Re:More encryption means less privacy
by mike_hearn on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @02:08PM
(#12256571)
How many of the NSA's backdoors have ended up in the hands of foreign nations and criminals, again?
> How many of the NSA's backdoors have ended up in the hands of foreign nations and criminals, again?
Good timing, the day after your message-- there were dozens of them posted to the public with a suggestion more may go to the highest bidder.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/power...
“Without a doubt, they’re the keys to the kingdom,” said one former TAO employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal operations. “The stuff you’re talking about would undermine the security of a lot of major government and corporate networks both here and abroad.” Said a second former TAO hacker who saw the file: “From what I saw, there was no doubt in my mind that it was legitimate.”
If the other example I gave wrt dual_ec drbg wasn't enough.
Re:More encryption means less privacy
by michael_fine on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @02:57PM
(#12256942)
To be fair, the NSA did have a very high profile incided where they were considering legally mandating a physical backdoor, called the Clipper Chip, until it was proven that the chip had a gaping vulnerability.
Re:More encryption means less privacy
by mike_hearn on Thursday August 11, 2016 @03:43AM
(#12266762)
That's kind of proving my point, isn't it? They reacted to the vulnerability (decades ago) by not deploying it, and presumably learning some lessons.
At least one major one, it appears-- in the form of substituting the backdoor parameters with attacker selected ones.
So far, as far as we know, 100% of them. We'll need more data for an accurate picture.
Clipper chip is the classic example...
All of them.
Re:More encryption means less privacy
by michael_fine on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @05:19PM
(#12257764)
That's entirely unprovable, given that we have no idea how many backdoors the NSA has, nor for the matter, are we even sure how many have been leaked.
Re:More encryption means less privacy
by Confusion on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @03:14AM
(#12260000)
Of course it is, but note that my comment did not make any statement about NSA backdoors and anyone mentioning those is just trying to muddy my argument by acting as if it did.
Re:More encryption means less privacy
by michael_fine on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @05:09AM
(#12260410)
Yeah, implied subject is a thing, implied predicate less so in common parlance.
These arguments have a huge track record against them and I downvoted you for either acting wilfully ignorant.