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Think of it in crypto terms. If you can know when an investigation is ongoing, you can learn something useful as an adversary.
by Kalium 12y ago
Think of it in crypto terms. If you can know when an investigation is ongoing, you can learn something useful as an adversary.
- uptown 12y agoBut "bad guys" have no way of knowing that an increment of a digit is in any way related to their actions. Also, disclosures tend to be time-delayed, further obsfucating what was actually being investigated.
- Kalium 12y agoThey don't have to know for certain. They just need enough data from multiple sources to get nervous and suddenly the whole investigation is shot.
- nitrogen 12y agoYou mean criminals might stop doing what they are doing because they know they are being investigated? Fantastic! Don't we want them to stop?
- Kalium 12y agoWe want to stop them by catching them. Them stopping and changing their operation to reduce the chances of being caught is not the desired outcome.
- nitrogen 12y agoIf we have to choose between criminals just stopping crime but getting away, and maybe catching them while destroying freedoms in the process, let's go with the first one. The goal should be to stop crime, period, without damaging the lives of the innocent.
- Kalium 12y agoI'm not arguing with that. I'm saying that disclosures that add no value to the public discourse but are of value to criminals are not a good choice of tool for protecting freedoms. To put it another way: supplying useful information to criminals while not helping the public is not a desirable state of affairs.
- cryoshon 12y agoIt's the US government... They're always investigating, and always collecting all information they can coerce or steal in order to conduct future investigations or use as blackmail.
- mjevans 12y agoThe current assumption should be that they are always targeted. This has always been the case, even before Snowden or any other events.
- couchand 12y agoThe goal is targeted but the collection is not. The government's many ridiculous briefs on the subject show that they either don't understand or don't care about the distinction. That doesn't mean you should ignore it.
- seanflyon 12y agoThat is some amount of information, so there is some value in concealing it. It has the downside of removing accountability which I think is more valuable than a trivial amount of information.
- jfoster 12y agoOne way to achieve some degree of both might be a time limited embargo on disclosure of particular cases.
- Kalium 12y agoThat's the equivalent of adding jitter to try to foul up a timing attack. It doesn't really work.
- SapphireSun 12y agoNot exactly. A timing attack relies on targeting an ongoing process. If you disclose after the investigation is complete, then there's nothing to attack. In your analogy, it would be closer to someone logging and then disclosing the fact they had logged in at some point (years) in the future. (FWIW, I am not a security researcher, but I've heard about how these things work. Would love to be corrected if wrong. :) )
- uxp 12y agoConsidering there are people sitting in Guantanamo and elsewhere who haven't been charged with a crime, "after the investigation is complete" could be decades.
- eli 12y agoTrue, though I don't think Twitter is asking to be able to reveal information in real time.