Saturday, March 06, 2010

Brilliant, Einstein...

The program is designed to look for indicators of cyber attacks by digging into all Internet communications, including the contents of emails, according to the declassified summary. [More]
You don't have to be a genius to know that only a tyrannical government would ignore the Fourth Amendment. And yeah, the lefties are right when they point out much of this was initiated by the "Vote Freedom First President." Some of us were warning then, to little or no avail, it seems.

But their defense of it now is telling. And points to exactly what we warned against.

7 comments:

TJP said...

This excuse only works when people don't understand that anything with a public IP is being attacked 24/7 within seconds of being connected.

jon said...

i work with a navy contractor and i've heard the stories from NUWC and NRL about what their insane bureaucracy thinks makes for a secure network. "einstein" is just the result of this process:

1) learn how to use iptables, tcp wrappers, SSL, tcpflow, etc. from free sources on the internet, or just hire a kid and pay him 50k/yr to bring all that knowledge he's already got in.

2) pretend it was the bureaucracy's idea because they "recognized" the obvious need for security; get their names on the meeting notes and documentation. pay yourselves 120k/yr, plus that defined benefit plan.

3) blame someone else when the chinese get viruses into secure networks on USB sticks that were made in taiwan, despite the fact that you're the big honco planners with your names on all the docs. nobody gets fired or demoted.

they're just "selling" back the solutions to problems everyone else has already encountered. only, you're not allowed to not buy it, because then you might question why you surrender any tax dollars to pay for that bureaucratic nonsense in the first place. and, since it was government work, even if it's effective now, there's no hope for timely updates, plus you already overpaid.

this is the "standing army" that is killing our national defense, by making the actual workhorses, the enlisted men and officers, effectiveless. yet, even many of them continue to praise these governmental systems as if they were the military itself, if not close their eyes and ears to any and all critical inquiry -- as if this has anything to do with the success of military operations, rather than that success being in spite of it!

socialism is theoretically proscribed by the constitution. so how does this happen? cmdr. gillie has told us exactly how it cannot happen, because he has told us exactly what can happen, and i am in full agreement with him. i think he would also agree with me if i suggest additionally that someone, somewhere, has some explaining to do for allowing this to continue.

Anonymous said...

As far as emails are concerned:
Thunderbird with the Enigmail extension, working with an installed version of GnuPG with a 2048 bit key, and it's good luck to anyone who is trying to decrypt emails.

straightarrow said...

I'm assuming the "freedom first" president was GW Bush? If he is remembered for anything he will be remembered for his betrayal of the country with shit like the Patriot Act, and all the fellow traveling policies he put in place in the name of security.

The system of this nation was set to survive a bad or disloyal chief executive. No one man would ever be able to bring her to her knees. But we have now had four of these traitorous sonsofbitches in a row. G.H.W. Bush, W.J. Clinton, G.W. Bush, and now O.H. Obama.

If we manage to survive such a concerted and sustained onslaught without a great deal of bloodshed in the interest of regaining our republic, it will be a miracle.

Anonymous said...

"Thunderbird with the Enigmail extension, working with an installed version of GnuPG with a 2048 bit key, and it's good luck to anyone who is trying to decrypt emails."

If you're running all this on Windows, the weakest link in the chain is not your crypto, it is Windows. The only people reading your encrypted mail are you, the organized computer crime syndicates who installed the virus controlling your machine, and the spy agencies who bought their technology. Do you carry a cell phone, and use a credit/debit card for a rebate with every purchase? They probably get better location and habit tracking data from that than from a parolee tracking ankle bracelet. Huge commercial marketing companies do their data crunching work for them.

Keeping the contents of the mail secret isn't sufficient; knowing who your mail goes to identifies your personal support network. They know who you will run to. They know who are your friends, to lean on. Any small percentage of the population can be vilified and removed even if they are blameless, the Germans proved that with the Jews. If they really want you, your whole personal support network can all be rounded up and neutralized.

If you want to get somewhere, you need a communication network where both the message contents, and the pattern of communications, is secret.

PeaceableGuy said...

One step at a time, Anonymous.

Getting the raw data out of the hands of those who have no business with it is step one; working out a new personal network communications methodology ala The Onion Router comes later.

Anonymous said...

"Getting the raw data out of the hands of those who have no business with it is step one"

My claim is that the network of who you talk to is more interesting than the content of your messages. Bad People don't need the content of your messages, they can just plant drugs and make something up. But if they can't tell who you talk to, the rest of your network is safe. Likewise, you are safer when someone else in your network is squeezed.

"working out a new personal network communications methodology ala The Onion Router comes later."

Step one is using the existing TOR; running a duplicate TOR or improving it comes later.