omnibus PRISM/NSA/free Edward Snowden/encryption tutorial thread

You in cryptography c21m5on?

It took Greenwald's partner's arrest for Sully to awaken:

In this respect, I can say this to David Cameron. Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state.

You have proven that these laws can be hideously abused. Which means they must be repealed. You have broken the trust that enables any such legislation to survive in a democracy. By so doing, you have attacked British democracy itself. What on earth do you have to say for yourself? And were you, in any way, encouraged by the US administration to do such a thing?

You in cryptography c21m5on?

― touch. zing touch. you've almost convinced me I'm real (Sufjan Grafton), Sunday, August 18, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You?

No. In photonics so don't know anything much about crypto but have sat through some interesting talks, particularly on rng stuff. So I guess I have an interest as well.

The combo of your dn and presence on this thread made me suspect it was your field.

I'm in web development and self-taught myself CS concepts.

I'm actually planning on getting another degree, but this time in CS.

Photonics looks so interesting. What type of work do you do on that? Like fiber optics stuff?

I half expected the article at the BBC to be all "man loses couple of hours and some of his stuff at airport, acts like it's a big deal or something" about this, but it isn't - http://bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23750289 - it's on the mobile news front page, even.

I believe it is the second time the UK does something like this to a Brazilian citizen.

Greenwald says he’s going “to write much more aggressively than before, I’m going to publish many more documents than before.”

He added: “I’m going to publish many more things about England, as well. I have many documents about the system of espionage of England, and now my focus will be there, too. “

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/partner-of-journalist-at-center-of-nsa-leak-detained-for-about-9-hours-at-heathrow-airport/2013/08/18/b1d81ea4-086b-11e3-89fe-abb4a5067014_story.html

the terrorism act has been used to intimidate evident nonterrorists for years, maybe that bampot sullivan has been out of the country too long to notice

anyway it's nice that some mnstrm people give a shit about this latest disgrace, but it's still only epiphenomenal to the enduring national disgrace that is the uk's fealty to the american security state, which isn't going to change anytime soon

UK backchannels to US: "Damn it, you said there weren't any hornets in that nest!"

The current UK Home Secretary is not just an oxygen thief, she's a toadying, sack-of-shit oxygen thief.

current

may is a worthless piece of shit but so were blunkett, reid etc

Juan Cole on how to turn a democracy into a STASI authoritarian state in 10 easy steps:

http://www.juancole.com/2013/08/greenwald-terrorist-dictatorship.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-interview-detention-heathrow

"It is clear why those took me. It's because I'm Glenn's partner. Because I went to Berlin. Because Laura lives there. So they think I have a big connection," he said. "But I don't have a role. I don't look at documents. I don't even know if it was documents that I was carrying. It could have been for the movie that Laura is working on."

The White House on Monday insisted that it was not involved in the decision to detain Miranda, though a spokesman said US officials had been given a "heads up" by British officials beforehand.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters

The mood toughened just over a month ago, when I received a phone call from the centre of government telling me: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." There followed further meetings with shadowy Whitehall figures. The demand was the same: hand the Snowden material back or destroy it. I explained that we could not research and report on this subject if we complied with this request. The man from Whitehall looked mystified. "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more."

so we can credit Miranda now for not being used, perhaps, in the absence of evidence that he's a stooge

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/19/obama-administration-asks-supreme-court-to-allow-warrantless-cellphone-searches/?tid=pm_business_pop

In which Jeffrey Toobin loses his mind.

an embedded maroon

seriously, that fuckin guy

And it is simply grotesque that Snowden compares these thousands of government workers—all doing their jobs to protect the United States—to the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.

It took an extra 12 years after it was announced, but irony is finally really dead.

dzhozef tsnowaev

srsly i

does it seem likely that russia and china didn't know any of this stuff? given the scale of the program and the number of people involved, that they have been taken aback by what he has released?

or that the rest of the information he has would be some incredible treasure trove

groklaw dude freaks out, leaves Internet http://goo.gl/HGCvf9

Hilarious that he goes on and on about privacy and then endorses trusting your email encryption to a third party. GPG exists, dude.

