wampum.wabanaki.net

The purpose is to discuss the need for an antitrust or competition policy for the IETF. If the consensus is to create one, then the content of that policy will be discussed as well.

It used to be that just moving a multi-vendor activity to the IETF was sufficient to immunize the parties from Sherman Act liabilities. Perhaps this is no longer sufficient, though given the absence of prosecution(s) by the US Department of Justice, the source of liability may be in a jurisdiction other than the United States.

In the last primary cycle the Obots ran with scissors to the tune that any criticism of their guy was racist and made by racists.

In the current primary cycle Meg Carpentier is arguing that concerns about militarism (a third war in a decade is possible) and continuation of {infinite detention, pervasive wiretap, ...} may only be properly brought by those directly affected, and any who view these as central to the general election test are ... bi-fringe kooks.

Hmm. So only soldiers vote on wars, and only Communists, Made Men and Union organizers vote on 4th Amendment breeches. How ... unusual.

While the price of memory (cache, primary, and secondary), processing, and bandwidths (intra-system fabric and inter-system connect) follow Moore's Law's curve downwards, the Internet Society (ISOC), through its contractual entity, the Public Interest Registry (PIR) will increase it's prices on July 1st by 0.49 USD per domain per year. This follows Verisign's increase in it's .com and .net prices on January 1, 2012 by 0.51USD for .com and 0.46 USD for .net.

These increases in "consumer protection price caps" were approved by the ICANN Board, creating an additional $50m in profit (there are no increased costs, in fact, per-unit registry costs are declining, per Moore, so the profit is understated) for the incumbent for-profit monopoly operator Verisign, and the sole entity (ISOC+Afilias) to which ICANN has made a redelegation as a result of an open, competitive, bidding for renewal of a USG originated government interest contract.

Find any "public interest" in padding the tab, one hundred million times, each year, for as long as this network and its current resources to names mechanism lasts?

Reporters sans frontières Pays sous surveillance -- Bélarus

Hurricane Electric bgp.he.net

Mail addressed to "loyal Stratfor clients" (I'm on some I-once-filled-out-a-form-@-stratfor list) offering all their premium content for free, meanwhile they're "working to get our website secure and back up and running again".

The hoot was this line:
We would like to hear from our loyal client base as to our handling of the recent intrusion by those deranged, sexually deviant criminal hacker terrorist masterminds.

My assumption is that the mail is forged, as it appears deranged.

Something slightly more interesting than the usual "Microsoft fails again" from US-CERT. The alert identifier is: TA12-006A

Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) Vulnerable to Brute-Force Attack

Systems Affected: Most Wi-Fi access points that support Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) are affected.

Overview: Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) provides simplified mechanisms to configure secure wireless networks. The external registrar PIN exchange mechanism is susceptible to brute force attacks that could allow an attacker to gain access to an encrypted Wi-Fi network.

1. Description -- WPS uses a PIN as a shared secret to authenticate an access point and a client and provide connection information such as WEP and WPA passwords and keys. In the external registrar exchange method, a client needs to provide the correct PIN to the access point.

   An attacking client can try to guess the correct PIN. A design vulnerability reduces the effective PIN space sufficiently to allow practical brute force attacks. Freely available attack tools can recover a WPS PIN in 4-10 hours.

   For further details, please see Vulnerability Note VU#723755 and further documentation by Stefan Viehbock and Tactical Network Solutions.

2. Impact -- An attacker within radio range can brute-force the WPS PIN for a vulnerable access point. The attacker can then obtain WEP or WPA passwords and likely gain access to the Wi-Fi network. Once on the network, the attacker can monitor traffic and mount further attacks.
3. Solution
   • Update Firmware -- Check your access point vendor's support website for updated firmware that addresses this vulnerability. Further information may be available in the Vendor Information section of VU#723755 and in a Google spreadsheet called WPS Vulnerability Testing.
   • Disable WPS -- Depending on the access point, it may be possible to disable WPS. Note that some access points may not actually disable WPS when the web management interface indicates that WPS is disabled.
4. References
   • Vulnerability Note VU#723755
   • Wi-Fi Protected Setup PIN brute force vulnerability
   • Cracking WiFi Protected Setup with Reaver
   • WPS Vulnerability Testing

   The most recent version of the US-CERT announcement is here.

1. There will be at least one militarist on the November general election ballot, at top-of-ticket.

That's pretty certain.

2. ICANN's Board will select yet another stuffed shirt for CEO.

Seems likely, the job description contains far too much fluff, and the selection process has been outsourced to a UK firm that trades on promoting wankers.

3. One of the FTC or ICANN will be "realigned".

That's the "iffy" bit.

Announced on DPRK state television.

A birthday ... present. The FTC wrote Steve Crocker and Rod Beckstrom. In a nutshell, the no-policy-but-cash framework that has been ICANN's registry policy since the 2004 round does not amuse.

Link or upload when I've a spare moment.