Bradley Manning Trial FAQ – wikileaks.org

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

Who is Bradley Manning?

When is the trial?

How long is the trial?

What is Bradley Manning accused of?

What is the potential sentence?

What is the status of the federal investigation against Julian Assange and six other founders, owners or administrators of WikiLeaks?

What is the scope of the WikiLeaks/Manning investigation, which US officials have described as unprecedented both in its scale and nature

How does secrecy in the Manning trial compare to secret trials in Guantanamo Bay?

What legal actions has WikiLeaks taken in relation to BM?

How can Manning be charged with Aiding the Enemy?

What does the Manning trial mean for press freedoms?

Where can I find Bradley Mannings plea statement?

Twenty-five-year-old Bradley Manning is alleged to be the source of a trove of written and audiovisual material detailing, inter alia, war crimes, corruption, torture and human rights violations published by WikiLeaks. Manning is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He has won numerous prizes, including The Guardian "Person of the Year" award in 2012. The material concerned every country in the world. It detailed the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people (the majority civilians) in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. Details of the execution of an Iraqi family and its cover-up ultimately precipitated the end of the Iraq War, after the Iraqi government refused to renew US immunity from prosecution. The material also revealed the existence of US death squads in Afghanistan. More

Manning was deployed as an army intelligence analyst in Iraq. He was arrested in May 2010 at the age of 23. For the first nine months the US army placed Manning in conditions of pre-trial punishment which the UN Rapporteur on Torture found to be inhuman and degrading, in violation of the UN Convention Against Torture. The military judge ruled in January 2013 that Manning had been subjected to unlawful pretrial punishment for 112 days at the Quantico marine brig.

The trial commenced on 3 June 2013. Pre-trial hearings began on 16 December 2011. http://www.bradleymanning.org/learn-more/bradley-manning

The trial is scheduled to last twelve weeks.

View the infographic comparing prosecutions charged dates versus the timeline set out by the Manning plea. Read the charge sheet here

The most serious charge against Bradley Manning is Aiding the Enemy, a capital offence. Although the prosecution has stated that they will seek a life sentence and not the death penalty, it is within the discretion of the court to pursue it nonetheless.

The criminal US investigation against WikiLeaks was most recently confirmed to be ongoing by the Department of Justice spokesman for the Eastern District of Virginia, Peter Carr, on the 26th March 2013. The federal investigation into the WikiLeaks publication and its Australian publisher Julian Assange in connection with Mannnings prosecution will establish a precedent. If successful these efforts will criminalise national security journalism.

The various limbs of the Manning/WikiLeaks investigation progress in parallel and inform one another. Prior to the recent confirmation, the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, spoke about the WikiLeaks investigation to the press here and here), as did the Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd.

More: http://justice4assange.com/extraditing-assange.html#WHATLAWS

WikiLeaks Grand Jury 10-GJ-3-793

The WikiLeaks Grand Jury empaneled in Alexandria, Virginia since 2010 is the mechanism through which the Obama administration is determining how to shape its criminal prosecution against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in connection with the material allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning. The WikiLeaks grand jury has the number 10-GJ-3-793. "10" is the year it began, "GJ" stands for grand jury, "3" refers to a conspiracy statute, and "793" to the Espionage Act as encoded in US law.

The military prosecutors in the Manning case are using transcripts from 10-GJ-3-793 WikiLeaks grand jury testimony against Bradley Manning in the military trial. Bradley Mannings lawyer requested to view this evidence but was denied access to it.

Australian embassy cables describe the WikiLeaks grand jury thus: "active and vigorous inquiry into whether Julian Assange can be charged under US law, most likely the 1917 Espionage Act". US officials told the Australian embassy ["the WikiLeaks case is unprecedented both in its scale and nature". According to these diplomatic communications, the WikiLeaks grand jury casts the net beyond Assange to see if any intermediaries had been involved in communications between Assange and Manning".

Grand juries confer special powers on prosecutors and the rules of evidence are not as strict as in a trial. Witnesses to the grand jury can be compelled to testify because they cannot refuse to do so on grounds of self-incrimination. Australian diplomatic communications stated that Grand juries can issue indictments under seal, and that theoretically one could already have been issued for Assange. In this particular case, it would be more likely that an indictment would become known at the point of extradition proceedings, should these take place, in the UK or Sweden.

FBI Criminal investigation against WikiLeaks

As of a year ago, approximately 20% of the FBI classified investigation file into WikiLeaks pertained to Bradley Manning. 8,741 pages (636 documents) related to Bradley Manning out of 42,135 pages (3,475 documents) relating to WikiLeaks. The remaining FBI file involved at least eight civilians related to the WikiLeaks disclosures, including the founders, owners, or managers of WikiLeaks. The FBI investigation includes damage assessments.

The FBI conducted illegal operations as part of the WikiLeaks investigation. One unlawful FBI WikiLeaks operation became known to the public after WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson revealed the incident in a live interview on national television. The information was subsequently confirmed by Icelands Minister of Interior, Ogmundur Jonasson. A parliamentary inquiry took place in February 2013 in relation to the FBIs WikiLeaks activities in Iceland. The FBI agents and prosecutors were expelled from the country and Icelandic authorities formally suspended their collaboration with the FBI. The FBI had allegedly attempted to entrap WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. The operation in Iceland was conducted in secret. It involved six FBI officers and two US prosecutors, one of which was a prosecutor at 10-GJ-3-793, the WikiLeaks grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia. The unlawful methods of the FBI investigation should not come as a surprise given that they are led by Neil MacBride, whose prosecutorial tactics involves claiming that US criminal law applies in foreign jurisdictions.

