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NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

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Re: NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

#91
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not simply make the cryptographically secure service opt-in?

This is the real reason why cryptography hasn't caught on. It's opt-in by nature - No matter how hard you try, you can't send someone an encrypted message if they don't have a public key for you to use.

PGP, Inc., now Symantec, has been selling a product that does exactly this for years.

Re: NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

#92
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the old rubber-hose cryptanalysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis However, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_forward_secrecy OTR does provide "perfect forward secrecy as well as deniable encryption". Doesn't that provide some protection against rubber-hose cryptanalysis?

Perfect Forward Secrecy means that even if you want to you cannot decrypt old messages, since the keys used are ephemeral and destroyed at the end of the session.

> Perfect Forward Secrecy means that even if you want to you cannot decrypt old messages

Which means, if they're jailing you until you do decrypt the messages, you get jailed indefinitely. Contempt of court has very few limits in some circumstances, even compared to being imprisoned after being convicted of a crime:

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-3rd-circuit/1262859.html

Re: NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

#93
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This simply isn't true. Even if you (with likely a few orders of magnitude margin) overestimate total world computing capacity at 1e21 decryption operations per second it's going to take you about age-of-the-universe seconds to brute force a single 128 bit key. No amount of money or supposed 'exponential technology growth' is going to let any government brute force these anytime soon. And those are the smallest symme…

Compute power is far from the most effective brute force method to get someone's encryption key. Other means include; rendition, waterboarding, jail, similar threats and keyloggers.

If they can beat a key out of you, they can beat you for any reason, or no reason at all.

Re: NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

#94

> NSA-proof encryption exists. Yup. Except it's not that easy. Let's say that you're using OTR to provide very strong end-to-end encryption for a conversation between yourself and a buddy, Bob. Maybe he's in a hostile area, and you're worried that if his government sniffs his traffic, that he could be executed for speaking to Americans. Data in transit that is intercepted, if configured correctly, is almost certainly…

If we accept all claims to be true, that the NSA does have a PRISM program, and is able to get data from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, etc., and we also accept the claims from those companies that they have provided no 'direct access' to their systems, then perhaps SSL is broken?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/03/13/cryptog...

Re: NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

#95
How timely. This NSA fiasco has prompted me to finish up an old project https://boxuptext.com/, which is a convenient webapp to encrypt message to url entirely on the browser. It's ready for use.

Not many people use crypto because in general it's hard to set up and hard to use. A webapp is accessible and easy to use and provide reasonable security.

I know there's a prevailing view against doing crypto in Javascript, and I've gone the extra steps to address the negatives. At the end I think the benefits of doing javascript on the browser outweigh the negatives. See https://boxuptext.com/faq#benefits

Re: NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The resolution of a lens at a given wavelength is determined by its diameter (Rayleigh function). We know how big the launch vehicles are, so we can estimate the largest size a spy satellite's mirror could be, and we can use that to compute the maximum resolution a satellite could have; it turns out to be something around 5-10 cm. In order to resolve a newspaper from near-earth orbit, you'd need a lens bigger than th…

Would it be possible to improve the resolution of optical imagery using a synthetic aperture?

Beyond my knowledge, sorry.

Re: NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

#97
All I want to know is, can SSH traffic be decoded ?

I don't trust SSL, for various reasons of implementation and many, many questions about weak links in the PKI chain, etc.

But I rely on SSH. I'd like very much to see some kind of assurance that this is a reasonable thing to rely on...

Re: NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

#99
post #92
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect Forward Secrecy means that even if you want to you cannot decrypt old messages, since the keys used are ephemeral and destroyed at the end of the session.

> Perfect Forward Secrecy means that even if you want to you cannot decrypt old messages Which means, if they're jailing you until you do decrypt the messages, you get jailed indefinitely. Contempt of court has very few limits in some circumstances, even compared to being imprisoned after being convicted of a crime: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-3rd-circuit/1262859.html

> Which means, if they're jailing you until you do decrypt the messages, you get jailed indefinitely.

Maybe, but they wouldn't be waiting for you to do something for them. They would understand that there was nothing you could do to help them decrypt the messages. i.e. your encryption worked.

Re: NSA-proof encryption exists. Why doesn’t anyone use it?

#100
post #92
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect Forward Secrecy means that even if you want to you cannot decrypt old messages, since the keys used are ephemeral and destroyed at the end of the session.

> Perfect Forward Secrecy means that even if you want to you cannot decrypt old messages Which means, if they're jailing you until you do decrypt the messages, you get jailed indefinitely. Contempt of court has very few limits in some circumstances, even compared to being imprisoned after being convicted of a crime: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-3rd-circuit/1262859.html

However, unless there is a legal requirement that you maintain the records in question, a documented habit of destroying them is almost certainly enough to get out of contempt of court for not producing them, absent some specific reason to believe you kept those special.
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