________________________________
Some points you might choose to make, in your own words [sic] of course:-
9/11 was the pretext for two wars and a transformation of the country. Trillions of dollars were shifted from butter to guns. It's all based on the idea that foreign terrorists are the primary threat to our security. The truth of 9/11, that the threat actually lies within, will help end the wars and reverse the destructive Bush policies.
[thanks Nick, you nailed it]
- Point out that 9/11 skepticism is widespread. The majority of the world is suspicious of 9/11. Here in New York, 49 percent of respondents to a 2004 Zogby poll found said they agreed that government leaders knew about the attacks in advance and "consciously failed" to take action to prevent them.- You might identify yourself as a long-term skeptic of the Official Conspiracy Theory of September 11th, or as a newcomer to the 9/11 truth idea. But if you attend the weekly meetings at St. Mark's Church every Sunday evening, don't neglect to mention that. Especially that these are weekly, every Sunday, at St. Mark's. Let's get some new people!
- The antiwar movement cannot make inroads within the pro-war base until the myth of 9/11 is eroded. As long as people fear and believe in the phantom menace, they will support the government that promises to protect them.- The antiwar movement cannot make inroads within the pro-war base until the myth of 9/11 is eroded. As long as people fear and believe in the phantom menace, they will support the government that promises to protect them.- You might praise the article for being more even-handed than has been usual in such treatments. [actually i liked it] Or you might criticize it for its failings, as Prison Planet just did. Either way is fine, long as you convey your own disbelief in the official story.
2006-01-26
China google and censorship
It's really unfortunate that it is the name "google' that is showing up in all the headlines in connection to Chinese censorship.... because the only reason it is news is that it is strikingly*different* from the way that google normally behaves.Microsoft and Yahoo for example had already caved in (if thats the word for it) months ago to the Chinese demands for censoring chineselanguage search engines, and some of the collusion on the part of Yahoo China and companies like Cisco is really quite shocking for example.
But none of this makes the global (non-tech) news because the techindustry expects MS and Yahoo to be 'evil'. (Ie dog bites man insteadof man bites dog).
Apparently, Yahoo mail, at the request of Hong Kong officials trawled through their email records and fingered a dissident who was laterthrown into jail for a 10 year plus sentence (or something like that) and Cisco along with other US companies was largely responsible forbuilding the 'great firewall of china'.
What's particularly scary about this is that once they know how to do that stuff, then they can, of course, turn around and give it to US and/or European authorities easily and without too much fuss.Particularly scary is that the Patriot act gives the feds the right tobasically march up to every ISP in the coutnry and install special'black boxes' done God only knows what and the ISP's cannot evenmention this fact puiblically let alone not comply.Google on the other hand recently refused to comply to a DOJ request to turn over, basically *all* their search queries as well asthe multi-billion page database built up by their web crawler.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with *protecting childrenfrom pornography* (and even less with, what is wrongly described in multiple locations as being about "child pornography" when in fact the law in question is about minors getting acccess to Pornography).
In fact this is about neither child porn nor children accessing porn. No, this is about the DOJ getting access to the core of Google\'s network. Lets think this through a bit. There is no way, of course, that the DOJ is asking Google to print out all the data on a hundred million pages of paper and deliver the whole lot via the some huge Berlin airlift operation into Washington.
No, not at all, this is about getting DOJ servers right into the center of the Google data center, so they can run any type ofquery and leverage the awesome power of the google data centre to whatever ends.
Critically, Microsoft and Yahoo as well as the other search engines, quietly complied to similar DOJ requests weeks (months?) ago, but nobody wrote frontpage stories about that.
In fact you have to wonder. Is it a pure coincidence that Google finds itself having its reputation ruined over this China censorship thing only a week or so after they refuse to comply with the DOJ. I guess one has to believe so, but, big picture wise this was a helluva bad call on the part of Google. Certainly I don't agree with providing censored results (even if it is supposedly a better compromise than no results at all - remember Munich!) No. Google should never have considered that question in isolation. Because they have put themselves in a position of ruining their reputation for 'doing no evil' just when they need it most for the upcoming battle with the DOJ.
