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Verizon "End-to-End" Encrypted Calling Includes Law Enforcement Backdoor
An anonymous reader sends this quote from TechDirt:
As a string of whistle blowers like former AT&T employee Mark Klein have made clear abundantly clear, the line purportedly separating intelligence operations from the nation's incumbent phone companies was all-but obliterated long ago. As such, it's relatively amusing to see Verizon announce this week that the company is offering up a new encrypted wireless voice service named Voice Cypher. Voice Cypher, Verizon states, offers "end-to-end" encryption for voice calls on iOS, Android, or BlackBerry devices equipped with a special app made by Cellcrypt.
Verizon says it's initially pitching the $45 per phone service to government agencies and corporations, but would ultimately love to offer it to consumers as a line item on your bill. Of course by "end-to-end encryption," Verizon means that the new $45 per phone service includes an embedded NSA backdoor free of charge. Apparently, in Verizon-land, "end-to-end encryption" means something entirely different than it does in the real world.
Verizon says it's initially pitching the $45 per phone service to government agencies and corporations, but would ultimately love to offer it to consumers as a line item on your bill. Of course by "end-to-end encryption," Verizon means that the new $45 per phone service includes an embedded NSA backdoor free of charge. Apparently, in Verizon-land, "end-to-end encryption" means something entirely different than it does in the real world.
...on which 'end' they're backdooring you in apparently.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The service would've only been $40/month without the backdoor.
People are running around with computers in their hands, the phone is now nothing but an add-on feature, as such we should be able to have a real p2p encrypted channel with communications over it, so for people with data plans this shouldn't be a problem. I am more interested seeing if we can have a system that uses voice to send encrypted data over it...
You can't handle the truth.
Aren't our calls supposed to be encrypted anyway? I mean, so some jack ass with a radio can't listen to them? So what are they charging me for here?
Sounds like a reasonable product for the government.
For the consumer though, you have to ask yourself what you're actually getting with this? Doesn't appear to be anything. After all, the only people that could normally break into your communications would be the government anyway.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
as we have pre-selected the best of the bad guys to listen in on all your calls! this handy feature is worth twice the price!
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
See the CALEA Act passed in 1994. Telecom providers HAVE to provide that backdoor. If not - they are subject to fines of up to $10,000 per day per connection not in compliance, and having their network shut down until it comes into compliance.
Your indignation should not be directed at Verizon - it should be directed at Washington, DC.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I thought we had already had the "Big Brother inside" debate and weren't going t have it. Well it looks like they came back for another bite of the apple.
If one of the ends is at the man-in-the-middle.
Verizon sells you end-to-end encryption and then sells NSA the key.
All communications devices sold in this country, by law, must have backdoors!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act#Provisions_of_CALEA
So Verizon should be sued into the 7th level of hell for saying this in any way secure.
If you think you're defending against the NSA with encryption provided by a big telecom company, you're fooling yourself, even if this policy weren't public. If, on the other hand, you're defending against basic hackers hired by a competitor, then perhaps this would be a reasonable option. It's like locking your doors, putting bars on all your windows, and putting your stuff in a safe. Sure, that'll keep most burglars out, but do you think the NSA wouldn't be able to get to your stuff?
This is the part that bugs me: "so long as they're able to prove that there's a legitimate law enforcement reason for doing so." It used to be that meant demonstrating to an impartial judge that they had probable cause, which takes the form of a warrant. However, it doesn't say they need a warrant...so now it's a Verizon employee rather than an impartial judge who gets to decide if there's probable cause.
That would be the news to report.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Seth Polansky, Cellcrypt's vice president for North America, disputes the idea that building technology to allow wiretapping is a security risk. "It's only creating a weakness for government agencies," he says. "Just because a government access option exists, it doesn't mean other companies can access it."
I doubt it will be very long before third parties apart from government figure out how to access their backdoor.
.: Semper Absurda
A backdoor for typical communication devices is simply a telco employee who is in debt who has switch access.
Your number can be assigned to multiple phones at the switch so if you need to listen to a particular number, just pay the right employee. I assure you security isn't nearly what it should be for switch access.
Many switch access points traverse equipment that have packet sniffing capability. No they don't use SSH to talk with the switch, yes they use telnet.
So will Google, Apple, and Microsoft's encryption schemes.
It's really just a sucker deal when they tell you they care and are going to implement encryption, how else do you settle the cattle after all Snowden showed us.
Tell them it's encrypted, put them at ease and make them complacent again, then provide the "agencies" with a master key/backdoor.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
...US Laws.
'nuff said.
