Judge orders Google to comply with FBI's secret NSL demands - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587003-38/ <comment><USER2> I love looking up these judges track history with technology:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Illston>

> Sony v. Hotz

> Currently, Illston is the presiding judge in Sony Computer Entertainment > America LLC v. George Hotz, et al.,[13] in which Sony claims that Hotz's > jailbreaking of the Sony PlayStation 3 violates the Digital Millennium > Copyright Act.

> She has granted Sony permission to track as much information as possible > about those who had seen a private YouTube video about the jailbreak and to > read their comments, plus obtain access to IP addresses, accounts, and other > details of visitors to sites run by Geohot. The access granted by Illston > extends even to those who had not downloaded the jailbreak code.

So clearly her interest in information privacy is non existant.

<comment><USER3> The context of the order in Sony is with respect to discovery in an ongoing trial. There is very little "information privacy" with respect to the power of a court to seek out evidence in a trial, from anyone that might have it. See Elkins v. United States ("The pertinent general principle, responding to the deepest needs of society, is that society is entitled to every man's evidence.").

But that's a very different issue than privacy rights in general.

<comment><USER4> _The access granted by Illston extends even to those who had not downloaded the jailbreak code._

I would say this puts it a bit out of the comfort zone.

<comment><USER3> The judge granted access to get IP addresses of visitors to his website, whether or not they downloaded the code, which would be relevant to Sony in proving how widely the information was disseminated. There is nothing unusual about this. Information relevant to a claim or defense is fair game for a court's subpoena power. If this was a murder case, that took place in an apartment, the judge would allow the prosecution to subpoena the lobby's visitor logs, even as to people who were not visiting the victim's apartment. This doesn't say anything about the judge's views on "information privacy" just about the fact that there really isn't any as against the subpoena power of a court. If the material is private in some way, it will be treated confidentially and redacted in public filings, but that's about it.

That's the problem with talking about a "right to privacy" in Anglo American law: there really isn't one. There are various protections serving different purposes, but they're not unified into some overarching principle of a right not to disclose or have information disclosed. That's why the subpoena power is so much broader than the power of police to search: because the animating principle isn't "privacy" but rather the protection of criminal defendants. If it were about privacy it wouldn't make sense to e.g. treat witnesses, who can be compelled to testify, differently than defendants, who can't.

Now, I'm not arguing that this is the best possible way to do things. But it's the way we have been doing it for centuries (since the Middle Ages).

<comment><USER4> Another question - are there any protections from Sony using the information in other non case related activities -extortion letters similar to porn sites come to mind.

<comment><USER3> A subpoena is a signed litigation document, which means it's either ordered by the court or issued by an attorney of record. Abuse of the subpoena can result in sanctions on both the attorney who signed it and his or her client. It can also run into various statutes (e.g. the 9th circuit allowed a suit to proceed against an attorney who issued an overbroad subpoena for e-mail under the CFAA under the theory it was equivalent to hacking the e-mail provider). Extortion is of course also illegal. Finally, witnesses can invoke the 5th to avoid producing information that might incriminate them in a subsequent criminal case.

As a general rule, there's "no money" in doing something like that. You run the risk of getting sanctioned, and if you use the information improperly in other litigation, it'll just get excluded as having been obtained via abuse of a subpoena.

The bigger worry is stuff like this, which doesn't happen under court supervision: [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/administrative- subp...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/administrative- subpoenas/all).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The sad thing here is that there is a real war on terror, no matter what you hear. There are actual violent-minded individuals that the state has an obligation to track and protect us from.

But the powers granted to the state to do this are humongously broad. It's ludicrous to have the FBI be able to write letters and retrieve any of your online activity it wants -- all without you knowing about it. The IRS has even more power. It can pull your records without the NSLs. All you have to be is "interesting" to them. (Don't know if they've exercised this power yet, but it's coming)

So when corporations like Google complain, out trots the assistant director to give classified testimony about all these evil folks in the world. Yes, sure. But one doesn't justify the other. I'm really happy somebody is doing something about bad guys right now. What I worry about is a few years down the road when all of this security state nonsense is used for political reasons.

Some people think you have to be afraid of the government knowing too much about you. Some people think you have to be afraid of corporations knowing too much about you. Some people worry that we can easily find out too much about just about anybody (facial recognition Google glass tied back to something like Spokeo isn't far off). But it's not an either-or choice. All of these factors work together, as we see in this case.

This is not going to end well.

<comment><USER6> > The sad thing here is that there is a real war on terror, no matter what you > hear.

No there isn't. That's the whole trick. It's a mind thing, as long as enough people believe there is a war on terror there is a war on terror, when they stop believing they'll resort to good old police-work and the judicial system to back it all up.

See Spain and the bombings there, the UK and the bombings there, India and the bombings there and so on. Everybody else seems to treat it as a series of acts by loosely organized and funded individuals that don't seem to have a common goal or even coherency about their deeds.

And the best bit: it doesn't work. You can't declare 'war' on lone wolves or small cells if they're careful enough. Any idiot (you, me, any other visitor here) could turn around and become a terrorist tomorrow, there would be no other outward distinguishing factor, just that bit that flipped in our heads. And by the time there would be an outside observable factor (objects going 'foom') it would be way too late.

<comment><USER4> I think the best summary of the war on terror can be found in the fact that the US is forcibly feeding the "terrorists" in Guantanamo while parts of the government are trying their best to cut the money for food stamps for people that are starving.

<comment><USER7> Even with the quotes, that's still too strong a statement. Until they have been processed by a court they are innocent.

The USA has held innocent people without a trial for over a decade. Some of those people were children when "arrested".

This situation weighs against every American and yet it's still ongoing.

<comment><USER8> It is without doubt a terrible situation that should never have happened to begin with. It's a modern day POW camp. The problem that nobody seems to be able to answer is what exactly you do with them. Their home countries don't want them and the logistics of simply releasing them into the US is very complex i.e. what will they do and what if they don't want to be there.

<comment><USER9> If nobody wants them, is allowing them to complete their hunger strike not a more humane option than force feeding them with tubes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In a free and open society, we can't accept a government which operates in secret. If our government is to be accountable to the people, it needs to be transparent in what it's doing and how it's doing it. Just crying "national security, national security" doesn't magically make it OK for the government to do whatever it wants.

I've often considered that if I were in a position to receive one of these, that I'd turn around and publish it on the web immediately after receiving it, and just accept the consequences. If that day ever comes, I hope I have the courage to go through with it.

<comment><USER11> > In a free and open society

The people do not seem to want to live in a free and open society.

<comment><USER12> Cynical view, most people can't understand what a computer is or what it could do.

Most people can't understand how easy is for the government to access the pictures they post on facebook.

This does not mean they don't care.

<comment><USER13> "Today, nobody cares… But tomorrow, they will…" - Wasalu Muhammad Jaco

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge4BEdyZ8bM>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The most insidious thing about this is that the government is probably precluded from collecting the kind of information about us that companies like Google and Facebook routinely gather. But as long as someone else has already done the work, the government can just demand the information.

<comment><USER15> To be fair, that's literally the point of a search warrant (/subpoena/"demand letter"). It's a bit like saying that the phone company has already done all the work identifying who you call. Well, yes, that's what you use them for. I assume your point is more that we use these services for more than any one service in the past.

The real issue in this case, however, is that the FBI can request the data and no one will ever know that they did. That can only lead to abuse. How many of those 192,499 requests were actually used to fight terrorism? Well, we can't find out...

<comment><USER16> National Security Letters are warrant-less. A search by the government is [should be] only legal if it meets the conditions of the Fourth Amendment.

<comment><USER3> Not all searches under the 4th amendment require a warrant.

The structure of the 4th amendment is a little bit non-obvious (see: <http://lawlibrary.unm.edu/nmlr/10/1/03_stelzner_fourth.pdf>).

The text reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The ", and" between "violated" and "no Warrants" complicates the interpretation.[1] At common law, there was a well-understood universe of things that required warrants. Thus, the comma can be read as creating two separate requirements:

1) All searches must be reasonable; and 2) All warrants (to the extent that a search requires a warrant) must be supported by probable cause.

This reading admits the possibility of searches that are reasonable but don't require warrants. And this is a common sense category (e.g. very few people would say that police should have to go get a warrant to search a robber caught at the crime scene for weapons).

Contemporary battles tend to be over what kinds of searches require warrants.

