On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 10:08:16PM +0000, John Hebert wrote:
> Very interesting!
>
> By the way, this thread can (and probably should) be considered long and
> tedious. Please indulge us. If you don't find it worth your while, please
> delete and/or filter.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Troy Benjegerdes <hozer@???> wrote:
> >
> > > Could you expand on your thoughts about privacy and anonymity? I found it
> > > surprising that you call into question the Darkwallet's developer's
> > stance
> > > on privacy and anonymity, as I assumed you would be on the same page.
> > But,
> > > it is an opportunity for me to learn. I try to question everything, even
> > > myself!
> >
> > If you want privacy and anonymity, do what the experts do. Hide in the
> > noise.
> >
>
> This is obfuscation and is not secure. You won't know when you are found.
> Strong encryption is proven to be more secure than obfustication. Regularly
> changing a passphrase is more secure than changing to a new obfustication
> scheme.
>
> Hide your traffic in plain sight inside high-frequency trading engines, in
> > which the sheer volume of data overwhelms any attempt at analysis.
>
>
> I am not sure what you mean by "high-frequency trading engines". I doubt it
> is possible to overwhelm analysis of a high volume of data by an enemy with
> reasonable and sufficient resources.

I guess if you want to launder money, look like a high-frequency trading firm,
and then you have both plausible deniability AND made it VERY expensive for
the attacker, because they might piss off their masters if they start costing
'legitimate' business money.

Some of this is also a little bit of an attempt at side-channel communication to
intelligence analyists that might be reading this to take a very hard look at
financial firms. Something rotten is going on in the high frequency trades.

>
> > If you are indistinguisable from the trading patterns of a political
> > campaign,
> >
>
> What are "trading patterns of a political campaign"? How much data (and
> randomness) do they generate?

it's not entropy and randomness, that's the goal here, it's to be a chameleon,
to make the human effort get spent on looking for corruption in political
campaigns

>
> > then I can expect you might be able to remain anonymous.
> >
> > I have met exceedingly brilliant mathematicians and coders who work for
> > Cray,
> > and they provide hardware to several TLAs in the US, and probably others as
> > well, AND they market hardware for the 'Big Data' market.
> >
>
> I'm not sure what your point is with this paragraph.

Very smart people work for the surveillance-industrial complex, and they are
better at cryptography than we are.


> If you assume that the opponent (the NSA, big corporate data, an organized
> > crime) have the ability to employ people who are smarter than you are, AND
> > the ability to infiltrate, then the only defense is simplicity, and the
> > honesty of free individuals.
> >
>
> Wouldn't it be simpler and more realistic to develop open hardware and
> software to communicate securely and privately over a network than trying
> to hide in high-frequency trading engines? It is possible for an individual
> to be "smarter". Communities even more so. And it is also possible that
> there are smart people that do not choose to work for opponents, such as
> Phil Zimmerman, author of PGP.
>
> I agree; real and effective communication requires honest and free-thinking
> individuals. It has always been so. With global spanning networks, strong
> encryption is a _much_ better solution for establishing trust that the
> other individual is honest.
>
> I take a very suspicious view of any privacy or anonymity system that
> > requires advanced 'breakthrough' theories,
>
>
> You are free to think that. But I trust mathematics and physics more than I
> trust a politician that claims to have my best interests in mind.

I trust that a politician only has his own selfish interests in mind ;)

I trust the math and physics, but that does no good if the hardware executing
the instructions is compromised. (see below)


>
> > depends on pre-infiltrated commodity computing hardware. Only if you can
> > build it, (or at least validate the design,
> > down to the silicon), can you know that the anonymity being advertised
> > actually
> > works.
>
>
> Open hardware is being designed, developed and built now. Knowing how to
> think critically and being scientifically literate are reasonable
> requirements for an individual to be accepted into a community, not to
> mention being an informed citizen in a democracy. This kind of literacy is
> much more effective at making changes happen.
>
>
> > And then if you HAD the ability to do that, you probably wouldn't have
> > any need for anonymity anyway.
> >
>
> *Puzzled* Why are you assuming that? Wouldn't it be up to the individual
> to choose to be anonymous?


I think if we had the education, critical thinking, and equipment to replicate
hardware in whatever way we see fit, in the way we can do it now with software,
the individual that wished to remain anonymous could deploy their own personal
surveillance agency network to look for any evidence in which their privacy
was being invaded. Maybe this is what anonymous (the non-organization) will
evolve into.


> I also follow David Brin in his theories on transparency, and basically,
> > that the illusion of privacy only gives power to those than can hide their
> > invasions of privacy.
>
>
> Er, I must be dumb, but this seems like a meaningless tautology. I respect
> Brin, so I must be misunderstanding something. I'll check him out.
>
> If we all have no privacy, paradoxically, I believe we have more, for we
> > can watch the watchers, ad-infinitum.
> >
>
> In the "Republic", Glaucon says it would be absurd that a guard would need
> a guardian. Plato says the solution is a class of guards whose souls have
> been perfected will guard the guardians. Again, I trust math over the
> perfection of a guardian's soul. To put it another way, we are debating the
> plot of "Robocop", and I know the robots are less prone to exploits
> (corruption) than humans are.


Math is a tool that can be used for corrupt uses just as for good, and it is
my view that we need hybrid systems of automation and motivated guardian
souls, all watching each other, a multi-level recursion of guards guarding
guards, and developers issuing patches, and both black-hat and white-hat
activists pushing us further towards the never-reachable goal of perfection.


