TOR, EGYPT AND ANONYMITY

Below another great photo courtesy of The Independent. Protesters in Cairo fleeing tear gas

Following on from the previous piece on authoritarian governnments' ability to cut their citizens off from access to internet, there was a very interesting and explanatory piece in the Boston Globe Sunday, discussing TOR, which I refer to below:

TOR is a piece of free software to enable anonymity on line. It prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning who you are.
It was formed in 2001 after two MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) students developed the  software with a US Navy laboratory.

According to the Executive Director of Tor, over the past 3 days 120,000 people, most of them Egyptian, have downloaded Tor software. It helps activists protect their identity from surveillance by repressive regimes, and get around blocked sites.

 Since only the most internet savvy know how to use such software, there is enormous value in training people to use it,  said John Palfrey, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

 Iranian activists downloaded its software en masse duirng the massive protests after the contested 2009 presidential elections.  Chinas has repeatedly tried to block Tor downloads and denied visas to the Tor activists who have trained people from over 20 countries, in workshops in Hong Kong and Europe.

 One of Tor's main software developers, Jacob Appelbaum, traveled to Cairo at the end of 2009 to hold workshops on how to use the software.  The training clearly paid off, because before the internet 'died' in Egypt last Thursday,  so many people rushed to download TOR that one of its servers crashed.

 A few pathways to the net have remained,  including one ISP (Internet Service Provider) which services banks or the Egyptian stock market.

 To read the original article, google Boston Globe and search for Foreign Activists Stay Coverered Online by Farah Stockman, Jan 30,2011.

THE DAY THE INTERNET VANISHED

 Below is courtesy of the Independent. A great shot of the building of the National Democratic Party, on fire.

As Egypt burns, we're seeing an unexpected use of power, and a pretty scary one, at that -  the arbitrary removal by the authorities of the peoples' main means of communication with the outside world.

One of the most powerful tools in the world today, which is open to everyone, is the Internet.  The Egyptian authorities have simply disconnected the country from the Internet, including Facebook, Twitter etc. and also disconnected the mobile phone network.

Egypt has one of the most advanced telecommunications markets in the Middle East yet shortly after midnight a couple of days ago, internet traffic in and out of the country slumped, Facebook received "only minimal traffic from Egypt, and Google Inc said people in Egypt are unable to access Google and You Tube.

Jim Cowie, chief technology officer at Web-monitoring firm Renesys Corp, says: "It probably doesn't require flipping a switch or pulling a plug.  Network engineers can log into routers and type in text that blocks service providers from sending out a signal.  To shut down the Web, the government likely told network providers to "turn off" connectivity, a legal directive under Egypt's telecommunications laws.

Vodafone said it was ordered to suspend mobile-phone services in selected areas.  "Under Egyptian legislation, the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it", Vodafone explain.

So, while Egypt has opened up the telecommunications market, operators are still controlled by the authorities - in other words, they can be silenced whenever the government wants.

So, the obvious question after this is:  does every country, including the UK and US, for instance, have it in their power to cut us all off from these services whenever they choose to do so?
That's a frightening thought - though I assume that in a democracy, the authorities would never do this.  Come on, they wouldn't, would they? Could they?

For the answer to this, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-28/the-day-part-of-the-internet-died-egypt-goes-dark.html It's a great piece.

REVENGE, RETRIBUTION AND ANONYMOUS WARRIORS

Moving away from the light-hearted approach to Wikileaks, and its glamorous leader,  Julian Assange, here's a small piece about the more serious side of things.

The basic subject is, as usual, power.  In the case that follows, we're looking at the power used by the authorities to attempt to deal with the power wielded by the urban warriors on the internet.

The five people, between 15 - 26, arrested yesterday for mounting the revenge DDOS attacks that temporarily crippled Visa, PayPal and Mastercard, after they cut off financial services to Wikileaks, have now been released on bail.