This isn't just a battle over grammar, however. It's a question of: "what did we agree on the scope of the government's powers being?" As a general rule, the law doesn't constraint the government's ability to subpoena information from a third party without a warrant. E.g. if you're being prosecuted for fraud, the government doesn't need a warrant to subpoena your business partners requesting all documents they have from their dealings with you. The purpose of the 4th amendment is to protect you from the indignity of the search, not to protect the information itself. Under that logic, you can make a reasonable case that nothing should stop the government from subpoenaing any information Google or AT&T have about you.

The real problem here is the secret nature of the NSL's, not the 4th amendment issues, IMHO. One of the things that justifies the far-reaching subpoena powers of common law courts is the fact that they are distributed, transparent entities--nearly everything is a matter of public record.

[1] In plain speech, I might say: "I eat pizza, and I eat cake." The ", and" combines two independent thoughts without any necessary relationship between them, other than the fact that I like both. It could be the case that I never eat pizza and cake in the same meal.

<comment><USER17> If the great majority of America agrees with that interpretation, despite 200 years of the contrary, I may have to resign my commission.

<comment><USER18> Agrees with what interpretation, Niels? That it's "reasonable OR with a validly issued warrant", or that it's "reasonable AND with a validly issued warrant"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Relevant: "Illston, who is stepping down from her post in July, said another reason for her decision is her desire not to interfere while the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing the constitutionality of NSLs in an unrelated case that she also oversaw.

In that separate lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of an unnamed telecommunications company, Illston dealt a harsh blow to the bureau's use of NSLs."

</comment><comment><USER19> The mechanism for "watching the watchers" are the other two branches of government. One of the most worrying things I've seen is that the judicial branch seems unwilling to really oversee the executive branch. It's like judges _want_ to abrogate their responsibility to check executive power. Are warrants really that much of a headache? Are they really that slow? Do the judges think that it matters that little to the public and the risk of harm that low?

<comment><USER3> It's not because judges think warrants are a headache. It's because judges are deathly scared of being perceived as "judicial activists." The story of the judiciary of the last 20-30 years is the story of the backlash against the judiciary for liberal activism during the 1960's and 1970's, and a subsequent tendency to defer to the political branches whenever possible.

As against the other two branches, all the court has is political capital. Nothing stops the President or Congress from just ignoring a court decision. The judiciary spent tremendous political capital during the civil rights era, and doesn't have enough left to battle the current era of overreaches in the name of national security. And in any case, national security was always one of the areas in which the executive branch was considered to be supreme over the other two branches.

<comment><AUTHOR> Judges don't wake up in the morning and say, "Well, I would like to do the right thing and declare this surveillance unconstitutional, but there was that Brown v. Board of Education sixty years ago, and so I'm going to punt!" Especially when you have tenure for life and -- in the case of the judge mentioned in my article that started this thread -- are voluntarily retiring in a month anyway. (Even if you get removed from office, which of course never happens, you'd get 5x - 10x your salary in the private sector.)

In general, lower courts follow the lead of appellate courts, which in turn follow the lead of the Supreme Court. And on constitutional issues, those justices don't like to get too far out in front of what they believe the national consensus to be. That's why you have toothless rulings like U.S. v. Lopez, a commerce clause case that conservatives initially applauded, only to have Congress slightly tweak the law without complaint from the courts.

<comment><USER3> > Judges don't wake up in the morning and say, "Well, I would like to do the > right thing and declare this surveillance unconstitutional, but there was > that Brown v. Board of Education sixty years ago, and so I'm going to punt!"

Sure, but there is definitely a "mood" in the judiciary. If you read opinions from today versus those in say the 1970's, you can definitely see a self- concious deference to the political branches that didn't exist back then. E.g. compare the D.C. Circuit of the 1960's to the current one.

<comment><AUTHOR> You might be right. Or at least I'm not saying you're wrong. But do you have any cites that compare then-vs-now?

In reality the DC Circuit spends much of its time today striking down regulations enacted by the political branches, and actually takes some glee in doing so. In HNesque areas, the court tossed out the Net neutrality regulations and the broadcast flag regulations. There's a reason the president wants to tilt the makeup of that court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> All they would have to do is go through traditional judicial procedure to gather information and nobody would complain. That shouldn't be too much to ask.

<comment><USER2> What's good for the goose, is good for the gander.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FYI, folks, I just posted a new article about a different lawsuit in New York in which the U.S. Department of Justice is asking a asked a Manhattan judge to grant its "petition to enforce" the FBI's NSL: [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587005-38/justice- depart...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587005-38/justice-department- tries-to-force-google-to-hand-over-user-data/)

Discussion thread: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5799541>

</comment><comment><USER21> > The sad thing here is that there is a real war on terror

Yeah. A pity there isn't a war on furniture too. [http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/ame...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/americans- are-as-likely-to-be-killed-by-their-own-furniture-as-by-terrorism/258156/)

<comment><USER22> My god those comparisons are stupid. Was the U.S. getting involved in WW2 a severe overreaction since Americans were massively more likely to die of polio or black lung than Japanese or German bombs?

<comment><USER21> A foreign military's bombs were intended as a prelude to invasion or destruction of the entire military capacity. A terrorist attack is a prelude to ... nothing much.

<comment><USER22> I don't think Japan was interested in destroying our entire military capacity, just enough to get us out of the Pacific. It wasn't a radically dissimilar aim than Al Qaeda's goal to get us out of the Islamic world, though just about everything else about the two events was different.

As for a terrorist attack being "a prelude to ... nothing much", you know there was a _first_ World Trade Center bombing, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder what would happen if Google told the FBI to bugger off and printed the NSLs on the web.

<comment><USER24> Fines, criminal charges?

More importantly, the USG could find evidence against the individual, even invent something or help the target commit a crime, then "legitimately" say "See, Google is directly protecting real terrorists", which would help the USG far more than Google giving in to the NSLs.

<comment><USER25> I'll just leave this right here...

rsync.net Warrant Canary - <http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The US government is missing the mark so completely, it is scary.

Does anyone here think that actual, real terrorists are going to be discussing their plans using anything other than highly encrypted protocols, along with code words?

These measures are absolutely of no use in catching anyone that is more intelligent than a gnat that actually wants to harm the US.

<comment><USER27> I'm right with you in spirit, you should be 100% correct. But these terrorists do keep using electronic communications.

I don't think any one serious and vaguely intelligent planning a major crime would do so using electronic communications. Surely every one now knows that it is iffy at best, and many believe that it is basically easily open to the authorities at a whim. But over an over again, these terrorists and/or their sympathisers do keep using electronic communications, then getting caught. Almost every case I can think of that has ended up in court and is reported on, has a big element of electronic communications evidence. It seems they are indeed as intelligent as that poor gnat, (who is probably asking why he is being bought in to it!!!). But, IIRC, a lot of the terrorists, we are told, are pretty smart people. They are not trailer trash (US) or chav scum (UK), they turn out to be degree level people, or students studying for degrees. Smart people, right?

Ok, a fair number of them expect to die as a result of their terrorist action, but as we saw in Boston, that was not the case for them. But, why risk the "mission" being blown before it happens because of an electronic interception? They then risk doing the time, with out doing the crime.

Worse still, it then gets used to justify the removal of various freedoms and liberty from the average citizen. And so on....

What you are saying should be 100% correct. It really should. But insanely, it isn't.

Quite bizarre if you ask me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What is to stop Google from simply giving the FBI the runaround for as long as it takes to get the legality sorted out. They could agree to give them the data and then cite technical difficulties, bureaucratic red tape, and other mistakes to stall for a year or two.

<comment><AUTHOR> Contempt of court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> What's with all the knee-jerk reactionary responses (and with all of them repeating roughly the same thing)? Under our legal system, it really shouldn't come as a shock to see how things turned out.

</comment><comment><USER30> I fail to see why an NSL is even necessary when a warrant should suffice?

</comment><comment><USER31> Is this a good time already to start building service clones from other countries that have a big stamp on it:

"FBI-SAFE! 100% guarantee there's no ~FBI CRAMPS~ on your private communication, photos, locations, likes, etc we respect your privacy and we care for the future of mankind! Want to live in dystopian 1984 future in just about 10 years? We don't, too!

(service hosted and maintained in Brazil)"

<comment><USER32> So the CIA station officer has a word with his counterpart - hint south Americas security services don't exactly have a shining record.

<comment><USER31> Still, that's not the point. The point is that all this madness is so fragile and stupid that it can give lever for digital businesses overseas to have competitive edge on yours by both not being forced to waste resources building backdoors and surveillance into their systems(which also make them less secure) and also by making them have an advantage no USA business will be allowed to have ever, which is to offer privacy. It's probably what MEGA was thinking.

