Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: kmfkewm on September 13, 2013, 07:10 pm
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http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-09/13/digital-economy-task-force
Thomson Reuters has teamed up with the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) to form the Digital Economy Task Force, which aims to address some of the risks surrounding digital currencies and the wider digital economy.
"This is a complex issue," said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of ICMEC. "Technology has created a new digital economy, which is being used by some to produce and sell child pornography, and for trafficking and child exploitation. This is a serious problem that requires serious solutions. Our task force will offer balanced, effective solutions for policy makers, law enforcement, regulators and the public."
The Task Force, which launched in August, is not solely focussed on child exploitation. It has developed working groups that aim to combat a range of illicit activities, to safeguard human rights and to encourage inter-agency coordination and law enforcement. It was launched off the back of a report by Thomson Reuters Fraud Prevention and Investigation unit about digital currency laundering.
The report detailed how criminal and terrorist organisations have turned to digital currency to reap profits from drug trafficking, prostitution and the dissemination of child abuse images.
Steve Rubley, managing director, Government Segment for the Legal business of Thomson Reuters points out that the digital economy provides a plethora of new opportunities and is central to how business is conducted but there are also "dark corners" where drug cartels can easily launder money and human sex traffickers operate in near obscurity.
The Task Force will include the Bitcoin Foundation, The Tor Project, Trend Micro, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Cato Institute, The Brookings Institute, the US Agency for International Development and Vital Voices. The group will educate the public and work collaboratively across stakeholder groups including government agencies, law enforcement, academia, NGOs and industry.
A statement released by Thomson Reuters and ICMEC said: "The approach will be a balanced view of both the advantages and disadvantages surrounding the digital economy -- a place where people can enjoy the convenience of digital currencies, but where there are controls in place to regulate them like any other form of money."
The Digital Economy Task Force will produce a report in February 2014 which will aim to inform lawmakers globally about the current state of the digital economy and help people understand the risks associated with it.
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I really don't like the sound of this at all
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Think of the children..
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seems like they will try to use cp as an excuse to try and take down the drug black market. why can't they just hire chris hanson for the cp and leave us alone. :(
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seems like they will try to use cp as an excuse to try and take down the drug black market. why can't they just hire chris hanson for the cp and leave us alone. :(
Well, they took down all the cp in onionland, so that's the next logical step. Not trying to be cliche, but
First they came for the pedos, and I said nothing, because fuck pedos...
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First they came for the pedos, and I said nothing, because fuck pedos...
+1 for Astor.
I originally came to OnionLand for the drugs, and then stayed for the conversation.
I was both shocked and appauled when I heard of the CP/FH take-down. I had never seen any CP on Tor, but I never did much trolling and SR is really the only place I've frequented on Tor... and now I have little desire to do otherwise.
I don't have any kids... but I like kids, I know kids, I am related to kids, and I used to be a kid.
I risk harming no one but myself when I use drugs recreationally. Fuck pedos.
...and yes, I would expect Silk Road to now be prime target #1. It only makes sense.
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I am unapologetically pro-censorship in the sense that everyone has a right to control their own property however they want. I would personally never knowingly host cp, since I'm against it, just as I would never knowingly host shock/violent images and videos, but I don't think the government should be dictating whether you are allowed to view such images. If we banned all speech that offended / emotionally harmed someone, there wouldn't be much speech left. A woman with an uncovered face offends some people.
The more important point is that the same technology protects both the pedos and the druggies. So you can view the mass shutdown of cp sites in onionland as the canary in the coal mine. Right now it looks like the canary has died, and that doesn't look good for us.
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Most troubling is that the Tor Project and Brookings institute are participating.
We probably have about 6 to 9 months left before really having to get creative. I won't say the hayday is over. But the best of times is definitely coming to a close.
Anyone thinking of vending, now is the time. Do it for about 6 months. Then see how things look 6 months from now.
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Most troubling is that the Tor Project and Brookings institute are participating.
We probably have about 6 to 9 months left before really having to get creative. I won't say the hayday is over. But the best of times is definitely coming to a close.
Anyone thinking of vending, now is the time. Do it for about 6 months. Then see how things look 6 months from now.
