enigmatical wrote: » The other issue I would be concerned about is that the security services might become over reliant on searching the Internet for leads. There's a lot to be said for old fashioned detective work too!
enigmatical wrote: » I'm not even sure they have the technical ability to do that. I could see this bring appealed.
silentrust wrote: » Surprised that no one seems to have mentioned PGP or GPG - you know that can be used to encrypt your e-mails easily and is for all intents and purposes unbreakable provided your key is strong enough?
Prodigious wrote: » Hopefully UPC will appeal it, they have fought orders in the past. They have the ability to block it to the same extent as eircom, but a simple vpn/proxy will step around it with no issues.
jmcc wrote: » Never underestimate the capabilities of an organisation that employs thousands of mathematicians and has acres of computing power on tap. The history of cryptography is littered with people who thought they were using unbreakable systems. Regards...jmcc
Prodigious wrote: » If theres a code to break, it's Bitcoin's. Cannot see it being done.
jmcc wrote: » The history of cryptography is littered with people who thought they were using unbreakable systems.
enigmatical wrote: » And what if this massive database itself were hacked by some unscrupulous organisation or individual?
900913 wrote: » What a nightmare if another whistle-blower sends gigs of sensitive data/emails to wiki-leaks.
Khannie wrote: » Quote of the day.
Khannie wrote: » Many's the researcher that has tried to find a flaw in it. You would instantly make an absolutely massive name for yourself if you found a hole in it.
enigmatical wrote: » I honestly think the move towards legal, commercial online streaming services like Spotify is killing physical sales and also killing the need for illegal file sharing.
As of the first half of 2013, Netflix accounted for almost a third (32.5 per cent) of downstream traffic on US fixed line networks, followed closely by YouTube (17.11 per cent), ... The situation was drastically different in Europe, where Netflix didn't appear in the top ten for downstream**, BitTorrent represented 12.22 per cent of download traffic, and the largest aggregate service by share was HTTP, with YouTube coming in second place at 21.27 per cent aggregate.
enigmatical wrote: » Or worse, a router or switch with a back door and the whole lot to Beijing!
Capt'n Midnight wrote: » There's always rubber hose cryptography Seriously bitcoins is either a medium of exchange and thus taxable, or a (recurring) Ponzi scheme (where you get to see the manipulations and runs in real time) or a way of evading tax/the law/the man. And most importantly bitcoins leaves a trail. It's not the same as owning a large chunk of tor exit nodes but allowing bitcoins to run might be useful as a way of IDing people of interest.
jmcc wrote: » Never underestimate the capabilities of an organisation that employs thousands of mathematicians and has acres of computing power on tap. The history of cryptography is littered with people who thought they were using unbreakable systems.
Prodigious wrote: » And a few quid I'd imagine.
silentrust wrote: » Yes, you'd be the Jesus Christ of modern cryptography
Trojan wrote: » Costing them more in cycles than the data is worth.
Is it worth 1 minute of their available computing power to crack X, Y or Z?
jmcc wrote: » And look what happened to him. Regards...jmcc
jmcc wrote: » The Germans actually thought that Enigma and Tunny were secure because they could not envision a theory driven technological attack on the system.
Capt'n Midnight wrote: » The Germans knew Enigma was breakable, they just didn't think anyone would go to all the trouble.
And yes you're right the Poles found lots of speed ups and issued in a whole new era of cryptography.
A similar story is the US embassy shredding all the documents before leaving Iran. They reasoned that that while it was possible it would take too much manpower to recover the files. Instead they Iranians used illiterate carpet weavers in school halls to join the pieces together. Low tech and took ages but they recovered a lot of stuff.
bedlam wrote: » The word of the week is metadata, they may not know what you are saying but that will know who you are talking to and that may be enough.
The NSA's Utah Data Center will be able to handle and process five zettabytes of data, according to William Binney, a former NSA technical director . Binney's calculation is an estimate. An NSA spokeswoman says the actual data capacity of the center is classified. "They would have plenty of space with five zettabytes to store at least something on the order of 100 years worth of the worldwide communications, phones and emails and stuff like that," Binney asserts, "and then have plenty of space left over to do any kind of parallel processing to try to break codes."