Now when and if this happens the FBI will really see what's 'going dark'. Of course, they have plenty of means to try influencing things their ways but it's utterly unmanageable, if they choose to hack the servers and news break that US Government agencies are hacking into legitimate businesses overseas, it's not gonna sit well with both governments(Brazil, for example, is historically a pacific country that tries to not interfere with anyone, how will you make it into a terrorist country?) and to the general population, they can also do it politically but this won't sit well with the country's population too and are sure to have 'anti-american' vibes increasing, besides that, each country has it's culture and takes on civil liberties(and the chopping of them) and also it's own interests and industries it allows to influence it's politics, in Brazil that would be Meat, Soil, Mining, Cars industries... and if allowing privacy(or, at least, keeping civilian basic constitutional rights) ends up helping the economy too then it may also be a choice to be considered to support it too, right? Dunno if Hollywood bullshit will stick everywhere, and going heavy-handed on other countries matters are sure to spread the shit, there's plenty of countries in the world.</comment></comment></comment>


Profiling Go Applications with Flamegraphs - <AUTHOR> http://brendanjryan.com/golang/profiling/2018/02/28/profiling-go-applications.html <comment><USER2> A nice writeup, thanks. There are a few variations on this workflow that I've found useful in practice; perhaps they'll be helpful to some folks:

\- Linux perf can profile unmodified Go programs. This is handy when your application doesn't expose the /debug/pprof endpoint. ([http://brendangregg.com/FlameGraphs/cpuflamegraphs.html#perf](http://brendangregg.com/FlameGraphs/cpuflamegraphs.html#perf) has detailed instructions)

\- Recent versions of [https://github.com/google/pprof](https://github.com/google/pprof) include a flamegraph viewer in the web UI. This is handy when you want a line-level flamegraph instead of a function-level flamegraph.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone else have this problem with go indentation:

        func (sc *SimpleClient) Timing(s string, d time.Duration, sampleRate float64,
            tags map[string]string) error {
            return sc.send([...]

The wrapped parameter list is indented to the same level as the function body. Is this how it's supposed to be done?

<comment><USER4> No problem with that indenting here (personal opinion), I guess makes it easier to read if your editor doesn't have soft-wraps. However, generally, if the parameters list overflow to another line like that, it becomes a good candidate for refactoring!

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it could be a new struct, especially if another parameter or two comes along (though the simplest thing has its benefits, too).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would have liked to have seen how the author measured the hot spots in the graph. It wasn't immediately obvious to me that the `WriteToUDP` function was taking up a significant portion of the call.

Another thing that is omitted is what type of buffer was used. I'm assuming it was a `[]string` slice but why not use a `sync.Pool`?

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm trying to figure out why I find Go so hard to read. Am I mostly alone with this?

<comment><USER8> It's considered idiomatic in Go to use very short variable names [1], which seems masochistic to me. Every time I look at Go code, it's like I'm back in high school using Borland Turbo C all over again.

[1] [https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/CodeReviewComments#variabl...](https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/CodeReviewComments#variable- names)

<comment><USER9> I've mostly interpreted that to use single character names for method receivers and loop variables. I think those are defensible because you know where to find them if you need their definition (in the method definition or in the loop).

I don't think that assigning terse names (such as the variable "ra" from the OP) to variables that might be declared anywhere in a function is helpful.

<comment><USER10> Though that would still be idiomatic go code. For what it is worth, I do agree with you. Short variable names on a function are a hassle. You have to lookup what they mean, which slows down understanding.

n = copy(p, b.buf[b.r:b.w])

Oh better go to the top and see what those are again...

[https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/src/bufio/bufio.go#...](https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/src/bufio/bufio.go#L190)

<comment><USER11> I find to understand a piece of code, I need to know what all the involved variables are, which I'll have to do regardless of long or short names.

Once I know what they all are, I find it's easier for me to track them through the function if they have short names.

Something java style like

        numBytesWritten = copy(destinationBuffer, reader.buffer[reader.readPosition:reader.writePosition]

is much harder for me to follow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How are flame graphs a better way of displaying profile data than viewers like paraprof [1] or cube [2], which have tree/flat and inclusive/exclusive views, as opposed to essentially just an inclusive tree view? Consider seeing the effect of something called all over the place in a complex system.

[1] [http://www.vi-hps.org/upload/material/tw-score-p/vi-hps- tw-s...](http://www.vi-hps.org/upload/material/tw-score-p/vi-hps-tw- scorep-05_ParaProf.pdf) [2] [http://www.vi-hps.org/upload/material/tw- score-p/vi-hps-tw-s...](http://www.vi-hps.org/upload/material/tw-score-p/vi- hps-tw-scorep-04_Cube.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER13> Flamegraphs are good for CPU profiling (as far as I've used them), I've used them to debug an issue when one of our programs was "consistently" consuming high CPU. As the "stack" was mostly on CPU, during sampling, this stack was picked up most of the time, hence in flamegraphs, it was represented with a relatively longer bar.

But do they help to debug issues related to CPU spikes? I have my reservations because they are generated using sampling, and flamegraphs won't give a clear insight into who is causing the spikes.

<comment><USER13> One way to solve this I can think of is, if cpu spikes are deterministic, then we can take 2 profiles: 1\. span consisting of no spikes 2\. span consisting of at least 1 spike

And then "diff" them to get stack causing spikes.

Is this the correct way?

In general, how do people solve CPU spikes issue?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Whenever I see something like this I think of the 2015 video netflix[0] gave also using flamegraphs but for node.

Personally I want something like this for py.

In searching for the vid I see netflix also have a medium post(2014)[1] about it.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1YP8QP9gLA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1YP8QP9gLA)

[1]: [https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/node-js-in-flames- ddd073...](https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/node-js-in-flames-ddd073803aa4)

</comment><comment><USER15> Video of this in action: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAhNDgEZj_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAhNDgEZj_U)</comment>


Oh Snap Looks like Snapchat could be rebranding - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/23/oh-snap-looks-like-snapchat-could-be-rebranding/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12569182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12569182)

</comment><comment><USER3> The biggest problem with glass was that they weren't fashionable. It had a very nerdy look. If snapshot can make some nice shit that looks good on me then I'll deffo buy it. It's in the same league as having a GoPro. If with this glasses my pics go poof after they've been since once then I'm okay with that.

The thing with Google is they are too powerful. They have all sorts of scary algorithms. They have proven again and again that they will invade your privacy to shove ads in your face.</comment>


Government Prevails in Bid for Anti-Trump Website's Subscriber Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-24/u-s-prevails-in-bid-for-anti-trump-website-s-subscriber-data <comment><AUTHOR> Techmeme summary: _US judge rules DreamHost must hand over user data from anti-Trump website to DoJ, but imposes limits and will vet which information DoJ uses_</comment>


I Was Hidden on This Guy's Hard Drive for Over 6 Years - <AUTHOR> http://petapixel.com/2014/07/15/hidden-guys-hard-drive-6-years/

<comment><USER2> I suspect that we aren't far from this type of synchronicity being assisted by technology. Very cool!

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be nice if camera thieves would upload pics from the cameras they stole.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a crazy awesome story.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am so jealous. To be that age [17], wandering around a city that foreign and beautiful? Probably has a profound effect.</comment>


Theranos Secures $100M in New Funding from Fortress Capital - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2017/12/23/theranos-secures-100-million-in-new-funding-from-fortress-capital/ <comment><USER2> For everyone saying Fortress are idiots: this is a loan and the amount is conditional. That means 2 things:

1) If Theranos fails, Fortress can claim its assets.

2) The money is not released until certain milestones are met.

So either Theranos misses the milestones, folds, and has Fortress take over its assets, OR Theranos meets the milestones and is actually a valuable business.

Depending on the terms, Fortress could have easily structured this deal such that they win in either scenario. I would imagine that Theranos was desperate ("distressed"), so the terms are likely pretty onerous.

<comment><USER3> Fortress made a fortune in the MBS market. They aren't experts in biotech, but they are very deep in asset backed loans. This isn't "Let's fund a unicorn" situation, it's "Let's get an above market return on a loan where we can claim assets in excess of principal if it goes belly up" situation. The real question is "What are those assets?" but the investment wouldn't be made if they weren't there.

<comment><USER4> They've got that fly-ass building in Palo Alto, do they own it? Looks to be worth close to $100M right there.

