Re: "SIGINT tradecraft is very hands-on (l i terally!)"
That would be quite useful. How would you crack it if used by an opponent? At 01:11 AM 5/14/2014, you wrote:
Alright, what I meant was this: The judge ordered that the information be provided in electronically-readable form. He meant, "not on paper", because if it were on paper, that would be very difficult to actually USE. My idea was to put the information onto pdf files, where if you view the pdf file, it would look like lines of "captcha"-type data: Weird, warped characters, in various odd colors, overlapping lines, etc. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha>CAPTCHA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Specifically designed to NOT be computer-identifiable. The essence of the presentation of the data would be that it wouldn't be readable by 'computer' at all; it would have to be decoded by human intervention...even though it was in "electronically-readable form"!!
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha> image
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha>CAPTCHA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A CAPTCHA (an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge-respons... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha>View on en.wikipedia.org Preview by Yahoo Jim Bell
I guess I'm still not being clear. It would be my way of objecting to a court's ordering the telecom company that I might work for (or, one day, that I might own?!?) to present an "electronically-readable" form of the telephone metadata of millions of telephones. The judge ordered that; my sneaky response would be to generate an "electronically-readable" file, basically a pdf file or a series of same, itself with an image that looks like "captcha" information: relatively easy for a human to read, but rather difficult for any computer to turn into easily-useable (searchable) information. In other words, the information would be presented to the NSA, but it would be essentially unuseable without being (first) human-decoded. The result, I realize, would be a angry session in front of a Federal judge, who newly realizes that an "electronically-readable" form doesn't NECESSARILY imply computer-useability! The judge would then amend the order to say, "NO SNEAKY TRICKS THE NEXT TIME, BELL!!!!" At which point, I'd probably just have the order leaked. Jim Bell ________________________________ From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com> To: jim bell <jamesdbell9@yahoo.com>; cypherpunks@cpunks.org Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 3:50 AM Subject: Re: "SIGINT tradecraft…is very hands-on (l i terally!)" That would be quite useful. How would you crack it if used by an opponent? At 01:11 AM 5/14/2014, you wrote: Alright, what I meant was this: The judge ordered that the information be provided in electronically-readable form. He meant, "not on paper", because if it were on paper, that would be very difficult to actually USE. My idea was to put the information onto pdf files, where if you view the pdf file, it would look like lines of "captcha"-type data: Weird, warped characters, in various odd colors, overlapping lines, etc. CAPTCHA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Specifically designed to NOT be computer-identifiable. The essence of the presentation of the data would be that it wouldn't be readable by 'computer' at all; it would have to be decoded by human intervention...even though it was in "electronically-readable form"!!
CAPTCHA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A CAPTCHA (an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge-respons... View on en.wikipedia.org Preview by Yahoo Jim Bell
On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 09:03:50AM -0700, jim bell wrote:
I guess I'm still not being clear. It would be my way of objecting to a court's ordering the telecom company that I might work for (or, one day, that I might own?!?) to present an "electronically-readable" form of the telephone metadata of millions of telephones. The judge ordered that; my sneaky response would be to generate an "electronically-readable" file, basically a pdf file or a series of same, itself with an image that looks like "captcha" information: relatively easy for a human to read, but rather difficult for any computer to turn into easily-useable (searchable) information. In other words, the information would be presented to the NSA, but it would be essentially unuseable without being (first) human-decoded.
assuming this is correct: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.de/2014/04/street-view-and-recaptcha-te... then googlestreetview tech is better at solving captchas than humans.
From: stef <s@ctrlc.hu> On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 09:03:50AM -0700, jim bell wrote:
I guess I'm still not being clear. It would be my way of objecting to a court's ordering the telecom company that I might work for (or, one day, that I might own?!?) to present an "electronically-readable" form of the telephone >metadata of millions of telephones. The judge ordered that; my sneaky response would be to generate an >"electronically-readable" file, basically a pdf file or a series of same, itself with an image that looks like >"captcha" information: relatively easy for a human to read, but rather difficult for any computer to turn into >easily-useable (searchable) information. In other words, the information would be presented to the NSA, but it >would be essentially unuseable without being (first) human-decoded. assuming this is correct: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.de/2014/04/street-view-and-recaptcha-te... then googlestreetview tech is better at solving captchas than humans.
For a single, tiny piece of "captcha", that might very well be true. But suppose the telephone metadata information for a billion phone calls per day is turned into "captcha's". How much CPU power would the NSA have to apply, each day, just to back-convert that metadata into computer-searchable form? Admittedly, that's irrelevant: The NSA would simply ask the court to order the company to stop being a wiseass, and to stop using the captcha technique. Jim Bell
participants (3)
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jim bell -
John Young -
stef