Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

From Slashdot yesterday:

MIT Creates Tor Alternative That Floods Networks With Fake Data (softpedia.com)
Posted by timothy on Sunday December 13, 2015 @08:22AM from the can't-we-just-use-trolls? dept.

An anonymous reader writes with word that MIT researchers "created an alternative to Tor, a network messaging system called Vuvuzela that pollutes the network with dummy data so the NSA won't know who's talking to who." Initial tests show the systems overhead adding a 44-second delay, but the network can work fine and preserve anonymity even it has more than 50% of servers compromised.

I've never used TOR, it'll be interesting to see how difficult this is to set up once it gets out in to the wild. I find the preservation of anonymity when half of the network is compromised to be quite interesting. I have no idea if 44 second latency is good or bad.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/mit-creates-untraceable-anonymous-messaging-system-called-vuvuzela-497537.shtml

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/12/13/1522224/mit-creates-tor-alternative-that-floods-networks-with-fake-data

The NSA, PRISM, and trying to keep your information private and secure

This is a whole bunch of links that I've been accumulating that talks about a lot of different facets of what's been going on since Edward Snowden blew the lid off of the PRISM spying and what the NSA and federal government has been doing.

First up, my fav security guy, Bruce Schneier. In this article “How to Remain Secure Against the NSA”, Bruce talks about precautions that you can take to improve your security, while acknowledging that if the NSA et al wants information about you, there's precious little that you can do about it.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/how_to_remain_s.html


Here we have a story by a man who was Microsoft's privacy chief from 2002 to 2011 who says he no longer trusts the company since the existence of PRISM was revealed. ”In the two years since leaving Microsoft, Bowden has ceased carrying a cell phone and become a staunch open source user, claiming that he no longer trusts a program unless he can see the source.”

There's only one problem with that: 99%+ of people can't read source code or really have the expertise to understand it and to also understand all of the other source code that it ties in to, as you have to evaluate every single part of the system to know whether or not it's secure. So we have to rely on others to tell us that this code is secure. Linux is probably secure, but lots of its code that relates to cryptography and communications is being reevaluated to look for back doors and a lot of the crypto code is being replaced with code that is more public and not backed by NIST.

http://hothardware.com/News/Former-Microsoft-Privacy-Chief-Says-He-No-Longer-Trusts-The-Company/

MUCH more under the cut
( Read more... )

If you have a business with extensive intellectual property holdings, the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) is probably a great treaty for you. But just like ACTA, it's being negotiated pretty much in total secrecy. And just like ACTA, it's been leaked.

Some of the provisions would make the U.S. patent (USPTO) a rubber-stamp for applications (which sucks because Congress is actually looking at making some significant improvements there), ISP's would become extensions of Hollywood when it comes to copyright enforcement, parallel import would be banned (no more gray market goods), criminal enforcement would be REQUIRED for DRM circumvention(!). I'm sure there's more lovely stuff in it.

The Techdirt article also has links to more info at the EFF with more details and a list of all Congresscritters in both the House and Senate so you can easily contact them and express displeasure.

I just wish they would try to negotiate this in the open. There's no reason for this to be secret, except for the fact that Hollywood wants to be able to totally side-step the normal method for creating laws and gain a fait accompli over everyone.

Now, as if this isn't bad enough, they want a VERY fast approval: they want it all to be wrapped up in November OF THIS YEAR.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110311/00104713434/us-proposals-secret-tpp-son-acta-treaty-leaked-chock-full-awful-ideas.shtml

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=471

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/11/2134224/Son-of-ACTA-Worse-Than-Original


[EDITED 15-JUNE-2013 TO ADD TOR TAG]