(Seeing a basically pre-revenue company build that thing was in retrospect a good tip-off that it was a scam.)

<comment><USER3> Naming stadiums and building fancy headquarters can be a tip-off. Look at 3com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am astounded that anyone would touch Theranos with a 100-mile pole.

Their claims about their super-special tech were deliberately misleading, taking advantage of the general public's lack of medlab knowledge. They never released details of their "miracle" tech, and even if their claims were true, Holmes' entire "vision" fundamentally misunderstood the lab business and the way data and decisions flow from patient to doctor.

Maybe there's some savvy investing trick going on behind the scenes that I don't understand, but as a former medical lab professional everything about Theranos was giant red flags from the beginning.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps their assets are north of $100m and this debt is senior to all equity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fortress is selling itself (trying at least) to SoftBank [1]. Their stock price is down to 7.87 from 30.17 IPO [2]. Fortress _hasn 't_ been doing too well. They've never done well.

[1] [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FIG/](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FIG/)

[2] [https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1505p66vq06cy...](https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1505p66vq06cy/the- fall-of-fortress)

</comment><comment><USER8> We always assume these fund manager types are smart but history has shown they're often as dumb as the average joe public.

A company with no product, casual relationship with the truth as far as its technical capability goes, tarnished reputation and totally unqualified CEO is worth $0

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a pitch deck that I would love to see

We've had some set backs, but are really excited to show you...

</comment><comment><USER10> ("Famously inflated the capabilities of its devices")

Didn't they just flat out lie?

</comment><comment><USER11> For certain people it appears the only way to fail is up.

</comment><comment><USER12> Fortress is weird: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_Investment_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_Investment_Group)

They have often bought distressed assets and also they did some weird things with regards to the Vancouver Olympics.

</comment><comment><USER13> Great, we need to have more politically enabled companies like Theranos and hope that they continue to thrive.

Hackers compromising their infrastructure from eastern europe/russia/china based IP, and releasing the genetic information they have could provide a great service to the public in the future.

</comment><comment><USER14> "Theranos, diagnose diseases with AI and Blockchain support"

</comment><comment><USER15> While the potential negative consequences for cheating fail to outweigh the potential benefits of cheating (depending on who the person is of course) cheating will continue to occur.

I'd like to think there was a time when stunts like Theranos pulled earlier would have been career ending for the people involved but maybe that time never existed. It does suck for everyone else though.

The implicit gain in scummy behavior is definitely a flaw in our system that hopefully gets patched up at some point.

</comment><comment><USER16> pivot to Theranos Blockchain Biotech and get the party started again

</comment><comment><USER17> How is this company still operational? Do serious people believe that they will have a functioning and profitable product in the future? Does Theranos still have salaried employees, and if so, what are they working on? The article mentions a "box that diagnoses diseases", which is a meaningless description. They've gone from "running on fumes" to ...what, exactly? I'm extremely puzzled.

<comment><USER18> They have $200M of cash on hand according to the article. Not defending them but you can do a lot with $200M including a full pivot and brand reboot.

<comment><USER17> They pay rent on Page Mill Road and have multiple lawsuits pending, last I heard, so I'm wondering how far that cash would actually take them. Also, if Elizabeth Holmes insists on the same level of control without any biomedical credentials, how realistic is a reboot? I would very much like to know the reasoning that any funding providers would use to justify their support.

<comment><USER18> I guess Fortress thinks they can get a return on the assets, whatever they are. Could be a power play too, if you look at Theranos board there are a surprising amount of political players which could be advantageous for the SoftBank-owned Fortress.

Edit: looks like most of the original board members are gone post-scandal. But for reference here's who was on it previously [http://fortune.com/2015/10/15/theranos-board- leadership/](http://fortune.com/2015/10/15/theranos-board-leadership/)

<comment><USER17> Investment groups that buy troubled assets are beyond my scope of understanding, but is that what is happening here? It sounds like Theranos is purporting to have a functioning product/business plan in the near future.

I work in medicine so my colleagues and I have been following this farce for several years. When so many advancements and biomedical research can benefit from such funding, why throw money at this fraudulent company?

Edit: Many thanks to users hkmurakami and ukulele above for explanations/clarifications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Are you kidding me?

<comment><USER20> All they need to do is rebrand as Therablockchain or something.

<comment><USER21> Lol, thanks for the laugh. Merry Christmas.</comment></comment></comment>


Terminal emulators benchmarking suite (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/anarcat/terms-benchmarks <comment><USER2> Sad to not see kitty[0] in the list, I use it as an alternative to Alacritty mostly because it supports font ligatures.

[0]: [https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty](https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty)

<comment><AUTHOR> Kitty doesn't support fcitx input.

<comment><USER3> However that is not the reason given for why it is not on the list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a strange test, giving credit for being able to show a distracting background image under the test or letting the desktop bleed through, but failing to check that both copy-and-paste systems are correctly functioning.

Performance tests somehow involve both Java and Python. I don't think that is how you do it. :-)

<comment><USER5> Performance tests should give metrics, not checkmarks

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Happy to see urxvt among the top performing, it's been my go to terminal for more than a decade!

<comment><USER7> I love it, too. It's keyboard-select extension has made me feel so much more efficient in working that I often feel handicapped when working in another person's terminal.

I mean, it's very often that one wants to copy part of the output of the previous command, and it sucks to have to reach for the mouse when the part is right there! just 1 or 2 lines above the text cursor. keyboard-select allows me to grab it in around 5 quick keypresses. It's also been tremendously useful to quickly determine if the big output of the previous command contains some piece of text without having to re-run it with grep repeatedly while adjusting the search.

That extension definitely has its warts like what happens when you go to the top of the buffer and select everything to the bottom (gVG). It causes the last screenful of text remain in a highlighted state as if it was originally like that. The ability to work on urxvt extensions is actually making me consider taking up perl.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> note that alacritty has improved a lot since this, despite being less than a year since the tests were done, I have been using it for many months now its pretty great.

<comment><USER9> It also recently added proper underline support, which was previously a blocker for me. Now using alacritty full time when I'm on Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to see a Mac version of those benchmarks

<comment><USER11> Same, I use Terminator on Linux and iTerm2 on macOS. I much prefer iTerm2 but found Terminator to be the best on Linux (quite subjective but a bit confirmed by this study).

<comment><USER10> I never can bring myself to switch to iTerm2. It's a lot nicer all in all, and now that they tweaked the font rendering I'm dangerously close.

But there's something about using the default system tools that keeps me attached to Terminal.app.

<comment><USER12> _But there 's something about using the default system tools that keeps me attached to Terminal.app._

The big thing that keeps Terminal in my dock is iTerm's sometimes flaky Unicode support. In Terminal it always works. In iTerm, it's about 80/20.

I still use iTerm when I'm doing something requiring a bunch of panes. But if I'm doing something Unicode-heavy, it's Terminal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I did a much cruder benchmark when I was trying to eek performance out of an OLPC-XO.

I did find ~ on a home dir that took 1.5 seconds to do find ~ >dev/null

I ended up running on a version of mrxvt using bitmapped fonts which took 8 seconds. Scalable fonts took 35 seconds.

A VTE based terminal emulator took 394 seconds to display the same output.

<comment><AUTHOR> How does one convert regular beautiful fonts to bitmap fonts? I want to convert Lucida console

<comment><USER13> Not easily. There are bitmap font editing programs but they generally come from from a time where bitmap fonts were commonly used. By today's standards they can seem quite primitive. When I was doing stuff with them 10+ years ago it was quite a struggle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Surely if their perf benefit is publicized, more people would use them creating a demand for such tools? Oh wait- there are people who find electron acceptable... Sad state :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> mlterm offers me great Unicode rendering, very low latency (it feels fast) and works very nicely with proportional fonts (yes I'm one of these persons spreading the gospel of proportional fonts for coding)

In the previous tests I read, mlterm dominated in latency. Here, the tests do not give numbers

<comment><USER6> Can I hear more about your gospel?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> terminology is another great terminal emulator I use daily on Linux [https://www.enlightenment.org/about- terminology.md](https://www.enlightenment.org/about-terminology.md)

<comment><USER15> The reason not to test Terminology seems quite outdated.

<comment><USER3> Nonetheless, it is not. Debian Stable has not changed to a new version since 2018, and hence Terminology is currently not provided by Debian Stable.