But none of this makes the global (non-tech) news because the techindustry expects MS and Yahoo to be 'evil'. (Ie dog bites man insteadof man bites dog).
Apparently, Yahoo mail, at the request of Hong Kong officials trawled through their email records and fingered a dissident who was laterthrown into jail for a 10 year plus sentence (or something like that) and Cisco along with other US companies was largely responsible forbuilding the 'great firewall of china'.
What's particularly scary about this is that once they know how to do that stuff, then they can, of course, turn around and give it to US and/or European authorities easily and without too much fuss.Particularly scary is that the Patriot act gives the feds the right tobasically march up to every ISP in the coutnry and install special'black boxes' done God only knows what and the ISP's cannot evenmention this fact puiblically let alone not comply.Google on the other hand recently refused to comply to a DOJ request to turn over, basically *all* their search queries as well asthe multi-billion page database built up by their web crawler.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with *protecting childrenfrom pornography* (and even less with, what is wrongly described in multiple locations as being about "child pornography" when in fact the law in question is about minors getting acccess to Pornography).
In fact this is about neither child porn nor children accessing porn. No, this is about the DOJ getting access to the core of Google\'s network. Lets think this through a bit. There is no way, of course, that the DOJ is asking Google to print out all the data on a hundred million pages of paper and deliver the whole lot via the some huge Berlin airlift operation into Washington.
No, not at all, this is about getting DOJ servers right into the center of the Google data center, so they can run any type ofquery and leverage the awesome power of the google data centre to whatever ends.
Critically, Microsoft and Yahoo as well as the other search engines, quietly complied to similar DOJ requests weeks (months?) ago, but nobody wrote frontpage stories about that.
In fact you have to wonder. Is it a pure coincidence that Google finds itself having its reputation ruined over this China censorship thing only a week or so after they refuse to comply with the DOJ. I guess one has to believe so, but, big picture wise this was a helluva bad call on the part of Google. Certainly I don't agree with providing censored results (even if it is supposedly a better compromise than no results at all - remember Munich!) No. Google should never have considered that question in isolation. Because they have put themselves in a position of ruining their reputation for 'doing no evil' just when they need it most for the upcoming battle with the DOJ.
2006-01-24
Chris McKinstrey and Quantum Spin
This is truly awful.
Some seemingly brilliant but obviously very conflicted guy decides to commit suicide and posts the fact on his blog and on Joel Spolsky’s website. The net result? He becomes semi-famous (for an internet split second) and I find myself reading through his blog with a mixture of horror and fascination and come across some links that seem interesting and relevant enough to post...
From the post:
….It is time to move on and see what is next if anything.
Enough is enough.
Oh and BTW, the mind is a maximum hypersurface and thought a trajectory on it and the amygdala and hippocampus are Hopf maps of it. No one knew this before me, and it seems no one care. So be it. My time will come in a hundred or a thousand years when the idea again returns....
----
From:
http://www.mindpixel.com/chris/2006/01/geeks-and-lsd.htm#links
Monday, January 16, 2006
Geeks and LSD
So, I am not the only geek who uses LSD to solve problems but I bet I am one of few using LSD to solve the problem of creating a global theory of LSD action...
----
From:
http://www.mindpixel.com/chris/2005/12/wow-mindpixel-hyper-coincidence.htm
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Wow - A Mindpixel Hyper-coincidence...
'Spin is the seat of consciousness and the linchpin between mind and the brain, that is, spin is the mind-pixel' - Huping Hu, Ph.D., J.D.,Spin-Mediated Consciousness Theory: Possible Roles of Oxygen Unpaired Electronic Spins and Neural Membrane Nuclear Spin Ensemble in Memory and Consciousness
----
As for “spin mediated consciousness”, as per Huping Hu PHD (who is, thankfully, still with us, and I hope remains that way regardless of how recognized his ideas are) that is here:
http://www.quantumbrain.org/overview.html
Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but does possibly fit with some of the stuff in Penrose's Emporer’s New Mind (which I thought was a very well reasoned and convincing book) and/or this ‘spooky action at a distance’ stuff that got Einstein so worked up.
