Oh hey Reddit...uh...I mean Hacker News.
Your liberties and freedoms, especially as they relate to the digital medium and AT&T in particular is very relevant for everyone, including hackers, designers and entrepreneurs.
AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
131–140 of 233 posts
Re: AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://vimeo.com/11303353
Not sure what your point is, here. I listened to it, and it was very interesting, but the speaker has actually implemented encrypted communications on Android, so he clearly isn't too worried about it being poisoned.
Did we listen to the same talk? He is a practitioner in the field of security ("choice", "society").
OP: many thanks for the link. The problem of the compromised platform is an interesting one. A programmable dongle would address the compromised host platform. (Used to be a JVM on a chip dongle out there back in late 90s... just run on that and treat your pc as hostile.)
Re: AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're trying too hard. There are existing protocols (S/MIME, PGP, Jabber, etc.) for transferring messages in a secure manner. I'd pick the one that fits your scenario and wrap it up in a shiny app. AFAIK, there are several IM apps that could support encryption, but I don't think they are actually doing so (and if they are, they aren't advertising it). As it is, end-end secure communications is not (I think)…
You may be right, however one advantage of this method is that any messages and files are seen as exactly the same: a secure truecrypt encrypted file transfer. No differentiation between a txt or file...
In the context of this discussion, you are talking about creating a crypto solution that prevents the NSA from sniffing your customers. Not a casual packet sniffer, the NSA. This is not the time to be running off and implementing your own crypto!
Re: AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
#134Re: AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
#135One thing I see people saying on here is that people should care....and I do...but I don't know _what_ to do with it! Can someone show/tell me what I, an average person, can do? It feels a bit overwhelming and things like this point out how powerless we really are. I hope I'm wrong and there are things we can do...I just don't know what they are. EDIT - Asking two more specific questions: 1. What can we do technicall…
Whenever I mention libertarian principles on HN I get a mixed response, but this is one situation where we must demand individual rights. We need to elect politicians like Ron Paul who oppose big government intrusions into our privacy. This country is supposed to be a bastion of liberty and we go to war to "protect freedom" and "democracy" and yet we are less and less free every day. When we see articles about Chinese "human rights abuses" many are quick to condemn them and other countries perceived as less free than ourselves. Yet I have observed that the US has been headed in a very totalitarian direction for at least the past decade while China has been headed the opposite way, towards more and more freedom. Yes, the Chinese have filtered Internet today, but in the last century they've moved from Feudalism to Communism to a mixed economy. We have gone from having the most freedom in the world to having a Department of Homeland Security, TSA, NSA, Patriot Act, full-body X-Rays, and country-tapping.
Re: AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
#136AT&T isn't the only one to do this. So long as it isn't used against citizens in criminal trials/etc I don't really care all that much if it helps make intelligence people more efficient.
How would you know that it isn't being used that way? Even if the evidence isn't being used directly at trial, it could sure be used to help 'guess' when a good time to stake out someone's house might be.
Re: AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
#137One thing I see people saying on here is that people should care....and I do...but I don't know _what_ to do with it! Can someone show/tell me what I, an average person, can do? It feels a bit overwhelming and things like this point out how powerless we really are. I hope I'm wrong and there are things we can do...I just don't know what they are. EDIT - Asking two more specific questions: 1. What can we do technicall…
So after applying to YC today (worried that I borked my app) I had the following idea - which is an evolutionary idea from the one I applied to YC with, I dont know if this is possible - but I want to throw it out to HN: I would like to see mobile end-to-end secure communications apps that allow for users to have completely encrypted message passing. I had the following idea - please tell me if this would work: You h…
You will have a "car accident."
Well, actually you won't, but only because you will "listen to reason" when some well-dressed uninvited guests come over for an evening chat.
Call me mad, but do you ever wonder why there is no consumer hardware PGP telephone?
Re: AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
#138One thing I see people saying on here is that people should care....and I do...but I don't know _what_ to do with it! Can someone show/tell me what I, an average person, can do? It feels a bit overwhelming and things like this point out how powerless we really are. I hope I'm wrong and there are things we can do...I just don't know what they are. EDIT - Asking two more specific questions: 1. What can we do technicall…
You could work on the Freedom Box.
http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/721744279/push-the-freed...
Re: AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
So after applying to YC today (worried that I borked my app) I had the following idea - which is an evolutionary idea from the one I applied to YC with, I dont know if this is possible - but I want to throw it out to HN: I would like to see mobile end-to-end secure communications apps that allow for users to have completely encrypted message passing. I had the following idea - please tell me if this would work: You h…
You will have a "car accident." Well, actually you won't, but only because you will "listen to reason" when some well-dressed uninvited guests come over for an evening chat. Call me mad, but do you ever wonder why there is no consumer hardware PGP telephone?
This phone doesn't exist because there's not a market for it. I definitely wouldn't buy that. I, like a lot of others, don't have anything to hide from the government so even though I oppose the wire-tapping i'm not going to inconvenience myself to keep arbitrary data and idle chat secure.
Re: AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA
#140Watch Nova - The Spy Factory ( S36 E11 ). Nova investigated the National Security Agency, and what led to AT&T do what it is doing today and why.
There's also a nice book about it (The Shadow Factory by James Bamford): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9568943...