NSA/General Terrorist Question: How is the government reading mail/faxes?

[momeNt]

With the government making a big push to monitor and track internet and phone activity. Are we forgetting that terrorists can communicate through fax and regular mail?

Regular mail they also can use fake names to address, and the text will not convey a middle-eastern accent like a phone conversation does.

There is also faxes to consider, are we logging the content of fax transmissions?


If not - I fear that terrorists will adapt and the USA is not anymore safe than when we started the Patriot Act.


We can never let freedom stand in the way of terror. Or is it terror in the way of freedom? I forget.

 

[Vdubchaos]

You have to understand something. Terrorism = just another way for humans to make shitload of money.

Just think how much money government has stolen from people and future generations in the name of terrorism/fear. Then think about the amount of money it made their buddies/companies (military sectors, contractors/departments).

Then you think about the actual threat. There really isn't one, it's NOTHING in the big scheme of things.

Every MONTH more Americans die on Highways then 9/11. Do you see government spending BILLIONS for better Driver education or making the tests tougher?

No, do you know why?

Because there is very little/to no money to be made.

Terrorism is just another way for America to steal money from it's people and take away their freedom/rights in the process. Just accept it and no there is no stopping it/changing it.

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Ben Franklin

 

[momeNt]

You have to understand something. Terrorism = just another way for humans to make shitload of money.

Just think how much money government has stolen from people and future generations in the name of terrorism/fear. Then think about the amount of money it made their buddies/companies (military sectors, contractors/departments).

Then you think about the actual threat. There really isn't one, it's NOTHING in the big scheme of things.

Every MONTH more Americans die on Highways then 9/11. Do you see government spending BILLIONS for better Driver education or making the tests tougher?

No, do you know why?

Because there is very little/to no money to be made.

Terrorism is just another way for America to steal money from it's people and take away their freedom/rights in the process. Just accept it and no there is no stopping it/changing it.

This doesn't answer my question.

Is the NSA reading regular mail? Do they have equipment that can see through security envelopes? Are they able to reseal envelopes so that only a highly trained eye can see if they have been compromised?

 

[Craig234]

The government has always read some envelopes. They reseal them. I don't see why they couldn't intercept faxes the same way they can phone calls.

The one thing that seems to upset the NSA is highly encrypted material - they seem unable to break the better encryption systems.

But using those encryptions can reportedly get you flagged for other monitoriing.

 

[momeNt]

The government has always read some envelopes. They reseal them. I don't see why they couldn't intercept faxes the same way they can phone calls.

The one thing that seems to upset the NSA is highly encrypted material - they seem unable to break the better encryption systems.

But using those encryptions can reportedly get you flagged for other monitoriing.

I'm assuming the read envelopes without return addresses and addressee does not match anybody found at the address.

Does UPS/Fedex/DHL cooperate like Google and Facebook?

 

[Train]

This doesn't answer my question.

Is the NSA reading regular mail? Do they have equipment that can see through security envelopes? Are they able to reseal envelopes so that only a highly trained eye can see if they have been compromised?

Read it all? No

But they have revealed that the front and back of every piece of mail is photographed and stored for 90+ days. So that if they need to see what went to/from an address, they can pull up those photos. With the new uber-data centers the Gov is building, that 90 day retention could be replaced with something much, much longer.

 

[maddogchen]

they actually monitor brain activity and read your thoughts as you write your mail or fax.

They also use precogs to stop terrorist attacks before they happen....you should read about it in the Minority Report

 

[lxskllr]

This doesn't answer my question.

Is the NSA reading regular mail? Do they have equipment that can see through security envelopes? Are they able to reseal envelopes so that only a highly trained eye can see if they have been compromised?

All mail is scanned on the outside. That's part of the sorting process, and I don't have a problem with it, since it's quickly discarded. What I have a problem with is that data being given to the NSA, and kept in perpetuity. All this spying has nothing to do with terrorism. It's to control the population, and quash dissent before it starts. "Terrorists" will use communication that resists tracking, and skip the whole thing, just as copyright infringers do today with DRM.

