Privacy issue - how to spoof/hide IP when accessing email / usenet servers ?

[-Andy-]

That's what many of the Chinese dissidents thought too, until they got
caught.

LOL, nice troll

 

[Al Klein]

What is needed now is to find a way to enable Mr. Activist to fake his
_originating_ IP, and if Mr. Activist can use different (fake) IP
everytime he sends out messages, hopefully it wouldn't be so easy for
the Chinese authority to trace back to the exact location of Mr.
Activist's whereabout.

Also, every time he tries to send an email, the email server sends him
packets (read the RFC for the email protocol), and he never gets them,
because they're being sent to the wrong address, so his email program
never gets past the first "hello, mail server, are you there?" packet.

In countries such as the United States, where the authority must follow
the law, and the law states that they can't hold people without damning
evidence, it's easier for people to carry out whistle blowing
activities.

Not so in China.

Sure it is. The authorities are following the law. A law which gives
them the authority to read every internet packet going through their
country.

So it's not a parcel undeliverable due to a fake address, but it's the
other way around - the parcel can be delivered, because the receiver's
address is real.

No, the parcel that says, "yes, I'm here, send me the address to send
the mail to" can't be delivered to the mail sender's email program, so
the program can never send the mail.

Email can't be UDP, because email is a verified protocol - the program
knows that it's been delivered to the next point. If you want to send
unverified packets - UDP - there are plenty of programs that do it -
but that's not how email works.

It's just that we need to protect the sender by faking his originating
address.

Again - faking his email address prevents him from sending email. Talk
just sends packets blind, so it doesn't need a return address. But
there's no way to know that something you sent by talk got there,
since there's no one to tell if it did - no return address.

Your choice - non-hidden address or no way of knowing if the message
got to the intended recipient.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for replying.

You are right, of course, that the web proxy isn't as secured as it
seems, knowing that what they can sniff out is more than what we can
ever imagine.

However, the biggest urgent today is not of web proxy - the Chinese
regime is blocking as many web proxy as they find, but since new ones
keep popping up, thanks to incompetent sysadmin all over the world,
users in China who can act faster than the authority _still_ gets to
enjoy that priviledge.

The biggest killer - no pun intended - is, the clear exposure of
originating IP while using nntp-server and/or sending emails.
nntp-posting-host itself is already giving the Chinese regime a big
help.

The Chinese still can get info from outside, it's not a totally closed
system there. It's just that when they want to get information out,
they have to risk having their head shot off. That is why, I'm
emphasizing the "Originating-IP-Masking" ability as the number one
thing that is needed, right now.

A message that I received not long ago, ( see
http://makeashorterlink.com/?O16722E0C ), talking about mixmaster,
nyms, and such, seems interesting. I am looking further into that, and
am exploring ways, and experimenting to see if they can be utilized
effectively.

Of course, what we are talking about, what's happening in China today,
could happen to ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. But it's just that today
it's obvious in China, and maybe in some middle-eastern countries, but
who knows what will happen one year, five years or even ten years down
the line ?

We have to explore all the alternatives nevertheless. It's always
better to be prepared.

 

[DaveG]

The biggest killer - no pun intended - is, the clear exposure of
originating IP while using nntp-server and/or sending emails.
nntp-posting-host itself is already giving the Chinese regime a big
help.

Web proxies have already been mentioned. As has accessing web-based email
via those proxies. You might want to google on "mail to news gateways"

If the web proxy is "safe" then accessing mail and news via that route
"might" be just as safe.

Of course, you might need a web-proxy which can handle encryption as the
data packets themselves will be clear text and might be sniffed by word
matching or similar. Then again, sending encrypted data packets might be
enough to attract attention.

Just some thought. Maybe it helps or give you something to think about.

 

[Joe Fox]

Excuse the top-post, but it seems to me that a really good ng to find
solutions involving email anonymity would be alt.privacy.anon-server

 

[Paul Knudsen]

The biggest killer - no pun intended - is, the clear exposure of
originating IP while using nntp-server and/or sending emails.
nntp-posting-host itself is already giving the Chinese regime a big
help.

Well, the internet was not designed to let people hide their identity.
Quite the opposite.

 

[Dave Fawthrop]

| On 26 Oct 2005 22:21:44 -0700, (e-mail address removed) wrote:
|
| >The biggest killer - no pun intended - is, the clear exposure of
| >originating IP while using nntp-server and/or sending emails.
| >nntp-posting-host itself is already giving the Chinese regime a big
| >help.
| Well, the internet was not designed to let people hide their identity.
| Quite the opposite.

