Julian Assange Has a Book Deal

 e-flux journal - Metahaven: Captives of the Cloud: Part II

Cyber-utopianism never translated into a policy outlook of sorts. But it is still associated with a set of practices and spatial forms: online anonymity, cryptography, Peer-To-Peer (P2P) file sharing, TOR (The Onion Router) bridges, bulletproof hosting, and offshore data havens, to name a few examples. Michael Froomkin, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law, defined the data haven in 1996 as “the information equivalent to a tax haven.” This “place where data that cannot legally be kept can be stashed for later use; an offshore web host” appears omnipresent in the cyberlibertarian universe of thought, and is indeed an extreme form of keeping information away from antagonistically minded states, corporations or courts. The data haven is the spatial form that, at least theoretically, enables the evasion of sovereign power, while establishing an enclosed territory on the face of the earth. The data haven once provided a business model for the Principality of Sealand, an unrecognized ministate founded by a British family on a former war platform in the North Sea. A notorious example in internet law, Sealand was, in the early 2000s, home to the servers of HavenCo, a startup providing offshore data hosting beyond the reach of any jurisdiction. HavenCo joined the dotcom boom with angel investment from Joi Ito (among others), who declared himself, still in 2002, “a great fan of the concept.” Sealand’s fragile sense of half-tested nationhood would theoretically raise the bar for any opposing jurisdiction to physically invade the offshore host. It would, indeed, demonstrate that cyberlibertarian ideology could take full control of an experimental country, and reform the internet in its name.

The WikiLeaks Spinoff That Wasn't: An Exclusive Excerpt From This Machine Kills Secrets

The End of Cryptanalysis?

Reshuffle at the CCC: Müller-Maguhn no longer on the board

Chaos Computer Club analyzes government malware

Freedom of Information Act Appeal

Inside the secret world of hackers

The Conversation - Cracking bin Laden’s computer code: unlikely

Assuming bin Laden’s files are indeed encrypted using AES-256, the only way I can see to break the encryption would be to use a painstaking “brute force” technique.

This would involve trying all of the 2²⁵⁶ possible encryption keys. This works out at 1.16x10⁷⁷ different codes to try (the number one with 77 zeroes after it).

This process would require hundreds of thousands of specially-built machines, the likes of which do not currently exist. Even if they did, we would need many, many times the length of the universe’s lifespan to carry out the search.

In other words, it’s not going to happen.

NewScientist - US seizes Osama bin Laden's hard drives

The US Navy SEAL team that found and killed Osama bin Laden on Sunday have recovered a number of computer drives and disks, dubbed "the mother lode of intelligence" by one US official speaking to Politico.com. Intelligence operatives are now apparently sorting through the digital haul, but what might they find?

It all depends on whether or not bin Laden's data is encrypted, as modern encryption techniques are mathematically uncrackable if used correctly. Data encoded using the AES-256 encryption scheme would take longer than the age of the universe to crack, which is why the US National Security Agency (NSA) endorses it for protecting documents classified "Top Secret".

We don't know whether bin Laden or other al-Qaeda members used AES-256, but it's certainly possible. Last year the organisation supposedly published a magazine called Inspire that contained an article on using a piece of encryption software known as Asrar al-Mujahideen 2.0, which uses AES-256 along with other encryption methods.