
Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack - ColinWright
http://www.insidesources.com/new-york-times-article-blaming-encryption-paris-attacks/
======
rbcgerard
"One key premise here seems to be that prior to the Snowden reporting, The
Terrorists helpfully and stupidly used telephones and unencrypted emails to
plot, so Western governments were able to track their plotting and disrupt at
least large-scale attacks. That would come as a massive surprise to the
victims of the attacks of 2002 in Bali, 2004 in Madrid, 2005 in London, 2008
in Mumbai, and April 2013 at the Boston Marathon."

[https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-
abou...](https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris-
to-blame-snowden-distract-from-actual-culprits-who-empowered-isis/)

~~~
ewzimm
It's even more absurd than that. The premise is that we can have a public
worldwide debate that emphasizes how important encryption is to successfully
carrying out terrorist attacks, convince the world to give up their privacy
for the sake of safety, and after the majority of the protestors have been
defeated by public awareness that encryption and terrorism go hand-in-hand,
the terrorists will go back to using phone calls and unencrypted email.

~~~
colund
If (almost) everyone who is not a terrorist were to give up encryption, then
it would be much easier to track down/narrow down the terrorists if they keep
using it, no?

~~~
mjmaher
I don't think so, as far as I know encrypted data doesn't really have a
signature that can be easily spotted

~~~
marcosdumay
It does, it looks random (hight entropy).

Yes, measured data and unmarked compressed data have this same property, as do
actual random data. But is does not look like 9 nines of false positive rate
are a concern to those people.

~~~
Dylan16807
You can set the entropy to any amount you want. You need to consider
encryption methods that put in at least a bit of effort to hide themselves. It
could select random phrases and pretend to be a spambot.

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, where's the boundary between cryptography that hides itself and
stenography? Is there one?

If you include stenography, yes, it's certainly not easily recognizable. I
don't think good stenography can be recognized at all, but that's not my area
and I've got people contradict me at this (without further info), thus I'm not
sure.

~~~
Dylan16807
There's not much of a boundary, but that wasn't exactly the point I meant to
make. You can do something like encode as ASCII 0s and 1s and have low entropy
without that hiding anything.

------
GrinningFool
Increasingly we're seeing 'encryption' discussed in mainstream media as a tool
that can only be used for nefarious ends. Kind of like how they talked about
"cookies" in the late 90s and early 00s.

It's unfortunate that there's no way [without a lot of money] to launch a
campaign that highlights the fact that most sensitive online transactions rely
on encryption - banking, purchasing, etc - to protect you from The Bad People
who want to steal your critical financial information.

That would also highlight that it's not just about keeping secrets from the
government - in fact, that's the smallest fraction of it.

~~~
fukusa
We have to get rid of this narrative of bad versus good people while we're at
it. It removes every bit of nuance from the discussion.

~~~
copperred
That's the point. What the Paris attackers did makes them bad people. It's not
up for debate.

~~~
bitslayer
Surely you can see that they think the exact opposite. In order to do
something like that, they have to convince themselves that they the good guys,
and it has to be done to "purify the evil in the world" or something. The
truth is that people are not inherently bad. Evil feeds on itself; if you
insist on calling them bad, then you are falling into the same trap that they
did. Hopefully you wouldn't act in such a heinous manner, but Western
societies kill thousands of innocents all the time, and it is masked with the
same rationalizations; if a drone strike kills someone, we define them as a
bad guy.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _The truth is that people are not inherently bad._

I don't know about that. I'd argue that most people don't think of themselves
as bad, but it doesn't make them not-bad. And humanity definitely has base
instincts - if we didn't, we wouldn't need governments and police.

~~~
delish
> _but it doesn 't make them not-bad._

I disagree. I've never found a coherent absolute ethical framework. Not even
"Don't kill people."

When anyone is arguing that something is bad, that person has to appeal an
authority or belief. Often the reasoning leads to utilitarianism: "If we want
society to continue, we should ban murder." But that's still an if/then
statement. Beneath the if/then is an appeal that society is good or desired.