On July 28, 2010, one month after Pfc. Bradley Manning was arrested in Iraq, the FBI opened an official criminal investigation into the editor and chief of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, partnering with the joint investigation of the US Defense Department and the US Department of States Diplomatic Security Service. The investigation then grew into a whole of government investigation, involving interagency coordination between the Department of Defense (DOD) including: CENTCOM; SOUTHCOM; the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA); Headquarters Department of the Army (HQDA); US Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) for USFI (US Forces Iraq) and 1st Armored Division (AD); US Army Computer Crimes Investigative Unit (CCIU); 2nd Army (US Army Cyber Command); Within that or in addition, three military intelligence investigations were conducted. Department of Justice (DOJ) Grand Jury and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of State (DOS) and Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). In addition, Wikileaks has been investigated by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Office of the National CounterIntelligence Executive (ONCIX), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); the House Oversight Committee; the National Security Staff Interagency Committee, and the PIAB (Presidents Intelligence Advisory Board).

Source: Bradley Manning pre-trial hearing

Trials of accused terrorists in Guantanamo Bay are more transparent than the Manning trial. In the case of offshore trials in Guantanamo Bay, the military court committed to providing journalists with contemporaneous access to the material filed in court. Where information has been withheld at Guantanamo Bay proceedings, journalists can challenge the decision to keep the information secret. By contrast, the overwhelming majority of court records filed in the Manning case have been kept secret by the court and attempts to make them public have been dismissed. Although journalists have been been able to access portions of his pre-trial proceedings, the government refuses to provide its existing official court transcript of these public portions to the public. Instead, independent journalists have had to collect, piece together and report the trial in the absence of the governments compliance with the right of public access to criminal proceedings. These efforts are not funded by the US tax payer, but paid instead by donations. The most exhaustive record of Mannings court proceedings and the investigation against WikiLeaks is independent journalist Alexa OBriens site.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation is crowd-funding donations so that a court stenographer can be hired to take transcripts of the trial. Donations are tax-deductable in the US. https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/

The right of public access to the Manning hearings is protected by the First Amendment. Bradley Mannings lawyer was denied access to documents used by the prosecution. Journalists have not been allowed to view the documents filed in the proceedings.

WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have filed several petitions and complaints to the military court in relation to access in the Manning trial.

If Manning is convicted of the aiding the enemy offence, it would set a precedent that disclosing classified information to a publication is akin to communicating with Al Qaeda. The prosecution will call several operatives involved in the summary execution of Osama bin Laden to testify in secret. The prosecution has stated to the court that they would be pursuing this charge even if Manning was alleged to have submitted the information to The New York Times instead. Numerous prominent lawyers and journalists have opposed the pursual of this charge, including the spokesman for the US State Department under Hillary Clinton, PJ Crowley.

The charges against Manning and the potential or existing sealed indictment against Julian Assange carries with it the criminalisation of the news-gathering process and a calculated crippling of the First Amendment. The aiding the enemy charge implies that any press organisation, and any editor, anywhere in the world can be prosecuted for espionage, that is for divulging information that may be read by a person that the US has designated as an "enemy". In practice, this means that any information that is made available by a publisher on the Internet which the US government deems to be harmful to its national security can trigger the criminal prosecution of the publisher, even if it is a foreign publisher.

The US governments attempts to establish that the alleged WikiLeaks source and its publisher engaged in a conspiracy has been re-employed in the case of the US governments espionage subpoena of FOX news reporter James Rosen. The Manning trial and the WikiLeaks investigation marked the beginning of the sharp decline of press freedoms under Obama.

It can be found here.

Why Won’t Bernie Sanders Support Edward Snowden?

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

As of right now, none of the presidential candidates have even come close to supporting Edward Snowden. In fact, candidates have called him a traitor, a spy, and stated that he's committed treason. The facts are Snowden broke the law, but in turn, exposed illegal government activity to the American people. So did Snowden actually do something illegal or commit treason? That's where the 'which came first, the chicken or egg' argument comes into play, but it seems as if all of the presidential candidates have stated the chicken clearly committed treason.

Maybe I'm not surprised that none of the candidates have spoken in favor of Snowden, but I just thought that if there was someone who would stand up for him, it would be Bernie Sanders. When asked about the issue, Sanders has stated "I think Snowden played a very important role in educating the American public... he did break the law, and I think there should be a penalty to that." But Sanders also has stated that he would shut down the NSA and was one of the very few who voted against the Patriot Act. And just recently, Sanders tweeted out:'In my view, the NSA is out of control and operating in an unconstitutional manner.'

It just doesn't make sense to me. Sanders supports the outcome of what Snowden brought to light, but doesn't agree with the methods of how the information was made public. Maybe if Sanders supported Snowden, it would hurt him in the election, so maybe this isn't a huge issue for him right now. Maybe his campaign views Snowden as a can of worms, as he is only one person. But Sanders doesn't have a history of sitting down when issues are not politically expedient. In fact, Bernie Sanders' stance on Snowden is with the majority of Americans who would prosecute Snowden, according to recent polls. And Sanders is already better than most candidates when it comes to the issue of government surveillance, the NSA, and privacy.

However, if Sanders continues on his path of standing up for ideas when it's in the infancy of popular opinion, he would come out in support of Snowden. There aren't many issues on which I disagree with Bernie Sanders, but to use his own words, his stance on Snowden is just not good enough.

Go here to read the rest:
Why Won't Bernie Sanders Support Edward Snowden?

WikiLeak blog – Small Business

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

It looks as if WikiLeakS.org / Julian Assange's stupid decision to abandon use of PGP encryption, back in 2007 has come home to roost, with the revelation that they idiotically re-used a symmetric encryption key password and ineptly published a full archive of the controversial US Embassy / State Department Diplomatic Cables on BitTorrent peer to peer file sharing networks

The fact that they published this unredacted archive at all via BitTorrent shows how chaotic and incompetent Julian Assange and his motley crew of inexperienced acolytes had become after Daniel Domscheit-Berg and the "Architect" left them.

