Author Topic: NSA spying capability  (Read 41498 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline TerraHertz

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3958
  • Country: au
  • Why shouldn't we question everything?
    • It's not really a Blog
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #50 on: February 01, 2014, 03:14:40 am »
Going right back to the origin of the whole NSA spying revelations, an excellent and thoughtful interview with Edward Snowden has come out.
   http://benswann.com/media-blacks-out-new-snowden-interview-the-government-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

It seems that mainstream news outlets worldwide are refusing to carry this, and it gets taken down from most video streaming sites. But it's still available at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f93_1390833151

Many fascinating details in that interview, including on the NSA's capabilities. He's a very intelligent man, and a great hero. Well worth watching, to bear in mind next time you hear some govt. flunky slandering him.
Collecting old scopes, logic analyzers, and unfinished projects. http://everist.org
 

Offline G7PSK

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3859
  • Country: gb
  • It is hot until proved not.
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #51 on: February 01, 2014, 09:52:49 am »
00300 78389 89535 87019 49073 32472 91259 86989 38094 38898 66585 89960
0030330962 49517 75834 29851 43682 42472 43467 40719 15673 06409 54277
00301 27755 98185 29481 03559 60851 33868 56611 92166 30082 12600 85741
00306 87033 67676 18443 16011 86097 12379 57368 00502 37078 76809 14376
00304 57508 66911 89708 63482 24236 98011 96177 72072 90160 89094 28736

Roger. We are sending the drones.
Have you cracked it.? :-+
 

Offline chickenHeadKnob

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1054
  • Country: ca
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #52 on: February 01, 2014, 12:15:27 pm »
@G7PSK : from your forum nym I am guessing you are a ham (I am not) and from the blocks of five digit numbers I am guessing this is a partial recording of one of those soviet/russian number stations. Am I correct so far? If that is the case then it likely is imposible to decode as those are rumoured to be one-time pads. Unless you have the pad or they get sloppy again and reuse some randomness. They supposedly did that mistake with some eastern europe embassy traffic in the fifties.

edit for spelling
« Last Edit: February 01, 2014, 01:18:08 pm by chickenHeadKnob »
 

Offline nihilism

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 99
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #53 on: February 01, 2014, 12:58:48 pm »
Is anyone on this forum actually concerned that the NSA might be spying on them? Do you really think you're interesting enough?
I have read this exact statement on many forums.  I always ask the same questions......

Why didn't you fill in all of the information about yourself on this forum?  Why didn't you use your real name instead of "nihilism"?  You posted NOTHING about yourself.  NOTHING!!!
You did not even put your gender or age or country you are from.

What are you afraid of?

None of that was a requirement for registration. What can i say? I'm lazy.

I guess being an Australian it makes it hard for me to understand the endemic paranoia of US citizens.
 

Offline Wytnucls

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3045
  • Country: be
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #54 on: February 01, 2014, 01:08:18 pm »
The main reason people are thrifty with personal information, is to protect themselves from scammers and identity thieves, not so much to prevent their own government snooping. In the 'free' world that is.
 

Offline lemmegraphdat

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 273
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #55 on: February 01, 2014, 01:08:51 pm »
Going right back to the origin of the whole NSA spying revelations, an excellent and thoughtful interview with Edward Snowden has come out.
   http://benswann.com/media-blacks-out-new-snowden-interview-the-government-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

It seems that mainstream news outlets worldwide are refusing to carry this, and it gets taken down from most video streaming sites. But it's still available at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f93_1390833151

Many fascinating details in that interview, including on the NSA's capabilities. He's a very intelligent man, and a great hero. Well worth watching, to bear in mind next time you hear some govt. flunky slandering him.

So... what if he's just Putin's boy?
Start right now.
 

Offline JoeO

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 527
  • Country: us
  • I admit to being deplorable
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #56 on: February 01, 2014, 01:20:18 pm »
The main reason people are thrifty with personal information, is to protect themselves from scammers and identity thieves, not so much to prevent their own government snooping. In the 'free' world that is.
Scammers and identity thieves can be dealt with. 

Who do you go to when the problem is your government?
The day Al Gore was born there were 7,000 polar bears on Earth.
Today, only 26,000 remain.
 

Offline Wytnucls

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3045
  • Country: be
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #57 on: February 01, 2014, 01:30:04 pm »
To the ballot box.
 

