HOWTO Make a DNS dead-drop
In each DNS query, 7 bits are reserved for a number of flags, one of which is the Recursion Desired (RD) flag. If set to 0, the queried DNS server will not attempt to recurse -- it will only provide answers from its cache.The DNS Dead Drop (via Schneier)Combine this with a wildcard zone and it's possible to signal bits (RD on), and read them (RD off). To set a bit to 1 the sender issues a query with the RD bit on. The wildcard zone resolves all requests, including this query. The receiver then issues a query for the same hostname, with the RD bit off. If the bit is 1, the query will return a valid record. If the bit is 0, no record will be returned.
So, it's easy to signal a single bit, but what if you want to share more than 1 bit of data? This requires both sides to compute a list of records -- one record for every bit of data we wish to send. In my implementation, I chose to do this with a pre-shared word list and initialization vector (IV). Given the same word list and IV, both sender and receiver can independently compute an identical mapping of words to bit positions. The sender can then signal the '1' bits, and the receiver can query all bits.
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I think it's worth pointing out that this article is from 2006, and is based on a presentation from 2004. This is not related to the recently famous Kaminsky DNS bug that caused us all to upgrade our nameservers, but rather a bit of hackery he uncovered 4 years ago.
I dearly hope a lot of people are leaving sekrit messages like "the penguin snobs the mailman in latex" so as to give the NSA boys something to do.
Takuan - I thought it was "the lone dog howls at midnight"
+1 mutants.
silenceyoufool! aww, now we have to change all the one time pads....jeez
+&infinity humanity.
(Basically, we need tools like this to Fight for the Right to Party! Read on for more...)
True anonymity coupled with the trust based relationships you share with your community can lead to an open ability to validate yourself.
There is no way to trace a verification of myself back to me, or yours to you, yet if you feel you can trust me we can share anything.
This is good.
As to the inevitability of those who advocate 'security' over 'privacy', I believe you will find your hypocrisy in the common ground those two words share--neither of them exist without the other.
It's economics. May I present you with a Proposed Equilibrium Statement?
Terrorism == (The Invisible Hand(Of the Rich Man) * (Population / Desperation))
It is not unimaginable that terrorism would increase in response to Economic Disadvantage. In fact it is the premise of the "Invading Iraq Will Destabilize The Region & The World" faction that began protesting before the war even began (that is, about 2 or 3 months before "Victory" was "declared"):
Globalization sucked under Bill Clinton too. Back then it was known by its politically correct term 'neo-liberalism'.) Please refer to Naomi Klein for an extensive economic analysis
That is to say, America, it is our fault, but we. There is really only a few dozen dozen families that reap the benefit of every single global event, be it catastrophic or "beneficial to our economies."
Now that information is the basic unit of value, why should I give a fck who gives it to me? In an info econ its all only about how good that info is.
AB5TRACT:
Globalization does not suck, neither it is negative. This War does suck, as any war, even the necessary ones (which this is not). But globalization allows us to look beyond our borders, to understand that our tiny corner of the world is not the world itself. War and greed have been a constant of the human condition since ever, at least now we can have access to information about it and raise our tiny voice to the behemoths that trample people.
In this global world, me, a guy from Venezuela, can discuss with people from all over, learn how to program and get skills on the Internet, that was not possible 10 years ago. Wars and economic impositions by companies have been possible for a long time and certainly the governments and companies can use the Internet for their purposes, but also can we.
That it contributes to eroding local cultures? Screw the local cultures. Why should I belong to a culture just because I was born in a certain place? It is my right to chose how to live and part of it is finding a worldview that fits me and makes me happy, not having to get stuck with lack of alternatives. This will not lead to homogeneity, and yes, many cultures will perish, unfortunately, but not all, and I believe that the emerging result will be richer, and that is also our collective duty to document the loss, but in no way should anybody be forced to live according to certain standards just because he or she lives in certain place. Should I listen Venezuelan music from the central plains or Finnish humppa? Is Surinamese chutney allowed? What about European movies? Should I play Go or Chess?
Diversity is beautiful.
Sorry for the OT rant, but I am tired of globalization being a bad word, a negative thing, when it is a wonderful process that allows to be here at BB commenting on esoteric hacking tools that somebody thousands of miles away developed.
Do remember before trying this out that technically this is against a number of country's computer misuse laws.
The DNS dead drop is a lovely and obscure (though mindbogglingly well connected) place to hide your secret messages but if you decide to use, say, 192.203.230.10 as your dead drop NASA IS totally going to care who's telling them to cache hundreds of hostname addresses with a message in the least significant bit.
It's a very interesting use of the technology, but remember to account for the general competence of the people providing a service before you alter lots of their data to use it to encode a message.
And generally avoid messing about with root nameservers if you can possibly avoid it, too.
@guidodavid: Generally speaking, those who criticize "globalization" are referring to economic trends and strategies which use the elimination of trade barriers and global financial institutions as a way to subordinate third world economies to the interests of transnational mega-corporations.
As so-called anti-globalization activists have put it: we're not against globalization, just certain kinds. We're for the globalization of justice, human rights, and freedom, but against the globalization of privatization, debt and monoculture.
Back on topic, this isn't actually a "useful" idea, right? I mean it's just an academic exercise, there's no reason it'd be more practical to post your message to a DNS server rather than some random message board, is there?
@5 Dude, take a Zyprexa, grab a juicebox, and go sit in your chair by the window.
