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The Rise of the New Crypto War

Posted by Soulskill on from the let's-do-the-crypto-warp-again dept.

blottsie writes: For more than 20 years, the U.S. government has been waging a war on encryption, with the security and privacy of all Americans at stake. Despite repeated warnings from security experts, the FBI and other agencies continue to push tech companies to add "backdoors" to their encryption. The government's efforts, which have angered tech companies and researchers, are part of a long-running campaign to pry into every secure system—no matter what the consequences. This article takes readers from the first Crypto War of the early 1990s to the present-day political battle to keep everyone who uses the Internet safe.

8 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Justify the Budget, Keep Peasants In Fear by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1984 was right, it was just 20 years early, and this is the script they are working off of.

    Look, we all know where the terrorists are and who is spreading it, and how to track and follow them. Encryption is no more a threat than a candy bar behind a locked glass case in a supermarket too high for kids to reach is.

    The reason they defeat the spies is the spies are too stupid, and ignore the real threats due to the massive overkill of non-relevant data and metadata that obfuscates the actual threats.

    They already have access to your phones and already subvert them for target cases, so it's just more justification for insane stuff we don't need.

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    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  2. "Saving Lives" is their claimed priority... by ameline · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If that were actually true that saving lives or keeping people safe were their true priority, they could be vastly more effective by spending their money on reducing the highway traffic fatality rate. Over 30,000 people die on the roads of America every year. Reduce that by 10% and you'll save the equivalent of a 9/11 attack *every* year.

    Of course safety and saving lives is not their primary purpose -- it's entrenching their power structures. The ability to pry into everyone's communications and files is (in their opinion) essential to that.

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    Ian Ameline
    1. Re:"Saving Lives" is their claimed priority... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The same kind of numbers could be used against tobacco, alcohol, food with excessive amounts of fat/sodium/etc. Except there's money to be made with those, so the number of deaths doesn't matter.

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      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    2. Re:"Saving Lives" is their claimed priority... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Want to know how to spend money to save lives? Stop bashing the younger generations and give them some career path.

      What I feared most, a brain drain, is already happening. Americans [1] are bailing to Latin American countries because they can't find any jobs, and student loan debt guarantees a shitty credit record for life. So, it is either live like a mendicant, commit suicide, or move to a country that wants intelligent people that will better themselves.

      We have an entire segment of disaffected people. What happens when there finally is no hope? Look at Egypt and the Arab Spring. Occupy may be dead, but those people are still there. All and all, it would be a lot cheaper to fund something like the WPA and give meaningful labor than to pay for what it would take to handle a constant, protracted insurgency.

      As for security, demanding backdoors is retarded (yes, the "R" word.) After Snowden sold out the NSA, this drove a wedge between the US and close allies. Security companies that get harassed in the US can easily set up shop in other nations, with that country's intelligence department calling the shots [2].

      Further demands on backdoors in security are just masterful foot-shooting. If this keeps being pressured, I'm sure most companies have moved their security coding offshore, or even spawned separate companies that are not under the US flag. Then, the only thing that can be done is bar secure crypto from being imported or used, which can be easily done with a stroke of a pen.

      [1]: Technically residents of the United States of America, but Americans is a phrase used here.

      [2]: Want to do business in China? Some firm over there has to own 51% of any venture on their soil.

  3. Re: "...keep everyone who uses the Internet safe." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Wording of laws no longer marters. The Scouts ignored the wording and intent of the wording in the ACA to make it better for the feds. Don't ever expect them to rule fair again.

  4. This could not be worded any worse by jpiratefish · · Score: 1, Insightful

    In the header for this, your last sentence: "This article takes readers from the first Crypto War of the early 1990s to the present-day political battle to keep everyone who uses the Internet safe." The present day battle is not about keeping people safe - it's breaking down people's ability to keep secrets. The cost for this level of protection is way too high.

  5. Back door man by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the recent Hacker Team story has taught us, there is no such thing as a "secure back door". Just when you think you're cleverly safe creeping in a back door, there's someone else peering up your back door.

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    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Back door man by srmalloy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And the OPM breach has shown us even more clearly the consequences of failing to use the strongest encryption, security tools, and IA policies available. Using encryption technology that's designed to be bypassed at need, with that 'need' determined by anyone other than the owner of the data, is the electronic equivalent of hiding a spare key under the welcome mat and believing that your home is still secure when it's locked up.