*she, sorry

PJ's heart is in the right place, but she really needs to explore her options. It's understandable that GPG is, from a practical standpoint, too 'complex' for the regular Joe, but she could do her part in helping spread the word about it.

Because, unfortunately, if only PJ uses GPG it won't make enough of a difference. Her users/those who email her need to use GPG and at the moment the average user would not take the time to learn how to set it up.

Kolab is also a bad option. Switzerland's gov't logs emails, as well, and is probably worse than the US.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-destroyed-london?CMP=twt_gu

slightly less febrile than yesterday's rusbidger piece

It’s true, too, that while the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court is largely toothless, it has, on occasion, rejected some N.S.A. procedures, and the agency has made adjustments in response. That is not the act of an entirely lawless agency.

"not entirely lawless": the NSA's new motto

However, in a subsequent meeting, an intelligence agency expert argued that the material was still vulnerable. He said by way of example that if there was a plastic cup in the room where the work was being carried out, foreign agents could train a laser on it to pick up the vibrations of what was being said. Vibrations on windows could similarly be monitored remotely by laser.

man spy shit is cool

OMG! Ban windows!

Mac only

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100231711/why-does-being-a-relative-of-glenn-greenwald-place-you-above-the-law/

When we all heard he had been arrested, we all thought “That’s a disgrace, why should someone be arrested simply because his partner works for The Guardian?” But that goes the other way as well. Why should David Miranda be allowed to happily saunter around carrying Britain’s most sensitive secrets simply because Glenn Greenwald is his spouse? Are we seriously saying the phrase “I’m with Greenwald” should now act as an international get-out-of-jail-free card?

seriously fuck toobin. what is his problem?

Should we tolerate a dipshit Telegraph blogger who's only notable because Glenda Jackson is his mum? xp

seriously fuck toobin. what is his problem?

― k3vin k., Tuesday, August 20, 2013 6:14 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

his "morality is built on the letter of law" logic is p common among lawyers i've known that don't think that hard.

i thought toobin was a guy that thought hard. now i'm not so sure.

<I> if there was a plastic cup in the room where the work was being carried out, foreign agents could train a laser on it to pick up the vibrations of what was being said. Vibrations on windows could similarly be monitored remotely by laser.</i>

Most incredibly, this technology is almost 100 years old: Lev Sergeyvich Termen was doing it for Russia circa 1930, using microwaves.

yeah i've liked toobin's reporting but have always kept my distance from him - i remember a profile he wrote on clarence thomas a few years ago, which was fine in its analysis of its subject's style and influence, but was strangely averse to picking a side. now that he's picking sides...

As part of his SCOTUS book, it's clear from the Slobbo chapter what side Toobin's on.

i read toobin's book on the 2000 election a long time ago, remember it being pretty good. i've usually enjoyed his NY stuff, so it's sad to see him decline so drastically.

I lol'ed

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7749458432/hE1B9A136/

yeah i've liked toobin's reporting but have always kept my distance from him - i remember a profile he wrote on clarence thomas a few years ago, which was fine in its analysis of its subject's style and influence, but was strangely averse to picking a side. now that he's picking sides...

― k3vin k., Tuesday, August 20, 2013 6:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and he has chosen the side all his friends are on and that pays him a shitload of money. dude is totally gonna back the status quo.

Was PJ also saying that it's all well saying "use PGP" but the NSA are keeping things for as long as they need in the hopes of one day breaking them, so that's still no reassurance to her?

I was surprised at her reaction, but I can see her point, and I don't think it's just over-reaction.

technically-minded folks who are looking for alternatives to cloud services right now may be interested in this: https://github.com/al3x/sovereign

I would like that, but that is indeed very "technically minded"..