----
My guess is that we are going to be witness to some sort of revolution in Quantum theory that is in some respects startling in its religious implications some time in the next ten or twenty years (hopefully sooner rather than later). This may even be a situation where The Church will be forced to react to a physical theory that upsets a lot of received wisdom about where we fit vis-à-vis our relationship to existence and God and all that stuff. At any rate it would sure be interesting if that did happen! So all we need is for the young genius to get it all out on paper. Unfortunately, if it ever does happen, I’m afraid it definitely won’t be Chris McKinstry that leads us into this brave new world.
Miles
2004-02-20
The Craps Game
Written in response to..
Peter Dale Scott put it best when talking abut the Vietnam War. It was floating crap game where various corporate and financial players took seats and made money. Occasionally players would leave and be replaced or there would be "shootouts" between the various players. But the moment anyone threatened the game as a whole, everyone in the game turned on them, whether they were allies or not.
To understand some of the players in the craps game, I suggest you look at the US response to recent events in Haiti - the 'administration' issues statements of support for Aristide (and has sent in troops in the past). Meanwhile its pretty clear the CIA are covertly arming the rebels.
Same thing in Columbia - the CIA arms the drug traffickers / FARC whilst the Administration sends millions to support the Columbian Government in their fight against them.
You might say that this is just a strategy of 'arming both sides' - great for arms sales, and sometimes good for destabilizing a region to create a need for US presence. But I really think there's more to this contradiction than that. It appears that the CIA is running a foreign policy/drugs/arms/funding strategy all of its own and that this only happens co-incidentally to agree (on occasion) with that of the 'rest' of the Administration. Now I dunno about you, but that strikes me as deeply corrupt.
Sure, as in any *capitalist* democracy the 'democratically elected' administration' must always work within the limits (private property law, worker oppression, taxes etc) that are set by the Capitalists/Corporations. This applies from Hugo Chavez to Bush, so there's nothing new there. But, unlike many of my socialist friends, I happen to believe that doesn't the democractic administration completely irrelevant - look at FDR, it is possible to have reform, its just that there are certain boundaries. - And hey (admittedly speaking as a liberal white middle class technocrat) I happen to think its better to have a few boundaries than a slow slide towards totalitarianism.
So anyway, as I see it, the immediate problem here is not one of Capitalist/World Bank/Corporate Control or even just one of the usual, inevitable dissapointments of Democracy. The problem in the US is one of corruption - deep seated corruption at the core of many of her most important institutions, and along with that, equally bad a deep cyncism/lack of hope in any of these institutions. On the inside both republican and democratatic congressional representatives don't bother *actually listening and contributing and trying to suggest their own best idea of decent policy* because they believe/know that the system is so corrupted that it's just gonna be a down and dirty shit fight between the systems that decides the issue anyway. Meanwhile folks on the outside from radicals to alternative lifestylers, to businessmen to right wing gun freaks don't bother to vote because 'its all a fix' anyway.
So what do I think should be done? Well sure, I'd vote for a socialist revolution any day, but short of that distant possibility I *do* believe it is possible - via a mandate from the people - to shake things up to the point that a massive reformation of the corruption would take place.
I do believe that there was a solid mandate, the elected representatives
*would* have the power to reform the CIA (or abolish it) and maybe reform the other drugs and corruption infested organisations like the DOD, HUD, GOP, RNC etc whilst there a it.
Now, the capitalists and corporations that really run the place, well I think you can forget about that via democratic means... one has to think in terms of a longer term raising of consciousness and alternative economies on that one. But (Medianite strategy) lets not forget that at a certain point, the corruption and war are *not* in the interests of the corporations and capitalists who I believe prefer stability and order to chaos and disorder. (Uhm, yeah you were right, Barb, when you pointed out that there have been times when the 'powers that be' deliberately manufacture chaos but there is a huge difference between ups and downs that they *control* and things actually getting out of
control.) At a certain point the war and chaos caused by a corrupted out of control CIA on the one hand fascist war hawks on the other might appear to be getting out of control and I tell you, if that starts to happen, it will be shut down pretty fast.
