Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!aioe.org!news.swapon.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Jolly Roger Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: CIA 'tried to crack security of Apple devices' Date: 13 Mar 2015 14:00:55 GMT Organization: People for the Ethical Treatment of Pirates Lines: 76 Message-ID: References: <100320151807038081%michelle@michelle.org> <2015031018314016038-xxx@yyyzzz> <130320150030082767%star@sky.net> X-Trace: individual.net /k6qLG77uAydSuMrlO30DgQG/P2T6yUGBfRozXmImr30DtMwa1 Cancel-Lock: sha1:S4eYMGEIbHyr9pNigGo8ShaXjIQ= X-Face: _.g>n!a$f3/H3jA]>9pN55*5<`}Tud57>1Y%b|b-Y~()~\t,LZ3e up1/bO{=-) User-Agent: slrn/1.0.1 (Darwin) Xref: csiph.com comp.sys.mac.system:70962 On 2015-03-13, Davoud wrote: > Don Bruder: >> Unfortunately, there's no way to *REALLY* know if such a hole exists, in >> whatever cryptosystem is being discussed, or if it does, if it's been >> discovered (or perhaps even installed...) by the TLAs. Anybody who >> thinks the TLAs would admit they know of such a hole is a fool. Anybody >> who thinks they wouldn't exploit it if they could is even more a fool. >> But since it's all we've got at the moment, you either have to trust it >> (however reluctantly) or leave your secrets "in the clear". > >> Either that, or build a new tinfoil hat and hope for the best... > > The Intelligence Community (IC) does what is required of it by law. For > an agency to admit this or that would be a violation of the espionage > laws. Not going to happen. It's a good thing we have people like Snowden who are willing to open things up a bit so the average American citizen can be aware of the abuse that is happening right under our noses. > I don't know why it is so difficult for people to understand that the > NSA is not looking for, or reading, the communications of the average > American or ally. The fact is their dragnet includes most average American communications. And the way they link people's communications to each other to make associations allows them to gather the records of thousands of individual Americans when they target just one. For instance, if the person they target happened to call a business that you happened to have called, BINGO, your communications are automatically in the net as well. And there are few real limits to what agents can do with the troves of information they have on hand. The potential for abuse is vast, and there are few checks and balances beyond the "you'll just have to trust us" kind. Agents have been caught (mostly because they had guilty consciences and came clean, or were so brazen about it they blabbed to others) reading communications of average citizens: > SIGINT collection and processing are incredibly labor intensive, and > there are never enough people, especially those skilled in the hard > languages, to cover the legitimate targets. There are also not enough people to monitor them to make sure they aren't abusing their power, which is the real problem. > Anyone who thinks they have the time, the inclination, or the mandate > to entertain themselves with John Q. Public's personal communications > is delusional and really does need that tinfoil hat. Anyone who thinks that human beings won't abuse their power hasn't learned one of life's great lessons. Human beings with this much power need proper supervision, and without it, and with this many human beings being handed this much power, what we already know is abuse of that power is probable and has happened. Yet we are told we should just trust the very people abusing their power. > I would sincerely hope that there are no publicly available cipher > systems that the IC cannot read. That would do nothing to protect the > average citizen because the average citizen does not need such > protection, but it would be a boon to the enemies of civilization. If encryption can be broken by the TLAs, it can be broken by others who have the ability to invest the time and energy into breaking it for whatever nefarious purposes they have in mind. And if the TLAs keep these security holes to themselves, those holes are left gaping open for others to use for whatever nefarious purposes they wish, with the average American non the wiser, which means *anything* relying on that encryption is available to *anyone* with the means to exploit it for their own gain. That is the opposite of ensuring our security. -- E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter. I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead. JR