Posts by WatAWorld 1360 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Feb 2012
The article says the NSA originated the mission, so maybe they came up with the name.
Many (not all) in the USA pretty much think all of Europe is socialist.
I mean, even the UK has the NHS, socialists dream as far as many Americans are concerned.
Would GCHQ formally admitting they did this be proof?
I mean, there is that Commonwealth Conference Snowden said the bugged, against just slides.
But after the slides didn't GCHQ pretty much admit the spied for economic advantage?
It is GCHQ, not the NSA, foreign industrial espionage and spying for economic interests is inside their public charter.
The NSA's General Alexander has basically admitted stuff from Snowden's slides too, PRISM, gathering metadata on US citizens and so on.
The USA has long advocated we blacklist China from communications projects because China might do what the USA and UK did.
We had House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers traveling the world urging companies not to do business with the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei as a matter of national security.
From news section of The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-at-risk-from-chinese-firm-u-s-warns-1.1213967
"Allowing Huawei near any part of that network, says the chairman of the U.S. Intelligence Committee, could be courting disaster.
"This is your personal data. This could be your medical records, your financial records, everything that you hold dear that you think is locked away in a safe place on your computer…" The key word there is new secure network; I would not have the faith and confidence." Rogers says the information about Huawei gathered by his committee "puts at risk consumer data, and puts at risk security interests certainly of the United States, and I would argue of Canada as well."
Another quote from another American, Michelle K. Van Cleave:
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/chinese-firm-s-canadian-contracts-raise-security-fears-1.1157281
"The former head of U.S. counter-espionage says the Harper government is putting North American security at risk by allowing a giant Chinese technology company to participate in major Canadian telecommunications projects.
"In an exclusive interview in Washington, Michelle K. Van Cleave told CBC News the involvement of Huawei Technologies in Canadian telecom networks risks turning the information highway into a freeway for Chinese espionage against both the U.S. and Canada."
So the USA should understand when we blacklist them.
And imagine the outcry in the USA if we did this to them.
They would be screaming, recalling diplomats, canceling trade deals, and increasing the rate with which the violate trade agreements they signed with us.
Only the USA has the budget, morality and easily subverted head offices that allow it to subvert so many suppliers.
The EU has no choice. The EU must simply blacklist US-based companies from bidding on communications contracts. We need EU-based suppliers at any cost.
Otherwise the EU and national governments might as well give up on security and go with the low bidding Chinese suppliers.
" The Bad Astronomer has a full takedown on this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/09/20/et_claims_of_alien_life_in_earth_s_atmosphere_are_unfounded.html "
Excellent article and worded in the style of The Reg. I wonder if The Reg would consider articles from him.
One sample would be enough, IF they could culture their sample and make it reproduce, thus (1) proving it was alive and (2) creating enough of it we could analyze it to be certain it was not of terrestrial origin.
There are a lot of obscure uncatalogued micro-organisms on earth. And I think the likelihood is that micro-organisms within 10,000 km of earth are from earth. Volcanoes, aircraft, lightening
Something from space should have radically different genetics, or more likely a replacement for DNA.
There is a lot more than just volcanoes to carry tiny stuff past earth's ability to keep it close.
From NASA:
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/lightning/types/
"Red Sprites can appear directly above an active thunderstorm as a large but weak flash. They usually happen at the same time as powerful positive CG lightning strokes. They can extend up to 60 miles from the cloud top. Sprites are mostly red and usually last no more than a few seconds, and their shapes are described as resembling jellyfish, carrots, or columns. Because sprites are not very bright, they can only be seen at night. They are rarely seen with the human eye, so they are most often imaged with highly sensitive cameras.
"Blue jets emerge from the top of the thundercloud, but are not directly associated with cloud-to-ground lightning. They extend up in narrow cones fanning out and disappearing at heights of 25-35 miles. Blue jets last a fraction of a second and have been witnessed by pilots.
"Elves are rapidly expanding disk-shaped regions of glowing that can be up to 300 miles across. They last less than a thousandth of a second, and occur above areas of active cloud to ground lightning. Scientists believe elves result when an energetic electromagnetic pulse extends up into the ionosphere. Elves were discovered in 1992 by a low-light video camera on the Space Shuttle."
I don't see how Apple could stop the phone being re-flashed by someone with the skill and the equipment.
As with bank vaults and any other security feature, physical or cyber, it is never 100% against someone with enough resources and enough time.
What happens in the physical world is that the local police react and limit the time and resources available. But the multinational nature of the cyber world has so far prevented this there.
It will be interesting to see how much effort is required to circumvent Apples locking.