Look, in New Zealand we had for years the problem of two equally bad party institutions to choose from. Then something happened in the late 90's, and we changed the electoral system to 'proportional representation'. As I see it, it wasn't so important what we changed it to (though it's clearly a better system) more just that there was a big shake up. This big shake up means that the old parties lost control, and new parties have sprung up. We still have our normal share of right wingers in New Zealand, but I personally feel a lot happier that we are fairly 'represented' now.
So, I believe there is a possiblity for things to be better. I also believe that exposure of the true level of corruption and evil things they have done is one way towards the sort of mandate I was talking about above.
Sometimes I think this is one of those cases where the US is unlucky because they won the war. The Japanese and the Germans had a huge sweep out of corruption and militarism only 60 years ago. That's whats needed here too.
Oh and there's one more thing. The old marxist line about the inevitability of a communist revolution is always a good one. The point they make is that even the capitalists are helpless to control the ever further ratcheting up of exploitation, mergers and buyouts, inevitably leading to a single ultra-exploitative superclass that become ever more vulnerable.. yeah, you know, that one? Well it's a good one, and there is some truth in the theory that as the world globalizes and wages worldwide start to become more even, that this is whats happening. However, I have one of my own. Its not red inevitability, its green.
The thing is, its *inevitable* that we will move to a lower energy economy. It may happen because we are forced to do so, or it may happen because we choose to do so, but it will definitely happen. (Almost certainly its going to be something in between). Therefore, those who support low energy / low growth thinking will inevitably *win* against the oil companies and the capitalists wedded to a state of permanent high growth expansionism.
If I had any money to invest for my retirement I would invest it across a wide range portfolio of alternative/low energy technologies, and other things that would thrive in that environment (bicycles?) because no matter how bad things get you can bet we are gonna want some more of that, when the shit starts to hit the fan. Hmm I do wonder what BP has up their sleeve in this regard (other than shamelessly false lies and propaganda about selling 'green' oil).
Peter Dale Scott put it best when talking abut the Vietnam War. It was floating crap game where various corporate and financial players took seats and made money. Occasionally players would leave and be replaced or there would be "shootouts" between the various players. But the moment anyone threatened the game as a whole, everyone in the game turned on them, whether they were allies or not.
To understand some of the players in the craps game, I suggest you look at the US response to recent events in Haiti - the 'administration' issues statements of support for Aristide (and has sent in troops in the past). Meanwhile its pretty clear the CIA are covertly arming the rebels.
Same thing in Columbia - the CIA arms the drug traffickers / FARC whilst the Administration sends millions to support the Columbian Government in their fight against them.
You might say that this is just a strategy of 'arming both sides' - great for arms sales, and sometimes good for destabilizing a region to create a need for US presence. But I really think there's more to this contradiction than that. It appears that the CIA is running a foreign policy/drugs/arms/funding strategy all of its own and that this only happens co-incidentally to agree (on occasion) with that of the 'rest' of the Administration. Now I dunno about you, but that strikes me as deeply corrupt.
Sure, as in any *capitalist* democracy the 'democratically elected' administration' must always work within the limits (private property law, worker oppression, taxes etc) that are set by the Capitalists/Corporations. This applies from Hugo Chavez to Bush, so there's nothing new there. But, unlike many of my socialist friends, I happen to believe that doesn't the democractic administration completely irrelevant - look at FDR, it is possible to have reform, its just that there are certain boundaries. - And hey (admittedly speaking as a liberal white middle class technocrat) I happen to think its better to have a few boundaries than a slow slide towards totalitarianism.
