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Intelligence Officials Fear Snowden's 'Doomsday' Cache
Dega704 writes with news that Edward Snowden is believed to have a collection of highly sensitive classified documents that will be released in the event he is detained, hurt, or killed. According to Reuters, "The data is protected with sophisticated encryption, and multiple passwords are needed to open it, said two of the sources, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. The passwords are in the possession of at least three different people and are valid for only a brief time window each day, they said. The identities of persons who might have the passwords are unknown." These details have caused several security experts to express skepticism, but multiple sources, including Glenn Greenwald, believe Snowden has not released all of the documents he appropriated. "U.S. officials and other sources said only a small proportion of the classified material Snowden downloaded during stints as a contract systems administrator for NSA has been made public. Some Obama Administration officials have said privately that Snowden downloaded enough material to fuel two more years of news stories." Whether or not it's true, U.S. and U.K. officials clearly believe it, which can only serve to protect Snowden.
There is years' worth of material that makes intelligence analysts nervous. Just how much dirt could the US possibly have that they don't want people to know?
Make them squirm.
Bruce Schneier commented on this a while back:
I'm not sure what Snowden's alternative is, but a doomsday switch isn't exactly foolproof.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I don't want Snowden captured, but I do want to see this cache very, very badly.
How would that even work? Is there a central server that keeps the data and decides what time it is? That sure sounds safe.
Because two years of constant media coverage and new information beats the hell out of a 1-week load-blow that the public immediately forgets about
Because there is some stuff in there that legitimately should be kept secret. Snowden's goal is to protect his safety and liberty by hanging this cache of really damaging data over their heads as a way of discouraging any attempts to capture or kill him.
What does that even mean? He re-encrypts it every 4 hours and emails out the passwords and the file? This is either super spy sheit, or just plain bull sheit.
Because in many cases the journalists have abided by the administrations' requests to censor some of the details.
If you do a bulk release, you're probably putting someone's life/livelihood in danger. Not everyone who is involved is evil.
There are a lot of things, actually. None of them have to do with anyone's personal porn stash, or the fever-dreams of people who hate the U.S.
#!/bin/bash
nc -lp 31337 | while read key /tmp/massive.info | openssl aes256cbc -k "$key" -iv ~/iv.data -d | pastebin -t "Snowden's Docs"
do
if [ `date` 9am -or 9pm `date` ]
then
echo "skipping key read because the world is sleeping and no one would notice a massive release of information at this time..."
else
if [ "$key" == "zomgztheygotme!" ]
then
cat
fi
fi
done
- stoops!
Why would the US government intentionally indicate that they believe such a thing? What this accomplishes is to encourage anyone who wants to hurt the US to kill Snowden (forcing the release of the supposed super-damaging materials). If that's the message the US propaganda spooks want everyone to hear, then you should be looking for ulterior motives. I'd guess there isn't anything so terribly damaging (that can't be whitewashed away as well as the rest of the stuff has been) that would really be "doomsday" for the US.
Rather than having everything eventually trickle out over several years, well-times to keep the media pressure against the US surveillance state, I suspect it would be preferable to the NSA and friends if Snowden were forced to dump everything all at once (perhaps by being killed). Everything's going to come out eventually --- by having it all in one heap, the total impact on public perceptions (what really matters here) is reduced: one quick spike in media attention and outrage, then it's all "old news" and there's no time for serious public analysis of the implications of each individual revelation.
Snowden and friends of democracy and freedom have an advantage by controlling the gradual release of information --- otherwise, they'd have dumped it all already. Forcing everything out at once (by encouraging every dumber enemy of the US to try assassinating Snowden) would help the PR effort to quickly wash this whole mess away from public attention. It would sure make it easier for the US officials to keep their lies straight, if everything they were lying to refute was already available.
if they are fearing what he hasn't released yet.
They know what they did was wrong, and apparently have done even worse stuff.
Time for a change in Government.
Be seeing you...
