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NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

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Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#181
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do I do, as someone who cares? No, seriously. Should I throw a bit more money at the EFF? Start my own political party, or enter an existing one and try to steer it in my direction? Try to get employed by one of these organizations and then promote a better understanding of their mission internally? Move to another country where people care more (which?) Identifying the problem is a good first step, but what can…

The absolute first step is to take control of your devices. LineageOS or Replicant phone. GNU+Linux on computer, openwrt or similar on router/switches, ipfire similar on firewall. Firefox instead of chrome or opera. VLC instead of iTunes. Emacs/Vim instead of sublime. Blender instead of Maya. Etc. I'm working on this myself. It's not easy, but it is worth it. RMS was and is right: either the user controls the program…

> GNU+Linux on computer

Why not Qubes OS?

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#182
post #30

I think the most dangerous thing is that what Snowden predicted actually happened by now. After all the revelations, nobody is interested anymore. There's this general fatigue and powerlessness that leads to a feeling of "well, yeah, everbody knows by now... what's the news here?" - even for me as a security expert and privacy proponent. The real danger is nobody cares anymore, as this enables all further constitutio…

What do I do, as someone who cares? No, seriously. Should I throw a bit more money at the EFF? Start my own political party, or enter an existing one and try to steer it in my direction? Try to get employed by one of these organizations and then promote a better understanding of their mission internally? Move to another country where people care more (which?) Identifying the problem is a good first step, but what can…

I think this comment hones in on not just this problem, but a lot of problems we face in the modern world. We have plenty of issues to get up in arms about, and do, but the tasks are so colossal and the adversaries seem to much more powerful that I think the average person does not understand what they can do, besides be mad. And this causes these events to seem like fleeting passions. Sure, we can call senators, but they already know we are upset. Complaints just fall on empty ears. Sure, we can vote in other representatives, but the choices are limited. We can become representatives, but I think people feel that they will be squashed or do not really want to be that involved in politics.

So what do we do? Complain?

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#183
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the likelihood of Google streaming a copy of all your URL bar keystrokes to the NSA archive is larger still. Or hell, even if they don't stream them live, they surely store them for analysis and can respond to subpoenas.

Is there any evidence of this type of telemetry? Assuming you use it (or better, Chromium) as just a browser (e.g. don't log into it) behind your VPN, proxy, or overlay network of choice, I can't imagine this threat model being too bothersome. And you're far more resistant to watering-hole attacks than you are with FF.

> Is there any evidence of this type of telemetry?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#User_tracking

> I can't imagine this threat model being too bothersome

Your entire browsing history reveals too much about you making your profile unique. Then any connection to your other data reveals your real name.

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#184
post #30

I think the most dangerous thing is that what Snowden predicted actually happened by now. After all the revelations, nobody is interested anymore. There's this general fatigue and powerlessness that leads to a feeling of "well, yeah, everbody knows by now... what's the news here?" - even for me as a security expert and privacy proponent. The real danger is nobody cares anymore, as this enables all further constitutio…

What do I do, as someone who cares? No, seriously. Should I throw a bit more money at the EFF? Start my own political party, or enter an existing one and try to steer it in my direction? Try to get employed by one of these organizations and then promote a better understanding of their mission internally? Move to another country where people care more (which?) Identifying the problem is a good first step, but what can…

What can you and who's army do to NSA?

That's right Orwell's bitches, you can't do nuffin.

Except there is one way, the only way, but you're not going to like it, the same way Chemo is an indiscriminant carpet bomb that kills cancer and healthy cells.

Cryptopocalypse.

The End of All Crypto.

No more crypto, no more NSA. It's that simple.

NSA has 1 Achilles Heel, the most lop sided asymmetriccadvantage. They need crypto a helluva lot more thanyou or I do.

Without RSA and AES, how could NSA mass infect millions of Grandmother's PCs, every UK hospital, everyone in Fiji, kids playing Warcraft, every Yahoo webcam user, every SIM card manufacturer, every Certificate Authority, every VPN provider, every cell phone in Abottabad for a decade, etc etc etc?

They couldn't! Because how would they exfiltrate all your lolcats, Pepes and dick pics back to Bluffdale via TACLANE and technically impressive covert implant radio channels and radar retroreflectors?

Exactly. NSA only fears one thing more than losing their Secret Laws, Secret Courts and implicit GODMODE.