The end result is that there are now many people around the world, including all the repressive governments mentioned in the quarter of a million Diplomatic cables who can now simply search for key words like (strictly protect), to find the names of informants and information sources who have been in contact with US Embassy diplomats and who could therefore now be easily persecuted.

See the Cryptome.org for a direct file link to z.gpg or to this torrent link to the same encrypted compressed file via BitTorrent peer to peer filesharing.

John Young's evident glee that WikiLeakS.org have now published the full, unredacted archive of US Diplomatic Cables, is, in its own way, just as reprehensible as Julian Assange's indifference to the fate of vulnerable individual human beings named in the cables.

He of all people should know that the US Government neither has the time, the money , nor the inclination, nor the bureaucratic efficiency to warn or protect the hundreds of named informants or contacts, which have now been betrayed to the world, an action which has been universally condemned by WikiLeakS.org's former mainstream media partners and by human rights organisations.

This is in addition to the names of political dissidents who were in contact with the US Embassy in Belarus which Assange has already handed over to the Lukashenko dictatorship via the holocaust denier Israel Shamir.

Some "open source" / "full disclosure" advocates are making the spurious claim that the publication by WikiLeakS.org of the unredacted cables.csv and onto their searchable web site front end, is somehow better for any political dissidents or confidential sources who had dealings with the US Embassies and whose names are tagged with (strictly protect) and other markers.

Firstly, not all political dissidents in repressive countries have access to the internet at all, let alone to fast, secure, anonymous connections which would allow them to download the massive cables.csv file itself or to use the (insecure) WikileakS.org cable search websites.

None of these websites employ SSL Digital certificates or provide Tor Hidden services etc. to mask the identities of people searching for their own names or those of their family or friends.

Some of the people mentioned in the US Embassy cables several years ago, could in fact be in prison or under investigation for other reasons in 2011, without any or without any safe internet access at all. Being named as having been in contact with the US Embassy, even several years ago, could easily lead to charges of espionage etc. in insane countries like Iran.

Julian Assange's disregard for the Sensitive Personal Data of innocent individuals and his organisation's utter incompetence at handling such data securely, is indistinguishable from that displayed by many of the government bureaucracies you would expect him to be opposed to. Do not to trust him or WikiLeakS.org with any future whistleblower leak material, Find another post WikiLeakS.org website or organisation instead - see the listing and analyses at LeakDirectory.org wiki.

WikiLeakS.org and PGP Public Key Encryption

WikileakS.org abandoned even their limited use of PGP Encryption with the public or with the media, back in 2007, when they let their published PGP key expire.

Why have WikiLeakS.org abandoned the use of PGP Encryption ?

If they had been using Public Key Cryptography last year, to encrypt correspondence or documents or files using their recipients' individual Public Keys, then there would have been no password for the incompetent WikiLeakS.org activists to re-use .

Every copy of the controversial cables.csv file could have been encrypted with a different recipient's Public Key and would have had a different symmetric encryption key (which no human would could have been capable of revealing, even under torture).

Not even WikiLeakS.org / Julian Assange could have decrypted a seized or intercepted or publicly leaked copy of such an encrypted file, only the recipient with access to his or her own private decryption key could have done so.

Either Julian Assange is ignorant of how to use Public Key Cryptography (hardly likely for someone who has tried to write cryptographic software himself) or he and the #wikileaks twitter feed are lying again:

https://twitter.com/#!/wikileaks/status/109134616153169920

Encryption passwords (PGP) are permanent. David Leigh constantly lies, hence even in his own book, "snaky brits".

6.24 AM September 1st 2011

https://twitter.com/#!/wikileaks/status/109136557914603520

@ABCTech It is false that the passphrase was temporary or was ever described as such. That is not how PGP files work. Ask any expert.

6.32 AM September 1st 2011

To decrypt a file encrypted with PGP using a recipient's Public Key, you need to have physical access to the Private De-Cryption key, which is not accessible to anyone who copies or intercepts the encrypted file in transit.

Obviously the password which unlocks the Private De-Cryption Key from your PGP Keyring can be changed.

Symmetric encryption unprotected by Public Key encryption is just an option with PGP, but that is not how PGP is designed to be used to protect files in transit over the internet or on vulnerable USB memory sticks !

There was nothing, except for laziness or incompetence, which prevented Julian Assange or his followers from securely destroying the symmetrically encrypted cables.csv compressed file archive immediately after he gave it to David Leigh and then re-encrypting it from the master copy with a different key and passphrase. This master copy , we assume, given the dispute between Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg, would have been held on a separately encrypted computer file system anyway.

The award winning investigative journalist at The Guardian newspaper David Leigh's book:

WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding

did reveal on pages 138 to 139 an unnecessary password, which he rightly assumed would only be a temporary one, but which should never have been re-used by Julian Assange in the first place.

Leigh refused. All or nothing, he said. "What happens if you end up in an orange jump-suit enroute to Guantnamo before you can release the full files?" In return he would give Assange a promise to keep the cables secure, and not to publish them until the time came. Assange had always been vague about timing: he generally indicated, however, that October would be a suitable date. He believed the US army's charges against the imprisoned soldier Bradley Manning would have crystallised by then, and publication could not make his fate any worse. He also said, echoing Leigh's gallows humour: "I'm going to need to be safe in Cuba first!"

Eventually, Assange capitulated. Late at night, after a two-hour debate, he started the process on one of his little netbooks that would enable Leigh to download the entire tranche of cables. The Guardian journalist had to set up the PGP encryption system on his laptop at home across the other side of London. Then he could feed in a password. Assange wrote down on a scrap of paper:ACollectionOfHistorySince_1966_ToThe_PresentDay#. That's the password," he said. "But you have to add one extra word when you type it in. You have to put the word '"Diplomatic' before the word 'History'. Can you remember that?"