Snowden's slow release has been keeping this story in the news. He's helping to build controversy around the programs. Releasing everything at once would just overwhelm the media and the pubic's ability to address all the issues raised.
Join us in our traditional gathering around the samovar, for a Christmas presentation of what's surely to become an RT classic:
"Snowed In with Snowden". Edward Snowden invites various RT holiday gusts, for the cheer of the season, in the shadow of St. Basil's. The laughs begin, as Max Kaiser drops by with a little flask of "holiday cheer" - and some very special "snow" of his own. Then, we solemnize with George Galloway and Ken Livingston, who join Ed for a haunting rendition (did we just use that word?) of "Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer". But hang tight on the presents! Orthodox Chrismas in't til January, innit?
Well, happy Feast of Epiphany, in any matter. Stay tuned!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"The passwords ... are valid for only a brief time window each day, they said."
How does that work?
There's no literal way for that to work, but there are ways to protect sensitive data in a way that could be described in that way.
One way I can think of is to get someone I know to buy something like an Amazon instance in a way that isn't traceable to me. Then I upload my data in an encrypted fashion into the instance. Then I give a set of people different passwords to log into the virtual machine running in that instance. Then I set the instance to power on in a scheduled manner so that the instance is only accessible at certain moments in time known to the people I give the passwords to. At all other times the instance is powered off and the people with the passwords to it do not have any knowledge of how to manage the instance itself directly. Thus, the people I designate as trustees for the data only have access at certain times. On top of that, they could have different segments of a key-split so that to actually access the data requires at least two different people logging into the instance and providing their keys, or alternatively one person logging in and providing two different key segments.
Why you might do something like this is to try to minimize the availability of the data from being discovered or cracked. Most of the time, the data isn't on a system that is in any real way accessible from the internet. Furthermore, it also makes it less expensive to create multiple data caches in the cloud because the cost of running the systems would be very low, since they would not be running most of the time.
They should fear the Constitution and not do this shit in the first place.
Didn't they say you only need privacy if you've got something to hide?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Regarding the Kennedy, has anyone been into to that particular room on the sixth floor of the Book Depository in Dallas, Tx, USA, where they said Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK ?
I have.
In normal time they blocked that room up with plexiglass barrier. Visitors could only see that room from the corridor outside.
But I went inside.
I went there during the time Oliver Stone was filming the movie "JFK". They removed the plexiglass barrier.
I was able to stand in THAT VERY WINDOW, looked out of the window and surveyed the scene below, and I tried to assume the position of having carrying a rifle, and tried to aim that "virtual rifle" at the point at Dealey Plaza where JFK was shot.
I couldn't.
You see, if I were Lee Harvey Oswald, and I was doing the shooting BY MYSELF I have to know WHEN the motorcade which JFK was riding arrive.
I have to have the chance to judge the timing so that I can aim my weapon at JFK's head.
The JFK motorcade came, as I was standing on the 6th floor window, from my LEFT SIDE, and proceeded to the RIGHT SIDE.
If I were the shooter, I need to stand UP and look at the left side, waiting for the motorcade to arrive, and then aim my rifle at the right side as the motorcade goes towards the Dealey Plaza.
I couldn't do it ALONE.
In order to hit JFK's head when the motorcade is at Dealey Plaza ---- which is at the EXTREME RIGHT HAND SIDE from the view from the 6th floor window, I need to extend at least 60% of my torso OUT OF THE WINDOW in order to get my shot.
I do not know how long Lee Harvey Oswald torso happened to be, my own torso is about the average size human grown man's torso.
If I were to shoot JFK ALONE in that 6th floor windows, I couldn't.
I watched the documentaries where they had expert shooters trying out shooting at the motorcade below from the same window, and the shooters' in the documentaries were adopting the "half crouch" position, aiming their rifles at the exact point where JFK was killed.
But if I *WERE THE LONE KILLER IN THAT ROOM* and if I *WERE DOING THAT*, I would not be able to know WHEN JFK's MOTORCADE WOULD ARRIVE, as there is no way I could see the LEFT HAND SIDE of the windows when I crouched and lean against the left side of the window holding my weapon aiming towards Dealey Plaza at my extreme right side.
