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Britain pulls out spies as Russia, China crack Snowden files: report
- Thread starter Phantast2k
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Well first it depends on what kind of encryption but in the simplest terms the more sophisticated encryption purposely loses information through algorithms. Processing power can't change that and magically make it reappear. Think of it like turning a pig into pork chops, now try to turn it back into a pig.
PJV3
Member
It's so blatant that it will probably work.
Phantast2k
Member
I'll be honest, I'm currently more interested in Russia's invasion of Ukraine than the Snowden stuff and this is exactly how I came in touch with this news.
The article may very well be untrue or not entirely true (the timing does seem damning), but I'm going to ask some questions anyhow (I guess I feel like I have to as the Op):
- I presume all that info about the whereabouts and state of the Snowden files comes from Snowden himself (wiki says so)?
- "Cracked" is more colloquial than decrypted so it could have been a mistake on The Sunday Times' part or the intelligence official may have put it in layman terms for them. It's not a report by WIRED.
- Plus, how do we know how he set up the encryption? Let's assume he encrypted it with Truecrypt container with state of the art encryption and what not, but what's the password to that? He is the weak link and he is sitting right there in the Evil fucking Empire. The Russians & Chinese are not idiots (especially their cyber warfare experts), so they may have bugged his shit to death and so forth. Why the fuck is everything he says being taken at face value?
- The intelligence agencies may have gotten to know this just now because their agents are being taken down one after another (not killed) as we speak hence their suspicion.
- And finally: Why did he flee to Putin when Assange set the precedent of fleeing to an embassy hostile to the U.S. and doing just fine there while dodging all the rape accusations?
Say he also asked Ecuador for asylum, let's say at their Paris embassy, you think the U.S. would have invaded a foreign embassy in a foreign country?
/
Go ahead and do the same for the Russian empire(s) (including their Soviet empire).
The article may very well be untrue or not entirely true (the timing does seem damning), but I'm going to ask some questions anyhow (I guess I feel like I have to as the Op):
- I presume all that info about the whereabouts and state of the Snowden files comes from Snowden himself (wiki says so)?
- "Cracked" is more colloquial than decrypted so it could have been a mistake on The Sunday Times' part or the intelligence official may have put it in layman terms for them. It's not a report by WIRED.
- Plus, how do we know how he set up the encryption? Let's assume he encrypted it with Truecrypt container with state of the art encryption and what not, but what's the password to that? He is the weak link and he is sitting right there in the Evil fucking Empire. The Russians & Chinese are not idiots (especially their cyber warfare experts), so they may have bugged his shit to death and so forth. Why the fuck is everything he says being taken at face value?
- The intelligence agencies may have gotten to know this just now because their agents are being taken down one after another (not killed) as we speak hence their suspicion.
- And finally: Why did he flee to Putin when Assange set the precedent of fleeing to an embassy hostile to the U.S. and doing just fine there while dodging all the rape accusations?
Say he also asked Ecuador for asylum, let's say at their Paris embassy, you think the U.S. would have invaded a foreign embassy in a foreign country?
/
Go ahead and do the same for the Russian empire(s) (including their Soviet empire).
Dictator93
Member
More information that cannot be proven false (or even true) to pile up public opinion against someone who revealed some of the largest civil liberties abuses of the 21st century.
Even if true, people will be unreflectively angry instead of questioning the necessity of the apparatus which instigates spying, war, etc... Why? Because "national defense" is so nebulous and hallowed that people cannot question it without being thought of as traitors or as troop haters.
Even if true, people will be unreflectively angry instead of questioning the necessity of the apparatus which instigates spying, war, etc... Why? Because "national defense" is so nebulous and hallowed that people cannot question it without being thought of as traitors or as troop haters.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
LOL greenwald
most of his reporting is on powerpoints with out being able to claim any injury as well. His criticisms can go right back on him.
WhiskerFrisker
Member
And it can only be recovered with the "key" right?
Agreed. He's absolutely a modern hero.
"JUST LET THE GOVT DO WHATEVER THEY WANT BECAUSE TERRORISTS!1!"
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Phantast2k
Member
It's like a fucking kindergarten here at times.
Dat civil liberties hero...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/14/us-britain-security-idUSKBN0OT0XF20150614
Original report behind a paywall:
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1568673.ece
Indeed
NYCmetsfan
Banned
This isn't even saying anything about the spying programs.
This is the UK claiming that snowden's claim that Russia and China couldn't have accessed his docs even though he spent time in both countries, and now lives in the former, is bullshit.
He's admitted that he stole more than NSA stuff, he's admitted that he doesn't have access to the files anymore. So why is it so hard to believe a two countries which have giant cyber operations and great spy agencies are more capable than a 30 year old libertarian thinks and definitively claims?