* [https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/terminology](https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/terminology)

* [https://packages.debian.org/source/sid/terminology](https://packages.debian.org/source/sid/terminology)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was thinking of moving from GNOME to Plasma as my daily driver, but the Konsole results are kind of disappointing. I can use another terminal when on Plasma, of course, but now I feel less inclined to change.

<comment><USER17> Quite a lot of what is written there about Konsole is wrong - it supports transparency and is not using libvte at all.

So I recommend to just ignore this entirely and evaluate which terminal emulator you want to use solely by actually using them.</comment></comment>


Any set of figures needs adjusting before it can be usefully reported - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/05/bad-science-adjusting-figures

<comment><USER2> Decent illustration of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons_paradox></comment>


Has anyone ever gotten in trouble for working on side projects during work hour? - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone ever gotten in trouble for working on side projects during work hour? How did they find out? <comment><USER2> Don't do it. They can find out anything. As if they were watching a live- stream of what you are doing. By law, employers have access to monitor anything and everything that happens on company property. Company property, in the modern sense, includes laptops, company-issues phones, tablets, and the wired and wireless networks. They have every right to in-near-real-time perform surveillance of what you are doing.

As for employee IP agreements and contracts, it really only becomes litigious if there are large sums of money involved.

For example, Mayo Clinic v. Peter L Elkin, MD

[http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/USCOURTS- ca8-11-02959/USCOU...](http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/USCOURTS- ca8-11-02959/USCOURTS-ca8-11-02959-0)

There are cases of litigation against 'small fish' I can't find references for at the moment.

In most cases, they will go after you with non-compete (which is not really legally enforceable in California). Technically, if the company you work for is big enough - you can be 'competing' with them.

<comment><USER3> Can they see what you are doing even with dynamic websites or over https? Assuming they can only read network traffic.

<comment><USER4> Examine DNS lookups, examine URLs, MITM potential to read everything, all sorts of things they could do on just the network level.

<comment><USER3> None of those can show what you are actually seeing on your page? What if you were using a web based IDE? Or Python Anywhere?

<comment><USER4> MITM certainly can see everything, and employers do it: [http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/03/05/1724237/ask- slashdot-d...](http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/03/05/1724237/ask-slashdot- does-your-employer-perform-https-mitm-attacks-on-employees)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know a guy who got into trouble write a <insert favorite programming language> module and putting it in a public repository. The module solved the current task. It was easy to install and had documentation. All good? No. The company claimed he spent extra (meaning unnecessary time) cleaning up the code and making is usable for other companies. Also I think he didn't attribute the company. They claimed full copyright to the module, co-maintainer status and reimbursement (money back from the outsourcing company, not sure if they could have deducted part of the salary). To be save I would even suggest to invest in a second laptop so the company can't claim you used company resources at home after work.

<comment><USER6> Many large tech companies make you sign forms stating that even work done at home on your own time on your own laptop is still their property. Whether this is enforceable or not is another story, but they have more money for lawyers than you will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> We had someone walked out from a company for working on their business during the day. I don't know how it was found out but this employee was pretty useless at delivering on their job so I imagine that didn't help.

</comment><comment><USER8> Oh hell yes. I worked for a transportation company and used to park the van and spend at least 1-2 hours sitting in the van outside hacking away on public wifi. Got caught all the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> How the heck did you get caught?

<comment><USER8> just being an idiot - it was a small town so people would drive by and tell on me and stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not yet..</comment>


Short Term vs. Long Term - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sanlaxman/short-term-vs-long-term-ccf4a2f7d018#.x6qn1a229 <comment><USER2> Seems like a bit too either-or.

An effective pattern in physical services (such as private healthcare) is to implement an SEO strategy with the expectation results could take around 6 months to realise. In the meantime, PPC campaigns can be used to bridge the gap between then and now.

Of course budget constraints must permit but generally if there is a budget for consistent advertising campaigns over 6 months, there should be room for both a PPC plan that tunes downwards as results from organic search efforts grow.</comment>


Encrypting Windows Hard Drives - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/encrypting_wind.html <comment><AUTHOR> I think this is worth repeating:

"I asked Microsoft if the company would be able to comply with unlocking a BitLocker disk, given a legitimate legal request to do so. The spokesperson told me they could not answer that question." \- [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/04/microsoft- disk...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/04/microsoft-disk- encryption/)

<comment><USER2> It doesn't mean anything because it's a standard move to reduce legal risk. No comment is almost always the safest answer. This applies to individuals too:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc)

<comment><USER3> It is a move to reduce trust in a market where trust is the single most important aspect. Schneier's article is all about whom he trust, why he trust them, and conclusion he makes based on that trust.

If you bought a security product and the developer of it describes its strength as "No comment", would you trust it? Personally I am sticking with the abandoned TrueCrypt until a successful fork has been created or luks + dmcrypt has been ported to windows.

<comment><USER2> If you were right, then the most trustworthy companies would have the most market share while offering us good EULA's. Looking at top software names, it's clear trust and success in the market place have almost nothing to do with each other. It's actually opposite with the dirtiest companies on top in most places. Negative media definitely hurts the bottom line but majority of time isn't an issue. They have PR people for that.

There have always been companies that share source with customers, use stronger security tech, warranty their code, and so on. They were minority players pre-Snowden with many having left that market because so few cared. (myself included) Post-Snowden, they're still minority players with the market mostly going for whoever promises the most on their web sites & in media. Trust and security have always come 2nd (5th?) to all kinds of other criteria for buyers in the IT market. If you doubt, look at number of Facebook or Gmail users vs number using more private alternatives. People & companies sell themselves out in droves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bitlocker (well, "Device Encryption") does upload your harddisk keys to OneDrive by default, and OneDrive is onboarded to PRISM for government request.

So in the case that you end up provisioning a computer or device with Bitlocker, the key may very well end up in a database for query.

Outside of this it's not really so speculative to think that Bitlocker has backdoors for gov't access. It's unlikely that Microsoft Bitlocker survived the combined forces of state-of-the-art cryptanalysis, legal compulsion, and company infiltration (exposed by Snowden).

A backdoor for disk encryption need not directly attack the cryptography. It could be something as simple as a means to generate a bunch of predictable blocks on the harddrive - that's enough to break XTS. That is, even if there's no software backdoors or backdoors build into the TPM (Lenovo, for example, has 'key escrow' capabilities to extract Bitlocker keys out of TPMs) or crypto backdoors in HW PRNGs (e.g. Intel RDRAND), etc there are software bugs in other places that could reveal the contents of the hard disk.

So it's merely not a threat model you're ever going to find a solution for. In the very worst case, presuming there were some mystical level of harddisk encryption that was't trivial to backdoor or break by a sophisticated adversary - intelligence folks can use TEMPEST attacks, break into your computer when you turn it on, and/or get rubber hose access. An encrypted disk will not stop Mossad.

There is no disk encryption that will unilaterally prevent USG from accessing your files (you can only make it more expensive).

But as the USG is fond of repeating - you don't need your disk encryption to protect you from the government unless you have something to hide. You only need it to prevent attacks from criminals and for device theft.

<comment><USER5> Can you explain more carefully the XTS attack you're contemplating here?

The Device Encryption recovery key feature was discussed at length here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8546524](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8546524)

Certainly, people who are concerned about security should disable/avoid it.

<comment><USER4> Sure. XTS reuses the sector-block for an IV, and so on a per-block level encryption is deterministic. The flaw here would be a scenario where there are deliberate repeated modifications to blocks of the harddrive (somewhere like within hibernation/wake code). Something carefully designed could, in theory, lead to the compromise at a block level that would allow tweaking of some contents on the disk (say, contents of the registry, or of some boot switches, etc) that would in turn enable the machine to be booted and the disk to be decrypted.

It's also true that the TPM protector for bitlocker uses a pin with max ~20 bits of entropy to shield the bitlocker key from exfiltration. The TPM is supposed to lock out repeated requests to extract they key but given the heavy involvement of the NSA in designing the TPM spec and its similarity to the Clipper Chip in function (so too with Apple's "Secure Enclave"), and its difficulty to audit (as if mom and pop consumers really need protection from adversaries who are going to reverse TPM chips to get computer data), one can't help but to acknowledge that a backdoor could easily exist there.

All of this is hypothetical of course. I don't claim to know that this sort of attack is there or that it is placed deliberately. I'm merely trying to make the point that a backdoor need not be in the harddisk encryption code itself.

<comment><USER5> I'm still not clear. XTS doesn't have an IV; it has a tweak key. It's deterministic (which also means it can leak data, ECB-style, across successive encryptions of the same sector). The tweak key is simply the product of the encrypted sector number multiplied by a polynomial; I don't understand what tricks you can play with it.