Offline Homer J SimpsonTopic starter

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1222
  • Country: us
 

Offline JoeO

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 527
  • Country: us
  • I admit to being deplorable
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #59 on: February 01, 2014, 03:09:24 pm »
To the ballot box.
Both parties are bad and people won't vote for a third party although that could be changing in the near future.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2014, 03:15:27 pm by JoeO »
The day Al Gore was born there were 7,000 polar bears on Earth.
Today, only 26,000 remain.
 

Offline G7PSK

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3859
  • Country: gb
  • It is hot until proved not.
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #60 on: February 01, 2014, 03:12:41 pm »
@ chickenHeadKnob. You are sort of right, Its a superenciphered code thats around 70 years old, The starting language is Japanese, the allies called the code  JN25. It was quite regularly read at least partially back in those days despite the starting point being a one time substitution  pad before then being coded and recoded with one time additive's. Should be a walk in the park for the NSA, after all John Tiltman and his team were doing it all by hand.
 

Offline G7PSK

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3859
  • Country: gb
  • It is hot until proved not.
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #61 on: February 01, 2014, 03:19:17 pm »
What surprises  me is that no one has yet mentioned the TOR project (https://www.torproject.org/) this has had money from the US government and allows any one to evade tracking on the net, although as there is government money involved the NSA may have a back door to it.
 

Offline zapta

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 6189
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #62 on: February 02, 2014, 12:54:07 am »
Have you cracked it.? :-+

Why to crack it? It's clear text in the captured key stream from your keyboard.

;-)
 

Offline chickenHeadKnob

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1054
  • Country: ca
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #63 on: February 02, 2014, 01:21:14 am »
@ chickenHeadKnob. You are sort of right, Its a superenciphered code thats around 70 years old, The starting language is Japanese, the allies called the code  JN25. It was quite regularly read at least partially back in those days despite the starting point being a one time substitution  pad before then being coded and recoded with one time additive's. Should be a walk in the park for the NSA, after all John Tiltman and his team were doing it all by hand.

You are being too kind, by sort of right you mean not even close! Unless that phrasing was sarcasm too  subtile for this weak mind. Like in Canada you can buy throat lozenges called "Fishermans Friend" which are neither a fisherman nor your friend. I don't know any japanese so I have no chance on this one or any historical snippet of a purple cypher. 
 

Offline TerraHertz

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3958
  • Country: au
  • Why shouldn't we question everything?
    • It's not really a Blog
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #64 on: February 02, 2014, 04:21:55 am »
To the ballot box.

Of which there are none in the USA. It's all electronic voting, using systems that have been absolutely established are heavily rigged, effectively to the point of the highest bidder winning each election. Incidentally the vote tallies are conducted by private companies - there's no such thing as the Electoral Commission as we have in Australia. Effectively the vote counting and reporting gets to be done by the media corporations. And it's been legally established by at least one court case in the US that the media corporations have _no_ legal obligation to be truthful in their reporting.
There are many astonishing cases of clear vote fraud each time the US has elections. Many claim that the US hasn't had a valid presidential election for over a decade.
Then there's the whole issue of how functional democracy is, when most people get all their news through six corporations that own virtually all the mainstream print and electronic news channels.

Two groups that tracks vote fraud:
   http://blackboxvoting.org/
   http://www.votefraud.org/

http://everist.org/archives/links/_Vote_fraud_USA_links.txt
Collecting old scopes, logic analyzers, and unfinished projects. http://everist.org
 

Offline Rick Law

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3423
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #65 on: February 02, 2014, 05:39:36 am »
To the ballot box.

Of which there are none in the USA. It's all electronic voting, using systems that have been absolutely established are heavily rigged, effectively to the point of the highest bidder winning each election. Incidentally the vote tallies are conducted by private companies - there's no such thing as the Electoral Commission as we have in Australia. Effectively the vote counting and reporting gets to be done by the media corporations. And it's been legally established by at least one court case in the US that the media corporations have _no_ legal obligation to be truthful in their reporting.
There are many astonishing cases of clear vote fraud each time the US has elections. Many claim that the US hasn't had a valid presidential election for over a decade.
Then there's the whole issue of how functional democracy is, when most people get all their news through six corporations that own virtually all the mainstream print and electronic news channels.

Two groups that tracks vote fraud:
   http://blackboxvoting.org/
   http://www.votefraud.org/

http://everist.org/archives/links/_Vote_fraud_USA_links.txt

In the USA, our state elections are controlled by the states whereas the federal elections are controlled by the federal government.  Federal elections are therefore more consistent (not to say it is well executed).  That said, local elections managed by local governments can be much much worst.