> _And humanity definitely has base instincts - if we didn 't, we wouldn't
> need governments and police._

This viewpoint becomes popular with Hobbes in the 1600s. I disagree with the
term "base instincts," which negatively connotes those things. I'll change it
to "randomness"; i.e. in a society of nondeterministic people, some will try
to kill the others. Government and police try to reduce that kind of
randomness. But from that same randomness we get music, science, justice. I'm
speaking loosely of course.

I think of my American government as social contract, not as protective
parent.

~~~
johncolanduoni
> I'll change it to "randomness"; i.e. in a society of nondeterministic
> people, some will try to kill the others.

I think "randomness" is even worse, because it makes it sound like these
actions could be expected from anyone at anytime. Statistically, a small
portion of the population is responsible for most of the violence, through
repeat offenses. Also, in many situations there are clear warning signs (e.g.
mentally ill with clear homicidal ideation, member of a gang). Are you really
arguing that a dice roll is a good fundamental model for human behavior?

Nondeterminism (assuming humans are truly nondeterministic) doesn't really
matter here, except for the fact that we don't have a way of precisely
predicting people's behavior (and may never have one). If it turns out that
humans are just complicated, deterministic machines that we can not feasibly
predict, the reasons for which we have developed societal structures do not
disappear.

> But from that same randomness we get music, science, justice.

I think it's pretty easy to distinguish between the first two and violence. I
agree that the third is a bit trickier. If what you mean is that the exercise
of both these and the dispositions-formerly-known-as-base-instincts are a
result of allowing for a significant measure of personal freedom, I'll agree
with you. But writing human behavior off as having no more structure than a
random number generator ignores a lot of predictive and explanative power that
we do actually have.

~~~
derefr
> it makes it sound like these actions could be expected from anyone at
> anytime

They can. A neurotypical person's brain could spontaneously generate a violent
psychotic episode due to a stroke or adrenergic tumor or somesuch. Just like
any area of the sky could spontaneously throw a lightning strike at you at any
time. It's _low probability_ , certainly, but murder is a low-probability
event to begin with.

The important point is that a model with "non-deterministic" people in it has
more predictive power, _epidemiologically_ , than a model where it's
impossible to become a murderer without "warning signs." It's not at all
"writing human behavior off"; the fact that the model includes randomness can
actually help you prevent murders more effectively, by leading you toward
strategies to cope with unpredictable murders—e.g. building education toward
methods of "de-escalation" for psychotic episodes, crimes of passion, etc.
into your society—rather than simply trying to reinforce policing and social
work.

~~~
johncolanduoni
> They can. A neurotypical person's brain could spontaneously generate a
> violent psychotic episode due to a stroke or adrenergic tumor or somesuch.
> Just like any area of the sky could spontaneously throw a lightning strike
> at you at any time. It's low probability, certainly, but murder is a low-
> probability event to begin with.

I think if we eliminated all murders except these, we would be in excellent
shape. My point is these are not the ones worth focusing on, because we don't
have good tools to deal with "random, history free, psychotic break."

> The important point is that a model with "non-deterministic" people in it
> has more predictive power, epidemiologically, than a model where it's
> impossible to become a murderer without "warning signs."

Well, if your probabilistic model has no "warning signs", then how does it
provide any information at all? If you don't have a method of using
information to differentiate the probabilities when given a person/group of
people/location etc. then you have no predictive power at all, except for the
average murder per capita.

> building education toward methods of "de-escalation" for psychotic episodes,
> crimes of passion, etc.

De-escalation of psychotic episodes is an impossibly hard thing to teach
without protracted work with a mental health professional. In addition, I
seriously doubt that there would be any effectiveness when taught to people
who have not experienced psychosis. Teaching this to everybody would be
inhibited not only by cost, but by the fact that there is not likely enough
people in a society that would be good enough therapists to do this on a large
scale.

------
nab
This link implies that the NYT is backtracking about a piece apparently
"blaming encryption." The NYT article referenced did not at all focus on
encryption, and it didn't go so far as to definitively blame encryption.

The only paragraph discussing encryption is buried in the middle of the
article. """ The attackers are believed to have communicated using encryption
technology, according to European officials """

The lede did not mention encryption at all: "The attackers in Friday’s
terrorist assault in Paris communicated at some point beforehand with known
members of the Islamic State in Syria, officials on both sides of the Atlantic
say."

[https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http:/www.nytimes...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http:/www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/europe/paris-
attackers-communicated-with-isis-officials-say.html)

~~~
kohito
you're saying its only possible the NYT "blamed encryption" if encryption was
the article's main topic or the article's lede?

~~~
davesque
No, actually they're not saying that at all. They're saying that the article
only barely mentions encryption and doesn't try to push an opinion on the
matter.

