[1]COMMENT: This post follows up several overlapping paths of inquiry explored in recent For The Record programs. In FTR #760 [2], we highlighted apparent BND, Underground Reich elements involved with the bitcoin online currency. In FTR #‘s 758 [3], 759 [4], we looked at the anti-democratic, pro-monarchist philsophy of Hans-Hermann Hoppe [5], a devotee of the Ludwig von Mises [6] school of economic and social theory and a student of Juergen Habermas. Habermas was examned at length in FTR #757 [7].
One of the most visible supporters of bitcoin is a “techno-libertarian” named Cody R. Wilson [8], whom we examined in FTR #760 [2]. Wilson, not surprisingly, is a devotee of Hans Hermann-Hoppe and an active opponent of democracy.
Bitcoin users have used the Tor network for many of their activities. Now, a researcher with the Max Planck Institute [9] is looking to develop an internet network [10]that wil be impervious to penetration. (Habermas was director of the Max Planck Institute [11] for 12 years.) One wonders if that is intended to facilitate secure movement of terrorist and/or covert operations monies for Underground Reich elements.
“All Markets Become Black” by Daniel Fellenstein and Cody R. Wilson; Blink; 12/27/2012. [12]
EXCERPT: . . . . According to your profile on defense dist. you’re “a student of Bastiat, Hoppe, and Anthony de Jasay”. Could you go over your philosophical basics before we dive into the project? How much of a state would you accept in your life?. . .
. . . . I am but a conduit for ideology. Modern neoliberal democracy is a crumbling idol. The God has failed, to invoke Hoppe. . . .
EXCERPT: . . . . This month’s reports, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, didn’t say whether the NSA was doing so. But a 2012 presentation [13] marked as based on material from 2007, released by the Guardian, and a 2006 NSA research report [14] on Tor, released by the Washington Postdid mention such techniques.
Stevens Le Blond [15], a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Kaiserslautern, Germany, guesses that by now the NSA and equivalent agencies likely could use traffic correlation should they want to. “Since 2006, the academic community has done much work on traffic analysis and has developed attacks that are much more sophisticated than the ones described in this report.” Le Blond calls the potential for attacks like those detailed by Johnson “a big issue.”
Le Blond is working on the design of an alternative anonymity network called Aqua [16], designed to protect against traffic correlation. Traffic entering and exiting an Aqua network is made to be indistinguishable through a mixture of careful timing, and blending in some fake traffic. However, Aqua’s design is yet to be implemented in usable software and can so far only protect file sharing rather than all types of Internet usage. . . . .