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THE NATIONAL SECURITY Agency knows Edward Snowden disclosed many of its innermost secrets when he revealed how aggressive its surveillance tactics are. What it doesn't know is just how much information the whistle-blower took with him when he left.
For all of its ability to track our telecommunications, the NSA seemingly has little clue exactly what documents, or even how many documents, Snowden gave to the media. Like most large organizations, the NSA had tools in place to track who accessed what data and when. But Snowden, a system administrator, apparently was able to cover his tracks by deleting or modifying the log files that tracked that access.
An Estonian company called Guardtime says it has a solution to that: using the same ideas that underpin the digital currency Bitcoin, the company says it can ensure no one can alter digital files, not even an organization's most senior executives or IT managers. The idea is to stop the next Snowden in his tracks by making it impossible to tamper with data, such as the NSA log files, in secret.
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Friday June 05 2015, @12:29AM
Sounds like a great idea. Until they realize that such a system would hold those senior execs & IT managers to the same standards as everyone else.
What they really wants is everyone else's data, but the ability to ghost theirs at will.
(Score: 1) by rliegh on Friday June 05 2015, @01:25AM
The first thing I thought of when I read the summary was the Watergate Tapes. The absolutely last thing authorities want is an unalterable digital trail which can be used against them.
I just tell 'em the truth and they think it's trolling!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday June 05 2015, @01:27AM
quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
And who reads the unfalsifiable above-top-secret log?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by davester666 on Friday June 05 2015, @07:48AM
Did Snowden "tamper" with the data? As in, modify it in some way.
Everything I have read indicates that he copied it.
So, this would help in verifying that the information someone copies is legit.
Excellent.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 05 2015, @01:22PM
He modified the logs of the accessed data it seems.
Kind of "vi /var/log/messages"..
(Score: 2) by Snow on Friday June 05 2015, @02:51PM
No, I think the idea is that you take a copy of the log file, hash it, and then insert the hash into the blockchain. The integrity of the .log file can then be verified against the hash signature in the blockchain to confirm that it hasn't been altered. This would make it impossible to cover your tracks by altering .log files after the fact without it being detected.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Friday June 05 2015, @02:51PM
Ugh, just reread your comment... Sorry, I think I need more coffee.
(Score: 1) by Absolutely.Geek on Friday June 05 2015, @12:46AM
Do they reall want the defense of pluasable deniability removed?
NSA: "I don't know what you are talking about"
Lawyer: "But you accessed the file on your computer, had it open for 25 minutes and then accessed other documentation related to the file. How can you claim that you don't don't know what I am talking about?"
NSA: "Ummmm.......shit!"
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Friday June 05 2015, @12:59AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 05 2015, @01:04AM
But... if the log deamon can modify them, then the problem becomes "How can I impersonate/substitute a log daemon?" - maybe a bit harder for a sysadm, but I don't think its impossible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @07:40PM
you realize how much bandwidth a bitlog system would waste, and consider this on a high demand, high reliability network like is being discussed. All you need to do to slow this down is get a few key systems spamming out log entries and the entire network would grind to a halt. And if it DIDN'T it would give you time to alter the logs before they were resubmitted to the network. It might not be 100 percent foolproof, but it certainly could be within the realm of acceptable odds for corporate/government espionage agencies.
And that is assuming the malicious actor doesn't have either legitimate or illegitimate access to enough nodes to forge log entries, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Which could make it very easy to take out one's enemies by claiming the unbreakable (but broken) logfiling system irrefutably proved that a particular person had done illegal accesses, when an entirely different person had done so to get rid of them.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 05 2015, @01:04AM
Snowden was able to do what he did because a system that was already in place at other locations was not implemented in the NSA's Hawaii location where Snowden pilfered the data.
Of all the fucking places, Hawaii. Even scum like me know that Hawaii is a nexus for Asian (okay, Chinese) intelligence and their attempts to infiltrate their American counterparts through hot women wearing way too much red who ask too many questions and yet are good at lying in wait, plying dumb pedophiliac White men with alcohol and then luring those same suckers into bed with their tight little yellow bodies.
All it takes is a few drinks and dips of the wick and even the most hardened (heh) and patriotic security personnel are biddy-bub blabbin' all kinds of little operational details for the Yellow menace in the red uniform to consider. Of all the fucking places in the world to neglect the security upgrade, the NSA neglected fucking Hawaii?!
Jesus Christ, if Snowden was an inside job, it was because all of the NSA took a cue from Google and hired all-Chinese senior staff.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 05 2015, @01:48AM
I am a fan, man... Being correct and outrageous all in one!
The NSA fracked up, and probably not the best location to do it, and WHAM, YOU let the dogs out in that special way you have.
Thumbs up... Keep posting: I'll keep reading! B-)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 05 2015, @01:49AM
Oh, no. Of course they didn't negled to fuck Hawaii, they fucked it properly, even deeper and longer than other places.
So properly that, post coitus, they were too exhausted to upgrade its security.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday June 05 2015, @01:27AM
Tor Browser Bundle [torproject.org].
It's not like my posts are anonymous nor private but I figure that my encrypted traffic will help protect those of others.
Some sites don't work well with Tor, some don't work at all, any site that uses Cloudflare will present me with a captcha.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @01:57AM
Are you the AC who is always hating on gewg_?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 05 2015, @02:19AM
TFS describes how Snowden would have been identified AFTER THE FACT, and proceeds to suggest that all of the data that Snowden accessed would then be identified. But, it wouldn't have stopped him from accessing and copying data in the first place. And, I'm less sure than the authors that they would have identified all the data that he downloaded. Did Snowden not suggest that he used login credentials that were not his own? I would have to go search for that bit of information, but it seems like Snowden mostly used his own login credentials, but at other times used office identifying credentials, or shared credentials. If that is the case, the NSA still couldn't be certain which data he took.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 05 2015, @03:41PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by SlimmPickens on Friday June 05 2015, @02:24AM
Snowden, a system administrator, apparently was able to cover his tracks by deleting or modifying the log files that tracked that access.
Glenn Greenwald's book says that Snowden left a trail of "digital breadcrumbs" so they would know what he took. He called them incompetent for not being able to follow it.
(Score: 2, Funny) by bandrami on Friday June 05 2015, @03:17AM
Which is -- if used properly -- able to keep someone like Snowden from doing what he did. If the NSA doesn't even eat its own dog food here I really doubt they'd use forward security for document transfers properly, either.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by trimtab on Friday June 05 2015, @04:35AM
Signing blocks of messages for validation as untampered is part of PGP from the early 90s.
This is nothing, but PR for suckers.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 05 2015, @01:30PM
The catch is how do you sign the signature of the previous log without that signature also being compromised.
(Score: 2, Informative) by trimtab on Friday June 05 2015, @07:31PM
If you are using text like in PGP, you simply chain multiple new signatures as you add data to log and sign all the previous log data with later signatures that include the previous signatures. It could all be in text files with marks and signatures at whatever rate you are willing to use CPU to create the signatures.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @06:59AM
Because the people in power are so f*cking scared of democracy (rule of the people) that they will do anything to prevent the people from knowing what they are doing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @09:43AM
Doesn't stop someone taking records who doesn't care about being logged that such transactions have taken place. Might reduce the window of opportunity if anyone's actually monitoring and acting upon such logs realtime as opposed to logs merely being collected for an after-the-event analysis.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday June 05 2015, @10:33AM
they reason the NSA doesn't know what Ed Snowden took is NOT because he tampered with access logs, it's because he made it look like he copied just about everything. so when your log says you copied an entire ocean, you dont know what glass of water he actually copied.