"I can remember that."

Leigh set off home, and successfully installed the PGP software. He typed in the lengthy password, and was gratified to be able to download a huge file from Assange's temporary website.

So having given Leigh instructions about downloading and installing PGP software, Julian Assange failed to instruct him to generate a Public / Private key pair and to send him the Public Key, so that Julian could individually encrypt the the cables.csv compressed archive just for David Leigh and nobody else.

At the face to face meeting described in the book, Julian Assange could easily have given David Leigh a copy of a WikiLeakS.org Public Encryryption Key for him to install when he set up the PGP software on his laptop as instructed, or pointed him to an online version.

They could have agreed a pre-shared secret for extra authentication.

David Leigh could then have been instructed to generate his own Public / Private keypair (protected in his PGP Keyring by his own strong passphrase) and to send a Digitally Signed and Encrypted copy of his Public Key back to Jullian Assange via email etc. together with the pre-shared authentication secret, all encrypted with the WikiLeakS.org Public Key. This should have been sufficient cryptographic proof that David Leigh's Public Key was the correct one, since nobody else apart from Julain Assange / WikiLeakS.org could have read the contents of that message.

Julian Assange could then have encrypted the compressed cables.csv file with David Leigh's Public Key and pointed him to the secure website he had set up for the encrypted file to be downloaded from

This encrypted file could only have been de-crypted by someone in possession of both David Leigh's passphrase and the corresponding Private Key in the PGP Keyring on David Leigh's MacBook laptop.

If WikiLeakS.org had been regularly using PGP over the years, even inexperienced members of the cult would have been familiar with these simple, well documented concepts.

If that copy of the encrypted file had somehow been published by the incompetent WikiLeakS.org crew on BitTorrent, then only David Leigh could have decrypted it (assuming he was still in control of his PGP Keyring on his laptop computer) , even if he had published his own pass phrase in his book, rather than Julian's rather pompous one.

7-Zip compression

Then he realised it was zipped up - compressed using a format called 7z which he had never heard of, and couldn't understand.

The .7z file extension is used by 7-Zip . This is freely available over the internet, on various computing platforms and does offer more options for better compression than the standard .zip compression utilities which are built in to modern versions of the Microsoft Windows or Apple OSX operating systems, at the cost of longer compression times and more use of memory.

The 7-Zip Ultra compression option seems to be what the cables.csv file was compressed with down to i.e. only 21 % of its original size.

However to achieve this amount of compression on such a big file could take quite a while, perhaps up to an hour on an average PC. Unzipping is much quicker, a couple of minutes at most.

Compression is also built in to the PGP / GnuPG encryption software, but that produces a compressed file of about 640 MB i.e. about twice that of the of the 7-Zip version, about 41% of the original size of the monolithic cables.csv file.

Like most .zip compression software these days, 7-Zip also offers encryption, using the same AES 256 bit algorithm used by default by GnuPG / PGP, but Assange et al did not bother to make use of that.

He got back in his car and drove through the deserted London streets in the small hours, to Assange's headquarters in Southwick Mews

Assange was staying at Vaughan Smith's Frontline Club for investigative / foreign / war correspondent journalists, owned by Vaughan Smith, in whose Norfolk country estate has bedrooms at numbers 7 and 9 Southwick Mews

http://www.frontlineclub.com/club/bedrooms-1.php

He is now on bail and electronically tagged living at Vaughan Smith's country estate in Norfolk, where his supporters invent state surveillance fantasies for the credulous mainstream media - see "CCTV ANPR" or just "radar activated speed signs" monitoring Julian Assange at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk ?

Assange smiled a little pityingly, and unzipped it for him.

Now, isolated up in the Highlands, with hares and buzzards for company, Leigh felt safe enough to work steadily through the dangerous contents of the memory stick.

So, in the end, Julian Assange in fact actually handed over an unencrypted copy of the file to David Leigh, on an easily lost or stolen USB memory stick. If Assange really cared about protecting innocent people from evil governments, then he would not have allowed this to happen.

It is astonishing how the WikiLeakS.org cult propaganda machine has deluded itself that somehow it was David Leigh and The Guardian which was responsible for this cryptographic and internet publication incompetence, rather than the alleged technological privacy and anonymity expert Julian Assange and his supposedly expert helpers.

TextWrangler keyword search

Obviously there was no way that he, or any other human, could read through a quarter of a million cables. Cut off from the Guardian's own network, he was unable to call up such a monolithic file on his laptop and search through it in the normal simple-minded journalistic way, as a word processor document or something similar: it was just too big. Harold Frayman, the Guardian's technical expert, was there to rescue him. before Leigh left town, he sawed the material into 87 chunks, each just about small enough to call up and read separately.

Probably 19 Megabytes for each of 86 chunks with a little bit left over in the 87th chunk.

Then he explained how Leigh could use a simple program called TextWrangler

TextWrangler is the "little brother" of BBEdit and is only available for the Apple Macintosh platform. David Leigh's laptop computer.is stated to have been a MacBook elsewhere in the book.

to search for key words or phrases through all the separate files simultaneously, and present the results in a user-friendly form.

So why had Julian Assange or his WikiLeaks acolytes not already broken the 1.6 Gigabyte file down into usable chunks and zipped them up into, ideally, several archive files for their mainstream media partners ?

This WikiLeak.org blog has criticised them in the past for not offering (multiple) floppy disk or even CD-ROM sized versions of their whistleblower leaks documents, as well as just large monolithic files.

Not everybody, especially people in third world countries under repressive governments, or even people using mobile internet devices, has access to fast broadband internet connections.

Is this the end of WikiLeakS.org ?

