telesnowden selected excerpts

coderman coderman at gmail.com
Wed Mar 19 11:57:31 PDT 2014


a few things i found interesting, per
  http://blog.inside.com/blog/2014/3/10/edward-snowden-sxsw-full-transcription-and-video
  (better script and transcode?)

---

emphasis on attacks against crypto systems by targeting the random
number generator(s): "typically it is the random number generators
that are attacked as opposed to the encryption algorithms"

"... encryption does work.... a basic protection[,] it is a defense
against the dark arts for the digital realm. This is something we all
need to be not only implementing but actively researching and
improving on an academic level. The grad students of today and
tomorrow need to keep today's threat on online to inform tomorrows. We
need all those brilliant Belgian cryptographers to go alright we know
that these encryption algorithms we are using today work typically it
is the random number generators that are attacked as opposed to the
encryption algorithms themselves. How can we make them ____ how can we
test them? This is _____ it is not going to go away tomorrow, but it
is the steps we take today. The moral commitment. The philosophical
commitment, the commercial commitment to protect and enforce our
liberties through technical standards to allow us to reclaim the open
and trusted."

---

"By doing end to end encryption you force what they are called ...
global passive adversaries to go for the end points that is the...
computers. And the result of that is a constitutional, more carefully
overseeing sort of intelligence gathering model. Where if they want to
gather somebody's communications they have to target them
specifically. They can't just target everybody all the time and then
when they want to read your stuff they go back in a time machine and
say what did they say you know in 2006. They can't pitch exploits in
every computer in the world without getting caught. That is the value
of end to end encryption and that is what we need to be thinking
about."

the targeted attacks under a different authorization and more restrict controls?
 would like details on "constraints" and "authorizations" and specific
projectnames. :)


----


"The NSA the sort of global mass surveillance that is occurring in all
of these countries. Not just the US it is important to remember that
this is a global issue. They are setting fire to the future of the
internet."

this is a global problem.  somehow, with decades of growth nurtured
and shaped and guided along flawed trajectories, we looked around and
found everyone and everything bathed in surveillance and privacy
invasion, myriad motives across state/corporate/professional
boundaries coopted in blissful or willful ignorance as was chosen.


---


"Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course."
 - William Shakespeare



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