RSA Flatly Denies That It Weakened Crypto For NSA Money

The Register reports that RSA isn't taking quietly the accusation reported by Reuters, based on documents released by Edward Snowden, that the company intentionally used weaker crypto at the request of the NSA, and accepted $10 million in exchange for doing so. RSA's defends the use of the Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator, stating categorically "that we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use."

Comments

Yeah, right

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell it to 60 Minutes.

Re:Yeah, right

[game kid]

I can imagine Samuel L. Jackson popping out of nowhere to tell RSA, "Yes you did! YES YOU DID." Actually I kinda wish that happened.

Trust none of them

[CuteSteveJobs]

RSA denying it? "Well, he would, wouldn't he?" - Mandy Rice-Davies

If this story turns out to be true, then RSA's name is mud. Only a complete and utter moron would buy from them after this.

Same goes for the other companies who have been selling us out. Even Google and Microsoft who are now leaking stories about them boldly protecting their backbones from the NSA have been handing over our data, and in the case of Microsoft took cold hard cash to add backdoors to Skype and God knows what else. If you trust *any* of these companies you are a complete and utter moron.

Re: Trust none of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Their name is already mud. Either they intentionally weakened their crypto for the NSA, or they are incompetent. Either way they can't be trusted with your secrets.

Re:Trust none of them

[khasim]

An even easier test of trust:

The post, carefully worded to avoid discussing whether or not the company took $10m from the NSA, concluded with the following statement:

Did RSA take $10 million from the NSA and if so for what service?

So far it looks like they aren't arguing that they did NOT take the money.

Re: Trust none of them

[sumdumass]

Or the entire story about them doing so is subterfuge designed to possibly make foreign nations think changing encryption companies protects them when it doesn't or it was planted by a competitor standing to benefit from the same concept.

There are possibilities that this is all a game of sorts. Spying is more or less a game anyways. Sometimes you plant information in order to make something believable. Sometimes you plant information to find leaks. Sometimes you plant information in order to confuse people.

Re:Trust none of them

[AmiMoJo]

Only a complete and utter moron world but stuff from a company with close links to a national security agency regardless.

Re:Trust none of them

[VortexCortex]

Only a complete and utter moron would buy from them after this.

Remember how the RSA SecureID authentication system was hacked?

Now, the way you do these tokens is to have a counter or timer inside them that's synchronized with an external system. You simply encrypt the counter and that's your verifiable ID code. The server can authenticate a couple counts in the past or present to give a wider window, and updates if drift is detected to stay in sych.

There's a concept in security called "single point of failure" that all competent security researchers are aware of and attempt to avoid, but RSA didn't. They didn't let you seed your own SecureIDs. Instead, they seeded them. In this way you had to rely on RSA to authenticate the tokens for you, instead of let you run your own server. So, this immediately raises several red flags for a security aware person: Denial of Service == All your cards stop authenticating at RSA's whim. Additionally, RSA can grant access to other people, say the NSA, by seeding a SecureID with a duplicate of yours. Furthermore, if RSA is compromised then everyone who uses SecureID is at risk, they've made themselves a single point of failure.

A better approach is to allow businesses to seed your security cards yourself, and run your own servers. This way there's no single point of failure for the entire card system -- Compromise one business doesn't leak to others. You don't have to rely on external servers for validation so even if all external lines are cut, your intranet can still validate cards. And you don't have to worry about the NSA compromising the folks you bought the cards from after you purchased them -- Only your systems know the authentication codes -- The crackers have to crack your database.

It wasn't surprising to me that RSA would get compromised because they were the single point of failure, it was only a matter of time (if not pre-compromised from inception). It wasn't surprising at all when defense related companies like Lockheed Martin and L-3 Communications were compromised thanks to RSA's SecureID breech.

Now, given the ineptitude you'd have to have as a team of premier security researchers to screw the pooch this badly in the design of your security product, and given how asinine it would be to select the absolute worst and slowest random number generator as the default for your BSafe security product, knowing you have many embedded platform use-cases, and given that it was known well in advance that trusting the PRNG was ill advised... Then considering Snowden leaks info explaining that the NSA was paying RSA to botch and weaken their security systems. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Given a gag order I'd understand RSA keeping quiet on this. If they cared about security of their customers then at that point we'd see RSA engineering a completely new line of security products with a goal to put our minds at ease, and inexplicably discontinue their past offerings. However, since they opened their fool mouths and claimed not to be screwing up everything on purpose... At least if they were forced to mess things up this bad I could understand, and once the spying apparatus has been dismantled I'd consider RSA still viable. However, if the NSA wasn't paying RSA to botch their security systems, then they can never be trusted again.

I use YubiKey instead. I can run my own server, install my own codes in the tokens, or let yubico do it if the application doesn't require such security. The protocol and server source code is open. I hear Google's partnering with them too.

Sad, really. Now anything RSA has touched I'm distancing myself from.

Re:Trust none of them

[game kid]

The protocol and server source code is open. I hear Google's partnering with them too.

I'm not quite sure that's a bullet point, especially if they're doing sentence 2 to stop sentence 1.

Re:Trust none of them

[Threni]

Weaselly language:

> "that we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the
> intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our
> products for anyone's use."

So, potential backdoors are out. How about backdoor? Known, functional backdoors, not the prospect of future backdoors?

Weakening? Nobody mentioned weakening. That $10,000,000 you took from that spy organisation - that was to strengthen, not weaken.

Contract? No contract. I rewarded my daughter for tidying her room. At no point was a contract, written or otherwise, created.

The guy might be gullible, but does he think we are?

Re:Trust none of them

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Instead, they seeded them. In this way you had to rely on RSA to authenticate the tokens for you, instead of let you run your own server. So, this immediately raises several red flags for a security aware person: Denial of Service == All your cards stop authenticating at RSA's whim.

I have personal experience implementing a SecureID based system and I can say that is not true.

Yes, RSA seeds the tokens. No there is no external reliance on RSA to validate them in the field. You do have to run their authentication server, but it does not phone home at all. RSA is not an active participant in each authentication, they can't stop valid tokens from continuing to work. I can say this categorically because I worked with a SecureID system on an air-gapped network. It was physically impossible to phone home to RSA.

Re:Trust none of them

[Bob_Who]

Well stated. Thanks for the well written insight.

Re:Trust none of them

[Bert64]

There's not a single point of failure in the RSA case, they generate the seed values and give you the ones which correspond with the tokens, so your own server performs the authentication and RSA can't break it in that way, although they may be able to effect a denial of service through the license enforcement code.

The rest is correct however, they retain copies of all the seeds and can thus predict the token value at any time. That should have been a red flag to anyone, and I often recommended against using them but was always told that rsa are a big company and can be trusted, wont get hacked etc.

Re:Trust none of them

[penix1]

I rewarded my daughter for tidying her room. At no point was a contract, written or otherwise, created.

Actually, there was the moment you agreed to pay her for her cleaning services. Verbal, but still a contract.

Re:Trust none of them

[CuteSteveJobs]

Illegal contracts are unenforceable in court so there is no point even writing them down. Hilarious precedent when a bunch of highwaymen tried to sue each other over broken contract. Court hanged them all. Let us hope for same outcome with NSA and RSA Bonnie and Clueless.

Re:Trust none of them

[organgtool]

So you proved that you can run your own RSA server without requiring external validation from RSA, but you can't prove that their authentication server didn't try to send authentication details back to RSA or the NSA. And you were capable of running the authentication server on an air-gapped network, but that doesn't seem to be likely for most use cases since one of the most common uses for RSA is allowing for VPN access over standard internet connections.

Re:Trust none of them

[DutchUncle]

Did RSA take $10 million from the NSA and if so for what service?

Sounds like the leadin to an old joke . . .
She: What kind of woman do you think I am?
He: We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.

Re:Trust none of them

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Not to mention that most organizations use pin+token as auth codes; therefor, whiel you can get the token you don't have the user selected pin.

That is correct. However, if you can dupe the physical token you are half-way through the 2-factors of security.

Re:Trust none of them

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So you proved that you can run your own RSA server without requiring external validation from RSA, but you can't prove that their authentication server didn't try to send authentication details back to RSA or the NSA.

Actually I can. We had a source-code license for everything but a very tiny binary blob that made no system calls. There was no phone-home code in the server..

I quit trusting them a decade ago

[mrmeval]

Hell I also do not trust PGP.

I trust GNUPG as long as Canonical doesn't improve it.

This settles the matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

They said they didn't do it. Everybody move on and never speak of it again.

Re:This settles the matter.

[jandar]

They said they didn't do it intentionaly. Why being specific about intention? This smells.

Re:This settles the matter.

[_Shad0w_]

I suspect because they're not trying to deny that their implementation introduced a weakness, simply that they didn't do it on purpose. They're back handedly admitting to incompetence rather than corruption.

Not that strongly worded

[Etherwalk]

The problem is that the NSA has been lying to everyone with doublespeak--asking permission for X warrants when the warrants really covered umpteen billion warrants, things like that. So while this press release categorically denies "that RSA entered into a “secret contract” with the NSA to incorporate a known flawed random number generator into its BSAFE encryption libraries[,]" it could still be truthful even if any ONE of the facts in that list is false.

For example, "known" flawed random number generator--suppose the NSA knew it was flawed and RSA didn't. This denial does not contradict that.

In the context of a topic where companies and government agencies are lying regularly by using careful diction, even a "strong" "categorical" denial has to eliminate the possibility of loopholes in order for it to be believable.

Re:Not that strongly worded

[Trepidity]

That was my read of the statement as well. Essentially all they're denying is that they openly sold the rights to backdoor their software. It could still be the case that they wink-wink sold those rights. Or it could be the case that they were just dupes rather than in cahoots with the NSA; it's not entirely implausible that they thought they were helping out the NSA by making the change for a reason unrelated to backdooring the software.