The fundamental attack you seem to be describing --- that an attacker can rewrite the contents of the disk --- applies to practically every sector-level cryptosystem; none of them are authenticated. But XTS can't productively use "patterns" of disk blocks, unless there's a clever attack I don't know about (hence me asking).

<comment><USER4> No, we're on the same page. I don't have an attack on XTS you are not aware of.

Code (again pretend in hibernate/wake behavior) that deliberately leaks information about important boot blocks on the disk could lead to a full compromise. The attack and back door, of course, would be fairly sophisticated in this instance.

You'll concede that the possibility exists, but that its hard to evaluate. What I'm trying to contribute is not that such a backdoor is currently used (I have no idea) - but that RDRAND/TPM/XTS-leak or other non-Bitlocker backdoor can be used to thwart Bitlocker if we imagine that it hasn't been directly backdoored.

<comment><USER5> I'm honestly still not following the XTS leak you're talking about. The deterministic leak I'm talking about happens because XTS isn't randomized: as you write and rewrite the same sector, you're doing so against the same set of "tweaks". I think that's a meaningful problem --- particularly if you're using XTS to encrypt something other than a disk, particularly in a cloud setting --- but as a backdoor, it's a pretty crappy one, because it requires your computer not only to be on and "unlocked", but also for you to continuously update the targeted blocks.

It's an especially dumb backdoor for Microsoft, who could literally backdoor the Comic Sans TTFs to greater affect. Why would they tamper with the most sensitive code on the entire system, to get a fifth-rate backdoor, when they could get a first-rate remote backdoor out of virtually any code on the whole system?

Subtextually: I just generally dislike FDE, as anything more than a "my computer got stolen out of the back of my car" mitigation.

If you are worried about attackers with continuous high-touch access to your computer, no FDE system helps you. Reliance on FDE more or less made the DOJ's case against Ross Ulbricht, for instance.

<comment><USER4> > as you write and rewrite the same sector, you're doing so against the same > set of "tweaks".

> but as a backdoor, it's a pretty crappy one, because it requires your > computer not only to be on and "unlocked", but also for you to continuously > update the targeted blocks.

The hypothetical backdoor in this example would be in boot/hibernate/wake/suspend/whatever code - i.e. not "on and 'unlocked'". That's the entire point of this backdoor. If the computer needs to access encrypted parts of the disk during boot - even if encryption is done by an e-drive rather than in software - code that causes repeated writes (or even a single write) to an important sector could be designed to subvert FDE.

But it doesn't really matter about this particular hypothetical. We both agree that there is plenty of room to backdoor Bitlocker without having to rely specifically on bitlocker code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a little disturbing to see Schneier recommending a disk encryption package that offers to encrypt drives using CAST, GOST, and Blowfish.

<comment><USER2> He's currently recommending, for Windows users, either Bitlocker (256-bit AES) or BestCrypt (256-bit AES, RC6, Serpent, or Twofish). Not whatever link in the article you found those in. Unless I overlooked them in Bitlocker or BestCrypt's spec pages...

About those, though, CAST-128 isn't trustworthy (chosen-plaintext attack), GOST is probably there for Russian market, and Blowfish is fine given all the beatings it survived (good sign of security). I still use Blowfish and even IDEA in my polymorphic ciphers that semi-randomize a combination of strong ciphers along with counters.

<comment><USER5> Blowfish and IDEA are _not_ fine. They're block ciphers with 8-byte blocks. They are both materially less secure than AES. Recommending them is borderline malpractice.

<comment><USER2> You have an attack on them? One that works with a Top 500 supercomputer? With a IBM Bluegene? With a FPGA? With Intel hardware most black hats have?

IDEA particularly was a thorn in the side for NSA via the most famous app using it. Academics gave it plenty of beatdown. It's still secure in practice. So is Blowfish if working around weak keys and rotating frequently. My motto in high security is "tried and true beats novel and new." An new thing shows up with new methods, new proofs, and a few years later new attacks. I'll take the thing that works despite tons of effort to make it not work.

That said, remember a cascade is my usage case. AES finalists received enormous peer review. At least one of them is always used. The weaker ciphers are in the middle. Then, there's stream ciphers such as Salsa20. Ciphers that are the same can't be used in a row (meet in middle). Any pro looking at the construction hasn't identified a realistic risk in years far as the crypto goes. Protocol implementation, RNG's, parsers, etc were the usual worry areas.

So, I call FUD on this stuff. It's one of the things cryptographers always bring up without evidence of any practical risk. I'm confident that, accounting for weaknesses, certain algorithms are strong after still being secure for 10+ years of significant use and cryptanalysis. That's a good track record without a break in INFOSEC, right?

<comment><USER5> Yes, there are real attacks on constructions build from 8-byte blocks. And no, that's not how real-world crypto attacks work; we don't use supercomputers to mount brute-force searches.†

A 2015 recommendation for Blowfish is cryptographic malpractice.

† _unless you 're crazy enough to prefer DH to ECDH._

<comment><USER2> I believe it's possible. It's why I only use it in cascades. Yet, where's the practical attack where IDEA and Blowfish traffic are decrypted with ciphertext? If it's malpractice, then they're either fully decryptable or will be soon based on existing attacks on specific numbers of rounds or implementations.

I would appreciate you to cite evidence of people decrypting files protected by Blowfish or IDEA by breaking the cipher.

<comment><USER5> "Pizza? Now that's that I call a taco!"

[https://vimeo.com/90127834](https://vimeo.com/90127834)

<comment><USER2> Exactly. Nada again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since the death of TrueCrypt, I've been using VeraCrypt ([https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/](https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/)).

It's cross-platform FOSS instead of the "Hey, buy now!" BestCrypt that this article is pushing.

<comment><USER7> VeraCrypt looks good, but incompatibility with TrueCrypt volumes makes me uncomfortable with switching. I've also looked at CipherShed and DiskCryptor, but the fragmentation gives me no assurance that I'll be able to access my encrypted volumes several years from now.

So I'm still stuck with TrueCrypt 7.1a. After all, it's the only disk encryption software for Windows that has been independently audited. None of the purported replacements and proprietary alternatives can lay claim to that distinction, no matter how much Bruce Schneier might personally trust the developers.

<comment><USER8> I've found about DiskCryptor trough ReactOS driver signing page: [https://reactos.org/wiki/Driver_Signing](https://reactos.org/wiki/Driver_Signing) They say that they review the code the result of which they offer signature for. Is or isn't that enough for "independently audited" label?

<comment><USER7> Review != security audit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One problem I have with BitLocker is that it's only supported on Ultimate/Enterprise (on 7) and Professional and up (on 8)

I guess one could argue about not having those editions in a business setting, but the vast majority of pre-installed Windows in a market is Home Premium, and I can't think of enough justifications (especially in small businesses) for higher editions, and besides, many people, in home setting would want to have this extra protection for their computers. (After all, they do banking, tax, etc.) -- It seems like non-pro 8.1 does BitLocker for system drives, but then it also comes with a bit of "only if's" (InstantGo, SSD, non-removable RAMs, TPM, etc.)

As someone else mentioned here, it seems like choices are starting to become narrow as fairly limited solutions can support UEFI/GPT, too...

<comment><USER10> Windows 8.1 and above now have a type of "poor man's bitlocker" simply called drive encryption. It works on non-pro/non-enterprise systems.

It requires a TPM, uEFI, and Microsoft Account. But once you meet the requirements it gives you a "basic" level of encryption which for a petty criminal is hard to break. Most Surface Pros 3 will have this enabled already.

[http://www.howtogeek.com/173592/windows-8.1-will-start- encry...](http://www.howtogeek.com/173592/windows-8.1-will-start-encrypting- hard-drives-by-default-everything-you-need-to-know/)

Legit Bitlocker is superior in many ways (in particular not having to store a backup key in a Microsoft Account, and having more choices about how to decrypt). But for consumers it is a very welcome addition.

<comment><USER11> > It requires a TPM, uEFI, and Microsoft Account. But once you meet the > requirements it gives you a "basic" level of encryption which for a petty > criminal is hard to break. Most Surface Pros 3 will have this enabled > already.

Are you sure this is accurate? I'm using a Surface Pro (comes with Windows Professional), and when I go to the BitLocker settings (in Control Panel) it's shown as enabled. I haven't changed from whatever the default settings are.

<comment><USER12> I think you missed reading part of the comment that implied it worked on Professional:

> It works on non-pro/non-enterprise systems.

