Internet security and encryption is no longer safe

[Youbetternot]

American and British spy agencies can thwart internet security and encryption

As reporters at the New York Times, the Guardian and ProPublica dig deeper into the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, new and disturbing revelations continue to be made. Two programs, dubbed Bullrun (NSA) and Edgehill (GCHQ), have just come to light, that focus on circumventing or breaking the security and encryption tools used across the internet. The effort dwarfs the $20 million Prismprogram that simply gobbled up data. Under the auspices of "Sigint (signals intelligence) enabling" in a recent budget request, the NSA was allocated roughly $255 million dollars this year alone to fund its anti-encryption program.

The agencies' efforts are multi-tiered, and start with a strong cracking tool. Not much detail about the methods or software are known, but a leaked memo indicates that the NSA successfully unlocked "vast amounts" of data in 2010. By then it was already collecting massive quantities of data from taps on internet pipelines, but much of it was safely protected by industry standard encryption protocols. Once that wall fell, what was once simply a torrent of scrambled ones and zeros, became a font of "exploitable" information. HTTPS, VoIP and SSL are all confirmed to have been compromised through Bullrun, though, it appears that some solutions to the NSA's "problem" are less elegant than others. In some cases a super computer and simple brute force are necessary to peel back the layers of encryption.

 

Read moar here: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/05/american-and-british-spy-agencies-can-thwart-encryption/

[coen113]

cant we just fire the NSA? they spy on their own people, and others

[Ethnod]

not happy but not surprised. I've owned a tin foil hat for years now

[Camul]

Am I the only person that doesn't care about the whole NSA thing? I don't have anything to hide, so what's the problem?

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Am I the only person that doesn't care about the whole NSA thing? I don't have anything to hide, so what's the problem?

 

No you're not, I feel the same. I've done nothing wrong and I highly doubt my life is interesting enough for them to care about.

[Camul]

No you're not, I feel the same. I've done nothing wrong and I highly doubt my life is interesting enough for them to care about.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person that isn't completley overreacting then.

[qwertywarrior]

Am I the only person that doesn't care about the whole NSA thing? I don't have anything to hide, so what's the problem?

if their was more people like you

fascism would flourish

people died for my freedoms

im not giving them away for the sake of security

[Ethnod]

Am I the only person that doesn't care about the whole NSA thing? I don't have anything to hide, so what's the problem?

 

3 kids your age are in jail or on trail in the states for making jokes online or in 1 case doing an "artistic/social" experiment. No actual threats were made nor did these kids actually do anything other than type something. 

Just because you think you are doing nothing wrong does not mean that it can be interpreted another way. Nor does it mean that you wont want your privacy in 10 years

[totjup5]

cant we just fire the NSA? they spy on their own people, and others

We could if America still had a functioning democracy, but the American people really have no say in the matter anymore. 

[LAwLz]

I am more worried about the potential exploits. If someone were to compromise these backdoors, they could gain access to basically EVERYTHING you have sent. Bank details, phone numbers, who you have talked to and when, medical records, your web history and so on. So yeah, it might not just be the NSA who knows everything about you.

 

Secondly, the whole "I got nothing to hide" argument is stupid. A study showed that the average UK citizen breaks the law several times a day since there are so many laws. Hell, even my profile picture is breaking the law and judging by previous lawsuits, I could have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for it. Actually, everyone in this thread is breaking the law since your browser automatically caches my profile picture, which is copyrighted by KyoAni.

Just because you think that you aren't doing anything illegal doesn't mean you are actually obeying the law, as I have clearly demonstrated with my profile pic.

 

This basically means that the whole Internet is undermined and could collapse at any second if someone found out about the exploits.

 

 

Edit: Also, if someone manages to exploit these backdoors and decide to release guides on how to do so, then everyone could get access to all your information. I could steal money from your bank account if I wanted, and so could anyone else who followed the guide. I could look up your address and medical records, maybe your web history and much much more. Basically, if the encryption on the Internet was suddenly decryptable by random people, the Internet would become useless. We would have to go back to using papers for almost everything. Online stores would stop working, all your money on the bank would become useless, everyone would know everything about you and so on. This is one of the worst things to happen to the Internet ever.

[qwertywarrior]

snip

wow

hacking the NSA

never thought of that

its a goldmine i wonder how one would do it

[Ethnod]

wow

hacking the NSA

never thought of that

its a goldmine i wonder how one would do it

 

Hey, I'm back awake so... eh???

 

 

Ooohhh, nvm... 

