What you are ignoring is that there are a subset of the documents which Snowden intended and has released or still intends to release to the public. All those document that are intended to be released were already in the hands of other people he was working with. There is a larger subset which he doesn't intend to release. These comprise the "insurance policy", with strong encryption protecting them from being read by any government, organization, or individual.
What I have suggested is that this subset is doubly encrypted with Snowden only possessing one of the keys. They could torture him and get the key, but that would still not be enough to read the documents.
I think what Snowden is saying is not that he would tough-it-out under torture and not crack but that he, alone, does not have the keys to decrypt the documents. I am speculating here, but it is entirely possible to double-encrypt a file such that two keys are needed for a full decryption. That would mean that he has arranged for other people to hold keys that are needed to decrypt at least part of his cache of secret documents. This may only apply to the items he has with him physically. A country or organization (+ torture) may find out his key and the names of the folk he partnered with, but without access to them there is no full decryption.
This only leaves out the fail-safe mechanism if Snowden is killed. For that, there might be a cache of copies that are encrypted in the same manner but without a key that only Snowden knew.
So, Pincus added an update in front of hist blog post correcting all the issues brought up by Greenwald. However, the actual blog piece remains the same, with all the errors unchanged. If one were reading this for the first time they might well have forgotten the update corrections by the time they reached the text that remains in error. Is this normally how corrections are made?
My German wife is traveling today and I could not consult with her till now. She says, Adolf is the most common but the Adolph version is not unknown in Germany. The name Adolf lost popularity after WWII. As for Hitler, the F-version (like the F-word) seems to be the appropriate one.
I was promised two titans battling it out on the legal stage. What is the position of the Adolph Hitler Estate in all this? They weren't even mentioned.
The root of the problem is clearly deep-set paranoia brought on by working in a building named after Herbert Hoover. The only true fix will be to tear down this building, build a new one, and never name anything after Herbert Hoover again.
Apart from the, uhm wording problem, there are some details that aren't quite right with this story. First off, this bill was passed on April 10, 2013. The media has made it appear as if the bill was written in response to the shutdown of the Allied Veterans of the World charity which forced Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, who consulted with the charity, to resign. That scandal and subsequent shutdown occurred in March but the bill was first submitted on January 14, 2013. The shutdown may well have influenced the passing of the bill but it was already in progress well before that incident.
It looks to me, so far, that the target of the bill were "internet sweepstakes cafés" which are not at all the same as your standard internet café although some media reports use the latter terminology.
I am looking in to what has happened since.
Perhaps you're looking at the comments in a flattened format rather than the thread format. My comment, though later in time, is clearly before Lon Snowden's comment. I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here because your reply is actually very silly.
One of the threads in these comments, not this one, concerns Lon Snowden. The article is about suspicions concerning the letter written by Edward Snowden.
There exists software that compares frequency of word usage to compare articles and confirm if the author is the same person. The software could be trained on comments he made on Ars Technica as the "TheTrueHOOHA". I am too lazy to do this right now can someone take up the challenge?
It doesn't help if Wired just thought the key might be his. A key to digitally sign a message must be trusted and have a public key already published before he became known. There is one such key on the MIT key server that could well be his. I don't know if that is the one that Kevin Poulsen at Wired used in the secret message to Snowden article. It seems a likely candidate and is much more trustworthy than an digitally unsigned message. It is problematic for him to securely enter a passphrase to access his private key. Let's suppose he still has a secured and tamperproof laptop. If he used a mouse to enter the passphrase and hid the screen from hidden cameras that might be enough.
"automates traffic flow" is really a hand waving vagueness that doesn't explain anything. It is meaningless.
What I believe PRINTAURA means comes from S3532. this is a section of USC. 44 which deals with public printing and documents that are created by the government. Section 3532 deals with definitions relating to security. I believe Printaura is a device or step that effects security details such as authentication. What is not clear is if this only applies to those who access PRISM to control the targets and filters or it also applies to protecting the collection data stream as it is directed to the NSA cloud.
The pure metadata collection refers to other NSA programs. PRISM was understood, since the first leak of it, to include both real content and metadata. The NSA claims that it only applies to non U.S. citizens.
From descriptions of other programs that the government has to investigate terrorism, one just doesn't investigate the prime target but those who have connections to the prime target. The prime target must be a foreigner but does that mean PRISM doesn't collect data on U.S. citizens who are only connected to the prime target? If the foreign terrorist suspect emails a U.S. citizen do they not collect the content of that email? Do they not collect the content of a reply to that email? Do they not collect the content of any email sent to that foreign suspect? My understanding is that investigations usually pursue connections out to two degrees of separation from the initial target. The NSA or Obama administration needs to be honest in clarifying this. Do you really think that a U.S. citizen, thus implicated, won't have their email content monitored via PRISM?