No, seriously, can we please stop being shocked and appalled over the (ancient) concept that a US Corporation would beholden a US Citizen with any form of communications service that also contains a back door for the US Government? The OMGWTFEFF attitude is wearing thin.
US Corporation. US Laws. CALEA is twenty years old now. You have no Right to privacy anymore with any US-based communications service.
Oh, and according to this Administration, you just might be a terrorist if you think or assume otherwise. Have fun.
The Supreme Court says they are null and void, iow not law.
Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and other founders also expressed this principle.
"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.â (Marbury vs.Madison, 1803.)
âoeEvery law consistent with the Constitution will have been made in pursuance of the powers granted by it. Every usurpation or law repugnant to it cannot have been made in pursuance of its powers. The latter will be nugatory and void.â (Thomas Jefferson, Elliot, p. 4:187-88.)
âoeâ¦the laws of Congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding. In the same manner the states have certain independent power, in which their laws are supreme.â (Alexander Hamilton, Elliot, 2:362.)
âoeThis Constitution, as to the powers therein granted, is constantly to be the supreme law of the land.⦠It is not the supreme law in the exercise of a power not granted.â (William Davie, Pennsylvania, p. 277.)
âoeIt will not, I presume, have escaped observation that it expressly confines the supremacy to laws made pursuant to the Constitutionâ (Alexander Hamilton, concerning the supremacy clause The Federalist Papers, #33.)
âoeThere is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.â (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, #78.)
Hysteria, eh? Well, let's just drag a few facts out. Here we go:
o Straight-up misconduct
o Botched paramilitary police raid data
o Judge, jury and executioners in blue: The death penalty -- without a court
o Warrants "not required" data
o Seizure of property without warrants details
o $2.02 billion dollars in cash and property seizures for/in which no indictment was ever filed
o Other illegal horrors
Just a little information -- what we know -- showing our government at work, cavreader. Now, I don't know how you will characterize this information, but I know how I do: Directly and unequivocally indicative of a systemic breakdown of respect, regard, and understanding of liberty and justice that extends broadly across all areas of law enforcement.
Now, you want to talk nonsense about legal protections in a system where the vast majority of defendants are pressured into plea bargains against a completely uneven scale full of extra charges, almost certain financial ruin, threats of extended incarceration, and outright lies from the police and prosecutor, where the police don't have to defend anything in court -- and which can be, and at times have been, followed up by ex post facto laws increasing punishment after conviction -- fine. But don't expect me to take you seriously, because you obviously don't have even the slightest idea what you're talking about.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Sue Verizon for False Advertising.
Get technical experts on the stand to testify that proper 'end-to-end' encryption means NOBODY can intercept.
And don't settle. Under no circumstance settle, go for a jury trial and force precedent.
Any backdoor is by definition available to everyone. Some may have a key, the others have lockpicks.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why would you have encrytion if the party most likely to intercept your communications gets access anyway?
what if the backdoor is always the master
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Backdoor opens you.
"I've got one that can see..." from -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
APK
P.S.=> This isn't a world of great men - it's a world of secret-handshake 'committees' now & "networking" rather than what you know (in that case, it's how cheap are you, but... the "powers that be" forgot 1 thing - you DO get what you pay for, but then again? They've "gotta get their bonuses" for doing zero, except ruining things more, imo).
Hey - All you've gotta do? "JOIN THE RIGHT 'FRAT'" & get what's yours, then split... the new mantra!
It's become bogus, but @ least you see thru it - it's wrong, but how it's become largely (the lousy results show it though, hate to say that - you get, what you get, with what you said)- it's the WHY of why I went into business for myself, my money works FOR me, making me more (rather than being a wageslave making the rich richer, practically giving away the most precious thing there is that there is no store you can buy it for: YOUR LIFE & FREE TIME)... apk
Any backdoor can be exploited by hackers. A back door is an open door. Sort of negates security don't you think?
All the recent media hype on how manufacturers are "hardening" their devices is a joke. Of course they're going to continue to let "approved" entities spy on you. We'll start seeing devices built on an open platform running community developed OSS in the next couple of years..
Spies will spy. It is preferable for the spies to have private backdoors rather than for them to research (or create) and utilize hacks that could then be used by criminals. In this case the system design also requires human interaction and a court order, making it less likely for a hacker to gain the same access. The real question is whether we should have spies at all, because if we don't want them to be able to actually spy on people why pay for them? And I am including law enforcement agencies under the term "spy" because that's what they are doing when they are investigating a case. But if we decide (as others have in the past) that it's OK to spy on suspected criminals (with oversight to ensure that the definition of "suspected criminals" does not expand), this is the right way to do it.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.