Re:Not that strongly worded

[bill_mcgonigle]

Or it could be the case that they were just dupes rather than in cahoots with the NSA

The crypto community was uncomfortable with Dual EC DRBG since shortly after it was first promulgated through NIST. If RSA was unaware of this, that's also something they don't want to advertise.

Re:Not that strongly worded

[Trepidity]

True, although not every suspicion of that type has turned out to be well founded. For example, many people were uncomfortable with the NSA-initiated changes to DES during its design in the 1970s, but rather than a backdoor, those turned out to be correct changes that strengthened its security. The NSA already knew about differential cryptanalysis, which wasn't yet publicly known, and the requested changes strengthened DES against that attack (something that was finally realized publicly in 1990).

Re:Not that strongly worded

[bill_mcgonigle]

You're right, though it's worth noting that while DES was strengthened against against differential cryptanalysis, it also convinced IBM to weaken the key length. They made it harder for adversaries to crack but easier for NSA to crack.

Maybe not knowingly

[MobSwatter]

But in that thought process RSA would be the first to stand up for the constitution on a list that includes all major telecoms and even other governments. Unlikely.

It's called LYING...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called lying, and American Law specifically allows partners of the NSA to issue any form of false statement to the public, their shareholders, their investors, or any other non-governmental entity. In other words, once any individual or corporation gets in bed with the NSA, you can never again believe a word they say.

Google lies through its teeth, Microsoft lies through its teeth. These two companies now compete with one another as to which can provide the NSA with greatest value.

RSA is evil beyond any doubt, but Google and Microsoft are infinitely worse. Remember, Bill Gates gave you Common Core, the inBloom full surveillance child database created in partnership with Rupert "Fox News" Murdoch and the Xbox One NSA spy platform this year alone. Meanwhile Google, the R+D arm of the NSA, moved forward significantly with its programs to build autonomous, self-driving, killing machines for use in future US military invasions.

Re:It's called LYING...

[Bucc5062]

Google is in R&D to make Robo-Cop II? maybe Glass is the first step in taking over our brains. Sure, at the moment they just sit on our head, but by 2015 we'll need a neural tap to get a true network experience. Once in place Google can then download their override malware (which comes with its own ads), take over the brain and integrate it into the automated car.

By the way, that is how crazy your statement sounded It is possible these companies are lying, but your hyperbole took all the wind out of the presentation.

Re:It's called LYING...

[Dogtanian]

It's called lying, and American Law specifically allows partners of the NSA to issue any form of false statement to the public, their shareholders, their investors, or any other non-governmental entity. In other words, once any individual or corporation gets in bed with the NSA, you can never again believe a word they say.

Taking the highlighted section above at face value, logically that would mean that they were legally able to claim "We have never had any involvement with the NSA" when the complete opposite was the case.

While this may come across as smartassery in other situations, I've no doubt that in this case some weasel of a lawyer could- and would- use this in defending a company caught in flagrante with the NSA. This renders *any* company that *might* plausibly be involved with the NSA (including virtually all American ones) as suspicious.

Re:It's called LYING...

[HiThere]

The interesting part is that they could then be put under a gag order and forbidden from letting anyone know of their relationship to the NSA.

So they could, at best, say "No comment"...unless that could also be forbidden.

Please note that all these restrictions SHOULD come under the heading of "prior restraint", and be ruled unconstitutional. But that will only happen when the government decides to allow it to happen. I don't think any honest foreign company will knowingly do business with any company subject to current laws. Which means that we only do business with those that are greedy liars...and willing to take significant risks under the prodding of greed. Fortunately then numbers of those is not few.

They're right

[waddgodd]

They didn't do it for NSA money, that was just gravy. They did it for Mossad money and got the NSA to chip in after the fact.

They're not denying the article really

[Error27]

They're just claiming again that they assumed the NSA were good people.

This all happened in 2006. RSA adopted DUAL_EC. RSA was sold to EMC. NIST released the standard. Microsoft researchers showed the flaws in DUAL_EC. The flaws in DUAL_EC have been known since 2006, the only thing we didn't know was that they were deliberate.

Also it's interesting to note that an anonymous organization paid for the same DUAL_EC algorithm to be added to Open SSL. With Open SSL at least they didn't make it the default but it's not far off from what RSA did.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/nsas-broken-dual_ec-random-number-generator-has-a-fatal-bug-in-openssl/

Re:They're not denying the article really

[bill_mcgonigle]

Also it's interesting to note that an anonymous organization paid for the same DUAL_EC algorithm to be added to Open SSL

Interesting:

When using the module's implementation of Dual EC_DRBG, the application crashes and can't be recovered. That's an amazing discovery for an application that had to undergo countless hours of testing to be certified by the government of the world's most powerful country. The silver lining seems to be that there's evidence no one has ever actually used Dual EC_DRBG in release versions of the OpenSSL module

The purpose of the Dual EC DRGB operation wasn't stack smashing, it was weak keys. Sounds like we had a friend on the inside.

Re:They're not denying the article really

[HiThere]

I expect that the RSA business will drop, perhaps totally. And some "free-market theorists" will see this as the free market at work. But I will note that this won't result in those who trusted them being made whole. And that there are lots of companies in the wings...one (or more) of them will probably get considerable undercover push towards dominance.

So while I expect that EMC will need to write-off RSA (possibly being recompensed with nice government contracts) I don't expect the customers to benefit. And *I* consider this a failure of the free market.

Re:They're not denying the article really

[steelfood]

Nice. Somebody probably sabotaged the implementation.

Or nobody tested it to anywhere near the rigor the other algorithms are tested. But that's just saying the same thing in a different way.

Anyone believe them?

[anarkhos]

Well, of course they HAVE to deny this.

But who am I to believe, the RSA or their long list of security hiccups.

Oh, and Microsoft denies this too. That's good enough for me!

Our fatherly corporate overlords would never lie for a buck, or $10M...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

They May Not Have, But...

[ilikenwf]

They very well could have had a few employees that accepted $10 million to do it.

Re:They May Not Have, But...

[Kasar]

If I had accepted $10 million from someone to steer development of a base company product, I probably wouldn't still be working there years later either.

Re:They May Not Have, But...

[ilikenwf]

Unless that was part of the contractual obligation - tax free $10 mil, you stay and work for 5 years or until dismissed...etc...

As per the contract

[waynemcdougall]

17. RSA agrees that should the existence of this contract, the general nature of the agreements made herein, or the relationship bewtern the RSA and NSA be made public then the RSA shall, with due expediency, issue the following denial: "we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use."

Oh, Sure...

[BlueStrat]

I believe them.

Just as much as I believe that Nigerian Prince's nephew's super deal for helping him get funds out of the country.

C'mon, RSA guys. I know you're pretty butt-hurt about this revelation from the Snowden release. Heck, I can even understand that you guys may well have received an "offer you can't refuse" from the NSA, et al.

You'd be much better off playing that angle, rather than attempt a laughably-preposterous and totally unbelievable denial. The denial gets you no sympathy or possible assistance out of your situation at all from the public, only hatred, vitriol, and the ends of many of your careers.

Remember that when making deals with the Empire, Darth has a nasty habit of "altering the deal". Though you "pray" he "doesn't alter it further", it never fails to eventually happen. Neville Chamberlain, 'nuff said.

Strat

Re:Oh, Sure...

[AHuxley]

We are top officials of the Federal Institution for Standards Review panel who are interested in the testing of cryptography in our country with academics which are
presently working in the USA. In order to commence this business, we solicit your assistance to enable us to sell into your company, the said fully tested cryptography standard.

The following represents the source of the cryptography . During the last regime in the USA, the Government officials set up departments and awarded themselves
private contracts which were grossly over invoiced in various Federal grants which informed the setting up of the Conflict Records Research Agency by the present Government to advice on the aforementioned.
We have identified a lot of inflated contract sums which are presently floating in the Central Bank of the USA ready for payment, amongst which is the said sum of US$10,000,000 (Ten Million United States Dollars) that we solicit your assistance for the export.
As we are unable to manage the export all by ourselves by virtue of our position as civil servants and members of the Panel, I have therefore been delegated as a matter of trust by my colleagues on the Panel to solicit for an overseas partner into whose hardware we would run the said code.

Come On

[SuperKendall]

The government has a new encryption algorithm that is "amazingly strong". Only they are paying YOU to use it? And that does not throw up any red flags in a company based on SECURITY?

Re:Come On

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to play devil's advocate, here's a plausible scenario which makes RSA look stupid but not evil:

NSA approaches RSA with their fancy new NIST/FIPS standard and says that it prefers that government agencies and contractors use Dual_EC_DRBG as soon as possible. Maybe they have super secret intel that China broke SHA-1. Who knows. All the RSA knows is that the NSA mission statement includes counter-intelligence--i.e. protecting the government.

Because so many agencies and contractors use products based on BSafe, the NSA wants to fast track an upgrade. The NSA says that it would pay RSA for the trouble of integrating Dual_EC_DRBG into BSafe as the default FIPS-compliant mode, and for the trouble of getting it tested and certified by NIST. It offers $10 million, which is a reasonable sum for that not inconsiderable effort on the part of RSA.

I still wouldn't trust RSA as far as I could throw them, but in this scenario everybody is being sincere and earnest. But for a company like RSA, suspicion should have been the order of the day. But as others have mentioned before, RSA is more managerial driven these days. While their researchers may have raised an eye brow, at this point they don't have the clout to veto an executive decision, because all the famous guys (the ones with a spine and a reputation to burnish) have left.

Re:Come On

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually this happens far more than you might think.