Now that WikiLeakS.org have no more secrets left to publish, will they actually get around to re-inventing themselves and re-launching a secure anonymous system without the destructive influence of Julian Assange ?

Or will the cult continue regardless and just get dragged into long legal cases ?

Original post:
WikiLeak blog - Small Business

Encryption | Define Encryption at Dictionary.com

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

Contemporary Examples

The secret behind the Coin is that it is powered by a 128-bit encryption for all storage and communication.

Get to know E2E (end to end) encryption, says Dan Auerbach, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Forget about encryptionyour ISP could require the key as condition of using its network.

Websites should probably revoke and re-issue their encryption keys as well.

Bloomberg even reported that the NSA did know and had been exploiting the mistake in encryption.

Snowden contacted Poitras in mid-January 2013 after failing to connect with Greenwald due to his lack of encryption.

With the Assange movie, there are sequences like the [Vincente] Minnelli-like visual explorations of an encryption system.

In November 2013, well before U.S. bombs started falling, ISIS did launch a Web-based encryption tool, Ahlberg said.

And then Glenn finally got on encryption, came on a plane to New York, and off we went.

How many congressmen could even describe how encryption works?

British Dictionary definitions for encryption Expand

to put (a message) into code

to put (computer data) into a coded form

to distort (a television or other signal) so that it cannot be understood without the appropriate decryption equipment

Derived Forms

encrypted, adjectiveencryption, noun

Word Origin

C20: from en-1 + crypt, as in crypto-

Word Origin and History for encryption Expand

1975 in computer sense, from en- (1) + crypt (see crypto-). Related: Encrypted; encrypting; encryption.

encryption in Science Expand

encryption in Culture Expand

The process of encoding a message so that it can be read only by the sender and the intended recipient. Encryption systems often use two keys, a public key, available to anyone, and a private key that allows only the recipient to decode the message. (See also cryptography.)

encryption in Technology Expand

What Are Smart Contracts? Cryptocurrency’s Killer App …

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

This article contains interviews with Phil Raporport, drector of markets and trading at Ripple Labs, Stefan Thomas, CTO at Ripple Labs, and Chris Ellis, a cofounder of Feathercoin and show host with World Crypto Network.

What if you could cut your mortgage rate, make it easier to update your will, and ensure that your buddy was never able to weasel out of paying up on a bet? That and much more is the promise of smart contracts, a technology that is getting closer and closer to reality thanks to cryptocurrency.

Smart contracts are computer programs that can automatically execute the terms of a contract. Someday, these programs may replace lawyers and banks for handling certain common financial transactions.

And the potential for smart contracts goes way beyond simple transfers of funds. The door of a car or a house could be unlocked by connecting smart contracts to the Internet of everything. But as always with this cutting edge of financial technology, major questions abound: How will this all align with our current legal system? And, of course, will anyone actually use these things anyway?

The idea of smart contracts goes way back to 1994, nearly the dawn of the World Wide Web itself. That's when Nick Szabo, a cryptographer widely credited with laying the groundwork for bitcoin, first coined the term "smart contract." At core, these automated contracts work like any other computer program's if-then statements. They just happen to be doing it in a way that interacts with real-world assets. When a pre-programmed condition is triggered, the smart contract executes the corresponding contractual clause.

Szabo's original theories about how these contracts could work remained unrealized because there was no digitally native financial system that could support programmable transactions. (It defeats the purpose of smart contracts if a bank still has to manually authorize the release and transfer of money.) "One big hurdle to smart contracts is that computer programs can't really trigger payments right now," says Phil Rapoport, Ripple Labs' director of markets and trading.

The advent and increasingly widespread adoption of bitcoin is changing that, and as a result Szabo's idea has seen a revival. Smart contract technology is now being built on top of bitcoin and other virtual currencieswhat some have termed "Bitcoin 2.0" platforms. Because bitcoin is itself is a computer program, smart contracts can speak to it just like they would any other piece of code. The puzzle pieces are falling into place. A computer program can now trigger payments.

There are currently two major open source projects working on smart contracts, both of which have taken big leaps forward this year. One is called Codius and the other is Ethereum. Codius was developed by Ripple Labs, which also created its own digital currency called Ripple. Codius aims to be interoperable between a variety of cryptocurrency, such as Ripple and bitcoin, although it is managed by the private company.

"Codius can interact with other ledgers and web services. It can work on bitcoin and it can work on any other system," says Stefan Thomas, Ripple's CTO.

In contrast, Ethereum is an entirely new currency with smart contracts baked into its payment system. Originally developed by 20-year-old programmer Vitalik Buterin, it would replace other "coins" like bitcoin, but appears to be more of a community project.

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are poised to help smart contracts become reality. But the effect may also be reciprocal. Smart contracts can illustrate a unique benefit of virtual currencies that some advocates think could entice more users.

"Smart contracts are really the killer app of the cryptocurrency world," says Chris Ellis, host of a show about cryptocurrencies on the World Crypto Network.

Let's take a simple example, like a Super Bowl bet. Say you want to bet $500or roughly one bitcointhat the Patriots will win, while your friend is betting the same amount that the Packers will take the title. Step one is for you and your friend to place your bitcoin in a neutral account controlled by the smart contract. When the game is over and the smart contract is able to verify via ESPN, Reuters, or elsewhere that the Patriots beat the Packers, the smart contract would automatically deposit your bet and your winnings from your friend back into your account.

Because smart contracts are computer programs, it would be trivial to add more complex betting elements like odds and score differentials into the mix. While there are services out there today that might handle this sort of transaction, they all charge a fee. The key difference with smart contracts is that it is a decentralized system accessible to anyone, that doesn't require any intermediary party.

