Re: [sudo-discuss] Sudden public interest in basic crypto/security tools.

Hi Max, YOs- Speaking from more than casual knowledge of the subject matter, as a few of us here know: 1) If you read the denials issued by Google and Facebook, you'll discover that they used almost identical language. And while it's true that corporate PR-speak and legal-speak are usually as bland as baked beans, this stuff reminds one of the story where Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Smith each had a baby that bears more than a slight resemblance to the guy who delivers both of their newspapers: Google: "First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers." Facebook: "Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers." Google: "We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday." Facebook: "We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday." Google: "Our legal team reviews each and every request..." Facebook: "When governments ask Facebook for data, we review each request carefully..." 2) Of course they didn't "join" a program or become "part of" a program. NSA isn't a "club" that you can just "join." What Facebook and Google did was become ASSETS of a program. That is a very subtle but important distinction. If you were to ask their lawyers if they "had become assets or had acted in any capacity as assets of any entity within the United States Intelligence Community (USIC)," they would clam up right quick. One needs to know how to ask the question in order to get at the answer. Also, it is the case that the assets of a program or operation rarely if ever know the name of the program or operation involved. Knowing the name of the program or op would give the assets the ability to compare notes and possibly compromise the program or op. Very often, even the names of programs or ops are themselves classified. By the way, some of y'all may have heard my comments about Steve Jobs' application for a security clearance, shortly after Jobs died and his bio was published. The media were preoccupied with the usual celebrity gossip about how he could have gotten a clearance when he'd admitted to taking LSD and building blue boxes (naughty phone-phreak devices). But the real story, as I said at the time, was that the purpose of the clearance was to facilitate relationships with certain agencies regarding surveillance opportunities in the Macintosh operating systems and other products. It is almost 100% certain that Microsoft and certain of the commercial companies involved in Open Source operating systems, had similar relationships. ("Intel Inside", anyone?;-) One more item. Watch for the names Cisco, Comcast, and Symantec, in the news. Aww hell, one more after that. Twitter claims to have refused to participate in PRISM. That's very convenient for them to say, because Twitter itself is a complete intel collection platform with fully open access, and a variety of software tools for analysis. Twitter is the easiest of the bunch to intercept and fully exploit. You too can play at that game (just a little but enough to get the flavor of it), if you want to pay for the software. 3) Yes, NSA can monitor traffic without a carrier or service provider knowing it. This is done by intercepting the traffic at the carrier level. By analogy, if I want to tap your broadband service, I don't have to break into your house to do it: I can do it from any point between your house and the service provider's central office. 4) Telcos and broadband providers are required to have CALEA intercept equipment (such as the infamous Naris box of EFF fame) installed in their racks. This equipment enables authorized entities to siphon the data streams in realtime, either in whole or in part depending on various assigned levels of privilege. If everything that's on a server has gotten there via a connection that is being intercepted constantly in real-time, there's no need to get inside the server itself. 5) NSA and real-time decryption: There is reason to believe, based on published accounts, that certain types of decryption are routine and automated. I also know from unpublished but not classified sources, that there are automated tests that examine ciphertext to determine specifically which encryption method and key length were used to encrypt the data. I would conclude that automated decryption exceeds the capabilities that have been reported in the press. Further, I would strongly suggest that we compile versions of PGP and GPG from source code, and modify them to eliminate the upper limit on key sizes. I can explain further how to perform that modification of the source code, once we have it downloaded. It's remarkably easy. 6) Compromise of private keys: Given the number of methods available, and given the track records of the various entities involved, I would not be surprised. "Mary had a private key, with which to open PGP. The key fell into hostile hands. Now Mary's hiding, with her lambs." 7) Did Google and Facebook lie? Do bears shit in the woods? 8) A modest prediction, and y'all can file this under "he wasn't crazy after all." I've been saying this stuff for a while now, but recent news makes it more, uhh, "topical": The entire advertising-based model of internet services, with its reliance on "free" services "supported" by advertising that "requires" pervasive tracking of every user's every activities and whereabouts, will be demonstrated to have been an enormous cover story of convenience, for a degree of mass surveillance that far exceeds anything has been reported thus far. The goal is to have 100% collection of all communications and location data, online and face-to-face, every conversation as well as metadata, to be permanently archived for retrieval and analysis at any later point in time. (This has not yet been achieved, but they're working on it.) The goal of that, in turn, is to enable making accurate predictions about the activities and location of any person, at any point in the future. What gets done with those accurate predictions is a matter of discretionary policy by those who control the data. Orwell: "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the future controls the present." Me: "Knowledge is power. When they know all about you, and you know nothing about them, who has the power?" 9) Lastly, Max, you might especially appreciate this bit of history: In the 1970s, GCHQ was engaged in targeted surveillance of various dissident groups in the UK. But since GPO Telephones' switching systems were entirely electro-mechanical (Strowger switches), GCHQ had to depend on the GPO engineers to execute every request by making physical connections to the lines at the Central Offices. The GPO engineers' sympathies were often with the dissidents. So, shortly after the GCHQ officers left, the GPO engineers would quietly go about undoing the unwanted connections or otherwise rendering them useless. Such are the advantages of electro-mechanical analog switching systems, maintained by skilled workers, with a strong union, and strong class consciousness. Cheers- -G. "You search Google, and Google searches you. Deal?" ====== On 13-06-10-Mon 11:46 PM, Max B wrote: