Re: [freenet-support] [freenet.uservoice.com] New message: 'HI--I am new to computers and by natre ...'

[Hierophant]

On Sunday, August 15, 2010, 1:05:13 PM, Dennis wrote:

> HI--I am new to computers and by nature and not techy at all! So
> trying to understand about the freenet the feeling is one of panic
> where i just dont understand terminology etc. I do however just want
> to ask some simple questions about Freenet, because i am all for no
> censorship of the net.



There's a fundamental distinction that may be useful.  If you wish to
access  the open internet (what you access now) with stronger privacy,
anonymity  and  security,  Freenet is not for you.  For that, you want
either  Tor or a paid OpenVPN-based privacy/anonymity service (such as
Mullvad,  XeroBank,  Cryptohippie, Rayservers, etc).  Simple web proxy
servers  are,  IMHO,  virtually useless.  And BTW, you must trust your
provider, so choose well.  Avoid Anonymizer, which has CIA ties.

Freenet  is  a  self-contained  virtual network.  One accesses Freenet
through  a  network  node.  There's no access to Freenet from the open
internet, and (typically) no access from Freenet to the open internet.

Actually,  I should have written "Freenets".  There's a common Freenet
("OpenNet")  that's  open to all.  That is, in OpenNet mode, your node
accepts  connections  from any node that asks.  Conversely, in DarkNet
mode,  you  specify  all  nodes that your node will connect with.  For
example,  you  could  have a DarkNet for just yourself, your business,
your friends or whatever.  I have no clue how many DarkNets may exist.
Also,  DarkNets  can be interlinked (and/or linked to the OpenNet) via
one or more shared nodes.

One other thing.  There are risks in running an OpenNet node.  They're
explained in the FAQ.  I run my nodes on virtual machines that connect
through anonymous VPNs.  YMMV.

Anyway, enough.  Corrections are welcomed.

-- 
Best regards,
 Hierophantmailto:hieroph...@xerobank.net

___
Support mailing list
Support@freenetproject.org
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support
Unsubscribe at http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support
Or mailto:support-requ...@freenetproject.org?subject=unsubscribe

Re: [freenet-support] node via XeroBank

[Hierophant]

At 05:11 PM 8/4/2008, Chris Burge wrote:> Hardly ever post here but I'm totally enjoying this message chain.  EGold> is a US based company that created a currency (e-gold) based on gold grams.> They are, I think, the first out there to do that but their vulnerability> appeared when they were raided in April 2007 for money laundering.  They> were innocent of that but were guilty of not having KYC, "Know Your> Customer", established.  In the USSR, e US, it's getting increasingly> worse in the area of anonymity.  The charge was that they were helping> terrorists (nevermind that terrorists use credit cards in most cases...> facts are never relevant in taking away freedom).  Ack enough soap-boxing.Thanks.  I know that this is a support list, and this thread isn't supportrelated, except in the sense that I want to publicize the fact that XeroBank(unlike Tor) is apparently cool with Freenet.  The only issue is that there'sa 95 Gb monthly cap for its $35 per month service at 1.5 Mbps/0.5 Mbps,and Freenet at maximum bandwidth would eat up more like 150 Gb per month.OTOH, each machine (real and/or virtual) on one's local net runs a separateVPN, and one can use different XeroBank access accounts for each, and switchFreenet to a different account when the first maxes out.  Also, BTW, one canrun multiple XeroBank VPNs simultaneously using the same access account,and can split the 95 Gb monthly allotment among multiple subaccounts, eachwith its own access code.> I'm not aware of Dalpay.  What information do you have to provide to> become a merchant of theirs?  It looks like what they allow you to sell is> fairly strict.  Is XeroBank using them to process their cards?  Yes, XeroBank is using them for credit card payments.  It used to accepteGold and cash, but not now apparently.  I read somewhere that theoverhead on cash was too high.I know nada re using Dalpay as a merchant.  Ask Steve ;-)PS - Damn, sorry about the missing subject again in my previous post.Hierophant[EMAIL PROTECTED]___
Support mailing list
Support@freenetproject.org
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support
Unsubscribe at http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support
Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[freenet-support] node via XeroBank

[Hierophant]

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 

[freenet-support] (no subject)

[Hierophant]

