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Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

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Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#41

Post by jlgreco »

plaguuuuuu wrote: post #32
beloch wrote: post #26

Assange certainly has a flair for the dramatic... but he doesn't understand encryption. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wikileaks-insurance-file-decry... Wikileaks has distributed AES encrypted files that it claims are full of government secrets. They have withheld the information needed to decrypt some of those files ( although some keys have leaked from wikileaks, oddly enough) as a deterrent to persecution by govern…

So Assange, who has actually developed part of Truecrypt, doesn't understand encryption. In that case I wonder what the rest of the tc team is smoking to let him contribute :p The use of AES is clever. It will be crackable at some point in the future for sure - everyone knows this. I'd be willing to put 20 bucks on NSA already having cracked it anyway, even if that makes me one of those tinfoil hat types, but that wo…

Hell, it would not have even been a bad idea for Assange to send them a copy of the key when he initially released the insurance file. If the insurance file has anything of substance, it would work better if they know what is in it. Giving them the key would be giving them proof that you are not bluffing.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#43

Post by codeulike »

[deleted] wrote: post #38
beloch wrote: post #26

Assange certainly has a flair for the dramatic... but he doesn't understand encryption. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wikileaks-insurance-file-decry... Wikileaks has distributed AES encrypted files that it claims are full of government secrets. They have withheld the information needed to decrypt some of those files ( although some keys have leaked from wikileaks, oddly enough) as a deterrent to persecution by govern…

[deleted]

Assange is very aware of Rubber hosing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_%28file_system%29

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#44

Post by JulianMorrison »

beloch wrote: post #26

Assange certainly has a flair for the dramatic... but he doesn't understand encryption. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wikileaks-insurance-file-decry... Wikileaks has distributed AES encrypted files that it claims are full of government secrets. They have withheld the information needed to decrypt some of those files ( although some keys have leaked from wikileaks, oddly enough) as a deterrent to persecution by govern…

Your politics is broken too. Publishing with a delay would mean "no use going after wikileaks, it's already out there". Keeping the key would mean "if we close them down, it's over". Given the delay to crack AES might be far longer than it takes stuff to emerge anyhow as declassified obsolete history, that's as good as keeping the key. And they have gone after wikileaks.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#45

Post by jlgreco »

[deleted] wrote: post #38
beloch wrote: post #26

Assange certainly has a flair for the dramatic... but he doesn't understand encryption. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wikileaks-insurance-file-decry... Wikileaks has distributed AES encrypted files that it claims are full of government secrets. They have withheld the information needed to decrypt some of those files ( although some keys have leaked from wikileaks, oddly enough) as a deterrent to persecution by govern…

[deleted]

The OTP idea is incredibly idiotic. It is functionally no different than not releasing the insurance file at all, and just claiming that you will release it in the future.

I am frankly stunned this isn't downvoted to oblivion already. I guess people really just like hearing that Assange is dumb.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#46

Post by [deleted] »

beloch wrote: post #39
psykotic wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AES is based on factoring. And you say _he_ doesn't understand cryptography?

I'm not in classical crypto, so I occasionally mess up and call algorithms based on computational difficult "based on factoring". The end result is the same though. Publication with delay.

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#47

Post by scarmig »

ef4 wrote: post #27
contingencies wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assange speaks truth. You cannot deny the fundamentals of the state are violence. The US speaks already of a capacity for instant global weapon strikes within the hour. You claim it is wrong to question the system, implicitly suggesting there is no alternative. But anthropology shows clearly that premodern societies had more free time, greater material and economic equality. (Try 'Debt: The First 5000 Years'). You at…

> But anthropology shows clearly that premodern societies had more free time, greater material and economic equality. I already disagreed with the grandparent comment, but I need to criticize this too: those metrics are terrible, and we shouldn't be looking to the past for the good old days. Free time: only if you don't consider all the free time lost by all the people who died as children (extremely high premodern c…

Well, the metrics could definitely use some work and context, but there is some real truth behind them. Up until the 18th century or so, non-state spaces existed in abundance, and given a choice between either being a subject of a sedentary state or being a person outside state control, you were nearly certainly better off by choosing the latter. Many people did, in fact, and there was a constant flux of people out of and into state spaces. It was only when technology became sufficiently developed that virtually everyone was subjected to the State.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#48

Post by rorrr »

beloch wrote: post #26

Assange certainly has a flair for the dramatic... but he doesn't understand encryption. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wikileaks-insurance-file-decry... Wikileaks has distributed AES encrypted files that it claims are full of government secrets. They have withheld the information needed to decrypt some of those files ( although some keys have leaked from wikileaks, oddly enough) as a deterrent to persecution by govern…

If someone figures out how to crack AES or how to factor very efficiently, leaks will be the least of our problems.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#49

Post by contingencies »

ef4 wrote: post #27
contingencies wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assange speaks truth. You cannot deny the fundamentals of the state are violence. The US speaks already of a capacity for instant global weapon strikes within the hour. You claim it is wrong to question the system, implicitly suggesting there is no alternative. But anthropology shows clearly that premodern societies had more free time, greater material and economic equality. (Try 'Debt: The First 5000 Years'). You at…

> But anthropology shows clearly that premodern societies had more free time, greater material and economic equality. I already disagreed with the grandparent comment, but I need to criticize this too: those metrics are terrible, and we shouldn't be looking to the past for the good old days. Free time: only if you don't consider all the free time lost by all the people who died as children (extremely high premodern c…

> we shouldn't be looking to the past

History informs the present and future. My point in bringing up anthropology was that the OP's implicit suggestion that there is no alternative is demonstrably invalid.

> being equally poor

I would also heartily recommend the same book to you. It's quite an eye opener.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#50

Post by doe88 »

beloch wrote: post #26

Assange certainly has a flair for the dramatic... but he doesn't understand encryption. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wikileaks-insurance-file-decry... Wikileaks has distributed AES encrypted files that it claims are full of government secrets. They have withheld the information needed to decrypt some of those files ( although some keys have leaked from wikileaks, oddly enough) as a deterrent to persecution by govern…

> If he used a one-time-pad (Vernam cipher) and kept the key on his person he'd be in a far better position, but he's apparently too stupid to do this. How do you use a one-time pad?

A 1.4 GB key... Yeahhhhhh, very practical.

edit: and btw I hope you're also confident on the quality of your RNG to output 1.4 GB of random bytes.

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