Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: ruby123 on September 30, 2013, 04:07 pm

Title: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: ruby123 on September 30, 2013, 04:07 pm
John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA

By Tracey Kaplan

tkaplan@mercurynews.com

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_24198989/john-mcafee-reveals-details-gadget-thwart-nsa

SAN JOSE -- John McAfee lived up to his reputation Saturday as tech's most popular wild child, electrifying an audience with new details of his plan to thwart the NSA's surveillance of ordinary Americans with an inexpensive, pocket-size gadget.

Dubbed "Decentral," the as-yet-unbuilt device will cost less than $100, McAfee promised the enthusiastic crowd of about 300 engineers, musicians and artists at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

"There will be no way (for the government) to tell who you are or where you are," he said in an onstage interview with moderator Dan Holden at the inaugural C2SV Technology Conference + Music Festival.

And if the U.S. government bans its sale, "I'll sell it in England,
Japan, the Third World. This is coming and cannot be stopped."

The ambitious -- some would say quixotic -- project is the latest chapter of McAfee's colorful life.

The anti-virus software pioneer's antics have included his widely publicized flight last year from Belize, where he remains wanted as a "person of interest" in the shooting death of his neighbor.

Even so, he remains an icon in the annals of Silicon Valley's history of entrepreneurship. In 1989, he founded the anti-virus software company that still bears his name and once was worth $100 million. In 1994, he ended his relationship with the company and moved to Colorado.

During the interview, the 68-year-old with spiky black hair tipped blond, who wore light blue cargo pants and a black sweatshirt, remarked on a wide range of topics, from how quickly he gets bored once one of his creations comes to fruition (including the software security company he founded) to how yoga helped him 30 years ago to quit using drugs, including his favorite (psychedelic mushrooms).

It was a talk bound to appeal to the young audience, which broke into frequent applause. Among the group was his new 30-year-old wife, Janice Dyson. She said in a brief interview
afterward with this newspaper that she is a former stripper. The couple met in Miami, where McAfee went after being deported from Guatemala.

"I keep him grounded," she said.

McAfee outlined what some might regard as a pie-in-the-sky plan to finish the first prototype of the Decentral in six months. He said the gadget is called Decentral because by communicating with smartphones, tablets and other devices, it will create decentralized, floating and moving local networks that can't be penetrated by government spy agencies.

The design is in place already for a version whose range will be three blocks in the city and a quarter mile in the country, he said. The device will be compatible with both Android and iPhones.

As far as consumers' appetite for such a gizmo, he said, "I cannot imagine one college student in the world who will not stand in line to get one."

Commuters will also find it useful, he said. Neighborhoods will be better able to fight crime because Decentral will include an option that sends an alert if there is a burglary or other crime.

McAfee said the idea for the device came to him well before computer analyst and whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked National Security Agency documents that exposed widespread monitoring of U.S. citizens' phone calls and Internet communications.

But with Snowden's actions, "it became the right time" to make it real, he said.

At the end of the 75-minute discussion, McAfee gamely took questions from the audience about everything from what advice he'd give teens (do what you love) to what he fears (his wife, he joked). In response to a question about marijuana, he made clear he doesn't embrace every aspect of the youth culture.

He said he liked pot users when he sold drugs decades ago because their "lives never go anywhere and they remain customers," adding, "Marijuana is a drug of illusion -- it creates the illusion that you're doing great things when all you're doing is sitting on the sofa growing a beard."

McAfee also reiterated that he never killed anyone in Belize and fled after angering the authorities by refusing to pay a $2 million bribe.

There seemed to be intense interest Saturday in McAfee's
current plans. One man asked whether Decentral essentially creates a "dark Web," or part of the Internet that can no longer be accessed by conventional means.

Yes, he said.

Will the privacy it affords allow criminals and others to evade the authorities, another wanted to know.

"It will of course be used for nefarious purposes," he said, "just like the telephone is."
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: ruby123 on September 30, 2013, 04:08 pm
Very curious about what others' opinion is on this alleged device.
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: ECC_ROT13 on September 30, 2013, 05:49 pm
I'd love to see it if it's ever actually shipped.  I'm skeptical it'll ever actually be released.  Funny how these announcements are always really light on specific details.