A more everyday example would be online shopping. "If you order something online you might not want to pay a merchant immediately until they fulfill their end of the bargain," says Rapoport. "So you could easily have a contract that looks for FedEx tracking data saying that the package you ordered has been delivered to your address before releasing payment to the sender."

If you think about a lot of routine financial transactions, what lawyers and banks do boils down to repetitively processing mundane tasks. And yet we still have to shell out huge fees for lawyers to go through wills or for banks to process our mortgage payments.

Smart contracts could automate and demystify these processes, making it so that ordinary people can save time and money.

Although you got your mortgage through a bank, that bank won't generally hold onto it for the entire 30-year loan; it will be sold to an investor. But you keep making payments to the bank, not the investor that owns your mortgage. The bank just becomes a processor for your monthly payments, sending a chunk to the investor, a slice to taxes, and a bit for homeowner's insurance.

"That's just a real simple operational task, but that bank will often take a quarter to a half percent per year to service that mortgage," says Rapoport. "They're just doing an operational headache of receiving payments and redirecting them. And they're charging people for that. But it's something that a smart contract could theoretically administer very easily."

If mortgage payments were handled by smart contracts, mortgage processing fees could be eliminated and that savings passed on to consumers. The result would be a lowered cost of home ownership.

Although smart contracts are still in their nascent stage, the potential is clear. If a simple enough user interface were developed it could remove a host of legal headaches, like updating your will. Imagine if allocating your assets after your death was as simple as moving an adjustable slider that determines who gets how much. Just like with the bet or FedEx example, once the smart contract can verify the triggering conditionin this case, your deaththe contract goes into effect and your assets are divvied up.

With all this, it may sound like we won't need lawyers anymore. But enthusiasts say that smart contracts should be seen as an evolution of the legal system, not its erasure.

"We don't think that this will replace the legal system as much as provide an intermediate layer between transacting and going to court," says Thomas.

Nonetheless, the role of lawyers might look very different in the future. Rather than having lawyers adjudicate individual contracts, the role of lawyers might shift to producing smart contract templates on a competitive market. Contract selling points would be their quality, how customizable they are, and their ease of use. It sounds a bit like the marketplace for WordPress themes.

"I imagine a lot of people will create contracts that do different things," says Rapoport. "And they can essentially sell them for others to use. So if you make, for example, a really good equity agreement that has a bunch of different functionality a company can charge for access to their contract."

It's easy to think about a smart contract managing a will, up to a point. It all makes sense if you can imagine yourself keeping all of your assets in bitcoin. But what if you live in the real world and have physical possessions like, you know, most of us? The answer is something called smart property.

"This starts to get more sci-fi when we talk about smart property," says Ellis.

The so-called "Internet of Things" is constantly growing, with more and more interconnected devices out there every day. Some forward-thinking developers are already working on ways to combine the Internet of Things with bitcoin infrastructure so that something like a bitcoin can actually represent a physical object. That token is what these developers call smart property.

But more important than representing some object, these new smart property tokens would actually grant ownership and control to a networked object, whether that be a computer, a car, or even a house.

How does this all come together?

Ellis gives the example of renting out his house. "Let's say all the locks are Internet-enabled and they've all got network connections. When you make a bitcoin transaction for the rent, the smart contract you and I agreed to automatically unlocks the house for you. You just go in using keys stored on your smartphone."

A smart contract would also make it trivial to set up dates when those digital keys would automatically expire. It sounds a bit like Airbnb without the need for Airbnb.

And if you think about it, that's the fundamental transformation smart contracts are after. A service like Airbnb is desirable because it obviates the need for the host and the guest to trust each otherthey both only need to trust Airbnb. If the guest doesn't pay up, or the host doesn't leave the keys, either of them can take it up with Airbnb.

Doing the same sublet with a smart contract would supplant a business model like Airbnb's. The homeowner and renter still don't need to trust each otherthey just need to trust the smart contract. Smart contracts would decentralize the model of who needs to be trusted. And in doing so, it would cut out hefty fees by brokering services like Airbnb.

But smart contracts don't have to just disrupt existing business models. They can also complement them. Way back in his '94 essay, Nick Szabo envisioned the idea of smart property writing that "smart property might be created by embedding smart contracts in physical objects." His example of choice was a car loan, writing that if you miss a car payment, the smart contract could automatically revoke your digital keys to operate the car. No doubt car dealerships would find this appealing.

Admittedly, at some point it does start to sound like the makings of a dystopian sci-fi film. If you can't make a payment all of a sudden your car could be digitally and remotely repossessed, all without any human interaction.

But in theory, the upside is that financial institutions should be more willing to take risks on people who might not otherwise get loans. Because, worst case scenario, if someone can't pay up, it's inconsequential for the bank to take back the asset in question.

In addition to expanding opportunities to get credit, smart contracts also have the potential to open up access to the legal system for disadvantaged people who might not otherwise be able to reap its benefits. Thomas believes that smart contracts "will make the legal system available to people who might not be able to afford it on their own."

Although the law in theory treats everyone equally, you more often than not need money to take someone to court over a breach of contract.

"At present justice really only works if you can afford a lawyer to enforce that agreement. So once smart contracts have the ability to enforce agreements on their own it will be game-changing. " says Ellis.

Of course it may not play out that cleanly in reality. While this all sounds good and noble in theory, it's impossible to predict how a smart contract would hold up in court if it were ever challenged. Dethroning lawyers as the high priests of arbitrating contracts is certainly appealing. But do we run the risk of just replacing literacy in legalese with literacy in code?

Rapoport acknowledges that there may be drawbacks. "Everyone reads English, so in some ways it's easier to read a traditional contract. But this is still very bleeding-edge technology, so who knows what kinds of user-facing improvements will be made eventually?"

Despite unforeseen pitfalls, the promise of smart contracts is clear. Right now we're waiting to see if either Ethereum or Ripple's Codius will be able to become usable and really take off.

