I wonder if this is the same sophisticated open source encryption recommended by NIST which was revealed the NSA influenced policy in?...
Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
41–50 of 67 posts
Re: Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
#421) There is nothing that indicates that this "encryption upgrade" wasn't planned for some time. Correlation ≠ causation, and all that. 2) The very word "terrorist" is disputed, and depends on your side in any given dispute. It is the "high treason" of the 20th and 21st century, an accusation or insinuation used mainly for political reasons and not for actual utility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism "In the int…
The idea that al Qaeda might not be a terrorist group is a false controversy, as is the idea that participating in open source might be treason.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 70,s and 80's. The distinction between the 2 depended on which street you lived on and which street they lived on. Usually they were no more than a stones throw from one another.
Re: Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea that al Qaeda might not be a terrorist group is a false controversy, as is the idea that participating in open source might be treason.
I think it's safe to assume that a 15 year old kid in Palestine is much more terrorised at the sight of Benjamin Netanyahu than Bin Laden. It's also safe to assume that a kid in Ukraine is terrorised by Russians or by US/EU depending on which side of the country was he lives. So, to you Al Qaeda is a terrorist group and I totally get that (to me too). But you have to understand that to Afghans (and a huge load of pop…
Is it? Which part of Palestine? Gaza or the West Bank? I guess that maybe it is true, since Bin Laden is dead and Netanyahu is alive...you got me there...
Ukrainian kids terrorized by US/EU? Really? What are you talking about? Even in the rebel held areas, how has the US/EU EVER terrorized them?
To some Afghans, we could be seen that way, but most of the population in Afghanistan would rather not take their chances with the Taliban (A terrorist group).
Actions of Terrorism. What exactly are they? Admittedly, we have caused more collateral casualties than I'm comfortable with at times in our fight against terror. But innocent civilians are NEVER OUR TARGET. And that is the differentiating factor here. Terrorists aim to take down societies, not governments. Everyone in that society is considered the enemy. Look at Afghanistan... Taliban goes around beheading people of a different sect of their own faith, they behead non-believers as well as government officials. If you aren't for us, then you are against us mentality.
Bin Laden finds a way to fly 2 planes into the twin towers in NYC, killing thousands of innocent people. Not to mention all the previous attempts to blow up those buildings in years prior, lest you forget that.
So yes, there is a difference in what we are doing in the war on terror. Have we executed perfectly? No way. Have we overreached and done things that I disagree with? Yep. But one thing is damn certain, the motivations of our actions are not the same as the terrorists.
Re: Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
#441) There is nothing that indicates that this "encryption upgrade" wasn't planned for some time. Correlation ≠ causation, and all that. 2) The very word "terrorist" is disputed, and depends on your side in any given dispute. It is the "high treason" of the 20th and 21st century, an accusation or insinuation used mainly for political reasons and not for actual utility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism "In the int…
The idea that al Qaeda might not be a terrorist group is a false controversy, as is the idea that participating in open source might be treason.
The term terrorist get diluted when you count all military-age males in a strike zone as terrorists, as is/was the method used by the US military.
Re: Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
#45Even assuming it's true and these leaks made it harder to catch terrorists (I would be surprised if it made a huge difference), I have to say I really don't care. Terrorism is not a very significant real risk to people living in the first world (compared to the risk of fatal lightning strike or drowning in a bathtub, for example), but pervasive mass surveillance is. In general, it's kinda absurd to imagine that anyth…
I used to work for a organisation that was considered "crown servants" and hence a target for the PIRA
I know maybe 7 or so people from NI and two of them are going through the truth and reconciliation process as they had close family members killed - that's a brutal%
Re: Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
#46When a reporter finds out that the police planted evidence to get a conviction, is it the reporters fault if the criminal goes free? When a reporter uncovers the story of rapes on campus, is it the reporter's fault that the university's reputation is tarnished? When Snowden exposed that the NSA was (unconstitutionally) spying on every citizen, is it somehow Snoden's fault that terrorists gain an advantage?
