Posts by BenWilson

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  • OnPoint: Pay Attention, in reply to giovanni tiso,

    but nobody has suggested he wasn't cleared to do so I don't think

    True enough, I don't think his deliberate contradiction of the establishment line was ever accused of being illegal. They used other pressure to attempt to disincentivize and discredit him.

    As for the outing, the only comparison to Wikileaks is that they're both leaks. But when it's done for cynical political purposes that I don't agree with, then it seems quite wrong to me. There's still a case for secrecy on some matters.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Pay Attention, in reply to giovanni tiso,

    Mordechai Vanunu's kidnapping and extremely punitive incarceration could be seen as a real disincentive to whistleblowers against Israel. But it is good to know that they have nuclear weapons. Puts the pressure on Iran in context.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Pay Attention, in reply to giovanni tiso,

    Has it ever been tried?

    The leaks of Valerie Plame did a lot to convince me that the US systematically lied in the lead up to the Iraq war. The leaks that outed her as a CIA operative, however, were highly counterproductive.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • Hard News: We are all twatcocks now…,

    I did actually use it, in the heat of the moment, verbally, just the other day, without pausing for any effect. Admittedly I was in conversation with another PASer.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Pay Attention,

    I'm responding to this chestnut.

    Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.

    It strikes me as wishful thinking. I think there's a lot more to busting open government secrecy than leaks, which could even be counterproductive on that score. But they're still worthwhile.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Pay Attention,

    Joe, it's quite possible the opposite result will occur too. Those affected by the leaks might beef up their security, so that future leaks are more difficult, and will make examples of the leakers, for intimidation. Neither of these are moves towards open governance.

    But these leaks are still a good thing, despite all that. They've given the world evidence to back up many insights into the secrets of their states.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Public Address Word of…,

    Resident Evil 3D was probably the best 3D I've ever seen. Horror is the genre 3D was made for. Yes, the story* makes absolutely no sense at all, unless you have seen the previous 3 films, at which point it makes perfect sense. Well, OK, some stuff, you'd have to have played the game for - I couldn't really understand how some 15 foot tall undead dude dressed like a hangman turns up with a enormous meat-tenderizer, but apparently the game explains that (h/t Leo). Anyway, that was the best 3D of all, so it had to be in there.

    *Edit. Don't go for the story, or the dialogue or the acting. It's about horror effects. Don't rent without a 3D TV. IOW, you will never see this film.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Kracklite,

    bloody Sartre

    Is that a coffee and tomato juice? FFS I drink that most mornings, now I feel disgustingly Euro. Need to watch some provincial rugby to get over it.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Pay Attention,

    Also, what Kyle said. Cracking good encryption is not easy. It is extremely computationally expensive - the NSA in the US have many acres of computers dedicated just to this. Even then, it's quite feasible to encrypt just one message with a sufficiently long key to take the entire lot hundreds of years to crack. Or whatever time frame seems safe to you, perhaps millions, or billions of years. Unless someone has actually 'cracked the algorithm'. Doing this can be shown to be equivalent to having found the holy grail of computer science, and there are tens of thousands of people seeking this in the public domain - it has a lot of application outside of cryptography for solving intractable problems. Basically, cryptographic algorithm designers make sure that to crack their encryption, the cracker must have found the holy grail.

    For anything actually top secret, there's always the simple uncrackable algorithm, too, which has key length the same as the message. Even aliens with unimaginable computing power can't crack that. Apocryphally, the hotline from POTUS to the Kremlin used this all through the Cold War.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Pay Attention,

    For any tech specialists, how accurate could this be?

    It's possible. Working out a key when you have ciphertext and the corresponding plaintext is easier for some algorithms than it is without the plaintext. But that does presume that they used the same key for many transmissions. With public key encryption this became totally unnecessary.

    Also, I'm presuming it's the cracking of the keys you're talking about. Reverse engineering the encryption algorithm seems unlikely to me. There's not really that much need for secret algorithms anymore. The secrecy is in the key.

    But I'm sure there are secret algorithms out there, so maybe. My understanding of cryptography these days is that secret algorithms are less secure, because they are not subjected to as much scrutiny as the huge raft of public ones. I would trust one less, personally, because there's always the chance that the algorithm designers deliberately left a "back door", which gives those in the know access to everything encrypted that way. This would be highly undesirable in the spook business.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

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