 

What LAwLz is referring to is that IF the NSA is doing it and IF they are organising with corporations and standard organisations to make cracking these encryptions easier then they are in effect making a back door or at least weakening the armour and if there is a weakness then someone will find it and the cracking stuff will be easier over all. Not specifically hacking the NSA (PS hi NSA, we are talking about theoretical stuff here, so piss off )

Edited September 5, 2013 by Ethnod

[qwertywarrior]

Hey, I'm back awake so... eh???

 ill sleep in 10 min unless something new and shiny shows up

[nightlitezzz]

I thought it was never safe?

[Camul]

if their was more people like you

fascism would flourish

people died for my freedoms

im not giving them away for the sake of security

 

Just becasue I don't care about the NSA spying on me doesn't mean that I'm for all of the "shitty" things that govenrments do. I just don't see what the big deal with this is. I spend my days on YouTube, playing games, chatting to my friends and watching guys stick their dicks in each other. I fail to see how the NSA spying on that is going to affect me.

[qwertywarrior]

Just becasue I don't care about the NSA spying on me doesn't mean that I'm for all of the "shitty" things that govenrments do. I just don't see what the big deal with this is. I spend my days on YouTube, playing games, chatting to my friends and watching guys stick their dicks in each other. I fail to see how the NSA spying on that is going to affect me.

so  you dont agree with what a government is doing and dont care

 

such a good citizen

 

 

people watch a snow ball rolling down and wait for the disaster

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted

things like this happen when we give governments too much power

this is just the start

i guess its true

history will always repeat itself

[Camul]

so  you dont agree with what a government is doing and dont care

 

such a good citizen

 

 

people watch a snow ball rolling down and wait for the disaster

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted

things like this happen when we give governments too much power

this is just the start

i guess its true

history will always repeat itself

 

Obviously I'd prefer my privacy, but I'm not really that upset over this entire thing. I've got bigger things in my life to worry about anyway.

[AndThenThereWas1]

I have given up on the idiocy of some people. When someone says they have nothing to hide so they dont care, i just face palm. Just because you have nothing to hide doesn't mean there isn't something that can be used against you. Think back to 1942 and Executive order 9066. Ill use this as my example, only change is its modern day. So you have nothing to hide right? But lets say you're Japanese American and the NSA collects all these emails and phone calls where you talk about being Japanese. Also during this time the US has hacked Japan and in response Japan attacked the US. A war started and due to mass war hysteria and reactions to Japan's attack the president signs Executive order 9066, which allows local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones," from which "any or all persons may be excluded."(You read that right. This order did give the US power to place any persons, not just Japanese, into these war camps) So, the US applies this order to all Japanese Americans on the west coast and you hear of this and so you quickly get rid of anything that says you're Japanese, but unfortunately for you, you didn't care if the NSA copied your emails and phone calls. Now the presidential order allows the government to go through these emails and say "oh look we have our selves a Japanese person and here is the proof, he said it himself in this email". So you sir, who didn't have anything to hide, will now live out the rest of your days in a concentration camp.

As crazy as this sounds, it was legal to relocate any US citizen to a relocation camp until 1976.

So is it really a question of whether you have something to hide? What if the next time(and yes history tends to repeat itself) people are targeted based on these key words: "anti US governemnt", "pro snowden", "Anti-NSA spying", "Canadian"(lol jk)...

[qwertywarrior]

Obviously I'd prefer my privacy, but I'm not really that upset over this entire thing.

most people watch the horizon

and try to figure what they are looking at

 

if u went back to 2000 and said that the US will make billion dollar data centers to spy on its citizens and break many important laws without retribution

they would have called u a conspiracy theorist and laugh at you

[Skyhawk Delta]

The more about the NSA is revealed, the more helpless I feel.  Make no mistake, it is the goal of these organizations to eliminate privacy completely.  They way they celebrate their encryption cracking is disturbing.  They want to see everything.  How the information is used is anybody's guess.  What scares me most is that I don't think that anything can really be done about it, because so many people buy into the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" fallacy.

[lhikary]

lol the usa is goverment is getting as scared as the israel gov lmfao
in the end Muslims always wins

[exanup]

"Enemy of the State" < This movie was released about 14 years ago. I watched it about a week ago (by my friend's recommendation). An excellent example showing a congressman abusing the power against innocent citizen. I tried to relate the matter in that movie to the real world and I was like "Well...... oh shit!!"

[rashdanml]

There has never been such a thing as "perfect security", and even if there was, human beings are far too easy to exploit, or it's simply a matter of time.

 

It's a sad reality that through fear and paranoia, humanity will destroy itself long before the world ends of natural causes.

[TopWargamer]

How I legitimately reacted.

 

[yhatz17]

nothing is safe forever.. even if NSA doesnt cracked it, someone else will.. someday.. and that someone might be worst than the goverment itself..