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Re: [Cryptography] Best internet crypto clock: hmmmmm...
by grarpamp 01 Nov '14

01 Nov '14

On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 2:57 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote: > On Fri, 31 Oct 2014, Harald Hanche-Olsen wrote: > >> Are you perhaps thinking of the so-called EURion constellation? >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation > > That *could* be it; I'd heard a few different versions of the story that > some copiers would not do currency, and naturally the banks themselves are > going to be less than forthcoming about their techniques (just like in the > crypto world). http://www.secretservice.gov/know_your_money.shtml Quality counterfeiters of US notes don't care what BEP/FED/TREAS discloses, they just reverse engineer the bills. Also note that bills before 1990 have nearly trivial security and are still legal tender. There is a model year vs. timespan "ain't seen one of those lately" acceptance risk with older bills but that's about it. Either way, don't worry, your average gov't deflates bill value by printing, more than any counterfeit factory ever would want to. Note that paper money can be cloned with far less cost than any known attack on say Bitcoin, and with more profit since you still have the bills, but unless you can steal a tiny percent of the coins quietly all you'd do is bring the network trust to zero.

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Fwd: [Cryptography] EFF, ACLU to Present Oral Argument in NSA Spying Case on Nov. 4
by grarpamp 01 Nov '14

01 Nov '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> Date: Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 2:40 PM Subject: [Cryptography] EFF, ACLU to Present Oral Argument in NSA Spying Case on Nov. 4 To: cryptography(a)metzdowd.com, gnu(a)toad.com Cryptography followers are invited to attend this court hearing in Washington, DC on November 4, opposing NSA's mass collection of telephone records. Observe government lawyers using twisted arguments and new meanings of simple words to justify spooky outrageous behavior! Support civil rights attorneys using principled arguments rooted in constitutional and societal norms to defend YOUR rights! Perceive the wheels of justice or just-us grinding the constitution into effect or into irrelevance! Show the judges and the press that the public cares whether NSA gets away with using totalitarian methods! See the constitutional issues around mass surveillance actually be discussed in an open, public court that actually hears from someone other than the government! The good guys won this case at the district court (the judge declared the NSA's actions unconstitutional), and the government had to appeal it to stop the ruling from killing off the program. This case could be very interesting, and these judges could make the final decision if the Supreme Court decides not to review their decision. Please be respectful, wear a costume (banker or politician duds suggested), and arrive without contraband, weapons, penknives, cameras, nor most other tools for resisting official oppression. Bring either a lawyer (who can sign you in) or bring unconstitutionally required identifying documents, or the US Marshals at the door will not admit you to this "public trial". I won't be there (wrong coast), but perhaps a DC local will organize a nearby place to have lunch afterward and discuss the hearing. John Gilmore Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release For Immediate Release: Friday, October 31, 2014 Contact: Dave Maass Media Relations Coordinator Electronic Frontier Foundation press(a)eff.org +1 415 436-9333 x177 Media Alert: EFF, ACLU to Present Oral Argument in NSA Spying Case on Nov. 4 Court Should Rule That Mass Telephone Records Collection Is Unconstitutional in Klayman v. Obama Washington, D.C. - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will appear before a federal appeals court next week to argue the National Security Agency (NSA) should be barred from its mass collection of telephone records of million of Americans. The hearing in Klayman v. Obama is set for 9:30 am on Tuesday, Nov. 4 in Washington, D.C. Appearing as an amicus, EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn will present oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which submitted a joint brief in the case. Conservative activist and lawyer Larry Klayman filed the suit in the aftermath of the first Edward Snowden disclosure, in which The Guardian revealed how the NSA was collecting telephone records on a massive scale from the telecommunications company Verizon. In December, District Court Judge Richard Leon issued a preliminary injunction in the case, declaring that the mass surveillance program was likely unconstitutional. EFF argues that the call-records collection, which the NSA conducts with claimed authority under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, violates the Fourth Amendment rights of millions of Americans. Separately, EFF is counsel in two other lawsuits against the program -- Jewel v. NSA and First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA -- and is co-counsel with the ACLU in a third, Smith v. Obama. What: Oral Argument in Klayman v. Obama Who: EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn When: 9:30 am (ET), Nov. 4, 2014 Where: E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse and William B. Bryant Annex Courtroom 20 333 Constitution Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20001 For background and legal documents: https://www.eff.org/cases/klayman-v-obama The audio of the oral arguments is expected to be available on the court's website sometime after the hearing: http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/recordings/recordings.nsf/ For this release: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/media-alert-eff-aclu-present-oral-argume… About EFF The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading organization protecting civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, we defend free speech online, fight illegal surveillance, promote the rights of digital innovators, and work to ensure that the rights and freedoms we enjoy are enhanced, rather than eroded, as our use of technology grows. EFF is a member-supported organization. Find out more at https://www.eff.org. _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

