Menu Close

You Aren’t Anonymous

Oh, that encrypted super secure Signal app? Yeah maybe not so secure after all.

The revelation raises questions about how investigators accessed communications from a service that supposedly encrypts a message, preventing anyone but the person who sent it and the recipient from viewing it.

The legal filing did not specify how investigators had accessed the encrypted messages prior to the arrest of Stewart Rhodes and other Oath Keepers members.
I am not an expert at how the internet works but I do know this much. Everything is running through a bunch of choke points and all of it is creating some sort of electronic footprint. Maybe the Feds aren’t looking at everything everybody sends but if they want to see something? I am guessing they can see whatever the hell they want and can create bogus records if they don’t find what they needed. 
Bottom line, don’t send anything via the internet or some sort of phone based app that you think might look bad if a Fed was reading it. Likewise treat anything sketchy being sent to you via the internet from someone you don’t actually know in the real world as suspicious and definitely don’t get lured into saying something naughty. They are desperate for “right-wing domestic terrorists” so anything you send on the webz is probably fair game, even if you are using a VPN, the Tor browser, etc.
The only place you say sensitive stuff is in the real world and they only people you say sensitive stuff to are real people you know and have done your due diligence with. 
Wars are won and lost by one side reading what the other side is saying. Don’t be dumb on the internet kids.

8 Comments

  1. Kenneth Rangen

    Signal, in and of itself, is pretty secure. Unfortunately, the people charged were using a group chat in Signal. If any of the phones using Signal in that group chat were compromised, or one (or more) of the persons involved were snitches, then they may as well have been communicating via skywriting.

  2. Just Sayin'

    Anybody who thinks that "encrypted" means secure (from GovCo.) needs to know that the NSA controls ALL crypto standards in the US. Hmmmmm.

  3. T Town

    People don't seem to know that the intelligence agencies employ programmers who contribute to the development of all open source encryption products. This allows them to make sure that they have a means of breaking anything produced by it, or a backdoor to allow them access to the unencrypted data.
    There is no such thing as secure electronic communications.

  4. Anonymous

    The Main thing everyone needs to realize about "Communications" is that the Instant you send "Data" onto someone else's Communications Network (Internet, Telephone (Wire or Cell)) the Operator of that Network can Track, end-to-end, the Parties involved in the Communication, as well as Record, for later analysis, the entire 'Message".

    "Encryption" only Works given the following Conditions –
    1. The Encryption Program runs on a Computer that is NEVER connected to a Network.
    2. The Encrypted Message is Sent over (someone else's Network) from a Computer that is Not
    Traceable, by it's Serial# or Processor I.D.# to the Sender.
    3. The Point of Origin of the Message (IP Address) is Not Traceable to the Sender.
    4. The Recipient of the Message has the same Anonymity as the Sender.
    5. The Sender and Recipient have Physically Exchanged the Encryption Key, with it NEVER
    having been Transmitted on the Network.
    6. The Message is Decrypted on a Computer that is NEVER connected to the Network.
    7. And Most Importantly, the Encryption System is one that is Known not to be
    "Compromised" by any 'government agency'.

    The Last is the most Important, and Difficult; however, there ARE Encryption Programs that were Developed before the "agencies" were aware of them, and the Developers "shut down" by "National Security Letter". At least two of these Programs were considered to be so Complex and Effective, that "Cracking" them without the Key would take Centuries using All Available "agency" Computers.

    And any .Mil "Communications Specialist" will tell you that it is almost always More Important to figure out Who is Communicating with Whom, rather than the contents of any individual Message. This is called "Network Traffic Analysis".

  5. Mike Austin

    I work on the understanding that everything on the web or your phone can be seen by the Feds. True anonymity is a chimera. No VPN or so-called "secure" app is of any value whatsoever except to the folks who sell it to you.

  6. Anonymous

    anyone who thinks ANY app over the internet is secure in just dumb. like the phones, the internet has being in bed with the fed gov't since the beginning of it. face to face and no phones or any other electronic crap inside of 40 feet. and outside near traffic or some other noise maker to distort the sound YOU MAKE. and even then, you have to worry about insiders ratting you out.
    the old wop was right, 3 can keep a secret if 2 of them are dead.

  7. Arthur Sido

    That is a good policy, I think the VPN helps for things like Twitter not knowing that my current account is from the same computer they banned multiple other accounts. It makes it harder to monitor but harder isn't the same as impossible.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *