Paris Attacks Would Not Have Happened Without Crypto (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes with a story at Ars Technica, citing a Yahoo News interview, that National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers has explicitly blamed the terrorist attacks which struck Paris last November on communications backed by strong crypto. From the article: Because of encrypted communications, he said, "we did not generate the insights ahead of time. Clearly, had we known, Paris would not have happened." Rogers did not explicitly re-launch the campaign waged by FBI director James Comey to force technology companies to provide a "golden key" to encrypted communications. Rogers called encryption "foundational to our future" and added that arguing over encryption backdoors was "a waste of time." But he did say that encryption was making the job of the NSA and law enforcement more difficult. The interview comes shortly after the FBI won an order requiring Apple to provide technical means to bypass the security measures preventing them from unlocking the iPhone 5C belonging to Syed Rizwan Farook. Farook, along with his wife, are responsible for the December mass shooting in San Bernardino, California."

Comments

Re:Crypto?

[meta-monkey]

The only major religion dedicated to world conquest through any means necessary including violence is Islam.

This religion is not like the others. Pretending it is does no one any favors.

Re:Bollocks

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Gods slashdots comment system is fucked up.

Here is a bit cleaner, and loged in, response that might be easier to read.

I also watched it all live. And I do have a back ground in engineering.

Funny how it always comes back to "it was hit by planes!" as an excuse for the collapse.

The first plan I can believe did some real damage to the central core of WTC 1 since it hit smack in the middle of buildings face, even though the plane was made almost entirely out of aluminum and would have been completely shredded when it hit the outer girders or the building it could have done some damage to the central core of reenforced steel girders. But what about WTC 2? The plane more or less clipped the corner and most of the fuel went up in the fireball that came out the side. Remember seeing that? And yet WTC 2 was the first building to come down, straight down, even though the majority of the damage was near corner of the building.

Also WTC 1 and 2 came down within an hour of the impacts, and yet other buildings that have burned for much longer didn't collapse, or even fall over.

And remember all that black smoke? Did you know that when the smoke is black like that it means there isn't enough oxygen getting to the fuel for efficient combustion. The fuel wasn't burning as hot as it could have, ever tried to melt steel over a charcoal fire? It doesn't work because the fire isn't hot enough due to lack of uxygen, but if you add forced air you get enough heat to do the job.

Oh, and lets not forget about the traces of unburned thermite being found in the dust from the WTC towers. What? you didn't hear about that? And here I thought you had really looked into the events of 9/11/2001

But wait, you said the building came down because they had been hit by planes. But what about WTC 7? it wasn't hit by a plane and still collapsed into its own foot print, five hours after WTC 1 and 2. Have you watched the footage of it coming down? The structure was in free fall for 8 seconds. And what about the reports of explosions in WTC7 even before WTC 1 and 2 came down.

And then we come to the Pentagon, didn't it strike you as odd that what is supposed to be one of the most secure buildings in the USA only had one low grade video camera covering the area the plane hit? Did you happen to notice that the grass in front of the impact area didn't have any skid marks from the planes engines hitting the ground first? I'm supposed to believe that an unskilled pilot was able to make a 300 degree rolling turn and put a 757 right into the first floor or the Pentagon without even disturbing the grass? Yeah, right. From interviews I've seen with former pilots that kind of maneuver is hard enough for an experienced pilot to pull off and I'm supposed to believe some guy who didn't even pass flight school pulled it off.

If you want to swallow the official story about 9-11 that is your choice. You have to do what you need to do to protect your world view. I can understand that. I on the other hand prefer to think for myself, and there is enough verifiable information that doesn't jibe with the official story to make me doubt the official story. Sure, there are some totally whacked out theories around the towers coming down, my favorite has to be the clean direction tactical nuke, but there are also many credible sources that raise a reasonable doubt about what happened.