Re: Popular Net anonymity service back-doored

[MightyE <trash () mightye org>]

Do you suppose that the JAP operators were under a court order to not 
disclose that they were logging these attempts?  The text you quoted 
from the application simply screams LOOK AT ME, and may have been a 
deliberate attempt to get someone to notice.  They may have been ordered 
to install the back door, not tell anyone about it, and not tell anyone 
that they weren't allowed to talk about it.  Once it was public 
knowledge, however, they may have been able to discuss that there was 
indeed a court order to this effect, but still perhaps forbidden from 
discussing the limitations on talking about it.  I'm not sure what 
German law is, but it's also further possible that they were ordered to 
bring the service back up with the back door in place, removing any 
capacity for them to behave in the manner that you state they should have.

People who hold ideals like the JAP operators, and stick their necks out 
for those ideals by doing things like offering anonymizing services 
don't strike me as the sort of people who are given to compromise these 
ideals given that they have any option on the matter.  JAP operators are 
not interested in sheltering criminals, and thus are not likely 
interested in BEING criminals themselves when faced with a court order 
requiring them to do something against their ideals.

-MightyE

Thomas C. Greene wrote:

> Popular Net anonymity service back-doored
> Fed-up Feds get court order
> http://theregister.co.uk/content/55/32450.html
>
> The popular Java Anonymous Proxy (JAP), used to anonymise one's comings and 
> goings across the Internet, has been back-doored by court order. The service 
> is currently logging access attempts to a particular, and unnamed, Web site 
> and reporting the IP addys of those who attempt to contact it to the German 
> police.
>
> We know this because the JAP operators immediately warned users that their IP 
> traffic might be going straight to Big Brother, right? Wrong. After taking 
> the service down for a few days with the explanation that the interruption 
> was "due to a hardware failure", the operators then required users to install 
> an "upgraded version" (ie. a back-doored version) of the app to continue 
> using the service.
>
> "As soon as our service works again, an obligatory update (version 00.02.001) 
> [will be] needed by all users," the public was told. Not a word about Feds or 
> back doors.
>
> Fortunately, a nosey troublemaker had a look at the 'upgrade' and noticed some 
> unusual business in it, such as:
>
> "CAMsg::printMsg(LOG_INFO,"Loading Crime Detection Data....\n");"
> "CAMsg::printMsg(LOG_CRIT,"Crime detected - ID: %u - Content:
> \n%s\n",id,crimeBuff,payLen);"
>
> and posted it to alt.2600.
>
> Soon the JAP team replied to the thread, admitting that there is now a "crime 
> detection function" in the system mandated by the courts. But they defended 
> their decision:
>
> "What was the alternative? Shutting down the service? The security 
> apparatchiks would have appreciated that - anonymity in the Internet and 
> especially AN.ON are a thorn in their side anyway."
>
> Sorry, the Feds undoubtedly appreciated the JAP team's willingness to 
> back-door the app while saying nothing about it a lot more than they would 
> have appreciated seeing the service shut down with a warning that JAP can no 
> longer fulfill its stated obligation to protect anonymity due to police 
> interference.
>
> Admittedly, the JAP team makes some good points in its apology. For one, they 
> say they're fighting the court order but that they must comply with it until 
> a decision is reached on their appeal.
>
> Jap is a collaborative effort of Dresden University of Technology, Free 
> University Berlin and the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection 
> Schleswig-Holstein, Germany (ICPP). A press release from ICPP assures users 
> that JAP is safe to use because access to only one Web site is currently 
> being disclosed, and only under court-ordered monitoring.
>
> But that's not the point. Disclosure is the point. The JAP Web site still 
> claims that anonymity is sacrosanct: "No one, not anyone from outside, not 
> any of the other users, not even the provider of the intermediary service can 
> determine which connection belongs to which user."
>
> This is obviously no longer true, if it ever was. And that's a serious 
> problem, that element of doubt. Anonymity services can flourish only if users 
> trust providers to be straight with them at all times. This in turn means 
> that providers must be absolutely punctilious and obsessive about disclosing 
> every exception to their assurances of anonymity. One doesn't build 
> confidence by letting the Feds plug in to the network, legally or otherwise, 
> and saying nothing about it.
>
> Justifying it after the fact, as the JAP team did, simply isn't good enough.
>
> Telling us that they only did it to help catch criminals isn't good enough 
> either. Sure, no normal person is against catching criminals - the more the 
> merrier, I say. But what's criminal is highly relative, always subject to 
> popular perception and state doctrine. If we accept Germany's definition of 
> criminal activity that trumps the natural right to anonymity and privacy, 
> then we must accept North Korea's, China's and Saudi Arabia's. They have laws 
> too, after all. The entire purpose of anonymity services is to sidestep state 
> regulation of what's said and what's read on the basis of natural law.
>
> The JAP Web site has a motto: "Anonymity is not a crime." It's a fine one, 
> even a profound one. But it's also a palpably political one. The JAP project 
> inserted itself, uncalled, into the turbulent confluence between natural law 
> and state regulation, and signaled its allegiance to the former. It's tragic 
> to see it bowing to the latter. ®
>
>
>