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Fw: Lois Lerner's conveeeeeeeeeeniently-lost emails.
by jim bell 17 Jun '14

17 Jun '14

Somebody reminded me... >> Note: I wonder what kind of email system would be: 1. Used by the >> Federal Government. 2. NOT be regularly backed-up. 3. Would lose up to >> two (2) years of emails in a crash. Jim Bell >> [article follows] >I'm sure they'd be able to find backups in a serverfarm in Utah, eh? Excellent point! Although, that Utah operation might not have been functioning in 2011. But presumably the NSA had a smaller operation somewhere else prior to that. So, who wants to REMIND the prosecutors in IRS-gate that somebody else has these emails? Maybe the future for the NSA will be as a type of "super-backwards-Carbonite" operation? But instead of, "Pay us money and we'll back up your emails", it'll be, "Pay us money and we WON'T back up your emails"!!! Jim Bell

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Amazing NSA excuse
by jim bell 17 Jun '14

17 Jun '14

http://theweek.com/article/index/262945/the-nsa-has-a-shocking-new-excuse-f… "One thing that makes reporting on the NSA so difficult is that you have to deconstruct their statements like Derrida to figure out what they're actually saying. (This is why all responsible people read Marcy Wheeler.) "Luckily, here's an NSA issue anyone can sink their teeth into. It demonstrates the squirmy NSA legal technique, and how by its own logic the agency ought to be broken up or closed altogether. "The background is that the NSA is being sued around the block by all manner of people over the Snowden revelations. Pertaining to a suit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a previous court order had instructed the NSA to preserve data that it had collected under Section 702 of the Amendments Act to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "That order has since been reversed, because the NSA has claimed (in addition to the usual business about how stopping this program will grievously harm American citizens) that it physically cannot store all the information it collects under Section 702. As Andrea Peterson atThe Washington Post reported, the NSA's deputy director, Richard Ledgett, wrote a rather astonishing court filing, in which he said that "a requirement to preserve all data acquired under Section 702 presents significant operational problems, only one of which is that the NSA may have to shut down all systems and databases that contain Section 702 information." (Emphasis added.) Ironically, Ledgett claims that previous privacy restrictions that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court placed on the program necessitate deleting the data the EFF wants preserved. You can practically see Ledgett sticking his finger in the eye of the EFF's legal director. "In any case, as Peterson notes, this puts the EFF in a strange position, since it is now arguing to preserve evidence for legal purposes it would ultimately want destroyed as a policy. "But aside from the legal arcana, this is an excellent example of the Kafkaesque logic that predominates when it it comes to our intelligence agencies. The NSA is almost saying, "We've got your privacy protections in here, honest, but unfortunately it just so happens that these protections mean we have to destroy all this evidence related to your lawsuit." Whatever the situation, it just so happens that the intelligence apparatus is regretfully excused from accountability. Marcy Wheeler is constantly uncovering various iterations of this stuff. "I'm skeptical that the data preservation the EFF is asking for is impossible. But the really troubling possibility is that the NSA is actually right. It's anybody's guess precisely how much data the NSAis shifting around, but it's reportedly in the exabytes overall. So yes, it might be impossible for the agency to store more than a few weeks or so of the data it's collecting. "The NSA's legal squirming is bad enough. But an agency writing itself a blank check to allegedly destroy evidence based on the sheer size and complexity of the possibly illegal program in questionis another thing entirely. There shouldn't be an "unless your dragnet surveillance program is reallybig" exception to the Fourth Amendment.

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Geoff Stone, Obama's Review Group
by dan＠geer.org 14 Jun '14

