| ricardo dominguez on 18 Jan 2001 15:34:13 -0000 |
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| <nettime> Zapatista Tribal Port Scan (ZTPS): A Demonstration Tool |
Zapatista Tribal Port Scan (ZTPS): A Demonstration Tool By Electronic Disturbance Theater Chiapas, Mexico - January 3rd, 2000 - the Zapatista Air Force "bombarded" the federal barracks of the Mexican Army with hundreds of paper airplanes. Each airplane carried a message for the soldiers monitoring the border. In remembrance of this event the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) releases a digital translation of the Zapatista Air Force Action: the Zapatista Tribal Port Scan. To down load ZTPS Demonstration Kit: http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html ZTPS Against Bush. For those who want to participate in the Anti-Bush actions on-line on January 20, 2001. http://www.thing.net/~beestal/ztps.sit *zapatista tribal port scan source code was distributed by EDT on Jan. 3, 2001 and can be found at: http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html In Solidarity with the Zapatistas� Paper Airplane Action. [[About the Zapatista Tribal Port Scan (ZTPS)]]: What is a port? A port is an abstraction for the connection points used for network services, such as e-mail and the WWW. Every computer connected to the Internet has 65536 ports through which other computers on the net might establish socket connections. Common services such as http (the web) and e-mail are implemented as socket connections, using standard ports such as 80 (http), and 25 (smtp). What is a port scan? It is possible, actually common, to attempt to make a socket connections on a server's multitude of ports in order to determine what services reside on that machine. Why scan ports? Port scans should be non-controversial. If your machine is connected to the Internet, you are exposing all of your ports, and you should expect connection attempts on any of them. Because a port scan is sometimes, very rarely, a prelude to hacking attempts, many system administrators mistakenly classify the port scan itself as a hostile act. But just because a port scan may on rare occasions reveal an exploitable weakness, it is not the same as actually exploiting the weakness. It is no different in principle from counting the windows and doors of a secure building from a public sidewalk. If a machine is on the public Internet, the ports are visible from that public sidewalk. It is the responsibility of building security to evaluate any threat; no law can be passed against looking. (Except under fascism, of course.) Who is paranoid about their ports? Typically it is the most powerful who can afford the high cost of total paranoia. Some systems utilize sophisticated security software that reports on every attempted connection, or warns administrators about large numbers of unusual connection attempts. From this you may draw your own conclusions about exactly whose machines and people are likely to pay attention to the kind of tribal scan that ZTPS performs. What is Tribal? Tribal is a term that refers to the use of more than one computer (their different network identities), to distribute the work. The Zapatista Tribal Port Scan uses the Java Virtual Machine available in all standard web browsers to implement the port scan. The participating user simply visits the web site URL of a ZTPS implementation, and the scanning begins. Designed to be opened in a smallish browser window and minimized for all day scanning at home, work, or school, the ZTPS applet will scan a random port on a particular machine (chosen by the implementers posting the ZTPS site), from once per minute to once per hour, selectable by the user. Using both TCP and UDP socket connections, ZTPS may be configured to randomly select from an implementer selected list of text messages, some of which may be logged by targeted machines. (Messages flying over the fence.) A download button in the applet interface makes it easy for users to download ready-to-implement software, and full source code for their own purposes. ZTPS effectiveness improves with the number of participating user/activists, so collective participation, as always, is very important. Why a Zapatista Port Scan? The Zapatista's are winning the war. Their intelligent and calculated application of the responsibility to risk, their creativity and conceptual edge in terms of activism, and their commitment to provocative transgressions that turn the opposition's borders into Zapatista assets, all point toward port scanning as an activist tool, and conceptual art. (Remember that Subcomandante Marcos was a Professor of Digital Media ;-) EDT freely offers ZTPS to the community of net activists and artists with a few requests. Please improve, mutate, grow and spread the code. Please also think of the system administrators who will pick up your packet airplanes when they land in the security logs on the other side of the fence;-) P.S. On December 2, 2000, subcomandante Marcos announced that the central command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) will travel to Mexico City in February, to lobby for passage of the San Andres Accords. For Marcos and the Zapatista leadership, this will be their first public appearance outside of Chiapas since their uprising began in 1994. In announcing their historic trip to Mexico City, Marcos has invited the accompaniment of national and international civil society to join the Zapatistas from February 24 to March 10. The trip to Mexico City will start in San Crist�bal de Las Casas, Chiapas, on February 24 and end in Mexico City on March 6. The Electronic Disturbance Theater will join the procession - we invite all of you to join also. Zapatista March 2001 http://www.ezlnaldf.org Zapatistas http://www.ezln.org ***[[Message EZLN Sideload]]*** Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Mexico. January 12, 2001. To Civil Society: Madame: I am writing to you while it is raining and we are waiting here for the return of the companeros and companeras who went to the march in San Cristobal de Las Casas. In a manner which is not customary for us, we are trying to keep you informed as to how things are going here through letters like this. The Zapatista Information Center's mailbox has been quickly filling, being emptied, and filling up again. Greetings and mobilization proposals from various states in the Republic are arriving. In the D.F., for example, a very detailed proposal came from U.A.M. which, however, presents serious inconveniences. For example, they invite us to dine, but how are we going to eat with our ski-masks on? Ah, really? So the promises about improving the menu are of no use if, whenever they want, we're going to end up being fed intravenously. In Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, they were handing out flyers in the streets today, and in Tijuana, B.C., they held a rally. From Guanajuato, Morelos, Oaxaca, Puebla and Hidalgo, they are asking us for the dates and our itinerary in their states. Fine, we're going to make this public when we have it ready. Don't worry, and have the parties ready. On the international level, the influx is no less: a delegation of Italians, between 200 and 300 persons, confirmed that they will be arriving in Mexico in February, and they'll be prepared for being expelled. From San Francisco, California, U.S., they are advising us they will be coming to accompany the delegation, and they will be informing the "Frisco" community of everything that happens along the route and during the stay in the D.F. From Switzerland, they have confirmed the attendance of a delegation. We are being advised of the same from Argentina and France. In the State of Spain, they don't stop. In addition to hanging from towers and mountains, they are going to set out (they don't say by what means, but I imagine it won't be walking) to throw themselves into the entire route. Something verrry important: accommodations. And I'm not referring to the accommodations for the zapatista delegation, but those for all the people who, from the states of the Republic and from other parts of the world, are going to participate in the march along with us. An idea: that organizations and groups which can offer places to put people up please advise the Zapatista Information Center, and the "pilgrims" can then be informed. Concerning the technological breakthroughs, I am informing you that the Web page is now functioning. The address is: http://www.ezlnaldf.org I am taking the opportunity to make a request of all the web pages that already exist, or which refer to the zapatones and their movement: please put in a "link" or "pass", or whatever it's called, so that those visiting your pages can also have access to the one about the current mobilization. We also have our e-mail address now. The address is: [email protected] Good, that's how things are up to now. We'll be passing along more information to you in the next one. Vale. Salud, and may peace come soon dot com. >From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast. Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. Mexico, January of 2001. http://www.ezlnaldf.org ******** To down load ZTPS Disturbance Kit: http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html ZTPS Against Bush. For those who want to participate in the Anti-Bush actions on-line on January 20, 2001. http://www.thing.net/~beestal/ztps.sit # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]