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>I would imagine that two people (Greenwald and Poitras) who frequently meet face-to-face could set up a secure way of transferring data. Two people that the g

>I would imagine that two people (Greenwald and Poitras) who frequently meet face-to-face could set up a secure way of transferring data. Two people that the gov't didn't know it needed to care about might be able to accomplish that feat. But Greenwald and Poitras against determined governments with vast resources? Imagine the motivation among the NSA operations and cryptanalyst folks at this moment. This has got to be one of the most exciting times ever to be an NSA spook (assuming of course you agree with the mission, and don't care too much about people's rights). I think in the current environment even guys like Zimmerman and Applebaum might find it challenging to operate under Greenwald's and Poitras' conditions.

vidarh 13y ago
The natural response in this case is to communicate anything that is ok to have intercepted directly. E.g.copies of the documents that come from the NSA. Article drafts that'll get published soon anyway. That leave you with the much simpler task of securing communication of any details that needs to be kept safe, such as any knowledge of other sources, or details that might jeopardise their ability to publish, or the safety of other people. Hopefully that dataset is much smaller to the extent that someone acting as a courier can bring sufficient information "in his head" that remaining details can be rendered "harmless" by leaving out the information passed directly. It's interesting that Greenwald has admitted Miranda carried documents, as that makes very little sense - presumably they understood the potential of confiscation, and any documents would not be much more secure than if transferred directly. However Miranda might have carried with him knowledge of information otherwise left out, such as, say, pass phrases or a way to derive additional pass phrases that would allow any intercepted data to be protected better - any data on his devices ought to be inconsequential (at least that's what I'd hope, especially given Snowden mentioning that he started trusted Poitras when he realised she was more paranoid about him than he was about her). One such method would be for Miranda and/or other associates to take more than one trip. If intercepted you need to try again. If not, one or more of the files transferred might be a set of one time pads and all you need to do to massive increase security is to use said one time pads.

vidarh 13y ago

The natural response in this case is to communicate anything that is ok to have intercepted directly. E.g.copies of the documents that come from the NSA. Article drafts that'll get published soon anyway. That leave you with the much simpler task of securing communication of any details that needs to be kept safe, such as any knowledge of other sources, or details that might jeopardise their ability to publish, or the safety of other people. Hopefully that dataset is much smaller to the extent that someone acting as a courier can bring sufficient information "in his head" that remaining details can be rendered "harmless" by leaving out the information passed directly. It's interesting that Greenwald has admitted Miranda carried documents, as that makes very little sense - presumably they understood the potential of confiscation, and any documents would not be much more secure than if transferred directly. However Miranda might have carried with him knowledge of information otherwise left out, such as, say, pass phrases or a way to derive additional pass phrases that would allow any intercepted data to be protected better - any data on his devices ought to be inconsequential (at least that's what I'd hope, especially given Snowden mentioning that he started trusted Poitras when he realised she was more paranoid about him than he was about her). One such method would be for Miranda and/or other associates to take more than one trip. If intercepted you need to try again. If not, one or more of the files transferred might be a set of one time pads and all you need to do to massive increase security is to use said one time pads.