Yepp it might seriously be time to reconsider my selling on tor. Lots of weird vibes lately.
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seems like they will try to use cp as an excuse to try and take down the drug black market. why can't they just hire chris hanson for the cp and leave us alone. :(
Well, they took down all the cp in onionland, so that's the next logical step. Not trying to be cliche, but
First they came for the pedos, and I said nothing, because fuck pedos...
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit
of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
Published by Houghton Miflin, 1943, Page 403
It would appear that, not having learned from history, we are doomed to repeat it.
I'm no lover of Ayn Rand, but the following quotes are, today, perhaps more apropos than ever:
"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so
many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. -- Ayn Rand
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens
may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. -- Ayn Rand
With respect to Rand's first quote, I am reminded of a study conducted a few years ago by the Office of Budget and Management of the U.S. Congress. In that study, they attempted to count, or determine, the number of laws on the books. I believe the number they came to was over 10,000 and that did NOT include regulations. I believe it was stated that the average person, just going about their everyday business, breaks a half-dozen laws each day, without realizing it.
When you further realize that the U.S. government, under certain circumstances, also enforces foreign laws, you end up with some truly Kafkaesque situations, like the following:
Case Studies CASE STUDIES | McNab v. United States
A Lobster Tale: Invalid Foreign Laws Lead to Years in U.S. Prison
(November 2003 Case Study)
The Supreme Court is currently considering whether to take the case of four businesspeople sent to prison for importing lobster tails from Honduras. Their convictions are predicated on supposed violations of the Lacey Act, which makes it a crime to import “fish or wildlife taken … in violation of any foreign law.” Here, the foreign laws are Honduran fishing regulations that have been declared null and void in Honduras, but are somehow still being enforced by American federal courts.
Prison for Caribbean Spiny Lobsters
It all began with a supposed anonymous fax to the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) on February 3, 1999. The mystery fax alleged that Honduran businessman David McNab had a shipment of “undersized (3 & 4oz) lobster tails” scheduled to arrive in Bayou La Batre, Alabama on February 5, 1999. The fax also said that the lobster should be packed in cardboard boxes, but was in fact packed in clear plastic bags.
Based on this strange, anonymous message, NMFS agents waited for McNab’s ship and captured it on arrival. With no explanation, the federal government held the entire ship for several weeks and then off-loaded and transported McNab’s 70,000 pounds of Caribbean spiny lobster to a government freezer in Florida. There the lobster tails languished for six months while NMFS agents searched Honduran regulations for some reason to keep the lobster meat and prosecute the importers and distributors.
After numerous phone calls, letters, and trips to Honduras, the NMFS focused on three provisions. The first details the processing and packaging of fish harvested in Honduran waters. This 1993 regulation, promulgated pursuant to a 1973 statute, included the mention of packaging in cardboard boxes. The second regulation prohibits harvesting any lobsters with tails shorter than 5.5 inches. This must have surprised the NMFS agents, since the market price lists published by NMFS include prices for two and three ounce Caribbean spiny lobsters from Honduras. A government expert acknowledged at trial that these little lobsters would all have tails shorter than 5.5 inches. The third Honduran provision prohibits destroying or harvesting “eggs, or the offspring of fish, chelonians or other aquatic species for profit.”
Six months after sending them to the cooler, NMFS agents finally began to inspect the locked-up lobster tails. Only about three percent of the lobster tails turned out to be less than 5.5 inches long. Just seven percent showed any evidence of having been egg-bearing lobsters. These small amounts belie the suggestion that McNab or his employees were intentionally harvesting young or egg-bearing lobsters. Nevertheless, prosecutors included these regulations as predicates for alleged violations of the Lacey Act.
Charges based on the size and egg-harvesting regulations would only allow NMFS to seize the small portions of lobster tails that were under 5.5 inches or showed evidence of bearing eggs. This, apparently, was not enough. Because all the lobsters were in clear plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes, the government declared the entire shipment illegal and formally seized all 70,000 pounds of lobster tails.
