Anonym.OS a Boon for Privacy Geeks?

The Hosting Guy writes "Wired is running an article about a live CD that makes anonymous browsing easy enough for everyone. 'So easy to use you can hand it to your grandmother and send her off on her own to the local Starbucks.' Anonym.OS makes extensive use of Tor, the onion routing network that relies on an array of servers passing encrypted traffic to permit untraceable surfing."

Comments

Privacy Geek

[(1 -sqrt(5))*(2**-1)]

I'm decidedly uncomfortable with the neologism "privacy geek": it implies that wanting to be left the hell alone is now fringe.

Has the will to un-molestation finally passed out of mainstream?

Re:Privacy Geek

[DogDude]

Has the will to un-molestation finally passed out of mainstream?

There's a big difference between not wanting the government to tap your phone and not wanting web sites to put a cookie on your PC. The latter is a "privacy geek" thing, and yes, that level of privacy is fringe.

Re:Privacy Geek

[MightyMartian]

The real question you have to ask yourself is whether it will let Martin Fink check out pages so that he can satisfy is perverse and repugnant desires.

Re:Privacy Geek

[poot_rootbeer]

Has the will to un-molestation finally passed out of mainstream?

Funny you should mention "molestation", because guess what behavior Big Brother is going to cite when they crack down on anonymous Internet proxying?

I value my privacy and will fight tooth and nail to preserve it. However, "privacy" and "anonymity" are not the same thing.

My home is private. My computer is private.
Anything I do outside of my home, whether I travel via foot or via wire, is public and there's a possibility that I may be seen or even recognized.

Re:Privacy Geek

[whoever57]

Anything I do outside of my home, whether I travel via foot or via wire, is public and there's a possibility that I may be seen or even recognized.

So you don't think warrants are required for any phone taps?

Re:Privacy Geek

[Heembo]

Who the fuck uses the word neologism? "Privacy Geek" might also refer to someone who is an objective intellect simply studying the technical details of privacy laws as they pertain to todays digital culture.

Re:Privacy Geek

[drDugan]

I have to respectfully disagree. We have envelopes for a reason. We have SSL for a reason.

This idea that anything not under my direct ownership is public -- is flawed. We're going to have to come up with a better definition that that if we expect to all be able to live in peace together.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Apathist]

So you don't think warrants are required for any phone taps? Actually, that is a bit of a simplification. Wire taps are used to listen in to essentially private conversations between people who are expected to be friends/collegues/etc, hence the assumption of privacy.

On the other hand, wandering the public internet is akin to strolling in the park or mall, where one would not expect privacy to be guaranteed... and the officers of the Ministry of Love happily exploit that expectation.

Re:Privacy Geek

[(1 -sqrt(5))*(2**-1)]

Who the fuck uses the word neologism?

Students of Greek; neologism is actually a bit of a misnomer, though, since we're talking about the novel combination of predicate and noun. "Neo-epithet" would do the trick, but then I'm guilty of neologism.

"Privacy Geek" might also refer to someone who is an objective intellect simply studying the technical details of privacy laws as they pertain to todays digital culture.

It might; but the article touts making "anonymous browsing easy enough for everyone:" so they're clearly talking about the demos, or trough.

Re:Privacy Geek

[rkcallaghan]

So you don't think warrants are required for any phone taps?

No, they're not.

~Rebecca

Re:Privacy Geek

[PoopMonkey]

On the other hand, wandering the public internet is akin to strolling in the park or mall, where one would not expect privacy to be guaranteed... and the officers of the Ministry of Love happily exploit that expectation.

The problem with this statement is that not all activity on the internet is like strolling in the park or mall. Many times activity on the internet is exactly like a phone call, a communicatin between friends/colleagues/etc. For instance, email or instant messaging. If you post something on a forum such as slashdot, however, in that case it's in the public.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Heembo]

Classy response to a crass comment. *applause*

Re:Privacy Geek

[c_forq]

I think if you have a letter in an envolope, you have phone line encrypteded (or if it is a line not connected to the larger standard grid), or you are using encryption/SSL on the internet you can expect protection from warrentless searches and privacy. But I don't think you should always expect a phone conversation to be private (it is insanely easy for someone else inside the same house/building to pick up onto the same line) especially wireless or cell phones (you can listen to cell phone conversations with $30 worth of gear from radioshack). Likewise with the amount of servers your queries may run through I don't think you should expect privacy on the internet. And with a unsealed letter you shouldn't expect that no one will read it (like a post-card).

I qoute the 4th ammendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Searching and seizing needs to be limited to private places and things, otherwise police can't arrest anyone anywhere without a warrant or confiscate drugs in public parks.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Jelloman]

On the other hand, wandering the public internet is akin to strolling in the park...
(pretending that's not a troll...)

The Internet being "public" is your assumption. You infer it, but it's certainly not implied.

The Internet is designed as an end-to-end architecture. AKA point-to-point, which is exactly what the telephone system is. It's not inherently designed to be public or private, but the end-to-end architecture certainly enables truly private communication (assuming the continuing existence of encryption technologies not broken or illegal), and to me it strongly suggests that, given demand, it should be a feature of most Internet applications. Which it sort of is, if you don't count security (i.e., my email and IM and web surfing is private, but that privacy is usually not very secure.)

Ultimately, the Internet with private communication is ten times as useful as the one without it. Maybe a thousand times. Hell, given the cultural impact, you can't measure the difference at all. It leads to two very different worlds.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Apathist]

You're right; that's not a Troll. :)

Anyway, your point about the architecture of the 'net is well taken, but the reason I liken general net usage to a public activity is because (excepting email and IM) the vast majority of that usage is something virtually non-existant with phones: informal gatherings of strangers. Most websites - even members only ones - play host to many people who do not know each other, and could not recognise one another to save their lives. Because any one of those strangers could be considered a "leak" of some sort (police, journalist, etc), any conversation had there must be understood to be public.

Don't get me wrong, I think email and IM should be treated as inherently private - so much so that the usage of encryption seems wrong, insomuch as it implies that only encrypted email/IM should be covered by privacy laws.

So, while surfing and email/IM'ing use the same infrastructure, to me, they are very different activities, and privacy expectations should be applied accordingly.

Re:Privacy Geek

[sco08y]

I'm decidedly uncomfortable with the neologism "privacy geek": it implies that wanting to be left the hell alone is now fringe.

Not necessarily. I think it implies more that some people invest considerably more resources into privacy than others when it might not be warranted.

Any reasonable person who wants to sunbathe nude in their backyard is going to build a fence. A "privacy geek" would build a fence just to build the fence.

Or it could imply someone who already has those resources.

Any reasonable person would want to encrypt their private emails, except that it takes a fair amount of training. Most of the people here are probably fairly familiar with public-key encryption and know enough people who are also familiar, so it's not much effort to do so.

One thing people don't consider about privacy is that you can acquire it simply by blending into the crowd. You only lose it when you take actions that make you stand out. So for most people, the most straightforward way to keep their privacy is to do nothing.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't think warrants are required for any phone taps?

In the USA with that GWB madman on the loose and in control?

No.

Haven't you been watching the news? He wouldn't know what a court order was if he were slapped one for high treason.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

(1+-sqrt(5))*(2**-1) wrote:
>
> I'm decidedly uncomfortable with the neologism "privacy geek":
> it implies that wanting to be left the hell alone is now fringe.

How do you like the neologism "Anonymous Coward"?

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

Any particular reason your username has something to do with 0 = -x^2 - x + 1?

Re:Privacy Geek

[YU Nicks NE Way]

Many times activity on the internet is exactly like a phone call, a communicatin between friends/colleagues/etc. For instance, email or instant messaging

Um...no. Unencrypted electronic mail is quite clearly not "private" in the legal sense of the word. (a) SMTP is a store and forward protocol, in which copies are made of each message at each intermediate point. You can't care very much about the contents of a message if you allow an unknown and anonymous intermediate to copy it, now can you? (b) TCP/IP itself works by packet relay through unknown computers. Same applies. The only way in which you can assert a reasonable expectation of privacy is if you send all packets encrypted. In any other case, no, you are doing the equivalent of playing telephone with packets.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anything I do outside of my home, whether I travel via foot or via wire, is public and there's a possibility that I may be seen or even recognized."

Being "seen" or "recognized" as in the pre-computer-age sense isn't the issue. The issue is having the minutiae of your online and offline behavior recorded, wherever you go and whatever you do.

How do you think the police would react if you, a private citizen, set up cameras recording all of their officers as they left and returned to their station. You would deploy robotic cameras to follow them on the public roadways. You'd correlate this video with officer names and pictures and store it in a database, which you'd sell to anyone who would pay your price. I don't think they would permit you to do it for long.

This is essentially what they want to do to us. Why should we permit it, when they won't permit us the same privilege? Are police some sort of superbeings who won't use this imbalance to their own advantage? Are they the world's most perfect database administrators and programmers, who will never leave any flaws or bugs that would let someone steal this information? Are they free of bureaucracy and able to establish truly secure protocols for the management of this information?

It's a power grab, plain and simple, happening online and offline. Technology isn't the problem; the problem is that the current authorities are seizing the initiative to establish every new technological application in their own favor, further empowering the powerful and weakening everyone else.

Re:Privacy Geek

[adolf]

...there is also the possibility that, while outside of your home, you might elect to wear a mask or makeup, in a deliberate attempt to disguise your identity. You might also speak softly, or with a characteristically different voice, or in a different language. You could carry cash, instead of credit cards or checks.

Nothing wrong with any of that, even if it does look a bit out of place to those around you.

Now then, I might elect to use Tor, PGP, S/MIME, OpenVPN in a deliberate attempt to disguise my identity.

And there's nothing wrong with that, either.

The notion that I might be conducting myself "in public" does not require me to wear my secrets on my shirtsleaves.

Re:Privacy Geek

[whoever57]

I suggest (to the parent poster) that you read both the posts in this thread and the Wiki article you linked to. The OP clearly stated that he felt that all calls could be tapped without a warrant, while the Wiki article refers very clearly to international calls.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, there's people that have cookies set on, and start all their internet activity from the same page: Google.

This one company knows everything they do online. And if they have any other G services, with names and emails.

Thinking about that, here's something (Anonym.OS) I want to see.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

you can listen to cell phone conversations with $30 worth of gear from radioshack

Maybe with the old analogue ones you could do, if you could get a direct line-of-sight on the handset; but they were all switched off in the 1990s.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that fringe?

There are some websites I allow to set cookies (only some of which are companies) and there are many I deny (because it's not needed and/or desired).

I would posit that folks who do not manage their cookies, while mainstream, are lame whereas the many of us who do are wise, but not fringe.

Re:Privacy Geek

[HellYeahAutomaton]

Any reasonable person who wants to sunbathe nude in their backyard is going to build a fence. A "privacy geek" would build a fence just to build the fence.


And I, for one, do not want to see a nude privacy geek.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Hosiah]

Going by the responses, I'd say yes, we who don't want a camera lens shoved up our ass 24/7 and our every thought scrutinized are quickly slipping into a minority...in the US, anyway.

For the people absolutlely howling with outrage at the mere desire for privacy some of us have, I have one word for you: China.

Re:Privacy Geek

[giorgiofr]

you can listen to cell phone conversations with $30 worth of gear from radioshack

Say what? Last I checked, cell phone communication is encrypted and the keys are changed and exchanged 5 times a second. Not exactly easy to crack. Certainly not with 30$ worth of stuff. But if you have more information on this, please tell me - I'm really curious. I seriously think cell phones are quite secure but if they are not, I need to know.

Re:Privacy Geek

[LordFnord]

Many times activity on the internet is exactly like a phone call, a communicatin between friends/colleagues/etc. For instance, email or instant messaging.

Imagine you're on a beach in Aruba (hey, why not). You decide to drop your Granny a line, so you grab a nice postcard with a picture of a palm tree on the front - "having a great time, weather is brilliant, hope you're well" - and hand it in for posting at your hotel's reception desk. Now start counting how many people have the opportunity to read your message before it's delivered.

Think of emails and IMs along these lines rather than comparing them to phone calls. You can send your Granny a completely private message on the back of her postcard, but you'll need to use encryption of some sort.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Knuckles]

while outside of your home, you might elect to wear a mask or makeup

It drives me nuts, but that's forbidden in many jurisdictions at least in the context of demonstrations, as it prevents government organizations and private fascist groups/nutcases to tape demonstration participants on video. See the Wikipedia article in German that explains the situation in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Dunno about other countries as I don't know the right search terms for Goggle.

Re:Privacy Geek

[babyrat]

(b) TCP/IP itself works by packet relay through unknown computers.

Uhhh - and that differs from a telephone conversation how?

Today, when you place a long-distance call, the switch in the local office accesses a database that contains a record for each phone number connected to the switch. The database contains what's called a PIC code (Primary Interchange Carrier code), which indicates which long-distance carrier you have chosen. (When you switch long-distance carriers, this PIC code is what changes.) The switch looks up the PIC code for your number and then connects to a long-distance switch for your long-distance carrier. Your long-distance carrier's switches route the call to the local carrier for your friend, and the local carrier completes the call to your friend.

This entire amazing and complicated transaction happens using billions of dollars worth of computers, switches, wire and fiber-optic cable, all in a blink of an eye.


from howstuffworks

Re:Privacy Geek

[mrchaotica]

Presumably, the other guy was talking about old analog phones. However, the amount of encryption on modern digital phone networks is irrelevant becasue anybody at the phone company could listen to your conversation anyway.

Bottom line: if you want to have a secure conversation using a cellphone, hook it to your computer, use it as a modem, and talk over an encrypted VoIP or IM type program.

Re:Privacy Geek

[YU Nicks NE Way]

that differs from a telephone conversation how?

Great question. The answer is "the unknown part". When I make a phone call, I hand the packet off to a trusted intermediary, who controls the routing and the intermediate servers. When I hand a packet to a server aimed at port 12345 on some four-byte remote site, I don't have any say on the route taken to that port.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Paua Fritter]

Off topic to point out that legal protection is not a guarantee of privacy? WTF?

Oh well! Looks like I pissed off some red-staters :-)

Re:Privacy Geek

[Eivind Eklund]

Summary: The parent is wrong, on both counts.

Point (B) - packet relay through unknown computers - also applies to phone calls. Since the mid 1990s, the telephony system itself works almost exclusively by packet relay through unknown computers. It's traditionally been ATM based, and these days I hear it's mostly VoIP based.

As for point (A), store-and-forward: This only increase the time the data is accessable. You're still transmitting data in fairly much the same way - the question is just if you're possibly storing it for a brief time on one kind of computer (queueing on a router), or for a slightly longer time on a mail server.

I'm fairly certain there's precedents around this - I distinctly remember a precedent setting a distinction between archieved mail, which it was OK for the gov't to prowl around in, and non-achieved mail, which was private communication. Archived mail was defined as mail older than 6 months.

Eivind.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

If you post something on a forum such as slashdot, however, in that case it's in the public.

You can post anonymously, you know. Like me.

Re:Privacy Geek

[N_Piper]

Freedom to talk to whoever you please about non-criminal things whithout fear of being draged out of your house in the middle of the night is what makes america special, or so grandma who grew up in Stalinist Russia always said, and now my mother has a "clicky" phone line and unmarked white vans parked out side her rural Iowa house just because she was chatting online with some of our troops in Iraq. Privacy is not something that you give up just by pluging in your modem.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

... "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects"... ... "Searching and seizing needs to be limited to private places and things"

By this, I imagine that you agree that you can't search me without proper cause. You can't search my house without proper cause. But you don't mention the last two... "papers, and effects". Papers are obviously documents and such which I may author which are not on my person or in my house. Stretched to the current technology, that may include Intellectual Property. Likewise, effects are my property that again is not either on my person or in my house. (For example, my effects may be in my car.) So, I am protected (except in certain circumstances, such as airports) from having my physical property without cause. Again, how does this impact Intellectual Property?
The difference between store & send (ie, SMTP) and end-to-end doesn't seem to make much difference, as in a telephone network your transmitting information which is stored (albeit for a few fractions of a second) along many switches along the way. (The fact that Federal security agencies require all telecommunications companies to install remote taps into their switches makes this even more questionable.) In essence, does the storage matter, or the length of storage?
I think the legal system has a way to go to deal with digital information. As it is, electronic transactions legally occur in the physical location of the servers, which renders this all immensely complicated if you are talking to someone through a server located in, for example, Iran.

Re:Privacy Geek

[good soldier svejk]

The jusxtapostion of your position with the authorship of your sig is uniquely ironic. Bravo!

Then again, I suspect facetiousness, based on your previous posting record.

Re:Privacy Geek

[Anonymous Coward]

"My home is private. My computer is private.
Anything I do outside of my home, whether I travel via foot or via wire, is public and there's a possibility that I may be seen or even recognized."

Sorry, but if the activity you perform in your home involves any injury to an unwilling person, especially a child, it should never be considered legally private. But it can be considered disturbed.

I just simply don't do anything on the Internet I want to hide. Of course my banking etc is done over SSL, and I am not dumb enough to do it at Starbucks.

Re:Privacy Geek

[NetRAVEN5000]

I wouldn't consider it "fringe" or "geeky" to want that kind of privacy. There are thousands of Internet credit card transactions every day, and many banks have online management tools. Also, if you want to check your e-mail through a computer on someone else's network without having to worry about the possibility of your e-mail/contact info being stolen or having someone else read your e-mail.

Re: privacy geek

[Anonymous Coward]

This is awesome for those who feel that their virtual freedoms are slowly being reduced. But I can also see it being used for maliscious purposes (i,e. surfing / downloading of things considered Illegal).

Too bad no one using it can comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Slashdot bans most Tor proxies from making comments. Perfect for geeks, eh?

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[grub]

testing through tor...

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[Anonymous Coward]

I said most. They use one of the Tor blacklists, so you may be on an as yet un-blacklisted node. (Other services like some IRC servers also use them.)

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[jrockway]

Also appears to be working...

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Lest we forget the trouble slashdot got in for the whole M$ Kerberos saga. I think security yes but slashdot are probably watching their own back. (and fairly too in my opinion)

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[tdvaughan]

That's because people use Tor to troll Slashdot. Makes me glad I have more than one IP on my ADSL line - I can use one for my Tor node and another for posting to Slashdot.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[Omnifarious]

Of course, (s)he also isn't posting anonymously.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[dubl-u]

That's because people use Tor to troll Slashdot.

Anonym.OS: the OS of choice for privacy geeks and serious assholes.

<ironic>If only we could implement some compulsory registration for Tor, everything would be fine!</ironic>

To my mind, that's the problem that all of these anonymous computing efforts fail to solve: a lot of people use anonymity to be jerks. When I look at the traffic my sites get from open proxies, a vanishingly small percentage is from political dissidents; most of it is from turd-in-the-punchbowl fuckheads.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[XSforMe]

(s)he
Stop deluding yourself

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[bugg]

When I look at the traffic my sites get from open proxies, a vanishingly small percentage is from political dissidents; most of it is from turd-in-the-punchbowl fuckheads.

And I'm guessing that's a reflection of what your site is. Those who are going through the measure to use tor to anonymize their browsing aren't surfing casually, they're going to the sites they NEED to go to for their work. If that's not you...

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[maxpublic]

That's because people use Tor to troll Slashdot

People use *their own accounts* to troll Slashdot as well, not to mention regular AC posts. How the fuck is using Tor any different?

Max

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[typical]

Good point.

Slashdot could simply disallow not-logged-in access from troublesome IPs. Still kind of a PITA for someone (since they have to log in each time if they've turned their machine into a Tor node), but it allows anonymous browsing.

Of course, it could be that those ad banners track your browsing and that advertisers would be less interested in just getting anonymous requests.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[dubl-u]

And I'm guessing that's a reflection of what your site is. Those who are going through the measure to use tor to anonymize their browsing aren't surfing casually, they're going to the sites they NEED to go to for their work. If that's not you...

Seriously, what percentage of Internet traffic do you thing people NEED to go to for their work? And what further fraction receive only that kind of traffic?

I turn up at Slashdot because it's a good place to keep up on industry trends. I imagine a lot of others use it for work, too. But pretty much any site that allows community participation will have problems with jerks, and those jerks will abuse anonymity tools so that they can abuse the community sites.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[cyriustek]

I got a copy of this at Shmoocon. It seems to be a good, stable OS. However, it still misses the mark with respect to ease of use. Hardly anyone's grandmother or even their mother would feel comfortable in using this OS. For example, your e-mail settings need to be re-entered everytime you use it. There are a few other areas of concern as well. However, I must say that this was an excellent first try, and I look forward for the enhancements that are supposed to come shortly.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[darkmeridian]

Huh, then you lucked out. Slashdot bans many Tor servers. Refresh a server and see if you can still comment on Slashdot. They claim it has been dDos'd through Tor before. Come on, we're Slashdot. Our name means dDos, baby!

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[TCM]

Do I hear a subliminal tone of anti-anonymity? The important thing with anonymity is to expect and tolerate the trolls, not to condemn anonymity for it. One day you will be glad you stuck through the trolls when you really have something to say, but can't do it freely anymore.