Many phone thieves are people doing it for themselves or their friends, not organized gangs with access to technical assistance.
It would be nice if Apples lock can at least keep them out, it would be a big step.
Yes ideally the lock will keep out even skilled hackers, but the hacking community thrives so openly due to lack of international law enforcement against computer crime, so I don't see that happening with Apple, Google or MS. With no law enforcement and essentially unlimited time, hackers will eventually break any tools anyone can dream up.
We can safely ignore China. Yes they won't invade us or take our territory.
The countries near it cannot. Militarily it has been rather aggressive, even asserting that territory on the other side of neighbouring island countries is Chinese territory.
Very concerning for the Philippines and Japan.
"Re: just sour grapes
But, but ... we're still a world leader in banking ."
And we have that "Special Relationship" with the USA that Tony Blair sacrificed so many lives for.
As an expat living in Canada and coming into contact with people from all over the world, England is one of the least racist places.
Yes England has some awful racists (and the comment about India not having people who could afford snob goods like iPhones was silly), but racists in England make up a smaller percentage of the population than most countries. (I am using the generic definition of racists, people who think their race is better than the others, and using the non-US definition of race, meaning race includes not just color.)
People immigrating, they are going to places where they will be foreigners. They choose countries or regions of countries where racism is less, and if they make mistakes they leave.
"The difference is that Google succeeds, not because there is no alternative, but because"
There were always alternatives to MS.
Apple pre-dates MS, so you always had Apple as an alternative.
Unix pre-dates MS.
There were CPM and a half-dozen other competitors to MS in the operating system marketplace.
And writing a new OS was not so difficult back in 1980, console makers did it. You had that as an alternative too.
For OTHER PRODUCTS, Wordperfect, Word Star and Lotus 123 were competitors in that pre-dated MS.
"The only reason you're not complaining about Apple is they're a luxury goods maker. Customers of luxury goods makers queue up to be ripped off, that's the whole point. So nobody is accusing Apple of anticompetitive behaviour because they're simply not involved in markets for essential products. Their products are unless you're a graphic designer completely superfluous."
"If Google was like Microsoft it would buy Jolla and strangle it, threaten Samsung until Tizen was abandonned, and would never have let anyone use Android without Google services."
If Google was like Apple you'd need to pay big bucks for Google-branded computer with a Core i5 in order to access it.
If Google was like Apple it would have fanbois saying how great those Core i5 computers were.
Apple did far more to stifle competition than MS ever did.
There would be no MS is Apple had not worked so hard at stifling competition.
Apple didn't license its software, er huh, Wozniak's software, MS did.
Apple heavily restricts what add-ons can carry its label, MS is much lighter.
He said it did, past tense. The relevant point was the tense not the spelling.
You also have to remember than India has 1.27 billion people.
So 19 times the UK population.
The wealthiest 5% of Indian are the same size market as the entire UK. The wealthiest 10% present a market twice the size of the UK.
"Which is easier to do by attacking the endpoints rather than trying to decrypt data captured from the wire."
Which we used to think easier to do by attacking the endpoints rather than trying to decrypt data captured from the wire, but which we now know is easier to do by simply decrypting the wire traffic using the certificates that the NSA and GCHQ have copies of.
Why in the world would any one assume that everyone of the 20,000 people at the NSA have higher moral standards than J. Edgar Hoover?
Or you do not know about former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and his secret files on politicians, business leaders, academics, journalists and celebrities.
The files he used to keep himself in office, to suppress free speech, to promote racism, to keep the feds of the Italian mafia, etc.
If world + dog has the encryption key then there is no cost to decryption.
So apparently if you are using a certificate registry, paid or free, there is no cost.
And if you use secret keys that only you and the receiver know (no registry) they can still get at your stuff by backdoors.
If there is a back door to your encryption software or your operating system that can capture the data before encryption or after decryption, then again there is no cost to decryption.
That is the new information here -- there is no cost to decryption. Not for the Five Eyes. Not for any other agency what has been given or has stolen the Five Eyes secrets.
And your bank and social networking sites can accept that?
Or just that is what you encrypt stuff with that only you use, stuff that stays on your computers?
If you are worried about them getting it off of your computer -- if you are that kind of target that they would access your computer -- they can get it off before it is encrypted or after it is decrypted.
Good question.
Almost all the undersea cables between the USA and continental Europe go through the UK.
There is a small one that goes north through Iceland and bypasses the UK and there are a small number that go through Spain. But by far most of the bandwidth is through the UK.
Something is legal therefore it is moral???