Government prosecutors, not satisfied even with 35 tons of lobster, filed criminal charges against McNab. The also charged three American businesspeople who frequently purchased and distributed lobster tails from McNab. All charges against McNab and most charges against the others were predicated on the three Honduran regulations, applied through the Lacey Act. No charges were ever brought against the defendants in Honduras. The alleged Lacey Act violations served primarily to trigger more serious charges. If importing the lobster in bags instead of boxes was illegal, prosecutors reasoned, then planning to import it was criminal conspiracy, the actual importation was smuggling, and payments became felony money laundering.
At the District Court’s foreign law hearing, McNab presented copious evidence showing that the Honduran regulations at issue were invalid. The size restriction had never been signed by the President of Honduras, an absolute requirement for such a regulation under Honduran law. The Attorney General of Honduras supplied an opinion, confirming other testimony, that because the size restriction was not signed it could never have had the force of law.
McNab presented other witnesses, including a former Honduran Minister of Justice, who testified that the egg harvesting regulation was never intended to apply to animals that happened to bear eggs when caught. The prohibition against harvesting or destroying eggs for profit was meant to do just that, to prevent the harvesting of eggs themselves (turtle eggs in particular).
Government prosecutors somehow convinced the court to ignore McNab’s extensive evidence and instead accept the testimony of a single, mid-level Honduran bureaucrat, Liliana Paz. For reasons that remain unexplained, the “Secretary-General” of the Honduran Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock – an official whose primary duty is to be “an instrument of communication” and who has no expertise or authority to render legal opinions – boldly testified that all the regulations were valid and had the force of law.
Despite the obvious lack of criminal intent on the part of the defendants, as well as concerns about the validity of the Honduran regulations, all four businesspeople were convicted on a general verdict. In August 2001, McNab and two businessmen were each sentenced to eight years in prison. The fourth defendant, a businesswoman from New Jersey who resold seafood to restaurants like Red Lobster, was sentenced to two years in prison.
The government trumpeted the convictions in press releases that labeled McNab “the ringleader of a smuggling operation.” The reports mislead the public by suggesting that McNab was intentionally harvesting undersized and egg-bearing lobsters, never mentioning that these were a tiny portion of his catch. The government fails to note that the only reason for declaring the entire shipment illegal was that it was packed in bags, not boxes. In effect, the defendants were convicted of smuggling because they packed lobster in clear plastic bags instead of opaque cardboard boxes.
A press release issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency that includes the NMFS, implies that McNab’s business success was part of his wrongdoing. NOAA points out that McNab owns a “fleet of vessels, each of which can deploy thousands of lobster traps,” as if this, in itself, is somehow a wrongful act. Striking an even more bizarre note, NOAA declares that “[t]he wealth from McNab’s vast harvest was denied to the common citizens of Honduras.” McNab, a Honduran citizen, is apparently not “common” enough for the Sandinistas at NOAA.
After sentencing, the court was prepared to allow all four defendants to remain free pending their appeals. Federal prosecutors objected to allowing a foreigner like McNab to remain free on bond and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sent him to prison. McNab is now in his fourth year of incarceration.
On Appeal before the 11th Circuit, two of the three appellate judges effectively declared Honduras a banana republic, unfit to construe its own laws. The Court decided that it would be unwise to disagree with the prosecutors’ interpretation of the foreign law, citing the “political question” doctrine. This ignored the holdings of other Circuits and the proper role of appellate courts in general. Even worse, the two judges asserted that Honduran officials could not be trusted because they might be bribed or manipulated. Somehow this failed to undermine the credibility of Ms. Paz, the mid-level Honduran bureaucrat who testified for the prosecution. In the interests of “finality,” the Circuit Court upheld the lower court on every issue, no doubt because if just one of the three Honduran regulations was found to be invalid, all of the convictions would fail.
The decision of the 11th Circuit is only more troubling when considered in light of the critical new evidence that emerged from Honduras during and after the trial. After the foreign law hearing, McNab had filed an action in the Honduran Court of First Instance of Administrative Law challenging the size restriction. Several months after the end of the criminal trial, the Honduran Court formally held that the size limit was void and declared that it had never had the force of law.
