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Plus the NSA has a history of putting backdoors into solutions. Have there been proven (or at least credibly shown probable) to be NSA backdoors into shipping

Plus the NSA has a history of putting backdoors into solutions. Have there been proven (or at least credibly shown probable) to be NSA backdoors into shipping products?

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
uxp 16y ago
The Clipper Chip[1] immediately comes to mind as the most publicized case of the NSA wanting a backdoor in consumer products. There are also recent stories of the US Government wanting similar encryption disabling mechanisms in other technology[2]. Coupled with the Patriot Act and it letting the NSA eavesdrop on communications, it gives a precedent. A quote I am reminded of is "If you are on the internet, you aren't being paranoid enough". [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip [2] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/fbi-backdoors/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/fbi-backdoors/
- kgo 16y ago
  Yeah, but 'wanted' doesn't equal 'did' like the OP claims.
  - moe 16y ago
    I had always considered the Clipper-Chip incident to hint at the tip of an iceberg. Do you really think that was an isolated one-time event?
    - kgo 16y ago
      The Clipper Chip was introduced in the open. They tried to push it through legislation. It's not like the NSA blackmailed Intel executives to include the capabilities secretly in their Pentium Processors without notifying their customers. Same with the new proposed legislation. But all that demonstrates is that the NSA has an interest in being able to (legally) monitor encrypted communications. Which everyone already knows. If someone had 'busted' the NSA trying to do something sneaky and/or covert and/or illegal, then you could argue that it's the tip of some iceberg of nefarious activity. But like I said this was all done out in the open. You might as well say that because we know the FBI wiretaps phones through legally obtained court orders, that's the tip of the iceberg that points to millions of illegal wiretaps. It's a bad inference.
- billswift 16y ago
  The whole purpose of the Clipper Chip was the escrowed encryption - that is a big difference from a backdoor, especially from a concealed backdoor.
davidj 16y ago
Yeah the NSA modified the DES S-Box in its development, they made the final tweeks to the GSM A5/1 algorithm, another person points out the Clipper Chip, etc. You are clueless if you didn't know these things, do you think the NSA just sits on their butt?
- tptacek 16y ago
  The NSA is believed to have strengthened DES by making its substitutions more resilient against differential cryptanalysis. Careful with with words like "clueless". On this point I'm inclined to agree with Schneier: why inject backdoors into things, leaving fingerprints and betraying both opsec and tradecraft, when you can just sit back and watch the software companies build the backdoors for you? NSA has as much as come out and said this at keynote speeches already, but it seems pretty obvious from my vantage point.
  - davidj 16y ago
    "The NSA is believed to have strengthened DES" No they didn't they cut the key size in half, and where can I find on a source that shows me that the s-box changes were intended to make DES stronger?
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Alan Konheim (one of the designers of DES) commented, "We sent the S-boxes off to Washington. They came back and were all different." [...] Some of the suspicions about hidden weaknesses in the S-boxes were allayed in 1990, with the independent discovery and open publication by Eli Biham and Adi Shamir of differential cryptanalysis, a general method for breaking block ciphers. The S-boxes of DES were much more resistant to the attack than if they had been chosen at random, strongly suggesting that IBM knew about the technique back in the 1970s. I'm done bickering about trivia, though. If you'd like the last word, as long as you don't say anything overtly stupid, I'm not going to respond. Happy holidays!

Plus the NSA has a history of putting backdoors into solutions. Have there been proven (or at least credibly shown probable) to be NSA backdoors into shipping products?

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

uxp 16y ago

The Clipper Chip[1] immediately comes to mind as the most publicized case of the NSA wanting a backdoor in consumer products. There are also recent stories of the US Government wanting similar encryption disabling mechanisms in other technology[2]. Coupled with the Patriot Act and it letting the NSA eavesdrop on communications, it gives a precedent. A quote I am reminded of is "If you are on the internet, you aren't being paranoid enough". [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip [2] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/fbi-backdoors/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/fbi-backdoors/

kgo 16y ago
Yeah, but 'wanted' doesn't equal 'did' like the OP claims.
- moe 16y ago
  I had always considered the Clipper-Chip incident to hint at the tip of an iceberg. Do you really think that was an isolated one-time event?
  - kgo 16y ago
    The Clipper Chip was introduced in the open. They tried to push it through legislation. It's not like the NSA blackmailed Intel executives to include the capabilities secretly in their Pentium Processors without notifying their customers. Same with the new proposed legislation. But all that demonstrates is that the NSA has an interest in being able to (legally) monitor encrypted communications. Which everyone already knows. If someone had 'busted' the NSA trying to do something sneaky and/or covert and/or illegal, then you could argue that it's the tip of some iceberg of nefarious activity. But like I said this was all done out in the open. You might as well say that because we know the FBI wiretaps phones through legally obtained court orders, that's the tip of the iceberg that points to millions of illegal wiretaps. It's a bad inference.
billswift 16y ago
The whole purpose of the Clipper Chip was the escrowed encryption - that is a big difference from a backdoor, especially from a concealed backdoor.

davidj 16y ago

Yeah the NSA modified the DES S-Box in its development, they made the final tweeks to the GSM A5/1 algorithm, another person points out the Clipper Chip, etc. You are clueless if you didn't know these things, do you think the NSA just sits on their butt?

tptacek 16y ago
The NSA is believed to have strengthened DES by making its substitutions more resilient against differential cryptanalysis. Careful with with words like "clueless". On this point I'm inclined to agree with Schneier: why inject backdoors into things, leaving fingerprints and betraying both opsec and tradecraft, when you can just sit back and watch the software companies build the backdoors for you? NSA has as much as come out and said this at keynote speeches already, but it seems pretty obvious from my vantage point.
- davidj 16y ago
  "The NSA is believed to have strengthened DES" No they didn't they cut the key size in half, and where can I find on a source that shows me that the s-box changes were intended to make DES stronger?
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Alan Konheim (one of the designers of DES) commented, "We sent the S-boxes off to Washington. They came back and were all different." [...] Some of the suspicions about hidden weaknesses in the S-boxes were allayed in 1990, with the independent discovery and open publication by Eli Biham and Adi Shamir of differential cryptanalysis, a general method for breaking block ciphers. The S-boxes of DES were much more resistant to the attack than if they had been chosen at random, strongly suggesting that IBM knew about the technique back in the 1970s. I'm done bickering about trivia, though. If you'd like the last word, as long as you don't say anything overtly stupid, I'm not going to respond. Happy holidays!