@guidodavid
I apologize for the confusion. I was merely trying to point out that in the 1990's the term for what neoconservatives like doing to emerging economies (forced capitalization of nationalized services such as water, electricity, etc., unbalanced trade agreements with asymmetric enforcement, etc) was called liberalization of markets. I pointed this out because it's an interesting linguistic juxtaposition, and its important for us all to remember that there are plenty if "liberals" who love to rape emerging economies as much as the evilest neocon.
Neoconservatism == Neoliberalism == Globalization by the Rich, for the Rich == "Globalization" (as used in the context of my original post and many other contexts besides)
We need to develop our own language for describing the positive form of globalization. Personally I'd feel really good about calling it neomutantism :)
Zikzak: I know and I understand that. I am against those very same things. But it is foolish and nonproductive to lump all that into a sigle word. To say that one is against globalization and at the same time use the Internet sounds quite laughable for outside observers.
We to get global. We need to start thinking above petty imaginary lines and silly cultural differences, we are all together in this planet and if we screw it badly is gonna hurt us all. What I despise about the use of the word is that from the distance it can be mistaken with blind nationalism, something I think is awful. If we support the globalization of Human Rights then why should we say we against Globalization?
guido -
you're right, globalization is a clumsy word to use in place of neoliberalism. People who are trying to be clear and avoid throwing the baby out with the (privatized) bathwater will often couch it as "Capitalist Globalization", but that's still a little broad for some apologists like me. It does seem like you're deliberately misunderstanding it when used in context so you can get worked up and rant - your first post shows none of the subtle understanding you claim later (or did you write "globalization does not suck, neither is it negative" just to be provocative?) However, neoliberalism ≠noconservativism. Neoliberalism refers to a set of evil economic policies whose magic incantations come from Chicago and shock troops come from the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and other acronyms. It does things like privatize water supplies, destroy education systems, and sacrifice virgins to Monsanto. Neoconservatism, as far as I can tell, just means the newly overt authoritarianism and militarism of certain aspects of the globale elite's "right wing", especially in regards to the Cheney regime. It's a little sad that you're complaining about the muddiness of language while doing your part to muddy it up yourself.
I do like "neomutantism", tho'
Whoa, this ol' toy :)
I'm not going to say the DNS Dead Drop is fast, by any means. But what made it interesting was:
1) It could be written to, fully anonymously
2) Writing to it could be entirely distributed
Something I thought at the time was that anybody could destroy the message on demand by setting the 0 bits to 1. Of course, that ignores the fact that the TTL on the new 1's would be higher than the TTL on the original 1's. So, alas, Guttman-style attacks hit us there too.
Long time ago, I wanted to use DNS for storing geolocations as a method of distributing them. DNS is already a database, which can be populated dynamically. Current RFCs do not address this, which I intended to fix.
I may still do this, unless someone reading this beats me to the punch.
AB5TRACT:
I agree that we need to improve the language and add a word for the positive aspects of globalization.
Paradoxically, in Spanish, being a Liberal is an insult if you are a left winger, equals to being a Neoliberal, free market dogmatic, but being a Libertarian means a left winger, often anarchist, totally opposed to free marktet Libertarians in the American use of the term, more like Chomskian Social Libertarian.
RIDL: Please note that it was AB5TRACT who merged Neocons and Neoliberals.
I stand by what I wrote. Globalization per se is not negative and it is desirable. When applied to some economic policies, it is a plague, I agree, but the word should not have negative connotations.
I try to put in my former shoes and in the shoes of many others. Tagging globalization as evil when coordinating protests using the internet and sometimes even travelling in planes seems ridiculous from the outside and can be used (and is used) to mock the movement. Many people who would otherwise accept what you (or should I say us) have to say gets appalled by the seemingly contradictory message and assumes that our ideas are as childish. As Internet is seen increasingly as a positive force for more and more people, this could be a drawback, that is why I insist so much in fight back the misuse of the term.
@Ridl
I'm sorry, once again I missed the mark :0
There are subtle differences, yes, but don't forget that neocons use and love those Chicago school economics. The neocon think tanks rely on the trash math that neolibs put out.
"You could say the neolibs are just neocons who never quite left the Democratic Party, and there would be a grain of truth in it. But the neolibs would probably argue that they are much less doctrinaire than the neocons, and more willing to take a multilateral approach to the use of American power (i.e. "empire lite")
But those distinctions tend to blur or even disappear where the Middle East is involved. In general, the neolibs are just as inflexibly pro-Israeli as the neocons, but less reflexively pro-Likud. Most neolibs still believe in the mirage of a "two-state" solution that will bring peace and globalization to the Middle East -- once the Arabs have been sufficiently domesticated. (Think Tom Friedman)"
from commongroundcommonsense.org Heh, feels funny to be quoting a comment that was quoting a comment.
I ended up misapplying equivalency in that I was thinking more of the effects of, rather than constituencies or philosophies of, "globalization."
(Aside: I think the qualifying quotation marks may just be the answer we need to our linguistic ambiguity. By sarcastically spinning our evocation with "s we acknowledge that "globalization" is the bullsh*t happening right now that's been going on since the first round of IMF loans in the 1940s and 50s. Whereas globalization in its unqualified form can mean the process of workers taking over shuttered factories and starting outsider economies, networked nonprofit externalities as embodied by FOSS, etc., as well as the pursuit of an ideal global society.)
Neomutantism, hmm, me doth believe I shall start a manifesto... (Or did I just write one? Sheesh, when is this post going to end already?)
neomutantitis now is continuously aggressively de-authoritizing all your base are fnords :D
Good fun times. I learned something today.