I'm chalking it up to "John McAfee is still batshit crazy and he's starved for attention" until I see an actual detailed explanation/description of the technology.

I like how he says it's apparently capable of communicating with all kinds of devices, but can't be penetrated by government spy agencies.  It's really hard to build connections with strangers, then make sure those strangers aren't government spy agencies.  Maybe it asks them before it lets them join, "Are you a spy agency?".  If it doesn't make connections with strangers, it's really hard to be anonymous using it.  Just splitting my personal traffic over my home Internet, my smartphone, and my tablet doesn't exactly solve any problems.   

The part about it "including an option that sends an alert if there is a burglary or other crime" is just baffling.  Hopefully I'm misunderstanding, because if my "anonymity technology" can geolocate me and call the police, I think it's time for me to get a new anonymity technology.
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: BTC4CASH UK on September 30, 2013, 06:36 pm
I'd like it to be true, and would also like to see the technology behind it. It could be a godsend for some if it is released...... IF

Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: comsec on October 01, 2013, 02:08 am
Sounds like an ad-hoc wireless network so you can build a community network like the Athens community network. Rangzen also does this but using a sort of Nightweb blogging application https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/circumventing_c.html
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: Scot Walker on October 01, 2013, 02:56 am
I was just coming on here to post about this! I can't wait, almost sounds like a mini Tor network. Now, the big question is, if he is successful, will the good 'ol U.S. Government allow it to be sold in the USA?
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: BTC4CASH UK on October 01, 2013, 10:27 am
If not I'm sure a few vendors on here will sell it successfully.
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: Baraka on October 02, 2013, 05:20 am
Exactly. The Decentral device will be banned before it's ever produced. Count on it. But it WILL be produced. Count on that too. That means we here on SR will be some of the first people to acquire Decentral devices. And yes they'll change the world empowering the individual over the armed gangs of government.

If not I'm sure a few vendors on here will sell it successfully.
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: skeletid on October 02, 2013, 06:49 am
I've heard it operates through a Shadow Proxy which runs off an ad-hoc MDPV network.
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: Bazille on October 02, 2013, 11:53 am
Exactly. The Decentral device will be banned before it's ever produced. Count on it. But it WILL be produced. Count on that too. That means we here on SR will be some of the first people to acquire Decentral devices. And yes they'll change the world empowering the individual over the armed gangs of government.

Doubtful that it will get banned. Meshnets like this device creates already exist in various places in the world, most likely in the USA too.
This device will just make it easier to set up a meshnet. Which is a great idea. The easier it is to use, the more people will use it, e.g. for filesharing at school/campus. When more people use it then even more people will have a reason to buy one. Maybe in 10 years meshnets will be normal in many neighbourhoods.
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: citizen erased on October 02, 2013, 12:15 pm
Call me skeptical but I'd find it very hard to trust unless the software behind was open source.

Anything promoting this sort of technology will get demonized (if not banned) by all governments.
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: queryox on October 02, 2013, 01:49 pm
Un-Security related, but McAfee related.

This is this thread with 34 pages under the pseudonyme "Stuffmonger" on the popular drugs Forum bluelight.

Its actually a pretty fun and good read if you have some spare time on your hands, and with MDPV. He basically starts out with a few chemistry related questions, then further in starts posting pictures of his "Jungle Laboratory", then large quantities of Legal Highs / MDPV.

I still think hes a bit of a bastard, after all the responses we gave him and tried to help on his thread, he came out in the news after it went public he was actually Stuffmonger that it was all just a joke and he was simply "doing it for a bet", bad man lying like that! I suppose he needed to regain some of his public image though so whatever, read on though. :D

Clearnet.
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/541627-Hello-and-an-MDPV-Question

Quote
I think it's the finest drug evere conceived, not just for the indescribable hypersexuality, but also for the smooth euphoria and mild comedown.

Also suggests he was using MDPV pre 2006, living in the jungle taking shit loads of MDPV and having MDPV addled sex with extremely hot young belezian girls, why not. :D
Title: Re: John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA
Post by: railroadbill on October 02, 2013, 03:27 pm
Hmm...So he's saying that ad-hoc networks are immune to a network level spy because the communications dont reach the network? Id have to see the whitepaper on this, it has to touch the network somewhere or else it becomes a very tiny intranet.