Snowden's revelations went so far beyond the domestic spying programs its annoying to have to constantly point this out. One, such as myself can find them appalling while at the same time thinking Snowden's been at best used by the Russians and other adversaries of the US.
la flama blanca
Banned
Yeah, no. Snowden did good.
All according to renown liar, Edward Snowden.
Another Snowden lie. http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-told-snowden-to-stay-in-russia-2014-5
IISANDERII
Member
WTF are you saying? That Snowden has memorized millions of files and can reproduce them at will, including photography?
Yet the overwhelming majority of the documents he leaked have nothing to do with that
Not to mention, he didn't even read them
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Because Snowden leaked classified documents that went far behind his claimed whistleblowing. He had 1.7 million docs. Most of them had nothing to do with "illegal spying" and instead dealt with legal, authorized, and top secret programs and missions
Snowden worked for the CIA and NSA and admittedly learned some spycraft but somehow he is the paragon of truth and never lies, but the CIA and NSA can never be trusted.
Wikileaks at this point should be covered as part of the Russian state as well.
FISA/FISC Judges are not secret.
I wanna see politicians at the funeral for those fallen agents, please show us, show some evidence that something actually happened and that this was not just another well timed "how do we get our sweeping spying rights reapproved" PR piece.
It is all so secret without any oversight that it is a bit too easy to state stuff like this with no proof whatsoever.
They had like what, 3 years to pull agents out, if there was something in those 2012 documents and now all of a sudden, after some of the spying rights didn't get renewed, there is some major damage? Not really buying it tbh.
Btw, did you know that Snowden's girlfriend was a stripper? And Assange is a rapist?
It is all so secret without any oversight that it is a bit too easy to state stuff like this with no proof whatsoever.
They had like what, 3 years to pull agents out, if there was something in those 2012 documents and now all of a sudden, after some of the spying rights didn't get renewed, there is some major damage? Not really buying it tbh.
Btw, did you know that Snowden's girlfriend was a stripper? And Assange is a rapist?
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Neither are criminal courts.
Dictator93
Member
Legal from the U.S.'s perspective. Just like how it is legal to drop artillery in civilian areas, spray agent orange, fire off white phosporous, use depleted uraninum, detain people without trial for decades, use air-fuel bombs, or do any of the stuff the U.S. does (legally of course) that the rest of the world condemns / international law condemns.
Viewing things constantly from an US-lens, one that does not question the U.S.'s international actions and dominance, allows people to see "homeland defense" spying/ or violations done across the globe as being harmless/legal.
Usually yes, although in some methods of message verification keys are not even used, but that's another matter.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
I'm American. I don't think spying is wrong. I view things from my perspective. And I can condemn someone for actively hurting my country and its allies. And most of this stuff (in the NSA docs) is legal internationally or at least so common any legal notions its not are farcical tools to fool people into thinking their government is above such things.
And I have no idea how the beginning list has anything to do with this subject because none of that is contained or has been reported from these docs. And I'm not condoning them. Spying on computers and foreign countries isn't the iraq war or things that happend 40 years ago.
vas_a_morir
Banned
Snowden is a bit of a rat, huh? Defecting to the Russian Federation in exchange for information damaging to the US and her allies... not a good look. I can't call him a hero to free speech and privacy when he's actively working to empower governments with far worse human-rights records in order to save his own skin. It killed his credibility, unfortunately. However, I am thankful that some good did come out of his theft of classified documents. NSA is indeed total bullshit. He should have had someone look over the documents with him before he made them public, though. Would have been the responsible thing to do.
Hmm, reading over what I wrote, why did I even post? I just repeated the obvious that has been said 100 times already. Oh well, might as well post it.
Hmm, reading over what I wrote, why did I even post? I just repeated the obvious that has been said 100 times already. Oh well, might as well post it.
Futurematic
Member
He's implying that Snowdon is smart enough to encrypt the files, but dumb enough to a) bring them with him to Russia, and b) also be so dumb as to know the decrypt pass phrase.
And yes, everybody breaks under torture. However, assuming a&b are both true (lol), the Russians still can't torture Snowdon because they'll only get 1-2 tries at the right code, before the system will block access and perhaps delete itself (as something that secure should do). Torture is not terribly reliable, after all.
Edit: regardless of anyone's opinion on Snowdon, the article is hilarious garbage aimed at scaring people into accepting the Home Office's next round of attacks on civil liberties. Watching people buy it on no bullshit no PR no spin GAF of all places just makes me despair.
he didn't take anything with him to russia, he didn't defect to russia, and he's not helping russian intelligence. he dumped everything he downloaded to the newspapers then ran, and his options were limited. i can't blame him for running to moscow, especially when he was originally on his way elsewhere.
The key is presumably 256 characters long, no amount of torture is going to make him memorize it. This is ridiculous.
