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As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

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Re: As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

#21

Post by kenj0418 »

santosha wrote: post #14
pron wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't rely on government for anything? What are you talking about? Almost 100% of scientific research and 100% of infrastructure around the world is funded by government. Almost all of education, health and welfare around the world (though less so in the US) is run by government. A lot of people are suspicious of government, but such fundamental disdain toward and alienation from government are peculiar American (and…

'such fundamental disdain toward and alienation from government are peculiar American' This. If you're so unshakably convinced that a government full of people you vote for every four years is never going to work in your interests, you have serious problems.

"full of people" being the operative phrase here. People with power tend to abuse that power. This is human nature, and this is where distrust of government comes from.

People work in their own interest (however they may define that). Working in the interests of those that elect them is just a hopeful side effect of the democratic process.

Re: As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

#22

Post by ReidZB »

EGreg wrote: post #6
mtgx wrote: post #2

Why can't PFS be a solution for this?

PFS and other Deniable encryption ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption ) are great for deniability. However, they and everything else can be susceptible to unrelenting rubber-hose "cryptanalysis". ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis ) It is said that the goal of cryptography is to make the attacker resort to rubber-hose cryptanalysis, revealing their intentions. In those cases, the…

Any encryption scheme worth using will not be identifiable by a randomness test. Block ciphers like AES are designed specifically to model pseudorandom permutations (or, rather, this was one of their design goals); being able to distinguish them from truly-random data would be a rather frightening result.

For more information, see "Is it possible to distinguish a securely-encrypted ciphertext from random noise?" at http://crypto.stackexchange.com/q/1646/2454

Re: As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

#23

Post by nine_k »

santosha wrote: post #14
pron wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't rely on government for anything? What are you talking about? Almost 100% of scientific research and 100% of infrastructure around the world is funded by government. Almost all of education, health and welfare around the world (though less so in the US) is run by government. A lot of people are suspicious of government, but such fundamental disdain toward and alienation from government are peculiar American (and…

'such fundamental disdain toward and alienation from government are peculiar American' This. If you're so unshakably convinced that a government full of people you vote for every four years is never going to work in your interests, you have serious problems.

I wish you counted the officials you voted for and compared it to the number of governmental bureaucrats, agents, and other persons that are assigned, never elected, and often stay at their offices as elected officials change.

The number of non-elected officials is vastly larger than the few thousand elected officials people vote for.

Not that governments (and other bureaucratic bodies) never work in your interests. They always work in their own interests, and among these are self-perpetuation and grabbing more power. But as long as their other interests are aligned with yours, they could throw all their power at your cause. Should your interests diverge... well, good luck.

Re: As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

#24

Post by venomsnake »

mtgx wrote: post #16
venomsnake wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PFS protects you if feds get google keys now to not be able to decipher what you told google 3 months ago. But if they have the current keys nothing can protect you.

Wouldn't that mean Google would have to build a system to automatically send each key, for every session, for every user, to the NSA? That would be an insane scenario.

Unless I am mistaken the throwaway PFS keys are derived from something. They just have to share it with NSA and they will do the rest.

(I am not a serious cryptographer)

Re: As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

#25

Post by 1337biz »

rdl wrote: post #20

Sounds like not "the death of public key encryption" but the golden age of building technical controls into hardware/software which cannot be subverted by the operator, even in the face of a state agent with a gun. Assuming the right tech is developed and deployed, this is going to be far better for everyone in a few years. Yes, it will be shitty for a year or two, but by 2020, if we actually have real technical secu…

Situations like these probably rarely produce a real "winner". It is going to be an arms race between those favoring personal privacy and those favoring government snooping.

Just keep in mind that government operates basically on an unlimited budget and has access to a wide range of harassment opportunities for non compliance in matters like these. This fact alone will keep them at least at a dead level with potential counter measures.

Re: As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

#26

Post by DennisP »

EGreg wrote: post #6
mtgx wrote: post #2

Why can't PFS be a solution for this?