<comment><USER11> Right, I'm wondering about the assertion that the SP3 came with a "poor man's BitLocker called Drive Encryption" enabled. The BitLocker preferences tell me I have BitLocker enabled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _If it ever turns out that Microsoft is willing to include a backdoor in a major feature of Windows, then we have much bigger problems than the choice of disk encryption software anyway._

That might be so, but proper encryption is still valuable. Say you have a disk full of sensitive information. Say your computer was turned off as the adversary gets hold of it. If you have a proper encryption program, no OS backdoor will be able to decrypt it retrospectively (that is, when it's activated after the bust). Broken encryption makes you vulnerable even when you're offline or the PC is turned off.

<comment><USER14> Way to miss the point.

If you run Windows, Microsoft has complete control of your computer. Unless you never turn it on, MS can log all the keys you press, all the data on the disk, all the network traffic, or really anything else they want at will.

If you trust them not to do the above, why wouldn't you trust them to encrypt your disk too? (Unless you don't trust their competence. But then, you are trusting them to secure your computer while it's on, but not when it's off?)

<comment><USER15> > Microsoft has complete control of your computer.

So does any Linux distro if you don't compile from sources yourself. Who knows, maybe Debian openssh fiasco was an inside job.

> why wouldn't you trust them to encrypt your disk too?

I trust them that they wouldn't be actively spying on their customers, because that's a good way to kill your company. I don't trust them they tried their utmost to secure our computers (we'd be running Singularity/Midori/Verve otherwise), because they are likely being coerced to comply with various orders and regulations.

<comment><USER14> > So does any Linux distro if you don't compile from sources yourself.

Yes, that's a good start. You just didn't go far enough.

Endpoint security is a messy problem, where everything is expressed in shades of gray. Yet, spying on your computer when it's powered, and backdooring your disk encryption for when it's off do not differ in luminosity enough to be called different colors.

By the way, yes, Microsoft was already caught spying on their users. More than once.

<comment><USER15> > You just didn't go far enough.

99.9999999% don't go far enough. Evidently everyone using Debian for those couple of years didn't go far enough. Not even two whole bytes of entropy is insane.

> By the way, yes, Microsoft was already caught spying on their users.

Surely allegedly. I've heard a few incidents attributed to them (flame, etc), but I've not seen it confirmed that intentional action was taken. Care to provide the links?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Since he knows Niels Ferguson and understands cryptography, why doesn't Bruce get some proper analysis or statement regarding the damage of removing the diffuser? Seems like that's one obviously big elephant in the room here.

<comment><USER5> What analysis are you looking for? The purpose of the "diffuser" is well- understood, as are the security implications of losing it. This comes up on HN about once every other month, on threads you've been a part of. What part of the explanation you've gotten here seemed inconclusive?

<comment><USER16> Bruce cites removal of the diffuser as a specific reason he no longer thinks Bitlocker is OK. If that's really what he thinks, why doesn't he say exactly why? There are practical attacks on Bitlocker without the diffuser, but Ferguson stated he didn't believe there would be with the diffuser (in the original Bitlocker paper, I think).

Your explanation, that the diffuser doesn't make it Hard, is understandable and it's not something I'd worry about. And the way you phrase it, it seems unarguable and straightforward that it isn't a big deal, that no one should ever rely on FDE for integrity. But Bruce understands a lot more than me, and he's citing this as a big deal. And MS/Ferguson originally made a big deal out of it. So was it always just a useless add-on? Wouldn't someone have published a paper showing how Elephant doesn't really help? Certainly a practical attack on it would be notable?

I hope you can appreciate my confusion.

<comment><USER5> We don't have to read tea leaves about what Schneier does or doesn't think, because the engineering issue here is straightforward. Ferguson wrote a paper about the CBC+diffuser construction, and what it's goals were. On a previous thread, 'pbsd even pointed out that the performance issues made sense: the CBC+diffuser construction couldn't easily benefit from hardware AES instructions, which harmed performance.

<comment><USER16> I'm only trying to be rigorous in my evaluation of the evidence, since I'm in no position to judge the actual strength of the diffuser. Yes, this is probably just academic, as I wouldn't trust a disk with suspected tampering. (Or if that was required, like storing VHDs on a hosted block device, I'd store a hash of the disk or executables.)

Anyways, my reasoning:

1\. The diffuser didn't really help for serious threat scenarios, and hurt perf, so no one should be upset by its removal. This seems to be true.

2\. But MS previously called the diffuser critical and has made no statements as to the security impact of the removal. (Indeed, there are easy attacks without the diffuser, but no known attacks with it.)

3\. A well-known cryptographer (Bruce's actual cryptography credentials are undoubted, correct?) cites the removal as a reason to be suspicious.

If 1 is true, which I think it is, then 2 and 3 are at odds with how reality should be. No matter how confident _I_ am in 1, points 2 and 3 require a shift in the probability of 1. Or, I am misunderstanding 2 and 3.

How else should I evaluate these things? Sorry for being dense or wasting your time.

<comment><USER5> Bruce Schneier has said other dubious things about crypto in the past; for instance, about not using elliptic curve crypto, and preferring instead conventional DH.

Again though: if the lack of a "diffuser" is a reason to be "suspicious" of Bitlocker, it should be possible to explain why that would be. I tried to address that concern head-on. It bugs me that we keep having to flee back to "but Schneier is concerned".

<comment><USER17> Especially egregious was the episode where he misunderstood the "xkcd password scheme" and lashed out against it in his blog, and then kept on defending his flawed opinion against all explanations.

That did a lot of damage to all attempts to teach password security to laymen.

OTOH he was one of the first "famous" security people to publicly recommend writing down passwords.

So all in all he is certainly a net win.

<comment><USER5> Cryptography Engineering is a good book (with some flaws).

Schneier is _much_ less of a factor in real-world crypto than generalist developers think he is.

I feel bad blaming him for it; it's not his fault that people who don't do serious work in cryptography have made him a cryptographic folk hero. On the other hand: there are still people using Blowfish because his name is on it, so maybe I don't feel bad blaming him.

<comment><USER17> Oh, certainly (I was just talking about passwords)!

Cryptography Engineering is something I hold very dear and have lent out to colleagues. Very well written, so it's an enjoyable read. And a good length, not a thousand pages tome.

My main problem with Schneier at this point is that he pivotted (Ha! This is HN after all...) from cryptography and technical analyses to political commentary. And I haven't found him very convincing in that regard. Even annoying at times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are some motherboards that can store the encription key so that you don't need to type the pasword again when booting. BitLocker supports it. What a great technology. It saves your life!

<comment><USER19> Sounds like it completely defeats the point of encryption.

<comment><USER20> You could store the key (or password to the key) in the TPM in order to prevent BIOS, bootloader or option ROM tampering.

An issue is that too many things could affect the TPM PCR values (for example, plug in a USB stick even though you don't boot from it- I think this is a mistake in the spec), so users get used to typing in the backup password and may not notice that a root-kit was installed.

<comment><USER16> In my experience of using Bitlocker for years, it's very rare that I have to enter the backup password. Even when I changed the default PCRs used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > BitLocker is Microsoft's native file encryption program. Yes, it's from a > big company. But it was designed by my colleague and friend Niels Ferguson, > whom I trust.

Nullius in verba

</comment><comment><USER22> Certainly there is 0% chance that the author is asking us to read between the lines here... #FaceValue

</comment><comment><USER23> There may not be any deliberate backdoor in BitLocker however I think it's safe to assume that NSA has access to the source code, probably found some angle to exploit.

<comment><USER5> What's the disk encryption offering you think NSA doesn't have source code to?

<comment><USER2> That's a good point. Any product of significance that runs in software on untrusted users computers can be compromised by determined attackers, NSA or not. Even hardware-protected secrets have been bypassed. Hence, the security argument must rest on something that works regardless of whether enemies know the mechanism.

<comment><USER24> I think that's the Kerckhoffs' principle[0].

Regarding to state actors who have the resources to attack any system, I think it's important to make it as hard as possible, even if it's "known" they will find a way. Why?

Because it will drive the costs very high with years of R&D having as result that they'll only use new attack techniques on high-level targets and that means risk of revealing attacks goes up(assuming high-level targets are more sophisticated and spill the beans - as in Kaspersky case[1]).

