What is Digg?152 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+61Come on guys, lets get this one to the front. This is a great way to stop the recent government infringements on privacy without lobbying, and without doing anything illegal.
- theotheragentm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25When I was little, I wore a cup to protect myself from my big brother.
- thelastknowngod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16i just downloaded truecrypt about 3 days ago. i heard about it on the podcast Security Now. they did an awesome review of it and anyone that wants info about it should check it out.
it is episode #41 at...
http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm - WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16Everyday is paranoia day... Welcome to digg...
- AF-Geek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Actually Steve Gibson (of Gibson Research Corp.: www.grc.com ) has been doing a great series of podcasts about this very subject with Leo LaPorte called "Security Now". You can download the low bitrate shows from grc.com, or the high bitrate ones from www.TWiT.tv (lots of other great shows there, too).
The answer to your question: They all work VERY well! - RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I wish the article went into a little more depth instead of focusing on "FIGHT THE MAN, MAN!"
How well do these programs work, anyway? - twiztedambience, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10To think this really stops the government snooping is a fallacy. Relying on stronger encryption methods when the government oversteps its boundaries is a failed concept as inevitably, we'll all lose. Standing up for what you believe in and lobbying, writing letters, and making your voice heard is still the best way to stop it all - then do this on top of it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9syneo: Noted and fixed May 31, 2006. Thanks for the feedback.
- hfx392, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11If the NSA has the resources to bruteforce all encrypted data that goes over the net, then I guess that might explain the $200 hammers.
Most likely encrypted data is dumped somewhere a bit more permanent, for future decryption if needed. - streetstealth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8While it's obviously tongue in cheek to suggest that men in suits and dark glasses are going to show up at mancat's door due to his comment, a quick artificial analysis of the semantics of his post could very well have been logged at something like the San Francisco AT&T 'secret room', sitting there, gathering other trigger phrases from his IP address, even linking them with other IPs his ISP account has used.
Within a few days, perhaps, a separate server with deep pattern anaylysis software might sync with the aforementioned device, flagging mancat's browsing habits, pulling up his ISP subscriber information, and forwarding it to another analysis system, perhaps one with human interaction.
A sleepy, underpaid intelligence guy in a crowded office probably gets to look at a few correlation points that scroll by every hour, forwarding stuff that looks hot to the higher-ups, while trying to weed out red herrings. If mancat's dossier gets forwarded, maybe he gets a glance from the next guy up and is dropped onto the no-fly list, and has his name added to an interstate police database. His next speeding ticket might be quite a bit more interesting than the last.
Sound plausible? I think so. Creepy? Without a doubt. - p8r1ck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"If you have nothing to hide, why are you hiding?"
If I have nothing to hide, why are you watching me? - syneo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8You got one part of the article incorrect. You don't have to protect the hidden volume when you mount it. You only need to protect it IF you mount the OUTER volume AND IF you need to WRITE to the OUTER volume. See this for more info: http://www.truecrypt.org/user-guide/?s=hidden-volume-protection
- TennBikeBerk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9This is why we need to join together and make encryption a mainstream concept. If one person in the United States were to be encrypting their files, it would look suspicious, but if millions of Americans start using encryption, then those who do won't stand out of the crowd.
Your comment that using encryption won't stop the NSA from spying on us shows a clear lack of understanding when it comes to how encryption works. I suggest you try to learn more about how it actually works, and then let us know if you still think the NSA can still spy on our encrypted communications. - Durrok, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Yes, our forefathers wrote the constitution with the idea in mind to have the government be able to spy and pry into all US citizens lives.
/sarcasm
Even if it isn't in there specifically that doesn't mean it does not go against the general idea of our constitution and many of the amendments in it. - psychorhino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8How come only you and others who support the government's spying are "law-abiding."Not wanting the government to spy on us does not mean "we are doing something illegal", or even that we have something to hide. Even the most innocuous activities you do in your home can be twisted into something sinister if somebody has access to them. As the Cardinal Richelieu wrote a long time ago, "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." That is what privacy advocates are worried about.
- jordanrobbins, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Just hope that you won't come across a pile of notebooks in pneumatic tubes with notes about your life and daily activities
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8If you don't want to use a usb thumbdrive, the software in the article still protects your privacy online. Get TOR from the EFF at tor.eff.org, and start encrypting and fight back.
- zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I protect myself from Big Brother by never switching to Channel 4.
