The war on encryption- The Five Eyes are watching you.

[Halcyon]

Your dick pics and porn history are hardly of interest to Government agencies.

Naah, but they certainly are to the bozos who work in those agencies, and take a few minutes off now and then to work on their "personal issues".

Do you know what that weirdo who lives next door to you does for a living?

Holy shit, I think I'm that "weirdo next door".

Seriously though, whilst there is always a dodgy person or two in a group of people or an organisation, those working in high security jobs don't (and can't) just sit back in their chairs and casually start browsing through people's private lives. Sure, if you're a target, then they have very good reason to look at you. The amount of people, red-tape and auditing involved is ridiculous. Even though they hide under a cloud of secrecy and the general public have no idea what goes on behind closed doors, they are still accountable in a big way.

This whole encryption debate and who should have access to what is an argument which will never end. At the end of the day, regardless of how much noise you and I make, decisions are made in the background and generally, in Western society, those decisions are for the greater good.

What I don't get are those people who harp on about it yet post their entire lives on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc... I'm sorry, you can't have it both ways.

[coppercone2]

are they? if you cause alot of anxiety and possibly mental illness from the stress of not being able to share or living under surveillance it can actually get worse. It can lead to crime itself. And various productivity and concentration losses that can degrade all sorts of useful services and overall efficiency. You can enter an entirely different mode of operation in a society that leads to problems.

Did you ever talk to someone that used to live in the soviet bloc before? You can get some ideas on what will occur. I think of it like magnetic saturation, you get heat and the added unique effect of things slowing way the fuck down. Like building relationships with people and organizing groups. This would take many generations to be accounted for or there may be serious permanent mismatch with our evolved psychology.

Like, would you ever wanna use a dating website under these conditions? Or talk about serious 'family problems' on the internet (you can actually bond alot through text and help someone out through a difficult situation or work with say a family thats far away from you)? I suspect this society will end up needing ALOT more social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists. This will mean less people in other professions. Finding help will be difficult. Will government control the mental health field too? Or will they get an exception from surveillance? (i.e. emailing a psychologist you frequent). Do you know how many people can get out of a crisis situation doing stuff like that? Or even texting? Psychiatry will not work correctly without privacy.

your gonna end up with alot of nutty mother fuckers that look like their on meth.

[JimRemington]

those working in high security jobs don't (and can't) just sit back in their chairs and casually start browsing through people's private lives.

Looks like you missed out on the NSA "LOVEINT" story, one of many such abuses! Read about it in the Washington Post and elsewhere:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/08/24/loveint-when-nsa-officers-use-their-spying-power-on-love-interests/

[Halcyon]

are they? if you cause alot of anxiety and possibly mental illness from the stress of not being able to share or living under surveillance it can actually get worse. It can lead to crime itself. And various productivity and concentration losses that can degrade all sorts of useful services and overall efficiency. You can enter an entirely different mode of operation in a society that leads to problems.

Television, movies and the media dramatise a lot, the reality is, security agencies don't run around with guns, blowing shit up and putting their lives at immediate risk, in fact a lot of the work would make rather boring TV viewing. They also don't hire people who need to seek public recognition for what they do. There is plenty of in-house support available if a particular "job" bothers you and regular "welfare checks" are conducted by properly trained psychologists and psychiatrists. There are a lot of checks and balances, don't believe everything you see and read.

But yes, absolutely, a lot of time is spent auditing and justifying actions, but it's absolutely necessary if we are to have organisations which are free of corruption. Much higher expectations are placed on people in those organisations that don't normally apply to regular civilians. For example, you forget to turn your phone off in the movie theatre, you'll get some disapproving looks. If you work for a security agency and take your phone anywhere near restricted or classified areas, expect to be fighting to keep your job.

Once those people leave work for the day, they are normal people like you an I and live relatively normal lives. They still go out drinking and have a social life. For the most part, their spouses and family know where they work, but obviously not the details of what they do day-to-day.

[coppercone2]

Do you know the observed and documented results of privacy on psychological state?

You sound like a person that is concerned more about crime then anything else like quality of life.

Usually people that spend long periods of time without privacy feel relief when they get privacy. It's intrinsic. Relief means there is stress present. Persistent stress is bad for all sorts of body parts, including the brain. Depression and other mental illness can result.

[Halcyon]

You sound like a person that is concerned more about crime then anything else like quality of life.

