4 ms·

Yes but one month ago they still had plausible deniability, not anymore. In short the term it may change nothing but in the long run it will have an impact, no

by doe88 13y ago

Yes but one month ago they still had plausible deniability, not anymore. In short the term it may change nothing but in the long run it will have an impact, no doubt.

tptacek 13y ago
I'm confused as to how anyone could have believed that one of the 5 largest signals intelligence agencies in the world could not have been tapping Internet backbone cables. Can we just resolve this right here? The Internet backbone is tapped. To whatever extent NSA isn't looking at our traffic (or is pretending not to, or pantomiming not doing it), some other foreign SIGINT agency is. To believe otherwise is to believe that state-sponsored intelligence agencies somehow believe the Internet is off limits to surveillance because I don't know freedom and progress or something. Of course they don't believe that.
- xtrumanx 13y ago
  > I'm confused as to how anyone could have believed that one of the 5 largest signals intelligence agencies in the world could not have been tapping Internet backbone cables. I feel bad for conspiracy theorists. Had they made the same statement a month ago, they would have been called tin-foil hat wearing nuts and now people say things like the above so casually and pretend like it was obvious all along. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow it is revealed that the NSA has collaborated with Verisign and other certificate authorities so as to decrypt SSL certificates a whole bunch of people would come out of the woodworks to claim "of course the NSA can decrypt your SSL connection". > To believe otherwise is to believe that intelligence agencies believe the Internet is off limits ... Of course they don't believe that. Of course they don't. People probably doubted they had the capability to sort through and and find useful information inside an internet backbone. It's a tremendous effort collecting and querying that much data.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > Had they made the same statement a month ago, they would have been called tin-foil hat wearing nuts and now people say things like the above so casually and pretend like it was obvious all along. It actually was obvious all along. There have been many programs of gathering as much data as they can. ECHELON is pretty old. > People probably doubted they had the capability to sort through and and find useful information inside an internet backbone. It's a tremendous effort collecting and querying that much data. Yes, it is a lot of data. GCHQ have a lot of computers (largest LAN in Europe, part of largest WAN in world, etc.) They also have a lot of expertise in this kind of thing. Who else would be buying all the data-mining books? (http://www.springer.com/?SGWID=0-102-24-0-0&searchType=EASY_CDA&queryText=data+mining http://www.springer.com/?SGWID=0-102-24-0-0&searchType=EASY_...)
  - tptacek 13y ago
    For the record: I believe it's more likely than not that the NSA already has a CA key (or several) in its possession.
    - Phlarp 13y ago
      Why is it believable that they got a CA key? Since IIRC you've stated in other threads that having Google's specific key(s) is highly unlikely?
  - Phlarp 13y ago
    So much this. People on this forum have consistently presented very compelling arguments that they don't have SSL keys and couldn't retroactively decrypt collected traffic even if they did. Unsettling then that people I generally considered trustworthy in the crypto community (say, Matt Blaze) previously were adamant to claim that large scale duplication and retention of backbone traffic was not only highly unlikely to be attempted, but technically unfeasible. Because of this I'm almost ashamed of how much credit I've been doling out to other allegedly shady accusations that get made and dismissed as passing conspiracy theories.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Just because someone is an expert in the field, doesn't mean what he says is to be trusted. Some are just supporting the status quo and the "government wisdom". Some might even be paid to say what they say or be linked by contracts to such stuff.
  - notTptacek 13y ago
    If you've been following recent threads, there should be no confusion as to the fact that Tptacek consistently supports an establishment view. He nit-picks small details to steer conversation away from the big picture. Any notion of abuse, scandal or surprise is routinely dismissed. People who disagree are brushed off as hysterical or conspiracy theorists.
    - tzs 13y ago
      I'm curious why you couldn't make the same point using your regular HN account. What the need for a novelty account just to disagree with one person?
      - coldtea 13y ago
        Because people have been known to have their account frozen or hell-banned for disagreeing with some other people. You never know.

by doe88 13y ago

Yes but one month ago they still had plausible deniability, not anymore. In short the term it may change nothing but in the long run it will have an impact, no doubt.

tptacek 13y ago

I'm confused as to how anyone could have believed that one of the 5 largest signals intelligence agencies in the world could not have been tapping Internet backbone cables. Can we just resolve this right here? The Internet backbone is tapped. To whatever extent NSA isn't looking at our traffic (or is pretending not to, or pantomiming not doing it), some other foreign SIGINT agency is. To believe otherwise is to believe that state-sponsored intelligence agencies somehow believe the Internet is off limits to surveillance because I don't know freedom and progress or something. Of course they don't believe that.

xtrumanx 13y ago
> I'm confused as to how anyone could have believed that one of the 5 largest signals intelligence agencies in the world could not have been tapping Internet backbone cables. I feel bad for conspiracy theorists. Had they made the same statement a month ago, they would have been called tin-foil hat wearing nuts and now people say things like the above so casually and pretend like it was obvious all along. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow it is revealed that the NSA has collaborated with Verisign and other certificate authorities so as to decrypt SSL certificates a whole bunch of people would come out of the woodworks to claim "of course the NSA can decrypt your SSL connection". > To believe otherwise is to believe that intelligence agencies believe the Internet is off limits ... Of course they don't believe that. Of course they don't. People probably doubted they had the capability to sort through and and find useful information inside an internet backbone. It's a tremendous effort collecting and querying that much data.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > Had they made the same statement a month ago, they would have been called tin-foil hat wearing nuts and now people say things like the above so casually and pretend like it was obvious all along. It actually was obvious all along. There have been many programs of gathering as much data as they can. ECHELON is pretty old. > People probably doubted they had the capability to sort through and and find useful information inside an internet backbone. It's a tremendous effort collecting and querying that much data. Yes, it is a lot of data. GCHQ have a lot of computers (largest LAN in Europe, part of largest WAN in world, etc.) They also have a lot of expertise in this kind of thing. Who else would be buying all the data-mining books? (http://www.springer.com/?SGWID=0-102-24-0-0&searchType=EASY_CDA&queryText=data+mining http://www.springer.com/?SGWID=0-102-24-0-0&searchType=EASY_...)
- tptacek 13y ago
  For the record: I believe it's more likely than not that the NSA already has a CA key (or several) in its possession.
  - Phlarp 13y ago
    Why is it believable that they got a CA key? Since IIRC you've stated in other threads that having Google's specific key(s) is highly unlikely?
- Phlarp 13y ago
  So much this. People on this forum have consistently presented very compelling arguments that they don't have SSL keys and couldn't retroactively decrypt collected traffic even if they did. Unsettling then that people I generally considered trustworthy in the crypto community (say, Matt Blaze) previously were adamant to claim that large scale duplication and retention of backbone traffic was not only highly unlikely to be attempted, but technically unfeasible. Because of this I'm almost ashamed of how much credit I've been doling out to other allegedly shady accusations that get made and dismissed as passing conspiracy theories.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Just because someone is an expert in the field, doesn't mean what he says is to be trusted. Some are just supporting the status quo and the "government wisdom". Some might even be paid to say what they say or be linked by contracts to such stuff.
- notTptacek 13y ago
  If you've been following recent threads, there should be no confusion as to the fact that Tptacek consistently supports an establishment view. He nit-picks small details to steer conversation away from the big picture. Any notion of abuse, scandal or surprise is routinely dismissed. People who disagree are brushed off as hysterical or conspiracy theorists.
  - tzs 13y ago
    I'm curious why you couldn't make the same point using your regular HN account. What the need for a novelty account just to disagree with one person?
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Because people have been known to have their account frozen or hell-banned for disagreeing with some other people. You never know.