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Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#141

Post by driverdan »

djsumdog wrote: post #113
BlueTemplar wrote: post #41

Oh yeah : - Before Snowden, if you spoke about these issues, you were dismissed as paranoid. - After Snowden, if you dismiss these issues, you are dismissed as hopelessly naive... Oh, also - considering all this - you can bet that Intel's Management Engine has likely been backdoored by the NSA, so using Intel's processors is not recommended, especially if you're a non-US company... (industrial espionage !) https://bl…

Today, if you suggest that Snowden is a plant; how he might still be working for a government agency like the NSA, CIA or State Department; how he was a black ops to see how Americans would react: you get dismissed as paranoid. Every time I bring this up, I get downvoted to grey. Can we have an honest discussion on this? Guy makes six figured, works remotely as an NSA contractor from Hawaii, suddenly had a moral cons…

I downvoted you because this conspiracy is ridiculous with zero supporting evidence.

Want to know about his motivation and background? Read his new book and watch Citizenfour. He explains what lead him to be a whistleblower.

> all have been heavily dismissed by the US government, Yahoo, Google, Verizon and others

Completely untrue. Much of it has been confirmed. If it was fake the government wouldn't be charging him with espionage.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#142

Post by chiefalchemist »

Hendrikto wrote: post #45
BlueTemplar wrote: post #41

Oh yeah : - Before Snowden, if you spoke about these issues, you were dismissed as paranoid. - After Snowden, if you dismiss these issues, you are dismissed as hopelessly naive... Oh, also - considering all this - you can bet that Intel's Management Engine has likely been backdoored by the NSA, so using Intel's processors is not recommended, especially if you're a non-US company... (industrial espionage !) https://bl…

> Before Snowden, if you spoke about these issues, you were dismissed as paranoid. I’ve been telling people for years, but nobody listened. Now everyone knows it’s true, but still nobody seems to care…

> "Now everyone knows it’s true, but still nobody seems to care… "

In general, the mainstream media didn't make much of it. At the time they hadn't yet tied outrage to revenue/profits. If Snowden were to happen today the coverage and reaction would be much different.

But alas, it's too late. The public has it in their minds it was a non-issue. That seems unlikely to change any time soon.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#143

Post by sampo »

Darkstryder wrote: post #72
stiray wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Description of my life. I was telling people for years what is going on, not from position of daydreaming, but what I would be able to pull off. I got back everything from tin foil hat to "I have nothing to hide". Snowden changed that and I am gratefull to him for exactly that... And for one more sentance, that is a work of pure genius: “Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing…

> “Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” I find this sentence interesting because it is very specific to the American public. I am European and personally I care a lot more about privacy than free speech, and America's obsession with free speech boggles my mind. It might hav…

> last time we in Europe experimented with unadulterated free speech, and got Hitler and WW2 as a result

We also needed Americans to save us Europeans from those other Europeans.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#144

Post by bloak »

cameronbrown wrote: post #131
Darkstryder wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. But free speech is not absolute, even in USA (libel laws and all that). What I find interesting is how the threshold between the freedom of speech and the freedom of others people is set differently between US and most of Europe. For instance you can be convicted for incitement to ethnic or racial hatred in a lot of European countries [1] while to the best of my knowledge this kind of speech is protected i…

Libel laws aren't anti free speech at all. Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences* *Unless it's from the government in which case it's absolute.

"Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences."

It sounds like a quote from "Animal Farm", doesn't it? I am free to say anything I like, but if I say the wrong thing, I get punished for it. Also, "some are more equal than others".

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#145

Post by jigglesniggle »

lostjohnny wrote: post #127
jigglesniggle wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming WWII on free speech is like blaming 9/11 on planes. If Europeans are too weak for freedom that is their perogative, though I do not understand it.

> If Europeans are too weak for freedom that is their perogative We can legally drink before the age of 21 because we are able to control ourselves. We can have sex between 14 and 16 years, because we are able to control ourselves. We don't shoot other people in school when we are upset, because we are able to control ourselves. Tell me more about your strength... https://i.imgur.com/pmQWG4F.jpg

Each of those minor freedoms pales in comparison to the freedom to speak your mind or resist tyranny.

