5 ms·

I´m pretty sure the unencrypted communications will be automatically parsed and processed to look for certain patterns or keyword, and if not found, ignored, bu

by drKarl 13y ago

I´m pretty sure the unencrypted communications will be automatically parsed and processed to look for certain patterns or keyword, and if not found, ignored, but after processing nonetheless. They can attack an encrypted communication and probably decrypt it, but they just want you to be afraid of encrypting with fear of being targeted so that they have it easier to process your information. But that´s a fallacy and a puny tactic to make the general public afraid of being under scrutiny because of the very reason of using encryption. They might be able to decypher encrypted communications if they are the minority, but even with their big supercomputers and billions of dollars, I doubt they would be able to process people´s communication if encryption was the majority of communications. And these articles work towards the NSA´s goals and agenda misleading the public in thinking that it´s better not to use any encryption at all. If the public was educated on this subject and everyone used encryption, I guess they would have a really hard time processing all this information...

jeffreyg 13y ago
'a puny tactic to make the general public afraid' This 'tactic' was classified until leaked, so I don't think its purpose is to scare the public. My guess is that they just want tons of ciphertext samples to use in future cryptanalysis work.
- klez 13y ago
  Or maybe it's just masked as a leak when it's actually a controlled release.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    Are you suggesting this could be a limited hangout[0]? [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout
  - LoganCale 13y ago
    It came from Snowden, so it's unlikely unless he's part of a broad conspiracy to release exactly what the NSA wants him to.
    - jessaustin 13y ago
      Since he's apparently now deep in debriefment with the Ruskies, this would have been a brilliant counter-intel maneuver, leveraging the prejudices of all of us chattering morons to fake out everybody in the world. That it would have been brilliant, is how I know that General Surveillance and his minions didn't do it.
      - LoganCale 13y ago
        There's absolutely no evidence that's true. People are just speculating that the Russians might want to do that. As far as anyone knows, Snowden is still sitting in the transit area of the Moscow airport and has never left that location so far.
        jessaustin 13y ago
        Presumably they allow smartphones in the transit area? I feel like we would have seen something by now.
davedx 13y ago
> They can attack an encrypted communication and probably decrypt it Surely this is massively dependent on the kind of encryption being used?
rgbrenner 13y ago
"They can attack an encrypted communication and probably decrypt it" Why this assumption? The NSA has NO super-human abilities. And one of their jobs is to protect gov secrets. Which is why they participated in the AES standard. If you really believe they can decrypt AES, then you believe they chose an algo that is insecure, than would allow China, Russia and others with similar abilities to read any of our nation's secrets. Not to mention, that there are currently no known attacks that would allow them to decrypt AES in any reasonable amount of time, even if they had every single computer in the world. If you really believe the NSA can decrypt anything, then you're out in conspiracy-theory land, with magical yet-to-be-invented computers, and humans with super-math abilities.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - rgbrenner 13y ago
    AES is approved for use in a type-1 system.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago
  > The NSA has NO super-human abilities. No, but they do have a larger hardware budget than you. And a larger budget for crypto research.
  - DennisP 13y ago
    A larger research budget than the entire open cryptographic community? Maybe. But it's not just about budget. A lot of the smartest cryptographers don't work for the NSA anymore, because they like to publish their research, and/or because industry pays better. If you haven't broken the algorithm, a "larger hardware budget" really isn't helpful at all. Key sizes are big enough that the laws of physics prevent you from brute-forcing them. From Bruce Schneier: "If we built a Dyson sphere around the sun and captured all its energy for 32 years, without any loss, we could power a computer to count up to 2^192. Of course, it wouldn't have the energy left over to perform any useful calculations with this counter." http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_cr.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_c... If they've made a huge breakthrough on quantum computers, they could break the popular public-key algorithms, but could only halve the effective key size of symmetric algorithms.
nathan_long 13y ago
>> They can attack an encrypted communication and probably decrypt it No. If you do it right, nobody on earth can decrypt it. From Bruce Schneier: >> In fact, we cannot even imagine a world where 256-bit brute force searches are possible. It requires some fundamental breakthroughs in physics and our understanding of the universe. For public-key cryptography, 2048-bit keys have same sort of property; longer is meaningless. and >> These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices; they are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. And they strongly imply that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_cr.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_c... Also, from Bitcoin Talk: >> But what about very well funded entities such as the US National Security Agency (NSA)? Could they build a machine to crack a 256 bit key? Assume they could build a theoretical nanocomputer that executes 10^13 instructions per second (approximate rate of atomic vibrations) in a space of a cube with a side that is 5.43nm across (This is the approximate size of a silicon lattice10 atoms wide, or a crystal containing 1000 silicon atoms). Assume that it could calculate an attempt in 10 cycles. Such a computer the size of the earth would take more than 10^13 years (roughly 58 times the estimated age of the earth) to attack a 256 bit algorithm via brute force. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=360.15;wap2 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=360.15;wap2
- leephillips 13y ago
  Snowden himself said it in a recent interview: the NSA can not decrypt your messages if you use a reasonable encryption method. They rely on endpoint security.

