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Re: [liberationtech] NYTimes and Guardian on NSA
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Shava Nerad <shava23(a)gmail.com> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 16:54:45 -0400 From: Shava Nerad <shava23(a)gmail.com> To: railmeat(a)gmail.com, liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] NYTimes and Guardian on NSA Reply-To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2013/04/dsclea.html Basically the regulation says, in keeping with new DHS structures, if the governor is taking a bath and can't be disturbed, and there's an emergent situation, we get to just use any DHS chain of command and communications structure to call in reinforcements however we like, so WHEE! DRONE STRIKE! Or whatever. In Massachusetts, we're actually having to pass a *law* forbidding the SWAT teams in MA from deploying drone strikes. No kidding. They at least had the good graces to ask permission rather than forgiveness. Not sure if it was directly related, but it came up in June of this year. So we're turning them down in code. No toyz, boyz. It's the implicit, not explicit, issues that are disturbing. There have been a number of issues in the US having to do with energy, food security, border security and other converging simulation scenarios that are not necessarily overlapping with cybersecurity that have been used to wedge "reforms" out of civil liberties and LE/military/prison industry/border patrol practice in recent years by waving nightmare/doomsday scenarios in front of executive and congressional folks in the same way we see "children on the Internet" used over and over again. The same sort of erosion of rights, and the same asshattery. It's not all our military, or LE, or whomever. But there does seem to be (forgive me gentlemen) a lot of unbridled testosterone out there, who think that the wargames on counters or on computers are the same things as life on the ground. They are "protecting our precious bodily fluids" as it were, and some few of the beltway companies and various contracting interests are making serious money off of all this I'm more than sure. I had a lovely chat with the head of the MA ACLU last year, when Bill Binney came to speak at MIT. I told her that conspiracy theories were just made-for-TV-drama versions of history -- all the bits resolve too neatly, and really, they make people feel safer, because they are more understandable than studying real history, which is never a finite game. Conspiracy theories are chaff thrown against the sort of thing that happens like these NSA things, which are real conspiracies, which then seem unbelievable, and people deny, and decline to take action against. Likewise, when boring Brazil-like executive orders float by tearing down checks and balances, or when folks like Binney & Co with their officerly demeaner telling us that the sky is falling in calm words respecting the Constitution and the dignity of the corps, it misses the public's conditioned response to expect excitement and bread and circuses with their conspiracies. Why did Snowden get press when Binney did not? Because Snowden was a brave, disproportional, total dumbass, and exposed himself to be assassinated and called a traitor or as Ron Paul said -- have Obama send a drone up his ass. He stole government documents, he committed espionage, he exposed things that compromised government programs. In all likelihood in most cases, deserved every bit of it, but I cringe here and there too that it came to this rather than internal and Congressional accountability -- please understand this is catastrophic that it had to come to this as an *external* reveal and is a failure of OVERSIGHT as well as internal common freaking sense -- and now it's criminal. Snowden broke the law, committed civil disobedience in such a flamboyant way we may never be able to clear it up regardless of how much the wound needed to be cleansed. And there are people here who are going to say I am a bad person for saying that. I'm not judging him (I might have made the same decisions -- it's hard to know -- God, I hope I would never ever ever be in that position! I think I'd turn inside out...). It's an assessment. It would take full on whole culture truth and reconciliation in DC to sort this out. And although I would love to see that happen, I can hardly imagine such a thing in the current climate. It's like Watergate. Should never have happened. But there really is starting to feel like some systemic rot, and we need to start laying in more and more support to the folks we know who are working on the bolstering side of this... I haven't talked to Ron Wyden for a while...hmm... Not much I can do from here though... yrs, On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 1:28 PM, Matt Johnson <railmeat(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hello Shava, > > You wrote: "...the president essentially struck down posse comitatus > in May, they won't know what you are talking about..." I don't know > what you are talking about either, but I am curious. Could you send a > link or two. > > > Thanks > -- Matt Johnson > > On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 5:00 PM, Shava Nerad <shava23(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Part