I’m going to provide a running list of recent reports concerning NSA spying on Americans, and then some commentary at the end.

The NSA Back Door to NIST:

Through the Snowden disclosures, the NIST standard for pseudo-random number generation has fallen into disrepute. Here I describe the back door to the NIST standard for pseudo-random number generation in elementary and mathematically precise terms. The NIST standard offers three methods for pseudo-random number generation [NIST]. My remarks are limited to the third of the three methods, which is based on elliptic curves.

This is a scholarly paper, and I simply don’t have the time to explain how random number generators work (I have seen the coding and have several algorithms).  I also don’t have the time to explain public and private encryption keys and how they work.  Any attempt to explain this would run way past the usual time Site Meter shows that I have readers.  But suffice it to say that random number generators are compromised.  Thus, any communication you use in which you depend on such methods has also been compromised and isn’t reliable.

ExtremeTech:

Security researchers have successfully broken one of the most secure encryption algorithms, 4096-bit RSA, by listening – yes, with a microphone — to a computer as it decrypts some encrypted data. The attack is fairly simple and can be carried out with rudimentary hardware. The repercussions for the average computer user are minimal, but if you’re a secret agent, power user, or some other kind of encryption-using miscreant, you may want to reach for the Rammstein when decrypting your data.

This acoustic cryptanalysis, carried out by Daniel Genkin, Adi Shamir (who co-invented RSA), and Eran Tromer, uses what’s known as a side channel attack. A side channel is an attack vector that is non-direct and unconventional, and thus hasn’t been properly secured. For example, your pass code prevents me from directly attacking your phone — but if I could work out your pass code by looking at the greasy smudges on your screen, that would be a side channel attack. In this case, the security researchers listen to the high-pitched (10 to 150 KHz) sounds produced by your computer as it decrypts data.

This might sound crazy, but with the right hardware it’s actually not that hard. For a start, if you know exactly what frequency to listen out for, you can use low- and high-pass filters to ensure that you only have the sounds that emanate from your PC while the CPU decrypts data. (In case you were wondering, the acoustic signal is actually generated by the CPU’s voltage regulator, as it tries to maintain a constant voltage during wildly varied and bursty loads). Then, once you have the signal, it’s time for the hard bit: Actually making sense of it.

Without going into too much detail, the researchers focused on a very specific encryption implementation: The GnuPG (an open/free version of PGP) 1.x implementation of the RSA cryptosystem. With some very clever cryptanalysis, the researchers were able to listen for telltale signs that the CPU was decrypting some data, and then listening to the following stream of sounds to divine the decryption key. The same attack would not work on different cryptosystems or different encryption software — they’d have to start back at the beginning and work out all of the tell-tale sounds from scratch.

Hard and a lot of work, but feasible.  My oldest son Joshua responds this back to me concerning this article.

Yeah, saw this on reddit. Physical security is just as important as digital. Also, the Debian distro just released a new version that fixes this by generating pink noise, although if they know the algorithm used to generate the randomness in pink noise they could still filter it.Right now they’re working on using thermal heat/noise generated by PC components as an external factor to seed random number generators.Still, the takeaway is that if the government wants access to the info, they’re going to get it one way or another. Russia just placed an order for typewriters so they could begin archiving sensitive material on paper instead of digitally because paper is more difficult to exfiltrate.

AP:

One of the slides described how the NSA can plant malicious software onto Apple Inc.’s iPhone, giving American intelligence agents the ability to turn the popular smartphone into a pocket-sized spy.

Another slide showcased a futuristic-sounding device described as a “portable continuous wave generator,” a remote-controlled device which – when paired with tiny electronic implants – can bounce invisible waves of energy off keyboards and monitors to see what is being typed, even if the target device isn’t connected to the Internet.

A third slide showcased a piece of equipment called NIGHTSTAND, which can tamper with wireless Internet connections from up to 8 miles (13 kilometers) away.

