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Comment What About Facebook? (Score 4, Interesting) 306

Certain United States export control regulations prohibit U.S. businesses, such as MOOC providers like Coursera, from offering services to users in sanctioned countries, including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Under the law, certain aspects of Coursera’s course offerings are considered services and are therefore subject to restrictions in sanctioned countries...

Facebook is a "U.S. business" that is "offering services" to users in sanctioned countries. Only it's the Iranian government that tries to block it and redirects you to a page informing users the Web site they are trying to access is "bad for your health." I suppose the difference is that Facebook can be used to help people organize to overthrow the regime the U.S. government does not want, so that makes it OK. Plus, more people using it in a sanctioned country gives the NSA a clearer picture of the trends, attitudes and threats in that country.

I'm not saying Facebook should be restricted from offering services in countries like Iran. I'm saying laws should be applied equally, not politically.

Submission + - The Kid-Friendly Faces of the NSA

guttentag writes: “It is never too early to start thinking about what you want to do when you grow up.” To enter the “How Can I Work for N.S.A.?” section of the NSA's CryptoKids site, children click on a picture of a bucktoothed rabbit, who says in his biography that he likes listening to hip-hop and rock. In his free time, the bunny says, he participates in cryptography competitions with other cartoon characters named Decipher Dog and CryptoCat. The turtle wearing a hat backward, baggy jeans and purple sunglasses looks just like other cartoon characters that marketers use to make products like cereal and toys appealing to children. But the reptile, known as T. Top, who says creating and breaking codes is really “kewl,” is pushing something far weightier: the benefits of the National Security Agency.

The New York Times notes that the site has existed for nine years and that other government agencies have sites aimed at kids, but none of those they list are pushing cartoon animals to market themselves. Unless you count the Counterterrorism Center's cartoon eagle, Beaker.

Comment Re:I'll be in trouble (Score 4, Funny) 374

I'll be in trouble if I'm ever raided -- I have several USB devices and CD-R's that I used in the past to make a backup of something, and have lost or forgotten the passwords.

Forget your CDs, it's your DVD collection you should be worried about. "All I remember is the first part! 09 F9... then the hex code for some shade of red... I swear!" This is why everyone should have that number handy.

Comment Re:Leak Tracking (Score 1) 124

You would have to know where the signature was. If the document was distributed to a few dozen people, a single character could be used to identify which one leaked the document. It could be a punctuation "mistake" or any number of other minor things you wouldn't think to change. It could be a different thing that is changed in each version (in John's copy there is an extra space after the end of the first sentence, but in Jane's copy there is an extra space after the second sentence, etc.).

Comment Re:Steganography has always one big problem (Score 3, Funny) 124

All the other side needs to know is that you have something to hide, and depending on the level of society you live on, water boarding, lead pipes, or court order to make you divulge what it is.

Unsophisticated societies use lead pipes to force people to divulge information.
Sophisticated societies use court orders.
Modern societies use waterboarding.
Postmodern societies use facebook.

Think about it.

Comment Leak Tracking (Score 4, Insightful) 124

But it uses a new form of steganography based on cryptographic hashes to make the presence of a hidden message far harder for an eavesdropper to detect than in traditional stego.

I think steganography is far more likely to be used to track the people who leak information. When information gets out that was apparently available to multiple people, the leaker may not realize that his copy had a specific steganographic signature that identifies him as the source. It could be a pattern of extra spaces or line breaks in the code of document that he doesn't even see. The increased availability of the technology will likely mean smaller companies or government agencies will use it to suppress leaks.

Submission + - NSA's "TAO" Intercepting Packages to Install Backdoors, Exploiting Crash Reports

guttentag writes: German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel reports that the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) intercepts computer or accessory shipments and carefully opens the packages to install hardware backdoors or malware. It also intercepts Windows crash reports to learn what software vulnerabilities may exist on target computers. Its internal documentation on this includes a joke at Microsoft's expense, showing the usual error message with the words "This information may be intercepted by a foreign sigint system to gather detailed information and better exploit your machine." The report also claims the FBI helps the NSA attack isolated networks that are not connected to the Internet, making an FBI jet available to ferry a TAO team to its target so it can quickly appear, conduct its work in as little as half an hour and disappear undetected.

Comment Re:I have this marvellous new invention for you! (Score 5, Funny) 114

It's called a Hollerith card tabulating machine. I can make you a good price!

NSA PROCUREMENT OFFICE (EQUIPMENT DIVISION)

Mr. Kyosuke:

Thank you for your recent letter offering a good price on a Hollerith machine. I regret to inform you that the NSA already has several of these in its possession that were purchased at an IBM auction of surplus machines that had been leased to the German government in the 1940s. We have made many custom improvements to the German machines over the years and would not think of wasting them on something as trivial as contracts.

However, as replacement parts for these machines are in short supply and knowledge of their purpose is a forgotten state secret we have sent agents from the Procurement Office (Human Division) to collect you and your machine. They are at your front and back doors now. Please cooperate with them fully to make this easier on everyone.

Again, thank you for contacting the NSA and helping us keep you safe.

Comment Re:Where is all of this money coming from? (Score 1) 371

With the high profile shutdown of Silk Road the number of things you can buy with Bitcoin would be considerably less. While it's true that there are other services available, it seems strange to me that so much money is being dumped into the system now.

The largest private university in Cyprus, the University of Nicosia, announced last week it will begin accepting BTC for tuition, books, room and board, and it will offer a master's-level course of study on digital currency to help people outside the Bitcoinsphere understand it. Those two developments would seem to inject a significant amount of legitimacy into Bitcoin.

Although, if you invest in Bitcoin to attend UNic (official abbreviation of University of Nicosia) and the currency crashes, you may find that you've become a financial eunuch. It's all Greek to me.

Comment Re:stupid coments, but.... (Score 1) 312

More than that: the wording was that he "can't trust anyone who..." This would seem to indicate that it's a personal bias, and not some kind of technical requirement.

Perhaps there was some dark paperwork incident in his past of which we're unaware:

I've never trusted Arial documents, and I never will. I could never forgive them for the death of my boy.

Careless words like that in a personal log can earn you a one-way ticket to Rura Penthe.

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