33 ms·

This seems highly suspicious, especially the recommendation of BitLocker, a product we have little to no evidence does what it says and after PRISM, have no rea

This seems highly suspicious, especially the recommendation of BitLocker, a product we have little to no evidence does what it says and after PRISM, have no reason to trust[2]; not to mention it being limited to a (very small subset of) Windows platforms vs. TrueCrypt's cross-platform functionality. If this was legit[1], it'd probably be directing people to one of the other TrueCrypt-like programs. [1]The new version posted is almost certainly compromised; don't download it, or at the very least, run it in a VM on non-networked hardware you can reimage after finishing using. [2]Edit: Forgot this before, but BitLocker is definitely completely broken as it sends your recovery key to MS anyway ( https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/photo/1 https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/... ).

MichaelGG 12y ago
A screenshot that says "We have the recovery key", but zero indication of how they got it? The previous slide could not possibly be something related to dumping RAM, could it? Or perhaps an optional Microsoft-account feature to back up your encryption keys. Something that most normal users would want, just like they want it on Apple devices? Because a lot of common users aren't going to want FDE if it means "oh and lose your key and say goodbye to your data". As far as I know, there's only been speculation on what PRISM is. Nothing that suggests it couldn't be a frontend to CALEA or warrant-based systems.
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  No, bitlocker explicitly send the key to MS for non-domain systems - as such, I would guess it potentially still does for those on a domain too, it'd just be kept quieter. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-recovery-keys-faq http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-recov... Bitlocker is not trustworthy as an overall method of FDE.
  - weinzierl 12y ago
    Your link says "There are several locations in which your BitLocker recovery key might have been saved." and then mentions "Your Microsoft account online.". Do you know under which conditions this happens?
    - blueskin_ 12y ago
      At least when it is enabled in Windows 8 with a computer linked to a hotmail account, but I would never rule out other conditions too.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - eli 12y ago
    That's an optional feature -- it asks you if you want to backup your key to your online account.
    - blueskin_ 12y ago
      So you know that if you click 'no', it definitely isn't sent anyway (perhaps with some "MS/NSA use only" bit set to distinguish it from user-accessible ones)? Thought not.
      - eli 12y ago
        You previously said it "definitely sends your recovery key to MS." Sounds like you don't actually mean that. It's fine and perfectly reasonable not to trust closed-source code, but no reason to spread half-truths about it.
        blueskin_ 12y ago
        The very ability to send it to MS is worrying; doing it automatically is more so. If they were honest about the key, it'd say "put this on a flash drive/hardcopy in a safe deposit box".
        eropple 12y ago
        Lift with your knees, not your back. Those goalposts are heavy.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        MichaelGG 12y ago
        You'd make an amazing PM. "Hey, how should we deal with resetting people's passwords and keys when they forget them?" "Tell them to get a safe deposit box" "And when they're traveling or really need a report and the bank's closed? "They shouldn't have lost their keys. Stupid lusers."
- nitrogen 12y ago
  As far as I know, there's only been speculation on what PRISM is. Nothing that suggests it couldn't be a frontend to CALEA or warrant-based systems. Subsequent Snowden releases made it clear that thdatee NSA has many sources of information that are only "legal" because they said so, including intra-datacenter and international fiber taps, zero day exploits, and physically modified equipment (see photos of network gear being intercepted and bugged). In other words, this paragraph might have been reasonable a year ago, but is now grossly out of date
  - superuser2 12y ago
    None of that was part of PRISM.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      Let's assume that when people say "PRISM" they mean "digital espionage", and when people say "NSA", they also mean CIA, NRO, FBI, DEA, etc.
NicoJuicy 12y ago
Would this be a Lavabit-like situation? The governement asking for a backdoor and the developers are refusing it. Suddenly (while there is an audit), they quit everything, change the assemblies and the website, so users can get to another product... It seems weird that after 10 years of hard-work, they suddenly quit without further explanation.
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  If so, I would at least like to think they would have likely pointed people towards something which gives at least comparable security, rather than a backdoored product.
  - TelmoMenezes 12y ago
    Suppose someone has a girlfriend who is a vegetarian chef. She was kidnapped. The kidnappers forced her to make a phone call saying that everything is fine. She says "don't forget to buy some spam". At least she could have recommended something healthy?
  - appleflaxen 12y ago
    that's the point: by recommending BitLocker, they are communicating a message to us that they are under duress.
- jeremyjh 12y ago
  Yes and recommending Bitlocker is how they are trying to tip everyone off that this message is compromised.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
    Reminiscent of Jeremiah Denton, the American prisoner of war in Vietnam, who was forced to appear before the cameras to say how well he was being treated - but used the opportunity to blink out "TORTURE" in morse code, to place those words in context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton
Spooky23 12y ago
There's alot of FUD in your statement there. BitLocker in it's "click click next" incarnation stores keys in the cloud, but it is fairly trivial to install in a manner that uses the TPM or external media for key storage. For example, NIST publishes guidelines for FIPS compliant BitLocker configuration that gives some guidlines re: the different operating modes: http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/140sp/140sp947.pdf http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/140sp/1... If you have the technical chops / willingness to download TrueCrypt, you should have the ability to spend 10 minutes googling for instructions on a customized configuration of BitLocker.
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  My point is that as it's closed source, we still don't know whether it sends the key to MS anyway (even if the user asks not to link it to their hotmail account). Given MS' complicity in PRISM, it's not a leap of trust I'm willing to make.
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    Truecrypt has been around for a decade, and only now is someone getting around to doing a real audit. The people behind Truecrypt are completely unknown, and may well be the NSA for all we know. So do you trust them?
    - runn1ng 12y ago
      I personally trust open source and audited system much more than closed-source system shipped with Windows (apparently).
      - sliverstorm 12y ago
        It isn't audited yet though.
  - skolor 12y ago
    That's a fairly trivial check to make. I would be fairly shocked to find out that people have discovered multiple sidechannel attacks against Bitlocker to leak keys out (if you have physical access to the machine while the disk is decrypted), and didn't manage to catch the fact that the key was getting sent over the network. The more plausible potential for Bitlocker being broken is that there is some subtle flaw in their crypto implementation.
mpyne 12y ago
> after PRISM People seem to keep forgetting this (I'm sure it's simply unintentional), but PRISM was and still is nothing much more than an automated warrant/NSL compliance system. You're basically saying that Microsoft is complicit in divulging information in response to specific requests made under specific legislative authorities, which was standard hat since even before Smith v. Maryland.
- GhotiFish 12y ago
  well, I can see where you're coming from, but automation changes the nature. license plates on cars wasn't a big deal, it was primarily used to identify stolen cars and track drivers breaking the law. Then automation entered the picture and it became feasible to track the movements of everyone, aggregate it in a huge database, and claim "they might be criminals later". PRISM is more of the same, they could of compelled Microsoft to do this long before, of course, but PRISM is one of those compromise everything initiatives. Meaning that even if the possibility existed before, it definitely exists now. so it's not unjustified bringing it up.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    But here automation is only automating the hard part (doing the collection correctly and in accordance with company policies). Remember, with PRISM each and every request has to be approved by the company in question before it proceeds, which is still a manual step. So the license plate reader example doesn't apply directly; Rather it might be like a license plate reader that only works when activated by a remote magistrate, only for the one car permitted by that activation, but can continue scanning that one car's license plate from then on wherever it's seen in the city until the permission expires.
    - GhotiFish 12y ago
      huh. I thought they had to justify the inquiry to prisms database, not justify collection itself. Are you sure it's the later, and not the former?