- TennBikeBerk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8We know it isn't an NSA front because it is open source so you can review everything the program does, and compile it on your own if you wish.
- SirSid, on 05/27/2009, -0/+6If you guys want to use tor please set up a tor server as well. Its only fair that you help the tor network if you are going to use the tor network.
- diggduggjoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7We need to look no farther than the 26 million vets who were royally reamed by the VA to understand why privacy is important. Corporations lose our info, the government loses your info, WTF! You may be completely not guilty and have your life ruined. The reason for it will be other people holding information on you that is none of their business.
Fight back? Oh, yeah! - curunculus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6We as the techie elite need to lead by example with this stuff. If we are too lazy to do this we automatically concede defeat.
I'm busy building my key right now... then I hope to sell friends on the idea by demonstrating it in action i.e. sell it on its merits! - MasterDwarf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You're exactly the one that won't know a police state until a billy club hits you straight in the face.
Remember this, it all starts somewhere. Fascist Germany, Hitler, Stalin, all that stuff didn't just appear out of thin air. - TennBikeBerk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Tor is great in theory, but awfully slow in practice. Is there anyway to speed it up? I know you can use your own internet connection to aide the Tor network, but then aren't you opening up your internet to be used by anybody....and possibly for malicious purposes? I just worry that it would appear as though I'm the one doing things when in fact it would be other people on the Tor network. Thoughts?
- victorycig, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Wow, great article, but that white text on black background killed my eyes!
diggy. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Be thankful you never had a big sister.
- Eazy~e, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Not even close to true, do your homework. Strong encryption is pretty darn tough to crack, even for the NSA.
- redneckblues, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Yes, encryption makes us stand out to wardrivers too. Let's turn off WPA.
- Rice, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7On OS X I can invert all screen colours with a single key press.
It's handy. - CatfishJones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If I cost the NSA two minutes of computing time for every month of encrypted 'net surfing, I will be doing a good thing.
- rbvmusic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6This is double-plus awesome.
DOWN WITH B.B.! - Xander12, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Awesome article, finally gives some information on ways to protect ourselves from government spying. If you are as concerned as I am about protecting your rights and privacy, let's try doing something instead of just sitting there worried.
- shaun944, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5brilliant, so then the only way to know what is going on in the world is to watch TV News and read newspapers, and neither of those outlets are at all tied to corporations or governments and have any sort of censorship or bias...
oh and don't forget unplug your landline and never use your cell phone - stick to random phonebooths for all of your calls! - RequiemAristos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It's not a question of technology, it's a question of brainpower and mathematical (im)possibilities.
A century ago, cryptography was something practiced by amateurs. Rigorous mathematical treatment of encryption schemes was essentially non-existent. The .govs had the advantage of an early start, but this has narrowed over time. Even though the NSA employs a metric buttload of mathematicians, cryptanalysis is no longer a subject limited to secret government projects, and so the NSA is now only one player amongst many. It may be talented and well-funded, but it's not a god.
With most current crypto, brute force attacks are doomed to failure (read: not only will you need longer than the age of the universe to do it, but you may need more energy that exists in the universe as well). If the algorithm is sound, the only valid attack is a brute force attack. - Durrok, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Oh sure, I suppose if you wanted to take tons of computer and man power to break down my encryption I am sure they could eventually break it.... but why bother when there are so many that are not? Even if it only takes them 5 minutes to break into it, think if 1,000 people do this... 10,000... 1 million... you get the idea. They will more then likely not bother with the encrypted connections.
Think of it like your neighbors wireless connection. If one has WPA and one is open, which one are you going to connect to? - Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4SILC is more interesting than IRC over SSL.
http://www.silcnet.org/ - Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Each node along the path can only see the nodes before and after it. A compromised server at the end of the path can't see who originated the connection going through it, and a compromised server at the beginning of the path can't see where the connection is being routed to.
- jordanrobbins, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6How to protect yourself from big brother?
Unplug your ethernet cable
(if you have 56k, don't worry they don't care about you) - randf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3speaking of paranoia
- WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Time for me and all my friends to switch over to jabber with encryption for all our chatting. Using secure proxy servers is also a great way to introduce a bunch of encrypted traffic into your communications. Using Azureus for Bittorrent and enabling protocol encryption is another good step. Basically, anything you can do to introduce some form of encryption into your daily communication is helpful in this regard. Anything we can do to make this kind of spying impractical is a win for the future of our free society.
