- cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Re: [Cryptography] People should turn on PFS in TLS (was Re: Fwd: NYTimes.com: N.S.A. Foils Much Internet Encryption)
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn(a)garlic.com> ----- Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 16:48:01 -0400 From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn(a)garlic.com> To: ianG <iang(a)iang.org>, cryptography(a)metzdowd.com Subject: Re: [Cryptography] People should turn on PFS in TLS (was Re: Fwd: NYTimes.com: N.S.A. Foils Much Internet Encryption) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/26.0a1 we were brought in as consultants to a small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server, they had this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use, the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce". The two people at the startup responsible for the "commerce server" we had worked with in prior life on parallel Oracle cluster scaleup. As part of mapping "SSL" technology to payment transactions we had to audit operations selling "SSL" digital certificates and also came up with recommendations on how browsers and servers would deploy and use the technology. Almost immediately several of the recommendations were violated, resulting in some number of the exploits that continue to this day. We were then tangentially involved in the Cal. data breach notification legislation, having been brought in to help wordsmith the Cal. electronic signature legislation. Many of the parties were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done numerous, indepth, public surveys. The number one issue was "identity theft" of the form involving fraudulent financial transactions ... frequently as result of data breach. The issue was nothing was being done about the problems and so it was hoped that the publicity from the notifications might motivate corrective action. Part of the issue is normally institutions take security measures in self-interests ... however, the institutions having breaches weren't at risk, it was the account holders. PCI DSS shows up some time after Cal. data breach notification and frequently the joke is that if you have a breach ... you loose your PCI DSS certification. It turns out that there was a number of Federal "data breach notification" bills introduced, preempting state legislation and effectively eliminating notification requirements ... citing PCI DSS industry effort as justification for no longer needing notification. Another problem we've frequently pointed out is current paradigm with "dual use" paradigm and even if the planet was covered in miles of information hiding encryption, it wouldn't stop data leakage. Account information is used for authenticating new transactions and so has a requirement that it be kept totally confidential and never divulged to anybody ... but at the same time, account information is needed in dozens of business processes at millions of locations around the planet. disclaimer: we were co-authors of the x9.59 financial transaction standard that slightly tweaked the current payment paradigm and eliminated the dual-use characteristic .... which then also eliminated the need to hide account information and as a result it also eliminated the need for SSL to hide account information in electronic commerce transactions .... eliminating the major requirement for SSL in the world today. -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

1 0

[Cryptography] Bruce Schneier calls for independent prosecutor to investigate NSA
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 17:03:30 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> To: cryptography(a)metzdowd.com Subject: [Cryptography] Bruce Schneier calls for independent prosecutor to investigate NSA X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.9.0 (GTK+ 2.24.20; x86_64-apple-darwin12.4.0) Quoting: All of this denying and lying results in us not trusting anything the NSA says, anything the president says about the NSA, or anything companies say about their involvement with the NSA. We know secrecy corrupts, and we see that corruption. There's simply no credibility, and -- the real problem -- no way for us to verify anything these people might say. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/conspiracy_theo_1.html -- Perry E. Metzger perry(a)piermont.com _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

