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From Techdirt and The Intercept :
In the wake of the tragic events in Paris last week, encryption has been a useful bogeyman for those with a voracious appetite for surveillance expansion. Like clockwork, numerous reports have circulated in the days since, blaming everyone from Snowden to Sony for letting the attackers make their plans in secret, protected by encryption.
"Yet news emerging from Paris, as well as evidence from a Belgian ISIS raid in January — suggests that the ISIS terror networks involved were communicating in the clear, and that the data on their smartphones was not encrypted." The reports note that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the "mastermind" of both the Paris attacks and a thwarted Belgium attack ten months ago, failed to use encryption whatsoever.
That's not to say dangerous organizations like ISIS don't use encryption, and won't do so going forward. Everybody uses encryption, or at least should. But the point remains that to use a tragedy to vilify encryption, push for surveillance expansion, and pass backdoor laws that will make everybody less safe -- is nearly as gruesome as the attacks themselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 19 2015, @03:22PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker [wikipedia.org]
How many Americans are fluent in Arabic, Farsi, or any of the other languages spoken in the mideast? I could join a forum, have full access to anything and everything said there, and witness plans to bomb my own hometown, and I'd be as ignorant as if it were encrypted. If most Americans are honest, they'd have to admit to the very same thing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Thursday November 19 2015, @03:42PM
Of course you are correct. When Anonymous declared war on ISIS my first reaction was "boy the FBI is gonna shit their pants when they see thousands of virgin teens ordering Arabic language learning material over the internet." I mean how else do they think they will Anonymous beat ISIS if they don't even understand the alphabet (yes of course I know they won't actually defeat ISIS).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 19 2015, @03:49PM
There are a whole lot of native speakers of those languages in the United States. I can go down to the corner deli on my block and find a half dozen. I'm sure that France is no worse off there.
It can't serve as an excuse for why total police state surveillance failed. You don't even need to use non-English languages. You can pre-establish a code phrase in English, like, "My ass always itches when it rains" and the conspirators will know it's go time. It's why total surveillance will always fail.
In the end we lose 100% of our freedom and gain 0% security.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday November 19 2015, @08:08PM
You can pre-establish a code phrase in English
And it doesn't need to be anything as obtuse as asses and itching. It can be just as simple as "Want to grab a bite to eat?" from a specific contact.
These guys tossed a cell phone in a garbage can, and the police found it while searching for planted explosives. Or maybe someone saw it get tossed. These guys were careless and sloppy, and none of them expected to walk away from this, (except, tellingly, the organizer). They didn't care.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday November 19 2015, @03:58PM
The "war on encryption" has NOTHING to do with the paris attacks.
They were already planning this. The speed with which the (almost certainly CIA/NSA created) disinformation came out (e.g. the fake encryption story) betrays the fact that this is just part of the game.
Let's be quite clear about this, every time a terrorist attacks a western target the CIA and NSA rub their hands with glee.
The victim/target/mark here is, has always been and will always be the citizenry. And that is true no matter which organisation in this stupid little (o so typical of humans) game that is being played.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday November 19 2015, @04:37PM
The exact same thing happened with the "Patriot" Act. In a nutshell, Congress said "Yikes, 9/11 happened! We have to DO SOMETHING!" The three-letter agencies said "You want to do something? Here's what you can do!" And it was their wishlist of everything they'd been wanting to do for decades. And Congress passed it with very little debate or serious discussion or opposition, mostly because they knew that any "Nay" vote would turn into "Senator Blowhard supports the terrorists!" in the ads. I should mention that of the current presidential candidates, the only one to vote against that travesty was Bernie Sanders, which is one of the many reasons I support his presidential bid.
So now this happened, and there are cries to DO SOMETHING! And you can see all the signs that the three-letter agencies are taking the opportunity to argue for more power and more money on the grounds that if you don't give it to them, right now, no questions asked, you're a terrorist sympathizer.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by TheReaperD on Thursday November 19 2015, @06:38PM
There's a saying in politics and news outlets, "never let a good tragedy go to waste." There are always wishlist items for various programs that are written and ready to go if the right type of tragedy happens. Lobbyists for the causes always have them ready to go.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @02:32AM
Which is why conspiracy theorists come to the conclusion that "the right type of tragedy" is sometimes orchestrated by those organizations. They are just too ready to profit from it.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 19 2015, @08:11PM
The three-letter agencies said "You want to do something? Here's what you can do!"
Not quite true.
The TLAs said "Here's what we've been doing all along. Just make it legal to use in the US".
The actual number of new exploits developed since 9/11 are a small minority of what they already had running world wide (their stated mission) as well as in the US (contrary to law).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2015, @10:36PM
>>>>I should mention that of the current presidential candidates, the only one to vote against that travesty was Bernie Sanders, which is one of the many reasons I support his presidential bid.
That statement is a little disingenuous. How many of the current presidential candidates were actually in Congress at that time to be able to vote against the Patriot Act? A number of them are not career politicians and haven't been in a position to vote for anything much less a bill that was passed 14 years ago.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday November 19 2015, @11:59PM
Rand Paul was not in Congress at the time. To his credit, he's now taken steps to oppose its renewal.
Those who have voted for the Patriot Act, either when it originally passed, or the several times it has come up for re-authorization:
- Hillary Clinton
- Ted Cruz
- Lindsey Graham
- Marco Rubio
- Rick Santorum
The remaining candidates have either never held political office (Trump, Carson, Fiorina) or were never in Congress (O'Malley, Christie, Gilmore, Huckabee, Kasich, Pataki).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by M. Baranczak on Friday November 20 2015, @04:31AM
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday November 20 2015, @12:42PM
I did mention Sanders, further up in the discussion. I was accused of being "disingenuous" because I hadn't mentioned everybody else.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:18PM
> They were already planning this
Yes they were, here's the proof:
Although “the legislative environment is very hostile today,” the intelligence community’s top lawyer, Robert S. Litt, said to colleagues in an August e-mail, which was obtained by The Post, “it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.”
There is value, he said, in “keeping our options open for such a situation.”
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150916/15570332276/having-lost-debate-backdooring-encryption-intelligence-community-plans-to-wait-until-next-terrorist-attack.shtml [techdirt.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:06PM
The government just needs to hire a "service" that listens and translates for them. The government doesn't break the law and they grant retroactive immunity to any contractor that does. The contractor, in an effort to maximize profits, will outsource the translating to a group of people half a world away.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday November 19 2015, @09:42PM
Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne blessent mon cœur d’une langueur monotone.
There are all sorts of encryption. Who would have guessed that the above was a signal to the French Resistance that D-Day would begin in 24 hours?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday November 20 2015, @01:48AM
Les carottes sont cuites.
Je repete.
Les carottes sont cuites.
Yep. Carots being cooked signaled the biggest assault in history. The Nazis could hear it, but they hadn't waterboarded the codebook out of the Resistants.