Is there any actual secure method of communication?

I was thinking...

Now that we live in an Orwellian age, is there any truly secure method of communication? ('Secure', meaning immune to unauthorized third-party viewing.)
Email is ruled out--even encrypted messages**--, because of the American government's Echeleon and Carnivore projects. Telephone and other computer / electronic forms of communication mostly all bounce off of earth-orbitting satellites, which effortlessly log all information. "Phone taps" are no longer required to listen to telephone conversations because of this--satellites automatically record phone calls. Postal mail can be opened easily by third-parties, while sitting in your mailbox.

Face-to-face communication? Negative. The American goverment and military have developed technologies that use electromagnetic devices to measure minute vibrations on windows, et cetera, that convert the vibrations to audible sounds. Eavesdropping devices similar to these render face-to-face communication useless. Meh.

The solution? Carrier pidgeons! Just encrypt your message, tie it to their legs, and send 'em off.

Seriously, besides carrier pidgeons, what is a secure method of communication? Not that I have anything to hide, I would rather satisfy my paranoia. What are your thoughts on this?



** (Imagine the vast supercomputing power of the American government's $500 billion [publicly released] defense budget.)



[edit on 8-7-2004 by John bull 1]

Just handing a note to one and other works too, no animals needed .. :p

You can always try telepathy. Seems to be on the rise.

Originally posted by thematrix
Just handing a note to one and other works too, no animals needed .. :p

That would work if I were right next to someone...
Unless the note was on unfolded paper, in which case it can be photographed by spy satellites and cameras on the ground. Maybe there is some technology that can read through folded paper. Then we must wrap it in lead.

...soo, aside from handing you a lead-wrapped piece of paper...

Originally posted by StickyG
You can always try telepathy. Seems to be on the rise.

I will keep that in mind the next time I need to talk to someone.

(Boy, am I paranoid or what?)

[edit on 7-7-2004 by Jake_]

a M2EW works great....



(direct mouth to ear whisper)

Originally posted by Jake_ The solution? Carrier pidgeons! Just encrypt your message, tie it to their legs, and send 'em off.

lol - then the government would notice a sudden increase in pidgeon droppings on their cars thus causing them to wash their cars more often and investigae this loophole and mutating pidgeons into non-flying birds - you think the dodo just went extinct on its own?

I would think a new form of hand signaling could work for a short time...just look at those baseball coaches, although I'm not suggesting grabbing your crotch to tell someone let's go have lunch...lol

A secret language...an encrpyted speech of sorts...what about music? certain notes could mean certain letters or words...I dunno - I have a few more ideas, but most of them could be eventually broken down by the government at some point

I like the note idea - use a pen that only shows up under a black light and have a shredder nearby

you could meet in a tent and pass notes...but then your children will call you "copycat"...

Fire up a password-protected Internet game, like "Diablo 2" or something, and have the other party meet you in there. You can use the built-in chat function so your conversation is lost in the clutter of the game traffic.

Quantum Cryptography is almost 100% secure.

Originally posted by EnronOutrunHomerun
you think the dodo just went extinct on its own?

Ah, proof that another Orwellian, advanced civilization has existed on earth before! Except they used dodos and not pidgeons.

Originally posted by EnronOutrunHomerun
I dunno - I have a few more ideas, but most of them could be eventually broken down by the government at some point

Yes, so we could invent an ever-changing form of communication, including crotch-grabbing, special bubble-gum positioning, and music. We will alternate between those everytime other people discover the languages.

Originally posted by Spectre
Fire up a password-protected Internet game, like "Diablo 2" or something, and have the other party meet you in there. You can use the built-in chat function so your conversation is lost in the clutter of the game traffic.

That's actually a damn fine idea. Create a game of your choice server with a password that ony you and the other party knows and chat away. I'm pretty sure the PTB isn't watching this. Counter-Strike anyone? heh.

Originally posted by Jake_
I was thinking...

Now that we live in an Orwellian age, is there any truly secure method of communication? ('Secure', meaning immune to unauthorized third-party viewing.)
Email is ruled out--even encrypted messages**--, because of the American government's Echeleon and Carnivore projects. Telephone and other computer / electronic forms of communication mostly all bounce off of earth-orbitting satellites, which effortlessly log all information. "Phone taps" are no longer required to listen to telephone conversations because of this--satellites automatically record phone calls. Postal mail can be opened easily by third-parties, while sitting in your mailbox.

Face-to-face communication? Negative. The American goverment and military have developed technologies that use electromagnetic devices to measure minute vibrations on windows, et cetera, that convert the vibrations to audible sounds. Eavesdropping devices similar to these render face-to-face communication useless. Meh.

The solution? Carrier pidgeons! Just encrypt your message, tie it to their legs, and send 'em off.

Seriously, besides carrier pidgeons, what is a secure method of communication? Not that I have anything to hide, I would rather satisfy my paranoia. What are your thoughts on this?



