Assange co-invented "Rubberhose deniable encryption", a cryptographic concept made into a software package for Linux designed to provide plausible deniability against rubber-hose cryptanalysis, which he originally intended "as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field".In case your wondering..
rubber-hose cryptanalysis is the extraction of cryptographic secrets (e.g. the password to an encrypted file) from a person by coercion or torture, in contrast to a mathematical or technical cryptanalytic attack.So I guess we can assume this is also "rubberhose deniable encryption".
One of the consequences of the second law of thermodynamics is that a certain amount of energy is necessary to represent information. To record a single bit by changing the state of a system requires an amount of energy no less than kT, where T is the absolute temperature of the system and k is the Boltzman constant. (Stick with me; the physics lesson is almost over.)so it seems unlikely that anyone will see the contents of that insurance file unless he tells us the password or otherwise used a easy-to-guess password.
Given that k = 1.38×10-16 erg/°Kelvin, and that the ambient temperature of the universe is 3.2°Kelvin, an ideal computer running at 3.2°K would consume 4.4×10-16 ergs every time it set or cleared a bit. To run a computer any colder than the cosmic background radiation would require extra energy to run a heat pump.
Now, the annual energy output of our sun is about 1.21×1041 ergs. This is enough to power about 2.7×1056 single bit changes on our ideal computer; enough state changes to put a 187-bit counter through all its values. If we built a Dyson sphere around the sun and captured all its energy for 32 years, without any loss, we could power a computer to count up to 2^192. Of course, it wouldn’t have the energy left over to perform any useful calculations with this counter.
But that’s just one star, and a measly one at that. A typical supernova releases something like 10^51 ergs. (About a hundred times as much energy would be released in the form of neutrinos, but let them go for now.) If all of this energy could be channeled into a single orgy of computation, a 219-bit counter could be cycled through all of its states.
These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices; they are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. And they strongly imply that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space.
... in an interview with AFP in New York, Van Dyk said the Taliban, unlike al-Qaeda, doesn't choose to be at war with the United States. "They're not the enemy here (on U.S. soil). They're our enemy because we're there," Van Dyk said in his apartment decorated with arrows, an Afghan saddlebag and other souvenirs of an adventurous career.posted by Abiezer at 7:57 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
The Taliban, he said, are "isolated" and "hardened" by years of war, but still fundamentally remain a local movement, separate to al-Qaeda's global jihad. "People think they're the same, but I believe they're distinctly different."
"Bradley Manning, the prime suspect in the leaking of the Afghan war files, raged against his Army employers and 'society at large' on his Facebook page in the days before he allegedly downloaded thousands of secret memos, a U.K. newspaper reported Saturday.posted by ericb at 11:22 AM on July 31, 2010
The U.S. Army intelligence analyst, who is half British and went to school in Wales, U.K., appeared to sink into depression after a relationship break-up, the Daily Telegraph said. It quoted Manning as posting he didn't 'have anything left' and was 'beyond frustrated.'"
I think the Brits who have been actively engaged in warfare in Afghanistan since 1839 understand the locals a bit better than the recent US invaders.
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,posted by XMLicious at 4:33 PM on July 31, 2010 [2 favorites]
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier.
Soldier of the Queen.
— Kipling, The Young British Soldier
Bridgeport is 55 miles from NYC.And that's a reason for you to support slaughtering civilians thousands of miles away? I live far closer to a WTC, stop shitting your pants.
The Taliban may be involved in a regional civil war, but given half a chance they would love to [be] players on the world stage.Stop projecting.
The raw logs have not been publlished by anyone yet, only four doctored versions. It is not clear what the raw logs looked like. Nor have the raw logs been authenticated by anyone. Instead the three newspapers have issued disclaimers to protect against dupery. NYT rewrote every sample file it published. The Guardian published a mere .33 per cent of the dump. There has been no credible explanation made public about how the files were vetted, by whom and by what method. This is not a question about what journalists thought of the files, but what technical means were used to assure easily manipulated digital files had not been tampered with, deployed as a deliberate plant, recovered from a digital dumpster, cooked into a stew of odds and ends from several collections and sources. Deception operations by intelligence agencies and information crooks have become quite common and commercially high-profit. Forgeries abound, far more than in the paper era, due to the ease of confecting fictions in digital format and because there so few persons who have the technical capabiliity to detect digital fraud (the best work in secret for scroundrels, umm, like Wikeleaks).posted by moody cow at 10:35 PM on July 31, 2010
It should have been expected that Julian Assange (and his unidentified technical, legal and narrative team in evidence to expert eyes) knows more about digital subterfuge, his lifetime passion and expertise, than the entire kaboodle of seasoned journalists and their backstopping legal and editorial team -- all ripe in paper and ink world, conceited about their success and prowess, determined to not be put to pasture by upstart digital euthanasists.
