Mixter

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Mixter is a computer security specialist. Mixter first made the transition out of the computer underground into large-scale public awareness, in 2000, at which time newspapers and magazines worldwide mentioned a link to massively destructive and effective distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks which crippled and shut down major websites (including Yahoo!, Buy.com, eBay, Amazon, E-Trade, MSN.com, Dell, ZDNet and CNN). [1] Early reports stated that the FBI-led National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) was questioning Mixter regarding a tool called Stacheldraht (Barbed Wire). [1] Although Mixter himself was not a suspect, his tool, the Tribe Flood Network (TFN) and an update called TFN2K were ultimately discovered as being the ones used in the attacks, causing an estimated $1.7 billion USD in damages. [2] [3] [4] [5]

In 2002 Mixter returned to the public eye, as the author of Hacktivismo's Six/Four System. The Six/Four System is a censorship resistant network proxy. It works by using "trusted peers" to relay network connections over SSL encrypted links. [6] [7] [8] [9] As an example, the distribution includes a program which will act as a web proxy, but all of the connections will be hidden until they reach the far end trusted peer. [10]

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References

  1. 1 2 "Hacker inquiry leads to Germany", BBC News Online , February 13, 2000.
  2. The "Tribe Flood Network" distributed denial of service attack tool, An Analysis David Dittrich, University of Washington, 1999
  3. Lemos, Robert. "Author of Web Attack Tool speaks Archived 2007-08-11 at archive.today ", ZDNet news, February 9, 2000.
  4. Wallack, Todd. "Probe Focuses on Prime Hacking Suspects - Investigation hampered by bogus attack bragging," San Francisco Chronicle , February 15, 2000.
  5. "'Mafiaboy' hacker jailed", BBC news, September 13, 2001.
  6. Schachtman, Noah. "A New Code for Anonymous Web Use," Wired online, July 12, 2000.
  7. "Hackers release software to battle censorship," Houston Chronicle /Reuters, July 15, 2002.
  8. "Hackers Take Aim" CBS News , July 15, 2002.
  9. Mixter. "Six/Four System Protocol Specs," 2003. mixter@hacktivismo.com.
  10. Mixter. "The Six/Four System; A Decentralized Anonymous Peer-To-Peer Network Infrastructure With Trust," README file in Six/Four distribution, 2003.