An NSA spokeswoman, Vanee Vines, said that she wasn’t aware of Appelbaum’s presentation, but that in general should would not comment on “alleged foreign intelligence activities.”

“As we’ve said before, NSA’s focus is on targeting the communications of valid foreign intelligence targets – not on collecting and exploiting a class of communications or services that would sweep up communications that are not of bona fide foreign intelligence interest to the U.S. government.”

Spiegel (select quotes):

The insert method and other variants of QUANTUM are closely linked to a shadow network operated by the NSA alongside the Internet, with its own, well-hidden infrastructure comprised of “covert” routers and servers. It appears the NSA also incorporates routers and servers from non-NSA networks into its covert network by infecting these networks with “implants” that then allow the government hackers to control the computers remotely. (Click here to read a related article on the NSA’s “implants”.)

In this way, the intelligence service seeks to identify and track its targets based on their digital footprints. These identifiers could include certain email addresses or website cookies set on a person’s computer. Of course, a cookie doesn’t automatically identify a person, but it can if it includes additional information like an email address. In that case, a cookie becomes something like the web equivalent of a fingerprint.

Once TAO teams have gathered sufficient data on their targets’ habits, they can shift into attack mode, programming the QUANTUM systems to perform this work in a largely automated way. If a data packet featuring the email address or cookie of a target passes through a cable or router monitored by the NSA, the system sounds the alarm. It determines what website the target person is trying to access and then activates one of the intelligence service’s covert servers, known by the codename FOXACID.

This NSA server coerces the user into connecting to NSA covert systems rather than the intended sites. In the case of Belgacom engineers, instead of reaching the LinkedIn page they were actually trying to visit, they were also directed to FOXACID servers housed on NSA networks. Undetected by the user, the manipulated page transferred malware already custom tailored to match security holes on the target person’s computer …

At the same time, it is in no way true to say that the NSA has its sights set exclusively on select individuals. Of even greater interest are entire networks and network providers, such as the fiber optic cables that direct a large share of global Internet traffic along the world’s ocean floors.

One document labeled “top secret” and “not for foreigners” describes the NSA’s success in spying on the “SEA-ME-WE-4” cable system. This massive underwater cable bundle connects Europe with North Africa and the Gulf states and then continues on through Pakistan and India, all the way to Malaysia and Thailand. The cable system originates in southern France, near Marseille. Among the companies that hold ownership stakes in it are France Telecom, now known as Orange and still partly government-owned, and Telecom Italia Sparkle.

The document proudly announces that, on Feb. 13, 2013, TAO “successfully collected network management information for the SEA-Me-We Undersea Cable Systems (SMW-4).” With the help of a “website masquerade operation,” the agency was able to “gain access to the consortium’s management website and collected Layer 2 network information that shows the circuit mapping for significant portions of the network.”

It appears the government hackers succeeded here once again using the QUANTUMINSERT method.

The document states that the TAO team hacked an internal website of the operator consortium and copied documents stored there pertaining to technical infrastructure …

Take, for example, when they intercept shipping deliveries. If a target person, agency or company orders a new computer or related accessories, for example, TAO can divert the shipping delivery to its own secret workshops. The NSA calls this method interdiction. At these so-called “load stations,” agents carefully open the package in order to load malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies. All subsequent steps can then be conducted from the comfort of a remote computer.

These minor disruptions in the parcel shipping business rank among the “most productive operations” conducted by the NSA hackers, one top secret document relates in enthusiastic terms. This method, the presentation continues, allows TAO to obtain access to networks “around the world.”

Now for my own commentary.  I overheard a television commercial over Christmas state something like “we believe in helping children reach their creative potentials and then creating their own future,” or some claptrap like that.

I don’t believe that, as I’ve explained before.  The thieves stealing your information and invading your privacy were once creative children too.  Creativity can be turned towards good or evil.  The moral rot and decay in America has produced the totalitarianism under which we now suffer.  The NSA is a sign of the wickedness of our society.  I am not giving excuse to individuals inside the NSA who do this, for it is not society but individuals who do these things.  But I’m remarking on the general cultural, religious, theological and moral darkness that pervades our world.

