Thank you Ernest and Great Satan I applaud your commentary. To me conspiracy theorists are like the Spanish Inquisition. Either you agree with them entirely or you’re a conspiring enemy. The NSA has taken the step even further. They are in the business of paranoia, in literally creating enemies if they have to, to ensure they’re guaranteed state funded existence. No small reason why they exploit paranoia and propagate it. IE…there are enemies everywhere! It is the method in sometimes creating or enhancing fear that gives them the justifications to spy on us, intrude on our privacy and God know what else. We are in bulk being treated like common criminals, enemies or potential enemies of the state if you will, by our own government. We(most of us) can’t be trusted. Meanwhile who in the hell is watching them?

As for the NSA admitting their code was broken right after 9/11, just prior to it there was talk in congress over the necessity of having a CIA. 9/11 put an end to that notion quick. Not to add any fuel to the conspiracy fires, but that was interesting timing on both counts.

NSA has been spying on US citizens in the US for decades, they have also shared that information with domestic law enforcemnet, such as FBI and DEA. Why do you think you never really heard about the NSA in the media for soooo many years. Most people really didn’t know who they were. Everyone knew the CIA, but not many people knew about NSA.
  Before 9/11 they’re own codebreaking had been surpassed by basic internet encryption. Right before 9/11 a month or two before, the Director got on 60 minutes and basically said as much, (a first to be sure.) Right after 9/11 the Gov’t was granted access to backdoor codes.
  I agree that using special encryption methods will just get you a red flag. Also once a particular email adress or ISP # is red flagged, you will get monitored. No doubt.
  The real problem with NSA and CIA is they fact that they are government men and women, they work for a system, and participate in an organized ideological conspiracy, ie. the federal governemnt/military-industrial complex. They cannot identify with individuals who hold their own beliefs; they realy think that if one holds some belief, does some research or wishes to oppose their “conspiracy,” that person must be “working for someone.” They are the worst conspiracy theorists of them all. Its the basic psychology of projection.
  So the real problem is that someone doing research or writing letters is not going to be seen as a free individual, but as linked in with some network. The old six degrees of separation factor will tie just about anyone in with something. The CIA works indirectly, through a series of buffers, so they will assume the various degrees of separation are buffers too. This is how these spooks think; unfortunately, due to the secrets they hold, mos are barred from seeking professional psychiatric help.

Re comment #99410 by Michael Shaw.  Excellent post!  To it I would add the observation made by Senator Frank Church way back in the 1970s.  He said that if the NSA eavesdropping and data collection capabilities were ever put to domestic use, there would truly be “no place to hide.”

Well David, I appreciate your expertise but my main point is that encryption is an open invitation to the feds that something bad is going on and they have other avenues, like seizing your computer or investigating your financial statements etc. Encryption does not hide the source of an email. 

After lobbying congress with the ACLU over the patriot act, when leaving from Reagan National, I became a victim of the very thing I lobbied against. The situation was simple. I had two choices. A-was to swipe my credit card(any one would do) through this weird looking atm machine or B-I would miss my flight and god knows what else. Banks, hospitals and pharmacy’s are an open link to everybody’s business. They might not know what you’re sending in an email but before they’re through they’ll know what books you read, who you donate money too and where you buy your underwear.

99179 Michael,

You said, “When you send encrypted mail to someone they use a code to de-scramble it. It would be naive to think for a moment the government doesn’t have that same capability.”

They can only decrypt the data if they have the decryption key.

Regardless of whether the government or anyone else has the encryption/decryption software, they do not have the ability to decrypt RC4 or AES encrypted information unless they have the decryption key.  This is actually the point of good encryption algorithm design. 

Both the RC4 and AES algorithms as well as many others are published but are still essentially unbreakable.  That an algorithm is published and widely available for study, yet remains unbroken, is a requirement for secure encryption algorithms.  A secret algorithm may be secure, but who could tell.  The RC4 and AES algorithms are encryption algorithms and the software that implements them has been published and available for anyone’s inspection for some time.

