111–120 of 122 posts
"Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it." Edward Snowden, in Q&A session at The Guardian's homepage, 17 June 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-...
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But it's really hard to assume that - that's assuming true mathematical leaps and invention. Admittedly if you put enough cryptographers on the payroll they may form their own university, but they still need the air of their peers on the outside. Imagine a cosmologist today transported 30 years back and asked to attend conferences - they would gain no inspiration. I think we put too much emphasis on the single data p…
You may be thinking of the Ellis/Cocks/Williamson[1] invention of the RSA encryption and Diffie-Hellman key-exchange algorithms several years prior to their open publication. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Ellis
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Not advocating non standard crypto, but if the system is at least somewhat good ( that is, not susceptible to automatic attacks), it would keep a actual human busy. And you don't loose security, assuming that the cyphertext of the obscure system is again encrypted by a well established cypher.
It's important to note that even using well-tested, hardened crypto-primitives, you can still design an insecure system.
This is as good a thread as any to perhaps start a discussion on something that's been on my mind ever since I learnt about the NSA's penchant for hiring mathematicians and cryptographers. How would you reasonably estimate the NSA's academic prowess when it comes to crypto/codebreaking? How does this compare to the state-of-the-art in academia? I am less interested (but definitely so) in knowing or estimating more ab…
>whether or not they have an active "collaboration" and "internal publication" environment. Back in highschool one of my friends had an internship with the NSA. What he was doing is classified, but he is allowed to say that his work got published internally.
Great, thanks Wired, I just had SECRET/NOFORN material open on a government unclas computer and "I have a dream..." [1]. Both from the front page of Hacker News. Both apparently potentially a violation of law (intel and copyright). This makes the third open post, "Spy Kids" [2], also on the front page, all the more premoniscient. Who needs Kafka. Or Orwell. Or Huxley. It's all here. [1] http://www.archives.gov/press/…
Which of the 2 possible breaches do you fear reprisal for more?
I think it's important to remember the original motive for leaking. The NSA was conducting operations which many people feel are out of line with the way the American government should operate. Hence, Snowden is generally viewed as a hero rather than a villain. Even if it was morally justified to leak PRISM and XKeyScore, leaking a detailed breakdown of the budget for the entire intelligence arm of the American gover…
You know what's crazy about Snowden? Every time the guy releases something, people freak out. Why? Because nobody knows exactly what he stole. The even crazier thing is, this could all be a huge misinformation campaign and nobody would notice because we're all Snowden takes documents, gives them to press, and they release them. How do they verify their validity? Oh yeah, they can't since it's all top secret. What a g…
Perhaps you've been living under a rock, and haven't noticed tons of indipendent verifications and evidence showing his stuff is accurate.
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/20/20108770-...
The only verification is people saying, "leaked documents confirm XYZ." There's no way to verify the documents he's releasing are in fact - REAL. It's just people saying, "Oh yeah, we thought that was true, is now confirmed with these documents." Even though all the stuff he's releasing could be total fakes and no one would be the wiser.
Makes you wonder really. . .
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There are multiple data points suggesting the NSA is/was ahead of public researchers. There's the sbox changes to DES in the 70's when differential cryptanalysis wasn't publicly discovered till the 80's. The revisions between SHA-0 and SHA-1 (the attack the changes prevent weren't found for at least 5 years). The Dual EC DRBG random number generator they supplied to NIST that many people suspect of being compromisabl…
"..that many people suspect of being compromisable by NSA etc." If it was a backdoor you certainly can't count it among the NSAs successes. It is never used.
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Perhaps you've been living under a rock, and haven't noticed tons of indipendent verifications and evidence showing his stuff is accurate.
If you have specific articles which verify the documents he released were real, I'm pretty sure the NSA would like to see those. As far as I know, the only thing that's been verified is he took a LOT of documents. Even the NSA says they have no idea what he took: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/20/20108770-... The only verification is people saying, "leaked documents confirm XYZ." There's no way to ve…
Read the wikipedia article on the prism thing. It has lots of pointers to statements by officials that confirm the existance and scope of the program. Including officials that have lied before.
"Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it." Edward Snowden, in Q&A session at The Guardian's homepage, 17 June 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-...
What exactly does he mean by that? Can you give an example?