Does it matter if intelligence agencies compromise all free news servers?

Does it *matter* in a meaningful way, that *all* the free news servers are
(most likely) compromised by (some/most/all) the major intelligence
agencies around the world?

* Eternal September*: Ray Bananna
* Albasani*: Roman Racine
* Solani*: Daniel & Monika Weber & Benjamin Gufler
* Mixmin*: Steve Crook
* Netfront*China?)
* News4all*: Leissner
* Blueworld*: Jesse Rehmer
* Aioe*: Paolo Amoroso
* Sunsite*: Steen Jensen
* XS Usenet*: Enom, inc. (Denmark) (may be same as dizum?)
* Dizum* (aka XS4ALL?) Societe Anonyme Botag

Personally, I think it doesn't matter.
What it *means* is that you have no anonymity.

But if you use Albasani, Blueworld, or Solani, at least your NNTP posting
host is hashed with each individual message (which doesn't hamper the
intelligence agency, but it may befuddle your next-door neighbor).

If you use Mixmin, you get a 1-day hash.

Unfortunately, AFAIK, with all the rest, you get a *static* hash (which
doesn't even confuse your next-door neighbor).

But, the question is *does it matter" if the intelligence agencies know
*exactly* who you are at all times when you post using any of the free
usenet news servers?

I guess a side question is, if it matters, then the natural next question
would be whether there really is a way to post anonymously using a free
news server?



=========== This question is a reformulation of this post ============
BTW, as another OT aside, there's absolutely no doubt that the NSA is in
*everything* that has world-wide communications capability.

So, I can't imagine that they have *not* set up a free Usenet newsserver,
and, even if they haven't, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that
*every* one is compromised.

As just one example, Ray hashes *all* his customers with the same key, so,
if the NSA has the key (which you must assume would be utter child's play
for them), then they have all the NNTP posting hosts.

And, you can't possibly think that the NSA doesn't have something like half
the Tor nodes out there, and maybe most of the free VPNs (and even if they
didn't, they have connections to the fiber *inside* of Google for heaven's
sake!).

Off the cuff, the British and Russiands and Chinese and Koreans, etc., are
even worse, as the Zimmermann telegram showed a century ago.

So, we can simply *assume* the NSA owns something like half the news
servers and certainly *all* are compromised, including those from *Ray*,
Paolo, Steve, Jesse, Roman, Alexander & Sani, Daniel & Monika & Benjamin,
Leissner, Steen, Enom, etc.

The way "I" look at it is that our government (and those of the major
adversaries) all run a "free public Usenet server system" for us.

Sure, the "price" is we have no anonymity; but there's a cost to everything
anyway. The NSA notwithstanding, kudos go out especially to the three who
take user header NNTP posting host privacy furthest in mind, namely
Albasani, Blueworld, and Solani, with honorable mention to Mixmin.

But this is all an OTC OT aside ... not worthy of discussion in this
thread.

I think you are absolutely right, Horace.

Feel free to start another thread ..... on this _specific_ subject!

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On 24-Sep-16 6:29 PM, Horace Algiers wrote:
Does it *matter* in a meaningful way, that *all* the free news servers are
(most likely) compromised by (some/most/all) the major intelligence
agencies around the world?

* Eternal September*: Ray Bananna
* Albasani*: Roman Racine
* Solani*: Daniel & Monika Weber & Benjamin Gufler
* Mixmin*: Steve Crook
* Netfront*China?)
* News4all*: Leissner
* Blueworld*: Jesse Rehmer
* Aioe*: Paolo Amoroso
* Sunsite*: Steen Jensen
* XS Usenet*: Enom, inc. (Denmark) (may be same as dizum?)
* Dizum* (aka XS4ALL?) Societe Anonyme Botag

Personally, I think it doesn't matter.
What it *means* is that you have no anonymity.

But if you use Albasani, Blueworld, or Solani, at least your NNTP posting
host is hashed with each individual message (which doesn't hamper the
intelligence agency, but it may befuddle your next-door neighbor).

If you use Mixmin, you get a 1-day hash.

Unfortunately, AFAIK, with all the rest, you get a *static* hash (which
doesn't even confuse your next-door neighbor).

But, the question is *does it matter" if the intelligence agencies know
*exactly* who you are at all times when you post using any of the free
usenet news servers?

I guess a side question is, if it matters, then the natural next question
would be whether there really is a way to post anonymously using a free
news server?

It matters not a jot to me, Horace! :-)

--
David B.
"The truth begins in your heart".