14 Jun '14

[ disclaimer, Geoff Stone is a friend of mine ] www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/what-i-told-the-nsa_b_5065447.html?… What I Told the NSA Because of my service on the President's Review Group last fall, which made recommendations to the president about NSA surveillance and related issues, the NSA invited me to speak today to the NSA staff at the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, about my work on the Review Group and my perceptions of the NSA. Here, in brief, is what I told them: From the outset, I approached my responsibilities as a member of the Review Group with great skepticism about the NSA. I am a long-time civil libertarian, a member of the National Advisory Council of the ACLU, and a former Chair of the Board of the American Constitution Society. To say I was skeptical about the NSA is, in truth, an understatement. I came away from my work on the Review Group with a view of the NSA that I found quite surprising. Not only did I find that the NSA had helped to thwart numerous terrorist plots against the United States and its allies in the years since 9/11, but I also found that it is an organization that operates with a high degree of integrity and a deep commitment to the rule of law. Like any organization dealing with extremely complex issues, the NSA on occasion made mistakes in the implementation of its authorities, but it invariably reported those mistakes upon discovering them and worked conscientiously to correct its errors. The Review Group found no evidence that the NSA had knowingly or intentionally engaged in unlawful or unauthorized activity. To the contrary, it has put in place carefully-crafted internal proceduresto ensure that it operates within the bounds of its lawful authority. This is not to say that the NSA should have had all of the authorities it was given. The Review Group found that many of the programs undertaken by the NSA were highly problematic and much in need of reform. But the responsibility for directing the NSA to carry out those programs rests not with the NSA, but with the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorized those programs -- sometimes without sufficient attention to the dangers they posed to privacy and civil liberties. The NSA did its job -- it implemented the authorities it was given. It gradually became apparent to me that in the months after Edward Snowden began releasing information about the government's foreign intelligence surveillance activities, the NSA was being severely -- and unfairly -- demonized by its critics. Rather than being a rogue agency that was running amok in disregard of the Constitution and laws of the United States, the NSA was doing its job. It pained me to realize that the hard-working, dedicated, patriotic employees of the NSA, who were often working for far less pay than they could have earned in the private sector because they were determined to help protect their nation from attack, were being castigated in the press for the serious mistakes made, not by them, but by Presidents, the Congress, and the courts. Of course, "I was only following orders" is not always an excuse. But in no instance was the NSA implementing a program that was so clearly illegal or unconstitutional that it would have been justified in refusing to perform the functions assigned to it by Congress, the President, and the Judiciary. Although the Review Group found that many of those programs need serious re-examination and reform, none of them was so clearly unlawful that it would have been appropriate for the NSA to refuse to fulfill its responsibilities. Moreover, to the NSA's credit, it was always willing to engage the Review Group in serious and candid discussions about the merits of its programs, their deficiencies, and the ways in which those programs could be improved. Unlike some other entities in the intelligence community and in Congress, the leaders of the NSA were not reflexively defensive, but were forthright, engaged, and open to often sharp questions about the nature and implementation of its programs. To be clear, I am not saying that citizens should trust the NSA. They should not. Distrust is essential to effective democratic governance. The NSA should be subject to constant and rigorous review, oversight, scrutiny, and checks and balances. The work it does, however important to the safety of the nation, necessarily poses grave dangers to fundamental American values, particularly if its work is abused by persons in positions of authority. If anything, oversight of the NSA -- especially by Congress -- should be strengthened. The future of our nation depends not only on the NSA doing its job, but also on the existence of clear, definitive, and carefully enforced rules and restrictions governing its activities. In short, I found, to my surprise, that the NSA deserves the respect and appreciation of the American people. But it should never, ever, be trusted.

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Internet Giants erect barriers to spy agencies
by jim bell 14 Jun '14

