Ask Cryptome's John Young Whatever You'd Like 152
John Young of Cryptome, though trained as an architect, has garnered recognition in another field entirely. Since 1996, he's been publishing timely, trenchant news online as the mind behind crypto jya.com and Cryptome. ("Our goal is to be the most disreputable publisher on the Net, just
after the world's governments and other highly reputable bullshitters." ) This has put him on the forefront of various online liberty issues, from the MPAA's DeCSS crackdown on DeCSS (he fought the lawyers -- and won), to Carnivore, to Dmitry Sklyarov's continuing imprisonment, and now the several fronts along which electronic communications are threatened by current and upcoming legislation. He recently posted this to the front page: "Cryptome and a host of other crypto resources are likely to be shutdown if the war panic continues. What methods could be used to assure continued access to crypto for homeland and self-defense by citizens of all nations against communication transgressors?" Now's your chance to ask him about the fight for online freedom. Please pose just one question per post; we'll send 10-15 of the highest moderated ones on to John for his answers.
Turnaround on backdoors? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this 'backing down' accurate? What do you think caused the change of heart? And what is your opinion of backdoors in general? Do you think they would work as lawmakers intend them to?
Encryption (Score:4, Interesting)
Encrypting email (Score:5, Interesting)
Currently the vast majority of email travels unencrypted through the Internet, ripe for eavesdropping by Carnivore/DCS1000/Echelon/etc. This is a bit of a "last mile" problem, as I can't reasonably expect my grandmother on AOL to be able to read my PGP-encrypted messages to her unless encryption is made into a standard part of the infrastructure. Otherwise 99% of the users won't bother and that's the situation we have now.
What do you see as being the catalyst that forces the majority of software and service providers to make encrypted email standard equipment? Will it be public outrage over eavesdropping, bribery of ISPs and Microsoft by Verisign or Thawte, or something else altogether? And do you forsee more success for a decentralized standard, like OpenPGP, or for a centralized standard like S/MIME?
-CT
I don't do anything illegal (Score:3, Interesting)
Government and Privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi John (Score:4, Interesting)
Certified email? (Score:4, Interesting)
Optimistic or pessimistic overall? (Score:4, Interesting)
Overall, are you optimistic or pessimistic that we will eventually (call it 5-20 years) have a society that you would find reasonably acceptable? Or do you think we're destined for one form or another of effective totalitarianism?
Sources? (Score:4, Interesting)
Question: (Score:4, Interesting)
Supporters of this program claim that such a program will allow day-to-day communications among law-abiding citizens to remain private, whilst still allowing the FBI and CIA to monitor the communications of suspected terrorists(with a warrant, of course).
The liberal media opposition to this initiative is claiming that by installing government accessible backdoors into encryption tools, we are giving up our right to privacy in favor of increased public safety. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to ignore the fact that nowhere in our Constitution or Bill of Rights, are we guaranteed anonimity or absolute privacy. It seems to me that if we cannot trust our policing agencies to be responsible with the power they have been given, the problem is not with the cryptography, but the government itself, and this problem needs to be addressed as such.
My question to you is: What is Cryptome's, and your personal, stance on government accessible backdoors installed in cryptography. Would the benefit to law enforcement, and the increased homeland security outweigh the possible implications to the loss of privacy. Do you think open-sourcing popular cryptographic tools would help alleviate people's fears about the integrity of their data security?
Is Coding Free Speech? (Score:5, Interesting)
DIY hardware crypto (Score:0, Interesting)
Appealing to the masses (Score:3, Interesting)
Passport and Windows XP Privacy concerns (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you think of XP, particularly with regard to Passport and privacy concerns?
Thanks,
Al.
general encryption and anonymity (Score:5, Interesting)
Fear and Personal Saftey... (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you ever fear for your own or your family's saftey because of this. Have you ever been threatened? By whom, government agents or private individuals?
If you don't fear for your saftey, what factors about what you do make you feel 'immune' from being 'removed' clandestinely?
A few questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you think that all the muck flinging by both governments and corporations is going to lead to somone developing a virtual, anonymous, secure network running over the Net that will be untouchable by governments (i.e. legally secure from attack by dint of listening to the Harvard Law types and using their knowledge combined with technological solutions)?