So all of these essentially boils down to my own conclusion that
1. Lee Harvey Oswald, if he was the killer of JFK, was NOT acting alone. He MUST HAVE an accomplice in that same room, to act as a "watcher" for him and to inform him when JFK's motorcade was to arrive.
2. If Lee Harvey Oswald was NOT half crouching on the left side of the windows when he shot JFK from the 6th floor of the Book Depository building, he must have EXTENDED at least 60% of his body OUT of that windows.
And in order to NOT FALL DOWN, he must have SOMEONE ELSE inside that same room to GRAB HIS LEGS as an anchor.
Conclusion from #1 and #2 is that, if Lee Harvey Oswald was really the killer of JFK and he did made those 3 shots from the 6th floor window, he was NOT acting alone.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
So, either Irresponsible Terrorist Ruskie Collaborator Snowden is (in fact) concealing numerous US secrets that aren't directly related to what he was planning to blow the whistle on, or the feds are freaking out over nothing. Well, what's it going to be? (Perhaps more realistically: If you were some sort of undercover fed, whose continued freedom and/or life depended on the silence of the feds, would you be comfortable now? Mr. Snowden, to his credit, appears to be trying to minimize the casualties associated with his whistle-blowing; but will you be so lucky next time? A single screwdriver-monkey contractor, not even a full NSA agent, punked the shit out of the agency. Do you think that some poor sucker with nothing but patriotism motivating him is the only clandestine operative in the agency? That there isn't a single other leaker in the, apparently porous, organization? Nobody infiltrating with an actual payoff awaiting him? You sure about that?)
Have a nice day.
Don't the trees block a lot more of the road than they did then?
There's a webcam mounted inside the box near the window if anyone want's to check out the view (the pile of boxes placed there to represent the one's he's said to have placed there to rest the rifle on).
Not that they've been doing a particularly good job lately; but the US's strongest international PR move (and, incidentally, weapon in encouraging foreign defectors) is being 'the guys who don't have any creepy secrets (aside from things like the specifics of how atomic bombs work, which the Rosenbergs went down for). Unfortunately, we've squandered that of late. Being 'the good guys' isn't just some bleeding-heart bullshit to appease liberal pinkos. It's a powerful tool in any soft-power contest of ideas. Having nothing but weapons-related details to hide was an extreme moral-high-ground position. We'll be damn lucky to see something nearly so good again in my lifetime. Will we ever see something truly golden, as we did in WWII, with Axis units bumbling around looking for Americans to surrender to? That is what 'soft power' really looks like. It doesn't deliver the goods every day; but on a good day it isn't some theoretical, it's one hell of an advantage. Can we regain that sort of reputation?
Specific individuals that we know are terrorists, and who the U.S. is tracking right now...
The real scenario is much more juicier ...
"Specific individuals that are influential in various terrorist organizations that are currently working for the US government and its allies (including Qatar/Saudis/Turkey), and are taking orders from the US government in launching various (minor) Jihadist strikes against the Western / Christian interests in far flung places to keep the FEAR FACTOR alive"
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
In other words, Snowden is neither stupid nor suicidal.
I've also heard, don't remember where, that it is one big file and there are copies all over the world transported via Bit Torrent and the like. You know were and anyone can grab a copy of the encrypted archive.
I've also heard that the documents in that archive are originals, not redacted. The original would say something like "CIA Agent John Belushi did such-and-such." The redacted version, when released by Edward Snowden, reads "CIA Agent (name removed) did such and such." If they kill Snowden, the archive opens everywhere. Not only are secrets revealed, but names of agents are revealed, so those spies will be killed, perhaps by terrorists, perhaps by outraged neighbors.
A spy with any brains wants that archive to remain encrypted, so he wants Edward Snowden to live in peace in Moscow.
Will we ever see something truly golden, as we did in WWII, with Axis units bumbling around looking for Americans to surrender to?
