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> which by the way had indeed done a lot of consulting for the NSA; nice guy, though Brings up an interesting point. Going forward should it be disqualifying t

by pkl2 13y ago

> which by the way had indeed done a lot of consulting for the NSA; nice guy, though Brings up an interesting point. Going forward should it be disqualifying to be currently working for the NSA to be on one of these committees? To have formerly worked for them? To done a lot of consulting? To have done any consulting? To have ever had a security clearance? Witchhunts have a deservedly negative connotation, but what if you are actually surrounded by witches?

XorNot 13y ago
So the rest of the above comment where it was explained that the whole issue is actually kind of nuanced, has important security implications when it comes to implementation details and is not at all "intentionally compromising", you just skipped over that hey?
- stelonix 13y ago
  He brought up another point. Given the known NSA revelations so far, it seems ignorant at best to welcome people who have ties with the NSA without putting their opinions under some scrutiny.
  - bennyg 13y ago
    I say sure, extra scrutiny there. But we should also hold hackers (in the laymen sense of the word) who steal either information, finances, or actual things under just as tight of scrutiny too. I don't trust either to be honest.
tytso 13y ago
The hard part is that the NSA has two missions --- cracking foreign crypto, and protecting US crypto. When an NSA employee speaks, we will have no idea whether he or she is speaking with the "protect US crypto" hat on, or the "SIGINT enablement" hat on. I'd say the more important thing is that we not trust any one single person (or corporation). Everything needs to be open, and everything needs to be studied and verified by independent authorities. This also applies to how you implement your security. You want two person controls for everything, and separation of roles --- those people who can bypass file access controls had better not also be able to wipe log records. The NSA is relearning that lesson the hard way as they try to figure out what records Snowden might have leaked --- apparently Snowden had the ability to impersonate other users, as well as wipe the log records which were _hopefully_ being made when person A uses an "su"-like command to impersonate person B. After all, when someone stands up to give a suggestion at a standards meeting, or when someone goes through the hiring process to be one of your sysadmins, they won't be wearing a sign saying, "I do a huge amount of consultant work with the NSA and I have Top Secret/SCI/POLY clearance". Neither will job applicants have signs saying, "I'm getting paid by the Chinese MSS", or "I'm here to steal your SSL private keys".
- Vivtek 13y ago
  Well, "protecting US crypto" pretty much seems restricted to "protecting official government US crypto", not just the unwashed masses.
- infinity0 13y ago
  Recent revelations clearly indicate that the latter is merely secondary to the former, so I don't think this is a hard question at all.
- NelsonMinar 13y ago
  Unfortunately the NSA has irrevocably damaged their ability to fulfill the "protect US crypto" mission. Thanks for all the details on the process tytso, not to mention your work for all these years.
venomsnake 13y ago
No it shouldn't. NSA has more than one goal. Their goal is to secure USG communication and to break everyone else's. While an argument that in the recent years the pendulum has gone way out into subverting is valid this has not always been the case. They just cannot make USG secure without giving some of that security to everyone. And they cannot weaken everyone's security without endangering themselves. Of course for now US doesn't have global adversary (that they know of). But with the world moving from sole superpower towards multiple power center this may not be the case for long. And then it will swing in the other direction again. Just wait for an real cyber attack through one of their backdoors to happen and then you will have them working full steam ahead towards security. Btw - one of the other things about the extremely potent NSA that are not mentioned at all - if you are a smart adversary then you should just infiltrate NSA and let them do the heavy lifting and have the needed information for the cheap.
cs02rm0 13y ago
There's a temptation to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The NSA have shown that they, unsurprisingly, have some ability in this area. The trick is surely to discern constructive and destructive contributions.
- speeder 13y ago
  This remembers me the position the bible takes on demons: obviously they have power, and some might want to help even, except they are specialists in their stuff, a human in not, thus how you know what one to trust? You don't, thus dealing with them is forbidden outright.

by pkl2 13y ago

XorNot 13y ago

So the rest of the above comment where it was explained that the whole issue is actually kind of nuanced, has important security implications when it comes to implementation details and is not at all "intentionally compromising", you just skipped over that hey?

stelonix 13y ago
He brought up another point. Given the known NSA revelations so far, it seems ignorant at best to welcome people who have ties with the NSA without putting their opinions under some scrutiny.
- bennyg 13y ago
  I say sure, extra scrutiny there. But we should also hold hackers (in the laymen sense of the word) who steal either information, finances, or actual things under just as tight of scrutiny too. I don't trust either to be honest.

tytso 13y ago

The hard part is that the NSA has two missions --- cracking foreign crypto, and protecting US crypto. When an NSA employee speaks, we will have no idea whether he or she is speaking with the "protect US crypto" hat on, or the "SIGINT enablement" hat on. I'd say the more important thing is that we not trust any one single person (or corporation). Everything needs to be open, and everything needs to be studied and verified by independent authorities. This also applies to how you implement your security. You want two person controls for everything, and separation of roles --- those people who can bypass file access controls had better not also be able to wipe log records. The NSA is relearning that lesson the hard way as they try to figure out what records Snowden might have leaked --- apparently Snowden had the ability to impersonate other users, as well as wipe the log records which were _hopefully_ being made when person A uses an "su"-like command to impersonate person B. After all, when someone stands up to give a suggestion at a standards meeting, or when someone goes through the hiring process to be one of your sysadmins, they won't be wearing a sign saying, "I do a huge amount of consultant work with the NSA and I have Top Secret/SCI/POLY clearance". Neither will job applicants have signs saying, "I'm getting paid by the Chinese MSS", or "I'm here to steal your SSL private keys".

Vivtek 13y ago
Well, "protecting US crypto" pretty much seems restricted to "protecting official government US crypto", not just the unwashed masses.
infinity0 13y ago
Recent revelations clearly indicate that the latter is merely secondary to the former, so I don't think this is a hard question at all.
NelsonMinar 13y ago
Unfortunately the NSA has irrevocably damaged their ability to fulfill the "protect US crypto" mission. Thanks for all the details on the process tytso, not to mention your work for all these years.

venomsnake 13y ago

No it shouldn't. NSA has more than one goal. Their goal is to secure USG communication and to break everyone else's. While an argument that in the recent years the pendulum has gone way out into subverting is valid this has not always been the case. They just cannot make USG secure without giving some of that security to everyone. And they cannot weaken everyone's security without endangering themselves. Of course for now US doesn't have global adversary (that they know of). But with the world moving from sole superpower towards multiple power center this may not be the case for long. And then it will swing in the other direction again. Just wait for an real cyber attack through one of their backdoors to happen and then you will have them working full steam ahead towards security. Btw - one of the other things about the extremely potent NSA that are not mentioned at all - if you are a smart adversary then you should just infiltrate NSA and let them do the heavy lifting and have the needed information for the cheap.

cs02rm0 13y ago

There's a temptation to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The NSA have shown that they, unsurprisingly, have some ability in this area. The trick is surely to discern constructive and destructive contributions.

speeder 13y ago
This remembers me the position the bible takes on demons: obviously they have power, and some might want to help even, except they are specialists in their stuff, a human in not, thus how you know what one to trust? You don't, thus dealing with them is forbidden outright.