4 ms·

Jimmy Carter Believes NSA Is Reading His E-Mails [video]

45 points by drkrab 13y ago

fiatmoney 13y ago
The usefulness of the mail system for anonymous/pseudonymous communication is really underrated. It's pretty easy to mail a reasonably tamper-evident, encrypted letter anonymously in a way that doesn't raise any red flags and is unlikely to result in the ciphertext being noticed and stored forever. This is more than can be said for PGP-encrypted email.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  IANAL, but IMHO, the only reason that snail mail is more secure/private is due to the laws that protect snail mail (extensive), versus the laws that protect your email inbox (nonexistent). Keep in mind that the USPS can (and does) scan the front and back of envelopes[0]. Keeping this information indefinitely is tantamount to storing email "metadata" (information which is intrusive enough that it's what caused Groklaw to shut down). Also, it's easier than one might think for a determined adversary to discern the contents of the letter - either by opening it carefully so that it appears unopened, or by (e.g.) shining a light to There are defenses against this too, but I wouldn't assume the physical post is inherently more secure than email. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/us/where-mail-with-illegible-addresses-goes-to-be-read.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/us/where-mail-with-illegib... - I can't find the original link that asserted that they store this information indefinitely, but IIRC the USPS didn't make much of an effort to hide it.
  - fiatmoney 13y ago
    Yes, pmail is strictly more secure than email (noting that nothing is 100%, blah blah). A letter contains less metadata than email - only the recipient address needs to be valid, where "validity" means "corresponds to a deliverable address" with no requirement that it correspond to a particular identity. Merely observing the contents, without triggering your tamper-evidences, requires at least semi-skilled labor. This labor needs access to the physical letter, which means the USPS at some point is directly involved in cooperating & keeping their mouths shut. Notably, applying all this takes the adversary more time per interception than it takes you to write another letter. The contents can still be encrypted regardless. Do not make the perfect the enemy of the better. This is the kind of thinking that gives us big scary warnings for self-signed SSL certificates, and lets plain HTTP connections proceed unmolested.
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      This is a pdf for a camera that has the same sensor as is used in mail sorting equipment. http://fairchildimaging.com/files/2kand4klvcameramanualrevc_001.pdf http://fairchildimaging.com/files/2kand4klvcameramanualrevc_... Here is the equipment in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ynZ4klX2BE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ynZ4klX2BE I never built mail sorting equipment, but I did work with that camera quite a bit. It has very good sensitivity. For a lark one day, I decided to see if I could read mail through the envelope. So, I fed some junk mail in front of it and found that for non-privacy type envelopes, it was almost as easy to read what's inside (top page) as what was on the outside of the envelope. Multiple pages stacked and folded made it impossible to read everything, but you could have read the outer page portion of a tri-folded letter on each side. Keep in mind that I implemented this for fun on a slow afternoon (and it required no special wizardry). Given time and resources, maybe a second camera or different lighting, a lot more might be achieved. Even a naive approach of scanning a letter multiple times under different lighting conditions might be enough to read a large fraction of letter mail. It would take less than a minute. It would not require opening or touching the letter more than an ordinary mail sorter. Now I am not alleging that I think that all mail is stored/read, but I am saying that the tech needed to do that to some degree exists and is at least partially in place.
d0vs 13y ago
Just curious, for what reasons could Carter "communicate with a foreign leader?"
- andyjohnson0 13y ago
  Possibly: "Presidents may use their predecessors as emissaries to deliver private messages to other nations or as official representatives of the United States to state funerals and other important foreign events. Richard Nixon made multiple foreign trips to countries including China and Russia and was lauded as an elder statesman. Jimmy Carter has become a global human rights campaigner, international arbiter, and election monitor, as well as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize." [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#Post-presidency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#...
- ceejayoz 13y ago
  Advocacy, diplomacy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elders_(organization) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elders_(organization), etc?
- jonas21 13y ago
  He has been involved in peace negotiations, election monitoring, and disease eradication [1]. A lot of this probably requires communication with foreign leaders. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Center http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Center
