Collaborate Disseminate
The ISO has rejected two symmetric encryption algorithms: SIMON and SPECK. These algorithms were both designed by the NSA and made public in 2013. They are optimized for small and low-cost processors like IoT devices. The risk of using NSA-designed ciphers, of course, is that they include NSA-designed backdoors. Personally, I doubt that they’re backdoored. And I always like seeing… Continue reading Two NSA Algorithms Rejected by the ISO
For over a decade, civil libertarians have been fighting government mass surveillance of innocent Americans over the Internet. We’ve just lost an important battle. On January 18, President Trump signed the renewal of Section 702, domestic mass surveill… Continue reading After Section 702 Reauthorization
For over a decade, civil libertarians have been fighting government mass surveillance of innocent Americans over the Internet. We’ve just lost an important battle. On January 18, President Trump signed the renewal of Section 702, domestic mass surveillance became effectively a permanent part of US law. Section 702 was initially passed in 2008, as an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence… Continue reading After Section 702 Reauthorization
Edward Snowden and Nathan Freitas have created an Android app that detects when it’s being tampered with. The basic idea is to put the app on a second phone and put the app on or near something important, like your laptop. The app can then text you — … Continue reading Tamper-Detection App for Android
Edward Snowden and Nathan Freitas have created an Android app that detects when it’s being tampered with. The basic idea is to put the app on a second phone and put the app on or near something important, like your laptop. The app can then text you — and also record audio and video — when something happens around it:… Continue reading Tamper-Detection App for Android
The ISO has decided not to approve two NSA-designed block encryption algorithms: Speck and Simon. It’s because the NSA is not trusted to put security ahead of surveillance: A number of them voiced their distrust in emails to one another, seen by Reuters, and in written comments that are part of the process. The suspicions stem largely from internal NSA… Continue reading ISO Rejects NSA Encryption Algorithms
According to a recently declassified report obtained under FOIA, the NSA’s attempts to protect itself against insider attacks aren’t going very well: The N.S.A. failed to consistently lock racks of servers storing highly classified data and to secure data center machine rooms, according to the report, an investigation by the Defense Department’s inspector general completed in 2016. […] The agency… Continue reading NSA Insider Security Post-Snowden
There’s something going on inside the intelligence communities in at least two countries, and we have no idea what it is. Consider these three data points. One: someone, probably a country’s intelligence organization, is dumping massive amounts of cyberattack tools belonging to the NSA onto the Internet. Two: someone else, or maybe the same someone, is doing the same thing… Continue reading Who is Publishing NSA and CIA Secrets, and Why?
The New York Times reports that Uber developed apps that identified and blocked government regulators using the app to find evidence of illegal behavior: Yet using its app to identify and sidestep authorities in places where regulators said the company was breaking the law goes further in skirting ethical lines — and potentially legal ones, too. Inside Uber, some of… Continue reading Uber Uses Ubiquitous Surveillance to Identify and Block Regulators
The Intercept has a long article on the relationship between Palantir Technologies and the NSA, based on the Snowden documents…. Continue reading Palantir and the NSA