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Encrypt your Google chats and make the NSA sad

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Re: Encrypt your Google chats and make the NSA sad

#71

Post by asveikau »

tlrobinson wrote: post #43
conradfr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well can they do that in Richard Stallman's laptop ? If so we are doomed :)

Possibly, if they had say, a backdoor in all Intel/AMD processors. The question is what he meant by "We can plant bugs in machines."

This is the biggest problem I have with both the press and administration descriptions of what's going on. There is absolutely no technical specificity. I understand that this isn't useful to the general public but it's hard for technical people to parse what they're saying and draw conclusions.

Re: Encrypt your Google chats and make the NSA sad

#74

Post by waterphone »

gnaritas wrote: post #48
steveklabnik wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glenn Greenwald said on Twitter that he was given the technical details and isn't releasing them.

Glenn Greenwald is a partisan hack, his opinion is worth basically nothing.

In what way is he a partisan? He has condemned as equally bad both the Bush and Obama administrations. When Bush was President, Democrats loved him because he regularly wrote scathing criticisms of Bush's overreaching actions, and now that Obama has carried on Bush's programs (and made them worse, apparently) and Greenwald's criticized him with the same level of intensity, Obama's supporters now seem to loathe him. Reading the things people send him on Twitter, it's disturbing how many people have an absolute hatred of him. It's such a coordinated attack against him, all repeating the same talking points, it brings this to mind:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-oper...

Re: Encrypt your Google chats and make the NSA sad

#75

Post by downandout »

freshhawk wrote: post #8

This would definitely be the level of security that falls under this statement from Snowden: Q: Is it possible to put security in place to protect against state surveillance? A: "You are not even aware of what is possible. The extent of their capabilities is horrifying. We can plant bugs in machines. Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place.…

> We can plant bugs in machines.

I've long thought that NSA and CIA would be buyers of access to botnets with backdoor access to people's machines in the US and abroad. You can buy surreptitious installs of your own malware from other malware providers very cheaply - usually under $1. $300 million and you have the whole US covered. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if there is a budget for this, with agents actively interacting on forums, buying (and supporting) certain areas of the cybercrime economy.

Re: Encrypt your Google chats and make the NSA sad

#76

Post by patrickaljord »

sspiff wrote: post #4

While this is a nice effort, why use Google Talk at all for chatting if you're going to do all this effort (per user configuration etc) if you could just use an XMPP client with OTR[1] support, or use an XMPP server you can trust? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging

Because then you'd be talking to yourself as nobody uses XMPP with OTR.

Re: Encrypt your Google chats and make the NSA sad

#77

Post by stass »

mtgx wrote: post #6

Still waiting for Google to implement OTR and ZRTP in Hangouts by default... especially now after all this.

Why use Google Chat at all when there're a lot of 3rd party community-run jabber servers available? Then you can use any client you want and get a level of protection you desire (including OTR).

Re: Encrypt your Google chats and make the NSA sad

#78

Post by SilasX »

tlrobinson wrote: post #43
conradfr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well can they do that in Richard Stallman's laptop ? If so we are doomed :)

Possibly, if they had say, a backdoor in all Intel/AMD processors. The question is what he meant by "We can plant bugs in machines."

Not even then. I remember reading about how he uses the freest (as in freedomest) setup he can get:

http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

He mentions its a Lemote machine which doesn't look like it uses an AMD/Intel processor, as it uses Longsoon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson

"Unlike processors from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices or VIA Technologies, Loongson does not support the x86 instruction set. The processor's main operating system is Linux, while in theory any OS with MIPS support should also work."

Re: Encrypt your Google chats and make the NSA sad

#80

Post by BCM43 »

SilasX wrote: post #78
tlrobinson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, if they had say, a backdoor in all Intel/AMD processors. The question is what he meant by "We can plant bugs in machines."

Not even then. I remember reading about how he uses the freest (as in freedomest) setup he can get: http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html He mentions its a Lemote machine which doesn't look like it uses an AMD/Intel processor, as it uses Longsoon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson "Unlike processors from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices or VIA Technologies, Loongson does not support the x86 instruction set. Th…

Actually, iirc the Chinese made that processor because they were afraid of the US putting backdoors in Intel and AMD chips
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