WebScene Distro Greetings v3.0 by Vms Liberation Front
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2018 April 8
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$! 58 ADAWI . : FFS EA !$
$! 19 BLSS : SETPRV BYPASS CMKRNL DiAGNOSE READALL . INCL D6 !$
$! BC CHMK ^ VOLPRO iMPERSONATE SHARE WORLD UPGRADE v JSB 16 !$
$! B7 DECW | | LDPCTX 06 !$
$! -- - >--+----------------------------------------+--> -- - !$
$! 7A EMUL | | MATCHC 39 !$
$! EB FFC | .................................... | PROBER 0C !$
$! 0A INDEX | :__ __: __ : ______ : | REMQUE 0F !$
$! 17 JMP | :\$\ /$/: |@| : |&&&&&&| : | SVPCTX 07 !$
$! 3A LOCC | : \$\ /$/ : |@| : |&|____ : | TSTG 53FD !$
$! 2F MOVTUC | : \$\ /$/ : |@| : |&&&&&&| : | VGATHQ 37FD !$
$! 0D PROBEW | : \$\/$/ : |@|____ : |&| : | XORW3 AD !$
$! 02 REI | : \$$/ : |@@@@@@| : |&| : | ASHQ 79 !$
$! 2A SCANC | :............:..........:..........: | BGTRU 1A !$
$! 73FD TSTH | | CRC 0B !$
$! E9FD VSXORL | --:: THE VMS LiBERATiON FRONT ::-- | VSYNC A8FD !$
$! FC XFC | | CLRL D4 !$
$! 35FD VGATHL | +=================+ | MTVP A9FD !$
$! 60 ADDD2 | -- +| IN VMS WE TRUST |+ -- | SPANC 2B !$
$! DF PUSHAL | +=================+ | PUSHR BB !$
$! - -- <--+----------------------------------------+--< - -- !$
$! 03 BPT | | POPR BA !$
$! FA CALLG ^ THE VERNON PRESERVATiON UNDERGROUND v IOTA EDFD !$
$! 97 DECB . DEDiCATED TO PROJECT EMERALD : NOP 01 !$
$! 74FD EMODH : . HALT 00 !$
--:: PRESENTS ::--
$!-- VLF::SYS$GREETINGS:[WEBSCENE.DiSTRO] ----------------------------!$
Greets and chmod!
Team VLF thank very much the Administrators of the WebScene Distro
(ex 0777) for continuing to host us on their portal:
http://distro.webscene.ir/VLF/
It is both an honour and a privilege to remain on board, and it is most
appreciated.
We have been somewhat quiet in 2017, but we will carry on into 2018
and beyond.
Semper VMS!
Thank you.
Best regards,
Team VLF
2018-04-08
$!-- VLF::SYS$GROUP:[iNFO] -------------------------------------------!$
"They can't abide the cold steel, sir! no, sir! They don't like it up
'em."
-- Lance-Corporal Jack Jones (The local butcher), "Dad's Army," BBC TV
Subcommandante BYPASS ...... Reverse Code Engineer, Programmer
Subcommandante XDelta ...... Cheer Squad, Special Operations
http://www.jokeindex.com/joke.asp?Joke=2606
NB: We were aiming for a v1.0 Final release of this NFO and the VLF
MANiFESTO and ACTiViSM road-map, by 25.10 (2012), but health issues and
the vicissitudes of life decided otherwise; nil desperandum; per ardua
ad astra; nil illegitimus carborundum; Persta atque obdura.
$!-- VLF::SYS$GROUP:[MANiFESTO] --------------------------------------!$
--:: THE VMS LiBERATiON FRONT MANiFESTO ::--
<v1.0 FiNAL>
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That in VMS we trust.
That the VMS Operating System is part of the intellectual heritage and
conceptual literacy in the commonwealth of computer science, the most
immaculate, logical, systematic, disciplined, and literate culture and
'vade mecum' about how to go about the business of computing at every
level of operating system function, that has ever been designed,
devised and documented, it is a glory and testament to human ingenuity.
That the VMS Operating System mind-share, installation, third-party
developer and expertise ecologies should never be allowed to collapse
and die off or be inhibited from flourishing by the commercial
expediency of Hewlett Packard nor the ruthless self-interest of third
parties; that VMS will always be a viable Operating System culture for
current and future generations of humanity.
That the VMS Operating System should be simultaneously ported to all of
the Intel CPU architectures, both 32 and 64 bit, where all of the
Microsoft Windows New Technology series of Operating Systems are
manifest from the main-frame to the micro-computer and also ported to
the 32 and 64 bit ARM architectures.
That the VMS Operating System should become a hybrid commercial Open
Source Software system where Hewlett Packard generates income from
Service Level Agreements they can actually deliver on for Business
Critical Systems on certified hardware for enterprises, institutions
and governments and so that the research and development, the
evolution, of VMS can never ever again be suppressed or extinguished.
That neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night, nor the
machinations and the visionary mediocrity of the Hewlett Packard and
Microsoft corporations will stay our crackers and couriers from the
swift and sure completion of their self appointed tasks and duties.
$!-- VLF::SYS$GROUP:[NEWS] -------------------------------------------!$
The 35th Anniversary of the mighty VMS Operating System was on the
25th of October 2012.
The 35th Anniversary Count-down Timer:
http://is.gd/The_35th_Anniversary_Of_VMS
We recommended quaffing quality lagered products for the occasion;
sinking severally in celebration of the unstoppable, unsinkable,
unkillable, VMS!
We also recommend quaffing quality lagered products for the subsequent
Anniversaries of the mighty VMS operating system as well!
$!-- VLF::SYS$GREETiNGS:[SALUTATiONS] --------------------------------!$
No one currently, we, the DELTA:: node of the VLF, the Vernon
Preservation Underground, are out of left field and are sui generis.
You get that on the big jobs.
$!-- VLF::SYS$RESPECT:[DEDiCATiONS] ----------------------------------!$
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The work of the VMS Liberation Front is dedicated to the memory and the
completion and extension of "Project Emerald" and the preservation and
evolution of Vernon, the VMS mascot and totemic animal and all that he
represents.
http://www.vaxination.ca/vms/shark/history.html
Refresh your memories:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/20th/
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/20th/vmsbook.pdf
We also salute the memory of BiG KEN OLSEN, may he rest in Silicon
Heaven, and all the digits who made it all possible within DEC, the
Digital Equipment Corporation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation
$!-- VLF::SYS$LEGALiTiES:[CAVEATS] -----------------------------------!$
The policy and philosophy of the VLF with its keygenning, cracking and
reverse code engineering (RCE) projects, is not the 'piracy' of
intellectual property for the sake of it, per se, but to preserve,
cultivate, and extend VMS mind-share for the future generations, VMS is
too great a creation to be lost to humanity due to the cupidity and
stupidity of HP management.
The VLF releases will establish the basis for which the VMS expertise
ecologies of system programmers, analysts, system administrators,
operators and network, security, capacity planning, technical support
specialists and application developers can start to be repopulated,
from the current near catastrophic collapse and extinction, from the
coming generations of computer science students, by demolishing the
entry barriers to them being able to familiarise themselves with VMS
and the Layered Products - the entry barriers for students being, of
course, the cost of software and hardware.
Sure Information Technology people can learn GNU/Linux and the Open
Source Free Software tools for some decent conceptual and procedural
literacy, but, alas, the vast majority are going to be eking out a
computing crust mentally mutilating themselves mastering microsoft
methodology, wallowing in the La Brea tar-pit of their near monopoly on
matters computing.
Which is a profound tragedy when they could, in a slightly better
world, be learning the VMS way to achieve the same goals on the same
CPU architectures and platforms but with a much more conceptually
literate and functionally facilitative mental life.
So during the period when computer science students are as poor as
church-mice, studying, with the resources the VLF provides, they can
study VMS and bootstrap themselves into competence, confidence, and
conceptual clarity, and if they start earning money from their VMS
skills, then it's time to buy the tools that they use.
Businesses and professionals buying tools from other businesses to run
their business makes the business world go round at the very least.
The VLF does not condone or approve of its releases being used for
commercial gain at all, the purpose of the VLF releases is to stop and
reverse the extinction of the VMS expertise ecology and mind-share for
current and future generations.
The VLF does not apologise to the developers whose products we reverse
code engineer (RCE), since any such gesture would be dismissed, thus,
instead, we reinforce the observation that if the VLF considered their
application worth cracking and integrating into the VMS Liberation
Front tool-kit to assist in boot-strapping the VMS expertise ecology
back from catastrophic collapse by making the learning of VMS
accessible and practical to the current and future generations of
computer science students, then the application is worth buying, and if
the VMS business, government and institutional installation ecology
boot-straps back into renascent vigor, then sales will naturally come
their way.
Hewlett-Packard management of its VMS asset is the greatest impediment
to your VMS applications' sales - direct your anger accurately,
intelligently and effectively and publicly at them.
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students
that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they
are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
-- Professor Edsger Dijkstra, "How Do We Tell Truths That Might Hurt?",
ACM SIGPLAN Notices Vol 17 No 5, May 1982
One wonders what the good professor thought of Microsoft...