Snowden has leaked more then just that. Thats the fundamental difference. Most of the revelations have nothing to do with constitutional vs unconstitutional activities of the NSA, they relate to capabilities that the NSA has.
Re: Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea that al Qaeda might not be a terrorist group is a false controversy, as is the idea that participating in open source might be treason.
I think it's safe to assume that a 15 year old kid in Palestine is much more terrorised at the sight of Benjamin Netanyahu than Bin Laden. It's also safe to assume that a kid in Ukraine is terrorised by Russians or by US/EU depending on which side of the country was he lives. So, to you Al Qaeda is a terrorist group and I totally get that (to me too). But you have to understand that to Afghans (and a huge load of pop…
I think it is pretty obvious to most people that there is a difference between actions that terrorize someone and big 'T' Terrorism. If there wasn't, any act of violence can be seen as an act of Terrorism.
So while the US/NATO armed forces (who display uniforms, have a strict command structure, are bound by international law, etc.) might be seen as an occupation/invasion force, they cannot reasonably called a Terrorist organization.
Terrorist organizations systematically target non-combatants in order to achieve their goals, do not display uniforms or have a command structure that can be entreated with. You cannot make a peace treaty with Al Qaeda for instance, you can with NATO. To act as if both groups are equivalent makes it impossible to have useful discussions about the morality of violence.
There are many people that feel like there is no moral difference between the violence perpetrated by these groups, but that doesn't mean that they can be lumped together into the same sorts of violent activities.
Re: Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's safe to assume that a 15 year old kid in Palestine is much more terrorised at the sight of Benjamin Netanyahu than Bin Laden. It's also safe to assume that a kid in Ukraine is terrorised by Russians or by US/EU depending on which side of the country was he lives. So, to you Al Qaeda is a terrorist group and I totally get that (to me too). But you have to understand that to Afghans (and a huge load of pop…
Is it? Which part of Palestine? Gaza or the West Bank? I guess that maybe it is true, since Bin Laden is dead and Netanyahu is alive...you got me there... Ukrainian kids terrorized by US/EU? Really? What are you talking about? Even in the rebel held areas, how has the US/EU EVER terrorized them? To some Afghans, we could be seen that way, but most of the population in Afghanistan would rather not take their chances w…
The motivation behind the attacks don't matter, the effect on the population being attacked does. The US is/was terrorised by Al-Qaeda and afghans and Pakistanis are being terrorised by the US (e.g drone warfare).
This is a site with predominantly US and Western users so Al-Qaeda will always be the terrorists and America the freedom fighters but change the geographic location of the people you are asking and you change the labels being applied.
Re: Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
#49Correlation ≠ causation
"Whatever the reason, Schneier says, al-Qaida's new encryption program won't necessarily keep communications secret, and the only way to ensure that nothing gets picked up is to not send anything electronically. Osama bin Laden understood that. That's why he ended up resorting to couriers."
That basically admits the reality of the situation. They knew all along that the NSA and so on was watching/listening. It is why Osama used couriers.
I highly suspect that the answer is the obvious one:
Any idiot knows not to invent your own crypto algorithms in isolation. They moved from homebrew crypto to modern, widely used standards. This is correcting a technical error they made, nothing more.
To be honest, if anything, this proves how inept the NSA is that they couldn't even break the homebrew crypto in a meaningful way to provide useful intelligence.
Re: Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior
#50Did Snowden reveal anything about "Mujahideen Secrets" or whether the NSA was able to unscramble communications made using that program? If it really was using homebrew cryptography, one can imagine it was already vulnerable to the types of attacks that programmers make when rolling their own security schemes.
Snowden hasn't so far as I know. However, a number of security researchers have published articles analyzing Mujahideen Secrets and criticising its crypto based on publicly-available information. That probably has more to do with why they redesigned it than anything else.