Maybe it's true. No American has their emails read via the "pending stored comms" branch of this chart. At least until they have been stored for 180 days, then it's open season as an NSL can be used to read these old emails sitting on a server. A very important question to ask is can email content for emails less than 180 days old be read via the "surveillance" branch of this chart. Does the secret interpretation of FISA/FAA allow this?
Additionally, what is meant by "stored comms"? The second new slide describing content type only lists "search" which I assume means browser search terms used by the target. Other content collectable via PRISM (e.g. basic subscriber information)could be collected via a NSL but the chart does not indicate that. I don't see these new slides as being anywhere near supporting NSA claims that no information on Americans is stored via PRISM.
The first slide describes bureaucratic relationships. It is not a data flow chart and is rather sloppy about what arrows mean. It seems to use arrows to describe; data flow, the next sequence in a process, or, in the case of "pending stored comms" and "surveillance", as a kind of label providing more information about another arrow. It doesn't make any sense to consider "pending stored comms" as an input to anything. The diagram only adds to confusion because of this sloppiness.
Upon re-reading the slides I am changing my analysis. The year in the case number is not the year in which monitoring occurs but the year in which it is first established. In that case, active may truly mean active. This would assume though that the database(s) that ultimately store this data are not primarily indexed via the PRISM case number. Given that assumption, once a target is no longer being actively monitored the PRISM case number could be retired.
PRISM records may simply be - a description of the surveillance target, both general target and the specific person involved.
- Specifies a particular source (e.g. Google).
- specifies the list of services being monitored (i.e. content type).
- Specifies the database(s) the collected information will end up in (i.e. CIA/FBI/NSA). Additionally, for the NSA, at least, there are separate storage databases for metadata, voice content, and videos.
- May specify the legal justification for monitoring the target.
- Specifies the year in which monitoring started.
The final slide appears to be of a web page that instructs personnel in how to use PRISM. The reader is warned to seek help if the current number of active entries is much less than the number of active entries as of April 5, 2013 (117,675). That may mean active cases are not retired very often, but it depends how often this instructional web page is updated.
"The Washington Post says that these are "active surveillance targets" but it's unclear how they know that."
It would make sense that the 117,675 "records" in PRISM refers to cases that are assigned "case notations" as described in the previous slide. My reading of this is that for a particular target, whether that is just an individual, a group, or individuals with "connections" to the stated target out to 2 degrees of separation (which is apparently the standard for terrorism investigations), there is a case number generated for each data source (i.e. Yahoo, Facebook etc.) for a specific calendar year. A new case number would have to be generated for each year the target is being actively monitored.
Active entries is certainly a misnomer. A target may no longer be actively monitored but it would not make sense to delete existing information from the PRISM database based on that. I suppose the NSA/CIA/FBI might agree to delete information about a particular target that they no longer considered suspicious. I would expect that deletion rate to match that of removing individuals from the "No Fly List".
Note that the maximum number of records/per source/per year is 10 million. They would obviously over provision that so the maximum would never be reached, but still, that's a disturbingly large number.
He says he supports Greenwald's first amendment rights in covering the story and backpedals about accusing Greenwald of aiding Snowden in fleeing from the US DOJ. He claims he put his foot in his mouth and just wanted to bring up the issue, in general, of journalists aiding a subject to run from justice. I give him some credit for the apology but he still needs to clarify further.
On the post: Ed Snowden Explains To Former Senator, Who Emailed In Support, That No Foreign Gov't Can Access His Documents
Re: Re: Re: Re: Amazing
On the post: Ed Snowden Explains To Former Senator, Who Emailed In Support, That No Foreign Gov't Can Access His Documents
Re: Amazing
What I have suggested is that this subset is doubly encrypted with Snowden only possessing one of the keys. They could torture him and get the key, but that would still not be enough to read the documents.
On the post: Ed Snowden Explains To Former Senator, Who Emailed In Support, That No Foreign Gov't Can Access His Documents
Re: Re: Amazing
This only leaves out the fail-safe mechanism if Snowden is killed. For that, there might be a cache of copies that are encrypted in the same manner but without a key that only Snowden knew.