$!-- VLF::SYS$SYSTEM:[ACTiViSM] --------------------------------------!$
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
-- John Gilmore, http://www.toad.com/gnu/
We the DELTA:: node of the VLF, the VMS Liberation Front, have
regretfully concluded that HP management is damage to VMS and we are
committed to routing around it.
The DELTA:: node of the VLF specialises in bypassing intellectual
property protection so that no one else in the VMS activism world has
to, although many, of course, have the requisite technical skills to
parallel our work - we are the Vernon Preservation Underground.
Those VMS activists that are above ground and publicly active, we fully
realise, will not be able to use the VLF releases, even if they were
inclined to, and we do not assume that anyone would be so inclined,
they will have to abide with existing DEC hardware, the open-source
free-ware hardware emulators, and also the endure the vagaries,
vexations, and vicissitudes, of the HP Hobbyist VMS and layered
products program, and in saying that we mean absolutely no disrespect,
at all, to the VMS true believers who have worked, patiently and
persistently, within, and without of, the corporation to ensure that a
Hobbyist program exists and persists.
The objective of the DELTA:: node of the VMS Liberation Front is to
reboot and repair the catastrophic collapse of the VMS expertise
ecology by systematically removing all impediments for the current
generations of computer science students from being able to study,
learn, and master the VMS way. We have achieved this with the LibreVMS
LMFGEN license generator for VMS and LP and the LibreCHARON Stromasys
VAX and AXP hardware emulators.
Vernon will be able thrive and survive at existing VMS revision levels
and extant CPU architectures in full independence and autonomy, forever
proofed against any extinction policies within or without of the
Hewlett Packard corporation, the current owners of the VMS intellectual
property.
This the VLF Liberation Front has unambiguously established.
However such underground, intellectual property transgressing activism
is necessary but insufficient. What is also required is muscular and
vigorous above-ground activism, in a logical, systematic and diligent
manner with a lip curling snarl and no reservation with tooth and claw.
With the VMS die-hards, if it isn't NDAs staying their hand, it's the
HP VMS Hobbyist program, it has had natural effect of inhibiting full
and frank commentary and fearless action, since there is the implicit
fear that access to the VMS Hobbyist program would be withdrawn, either
individually or generally, the LiBREVMS LMFGEN is an 'entente cordiale'
nuclear deterrent to such inhibiting actions.
The first step in legal, above ground, VMS activism is to become a HP
shareholder, as HP is a publicly listed company and to then sit on your
tranche of shares and hence become a passionate, practical and
principled part-owner of the Hewlett Packard corporation. As a
part-owner of the HP corporation, you are then entitled to participate
in the deliberative assemblies of the company, such as AGMs (Annual
General Meetings) in accordance with Corporations Law and the HP
Constitution and to engage in share-holder activism such as the calling
of EGMs (Extraordinary General Meetings) with a sufficient quorum of
your fellow share-holders and the concomitant notification to all
share-holders of such an EGM and reason for it, as just one instance of
activism.
As a share-holder, you are entitled to be angry, and you should be very
angry at the compromise and degradation of both dividends and long term
share holder value by the gross neglect and vandalism, over the last
decade, of what should be one of the principal pillars and engines of
income generation for the HP Corporation, the OpenVMS operating system,
in all tiers of computing, from the macro to the micro, from the
nano-scale to the giga-scale.
As a share-holder, you should be proud and grateful, if current or
past, principled, brave, and loyal HP employees decides, NDAs be
damned, to become whistle-blowers on HP senior management policy on the
VMS asset, disgusted by the lack of any promotion or advertisement of
VMS, let alone the butchering of VMS Engineering, technical support,
software maintenance, and research and development.
As a share-holder, if the current database of VMS installations
customers (sans any sensitive government clients, of course!) was
leaked (and also any COTS, VAR, ISV, ETC, vendor databases), you would
not see that as an act prejudiced against share-holder value at all,
but rather a sunlight opportunity for the VMS installations customer
base, and other VMS related vendors, to become totally reflexively
aware, thence cooperatively constellating and engaging in share holder
activism as well, the STAR:: Node of VMS above-ground activism.
Needless to say, in the year 2012, since the demise of DEC in 1998, and
the five years of dithering during the Compaq era, until Compaq was
merged with HP in the 2002, and then this last long, lean, decade of
malign neglect, that the remaining VMS customer base is rusted on,
either by need or by judicious and sagacious choice, either way they
see VMS as being critical to their business operations, hence they are
strongly motivated in matters VMS.
