[Cryptography] Equation Group Multiple Malware Program, NSA Implicated

[Richard Outerbridge]

> On 2015-02-17 (48), at 15:05:10, John Gilmore <gnu at toad.com> wrote:
> 
> This is a fascinating discussion.

> [….]

> NSA likes to project an image of importance and invulnerability, but I
> am coming to believe that instead they are more like petty thieves,
> like jays stealing pretty trinkets from the public for their
> collection.  Thieves that are paid with tax dollars and receive
> impunity for their misdeeds can do a lot of minor damage.  Thieves
> that can covertly influence policies imposed by a government that has
> run roughshod over all the fences that were designed 200 years ago to
> keep it from becoming despotic are much more dangerous.

[….]

> I find it ironic that my efforts toward scalable "opportunistic
> encryption" protocols and implementations might eventually allow NSA
> to encrypt their own internal network.  But it will be worth it if
> we can also encrypt the large bulk of the sane world, helping to
> protect the public against the birds that would be happy to eat the
> seed corn of civilization -- fundamental rights of privacy and
> personal autonomy.

A proposition neither politically or philosophically um, err, shown.

[….]

> But the thieves found a defense against that.  In the intervening
> decades they have hobbled the federal courts via the "state secrets
> doctrine" -- so now anytime you sue them over something that the
> spooks are doing, they just throw the case out.  But how else could
> the federal government defend indefinite imprisonment without trial,
> torture, indiscriminate mass wiretapping, a prior restraint licensing
> scheme for travel, and their other serious crimes infringing
> fundamental personal rights that we haven't yet discovered?  If the
> courts had remained honest, these crooks would be out of a job.  From
> the agencies' point of view (again not seeking the best result for the
> public), it's better to screw up the courts than to get caught at
> destroying another few cornerstones of civilization.

[….]

Have you ever visited London & gone to DeadMan’s Reach under Tower
Bridge? There’s a lot more authoritarian shared between the USA &
the UK than you might naively have been born in the US to believe.
__outer

--
The noose is an easy knot, once you get the hang of it.