Here is a link to Skype web page on security:

http://www.skype.com/security/security/

While Skype’s security is good.  Email S-MIME is even better.

As you suggest, the only practical way to decrypt the encrypted messages is to get the decryption key off of your computer.

98586 David I agree that encryption like the kinds you mention or that banks use can protect your email data from spying. However since the government red flags encryption emails it doesn’t mean they won’t utilize other investigative measures to spy on you, including home invasion, access to your medical and financial records etc. Encrypted mail presents an interest and with back door spying portals, even encrypted code can be broken if the government decides to. Let’s not forget if you can get this Skype program so can the government. When you send encrypted mail to someone they use a code to de-scramble it. It would be naive to think for a moment the government doesn’t have that same capability.
What I really find disturbing is putting all of your information into one basket. Even though these new national id’s (like the ones about to be implemented in Arizona) are encrypted, keeping your data “safe”, the system is only as good as the overseers(in this case several thousand) who have that data at the touch of a finger. Bank embezzlement is nothing new to our society and no matter how well encrypted their system is, embezzlements happen. In a world where everyone was honest and could be trusted this id plan would be fine. Then again if that were the case we wouldn’t need such a plan in the first place. You and I both know people, even people in the highest ranks of government can often not be trusted. These same people we cannot trust are thrusting this system upon us. From that can come no good.

Regardless of what this administration does, you can be relatively immune to this type of spying, if you use encrypted email and an encrypted IP phone like Skype. 

The Wikipedia references I give below claim that these algorithms are currently secure.  From these references, it appears that publicly available encryption technology used in these applications is secure.  This leaves us with a question:  Is this spying technology just an enormous government boondoggle?  Business already uses encryption extensively for e-commerce.  The IP phone software Skype is encrypted as well. 

The public key/private key digital signatures, enabling encrypted e-mail(S-MIME) are available free for personal use at:

http://www.thawte.com/secure-email/personal-email-certificates/index.html?click=DoYouNeedTo-SecureMail

If you get the 2048 bit key your email communications are quite secure. 

The Skype IP phone uses similar encryption systems for Skype to Skype communication.  Skype to Skype phone calls are free and encrypted.  You can download Skype at:

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/helloagain.html

Because of the volume of Skype to Skype calls internationally and the encryption your privacy is will be well protected.

The encryption algorithms used for S-MIME and Skype are the RSA and AES algorithms.  Here are the links the Wikipedia sections on these algorithms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard

These are open source algorithms that have been extensively studied and are considered to be secure.  What this means is that if some one encrypts something using your public key the corresponding private key is necessary to decrypt it.  Basically it all comes down to private key security.  If you are the only person that has your private key you are going to be the only one that can decrypt the message.

My point is that even outside the Bush regime our political system is askew. No one will do a thing in congress to stop Bush from doing what he intends to do. some might talk tough but in the end nothing will be done. We certainly don’t have the judiciary on our side either. Bush will do what he wants, even if it means WW3 and we’re paying ten dollars a gallon for gas.

Here-Here Ernest, either that or he doesn’t stand a chance in hell like Kucinich.

Now that war with Iran is imminent, congress will simply sit there twiddling their thumbs. I guess the next step might be for the con-di-dates to talk tough in denouncing his actions so they don’t look unpatriotic and appear weak on national defense.

Michael, you must be kidding.  Inside the Bush regime, a government official who is intelligent and honest is soon to be a former government official.

98263 And we have to depend on all these government officials who have this information as being honest and perhaps more importantly, intelligent. As I’ve always said, there is no such thing as secure, foolproof data and there will always be a way around it. It’s only a matter of time. Meanwhile all of us will be at their mercy and our lives like front page news. They also share the information they gather with government officials outside of this country and every DMV in the nation will have access to your business. And like Great Satin said more and more intelligence gathering is done by private corporations. How many of them are honest?

What is over-looked in this otherwise exhaustive piece, is that far beyond the complicity of the telecommunication companies, the actual mining will be done by private intelligence firms, such as Abraxas, Raytheon, and so forth. The role of the privates is moving from complicity and profiteering to really running the show, politicians becoming no more than washed up celebrities doing info-mercials. The “on the side that’s winning” new regime loyalists/constitutional traitors move quietly out of their government jobs into directorial jobs in corporate spydom. Tom Ridge now helps direct Abraxas… for instance. The CIA gets worse and worse press, and already the remaining constituionalists are not only being subordinated to the corporates, discredited repeatedly, and threatened by “oops, did I leak your name..” from the white house, but they are beginning tolabeled as outright saboteers and traitors to “America.”

Re: Encription…

These encription algorithisms are definitly, entirely secure…
Unless, of course, you happen to be one of the folks with the key, such as the FBI and others…

# 96858 Ga on 8/25:
Gee Ga,to bad you weren’t here last week on the 22nd. There were phone problems like being disconnected off and on all day.In these phone calls were heard: background phones ringing, people talking, sounds similar to that of fax machines. This started at 8:30am until after 6pm. No phone work was done anywhere is the area. Must be Ma Bell or Sprint had their wired crossed somewhere. And yet for all the technicology we have today the service keeps getting worse.And then they have the nerve to make us pay for this service or lack thereof.

Do you know what the farmer said to his son? Shhh! The corn has ears and the potatoes have eyes.

97693

David,

I appreciate your analogy of this situation and it has merit. But I’d like to add that encryption is exactly what the government is looking for, especially in email communications. Terrorists know this and it is my understanding they do not encrypt for this very reason. Any encrypted message(especially from overseas) is construed as suspicious and becomes red flagged.  Like you say there is so much technology out there and so many communications are made on any give day, there will always be a way to skirt around and security measure. Nothing is fool proof and businesses and even government agencies are hacked often.

When we look at the results, data mining is really ineffective. To me it’s like the old Casablanca addage, “Round up the usual suspects!” Only in this case everybody is a suspect and everybody is being treated as a potential terrorist. Then comes the national ID plan that puts all of our pertinent information into one basket, allowing thousands of DMV employees, government agents, foreign countries and God knows who else to have access, making it easier to steal or abuse our identities. I see all of it as state manipulated chaos. Big brother is watching so be afraid, be very afraid. As Ritter once pointed out the government has actually regulated fear, given it color codes. They tell literally how afraid we should be. They also tell us(usually just prior to an election) someone is going to attack us. When asked where, they don’t know! By whom? They don’t know! When? They don’t know! Now it is not only enough to fear terrorism, we have to fear our own government as well.

The bottom line is data mining is like searching for a needle in a haystack but again as you point out, it can be used effectively to discover political trends and affiliations which creates an environment that allows the information gatherers to “fix” elections. For example they can see where democrats are sending money to in various states, then send even more money to their republican counterparts.

With all the spying and data mining, torture and every other crazy thing they’ve done, the results are pretty dismal. But plenty of mistakes have been made along the way and will continue to be made as long as we must live under this draconian insanity.

Onnesha,

Data mining is effective using publicly available unencrypted data for marketing or industrial/political opposition research.  How do the proponents of this extensive data mining deal with the argument that it will be ineffective against a intelligent opponent that would be using encryption? 

Encrypted communication is the cornerstone of electronic banking and commerce.  A terrorist could use publicly available encrypted communication systems to avoid being noticed by the data mining system.  Their encrypted communications would hardly be noticed in the flood of encrypted communications that occur in daily commerce and they can aways obscure their origin by using a secure proxy.

If you’ll remember Ernest Bush put Poindexter in charge of the program until the news resurfaced showing Poindexter as the only guy who served any real prison time for Iran/Contra. Criminals in charge of spying! How quaint!

Re #96858 by Ga on 8/25 at 11:07 am

The walls have ears. You can’t be too careful. They’re definitely out to get us.