Absolutely. I guess I've had the (dis)pleasure of seeing the worst of society, everything from people who murder their kids to people who intentionally want to kill every Police officer, gay person, [insert religion here], by any means possible. One could say my view is slightly biased and I don't disagree with that. But you'd look at the world differently as well.

I'm not saying Government agencies should have access to everything at the drop of a hat, but there should be secure mechanisms in place to access what is required to lock those people up, nothing more. It's a really fine balance.

[coppercone2]

Are you scare some kind of massive crime increase will occur without unprecedented mass surveillance?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop

You think its just gonna go bananas soon? I see clear indicators to the contrary. The 90's should be known as some kind of insane cult/gangster age, because the internet was barely policed back then, and still real popular. Do you have some sort of relevant figures or only personal association and uncounted edge cases?

[Halcyon]

Are you scare some kind of massive crime increase will occur without unprecedented mass surveillance?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop

You think its just gonna go bananas soon? I see clear indicators to the contrary. The 90's should be known as some kind of insane cult/gangster age, because the internet was barely policed back then.

I'm fearful that one day, there will be a major incident in Australia, it hasn't happened so far, but the number of terrorist plans which have been thwarted are on the increase. There are a lot of nut jobs out there and plenty more the agencies don't know about yet.

In saying that, we are currently living in a very safe society and the majority of people go about their day not even thinking about terrorism. That's a great thing to have.

The fact that we're seeing a drop and prevention of these sorts of crimes means that the Police and other agencies are doing something right. But they shouldn't just stop there because we've achieved a decent result (in the eyes of the public). A lot goes on behind the scenes that you and I aren't aware of and don't hit the news.

[coppercone2]

Yes but its very possible other crime will increase due to this and the net effect could be worse.

[Halcyon]

Yes but its very possible other crime will increase due to this and the net effect could be worse.

Possibly, but so far in Australia we're continuing to see a decrease in crimes which leads to the death of people. It's been that way since the 1980's.

The other thing we need to remember is that technology is improving rapidly, law enforcement agencies need to try and keep up.

[KL27x]

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

-Ronald Reagan

A government agency must use up its budget in order to get an increase year after year. Government agencies have a life of their own. If they can't find enough terrorists to fight, what makes you satisfied they won't find a way to create more terrorists. Or to redefine new threats and start new wars.

This is what the "blue line" is about. There's the same line in every government agency. Don't rock the boat. Show up to work on time. Have eternal salary and benefits whether or not the department is actually doing anything useful. If they have nothing to do, they'll find something.

[coppercone2]

Yes but its very possible other crime will increase due to this and the net effect could be worse.

Possibly, but so far in Australia we're continuing to see a decrease in crimes which leads to the death of people. It's been that way since the 1980's.

The other thing we need to remember is that technology is improving rapidly, law enforcement agencies need to try and keep up.

the east coast has the same thing but there has not been significant gestapo legislation other then the patriot act

[MT]

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

-Ronald Reagan

A government agency must use up its budget in order to get an increase year after year. Government agencies have a life of their own. If they can't find enough terrorists to fight, what makes you satisfied they won't find a way to create more terrorists. Or to redefine new threats and start new wars.

This is what the "blue line" is about. There's the same line in every government agency. Don't rock the boat. Show up to work on time. Have eternal salary and benefits whether or not the department is actually doing anything useful. If they have nothing to do, they'll find something.

But Ronald McDonald also said; Where is the war room, upon his first step into the whitehouse. Just prior he had watched Dr Strangelove.


ISO rejected NSA crypto code into standards.
https://www.wikitribune.com/article/67004/

[Mr. Scram]

I'm fearful that one day, there will be a major incident in Australia, it hasn't happened so far, but the number of terrorist plans which have been thwarted are on the increase. There are a lot of nut jobs out there and plenty more the agencies don't know about yet.

In saying that, we are currently living in a very safe society and the majority of people go about their day not even thinking about terrorism. That's a great thing to have.

The fact that we're seeing a drop and prevention of these sorts of crimes means that the Police and other agencies are doing something right. But they shouldn't just stop there because we've achieved a decent result (in the eyes of the public). A lot goes on behind the scenes that you and I aren't aware of and don't hit the news.

Are you sure "these sort of crimes" are prevented by mass surveillance? This has been claimed by governmental agencies quite a few times before, but it seems journalists are quite consistently finding out that it's actually traditional police work or in some cases just luck. Mass surveillance doesn't seem to be a major contributor to prevention. Having government officials going on record and making demonstrably false claims about the effectiveness of mass surveillance programs to influence public opinion is incredibly uncomfortable.

