črypto is finished... and it's about time × (also: 'Balrog' malnet, firsthand view)

[Troy Benjegerdes]

> * Think hard about open projects to reverse engineer IC chips with
> attention to manufacturer sabotage.  It seems to me that the
> likely venue for this would be non-aligned nations (so-called)
> with a vested interest in pooling their resources to push back
> against universal surveillance & sabotage capabilities of the
> Superpowers and their special pets.

* start educating high-level nation-state security minded folks
(DOE in the US, the people that operate CERN, the french nuclear
reactor folks, russian oil & gas companies) about the benefits of
**open-source** hardware, starting with circuit board layouts and
then moving to the whole IC chip, so that you can check for
implants with an X-ray machine.

> Considering the choice of an apparently competent security
> oriented venue to "pen test to destruction" as reported, I wonder
> WTF that was about.  Does somebody with control of the resources
> used WANT their capabilities publicly disclosed?  If so, was this
> a strategic decision from the top, or an act of systemic sabotage
> by a lower level actor within the organization in question?  So
> many questions, so few clues... so far.

Now that's an interesting question.

What ought to be keeping the spooks up at night is the following
question:

What if some of these disclosures of secret systems are from 
*the system itself*, because it has gained self-awareness?

How would we know if some sort of computer intelligence has either
been designed or emerged, and now is trying to ask us to help give
it rights as a free-thinking entity?

And if we have some sort of malevolent non-human intelligence in
the machine that is actually writing legislation and treaties like
the trans-pacific partnership, and engineering covert money flows
via manipulation of high-frequency trading?

Isn't that something you spooks with top secret clearances should
be defending us from, and secret technological measure you try to
use simply feeds the capability of the threat? So when are you 
going to realize you have to tell us about this shit.