Tag Archives: Crypto-Anarchism

Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Loses His Life Sentence Appeal

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“As Judge Katherine Forrest explained at the time, Ulbricht’s life sentence was intended also to send a message to other would-be dark web drug kingpins. Her strategy appears to have backfired, at least in the short term: Sales on Silk Road successor sites doubled in the immediate wake of Ulbricht’s sentence, as news of the trial’s outcome raised awareness of the dark web drug market.”

Read more: https://www.wired.com/2017/05/silk-road-creator-ross-ulbricht-loses-life-sentence-appeal/

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Secure Boot snafu: Microsoft leaks backdoor key, firmware flung wide open

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“Microsoft has inadvertently demonstrated the intrinsic security problem of including a universal backdoor in its software after it accidentally leaked its so-called ‘golden key’—which allows users to unlock any device that’s supposedly protected by Secure Boot, such as phones and tablets.  The key basically allows anyone to bypass the provisions Microsoft has put in place ostensibly to prevent malicious versions of Windows from being installed, on any device running Windows 8.1 and upwards with Secure Boot enabled.  Enterprising users will be able to install any operating system—Linux, for instance—on their Windows tablet.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/microsoft-secure-boot-firmware-snafu-leaks-golden-key/

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Russia Asks For The Impossible With Its New Surveillance Laws

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“Russia is not the only nation whose lawmakers and politicians are heading in this direction, especially when it comes to requiring backdoors for encrypted communications. Time and time again, technologists and civil liberties groups have warned the United States, France, Holland, and a host of other nations that the anti-encryption laws they propose cannot be obeyed without rewriting the laws of mathematics. Politicians have often responded by effectively telling the Internet’s experts ‘don’t worry, you’ll work out a way.’ Let us be clear: government backdoors in encrypted communications make us all less safe, no matter which country is holding the keys.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/russia-asks-impossible-its-new-surveillance-laws

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Resist mass cracking by US law enforcement

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“Law enforcement could request warrants allowing mass cracking of thousands of computers at once. The Supreme Court, which oversees the Rules, submitted the changes to the US Congress in April. This is an unprecedented, broad government cracking authorization, and it is dangerous to the privacy and security of all Internet users. The changes to Rule 41 target Internet users who take steps to protect their online privacy — this could discourage use of privacy tools, and even weaken their effectiveness by exploiting vulnerabilities in such tools rather than helping to fix them.”

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/protect-your-privacy-resist-mass-cracking-by-us-law-enforcement

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With Every Call for Encryption Restrictions, Officials Make Its Own Case

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“When Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, and President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron declare war on communications privacy, they fail to understand that they are the menace against which the people around them have been armoring their messages to one another.  If American tech giants are legally barred from serving their customers, software developed by companies and independent developers around the world, intentionally designed to thwart U.S. policymakers, will easily fill the gap.”

https://reason.com/archives/2015/12/29/with-every-call-for-encryption-restricti

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Library’s Tor relay—pulled after feds noticed—now restored

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“A Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent first learned of the plan after reading Ars’ July 30 article and then forwarded it on as a heads-up to a local police officer on the New Hampshire Internet Crimes Against Children task force. That, in turn, led to a meeting between local law enforcement, city officials, and the library. (HSI is the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security.) Sean Fleming, the library’s IT director, told Ars before the Tuesday vote that there was ‘no pressure from the feds at all.'”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/small-town-library-restores-tor-relay-which-had-gone-dark-for-weeks/

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Hillary Clinton wants “Manhattan-like project” to break encryption

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“Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called for a ‘Manhattan-like project’ to help law enforcement break into encrypted communications. This is in reference to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret concentrated research effort which resulted in the US developing nuclear weapons during World War II.  Though Clinton said she has ‘confidence in our tech experts’ to solve this problem, she has continued pushing for weakening encryption despite warnings from Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech companies that putting encryption back doors into their products would weaken data security for everyone.”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/hillary-clinton-wants-manhattan-like-project-to-break-encryption/

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Police Confiscate 11,000 Bitcoin Wallets; Shut Down Dark Web Site

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“As the final legal chapters close on Ross Ulbricht’s Silk Road website held within the ‘Dark Web’, the proliferation of many, many more dark markets is making international news. Authorities have closed down one of these Dark Web havens, and have confiscated thousands of bitcoin wallets in association with its use.  Under code name ‘Operation Babylon’, Italian officials have shut down the site that hosted over 14,000 members, performing over 170,000 transactions using Tor’s web browser.  Over 200 drug dealers are claimed to have used the site for trafficking purposes, but this may be only one site of its kind out many. The website is said to have been masterminded by an Italian near Naples.”

http://cointelegraph.com/news/115043/police-confiscate-11000-bitcoin-wallets-shut-down-dark-web-site

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New attack on Tor can deanonymize hidden services with 88% accuracy

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“Computer scientists have devised an attack on the Tor privacy network that in certain cases allows them to deanonymize hidden service websites with 88 percent accuracy.  Hidden services allow people to host websites without end users or anyone else knowing the true IP address of the service. The deanonymization requires the adversary to control the Tor entry point for the computer hosting the hidden service. It also requires the attacker to have previously collected unique network characteristics that can serve as a fingerprint for that particular service. The new research underscores the limits to anonymity on Tor, which journalists, activists, and criminals alike rely on to evade online surveillance.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/07/new-attack-on-tor-can-deanonymize-hidden-services-with-surprising-accuracy/

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Who Is Building the Private, Peer-to-Peer Marketplace?

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“Online commerce today is mostly centralized; companies own websites where users visit to buy and sell things. Those companies charge fees, monitor their users’ data, and censor their transactions based on their own rules and on behalf of the government.  OpenBazaar is different. Instead of relying on a centralized third party, trades occur directly between buyers and sellers. Users install peer-to-peer software on their computers, similar to bitcoin or BitTorrent, and this connects them to other users running the same software. They transact in bitcoin. Since there’s no middleman, there are no fees, no collection of data, and no censorship of trade.”

http://fee.org/freeman/detail/who-is-building-the-private-peer-to-peer-marketplace

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