So anyway, as I see it, the immediate problem here is not one of Capitalist/World Bank/Corporate Control or even just one of the usual, inevitable dissapointments of Democracy. The problem in the US is one of corruption - deep seated corruption at the core of many of her most important institutions, and along with that, equally bad a deep cyncism/lack of hope in any of these institutions. On the inside both republican and democratatic congressional representatives don't bother *actually listening and contributing and trying to suggest their own best idea of decent policy* because they believe/know that the system is so corrupted that it's just gonna be a down and dirty shit fight between the systems that decides the issue anyway. Meanwhile folks on the outside from radicals to alternative lifestylers, to businessmen to right wing gun freaks don't bother to vote because 'its all a fix' anyway.
So what do I think should be done? Well sure, I'd vote for a socialist revolution any day, but short of that distant possibility I *do* believe it is possible - via a mandate from the people - to shake things up to the point that a massive reformation of the corruption would take place.
I do believe that there was a solid mandate, the elected representatives
*would* have the power to reform the CIA (or abolish it) and maybe reform the other drugs and corruption infested organisations like the DOD, HUD, GOP, RNC etc whilst there a it.
Now, the capitalists and corporations that really run the place, well I think you can forget about that via democratic means... one has to think in terms of a longer term raising of consciousness and alternative economies on that one. But (Medianite strategy) lets not forget that at a certain point, the corruption and war are *not* in the interests of the corporations and capitalists who I believe prefer stability and order to chaos and disorder. (Uhm, yeah you were right, Barb, when you pointed out that there have been times when the 'powers that be' deliberately manufacture chaos but there is a huge difference between ups and downs that they *control* and things actually getting out of
control.) At a certain point the war and chaos caused by a corrupted out of control CIA on the one hand fascist war hawks on the other might appear to be getting out of control and I tell you, if that starts to happen, it will be shut down pretty fast.
Look, in New Zealand we had for years the problem of two equally bad party institutions to choose from. Then something happened in the late 90's, and we changed the electoral system to 'proportional representation'. As I see it, it wasn't so important what we changed it to (though it's clearly a better system) more just that there was a big shake up. This big shake up means that the old parties lost control, and new parties have sprung up. We still have our normal share of right wingers in New Zealand, but I personally feel a lot happier that we are fairly 'represented' now.
So, I believe there is a possiblity for things to be better. I also believe that exposure of the true level of corruption and evil things they have done is one way towards the sort of mandate I was talking about above.
Sometimes I think this is one of those cases where the US is unlucky because they won the war. The Japanese and the Germans had a huge sweep out of corruption and militarism only 60 years ago. That's whats needed here too.
Oh and there's one more thing. The old marxist line about the inevitability of a communist revolution is always a good one. The point they make is that even the capitalists are helpless to control the ever further ratcheting up of exploitation, mergers and buyouts, inevitably leading to a single ultra-exploitative superclass that become ever more vulnerable.. yeah, you know, that one? Well it's a good one, and there is some truth in the theory that as the world globalizes and wages worldwide start to become more even, that this is whats happening. However, I have one of my own. Its not red inevitability, its green.
The thing is, its *inevitable* that we will move to a lower energy economy. It may happen because we are forced to do so, or it may happen because we choose to do so, but it will definitely happen. (Almost certainly its going to be something in between). Therefore, those who support low energy / low growth thinking will inevitably *win* against the oil companies and the capitalists wedded to a state of permanent high growth expansionism.
If I had any money to invest for my retirement I would invest it across a wide range portfolio of alternative/low energy technologies, and other things that would thrive in that environment (bicycles?) because no matter how bad things get you can bet we are gonna want some more of that, when the shit starts to hit the fan. Hmm I do wonder what BP has up their sleeve in this regard (other than shamelessly false lies and propaganda about selling 'green' oil).
2004-02-11
Let me off right up here..
