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Researchers Build a Browser-Based Darknet
ancientribe writes "At Black Hat USA next month, researchers will demonstrate a way to use modern browsers to more easily build darknets — underground private Internet communities where users can share content and ideas securely and anonymously. HP's Billy Hoffman and Matt Wood have created Veiled, a proof-of-concept darknet that only requires participants have an HTML 5-based browser to join. No special software or configuration is necessary, unlike with darknets such as Tor. Veiled is basically a 'zero footprint' network, in which groups can rapidly form and disappear without a trace. The researchers admit darknets are attractive to bad guys, too, but they say they think these more easily set-up and dismantled nets will be more popular for mainstream (and legit) users." In somewhat related news, reader cheesethegreat informs us that version 0.7.5 of FreeNet has hit the tubes.
The researchers admit darknets are attractive to bad guys, too.
Yeah, I would be worried about all those sock hat wearing pedophiles out there.
Of course maybe Craigslist could use it to advertise their wares.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Is anyone in Iran reading this right now? OK, don't respond but do pass it on to your friends.
Ditto China.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Now get it out to the protesters in Iran and spread it in China for that matter.
So legitimate users in Iran or China might be able to hook into a darknet that has a portal to the real world outside? Kinda like good old packet HAM radio used to.
meh
Of course secrecy is attractive to bad guys. Problem is according to current legislation we are all bad guys, always crossing some obscure irrelevant law we don't know about.
So one man's secrecy is another man's privacy and protection from overreaching criminalization.
Oh, and anything you write or view on the internet, say over the phone, purchase, sms about, dial on your phone, etc. is saved and archived forever, by default, unless you make a special effort to enforce your right of privacy. Even that special effort does not guarantee protection and furthermore, that effort is not difficult to notice, and boom, you are someone with something to hide, i.e. one of the bad guys.
War is peace. Doublegood peace.
Which browsers (please include note if it's beta) support HTML 5?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
I'm not sure how much use it is for people to talk in secret. They probably do that now, with family etc. As we can see in Iran right now, it takes people to have the guts and will to take to the streets and make their feelings known before things change.
If its easier to use, you will definitely see more people using it who are legitimate. Tor and other darknets are a pain in the ass to use, and they clearly have a larger proportion of people using it for more nefarious purposes. The reason is simple: they *need* to use it because they are bad guys. Good guys, unless they fully comprehend the threats against them, are less likely to go to the effort. Hopefully this works out and is secure. It would be a big plus for people who don't want to deal with the hassle, not to mention, they don't want instantly incriminating software on their machine. My guess is that the Chinese and Iranian government minders don't like you if they see you getting your hands on anything like a Tor/Freenet software package.
Is this a late April Fools' joke? How does this supposed system work? It seems there must be a hosted PHP file somewhere - that server needs to have logs, at least if it's inside the EU and however you slice that you're toast.
Basically it seems to work sort of like a BitTorrent tracker that directs your client to other clients. So by what mechanism do you choose who to include in the "net"? If I understand correctly you sort of create channels for different purposes or groups. By using a introductory key? And how do you communicate that key? By encrypted e-mail? So any agencies that listen in on you very easily can see who you communicated with prior to your request for so and so domain holding the darknet PHP file? And how tough is that encryption? Ordinary SSL?
It connects the user's HTML 5-based browser to a single PHP file, which downloads some JavaScript code into the browser. Pieces of the file are spread among the members of the Veiled darknet. It's not peer-to-peer, but rather a chain of "repeaters" of the PHP file, the researchers say.
Spreads the file onto multiple peers? Is it possible for this file to run out of entropy in any way??
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
Microsoft realized that early on, which is why Explorer was integrated into Windows in the first place. And it's also why they're fighting to try to keep IE on top.
No, Netscape and Sun realized that early on, which is where the concept of browser plugins, JavaScript, and ultimately, Java come from. Then they started wagging their tongues about it rather than sit there and quietly implement stuff (ala Google), so Microsoft.moved to "cut off their air supply" (direct quote from a Microsoft memo used as evidence in their antitrust case) by integrating Internet Explorer into Windows.
My blog
The researchers admit darknets are attractive to bad guys, too
So is encryption. So is privacy. So are knives. So is food. So is living another day. It's not wrong just because it can be used to ill ends.
Or, to be all profound and Latin and stuff: abusus non tollit usum.
In case you didn't notice, the latest trend is that there are Corporations and Consumers. You are probably part of the Consumer segment and so a product of Society and can be sold to the Corporations.
That's where we're headed people!
