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An international group of cryptography experts has forced the U.S. National Security Agency to back down over two data encryption techniques it wanted set as global industry standards, reflecting deep mistrust among close U.S. allies.
In interviews and emails seen by Reuters, academic and industry experts from countries including Germany, Japan and Israel worried that the U.S. electronic spy agency was pushing the new techniques not because they were good encryption tools, but because it knew how to break them.
The NSA has now agreed to drop all but the most powerful versions of the techniques - those least likely to be vulnerable to hacks - to address the concerns.
Have the chickens come home to roost for the NSA, or should we distrust the report that they backed down?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @04:19PM (6 children)
M$ has all the tools that 3-letter agencies need secretly and stealthily hard boiled into the kernel. Even the web traffic is hidden from the flashing lights of the modem.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @04:30PM (1 child)
M$ designed the firmware for my external modem? The one that has RJ45 on one end and coax on the other?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 22 2017, @05:01PM
To be perfectly honest - it wouldn't surprise me to find that they hold patents on whichever modem you're using. Nor would it surprise me very much to find that MS has obscure agreements with any or even all of the modem manufacturers. I'm skeptical of MS ability to control our external modems, but MS is the evil empire in computing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @05:00PM (1 child)
[citation needed]
No really, I'd wager that if stuff like this was there in a readily disassembleable kernel the kind folks at the RBN would've found and abused it by now. By saying that M$ can hide something in plain sight so well you're actually calling them competent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22 2017, @05:19PM
It was reported years ago that some M$ web traffic can be sent without triggering the modem lights or even show up in wireshark.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday September 22 2017, @06:54PM
Forget M$.
Intel has done one better. Deep compromise baked right into your hardware. And best of all -- you paid for it!
Followed by AMD.
Gee, I wonder why Intel and AMD would do something like that this, that nobody wants. Not customers or end users. Not even large organizations that use computers. It almost seems like some outside influence forced Intel / AMD / M$ to do pre-compromise systems.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Friday September 22 2017, @08:17PM
Since you mention MS, I will note that there are two kinds of MS. Try not to get them confused.
1. an affliction suffered by millions of people which can make even the simplest tasks become difficult.
2. a medical condition.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.