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Predicting the next NSA Revelation - breaking of AES256 & PGP?
So now that everyone foolishly has woken up to the plainly obvious - that NSA and GCHQ is intercepting practically all data on the internet and is about to store it in Nevada.
How long to the revelation that AES256 and and PGP have been broken?
- mtgx 13y agoMy bet is on the media finding out that most of this surveillance and of those NSL's weren't actually used to catch or even investigate potential terrorists, but for completely different purposes, and were specifically used to catch Americans, not foreigners.
- rorybireland 13y agoOr allies like Tony Blair: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6321173#.UbHMYPlYh8E http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6321173#.UbHMYPlYh8E
- gesman 13y agoNSA does not need to break AES or PGP. They can access pre-encrypted information or post-decrypted information.
- contingencies 13y agoIn the spirit of the zeitgeist ("let 100 flowers bloom"!), I shall disclose: (high ranking, not a cog, multiple conflicts background) UN military COMSEC/SIGINT type, 2012. Looked me in the eyes, measured their words, and then said "PGP [meaning GPG] has been compromised since early versions".
- tobylane 13y agoWhat more can you tell us?
- tptacek 13y agoLooked you in the eyes, measured his words, and then turned out to be completely full of shit. A 2013 GPG user is creating AES256-CFB ciphertexts with session keys delivered over 2048 bit RSA and DSA signatures. These are far from the sturdiest constructions we have in cryptography; a conservative design today wouldn't be using RSA or DSA at all. But they're proven and used all over the place, including on government traffic no reasonable person could believe the USG would accept a mass compromise of. If you believe that anyone at the UN can decrypt PGP and would have under any circumstances ever shared that with you, I have some dead aliens from Roswell to sell you. It may be that he was confused. Very early versions of PGP, from when Zimmerman was apparently just learning what cryptography was, used a cipher of his own design that turned out to be broken. Being 2 hops from a lot of people with active clearances, I'll add that this is a very popular bit of gossip. The last one I heard was Blowfish; "don't use Blowfish!" "Why would I? It's super old?" "Never mind that. My friend just got out of NSA and said they could trivially break Blowfish. Something about the sboxes." A credible claim you might make right now: with some degree of effort (ie, not in real time), it might be possible to break large-ish RSA keys.
- pasbesoin 13y agoOne possibility: Your banking is pwned. Domestic SWIFT-ish scandal. Not for big dollar amounts; every transaction -- at the least, every one that exits a local branch and/or bank. And/or, my personal favorite: Your shopping loyalty card mined for "suspicious" foods. ;-) -- P.S. Yeah, I know the second one is redundant in as much as so many people shop with credit cards. But I've always been suspicious of those loyalty cards. And everyone knows that, while the [keyword] may shop with cash, they can't pass up a bargain.
- rorybireland 13y agoI gonna go with all Intel/AMD chips have a backdoor or weakness... It's been done before and since: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/nsa_backdoors_i.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/nsa_backdoors_...
- retrogradeorbit 13y agoThere's a keyboard sniffer they can activate in every copy of Windows and OSX. and/or They can listen into you at any time using your mobile _when you're not on a call_.