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OPSEC For Activists, Because Encryption Is No Guarantee
Nicola Hahn writes: "In the wake of the Snowden revelations strong encryption has been promoted by organizations like The Intercept and Freedom of the Press Foundation as a solution for safeguarding privacy against the encroachment of Big Brother. Even President Obama acknowledges that "there's no scenario in which we don't want really strong encryption."
Yet the public record shows that over the years the NSA has honed its ability to steal encryption keys. Recent reports about the compromise of Gemalto's network and sophisticated firmware manipulation programs by the Office of Tailored Access Operations underscore this reality.
The inconvenient truth is that the current cyber self-defense formulas being presented are conspicuously incomplete. Security tools can and will fail. And when they do, what then? It's called Operational Security (OPSEC), a topic that hasn't received much coverage — but it should.
Yet the public record shows that over the years the NSA has honed its ability to steal encryption keys. Recent reports about the compromise of Gemalto's network and sophisticated firmware manipulation programs by the Office of Tailored Access Operations underscore this reality.
The inconvenient truth is that the current cyber self-defense formulas being presented are conspicuously incomplete. Security tools can and will fail. And when they do, what then? It's called Operational Security (OPSEC), a topic that hasn't received much coverage — but it should.
How many pointless articles could be avoided if authors and editors understood the difference between a necessary condition and a sufficient condition? Of course comsec is not a solution per se, Ulbricht can tell you all about that! (And how many more pointless discussions could be avoided if everyone knew "per se" = "by itself".)
Wonder what the public key field is for?
If I'm the only one who can unlock your encrypted communications, then it's in my best interest to have everyone encrypt their communications, because then, I'll be the only one with total situation awareness.
It won't be in any of your interests, of course, because you'll be handing me my advantage on a silver platter... but you're all far too shortsighted to pay attention to such things.
Of course Obama and the NSA want you all using strong encryption. Stupid of you to give them what they want, though.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Limit and obfuscate are the only options. Been done for thousands of years.
Mkay, and that has nothing to do with a predictable species living in networked habitrails.
The high tech equivalent would be to mention a network resource where access can be monitored. When the network resource is accessed, you know there is a problem.
One solution could be to use OpenBSD ... for everything.
Old school.
http://radicalsurvivalism.com/...
http://www.outofregs.com/postI...
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
It's called know what you're doing and don't be stupid.
Unless you are talking about a military operation you shouldn't be using the term OPSEC.
Loose lips sink ships. If it is talked about, someone will sooner or later overhear it.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Snowden confirmed our suspicions. And for that he lost his livelihood and his home. And in return for his sacrifice we....have done nothing.
We benefited from his revelations, and then we let him rot. We can't even be arsed into signing an online petition to help him out.
Given how we reward whistle blowers, I am surprised we have any at all.
We're mostly programmers here not cryptographers, but there is a simple way to encrypt data from one trusted point to another trusted point, and that's to use a large random key and make a one-time-pad encryption. Its something programmers can understand, its unbreakable and it should be added to every point to point link on-top of any of that NSA corrupted shit that passes for encryption.
You have a key that is far larger than the data you are encrypting, you never reuse parts of the key. The key is random garbage not generated by the computer, but sampled, e.g. random video mashes together or random noise audio mashed together. You transfer the private key by trusted method, e.g. carry it on an external 2TB drive. Given the amount of data that can be moved now is TB, and the amount of data sent in messages is still small, its surprisingly easy to totally encrypt that data.
So a 10,000 buy orders are still only a few MB of message data, and yet a multi-TB key can fit in the pocket.
It's something every programmer can understand and its easy to implement and adds minimal encryption overhead since it can be done in one pass. You can add it ontop of any other encryption system.
To my knowledge, the NSA has not figured out how to break conventional encryption. There's nothing quite as secure as conventional encryption. It may be difficult to securely communicate a pre-shared key, but you only have to do it relatively rarely. If you send pieces by various media, it makes it much more difficult to eavesdrop. Send 10 characters by SMS, 10 by voice over landline, etc.
The article misses one partial solution: be uninteresting. I've got a bank account in a non-US bank. It's got several hundred dollars in it. Nobody's going to bother to steal that. I've got a password I use all over the Internet, including Slashdot, but you can't do anything with it but post stupid comments. My bank password was a different one. I look just like a million other Amerians living overseas, and that is my ultimate protection. Of course, the cheaper hard disks get, the more data the NSA can store, so the protection is only partial. But for now it is a factor. Of 200 million Americans, how many are worth tracking?