OTOH, if you never have anything important to say.. well, you might as well be anti-anonymity.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[dubl-u]

Do I hear a subliminal tone of anti-anonymity? The important thing with anonymity is to expect and tolerate the trolls, not to condemn anonymity for it. One day you will be glad you stuck through the trolls when you really have something to say, but can't do it freely anymore.

I'm not anti-anonymity at all. I am anti-asshole, though.

I don't think workable anonymity necessarily requires putting up with 0.1% signal and 99.9% noise. Slashdot is a good example of a system that allows anonymity of various sorts but still is reasonably functional. But I note that even Slashdot bans Tor nodes from posting. People who advocate various sorts of identity-hiding should learn a lesson from that. They might also learn a lesson from the way spammers have forced pretty much everybody to install a wide variety of technologies to drastically limit anonymous speech.

OTOH, if you never have anything important to say.. well, you might as well be anti-anonymity.
 
/me rolls his eyes.

And in answer to your next question, I have indeed stopped beating my wife lately. Thanks for asking.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[basilpronoun]

If only it were so sophisticated. I haven't been able to post from my home IP for ages simply because of postings by other people on my subnet.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[bugg]

You misunderstand, and it's probably my fault.

People need to anonymize their browsing when they are not surfing casually, but rather doing surfing that they don't want anyone to know they've done (duh). So most people don't bother or care to surf, say, slashdot anonymously.

When you are doing things that a government doesn't approve of (and COINTELPRO has taught us that the US government spends lots of time and resources going after people who exercise their rights) then using tor is a good idea.

To put it another way, people who need to anonymize their traffic are probably only visiting a very small subset of websites: sites where they can post information but fear law enforcement seizing server logs, sites where they want to obtain information but they don't want law enforcement to know that they have it, so on and so forth.

Therefore, it is fundamentally flawed to think "not many people who visit my site need to do so anonymously, therefore not many people need to visit any site anonymously."

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[glsunder]

Of course, (s)he also isn't posting anonymously.

their sig, "May I put my Willy Wonka in your Chocolate Factory?" leads me to believe the (s) wasn't necessary. Then again, with talk of tranny lovin grannies on this thread, who knows.

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[Omnifarious]

*laugh* Yes, there were numerous indications that would have led me to believe the original poster was male if I'd looked. But, the only thing that didn't require a bunch of clicking to see was the post I was replying to, not the original, so I stuck it in to be safe. :-) Though, as you said, given the talk of tranny lovin grannies, who can tell? :-)

Re:Too bad no one using it can comment

[nacturation]

People use *their own accounts* to troll Slashdot as well, not to mention regular AC posts. How the fuck is using Tor any different?

Crapfloods. There are a few stories which didn't make the top-posting hall of fame (although they certainly qualified for posting volume) because the thousands of posts were mostly trolls. You can't do that with only one IP address posting anonymously. Tor provides you with multiple IPs.

anonymous?

[Lord Ender]

With enough confederate nodes, tor can certainly be tracked. It isn't likely to happen, but it is possible.

Re:anonymous?

[lgw]

I hope TOR isn't like Freenet - technically sound (as long as there are enough nodes) but too slow to actually be useful for anything but plain text.

Re:anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Confederate nodes?

Can't you just declare war and have them rejoin the union?

Re:anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting that some people insist that freenet is a haven of child pr0n. These people have obviously not tried to use it to download anything bigger than a 4K html file.

Re:anonymous?

[B1ackDragon]

Try it out. I know it's for gentoo, but there is a nice howto here: Anonymous web browsing / instant messaging etc.

Yes, it is a little slow, but nothing like freenet. Just slow enough to be too annoying to use consistantly - for me, anyway.

Re:anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, how is this redundant when is was the 6th or so post. They need to stop charity crack distribution with mod points!

Re:anonymous?

[SpinJaunt]

Yes, they will hide under null with a warning:

          THIS FILE SYSTEM TYPE IS NOT YET FULLY SUPPORTED (READ: IT DOESN'T WORK)
          AND USING IT MAY, IN FACT, DESTROY DATA ON YOUR SYSTEM. USE AT YOUR OWN
          RISK. BEWARE OF DOG. SLIPPERY WHEN WET.

all props goes to: FreeBSD Manual Pages

Speaking of anonymous....

[Amoeba]

From the article: "If Granny's into trannies, and doesn't want her grandkids to know, she should be able to download without fear," says Taylor Banks, project leader.

This is why co-workers and I have been working on Fappix - The Pornnoisseur Distro. Not only can you browse anonymously but you have several thousand pre-bookmarked pages to choose from in categories ranging from Amateur Nudes to Bukkake Hentai to Puke porn. You have a hankering for some DP? We got it. Maybe a little fisting for those slow lonely nights at home. Nothing but the best for our users!

Never worry about having the correct video codec or player again as they will all be pre-installed! No more waiting another 20 minutes to download and install some obscure viewer just so you can rub on off to Kismet the Albino Sheep Goes to the Circus!

With our patented "Live (Hand) CD" technology you simply boot from the disk and off you go into fantastic realms of spanktacular fun without the worry of spyware, malware, trojans, or incriminating cache files again. You'll never have to blame that spandex scat video on "some spam or something" ever again!

Fappix. The sound of one hand clapping.

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[pjt33]

From the article: "If Granny's into trannies, and doesn't want her grandkids to know, she should be able to download without fear," says Taylor Banks, project leader. This is why co-workers and I have been working on Fappix - The Pornnoisseur Distro.

My fascination with the segue from Granny's love of outdated radios to porn is fighting with my desire not to know.

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Never worry about having the correct video codec or player again as they will all be pre-installed!

You can tell the guy who's had to deal with porn video file formats a lot. This is real life experience speaking here.

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ideas intrigue me, and I wish to sign up to your news letter!

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[John Frink]

So does anyone know just how much porn there is on the internet? I'm looking for hard statistics cause most "normal" people don't get it when I refer to my connection as a "porn pipe".

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[MightyMartian]

So does anyone know just how much porn there is on the internet? I'm looking for hard statistics cause most "normal" people don't get it when I refer to my connection as a "porn pipe".

Very likely because they think your talking about some body part.

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[poot_rootbeer]

So does anyone know just how much porn there is on the internet?

All of it?

I'm looking for hard statistics cause most "normal" people don't get it when I refer to my connection as a "porn pipe".

Have you tried wearing pants?

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[fmobus]

I strongly suggest you add porn-get to this package

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[Flunitrazepam]

My idea during the .com era was to sell hard drives... WITH PORN ALREADY ON THEM!!! What a great deal, you can just overwrite it if you want, but now your 10 gig drive is chalk full of porn upon purchase, saving you valuable surfing and downloading time.

I was going to sell water sports porn on Seagate drives :/

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[patio11]

Fappix. The sound of one hand clapping.

Normally I'm not a big ones for purient jokes but that's just perverse genius.

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[dcam]

How do you know?

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[Ryosen]

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[Anonymous Coward]

...you go into fantastic realms of spanktacular fun...

Hey, that's my gamertag...

0_o

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[Anonymous Coward]

With our patented "Live (Hand) CD" technology you simply boot from the disk and off you go into fantastic realms of spanktacular fun without the worry of spyware, malware, trojans, or incriminating cache files again.

My curiousity was aroused and I am excited about the ideas you have presented. However, I have two questions thus far:
1) Is there a certain red light district in which I might obtain a copy of this distro?
2) What kind of systems can I mount with it?

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[lfelipe]

So does anyone know just how much porn there is on the internet? All of it?
I don't know about porn, but paedophiles are using "an area of Internet the size of Ireland".

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there's 2+ TB of stuff posted to newsgroups every single day. You ever list all the newsgroups and sort to size? Guess whats most of the top lists? No, its no music, its PRON!

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[Hosiah]

Holy God. I could see this actually being released and being a popular distro. I'll keep an eye on Distrowatch for this one.

Re:Speaking of anonymous....

[mkro]

URL?

Interesting quotes

[Amoeba]

"If Granny's into trannies, and doesn't want her grandkids to know, she should be able to download without fear," says Taylor Banks, project leader.

'So easy to use you can hand it to your grandmother and send her off on her own to the local Starbucks.'

Am I the only one who finds the juxtaposition of these two quotes alarming? I don't want gamgams to end up in the pokey (pun intended) for inappropriate behavior at Starbucks. That would be weird.

Re:Interesting quotes

[temojen]

My grandmother would not know an alternate gearset if she sat on it. But I wouldn't think she'd get arrested for looking up this sort of tranny in a starbucks.

Re:Interesting quotes

[smittyoneeach]

Thus, grandma should take to heart the wisdom of the C++ community, and not make the private members public.
Keep a weather eye on those friends, too.
If her compiler is a little dusty, compile-time meta-programming is definitely out. Bingo is a sufficiently 'edgy' activity for gamgams, think you not?

Anonymous and suspicious

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I don't get the whole Tor thing, nor do I get running a Gnutella or Freenet node. The thing is, if you use or contribute to these anonymising services, you might think you're anonymous and safe, or that you're doing a great service to freedom of speech, but the real thing you're doing is plastering a big "I have something to hide, like trading kidding porn" sign to anybody willing to trace your communications in the first place.

Sad but real.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymizing yourself isn't a crime or probable cause for any kind of search warrant.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Anonymous Coward]

... yet.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Anonymizing yourself isn't a crime or probable cause for any kind of search warrant.

In police states, someone who wants to be anonymous deviates from the norm and automatically becomes suspicious, as The Man considers that if you're not guilty, you have nothing to hide.

In US-PATRIOT USA, I'm not sure I'd want to participate in the Tor network. I'm definitely not the only one. Perhaps I'm a coward, but that should tell you something of what this country is slowly turning into...

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[MightyMartian]

Why do you speak in strange whispers? You are not of the body!

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[wargolem]

Contrary to recent political trends, United States citizens actually have a right to privacy, and the last time I checked, having rights was a good thing. Upholding or making use of your right to privacy in no way means that you have something sinister to hide. The fact is that without privacy, many people would not be able to live their lives as they want, such as not having the freedom to practice their preferred religious beliefs or not being able to marry the spouse of their choosing. What the right to privacy defends is your right to live a lifestyle that may be different than your neighbors or somehow different than social norms, which isn't in itself illegal. In this society of mixed cultural and religious beliefs, privacy is necessary for a person's livelihood, and our laws were designed to uphold this. Thus, making use of one's right to privacy is nothing that anyone should have to worry about.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Deagol]

Sorry I don't have time to cite the URL, but I recall (while browsing the Utah State Code) that in Utah it is a crime to wear a mask or custume in public with the purpose to obfuscate your identity. (obviously there are exceptions)

Furthermore, I recall someone across the pond in Europe's most surveiled state (the UK) documenting on a web page how they had walked around at night in a costume (gorilla suit, maybe?), were obviously observed by the cameras, and were harassed by the police.

So, while maybe not a crime (in many places), trying to anonymize onesself *will* grab The Man's attention.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[cheaphomemadeacid]

tor + wide open wireless networks usually give 99.99% anonymous internet access...

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Anonymous Coward]

   

1. • FUCK YOU fuck youfuck youfuck youfuck youfuck youfuck youfuck youfuck you

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Concerned Onlooker]

but the real thing you're doing is plastering a big "I have something to hide, like trading kidding porn" sign to anybody willing to trace your communications in the first place.

So true. In fact, I would suggest that you stop using envelopes when mailing letters and just use postcards instead, that way everybody along the way can read them much more easily. You don't have anything to hide, do you?

No real reason for secret ballots either, now that I think about it. After all, you're not attemting to make an illegal vote.

The police ought to be able to search your house at will, too. If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear, right?

Oh, remember that sooner or later if you stop defending your freedoms you lose them. When it becomes illegal to criticize the government and you say "but that wasn't what I meant" it's just a tad too late.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[DrSkwid]

In my days as a hunt saboteur I have seen high ranking policemen defend the right of sabs to wear balaclavas (ski masks) and other identity obscuring clothing.

Contrary to popular belief you run in to quite a few sympathetic coppers in that line of protest. Especially after they'ved been ordered about by a few Audrey Hamilton's.

OT : I know a lot of Americans like their hunting and those of you who don't care one way or the other about hunting, I just want to make the point that in England hunting is not just a sport, it's a heritage. A heritage of murder, execution, force land clearance and other negative behaviour that resonates through our society and legal structure to this day. Reformation of society should be a constant and land ownership is central to this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/freedom/Story/0,2763,144 3881,00.html

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Nazadus]

Perhaps I'm a coward, but that should tell you something of what this country is slowly turning into...

That is *exactly* the problem we have.
Everyone is too scared to act. Nothing will _ever_ change by magic. Things like this CD allow you to speak without the fear of getting fucked back. Thus, the reason for this CD. Hell, take it to China and get past that firewall. Words matter, even if they can't be placed to a face.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Nazadus]

The police ought to be able to search your house at will, too. If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear, right?

Wanna know something scary? My grandparents think they should be able to do this. Becuase, obviously, they will use it to catch the terrorist.

The problem with that logic? Unless you search every home at one time, you won't catch the criminals. Unless, of course, you expect the criminals to play dumb and get arrestted on purpose. Right. Laws like this are only placed for control when needed or to be abused. Let us remember how the PATRIOT act got here in the first place...

My boss told me that he wanted me to look like I was working. I replied saying that I was, but he disagreed. Why? Becuase I use Remote Desktop. It doesn't *look* like I'm working becuase I never have to leave my desk except for hardware problems and upper mgmt told him that they thought I wasn't working. I told him, if you want me to check everything without using RD, it will cut my procutiong by 1/4. And if he wanted that, I would spend more concious time than production time caring about my image. I told him to choose. I'm not about to play their game. Image matters too much now-a-days.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with this on a personal note and would recommend Tor for home use or in public places like Starbucks, as someone who is charged with securing my workplace and enforcing company AUP's, Tor doesn't seem to have much of a place and will make security much more difficult. You don't have a right to privacy on he company network.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[glowworm]

When it becomes illegal to criticize the government...

That's exactly what Australian citizens now face as part of the sedition laws brought in because of the "war on Terror".

If we decide that the Australian government is doing the wrong thing in Iraq or Afganistan and we mention this publicly we can be arrested and held without trial or warrant for 14 days. Once the case gets to court it's 7 years jail if proven.

Be afraid, it *can* happen in America too. One day they could tack the same bill on an appropriation request.

The scary thing is if you are arrested for sedition in Australia it is illegal for the press to report that fact, reporting someone is being held for sedition is also a seven year jail term.

I now use TOR so I can email my MP and the Prime Minister without the threat of jail being held over me. Australia *is* now a police state and we need TOR to attempt to balance the evil.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[routerguy666]

"the freedom to practice their preferred religious beliefs or not being able to marry the spouse of their choosing"

Yeah because these are the sorts of things people generally don't want anyone else noticing...

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, nothing bad has ever happened to anyone because of people not liking stuff they do like this.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Anonymous Coward]

Reference please? I live in AU and this is this first I've heard. What's scary is that I don't doubt you're right.
Somehow these things in the UK and Australia never get as widely reported as in the US.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[LegendLength]

...I would suggest that you stop using envelopes when mailing letters and just use postcards instead, that way everybody along the way can read them much more easily. You don't have anything to hide, do you?

But our internet communications are already effectively enveloped. Try ringing my ISP to get any of my details other than IP address some time. Police need a warrant for this information also (I don't know that for a fact though).

No real reason for secret ballots either, now that I think about it. After all, you're not attemting to make an illegal vote.

Again, our personal internet usage is shielded from public view through the use of 'anonymous' IP addresses. Just like voting is. In fact, voting is currently less anonymous than browsing because you can see who is voting but you cannot 'see' who is currently browsing (unless they choose to connect to you, and even then you only get an IP).

The police ought to be able to search your house at will, too. If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear, right?

Yes they should, as long as their reason is not 'mallicous'. Is that not unreasonable? If so I would be interested in what policy you would put in place if you removed 'reasonable search'. The policy would have to be robust against scrutiny at least as well as the current law is.

Oh, remember that sooner or later if you stop defending your freedoms you lose them. When it becomes illegal to criticize the government and you say "but that wasn't what I meant" it's just a tad too late.

It is, of course, not currently illegal to criticize government. And if it ever gets that way, I don't know a single person who would rest until it is fixed (left or right wing).

I agree that you should be constantly worried about freedoms disappearing, especially with the amazing spin machines that have been honed over the years (on both sides of politics). I disagree with the implied 'slippery slope' argument of your post, and you should note that it is often a logical fallacy when used.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[LegendLength]

If we decide that the Australian government is doing the wrong thing in Iraq or Afganistan and we mention this publicly we can be arrested and held without trial or warrant for 14 days.

This is 100% false. Sedition laws are extremely narrowly defined and were written for the case where an organization is urging people to use violence against any person(s).

It is fine to be against a law like this, but what is your solution? If a person were to distribute a newsletter that called for killing of a minority race, would you let it continue under 'free speech'? Until now that has been legal and actually has been occuring in the wild (e.g. South Western Sydney). Some of the more nasty recent newsletters and religous teachings were what got the sedition laws fast tracked in the first place.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Karma Farmer]

I'm not sure I'd want to participate in the Tor network. I'm definitely not the only one. Perhaps I'm a coward, but that should tell you something of what this country is slowly turning into...

Yes. It's turning into a nation full of cowards.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[glowworm]

Sedition laws are extremely narrowly defined and were written for the case where an organization is urging people to use violence against any person(s).

It is not just restricted to an organisation. It is a global law that restricts everyone who incites opposition to the government or crown - even if they are an individual.

It is now illegal to support those fighting to defend their land against foreign military occupations and that includes Australian forces. For example opposing the occupation of Iraq by Australian and American forces and speaking in favour of the right of Iraqi citizens to resist this occupation fall within the definition of the new offence.

The last time these laws were used was in 1960 when Brian Cooper urged the natives of Papua New Guinea to oppose Australian occupation. He suicided after being arrested.

Just think if these laws had been in use in 1970 in the Vietnam protests. Thousands of people would have been arrested. Likewise the clause about inciting the overthrow of a legal government. Can I say 1975, the Liberals and Sir John Kerr? Yes, Sir John was being seditious in seeking the overthrow of a lawfull government.

You mention the Sydney race riots and how they should be seen as seditious. You are aware that they occurred almost two months after the laws passed aren't you? Was anyone prosecuted under these particular laws? NO! Why? Because they were Anglo spreading hate against Arabs.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[zoeblade]

I have something to hide, like trading kidding porn

Beautiful woman: I'd really like to make love to you.
Guy: Really?!
Beautiful woman: Nah, just kidding.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[LegendLength]

It is a global law that restricts everyone who incites opposition to the government or crown - even if they are an individual.

It is nothing of the sort.

It is now illegal to support those fighting to defend their land against foreign military occupations and that includes Australian forces.

If by 'support' you mean give money, then yes, I can't imagine why you would want it to be legal to finance a force that is at war with your own country (feel free to explain why you'd ever want such a thing legal).

For example opposing the occupation of Iraq by Australian and American forces and speaking in favour of the right of Iraqi citizens to resist this occupation fall within the definition of the new offence.

You can speak in favor of whoever you choose, so again, that is 100% false. I suggest you read the actual sedition laws before continuing making false statements about it (it's as if you want to make them seem as draconian as possible, through lies. Try being objective).

The last time these laws were used was in 1960 when Brian Cooper urged the natives of Papua New Guinea to oppose Australian occupation. He suicided after being arrested.

I am sad to hear he suicided. I'm not sure if you are implying they killed him, perhaps some evidence would be best before accusing someone of murder, just out of courtesy.

That aside, would you then agree that this man should have been allowed to urge the natives to kill Australian troops without arrest? I would be very interested in your answer to that one.

Just think if these laws had been in use in 1970 in the Vietnam protests. Thousands of people would have been arrested.

Were they urging North Vietnamese to kill Australian/US troops? If not then they still would not be touched by the new sedition laws.

Likewise the clause about inciting the overthrow of a legal government. Can I say 1975, the Liberals and Sir John Kerr? Yes, Sir John was being seditious in seeking the overthrow of a lawfull government.

Do you mean unlawfully overthrow or lawfully overthrow here? If he incited unlawful or violent overthrow, then yes I see no problem with sedition kicking in (do you?). If he incited lawful overthrow (e.g. voting, rallying, protesting) then sedition has nothing to say on the matter.

You mention the Sydney race riots and how they should be seen as seditious.

I was vague but was actually referring to problems in Western Syd over the last couple of years. The race riots are a different problem again and were the result of ethnic tension at the beaches where the muslim and australian cultures were clashing. Nothing has happened since those drunken idiots had their run through the streets, at least compared to riots in other countries recently (France comes to mind).

You are aware that they occurred almost two months after the laws passed aren't you? Was anyone prosecuted under these particular laws? NO! Why? Because they were Anglo spreading hate against Arabs.