They weren't doing that because we were that awesome, they were doing it because the alternative was that bad. (*)
Eisenhower declared German POWs to be "disarmed enemy forces" (a term unknown in international law), depriving them of their protections under the Geneva Conventions (love him or hate him, GWB really didn't have any original ideas....) and effectively turning them into slave labor, a condiction that we keep them in for several years after the end of hostilities. I could tell you a bunch of anecdotal stories I've heard from German servicemen (**) but why bother when the raw numbers tell the tale? Survival rate in American and British captivity for a German prisoner: 99% Survival rate in Soviet captivity: 40%
(*) Some say the Japanese finally surrendered for the same reason, specifically that it was the Soviet declaration of war that finally convinced them all was lost, not the atomic bombs. Would you rather be occupied by the United States under Truman or the Soviet Union under Stalin?
(**) I have to tell one anecdotal story. I had the privilege of meeting a Germany artillery officer at the WW2 museum in New Orleans. He talked of his service towards the end of the war, and being instructed to fire on Soviet lines, then receiving orders to fire on Allied lines, then receiving orders to fire on Soviet lines, and so on. This was repeated for a few weeks, and each time the distance they had to travel to reach their designated firing point decreased. Finally they were able to fire on both advancing armies from a static position. Eventually they lost contact with HQ, and he asked his men if they wished to surrender to the Russians, or chance a swim across the Elbe to surrender to the Allies. To a man they all jumped in the river and threw their lot in with the Brits and Americans, even those who hailed from communities behind Soviet lines.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The fact that you conflate Snowden, Manning, Radack, Rowley, et al, with actual traitors, like the conspirators in Lincoln's assassination, the Rosenbergs (or at least Julius), et al (why did you omit the Walkers?) shows that you suffer from from an extreme authoritarian streak and an inability to use judgment. You seem to think that everyone that the US government claims did something to endanger the "national security" is a traitor. Learn to think for yourself.
P.S. For people like the Walkers, I think they should have brought back drawing and quartering. Some of the other people you mention should have monuments erected to them.
An alternative construction is possible. You construct a clueless agent. It reads the current time, fills the MSBs and LSBs with 0s to select for time range, possibly with logical shift right, then performs: hash(hash(truncated_time)) XOR hash(hash(given_password)), checks against its internal value (same construct), and uses hash(truncated_time) XOR hash(given_password) as the actual decryption password. This sort of thing is trivial to implement (and has been implemented).
From an attacker's point of view. Suppose you now slice the time of day up into a short list of fragments you can hash. Now you have a list of hash(hash(truncated_time)) and potentially hash(hash(truncated_time)) XOR hash(hash(given_password)). You XOR each of your truncated time constructions to yield a list of hash(hash(given_password)), and you're back at the original clueless agent problem.
You think Raymond McGovern and Thomas Drake are traitors? (I am not so familiar w/the others).
AFAIK, Ray McGovern has never been charged with anything. And are you really going to defend Trailblazer?
You are absolutely correct about what happens to most of these people (deserving of punishment or not).
I'm pretty sure Ray McGovern and Thomas Drake are good guys(tm).
Why?
The NSA already knows what is in these documents. The documents are theirs. Who would Snowden be hiding them from and why the sophistication?
Hide them just out of plain sight, so to speak. And when some accident should befall Snowden, the cron job times out and an e-mail with location and simple decryption instructions goes out to the world. Or the simple key is split between a large group of people in such a way that a small subset of them is all that's needed to open the vault, so to speak.
Snowden isn't hiding anything from the NSA that they don't already know. All he needs to do is to keep one of his aids from 'turning the nuclear key' on his own.
Have gnu, will travel.
That is why I've said from the beginning that, if only for PR purposes, the US is most likely working the hardest to KEEP HIM ALIVE.
Because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad HIMSELF could walk up and knife Snowden, and it would be blamed entirely on the US.