On the post: Washington Post Makes Bizarre, Factually Incorrect Claims About Glenn Greenwald, Can't Figure Out How To Update
The correction has been made, sort of
On the post: The Colonel vs. Adolf Hitler In A Trademark Extravaganza
Re: Re:
On the post: The Colonel vs. Adolf Hitler In A Trademark Extravaganza
On the post: Your Tax Dollars At Work: How Commerce Dept. Spent $2.7 Million Cleaning Out Two Malware-Infected Computers
fix root of problem
On the post: Way To Go Florida: Governor Signs Law That Accidentally Bans All Computers & Smartphones
Re: poor chucky cheese's
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/02/3481991/video-arcades-sue-dave-busters.html#storylink=cpy
On the post: Way To Go Florida: Governor Signs Law That Accidentally Bans All Computers & Smartphones
some confusion in the media
It looks to me, so far, that the target of the bill were "internet sweepstakes cafés" which are not at all the same as your standard internet café although some media reports use the latter terminology.
I am looking in to what has happened since.
On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?
Re: Re: re: PGP key
On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?
Re: Re: re: PGP key
On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?
confirming style
On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?
re: PGP key
On the post: Newly Leaked NSA Slides On PRISM Add To Confusion, Rather Than Clear It Up
Re: WP gives a bit more info on secret codenames
What I believe PRINTAURA means comes from S3532. this is a section of USC. 44 which deals with public printing and documents that are created by the government. Section 3532 deals with definitions relating to security. I believe Printaura is a device or step that effects security details such as authentication. What is not clear is if this only applies to those who access PRISM to control the targets and filters or it also applies to protecting the collection data stream as it is directed to the NSA cloud.
On the post: Newly Leaked NSA Slides On PRISM Add To Confusion, Rather Than Clear It Up
Re: And its all Content not just Meta data
On the post: Newly Leaked NSA Slides On PRISM Add To Confusion, Rather Than Clear It Up
Re: Re: Re: Re: The first slide NO USPERs
Maybe it's true. No American has their emails read via the "pending stored comms" branch of this chart. At least until they have been stored for 180 days, then it's open season as an NSL can be used to read these old emails sitting on a server. A very important question to ask is can email content for emails less than 180 days old be read via the "surveillance" branch of this chart. Does the secret interpretation of FISA/FAA allow this?
Additionally, what is meant by "stored comms"? The second new slide describing content type only lists "search" which I assume means browser search terms used by the target. Other content collectable via PRISM (e.g. basic subscriber information)could be collected via a NSL but the chart does not indicate that. I don't see these new slides as being anywhere near supporting NSA claims that no information on Americans is stored via PRISM.
On the post: Newly Leaked NSA Slides On PRISM Add To Confusion, Rather Than Clear It Up
Re: Re: The first slide
On the post: Newly Leaked NSA Slides On PRISM Add To Confusion, Rather Than Clear It Up
Re: number of active targets
PRISM records may simply be - a description of the surveillance target, both general target and the specific person involved.
- Specifies a particular source (e.g. Google).
- specifies the list of services being monitored (i.e. content type).
- Specifies the database(s) the collected information will end up in (i.e. CIA/FBI/NSA). Additionally, for the NSA, at least, there are separate storage databases for metadata, voice content, and videos.
- May specify the legal justification for monitoring the target.
- Specifies the year in which monitoring started.
The final slide appears to be of a web page that instructs personnel in how to use PRISM. The reader is warned to seek help if the current number of active entries is much less than the number of active entries as of April 5, 2013 (117,675). That may mean active cases are not retired very often, but it depends how often this instructional web page is updated.
On the post: Newly Leaked NSA Slides On PRISM Add To Confusion, Rather Than Clear It Up
number of active targets
It would make sense that the 117,675 "records" in PRISM refers to cases that are assigned "case notations" as described in the previous slide. My reading of this is that for a particular target, whether that is just an individual, a group, or individuals with "connections" to the stated target out to 2 degrees of separation (which is apparently the standard for terrorism investigations), there is a case number generated for each data source (i.e. Yahoo, Facebook etc.) for a specific calendar year. A new case number would have to be generated for each year the target is being actively monitored.
Active entries is certainly a misnomer. A target may no longer be actively monitored but it would not make sense to delete existing information from the PRISM database based on that. I suppose the NSA/CIA/FBI might agree to delete information about a particular target that they no longer considered suspicious. I would expect that deletion rate to match that of removing individuals from the "No Fly List".
Note that the maximum number of records/per source/per year is 10 million. They would obviously over provision that so the maximum would never be reached, but still, that's a disturbingly large number.
On the post: Journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin Suggests US Should Arrest Glenn Greenwald For Doing Journalism
"I put my foot in my mouth" Sorkin, early today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfHjY-lFCs
He says he supports Greenwald's first amendment rights in covering the story and backpedals about accusing Greenwald of aiding Snowden in fleeing from the US DOJ. He claims he put his foot in his mouth and just wanted to bring up the issue, in general, of journalists aiding a subject to run from justice. I give him some credit for the apology but he still needs to clarify further.
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