Blame the CIA? Top 30 Bush - Iraq Lies Debunked BEFORE The Invasion

CVX · Post by **CVX** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 9:50 pm

Since the release of a blistering report by a U.S. Senate committee blaming the CIA for miserable intelligence leading to our pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, the White House and its apologists have had a field day pointing their fingers anywhere and everywhere except where it most certainly belongs...at the White House.

After the incomprehensible incompetence and abhorrent, deceptive tactics used by both the Bush and Blair administrations, you would think that they would let sleeping dogs lie.

Full story at:

http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/000181.php

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 4:49 pm

i strongly disagree. the FBI has a long and infamous history of bungling investigations, poisoning the chain of evidence, losing evidence, evidence tampering, gross incompetence, gross arrogance, and recklessness. and that's before lunchtime! truly, the FBI is one of the most dangerous federal agencies that has ever existed. The CIA, in a post-coldwar era, has not adapted fast enough to the completely different threat posed by the "muslim" religious fanaticism in the mideast, and was caught with its pants down with 9/11.

add to that the abhorrent unwillingness of the two organizations to work together for the last, oh, 50 years, and you have disaster.

who is to blame for 9/11? blaming the cia, blaming the fbi, blaming bush - all are bullshit. who is to blame? the terrorists who did it. period.

hindsight is 20/20.

CVX · Post by **CVX** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 6:23 pm

anastrophe wrote: i strongly disagree. the FBI has a long and infamous history of bungling investigations, poisoning the chain of evidence, losing evidence, evidence tampering, gross incompetence, gross arrogance, and recklessness. and that's before lunchtime! truly, the FBI is one of the most dangerous federal agencies that has ever existed. The CIA, in a post-coldwar era, has not adapted fast enough to the completely different threat posed by the "muslim" religious fanaticism in the mideast, and was caught with its pants down with 9/11.

add to that the abhorrent unwillingness of the two organizations to work together for the last, oh, 50 years, and you have disaster.

who is to blame for 9/11? blaming the cia, blaming the fbi, blaming bush - all are bullshit. who is to blame? the terrorists who did it. period.

hindsight is 20/20.

Anastrophe, you really turned the tables on me on this one. I thought you were going down another path, but you switched-back!

I agree with you. It is really easy to point the blame everywhere but at the real source: The Terrorists.

I also agree with your assessment with the CIA and FBI. However, there is a lot of good being done behind the scenes that you or I never ever hear about.

The dubious FBI performance over the past several high profile cases is embarrassing. I wonder if they don't have the proper oversight? They are also the agency that seems to have an inordinate amount of trouble with getting their things stolen.

It seems that it is almost every week that you read about an FBI agent's guns or laptop computers getting stolen from their cars or wherever. I find that amazing.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 3:18 am

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/ ... efault.stm

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=159

Don't know what you make of michael moore but you can read the 9/11 commission report yourself and draw your own concluscions.

After the incomprehensible incompetence and abhorrent, deceptive tactics used by both the Bush and Blair administrations, you would think that they would let sleeping dogs lie.

Don't know about the US but this isn't going away in the UK. TB would dearly love people to stop talking about Iraq. There is a motion tabled at the labour party conference calling for an immediate withdrawal of British Troops. He could be in for a very rough ride indeed.

Bill Sikes · Post by **Bill Sikes** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 5:02 am

CVX wrote: It seems that it is almost every week that you read about an FBI agent's guns or laptop computers getting stolen from their cars or wherever. I find that amazing.

I find it absolutely amazing that anyone, in any organisation, is allowed to

store any sensitive information *at all*, about anything, on a laptop.

I also find it incomprehensible that any branch of the Services uses Microsoft

software in critical capacities - not that the software isn't up to the job, but

because of the number of cracks against these products.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 2:17 pm

Bill Sikes wrote: I find it absolutely amazing that anyone, in any organisation, is allowed to

store any sensitive information *at all*, about anything, on a laptop.

I also find it incomprehensible that any branch of the Services uses Microsoft

software in critical capacities - not that the software isn't up to the job, but

because of the number of cracks against these products.
it's trivial to reliably secure the data on a laptop. it takes an investment of $60 for PGP desktop software, which allows you to create encrypted volumes on the disk. the great part about it is that you can create a volume, using say 256bit twofish encryption, tie it to your PGP identity with 2048bit cypher, and within the volume, create *another* volume, using 256bit AES encryption, tied to a randomly created username and passphrase.

the most powerful computer that might exist ten years from now *might* be able to crack that with 100 years of processing time.

Bill Sikes · Post by **Bill Sikes** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 2:05 am

anastrophe wrote: it's trivial to reliably secure the data on a laptop. it takes an investment of $60 for PGP desktop software, which allows you to create encrypted volumes on the disk. the great part about it is that you can create a volume, using say 256bit twofish encryption, tie it to your PGP identity with 2048bit cypher, and within the volume, create *another* volume, using 256bit AES encryption, tied to a randomly created username and passphrase.

