There already has been something similar in Soviet Russia before 1990 but it was analog, not digital.
Russians have invented the laser TV projector where the lasing crystal was excited with scanning electron beam. Of course, it was purely experimental, monochrome and needed liquid nitrogen cooling but it worked spectacularly. The photo has been published in Russian popular RADIO magazine.
I personally own a small Russian oven (I am Russian) and am repairing it just now so I must stress that it's NOT so efficient. Problem is that to collect all the smoke produced in a furnace the passages should be short enough limiting the heat collection efficiency. So the two-furnace ovens are usually built but it differs from a traditional design. The second furnace has a traditional "Holland" construction.
And a traditional Russian oven is too big. There should be at least 1.5*2 meters sleeping place on top for all the family.
What if you are a political blogger whose keyboard is bugged? The Miniluv can do everything they want against you, and no TOR, I2P, VPN, foreign hosting or full-disk encryption will save you from Room 101.
1) A set of somehow signed declassified documents that prove that Assad has really used the chemical weapons? Set of allegations ("We know but cannot say what from") doesn't count. 2) A set of documents that prove that Qatar and Turkey have no access to Sarin precursors?
Why do I ask: There is an old Roman rule "Qui bono?".
1. As it has been said, Assad will gain nothing by use of WMD in his own capital, especially when he beats the ***t out of them. The rebels will get an international support by use of WMD by them or Assad - no difference, and especially when the ***t is beaten out of them. And Assad is not a fool and understands it well. 2. Syria sits on potential pipe route from Qatar to Europe. Qatar loses lots of money by not having this pipe. Qatar is rich enough to buy any chemicals it likes, is a state and so has all the rights to obtain hazardous substances that individual doesn't have and has trillions of dollars of incentive for doing it. And also, Aum Shinryu-kyo has already produced some Sarin without being a state, so much more powerful Al-Kaeda can do the same. 3. Erdogan transforms Turkey from republic to Islamic (Sunni) theocracy forgetting the legacy of Ataturk. So, he is interested in helping Sunni Al-Kaeda to set foot in Syria or everywhere. And I am afraid of this because islamists are a real threats to Russia. And you Americans just do not understand the islamists. Remember Tsarnaev.
It's just why the satisfactory backup program should be simple and contain no browser and no parts that you cannot possibly understand. Bare minimum: OS, the builtin opensource HDD crypto of this OS, and an orthodox file manager for that OS. Nothing more. And if your OS has no opensource HDD crypto - change the OS before the worst happens.
There is NO way to prove this. It's just impossible to prove the absence of anything (here: the absence of security holes) except in very special cases.
It's of course possible for them to disclose the program that resides on your computer and stores your data in Google cloud, but it's impossible to prove that this program has not been changed before use, or your Windows has no malware that sends your keys to KGB (Or NSA - doesn't matter). Or that your keyboard has not been bugged, or that you will never be sodomized with soldering iron somewhere in basements of FSIN (GULAG).
The only really secure data are the ones written to your own HDD in your safe in your basement, encrypted with opensource program, with part of encryption key entrusted to some friend who is instructed to return it to you when he is satisfactorily ensured that you are not under coercion.
It stops spammers. But remember the Bitcoin as the bitmessage whitepaper did. Mining of Bitcoin is the proof of work. But it results in invention of more and more sophisticated devices for mining. Now GPU are useless since ASICs have more processing power than GPUs. It will mean that if the network is really useful then this work will be offloaded to GPUs or ASICs and you will need to spend hours to send one letter where spammers with specialized hardware will send them every minute. No Raspberry Pi will ever be as fast as GPU or ASIC.
Between this and the other reply to your post, I think we've established that you really don't know much at all about Bitmessage.
It's a design FLAW. If the project becomes operational then about 1 million people will send a pair of messages every day. So, I shall receive 2 million encrypted messages - more than 20 messages per second - and attempt to decrypt them all - in order to receive my 2 messages and drop all others. If a typical message is 10 kbytes long, I will receive 20 Gbytes a day. It's an order of magnitude greater than I consume now. Such system is unusable.
Bitmessage is flawed from beginning by the very fact that every node receives all the messages. There should be some distributed storage for messages but it should be managed in a more efficient way. For instance, kept in some nodes whose IP maximally resembles a hash of public key of recipient. Also, the requirement of proof-of-work basically excludes everything except really big computers from being nodes. No OpenWRT client ever.