The lack of transparency from the various agencies has been addressed in my previous post, so I'll direct you there.

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-has-no-record-of-thwarting-large-terror-attacks-regardless-of-snowden-leaks/

[GlennSprigg]

Wow...  I can't believe what I've just read in this 'thread'...  :-)
I was hinting at this, just a month or two ago, while simply talking about various software
options available today, for those who wish to utilize it, for no other reason that...
"Big brother, don't tell me what to do", as opposed to directly having anything to hide.
I copped all kinds of flak, including reminding me how inconsequential my little life needs
to be 'hidden/protected' compared to their Ivory towers of power/information. (I just cop it).

The fact remains, that there is intervention from numerous countries/agencies, to 'not' allow,
(or try to), forms of encryption that 'they' can not get past, or have a back door to !!
It was a statement of fact... that I had to dodge bullets from. That's just a 'given'.
Dare I say it again, (no...), but a 'certain' OpenSource cryptology main-stay for years, was
shut down, and I mentioned the 'new' OpenSource crowd that is following through.
Heaven forbid I shared some basic information & links.

I'm sure the previous purveyors of 'dialog' will sniff out MY sacrilege for daring to comment
again, here, and find a way to belittle me... again... (Water off a ducks back). You'll see !!!

[CJay]

I'm fearful that one day, there will be a major incident in Australia, it hasn't happened so far, but the number of terrorist plans which have been thwarted are on the increase. There are a lot of nut jobs out there and plenty more the agencies don't know about yet.

In saying that, we are currently living in a very safe society and the majority of people go about their day not even thinking about terrorism. That's a great thing to have.

The fact that we're seeing a drop and prevention of these sorts of crimes means that the Police and other agencies are doing something right. But they shouldn't just stop there because we've achieved a decent result (in the eyes of the public). A lot goes on behind the scenes that you and I aren't aware of and don't hit the news.

Are you sure "these sort of crimes" are prevented by mass surveillance? This has been claimed by governmental agencies quite a few times before, but it seems journalists are quite consistently finding out that it's actually traditional police work or in some cases just luck. Mass surveillance doesn't seem to be a major contributor to prevention. Having government officials going on record and making demonstrably false claims about the effectiveness of mass surveillance programs to influence public opinion is incredibly uncomfortable.

The lack of transparency from the various agencies has been addressed in my previous post, so I'll direct you there.

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-has-no-record-of-thwarting-large-terror-attacks-regardless-of-snowden-leaks/

It's always 'just' old fashioned police work or luck, every time there's a terrorist incident it turns out that either the various agencies had either known about the perpetrator and not kept an eye on them or they were completely unknown, the first, I would agree and sign off on an increase in funding for.

The second, there is little chance that an unknown would be picked up by anything other than 'luck' or intrusive mass surveillance, you can't fund 'luck' and mass surveillance is unacceptable in and to a free society because it immediately stops being a free society when your every move is monitored and examined.

[MT]

Bill Binney... one more time... on "the eyes that watch you".

[Halcyon]

It's always 'just' old fashioned police work or luck, every time there's a terrorist incident it turns out that either the various agencies had either known about the perpetrator and not kept an eye on them or they were completely unknown, the first, I would agree and sign off on an increase in funding for.

The second, there is little chance that an unknown would be picked up by anything other than 'luck' or intrusive mass surveillance, you can't fund 'luck' and mass surveillance is unacceptable in and to a free society because it immediately stops being a free society when your every move is monitored and examined.

It's not always "just" old fashioned Police work. Far from it. Yes, your front-line Police do an amazing job and get some great intelligence from seemingly mundane interactions like vehicle stops etc... but that's just the tip of the iceberg. They often have no visibility or feedback on what happens after that.

There is a lot of work that happens within specialist units and multi-agency teams. Their job is largely to gather intelligence and monitor targets every day of the week. For every 1 front-line Police officer who comes across someone with terrorist links, there is probably a group of 20-30 other people dealing with various aspects of the same person. Likewise for every 1 incident you read, there are probably 10 others you never hear about.

Yes, sometimes it happens that "the stars align" and law enforcement just get lucky, but most of what you see and read in the news is due to months if not years worth of careful planning and targeted information gathering.

