
The Emails Snowden Sent to First Introduce His NSA Leaks - secfirstmd
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/snowdens-first-emails-to-poitras/
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noir_lord
> Assume your adversary is capable of one trillion guesses per second

Jesus, one trillion passphrase checks a second.

Well I know what I'm changing this afternoon.

> My personal desire is that you paint the target directly on my back. No one,
> not even my most trusted confidant, is aware of my intentions and it would
> not be fair for them to fall under suspicion for my actions.

Snowden has always had my respect but the more I read the more he has my
admiration as a person.

~~~
Cthulhu_
You should still assume it's futile in the end, to be honest; the ultimate
surveillance system that may be going on right now is that all encrypted
communication and data right now is being stored and catalogued, waiting for
technology to be able to do even more calculations. It's said that once
quantum computers become usable, a lot of encryption of today is pretty much
useless. Even without that, computing power will increase exponentially -
what's one trillion passphrases now will be a quadrillion passphrases within
the next ten years, maybe in less time given certain advancements or
discovered weaknesses in encryption technologies.

I personally don't really care if the NSA gets to look at my private
documents, communications and photo's (for example), but if you're privacy-
conscious, it's something to keep in mind.

~~~
hooande
Every time someone says "I have nothing to hide" the downvotes pour in, and
it's unnecessary.

"I have nothing to hide" is a perfectly valid and reasonable response to
privacy concerns. A lot of people feel that way, because the a lot of people
live very boring lives. They legitimately do not believe that they have any
secrets that will warrant the attention of the most powerful intelligence
apparatus to ever exist. 99% of Americans will never do anything in their
lives that holds the attention of any federal agency of any kind. We're all
unique, like snowflakes, but very few of us will ever matter at the national
level. The numbers just don't work out.

There's very little evidence that the intelligence community has done anything
to harm the average citizen with information gained through any kind of
surveillance. Some people are going to feel that they have nothing to hide
until the government's actions make them feel otherwise. It's a practical and
pragmatic point of view for people who aren't interested in the philosophical
or the hypothetical.

Commenters who use the phrase aren't saying anything about what level of
privacy is right for you, but stating what they feel is right for them.
There's nothing wrong or offensive about that, it's a matter of preference not
a matter of fact. There are two sides to this issue, and a one sided
discussion isn't going to do anyone any good.

~~~
Karunamon
_" I have nothing to hide" is a perfectly valid and reasonable response to
privacy concerns._

No, it really isn't, because we're discussing government policy, something
that impacts "we", not "I".

Saying that "you have nothing to hide" is at the very least tremendously
selfish, because it carries the implication that policy should be made based
on that stance. We're talking about what the NSA is doing to everyone, in
contravention of the supreme law of the land. What one person does or does not
want is a red herring and not part of the discussion.

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ck2
Let's also take a moment to remember James Risen who will likely be sent to
prison in January for exposing what the NY Times refused to print.

(and of course Manning who will be left to rot for the next 35 years by each
president)

~~~
mason240
Manning should never even be brought up in the same context as Snowden.

It's both discrediting and insulting to compare the two of them.

~~~
astazangasta
Can you clarify? Both of them took a principled stand and leaked a large
amount of sensitive information to journalists they trusted at great personal
risk. Both of them had a huge influence on public debate. They are at least
comparable.

~~~
theworst
The argument that I've commonly heard is twofold. One, Manning was in the
Army, so lots of his actions fall under military jurisdiction, where the
primary concern is not the rights of the accused.

Secondly, Manning dumped a lot of info without knowing what he dumped. Snowden
knew what was in the docs he leaked, and he made sure to protect human lives.

That's what I've heard, at least. It seems to make sense to me, but I'm open
to having my mind changed if you have a different perspective.

~~~
d23
For the life of me, whenever I hear someone call Manning a whistleblower, I
cannot ever get the person to articulate exactly what he was blowing the
whistle against. It's my understanding that most of what was released was
nothing more than embarrassing personal cables that harmed diplomatic
relations. Snowden revealed legitimate privacy concerns that the American
people had not yet been privy to.

~~~
thetrb
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike)

~~~
d23
Which doesn't really justify 99.9% of the other things that were released.

~~~
dllthomas
But that 99.9% (assuming your figure is accurate - I have no idea the
proportion of damning vs. embarrassing vs. irrelevant information that was
leaked) doesn't make Manning _not_ a whistle-blower.

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iandanforth
Somehow these emails were more powerful, personal, and meaningful than all the
previous coverage. It's _you_ they are watching and it's _you_ they are
watching all the time. Reading these emails I imagine they were addressed to
me and there's no way to avoid feeling like you're under a microscope. Even
when you snap out of it and remember the emails aren't addressed to you, you
then have to remember they apply to you, they could have been addressed to
you, and yes, you really are being watched.

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joelanders
I wonder how they "confirm[ed] out of email that the keys we exchanged were
not intercepted and replaced by your surveillants." Key exchange is the
hardest part.

~~~
theintern
That was my thought as well. Given all communication is considered
compromised, I can't think of a simple way to do this that isn't a face to
face.

~~~
DINKDINK
Could you explain how exchanging PGP keys over TLS would be compromised or
compromisable?

~~~
belovedeagle
Simple. Analog man-in-the-middle; i.e., you're not talking to who you think
you're talking to. That's the whole point of key exchange.

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desdiv
Does anyone know if "Citizen Four" (what Snowden signed his first email with)
is a reference to anything?

~~~
jessaustin
Possibly to the Fourth Estate? It would have been clear to Snowden that the
clergy and commoners aren't doing enough to control our kings and princes.

~~~
mmanfrin
Fourth Estate seems very plausible. The idea of the 'Fourth Estate' is that
the media (the fourth estate) keeps an eye on the government. Whether this is
the intention or the 4th Amendment is the intention, the other of the two is a
nice coincidence.

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alimoeeny
Chilling, very chilling.

