Re: "Jam Echelon Day".

[Mark Jeftovic <markjr@privateworld.com>]

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In light of all this Jam Echelon stuff, if anyone recalls when I authored
the bogus keyword riddled virus allert (it was a joke) I mentioned
that I was personally skeptical that the world's email traffic was monitored
en masse.

At this time I'd like to pose the question to all those with the technical
acumen to do things like write or hack MTA software, work at ISP's, 
network engineers, tech support, troubleshooters, systems integrators, et al.

If it was really happening, you think you wouldn't have noticed by now?

Assume Jesse and I are having a private email convo where we're trying
to figure out a way to get that weapons grade plutonium we took from the
sadass Russian mobster whom we swindled and killed to our buyers inside 
Iraq, and how do we launder the proceeds thereafter.

Here's the path these emails take to get back and forth from shmooze.net HQ
to the tao.ca server:

markjr@bofh:~> traceroute tao.ca
traceroute to tao.ca (198.96.117.188), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  207.236.111.153 (207.236.111.153)  5.171 ms  3.193 ms  3.272 ms
 2  206.108.96.25 (206.108.96.25)  2.487 ms  4.363 ms  4.7 ms
 3  core1-toronto63-pos3-0.in.bellnexxia.net (206.108.98.5)  4.145 ms  3.579 ms 
 2.735 ms
 4  bxsmc-pos4-0-0.in.bellnexxia.net (206.108.98.22)  2.753 ms  18.713 ms  3.959
 ms
 5  bxcix-s0-0-0.in.bellnexxia.net (206.108.98.230)  6.868 ms  9.949 ms  6.666 m
s
 6  198.133.49.2 (198.133.49.2)  10.008 ms  11.538 ms  5.953 ms
 7  115.f11-1-0.bb1.tor2.uunet.ca (205.150.159.57)  7.627 ms  9.355 ms  6.37 ms
 8  f12-0-0.bb4.tor2.uunet.ca (205.150.159.61)  8.976 ms  10.062 ms  6.167 ms
 9  205.150.89.210 (205.150.89.210)  12.192 ms  12.388 ms  16.349 ms
10  gw-151.reliable-access.net (195.200.224.254)  14.97 ms  13.559 ms  13.806 ms
11  263-gw-eth0.reptiles.org (198.96.118.2)  12.508 ms  11.678 ms  24.444 ms
12  smoking.reptiles.org (198.96.117.17)  19.235 ms  14.862 ms  21.97 ms
13  choking-de6.reptiles.org (198.96.117.18)  32.114 ms  36.77 ms  13.13 ms
14  tao.ca (198.96.117.188)  17.795 ms  11.504 ms  11.33 ms
markjr@bofh:~>                         

In order for NSA to evesdrop on these communications they have to have an
ACTIVE monitor on one of those hops. This means that (barring tempest 
technology which we'll dismiss as cost prohibitive) one of those hops
is going to be scanning our email messages. So either my box, or tao's
box has been hacked (which I doubt) or one of the ethernet cards in 
between is in promiscuous mode,sniffing the packets in transit.

Now which hop would that be? Who's working for the Man? Reptiles.org?
Jim Mercer probably has a sizable RCMP folder himself on account of all
that work he's done in those suspicious middle-eastern countries. So,
it's probably not reptiles.

Uunet? Is UUnet Canada in bed with da Man? Well how about you quiz the
techies you know there personally, and so will I, and we can probably
get personal first-hand verification none of those hops are in promisc
mode at the moment.

Bellnexxia? My upstream? Same deal. It's impossible for them to be monitoring
comminications to the extent that Echelon is reputed to be monitoring email
without somebody noticing (i.e "hey guys? has anybody noticed that all our
border routers are dupping their streams to echelon.pentagon.mil since
late 1996? who turned that on anyways?")

It's just not going to happen, or if it is happening, EVERYBODY is against
me `cause that's about how many people it would take to pull this off.

I think it was acknowledged, perhaps, that the echelon system regularly
sweeps public places like usenet, the www, etc, and in that some
technically inept reporter (they exist in droves) added "email" and
now everybody thinks the spooks are hanging on every word they say
to their friends.

My 0.02

-mark

---
|||| mark jeftovic    (MJ177)   ====  http://stuntpope.cyberpunk.cc/      ||||
|||| easyDNS Technologies Inc.  ====  http://www.easyDNS.com/             ||||
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