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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: 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.