 

[momeNt]

Read it all? No

But they have revealed that the front and back of every piece of mail is photographed and stored for 90+ days. So that if they need to see what went to/from an address, they can pull up those photos. With the new uber-data centers the Gov is building, that 90 day retention could be replaced with something much, much longer.

Hopefully when they revealed that, they actually were hiding the fact that they are actually kept for 180 days. Terrorist shouldn't know how to space their mail intervals just because we have a post office that likes to be transparent about their security measures.

I'm thinking more and more that all our security measures are completely incompetent at really stopping terrorism and are just a way to employ a shitload of people at defense contractors.

 

[momeNt]

FWIW - My political views are closely aligned with Rothbard - an anarchist.


I'm just curious how thorough national security surveillance is, the answer seems to be not very thorough.

 

[Craig234]

Hopefully when they revealed that, they actually were hiding the fact that they are actually kept for 180 days. Terrorist shouldn't know how to space their mail intervals just because we have a post office that likes to be transparent about their security measures.

I'm thinking more and more that all our security measures are completely incompetent at really stopping terrorism and are just a way to employ a shitload of people at defense contractors.

There's a lot of truth to that and has long been. Industries like profits. It's a scandal how senior officials who choose to pay these companies then go to work for them.

 

[Craig234]

I'm assuming the read envelopes without return addresses and addressee does not match anybody found at the address.

Does UPS/Fedex/DHL cooperate like Google and Facebook?

No, that's more dead letter. As I understand the ones they read are based on targetting.

For example, IIRC Martin Luther King's mail was read.

 

[Markbnj]

Hopefully when they revealed that, they actually were hiding the fact that they are actually kept for 180 days. Terrorist shouldn't know how to space their mail intervals just because we have a post office that likes to be transparent about their security measures.

I'm thinking more and more that all our security measures are completely incompetent at really stopping terrorism and are just a way to employ a shitload of people at defense contractors.

On the other hand, if we can slow them down to using snail mail every 180 days it will take them a really long time to coordinate anything.

 

[KeithP]

If not - I fear that terrorists will adapt and the USA is not anymore safe than when we started the Patriot Act.

Terrorists were already taking steps to encrypt their communications long before the Patriot Act or any of the NSA kerfuffle started up.

I would bet this information is more likely to be used to target political enemies more often than terrorists.

-KeithP

 

[BoberFett]

If I were a terrorist, I'd start a popular website with a busy user forum. Messages could be passed between cell members that appear to be the ramblings of crazy people, but are actually coded messages hiding in plain sight.

Wait a minute...

 

[Train]

If I were a terrorist, I'd start a popular website with a busy user forum. Messages could be passed between cell members that appear to be the ramblings of crazy people, but are actually coded messages hiding in plain sight.

Wait a minute...

I always though craigslist would be a perfect place to pass coded messages.

 

[momeNt]

No, that's more dead letter. As I understand the ones they read are based on targetting.

For example, IIRC Martin Luther King's mail was read.

How can they know who to target if they address to false names with false names in return addresses? I would think they cross reference addresser and addressee to the people known to be at that physical address and flag any discrepancies.

Any idea about Fedex/UPS/DHL cooperation?

 

[ultimatebob]

If I were a terrorist, I'd start a popular website with a busy user forum. Messages could be passed between cell members that appear to be the ramblings of crazy people, but are actually coded messages hiding in plain sight.

Wait a minute...

Yeah... suddenly, some of those posts in the P&N forum make sense

 

[DrPizza]

If you really want secure communication between two people, agree on an encryption algorithm. Encode secret message on computer that isn't connected to the internet, save to flash, upload on another computer - post encoded messages online, say, on craigslist, or any other public place.

step 2: download encoded message, save to a flash device. Decode message on a computer that is NOT connected online. Thus, the two computers that have the encoding and decoding algorithms cannot (easily) be hacked. Though, that possibility could be completely eliminated by requiring data entry into a computer that doesn't even receive a flash drive.

