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 […]
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; […]
NSA, the FISA Court, and Risks of Tech Summaries
August 22, 2013 by
Yesterday the U.S. government released a previously-secret 2011 opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), finding certain NSA surveillance and analysis activities to be illegal. The opinion, despite some redactions, gives us a window into the interactions between the NSA and the court that oversees its activities—including why oversight and compliance of surveillance are […]
Groklaw Shuts Down, Citing NSA Eavesdropping
August 21, 2013 by
The legendary technology law blog Groklaw is shutting down. Groklaw’s founder and operator, Pamela “PJ” Jones, wrote that in light of current eavesdropping, email is no longer secure. She went on to say: There is no way to do Groklaw without email. Therein lies the conundrum. […] What to do? I’ve spent the last couple […]
