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Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#61

Post by _8j50 »

isoskeles wrote: post #46
_8j50 wrote: post #3

Actual terrorists(like 9/11 type, well funded) know better than to even touch anything digital for comms. They literally get a drone strike for having called a known terrorist or for going to a wedding other terrorists with cell phones go to. For home grown terrorism, how many school shootings happen when the people who know the shooter literally tell police/fbi beforehand about the state of the shooter. Are school s…

> Are school shooters not terrorists? They are not. Terrorism is supposed to be a political tool. Whereas school shooters are often just deranged or troubled people lashing out.

In most school shootings,they are not diagnosed with any mental illness. By that logic jihadist terrorists are sociopathic and mentally ill as well. You are right about their lack of interest in affecting change in governmental politics but they are many times (not always) trying to affect change in social politics. They prepare well ahead of time,plan out their actions and advertise their gripe against society.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#62

Post by kyuudou »

tialaramex wrote: post #25
brenden2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The path and query string are only transmitted over TLS, so it should be fine so long as you never use HTTP without TLS.

Indeed, let's break it down: The scheme (https) is implied but isn't transmitted anywhere. An adversary can infer you used HTTPS because it was port 443 and looks like TLS traffic. The hostname (www.duckduckgo.com) is somewhat implied by the destination IP address on the connection, and is also transmitted in the clear as part of TLS Server Name Indication so that the receiving server knows which service you wanted.…

None of it really matters though if the certificate authorities are compromised.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#63

Post by tialaramex »

kortex wrote: post #49
tialaramex wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, let's break it down: The scheme (https) is implied but isn't transmitted anywhere. An adversary can infer you used HTTPS because it was port 443 and looks like TLS traffic. The hostname (www.duckduckgo.com) is somewhat implied by the destination IP address on the connection, and is also transmitted in the clear as part of TLS Server Name Indication so that the receiving server knows which service you wanted.…

This is a really good summary! A few months back I was hunting for an answer as to whether url/query parameters were encrypted with HTTPS. The answer space was strangely sparse for something so critical.

The answer is obvious† to somebody who knows how it works, so it's probably in a category of questions where there's not a lot of overlap between people who might ask and people who might be in a position to answer.

I remember when I answered a Stack Overflow question about how Domain Validation for certificates in the Web PKI work thinking that just a year or two earlier the answer would be hazy and probably get marked unsatisfactory even though it was true - because it was so vague and few people would be in a position to confirm it. As it happened they'd asked after the Ten Blessed Methods were formally required and so those are the answer, written down in black and white in a document I could offer as a reference for anyone to look at.

† The hostname part is less obvious than the rest it's fair to say because HTTP's Host header is just a header and thus encrypted, and you need extra insight to realise SNI needs to exist.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#64

Post by MichaelApproved »

lonelappde wrote: post #38
_8j50 wrote: post #3

Actual terrorists(like 9/11 type, well funded) know better than to even touch anything digital for comms. They literally get a drone strike for having called a known terrorist or for going to a wedding other terrorists with cell phones go to. For home grown terrorism, how many school shootings happen when the people who know the shooter literally tell police/fbi beforehand about the state of the shooter. Are school s…

Terrorism has been removed of its meaning since 2001. Terrorism means using violence or threat of violence to influence social or political decisions. Not everything bad is terrorism. A mentally ill person going on a murder-suicide rampage after beijg ignored by a girl is not a terrorist. A person acting in their self-interest in a way that contributes to systemic racism or oppression is not a terrorist. Hunting or t…

I agree but I’d take it a bit further.

Trying to change the behavior of a group of people by using violence is what I’d consider to be terrorism.

By that definition, some school shooters would qualify as terrorists. When they target a category of people (like athletes) who haven’t bulled them, they’re trying to scare all people away from becoming athletes.

I’d say, if you target specific people who directly hurt you, you’re seeking revenge.

