Slashdot Mirror
US Government Using PS3s To Break Encryption
Entropy98 writes "It seems that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cyber Crimes Center, known as C3, has replaced its '$8,000 Tableau/Dell server combination' with more efficient and much cheaper $300 PS3s. Each PS3 is capable of 4 million passwords per second, and C3 currently has 20 PS3s with plans to buy 40 more. Naturally this is only being used to break encryption on computers seized with a warrant and suspected of harboring child pornography."
being used to break encryption
Each PS3 is capable of 4 million passwords per second
Something doesn't match up. For first the different encryption schemes take different times to try even one password, and even more if you combine several of them together. Secondly you cannot try 4 million passwords in a second if its encrypted content, it takes a lot more than that.
Naturally this is only being used to break encryption on computers seized with a warrant and suspected of harboring child pornography.
... suuuuuure.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Good to know when the Government is cracking the encryption implemented by the public it's "cracking down on child pornography." When it's the public cracking encryption implemented by corporations it's a violation of the DMCA.
More Twoson than Cupertino
>>>There is nothing wrong with this legally.
Nope. Searches performed with the permission of a judge (warrant) are perfectly legal. ----- That's fine. It's the law that needs to be changed. IMHO there should actually be three stages - childhood, teenager, and adulthood. Then we'd no longer have the nonsense of teenaged boy/girlfriends being charged for "child porn" simply because they took photos of their own bodies. (For that matter nudity shouldn't even be illegal, regardless of age.)
>>>wiretap without a warrant is what I am worried about.
Agreed, As Judge Napolitano keeps repeating, the Patriot Act gives federal cops the ability to write their own warrants, without need to stand before a judge and swear an oath. That's just plain ridiculous.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It's pretty simple. The military courts are appropriate for combatants captured on a foreign field of battle. By trying KSM and the others in civilian courts (because the 9/11 victims were civilians on US soil), the case establishes a couple of things that neo-cons don't want to happen:
a) since evidence obtained through torture is ineligible in civilian courts, the information used by the prosecution will be what was obtained before he was tortured. So when KSM gets convicted on the basis of all the incriminating information that was available prior to torture, it will be a strong indictment that the torture used on him was not necessary. The whole neo-con "we had to torture" argument is shown for the pack of lies it is. Since Cheney was the biggest proponent of torture, it's not surprising he's also the most opposed to this happening since a conviction changes his place in history from question mark to a sadistic torturer.
b) it re-establishes the primacy of the standard US criminal justice system for acts committed on U.S. soil.
Basically, if KSM and his buddies can be convicted and put in jail through the civilian courts, it means that the wholesale raping of the Geneva Convention, habeus corpus, and other civil rights by the (neo-con) Republicans was unnecessary. It also sets a strong counter-precedent in case the neo-cons (inevitably) try the whole "Permanent Emergency" gambit again.
So yeah, the neo-cons and their water bearers like Lieberman are seriously against this and using FUD to slam the effort. Big surprise.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
- All those officers and enlisted in the Pentagon would be surprised to know they are civilians.
- Are they going to release KSM if he is acquitted? If not, this is just a show trial and a sham.
- Whatever your stance on waterboarding, they didn't do it to KSM to get him to confess. They did it to acquire intel to prevent further attacks and/or take the battle to Al Qaeda.
- During an interview with NBC tonight, the interviewer asked Obama if people would find it offensive that KSM would receive all the rights of an American citizen in a trial. Obama replied "I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him." Pre-judging much? Tainting the jury?
Come on. This is no trial in any real sense of the word. Other observers have pointed out that no one wants to see this guy walk, so the judges and prosecution will go through any contortion, no matter how ridiculous, to see him convicted. Whatever rulings they issue will then become precedent the Govt can use against everyday criminals (i.e., you and me).
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the *enemy*. He cannot be rehabilitated. He cannot be reconstructed. He and his comrades would seek the overthrow of our system of government and its replacement with Sharia law. He is not a common criminal, and it is disrespectful to treat him like one - and you should always respect your enemy. Send him to his god and be done with it.