- panic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is kinda (and yet kinda not) off-topic... does anyone know if efnet will be linking up any SSL servers? I think the end of plain-text chat is getting near.
- randf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3myodometer...don't go thinking outside the (paranoia) box.
you need proof to convict criminals, you don't need proof to distrust your government! - zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I mean UK channel 4 :) Complete trash channel here.
- dtfinch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If you encrypt everything, they won't see what you're communicating, but they'll surely want to.
- cecil_t, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Exactly what terrorist threat are you afraid of becoming a victim of?
If you must be afraid of something be afraid of drunk drivers or cancer. People like you are why terrorism works in the first place. - TenebrousX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Get DriveCrypt Plus Pack, it encrypts the entire disk (even the operating system) with 256 AES encryption (the same encryption the NSA recommends the government to use) and it's from a German company - where they don't have laws that require backdoors for the government
- obezyana, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I'll be the first to say, I absolutely hated the book 1984, just something about the writing style got on my nerves.
But if you're going to say you think the government should be allowed to spy on people, you should really read it.
Even if you don't get around to reading it, think of it this way: if you spy on a person long enough, you can always find *something* to hold against them. Now, you might not find anything major; nobody's completely perfect but we're not all serial killers either. But you might find something that makes you angry, for example you're a government official and you get a tape of someone saying they disagree with many of the government's policies. So you go back and find every time they so much as jaywalked, every incident of speeding, every overdue library book, and you ruin their lives as much as possible - which, admittedly, will probably be as simple as fining them and making sure police are always stationed on their favourite stretch of highway so they never get away with speeding again, but the government shouldn't be allowed to do that.
Maybe they won't, maybe they'll use this whole spying thing to actually catch terrorists and criminals like they're supposed to, and if they do then that's all well and good. But if they don't? Then I for one will fight this whole invasion-of-privacy thing tooth and nail. - informatico, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Very interesting site, and I'd like to remind people about Freenet too, it's slow but it's anonymous. If you want to help too, try digging the story I submitted about Freenet and the FreeNova Media site that cannot be shut down.
- Asystole, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2For those who want to know how to do the OS X trick: press Command-option-control-8.
- jlowe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@deboosher:
Lets follow your reasoning through. Let's say another major terrorist attack occurs, but this time, the terrorists use a method similar to the Oklahoma City bombing (a truck was parcked at the building that exploded). Now, the government is saying that they need to know where all vehicles are located at all times to run complex matricies to prevent another attack. So now, every movement you make in your car is tracked. This cuts down on traffic violations, so you think "as long as I don't speed, I'm ok."
And yet, this STILL does not prevent determined terrorists from attacking. Now, for your "protection," cameras are installed in every home, business, and street corner. Sure, more criminals are caught using this method, but now, you feel like you are watched all the time. I don't know about you, but there are non-criminal things I do that I don't necessarily want seen by the NSA.
But, even these "protections" fail to protect us completly. Now, congress passes new laws to aid in protection. A mandatory curfew is set so that no one is on the streets at night or early morning unless they have a special pass given to those who work nights. People are limited to going within a 100 mile radius of their home. Any farther and you have to get govermental approval. Then, the goverment starts wondering if people are inciting others to attack. So, congress passes laws to restrict what you can say and do in your own home. Of course, with all the cameras, monitoring devices and such, all of this would be able to be monitored.
Don't believe things will get this far? We have already taken some steps to get here. People are not worried about the NSA logging all of their calls. ISP's turn over customer information and websites they visit without warrants. Search engines turn over results to the government on a whim.
The other hot button to rob us of privacy right now is Child Molesters. My own state of Louisiana is in the process of passing a measure to require all convicted pedophiles to carry a license that is a different color from everyone else. While you may say "that's ok, we can protect the children", you are wrong. The ones who plan to act again will not have to show their driver's licence to a child! If they want to get a job, they can use a fake ID.
What if later it is determined that we need to identify all criminals with special licenses. What if we have a specific color whether we are republican or democrat? Gay or Straight? Married, Divorced, Widowed, or Single? What if, once new laws come into affect, YOU are a criminal?
Call me a paranoid lunatic, a fanatic, or that this is all too extreme. That's fine. But we are on a slipperly slope right now, and the American public will blindly say "yes" to anything that (on the surface) will aid in protection from terrorists or pedophiles. -
Show 51 - 100 of 148 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is