14 Jun '14

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/07/technology/internet-giants-erect-barriers… MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Just down the road from Google’s main campus here, engineers for the company are accelerating what has become the newest arms race in modern technology: They are making it far more difficult — and far more expensive — for the National Security Agency and the intelligence arms of other governments around the world to pierce their systems. As fast as it can, Google is sealing up cracks in its systems that Edward J. Snowden revealed the N.S.A. had brilliantly exploited. It is encrypting more data as it moves among its servers and helping customers encode their own emails. Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo are taking similar steps. After years of cooperating with the government, the immediate goal now is to thwart Washington — as well as Beijing and Moscow. The strategy is also intended to preserve business overseas in places like Brazil and Germany that have threatened to entrust data only to local providers. Google, for example, is laying its own fiber optic cable under the world’s oceans, a project that began as an effort to cut costs and extend its influence, but now has an added purpose: to assure that the company will have more control over the movement of its customer data. But governments are fighting back, harder than ever. The cellphone giant Vodafone reported on Friday that a “small number” of governments around the world have demanded the ability to tap directly into its communication networks, a level of surveillance that elicited outrage from privacy advocates.A year after Mr. Snowden’s revelations, the era of quiet cooperation is over. Telecommunications companies say they are denying requests to volunteer data not covered by existing law. A.T.&T., Verizon and others say that compared with a year ago, they are far more reluctant to cooperate with the United States government in “gray areas” where there is no explicit requirement for a legal warrant. Vodafone refused to name the nations on Friday for fear of putting its business and employees at risk there. But in an accounting of the number of legal demands for information that it receives from 14 companies, it noted that some countries did not issue warrants to obtain phone, email or web-searching traffic, because “the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link.” The company also said it had to acquiesce to some governments’ requests for data to comply with national laws. Otherwise, it said, it faced losing its license to operate in certain countries. Eric Grosse, Google’s security chief, suggested in an interview that the N.S.A.’s own behavior invited the new arms race. “I am willing to help on the purely defensive side of things,” he said, referring to Washington’s efforts to enlist Silicon Valley in cybersecurity efforts. “But signals intercept is totally off the table,” he said, referring to national intelligence gathering. “No hard feelings, but my job is to make their job hard,” he added. In Washington, officials acknowledge that covert programs are now far harder to execute because American technology companies, fearful of losing international business, are hardening their networks and saying no to requests for the kind of help they once quietly provided. Robert S. Litt, the general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all 17 American spy agencies, said on Wednesday that it was “an unquestionable loss for our nation that companies are losing the willingness to cooperate legally and voluntarily” with American spy agencies. “Just as there are technological gaps, there are legal gaps,” he said, speaking at the Wilson Center in Washington, “that leave a lot of gray area” governing what companies could turn over. In the past, he said, “we have been very successful” in getting that data. But he acknowledged that for now, those days are over, and he predicted that “sooner or later there will be some intelligence failure and people will wonder why the intelligence agencies were not able to protect the nation.” Companies respond that if that happens, it is the government’s own fault and that intelligence agencies, in their quest for broad data collection, have undermined web security for all. Many point to an episode in 2012, when Russian security researchers uncovered a state espionage tool, Flame, on Iranian computers. Flame, like the Stuxnet worm, is believed to have been produced at least in part by American intelligence agencies. It was created by exploiting a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft’s operating systems. Companies argue that others could have later taken advantage of this defect. Worried that such an episode undercuts confidence in its wares, Microsoft is now fully encrypting all its products, including Hotmail and Outlook.com, by the end of this year with 2,048-bit encryption, a stronger protection that would take a government far longer to crack. The software is protected by encryption both when it is in data centers and when data is being sent over the Internet, said Bradford L. Smith, the company’s general counsel. Mr. Smith also said the company was setting up “transparency centers” abroad so that technical experts of foreign governments could come in and inspect Microsoft’s proprietary source code. That will allow foreign governments to check to make sure there are no “back doors” that would permit snooping by United States intelligence agencies. The first such center is being set up in Brussels. Microsoft has also pushed back harder in court. In a Seattle case, the government issued a “national security letter” to compel Microsoft to turn over data about a customer, along with a gag order to prevent Microsoft from telling the customer it had been compelled to provide its communications to government officials. Microsoft challenged the gag order as violating the First Amendment. The government backed down. Hardware firms like Cisco, which makes routers and switches, have found their products a frequent subject of Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, and theirbusiness has declined steadily in countries like Asia, Brazil and Europe over the last year. The company is still struggling to convince foreign customers that their networks are safe from hackers — and free of “back doors” installed by the N.S.A. The frustration, companies here say, is that it is nearly impossible to prove that their systems are N.S.A.-proof. In one slide from the disclosures, N.S.A. analysts pointed to a sweet spot inside Google’s data centers, where they could catch traffic in unencrypted form. Next to a quickly drawn smiley face, an N.S.A. analyst, referring to an acronym for a common layer of protection, had noted, “SSL added and removed here!”Most American companies said they never knowingly let the N.S.A. weaken their systems, or install back doors. But Mr. Snowden’s documents showed how the agency found a way. Google was already suspicious that its internal traffic could be read, and had started a program to encrypt the links among its internal data centers, “the last chink in our armor,” Mr. Grosse said. But the slide gave the company proof that it was a regular target of the N.S.A. “It was useful to have proof, in terms of accelerating a project already underway,” he said. Facebook and Yahoo have also been encrypting traffic among their internal servers. And Facebook, Google and Microsoft have been moving to more strongly encrypt consumer traffic with so-called Perfect Forward Secrecy, specifically devised to make it more labor intensive for the N.S.A. or anyone to read stored encrypted communications. One of the biggest indirect consequences from the Snowden revelations, technology executives say, has been the surge in demands from foreign governments that saw what kind of access to user information the N.S.A. received — voluntarily or surreptitiously. Now they want the same. At Facebook, Joe Sullivan, the company’s chief security officer, said it had been fending off those demands and heightened expectations. Until last year, technology companies were forbidden from acknowledging demands from the United States government under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But in January, Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft brokered a deal with the Obama administration to disclose the number of such orders they receive in increments of 1,000. As part of the agreement, the companies agreed to dismiss their lawsuits before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “We’re not running and hiding,” Mr. Sullivan said. “We think it should be a transparent process so that people can judge the appropriate ways to handle these kinds of things.” The latest move in the war between intelligence agencies and technology companies arrived this week, in the form of a new Google encryption tool. The company released a user-friendly, email encryption method to replace the clunky and often mistake-prone encryption schemes the N.S.A. has readily exploited. But the best part of the tool was buried in Google’s code, which included a jab at the N.S.A.’s smiley-face slide. The code included the phrase: “ssl-added-and-removed-here-; - )”