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Socially? He once ran a powerful country, his social networks probably range through many powerful people.
roflc0ptic 13y ago
What a well made, awful little article. "But hey, for all you critics, there's always the Carter method." This is intended to be funny, but it's also intended to be belittling. Framing not wanting to be spied on as being a "critic" is reasonably toxic. "The NSA can keep phone records made from another country for up to a month." As far as details to share, like. This has to be intentionally weak. Other details they could share: the NSA scoops up your emails and your phone records. I don't know what the mechanisms are (e.g. I'm not positing lizard men are doing this), but way in which so much reporting aims to delegitimize any opposition to total surveillance is fascinating. What causes this?
- coldtea 13y ago
  Conditioning for one. Plus, being in close agreement with "the Man" advances ones career.
- acqq 13y ago
  Luckily there is a transcript: http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-march-23-2014-n59966 http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-... Q: "the N.S.A. has argued that this kind of intelligence gathering is critical to try to protect the American homeland? JIMMY CARTER: That has been extremely liberalized and, I think, abused by our own intelligence agencies. As a matter of fact, you know, I have felt that my own communications are probably monitored."
coldtea 13y ago
Believes? Of course they are.
tmzt 13y ago
I guess their activities vis - a - vis him are not covered in his daily briefing, assuming he elects to receive one.
mpyne 13y ago
Interesting Jimmy Carter international diplomacy fact: During the lead-up to the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, Carter wrote to many foreign leaders and members of the UN Security Council opposing U.S. action and urging those who received his letters to oppose White House policy in favor of his diplomatic strategy. He later did the same thing to Clinton, though not nearly so bad. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2002/05/jimmy_carter.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2...
- alex_young 13y ago
  Why is this bad? Isn't diplomacy an inherently good thing? BTW, that article is almost hopelessly hyperbolic. I really want to understand why diplomacy and Carter's advocacy are potentially wrong, but the author choose to level a personal attack rather than making reasoned arguments which may or may not have lead me to understand his position.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    It is hyperbolic, but I was honestly surprised when Googling that anyone had written an article about it at all (I had learned of the meddling from Scowcroft/Bush's book). To answer your question though, diplomacy is certainly good and should be the first choice. But it's not "inherently good"; just ask Czechoslovakia how they felt about Chamberlin's diplomacy with Hitler. More to the point, nations have to live with the results of their diplomatic efforts, so it's important that those efforts are attuned to work together. If you were a CEO trying to shift company strategy to focus on a certain goal, you'd find it at least annoying if a former CEO went out and directly worked against that strategy because they "had a better way to do it". Even worse, being pulled in both directions could end up leading to a worse outcome for that company than if one or the other solution had been chosen.
    - unclebucknasty 13y ago
      OTOH, Carter was not a party to formal diplomatic channels and did not represent himself as such. I doubt that he generated confusion WRT whatever official diplomacy may have been taking place. In fact, his point was that there was none to speak of; only a march to war. So, another way to look at it is that he is retired from public service and is simply a private citizen who also happens to have a pretty big megaphone due to his former gig (and humanitarian work thereafter). He has a responsibility to speak out when he believes his country is running off the rails, as do all American citizens. His voice just happens to carry a bit further than most. So, in fact, one could argue that his is a greater responsibility to speak out.
lotsofmangos 13y ago
Is probably the only method you could use to get people at the NSA to read correspondence from Jimmy Carter anyway. Hell, it may even do them some good, they might quit the day job and go take up disease eradication, or something.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  The NSA has some fondness for Carter. They named their submarine after him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter I still haven't figured out if it is meant as an insult, or if Jimmy Carter is some kind of super secret spy.
  - lotsofmangos 13y ago
    That's not its name, it's a designation. It's the sub that's assigned to spying on Jimmy Carter.
pnathan 13y ago
I am sorry for Mr. Carter, but the NSA is also reading everyone else's email. He is not special in this regard (although I am sure his correspondance is significantly more interesting than mine).

