Hacker Group Targets Countries That Censor Internet

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some of the world's best-known hackers unveiled a plan this weekend to offer free software to promote anonymous Web surfing in countries where the Internet is censored, especially China and Middle Eastern nations.

An international hacker group calling itself Hactivismo released a program on Saturday called Camera/Shy that allows Internet users to conceal messages inside photos posted on the Web, bypassing most known police monitoring methods.

In addition, "Mixter," an internationally known German hacker, said Hactivismo was preparing in coming weeks to launch technology, which if adopted widely could allow anyone to create grassroots, anonymous networks where Internet users worldwide could access and share information without a trace.

"(Hackers) are looking for something a little more meaty to work with," spokesman "Oxblood Ruffin" said of the new social activist push by a group formerly known for creating software that used by other hackers to attack undefended computers.

The Hactivismo announcement, the result of a two-year project among leading hackers worldwide, was made at H2K2, a three-day conference ending Sunday. The bi-annual event attracts an estimated 2,000 security professionals and computer activists, including the U.S. hacker elite.

Mixter's software -- known as a "protocol" in technical terms -- would allow ordinary computer users to set up a decentralized version of virtual private networks (VPNs). VPNs are used by governments and many companies to create secure networks that are fenced off from the public Internet.

"It's important for anyone whether they live in totalitarian country or a Western country to be anonymous," said Mixter, who lives in Munich, of his motivation to take part in the project.

Hactivismo software works to bypass national firewalls that allow only partial access to global computer networks. A firewall is software that prevents access to certain types of addresses banned on internal corporate networks as well as nations that restrict citizens' access to the global Internet.

Hactivismo says it can defeat attempts to restrict Web surfing to controversial Internet news and human rights sites by disguising such sites to make them look innocuous.

The group hopes to encourage other software developers to embed the code for "Six/Four" protocol into their own programs in order to accelerate the spread of the technology worldwide. The effort will only succeed if millions of computer users begin using the programs as part of their everyday Internet Web use, providing cover to individual surfers, its proponents said.

The move is likely to heat up the battle between free speech activists and government censors in the 20 or so countries that restrict public access to the Web. It may also raise concerns among Western police agencies, who fear the technology could be used by criminals to swap child pornography or by Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites)'s Al-Qaeda network to plot new attacks around the globe.

Hactivismo, or hacker activism, is just one of several grassroots software projects -- including Peekabooty and Privaterra -- launched recently by computer activists that seek to enable human rights workers to access censored Web sites or communicate securely.

Six/Four protocol designer "Mixter" told Reuters that the system is named in honor of the date when Chinese authorities cracked down on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Six/Four is designed so that each computer user that uses software running the protocol becomes part of the shared capacity of the network, taking a page from so-called "peer-to-peer" sharing network that gave birth to Napster ( news - web sites) and other music sharing programs such as Gnutella ( news - web sites).

"This is going to be a guerrilla information war," Oxblood Ruffin said. "Sites will pop up for a few days and then be taken down," he said as he described a "moving war," in which computer activists react quickly to government efforts to block such programs.

In countries such as China, the Internet poses an unprecedented threat to the control that the Chinese Communist Party exercises over all other forms of media.

In the world's most populous country, where most people can't afford PCs, millions turn to Internet cafes, despite a long-running crackdown on the free-wheeling establishments by the Chinese government.

The tightening of restrictions has accelerated recently since several deadly fires, including one in a Beijing Internet cafe that killed more than 20 students in June.

Sensitivity to potential sources of civil instability have been heightened by the looming leadership transition at the top of the Chinese government set for later this year.

Hactivismo is made up of 40 or so hackers including members of the Cult of the Dead Cow, the group behind Back Orifice, which can be used by malicious hackers to gain unauthorized access to unsecured computers running Microsoft's Windows software.

Mixter developed software that was used by another teenager to launch denial of service attacks ( news - web sites) on major e-commerce sites in early 2000.

Group members have focused more recently on harnessing the energies of the computer underground to promote electronic democracy on the Internet.

In the future they plan to develop programs that will allow anonymous direct email, file trading and untraceable chat programs that bypass conventional Internet monitoring.