I think you're (all of you!) missing something important about the current elites. The capitalist elite stands virtually unchallenged across the globe, and if there is one thing Elites have learnt through the ages its that destablization and unrest is *bad*, calmness and status quo is good. That is, by definition of those who are in power right now the goal is to *prolong* the status quo and suppress dissent. The massive disruption that would be caused by any type of 'die off' (not that I believe the petri dish analogy applies
anyway) would certainly destablize the situation to a great degree. There may be folks at the wings of power that might benefit from such a situation, certainly such a situation could be exploited towards totalitarianist and police state ends, but it would also cloud the future and be a hell of a gamble to take for any but the most desperate. Even if totalitarianism had its day it could lead to a different crew at the top, as many specific elites within the hard right wing Junker and officer class of the Weimer republic discovered to their horror as their early support of the Nazis came back to hit them in the face in the late thirties.
On the subject of "six and a half billion people are just going to ruin the environment anyway", I think it's important to bear in mind that the use of fossil fuels suffers from shortages at both ends. Certainly at the source end there are the clear problems of running out (ie peak oil) however at the sink end, we are definitely running short of places to put the generated hydro carbons without causing massive disruption to the environment. Massive disruption to the environment means changing weather patterns, and I believe the evidence indicates, will lead to irrevocable famine, hunger and disease well before the oil runs out, or even runs short. The problem is, however, that the effects of oil at the sink end is delayed somewhat, whereas the effect of running out at the source is more immediate. The problem exists, however, at both ends!
To emphasize the above point, please consider that the energy flux contained within the global 'weather system' is thousands of times higher than all the energy that the human species consumes today. Destablize that and you have a serious problem on your hands. Also, one word - Gaia, 'nuff said.
Given the above secret supplies of oil is *not an option* that we can entertain.
However, I believe that human society has weathered much worse crises than having to drastically lower its energy consumption, and could *potentially* weather this one with ease... the reason we are (so far) failing to do that (collectively) with such spectacular incompetance is not a problem of technology or energy flux, the problem is political.
If the body politic of this world could rise to the situation, then I believe it could deal with it well. A return to less urban, less energy intensive lifestyle, coupled with population control and investment in alternative energy technologies (99% of the energy on this planet is derived directly or indirectly from the sun, so solar/wind/hydro seems like a good avenue to pursue to me) would go a long way to 'solving' the problem. Time has run out already, but we can certainly act now and avoid more harm.
I believe the solution above will happen, inevitably, one way or another, the only question, to me, is how painful a process it is along the way.
In fact, as I see it, the 'world' as a whole was moving steadily, slowly, painfully towards this raising of consciousness, but unfortunately the short-sighted, corrupt program of the current US elites has finally gained the upper hand, and they are happily continuing their trend towards US military dominance, imperialism and corruption.
Actually... Now that I think about it screw it, let me off the planet right up here.
anyway) would certainly destablize the situation to a great degree. There may be folks at the wings of power that might benefit from such a situation, certainly such a situation could be exploited towards totalitarianist and police state ends, but it would also cloud the future and be a hell of a gamble to take for any but the most desperate. Even if totalitarianism had its day it could lead to a different crew at the top, as many specific elites within the hard right wing Junker and officer class of the Weimer republic discovered to their horror as their early support of the Nazis came back to hit them in the face in the late thirties.
On the subject of "six and a half billion people are just going to ruin the environment anyway", I think it's important to bear in mind that the use of fossil fuels suffers from shortages at both ends. Certainly at the source end there are the clear problems of running out (ie peak oil) however at the sink end, we are definitely running short of places to put the generated hydro carbons without causing massive disruption to the environment. Massive disruption to the environment means changing weather patterns, and I believe the evidence indicates, will lead to irrevocable famine, hunger and disease well before the oil runs out, or even runs short. The problem is, however, that the effects of oil at the sink end is delayed somewhat, whereas the effect of running out at the source is more immediate. The problem exists, however, at both ends!
To emphasize the above point, please consider that the energy flux contained within the global 'weather system' is thousands of times higher than all the energy that the human species consumes today. Destablize that and you have a serious problem on your hands. Also, one word - Gaia, 'nuff said.
Given the above secret supplies of oil is *not an option* that we can entertain.
