posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 06:28 PM
originally posted by: CIAGypsy
originally posted by: Swills
a reply to: CIAGypsy
What's the point of DHS? What the hell has Big Brother protected US from? If this was an ISIS plot or ISIS inspired plot how the hell does our gov't
not know about it?? ISIS openly tells us what they're gonna do and then they do it.
That's a loaded question and a complicated one to answer... My GUESS is that the FBI will say that terrorists have gone dark (i.e. operating off
radar of the web or any compromised communications). This is the "justification" they give for needing to tap into anything and everything whether
its Constitutionally legal or not. It is a subject I have debated with the Government on many occasions.
Indeed, it's just a justification. There is no reason that nearly all comms between terrorists can't be monitored, other than couriers by hand, which
are subject to intercept, at times with extreme prejudice. NSA has inroads into pretty much the bulk of transmitted communication, including SSL and
RSA. There are encryptions that they have not yet broken, and probably won't for the foreseeable future, but the most common encrypted communications
are already compromised. I strongly suspect that AES has probably been compromised as well - there must be some reason it was pushed so hard to be a
"standard", when it is sub-par compared to certain other algorithms.
There is a "security encryption suite" allegedly developed by al-Qaeda and further developed by ISIS called "Mujahideen Secrets 2". It, like their
most famous hack, is largely plagiarized work of others rather than a native development. It's a good idea, a novel approach, but it too is
substandard and plagued with problems. I have a copy of it, and wouldn't use it to communicate between kids' tree houses, much less in an security
sensitive application. Whomever wrote the "directions" for it's use was either incredibly naive in encryption matters, OR purposely wrote instructions
that would guarantee insecure use. I suspect the latter. Might as well just send your "secure" comms in an unsealed envelope and send them with the
header "To: Local Terrorist Cell - Care of NSA".
Then again, it's to be expected - Islam has, throughout it's history, stolen the work of others and tried to pass it off as it's own. I just think
that MujSecrets2 was probably a donation rather than a theft, with an eye towards making the intel agencies jobs a whole lot easier.
My point here is that there is no reason on Earth that the various alphabet agencies can't read nearly all "encrypted" internet transmissions as if
they had wrote them themselves. No reason at all that they wouldn't know what's coming down the pike well in advance of the actual event. Since they
(most recently the FBI) howl and whine and wring their hands over their alleged incapability against run of the mill encryption, knowing all the while
that the vast majority in use might as well be wrapping the message in saran wrap, I smell a disinformation campaign designed to fool most folks into
thinking their communications are secure when they are nothing of the sort, thus making the agencies' jobs a whole lot easier... yet "stuff" keeps
happening.
Therefore, you are likely correct - it's just a "justification", and the end game it runs to is not a pretty picture.