-Styopa
Oh, good point, a former Marine Corps sharpshooter would have no idea that shooting down at a steep angle would affect the trajectory of the bullet...
No matter what you think about who it was who killed Kennedy, one thing for sure is that there was a conspiracy to obfuscate all of the facts about the assassination.
Oswald may well have acted alone, on his own initiative. In that case, the real conspiracy happened over the course of the next twenty years. The question is, why was there such an effort to confuse the whole story? To create confusion and doubt in the minds of Americans?
You are welcome on my lawn.
The Marine Corps. There are 3 levels: marksman, sharpshooter and expert. He was rated as a sharpshooter in 1956. In a 1959 test, his ability declined to marksman.
By the way, his brother (still alive) feels Lee was a whack job that was doing it on his own. Didn't know he had a brother near his own age — the surprises never end.
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
Don't the trees block a lot more of the road than they did then?
Sorry, I didn't know anything about the trees back then.
See, I am not a born American. I am a naturalized American and I did not arrived at America until the early 1970's.
Furthermore, I spent most of my stay in America in the Boston area (and later in the Silicon Valley). I only go to Dallas occasionally on business trips.
Back when Oliver Stone was shooting his JFK movie (no pun intended) in Dallas I happened to be there for a conference, and both the Dallas local newspapers (Dallas Morning News as well as Dallas Times Herald) were having a field day on Oliver Stone's project (they were looking for old cars and things like that) and I thought to myself, since I was in Dallas, I might as well check out the scene at Dealey Plaza.
I was very lucky indeed.
When I went up the 6th floor, nobody was there, and seeing that the plexiglass barrier was removed I simply walked into that room (they had some empty boxes there as props) and started to check out that window that were shown so many times on tee vee.
And when I said I had to extend at least 60% of my torso OUTSIDE THE WINDOW in order to aim my "virtual rifle" towards that spot where JFK was shot, I wasn't kidding.
That angle of line the bullets travelled towards that exact spot where JFK was killed (if the killer actually fired from the 6th floor) would only allow a very slim degree of freedom.
If you guys would to check the book depository building, you would know that the very windows Lee Harvey Oswald was said to have used was at the LEFT SIDE of the building (looking from inside the building).
With Dealey Plaza at the RIGHT SIDE of the building, viewing from that 6th floor window, the book depository building itself has blocked much of view.
Someone commented alluding skeet shooting and clay pigeon ... well ... anyone who have tried skeet shooting would know that in order to successfully shoot at the flying clay pigeon there should not be ANY ANGLE RESTRICTION.
Unfortunately, the angle of restriction is massive, if you were to shoot from that 6th floor window.
In fact, that very day I almost fell out of that fucking windows because I was trying so hard to "get my shot".
Someone replied that it's not hard to aim at JFK since it's a motorcade and they're not travelling fast ... well ... let me ask you:
It's a motorcade, which means, it's a convoy of cars.
WITHOUT KNOWING WHICH CAR JFK was travelling, how would I, the shooter, know which head to position my scope's crosshair at ?
You guys need to understand that there were no iPAD or any smartphone back in 1963, as there were also NO INSTANTANEOUS LIVE CAM COVERAGE online.
If you were Lee Harvey Oswald, and you have left your house pretty early in the day, you would have NO IDEA which car JFK was travelling on, or how many cars are there in the motorcade, in the first place.
Which means, you NEED SOMEONE TO TELL YOU, or you NEED TO SEE IT FOR YOURSELF, before you train your scope at your target's head.
I am no expert on JFK's assassination. I was not inside the United States of America when that happened.
I was merely curious.
My conclusion COULD BE WRONG, and I welcome anyone to proof me wrong.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It was a damn good shot, I'll admit that. But I've seen plenty of people make tougher shots at faster moving targets from more restrictive positions while hunting wild game.
He wouldn't have needed a spotter because he would have had plenty of audible cues for the approaching limo. Watching people in the crowd react would have served as all the warning he needed, as they pointed, stood up, jumped waved, shouted, cheered, and generally became exited as JFK came into their view.