Futurematic
Member
? Oh. Heh. No, the code could be anything. Could be "password123" or "irsotcjckfszn5%)8'ey" or "the sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
The key is required to encrypt/decrypt in AES (and is generated by randomness, to weaken brute force attacks), but a pass phrase is used to access the key.
Edit: that said, if he actually used AES 256-bit... that can be brute forced, if you have the computing resources of a major military or intelligence outfit.
It's amazing that people are still disparaging Snowden for being in Russia. He was on his way to Latin America when the US revoked his passport and began threatening everyone and their mother not to allow him to move. I mean, just the rumor that Snowden was on a plane and this shit happened.
Makes it completely obvious why the US wanted him there though. Makes for such easy propaganda that people eat up.
Makes it completely obvious why the US wanted him there though. Makes for such easy propaganda that people eat up.
Dictator93
Member
What is a country, and how does it get hurt? Does this "country getting hurt" affect your quality of life in tangible ways?
So international law is just a farcical tool to fool people into thinking their governements are above such things? Surely you realize that other governments on earth do not have the resources, cultural background, and historical institutions to do "these things"?
All those things I listed are things which are cloaked in the term "national defense" which are unquestioningly heeded or are not publicly scrutinized in the U.S.
Snowden's protocol breech falls under a similar category there, instead of the category it falls under in other western nations.
I was about to go to The Intercept actually. Glenn Greenwald has more understanding about Snowden's security measures than anyone.
As I said, our intelligence apparatus is the problem and Snowden is a symptom of that problem. But I don't have to accept he is a responsible individual and he is a textbook definition of a traitor, righteouss or not.
SliceSabre
Banned
Like any country is ever gonna say "Yea this got our spy Joe Smith killed on assignment in North Korea."
Yeah right. He would have been 'disappeared 'long before any showtrail.
Succinct Verbosity
Member
Of course, it's not like Russia has invaded Georgia, annexed parts of Ukraine and had a lngthy, bloody war with the chechens or anything. I'm not saying that the US is any better or anything, but let's be real here this isn;t about rating who is worse than the other... They are both pretty self-serving.
Ok fair enough, no, it is definitely much more complicated than that.
It's not impossible.
Most types of encryption are vulnerable to brute force attacks (i.e. keep guessing keys until you get the right one). The idea is that with modern cryptography, it will take a modern computer (even supercomputer) so long to do this successfully that it is impractical. However...
1. We *think* that cracking encryption is slow, but there could be a faster way of guessing or a way of decrypting that doesn't require you to guess that we simply don't know about. There are not formal proofs that most algorithms are unbreakable and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, I would rate this as fairly improbable.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/420290/what-does-p-vs-np-mean-for-the-rest-of-us/
2. Someone could have deliberately undermined the security of an algorithm - sort of like the equivalent of a backdoor - that makes it much easier to crack than we think. In fact, due to Snowden, we know the US did exactly that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG
3. Even if the algorithms are secure, the software used to encrypt the files could be compromised and intentionally weaken the encryption. Snowden showed the NSA paid RSA security $10 million to intentionally weaken their encryption software, which they sold to many other companies.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/us-usa-security-nsa-rsa-idUSBREA2U0TY20140331
4. Even if the algorithms and encryption software are secure, vulnerabilities in the operating system or hypervisor could allow hackers to steal encryption keys or data that was decrypted in memory. From the Snowden leaks, we know the NSA intercepted computers in the mail that were heading to targets and installed backdoors.
http://www.spiegel.de/international...ort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969-3.html
5. Even if the algorithms and all the software are secure, the computer hardware running it could be compromised. The NSA....you know the drill:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/26...-nsa-planted-backdoors-in-cisco-products.html
Elfforkusu
Member
Consider the source here, people.
Snowden's actions were not reckless (except for his own safety, minor miracle he's not in solitary confinement right now), they were a public service.
Snowden's actions were not reckless (except for his own safety, minor miracle he's not in solitary confinement right now), they were a public service.
While there's no way to conclusively argue that those countries might have picked up the key through bugging or some other means Snowden was well aware of the capabilities of these organizations, just watch Citizenfour as he explains it to the journalists.
If other countries do have the data I'm far more inclined to believe the weak link are the journalists rather than Snowden
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...o-year-embassy-confinement-it-is-claimed.html
Even without health concerns living in an embassy indefinitely is far from the better option in this scenario
...someone like a journalist?vas_a_morir said:
I suspect there's probably not a filter button on the NSA's Intranet for domestic spying and he probably didn't want to sit around for a few months filtering it down while waiting for his door to be knocked downNYCmetsfan said:
What Snowden did wasn't perfect but as he said he raised his concerns with superiors only to be ignored. If anything they forced him into going down the one avenue open to him to ensure change happened and how he has handled that afterwards is consistent with his goals enabling the right information to become public knowledge while preserving his safety
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