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NSA Director Wants Legal Right To Snoop On Encrypted Data
jfruh writes: This may not come as a huge shock, but the director of the NSA doesn't believe that you have the right to encrypt your data in a way that the government can't access it. At a cybersecurity policy event, Michael Rogers said that the U.S. should be able to craft a policy that allows the NSA and law enforcement agencies to read encrypted data when they need to.
Go fuck yourself.
That is all.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
they'll be moving to places with more sensible security policies
...did having the legal right matter to the NSA? Or recent governments, for that matter...
--- Pork is not a verb.
Okay, if we receive the legal right to snoop on the NSA. Fair trade.
I mean, there are going to be some areas where we’re going to have different perspectives. That doesn’t bother me at all. One of the reasons why, quite frankly, I believe in doing things like this is that when I do that, I say, “Look, there are no restrictions on questions. You can ask me anything.”
Welcome to the new Amerika. Your possessions and money may be seized at any time via civil asset forfeiture, your communications are under constant surveillance, and now they want to make sure absolutely nothing can be kept private.
But, hey, so long as we're having "dialogue" (you'll do what you want anyways) and we have your permission to ask questions then it's all good.
Who really won the cold war?
It's called a subpoena.
What you want is a system that allows it, and if you have a backdoor, they have it too. Snowden's leaks didn't convince me that you were the all powerful octopus, it convinced me that you were the Keystone Cops of the Information Superhighway. I don't distrust you because of your bad intent. I don't trust you because of your incompetence.
Get a warrant and demand the keys. Or brute force it. Same as a locked box. I know the legal system is such a pain in the ass for making you do your God damned jobs the proper way.
Ok, lets assume they are right and the government **should** be allowed to access encrypted data (not that I agree with this).
Its going to be an absolutely impossible for them to implement technically it without significantly increasing the risk an unauthorized 3rd party can.
The non-technical way (give me your password) has constitutional issues.
This falls into two categories.
1.) Lawful investigation (warrant and all). In this case, encryption has been regarded as a 'locked box' they can seize and search your gun safe but they can not ask you to give up the combination. If they get past that, there are other legal hurdles....The Government cannot compel you to incriminate yourself (give up the key) (5th Amendment).....If that doesn't work, who says you can recall the password or didn't lose the key--This could be fun and I don't know the law.....
2.) We will call it "Creative Surveillance". Well, thats a whole can of 4th amendment.
I was just thinking the rest of the world should have the legal right to kick anybody from the NSA in the nuts.
These people are assholes who don't give a crap about civil liberties and human rights.
Mauled by bears would be too good for them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The rest of the world don't want products with official US backdoors though. So you'll have a very hard time selling anything US made abroad and you'd have to ban foreign imports that don't comply with your backdoor policy. Probably also all second hand private imports like eBay. And open source. If the NSA didn't cost the US enough money already, it will after that. I remember a time when you had to fight to get non-crippled crypto out of the US, only 40 bits for us schmucks. I guess now you'll have to fight to get non-crippled crypto back in...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Back in the cold war era so many of our American leaders criticized the totalitarianism and lack of human rights in China and the Soviet bloc nations. Now fifty some years later we are gradually becoming just like them.
No, the textbooks of tomorrow will say we started the revolution out of a hatred of tea and stamps.
If I thought it was OK for them to read my messages, I wouldn't fucking encrypt them.
The problem is secret courts and that they have been caught spying on everyone multiple times already.
If he was arguing that they should be able to get a court order at a NORMAL court not the FISA one and with probably cause have the right to decrypt the data and only the data covered by the search warrant then I would support him.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Abuse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism Who gets labelled a terrorist and why? It's not just about who commits violence. It's about who is a threat to the existing power-structure. Terrorist is the new communist.
It's hilarious. For a moment I wondered if the transcript is even real. This makes Eliza look sophisticated.
He seems to believe, "I think we can work through this" is an acceptable answer to a simple yes/no question. The guy doesn't even have a coherent answer to one of the most basic and obvious questions he could possibly be asked. I thought Comey did a poor job of explaining his position but this takes it to a whole other level.