As for the angle, it's entirely possible that he shot the rifle left-handed which would have made it a lot easier to get that angle without leaning so far out. I myself am a right-handed person but I'm what is often called "left-eyed".. it's easier for me to shoot a rifle left-handed than right.
As for knowing which head to shoot at, that's also pretty easy. It's the one right next to his wife. If I were in his shoes, I would've just looked for the woman with the fashion sense who stuck out like a sore thumb in a group of men in suits. She was always well-dressed and easy to spot in a crowd.
I'm not saying I necessarily think Oswald did it alone, but all the things you've brought up I can quickly find reasonable explanations as to why they don't prove anything. And they were all already addressed many times in both official and unofficial examinations of the shooting. Keep in mind that Oswald was highly experienced and military trained, he wasn't just some random guy who picked up a rifle for the first time that day.
I used to work for a UK government contractor, some of the people I worked with are very very talented people, the problem is the massive layers of useless middle management and procedures designed to stop anything getting done not the coders and techies. That being said, despite being one of those "pinko commie" types, I'm far happier in the private sector where I can actually get stuff done.
..... the ironic war.
Motorcycle cops.
Kennedy was in the first limo, preceded by a motorcycle escort. The Secret Service cars followed.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
there was a conspiracy to obfuscate all of the facts about the assassination.
Every part of the response - during the shooting, the autopsy, the analysis of the shooting, official hearing, etc - was incompetent. People had no idea what happened, no idea what they were doing, so they screwed everything up and tried to fix things up after the official narrative emerged.
In addition, supposedly several members of Kennedy's Administration believed that Oswald was working for Castro. And they believed that if that was revealed, there would be an unstoppable public demand for an invasion of Cuba, which they knew would trigger a war with Russia. So they tried to quash speculation, in the stupid clumsy arrogant way of authorities (particularly at the time), which succeeded only in making things worse.
Put it all together, and it created enough noise onto which conspiracy nuts can project any scenario they want. Shooter on the grassy knoll, the driver shot Kennedy, the following Secret Service (no CIA!) agent accidentally/deliberately shot Kennedy, or that Governor Connally shot Kennedy because he was having an affair with the First Lady and JFK had just found out... CIA, LBJ, the mob, etc...
he question is, why was there such an effort to confuse the whole story? To create confusion and doubt in the minds of Americans?
Conspiracy theories make money. Books, lectures, movies, TV specials. And believing conspiracy theories makes you feel... like you're inside the secret circle. Better than the sheeple around you.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Seeing that I was a young boy in Dallas when this happened and actually got to shake his hand earlier in the day...
Could you please make sure we never shake hands?
There's no literal way for that to work,
So, theres a server you input the password into. The login page or client connection port is only available at certain times. Once all the right passwords have been input by everyone it decrypts and displays the password to decrypt some torrent that's floating around the net -- Maybe posts it to facebook and twitter, pastebin, 4chan, et al.
I can think of about 20 other ways to time limit a password, but this seems feasible. There's no way to know which server or wordpress blog has the additional capabilities added to it -- This would be important because you would want it to be an action the individuals usually make (login to their blog, etc) but this time using the special password. Break the 4096 bit key into multiple parts and give it to folks so the decryption key's not on the server.
Why even time limit it though? A lot of people are wrongheadedly forgetting part of the equation that a good security researcher would not: The people part. The time limit isn't for security in the cryptographic sense. It's to synchronize the human input to the equation and reduce the window of time between when the first suspected keyholder performs their part in the unlock procedure and when the payload is deployed.
I'm impressed, you've concluded beyond any doubt what experts apparently couldn't put together themselves no matter how much time they were allowed in that very same room. You should call the FBI and let them know they're not needed anymore, we can send you to crime scenes with your uncanny abilities and let you solve murder mysteries.
Is this guy serious?
Ok, WaffleMonster, don't take this personally, as I'm just going to blert this out for anyone that cares to get this far down into this comment.
