Yesterday we saw two stories that illustrate the limits of cryptography as a shield against government. In San Francisco, police arrested a man alleged to be Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), the operator of online drug market Silk Road. And in Alexandria, Virginia, a court unsealed documents revealing the tussle between the government and secure email […]
Senate Judiciary Testimony: FISA Oversight
October 2, 2013 by
I testified today at a Senate Judiciary committee hearing on Oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Here is the written testimony I submitted.
The Debian OpenSSL Bug: Backdoor or Security Accident?
September 20, 2013 by
On Monday, Ed wrote about Software Transparency, the idea that software is more resistant to intentional backdoors (and unintentional security vulnerabilities) if the process used to create it is transparent. Elements of software transparency include the availability of source code and the ability to read or contribute to a project’s issue tracker or internal developer […]
Software Transparency
September 16, 2013 by
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 […]