If anyone was outputting hate speech against Arabs then they were already doing so illegally (no need for the new sedition laws). I am sure you will agree that the race of the alleged speaker should not be taken into account when sentencing.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[SComps]

It is, of course, not currently illegal to criticize government. And if it ever gets that way, I don't know a single person who would rest until it is fixed (left or right wing).

I believe his point is that by the time it ever gets that way, *not* resting and *trying* to fix it will be illegal. Bitching about not being able to criticize your government is oddly enough performing the act itself.

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[kalidasa]

I don't know ANYTHING about this, so take this as a genuine query for information: why is it called a "sedition" law if it merely covers incitement to violence? Sedition normally refers to words, not actions or incitement to actions. (Wikipedia seems to agree with your interpretation of the law, by the way.)

Re:Anonymous and suspicious

[Kirth]

Perhaps I'm a coward, but that should tell you something of what this country is slowly turning into...

A Dictatorship. Well, according to recent actions it already is. Per Definition, "dictator refers to an absolutist or autocratic ruler who governs outside the normal constitutional rule of law.". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator

The fact that president Bush was able to order a huge illegal eavesdropping-action, and was not impeached and imprisoned for high treason immediately makes him per definition a dictator.

See also: http://schneier.com/crypto-gram-0601.html#12

But

[voteforkerry78]

my grandma is dead you insensitive clod!

Re:But

[MightyMartian]

my grandma is dead you insensitive clod!

Yes, I suppose they have that kind of porn, too.

Re:But

[Anonymous Coward]

But she still votes, right?

Anonymous developments?

[dada21]

I've been very interested in the world of anonymous information sharing -- possibly as a replacement for the normal IP-based Internet. Maybe someone out there can answer a few questions:

1. What are the theories behind simple anonymous sharing of data? (I know there are newer versions of P2P beyond Torrent that allow for a third party mediator between two anonymous parties. This seems like a start to making a truly free-speech undernet.)

2. Is it possible to completely diversify the Internet away from IP-based hosting to a new swarm-network of anonymous users all hosting little pieces of various forms of information? 2b. Is anyone working on this swarm idea?

3. As information becomes more accessible, will the need for information privacy be important? 3b. Is it more important to create a totally anonymous information sharing network than it is to work on harder to break encryption schemes?

Re:Anonymous developments?

[ivoras]

I'm not an expert in anonymizing, but: to receive any information (really *any* - network packets, postal packages, etc.) efficiently, you have to have a unique address, and the party that sends the information must know it. Therefore, the path of that information can be tracked.

The only way I see to guarantee anonymous receiving is some kind of broadcast - for example as exists with satellite downloading systems: the information is always broadcast by the satellite to a really wide area, in which any party can receive it (and discard it if it's not meant for them to have it) without the abbility to detect who and where has received it. The reason this scheme works is because satellite receiving is a "read only" system - the receivers are passive and don't send information to satellites, they only filter the received content (i.e. channels or download streams). This could be useful with a public key encryption scheme.

(btw. the way satellite downloads currently works is that the receiver must have a separate "ground" line to a regular ISP that's used to send requests to the satellite company to broadcast the desired information, so there's still a traceable line, but in one direction only)

Re:Anonymous developments?

[LiquidCoooled]

What happens when the wireless net is in all places?
When I can get more real bandwidth using the 802.xx mesh around me than with my ISPs pipe?

No government could block access.

Information will once again be free.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[Jim McCoy]

1. What are the theories behind simple anonymous sharing of data?

It depends on what you mean by the terms "simple", "anonymous", and "sharing." Seriously. There is a lot of crypto research out there that touches upon the various possibilities, but it all boils down to this: the more anonymity you have in the network the higher the cost of using that network for everyone involved (where cost == increased bandwidth & CPU consumption and increased message passing latency.) In terms of what is possible there is basically a big dial, labelled "apply various crypto protocols and message-hiding techniques", that you can turn to decide how much inconvenience you are willing to put up with in return for better privacy.

2. Is it possible to completely diversify the Internet away from IP-based hosting to a new swarm-network of anonymous users all hosting little pieces of various forms of information? 2b. Is anyone working on this swarm idea?

Possible, but difficult. The difficulty increases significantly if you want to ensure reliability & availability of the data provided by the swarm or provide the nifty "web 2.0" trappings that most people have come to expect from web sites. Various projects are working on components of this mythical system, ranging from the Tor networking system mentioned in the original post to the Invisible Internet Project and GNUNet. Nailing the whole package in a single effort is a non-starter for anyone who has even casually glanced at the relevant research necessary to begin such a project, so each effort focuses on one specific aspect and eventually it might be possible to combine these efforts into a single coherent sytem.

In other words, don't hold your breath waiting for this one to actually come about.

3. As information becomes more accessible, will the need for information privacy be important? 3b. Is it more important to create a totally anonymous information sharing network than it is to work on harder to break encryption schemes?

I won't bother trying to answer the first part of the question because it is a matter of personal preference. As far as the second half of the question goes, having good end-to-end security does not help you if either of the endpoints is compromised; a malicious server can reveal that you are surfing for child porn while a malicious user can reveal that your site is distributing bomb-making recipes with no need for the points in between the two ends to break the communications encryption.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[Kjella]

1. What are the theories behind simple anonymous sharing of data? (I know there are newer versions of P2P beyond Torrent that allow for a third party mediator between two anonymous parties. This seems like a start to making a truly free-speech undernet.)

1a) Premixing, where you create a path of nodes, then encrypt your request with an onion-like encryption with each node knowing only the last and next node.
1b) Passing it around, across borders mixed with other traffic and fake data so that you are unable to determine where the starting point and ending point of any stream is.

2. Is it possible to completely diversify the Internet away from IP-based hosting to a new swarm-network of anonymous users all hosting little pieces of various forms of information? 2b. Is anyone working on this swarm idea?

2a) Maybe, however it is really non-trivial to make it happen. Also there'll probably be a huge speed penalty.
2b) Yes, many are. Few are really getting anywhere. See 2a)

3. As information becomes more accessible, will the need for information privacy be important? 3b. Is it more important to create a totally anonymous information sharing network than it is to work on harder to break encryption schemes?

3a) Undoubtably. Most likely, anything that is out just can't be put back in the bag.
3b) We've pretty much got unbreakable encryption. The real question is how will the world change if you create an online anarchy? It is freedom of speech, freedom of privacy, freedom to pursuit of happiness but it is also wide open for slander/libel, stock fraud, hate speech, direct encouragement of crime (even in the US you wouldn't accept things like "Do the world a favor, kill a jew today!"), copyright infringement, child pornography and the list goes on. For whom, and in what respect? Some are obvious losers, some are obvious winners. In general, I think it would change the world, I'm just not convinced if for better or for worse...

Re:Anonymous developments?

[TriezGamer]

This isn't entirely true -- More recent sattelite based ISPs no longer need the land-based line because the unit CAN communicate back to the sattelite. I'm not too sure on the details of how it all works, but seeing as I recently dropped my sattelite service (which used such a system) for a Cable line, I can assure you it's done somehow.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[drix]

Yes, to track a tor session from server to end-user is theoretically possible. Guess what? So is time travel. The confluence of circumstance and technology needed to make either one actually happen make them practically impossible. I don't know tor all that well, but I'd be damn surprised if they did any sort of connection logging whatsoever. So, your quest ends at hop one unless you've managed to root that box. I don't know tor all that well, but I'd be damn surprised if they were bouncing each conn off < N boxes, where N is probably greater than 5. So you'd need to root say 5 boxes. I don't know tor all that well, but I'd be damn surprised if the routes were not randomized from connection to connection. So, you'd need actually need to root pretty much the entire network, or some large subset of it.

I don't know what your personal odds of pulling that off are, maybe you are more 31337 than I, but I'm estimating that the probability is, say, Planck's constant (scalarized, of course.) For the government, we'll give them about 15 orders of magnitude greater... inverse of Avogadro's number, perhaps. Or maybe the Hartree energy constant, if I'm feeling really generous.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[ClamIAm]

1. What are the theories behind simple anonymous sharing of data? (I know there are newer versions of P2P beyond Torrent that allow for a third party mediator between two anonymous parties. This seems like a start to making a truly free-speech undernet.)

You know, this comment kind of piqued my interest. I would imagine that some theories of cryptography may apply here, but maybe in different ways than they were conceived. Also, there are things like Freenet, which allows for a sort of "free-spech undernet", but they come with the issues of forcing users to pass on all information, even things that one might find amoral.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[Omnifarious]

I've been very, very slowly working on a protocol to create a pseudononymous Internet that complete divorces identities from IP. Psuedonyms are almost as good as being anonymous since you can create them whenever you like. And, unlike being anonymous, a psuedonym can gather a reputation.

My system is called CAKE. I need to spend a whole bunch of time working on it, but I have a job and stuff now, and have really had the time. I also need some new ideas for how to put it together, though I think I may have thought of those now.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[zobier]

What about Freenet?

Re:Anonymous developments?

[Anonymous Coward]

The passing on of all information is the best way to say "Freenet put it there" and not really be responsible for any of the data. Whether it will be seen this way in court, especially with the current reputation of Freenet (if it was used more, there would be less amoral material percentagewise). Comment 14486879 mentions this in 1b:

1b) Passing it around, across borders mixed with other traffic and fake data so that you are unable to determine where the starting point and ending point of any stream is.

Basically Freenet uses real data to cause less of a waste of bandwidth and more of a forced mirroring technique. It works towards the same end, in a way.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[swilver]

An interesting development might be that a system completely seperate from the internet (or ISP's) might slowly develop by means of WiFi. Where I live, there are networks that literally cover an entire city run by normal people for free. When they are interconnected (either by using bridges over the internet) or some other means, we'll have ourselves a modern BBS network like in the good old days of UUCP and FIDO net.

Good luck tracing anything over such a network :)

Re:Anonymous developments?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jim McCoy wrote:
>
> having good end-to-end security does not help you if either of the endpoints
> is compromised;

This is false.

> a malicious server can reveal that you are surfing for
> child porn

Not if it doesn't know who you are. All the server would know is the nearest node in the anonymous network the request came from. It would not know the where the user is coming from.

Here's an illustration, with "S" denoting the (compromised) server, "H" denoting a regular (non-anonymous) host/hop in between the server and the anonymous network, "A" denoting a host/hop in the anonymous network, and "U" denoting the user.

This diagram below illustrates a connection from the server to the user (or vice-versa).

    S-H-H-H-A-A-A-A-U

Here is how the connection would look to the server:

    S-H-H-H-A

It's clear that the server can only see the first link in the chain that constitutes the anonymous network. It does not know where the user is, execept that he's somewhere beyond that first "A".

> while a malicious user can reveal that your site is distributing
> bomb-making recipes with no need for the points in between the two ends to
> break the communications encryption.

This is also false for similar reasons to the ones described above. Below is another illustration, this time of a server hiding behind an anonymous network. (It's really the reverse of the above diagram.)

    U-H-H-H-A-A-A-A-S

That is a diagram of a (compromised) user connecting to the server hiding behind a chain of hosts/hops in an anonymous network. But here is what the user would see:

    U-H-H-H-A

Once again it's clear that the user can not see past the first link in that chain.

So it's clear that such a network is useful for preserving anonymity (at least in the ideal case). And even in the less than ideal case where either the server or the user's machine has been compromised it still preserves anonymity. In fact, if implemented right, it even preserves anonymity if more than one host/hop in the chain of the anonymous network is compromised. For more details on how this is accomplished I recommend reading up on the design and implementation of the mixmaster remailers.

All of the above assumes, of course, that the user/server itself doesn't do something stupid like provide identifying information about itself (ie. signing their emails with their real name/email address, and the like).

Re:Anonymous developments?

[ZB Mowrey]

1. What are the theories behind simple anonymous sharing of data?

For starters, turn as many people as possible into open proxies. Then encrypt traffic between those proxies. Get brave volunteers to allow their machines to be end-nodes (places where traffic is allowed to exit and enter the network) instead of just routing nodes. Ideally, the end-nodes should be located in countries with a) negligible computer-crime budgets, or b) negligible computer crime laws. This has a detrimental effect on network latency (and possibly throughput), but it's hard for a country to prosecute someone for something that isn't illegal where the someone lives.

2. Is it possible to completely diversify the Internet away from IP-based hosting to a new swarm-network of anonymous users all hosting little pieces of various forms of information? 2b. Is anyone working on this swarm idea?

The concept of a swarm is incompatible with anonymity. See, in a Bittorrent situation, there must be some entity that handles the "who gets connected to whom". Also, it's always possible to see the IP address of anyone who sends you data. So if you're in a swarm, you can tell (by sniffing your own traffic) who is sending and receiving data. If you're only receiving illegal files, you can logically assume that anyone sending you bits is providing said illegal data.

One notable exception to this would be if an entire area (say, a neighborhood, town, or nation) were to have a free-access mesh network that offers dynamic addressing. Then someone could, in theory, write software that would periodically establish a new IP address within the mesh (disconnect, change MAC address, reconnect). Add bonus points if all traffic between the clients and the access point is encrypted.

3. As information becomes more accessible, will the need for information privacy be important? 3b. Is it more important to create a totally anonymous information sharing network than it is to work on harder to break encryption schemes?

The need for information privacy is as important now as it has ever been, or will ever be. It's all based on the user's perception. If you maintain good security practices and don't wind up with trojans on your system, *and* you don't do anything illegal, you only have to worry about commercial exploitation. If you get hacked, the acts of another could be pinned on you.

More important than the need for information privacy is the need for a consensus that the mere encryption of data does not constitute a reason for the authorities to break it and/or question you. Ideally, they'd require real-world probable cause before even being able to capture your traffic. All too often, that is not the case.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[Jim McCoy]

I guess I should not have tried to be glib and should have addressed the problems with mix networks and other anonymity schemes directly.

Against a powerful adversary (e.g. an law enforcement agency, not the RIAA) your entire anonymous network is just a black box. Instead of the hop diagram you provided:

S-H-H-H-A-A-A-U

the attacker sees

S-H-H-H-{A}-U

They just treat the entire A network as if it was a single entity and eliminate it from the equation (and since they are a powerful adversary they are probably watching the packets at an upstream backbone site and can eliminate most of the S-H-H... hops as well.) The only way to fix this is to introduce timing delays in packets and not small delays either, enough of a delay that your powerful adversary runs out of space to store all of the packets entering and leaving the anonymous network. An anonymous mix network only works if it can't be passively examined in this manner, and at the moment Tor does not make this assurance.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://freenet.sourceforge.net/

Re:Anonymous developments?

[ivoras]

Yes, it's possible - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_(satellite), but I don't think it's widespread.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[Kadin2048]

2. Is it possible to completely diversify the Internet away from IP-based hosting to a new swarm-network of anonymous users all hosting little pieces of various forms of information? 2b. Is anyone working on this swarm idea?

IIRC, but this was the concept behind Freenet. At least I think it was Freenet. I remember playing with a very early version of a peer-to-peer system that was at least in theory quite secure, and allowed anybody to publish information up onto the network, and then distributed and retained that information based on popularity. It was quite neat, but this being back when I had a 56k modem, also dead slow. I'm not sure if it's still going on or not. Plus, most people just saw it as a Napster replacement, and it had never been set up to host or share a lot of MP3 files.

Let's face it, the ratio of people who want to share porn/music/movies to people who want to distribute the "smoking gun" photo of Chinese government oppression or the giant corporate dumping activity is huge. So any system that you're going to set up with the latter type of user in mind, is in the short run going to have to tolerate a lot of the former (unless you yourself as the operator want to selectively censor different types of usage).

I just did some research and I think the system I tried was defintely Freenet. It seems it's still alive, although quite cash-strapped and seeking donations. Perhaps now that broadband has become more popular it's easier to use than it was before.
http://freenetproject.org/index.php?page=faq

Although it is a little out of date now, there is an interesting discussion of anonymous peer-to-peer networks in the O'Reilly book "Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies"; it's a collection of essays about different networks which various people all thought were going to be the 'next big thing' circa 2001. There is defintely a chapter on Freenet in there, and several others besides.

Re:Anonymous developments?

[Tack]

I don't know tor all that well, but I'd be damn surprised if they were bouncing each conn off < N boxes, where N is probably greater than 5.

Actually N is 3. It's not known if N > 3 will provide greater anonymity. See the Tor FAQ for more details.

Jason.

Fantastic!

[wmajik]

So easy to use you can hand it to your grandmother and send her off on her own to the local Starbucks.

Fantastic! I've always thought copious amounts of caffeine and an anonymous method of browsing for porn were meant for ubergeeks like myself, but now that my *grandma* can do it as well, that's just fantastic!

... (pause)...

OH GOD, MY EYES!!!

Re:Fantastic!

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

Relax, your grandma always gets wet like this around me.

XOXO,
Latiffa (with two F's)

Re:Fantastic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't encourage the GP.

Maybe it's a newbie question

[Wordsmith]

My understanding is that Starbucks and other places use unsecured, unenrypted wireless networks - so that anyone can get on without much hassle. Is there really any way to have reasonable security over one of these networks? Is there really a way to ensure (or at least be pretty sure) the guy with the laptop on the other end of the shop isn't picking up my passwords and info when I connect to such a network?

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[shumacher]

Yes. Use encryption. Encryption in your email client, encryption in your browser. Tor does this, but so does https and ssl.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[Wordsmith]

Ok, more newbieish questions ...

So if I'm at Starbucks (or anywhere else on a network that's not using WPA or WEP or whatever), and I type in my credit card info to an online store that's using HTTPS, I'm reasonably safe?

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[shumacher]

Yes.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[HTL2001]

yes.

Think about it this way:
HTTPS etc encrypt your data before it is sent to the wireless card
WPA/WEP encrypts the data as its recieved on the wireless card, then transmits it

not quite right but basicly, HTTPS encrypts data before it would be encrypted for WPA wireless.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

hotspotvpn.com or one of its competitors.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[jrockway]

If the certificate validates, then probably yes.

If it doesn't validate, it means that someone could have setup a web server pretending to be the one asking for your credit card. It's a common man-in-the-middle attack, and is very easy to do with automated tools (like ettercap). You are protected, though, since the certificate (shouldn't be) valid in this case... the trusted CAs are trusted because they won't give a valid certificate to someone that's doing MITM attacks in Starbucks. (However, the CAs have been known to lapse. A certificate was granted a while back to something like paypa1.com and was used to phish paypal details. Users thought it was OK because the cert was valid, but it was valid for the wrong site.)

Either way, be careful.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[hahiss]

I don't know, but let's give it a shot:

Give me the number of your credit card, and then I'll keep an eye out for any transactions you're making.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[ClamIAm]

Another post mentions using SSH, and there is also IPsec.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Parent was a crappy, minimal response, to be sure, but it is correct. It also was the first response to its parent, so how could it be -1 redundant? Look at the time stamps, moderators.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[RandomJoe]

I use OpenVPN. I found it a whole lot easier to set up than IPsec. I set up an endpoint on a DSL firewall I maintain at work (not on the corporate network) and on my firewall at home. I can connect to either, at which point it's like I'm sitting in the office or at home.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[Hollins]

Use encryption. Encryption in your email client, encryption in your browser.

I tried this for awhile, but then people would call me up to ask about the emails I had sent that were composed of random gibberish.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[shumacher]

Congrats on using GPG, PGP or some other protocol that secures your message. To secure your credentials and messages from people sharing a starbucks wifi connection, try POP3, IMAP and SMTP over SSL. It solves a different problem, and has no effect on the readability of your messages at the other end.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Sockets_Layer

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[MBHkewl]

Recently, friends of mine were doing a research for a subject they're taking on wireless networks.
They've visited Starbucks and for their shock, Starbucks was using sniffers! They actually log every tap of keyboard you do and everything that goes out and in.

This is "SUPPOSED" to be illegal, here in Kuwait, but no one did/doing/will do anything about it since the whole Starbucks chain here is owned by big fat wallets.

Re:Maybe it's a newbie question

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're not at all safe.

The machine you're on probably has some kind of rootkit on it that contains a keylogger, capturing all your credit card details and sending them to Russia. The site you've gone to is probably perfectly legit, but you're still compromised and now someone else can log into the site as you and transfer all your money.

If the machine is not yours, you should treat it as not trustworthy. Even if the machine is yours, and is a Windows machine using IE and not behind a firewall, you should still treat it as not trustworthy - it probably has at least 3 kinds of viruses and worms on it. The safer thing to do is to use some of Linux bootcd or a Mac of some kind.

OpenBSD based, not FreeBSD

[putko]

You might think from the daemon logo that it is a FreeBSD-based thing.

It isn't -- it is OpenBSD-based. So you'd figure the encryption would be top-notch. Also the OS is already very secure. That's what they focus on, to the exclusion of other things.

OpenBSD is quite reliable. If it includes drivers for hardware, they work.

Also, they only use code that they can look at. No blogs of code (like Linux or FreeBSD) are allowed. That's because if you can't inspect them, the NSA or an attacker might have put some bad code in there. It is because of things like this that Theo De Raadt won a prize from Stallman for his contributions to free software.

