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posted by martyb on Monday June 15 2015, @03:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the sylvester-vs.-tweety-bird dept.

According to TechDirt:

It's beginning to look like a US-based encrypted communications platform may be headed for a Lavabit-esque future. As we're well aware, agencies like the FBI and NSA are firmly opposed to encrypted communications, which is something Surespot -- a text-messaging service -- offers.

Surespot has been in the news lately, thanks to terrorist groups utilizing encrypted services to keep their communications secret. UK's Channel Four looked into Surespot and found that 115 "ISIS-linked" people "appear" to have used the service in the "past six months." Because UK 4 wasn't able to get this information from Surespot directly (because Surespot doesn't store personally identifiable information or users' communications), it has only been able to infer this from messages on social media services that refer to Surespot.

What this means in terms of terrorists "flocking" to encrypted apps is still very vague, but there's no doubt any additional layers of secrecy are welcomed by those wishing to hide their communications. What 115 ISIS-linked users means in terms of an installed user base of at least 100,000 is also open for discussion, but it's quite obvious there are plenty of non-terrorists using the service as well.

[..]

George Maschke of Antipolygraph.org has been periodically sending emails to Surespot, unofficially acting as the service's warrant canary. For several months, his questions have been answered. But as of May 25th, he has still received no response to his canned questions.

There's good reason to believe this is true. A recent plea agreement by a 17-year-old Virginia native charged with providing material support to ISIS (via instructions on how to use Bitcoin to provide anonymous donations) specifically mentions Surespot.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday June 16 2015, @01:26AM

    by edIII (791) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @01:26AM (#196694)

    The answer is a firm, and absolutely perfect, "no you can't keep bad people out". Such a wish is logically precluded, and often accompanied by the realization that a true loss of power and control must occur.

    Any technological answer must be socially agnostic if you take my meaning. Both "good" and "bad" are judgement calls, and all too often, are decided by cultures, and those in charge of them. What's good and bad again? I have a feeling we could argue about this forever, and that's where government wants you trapped, IMHO. It's the only way to successfully crap up the logical arguments with appeals to emotion. "Oh noes! The pedophiles!". Yeah, a child getting buggered is pretty damn bad, but then again.... ISIS selling little girls into sexual slavery every day is an even bigger one. We can all agree that amongst all cultures (nearly), that sexual activities with children are prohibited. However, to prevent all instances of pedophilia are we willing to sacrifice everything else? The first initial reaction is, "at all costs", but what really sucks is when you need to stand back and say, "ummmm... yeah, but Frank, just what are those costs again? Just so we all know". We can become ISIS trying to fight ISIS all too easily.

    The answer, and it's not perfect, is the following:

    1. It's far too dangerous to allow unsecured communications, as unsecured communications can be viewed by all Actors, or groups of Actors, some of which are possessing massive power and information asymmetry WRT to the average Actor.
    2. All communications must become secured communications beyond the ability of any Actor, other than those involved, to decrypt the communications.
    3. When tempted to weaken security because of any one smaller group of undesirable Actors, for all reasons considered Good, Bad, or Ugly, please see #1.

    Now, my far-too-dangerous-argument was difficult to use historically due to the blinding effect of the Tin-foil hat most days, but thankfully many have been able to take off that hat when speaking about the dangers of mass surveillance :D

    It's just a fact now, and no longer disputed that is in actuality fairly dangerous to let governments have access to all data. We can see that what the government has, just about everyone else can have too for a price. Given that so much of it is privatized anyways, we can basically just assume that corporations are battling each other for control and use of this data as well. Which is not a stretch given how forcefully Big Data has exploded in the last few years, and how it has demonstrated value to both corporations and governments for its ability to mine large collections of data for predictions.

