Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

propertyofthepeople.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 474 posts

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#371

Post by yownie »

adamfisk wrote: post #177
xster wrote: post #162

This seems like a good place to say that I strongly recommend Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley book ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34220713-surveillance-va... ) where he suggests that all of this is working as intended, going all the way back to the military counter-insurgency roots of the arpanet first in places like Vietnam, and then back home in anti-war and leftist movements. The contemporary themes that…

Yasha Levine is a conspiracy theorist hack. There’s really no other way to say it. His narrative is attractive to a left leaning audience with shallow knowledge in this area, but the reality is that without publicly funded software like Tor, Signal, OTF, and my own Lantern, our world would be more fully saturated with corporate control of the internet. We need more public funding for open source software (with public…

>my own Lantern

Brilliant reposte, but I am curious what software are you referring to here?

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#372

Post by orbifold »

CyanBird wrote: post #357
adamfisk wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m certainly not defending all US government actions. That’s exactly the point. Levine tries to lump all of this in with surveillance. The US government funds the NSA, that is true. It also funds food stamps. And torture. The trick is to untangle it.

> The trick is to untangle it. USAID is specifically designed and called that so as to tangle it , tell me, how would your average joe understand that USAID is a intelligence agency spinoff designed to sound "good" while doing evil all over the world rather than what its name suggests? You know... Aid? The NSA, CIA, Extraordinary Rendition and so many other things dont exist there by accident, if said """government""…

It seems obvious that USAID is an intelligence front (I've encountered a few instances where it was mentioned that someone worked for USAID at the time, while it was simultaneously obvious that it would make way more sense if they were Intelligence), but is there any concrete evidence for that?

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#373

Post by yownie »

CyanBird wrote: post #253
adamfisk wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yasha Levine is a conspiracy theorist hack. There’s really no other way to say it. His narrative is attractive to a left leaning audience with shallow knowledge in this area, but the reality is that without publicly funded software like Tor, Signal, OTF, and my own Lantern, our world would be more fully saturated with corporate control of the internet. We need more public funding for open source software (with public…

> from the government while fulfilling missions with extraordinary humanitarian benefits Ahh yes, the famed operation Condor, operation Gladio, operation iceberg and so many other famed "humanitarian" projects At the end of the day all that you mentioned goes back to a post-facto "it is good because *we* do it", I would go to say that most people here in HN are well aware of the start of Google when it was funded by…

While those programs certainly existed this is blatant a false equivocation, you can still have humanitarian programs while being a military hegemony. It's not one or the other.

This is in fact a distinct reason CIA/NSA (and vice versa) won't accept recruits who have served in the peace corp previously, amongst other reasons.

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#374

Post by ichydkrsrnae »

nyolfen wrote: post #302
ichydkrsrnae wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ulbricht was caught because an FBI agent, who would read things slowly and twice, recognized these 4 letters : heyy . That's how Ulbricht sometimes spelled hey , and the agent had seen that particular spelling before in his investigation, in an email from Ulbrict’s student email address. Nick Bilton's book “American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road” is a great read, highly recom…

it strikes me as extremely naive to take this at face value. see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R2013... much more likely -- sigint tooling was applied to identify ulbricht, bulk metadata was turned over for his comms history, and it was pored over for things they could connect with sr to get warrants. imo, at least. but getting to claim you're such a sharp investigator that you can figure it…

It was more complicated than just heyy, but I won't spoil the book.

It's been awhile since I've read it, but my impression was that solving the case was mostly traditional casework, and a lot of it, by many different people/agents/agencies.

That Reuters article certainly gives pause. Thanks for the link.

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#375

Post by yownie »

tialaramex wrote: post #238
tptacek wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal isn't funded by the military, by OTF/BBG, or any branch of the USG government. People who claim otherwise are confused (deeply) about a program OTF ran that sponsored third-party security reviews and development projects (summer-of-code style), none of which was mediated through OTF --- it was just a bucket of money. You should be extremely skeptical about people who bring OTF/BBG up in these discussions. I ha…

As I understand it the technology behind Tor is strengthened by an arms race. You want several different well-funded entities running nodes, because that makes the service better for everybody. Even if some of those entities are hostile they still help unless one entity controls a large portion of interior nodes and even then you're only giving metadata to that single entity (whichever it is) by using Tor, not anybod…

This analogy unfortunately cuts both ways, if you've got technology that undermines the majority government / power structure in a secure fashion, you'll always have the ability to come in as a intelligence agency and foment an insurgency movement.

