Slashdot Mirror
Italian Phone Taps Spur Encryption Use
manekineko2 writes "This article in the NYTimes discusses how a recent rash of high-profile mobile phone taps in Italy is spurring a rush toward software-encrypted phone conversations. Private conversations have been tapped and subsequently leaked to the media and have resulted in disclosures of sensitive takeover discussions, revelations regarding game-fixing in soccer, and the arrest of a prince on charges of providing prostitutes and illegal slot machines. An Italian investigative reporter stated that no one would ever discuss sensitive information on the phone now. As a result, encryption software for mobile phones has moved from the government and military worlds into the mainstream. Are GSM phones in the US ripe for a similar explosion in the use of freely available wiretapping technology, and could this finally be the impetus to for widespread use of software-encrypted communications?"
Quite simply, one of two things would prevent encrypted cell phones from becoming successful in the US:
1. The government would simply make it illegal (don't want to give the terrorists any new tools).
2. The government would require a backdoor be built in by manufacturers, defeating the purpose.
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A CA is not in central control over encryption. They are only in control of authenticating keys. The only way they can subvert the encryption process is to issue matching (in details, but not in keys) certificates to you and the man in the middle. If they were to do this, it would be detected quickly, and their reputation as a trusted CA would suffer.
Even the NSA doesn't have enough computing power to decrypt THAT
Yes, of course. Until you realize, at the end of the conversation, that the NSA's already bugged the room you're talking in.
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Is the encryption software open-source?
If not, how do we know that it doesn't have a back-door?
And if it does indeed have a back-door, how can people ever be sure that the "wrong" people (definition of "wrong" depending on the user) will not intercept and decode the communications using said back-door?
In this world of powerfull Intelligence Agencies, any kind of communications security software/hardware which is not at the very least peer-reviewed is bound to have some sort of backdoor.
They claim that communications are end-to-end encrypted, although they don't publish the source code, so hard to verify for backdoors etc. They have a client available for mobile devices - you can then call from any hotspot. Free, too, unless you take or make calls to/from normal lines (which are then, of course, not encrypted).
An another point, some of the posts here seem to be missing the point - the Italian wiretaps involved not just the state, but also illegal snooping done by powerful individuals, corporations and also the state phone company. It's not just the mobiles that were tapped, but land lines too. No point in having an encrypted GSM if you then use it to call a bugged land line...
As low as it may be, there still is some expectation of privacy on the phone (that's why wiretapping is regulated by a law): unfortunately even that low barrier has been broken in a quite spectacular way, so people now are outraged and asking for end-to-end encrypted phones, since they can't trust the phone company (the tapping apparently was done by insiders at the phone company...).