- #246
Mathnomalous
- 83
- 5
CAC1001 said:They weren't "lies."
Misstatements, I suppose.
CAC1001 said:They weren't "lies."
Mathnomalous said:Misstatements, I suppose.
I can factor large prime numbers in my head.nismaratwork said:When it comes to sound encryption you run into problems of factoring large prime numbers... so brute force would take more time than the universe has been in existence. Barring a breakthrough in the factoring of prime numbers or computer hardware, that's a locked file.
Hurkyl said:I can factor large prime numbers in my head.
nismaratwork said:CAC1001: You're entitled to your religious beliefs. Wait, wrong response, but it applies pretty well.
nismaratwork said:When it comes to sound encryption you run into problems of factoring large prime numbers
rhody said:Proton,
Got a link for this ?
Rhody...
To: John Young <jya[a t]pipeline.com>
From: Wikileaks <wikileaks[a t]wikileaks.org>
Subject: martha stuart pgp
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 12:20:25 -0500
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: None
J. We are going to **** them all. Chinese mostly, but not entirely a feint. Invention
abounds. Lies, twists and distorts everywhere needed for protection. Hackers monitor
chinese and other intel as they burrow into their targets, when they pull, so do we.
Inxhaustible supply of material. Near 100,000 documents/emails a day. We're going to
crack the world open and let it flower into something new. If fleecing the CIA will
assist us, then fleece we will. We have pullbacks from NED, CFR, Freedomhouse and
other CIA teats. We have all of pre 2005 afghanistan. Almost all of India fed. Half
a dozen foreign ministries. Dozens of political parties and consulates, worldbank,
apec, UN sections, trade groups, tibet and fulan dafa associations and... russian
phishing mafia who pull data everywhere. We're drowing. We don't even know a tenth
of what we have or who it belongs to. We stopped storing it at 1Tb.
Proton Soup said:sure, not exactly a 1/1000-th mind you, but same order of magnitude.
http://cryptome.org/0003/wikileaks-lash.htm
WhoWee said:These WikiLeaks people sound like little kids sitting in an upstairs closet, planning to sneak down the stairs to listen to an adult conversation taking place around a card table (a 1950's or 1960's retro example). Then once they hear something they run back to the closet and giggle, then maybe tell their friends about it the next day.
The difference is that while a story including Bob's dad said a bad word, and Matt's dad had gas, and Bill's mom wanted another drink might have been entertaining, it didn't really injure anyone.
If your link is real, maybe the hackers should start to worry about ALL of the players. Everyone will not be restricted by the rules applicable to the US. Personally, I'll find it ironic and even humorous if the unintended consequences of this leak is the retaliation onto the hackers themselves - by their "info hosts".
Bragging often gets people into more trouble than the act itself - IMO.
Proton Soup said:wikileaks isn't even the story. the real story is that you've got a hacker mafia in russia breaking in everywhere getting dirt on everyone off public networks. and i guess chinese too. and nobody cares about that, or dealing with it. the only thing anyone cares about is the appearance, the public relations aspect. Assange is a convenient scapegoat that you can publicly flay while conveniently ignoring that the barn door is wide open.
nismaratwork said:This isn't hacking... it's script-kiddy bull****. They're just saying they watch the activity of people who DO have the talent to enter databases, and then packet sniff them! Our security is SO BAD, that it just takes a bunch of script kiddies being supported by a handful of talented and generally anonymous black-hats.
misnara,nismaratwork said:This isn't hacking... it's script-kiddy bull****. They're just saying they watch the activity of people who DO have the talent to enter databases, and then packet sniff them! Our security is SO BAD, that it just takes a bunch of script kiddies being supported by a handful of talented and generally anonymous black-hats.
whatever is in "insurance" is only 1.5GB, which is only a 1/1000-th of the total volume they claimed to have collected a few years ago before they even went public.
there is apparently a lot more over at Cryptome that John Young is releasing (is he trying to cover his own *** so he isn't next?) from the internal private wikileaks mailing list, but I'm not sure how much time i'd want to invest in that.
Proton, errr. Misnara,
Got a link for this ?
There are three variants of AES, which differ in the size of their keys (128, 192, or 256 bits), though they all use the same 128-bit block size. The size of the key has other implications within the algorithm itself (and slightly increases the encoding time), but mostly, it increases the amount of time needed to break it with what's called a "brute force attack" (more on that in a bit). The three variants also carry different numbers of "rounds" protecting their keys. Each round is sort of like a layer of further obscurity, making the original data all the more disguised. AES-128 has ten rounds, AES-192 has twelve, and AES-256 has fourteen.
