criminal violation against anyone who attempts to stop your mail. If things gat so bad in this country that even this becomes too troublesome we can all move to eastern europe or china as they will become the beacons of freedom much as our country used to be.

    1. Re:We could fall back to the true Darknet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm talking about snailmail. If it gets right down to it you can fall back to this time honored completely private way of transporting any files you wish to share. It also has the advantage of carrying a federal criminal violation against anyone who attempts to stop your mail.

      Actually, snail mail has a lot of limits to its privacy. Anything below the level of 1st Class Mail may be opened at any time by any USPS employee for any reason. 1st Class Mail does have some protection, but still could be opened under a court order. The USPS has been pretty adamant about protecting that provision, but that could well change with the ever more intrusive policies of Bush's Reich. Even without a court order, they can still do a "mail cover" on your 1st class stuff, which involves at the least recording dates, postmarks, addresses, etc. of everything going to and from you.

  21. Already there by m50d · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gnunet is here and working. Fully usable as a P2P network, not as fast as unencrypted but close. I haven't tried using it in pure friend-to-friend mode but the functionality is there. And of course it has all the things you'd expect from an advanced P2P network, searches for automatically extracted keywords, signed namespaces where you can publish content anonymously but show that it's all from you, directories, etc.

    --
    I am trolling
  22. Picking Nits by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

    ``These private, invitation-only networks can be invisible to even state-of-the-art sleuthing.''

    Invisible or incomprehensible? Seems to me that as long as you're sending data over the same Internet as everybody else, others can see that there's traffic. In that case, this is just like a VPN (invite only, encrypted traffic between endpoints), right?

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    1. Re:Picking Nits by EvilBudMan · · Score: 1

      Well, it seems to me like multiple ports at the same time could be added to this as well.

  23. Not Really by IBitOBear · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, If you establish the DarkNet in the right way, once you are connected to a trusted node you could connect to any other node by passing authentication and encryption keys the long way. This would allow for dynamic (re)routing.

    Think of an IRC style web. Basically, a properly designed network would allow one party to inform another that it wanted to make a connection. Then it would make that connection. By pre-passing the keys and proof of identity, you would be able to make arbitrary connections within a "closed surface" of the net.

    ===

    What I have been waiting to see make a comeback is the good old fashioned POTS modem. With all the internet wire-tap laws being generally weaker than the phone tapping laws, it would _really_ make sense to transfer authentications (etc) through a old-fashioned BBS style "drop sites" that were not really on the net.

    So you downloaded some particular binary splash. To turn it into the song or whatever you would have to go get the key/completion-tidbit. Heck, the actual directores could be encoded so you _couldn't_ know what you were passing unless you were also in on the sideband/drop-site.

    --
    Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
    --"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
    1. Re:Not Really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wouldn't it be easier to go pay the 99 cent for that Brittney Spears song you want so bad? Or are you Abu Mummia Al Jamal who must have a way to secretly distribute anti-government propaganda?

    2. Re:Not Really by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Actually, If you establish the DarkNet in the right way, once you are connected to a trusted node you could connect to any other node by passing authentication and encryption keys the long way. This would allow for dynamic (re)routing.

      At which point, you either have a) no scalability (all must trust all) or b) no trust, which negates the entire point of the darknet. Do you trust the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend or a friend? You've essentially reverted back to current P2P networks with an incredibly complex and unnecessary login step. In particular, in only takes one "loophole" to invite someone, who invites others which together infiltrate your whole darknet mapping out all peers.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Not Really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, Britney Spears is secret anti-government propaganda.

    4. Re:Not Really by Reziac · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've been saying for some time now that for secure email, an old-fashioned dialup BBS, with a known and trusted sysop, is one helluva lot more secure than any internet-based email.

      The BBS's sysop is god, he sees all. But on a dialup BBS, no one other than the sender and recipient can see the content of a given local email. (Barring subpoena, of course.)

      Conversely, any node along the internet could intercept and have its way with regular internet email packets.

      Nasty thought: you've got BBS software on your computer? obviously you're supporting terrorism, by offering email that can't be snooped from outside the system! Off to jail with you!!

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    5. Re:Not Really by Omestes · · Score: 1

      Problem with this is getting email from outside sources. A BBS would be a great system for local communications, or a small trusted network.

      I really hope that a solution like this takes off, I miss the BBS scene, perhaps we can find some way to make FIDOnet and doors into a trusted scheme too. Seriously though the BBS idea is great, with the execption of the Sysop, I've been on many a board (back in the day) that ran into troubles when the Sysop either lost interest, or got pissy. Is there a way to develop a secure, and for the most part Sysopless, BBS system? Where, while hosted on his computer, all ptp communications are fully encrypted, even from him? Or some sort of "dumb router" taking the place of a real sysop?

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    6. Re:Not Really by Omestes · · Score: 1

      Forgot to say, pirate/warez boards are as old as BBSs. Nothing really new.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    7. Re:Not Really by Reziac · · Score: 2, Informative

      For email from outside sources -- well, most halfway modern BBS software (defined as 1994 or later) can do internet email via UUCP, and the more recent incarnations use TCP/IP (and can do QWK/REP by regular email).

      Otherwise, and for maximum snoop-proofing against external forces, one has to be willing to make the phone call to transfer mail (both by users and BBS-to-BBS), which may involve a long distance call, and as with FIDO, often a considerable delay as packets hop from one BBS to the next. (As the old tagline goes -- "Internet: modem and phone lines. FidoNet: tin cans and string." :)

      There's no reason you can't encrypt your posts on the BBS, making them secure even from the sysop; in fact this used to be the norm on some BBSs, and I've seen one where it was *required*. You could either UUEncode the encrypted message and post it as ASCII, or attach an encrypted ZIP to an empty message, depending on the capabilities of the BBS software. To the BBS, it's just another message or attachment, it doesn't care that it's not in plain language. So the problem of snoop-proofing against the sysop is already solved (provided he allows encrypted messages. If he doesn't, he's probably not trustworthy anyway!)

      The concept of a "dumb router" may have merit, tho, to prevent any human from seeing where a given packet comes from or goes to. Of course, you can still get caught when you log in, but there again -- in the old days, some BBSs *required* that you use a unique alias and never post your real name. If you're really paranoid, use a pay phone (thus not a number traceable to you) and one of those gadgets that leech to the mouthpiece. (I've got one that does 28.8 -- they're still made, for laptop use in hotels that don't have phone jacks. Hopelessly slow for files, but adequate for QWK/REP packets.)

      There indeed was a problem with sysops losing interest or going off in a huff, but three that I've used had track records of 17 yrs, 10 yrs, and 11 yrs (and counting). So it's not a universal issue. Small ISPs go tits-up about as often as BBSs did.

      BTW I still use two BBSs daily -- one via telnet, the other as QWK/REP by email. And should both die... well, I already own Wildcat. :)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    8. Re:Not Really by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Oh yes, and I remember when folks would pool the cost of the annual subscription fee and share out the ratio'd bytes.

      Do you feel old too? :)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    9. Re:Not Really by Omestes · · Score: 1

      For some reason I blanked out on some of the bigger BBSs/platforms that actually had email access, most of them were mBBS, or the like, with full telnet (or tintin for the MUDers), and net access (I don't think it was TCP/IP, I want to say it started with an S, like SLIP or SSS, I doubt I'm right on this, its been quite a time). Some form of BBS-BBS email would be perfect, actually, since it would still be point to point, avoiding a network. I guess, if sophisticated enough, it would be a network of its own, a... darknet!

      I mostly stuck with local Renegade, or Wildcat boards, the big boards always seemed like cesspools (especially Flatland Center, in Phoenix, loved it... but...).

      I think it is evolutionary, the sticking with the long term boards. The other fizzled, so of course you stuck with the remainers. I remember the great die off of the late-mid 90's, when 90% of BBSs dropped carrier, some lived a ghastly telnet halflife for awhile, but... Perhaps this is different now, perhaps they have reached their optimum number for this time period, and are somewhat stable.

      As for encrypted, I vaguely remember a couple boards with a couple encrypted forums. Most of the encrypted files were warez, though (the obl. warezed Wildcat package, and obl. copy of DoomII). The anon. factor was there, the never give your name, idea. I even remember one local board that was completely anon, it used some system to verify that you were a member, and generated a session name/number for you. Again, been too long, don't remember the specifics.

      Heh, I got my 900Bd Commodore cradle modem sitting around somewhere. You can't BBS with anything faster than a 14.4 any ways, it would be cheating. I'd reccomend using a 2400, or better, a 1200.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    10. Re:Not Really by Anonym1ty · · Score: 1
      Is there a way to develop a secure, and for the most part Sysopless, BBS system? Where, while hosted on his computer, all ptp communications are fully encrypted, even from him? Or some sort of "dumb router" taking the place of a real sysop?

      How about a computerless-BBS.... or a Distributed system. What about a bbs that doesn't exist, rather it is distributed and ran among all the users? Wouldn't that be neat. As long as you had enough users to keep it running. But a BBS that is run as a distributed shared application. No sysop, hell no system, just the BBS network. As long as you had a minimum number of users, the BBS would be up and running distributed amongst all the users. Run it as an encrypted darknet and voila!

