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EU To Counter Echelon With Quantum Cryptography?

Posted by simoniker on from the if-it-exists dept.

jfruhlinger writes "An article on Security.ITWorld.com seems to outline a coming information arms race. The European Union has decided to respond to the Echelon project by funding research into supposedly unbreakable quantum cryptography that will keep EU data out of Echelon's maw. Leaving aside the question of whether such a thing is possible, the political implications are troubling, indicating a widening rift within the Western world. Interestingly, the UK is part of the EU, but its intelligence services are among Echelon's sponsors."

19 of 465 comments (clear)

  1. What I do is.... by Kenja · · Score: 5, Funny

    What I do is send meaningless emails with high encryption to my friends in China. I figure that the NSA may as well spend countless CPU cycles finding out that I just installed the Guild Wars E3 demo rather then on important stuff.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:What I do is.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Of course the Chinese government simply eliminates the middleman and tosses your friends into an 'retraining collective'.

    2. Re:What I do is.... by DynaSoar · · Score: 5, Funny

      "What I do is send meaningless emails with high encryption to my friends in China. I figure that the NSA may as well spend countless CPU cycles finding out that I just installed the Guild Wars E3 demo rather then on important stuff."

      I often enjoy sending such things are core dumps or font files (or maybe plans for a planet-buster nuke, I fergit) compressed twice using two different out dated compression programs (say, ARC on a PC and then ShrinkIt [NuFX] on an Apple II), strip off the archive ID header, UUencode it, strip off the leading cap M's, cut it in half, paste it second half first into an email, and send it with a subject line with likely Echelon trigger words, adding "PS: Call me for the key to decode this." If encryption is outlawed, only
      a8e3 5m0w s3k1 5d9k
      b7f2 7k1l c9r4 3yr5.

      --
      "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
    3. Re:What I do is.... by pracz · · Score: 3, Funny
      white noise from a microphone placed next to the cooling fan is my favorite

      Be carefull! If your have a relatively good microphone, you could send sensitive data!

      Have a look at this: Breaking RSA Keys by Listening to Your Computer ;-)

    4. Re:What I do is.... by Mazzaroth · · Score: 4, Funny

      I remember using that kind of tactic back then... I was in charge of a research group and we had to produce a huge specification document for friday 17h00. Of course it was not ready on time. So I decided to try something. I first included a few copies of the document (10 or so) in a zip archive, I then encrypted it using PGP, then uuencoded it, performed a shuffling on it and finally zipped-it again and re-PGP it. After removing the heading, I renamed the thing "Spec_1.0.doc" and send it to our customer. Of course we worked all weekend completing the document but at least, it registered, as our contract required, just in time. The customer came back to us one week later saying that they were not able to open the MSWord document. "Oh! (we said), gee! This must be this email thing AGAIN... we've been having this problem lately... let me resend it to you". And I sent the (new, completed and heavily revised) document. The customer were happy because the document were very good, and so were we.

      I think this time-dilatation technique has been called 'Ed's relativistic document delivery' in that company I used to work. I just called it 'creativity by necessity'.

    5. Re:What I do is.... by thrillseeker · · Score: 2, Funny
      I'm sure they'll be able to decipher this, and find some meaningful message.

      On slashdot?

  2. Uh oh... by ryanvm · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Whitehouse just issued a press release stating that, "Quantum Mechanics is now officially part of the Axis of Evil".

    1. Re:Uh oh... by theefer · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you don't consider Quantum Physics evil, you've definitely never been in a technical university.

      --
      theefer
    2. Re:Uh oh... by brain159 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Surely, quantum mechanics might or might not be part of the axis of evil?

  3. Unbeatable Encryption! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other news, a significant minority of people in the EU have already switched to an unbreakable real-time encryption technology, transmissible through the open air. External experts are at a loss; the NSA has made no headway whatsoever against this new threat.

    What is it? It goes by the name 'French'...

    1. Re:Unbeatable Encryption! by pipingguy · · Score: 4, Funny



      I remember watching some TV special about the code talkers, and one of the old guys was practically laughing when he was telling his story.

