http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Cryptography

 

Australia is using two grit-blasting robots to clean the Sydney Harbour Bridge before it is repainted.

The robots shoot out compressed air to cut through rust and old paint on the famous Australian landmark.

The exercise is billed as one of the world's biggest maintenance programmes.

Cleaning the bridge is considered dangerous, forcing workers into uncomfortable poses and bringing risk of exposure to asbestos and old paint.

The robots, which were developed at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), operate by scanning the area, creating a 3D map, and working out how much force they should apply using high-pressure cleaners to strip paint from the bridge.

"We now have two [operational], autonomous grit-blasting robots on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which is a world-first technology," Martin Lloyd from UTS said, adding that the blasters on the robots were powerful enough to slice through people's clothes and skin.

The operation is the result of a collaboration between the university and Australia's Roads and Maritime Service.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23352958

 

XKeyscore a 'God-terminal' into Internet

 

New information has revealed the extent to which the National Security Agency can spy on Internet users. The US agency has apparently developed software that allows detailed searches with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Another revelation by whistle-blower Edward Snowden has shaken the world: Spying software called XKeyscore, developed by the National Security Agency (NSA), can apparently surveil Internet users much more closely than expected. Whether tweets or Internet purchases, very little seems safe from the eyes of US security services.

Through a simple search interface, an NSA worker using XKeyscore can have access to the entire Internet, including private email, encrypted documents, social networks and - with special transcription software - even telephone conversations.

Slides published by the British paper The Guardian show this far-reaching search as not being particularly complicated. Snowden provided slides apparently used to teach security service workers how to use the software.

The slides show simple menus in which one can choose what or whom to surveil. XKeyscore users appear to have virtually the entire Internet within reach of a few clicks.

http://www.dw.de/xkeyscore-a-god-terminal-into-internet/a-16994780

 

A Brazilian man held for nine hours at Heathrow airport under anti-terror laws has said he was forced to divulge email and social media account passwords.

David Miranda said his interrogators threatened that he could go to prison if he did not do so.

Mr Miranda is the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald who has covered stories based on leaks by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

Mr Miranda has launched legal action over the use of the powers on him.

He wants his confiscated electronic equipment returned and assurances that his private data will not be distributed on to other parties.

Mr Miranda told the BBC that disclosing his passwords made him feel as if he were "naked in front of a crowd".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23776243

 

Apple has hit back after a US federal magistrate ordered the company to help the FBI unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, with chief executive Tim Cook describing the demand as “chilling”.

The court order focuses on Apple’s security feature that slows down anyone trying to use “brute force” to gain access to an iPhone by guessing its passcode. In a letter published on the company’s website, Cook responded saying Apple would oppose the order and calling for public debate.

“The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand,” he wrote.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/apple-challenges-chilling-demand-decrypt-san-bernadino-iphone

 

See too at top...

 

iPhones are "secure". Passwords are needed to be secure, criminal or not.  Actually, to tell the truth, I believe Apple does not have a "master key" to do what the court asks (but it won't say that) — that once a person has set up a passkey in numbers, trying to open up with the wrong digits will slow it down or go to the three strikes and you're out, like cards at an ATM. The process can take some time to unravel with a password runbot — an electronic device that tries millions of passwords combos until it cracks the safe open — because the phone needs to be turned off to start again.

With the iPhone, there is no bypass to the slow down or the "three strikes, you're out" and there is no "master key"... This is a major disappointment for people who buy tablets and iPhones very cheap from "lost and found objects" sales. They cannot open the phone nor the tablet — and use it. The staff at Apple cannot crack the codes either.

The codes to open an iPhone is only 4 digit. The court will have to guess about 250 possible best combos for this "criminal"... Doable in a couple of days without having to go to Apple.

 

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said that the FBI’s claim to need Apple to unlock the iPhone a San Bernardino shooter is a sham.The FBI says that only Apple has the ability to crack the work phone left behind by the San Bernardino terrorists, and last month convinced a federal judge to compel the tech giant to write a custom operating system with intentionally weakened security mechanisms. Apple is refusing to do so, and said that it is willing to take the fight to the Supreme Court.

Over a video link appearance at Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference on Tuesday, Snowden took Apple’s side.

“The FBI says Apple has the ‘exclusive technical means’ to unlock the phone,” Snowden told the audience from Moscow. “Respectfully, that’s horse sh*t.”

Snowden later tweeted a link to an American Civil Liberties Union blog post titled “One of the FBI’s Major Claims in the iPhone Case Is Fraudulent,” which argues that the government doesn’t actually need Apple’s help to bypass the “auto-erase” feature on the iPhone in question.

https://www.rt.com/usa/335054-snowden-apple-fbi-fight/

 

After posting a 64 character hex code that is believed to be an encryption key, the internet worries that the famed whistleblower may have been killed or captured resulting in the triggering of a dead man’s switch and potentially the release of many more US national secrets.

 

 

On Friday night, famed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted out a 64 character code before quickly deleting the message along with a mysterious warning earlier this week that “It’s Time” which had called on colleagues of the former contractor to contact him leaving the internet to speculate that the characters could be an encryption key for a major document leak, it may be a “dead man’s switch” set to go in effect if the whistleblower were killed or captured, or potentially both.