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I don't know how someone so ignorant got to be so high in the bureaucracy, but there is a mechanism for this. It's called a warrant. One of the reasons we have this system is as a failsafe precisely in case that someone so ignorant does happen to get so high in the bureaucracy.
Perhaps he hasn't heard all about the one-time-pad?
The British Government does it this way:
We have 'RIPA', the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 containing the scary "Part III": Investigation of electronic data protected by encryption etc. Power to require disclosure
In plain English, it says "If you have encrypted data, and you know, or have ever known, the key to that data, you have to decrypt the data for the police when they tell you to. And you're not allowed to tell anyone the police told you to decrypt the data, if they tell you not to." The penalty is 4 years imprisonment.
The encryption drive was caused by the NSA and others not obeying due process when they went after information. They used little legal loopholes or just broke the law outright as it suited them. And of course that being known people are going to take steps to protect themselves.
The damage the NSA has done will take a generation to repair and that would be a generation with the NSA not actively doing damage the entire time. Absent that, we're not going back to the way things were... possibly ever.
And that means the NSA should get used to running into encrypted brick walls. They had all the trust. Companies would openly brag that their security had been vetted by the NSA. Now, no one says that because there is always the fear that the NSA saw a flaw and intentionally kept it secret so they could exploit it or worse they might have even injected a backdoor in themselves.
The trust is gone and they have only themselves to blame.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There are multiple problems with your statement. Lets look at them all, shall we:
No. The trigger for this isn't that companies are holding data...it's that users have data, and the NSA wants to force the companies to keep/get access their users data even if the company doesn't want to, so that the NSA can access it also. This is a *very* different proposition. If Apple doesn't want to hold its user's data, why should the NSA force them to just so that the NSA can read it? That seems to be the NSA's problem, not Apple's.
Saying "encryption" does not make the data magical, but it also doesn't entitle the NSA to special treatment. If they can break it, fine. If they can't, there is no valid reason for me to make it easy for them.
Attacking RSA/DSA/AES/etc is the NSA's job. If they can do that, fine. Deliberately weakening an existing system to make it *easier* for them to do those attacks isn't our job, or our problem. If they want to beat their heads against AES, go for it. But that's not a valid reason for country-wide key escrow.
Lastly, on the specialness of America: Do we really believe that the US is the only one who has the "right" to access any backdoor/golden-key/whatever? That's absolute nonsense. If the US forces Apple, Google, MS, etc to build key escrow into their devices so that the NSA can read the data on them, then that key will be used by every government on the earth. If you really believe that the NSA will manage to keep exclusive control of a master key for all encryption for a given major vendor, then I'm going to call you delusional.
If, on the other hand, you live in a world where simply crying "Encryption!" is some kind of barrier that magically sanctifies the underlying data, and that it then cannot and should not ever be accessed by anyone other than the data owner...well, then I would ask what you think about the German and Japanese codes in WWII?
Are you really stupid enough to think that if we had legislation mandating backdoors in the 1940s, that the Japanese and German would have incorporated them?
If not, what's your point?
This has nothing to do with surveillance of "the enemy", whoever that may be at any given time. Because they won't build in the back doors. It has everything to do with ability to read the data of those who are not the enemy, and who can't guard themselves from CIA. Ordinary people and businesses.
Naval Information Warfare Officer, right?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Actually, no. Had we been allowed a seat in Parliament we would be happy Brits to this day. Well, maybe more like Canadians.
No, strike that. Not like Canadians as we have tans here.
Also, their tea really sucked.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Thank you Captain Rouge Spook. No, the government can't be trusted. That's why it is given limited powers. Those powers it does have are broken up into three pieces at the federal level, and divided between federal and state entities. We don't want an omnipotent government, Sir Spooks Alot! Not now, not in the future. No amount of terrorism will change my mind on that, nor, I hope, the minds of a lot of other citizens. The government can't be trusted, because governments ALWAYS abuse their powers, and ALWAYS wind up killing their own citizens. Trust? How about the government trust its own citizens, huh? To have private conversations? Yes, we have a serious problem on our hands, and it is people like you and Mike Rogers who have utterly failed to grasp the lessons of history, and failed to understand the benefits of continued democracy. Both of you should get out of the government.