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Re: [Cryptography] ghash.io hits 50% of the Bitcoin compute power
by grarpamp 14 Jun '14

14 Jun '14

On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 10:43 PM, Perry E. Metzger <perry(a)piermont.com> wrote: > And how do these others know that the public key in question has any > connection to a particular set of coins in the ledger? How do they > know that some other key, in fact, isn't the correct one? Because the former owner signed the 'coins' over to the public key in question, confirmed all the way back to their first generation, in a ledger back to the genesis. You were given (bought) the deed of your house from someone, confirmed by many titles before in recorders ledger, right? > Who is everybody? Everyone who says, "well, my chain was at this height before suspect 51% attack (or other) issue, let's compare." Though that's an event you *really* want to avoid. Thus for their own good people will move off ghash.io. Or will plain stop transacting and starve the pools of trans fees and trans to scam. And how many dollars on hardware and power would an 'unknown' pool of say government or criminals need to reach 51% on their own for disruption or profit? By now, maybe an amount that might be hard to keep quiet. > Do millions of people actually store and check the complete block > chain on a routine basis? Where did your little cellphone wallet > app get its blockchain from? When was the last time you verified the > custody chain of all coins? Does your cellphone wallet app do that > all the time? Where do people get this historical ledger from? There are verifiable and agreed upon checkpoints... https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Checkpoint_Lockin https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117982.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=252937.0 > I think you're trusting quite a bit here. > > Bitcoin isn't primarily protected by mathematics, it is primarily > protected by a social process that can be gamed. Gaming it is > nontrivial because the social process is protected by cryptography, > but there seems like a great deal of religion behind people's claims > of how well it all works in the face of attack, perhaps because a lot > of people want it to work very, very badly. Agreed there is a lot of trust, crazy trust, and the adoption in actual business using it (not simply user2user beer and pizza trade), is a bit amazing. So far it's held up. Try to break it or game it, mathematically or operationally, huge recognition for anyone who does. Those with personal money (not mined) in their hoards are on their own risk decision on that, at least until say the ten year mark and the laws prove out. Others have mined or can mine, or invest, to recover/recoup their entry which makes it free for them. The rest seem to get in, buy a pizza, and get out (perhaps wisely). https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contingency_plans Lots people should read, learn and evaluate, me too. Meanwhile, I don't have a problem putting some disposable funds into holding, trading, commerce, or related bitcoin business and seeing what happens. Call me stupid, seems more fun, profitable and useable than blowing lottery tickets would be. And if that's all it's ever good for you can have my wallet after you break Bitcoin ;-) https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade https://bitcoinaverage.com/

