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Government Announces Steps to Restore Confidence on Encryption Standards

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Government Announces Steps to Restore Confidence on Encryption Standards

#24

Post by icambron »

j_baker wrote: post #16

I suspect that NIST is just another government organization trying to do their jobs, and I don't think it's fair that their name got dragged through the mud. The truth is that the NSA practically co-opted NIST's decision-making strategy. I have confidence in NIST. Sadly, I don't have confidence in the NSA to not muddy up the process.

I'm not sure you can separate those. If NIST is being systematically interfered with by the NSA, how can you have confidence in them?

Re: Government Announces Steps to Restore Confidence on Encryption Standards

#26

Post by rumcajz »

This is a procedural, not technical problem. It almost seems like the standardisation process open to everyone just enables everyone to insert their own backdoors into the standard.

One interesting way to solve the problem would be to allow differenct mutually hostile entities to define their own standards (US, Russia, China, FSF, Pirate Bay, whoever) and then encrypt using all of them.

That way, even if there is backdoor in each protocol, the only way to decrypt would be all those disparate players to cooperate. It would be like a vault with multiple keys possesed by different people.

Re: Government Announces Steps to Restore Confidence on Encryption Standards

#27

Post by joe_the_user »

_bfhp wrote: post #13
mathogre wrote: post #11

It's too fucking late. Government, we don't trust you anymore. You're not a part of us. For once, I'm ashamed of being an American.

Depends what you define as being "an American".. Glenn Greenwald, the main journalist publishing the leaks, asserts his US citizenship and his American identity as the ultimate impetus behind his acts -- his belief in the American Constitution and the rights of American citizens

America's conscience.

In exile in Brazil.

Re: Government Announces Steps to Restore Confidence on Encryption Standards

#29

Post by venomsnake »

frank_boyd wrote: post #20

You lost me at: "Government Announces Steps to Restore Confidence"

This is classic case of moving targets. There is what is politically feasible at any given moment and what is needed - when they do not overlap.

The moment the needed becomes feasible the new thing needed to calm stuff down becomes politically impossible because the situation has worsened a lot. Typical case was the Euro crisis of 2009-2011.

The USG is caught in weird position right now. The NSA story would have been easy to defuse in June with few bold steps. Now they seem inadequate. And we have a weak presidency and gridlocked congress. And the real fun is Putin just made the rift between them even bigger with a very good diplomatic move. So they cannot move together again to fix the NSA situation for a long time.

Re: Government Announces Steps to Restore Confidence on Encryption Standards

#30

Post by atmosx »

joe_the_user wrote: post #27
_bfhp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you define as being "an American".. Glenn Greenwald, the main journalist publishing the leaks, asserts his US citizenship and his American identity as the ultimate impetus behind his acts -- his belief in the American Constitution and the rights of American citizens

America's conscience. In exile in Brazil.

Can you imagine the guy actually living in the USA? He would be annihilated by now.
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