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Why Should[n't] I Work for the NSA?
by grarpamp 11 Feb '15

11 Feb '15

Have there been any threads or good public/panel debates involving one/both sides of this topic? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=working+for+the+nsa https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=working+for+the+nsa+surveillan… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw

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Re: time & crypto
by brian carroll 11 Feb '15

11 Feb '15

previous post wondered about what atomic clocks everywhere might be useful for, in particular crypto. the following article has more information on how mapping gravity via time differences via highest-precision timekeeping relates to unlocking mysteries of the earth's interior... (thus geological, geophysical) [0] one aspect that has me puzzled about timing is the claim by Apple that the Apple Watch is "One of the most accurate watches ever" while also noting its accuracy is 50 microseconds, and likely has its timing signal indirectly routed through the iPhone thus delayed prior to setting the internal clock. interesting article on this issue [1], with a backgrounder on existing timing technologies available today. in particular, information about Apple's time servers that are linked to UTC at nanosecond accuracy, and also that the clocks or timing circuits inside smartphones and tablets are _not as accurate as i imagined, also losing seconds a day (in this way somewhat like a mechanical watch for precision). the thing about the Apple Watch claim of timing accuracy, which the article makes clear, is that a GPS watch that gets its signal from orbiting satellites (via whatever speed-of-light & atmospheric signaling delay) is receiving a time signal that is accurate in the realm of nanoseconds from the universal standard, via several synchronized atomic clocks onboard the GPS satellites. so apparently that accurate timing signal has to transverse space and time to get to another distant location, and it is unknown if at its destination it has this accuracy or only when the signal is sent. the latter may be possible with additional calculations based on various parameters of GPS, thus the stated 50ns accuracy could be presumed that of a GPS watch if not iPhone GPS time signal. and yet with the tethering of the Apple Watch to the iPhone to maintain its timekeeping, somehow this 50 nanosecond accuracy drops to 50 microseconds, which the observer noted is "a million times worse than...the accuracy delivered by GPS." [1] because of this it is puzzling how the claim of ~extreme accuracy can be made by Apple when an iPhone has presumably better timing resolution due to design decisions, than a device categorized as a watch as if in the same lineage as precision chronometers that defined engineering excellence and feats of microengineering, which also /appear/ as watchfaces on the system-on-a-chip device, and yet that same adherence to accuracy is seemingly not occurring even while still being claimed. to give a sense of the issue, via proportion, a short video of Grace Hopper provides a way of considering this situation by measuring the maximum distance electricity travels in space in a nanosecond and microsecond. [2] this then allows hypothetical comparison between a GPS timing signal sent directly to a smartwatch (50ns*11.8inches = 49.1667 feet) to that GSP or other time signal relayed to the Apple Watch via tethered iPhone and its circuitry (50ms*984feet = 49,200 feet). in other words, length corresponds with accuracy to a universal time standard and a GPS watch is potentially '49 feet accurate' while the tethered Apple Watch seems to be '49,200 feet accurate' and saying this is precise in a horological context of timekeeping and precision timepieces. it just seemed so backwards to me because if there was onboard GPS on the Apple Watch then it would have precision that other devices also have, and the claim of precision would be self-evident, instead of potentially being marketing-speak to sell computer-devices via the pretext of its being a watch, etc. so a boundary or threshold appears to have been crossed or priorities may be different than expected in this way. an onboard radio antenna would also provide higher resolution, though perhaps the timing chip inside the SoC watch is not built around highest precision as may otherwise be assumed. hopefully in the future it will be. the issue that seems relevant in the lag or delay is that there is that much more room for things to happen in terms of unaccounted for delays outside the parameters of hours:minutes:seconds, if milliseconds is some threshold, and then events are occurring in a realm of microseconds or even potentially nanoseconds, and how crypto could be operating or calculating in those dimensions and dynamics otherwise unseen or unobservable, such as 2+2=4 if looked at one way, and 2+2=5 if viewed outside those boundaries. [3] note: i specifically wrote about the above issue as part of a larger Apple Watch analysis, [4] and these recent articles provided more to consider about what may be involved. [4] -- 0. Cryogenic clocks pave the way to new measurements http://phys.org/news/2015-02-centimeter-cryogenic-clocks-pave.html [quote] According to Katori, "It was a great feeling to have shown this excellent agreement between the clocks. If we can miniaturize this technology further, it would have useful applications, since tiny fluctuations in gravitational potential could be used to detect underground resources, underground spaces, and the movement of lava. We also hope that in the future, this will accelerate the movement toward a new definition of the international second, based on optical lattice clocks, to an even more stringent standard than the current definition of the second, which is based on cesium oscillation." [/unquote] 1. How Apple Watch achieves its timekeeping accuracy http://watch.camp/2014/11/apple-watch-timekeeping-accuracy/ 2. Grace Hopper - Nanoseconds / Microseconds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8 3. [2].5 + [2].5 = [5] 4. AWO: critique of Apple Watch concept… https://appleobservations.wordpress.com/index/5-2/

