I think I'm totally fine with this. The only issue I can see is whether or not the warrants to hack these servers are justified. Warrants should be issued when there's good reason to suspect criminal activity, and if they're issued to search obviously innocent people then that's wrong, just like all other warranted searches or spying that don't involve computers or hacking.
The reason why drive by attacks are so effective is that often you don't even have to visit the site intentionally.
One "trusted" site with some malware can be used to attack people that never actually intentionally visit it, whether be by normal content syndication or by the same attackers using exploits in other sites (content injection) or spamming links, embedding HTML content in emails etc.
What also is important to note that drive by attacks in most cases exploit browser vulnerabilities unless the FBI is really stooping so low to basically run "download codec" or "update flash player" type of phishing attacks that actually depend on the user downloading and running an executable they'll also have to maintain a large enough repository of zero day attacks that target browsers.
Now the problem with "cyber warfare" is that it's basically return to the old days of throwing rocks, one of the reasons we've switched from rocks to bullets is not only because bullets are more effective but because the enemy can't pick up a bullet and shoot it back at you.
When you distribute malware to attack your targets you giving them a rock that can be just as easily turned on you or anyone else, and considering that at least some substantial portion of their intended targets are individuals with sufficient knowledge in computer security to be able to pick up that rock you are now having the FBI handing out zero days to criminals.
> One "trusted" site with some malware can be used to attack people that never actually intentionally visit it
The only thing that bothers me about this is that someone could deliberately embed an iframe of the bugged website similar to a SWATTING attack. So far that doesn't seem to be happening though?
It does, or did, browsers are better protected against iframe injection and various click jacking attacks but it still can happen.
If the FBI has a zero day that doesn't need anything but the content being loaded by the browser to execute code on the target you can easily spread it to anyone you like via content injection, email phishing, old school simply via social media "hey look at this http://goo.gl/P!shing"...
Also since many zero days affect things like flash or the rendering engine it self and thus could be simply exploited via images or any other embedded object you could even do it easier by simply adding that png or webm with the exploit to every forum, blog post, tweet etc.
If you care enough about privacy to sign up for protonmail, why not just learn how to use pgp? It's not perfect, but it works. And... oh goodness, I'm looking at this [support page][1]; If you send encrypted mail to non-protonmail addresses, the recipients have to open the message in a web browser and enter in a password to read it. So instead of exchanging public keys, you have to send them a password, probably over an unencrypted channel. I guess it's easier than asking them to generate a keypair. But if your recipient is too lazy to set up pgp, they're probably going to be just as annoyed at having to open your message in a browser and enter in a password, right? It seems like an awkward compromise.
Even Phil Zimmermann, PGP's creator, says it's too hard to use:
“I hardly ever run PGP. When people send me PGP encrypted mail I have to go through a lot of trouble to decrypt it. If it’s coming from a stranger, I’ll say please re-send this in plain text, which probably raises their eyebrows.“
I tried the ProtonMail password protection feature today (which is optional; you can just send plain text email to non ProtonMail accounts if you wish – this is the default, but you can click a lock to password-protect any outgoing message).
The feature is well done, and I can see people using it to exchange secure mail, particularly if the recipient does not have a ProtonMail account. It has a built-in 'send secure reply' feature once you've entered the password as the recipient. This allows you to read the message and reply in-browser without returning to your email client, and without having a ProtonMail account, so both the outgoing message and the reply stay more secure than regular email throughout your conversation.
This could be helpful for a wide range of uses, including support email that involves transferring login info and logs.
The read and reply flow looks like this to the logged-out recipient:
"PGP is hard to use" is more memetic than accurate. What makes PGP hard is that it has a million options, and its vocal users (and detractors) seem insistent on availing themselves of as many of them as possible.
In reality, 80% of PGP's value (which is more value than you'll get out of any webmail system), you can get with three command lines:
gpg -sear recipient@addr document.txt
Encrypt and sign a document, ASCII armored for inclusion in a 7-bit email, to a specific person or persons
gpg -a --export my@addr
Dump your public key for out-of-band transmission to the peer you're exchanging messages with
gpg document.txt.asc
Decrypt a message sent to you by someone else.