What I have seen of European society, Europeans are content to have a boot on their throat and make some token effort to appear free.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#146

Post by driverdan »

jmnicolas wrote: post #106
jasonvorhe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's Encrypt brought TLS to the masses, browsers are bringing focus to sites still not using transport encryption, https is a signal for Google ranking. Don't be so defeatist.

I always assumed Let's Encrypt was an NSA front so that they can decrypt most of the https traffic. Remember just after the Snowden revelations all the 3 letter agencies were very worried about https adoption rising, then their concerns suddenly disappeared. However I have no idea how encryption works so maybe my hunch is stupid (I remember that the NSA impersonated a certificate authority for that purpose).

> However I have no idea how encryption works so maybe my hunch is stupid

Your words, not mine.

The person who created Let's Encrypt started it as his thesis in college. From there he received assistance from the EFF, some of its staff, and a few other volunteers. None of them are anonymous, all working in the space before Let's Encrypt. It's fully open source and there are no backdoors in TLS encryption.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#147

Post by jigglesniggle »

lostjohnny wrote: post #130
homonculus1 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who defines incitement? Who defines ethnic or racial hatred? Is it incitement of racial hatred to post a joke video of your dog performing a Nazi salute?

> Is it incitement of racial hatred to post a joke video of your dog performing a Nazi salute? Why did you post it? Because you know it's controversial and would create engagement. If the nazi salute wasn't controversial (and rightfully considered hate crime) you would have ignored it. BTW the first amendment does not condone hate speech. Because even USA understands that there is a limit on everything.

The original statement by a justice implying restriction on freedom of expression was later recanted (note it was not directly a precedent setting ruling either). There are people in the US that see any restriction, even for hate speech or incitement of violence, as against the first amendment.

You might think they are extreme in their views but rulings restricting speech are very, very rare.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#148

Post by NegativeLatency »

hokumguru wrote: post #111
throwaway_law wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now everyone knows it’s true, but still nobody seems to care… That just about sums up every bad act. Lots of people were aware of all the bank fraud and toxic loans leading to the 2008 real estate bubble, no one cared leading up to it, and no one cares now. The Googles/Facebooks/amazons are collecting and doing unsavory things with your data, whether you ever used their services or not (shadow accounts), no one seem…

Source on this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-i...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#149

Post by BlueTemplar »

nine_k wrote: post #91
Hendrikto wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before Snowden, if you spoke about these issues, you were dismissed as paranoid. I’ve been telling people for years, but nobody listened. Now everyone knows it’s true, but still nobody seems to care…

Certain Richard M Stallman faced a similar problem when he talked about DRMed content a decade ago.

Oh, yeah, that too - for me, after Snowden, Stallman went from "crank"-ey to "prophet"-ey !

(Well, and GAFAM's behavior in the recent years certainly didn't help either...)

P.S.: Got Stallman to sign my The Snowden Files book after he introduced his speech with asking the public to give "three cheers for Snowden"...

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#150

Post by rolltiide »

lucozade wrote: post #67
inanutshellus wrote: post #60

Naive question: This cryptography blog seems to, but... is WhatsApp really trusted as secure end-to-end encryption chat client? Colloquially, for one thing it's now owned by one of the biggest personal-data collection companies in the world, which would have little interest in owning a chat client it couldn't benefit from data-wise. For another, I read an article mentioning it was "known" that WhatsApp decrypted your…

It is highly unlikely that Facebook can read WhatsApp messages. The reason I say that is that Zuckerberg said the couldn't, repeatedly and explicitly, to Congress. If there was any chance that they could, he would have either not said anything (the context would have allowed for that) or he would have dissembled. As he did numerous other times on other subjects. As to benefiting from WhatsApp, I'm sure they benefited…

At any time any analytics package or update can just read whats stored client side and send it to Facebooks servers.

Is everyone intentionally ignoring this or actually unaware?

Things stored in plain text client side, can be read in plain text client side and resyndicated.

All this focus on the first transmission being encrypted while in flight and server side is just a bit negligent.

Its a system ripe for abuse and thats it.

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