    We've entered a brand new world where bad Actors such as criminals and governments (kinda redundant) have forcefully, and painfully, reminded us of our power and information asymmetry. Governments can use this to abuse people, and bored teenagers can use it to send SWAT teams to people homes. As more examples (humbling and crushing instances of careers ending on Facebook/Twitter) of privacy as foundational security for life arise, more people will understand that everyone has something to hide, and everyone is guilty in the eyes of somebody. Or in other words, beware all ye who enter here. You shall only find judgement, and nothing else.

    I'm afraid you need to accept that this really is an all-or-nothing proposition. In order for you to find your protection, you will need to accept that all undesirable communications become protected. Or, in short, all communications become fairly indistinguishable noise till they reach their destinations, no exceptions. Not nobody... not nohow.... and it must be this way because the greatest threats we face are not from Actors that transmit child pornography, but from much more powerful and scary Actors instead. Who are we trying to be safe and silent from again? Why? Hint: It's not the pedophiles and their pictures...

    As an American, I'm pretty sure my Founding Fathers never even conceived of a world where the British could be recording every conversation in every tavern, making a copy of every parchment, being able to see Paul Revere's Tweets as he made his nighttime ride. If they could have seen what was coming, I'm firmly under the belief they would have outlawed most data collection practices, and strongly made efforts to both enumerate and protect rights of privacy and anonymity. They didn't, not because they weren't important, only because they were considered too fantastic or the "realm of Gods". Ben Franklin was just starting to work out electricity, much less its ability to transmit copies of his notes!

    We're having these conversations now, and then juxtaposing them against our current needs for "security" and justice. Although, in truth, I'm far darker on just what our needs are leaning towards thinly veiled bigotry and other such mental failures. I believe that we are finding out that the government was able to experiment with privacy and anonymity while were sleeping and didn't understand them properly, and that we've suffered greatly for it. I'm off the mind that we need to protect ourselves against the biggest Actors causing the most harm to our freedoms and economies, and quite frankly, pedophiles and small time criminals are an order of magnitude less important at least.

    All of that being said, I would agree to a key-escrow proposition.... if and only if .... the keys were jointly held by 12 other Americans that I don't know. Government wants to access my data it requires my fellow citizens to open up. In general, I think the technology that is destroying us right now, could be used to introduce a 4th check and balance in the U.S system - The Citizens. I don't trust judges since they can be bought off. I don't trust district attorneys because they can be bought off, and are not impartial (they only care about winning, not truth). Likewise, my feelings about Congress and Senators don't need to be reiterated here (it involves bondage with donkeys). An average every day American? Far more likely to enforce the Constitution if given the chance. That's about the only idea I have, which as you notice, is still isolating and greatly weakening the powers of the strongest Actors and pushing the control to the weakest Actors by design.

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday June 16 2015, @06:56PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @06:56PM (#196984) Journal

    My approximate idea was say a service that didn't had the capability to transmit images for the sake of argument. That would make the service less attractive to CP traders, but it would not exclude them or rely on anyone making judgments. I know from a strict technical point enough text messages will make a picture possible and so on. The early internet required technical skills so only such people did interact on the network and so on. But it didn't really forbid anyone.

    It's that way subtle and passive gate guarding I'm thinking of.

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2015, @09:55PM

    by Bot (3902) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @09:55PM (#197050) Journal

    > We can become ISIS trying to fight ISIS all too easily

    That's the goal of terrorism. Terror has always been the tool of those in power, from Herod, to Vlad, to the way the French revolution submitted readily to emperor Napoleon, to black and red terrorists in the 70s, some of whom, strangely, are nowadays more integrated in society than war veterans, to ISIS. Of course they don't need big conspiracies, like you don't need a big conspiracy to inspire dogs for illegal dog fights. You just starve the lot and help the angrier.

    When I see terrorism that is not an emanation, or a great ally, to those already in power, I'll let you know.

    The only way to fight terrorism is to prevent ANY fallout from those acts, other than punishing those involved as ordinary criminals. Because when political or legislative fallout can occur, terrorist acts become palatable for somebody.

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