Thanks to the recent NSA leaks, people are more worried than ever that their software might have backdoors. If you don’t believe that the software vendor can resist a backdoor request, the onus is on you to look for a backdoor. What you want is software transparency. Transparency of this type is a much-touted advantage […]
Is the NSA keeping your encrypted traffic forever?
September 13, 2013 by
Much has been written recently about the NSA’s program to systematically defeat the encryption methods used on the internet and in other communications technologies – Project Bullrun, in the parlance of our times. We’ve learned that the NSA can read significant quantities of encrypted traffic on the web, from mobile phone networks, and on virtual […]
On Security Backdoors
September 11, 2013 by
I wrote Monday about revelations that the NSA might have been inserting backdoors into security standards. Today I want to talk through two cases where the NSA has been accused of backdooring standards, and use these cases to differentiate between two types of backdoors.
NSA Apparently Undermining Standards, Security, Confidence
September 9, 2013 by
The big NSA revelation of last week was that the agency’s multifaceted strategy to read encrypted Internet traffic is generally successful. The story, from the New York Times and ProPublica, described NSA strategies ranging from the predictable—exploiting implementation flaws in some popular crypto products; to the widely-suspected but disappointing—inducing companies to insert backdoors into products; […]
On the NSA's capabilities
September 8, 2013 by
Last Thursday brought significant new revelations about the capacities of the National Security Agency. While the articles in the New York Times, ProPublica, and The Guardian skirted around technical specifics, several broad themes came out. NSA has the capacity to read significant amounts of encrypted Internet traffic. NSA has some amount of cooperation from vendors […]