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FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance
by Ryan Carboni 30 Oct '14

30 Oct '14

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/29/fbi-powers-hacking-computers… " The FBI <http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi> is attempting to persuade an obscure regulatory body in Washington to change its rules of engagement in order to seize significant new powers to hack into and carry out surveillance of computers throughout the US and around the world. Civil liberties groups warn that the proposed rule change amounts to a power grab by the agency that would ride roughshod over strict limits to searches and seizures laid out under the fourth amendment of the US constitution, as well as violate first amendment privacy rights. They have protested that the FBI is seeking to transform its cyber capabilities with minimal public debate and with no congressional oversight."

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Of Sealand, corp, and country [was: nation-state]
by grarpamp 29 Oct '14

29 Oct '14

On Sun, Oct 19, 2014 at 5:43 PM, Alfie John <alfiej(a)fastmail.fm> wrote: > On Thu, Oct 16, 2014, at 08:32 PM, rysiek wrote: >> I am waiting for the first multinational corporation to declare >> independence. >> Also: http://rys.io/en/77 > > Although not a multinational, The Pirate Bay did try to buy Sealand. Sealand is only as unique as the price Bates wants (it's also probably structurally unsound after taking an ocean beating for 70yrs)... How much would it cost to build, float and sink your own concrete silo? Who's researching locations of low depth found beyond 3-12+nm/EEZ in international waters? How does this cost compare to building your own acres of floating pontoon, barge, boat, or raft? And who sayeth hoisting your flag does not make you a country be?

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Re: CITIZENFOUR (of Pole Dancer Girlfriends etc.)
by Steve Kinney 28 Oct '14

