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Non-US Encryption Is 'Theoretical', Claims CIA Chief In Backdoor Debate (theregister.co.uk)
Iain Thomson, writing for The Register: CIA director John Brennan told U.S. senators they shouldn't worry about mandatory encryption backdoors hurting American businesses. And that's because, according to Brennan, there's no one else for people to turn to: if they don't want to use U.S.-based technology because it's been forced to use weakened cryptography, they'll be out of luck because non-American solutions are simply "theoretical." Thus, the choice is American-built-and-backdoored or nothing, apparently. The spymaster made the remarks at a congressional hearing on Thursday after Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) questioned the CIA's support for weakening cryptography to allow g-men to peek at people's private communications and data. Brennan said this was needed to counter the ability of terrorists to coordinate their actions using encrypted communications. The director denied that forcing American companies to backdoor their security systems would cause any commercial problems.
LOL, how quaint. As if a company belongs to a particular nation state. Freemasons 2016, huyah!
Sir Bush, president and knighted...
Well of course he's going to say this nonsense, no surprise there. What is surprising is hearing about it from a british newspaper without a bleep in U.S. news. I imagine apple, microsoft, google and the likes will have a response soon.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Glad to see that this fellow has figured out how to create new technology jobs in foreign countries. I didn't realize that was his job, but kudos nevertheless.
"No sane man will dance." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
>> (for crypto) there's no one else for people to turn to (mofos)
Well, it's a good thing that all mathematicians have always been and will always be American then.
Under 18 U.S.C. ss. 1001, lying to Congress is offense punishable by up to five years in prison (or eight if the lie is terrorism-related). The correct "response" to John Brennon's blatant, politically motivated, criminal lie is to indict him, convict him, and send him to Federal prison where totalitarian freedom-hating enemies of the American public like him belong.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
When it comes to intelligence agencies, never attribute to ignorance that which can adequately be explained by malice.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The issue isn't whether the rest of the world would use it. The question is how long until the backdoor is hacked. Knowing its there will make it a prime target. Is the US government willing to back up its confidence with a guarantee to reimbursed all losses for everyone using this technology? Only then could the claim that it wouldn't "cause any commercial problems" be at all plausible.
Would be only a slight generalization of his view point.
A lot of people think this is how Americans think about the rest of the world.
We've heard it's out there, but it doesn't matter very much, as long as they have a McDonalds, a 7-11, and a Starbucks.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Hold up there a minute, Mr SpyMaster. I think GnuPG (open-source implementation of PGP) is German. Or at least: " g10code GmbH, the legal entity employing some of the GnuPG hackers" is German.
My company has been using GnuPG for ten years.
See https://gnupg.org/ .
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
I can't decide if Brennan is stupid, or if he thinks everyone else is stupid.
I readily admit this is not an uncommon reaction of mine when I read of the things presented by elected and appointed officials. The US government is a madhouse.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
He is worse than the terrorists.
If it's known there is a backdoor people WILL find it. And the arrogance that only American companies can create encryption libraries is dumbfounding. We have China's Red Flag, edition of Linux, North Korea appearently has "Red Star" and I suspect Russia has their own version of Linux as well. It may a crime to use non-use encryption, but it will be there and used if people fear for their privacy. We recently had an event in France where the CIA tried to claim encryption was used to coordinate their operation, and it turns it...it had nothing to do with coordination. The best people will use method with less technology dependencies. This will only make it easier for people (terrorists or "partner" like China) to go through their backdoors to access data. . We seem to "terrorism" as an excuse for everything the same way we used "communism" in the Mccarthy days. the end doesn't justify the means
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
I took a trip to Europe last week. I tried using GPG but it told me that it won't encrypt anything because I'm not in the USA. Then I tried VeraCrypt but it made my hard drive fizzle out.
The name of the algorithm behind AES is Rijndael -- a combination of the names of the Belgian cryptographers who developed it.
His utterings are in the running for either biggest lie of the year, or most ignorant.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
the various agencies of the US Government tend to lie ( even to Congress ), I'm somewhat puzzled about why they even bother to ask questions of them anymore.
Perhaps Congress should forgo asking questions of the professional liars ( any intelligence agency ) and ask the tech world instead. I'm quite sure the likes of Cisco, Juniper, Apple, Google and many others ( assuming they're not secretly on the Governments payroll ) would have a much different perspective on the issue at hand.
This halfwit is the best that the US can come up with to head their "intelligence" apparatus?
You wouldn't come up with the same excuse given the following information:
1. You're standing in front of a group of people who consider you the expert.
2. You stand to gain a lot from forced backdoors and the job for your agency becomes far easier.
3. You have almost zero chance of being punished for lying through your teeth.
What would you have said? Personally I would have come up with the exact same thing and sugar coated it by saying all terrorists use all American technology.
Another article has more of the exchange:
Let's allow the assumption that American companies currently dominate the encryption field. We'll say that's true. How long would that dominance that last if foreign companies used strong encryption and American companies used hobbled encryption left vulnerable to the American government and hackers? Thank goodness for Warner and Wyden for pointing out how idiotic Brennan 's assertion was.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
o U.S. President George Walker Bush.
o U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.
o U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann.
o U.S. Representative Todd Akin.
o U.S. Representative Joe Barton
I rest my case. I could go on, but it's really quite painful to think about.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.