If the VMS installations customer base was to become totally
reflexively aware, then even though sections of it may be, technically,
competing against each other in particular markets, the one thing they
would agree on unanimously and have sound cause to transcend their
competitive differences upon, is the enduring merit of the VMS
operating system as a foundation of their business, thence they can
cooperatively constellate to prosecute, vigorously, and intelligently,
the VMS cause, in rational self interest, collectively.
The extant rusted-on, reflexively aware, VMS customer and vendor base,
could all then purchase their own share tranches in HP and then form a
VMS Industry Association, with a "VMS Engineering Quality", carefully
constructed, constitution, including a rule that the voting weight of
any association member is the (logarithm base 10 of their share
holdings + 1) rounded down to the nearest integer - this substantially
levels the deliberative playing field within the association, whilst
also acknowledging the size of the players to an appropriate extent. A
technical aside on constitutional design - Professor Peter Suber, of
the Department of Philosophy, at Earlham College, in the USA, invented
a game called "Nomic", back in 1982, it can be very useful to study so
as to be able to design robust "VMS Quality" constitutional
instruments, that are proofed against the relentless clausal mutation
by oligopolies of petty self-interests.
https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/nomic.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic
It is also in the realm of possibility, albeit, perhaps, not
probability, but that would have to be tested in practice, that such a
VMS Industry Association might be able to force the installation of a
Director on the HP Board, by dint of the co-ordinated share-holdings of
its members. Such a VMS Advocacy directorship on the HP board may not
result in cheaper support and maintenance contracts for the VMS
Industry Association members (HA!), however they will be able to
effectively audit and determine whether they are getting value for
money, verifying whether HP has the actual expertise and resource
infrastructure to properly deliver on their VMS maintenance and support
SLAs (Service Level Agreements) for the members' business critical
systems (BCS); indeed it would be incumbent prudential due diligence on
the VMS Advocacy director to determine whether HP management have been
practicing deep fraud in this regard for the last decade.
This is but the shallow shoals of what an activism enfranchised and
emancipated VMS installations customer and vendor base could do, if it
cooperatively constellates into the STAR:: (above ground) legal node of
the VMS Liberation Movement.
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped
in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is
Russian national interest."
-- Winston Churchill, BBC Radio Broadcast, 1st October 1939
The actions of HP management of the VMS asset over the last dread
decade, is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, and there is
a key, and that key is radical self-interest - radical self-interest
that is not in the interests of long term HP share holder value and
never has been.
The OpenVMS asset is in an deliberately induced coma in the HP hospice
in an Itanium sarcophagus on a starvation drip feed with it's VMS
Engineering heart ripped out and replaced with something risible that
cannot patch, cannot port and cannot pursue research and development -
and yet, OpenVMS still has a pulse and can regenerate from survival
back to thriving with exigent, immediate, interdiction into HP
management - they must be called to account.
The key of radical self-interest is blindingly obvious: cherchez le
Microsoft.
Ken Olsen's original goal with the Digital Equipment Corporation was to
give computing power to the people, quality was paramount and
excellence was trusted to sell, maximum value and utility for market
price. Microsoft is the antithesis of the DEC ethos, quality and
excellence are sub-ordinate to profit, minimum value and utility for
maximum price, and the full spectrum monopolistic domination in all
market segments, by any means they can get away with, Microsoft
benchmarks 'corporation as psychopath,' they are not interested in
giving computer power to the people but the opposite, making people the
disenfranchised computer peons of Microsoft in choiceless perpetuity.
Let us review salient historical events:
1988: Microsoft hire O/S architects and engineers, led by Dave Cutler,
from the Digital Equipment Corporation to build Windows NT.
1993: Microsoft Windows/NT v3.1 first released.
1995: Microsoft's Bill Gates and DEC's Robert Palmer announce the
'Affinity for OpenVMS' program, to assist customers implementing the
(apparent) 'complementary' strengths of OpenVMS and Windows/NT in a
three-tier client/server environment...
1998: Compaq no longer supports Windows/NT (32 bit) on AXP.
The branch never falls far from the tree, and VMS was on the Microsoft
assassination hit list, as of 1988, as a consequence of hiring DEC
architects and engineers to design and implement Windows/NT, the child
was always going to kill the parent. When Windows NT was initially
ported to the Alpha AXP CPU architecture, the writing would have well
and truly been on the wall that although W/NT and VMS are the two most
comparable O/S architecturally, there is absolutely no comparison, in
terms of performance, versatility, reliability, fault tolerance,
security and utility, that was true in 1993 and remains true today in
2012, VMS utterly trumps Windows NT series operating systems, that is
true on the AXP architecture and also true on the Itanium.