However, I believe that human society has weathered much worse crises than having to drastically lower its energy consumption, and could *potentially* weather this one with ease... the reason we are (so far) failing to do that (collectively) with such spectacular incompetance is not a problem of technology or energy flux, the problem is political.
If the body politic of this world could rise to the situation, then I believe it could deal with it well. A return to less urban, less energy intensive lifestyle, coupled with population control and investment in alternative energy technologies (99% of the energy on this planet is derived directly or indirectly from the sun, so solar/wind/hydro seems like a good avenue to pursue to me) would go a long way to 'solving' the problem. Time has run out already, but we can certainly act now and avoid more harm.
I believe the solution above will happen, inevitably, one way or another, the only question, to me, is how painful a process it is along the way.
In fact, as I see it, the 'world' as a whole was moving steadily, slowly, painfully towards this raising of consciousness, but unfortunately the short-sighted, corrupt program of the current US elites has finally gained the upper hand, and they are happily continuing their trend towards US military dominance, imperialism and corruption.
Actually... Now that I think about it screw it, let me off the planet right up here.
2004-01-30
PGP encryption can been cracked no matter what key size
I love PGP and think more people should use it more of the time.
The main reason I think this, is because the more people use PGP the harder it will be for systems like ECHELON to organize/filter/categorize the content that they filter. (ECHELON is the international side of the NSA-sponsored system that intercepts all fax, phone, email, internet traffic and analyzes it. I am convinced there is a domestic US equivalent, that is most probably integrated with its global counterpart)
Many people think ECHELON simply targets 'keywords'. However, based on patents filed by various government agencies you can assume it is *much* more sophisticated than that, for instance rudimentary 'language recognition' patents as well as 'topic classification' patents.
The topic classification patent is especially interesting, because, if they are able to create a map of all the, types of people, types of conversations that people have, then they can more easily filter out all the 'Jana's having a baby!' conversation and zero in on the 'lets organize a march' conversation of radicals and other undesirables (oh, yeah, and "terrorists" and "drug dealers" - the only problem here is that to find the largest number of these in the most cost effective way all they would need to do is walk down the hall start arresting people.. ).
Anyway the point I am trying to make is that - partly based on conversations with people who have actually worked for GCSB (NZ version of NSA) and the DSD (Australian version of NSA) - I am firmly of the opinion that PGP encryption can been cracked no matter what key size. Sure, its just an opinion but I personally am convinced that if they wanted to spend the computing power on it (and these are 100 million dollar institutions, so, yeah, it doesn't come cheap) then the NSA, at least, would most certainly be able to do so.
Yes, brute force cracking does suffer from limitations of the theory of computer science. However, in practice there are almost always little faults or problems of the actual implementation in practice that can be exploited to get at the real data. This may or may not include aspects of 'physical' data such as key logging, keyboard heat scanning, but it really doesn't have to .. at various times various software only vulnerabilities have been demonstrated with just about all encryption systems, and you can be sure if the NSA ever found such they wouldn't tell anyone.
Furthermore, we mustn't be forgetting that:
1. These are the folks that actually invented the whole idea of an actual "computer" itself, for precisely the reason of cracking encryption (during WWII)
2. They have an absolutely obscene black budget to play with, as demonstrated by the $1.1 trillion in unsupported accounting entries that appeared in the official federal Audit of the DOD budget for FY 2000. Of course, given that they claim to have just, woops, accidentally 'lost' this money then yeah its hard to make the case that they spent it all on the NSA, but I mean, lets just say that *someone* has a lot of money in their piggy back. [ Actually lets just back up for a second here, did I just say they "lost" 1.1 *trillion* dollars ?? how much are we talking here ? ... Weeell... if you consider the fact the *total* US federal budget, including all military spending, is usually just a bit 2 trillion then you get some idea. Oh my god, suddenly I can't breathe.)
3. (Getting back to the point) The purely theoretical idea of a quantum computer that can crack just about any level of encryption has existed in the public domain since at least 1997 and simplistic, real world quantum computer implementations (that, to be fair, are far from being able to do this) have also appeared in the public domain in recent years.