- It is technically possible to air-gap the machine you use to access your email, by copying the email over from an insecure computer to the air-gapped machine.
- TAILS is great, but they probably at least try to break it since it's popular. Will they succeed? Maybe. So use an OpenBSD live CD, it's more secure anyway. Or get creative: use Whonix. The FBI's pedestrian attempt at drive-by malware would have fallen flat on its face with an adversary using Whonix.
- Firejail. Google it. Won't protect you against local kernel privilege escalation attacks, though.
Yes, contingency planning is good. Yes, single points of failure are bad. But you can get very, very good communication security if you really try.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
It's bad enough you gotta bunch of guys out there who read too much goddamned Tom Clancy and use military/police-esque terms for everything whilst wearing their size XXXXXL tactical camo pants, but do we really want to start throwing around terms like OPSEC? Goodie, you know a new term/acronym; you're still not a badass.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
they've said there's no encryption that's going to make any difference because NSA can tap passwords and steal encryption certificates a variety of ways, including from peoples brains through neural decoding, and leaky signals off computers too using interferometry.
offline machines are best they said, probably the only way to really protect yourself a little, encryption don't matter much.
but you also need shielding. overall I suspect that won't work if the satellite signals can't be blocked. NO JOKE, LISTEN HERE: http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/d/media_archive/2015-02-24%20Awake%20Radio-%20Dr.%20Robert%20Duncan,%20William%20Binney,%20John%20Kiriakou%20interview.%20CIA,%20NSA,%20DOD,%20US%20DOJ%20bullshit%20exposed.mp3
obamasweapon.com
... Don't be an activist. It's that simple. Or are you so naive as to think your action could ever, ever matter? You will only end up on some watch list and suffer for it. Your family will suffer too. And for what? In case you have not noticed, the game has been over a long time now. You're trying to resuscitate a rotten corpse. Move on.
...you are.
Here's a gem: You night to FIGHT for freedom. The government and their mohammedic friends are hell-bent on implementing Mohammedic Security (total surveillance, torture, kidnapping etc) here.
There is NOTHING WRONG with using TOR and turning off the NSA Beacon as much as possible. As long as you dont conspire to harm anybody else, that is.
And yeah, I get regular black helos, C130 overflights and the odd three-strange-persons visits in the train. When I was in Atlanta they once showed me about 50% of the USAF C130 flight after some internet posting.
I am defending Germanic Freedoms, including the Freedom Of Our Women and those crypto-Mohammedics can Go Fuck Themselves.
"You NEED to FIGHT for freedom."
And I also had at least two types of combat helos (Cobra and Apache) overflying me in a Show Of Force action. Plus I get the regular Marine Infantery Aviation overflights with their Beechcrafts here.
Yeah boys, fight for your Mohammedic Friends !
Communications Security is easy to implement. Just FORGET to "secure" any *networked* cybernetic device.
Get yourself a FIALKA,TYPEX or SIGABA device and use that to encipher your messages. Then you can use NSApp or NSAbook to transmit the enciphered stuff.
The FIALKA can actually be done in software. JUST MAKE SURE TO REMOVE ANY OUTSIDE CONNECTIONS after generating key material. Transfer of info is done using YOUR FINGERS. Like you did with a FIALKA.
Finally, no, I am not Russian but a Germanic Patriot and I hate all the Middle East Buttfucking.
What does the future look like for open-source USB and hard drive firmware, and the ability to update our own? Something open-source router firmware?
Any pattern in the way you behave can be used against you. If you are not emitting a mobile phone signal, then you are suspicious. If you have an iPhone, and the logs suggest you regularly take the batteries out, then you are very suspicious. A modern spy would carry a mobile phone - not the latest security recommended one, but something dull - and would tweet and post pictures of what they are eating and listening to just to get the right watch profile. You would have to leave the phone behind when you want to do Spy Things, but you could leave it in the locker at the swimming pool, or something plausible like that. If you have to send crypto messages over this phone, keep the message very short, and plausible.
I don't think there are many real spies here on Slashdot, but there are probably people who would like to keep their data secure in a way that does not attract attention to themselves. Perhaps we should all use encryption whether we need it or not, so those that need it will no longer stand out.
If his Information were manipulated, we would already have heard your paymasters scream and shout. The fact that they dont mean it is more or less 99,9% the TRUTH.