Do some research into In-Q-Tel, which is basically an arm of the CIA that pumps money into selected (mainly startup) companies. It does it under the guise of being a "VC", but it's not. At the end of the day their motivation is to help companies produce products that are beneficial to them, and will often pay for a specific feature to be added to a product for their use.

I'm not at all suggesting that IQT would do anything to weaken a product for other users, but the concept of paying for a specific feature to be implemented is extremely common.

I don't think there's any doubt that RSA was a victim of poor judgement of who to be friends with, but I suspect that's all it comes down to. They trusted the NSA (and to some extent, NIST) where, in hind site, they shouldn't have - but they certainly weren't the only one to make that mistake.

Re:Come On

[SuperKendall]

Ok, I can buy that is at least a plausible scenario. So then the question would be, where are the technical guys that at least raised an eyebrow at the time but were overruled by management...

Re:Come On

[game kid]

Probably being kept from so much as breathing a word about the eyebrow-raising by their work contracts with said management.

Re:Come On

[SuperKendall]

the concept of paying for a specific feature to be implemented is extremely common.

I agree with that, but that is the company developing said feature. That makes a lot of sense.

What raises eyebrows is not saying "add this feature", but "add this feature and BTW here's the exact algorithm you will use, oh and BTW2 we aren't going to add any schedule constraints, and BTW3 can you make sure it's the default all of your OTHER customers will be using?"

Re:Come On

[bill_mcgonigle]

So then the question would be, where are the technical guys that at least raised an eyebrow at the time but were overruled by management...

If I were the NSA, I'd want a few of my employees working in development at the major crypto developers.

Re:Come On

[physicsphairy]

What raises eyebrows is not saying "add this feature", but "add this feature and BTW here's the exact algorithm you will use, oh and BTW2 we aren't going to add any schedule constraints, and BTW3 can you make sure it's the default all of your OTHER customers will be using?"

I would think a properly functioning NSA would indeed be interested in promulgating more secure standards to American companies as part of preventing corporate espionage and preventing foreign companies from stealing trade secrets, besides generally protecting America's technological infrastructure from attack.

RSA seems to indicate that was their belief:

We made the decision to use Dual EC DRBG as the default in BSAFE toolkits in 2004, in the context of an industry-wide effort to develop newer, stronger methods of encryption. At that time, the NSA had a trusted role in the community-wide effort to strengthen, not weaken, encryption.

It's a bit like the government has told you to add a new safety device to the cars you manufacture (not just the government ones). That would seem pretty reasonable to go along with. You wouldn't really expect that the safety devices were actually remote activated bombs.

Re:Begin opinion-based reasoning in 3 2 1...

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketing weasels always lie: QED.

Links

[CuteSteveJobs]

Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages â Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism â Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch â Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls â Company says it is legally compelled to comply http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

"Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple" http://gizmodo.com/google-to-government-let-us-publish-national-security-512647113

And look at the chronology of this:
23 September 2013: BBC News - RSA warns over NSA link to encryption algorithm http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24173977
21 December 2013: NSA Gave RSA $10 Million To Promote Crypto It Had Purposely Weakened https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131220/14143625655/nsa-gave-rsa-10-million-to-promote-crypto-it-had-purposely-weakened.shtml How apt: Techdirt said the story was from the "from the say-bye-bye-to-credibility,-rsa dept"

Fuck you RSA. Fuck you NSA.

Re:Links

[Taco Cowboy]

Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages à Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism ...

I won't be able to represent anybody but myself but my companies, at least the time I was running them, never get involved with NSA / CIA / FBI or any of those alphabet agencies.

Yes, from time to time they did flag us (and even contacted some of my co-workers). What we did in return was to move part of our operations out of USA in order to not getting involved.

Re:Links

[Taelron]

Everyone keeps forgetting that Microsoft handed the keys to the kingdom to the NSA back in 1999 and NT 4.0 SP5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

Re:Links

[FlyHelicopters]

You realize that moving them out of the US simply makes their job easier. Now they no longer need to ask, no longer even need their secret courts, now they can just do whatever they want outside of the US.

Re:Links

[Pav]

No. Just no.

A state adversary WILL get in should they wish to, but any exploit runs the risk of being discovered over time. This is a better outcome than simply rolling over, and may even result in the NSA (or organisation in question) deciding the risk is not worth the benefit. Even if you're gagged and forced into cooperating, having made an agency use totalitarian powers is a good outcome - it's harder to deny the nature of the "project".

Re:Links

[PingXao]

That did cause quite an uproar at the time. MS did an elaborate tapdance around the issue and denied it was anything at all like its name. Many people saw it as proof that Windows crypto was fundamentally flawed while many others insisted it was nothing to worry about.

I'm surprised nobody has gone back and looked at that whole episode anew in light of recent disclosures.

Re:Links

[HiThere]

There wasn't any evidence. All that was known was the name. So there's really nothing to look at anew.

I always found their explanations dubious, but possible. I still do. Presumably someone somewhere actually knows, but either they can't prove it, or they don't choose to.

That one needs to stay in the category "suspicious, but undecided" until some real evidence turns up.

Re:Links

[FlyHelicopters]

Even if you're gagged and forced into cooperating, having made an agency use totalitarian powers is a good outcome

Unless of course you're the one being gagged...

Something tells me you've never been waterboarded... go enjoy that experience then come back and post about it... :)

Parse responsibly, folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the language. It sounds like it was written by an NSA lawyer.

Define "project", please?

There is a subjunctive there that one can drive a truck though. Or, perhaps, eight digits on the bottom line.

RSA's name is now mud

[CuteSteveJobs]

The Guardian ran the story. If it wasn't true RSA could sue their arses off in court for the value of their now worthless business. Guardian wouldn't dare run it unless they could prove it is true. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/20/nsa-internet-security-rsa-secret-10m-encryption

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[sumdumass]

Unless they could prove what? That a few documents that no one else can access the originals for said something that cannot be validated unless someone specifically admitted to it?

  The Guardian isn't saying RSA did something, they are saying documents released by Snowden say RSA did something. The Guardian can also think they were snowden documents and they still be NSA planted documents or it could all be a conspiracy but all we know for sure is that there is a news report about something that purports to be documents taken without permission by someone who is wanted for crimes in the US and hiding out in Russia after leaving China is claiming that a company worked with a spy agency and sold back doors to 10 million.

If it turns out to be wrong or incorrect, the Guardian issues a retraction.

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[CuteSteveJobs]

What you are saying is incorrect. In the UK if I tell you a lie about someone, and you repeat it publicly, you can be sued for libel. The fault is yours for not verifying the damaging information before you published it. Merely printing a retraction isn't enough, because once the accusation is made it sticks in the public mind. Otherwise I can call you a pedo, and retract it later. It doesn't work that way. Sometimes a retraction might satisfy the defamed party, but if the damage is significant they can decide to sue you anyway. In this case no one would ever trust RSA again, so the damage is severe. If the story was fake, RSA could sue the Guardians arse off.

As for your theory that competitors leaked this to damage RSA, you have not offered a shred of evidence, and your premise that the Guardian can print untrue stories without being sued for libel is false.

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[Pav]

Errr... no...

The UK has tough defamation laws... so much so that many choose to litigate in the UK for stuff published worldwide. Existing in that legal climate would make The Guardian very careful - I'd imagine their legal team are used to vetting stories such as this one.

As an aside - perhaps the tough libel laws are a plus for the UK media. It at least forces Murdoch to spy to get his dirt in the UK rather than simply lie as he would in the USA.

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[bugs2squash]

With the Grauniad's track record, RSA could well be a misspelling of the RAF, the NSA or you may even have nailed it and they are in fact talking about MUD.

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[CuteSteveJobs]

Yes! America went so far as making a special law to protect their citizens exercising their free speech rights from being sued by British libel laws http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2010/aug/11/medialaw-barack-obama

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[Pav]

I think the crowd that want to completely rid the UK of libel laws are very mistaken... yes, they make investigative journalism much more tedious and expensive, but they also protect journalists from being gradually replaced by glorified PR people which has largely happened in many other places around the world. I'm not saying there aren't plenty of hacks in the UK, but they at least need to keep some fingertips brushing reality occasionally. At least the UK electorate can be informed should they choose to be (which perhaps is rarely for some).

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[oobayly]

I don't see the point, it's not like we're ever allowed to extradite Americans to the UK.

Yes, I'm being facetious, and you can argue that the (according to the US embassy in London) the US haven't refused a single extradition request to the UK's 10 refusals, and they do seem to say that the treaty is fair, but a UK MP says that there is a 7:1 disparity in US:UK extraditions. Which to me suggest that either UK citizens are far more likely to break US laws than their own, or that the required proof required for extradition requests is different between the two countries.

The other difference is:

Home office statistics reveal that since the start of 2004, not one single US citizen has been extradited to the UK for crimes alleged to have been committed on US soil. The traffic is very much one way, however.

Don't take this as a criticism of Americans, it just shows how our politicians will sell us off for a few favours.

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[makomk]

Why? Running glorified PR pieces is the safest thing you can do under British libel law. Also, it certainly didn't stop our journalists going off the rails and smearing random members of the public on the front page, since random members of the public don't have the money for a libel suit - it just blocked criticism of large businesses and the wealthy.

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[Pav]

One word : birther. I wasn't saying the laws were perfect, but the US model is particularly bad when it comes to agreeing on what constitutes reality. I'd rather stick to toxic rhetoric than venturing into too much creative writing when it comes to democracy.

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[Pav]

Why didn't GCQH force The Guardian to retract after being crushed under the Wheels of Great Justice (and some of the most accomodating libel laws in the western world?). Perhaps because all the important details were true, and the "journalistic enhancements" (which were basically true anyway) were mere detail on the periphery of the actual story.

