- Sunday, 22 November 2009
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They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist... - General John Sedgwick
HP builds darknet
TWO HP INSECURITY experts are planning to tell the Black Hat USA 2009 security conference next week about their plans to build a browser-based darknet.
Darknets are overt, private computer networks used for ultra-secure communications and file sharing.
Billy Hoffman, manager of HP's web security group, and Matt Wood, senior security researcher at HP, have been using the new generation of JavaScript engines in Chrome's V8 and Firefox's TraceMonkey to carry out the encryption necessary to make a darknet work easily.
Apparently they have developed a prototype browser-based darknet called Veiled as proof of concept.
Information Week said that the pair don't intend to release the software or make the source code available.
The goal of their presentation is to show how capable the web browser has become as an application platform and to discuss the technical challenges they had to overcome to make their prototype.
The HP pair say that by using such tools it is a lot easier for people to create darknets. Since most people don't need to be that mysterious, we guess that means criminals, terrorists, spooks, investment bankers, governments, marketeers and other evil-doers will be able to use the technology.
Wood's system uses the server as a router. Veiled merges servers together so that clients on different servers can communicate directly.
Veiled shouldn't be seen as a replacement for an anonymity tool like Tor, said Wood. But it will help those wanting to create communities quickly and take them down quickly, he added. µ
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"Darknets are overt, private computer networks used for ultra-secure communications and file sharing."
I wish them luck with that .... but would suggest that it is never going to work for information that clients need to be hidden and exclusive, and therefore ultra-secure is not virtually possible. Ultra-obscure though, is something completely different and much more effective?
But the browser idea is not novel, being a well betatested model ...... and there's a novel Quantum Communications BetaTest of Security Systems using the simple browser on your sister mag, the Register, this morning, although it has not yet appeared as a comment on .... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/22/britain_tech_jobs_boost/
No matter, it is easily browsed here ..... http://amanfrommars.baywords.com/2009/07/22/090722-from-russia-with-loveto-russia-for-love/
"criminals, terrorists, spooks, investment bankers, governments, marketeers and other evil-doers"
Hear, hear!
But let's not forget IT companies: Microsoft, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel...
And it will take a quad core and still run like an 8088....
Please.. .A secure network does:
1) not hooked up to the WWW
2) not use IP as its protocol
3) not include unknown users
4) not accept outside non-secure media
Anything else is just more whacking off...
"All computers which are connected to the internet are susceptible to infiltration and remote control. Computers which operate on a closed network may also be compromised by various hacker methods, such as privilege escalation, roaming notebooks, wireless access points, embedded exploits in software and hardware, and maintenance entry points." ..... from the Executive Summary of "Hacking Nuclear Command and Control" by Jason Fritz BS (St. Cloud), MIR (Bond)
And aint that the truth.