    11. Re:Not Really by Omestes · · Score: 1

      Not a bad idea at all. Would it be doable in a purely distributed way (tasks and packages) or in a purely tasked way. By purely distributed, I mean each user has the full software, but that software includes a means for distributing tasks among all the constituant users. Or would each person have a component/task of the entire system. The latter lacks scalability and resilience, so it should be ignored. Just imagining this.

      Perhaps even going so far as that no one actually have a full array of information stored, for further security, just encrypted packets spread about, and of course sent and requested through encryption, as well.

      Though this wouldn't work too well, I think, as a classical BBS (dial-up/local) system, unless each node had several lines. And if run, somehow, through existing ISP lines, it would run into the traffic analysis problem brought up previously in this discussion, it would be noticable by bandwidth, and by the regular exchange of encrypted packets.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    12. Re:Not Really by Anonym1ty · · Score: 1

      Well I think the entire application could be on every computer, however tasks could be distributed throughout the entire network. I wouldn't try this via dial-up-style BBS. as for encrypted packets, they could be disguised. Why not disguise them as as completely different information. One common way of doing this would be to embed the encrypted information in a picture, essentially stenography. It would look like a photo sharing service like Hello or Easy share, however that information would just be used to encapsulate the encrypted packets. You could use stock pictures (public domain) or tell it to use your own pictures. Essentially making a distributed shared dark net application look like some mundane everyday application. Data storage for the BBS could be distributed in a redundant way across the network so if any part of the network was inaccessible the data could be reconstituted from the remainder -as long as there was enough of the network above a critical point still functioning. You would just need to make sure the network could re-synchronize when two parts are split and then regain connectivity.

    13. Re:Not Really by Omestes · · Score: 1

      A couple problems from stenography:

      I never thought it would be a viable handler for larger amounts of encrypted data, transfering plain text, sure, perhaps other simple data, like other date. But lets say I wanted to send a CD image to someone, how does one hide 700MB of data hidden in images? If we split it into managable portions, then it still would add to much overhead to our actual packet. If we were running it as a BBS style app, every forum post read/posted, message sent, file downloaded, would have to be stenographied (?), sent, and unstenographied. This would also be true of coordination packets, to keep the nodes working in sync, though I suppose these could just be bundled with the actual data, if there was a high enough amount of data being constantly transfered between nodes, rather equally.

      It just seems that stenography isn't quite the answer, too much excess data, and too many transforms to make it quick enough for regular operations.

      I've been thinking along the lines of avoiding observable lines completely. Some sort of huge wi-fi network, running a tweaked protocol, with encrypted land line connections to other broadcast nodes. Do this in a nondistributed manner, and you avoid all central data points, meaning snooping gets really hard, barring someone running around with wi-fi detectors, and accessing meaningful content would become impossible. Sadly this looses the non-proximal nature we need, since the exterior lines would be the weak points, unless you had each node connected, sending portions of data to the external points. Might be able to think of a better method...

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    14. Re:Not Really by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Hmm. Private wireless, as a sort of WAN involving wireless and regular phone lines as needed -- that might work (and may be more practical if large files are involved). However, anyone with a laptop can snoop for wireless communications right now, and while you can keep people out, AFAIK there's no way to make it *invisible*.

      As to distributing a BBS among all its users (and speaking as a co-sysop-at-large), I don't see any practical way to do that with existing BBS software, and a big downside is that every function would require realtime access. That would negate one major advantage of BBS-style communications: you can do everything offline, and only need to be connected for relatively short periods and not necessarily on any schedule, thus not sufficient to draw attention even if phone records are examined. Since a BBS uses an ordinary voice line, only a wiretap can tell it's a data transfer and not a regular conversation.

      Remember the base concept here is to keep *email* OFF the regular internet, INVISIBLE to Big Brother, and with NO point where internet-based surveillance can intrude on the users' security and privacy. We're not talking about distributing warez. :)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    15. Re:Not Really by Reziac · · Score: 1

      I remember there being such a protocol as SLIP, which was somewhat akin to PPP. I don't remember it as being a BBS thing, rather for proto-ISPs (like The Well and LAFreenet) back when they all used proprietary interfaces. There may have been for-really BBS software that used it, but I never encountered any.

      I hated Telegard/Renegade with a passion, and found PCBoard just barely tolerable, but I still love Wildcat, especially v4.x. It's up to v6.something now (and still maintained), tho I don't know how 6.x differs from v5.x (which added a variety of real internet-style functions). Prolly ought ask the sysop at Techware, where I see it every day. (telnet://techware.dynip.com -- it's actually grown since it became telnet-only)

      BTW Wildcat is VERY secure; in fact I've never heard of a case of a WC4.x board being hacked. (I suppose it's happened, but not that I heard of, and back then I did try to keep track. It's very picky about keeping sysop and user access segregated, having all field lengths defined, etc.)

      Yep, some boards were indeed cesspools, especially the chat boards -- Usenet and IRC flame wars and trash talk have nothing on the worst of the old BBS message bases. Phew!!

      I ran into one of those wholly-anonymous boards once too, but I vaguely recall it was paid access only and a LD call to boot, so I didn't stick around. There were about 35 active boards in my local calling area (I maintained the active BBS list for my area) and always 3 or 4 that I used regularly, so I wasn't terribly motivated to shop elsewhere. I yakked a lot; I'm all-time #1 or #2 message poster on about a dozen BBSs. :)

      I BBS'd for years with a 2400 baud modem, then with a 14.4 ... since 1997 they've all been a LD call for me, so I think very well of the advent of the 56k modem, and don't mind that trivial cheat. :)

      One of my charity clients used a 1200 modem for a long time, and the nasty thing would often connect at 300 baud. You had to drive stakes to see if it was moving!

      BTW if you haven't been to bbsmates.com, go there and look up your old mates! I'm listed there as "Rez", the more-usual form of my antique handle.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    16. Re:Not Really by Omestes · · Score: 1

      The warez thing isn't quite what I was thinking, though it is a possible application, as would be any large restricted amount of transfers. I was trying to find a novel way to unlimit the data types.

      Imagination!

      I think any access to the regular net (such as off BBS/BBS network) email would be a serious point of weakness, warez or no.

      As for the wifi scheme you could make it possible to detect, but it would be harder to tell what it is, hence the tweaked protocol, you would need a specialized detector to tell the traffic type.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    17. Re:Not Really by Reziac · · Score: 1

      A weird imagination is a plus :)

      I'm thinking that the problem with wifi is the same as with using encryption for regular internet email: sooner or later it'll be observed, and that it merely exists is like waving a banner proclaiming "I'M UP TO NO GOOD!" Better to avoid notice altogether. (If it reaches the point where all communications are tapped, including plain old POTS, we're fucked beyond where any private communications matter or exist anyway.)

      Direct net access such as telnet would be a weakness, tho I suppose how severely depends what functions are available. It still isn't possible (at least on Wildcat) for J.Random User to snoop on someone else's private messages, but there is the issue that telnet itself goes via normal internet.

      QWK by email is no more insecure than any internet email, but here we're assuming that all such email is snooped, so it's by definition insecure (and if encrypted, is a redflag per above).

      Are we paranoid yet? :)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    18. Re:Not Really by Omestes · · Score: 1

      That BBSmates thing is terrible! Five minutes and I found my first board (well second, the first was using some ancient software, and had one line, and 10 users). I could waste some time here finding all the old folk.

      I remember watching single lines of ascii snake across the screen, slowly.

      What happened to my attention span since then? On this T1 I can hardly contain my impatience download anything over 10meg.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    19. Re:Not Really by Reziac · · Score: 1

      [laughing] I too wasted an inordinate amount of time on bbsmates.com, wandering the BBSs I used so regularly that my fingers did their keystrokes without consulting my brain :)

      My patience has gone to hell over the years too... seems the faster you can do whatever, the less time you wish to spend doing it, the worse so once you've experienced the faster version! Alas for me, I'm stuck on 26k dialup, with no alternatives. I get faster transfers from the BBS than from the ISP. :(

      My sister has her very own T1 line at her work. (Where they think schlepping 4GB files around the company network is "normal".) She too is spoiled rotten... I'd settle for merely becoming a little stinky!!

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    20. Re:Not Really by Omestes · · Score: 1

      Point taken.

      So, I guess a BBS with no network connects, unless it is purely dialup.

      Transfers from "outside" would be stenographic, to minimize detection/flagging. Possibly hand transfered, or something. Perhaps the more dangerous items, in our police state, would be stenographic, even on the BBS. Keeping an amount of background chatter to make it look innocuous.

      Now, to up the paranoia, is it possible for the telecoms to differentiate data transfers from voice/fax? Some sort of "this is data, it is not going to state monitored ISP. " If this is it, then I think that there will always be a certain point where paranoia ceases to be viable, no matter your precautions.

      Not that I think it will get this bad, even in the most data-unfriendly regions (China, for the cliche example).