Khannie wrote: » SSL is sufficiently difficult to decrypt that you wouldn't bother attempting to unless you had direct access to the keys,.
syklops wrote: » What I don't understand is why is the security community in such shock and disbelief. I, personally have known about Operation Echelon since the early 90s, as did many people I know. Presumably PRISM is the new name.
silentrust wrote: » Of course organised criminals know this which is why believe it or not very few drug dealing empires/extortion rackets/terrorist cells are run over Facebook or Yahoo Mail. The only people who stand to lose out are stupid criminals who are likely to get caught anyway and ordinary decent folk like yourselves.
Finally, the officials baffled Jana submitted a printout of the entire Facebook correspondence with their host-father. My complaint: the young woman wanted to work illegally in the States. The authorities had Janas private messages in the social network Facebook apparently read along for weeks. Jana was not allowed to enter. The next flight brought the 18-year-old returned to Germany.
silentrust wrote: » In that case I used BTGuard because they accepted Bitcoins........................................... such as paying for VPN services - I don't want to use my credit card, it defeats the point of having a VPN in the first place! :-)
Capt'n Midnight wrote: » science gallery tomorrow luchtimeRapid Response: The NSA Prism Leak - with Una Mullally Jun13 13.00 - 14.00
Since then, EU sources have told me that the Commission already knew about PRISM before the current leaks and has raised it “systematically” when talking to U.S. authorities about EU-U.S. data protection agreements, particularly in the context of police and judicial cooperation. Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding apparently spoke about the matter with U.S. Attorney General Holder Eric Holder at a meeting in Washington in April.
“Where the rights of an EU citizen in a Member State are concerned, it is for a national judge to determine whether the data can be lawfully transmitted in accordance with legal requirements (be they national, EU or international).” That said, according to the Commission, Reding will raise the issue in ministerial talks with the U.S. on Friday (June 14) in Dublin.
[-0-] wrote: » Isn't a new Ubuntu phone coming out soon too?
silentrust wrote: » It's been blocked already in the UK, although the EFF are contesting this in the courts as the power to block websites would be too easy to be abused. Of course the minute the Pirate Bay's main site was blocked up around a hundred mirrors sprung up cf. and the media coverage meant the number of users shot up by millions cf. Streisand effect.
However, as of this week these proxies are also covered by the same blocklist they aim to circumvent, without a new court ruling. The High Court orders give music industry group BPI the authority to add sites to the blocklist without oversight.
silentrust wrote: » Surprised that no one seems to have mentioned PGP or GPG
CrinkElite wrote: » Has anyone seen this Snowden guy alive since he "checked out" of his Hong Kong hotel?
Snowden claimed that the US had hacked hundreds of targets in Hong Kong – including public officials, a university, businesses and students in the city – and on the mainland. These were part of more than 61,000 NSA hacking operations globally, he alleged. "We hack network backbones – like huge internet routers, basically – that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one," he said. The Post said it had seen a document that, Snowden alleged, supported his claims. The Post said it had not verified the document, and did not immediately publish it. Snowden said he was releasing the information to demonstrate "the hypocrisy of the US government when it claims that it does not target civilian infrastructure, unlike its adversaries".
Imagine that every time you printed a document it automatically included a secret code that could be used to identify the printer - and potentially the person who used it. Sounds like something from an episode of "Alias " right? Unfortunately the scenario isn't fictional. In a purported effort to identify counterfeiters the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information. That means that without your knowledge or consent an act you assume is private could become public. A communication tool you're using in everyday life could become a tool for government surveillance. And what's worse there are no laws to prevent abuse.
Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda
silentrust wrote: » Well said jmcc in fact that is actually Schneier's* first law of computer security in that anyone can invent a security system that they themselves can't break.
I believe that history will hail Snowden as a hero -- his whistle-blowing exposed a surveillance state and a secrecy machine run amok. I'm less optimistic of how the present day will treat him, and hope that the debate right now is less about the man and more about the government he exposed.