I am not sanguine about our immediate future.  Oh yes, I have guns and ammunition.  And I know how to use them.  So do a lot of my readers.  But regardless of what happens in our near term and far term future, without addressing the moral rot that caused this situation, we cannot move forward – not with a new constitution, not with a constitutional convention, not with a new revolution.  These things don’t change the heart of man.

The nearest I can see to a solution, albeit a temporary band aid, is secession, in part because of the fact that my location, i.e., the South, has not yet so completely thrown off the garments of our orthodox Christian heritage.  This is not so much a solution for other places, which would doubtless devolve into totalitarianism and anarchy in dialectic tension in short order.

I know this is a long way from the original subject of the post, but with no hesitation and no apology, I unequivocally assert that if you believe that all of your training, all of your tactics, all of your firearms, all of your ammunition, and all of your passion for whatever you have passion, are some sort of fix for moral darkness, you are sadly mistaken, and you will eventually learn this.

This country has far greater problems than how many guns I own.  The kind of behavior we are witnessing from the NSA is consistent with Nazi Germany, Communist China, the Soviet Union and North Korea.  The America I once knew has almost faded from memory, and exists no more.  I have hope that one day it will be born anew, but I know that it will not happen within the present moral darkness and relativism.

UPDATE: The Daily Dot.  The NSA has nearly complete backdoor access to Apple’s iPhone.

UPDATE #2: Zero Hedge, How The NSA Hacks Your iPhone.

Kurt Hofmann:

As a wheelchair-bound paraplegic (and owner of multiple so-called “assault weapons”), this correspondent is quite familiar with the issue.

Yeah, read all of Kurt’s article here.  He’s dealing with the fact that the so-called assault weapons ban is highly opposed by the disabled.  I’ll bet so.  I was entering a home just yesterday in which I didn’t know who or what (animal) was there to do me harm (I won’t go into the details of what home or why I was there). I did room clearing exercises for about ten minutes before I went to work on what I went there to do.  I moved freely and without hindrance, but as dictated by the room layout and the general rules for performing such tactical maneuvers.  I never paused to think about how something like this would be done if I was disabled.  Limiting the weaponry you allow a disabled person to use – or anyone for that matter – is morally obscene.

David Codrea:

Since this column was published, the errant link now goes to a page that states …

Read the rest.  My bet is that David’s column pressured the Illinois police into doing their jobs.  Speaking, you know, of the morally obscene as we were.

Via Uncle, Only Guns and Money reports:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has released a poll today that shows only 40% of Americans want universal background checks at gun shows. The difference in the poll results is because contextual detail was added to the question. Instead of asking do you want to close the “gun show loophole” or other such nonsense, the poll points out that most sales at gun shows are conducted with background checks and are by FFLs.

The poll goes further. Only 39% of respondents thought that requiring a background check for transferring a firearm between friends or family members would reduce violent crime. That’s a long way from 90% in my calculations.

But my readers always knew it was a lie from the beginning.

Mike Vanderboegh is pressing ahead with his “Toys for Jerks” program, which he covers here, here, here, here, here, and so on.  Go read his site for updates periodically.

The New York Times admits gun reporting screw ups here.  If you’re interested go take a look.  It goes to show that the writers for the NYT don’t know anything about guns – or even rudimentary mathematics like measurements and fractions.  But you knew that already, didn’t you?  Perhaps before landing a job reporting for the NYT, they ought to require that their reporters go get a real job for ten or fifteen years first, you know, something like pouring and finishing concrete, doing steel rigging, welding, roofing, carpentry, etc.  A real job.  Instead of what they do.

A couple of weeks ago Slate reported on mass shootings in America.  It turns out that they aren’t on the rise, and that they are not committed by mentally unstable people who suddenly snap.  They are committed by evil people bent on wicked behavior, and their numbers have been pretty stable.  But as a regular reader, you knew that already, didn’t you?  No, seriously, you already knew this.

