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
Students can no longer prepare bark to calculate problems. They depend instead on expensive slates. What will they do when the slate is dropped and breaks? --Teacher's Conference, 1703.
We had the same experience with a router from PSINet (obviously a while ago).
Our solution was to go get a copy of the Cisco PalmCrack utility and get the en password for the router. Then we took care of our own security concerns.
PSINet never patched the IOS or took any active steps to ensure security. Perhaps UUNet is more responsible.
I am a highschool student who is taking his courses in college instead of highschool. I know that my schedule is pretty full, taking 23 semester hours. My friends in highschool are typically there from 7:00 AM until well after 4:00 PM with extra-cirriculars and course work.
I know my parents do not have the time to live their lives, both busy with work, and mine, busy with school, at the same time. They, instead, ask me about my life, look at my grades, and have conferences with my counselors and teachers.
Believe me, they can tell if I don't do my homework or don't go to class. It's pretty clear when you have all A's and a D, like last semester for me, that homework or attendance or something became "optional."
More cameras are not a solution. Of course, I wouldn't mind pocketing a few of them and adding to my webcam collection...
I believe the original poster was referring to contacts not only in the British government but in organizations with power originating from a not-so-clean source. Underworld groups like the Russian or American-Italian Mafias could benefit from having a nice, secure location for encrypted data. Their political sway is most likely far beyond that of many "legitimate" organizations like the MPAA or RIAA.
This sounds like an excellent starting point for Taco's convergence mania. It'll have the DVD player, the quality outputs, and a good development platform. Sure, it still needs a few things added for complete functionality, but as people were discussing, this could be a good "hub" unit, or at least a starting point for creating a comprehensive UI.
I am in high school/college now and consider myself a nerd. Not because I am anti-social or have no friends; quite the opposite. I spend most of my free time with friends who are not majorly into computers. However, there is a constant track of my mind wondering, "What's the latest post on Slashdot?" "When is 2.4 REALLY coming out?" "Is my box still up? I sure hope so... damned DDoS"
I think it's a state of mind that indicates your entry into nerd-dom.
--Gavin
I am 16 and have had a constant struggle in school to find courses that were challenging or that seem useful to me in the long run. I think of myself as above average and rather intelligent and I'm sure you're the same.
Do you find yourself continually frustrated? Feeling held back by courses designed to help the lowest common denominator, or a general public that doesn't possess the skill level you do? If so, what do you do to keep yourself from becoming bitter and infuriated?
My solution was to find a different school; early college admissions. (Insert shameless plug here)I highly encourage other students who feel like I have to check out the program here.
There are laptop hardware decoders. They are PCMCIA cards with dongles for AC-3, video output, etc. I wish I could be more specific, I just know they are there because my boss owns one. He says it came with his Dell laptop.
Good luck!
If you are looking for a small-scale NAT/VPN/Firewalling device, I HIGHLY recommend a product from Netscreen Technologies. I have played with the Netscreen 5 and have been VERY pleased. However, don't expect to get all those cool features without a little $$$ up front. I think the Netscreen 5 ran the company 300 bucks or so.
Most were practicing non-violent civil disobedience, the sort of stuff Ghandi used.
Why would you dare compare people protesting things as foolish and silly as human beings eating meat to a courageous and worthwhile struggle like that of Ghandi? If you don't like what someone thinks, fine. Write a letter. Do you think even a single delegate who saw those freaks thought to him/herself, "Gee, that person is laying in the road... I think I'll become a vegan and a democrat!" No. If enough of the protesters were to write a letter to the people *actually* running for office, their voices would be heard much more powerfully.
The lawsuit by the Justice Department is, in my mind, justified. Where I feel the line needs to be drawn are all the states screaming "ME TOO!!" like some AOL'er at the prospect of money from a settlement.
Slashdot Mirror
Corrected link:
o stheory-responds-2/
http://theory.kaos.to/blog/archives/2006/01/17/ka
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
Students can no longer prepare bark to calculate problems. They depend instead on expensive slates. What will they do when the slate is dropped and breaks?
