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The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

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121–130 of 130 posts

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#121
post #24

can anyone speak to companies like Cellbrite? how haven't they been sued into oblivion by phone manufacturers?

Because it's a PR win that they exist. It isn't lost sales. You have the perfect excuse for what security holes slip through, an eventual LE win where a scumbag gets taken off the streets, and oh... We think we know how they did it. Patch comes next Tuesday.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#122
post #84

FWIW, I've had a warrant executed against me by the FBI. They seized every electronic device I own, and forcibly took my biometric data(fingerprints, face scan, retinal scan) in the hopes they could unlock my devices with it. They were unable to access any LUKS-encrypted volumes, and were less than happy about that situation. Can't say much else unless I'm good with 99x anxiety for the next few days. ps: not charged,…

Very depressing how in the UK you could've been forced to disclose your password under section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and gotten even 5 years jail time if you refused. I presume there isn't a US equivalent?

How about that you really don't know the passwords? By using RAM as USB with battery to store your passwords. Whenever unplug the USB, the passwords exist until out of battery. After that, everything vanished.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tor is not an end-all solution. Hidden services can be trivially unmasked (for an actor like the CIA/NSA) with traffic correlation attacks

Targeted surveillance is different than mass surveillance, different threat models call for different tools. https://everytwoyears.org/2020/07/13/tactical-privacy.html

When all it takes is a quick online search for any agent to access the mass surveillance, all privacy invasion is targetable.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#124
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that is true (and pray it isn't). I don't think the populace is that stupid. Also, unnecessarily political. I could replace "racism" with "immigration" or "socialism" just as easily, that doesn't make it true.

I don’t care if it seems political, it’s reality. This is just the most effective tool the government has for manufacturing consent at the moment. This is the just the thing we’re already clearly willing to give up civil liberties for in another areas, primarily in freedom of speech and basic property rights. Complaining about it this seen as unacceptable — you can’t criticize or question any mainstream view put out…

>Complaining about it this seen as unacceptable — you can’t criticize or question any mainstream view put out by the media on this issue

This is completely false: entire media companies are dedicated to it.

>Identity politics is the clear and only vehicle for this kind of suppression of basic rights at the moment.

Again, I could just as easily say >Fear of socialism is the clear and only vehicle for this kind of suppression of basic rights at the moment.

That does not make it true.

>If there is some sort of PATRIOT Act 2.0 under the current administration targeted at “domestic terrorism” I absolutely guarantee you someone will at least try to put an encryption backdoor in it.

That's literally a given. I don't know what you're arguing. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4876107/user-clip-joe-biden-w...

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#125
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can, but they wish it weren't true. Cell phones have an obvious huge upside, and society has adjusted itself so that you pretty much have to have one. (Ever asked to use somebody's phone?). Meanwhile, one of these technocrats is pushing a vaccine that might as well be magic, developed in an unusually short time, to cure a disease that people think might occasionally kill somebody else, but probably not them. The…

Would it not lead to a horrifying dystopia, it wold be interesting to see how the response changed it the vaccine were marketed as a status symbol.

It is notable that vaccine acceptance has gone up now that it is widely available, which also coincides with the departure of an influential politician who had been downplaying the significance of the disease.

It's hard to disentangle the two effects, but there is a burgeoning symbol of status in people literally displaying their vaccine cards. It hasn't completely undone the damage, but it does seem to ameliorate it.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#126
post #8

Another argument against the "going dark" claim is that before smartphones and the internet, the only conversations the FBI could monitor was through phonelines and mail. These were known to be easily monitored and I doubt there was much more criminal activity happening through those then than now. I would argue that the conversations that have gone online are the interactions that were previously happening in-person…

I’ll take 15kg of pastrami for the Miami delivery. I’m getting a pushback on the new price on Genoa but Eddie tells me he knows he can smooth it over. The dates however are spoiled,it’s going to need a total clean. I am the walrus.

Metadata --- who you talk to and when, is both easier to code and often provides more useful information than message contents.

See Lasswell. "Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasswell%27s_model_of_communic...

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#127
The metamessage to me, especially in light of the Crypto AG disclosures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-...), is that backdoors have always been the principle means of signals intelligence.

Intercepting the phones, tapping the lines, listening on broadcasts, surveilling deaddrops, compromising encryption, are all far easier than the computationally hard work of cracking strong crypto.

And LEO / Intel don't like to break a sweat.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#128

FWIW, I've had a warrant executed against me by the FBI. They seized every electronic device I own, and forcibly took my biometric data(fingerprints, face scan, retinal scan) in the hopes they could unlock my devices with it. They were unable to access any LUKS-encrypted volumes, and were less than happy about that situation. Can't say much else unless I'm good with 99x anxiety for the next few days. ps: not charged,…

What software do you use to encrypt your phone and computer?

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#129

FWIW, I've had a warrant executed against me by the FBI. They seized every electronic device I own, and forcibly took my biometric data(fingerprints, face scan, retinal scan) in the hopes they could unlock my devices with it. They were unable to access any LUKS-encrypted volumes, and were less than happy about that situation. Can't say much else unless I'm good with 99x anxiety for the next few days. ps: not charged,…

What software do you use to encrypt your phone and computer?

My phone at the time was a stock Android device with encryption enabled. Computers were all linux with LUKS encrypted volumes.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#130
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it extremely alarming that law enforcement almost everywhere around the world is attempting to undermine almost a century-fold of legitimate mathematics and science with regards to encryption and cryptography. It's a tad embarrassing that lawmakers (who aren't even computer scientists like c'mon are we for real here?) somehow forgot how and who broke the Enigma Machine. Alan Turing did that. Same thing with th…

>> Either everyone has access to a tool which can guarantee that you can blend in with the rest of the crowd. This is already happening. When the NSA decided the best approach to combat terrorism was to scoop up all emails, text, voice and internet browsing of every citizen on a daily basis, they inadvertently created a way we can all "blend in" now. A perfect example is the Jan 6th capitol attack. It was being plann…

>A perfect example is the Jan 6th capitol attack. It was being planned out on the open, on social media channels. They didn't use any obfuscation in their language and still, even with all the technology they have, the massive surveillance machine couldn't stop it from happening.

While the rest of your point is salient, this example is flat out false. The FBI and multiple police departments were aware of what was about to happen and warned those in charge. It was summarily ignored, because the people in charge believed the rioters were on their side. It could have easily been stopped had they reacted with even a fraction of the force they did with the BLM protests a year earlier. The events of January 6th was a result of institutional prejudice and nothing less, not a lack of information from surveillance.

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