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NSA Backdoors In Open Source and Open Standards: What Are the Odds?
New submitter quarrelinastraw writes "For years, users have conjectured that the NSA may have placed backdoors in security projects such as SELinux and in cryptography standards such as AES. However, I have yet to have seen a serious scientific analysis of this question, as discussions rarely get beyond general paranoia facing off against a general belief that government incompetence plus public scrutiny make backdoors unlikely. In light of the recent NSA revelations about the PRISM surveillance program, and that Microsoft tells the NSA about bugs before fixing them, how concerned should we be? And if there is reason for concern, what steps should we take individually or as a community?" Read more below for some of the background that inspires these questions.
quarrelinastraw "History seems relevant here, so to seed the discussion I'll point out the following for those who may not be familiar. The NSA opposed giving the public access to strong cryptography in the '90s because it feared cryptography would interfere with wiretaps. They proposed a key escrow program so that they would have everybody's encryption keys. They developed a cryptography chipset called the "clipper chip" that gave a backdoor to law enforcement and which is still used in the US government. Prior to this, in the 1970s, NSA tried to change the cryptography standard DES (the precursor to AES) to reduce keylength effectively making the standard weaker against brute force attacks of the sort the NSA would have used.
Since the late '90s, the NSA appears to have stopped its opposition to public cryptography and instead (appears to be) actively encouraging its development and strengthening. The NSA released the first version of SELinux in 2000, 4 years after they canceled the clipper chip program due to the public's lack of interest. It is possible that the NSA simply gave up on their fight against public access to cryptography, but it is also possible that they simply moved their resources into social engineering — getting the public to voluntarily install backdoors that are inadvertently endorsed by security experts because they appear in GPLed code. Is this pure fantasy? Or is there something to worry about here?"
Since the late '90s, the NSA appears to have stopped its opposition to public cryptography and instead (appears to be) actively encouraging its development and strengthening. The NSA released the first version of SELinux in 2000, 4 years after they canceled the clipper chip program due to the public's lack of interest. It is possible that the NSA simply gave up on their fight against public access to cryptography, but it is also possible that they simply moved their resources into social engineering — getting the public to voluntarily install backdoors that are inadvertently endorsed by security experts because they appear in GPLed code. Is this pure fantasy? Or is there something to worry about here?"
This is fearmongering. Encryption standards that have been adopted are open source and mathematicians comb over them with a fine tooth comb before giving them their blessing. Yes, there is a worry among mathematicians about the NSA developing an algorithm that would permit a pre-computed set of numbers to decrypt all communication. Which is why they make sure it DOESN'T HAPPEN.
See https://www.schneier.com/essay-198.html
Who needs back doors when you can buy an 0day for a few 100k? Backdoors are passé.
Last year or early this year there was a fix for a Linux kernel bug that could provide root privilege escalation. Here's the kicker though: The bug had been fixed years earlier but had been reintroduced into the kernel and nobody caught it for a very long time. For some reason, OpenSuse's kernel patches still included the bug fix, so OpenSuse couldn't be exploited, but mainline didn't reintroduce the fix for a long time.
Given the complexity of the kernel as just one example of a large open-source project, I don't really buy the "all bugs are shallow" argument from days of past. That argument was making a presumption that people *wanted* to fix the bugs, and as we all know there are large groups of people who don't want the bugs fixed. That's not to say that there is a magical NSA backdoor in Linux (and no, there isn't a magical NSA backdoor in Windows either, get over it conspiracy fanboys). That is to say that simply not running Windows isn't enough to give you real security and yes, your Linux box can be attacked by a skilled and determined adversary.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
DES was developed in the early 1970's, and has been proven to be quite resistent to differential cryptanalysis, which didn't appear in the public literature until the late 1980's.
During the development of DES, IBM sent DES's S-boxes to NSA, and when they came back, they had been modified. At the time there was suspicion that the modifications were a secret government back door, however when differential cryptanalysis was discovered in the 1980s, the researchers found that DES was surprisingly hard to attack. It turned out that the modifications to the S-boxes actually strengthened the cipher.
I have yet to have seen a serious scientific analysis of this question, as discussions rarely get beyond general paranoia facing off against a general belief that government incompetence plus public scrutiny make backdoors unlikely.
Government's are not nearly as incompetent as many pundits would have you believe. We have some very seriously talented people doing some pretty amazing things in our government. Government isn't always a model of efficiency but inefficient does not (always) equal incompetent. And in some cases inefficiency is actually a good thing. Sometimes you want the government to be slow and deliberative and to do it right instead of fast. Some of the most remarkable organizations and talented people I've met are in government. Sadly some of the worst I've met are in government as well but my point remains. Assuming government = incompetent is in clearly wrong in the face of copious evidence to the contrary.
Nahhh the backdoors are in the compilers.. They've modified GCC to install it for you. Your code looks fine and the backdoor is there. Everyone wins!
AC.
There are plenty of holes in the kernel and privileged program "as is". All they have to do is find them
if Microsoft giving NSA info on undisclosed vulnerabilities, they have in effect a magic backdoor in Windows.
OpenBSD had the same press smear in . The result? there was no secret back door in SSL libraries or BSD.
The NSA arguably doesnt need a linux backdoor. They own the links between you and the server. They already get preferential access to the #1 and #2 OS on every desktop and laptop, and when that doesnt cut it they've had a foot in the door of everything from Facebook to Amazon for quite a while now. the warrants and courts are secret, and the action comes with a free 'shut the fuck up' stamp to make sure you never hear a word about it.
what the NSA cares about is mostly what the government cares about: detecting and correcting civil unrest. monitoring social networks, chat rooms and forums ensures things like Occupy never get too far out of hand. Sure, running occupywallstreetrightnow.com from your basement might be safe if you're encrypting root, running SELinux and wiping disks, but the NSA will still have enough metadata from your driving patterns and network traffic to fashion a very long noose for your execution.
Good people go to bed earlier.
AES was developed in Belgium by Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen. It was originally called Rijndael and was one of the AES candidates. What happened is the NIST put out a call for a replacement for the aging DES algorithm. It was one of a number of contenders and was the one that one the vote. The only thing the NSA has had to do with it is that they weighed in on it, and all the other top contenders, before a standard was chosen and said they were all secure and that they've since certified it for use in encrypting top secret data.
It was analyzed, before its standardization and since, by the world community. The NSA was part of that, no surprise, but everyone looked at it. It is the sole most attacked cypher in history, and remains secure.
So to believe the NSA has a 'backdoor' in it, or more correctly that they can crack it would imply that:
1) The NSA is so far advanced in cryptography that they were able to discover this prior to 2001 (when it got approved) and nobody else has.
2) That the NSA was so confident that they are the only group to be able to work this out that they'd give it their blessing, knowing that it would be used in critical US infrastructure (like banking) and that they have a mission to protect said infrastructure.
3) So arrogant that they'd clear it to be used for top secret data, meaning that US government data could potentially be protected with a weak algorithm.
Ya, I'm just not seeing that. That assumes a level of extreme mathematical brilliance, that they are basically better than the rest of the world combined, and a complete disregard for one of their missions.
It seems far more likely that, yes, AES is secure. Nobody, not even the NSA, has a magic way to crack it.
The only speculation is whether Microsoft has given NSA et. al. access to those keys so they can load what they like onto windows (via "product updates" and whatnot) without needing UAC permission etc. Given recent Snowdens revelations/confirmations we can pretty much conclude that that is very much the case...
I can attest to the lack of backdoors in SELinux. I am the SELinux maintainer. I'm the guy responsible for it.
Then the only question remaining is whether we should trust you.