1 0

[cryptography] Random number generation influenced, HW RNG
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from grarpamp <grarpamp(a)gmail.com> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 17:03:27 -0400 From: grarpamp <grarpamp(a)gmail.com> To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net Cc: cryptography(a)randombit.net Subject: [cryptography] Random number generation influenced, HW RNG On 9/6/13, Eugen Leitl <eugen(a)leitl.org> wrote: > ----- Forwarded message from Andy Isaacson <adi(a)hexapodia.org> ----- > > From: Andy Isaacson <adi(a)hexapodia.org> > Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Random number generation being influenced - > rumors > > On Fri, Sep 06, 2013 at 10:45:46AM -0700, Joe Szilagyi wrote: >> Does anyone put any stock into the rumors floating lately that the >> government may have influenced Intel and/or AMD into altering > However, I claim that the fear is well founded and should be taken into > account by all threat models. > > HWRNG is a nearly-uniquely difficult security problem to crack. By > definition it is impossible to prove that a black-box HWRNG is safe. > This is different from the security properties of a blackbox AES or > MODMUL accelerator, which can be demonstrated to conform > ... > By contrast, a properly functioning HWRNG cannot be tested in a way that > distinguishes it from the output of a stream cipher seeded with a > backdoor key. And there's no way to test the behavior of HWRNG on an > ongoing basis; even if you had a test to run, it might switch to "stream > cipher mode" under the covers. Even dieharding the stream since inception is insufficient test. > If your AES instructions don't do AES, then testing > against a software implementation will show it! Unless some of those billion gates are dedicated to recognizing and modifying software AES to match, and every separate processor you might have handy to run software test on since AES came out has also been backdoored. There is always custom test rig or by hand. > This is not to say that RdRand is completely unusable. Putting RdRand > entropy into a software pool implementation like /dev/urandom (or > preferably, a higher-assurance multipool design like Fortuna) is a cheap > way to prevent a putative backdoor from compromising your system state. > Weighing towards distrusting HWRNG we have the fact that NSA is reported > (yesterday) to have intentionally backdoored Dual_EC_DRBG, and to have > spent significant amounts of money to backdoor chip implementations, > with enough success that they brag about it in administrative summaries. > > So, I put a lot of credence in distrusting HWRNG black box > implementations. But unfortunately we need a lot more reliable entropy. > A fully open source, nothing up my sleeve hardware entropy source would > be a huge improvement. True, if you can't see and verify it you can't trust it. Assuming there is no aforementioned subversion in other parts of the CPU, an RNG is then of base importance to much crypto... So what would be the cost per box to build 10,000 open source [1] RNG's [2] and sell them for middling/no profit? As assembled boxes, as you-build kits, or as free blueprints. If you don't need speed/quantity for speedy/large OTP XOR streams, these hobby jobbers would suffice to seed software prngs, and work well in combination with other software sources. What would be the cost bumps for speedy units, still complying with [1 and 2], for various definitions of speed? Dieharding this and any rng since inception over various block sizes would seem warranted to catch component and other failures [3], whereupon the /dev/<rng> device would block and warn until fixed. No one is doing this extra step in kernel or even in userland yet afaik. Why not? [1] For example, entirely from breadboard discrete logic you can buy and validate from any local parts supplier. ie: not using embedded asics or fancy usb fobs... but resistors, diodes, 74 series gates, etc. [2] Based on radiation, radio, audio/video, environmentals, etc. [3] Neutrino and other hits, Intel/AMD on-die gate failure, etc. _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