28 Oct '14

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 10/27/2014 05:14 PM, Andy Isaacson wrote: > On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 09:59:35PM -0400, Steve Kinney wrote: > >> In my mind the sudden appearance of that momentarily >> almost-famous "pole dancer girlfriend" of Snowden's is of a >> piece with the rest of The Snowden Affair: It raises more >> questions than it answers, and adds more reasons to suspect >> a double game. > > Whut. This, for starters: http://globalresearch.ca/nsa-deception-operation-questions-surround-leaked-… Questions raised by anomalies and inconsistencies present in the original reports of The Snowden Affair and the PRISM documents have not been resolved. > You know, the people who are involved in these stories are > actually humans, with real lives, families, and friendships. If > you watched CITIZENFOUR without realizing that, I am terribly > sorry for your inability to releate to others on a human level, > and I'd recommend that you talk to someone with a more > mainstream level of emotional intelligence about these issues. We have not physically met any of the players in this game; all we have to go on is propaganda, that is, stories created for the purpose of persuading us to adopt certain beliefs and perspectives. Propaganda is not necessarily a bad thing, nor does it always indicate deception: But to take the story presented at face value and proceed as if one has positive knowledge of the events depicted is at best a hazardous approach: Particularly when a story originates inside agencies whose stock in trade includes deception and manipulation of friend and foe as routine daily missions. My take on The Snowden Affair is deliberately contrarian. Every press outlet in the world takes the story at face value and questions nothing about its basic premises; the only permissible disagreement is whether one should be "for or against" Ed Snowden. Jumping on either bandwagon contributes nothing. In this situation, the more inconvenient a question is to the basic premise of the story, the more valuable it may be to our understanding of the substance and meaning of the story. > While Snowden is the object of significant official pressure, > the rule of law is still respected at least occasionally in > the USA, and Lindsay is not accused of any crimes. There's no > reason to suppose that she would be prevented by USG from > traveling, and any such restriction would be front-page news. > (I'm not disputing that surreptitious tracking of her and > others is quite likely to be occurring, of course!) > > Your insinuation that Snowden could not have had a girlfriend > before his trip to Hong Kong is baffling and inexplicable; he > was leading a perfectly normal life for someone in his > position. Both social and economic documentation of their > relationship exists. I never insinuated that Snowden "could not have had a girlfriend." What I have said is that the absence of any indications of a particular girlfriend other than three words spoken by Ed Snowden, raised the question of whether that particular person did exist. Now we do have fairly persuasive evidence of her existence, to integrate into our interpretation of The Snowden Saga - if we remain interested enough to bother. > (And your bringing up of her hobbies in this context seems to > betray a kind of naiive mistrust on your part; a majority of > my friends who are atheletic and in the 25-35 age bracket have > tried out pole or other circus arts. It's fun!) In The Snowden Saga, Lindsay initially existed only as three words spoken by Ed Snowden when describing the way of life he sacrificed to undertake his heroic quest: "Pole dancer girlfriend." The appearance of a person named Lindsay in the new film, along with the story that he met her in a bar in Japan and that she followed him to Hawaii, is the first corroborating evidence that this person ever existed. Now she appears as the most influential person in Ed's life during the time frame when he decided to abandon his entire way of life and become a fugitive facing life in prison for the sake of a Holy Quest. Questioning whether Ed Snowden was really a free agent, vs. an unwitting agent exploited by a U.S. (or other) intelligence operation, is obviously out of bounds. So that's what I do. To date, nothing that well informed members of the public did not already know or confidently guess about the capabilities and activities of the NSA has been revealed by any of the releases attributed to Snowden. I also see that every supposedly controversial legal or policy issue raised by The Snowden Affair was already settled in the intelligence community's favor, in Courts and Congress, years earlier: The most genuinely controversial document released was the first one, an order demanding Verizon's call records; that was a fight the intelligence community was well prepared to win and they did so handily. Anyone who studies the history and current activities of the intelligence community learns early on that final answers are very elusive. Insiders describe the intelligence world as a "wilderness of mirrors." Elaborate and long-running deceptions are business as usual: Familiar examples include the complete British control of German intelligence networks in England during World War II, Soviet placement and maintenance of high level double agents inside the CIA during the first Cold War, and numerous false flag operations by everybody, such as Israel's failed Lavon Affair. Observers inside the intelligence services are little better off than those on the outside when it comes to getting the straight story: Histories created for internal consumption by outfits like the CIA routinely gloss over controversies and endorse falsehoods. In today's world it is not possible to stop leakers from leaking. But it is very possible to create controlled leakers of one's own, and use them to pull public attention away from the genuine article, saturate relevant press resources, and keep legal and legislative overseers busy chasing after one's own chosen allegations and indiscretions. If Ed Snowden did not exist, it would be necessary to create him. I have no reason to believe that Ed Snowden is anything other than what he appears to be: An idealist who has been used as a means to an end. This leaves the question, used by whom and for what ends? One can choose a side to take and adjust one's beliefs accordingly, or leave questions that do not yet have answers open. That is why I thought the LeGuin quote was very appropriate in the present context: "Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven." :o) Steve -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.14 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJUTvCRAAoJEDZ0Gg87KR0LX+4P/iGUW0n3vLooFPBIDKvLSCi0 1S8W9wM42AOlF/fR0elkgSi83qlfOEqrpTow0sQMFXDbA4drwfQLpQlLHZdQp6Wk tunG9OpcbLlKEFotxWYx2SrhihAqWSpPrhccEriT7+9FzvaaraeObRZKZqxoM+Tz ZsJTzV6Hk3IUJeTXPSoeFr1RCtFrUpI6IhK49iltKMJA2T43q74oRI9R/TV0B8vB pKXjdutQQnIyuf0CVjKl7kwIzu3/BYjETGJ/N/N77gjnQEIYtHBB5E7tQdkzEFE3 nvPJEOCkRrFbWqLGYQyDweuwX/R/COLPIBK7F4eLOttColx/nH5jSQIV/yz6Nu4i HFMKCAGUgrS+fZeWeth2RcK1V1UP5kC8ysxWGRbATNUSW0uDfZmonu9C6vrmVBE1 P7R/3+Yz/2MFxz7x+C1KN6s/ivX9FAyhBvFcdgsCFv0Q4X2lI9PHXNSBKfcevFDg q84Xla5dFkYOtoyW0qINcJCi8HueCS9c3MhOWirVmafam/zStlGgL3dO9ltKfwio jYX/RMx15GnMBfKkWZzd856PIz9xms+qbXJg69+4+IWBcGM+NrGN7eZQYI+zzgEn +xjoZ3xRjQcwayZ/mA8NBCKUkapXCcmcvYoZ8DzWKadeEW/5aEMMrf1C10OVI2Jb JHkl1gYWmgXKl/Q2erVc =iLU2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Of Sealand, corp, and country [was: nation-state]
by Nicolas Bourbaki 28 Oct '14

