Little Brother

public.
    > Within days of the Xnet launch, we went to work on exploiting ParanoidLinux. The exploits so far have been small and insubstantial, but a break is inevitable. Once we have a zero-day break, you're dead.
    > I think it's safe to say that if my handlers knew that I was typing this, my ass would be stuck in Gitmo-by-the-Bay until I was an old woman.
    > Even if they don't break ParanoidLinux, there are poisoned ParanoidXbox distros floating around. They don't match the checksums, but how many people look at the checksums? Besides me and you? Plenty of kids are already dead, though they don't know it.
    > All that remains is for my handlers to figure out the best time to bust you to make the biggest impact in the media. That time will be sooner, not later. Believe.
    > You're probably wondering why I'm telling you this.
    > I am too.
    > Here's where I come from. I signed up to fight terrorists. Instead, I'm spying on Americans who believe things that the DHS doesn't like. Not people who plan on blowing up bridges, but protestors. I can't do it anymore.
    > But neither can you, whether or not you know it. Like I say, it's only a matter of time until you're in chains on Treasure Island. That's not if, that's when.
    > So I'm through here. Down in Los Angeles, there are some people. They say they can keep me safe if I want to get out.
    > I want to get out.
    > I will take you with me, if you want to come. Better to be a fighter than a martyr. If you come with me, we can figure out how to win together. I'm as smart as you. Believe.
    > What do you say?
    > Here's my public key.
    > Masha

    When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
    Ever hear that rhyme? It's not good advice, but at least it's easy to follow. I leapt off the bed and paced back and forth. My heart thudded and my blood sang in a cruel parody of the way I'd felt when we got home. This wasn't sexual excitement, it was raw terror.
    "What?" Ange said. "What?"
    I pointed at the screen on my side of the bed. She rolled over and grabbed my keyboard and scribed on the touchpad with her fingertip. She read in silence.
    I paced.
    "This has to be lies," she said. "The DHS is playing games with your head."
    I looked at her. She was biting her lip. She didn't look like she believed it.
    "You think?"
    "Sure. They can't beat you, so they're coming after you using Xnet."
    "Yeah."
    I sat back down on the bed. I was breathing fast again.
    "Chill out," she said. "It's just head-games. Here."
    She never took my keyboard from me before, but now there was a new intimacy between us. She hit reply and typed,
    > Nice try.
    She was writing as M1k3y now, too. We were together in a way that was different from before.
    "Go ahead and sign it. We'll see what she says."
    I didn't know if that was the best idea, but I didn't have any better ones. I signed it and encrypted it with my private key and the public key Masha had provided.
    The reply was instant.
    > I thought you'd say something like that.
    > Here's a hack you haven't thought of. I can anonymously tunnel video over DNS. Here are some links to clips you might want to look at before you decide I'm full of it. These people are all recording each other, all the time, as insurance against a back-stab. It's pretty easy to snoop off them as they snoop on each other.
    > Masha
    Attached was source-code for a little program that appeared to do exactly what Masha claimed: pull video over the Domain Name Service protocol.
    Let me back up a moment here and explain something. At the end of the day, every Internet protocol is just a sequence of text sent back and forth in a proscribed order. It's kind of like getting a truck and putting a car in it, then putting a motorcycle in the car's trunk, then attaching a bicycle to the back of the motorcycle, then hanging a pair of Rollerblades on the back of the bike. Except that then, if you want, you can attach the truck to the Rollerblades.
    For example, take Simple Mail Transport Protocol, or SMTP, which is used for sending email.
    Here's a sample conversation between me and my mail server, sending a message to myself:
    > HELO littlebrother.com.se
    250 mail.pirateparty.org.se Hello mail.pirateparty.org.se, pleased to meet you
    > MAIL FROM:[email protected]
    250 2.1.0 [email protected]... Sender ok
    > RCPT TO:[email protected]
    250 2.1.5 [email protected]... Recipient ok
    > DATA
    354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
    > When in trouble