I won't pretend to be any kind of expert on this matter, but at least one discussion on Hacker News raises a lot of points against the Sunday Times article.
[Here's an article summarizing Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher's criticism of the Sunday Times article]( http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/journalists-slam-article-claiming-russia-china-cracked-edward-snowden-files-1.3112907)
You left a space in the link :p Here's an article summarizing Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher's criticism of the Sunday Times article
Teasing my armchair thoughts out of my head: - If another article @grendel just posted is true, then the Office of Personnel Management also has blood on its hands by the standards of the "senior Home Office official" quoted in the Sunday Times: - If the insurance file was cracked, then that is a pretty dire situation. It suggests that: a) Encryption is so hard to do that someone like Snowden can fail at it in a situation where they feel their life might depend on doing it well. This suggests that most encryption is poorly done (technically or socially). There is evidance in favor of this point. Assange has had one file compromised, and he is adept in this area. b) The Chinese and the Russians are extremely sophisticated. Insurance files would then be an obvious target. If they can break Snowden's insurance file, have they broken others? Wikileaks has 300+ gb of insurance files floating around.
- If you agree with Schneier on the dangers of having an insurance file (I do), the fact that Assange and Snowden are both still walking around would support the idea that these files are vulnerable enough that physically attacking them to prompt key release isn't worth it. One senior Home Office official accused Snowden of having “blood on his hands”, although Downing Street said there was “no evidence of anyone being harmed”.
His file was compromised because someone he trusted published the decryption key in a book. This was either deliberate or a human error (and it was an error in Assange's judgement to give the guy the key). This example doesn't provide evidence that encryption is usually technically flawed. The Sunday Times article smacks of propaganda. Any claim it makes that the Chinese and Russians have cracked some encrypted trove of Snowden's files should be approached with a sensible amount of skepticism. This guy puts it well: http://notes.rjgallagher.co.uk/2015/06/sunday-times-snowden-china-russia-questions.html Assange has had one file compromised, and he is adept in this area.
Which is why I said "This suggests that most encryption is poorly done (technically or socially)". The encryption itself is technical, but sharing the resulting data is a social act. Doing both parts right is hard, as Assange demonstrated. And failure in either aspect breaks the whole shebang. It is interesting to note that there are technical solutions to prevent what happened in that case. But hindsight is also 20/20. ---- I agree that the Sunday Times article smacks of propaganda. His file was compromised because someone he trusted published the decryption key in a book. This was either deliberate or a human error (and it was an error in Assange's judgement to give the guy the key). This example doesn't provide evidence that encryption is usually technically flawed.
Well, here's the interviewUm... well... I don't know the answer to that, George. Um.... All we know is that... um... this is effectively the official position of the British government. Um.... we picked up on it... um... a while ago. And we've been working on it and trying to stand it up through multiple sources. And when we approached the British government late last week with our evidence, they confirmed, effectively, what you read today in the Sunday Times.
He pulled so much information, that it's likely he didn't know everything he pulled. James Clapper estimates around 1.5 million documents. Even if I had all year I couldn't read that. You'd have to read over 4100 pages per day every day for a year to get it done.
Ryan Gallagher says this about the claim that Snowden took 1.5 million documents: Although 1.5 million documents is a slightly different number, I wouldn't rush to believe James Clapper's claim here. Besides, he doesn't have the best track record for honesty.This 1.7m figure was invented by US officials and since then it has been regurgitated repeatedly and unquestioningly by various media outlets. I've seen the trove of documents; the claim or insinuation that he leaked 1.7m is not true.
This sounds like some pretty vague information at this point. However, if the way in which Snowden leaked information was so indiscriminate as to not have protected against such things, well, then there's certainly cause for concern.
Glenn Greenwald's comments on it are worth reading. We now have one of the purest examples of this dynamic. Last night, the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times published their lead front-page Sunday article, headlined “British Spies Betrayed to Russians and Chinese.” Just as the conventional media narrative was shifting to pro-Snowden sentiment in the wake of a key court ruling and a new surveillance law, the article claims in the first paragraph that these two adversaries “have cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services.”Western journalists claim that the big lesson they learned from their key role in selling the Iraq War to the public is that it’s hideous, corrupt and often dangerous journalism to give anonymity to government officials to let them propagandize the public, then uncritically accept those anonymously voiced claims as Truth. But they’ve learned no such lesson. That tactic continues to be the staple of how major US and British media outlets “report,” especially in the national security area. And journalists who read such reports continue to treat self-serving decrees by unnamed, unseen officials – laundered through their media – as gospel, no matter how dubious are the claims or factually false is the reporting.
Thanks, it's worth reading the entire thing, if anyone wants to, it's here. He quotes Colberts correspondence speech as having untoppable precision regarding the topic:But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works.The President makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!