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Re: Tinfoil Chat
by oottela 13 Jun '14

13 Jun '14

Hi Cathal. Thanks for your review! The RxM that does the MAC verification doesn't leak data to network connected computer so attacker would have to have line of sight to display of RxM and through trial and error send tampered packets until one doesn't show the warning about tampering. By then user should have pretty good idea about what is going on. Recovering key material shouldn't be a problem since key is not reused in signing of new messages. The implementation however has now been changed while fixing more critical vulnerability with hash function input size. Regarding second issue, LibPurple does not contribute to privacy of messages in any way. The only thing the computer that LibPurple is running on handles is OTP encrypted data. OTP keys and plaintext messages never touch that computer and malicious functionality of that computer can not possibly request the actual keys from waterfall secured TxM or RxM. The whitepaper explains why the system is secure even if attacker gains root access to computer where Pidgin is running. I did not write the program that samples entropy via GPIO. Programs written in C generally work faster so I didn't feel the need to redo the part. Also, the installer takes care of compiling. I've done some testing and according to Ent /dev/urandom is more random (7.999995 bits / byte ) source than the TRNG (7.997587 bits / byte). However I'm somewhat concerned about seeding, pseudo randomness and effect of modern hwrng devices - can seeding of urandom be compromised by /dev/hwrng input from processor with dopant trojan even if mixing entropy from functional TRNG is done. I'll have to read about the issue before I'll change the implementation. After all, with the TRNG there should be no auto-correlation if sampling speed is slow enough, and no bias when Von Neumann correction is used, despite what statistical tests say. Also, I'll look into the ctypes library and see about the difference in sampling speed. As user has access to source I suppose compiling doesn't endanger the security in any notable way. On 09.06.2014 12:28, Cathal Garvey wrote: > Interesting; I'm scanning the code now, but won't pretend to be an > expert. > > First thing, your HMAC code is possibly vulnerable to a timing > attack: > https://github.com/maqp/tfc/blob/master/Rx.py > ..using direct string/byte comparisons for HMACs can be vulnerable as > most languages will shortcut on the first mismatch. In your case, > using > this attack might require the means to craft a message that matches a > certain hash, but maybe someone who knows more could use this to > recover > key material? The way to avoid this is a comparison function whose > time > does not depend on the likeness or unlikeness of the compared values, > for example by xoring the strings or characters. > > Second issue is the use of LibPurple at all. It's widely considered > to > be a security trainwreck, and given its poor reputation *and* the > total > disinclination of the libpurple devs to bother with security concerns > at > all, it's easy to imagine anything up to remote code execution in > libpurple compromising the whole system. > > So, your tinfoil hat could be as secure as anything, but relying on > libpurple may undermine the entire exercise. Using a different > transport > may be more valuable. > > Finally, you're using a custom HWRNG, and reading with custom C code > to > a file. Firstly, why is this a C function, when you could probably > achieve it in Python? But, more importantly, why not use the system > call > to deliver this entropy to /dev/urandom, and use that? The mixing > code > for /dev/urandom has received pretty good review, far more than your > code can hope for, so the more you rely on /dev/urandom IMO the > better. > There's a Linux system call to mix entropy into the system pool, and > your HWRNG would be well served to use that if you ask me. > > And, you could probably access that call using ctypes from Python > without requiring your end users to compile C. The less compilation > required, the more likely you are to get user buy-in. > > > On 08/06/14 03:33, oottela wrote: >> I'd like to share a project I came up with back in spring 2012 and >> begun >> working after the Snowden leaks started. >> >> Highlights are >> >> -OTP encryption for perfect secrecy >> -OTP encrypted Keccak HMACs to prevent undetectable message >> tampering >> -HW TRNG to generate truly random keys (Von Neumann whitened) >> -HW Data diodes to provide immunity against message exfiltration >> attacks >> originating from network. >> >> Source code and links to whitepaper and manual are available from >> >> https://github.com/maqp/tfc/ >> >> Regards, Markus

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Fwd: Re: [FD] More OpenSSL issues
by shelley＠misanthropia.info 12 Jun '14

