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A comment on Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack. Parent comment

Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by akshatpradhan on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @02:30PM (#10583397)
I understand what you're saying, and I agree. But I think it might be a little disingenuous to use Osama Bin Laden's crypto practices as an example. I believe this is the more interesting story of what really happened with Bin Laden?

>Pakistan secretly captures Bin Laden by bribing tribesmen. The US finds out by bribing Pakistani officials. Further bribes with foreign aid money get other Pakistani officials to issue a stand down order. The SEALS swoop in unopposed but somehow still lose a helicopter. They kill a captive Bin Laden as part of a deal to avoid exposing Saudi support for Al Qaeda. The media gets fed a cover story about the compound being a command center. Some doctor guy becomes a scapegoat and vaccination programs are derailed in all of Pakistan. The CIA fabricates documents from the compound and flirts with claiming credit for "enhanced interrogation" technique in the matter.

If you don't like that story then sure by all means stick with Story A: The CIA does brilliant investigative work. The commander-in-chief makes a gutsy call. The SEALs storm in and kill the bad guy in a firefight. He is buried at sea with full rituals. The 2012 presidential campaign starts a few days afterwards.

If you support Story A, then this would certainly make sense:

>It's like they simply forgot about the biggest reason it took so long to find Osama bin Laden: he was so security-concerned that he used couriers and relays (which, counter to the broad narrative about the terrorist shift to security, actually cannot be decrypted)

##EDIT

Claims comes from a previous HN article about the Killing of Bin Laden: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9520984

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by nickbauman on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @02:42PM (#10583465)
Those are some pretty big claims, have any evidence to back them up?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by curun1r on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @04:17PM (#10584013)
The only thing that lends credibility to the story in the post you're responding to is the person who's claiming it's the truth. Seymour Hersh [1] has enough of a track record that we shouldn't dismiss it out of hand. As far as evidence goes, I'm not sure the official story has been proven any more than Hersh's story has, so it's hard to know what to believe.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by retroafroman on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @04:22PM (#10584040)
This IIRC is essentially the story reported by investigative journalist Sy Hersh, relying on unnamed sources. See here for the full read: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-...
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by nickbauman on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @04:27PM (#10584066)
Thank you! Ok I remember when that story broke but I didn't read the details. Seymour Hersh is such a respected and renowned journalist who has a track record for revealing exactly this stuff. But the lack of openness in the sources is disquieting. But the story is so odious and so serious, I suspect there are no sources that could weather the storm regardless.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by sliverstorm on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @03:43PM (#10583813)
The less evidence and the more faith involved, the more captivating the conspiracy theory. That's how they work.
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Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by wodenokoto on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @03:36PM (#10583778)
I fail to see how story b contradicts the parent post. If Osama was easily traceable there was no need to bribe everyone.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by the_watcher on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @05:46PM (#10584571)
I was just using it as an example of it long being on the mind of terrorists that they need to take extreme precautions to avoid their electronics being compromised. Snowden didn't alert them to the concept of decryption. Sorry if I implied anything more.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by ljf on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @04:23PM (#10584042)
The other 'wild' claim I heard was that his compound was actually a prison, built especially to house him. Again no proof, but an interesting idea none the less.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror At... by the_watcher on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @05:47PM (#10584580)
To be fair, an ultra-secure compound that the owner/resident of doesn't ever leave for fear of his own safety can be indistinguishable from a luxury prison in terms of outcome, even if it wasn't intended that way.
[ Parent | on HN ]