In the USA, 802.11 operation in the channels 12 and 13 are actually allowed under low powered conditions. The 2.4 GHz Part 15 band in the US allows spread-spectrum operation as long as the 50-dB bandwidth of the signal is within the range of 2,400–2,483.5 MHz[10] which wholly encompasses both channels 12 and 13. A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) document clarifies that only channel 14 is forbidden and furthermore low-power transmitters with low-gain antennas may legally operate in channels 12 and 13.[11] However, channels 12 and 13 are not normally used in order to avoid any potential interference in the adjacent restricted frequency band, 2,483.5–2,500 MHz,[12] which is subject to strict emission limits set out in 47 CFR 15.205.[13]
Channels are 5 MHz apart. Channels 1-4 and 8-11 are 15 MHz apart - less than 20 MHz required by 802.11g or 802.11n in 20-MHz mode. It means that your list 1-4-8-11 will generate interference and make both channels unusable. If you cannot use 12 and 13 - use 1-5-9 and leave 13 for low-power applications and the people who can observe restrictions above.
Your provider should look for TDMA solution where the AP controls the access and where no collision detection is needed. For instance, Ubiquiti AirMax devices. I've also read about implementation of TDMA in FreeBSD. At least, man ifconfig tells that wlanmode parameter may be tdma. I've also read an article "TDMA for Long Distance Wireless Networks" by Sam Leffler, Errno Consulting. TDMA is not applicable in usual networks but in this network where there is only one provider who can coordinate channel distribution internally it's acceptable. It's the case in Google-only network.
In such a network the client dishes, panels and other directional antennae are really preferred (See Ubiquiti Nanobridge). And also they can be used to separate networks spatially.
Secondly, the WiFi collision detection works in such a way that both sides should hear each other (CSMA/CA). So it's not necessary for clients to hear each other. If AP hears one of clients it gives it CTS which is heard by the second one and inhibits it's transmission without any need to hear other client.
And also, do you understand the difference between "may" and "can"?
Once upon a time I became paranoidal about my mail security. It took me about 1 hour to install my own mail server with encryption. Then I sent myself a letter via my ISP. And logs had shown that the transmission was really encrypted.
What does it mean: There are the only paths that can be passively intercepted or subpoenaed (I don't take in account MITM): SMTP link from sender to source SMTP server, SMTP link from sender to backup SMTP server, SMTP link to receiving server, POP link from receiving server to receiver and all the computers involved. Sender side may be controlled by sending person, receiver side controlled by receiving person, backup disabled in DNS, so the 3-letter agency will not see anything without special means.
Hack methods: 1) Hack a DNS to insert a backup server and see the message there. 2) Extort the message from any side.
I believe it's enough for 99% of all cases. Other 1% will need something more interesting, and I believe that the "more interesting" cases should not only encrypt the messages, but firstly hide the fact of communications since the messages may be extorted easier than decrypted. In other words, TOR, I2P, VPN and other means for hiding the very fact of communication are absolutely needed.
- 802.11n performance is dependent on multi-pathing. An AP on a pole in the middle of a park doesn't give much in the way of surfaces to reflect a signal off of. You end up at my first point- slow transmission, lower cell capacity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFDM_system_comparison_table#OFDM_system_comparison_table states that the symbol length of 802.11a is 3.2 uS (which is about 1 kilometer of length) and the guard interval is 1/4 of symbol length. It means that path length difference should be at least bigger than 100 meters to create problems. I believe 802.11n has similar parameters. And you can easily use a directional antenna to suppress such bad paths.
- While two clients on an AP each can "hear" the APs transmissions, they may not "hear" each others'. Collisions galore.
Then, you all forget about TDMA profile of WiFi. It's rarely implemented but some implementation exist. For instance, Ubiquiti AirMax and afaik FreeBSD. If you have a single network in your area (as Google has) then TDMA is an option since it's the AP that manages the access.
1. There is NO legal restrictions for everybody else to install their own network. 2. Anybody wishing to install their own network may migrate to 5 GHz. There are LOTS of 802.11a and 802.11an cards. I bought 3 second hand 5-year old Lenovo books and they all had both 2.4 and 5 GHz. There are lots APs too. 3. Everybody who wants a good service may^W can use a satellite dish looking directly to AP in order to overpower them all. 4. If you use Google then nothing stops you from using a VPN you like, and I believe that VPN should be a standard practice for now.