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27_principle)

[1] - [https://securelist.com/blog/research/70504/the-mystery-of- du...](https://securelist.com/blog/research/70504/the-mystery-of- duqu-2-0-a-sophisticated-cyberespionage-actor-returns/)

<comment><USER2> I agree. I've been holding High Strength Attackers, as I call them, off for a while. The formula that works on software attack side is a combo of (a) strongest security engineering we have, (b) obfuscation at every level, and (c) diversity of hardware & software components with predictable interface. One simple example that worked well for years was using a hardened Linux/BSD box on a PPC behind a guard. Guard narrowed communications to app level while wiping out covert channels and modifying patterns to resemble other OS. All evidence from fingerprinting tools would suggest they're connecting to an x86 box, even Windows maybe. All their attacks, some I still don't get, failed to work on the box.

Most deployments use more tricks than that. I was just amazed at how long that one went on without compromises. Used same trick for desktops with custom client-server apps. These days, I'm working on CPU's that protect pointers & code while tools randomize (i.e. diversify) the application automatically. Orange Book era solution to secure networking, email, & databases still work with minor tweaks. I use hardened client-server schemes instead of web apps to avoid... more than I can count. TEMPEST safe + 100yds of space where applicable. High assurance security = build on what we know works & eliminate anything risky where possible. Obfuscations & diversity I add as you said to just slow down our shadowy friends with deep pockets & large staff. Works well so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Do we have good container encryption that mounts them as drives on windows? I never understood the point of whole disk encryption stuff.

</comment><comment><USER26> >when Microsoft released Windows 8

Um, no.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't think Microsoft is ever going to risk putting a Backdoor™ in Windows after NSA_key or at the very least after the Snowden document leaks + OPM hack (which both prove the US government's incompetence in storing classified information securely, which means the company's backdoor could be exposed at any time).

But that doesn't mean Microsoft isn't going to make it _easy_ for the NSA to bypass its security. We've seen several reports of that from the Snowden documents, and it affects OneDrive, Outlook, Skype and probably even Bitlocker.

All Microsoft needs to do is not fix a vulnerability _it_ finds out about (not a third party that reports the vulnerability to the company, as they would have no choice but to fix that). And it doesn't even need to do that _indefinitely_. It could fix it when a new vulnerability appears, and it can rotate them every 6 months or so.

Then it can either directly give that vulnerability to the NSA through all the "cyber sharing programs" where Microsoft has been a "volunteer" for years (way before Apple), or it can let NSA "discover" it on its own, which can be as easily done as Microsoft's security researchers talking about a new vulnerability internally through channels that don't have strong end-to-end security.

<comment><USER5> Please stop spreading FUD about "NSAKEY". It's an Alex Jones Infowars-level conspiracy theory that has been comprehensively debunked.

<comment><USER2> Actually, I looked into things as promised. The Wikipedia links and whatever popped up in my Google searches. Turns out the only citation you had, a HN news commenter, was just repeating the claims of a MS spokesperson with some added opinions. I found a more interesting source which has similar claims:

[http://cryptome.org/nsakey-ms-dc.htm](http://cryptome.org/nsakey-ms-dc.htm)

On the surface, it seems believable. However, like Duncan, I'm seeing glaring problems with these responses. It boils down to this: the Microsoft rep claimed they came up with all details (including the key & its name) on their own without NSA intervention, generated/control both keys themselves, submitted the design for review, and got NSA approval. Yet, without NSA's involvement, a developer named their key NSAKEY and when decrypted its email was "email@example.com." Also, as Duncan noted & my HSM guy as well, it's standard for HSM's to let you export keys for backing them up or multi-site usage.

So, their claims are highly unusual, suspect, and weak. The evasive behavior that led up to this isn't typical of even Microsoft. They usually come up with some CYA BS rather quickly. Also, the odds of a Microsoft-controlled key they made entirely on their own being called NSAKEY with NSA's email on it without NSA participation are low albeit possible (dev joke).

Far from Alex Jones stuff, there's actual substance to worries over what NSAKEY did or does. I agree with critiques that it's a lower concern given all the attack angles on Windows from outside or inside perspective. Yet, dozens of reports didn't show anything along lines of "comprehensively debunked." Instead, we had a series of weak stories from Microsoft that raised more questions than answers with plenty of evasion on their part. And they're known to work with NSA. So, people should still not trust that and use the steps that one person published to replace the key with their own.

Solves the problem with minimal fuss, eh?

<comment><USER5> This is a very long source from 2000 that says in 6500 words what 'geofft said in just ~300: that this is a code signing key for crypto libraries. If Microsoft wanted to backdoor your Windows machine, _they already have complete control over Windows code signing_. They do not need a special key literally labeled "NSA_KEY" to do that.

It's not "lower concern". It's not a concern at all. Microsoft's code is comprehensively reverse engineered. People have reversed the most boring, tedious libraries on the system looking for memory corruption bugs. You posit that maybe they just forgot to look into this "NSA_KEY" business.

For a software security professional, you really come loaded for bear with a lot of weird advice:

* Avoid elliptic curve and use conventional Diffie Hellman and RSA because the NSA controls the ECC patents (?!).

* Use Blowfish because it has a long security track record (?!).

* Watch out for Google because they don't understand endpoint security (?!).

* NSAKEY isn't a high-priority issue but it's something that people should be concerned about (?!).

* Here's an unencrypted HTTP website that you can cut-and-paste GPG commands from instead of reading the manual (?!).

* Firewalls are just some made-up crap that don't actually provide any security (?!).

* Use MatrixSSL and PolarSSL instead of OpenSSL because OpenSSL's code quality is crap (?!).

I get the feeling that we do very different kinds of security. You talk a bit about formal verification and EAL levels. I had the misfortune of losing a couple months of my life in the early 2000s to Common Criteria work. If you're coming from a CCTL background, some of the very weird perspectives you have on this stuff start to make sense to me.

<comment><USER2> They forgot to look into the subversion, BIOS, peripheral firmware, and covert channel risk despite me repeating those on forums all over going back years. Then the shit ended up in TAO's catalog (including my "amplifying cable" concept aka RAGEMASTER) & most stuff was weak to it. Same argument could applied to widespread open source software that people find "previously unknown" bugs in despite that code existing for years and "widely reviewed." So, I don't have to posit anything given the horrid state of INFOSEC and app review going back years: they should instead prove they did better than usual in the security analysis and show what they found for independent review. This is, coincidentally, a part of the scientific method as well.

You instead could've settled this argument if you linked to a group that reversed engineered all of that, found that it did exactly what they said, and had no conflict of interest with U.S. government. You say you _know_ these exist but still haven't produced them. You instead expected people to take your word for it or comb the Internet looking for the proof you allege. Both a tall order.

Those of us in INFOSEC against highly subversive opponents don't deal in pure faith [esp in similarly evil organizations]. So, where is this evidence that it was totally reverse engineered and proven to be functionally equivalent to claims? I'd like to read it, determine its credibility, pass it onto peer review, and share it widespread if it passes enough of that. As promised, I'll even add it to the Wikipedia article that tops search to this day.

Waiting on you and your evidence.

<comment><USER5> No part of this comment addresses anything that I said. This is a pattern with our interactions: I bring up something specific, and you change the subject, usually to a flurry of Snowden jargon (this time it's the spy-mall catalog).

We were talking about the transparency of the Windows kernel.

It's a little funny that you feel like you need proof that the code has been reverse engineered, as if there were like 4 people in the world who could do it, one of whom is in a mental institution, 2 of whom are in Russia, and the last is hiding in a monastery in Tibet. You know, as opposed to something you could literally learn from a book that was on the shelf at Borders, back when they still sold books retail.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bullwark – a FIPS-ready microservice framework - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/schrodingersket/bullwark <comment><AUTHOR> FIPS-ready in the sense that a FIPS-compliant SSL lib can relatively easily be dropped in. I'm bad at marketing things, so I won't try too hard - <USER2> project uses CentOS to use an Ansible deployment to lay down a replicated Consul deployment that runs the backend for a Traefik reverse proxy, all of which runs behind behind an opportunisticallly-encrypted LibreSwan network to get both a) TCP packet-level encryption and b) easy scalability. New services can be registered either from a REST request, or a CVS-trackable YAML file.

I'm looking to move it to Docker images soon (the code is set up to be fully Compose/K8/etc. ready), but haven't had the the time yet and if any Go gurus have the time to spare to inform me how bad my code smells, I'd love it.

I hope this is useful to someone (:

Forgive the use of Vagrant - I've had to work in many bare-metal enterprises. I'm looking at ansible-docker to modernize this project a bit more.</comment>