Some tools to overthrow the Empire

Submitted by tim ribaric on Thu, 12/09/2010 - 11:38

I've been extra paranoid these days. The embroilment around WikiLeaks and Jullian Assange has made me reach for the foil hat more often that I would care to admit. Unknown organizations are watching your movements on the Internet, and big business is colluding to stop payments to people that irk the system. *Cough Cough* Paypal...

The upswing is that the blog-o-verse is a flutter with news about subversive technologies that help you remain anonymous and to disrupt the system. Here's two that have been highlighted recently:

Tribler

Tribler is a truly distributed bit torrent client. It doesn't rely on a central server to keep track of torrent files but instead it keeps track via a peer to peer search/ranking system. So instead of relying on a centralized tracker to get information you ask peers for that information instead. Quick to the Cloud! So as long as some person has the software installed, and is sharing a torrent no amount of intervention or DNS shutdowns will stop it. Well deep packet inspection might slow things down, but in theory no. The FAQ explains it well. Here's how it looks:

The Home screen, nothing fancy but the Network Buzz is nice, reminds me of old Limewire.

You'll need to poke a hole in the firewall, this was the default it gave me.

Search for something *ahem* law-abiding.

It downloads without much fuss.

There eventually will be a version of the software for the three major operating systems but for right now the best way to get it on Ubuntu is to install it with Wine. (There was a repository for an older version of Ubuntu but I wanted the newest version of the software)

Perhaps what is most interesting is that Tribler has been developed using public funding as it is a project currently being put together by researchers at Delft University of Technology. You'll hear from people that Torrent technology is what is causing piracy to flourish, but that is like blaming automobile manufacturers for drunk driving.

LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon)

What is LOIC? Well think of it as the Force in young Anakin Skywalker (it could go either way) and most assuredly something I would *never* *ever* install. The idea intrigues me though. If you've ever wanted to be part of a bot-net and join in the questionable activities of a DDoS. This software package is for you. Put together by Anonymous with the sole purpose of turning your computer into a foot soldier in the ranks of 'Operation Payback' which is essentially a co-ordinated effort to flood organizations (think RIAA) that actively oppose and try to strong arm file sharing/peer to peer domains. No matter your thoughts on the subject it is interesting to see that people will voluntarily download the software and actually make use of it.

'Desperate times call for desperate measures?' -- Not sure really, but if you have the stomach for it you can install it using Wine.