About computer networks

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damidu
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Joined: 03/30/2021

Hi,

I've started to study computer networking. And I've "discovered" that computer networks and the internet were not built with "anonymity" in mind. On a local area network, network administrator can find you with your mac address and can find witch computers you use based on your network traffic.

You need to change your mac address and encrypt every things.

From my point of vue, the interet was not built, from the begining, to be "anonymous". Networks operator/administrator have all the rights with the network.

damidu
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Joined: 03/30/2021

It's a "non free" article but I have found something.

https://pentestmag.com/online-privacy-is-a-myth/

Yeah and there are a lot of people who are using "GNU/Linux" (or FreeBSD) because they don't want to be spyed and use the "web" to go to wikipedia... That's a myth. You create traffic that can be monitored. ISP have full power and right on their equipments. (And of course, it's "linux" based...)

damidu
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Joined: 03/30/2021

I'm asking myself why people speak a LOT about networking.

It's just signals on a media, medium?.

Why care about ethernet?
Why care about tcp/ip?

Why care about american? It's just signal. People fight for "who control signals".

I don't want to use internet anymore. It's completely useless.

JC8
JC8
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Joined: 12/29/2020

Computer networks were made to exchange data between computers, and it works great for that purpose, it's the best way to distribute all sorts of digital media, be software, music, movies, etc. You can acquire some level of anonymity when connecting to some servers if you use the Tor network, and VPNs for secure connections to avoid ISPs and other third parties knowing what you're doing, the network traffic on a LAN level should be no issue if everything goes through HTTPS, that network traffic is all encrypted nowadays and network sniffers like Wireshark cannot read the content of those packages.

The real issue is that bigtech brainwashed most of the world and has normalized sharing personal information over inet through social media and other shitty pseudo-services, most people is using internet wrong... "Cyberbullying"? "Cancel culture"? "Harassment"? All of that is something that big tech has encouraged to happen because they say sharing your real name, relatives, relationships, real home address, etc is totally safe and there are no consequences, when it's obviously not like that, the best way to stop "cyberbullying" and doxxing is to teach people what is reasonable to share and what isn't. If you use it right, the worst thing that can happen is that you have to delete accounts and start over if someone tries to "cancel" you.

libredrs

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Joined: 01/29/2012

"The real issue is that bigtech brainwashed most of the world and has normalized sharing personal information over inet through social media and other shitty pseudo-services, most people is using internet wrong... "Cyberbullying"? "Cancel culture"? "Harassment"?"

People have always used available information technologies (books, newspapers, radio, TV, BBS, Internet etc.) to seek attention (e.g., share personal information). Obviously, today's information appliances allow far more people to seek and receive attention they crave.

damidu
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Joined: 03/30/2021

"Computer networks were made to exchange data between computers"

You are right. I think, I could be wrong but it was for sharing "non classified" data. The network technology is open in every sence. You can read the specification on how it works, rfc. By default it is NOT secure. You can log/watch network traffic. You can encrypt but.... I think they can decrypt with computing power (ex, a data center... or two, or three)!

I don't really understand the "privacy" word with a PUBLIC technology. Your ISP can watch all what you do with the network.

Yes, people are brainwashed with "privacy", "cybersecurity", "virus", "the internet", ...

Magic Banana

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I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/24/2010

I think they can decrypt with computing power (ex, a data center... or two, or three)!

They cannot, if modern strong encryption techniques are used.

Avron

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Joined: 08/18/2020

> They cannot, if modern strong encryption techniques are used.

I guess one needs the right technique, the right implementation, both source and destination should use it, and correctly.

I assume https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org is trying to promote one such way but unfortunately, it remains not that common. I have configured that with seahorse and evolution but I haven't convinced any of my personal contacts to do the same yet (whether with Thunderbird or any other email client).

I have never seen anyone seriously concerned about privacy but I have seen the case of people surprised when I told them the source address wasn't reliable and they should not trust an email is from the indicated address. However, I am not sure GPG signatures would help: the issue I have most commonly seen is people whose mailbox password was stolen, so their mailbox was used to send fake emails to their contacts, e.g. asking for money, but I am afraid these people did such basic mistakes that they would be unable to use signatures properly or would get their private key stolen as well.

I welcome any alternative idea or suggestion to make this work better.

Otherwise, for instant messaging with XMPP, OMEMO is much easier but in most XMPP clients, fingerprint verification is well hidden from users.