That kind of reasoning is how we got things as outrageous s the Nazi holocaust and Stalinist starvation of 4 million Ukrainians.
Also, if you have been following the news at all, you know that it is illegal to design a security system that they cannot break. You have to give them the keys if they ask. And you cannot tell anyone they asked or that you handed the keys over.
Try to keep up.
We don't know if all flavours of TLS are compromised. Maybe we have been stuck at SSL, TLS 1 and TLS 1.1 to enable cheap decryption by the government.
But yeah, probably they're all broken. At a minimum probably all the certificates have been shared with or stolen by our governments.
And probably from there shared with major friendly governments and stolen by major hostile governments.
And if the Russian government has them, how hard would it be for the Russian mobs to get their hands on them? (Same for China and Japan.)
With no security for the certificates and keys no encryption algorithm can work.
We'd be back to needing leased lines or dial-up (and hope that the teleco switches are not bugged, but of course they will be).
1. If they have a back door or if they have one of the encryption keys, then no effort needed and they can do mass decryption of vast quantities of web traffic.
2. Using SSL on web pages does not raise our profile much, so https is better than http. Plus small time crooks don't have the ability to break SSL, at least so far as we know.
3. But for email and instant messages, encryption is rare and hard to set up.
Using encryption in an email would red flag a person or organization.
There is a reason the espionage community, the military, Apple users, diamond exchanges, banks, mints, etc. use security by obscurity. It simply works most of the time, and it does not need to work all of the time.
4. We now know our encryption is not working.
Using broken encryption has no benefit over using no encryption, plus it red flags you.
Using broken encryption is like putting a red sign on your warehouse "vault lock broken" -- it tells everyone you are likely to have something inside that justifies the expense and inconvenience of using a vault, and that the vault is broken.
5. However, while the encryption is definitely broken as far as the US, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and Israeli governments are concerned, and while it is almost definitely broken as far as the Russian, Chinese, Indian and Saudi Arabian governments are concerned, and while it might be broken as far as half the governments in the world and the biggest crime syndicates are concerned (Russian mob and their customers), it might not be broken as far as small time crooks are concerned.
6. So encryption of email, using TOR, etc. is counterproductive if you are a political, academic, business or technology leader that the spy agencies might target for political or corporate espionage.
It is also counter productive for future leaders.
But for those of us who have no hope of ever being important or useful, encryption of email still has a benefit.
But then those of use who are neither important or useful have nothing to steal, so why go to the bother? Just don't email your credit card numbers ever.
So the reason better encryption standards have not been adopted by websites is to make it easy to spy on us.
Make it easy for foreign governments to spy on us. Make it easier for the US to spy on Brits. Make it easy for the UK to spy on Americans.
Make it easy to spy on everyone everywhere.
Make it easier for everyone to spy on us. Make it easy for every major government in the world to spy on everyone.
"Once the heavy shielded ship is at high speed, send the crew on a ferry ship to board it."
Naturally you would plan the trajectory of the heavy shielded ship so that it would return close to earth when it was up to speed.
Space travel is based on unreasonable budgets.
Personally I think the headlines of "man cannot make round trip to Mars due to shielding" was just a headline grabber, NASA's attempt to get back in the headlines.
Seriously, the engineers there really cannot think of a dozen ways to get the shielding?
Just off the top of my head here are four thoughts on how to get the shielding. I think method (d) is particularly interesting. Probably someone at NASA has already thought of it, but if not, it might be a good starting point. (a) to (c) are less complicated.
a) Gather up the space junk up and mash it into shielding.
b) Normally manned space vehicles recycle water, so they do not need vast quantities of it. Water for shielding is discussed as a good idea, except for the weight of getting it up there.
So why not condense water vapour from the upper atmosphere? It is part way up there already.
c) Send a robotic space vehicle to tether an iron-type asteroid and use the asteroid as shielding.
d) Send the shielding up in pieces over many months to be assembled in space.
(i) The problem is that economical acceleration in space is slow acceleration (I am thinking of ion thrusters), and with heavy shielding you need economical acceleration.
(ii) The problem with slow acceleration is that it takes too long with humans on board. We humans want a short trip (weeks or months), not a trip that lasts years.
(iii) Therefore
- Accelerate the shielded ship on a trip around the sun, maybe a few times around the sun.
- Once the heavy shielded ship is at high speed, send the crew on a ferry ship to board it.
- The ferry ship can accelerate quickly because it is only being used to shuttle to the heavy shielded ship. It can quickly reach the speed of the heavy shielded ship and transfer the crew.
The gravity well is even lower on an asteroid.
