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The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

economist.com

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Re: The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

#91

Post by CamperBob2 »

engrenage wrote: post #90
CamperBob2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weakening the American government is equivalent to strengthening other Governments. No, building petabyte-scale data centers to spy on you and me is what's weakening the American government. We're not the problem, right? The NSA is like the drunk who looks for his lost keys under the lamppost, "because that's where the light is." Not only does the American government's idea of a hypersecure state not make us any more…

The lack of evidence isn't surprising given that they are a spy agency . They may not be protecting the US from terrorism, but there are major geopolitical adversaries at work who have no scruples about using cyberwarfare techniques. There is something akin to the Cold War in play, and the NSA is a significant part of the US's position in that war.

Sorry, 1% of America's GDP is too much to pay for a suit-and-tie version of Anonymous.

Re: The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

#92

Post by engrenage »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #91
engrenage wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of evidence isn't surprising given that they are a spy agency . They may not be protecting the US from terrorism, but there are major geopolitical adversaries at work who have no scruples about using cyberwarfare techniques. There is something akin to the Cold War in play, and the NSA is a significant part of the US's position in that war.

Sorry, 1% of America's GDP is too much to pay for a suit-and-tie version of Anonymous.

How do you know?

Re: The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

#93

Post by CamperBob2 »

engrenage wrote: post #92
CamperBob2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, 1% of America's GDP is too much to pay for a suit-and-tie version of Anonymous.

How do you know?

We could take a 9/11 in the shorts every year, for what we spend on the tiger-proof rocks sold by the Intelligence Community.

That sounds like a fair trade considering the cost in human lives... except that there's no evidence we're "trading" anything but our own treasure and freedom.

Re: The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

#94

Post by shmageggy »

yk wrote: post #46
shmageggy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Integer factorization is currently not known to be NP complete, and is expected to not be so. Therefore, even such a breakthrough as posited in the article would have no immediate bearing on the question of P vs NP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization#Difficult...

Other way round, multiplication is in P, so integer factorization is in NP. And a breakthrough in P?=NP could have implications for factorization.

> so integer factorization is in NP

I never said it wasn't.

> And a breakthrough in P?=NP could have implications for factorization.

Indeed, but what's implied in the article is that they might have made a breakthrough in factorization specifically, not in fundamental CS theory at large.

Re: The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

#95

Post by harshreality »

crazypyro wrote: post #72
twotwotwo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On point 2, NSA still allows the use of AES-256 to protect top secret data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_Suite_B_Cryptography

Why is everyone assuming the NSA has to be using their own standards, behind close doors?

They don't. They use Suite A, which is an eclectic mix of proprietary algorithms. Firefly/Enhanced Firefly for key exchange (PKI), Joeski (allegedly a pair of algorithms for encrypting and decrypting other ciphers or firmware with the interesting property that encryption algorithm cannot be deduced from the decryption algorithm and vice versa), and a bunch of others. They have different algorithms depending on the specific information channel. Permanent data storage uses one (or perhaps a few), communications traffic uses others, and communications are further split depending on channel bandwidth and presumably long-term classification needs of the data.

They have to recommend Suite B to the government and military in cases where NSA validated hardware can't be used. Examples would be military communications with allies, garden variety agencies that can't afford or can't be trusted with Suite A modules.

Re: The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

#96

Post by [deleted] »

harshreality wrote: post #95
crazypyro wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is everyone assuming the NSA has to be using their own standards, behind close doors?

They don't. They use Suite A, which is an eclectic mix of proprietary algorithms. Firefly/Enhanced Firefly for key exchange (PKI), Joeski (allegedly a pair of algorithms for encrypting and decrypting other ciphers or firmware with the interesting property that encryption algorithm cannot be deduced from the decryption algorithm and vice versa), and a bunch of others. They have different algorithms depending on the sp…

[deleted]

Re: The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

#98

Post by advice4u »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #83
advice4u wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? As far as I can tell, it is freely available on NSA's website: http://www.nsa.gov/about/_images/pg_hi_res/nsa_aerial.jpg

Perhaps it would sound better as "Many Bantha spies have given their lives to bring us that photo, General Calrissian" (I'm sure I have that wrong - so a prize to whoever corrects the quote from memory :-)

*Bothans

Banthas are the large beasts-of-burden on Tatooine. Bothans are humanoid aliens with cat/dog-like faces. Why do I know that? I play a lot of Star Wars video and card games :)

EDIT: just googled for the quote. The full one is "Many Bothans died to bring us this information."

Re: The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

#99

Post by nilved »

nodata wrote: post #77
nilved wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he really didn't. We knew that the USA intercepted any Internet traffic they could get their hands on, and we knew that big data companies were in bed with the NSA. If the talking point is that Snowden got these facts on mainstream news, that isn't a revelation, that's marketing. "Relevation" implies the idea didn't exist beforehand.

So a revelation isn't the revealing of a secret to people who don't know the secret? (or to put it another way: revealing a secret to a population where the vast majority do not know it) Snowden revealed the scale of the operation too, and the depth of the rabbit hole.

Not if that information is already publicly and easily accessible to that group. If I was to post a link to an existing but obscure Wikipedia article on Hacker News, it would be as much of a "revelation" as Snowden's "revelations."

Re: The NSA's crypto "breakthrough"

#100

Post by lifeisstillgood »

advice4u wrote: post #98
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it would sound better as "Many Bantha spies have given their lives to bring us that photo, General Calrissian" (I'm sure I have that wrong - so a prize to whoever corrects the quote from memory :-)

*Bothans Banthas are the large beasts-of-burden on Tatooine. Bothans are humanoid aliens with cat/dog-like faces. Why do I know that? I play a lot of Star Wars video and card games :) EDIT: just googled for the quote. The full one is "Many Bothans died to bring us this information."

Oh yes ... but I now have this irresistible vision of Vader and the Emperor walking through the Death Star landing bay, with a 12 foot long haired Bantha tiptoeing behind the massed ranks of Stormtroopers trying to look inconspicuous in a red cloak and disguise

Maybe it's just me

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