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RSA Flatly Denies That It Weakened Crypto For NSA Money

Posted by timothy on from the problem-with-denials dept.

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."

53 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tell it to 60 Minutes.

    1. Re:Yeah, right by game+kid · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  2. Trust none of them by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Trust none of them by khasim · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Trust none of them by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Trust none of them by Threni · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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?

    4. Re:Trust none of them by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  3. Not that strongly worded by Etherwalk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Not that strongly worded by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  4. They're right by waddgodd · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
  5. They're not denying the article really by Error27 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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/

  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. As per the contract by waynemcdougall · · Score: 4, Funny

    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."

    --
    Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
  8. Oh, Sure... by BlueStrat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    1. Re:Oh, Sure... by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  9. Come On by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Come On by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Come On by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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?"

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  10. Links by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Links by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  11. RSA's name is now mud by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    1. Re:RSA's name is now mud by sumdumass · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:RSA's name is now mud by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:RSA's name is now mud by Pav · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:RSA's name is now mud by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 4, Informative

      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

  12. Non-denial denial by dido · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
    1. Re:Non-denial denial by ysth · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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. "

  13. Foreign crypto market should boom? by melchoir55 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

  14. It's a very sad day by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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 ?

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:It's a very sad day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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

    2. Re:It's a very sad day by makomk · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.)

    3. Re:It's a very sad day by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:It's a very sad day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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).

    5. Re:It's a very sad day by cold+fjord · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    6. Re:It's a very sad day by Clsid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    7. Re:It's a very sad day by pegr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  15. Actually ... by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Actually ... by sjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  16. Re:Sorry RSA by _Shad0w_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --

    Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.

  17. I don't trust anyone by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:I don't trust anyone by Alioth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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).

      --
      Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
    2. Re:I don't trust anyone by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:I don't trust anyone by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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...

    4. Re:I don't trust anyone by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      No sig today...
    5. Re:I don't trust anyone by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:I don't trust anyone by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 4, Informative

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

    7. Re:I don't trust anyone by danlip · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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").

  18. Let's see.. who should we trust? by XaXXon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  19. Yes, and US companies are losing billions by deanklear · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  20. banana republic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

  21. Still Can't Trust U.S. Companies by StormReaver · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  22. Re:Here's a better one. by spacepimp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  23. Both sides could be lying ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.