[Discuss] email privacy/security

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

On 08/05/2013 02:49 PM, Richard Pieri wrote:
> What harm? The NSA has an effectively unlimited budget.

False.

Their budget is not large enough to crack really good crypto (256 bit with truly random key, and no other way to expose the key).  Which means even a targeted individual can keep them out, if you are very paranoid and smart about it.

Their budget is large enough to crack nearly all targeted inviduals' crypto, if they are after you specifically for a specific reason.

Their budget is absolutely *not* large enough to crack all the crypto of everybody, if a whole bunch of people out there are using it.  Case and point:  They created these big snooping programs (ala Snowden) rather than just cracking everybody's https in and out of facebook etc.  If they actually *had* the infinite budget, they would just use it, rather than increasing their risk of exposure via agreements with facebook etc.