** (Imagine the vast supercomputing power of the American government's $500 billion [publicly released] defense budget.)

The mail is fairly secure (of course encryption would be required) and free of logs (unless you are otherwise under investigation).

Although I don't know of any - I would be very suprised if there weren't commercially available encrypted telephones.

Originally posted by cyberpilot
you could meet in a tent and pass notes...but then your children will call you "copycat"...

Oh great--then RATS would need to move from the internet to a tent, to avoid prying eyes.

Originally posted by Spectre
Fire up a password-protected Internet game, like "Diablo 2" or something, and have the other party meet you in there. You can use the built-in chat function so your conversation is lost in the clutter of the game traffic.

Lol, it's true it is crowded, but I would stay away from anything computer-related. We would be seeing more Diablo characters wearing cheap black suits and expensive black sunglasses... the secret service playing Diablo

Originally posted by Sigma
Quantum Cryptography is almost 100% secure.

Sounds theoretical / nonexistent

Originally posted by Jake_

Originally posted by Spectre
Fire up a password-protected Internet game, like "Diablo 2" or something, and have the other party meet you in there. You can use the built-in chat function so your conversation is lost in the clutter of the game traffic.

Lol, it's true it is crowded, but I would stay away from anything computer-related. We would be seeing more Diablo characters wearing cheap black suits and expensive black sunglasses... the secret service playing Diablo

Originally posted by Sigma
Quantum Cryptography is almost 100% secure.

Sounds theoretical / nonexistent

I agree. I wouldn't trust the "password protection" of any online game with any sort of confidential information.

And "quantum ecryption" is both theoretical and nonexistant. You're 2 for 2 !!

Originally posted by Jake_ Yes, so we could invent an ever-changing form of communication, including crotch-grabbing, special bubble-gum positioning, and music. We will alternate between those everytime other people discover the languages.

LMAO - they'd never know!!! mwa ha ha

Susan's signal: chews gum rapidly whilst whisteling a faint melody of D sharp, A flat, and C whilst also smelling her left armpit with right hand and picking her right nostril with left pinky

Decoded: "No I will not date you!"

John's signal: spits gum out whilst strumming a low D on guitar repeatidly and giving susan the bird with both hands

Decoded: "Fine, biatch!"

This would take years for the government....

Originally posted by EnronOutrunHomerun

Originally posted by Jake_ Yes, so we could invent an ever-changing form of communication, including crotch-grabbing, special bubble-gum positioning, and music. We will alternate between those everytime other people discover the languages.

LMAO - they'd never know!!! mwa ha ha


This would take years for the government....

It works too ... How else would "skeet skeet skeet skeet" make onto radio, past masses of sensors in a Lil' John song. (search at www.urbandictionary.com for a definition)

Originally posted by Starwars50It works too ... How else would "skeet skeet skeet skeet" make onto radio, past masses of sensors in a Lil' John song. (search at www.urbandictionary.com for a definition)

Woah...I didn't think about that, but it almost totally fits that description - lol - awesome comment....symbols expressed in modern day culture that goes unnoticed by our government until it's a little to late for them to do anything about...

Off topic - I so wanted to change my userID to Lil' John and have my avatar with his platinum grill and his crunk juice goblet - lol - non-members should be taking notes - hehe

Actually Quantum Crytography is very real! It relies on the use of Quantum states and the inability to view them without perterbing the system, thus alerting the sender/reciever to the goings on. Here are a few links:

www.pcmag.com...=29842%2C00.asp

www.magiqtech.com...

Keyless encryption of the home-brewed variety comes to mind. However you would have to trust the person that wrote the self-contained package in the first place, but at least it would narrow down the list of peeps who could intercept your message. I have also teased the notion of a keyless system that allows the person making their message to make their own encryption on the fly, so that the receiver would only have to contact that person a 2nd time to get a key.
I also played with the notion of letting the encryption program double as a decrypter and simply not tell anyone, just sit back and watch while everyone is looking for a decrypter that doesn't exist
An example at the bit level that works great for this:
the xor bit math operation
0 xor 0 =0
0 xor 1 =1
1 xor 0 =1
1 xor 1 =0
This has the lovely property of turning data into garbage when masked with all 1's, then when the encryption(garbage) is again masked with all 1's it's back to normal again. Their are other operations and functions that can exhibit simular behaviors. Imagine these operations being at the finger tips of any person wanting to send a custom encrypted message every time. It would drive any party trying to intercept something nuts, since it would be different every time, depending on the sender's whim.

[edit on 8-7-2004 by Crysstaafur]

Just curious but don't you think blowfish 256 bit encryption would work for security?? I don't know of too many people who have programs to break this code if you put your encryption alogrithm at - say 20 characters. It would take probably years to break your email.
I might be way off base on this but seems to me it would work very well. The Govt or whoever probably does not have time to be trying to break code of people emailing each other. Let me know what you think.

Chris