Those rounds make it effectively impossible to compare the ciphered data with its key and divine any sort of pattern, since the data has been so thoroughly mangled by, in this case, 14 rounds of highly sophisticated manipulation that it's unrecognizable. The rounds make an already secure algorithm that much more secure.
nismaratwork said:Proton, we have the NSA and Echelon, and more... we do the same thing. This isn't hacking, as I mentioned previously, just another form of semi-active sigint. The issue isn't that this is being done, but that we're sucking at it.
Proton Soup said:i'm not sure whether you're saying our security is good or bad.
rhody said:misnara,
Since Proton did not address my original question in Post https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3032729&postcount=242" I will pose the question to you, to separate fact from fiction, isn't that what PF is supposedly all about ?
I respect your opinion and insight hopefully backed by multiple, verifiable sources...
Thanks in advance...
Rhody...
P.S. BTW from the information I have been able to obtain even if they were to crack thehttp://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-12/how-secure-julian-assanges-thermonuclear-insurance-file" , and text is scrambled and would be of no use anyway.
see text from the link:
nismaratwork said:I think you need to check what 'hacking' originally meant, came to mean, and really means in practice; there's no way that someone using someone else's programs to scan ports or sniff packets is a hacker... they are a script-kiddy. Hacking is actively creating your own code, and entering where you're not welcome... not managing botnets, not packet-sniffing, and not even massive signal intercepts. It may be that this is a semantic issue, I'm not sure.
Proton Soup said:yeah, not really interested in that debate. and as i understand it, hacking originally had to do with hardware reverse engineering. and wasn't even a negative term i think until people started building phone "blueboxes" or whatever kind of boxen they were called. blah blah blah 2600 blah...
CAC1001 said:From my understanding of it, hacking is refers to people who like to solve problems and build and create things, and applies to people who have an obsession with learning everything about something. So a person may learn to program in all the major languages, they will read technical manuals, they will learn electronics to an advanced level, they'll learn the telephone and Internet infrastructure, they'll load individual operating systems up onto their computer and read the manuals to each operating system and study them to find the holes, etc...a hacker is not interested in doing anything malicious or destructive (unless maybe defending their country by doing bad things to foreign countries trying to do the same to their country).
"Hacking" got a negative connotation when people started using these skills for destructive and criminal purposes however. From what I have read, the term for such malicious hackers is/was actually "crackers."
However, outside of the hacker culture, the general term used by the media and so forth is "hacker" and also cracker is known as being a racist term to others, so one can see how people would be reluctant to use it. Today it seems more the terms are White Hat hacker and Black Hat hacker (white hat is good, black hat is bad).
Although referring to technology, the hacker philosophy can really apply to any art or science. If you study music and learn everything you can about music, all the instruments, all the major works, etc...then you are applying the hacker philosophy to music. Or if you learn everything there is to know about automobiles, you're applying it to autos. If you are obsessed with economics and learn everything there is to know about how economies work, you're basically applying it to economics as well. hacking is about figuring out how things work.
Script kiddies are just people who download software that had already been written by others and use these tools to perform malicious activities. But a script kiddie has no real knowledge of how to actually program or how things actually work. The really dangerous "hacker" is the kind who knows in-depth all about the technology, and has no qualms about doing bad things.
nismaratwork said:Personally I think the major flaw here is that I'm not clear that Assange or anyone else knows what's in that file. If it's meaningless crap, then what a waste, right? On the other hand, if it's terribly sensitive and clearly gets people killed... whoops. No, this isn't something the US is looking to open, it's a fail-deadly device for Assange to use in a manner he's yet to make clear.
Galteeth said:What would lead to you to believe Assange doesn't know what's in the file? The purpose to me seems pretty clear. He said he would only release the password if he were killed or imprisoned for life. It's leverage against that happening. The file could be pictures of cats for all we know. The point is, that if people believe it could be something that might damage them (which is why you don't say what's in it, because you're not sure who might want to jail or kill you) it might dissaude them from jailing or killing Assange.
The military papers on Guantanamo Bay, yet to be published, believed to have been supplied by Bradley Manning, who was arrested in May. Other documents that Assange is confirmed to possesses include an aerial video of a US airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP files and Bank of America documents.
nismaratwork said:You expect me to believe that beyond this overview, Assange has read the vast number of documents described as being in this file? You can't go around assuming that every gun isn't loaded, so the 'cats' concept is probably wishful thinking. Here is what is claimed to be in the file, at least:
The military papers on Guantanamo Bay, yet to be published, believed to have been supplied by Bradley Manning, who was arrested in May. Other documents that Assange is confirmed to possesses include an aerial video of a US airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP files and Bank of America documents.