Re:OpenBSD based, not FreeBSD

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

No blogs of code (like Linux or FreeBSD) are allowed.

// Linux Kernal v.2.7...

int main()
{

while(1)
{

set_mood('depressed');
set_currently_playing('Mourning Dew For You - The Emostreet Boys');
set_post('i know ive said it before but my life sucks. im gonna kill myself i sware. everyone hates me. i cut myself again.');

}
exit(0);

}

Re:OpenBSD based, not FreeBSD

[ClamIAm]

No blogs of code (like Linux or FreeBSD) are allowed.

I was under the impression that the Linux kernel did not allow binary/nonfree things to be accepted into the "authoritative" (read: Linus's) code base, as the whole things is licensed under the GPL. Yes, many distributions include bits of non-free code (such as drivers), but the kernel itself does not.

Re:OpenBSD based, not FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh, what variant of C is that written in that allows you to put single quotes around strings?

Re:OpenBSD based, not FreeBSD

[putko]

Is this good enough? http://kerneltrap.org/node/4965

I'm not a Linux expert. I can't point to the stuff.

All I know is that OpenBSD absolutely doesn't allow that stuff.

Re:OpenBSD based, not FreeBSD

[MichaelSmith]

Also, they only use code that they can look at. No blogs of code (like Linux or FreeBSD) are allowed. That's because if you can't inspect them, the NSA or an attacker might have put some bad code in there. It is because of things like this that Theo De Raadt won a prize from Stallman for his contributions to free software.

RMS, author of the famously bloated emacs, doesn't give out awards for writing tight code. That award was for campaigning for free OSS drivers for hardware.

Re:OpenBSD based, not FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh, it's the one the Linux "kernal" is written in.

Re:OpenBSD based, not FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's because if you can't inspect them, the NSA or an attacker might have put some bad code in there."

This is a null argument. The "blogs" of code you're talking about are firmware, and OpenBSD runs happily on unknown firmware - just so long as they don't have to upload it to the device. So "the NSA or an attacker" just provide you a printer, or a USB dongle, or a video card with bad code already inside it, game over. Since apparently they have the ability to infiltrate hardware manufacturers at will and hide things in firmware it should be no problem for them to replace the iPod you just bought from Amazon.com with a "bad" one. Or get your mobile phone service provider to "update" your mobile with bad code. Or include bad code targetted just at you in the next on-air flash update for the model of digital TV decoder you use.

In fact, OpenBSD does contain "blogs" of magic numbers for things like this, but we're promised that unlike the Linux kernel "blogs" these are harmless, just data. How do we know it isn't bad code? We don't. OpenBSD take the manufacturer's word. There isn't any way to know. But never mind, here's Theo again, he's screaming and pumping his fist.

Kinda'

[DogDude]

Not really true is you're using TOR and a proxy. It'd be hard as hell to trace. But maybe so if you're running a TOR server (an outlet for other people's anonymity). That's why there are a hell of a lot more TOR users that don't also run servers. That's also why TOR is virtually unuseable (it's dial-up speed, when it doesn't time-out altogether).

Re:Kinda'

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen, Frank. Go away. You're not welcome here.

Just take your anarchist leanings and go.

Joke's on them

[Anonymous Coward]

I know people who outright refuse to use tor because the navy and military had a major hand in tor, and before some retard goes off trying to make himself look cool and get modded up for saying "well the internet was created by the military" that was arpanet, not the internet, the internet came together when the arpanet, and various service providers merged together and everyone else joined. plus, tor isnt a medium, it's an anonymity service, however, no doubt that some of these onion routers are military run or nsa run. thus they can track who uses their routers. So you're not completely anonymous where it counts, nor are idiot wannabe terrorists who will prolly use disks like these to send messages over the net.

Re:Joke's on them

[MightyMartian]

The internet came together when the arpanet, and various service providers merged together and everyone else joined

I nominate this for the most concisely inept retelling of the history of the Internet ever!

Re:Joke's on them

[Anonymous Coward]

I nominate this for the most concisely inept retelling of the history of the Internet ever!

I nominate "Al Gore did it"!

The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzled.

[Deagol]

Back in the early 90's, when I was new to the 'net, I remember uncovering all these programs and concepts that gave me hope that people would be able to wander the internet truly anonymously. I discovered PGP, anon.penet.fi, the whole cypherpunk movement (crypto, remailers, etc.), anonymoizer.com, Chaum's eCash. Things were rough around the edges, and tough to use for a internet newbie, but progressing along fast enough that I thought we'd actually see Joe Sixpack able to easily utilize these tools. Someday.

I'd check on these projects every few years, until finally, I sorta gave up on following them. They seemed to stagnate, never getting beyond the fringe.

A year or so ago, I wanted to the utilize mixmaster remailers, and I *still* wasn't able to find an up-to-date, lucid HOWTO or a client that didn't require a *lot* of work to use.

I haven't actively sought these tools in a while, so maybe they've caught up. But I keep my ear to the wall, and I have yet to hear any murmers of good anonymizing technologies, nor do I ever see any passing references to people using them.

I have assumed that the movement is either dead (nobody cares anymore) or ubiquitous (it's common knowledge and no big deal). Somehow, I kinda doubt it's the latter.

I've been toying with an idea for a site/system in the spirit of the Mixmaster remailers, but I want to be able to evaluate the current technologies before I totally re-invent the proverbial wheel. (Plus, I wish to be as anonymous in the registration and publication of the site as possible). I'd *love* some pointers.

If you thought Tor was slow now...

[tehlinux]

If you thought Tor was slow now, just wait until the slashdotters start playing around with this!

Re:If you thought Tor was slow now...

[Nonesuch]

If you thought Tor was slow now, just wait until the slashdotters start playing around with this!

Good point.

Kaos' next project can be a non-interactive bootable live CD which joins a machine to the Tor network, all the while displaying a clone of the default Windows XP screensaver

Re:OK...what the HELL

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats not why, its because a few of us up here feel that you're being given too much exposure on the site and we need to consider alternatives. So please don't complain, its a community, remember.

Re:OK...what the HELL

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things:

1. it's ScuttleMonkey of * * Beatles-Beatles fame;
2. digg-derived article-whores are legion.

You should have honed your celerity after all that FP-dom.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO, using PGP will make the NSA want to read your stuff.

Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Anonymous Coward]

You have the right to pamphlet anonymously. You have the right to use the internet to do it. You should be able to criticize the government without worrying about anyone getting revenge on you. I totally agree that the Patriot act goes way too far. By removing our basic freedoms, George W. has given the victory to the terrorists. We should be fighting to preserve our freedoms, not giving up our freedoms to fight the terrorists.

The fact that a bunch of sickos use this technology to be perverted does not mean that the rest of us should not use it. If you care about your freedom and you don't like what is going on then you can use it to safely make your complaints heard.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[gclef]

Nonsense. Show me the section of the Constitution that explicitly guarantees a right to privacy.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[LocalH]

How about this: You show me the section which explicitly denies a right to privacy. Can't do it? Then you lose.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[gclef]

So I can just make up rights, and unless they're explicitly denied in the Constitution, they exist? Do I have a right to a 10-hour workweek? After all, it's not explicitly denied in the Constitution.....

Bull.

You have a limited set of rights under the Constitution. Privacy is not one of them. Privacy has been read as an *implied* right by the search and siezure clause, but that has only been created by precedent in the courts.

You have no constitutional right to privacy.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Pantero Blanco]

The Fourth Amendment.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[gclef]

Close....the right to privacy has been read by the courts to be *implied* by the Fourth Amendment, but you'll not find it in the text:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Derling Whirvish]

How about this: You show me the section which explicitly denies a right to privacy. Can't do it? Then you lose.

How about the Fourth Amendment? While it denies the government the ability to do "unreasonable" searches and seizures, it allows them to do all the REASONABLE searchin' and seizin' they want. That pretty much limits your privacy to whatever the administration in charge deems to be "reasonable." For instance there is no limit on how intrusive an inspector from Child Protective Services can be. None.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[poopdeville]

So I can just make up rights, and unless they're explicitly denied in the Constitution, they exist? Do I have a right to a 10-hour workweek? After all, it's not explicitly denied in the Constitution.....

Of course you do. Without that right, you couldn't go out and get a part-time job.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[wmspringer]

So I can just make up rights, and unless they're explicitly denied in the Constitution, they exist? Do I have a right to a 10-hour workweek? After all, it's not explicitly denied in the Constitution.....

Yes. Generally, nobody else can make you work more than 10 hours per week.

Granted, you may starve to death, but that's your right..

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Pantero Blanco]

As I interpret it, the right to privacy (in one's own home, at least) would be covered under "searches".

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Theatetus]

So I can just make up rights, and unless they're explicitly denied in the Constitution, they exist?

Well, according to the text, pretty much, yeah:

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. Show me the section of the Constitution that explicitly guarantees a right to privacy.

First of all, the constitution is not about what people can or cannot do, it is about what government can or cannot do.

Secondly, the constitution does not explicitly guarantee rights at all. Contrary to popular belief the 1st amendment does not "grant people the right to free speech", it actually states that government cannot interfere with your right to free speech.

  In other words, as it is written in the preamble, the framers thought that certain rights were self-evident, that they are inherent and inalienable - thus are not spelled out.

You do not need government to grant you the right to free speech. You need the constitution to protect that (assumed) right from government!

The framers thought that free speech was the right of all people merely by the fact that they are alive (and thus they amended the constitution in order to explicity state that government MAY NOT interfere with that right).

Thirdly, the right to privacy doesn't have to be spelled out in the constitution. That is what the 9th amendment is for. Not to mention that precedent has been set by the courts in any number of cases.

Lastly, if not protected by precedant, the 9th amendment (and inherent in the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th amendments as many scholars argue), then it may at least be considered "common-law".

If anything, the founding fathers were 10x more paranoid about government than anyone here on /. - they were the ultimate tin-foil-hatters - in a way.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[aaronl]

You're reading it out of context.

  "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

This means that the government is outright forbidden to conduct unreasonable search and seizure. It also forbids unsubstantiated warrants to be issued. It allows the government the ability to issue warrant, search, or siezure when there is good reason that is supposed under oath and to an exact place, person, or thing. That is quite a narrow power!

With the way the Constitution is written, this is supposed to mean that the government can do those things *only* under that exactly described set of conditions. That inspector that you're talking about, by the Constitution, would require a court supported warrant to a specific place to do a search. The reason of "someone said this bad thing was happening" is insufficient, because you cannot state, under oath, that "bad thing" is happening, unless the person saying that it is can affirmatively testify to the occurrance of "bad thing".

I recognize that things aren't working that way at the moment, but that is what the Constitution *says* is supposed to be going on.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[aaronl]

Actually, it is covered under the 9th amendment. The 4th amendment gives you very specific privacies that it is supposed to be impossible for the government to circumvent, at any level; they are guaranteed.

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Since the Constitution does not take away your privacy, you have the right to privacy under the Constitution.

The 10th amendment allows for that right to be altered by the States.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

So, save for the privacies guaranteed elsewhere in the Constitution, the States may make laws regarding privacy. However, just because a law does not exist, does not mean you lack the right. Quite to the contrary, you have the right unless a law exists.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[LegendLength]

I totally agree that the Patriot act goes way too far. By removing our basic freedoms, George W. has given the victory to the terrorists.

Might want to double check who was actually behind the Patriot Act (hint: it was before Bush was voted in the first time), before looking like a blind worshipper of your particular politics.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[DoctorFrog]

Which would make the "others retained by the people" non-Constitutional rights.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Karma Farmer]

it allows them to do all the REASONABLE searchin' and seizin' they want.

Yep... and a judge decides what's reasonable, by issuing a warrant. The fourth amendment explicitly denies the executive branch permission to decide what's reasonable.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Anonymous Coward]

You ARE NOT A LAWYER. The right to free association and the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant together with the 9th amendment require an underlying right to privacy - that is what "implied" means. It wasn't "created by precendent in the courts" - it was recognized by the courts as an existing and necessary pre-requisite to the first and 4th amendments. This isn't just the underpinning to Roe v. Wade, it's also the underpinning to legal birth control and a number of other important court cases. I am not a lawyer, either, of course, but at least I understand the difference between "implied" in this legal sense and "implied" in the conversational sense.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Derling Whirvish]

Yep... and a judge decides what's reasonable, by issuing a warrant. The fourth amendment explicitly denies the executive branch permission to decide what's reasonable.

The last time I boarded an aircraft government agents operating under the authority of the Executive Branch searched my baggage and person. They did not have a warrant.

They did not have a warrant because it is deemed to be a "reasonable" search (and seizure if they find contraband). No warrant needed.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[Karma Farmer]

They did not have a warrant because it is deemed to be a "reasonable" search (and seizure if they find contraband). No warrant needed.

Actually, no. It's not allowed because it's a "reasonable" search. The fourth amendment says that only a judge can decide what's reasonable, and communicates that decision only by issuing a warrant. It's pretty plain English.

However, there are times when you lose your fourth amendment rights, primarily when you are searched to protects the immediate and direct safety of others. These searches are not considered "reasonable" under the fourth amendment. Instead, they're legal because in certain circumstances you lose your fourth amendment rights entirely. I don't know if this is right or good, but that's how it is.

Again, these searches are not considered "reasonable" under the fourth amendment. The amendment specifically says the only "reasonable" search is one approved by a judge, with a warrant. These searches are allowed to protect the immediate and direct safetey of others.

Re:Anonymity is your constitutional right

[craigob]

However, there are times when you lose your fourth amendment rights, primarily when you are searched to protects the immediate and direct safety of others. These searches are not considered "reasonable" under the fourth amendment. Instead, they're legal because in certain circumstances you lose your fourth amendment rights entirely. I don't know if this is right or good, but that's how it is.

There is no provision in any part of the constitution that suspends your fourth amendment rights to protect the safety of others. There's a reason that they're called rights and not priviledges. You don't have to ask permission to exercise a right, and having government inspections and searches at airports is not constitutional. That doesn't do much good, however, since the constitution is routinely ignored, and considered "just a goddamned piece of paper."

This is where things get scrambled when government gets mixed with private enterprise. A private airline should be legally allowed to conduct searches of passengers as a condition of using their service, just as a private company or individual should be able to tell you whether or not you can smoke on their property. If you didn't like it, you could use another airline, or another method of travel, and everything stays voluntary. But when the government requires it, now no one has a choice except the politicians.

"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[jjh37997]

And thank God..... instead of trying to win a losing battle against privacy loss it would be better if we put our energies into making a completely transparent world. Information wants to be free, deal with it.

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[xero314]

Information wants to be free, deal with it.

You realize that includes information about your personal habits and what you do in your own home. And you may actually beleive that is ok (as do I), but alot of people have this felling that even if they have nothing to hide they should be able to. I say screw it, lets put web cams in every room on every house and make it all publically available at all times. Hey, if you can't do it/say it in front of the public then don't do it at all. (This goes for our world leaders as well)

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[Anonymous Coward]

And thank God..... instead of trying to win a losing battle against privacy loss it would be better if we put our energies into making a completely transparent world. Information wants to be free, deal with it.

Your social security and credit card numbers want to be free too. Why not set an example and post them here?

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[ScentCone]

Information wants to be free, deal with it.

Really! Got kids? Maybe a niece or nephew? Perhaps a cute neighbor kid next door? I'm sure you'd be cool with putting their pictures, names, home address, IM handles, school info (with a link to their class and recreational schedules), and everything else about their lives up in a public space. Once you've got that web page put together, just put that link up here, OK? Since that information wants to be free, no doubt only utopian wonder-hippies will view the information, and use it to send positive vibes and flowers their way.

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[Anonymous Coward]

It is possible to have privacy with things similar to tor, or if people would support a secure ISP, The only to keep this from happening is with the government making this illegal.

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[Anonymous Coward]

As even you admit, many people are NOT comfortable with every aspect of
their lives being publicly viewable.

The fact is, that society in general, governments, neighbours, etc,
spend a lot of time "sending messages" that certain behaviours
are wrong/prohibited/disgusting, irrespective of how valid such
a criticism is. There IS such a thing as unjustified oppression.

Also, people are uncomfortable for the most part,
with (say) having their sex lives broadcast to all and sundry.

For both these reasons total surveillance would lead to a chilling
effect, which will only benefit those in power, and maybe not even them, if morale is ruined by such intrusion.

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[maxpublic]

Information wants to be free, deal with it.

Information doesn't want shit, deal with it.

Max

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[arexu]

Best. Reply. Ever.

No, seriously. People need to stop anthropomorphizing this shit.

Some people want information to be free, though they probably haven't considered all the likely ramifications. The info itself, though, hasn't registered an opinion.

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[bit01]

Information doesn't want shit, deal with it.

"Information wants to be free" is a just shorthand way of saying that it's usually easier to copy bits than to lock bits. This helps makes bits valuable. Deal with it.

---

Keep your options open!

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[cerberusss]

Information wants to be free, deal with it.

That's soooo 90s. Nowadays, "information wants to be tied up and spanked... -- Faulty Dreamer on kuro5hin.org"

Re:"Privacy is dead, deal with it!"

[Anonymous Coward]

stop anthropomorphizing information. it hates that.

Ha!

[rbochan]

In Minnesota, just having PGP on your computer is evidence of criminal intent.

Welcome to the land of the free...

Re:Ha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it was having a copy of PGP that got that guy busted, not the testimony of the little girl he molested. Your conclusions are about as solid as that guy's appeal was.

Re:OK...what the HELL

[zbuffered]

I was sympathetic when I read your post, but then I scanned up to your name, and I recognized you. I agree with the first AC in this. If I had never heard of you I would have agreed, but you're a minor celebrity on this site, and although that's something to be proud of, it is to some extent a bad thing for the community at large.

The value of this site, besides the rare funny joke, is that in a community of 500,000 or so geeks, for each small niche there is a geek for whom that is his focus. He then posts insightful comments and gets modded up.

Don't get me wrong, noteworthy posters on this site can be a good thing, but someone who has something to say about everything (I won't name names but you can check my foe list for names you recognize to see what I'm talking about) actually dilute the SNR on this site.

Again no offense, and I do appreciate your posts, this is just a generalization about this site.

un-molestation

[rodentia]

The idea that one might live one's life in private and without fear of molestation is a *very* recent phenomenon. It's not passing out of the mainstream, it never quite arrived there.

The right to privacy is a post-war interpolation from the set of Constitutional rights. It was hardly a consideration before single-family households became common beyond the elite classes consequent to industrialisation. The very idea of private life took meaning from the distinction to be drawn between the public and private duties of the landed gentry, whether he was acting as public judge or administrator of his chattel. The idea that citizens required more privacy than that demanded by Christian modesty simply did not occur. It is only in the last generation that anyone became actually interested in the details of your private life. Before the information age, such trivia had no value beyond the prurient, of interest only to busibodies and the beat cop; again, unless you were a name.

Re:un-molestation

[Anonymous Coward]

You make some valid points, but on the whole, I disagree.

People have an inherent concept of public vs. private space, just like they have an inherent concept of property. Neither of these things were magically created by feudalism, still less by industrialization. Even animals like dogs understand the concept of territory, and they will fight when another animal intrudes on that territory.

It's true that in the course of history, some people got a lot of private space, and some people got the shaft. And yes, there was always the concept of owning someone else's territory, or even owning another person. None of that is new.

What is new, is the pervasive way that surveillance is being integrated into our lives. The same person who would hate the thought of some busybody leaning over their monitor, and watching their web browsing, can bring himself to accept the much more invasive forms of surveillance practiced by cookies, "phone home" web widget like doubleclick's, and email snooping. That is what we are trying to change-- hopefully not in vain.

Re:un-molestation

[ClamIAm]

The right to privacy is a post-war interpolation (sic) from the set of Constitutional rights.

I don't see how "unresonable search and seizure" and "no troops shall be quartered in private homes" can really be interpreted in any way other than "leave me alone, unless there's a legitimate reason". Some links to research backing up your assertions would be nice.

Re:un-molestation

[Elemenope]

Actually, grandparent is basically correct; what you are forgetting is that the primary concern of citizens during most of our history is insulation against state power, and the Third and Fourth Amendments are restrictions specifically upon the power of the state to intrude substantially into the personal private sphere.

It would not have occurred to anyone for any time except basically our own (with our historically unique communications and information extraction and analysis tools) that the private information of any individual citizen reaqlly needed positive protection. Remember that the only agnecy that could violate that private sphere effectively (the government) was already fairly well-restricted; that the common person's private info has a paramount economic value is a very new concept.

Re:un-molestation

[(1 -sqrt(5))*(2**-1)]

The idea that one might live one's life in private and without fear of molestation is a *very* recent phenomenon.

Interesting; two points come to mind in defense of your thesis: a) the Kantian and b) the Plautine interpretation of privacy, which is above all a republican interpretation.

From Kant's Was ist Aufklärung? (“What is Enlightenment?”):

Den Privatgebrauch nenne ich denjenigen, den er in einem gewissen ihm anvertrauten bürgerlichen Posten oder Amte von seiner Vernunft machen darf.

