On June 14, 2015 6:27:18 AM Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net> wrote: [Snip]
Seems like they'd want to keep something like this quiet if their
operatives really were in danger. Jmo.
Well, may be not.
<can't resist>Lie back, relax. Now imagine you're 5 years old.</>
Actually, so you have 20 operatives in say North Korea and you need to contact them urgently so they know their holiday picture taking is over and must return post haste, since their holiday cover is about to be blown - how do you contact them without personally contacting them, to maximise their safety?
Is a daily Tor sign in the best idea for operatives in other countries? Of course for those who do their daily Tor duty, they presumably will be notified.
So perhaps just reading the daily newspaper from the country from which you're officially on holiday from? "Oh, there's some international spy scandal going on, think we better leave now dear, since we foreigners might be targetted regardless - how about an opportunistic trip South?"
You do raise a valid point (and I enjoy "explain it like I'm five!") It's an angle I hadn't considered; I should wait to reply until I'm not in the throes of insomnia ;) The larger points, which occurred after I'd already hit 'send': where did they get this 'cache'? (Snowden insists he released what he had to Greenwald/Poitras et al in HK, and until proven otherwise I choose to believe him.) Sure, I guess he could have been blackmailed / rubberhosed... And the TLAs whine loudly about being thwarted by encryption, when they themselves have weakened EC anyway, and Russia/China have decrypted it but not the US?! Why would they even admit to that... I can't put my finger on it, and I'll readily admit I'm biased in that I don't trust the five eyes or their propaganda at all, but there is just something "off" about this whole thing. -S