No keyservers. No subkeys. No crazy formatting. No exotic key types. Send a message to someone, read a message back from them.
You don't get forward secrecy (unless you manually rotate keys). You don't get peer validation unless you do it manually. You don't get real time chat. You can't encrypt a videoconference. On the other hand: you won't be the subject of someone's amusing blog post a year from now, either, because PGP used this way has been reliable for something like 15 years running.
Everyone I know who actually uses PGP, like for real, more than a couple times a year, uses it pretty much this way.
If a browser provides an OpenPGP API, than how would I know whether or not a website uses it properly? What is to stop a compromised webmail provider from serving me a web page that claims to use this API to encrypt my message before sending it, but also simply sends the plain text message captured from the mail composition page along?
You are typing your sensitive message right there in the browser, in the web page provided by them, with JavaScript provided by them, which can simply send whatever you type directly to their (compromised) server.
This means OpenPGP in the browser is technically feasible, but very insecure because a third party can access the data before it is encrypted. To make a browser provided OpenPGP API work, it would have to provide the input area where you type your confidential message in a way that makes it clear it is the browser that provides it, and the web page JavaScript cannot access it before encryption. This is of course exactly what stand-alone e-mail clients do, so why implement it in the browser?
> 80% of PGP's value ... you can get with three command lines:
While I completely agree that those commands are all that is needed most of the time, it's this part that unfortunately makes pgp/gpg so unpopular:
> command lines
Even on HN I find people that hate the command line (even though they use it). The problem is the complete lack of front ends wrappers around those commands in every other email tool.
The enigmail plugin for thunderbird is surprisingly nice. It even does a decent job at key management (including the web of trust), but it made the "80% of PGP's value" completely transparent. If you have the key for an address, emails are automagically piped through gpg, and it handles decryption for you similarly (with pgp-agent support for less passphrase typing). Of course, that was only useful for the handful of us that used thunderbird; with Mozilla dropping the project, it's questionable if this has a useful future.
Almost all of the complexity with pgp/gpg can be hidden behind a nice GUI and opportunistic[1] enabling of the crypto. Unfortunately development has been focused on walled gardens and tying people to artificial dependencies[2] instead of writing useful client-installed software.
[1] Fallback to plaintext that people use currently is necessary until a critical mass of keys have been shared.
[2] why write a client app when you can make it hard for people to switch to other services by tying them to your domain name? /sigh/
Often it is even simpler than that. For encrypted e-mail using an e-mail client (such as Thunderbird with Enigmail) for addressees with known PGP-keys, hitting the 'encrypt' button and entering your passphrase is all that is needed once all is set up. Decrypting means you get prompted to enter your passphrase, and that's all there is to it.
It's different! Not being creative isn't the opposite of being cheery. The assumption is that the reader may not see any connection at all between happiness and creativity, and that the association might provide some insight. Though if you're like me and are only happy when you are able to create things, I can see why you would be irked.
I honestly can't tell if you're trying to troll me or not. Is there any adult alive who hasn't at one point realized that being depressed might--just MIGHT--impact one's ability to be creative?
This is good to hear. I quit focusing on art (drawing, painting) recently for the same reason. No matter what I'd do I would always end up agonizing over my projects. I hated the process and I almost always hated the result. So I gave up, and now I don't know what I want to do but I don't really care, because at least I don't have to spend all my time thinking about what a terrible artist I am. Oh, and I did this for like five years.
I try to put my hands behind my head when I'm not typing or using the mouse (because otherwise they're always in front of me and my shoulder blades hurt like hell). I switch mouse hands when my shoulder starts to get sore. I work at a standing desk with a stool so I can sit when I need to. And when I'm not working I try to spend as little time in front of a computer as I can. I also do yoga.
Oh yes, Stranger in a Strange Land. I am pleased to find that this Joan Quigley character "was called on by First Lady Nancy Reagan in 1981", twenty years after Heinlein's book was published.
> [Alice Douglas][1] — (sometimes called "Agnes"), wife of Joe Douglas. As the First Lady, she controls her husband, making major economic, political, and staffing decisions. She frequently consults an astrologer, Becky Vesant
