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

tho that's bc if ppl privilege the rule of law then they're less willing to see it undermined for the sake of change. if things are bad enough, or the law is worthless enough, then violating it becomes easier.

sure but the cognitive dissonance of people supporting "civil disobedience" but only if it obeys the law is notable

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-dangers-unchecked-surveillance

so there's something called the USA Freedom Act (uh oh), a "surveillance fix" that's gonna get a lame-duck vote, and this guy says it's crap.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2014/11/12/why-i-dont-support-usa-freedom-act/

When black people do stuff, when they have a complaint, after all this time, all of this history, it still does not qualify as "civil disobedience". It's disorder, violence - plain disobedience. This attitude toward poor blacks is very real and the powers that be still justify this regard based on crime rates.

I don't think comfortable folks realize how easy it is to abuse and disrespect poor black people, I don't think they know how these communities function. I am shocked at what I have read online about Ferguson.

Then again, who ever said people respected civil rights activists? When did that happen? I think we comfortable people get too much magical thinking from television.

Amnesty International has released a program that can spot spying software used by governments to monitor activists and political opponents

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30115679

nice

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/23/7272157/regin-malware-has-secretly-spied-on-computers-for-years

this is cool

https://www.iab.org/2014/11/14/iab-statement-on-internet-confidentiality/

The IAB urges protocol designers to design for confidential operation by default. We strongly encourage developers to include encryption in their implementations, and to make them encrypted by default. We similarly encourage network and service operators to deploy encryption where it is not yet deployed, and we urge firewall policy administrators to permit encrypted traffic.

We believe that each of these changes will help restore the trust users must have in the Internet, and foster development of new approaches which allow us to move to an Internet where traffic is confidential by default.

backdoor men

The NSA's collection programs are ostensibly targeted at foreigners, but in August the Guardian revealed a secret rule change allowing NSA analysts to search for Americans' details within the databases.

Now, in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the intelligence committee, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has confirmed the use of this legal authority to search for data related to “US persons”.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/01/nsa-surveillance-loophole-americans-data

Great story from Ars: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/

Jesus

feel like i am getting closer and closer to that shotgun canned food bunker

i thought stuxnet was fascinating and cool even if it was unnerving--this 'equation group' stuff is legit petrifying though

Man, I remember when talking about Echelon and NSA/GCHQ super teamups 20 years ago was such a blank stare contest in the para-political/conspiracy theory crowd. Who cares, the Cold War is over. Let's all go camp out at Area 51. We're the good guys, right?

It was all an elaborate plot to win an oscar

just

literally intercepting hardware in the mail, adding uneraseable invisible malware, and putting it back in the mail without evidence of tampering

that stuxnet and flame were just forks of what these people can do

fucking mind boggling

John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security, told a cybersecurity conference in Washington on Monday that officials could try to blunt ISIS’s violent PR operation by essentially trying propagandists as terrorists. He suggested the Justice Department could bring prosecutions under the law against providing material support to a terrorist organization. His remarks were believed to be the first time a U.S. official has ever said that people who assist ISIS with online media could face criminal prosecution.

Carlin was asked at the conference whether he would “consider criminal charges” against people who are “proliferating ISIS social media.” His answer: “Yes. You need to look at the particular facts and evidence.” But Carlin noted that the United States could use the material support law to prosecute “technical expertise” to a designated terrorist organization. And spreading the word for ISIS online could count as such expertise....

NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers said he agreed with public statements by FBI Director James Comey that the use of encryption, particularly on popular products like the iPhone 6, put the government at risk of not being able to monitor terrorists and spies. Rogers said lawmakers should come up with a solution for ensuring government access to encrypted communications, a plan that many technologists and civil libertarians have decried as a “backdoor” to spy on people around the world.

In a tense exchange, Alex Stamos, the chief information security officer for Yahoo, asked Rogers whether what he was really advocating was “building defects” into encryption technology.

“That would be your characterization,” Rogers replied, to nervous laughter from the audience....