~~~
kohito
I'm confused. Can you say more?

~~~
vehementi
What are you confused about?

------
madmulita
I blame prime numbers, even co-primes should be banned. Please contact your
representative and help us free the world from evil math.

~~~
AndyMcConachie
I blame it on unicode. Without unicode these terrorists would not be able to
communicate with impunity.

~~~
ceejayoz
In fairness, character encoding is clearly the work of terrorists.

~~~
gepoch
If you come to America, you should have to learn the _AMERICAN_ Standard Code
for Information Interchange. Speak the language. None of this Unicode i18n
nonsense!

~~~
ceejayoz
"Press  for billing, or please hold for an attendant."

------
donkeyd
Even without having encryption in main stream applications, like WhatsApp,
it's child's play to communicate secretly. There are so many open source
applications that allow you to do this, it wouldn't even be a speed bump for
criminals.

Targeting main stream applications only hurts main stream users. NYT should
write an article about that.

~~~
melling
You seem to be overlooking the obvious argument that if a small group of
people use encryption, then you greatly reduce the number of messages that you
need to flag. Furthermore, if someone on a Watch List starts using encryption
then perhaps you have an imminent problem.

I'm not on the side of reading messages but you missed the real argument being
made.

Typical HN. How about someone answering the argument that will really be made
by governments instead of the pointless one the NSA, etc have already
answered. You can downvote me but you don't get a downvote in governments
around the world when they outlaw real encryption.

~~~
pfg
> You can downvote me but you don't get a downvote in governments around the
> world when they outlaw real encryption.

I'm pretty sure you can downvote them by voting for representatives that do
not support such laws. At least if you're in some kind of democracy.

~~~
vonmoltke
There should be a name for this fallacy. This is easy to say for any issue in
isolation, but what is a voter to do when they only have two or three choices?
When there are dozens of issues at any given time the chances of having a
candidate that aligns with you on all of them is nil.

------
coldcode
You could plan terrorist activity using postcards. Should we ban the Post
Office? You could use phone calls from pay phones (where they still exist) and
people used to do that all the time to plan crimes. You could go on vacation
together and plan something. You could use voice or text chat in an online
game to plan stuff. The people in charge of these organizations are not the
suicide bombers; the head folks know full well what to use to avoid getting
caught.

~~~
WildUtah
I have a friend who used to get erotic messages from her mathematician
boyfriend steganographically encrypted on postcards. I had to show her how to
decrypt them. It was pretty standard cryptanalysis once I guessed that the
messages existed. Some of them were filthy.

~~~
JshWright
Stenographically encrypted in the printed image? How would that work?

~~~
metalliqaz
Probably on the side you write on.

~~~
JshWright
Yep, that would make far more sense... For some reason I assumed it was an
image encoded on the postcard. Rereading the original post, that's not what it
says, is it...

------
declan
It's true that the NYT pulled (or dramatically rewrote, close enough) an
article claiming: "The attackers are believed to have communicated using
encryption technology..." You can see the original version here thanks to
Archive.org:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http:/www.nytimes...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http:/www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/europe/paris-
attackers-communicated-with-isis-officials-say.html)

But then the NYT doubled down on the terrorists-and-encryption angle in a
separate story here:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/europe/encrypted-
mes...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/europe/encrypted-messaging-
apps-face-new-scrutiny-over-possible-role-in-paris-attacks.html)

Which says in the second sentence: "Obama administration officials say the
Islamic State has used a range of encryption technologies over the past year
and a half, many of which defy cracking by the National Security Agency..."