>
> > Back to the government.. I believe non-coercive Government, Of the People,
> > By the people, and For the people is the ONLY force in the world which can
> > stand up to totalitarian fascist states.
>
>
> I can't really argue that point, since a non-coercive Government, Of the
> People, By the people, and For the people has never existed. But, you are
> free to believe that. Coercive governments, however, have stood up to
> fascist states. Not that I support them.


If we are to stop the cycle, we must have empathy for those who believe they
must meet force with force. Some days I agree with you, some days I find myself
being pulled by the siren song of being the valiant defender of the weak and
powerless. All the more reason I must have nothing to hide, for as soon as I
convince myself I need privacy, I will fall for the lie of the 'just this one
necessary evil for the greater good'

>
> > Thus why it is critical for the
> > UnSystem to work hand-in-hand with individual politicians, and explain
> > to them why transparent campaign-finance oriented cryptocurrencies in which
> > every transaction, and every private key is strongly linked to a real-live
> > person are the only way to be free.
> >
>
> I think I understand your point: political campaign funding has corrupted
> US government. And, your solution is to make campaign funding transparent
> and accountable. Not that I agree with those points, however. Note you are
> requiring private keys. I don't mean to be pedantic, but didn't you just
> say privacy is bad?

I just don't see how to have privacy and freedom. But it's all a gray area,
for example what is it about private keys that are generally okay? Because
they protect with obstinant mathematical rigourousness?

> I respect the Darkwallet team's intention, but it is my view that in the
> > long-run, anonymity only benefits the strongest totalitarian force-using
> > state, which uses it as a weapon to forment 'popular' revolution when the
> > puppet dictators do not go along with the plan.
> >
>
> Restricting anonymity IS government by force. I feel we are discussing two
> different definitions of anonymity.

I am also free to avoid any dealings with anonymous people ;)

My problem is that my experience has been that, in the bitcoin space, those
that seem to desire anonymity the most are the scammers and theives who
would like to steal my private keys and go quietly in the night.

> In the short term, it may be a necessary evil to combat larger coercive
> > evil, but I see no way to limit coercive evil through hiding.
> >
>
> Crypto-anarchy and crypto-libertarianism means no compromises need to be
> made as a necessary evil.
>
>
> > Someone must take a public stand in front of a tank, and dare the
> > government
> > to run them down, and make the people who implement the coercive evil
> > question
> > their loyalty to the system.
> >
> > If you are standing in the square, shoulder to shoulder with people AND
> > most
> > importantly, members of your local city council, the coercive evil must
> > unmask
> > itself for what it is, or shrink back into the shadows.
> >
>
> Standing in front of a tank did not stop the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The
> protests caused martial law to be declared in Beijing and a massive
> crackdown on demonstrations throughout China. Did it give more freedom to
> Chinese citizens? I don't know. I wish I had more time to learn about it.
>
>
> > > In the unsystem context, I strongly dissent to the characterization and
> > > > mythology of 'evil government'. Those of us that HAVE at one point had
> > > > @something.gov email address are likely to be your strongest
> > supporters,
> > > >
> > >
> > > Now here is a topic I'd like to chew on. The US government has done more
> > > evil than good with the development of the atom bomb and the subsequent
> > > Cold War. The destruction of the fascist states before the Cold War was
> > > justified. The ongoing pseudo-occupation of those states through the
> > > continued presence of US military bases calls into question our
> > > government's commitment to "spreading liberty and freedom" around the
> > > world. And the US government's foreign policy to stop the "spread of
> > > communism" was a failure and a threat to the freedoms of US citizens.
> > >
> > > > and involvement and acceptance of local, state, and world government
> > > > involvement in a healthy multiple-cryptocoin ecosystem is what is going
> > > > to bring about fundamental change in the world.
> > >
> > > This last section is worthy of much debate. Where to begin?
> > >
> > > Some governments restrict involvement by force. Acceptance of such a
> > > government is contradictory to freedom.
> >
> > Quite. However toppling 'enemy' governments that restrict involvement of
> > their citizens by force is damn near a stated goal of the United States
> > Military Industrial Surveillance complex. Their failure is the use of
> > force to stop 'bad guys' who use force.
> >
>
> It may be a stated goal, but in actuality our foreign policy is the
> protection and acquisition of US financial interests, NOT freedom and
> liberty. Should I start providing a list of countries where the US
> supported dictators?


This my friend, is why I seek to strike with all the power that math,
crypto, activists, and industry may muster to expose these corrupted
financial interests for what they are, and divest myself of any business
dealings and connections that feed this broken system.

There are good souls like Snowden and Manning that have and will continue
to expose this fraud. We need to welcome them, rather than paint the
entire history and anything associated with it as corrupt.


> So we have a potential for an uneasy truce.. Can the unSystem work with
> > the enemy of our enemies, even though this 'frenemy' might be counter to
> > our own ideals?
>
>
> I'll admit I'm not sure what unSYSTEM's ideals are actually. Where can I
> read about them? If they require compromises with 'frenemies', I will go my
> own way.
>
> My concern is experiencing liberty NOW. I will practice and protect my
> freedom to think, speak and act as I want, when I want. I am not my
> brother's keeper. If someone else realizes they are not free and want to
> live freely, I welcome them. We are different in that I don't need to
> change someone else to be free.

Can you acknowledge that some people may *choose* to be bound and know
freedom might be around the corner, and may even have been free, but
voluntarily chosen bondage because it is more comfortable for them?

We do not need to compromise our ideals, only that we are clear in what
they are, and where we all may have common cause.

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Troy Benjegerdes                 'da hozer'                  hozer@???
7 elements      earth::water::air::fire::mind::spirit::soul        grid.coop

      Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,
         nor try buy a hacker who makes money by the megahash