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NSA Chief: Arguing Against Encryption Is a Waste of Time (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday, NSA director Mike Rogers said, "encryption is foundational to the future." He added that it was a waste of time to argue that encryption is bad or that we ought to do away with it. Rogers is taking a stance in opposition to many other government officials, like FBI director James Comey. Rogers further said that neither security nor privacy should be the imperative that drives everything else. He said, "We've got to meet these two imperatives. We've got some challenging times ahead of us, folks."
The NSA has backdoors.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It doesn't matter if you use any variety of encrypted messaging products (imessage, cyph, silent phone, signal, etc.), we've got a backdoor for it already.
The only challenge is in justifying using it after the fact.
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"We've already cracked everything, any encrypted data is clear as water for us; let's not make a big fuss so people just stay with what they've been doing. Keep cool, people."
The fact that software can be made (and made well) by amateurs. So such regulations saying that software shouldn't have encryption means outside sources will still make it. This will only put the big companies into a disadvantage as they wouldn't be able to make secure solutions to their system.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Nah, they just have all methods of encryption broken.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
It's refreshing to hear someone address this issue with a little sanity. However, I still don't trust any three letter agency.
He's a genius, he's pulling the classic Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck Hunting Season trick on us.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Neither, he's a smart individual that took the time to look at the landscape and him speaking about it in the public tells me he's already convinced the people above him.
Liar's paradox
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...civil liberties, freedom, the 4th Amendment, and the 5th Amendment is a waste of time.
Bullshit. Crime rates have never been lower. The chance of being injured or killed by terrorism is vanishingly small and comparable to a lightning strike. The advantages of secure communication far outweigh any potential aid it gives to criminals. The only challenge here: a government organisation trying desperately to preserve itself and its budget in the face of increasing scruitny and irrelevance.
People need to shut up and say thank you when you win - even if it's just a small battle of your opponent saying "It's not worth arguing against them"
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Could be a good time to invest in companies that make $5 wrenches.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Someone like that is the last person I'd expect to bust out with a public statement like that, but at least on the surface it makes me feel a little better that not everyone in the government is as dumb as a doorknob.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Typical argument from someone who doesn't understand what encryption is about and how it works. It's the same shit as "Oh, against a determined hacker you cannot fortify your system". Yes you can. But I digress.
The mathematics behind cryptography tell us that, provided there are no side channels, unknown flaws in the algorithm or implementation errors, these keys are for the foreseeable future unbreakable. With perfect forward secrecy we even have the ability to ensure that even if they manage to break one communication key, no other communications are compromised. Even with all the computing power currently available on the planet breaking such an encryption would take thousands of years, and with a little more complexity we're at the level of "longer than the universe probably is going to exist".
All this of course as long as the algorithm is solid and implementations are flawless. We have noticed that the latter is often not true, and even the former has been shown to not be the case all the time. Yes, it is possible that some TLAs do have certain information about such flaws. But as far as we know the current encryption systems are solid and safe.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's a realist approach: "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." kind of logic, and it's perfectly sound.
They can try to keep it out of mainstream consumer electronics, but there's too much "DIY" capability in the world to keep strong cryptography contained.
It reminds me of the early mp3.com days - the genie has long since left the bottle, doesn't matter if you saw it coming or not, it has happened. Now, you'll have to deal with it. Attempting to recapture the genie is a fool's errand.
The NSA knows that it you try to limit functional encryption to certain uses, you will fail.
The good stuff still be found and used by the criminals, and nothing is gained.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
We are continually moving towards more and more peaceful times. We are coming to the end, though it may still take 100s or 1000s of years, of the primitive aggressive parts of our brains running our society. We are still a primitive, young society, but we are so much better than any generation in the past.
Many young people have said this MANY times over the years, they have all been wrong.
But don't worry, I'm sure it must be right THIS time.
Human nature hasn't really changed, we still use violence to resolve our disputes.
It's the triple back burner reverse reverse psychology gambit. It goes like this:
a) Only a fool will believe that anything about breaking encryption is "challenging" for the NSA. (That, and get involved in a land war in Asia.)
b) A savvy skeptic will take this whole "yeah you should use encryption but gee it makes things difficult" charade as a sign that NSA has encryption pwned six ways from Sunday, resigning themselves to using whatever's good enough to at least prevent parties != NSA from sniffing their bits.
c) The NSA doesn't actually have encryption pwned, but is counting on b)'s resignation and a)'s inexperience/disinterest to keep the status quo, which really is challenging but not as bad as it would be if encryption became both stronger and more widely adopted.
Nothing posted to
Admiral Rogers also made that point too - that 80% of the government's cybersecurity problems would be solved if he could get military personnel to treat "cyber hygiene" the same way that they manage rifles, artillery and other kinetic weapons.
Is it because privacy and security are only threats to tyrants? The fact that even raising the issue isn't political suicide for any politician or civil servant who dares suggest it is, frankly, embarrassing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They can try to keep it out of mainstream consumer electronics, but there's too much "DIY" capability in the world to keep strong cryptography contained.
It reminds me of the early mp3.com days - the genie has long since left the bottle, doesn't matter if you saw it coming or not, it has happened. Now, you'll have to deal with it. Attempting to recapture the genie is a fool's errand.
Indeed. Just remember that initial PGP was a single person, and so was TOR. And with the current drive to turn everyone into a software developer in school, there is just no way to prevent people from doing it. Sure, many will get it wrong, but some will not. And as encryption software can in many case be made pretty simple, bugs in it will not save the day for the NSA in the long run. Of course, they can still use targeted access, but that is expensive and risky.
This person has just understood that there is nothing to be gained going in that direction, but a lot of rather huge risks to society. It is rare to see a pragmatist actually serving in such a position.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You can't just "outlaw certain encryption types". People in the rest of the world won't be falling all over each other to outlaw encryption technology that the American government can't penetrate. Who the hell would want to do business with any American company if it meant they had to spread their ass cheeks wide open for the U.S. government?
And any "bad guys" could safely and easily encrypt their plaintext "illegally", and cloak it with a steganographic layer to fool any Feds who would bother to peek through whatever half-assed backdoor they might mandate on the rest of us.
Right now most politicians don't seem to realize that what they want will require a backdoor. Or if they do, they think it will be one that will magically open just for them. They're still in the stage where they think they can just legislate fundamental changes into number theory and computer science.