12 Jun '14

re: Jim's post from yesterday. From the Full Disclosure list: On Sat, Jun 7, 2014, at 02:04 PM, Craig Young wrote: Yeah, definitely not in the same ballpark as heartbleed fortunately. I have posted a detection script on the Tripwire blog to identify servers permitting the early CCS: http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/incident-detection/detection-scri… It should detect potentially vulnerable hosts with a variety of configurations. Thanks, Craig > On Jun 6, 2014 3:36 AM, "P Vixie" <> wrote: > > > This does not appear to be the same panic level as the previous patch. In > > other words the previous openssl vuln was worse than the instability of > > all-night patching. This one is not. Take time to roll out right. > > > > On June 5, 2014 7:51:50 AM PDT, Jordan Urie <> wrote: > > >Ladies and Gentlemen, > > > > > > > > > > > >There's an MITM in there, and a potential for buffer over-runs. > > > > > >Patch up :-) > > > > > > > > >Jordan > > > > > >-- > > > > > >Jordan R. Urie > > > > > >UP Technology Consulting, Inc. > > >1129 - 177A St. SW > > >Edmonton, AB T6W 2A1 > > >Phone: > > > > > >www.uptech.ca > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > > >Sent through the Full Disclosure mailing list > > > > > >Web Archives & RSS: > > > > -- > > Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Sent through the Full Disclosure mailing list > > > > Web Archives & RSS: > > > > _______________________________________________ > Sent through the Full Disclosure mailing list > > Web Archives & RSS:

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Re: Encryption Works - Off Topic
by coderman 11 Jun '14

11 Jun '14

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 9:15 PM, Mark Thomas <mark00thomas(a)me.com> wrote: > I sent this email to John since he is the only one who answered the question > I asked about your statement. > > Do you care to respond? i'm not sure what you expect me to say. Encryption Works - usually against the interests of its users! as we have seen from the current leaks and past history, encryption tells you where the interesting data and networks are, and also where not to bother attacking. encryption provides cover for backdoors and side channels you don't know are there. encryption with broken keys provides false confidence leading to greater losses. encryption with poor usability fails catastrophically, undoing the privacy of all prior exchanges in a single fatal swoop. encryption's specialized nature leads to centralized authorities and experts easily compromised unwittingly, or wittingly. (or both at once!) you see where this is going... is it useless? i think not. (blanket, passive surveillance always worthwhile to thwart) but it's no where near sufficient as a privacy enhancing technology itself.

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Article on TLS, Transport Layer Security
by jim bell 10 Jun '14

