NSA: already cracking much of the online traffic... no surprise I guess.

[blankslate]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-surveillance-encryption/

Reports: NSA has cracked much online encryption

The agencies' methods include the use of supercomputers to crack codes, covert measures to introduce weaknesses into encryption standards and behind-doors collaboration with technology companies and Internet service providers themselves.

"Through these covert partnerships, the agencies have inserted secret vulnerabilities -- known as backdoors or trapdoors -- into commercial encryption software," The Guardian says.

I guess we'll have to see if experts do another review of SHA-256 and SHA-512 to double check on these "secure standards." Can we trust anyone who claims to do another check on them?

"It may not have gained as many headlines as some of his other stories, because most people don't understand how crypto systems work. If indeed U.S intelligence does indeed have such a wide range of systems, then I'm surprised," he told CNN.

Crypto encryption is relevant to everyday applications that everyone uses, for example in communications and transactions, he said. "Now we learn that the foundation of web security has been compromised."

Hypponen, the chief research officer for F-Secure, said he believes the NSA and GCHQ (UK equivalent of NSA) had probably cracked the encryption by placing moles in key companies at key locations. "Any major service provider must have sizable amounts of moles from intelligence agencies. Remember that the NSA has 35,000 people working for it," he said.

And we thought that the U.S. wasn't that great at human intelligence methods...

I'm inclined to think that when we (I mean that collectively as I'm sure some who read this board have been paying attention) ignored the early spying attempts on data such as the FBI's ability to target specific computers in the 90's, the passage of the Patriot Act, then the AT&T data pipe in SF CA that was accessed by the government in the 90's it encouraged people in the intelligence agencies to go further and further until now it's intolerable.

It should have been intolerable since perhaps the 90's or when the AT&T datapipe that was revealed in 2007 (iirc) by a whistleblower should have been the last straw.

But no, people just ignored it and left Benjamin Franklin to spin in his grave. If you are incensed by what the NSA is doing today you have to ask yourself (otherwise you're just being disingenuous about the current situation) were you as angry about the earlier revelations?

If the American people bothered to be as angry back then as some of them appear to be now maybe we wouldn't have gotten to this state of invasive affairs so quickly.

 

[irishScott]

Well to be fair, human intelligence is a lot easier when you have effective legal jurisdiction over both the humans and infrastructure in question. 😛

Americans don't get angry easily. We stay in denial as the tip enters, portions of us remain in denial for several thrusts. Only around thrust 8 or so do we start getting mildly ticked off, and it would take about 30 before we start voting. 😛

I've said it before, the only reason PRISM wasn't shattered the day it came to light was because, to their credit, the NSA has done a very good job of not visibly abusing the system. Now when they start cracking down on political dissidents and such, shit will start to fly. And that is "when" IMO. May be decades, but as long as that and similar programs stand with the current shitty oversight it will be "when", not "if".

 

[CptDanko]

Fsb>nsa

 

[C1]

September 13, 2013 - Yahoo CEO Afraid of Defying NSA.

“If you don't comply, it is treason. We can't talk about it because it is
classified. Releasing classified information is treason, and you are incarcerated.
In terms of protecting our users, it makes more sense to work within the system.”

- Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo, speaking before TechCrunch DISRUPT
on Sept. 12, 2013, when asked why she didn't protect Yahoo users from
the “tyrannical government” of NSA and other spy agency
requests for information about Yahoo users.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO, answering questions in an on-stage interview at
theTechCrunchDISRUPT conference in San Francisco on September 12, 2013.
She said that Yahoo has tried to fight NSA, CIA and other intelligence agency
requests for alleged terrorism-fighting data. But according to Yahoo! News,
“Data requests authorized by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
come with an order barring anyone at a company receiving the request from
disclosing anything about them, even their existence.” Image © 2013 by AFP.

http://techcrunch.com/events/disrupt-sf-2013/event-info/

 

[Jeff7]

September 13, 2013 - Yahoo CEO Afraid of Defying NSA.

“If you don't comply, it is treason. We can't talk about it because it is
classified. Releasing classified information is treason, and you are incarcerated.
In terms of protecting our users, it makes more sense to work within the system.”

- Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo, speaking before TechCrunch DISRUPT
on Sept. 12, 2013, when asked why she didn't protect Yahoo users from
the “tyrannical government” of NSA and other spy agency
requests for information about Yahoo users.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO, answering questions in an on-stage interview at theTechCrunchDISRUPT conference in San Francisco on September 12, 2013.
She said that Yahoo has tried to fight NSA, CIA and other intelligence agency requests for alleged terrorism-fighting data. But according to Yahoo! News, “Data requests authorized by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court come with an order barring anyone at a company receiving the request from disclosing anything about them, even their existence.”

http://news.yahoo.com/yahoo-ceo-fears-defying-nsa-could-mean-prison-013254457.html (Edit: working link)

😵

Wow.

 

[Doppel]

September 13, 2013 - Yahoo CEO Afraid of Defying NSA.

“If you don't comply, it is treason. We can't talk about it because it is
classified. Releasing classified information is treason, and you are incarcerated.
In terms of protecting our users, it makes more sense to work within the system.”

- Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo, speaking before TechCrunch DISRUPT
on Sept. 12, 2013, when asked why she didn't protect Yahoo users from
the “tyrannical government” of NSA and other spy agency
requests for information about Yahoo users.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO, answering questions in an on-stage interview at
theTechCrunchDISRUPT conference in San Francisco on September 12, 2013.
She said that Yahoo has tried to fight NSA, CIA and other intelligence agency
requests for alleged terrorism-fighting data. But according to Yahoo! News,
“Data requests authorized by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
come with an order barring anyone at a company receiving the request from
disclosing anything about them, even their existence.” Image © 2013 by AFP.

http://techcrunch.com/events/disrupt-sf-2013/event-info/

So even if Yahoo said we are closing operations down because we don't want to cater to NSA that would have been illegal? I missed the part where this isn't tyrannical.

 

[C1]

Tech & NSA

Date: 09-15-13
Host: George Knapp
Guests: Charles R. Smith

In the first half, specialist in cyber warfare and technology, Charles R. Smith, joined George Knapp to talk about NSA revelations and their affect on society and the tech industry. "There's panic in the halls of Fort Meade at the moment," as the NSA "would prefer to operate in the darkness...away from the light of the public," he remarked. They're trying to apply damage control to the press, and their political allies, as well as put out disinformation about their capabilities in order to muddle the issue, he continued. Established as a secret military agency by the Truman administration, the NSA performed exemplary espionage during the Cold War, he noted.

Yet now, the NSA has become a "bureaucratic behemoth, almost like a dinosaur or Godzilla that has no brain," he commented, "and it will just continue to lumber on," We need to not only pull in the reins, but to dispose of entire missions the NSA has taken on that border on illegality, he suggested. A number of years ago the NSA tried to get legislative approval to install a "back door chip" in tech equipment, Smith recounted. But when that failed in Congress, they instead covertly managed to spread a wide variety of back doors in both software and hardware, including flaws in encryption they could exploit throughout the entire tech industry, according to documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NSA Revelations Cast Doubt on the Entire Tech Industry
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/tech-industry-tainted/

 

[ch33zw1z]

So I guess all the drives I've been encrypting for years is basically useless once the NSA gets involved. yeesh! It just keeps getting better.