“I call privacy that usage of reason a man may make from within his public office.”

and Plautus' Captiui (“The Captives”):

Is privatam seruitutem seruit illi an publicam?

“Doesn't a man that performs his private office also serve the republic?”

The fusion of public and private life makes less sense in a democracy, however, where the autonomous individual must vie against a jealous state; and with billion dollar campaign expenses in America, the transition from democracy to republic is all but complete.

That America, perhaps, was never a democracy but always a republic, implies that we've never entertained democratic notions of privacy.

Re:un-molestation

[kfg]

The idea that one might live one's life in private and without fear of molestation is a *very* recent phenomenon.

"Matsuo Munefusa, alias Basho (1644-94), was a Japanese poet and writer during the early Edo period. He took his pen name Basho from his basho-an, a hut made of plantain leaves, to where he would withdraw from society for solitude."

KFG

Re:un-molestation

[djdavetrouble]

Isn't a lot of this in reaction to McCarthyism and the considerable domestic spying that occurred during that era, the Hoover led FBI that kept files on citizens, the hollywood blacklist, etc? Wasn't long ago when it was almost a crime to be anything but white and establishment. Probably a lot of older japanese/gay/black/socialist/leftist people could tell you about some shit from that time.

Lord knows what they would have thought of these GNAA hooligans.

Re:un-molestation

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea that one might live one's life in private and without fear of molestation is a *very* recent phenomenon. It's not passing out of the mainstream, it never quite arrived there.

While I will agree that until very recently most people lived a very communal life, with very limited privacy... I don't think that kind of lack of privacy compares at all with what we're facing today.

In the past, you shared much of your life with the community around you... Your friends and family in a relatively small town. Most people lived with very large families, in very small homes. There were precious few secrets, and very little privacy. But the information you shared with others was all personal... It was a shared existance. The reason people knew all your secrets is because they were there with you when it happened. They knew about the embaressing thing that happened at your last birthday party because they were there. And they also knew enough about you not too judge a single failing too harshly.

Today we've got massive databases storing up interesting bits of information gleened from all over the world. Impersonal corporations are trolling through our garbage looking for anything they can use to sell us something new. This isn't your next-door neighbor or your aunt overhearing some private exchange...this is a willful invasion of your privacy by someone completely un-connected to you.

Re:un-molestation

[techno-vampire]

The right to privacy is a post-war interpolation from the set of Constitutional rights. It was hardly a consideration before single-family households became common beyond the elite classes consequent to industrialisation.

Both the concept of privacy and the right to it go back much farther than you believe. As a simple example, do you think the inhabitants of a Roman insula (Equivalent to a modern apartment house.) had a communal lifestyle? No, of course they didn't, any more than renters in a modern apartment complex do today, and for the same reason. Each family has their own private space, and what they do there is nobody else's business. I suggest you study at least a little history before you start sounding off about it again, lest you put your other foot into your mouth.

Re:un-molestation

[tolkienfan]

Maybe, but the level of surveillance has gone up exponentially. Plus, many people have been abused by the system. This is not just a matter of whether you have done anything wrong or not. It is whether you've done anything that maybe unpopular by a few.

Re:un-molestation

[floodo1]

except now your soul is worth more.

Re:un-molestation

[Pogue Mahone]

The idea that one might live one's life in private and without fear of molestation is a *very* recent phenomenon.

No, its an assumption that until recently did not need articulation. Privacy invasion on the scale now possible is the *recent* phenomenon, and needs to be brought into check. This might need new legislation, and possibly major changes of government, since unfortunately the current governments of the world seem to be hell-bent on invading privacy instead of acting on the wishes of the 8 out of 10 voters (who expressed a preference) that are against it.

Re:un-molestation

[ajs318]

Furthermore, in the days when the US Constitution was drafted, there were still plenty of fields, forests and open spaces. Two people could go out for a walk somewhere quiet and be confident of not being seen inadvertently, let alone spied upon deliberately. If you were really paranoid, you might poke the undergrowth with a stick before you opened your mouth, but it was a fair bet that if you were alone, you were unobserved -- and it was a foregone conclusion that anyone could place themself beyond observation. Why should they waste words explicitly stating a right to something so glaringly obvious? It's only since then that urban areas have sprung up, so diminishing the amount of open space {and increasing the proportion of open space overlooked from somewhere}, and things such as binoculars, microphones, cameras and telephoto lenses have been invented, so making remote observation easier. Standards of living have improved so much that an inventory of someone's possessions, or a list of their habits, has gained intrinsic value. And it's all happened so gradually that nobody noticed the effect it was having until it was too late.

Even if they were not on the payroll of the multinational corporations, governments cannot be trusted to protect our privacy anymore either; especially now we are all suspected terrorists and child abusers, guilty until -- or even despite -- proven innocent. The initiative has got to come up from beneath.

Re:un-molestation

[spectrumCoder]

All the press in the States about wiretapping seems to be the main reason why so many people are disproportionately interested in protecting their right to privacy.

However, the boring truth is that the american government really doesn't care what mobile phone calls the average joe makes. In principle, it's a worthy fight, but in practice the only people it's going to affect is those people unlucky enough to be Muslims in post 9/11 America. The average advanced pc user studiously following a detailed privacy protection regime is simply engaging in a largely pointless hobby.

Re:un-molestation

[mrchaotica]

I hate to break it to you, but Roman insulae are a pretty bad example to use in this case, since they were more similar to college dorm rooms than modern apartments. For example, they tended to consist of only one or two small rooms -- a bedroom and (maybe) a sitting room. Residents used communal toilets and baths, and bought food from vendors rather than cooking for themselves (especially since cooking in their room was likely to burn down the whole building!). Also, since windows were just opened or curtained (since they didn't have glass), the neighbors could hear everything said.

Really, in an insula there was no privacy at all.

(Sources: 1, 2)

Now, who was it that put their foot in their mouth, again?

Re:un-molestation

[Knuckles]

People have an inherent concept of public vs. private space, just like they have an inherent concept of property. Neither of these things were magically created by feudalism, still less by industrialization.

There are precious few human characteristics that are inherent and equally applicable across all cultures. Not even what seems to us as subconscious bodily reaction, like laughing, is really the same everywhere. I strongly doubt that a complicated concept such as private life is.

Even animals like dogs understand the concept of territory, and they will fight when another animal intrudes on that territory.

Analogies from the animal kingdom are stupid because somewhere there is an example for everything. There are promiscuous animals, animals that wed for life, animals that are frequently gay (and wed for life among gays), etc., etc. You can find an example supporting each and every proposition.

Re:un-molestation

[ReTay]

Your kidding me right?

This when the surpreme court has just finshed "reinterperting" that to say that if someone tells the government they will pay more taxes on your property then you do they will take it away from you. No choice no appeal.

Then again define "shall not be abridged" for me since you are at it.

Re:un-molestation

[elrous0]

In principle, it's a worthy fight, but in practice the only people it's going to affect is those people unlucky enough to be Muslims in post 9/11 America.

Or the political opponents of the ruling political power, or anyone who becomes a thorn in their side. Do you really think that giving a single man, or party, the unilateral right to violate the law isn't going to result in abuses for their own political or financial ends?

Re:un-molestation

[spectrumCoder]

Depends on how hard it is to keep a secret. In a tight-knit, closely allied group they might well agree to be partners in crime. But above a certain size, there's going to be someone who will leak the news of wire tapping for political or financial ends to the press.

Fortunately for us in the UK there are plenty of people willing to knock Tony Blair down a peg or two. If Bush was in the habit of illegal wiretapping, on the other hand, we probably wouldn't hear about it. Shame that.

Fringe Group

[nurb432]

Havent you heard? If you have nothing to hide, you shouldnt be hiding.

What are you, a terrorist or something?

Re:Fringe Group

[ONU CS Geek]

The fact that this score has an Insightful Moderation is scary...I've got Karma to burn, so let me speak my mind.

We should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our everyday lives, even if the constitution doesn't have a "de facto" privacy clause in it. Remember that crazy court Case Roe v. Wade? The court didn't say that "abortion was legal," the Court declared that laws prohibiting abortion represented a violation of a women's right to privacy. While the right to privacy does to exist as such in the Constitution it has long been interpreted to exist as an umbrella created by the first 5 amendments in the Bill of Rights.

To be quite honest with you, I know cops who have problems with the way that today's society is going. They don't want to have to worry about carrying an ID when they're walking down the street to buy a gallon of milk. (HIIBEL V. SIXTH JUDICIAL DIST. COURT OF NEV.,HUMBOLDT CTY. (03-5554) 542 U.S. 177 (2004) 118 Nev. 868, 59 P.2d 1201, affirmed.)

It really bothers me in a multitude of ways that our civil liberties are being torn down under the guise of terrorism. It really bothers me that many people are letting their guards down and just allowing these rights to just be walked on like nothing matters. Is it just me or am I the only one who sees a problem here?

Re:Fringe Group

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Funny.
+2 Sarcastic

Has this been tested?

[argoff]

I'll believe it wen I see it.

Like, have they downloaded/posted credit card numbers, kiddy porn, terrost plots, maybe post a promise to kill the president, and customized ones for several western and radical countries? Maybe send death threats to the head of the CIA, FBI, and NSA? Maybe the russian mafia? Maybe the israli secret police?

If people start getting away with those kind of things, then I'll conisider it.

Re:Has this been tested?

[Anonymous Coward]

>If people start getting away with those kind of things, then I'll conisider it.

If people start getting away with these kinds of things, by definition you will never hear about it.

Re:Has this been tested?

[greg1104]

> have they downloaded/posted credit card numbers, kiddy porn, terrost plots, maybe post a promise to kill the president, and customized ones for several western and radical countries?

Holy shit, where did you get a copy of my to-do list at? Apparently I need to encrypt my information a bit better myself.

Re:Has this been tested?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they post it anonymously, not that that account can be trusted...

Re:Has this been tested?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like, have they downloaded/posted credit card numbers, kiddy porn, terrost plots, maybe post a promise to kill the president, and customized ones for several western and radical countries? Maybe send death threats to the head of the CIA, FBI, and NSA? Maybe the russian mafia? Maybe the israli secret police?

Meanwhile at the FBI:

Agent 1: What do you think about this Slashdot post?
Agent 2: Well... It's clearly generated by the spook.elc program included in GNU emacs. But I say we go after him. Oh, wait. He's not in our jurisdiction; the poster has a non-US IP address.
Agent 1: [gasps] He posts on slasdot, but doesn't use vi?
Agent 2: Calm down. I think there is a law somewhere.... ahh.... here it is.
Agent 1: Ok, so should we get clearance to forward this along to the NSA?
Agent 2: What's the point? They only spy on innocent Americans.
Agent 1: Oh, right. I forgot. So what should we do?
Agent 2: Hang on... [click][click][click] ... He's using an anonymous proxy!
Agent 1: Can you trace it?
Agent 2: Of course I can. Why do you think they hired me here?
Agent 1: [looks uncomfortable]
Agent 2: [click][click] It's sorted out.
Agent 1: What did you do?
Agent 2: Modded the bastard Funny!
Agent 1: Hahahhaha! Take that, you terrist!

Starbucks?

[nurb432]

Since when does starbucks offer computers to use?

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[GigsVT]

The cypherpunk movement is dead. Just scanning the slashdot comments and reading all the "If you don't have anything to hide, why are you concerned?" posts makes that obvious.

At one point in Internet history, we (the libertarian/anarchists/cypherpunks) thought it might bring a new era of freedom. BBSs had given us a taste, and many people expected the Internet to be like a huge BBS, with everything you could imagine on it.

And it was, for a while.

Then some copyright lawyers started jumping on board, and harassing lyrics sites.

The Scientologists started suing people left and right.

Spam started snowballing.

MP3s cause the record companies to start wishing people were only trading lyrics.

Late 1998 though 1999 was the high point I think. Geeks were Gods. Stories of geek millionaires were all over the place. The US finally watered down the stupid crypto regulations. Things were looking up.

Then the Columbine shootings happened.

The 2000 elections brough all kinds of leftists out of the woodwork. Remember Nader? He sure got enough astroturfing here on Slashdot.

The so called "anarchists" get all over the news acting like total fuckwads at WTO "protests".

The WTC attack caused all the people with comfortable lives that liked to think they were cypherpunks to turn. Pull up some stories from Slashdot on 9/11 and 9/12 and see how many people were so willing to offer up the liberty for a slice of security. PATRIOT act flies through with little hassle.

News media reduced to saying things like "Some civil libertarians have concerns" instead of "What the fuck are they thinking?"

Scam artists hiding behind patent law started really milking it.

So you have left what you have today. An environment where you can't really do anything without the risk of lawsuit or arrest. I see things slowly shifting back toward the side of freedom, but it's been a slow recovery.

If Steve Jackson Games Raid happened today, would people be outraged enough to form something like the EFF? I doubt it.

you first.

[poot_rootbeer]

And thank God..... instead of trying to win a losing battle against privacy loss it would be better if we put our energies into making a completely transparent world. Information wants to be free, deal with it.

Hey, can I have your Social Security and bank account numbers?

What do you mean, "no"? INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREEEEE!!!

Re:you first.

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

You can have my social security and bank account numbers. Feel free to do with them what you like.

And since information wants to be free, tell me what you've done with them. And not just me - tell the police when you've been doing illegal things under my identity. Tell the credit agencies that you've been using my account, when they want to lower my rating. And tell me your social security and bank account numbers too, while you're at it.

Identity theft is only possible when the information about the identity of the victim is known - but the information about the attacker, or even the information that there is an attacker, remains unknown. If there were a world in which information were perfectly free and freely available, it would be juster than the one we have now.

And before you say "But I don't want people watching my private life or stalking me," what if you grew up in such a world? If someone's watching you, you can know that instantly. If someone stalks and attacks you, the police know that instantly, have incontrovertible proof, and can find the attacker's current location.

I would venture to say that all faults in our society come from the control of information, and if any good comes from hiding information, it is at the core only in preventing others from controlling that information.

Re:you first.

[Trogre]

And tell me, how do you propose to enforce a society like this? If all information truly wanted to be free, of course, you wouldn't have to.

How will you force everyone to reveal every detail about themselves?

Some guy once said: "The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: Who can know it?"

Sure, most information wants to be free, in the sense that duplication usually requires less energy than actively preventing this duplication. The human mind for example has to work rather hard to put in safeguards to keep a secret. But that doesn't mean it always should be free. Do you really want to know what everyone you've ever met really thinks about you?

Re:you first.

[maxpublic]

I would venture to say that all faults in our society come from the control of information

So if I decide to take my 12-gauge to your house and blow your fucking brains all over the wall, that unfortunate incident is somehow due to the "control of information"? Can't wait to hear how the total freedom of information is supposed to prevent murder.

Max

Re:you first.

[xenoterracide]

it would more than likely be able to prevent most pre-meditated murder. and stop serial killer's after one. but spur of the moment maybe if the cops are fast enough and ur not.

Re:you first.

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Yeah, because you have absolutely no chance of avoiding having your brains blown out by the police immediately afterwards. And if it's your 12-gauge that you're bringing with you, chances are you'll get stopped on the way. Even if you discount the fact that a perfectly informtion-free society creates an incidental police state, I probably won't let you in my house. Or if you force your way in I know what you're up to and I'll kill you first.

If you extend "information" to cover thoughts, there is no way you can plan to kill me and have it succeed.

It is due to the control of information. You're trying to avoid people knowing that you're actually going to kill me until at least a couple of minutes after you do the dirty deed, so you can escape.

(By the way, I'm not an "information-wants-to-be-personified" fanatic. I'm describing a utopia, in both senses of the word, for the sake of argument. This world can never be transitioned into this state, just like massless particles can travel at the speed of light but massive particles can never reach that speed.)

Except for one thing...

[TheOtherAgentM]

They know who has downloaded the LiveCD. That is unless you download it once, and then download it while running it. Yes, that's real simple. Let's do that.

Re:Except for one thing...

[Jurrasic]

/shrug it gets posted to a big public tracker, and everyone with a brain uses peerguardian or safepeer plugins, no one knows just what you've downloaded, if anything at all... :)

Re:Except for one thing...

[shumacher]

Okay. I'll put it on a tor hidden server.

SSH

[HermanAB]

into your own server somewhere else, then browse from there.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[r_naked]

It hasn't completely fizzled and it hasn't become 100% user friendly. But we at anoNet are trying to make it as newbie friendly as possible.

seconded

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no text, there is only zul

Allah Enderle!

[DietCoke]

Absolutely - who needs booth babes and Rob Enderle when you can just slap Bin Laden's endorsement on it?

Hidden Service Location Vulnerability

[Anonymous Coward]

The following was posted on the tor-dev list last week...


Versions affected: all stable versions, and all experimental versions
up through 0.1.1.10-alpha.

Impact: If you offer a Tor hidden service, an adversary who can run a
fast Tor server and who knows some basic statistics can find the location
of your hidden service in a matter of minutes to hours.

Solution: You have three options:
1) Upgrade to Tor 0.1.1.12-alpha from the Tor download page [1]. You're
      all set, though be aware that this is an alpha release so there may
      be other bugs. You may also want to look through the release notes [2].
2) Turn off your hidden service until the final 0.1.1.x release is out.
      It may be several months.
3) Stick with Tor 0.1.0.16 and manually configure a half dozen
      EntryNodes. See the FAQ entry [3] for some hints about how to do this.


For details, click on the original posting.

Weak!

[Anonymous Coward]

"...makes extensive use of Tor, the onion routing network that relies on an array of servers passing encrypted traffic to permit untraceable surfing."

Untraceable Hardly. Pehaps a little quote from the Tor Project home page is in order to put things in perspective:

And remember that this is development code--it's not a good idea to rely on the current Tor network if you really need strong anonymity.

I would equate untraceable with some damn strong anonymity, which Tor clearly does not yet offer. Non-buyer beware! ;-P

Here's a link for you

[Anonymous Coward]

foner.www.media.mit.edu/people/foner/Essays/Civil- Liberties/Project/supreme-court-upholds-anonymity. html

The supreme court says anonymous political speech is protected by the first ammendment.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[roman_mir]

Try my FireFox extension. It has DES encryption that can be used for email clients, forums, etc. Any text or binary actually. It is true that the other party has to know what password you used for encryption, but that can be agreed upon.

Okay, maybe not the first.

[Futurepower(R)]

Another thing wrong with the story is that they didn't post a link to the CD: Anonym.OS LiveCD.

That's the first time I've ever known a Slashdot editor to be sloppy.

Re:Okay, maybe not the first.

[Alchemar]

That's the first time I've ever known a Slashdot editor to be sloppy. Then let me be the first to welcome you.

Re:Okay, maybe not the first.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a joke.

TOR

[Jesus 2.0]

I stopped using TOR when I discovered the name of one of the common exit nodes. I forget exactly what it was, but I kid you not, it was something like "datapirates.org".

Re:TOR

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with that?

Re:TOR

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped using Tor after i realised, that more than 1/3 of it's exit nodes where (us-)navy machines.

Re:TOR

[typical]

I stopped using Tor after i realised, that more than 1/3 of it's exit nodes where (us-)navy machines.

Tor was developed by the US Navy. This is not a huge surprise -- DARPA and the ONR fund a lot of computer research, including security. Besides, if the federal government wanted to spy on you, it wouldn't be doing so via the Navy. That's the FBI's job.

Well, unless you don't live in the US. Then it's the CIA's job.

Re:TOR

[TCM]

An important thing to note is that Tor provides IP-based anonymity, not privacy. It _only_ helps to hide your IP address. If you send the password for your anonymous e-mail account in cleartext, the last node can intercept it. Actually, when I was running a Tor node, I sniffed people's traffic to see what they were doing. That didn't help me know _who_ the person was, unless he posted his name in cleartext somewhere. This is something you should expect. Tor nodes are random people with unknown interests. That someone is running a Tor node does not mean they don't look at the data you send.

I'll say it again: the encryption in Tor does _not_ hide your payload. It only serves to hide your IP address.

If you use Tor, use encryption on the upper layer.

Re:TOR

[bigdd]

Besides, if the federal government wanted to spy on you, it wouldn't be doing so via the Navy. That's the FBI's job.
Well, unless you don't live in the US. Then it's the CIA's job.

No silly, it's the NSA's job if you don't live in the US. Also, it's the NSA's job even if you do live in the US.

Re:TOR

[Shanep]

I stopped using TOR when I discovered the name of one of the common exit nodes. I forget exactly what it was, but I kid you not, it was something like "datapirates.org".

I thought you were going to say, "I stopped using TOR when I discovered the name of one of the common exit nodes was *.navy.mil". Because that would not surprise me considering that it is based on an onion routing scheme developed by the US Navy.

Re:TOR

[Anonymous Coward]

Tor was developed by the US Navy. This is not a huge surprise -- DARPA and the ONR fund a lot of computer research, including security. Besides, if the federal government wanted to spy on you, it wouldn't be doing so via the Navy. That's the FBI's job.

