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From the document: Protecting the Hemisphere program is a formidable challenge. We have taken the following steps to try and keep the program under the radar

From the document: Protecting the Hemisphere program is a formidable challenge. We have taken the following steps to try and keep the program under the radar... The fact that our government creates and then goes to such great lengths to hide programs that it knows the public (and most likely the courts) will vehemently object to shows the level of contempt that government officials and employees have for the very people they were hired to serve. I don't know that it can be fixed, but it is a very serious problem.

willvarfar 13y ago
Maybe they don't want drug pushers and users to know they have this either?
- gaius 13y ago
  Security through obscurity?
  - aroman 13y ago
    …actually works outside of theory. We're not talking cryptosystems here, we're talking about intelligence and counterintelligence. You don't call a spy's disguise security through obscurity. Note that I'm not condoning mass government surveilance, only objecting to its criticism on the grounds of "security through obsecurity".
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Even real-world cryptography can benefit from security through obscurity. It's all a time game- how fast can my attackers attack my security, how much time do I need to buy. If security through obscurity buys you time, why not?
      - bad_user 13y ago
        "Buys you time" for what? For fixing it? Why not do it right in the first place? The danger in this line of thought is that security breaches only have to happen once for real damage to ensue. For software companies, when it happens, I always expect to see a clear explanation for why it did happen and in case of stupid architectural problems, I tend to avoid that company in the future. Of course there's a difference between software and real world undercover operations performed by government agencies. Placing an agent undercover is both a gamble and a race against the clock. The government knows the risks involved, the agent knows the risks involved, human casualties can happen but that's part of the contract so to speak. Nobody willingly enters such operations without knowing the risks involved. But if you're gambling with customer's data, be prepared to explain that to the angry customers when the shit hits the fan.
        derefr 13y ago
        As far as I know, we've never yet created a cryptographic algorithm that's withstood more than 20 years of scrutiny. We could assume this trend continues into the future, and that any crypto algorithm we do create will be broken within 20 years. This means that encrypting a piece of data isn't some magical eternal protection--it just seals it in a time-capsule that'll "degrade" after 20 years or less. (Sometimes far less.) But, so far, this property has also been pretty much irrelevant: almost all the things we want to do by passing along a secret are time-sensitive, and breaking the secret 20 years after the fact doesn't really buy you anything. Being able to impersonate the SSL key of Microsoft.com-as-it-was-in-1993 doesn't let you do anything to Microsoft.com-as-it-is-today. This policy scales down, of course: in military comsec terms, you only need the encryption on operational details to last until the day after the operation is carried out. After that, your "secret" has become "plain" (something quite obviously blew up, etc.) and so the enemy breaking the encryption on the orders won't tell them anything they didn't already realize by hearing the explosion. This is why the military keeps multiple different kinds of ciphers for different levels of secrecy, by the way: they assume that the more things they use a particular crypto algorithm for--the more signals the enemy gets to intercept that use that algorithm--the more enemy sigint folks will be put to the task of breaking that algorithm. So "top secret" encryption isn't meant to withstand any more scrutiny than "secret" encryption; it's just generally a bunch of orthogonal crypto primitives to the ones in the merely-secret crypto, and only used rarely, for the kinds of orders that need to stay secret long after execution (e.g. covert ops on allies.) Thus, enemy nations will have comparatively little reason to have analyzed and broken it--and breaking the secret-level ciphers won't help them, because of the orthogonal implementations.
- legutierr 13y ago
  Is this an argument in favor of the practice? Because, honestly, drugs should be legal to sell and to purchase. If all drugs should be legal and if the trade in drugs should be legal, then how can any program like this designed solely to enforce drug laws be justified? In that event, who cares what drug "pushers" and users know?
  - tinco 13y ago
    Well, honestly, drugs should not be legal to sell and to purchase. What world are you living in? Do you think these guys deal weed? Have you seen what (crack) cocaine does to people? These cocaine pushers are in the business of destroying people, and they certainly should be apprehended.