McNab’s attorneys also discovered that the law authorizing the packaging regulations was repealed in 1995. Under Honduran law, a regulation is automatically repealed when the authorizing statute is repealed. Even the prosecution’s witness from the Honduran Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock admitted this in an affidavit. It also became clear that the egg-harvesting provision had been repealed in a way that, under Honduran law, operated retroactively.
McNab additionally filed a motion before the Honduran National Human Rights Commissioner challenging Ms. Paz’s testimony about Honduran law. The National Human Rights Commissioner, Dr. Leo Valladares, is an internationally respected constitutional lawyer and human rights advocate. His office in Honduras is charged with addressing complaints that government officials’ actions constitute “legal error.” Dr. Valladares issued a report, which the Minister of Agriculture signed, stating that Ms. Paz’s testimony constituted “an error of law.” The scholarly report found that the packaging regulation was repealed in 1995, the size restriction had “never had the force of law,” and that the egg-bearing provision had been retroactively repealed.
The government of Honduras, through its embassy, directed all of this information to the U.S. State Department, asking that they forward it directly to the Department of Justice. The Attorney General of Honduras also filed an amicus curiae brief with the 11th Circuit, providing this information and explaining that McNab and the other businesspeople had not violated any Honduran law. All of this was ignored by the Court of Appeals when they concluded that “finality” was, apparently, more important than justice.
The prosecution of four businesspeople for normal business activities highlights the dangerous but growing trend to expand criminal liability against normal social and economic conduct. Historically, a criminal conviction required proof of criminal intent (mens rea; a guilty mind) in addition to the wrongful infliction of harm (actus reus; a bad act). Even if the Honduran statutes had not turned out to be uniformly invalid, there was never any evidence that showed the businesspeople acted with criminal intent. Rather the evidence seems to prove that they were simply engaged in catching and selling seafood in a way that any businessperson would consider lawful.
This prosecution also reveals the risks of federalizing criminal law. Observers have long warned against allowing the federal government to encroach on the traditional state function of enacting and enforcing general criminal laws. Here, the federal government, through the Lacey Act, claims to enforce foreign laws against foreign and U.S. citizens. These regulations were not made by the U.S. Congress or by some executive agency, but by a foreign government with unfamiliar procedures. If the government of Honduras had actually believed these regulations to be valid, they were free to bring charges. Instead, the U.S. government prosecuted a case on what turned out to be bad law.
Each of the four defendants was trying only to earn a living through normal commercial activity when an anonymous accusatory fax sent the U.S. government to destroy their lives. David McNab waits in prison to see if his appeal to the court of last resort will even take the case. Three other businesspeople wait anxiously for the decision that could save them or send them to prison for years.
Source: http://www.overcriminalized.com/CaseStudy/McNab-Imprison-by-Foreign-Laws.aspx
Nightcrawler
4096R/BBF7433B 2012-09-22 Nightcrawler <Nightcrawler@SR>
PGP Key: http://qtt2yl5jocgrk7nu.onion/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xB8F1D88EBBF7433B (IndyMedia .onion keyserver)
PGP Key: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=174.msg633090#msg633090 (Silk Road Forums PGP Key Link)
PGP Key Fingerprint = 83F8 CAF8 7B73 C3C7 8D07 B66B AFC8 CE71 D9AF D2F0
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I am unapologetically pro-censorship in the sense that everyone has a right to control their own property however they want. I would personally never knowingly host cp, since I'm against it, just as I would never knowingly host shock/violent images and videos, but I don't think the government should be dictating whether you are allowed to view such images. If we banned all speech that offended / emotionally harmed someone, there wouldn't be much speech left. A woman with an uncovered face offends some people.
Well said. Where I would differ with you is that you may not understand how the laws are interpreted and drafted. When most people think of child pornography, they think in terms of images of children being raped. Most people would not think of Anime or Manga, nor would they consider text-only stories. In Canada, ALL of these are child pornography. SInce our child pornography law was originally passed in 1993, it has been revised multiple times, to make it increasingly harsh. Several years back, the "artistic merit" defence was removed. Eli Langer, a noted visual artist, had a display at Toronto's Mercer Union art gallery; the gallery was raided, and the artwork seized as the paintings and drawings involved adult/child sex. Langer's intent was to graphically display the horror of child sexual abuse, but his intent was irrelevant -- he was still prosecuted under Section 163.1 of the Criminal Code, Canada's child pornography law.
