Latest Snowden Revelation: NSA Sabotaged Electronic Locks

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/06-2

The latest Edward Snowden-powered exposé published by the New York Times, ProPublica and the Guardian is, to me, the most frightening. It reveals that the National Security Agency has moved beyond its historic role as a code-breaker to become a saboteur of the encryption systems. Its work has allegedly weakened the scrambling not just of terrorists' emails but also bank transactions, medical records and communications among coworkers.

Here's the money graf:

"The NSA hacked into target computers to snare messages before they were encrypted. And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world."

I'd be disappointed if the NSA hadn't figured out how to do that hacking trick. But adding vulnerabilities to standard encryption techniques? That's just making the job easier for hackers to make sense of the scrambled data they steal.

The outrage is still pouring in from various advocacy groups. Here's a succinct condemnation by the Center on Democracy and Technology, one of the more centrist of these organizations:

"These revelations demonstrate a fundamental attack on the way the Internet works," senior staff technologist Joseph Lorenzo Hall wrote in a statement. "In an era in which businesses, as well as the average consumer, trust secure networks and technologies for sensitive transactions and private communications online, it’s incredibly destructive for the NSA to add flaws to such critical infrastructure. The NSA seems to be operating on the fantastically naïve assumption that any vulnerabilities it builds into core Internet technologies can only be exploited by itself and its global partners."

[Oilwellian]

1. There's just no limit, is there?

Who does the NSA really work for? Inside traders on Wall Street?

K&R

[RC]

2. The NSA needs to be dismantled down to its component parts and the physical pieces given to worthy

non-profits, who then could use them to help the "We the people..." mentioned in passing in the constitution.

Agencies such as the NSA fosters an unneeded, sick paranoia, the feeds on itself to grow ever larger. If those in power didn't see everyone else, near and far, as the enemy, we would not need the alphabet soup of all our ever growing, spy agencies and their Total information, all the time, mentality. More money wasted that could have been used to help people, instead the careers of paranoid, authoritarian, sociopaths running the shows.

[marmar]

3. k/r

[hootinholler]

4. The NSA is not naive

They simply don't care if anyone else can crack private communications so long as they can.

[woo me with science]

5. K&R

[randome]

6. And not a single question is raised about whether these computers hacked into belonged to suspects.

Or if the hacking was done at the behest of warrants. Nothing to address the point that the NSA can only target foreign networks and individuals, not American citizens.

We're all supposed to magically fall in line to express outrage without asking basic journalistic questions.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[deurbano]

10. In the OP, the outrage is about something else:

<<..."And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world."

I'd be disappointed if the NSA hadn't figured out how to do that hacking trick. But adding vulnerabilities to standard encryption techniques? That's just making the job easier for hackers to make sense of the scrambled data they steal.

The outrage is still pouring in from various advocacy groups. Here's a succinct condemnation by the Center on Democracy and Technology, one of the more centrist of these organizations:

"These revelations demonstrate a fundamental attack on the way the Internet works," senior staff technologist Joseph Lorenzo Hall wrote in a statement. "In an era in which businesses, as well as the average consumer, trust secure networks and technologies for sensitive transactions and private communications online, it’s incredibly destructive for the NSA to add flaws to such critical infrastructure. The NSA seems to be operating on the fantastically naïve assumption that any vulnerabilities it builds into core Internet technologies can only be exploited by itself and its global partners."

[jsr]

7. The NSA effectively owns the Internet

for all practical purposes.

[pnwmom]

8. Does anyone seriously think that the Chinese, Russians, Germans, French --

anyone with the technical know-how -- isn't trying to accomplish or hasn't accomplished the same thing? Are we so special that only the NSA could figure this out?

[deurbano]

12. Seems like the NSA is making it easier for hackers of all persuasions:

<<..."And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world."

I'd be disappointed if the NSA hadn't figured out how to do that hacking trick. But adding vulnerabilities to standard encryption techniques? That's just making the job easier for hackers to make sense of the scrambled data they steal.


The outrage is still pouring in from various advocacy groups. Here's a succinct condemnation by the Center on Democracy and Technology, one of the more centrist of these organizations:

... "In an era in which businesses, as well as the average consumer, trust secure networks and technologies for sensitive transactions and private communications online, it’s incredibly destructive for the NSA to add flaws to such critical infrastructure. The NSA seems to be operating on the fantastically naïve assumption that any vulnerabilities it builds into core Internet technologies can only be exploited by itself and its global partners.">>

[pnwmom]

13. Yes, assuming that only they can exploit the vulnerabilities is a fantastically stupid assumption.

[deurbano]

14. Yes, that's the main outrage in this particular OP-- that the NSA is creating the vulnerabilities...

which is actually making it easier for others ("friend" or "foe".... or whatever) to exploit, too:

"And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. I wonder how much blackmail they've collected over the years....

I wonder if they have implanted stuff in the records to use as blackmail.

Makes you want to run for office just to see if they pull out where you've eaten dead fetuses.

[dickthegrouch]

11. They don't need blackmail

They've fucked up the entire economy. They've stolen 30% of my 401K, stolen 30% of the value of my house, forced me out of my job for the last three months, lost me 30% of my investment portfolio. And this is the second long-term unemployment for me in ten years.
I'll be lucky if I have any money left for them to blackmail me with. And a man who has nothing left to lose is a very dangerous quantity; he can afford to get things changed.
Most people have not yet lost enough to get really angry, but the next downturn may be enough.

[idwiyo]

15. k&r