Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#21

Post by stephen_g » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:33 PM UTC

Cieplak wrote: post #6

Are there any video chat clients with end-to-end encryption? I was trying to do this by piping the output of my webcam to openssl and then to netcat, which sends the packets to a publicly addressable server (Amazon instance) that relays the encrypted packets to another computer behind a firewall, that decrypts the video stream and plays it in MPlayer. It works, but the latency is about 10 seconds. To reduce the laten…

Apparently FaceTime [1] and iMessage are end-to-end encrypted with unique session keys. Whether Apple has access to those keys is not known though (the key exchange isn't documented as far as I can tell).

1. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/facetime-calls-are-encrypted...

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#22

Post by nathan_long » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:36 PM UTC

siculars wrote: post #20

I say all of the above. There's basically one reason to work for law enforcement: Authority and its slutty sister, Power. People who are attracted to these things are susceptible to logic failures in pursuit of their interest in exerting Authority and Power.

>> There's basically one reason to work for law enforcement: Authority and its slutty sister, Power.

I'm against government surveillance, but your statement is way too broad.

Only one reason? Really? You don't think anybody goes into law enforcement to protect others, curb violence, and generally do good for the world?

I doubt you'd want your profession to be slandered so casually.

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#23

Post by andrewljohnson » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:36 PM UTC

siculars wrote: post #20

I say all of the above. There's basically one reason to work for law enforcement: Authority and its slutty sister, Power. People who are attracted to these things are susceptible to logic failures in pursuit of their interest in exerting Authority and Power.

Many people are drawn to law enforcement out of the desire to help others and do good for the world. Being an FBI agent is a very honorable and well-respected profession, especially outside of an internet forum.

Your comment pisses on every person who ever went to school to study criminal law, many of whom did so for noble or at least neutral reasons.

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#24

Post by kenjackson » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:38 PM UTC

fixxer wrote: post #18

I've read that quantum computing is picking up, so please correct me if I'm wrong... it IS still pretty hard to factor very large primes, right? This push to "stop terror" via reading the general public's email/chats/etc. seems more like Big Bro and less like a viable method to stop the next 9-11. Sure, the bros from Boston weren't exactly sophisticated, but I find it hard to believe nobody in Al Qaeda knows how to u…

it IS still pretty hard to factor very large primes, right

Depends on what you mean by this... There are no practical systems which will do so. But the reason why quantum computing became interesting was because of Shor's work showing that they can factor large primes quickly (in theory).

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#25

Post by nathan_long » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #17

I think people have the FBIs motivations misunderstood. And I don't mean in some evil conspiracy theory sort of way, but in one that is pretty consistent with their mission. Their main mission nowadays is to stop terrorism, etc... I I think that when they look at this rationally they believe are better served by being able to access these conversations. The article theorizes that people with data to hide will use enc…

Yes. Most of us here are privacy advocates, and I think society needs our voice. However, we're only one side of the coin.

Imagine a world where every phone call, email, chat, forum post, etc is fully anonymous or indecipherable to law enforcement. And imagine your loved one has been abducted and law enforcement has no tools for finding those responsible.

There are many kinds of dystopias. Big Brother is one. Rule by competing gangs is another. We're shooting for some compromise where both individuals and society's rights are balanced.

It's hard.

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#26

Post by nathan_long » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #24

fixxer wrote: post #18

I've read that quantum computing is picking up, so please correct me if I'm wrong... it IS still pretty hard to factor very large primes, right? This push to "stop terror" via reading the general public's email/chats/etc. seems more like Big Bro and less like a viable method to stop the next 9-11. Sure, the bros from Boston weren't exactly sophisticated, but I find it hard to believe nobody in Al Qaeda knows how to u…

it IS still pretty hard to factor very large primes, right Depends on what you mean by this... There are no practical systems which will do so. But the reason why quantum computing became interesting was because of Shor's work showing that they can factor large primes quickly (in theory).

>> There are no practical systems which will do so.

... that we know of. The intelligence community has secretly outpaced the rest of the world in computing, cryptography and cryptanalysis before.

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#27

Post by nathan_long » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:44 PM UTC

Jun8 wrote: post #8

You don't need such a long argument to prove FBI's stunning incompetence, an example like failing to prevent the Boston bombing where they couldn't find their assess with two hands would suffice.

>> failing to prevent the Boston bombing

OK, you're in charge of the FBI now. There are tens of thousands of public events today in tens of thousand of venues.

Protect them all. Go.

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#28

Post by nathan_long » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:47 PM UTC

charlesjshort wrote: post #19

What happens when the FBI becomes infected with people like Lerner who use their power to persecute political dissidents?

This is the real danger of letting government become too powerful: individuals within it can abuse that power.

If your political or religious views are or become unpopular, how much power to monitor, control and punish you do you want government organizations to have? How much oversight do you want for them?

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#29

Post by mtrimpe » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

Cieplak wrote: post #6

Are there any video chat clients with end-to-end encryption? I was trying to do this by piping the output of my webcam to openssl and then to netcat, which sends the packets to a publicly addressable server (Amazon instance) that relays the encrypted packets to another computer behind a firewall, that decrypts the video stream and plays it in MPlayer. It works, but the latency is about 10 seconds. To reduce the laten…

Assuming TLS is still unbroken, RTMPS (Flash RTMP over TLS tunnel) offers the most accessible form of end-to-end encryption.

To avoid intermediaries you'd have to run your own Flash server (e.g. Red5) though.

Re: Is the FBI dumb, evil, or just incompetent?

#30

Post by betterunix » Sat, May 25, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #4

The last line is the most important: if there is a backdoor (that is the Lawful Interception interface) there is no guarantee that it won't be used by unauthorized third parties. Anyone could have predicted that something like the Google hack was going to happen. I also seem to remember that there was a similar incident involving the cellphone network in Greece.

I would say that the most important issue is that an already over-powered law enforcement agency is asking for even more power. The recent journalist surveillance scandal should give a clue about the dangers of law enforcement surveillance. This proposal by the FBI will make that sort of surveillance easier. They are trying to grab more power to gather evidence against people, and by extension more power to arrest people.

We already have the largest prison population in the world. There is no pressing need to expand it.