28 Oct '14

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 21/10/2014 12:57, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote: > I think Google should do it. It'd be a fun project, Google Nation. Seasteading or island steading is a backward direction. Not because it is not a good idea but because the nations people involved are looking to build are no better than the ones they are looking to leave. The US was founded by a bunch of rich white men that didn't like paying taxes. The only difference with Google, or the Thiel foundation, is that it would be rich white men that don't like paying taxes and also happen to know how to code. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJUS3vMAAoJEHi6xtksL8/utvsP/R2goFH1WEOwedX7mP3l5rhv XWNjppAu1QpAXeIGBFSHvlaij1tQrlAn8qKEBLCJM09XEupPOe/RxH5Zrt9VNzGT negEUY19/hzRluXohG40Rt4JxQGl/eTaMyYeklhZWQfGayfegOIa9nBmWCy4/sAw /Oqvjvkiqd+/iMmQlBQ3tjRr6mDeTo/b8KA7DTr+AggCzAS3MtUV5f8tfyAorlpF UbpSEAGkE4Pm2FsU3gvT4I6u9OYxwwiCDo5fkypDl7eT4gLVloqAz7x0ETb8z/pM 3WLi0e0XYE790/r83OM6sgNH48PtiFSlDOZXzYcOnpDadg+n5zaGPeCgR63ozvGC US0UHZppNEga3KFK5HRE4zrzfypY5UiwjKjW6nXFh2Qgh8EQKQo+pyASdAaquDTc r22t7zYd+QwB0si7mRgYbjdApfMTAtx2Ckuucpv1pn8B1BZNNWho1i/6pOJPipp+ JaAPVNZ7QsB4r0IKn9271p5cdk+anPrttyMSZg+FWy9QX/AxFxvFHq7cI9E6A9pa oqAGTGoNwJzyrt7SVhD3XZknboVrWrVAeFjAdnIvCA65goVCSn8QZhdrGG+NjluC MAfo7hhzjosP8GrTls5LalC5/JQ+ApvQbbRzaD6Xs82YC1M3a7uIT8ls6dhYrVQI qEx7pRz1M7j/hmkg7zyy =4YPn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [tor-talk] Bitcoin over Tor isn’t a good idea (Alex Biryukov / Ivan Pustogarov story)
by grarpamp 27 Oct '14

27 Oct '14

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 7:35 PM, Erik de Castro Lopo <mle+tools(a)mega-nerd.com> wrote: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.6079v1.pdf > Could this situation be improved if people ran limited exit nodes that only > alloed the bitcoin p2p protocol to exit? I for one don't have enough There are about ten exit nodes that do only this today. [One of which is run by Mike Hearn who has advocated building in censorship capabilities to Tor, and blocking (historically) tainted coins (such as you have now or might receive through otherwise completely innocent transactions with you, or from your own trans/mixing with others).] Then there is question if your client will select such 'only *coin' nodes versus those with high bandwidth and open exit policies. There are also a fair number of hidden services in Tor/I2P/CJDNS that act as bitcoin nodes. As related tangent, yes, the bitcoin protocol needs to be encrypted on the wire, at least bitcoin node to bitcoin node with TLS, obviously and urgently so, particularly if you wish to guard your trans from wire listeners. You might be best to in fact run bitcoin always and entirely over Tor, especially while transacting. But then also routinely compare that received blockchain to one you receive via alternate/trusted sources, such as clearnet or signed bittorrent checkpoints.