 

A dead man’s switch is a message set up to be automatically sent if the holder of an account does not perform a regular check-in. The whistleblower has acknowledged that he has distributed encrypted files to journalists and associates that have not yet been released so in Snowden’s case, the dead man’s switch could be an encryption key for those files.

As of this time, Edward Snowden’s Twitter account has gone silent for over 24 hours which is far from unprecedented for the whistleblower but is curious at a time when public concern has been raised over his well-being. The 64 hex characters in the code do appear to rule out the initial theory that Edward Snowden, like so many of us, simply butt dialed his phone, but instead is a clearly a secure hash algorithm that can serve as a signature for a data file or as a password.

 

Read more:  http://sputniknews.com/news/20160806/1044011551/snowden-twitter-leaks-dead-kidnapped.html

 

 

See toon at top...

Snowden issued a cryptic 64-character code via Twitter leading to concern that the whistleblower was captured or killed triggering a "dead man’s switch" message designed to release if he didn’t check into his computer at a certain time.

A journalist with The Intercept who has worked extensively with the whistleblower in the past says that Snowden is “fine,” but refused to elaborate further. The response from the journalist comes in the wake of two mysterious tweets by the famed NSA whistleblower who exposed a rampant regime of domestic surveillance by US intelligence agencies.

read more: http://sputniknews.com/military/20160807/1044016775/snowden-dead-man-switch-greenwald.html

 

...and I'll explain how encrypted messaging works.

If you send a message using end-to-end encrypted messaging apps — like iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal or Wickr — it's basically impossible for law enforcement agencies (or anyone else) to intercept and read it.

You won't be surprised to hear they're not too happy about that.

But do you know how encryption actually works? We're here to help, and along the way we'll also show you how governments, like our very own, might try to gain access.

Don't worry, it's not that complicated.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-15/how-encryption-works-explained/873...

 

Computers can be trained to break any codes. Ask the CIA and all the other spy agencies around the world. It won't take long for your phone to be "infected" with a secret undetectable trojan program that can read your message BEFORE it is encrypted with your "public key". Or the trojan can read your "public key". Next, as you send your message, the message will also be sent as a readable encrypted message that you cannot decrypt. ONLY the trojan creator can then read your message, in parallel with your "secure" friend. 

 

See toon at top.

 

 

 

Science fiction is a genre that has allowed to capture, explore and transmute techno-scientific ambitions in social and historical environments simulated, told, avoiding technical and temporal limitations. That exploration is, at the same time, an inspiration and a push for the research and development of real science and technology.

By Rubén González and Daniel Heredia

- Shall we make a deal?

 

- I'm just a machine. What good would a deal do to me?

Adam ignored the mockery.

 

- If I talk to you now, if I give you ten minutes, do you promise not to say anything else for the rest of the day?

 

- It will have to be fifteen.

 

- Your programmer was very conscientious, right?

 

- I program myself, and I accept the compliment.

 

- Self-programming does not exist.

 

See more at http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/columnists/02-12-2017/139263-liberat...

 

The Russian science fiction novel has been less romantic and far more technologically correct than the western versions of this genre. 

 

"Yes! Yes... I am omnipotent! I think, I devise and solve! I think, ask riddles and devine [solve]! I'm omnipotent"  

As far as I can make out, this phrase come from "A Tale of True and False Friendship" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky... This was published in 1989, Soviet Literature (magazine SCIENCE FICTION in the collection of Gus Leonisky) an issue "dedicated to the literature of Estonia". ISSN —0202—1870

 

Read from top.

The agencies are looking into whether China is behind the incident.

In a statement, Federal Parliament's presiding officers said authorities were yet to detect any evidence data had been stolen in the breach.

One source said the response to the attack had been swift but the hackers were "sophisticated this time around".

Computer passwords have been reset as a precaution as the investigations continue.

"We have no evidence that this is an attempt to influence the outcome of parliamentary processes or to disrupt or influence electoral or political processes," the Parliament's presiding officers said in a statement.

"Accurate attribution of a cyber incident takes time and investigations are being undertaken in conjunction with the relevant security agencies."

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) is working to secure the network and says action was taken as soon as the breach was detected.

"The necessary steps are being taken to mitigate the compromise and minimise any harm," ASD said in a statement.

A cyber security expert warned about the seriousness of the breach.

"If you look at what goes on in Parliament House, you've got politicians, you've got staffers, you've got government departments that are moving in and out of the organisation and a lot of that is through electronic means," adjunct professor Nigel Phair, from the University of Canberra, said.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-08/china-government-cyber-security-b...

 

There are 1.5 billion Chinese in China and 20 of them (possibly 5 1/2 individuals having fun — or being bored out of their minds) infiltrated the BORING Australian Federal Government web-network where most of the information is solid fake and where most of the parmaliamentarians go for a leak to check on the status of the Kanbra porcelain... Meanwhile a couple of people in "Macedonia" who created the "Russians elected Trump syndrome" are testing other hidden cactuses disguised as a cyber breach of the Federal Parliament's computer network that the ABC understands is likely the result of a foreign government attack, stared at their screens with slanted eyes to look Chinese...

I could have done this in my sleep... Who knows...    Read from top.