Now since I have been writing on Truthdig I have noticed what we call a bounce effect on the phone like a hollow sound.Well if this is the idiots at NSA…

How bizarre…

If you think that some of the “idiots” somehow got into Truthdig’s server and somehow saw it’s server logs and somehow matched a log entry to your particular post and Truthdig openly logged your IP address and the “idiots” somehow matched that IP address back to your phone… you should be using an anonymous connection!!!

But I am being sarcastic.

You have to be joking or do you really want us to believe that you believe that a post to a webserver (using HTTP) can trigger a wiretap on your phone? And that the wiretap would cause audible noise in your receiver?

Bizarre? No. Insane.

The purpose of NSA data mining and eavesdropping, satellite-based visual spying, etc., can be summed up by the symbol chosen by Admiral Poindexter for his “Total Information Awareness” program, a pyramid topped by an all-seeing eye.  At it’s base is the inscription “Scienter Est Potentia”—Latin for “knowledge is power.” 

Poindexter did not have in mind knowledge shared by the American people.  The Bush administration operates behind a one-way mirror.  They want the ability to know everything about each of us but would, to the extent possible, deny the American people, and even Congress, the right to know what takes place within the adminnistration’s corridors of power.

The concept of “wire tapping” referenced by several posters misses the mark.  As explained by James Bamford, there is a fundamental difference between FBI & NSA eavesdropping capabilities.  The FBI is “a sort of retail eavesdropper.  They will go from house to house or put a bug on a central telephone company’s office for where a person happens to have their junction box…The NSA…does it wholesale, where they take entire streams of communications coming down from satellites, which can contain millions of communications…[and then] filter the information through very quick computers that are loaded with names of people, words that they’re looking for….One listening post in the central part of England…[can] intercept two million pieces of communications an hour….Senator Frank Church, back in the mid-70s, when he was conducting his investigation of the NSA, said that if the NSA’s technology were ever turned on the American public, there would be no place to hide.”

In “Body of Secrets,” Bamford describes the NSA’s “Crypto City” as “home to the largest collection of hyperpowerful computers, advanced mathematicians, and language experts on the planet.”  To this, Robert O’Harrow, in “No Place to Hide” adds that while much of what the NSA does is shrouded in secrecy, amongst the known programs is the Information Exploitation initiative which is designed to “yield even faster networks and computers that can extract, synthesize and display intelligence ‘from vast repositories of raw and structured data in ‘all human languages.’  That data might include telephone calls, email, credit card puyrchases, television video, photograms, even the images transmitted by mobile phones.”

We are a tribal society being pushed by “CENTRAL BANKING” toward a single world government. All the posturing that so-called power brokers like our administration, Russia, England is only a front for the Banking system that keeps everything operating on a Debt system.
If everyone stopped relying on borrowing then the abuse by the Federal Reserve and others would come to a halt. War is of course making assholes richer. But, more importantly it feeds the CENTRAL BANK by creating more debt. They create more worthless paper notes backed up with nothing and the average citizen has no idea why they can never seem to get ahead.

Truth be told we would be much in touch with the planet if we reinstituted a BARTER system and told governments and money mongers to kiss our ass.

Of course these people will not give up their power without a fight. That is why they use the CIA, NSA, FBI, Interpol and all the other law enforcement tools they have at their disposal to silence or scare the hell out of anyone that uncovers the scam and proceeds to tell the public.

This is closer to the real truth than any public official we hear about in the news.

Money As Debt video and other good links
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/135.html
http://www.themoneymasters.com/faqs.htm
http://moneyasdebt.net/
http://www.lovethetruth.com/truth_about_money.htm

working assets, the money making arm of working for change, claims they did not turn over any records to the gov. i just recently dumped both cingular and bellsouth in favor of a better monetary deal from working assets. if they are not lying, how did “onnesha” overlook this? not such great reporting.

This is superior work, investigative reporting at its best.  Truly outstanding.

