A light-hearted mailing amongst all the spooky doom and gloom:


Dear Edward Snowden

Dear Edward Snowden

Posted at 1:49pm on Friday July 19th 2013
LXF

We thought you might be getting a little bored while you're stuck in the airport, so we sent you some reading material. We don't know if you like Linux, but given your technical background, we hope it'll be of interest. It's just a tiny indication of our gratitude.

Thank you for your services to mankind, and hopefully you'll be able to travel freely soon. ...


There's one particularly apt comment:

... and generally promote GNU/Linux as the freedom-flying computing solution it is. Unfortunately, having already "beaten" the CIA with a penguin-shaped stick, you may have also made enemies of the NSA as well. They know who you are now, and they'll be watching...


IT is what we allow it to become...
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Unwelcome coercion?...


Feds put heat on Web firms for master encryption keys

Whether the FBI and NSA have the legal authority to obtain the master keys that companies use for Web encryption remains an open question, but it hasn't stopped the U.S. government from trying. ...

... If the government obtains a company's master encryption key, agents could decrypt the contents of communications intercepted through a wiretap or by invoking the potent surveillance authorities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Web encryption -- which often appears in a browser with a HTTPS lock icon when enabled -- uses a technique called SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer.

"The government is definitely demanding SSL keys from providers," said one person who has responded to government attempts to obtain encryption keys. The source spoke with CNET on condition of anonymity. ...


IT is what we allow it to become...
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

They can't get my keys.

Even I cannot find them.......

Yet they do not stop trying. And cry if they do not get unfettered access.

They also, if you have not read it, [url=http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/07/23/cia-wants-to-control-weather-climate-change]want to control the weather.

OMG.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

OK, he can come home now... There's a 'promise' to not immediately kill him:


Snowden's father says FBI asked him to visit his son

... The US Attorney General, Eric Holder, has given Moscow an assurance that he will not face the death penalty if extradited to America, but the Russians say they do not intend to hand him over.


And yet...? All in a supposedly free(dom) society?!

All in our own little world,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

All in our own little world,
Martin

Are you sure that this is not in your own little world?

Nope. Not that selfish. You're included...

Whether you might want to be or not... (Or are you so blind or isolated as to not notice?)


All a part of our own little world...
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

US declassifies phone snooping order

So why the redacting?

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Main Man Ed The SnowBlower, living La Vida Loca in Wonderful Russia.

Ah, The Good Life.

FREE AT LAST.

Bound For IT IT.

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

And so it has begun in Malaysia:


Vigilantes 'monitoring cyberspace'

Volunteer "cyber troopers" are monitoring Malaysian internet activity to flag up "sensitive" or "insulting" posts...


The first publicised victim is from a post made years previously.


NSA data to be used next... Or is it already being used in that way?...


IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Why not put your private key in your pocket and keep it there where no one is supposed to be able to gain access to it?

Is Microsoft perhaps more inclined to publish a public key for general use than for example the National Security Agency?

If you are in a position of being able to encrypt a message by means of combining your private key and a public key which may be used by the recipient in order to receive your intended message, knowing that it was for him or her, you need to have the knowledge as well as skill in order to be able to create or obtain such a private key.

Encryption is not only about prime numbers, but it is still part so.

A private key is as far as I know a key which should be used only once for each message being sent. You will need to have a set of keys in order to be able to send or transmit more than one message containing the same information.

Never heard of PGP.

Pretty Good Privacy

A very good web-link there.

Thanks, WinterKnight.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/researchers-say-tor-targeted-malware-phoned-home-to-nsa/

"Sean Gallagher @ ArsTechnica.com" wrote:

Malware planted on the servers of Freedom Hosting—the "hidden service" hosting provider on the Tor anonymized network brought down late last week—may have de-anonymized visitors to the sites running on that service. This issue could send identifying information about site visitors to an Internet Protocol address that was hard-coded into the script the malware injected into browsers. And it appears the IP address in question belongs to the National Security Agency (NSA).

...


The use of a hard-coded IP address traceable back to the NSA is either a strange and epic screw-up on the part of someone associated with the agency (possibly a contractor at SAIC) or an intentional calling card as some analyzing the attack have suggested. One poster on Cryptocloud's discussion board wrote, "It's psyops—a fear campaign... They want to scare folks off Tor, scare folks off all privacy services."

Freedom and free speech shut down:


Snowden's secure email provider Lavabit shuts down under gag order

Won't be 'complicit in crimes against the American people'

Lavabit, the security-conscious email provider that was the preferred email service of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, has closed its doors, citing US government interference.

"I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work...


Silent Circle shutters email service

Follows Lavabit in closing down service it can't guarantee to be secure

Silent Circle, the company founded by former PGP wonks and Navy Seals and which offers very, very, secure communications, has decided to shutter its Silent Mail email service.

The decision, announced in a blog post, comes on the same day that Lavabit, another secure email service, decided to close because it cannot guarantee users' security...

... says Silent Circle “see the writing the wall” and has therefore “decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now.”

No “subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government” have arrived at the company's offices, and by acting now the post says Silent Circle and users can avoid dealing with them in future. Staying warrant-free presumably means Silent Circle hopes its customers will be spared future investigations, with the post saying the company had considered keeping the service alive for current users or phasing it out. Now it has decided “that if we dithered, it could be more inconvenient.”...



Not only in the USA?...
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Every country on the planet ...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57595529-38/feds-tell-web-firms-to-turn-over-user-account-passwords/

Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords
The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

Disclosure of methods in other countries is a capital crime which is why you don't hear of it ...

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

It's 1984

OBW, if they are asking for the encrypted password it means they have methods to recover the plain text PDQ. Your typical *nix hash algorithms and PRNG's are not secure. And if the Government can do this so can a hacker.

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Oops

So need need for the regulators then, that's gotta save you some money!

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Interesting....

Part 1 A Scandal that just won't die

Part 2 Empty Explanations

"At least the German government has hired professionals. Consulting giant Accenture is currently interested in purchasing Booz. For many years, Accenture's key accounts included the US Department of Homeland Security -- and the NSA. Booz is also a company with an interesting past. In 2008, the firm broke away from Booz Allen Hamilton. Today, this NSA service provider's most prominent former employee has gone into hiding in Russia: His name is Edward Snowden."

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