by drKarl 13y ago

jeffreyg 13y ago

'a puny tactic to make the general public afraid' This 'tactic' was classified until leaked, so I don't think its purpose is to scare the public. My guess is that they just want tons of ciphertext samples to use in future cryptanalysis work.

klez 13y ago
Or maybe it's just masked as a leak when it's actually a controlled release.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  Are you suggesting this could be a limited hangout[0]? [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout
- LoganCale 13y ago
  It came from Snowden, so it's unlikely unless he's part of a broad conspiracy to release exactly what the NSA wants him to.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    Since he's apparently now deep in debriefment with the Ruskies, this would have been a brilliant counter-intel maneuver, leveraging the prejudices of all of us chattering morons to fake out everybody in the world. That it would have been brilliant, is how I know that General Surveillance and his minions didn't do it.
    - LoganCale 13y ago
      There's absolutely no evidence that's true. People are just speculating that the Russians might want to do that. As far as anyone knows, Snowden is still sitting in the transit area of the Moscow airport and has never left that location so far.
      - jessaustin 13y ago
        Presumably they allow smartphones in the transit area? I feel like we would have seen something by now.

davedx 13y ago

> They can attack an encrypted communication and probably decrypt it Surely this is massively dependent on the kind of encryption being used?

rgbrenner 13y ago

"They can attack an encrypted communication and probably decrypt it" Why this assumption? The NSA has NO super-human abilities. And one of their jobs is to protect gov secrets. Which is why they participated in the AES standard. If you really believe they can decrypt AES, then you believe they chose an algo that is insecure, than would allow China, Russia and others with similar abilities to read any of our nation's secrets. Not to mention, that there are currently no known attacks that would allow them to decrypt AES in any reasonable amount of time, even if they had every single computer in the world. If you really believe the NSA can decrypt anything, then you're out in conspiracy-theory land, with magical yet-to-be-invented computers, and humans with super-math abilities.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- rgbrenner 13y ago
  AES is approved for use in a type-1 system.
SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago
> The NSA has NO super-human abilities. No, but they do have a larger hardware budget than you. And a larger budget for crypto research.
- DennisP 13y ago
  A larger research budget than the entire open cryptographic community? Maybe. But it's not just about budget. A lot of the smartest cryptographers don't work for the NSA anymore, because they like to publish their research, and/or because industry pays better. If you haven't broken the algorithm, a "larger hardware budget" really isn't helpful at all. Key sizes are big enough that the laws of physics prevent you from brute-forcing them. From Bruce Schneier: "If we built a Dyson sphere around the sun and captured all its energy for 32 years, without any loss, we could power a computer to count up to 2^192. Of course, it wouldn't have the energy left over to perform any useful calculations with this counter." http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_cr.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_c... If they've made a huge breakthrough on quantum computers, they could break the popular public-key algorithms, but could only halve the effective key size of symmetric algorithms.

nathan_long 13y ago

>> They can attack an encrypted communication and probably decrypt it No. If you do it right, nobody on earth can decrypt it. From Bruce Schneier: >> In fact, we cannot even imagine a world where 256-bit brute force searches are possible. It requires some fundamental breakthroughs in physics and our understanding of the universe. For public-key cryptography, 2048-bit keys have same sort of property; longer is meaningless. and >> These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices; they are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. And they strongly imply that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_cr.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_c... Also, from Bitcoin Talk: >> But what about very well funded entities such as the US National Security Agency (NSA)? Could they build a machine to crack a 256 bit key? Assume they could build a theoretical nanocomputer that executes 10^13 instructions per second (approximate rate of atomic vibrations) in a space of a cube with a side that is 5.43nm across (This is the approximate size of a silicon lattice10 atoms wide, or a crystal containing 1000 silicon atoms). Assume that it could calculate an attempt in 10 cycles. Such a computer the size of the earth would take more than 10^13 years (roughly 58 times the estimated age of the earth) to attack a 256 bit algorithm via brute force. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=360.15;wap2 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=360.15;wap2

leephillips 13y ago
Snowden himself said it in a recent interview: the NSA can not decrypt your messages if you use a reasonable encryption method. They rely on endpoint security.