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[bill_mcgonigle]

In the UK you would call someone a paedo, not a "pedo", which is a made-up word that doesn't mean anything.

Yes, your superior spelling is responsible for superior results:

It happened to Dr. Yvette Cloete, a specialist in Pediatric Medicine at Royal Gwent Hospital in London and the OP is correct in that the police's working theory is that the attack did come about due to the confusion of the term pediatrician and the term pedophile.

In August 2000, Dr. Cloete was forced to flee her home and seek police protection after her windows and doors were spray painted with "Paedo," a common English contraction of Paedophile.

Re:RSA's name is now mud

[Valdrax]

I think the crowd that want to completely rid the UK of libel laws are very mistaken... yes, they make investigative journalism much more tedious and expensive, but they also protect journalists from being gradually replaced by glorified PR people which has largely happened in many other places around the world.

Please explain. I'd like an explanation of how the fear of being sued for saying anything overly critical has improved the UK's resilience to just putting out what people want said about them instead of things they don't want said about them.

Re: RSA's name is now mud

[sumdumass]

Who is defending the NSA? I'm saying this could be a ruse to get you to not use the only product they may have dificulties with.

Snowden may be authentic but how do you know third party disclosures not validated by anyone involved-including snowden is?

weasels

[Anonymous Coward]

RSA:

we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use

You see, they had no idea that EC-DRBG was compromised. They just thought the NSA had everyone's best interests at heart when took $10M to make it the default generator.

captcha: apologia!!!

Non-denial denial

[dido]

As usual with these things, it's a non-denial denial. "RSA, as a security company, never divulges details of customer engagements, but we also categorically state that we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use." Emphasis added. The first part says that they can't say whether they've taken any money from the NSA, so the story of them receiveing $10 million from the NSA could still be true. The second part leaves a lot of wiggle room. The word "intention" is the weasel. The statement leaves open the possibility that they could have taken the money from the NSA in good faith, in the same way that Mozilla takes Google's money in exchange for making Google the default search engine in Firefox. They didn't know then what the NSA's true intentions were in pushing use of Dual_EC_DRBG (never that mind it's several orders of magnitude slower than any other CPRNG algorithm described in NIST SP 800-90A). They were already using it in BSAFE as early as 2004, and the algorithm became a NIST recommendation in 2006. The possibility of a backdoor in the algorithm was floated publicly in 2007, a few months after it was published. I for one don't buy that they did all this in good faith, but there's no way to prove it unless some cryptographer who was employed by RSA at the times in question blows the whistle and says they had suspicions with the algorithm and the NSA's intentions for it.

The NSA wasn't always thought of as so evil. They modified the DES s-boxes so as to strengthen it against a cryptanalytic technique (differential cryptanalysis) that was known only to them and IBM since at least 1974, and kept classified until it was independently discovered by the academic cryptographic community in the late 1980s, so there may be some reason to give RSA the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Non-denial denial

[Kasar]

I've wondered for some time what changed. In 1996, browsers using 128-bit SSL could not be exported or downloaded from outside the US due to munitions laws covering crypto. By 1999, those restrictions were gone but I don't recall Congress removing crypto from export restrictions, though 40-bit encryption had been repeatedly broken.
In recent months I've wondered if it were a case of the intel agencies getting a standard adopted that they could penetrate easily, making the restriction trivial.

Re:Non-denial denial

[ysth]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_in_the_United_States#PC_era :
"Legal challenges by Peter Junger and other civil libertarians and privacy advocates, the widespread availability of encryption software outside the U.S., and the perception by many companies that adverse publicity about weak encryption was limiting their sales and the growth of e-commerce, led to a series of relaxations in US export controls, culminating in 1996 in President Bill Clinton signing the Executive order 13026[7] transferring the commercial encryption from the Munition List to the Commerce Control List. "

Re:Non-denial denial

[Martin Blank]

Congress didn't do it. It was done in 1996 by Executive Order and encryption was largely placed under the Commerce Department. It was done this way because the relevant law (22 USC 2778) provides for presidential control of the United States Munitions List, so there was no need to go through Congress.

Re:Non-denial denial

[Darinbob]

NSA does not benefit if commercial cryptography is weak. If it is weak then it means that every spy agency on the globe has access to vital US data, because NSA are not the only people who understand this stuff. Now maybe you believe that the NSA is actively working against the interests of the US government but that's a pretty long stretch.

Export restrictions were about restricting foreigners getting access to high level encryption methods, though of course everyone knew beyond a shadow of doubt that everyone had access to it all. It was just a stupid government regulation that served no purpose except to look good on paper and gain votes.

Foreign crypto market should boom?

[melchoir55]

Given the state of affairs in the United States, I would think that every country on earth should be reviewing their reliance on American tech (especially in cryptography). Do you really want your parliament having discussions over skype? Or using Microsoft Windows to conduct their Seriously Secret activity? Microsoft is implicated in compromising Skype, so there is every reason to suspect they have also compromised Windows and every other piece of software they make. Google mail? Apple phones? RSA security? The list goes on.

If I were a foreign government I would dump serious subsidies into my domestic software development industry. This extends to our allies as well. After all, if the USA is willing to spend insane resources and flaunt the law/morality by spying upon its own citizenry to a degree hardly less severe than 1984... why wouldn't they be using the very same backdoors on you?

Re:Foreign crypto market should boom?

[melchoir55]

Another poster has already responded to you regarding why your defense of Microsoft Skype is absurd. I'll elaborate on my assertion that they are also compromising their other products. I was being generous when I said "every reason to suspect". It is clear they are compromising windows, as well as outlook. References below:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/microsoft-programmed-in-nsa-backdoor-in-windows-by-1999.html

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/opinionnw/2013/07/16/microsoft-reportedly-gave-nsa-a-backdoor-to-hotmail-outlook-com-skydrive/

I could go on about how many of their products are known to be compromised, but I'm just going to leave it at that. Since you are posting as AC, and ignoring obvious evidence, I assume you're a M$ shill. They don't pay that well, man. Get a job elsewhere.

LOL

[bl968]

What you thought he said, "We have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use."

What he actually said "We did it for the money"

It's a very sad day

[Taco Cowboy]

It's a very sad day when we have media which prostituting themselves to the BIG BROTHER and companies betraying the trust of their customers for some breadcrumbs.

If all that happened in a banana republic we may say "Oh, but they are banana republics".

But no. All these are happening in the United States in America !

What hath my beloved country turned into ?

Re:It's a very sad day

[Anonymous Coward]

you should read the article in el reg
what they say is that they participated in the use of the Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator as an industry standard alongside other random number generators that they also delivered with their software. They notified their customers when the potential of a backdoor presented itself and they pretty much behaved like a company working to give their customers usable tools, not sell them down the river
It also begs two additional questions
1. How much can you trust any use of mathematical tools that you do not understand
Up to this point we have all laid a great amount of trust in key generation, which at most we know how to install and build a pass phrase for

2. How much can you trust Snowden
Up to this point he was just making claims against an agency that largely cannot (or will not) comment about their practices. Now he is making claims against a public company that could pursue him civilly for libel

Re:It's a very sad day

[Anonymous Coward]

What hath my beloved country turned into ?

Haven't humans grown up from patriotism yet?

Re:It's a very sad day

[makomk]

Except they didn't notify their customers when the potential backdoor became public knowledge and most crypto library developers cautioned against it. That happened a year or two after it was introduced back in 2006 or 2007, yet they didn't notify their customers or change it from being the default until 2013, leaving those customers using crypto that RSA basically knew was backdoored for years. (It should've been even more obvious to RSA that there was a backdoor than it was to the rest of the crypto community, since the people with the ability to backdoor it had bribed them to use it as the default in their crypto product.)

Re:It's a very sad day

[FlyHelicopters]

2. How much can you trust Snowden Up to this point he was just making claims against an agency that largely cannot (or will not) comment about their practices. Now he is making claims against a public company that could pursue him civilly for libel

Eh? Really? Repeat that back to yourself and see if it makes any more sense the second time around...

Snowden is wanted for serious crimes against the government of the United States of America, the penalties for which involve spending the rest of his life in a 8x10 foot concrete cell by himself.

I think he is way, way past civil liabilities against a company or any suing it might do against him in a court of law.

Re:It's a very sad day

[Anonymous Coward]

2. How much can you trust Snowden

What does that have to do with anything? Its not like he's got his own personal talk show, like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc, where he constantly spews nonsense and conspiracy theories. All Snowden did was obtain some documents showing a US Agency completely ignoring the US Constitution, and doing a lot of unconstitutional, immoral, shady, and creepy things. Snowden isnt making any statements or news conferences, the news is coming straight from the NSA (against their will, of course, which is why its trustworthy).

Re:It's a very sad day

[AHuxley]

Nice talking points AC.
RE: 2. How much can you trust Snowden
Most of that would have been picked up on by http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm and many others with gov document/tech skills known/trusted by to the press around the world.
The press know they cannot publish 'junk' again and again.
The press goto people with document skills and get some background re the dates and content - too old, new, wrong format, layout, names, locations, style, fonts - something stands out if its spiked, sorted, faked, pre packaged as 'junk'.
Snowden like material has also passed an open US court thanks to the great work by http://www.freedomwatchusa.org/federal-judge-rules-against-nsa
Thats a lot of work done by the press, in court and by diverse US political/legal viewpoints.

Re:It's a very sad day

[cold fjord]

Except they didn't notify their customers when the potential backdoor became public knowledge and most crypto library developers cautioned against it. .... leaving those customers using crypto that RSA basically knew was backdoored for years.