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Will the Earth burn? Events to post-whatever... [was: Sealand]
by grarpamp 27 Oct '14

27 Oct '14

On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 10:03 AM, Cathal Garvey: > Will the earth burn? No, that's an unlikely outcome. Venus is Venus because > it never developed life. Will the Earth burn *us*? Maybe. Totally plausible > possibility, though still unlikely. Will the Earth burn the ecosystems that > civilisation (rather than humanity, per se) depends on? At this rate, > probably. None of the above. As rate of population, resource consumption and toxification is faster than restoration, and war is still easier in DNA than cooperation... humanity will burn the ecosystems humanity depends on, or burn itself. And likely far sooner than the Earth gets around to the next of any of its own human belching cycles [1]. [1] You know, on the scale of 10k to millions of years or more... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervolcano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risks > We have fallbacks; go all-in on solar & nuclear for energy and biotech for > efficient, lower impact food/med production, and use nuclear/biotech to cook > up some hyperefficient carbon-capture system to try and roll back as much as > we can. All mere delay tactics without fixing this and other things to replacement-rate first... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth > Anyways, just to say doom and gloom is rarely useful, but ostrich-heads are > worse than useless. Rarely useful? But it's so much gnarly fun ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_time#See_also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_the_Earth#See_also > As to on/off topic-ness, it's off topic. But this list has seen people > bitching about who is and isn't a real native American, so I find this at > least engaging and interesting. cpunks are offtopic, engaging and interesting. > On 24/10/14 14:40, dan(a)geer.org wrote: >> is reasonable to imagine that some excursions have a phase >> where the feedback is positive and thus if the temp heads >> either north or south its velociity will, for natural reasons, >> accelerate as the excursion grows more extreme. That implies >> that the present time is an unstable equilibrium, thus our >> imapct, whatever it is, seems likely to be an initiator or >> a potentiator but not a cause in the classical sense of, >> say, a dose-response curve. >> >> Put differently, I don't believe that we (humans) can push >> the climate to a place it has not been before, but we can >> change the clock. The only clock that matters is the time till you're off the rock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive#External_links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_cultural_impact_of_extraterrestrial_… Yes, I'm a whore, beam me up some btc: 1NE2jK3emijdBf9jhtjMadRH9MJiCzo61L

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Re: CITIZENFOUR
by Steve Kinney 27 Oct '14

27 Oct '14

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 In my mind the sudden appearance of that momentarily almost-famous "pole dancer girlfriend" of Snowden's is of a piece with the rest of The Snowden Affair: It raises more questions than it answers, and adds more reasons to suspect a double game. Did the "pole dancer girlfriend" ever exist, and is that really her? I will assume so, for the sake of a fun story. What are the odds that she has travelled more than one mile in any direction since Ed went walkabout, without that motion being logged for analysis by a consortium of TLAs? Other than "she has always worked for us and is still passing polygraph exams," how could her bona fides as a person of no interest be so confidently endorsed by the public servants who let her walk away? If on the other hand Russia worked some hocus pocus on her behalf, why have public officials and partisan propaganda mills that already call Snowden a Russian agent remained silent on that subject? Painting the young lady in question as a Russian agent who used her pole dancing skills to steal U.S. secrets would not be hard: The story sells itself. Part two of the story would be how she fluttered away free as a bird to the waiting welcome of her Russian paymasters: First Benghazi, now Boris and Natasha in a Moscow love nest? It's an outrageous story that would suit many of our partisan political propagandists very nicely right about... now. But all I hear so far is crickets. "Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven." -- Ursula K. LeGuin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.14 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJUTFWGAAoJEDZ0Gg87KR0L2eIQAInkvM+0AUswetwBk2VMHf8r 9mu/zMReznVPyGcW0+Yn5hlftTlFkGouw8Eohdc/hlH9Av66Xf65fQD0q060sU8N eC3KuwBjcNsekZxDuinPS0ferwBkn5FQge819S9aTwAN6rJTO3d50AhtkG685udl T+Zm4TufUU5H3a0htckJEgsgwSVUJ71bSPchOovA8uC6ZFo1kTb00AnoixHIJyP1 E26KaaqoddRekut/bmGZoWvujkbqm22DSh5I4+SI1cCesnxezcgEhGShVBazHGFb lkwDrO29KjUHdiFY0qPrx1JBiQFa2tlk8OpeSTWrkWL8BbYgIgtBNxjS9JuljOiV /rZqQNnW9wxhz9xFU+zL3R1WD8oqFohBz9Jj/Jw5EzD+Qws97JFmJEzKUt3u0Q4y xGaS4Ic04pvPFGIH8FPkCTrswoN0ZzOpZyX3d4oBwKf3HO7D8FuRgmSnte4ppqUQ wwS2oCWu8Xd/k3iKbdanCdIfQbb5Pqk3gggEgN3Jo7rIiiqzpx9tjQy+0krxszIn mxnMusEL3vY8zdBf0Hc/n+g2erZAYjP6Lpw5WrvOaZvXj629Zv/UmguZkvF5/x37 FirG7rzAc7a72Xpr2K2P6jkV2zHtuGgeJenWnny8OcK/5mZ3dTNiWgb8F8fFyhgF IoTcBm2ed7/1VbjxEWcB =1T2p -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: CITIZENFOUR
by John Young 27 Oct '14