A DOS (Denial of Service) attack works by flooding a server with more network traffic than it is capable of processing. This hinders or prevents the server’s normal operation and sometimes causes its complete failure. In a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, as in this case, multiple PCs coordinate the attack.

The arrests are the first in investigations in the UK by the Metropolitan Police's Central 'e' Crime Unit, and are "part of an ongoing investigation into Anonymous which began last year following criminal allegations of DDOS attacks by the group against several companies," Scotland Yard said. "This investigation is being carried out in conjunction with international law enforcement agencies in Europe and the US."

These attacks are illegal in the UK under the Computer Misuse Act and carry a maximum fine of £5,000 or a max. of a 10 year sentence.

The FBI has issued more than 40 search warrants across the US in connection with its investigations into Anonymous.

The 5 arrested are assumed to have links with Anonymous, a leaderless internet-based group, sometimes referred to in the press as hacktivists, though it's not accurate to refer to them all as hackers. Anyone can join Anonymous by downloading software and following the group's instructions, so joining hundreds of other computers, which can be brought into play to mount DDOS attacks. Members are mostly young and male. Since the Wikileaks saga got going, the membership of Anonymous has increased.

 It's ironic that the 5 arrested, though apparently having links  with Anonymous, seemed unable to keep themselves anonymous, as the police found them through their IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, which they hadn't  hidden. There is technology out there that makes one's connection anonymous, so neither the authorities nor anyone can see who is behind the computer.  Of course, maybe the 5 didn't want to hide themselves.  Who knows?  But as they were displaying their addresses for all to see, I'm surprised the police took so long to get to them.

The Wizard of Oz

Julian Assange is a wiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was.  Put him, a computer and the internet together, add a big rebellious anti authority streak, a bunch of devoted followers and fans,  and there's nothing much he can't do.   He is a top-of-the-class hacker, an all time uber geek, a punk rock pirate.

And a babe magnet on a big scale.  Just check out the girly sites on the web devoted to this man, with his doe eyes and pale skin bathed in the strange white light of theTV screens and flash cameras that capture his image so regularly. With a toss of that white blonde hair, and a rare enigmatic smile,  he  draws women to him - even though a couple of ladies have been giving him some aggro in Sweden lately. Something to do with condoms, or the lack of . . .

 But there seems to be a protective female shield put up around our boy - remember, it was the beautiful socialite Jemima Khan who put up a lot of the bail money to spring him from prison recently,  and he came out to an adoring throng with phrases like 'I want to have your baby' tossed at him.

Rolling Stone has claimed him for their own - but is this photogenic,  softly spoken, brilliant computer programmer and man-on-a-mission, who has taken on the power of the USA by publishing something like 91,000 classified US documents on the war in Afghanistan, about to crash and burn? Whatever happens, we're not just talking about a pretty face here. Julian Assange has a hell of a lot of courage but he's made some very powerful enemies.

Is he hero or villain? Or just, for all his brilliance, a touch naive -  an extraodinarily gifted product of a very troubled childhood.

He was reportedly born in 1971 in Townsville in Australia.  He and his mother and half-brother spent his childhood fleeing the father of that half-brother.  It seems this man became  a member of a scary cult, led by a female ex-nurse who had her own weird ideas on kidnapping and bringing up children.

In all, Julian was enrolled in 17 schools and six universities by the time he finally came into adulthood.. He took adult education classes in physics and maths at Melbourne Uni and launched himself into the mysterious world of hackers. In 1995 he developed 'Strobe', the first free  port scanner, which allowed hackers to penetrate networks throughout the world. Two years later he developed another piece of encryption software, to allow hackers to conceal their identities when penetrating computers worldwide.

He discussed his expertise in the wonderfully titled 'Underground Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontiers", published in 1997.

(Also, along the way, he married and acquired a son).

And in 2006 he put all these stunning computer skills together to set up Wikileaks.

And that's very much an on-going story, for later.

Leaks

It's nearly the witching hour in London so here's a bit of fun to go to bed with:

What more can I say . . .