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It's just nice to know the motivation for ones position. It means something. And it serves to further validate the counterpoints. The cops want to disarm the people.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is about the fact that US adversaries, today, as you and I speak, are using the EXACT SAME systems, networks, devices, services, OSes, and encryption standards and protocols, as you and I and innocent Americans and many others in the world. THAT is the issue...does this fact put those communications off limits?
That is because there is no evidence that those systems have a backdoor.
If a backdoor is mandated, so that everyone will be using one with a backdoor, everyone outside the reach of US law will fork their own standard without those backdoors.
So, in the end, it will only be used against Americans.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
"An even worse joke is when people believe NSA is operating rouge..."
And just think if they were wearing eyeliner - the mind boggles!
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
I want a pony, and a solid 99.99% pure rhodium toilet, and a private moon base.
The problem is I won't get those things but the constitution violating NSA Director Michael Rogers stands a reasonable chance of getting what he wants.
Time to offend someone
In theory you are right. The problem is that laws change and I cannot predict in what fashion.
What you do today and what is perfectly legal may well be illegal tomorrow. Take, say, smoking. Maybe you're smoking. Now let's imagine smoking gets banned. Well, tobacco is addictive. And if you're known to be a smoker, maybe you should be monitored whether you heed that ban or whether you engage in some illegal activity now that your addictive substance is banned.
And should you have dared to criticize the government in a way that has caused enough waves, this just might serve as the excuse needed to make you disappear behind some bars where you cannot reach those that like to listen to you. And hopefully soon you'll be forgotten and life will go on.
There are some countries, and I'm far from talking third world dictatorships, that are on the verge of heavy unrest. I don't want to say civil war, we're far from that, but there's a LOT of very unhappy and very disillusioned people in many countries that we'd consider first world countries.
All it takes is someone to gather behind. And that's to be avoided at all cost if you're a government, interested in preserving the status quo as long as you can.
So anything to get rid of such people is a good excuse. And having access to data is one way to find something. In case you ever wondered what purpose all those unexectuable laws we're seeing popping up could possibly serve, this pretty much is it. But if you need to construct dirt about someone, you need to have access to his documents.
Everyone breaks the law. Daily. Multiple times. All it takes is access to the proof.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> ... to illegally access everyone's communications, especially that of their own citizens to solidify power, or serve corporate/elite/shadowy overlords ...
But this is what is happening, no ? And this is what people in power positions are requesting access for - ability to read ANYONE's communications. Snowden revelations clearly listed massive dragnet surveillance on own US citizens.
They don't whine that they can't read Iran's / North Korea's communications, or even Germany's or France's. They whine that they can't read EVERYBODY's communications, including those of political opponents (remember Nixon ? or own NSA's lack of legislative/judicial oversight ?).
So what's shocking is not that they were reading's US enemy's communications - that was expected; not even that they recorded US citizens on US soil, although you were labeled a conspiratard if you voiced your opinion.
What's shocking is that they are reading and archiving EVERYBODY's communication, because they may be useful in the future. And then they come and say, when caught, not that they are sorry and destroy the archives, but that we have to actually bend over, spread the cheeks and say thank you.
The older I get, the more I see the wisdom in the saying, "It is very hard to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on them not understanding it." The truth is a bit more complicated and nuanced than this. It is not just paycheck, but power, prestige, fame, honor, and overall dominance that make a person's profession breed intellectual dishonesty. So, it is relevant. But you won't convince daveschroeder of this. It may be true that other people's profession affected their objectivity, but not daveschroder's! OMG, logical fallacy!
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The German and Japanese were war opponents who wanted to take over the world.