 

[SSSnail]

They could just use courier pigeons...

 

[ussfletcher]

The government has always read some envelopes. They reseal them. I don't see why they couldn't intercept faxes the same way they can phone calls.

The one thing that seems to upset the NSA is highly encrypted material - they seem unable to break the better encryption systems.

But using those encryptions can reportedly get you flagged for other monitoriing.

Anyone can break any encryption system (with few exceptions e.g. one-time pads) the problem is really how much money and time you want to throw at it. However, making anyone invest any time or extra effort into accessing anything of yours will stop most snooping as you are no longer the low-hanging fruit. This is analogous to a bike lock, it prevents most thefts, even if everyone is capable of smashing the lock.

 

[Craig234]

Anyone can break any encryption system (with few exceptions e.g. one-time pads) the problem is really how much money and time you want to throw at it. However, making anyone invest any time or extra effort into accessing anything of yours will stop most snooping as you are no longer the low-hanging fruit. This is analogous to a bike lock, it prevents most thefts, even if everyone is capable of smashing the lock.

Sorry, disagree with all your points.

There are secure enough systems that they cannot practically be broken, requiring too much computation even for the massive NSA systems.

The NSA is drawn to the more secure communications as more likely to have useful info.

These aren't bike thefts; it's more like a jewel thief who wants the best.

 

[DrPizza]

Anyone can break any encryption system (with few exceptions e.g. one-time pads) the problem is really how much money and time you want to throw at it. However, making anyone invest any time or extra effort into accessing anything of yours will stop most snooping as you are no longer the low-hanging fruit. This is analogous to a bike lock, it prevents most thefts, even if everyone is capable of smashing the lock.

Not really. It can be insanely difficult - if you know the encryption method. For example, I can use a different huge prime number for each letter of the alphabet. Put my message in matrix form, using a lot of 3x3 matrices. Multiply each matrix by different 3x3 matrix each, again, made up of incredibly large prime numbers, or mostly prime numbers - I can select numbers such that the inverse of the matrix consists of integers. Send all those matrices to a counterpart. He multiplies each 3x3 matrix by his own 3x3 matrix. He sends this further encoded message to me. I multiply by my inverse matrices and return it to him (this cancels out my original multiplication, since multiplication is associative). He multiplies by his inverse & has the message.

edit: to clarify: [my inverse][my code][message][his code][his inverse] = [message]

The amount of computing time to crack that would (I think) be huge. And that's IF you know how I encrypted the message. If not, then you're just seeing a big long string of huuuuuuge numbers. Now, instead of encoding the message that way, agree on a text beforehand. "In the beginning" I is the 9th letter of the alphabet, so only the 9th character is a part of the secret message. N is the 14th letter, so 14 letters later is the next character. All the rest of the characters are completely randomized.

Without knowledge of the algorithm - that we added this last step in - it's now, for all practical purposes, impossible to crack. And, we could make this last step even more obtuse. Add in the step I pointed out above - send and receive messages on one computer, but decrypt on a computer that's isolated from the Internet to prevent someone from hacking into your algorithm... Good luck.

 

[_Rick_]

For example, I can use a different huge prime number for each letter of the alphabet.

Anything that starts out like this always sounds like there could be a hidden vulnerability to statistical analysis. Size-9 blocks are also pretty small.

Anyway, the NSA isn't breaking cryptography a lot, but rather asking the people on one side of the transaction, to give them access to the decrypted data - and getting it.

 

[techs]

With the government making a big push to monitor and track internet and phone activity. Are we forgetting that terrorists can communicate through fax and regular mail?

Regular mail they also can use fake names to address, and the text will not convey a middle-eastern accent like a phone conversation does.

There is also faxes to consider, are we logging the content of fax transmissions?


If not - I fear that terrorists will adapt and the USA is not anymore safe than when we started the Patriot Act.


We can never let freedom stand in the way of terror. Or is it terror in the way of freedom? I forget.

After two months someone FINALLY read my sig.