It's easy to do anything, in theory. It's not trivial to reliably secure data, though, and it's not done.

anastrophe wrote: the most powerful computer that might exist ten years from now *might* be able to crack that with 100 years of processing time.

They were saying things like that a couple of years ago about stuff which has now been cracked.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:32 am

Bill Sikes wrote: It's easy to do anything, in theory. It's not trivial to reliably secure data, though, and it's not done.
sooo....you're saying i'm lying? i've done this myself. it works. it's easy. it's secure. and the software only costs $60. what part of what i wrote was false?

i'd have no problem handing over my laptop to the FBI, CIA, or NSA.

They were saying things like that a couple of years ago about stuff which has now been cracked.
cracking a single 256bit encrypted item is only currently possible using distributed computing, wherein hundred of thousands of personal computers work on the problem. such an encryption can be cracked with a few years of running. cracking a 2048bit passphrase is currently impossible in any practical view. then cracking the second 256bit encrypted volume inside starts you back at the beginning once you've succeeded with the first two.

and no, they were not saying things like what i originally wrote a couple of years ago. they were saying that it would take one then-current computer hundreds of years to crack it, which was and is true. they did not figure in distributed computing. and of course, distributed computing is useless for actually decrypting something that has been encrypted for reasons other than attempting to prove the thesis - good luck getting hundreds of thousands of people to allow their computers to be used to actually try to break into the data on behalf a government agency. so eliminating distributed computing, the very thing that was cracked can't currently be cracked by even the most powerful current computers or even clusters of them.

so i stand by my claim that a 256bit encryption tied to a 2048bit cypher that must be broken first before going after the second 256bit encryption is not going to be possible unless you harness the power of every computer on earth that will exist in ten years, dedicate all their resources to solving the problem, and leave them all running for a hundred years.

okay, i'll back off a little from that. in five years, using every computer on earth, dedicating all their resources to the problem, they'll be able to crack it in two months. how's that?

again, good luck harnessing those resources. of course, in five years, it'll be that much easier to do a 1024bit/4096bit/1024bit scheme. best of luck to you going after that. the sun will have gone supernova by the time you're finished.

better get started now! :driving:

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:13 pm

to provide some real-world info to back up my statements:

distributed.net is the organization that has been doing distributed decryption tests. in october 1997, after 250 days of work, a 56bit RC5 encryption algorithm was brute force decoded. this was with 26,000 PC's of that 'era'.

in july of 2002, after 1,757 days of work (4.81 years, continuous), a 64bit RC5 encryption algorithm was brute force decoded. this was using (over the course of the entire project) 331,000 PC's of that 'era' (equivalent to 46,000 2GHz AMD Athlon XP machines).

ongoing at this time, begun december 2002, is the decryption of a 72bit RC5 encryption. there are 10,000 PC's currently active on the project. it's been running for just under two years. 118 billion keys are being tested per second. there are 8 octillion total keys to be searched. the project is currently 0.145% complete.

my description is of a 256bit encryption, tied to a 2048bit encryption, with a 256bit encryption inside.

Bill Sikes · Post by **Bill Sikes** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:29 am

anastrophe wrote: sooo....you're saying i'm lying?

Fine, whatever... if you can't see the point, which is that it isn't so trivial to use

strong encryption that people actually do it, the proof being that people, many

of whom should know better, *do* get data stolen, then tough - and if you don't

stop trying to throw your weight about, I shall you. Got it?

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:19 am

Bill Sikes wrote: Fine, whatever... if you can't see the point, which is that it isn't so trivial to use

strong encryption that people actually do it, the proof being that people, many

of whom should know better, *do* get data stolen, then tough - and if you don't

stop trying to throw your weight about, I shall you. Got it?
'throwing [my] weight about'? huh?

if providing *facts* to back up my argument is throwing my weight about, then i guess i am. i realize that facts are very annoying, particularly when they contradict fictions, as you presented.

you've provided only a 'proof' that people are irresponsible, not that strong encryption is ineffective, not possible, and/or "not done".

obviously, we are not going to hear it reported in the news that "a laptop containing sensitive government secrets has been stolen, but the data is encrypted so it poses no danger". we will only hear about the failures to do so by irresponsible parties. i'd wager that tens of thousands of government workers use laptops, store sensitive information on them, and use appropriate encryption to protect their data. that, however, is speculation. i'm happy to acknowledge when i speculate.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:59 am

to be fair in my assessment of all this, however, i should acknowledge that i'm an advanced user in this area, so if i'm honest that is certainly 'tinting' my few of the relative ease with which this is done.

i find it darned easy though. click on 'PGP Disk', click on 'create new volume', give it a passphrase, give it some random data (by moving the mouse around), and within a few seconds i have an encrypted volume of any size i like. that doesn't seem terribly difficult to me.