The latter is especially important in places like China, where online chat is more popular than Web surfing. The group's work can be found on the Internet at .

Hactivismo leaders said that Camera/Shy was immediately available for download and being using from its site. The program would allow visitors at public Internet cafes, popular in many countries where computers are scarce, to install the 1.2 megabyte program using a simple floppy disk.

The user simply installs the program on a computer, surfs the Web, then removes the program, leaving no electronic records kept of what sites were visited, said its southern California-based designer, who goes by the hacker name "Pull."

"What this is for is for pre-suspects," Pull said. "You never become a suspect if you are using this kind of thing."

This will have a some effect in a sweeping manner. Islamic nations or countries that restrict access will now deal with the internet in full (wonder if free republic will be getting a new influx of visitors?), but also terrorists will use this to help coordinate attacks better, and perverts will use this to by pass child porn laws and continue with the smut peddling, only it will increase in nations like china and the middle east (wonder how a muslim terrorist will react to seeing doctored nakkad pics of hillary clinton?). It'll have its positives and its negatives, where this eventually winds up, we''ll have to see.

Where will it lead?

The genie has never been put back in the bottle. Communist Russia fell to the genie. Due mostly to the use of fax machines and satellite television. Earthlings now live at the "mercy"/benefit of the genie/Internet.

Seldom does a person that already knows the meaning of a word look it up in the dictionary. But it does happened and I just did it with the word "genie". Interesting what I found.

genie: A spirit believed by Muslims to inhabit the earth and influence mankind by appearing in the form of humans or animals.

Today the genie is implied to be Western capitalists and their magnificent creations from low-lying Hover dam and oceanic ships transporting grains, oil and silicon computer chips, to human soaring intelligence scraping the sky. The World Trade Center twin towers are a prime example and symbolic proof of soaring human intelligence abiding human nature to increase the well-being of conscious humans.

This Internet is a function of conscious-human nature -- to increase the well being of humans. It should be obvious that Islamic fundamentalists are intent on harming humans an Western capitalism.

There are other parasites that feign to increase human well-being but they get away with it by being politically correct.

The government is the all time champion of cooking the books and it has the gall to point fingers at the whole business community because of a few bad apples. The entire business community and employees that support it should stand tall against not just Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, but also stand tall against a government feigning to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books.

If there was ever a prime example of the fox guarding the hen house it is the government claiming to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books. President Bush will have to militarily smash down terrorism. For that is his job. It's not the President's, congress or' the government's job to manipulate the economy.

The business community with their employees will have to stand tall against the PC-status-quo fox -- self-proclaimed authorities claiming/feigning they'll use the government to protect the little guy and a complicit media and academia that supports them; for they are all the fox -- to regain their rightful place as the champions of honest business that has always increased the well-being of people.

The government, having already manipulated the economy to almost no-end, President Bush can play the unbeatable five-ace hand of replacing the initiation-of-force IRS and graduated income tax with a don't-pay-the-tax-if-you-don't-want-to consumption tax. For example, implement the proposed national retail sales tax (NRST). Not only would that win votes for Bush and republicans in congress it would boom the economy while fighting off a looming economic double-dip inflation/recession headed for depression.

Yes, the genie is out of the bottle. Where will it lead?

War of Two Worlds
Value Creators versus Value Destroyers

Politics is not the solution. It's the problem!

The first thing civilization must have is business/science. It's what the family needs so that its members can live creative, productive, happy lives. Business/science can survive, even thrive without government/bureaucracy.
Government/bureaucracy cannot survive without business/science. In general, business/science and family is the host and government/bureaucracy is a parasite.
Aside from that, keep valid government services that protect individual rights and property. Military defense, FBI, CIA, police and courts. With the rest of government striped away those few valid services would be several fold more efficient and effective than they are today.

Underwriters Laboratory is a private sector business that has to compete in a capitalist market. Underwriters laboratory is a good example of success where government fails.

Any government agency that is a value to the people and society -- which there are but a few -- could better serve the people by being in the private sector where competition demands maximum performance.

Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us.

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