An NSA-Proof Twitter, Built With Code From Bitcoin and BitTorrent

The math for systems like this is pretty well vetted; considering that DHTs have been used in a number of projects for over a decade, any flaw that the NSA knows about almost certainly would have spilled out into the rest of the world by now. There are theoretical attacks against portions of this -- the 51% attack against the bittorrent protocol for signing IDs -- but in practice, they'd be very very difficult to actually pull off. Yes, a "few people" implemented it, but it's all pieces that have been vetted elsewhere.

And just to forestall obvious retorts based on Bitcoin and any and all other brilliant, game changing systems conceived of and implemented by small teams: That such teams can change the game, can occasionally create things sui generis, does not in any way diminish the possibility of a large, well funded, well staffed, and incredibly well resourced organization like the NSA from either having access via a) other channels (all crypto runs on hardware eventually, and all hardware gives out heat and makes noise - even if our ears cannot hear it; learn enough about waste emissions from hardware and you figure out what's going inside - and that's just one vector in the compute channel, let's not forget there are socially engineerable and occasionally corruptible people involved too!) or b) direct attacks on the crypto and other masking technologies themselves, because these guys - the NSA, I mean, keep up :-> - may just know that much.

I've never worked directly in areas that would give me first hand knowledge of any of the above (and I had, I would likely be committing a crime writing this) but I have worked long enough and deeply enough in adjacent areas to have an inkling of just how powerful an adversary (in the technical threat-risk-assessment sense) the NSA is. Or may be.

So to say that your latest weekend project is somehow proof against them? Hmm, I tend to, uh, at least dubiousness ("Well, have you considered this vector, and this combination of catastrophic failures?"), if not directly to outright scoffing ("Mwa ha ha, you're so sweetly naive, have a biscuit").

I tend not to worry about the NSA and others of their ilk because none of my shit is worth enough or is interesting enough to be of value to them. In aggregate? Who knows, good question. I tend not to worry about that either, though, because I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of other more interesting fish. I do worry about the potential erosion of civil liberties, but so long as we have the EFF and Michael Geist, I tend to feel a bit better and worry less.

The headline is over the top, but the article was pretty levelheaded. From the penultimate paragraph:

"[...] Freitas points out that if someone is monitoring your internet traffic — or mass monitoring internet users — they’d still be able to find your IP address (Freitas suggests those looking for additional protection consider the Tor Project‘s anonmity software)."

well it makes it much more difficult for the NSA to spy, those systems are much better than centralized ones.

what are you complaining about ? at least there are ways to circumvent the NSA other than political ones.

The leaks show the NSA had a hard time exploiting the Tor network. It's much more thought-out than this project, but in the beginning it too was just hacked together by a few clever people.

Not if you live in a dictatorship.

Dictators hate seeing the image of their harmonious society shattered by people telling it like it is. China, Iran, etc, block twitter because they let people speak their minds with less fear of retribution. An NSA-proof version means they can't do anything to ensure that everyone toes the party line.

The message is meant to be read, but the user behind the alias may not be public.

Yes the point of Twitter is to shout out stuff, but if NSA wanted to, it could shut you up permanently, that's why Twister is fighting against censorship, not for your privacy.

you can send direct messages as well that are private

Yes it is. And so is Twister. But the millions who use Twitter to quietly follow people/things could potentially be profiled [1] and labeled ''terrorist™'' by association.

> Twister is designed to prevent other users from knowing (...) who you follow.

Essentially, Twister prevents the NSA from profiling you as an 'undesirable' based on who you follow.

[1] http://www.cs.umd.edu/~golbeck/pubs/Golbeck%20et%20al.%20-%2...

I think they use something like namecoin to store usernames and public keys,and laso increasing the number of registered users from 20 millin in namecoin which is quite limited, and combine it with a distributed dB for message storage and anonymous networking.

Also adding advertising as paymemt for security is smart and I could see it enabling companies in that area.

Who is to say NSA are not "Satoshi Nakamoto" after all the code is of very high quality that was likely done by a team not a single person.

Just buzzword used for cashgrab.