Assange is a master manipulator of such egomaniacal titanic fools. Nick Davies leading the pack. Hi Nick, you been had, but far from alone.
Posted by John Young on Thu 29 Jul 2010 at 06:01 PM
Assange and Breitbart are both horrible people who are engaged in pissing contest to see who can destroy America faster one from the far left and the other from the far right. The collateral murder was highly effective propaganda that was edited to show the incident in the worst possible light.Well, Assange did release the whole tape. I think if it had been more seriously altered it would have been pointed out by more people then random liveleak posters. I mean, the right-wing blogsphere went crazy trying to prove that photos from the recent war in Lebanon were all faked, etc.
I really wonder if some users on Metafilter and other sites are fed talking points to criticize Wikileaks and Assange with, because in the last thread on this issue, I read someone using the "double game" talking point well before it was used elsewhere.People tend to pick up "talking points" without realizing it, the fact that lots of people use the same arguments to make the same points doesn't mean anything nefarious is going on.
WikiLeaks founder says he did right thing.Emphasis mine.
Named man is already dead.
There's a photo of Assange below a headline that reads "'Taliban hitlist' row: WikiLeaks founder says he did right thing". And next to the photo, another headline reading "Named man is already dead." The imputation is quite clearly that Assange's actions have resulted in the man's death, although in the story itself it makes it clear that he actually died two years ago.
"Is it clear?" says Assange. "Let's see how much we have to read before we reach that information. It's not in the first paragraph, second, third, fourth, it's not in the fifth. It's not until the sixth paragraph you learn that."
Another revelation contained in the incident reports is the name and rank of the Polish counter-intelligence officer involved in the investigation of Nangar Khel. The publication of this information is a crime in Poland, carrying a sentence of five to eight years in prison.posted by lullaby at 8:06 PM on August 1, 2010
The first step is for the Justice Department to indict Assange. Such an indictment could be sealed to prevent him from knowing that the United States is seeking his arrest. The United States should then work with its international law enforcement partners to apprehend and extradite him.posted by kipmanley at 11:31 AM on August 2, 2010
Assange seems to believe, incorrectly, that he is immune to arrest so long as he stays outside the United States. He leads a nomadic existence, operating in countries such as Sweden, Belgium and Iceland, where he believes he enjoys the protection of "beneficial laws." (He recently worked with the Icelandic parliament to pass legislation effectively making the country a haven for WikiLeaks). The United States should make clear that it will not tolerate any country -- and particularly NATO allies such as Belgium and Iceland -- providing safe haven for criminals who put the lives of NATO forces at risk.
With appropriate diplomatic pressure, these governments may cooperate in bringing Assange to justice. But if they refuse, the United States can arrest Assange on their territory without their knowledge or approval. In 1989, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum entitled "Authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Override International Law in Extraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities."
This memorandum declares that "the FBI may use its statutory authority to investigate and arrest individuals for violating United States law, even if the FBI's actions contravene customary international law" and that an "arrest that is inconsistent with international or foreign law does not violate the Fourth Amendment." In other words, we do not need permission to apprehend Assange or his co-conspirators anywhere in the world.
Mr. Thiessen, I have a warrant for your arrest for incitement to murder. Please be sensible and don't resist.
A senior volunteer for Wikileaks in the US has been detained, questioned and had his phones seized when he returned to the country from Europe, as the FBI steps up its investigation into the leak of thousands of Afghanistan war secrets to the whistleblower website.posted by lullaby at 9:05 AM on August 3, 2010
Jacob Appelbaum, who has stood in for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange since he was advised not to travel to the US, spent three hours at a New York airport while customs officers photocopied receipts and searched his laptop, and he was again approached and questioned by FBI officers at a computer hackers conference in Las Vegas.
"We have seen the negative, sometimes deadly ramifications for those Afghans identified as working for or sympathizing with international forces," the human-rights groups wrote in their letter, according to a person familiar with it. "We strongly urge your volunteers and staff to analyze all documents to ensure that those containing identifying information are taken down or redacted."posted by Anything at 7:58 PM on August 11, 2010
In his response to the letter signed by the human-rights organizations, Mr. Assange asked what the groups were doing to analyze the documents already published, and asked whether Amnesty in particular would provide staff to help redact the names of Afghan civilians, according to people familiar with the letter.
An Amnesty official replied to say that while the group has limited resources, it wouldn't rule out the idea of helping, according to people familiar with the reply. The official suggested that Mr. Assange and the human-rights groups hold a conference call to discuss the matter.
Mr. Assange then replied: "I'm very busy and have no time to deal with people who prefer to do nothing but cover their asses. If Amnesty does nothing I shall issue a press release highlighting its refusal," according to people familiar with the exchange.
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OMG I AM CIA
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 8:05 PM on July 30, 2010 [3 favorites]