The Canadian artistic community rallied around Langer, who was acquitted, as his works were proven to have artistic merit. Were Langer to do a similar show today, he would be convicted, as the law no longer allows for an artistic merit defence.
Even in the U.S., there have been convictions for Anime/Manga.
Perhaps most shocking of all is the McCoy case. The McCoy case is the first successful conviction for text-only obscenity in over 35 years, since Miller v. California, in 1973.
Earlier this year, Frank Russell McCoy was convicted in Georgia Federal Court of obscenity. He wrote a series of stories (NOT illustrated, text-only) involving explicit sexual activity between adults and children. Mr. McCoy is a resident of Minnesota -- the Feds tried having him prosecuted in his home state, and failed. Even in Georgia, they had to judge-shop -- trying no less than 3 judges before they would find one that would sign an arrest warrant.
He has now been sentenced to 18 months in prison, and followed by two years of probation, for writing stories, which were distributed over the Internet. McCoy's stories included disclaimers, describing the types of content to be found in the stories, so no one who read them would be caught unaware. The judge actually argued in his judgment, that the very existence of these disclaimers was evidence that McCoy knew that the stories were obscene.
I think what the Feds were after in this case was to enable the judging of materials as "obscene" by the standards of the most restrictive jurisdiction they could find in the United States, thus effectively doing away with the idea of "community standards".
The more important point is that the same technology protects both the pedos and the druggies. So you can view the mass shutdown of cp sites in onionland as the canary in the coal mine. Right now it looks like the canary has died, and that doesn't look good for us.
As I have said for years: either EVERYONE is safe or NO ONE is safe.
Nightcrawler
4096R/BBF7433B 2012-09-22 Nightcrawler <Nightcrawler@SR>
PGP Key: http://qtt2yl5jocgrk7nu.onion/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xB8F1D88EBBF7433B (IndyMedia .onion keyserver)
PGP Key: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=174.msg633090#msg633090 (Silk Road Forums PGP Key Link)
PGP Key Fingerprint = 83F8 CAF8 7B73 C3C7 8D07 B66B AFC8 CE71 D9AF D2F0
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CP is horrible indeed. But what someone who sale hash has common with CP. on pretend of war on drugs US now have 7 military bases in Colombia. 7 military bases in such small country, why not 27. Just stupid. If they really want to eradicate CP, that can be achieved in very simple way, give death sentence to any one involved in CP. Instead, now US jails full of CP offenders who disseminating this shit, that is what jails for.
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This is quite a disturbing read. How long until the NSA and affiliates pressure the TOR developers to insert backdoors in the the software?
I am unnerved by recent events and I no longer feel safe here on The Road.
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The Task Force will include the Bitcoin Foundation, The Tor Project, Trend Micro, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Cato Institute, The Brookings Institute, the US Agency for International Development and Vital Voices.
Nice. This provides useful information about the Tor project and the Cato Institute. Nothing that a thinking person couldn't guess on his own, but confirmation is nice.
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Perhaps most shocking of all is the McCoy case. The McCoy case is the first successful conviction for text-only obscenity in over 35 years, since Miller v. California, in 1973.
Earlier this year, Frank Russell McCoy was convicted in Georgia Federal Court of obscenity. He wrote a series of stories (NOT illustrated, text-only) involving explicit sexual activity between adults and children. Mr. McCoy is a resident of Minnesota -- the Feds tried having him prosecuted in his home state, and failed. Even in Georgia, they had to judge-shop -- trying no less than 3 judges before they would find one that would sign an arrest warrant.
He has now been sentenced to 18 months in prison, and followed by two years of probation, for writing stories, which were distributed over the Internet. McCoy's stories included disclaimers, describing the types of content to be found in the stories, so no one who read them would be caught unaware. The judge actually argued in his judgment, that the very existence of these disclaimers was evidence that McCoy knew that the stories were obscene.
This illustrates the absurdity of the law. Going to prison for writing text, where there were no actual victims involved.