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    21. Re:Not Really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are right, I wouldn't try to hide unlimited amounts of data via stenography, however the point is to hide the data as other data. Some data could definitely use stenography, but you can hide data by many other means. I doesn't all have to be hidden in pictures, you could also hide data as if it were streaming video if needed. It could be possible to actually make a complete system that appeared as something else entirely. What about hiding the data in a system that people could use for other means... If you are a user "in the loop" you could get the encrypted information, if not, what you would see is something that would look like an ordinary picture transfer/ video/ forum transfer website. As a matter of fact, it would be neat if one could set the whole system up have it run 'distributed' and also open the system up for normal no encrypted use. In doing this, you now have legit traffic on the system, you could also use that very traffic in which to hide the data you really want to send. You could embed the secret data within the very pictures (or other data) the regular users were sending. That would of coarse suck for the unsuspecting user of the open side of the system, but as for hiding data, you wouldn't need to duplicate images allowing for comparison analysis... -- A distributed wifi system could also be of interest, however you would suffer from the smaller user base. But you could run a hybrid system between wifi networks and dark net layer on Internet at large. The problem is always going to fall back to obscuring what you are doing. Security by Obscurity isn't usually anywhere near the best, and this itself can be this type of system's Achilles heel. If it is known a system like this can carry data that is hidden, then using a system like this will become the problem. It won't be stoppable, since it is distributed and shared, the data wouldn't look like anything special in particular, but what about programs distributed like viruses targeting this very software? All you need to do to circumvent this type of software would be to send viruses/spyware/whatever out that would compromise a system and just detect the existence of this software. If owning software like this is even just against a TOS with an ISP, or a crime, or whatever all they need to know is if it's there, they don't need to know what the data is. --Before you get wondering on this, think of a regime like China as you picture the scenario. Now wifi is wonderful, but it can be tracked very easily, telephones can be tapped, The point is, you have to make sure no one even knows the software is being used at all.

    22. Re:Not Really by Reziac · · Score: 1

      I know the telecoms used to be able to distinguish modem traffic from voice traffic, as some required that you have a second line if you wished to use a modem at all (modem traffic wasn't allowed on your voice line). This went away in the early 1990s, probably due to expanding modem use and a plethora of consumer complaints (plus the problem of enforcement). Now that everyone and their brother uses a modem, the telecoms would have have hell's own time enforcing such a policy, unless backed by a gov't mandate.

      Occurs to me that faxes are just a glorified specialized modem, and it might be possible to encode messages in the fax data -- crap, doesn't fax actually send stuff as a scan converted to a TIFF? so we're back to stenography, one way or another. And that's another point of suspicion: no non-busines entity needs to send that many faxes!

      As to how to make it secure if outside access is allowed -- the only way stenography wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb is if the BBS accepted NO data except picture files ... but the Bad Guys aren't stupid, and they'd soon regard that as a redflag.

      So we're back to dialup, with a trusted sysop and only trusted users allowed access (or if a user is untrusted, kept isolated as can be done with Wildcat).

      My brain hurts. I think my tinfoil hat is too tight. :)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  24. Light and Dark by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 1
    So, as more people join in and the Darknet gets a more public character, it becomes Lighter?

    Conclusion: many connections suck the Dark out of a Darknet.

    #define HAVE_nanosleep
    #define HAVE_personality
  25. old news by Jerbol · · Score: 2, Informative

    there was a wired article on this very topic several months ago.

  26. Another Gibsonian prophecy comes to pass by Nicky+G · · Score: 0

    The Walled City from Idoru. Makes perfect sense that closed, invisible networks would begin to pop up in this bizarre legal environment. Too bad overzealous copyright holders are pushing people to develop technologies that will be of genuine use to truly "bad" people. Not that the real baddies probably haven't had their own darknets for years.

  27. At the next movie release... by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

    advertisements will state:

    Coming soon...to a darknet near you.

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  28. The Internet is strong in this one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The first rule of the darknet is that you never talk about the darknet!"

    Vader will not be pleased!

  29. SneakerNet by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

    You're really talking about a SneakerNet. "the bandwidth of a station wagon full of HDs" The FBI can request (for National Security) that the Post Office make a copy of "any data appearing on the outside cover of any sealed mail or unsealed mail delivered to an address, forwarding address, or Post Office box" Translation: really labor intensive packet sniffing of an encrypted network. Your postal mail is effectively encrypted because they're not allowed to look inside, but if they spend enough time watching where all those packets go, they can perform the same type of analysis they'd use on any computer network.

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  30. first rule of darknet - don't talk about darknet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    please, "darknets" have been here since before the whole www thing caught on - good ones have anonymous encrypted access to the mainstream p2p network content

    *it's pretty damn annoying when "visionaries" invent things that've been around forever. what's next, indoor plumbing? sliced bread?

  31. Darknets? Blame the apathetic consumer. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I think lawyers are starting to learn that techies can't be bullied as easily as most, because techies are able to build new infrastructures."

    Why yes! I can see all those "techies" building their own "fiber to the curb" and the routers that make it all possible. You guys rock!

    "Instead of giving up, techies take threats as a challenge or motivation to dive further and further away from public vision."

    Well the problem with "hiding out" isn't the difficulty of doing so, but the added time, effort, and resources consumed doing so. That's why a lot of heavy-duty P2P apps consume resources, and have other downsides.*

    *And to think slashdots "IT" and "YRO" section would be mostly empty if you all had exercised your "voting with your dollars" to begin with, instead of "gimme free stuff". Just like you all get the government your apathy generates. You get the commercial market your apathy and selfishness generates.

  32. META-NET by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1



    There is already a well used "dark net". Search around for "meta-net". There are some public entry points. Once you're in you need to know how to setup and configure a VPN client and routing software.

    Then... you're in on a 10/8 IP.

    1. Re:META-NET by name773 · · Score: 2

      doesn't public access go against the definition of a dark net?

  33. Something really smells here by argoff · · Score: 1

    There is no technology reason that I know of why someone would need a invatation only darknet to practice their right to share information freely. But this is the exact kind of orginisation that government people are trained to infilterate. The government is notorious for creating, or infilterating various gangs or club like groups so they can draw in suckers and arrest them in big sting opperations from time to time to justify their over paid budget.

    This method also has the advantage of not hooking people who are 13, or grandpas whose kids did what they didn't want them to do, or people who had their computer hacked and didn't even know they were sharing files. Instead they get willing cooperating knowing accomplices who are easier to sue and prosicute and these structures also naturally form a leadership hierachy that they can attack.

    So my question is, is this really the way things are going, or is this just the system trying to direct the flow in a way that they want it to go? Is it really going to be the next natural social structure, or is it designed to create a hireachial structure that government bureauocrats can infilterate and understand?

  34. Wireless Darknet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been thinking for a while about the possibility of someone simply opening wireless access to a computer that is not connected to the internet, but holds a bunch of media. Possibly people who connect could be taken to an instruction page

    I wonder if the geek (with wireless capability) to regular user ratio would be high enough to create an adhoc network that could expand from the originators house to the neibourhood around him/her and conceivably further?

    Yes there would be physical barriers unless someone used VPN or something over the internet to bridge gaps, but how large could it grow? Stability seems like it would be an issue though...

  35. Re:Darkness coming soon? by MooUK · · Score: 1

    Ancient. But one of the better lightbulb jokes.

  36. Illegal.... NOT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is learning illegal? All the same protocols that apply to the "real" internet apply to some (most) darknets, at least the one I helped to build. So maybe people just want to learn bgp, ospf, dns, how to set up a mail server ..etc...etc..
    Most ISPs these days block port 25, 80, etc..etc.. and you CERTAINLY can't get an ASN unless you are a huge corporation. So what better way to learn some very advanced routing protocols and procedures than to help implement them in a private matter.

    Granted there is the added bonus that you don't have to worry about big brother.

    Then there is the OTHER added bonus that only people that have a clue stick around. We don't mind teaching, but we have found most people that _would be_ warez kiddies don't have the paitience to learn.

    Proud founder of anoNet.

    http://anonetnfo.brinkster.net/

    http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonet

  37. Can't stop the signal by macemoneta · · Score: 5, Insightful
    There are so many ways to abuse TCP/IP that it's impossible to stop data exchange unless you block all traffic. Heck, you can even communicate using ping, as in:

    HOST1: ping -c 1 -p facedead12349876 host2
    PATTERN: 0xfacedead12349876

    HOST2: tcpdump -x ip proto \\icmp and src host host1
    11:41:51.646216 IP host1 > host2: icmp 64: echo request seq 0
    0x0000: 4500 0054 0000 4000 4001 1af7 8752 0886 E..T..@.@....R..
    0x0010: 8752 0888 0800 4550 242d 0000 cf6c 7743 .R....EP$-...lwC
    0x0020: 25e5 0900 face dead 1234 9876 face dead %........4.v....
    0x0030: 1234 9876 face dead 1234 9876 face dead .4.v.....4.v....
    0x0040: 1234 9876 face dead 1234 9876 face dead .4.v.....4.v....
    0x0050: 1234

    Sure, you'll see a lot of icmp traffic, but odds are most network folks won't considering the pad data in a ping to be payload.

    It's like the old ppp over email implementations. Connectivity means data transfer. If some journalist or newbie network admin thinks otherwise, then it's just that much easier.

    --

    Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.

    1. Re:Can't stop the signal by tendays · · Score: 1

      There is btw an application that lets do precisely that, to proxy TCP over ICMP : ptunnel

    2. Re:Can't stop the signal by Lost+Race · · Score: 1

      PPP over email? That's almost as good as RFC 1149!