"Right now there are lot of clever people working on this who are high on ideas because they can see the potential," says Ellis "What we don't know yet is who is going to win this raceRipple or Ethereum. It's a bit like VHS vs. Betamax."

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What Are Smart Contracts? Cryptocurrency's Killer App ...

A Complete Guide for CryptoCurrency Investors & Traders …

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

There's so much noise, so much chatter, so much conflicting information out there about the world of digital currency. Even people who are used to investing can find their heads spinning as they try to sort out all the information they're bombarded with about cryptocurrency. And if you're new to investing, wellit can be downright confusing and intimidating. If only there was an unbiased source of clear information a potential investor could really use, a place to sort the facts from all that noise.

Look no further, folks; you're there.

Coin Pursuit was created with one goal in mind: to help the alternative currency investor navigate the minefield of information that's swirling around this new and robust industry. We're investors ourselves, and we discovered early on just how difficult it was to find straightforward info about even the basics of investing. The facts are out there, but they're scattered all over the Internetand they're often drowned out by people with skin in the game who have agendas and products to market. We realized the average investor doesn't have hours and hours of spare time to scour the web for the facts they need. We also saw the need for a comprehensive and thoroughly-researched site that could be bookmarked and referred to by both the new and experienced investor alike.

From this perceived need, Coin Pursuit was born. We'll be doing thorough research, and will sort out the facts from the rumors. The information we find will be put into clear and easy-to understand language, and will be passed along to you. We'll cover the full spectrum of the cryptocurrency industry, from its basic concepts to its most current trends. Here, you'll also find links and details about all the resources you'll ever need to make your investment experience enjoyable andhopefullyprofitable.

There's also another way we're helping traders cut down on the noise and distractions they often find online, and that's our exclusive and interactive SliceFeeds portal. Those of you who use Twitter or Facebook, or try to sort through the content on forums or sites like Reddit, know it can take a lot of time as you try to locate a specific piece of information, or connect with one person directly. SliceFeeds eliminates all that hassle by concentrating all your contacts and cryptocurrency information in one place. Its network is divided into three easy-to-use sections: the network page shows statistics at a glance; the feeds page displays updates as they happen; and your profile page allows you to customize your own personal network-within-the-network. Members will also be able to monetize their unique contributions to the community; for example, bloggers can offer subscriptions (payable in digital currency, of course) for access to their exclusive content, and merchants will be able to advertise their companies and products through SliceFeeds, as well. With SliceFeeds, the days of sorting through dozens of unrelated tweets and forum posts are over; you'll be able to find the digital currency info you need, when you need it.

It's our mission to be the most expansive and expanding resource for digital currency information. And that means fresh information, so stop by often; we're constantly updating our content. So, if you've just got a casual interest in alternative currencies, or you're a hardcore investoror if you fall anywhere in betweenCoin Pursuit will be your trusted resource.

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A Complete Guide for CryptoCurrency Investors & Traders ...

Definition of Cryptocurrency | Coin Pursuit

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

What exactly is cryptocurrency, how did it get its name, and how is it coded? Take a look at Coin Pursuit's plain-English definition of the term.

When you see the word root crypto in the English language, it comes from the Greek, meaning hidden or private. From it, we get words like encryption and decryption, which relate to the coding of a message, and its decoding once it's received. Even the English word cryptwhich uses the Greek root in its purest formrefers to a private hiding place, a sanctuary for the remains of a loved one.

Cryptocurrency, then, means money that is made hidden and privateand therefore secureby means of encryption, or coding. All aspects of cryptocurrency are protected by long and complicated blocks of code, each of which is unique to the item or person it's protecting. As an investor, or someone taking part in a transaction, you're identified by a one-of-a-kind code, as is the person or company with whom you're doing business. Each coin of cryptocurrency itself has its own code, and smaller denominations have their own, as well, depending on what amount is needed for a transaction. Finally, the transaction itself is identified with its own code. Layer upon layer of encryption is one of the things that makes cryptocurrency unique, secure and anonymous, if you so choose. And all that coding and concealment is what gives cryptocurrency its apt name.

As is true in any technical field, the industry of cryptocurrency not only has its unique jargon, but often terms that have synonyms that are used interchangeably. Therefore, we'd like to clear the air on that specific point right here: when you see the terms digital currency or alternative currency hereor in any other source, for that matterthose are just additional terms for cryptocurrency. As a matter of fact, you'll more than likely see digital currency used more often, as it has a less-technical and more user-friendly feel to it.

Next Introductory Topic: Cryptocurrency Origins

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Definition of Cryptocurrency | Coin Pursuit

Edward Snowden Dismisses FBI Claim in Apple iPhone Battle

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

Edward Snowden is weighing in again on the FBIs claim that only Apple can unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

Respectfully, thats horsest, Snowden said at the Blueprint for Democracy Conference organized by Common Cause, The Hill reports. The former government contractor, who infamously leaked National Security Agency documents and now lives in Russia to avoid charges, appeared via Google hangout and said the FBI has known of methods since the 90s that would allow it to access to the information its seeking.

FBI investigators have asked Apple to unlock the encrypted iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters in the attack that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December. Apple has said that providing the government with such means would make other iPhones vulnerable and is fighting a federal magistrates order to assist the FBI.

The global technological consensus is against the FBI, Snowden followed up on Twitter later, linking to an ACLU post that claims the FBI can easily work around existing iPhone security measures.

[The Hill]

Cryptocurrency Analytic Company: Arbitrage – Bitcoinist.net

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

We started early stage testing on our system around November of 2013. During the period of November to January our company took on about five clients for our Alpha period. After a successful alpha period, we incorporated in early January as a Delaware C corporation. We then began our beta period, where we have been open to clients for services.Since then we have added 10 more clients, and continue taking on about one client every week or two weeks. We began with one market pair(bitstamp vs btc-e using BTC) and have since expanded our selection of markets to four, with each pair able to connect to each of the other exchanges ( ie bitstamp vs bitfinex, bitstamp vs kraken, ect).