What makes you think that FBI agents ONLY work from FBI domains or systems?

Now replace the two occurances of "FBI" in the above sentence with ANY spy agency from any part of the World.

Re:TOR

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll say it again: the encryption in Tor does _not_ hide your payload. It only serves to hide your IP address.

This link implies otherwise.

What about changing the MAC Address?

[Travoltus]

That's the remaining gotcha that can reliably get you ID'd.

Re:What about changing the MAC Address?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're MAC address isn't used outside of your subnet.

Re:What about changing the MAC Address?

[dr.ka0s]

Anonym.OS provides the ability to automatically randomize MAC addresses at bootup. This is not done automatically, as doing so in certain environments (VMware, VirtualPC, MAC-restricted switch ports) may interfere with proper connectivity. Nonetheless, it's a Y/N question at boot time, and if Y it will be difficult -- if not impossible -- to effectively track a user across reboots, even from the same physical node.

Re:What about changing the MAC Address?

[Darth_brooks]

You mac can be changed at will. The physical address is burned into the card, but the OS (windows or linux) can be bluffed into using a different one.

Re:What about changing the MAC Address?

[typical]

This is easy under Linux:

# ifconfig eth0 hw ether [new MAC address]

However, I've no idea of what the userspace program under Windows is to do this.

Incidently, this breaks a (rather silly) 802.11 security proposal I've heard that relies on people not being able to modify their MAC address.

Re:What about changing the MAC Address?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it might leak into the meta data of some documents? Few years ago the author of one of the word macro viruses was identified by the MAC address encoded in the document.

On the same track, is there a way for example for java script, java or flash & ilk to extract the MAC address? Always wondered what private data can leak with a browser (in conjuction with the servside scripts and display plugins)

-AC

Re:What about changing the MAC Address?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.klcconsulting.net/smac/
http://www.nthelp.com/NT6/change_mac_w2k.htm

Re:What about changing the MAC Address?

[Shanep]

That's the remaining gotcha that can reliably get you ID'd.

About a year ago, just for the heck of it, I wrote a script to modify my MAC address to random values, each time the interface is brought up. Worked fine as long as the first digit (0) (or was it first 2 digits (00) were set to zero. I was having problems with it and noticed that these problems only occured when they were non zero values. I assumed non-zero values for the first certain number of bits made the address somehow invalid.

I never really used it out of my initial interest and never bothered looking up the RFC to find out why.

Re:What about changing the MAC Address?

[Shanep]

You're MAC address isn't used outside of your subnet.

It will not always be the case that everyone within "ear shot" of your subnet is friendly to your dodgy ways.

Take this scenario: You jump onto one of the multitude of wide open WAP's in your neighbourhood to get up to some mischief. That person is raided with a search warrant (or if you're in the USA: with a twitchy GWB) and the forensics guys find a MAC address in the DHCP lease table of that WAP which does not match any of the suspects machines. They easily find out the vendor from the vendor portion of the MAC address and then contact that vendor, asking the vendor where that card was sold. Meanwhile, the elderly couple suspects seem innocent, since they're pretty IT clueless and no other evidence can be found on thier computers. So the vendor checks the MAC tables against batch numbers, finds the batch and then checks where that batch was sold. Sold to the such-and-such NewEgg. They contact NewEgg to find out exactly who bought that card or otherwise get a list of people who bought that model from that store. It just so happens, that ONE of the people on that list lives within 300m of the suspect.

They pay YOU a visit. Feeling cocky because you used some random persons WAP, you carelessly left the evidence of your wrong doings on your PC which has that very MAC address.

Re:What about changing the MAC Address?

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I've no idea of what the userspace program under Windows is to do this.

For Windows XP, just pull up the properties on the chosen network connection, "configure" the card, choose Advanced and then change the option for "Network address".

It's almost always there. Similar method for every version of Windows going back to Win95. Prior to that under MS OS' you'd change it in the configuration file for that NIC, or otherwise use a vendor supplied config util which stores an alternate address in a changable area of the cards memory space.

I notice in another follow up to your message that a program is available to change the MAC even for those rare cards which do not allow it. I'd suggest that if you really want to be able to do this, you should be getting any cheap old card that can do it and avoid the rarities which can't.

If I were going for anonymity though, I would certainly NOT be trying to do it with the God-only-knows-whats-being-committed-to-disk and going encrypted to windows.update Windows operating systems.

Nahhh

[commodoresloat]

I still think "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" is more concise and more inept :)

Torrent Download

[HazE_nMe]

I couldn't find a torrent link in the comments, so here is one:
http://linuxtracker.org/download.php?id=1249&name= anonymos-shmoo.iso.torrent
175seeds to 700peers as of 6:53PM MST

Re:Torrent Download

[spleentor]

thanks for that. i spent about an hour last night trying to get the image from sourceforge to no avail.

Gha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent (-1, Horrifying)!

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[dcam]

I haven't actively sought these tools in a while, so maybe they've caught up. But I keep my ear to the wall, and I have yet to hear any murmers of good anonymizing technologies, nor do I ever see any passing references to people using them.

There's your problem. You are supposed to put the glass to the wall and your ear to the glass.

Sure - here ya go

[commodoresloat]

All those numbers, and many more interesting ones, can be found in this number. You may wish to eliminate the unnecessary digits in order to make the information more useful.

untracable

[Bizzeh]

"untracable" is a myth, anyone who has the money and the know how and the technology to waste on looking up someone down a long line of nodes can do it

Re:untracable

[Anonymous Coward]

"untracable" is a myth, anyone who has the money and the know how and the technology to waste on looking up someone down a long line of nodes can do it

To be able to trace something, records need to be available. If you make a system which holds only enough records, for only the time it takes to facilitate a communication, which does not keep all records for any communication in any one place (server, packet, etc) at any one time and these communications are encrypted... good luck tracing that.

Get yourself a high power, very sensitive 802.11b card, a high gain panel antenna (convienient to carry), a laptop and something like this CD. Permanently change your WiFi cards MAC address to something random (PRISM based cards at least can do this) and then also change it each time before it comes up.

You will be a node with random link layer identification, sending and receiving only encrypted data, from a public hotspot for a very short period of time, going through anonymizing routers which don't keep records. If you are also combining this with One Time Pad encryption, you should be untracable.

Reason being that:

1/ You and your friend appear suddenly for short bursts at random locations.
2/ You both transmit with non-identifying communications.
3/ Information on where you were going is lost due to no routing logs being kept.
4/ The messages you are placing somewhere for each other are encrypted using the only known form of unbreakable encryption (OTP).

and if you're using steganography and OTP encryption with an easily destroyed OTP on each others end nodes, then you have:

5/ Very easy plausible deniability (they're just videos and photos of our family holiday).

At no point anywhere are the plain text messages committed to any semi permanent storage other than your own brains.

"Untracability" is not a myth.

That is what they say about Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

That is what the Mediacrats have been saying about the Republicans for years.

Beware of Geeks Bearing Grifts

[fm6]

First off, "privacy geek" isn't a neologism. To get one of those, you have to invent a completely new word or at least use an old word or phrase in a completely new way. There's nothing new about "privacy" or "geek" and there's nothing particular special about using the two words together.

(One reason I stopped contributing to Wikipedia: members of that community love to use the word "neologism" but obviously have no idea what it actually means.)

Anyway, geekhood is hardly fringe. A geek is just somebody who has an unusual interest in technology. Geeks constitute a special community with their own interests, priorities and jargon, but the same can be said for Freemasons, Realtors, and NASCAR enthusiasts — none of whom count as "fringe".

Besides, a "privacy geek" isn't just somebody who cares about privacy, any more than anybody who uses a computer is a "computer geek".

Re:Beware of Geeks Bearing Grifts

[(1 -sqrt(5))*(2**-1)]

There's nothing new about "privacy" or "geek" and there's nothing particular special about using the two words together.

Point taken; neoepithet (to coin a neologism), or the novel concatenation of predicate and noun, would be more germane. You'll notice, however, that, according to the OED, "word or phrase" falls under the purview of neologism.

As of this writing, “privacy geek” appears only 500 times in Google; my prognosis is: "privacy geek" will create a new taxonomy of people that “take privacy seriously,” as opposed to the public.

It's that creative aspect which is the neo- in neologism.

Re:Beware of Geeks Bearing Grifts

[fm6]

The OED, ooh! Wish I could afford access to it. But my M-W says the same thing. And I did mention there was nothing special about putting the two words together.

What makes you think the public doesn't take privacy seriously? Try getting caught peeking in somebody's bedroom window, and you'll find out how serious most people are about their privacy. It's just that for most people don't need the level of privacy that the Tor Network provides. Someobdy goes to that much trouble to obfuscate their internet traffic definitely deserves to be called a "geek".

Re:Beware of Geeks Bearing Grifts

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think the public doesn't take privacy seriously?

look at how they treat os security. the size of the spyware/malware/adware business is directly proportional to how much people value their privacy.

Re:Beware of Geeks Bearing Grifts

[minus9]

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation."

Re:OK...what the HELL

[iced_773]

I once had a story in "Pending" state for TWO MONTHS, until it was finally rejected. Your submission will probably be the dupe of this story in a few days.

Cannot d/l via sourceforge or BT

[fleung]

Why it cannot d/l? It is anonymous in the net?

sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[SuperBanana]

With enough confederate nodes, tor can certainly be tracked. It isn't likely to happen, but it is possible.

Just by running a tor node, you get the oppertunity to collect login+password information for any non-ssl site tor users log into. You also get to see cookie information to boot. Hey, at some point, the traffic has to exit the tor obfuscation network, and if you run a node, you're going to get a bunch of that traffic. It's only a matter of time.

That's why I refuse to use "anonymizer" networks like tor. You can't even login to your damn webmail, without giving away your account information.

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[Jonboy X]

I think that either you or the users you have in mind are missing the point of an anonymous Internet proxy. The idea is that when you go through a proxy network, the website you're viewing/posting can't (easily) identify you by your IP. Sure, the site admins can see what you posted, but they can't be sure where it originated.

If you're worried about man-in-the-middle attacks, then the website you're visiting is probably the party you trust most in the transaction, and every step that your info takes along the way is another set of eyes that might be snooping on it. In this situation, you are correct that an anonymizing proxy will probably result in subjectively poorer security.

Then again, any website that has private data that you'd like to keep that way most likely has SSL enabled anyway. If you're using an end-to-end SSL-enabled webmail service like Gmail (httpS://gmail.com), and you trust 128-bit SSL, then you've probably got nothing to fear*. If you don't trust SSL, then you're probably worried about Big Brother and No Such Agency and the like. In this case, you're probably better off just hiding under your bed.

*Note that Yahoo! mail SSL-enables only their login page. Anybody in the middle running a packet sniffer or checking their web proxy logs can see your mail when you read it. They just can't see your Yahoo! password.

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[kalidasa]

*Note that Yahoo! mail SSL-enables only their login page. Anybody in the middle running a packet sniffer or checking their web proxy logs can see your mail when you read it. They just can't see your Yahoo! password.

Since smtp is an unencrypted protocol, anybody between the sender and yahoo running a packet sniffer can see your mail before you read it. SSL-encryption of email after it hits your mailbox is a placebo; if you are really worried about people intercepting your email, use PKI or PGP.

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[Kadin2048]

Huh?

He's talking about Yahoo webmail, and Google (GMail) webmail. There's no SMTP involved.

On GMail, the whole HTTP session is secured with SSL, on Yahoo only the login page is, so anyone can sniff the rest of the session and read your messages. With GMail that's not possible (assuming you trust 128-bit SSL). Everything, at least as it was being discussed, is being done through the browser, not through a regular email client. So at least if you use GMail, there is end-to-end encryption. With Yahoo there is not; they only protect your login info.

However the major question there becomes whether you trust Yahoo! or Google to keep your messages secure on the server, since I doubt they're stored in any sort of an encrypted form.

Also, enencrypted SMTP would make outgoing messages vunerable to sniffing, but GMail at least uses POP secured with SSL for incoming messages. I believe Yahoo uses either POP or IMAP; since I don't use it I can't comment on the security. But POP over SSL is the recommended way of using GMail through a "regular" mail program.

However you are correct in saying that PGP is definitely the way to go -- it's a pity that it's still a PITA to set up; with the exception of HushMail, there isn't a way to start using it that's not fairly intimidating to new users. I've always been very disappointed that Apple hasn't ever bought Sente's GPGMail for the OS X "Mail" program and rolled it in offically, since it's the easiest thing I've come across (still not something I could have my mother start using though).

Offtopic: At the moment I think it's actually significantly easier to get encrypted instant messenging than it is to get encrypted email. Adium (multiprotocol IM client for OS X) ships with OTR encryption support and it turns it on automatically if one party requests it and the other party accepts. Totally brainless; this is how everything should work. (You hearing me, Gaim developers?) Gaim on the PC still requires you to install the OTR package separately, then turn it on and generate a key. Not bad, but still too much user intervention required -- IMO one click on either side of the conversation should be all that's required. (One party clicks "Secure," other party gets request to begin secured chat and clicks "Accept," done.)

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[makomk]

The reason using PGP is trickier than (say) OTR encryption is that, as far as I can tell, OTR doesn't validate the key actually belongs to the person on the other end, and not someone performing a "man in the middle" attack...

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[Kadin2048]

This is true, OTR doesn't do validation in the same way that PGP/GPG does. It's actually at least partially by design; the idea is for a conversation to be both secure and deniable after the fact. By not performing strong validation, there's no way for someone later (after they'd brute-forced the encryption, perhaps) to use the encryption to prove that anyone in particular was involved, or that the conversation hadn't been modified after the fact.

This isn't a particular concern for me so I haven't really investigated how it's implemented, but I think that anything which did strong key validation (as opposed to OTR's strategy, where you're presented with the key and can call the other party up on the phone or something and see if they match) would break the "deniability" part which is one of their goals.

From the description of the OTR Protocol (http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/Protocol-v2-3.0.0.h tml) "The general idea is that Alice and Bob do an unauthenticated Diffie-Hellman (D-H) key exchange to set up an encrypted channel, and then do mutual authentication inside that channel." ... "If all of the verifications succeeded, Alice and Bob now know each other's Diffie-Hellman public keys, and share the value s. Alice is assured that s is known by someone with access to the private key corresponding to pubB, and similarly for Bob."

So after you get everything set up and the channel negotiated, you end up with the other person's public key. You can call them (or email, whatever) and share the public key values, and if they match then you're good to go. Of course your level of trust that there's not a man-in-the-middle depends on how well you trust the verification of that public key -- if you call them up and recognize their voice and they read the key to you, you're probably okay. (However if this mode of keysharing is monitored -- say via a phone tap -- and "they" catch you sharing the keys, you may give up deniability. I'm not sure.)

It's (at least in my reading) something of a tradeoff -- you don't get trust infrastructure and identity authentication, but instead get forward secrecy and deniability. Personally I think the OTR people have the right idea for IM encryption, although I'm not sure if it would be a good model for email.

My point was just that we're very close to making encrypted communications easy enough for The Rest Of Us, it's just that the pieces haven't been but together quite right yet. I think Sente's GPGMail for OS X Mail is the easiest mail-encryption setup yet, and with some polish could be easy enough for my mother. I was bringing up Adium as the gold standard, IMHO, for ease of use in communications security so far.

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[Fulkkari]

Actually, what you said about Google enabling SSL using https://gmail.com/ is false! The only GMail URLs I know of which will use a secure connection once logged in are:

• https://mail.google.com/
• https://gmail.google.com/

Be sure to check out "continue" argument in the URLs. It uses plain HTTP for at least these URLs:

• http://gmail.com
• https://gmail.com
• http://www.gmail.com
• https://www.gmail.com
• http://google.com/mail

Don't forget to use SSL if you use GMail RSS feed as well!

I'd like to point out that Steve Gibson (the guy claiming WMF was a backdoor) covered this in his Security Now! podcast episode #19 (search for GMail in transcript transcript). Maybe he isn't that bad after all... and what were the guys at Google thinking?

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[Jonboy X]

Yup, you're right, you've gotta use https://mail.google.com/ if you want SSL. Leave it to me to make up a URL rather than just copying my bookmark. Mods, please mod parent up, lest people start using my bad URL under the illusion of security.

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[egoriot]

Tor multiply encrypts all traffic passing inside of it (see "onion routing"). The only Tor router that sees your data without encryption is the last one you bounce it through, and an evil router only has a 1/400 chance of being this router.

Anyway, this probably isn't any worse than regular Internet use, where every router from you to the recipient can read the content of the traffic. It might be worse if you expect the Tor routers to be less trustworthy than the random Internet routers your traffic gets routed thrtough. I am of the opinion that it's probably better, since with Tor at least they don't know who the sender and recipient are. This may be more damaging information for some applications (indulging your tentacle porn fetish) than for others (webmail login).

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[kalidasa]

How exactly do you think the mail gets from your GMail account to someone else's Yahoo mail account?

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[Phred T. Magnificent]

However you are correct in saying that PGP is definitely the way to go -- it's a pity that it's still a PITA to set up; with the exception of HushMail, there isn't a way to start using it that's not fairly intimidating to new users. I've always been very disappointed that Apple hasn't ever bought Sente's GPGMail for the OS X "Mail" program and rolled it in offically, since it's the easiest thing I've come across (still not something I could have my mother start using though).

I set up PGP on OS X recently, and I don't recall that there's anything in there that's more "intimidating" than working on a Mac in general -- which is to say, it's drop dead simple. I can't speak to GnuPG or any of its related products on the Mac (although I do use them on FreeBSD), but if a user doesn't mind paying for commercial PGP, it's not at all difficult to set up and use.

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[finkployd]

That's why I refuse to use "anonymizer" networks like tor. You can't even login to your damn webmail, without giving away your account information.

Are you saying you do not use SSL on whatever webmail you use? That is a bigger problem than Tor can fix...

Finkployd

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[finkployd]

What stops you from encrypting the email on your own computer then cutting and pasting the encrypted block in to the webmail form? There are two totally separate issues here (SSL connection to webmail and SMTP between email servers), both can be addressed but a solution for one will not magically fix the other.

Finkployd

Re:sniffing outbound connections from a tor node

[kalidasa]

You're not reading carefully enough. My point is that Yahoo's use of SSL only on login doesn't matter, as unless the email content is encrypted (whether with PGP or as you have said, by encrypting on your computer and pasting the encrypted block in the webmail form), the transfer from mail host to mail host will expose the content anyway. In other words, encrypting mail reading pages on a webmail client is overkill unless the webmail client also incorporates an encryption methodology for the host-to-host transfer. The sniffer that picks up the http packets from the webmail client will also pick up the smtp packets that reached the mail host in the first place.

Re:OK...what the HELL

[cyclopropene]

Dude, you are taking this shit way too seriously.

Turn your computer off, get out of the house, have a martini and talk to someone. You'll feel a lot better when you realize that getting your slashdot submissions accepted (or getting first post or what have you) is really not very important.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[iluvcapra]

Steve Jackson Games

EFF's SJG Archive

SJG's Opinion of the whole thing

In short, the Secret Service knocks over a game publisher (micro-TSR-style games, such as Illuminati) and attempts to prove that D&D'ers taught David Lightman how to use a Shlitz pulltab to hack into the 911 system. Courts decide Secret Service was completely unjustified, award court fees to SJG. The legal team/computer activists that coalesced around the issue became the EFF.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

as well as the predictable bunch of random fuckwads, probaly deliberately and systematically undermined by just the types of well-organised fuckwads whose system of self-gratification is threatened by just the types of systems you mentioned.

You didn't mention the large amount of abuse of these systems by criminal elements, and the large amount of publicity some of these generate. This is likely to be well staged simulation by organised law enforcement -- who of course only remain in work if society continues to feel threatened. Law enforcement justifies this because they can't catch the real criminals, but society needs to know what's out there, so we'll stage something. (I incude stings in this).

Of course this is just the type of conspiracy rant that makes people reject privacy and anti-cencorship types, so by posting it I am defeating my own argument, being in the random fuckwad category. Trust me on this one, its no bs. Oh guys, if you come knocking, I was just stoned and this is crazy paranoid shit, so don't bother. I always relay my posts through some shuck anyway. The only anononimity is the one you make for yourself now. Get busy.

My personal reasoning

[QuantumG]

Who were the first people to be arrested and killed by the Nazis? The intellectuals.

Re:My personal reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

Who were the first people to be arrested and killed by the Nazis?

I realize you're an abstract AmeriKwan, but please don't conflate Nazis with the Bolsheviks; the latter of whom pointedly killed productive members of society as "politically unreliable" and "bourgeois."

Re:My personal reasoning

[QuantumG]

1. I'm not american. 2. The Nazis also went after the intellectuals. As they say, no-one likes a smart ass.

Phone conversation with Grandma at Starbucks

[davidwr]

[Grandma] Where's the blue E?
[me] There's no blue E grandma, click on the orange and blue ball.
[Grandma] What does "Server not found" mean?
[me, muttering...] fsck'ing TOR timeouts
[Grandma] What was that again, I couldn't hear you.