They fear the whole world being able to steal their own stolen data, they fear being thrown outside naked naked in a blizzard surrounded by wolves.

Now you may be an Innumerate who believes cryptography is magic and that unless you're the next Turing or von Neumann that you don't stand a chance.

dana_carvey_wrong.gif

NSA is weak as fuck. Tottering on the high wire. Their entire existence could cease in a snap of the fingers.

There are only about 5 cryptographic primitives that prop up this wretched corrupt regime of Valligarchs, Monopolists and CORE SECRETS moles who are the legs of NSA's evil system.

Very few professional mathematicians write about this, because the ones who could, are themselves employed by the same NSA system. Never expect a man to understand a thing when his job depends on not understanding.

The moment the Discrete Logarithm Problem is cracked, everyone at NSA is dead, or unemployed like Whip & Buggy makers.

Cracking DLP is mathematically equivalent to factoring arbitrary integers. No, bigger RSA key's won't save you. Once DLP is solved, you can factor any number bigger and bigger into P and Q. DLP will be the end of RSA.

But wait, it gets worse. DLP will also be the death of AES and any ciphers based on S-Boxes.

When you can factor any composite integer, well guess what, you can also factor any polynomial.

I won't tell you more about that one, because I would prefer you don't believe me so that someday when I show you how, I can watch you cry after you realize how dumb you were for believing in BS.

Hash functions won't be spared either. SHA2 is one big ass S-Box. It will fall too.

Cryptopocalypse is coming. There won't be anyway to fix it. NSA's handful of decades old peimitives will be smashed and scattered to the wind. You have to understand this will be final like Judgement Day.

"Someone will invent a new cipher and put NSA's Humpty Dumpty back together again."

Not when the proof that cracks DLP also proves that One Way Functions do not exist. Nowhere. NTRU and multilinear ciphers that are not yet ready for prime time will be dead on arrival.

Remember what I said about how far arbitrary factoring goes? Multilinear is not any safer.

If I ran NSA Cryptologic Exec, right now today I would be dismantling the whole spy machine. Pulling the plug on daya centers. Scuttling 100's of programs.

Because if NSA doesn't cry Uncle, say they're sorry, and roll back their Orwellian Dystopian Nightmare, when that glad Day of Cryptopocalypse arrives, so much of NSA's dirt will be plaintext and the whole world will see the truth with their own eyes.

Enraged peasants with torches and pitchforks would be the most optimistic outcome for NSA.

Of course I realize NSA can't and won't stop themselves. Smoking GODMODE is like crack. You can't physically give it up no matter how much you want to.

The way I see it, if we can just hang on a little longer, we'll get to watch Ft Meade sacked and picked apart into rubble by thousand of angry hands. May God have mercy on any NSA'ers too dumb to flee. It's going to look like Vlad the Impaler. I can't wait.

https://media.blackhat.com/us-13/us-13-Stamos-The-Factoring-...

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#185
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the current system is based on past choices. That does not mean it's a good system. I don't really care about Trump vs Hilary. I do care that because I moved my vote went from token effort to completely pointless. If you look at the history of US presidential elections the map used to be a lot more fluid. Compare say 1972 with 1964: http://www.270towin.com/historical-presidential-elections/ And compare that wit…

My vote could be considered completely pointless every year, because I do not vote for either of the 2 major parties. So should I just give up and quit voting? Should a Republican in New York just give up voting? What about a Democrat in Kansas? I think the change you should be advocating for is not throwing out the entire electoral college system, rather you should be advocating for small changes over time the syste…

I haven't voted for the winner since 1996. As I don't see my own views or those of the major political parties changing any time soon, my voice is largely ignored in the current system.

And it will likely continue to be ignored until the following happen:

1. Abolish gerrymandering in favor of a strictly algorithmic approach to redistricting that cannot take into account voting data from prior elections or current party affiliations.

2. Abolish first-past-the-post, winner-take-all voting, probably using approval voting and some means of apportioning representation that is proportional to approvals.

3. Alter ballot access laws such that no party gets preferential treatment, and the burden is low enough overall that those people wishing to participate in politics are able to do so without quitting their day jobs.

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the courts ruled it as illegal, how can the ruling be enforced on clandestine operations? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The solution to one problem should not be discounted on the grounds that it doesn't solve every problem. >Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? You say this as though there were a known solution to the problem. You may as well say "what about the heat death of the universe?" Quid de morte ad universum calorem , if you prefer ;)

>>Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

>You say this as though there were a known solution to the problem.

