Atlas Shugged Dystopian Novel...?


Selene

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Ran across this today...

Is anyone familiar with these companies?

Atlas Shrugged

With the revelation that the government is watching the world’s online activity, many people turned to encrypted email services, such as Lavabit and SilentCircle, to keep their private matters private. In response, the US government petitioned these businesses demanding that they turn over their customer’s encrypted correspondences. Instead of complying, many of these groups shut down their services to avoid betraying their customers.

In an unfortunate pastiche of Randian heroes, companies like Lavabit shut down their businesses, leaving only a short message on their website explaining how the government had driven them out of business. Though the government is acting out scenes from Rand’s epic almost verbatim, thankfully some of the entrepreneurs bullied by the government are too. Luckily, unlike in Atlas Shrugged, owner and operator of Lavabit Ladar Levison, is fighting this abhorrent breach of privacy in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals instead of hiding in the mountains.


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I've used similar services before, and worked for about 8 months in 2001 for a company that developed this same kind of technology (encrypted email). It's not that uncommon for a company like this to be subpoened for access to a user's emails. For instance, I once vetted a request for access when a user was suspected of sending and receiving child pornography. The user had an account, but had never actually sent or received anything at all, so there was nothing to turn over. I digress. I think Edward Snowden was a Lavabit user, and that's where the government interest began there. The problem is that they demanded access to every account and every email, not just to Snowden's account and emails. There is no technical reason why that is necessary. The only reason there would be a need for that would be if the government suspected Lavabit's owner and/or staff of having some reason to intentionally withhold data.

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Well, it is heartening to see that the leading edge of technology takes care of itself. They might not be actual Rand Fans but (as the Marxists say) the objective conditions determine the dialectic response to oppression. In other words, the rational action is to shrug.

The only reason there would be a need for that would be if the government suspected Lavabit's owner and/or staff of having some reason to intentionally withhold data.

If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear? You surprise me DL.

Speaking of Snowden:

Snowden may have persuaded between 20 and 25 fellow workers at the NSA regional operations center in Hawaii to give him their logins and passwords by telling them they were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator, a second source said. Reuters here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/08/net-us-usa-security-snowden-idUSBRE9A703020131108

Make up your own codes. A one-time pad is unbreakable without the key. Like, just to say, you would not actually use this example, but you use ATLAS SHRUGGED for Page Paragraph Sentence Word Letter:

705-4-3-14-2 = "a"

You make them transmittable:

0705 0004 0003 0014 0002

the next "a" might be

1034 0000 0001 0002 0000

It is a bit of work. You can automate it with your computer. Pick a book no one actually reads.

Then, there is PGP, which is what the Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyers use. You can be on Gmail or Yahoo and what you send is still secure.

Many alternatives exist.

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Then, there is PGP, which is what the Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyers use. You can be on Gmail or Yahoo and what you send is still secure.

Many alternatives exist.

Mike:

Nothing is completely secure and all codes/encryptions can be broken with enough technology and time.

Cryptographically speaking...

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And encrypted messages from World War Two remain unbroken because no one cares any more.

It only has to work long enough.

8 characters, upper or lower, numeral or symbol: 8^100 = 2.037035976334486e92

31,557,600 seconds per year

If you can try 1 million per second, you only need about 6..57 * 10^81 seconds

So far, the Universe is 432,329,886,000,000,000 seconds old (4.23 * 10 ^ 17).

Looks to me like you need about twice the possible lifetime of the Universe just to correctly guess a string of 8 characters by brute force.

I recently broke a cipher in a challenge. I took the advice of a 2600 hacker: if you are using brute force, you are not using your brain.

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It only has to work long enough.

Agreed.

However, it has to have some simplicity in the cypher it order to make sure the "blow up the bridge" is clearly understood at the other end of the communication.

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The only reason there would be a need for that would be if the government suspected Lavabit's owner and/or staff of having some reason to intentionally withhold data.

If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear? You surprise me DL.

You inferred something that I did not imply. At least not intentionally. :smile:

Since there is a gag order, we can't actually know what the government asked for or why. We don't even know for sure that it is Edward Snowden they are after unless additional details have been released that I haven't heard about. I was speculating.

I'll repeat, there is no technical reason to hand over the entire database. And to be clear, there is no moral reason, either.

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And encrypted messages from World War Two remain unbroken because no one cares any more.

It only has to work long enough.

8 characters, upper or lower, numeral or symbol: 8^100 = 2.037035976334486e92

31,557,600 seconds per year

If you can try 1 million per second, you only need about 6..57 * 10^81 seconds

So far, the Universe is 432,329,886,000,000,000 seconds old (4.23 * 10 ^ 17).

Looks to me like you need about twice the possible lifetime of the Universe just to correctly guess a string of 8 characters by brute force.

I recently broke a cipher in a challenge. I took the advice of a 2600 hacker: if you are using brute force, you are not using your brain.

The one truly unbreakable code is the one-time random pad. No computer in the universe can touch it provided it is used only once.

Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad

Ba'al Chatzaf

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And encrypted messages from World War Two remain unbroken because no one cares any more.

It only has to work long enough.

8 characters, upper or lower, numeral or symbol: 8^100 = 2.037035976334486e92

31,557,600 seconds per year

If you can try 1 million per second, you only need about 6..57 * 10^81 seconds

So far, the Universe is 432,329,886,000,000,000 seconds old (4.23 * 10 ^ 17).

Looks to me like you need about twice the possible lifetime of the Universe just to correctly guess a string of 8 characters by brute force.

I recently broke a cipher in a challenge. I took the advice of a 2600 hacker: if you are using brute force, you are not using your brain.

The one truly unbreakable code is the one-time random pad. No computer in the universe can touch it provided it is used only once.

Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad

Ba'al Chatzaf

Thank you Bob.

That was very helpful to me.

Makes sense.

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