Nobody has proven that any backdoor exists. It has only been shown that the form of the curve might allow for one. For all anyone outside of NSA actually knows, that form of a curve may be particularly resistant to analysis (like what NSA did with DES that everyone was suspicious of for 20 years until differential cryptanalysis was rediscovered in academia), or it could be a troll to suck in the intelligence services of other countries with NSA knowing that it only looks vulnerable.

The "crypto library developers" don't control NIST standards, do they? Did they have actual proof that anything was bad? No, only their suspicions. Since it was a NIST standard and NSA signed off on it, you would need more than some open source developer with a personal theory to result in any real action.

NSA may simply have been trying to spread elliptic curve technology for all anybody actually knows. You may recall that it looked highly promising at the time, but the problem with new things is always to get people to adopt them. DES lingered in use far longer than it should have since people weren't moving off from it. Everyone is entitled to their own ideas, ever suspicious ones.

Feel free to use crypto that isn't NIST compliant, there are markets that won't use it. That is more opportunity for everyone else.

Re:It's a very sad day

[lhunath]

What specifically about the United States of America did you expect to be different? In the end, we're all people and we're all just as corruptible. Only transparency and risk of exposure can make us behave. Which is why secrecy is always counter to democracy.

Re:It's a very sad day

[Clsid]

Are you seriously suggesting that Snowden is not trustworthy? I would definitely support the guy that had to run away from his country because of a massive information leak than some crude government/corporation propaganda. It truly makes me wonder why you are posting as an anonymous coward and spread FUD about the only way we could have found out about such things in the first place.

Re:It's a very sad day

[PlusFiveTroll]

In crypto you don't have prove back doors exist, you show the algo is not fit for purpose. The NIST standards were not fit for purpose.

http://safecurves.cr.yp.to/

Re:It's a very sad day

[Grishnakh]

Democracy works fine in some other countries, like Norway and Switzerland. If it isn't working in your country, it's because there's something wrong with the people there, or maybe because the country is too large and diverse.

Re:It's a very sad day

[pegr]

Snowden has made no such claims. The claim originated from a leaked document. He provided the document to journalists. The document speaks for itself.

Is the document genuine? That is an entirely different question. I suspect that it is, though no one at the NSA will say. How do you confirm the authenticity of the document? Well, a simple initial approach may be to consider the accuracy of previous document releases. By that standard, it's genuine.

Re:It's a very sad day

[FatdogHaiku]

If all that happened in a banana republic we may say "Oh, but they are banana republics".

All your bananas are belong to US!
And, we know where you got them and how much you paid!
If you would be willing to tell us who you sell them to, we can make you a pretty sweet deal...

Re:It's a very sad day

[P-niiice]

You forgot the ones prostituting themselves to corporate interests and various political parties

Re:It's a very sad day

[Maritz]

Haven't; likely never will. Shame eh.

Actually ...

[Taco Cowboy]

the lady doth protest too much

Actually, I think that lady is trying very hard to circumvent the truth.

Witness:

... that we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use

What the Snowden paper has revealed was not about "any contract" nor "any project", rather, it's about a one-time payment of $10 million (under table or not, unfortunately the Snowden's paper didn't state clearly) - and the result is a crippled RSA product for the rest of us.

If the $10 million payment was an under table transaction, then there would be *NO* contract signed nor any *official project".

What it entailed would be a change of a couple of lines of code, that is all to it.

Re:Actually ...

[sjames]

And, of course, the weasel words. Their intention was not to weaken the crypto, that was a side effect. The intention was to pocket $10mil and perhaps a favor to be named later.

Re:Actually ...

[Darinbob]

And would Snowden know this? It's not the sort of thing the NSA would be stupid enough that some low level IT flunky would find. It's one thing to report that your job was involved with siphoning up meta data but for this sort of thing it's pure speculation.

Re:Actually ...

[Luckyo]

I'll give you even better one. They were working on IMPROVING national SECURITY!

Re:Actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

And would Snowden know this? It's not the sort of thing the NSA would be stupid enough that some low level IT flunky would find.

Nice try at disparaging him. Anyone who can successfully bypass security measures, download tons of documents, and then successfully avoid the NSA, CIA and FBI is not a "low level IT flunky"...

If anyone is a low level IT flunky it would be you.

Re:Actually ...

[Luckyo]

The beauty of it: I never specified a nation.

Re:Sorry RSA

[_Shad0w_]

I don't think you could prove they were lying even if they were open source. All looking at the source code would tell you is that they implemented Dual_EC_DRBG; exactly the same as looking at the OpenSSL source code will tell you. I doubt there would be a handy comment saying "/* Implemented a known-weak method on behalf of the NSA. */" around it.

The problem Dual_EC_DRBG, as far as I can tell, is in the choice of constants used in it; the constants are defined by the NIST standard.

I don't trust anyone

[Taco Cowboy]

I do not trust Snowden just because he is Snowden. I do not know that guy in person. I only heard of his name after what he has disclosed what NSA had done - PRISM / GCHQ / tapping on foreign leaders, and so on.

Every single "story" about a leak that has been linked to Snowden file is just that, a "story".

After reading them, I re-traced the link back to the matter itself. If there are articles related to the matter, I give them a good read up.

The case regarding RSA for example - there have been case studies since 2006 (and earlier) that can be used as reference to what has just been reported.

That is why I say it is a very sad day when my country has turned into something worse than a banana republic.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[Alioth]

If they didn't do it for the NSA, why did they make a slow and vulnerable RNG the default? Of course we can apply the principle "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence". In which case it's immaterial anyway to our company's purchasing decisions on security products: we either avoid RSA because they are in cahoots with the NSA, or the alternative - because they are flat out incompetent (which is entirely believable, given their earlier security breaches).

Re:I don't trust anyone

[Nutria]

That is why I say it is a very sad day when my country has turned into something worse than a banana republic.

Dude, power always accretes more power. You should be old enough to know that.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[PopeRatzo]

"Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence".

In this case, I think it's more adequately explained by $10million.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's always an, um, excellent, sign when the company's own spokesweasels are asking you to accept the 'we were incompetent, really!' excuse.

"we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use."

Their 'categorical denial' of the story is not a denial that they did enter a contract or engage in a project that did weaken RSA's product and introduce a backdoor into their products for somebody's use; but merely the assertion that they never did so intentionally. Slightly different things there...

Re:I don't trust anyone

[zidium]

They were undoubtedly "told" by their NSA rep, "We at the NSA *KNOW* security. Better than you guys in fact. For the benefit of our country, and indeed, the entire world, we want to sell you the MOST ADVANCED RNG we can design! Please, please consider buying it from us, so that we may fund additional security improvements for you in the future. It can only make your users safer!"

They possibly even believed it.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[Joce640k]

All they're denying is that they "secretly knew Dual EC DRBG was flawed".

No mention of $10 million payout. Until they deny receiving the money then this is just hot air and the Streisand effect will kill their company.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[Somebody Is Using My]

Interesting observation.

Perhaps the story instead is that the RSA did not purposefully weaken their encryption during development for the benefit of "security" agencies such as the NSA. Any backdoors or weakened encryption were bugs created during development. However, when these problems were discovered (possibly by the aforementioned agencies), rather than fix the problems the RSA agreed to leave the problems in their code for a nominal fee.

That would imply both incompetence /and/ malfeasance. It also means their press statement is 100% accurate since they did not /enter/ into the project with the intent of creating a weak project; that was a bug. Nor would the $10 million payoff be a contract to "weaken" the encryption, just to maintain it in its current state. Weasel words for the win!

I'm not qualified to state if this is actually the case; I'm just randomly speculating. I barely RTFA. But I got my bucket of popcorn and think this is gonna be one hell of a show!

Re:I don't trust anyone

[Joce640k]

It's always an, um, excellent, sign when the company's own spokesweasels are asking you to accept the 'we were incompetent, really!' excuse.

Yep. It's hilarious watching the weasels destroy a company by trying to avoid admitting something.

They should have said: "Hey, it's $10 million bucks, what would you have done?"

Re:I don't trust anyone

[Joce640k]

Spokesweasel.

What a wonderful word. My day = exponentially better.

I think we can thank Scott Adams ("Dilbert") for that one.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[DutchUncle]

They should have said: "Hey, it's $10 million bucks, what would you have done?"

I'll go further on that: "It's $10 million bucks from our own government's black program who could put us out of business or have us convicted of something." This might have been an offer they couldn't safely refuse - and it's *supposedly* from the *good* guys.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[Anubis IV]

If they didn't do it for the NSA

I know you're stating that rhetorically, but I'd like to answer it anyway. Read their relevant parts of their "denial" again:

Recent press coverage has asserted that RSA entered into a “secret contract” with the NSA to incorporate a known flawed random number generator into its BSAFE encryption libraries. We categorically deny this allegation.

we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use.

They never denied entering a contract with the NSA. All they denied was that they entered a contract with the intention of undermining their own products, which is not something that they were being accused of by most reasonable people. As you said, it's far easier to attribute this to incompetence than malice, and most of us aren't accusing them of intentionally sabotaging their own products; we're accusing them of being negligent in their duties by not being careful enough in accepting gifts from players in the game who have competing interests. Moreover, as a publicly traded company, they've already had to disclose the budget of the division that received the funds, so we know that the funds were received and that a contract does exist.

TL;DR: It's a standard non-denial denial. They denied the worst possible stuff that the sensationalists were accusing them of, while using strong words like "categorical" to give the impression they were denying everything, when really, they were merely denying a set of claims taken in whole, leaving wide open the accusations of the very realistic misdeeds they stood accused of.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[PlusFiveTroll]

The division that accepted the $10m was only grossing around $30m at the time.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[dcollins117]

Well they had all weekend to work on it. I was wondering whether they would go with a Clintoneque "I smoked pot, but didn't inhale" or with a Rob Ford inspired "Hell yeah I smoked crack! Hooker I was with told me it was heroin. Either way I was too drunk to care."*

Re:I don't trust anyone

[LVSlushdat]

The king of "spokesweasels".. the one, the only, secretary of the US Department of Propaganda, none othen than little Jay Carney... Do you get the idea he took lessons from Bagdad Bob?? They both have a really firm grip on reality...

