Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack • Hacker News Board

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#201

Post by compbio » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:23 PM UTC

> citing unidentified “European officials”

That was the Belgium minister.

> It was not clear whether the encryption was part of widely used communications tools, like WhatsApp, which the authorities have a hard time monitoring, or something more elaborate.

"PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp," Jambon [Belgium minister] said at a debate in Brussels. "The most difficult communication between these terrorists is via PlayStation 4," he said. "It’s very, very difficult for our services — not only Belgian services but international services — to decrypt the communication that is done via PlayStation 4." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/playstatio...

So: It is less about encryption (PGP, Tor) than it is about companies running their own communication networks with encryption, and the intelligence agencies have increasingly more trouble tracking extremists using games or phone apps to plan their attacks.

Is that Snowden's fault? No. Did Snowden's leaks contribute to companies making their networks harder to tap? Definitely.

Another tidbit that is coming out is that nearly all terrorists were already on the radar of the intelligence services and had documents tracking their radicalization. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/16/french-and-belg...

Apparently there was a failure to share and to make actionable sense of this information.

Is that Snowden's fault? No. Did Snowden's broad indiscriminate leaks cause less willingness to share information between intelligence agencies? Definitely.

This is, in my view, a side-effect of these revelations, but a real effect too. I don't want to weigh up these two on a scale, as that will be difficult and everyone will have different priorities anyway.

BTW: This gaffe/Chinese whispers started with a Forbes article and New York Times fell for it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/11/14/why-the-pa...

"Correction: It has not been confirmed, as originally written, that a console was found as a result of specific Belgian terror raids. Minister Jambon was speaking about tactics he knows ISIS to be using generally. "

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#202

Post by lochlainn » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:23 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #196

001sky wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYT changes the there story headlines alot these days ... After Paris Attacks, C.I.A. Director Rekindles Debate Over Surveillance http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/us/after-paris-attacks-cia...

That's part of the strategy. The most eyeballs see it right after it's released, and the intended effect is created. They've been doing this for quite some time. The first experiments were with using different headlines for the same story in the online and print edition. Generally the print edition headlines are the most restrained.

Do you have any more information on this tactic? It's fascinating, I didn't realize that there was actual intent to it.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#203

Post by kfcpanda » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:24 PM UTC

digikata wrote: post #183

ewzimm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even more absurd than that. The premise is that we can have a public worldwide debate that emphasizes how important encryption is to successfully carrying out terrorist attacks, convince the world to give up their privacy for the sake of safety, and after the majority of the protestors have been defeated by public awareness that encryption and terrorism go hand-in-hand, the terrorists will go back to using phone…

My thought is that if we implement a back door policy, the public will have communication links which are much easier to compromise by any party, while terrorists can still easily use encryption and/or steganography to secure their communications. All the back doors accomplish in the end is harming the general public.

Indeed. Also, combine your steganography argument with this image

http://www.friendmosaic.com/images/example-mosaic.jpg

and it's pretty easy to see that this avenue of thought --- that we will put our efforts toward finding a way to ban encryption --- is totally ridiculous.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#204

Post by viraptor » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:25 PM UTC

TrevorJ wrote: post #174

fukusa wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not blaming the victims at all. For example: You could call many people living in the hood 'bad people' because of the crimes they commit but are they really 'bad people' or do they eventually commit these crimes because of the situation they grow up in and the disadvantages they have had in life? By stating this, am I blaming the victims of armed robberies, of theft of murder? Of course I am not. I just think w…

That's fair, I think I see where you are coming from now. I do think, however, that we have to be careful not to remove personal responsibility from the equation. Circumstances can certainly motivate behaviour but we are still responsible for our actions. Suggesting otherwise seems compassionate on the surface, but it can also be incredibly disempowering and corrosive.

There was an article lately about interviews with captured ISIS fighters on the death row. (I can't find the link unfortunately, maybe anyone's got it?) The idea was that what some of them describe is basically being forced to join the movement because there's no other way for them to provide for their families - they just suddenly lived in the middle of a war, but they don't care about the ideology itself. Biased? Of course, and doesn't apply to the European attackers. But still something to think about.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#205

Post by kohito » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:27 PM UTC

davesque wrote: post #193

kohito wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're saying its only possible the NYT "blamed encryption" if encryption was the article's main topic or the article's lede?

No, actually they're not saying that at all. They're saying that the article only barely mentions encryption and doesn't try to push an opinion on the matter.

I'm confused. Can you say more?

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#206

Post by metalliqaz » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:28 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #185

WildUtah wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who used to get erotic messages from her mathematician boyfriend steganographically encrypted on postcards. I had to show her how to decrypt them. It was pretty standard cryptanalysis once I guessed that the messages existed. Some of them were filthy.

Stenographically encrypted in the printed image? How would that work?

Probably on the side you write on.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#207

Post by JshWright » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

metalliqaz wrote: post #206

JshWright wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stenographically encrypted in the printed image? How would that work?

Probably on the side you write on.

Yep, that would make far more sense... For some reason I assumed it was an image encoded on the postcard. Rereading the original post, that's not what it says, is it...

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#208

Post by ewzimm » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:33 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #162

ewzimm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even more absurd than that. The premise is that we can have a public worldwide debate that emphasizes how important encryption is to successfully carrying out terrorist attacks, convince the world to give up their privacy for the sake of safety, and after the majority of the protestors have been defeated by public awareness that encryption and terrorism go hand-in-hand, the terrorists will go back to using phone…

> It's even more absurd than that... after the majority of the protestors have been defeated by public awareness that encryption and terrorism go hand-in-hand, the terrorists will go back to using phone calls and unencrypted email. I think you're straw-manning their position here. The opponents of encryption aren't claiming terrorists will start using unencrypted communication, they're advocating for legally-mandated…

You're right, but I didn't mean only phone calls and unencrypted email. I considered adding "or their equivalent back-doored technologies," but I hoped it would be clear. Using a compromised technology is the equivalent of unencrypted email and phone calls to whoever has the key. All it does is draw attention to how important it is to communicate in secret. This will be the Streisand effect of crypto.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#209

Post by vehementi » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:36 PM UTC

kohito wrote: post #205

davesque wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, actually they're not saying that at all. They're saying that the article only barely mentions encryption and doesn't try to push an opinion on the matter.

I'm confused. Can you say more?

What are you confused about?

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#210

Post by ikeboy » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #172

ikeboy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My claim is that "criminals aren't hindered" is false. Sure, there are people that will get around it, but as I mentioned, there are plenty of criminals that don't use encryption and have been caught with incriminating emails, so that makes me think that if encryption was made more difficult, some criminals who use encryption now would stop. Criminals aren't perfect.

You are right, there would be many petty criminals who would be caught because they'd talk about their crimes in plaintext. There would be a reduction in petty crime, while leaving major crime pretty much untouched. That sounds like a good thing... except it might not be in society's interest to eliminate petty crime, as Snowden explains here [1]. [1] - http://nindalf.com/OverconfidentArowana

Would you consider any crime which the settlement is in the hundreds of millions "petty"? If not, then http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-05/sanctions-s... is a counter-example.

Clearly neither being really smart nor having a lot at stake will prevent someone from sending sensitive things over email.

As for terrorists, a short search turns up https://books.google.com/books?id=VqY4Wr3T5K4C&pg=PA410&lpg=....

I think if you claim that major criminals' encryption usage would be unaffected by making it difficult to use, you need to support that at least as well as I've just argued for the opposite.