Firefox plugin

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't someone make this all a firefox plugin, please? And also put in some feature that blocks all those known trackers such as google-analytics. Currently I have to edit the host file and add:

127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com

But for sure there are others out there.

have a cry about it

[Anonymous Coward]

boo hoo, somebody might listen in on your messages informing others how '31337' you are, because you installed a Windows service pack.

Seriously, though, RTFM. This is answered in the Tor FAQ: http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/Tor FAQ#head-5e18f8a8f98fa9e69ffac725e96f39641bec7ac1

Tyranny of the majority

[typical]

The fact that a bunch of sickos use this technology to be perverted does not mean that the rest of us should not use it.

And here is the problem.

There is one major reason for anonymity. It prevents the tyranny of the majority.

Without anonymity, it is possible for existing memes to suppress other memes before they have time to grow. The argument for anonymity is that these ideas may be worthwhile, but can be killed before having a chance to spread.

The cost to you, of course, is that even those memes that you carry that are *overwhelmingly* dominant in the general population cannot be outright suppressed by that general population. The typical American probably carries memes that oppose Nazi beliefs, oppose challenges to Christian values, oppose polygamy, and oppose pedophilia. All of those ideas, however, can grow in an anonymous environment, as long as they are convincing enough. Anonymity allows each person to make their own decisions about what memes they want to buy into, without society being able to simply suppress ideas.

Anonymity sounds good, but you have to consider that for this to necessarily be good, each person has to be rational and informed, which isn't the case -- the question is whether or not people approximate that closely enough.

There is one other problem it brings in. Government mostly exists to solve public good problems -- things like laws preventing people from littering. There are a number of public good problems associated with published information, such as how to fund the creation of that information. We currently have a concept of "intellectual property", where knowledge distribution is restricted, and knowledge creation gets funded by people who must pay for a copy of that knowledge. This is certainly not the only approach to solving the problem, but it has more-or-less worked for a number of decades. An anonymous environment allows redistribution of information, and puts a large hole in the concept of intellectual property.

If you want to have a practical arguments for widespread anonymity, you need to also answer some questions about how knowledge creation is going to be funded, and whether you are comfortable living without the suppression of challenges to mainstream memes. These are not unanswerable questions -- you can centrally fund the creation of knowledge, you can fund it with tips, you can fund it with grants. You can choose to simply accept never being able to completely quash ideas that you find distasteful. Anonymity has both helpful and harmful sides, and the two are inextricably linked.

Re:Tyranny of the majority

[Anonymous Coward]

Use of the word "meme" in general conversation is so 90's. The dot-com bubble busted and web 2.0 isn't going to make it.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[dominion]

The so called "anarchists" get all over the news acting like total fuckwads at WTO "protests".

As an anarchist, somebody who was at the WTO protests, and someone who strongly supports online privacy and the cypherpunk perspective, I'd like to ask what the hell you're talking about?

The WTO protests was one of the biggest events of the late 20th century, it was part of a snowballing effect against corporate globalization which stretched from all points on the globe, and culminated in events such as the uprisings in Argentina and the Zapatista march on Mexico City.

In what way are the WTO protests, which were centered around deconstructing corporate control of our lives, including information and it's free flow, counter to the cypherpunk position?

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

"The 2000 elections brough all kinds of leftists out of the woodwork. Remember Nader? He sure got enough astroturfing here on Slashdot."

leftists? nader?

this makes no sense

malicious users and malicious servers

[davidwr]

a malicious server can reveal that you are surfing for child porn while a malicious user can reveal that your site is distributing bomb-making recipes with no need for the points in between the two ends to break the communications encryption.

This only works if the tattle-tale knows how to find you.

With TOR, a malicious host doesn't know your IP so all it can do is reveal {someone exiting the TOR network at IP address x.x.x.x at time t accessed my site}.

With current web browsers, a malicious user CAN tattle on you because he knows your URL. However, you could theoretically design an "alternate internet" which forced all users from the "regular internet" to go through one of a relative-handful of entry points, with the "decoding" of the "address" done in such a way that having the "address" is useless to an adversary bent on taking the site offline. Sort of like what happens inside of Yahoo and other high-volume or firewalled sites except with subpeona-proof stealth: Which particular computer www.yahoo.com happens to be for you at a given moment in time is not "public" information, even if you do have the IP number.

Re:malicious users and malicious servers

[Jim McCoy]

This only works if the tattle-tale knows how to find you.

With TOR, a malicious host doesn't know your IP so all it can do is reveal {someone exiting the TOR network at IP address x.x.x.x at time t accessed my site}.

I'll try to make my reply short, but here is the basic problem with all packet-mixing schemes (including Tor, its onion-router predecessor, the freedom network run by zero-knowledge systems back in the day, and the pipenet proposal from Wei Dai that started all of this...)

Against a powerful adversary you run into a fundemental problem: they have the resources to treat your entire magic network as a big black box. Packets go in, and packets come out. How they are mixed up in the middle does not matter, since they are looking for connecting the endpoints. Noise introduced into channels to obscure traffic fall away to simple statistical analysis. At the end of the day what matters to users is getting packets from point A to point B and back to A. In order to truly hide this fact you need to introduce timing delays and change the payload sizes. Changing payload sizes is not too difficult, but introducing timing delays really tends to annoy people and can completely break sites using AJAX and modern web techniques.

If the NSA and wanted to know what you were looking at through Tor they would use their giant packet sniffer in the sky to connect packets leaving your system with packets passing out to of the Tor cloud; they would not get your the first time this happened, but eventually a pattern would be built that would connect your system to a set of destination URLs. This is becoming even easier now that ever other site has decided that AJAX (and its constant back and forth between server and client) is the way to go. Since the NSA has access to a lot of resources they could also create a lot of Tor nodes to further subdivide the Tor network and eventually partition you into a smaller and smaller space (by tracking the timings and sizes of packets going through the nodes they control.) There are various ways to protect against this, but they are all costly because they introduce inefficiency to the network and some of them are impractical because they break the user's (or web site designer's) expectation of what should be happening when a browser hits a particular URL.

TANSTAAFL and there is no magic bullet for internet privacy.

For the LAST TIME...

[neo]

'So easy to use you can hand it to your grandmother and send her off on her own to the local Starbucks.'

I don't want my Grandmother using a computer.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

doing things that anarchists do, such as disobeying authority (sometimes violently, which makes for good TV and bad press)

he's accusing people in your movement of undermining your own position by attracting negative press

Uh, SLOW?!

[Axel2001]

Ok, I've tried Knoppix. I understand the appeal. And tonight, I booted up another CD-ROM based usable OS, Anonym.OS. It's a great idea. But it suffers from the same problems that every live CD I've used does: it's slow as molasses to load and every action foreces a read from the CD-ROM. Going to a web page? Cool, let me think about it for 45 seconds or so while I read from the CD. Oh, scrolling within a page? Wait, let me read. Starting an IM client? Ok, please wait about 2-3 minutes.

It'd probably be much better to put these live cd distributions on a USB 2.0 flash drive. It'd be faster, certainly.

Re:Uh, SLOW?!

[MBHkewl]

Correction: The CD itself is not slow. It's your CDROM drive that might be slow, lack of RAM, CPU speed, Front Side Bus, ...etc.

Some applications maybe compressed in the CD to save place for other applications, but the uncompression process is done on-the-fly and is pretty fast.

I have used Knoppix for years now, and its performance is quite amazing. Then again, it all depends on the machine it's running on.

Re:Uh, SLOW?!

[Hosiah]

Damn Small: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ 50mb live CD runs Firefox! Puppy: http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_i d=1 60mb live CD which loads entirely into RAM. Both of these distros I find to be fast.

You're looking at Knoppix and talking about the speed like it's surprising. Knoppix's specialty is that it includes everything but the kitchen sink. Other distros specialize in speed (or small size, which equates to most of the same thing). If I recall, Wolvix http://wolvix.org/node/25 is 128mb (or is it 256?) to fit on a USB. I've tried Wolvix and it's pretty quick. Also tried Dyne:Bolic http://www.dynebolic.org/ and it performs fairly quick considering it's size!

You know what all of the above distros have in common? They don't use KDE !!! Stay away from an 800 pound gorilla for a desktop on a live CD and you'll see load times halve right there!

PS: another tip: In a live CD, try to ascertain how much RAM it found on your system and whether it knows where your swap partitions are. Some live CDs miss out here, or need a little manual help.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

cheers friend, same here. also hit a couple of the DC protests on anti-war, inauguration, staged some useful local protests. im an east coaster. check out "the world can't wait" http://www.worldcantwait.net/ which is the org im working with mainly these days.

How anonymous are we talking?

[TheRon6]

What are you saying? Is this like... better than the "Post Anonymously" check box and stuff?

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

The WTO protests was one of the biggest events of the late 20th century

Sure. I am sure that in fifty years it will be right up there with two world wars, a cold war, various civil rights movements, the rise and fall of communism, and various middle-east conflicts. Anarchists of the early 20th century were more significant than you or or compatriots will ever be.

[...] it was part of a snowballing effect against corporate globalization which stretched from all points on the globe, and culminated in events such as the uprisings in Argentina and the Zapatista march on Mexico City.

Yeah, and how did that zapatista march turn out in the long run? I hear the subcommandante is out touring again now that he realized his fifteen minutes were up and that the turnout is rather pathetic so far...

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[LegendLength]

The so called "anarchists" get all over the news acting like total fuckwads at WTO "protests".

As an anarchist, somebody who was at the WTO protests, and someone who strongly supports online privacy and the cypherpunk perspective, I'd like to ask what the hell you're talking about?

His point was that people who are interested in 'internet freedom' (I am not familiar with 'cypherpunks' although I assume they hold ideals similar to EFF) are not necessarily left leaning when it comes to globalization (I use the term 'left' loosely here).

In fact, I would go far enough to say that minimal-government types (libertarians, right wing economics etc.) are just as concerned over privacy as left leaning types are.

In conclusion, I am sure most of those on the right, who are typically pro-globalization, would not like to be associated with some of the rubbish that occurs during a typical WTO protest, whatsoever.

Further information from kaos.theory

[gavinmead]

I've just updated the kaos.theory blog with some further information about Anonym.OS and some responses to blog, article, and comment criticism:

http://theory.kaos.to/blog/archives/2006/01/17/kao stheory-responds/

First of all, I'd like to take a moment to express, on behalf of kaos.theory, how excited and flattered we are by all of the attention that we and Anonym.OS have received. We always thought we were working on a cool project, but we really underestimated the overwhelming response that we've had. Scores of terabyte upon terrabytes of data have flowed and the hit counters keep on ticking. It appears that privacy is as big of a concern for a large segment of the population as it is for us.

That being said, there have been a few comments made and viewpoints published that we would like to address while we have the bully pulpit provided by the good folks at digg, Slashdot, Reddit, Wired News, and Ars Technica, among others.

USB
In the article written and posted at Wired News, Ethan Zuckerman makes the excellent point that rebooting really isn't an option for many living in oppressive, hostile regimes. Additionally, Mr. Zuckerman suggests the use of a bootable / emulated Anonym.OS environment available from a removable, USB key chain device. This is a feature that we have already incorporated into our road map and that we hope to release very soon.

For now, we need as many people as can reboot or run a session in VMWare / Virtual PC / QEMU to please please please test our release. We're not at 1.0 yet, contrary to some postings and articles. Our hope with this release is to solicit feedback from the community concerning features, bugs, and suggestions for everything from desktop wallpaper to file system optimization. Immediately after the Shmoocon talk, all of the members of the group happily fielded questions and comments from audience members that included many suggestions that we intend to incorporate quickly. This type of candid environment is one of the many traits that make Open Source a success and it's what we need in order to keep Anonym.OS growing and on a positive track.

The "China Problem"
Some have asked how we intend to deal with the "China Problem," which could be rephrased as, "What can Anonym.OS do to protect a user against a monitoring party who owns the entire network that the user is using?" Ultimately, this comes down to the ability of the user to utilize covert channels for escaping the network and reaching tor servers. If the party controlling the network is serious enough about its desires and goals in censoring its users, nothing can stop them from implementing a white-list only policy, effectively blocking all tor traffic as well as access to proxies and other tools used for evading filtering.

With those concerns in mind, kaos.theory will be working towards and automated egress filtering evasion script for use in conjunction with Anonym.OS. In terms of the "China Problem," this may not offer much as it will most likely require a "trusted friend" on the outside of the hostile network. In terms of a restrictive corporate network, this could be a viable solution. Again, however, these "covert channels" will likely lead to a ridiculous number of anomalous packets coming from a system (who really makes 25,000 DNS requests in an hour, anyway?) and thus are not a bullet-proof solution.

This is a staggering issue, and it's not one that's answerable entirely by technology. If a country or company chooses to restrict access for its users, and the entity is really serious in terms of throwing resources at the problem, there's not a lot we can do from the client-side.

The Naysayers
There have been two strains of objection to the project, one classical and the other uninformed. The former line of argument goes that we're simply enabling criminals to hide their illegal activities and, as suc

Re:Further information from kaos.theory

[gavinmead]

Corrected link:

http://theory.kaos.to/blog/archives/2006/01/17/kao stheory-responds-2/

Re:Further information from kaos.theory

[rjfan]

Good grief! I thought you were going to post a link to the blog, not the entire blog itself....

Re:Further information from kaos.theory

[ajpr]

What's ingress and egress mean to a non techie?

Re:Further information from kaos.theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Same things they mean to a techie.

Re:Further information from kaos.theory

[Shanep]

What's ingress and egress mean to a non techie?

ingress: packets coming in.
egress: packets going out.

Firewalls can be configured to selectively allow traffic coming in or even block all traffic coming in. Same deal for traffic going out. Apparently Anonym.OS is configured to only allow encrypted traffic to leave the machine it is running on and only allow the replies to that traffic back in and nothing else.

Often people will block incoming traffic, allow ALL outgoing traffic and allow incoming replies to that outgoing traffic. I prefer to block all incoming and only allow outgoing for allowed ports with the associated replies of course being allowed in. Most of my outgoing traffic must first pass through servers in a seperate network, with each network having explicit allow rules for traffic between each other and the internet. This seems extreme to some people, however the only real cost is less idle time on my 5 port Sun firewall (OpenBSD). As long as my firewall does not spend too much time with idle at 0%, I feel this "cost" is well worth the added security. At the end of the day, I notice no impact as a user, nor does my girlfriend.

Re:Further information from kaos.theory

[ajpr]

Thanks for the reply. How many servers do you use to route traffic through? Can you give a rough outline of your network with a diagram? :]

Re:Further information from kaos.theory

[Shanep]

How many servers do you use to route traffic through? Can you give a rough outline of your network with a diagram? :]

You might have to imagine a 5 legged firewall seperating 4 internal networks (internal, server, VoIP and DMZ) from each other and the Internet.

2 servers in a seperate "server" network. One acts as a web/mail server and the other acts as a web proxy, dns and ntp time server. They are in their own "server" network and each also have their own appropriate internal pf config.

The internal network has very limited access to the internet "directly" (like only ssh), but can initiate connections to the server network for other essential services and also very limited access to the VoIP network to manage VoIP devices. But cannot ever allow connections to or from the DMZ network. The server, VoIP and DMZ networks can never initiate any connections to any other internal network, including "internal" (the only connections they can initiate are to the internet and then only on allowed ports and sometimes to allowed IP's).

The VoIP network is dedicated to VoIP traffic with appropriate rules.

The DMZ network is for messing around with networking and untrusted applications. Learning, experimentation, etc. The type of tinkering which I would only want to do with expendable machines on a worthless network.

I port forward selected ports on the external interface to the server, VoIP and DMZ networks, as need be.

I am also using prioritization and bandwidth throttling to ensure time critical applications (like VoIP, gaming, interactive ssh and empty acknowledgement packets) get the responsiveness and bandwidth (VoIP and gaming) they need. After that I prioritize stuff like web before mail, etc, leaving whatever remains (like P2P) to have the lowest priority and least bandwidth.

I log almost everything which is blocked, to a decent sized hard drive. The great thing about OpenBSD pf logging, is that it logs the actual packets. So I can later look at the traffic in as much detail as I would like (offline on a seperate machine with Ethereal for example).

This is only a home network, so I have tried to limit this setup to something managable as far as power and cabling goes. Part of me wants the super low power of Soekris or WRAP devices, but then the other part of me loves Sun gear way too much. If only I could get something like Soekris gear, but with an embedded sparc64 with Sun compatible OpenFirmware. If I could have 4 sparc64 machines running OpenBSD and each drawing 5 or 10 Watts, I would be pretty happy. I think I would pay WAY too much money for something like that. With about 20 machines in my home up and running and lots more in parts, I am surprised my girlfriend has not packed her bags by now. ; )

I'm sure many people probably would consider this overkill and I certainly don't need this elaborate setup. But this mostly just exists to feed my interest in networking.

Not with IPv6

[typical]

You're MAC address isn't used outside of your subnet.

I've heard (privacy-invasive) proposals for ramming it into the low bits in an IPv6 address.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Devistater]

Good comments. You only forgot one thing: "MP3s cause the record companies to start wishing people were only trading lyrics." Not anymore, the news lately has been that they are going after lyric sites now too. Threatening to sue unless they take down lyrics (dont ask me how a lyric site survives without lyrics).

Some information wants to be anthropomorphized

[zoeblade]

And thank God..... instead of trying to win a losing battle against privacy loss it would be better if we put our energies into making a completely transparent world. Information wants to be free, deal with it.

That depends on the information. When I submit a post to Usenet or upload a page to a public web server, I realise that anyone is physically able to download, copy, plagiarize, comment on, or do anything else with that information. Fine.

However, when I send someone an e-mail or use my debit card to buy something from a secure web site, I'd rather it was sufficiently encrypted so that no one would be able to take that information and use it for their own purposes.

And when I'm posting something on a public system such as Usenet, there are still some situations where I'd rather do it anonymously, or using a pseudonym that I'd rather wasn't tracable to my regular identity. This would apply to citizens speaking out against oppressive governments, whistleblowers who don't want to get fired, consumers speaking out against lying corporations that constnatly sue over libel, abuse victims offering their empathy to others, and probably lots of other things I can't think of off the top of my head.

Virtual Machine available?

[hagn]

A preconfigured VM for this player would be nice. Then you could use the secure enviroment if you are e.g. at Starbucks and go the normal way, when you are in a secure enviroment. Does anybody know if this already exists?

Problems with Tor.

[crhylove]

I love the IDEA of Tor. I also love the idea of FreeNet. Neither one seems to work at all well (or quickly) in their current iterations however. Until these things are solved, for most people the trade-offs are just not worth it. Especially when so much is achievable under the mere guise of the millions of people involved. Until the RIAA hires MILLIONS of lawyers to sue MILLIONS of customers per year, people won't mind thumbing their nose at them and playing the numbers game. The same is CERTAINLY true for surfing and IM.

rhY

Re:Problems with Tor.

[flyingace]

Freenet is really slow. Tor is not quite that bad. A lot of times its pretty usable.

Re:Problems with Tor.

[crhylove]

Well they are both usable. It's just not worth the extra time, and lag for most people. I didn't mean to compare their current usability to each other, so much as to the usability and actual use that people are doing, or would do given the sacrifices.

rhY

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! DES! I'm trembling in my boots!

Anyone try to use this dog?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm running it now. I can understand why it won't actually load any pages (we've slashdotted the tor network), but it makes my Athlon 3200+ feel like a 386-16 running windows 2000. It takes about 5 minutes to open a web browser, 2 more minutes to display the readme file from the HD, and another 2 minutes to let me select the address bar.

This thing is totally useless, not worth the CD media I burned it to.

To make things worse, it detected my Radeon card and said it's using a Radeon driver, but I've got a 640x480x16 display. Once again, useless for web browsing.

Re:Anyone try to use this dog?

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird. My PIII-400 started Firefox in, I dunno, probably about 90 seconds and displayed the README immediately after that. Further browsing was pretty snappy. And I'm getting 1024x768 hi-color. Maybe you should consider better optimizing your Athlon?

Lighten up

[nurb432]

I was making a sarcastic joke. ( designed to make people think )

While i agree with you totally in concept, you didnt see the sarcasm in my post.

Re:Lighten up

[Anonymous Coward]

He did see the joke, and specifically commented that he was replying to the insightful moderation of your post, not your posts content.

So what sort of nazi-ism would this post be then?

Cypherpunk isn't dead, just premature

[arevos]

Cypherpunk isn't dead - it just smells that way.

The video conferencing and internet voice programs back in the 90s didn't really take off (remember ICU?). This was not because it was a bad idea, but simply that bandwidth and communications technology still had some time to go before VoIP became feasible.

Anonymity software suffers from the same problems. There's a large bandwidth and latency overhead, and the technology is currently in a premature state. We're seeing a lull in anonymity networks, just like there was a lull in VoIP.

It might seem presumptious of me, but I have some solid reasons for believing this. Firstly, there are a number of online applications that have a theoretical upper limit on how much network resource are needed. Taking VoIP as an example, you could continue increasing the quality of the voice line, but beyond a certain point this gets less and less important. You don't need audiophile quality on your phoneline.