How the fuck can you compare another country's attacking military with me wanting my health care records private between myself and my doctor? Or my messages to my wife?
The NSA can not magically say, "We don't know if what you're doing is wrong, so we deserve the right to find out." That goes against every grain of Innocent Until Proven Guilty and moves us to a "Let us proof you're not doing anything illegal" system.
From the bottom of my heart: Fuck you.
Once a back door exists, all power hungry countries will find the keys.
:-) It's all good, man. I'm pretty sure I'd feel the same way if there something in it for me. We're all just regular folks.
*You serve your master well*
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
wow, I haven't seen so many shills in one place in quite a while. the reason you are being called out isn't because of your position but because you conveniently leave out details which completely invalidate your arguments.
1. secret courts - yes, the original intention was to make sure there was probable cause before the court was to issue a warrant. In reality, even statements by the court indicate that it has been not much more than a rubber stamp. Less that one percent of requests for warrants have actually been denied. The court is not protecting any citizens. It is protecting the impression of process and procedures so that the government cannot be sued for breaking fourth amendment protections.
2. Spying on everyone. - yes, we all know that the NSA director perjured himself when he said that only metadata was being collected. Within weeks, the rest of us learned about prism which collects not only metadata but content itself. The fact that you leave this out means to me that you know your argument is flawed and that you are trying to discount and minimize facts and evidence that has already been publicly disseminated.
blah blah blah. more bullshit about things being legal that in fact were not legal until unconstitutional laws were instituted to make them less illegal. Lets not even get into the fact that when these laws were passed, the senate intelligence committee did not even know about prism and other programs which were meant to "collect all data".
As for phone record metadata, this is the type of information that government and investigators used to need a warrant to get and they needed to request it from the phone company. Now you are implying that a warrant isn't needed because it's public information and therefore there is no expectation of privacy. FUCK YOU! If there is a reason to suspect someone of a crime, then there is cause to get a warrant. If there isn't, then you have no claim to that or any other information.
Blah blah blah. About the NSA and breaking laws. Laws have been created to make what the NSA is doing "legal". That does not in any way mean that it is constitutional. These things are not at all equivalent to how things were in 1979 or even before the patriot act. You are disingenuous to imply that these things are even remotely equivalent. In 1979, the intelligence infrastructure was even remotely set up to monitor the activities of normal American citizens.
Blah blah blah. terrorists use the same networks and such. You know there was a time when the intelligence services needed to actually do real investigative work. They didn't just get to treat everyone like a criminal until one committed a crime.
Freedom isn't free. It's difficult and expensive. Attempting to take away peoples privacy and autonomy to make the jobs at the NSA easier doesn't make us more free. It makes us less free. Being free without the freedom part of it is actually not being free. Even if some government officials are lying to you about how much freedom you actually have.
Do you understand that current Executive branch thinking says that they can do all of this data collection on U.S. citizens without that warrant?
Do you understand that current Executive branch thinking believes that they can kill U.S. citizens with drone strikes without any kind of criminal activity being involved?
Do you understand that current Executive branch thinking allows the USAG to kill or induce suicide on victims of baseless laws?
Do you understand that current Executive branch thinking says that the Bill of Rights is null and void?
Again I say, go fuck yourself Dave
... I realize you think this isn't the case, and that all of your communications are being mined and monitored (illegally, no less), and since proving a negative is impossible, I won't be able to help in that regard.
While my thoughts on the general matter at hand fall somewhere between daveschroeder's and the AC, I feel it's a bit insincere to imply that all US communications are NOT being monitored at all unless a warrant is involved. As far as metadata goes, we *know* they are; Snowden leaks have shown it; it's been confirmed by multiple sources; it happening isn't really a question.
