A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into encrypted data (2016)

Re:A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into ... by EthanHeilman on Saturday February 03, 2024 @10:34PM (#39247293)

I wrote blog entry on this subject with a very similar name [0] which covers the CryptoAG story in more detail. It doesn't have the 2020 news.

[0]: A Brief History of NSA Backdoors (2013), https://www.ethanheilman.com/x/12/index.html

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into ... by samstave on Saturday February 03, 2024 @10:48PM (#39247372)

This is an epically cool blog post! - submit it to HN on its own merits.

This was of particular interest to me:

>>>"...1986 Reagan tipped off the Libyans that the US could decrypt their communications by talking about information he could only get through Libya decrypts on TV15. In 1991 the Iranians learned that the NSA could break their diplomatic communications when transcripts of Iranian diplomatic communications ended up in a French court case..."

Because, in 1986 - thats effectively when a lot of the phreaking and social engineering was at a peak - Cyberpunk was moving from imagination --> zeitgeist --> reality.

Social engineering and line-printer litter recovery were yielding the backdoors into the Telecom Switching system. BBS's were raging [0].

So when you get a gaph-guffaw look into infosec in a slipup like these ones, it reinforces in mind that the 80s were some really wild times all around as technology tsunami'd from people's minds business and reality.

[0] BBS Docu - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460402/

[1] phreaking - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking

[2] history of phreaking - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PmkUPBhL4U

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Re:A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into ... by EthanHeilman on Saturday February 03, 2024 @11:11PM (#39247505)

Thanks, just submitted

[ Parent | on HN ]

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Re:A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into ... by EthanHeilman on Monday February 05, 2024 @10:08AM (#39261978)

Good find, if I get around to updating that blog I'll add and credit your hn name.

[ Parent | on HN ]