MichaelGG 12y ago

A screenshot that says "We have the recovery key", but zero indication of how they got it? The previous slide could not possibly be something related to dumping RAM, could it? Or perhaps an optional Microsoft-account feature to back up your encryption keys. Something that most normal users would want, just like they want it on Apple devices? Because a lot of common users aren't going to want FDE if it means "oh and lose your key and say goodbye to your data". As far as I know, there's only been speculation on what PRISM is. Nothing that suggests it couldn't be a frontend to CALEA or warrant-based systems.

blueskin_ 12y ago
No, bitlocker explicitly send the key to MS for non-domain systems - as such, I would guess it potentially still does for those on a domain too, it'd just be kept quieter. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-recovery-keys-faq http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-recov... Bitlocker is not trustworthy as an overall method of FDE.
- weinzierl 12y ago
  Your link says "There are several locations in which your BitLocker recovery key might have been saved." and then mentions "Your Microsoft account online.". Do you know under which conditions this happens?
  - blueskin_ 12y ago
    At least when it is enabled in Windows 8 with a computer linked to a hotmail account, but I would never rule out other conditions too.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- eli 12y ago
  That's an optional feature -- it asks you if you want to backup your key to your online account.
  - blueskin_ 12y ago
    So you know that if you click 'no', it definitely isn't sent anyway (perhaps with some "MS/NSA use only" bit set to distinguish it from user-accessible ones)? Thought not.
    - eli 12y ago
      You previously said it "definitely sends your recovery key to MS." Sounds like you don't actually mean that. It's fine and perfectly reasonable not to trust closed-source code, but no reason to spread half-truths about it.
      - blueskin_ 12y ago
        The very ability to send it to MS is worrying; doing it automatically is more so. If they were honest about the key, it'd say "put this on a flash drive/hardcopy in a safe deposit box".
        eropple 12y ago
        Lift with your knees, not your back. Those goalposts are heavy.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        MichaelGG 12y ago
        You'd make an amazing PM. "Hey, how should we deal with resetting people's passwords and keys when they forget them?" "Tell them to get a safe deposit box" "And when they're traveling or really need a report and the bank's closed? "They shouldn't have lost their keys. Stupid lusers."
nitrogen 12y ago
As far as I know, there's only been speculation on what PRISM is. Nothing that suggests it couldn't be a frontend to CALEA or warrant-based systems. Subsequent Snowden releases made it clear that thdatee NSA has many sources of information that are only "legal" because they said so, including intra-datacenter and international fiber taps, zero day exploits, and physically modified equipment (see photos of network gear being intercepted and bugged). In other words, this paragraph might have been reasonable a year ago, but is now grossly out of date
- superuser2 12y ago
  None of that was part of PRISM.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    Let's assume that when people say "PRISM" they mean "digital espionage", and when people say "NSA", they also mean CIA, NRO, FBI, DEA, etc.

