zlacker

>>Fabian+(OP)
THESE DOCUMENTS CONTAIN EVIDENCE OF ATTACKS ON VPN, SSL, TLS, SSH, TOR. What do we do now? No seriously, what do we do?

The full list of documents: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-documents-atta...

The accompanying lecture: http://streaming.media.ccc.de/relive/6258/

Also, obligatory: https://eff.org/donate

>>diafyg+S1
Earlier this year at goto copenhagen I heard a good talk by Tim bray:

http://gotocon.com/cph-2014/presentation/Privacy%20and%20Sec...

Where he argues that even though we can not achieve complete security there is great value in raising the bar. If we continuously make it increasingly harder for NSA, MOSAD, GCHQ and the rest of them to spy on us, we can achieve good enough privacy. Where most communication will be secure. But he also argues that if one of these agencies really wants to target YOU specifically they will get to the information. By breaking into your house and installing cameras, if necessary.

>>freedu+z4
> If we continuously make it increasingly harder for NSA, MOSAD, GCHQ and the rest of them to spy on us, we can achieve good enough privacy

Right now everyone's digital communications are being collected by those agencies, via fiber optic cable taps [1]. This could be called bulk surveillance. Different people & groups have access to these databases of communications. Some are government employees, some are contractors. Now, what if an activist or a Senator starts speaking out against bulk surveillance? Would those with access to the databases be tempted to run a few queries?

  'SELECT * FROM `sms` WHERE `person_id`="$senator_id"'

Note: Most analysts would never run that query. But it just takes one.

[1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/interviews...

>>ChrisA+Ma
Although I'm not familiar with the _actual_ operating procedures involved, one would hope/expect this not to be available to lone analysts at their own discretion.

>>cmyr+kf
I thought the source of some of this data was Snowden's access at his own discretion, with his own keys and others' that he obtained?

I say "some" since Schneier has stated he now considers there to be at least 3 leakers... https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/08/the_us_intell...

The other two leakers got their information from somewhere, and it could have also included access at their own discretion.