HN discussion of that second story is here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579201)

------
034509034590
_A link to the NYT article now redirects readers to a separate, general
article on the attacks, which does not contain the word “encrypt.” The
original piece can be found on the Internet Archive._

[https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http://www.nytime...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/europe/paris-
attackers-communicated-with-isis-officials-say.html)

~~~
josefresco
The language seems pretty reasonable...

"The attackers are believed to have communicated using encryption technology,
according to European officials who had been briefed on the investigation but
were not authorized to speak publicly. It was not clear whether the encryption
was part of widely used communications tools, like WhatsApp, which the
authorities have a hard time monitoring, or something more elaborate.
Intelligence officials have been pressing for more leeway to counter the
growing use of encryption."

~~~
mtgx
Sure, if you think unproven hearsay in NYT that we all ought to take for
granted is "reasonable". If the authorities believe it was the encryption to
blame, then they should come out and say it outright - with details, of
course. They shouldn't hide under the "anonymous officials" tag which
"believe" it was encryption the culprit that stopped them from learning about
the attacks, and nothing else. It could've been just some random cop's
opinion, who heard it from someone else, who was also wrong about it.

~~~
golergka
What's wrong with newspaper reporting hearsay, while describing it as hearsay?

NYT didn't seem to pass it as anything else than it is. What's your logic
here? Should all anonymous sources be banned? Or only the sources with
opinions that you don't like?

~~~
jnbiche
Actually, most reputable newspapers have very strict rules about anonymous
sources, including some who ban them altogether.

Here is the NY Times Standard and Ethics Statement, which describes the
newspaper's "distaste" for anonymous sources:

[http://www.nytco.com/who-we-are/culture/standards-and-
ethics...](http://www.nytco.com/who-we-are/culture/standards-and-ethics/)

In fact, that's probably the reason it was pulled: a complaint was made to the
NYT Public Editor about the piece's sources.

~~~
morninj
If so, they should say so. Silently pulling the article and redirecting the
URL is a little misleading.

------
dfc
What is the deal with insidesources.com? Something feels a "little off" after
browsing the rest of the site. It feels like a undercover PR machine for
someone or some group. It also seems like they hate copy editors.

~~~
xtyy
editor of insidesources' twitter handle is @warroomalerts

------
scotty79
> writing messages via in-game functions, like spelling words with dropped
> items or shooting walls

I'm kinda ashamed I haven't thought of that.

~~~
jcl
I think this may be the most important thing in the article. If the
conspirators really were communicating via in-game ephemera, the communication
probably wasn't encrypted at all. If so, the hurdle that the security forces
faced is not that they couldn't access the communication, but that they
couldn't interpret it.

And that just shows how little a mandatory backdoor policy would help: being
able to read something doesn't mean you can understand it. It's always
possible for someone to come up with a communication scheme that you didn't
anticipate or can't interpret, and you can't legislate away that capability.

So a backdoor policy doesn't trade privacy for safety -- instead it trades
privacy for a chance at safety, and pretty much just safety from careless,
unprepared attackers.

~~~
Malstrond
It would not be the first time that obscurity is confused with security.

------
interdrift
Shame..that they wrote it in the first place.

~~~
estefan
Care to elaborate?

~~~
interdrift
Encryption is a basic human right. The freedom to speak without being judged.

~~~
gkwelding
So is life, what do you do when 2 basic rights clash? It's definitely a tricky
question, and I certainly don't have the answer.

~~~
geggam
Encryption or the use thereof doesn't threaten your life. Screwdrivers or the
use thereof don't either, however if someone misuses the screwdriver and stabs
you in the temple you will die.

Does this mean we should outlaw the use of screwdrivers ?