  38. nah.. this is bunk by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Whatever devices are between the nics (no crossover cable) leave an opportunity to see whatever traffic is going between them. Even ntop will tell you what types of traffic it's seeing - not to mention if you are inside a bunch of hubs. 'Darknet' sounds spectacular, but it just comes down to another stupid protocol running on a non-standard port. If you're lucky, your best luck is to invent your own protocol, encrypt it, and don't share the source with anyone. Good luck getting anyone to trust you though.

    --
    Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
  39. how to build you own darknet (part 1) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1) you need a wireless access point.
    2) a computer with a network card.
    3) a linux distro with samba
    4) a program like "dvd decryptor".
    5) nero recode ...
    no you just plug the wide open AP into the linux box.
    enable SAMBA on the linux machine for anonymous access.
    copy all the recoded dvd movies into the samba share directory.
    end of part one.

  40. Darknets have been around a long time by HangingChad · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I won't say who around here has been using one for years (insert innocent look here) but it's not a new concept. It's only people they know and those with technical skill higher than the average bear. High enough to figure out how to encrypt files with PGP. Not bullet proof, but it sure makes it more difficult for ISP's to figure out what you have in your password protected ftp folder. Especially mixed in with a lot of family pictures, videos and routine stuff similarly secured.

    That group has lists of what they have rather than the items themselves, so it's fairly easy to check for particular files. Sometimes they'll collaborate on new movies coming out. You bought Batman last month, we'll buy Mr. & Mrs. Smith next month. Maybe one of them has a coupon or gets a copy from a neighbor. And so on. They IM back and forth, but never the FTP address which everyone already knows.

    It's not exactly a darknet but the principle is similar. Trusted users, encrypted files. If corporate snoops were going to try and catch that group they'd have to hack their way on to an FTP server, pull files pretty much at random then spend days trying to crack the PGP wrapper. Good luck with that. You might be surprised at how much material five or six different families actually have. Movies, music the differing tastes produce quite a wide selection. They save hundreds, maybe thousands a year and the risk is pretty minimal. And there's no special clients required, just a copy of PGP tools. If that group were 10 people or families instead of five, imagine how much more material would be available?

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
  41. Monitoring traffic by source, destination and type by @madeus · · Score: 2, Informative

    Try monitoring a campus network where you have several thousand users and an obscenely large amount of bandwidth. Oh, and you have live research data being generated on campus and moved to places like the NCSA etc... Bandwidth consumption may vary by tens of megabytes by the minute. So I ask you, in that situation (which I work in) what is an "increase in bandwidth" a sign of?

    Effective monitoring is actually quite achievable with freely avalible software.

    On a properly managed network you should be able to tell exactly who is using how much traffic and what type of traffic (and where it's coming in and out from) and to spot suspicious changes in usuage patterns, with historical data avalible in a format appropriate for a quick visual comparison. All of this should be fed in to your monitoring platform with alerts raised once set thresholds are reached.

    In practice though, it's usually not cost effective to actually clamp down on misuse of bandwith and it's more prudent to let it slide (and/or go for the low hanging fruit if spot anyone taking the mickey) and just pickup the tab afterwords.

    (Disclaimer: The next part of this post drifts away from this specific thread ;)

    I'm not sure why so many people imagine monitoring traffic by source and type is difficult and that they can't be spotted and rate limited on a per user basis, in an entirely automated fashion.

    Using tools like jflow and cflowd (and various other commerical purpose built tools) to do detailed traffic profiling, and to a limited extent shaping, is something a few carriers and large providers do already. Even if your provider doesn't do this, there is a really good chance their transit providers do it.

    At the moment, the majority of providers mark P2P traffic as the lowest priority for QoS purposes as it is, because (a) it's so all consuming and disproportionately resource intensive (compared to far more common tasks like legitimate HTTP traffic and FTP data transfer) and (b) it's hard to complain about slow transfer speeds of what is almost certainly Warez between you and an anonymous DSL/Cable subscriber in another state/country. This is partly why P2P transfer rates can be very crummy (the other major reason being of course the limited upstreams of most users).

    Once you have profiling data for a given port or IP on your network, all you need to do is send a trigger to the switch/router/DSLAM/etc. to either trottle the traffic for that port on the TCP/UDP ports required (as the hardware permits - ideally on a per-TCP/UPD-port basis), or - if your feeling adventurous (or your hardware is crummy) - dynamically re-route traffic for that destination seperately, though a series of systems that are capeable of enforcing very fine grained QoS controls (on appropriate hardware, the 2.6 kernel with iptables and some appropriate modules is actually capeable of impressive work in this area).

    If users start tunneling large amounts of traffic down other ports (and disguising it as as regular HTTP, SSH, HTTPS, etc. traffic) then it's going to be really obvious to spot using automated software, and those those users will find that providers will just impliment systems to nobble that specific type of traffic on their connection while they persist in doing that, and if they want unnobbled connection, they'll have to pay a real premium to compensate. It's also entirely possible providers will start enforcing QoS based on destination too, so that transfers to systems that are common P2P traffic destinations are effectively crippled (and traffic to network ranges used by Cable/DSL/College dorms/etc. could even be rated by default).

    If any users imagine they can 'sneak around' by tunneling P2P traffic and making it look like encrypted VoIP traffic (and warzing to their hearts content at the expense of the rest of legitimate users) they are in for a big shock. They are going to find that suddently their VoIP traffic starts having specific (weekly/monthly) transfer limi

  42. not a new thing! by Eil · · Score: 1

    Why is everybody acting like these "darknets" are some new and dangerous threat? Christ, the Lockheed Martin guy sounds like he's angling for a job in the Bush administration.

    Just because some random article suddenly applied a new word to a private invitation-only network of individuals doesn't make them new. In the mid-90's when I first went online, I would (try to) hang out with the hacker/phreaker/warez types. Because a lot of what they did was illegal (and btw, they got punished back them just as they do now), they tended to form close tight-knit, invitation-only groups. The medium then was/is IRC and via it, they shared knowledge and data. Another thing that hasn't changed is that more often than not, you have to contribute to the group in some significant way in order to both gain admittance and remain part of it.

    "Darknets" have always been around and always will. By their very nature, you don't see them. You can't tell how many there are, and you certainly don't know what's going on inside them because you won't get invited without proving that you're one of them first.

    Without being able to know at least these basic things about them, they simply can't be fought against. You basically have to make sure your own networks are secure and pretend the darknets don't exist because for all purposes, they don't.

    1. Re:not a new thing! by shmlco · · Score: 2, Interesting
      "Darknets" have always been around and always will. By their very nature, you don't see them. You can't tell how many there are, and you certainly don't know what's going on inside them because you won't get invited without proving that you're one of them first.

      Sorry, but if you're using the same network and infrastructure as the rest of us then those connections can be monitored, your endpoints mapped, and your packets and traffic patterns analyzed.

      I'm quite sure, however, that the NSA appreciates your spreading your "totally secure" viewpoint around...

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    2. Re:not a new thing! by Eil · · Score: 1


      Sorry, but if you're using the same network and infrastructure as the rest of us then those connections can be monitored, your endpoints mapped, and your packets and traffic patterns analyzed.

      Yes, but in order for all that to happen, they pretty much have to already know something about the darknet or a member of it, or figure out how to differentiate "darknet traffic" from normal network traffic. If you don't, it's usually going to be very difficult to find it. That was the point that I was trying to make.

      If a darknet wants to hide itself further, they can use can use software that will encrypt data, talk on standard ports, even utilize stenography. Then it's going to be nearly impossible to spot darknet traffic without some sort of detailed and expensive analysis.

    3. Re:not a new thing! by shmlco · · Score: 1
      "...or figure out how to differentiate "darknet traffic" from normal network traffic."

      Ummm... if you flip that sentence around, you'll see that anything that's not "normal" traffic, or from known sources, is by definition abnormal traffic and/or from unknown sources... and deserves a closer look. By choosing to "trust" traffic to and from, say, /., or the iTunes music store, I can ignore them and focus my attention, and resources, elsewhere.

      Further, I can choose to heavily examine upstream traffic from subnets like those belonging to Comcast or Earthlink, where such patterns are atypical, and where a higher preponderance of "abusers" might be lurking.

      And yes, you can try to emulate other patterns, but is spending five hours downloading a single song worthwhile, if you have to emulate a typical 50K-at-a-time web page request pattern?

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    4. Re:not a new thing! by @madeus · · Score: 1

      Yes, but in order for all that to happen, they pretty much have to already know something about the darknet or a member of it, or figure out how to differentiate "darknet traffic" from normal network traffic.

      You know we know how to pickout this sort of draffic already, in an entirely automated fashion, right? ;-)

      If a darknet wants to hide itself further, they can use can use software that will encrypt data, talk on standard ports, even utilize stenography. Then it's going to be nearly impossible to spot darknet traffic without some sort of detailed and expensive analysis.

      As I've already mentioned, it's really not all that difficult. All you have to do is have the system note the source and destination and the type of traffic - what port(s) it's on and what type of data is actually being transmitted (and in the case of encrypted data what sort of traffic does it appear to be - e.g. VoIP, HTTPS, etc.). The existance of tools like netflow are what help make this straightforward.