Thus Microsoft committed to ensuring that VMS would never be ported to
those CPU architectures and computing tiers where Microsoft dominates
commercially, namely the Intel x86 and AMD64 CPU architectures, never
ever, regardless of the multiple tier, super-scalability of the VMS
operating system, and that remains true today. Microsoft also committed
to ensuring that it was difficult to benchmark and compare W/NT and VMS
on any architectures.
The Microsoft covert strategies for ensuring this are, at least, two
fold:
1. Microsoft cultivating key human assets in the employment of DEC,
Compaq and HP that could shape both VMS policy and Windows Licensing
negotiations to Microsoft's convenience.
2. Microsoft encouraging 'Beads for Manhattan' strategies in Compaq
post 1998 and then the merged HP-Compaq, post 2002, where they get
'discounted' Windows licenses, so long as they commit to not porting
VMS to the Intel x86 and AMD64 architectures.
It is a 'Beads for Manhattan' strategy in that Compaq and HP-Compaq, in
getting 'discounted' licences, and forgoing challenging Microsoft
directly head-on, in its eminent CPU domains and computing tiers with
the infinitely superior VMS, were getting the worthless 'beads' of
volume price discounts, good for trivial short term profit but not long
term market strength, and surrendering the opportunity to generate VMS
income in those tiers of computation that Microsoft have an artificed,
near, monopoly, with that infinitely superior product - VMS.
The 'threat' of porting VMS, kept in an induced coma on life support,
rings increasingly hollow with every passing year, Microsoft feigns
response in negotiations; yet, if the port was actually done, the
threat would become very real indeed.
The HP-Compaq oxymoronic benchmarking management of its VMS asset has
always been at maximal cognitive dissonance, the antithesis of any
conceivable business rationality, the challenge was to make sense of
the senselessness.
The cupidity and the stupidity, the corruption and incompetence within
HP-Compaq management, needs to come to an end, Microsoft human assets
within HP management, particular VMS policy management need to be
identified and removed; similarly those in HP management that think
cheaper Windows licenses is preferable to the re-fitting and
re-ignition of the VMS income generation engine, need to be identified
and removed.
The OpenVMS asset remains chained to the Itanium 'Itanic' ship-wreck on
the bottom of the Mariana trench of enterprise computing without any
advertising or promotion and it is time at its 35th Anniversary that it
was liberated and finally ported to all 'WinTel' and AMD64 and ARM CPU
Architectures, wherever Microsoft Corporation Windows New Technology
series and derivative Operating Systems are manifest.
To assert that VMS is outmoded, obsoleted, yesterday's legacy
technology, is as absurd as asserting that the biochemistry of your DNA
and of your immune system are similarly so. Vernon is the natural
proprietary predator of Microsoft installations in all tiers of
computation, from the enterprise to the personal, from the macro to the
micro, from the nano-scale to the giga-scale, and the ecological
balance needs to be restored.
When that is achieved then and only then can the DELTA:: Node of the
VLF, the Vernon Preservation Underground, retire back to the realms of
myth and legend.
The rising star and spectacular success of Microsoft and the Windows/NT
Operating System and its thriving third-party applications, services
and expertise ecologies has been directly at the expense of VMS and the
precipitous collapse, and near extinction of the VMS installation base,
and its third-party applications, services and expertise ecologies; it
is the computing crime of the 21st Century par excellence.
This 0.9.5.0 BETA VLF version of a VMS activism plan is not intended to
be comprehensive, but it is a modest, yet non-trivial and pertinent
basis from which to start envisioning about unsentimental, muscular and
fearless, VMS Activism, and the VLF do encourage all that are
passionate about the heritage of VMS, to trade in their ten gallon
Stetson hats for one hundred gallon Stetson hats instead and to then
have a long hard, think or re-think about 'nail-gun:wall' pro-active
strategies to establish the renaissance of VMS for the next 35 years
and to then publish your thoughts on comp.os.vms.
25th October 2012
The VMS Liberation Front
In VMS We Trust
"It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of
our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their
industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of
meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to
excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds
to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives."
-- John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President,
Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756
$!-- VLF::SYS$SYSTEM:[ACTiViSM.ADDENDA] ------------------------------!$
The VLF activism plan cited in the previous section, was principally
written (with some minor copy editing, subsequently), circa the
circumstances, as of the 35th Anniversary of VMS, on the 25th of
October, 2012. Rather than re-edit it to adapt to current developments,
we have left it as a historical snapshot of the Team VLF analytical
thinking.
The VMS Liberation Front are most certainly not in the business of
hanging tickets off themselves, they are too preoccupied with thinking
about the strategic reversing of the technical ecological collapse of
VMS mind-share, with a weather eye on their modest achievements, to
date; however, we do think we were the best new institutional
innovation in VMS activism, in the year 2012, in establishing the
foundation for an independent, autonomous, VMS Hobbyist program.