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      It is less expensive and less destructive to treat addicts than it is to conduct a Drug War.
    - betterunix 13y ago
      "Well, honestly, drugs should not be legal to sell and to purchase." Care to cite any reasons here? See, when it comes to cocaine, Congress has not revisited the debate since people said these sort of things: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70F1EFA3A5A15738DDDAB0894D0405B888CF1D3 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70F1EFA3A5A1... http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/negro_cocaine_fiends.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/negro_cocaine_fi... Yeah, you read that correctly. Black guys who use cocaine become more accurate with a gun and will attack white women! Also, Jews are selling it. Cocaine also makes it nearly impossible to kill a black man using a standard issue handgun, so let's upgrade the caliber. "Have you seen what (crack) cocaine does to people?" Yes: I have seen the children of the wealthy doing cocaine at college parties, then going on to get high-paying jobs on Wall St. Truly ruinous, truly! How about we drop the boogeyman and drop the anecdotes and start citing some sources? You claim that cocaine destroys people; let's see the proof.
    - TausAmmer 13y ago
- betterunix 13y ago
  I think we need to take a step back and get to the part where it makes sense to use these tactics against drug users.
- downandout 13y ago
  The point of my comment wasn't that we shouldn't use technology to enforce our laws (though our drug laws are ridiculous and counterproductive). It was that our local, state, and federal governments operate as a collection of thousands of fiefdoms that run for the most part without supervision from any other agency. Each of those fiefdoms can implement programs like this in secret, and no one can challenge them because no one knows about them. Every so often one of these programs is identified and disbanded after years of litigation, but hundreds more will soon appear in its place. The simplicity of implementing such programs combined with the near impossibility of identifying and eliminating them makes this an insurmountable problem. Our government seems to have adopted the mantra of the criminals they claim to dislike so much: If you don't get caught, it's not illegal.
graycat 13y ago
Fix it? Sure, the US Founding Fathers had all been there, done that, gotten the T-shirt, and showed us how: (1) Have freedom of the press so that the press can put out the information needed for an informed citizenry. (2) Have freedom of speech and assembly so that the citizens can learn, discuss, and decide. (3) Have the Bill of Rights so that the government can't just run roughshod over the citizens. (4) Have three branches of government so that there can be checks and balances and keep, say, the Executive Branch from becoming dictatorial, self-serving, self-perpetuating, and tyrannical. (5) Have the President and the Congress elected by the citizens, directly or nearly so and, thus, have them elected out'a there when the citizens don't like them. Then, presto, to solve the problems, citizens just need to become informed and, then, behind some curtains pull some levers. Done. All the powerful, wealthy, connected, crooked dirt bags in government float belly down down the Potomac River. Net, we just need to become informed and pull the levers. And, there's another way: Bring law suits, e.g., citing the Fourth Amendment. So, Q. Go to war in Syria? A. Not without money voted by Congress. Q. Implement ObamaCare? A. Not if the citizens and/or courts don't like it. Q. NSA spying on US citizens? A. Not if citizens vote to stop that stuff and/or court cases get brought and are successful. Q. The spying on US citizens as in the OP? A. Not if citizens don't like it and/or there are suitable court cases. Q. US Customs taking mobile electronic devices of US citizens and extracting and keeping all the data? A. Not if, right, the usual, citizens and courts stop it. Etc.
- namlem 13y ago
  The US government is flawed on a deep constitutional level. The incentive structures and oversight mechanisms are broken. The constitution is pretty much a joke at this point. The founders knew it would become outdated quickly and recommended rewriting it every 25 years or so.
  - Wingman4l7 13y ago
    > The founders knew it would become outdated quickly and recommended rewriting it every 25 years or so. Interesting! Where was this mentioned -- in their personal correspondence, or a more public document?
noarchy 13y ago
"Hired to serve", but it brings to mind the following quote from Noam Chomsky, regarding who is being served: "Governments should not have this capacity. But governments will use whatever technology is available to them to combat their primary enemy -- which is their own population,"
superuser2 13y ago
It shows contempt for and fear of privacy advocates, who are a small minority of the people they were hired to serve.

willvarfar 13y ago

Maybe they don't want drug pushers and users to know they have this either?

gaius 13y ago
Security through obscurity?
- aroman 13y ago
  …actually works outside of theory. We're not talking cryptosystems here, we're talking about intelligence and counterintelligence. You don't call a spy's disguise security through obscurity. Note that I'm not condoning mass government surveilance, only objecting to its criticism on the grounds of "security through obsecurity".
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Even real-world cryptography can benefit from security through obscurity. It's all a time game- how fast can my attackers attack my security, how much time do I need to buy. If security through obscurity buys you time, why not?
    - bad_user 13y ago
      "Buys you time" for what? For fixing it? Why not do it right in the first place? The danger in this line of thought is that security breaches only have to happen once for real damage to ensue. For software companies, when it happens, I always expect to see a clear explanation for why it did happen and in case of stupid architectural problems, I tend to avoid that company in the future. Of course there's a difference between software and real world undercover operations performed by government agencies. Placing an agent undercover is both a gamble and a race against the clock. The government knows the risks involved, the agent knows the risks involved, human casualties can happen but that's part of the contract so to speak. Nobody willingly enters such operations without knowing the risks involved. But if you're gambling with customer's data, be prepared to explain that to the angry customers when the shit hits the fan.
      - derefr 13y ago
        As far as I know, we've never yet created a cryptographic algorithm that's withstood more than 20 years of scrutiny. We could assume this trend continues into the future, and that any crypto algorithm we do create will be broken within 20 years. This means that encrypting a piece of data isn't some magical eternal protection--it just seals it in a time-capsule that'll "degrade" after 20 years or less. (Sometimes far less.) But, so far, this property has also been pretty much irrelevant: almost all the things we want to do by passing along a secret are time-sensitive, and breaking the secret 20 years after the fact doesn't really buy you anything. Being able to impersonate the SSL key of Microsoft.com-as-it-was-in-1993 doesn't let you do anything to Microsoft.com-as-it-is-today. This policy scales down, of course: in military comsec terms, you only need the encryption on operational details to last until the day after the operation is carried out. After that, your "secret" has become "plain" (something quite obviously blew up, etc.) and so the enemy breaking the encryption on the orders won't tell them anything they didn't already realize by hearing the explosion. This is why the military keeps multiple different kinds of ciphers for different levels of secrecy, by the way: they assume that the more things they use a particular crypto algorithm for--the more signals the enemy gets to intercept that use that algorithm--the more enemy sigint folks will be put to the task of breaking that algorithm. So "top secret" encryption isn't meant to withstand any more scrutiny than "secret" encryption; it's just generally a bunch of orthogonal crypto primitives to the ones in the merely-secret crypto, and only used rarely, for the kinds of orders that need to stay secret long after execution (e.g. covert ops on allies.) Thus, enemy nations will have comparatively little reason to have analyzed and broken it--and breaking the secret-level ciphers won't help them, because of the orthogonal implementations.
legutierr 13y ago
Is this an argument in favor of the practice? Because, honestly, drugs should be legal to sell and to purchase. If all drugs should be legal and if the trade in drugs should be legal, then how can any program like this designed solely to enforce drug laws be justified? In that event, who cares what drug "pushers" and users know?
- tinco 13y ago
  Well, honestly, drugs should not be legal to sell and to purchase. What world are you living in? Do you think these guys deal weed? Have you seen what (crack) cocaine does to people? These cocaine pushers are in the business of destroying people, and they certainly should be apprehended.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    It is less expensive and less destructive to treat addicts than it is to conduct a Drug War.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    "Well, honestly, drugs should not be legal to sell and to purchase." Care to cite any reasons here? See, when it comes to cocaine, Congress has not revisited the debate since people said these sort of things: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70F1EFA3A5A15738DDDAB0894D0405B888CF1D3 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70F1EFA3A5A1... http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/negro_cocaine_fiends.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/negro_cocaine_fi... Yeah, you read that correctly. Black guys who use cocaine become more accurate with a gun and will attack white women! Also, Jews are selling it. Cocaine also makes it nearly impossible to kill a black man using a standard issue handgun, so let's upgrade the caliber. "Have you seen what (crack) cocaine does to people?" Yes: I have seen the children of the wealthy doing cocaine at college parties, then going on to get high-paying jobs on Wall St. Truly ruinous, truly! How about we drop the boogeyman and drop the anecdotes and start citing some sources? You claim that cocaine destroys people; let's see the proof.
  - TausAmmer 13y ago
betterunix 13y ago
I think we need to take a step back and get to the part where it makes sense to use these tactics against drug users.
downandout 13y ago
The point of my comment wasn't that we shouldn't use technology to enforce our laws (though our drug laws are ridiculous and counterproductive). It was that our local, state, and federal governments operate as a collection of thousands of fiefdoms that run for the most part without supervision from any other agency. Each of those fiefdoms can implement programs like this in secret, and no one can challenge them because no one knows about them. Every so often one of these programs is identified and disbanded after years of litigation, but hundreds more will soon appear in its place. The simplicity of implementing such programs combined with the near impossibility of identifying and eliminating them makes this an insurmountable problem. Our government seems to have adopted the mantra of the criminals they claim to dislike so much: If you don't get caught, it's not illegal.