------
jostmey
The best encryption is simply to communicate the old fashioned way. Just
because they had some playstations and access to "whatsapp" does not mean the
terrorist trusted electronic devices.

~~~
Zigurd
If your favorite tool is the pervasive surveillance hammer, you try to make
everything look like a nail.

------
tripzilch
I believe the conclusion of the article is the most important takeaway: (so,
points for good writing, I guess :) )

> Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell said he suspects the Paris attacks
> will weigh heavily on the encryption fight ongoing.

> “I think what we’re going to learn is that these guys are communicating via
> these encrypted apps, the commercial encryption, which is very difficult, if
> not impossible, for governments to break, and the producers of which don’t
> produce the keys necessary for law enforcement to read the encrypted
> messages,” Morell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.

> “We need to have a public debate about this,” he continued. “We have in a
> sense had a public debate — that debate was defined by Edward Snowden, and
> the concern about privacy. I think we’re now going to have another debate
> about that — it’s going to be defined by what happened in Paris.”

So, "They" want to misuse the attacks on Paris as an excuse to attract mind
and screen-time for an alternative counter-debate about privacy and
encryption. But Snowden got to "define the debate" because of the new
information (as well as evidence for old information) he brought to the
public, it's an entirely different thing if you're a politician grabbing
screen-time and "define the debate" to a shocked audience over a terror-attack
--which is exactly what the terrorists' want. Any freedoms or security taken
away from us as a response to a terror-attack, is a win for the terrorists.

------
Quanticles
> “’The most difficult communication between these terrorists is via
> PlayStation 4,’ the minister said, three days before the terrorist attacks
> in Paris. ‘It’s very, very difficult for our services — not only Belgian
> services but international services — to decrypt the communication that is
> done via PlayStation 4.'”

The Onion is going to have a really hard time topping this.

------
davesque
Honestly, I don't doubt at all that intelligence officials would love to
exploit FUD about this situation to further their agendas, but this article's
claim that the NYT article was "blaming encryption" is kind of a stretch. Read
the article linked on archive.org and decide for yourself:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http:/www.nytimes...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http:/www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/europe/paris-
attackers-communicated-with-isis-officials-say.html)

------
hackuser
The government and business have built a state of surveillance far beyond
anything dreamt of a couple of decades ago, with massive continuing
investment.

Yet the tool of surveillance was unable to stop this attack. Now they want
more surveillance, but maybe it's the wrong tool for this job.

Surveillance seems to have reached that place on the technology adoption curve
where people get a little over-enthusiastic and blindly think it solves every
problem, and they haven't yet realized it's a tool which, like all tools, is
good for for things but not for others.

(That ignores the massive cost to individuals and to our societies of
surveillance.)

------
exelius
In my mind, it comes down to what a society's priorities are.

If the priorities are Freedom > all, then encryption is a necessary tool.

If the priorities are Prosperity > Safety > Freedom > all, then society will
run roughshod over freedom.

~~~
laotzu
>A politic minister will study to lull us into security, by granting us the
full extent of our petitions. The warm sunshine of influence would melt down
the virtue, which the violence of the storm rendered more firm and unyielding.
In a state of tranquillity, wealth and luxury, our descendants would forget
the arts of war, and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors
invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of
union which renders our assistance formidable. When the spirit of liberty
which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our
numbers will accelerate our ruin, and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye
abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any should yet
remain among us!—remember that a Warren and Montgomery are numbered among the
dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of our countrymen, and then say, What
should be the reward of such sacrifices ? Bid us and our posterity bow the
knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the
avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our
blood, and hunt us from the face of the earth? _If ye love wealth better than
liberty, the tranquillity of servitude, than the animating contest of
freedom—go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and
lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may
posterity forget that ye were our countrymen._

-Sam Adams, American Independence Speech, August 1, 1776.

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/American_Independence](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/American_Independence)

------
downandout
This same narrative has been massaged into hundreds of stories on the attacks.
These news outlets are doing surveillance-crazed politicians' bidding for them
by creating the public perception that these people would still be alive were
it not for encryption. Perhaps the Times realized how dangerously stupid this
narrative is and is working to do something about it.

We are told that if we stop going to the mall or sporting events out of fear,
then the terrorists win. They also win if we lose our privacy rights in
response to this or any other attack.

------
ndm00
This issue brings up a larger point that many in the tech world have ignored
for awhile. Now that end to end encryption is easily accessible by everyone,
how do the authorities figure out beforehand when a terrorist attack will take
place? The answer is not banning encryption technologies or giving authorities
a 'key' as the FBI director has proposed. But now authorities have a very
difficult problem on their hands. Encryption can't be contained, and the
authorities need to figure out how to still catch the bad guys.

~~~
err4nt
It takes what it has always taken: good police work.

Encryption is like envelopes for the mail. They can be broken into with enough
force, but their purpose it to shield the contents of the message from those
handling it in transit. A post card offers no such protection.

So suppose the banned encryption (envelopes). Im sure the government would
still reauire envelopes. As would anybody dealing with health records. Or
banking, financial stuff has a legitimate need for secrecy. So they ned
envelopes.

Pretty soon what you have is a class of people allowed to USE envelopes and a
class of people not allowed it use them.

Like envelopes, encryption is an idea, not an inplementation. They may block
you from using this tool or that tool, just like a government could make
selling pre-made envelopes illegal - but the IDEA of encryption is simple just
like the idea of an envelope. Anybody with paper, scissors, and glue can
fashion their own envelope. Encyption is the same, one person can dream up an
build their own encoder and you can never ban or prevent that idea from being
used.