At 04:46 PM 8/4/2008, Matthew Toseland wrote:> On Sunday 03 August 2008 03:34, Hierophant wrote:> > > --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:> > > Cool. However I would point out that there is an entire industry> > > dedicated to reversing money anonymisation schemes.> > > > Yes, I'm aware of the eGold mess et alia.  > > eGold mess? Not aware of that one...What Chris Burge wrote.  Indeed, eGold recently settled with the Feds.  Quotingan anonymous wag from many years ago, it's pucker time for some eGold owners.> ... Although Tor started as a US Naval Research > Laboratory project, it's totally open source now, and so any back doors would > arguably have been discovered.  Perhaps one could hide code in other code via > encryption and steganography, but that seems unlikely.> > Yeah, government/corporate involvement in such things can often be > entertaining and surprising. :)Indeed.  FYI,  is cool.Hierophant[EMAIL PROTECTED]___
Support mailing list
Support@freenetproject.org
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support
Unsubscribe at http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support
Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[freenet-support] (no subject)

[Hierophant]

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 

Re: [freenet-support] node via XeroBank

[Hierophant]

--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> From: Matthew Toseland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: support@freenetproject.org, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: Steve Topletz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [freenet-support] (no subject)
> Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 21:08:20 +0100
> 
> 
> 
> Cool. However I would point out that there is an entire industry
> dedicated to reversing money anonymisation schemes.

Yes, I'm aware of the eGold mess et alia.  The anonymity of my payments to 
XeroBank via Dalpay is vulnerable to attacks on either and/or their 
relationship.  Although I do trust Dalpay based on what I've read about their 
mission <http://www.dalpay.com/pages/privacy.html>, they are in Iceland, and so 
are relatively vulnerable to governmental pressure.  OTOH, Iceland did grant 
asylum to Bobby Fischer [;-)

But even if my anonymity at Dalpay is compromised, that yields only my XeroBank 
payment account number.  According to XeroBank, that doesn't reveal my XeroBank 
access account number (and vice versa).  Of course, I'm pretty sure that 
XeroBank could correlate the two accounts, especially if I paid Dalpay via 
XeroBank's VPN (which I don't).

So, if Dalpay betrays me, I'm left trusting XeroBank.  It's problematic that we 
have no clue who's behind XeroBank.  That's part of XeroBank's security/privacy 
model.  Basically, I've decided to trust Steve Topletz, and to trust that he 
wouldn't be part of XeroBank if it were evil, or clueless and vulnerable.

I trust Steve based on what I've read by and about him.  He has an 
apparently-impeccable reputation re cDc, Hacktivismo, Tor and so on.  Given his 
long association with security experts and privacy advocates, it's arguable 
that he would have been outed long ago if he were working with the FBI, NSA, 
KGB or whatever. Although Tor started as a US Naval Research Laboratory 
project, it's totally open source now, and so any back doors would arguably 
have been discovered.  Perhaps one could hide code in other code via encryption 
and steganography, but that seems unlikely.

Anyway, I welcome any and all comments.

Hierophant
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


___
Support mailing list
Support@freenetproject.org
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support
Unsubscribe at http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support
Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[freenet-support] node via XeroBank

[Hierophant]

--- toad at amphibian.dyndns.org wrote:

> From: Matthew Toseland 
> To: support at freenetproject.org, hierophant at hell.com
> Cc: Steve Topletz 
> Subject: Re: [freenet-support] (no subject)
> Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 21:08:20 +0100
> 
> 
> 
> Cool. However I would point out that there is an entire industry
> dedicated to reversing money anonymisation schemes.

Yes, I'm aware of the eGold mess et alia.  The anonymity of my payments to 
XeroBank via Dalpay is vulnerable to attacks on either and/or their 
relationship.  Although I do trust Dalpay based on what I've read about their 
mission <http://www.dalpay.com/pages/privacy.html>, they are in Iceland, and so 
are relatively vulnerable to governmental pressure.  OTOH, Iceland did grant 
asylum to Bobby Fischer [;-)

But even if my anonymity at Dalpay is compromised, that yields only my XeroBank 
payment account number.  According to XeroBank, that doesn't reveal my XeroBank 
access account number (and vice versa).  Of course, I'm pretty sure that 
XeroBank could correlate the two accounts, especially if I paid Dalpay via 
XeroBank's VPN (which I don't).

So, if Dalpay betrays me, I'm left trusting XeroBank.  It's problematic that we 
have no clue who's behind XeroBank.  That's part of XeroBank's security/privacy 
model.  Basically, I've decided to trust Steve Topletz, and to trust that he 
wouldn't be part of XeroBank if it were evil, or clueless and vulnerable.

I trust Steve based on what I've read by and about him.  He has an 
apparently-impeccable reputation re cDc, Hacktivismo, Tor and so on.  Given his 
long association with security experts and privacy advocates, it's arguable 
that he would have been outed long ago if he were working with the FBI, NSA, 
KGB or whatever. Although Tor started as a US Naval Research Laboratory 
project, it's totally open source now, and so any back doors would arguably 
have been discovered.  Perhaps one could hide code in other code via encryption 
and steganography, but that seems unlikely.