As bandwidth outstrips need, and VoIP technology becomes more widely available, anonymous VoIP networks will become more and more feasible. And, indeed, you can apply the same line of reasoning to any service limited by the resolution of human senses. This doesn't guarentee a rosy anonymous future, but it does make it more likely.

Re:Cypherpunk isn't dead, just premature

[GigsVT]

I don't know about that. OpenSSH with RC4 can easily pump 200-300mbits on anything even remotely modern CPU-wise. It doesn't seem to have much space overhead either, since I get full 100mbit payload streams saturating a 100mbit link that are nearly the same speed as benchmarking the same link with ttcp or netcat.

My company's site redirects you to SSL at the beginning and leaves you there. No complaints about speed when we made the change to all SSL.

Re:Cypherpunk isn't dead, just premature

[arevos]

Encryption and anonymity are two different problems, I'm afraid. You're correct in saying that encrypted links have relatively little overhead in terms of bandwidth, and computers are now fast enough to encrypt realtime data on the fly. Skype VoIP and Google messenger are encrypted by default, and many websites use https for their logins, so encryption is relatively widespread.

Anonymity is more problematic. In order to disguise where a signal originated from, you really need to route it through several intermediate hosts (or just one intermediate host that you trust implicitly), all of which adds latency and reduces bandwidth. Whilst the encryption problem was solved by powerful, public domain encryption algorithms and increasing CPU power, I suspect the anonymity problem will be solved by increases in bandwidth and routing algoritms.

OT re: your sig

[Hosiah]

Judging by your low ID number, I look backward with fondness at a time when that sig was current. Speaking as one who built every computer in his house...

Re:OT re: your sig

[josudami]

I don't know why anyone would buy a "store bought" system that has tech experience. It is not only cheaper but you get more bang for your buck so to speak. Plus you don't have to have all the unwanted software that is piled onto store bought systems. Building your own computer to your liking and requirements is the only way to go.

Re:OT re: your sig

[Hosiah]

Thank you, honorable one. My faith in the next generation is restored. Be sure to stick around for the weekend round of "U don't think AOL/MySpace/MSN is the Wo0T??? You elite snob!!!" I'm counting on you for backup.

SP1?

[JudeanPeople'sFront]

From TFA:

the system is designed to look like Windows XP SP1. "We considered part of what makes a system anonymous is looking like what is most popular, so you blend in with the crowd,"

SP2 is still not "the crowd"? Why, I'd never...

Trusted binaries ?

[pan_sapiens]

While the intent of this project is very good, and I hate to pick holes ....here's one for the ultra-paranoid:

Do you trust the precompiled binaries on the livecd ?

Sure, the OpenBSD source is available for you to comb over for backdoors & sniffers etc, but how do you know that Anonym.OS was compiled using that exact same source code ?

Maybe comparing hashes of the binaries to the offical OpenBSD versions would be a good start, but there are various reasons why this will only get you half way to validating that the build is kosher

I'm not even beginning to suggest this work is trojaned or anything - the last thing I want to do is spread FUD about something this cool and useful ..[whoops, maybe too late], but this is a significant problem that I've come across personally when considering a "privacy" geared livecd. You place a lot of trust in the person(s) packaging the distro unless you pretty much compile the whole thing yourself.

One solution (which is very time consuming, and already dated), is the Trusted Build Live CD (TB) by the Hacktivismo group. It is basically a cookbook for rolling your own Gentoo livecd, with some tailoring for anonymity related applications like Tor (AFAIK, it doesn't do the nice packet filtering that Anonym.OS does, however).

Re:Trusted binaries ?

[Nonesuch]

Maybe comparing hashes of the binaries to the offical OpenBSD versions would be a good start, but there are various reasons why this will only get you half way to validating that the build is kosher

Care to elaborate?

There's actually been more than a little effort in the OpenBSD project to move from MD5 and SHA1 to RMD160, along with tweaks to ensure that two binaries built on two fundamentally identical systems from identical source trees at different times of the day are bit-for-bit identical, e.g. removing timestamps embedded in the compiled binary, etc.

OTOH, since it's a live CD and doesn't touch the hard drive, even if there are backdoors, you are still effectively anonymous.

Re:Trusted binaries ?

[pan_sapiens]

In that case, the care that the OpenBSD project takes in this respect will be very helpful for everyone, as long as the Anonym.OS developers endeavour to use binaries which match the hashes of the official build as much as possible. It should make peer-review of any parts that have been changed and don't match the official source easier too (for both compiled and interpreted code).

I briefly looked, and I can't find any Anonym.OS source code (other than the pf ruleset) on the kaos pages + sourceforce.

For the ultra-paranoid ... if your IP address can be in any way traced back to you (via ISP account or a camera at Starbucks) *and* your associated with your activities, your anonymity is gone. For instance, the only thing any 'backdoor/trojan/whatever' needs to do is send your browser history to the attacker along with your real IP.

As I say, this stuff probably doesn't matter for all but the most paranoid.

(Also a livecd does not nessesarily leave the harddisk alone by definition, it can obviously touch the harddisk if it wants, and many do for persistent home directories & temp space ... hell, why not just root your box as well)

"Automated" does not imply "Private"

[Kadin2048]

While you are correct that "the Internet" (by which I take that you mean TCP/IP) is an end-to-end protocol, email is not. It's a store-and-forward protocol, which means that you are potentially leaving a copy of your message at every intermediate point along the network, and assuming that the servers will purge that message later without allowing anyone to read it.

In fact I wouldn't liken email to regular 'snail mail' at all. It's much more like the old Western Union telegram service. You prepare your message and give it to someone who transmits it to someone else, who copies it down, and then passes it off for delivery to the recipient at some later time. People trust email because the machinery isn't very visible, and the whole thing seems very direct; the telegraph system in contrast is rather obviously not private even to someone unfamiliar with the technology because of the human interaction involved.

People have to divorce the idea of "no human interaction" from "privacy." Just because a system is automated doesn't mean that you should have or make any assumption of privacy. You have no way of knowing whether the recipient's mailserver is retaining copies of all their messages, or forwarding them to a third party, or many third parties. In fact in many corporate environments it's safe to assume that all email is being saved (although it's probably not being looked over immediately by a person) for a number of years -- yet because there's no obvious and constant reminder of the openness of the system (i.e. the telegraph clerk) people forget that it's not private.

As much as I despise the law in its current incarnation, I think the DMCA is an interesting model for the future of privacy in the digital age. If you send unencrpyted conversations over the wire, using any communication model where the messages do not flow directly from one client to the other over TCP/IP (or other network fabric which is commonly known to be end to end, or where the message is not stored and forwarded as a whole, e.g. only as packets), then there should not be any assumption of privacy. The exception is if the owners/operators of all the intermediate servers used in the communication (email servers, IM relays) have explicitly agreed not to retain copies or otherwise retain traffic. (In which case if they do retain copies, it becomes a breach-of-contract case.) If you desire any privacy, either use an end-to-end communication model, which could be as easy as clicking on the other person in AIM and choosing Direct Connect, or use some form of encrpytion on your messages. I don't care if your "encrpytion" is ROT-13, just something so that the person doing the interception has to expend some amount of directed effort to read your message, and that they know the contents were sent with the assumption of privacy.

By encrypting the message you as the communicator are attempting to create a more private channel of communication, and it means that to read your message, someone has to purposely decrypt the message and therefore cannot defend themselves by saying that the message was not sent as a private one. In the same way that the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent a device meant to protect copyrighted data, a new privacy law could make it illegal for anyone to decrypt a communication that they are not the sender or intended recipient of, without due process and authority (e.g. warrant, or existing agreement with one party).

The point is that nobody with a basic understanding of the technology makes the assumption that email or instant messaging is private; although I understand the feelings of people who don't want privacy to be an "opt in" deal, it's also fair that people should have to take a certain amount of responsibility and consideration of how they communicate. If they desire privacy, it's easy enough to do. What we need to do is make sure that we have a legal framework for protecting people, once they make the decision to attempt to secure their channels of communication, so that there is not an open 'arms race' that will leave all but the most technically adept behind.

Re:MOD DOGDUDE DOWN!

[wed128]

known troll or not, if a comment is worthwhile, it should be modded up. Also, you can't really take fault in him being a Microsoft Apologist, i mean it's not like Bill's a Nazi or anything.

Anti-Intellectualism

[Kadin2048]

The Nazis went after intellectuals that they thought were not "useful" to the society they wanted to create, or who espoused views contrary to them.

If you were a philosopher with any sort of leftist tendencies, you were probably in trouble; if you were a philosopher who could somehow come up with a nice explanation of why the Aryan race was inherently superior to all others, you were probably safe.

As long as it was constrained within political doctrine, the Nazis tolerated -- some might even say encouraged -- 'intellectual' pursuits, although one could argue that they were motivated almost entirely for political or social reasons rather than the pursuit of knowledge. In particular, I'm thinking about Ernst Schäfer and the "anthropological" expedition to Tibet in 1938.

Although I'm not particularly familiar with the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution, I think it could be said that the Soviet Union throughout much of its existence was much the same way -- 'anti-intellectual' in the sense that only the explanations consistent with political doctrine were acceptable, and anyone espousing ideas other than that ran the risk of ending up in a gulag or a shallow hole, or at the very least of losing their position/tenure/etc.

When I think of true "anti-intellectualism," the most extreme example that comes to mind is the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the wholesale liquidation of basically the entire educated populace.

Parks and Privacy

[SeanDuggan]

On the other hand, wandering the public internet is akin to strolling in the park or mall, where one would not expect privacy to be guaranteed... and the officers of the Ministry of Love happily exploit that expectation.
I don't know about you, but I always use the back paths at the parks so as to maintain secrecy. Like the old saying goes, "I've loved the same woman for twenty years. Hopefully, her husband never finds out." Depending on how your park is built (similar to how a particular network system is built), there may be different levels of available secrecy. Central Park in New York, there's sections of trees and the like where it's just you and the muggers. Central Park in Ashland, KY is all wide-open spaces with no real cover, so you'd have to go with the mask idea. Sure, you're extremely conspicuous, but no one knows it's you.

Re:Grammatical error in your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

"your" is possessive.
"you're" is a contraction for "you are".

Iridium != High Speed Internet

[Kadin2048]

The Iridium system is for mobile voice and data usage, not fixed data service like the GP was speaking about.

You're correct that it's two-way, however it's a very different style of system. Iridium uses a constellation of 66 low-earth-orbit satellites (similar to how GPS works) and small handheld transcievers; satellite internet is much more like satellite television: "pizza box" dishes aimed at geosyncronous satellites (much higher orbits than the LEO Iridiums) that just bounce a signal from the remote earth station to a gateway somewhere else. The Iridium system by contrast features satellites that actually talk to each other, and relay a signal down to the ground station.

Iridium allows for very compact devices, typically battery powered, and worldwide availability, but low bandwidth. Satellite internet requires more hardware and requires a directional antenna (i.e. dish) but provides much more transfer.

Trust me: you wouldn't want to try and bittorrent the latest "24" episode via your Iridium phone. Neat as the system is -- and I think Iridium is cool as hell -- it's not high-speed internet.

Two-way, high speed internet via satellite is the stock in trade of Starband, you can read a very vague "how it works" article here:
http://www.starband.com/whatis/howdoesitwork.asp

Re:Iridium != High Speed Internet

[ivoras]

I only used Iridium as an example of 2-way communication with a satellite system :)

Grab the pitchforks, boys....

[Em Ellel]

How do you think the police would react if you, a private citizen, set up cameras recording all of their officers as they left and returned to their station. You would deploy robotic cameras to follow them on the public roadways. You'd correlate this video with officer names and pictures and store it in a database, which you'd sell to anyone who would pay your price. I don't think they would permit you to do it for long

You mean like COPS??? Yeah, they dont like it a bit... Actually as long as you do not impead their work and not send robotic cameras(they are not legal on roads yet), I doubt they can possibly say anything. You would not be doing anything illegal.

This is essentially what they want to do to us. Why should we permit it, when they won't permit us the same privilege?

So if they let us do it to them, its ok for them to do it to us? Given above, you just given them full permission.

Are they the world's most perfect database administrators and programmers, who will never leave any flaws or bugs that would let someone steal this information? Are they free of bureaucracy and able to establish truly secure protocols for the management of this information?

So,given that NOBODY is perfect and there is not such thing as "trully secure protocol", there should be never any databases of any kind??? "Grab the pitchforks boys, we gonna burn down that whole evil internet bidness..."

Look, nobody saying "they" should have all the power, but the point the tin-foil-hat lunatic fringe usually misses is that "they" are US. Cops are just people so are the politicians and so are the judges (who for some reason CAN spy on you, if they feel like it) People that blindly separate everyone into "us" and "them" are usually feeling inadequate to participate in the process and choose instead to complain about "them" who "have all the power". I say if you want power, get off your ass and do something..... Oh,who am I kidding, I am telling this to an AC, whats the point ...

-Em

Re:Grab the pitchforks, boys....

[Anonymous Coward]

"So if they let us do it to them, its ok for them to do it to us? Given above, you just given them full permission."

If the police have universal surveillance powers, then the citizens must have equivalent powers to see how the police are using their power. It's a balance-of-power issue.

"So,given that NOBODY is perfect and there is not such thing as "trully secure protocol", there should be never any databases of any kind??? "Grab the pitchforks boys, we gonna burn down that whole evil internet bidness...""

Huh?

A primary point of my post was that police are just human. If you create a system with no safeguards, then the police who control it will have an imbalance of power which some percentage of them will misuse for personal/political benefit.

There's no such thing as a truly secure protocol, so you just want to throw away all attempts to make the protocols more secure?

"Look, nobody saying "they" should have all the power, but the point the tin-foil-hat lunatic fringe usually misses is that "they" are US. Cops are just people so are the politicians and so are the judges (who for some reason CAN spy on you, if they feel like it)"

You seem to have completely missed it, but that was the point of my post...

"People that blindly separate everyone into "us" and "them" are usually feeling inadequate to participate in the process and choose instead to complain about "them" who "have all the power"."

I used the word "they" as a pronoun, as it is used in the English language, to refer to the subject of discussion at that point in the sentence: the police. If you have trouble understanding that, you should probably be studying remedial English before tackling something like logical reasoning.

"I say if you want power, get off your ass and do something....."

People who want power over others are the problem.

"Oh,who am I kidding, I am telling this to an AC, whats the point ..."

Considering your post, I have much higher expectations for the random anonymous posters of the world than for the Em Ellels.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[elrous0]

The WTO protests was one of the biggest events of the late 20th century,

No, they were pathetic circus shows that gave the mainstream population even more reason to dismiss you as a bunch of neo-hippies and college kids.

You want to have a REAL impact for your movement? Cut your hair, dress in business suits, and instead of throwing rocks, gather a huge corwd and march silently down the street. Make the cops beating you look like the shitheads, not the other way around.

And there is a historic lesson in why the desegreation movement suceeded and the anti-Vietnam movement failed.

-Eric

Re:OK...what the HELL

[Anonymous Coward]

Godamn, you are so fucking pathetic. Slashdot has become your only aspect in life. You are a Loser. Yes, you.

You SERIOUSLY need to go outside and meet other people (ie GET A LIFE)

Re:Why do you care?

[Improv]

I suppose I just take it for granted that the system isn't perfect, and that good stories that people put time into don't always get posted, and sometimes worse versions get posted from other people. I occasionally have submitted stories, and I don't think any of them have been posted, but .. no big deal. That's what BLOGs are for. I'm not saying that it doesn't suck when it happens, but the degree to which this bothers you seems extreme to me and suggests that there's a lot of ego involved.

Re:Why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aww, poor baby monkey.

Take it to starbucks? I don't think so.

[XMilkProject]

Taking it to Starbucks, (at least where I live) means using Wifi. It really isn't possible they've implemented usable Wifi support in their LiveCD is it? Usually getting wireless to work on linux means finding windows drivers, utilizing NDISWrapper, etc.

That being said, what would be required for the linux community to make Wifi drivers more accessible? Is this something that is reliant entirely on the manufacturers providing drivers or is there some other solution? It would surely aid linux adoption if it was easier to get your Laptop Wifi working.

For the linux-savvy, NDISWrapper is of course very slick, and I was able to get my HP Notebook Wifi card working in about 20 minutes, but the less techy people such as the Grandmother mentioned in the posting are not going to be able to sort their way through ndiswrapper and iwconfig, much less figure out newer encryption methods.

Re:Take it to starbucks? I don't think so.

[Nonesuch]

XMilkProject writes:

Taking it to Starbucks, (at least where I live) means using Wifi. It really isn't possible they've implemented usable Wifi support in their LiveCD is it? Usually getting wireless to work on linux means finding windows drivers, utilizing NDISWrapper, etc.

Being OpenBSD, this is a beastie of a different color, and yes they have implemented usable WiFi support in their LiveCD. For chipsets supported by OpenBSD, associating and obtaining a DHCP address is easily scripted. Not every variant of every laptop vendors embedded WiFi will be detected. OTOH, supported 802.11BG dongles are cheap and plentiful.

Is this something that is reliant entirely on the manufacturers providing drivers or is there some other solution? I>

An interesting thing about how OpenBSD approached WiFi... the project put massive effort about a year ago into writing BSD-licensed drivers for the cards which manufacturers would provide specs, and generally will not ship with mfgr-supplied binary drivers. Since all the WiFi code is BSD licensed, Linux can borrow at will.

but the less techy people such as the Grandmother mentioned in the posting are not going to be able to sort their way through ndiswrapper and iwconfig, much less figure out newer encryption methods.

Not a requirement to get up and running at Starbucks (all the more reason to have applicaton-side strong crypto).

Re:Take it to starbucks? I don't think so.

[Shanep]

Taking it to Starbucks, (at least where I live) means using Wifi. It really isn't possible they've implemented usable Wifi support in their LiveCD is it? Usually getting wireless to work on linux means finding windows drivers, utilizing NDISWrapper, etc.

My Spidey senses are telling me that you've never tried to use OpenBSD with a supported wireless card.

If a card is supported, it is typically supported from a driver built into the GENERIC OpenBSD kernel and "just works" like any other supported NIC.

In fact it is so good, that you can even bond your wired NIC to your wireless NIC as a trunk and then if you unplug your network cable to move yourself and your laptop away from your desk, your current connections are retained and continue to function. Your downloads keep downloading, your ssh sessions are still alive, etc.

If you like to use UNIX like operating systems and wireless, give OpenBSD a try. As long as you're using a supported wireless NIC (probably from a company proud and confident enough to back thier products up with open documentation) then you might be surprised to find it works easier than Windows XP! My PRISM2.5 based Demarc Technologies DT200 card requires a driver download to work in Windows XP, yet OpenBSD sees it as a usable NIC by default.

Check out the list of OpenBSD i386 supported wireless cards (BTW, OpenBSD do not use the word "supported" loosely). That is not the entire list either. For example my supported card is not on that list. One caveat though, is that some manufacturers choose to completely change thier card designs while retaining the exact same model number. Making wireless card purchase a minefield for anybody buying for a non Windows machine. Sure you can use an NDIS wrapper on OS which support that, but I'd rather return the product for a refund to try my luck again with another card. There are always the options to buy cards from vendors who advertise the exact chipset used too. Which I choose to do to get specific cards which are supported and have excellent receive sensitivity and decent variable transmit power.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to have a REAL impact for your movement? Cut your hair, dress in business suits, and instead of throwing rocks, gather a huge corwd and march silently down the street.

That would make you look like some kind of weird cult.

Nobody would take a protest like that seriously.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a pointer: start by ditching that GMail account of yours.

TMM is a gay homosexual

[Anonymous Coward]

There is something highly homosexual about the way TMM is always trying to get attention from the smelly, maladjusted, predominantly male, predominantly single Slashdot readership. That we admire him and notice him is clearly very important to him.

In related news...

[Pseudonym]

...I will be releasing a beta of Pseudonym.OS real soon now.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[elrous0]

Nobody would take a protest like that seriously.

Yeah, that's probably true.

-Eric

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm. Unless you hadn't noticed, they definitely didn't march silently, nor did they only just march, but marched directly into police lines and committed acts of civil disobedience.

And suits? In 2006? Come on, that shit played out forty years ago, but not today.

Re:MOD DOGDUDE DOWN!

[Anonymous Coward]

My own counsel I will keep as to whom I mod and which direction.

Re:The whole privacy movement seems to have fizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

DES is actually a very good efficient algorithm with no known weaknesses per se after decades of cryptanalysis, the problem is the 56 bit keysize is far too small for adequate security these days. 3DES in appropriate modes still provides a pretty good level of "everyday" security and uses little CPU / memory, so if the plugin uses that and is implemented securely it's OK.

Good luck with (encrypted) WiFi

[WoTG]

IMHO, the biggest problem with bootable distributions is getting WiFi to work automatically -- never mind for your "grandma". For desktop PC's this might work OK.