A much more widespread absurdity is that shock/violent/gore images are perfectly legal, yet they also contain victims who are emotionally harmed, or whose families are emotionally harmed by the distribution of those photos. Look at the Nikki Catsouras case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Catsouras_photographs_controversy
Yet there is nothing illegal about hosting pictures of her car accident. So you can have one or the other, either we protect people from speech that may emotionally disturb or offend someone, including the victims of child sexual abuse and of violence who appear in gore pics, or we allow it, but allowing one and not the other is irrational and hypocritical. I would rather the government not make that decision.
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CP is horrible indeed. But what someone who sale hash has common with CP.
They use Tor, so their threat models are very similar.
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This doesn't make sense. Why would the Tor Project or the Bitcoin foundation get involved in this? I know I'm looking at this from the perspective of a SR user but doesn't teaming up with a group such as mentioned go against all the values that Tor and Bitcoin foundation stand for?
Maybe it's a keep your friends close but your enemies closer? The only good news I summarized from that article is that it's basically on the first stage which is research so everyone can calm down for the time being. It will be interesting to see what the Tor developers have to say in light of this article. After Feb. 2014 depending on their findings it could potentially be the end of SR. Well on Tor anyays.
Good find btw to OP. Some network geniuses here should make the next new and improved 'Tor' *cough* Astor *cough *Kmf*
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I don't think there's a reason to be pessimistic. At least now no one can say anymore "Tor and Bitcoin are supporting pedos". Because they obviously don't.
I strongly doubt that people like Jacob Appelbaum let Tor get weakened by the FBI because pedos. When you and your partner get openly harassed by the USA and you have to flee to Germany to stop it, then you don't help them to make the harassment even easier.
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I'm not sure what you're trying to say? The feds managed to get the 'pedos' and arrest the Freedom hosting creator without the Tor developers getting involved. Tor getting involved with the new so called 'Digital Economy Task Force' seems half ass backwards to me. So because some 'pedos' used Tor to view child porn does that make Tor inherently evil and by way of showing a co-operative gesture the developers think that this is the best mode. Ok sure then with that logic all gun makers in the US should attend the funerals of any person that's killed by a gun in the US. I'm waiting for someone to chime in here and say 'Oh well not everyone uses Tor to buy drugs you dope fiend!'.... yeah well I'll guess see after Feb. 2014 and btw don't forget that Tor gets about 60% of their development money from the Department of Defense:
CLEARNET: https://fowlchicago.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/tor-project-2012-financial-report-60-of-our-funding-comes-from-the-u-s-government/
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I don't think we should be overly alarmed yet. The bottom line is that both the Tor folks and the Bitcoin folks are not going to simply stop doing what they do because the govt has asked nicely.
If I were them, I'd be there to explain that Tor like the larger Internet can be misused, and that authority should go after the worst offenders (preferably the scumbag CP perveyors and not SR)...but the basic freedom to have anonymized Internet or currency exchange is not open for debate and has many uses (such as helping dissidents in authoratarian regimes, journalists, governments, etc).
They'll be there to say you can't have the good without the bad.
My bet is that at the end of this task forces deliberations...there will be the exact same cards on the table as we have now.
R.
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It will be difficult to attack Bitcoins because Germany and other countries consider it legal.
It will be more difficult, but not impossible, to backdoor Tor code because of increased scrutiny.
I suspect there will be efforts to limit "Excess security enhancements" that provide more security or anonymity
for terrorists, child porn'ers, drug dealers, rum runners and personal liberty fanatics.
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The feds managed to get the 'pedos' and arrest the Freedom hosting creator without the Tor developers getting involved.
And you happen to know that, how, exactly?
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I know that because I went over the 1500 lines of code that consisted of the Javascript exploit that was exposed to Tor users that had an outdated version of the Tor browser and had Javascript enabled. Oh and don't forgot it was front page news for almost two weeks on this forum and almost every security and tech website. Yeah but other than that I guess I'm just making up shit :)
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I know that because I went over the 1500 lines of code that consisted of the Javascript exploit that was exposed to Tor users that had an outdated version of the Tor browser and had Javascript enabled. Oh and don't forgot it was front page news for almost two weeks on this forum and almost every security and tech website. Yeah but other than that I guess I'm just making up shit :)
Lolz!