4. That the NSA (or whatever it was back then) kept the truth of what they had achieved (in cracking all the german codes during WWII) secret not only throughout the war but for *decades* afterwards, and at considerable cost in life by the way.
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Just one final point. This doesn't mean don't use PGP by any means! It just means, that in my unsupported opinion, any message you send is undoubtedly completely breakable, if the NSA really wanted to, not that that really matters because they probably don't (unless you mention BOMB, NUCLEAR, ECHELON, PRESIDENT, and THE PLAN IS GO enough times that is).
The main reason I think this, is because the more people use PGP the harder it will be for systems like ECHELON to organize/filter/categorize the content that they filter. (ECHELON is the international side of the NSA-sponsored system that intercepts all fax, phone, email, internet traffic and analyzes it. I am convinced there is a domestic US equivalent, that is most probably integrated with its global counterpart)
Many people think ECHELON simply targets 'keywords'. However, based on patents filed by various government agencies you can assume it is *much* more sophisticated than that, for instance rudimentary 'language recognition' patents as well as 'topic classification' patents.
The topic classification patent is especially interesting, because, if they are able to create a map of all the, types of people, types of conversations that people have, then they can more easily filter out all the 'Jana's having a baby!' conversation and zero in on the 'lets organize a march' conversation of radicals and other undesirables (oh, yeah, and "terrorists" and "drug dealers" - the only problem here is that to find the largest number of these in the most cost effective way all they would need to do is walk down the hall start arresting people.. ).
Anyway the point I am trying to make is that - partly based on conversations with people who have actually worked for GCSB (NZ version of NSA) and the DSD (Australian version of NSA) - I am firmly of the opinion that PGP encryption can been cracked no matter what key size. Sure, its just an opinion but I personally am convinced that if they wanted to spend the computing power on it (and these are 100 million dollar institutions, so, yeah, it doesn't come cheap) then the NSA, at least, would most certainly be able to do so.
Yes, brute force cracking does suffer from limitations of the theory of computer science. However, in practice there are almost always little faults or problems of the actual implementation in practice that can be exploited to get at the real data. This may or may not include aspects of 'physical' data such as key logging, keyboard heat scanning, but it really doesn't have to .. at various times various software only vulnerabilities have been demonstrated with just about all encryption systems, and you can be sure if the NSA ever found such they wouldn't tell anyone.
Furthermore, we mustn't be forgetting that:
1. These are the folks that actually invented the whole idea of an actual "computer" itself, for precisely the reason of cracking encryption (during WWII)
2. They have an absolutely obscene black budget to play with, as demonstrated by the $1.1 trillion in unsupported accounting entries that appeared in the official federal Audit of the DOD budget for FY 2000. Of course, given that they claim to have just, woops, accidentally 'lost' this money then yeah its hard to make the case that they spent it all on the NSA, but I mean, lets just say that *someone* has a lot of money in their piggy back. [ Actually lets just back up for a second here, did I just say they "lost" 1.1 *trillion* dollars ?? how much are we talking here ? ... Weeell... if you consider the fact the *total* US federal budget, including all military spending, is usually just a bit 2 trillion then you get some idea. Oh my god, suddenly I can't breathe.)
3. (Getting back to the point) The purely theoretical idea of a quantum computer that can crack just about any level of encryption has existed in the public domain since at least 1997 and simplistic, real world quantum computer implementations (that, to be fair, are far from being able to do this) have also appeared in the public domain in recent years.
4. That the NSA (or whatever it was back then) kept the truth of what they had achieved (in cracking all the german codes during WWII) secret not only throughout the war but for *decades* afterwards, and at considerable cost in life by the way.
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Just one final point. This doesn't mean don't use PGP by any means! It just means, that in my unsupported opinion, any message you send is undoubtedly completely breakable, if the NSA really wanted to, not that that really matters because they probably don't (unless you mention BOMB, NUCLEAR, ECHELON, PRESIDENT, and THE PLAN IS GO enough times that is).
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