Do you expect show trials by governments to show that the laws they areintroducing now (RIPA in the UK, USA-Patriot in the US etc) are effective, and how long do you think before there will be miscarragies of justice based on political expedeincy?
Public CA (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for your efforts. My question was discussed recently on a thread regarding the decision by Thawte to discontinue selling CodeSigning certificates to individuals.
What are the biggest obstacles to a public CA which is supported and funded by, say, the FSF? Is such a thing possible for the Free software community? I guess insurance and certification would be the biggest stumbling blocks. Are there other dimensions to such an undertaking which have not been considered?
If you have nothing to hide... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, since most e-commerce is conducted on so called "secure" connections, how would the installation of government backdoors effect e-commerce. If a government back door was hacked and my credit information stolen and exploited, who would the blame fall on? The credit card company, the business I ordered from, or the government agency who installed a faulty back door?
How will world government deal with an AI economy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Extremely serious efforts are underway to create artificially intelligent minds, such as at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mind [sourceforge.net] -- just one of 365 open-source projects in artificial intelligence (AI). Do you expect that the World Trade Organization (WTO) or other allances -- either governmental or corporate -- will attempt to control the emergence of AI technology and of an AI-based cybernetic economy?
As an architect, do you have any interest in the architecture of the mind?
Is there any likelihood that AI research will be outlawed or otherwise subjected to illiberal control?
Passport. (Score:4, Interesting)
Soko
Personal Background (Score:5, Interesting)
I know, it's more than one question, but they're all in the same direction. I'm curious about the guy.
The Panopticon (Score:5, Interesting)
My question is: how aggressive can you/should you be in trying to detail the actions of the (insert three letter acronyms and governments here) pushing panopticonism as the solution to society's problems?
You are clearly willing to put yourself in legal peril, but surely there is a point of diminishing returns. How do you balance things, and have you withheld, or would you ever withhold, information that you would like to publish? (...and yes there are two question marks, but they are pretty related)
And thanks!!
Absolute Right to Privacy (Score:1, Interesting)
John Young and _The_Barnhouse_Effect_ (Score:4, Interesting)
Report on the Barnhouse Effect [http]. Your reporting keeps the entire world somewhat more honest; and I can't think that it's possible that governments are more careful knowing that someone is watching.
The end of the story, is, of course, of the passing of the torch to Barnhouse's apprentice. I am worried that there's nobody with the combination of integrity, fearlessness, and intelligence to carry on with your work, when your time to perform it is over. Do you worry about that, and are there people to carry the load?
thad
What countries are still free? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, my question is: If the United States becomes a hostile place for freedom (DMCA, SSSCA, extreme anti-terrorism laws, etc.) where are some good places to flee to?
I write and use free software, and I expect I'll be leaving the US within a couple of years. (I've got a great job, otherwise I'd be leaving already). I don't mind learning a different language... Do you know of any comparative study of different countries of the world, considering at least:
- free speech
- free software
- software patents
- Privacy
- public awareness of the above issues (Most important, perhaps!)
- A just and fair, uncorrupted legal system
- Reasonable balance of taxation, government spending on useful things like education, health care, etc.
- High standard of living
Where would you go?
Benefits/ Detriments of Real Identity (Score:5, Interesting)
At some point you decided to run cryptome and publish controversial materials under your true identity rather than under a pseudonym.
What benefits and detriments have you found to using your real identity for your efforts instead of a pseudonym?
what will make people care? (Score:5, Interesting)
In your opinion, what will it take - either in terms of EFF-style activism or in terms of 1984-style government repression - to make the average person-on-the-street care about our digital freedoms?
In the current environment it seems that most people have adopted the attitude of Britain's John Major who said - as his Tories wired the UK with videocameras - ``If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.''
-Renard
"Younglish" - How do you DO it??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Many people will undoubtably ask wide and far-reaching questions about civil-liberties, activism, and running cryptome.org. In contrast, I would like to ask a question perhaps trivial in comparison, but also in the hearts of so very many of your fans.
If this is really ask whatever we'd like ...