PFS and other Deniable encryption ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption ) are great for deniability. However, they and everything else can be susceptible to unrelenting rubber-hose "cryptanalysis". ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis ) It is said that the goal of cryptography is to make the attacker resort to rubber-hose cryptanalysis, revealing their intentions. In those cases, the…

Rubber hoses don't scale.

Re: As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

#27

Post by lettergram »

pron wrote: post #9
anovikov wrote: post #5

Broad solution to all this is building your lives in business in a way government can have a minimal control of. Just do what it requires and keep everything else encrypted and anonymized. And don't rely on government for anything, for we are heading for a world of global government failure: people and institutions are going to ignore and circumvent them all, and make them dysfunctional. In a way, that will be like c…

Don't rely on government for anything? What are you talking about? Almost 100% of scientific research and 100% of infrastructure around the world is funded by government. Almost all of education, health and welfare around the world (though less so in the US) is run by government. A lot of people are suspicious of government, but such fundamental disdain toward and alienation from government are peculiar American (and…

1) Most people around the world have some alienation towards their government (probably because most governments are willing to screw over/kill their citizens to maintain power if need be).

2) The United States Found Fathers pretty much all warned (and every child is taught in school) that the government should not be trusted (at least not with that much power).

Its astonishing that most American's allowed their government to become so over baring. If anyone read a couple history books as a child or young adult they would understand that one of the greatest concern for many of the nations leaders was the government become tyrannical. If it is a "peculiar American" trait, it comes from the literature, ideology, and moral fortitude of the original founders of the culture/nation.

Re: As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

#28

Post by w_t_payne »

pron wrote: post #9
anovikov wrote: post #5

Broad solution to all this is building your lives in business in a way government can have a minimal control of. Just do what it requires and keep everything else encrypted and anonymized. And don't rely on government for anything, for we are heading for a world of global government failure: people and institutions are going to ignore and circumvent them all, and make them dysfunctional. In a way, that will be like c…

Don't rely on government for anything? What are you talking about? Almost 100% of scientific research and 100% of infrastructure around the world is funded by government. Almost all of education, health and welfare around the world (though less so in the US) is run by government. A lot of people are suspicious of government, but such fundamental disdain toward and alienation from government are peculiar American (and…

/sarcasm -- (to be read in the voice of Sir Humphrey Appleby)

I, for one, rely on my government to perform all those vital, but tragically under-appreciated services done selflessly and at great sacrifice, and all for the public good. Our top Whitehall mandarins do so much to pre^H^H^Hdeserve their salaries.

The fabulous residences for the ambassadors, senior diplomats and other political appointees -- all those social events on the diplomatic circuit -- absolutely essential for our collective well-being. The unending sole-supplier cost-plus contracts given to the private contractors with the largest revolving door -- where would the nation be without them? The quangos and consultants, lobbyists and contractors -- our newly publicly-owned financial industry - the whole system -- not to mention the only middle class that we have left -- would suffer so very terribly without the kind patronage of a friendly state to steward and protect them.

/sarcasm

Re: As Feds Demand the Keys, Preparing for the Death of Public-Key Encryption

#29

Post by anovikov »

pron wrote: post #9
anovikov wrote: post #5

Broad solution to all this is building your lives in business in a way government can have a minimal control of. Just do what it requires and keep everything else encrypted and anonymized. And don't rely on government for anything, for we are heading for a world of global government failure: people and institutions are going to ignore and circumvent them all, and make them dysfunctional. In a way, that will be like c…

Don't rely on government for anything? What are you talking about? Almost 100% of scientific research and 100% of infrastructure around the world is funded by government. Almost all of education, health and welfare around the world (though less so in the US) is run by government. A lot of people are suspicious of government, but such fundamental disdain toward and alienation from government are peculiar American (and…

I just meant that in a personal way. That is: if you get into trouble, don't rely on the government to help you, for it is not too much willing to help, and pretty soon will be unable to. If you are in your 20s, no way you should hope the government will pay you pension once you grow old, for example.
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