I'm sure he watched the video and read some of it, but unless he's smuggling HD movies in the original 720-1080 he could have a LOT of pictures of cats in a compressed file of that size.
Galteeth said:No, that is stuff that he has either already released or is planning to release. The insurance file wouldn't be that.
nismaratwork said:That was a quote from the NY Post, and represents the only CONFIRMED files that he has. Given however that he hasn't bluffed yet I'm shocked that you feel you can predict his behaviour so confidently.
Galteeth said:I'm not saying he's bluffing. I think you misunderstood my post. People were asking what the point of the insurance file was. It probably is something damaging. I was explaining why he hasn't explicitly stated what's in it. The video of the civilian deaths has already been released, and the other stuff the NY post mentioned wikileaks has said they are going to release. It wouldn't make sense for the insurance file to contain stuff he already released or was planning on releasing (unless it was a bluff).
The idea of an insurance file is you don't know who might be after you. It could be a government of some country or a corporation or criminal organization who thinks you have info they don't want to get out. If they think killing you may cause a release of that info, it is disincentive to kill you. Hence insurance. I wasn't seriously suggesting it was a bluff. The point is, as you accurately realized, people can't assume he's bluffing, so the threat of an "insurance file" seems to serve its purpose.
Pointing out that it could be a bluff was only to illustrate the psychology behind its purpose.
Galteeth said:I'm not saying he's bluffing. I think you misunderstood my post. People were asking what the point of the insurance file was. It probably is something damaging. I was explaining why he hasn't explicitly stated what's in it. The video of the civilian deaths has already been released, and the other stuff the NY post mentioned wikileaks has said they are going to release. It wouldn't make sense for the insurance file to contain stuff he already released or was planning on releasing (unless it was a bluff).
The idea of an insurance file is you don't know who might be after you. It could be a government of some country or a corporation or criminal organization who thinks you have info they don't want to get out. If they think killing you may cause a release of that info, it is disincentive to kill you. Hence insurance. I wasn't seriously suggesting it was a bluff. The point is, as you accurately realized, people can't assume he's bluffing, so the threat of an "insurance file" seems to serve its purpose.
Pointing out that it could be a bluff was only to illustrate the psychology behind its purpose.
WhoWee said:On the other hand, an enemy of someone he holds "insurance" against might kill him to trigger the release. Wouldn't that be ironic?
nismaratwork said:Yes, that's exactly why I initially referred to this file as a 'fail-deadly device', which it is! Whether it's Semtex or soap, if a guy claiming to be wearing a bomb has a dead-man's switch, it's a very difficult situation.
There is a flaw here however, which is that Assange seems very intent upon maintaining a particular image in the media, an that one doesn't fit with such a blatant threat. He can claim self-defense, but he also wants to release the truth right? If there is something in that file that 'the world needs to know' under the Wikileaks philosophy, then using it as a fail-deadly is counter to that philosophy. Really, this only works if they're UNEDITED versions of documents already released, or if he just took a chunk of what he believed to be meaty material, compressed and encrypted it without ever having the time to look through it.
A bluff or not, the people who love him and this site (who are now the keepers of this file!) are going to want to know what's in it, don't you think? How is it going to look for Assange's crusade when he uses secrets that important as a means of blackmail to save his rear, and that such secrets could die with him! No, I think he just took a chunk of unfiltered or edited cables that would be damaging, but not necessarily interesting or "criminal" in the way he feels the air-strike was. Anything else, and he'll have no friends left at all, and file or not he'll be a dead man.
Galteeth said:The secrets don't "die with him," the encryption key is released (a few of his wikileaks people have it) if he dies. It's pretty speculative to say what will happen to the data eventually. He seems to think of himself as a historian, so at this point it would seem like he would make some plan for its eventual release, but who knows what the years will bring?
'Anything else, and he'll have no friends left at all, and file or not he'll be a dead man" I'm still bit confused here by what you're saying. If the file is decrypted, he's already dead.(or maybe in jail for life with no possibility of parole)
Proton Soup said:if it's a bluff, i think it would never be released.
otherwise, whatever is in there would likely be released at some future date no matter what happens. that is the whole purpose of wikileaks, after all.