5 ms·
The most interesting part of this is the following paragraphs from Snowden: Further, no intelligence service - not even our own - has the capacity to compromis
by capnrefsmmat 13y ago
The most interesting part of this is the following paragraphs from Snowden:
Further, no intelligence service - not even our own - has the capacity to compromise the secrets I continue to protect. While it has not been reported in the media, one of my specializations was to teach our people at DIA how to keep such information from being compromised even in the highest threat counter-intelligence environments (i.e. China).
You may rest easy knowing I cannot be coerced into revealing that information, even under torture.
While he may be overconfident (it's easy to say you can resist torture, at least until you're tortured), this shoots down the unverified claims that the Chinese or Russians could easily already have copies of his data. Not unless he's willingly handed it over or he's much less competent than his data theft would suggest.
- ianterrell 13y ago> it's easy to say you can resist torture, at least until you're tortured I interpret this as it's protected in such a way that any information he can give is not sufficient to access the documents.
- mrt0mat0 13y agoi interpreted it the same way. Saying, even if he was tortured, he wouldn't be able to give up access to documentation. I think it's funny that we don't even second thought about the concept of torture. It has become too common.
- koa 13y agoI read this to mean that he has taken steps to limit the specific data he knows. So even if he has or had access to documents, he hasnt tried to memorize anything that could be damaging. Meaning they cant force him to reveal information he "doesn't know"
- laxk 13y agoCan we assume that if he is the part of the secret key then if somebody does something bad with him we will lose all the secret docs?
- kybernetikos 13y agoI can imagine systems that would be coercion proof, but I can't imagine any that would be coercion proof and also allow a dead mans switch, which I thought he had also claimed to have.
- grey-area 13y agoIf reconstructing the secret requires a certain no of keys, but not all, and those people are distributed around the world, it's quite possible to be coercion proof as one party (because you can't decrypt on your own) and the secrets still accessible even if one party is compromised.
- ianterrell 13y agoIf that were the case, there would need to be at least two other parties who share his ideology specifically enough to decrypt the data only after he's presumed dead. They would also need to remain secret in order to not be targeted simultaneously. Not impossible requirements, but they seem unlikely. The question is: Can you automate it to remove the human element? Assuming Tor is perfect, could you create N co-conspirator hidden services that need checked in with periodically to not work together to decrypt it? Assuming the check in would be able to detect duress, that might be a viable system.
- grey-area 13y agoIf that were the case, there would need to be at least two other parties who share his ideology specifically enough to decrypt the data only after he's presumed dead. Well apparently Senator Humphrey is on board with his ideology :) I really don't think it'd be a problem for him to distribute keys to a few like-minded individuals before he left, or even when he was in hong kong, particularly if he has some shared key system set up so that any n keys can open the secrets. It sounds like he has certainly distributed an encrypted file of the docs to several people, so I wouldn't be surprised if he has likewise distributed the keys to open them. However while the mechanics of his protecting this data are interesting on a technical level, they're also not the most important story here, and we don't really know enough (or at least I don't) to speculate without more facts...