      The reason it's fundamentally easy to spot is there is a limit to amount of traffic in, and the length of, any legitimate VoIP/HTTPS/SSH/etc. session (not least to a single destination - especially when it's destined for somewhere that is labelled as being a DSL, cable user or college dorm netblock).

      If the data is there, it's always going to be mineable, and there are actually quite a few tools (both hardware and software) designed specifically to help you get at it, primarily to aid network engineering and to allow for Usage Based Billing. Stopping users trying to get away with hogging all the bandwith by stuffing networks full of P2P junk traffic is a big driver for UBB.

      Though personally I don't think there is any real hope for UBB, the technology involved is useful for doing for traffic engineering, because once you have the data required for it you can start to identify and manage traffic much more effectively, and ensure that excessively high volume users get special treatment and that the system automatically limits any negative impact they would otherwise have on other users who have to contend with them.

  43. too much power? by Kaetemi · · Score: 0

    "Usually if a darknet is set up it's because an individual has too much access," Cole says.
    Right... I think it's cause there are too much limits...

    --
    Kaetemi
  44. Re:Coming? They've always been here. by lamp540 · · Score: 1

    If you think that the authorities needed a new or good reason to invade the net the you need to brush up on your american history. Specifically Harry Truman's creation of the NSA and the related creation events of the national security state.

  45. I would guess ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that u do not have wit in your sig, due to lack of such.

  46. The real problem by jmorris42 · · Score: 1

    None of this matters. The RIAA is trying to impose an outdated idea on a population too numerous and clever to stand for it. I don't particularly like the idea of warez (and that IS what 95% of P2P traffic is) as a Free Software zealot, but we passed a tipping point years ago. The average person today (especially among the 30 population) no longer considers swapping files to be immoral.

    Eventually the law will catch up to practice, but until it does the [RM]PAA will continue to drive it underground. I predict they will be increasingly successful at driving it underground and totally ineffectual in achieving their goal of stopping it from occuring. Consider: twenty years ago the local 'computer clubs' were essentially nothing more than groups of folks bringing their computers together for the purpose of trading vast quantities of software. Or put bluntly, as soon as the commom man was given a printing press he set forth printing with a vengence.

    RMS was again spot on. Copyright law made sense when it was regulating the select few wealthy enough to own a printing press because THEY could agree it was in their longterm best interest. Now that everyone has one the game has changed and either the law changes regarding copyright or the law changes to eliminate our representive form of government because longterm, the government cannot continue to have the consent of the governed and keep locking vast numbers of registered voters.

    And while twenty years ago it was only software being copies, technology has marched ever onward and there will never agian be a seperation between computer software, music and video. And those old swapmeets show the logical end path of this game.

    In the olden days you had a few 'yo ho ho pirates' in every town that essentially had EVERYTHING. We will soon see affordable storage systems to make that sort of thing possible with music, with video only a few years later. Imagine a world when the top level pirates have a couple of portable USB drives with every song that charted on Billboard's charts since they began, trading it out in every town, on every college campus, etc. in perfect flac format or 320Kbps mp3. In exchange they get every NEW song that is released so that their collection stays complete. (These obsessive compulsive collectors gotta have em all after all and THEY won't pay for a CD, hence they trade.) For the RIAA, the RIAA's days will become numbered. Sure they can try to sting a few of them, but it won't work in the end. And remember, a generation or two in drive storage later the same thing happens to video. The top level traders will have EVERY hollywood release, every episode of every telivision show, etc. Then it is the MPAA's turn to know real fear.

    The end game comes as storage continues it's increase. To the point where EVERYONE can afford an iPod large enough to hold essentially everything. Then some wit will release a sync program. So that every time you get to know someone well enough to figure they ain't a Fed you will 'sync' your media collection, each of you getting what the other has, replacing lower quality rips with higher quality, etc. Then it IS over.

    What that world looks like, where copyright has been totally rendered comic, I can't really imagine. But it IS coming and we had better be thinking about ways to survive the whirlwind of change it will bring with it because there is only one other option. That would be the dark distopia of DRM and pay for play that THEY have planned for us.

    --
    Democrat delenda est
    1. Re:The real problem by SirPavlova · · Score: 1
      warez (and that IS what 95% of P2P traffic is)

      I'm not sure I believe this... I know I don't have a typical usage pattern, but most of what I get over P2P is video.

      The same applies to a friend I have who has heaps of software, & the only thing he's legitimately paid for in years is Windows. Mountains of warez, but still video makes up most of it.

      --
      Yar.
  47. If this is what CIO's read by Zambarra · · Score: 1

    I dont want to be a CIO.

    What a croak of bullshit. Darknets. Yah. If someone in my office sets up a "darknet" [holy shit what a name, is this guy with the government], its not going to be because they want to talk to their friends from the neighbourhood al qaida cell, its because they want to download content. So next time I am billed for traffic/look at the management console -- I *will* notice that something is going on. Just like the time some tard on our team wrote a script that generated 6k email messages a day.

  48. it never works by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    there is always a new law, or ruling that gets people jumping and flinging poo. As a person who has for the last 23 years replicated 1s and 0s with out the 1s and 0s owners permission, I say this is all an illusion. I remember back in the 80s, software manufactures started to put physical holes in their discs. Here we are some 20 years later and I have to find a progam again to find physical holes in a disc, and I do, and my copy of Lords of Dogtown is now good. Being able to copy digital information for basically zero dollars is a double edge sword for the manufacturers. Even if a manufacturer is smart enough to distribute it's digitial information in a proprietary format it hurts the manufacturer. Look at how much nintendo has lost. I know people that bought a xbox over a gamecube cause the games are easily pirated. Information _WANTS_ to be free, and it will save us ultimately. If this were truly capitalism and the state was not able in helping to determine price (by creating laws, you create price. Why do you think cocaine is so expensive?) Software manufacturers would have to lower their prices.

    On a side note I'm sick and tired of 'programmers'. Everyone I meet is reinventing the wheel, making something again that someone has already made better. That and they are a cocky little group. Impress me, write APIs that still haven't been written yet. Where is my windowing API for the web, and before you post some crap, think about it. I've looked, they're all junk.

  49. Re:Monitoring traffic by source, destination and t by VENONA · · Score: 1

    Please mod parent up. It's nice to a) read this glimpse of the real world of larger scale network ops, and b) see it mentioned that PtoP, which IMHO is still used primarily for illegal purposes, costs us all.

    b) is gonna cost me karma, big-time.

    I'm aware that torrents are a legitimate and effective means of getting that latest Linux distro out, that there are other legitimate uses for PtoP, etc. But I suspect the number of packets in transit at just about any given time carry a lot more illegal films and music than legal software, etc.

    Before a lot of people pile in with how they're stealing music, etc., for some noble purpose, let me say that the vast majority of /. posts I've read (I read at -1) don't strike me as coming from particularly noble people. I think of theft as theft. If you don't like music label policies, etc., get the word out, boycot, etc. Stealing makes you, guess what, a friggin' *thief*.

    Maybe legal things you can do won't have any affect, because people don't care. That sad state of affairs would then simply be the reality of our society. People with the morality of a thief are a part of the problem, not a part of the solution. Perhaps you have a wonderful future ahead of you, as a record company executive.

    --
    What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
  50. MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Been using Hamachi for a while now, it's a total kick-ass.

    1. Re:MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I love your post. I wish I had mod points.

  51. And a third definition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.cymru.com/Darknet/

    "A Darknet is a portion of routed, allocated IP space in which no active services or servers reside. These are "dark" because there is, seemingly, nothing within these networks.

    A Darknet does in fact include at least one server, designed as a packet vacuum. This server gathers the packets and flows that enter the Darknet, useful for real-time analysis or post-event network forensics.

    Any packet that enters a Darknet is by its presence aberrant. No legitimate packets should be sent to a Darknet. Such packets may have arrived by mistake or misconfiguration, but the majority of such packets are sent by malware. This malware, actively scanning for vulnerable devices, will send packets into the Darknet, and this is exactly what we want. "

  52. They really aren't talking about a darknet by monkaru · · Score: 1

    Back in the day, when the mighty gophers roamed the planet, university students would string ethernet cable window to window in the dorms as a peer to peer "darknet". It couldn't be seen or controlled by the administrators because it wasn't on the school network. Of course, it didn't last long at all because the universities excerised their property rights and had the cables removed. Today, it can be done without wires using wifi in their place. A true darknet, maybe even a global one, is feasible. That would be interesting.

  53. Re:Monitoring traffic by source, destination and t by mr_z_beeblebrox · · Score: 1

    Once you have profiling data for a given port or IP on your network, all you need to do is send a trigger to the switch/router/DSLAM/etc.

    Is that all you need to do? Ok, as I pointed out it is a university. People pay to be on that network. People who do things that you may find unacceptable are given grants to do those things. This means that when ou see 'bad' traffic, a certain amount of institutional knowledge has to be applied and perhaps investigative skills to determine if said traffic is bad or not. Also, bear in mind that as universities are the hold outs of free speech you must make the good or bad decision based on knowledge of or about the user without EVER getting to see the data payload on the packet. Still sound simple? Your method in our environment would take our small security team and turn it into abattalion. No university wants a battalion of people looking at their packets. Your proposal is nice though for corporate type networks and does show a great deal of network sophistication, so if I sounded sarcastic... that's just me. kudos to you.