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Fw: The Reading Room hidden service
by Juan 11 Feb '15

11 Feb '15

Begin forwarded message: Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 13:40:00 -0600 (CST) From: "Crypto" <crypto(a)jpunix.net> To: "juan.g71" <juan.g71(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: The Reading Room hidden service On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 15:49:59 -0300, Juan <juan.g71(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > Oh, I forgot to mention http://gallica.bnf.fr/ Do you know what "stealing a thread" is? It means taking a message thread that someone else started and using it to promote your own agenda. Crypto https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=b90b690ca5bb --------end of forwarded message------------ this list has some funny people in it...funny as in self-parody.

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Learning from dpr mistakes
by David Honig 11 Feb '15

11 Feb '15

A number of public reviews of DPR's infosec mistakes have been published. I think a strong solution to the 'tackled in library' defects would be to have: 1) program to notice his magic bracelet is not near 2) program to notice that vid cam is not a head but a chaotic scene #2 is particularly easy without extra hardware (ca. 2015) You'll have to switch it off when you visit the loo. And of course, things like 'back to wall facing forward' would have been helpful. Claustophilia is a useful trait. I wish to God these calculations could be done by a steam engine," Babbage complained

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Re: [tor-talk] REAL-ID Internet Access Coming Soon
by grarpamp 10 Feb '15

10 Feb '15

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 10:15 PM, Max Bond <max.o.bond(a)gmail.com> wrote: > What are you proposing we do? As before, take these issues to the realworld political front. If you're a coder, you can write all the code you want. If you're a user, you can use whatever code you want. If you're EFF/ACLU, you can publish all the press releases and fight all the cases under already written laws you want. Yet politicians generally ignore the above groups because they don't have much if any direct political action component that affects them. What's needed is a permanent political fixture and operation similar to the American NRA. These guys have a real, ongoing, political agenda and impact. Candidates are actually afraid of and responsive to the NRA's political clout... before they get elected, and before laws get enacted... not after. The NRA email, fax, letter and call trees, and their members who visit their legislators and stage in public view... are very effective. Look at the banner scroller in the upper right half of their homepage... they have a broad and deep approach to issue outreach/embedding, even a lifestyle. Labor unions and others are common examples of such organization. They all do it by leveraging large monoculture bases to politics. The NRA is 3.5M - 5.0M members strong. They turn $250M/yr from that base (manufacturers too). They have little difference of opinion in their ranks. They are good at crafting and pitching political rhetoric, framing the conversation, and rendering complex issues into simple forms that resonate with their entire base. The EFF/ACLU representing the internet are tiny in comparison. Yet the internet has a household penetration rate of 70%, more than firearms rate of 35%... so a big untapped culture there. Finding 5 million (or 2% of population) internet users should be simple task. Unfortunately, right now there are many tens of flag groups [1] mostly doing their own thing on the net. That's not good enough, and is confusingly diverse to both users and politicians. They need to join together to craft and coordinate the users under a single general banner they've been subconsciously waiting to fall in line behind, and then start firing out actionable political things for them to do. Internet users could demonstrate solidarity on issues with a typical Million User March [1]. They need to start raking in money for their war chest and to fund ongoing operations, etc. Just like the NRA... doing everything needed to become, and be, a strong integrated ongoing political force to be reckoned with. [1] Carrying the various colored flags of privacy, anonymity, free speech, freedom, copyright/filesharing, no data collecting, mining, retention or sharing, user brokered data management, surveillance, crypto, etc. The whole spectrum of related issues. https://www.nraila.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#Political_activity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_States#Advocacy_gr… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_States#Rights-base… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lobbying_organizations_in_the_United… https://www.opensecrets.org/ https://www.nra.org/ https://www.nrablog.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/TriggerTheVote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_for_the_Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Defense_League [ FftF/IDL are relatively dormant and reactionary than being ongoing political action ]