A tame asteroid will not be constantly sucking small rocks onto its surface -- and through the skin of any space station on its surface -- at tens of thousands of miles per hour. A manned station on the moon would have to have a heavily armoured skin or be deep underground to reduce the number of collisions to an acceptable amount.
So as a way station or platform for more distant missions, an asteroid would be better. Shallower gravity well, fewer micrometors to deal with.
Space-based energy stations beaming energy back to an earth station.
1. Needs a geosynchronous orbit. The moons orbit is way too high.
2. If the aiming system has a glitch you fry everyone and everything for X miles around, where X might be hundreds.
3. It might be the reason mankind goes extinct before it sets up colonies elsewhere.
A. "There's no practical reason for going to Mars. But there is a practical reason for going to the moon."
I was around in the 1950s and 60s I always read they went to the moon because :
1. Spirit of competition:
a) to get there because the Soviets wanted to get there
b) to get there first because the Soviets wanted to get there first.
2. Technology driver/demonstrator: The goal could have been anything, just something to emotionally inspire taxpayers and engineers.
JFK, #1 that's what he said. And later presidents said variations of #2.
B. "And furthermore, if you really want to go somewhere, get out of this solar system."
As with the moon, to get there we started with unmanned sub-orbital missions, then orbital missions, then a manned suborbital mission, then manned orbital missions.
Step-by-step, develop some technology, test it out, develop the next step, test that.
C. In the big scheme of things scientifically, sending a man to the moon was a waste of money. Anything a man could do on the moon could be done more cheaply by equipment.
So far as I know, most of the geology and astronomy learned from the Apollo project was learned from the unmanned missions.
Moon rocks were brought back, but rather than being really useful as was predicted, they were so useless many of them got lost in drawers.
D. The moon is not going to crash into the earth. A large asteroid or comet some day will.
And there is your practical reason for doing what is currently being done.
E. As for astronomy and geology, there are the unmanned missions giving us way more bang for the buck than any manned mission.
F. All that is missing from today's NASA is the cowboy rocket hero aspect. That is true. NASA wants to compete with the US armed forces in charisma and propaganda -- but propaganda against US taxpayers is not a proper use of taxpayers money.
That is how I see it.
A fairer comparison would be the error rates of versions released in the last 2 or 3 years.
There is no excuse for a client running a version more than 3 years old. Older than that and it is the client's choice -- the client's fault.
MS keeps those really old versions of IE around to keep corporate customers happy, not because they want to.
Throwing those really old versions into the comparison is only going to encourage MS to cease supporting them.
The other browser makers typically don't have corporate customers so they haven't been pressured into keeping obsolete software going, this is a force beyond MS's control that other browser makers don't fact.
I use Firefox, I think it is better than MSIE in the long term, it is not worth the fuss to change browsers each quarter or even each year.
But I want fairness in journalism. If FF the latest version of FF is not more stable than the latest version of MSIE I want to be told that.
Unless it can catch nation state espionage it is useless for tech design & development companies.
The threat to tech companies in developed nations is mostly tech companies in other developed nations -- protecting UK companies from the US government handing US companies our ideas, and protecting US companies from the UK government handing UK companies their ideas.
So long as the NSA has a back door to this Intel product it is useless to us.
Although the story does not mention it, the returned techology must be considered deeply hacked and unusable.
There are no scans or physical examinations that will reveal all the bugs and holes the NSA and GCHQ can imbed into your computer's software, firmware and hardware.
I guess you have not been following the news much since you don't know what the NSA is doing.
The NSA has incredibly low standards in what it considers relevant information on terrorism.
You, me, everyone here is within 3 hops of Snowden. (I post in Ars Technica Forums, Snowden apparently posted there too, and you and me post in forums here. I also imagine that The Register, like every other newspaper in existence, has one or more journalists who are on the same mailing lists as Robert Greenwalt: unions, press associations, press release bureaus.)
This means that even if we were US-persons (i.e. real humans entitled to human rights) the contents of all our emails and data would be accessible without warrant by the NSA under its interpretations of the rules.
You, me and everyone here -- mundane as we our lives are -- exceeds the NSA's minimum level for being actively spied by humans upon without warrant.
Everyone on the planet exceeds the NSA's minimum level for being actively spied upon by machines without warrant.
So unless your definition of "exalted" includes "everyone on the planet" your incorrect in your assumption.
Problem is encryption can't be on the client side since processing occurs on the server side -- the data needs to be decrypted to be processed.
This is the fatal flaw of the old practice of time sharing computers (time sharing, what is today fashionably called "the cloud").
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