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The idea for a criminal is to mix in with the world not enter in a technological arm wrestling match with a superpower. Their strength is obscurity, not tech m

The idea for a criminal is to mix in with the world not enter in a technological arm wrestling match with a superpower. Their strength is obscurity, not tech muscle - and if they try to fight from that angle then it’s just a matter of time till they lose. The US army cannot hide itself (the pentagon has an address) but it can apply a lot of money in cracking their encryption. Al-Qida cannot invest heavily in R&D but can keep the US army confused by mixing in and out with the general public. This is why a criminal tries to act and behave just like you, a non-criminal, so they mix in with the crowd and get attention off them so they can engage in what they do best, jumping jacks and monkey bars. ;)

MikeCapone 15y ago
You can do all that they did AND add encryption on top.
- abbasmehdi 15y ago
  Uncle Al once said: The best way to get caught is to send an encrypted email from a dusty little Pakistani town's internet cafe once a month (from where no one ever sends encrypted emails). It is like shooting a flare on a dark night.
  - weavejester 15y ago
    And sending a plain-text email discussing terrorist plots is somehow less conspicuous?
    - abbasmehdi 15y ago
      Yes. Been to the mall with a ski mask on during the holiday season before? ;)
      - weavejester 15y ago
        You seem to assume that encrypted communications are somehow rare or unusual. A large proportion of internet traffic is encrypted.
        abbasmehdi 15y ago
        You seem to be the product of your area code. Realize/appreciate the difference in surfing habits of a rural Pakistani and yourself?
        weavejester 15y ago
        But why travel miles to a remote rural village to send emails, when you could travel to a larger town that likely has more varied surfing habits, and many more people online?
        abbasmehdi 15y ago
        Not as clear cut as rural/urban. The definition of urban there is not more developed, its more dense in population. The semi urban areas have huge populations, plus the population sympathizes with them - city folk hate these guys.
    - naveensundar 15y ago
      http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
weavejester 15y ago
Unless the US government has secretly made revolutionary advances in the field of cryptography, modern encryption algorithms cannot be cracked, no matter how much money or hardware you throw at the problem.
- maqr 15y ago
  In my experience, people seem to think that the government can break any encryption, just because they're the government. I don't understand why people have this impression.
  - bcaulf 15y ago
    I've encountered this too. I attribute it to a lack of critical thinking skills. I think there's a fuzz between surveillance and codebreaking plus a simple lack of knowledge of how codes and codebreaking has changed so much due to use of computers. I think a lot of flawed understanding of codebreaking comes from fiction, where it's dealt with in a dramatic fashion as opposed to realistic.
    - roel_v 15y ago
      I once worked with a computer programmer who did not "believe" that a one-way hash is theoretically possible. His reasoning was "if you transform something into something else with a computer program (a predetermined set of steps) it is also always possible, by reversing the steps, to get back to the original". I dramatically adjusted down the amount of reasoning I thought the 'average' person is capable of over the months that I tried to explain / convince him. It's very well possible that I wasn't able to explain because I don't fundamentally understand myself; but even all the 'circumstantial' evidence couldn't convince him. And that was from a person who, statistically and objectively speaking, is at least above the median in intelligence and thinking power.
      - dagw 15y ago
        I've found that the easiest way to explain one-way hashes is to start with the simplest example possible, a function isEven which takes and Int and returns 1 is the argument is even and 0 otherwise. Most people have no trouble accepting that, given only the output, it is impossible to work out what the original input was. Once they've accepted that, building up from there is relatively painless

MikeCapone 15y ago

You can do all that they did AND add encryption on top.

abbasmehdi 15y ago
Uncle Al once said: The best way to get caught is to send an encrypted email from a dusty little Pakistani town's internet cafe once a month (from where no one ever sends encrypted emails). It is like shooting a flare on a dark night.
- weavejester 15y ago
  And sending a plain-text email discussing terrorist plots is somehow less conspicuous?
  - abbasmehdi 15y ago
    Yes. Been to the mall with a ski mask on during the holiday season before? ;)
    - weavejester 15y ago
      You seem to assume that encrypted communications are somehow rare or unusual. A large proportion of internet traffic is encrypted.
      - abbasmehdi 15y ago
        You seem to be the product of your area code. Realize/appreciate the difference in surfing habits of a rural Pakistani and yourself?
        weavejester 15y ago
        But why travel miles to a remote rural village to send emails, when you could travel to a larger town that likely has more varied surfing habits, and many more people online?
        abbasmehdi 15y ago
        Not as clear cut as rural/urban. The definition of urban there is not more developed, its more dense in population. The semi urban areas have huge populations, plus the population sympathizes with them - city folk hate these guys.
  - naveensundar 15y ago
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

weavejester 15y ago

Unless the US government has secretly made revolutionary advances in the field of cryptography, modern encryption algorithms cannot be cracked, no matter how much money or hardware you throw at the problem.

maqr 15y ago
In my experience, people seem to think that the government can break any encryption, just because they're the government. I don't understand why people have this impression.
- bcaulf 15y ago
  I've encountered this too. I attribute it to a lack of critical thinking skills. I think there's a fuzz between surveillance and codebreaking plus a simple lack of knowledge of how codes and codebreaking has changed so much due to use of computers. I think a lot of flawed understanding of codebreaking comes from fiction, where it's dealt with in a dramatic fashion as opposed to realistic.
  - roel_v 15y ago
    I once worked with a computer programmer who did not "believe" that a one-way hash is theoretically possible. His reasoning was "if you transform something into something else with a computer program (a predetermined set of steps) it is also always possible, by reversing the steps, to get back to the original". I dramatically adjusted down the amount of reasoning I thought the 'average' person is capable of over the months that I tried to explain / convince him. It's very well possible that I wasn't able to explain because I don't fundamentally understand myself; but even all the 'circumstantial' evidence couldn't convince him. And that was from a person who, statistically and objectively speaking, is at least above the median in intelligence and thinking power.
    - dagw 15y ago
      I've found that the easiest way to explain one-way hashes is to start with the simplest example possible, a function isEven which takes and Int and returns 1 is the argument is even and 0 otherwise. Most people have no trouble accepting that, given only the output, it is impossible to work out what the original input was. Once they've accepted that, building up from there is relatively painless