How Bin Laden Emailed Without Being Detected by US

[yllus]

I'm not a crypto-expert by any means, but I'm highly skeptical of that assertion. How do we know they don't have some quantum computing based stuff that can crack AES? Again, the disclaimer is that I don't have any knowledge of the technology etc, I just find it hard to believe that generally available encryption is truly not breakable.

The core of traditional encryption methods is prime factorization, which mathematicians have argued and discussed since humanity first discovered number theory. As good as NSA's people likely are, they don't have a monopoly on intelligent math-oriented minds, and there is some serious money to be made in the private sector from knowing how to break the dominant form of security on the Internet today.

Aside from that, AES and other encryption methods today go through a very public and very thorough vetting process where the world's foremost minds in cryptography search for potential issues. That, plus the fact that anyone can pick up the spec and do the same, virtually guarantee its safety.

The discovery of an actual usable quantum computer could not be made in private - it relies on materials and technology that we're still at least a generation away from.

Kind of like obama just had to announce bin laden's death at the quickest possible moment... imagine if the CIA has access to those compound documents and was able to nab a few more higher ups before the news got out and they scattered.

Government is a leaky beast. I was up that night, and the person who first broke the news to me was Wolf Blitzer, not Barack Obama. The news was coming out that night no matter what, so there'd be no point in holding back.

 

[PokerGuy]

The core of traditional encryption methods is prime factorization, which mathematicians have argued and discussed since humanity first discovered number theory. As good as NSA's people likely are, they don't have a monopoly on intelligent math-oriented minds

How do you know they don't have access to computing technology that we don't? I remember reading that IBM and some other places have been able to build quantum computers on a very limited basis, how do we know they haven't built something on a larger scale that is capable of breaking AES or other prime factorization technology?

 

[Lemon law]

I too am no encryption expert, but its my understanding that if we throw enough computer time at it, any code can finally be broken. But therein lies the rub, not very encrypted emails can be cracked in any given year.

 

[Craig234]

I too am no encryption expert, but its my understanding that if we throw enough computer time at it, any code can finally be broken. But therein lies the rub, not very encrypted emails can be cracked in any given year.

I suspect the US has benefited from decryption more than any other nation - it's served us well in WWII, the cold war, and many other situations.

James Bamford is the leading author I know of on the history of this, with books like 'Body of Secrets'.

My impression is that encryption has gotten to the point that even the incredibly powerful NSA can't crack some codes (couldn't, can't? hard to be sure on their cutting edge).

Their ideal is probably to have encryption in use that is widely thought to be secure, but which the NA can crack (brute force, back door, whatever) - which would have to be a secret they'd have to carefully guard, not letting it be learned that they can crack the method, using the crack but hiding it.

Possible, but my impression is it's not the case. I think it might have been the case in the 90's, when the US government was strongly pushing one standard of encryption over a more secure one, where my impression is that they wanted the one that they (and pretty much only they) could break was used.

You don't seen really high end encryption all that widely available, do you? The last I recall was 'pretty good privacy' (PGP).

I don't think 'any encryption' can be cracked - it's not feasible, even with the super computers. This was a wall the NSA was running into, a disaster for its mission.

My impression is that it largely shifted to trying to intercept less- or non-encrypted messaged as a result, which has worked pretty well.

 

[yllus]

How do you know they don't have access to computing technology that we don't? I remember reading that IBM and some other places have been able to build quantum computers on a very limited basis, how do we know they haven't built something on a larger scale that is capable of breaking AES or other prime factorization technology?

Because it's not a case where we've been able to build 1% of the system. To date, the leading companies in this space have been able to create 1% of 1% of the materials and technology needed to create a general quantum computer. Each advancement in the direction needed won't escape the notice of the industry - it'll be many years of breakthroughs upon other breakthroughs to get there.

Also, as secretive as an organization can be, you'd have people eventually leaving government and keeping the secret of being able to hack any bank transfer, any piece of IP, or any secure communication transmitted digitally. It's rather unlikely.