RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan

[James A. Donald]

--
On 15 Sep 2004 at 9:45, Tyler Durden wrote:
> Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at 
> self-preservation. Does this contradict the widely-held 
> Cypherpunk belief in the inevitability of deterioration of 
> the state?

The authors of Freegate believe that for technological reasons, 
the internet will win, and the chinese government will lose. 
They are chinese.  They are familiar with repression, and 
familiar with technology.   They are the kind of people who 
know what they are talking about.  They had had fifteen million 
downloads of their software, which is continually rewritten to
meet the latest threats and tactics from the chinese
government. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 /1akS93Sf2XKwg4FTmI8LdG6vC+cX53AeniWvjvD
 48vdg03WMvEq/iMRpuzdB5uOFSZBsdaVv5+zX6o3/

RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan

[Tyler Durden]

Hum, well, I always kind of thought May felt/wrote that some dis-assembly of 
the state was inevitable given the possibility of strong crypto, and even in 
China I would maintain that there's already enough computer power+anonymity 
that encrypted communications can/will occur. (Remember, China is BIG...as 
big as the mainland US plus Alaska, and much of it far less accessible...and 
let's not forget that there are areas the size of Western Europe where Han 
dominance is not particularly appreciated.) I tend to agree, though that the 
bootstrapping process can be greatly retarded in the presence of a heavy 
police statebut above a certain threshold it can unfold quickly.

What I wonder if whether W and his buddies were up late drinkin' one night 
and figured out that we were nearing the threshold you speak of, a threshold 
they believed they had to save humanity from. I mean, what if just anyone 
could send any message they wanted without their government listening in? 
Someone's gotta be in charge, after all, and it better be us and not the 
ragheads 'cause God loves US and plans on sending all of them to hell unless 
they see the error of their distinctly non-American ways.

-TD

From: "Major Variola (ret)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:45:00 -0700
At 09:45 AM 9/15/04 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote:
>Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at
self-preservation.
>Does this contradict the widely-held Cypherpunk belief in the
inevitability
>of deterioration of the state?
"We" have always held that a sufficiently policed state can defeat
crypto.
If the RIAA could put a vidcam in your computer room, things are easy.
If crypto is illegal, things are easy.  (We have remarked on how,
modulo stego, crypto traffic is trivial to detect with any entropy
measure.  Got PGP headers?)
China is a police state.  A state with freedom of expression ---which
does
not include much or all of Europe--- is less so.   China is also a
nukepower,
so it is likely to persist.
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RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 09:45 AM 9/15/04 -0400, Tyler Durden wrote:
>Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at
self-preservation.
>Does this contradict the widely-held Cypherpunk belief in the
inevitability
>of deterioration of the state?

"We" have always held that a sufficiently policed state can defeat
crypto.
If the RIAA could put a vidcam in your computer room, things are easy.
If crypto is illegal, things are easy.  (We have remarked on how,
modulo stego, crypto traffic is trivial to detect with any entropy
measure.  Got PGP headers?)

China is a police state.  A state with freedom of expression ---which
does
not include much or all of Europe--- is less so.   China is also a
nukepower,
so it is likely to persist.

RE: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan

[Tyler Durden]

"We hope that the mislabelling of Freegate is a simple mistake, soon 
rectified,
rather than yet another example of an IT firm helping Beijing implement
restrictions."

I'd say this was naive, but they give an example after this that shows they 
know the score. Symantec wants in to China and their $$$, and Jong Nan Hai 
holds the key.

Hum. Seems the Chinese government is pretty effective at self-preservation. 
Does this contradict the widely-held Cypherpunk belief in the inevitability 
of deterioration of the state?

Perhaps from a Crypto-anarchy perspective, there's a bootstrap point: once 
there exceeds a certain level of state info-control, it's very hard to get 
rid of it. Below that level it seems the state can't hold on. (Perhaps W is 
a little smarter than we thought!)

-TD

From: "R. A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 00:38:32 -0400

The Register
 Biting the hand that feeds IT
The Register ; Internet and Law ; Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs ;
 Original URL:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/symantec_targets_freegate/
Symantec labels China censor-busting software as Trojan
By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk)
Published Tuesday 14th September 2004 18:10 GMT
Symantec has labelled a program that enables Chinese surfers to view
blocked websites as a Trojan Horse. Upshot? Users of Norton Anti-Virus
cannot access Freegate, a popular program which circumvents government
blocks, the FT reports.
Freegate has 200,000 users, Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT
(http://www.dit-inc.us)), its developer, estimates. It lets users view
sites banned by the Chinese government by taking advantage of a range of
proxy servers assigned to changeable internet addresses. But a recent
update to Symantec's AV definition files means the latest version of
Freegate is treated as malware and removed from systems protected by
Norton. Short of disabling Norton AV, users would have little say in this.
A Symantec staffer in China told the FT that Norton Anti-Virus identified
Freegate as a Trojan horse, but declined to provide a rationale for such a
definition. The absence of an explanation from Symantec raises concerns. We
hope that the mislabelling of Freegate is a simple mistake, soon rectified,
rather than yet another example of an IT firm helping Beijing implement
restrictions.
History provides as least one example
(http://www.vmyths.com/rant.cfm?id=316&page=4) of the AV industry extending
favours to China that it would normally withhold. AV firms normally keep
virus samples under lock and key. But suppliers agreed to hand over virus
samples to the Chinese government a few years ago as a condition of trading
in the country. These samples could be easily found on the net but the
incident illustrates a precedent of China being treated as a special
exception.
--
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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