Yes. And the only person I know to have interacted with state security agencies in professional area has told me a few times that any security system based on cryptography is of no real use. Like perpetuum mobile, snake oil, and so on.
If your information is protected by cryptography, it could as well be protected by using “Aesopean language” or memorized by loyal courier or put on paper note in a secret place. You have a secret and a message, ultimately. If your secret place can be predicted, then your secret key can be stolen. If your loyal courier can be drugged\tortured\intimidated, so can be you or your addressee or your cryptography means’ providers to give up the secret key or the message contents or to sabotage your tools.
“Aesopean language” is how they really do it for anything important, it’s pretty naturally learned from culture (one case where spy movies and such show it right), it doesn’t require niche expertise, and it does require common context that can’t be fully reconstructed in most cases. The fuzziness of meaning is a feature, so is the disconnect of responsibility.
Unfortunately I’m autistic and impaired in that exact part of human communication, but honestly some of famous people whose jobs involve being enlightened black belt masters of that are autistic, so perhaps I’m just dumb.
EDIT: But it’s funny that once I thought that the commonly imagined way this works is a trap for illiterate people, and technical means like cryptography are what really should be used. Perhaps, again, some sort of autistic compensation. Now I know better.
Most activism groups aren’t really screening for membership.
Usually it’s, “you want to join ? Cool, I’ll add you.”
Edit: Just read the article. They went out of their way to try to make it sound like this group was up to something other than legally show up to immigrant court and keep watch for heinous police behavior.
The memo did not provide any further details about the individual or their alleged past calls for violence and offered no specifics or evidence to explain why the FBI characterized them as “anarchist violent extremists”. The courtwatch efforts have been non-violent, and the FBI did not respond to an inquiry seeking specific examples of violence and did not answer questions about whether law enforcement had ongoing access to the private group.
We are starting to learn that the world with computers and the Internet is like the world without them, except with them.
There were those medieval German secret courts with their secret judgements and assassins fulfilling those. And there were various masonic and such groups. And even secret societies of revolutionaries.
All they were was crime groups, interest clubs and elites pastime, in the end.
But it all started really working with mass politics. Because secrecy of a group requiring communication and adding new members can’t be preserved, and once it’s broken, it’s just a few people challenging the power. While a crowd with torches (because nobody gives days off for demonstrations at daytime ; yes, torches were not a Nazi thing, they were common for all “worker” parties) doesn’t need secrecy - its idea’s survival is guaranteed not by secrecy, but by inability to stop its spread.
Oh so it’s an activist group that’s doing valuable work but has no need to background check for security. Makes sense, basically every activist or political group is on signal these days.
Remember that most hacking is not done by breaking encryption and running code. It’s %100 social engineering. The weakest point is always a person.
This is why I don’t subscribe to the Signal E2EE hype cult.
The fact that Signal doesn’t hide the anonymity of its users, and forces everyone to use phone numbers is a huge red flag.
SimpleX is the way to go, always making sure you never say anything that can point to you in any chat.
Yeah, they caught the Dread Pirate Roberts because he leaked some account name, IIRC. There is no such thing as perfect opsec. 😬
Jami is an option also.
https://jami.net/
Yeah, but different use cases.
Yes. And the only person I know to have interacted with state security agencies in professional area has told me a few times that any security system based on cryptography is of no real use. Like perpetuum mobile, snake oil, and so on.
If your information is protected by cryptography, it could as well be protected by using “Aesopean language” or memorized by loyal courier or put on paper note in a secret place. You have a secret and a message, ultimately. If your secret place can be predicted, then your secret key can be stolen. If your loyal courier can be drugged\tortured\intimidated, so can be you or your addressee or your cryptography means’ providers to give up the secret key or the message contents or to sabotage your tools.
“Aesopean language” is how they really do it for anything important, it’s pretty naturally learned from culture (one case where spy movies and such show it right), it doesn’t require niche expertise, and it does require common context that can’t be fully reconstructed in most cases. The fuzziness of meaning is a feature, so is the disconnect of responsibility.
Unfortunately I’m autistic and impaired in that exact part of human communication, but honestly some of famous people whose jobs involve being enlightened black belt masters of that are autistic, so perhaps I’m just dumb.
EDIT: But it’s funny that once I thought that the commonly imagined way this works is a trap for illiterate people, and technical means like cryptography are what really should be used. Perhaps, again, some sort of autistic compensation. Now I know better.
Most activism groups aren’t really screening for membership.
Usually it’s, “you want to join ? Cool, I’ll add you.”
Edit: Just read the article. They went out of their way to try to make it sound like this group was up to something other than legally show up to immigrant court and keep watch for heinous police behavior.
We are starting to learn that the world with computers and the Internet is like the world without them, except with them.
There were those medieval German secret courts with their secret judgements and assassins fulfilling those. And there were various masonic and such groups. And even secret societies of revolutionaries.
All they were was crime groups, interest clubs and elites pastime, in the end.
But it all started really working with mass politics. Because secrecy of a group requiring communication and adding new members can’t be preserved, and once it’s broken, it’s just a few people challenging the power. While a crowd with torches (because nobody gives days off for demonstrations at daytime ; yes, torches were not a Nazi thing, they were common for all “worker” parties) doesn’t need secrecy - its idea’s survival is guaranteed not by secrecy, but by inability to stop its spread.
Oh so it’s an activist group that’s doing valuable work but has no need to background check for security. Makes sense, basically every activist or political group is on signal these days.