      When NASA was preparing for the Apollo project, they did some astronaut training on a Navajo Indian reservation. One day, a Navajo elder and his son were herding sheep and came across the space crew. The old man, who spoke only Navajo, asked a question which his son translated. "What are these guys in the big suits doing?"

      A member of the crew said they were practicing for their trip to the moon. The old man got all excited and asked if he could send a message to the moon with the astronauts.

      Recognizing a promotional opportunity for the spin-doctors, the NASA folks found a tape recorder. After the old man recorded his message, they asked the son to translate it. He refused.

      So the NASA reps brought the tape to the reservation where the rest of the tribe listened and laughed but refused to translate the elder's message to the moon.

      Finally, the NASA crew called in an official government translator. He reported that the moon message said, "Watch out for these guys; they have come to steal your land."

  4. Big Brothers by Cheo · · Score: 2, Funny

    You used to "worry" about "Big Brother" watching you. Now there will be two "Big Brothers" watching over us at all times. Whew! I feel secure.

  5. Re:broad daylight by destiney · · Score: 2, Funny


    recursion, it's not just for scripting anymore..

  6. How it came to pass... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    *** Schroder ( ~schroder!blinky@reichstag.de ) has joined #europe
    *** TOPIC: Be nice to the new guys or Ireland will export drunk hooligans to your country!
    <Schroder> Gutentag!
    <Blair> Cheerios, ol' chap!
    <Chirac> Sup?
    <Schroder> What's happening over here?
    <Chirac> Just watching zat goddamn idiot Bush trying to lose a war.
    <Schroder> Ach so...
    *** Bush ( ~bush!dubya@whitehouse.gov ) has joined #europe
    <Bush> I READ THAT, YOU BITCH!!!
    *** Bush has left #europe
    <Schroder> Right, this is getting tiresome...
    <Blair> Fancy a crumpet, anyone?
  7. You Have Quantum Mail! by 10101001011 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Dubya-I-N-D-O-W-S XP

    bfsjhbdfhsidhfdhikerhfkihreki
    hsfdiurhfiuheriughiurehgierhiytiuwejlkjPiefjih
    hi udfhgiufdhguihizghdusghurugfihdsiughsiuhgui
    yqtey trytreiqifmzml,PLaosjujshnfklsdgoij
    khsgiuhrgiuhs dilbvdhboinvkishrdoiiksdjf
    dgbkidfhgiobnvkjdhbivs jodfgniugkishgdf


    Decryption Commencing... Please Wait...

    This may take a few minutes....

    You may wish to grab a coffee

    ERROR! Cannot decrypt!

    Bush: Well gosh, I guess them Yuropiens have got Weapons of Mass Distruction!

    Bush leaves the office...

    Retrying decryption... Decryption complete!

    Message reads:
    RE: Bush's IQ
    From: Tony Blair
    To: Paul Martin
    Bush really is an idiot, isn't he?

    Signed,
    Blair

    PS: What do you think of the new encryption program we desgined. It is uncrackable!

  8. Re:Measures and counter-measures by Kirill+Lokshin · · Score: 2, Funny

    Rubber-hose cryptography against someone with access to the key generally works quite well in situations like these (since obviously someone must be able to decrypt this stuff for it to be of practical interest).

  9. Re:The UK's role in the EU by Erik_ · · Score: 2, Funny

    Some belgians do ;-)

  10. Re:History on stage. by MightyYar · · Score: 2, Funny

    The people of the US are far more educated than the people who occupied the country 200 years ago, and yet a republic it has remained.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  11. Re:The UK's role in the EU by Alci12 · · Score: 1, Funny

    I think this is self delusion. Ever since Bush took over its been one issue after another. /. has been full enough of diatribes about the the US position on the environment, global trade & the international court.[& I'm not saying some of the point may not be valid] Where were the street protests when Russia went into chechnya. Funny that people only develop a consience when its America. Otherwise they stay silent while far greater crimes are committed. Sadly if they French and Russian governments had had their oil concessions protected (as they asked) then we would have had our UN resolution and I'm confident that some of the people who object so vocally would be saying the reverse. Hipocracy is alive and well. Its naive to believe that anti-Americanism is not rife in some governments. The 'foreign policy' aspects of the new constitution are little more then the continuation of France's longstanding ambition to create a rival block to oppose America