[iwar] [fc:Hacker.Group.Targets.Countries.That.Censor.Internet]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-07-15 11:50:26
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Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 11:50:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Hacker.Group.Targets.Countries.That.Censor.Internet]
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Hacker Group Targets Countries That Censor Internet
Sun Jul 14
<a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=569&ncid=738&e=6&u=/nm/20020714/tc_nm/tech_censorship_dc_2">http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=569&ncid=738&e=6&u=/nm/20020714/tc_nm/tech_censorship_dc_2>

By Eric Auchard

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some of the world's best-known hackers unveiled a
plan this weekend to offer free software to promote anonymous Web
surfing in countries where the Internet is censored, especially China
and Middle Eastern nations.

An international hacker group calling itself Hactivismo released a
program on Saturday called Camera/Shy that allows Internet users to
conceal messages inside photos posted on the Web, bypassing most known
police monitoring methods.

In addition, "Mixter," an internationally known German hacker, said
Hactivismo was preparing in coming weeks to launch technology, which if
adopted widely could allow anyone to create grassroots, anonymous
networks where Internet users worldwide could access and share
information without a trace.

"(Hackers) are looking for something a little more meaty to work with,"
spokesman "Oxblood Ruffin" said of the new social activist push by a
group formerly known for creating software that used by other hackers to
attack undefended computers.

The Hactivismo announcement, the result of a two-year project among
leading hackers worldwide, was made at H2K2, a three-day conference
ending Sunday. The bi-annual event attracts an estimated 2,000 security
professionals and computer activists, including the U.S. hacker elite.

Mixter's software -- known as a "protocol" in technical terms -- would
allow ordinary computer users to set up a decentralized version of
virtual private networks (VPNs). VPNs are used by governments and many
companies to create secure networks that are fenced off from the public
Internet.

"It's important for anyone whether they live in totalitarian country or
a Western country to be anonymous," said Mixter, who lives in Munich, of
his motivation to take part in the project.

Hactivismo software works to bypass national firewalls that allow only
partial access to global computer networks. A firewall is software that
prevents access to certain types of addresses banned on internal
corporate networks as well as nations that restrict citizens' access to
the global Internet.

Hactivismo says it can defeat attempts to restrict Web surfing to
controversial Internet news and human rights sites by disguising such
sites to make them look innocuous.

The group hopes to encourage other software developers to embed the code
for "Six/Four" protocol into their own programs in order to accelerate
the spread of the technology worldwide. The effort will only succeed if
millions of computer users begin using the programs as part of their
everyday Internet Web use, providing cover to individual surfers, its
proponents said.

FROM PIRACY TO FREE-SPEECH ACTIVISTS

The move is likely to heat up the battle between free speech activists
and government censors in the 20 or so countries that restrict public
access to the Web. It may also raise concerns among Western police
agencies, who fear the technology could be used by criminals to swap
child pornography or by Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites)'s Al-Qaeda
network to plot new attacks around the globe.

Hactivismo, or hacker activism, is just one of several grassroots
software projects -- including Peekabooty and Privaterra -- launched
recently by computer activists that seek to enable human rights workers
to access censored Web sites or communicate securely.

Six/Four protocol designer "Mixter" told Reuters that the system is
named in honor of the date when Chinese authorities cracked down on
democracy activists in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Six/Four is designed so that each computer user that uses software
running the protocol becomes part of the shared capacity of the network,
taking a page from so-called "peer-to-peer" sharing network that gave
birth to Napster ( news - web sites) and other music sharing programs
such as Gnutella ( news - web sites).

"This is going to be a guerrilla information war," Oxblood Ruffin said.
"Sites will pop up for a few days and then be taken down," he said as he
described a "moving war," in which computer activists react quickly to
government efforts to block such programs.

In countries such as China, the Internet poses an unprecedented threat
to the control that the Chinese Communist Party exercises over all other
forms of media.

In the world's most populous country, where most people can't afford
PCs, millions turn to Internet cafes, despite a long-running crackdown
on the free-wheeling establishments by the Chinese government.

The tightening of restrictions has accelerated recently since several
deadly fires, including one in a Beijing Internet cafe that killed more
than 20 students in June.

Sensitivity to potential sources of civil instability have been
heightened by the looming leadership transition at the top of the
Chinese government set for later this year.

Hactivismo is made up of 40 or so hackers including members of the Cult
of the Dead Cow, the group behind Back Orifice, which can be used by
malicious hackers to gain unauthorized access to unsecured computers
running Microsoft's Windows software.

Mixter developed software that was used by another teenager to launch
denial of service attacks ( news - web sites) on major e-commerce sites
in early 2000.

Group members have focused more recently on harnessing the energies of
the computer underground to promote electronic democracy on the
Internet.

In the future they plan to develop programs that will allow anonymous
direct email, file trading and untraceable chat programs that bypass
conventional Internet monitoring.

The latter is especially important in places like China, where online
chat is more popular than Web surfing. The group's work can be found on
the Internet at .

Hactivismo leaders said that Camera/Shy was immediately available for
download and being using from its site. The program would allow visitors
at public Internet cafes, popular in many countries where computers are
scarce, to install the 1.2 megabyte program using a simple floppy disk.

The user simply installs the program on a computer, surfs the Web, then
removes the program, leaving no electronic records kept of what sites
were visited, said its southern California-based designer, who goes by
the hacker name "Pull."

"What this is for is for pre-suspects," Pull said. "You never become a
suspect if you are using this kind of thing."

(Additional reporting by Jonah Greenburg)

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Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Security.industry's.hacker-pipming.slammed]"
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