Besides, all we learn nicely fits into the general scheme of things we already knew. Imperiums control the plebs via information. Totally if possible.
A proper OTP is provably secure. Stop emitting false information.
Sure as hell they have broken the JN25 PSK cipher book. Sure as hell they have broken the Engima PSK Cipher. And probably a shitload of others.
You are right that they lately have added lots of focus on key mat stealing instead of code breaking. After all, everybody wants max result at min effort.
As soon as you throw even ephemeral sand into the Gears Of War, you better think of yourself as an "operative". Because the War Maker Side will be using military-style operations against you. They wont kill you, but surely they will exert non-violent pressure so that you might do this yourself.
For example "mock attack with angry dog".
Think of your daily routine as a "sustainment operation". You Sustain Anti War Pressure. You better sustain it on a random time/space schedule or the attack dog can be set up against you at too low cost.
Yeah, THAT IS A FREE SPEECH OPERATION.
Were I live we blast the government and their sucker media when they want to go into WAR MODE. We already made them turn off the comment function on FAZ.NET, a major CIA/New York Finance outlet. Thereby they admitted serious defeat.
The heat has been turned on onto the Anglo Imperium Collaborateurs in Berlin and they know very well.
So yeah, not easy, but surely we can have effects.
http://cryptome.org/anc-manual...
"This is an African National Congress manual for covert actions, first published during 1988-90 as a series of articles in 'Umsebenzi', later as a single pamphlet for underground operatives"
peace & love
Way back in the day, when the cold war was in its closing stages, and I was a teenager, the family used to go on holiday to Portsmouth (We had relatives there), the place also has a MAJOR naval base.
Yours truly (aged about 13 or so) used to think it a great joke to fire up the typewriter and produce a page or so of random 5 character groups (A zener diode noise source and the schools BBC micro helped with this), then mail the resulting document to "The Cultural Attache, Soviet Embassy, London" from one of the post boxes near the gates of the navy yard.
Now the mail would clearly have been read, so while the trolling of the Soviets was minor, the UK agencies would seem to have a spy in the navy that they cannot find writing in codes they cannot break....
Good times.
Regards, Dan.
The only guarantee of OPSEC is not being in business (or doing anything, or being alive...) Otherwise, you can only get close to complete operational security.
As far as encryption goes... mathematically, all forms of encryption that aren't pure, truly-random, one-time pad cypher-based techniques, and NOTHING ELSE, must have some form of compromise, and are vulnerable to various kinds of attacks. The keys, or whatever you call them, must be shared over the very same communication channel that the users at the ends are trying to secure, somehow.
Only a pre-shared, USED ONCE THEN DESTROYED, truly-random, one-time pad cypher scheme comes with any guarantee of security for the sender and recipient of the encryption, but additional measure must be used within the scheme to prevent some kinds of attacks, like man-in-the-middle randomization. The scheme must include a mechanism that assures the recipient that the message is authentic, and ideally a return information path to let the sender know that the message was received, unadulterated, and THAT in turn must be resistant to forgery, etc.
Naturally, if either side is compromised, (i.e., recipient is decrypting in a room with a hidden camera, etc., or if sender is apprehended after encrypting message before destroying cryptographic materials, etc.,) even that guarantee goes out the window.
This is why less-secure methods are used--the methods used aren't fully secure, but they're secure enough, or believed to be, until someone reveals a way to defeat them that is within reach of anyone who might try to break the crypto-scheme, in the public interest, at which point the scheme is abandoned. You all remember that 40-bit encryption was the standard for a while, not too long ago, right? That only gave a 1-trillion possible code keyspace, or thereabouts, which today, a cellphone is probably powerful enough to break in seconds or maybe minutes.
What I'm saying, I guess, is that unless you are using MANUALLY GENERATED one-time-pad cyphers, and using them CORRECTLY, your communication security is limited by a number of factors, including, how badly someone who wants to read your messages, (etc.,) wants to do so. Any crypto scheme based on doing one-way function mathematics requires a certain amount of computing power, and your ability to utilize it is a function of how much power that takes. You couldn't, for example, use with a PC or a smart phone, or anything in between, encryption with say, a 100,000,000,000,000,000 ^ 100,000,000,000,000,000 long key, because well... that's just not practical.
How 'bout this one: All us much vaunted activists who are currently cheering the FCC vote yesterday just made it ever so much more convenient for everyone to be officially spied on, and not just by the NSA.
But, yeah, opsec is good.