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Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

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Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#101

Post by [deleted] »

contingencies wrote: post #20
anigbrowl wrote: post #9

First, recall that states are systems through which coercive force flows. Factions within a state may compete for support, leading to democratic surface phenomena, but the underpinnings of states are the systematic application, and avoidance, of violence. Land ownership, property, rents, dividends, taxation, court fines, censorship, copyrights and trademarks are all enforced by the threatened application of state vio…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#102

Post by wissler »

bluedanieru wrote: post #96
wissler wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insightful. I'm curious as to what you think are the basic human rights and the principles of the Enlightenment.

Does it matter? I'm not debating the principles of the Constitution here, but rather the American focus on the document rather than the principles themselves.

I don't think the principles are common knowledge. Of course they matter.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#103

Post by SoftwareMaven »

tptacek wrote: post #99
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that people don't care. You are right, people care. But not about things that would make reducing government power likely nor encrypting things by default probable. They care about getting to work in the morning and getting home at night. They care about dinner with the family and a couple hours mindless television. They care about being safe while they do these things, and they've fully bought into…

The government doesn't have a "mantra" of "we will protect you". It has an obligation to actually protect its citizens, and, in America, does a pretty good job of it. The notion that reliance on the government for protection is a brainwashed delusion is one of those conversational signifiers that convince normal people that all this encryption stuff has nothing to do with them.

Of course the government's job is to protect it's people. Even the most libertarian-minded people subscribe to that.

The problem is the government has been leaning on that to expand to things that are of questionable "protection".

Does millimeter-wave scanning protect you? The government sure expects you to believe it does.

What about seizure of property? That will surely protect you from drugs.

Why should we need a warrant for things like accessing somebody's email? Terrorists might be sending emails.

In some way, each of these things might increase our safety, but the cost of that protection is intolerable to me and many others. Unfortunately, most people don't seem to realize any price is being paid.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#104

Post by mylittlepony »

acabal wrote: post #18

I agree with the sentiment, but Assange's prose is a little dense. Maybe it's OK for his target audience, as I assume the layman won't be reading cryptome.org. What we really need is a champion to explain in relatable, plain English why encryption is essential even for mom and dad, and to explain it in a more mainstream venue. I think a big reason why people don't encrypt mail, etc., is because: 1) they don't know wh…

It's a very hard problem IMO. Not just finding the words, but everything. For example, before learning linux to a degree where it wasn't a pain to use as a desktop, I thought it made no sense to waste time learning this or that security feature (like email encryption), because an expert would probably be able to fuck me anyway. Now that I have a better understanding, and I can mentally trace the information from end to end, know where it could be compromised, etc, I started caring, secured everything the best I could, and my friends now call me a paranoid (that didn't stop me from installing Thunderbird and Enigmail in their PC's).

So I think someone should explain to the people in a clear way that you don't need 100% security, but you need to understand when and where your information can get compromised, and what you can do about it. Eg:

- Private message on facebook - you are screwed

- Messenger - you are screwed

- Post on a blog - you are screwed, unless you posted anonymously and hidden your IP (which is not that easy, we know of many geeks who were caught even when they were using Thor, because they didn't fully understand the technology - hint: exit nodes)

- Email - you can encrypt it, and you are safe as long as both computers (sender's and receiver's) stay safe (assuming you store your private key there)

- Data on your computer - you are safe unless malware is installed, or someone gets physical access. You can use full disk encryption, but you will probably have to use Linux (personally, I use Ubuntu), so this is a far fetched goal for the regular Joe. There is also truecrypt for windows, but it's not full disk if I recall correctly.

- Etc.

I'll add a recent anecdote here: Just the other day a friend of mine replied to one of my emails, saying that gmail broke the encrypted email (meaning he couldn't read it, not that gmail decrytped it). In his reply, I received the broken email, and four emails from a private conversation he was having with other people. Something happened in gmail, something went wrong, and I got those emails. They came with headers and everything, he didn't copy/paste those (he wouldn't know how to do that). So there's another reason to encrypt emails: mails server can make mistakes apparently.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#105

Post by derrida »

rdl wrote: post #5

I'd prefer to stick to http://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html I also find Eric Hughes much easier to rally behind than Julian Assange, although John Gilmore is better still (although largely focuses on drug policy, now). Or John Perry Barlow or Mitch Kapor.

I'd be interested to know what you think of the Cryptoparty 'movement', rdl? Eric Hughes talked in Amsterdam. Would you get involved?

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#106

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#107

Post by rdl »

derrida wrote: post #105
rdl wrote: post #5

I'd prefer to stick to http://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html I also find Eric Hughes much easier to rally behind than Julian Assange, although John Gilmore is better still (although largely focuses on drug policy, now). Or John Perry Barlow or Mitch Kapor.

I'd be interested to know what you think of the Cryptoparty 'movement', rdl? Eric Hughes talked in Amsterdam. Would you get involved?

It's too broad in scope for me to be really interested, I think -- meetings more focused on specific problems and solutions to those problems, vs. "the overall concept of cryptography and secure communications" seem more likely to be productive.

There are really no shortage of events like this in the Bay Area. I think "how to help mainstream developers build and operate services securely" would be the only thing I'm really into; end users are too varied and stressful for me. (there are usually a critical number of true tinfoil hat, "I've been marginalized by society and need someone who hack my girlfriend's email" types at open end-user crypto meetings...) At least based on the previous several attempts at this kind of thing (2600, Ian/Len's key signing parties, cypherpunks physical meetings, etc.)

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#108

Post by jlgreco »

[deleted] wrote: post #106
jlgreco wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

s/worst/best/

I meant worse in the sense of slowest progress. The slowest RSA is going to continue to degrade is pretty much the standard that it has been doing so consistently. Bad wording on my part.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#109

Post by ef4 »

moe wrote: post #75
ef4 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora

How on earth can you bring up diaspora in this context? Some kind of cruel joke? I'm downvoting parent and giving you the right link: https://freenetproject.org/

Heh, I probably should have said it's not an endorsement. Just another example of a (dubious) attempt at a distributed social network.

Re: Julian Assange: Cryptographic Call to Arms

#110

Post by derrida »

rdl wrote: post #52
casca wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To anyone reading this, please note that while some of beloch's points are valid, the analysis of AES and the breakability thereof is not. While it's true that at some point it's likely that AES will be broken, it's also true that at some point our solar system will be destroyed. OTP is theoretically unbreakable, but that would require a key that is as long as the ciphertext, at which point Mr Assange can just keep t…

Yeah, the whole point of distributing huge "insurance" data in an encrypted form is that the key is tiny. It's possible to maybe censor distribution of a 10GB file, at least generally, but it would be exceedingly difficult to prevent distribution of a 128-256 bit key. Literally you could shout it from the rooftops. Nothing remains sensitive forever. It's likely everything in the "insurance file" would be public and m…

It may be sensitive, but have you ever tried to put in an FOI request for anything. The entire process is marred by bureaucracy. Wikileaks would have a role to play even if there were no classification system. Don't underestimate how hard it is to get a good historical record :-)
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