Doing 2011 the Roman way

Mr Abramovich threw a 5 million pound bash at the complex he bought recently at Governor Bay on St Barts.

Mr A bought the complex, shown on the R, in 2009. (The photo was taken by Laurent Benoit, famous for great shots of megayachts, and the marina at St Barts, where he lives). It comprises 70 acres and cost approx. 90 million dollars, which makes it one of the most expensive private properties ever sold.

 It consists of a cluster of cottages round a main villa, open Balinese bungalow-style buildings,  so it's apparently like you're living on the beach.  Personally, I've never liked the sound of this, a bit like a super version of carry-on-camping - not for me.  I wouldn't turn it down if it was offered, mind you, but I'd sell it on immediately and find something a little more civilised.

As the for the NY Eve do, well, absolutely everybody who was anybody in the entertainment world seemed to be there and they're all listed in the popular papers, all predictable, and so I want bother naming them all. You know who they are, anyway: the surgically beautiful Miss Demi Moore and her like and the shoals of pretty little things who swarm around the big fish as they cruise the world's oceans on their megayachts.

 Lots of money sloshing around and every entertainment money can buy - including underwater speakers and a swim-up bar - but as I've said before, wealth does not necessarily equate with power, and show-biz wealth, outside the flimsy world of illusion the celeb/showbiz crowd inhabit, definitely doesn't equate with real power in the real world.  So, who were the really powerful people at that shindig? As often, the really interesting people didn't get a mention and no doubt very wisely kept well away from the cameras.

 So let's move on, nothing interesting to see here.

And by the photo of Roman in the Daily Maily, he's bored by the whole thing. After all, he's done it so often before.  Maybe he's just doing it for Daria Zhukova ('Dasha' to her friends), his present partner.
This photo was taken by BigPicturePhotos( this is quite a routine one for them, for they do take the most magnificent photos). 

I'm a great admirer of Abramovich, he survived the fire-storm of the fall of Communism. He deserves everything he's got - for his courage, his brain power, and for holding his nerve when so many others lost their's. He remains one of the oligarchs who is still safe in his own country.  He remains a friend of Vladimir. He hasn't made any mistakes. Machiavelli would bow before him. And I mean that as a compliment.

 Intelligence is not much good if it doesn't go hand in hand with the survival instinct. I don't see any intelligence in deliberately alienating  people who have real power, unless you're pretty sure you have the resources and back up to win them round to your views.  Otherwise you end up like poor old unwise Khodorkovsky, once the richest man in all Russia, and now languishing in a prison cell in Sibera. Where's the sense in that?

So that's the end of the NY celebrations - back to more serious things tomorrow.

Seeing 2011 in

Before work starts in earnest tomorrow, let's look at where some of the wealthy and powerful are spending the New Year break.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, is in Switzerland. At Klosters apparently, tho' his office said Davos, where the annual World Economic Forum is held. Of the two I prefer Davos - but there's not a lot in it, the two resorts are only 10km apart and share the same ski slopes.

The Royals prefer Klosters. This gorgeous shot above  is of Klosters at night, (thanks to the skisafari.com site who will tailor-make skiing hols for you, if you'd like to join the royals and George.)

Davos was immortalised in literature in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, and its dry, pollen free air has attracted a lot of health research institutes, who have settled there.

If you need a hotel in Davos, George when last there stayed at the Fluela Hotel, pictured R. It's a traditional 5-star, been going since 1868 and the same family still own it. They say no more than 130 guests and no less thant 90 staff to care for them -  and it's opposite the train station. Crackling log fires and a pianist in the bar - and it greatly endears itself to me because it allows pets.  No charge for the animals, but their food is extra - come on, now, you can't have everything.  I think Mr Osborne shows a lot of taste in having picked this hotel to stay in on an earlier visit.

And where is Mr Roman Abramovich?  Doing something quiet and low key for the New Year,  I expect.  But perhaps not.  Next post coming up.