The best new institutional innovation in VMS activism, in 2014, the
31st of July, 2014, to be precise, without a shadow of a doubt, was
"VMS Software, Incorporated" (VSI):
https://www.vmssoftware.com/
Mission Statement:
"Our mission is to develop, sell, and support innovative and advanced
releases of OpenVMS, the most secure operating system on the planet. We
are engaged in this mission with one core motivation: to support and
enable our customers in running their mission critical applications at
the legendary uptime levels OpenVMS is known for, at maximum
performance levels, today and into the future."
The VLF greatly admire the work of the VSI, however do not hold that
against them! We sincerely salute their bold enterprise, and long
overdue initiative - live long and prosper.
In one of the VMS Anniversary VLF Communiques to comp.os.vms, some time
in the future, no doubt, we will review and constructively critique
their operations.
$!-- VLF::SYS$QIO:[REQUESTS] -----------------------------------------!$
We welcome the supply to the VLF of commercial OpenVMS software and
also commercial VAX, AXP, and PDP-11 hardware virtualisation emulators;
especially, in particular, those that operate on GNU/Linux O/S hosts,
however emulators that operate on any other O/S platforms, including
Microsoft Windows, are also most welcome.
We also warmly welcome the supply of the OpenVMS Operating System and
the OpenVMS Layered Product source-code; ideally in "self regenerating"
DECset form; but not limited to that - all source code is most welcome.
Please refer to the VLF MANiFESTO and the VLF ACtiViSM charter for our
motivations in requesting such righteous sunshine supply.
Thank you.
$!-- VLF::SYS$CONTACT:[DETAiLS] --------------------------------------!$
These VLF contact vectors are current, as of 25th December 2016:
IRC: N/A
Web: N/A
IM/XMPP: N/A
Email: mailto:[email protected] (please use OpenPGP/GPG Encryption)
Public Key: https://www.hushtools.com/hushtools2/index.php
http://keys.gnupg.net/
http://pgp.mit.edu/
Releases: Check the Usenet Binaries Newsgroup: alt.binaries.warez
Announcements: Check the Usenet Discussion Newsgroup: comp.os.vms
Manifesto: http://is.gd/VLF_MANiFESTO
The only reliable way to establish full duplex contact with the VLF is
by email. We much prefer that all email communication to us be
encrypted using the OpenPGP (Pretty Good Privacy / GPG (Gnu Privacy
Guard) encryption standards. We recommend that you generate and use
custom, bespoke, 4096 bit RSA public key and 4096 bit RSA sub-key
OpenPGP/GPG public+private key-pairs.
Be rest assured that if you decide to contact the DELTA:: Node of the
VMS Liberation Front, the act of contact will not be interpreted by the
VLF that you approve of our manifesto nor of our methods, nor that you
wish to join the VLF underground resistance movement. We also welcome
corrections and refinements to the accuracy, and analytical rigour, of
our historical understanding of the VMS Operating System.
In light of the noble Edward Snowden's NSA (National Security Agency) /
Project PRISM revelations since mid-2013, privacy, anonymity,
encryption, and plausible deniability, tools have been evolving and
refining ever more rapidly. You will need to do your own independent
prudential due diligence in investigating possible tool-sets, however
the resources that the VLF recommend that you review are a useful place
to start your explorations from.
These notes are primarily Microsoft Windows O/S centric; GNU/Linux
users should be able to take care of themselves; MacOSX users are
advised to ask for assistance from friends who use either Windows or
GNU/Linux.
The OpenPGP website provides an excellent overview of email encryption
tools for all desktop O/S platforms:
http://openpgp.org/software/
One of the simplest ways to establish encrypted OpenPGP/GPG compatible
email communications is to set up a "web-mail" account that you access
through your Internet browser and you then implement encrypted email by
using the "Mailvelope" Internet browser add-on / extension:
https://www.mailvelope.com/
The Mailvelope add-on / extension is for Mozilla Firefox based Internet
Browsers and also for Google Chrome based Internet browsers.
Refer to the Mailvelope website to find the most up to date list of
which web-mail providers neatly integrate with Mailvelope, however here
are four well established ones:
http://www.gmx.net/ https://mailbox.org/
https://posteo.de/ http://web.de/
NOTE: Sadly, the immaculate Lavabit encrypted email service is no
longer available, due to the noble NSA/PRISM activism of the developer,
Ladar Levison, in constitutionally challenging his National Security
Letter, in 2013.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit https://darkmail.info/
Bear in mind that it is always wise to create such email accounts on
other than your personal or work computers, and on other than your
personal or work IP (Internet Protocol) address ranges. Note that it is
very rare to find a web-mail provider that allows account creation via
a "Tor-ified Browser", however, many such providers tolerate accessing
web-mail via a Tor-ified Browser; we will discuss the Tor (The Onion
Ring) system, later in these notes.
