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Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

justice.gov

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Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#141

Post by masscrypteria »

ryacko wrote: post #26

It is quite certain that law enforcement has more capabilities than they are willing to reveal in courts. Even if encryption backdoors were available, it is dubious they would routinely submit it in evidence. Encryption is not an impediment to an investigation into an ongoing activity, files need to be decrypted, there are side channels everywhere, etc. Metadata and physical surveillance is enough to convict or put a…

Strong encryption absolutely impedes investigations. And, what indication is there that the primary purpose of mass surveillance is blackmail?

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#142

Post by adamc »

slg wrote: post #98
gregmac wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptography has existed for over 3000 years [1], steganography [2] has been documented in use over 2000 years ago and it's possible it has been used much longer (the entire point is we wouldn't know). If encryption is being used to hide "valuable criminal evidence", how is that different from someone hiding evidence by burying it somewhere or simply destroying it? We don't detain random people and force them to give…

Lots of people are bringing up these type of issues, so let me just address them generally. Defaults are important. Yes, it was always possible to build some elaborate booby trapped safe, bury the evidence in the middle of the Mojave Desert, or cook up some home made encryption algorithm to hide evidence. However that wasn't the default. It took elaborate planning and dedication that most people simply didn't have. F…

In the same way that private verbal communications are protected by the fifth amendment -- we cannot force people to testify against themselves about possibly incriminating things.

This is a slippery slope.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#143

Post by lukifer »

xenadu02 wrote: post #64

If the US Government succeeds in requiring a backdoor then so will every other government. Does anyone really think China won’t immediately demand backdoors?

It's even a problem with allies as well as adversaries; countries can potentially get around their own legal limitations by agreeing to spy on one another, and where needed to build a case, covering their tracks via parallel construction. Whether officially or unofficially, any backdoor keys would leak almost immediately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#144

Post by inetknght »

dewaine wrote: post #116
awakeasleep wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scenario you described accomplishes both goals. By banning 'the masses' from using encrypted communications, it'll sort the haystack and everyone who continues to do so can be profiled, plus they're already involved in illegal behavior.

You better believe I would start streaming random data all over the internet just to be an asshole

Then, in the US, you have obstruction of justice and/or interference with police/peace/public officer.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#145

Post by dmitrygr »

puzzledobserver wrote: post #94
ngngngng wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I can just refuse to decrypt my data. They can just break physical locks.

I wonder whether there is any work on plausibly deniable public key cryptography. The sender uses the public key to encrypt the plaintext, and the receiver uses their private key to decipher the ciphertext, as usual. But, on being compelled, the receiver can also choose an arbitrary target plaintext, and efficiently compute a new private key that maps the ciphertext to the chosen target plaintext.

Take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging

It is designed for that, and more. In fact, it does not leave the theoretical "anyone could fake the logs", they created a tool to do so, so that you do not need an expert witness to explain to court that someone could doctor the logs - a tool exists for it. On purpose. They call it Deniable authentication:

> Messages in a conversation do not have digital signatures, and after a conversation is complete, anyone is able to forge a message to appear to have come from one of the participants in the conversation, assuring that it is impossible to prove that a specific message came from a specific person. Within the conversation the recipient can be sure that a message is coming from the person they have identified.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#146

Post by masscrypteria »

makerofspoons wrote: post #24

The cat's out of the bag. All this would lead to is law-abiding citizens having their information at risk while criminals continue to use crypto without backdoors.

Build a better exceptional access encryption system that solves human and technological shortcomings.

Removing strong encryption at scale would have far more effect than what you’ve described.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#147

Post by inetknght »

ianai wrote: post #133
AcerbicZero wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With how prevalent parallel construction has become it seems obvious that any encryption backdoor would be immediately exploited as soon as law enforcement had even the slightest justification to poke around. If they find something, you can be sure they'll come up with a legal way to arrest you for it. If they find nothing, oh well, better luck next time. Not like you'll ever know they were even there (probably).

Do you have a good reference for more info on parallel construction?

Stingray manuals and law enforcement license agreements are strongly worded to require parallel construction. Start googling from there and discover a whole world of tinfoil.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#148

Post by masscrypteria »

kromem wrote: post #90
makerofspoons wrote: post #24

The cat's out of the bag. All this would lead to is law-abiding citizens having their information at risk while criminals continue to use crypto without backdoors.

I wish laypeople hearing this stuff realized how easy it would be for the "bad guys" to use one time pads. It would be trivial to have terror cells be distributed a USB with several GB of a OTP, and that would be unbreakable even into the age of quantum computing if used properly. Thus isn't at all about terrorism or the "really bad guys." It's 100% about accessing the average Joe Blow's communications.

Bad guys already do use such schemes and more.

If the government can’t crack strong encryption as-is, the problem is that strong encryption is deployed at scale.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#149

Post by outworlder »

xenadu02 wrote: post #64

If the US Government succeeds in requiring a backdoor then so will every other government. Does anyone really think China won’t immediately demand backdoors?

It's worse. They will use the exact same backdoors.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#150

Post by bredren »

ianai wrote: post #133
AcerbicZero wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With how prevalent parallel construction has become it seems obvious that any encryption backdoor would be immediately exploited as soon as law enforcement had even the slightest justification to poke around. If they find something, you can be sure they'll come up with a legal way to arrest you for it. If they find nothing, oh well, better luck next time. Not like you'll ever know they were even there (probably).

Do you have a good reference for more info on parallel construction?

Look at news stories of unusually large narcotics busts attributed to a random leo pulling over a car for a traffic violation.
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