Denver Post:

It’s a wonderful season.  The wife is cooking and making gifts, it’s time to retreat from work and relax, and it’s time to remember the birth of the Christ.

If Christ was merely a good man or example for us, then there is no perfect sacrifice as a vicarious atonement for our sins.  But He was God incarnate, and thus we have a savior.

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emanuel, while translated means, ‘God With us'” (Matthew 1:24, NASB).

We remember this event on which all of history turns and upon which all of history depends by giving gifts.  This isn’t necessary to remember and worship Christ, but it has become customary.  My wife honored me with this.

A 32 gun safe.  Oh, and just for good measure, she bought me another nice weapon to go inside (you’ll soon see pictures of this too).  And notice the power cord attached.  No flashlights necessary to see inside.

Merry Christmas from me and my family to you and yours.  God bless you for the new year.  Worship the new born King.

The man credited with the design of the AK-47, Michail Kalashnokov, is dead at 94.  The boys at reddit/guns are in mourning and shock.  But it’s Soviet propaganda that makes him the sole designer of the weapon.

Exactly how the winning design was created remains murky, but contrary to Soviet propaganda, it is clear that Kalashnikov got plenty of help — not only from other Russian konstruktors but (more embarrassing) from a captured German arms designer, Hugo Schmeisser, who during World War II had created an early assault rifle (the Sturmgewehr) that bore an uncanny resemblance to what became the AK-47. But even though the AK-47 was the product of considerable collaboration, it was Kalashnikov who got the glory. He was twice named a Hero of Socialist Labor and acquired sufficient riches to buy a refrigerator, vacuum cleaner and automobile — all scarce commodities in postwar Russia. Eventually he would become a lieutenant general and a world-famous symbol of the Soviet arms industry.

I will always be a fan and advocate of the Stoner design, and as an engineer I like and appreciate the tight tolerances on my AR-15.  It’s a precise and well functioning weapon, and I don’t like the feel of the clanking and rattling of the AK-47.

Around my house we speak the name of Eugene Stoner with hushed reverence.  However, there is no questioning the fact that the name Kalashnikov is significant around the world, and the weapon named after him has been an important feature of modern world history – just as has the Stoner design.

Reno-Gazzete-Journal:

If we have learned anything in the year that has passed since 20 young children and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. (also dead were the shooter, Adam Lanza, and his mother, Nancy), it’s that Americans are incapable of having a rational discussion of the role of guns in our lives no matter how many tragedies they have endured.On the first anniversary of the shooting, President Barack Obama called for new gun-control measures, but there will be none. There won’t even be a serious discussion of the possibility of trying to stanch the flood of guns in this nation. Congress and most states gave short shrift to gun-control measures in the past year, and, in Colorado, one state that approved minor changes in the law, lawmakers found themselves the target of a well-financed recall campaign. Already, two have lost their posts.

Oh, we’re quite able to talk about guns.  We have non-stop for more than one year now, and before then always when the collectivists are in office.  It’s just that the country has listened and replied a resounding no.  The collectivists don’t like the answer, and thus the charge that “we can’t talk about it,” or in other words, we can’t talk you into our plans for national disarmament and reservation of the use of force to government forces of occupation no matter what falsehood we purvey.

Joe Manchin knows the same to be true.

Sen. Joe Manchin says rounding up the votes to pass a bill creating background checks for gun purchases next year is going to be “difficult.”

While saying he’s “hopeful” that some would change their minds, the West Virginia Democrat acknowledged there are Democrats who opposed the bill creating background checks for gun purchases.

“Hopefully, they would maybe reconsider,” Manchin said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s going to be difficult to get the extra votes that we need. I’m going to be honest with you.”

Manchin, a gun owner who had a top rating from the National Rifle Association, negotiated a background check bill with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut. But the measure stalled in the Senate in April when it failed to get the needed 60 votes to advance.

