[liberationtech] The missing component: Mobile to Web interoperability (in Internet Freedom Technologies)

[Jonathan Wilkes]

On 09/26/2013 12:32 AM, coderman wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 1:34 PM, Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> ...
>> Roger Dingledine has said that his biggest fear is that the
>> NSA has found a way to break Tor,
> citation?  ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VUyuFH9CbI

It was a mistake to say "said that his biggest fear"-- I was thinking back, using my faulty
memory of that clip, but he never said that.  "Big fear" is a fair paraphrase,
though.  Anyway since it's in the middle of a 4 hour video I made a quick transcript.  You
can read it below for yourself.

 From around 3hours in...

So To tie this a little bit more directly into Tor--
One of the points that Jake made about surveillance data as a currency-- so, long ago people would say the NSA can watch a lot of the internet so they can probably break parts of Tor, right?

And I would say yes-- good thing the NSA is not your adversary.  And then if their adversary is the FBI I was imagining the FBI making a phone call to the NSA and saying, "Hey, can you help me out here?" And I was imagining the NSA saying, "I don't know what you're talking about.  We can't do that."*Hang up*

And so the different organizations who refused to talk to each other, and in particular groups like NSA who might refuse to admit that they had certain capabilities-- we relied on this separation to provide the security side.  But now what I really worry about-- it's not like the NSA will actually reveal that they can do this-- but let's say an FBI guy calls them up and says, "Hey, I've got this problem.  Can you help me out?"  I'm now imagining the NSA person not saying, "I don't know what you're talking about," but instead saying, "Hey, check this person out.  And I'm sorry-- I can't tell you how I know that.  And also don't say it was me."

And now they go tap his phone.  And they do other stuff and they learn about him.  And then they find whatever they were looking for if-- maybe or maybe not.  But I worry that there's more collaboration between... and here, I was giving the example of the NSA and FBI, but NSA and BND(?), BND and FBI, some place in Sweden, some place all around the world...

I worry about continued cooperation, not-- and they're all really very separated in terms of what they're willing to admit that they can do... but, "Why don't I help you out you'll help me out next time?  I won't provide any information about how I got it but, yeah, I've got this huge database. I'll do a search for you."

That really scares me.


>
>
>> ... and they whisper what
>> they know to other agencies only in those cases where
>> doing so wouldn't risk letting the cat out of the bag.
> the TLAs are already adept at this "source laundering"!
>
>
> i suspect it is the latter that is more concerning. of course NSA has
> the ability; but do they share it?

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