Stamos asked, “If we’re going to build defects, backdoors, or golden master keys for the U.S. government, do you believe we should do so—we have about 1.3 billion users around the world—should we do so for the Chinese government, the Russian government, the Saudi Arabian government, the Israeli government, the French government? Which of those countries should we give backdoors to?”

“The way you framed the question isn’t designed to elicit a response,” Rogers said.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/23/justice-department-we-ll-go-after-isis-twitter-army.html

friend of mine does a/v at ^^ this place and says there was audible uncomfortable-shifting-in-chairs during this exchange

btw this was in the snowden/greenwald/poitras Reddit AMA after the oscars

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-ovezEUAAAK9mm.png

that + the password scene in Citizenfour suggests that Oliver Stone should've cast Steve Carell as GG.

Was thinking Jeremy Piven for GG myself.

"Why is your agency above the law, sir?…Why can you lie to the Senate about mass surveillance presuming the entire globe to be subject to pervasive collection, twisting the meaning of the terms in violations of the statutes in the Constitution restraining your agency?

Why are you above the law for perjury and why is the NSA above the law for mass surveillance, even violating the contours that the authors of the Patriot Act intended to authorize in 2001?…[A]nd Senators, why won’t you do your job? You’re charged with oversight of these officials."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN2973g0QUw#t=19

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2015/02/26/after-hearing-capitol-police-arrest-lawyer-for-shouting-question-at-clapper-about-nsa-surveillance/

buttar fuckin rules

whoa

Researchers working with the Central Intelligence Agency have conducted a multi-year, sustained effort to break the security of Apple’s iPhones and iPads, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Intercept.

The security researchers presented their latest tactics and achievements at a secret annual gathering, called the “Jamboree,” where attendees discussed strategies for exploiting security flaws in household and commercial electronics. The conferences have spanned nearly a decade, with the first CIA-sponsored meeting taking place a year before the first iPhone was released.

By targeting essential security keys used to encrypt data stored on Apple’s devices, the researchers have sought to thwart the company’s attempts to provide mobile security to hundreds of millions of Apple customers across the globe. Studying both “physical” and “non-invasive” techniques, U.S. government-sponsored research has been aimed at discovering ways to decrypt and ultimately penetrate Apple’s encrypted firmware. This could enable spies to plant malicious code on Apple devices and seek out potential vulnerabilities in other parts of the iPhone and iPad currently masked by encryption.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/10/ispy-cia-campaign-steal-apples-secrets/

Wikimedia files suit against NSA

http://time.com/3738697/wikimedia-nsa-upstream-surveillance/

The Obama administration set a record again for censoring government files or outright denying access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.

The government took longer to turn over files when it provided any, said more regularly that it couldn't find documents and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy.

It also acknowledged in nearly 1 in 3 cases that its initial decisions to withhold or censor records were improper under the law — but only when it was challenged.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ab029d7c625149348143a51ff61175c6/us-sets-new-record-denying-censoring-government-files

as usual, "most transparent"

what the ████ is this ████████

█ █ █ █ █ █ █

our corporate and spook overlords: Working Together

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/01/nsa-corporate-america-push-broad-cyber-surveillance-legislation/

... except for any actual software / internet companies. Silicon Valley spends a fair bit on lobbying now, will be interesting/terrifying to see who wins.

fun in Fort Greene Park

http://mashable.com/2015/04/07/edward-snowden-hologram-statue-brooklyn/

oh, Clapper!

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/241508-spy-head-had-absolutely-forgotten-about-nsa-program

i guess for a few hours at least, the government isn't collecting our metadata

let's plot something

oh, naivete; the Zombie Patriot Act goes on.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/31/zombie-patriot-act-will-keep-u-s-spying-even-if-the-original-dies.html

I'm still irked that people don't remember that USA PATRIOT Act is an acronym.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Contrived_acronyms

Pierce:

Let me say for the record that, because I am not five-years-old, I do not believe for a moment that the NSA has stopped collecting that data while Mitch McConnell tries to tease a vote out of his unruly caucus, nor do I believe for a moment that it will cease to do so if and when the compromise passes. The NSA's messianic delusions about its role in the world, which is something it has in common with the rest of the heroes of our intelligence community, will sustain it through these minor eruptions of actual democracy.

