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>It's a frustrating situation because intelligence agencies obviously do need to keep secrets They have abused the power to such an extent I think it reasonabl

>It's a frustrating situation because intelligence agencies obviously do need to keep secrets They have abused the power to such an extent I think it reasonable they be stripped of it. It is like taking away a person's rights to own a gun after they commit a violent crime with one. Regardless of what arguments can be made that they need one, their past abuse means the need is now completely ignored.

stoicShell 7y ago
The limit is that you have actual secrets to protect, whether codes or names. You don't want these public because everyone could destroy you then. Secrets are a necessary evil. Managing secrecy as a function of some more or less independent entity — three-letter agency, direct governmental body, army... — is a balancing act, to put it mildly. Ever since the dawn of time, and periodically throughout history, you hear this tension between the visible power (gov) and the hidden figures ("deep state", when some independent agency grabs too much power, and they all do, that's how they 'die' and get reformed historically). This is one of the oldest and hardest problem in managing a 'country', a vast group of people, in the face of potentially hostile foreign powers and nefarious actors in general (including, and sometimes especially, within). I feel our epoch (with internet, mobile, 24/7 on, hyperbuzz, etc) is vastly increasing the complexity and difficulty of this topic. It's likely to make those in charge of secrets paranoid, with reason, even assuming the best of intents. TL;DR: wish it were as simple as that.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  It's not clear that secrets are a necessary evil. They are, however, greatly desired by exactly the kind of people who definitely shouldn't be allowed them. So that's a bad sign. Inappropriate reliance upon secrets is a recurrent security design mistake. Remember passwords? Well not so much remember, we still have passwords, and they're still terrible. Compare a FIDO Security Key. No secrets, much better. If I'm wrong and some secrets are truly necessary we're still best served by restricting ourselves to just those secrets and not creating a Matryoshka doll of secrets kept for their own sake and little more.
  - chowell 7y ago
    This line of reasoning doesn't hold up at all. The best practice advice 'avoid security through obscurity' has nothing to do with what you're talking about. Also, FIDO absolutely relies on secrets: that's what a security key stores. I'd be interested to hear how you think law enforcement and intelligence could still work without confidentiality.
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      Although the typical design for a FIDO key uses what is technically a symmetric ("secret") key that's an implementation detail and the purpose of the FIDO device is to maintain asymmetric (private) keys. If you've been under the impression that FIDO is just a shared secret system like TOTP then I've got great news, it's much cleverer than that. By not relying on secrets the system is robust against total incompetence by a relying party. If say Facebook paste all the U2F credentials they have for your account into a public Pastebin, not only can that not be used to attack your Login.gov account secured with the same FIDO key, it can't even be used to attack the Facebook account the credentials are for. Military intelligence services actually rely heavily on analysis of public information. The value of the exciting and expensive Hollywood-style secret agent is mostly in their ability to do stuff, mostly illegal and immoral stuff, not a benefit to collecting intelligence.
      - chowell 7y ago
        You've totally lost me, and it's not because I misunderstand FIDO. The private key you refer to must be kept secret or the credential is compromised. Yes, this is undoubtedly better than passwords, because the system automatically prevents credential re-use across services and is more resilient than a password hash, but it still requires secrecy. You're not providing an example of a system that functions without the need for secrecy, you're providing an example of a system that uses a very tightly controlled secret, known only to the party that needs it i.e. the FIDO key. Sounds a bit like the principles of need-to-know and compartmentation used by intelligence services... Open source is useful, to be sure, but so are informants / agents, and the safety of those sources and their continued usefulness is completely dependent upon secrecy. If that's too Hollywood then consider undercover law enforcement.

stoicShell 7y ago

The limit is that you have actual secrets to protect, whether codes or names. You don't want these public because everyone could destroy you then. Secrets are a necessary evil. Managing secrecy as a function of some more or less independent entity — three-letter agency, direct governmental body, army... — is a balancing act, to put it mildly. Ever since the dawn of time, and periodically throughout history, you hear this tension between the visible power (gov) and the hidden figures ("deep state", when some independent agency grabs too much power, and they all do, that's how they 'die' and get reformed historically). This is one of the oldest and hardest problem in managing a 'country', a vast group of people, in the face of potentially hostile foreign powers and nefarious actors in general (including, and sometimes especially, within). I feel our epoch (with internet, mobile, 24/7 on, hyperbuzz, etc) is vastly increasing the complexity and difficulty of this topic. It's likely to make those in charge of secrets paranoid, with reason, even assuming the best of intents. TL;DR: wish it were as simple as that.

tialaramex 7y ago
It's not clear that secrets are a necessary evil. They are, however, greatly desired by exactly the kind of people who definitely shouldn't be allowed them. So that's a bad sign. Inappropriate reliance upon secrets is a recurrent security design mistake. Remember passwords? Well not so much remember, we still have passwords, and they're still terrible. Compare a FIDO Security Key. No secrets, much better. If I'm wrong and some secrets are truly necessary we're still best served by restricting ourselves to just those secrets and not creating a Matryoshka doll of secrets kept for their own sake and little more.
- chowell 7y ago
  This line of reasoning doesn't hold up at all. The best practice advice 'avoid security through obscurity' has nothing to do with what you're talking about. Also, FIDO absolutely relies on secrets: that's what a security key stores. I'd be interested to hear how you think law enforcement and intelligence could still work without confidentiality.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Although the typical design for a FIDO key uses what is technically a symmetric ("secret") key that's an implementation detail and the purpose of the FIDO device is to maintain asymmetric (private) keys. If you've been under the impression that FIDO is just a shared secret system like TOTP then I've got great news, it's much cleverer than that. By not relying on secrets the system is robust against total incompetence by a relying party. If say Facebook paste all the U2F credentials they have for your account into a public Pastebin, not only can that not be used to attack your Login.gov account secured with the same FIDO key, it can't even be used to attack the Facebook account the credentials are for. Military intelligence services actually rely heavily on analysis of public information. The value of the exciting and expensive Hollywood-style secret agent is mostly in their ability to do stuff, mostly illegal and immoral stuff, not a benefit to collecting intelligence.
    - chowell 7y ago
      You've totally lost me, and it's not because I misunderstand FIDO. The private key you refer to must be kept secret or the credential is compromised. Yes, this is undoubtedly better than passwords, because the system automatically prevents credential re-use across services and is more resilient than a password hash, but it still requires secrecy. You're not providing an example of a system that functions without the need for secrecy, you're providing an example of a system that uses a very tightly controlled secret, known only to the party that needs it i.e. the FIDO key. Sounds a bit like the principles of need-to-know and compartmentation used by intelligence services... Open source is useful, to be sure, but so are informants / agents, and the safety of those sources and their continued usefulness is completely dependent upon secrecy. If that's too Hollywood then consider undercover law enforcement.