While we have laws controlling the elections, but in practice it is difficult to use the laws to enforce adherence to proper behavior.  I recall a California congressional election about two decades ago, a sitting congressman was defeated by a questionable vote count.  He took it to the courts.  By the time the courts finished and ruled the election improperly conducted, the two-year congressional term in question was already over.  He never regained his rightful seat.  The one who was really not lawfully elected served the entire term and was reelected - by then, the one who should have been lawfully serving was sidelined the whole term and was no longer in position to run against the illegally elected opponent in the following term.

In this pass cycle, we had a sitting congressman narrowly defeated - with (at least) one large district going to his opponent at 107% voter turn out - 107% meaning for every 100 voters, there was 107 votes.  That large district's huge vote count decided the election - but with 107% turn out...  This congressman did not take it to court perhaps learning from this former Californian congressman's financially costly court battles 2 decades ago.  For this same election cycle, in some cases, we had over 140% turn out.

Math question: What is the probability of a candidate with 90% support to receive 19,000 votes in a roll?   Even Putan's got just 95% of the vote, for heavens sake, at least try to make it look some what real.  6 precincts in that district, result: 19600 to 0...

I think our system here in the USA is too much designed by gentleman for a contest between gentlemen.  When rules are not followed, our system kind of get caught with "deer in the head light" problem.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2014, 06:04:41 am by Rick Law »
 

Offline zapta

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 6189
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #66 on: February 02, 2014, 09:15:18 am »
Of which there are none in the USA. It's all electronic voting, using systems that have been absolutely established are heavily rigged,

Stalin had this observation about 100 years ago:  “It doesn’t matter how the votes are cast, but how they’re counted.”
 

Offline johansen

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 977
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #67 on: February 02, 2014, 09:51:07 am »
So... what if he's just Putin's boy?

this is a legitimate concern but it requires that the same puppet master pulling both Putin's and Obama's strings..

which, incidentally, isn't really all that hard to believe..
 

Offline JoeyP

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 321
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #68 on: February 03, 2014, 05:45:48 pm »
The main reason people are thrifty with personal information, is to protect themselves from scammers and identity thieves, not so much to prevent their own government snooping. In the 'free' world that is.

I completely agree with this. I assume the government monitors some/all of my communications to some degree, and am not at all worried about it (since I'm not a criminal, and not self-important enough to think anyone at the government is sitting around listing to my "extremely interesting" conversations). But I do worry a lot about identity theft which is a growing epidemic in this country and can be extremely painful if you're a victim. For that reason I am always stingy with my personal information.

A good example is the recent breach of data from Target stores. In fact my credit card was one of those that was compromised (and indeed had fraudulent charges within weeks). But because I was never dumb enough to give Target any personal information such as home address etc., the sum total of its effect on me was having my credit card reissued. Didn't cost me a cent. Those people dumb enough to sign up with their home address etc. to get Target's coupons and such have a much bigger risk of identity theft and scams. I give absolutely no information beyond what's required, and if they require too much I won't do business with them.
 

Offline Rick Law

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3423
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #69 on: February 03, 2014, 08:35:00 pm »
The main reason people are thrifty with personal information, is to protect themselves from scammers and identity thieves, not so much to prevent their own government snooping. In the 'free' world that is.

I completely agree with this. I assume the government monitors some/all of my communications to some degree, and am not at all worried about it (since I'm not a criminal, and not self-important enough to think anyone at the government is sitting around listing to my "extremely interesting" conversations).
...

Not an usual mindset.  I am sure Reinhard Heydrich was very pleased by the same mindset held by average Germans of the time.  As a Navy discard (he was kicked out of the Navy) He rebuild his career with his then innovative database of people using index cards.

Mere index cards as easy to sort/access database was his technology innovation.  Yet that simple innovation was enough to give him the ability to conduct intimation that he was one of the most feared by even the "non-criminal" fellow Nazi members.

Anything can be misused by bad people.  That those Germans were not criminals doesn't mean information collected about them would not be used by criminals.

So, until I am assured that only self-less people like Mother Teresa works at the government, I would not think it is wise to give them tools so easy to abuse.
 

Offline JoeyP

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 321
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #70 on: February 03, 2014, 09:43:07 pm »
The main reason people are thrifty with personal information, is to protect themselves from scammers and identity thieves, not so much to prevent their own government snooping. In the 'free' world that is.

I completely agree with this. I assume the government monitors some/all of my communications to some degree, and am not at all worried about it (since I'm not a criminal, and not self-important enough to think anyone at the government is sitting around listing to my "extremely interesting" conversations).
...