graycat 13y ago

Fix it? Sure, the US Founding Fathers had all been there, done that, gotten the T-shirt, and showed us how: (1) Have freedom of the press so that the press can put out the information needed for an informed citizenry. (2) Have freedom of speech and assembly so that the citizens can learn, discuss, and decide. (3) Have the Bill of Rights so that the government can't just run roughshod over the citizens. (4) Have three branches of government so that there can be checks and balances and keep, say, the Executive Branch from becoming dictatorial, self-serving, self-perpetuating, and tyrannical. (5) Have the President and the Congress elected by the citizens, directly or nearly so and, thus, have them elected out'a there when the citizens don't like them. Then, presto, to solve the problems, citizens just need to become informed and, then, behind some curtains pull some levers. Done. All the powerful, wealthy, connected, crooked dirt bags in government float belly down down the Potomac River. Net, we just need to become informed and pull the levers. And, there's another way: Bring law suits, e.g., citing the Fourth Amendment. So, Q. Go to war in Syria? A. Not without money voted by Congress. Q. Implement ObamaCare? A. Not if the citizens and/or courts don't like it. Q. NSA spying on US citizens? A. Not if citizens vote to stop that stuff and/or court cases get brought and are successful. Q. The spying on US citizens as in the OP? A. Not if citizens don't like it and/or there are suitable court cases. Q. US Customs taking mobile electronic devices of US citizens and extracting and keeping all the data? A. Not if, right, the usual, citizens and courts stop it. Etc.

namlem 13y ago
The US government is flawed on a deep constitutional level. The incentive structures and oversight mechanisms are broken. The constitution is pretty much a joke at this point. The founders knew it would become outdated quickly and recommended rewriting it every 25 years or so.
- Wingman4l7 13y ago
  > The founders knew it would become outdated quickly and recommended rewriting it every 25 years or so. Interesting! Where was this mentioned -- in their personal correspondence, or a more public document?

noarchy 13y ago

"Hired to serve", but it brings to mind the following quote from Noam Chomsky, regarding who is being served: "Governments should not have this capacity. But governments will use whatever technology is available to them to combat their primary enemy -- which is their own population,"

superuser2 13y ago

It shows contempt for and fear of privacy advocates, who are a small minority of the people they were hired to serve.