Re:I don't trust anyone

[danlip]

In any case, if they didn't accept the $10m to weaken security, what did they accept it for? (of course they haven't admitted or denied taking the $10m, instead saying "RSA never divulges details of customer engagements").

Re:I don't trust anyone

[ganjadude]

ill go even further then that

"Its 10 million bucks that came directly out of americans pockets"

Re:I don't trust anyone

[danlip]

We used "frosh" at Caltech in 1989, but I believe it is widely used. Shorter and sounds more condescending, so win/win.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[TangoMargarine]

Freshies?

Re:I don't trust anyone

[Bite The Pillow]

Because it is slow, making brute force slower.
Because the NSA had a good crypto reputation.
Because elliptical curve was in vogue.
Because they shipped with options so the user can choose rather than accepting the vendor's defaults- isn't that rule 1 when buying?

You ask why as if there were no answer. I'm sure all of these, plus conversations with NSA, plus whatever wad part of the payoff, were all part of it. There is no single cause.

And, especially after being sold, they were under pressure to be a money maker. I might have accepted money to do something I was going to do anyway, under those conditions.

Not defending anyone. In retrospect it was obviously a dumb move, and someone should have been suspicious.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[tibit]

Nope. They did not do so intentionally, because, maybe, just maybe, they had no choice. It wasn't their intention to weaken anything, they were just told "you do it or else we'll do xyz to you".

Re:I don't trust anyone

[steelfood]

Now add Occam's Razor into the mix: the simpler explanation is probably the more accurate one.

In this case, we know RSA employs a ton of security and math experts, because their business is security. To make the claim that all these supposed experts overlooked this weakness (and to make matters worse, it's Microsoft's research division who ultimately found and reported it--the same Microsoft already in bed with the NSA), and not only approved it but also endorsed it to the point where it became the default, that seems to be the more complex explanation.

The simpler explanation is somebody from the NSA told RSA to put it in as the default, without expert review, without question, for an easy $10M. That way, they can deny any knowledge of the algorithm being weak. See no evil, hear no evil kinda thing.

I'm almost certain the $10M payment by some shell NSA company is in the RSA books. Hell, it might even show up in the quarterly filings, maybe under some non-taxable, special income.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[PopeRatzo]

Even if RSA had not put weaker crypto on the market at the NSA's request, just the fact of taking $10million from them is enough to make me never trust them again.

There has to be consequences for such poor judgement.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[ahabswhale]

Apparently you have no idea what a banana republic is because this story has no relation to the concept.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[RespekMyAthorati]

Regardless of the origin of "banana republic", its become a generic term meaning "a government so corrupt as to render its population powerless".

Re:I don't trust anyone

[ahabswhale]

Sorry but I cannot find any reference to that anywhere on the internet. Your post was hyperbolic and sloppy. Don't be surprised if you get called on it.

Re:I don't trust anyone

[mtthwbrnd]

Well actually the addition of "man" and "men" to a verb does not denote that we are speaking about men rather than women. It just denotes that we are talking about the people who are doing the verb.

Not Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to make it clear: This was Reuters and their own sources. NOT Snowden!

of course they will deny it

[FudRucker]

they are not going to confess that they betrayed the trust of their customers and the people, eventually the truth will come out and heads will roll

Re:of course they will deny it

[HiThere]

That wasn't exactly a denial. I.e., they didn't deny what they did, they denied doing it maliciously. They didn't deny doing it because of incomptetnce. They didn't deny doing it because of placing trust in people they should have doubted. They didn't deny ...

They issued a statement that it is essentially impossible to prove false, no matter WHAT evidence turns up. And that makes it meaninless.

They deny they are competent

[dyfet]

They have denied, in effect, that they even are competent to evaluate cryptosystems or that they are competent to protect their customers as they claim. This denial I think is actually worse for them than saying they actually knew what they were doing and did so anyway.

RSA official response is limp and evasive

[CuteSteveJobs]

RSA's official response is limp and evasive. It makes no mention of the $10M payment. Even the PR spokesliars couldn't turn this truck load of pig shit into a silk purse https://blogs.rsa.com/news-media-2/rsa-response/

> We made the decision to use Dual EC DRBG as the default in BSAFE toolkits in 2004, in the context of an industry-wide effort to develop newer, stronger methods of encryption. At that time, the NSA had a trusted role in the community-wide effort to strengthen, not weaken, encryption.

Then why did they have to pay you to use a 'good' algorithm? If all they had to do is convince you it was awesome that would have been enough. How fucking dumb do you think we are?

> This algorithm is only one of multiple choices available within BSAFE toolkits, and users have always been free to choose whichever one best suits their needs.

Fuck you, RSA. You made it the default, knowing most people would trust and use it for that reason. You fucking well know if one of the options was starred 'NSA paid us $10M to make this one the default' no one would have touched it. Remember the public suspicion when Microsoft's NSAKEY was discovered. Don't bullshit us that RSA didn't know about that.

> We continued using the algorithm as an option within BSAFE toolkits as it gained acceptance as a NIST standard and because of its value in FIPS compliance. When concern surfaced around the algorithm in 2007, we continued to rely upon NIST as the arbiter of that discussion.

Then you should have gone back to NSA and said "Hey look, you paid us $10M to use a flawed algorithm. You are supposedly experts in encryption. We aren't stupid. What the fuck are you trying to pull on us and our customers?"

And that's the scenario that assumes they *didn't* know.

> When NIST issued new guidance recommending no further use of this algorithm in September 2013, we adhered to that guidance, communicated that recommendation to customers and discussed the change openly in the media.

Fuck you. It was out in the open by then. You could hardly hide it them, and you still didn't warn your customers their data might have been compromised.

> RSA, as a security company, never divulges details of customer engagements,

Like $10M Bribes? Or agreements with one customer to fraudulently sell flawed software to other customers? I bet lawyers everywhere can smell big class actions off this one!

> but we also categorically state that we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSAâ(TM)s products, or introducing potential âbackdoorsâ(TM) into our products for anyoneâ(TM)s use.

Oh fucking puleaze. "intention" is a bullshit cop out that means you did it but didn't fucking us over wasn't the primary reason. If that $10M was so clean, show us the contract and the minutes of meetings. If you don't, don't expect us to trust you. And if they don't exist even though this is all above board, why?

RSA is either incompetent or malicious. Either way it can't be trusted again. Security companies can't operate unless their customers trust them. RSA is dead.

Re:RSA official response is limp and evasive

[bytesex]

"Then why did they have to pay you to use a 'good' algorithm? If all they had to do is convince you it was awesome that would have been enough. How fucking dumb do you think we are?"

Amateurs and open source developers are not the only people using crypto. A lot of the time it's government or other (contract-) workers that need to comply with standards. To make something part of a standard, you need to pay. If only because it's work.

Let's see.. who should we trust?

[XaXXon]

Snowden: 100% accuracy so far.

RSA: For profit company that looks really bad right now and there's no downside to them lying.

I'll go with the 100% guy with nothing to gain.

Re:Let's see.. who should we trust?

[rastos1]

You know what? When Assange published the documents he (and Wikileaks) got accused of rape. Regardless of whether he really committed rape he is now tainted in minds of many people. Once an information spreads that NSA asked RSA to do something, there is no going back. RSA is now tainted. Regardless of whether they did weakened the security on NSA's request or not. May be they did. And may be they did not. But they have no chance to prove that they did not even if they did not. It does not matter anymore whether they did or not.

IMHO, NSA is doing enormous damage to economics and trust. And there is no going back. Good job. I wonder whether there is someone in higher ranks who can recognize it and stop it and how much damage happens until then.

Re:Let's see.. who should we trust?

[Mirar]

Assange did stupid things to at least two girls, none of which would count as rape in most countries (I think). But since having sex without renewed consent with a sleeping girl counts as rape in Sweden... And she wouldn't have gone to the police except that she got an STD from it, and then the authorities got pulled in.

But most of the Assange problem can be blamed on people doing the wrong thing on the side of the law in had Sweden, including pushing the big red interpol arrest button on someone that previously had no problem going to the police to be interviewed. (They are repeatedly criticised for that, the last article I saw today. They arrest and isolate people that don't need to be arrested or isolated on a routine basis, for a very long -- too long time. The *UN* is pissed about it.)

I don't think any outer pressure was needed for the prosecutors to cause trouble for Assange. They are like this all the time, just by themselves.

Don't believe them...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry - they're not credible any more.

Explains it all

[egcagrac0]

we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use.

Not corrupt, just incompetent.

Maybe you are a PR shill?

[Anonymous Coward]

> That's precisely the trouble with all of Snowden's crap.

Snowden's Crap? What PR agency are you from? Seymor Hersch is certain that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden "changed the whole nature of the debate" about surveillance. Hersh says he and other journalists had written about surveillance, but Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence. Editors love documents. Chicken-shit editors who wouldn't touch stories like that, they love documents, so he changed the whole ball game" http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media

Yes, and US companies are losing billions

[deanklear]

U.S. cloud providers have already lost business over the NSA leaks, but now the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has a report putting a dollar amount on the short-term costs: $21.5 to $35 billion over the next three years.

ITIF based these estimates in part on the Cloud Security Alliance survey showing that 10 percent of officials at non-U.S. companies cancelled contracts with U.S. providers and 56 percent of non-U.S. respondents are hesitant to work with U.S. cloud based operators after the leaks.