#94596 by purplewolf on 8/13 at 12:21 pm: “...# 93701 Shruff ......Back in the 70’s I know my phone was taped…..... “...Now since I have been writing on Truthdig I have noticed what we call a bounce effect on the phone like a hollow sound.Well if this is the idiots at NSA or whatever government spy group are listening, they are pretty damned hard up for something to do….”

Sounds like primitive technology but I know what you mean. Also tried complaining about city hall, etc etc some time back and there were these phone survey people who kept calling asking my opinion at length on all sorts of things. When I asked who they were, they said they were “consultants”. But with the phone technology and surveillance devices now, tapping can be done without you knowing at all.

By the way, there is also eye-in-the-sky now but check this:-
Quote: “Much of Sydney’s CBD as it appears in the satellite images on Google Maps Australia has been fuzzed out, just weeks before the APEC summit. .....Google says the imagery was downgraded as a result of a “commercial issue” with a supplier, but the move has aroused speculation it was done at the request of police in order to minimise the risk of a terrorist attack during the September summit, where Sydney will play host to 21 world leaders including U.S. President George W. Bush. .......Google has in the past been accused of censoring its maps due to national security concerns by governments, most recently in June when it updated its maps of Washington D.C. but maintained older, blurry images for most of the downtown area….” http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/googles-photos-of-sydney-go-all-fuzzy/2007/08/13/1186857396182.html

# 93701 Shruff
Back in the 70’s I know my phone was taped.Many times when I picked up there was no dialtone.On several occassions I could hear faint music in the background for several seconds then a click and a dialtone.Sometimes it took over 45 minutes after I hung up to get a dialtone again. That problem was solved when I started to play music or sound effect records back to them full blast. One time I heard a person it sounded like doing dishes,water being turned on and off a clunck of something being set down then it repeated and a baby in the backgroung, then eventually a click and a dialtone.Of course the phone company denied any illegal activity. At that time I worked in a nursing home and volunteered for the American Red Cross and the Free Medical Clinic for the poor, that may have been why.

Now since I have been writing on Truthdig I have noticed what we call a bounce effect on the phone like a hollow sound.Well if this is the idiots at NSA or whatever government spy group are listening, they are pretty damned hard up for something to do. I talk to my mother, and 1 of 2 close girlfriends and if they think they are learning anything it is about the soap operas, the latest b.s the bush bunch had done, how are we going to pay the bills this month, the dog is sick, and a lot of satire which is just that, satire-nothing coded to unravel here. Just plain off the wall stuff beyond their tiny brains can understand.If they are so hard up to learn “valuable information” they need to listen where the real threats are, but they can’t as it leads to home(i.e. the white house and beyond) and leave the senior citizens and crippled handicapped old horny ladies like us alone.

The greatest tragedy in that post of Skruff’s is that he hasnt an inkling or a clue of exactly what a monsterous stance he defends.

I am sorry that you havent a heart or a clue as to what it means to be engaged in our nation or in our community,Skruff, but you are simply , and on a very deep level, a heartless idiot.

#94081 by Com_n_sense on 8/11 at 5:32 pm

Please understand that noone cares (corporate noones) about a boycott or general strike. They know full well that what you do not buy today you will buy tomorrow.

We do not need dramatic and useless energy wasters like such as you support. This stuff makes some feel better about marching one day a year and then going back to sleep.

Skruff,

You forgot one three letter phrase in your rant about unfeeling governments:
‘In my opinion’....

I work to make a government that does indeed care, what on earth do you work for? Negativity serves what purpose, other than pushing the libertarian agenda…no government let poor people starve, fuck ‘em anyway.

#94028 by Skruff on 8/11 at 1:12 pm: “...NO government “respects” anything.  BUT continuity and the status quo. ......The people in government have sold us a bill of goods. We need “councils” but not government as we have come to know them.  .......Funny creatures human beings…. Talk freedon but accept slavery…. AND #94024 by THOMAS BILLIS on 8/11 at 1:05 pm: “...Wake up America.We are being turned into sheep.The best is it is being done by a man who is two steps away from being a chimp.Enough already…...”