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
Currently to do shared chat/video chat/audio/documents... most systems are dependent on servers of one sort or another. Making something that could work on a more peer-to-peer level would be very useful indeed as it would help alleviate (though probably not entirely eliminate) the reliance on servers that are often under someone else's control. If you doubt the usefulness of this, just look at what is happening in Iran right now.
Ninety-two point four per cent of juvenile delinquents have eaten tomatoes.
Eighty-seven point one per cent of the adult criminals in penitentiaries throughout the United States have eaten tomatoes.
Informers reliably inform that of all known American Communists ninety-two point three percent have eaten tomatoes.
Eighty-four per cent of all people killed in automobile accidents during the year 2004 had eaten tomatoes.
Those who object to singling out specific groups for statistical proofs require measurements within in the total. Of those people born before the year 1850, regardless of race, color, creed or caste, and known to have eaten tomatoes, there has been one hundred per cent mortality!
In spite of their dread addiction, a few tomato eaters born between 1850 and 1900 still manage to survive, but the clinical picture is poor-their bones are brittle, their movements feeble, their skin seamed and wrinkled, their eyesight failing, hair falling, and frequently they have lost all their teeth.
Those born between 1900 and 1950 number somewhat more survivors, but the overt signs of the addiction's dread effects differ not in kind but only in degree of deterioration. Prognostication is not hopeful.
Exhaustive experiment shows that when tomatoes are withheld from an addict, invariably his cravings will cause him to turn to substitutes-such as oranges, or steak and potatoes. If both tomatoes and all substitutes are persistently withheld-death invariably results within a short time!
The skeptic of apocryphal statistics, or the stubborn nonconformist who will not accept the clearly proved conclusions of others may conduct his own experiment.
Obtain two dozen tomatoes-they may actually be purchased within a block of some high schools, or discovered growing in a respected neighbor's back yard! - crush them to a pulp in exactly the state they would have if introduced into the stomach, pour the vile juice into a bowl, and place a goldfish therein. Within minutes the goldfish will be dead!
Those who argue that what affects a goldfish might not apply to a human being may, at their own choice, wish to conduct a direct experiment by fully immersing a live human head* into the mixture for a full five minutes.
* It is suggested that best results will be obtained by using an experimental subject who is thoroughly familiar with and frequently uses the logical methods demonstrated herein, such as:
(a) The average politician. Extremely unavailable to the average citizen except during the short open season before election.
(b) The advertising copywriter. Extremely wary and hard to catch due to his experience with many lawsuits for fraudulent claims.
(c) The dedicated moralist. Extremely plentiful in supply, and the experimenter might even obtain a bounty on each from a grateful community.
THE DREAD TOMATO ADDICTION Mark Clifton This essay originally appeared in the February 1958 edition of Astounding. The dates in this version have been modified (all dates plus 50 years).
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
Since there are zero details in TFA, i'm just going to speculate that one of three things is going on, in order of increasing probability:
1. HTML 5 creates all sorts of fantastic new ways to communicate anonymously through a central server. In that case, please fill me in. In genuinely interested.
2. The researchers have implemented something like the dining cryptographers protocol in js and php.
3. TFA is utter bullshit
Perhaps he saw that the terrorists have already won by getting our governments to take all our freedoms away.
Yes I said it.
The terrorists have won.
This is my worry about things like Tor - as I understand it, the anonymity is provided by bouncing encrypted packets between nodes, and is predicated on the nodes not collaborating. As soon as you have one entity running N nodes, any request for any bounce length less than N becomes a simple client-server transaction and the server (probably Government-run) has a good chance to know what the client is downloading. Can anyone more qualified comment on this?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
That certainly is a problem. A brute force solution to that problem is to make sure the network has enough "non-government" nodes to drive down the probability figures in such analyses. I guess if the probability of identifying an end node is low enough, that also makes it less likely for the government to seek warrants. (Unless they are just trying to bring down all nodes of the network.)
The I2P website has a list of different threat models and links to related papers. I guess this one falls under partitioning attacks.
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The added bonus with darknets is you also host the information you retrieve, increasing availability.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
It is too early on Wednesday morning for truth here on /. Please wait until I am not drunk in the future if you don't mind. The terrorists won when we started gutting the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the accumulated body of laws that had established our freedoms in this country. When little hick towns like the one I live in started x-raying all people entering the courthouse, and making them remove their belts, a sign of loss. When arriving two hours early at the airport, having to remove your shoes, the lists of forbidden items, another sign of loss. When the NSA and other alphabet soup agencies coerced the phone companies in letting them tap the lines of almost the entire nation, another loss. When we stopped protecting American interests with the full force of the military and started doing the limited war bullshit, another loss. When the perception of other countries became more important than our country's safety and well-being, we were pretty much done at that point.