1 0

Re: [liberationtech] NYTimes and Guardian on NSA
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Shava Nerad <shava23(a)gmail.com> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 16:54:45 -0400 From: Shava Nerad <shava23(a)gmail.com> To: railmeat(a)gmail.com, liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] NYTimes and Guardian on NSA Reply-To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2013/04/dsclea.html Basically the regulation says, in keeping with new DHS structures, if the governor is taking a bath and can't be disturbed, and there's an emergent situation, we get to just use any DHS chain of command and communications structure to call in reinforcements however we like, so WHEE! DRONE STRIKE! Or whatever. In Massachusetts, we're actually having to pass a *law* forbidding the SWAT teams in MA from deploying drone strikes. No kidding. They at least had the good graces to ask permission rather than forgiveness. Not sure if it was directly related, but it came up in June of this year. So we're turning them down in code. No toyz, boyz. It's the implicit, not explicit, issues that are disturbing. There have been a number of issues in the US having to do with energy, food security, border security and other converging simulation scenarios that are not necessarily overlapping with cybersecurity that have been used to wedge "reforms" out of civil liberties and LE/military/prison industry/border patrol practice in recent years by waving nightmare/doomsday scenarios in front of executive and congressional folks in the same way we see "children on the Internet" used over and over again. The same sort of erosion of rights, and the same asshattery. It's not all our military, or LE, or whomever. But there does seem to be (forgive me gentlemen) a lot of unbridled testosterone out there, who think that the wargames on counters or on computers are the same things as life on the ground. They are "protecting our precious bodily fluids" as it were, and some few of the beltway companies and various contracting interests are making serious money off of all this I'm more than sure. I had a lovely chat with the head of the MA ACLU last year, when Bill Binney came to speak at MIT. I told her that conspiracy theories were just made-for-TV-drama versions of history -- all the bits resolve too neatly, and really, they make people feel safer, because they are more understandable than studying real history, which is never a finite game. Conspiracy theories are chaff thrown against the sort of thing that happens like these NSA things, which are real conspiracies, which then seem unbelievable, and people deny, and decline to take action against. Likewise, when boring Brazil-like executive orders float by tearing down checks and balances, or when folks like Binney & Co with their officerly demeaner telling us that the sky is falling in calm words respecting the Constitution and the dignity of the corps, it misses the public's conditioned response to expect excitement and bread and circuses with their conspiracies. Why did Snowden get press when Binney did not? Because Snowden was a brave, disproportional, total dumbass, and exposed himself to be assassinated and called a traitor or as Ron Paul said -- have Obama send a drone up his ass. He stole government documents, he committed espionage, he exposed things that compromised government programs. In all likelihood in most cases, deserved every bit of it, but I cringe here and there too that it came to this rather than internal and Congressional accountability -- please understand this is catastrophic that it had to come to this as an *external* reveal and is a failure of OVERSIGHT as well as internal common freaking sense -- and now it's criminal. Snowden broke the law, committed civil disobedience in such a flamboyant way we may never be able to clear it up regardless of how much the wound needed to be cleansed. And there are people here who are going to say I am a bad person for saying that. I'm not judging him (I might have made the same decisions -- it's hard to know -- God, I hope I would never ever ever be in that position! I think I'd turn inside out...). It's an assessment. It would take full on whole culture truth and reconciliation in DC to sort this out. And although I would love to see that happen, I can hardly imagine such a thing in the current climate. It's like Watergate. Should never have happened. But there really is starting to feel like some systemic rot, and we need to start laying in more and more support to the folks we know who are working on the bolstering side of this... I haven't talked to Ron Wyden for a while...hmm... Not much I can do from here though... yrs, On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 1:28 PM, Matt Johnson <railmeat(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hello Shava, > > You wrote: "...the president essentially struck down posse comitatus > in May, they won't know what you are talking about..." I don't know > what you are talking about either, but I am curious. Could you send a > link or two. > > > Thanks > -- Matt Johnson > > On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 5:00 PM, Shava Nerad <shava23(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Part of the tone is also adopted in order to wake the sleeping baby > > anti-intellectual giants either side of the pond. The smart magazines > can > > publish smart crypto articles, but mass market newspapers have to bring > > their audiences along, even the Times and Guardian. > > > > Very few stories even bother to explain what the NSA does or what its > > function in government is, which actually rather stuns me, because I find > > that when I ask the general public that question I find that most of them > > don't know what the NSA does for the government. Most of them assume it > > works for the executive branch, but for the DOJ as part of the whole > > civilian/State/FBI sort of DHS bits, because those lines are so muddied. > > (And yes, I am conflating Justice and State on purpose there because it's > > been done in conversation with The (Wo)Man on the Street.). > > > > People don't know basic civics. At all. If you tell them they should be > > upset because the military is conducting domestic surveillance, they > look at > > you like "what?" "East Germany?" you say. "Stasi?" you say. Blank > looks. > > No history. Those who do not learn from history, etc. > > > > If you tell them that they should be upset because the president > essentially > > struck down posse comitatus in May, they won't know what you are talking > > about, but if you say, "Basically, if a local SWAT team decides they need > > backup in some kind of emergency situation and they can't get hold of the > > governor to call for National Guard? They can call a local military > airbase > > for an airstrike if they want to." Then the people will decide you are > > cold stoned mad and a total tin hat. "Sherman?" you say. And if > they're > > from the south, they might go off in a rant, but they still won't relate > it > > to current affairs or do anything. But that is literally what the law > says > > in the US now. That's a bit beyond elementary civics, but it's a bit > beyond > > what the press is reporting on here too. Because the press doesn't > really > > have much literacy in elementary civics or history either. They seem to > be > > drawing mostly on marcom majors these days. > > > > This is what the "attention economy" has done to us. Our culture is a > deep, > > nutrient rich ocean, full of wonders and cthonic monsters that can eat > us. > > And we all surf. Nothing below the surf-ace is important anymore. > > > > Yay. > > > > SN > > > > On Sep 5, 2013 3:31 PM, "Richard Brooks" <rrb(a)acm.org> wrote: > >> > >> Latest articles: > >> > >> > >> > http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.htm… > >> > >> > >> > http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-secu… > >> > >> > >> I find most of this (if not all) silly. They seem shocked that the > >> NSA does cryptanalysis. It would be nice if the newspapers had > >> people with some knowledge of the domain writing articles. > >> > >> -- > >> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. > >> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: > >> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. > Unsubscribe, > >> change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at > >> companys(a)stanford.edu. > > > > > > -- > > Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. > > Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: > > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. > Unsubscribe, > > change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at > > companys(a)stanford.edu. > -- > Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. > Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at > companys(a)stanford.edu. > -- Shava Nerad shava23(a)gmail.com -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys(a)stanford.edu. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