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a place where people can enjoy the convenience of digital currencies, but where there are controls in place to regulate them like any other form of money.
GTFO. This is of course, one major problem with bitcoin. It's development is in the US primarily and if they wanted to drop in "regulations" they technically could. But of course we would all abandon it, fork Bitcoin 2.0 and make it an anonymous project.
I doubt anything will come out of this except a bunch of taxpayer funded bullshit meetings that end up going nowhere. I also noticed they covered everything, lol terrorist criminal pedos
Any cops reading this, terrorists don't use bitcoin, they don't need to. Terrorists are primarily gangsters, in a crew much like a street gang. They are thugs, so they simply wait for some employee to walk out of a bank in a sketchy country like Pakistan and threaten him and his family unless he starts laundering wires for them, or they threaten the bank owners. Criminals, since they can easily bypass ID requirements, and are of course criminals so have no need for playing by the states rules will just illegally open bank accounts and cash out their stolen wires. The terrorist crew that was setting off car bombs where I lived were also robbing banks and petrol stations for funding. They also extorted every single business in the area to make money and through kidnappings for ransom which is the preferred terrorist income method. They didn't sell hyperCP for bitcoins why bother when a handgun to the head of an infidel working at the State Bank of India will do. If they need to transfer a lot of cash to a western country they kidnap the relatives of some poor immigrant working in US/UK who are still back in the home corrupt home country and instruct him to do the transfers for them. Again why use bitcoin when kidnappings are much easier.
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"The Task Force, which launched in August, is not solely focussed on child exploitation. It has developed working groups that aim to combat a range of illicit activities, to safeguard human rights and to encourage inter-agency coordination and law enforcement."
This is worrisome, but is it any more worrisome than the fact that the US DoD funds Tor? The fact is that this announcement means nothing. If Tor is going to be compromised we won't know until after the shit hits the fan.
Bruce Schneier recently wrote up a piece on how to protect yourself and wrote this:
"... Prefer conventional discrete-log-based systems over elliptic-curve systems; the latter have constants that the NSA influences when they can."
Interestingly enough, the latest version of Tor (2.4) switches to elliptic curve encryption, and we are all being pressured into using it by the Tor project due to the botnet explosion that began several weeks ago. There's a potential conspiracy for us to lose sleep over.
Here is the link to the full Schneier piece at the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance.
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"The Task Force, which launched in August, is not solely focussed on child exploitation. It has developed working groups that aim to combat a range of illicit activities, to safeguard human rights and to encourage inter-agency coordination and law enforcement."
This is worrisome, but is it any more worrisome than the fact that the US DoD funds Tor? The fact is that this announcement means nothing. If Tor is going to be compromised we won't know until after the shit hits the fan.
Bruce Schneier recently wrote up a piece on how to protect yourself and wrote this:
"... Prefer conventional discrete-log-based systems over elliptic-curve systems; the latter have constants that the NSA influences when they can."
Interestingly enough, the latest version of Tor (2.4) switches to elliptic curve encryption, and we are all being pressured into using it by the Tor project due to the botnet explosion that began several weeks ago. There's a potential conspiracy for us to lose sleep over.
Here is the link to the full Schneier piece at the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance.
Honestly the only thing that kinda of gives me some comfort out of all this is SR's past track record and resilience. I'd imagine that DPR and or his staff realize that Tor is still considered a hostile environment and use that knowledge to plan, develop and maintain the site to accommodate for those factors.
Even though I feel that we can't trust or rely on Tor in some ways I feel like I can more fully trust SR and DPR. They have a vested interest in keeping their vendors and buyers alike safe. However at the end of the day SR is still hosted on Tor and there's only so much you can do to protect yourself in a hostile environment. If Tor does in fact become comprised or is than that would be the equivalent of you securing your pc, setting up firewalls, routers, and using PGP to find out that your ISP is spying on all your communications. Even then if your taking proper precautions you could potentially not suffer any adverse consequences.
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a place where people can enjoy the convenience of digital currencies, but where there are controls in place to regulate them like any other form of money.