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Re: [cryptography] [Cryptography] How the CIA Made Google
by grarpamp 09 Feb '15

09 Feb '15

On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 6:31 PM, ianG <iang(a)iang.org> wrote: > On 31/01/2015 16:14 pm, John Young wrote: >> >> An early program of Highlands Group was perception management by >> which public opinion would be shaped by disparagement of opposition >> to ubiquitous gov-com spying with gambits like "tin-foil hat," "conspiracy >> theory," and other forms of reputation attacks. > > Sadly, these are really good tactics. They're almost costless, they really > hit hard against the auditing public, and they're almost blameless. > ... > I'd love to see evidence of the program, and I don't doubt it exists, it's > just too good to pass up on. > ... > Even if we see the evidence, the masses still won't believe it. But, > speaking for myself, knowing that there was compelling verified evidence of > actual skulduggery was something that kept me sane. Some would say the program is globalization... more delicately, a cooperation of sovereignties towards a common goal. Whether you can expect to see written evidence proofs ala Snowden depends on how much of the material in groups like the above, Bilderberg, UN, the usual suspects are recorded as opposed to being just chats. Another question is if so, what is/are the common goals? Are they planned/negotiated, or simply coming together from the subconscious. These are areas where you need wide ranging research/articles/books as in the OP taking it all in to take speculation to hypothesis to discovery of a presence, if any.

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I Encourage Everyone, Right Here And Now, To Donate Money To His Three Main Security Programs, Which He Uses The Most!
by Александр 09 Feb '15

09 Feb '15

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-encryption-software-reli… The man who built the free email encryption software used by whistleblower > Edward Snowden, as well as hundreds of thousands of journalists, dissidents > and security-minded people around the world, is running out of money to > keep his project alive. > _______________________ I was shocked that almost nobody donates money to Werner Koch. Especially in the Post-Snowden Era. Are we so greedy/stupid/so f*cken selfish that we can not donate some money to a man, whose labor we use to protect our most sensitive information?! Hell, we buy bread, coffee and cheese and pay at the cash register, but for privacy we are unable (or rather do not want to) to pay a penny. And then we wonder, why is that great security software vanish or don't receive security updates fast enough. And whom do we blame? The NSA, the GCHQ. But it's not only them. This is us. This is our indifference, dammit! Each throws off the responsibility on the other. "Someone else will donate". Or "I have donated a year ago" (wow! And this year the developer doesn't want to eat, right?!) Our enemies are investing billions into breaking down these programs/protocols which are designed to protect us (GPG, Tor, OTR, Tails, VeraCrypt, Jitsi etc.). And? It turns out, that the developers of these great programs don't have enough money even for the bare minimum! It is a shame! I encourage everyone, right here and now, to donate some money to his three main security programs, which he uses the most. And donate at least once a year. There is nothing to discuss. "Just Do It". Alexander.

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What the dear NSA allegedly mean by "Mystic site"?
by Georgi Guninski 08 Feb '15

08 Feb '15

>From cryptome: http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden-tally.htm 19 May 2014 12 Various Pages 12 http://cryptome.org/2014/05/nsa-intercept-14-0519.pdf p. 2 of the pdf: "Approx 10-15 SIGINT reports pers week from "Mystic sites" other than Sca....." 1. What does "Mystic site" mean to the dear NSA? 2. Is "site" in the usual computer sense?

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OpenBSD 2015 Fundraising Campaign
by why not 08 Feb '15

08 Feb '15

Hello, I just want to spread the word a little bit by saying the OpenBSD 2015 Fundraising Campaign webpage is out with new hopes: http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2015.html Have a safe day.

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ODNI Counsel: Governments Want Accessible Crypto from Business
by John Young 08 Feb '15

08 Feb '15

ODNI counsel Robert Litt is "optimistic" cryptographers will devise secure encryption which provides government access, it's "what many governments want." "One of the many ways in which Snowden's leaks have damaged our national security is by driving a wedge between government and providers and technology companies so that some companies that formerly recognized that protecting our nation was a valuable and important public service they could perform now feel compelled to stand in opposition." http://cryptome.org/2015/02/odni-litt-15-0204.pdf

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