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Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

theguardian.com

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Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#91

Post by vor_ »

lnanek2 wrote: post #44

This is kind of silly. Just move the site offshore, and if you really have to get rid of email, have an SSL message form. Although I think there are good solutions for PGP and whatnot with email that encrypts it client side anyway. I think this person is just technically illiterate and doesn't understand. Pretty strange. I have a wife from China who hates tech, but she knows very well how to use an encrypted VPN to p…

You seem to have missed the point. One shouldn't have to do those things to protect themselves from their own government.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#93

Post by MaysonL »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #65
talmand wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't new, this was why Hoover stayed in power for so long. He had files on everyone. Remember, information is power.

Great point, and this is a big reason why the "I have nothing to hide" argument comes from a position of childlike naivety. Even if you have nothing to hide, what about your members of parliament? CEOs? Mayors? President or Prime Minister? Judges? Police chiefs? Is there a single one that has never written an email or made a phone call that could destroy their career? What lengths would they go to in order to keep it…

Do you want the NSA or GCHQ knowing that your teenage daughter is pregnant before you do?

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#94

Post by toyg »

superuser2 wrote: post #58
saalweachter wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to go one step further than encryption. We need to encrypt all communications expensively . Make algorithms which can be tuned to be arbitrarily expensive, computation-wise. Tune them so that it takes as much time as we can bear to encrypt and decrypt an email. Seconds, ideally. The goal is to make it so that some large fraction of our computational resources are taken up encrypting and decrypting com…

Historically speaking, the US Government is pretty damn good at winning wars of attrition. Don't think you're going to find any amount of money that Congress won't happily hand to the military-industrial complex. They'll spend whatever it takes.

Buying two to three years will be enough in the average case.

Targeted individual surveillance will likely always be possible (not just because of encryption, but because of the 5$ wrench, trojans and so on). What we need is to make global, indiscriminate and realtime surveillance computationally unfeasible.

Three years from now, most commercially-sensitive, politically-embarrassing, or otherwise-newsworthy material, will likely be obsolete.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#95

Post by maaaats »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #65
talmand wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't new, this was why Hoover stayed in power for so long. He had files on everyone. Remember, information is power.

Great point, and this is a big reason why the "I have nothing to hide" argument comes from a position of childlike naivety. Even if you have nothing to hide, what about your members of parliament? CEOs? Mayors? President or Prime Minister? Judges? Police chiefs? Is there a single one that has never written an email or made a phone call that could destroy their career? What lengths would they go to in order to keep it…

Wow, good point. Never considered it that way, only my own personal reasons.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#96

Post by Goronmon »

danso wrote: post #12

Huh? I just don't follow. Groklaw is not a site that depends on anonymous tips. The last few stories posted on Groklaw were on Apple vs Samsung and did not appear to require privileged confidential information. How is it that other groups that do directly go against the government, such as the ACLU and the EFF, continue to do so without a paralyzingly fear that they can't keep their communications secret? The logical…

>Huh? I just don't follow. Groklaw is not a site that depends on anonymous tips. The last few stories posted on Groklaw were on Apple vs Samsung and did not appear to require privileged confidential information.

It sounds more like the situation is about pj's personal feelings in general than only related to the site specifically. She doesn't feel comfortable communicating in an environment where the government is tracking everything you say and do, and is thus removing herself from that environment.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#98

Post by anologwintermut »

alan_cx wrote: post #30

I hope those who treated me with scorn for suggesting the politicians and business people are effectively blackmailed by the mere existence of NSA type spying can now see it for real. No direct threat, not conversation, no deals. Just the fear of the knowledge that one is being comprehensively watched, and what "they" might have. This fear is enough to alter behavior, to conform. Again, at what stage can we describe…

While the NSA stuff is really bad, what Groklaw is doing is absurd and should be called such.HN seems happy to point out that more people die from furniture than terrorism, but yet unwilling to correct people with similarly misguided opinions when it comes to this.

1)Groklaw doesnt' depend on anonymous tips. The site could simply put up a huge disclosure statement on a web form that THE NSA might get what you say. Or not accept tips except via public comments but still operate.

2)Most of the people Groklaw corresponds with don't need anonymity either. Those that do presumably know it and hence, will not correspond with them absent secure means (once made aware of the need for them)

3) Groklaw isn't an email service provider, it's a legal blog/online magazine. As such, likely none of the NSA's mechanisms for getting information from email providers apply. Compelling individuals to hand over their own correspondence is, as far as we know, hard. It can get worse with freedom of the press issues.

So post a PGP key and say, if you really want anonymity, use this.(Edit) and use a mixnet or Pond, or something to send the message. PGP encrypted email from a new account just deals with the NSA's email intercept capability. If you are worried about their other abilities, you need something stronger then Tor since it fails for global passive adversary.

Of course, that wouldn't get them publicity

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#99

Post by random42 »

elisha wrote: post #80
random42 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. This is a political fight. Technical means can drag the resistance longer, which is helpful, but the political system needs to be put in checks and balances against becoming a police state. There is no substitute of "taking roads and doing peaceful protests" as out of comfort zone they might be. We sometimes fall in love with our methods because that is what _we_ are good at, not what is necessarily the b…

So what are the political/social solutions? And particularly, what are those solutions that might be actionable by this audience? Let's take a few things off the table first. Voting is out for obvious reasons. Same goes for holding up signs in an approved free speech area. The occupy protests were a bit more effective at least in raising awareness but didn't upset the system much. Violence is a no for me personally o…

Quoting myself from another thread — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6242567

| One of the tactical mistake is not to "name" people on the other side this asymmetric warfare against the world police states, and put the individuals in the spotlight. The of agencies and governments is abstract and non-tangible. Unlike the "Snowdens, Mannings, Greenwalds and Mirandas" they do not have fear, and hence accountability.

| At the end of the day, these agencies are made of people, who make decisions. While the aim should be to keep the 'agencies' under check, the general population resisting them need to target (and I do not mean attack their home or family members or something like that, I only mean to put the individuals under the spotlight) to "name and shame" the entity with feelings, family, emotions, weaknesses etc. under scrutiny. Just as the Snowdens and the greenwalds choices come with with the consequences, so should be the case for the british officials who chose to take a stand.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#100

Post by noenzyme »

Here is a simple idea. Make it known that our top election issue is removing the NSA's (and others) tentacles from our daily lives. In addition we, the tech elite, will freely help candidates who share point of view and refuse to work with those that don't.

The last election showed how important IT systems are. And while it may take a few election cycles we can certainly use that to our advantage.

Thoughts?

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