--Teacher's Conference, 1703.
Our solution was to go get a copy of the Cisco PalmCrack utility and get the en password for the router. Then we took care of our own security concerns.
PSINet never patched the IOS or took any active steps to ensure security. Perhaps UUNet is more responsible.
It can live at my house! I'll feed it and water it and love it! I promise!
Now, just start sending those donations...
I am a highschool student who is taking his courses in college instead of highschool. I know that my schedule is pretty full, taking 23 semester hours. My friends in highschool are typically there from 7:00 AM until well after 4:00 PM with extra-cirriculars and course work.
I know my parents do not have the time to live their lives, both busy with work, and mine, busy with school, at the same time. They, instead, ask me about my life, look at my grades, and have conferences with my counselors and teachers.
Believe me, they can tell if I don't do my homework or don't go to class. It's pretty clear when you have all A's and a D, like last semester for me, that homework or attendance or something became "optional."
More cameras are not a solution. Of course, I wouldn't mind pocketing a few of them and adding to my webcam collection...
I believe the original poster was referring to contacts not only in the British government but in organizations with power originating from a not-so-clean source. Underworld groups like the Russian or American-Italian Mafias could benefit from having a nice, secure location for encrypted data. Their political sway is most likely far beyond that of many "legitimate" organizations like the MPAA or RIAA.
This sounds like an excellent starting point for Taco's convergence mania. It'll have the DVD player, the quality outputs, and a good development platform. Sure, it still needs a few things added for complete functionality, but as people were discussing, this could be a good "hub" unit, or at least a starting point for creating a comprehensive UI.
You might wanna try RouterSim.com. They are recommended by Sybex as a location for practicing for CCNA/CCNP.
I am in high school/college now and consider myself a nerd. Not because I am anti-social or have no friends; quite the opposite. I spend most of my free time with friends who are not majorly into computers. However, there is a constant track of my mind wondering, "What's the latest post on Slashdot?" "When is 2.4 REALLY coming out?" "Is my box still up? I sure hope so... damned DDoS" I think it's a state of mind that indicates your entry into nerd-dom. --Gavin
I am 16 and have had a constant struggle in school to find courses that were challenging or that seem useful to me in the long run. I think of myself as above average and rather intelligent and I'm sure you're the same.
Do you find yourself continually frustrated? Feeling held back by courses designed to help the lowest common denominator, or a general public that doesn't possess the skill level you do? If so, what do you do to keep yourself from becoming bitter and infuriated?
My solution was to find a different school; early college admissions. (Insert shameless plug here)I highly encourage other students who feel like I have to check out the program here.
--Gavin
There are laptop hardware decoders. They are PCMCIA cards with dongles for AC-3, video output, etc. I wish I could be more specific, I just know they are there because my boss owns one. He says it came with his Dell laptop. Good luck!
If you are looking for a small-scale NAT/VPN/Firewalling device, I HIGHLY recommend a product from Netscreen Technologies. I have played with the Netscreen 5 and have been VERY pleased. However, don't expect to get all those cool features without a little $$$ up front. I think the Netscreen 5 ran the company 300 bucks or so.
Most were practicing non-violent civil disobedience, the sort of stuff Ghandi used.
Why would you dare compare people protesting things as foolish and silly as human beings eating meat to a courageous and worthwhile struggle like that of Ghandi? If you don't like what someone thinks, fine. Write a letter. Do you think even a single delegate who saw those freaks thought to him/herself, "Gee, that person is laying in the road... I think I'll become a vegan and a democrat!" No. If enough of the protesters were to write a letter to the people *actually* running for office, their voices would be heard much more powerfully.
The lawsuit by the Justice Department is, in my mind, justified. Where I feel the line needs to be drawn are all the states screaming "ME TOO!!" like some AOL'er at the prospect of money from a settlement.
why leave the warm, glowing goodness that is /.?