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Obama Administration Explored Ways To Bypass Smartphone Encryption

Posted by samzenpus on from the this-is-the-most-transparent-administration-in-history dept.

An anonymous reader writes: According to a story at The Washington Post, an Obama Administration working group considered four backdoors that tech companies could adopt to allow the government to break encrypted communications stored on phones of suspected terrorists or criminals. The group concluded that the solutions were "technically feasible," but they group feared blowback. "Any proposed solution almost certainly would quickly become a focal point for attacks. Rather than sparking more discussion, government-proposed technical approaches would almost certainly be perceived as proposals to introduce 'backdoors' or vulnerabilities in technology products and services and increase tensions rather [than] build cooperation," said the unclassified memo. You can read the draft paper on technical options here.

6 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. It IS a backdoor by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative

    would almost certainly be perceived as proposals to introduce 'backdoors'

    Yes, that is exactly the definition of a backdoor: a way to bypass the owner's security measures. Any suggestion that it isn't would mean that the government is the owner of the device, not you or me.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. The backdoors are already in place by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Transceivers are often hooked directly into sensors such as microphones, and run very complex proprietary firmware that is given undue privileged access to the rest of the system's resources.

    Furthermore, for nearly 15 years, Intel as been quietly introducing an entire, higher-priority computing system within your consumer laptops and desktops and probably now your tablets and smartphones: This is known as the Intel Management Engine, specifically the Intel Active Management Technology. If your computer's Intel sticker lists "vPro", then you've probably got it!

    It's frightening stuff.

    These systems involve their own little processors, memory, storage, network interfaces, and proprietary operating systems; as long as the machine is plugged into a power source and wired network—even if the user thinks that it's switched "off"—that little computer within "your" computer can be contacted and used to access the rest of the machine, including your storage drives (hard disks, SSDs, etc.), RAM, main CPU, GPU, etc. It has higher priority than "your" system, can take control of the display and keyboard/mouse/touchpad input so that Intel's AMT can provide VNC access from the moment the main system's boot process begins. It can do all of this while your system is running, including reading your private encryption keys from your RAM or twiddling bits on your hard disk.

    Any attempt to remove or alter the proprietary software and hardware that composes the AMT can be made to and likely will be made to brick your system or make it otherwise unusable.

    1. Re:The backdoors are already in place by Kjella · · Score: 5, Informative

      True we can't know everything it can or can't do without a full read on the capabilities from Intel but I trust that if it were capable of offline access by anyone as you claim it would be public knowledge and wouldn't have made it very far.

      Part of AMT is remote management, including being able to boot a server that lost power, reboot a frozen machine, wake machines for nightly patching and so on. Obviously it can't reach a machine that doesn't have power, but from the moment you plug in a vPro machine it's live even when it's "off". Maybe it's not public knowledge but you only need to read the advertisement:

      Find It. Fix It. Anywhere
      Intel(R) Active Management Technology provides remote management over wired or wireless networks across devices. Access clients through a secure channel irrespective of power or OS state, address issues while user is online, patch, repair, and upgrade operating systems and applications, and inventory client-side software and hardware.

      Of course it's only supposed to talk to your puppet master inside your enterprise and only when it's enabled. But if you had a secret knock backdoor to access AMT on any computer, even when it is allegedly disabled - and perhaps even on CPUs that don't advertise the feature since it's probably there in silicon - that would be the mother of all back doors.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:The backdoors are already in place by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Oh, well, if the proprietary system says it's disabled, then it must be disabled!

      Unfortunately, you are wrong.

      No license is required, and there's good evidence that disabling AMT in the BIOS does not really disable it. Exploits for AMT have been published and only fixed very slowly by Intel.

      It's not hidden from the public; as with all encroachments by Big Brother, it's marketed as being useful and convenient. Here, have some fun. Any fool could follow those instructions.

    3. Re:The backdoors are already in place by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sorry, but this is just pure FUD and you apparently don't know anything about AMT, or you have your own agenda.

      Yes, there's typically an additional cost for vPro systems vs non-vPro equivalents - but that's because vPro only works if you have Intel Wifi, Intel NIC, and a Core i5 or better processor - generally, more expensive than, say, Atheros WiFi, Broadcom NIC and a Core i3. And because the PCs are targetted at business users, the manufacturer might choose to charge a premium.

      Beyond that there is no additional cost for vPro - no "licensing" or "activation" costs. Once you have the PC, you can start using AMT - the remote management part of vPro - immediately.

      But in contrast to the tinfoilhattery expressed above, it's not a hidden backdoor, or a terrifying way for The Man to take control of your PC. It's not even available until you've taken conscious steps to enable it - which involves setting a strong password at a very minimum. Not something that can be done by accident, or by malware; either you go into a special page of the BIOS, or you install a provisioning certificate that matches your DNS domain and then configure it down-the-wire using software (which is free) from Intel. If anything, it's TOO hard to enable it - I really wish it were a little easier, cos more customers might be using it and reaping the benefits, but security was baked in from the outset.

      Anyway, once all that has been done, your PC can be silently compromised at any time by the NSA.... *rolls eyes*. No, actually. You can "discover" the PC across the local network over Ethernet if it's switched off; power it on remotely as long as it's connected to AC; or initiate a remote control session to the built-in VNC-alike server. Super handy for IT Helpdesk. And while the remote control is in session, there's a non-disable-able flashing banner all round the edges of the screen, and a flashing glyph in the corner, and even a "Do you want to allow someone to take control of this PC? If so tell them this randomly-generated 6-digit passcode" overlay sprite, if the owner of the PC chooses the latter.

      Yes, I work for Intel. And yes, I get fed up with these alarmist "OMG it's teh evilllz" FUD posts. Why not talk about DASH, which is an open industry standard, pretty much identical to Intel AMT, and is present on any number of non-Intel PC systems?

    4. Re:The backdoors are already in place by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, why didn't you say so?! You heard it here folks: "Security was baked in from the outset." If only every other exploited system had been so careful...

      AMT has been compromised before, and it took Intel years to fix the published exploit, and that was after stonewalling the researcher who found it.

      It doesn't matter that the system tells the user something is disabled; the underlying system is entirely proprietary and can say whatever the hell it wants. Sure, hardware is always going to be virtually proprietary, because nobody can really check it, but the ME system of which AMT is part (or on which AMT is based) is powerful enough to run software like a Java virtual machine, and Intel provides an SDK for people to develop "apps"(!) to run on this thing—it's a robust computing platform embedded within what the user thinks is the "real" computer, and the user probably doesn't even realize it's there.

      I mean, as you point out, it can generate overlay sprites; AMT has the user's "real" computer so compromised that it can manipulate what the user sees on screen, can access all aspects of the computer, can generate input as though it were the user, etc., and it's all based on an entirely proprietary set of hardware and software, the latter of which is so robust that people can develop apps for it. Worse yet, Intel has made this system so integral, that it's required to function in order for the whole machine to function (or at least can be made as such by an OEM).

      Is the network connection to the AMT encrypted? You bet! However, even the widely used open source software for handling TLS/SSL connections has been compromised, so why shouldn't Intel's private implementation have exploitable faults? Hell, as mentioned, the AMT has already been compromised before!

      It is not tinfoilhattery to be wary of a PC within a PC that has higher priority, is essentially always on, makes local access non-obvious or impossible, runs its own proprietary operating system, provides a web server for web access, and sports its own goddamn VNC server based on complete hardware-level pwnage of user input and GPU input/output.

      It's Insane!