Always think during any of these processes, whether you are digitally
finger printing (no pun intended) with your data or meta-data.
A recommended Internet Browser for the Mailvelope add-in / extension,
is the SRWare "Iron Browser", which is a privacy oriented, stripped
down, fork of the Google Chrome open-source code-base:
About: https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php
Download: https://www.srware.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=21
For the Windows versions, install the "WebRTC Off" extension for extra
privacy:
https://www.srware.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=10863
https://www.srware.net/en/webrtc_off.php
It is important to disable "Web RTC", since it can leak your real IP on
Windows O/S, even if you are using a VPN (Virtual Private Network)
Service.
Some other prudent and judicious extensions for the Iron Browser, can
be found at the Google Chrome Browser extensions directory:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions
Adblock Plus: Noscript:
http://adblockplus.org/ https://noscript.net/
EFF HTTPS Everywhere: EFF Privacy Badger:
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
This is the best way to download an off-line copy of a chrome
extension, for archival purposes:
http://chrome-extension-downloader.com/
These extensions are also available for other Internet Browser
rendering engine models, such as Mozilla Firefox.
It would also be prudent to routinely use a VPN (Virtual Private
Network) Service, because, otherwise, with web-mail, or ordinary email
using a desktop email client, your IP addresses can be fingered
(identified), hence, your identity discovered; this is an excellent VPN
survey:
https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-anonymous-review-160220/
Purchase your VPN service subscription using a disposable fixed value
pre-paid (Mastercard or Visa) debit card, with a plausible synthetic
identity.
By the use of a VPN Service, you can obfuscate what your actual IP
address is, perhaps not from the NSA, however. The use of Mailvelope
and the Iron Browser in the context of a VPN, is pretty much sufficient
to establish anonymous email conversations with the VLF, the only other
protection that you should examine is MAC randomisation, or "spoofing"
of your network interfaces, for the Windows O/S, these are a couple of
good MAC spoofing tools:
Lizard Systems Change MAC Address
https://lizardsystems.com/change-mac-address/
Technitium MAC Address Changer
https://technitium.com/tmac/
Logically, with prudential due diligence you should test such
assertions as "pretty much sufficient", in the preceding paragraph!
Matters of anonymity, privacy, encryption, and plausible deniability,
are by way of grammatical analogue, the domain of dotting one's i's,
crossing one's t's and knowing the proper use of apostrophes. ;-)
Obviously, you can also use desktop email clients, some web-mail hosts
also allow direct POP, IMAP, and SMTP access (usually all SSL enabled)
to web-mail accounts, for example: GMX Mail; one recommended pairing is
the Mozilla Thunderbird email client with the Enigmail OpenPGP/GPG
add-on:
Mozilla Thunderbird Email Client
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
Enigmail OpenPGP/GPG Add-on
https://www.enigmail.net
You would need to install "GnuPG" or "GPG4Win" (or "GPGTools" for Apple
MacOSX) on your system:
http://www.gnupg.org/ http://www.gpg4win.org/
https://gpgtools.org/ http://www.jumaros.de/rsoft/index.html
For Windows users, "Jumaros GPGShell" is also highly recommended as an
ancillary GPG tool.
Having established your VPN Service, email address, installed
Mailvelope in your Internet Browser, created your OpenPGP/GPG
public+private key-pair, then a further level of IP address obfuscation
is to use the "Tor Browser Bundle" for accessing your encrypted
web-mail, which uses the "Tor" system, "Tor" stands for "The Onion
Router", rather than the recursive acronym "TOR Onion Router", however
the latter provides insight into the function of the Tor system,
familiarise yourself comprehensively:
The Tor Browser Bundle:
https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en
The Tails Anonymity and Privacy Live Boot disk:
https://tails.boum.org/
Bearing all of the above in mind, ideally, pragmatically, what you
should aim to do is establish a "Tails" anonymity, privacy, and
encryption, "Live Boot" disk, with encrypted "Persistent Storage"
enabled, on a high reliability, high speed, SDCard or USB memory stick.
The Tails live boot disk is designed to execute, hermetically, all of
it's Internet Traffic via the Tor system. Having created an email
account, in the manner recommended above, you can then configure an
email client within Tails and establish the OpenPGP/GPG encryption;
this will allow you to send and receive encrypted email via the Tor
system, and be able to persistently store, in encrypted form, all
received and created information.