The one ray of hope to come out of the windbaggery yesterday is the fact that, for the first time since the attacks of 9/11, the national legislature came out from under the bed and confronted, however meekly, the idea that in the freedom-vs.-security debate, the sides ought to be at equal strength. For this, we have to thank Senator Aqua Buddha, who forced the issue. His performance was choppy and, occasionally, incoherent. The blog's Five Minute Rule was in effect throughout his presentation. For example, he found himself consistently incapable of pronouncing "Tsarnaev," and he botched (for his own rhetorical purposes) James Madison's famous quote from Federalist 51...

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a35380/rand-paul-patriot-act/

As Washington weighs new cybersecurity steps amid a public backlash over mass surveillance, U.S. tech companies warned President Barack Obama not to weaken increasingly sophisticated encryption systems designed to protect consumers' privacy.

In a strongly worded letter to Obama on Monday, two industry associations for major software and hardware companies said, "We are opposed to any policy actions or measures that would undermine encryption as an available and effective tool."

The Information Technology Industry Council and the Software and Information Industry Association, representing tech giants, including Apple Inc, Google Inc, Facebook Inc, IBM and Microsoft Corp, fired the latest salvo in what is shaping up to be a long fight over government access into smart phones and other digital devices.

Obama administration officials, led by the FBI, have pushed the companies to find ways to let law enforcement bypass encryption to investigate illegal activities, including terrorism threats, but not weaken it so that criminals and computer hackers could penetrate the defenses.

So far, however, the White House has not spelled out specific regulatory or legislative steps it might seek.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/09/us-cybersecurity-usa-encryption-idUSKBN0OP09R20150609

find ways to let law enforcement bypass encryption to investigate illegal activities, including terrorism threats, but not weaken it so that criminals and computer hackers could penetrate the defenses

as anyone with any knowledge of information security will tell you, this is literally impossible

A digital network that would only allow the pure of heart to access its records, employing safeguards to restrict potential security breaches by Hacktivists and Vagabonds.

Obama has built quite a base by promising the literally impossible and doing what he wants

Meanwhile: British spies removed from operations after Russia and China crack codes to leaked Snowden files

(whether or not that story is even valid is entirely up to you)

seems it isn't, on evidence beyond "Murdoch-owned"

http://blog.erratasec.com/2015/06/how-we-really-know-sunday-times-story.html#.VX4WqtVVhBc

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/14/sunday-times-report-snowden-files-journalism-worst-also-filled-falsehoods/

Summary of XKEYSCORE so far: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/01/nsas-google-worlds-private-communications/

Not only does the document-leaker in Fort Leavenworth prison face limits on what she can read, but the banned books are often literary classics.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/08/21/chelsea-mannings-banned-book-list-shockingly-long-dimanno.html

hey Brits

The mass surveillance operation — code-named KARMA POLICE — was launched by British spies about seven years ago without any public debate or scrutiny. It was just one part of a giant global Internet spying apparatus built by the United Kingdom’s electronic eavesdropping agency, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.

The revelations about the scope of the British agency’s surveillance are contained in documents obtained by The Intercept from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Previous reports based on the leaked files have exposed how GCHQ taps into Internet cables to monitor communications on a vast scale, but many details about what happens to the data after it has been vacuumed up have remained unclear.

Amid a renewed push from the U.K. government for more surveillance powers, more than two dozen documents being disclosed today by The Intercept reveal for the first time several major strands of GCHQ’s existing electronic eavesdropping capabilities.

One system builds profiles showing people’s web browsing histories. Another analyzes instant messenger communications, emails, Skype calls, text messages, cell phone locations, and social media interactions. Separate programs were built to keep tabs on “suspicious” Google searches and usage of Google Maps.

https://theintercept.com/2015/09/25/gchq-radio-porn-spies-track-web-users-online-identities/