20090101... -> Dänemark

[Scott Bennett]

     On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:12:04 -0800 (PST) algenon flower
<algenon_flower at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Eugen,, That sounds like some good news coming from EU!  I hope for success to challenges in Germany to their attempt at repressive law.  I am in US.

     Good grief!  How wide a window do you type in?

>As everyone knows, we seem to lead the world in this kind of stuff. I think the whole censorship and control mindset seems to have come into office and vogue in January, 2001, or soon thereafter. I have always had the impression that European attitudes were a bit more sophisticated and insightful than here. I will keep a close eye on events as they transpire here.

     Not exactly.  If you think back a bit, you may recall, for example, that
France banned the use of any encryption that did not provide a back door for
the government.  In the U.S., the trend was certainly in that direction, but
our hero (or should I say, "savior"), Phil Zimmermann, made that avenue much
more difficult and less practical for this government.  There are plenty of
other anti-privacy nastinesses that first appeared (outside of outright
tyrannies like the remaining communist countries) in Europe.  Nevertheless,
you would be justified in recognizing the U.S. government as the most powerful
and dangerous crime syndicate on earth today and aiming for privacy from its
eyes in order to achieve adequate privacy from all other eyes.

>  I think that Tor is a great example of the international expression of the need for, and value of, freedom in a world that seems to be becoming ever more controlled and devoid of originality.

     PGP, tor and associated programs, and the whole group of SSL-based
utilities (including, obviously, the SSH-oriented utilities) are wonderfully
complementary, but still incomplete.  We still need, for example, modifications
to sendmail and Sendmail.mc to allow sendmail to a) run as a tor hidden
service, knowing its own address to be a .onion address and b) recognize and
correctly route mail addressed to .onion addresses.  The latter may require
writing another delivery agent to which sendmail would pass .onion-addressed
messages, but it might not be too difficult to modify an existing one, say, the uucp/uucpd package, to do the job.  Such a setup would allow mail to travel

	a) from an ordinary Internet site to a .onion mail box site,
	b) from a .onion mail box site to an ordinary Internet site, and
	c) from a .onion mail box site to another .onion mail box site.

Because the .onion mail box sites would all be offered via tor's hidden
service facility, mail could enjoy the best anonymity available.  If the
persons using such facilities were also to use PGP encryption for their
messages, then it would be possible to set up entirely hidden email exchanges
(i.e., hidden from outside eyes on the Internet at large, as well as the eyes
of the hidden service providers).


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
**********************************************************************
* Internet:       bennett at cs.niu.edu                              *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
* "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good  *
* objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments *
* -- a standing army."                                               *
*    -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790         *
**********************************************************************