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Comment by Freak_NL | Hacker News Reader

That student's account of meeting those AIVD suits reads like a spy-thriller fanfic, but if it's true then he's pretty brave publishing it like this.

I'm sure the AIVD's cyber division has some talent, but the AIVD leadership is pretty naive about the internet. Last year the director publicly criticized WhatsApp for providing end-to-end encryption because it makes his job harder. Sure. It's not as if any half-decent terrorist wouldn't use advanced cryptography or simply use burner phones to plan and coordinate their attacks.

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Maybe, but remember that people used to laugh about the capacities of the FBI (and to some extent the NSA) before the Snowden leaks...

Besides, high level statements like that (that make the main stream media) aren't meant to be factually correct or framed considering all nuances. It's political maneuvering. People don't always mean literally what they say; part of social intelligence is understanding this, and being able to read between the lines. I wish I had learned about this 2 decades ago. I guess us computer types aren't predisposed to have this come natural to us.

You'd be surpised: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151118/08474732854/after...

Naive or pushing a narrative to people who are naive themselves.

Pushing a narrative to people who are naive themselves or pushing a narrative about pushing a narrative to people who are naive themselves to people who are naive themselves.

Re: brave publishing it like this

I wonder if he could (potentially) be prosecuted for it; the exchange includes "information reasonably assumed confidential."

Artikel 85 Wet op de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten 2002 http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0013409/2017-01-01#Hoofdstuk7

I doubt a judge would find that this article of law applies here; for relaying what a private citizen was told by two strangers who approached him for a job offer without any prior contact, without engaging his professional services or hearing him formally as part of an ongoing investigation, and without formally requesting his cooperation in keeping certain information private. If someone from an agency such as the AIVD tells you something in public, you can reasonably assume (one of the definitions of that article) that it is not subject to secrecy.

Having more encrypted traffic definitely makes spying harder.

It's a lot easier to track, store, and attempt to crack one single terrorist's encrypted traffic in a sea of non-encrypted traffic, than try to pick out the terrorist's encrypted traffic in a sea of other encrypted traffic.

If terrorists are the only ones using encryption, then their traffic will stick out like a sore thumb. While if everyone uses encryption, their traffic will simply blend in.

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