Manchin said gun owners didn’t oppose background checks in theory but were concerned that government wouldn’t stop with checks.

Note that Joe still has hopes of disarmament of the American people, he just thinks it won’t work.  He hasn’t lost his progressive, collectivist credentials.  Once a totalitarian, always a totalitarian – a lesson we hope that America has learned well when it comes time to cast a vote for gun grabber Chris Christie.

And as for universal background checks, we all know that it wouldn’t stop there.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t oppose universal background checks on principle.  I oppose it whether it leads anywhere else or not.  It has nothing to do with crime.  That’s just a lie told by the hive.

Salon:

Imagine you’ve volunteered to participate in a study on a college campus. You arrive to find the lab somewhat cluttered: There’s a badminton racquet and some shuttlecocks on a table. The researchers tell you to ignore that stuff — it’s for a different study. They hook you up to a machine that administers electric shocks, and hand the controls to another participant like yourself. He zaps you. Repeatedly. (He’s secretly part of the research team, following specific instructions — but as far as you know he’s just being a jerk.) Now it’s your turn to zap him. How many shocks will you administer?

Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePage repeated this experiment with 100 male students at the University of Wisconsin, sometimes replacing the badminton equipment with a revolver and shotgun (or no stimulus at all). They found that participants administered more electric shocks when in the presence of guns. According to Berkowitz and LePage, the weapons were “aggressive cues.”

A later study at the University of Utah refined our understanding of the weapons effect. Psychologists watched the behavior of drivers stuck at an intersection behind a truck that wouldn’t budge when the light turned green. Sometimes there was a gun displayed in the truck’s rear window and sometimes there wasn’t. The researchers observed that people honked more often when they saw the gun.

Recent experiments have shown that even when nobody has been tormenting you with electric shocks or inciting your road rage, you’ll react to a gun differently than you’d react to other objects in your environment. You’ll automatically see the gun as a threat, without even realizing it.

“The ‘threat superiority effect’ is the tendency for people to be able to pick out very quickly in their environment things that might pose a threat to their security — anything that might be dangerous,” explains Isabelle Blanchette, a professor of psychology at the University of Quebec. “People have a tendency to be able to see these things before they see other things.”

When I read this article I didn’t imagine at all that I volunteered for a study.  What I did imagine is a world in which psychologists have to train in something useful and worthwhile to mankind and get a real job that earns a living doing something good and productive with their time.

But it was all just a day dream.  The “threat superiority effect.”  There you have it.  I assume that there were some government dollars in their somewhere.  And that’s what you’re promulgating to the world when you openly carry a weapon.  Threat superiority.

Okay.  If they say so.

David Codrea:

Against armed sociopaths, unarmed protection is severely limited, and New Jersey gun laws ensure the advantage goes to the predators.

Like I discussed here, you can contrast that with shall issue states.  The picture is stark and self explanatory.  Gun control laws are unsafe.  They prevent people from doing their duty of defending themselves and their loved ones.  Thus they are all evil.

David  Codrea:

What is immediately noticeable is a total absence of anyone even remotely sympathetic to an individual and uninfringed right to keep and bear arms having a position of influence in the seminar. While some with an eye toward safeguarding America’s unique intended protections may attend to keep apprised of the latest developments, others with a less tolerant and patent view of meddling internationalists plotting to undermine their rights …

I’ve covered their meddling here.  To me this is simple.  If I won’t allow the U.S. federal government to steal my firearms, I certainly won’t allow foreign bodies – armed or not – to do the same.  Case closed.  If you want conflict, bring it.  ‘Nuff said.

Kurt Hofmann:

Comparing gun control to the Holocaust is one of a number of faulty and offensive analogies the gun rights movement has used to illegitimize [sic] gun reform measures.