Are they logging the content of all communications, or monitoring it, or analyzing it, etc? I don't know. Maybe that's what you are referring to. AC will probably still argue with you, but being more accurate and honest about recent events would lend your argument a bit more credibility.
the constitution has not been amended last time i checked. therefore anything tomorrow that is found unconstitutional, will have been unconstitutional from the start, if the program has started after the last constitutional convention.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
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The real power of the western democracies lies not in the governments doing what they want, it is in the people being free to do what they want. Free people made a thriving movie industry, which is something the government could never create. Can you imagine if we had a federal agency that tried to make movies to compete with Hollywood? Free people made the computer and software industries. Free people made the insurance industry. Free people made the auto industry. Free people made public key cryptography. Free people invented airplanes. Free people made the Internet what it is today (maybe it was created as a government project, but it is hardly a government thing right now). Freedom to do what we want without excessive government interference makes us successful and ultimately more powerful.
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The governments need to be strictly limited, or they will destroy our freedom and power. Seriously, does anyone still wonder why the western democracies have become so powerful? It is because they are designed to guarantee the freedom of the people. The people, doing what they want, create very powerful industries, technologies, and social structures. The problem with all this spying is that it threatens our freedoms. With nearly complete information available to the leader, there is too much potential that the leader could abuse the power. First, the leader abuses the power to silence his/her political opposition. Then, the leader abuses the power to silence the backlash from the people supporting the opposition. Then, the leader abuses the power to hide his/her corruption, abuses, mistakes and problems. This is not a question of "if" but "when".
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People sometimes think that, because a problem occured when people were free, maybe the freedom is to blame. I agree with *you*, danheskett. I believe we should always resist the presumption that any agent of the executive should be allowed to act without oversight and accountability to combat terrorism. That is a recipe for disaster in the form of dictatorship. So if anyone out there is struggling to find the answer, here it is: "It's freedom, stupid!" Less freedom will not make us more safe. It will endanger us! In this particular case of government access to encrypted data, it will make our computers more vulnerable not only to the government but to the terrorists! A free and secure populace will protect the government, because it is free and secure. A subjugated and oppressed populace will not protect the government.
Join the IParty!
A new generation of the oh-so-much-more-important-than-us spouting yet another refrain of the Tyrant's Plea.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Every person has some data that should be secret, like credit card details. If your devices have a backdoor for government then criminals can use it too. Just matter of time before the way to use it leaks into criminal underground. Requiring mandatory backdoors for storage is as absurd as requiring a single mandatory government usable master key for all locks. You may be 100% sure that actual use it to catch criminals will be dwarfed by abuse by government officials for their own petty ends.
Do you understand that an individualized warrant is required to target, collect, store, analyze, or disseminate the communications content of a US Person anywhere on the globe, and that the current law on the issue is stronger and more restrictive with regard to US Persons than it has ever been?
That is delusions of political scale.
Also, notice 'content'.
Massive abuses can be, and have been, taken with metadata too.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Seriously, this has been tackled and answered. People just don't want to believe it, and of course the same powers pulling the strings own all of the media "average" people consume. Carol Quigley's "Tragedy and Hope" is a comprehensive book covering the whole thing. Nobody wants to read the 1300 pages, because it's hard and quite frankly scary to contemplate. Gary Allen's book was a severely limited rehash of details found in "Tragedy and Hope" attempting to wake people up to what is really happening. He used more recent examples than Carol's stint within the group could use. Mark Dice also have a couple books detailing the same people doing the same things, he also references "Tragedy and Hope" frequently.
The circus show has thus far paid off. Brain washing people to believe "Conspiracy" is an impossible thing that only idiots believe has been well done. Even though people watched a conspiracy unfold on the top rated reality TV show called Survivor on a weekly basis, they can't fathom that a few people that own the majority of the worlds wealth could actually conspire to get more and fuck over.. well, just about everyone except themselves.
There are a couple of distinct issues to overcome. First is to convince people "It can happen here and now", just like tyrannical horrors have occurred throughout history. Nobody wants to believe it, and the bought and paid for media simply keeps pushing this narrative. Second, is to challenge people to stop being scared and take action. The latter is going to be much easier than the former, but it's dependent.
Other people have also tried to warn the public, even two former Presidents who were not members of the "club".
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.