45 points by drkrab 13y ago

The usefulness of the mail system for anonymous/pseudonymous communication is really underrated. It's pretty easy to mail a reasonably tamper-evident, encrypted letter anonymously in a way that doesn't raise any red flags and is unlikely to result in the ciphertext being noticed and stored forever. This is more than can be said for PGP-encrypted email.

chimeracoder 13y ago
IANAL, but IMHO, the only reason that snail mail is more secure/private is due to the laws that protect snail mail (extensive), versus the laws that protect your email inbox (nonexistent). Keep in mind that the USPS can (and does) scan the front and back of envelopes[0]. Keeping this information indefinitely is tantamount to storing email "metadata" (information which is intrusive enough that it's what caused Groklaw to shut down). Also, it's easier than one might think for a determined adversary to discern the contents of the letter - either by opening it carefully so that it appears unopened, or by (e.g.) shining a light to There are defenses against this too, but I wouldn't assume the physical post is inherently more secure than email. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/us/where-mail-with-illegible-addresses-goes-to-be-read.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/us/where-mail-with-illegib... - I can't find the original link that asserted that they store this information indefinitely, but IIRC the USPS didn't make much of an effort to hide it.
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  Yes, pmail is strictly more secure than email (noting that nothing is 100%, blah blah). A letter contains less metadata than email - only the recipient address needs to be valid, where "validity" means "corresponds to a deliverable address" with no requirement that it correspond to a particular identity. Merely observing the contents, without triggering your tamper-evidences, requires at least semi-skilled labor. This labor needs access to the physical letter, which means the USPS at some point is directly involved in cooperating & keeping their mouths shut. Notably, applying all this takes the adversary more time per interception than it takes you to write another letter. The contents can still be encrypted regardless. Do not make the perfect the enemy of the better. This is the kind of thinking that gives us big scary warnings for self-signed SSL certificates, and lets plain HTTP connections proceed unmolested.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    This is a pdf for a camera that has the same sensor as is used in mail sorting equipment. http://fairchildimaging.com/files/2kand4klvcameramanualrevc_001.pdf http://fairchildimaging.com/files/2kand4klvcameramanualrevc_... Here is the equipment in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ynZ4klX2BE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ynZ4klX2BE I never built mail sorting equipment, but I did work with that camera quite a bit. It has very good sensitivity. For a lark one day, I decided to see if I could read mail through the envelope. So, I fed some junk mail in front of it and found that for non-privacy type envelopes, it was almost as easy to read what's inside (top page) as what was on the outside of the envelope. Multiple pages stacked and folded made it impossible to read everything, but you could have read the outer page portion of a tri-folded letter on each side. Keep in mind that I implemented this for fun on a slow afternoon (and it required no special wizardry). Given time and resources, maybe a second camera or different lighting, a lot more might be achieved. Even a naive approach of scanning a letter multiple times under different lighting conditions might be enough to read a large fraction of letter mail. It would take less than a minute. It would not require opening or touching the letter more than an ordinary mail sorter. Now I am not alleging that I think that all mail is stored/read, but I am saying that the tech needed to do that to some degree exists and is at least partially in place.

d0vs 13y ago

Just curious, for what reasons could Carter "communicate with a foreign leader?"

andyjohnson0 13y ago
Possibly: "Presidents may use their predecessors as emissaries to deliver private messages to other nations or as official representatives of the United States to state funerals and other important foreign events. Richard Nixon made multiple foreign trips to countries including China and Russia and was lauded as an elder statesman. Jimmy Carter has become a global human rights campaigner, international arbiter, and election monitor, as well as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize." [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#Post-presidency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#...
ceejayoz 13y ago
Advocacy, diplomacy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elders_(organization) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elders_(organization), etc?
jonas21 13y ago
He has been involved in peace negotiations, election monitoring, and disease eradication [1]. A lot of this probably requires communication with foreign leaders. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Center http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Center
pessimizer 13y ago
Socially? He once ran a powerful country, his social networks probably range through many powerful people.

