Comments on: Room 641A http://bit-player.org/2006/room-641a An amateur's outlook on computation and mathematics. Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:03:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.2 Comment on Room 641A by: David Reese http://bit-player.org/2006/room-641a#comment-192 Thu, 25 May 2006 04:28:31 +0000 http://bit-player.org/2006/room-641a#comment-192 Hmm, EM, let's make sure we use "bad guys" in quotes. The history of U.S. intelligence makes it clear that the actual bad guys are often on NSA's side of the fence. Pretty good argument for all of us "good guys" to start using encryption... The part that gets me is the seeming unwillingness of AT&T and the feds to deny it. "It's almost as if they want us to believe the worst.", you say. I can only think of a few explanations: * The real truth is so much worse, that if implicitly admitting to this will distract people from further investigation... * Someone actually has proof, such hard proof that they can't really deny anything or they lose all credibility. * It's not even the same people making the statements who set up Room 641A. Like one arm doesn't know what the other is doing. A pretty good strategy, but one that breaks down a bit when the press comes a'callin. Hmm, EM, let’s make sure we use “bad guys” in quotes. The history of U.S. intelligence makes it clear that the actual bad guys are often on NSA’s side of the fence. Pretty good argument for all of us “good guys” to start using encryption…

The part that gets me is the seeming unwillingness of AT&T and the feds to deny it. “It’s almost as if they want us to believe the worst.”, you say. I can only think of a few explanations:

* The real truth is so much worse, that if implicitly admitting to this will distract people from further investigation…
* Someone actually has proof, such hard proof that they can’t really deny anything or they lose all credibility.
* It’s not even the same people making the statements who set up Room 641A. Like one arm doesn’t know what the other is doing. A pretty good strategy, but one that breaks down a bit when the press comes a’callin.

]]> Comment on Room 641A by: Eric Meyer http://bit-player.org/2006/room-641a#comment-191 Thu, 25 May 2006 01:50:54 +0000 http://bit-player.org/2006/room-641a#comment-191 Brilliant. I'd never thought of it that way, but yeah: pushing the bad guys toward encryption makes them that much more obvious, and so their usage patterns and such are so much easier to track. And, as you point out, we often assume encrypted information can't be decrypted, but if anyone might beg to differ, it's the NSA. Not that they'd do so publicly. Well, here's hoping that you're still a free man after they get around to reading your post... and that I'll stay a free man after linking to it. Brilliant. I’d never thought of it that way, but yeah: pushing the bad guys toward encryption makes them that much more obvious, and so their usage patterns and such are so much easier to track. And, as you point out, we often assume encrypted information can’t be decrypted, but if anyone might beg to differ, it’s the NSA. Not that they’d do so publicly.

Well, here’s hoping that you’re still a free man after they get around to reading your post… and that I’ll stay a free man after linking to it.

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