Allow me to answer number 3, which will take care of the Ponzi scheme question. Suffice to say we are MUCH different than any other tradingpool or fund that directly takes BTC from their clients.

Our system was designed by myself to get around a few problems that exist in the field of Bitcoin proprietary trading:

Here is how we address all of those concerns:

The risk factors are holding your BTC or LTC on an exchnage, whichshould be profiled before trusting them. The second risk factor isholding BTC as 50% of your portfolio, which may change in price to thedownside, but may also change in price to the upside. Our trading itselfintroduces no risk as when it buys 1 BTC it also sells 1 BTC. For amarket neutral position. If our models are very off during trading wemay lose money to exchange fees, but our system is designed so that thishas never happened, and foreseeable will never happen.

We are able to consistently execute this strategy because once anaccount is set up we are 100% automatic. Our system is well tested andhas an excellent tech team backing it for great up-time.

Currently we are operational, are taking new clients, and have fourmarket open for trade including Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Btce, and the newlyintroduced Kraken. In our older markets pairs in BTC we have beenshowing between 2-4 % a month from the USD deposited. Our newestaddition has been the same trade in LTC and it has blown by expectationsreturning over 8% in its first month of operations.

Our future development plans include an event that should behappening very soon. We hope to introduce a full client log-in, withpersonalized returns displayed with live data. This already under heavydevelopment and should be released at the end of July. For people interested, you many want to know a minimum of $5000 is required per account. Also, they charge a fee of 20% monthly which is payable via USD or Bitcoin. Do note during their trial period its only 15%.

For more information visit :https://www.cryptocurrencyanalytics.com/Photo Source: Bing Images

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Only One Presidential Candidate Supports Edward Snowden, And …

Posted on April 10, 2017 by admin

Unlike the Green Partys Jill Stein, not one Republican or Democratic nominee has voiced any support for the NSA whistleblower or shown any willingness to allow him to return to the U.S. as a free man.

Despite Snowdens important revelations about the NSAs illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens, not one major presidential candidate has been willing to voice his or her support for him. (Photo: Tony Webster/CC)

WASHINGTON No matter who wins the 2016 election, the United States will likely continue its efforts to capture and prosecute National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Despite the important revelations that Snowden shared with the world about the NSAs illegal surveillance of every U.S. citizen as well as world leaders and foreign nationals, not one major presidential candidate has been willing to voice his or her support for Snowdens actions or express any willingness to allow him to return to the U.S. as a free man.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein is the lone exception. She called Snowden a hero in a July 2015 interview with Ontheissues.org, a website which compiles candidates political views.

Despite his campaign positioning the senator from Vermont as an outsider, Sanders views on the whistleblower are decidedly mainstream. At the Oct. 14 Democratic debate, Sanders praised Snowden for his important role in educating the American public, but added: He did break the law, and I think there should be a penalty to that.

At the same debate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strongly criticized Snowden, saying he should have invoked all of the protections of being a whistleblower instead of taking his revelations to the media. John Cassidy, a staff writer for The New Yorker, reported that Clinton was referring to the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. In 2013, Cassidy noted, the ACLUs senior policy counsel, Michael German, referred to the act as no more than a trap designed to send whistleblowers like Snowden to jail if they act on their conscience.

Watch Democratic presendtial candidates debate theUS Patriot Act, NSA, and Snowden:

This guys a bad guy. There is still a thing called execution. -Donald Trump

Also in 2013, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas expressed his cautious support for Snowden, telling conservative media outlet The Blaze, If it is the case that the federal government is seizing millions of personal records about law-abiding citizens then I think Mr. Snowden has done a considerable public service by bringing it to light. However, under pressure from other candidates, Cruz abruptly changed his position early this year. It is now clear that Snowden is a traitor, and he should be tried for treason, he said on Jan. 13, adding that, his actions materially aided terrorists and enemies of the United States a statement almost identical to similar ones made by Clinton and other current or former White House officials.

Likewise, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida accused Snowden of treason in 2013 and echoed those sentiments at the Jan. 14 debate, and in June 2015, Ohio Gov. John Kasich also called the whistleblower a traitor while simultaneously praising the Snowden-inspired NSA reform efforts of Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

While the demand that Snowden return home to face trial may seem like a reasonable one, many analysts have agreed with Kevin Zeese, an activist and political organizer from Popular Resistance, who wrote in 2014 for Truthout that Snowden would be prosecuted in a phony Kangaroo court where the deck would be stacked against him and the process would be unfair.

The idea that Snowdens leaks aided terrorists has also been widely debunked. A 2014 report from global intelligence analysts at Flashpoint noted: Well prior to Edward Snowden, online jihadists were already aware that law enforcement and intelligence agencies were attempting to monitor them.

On Oct. 15, 2015, Evan Greer, campaign director for Internet-advocacy group Fight For The Future, lamented in a Huffington Post editorial that Sanders stance on Snowden proves he doesnt want a revolution. And much of her characterization of Sanders response could easily apply to any candidate in the two major parties:

Instead of calling for stronger legal protections for whistleblowers, or offering to pardon Snowden if elected, [Sanders] called for the former NSA contractor to come home and face trial in a country with a dodgy record of imprisoning and prosecuting whistleblowers, dissidents, activists and journalists.

By contrast, Stein would like to see Snowden not just freed of facing legal charges, but hired by the U.S. government. She told OnTheIssues.org:

Charges should not be brought against him, and he should return with hero status he could improve our national security if he were working for us.

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Only One Presidential Candidate Supports Edward Snowden, And ...