On 24-Sep-16 6:29 PM, Horace Algiers wrote:
Does it *matter* in a meaningful way, that *all* the free news servers are
(most likely) compromised by (some/most/all) the major intelligence
agencies around the world?

See: Message-ID:

--
David B.
"The truth begins in your heart".

Horace Algiers wrote:
Does it *matter* in a meaningful way, that *all* the free news servers are
(most likely) compromised by (some/most/all) the major intelligence
agencies around the world?


No.

On 25/09/16 20:46, burfordTjustice wrote:

Does it matter if intelligence agencies compromise all free news servers?

Why did you believe that those news servers were secured in the very
beginning? They are always meant for open, public use, never about
security and encryption.

Some people might throw in encrypted contents, but that's their own
private experiments.

BTW, shouldn't we FIRST ask whether those newsgroup readers and writers
are real civilians and are not government-related?

I dunno about you, but I am ALWAYS a real Hong Kong civilian!



--
@~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3
�借貸! ��騙! ��交! �打交! �打劫! �自殺! 請考慮綜� (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

On 09/24/16 10:29, Horace Algiers so wittily quipped:
Does it *matter* in a meaningful way, that *all* the free news servers are
(most likely) compromised by (some/most/all) the major intelligence
agencies around the world?

* Eternal September*: Ray Bananna
* Albasani*: Roman Racine
* Solani*: Daniel & Monika Weber & Benjamin Gufler
* Mixmin*: Steve Crook
* Netfront*China?)
* News4all*: Leissner
* Blueworld*: Jesse Rehmer
* Aioe*: Paolo Amoroso
* Sunsite*: Steen Jensen
* XS Usenet*: Enom, inc. (Denmark) (may be same as dizum?)
* Dizum* (aka XS4ALL?) Societe Anonyme Botag

Personally, I think it doesn't matter.
What it *means* is that you have no anonymity.


nuclear warfare,
nuking Iran,
stopping Islamists
any way I can...

making the world
a much better place
and throwing pies in
OBAKA'S FACE!

(take THAT, NSA!!!)

On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 20:51:36 +0800, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

Why did you believe that those news servers were secured in the very
beginning? They are always meant for open, public use, never about
security and encryption.

Well, in my naive past, I thought that a "hashed" nntp posting host was
"obfuscated" enough so that my neighbor wouldn't be able to figure who I
was from that single header line, *and*, I was also trusting of my
government that they didn't *care* to collect and save and analyze the
freely written prose of its law-abiding citizens.

Watching James Comey blatantly lie to Congress (and get away with it),
disabused me of some of that naivety, given there are only two
possibilities for his incredible words:
1. He lied to Congress and doesn't actually believe what he said
2. He's just incredibly stupid and actually believes what he said

No other possibility exists for his well-published words.
Pss't: I don't think he's stupid.

Some people might throw in encrypted contents, but that's their own
private experiments.

I agree with you that some free news server admins care about their users'
privacy.

For example, at my request and from those of others, Steve Crook relatively
recently *added* a one-day hash of the NNTP posting host. We must
sympathize with his plight, which is that he has to control spammers and at
the same time, help provide user privacy. So I consider his move a
reasonable one, which followed in the footsteps of Roman Racine, who, at
Albasani, hashed *each* message individually.

Likewise, Jesse Rehmer at Blueworld hashes each post, as does Daniel Weber
at Solani.

None of the other news server admins bother to hash the nntp posting host
and/or account name individually for messages.

Those free news server admins who don't hash individual messages include
Ray Banana (aka Wolfgang Weyand) at Eternal September and Paolo Amoroso at
Aioe.

But at least they *hash* the header information!

There are worse free news server policies, which, as you can see in my own
post here, send the NNTP posting host in the clear.

BTW, shouldn't we FIRST ask whether those newsgroup readers and writers
are real civilians and are not government-related?

That *would* be a great question, but when you incredulously listen to
James Comey blatantly lie to Congress (and be openly ridiculed in the press
for those obvious and unbelievable lies), and then you realize that he's
*still there", so the Executive Branch has patently condoned those
startlingly obvious lies, do you really think they are capable of telling
the truth if we did ask?

Even the British lied to the Americans on the divinity of the Zimmermann
telegram, and they're as much an ally as two countries could ever hope to
be.

The government *can* come clean (witness Eisenhower's response when Gary
Powers miraculously was paraded on Moscow TV), but the fact that James
Comey is *still* in power, is mute witness to the fact that they won't.

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