~~~
pdkl95
[https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html](https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html)

"Why I Wrote PGP", by Philip Zimmermann

We really need to emphasize the envelope metaphor a lot more. It's much easier
for non-technical propel to understand than any discussion of key/signing/etc.

------
cordite
I've started seeing this like locking down all coffee houses just because it
is a convenient place to meet and discuss things and some people happen to
plan terrible acts in these places.

------
whatever_dude
As someone said[1] the damage is already done.

Now everyone thinks that the terror attacks were perpetrated by Syrian
refugees that were communicating through the PS4 network using encryption, and
that nothing of this would have happened if videogames didn't exist,
encryption was forbidden, and they hadn't sheltered refugees.

[1]
[https://openparachute.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/amount.jpg](https://openparachute.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/amount.jpg)

------
halayli
If the secret service is relying on snooped messages as the main affective
method to catch criminals then it's doing it wrong. They're stuck in the WW2
mentality where they could listen on radio and decrypt codes. Back then it was
very effective but that was 60 years ago.

Secret services should consider decrypted communication as a nice to have, but
they should be completely capable of being effective without decrypting
communication channels and listening on private citizens.

------
zamalek
> Dang it, guys. Encryption is now illegal for us to use, everyone uninstall
> PGP.

Said no terrorist or criminal. Once the cat has been let out of the bag there
is no getting it in again.

~~~
privacy101
or ask Google, Apple, and Microsoft to automatically un-install the nefarious
applications from all computers and phones... not sure what they would do
about Linux ...

------
squozzer
Typical New Pravda SOP. Drop an unsubstantiated rumor blaming something the
government doesn't like then retract it once e damage has been done.

------
ck2
Waiting for the day when it is insisted that only criminals/terrorists use
end-to-end encryption.

I'm not surprised by liberals who want this and think government is
mother/father (to be clear I am progressive) but I am REALLY surprised by
conservatives that now want government monitoring every part of their
citizen's lives.

------
damosneeze
One of the main problems with the NSA programs is that it targeted _everyone_.
That just makes no sense. If you have a lead or probable cause on someone,
great, track them and hack their messages. Collecting everyone's information
to catch a terrorist only dilutes your search.

------
strictfp
Kind of like how they used guns!

------
rlonstein
I read that unsubstantiated assertion in the print edition (I know, dinosaur.
I like a morning paper) and called it out to my family. I'm saddened and
amused at how the press is led around by the nose.

------
wishiknew
I don't know why people are considering these terrorists to be so smart. They
arrived at the Stade de France and were naively thinking they'd be able to
come inside with explosives tied to them. In January, they didn't even know
where the Charlie Hebdo meeting room was, they had to ask for directions and
were even sent the wrong way (at first). Really, I'm far from worrying about
their communication's encryption as much as I worry about the lax government.

~~~
asift
> as much as I worry about the lax government

You mean the same governments that are already collecting everyone's private
communications and swabbing babies for bomb residue at airports under the
guise of stopping these types of things? It's not a lack of effort or
resources that should be concerning, it's the sheer incompetence.

~~~
wishiknew
No, the point I was trying to make has nothing to do with communication.
Molenbeek has been known to host radicalized Islamists for twenty years, I've
heard on French TV this weekend. Encrypted communication or not, as long as
governments sleep on such facts, we will see further attacks.

------
zymhan
Wow, I read this article on Sunday, and had I not seen this post I never would
have realized the Times no longer stood by what they said.

------
WildUtah
Countries fail to police immigration, promising us that it will go well and
we'll all benefit. Then they demand our civil liberties so they can police the
immigrants they invited. And our taxes have to rise to pay welfare to them.
But don't worry; a few million more and we'll all be better off.

