#asciilifeform | 2020-02-13

curiousd0g: the basic diffs vs versionatrons you may have used in the past, are 1) no net access. no servers, clients. 2) no state. the only inputs are the patches, pgp keys of signers, and the signatures. 3) all history represented by pgp-signed patches. 4) no 'merging' permitted.

00:02

do you need a bitcoin daemon running in order to use it?

00:02

nope

00:02

for my orig. version, all you need is 1) python 2.x 2) gnupg

00:02

for mod6's variant, perl

00:03

awesome

00:03

works fine on a box w/out network card.

00:04

curiousd0g: a v tree can in fact be used 'by hand', by patch -p0 < patch1 ; patch -p0 < patch2 ... etc

00:04

generally you don't want this, because would have to determine ordering also by hand (and verify sigs). but can.

00:04

this is how people bring up a vtron on a box w/out 'v'

00:06

what is the cmu scandal?

00:06

see the earlier links

00:06

snsabot

Logged on 2020-02-12 23:46:38 asciilifeform: curiousd0g: tor incidentally is a proven honeypot .

00:08

oh, sorry, now i see

00:09

curiousd0g: cmu developed a complete kit for fbi for unmasking tor users whenever needed, and this was used to nail various 'secret market' folx; while at same time kept out of the trials

00:11

( if it were brought into trials, cmu would be forced to explain how it worked. but instead fbi concocted various fictional 'parallel constructions' (actual usa legalistic term) re how supposedly dpr posted under his human name, etc )

00:14

"Under these circumstances Tor users clearly lack a reasonable

00:14

expectation of privacy in their IP addresses while using the Tor network. In other words,

00:14

they are taking a significant gamble on any real expectation of privacy under these

00:14

circumstances."

00:16

curiousd0g: 'tor' is a joke on several levels. incl. but not limited to the use of ssl (which is ~100% transparent to usg in all cases.)

00:17

how is it 100% transparent when my keys are generated in my machine?

00:17

and they never leave it?

00:17

curiousd0g: the whole 'pki' scheme relies on central authorities. which happily issue signed certs to officials.

00:18

oh yes, that i know

00:18

curiousd0g: it's the ~other fella's~ keys that get freely substituted by 'man in middle'

00:19

but then it's not all the traffic 100% transparent, only targeted individuals

00:20

the 'targeted' set can be as small or large as they want.

00:20

the operation would be noticed

00:21

long ago noticed. by plenty of people (see links.) simply not noticed by the poor chumps who thought 'tor'ism would keep'em out of usa jails.

00:21

(notice, ~100% of the high-profile 'tor will keep me outta jail' folx, are in nao )

00:22

hehe

00:22

"you don't understand how it works, i do"

00:22

tor npc's

00:22

this, + the fact that 'tor society' is funded 100% by usg from day 1, oughta be enuff argument, even for a non-technical person who has nfi re the internal mechanisms

00:23

yet various folx who oughta know better -- still using. this is a process powered by wishful thinking.

00:23

they want 'something like tor' to exist, and convince selves that there's it.

00:25

( in fact nothing 'like what the users think tor is' can exist on the current net, traffic analysis on backbone suffices to find at least in what dc a 'hidden' box lives. after which they search the dc. )

00:27

normally even this is unnecessary, victim is instead lured to visit a www where browser 0day

00:29

https://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/3283/html5-canvas-security-flaw this link doesn't make sense

00:29

tagged as "vulnerabilities"

00:29

curiousd0g: do you know what '0day' means ?

00:30

yes

00:31

but i mean, that link doesn't make sense, it doesn't describe any "vulnerability"

00:31

then you know that it means ~unpublished~ vuln.

00:31

tor does protect you against canvas fingerprinting

00:31

the link is discussing a long-known vuln, where under certain browsers a js can capture a screenshot of entire screen.

00:32

privacy.resistFingerprinting: true

00:33

in about:config

00:33

problem solved

00:33

whereas for ~any given browser, at ~any given time, there are unpublished vulns that let author of visited www run arbitrary code on yer box.

00:33

typically (but not always) via bug in js interpreter.

00:33

jit typically

00:34

curiousd0g: so then you know.

00:34

yes

00:35

*

asciilifeform not pedant to be insulting, but because knows ~0 re curiousd0g . for all i know curiousd0g was bulldozerist until last month and only then bought pc.

00:35

hehe

00:37

i'm not finding references to large scale ssl tampering

00:38

curiousd0g: you'll find re third world plenty of examples. but of course none re e.g. usa in open press, for obv. reasons

00:38

oh, that was well known

00:39

the kazakhstan thing

00:39

18mil people in kazah. not 'large scale' enuff ?

00:39

china also diddles ssl openly.

