John McAfee: NSA's Back Door Has Given Every US Secret To Enemies (businessinsider.com)

John McAfee, American computer programmer and contributing editor of Business Insider, explains how the NSA's back door has given every U.S. secret to its enemies. He begins by mentioning the importance of software, specifically meta- software, which contains a high level set of principles designed to help a nation survive in a cyberwar. Such software must not contain any back doors under any circumstances, otherwise it can and may very likely allow perceived enemies of the U.S. to have access to top-secret information. For example, the Chinese used the NSA's back door to hack the Defense Department last year and steal 5.6 million fingerprints of critical personnel. "Whatever gains the NSA has made through the use of their back door, it cannot possibly counterbalance the harm done to our nation by everyone else's use of that same back door." McAfee believes the U.S. has failed to grasp the subtle implications of technology and, as a result, is 20 years behind the Chinese, and by association, the Russians as well.

Comments

Dear John

[alphatel]

You are mad. Perhaps even more crazy is the fact that you speak the truth.

Re:Didn't McAfee Side With the FBI?

[PsychoSlashDot]

I thought he sided with the FBI against Apple. He thinks Apple should include a backdoor in their phones for the FBI...and now he's pointing out how dangereous backdoors are....

No, he didn't side with anyone. He offered to decrypt the phone. That's not what the FBI wants. The FBI wants Apple to produce vulnerable code. John didn't offer to produce vulnerable code. By making his offer, McAfee was illustrating that the FBI isn't after the decrypted data.

People have to on secure software

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 70s there were secure operating systems like Multics. Then the only things allowed for US export were the ones that failed to be secure. That's how we got DOS then Windows. Now everything needs to be rewritten from scratch by people without commercial pressure for there to be any chance. Think about the nave ending up forced to use "Windows for warships". In the meantime the Chinese always knew they couldn't trust software from the West. 20 year head start is probably an underestimate.

Jumping at conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

The British spy agency GCHQ, with the knowledge and apparent cooperation of the NSA, acquired the capability to covertly exploit security vulnerabilities in 13 different models of firewalls made by Juniper Networks.

I hope we all understand now what “acquired the capability” means. The NSA planted a programmer within Jupiter Networks. The was no other way to “acquire" this capability.

Except that he just referenced a claim that the British acquired the capability by being told about the backdoor, and he then goes on to say that the Chinese acquired the same capability by discovering the backdoor through reverse-engineering. So there is another way after all.

Which raises the following possibilities, each just as plausible as "The NSA planted a programmer":

1. The Chinese planted a programmer, and the NSA or GCHQ discovered it via reverse-engineering and shared it with the other.
2. The Chinese planted a programmer, and the NSA discovered it during review of source-code shared as a condition of purchasing for sensitive government use.
3. A programmer was paid to create the backdoor by a non-governmental entity interested in corporate espionage, and all the state actors discovered it via reverse-engineering.
4. The backdoor was created unintentionally (e.g. failure to remove white-box test code before going to production), and all the actors discovered it via reverse-engineering and/or source review.

Basically, John presents no evidence whatsoever for his claim that the NSA caused the backdoor.

Ultimately, I do agree with his point he does make is that code inspections can catch and close both intentional and unintentional backdoors. But the rest of the article is FUD.

Re:Jumping at conclusions

[hawguy]

From TFA:

The British spy agency GCHQ, with the knowledge and apparent cooperation of the NSA, acquired the capability to covertly exploit security vulnerabilities in 13 different models of firewalls made by Juniper Networks.

I hope we all understand now what “acquired the capability” means. The NSA planted a programmer within Jupiter Networks. The was no other way to “acquire" this capability.

Except that he just referenced a claim that the British acquired the capability by being told about the backdoor, and he then goes on to say that the Chinese acquired the same capability by discovering the backdoor through reverse-engineering. So there is another way after all.

Which raises the following possibilities, each just as plausible as "The NSA planted a programmer":

1. The Chinese planted a programmer, and the NSA or GCHQ discovered it via reverse-engineering and shared it with the other.
2. The Chinese planted a programmer, and the NSA discovered it during review of source-code shared as a condition of purchasing for sensitive government use.
3. A programmer was paid to create the backdoor by a non-governmental entity interested in corporate espionage, and all the state actors discovered it via reverse-engineering.
4. The backdoor was created unintentionally (e.g. failure to remove white-box test code before going to production), and all the actors discovered it via reverse-engineering and/or source review.

Basically, John presents no evidence whatsoever for his claim that the NSA caused the backdoor.

Ultimately, I do agree with his point he does make is that code inspections can catch and close both intentional and unintentional backdoors. But the rest of the article is FUD.

If the NSA discovered the backdoor on their own and didn't share it with Juniper so they could close it, that's arguably worse than if the NSA planted it themselves. At least if they planted it themselves, they could convince themselves that it's buried too deep to be discovered, but if they stumbled upon it themselves, then they *knew* it was discoverable and that it's likely that others had discovered it too.

Re:Wait

[Lunix Nutcase]

It's laughable that they criticize Apple for not building in backdoors, when they are so obviously incapable of keeping any info from those backdoors a secret. China is outclassing them in every way and it's time we get a President like Trump who's at least capable of knowing there's a problem, unlike the "mainstream" crooks and liars.

So you're against people criticizing Apple for not building backdoors into their software but then you claim we need Trump as the president who has said he's going to force Apple to build in backdoors? Excellent troll is excellent!

Re:Cool fact: McAfee writes all articles on napkin

[lgw]

...then eats the crayon.

... then eats the napkins.

Re:Didn't McAfee Side With the FBI?

[Dutchmaan]

..and what's wrong with McAfee showing that the FBI was interested in a little bit MORE than just a decrypted phone?

He offered them what they SAID they wanted by a different path. So the FBI was lying because what they REALLY wanted wouldn't sit well with the public. So THANK YOU McAfee for actually looking out for the people.

Re:Sublte Lie

[sumdumass]

Wow..

If it is known that I can defeat security measure X for Y reasons, then I can defeat security measure X for any reasons. Yes, the FBI specifically asked Apple to write code to defeat it's own security measure. If it happens, the FBI does not need to have access to the code, just access to Apple which is the same in all respects considering the loose requirements for warrants under laws like the patriot act and so on.

Nothing material about what was said is false. Please stop arguing semantics. It is about as bad as Dick Cheney going around saying that no one's civil liberties were violated in the metadata bulk collection spying because they are officially "company records" and not private communications.