Which also unfortunately points to them having exploits no one has discovered yet in said technology tools.

They can still maintain generalized situational control via additional superiority vectors(MASINT, HUMINT, GEOINT, OSINT, FININT etc.)

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#376

Post by collaborative »

bigger_inside wrote: post #370
pope_meat wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to be fair, that's a pretty valuable lesson to learn out here. it would be neat if we had a system we could rely on.

was about to comment the same thing. I teach future teachers, and I always say that_ everyone forgets their school math and chemistry lessons after cramming for the test. What sticks is learning how to survive in an unequal, dysfunctional system where you're the oppressed class, fighting among each other while you can't touch the people in power.

This is how 95% of the world works. In most countries, people are conditioned to "join" the rulers from a very young age, and people who use critical thinking are a tiny minority (often invisible)

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#377

Post by yownie »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #223
xster wrote: post #162

This seems like a good place to say that I strongly recommend Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley book ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34220713-surveillance-va... ) where he suggests that all of this is working as intended, going all the way back to the military counter-insurgency roots of the arpanet first in places like Vietnam, and then back home in anti-war and leftist movements. The contemporary themes that…

Where is any evidence of Tor being a military surveillance project? I find it hard to believe an open source project like this has been infiltrated. Yes, there is suspicion some ECC curves are compromised, but only the ones provided by NIST. I'd really like to see evidence of Tor.

There's a been a suspiciously downplayed number of ephemeral hidden services that get raided / internationally taken down on the Tor network for it to be mere circumstance.

No one tries to take notice since they're hosting the worst content on the internet regularly.

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#378

Post by ClumsyPilot »

heavyset_go wrote: post #292
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"threat assessment' coordinator from my workplace" "I feared that I may lose my job." I understand that police/FBI have to conduct investigation. What dont understand is involvement of the employer , it's extremely disturbing - you have not been convincted, you have not been charged, you are not even a suspect or accused of anything at this point - how is your private life the business of your employer? Why is your p…

> Surely the FBI is not allowed to publicise random dirt they find on innocent people? If they're doing an investigation, they very likely got the employer involved in order to get more information on the person they're investigating, and companies have liaisons for law enforcement, as well. If the FBI comes knocking and says, "we think you've hired a terrorist," it's going to ruffle some feathers at the company no m…

"If they're doing an investigation, they very likely got the employer involved in order to get more information on the person they're investigating"

What is an employer going to contibute, realistically. "Oh yeah, he always carries potassium nitrate and makes explosions during lunch breaks!"

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#379

Post by MertsA »

blueprint wrote: post #120
skrowl wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram is encrypted OVER THE WIRE and AT REST by default with strong encryption no matter what you do. It's E2EE if you select private chat with someone. Lots of FUD out there there about Telegram not being encrypted that's just not true. There's nothing either side can to do send a message in clear text / unencrypted.

(how) does the telegram server prevent unencrypted content? also curious - how does telegram support encryption for chatrooms without the parties being known in advance? or are those chats not encrypted?

Telegram only uses end to end encryption for secret chats. All other chats are only encrypted on the wire with Telegram's keys. Your comment was encrypted on the wire to HN but that's not going to do anything to keep it away from the FBI. The majority of all Telegram messages are only secured by Telegram's unwillingness to cave to outside pressure. It's in plaintext as far as they're concerned.

Re: FBI's ability to legally access secure messaging app content and metadata [pdf]

#380

Post by Molly666 »

The FBI is monitoring users - it's not a secret for a long time. Enough information has already leaked to the network to make it clear that this is not just a conspiracy theory. But, to be honest, I was surprised that each of the supposedly reliable messengers leaks data to the authorities. I was also surprised that I did not see the Utopia P2P https://u.is/en/ in the document. Maybe the only reliable application is one that stands for freedom of speech and anonymity and does not obey the authorities?
Post reply on HN