I thought he said in the conference with WikiLeake staffer that he has shared everything he knows. Now in the email he is talking about protecting more information. Now I am confuse.
Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
71–80 of 222 posts
Re: Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
#72It's always interesting to me that as a new statement from Snowden to the press comes out, most comments on Hacker News take him totally at his word, and assume that his interpretation of events and policy is by far the interpretation most likely to be true. Because I was already past Snowden's current age and current experience level in living in other countries by the time Snowden was born, I see a lot of holes and…
I have nothing to add, just wanted to thank you for joining in on the Restore the Fourth protests. We all had a lot of fun that day!
Re: Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
To offer an opposing view: I cannot be coerced into revealing that information, even under torture. That is a huge claim. I do not imagine that his training involved being tortured to make sure. If he's wrong, there could be dire consequences for the US. You might even say his ego is writing checks his body can't cash.
Such training does not exist anywhere on this planet. Edit: I already mentioned SERE training in a higher level post. It's pretty intense, but still, the most valuable lesson you learn is that everyone will end up talking. I was simply commenting on the possibility of a person resisting torture. If that person has some sort of safety mechanism in place, the torturer might not be able to get the information he wants,…
Many US military personnel go through SERE[1] training, which includes some rather unpleasant things, and other countries have similar programs (The UK RTI[2] for one example).
Obviously a group less concerned about the long-term health of their interrogatees have a lot more flexibility in methods, and training is largely understood to be a delaying tactic to spoil time-sentitive tactical data, rather than resist interrogation indefinitely.
Hypothetically, there could be a mechanism by which he has to check in with some associates periodically, who by means of some N of M secret sharing are able to destroy/release the data otherwise. Then you need to resist for only 1-2 checkin periods. Or have a duress codeword that causes the same result. Any destruction scheme requires that the data be held somewhere secure enough not to be cloned though.
(And any heartbeat type scheme requires periodic communication with some/all associates, possibly leading your adversary to them, although broadcast media is probably good enough while he's mainstream news)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival,_Evasion,_Resistance_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_to_interrogation
Re: Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would that work though? Wouldn't it mean that in order to access the info he is talking about, you need something more than knowledge he has in his head - like physical access to something? But then, in the worst case scenario - how could Snowden access it himself if he needs the documents?
A very simple way to achieve something like this is to generate a random password, print it out and give half to someone else. Then you need 2 people to access the file.
Perhaps there are scenarios I am not thinking of then but then in order to access the documents/information, he would need to be able to freely communicate with the other party. If he was to be detained somewhere without outside contact the world, then how can the info be disseminated to fulfill his threat?
Re: Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
#75As Joshua Foust points out, Snowden gave some info to Der Spiegel that they chose not to publish which seems to conflict with some of the "no harm" statements here: SPIEGEL has decided not to publish details it has seen about secret operations that could endanger the lives of NSA workers. Nor is it publishing the related internal code words. However, this does not apply to information about the general surveillance o…
He has asked the journalists to be rigorous in weighing the decision to publish what he gives them. I don't have a citation but it's in some of greenwalds recent posts.
Re: Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shouldn't the interpretation of our Constitution be left to the Supreme Court? I mean, the Constitution explicitly grants the Court those powers.
Do you really trust the supreme court these days? 7 men and women designed to decide the fate of our country? also, the supreme court has no say in this. Its the fisa court....
If I were going to decide whether or not I'd trust the Supreme Court, one of the first things I'd want to learn is how many justices sit on it.
Re: Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
#77Completely off-topic, but oh-my-god if the Guardian mobile website doesn't look so much better on a desktop browser than their non-mobile website... I thought they'd had a redesign for a moment.
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Re: Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Snowden is FULL of crap.
Could you explain why?
Due to the specificity of his claims. Also he was probably very reasonably paranoid during the prep phase of this whole fiasco. Coercion is not an unreasonable expectation for someone in his position and he has the technical chops to implement such a failsafe. I cannot imagine that anyone in his situation with a modicum of technical savvy would simply carry around data that one could be forced to decrypt.
Re: Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shouldn't the interpretation of our Constitution be left to the Supreme Court? I mean, the Constitution explicitly grants the Court those powers.
For legal purposes, sure, but if the people disagree with the court's decision there are ways to change things. We could amend the constitution, we could throw it out and write a new one, we could change the makeup of the court, etc. Legally the ultimate authority on the interpretation of the constitution rests with the Supreme Court, but the citizens of this nation are free to express what they want out of the const…
Yes, you're free to express what you want out of the Constitution but you're not free to break laws as interpreted by our federal courts. Unless the Constitution is amended, shouldn't we be following the rule of law and let the Court interpret the Constitution?
Re: Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would that work though? Wouldn't it mean that in order to access the info he is talking about, you need something more than knowledge he has in his head - like physical access to something? But then, in the worst case scenario - how could Snowden access it himself if he needs the documents?
A very simple way to achieve something like this is to generate a random password, print it out and give half to someone else. Then you need 2 people to access the file.
It doesn't then take much torture to extract the other person's name. Then a little more torture for the other party to get the missing piece of the puzzle.