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> That one is indeed impossible due to the laws of information theory ... it is a humanity problem So, is this impossible due to human nature or the "laws of i

by nvm0n2 3y ago

> That one is indeed impossible due to the laws of information theory ... it is a humanity problem So, is this impossible due to human nature or the "laws of information theory"? Which is it? And if the latter what "law" are you thinking of, exactly? Can you name these laws? Here's the problem: it's neither impossible mathematically nor practically. Remember the kerfuffle over the NSA's backdoored ECDRBG algorithm? That was a very pure textbook example of what's possible, it would have allowed the NSA and only the NSA to decrypt TLS streams using it. According to you that would have been physically impossible due to violating some sort of law, but it's not. Cryptographers know how to construct such systems, there are many ways. But the existence of such solutions doesn't even matter. Lawful intercept abilities have existed for ages, governments will happily accept a solution of just turning off E2E encryption entirely, and the possibility that governments or tech firms will get hacked doesn't bother them because that's a transient problem that can be made hard by throwing money at it. They also don't care about corruption because the countries demanding this have low levels of it. Governments are the original experts in corruption, you might say, and have evolved a lot of different mechanisms to fight it. Finally, remember that all these systems are already hackable or corruptible. Pay off someone who works on the WhatsApp mobile app team and unless Meta's internal controls detect it, it's game over.

jjav 3y ago
> So, is this impossible due to human nature or the "laws of information theory"? Which is it? And if the latter what "law" are you thinking of, exactly? Can you name these laws? Yes. It's simple, if you send information in a recoverable way to another entity, they can recover it. If that entity involves humans, they can and will with 100% certainty be corrupted or threatened to obtain the information improperly. > Remember the kerfuffle over the NSA's backdoored ECDRBG algorithm? Amusing that your example is a counterexample to your thesis. Exactly. Backdoors never serve only their would-be masters. That's the impossible part. If this is not blindingly obvious by now, I fail at being able to explain it better.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  The backdoor in the EC DRBG algorithm was detected but never leaked because to actually open that back door required a key only the NSA had, but that key itself never leaked. Only the NSA could decrypt streams that used this PRNG. To everyone else they remained undecryptable. So it's not a counter-example and your amusement is misplaced.

by nvm0n2 3y ago

jjav 3y ago

> So, is this impossible due to human nature or the "laws of information theory"? Which is it? And if the latter what "law" are you thinking of, exactly? Can you name these laws? Yes. It's simple, if you send information in a recoverable way to another entity, they can recover it. If that entity involves humans, they can and will with 100% certainty be corrupted or threatened to obtain the information improperly. > Remember the kerfuffle over the NSA's backdoored ECDRBG algorithm? Amusing that your example is a counterexample to your thesis. Exactly. Backdoors never serve only their would-be masters. That's the impossible part. If this is not blindingly obvious by now, I fail at being able to explain it better.

nvm0n2 3y ago
The backdoor in the EC DRBG algorithm was detected but never leaked because to actually open that back door required a key only the NSA had, but that key itself never leaked. Only the NSA could decrypt streams that used this PRNG. To everyone else they remained undecryptable. So it's not a counter-example and your amusement is misplaced.