Forget the 802.11b. The b-only devices are for museum or landfill. So you have 4 distinct channels - 1,5,9,13. And you should have a community wide policy to use only them and strongly discourage any use of other ones as well as use of b. You may interpret "strongly discourage" as you like. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
The only problem of Elysium is the necessity to loft lots of cargo. May be, INITIALLY loft lots of cargo since after they begin mining Moon for titanium, hydrogen (poles) and oxygen they will not be in short supply of main expendables. And I see at least 2 methods for it that should work using our existing knowledge base: Skylon and Nerva.
Then they will have one of 2 problems for their choice: either they will have lots of everything except energy (I mean colonization of systems of gas giants) or they will have energy and nothing else (nearer to Sun than Earth). And I don't know any method to resolve this dilemma.
I know some paranoiac that does not use American services without VPN. I asked him to visit a site that determines his IP. The site correctly displayed his IP, his previous non-encrypted IP he has used before VPN, his version of Linux, Firefox, display resolution and local time difference, as well as full list of extremist sites banned by Russian authorities he has visited.
He was shocked. All this info was enough to fully disclose his identity.
There IS a technical solution to prevent a government from torturing or murdering people.
Firstly, the key to your personal data should consist of 2 parts: a passphrase and a keyfile. The keyfile may have self-destruction properties, and parts of it's backup trusted to a group of people. It will be necessary to find all them to restore the keyfile. # man 8 geli
Secondly, the absence of key owner should both start the keyfile destruction and publish some info. Afaik Wikileaks has published some encrypted files, and every attempt to kill Assange will publish a decryption key.
Slashdot Mirror
There already has been something similar in Soviet Russia before 1990 but it was analog, not digital.
Russians have invented the laser TV projector where the lasing crystal was excited with scanning electron beam. Of course, it was purely experimental, monochrome and needed liquid nitrogen cooling but it worked spectacularly. The photo has been published in Russian popular RADIO magazine.
I personally own a small Russian oven (I am Russian) and am repairing it just now so I must stress that it's NOT so efficient. Problem is that to collect all the smoke produced in a furnace the passages should be short enough limiting the heat collection efficiency. So the two-furnace ovens are usually built but it differs from a traditional design. The second furnace has a traditional "Holland" construction.
And a traditional Russian oven is too big. There should be at least 1.5*2 meters sleeping place on top for all the family.
What if you are a political blogger whose keyboard is bugged? The Miniluv can do everything they want against you, and no TOR, I2P, VPN, foreign hosting or full-disk encryption will save you from Room 101.
OpenBSD?
Where can I download 2 things?
1) A set of somehow signed declassified documents that prove that Assad has really used the chemical weapons? Set of allegations ("We know but cannot say what from") doesn't count.
2) A set of documents that prove that Qatar and Turkey have no access to Sarin precursors?
Why do I ask: There is an old Roman rule "Qui bono?".
1. As it has been said, Assad will gain nothing by use of WMD in his own capital, especially when he beats the ***t out of them. The rebels will get an international support by use of WMD by them or Assad - no difference, and especially when the ***t is beaten out of them. And Assad is not a fool and understands it well.
2. Syria sits on potential pipe route from Qatar to Europe. Qatar loses lots of money by not having this pipe. Qatar is rich enough to buy any chemicals it likes, is a state and so has all the rights to obtain hazardous substances that individual doesn't have and has trillions of dollars of incentive for doing it. And also, Aum Shinryu-kyo has already produced some Sarin without being a state, so much more powerful Al-Kaeda can do the same.
3. Erdogan transforms Turkey from republic to Islamic (Sunni) theocracy forgetting the legacy of Ataturk. So, he is interested in helping Sunni Al-Kaeda to set foot in Syria or everywhere. And I am afraid of this because islamists are a real threats to Russia. And you Americans just do not understand the islamists. Remember Tsarnaev.
Full disclosure: I am Russian.
No parts that you cannot possibly understand. Do you understand the inner workings of your opensource browser well enough?