The other thing you need to remember is that mass surveillance is not about gathering information about everybody willy-nilly. Not only is it hugely time consuming but a terrible waste of resources. Law enforcement agencies don't just take stabs in the dark hoping to get lucky. Monitoring known targets often leads to the unknown ones, you follow the rabbit hole. As I said earlier, these people who jump on the band wagon and shout from the rooftops often have absolutely no understanding on how law enforcement agencies actually operate.

[Mr. Scram]

It's not always "just" old fashioned Police work. Far from it. Yes, your front-line Police do an amazing job and get some great intelligence from seemingly mundane interactions like vehicle stops etc... but that's just the tip of the iceberg. They often have no visibility or feedback on what happens after that.

There is a lot of work that happens within specialist units and multi-agency teams. Their job is largely to gather intelligence and monitor targets every day of the week. For every 1 front-line Police officer who comes across someone with terrorist links, there is probably a group of 20-30 other people dealing with various aspects of the same person. Likewise for every 1 incident you read, there are probably 10 others you never hear about.

Yes, sometimes it happens that "the stars align" and law enforcement just get lucky, but most of what you see and read in the news is due to months if not years worth of careful planning and targeted information gathering.

The other thing you need to remember is that mass surveillance is not about gathering information about everybody willy-nilly. Not only is it hugely time consuming but a terrible waste of resources. Law enforcement agencies don't just take stabs in the dark hoping to get lucky. Monitoring known targets often leads to the unknown ones, you follow the rabbit hole. As I said earlier, these people who jump on the band wagon and shout from the rooftops often have absolutely no understanding on how law enforcement agencies actually operate.

What you're describing here is targeted surveillance, not mass surveillance. We know that various agencies can decrypt SSL streams and other forms of encryption common on the internet. In this point in time it's apparently not feasible to apply it to all traffic and that sounds exactly like what you'd want, although we should expect these capabilities to rapidly evolve as they've done in the past. Yet they keep pushing for the ability to see all traffic all the time.

And again, there never has been evidence for mass surveillance being the key or even being a significant contributing factor to preventing attacks. Journalists have done extensive research and in none of the many cases presented as such the claims turn out to be valid. If the various programs are even moderately effective it should be trivial to prove that, but it turns out to be consistently problematic. What might be worse is the willingness to dispense untruths about this to skew the public debate.

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-has-no-record-of-thwarting-large-terror-attacks-regardless-of-snowden-leaks/

[duak]

My biggest concern with the back door paths is that someone nefarious (other than a government) gets into a system and either steals or messes with something.  I remember seeing something 20-25 odd years ago about some poor guy who got declared dead.  Naturally, pension payments stopped and utilities and credit cards were cut off.  He lost access to his bank accounts and credit cards and doing anything with them set off fraud alarms.  This was all done with the disparate IT infrastructure back then and the bad information still jumped from database to database like wildfire.  Imagine something like that today where 100,000 people are mistakenly declared dead.  Imagine this happening day after day.  How would we put things back together if it only took one infected database to kick off another data plague?

Right now I'm dealing with the local telco accidently shutting off my landline.  The day it happened, all incoming calls were blocked and it took 4 hours to reset.  It went out again about an hour or so after the nice lady from the telco called to ask how the upgrade went.  Since there was no upgrade, well maybe we can schedule one for you?  The 2nd time the landline went out, I couldn't dial out either.  This telco's help line is so busy and prone to being dropped that I just went to one of their stores.  Well, the repair guy will be out tomorrow to trace the line back into the exchange and re-establish it.  Interesting, because the internet is on the same line and it still works. (Crossing my fingers.)

I can just imagine this telco's customer database being hacked and garbling the exchange's database containing all the customers' lines, options and whatnot.

As an aside, the fellow that operated our stockroom used to work for the telco until they retired him.  Whether it's true or not, he said he and the other technicians at the downtown exchange used to listen in on some of the stockbrokers' lines to get some stock buy/sell info.

Cheers,

 

[bloguetronica]

These governments act like a well mannered rapist that asks the victim to kindly remove their pants, along other protective measures (such as weapons for self defense) before engaging in the "lawful" act. The "or else" part also exists, of course, in case one doesn't comply. What is "lawful" and "reasonable" to them, might be an outright violation of privacy and other fundamental rights to us. We have the right, as private entities, to enforce encryption, cyber security and any counter measures deemed necessary.

Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço

[In Vacuo Veritas]

[RoGeorge]

Halcyon, your arguments might make sense if, and only if, we assume two things:
1. Law enforcing agencies and governments are, and will always be:
- well behaved
- incorruptible in any way
- well intended in respect to the people.
2. The law-enforced backdoor can be 100% safeguarded from the bad guys' access.

Both assumption are obviously unrealistic. History teaches us that shit happens no matter what, and good guys sometimes became bad.

The proposed backdoor creates a vulnerability for all the people, including the people from governments and the people from law enforcement. The risk is huge for everybody.

What will be the benefits? Saving lives?
Well, in the first place, the law enforcement seems to do a fine job right now, with all the encryption in place, and I'm very grateful for all their efforts, a big and sincere thank you.

Now, let's go for the hard question, risks and benefits:
- The possible benefit is to save a few more lives.
- The possible risk is to enslave 7 billion.
Which one is weighting more?

[Halcyon]

Halcyon, your arguments might make sense if, and only if, we assume two things:
1. Law enforcing agencies and governments are, and will always be:
- well behaved
- incorruptible in any way
- well intended in respect to the people.
2. The law-enforced backdoor can be 100% safeguarded from the bad guys' access.

Both assumption are obviously unrealistic. History teaches us that shit happens no matter what, and good guys sometimes became bad.

The proposed backdoor creates a vulnerability for all the people, including the people from governments and the people from law enforcement. The risk is huge for everybody.

What will be the benefits? Saving lives?
Well, in the first place, the law enforcement seems to do a fine job right now, with all the encryption in place, and I'm very grateful for all their efforts, a big and sincere thank you.

Now, let's go for the hard question, risks and benefits:
- The possible benefit is to save a few more lives.
- The possible risk is to enslave 7 billion.
Which one is weighting more?

Sure and I agree but the "perfect world" doesn't exist. Can you name one organisation, private or Government which behaves like that?
You trust the banks with your entire cash savings.
You trust your service providers to properly account for usage on the services you use and keep your details private.
You trust your roads authority to maintain your driving record and licence information.
You trust your doctor to maintain your records accurately and securely... the list goes on and on.

As I mentioned before, it's a very fine balance, but if anyone thinks Law Enforcement is always at the cutting edge of technology, they'd be wrong. In some aspects they are, in others they fall woefully behind. Governments are constantly playing catch-up and they must keep up with emerging technologies. To settle for 10 year old gear and methodology is just out of the question. Law enforcement agencies are doing a fine job, granted, but they largely make-do with what they've got there are many, many challenges and roadblocks along the way. Ultimately, it's society's loss.

As I also mentioned, I'm not advocating that back doors (necessarily) should be built-in to technology, nor should any organisation just have free-range to access whatever they want, whenever they want. I don't know what the answer is, but it's not a simple one. You'll never keep everyone happy.

[mtdoc]

Halcyon, your arguments might make sense if, and only if, we assume two things:
1. Law enforcing agencies and governments are, and will always be:
- well behaved
- incorruptible in any way
- well intended in respect to the people.
2. The law-enforced backdoor can be 100% safeguarded from the bad guys' access.

Both assumption are obviously unrealistic. History teaches us that shit happens no matter what, and good guys sometimes became bad.

The proposed backdoor creates a vulnerability for all the people, including the people from governments and the people from law enforcement. The risk is huge for everybody.

What will be the benefits? Saving lives?
Well, in the first place, the law enforcement seems to do a fine job right now, with all the encryption in place, and I'm very grateful for all their efforts, a big and sincere thank you.

Now, let's go for the hard question, risks and benefits:
- The possible benefit is to save a few more lives.
- The possible risk is to enslave 7 billion.
Which one is weighting more?

Well said.

Re point #2 - Just 2 days ago this was reported

NEW DELHI—The authenticity of the data stored in India's controversial Aadhaar identity database, which contains the biometrics and personal information of over 1 billion Indians, has been compromised by a software patch that disables critical security features of the software used to enrol new Aadhaar users, a three month-long investigation by HuffPost India reveals.

The patch—freely available for as little as Rs 2,500 (around $35)— allows unauthorised persons, based anywhere in the world, to generate Aadhaar numbers at will, and is still in widespread use.

This has significant implications for national security at a time when the Indian government has sought to make Aadhaar numbers the gold standard for citizen identification, and mandatory for everything from using a mobile phone to accessing a bank account.