How in the world do you generate that unique hash of free-association, bafflegab, verbing, just-this-side-of-understandable wording (not sure which side), "Younglish" writing, for which you are reknowned?
Are consciousness-altering substances ever involved? Where they ever involved? Is it effortless, or do you work at it?
This is nowhere in the same league as DMCA, terrorism, and whatnot.
But believe me, inquiring minds want to know.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
Convincing the unwashed masses (Score:2, Interesting)
USA vs Usama Bin Laden, Part II (Score:2, Interesting)
My question is - do you think that you will be in a position to publish the transcripts for the trial of the Sept.11 events ?
Assuming, of course, that at least some of the perpetrators are brought to trial and that this will probably be well into the future.
The "security" of the State vs. the individual (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me begin by thanking you for your unflinching adherence to the principals of disclosure and freedom of information. I am a great fan of your continuing work. My question follows:
You have in the past, and continue to, post "dangerous" information like names of former intelligence agents, details of government cover-ups, radically contrarian opinions, and open calls for subversive action.
A good example of this is Cryptome's continuing threads on the structural failure of the WTC and potential vulnerabilities of other landmarks. Some would claim that this kind of conversation should take place in closed-door meetings - that open discussion like this could only benefit evil and your support of such discussion is irresponsible.
What are the principals and moral guidelines you use when publishing Cryptome? Are there any lines you would not cross? What are the implications of shifting public opinion (70% favor a national ID card) and mounting US totalitarianism to Cryptome?
Re:What countries are still free? (Score:2, Interesting)
"This is a devastating statistic for those who believe that America's greater commitment to individualism translates into greater individual freedom. In reality, the social democracies of Northern Europe are the freest societies in the world."
Places America pretty low on the freedom scale
(google: UN freedom index)
Also, a very interesting node on e2:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=385
were Sweden came out top and America didn't even make number 10 lol
Looks like your too late, you better hope someone anthraxes Bush before he does any more damage
Transition from Architecture to Technology (Score:3, Interesting)
Backups? (Score:4, Interesting)
freenet and/or freeweb mirror? (Score:1, Interesting)
I've been a long time fan of your site, and I hope it never gets shut down and/or censored. There's not much you can do if you get shut down, but have you considered using freenet and/or freeweb to mirror your content? Once content is on those systems, it won't come down until nobody wants it.
If not, why not? Are there any changes in those systems that would make you reconsider?
Thanks for talking to
Information and protests. (Score:2, Interesting)
In recent years we have seen a raft of laws that, under one guise or another, act to limit speech and dissemination of information. Your own experience with DeCSS is a prime example. Since September 11 there has been a renewed push in Governmental circles not only to restrict information by refusing to comply with FOIA requests [aclu.org] but to demand information by increasing surveillance [aclu.org].
As someone who has dealt with this and won, how do you see it progressing? Do you think that this will pass and these laws will be overturned? Or do you see this as only the beginning?
Trends in legislation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Encryption (Score:3, Interesting)
Err no, not even close. While there is a large class of NP complete problems which can be transformed into each other in polynomial time this is not the case for all NP complete problems.
Futhermore a compromise of a security algorithm is a much weaker condition than solving an NP complete problem for the general case. There are many NP complete problems that have subsets that can be solved in polynomial time. The superincreasing knapsack problem for example.
An attack that compromised only 5% of RSA keys would be very serious - a factoring algorithm that depended on smooth numbers or the like but it would not be a solution for all NP complete problems.
In fact the DSA algorithm can be shown to be slightly more secure than RSA in that it only depends on the discrete log problem for security while RSA depends on discrete log and factoring. This is not a particularly big problem however since most atacks on factoring also tend to be convertable to discrete log.
Mirror policy question (Score:3, Interesting)
I appreciate your site a lot (not only because you have posted some of my own material on it
Your site hosts obvious controversial papers. Yet you clearly don't want to have your site mirrored. You state so on your website and your robots.txt disallows it. Why don't you want the information on cryptome and jya to be mirrored? I noticed you changed this policy briefly after the sep 11 attacks,and ofcourse immediately grabbed a copy.
But I'd still like to have a synchronised copy. Not even to publish now, but just to have in case cryptome disappears for whatever reasons.
Paul Wouters