If you target a category of people, you’re saying that those people who haven’t done anything to you are targets and you’re trying to influence their behavior through fear.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#65

Post by MichaelApproved »

KittenInABox wrote: post #59
lonelappde wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorism has been removed of its meaning since 2001. Terrorism means using violence or threat of violence to influence social or political decisions. Not everything bad is terrorism. A mentally ill person going on a murder-suicide rampage after beijg ignored by a girl is not a terrorist. A person acting in their self-interest in a way that contributes to systemic racism or oppression is not a terrorist. Hunting or t…

> Terrorism means using violence or threat of violence to influence social or political decisions. So like the shooting of a black church by a white supremacist explicitly for the purposes of espousing white supremacy? > Hunting or threatening people of a certain race or gender or orientation or hobby to scare them and others away is terrorism. So like the lgbtq club shooting, or the black church, or the 1989 shootin…

Yes, clearly.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#66

Post by [deleted] »

brenden2 wrote: post #18
teddyh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do most of my browsing in private mode anyway. What do you think “private mode” is, exactly? I’ll tell you what it is: It’s a mode where your local web browser doesn’t save its history, which only means that people who has physical access to your device cannot see this saved history. Your ISP can still see everything of consequence, and your DoH provider can see most of it.

I think you may be overestimating the technical proficiency of the government. When they talk about browsing history, they're probably quite literally referring to looking at your web browser history. Yes, they might also subpoena your ISP for data, but if the ISP isn't collecting it in a way that is 100% correlated with your computer and browser (which is pretty hard with a NAT), then they only have a weak case at b…

[deleted]

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#67

Post by rapind »

scalableUnicon wrote: post #22
teddyh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do most of my browsing in private mode anyway. What do you think “private mode” is, exactly? I’ll tell you what it is: It’s a mode where your local web browser doesn’t save its history, which only means that people who has physical access to your device cannot see this saved history. Your ISP can still see everything of consequence, and your DoH provider can see most of it.

Firefox even shows a link to "Common Myths about Private Browsing"( https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/common-myths-about-priv... ) whenever private browsing windows are opened.

It's complete unethical bullshit to call it "private" browsing. It's intentionally misleading and I guarantee most users assume it's, you know, private, because it's called "private".

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#68

Post by billme »

foob4r wrote: post #60

I would be surprised if many of the common public believed that warrantless searches of anyone are reasonable, while exempting federal elected officials from the same law. Now's a good time to call you senator (if they voted against this) and tell them that they fucked up by weakening your rights and freedoms. Then, get a VPN or better use Tor as much as you can.

What? If this bill is not passed, Patriot Act dies, why would you want this bill to pass?

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#69

Post by teddyh »

brenden2 wrote: post #18
teddyh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do most of my browsing in private mode anyway. What do you think “private mode” is, exactly? I’ll tell you what it is: It’s a mode where your local web browser doesn’t save its history, which only means that people who has physical access to your device cannot see this saved history. Your ISP can still see everything of consequence, and your DoH provider can see most of it.

I think you may be overestimating the technical proficiency of the government. When they talk about browsing history, they're probably quite literally referring to looking at your web browser history. Yes, they might also subpoena your ISP for data, but if the ISP isn't collecting it in a way that is 100% correlated with your computer and browser (which is pretty hard with a NAT), then they only have a weak case at b…

> When they talk about browsing history, they're probably quite literally referring to looking at your web browser history.

What makes you say that?

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#70

Post by JoeSmithson »

StreamBright wrote: post #54
JoeSmithson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actual terrorists(like 9/11 type, well funded) know better than to even touch anything digital for comms Shit like this is said all the time on HN with absolutely nothing to substantiate it.

Do you know many terrorists who use digital communication to back your claim? What the above is talking about well known, even privacy-aware people tend to not use digital communication that much, no facebook, or other social media, no smartphones. In the post-Snowden era, I am not sure why somebody thinks otherwise. 3 letter agencies have the means, the reason, the legitimacy, and the resources to penetrate every ty…

> Do you know many terrorists who use digital communication to back your claim?

Yes. In fact I don't know of a single terrorist who doesn't use digital communication of some kind.

I'm slightly confused because you seem to be justifying your belief that no terrorists use digital communication on the back of examples of terrorists identified and killed via surveillance of their digital communication use

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