5 ms·

No. It will not. Backdoors are fine as long as they are NOBUS and the master key remains safe. Notice, for example, how every major corporation has a "backdoor"

by andreyf 11y ago

No. It will not. Backdoors are fine as long as they are NOBUS and the master key remains safe. Notice, for example, how every major corporation has a "backdoor" in all their employee's hard drive encryption schemes, except they call them "data recovery options".

gh02t 11y ago
The assumption of the master key remaining safe is the problem though. If e.g. the government forced a known back door in encryption systems, that master key then becomes the single juciest, most delicious target of every cyber criminal and foreign intelligence agency in the world. It's hard to be able to keep something like that secure while making it accessible enough to actually use for its intended purpose.
- andreyf 11y ago
  We have ways of keeping keys like that secure. For example, the master recovery keys used for HD encryption on NSA / Google / Lockheed laptops. Those are all pretty valuable, and yet they've been kept secure. I don't think legislating away single-user encryption is a good idea, but not because backdoors are inherently bad.
  - gh02t 11y ago
    It's possible under ideal circumstances, but it's an uphill battle in the real world. The examples you gave are small potatoes compared to how frequently a master key for criminal cases would be needed and dramatically lower risk. If the NSA leaked their hard drive encryption keys hundreds of people would probably die. Bad yes, but if the master key to (virtually) all encryption schemes in the country is leaked many people would end up getting killed and it would be an economic disaster. Not to mention the potential for limitless privacy abuse, whether in the name of a righteous cause or not. I'm sure they could work out some sort of subkey scheme and key splitting (via e.g. Shamir's scheme) to lower the possibility of compromise and reduce damage if a subkey was leaked, but the possibility won't be zero. And with that big of a target the number of people trying to acquire the keys means the chance of the keys eventually being leaked is pretty good.

by andreyf 11y ago

gh02t 11y ago

The assumption of the master key remaining safe is the problem though. If e.g. the government forced a known back door in encryption systems, that master key then becomes the single juciest, most delicious target of every cyber criminal and foreign intelligence agency in the world. It's hard to be able to keep something like that secure while making it accessible enough to actually use for its intended purpose.

andreyf 11y ago
We have ways of keeping keys like that secure. For example, the master recovery keys used for HD encryption on NSA / Google / Lockheed laptops. Those are all pretty valuable, and yet they've been kept secure. I don't think legislating away single-user encryption is a good idea, but not because backdoors are inherently bad.
- gh02t 11y ago
  It's possible under ideal circumstances, but it's an uphill battle in the real world. The examples you gave are small potatoes compared to how frequently a master key for criminal cases would be needed and dramatically lower risk. If the NSA leaked their hard drive encryption keys hundreds of people would probably die. Bad yes, but if the master key to (virtually) all encryption schemes in the country is leaked many people would end up getting killed and it would be an economic disaster. Not to mention the potential for limitless privacy abuse, whether in the name of a righteous cause or not. I'm sure they could work out some sort of subkey scheme and key splitting (via e.g. Shamir's scheme) to lower the possibility of compromise and reduce damage if a subkey was leaked, but the possibility won't be zero. And with that big of a target the number of people trying to acquire the keys means the chance of the keys eventually being leaked is pretty good.