
Non-US encryption is 'theoretical,' claims CIA chief in backdoor debate - Jerry2
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/17/non_us_encryption_is_theoretical_claims_cia/
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rurban
This is funny, because for many of the critical cryptowar years, encryption
had to be non-US. US developed encryption was forbidden to be exported, so
everybody resorted to european encryption. Most of the devs are still
european, not US.

And about speaking backdoors: Does he know where most of the hardware is
manufactured? And most of the devices are designed? Not in the US.

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x5n1
Do you know how much distrust governments have for other governments spying on
individual citizens. None. None whatsoever. China does not care if the US is
spying on Chinese individuals and the same goes for the US. It cares its
corporate secrets are protected, and perhaps when those individuals have
access to those. But that's about it.

~~~
jwtadvice
Operation Aurora was motivated, at least in part, by US government spying on
individual Chinese citizens.

The US does seem to care about surveillance and spying on its population.

In foreign policy and intelligence circles, surveillance of populations is
referred to as "strategic listening". It allows nations to measure the effects
of their propaganda on internal political movements of target countries. In
the DoD, these same databases are also used in pilot programmes (MINERVA, etc)
to study how propaganda can be used to stabilize and destabilize populations.
It's likely the Chinese have similar research.

Furthermore, many of the individuals surveilled evolve roles of significance.
During the US operation to create mass protest in Cuba (Zunzuneo) by setting
up fake online social media companies, they gathered huge amounts of
information on the individual citizens they were trying to radicalize.

The reason for this was because these individuals, if successful in
overthrowing or altering the political structure in Cuba, become interesting
targets in their own right - and now intelligence and profiling work on these
new power brokers is partially complete.

We can see that China had hacked the US security clearance databases. This not
only contains lists of people with access to critical systems and information
- but also has compiled risks of leverage those individuals may face from
adversaries (debt, extramarital engagement, etc).

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sschueller
What prevents foreign nations from using US encryption without the backdoor?
It's not like they have a law that would force then to add a backdoor.

I can't believe these people are in charge of national security.

~~~
jwtadvice
Many of the backdoors are written into the constants and constructions of the
algorithms themselves in undiscoverable ways. Constants that embed groups
inside of weaker groups, multivariate systems that under certain
transformations leak keying material, asymmetric transformations for which the
standards body creators hold private keys, etc.

Legal compulsion of companies to keep plaintext is just one backdoor pursued.

~~~
benchaney
The encryption we currently use doesn't have the types of back doors you
describe. Knowing that, how could he claim that they are "theoretical".

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ex3ndr
In Actor we mix Non-US (Russian) and US crypto in a secure manner. So if even
Non-US crypto will be weak we will have US layer for protection. If CIA will
break US crypto they will still need to crack Non-US and when this will happen
this will be exposed to the public somehow.

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kafkaesq
Which brings up that immortal saying:

"With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

