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Microsoft Has Your Encryption Key If You Use Windows 10 (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader writes with this bit of news from the Intercept. If you login to Windows 10 using your Microsoft account, your computer automatically uploads a copy of your recovery key to a Microsoft servers. From the article: "The fact that new Windows devices require users to backup their recovery key on Microsoft's servers is remarkably similar to a key escrow system, but with an important difference. Users can choose to delete recovery keys from their Microsoft accounts – something that people never had the option to do with the Clipper chip system. But they can only delete it after they've already uploaded it to the cloud.....As soon as your recovery key leaves your computer, you have no way of knowing its fate. A hacker could have already hacked your Microsoft account and can make a copy of your recovery key before you have time to delete it. Or Microsoft itself could get hacked, or could have hired a rogue employee with access to user data. Or a law enforcement or spy agency could send Microsoft a request for all data in your account, which would legally compel them to hand over your recovery key, which they could do even if the first thing you do after setting up your computer is delete it. As Matthew Green, professor of cryptography at Johns Hopkins University puts it, 'Your computer is now only as secure as that database of keys held by Microsoft, which means it may be vulnerable to hackers, foreign governments, and people who can extort Microsoft employees.'"
I would like to know the opinion of large public corporations security officer on this feature of windows.
Good to remember, that Congress just passed new (clearing companies to share any data with the NSA directly without liability) surveillance legislation tucked into the 2015 budget bill:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
The way this (and the data uploading with Windows 10) dovetails with the budget spy bill just passed you'd think it was hatched out in a back room - in D.C.. Obviously don't use Windows 10 if possible (you can still get 7 or 8.1 on most systems) and don't use Microsoft's built in encryption option (which Microsoft kneecapped starting with Windows Version 8 by removing the elephant diffusor making it more vulnerable to brute force attacks), there are other options for Windows Encryption.
So one important thing to remember is that these keys don't give anyone a login or remote access to your box whatsoever. Instead, Windows 10 now turns on disk encryption by default. That's a good thing, but of only limited value since disk encryption really only helps if the disk is physically stolen from you.
Like, say, in a police raid.
So what we have here is a copy of the key that allows recovery of an encrypted disk being stored in the cloud unless you delete it.
Like, say, to gain access to the data after the raid.
Not the greatest thing ever but it doesn't panic me all that much when the same people who scream about not upgrading to Windows 10 because OMG NSA are also running old systems without any disk encryption whatsoever.
To put it another way: The vast VAST majority of Linux systems in operation that don't use full disk encryption are actually LESS secure than this setup simply because there's no need to get your hands on a recovery key to decrypt anything. Yes, I'm well aware that Linux systems with full-disk encryption exist. So what, they did (and still do) on Windows too.
With the difference that I can actually create encryption on Linux with a chance that nobody but me gains access to the key.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When is this capability going to be added to systemd?
But you can setup a windows 10 machine with all local accounts and all updates, traffic disabled.
Good guide here http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/30/windows-10-privacy-settings/
Looking at wireshark it does seem to work
Then you don't get encryption.
Bitlocker works without a Microsoft account so this is patently false.
here's a few ways NSA is intercepting it.
1. all data over the internet is being saved so they nab the key as it's being uploaded plus any other data communicated with Microsoft transparently as you use the net. ; if they want to gain legal authority to use the snoop'd data they go for a warrant and get it 'lawfully' from Microsoft, parallel constructing how their case was built. even if Microsoft encrypts the signal communications between their server and the end-user, the data is nabbed, and most definitely all of the encryption codes for end-user and Microsoft server software is de-decryptable by NSA because NSA has all of Microsoft's encryption certificates and has broken most encryption.
2. alt method is Microsoft just gives them all the encryption certificates secretly even without a warrant.
This has been explained before. Check out the Whistleblowers Websites on the issue.
williambinney.com thomasdrake.xyz russelltice.com drrobertduncan.com
Look at your laws. Then tell me with a straight face that you have not broken one of them today. Or in the last 60 minutes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If encryption is turned on by default for normal users, there must be a way for the provider to recover the data.
People lose their passwords all the time, and don't want to lose all their data if that happens. For these people, disk encryption is just a way to prevent regular laptop thieves from accessing their data, not to protect them from the NSA and criminals who can hack Microsoft. They don't want end-to-end encryption.
If you need high level security even against Microsoft, then don't use your MS account, or better yet, don't use Windows.
It means MS has a copy of the keys to your bitlocker encrypted data. And by inference anyone with access to MS, hackers, government, disgruntled employees.. any could log into your computer and use the keys to unlock what you thought was encrypted and safe.
Silence is a state of mime.
While the main point of the article is about a Windows account there is an underlying discussion on overall privacy using Microsoft Windows. This is just the latest article discussing privacy and security concerns. Sure, "some" businesses are always years behind in releasing a new OS. Others are not so far behind, and are very concerned about security so not approving Win10.
For example, as soon as the OS was released we see how the OS will send your keystrokes to Microsoft. Not just what you type into Cortana, IE, or Edge but ALL keystrokes are recorded by the OS. You can disable sending the data to Microsoft, but we have yet to find a way of disabling the keylogger built in to the Kernel. (recorded does not necessarily mean stored long term, but long enough to evaluate in memory.)
Due to that lack of trust, I may have installed Win10 but never created a MS or Azure account. Anything I do on the device is treated as public knowledge because the OS is built to remove privacy from end users. I won't use online banking on the PC with Win10, and logging in to anything is assessed under the assumption that someone from MS and the Government will have full access to the account. When I'm working on sensitive stuff I use Linux.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.