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Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

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Re: Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

#21

Post by lifeisstillgood »

londons_explore wrote: post #12
ranie93 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because Snowden is a VIP who has people looking for him (US government, for example). A live stream would be a liability, kind of a breadcrumb trail, potentially exposing his current location.

Doesn't need to be live to reveal location. 2 loudspeakers playing pseudorandom white noise, inaudable from a few hundred yards away, would probably still leak any location in the city, as long as the stream isn't too aggressively compressed. Correlating with a known signal over hundreds of thousands of audio samples has a massive snr gain...

Sorry, is this like Liam Neeson - drop a handgrenade in one part of town then another and Liam (or rather is listening to Snowden microphones) can work out where he is?

Can that possibly work IRL?

Re: Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

#22

Post by ohaideredevs »

londons_explore wrote: post #12
ranie93 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because Snowden is a VIP who has people looking for him (US government, for example). A live stream would be a liability, kind of a breadcrumb trail, potentially exposing his current location.

Doesn't need to be live to reveal location. 2 loudspeakers playing pseudorandom white noise, inaudable from a few hundred yards away, would probably still leak any location in the city, as long as the stream isn't too aggressively compressed. Correlating with a known signal over hundreds of thousands of audio samples has a massive snr gain...

Not sure what you are getting at at all.

Re: Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

#23

Post by otakucode »

est31 wrote: post #17
ranie93 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because Snowden is a VIP who has people looking for him (US government, for example). A live stream would be a liability, kind of a breadcrumb trail, potentially exposing his current location.

If the US government really wanted Snowden dead, they could get him dead. They very likely know where he lives. They are the most sophisticated intelligence collection entity in the world, after all. Snowden is not protected by secrecy, he is protected by the fact that he lives in Russia and killing him would be a provocation to Russia, possibly resulting in the assasination of people that Russia dislikes who are und…

>They are the most sophisticated intelligence collection entity in the world, after all.

Who were caught completely off guard by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the USSR, the Arab Spring, and basically every single geopolitical event in history. I wouldn't invest too much in their abilities.

Re: Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

#24

Post by bongobongo »

est31 wrote: post #17
ranie93 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because Snowden is a VIP who has people looking for him (US government, for example). A live stream would be a liability, kind of a breadcrumb trail, potentially exposing his current location.

If the US government really wanted Snowden dead, they could get him dead. They very likely know where he lives. They are the most sophisticated intelligence collection entity in the world, after all. Snowden is not protected by secrecy, he is protected by the fact that he lives in Russia and killing him would be a provocation to Russia, possibly resulting in the assasination of people that Russia dislikes who are und…

Russia already assassinates people all over the world, even in the US (e.g., Mikhail Lesin was likely offed by Russian agents right in the middle of Washington, DC in 2015).

It's a very fanciful idea that CIA has as much of a presence in Russia as you think it does. It's really not at all likely that the US could assassinate somebody in Russia _and_ get away with it. That second part is key. Russia isn't as concerned about getting away with it (see the recent cases in the UK) because its entire regime is predicated upon controlled misinformation, and because it isn't afraid to dispose of/disown/disavow an agent or a useful idiot when it is in the government's interest. For a country like the US, it's a bit more complicated.

To answer your questions, Snowden only does what he is allowed to do by the Russian government. Snowden is an ex-NSA contractor in Russia right now thanks to the good graces of Vladimir Putin; if you think that he isn't being handled daily by Russian secret services, that's pretty funny.

Re: Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

#25

Post by otakucode »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #21
londons_explore wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't need to be live to reveal location. 2 loudspeakers playing pseudorandom white noise, inaudable from a few hundred yards away, would probably still leak any location in the city, as long as the stream isn't too aggressively compressed. Correlating with a known signal over hundreds of thousands of audio samples has a massive snr gain...

Sorry, is this like Liam Neeson - drop a handgrenade in one part of town then another and Liam (or rather is listening to Snowden microphones) can work out where he is? Can that possibly work IRL?

I believe he is implying the NSA or other entity using the microphone input from cellphones (or maybe the microphones placed around many major cities on utility poles?) to do the locating. I think it would probably be theoretically possible, but I don't recall anything in the leaks about them ever researching that sort of capability.

Re: Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

#26

Post by roywiggins »

ctrl-j wrote: post #10
roywiggins wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless he's worried about a drone strike while in his Moscow apartment, I can't see there'd be a problem.

I mean.. if I were him I'd be doing my best to not let the CIA and NSA know where my Moscow apartment was located...

Kim Philby lived in Moscow for decades, I don't think he went to any great lengths to dodge his former MI6 colleagues. I would bet the US government knows exactly where Snowden is living. It won't be that hard: he'll be surrounded by secret police keeping tabs.

Re: Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

#27

Post by duxup »

bongobongo wrote: post #24
est31 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US government really wanted Snowden dead, they could get him dead. They very likely know where he lives. They are the most sophisticated intelligence collection entity in the world, after all. Snowden is not protected by secrecy, he is protected by the fact that he lives in Russia and killing him would be a provocation to Russia, possibly resulting in the assasination of people that Russia dislikes who are und…

Russia already assassinates people all over the world, even in the US (e.g., Mikhail Lesin was likely offed by Russian agents right in the middle of Washington, DC in 2015). It's a very fanciful idea that CIA has as much of a presence in Russia as you think it does. It's really not at all likely that the US could assassinate somebody in Russia _and_ get away with it. That second part is key. Russia isn't as concerned…

> It's really not at all likely that the US could assassinate somebody in Russia _and_ get away with it.

What does this stipulation mean?

They certainly could kill him, and even when it was a far more closed society quite difficult to get people in and out of Russia the US was able to do it. These days it wouldn't be hard at all.

And it's not like there wouldn't be someone willing to do it for money...

Re: Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

#28

Post by fit2rule »

otakucode wrote: post #25
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, is this like Liam Neeson - drop a handgrenade in one part of town then another and Liam (or rather is listening to Snowden microphones) can work out where he is? Can that possibly work IRL?

I believe he is implying the NSA or other entity using the microphone input from cellphones (or maybe the microphones placed around many major cities on utility poles?) to do the locating. I think it would probably be theoretically possible, but I don't recall anything in the leaks about them ever researching that sort of capability.

They can just listen to the 50hz ground hum in the signal coming from his audio equipment and determine which relay stations are providing that power ..

Re: Snowden's talk at Bitcoin 2019 conference [video]

#30

Post by antidaily »

est31 wrote: post #17
ranie93 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because Snowden is a VIP who has people looking for him (US government, for example). A live stream would be a liability, kind of a breadcrumb trail, potentially exposing his current location.

If the US government really wanted Snowden dead, they could get him dead. They very likely know where he lives. They are the most sophisticated intelligence collection entity in the world, after all. Snowden is not protected by secrecy, he is protected by the fact that he lives in Russia and killing him would be a provocation to Russia, possibly resulting in the assasination of people that Russia dislikes who are und…

True, they could kill him or capture him, etc. But I doubt the US is worried about a provocation to Russia. It would simply be a massively unpopular move. Mostly pointless.
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