The Internet was designed on the principle that everyone would act like a
good citizen obeying the rules, and not attempting to harm others. This
is unfortunately far from true ATM.

 

[Paul Hantom]

In Message-ID:<[email protected]> posted on Sat, 05 Nov

| On 26 Oct 2005 22:21:44 -0700, (e-mail address removed) wrote:
|
| >The biggest killer - no pun intended - is, the clear exposure of
| >originating IP while using nntp-server and/or sending emails.
| >nntp-posting-host itself is already giving the Chinese regime a big
| >help.
| Well, the internet was not designed to let people hide their identity.
| Quite the opposite.

The Internet was designed on the principle that everyone would act like a
good citizen obeying the rules, and not attempting to harm others. This
is unfortunately far from true ATM.

I think you two must be referring to the design of IP. I don't think the
Internet was designed; it really just evolved.

 

[zarathustra]

In Message-ID:<[email protected]> posted on Sat, 05 Nov


I think you two must be referring to the design of IP. I don't think the
Internet was designed; it really just evolved.

Sheer bollocks. Everyone knows Al Gore designed t'internet.

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etc.

 

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

I think you two must be referring to the design of IP. I don't
think the Internet was designed; it really just evolved.

business process and gateway operation foundation for the internet
were the two nsfnet backbone RFPs ... minor reference
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm#0

IP and the internet provided for internetworking of networks. the
change-over to the protocol (and internetworking gateways) was on
1/1/83 ... which helped remove limiting factors to connecting nodes.

from just about the beginning, the internal network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

was larger than the arpanet/internet until approx. mid-85. I've
frequently asserted the one of the reasons that the internal network
was so much larger was that the majority of the internal networking
nodes had a form of gateway support from just about the beginning.
at the switch-over, the arpanet/internet had approx. 250 nodes ...
at the time when the internal network had nearly a 1000 nodes ... which
it passed later that same year
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm#22

the business of interconnecting networks and the required business
relationships and gateway operations evolved from the nsfnet backbone
work ... other past internet related postings
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet

minor topic drift, recent posting referencing govs. mandating
elimination of tcp/ip and the internet and replacement with osi in the
late 80s and early 90s ... exactly during the period that commercial
networks were being connected into the backbones.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#0 TTP and KCM

from my rfc index
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

misc. other historical references about nsfnet backbone RFP
and award:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietf.htm#history

 

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

oh ... and the business process of internetworking of networks can
still experience some burps; a few news item references from the last
week or so

Cogent, Level 3 Fight Severs Customers from Net
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20051007...QsjtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Cogent-Level 3 Peering Spat Ends—for Now
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1868765,00.asp
Cogent, Level 3 in Standoff
http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=171204130
Level 3 Issues Statement Concerning Internet Peering and Cogent
Communications
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-07-2005/0004164041&EDATE=
Cogent's Standing Offer to Level 3: Turn the Connection Back On, Then
Negotiate
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-07-2005/0004163871&EDATE=
The Level 3 Communications - Cogent Situation takes a new twist!
http://www.geeknewscentral.com/archives/005012.html
ISP Dispute Over - For Now
http://www.betanews.com/article/ISP_Dispute_Over_For_Now/1128703803
Level 3, Cogent call time out on peering spat
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/10/10/HNlevel3cogent_1.html
Level 3, Cogent call time out on peering spat
http://www.computerworld.com/networkingtopics/networking/story/0,10801,105279,00.html
Internet Access, Bandwidth | Level 3, Cogent Partners Shocked Internet
Disruption
http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=172300415
Customers Shocked By Level 3's Internet Disruption
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=172300552
Major Disruption In Level 3 Network Slows Internet Traffic
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=172303270
Major Disruption In Level 3 Network Slows Internet Traffic
http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=15411
ISPs Back After Network Outages
http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3558226
Level 3 and Cogent Reach Agreement on Peering
http://slashdot.org/articles/05/10/28/1723250.shtml?tid=230&tid=187&tid=95
Level 3, Cogent Agree on Traffic Deal
http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=15499

 

[Brian Tillman]

Sheer bollocks. Everyone knows Al Gore designed t'internet.

That's a good joke for the late-night comedians, but Gore never said he
designed the Internet. What he said was that during his tenure in the U.S.
Congress, he sponsored bills that helped develop the Internet in its present
form.