1 0

Re: [tor-talk] Tor users are not anonymous
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from "Carsten N." <cane(a)jondos.de> ----- Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 19:16:08 +0000 From: "Carsten N." <cane(a)jondos.de> To: tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Tor users are not anonymous Reply-To: tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org On 06.09.2013 18:55, grarpamp wrote: > Can you build, from the TC source, hash identical binaries to > the TC binaries TC distributes? No - you can not compile the TC source without modification. The source code you can download from the website doesn't compile. An analysis of Truecrypt was done by the Privacy-CD team: en: https://www.privacy-cd.org/downloads/truecrypt_7.0a-analysis-en.pdf de: https://www.privacy-cd.org/downloads/truecrypt_7.0a-analysis-de.pdf Best regards cane -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org To unsusbscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

1 0

Re: [cryptography] regarding the NSA crypto "breakthrough"
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Tony Arcieri <bascule(a)gmail.com> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 13:21:21 -0700 From: Tony Arcieri <bascule(a)gmail.com> To: jamesd(a)echeque.com Cc: Randombit List <cryptography(a)randombit.net> Subject: Re: [cryptography] regarding the NSA crypto "breakthrough" On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 11:47 AM, James A. Donald <jamesd(a)echeque.com> wrote: > Time to generate and select new elliptic curves by an open process, > wherein any large random quantities are chosen by a non secret process, > such as searching for the appropriate value nearest a round number. > There are curves not selected by e.g. NIST with a published rationale for their selection, like Curve25519. Is there any reason why such curves can't be evaluated retroactively? http://cr.yp.to/ecdh/curve25519-20060209.pdf See in particular Theorem 2.1. -- Tony Arcieri _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

1 0

Old list archives
by John Preston 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

I'm having trouble finding the list archives going back into the 90's; they're not on cpunks.org. Anyone got them?

5 4

Re: [liberationtech] Random number generation being influenced - rumors
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Andy Isaacson <adi(a)hexapodia.org> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 12:34:54 -0700 From: Andy Isaacson <adi(a)hexapodia.org> To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Random number generation being influenced - rumors User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Reply-To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> On Fri, Sep 06, 2013 at 10:45:46AM -0700, Joe Szilagyi wrote: > Does anyone put any stock into the rumors floating lately that the > government may have influenced Intel and/or AMD into altering in > subtle ways that CPUs handle random number generation? I keep seeing > this possible FUD floating around in comments here and there on > other articles. I agree with some of your premises, but disagree with the conclusion you seem to be drawing. Yes, it's just a fear of uncertainty. We do not have evidence, nor even a claim based on knowledge, that HWRNG backdooring has occurred. However, I claim that the fear is well founded and should be taken into account by all threat models. HWRNG is a nearly-uniquely difficult security problem to crack. By definition it is impossible to prove that a black-box HWRNG is safe. This is different from the security properties of a blackbox AES or MODMUL accelerator, which can be demonstrated to conform to a known specification. If your AES instructions don't do AES, then testing against a software implementation will show it! The AES logic unit will have a hard time leaking the AES keybits since there's nowhere nondeterministic to put them. etc. By contrast, a properly functioning HWRNG cannot be tested in a way that distinguishes it from the output of a stream cipher seeded with a backdoor key. And there's no way to test the behavior of HWRNG on an ongoing basis; even if you had a test to run, it might switch to "stream cipher mode" under the covers. This is not to say that RdRand is completely unusable. Putting RdRand entropy into a software pool implementation like /dev/urandom (or preferably, a higher-assurance multipool design like Fortuna) is a cheap way to prevent a putative backdoor from compromising your system state. Now, there is a way that we can learn that a backdoor was included; if someone does a tear-down of a HWRNG and finds circuitry that has no purpose other than being a backdoor, that would be conclusive. AFAIK nobody has tried that experiment. Weighing towards distrusting HWRNG we have the fact that NSA is reported (yesterday) to have intentionally backdoored Dual_EC_DRBG, and to have spent significant amounts of money to backdoor chip implementations, with enough success that they brag about it in administrative summaries. So, I put a lot of credence in distrusting HWRNG black box implementations. But unfortunately we need a lot more reliable entropy. A fully open source, nothing up my sleeve hardware entropy source would be a huge improvement. -andy -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys(a)stanford.edu. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

