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Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

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Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#221

Post by cortesoft »

rbcgerard wrote: post #112

"One key premise here seems to be that prior to the Snowden reporting, The Terrorists helpfully and stupidly used telephones and unencrypted emails to plot, so Western governments were able to track their plotting and disrupt at least large-scale attacks. That would come as a massive surprise to the victims of the attacks of 2002 in Bali, 2004 in Madrid, 2005 in London, 2008 in Mumbai, and April 2013 at the Boston Ma…

The terrorists also utilized roads and clean drinking water... better get rid of those, too!

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#223

Post by Quanticles »

> “’The most difficult communication between these terrorists is via PlayStation 4,’ the minister said, three days before the terrorist attacks in Paris. ‘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.'”

The Onion is going to have a really hard time topping this.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#224

Post by akshatpradhan »

the_watcher wrote: post #187
rbcgerard wrote: post #112

"One key premise here seems to be that prior to the Snowden reporting, The Terrorists helpfully and stupidly used telephones and unencrypted emails to plot, so Western governments were able to track their plotting and disrupt at least large-scale attacks. That would come as a massive surprise to the victims of the attacks of 2002 in Bali, 2004 in Madrid, 2005 in London, 2008 in Mumbai, and April 2013 at the Boston Ma…

This is always the part of the anti-Snowden case that baffled me. Those who seem to think that he alerted terrorists to the most secure means of communication seem to assume that, prior to the Snowden leaks, they were communicating by yelling really loudly across the NSA buildings. It's like they simply forgot about the biggest reason it took so long to find Osama bin Laden: he was so security-concerned that he used…

I understand what you're saying, and I agree. But I think it might be a little disingenuous to use Osama Bin Laden's crypto practices as an example. I believe this is the more interesting story of what really happened with Bin Laden?

>Pakistan secretly captures Bin Laden by bribing tribesmen. The US finds out by bribing Pakistani officials. Further bribes with foreign aid money get other Pakistani officials to issue a stand down order. The SEALS swoop in unopposed but somehow still lose a helicopter. They kill a captive Bin Laden as part of a deal to avoid exposing Saudi support for Al Qaeda. The media gets fed a cover story about the compound being a command center. Some doctor guy becomes a scapegoat and vaccination programs are derailed in all of Pakistan. The CIA fabricates documents from the compound and flirts with claiming credit for "enhanced interrogation" technique in the matter.

If you don't like that story then sure by all means stick with Story A: The CIA does brilliant investigative work. The commander-in-chief makes a gutsy call. The SEALs storm in and kill the bad guy in a firefight. He is buried at sea with full rituals. The 2012 presidential campaign starts a few days afterwards.

If you support Story A, then this would certainly make sense:

>It's like they simply forgot about the biggest reason it took so long to find Osama bin Laden: he was so security-concerned that he used couriers and relays (which, counter to the broad narrative about the terrorist shift to security, actually cannot be decrypted)

##EDIT

Claims comes from a previous HN article about the Killing of Bin Laden: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9520984

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#225

Post by nickbauman »

the_watcher wrote: post #187
rbcgerard wrote: post #112

"One key premise here seems to be that prior to the Snowden reporting, The Terrorists helpfully and stupidly used telephones and unencrypted emails to plot, so Western governments were able to track their plotting and disrupt at least large-scale attacks. That would come as a massive surprise to the victims of the attacks of 2002 in Bali, 2004 in Madrid, 2005 in London, 2008 in Mumbai, and April 2013 at the Boston Ma…

This is always the part of the anti-Snowden case that baffled me. Those who seem to think that he alerted terrorists to the most secure means of communication seem to assume that, prior to the Snowden leaks, they were communicating by yelling really loudly across the NSA buildings. It's like they simply forgot about the biggest reason it took so long to find Osama bin Laden: he was so security-concerned that he used…

The most dangerous terrorists have probably already reverted to couriers with one-time pads. One-time pads are uncrackable, yet they were used extensively before modern cryptography was even invented. They're cumbersome and constrained but very effective. No amount of mass surveillance will alter their efficacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#226

Post by grandalf »

lochlainn wrote: post #202
grandalf wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know the intended goal. It might just be clicks or page views, but what typically happens is:

- Article launches with sensational, buzzfeed quality linkbait headline.

- Article gets lots of clicks

- The title is quietly changed to a more restrained version which often matches the print edition title.

At first I thought there must just be different editors overseeing the web and print editions, but now I think it's an intentional form of viral marketing or activist editing.

In some cases, the sensational headlines really diminish the journalistic quality/seriousness of the article, or create the impression that a minor point in the article was the main thrust of the article.

Similarly, there has occasionally been a headline that appears intentionally boring so that the paper can publish a story but effectively hide it from view.

So in a nutshell it's classic misdirection, enabled by the digital medium, since tracks can be fairly easily covered making it harder for those who care/notice to call attention to it. For a while I thought about creating a screenshot archive of changed titles but eventually just stopped reading the paper.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#227

Post by snowwrestler »

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.

It's not just that federally-mandated backdoors increase the chance of compromise (although they certainly do). If the U.S. government can mandate that technology companies provide access through encryption, then so can other countries. Sovereignty is still a powerful concept under international law.

So imagine if Apple, upon condition of selling iPhones within China, must provide the Chinese government with a backdoor through Apple's encryption. Do you know how many federal employees use Apple technology? Including the President himself, who totes an iPad everywhere?

I don't think that federal intelligence and law enforcement officials calling for backdoors have fully thought through the consequences.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#228

Post by nickbauman »

akshatpradhan wrote: post #224
the_watcher wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is always the part of the anti-Snowden case that baffled me. Those who seem to think that he alerted terrorists to the most secure means of communication seem to assume that, prior to the Snowden leaks, they were communicating by yelling really loudly across the NSA buildings. It's like they simply forgot about the biggest reason it took so long to find Osama bin Laden: he was so security-concerned that he used…

I understand what you're saying, and I agree. But I think it might be a little disingenuous to use Osama Bin Laden's crypto practices as an example. I believe this is the more interesting story of what really happened with Bin Laden? >Pakistan secretly captures Bin Laden by bribing tribesmen. The US finds out by bribing Pakistani officials. Further bribes with foreign aid money get other Pakistani officials to issue…

Those are some pretty big claims, have any evidence to back them up?

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#229

Post by imglorp »

rbcgerard wrote: post #112

"One key premise here seems to be that prior to the Snowden reporting, The Terrorists helpfully and stupidly used telephones and unencrypted emails to plot, so Western governments were able to track their plotting and disrupt at least large-scale attacks. That would come as a massive surprise to the victims of the attacks of 2002 in Bali, 2004 in Madrid, 2005 in London, 2008 in Mumbai, and April 2013 at the Boston Ma…

ISIS actually tweeted in the clear before this one. Forget crypto, nobody was reading the open sources even.

http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/islamic-state-tweeted-of...

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#230

Post by martey »

lochlainn wrote: post #202
grandalf wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remember reading this article about how newspapers have started tailoring their online headlines for Google/SEO in 2006: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/weekinreview/09lohr.html

More specifically, the NYTimes public editor wrote about headlines earlier this year: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/public-editor/hey-google-c...

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