Yes, I’d forgotten the story of Aaron Swartz - good to be reminded. The Kenyan justified protests are an example of the power of social media and the internet. Also protests with no hierarchical infrastructure relying solely on momentum and word of mouth are effective.
I've always wondered to what degree it was a kind of honeypot technology.
Also just as you note that the major media are infiltrated with spook assets and undercover employees, the Snowden revelations also documented that tech companies and open source projects too are riddled with the same kind of implants. So there can be multiple levels of access that the authorise have to know about leaks and then quietly suppress them, without revealing their hidden ability to do so.
The Panama Papers I always thought was utter BS. I mean what kind of leak of that type on offshore money could be credible when the US is full of rich people with offshore money and no one from the US was exposed. That whole thing stuck me as disinformation.
Tor, like the Internet, was a US military project. Tor was US Naval Labs. It was open sourced. You can read the code. It is all open: the specs, the code, the funding. Serious academics study it. You cannot hide "backdoors" from these people. I've interacted with the lead architect, Roger Dingledine, on several occassions. He helped by providing the architecture documentation which I used for the Tor series.
People who accuse Tor of being backdoored etc. a) don't know what they're talking about and b) should put their money where their mouth is and stop using the Internet.
I dont normally go on about this, because its boring. Explaining cryptographic systems to people who don't understand cryptography is not a pleasant passtime.
Writing crypto systems *that work* is hard, very hard. Now try doing that and building a secret backdoor into it which the experts who wrote the system don't spot, and it still works in that complex crypto system. Its impossible. Its all cost / benefit. If you want to spy on someone, infect their phone. Far simpler.
Honeypots are fascinating security toys. They have nothing to do with Tor.
I've been wanting to write this for years, but the opportunity never seemed to arrive as the mechanics of the legal persecution continued to force me to comment on recent events.
I will be recording a podcast to go with this in which I'd like to make a few additional points. But, this article contains my core analysis of what the whole shitshow is/was about.
If you have any specific questions or hypotheses you'd like addressed, please let me know and I'll comment on them in the podcast <--- Open Invite to All
I believe the persecution of Assange and the total war on Wikileaks is an extremely revealing episode in the ongoing decline of the West.
Yes, I’d forgotten the story of Aaron Swartz - good to be reminded. The Kenyan justified protests are an example of the power of social media and the internet. Also protests with no hierarchical infrastructure relying solely on momentum and word of mouth are effective.
Re: Secure Drop: Tor was built on the back of US military efforts.
https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5761/TorFrom-the-Dark-Web-to-the-Future-of-Privacy
I've always wondered to what degree it was a kind of honeypot technology.
Also just as you note that the major media are infiltrated with spook assets and undercover employees, the Snowden revelations also documented that tech companies and open source projects too are riddled with the same kind of implants. So there can be multiple levels of access that the authorise have to know about leaks and then quietly suppress them, without revealing their hidden ability to do so.
The Panama Papers I always thought was utter BS. I mean what kind of leak of that type on offshore money could be credible when the US is full of rich people with offshore money and no one from the US was exposed. That whole thing stuck me as disinformation.
Tor, like the Internet, was a US military project. Tor was US Naval Labs. It was open sourced. You can read the code. It is all open: the specs, the code, the funding. Serious academics study it. You cannot hide "backdoors" from these people. I've interacted with the lead architect, Roger Dingledine, on several occassions. He helped by providing the architecture documentation which I used for the Tor series.
People who accuse Tor of being backdoored etc. a) don't know what they're talking about and b) should put their money where their mouth is and stop using the Internet.
I dont normally go on about this, because its boring. Explaining cryptographic systems to people who don't understand cryptography is not a pleasant passtime.
Writing crypto systems *that work* is hard, very hard. Now try doing that and building a secret backdoor into it which the experts who wrote the system don't spot, and it still works in that complex crypto system. Its impossible. Its all cost / benefit. If you want to spy on someone, infect their phone. Far simpler.
Honeypots are fascinating security toys. They have nothing to do with Tor.
Your intuition on the Pamana Papers was spot on.
This was really good. Really really good. Thank you, Leland
You're most welcome.
I've been wanting to write this for years, but the opportunity never seemed to arrive as the mechanics of the legal persecution continued to force me to comment on recent events.
I will be recording a podcast to go with this in which I'd like to make a few additional points. But, this article contains my core analysis of what the whole shitshow is/was about.
If you have any specific questions or hypotheses you'd like addressed, please let me know and I'll comment on them in the podcast <--- Open Invite to All
I believe the persecution of Assange and the total war on Wikileaks is an extremely revealing episode in the ongoing decline of the West.