It's just why the satisfactory backup program should be simple and contain no browser and no parts that you cannot possibly understand. Bare minimum: OS, the builtin opensource HDD crypto of this OS, and an orthodox file manager for that OS. Nothing more. And if your OS has no opensource HDD crypto - change the OS before the worst happens.
Unfortunately, it's THE fate of any large and successful corporation.
There is NO way to prove this. It's just impossible to prove the absence of anything (here: the absence of security holes) except in very special cases.
It's of course possible for them to disclose the program that resides on your computer and stores your data in Google cloud, but it's impossible to prove that this program has not been changed before use, or your Windows has no malware that sends your keys to KGB (Or NSA - doesn't matter). Or that your keyboard has not been bugged, or that you will never be sodomized with soldering iron somewhere in basements of FSIN (GULAG).
The only really secure data are the ones written to your own HDD in your safe in your basement, encrypted with opensource program, with part of encryption key entrusted to some friend who is instructed to return it to you when he is satisfactorily ensured that you are not under coercion.
It stops spammers. But remember the Bitcoin as the bitmessage whitepaper did. Mining of Bitcoin is the proof of work. But it results in invention of more and more sophisticated devices for mining. Now GPU are useless since ASICs have more processing power than GPUs. It will mean that if the network is really useful then this work will be offloaded to GPUs or ASICs and you will need to spend hours to send one letter where spammers with specialized hardware will send them every minute. No Raspberry Pi will ever be as fast as GPU or ASIC.
Between this and the other reply to your post, I think we've established that you really don't know much at all about Bitmessage.
See my answer above.
It's a design FLAW. If the project becomes operational then about 1 million people will send a pair of messages every day. So, I shall receive 2 million encrypted messages - more than 20 messages per second - and attempt to decrypt them all - in order to receive my 2 messages and drop all others. If a typical message is 10 kbytes long, I will receive 20 Gbytes a day. It's an order of magnitude greater than I consume now. Such system is unusable.
You have 2 alternatives: either use UI that sucks - or to be incarcerated in FSB due to contents of your letter. Your choice?
Bitmessage is flawed from beginning by the very fact that every node receives all the messages. There should be some distributed storage for messages but it should be managed in a more efficient way. For instance, kept in some nodes whose IP maximally resembles a hash of public key of recipient. Also, the requirement of proof-of-work basically excludes everything except really big computers from being nodes. No OpenWRT client ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
In the USA, 802.11 operation in the channels 12 and 13 are actually allowed under low powered conditions. The 2.4 GHz Part 15 band in the US allows spread-spectrum operation as long as the 50-dB bandwidth of the signal is within the range of 2,400–2,483.5 MHz[10] which wholly encompasses both channels 12 and 13. A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) document clarifies that only channel 14 is forbidden and furthermore low-power transmitters with low-gain antennas may legally operate in channels 12 and 13.[11] However, channels 12 and 13 are not normally used in order to avoid any potential interference in the adjacent restricted frequency band, 2,483.5–2,500 MHz,[12] which is subject to strict emission limits set out in 47 CFR 15.205.[13]
Channels are 5 MHz apart. Channels 1-4 and 8-11 are 15 MHz apart - less than 20 MHz required by 802.11g or 802.11n in 20-MHz mode. It means that your list 1-4-8-11 will generate interference and make both channels unusable. If you cannot use 12 and 13 - use 1-5-9 and leave 13 for low-power applications and the people who can observe restrictions above.
Your provider should look for TDMA solution where the AP controls the access and where no collision detection is needed. For instance, Ubiquiti AirMax devices. I've also read about implementation of TDMA in FreeBSD. At least, man ifconfig tells that wlanmode parameter may be tdma. I've also read an article "TDMA for Long Distance Wireless Networks" by Sam Leffler, Errno Consulting. TDMA is not applicable in usual networks but in this network where there is only one provider who can coordinate channel distribution internally it's acceptable. It's the case in Google-only network.
In such a network the client dishes, panels and other directional antennae are really preferred (See Ubiquiti Nanobridge). And also they can be used to separate networks spatially.
Secondly, the WiFi collision detection works in such a way that both sides should hear each other (CSMA/CA). So it's not necessary for clients to hear each other. If AP hears one of clients it gives it CTS which is heard by the second one and inhibits it's transmission without any need to hear other client.
And also, do you understand the difference between "may" and "can"?
