4 ms·

PGP FTW!

by jlgaddis 11y ago

PGP FTW!

mirimir 11y ago
Yes, and Tor :)
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Good that you two were wise enough to mention the only two that slowed and stopped NSA in the leaks. Keep it up at every opportunity. ;)
exo762 11y ago
Technical means are not enough. We need political change.
- sail 11y ago
  Historically technology has been more successful in affecting political change.
  - exo762 11y ago
    I believe that we have an example of such "success". In Stasi era total surveillance was too expensive. Today technology made it cheap, hence we do total surveillance. We could try to bet on technology-first approach. That means rewriting of all the stacks, create automated solutions that hack and/or patch systems (see DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge), hardening systems and protocols, etc. Now, this leaves us with dumb users that need to be retrained. And that can't be done. And there is other side of things. While we wait for thing that may not happen (dark internet), a) public money are being wasted b) surveillance is creating chilling effect TODAY c) wars with US involvement are raging, fuelling ranks of radicals in Arab world
    - petra 11y ago
      >> We could try to bet on technology-first approach. Since we don't control all the stack(processors, maps ,cellular towers, etc ), and we'll probably won't be allowed to control all the stack , the technology-first approach is just wishful thinking.
  - acdha 11y ago
    Can you cite an example? It's hard to come up with one where you can't find examples of use or abuse, with the direction depending on social factors.
  - stinkytaco 11y ago
    I disagree. In the end, all encryption is breakable with a rubber hose. Nothing stops people in a position of great power from abusing that power except social and political pressures. The key is to create a social and political environment that stigmatizes these behaviors. Unfortunately, we're not there in the US yet. I believe it will come, in the same way that the search warrant became necessary for tapping someone's phone, say, but it will take time for society to catch up.
justinjlynn 11y ago
PGP, if used incorrectly, can actually be worse than if you had communicated in plain text (assuming you have some preshared phrases that make sense in context to use). PGP can reveal not only to whom your talking but without a doubt that it is you and only you and them and only them no matter what email addresses you use. PGP doesn't necessarily protect against replay attacks either and when sent via email, the email the headers and subject lines are, of course, unencrypted and unprotected. Accordingly never put sensitive information in mail headers and, by extension, the subject line. You can use a well-known strongset key for rendezvous but once contact is established always rotate PGP identities with every communication and discard target keys with the throw-keyid(s) option. PGP/GPG can keep you safe but it takes a significant amount of work to use correctly and one screw up can bring it all crashing down. If you need it to keep you alive you must practice, practice and practice some more. Develop your own tools and filters to catch mistakes and always consider the metadata trail you might be leaving. Metadata can convict. Remember, the United States Government targets people for execution based on metadata alone. Consider posting crypted/signed messages to Usenet instead of using email to obscure your communications. Sign and encrypt your messages on an offline system and distribute them online using a different and preferably public computer you don't own and only use once. Distribute and collect your correspondence via ToR if at all possible. Keep your keys offline on encrypted storage. Set up a duress key, always chain different keys (never thread messages with the same key) and always plan for failure, because if it can fail it will. Only then will PGP/GPG have a chance at helping you stay alive and free.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- justinjlynn 11y ago
  Also, burn keys after each message. Never reuse non-rendezvous keys and preferably set up new rendezvous keys for each group, groups or entities with which you collaborate and rotate rendezvous keys regularly. Finally, never respond on a regular schedule or too quickly. Delay is your friend. Delay adds noise and makes it harder to connect the metadata you're generating to your data trail thus revealing the connection and breaking one layer of your hopefully multilayered defence.

PGP FTW!

mirimir 11y ago

Yes, and Tor :)

nickpsecurity 11y ago
Good that you two were wise enough to mention the only two that slowed and stopped NSA in the leaks. Keep it up at every opportunity. ;)

exo762 11y ago

Technical means are not enough. We need political change.

sail 11y ago
Historically technology has been more successful in affecting political change.
- exo762 11y ago
  I believe that we have an example of such "success". In Stasi era total surveillance was too expensive. Today technology made it cheap, hence we do total surveillance. We could try to bet on technology-first approach. That means rewriting of all the stacks, create automated solutions that hack and/or patch systems (see DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge), hardening systems and protocols, etc. Now, this leaves us with dumb users that need to be retrained. And that can't be done. And there is other side of things. While we wait for thing that may not happen (dark internet), a) public money are being wasted b) surveillance is creating chilling effect TODAY c) wars with US involvement are raging, fuelling ranks of radicals in Arab world
  - petra 11y ago
    >> We could try to bet on technology-first approach. Since we don't control all the stack(processors, maps ,cellular towers, etc ), and we'll probably won't be allowed to control all the stack , the technology-first approach is just wishful thinking.
- acdha 11y ago
  Can you cite an example? It's hard to come up with one where you can't find examples of use or abuse, with the direction depending on social factors.
- stinkytaco 11y ago
  I disagree. In the end, all encryption is breakable with a rubber hose. Nothing stops people in a position of great power from abusing that power except social and political pressures. The key is to create a social and political environment that stigmatizes these behaviors. Unfortunately, we're not there in the US yet. I believe it will come, in the same way that the search warrant became necessary for tapping someone's phone, say, but it will take time for society to catch up.

justinjlynn 11y ago

PGP, if used incorrectly, can actually be worse than if you had communicated in plain text (assuming you have some preshared phrases that make sense in context to use). PGP can reveal not only to whom your talking but without a doubt that it is you and only you and them and only them no matter what email addresses you use. PGP doesn't necessarily protect against replay attacks either and when sent via email, the email the headers and subject lines are, of course, unencrypted and unprotected. Accordingly never put sensitive information in mail headers and, by extension, the subject line. You can use a well-known strongset key for rendezvous but once contact is established always rotate PGP identities with every communication and discard target keys with the throw-keyid(s) option. PGP/GPG can keep you safe but it takes a significant amount of work to use correctly and one screw up can bring it all crashing down. If you need it to keep you alive you must practice, practice and practice some more. Develop your own tools and filters to catch mistakes and always consider the metadata trail you might be leaving. Metadata can convict. Remember, the United States Government targets people for execution based on metadata alone. Consider posting crypted/signed messages to Usenet instead of using email to obscure your communications. Sign and encrypt your messages on an offline system and distribute them online using a different and preferably public computer you don't own and only use once. Distribute and collect your correspondence via ToR if at all possible. Keep your keys offline on encrypted storage. Set up a duress key, always chain different keys (never thread messages with the same key) and always plan for failure, because if it can fail it will. Only then will PGP/GPG have a chance at helping you stay alive and free.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
justinjlynn 11y ago
Also, burn keys after each message. Never reuse non-rendezvous keys and preferably set up new rendezvous keys for each group, groups or entities with which you collaborate and rotate rendezvous keys regularly. Finally, never respond on a regular schedule or too quickly. Delay is your friend. Delay adds noise and makes it harder to connect the metadata you're generating to your data trail thus revealing the connection and breaking one layer of your hopefully multilayered defence.