For Microsoft Windows O/S users, "Rufus", is a very useful adjunct for
"burning" Tails to a SDCard or USB memory stick:
http://rufus.akeo.ie/
If you wish to send us large files, then upload them to a Tor-ified
Browser friendly cyber-locker / file-host, these are some
recommendations:
http://rghost.net/ http://datafilehost.com
http://zippyshare.com http://solidfiles.com
Of course, uploading via a Tor-ified browser client, on that point, the
mass-mirroring resource "MirrorCreator", operates properly within a
Tor-ified Browser:
https://www.mirrorcreator.com/
For very large data sets we recommend uploading to the Usenet binaries
newsgroup:
alt.binaries.test
Always upload using SSL tunneling, using a SSL enabled Usenet access
provider.
Recommended tools:
http://www.jbinup.com/ or http://powerpost.free.fr/
The latter needs be used with Stunnel:
https://www.stunnel.org/index.html
Use a nondescript file name and encrypt the archives with a password,
locate a suitably tolerant public Wi-Fi access point to upload from and
then securely contact us with the particulars, as detailed previously.
If you search about you will probably be able to find a fixed value,
pre-paid, disposable, Visa or Mastercard debit card with which the
on-line registration process only requires a working e-mail address for
authentication and not a mobile phone number for SMS authentication;
generate a plausible synthetic identity.
Once you have established a plausible synthetic identity and the
pre-paid debit card, you can then purchase pre-paid SSL enabled Usenet
Service Provider subscription, whence you can execute the uploads from
a public-access Wi-Fi portal, using your VPN service and MAC spoofing.
Please note that credit card OLTP systems usually reject proxied and
Tor-ified browsers for transactions and therefore for the actual
purchase we recommend that you use a public Internet portal; Internet
Cafes that boot fresh O/S images from their Intranet for each and every
session are a recommended resource.
By such process disciplines your real identity will remain undisclosed
and your plausible deniability will be maintained.
We do not warrant or assert that the methods explicated are totally
safe and useful with no risk of compromising your anonymity. Please
consult more knowledgeable resources on the Internet. For example, in
the generality, consult the writings of Edward Snowden and Bruce
Schneier, to see what anonymity, privacy, and encryption, tools that
they recommend:
https://www.schneier.com/ https://www.schneierfacts.com/
https://edwardsnowden.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
Miscellaneous privacy, anonymity, and encryption, resources, all quite
worthy of one's close attention:
The Android Guardian Project:
https://guardianproject.info/apps
Privacy Tools:
https://www.privacytools.io/
FSF (Free Software Foundation) email Self-defense:
https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/en/
EFF (Electronic Frontiers Foundation) Surveilance Self-defence:
https://ssd.eff.org/en
FFTF (Fight For The Future) and CFR) Centre For Rights, Privacy Pack:
https://pack.resetthenet.org/
EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Centre) Practical Privacy Tools:
https://www.epic.org/privacy/tools.html
Access Project: Encrypt All The Things:
http://encryptallthethings.net/
FPF (Freedom of the Press Foundation) Protect Yourself:
https://freedom.press/training/
PRISM Break: Privacy and Anonymity Index:
http://prism-break.org/
RISEUP online communication tools for activist groups:
https://riseup.net/
BestVPN: The Ultimate Privacy Guide:
https://www.bestvpn.com/the-ultimate-privacy-guide/
This is a useful guide, generally speaking, although somewhat dated now:
Dr Who - Security and Encryption FAQ - Revision 22.6.2
http://pastebin.com/kNruUa3W
In conclusion:
Of course, if you think any of this advice given is technically naive
and could compromise your anonymity and plausible deniability, then
please do not hesitate to correct us, via encrypted email (of course),
to suggest better methods and processes, thank you.
However, the VLF consider the methods outlined and adumbrated to be a
useful basis from which to start thinking about secure anonymous
communication and we think they would be useful for HP whistle-blowers,
VMS activists, and those gagged by NDAs (Non-disclosure Agreements)
that see the need or the necessity to let some sunshine in on HP VMS
policy, and to let some sunshine out, such as the source code for the
VMS Operating System and the VMS Layered Products.
YMWV, please do your homework first, you are VMS men, it should not be
difficult.
$!-------------------------- damn straight ---------------------------!$
$ opprobrium/level=kittens/mode=conniptions/input=VLF:/output=NL: !$
$!--------------------------- enough said ----------------------------!$
..: NFO and DIZ v0.9.5.0 BETA - 2016-12-25 - !xD :..