And before you have pity on US firms losing this cash, remember that they have been knowingly aiding the NSA and the CIA and any other government entity that came knocking for years, and they would still be handing over our data (and they probably still are) without any concerns had Snowden not exposed the extent of the NSA's illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, and and brazenly stupid surveillance program.

When Angela Merkel is comparing the NSA to the Stasi, we've got problems. When Chinese tech firms become more trusted than American tech firms, we've got problems. When a schmuck wearing a military costume -- which is a disgrace to people who served their country instead of their government -- lies to congress about spying on Americans and gets away with it, we've got problems. "General" Keith B. Alexander was head of Army Intelligence and missed the piles of evidence pointing towards 9/11, and even after he helped the state security apparatus morph into the world's largest and most expensive spying effort, the organization under his control has still failed to stop a single terrorist attack.

The NSA, the CIA, and Mr. Alexander are a disgrace to our country, but they are unfortunately typical of American government, and the corporations that have been colluding with them for years. They're more interested in their own careers and dollar signs than they are about upholding the Constitution, but when they are caught, they hide behind their military titles and bullshit legalese because they have no redeeming qualities as individuals or as organizations.

If it seems personal, its because it is personal. It may just be a coincidence that I am flagged constantly when I cross the border for "random" searches, but I live in a country where I can't even find out why I seem to be a magnet for the attention of the security state. For my own protection, I am not allowed to know what my government is doing. And now that the NDAA has passed, an American agent could pick me up and detain me indefinitely without a trial.

Thanks for protecting American ideals from those totalitarian invaders, Mr. Alexander. You're doing a heckuva job.

banana republic

[Anonymous Coward]

Change did not come over night. You had patriot act over 10 years ago. You had George Bush senior saying he does not consider atheists citizens or something along that lines. You know what you are - Theocracy. You say your church and state are seperate, but your politicians, media and even citizens don't agree. Hell, majority of your people don't even belive evolution and vote for creationism. What can you expect in that kind of environment?

Re: banana republic

[DrLang21]

It does however state that the Federal government shall not make laws respecting the establishment of a religeon, creating a defacto separation. That's not to say that it hasn't been taken out of context. Putting up a religeous statue is hardly the same as making a law, and it leaves to question what state and local governments can do.

So they just didn't notice it was weak?

[Kazoo the Clown]

This is supposed to make us feel better? That instead of taking money to undermine security they were duped into it? Aren't they saying here, that they didn't knowingly undermine encryption, they were simply incompetent? These guys are toast in any case, time to turn the lights off and go home...

The Case of the Dog That Didn't Bark

[TheRealHocusLocus]

This all happened in 2006. RSA adopted DUAL_EC. RSA was sold to EMC. NIST released the standard. Microsoft researchers showed the flaws in DUAL_EC. The flaws in DUAL_EC have been known since 2006, the only thing we didn't know was that they were deliberate.

So... IF there was indeed a ~$10 million move afoot to slide Dual EC_DRBG into BSAFE and common use, why then was its implementation in the OpenSSL library left unattended? I can easily imagine that a bit of firm anonymous advocacy or subtle pressure on developers would have yielded results -- in the least a segfault-free product.

This empirically suggests that no such move was afoot. There are enough real controversies facing us today, we should be careful when going out on limbs.

Perhaps Snowden caught wind of someone in NSA who bloviated on RSA/BSAFE's default PRNG setting, misrepresenting a fortunate occurrence (for them) as if it was some deliberate operation...? In the comfoirtable world of internal memoranda such a 'fib' is possible. Just sayin'.

Re:The Case of the Dog That Didn't Bark

[Error27]

The NSA documents on this have been leaking for a while. There are ones that dealt with pushing DUAL_EC through NIST. The documents dealing with RSA are separate corroborating documents which fill in some details.

It's likely that the NSA documents on subverting OpenSSL will leak eventually. Anonymous government sources estimate that at the current rate the NSA leaks will take two more years before they have all been released.

Reporters as Lawyers

[ThatsNotPudding]

We need reporters that can craft absolutely air-tight, weasel-proof questions to force both corporate and governmental officials into an inescapable corner.

Even Bill Clinton would be impressed by the linguistic gymnastics now being displayed by liars of the highest order.

Re:Reporters as Lawyers

[Bucc5062]

To a politician, there is no such thing.

"Did you have sex with this woman?"

would have to turn into "Did you exchange bodily fluids, perform intercourse, oral sex, including, but not limited to fellatio, have any physical contact with either one or both of your penis and her vagina?" Basicaly, the reporter would have to define "sex" before the question was asked and we then know the reswponse would be, I find your question disgusting and not worthy of a response". Thus changing the direction.

Rare are the politicians like Mr. John Ford who pauses, only to ensure his truthful answer is accurate...."Yes".

What I'd wish is that reporters would not let go a question till an answer was given....

"Congressman Moneybags, did you divert funds from the children's hospital and towards a defense contractor instead?"

"Hospitals serve an important part of our community. So does defense and we need to understand that we need the defense for the children. Can you imagine a world where children are threatened by terrorists. I want to ensure that all our children are safe and secure where ever they go unlike my esteemed colleagues that appose a strong defense and continue to increase spending on welfare programs".

Wait what? The reporter ignores this obvious obfuscation and falls into the trap..."So MB, you feel we need to spend more on defense" This is what I see time and time again with today's so called reporters.

Still Can't Trust U.S. Companies

[StormReaver]

Let's assume, for the same of argument, that RSA is being completely honest and sincere: their product is not compromised by the U.S. Government. Given that the U.S. Government can just slap any company in the U.S. with a National Security Letter; the violation of which comes with prison time, and which prohibits the recipient from even saying they got one; we can't trust any U.S. (or U.K., for that matter) company's word that they haven't been compromised by the Government.

So as our computer security companies start to decline, and our economy (which has a huge computer company component to it) declines even further, we can all tip our hats to the corrupt polititians that gave our three-letter agencies the power to deal a body blow to the very country they are supposed to be protecting; and to the agencies that use that power to harm us more than any terrorist plot ever could.

Cheapskate NSA

[ZecretZquirrel]

RSA should not have settled for a cent less than 1 MILLION dollars.

RSA:

[gagol]

Reduced Security Agency.

Of course

[Dunbal]

And everyone in prison is also innocent. Just ask them.

Re:Google is involved with the U.S. military?

[Bearhouse]

I think OP was referring to recent purchase by the Gmen of a robotics company that, among other things, also does stuff for the military. The two use cases are so similar that i guess it makes sense to do codevelopment

Re:BBC are incompetent shills

[Pav]

The BBC reporter seemed to do things right to me... first what the Reuters reporter said (with a link to the article), then the RSA, Reuters, RSA etc... Yes, the article expected the reader to draw their own conclusions, but isn't that what real news reporting is meant to do?

Re:Maybe Snowden Stole a Honeypot

[Clsid]

And you really think that right now the need to know principle is the problem? Hell, helping create a more transparent and open society is the most important thing.

Re:Here's a better one.

[spacepimp]

The test is simple. If Snowden lied, then the NSA and the President have nothing to charge him with. It is simple. They tried claling him a liar and a traitor guilty of treason in the same paragraph. When it was pointed out he couldn't be both they quickly stopped pretending he was lying.

RSA is either complicit or complacent...either way

[Anonymous Coward]

It's entirely possible that RSA is telling the truth here. That they never entered into a deal with the NSA. That they never intentionally weakened or pushed a poorly implemented RNG. Perhaps. But if so, then they are guilty of gross negligence given the innate weakness and terrible performance from their RNG and their being a self-appointed industry leader in such products. Pick your poison. Either way, I wouldn't buy another thing from them.

for ten million dollars,

[museumpeace]

I would deny just about anything.

Re:Google is involved with the U.S. military?

[spacepimp]

In the case of Boston Robotics, Google said it would honor existing contractual obligations but that going forward it would no longer process military orders.

Questionable...

[Ronin Developer]

While new revelations are being disclosed almost daily, I don't believe everything "Snowden" releases because it's him. The licensing and royalty rights are very high and they already held a lock on the market...$10m is a very small price to pay to sell your soul and reputation. For that amount, I believe they would disclose their source under an NDA license.

I wouldn't surprise me that a deal was struck after the RSA patents expired or to have export restrictions lessened. But, I really would need to see the actual contract and/or banking records to fully believe this happened.

  Snowden's word, in my opinion, isn't that good .. He's got some documents -some are authentic.- But, i don't trust someone who would put this nation in such a bad light - causing economic damage to a county he "loves" as well as put lives at risks just "because". Show me the money trail and I'll buy in to this story. Until then, it's just that...a story.

RSA may be telling the truth to the limits of...

[clay_shooter]

The government was trying to move to more COTS products instead of home grown so that they could push crypto across the government. USG goes to RSA and says "we'll use your product as a standard as long as you use this algorithm because it meets the minimum standard. We'll pay you to integrate it". RSA would analyze the algorithm and put it in based on assurances and the level of analysis they were capable of. They take the money and release the new product. There were a bunch of crypto export restrictions at the time. The government lessens export crypto restrictions because every country already has the main algorithms and their mathematicians and they want to know what algorithms people are using.

Lying must be in their contract

[Theovon]

A court can’t compel you to lie, but there’s nothing that says that your arrangement with the NSA can’t compel you to lie. It could very well be that RSA’s contract wiht the NSA states that if they are asked about this that they must categorically deny it.

What bugs me the most about this is that there isn’t any sort of grass-roots push to vote out congress representatives who have supported this unconstitutional spying. Of course, there are no guarantees about their replacements (all of which will really be selected by their political parties, not really the people). But this would (a) probably reduce the concentration of supporters of these laws, and (b) send a message that this garbage isn’t supported by the people. Eventually, repeated voting selection will, after many years, filter out politicians who advocate spying.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

foot targetting successful, fire the shot!