Anyway, I welcome any and all comments.

Hierophant
hierophant at hell.com

[freenet-support] (no subject)

[Hierophant]

I've recently implemented a Freenet opennet node via XeroBank 2.0  and would appreciate comments, especially regarding performance and security.  XeroBank 2.0 is a commercial broadband descendant of Tor.  XeroBank is apparently incorporated in Panama.  Although XeroBank's website has short bios on its key staff, I have not found any information regarding its owners.XeroBank access costs $35 per month for 75 Gb at ca. 1.5 Mb/sec download and ca. 0.5 Mb/sec upload.  Clients are assigned both access and deposit account numbers, and only deposit-account-to-access-account transactions are supposedly possible.  Also, payments to XeroBank are anonymized via Dalpay in Iceland, and so even deposit accounts are supposedly anonymous.  Multiple machines can access XeroBank simultaneously, and each machine (real and/or virtual) has a separate encrypted VPN channel to its network.  There are currently exit nodes in Canada and the Netherlands.  The IP of an exit node persists until the originating VPN channel terminates.I've corresponded with Steve Topletz, one of XeroBank's technical consultants, and he's assured me that running a Freenet doesn't violate its terms of service unless doing so generates upstream complaints.  For those who don't know of Steve Topletz, he's a veteran of Cult of the Dead Cow and Hacktivismo, and was active in Tor development.  There are interviews with him on darkREADING , NowPublic  and the American Chronicle .As I understand XeroBank, only entities capable of global correlation attacks can trace traffic between its entry and exit nodes.  Being a private network, XeroBank doesn't share Tor's key vulnerability to evil exit nodes.  According to XeroBank's Privacy Policy , it does not log IPs or activity unless there is evidence of malicious activity which violates its terms of service and/or human rights, or unless it's been compelled by "court orders of all applicable jurisdictions for all specific servers" (which are in multiple countries).Lack of IP anonymity is the key vulnerability of Freenet in insecure mode, and even for darknets if they're compromised.  By running this node via XeroBank, none of my opennet peers knows my true IP.  And given that each machine connects via a separate VPN and has a distinct exit IP, I can run a second node that connects only to my opennet node, and use only that node for accessing Freenet.  As I understand Freenet, the activities of that draknet node would not be visible to any of my opennet peers.I'm currently running my main node using Freenet 0.7 Build #1152 r20268 in a virtual Win XP SP2 machine on a PGP-encrypted partition, using Java Version 1.6.0_06 and JVM Version 10.0-b22.  There's now a XeroBank 2.0 version of xB Machine, and I'll switch to that shortly.  The Win XP machine has one CPU, 1 Gb memory and a 30 Gb hard disk.  The node has one CPU, 512 Mb memory, a 20 Gb datastore and bandwidth limits of 50 Kbps output and 100 Kbps input.  The node has been up for over two days, and has generally had ca. 5-10 peers.  Output and input rates have generally been ca. 25-50 Kbps.Freenet provides many other statistics, but I'm not going to dump them all here.  However, given that I do want help optimizing this node's performance, I'll be happy to provide whatever non-compromising information that's requested.Hierophant[EMAIL PROTECTED]___
Support mailing list
Support@freenetproject.org
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support
Unsubscribe at http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support
Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[freenet-support] (no subject)

[Hierophant]

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 

Re: [freenet-support] installation into a decrypted container

[Hierophant]

Do any of you know whether this has worked?I'm running Freenet 0.7 in Ubuntu 8.04 in VMware Server 1.0 in a TrueCrypt volume in Windows Server 2003, and it all worked perfectly "out of the box".At 12:45 PM 5/17/2008, James wrote:> Stephan van den Berg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:> > > > > > > I tried to install 0.7 into a DriveCrypt > > container unter Windows XP Pro. SP2, but can't get the windows service > > started.> > I always get the error 'the system can't find > > the defined path' or something like that...> > Any idea what could be wrong?> > Thanks!> > > > > > > > ___> > Support mailing list> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support> > Unsubscribe at http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support> > Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > I got exactly the same problem. The service only starts, if freenet is > installes in c:\programs.> > I tried to install it in a different drive/partition and i get the same error.> > I couldn't see that any path was wrong. > > The reason for this would be interesting.> > > > > > > ___> Support mailing list> Support@freenetproject.org> http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support> Unsubscribe at http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support> Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Hierophant[EMAIL PROTECTED]http://hierophant.atspace.org___
Support mailing list
Support@freenetproject.org
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support
Unsubscribe at http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support
Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

[freenet-support] installation into a decrypted container

[Hierophant]

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: