--- From: Hugh Lilly <h.lilly@private> Organization: http://hugh.orcon.net.nz Subject: Fwd: [nzlug] Open-source pro-privacy freebies Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 18:15:13 +1300 User-Agent: KMail/1.5 To: Dave Farber <dave@private>, Declan McCullagh <declan@private> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Declan, Dave: More on [Politech] New Zealand activist's crime of sending political email? [fs]; posted to the NZLUG recently. - -hdl - ---------- Forwarded Message: ---------- Subject: [nzlug] Open-source pro-privacy freebies Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 17:32 From: David McNab <david@private> To: nzlug@private Hi all, If you're happy to have government webcams in your car and in every room of your house, then stop reading this post now and delete it. Take your blue pill with a nice warm glass of milk, and forget you ever saw this. Everyone else, please read on... As most of you know, an Aucklander is facing criminal charges for sending an email message to the US consulate, in which he criticises US foreign policy. What makes this letter unique is that the author makes no threats, and breaks no laws, save for an obscure provision in one of NZ's new 'terrist under every bed' laws. Most of you will already be familiar with Freenet - a prototype peer2peer network infrastructure that allows for anonymous, encrypted online communication. Freenet was the original spearhead of technologies which allow people to publish and/or retrieve information anonymously, and which makes it next to impossible for third parties to ascertain the source or destination of traffic. Freenet uses 'whack-a-mole' routing and caching, with the result that any attempt to censor information, or determine the publisher or retriever of information, actually causes the information to proliferate through the network - creating a 'Heisenberg' effect. The unique nature of the routing/caching also provides viable 'plausible deniability' defense for people whose nodes are used as intermediate caches. Freenet is in widespread use amongst pro-democracy campaigners within China, and other repressive regimes. But if you've actually tried Freenet, you'll be sorely aware that in its present alpha state, it's a slow, bloated CPU/memory hog with reliability that's only patchy at best. But the miracle of the Internet is that a problem doesn't persist long before solutions start to manifest, as if from nowhere. In answer to freenet's practical problems, a whole new suite of software called Entropy has been developed. http://entropy.stop1984.com Entropy is 100% freenet compatible (from the point of view of the protocol - FCP - which you use to talk to it from client programs). It's also compatible in the sense that it has a built-in HTTP gateway, so you can surf 'freesites' with your web browser, just like with freenet. But as another plus, Entropy's web interface also has built-in web message boards. But what makes Entropy *really* different is that it's written in ANSI C (as opposed to Freenet being in Java). [I'm sure I don't need to explain what happens to a program when it throws off that cast-lead albatross called Java.] Entropy's value is that it puts the Freenet ideas into practice, in a piece of software that actually works, and works fast and reliable, without undue demand on resources. I for one am very committed to online privacy, because of the abuses which are starting to happen - for example, that Aucklander mentioned above. I recommend that if you've got even the slightest aversion to George Orwell's 1984 scenario, that you download and install the Entropy software, and get a node up and running. If you like, you can also post your noderef into as a reply to this thread (you're welcome to use my own noderef - freenet.org.nz:30531). More and more people every day are writing client software for Entropy. For instance, I've not long ago written a POP/SMTP MTA (mail server) called 'FreeMail' that uses Entropy as its transport - and unlike conventional PGP/SMTP solutions, it disguises even the fact that you're sending or receiving messages at all. Alpha testing has been happening for a month, in which FreeMail has stabilised to near-beta quality. www.freenet.org.nz/freemail Writing client software for Freenet or Entropy is easy - there are easy-to-use SDK libraries already implemented in C, Python, Perl and (ulp!) Java. If Entropy follows its present path, it can be expected to grow into a huge international 'nether-net', and the rightful successor to Freenet. So if any of you are wondering what the hell has happened to me, this is what I've been doing - writing lotsa Python software - with a focus on privacy-related stuff. Oh, before I go, I thought I should also mention another excellent piece of privacy software. IIP - Invisible IRC Proxy (http://www.invisiblenet.net/iip), is a peer2peer gateway that allows you to use your favourite IRC client to enjoy strong-encrypted, anonymous online chat. Any attempts to discover the IP addresses of others using IIP will just return the ubiquitous '127.0.0.1'. With IIP, you can set up your own chat rooms, or join existing chat rooms, or talk 1:1 with privmsg, and speak with a freedom that will withstand virtually any attack (save for the government here TEMPESTing you or planting a keylogger in your box). So - now might be a really good time to put your feelings about privacy into practice, and get your Entropy and IIP nodes running. Just compile them, stick 'em in your inits, and use at will. - -- Cheers David - ------------------------------------------------------------------- To remove yourself from this list, email nzlug-request@private with "unsubscribe" in the body of the message. - ------------------------------------------------------- - -- (C) 2003 Hugh Lilly mail: h.lilly@private blog: http://hugh.orcon.net.nz Registered Linux User # 295486, register @ http://counter.li.org ______________________________________________________ There's only so much stupidity you can compensate for; there comes a point where you compensate for so much stupidity that it starts to cause problems for the people who actually think in a normal way. -Bill, digital.forest tech support -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/scHl9hi2EvY06qgRApiVAJ4rtEwO9Iebf3U0idf1YoeZHKFWOwCfWtk/ BDxbAsmR+ttp9e6AsUisZ+A= =Rzkr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Nov 12 2003 - 23:08:08 PST