  54. Good Thing by Bodysurf · · Score: 1

    There are some things that the government and the courts have no business getting involved with.

  55. But that's not a problem for IT managers by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you are doing traffic on our network that I need to know what it is, I'll go to your computer and check. In a managed environment, like a corperation, you don't have privacy of your data. You can encrypt traffic, and should (we fight all the time to get the last few telnet users to switch to SSH) but that's to keep random malicious users out, not your IT staff. Your IT staff can come and ask to see what's happening on your computer and "no" isn't a legit answer, as the computer is company property.

    I personally don't see any problems with Darknets that didn't already exist with SSH. If I work in an environment where we don't care what you do, unless it's a problem, then we'll ignore your traffic unless it's excessive. If I work in an environment where we restrict what you can do, then we'll monitor your traffic and if we see unknown encrypted traffic, you'll be asked what it was and your computer will be checked.

    So I see Darknets as a problem for the RIAA maybe, and frankly I don't give a shit about them, but not for corperate IT.

    1. Re:But that's not a problem for IT managers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Feel free to scan my/your machine. Don't be surprised that there isn't much trace of what went on to my flash drive while I was running FreeBSD Live ( nice, can read my NTFS partition). Asshat.

    2. Re:But that's not a problem for IT managers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Feel free to scan my/your machine. Don't be surprised that there isn't much trace of what went on to my flash drive while I was running FreeBSD Live ( nice, can read my NTFS partition). Asshat.

      Feel free to live off ramen and catsup, because after your employment is terminated "for cause" due to running non-approved software on company property, you're ineligble to collect unemployment.

      Severance? Not a chance, asshat.

    3. Re:But that's not a problem for IT managers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      disallow booting from anything other than the hd, don't allow mounting of usb drives.

  56. BBS more viable now by Scott7477 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I agree with you on this; one thing to note is that since long distance phone calls are so much cheaper than they were back in the day a BBS can have a broader-based user group. Users would spend a lot more time on line at two cents a minute than at twenty, obviously....

    --
    "Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
    1. Re:BBS more viable now by earthbound+kid · · Score: 1

      Take that up a notch:

      Create a software modem to connect through a VoIP service like Skype and you can get free dial-up over broadband(!). I'm not sure how useful this would be, but you've gotta admit, it's nerdy as hell. The first one to do it will totally get slashdotted.

    2. Re:BBS more viable now by Pollardito · · Score: 1
      something doesn't sound right about making an internet call to a local BBS in the name of making a non-internet routed data transfer. if you're going over the internet anyway (Skype), it seems like you're ruining the purpose of involving a BBS in the grandparent's scheme :
      What I have been waiting to see make a comeback is the good old fashioned POTS modem. With all the internet wire-tap laws being generally weaker than the phone tapping laws, it would _really_ make sense to transfer authentications (etc) through a old-fashioned BBS style "drop sites" that were not really on the net.
    3. Re:BBS more viable now by earthbound+kid · · Score: 1

      I'm aware, but you gotta admit, it would be a pain in the ass for the feds to tap it. Not saying they couldn't do it, but it's nice to know you'd be wasting a couple hours of their time. :D

  57. We have the tools to observe this already. by botlrokit · · Score: 1
    In large-scale organizations that have massive bandwidth allowances (for whatever reason they use them), doesn't it stand to reason that the types of traffic are consistent with a particular type of information? Doesn't a traffic sample of Ethereal reveal the nature of the packet, and to what ends they satisfy the needs of the organization?

    If the intent is to keep a company's bandwidth from being consumed with traffic unrelated to the company, doesn't it stand to reason that the AUPs that companies develop should be fully adhered to, and properly understood by the employees?

    I am astounded at how much companies show interest in a particular skillset for employees, yet how little they admonish employees for the kinds of traffic they generate. And arguments such as those created when discussing "darknets" (whatever these things are) become useless, if the AUP has a good set of teeth.

  58. Darknets have always been around, and always will. by crazyphilman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Darknets are just the latest "OH MY GOD WE MUST ALL FEAR" line the computer industry is going to use to field a "solution" (probably some kind of sniffer for corporations, which tries to detect traffic which it cannot categorize and produces reports for suits).

    Say it with me: darknets have always been here, and they will always be.

    Hackers have IRC and other invite-only forums, and all the ways in which they've used them to secretly pass information around without the squares being in on it. P2P networks are darknets (for YOU, anyway) if you don't have software which uses the protocols and don't know anyone who knows about them. ANY new network protocol can be a darknet. You can roll your own anytime you want.

    Darknets are the modern equivalent of the Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring. They are NOT the Beginning Of The Fall Of Civilization(tm).

    Don't believe me? Fine. Be that way. Try this fun experiment:

    Write yourself a Java suite that:

    CLIENT SIDE:

    1. Briefly touches a server, downloads the current list of IP addresses that have announced themselves to the server, announces ITSELF to the server, and then logs off. The server IP is probably best implemented as one of a list of possible server sites, so that if one is compromised (doesn't give the correct handshake or whatever) you just move on to the next one. All communication should be encrypted using the server's public key and YOUR public key (RSA between the two points, or whatever is fashionable in your circle of friends).

    2. Lets you compose messages, or file transfers, or whatever, destined for whatever IP address you want to communicate with, again encrypted with both public keys. Maybe you even compress the data first, to reduce bandwidth usage.

    3. Lets you "blackball" any IP address you think is compromised. You could implement this as "My PC Only" or as a common blackball pool, which everyone could vote on, or as a common blackball pool which people could consider provisional and accept or not accept.

    SERVER SIDE:

    1. Manage lists of IP addresses and their status.

    2. Provide a handshake which is meant to test whether your software is authentic and you are in fact an approved node. If you're not, you get sucked into a honeypot and studied. You are NOT given an actual IP address list; rather you are given a fake list full of false leads.

    3. Allow certain admins to control the system to some extent, ousting problematic members (bans) and so forth. This could alternately be implemented on the client side, with a voting scheme, or whatever.

    Bam. Instant darknet. And it's a piece of cake for anyone who's passed the junior-level networking course at any public university. THINK about it -- why do you think anyone studies computer science these days? It sure ain't to find a job... People study computer science to build themselves cool, weird things that stiff, stick-up-their-ass types don't approve of.

    Deal, people. The world is not all simple and sparkly, like an amusement park. We are all grown-ups, and we can do grown up things even if it frightens The Man(tm). And, really, computer science is the closest thing any of us gets to wielding supernatural power. Us geeks can do things NOBODY else can do. Why not do them? Why be a boring square if you don't have to? Build something freaky, get yourself one of those weird, off-kilter cover photos in Wired that makes you look like Dr. Evil. Why not? You weren't put on this earth to make Sheeple feel comfy and warm. Fuck 'em.

    --
    Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
  59. Scalable Trust Levels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At which point, you either have a) no scalability (all must trust all) or b) no trust, which negates the entire point of the darknet

    Recognizing that there is no such thing as an entirely trustworthy network (unless you know and implicitly trust each individual involved, and their security) couldn't you just implement a scalable trust level? By this I mean limiting the number of hops, or degrees of separation from who you implicitly trust (your 'friends'), to who they implicitly trust, and so on to the unknown computer. In this way you could come to a trade off between data available, and the level of insecurity you consider acceptable. In the case of highly sought after information we would see a trickle-down sort of effect... There are lots of possible variations on this theme.

    How would the degree of trust-separation be tracked? I am not entirely sure, but perhaps a public key encryption of each individual's friends list could work. Files searched for in levels - first your friends, then their friends, etc until the file is found or the security limit reached?

    /arbitrary

  60. Sony's DRM *is* a Darknet by billstewart · · Score: 1
    Sony's DRM system that installs rootkits on customers' PCs that can do arbitrary things including connecting to Sony *is* a Darknet, as is any other set of zombie slaves and their cracker overlords. They're not doing very much evil with it except lying to their customers and preventing them from making Fair Use of the music they've bought, and are probably much less chatty than most spyware, but an army of usually-sleeping zombies is simply a Bad Thing.

    Not sure if the "national security" sentence was intended as a troll, but no, encouraging encryption, everywhere, in everything, is *good* for national security, even if governments don't like not being able to wiretap everybody. The real strength of democratic countries comes from freedom of speech and association and strong economies that come from freedom of internal and external trade, and encryption strengthens that by preventing thieves from stealing everybody's stuff and thugs from attacking people they disagree with, regardless of whether those thieves and thugs are wearing stinkin' badges or not.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  61. Speaking badly of US President? by mark99 · · Score: 1

    How is speaking badly about the US President illegal communication? Short of calling for his assasination.

    I can't think of a time in my life when it hasn't happened in *every* newspaper I read.

    To say nothing of Jay Leno. He will sometimes do two or three presidents in a night...

  62. The Problem Runs Very Deep by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ``It is bad law, admittedly written by a bunch of lawyers (collectively known as "Congress")''

    And this, again, is a symptom of a much larger problem, which runs as deep as the foundations of the USA. The number of problems I observe is so great it makes my head swim, but I'll try to point them out somewhat coherently.

    The tip of the iceberg are the politicians who write these bad laws. But then, the USA is a democratic country, right? So these politicians have been elected. How come?