NicoJuicy 12y ago

Would this be a Lavabit-like situation? The governement asking for a backdoor and the developers are refusing it. Suddenly (while there is an audit), they quit everything, change the assemblies and the website, so users can get to another product... It seems weird that after 10 years of hard-work, they suddenly quit without further explanation.

blueskin_ 12y ago
If so, I would at least like to think they would have likely pointed people towards something which gives at least comparable security, rather than a backdoored product.
- TelmoMenezes 12y ago
  Suppose someone has a girlfriend who is a vegetarian chef. She was kidnapped. The kidnappers forced her to make a phone call saying that everything is fine. She says "don't forget to buy some spam". At least she could have recommended something healthy?
- appleflaxen 12y ago
  that's the point: by recommending BitLocker, they are communicating a message to us that they are under duress.
jeremyjh 12y ago
Yes and recommending Bitlocker is how they are trying to tip everyone off that this message is compromised.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
  Reminiscent of Jeremiah Denton, the American prisoner of war in Vietnam, who was forced to appear before the cameras to say how well he was being treated - but used the opportunity to blink out "TORTURE" in morse code, to place those words in context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton

Spooky23 12y ago

There's alot of FUD in your statement there. BitLocker in it's "click click next" incarnation stores keys in the cloud, but it is fairly trivial to install in a manner that uses the TPM or external media for key storage. For example, NIST publishes guidelines for FIPS compliant BitLocker configuration that gives some guidlines re: the different operating modes: http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/140sp/140sp947.pdf http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/140sp/1... If you have the technical chops / willingness to download TrueCrypt, you should have the ability to spend 10 minutes googling for instructions on a customized configuration of BitLocker.

blueskin_ 12y ago
My point is that as it's closed source, we still don't know whether it sends the key to MS anyway (even if the user asks not to link it to their hotmail account). Given MS' complicity in PRISM, it's not a leap of trust I'm willing to make.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  Truecrypt has been around for a decade, and only now is someone getting around to doing a real audit. The people behind Truecrypt are completely unknown, and may well be the NSA for all we know. So do you trust them?
  - runn1ng 12y ago
    I personally trust open source and audited system much more than closed-source system shipped with Windows (apparently).
    - sliverstorm 12y ago
      It isn't audited yet though.
- skolor 12y ago
  That's a fairly trivial check to make. I would be fairly shocked to find out that people have discovered multiple sidechannel attacks against Bitlocker to leak keys out (if you have physical access to the machine while the disk is decrypted), and didn't manage to catch the fact that the key was getting sent over the network. The more plausible potential for Bitlocker being broken is that there is some subtle flaw in their crypto implementation.

mpyne 12y ago

> after PRISM People seem to keep forgetting this (I'm sure it's simply unintentional), but PRISM was and still is nothing much more than an automated warrant/NSL compliance system. You're basically saying that Microsoft is complicit in divulging information in response to specific requests made under specific legislative authorities, which was standard hat since even before Smith v. Maryland.

GhotiFish 12y ago
well, I can see where you're coming from, but automation changes the nature. license plates on cars wasn't a big deal, it was primarily used to identify stolen cars and track drivers breaking the law. Then automation entered the picture and it became feasible to track the movements of everyone, aggregate it in a huge database, and claim "they might be criminals later". PRISM is more of the same, they could of compelled Microsoft to do this long before, of course, but PRISM is one of those compromise everything initiatives. Meaning that even if the possibility existed before, it definitely exists now. so it's not unjustified bringing it up.
- mpyne 12y ago
  But here automation is only automating the hard part (doing the collection correctly and in accordance with company policies). Remember, with PRISM each and every request has to be approved by the company in question before it proceeds, which is still a manual step. So the license plate reader example doesn't apply directly; Rather it might be like a license plate reader that only works when activated by a remote magistrate, only for the one car permitted by that activation, but can continue scanning that one car's license plate from then on wherever it's seen in the city until the permission expires.
  - GhotiFish 12y ago
    huh. I thought they had to justify the inquiry to prisms database, not justify collection itself. Are you sure it's the later, and not the former?