With the information being spooled out to the public, it has caused the public to:
1) Become only slightly outraged
2) Want to hear more, but can't
3) Become numb to the news
Now numbers 1 & 2 are a simple setup for the 3rd. I feel that the numbness to "spying" is the only thing that's being achieved.
Regarding the release of information, if you want the most numbers to be affected by the information, you would be smart to release the information in a very generic way. For instance, if you own a business that sells an array of stuff, and you want folks to come shop there, it's a good idea to have a sale. However if you advertise "Bowling balls on sale now!" then you'll attract only people that need bowling balls. If you simply advertise "SALE!" then folks will come brows the store looking for sale items, and hopefully, but something that they didn't know that they needed. Walmart does this with their "Watch out for falling prices!" scheme.
So the question still stands; why isn't the information available to us all? it's supposed to be information that is vital to the construction of our society(s). It's supposed to be information that reveals wrong-doing by the elected officials of our land. It's supposed to be information that could be understood and digested so to allow the citizens a method to undermine further problems like this. But, at this point, to me, it's all smoke and mirrors. It's reasoning, I have no clue. But it's certainly a battle between Snowden (surely others) and the US government, as The People are simply used like a child in a divorce.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Some incompetence, not total simultaneous incompetence. Not even incompetence by the standards of a routine event at the time. Just incompetence by the standards we retrospectively demand of such an important issue.
It was a novel situation, clearly no one knew how to handle it. The autopsy was handled as they would any autopsy - they didn't foresee the level of suspicion and demand for additional information that would arise almost immediately, and grow exponentially. If they had, they would have documented everything to a fine degree, stored every sample in a specially built centre, brought in the leading experts in every appropriate field, run every test that existed. Instead, they just did a standard limited autopsy on someone whose head had been very publicly blown off. Cause of death: "Well, duh".
Likewise the CIA/FBI monitoring of Oswald. He defected to Russia, then changed his mind and came back, he was written off as an idiot by everyone, US, Russians, Cubans, so of course they kept him only under low level surveillance. They were probably hoping he would defect to Cuba so they'd be rid of him, but the Cubans didn't want him either. (That's what fuels much of the conspiracy nonsense, I think. That such a low-level douche-bag like Oswald could kill an American President! But they always turn out to be low-level douche-bags. Kennedy, Lennon, Reagan, Oklahoma City, Boston Marathon...)
It's the same with the Secret Service. By the standard of the modern Secret Service, the Dallas motorcade was a violation of every possible protocol, and the response to the first shot a massive failure of training. But, of course, those protocols and training were brought in precisely because of the Kennedy assassination.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
I think that people of the day just couldn't handle the simple truth, so they made the story complex so that it could conform to their preconceived opinions. Many people on the left were sympathetic to Marxism/Communism during the cold war, and so it was hard for them to believe that a Communist sympathizer would assassinate their icon. People on the right believed in the superiority of the West, and the successful assassination of a US president by a good old American boy who was converted to the superior ideology of Communism would be a Soviet victory that was equally difficult to accept. And people in the middle were uncomfortable believing that their leader was so vulnerable that a single person couldn't possibly have done it.
Therefore, for most people, anything else - the mob, the CIA, aliens - was preferable to reality.
Schneier = another built up by press figure only.
What?! Schneier is the author of Applied Cryptography, the essential text in the field. He's the creator of the Blowfish and Twofish algorithms. His information security firm, Counterpane Systems, was bought out in an eight figure deal by British Telecom. His blog, Schneier On Security, is one of the most closely followed by infosec professionals and digital liberties advocates. In short: Schneier's reputation in the information security industry as an expert par excellence is hard-earned and well-deserved, his credentials singularly impressive, and his ratio of positions staked to positions invalidated unusually high.
No, Schneier's impressive CVs don't validate arguments supported merely on invocation of his name, and certainly no one is superman or is incapable of error or omniscient even within a field of expertise. To label Schneier's reputation as "a built up by press figure only", however, is singularly ridiculous.