    Allegations of faulty voting machines aside, the fact is that there is major support for the parties these politicians belong to. I think most of them are Republicans, but that could just be because I am rather left-leaning. Either way, there is major support for them; the republican party is very popular, and if there are bad politicians who are democrats, well, the democratic party is very popular, too.

    So how come these parties are so popular? Well, part of the reason must be that they are the only two parties one could realistically vote for. This is because the winner-take-all system makes it so that a third party getting votes would take these votes away from the party closest to it, thus increasing the chances of the other party (that these votes wouldn't have gone to in any case) of taking the cake.

    Another problem is the ignorance of the voting public. This is not meant as an insult, but rather an observation, and one I think many will be able to second. I think this ignorance is largely due to the media not doing their job right (again, an observation I've made that I think many can confirm). Of course, the media are large corporations, and large corporations tend to favor political parties that look after their interests, and the interests of those with lots of money.

    Yet another factor is the fact that vast amounts of money are used to finance election campaigns, and this money comes in largely through donations from people and organizations who have a lot of money to donate. Even if no strings were explicitly attached to this money, it's not hard to imagine that politicians would be inclined to look after the interest of their donors. After all, it wouldn't be good form to turn your back on your benefactors.

    So what do we have? We have a society where there are two political parties, with no room for a third party; the parties' election campaigns are being financed by the rich and large corporations, the same group who controls the mass media, which provides the means of keeping the public uninformed or even misinformed.

    As far as I can see, this is a terrible situation (one group pulling strings in politics and the media), which most people don't want to change (people don't know/care about politics), and which others can't change (you could vote for a party that would do better, but that party wouldn't win).

    Let me make one thing very clear: this post isn't meant to bash Americans, just to point out the situation the way I see it.

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  63. Fromn the article by tsotha · · Score: 1
    In addition, he says, companies should enact a security policy called "least privilege," which means users are given the least amount of access they need to do their jobs.

    This kind of thing drives me nuts. I realize it makes your job easer as a security guy if nobody is allowed to do anything, but I wonder if companies are even thinking about what they're losing by putting all their technical employees in a box. Where I work we lose days at a time to simple problems the guys in the trenches could have dealt with in ten minutes if they had the right access.

    Anyway the whole article reads like RIAA generated FUD. Companies have a lot less to fear from "darknets" than the music industry does.

    1. Re:Fromn the article by n6kuy · · Score: 1

      NTPASSWD is your friend...

      --
      If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
    2. Re:Fromn the article by tsotha · · Score: 1

      Sheeeeit. At my company that'd get you a visit by blue-handed guys in suits.

  64. I though a darknet..... by Dext · · Score: 1

    Im confused, i always understood a darknet to be a segment of ip addresses with no services on it that captures all packets to a monitoring computer. They use them to track malware attacks. see http://www.cymru.com/Darknet/ Now they are using it to describe covert channels, whats the deal?

  65. Frequency Analysis by sauge · · Score: 1

    Of course most of us know this but some of us don't...

    We should note this can be attacked by frequency analysis: Look for the most common letters used in the language, such as AEIOU and substitute those - then the most common components such as sh, th, ch, etc. and substitute those. Then subtitute letters for their frequency of appearing in words with their frequency of appearing in the message. Then do the spell checking thing.

  66. Re:Monitoring traffic by source, destination and t by @madeus · · Score: 1

    Also, bear in mind that as universities are the hold outs of free speech you must make the good or bad decision based on knowledge of or about the user without EVER getting to see the data payload on the packet. Still sound simple? Your method in our environment would take our small security team and turn it into abattalion.

    Entirely coincidentally I've actually had to as it happens (that is, doing weird, secret things to high volumes of unobservable traffic, and without knowing the source or type of traffic and without making it obvious) and am in the middle of finishing a requested paper on it, and I think the task pretty straightforward when approached with due consideration. There are actually a whole number of different approaches you can take to monitor traffic by type (independant of what port it's on), and it's possible using both commercial purpose built hardware and software, and using commodity hardware and more flexible FOSS.

    'Simple' very much depands on the current network, the staff avalible, their workload and the budget you have to work with. This solution is the sort of thing one or two people can impliment though (two is nice, as then you can have a really good developer and a really good network engineer and have them work together), and it can be easily looked after by one person (not even full time) - even for many thousands of users.

    That said it really ought to be simple to spot bad traffic off the bat, as I'd hope that traffic from the likes of dorms and public terminals would be entirely seperate from traffic from departments and sanctioned projects (that is, seperately switched, and with different QoS levels) and that they'd all have their own usage reports & graphs and they'd all have stated requirements for expected usage for the year.

    Taking whatever measures you deem fit on systems in facilties used by doms and public terminals (and to a lesser extent in labs) to ensure a generally high level of service should be a no brainer - just as existing ISP's do they ought to be treated as 'low rent' consumers and their service is going to have to be contended and so subject to certain limitations.

    All that you have to do then is meet the needs of the formal projects, which really ought to be easy with their agreed SLA's (with max burst limits, bandwith allowances, levels of resiliance, etc.) agreed and previsioned for in advance.

    Anyone with 'special needs' or who is unhappy with the level of service in the labs or doms should just make a case as they would with a project. If they demand that all students and public terminals should have unrestricted access (because it's a 'Right!') and as a result someone senior comes to your department and says 'Make it so!' all you have to do is crunch the numbers and say "Sure we can, but to do that, would cost us N $ to ensure we have sufficent capacity and infrastructure in place." and allow those in charge of the budget decide how much they want to spend, dependant upon the contention ratios and service level they want to be able to offer.

  67. Secure software in C? by Cafe+Alpha · · Score: 1

    Can someone explain to me who would trust the security of software written in C?

    I'd that by now people would know better than to use C when security matters.

    1. Re:Secure software in C? by m50d · · Score: 1
      Can someone explain to me who would trust the security of software written in C?

      Languages don't make things secure, good programming makes things secure. PGP, GPG, OpenSSH and OpenSSL were written in C last time I checked.

      If you want something to be portable and usable from different languages, which the base protocol needs to be, you need to be able to make libraries with C linkage - and C is really the only choice for such things unless you have a specialised team who are good at something like Delphi. Well written code is still secure, and the gnunet code is some of the best code I have ever worked with, certainly far clearer than other p2p code e.g. gift.

      --
      I am trolling
    2. Re:Secure software in C? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see, so say you write it in Java instead. But guess what -- your JVM is written in C. Something like at least 200.000 lines of C code right there. And it uses native functions in the library, also C code. And of course just like GNUnet itself the JVM runs on top of an OS written in C.

      What matters is the size of the trusted code base (OS, compiler, VM, libraries, type checker) and the quality of that code. And as long as I see the JVM segfault (and I have personally crashed every single JVM that I laid my hands on, from Hotspot, Jikes RVM, OVM, IBM VM, you name it) Java is not bullet-proof (and the same probably applies to many other languages).

      What is more important, btw, is that the design is helping with security. GNUnet is extremely modular, and for example separates the UI from the daemon. This reduces the amount of code that needs to be audited since less code is directly exposed to threats from the network.

      And one more note: for anonymity, you need performance. Routing and encryption cost you, and doing slower there will cost you anonymity, and thus security. There is a reason why Tor and GNUnet are written in C.

  68. Welcome to Blacknet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.privacyexchange.org/iss/confpro/cfpuntr aceable.html

    Introduction to BlackNet

    Your name has come to our attention. We have reason to believe you may be
    interested in the products and services our new organization, BlackNet, has
    to offer.

    BlackNet is in the business of buying, selling, trading, and otherwise
    dealing with *information* in all its many forms.

    We buy and sell information using public key cryptosystems with essentially
    perfect security for our customers. Unless you tell us who you are (please
    don't!) or inadvertently reveal information which provides clues, we have
    no way of identifying you, nor you us.

    Our location in physical space is unimportant. Our location in cyberspace
    is all that matters. Our primary address is the PGP key location:
    "BlackNet" and we can be contacted (preferably
    through a chain of anonymous remailers) by encrypting a message to our
    public key (contained below) and depositing this message in one of the
    several locations in cyberspace we monitor. Currently, we monitor the
    following locations: alt.extropians, alt.fan.david-sternlight, and the
    "Cypherpunks" mailing list.

    BlackNet is nominally nondideological, but considers nation-states, export
    laws, patent laws, national security considerations and the like to be
    relics of the pre-cyberspace era. Export and patent laws are often used to
    explicity project national power and imperialist, colonialist state
    fascism. BlackNet believes it is solely the responsibility of a secret
    holder to keep that secret--not the responsibilty of the State, or of us,
    or of anyone else who may come into possession of that secret. If a
    secret's worth having, it's worth protecting.

    BlackNet is currently building its information inventory. We are interested
    in information in the following areas, though any other juicy stuff is
    always welcome. "If you think it's valuable, offer it to us first."

    - trade secrets, processes, production methods (esp. in semiconductors)
    - nanotechnology and related techniques (esp. the Merkle sleeve bearing)
    - chemical manufacturing and rational drug design (esp. fullerines and
    protein folding)
    - new product plans, from children's toys to cruise missiles (anything on
    "3DO"?)
    - business intelligence, mergers, buyouts, rumors

    BlackNet can make anonymous deposits to the bank account of your choice,
    where local banking laws permit, can mail cash directly (you assume the
    risk of theft or seizure), or can credit you in "CryptoCredits," the
    internal currency of BlackNet (which you then might use to buy _other_
    information and have it encrypted to your special public key and posted in
    public place).