Not an usual mindset.  I am sure Reinhard Heydrich was very pleased by the same mindset held by average Germans of the time.  As a Navy discard (he was kicked out of the Navy) He rebuild his career with his then innovative database of people using index cards.

Mere index cards as easy to sort/access database was his technology innovation.  Yet that simple innovation was enough to give him the ability to conduct intimation that he was one of the most feared by even the "non-criminal" fellow Nazi members.

Anything can be misused by bad people.  That those Germans were not criminals doesn't mean information collected about them would not be used by criminals.

So, until I am assured that only self-less people like Mother Teresa works at the government, I would not think it is wise to give them tools so easy to abuse.

And that's not at all an unusual response to my mindset. I had a very long discussion about that with a friend in Germany a while back, and I'd submit that there are very significant differences between our society and theirs which makes something like that highly unlikely to occur here.

But, if you want to get into being paranoid about our government abusing its power, there is much more fruitful territory than fearing that our federal government will turn into something like Nazi Germany. For example, ever heard of "The good ol boy network"? It's very much for real, and you should take it very seriously - particularly if you live or travel anywhere in the southern US. It's no conspiracy per se, it's just what tends to spring up amongst *local* authorities in remote areas. I'm talking local cops, judges, city officials etc. I once got a first-hand glimpse into the goings on there (fortunately not as a victim), and  I'll tell you straight up that if you cross the wrong person, those guys will just make you disappear. Obviously an extreme abuse of power, and it does and has existed here for a long time. But by its very nature it is local and finite. Its extents end at the boundary of local  and federal government. In the rare cases that anything gets done about it, it's generally the federal government stepping in to clean things up.
 

Offline Rick Law

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3423
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #71 on: February 03, 2014, 10:11:45 pm »
Further conversation about whether you think I am merely paranoid or I think you are merely naive will be too far from technology.

But who knows, may be indeed all those who is working for our government are indeed self-less people like Mother Teresa thus it is okay to give them tools so easy to abuse.  I rather doubt it, but if you say so, I wont take your word for it but I wont argue.
 

Offline JoeyP

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 321
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #72 on: February 03, 2014, 10:44:12 pm »
Further conversation about whether you think I am merely paranoid or I think you are merely naive will be too far from technology.

But who knows, may be indeed all those who is working for our government are indeed self-less people like Mother Teresa thus it is okay to give them tools so easy to abuse.  I rather doubt it, but if you say so, I wont take your word for it but I wont argue.

I -didn't- say so. "self-less people like Mother Teresa" were your words, not mine, so don't attribute them to me. I've said nothing of the sort. I simply have more faith in our population to prevent something like Nazi Germany (also your reference not mine) than German society demonstrated as it was structured at that time.

But you are right about exactly one thing. This could easily turn into an ugly brawl that would serve no purpose other than to get this thread locked.
 

Offline Rick Law

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3423
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #73 on: February 04, 2014, 02:13:54 am »
Further conversation about whether you think I am merely paranoid or I think you are merely naive will be too far from technology.

But who knows, may be indeed all those who is working for our government are indeed self-less people like Mother Teresa thus it is okay to give them tools so easy to abuse.  I rather doubt it, but if you say so, I wont take your word for it but I wont argue.

I -didn't- say so. "self-less people like Mother Teresa" were your words, not mine, so don't attribute them to me. I've said nothing of the sort. I simply have more faith in our population to prevent something like Nazi Germany (also your reference not mine) than German society demonstrated as it was structured at that time.

But you are right about exactly one thing. This could easily turn into an ugly brawl that would serve no purpose other than to get this thread locked.

Indeed those were my words.  I was the one who said: "Until people who works for government are selfless like Mother Teresa" (or similar).  I was just repeating what I said earlier to re-emphasize my view.

re: I simply have more faith in our population to prevent something like Nazi Germany

I brought it up to point out the power of information.  As to faith in preventing something like Nazi Germany happening here, I am sure most Cambodians thought something like the Khmer Rouge couldn't possibly happen to them either.

German people of the time were good people too, they were too naive to think it couldn't happen to them.  They buried their head in the sand and when they woke up, it was too late.

I have no faith in government leaders because I am keenly aware how power corrupts.  You and I have different views.  You simply have more trust in government in not misusing the information than I ever can.
 

Offline Homer J SimpsonTopic starter

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1222
  • Country: us
Re: NSA spying capability
« Reply #74 on: February 04, 2014, 02:31:59 pm »
"US Tech Titans Reveal New Data About NSA Snooping"

http://business.time.com/2014/02/03/tech-titans-nsa/?xid=newsletter-daily

 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf