Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms • Hacker News Board

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#81

Post by trotsky » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 1:47 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #17

A sufficiently motivated government has a nearly infinite amount of tools available for breaking encryption. Ignoring the possibility that it might know proprietary weaknesses to various systems (a hypothesis that is unknowable), there's just so much you need to secure at each node in a computer system. Are you personally sure no backdoors exist in the physical hardware you use? In the operating system you use? In th…

Even using encryption that is trivially defeated is effective at resisting broadly applied surveillance as long as the fact that it's trivially defeated isn't public. That's because you need to restrict the application of the technique to a rather limited circle to maintain secrecy, which more or less guarantees that it's only applied in a targeted fashion.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#82

Post by harryh » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 1:53 AM UTC

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…

Distributing a OTP encrypted ciphertext ahead of time doesn't accomplish anything because the ciphertext can be translated into any plaintext you want by choosing the correct key.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#83

Post by chj » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 2:07 AM UTC

CorsairSanglot wrote: post #71

rdl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also find it on popular torrent sites, as information wants to be free. (I would have bought it if it had been on Amazon, but, well.) 1dc2e5b6f0d5036a182e85ab34da839d15eaf1ed cypherpunks.epub 5d546aaa83aebd43a2342f6dc737d271a34ff684 cypherpunks.mobi ccaf1c45fc31633c9728dcd2cd4545b55a27be7c cypherpunks.pdf

Wait...so your two options are buy from Amazon or pirate? Amazon is basically the worst corporation on the face of the earth. Supporting a small publisher -- especially a small publisher willing to publish Julian Assange, books about Bradley Manning, and books about Wikileaks, is basically a decent thing to do.

payment is very inconvenient.

That's why a free payment system (without state control) should be given the top priority.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#84

Post by contingencies » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 2:09 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #80

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…

You claim it is wrong to question the system, implicitly suggesting there is no alternative. No I didn't. How can you expect me to engage with the rest of your comment in any serious fashion when you just make up claims like this?

I read your "As if we lived in a halcyon utopia prior to that..." paragraph as implicitly denying alternatives to the status-quo of modern society. Apologies if this was not your intent; in any case, in that paragraph you have done essentially to Assange's views what I did with my comment to yours. Haha :) May we all live long and prosper; peace amongst all.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#85

Post by kragen » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 2:10 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #76

ef4 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is a non sequitur: states are necessary, therefore states are not systems through which coercive force flows. If you want to argue that states are necessary, fine. But call a spade a spade. Can you imagine a state that doesn't wield violence? That's what a state is . The lack of clarity on this issue leads to a lot of bad conclusions. When we argue that the state should solve any particular problem, we…

Your argument is a non sequitur: states are necessary, therefore states are not systems through which coercive force flows. I did not say that at all. I am OK with states being systems through which coercive force flows, because I think channeling and supervising said force usually results of less of it flowing than otherwise would. Can you imagine a state that doesn't wield violence? That's what a state is. It's har…

All kinds of organizations and people build infrastructure; churches and companies also promulgate laws and provide dispute-resolution forums. What distinguishes the state from other organizations that perform similar tasks is that the state holds a monopoly on (legitimate) violence. This is not a "narrow and immature" point of view; this is the normal definition. Quoting Wikipedia:

The most commonly used definition is Max Weber's,[6][7][8][9][10] which describes the state as a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#86

Post by rdl » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 2:10 AM UTC

CorsairSanglot wrote: post #71

rdl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also find it on popular torrent sites, as information wants to be free. (I would have bought it if it had been on Amazon, but, well.) 1dc2e5b6f0d5036a182e85ab34da839d15eaf1ed cypherpunks.epub 5d546aaa83aebd43a2342f6dc737d271a34ff684 cypherpunks.mobi ccaf1c45fc31633c9728dcd2cd4545b55a27be7c cypherpunks.pdf

Wait...so your two options are buy from Amazon or pirate? Amazon is basically the worst corporation on the face of the earth. Supporting a small publisher -- especially a small publisher willing to publish Julian Assange, books about Bradley Manning, and books about Wikileaks, is basically a decent thing to do.

Yeah, it's not so much a moral argument as that I'm willing to pay ~10 seconds and up to $20 (and ideally, $10) for a book.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#87

Post by CryptoGap » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 2:12 AM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #59

beloch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

RSA and AES are wildly different animals. You break RSA by factoring very large numbers. Currently this is done with GNFS, which is steadily improving. Theoretically, it may also be possible to do it much faster. Nobody brute forces RSA. In order to crack AES though you need to either brute force it (which you will never do. Not that many bits, just forget about it.) Or you need a cryptanalytic attack that allows you…

The NSA doesn't use code it can't crack...

AES is broken on-the-fly now.

Even if information is encrypted. They now just store EVERYTHING indefinitely until they can crack it.

Makes you wonder if in the future, when they crack your encrypted content if your grandchildren will get a visit...

The nazi's did that kind of thing too...

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#88

Post by contingencies » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 2:13 AM UTC

It is interesting that this preface has been extracted and hosted on Cryptome. Given the history of Cryptome and Wikileaks; and having had the opportunity back in 2009 to ask Assange in person about his views of Cryptome, I am no doubt his eyebrows would raise as well. I wonder if John Young posted it himself or it was submitted. IIRC part of Assange's concerns around Cryptome were some well reasoned arguments around editorial and source protection policy.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#89

Post by dsl » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 2:14 AM UTC

georgeorwell wrote: post #15

This kind of over-the-top writing confirms what I already thought, which is that despite whatever good he might do in terms of exposing corrupt governments in the world, Julian Assange is just desperate for attention. Being this paranoid he should be advocating "post-quantum cryptography", i.e. cryptographic methods that are secure even once somebody develops a quantum computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-qua…

Absolutely an attention whore.

A few people took on the risk of giving him a treasure trove of stolen documents (the VAST majority of which did had zero positive impact in being released), and he turned it into a soapbox.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#90

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 2:18 AM UTC

chunkyslink wrote: post #79

blablabla123 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add some more complexity: the reason he is in a dodgy situation in the first place are rape allegations. Looking at some "leaked" parts of his biography this doesn't sound too far-fetched to me. I definitely appreciate his engagement in disclosing many interesting documents about the micro-social diplomatic environment. But after all, what about the more interesting stuff? Leaked documents from the center of the t…

There have been no charges laid against Julian Assange. The only 'dodgy situation' as you put it is that there has been so much effort to get him extradited to Sweden by a UK government who would not normally be interested in 'allegations' without substance from abroad.

There have been no charges laid against Julian Assange

Isn't this because he refuses to undergo questioning? As I understood it, the laws under which he is to be charged prohibit laying charges against him until they question him. So in this case, to say he has not been charged is devoid of meaning.