    If you are interested, do NOT attempt to contact us directly (you'll be
    wasting your time), and do NOT post anything that contains your name, your
    e-mail address, etc. Rather, compose your message, encrypt it with the
    public key of BlackNet (included below), and use an anonymous remailer
    chain of one or more links to post this encrypted, anonymized message in
    one of the locations listed (more will be added later). Be sure to describe
    what you are selling, what value you think it has, your payment terms, and,
    of course, a special public key (NOT the one you use in your ordinary
    business, of course!) that we can use to get back in touch with you. Then
    watch the same public spaces for a reply.

    (With these remailers, local PGP encryption within the remailers, the use
    of special public keys, and the public postings of the encrypted messages,
    a secure, two-way, untraceable, and fully anonymous channel has been opened
    between the customer and BlackNet. This is the key to BlackNet.)

    A more complete tutorial on using BlackNet will soon appear, in plaintext
    form, in certain locations in cyberspace.

    Join us in this revolutionary--and profitable--venture.

    BlackNet

  69. That's no problem by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

    In that case you'll simply be fired. Remember: This isn't talk about what you can or can't do at home, this was a talk about corperate IT. Well in a corperate environment, you play by their rules. If you don't they can (and will) fire you. So if I worked in an environment where encrypted traffic was prohibited out of the company and I saw a bunch comming from your machine I'd come and question you about it. If you said "I wasn't doing anything go ahead and check" I would. I'd find nothing but that would only alert me. I'd then go back and setup more extensive monitoring on your connection. Next time the traffic started, I'd get you boss and we'd both show up. We'd find you doing something not allowed with a company PC, and having lied about it, and you'd probably be terminated on the spot.

    Now, thankfully I don't work for a company like that. Where I work, we don't give a shit what you do so long as it isn't illegal or virus/spam traffic, and we don't even monitor for that, just respond if someone complains. So if you ran a darknet client we wouldn't know or care any more than if you were using SFTP to transfer files to your home computer.

    However, my point stands: Darknets are not a problem to corperate IT. If the envrionment is one such as where I work, they get ignored like everything else. If the environment is one where there are restrictions on what you can and can't do, they'll be caught as something you can't do. Doesn't matter if IT can see what the payload is, they can see that you are doing something not allowed and you'll be dealt with.

    I know you freshman CS students are heavy in to the Hackers-the-movie renegade mode in thinking you can stick it to the man because you are so much smarter, but that's not how it goes in the real world. When you work for a company, you obey their rules on computers. It's not a matter of if you can find a way around their security, you have physical machine access, of course you can. However, if you don't do as you are told, they'll just get rid of you and replace you with someone who will.

  70. We aren't growing more litiginous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's total bullshit spun by the likes of Rush Limbaugh to excuse the growing trend for congress to take away people's right to sue for damages.

    Yes, total number of lawsuits is up - slightly. But PER CAPITA it's been dropping for half a century. DID YOU GET THAT? Americans as individuals are LESS likely to sue than 50 years ago. LOOKITUPLOOKITUPLOOKITUP

    And that bitch that got McDonalds' money for the hot coffee got it because McDonalds' REPEATEDLY blew off a court order to revise their employee manual (it said coffee machines should be kept at 300 degrees F, which is INSANE). She didn't get it because the courts are handing out too much money, she got it because McDonald's FLAUNTED THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM AND WERE RIGHTFULLY SPANKED FOR IT!

    Stop believing this right wing propaganda for chrissakes, you are just asking for corporate dictatorship.

  71. How to create a darknet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's rather easy to make a darknet. I'll explain how to make one between you and your friends.

    Create an encrypted partition on your disk.

    Install OpenVPN (http://www.openvpn.net/ on the encrypted partition, and create your master key for the node there, and also create keys for your friends. Make sure to configure it so that your friends get large pieces of network space.

    When your friends install their OpenVPN clients, they also do so on an encrypted partition. With the client config on the encrypted partition *and* the server config.

    They may then give out accounts to their friends, and give away subnets from their subnet. The friends also need to put the configuration on an encrypted partition.. and so forth.

    The beaty here is that if one node is compromised, the police will probably power off the machine ... and lose the config. If they infiltrate the network, they can only get their peers, not the entire network as the identity of the various nodes aren't announced more than the nodes wish. The IP's are not delegated by any central authority - but subnets are delegated and re-delegated.

    Of course, such a network will suffer from low-bandwidth nodes, so you'll only wish to include high-bandwidth nodes towards the center. It could also be cool to run various routing protocols on top of this network.. and to let some of the core-friends be interlinked.

    Go create a darknet today!

  72. Unfortunately by apankrat · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately noone can be told what the darknet is :)

    --
    3.243F6A8885A308D313
  73. Vader / Padme by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't the "pleasing" to Vader done to his ol' mitochlorian Night-stick, by aunt Padme?

    Oops, cat's outa the bag for episode IV. *twiddles thumbs*

    quack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack--quack (*ducks*)

  74. improper words are not against the law by NRAdude · · Score: 0
    someone wrote the following text
    jesus if you wrote in english using even half-way correct grammar and spelling then those of us reading might understand what you are trying to say correct english is just another protocol that takes very little time to learn


    cAn you aScertain upper from lower caSe and flow C-O;N,T:R!O'L`?

    begin
    THIRD PARTY INTERFERENCE
    maybe the parent post was using only alphabet characters without command structure as to isolate and packet the words as to not tresspass on any titles of nobility or commercial speach this is so none can retransmit his words in attempt to repatent them to acknowledge a tresspass on a claim of intellectual property i see such use as prefatory to and not an indirect counter and preposition to proper english grammar it is not evasion and only honest when i mean proper english grammer it is meant as that english tongue utilized when there is a certain duty being performed or perfected as the words are convect words used be a programmer are integrated in performance of those programming duties different than a fire extinguisher we also can agree that a lawyer and attorney use such an english tongue most of us think as pedantic i think that is the founding purpose of using saying words pro-per and that is natural these improper words being sent to you are unencompassed and assembled to extracomplete non sentence and not governed by law or custom thus is com municipium an example of this effect is to say the words micro soft only to abate someone else retorting pro per when they try to claim and fine us for using a title of nobility of a corporation see what we mean i must compliment that it is verry effective it is only pro-per english grammar to capitalize the first letter beginning the word of a english sentence and capitalize the first letter of a word to make it a person or a noun however we are not being proper and neither have we followed custom to include any of those titles of nobilities or evince any insecure fixtures of commercial speach that haven't been attached to a lord ship or town ship or citizen ship
    THIRD PARTY INTERFERENCE
    end

    An example of a title of nobility is "John"
    An example of a fixture of commercial speach to be attached to the hull of a vessel (envelope) is JOHN.

    Distinguish, divide, and master these, and you may rule the world.
    --
    without prejudice
  75. ssslllooowww by ThreeDayMonk · · Score: 1

    Create a software modem to connect through a VoIP service like Skype and you can get free dial-up over broadband(!).

    I imagine that the connection speed will be totally old-skool as well!

    --
    If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
    1. Re:ssslllooowww by earthbound+kid · · Score: 1

      Precisely. You know, since 56k was a hack that took advantage of the physical whatnot of the phone system, that definitely won't work. What's more the compression of the signal by Skype, et al. will probably further limit the possible transfer rates. I'm guessing, best case scenario 28.8 or 14.4, but don't even count on that much.

      In other words, it's the good ole days again! FidoNet, here we come.

  76. W.A.S.T.E. is an example by FlippyTheSkillsaw · · Score: 2, Informative
  77. Blending in with the crowd by Mr2001 · · Score: 1

    Warez traffic (let's drop this "darknet" term, I always think that it's an end-user-empowered network run over dark fibers) doesn't follow the typical 24-hour cycle in the traffic pattern. The number of legitimate hosts with such a traffic pattern is pretty small in my experience, so it's quite possible to spot the offenders.

    An individual could still adjust his speed throttles during the day, forcing his client to follow a typical traffic pattern, as long as he knows what that pattern is. He'd have to be patient, but any eMule user already is.

    --
    Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
  78. Darknet: bug or feature? by DanielMarkham · · Score: 1

    This confusion in terms drives me nuts. P2P is technology, not crime, and darknets are simply ways of communicating with your peers that some other person doesn't know about.
    Should everything you do at work be inspectable by your boss? Normally the answer would be "no" -- you certainly can write a political protest letter during your lunch hour. But with the ways the courts have been ruling, it seems the assumption is that corporations have to know everything you are doing, if it involves a computer. This is completely unenforceable, in my opinion, and will go the way of the Dred Scott decision.

    This is my blog

  79. indeed by N3wsByt3 · · Score: 1

    A very well written en correct analysis, sir.

    Thus, what the USA should do is:

    1)forbid or severly limit the financial ties between (or 'legal sponsoring' of) the corporations and politicians/parties
    2)get rid of the two-party system
    3)put effort in creating an independend media

    Alas...the self-serving nature of corporations and politicians alike means this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

    --
    --- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---