Kurt is covering the progressive Jewish reaction to the use of the holocaust to assess gun control measures.  I saw this too and hadn’t commented on it, and Mr. Abraham Foxman says to us, “No matter how strong one’s objections are to a policy or how committed an organization is to its mission, invoking the Holocaust to score political points is offensive and has no place in civil discourse.”  Well, let me respond by saying that a hit dog always yelps, and if the comparison is valid, I’ll make it any time I want.  Oh, and don’t tell me what to do, Mr. Foxman.

Uncle notes that Mayors against guns merges with Moms Demand Action.  I see this as a sign of weakness rather than strength.  Sort of like when Ansar al Sunna merged with al Qaeda in Iraq when both began to lose to the U.S. Marines deployed in the Anbar Province.  Did I just really make that comparison?  I guess I did.  So be it.

David Codrea:

“He has given his life to the community,” Owens said in court. “I’m not sure how much more punishment is actually appropriate.” [More]Maybe you could find instances where someone without a badge has “accidentally” shot a cop and that would give you a pretty good benchmark…

Gave his life to the community?  You mean to tell me that he didn’t get paid for his work all of those years?  He did it all for free?

Star Tribune:

A northeast Minneapolis man interrupted an armed and bloody robbery at a corner market in his neighborhood, saying he sent the two suspects fleeing when he drew his handgun from his holster and had it “at the ready.”

Store owner Mohamed S. Ahmed, 41, had the “back of his skull split open pretty good” from being pistol-whipped by one of the suspects, said Matt Dosser, who came upon the unfolding crime scene and cared for Ahmed until police arrived.

Police said Wednesday that the armed citizen, who said he has a so-called “permit to carry,”  acted with honor and probably saved Ahmed’s life. But, they added, holding such a permit does not mean having the same law-enforcing rights as a police officer.

[ … ]

Dosser said he was out for a walk and the two people, possibly in their late teens, “were pounding on the window of the store. … They seemed really agitated, super agitated.”

At first, “nothing made sense, then I saw the gun” that one of the two had, Dosser continued.

The gunman “turned around and looked at me,” Dosser said. “He stared at me. I had my weapon up. I didn’t point the gun at the person. I had it at the ready, out of the holster.

In 2003, Minnesota’s so-called “shall issue” permit law took effect, making it easier for residents to carry loaded weapons in public.

Police spokesman John Elder said that what Dosser did “was a noble thing. He acted honorably. Did this person possibly save [Ahmed’s] life? Absolutely.”

However, Elder continued, “The permit system is different, obviously, than having a police officer’s license. … When people get a permit to carry, they are instructed not to intercede into a crime that is occurring. It’s solely for personal protection.”

Leave it to the police to throw a wet blanket on the honorable act by setting themselves apart from citizens, just so that you know.  It’s important to them that you know they are special.

He’s lying anyway (see Castle Rock v. Gonzales).  Regarding the incident above, the man’s life was probably saved, and even if not, he got medical assistance sooner than would otherwise be the case.

In contrast, folks in Newark, New Jersey are facing an epidemic of crime.

Short Hills, New Jersey (My9NJ) – The two suspects wanted for the recent shooting of a young lawyer in front of his wife during a carjacking gone terribly wrong at Short Hills Mall, are still at large.

The couples’ stolen SUV was found the following day abandoned in Newark and New Jersey’s largest city ranks among the top in the nation for vehicle thefts.

There are about 400 carjackings a year in Essex County alone. While Los Angeles and New York rank high in carjackings, Newark takes the cake.

In fact, people in Newark are known for posting videos of stolen cars doing drag races, donuts and drifting in the streets. Often times, in the videos, you can see cop cars chasing the reckless divers on the city’s main streets.

Perhaps the motorists need guns for protection, and I’m willing to lay good money on the notion that the carjackings would stop if several of these criminals got shot during the act.

Er … oh yea.  New Jersey isn’t a shall issue state.  And Chris Christie – presumed candidate for the highest office in the land in several years and who made his fame pushing gun control – was unavailable for comment.

History News Network: