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The NSA Wants Tech Companies To Give It "Front Door" Access To Encrypted Data
An anonymous reader writes The National Security Agency is embroiled in a battle with tech companies over access to encrypted data that would allow it to spy (more easily) on millions of Americans and international citizens. Last month, companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple urged the Obama administration to put an end to the NSA's bulk collection of metadata. "National Security Agency officials are considering a range of options to ensure their surveillance efforts aren't stymied by the growing use of encryption, particularly in smartphones. Key among the solutions, according to The Washington Post, might be a requirement that technology companies create a digital key that can open any locked device to obtain text messages or other content, but divide the key into pieces so no one group could use it without the cooperation of other parties."
A government body gets the whole key and then has it stolen from them and we're all left with our trousers down in a changing room made of glass.
No. If there is an EASY way to decrypt information, then that data is NOT SAFE and the encryption is useless.
As you all know, our country is subject to terrible terrorist threats. It has come to the attention of your friends at the National Security Agency ("we put the security in the national") that terrorists have, under certain circumstances, used the United States Postal Service, United Parcel Service, and Federal Express in order to facilitate their terrorist doings. Therefore, we would appreciate it if, effective immediately, you stop sealing your parcels and envelopes, to make inspection easier.
This is for your protection. Please don't object, or we'll have to illegally open your items and lie about it. Thank you.
The fact that the NSA thinks it can achieve this shows how far our civil liberties have fallen.
Wow. And how long do they think their magical key will remain secret? If a single key can open all the doors, finding that key will become more important and the resourced dedicated to discovering it will be increased. The secrets that are being protected are not only -- or even primarily -- the secrets of criminals. There are millions of bank accounts and private medical records along with political dissidents.
Every weakening of security aids not only law enforcements but criminals as well.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
While we're asking for stuff we want, I want one billion dollars a year of NSA funding redirected to me. I'll spend it all on providing college scholarships.
I believe my idea is better than theirs: educated, autonomous individuals make for a better society than fear and authoritarianism. Who's with me?
One (partitioned) Key to rule them all, One Key to find them,
One Key to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
need anyone say more?
That's the wrong attitude to take. The attitude you SHOULD take is to become one of the data controllers holding part of the key...which you simply delete.
Problem fucking solved.
There's no "centuries-old social compact" or whatthefuck ever, let alone one around warrants.
What a sack of shit.
And, yeah, the idea that you're going to have this magic key that only good guys can use is also technically and operationally impossible... as every single person in the NSA or anywhere else in the federal intelligence or law enforcement agencies knows damned well. I assume they want to create it so that they can steal it and use it for mass attacks. If they don't want me to believe that, well, they need to overcome their decades-long pattern of established behavior.
The US government has lost sight of the larger issue here. The tail (NSA and law enforcement) is wagging the dog.
The NSA and law enforcement agencies want to be able to intercept anything, since it makes their jobs easier. However, this runs counter to the larger national interest of the United States.
Which country has the highest level of connectedness and dependence on the Internet? Which country would be worst hurt if a sophisticated attacker was able to penetrate and conduct malicious actions using the systems connected to the Internet? The US, that's who. It is by far in the US's overall national interest to properly secure the Internet and communications infrastructure. Eavesdropping on everyone else is a secondary benefit, in comparison.
The proper role of the President and the Attorney General is to separate the desire of the NSA and law enforcement to make their jobs easier from the greater benefit to the country as a whole. They need to tell the ambitious underlings "NO" in unequivocal terms, then bitch slap them if they keep whining about it.
--Paul