
The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center - justinweiss
http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
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da-bacon
Much more interesting than the existence of this "spy center" are the claims
of a major breakthrough in crypto:

"According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA
made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to
cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by
not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in
the US."

The article insinuates that it's AES (or something closely related.) That
would be pretty amazing.

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archgoon
>The article insinuates that it's AES (or something closely related.) That
would be pretty amazing.

That, or it's false information so that cocky hackers, or moles in groups, can
convince their peers that they should use an insecure, custom algorithms. It's
impossible to tell.

"Yeah, I know AES is standard, but it's well known that the NSA has broken it,
we should use this cool alternative crypto technique I invented instead."

Even if only a handful of people were being stupid, the NSA might be able to
get sufficient information to be useful.

~~~
redstripe
If you're going to be paranoid about any established crypto you can continue
to use it but wrap in your own lousy crypto. It's not a one or the other
choice.

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ddlatham
Yesterday's discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3711603>

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mrstinton
With all of the talk about government and the internet, this is highly
relevant.