Once upon a time I became paranoidal about my mail security. It took me about 1 hour to install my own mail server with encryption. Then I sent myself a letter via my ISP. And logs had shown that the transmission was really encrypted.
What does it mean: There are the only paths that can be passively intercepted or subpoenaed (I don't take in account MITM): SMTP link from sender to source SMTP server, SMTP link from sender to backup SMTP server, SMTP link to receiving server, POP link from receiving server to receiver and all the computers involved. Sender side may be controlled by sending person, receiver side controlled by receiving person, backup disabled in DNS, so the 3-letter agency will not see anything without special means.
Hack methods: 1) Hack a DNS to insert a backup server and see the message there. 2) Extort the message from any side.
I believe it's enough for 99% of all cases. Other 1% will need something more interesting, and I believe that the "more interesting" cases should not only encrypt the messages, but firstly hide the fact of communications since the messages may be extorted easier than decrypted. In other words, TOR, I2P, VPN and other means for hiding the very fact of communication are absolutely needed.
- 802.11n performance is dependent on multi-pathing. An AP on a pole in the middle of a park doesn't give much in the way of surfaces to reflect a signal off of. You end up at my first point- slow transmission, lower cell capacity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFDM_system_comparison_table#OFDM_system_comparison_table states that the symbol length of 802.11a is 3.2 uS (which is about 1 kilometer of length) and the guard interval is 1/4 of symbol length. It means that path length difference should be at least bigger than 100 meters to create problems. I believe 802.11n has similar parameters. And you can easily use a directional antenna to suppress such bad paths.
- While two clients on an AP each can "hear" the APs transmissions, they may not "hear" each others'. Collisions galore.
Then, you all forget about TDMA profile of WiFi. It's rarely implemented but some implementation exist. For instance, Ubiquiti AirMax and afaik FreeBSD. If you have a single network in your area (as Google has) then TDMA is an option since it's the AP that manages the access.
Did you know that HP printer drivers are now up to 160 MB? its not just movies that are large files anymore.
Sorry? My bright and shiny color HP printer easily accepts
$ sudo cat file.ps >/dev/ulpt0
Where are the 160 MB drivers here?
1. There is NO legal restrictions for everybody else to install their own network. 2. Anybody wishing to install their own network may migrate to 5 GHz. There are LOTS of 802.11a and 802.11an cards. I bought 3 second hand 5-year old Lenovo books and they all had both 2.4 and 5 GHz. There are lots APs too. 3. Everybody who wants a good service may^W can use a satellite dish looking directly to AP in order to overpower them all. 4. If you use Google then nothing stops you from using a VPN you like, and I believe that VPN should be a standard practice for now.
Forget the 802.11b. The b-only devices are for museum or landfill. So you have 4 distinct channels - 1,5,9,13. And you should have a community wide policy to use only them and strongly discourage any use of other ones as well as use of b. You may interpret "strongly discourage" as you like. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
The only problem of Elysium is the necessity to loft lots of cargo. May be, INITIALLY loft lots of cargo since after they begin mining Moon for titanium, hydrogen (poles) and oxygen they will not be in short supply of main expendables. And I see at least 2 methods for it that should work using our existing knowledge base: Skylon and Nerva.
Then they will have one of 2 problems for their choice: either they will have lots of everything except energy (I mean colonization of systems of gas giants) or they will have energy and nothing else (nearer to Sun than Earth). And I don't know any method to resolve this dilemma.
I know some paranoiac that does not use American services without VPN. I asked him to visit a site that determines his IP. The site correctly displayed his IP, his previous non-encrypted IP he has used before VPN, his version of Linux, Firefox, display resolution and local time difference, as well as full list of extremist sites banned by Russian authorities he has visited.
He was shocked. All this info was enough to fully disclose his identity.
There is no such thing as a civilized country.
There IS a technical solution to prevent a government from torturing or murdering people.
Firstly, the key to your personal data should consist of 2 parts: a passphrase and a keyfile. The keyfile may have self-destruction properties, and parts of it's backup trusted to a group of people. It will be necessary to find all them to restore the keyfile. # man 8 geli
Secondly, the absence of key owner should both start the keyfile destruction and publish some info. Afaik Wikileaks has published some encrypted files, and every attempt to kill Assange will publish a decryption key.