10 Jun '14

(Note: I, Jim Bell, am cross posting this article from Yahoo, not because I believe it to be 'accurate' (I have no opinion on that), but because I believe that we need to not merely hear 'The Truth', but also 'The Story', specifically the story (stories) that the Internet-based news media is telling the public.) https://www.yahoo.com/tech/explained-how-tls-keeps-your-email-secure-883102… From its start in 1971, Internet-based email has not been known for its high security. As security researcher Bruce Schneier wrote in a 1995 essay for Macworld on the privacy perils of email: “It’s like a postcard that anyone can read along the way.” That unfortunate fact is finally fracturing. Email is getting safer for you — provided that your mail service and your correspondent’s both use a standard called “TLS,” short for Transport Layer Security. Finally, Google and other providers are starting to turn on TLS for the public. Read more: 4 Ways Your Email Provider Can Encrypt Your Messages TLS, then and now The move to the use of TLS could have happened more than five years ago: A 1.0 version of the TLS specification emerged only four years after Schneier’s essay, and the current 1.2 version dates to 2008. But even as mail services secured people’s log-ins, they did not take the extra step of scrambling their messages while in transit. Those who knew this would commonly comfort themselves with the lost-in-the-crowd theory of security: With some 183 billion messages a daysent back and forth, who would possibly have the time to look for one in particular? Then one year ago, Edward Snowden began giving a crash course in National Security Agency surveillance, which had the policy and, for the first time in history, the technology to collect everything first and index it later. After a few weeks of Snowden’s revelations, CNET’s Declan McCullagh made a simple observation: Gmail supported TLS, but other major email services did not, meaning that a huge chunk of the world’s email could be inspected by the NSA and its ilk, because for TLS to work, both sides of an email conversation have to support it. To make it more difficult for the NSA to simply absorb the world’s email, more tech companies took an active interest in TLS, including Yahoo Tech’s publisher, Yahoo, which had lagged in its support for encryption, according to the Washington Post. Progress and confusion With the growing use of TLS, the odds are now lower that your email is going out on a postcard. In mid-May, a study by Facebook found that 58 percent of the social network’s email notifications to members were going out encrypted. And last week, Google posted similar numbers: 71 percent of messages from Gmail to elsewhere went out encrypted, while 50 percent of those received by Gmail also arrived locked. There’s your good news: We’ve fixed a core defect in email and reduced the capability of well-meaning friends, family, and business partners to inadvertently risk your privacy by sending sensitive data about you in their own email. And with TLS, you don’t have to install any software or change any settings to get its advantage. The bad news: It’s hard to figure out if your own provider has done its part. Google’s regularly updated transparency report now includes a section on “encryption in transit” that lets you check to see if other large mail services do TLS. But it can yield confusing results, and smaller systems (say, your employer’s) don’t show up. You can also check for TLS use on any site at STARTTLS.info. Should you switch? If you spend any time experimenting with STARTTLS.info, you’ll quickly see how badly many consumer Internet providers’ mail services lag behind webmail. Comcast is turning on TLS one provider at a time, and CenturyLink already supports it. But Time Warner Cable, Verizon, and Cox have not announced plans to enable TLS. Among webmail companies, Yahoo followed Gmail by turning on TLS in the first quarter of this year, AOL has done the same, and Microsoft is “currently rolling out TLS,” a spokesperson said. Checks of Apple’s services show patchy support, and the company did not answer a request for clarification. There are good reasons to separate your email from your ISP — starting with not having to worry about running out of online storage or having to send hundreds of change-of-address notices if you switch providers. But webmail has its own privacy issue: Most of these services are paid for by ads that target the words in your messages. The price to evade the NSA’s eyes doesn’t have to include subjecting your email to your provider’s advertising robots. Among the four big webmail services that now use TLS, Microsoft and Yahoo let you pay to clean the ads from your account ( $19.95 a year at Microsoft, $49.99 a year at Yahoo), while Google will open a new, $50/year ad-free Google Apps account for you at the domain name of your choice. But how many of you have exercised any of those ad-free options? Email Rob at rob(a)robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at@robpegoraro.

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Re: [Cryptography] Help investigate cell phone snooping by police nationwide
by John Young 10 Jun '14

10 Jun '14

Tinfoil is not sufficent any more due to increased sensitivy of interceptors. False protection left in place as ploy. False TEMPEST protection is especially effective, the best remains classified in a rolling fashion: more leaked to delude the more unleaked of what works. Inadvertent emanations are increasingly inadvertent as research in those waves leaps by giant bounds. Not news to this crafty gaggle of uncontrollably paranoidic deceptors braying about faults, patches, new faults, new paths, rolling thunder to panic herds of panic-herders, pardon, infiltrated standards setters. Jim, you may be the only experienced expert here in betrayal by trustees inside and outside the penal colony, pardon, West of the Pecos justice rigged-comsec industry. All hail MIT, industry leader of techno-rigging. BTW, are you at liberty to reveal the secrets of bio-chemical TEMPEST? The inadvertent body odor is somewhat more reliable than facial and corporeal. Rumor of testing on the bio-chem harvesting in prisons, separation of sexes into their many varieties of posturing, impostering, hybridity and crossings. After 9/11 batteries of full sprectrum bio-chem sensors were set up in NYC transporation nodes, pretending to be about snffing for bombs but actually about varieties of human emanations. Later transformed and cloaked into the Microsoft-NYPD Domain Awareness program which pretended to be about data-gathering and infiltrating suspected terrorist conclaves, vaunted by resucitated HUMINT, but about, well, that's not for the inexperienced emanator to know. >Why not wrap the phone in a couple of layers of aluminum >foil? (Although, it won't shield against audio if that's being >recorded even while an RF contact does not exist...) > Jim Bell

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