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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]

#41

Post by new_realist »

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.

Intelligence gathering is not the same as predicting the future, no more than a thermometer can tell you whether it will rain on your wedding day. Data gathering is relatively easy, forecasting is hard.

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

#42

Post by brokenmachine »

fit2rule wrote: post #28
otakucode wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ..

?how?

50Hz is 50Hz everywhere.

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

#43

Post by Ao7bei3s »

brokenmachine wrote: post #42
fit2rule wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ..

?how? 50Hz is 50Hz everywhere.

It's never exactly 50 Hz, as the frequency is affected by load and generators can't compensate this perfectly. So record it in many locations, then correlate the signal extracted from audio/video against the database.

Main article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_network_frequency_a...

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

#44

Post by dTal »

new_realist wrote: post #41
otakucode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Intelligence gathering is not the same as predicting the future, no more than a thermometer can tell you whether it will rain on your wedding day. Data gathering is relatively easy, forecasting is hard.

Your analogy is poor; a barometer will indeed tell you it will rain on your wedding day, at least 12 hours in advance.

Forecasting is easy, if your collect the right data.

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

#45

Post by sonnyblarney »

thesz wrote: post #34
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…

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…

This is not very relevant.

Snowdon is not in 'hiding' - if the Russians wanted to hide him, they probably could. But they are not, ergo, the US knows anything they want to know about him.

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

#46

Post by est31 »

IllogicalLogic wrote: post #37
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 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.

There are journalists meeting him in Russia every now and then. You can hide the precise location from someone when you put them into a car, blindfold and drive them around. You can't hide it any more when you have to ship the journalist to a different continent and back in a matter of hours/minutes. Sure you can put the car into an airplane etc but those can be easily tracked. And I doubt they wouldn't spill the secret if they were aware.

Also of course the USA tracks everything that can be tracked using satellites. Everything. The CIA in fact had collected tons of satellite images of the arctic and antarctic and contributed them to the science community to study climate change.

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

#47

Post by leaveyou »

duxup wrote: post #40
johnwheeler wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AFAIK the governments (those who do) don't take revenge left and right out of rage or pettiness. The traitors are usually punished as brutally as possible as a way to discourage others to follow their example.

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

#48

Post by javert »

RandomBacon wrote: post #39
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…

I don't do anything illegal with bitcoin, do I don't have to do all those steps anyway.

I do hope bitcoin gets better privacy features, ideally to the point that it's comparable to monero in that regard (not sure if actually possible).

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

#49

Post by jakegold »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #18
glenneroo wrote: post #2

Sadly unable to understand half of what they were saying so I gave up after 3 minutes and found this version which seems to be at least a tiny bit better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVN13ad3UUk

For those trying out either this link or the OP link, Snowden modifies his audio settings a bit around the 5 minute mark and is much more understandable then.

Thanks, I gave up too early.

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

#50

Post by RandomBacon »

javert wrote: post #48
RandomBacon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't do anything illegal with bitcoin, do I don't have to do all those steps anyway. I do hope bitcoin gets better privacy features, ideally to the point that it's comparable to monero in that regard (not sure if actually possible).

I don't do anything illegal with Monero. So what?

I prefer cash for transaction privacy rather than credit cards. Doesn't mean I want to do illegal things.

(Bitcoin - essentially just as trackable as credit cards. Prepaid or ones tied to your identity.)

If I was a pregnant woman who didn't tell anyone, I don't want to start receiving pregnancy ads:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

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