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If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

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Re: If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

#91

Post by JupiterMoon »

chao- wrote: post #17
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really the elected government, it's the security services asking for an expanded remit and being granted one by uncritical politicians and an apathetic media.

Who are the security services employed by? I certainly wouldn't call them private industry! Did you mean to say it's not elected government officials? Just curious, because I definitely consider a country's intelligence apparatus to be completely and wholly part of its "government", and would be surprised to find someone who didn't.

gorgak you've been hell-banned.

Re: If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

#92

Post by kuschku »

yrro wrote: post #35
kuschku wrote: post #15

The most unrealistic part is > Youtube fails to load with a secure connection error. YouTube still refuses to use anything more recent than RC4 encryption, so, if Cameron would ban all secure encryption, YouTube would probably still work.

"Your connection to www.youtube.com is encrypted with modern cryptography. The connection uses TLS 1.2. The connection is encrypted and authenticated using AES_128_GCM and uses ECDHE_ECDSA as the key exchange mechanism."

Check the actual connection for the video server, until a few months ago, that was still RC4. They only changed to 128-bit AES-GCM with ECDSA after Firefox started blocking RC4 encryption.

Re: If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

#93

Post by ForEnglandJames »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #80
ForEnglandJames wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who would co-operate? Who can resist a sufficiently determined state that still enjoys popular support? All he has to do is engineer the support for "security" over the long term. Don't misunderestimate your fellow voters.

When resistance is so damn easy, and capitulation so self-destructive, who would co-operate? You could not force a Linux distro or Mozilla to distribute that cert. It could not be done. [edit] https works based on trust. We trust the browsers and OS vendors to at least try to prevent the CAs from abusing their power. As soon as it becomes obvious that the OS and browser vendors are now letting state actors compromise…

That's very well thought-out. The tinfoiler in me wonders if that's true, though, and if there aren't subtler avenues for circumvention that still target this trust-based system, especially via social engineering.

I had little interest in security before Snowden, so admittedly, I need to lurk moar and keep learning. Thanks for offering another argument I can try to fit against new facts I encounter and helping me continue that process.

Re: If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

#95

Post by mike-cardwell »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #86
mike-cardwell wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly think that could happen? How? Who would co-operate? Which OS or browser vendor would knowingly distribute such a certificate? Not even Microsoft or Apple would co-operate, let alone Mozilla or the Linux distros... And it's not as if they can do it secretly. If they suddenly started to MITM all TLS traffic in the country by replacing the certs with certs signed by the national root, it would get notice…

S. Korea has a block cipher that no other country uses. Almost all S. Korean internet users install a plugin which allows them to browse the S. Korean internet since all S. Korean internet businesses must use that cipher. The UK could require that all companies that wish to do business in the UK must use the UK's CA. This would incentivize users to install the CA and incentivize vendors to pre-install it.

This would only work if UK online businesses are happy to sacrifice all of their foreign income. I.e, this would not work.

Re: If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

#96

Post by strictfp »

joesmo wrote: post #56

What's to stop people from using strong encryption on their own, illegally, end to end? It's not like this is the first time the government has inserted itself in between people's legitimate communications and intercepted them with no recourse. If you assume that that is the default state of being (and except for a few small governments, it is), then you realize that the short periods of time where people could commu…

It's very easy to make people stop doing this by making it illegal. It might sound obvious but I find that this aspect is often overlooked when tech people talk about these issues. You cannot work around the law. At least not in the long run. This is and must be a political battle.

Re: If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

#97

Post by theWheez »

kuschku wrote: post #92
yrro wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Your connection to www.youtube.com is encrypted with modern cryptography. The connection uses TLS 1.2. The connection is encrypted and authenticated using AES_128_GCM and uses ECDHE_ECDSA as the key exchange mechanism."

Check the actual connection for the video server, until a few months ago, that was still RC4. They only changed to 128-bit AES-GCM with ECDSA after Firefox started blocking RC4 encryption.

So the YouTube web pages still wouldn't load, no?

Re: If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

#98

Post by kordless »

pcrh wrote: post #81
kordless wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are running on it right now, so pretty damn close. :)

Do you mean https? Many common websites don't use/facilitate it.

I actually meant the reality we appear to exist in. https will eventually be broken and surveillance possible. :)

Re: If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

#99

Post by rysiek »

The ban is not about encryption: http://rys.io/en/149

Of course they can't expect to effectively police the ban if it's put into law. But they don't have to. Everybody will encrypt anyway and that's fine, because once they want somebody put away, they will be able to simply by saying "that person broke the Snooper's Charter by using SSH".

It's not about banning encryption, it's about having a convenient law to put tech-savvy people away.

Re: If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept

#100

Post by JupiterMoon »

Zigurd wrote: post #82
Zigurd wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read about the Dulles brothers. They forged very strong connections between overt and covert foreign policy and industry.

I don't see why gorgak's comment got flagged unto death. The Dulles brothers caused the term "banana republic" to be coined by O. Henry because the US government was toppling governments and killing large numbers of people on behalf of United Fruit. It is also generally accepted that the Communism scare they put up was bunk.

He's been hell banned I believe. Anything he posts is automatically killed.
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