GTFO. This is of course, one major problem with bitcoin. It's development is in the US primarily and if they wanted to drop in "regulations" they technically could. But of course we would all abandon it, fork Bitcoin 2.0 and make it an anonymous project.
I doubt anything will come out of this except a bunch of taxpayer funded bullshit meetings that end up going nowhere. I also noticed they covered everything, lol terrorist criminal pedos
Any cops reading this, terrorists don't use bitcoin, they don't need to. Terrorists are primarily gangsters, in a crew much like a street gang. They are thugs, so they simply wait for some employee to walk out of a bank in a sketchy country like Pakistan and threaten him and his family unless he starts laundering wires for them, or they threaten the bank owners. Criminals, since they can easily bypass ID requirements, and are of course criminals so have no need for playing by the states rules will just illegally open bank accounts and cash out their stolen wires. The terrorist crew that was setting off car bombs where I lived were also robbing banks and petrol stations for funding. They also extorted every single business in the area to make money and through kidnappings for ransom which is the preferred terrorist income method. They didn't sell hyperCP for bitcoins why bother when a handgun to the head of an infidel working at the State Bank of India will do. If they need to transfer a lot of cash to a western country they kidnap the relatives of some poor immigrant working in US/UK who are still back in the home corrupt home country and instruct him to do the transfers for them. Again why use bitcoin when kidnappings are much easier.
Terrorists are irrelevant;the concept of an "enemy" is used to captivate and control a population...
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Why doesn't the Tor project accept Bitcoin donations?
For God's sake... Internet Archive does!
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seems like they will try to use cp as an excuse to try and take down the drug black market. why can't they just hire chris hanson for the cp and leave us alone. :(
Well, they took down all the cp in onionland, so that's the next logical step. Not trying to be cliche, but
First they came for the pedos, and I said nothing, because fuck pedos...
I love you astor.
We miss you, come back to chat
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PANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANICPANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PANIC FIRST, THINK LATER!!!!
Ok, so there's no good pretending this is no kind of worry, but people need to get a grip. Consider a couple of things; first, of course these organizations are going to join "Digital Economy Task Force". They are actually legitimate groups with legitimate causes beyond allowing us to buy drugs anonymously. Could you imagine the kind of public-relations backlash Tor or Bitcoin might receive if they refused? It could stop either project in their tracks as it could start the narrative that they are part of the problem in the first place. And what exactly do they mean by 'Bitcoin' anyhow? It's a peer-to-peer currency, not a single organization with sole control. Second; anything that weakens anonymity on Tor makes Tor obsolete, so I seriously doubt that if Tor is to be weakened in any way it will not be through publicly known groups like this, it will be in secret without anyone knowing until the next Snowden leaks it. Lastly; although I don't let it effect the care I put into going places like SR, I seriously doubt LE is actually much interested in online drug deals, any more than they are interested in street deals. It's all just an excuse for funding and powers - IRL powers and now digital-domain powers. DPR? Yeah, they probably want him/her. Buyers/sellers? We're just pawns deliberately left out so there'll always be a boogieman to scare the straights for funding...
I'll be keeping an eye out and watching my back, but just keep cleaver - they only want to catch low-hanging fruit. Make it hard and even if they could catch you with effort, the effort would not be worth the rewards...
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"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit
of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
Published by Houghton Miflin, 1943, Page 403
That quote isn't real. It's much repeated over the internet, but it isn't from Adolph Hitler. Look it up.
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I don´t know weather it´s relevant, but
...how about JonDonym as an alternative?
Is it possible to connect to SR via JD?
Maybe Astor can explain why it is working ...or not!?
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First, of course these organizations are going to join "Digital Economy Task Force". They are actually legitimate groups with legitimate causes beyond allowing us to buy drugs anonymously. Could you imagine the kind of public-relations backlash Tor or Bitcoin might receive if they refused? It could stop either project in their tracks as it could start the narrative that they are part of the problem in the first place.
You nailed it.
There's no way in hell they could have said no to this, especially considering that Freedom Hosting was a *Tor* hidden service that accepted *bitcoins*.