If you look closely, about halfway down, in the ciphertext you can almost make out some non-random parts:
An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
101–110 of 164 posts
Re: An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
The message posted on Wired is encrypted with that key. EDIT: While what I said was technically true, in that it is encrypted with the 79DEBE35 key, that's not Wired's key, it's the recipient's key.
One could say it was encrypted to the 79DEBE35 key.
The way this thread is going, one probably ought to say that or otherwise imply/explain it :S
Re: An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
#103If Edward Snowden does have a pgp key (I can't find one online), it hasn't been revealed in this message. It looks like the signing and encryption keys are the same: gpg: armor: BEGIN PGP MESSAGE gpg: armor header: Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.19 (Darwin) gpg: armor header: Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org :pubkey enc packet: version 3, algo 1, keyid 5B50940B79DEBE35 data: [4096 bits] gpg: public key is 79DEBE3…
If --hidden-encrypt-to is used, there still will be signs of that. Specifically, the message addressed to 0x0000000 and the recipient will basically brute force it uses every key he/she has. Having said, that, according to PGP Dump Old: Public-Key Encrypted Session Key Packet(tag 1)(524 bytes) New version(3) Key ID - 0x5B50940B79DEBE35 Pub alg - RSA Encrypt or Sign(pub 1) RSA m^e mod n(4096 bits) - ... -> m = sym alg…
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Re: An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is Kevin Poulsen. Just popping in to correct this. Adrian Lamo turned in Bradley Manning. All I did (being a reporter) is break the news. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/conscience/
I'm sorry you've found yourself in the crossfire. How do you feel about Snowden?
He's a whistleblower of historic importance. That Verizon FISA order alone has exposed deception at the highest levels of government. Proof that an Ars Technica reader can amount to something.
Re: An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
#105Snowden, just remember that Kevin Poulsen and Adrian Lamo helped the US Government in catching Bradley Manning. EDIT: Also, a pretty safe way to carry an interview would be VPN + Tor + Bitmessage. EDIT2: Users sneak and tlb claim Tor isn't safe because of timing attacks. Read below.
>Snowden, just remember that Kevin Poulsen and Adrian Lamo helped the US Government in catching Bradley Manning. I posted something to that effect in the article's comments. It was moderated and comments are now closed (at least for me).
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Re: An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
#106Interesting, the encrypting key is "Verax (Informed Democracy Front)" and claims to have been created on May 20th. I can't tell what key the message is encrypted for. They may have used --hidden-recipient
Verax is the recipient, not the sender. Messages are encrypted using the recipient's public key. You can confirm this yourself by encrypting a message to someone else and checking to see what which key it shows under "encrypted with".
Thanks for that correction. Makes this all even crazier, if Wired is straight up trying to send him a message this way.
Re: An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
#107Snowden, just remember that Kevin Poulsen and Adrian Lamo helped the US Government in catching Bradley Manning. EDIT: Also, a pretty safe way to carry an interview would be VPN + Tor + Bitmessage. EDIT2: Users sneak and tlb claim Tor isn't safe because of timing attacks. Read below.
This is Kevin Poulsen. Just popping in to correct this. Adrian Lamo turned in Bradley Manning. All I did (being a reporter) is break the news. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/conscience/
Hey there Kevin, how does US Attorney cock taste?
Anybody with any sense knows you're a plant, not a hacker, and your hacking charges were laid there by the US Attorney to give you cover to turn on real hackers. Wired has been part of the compromised media from the day they published anything written by you.
Re: An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK, the current publicly-known record for breaking RSA keys is the factorization of RSA-768 in 2010: http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/006.pdf That paper says it took about 1500 CPU-years to break a 768-bit key, and that the difficulty increases 1000x for each additional 256 bits of key length. For a back-of-the-envelope cost estimate, I'm going to assume that there have been no major theoretical breakthroughs in the la…
Assuming there's no known exploit. The NSA might know of an exploit for that algorithm.
At the moment, the NSA still permits use of 2048-bit RSA for classified information up to SECRET. It would be highly questionable for them to do so if they knew of easily exploitable weaknesses, as they're taking the chance that other governments won't find them.
Remember, the NSA's mandate is twofold: They are a signals intelligence agency, but they are also charged with protecting government communications, much of which occur with commercially-available cryptography.
RSA does make people nervous for some valid reasons, and that's why there's a gradual transition to ECC underway, but there's little reason to expect a practical attack on RSA at 2048+ bits in the near term.
Absent an operational error on the part of Wired or Snowden, I seriously doubt the NSA will be decrypting that message in Snowden's lifetime, and almost certainly not before changes in the political climate.
Re: An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
#109Snowden, just remember that Kevin Poulsen and Adrian Lamo helped the US Government in catching Bradley Manning. EDIT: Also, a pretty safe way to carry an interview would be VPN + Tor + Bitmessage. EDIT2: Users sneak and tlb claim Tor isn't safe because of timing attacks. Read below.
This is Kevin Poulsen. Just popping in to correct this. Adrian Lamo turned in Bradley Manning. All I did (being a reporter) is break the news. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/conscience/
There's no way to know if you're really Kevin Poulsen. Your account was created an hour ago. It could be someone trolling. If you want to prove this is you, you could link your comment from a tweet.
I've read more about your involvement in the Lamo-Manning conversation, and I've changed my mind. Lamo turned in Manning. But you knew Lamo was planning to deceive Manning to make him confess more leaks in a second chat:
http://www.salon.com/2010/06/18/wikileaks_3/
I can't edit nor delete my original comment since the edit link has expired.
As an important actor in the Lamo-Manning story, I would like to ask you some questions.
- Do you think Adrian Lamo acted ethically?
- What's your opinion on whistle-blowers and their role in democracy?
Thanks.
Re: An encrypted message to Edward Snowden
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry you've found yourself in the crossfire. How do you feel about Snowden?
He's a whistleblower of historic importance. That Verizon FISA order alone has exposed deception at the highest levels of government. Proof that an Ars Technica reader can amount to something.
> Proof that an Ars Technica reader can amount to something.
Cute. I'm sure he read Dilbert a few times too.
It takes quite an astonishing level of arrogance to suggest that being an "Ars Technica reader" was an important part of his identity, as that article did. Internet nerd makes a few comments on tech website, huge shock there.