Quote: “IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU ARE JET-PROPELLED, AIR-CONDITIONED OR STEAK-FED…NOR DOES IT MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE IN THE WORLD…AND IT EQUALLY DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE BEEN PAID FOR WHO SAID IT: “NONE ARE SO HOPELESSLY ENSLAVED AS THOSE WHO THINK THEY ARE FREE… http://www.worldslaves.citymax.com/page/page/195600.htm

I MENTION THIS BECAUSE LIKE IN MOST CASES, THE TRUTH IS SIMPLE BUT MADE TO APPEAR COMPLEX SO THE SLAVES DON’T CATCH ON…. LOSE YOUR BALL AND CHAIN - HOLD YOUR HEAD UP…”!!!!

Practically the encryption systems used for Email(S-MIME) and IP phones like Skype, are completely secure.  Given the practically complete security (unless someone gets a quantum computer going) , what purpose does the large scale data mining system that Onnesha has presented serve?

Email encryption is based on RSA cryptography.  These encryption algorithms are, practically, secure.

Here is the link to the Wikipedia article on RSA encryption algorithms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA

Note that in the security section it mentions that there is some debate over the encryption security of a 1024 bit digital signature.  If you get your free personal email digital signature at Thawte, make sure you select the 2048 bit digital signature.  That should be, practically, secure for a while.

The Skype IP phone uses a type of cryptography called 256 bit AES.  Here is the Wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard

The 256 bit AES encryption standard was certified by the US for secret and top secret data in 2003.

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Everyone, please watch this video:

When asked by Barbara Walters on the night of September 11, 2001 if the 9/11
attacks were carried out by forces within the U.S., 2008 ... all » presidential
candidate and then senate intelligence committee member John Edwards becomes
evasive and refuses to answer the question, after having spoken to CIA director
George Tenet earlier that day.  «
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-886644060632694627&q=edwards+9/11+wal
ters&total=23&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

I believe that there is no practical and in existant system immune from eventual decription. The point is not to make codes unbreakable it is to make governments that respect privacy.

#93837 by minamoto no taira on 8/10 at 6:50 pm: “...Is it only a coincidence that this buliding resembles the Ka’aba in the Great Mosque at Mecca, only way uglier…”

Is that a building? Its more like BattleStar Galactica!

no comment. u know already;)

#93731 by DavidJames on 8/10 at 10:39 am: “...Encryption can make you relatively immune from spying….”

An then there is “tunnelling”.....

Perhaps the real problem is not that they are listening but what they choose not to hear???

“It would still be pretty boring to listen to my conversations. “

But possibly less boring to listen to democratic strategists plotting campaign strategies. Or perhaps business executives not a part of the Bush cabal discussing ways to gain a competitive advantage, etc, ad nauseum.

I must wonder at the rather dismissive note to Skruff’s post regarding a basic and serious violation of constitutional law and personal freedoms, oh well, nothing to see here…

Encryption can make you relatively immune from spying.

Personal Email digital signature/email certificates are available free from Thawte.  These certificates enable you to use the S-MIME encryption in your email client.   

http://www.thawte.com/secure-email/personal-email-certificates/index.html?click=DoYouNeedTo-SecureMail

Encypted email is essentially immune to spying.

The Skype IP phone uses similar encryption systems for Skype to Skype communication.  Skype to Skype phone calls are free.

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/helloagain.html

Skype is also immune to spying.

In the words of Pink Floyd ...“Welcome to the Machine!”

This is not just a telecom issue either. Privatization is in many ways a clever way of circumventing our rights and the governments constitutional constraints. When everything is private through third parties why bother with warrants, FISA, or any other oversight? Privatization kills oversight and gives cover to all sorts of unethical/illegal activities. All done under the guise of “smaller” government and “cheaper” services - neither of which is true.

It will be an extremely rude awakening if America doesn’t wake up fast.

B

http://b-political.blogspot.com/