The opposite, actually.

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start a revolution. I'm only half joking. I think we can't solve these problems within the current political and economical and system. We have to found a new radical political movement. A lot of the problems we face: the crisis of representational democracy, populism, unemployment, xenophobia, the surveillance state, terrorism, ... cannot be solved individually, but I believe must be fixed simultaneously. We got to…

As someone who has dipped into the libertarian infinity pool of crazy, and flopped right over the side into the freefall insanity of pragmatic anarchism, I am aware that most lasting societal changes have only been accomplished by creating rivers of blood--the Reign of Terror, the Soviet Revolution, the Holocaust, the Killing Fields, etc. And I am also aware that the new boss is usually either the same as the old bos…

There's a revolution in the US every four to eight years. You just don't remember them /because/ they happen peacefully. And if those don't give you the drastic change your spoiled mind craves, that may just be because most people are happy enough with the status quo that they consider it unlikely that anything better would emerge from chaos–kinda like you don't throw a puzzle in the air if only a few pieces are missing.

1990 would also count as the biggest revolution in our lifetime (assuming there are few WW2 vets on HN). Plus China has changed drastically, without bloody revolutions, and that whole EU thing. Mandela. Gandhi. Venzuela, Turkey, Brexit (for the worse). Iran, Cuba (for the better).

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#188
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering how you think this process works. When you say: > There are lots of very experienced people and resources allocated to this problem across the world It sounds like a curing-cancer-style problem where what's needed is some scientific breakthrough for a specific problem... So... Who are these "very experienced people", and what "resources" are allocated, where? Or how far exactly is this "above my paygrad…

Off the top of my head, examples of people who have more means and expertise than a random HN commenter: 1. nonprofits like EFF 2. investigative journalists who search for truth and expose corruption instead of writing emotional pieces telling people what to think and helplessly worry about. 3. software, hardware and network engineers building end-to-end secure systems as opposed to ones designed for mining user data…

OP was answering the question "What can I do–should I donate to the EFF or what". Your 1. and 2. directly depend on a public that is engaged, and arguably the people doing (3) also form their opinions based on publicly accessible journalism, including the John Oliver-pieces (which happen to be 30-minute exposés with lots of real journalism going into them, on mostly neglected topics like the injustice of court fees and bonds)

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#189

I think the most dangerous thing is that what Snowden predicted actually happened by now. After all the revelations, nobody is interested anymore. There's this general fatigue and powerlessness that leads to a feeling of "well, yeah, everbody knows by now... what's the news here?" - even for me as a security expert and privacy proponent. The real danger is nobody cares anymore, as this enables all further constitutio…

I think the practical way to go about this is to distinguish between what's ACTUALLY dangerous, actually harming people (beyond the loss of their privacy), and what's POTENTIALLY dangerous. Because I think it's easy for people to conflate the two.

For instance, are people being rounded up and having bad things happen to them? Yes. People suspected of being illegal immigrants (or undocumented) and who are also suspected of being violent criminals are being rounded up. Also, there seems to be the odd case or 12 of someone who is undocumented, but is otherwise a thoroughly upstanding individual.

The second thing I believe needs consideration is to determine exactly what line does the government need to cross for this POTENTIALLY dangerous privacy invasion to become ACTUAL, PRESENT dangers.

The problem, of course, is getting consensus. Particularly when there's heavy foreign influence on the Internet & government. When so much of the news media promotes racism & nationalism. The possibility of the people being divided and conquered is a POSSIBILITY, given our acceptance of nationalism.

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My vote could be considered completely pointless every year, because I do not vote for either of the 2 major parties. So should I just give up and quit voting? Should a Republican in New York just give up voting? What about a Democrat in Kansas? I think the change you should be advocating for is not throwing out the entire electoral college system, rather you should be advocating for small changes over time the syste…

I haven't voted for the winner since 1996. As I don't see my own views or those of the major political parties changing any time soon, my voice is largely ignored in the current system. And it will likely continue to be ignored until the following happen: 1. Abolish gerrymandering in favor of a strictly algorithmic approach to redistricting that cannot take into account voting data from prior elections or current par…

And how, if we try to throw out the entire system, do you expect that to happen when it is clearly against the interest of the two major parties?

That's why I said the push shouldn't be to burn down the whole system, it should be minor changes that both major parties can agree to implement. You can't shoot for the moon if you can't even get a launch pad.

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