00:40

i agree it's large scale, but it was only kazakhstan

00:40

oh, china, hehe, china china

00:40

usa similar, but you won't read about it in 'new york times', obv., instead will read, from inside jail, re how you supposedly slipped by signing with real name on stackoverflow (as e.g. dpr)

00:41

ssl was specifically designed to make this process maximally simple.

00:42

which is why usg-controlled orgs (google et al) are aggressively pushing it .

00:42

shinohai

Let's Encrypt! (tm)

00:43

the purpose of e.g. ssl is to drive n00bz away from actual crypto.

00:45

ah, but i'm working on a solution, don't worry

00:45

curiousd0g: i thought you weren't a programmer ? or am i mistaken

00:46

not the best programmer

00:46

not as good as you, that for sure

00:47

curiousd0g: generally if you're new to something, will want to start w/ things that don't get people killed if you make mistake

00:48

( see e.g. naggum's take re subj )

00:51

hmmm, yeah

00:51

i , for instance , like 'flight sims', but if tonight i buy a plane, i doubt you'd want to get into it

00:51

gonna finish reading it after a meal, later guys

00:51

laters.

00:56

*

asciilifeform invites all other lurkers to de-lurk. i have www serv log on a wall in realtime, i knew yer there !11

00:57

e.g. the argentina fella, who's been going for 1y+

~ 1 hours 14 minutes ~

02:11

isn't mircea in ar?

02:12

nope, he moved years ago

02:15

hez prolly in the air you breathe https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=271711.0

02:15

lol

02:21

wb shrysr btw. what've you been up to ? ( other than reading old mp ? )

02:22

shrysr: thanks, i'm a converted now

02:26

shrysr: ftr that piece was 100% correct when was written ( i.e. immediately prior to mtgox bubble popping )

02:27

in contrast, any goddamn idiot can call

02:27

himself a programmer.

02:27

shrysr: at the time, a great many folx were buying who had 0 business doing so ( e.g. borrowed megatonnes of $ , on gigantic interest, to do so . many of these ate their pistols. )

02:28

"in contrast, any goddamn idiot can call himself a programmer"

02:28

well... that's not the problem. the problem is that they call themselves programmers and they are still hired

02:28

curiousd0g: ever had occasion to try to hire a programmer ?

02:29

yes, it was painful

02:29

good % of folx who show up, can't 'hello world'

02:29

afaik this doesn't even vary much by country

02:30

hey asciilifeform, same old. job hunt and skill-up etc ... making progress i think, but its a goddamn frustrating process.

02:30

e.g. diplomas, make 0 diff ( very often fella shows up with a++ diploma -- bought, perhaps -- and still no 'helloworld' )

02:30

shrysr: still in canada ?

02:30

correct! once i spent one hour watching (teamviewer or something like that) a self-proclaimed programmer (cs student) trying to write a simple piece of code in python, google allowed, the internet at his disposal ...

02:31

asciilifeform: yes

02:31

curiousd0g: at one point i had fella with master diploma and perfect marks walk in. 'computer engineering'. couldn't helloworld.

02:32

the most interesting part is that their bosses can't either, that's how they get hired

02:32

curiousd0g: ".... still hired" - problem extends beyond programming world.

02:32

the bosses generally aint hired to program

02:33

how can an lawyer be in charge of an orchestra?

02:33

you need to know how to play drums at the very least

02:33

very easily, if the orchestra doesn't in fact need to play

02:33

lmao

02:33

:D

02:34

XD

02:34

if all it needs to do is to avoid legal liability...

02:34

laugh, but this is accurate portrait of 'corporate usa'

02:35

XD "we never said our performance wouldn't make dogs cry!, you still owe us, pay or else..."

02:39

curiousd0g: i'ma bbl tomorrow. meanwhile i rec to read at least the 'v' intro, you will 100% need to understand v if you're interested in experimenting w/ trb .

02:39

snsabot

Logged on 2020-02-12 23:54:28 asciilifeform: ( 'v' is described here , by ben, who vanished, but his www remains )

02:40

curiousd0g: if you end up puzzled, feel free to leave q's here, i'ma answer'em when i read the log.

02:41

( the log is yer friend -- lets you interact w/ people w/out having to be awake at same time. and to see what has been said re a subj prior. make use of search box on www. )

02:42

thanks a lot

02:42

np

~ 13 hours 43 minutes ~

16:26

feedbot

http://thetarpit.org/2020/nu-te-mai-preocupa-esti-vai-de-mortii-tai << The Tar Pit -- Linguistic ruminations on the connection between dead relatives and how "the people" aren't worth two shits; and other urban subcultural considerations

~ 1 hours 24 minutes ~

17:50

!q uptime

17:50

snsabot

asciilifeform: time since my last reconnect : 1d 18h 19m

~ 1 hours 43 minutes ~

19:34

Hi there asciilifeform, wanted to just touch on something in your whogaveblox. (In fact, I think I ~may~ have asked the same question before, but can't remember or find.)

