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The Feds Thoughts on Clipper
An anonymous reader sent us this article which describes a bunch of stuff released as part of the freedom of information act regarding the clipper chip. Its an interesting look into the government's view of encryption (or at least, what it thought 10 years ago anyway. Now that they have the quantum computer that can crack all all communications, and the quantum disk drives that they use to store every packet ever, they already know your underwear size, to say nothing of a complete copy of your DNA for their cloning efforts).
The FBI knowing your underwear size is a GOOD thing.
It means that when they handcuff you, they can use custom-made handcuffs that'll be more comfortable for you. Same goes for straitjackets - the taylor-made ones are FAR superiour to the Off-The-Shelf variety.
Also when the FBI is out shopping for birthday presents, they know what kind of DVDs you buy so they won't end up sending you The Little Mermaid again.
--
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Personally to me crypto its not a matter of "hiding criminal evidence from the feds" which is the basis of every single argument they'll thwo into the loop. As a citizen of the US you should be entitled as Amended to your right to privacy. What people rarely see is the level of abuse the Feds partake in regarding technology nowadays, abuse that happens on a scale that is barely told out of fear from sounding like an "anti-government" looney ranting about rights.
As I posted in a prior thread, taking a look at some of the cases going down with tech (Jerome Hackenkamp, Jim Bell, and others) its regretful to see no one has truly questioned the methods of the FBI regarding tech. What we do hear about are overhyped situations fed to the media, in order for Big Brother to look like a martyr. (e.g. Notice every month they announce a so called "cyberwar", or expected DoS attacks?) Rarely does any media outlet post situations like the Hackenkamp situation or the Max Vision situation, and the judge flat out gagged the media on the Jim Bell case.
So why is this done? Simple government does not want you to have the right to privacy when it comes to encryption, should they want to screw you as they have others, crypto makes everything more difficult for them to do so. Now when I say screw I literally mean screw. For those who have read the cases what happens is, when gov wants someone they'll use every resource in the book to get them. Even if its something as minimal as spitting on the floor. So to proactive people like Jim Bell, and Max Vision, who are likely to use crypto this makes their job that mich harder, so they take a "crypto is for criminals" attitude on the situation in hopes of proving that because some have used crypto for bad purposes in the past, everyone will as well. Argumentative however this isn't done when dealing with issues such as firearms. Why? Because when you have people like the NRA to voice out and pay politicians off, the situation quickly gets hushed, as opposed to tech where you have a handful of associations which attempt to help but are understaffed/underfunded/underadmined such as EPIC, EFF, and others.
Privacy for life
Want Root?
The interesting bit on US Gov Encryption Policy is the dramatic change that occured after the infamous Chineese spy case at Los Alamos and the missing US State Department Laptop case. Both cases involved top secret data being stored unencrypted. At that time, the US Gov actively discouraged commercially available encryption via the export legislation. After those incidents, the reports concluded that the individuals in the cases didn't encrypt the information because of the expense and difficultly involved with the current day encryption technologies. The findings advised that the commerical restraints on encryption be lifted in order to more cheaply secure government data.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Now that they have the quantum computer that can crack all all communications, and the quantum disk drives that they use to store every packet ever, they already know your underwear size, to say nothing of a complete copy of your DNA for their cloning efforts
.sig is great for this article!
The government doesn't have a quantum computer, the Illuminati do. But since the Illuminati control the government, they just eliminated the middle man in this article.
BTW - My
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
CLIPPER is an NSA developed, hardware oriented, cryptographic device that implements a symmetric encryption/decryption algorithm and a law enforcement satisfying key escrow system. While the key escrow management system design is not completely designed, the cryptographic algorithm (SKIPJACK) is completely specified (and classified SECRET).
The crytographic algorithm (called CA in this PAPER) has the following characteristics:
The CLIPPER CHIP is just one implementation of the CA. The CLIPPER CHIP designed for the AT&T commercial secure voice products has the following characteristics:
What about the 4000+ pages of clipper chip information that hasn't been found by FBI personnel yet?
McConnell noted that the advanced technology gives China the power to electronically lock out U.S. intelligence monitoring and lock in the Chinese population.
"Even if the Chinese use weak encryption the sheer volume of their communications will make it impossible for us to monitor. If China were to erect a public key infrastructure it will severely impact our intelligence gathering ability," stated McConnell.
He also stated that Clinton was aware that the advanced surveillance technology might be abused by hostile foreign powers.
"Can Key Recovery be used against dissidents and political opponents?" asked Adm. McConnell.
"In a word, YES," he concluded emphatically.
wtf? Like we care about freedom of information for these people. The Chinese are already locked into China's version of the internet, China's cell networks, etc. They already monitor what's going in and going out, and what's said within the country.
And ours for that matter.
Consider that, whatever the nature of this Clipper technology, the Chinese have the best cryptographic technology that our corporations have, much of which is better than that used by the government. The Chinese are, technically, as adaptable as the US and other Western countries. This knowledge is how they are catching the Chinese-American researchers who they keep detaining for spying and disclosing state secrets and such. They are catching Falun Gong organizers who plan via email.
With the international situation as it is, and has been for some time, with China, with an essential cold war, spy as much as you can mentality spearheaded by corporations and governments on both sides, there are no technological solutions to our relations with China. No amount of surveillance or control will resolve the fact that we have to come to terms with a power that is as big and has as many gadgets as we do.
-perdida
Goat sex free since 2001
We also know that every so often something leaks (via the FOIA) about Echelon or Clipper Chips and so on. We tend to be alarmed by what we find.
The question then arises: "If the secrets that get out are so alarming, how alarming is the 99% of stuff we don't know?"
What we learn from this is that these organizations obviously have a mighty infrastructure for intercepting communications and spying on what we do. The extreme right would have us believe that either we are paranoid or that any such capabilities have legitimate law enforcement justifications.
STOP THE PRESSES
If these organizations are using all that technology for legitimate law enforcement activities where are the indictments and convictions?
We do know that less than a handful of indictments where handed out last year based on intercepted communications. If these interception technologies exist and are obviously not being used to any great extent for legitimate law enforcement activity exactly what are these guys doing with all of that intercepted information?
-- MarkusQ