1 0

[Cryptography] Matthew Green on BULLRUN
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 15:09:27 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> To: cryptography(a)metzdowd.com Subject: [Cryptography] Matthew Green on BULLRUN X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.9.0 (GTK+ 2.24.20; x86_64-apple-darwin12.4.0) Some interesting nuggets here, including the fact that he explicitly calls out the existence of NSA's new HUMINT division that infiltrates corporations for a living. http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/09/on-nsa.html -- Perry E. Metzger perry(a)piermont.com _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

1 0

Secrecy News -- 09/08/13
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Steven Aftergood <saftergood(a)fas.org> ----- Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 08:08:09 -0700 From: Steven Aftergood <saftergood(a)fas.org> To: eugen(a)leitl.org Subject: Secrecy News -- 09/08/13 Reply-To: saftergood(a)fas.org X-Mailer-LID: 1 X-Mailer-RecptId: 399049 X-Mailer-SID: 1873 X-Mailer-Sent-By: 2 Format Note: If you cannot easily read the text below, or you prefer to receive Secrecy News in another format, please reply to this email to let us know. SECRECY NEWS from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2013, Issue No. 79 September 6, 2013 Secrecy News Blog: http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/ ** TRENDS IN INTELLIGENCE SPENDING, AND MORE FROM CRS ** RESOURCES ON CONFLICT IN SYRIA FROM CRS TRENDS IN INTELLIGENCE SPENDING, AND MORE FROM CRS The rise and fall (and rise) of intelligence spending over the past three decades is traced in a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service. "Limited publicly available data suggests intelligence spending, measured in constant 2014 dollars, has roughly doubled since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and, before declines over the last three years, was almost double spending at its peak at the end of the cold war," the CRS report notes. The report does not explicitly deal with the latest disclosure of a classified intelligence budget document in the Washington Post. "Because the document leaked to the news media is classified, CRS is unable to provide a discussion of the specific detail of that budget submission." But the report provides a useful compilation of previously disclosed intelligence budget data, along with some sensible extrapolations to round out the picture. CRS also reviews proposals to restructure the intelligence budgeting process. See "Intelligence Spending and Appropriations: Issues for Congress," September 5, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R42061.pdf But any proposals to modify current intelligence budget practices face strong opposition in Congress. In its report on the FY2014 defense authorization act, the House Armed Services Committee included language to prohibit efforts by the Secretary of Defense to create a new budget account for the National Intelligence Program. (Section 924) http://gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CRPT-113hrpt102/html/CRPT-113hrpt102.htm The Committee also said that the Defense Department has been secretly maneuvering to promote a consolidated National Intelligence Program budget within the Department of Defense as a separate budget category -- a step favored by the 9/11 Commission, among others, as a way to increase clarity and accountability in intelligence spending. "The committee is concerned that the executive branch has failed to notify the appropriate congressional committees about its continuing efforts to pursue consolidation of the portion of the Department of Defense budget designated as part of the National Intelligence Program," the House report said. The Committee directed the Department of Defense to submit a report to Congress on "any planning [for future intelligence budget consolidation] that has occurred during the past two years." Some other noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following. War in Afghanistan: Campaign Progress, Political Strategy, and Issues for Congress, August 29, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R43196.pdf Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2013, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42738.pdf Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Background and Issues for Congress, September 3, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL33741.pdf Banning the Use of Racial Preferences in Higher Education: A Legal Analysis of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, September 3, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43205.pdf Wildfire Management: Federal Funding and Related Statistics, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43077.pdf U.S. Farm Income, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40152.pdf Proposed U.S.-Mexico Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement: Background and Issues for Congress, August 29, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43204.pdf Kyrgyzstan: Recent Developments and U.S. Interests, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/97-690.pdf Climate Change and Existing Law: A Survey of Legal Issues Past, Present, and Future, August 28, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42613.pdf RESOURCES ON CONFLICT IN SYRIA FROM CRS Here are some new and updated reports on the conflict in Syria prepared by the Congressional Research Service: Possible U.S. Intervention in Syria: Issues for Congress, September 3, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R43201.pdf Syria: Overview of the Humanitarian Response, September 4, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R43119.pdf Syria's Chemical Weapons: Issues for Congress, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R42848.pdf _______________________________________________ Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists. The Secrecy News Blog is at: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to: http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/subscribe/ To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/unsubscribe/ OR email your request to saftergood(a)fas.org Secrecy News is archived at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html Support the FAS Project on Government Secrecy with a donation: https://members.fas.org/donate _______________________ Steven Aftergood Project on Government Secrecy Federation of American Scientists web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html email: saftergood(a)fas.org voice: (202) 454-4691 twitter: @saftergood ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

1 0