19:34

http://therealbitcoin.org/ml/btc-dev/attachments/20180929/asciilifeform_whogaveblox.vpatch?sha1=aeb8f0aa75f0a7b0c9ad556e1f5ca1f3912dd61a

19:34

mod6: aha?

19:34

I'm referencing lines 19 through 23, the conditional block upon 'pfrom'.

19:35

It seems to me that we may want to be a bit more explicit here as the assumption is made that if pfrom isn't null, then we can get an IP, otherwise "LOCAL".

19:37

mod6: not sure i understand? what to make more explicit ?

19:37

I tried to follow around through the code, it seems like CNode gets created upon external message to the node itself.

19:38

basically, could be something like this:

19:38

mod6: the conditional is to handle the 'eatblock' case

19:39

if (pfrom->addr != null && !pfrom->addr.IsLocal()) { peer_ip = pfrom->addr.ToStringIP(); } else { peer_ip = "LOCAL"; }

19:39

mod6: see here re why null there

19:39

for eatblock, ofc.

19:39

*

mod6 looks at link.

19:40

mod6: your version will bomb. cuz if it's a null, then you can't ->addr...

19:40

or hrm i'm still thinking in ada mode, it won't bomb, b/c short-circuit eval

19:40

but still bad form

19:41

err. hmm. let me think on this.

19:41

prior to the 'eatblock' patch, pfrom was never null

19:41

but 'eatblock' introduces possibility of blocks that did not originate from net

19:41

hence the conditional.

19:42

fwiw i tested the 'who-gave' prior to publication.

19:42

yeah, i've been testing with it too. seems fine so far.

19:43

mod6: if you want to regrind, may be clearer to replace the if (pfrom) ... w/ if (pfrom != NULL) ...

19:43

you're right too, my thing wouldn't work if pfrom is null, no such CAddress would exist.

19:43

there are actually machines where NULL != 0

19:43

feedbot

http://qntra.net/2020/02/cocaine-refinery-found-back-home-on-the-farm-of-colombian-ambassador-to-uruguay/ << Qntra -- Cocaine Refinery Found Back Home On The Farm Of Colombian Ambassador To Uruguay

19:43

I think as it stands is fine. '!= NULL' is a bit more clear, but the meaning is the same, code wise.

19:44

i rec to use this last form , for max clarity and portability.

19:44

But will change if you think it's better.

19:44

it is, in principle.

19:45

ty for the magnifying glass work, mod6

19:45

( on x86 you ought to expect to get same binary when building this as prev. )

19:45

Ugh, C. I'm with you though. ~ought~.

19:46

Alright, I think I'll just make that one small change then. from '(pfrom)' to '(pfrom != NULL)'.

19:47

imho since this patch is destined to be reground, may as well massage it properly.

19:47

i'ma test the variant you come up with.

19:47

Cool, I'll do that too ofc.

19:47

a++

19:47

I may just have to sign them with my vpatch-testing key before final publication. Shouldn't take ~too~ long to get the testing done.

19:48

Ok, off I go to work on these a bit more. Will report back when ready for testing. Thanks for the conversation.

19:48

mod6: didja ever share the test pub ?

19:48

i'd like to add it to my set

19:49

I did, back a while ago. I don't think it exists anywhere handy at the moment, although, let me double check.

19:51

Oh yea, I totally did: http://www.mod6.net/mod6-vpatch-testing/mod6-vpatch-testing.asc

19:51

and the sigs? (or none signed to date with this?)

19:52

None that matter any longer, no.

19:53

I've probably used it, figure, dozen times over the years to get things into people's Vtrons for press/building tests.

19:53

(iirc once upon a time, a WILD vpatch was acceptable, but then the rules changed and only signed vpatches were allowed to be placed in the 'flow'.)

19:54

Which is why, again iirc, why I created the key.

19:55

a

19:55

i have several like this, but use only in-house

19:56

( at a certain point ran into problem sorting own spew, in '18 )

19:57

To all readers, nothing should be used in a 'battlefield' vtree that is signed with my vpatch-testing key (FP: 3ED0 6EF3 40C6 3F18 5EE5 AA06 8365 BB7F D2C0 2F12).

19:59

asciilifeform: werd, I use it as sparingly as possible. It's only intended for srs testing folks, where I'm also super reluctant to publish a yet ~experimental~ vpatch with my main key sig on there, lest it find it's way into someone's vtree thinking it's a "final approved" vpatch.

20:00

Hope this all makes sense. If not, say.

20:02

Ok, off to work on these. Will be back. Thx!

20:03

np. ty mod6 .

20:03