27 Oct '14

Thanks for the comments. Screenshots most welcome. cryptome[at]earthlink.net or pointers. Greenwald's mercenary greed is why only 97% of Snowden docs have been released. His and cohorts criminal behavior puts citizens in harms way to protect the natsec apparatus including natsec media. At 02:58 PM 10/24/2014, you wrote: >Saw this last night - an obvious must-watch for >all CPunks. I think it was probably the most >important documentary film of all time. As Roger >Ebert said, "itâs as if Daniel Ellsberg had a >friend with a movie camera who filmed his >disclosure of the Pentagon Papers every step of >the way. Or if the Watergate burglars had taken >along a filmmaker who shot their crimes and the >cover-up that followed. Except that the issues >âCitizenfourâ deals with are, arguably, a >thousand times more potent than Vietnam or >Watergate." Truly, this is the Snowden story we >have been waiting for since 2013. > >The main revelation of the film, however, is >what an incredible boob Glenn Greenwald is. I >had some idea of this after seeing him give an >extremely disappointing talk earlier this year, >but I don't think I quite understood how useless >this guy really is. He's constantly asking the >wrong questions, displays a technical ineptness >(to the point of deliberate ignorance) that >obviously hampers the journalism, and at very >step shows a very clear desire to keep the >document cache to himself for careerist >purposes. At one point Ewen MacAskill brings up >the idea of there being a Wikileaks-esque >document explorer, and Ed says that this would >be the best outcome for the documents, and >Greenwald quickly dismisses the idea to talk >about his publishing schedule. I still have >immense respect for him, but I found it very >frustrating and quite cringey to watch him treat >the whole event in news-cycle terms, while >everybody around him is obviously thinking in >historical context. For instance, there is a >moment when they are prepping for Ed's first >on-camera interview and he asks the reporters >how much background he should give about >himself, and they give different answers. >Poitras asks for as much detail as possible, and >Greenwald basically says that isn't important, >just be short so we get a good soundbite. > >More importantly, I think the film also misses >an opportunity to talk about power. This is >something Edward himself has addressed, but it >isn't really covered in Greenwald's reporting or >books, and the only time it's mentioned in the >film is when Jacob Appelbaum, while speaking >before a European council of some sort, quite >astutely comments that surveillance and control >are one and the same. I think the film should >probably have spent another hour or so >investigating, naming and confronting those who >profit from that control. Other than a few >choice C-SPAN snippets, the enemy is completely >faceless, which plays well for the pervading >sense paranoia which envelops the film, but also >leaves many questions unasked. Perhaps that's >left as an exercise for the viewer, but I think >the general take-away message from both the >reporting and to a slightly lesser extent the >film is that any "solution" will be token reform >of policy and not dismantlement of power structures. > >Also, very nice of the Russian government to let >Ed have his girlfriend back. I didn't know that >had happened, and it gives a rather unexpected >happy ending to a film which otherwise made me want to cry desperately. > >Anyway, I'd be very interested to hear what you >lot thought of it. (JY, you should throw a >torrent up ASAP! I'm sure people will be >screenshotting and analyzing all of the new document shots the film contains.) > >R

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