~~~
laotzu
Howgh, my fellow native american or indigenous friend. I too grow weary of
these pale face immigrants taking our land, genociding us, and telling us
we'll all be better off.

------
exabrial
I encourage open thought rather than mob attacks on unpopular opinions. Anyone
have a link to the original article?

~~~
ColinWright
A quick search of this thread reveals:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10580586](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10580586)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http://www.nytime...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/europe/paris-
attackers-communicated-with-isis-officials-say.html)

~~~
exabrial
I don't really see anything too terrible about the article.

------
fnordfnordfnord
[http://www.newsdiffs.org/article-
history/www.nytimes.com/201...](http://www.newsdiffs.org/article-
history/www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/europe/paris-attackers-communicated-
with-isis-officials-say.html)

------
the_watcher
The biggest problem with the "encryption is too good" crowd is that they
simply refuse to recognize the simple fact that if there is a way in for them,
there is a way in for others. If there is a back door, it's simply no longer
effective encryption.

------
tripzilch
> The Times later posted a second article citing an anonymous “European
> counterterrorism official” who was quoted saying authorities’ “working
> assumption is that these guys were very security aware,”

We should make laws against security awareness if it enables terrorists!

------
raddad
What I found interesting is the method of communication was outlined in
"Homeland" by Cory Doctorow (Or perhaps it was in "Little Brother"). I suppose
we need to outlaw books now also.

------
post_break
Could it not be that what the article said was wrong, but that someone twisted
their arm for correctly exposing how they were communicating?

------
pbreit
Many are proposing a false dichotomy. Fact is, we can have privacy AND
mitigate terrorist activity.

------
unethical_ban
Jim Bamford of Foreign Policy said encryption was part of the way this was
done.

On the Diane Rehm Show, when asked what we know, he said "not much, but that
encryption or anonymizers, like Tor, might have been used to hide their
communications".

So they're already working to plant that narrative in listeners' heads.

~~~
CWuestefeld
"was done" vs "might have been" \- you're making a big jump.

If you weren't aware, Bamford is actually one of the good guys in this debate.
Don't make him say things he didn't say.

------
dboreham
This is all covered pretty well in the latest Bond movie.

------
compbio
> citing unidentified “European officials”

That was the Belgium minister.

> It was not clear whether the encryption was part of widely used
> communications tools, like WhatsApp, which the authorities have a hard time
> monitoring, or something more elaborate.

"PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp," Jambon
[Belgium minister] said at a debate in Brussels. "The most difficult
communication between these terrorists is via PlayStation 4," he said. "It’s
very, very difficult for our services — not only Belgian services but
international services — to decrypt the communication that is done via
PlayStation 4." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-
games/playstatio...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-
games/playstation/11997952/paris-attacks-playstation-4.html)

So: It is less about encryption (PGP, Tor) than it is about companies running
their own communication networks with encryption, and the intelligence
agencies have increasingly more trouble tracking extremists using games or
phone apps to plan their attacks.

Is that Snowden's fault? No. Did Snowden's leaks contribute to companies
making their networks harder to tap? Definitely.

Another tidbit that is coming out is that nearly all terrorists were already
on the radar of the intelligence services and had documents tracking their
radicalization. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/16/french-and-
belg...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/16/french-and-belgian-
intelligence-knew-paris-attackers-had-jihadi-backgrounds)

Apparently there was a failure to share and to make actionable sense of this
information.

Is that Snowden's fault? No. Did Snowden's broad indiscriminate leaks cause
less willingness to share information between intelligence agencies?
Definitely.

This is, in my view, a side-effect of these revelations, but a real effect
too. I don't want to weigh up these two on a scale, as that will be difficult
and everyone will have different priorities anyway.

BTW: This gaffe/Chinese whispers started with a Forbes article and New York
Times fell for it: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/11/14/why-the-
pa...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/11/14/why-the-paris-isis-
terrorists-used-ps4-to-plan-attacks/)

"Correction: It has not been confirmed, as originally written, that a console
was found as a result of specific Belgian terror raids. Minister Jambon was
speaking about tactics he knows ISIS to be using generally. "