roflc0ptic 13y ago

What a well made, awful little article. "But hey, for all you critics, there's always the Carter method." This is intended to be funny, but it's also intended to be belittling. Framing not wanting to be spied on as being a "critic" is reasonably toxic. "The NSA can keep phone records made from another country for up to a month." As far as details to share, like. This has to be intentionally weak. Other details they could share: the NSA scoops up your emails and your phone records. I don't know what the mechanisms are (e.g. I'm not positing lizard men are doing this), but way in which so much reporting aims to delegitimize any opposition to total surveillance is fascinating. What causes this?

coldtea 13y ago
Conditioning for one. Plus, being in close agreement with "the Man" advances ones career.
acqq 13y ago
Luckily there is a transcript: http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-march-23-2014-n59966 http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-... Q: "the N.S.A. has argued that this kind of intelligence gathering is critical to try to protect the American homeland? JIMMY CARTER: That has been extremely liberalized and, I think, abused by our own intelligence agencies. As a matter of fact, you know, I have felt that my own communications are probably monitored."

coldtea 13y ago

Believes? Of course they are.

tmzt 13y ago

I guess their activities vis - a - vis him are not covered in his daily briefing, assuming he elects to receive one.

mpyne 13y ago

Interesting Jimmy Carter international diplomacy fact: During the lead-up to the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, Carter wrote to many foreign leaders and members of the UN Security Council opposing U.S. action and urging those who received his letters to oppose White House policy in favor of his diplomatic strategy. He later did the same thing to Clinton, though not nearly so bad. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2002/05/jimmy_carter.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2...

alex_young 13y ago
Why is this bad? Isn't diplomacy an inherently good thing? BTW, that article is almost hopelessly hyperbolic. I really want to understand why diplomacy and Carter's advocacy are potentially wrong, but the author choose to level a personal attack rather than making reasoned arguments which may or may not have lead me to understand his position.
- mpyne 13y ago
  It is hyperbolic, but I was honestly surprised when Googling that anyone had written an article about it at all (I had learned of the meddling from Scowcroft/Bush's book). To answer your question though, diplomacy is certainly good and should be the first choice. But it's not "inherently good"; just ask Czechoslovakia how they felt about Chamberlin's diplomacy with Hitler. More to the point, nations have to live with the results of their diplomatic efforts, so it's important that those efforts are attuned to work together. If you were a CEO trying to shift company strategy to focus on a certain goal, you'd find it at least annoying if a former CEO went out and directly worked against that strategy because they "had a better way to do it". Even worse, being pulled in both directions could end up leading to a worse outcome for that company than if one or the other solution had been chosen.
  - unclebucknasty 13y ago
    OTOH, Carter was not a party to formal diplomatic channels and did not represent himself as such. I doubt that he generated confusion WRT whatever official diplomacy may have been taking place. In fact, his point was that there was none to speak of; only a march to war. So, another way to look at it is that he is retired from public service and is simply a private citizen who also happens to have a pretty big megaphone due to his former gig (and humanitarian work thereafter). He has a responsibility to speak out when he believes his country is running off the rails, as do all American citizens. His voice just happens to carry a bit further than most. So, in fact, one could argue that his is a greater responsibility to speak out.

lotsofmangos 13y ago

Is probably the only method you could use to get people at the NSA to read correspondence from Jimmy Carter anyway. Hell, it may even do them some good, they might quit the day job and go take up disease eradication, or something.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
The NSA has some fondness for Carter. They named their submarine after him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter I still haven't figured out if it is meant as an insult, or if Jimmy Carter is some kind of super secret spy.
- lotsofmangos 13y ago
  That's not its name, it's a designation. It's the sub that's assigned to spying on Jimmy Carter.

pnathan 13y ago

I am sorry for Mr. Carter, but the NSA is also reading everyone else's email. He is not special in this regard (although I am sure his correspondance is significantly more interesting than mine).