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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]

#31

Post by johnwheeler »

antidaily wrote: post #30
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…

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.

I doubt the US is worried about Edward Snowden anymore. That’s not to say he could come back to the states without getting arrested, but I don’t think they’re going to send a spy over there to kill him. I think any covertness is just theatrics at this point, struggling to maintain relevance in a world that’s largely lost interest in him.

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

#32

Post by DoctorOetker »

ohaideredevs wrote: post #22
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...

Not sure what you are getting at at all.

he's referring to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-correlation

this could be sound from loudspeakers or broadcast audiorate electromagnetic waves getting picked up in the audio cables, or even a passive system of sensors throughout russia, i.e. using cross-correlation with background noise ...

one could also view this as a pseudorandom form of lock-in amplification, and even with a high noise floor the results do improve with number of samples, so patience is all they need.

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

#33

Post by arisAlexis »

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…

unsure why you got downvoted I totally agree. Putin is not doing Snowden a favour just because he is pro freedom of information and leaks.

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

#34

Post by thesz »

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…

Someone I knew long time ago was from контрразведка (counterintelligence), concretely, from служба наружного наблюдения (field observation duty).

He bragged that Russia's (former USSR) counterintelligence was so sophisticated that higher ranks of spies from around the world all worked in Russia or USSR some time in their career. He presented enough evidence in form of mind experiment that I believe him (mainly due to his reaction time - he has answers readily).

So, for your "world's most sophisticated intelligence" I raise my "самая лучшая контрразведка в мире". Can world's best intelligence service be stopped by world's best counterintelligence service?

Otherwise we are going into pure speculation, like "spies agree on some kind of rule", etc.

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

#35

Post by celticninja »

otakucode wrote: post #23
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…

>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.

Every single one is a bit harsh. There is also survivor bias here, a bit like MiB, when nothing happens no one knows. Not to say they are that good but unlimited resources is difficult to best, even if they are rubbish in general.

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

#37

Post by IllogicalLogic »

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 is one of the best black boxes to obfuscate movement from the US.

Very possible he left Russia a long time ago. Nobody is closely tracking cargo ships traveling through the arctic.

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

#38

Post by javert »

IllogicalLogic wrote: post #36
javert wrote: post #6

Can someone provide a summary of what he says? Anything surprising?

He talked about the importance of anonymizing off-ramps and on-ramps for regular users by design and limiting history to one transaction for privacy protection.

Thanks.

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

#39

Post by RandomBacon »

javert wrote: post #6

Can someone provide a summary of what he says? Anything surprising?

He meant to say: just use Monero

Seriously, why do people keep trying to jump through hoops where it's very easy to make a mistake, rather than just using something with privacy built-in?

With Bitcoin, you have to trust that the mixer isn't a bad actor, that you don't get tainted coins in return, that you make enough hops or mix enough times, that no one discriminates against the sending address or recieving address or amount being sent, etc.

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

#40

Post by duxup »

johnwheeler wrote: post #31
antidaily wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt the US is worried about Edward Snowden anymore. That’s not to say he could come back to the states without getting arrested, but I don’t think they’re going to send a spy over there to kill him. I think any covertness is just theatrics at this point, struggling to maintain relevance in a world that’s largely lost interest in him.

It certainly seems there wouldn't seem to be much value in dealing with him now.

Historically speaking there have been plenty of former spies, folks who handed over information and after escaping just lived their lives elsewhere.

Folks seem to think it operates like some movie where governments are extracting revenge left and right, that doesn't seem to be the case all that often.

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