[slashmydots]

So weakening your product for bribe money = bad. Lying about it in the face of clear evidence = complete corporate suicide. Sell your stocks because it's goodbye RSA.

Both sides could be lying ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously suggesting that Snowden is not trustworthy? I would definitely support the guy that had to run away from his country because of a massive information leak than some crude government/corporation propaganda. It truly makes me wonder why you are posting as an anonymous coward and spread FUD about the only way we could have found out about such things in the first place.

Different AC here ... You are making a very naive assumption. That if one side is lying the other side is telling the truth. That's silly. Both sides may be lying.

The truth is Snowden has an agenda. It is therefore plausible that he is exaggerating. He is also under the control of dubious masters, formerly China and now Russia. It is mildly plausible that he needed to keep China or needs to keep Russia happy with his leaks and/or believe he is valuable asset so that they continue to protect him.

Or to put things another way, you should NOT drop your skepticism because someone's claims match your expectations or politics. That is how you get conned. You sell what people are predisposed to believe.

Re:Both sides could be lying ...

[lennier]

Snowden has an agenda.

It's worse than that - I hear he has a quorum and takes minutes, too.

Why do people of a certain political stripe use that word as if it's an insult? Is Roberts Rules of Order the new Protocols of Zion, or something?

No, Really

[trongey]

"We just did that stuff because it seemed like such a good idea. The $10 mil was just a ... um ... a research grant - or something."

Re:Sorry RSA

[Alomex]

This is why you don't get in bed with government.

As opposed to industry that treats you so kindly the morning after when they hand you your pink slip?

Let me FTFY:

This is why you need to keep all powerful organizations in check. Business are kept in check by the government, and in turn, the government is kept in check by the people when they exercise their democratic rights.

Re:Maybe Snowden Stole a Honeypot

[Traksius Egas]

in fact, it is so irresponsible to give one person access to so much secret information that either the NSA is completely incompetent or it would have a reason to permit one contractor access to so many documents.

Have you even read anything about how Edward Snowden came to be in possession of said documents? Nothing was GIVEN to him. He used other peoples accounts that DID have access to said documents via social engineering and other means.

What this means

[tom229]

If you're like me you're wondering exactly what the implications of this revelation are in the real world. This article and this discussion helped clear it up for me.

Thankfully, this PRNG likely isn't used in any implementation of OpenSSL. It also doesn't appear to be used, at least in newer versions, of Microsoft applications. It may be used in any older Java, and C applications though (especially those linking RSA's BSafe library).

If anyone has anymore information or clarification that would be great.

Re:Here's a better one.

[ganjadude]

Its even easier than that.

hey NSA, if you have nothing to hide, than show us what you got, the government LOVES to use that one on us right?

Bruce Schneier in 2007

[gregmac]

Bruce Schneier had a good write-up on this in 2007:

Problems with Dual_EC_DRBG were first described in early 2006. The math is complicated, but the general point is that the random numbers it produces have a small bias.

[...]

This is how it works: There are a bunch of constants -- fixed numbers -- in the standard used to define the algorithm's elliptic curve. These constants are listed in Appendix A of the NIST publication, but nowhere is it explained where they came from.

[...]

What Shumow and Ferguson showed is that these numbers have a relationship with a second, secret set of numbers that can act as a kind of skeleton key. If you know the secret numbers, you can predict the output of the random-number generator after collecting just 32 bytes of its output. To put that in real terms, you only need to monitor one TLS internet encryption connection in order to crack the security of that protocol. If you know the secret numbers, you can completely break any instantiation of Dual_EC_DRBG.

The researchers don't know what the secret numbers are. But because of the way the algorithm works, the person who produced the constants might know; he had the mathematical opportunity to produce the constants and the secret numbers in tandem.

Of course, we have no way of knowing whether the NSA knows the secret numbers that break Dual_EC-DRBG. We have no way of knowing whether an NSA employee working on his own came up with the constants -- and has the secret numbers. We don't know if someone from NIST, or someone in the ANSI working group, has them. Maybe nobody does.

We don't know where the constants came from in the first place. We only know that whoever came up with them could have the key to this backdoor. And we know there's no way for NIST -- or anyone else -- to prove otherwise.

This is scary stuff indeed.

Really RSA?

[zyzzyxx]

RSA do you really want me to believe what you just said out of a prepared statement ?

Re:Sorry RSA

[HiThere]

You didn't understand he answer. The postulated problem with the eliptic code is NOT the algorithm. It is being presumed that the algorithm is properly implemented. It's with the data chosen to initialize the routine. And nobody has been able to show whether that's a weak selection of initializers or not...but the hypothesis is that the NSA caused the RSA to select those particular initializers BECAUSE they are weak. It could equally be because they were strong. We don't know.

Having access to the code would not solve this problem. (There are other problems that it would solve. E.g., we are trusting that the implementation was accurate. But that's not where suspicion has been focused.)

Re:Sorry RSA

[T.E.D.]

All looking at the source code would tell you is that they implemented Dual_EC_DRBG; exactly the same as looking at the OpenSSL source code will tell you. I doubt there would be a handy comment saying "/* Implemented a known-weak method on behalf of the NSA. */" around it.

Perhaps, but I suspect the comments on the rollback merges from the Git repository from when well-meaning developers tried to fix the flawed algorithm. would be quite enlightening.

Undoing mod

[godel_56]

Posting to undo mod.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Maybe Snowden Stole a Honeypot

[sjames]

The Google thing is already well explained by the NSA intercepting Google's communications.

If it's a honeypot, it's a badly created one since much of the revelations have panned out.

Do you actually work for the NSA or do you just have an addiction to cool aid?

As for RSA, posablilities include:

1. They make the all too common mistake of believing that 'literally' is just an emphatic and 'categorically' is a stronger emphatic.
2. They're lying because the truth would be the end of the company
3. They are telling the truth. They did not *intentionally* weaken their product. Instead, they were duped by the NSA.

"Never happened" isn't on the menu. We know the crypto was weakened. Nobody (including RSA)is trying to deny that anymore. Before all of this came out, there were already very good reasons not to trust the elliptic curve PRNG. Beyond that, there were simple practical reasons not to use it even if you chose to trust it. The very NIST standard RSA cites offered more practical and easier to trust PRNGs they could have used by default and been just as standards compliant.

Re:Maybe Snowden Stole a Honeypot

[Maritz]

I would assume that any file of intelligence documents made available to an employee/contractor would be riddled with falsehoods anyway,

Sorry but as an assumption that strikes me as utterly asinine.

in fact, it is so irresponsible to give one person access to so much secret information that either the NSA is completely incompetent

Sounds reasonable. The fact that they haven't even been able to work out exactly what he took furthers the impression of incompetence.

Re:Maybe Snowden Stole a Honeypot

[Sanians]

Do you actually work for the NSA or do you just have an addiction to cool aid?

I'm actually in disbelief that anyone has taken my suggestions seriously. Someone even modded it "troll." It was just a random idea that popped into my head as I was writing the post which I found too amusing, in a conspiracy theory sort of way, to not mention. It shouldn't be taken any more seriously than that.

They make the all too common mistake of believing that 'literally' is just an emphatic and 'categorically' is a stronger emphatic.

This thought crossed my mind as well. No one bothers to learn what words mean before using them. I make it a point to ask for a definition whenever anyone uses a word I don't know, and amusingly enough they almost always give a definition that even I know isn't correct. I had to look up "categorically" after reading it in their statement, and so, being one of those words, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the author doesn't actually know what the word means.

They're lying because the truth would be the end of the company

...and that's kind of my point.

I mean, it's like if Alice killed Bob's dog, and everyone on Slashdot suspects her of it, and points to her twitter feed where she's written "I have no idea where Bob's dog is" as evidence, because they think she's being evasive by not saying "I didn't kill Bob's dog" because she probably tossed it in a dumpster last week and so she technically doesn't actually know where it is now. It'd be pointless for her to post truthful statements that sound like denials because no one is going to care that she didn't lie about it if, in the future, a security camera video surfaces of her dumping the body in a dumpster behind Wal-Mart. So why would she risk the suspicion caused by evasive statements when she could instead use direct lies like "I did not kill Bob's dog" and avoid the unnecessary suspicion they create?

This is why I think it's a bit silly to pick apart RSA's statement as if we're going to dig out some hidden meaning. They certainly didn't just mean to imply that they didn't do it without actually telling any lies. They meant what they appear to have said and apparently just didn't anticipate that people might try their best to misunderstand them. People who betray their customers for cash aren't going to be worried about being caught lying to them as well. So either they did it and they're lying about it, or they didn't do it and they're not lying about it. Either way, assuming their statement has some secret meaning other than "we didn't do it" seems ridiculous.

Re:Maybe Snowden Stole a Honeypot

[sjames]

On the internet it's hard to tell the difference between parody of extremism and extremism itself :-)

I suppose the most popular reason to make evasively true statements rather than outright falsehoods is when you believe you might find yourself held legally responsible for the truthfulness of your statements at some point.

Does anyone else feel worse about this...

[choke]

after reading their denial?

The denial reeks of clintonesque cynicism, where one is tacitly splitting hairs in some clever semantic way which not only to me demonstrates guilt, but a culture of guilt and a preparedness for smirking dishonesty.

These are the people we entrust with our encryption? We are good and truly fucked.

stupid or bribed, pick one?

[Mirar]

Considering the problems with the RNG, they had to pick between being stupid and useless - promoting something not secure - or being bribed.

They picked stupid and useless.

Regardless, noone is going to trust RSA anymore. Maybe even less now when we think they are both bribed and stupid?