of the tone is also adopted in order to wake the sleeping baby > > anti-intellectual giants either side of the pond. The smart magazines > can > > publish smart crypto articles, but mass market newspapers have to bring > > their audiences along, even the Times and Guardian. > > > > Very few stories even bother to explain what the NSA does or what its > > function in government is, which actually rather stuns me, because I find > > that when I ask the general public that question I find that most of them > > don't know what the NSA does for the government. Most of them assume it > > works for the executive branch, but for the DOJ as part of the whole > > civilian/State/FBI sort of DHS bits, because those lines are so muddied. > > (And yes, I am conflating Justice and State on purpose there because it's > > been done in conversation with The (Wo)Man on the Street.). > > > > People don't know basic civics. At all. If you tell them they should be > > upset because the military is conducting domestic surveillance, they > look at > > you like "what?" "East Germany?" you say. "Stasi?" you say. Blank > looks. > > No history. Those who do not learn from history, etc. > > > > If you tell them that they should be upset because the president > essentially > > struck down posse comitatus in May, they won't know what you are talking > > about, but if you say, "Basically, if a local SWAT team decides they need > > backup in some kind of emergency situation and they can't get hold of the > > governor to call for National Guard? They can call a local military > airbase > > for an airstrike if they want to." Then the people will decide you are > > cold stoned mad and a total tin hat. "Sherman?" you say. And if > they're > > from the south, they might go off in a rant, but they still won't relate > it > > to current affairs or do anything. But that is literally what the law > says > > in the US now. That's a bit beyond elementary civics, but it's a bit > beyond > > what the press is reporting on here too. Because the press doesn't > really > > have much literacy in elementary civics or history either. They seem to > be > > drawing mostly on marcom majors these days. > > > > This is what the "attention economy" has done to us. Our culture is a > deep, > > nutrient rich ocean, full of wonders and cthonic monsters that can eat > us. > > And we all surf. Nothing below the surf-ace is important anymore. > > > > Yay. > > > > SN > > > > On Sep 5, 2013 3:31 PM, "Richard Brooks" <rrb(a)acm.org> wrote: > >> > >> Latest articles: > >> > >> > >> > http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.htm… > >> > >> > >> > http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-secu… > >> > >> > >> I find most of this (if not all) silly. They seem shocked that the > >> NSA does cryptanalysis. It would be nice if the newspapers had > >> people with some knowledge of the domain writing articles. > >> > >> -- > >> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. > >> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: > >> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. > Unsubscribe, > >> change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at > >> companys(a)stanford.edu. > > > > > > -- > > Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. > > Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: > > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. > Unsubscribe, > > change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at > > companys(a)stanford.edu. > -- > Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. > Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at > companys(a)stanford.edu. > -- Shava Nerad shava23(a)gmail.com -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys(a)stanford.edu. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: [tor-talk] Tor users are not anonymous
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from "Carsten N." <cane(a)jondos.de> ----- Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 19:16:08 +0000 From: "Carsten N." <cane(a)jondos.de> To: tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Tor users are not anonymous Reply-To: tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org On 06.09.2013 18:55, grarpamp wrote: > Can you build, from the TC source, hash identical binaries to > the TC binaries TC distributes? No - you can not compile the TC source without modification. The source code you can download from the website doesn't compile. An analysis of Truecrypt was done by the Privacy-CD team: en: https://www.privacy-cd.org/downloads/truecrypt_7.0a-analysis-en.pdf de: https://www.privacy-cd.org/downloads/truecrypt_7.0a-analysis-de.pdf Best regards cane -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org To unsusbscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: [cryptography] regarding the NSA crypto "breakthrough"
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Tony Arcieri <bascule(a)gmail.com> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 13:21:21 -0700 From: Tony Arcieri <bascule(a)gmail.com> To: jamesd(a)echeque.com Cc: Randombit List <cryptography(a)randombit.net> Subject: Re: [cryptography] regarding the NSA crypto "breakthrough" On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 11:47 AM, James A. Donald <jamesd(a)echeque.com> wrote: > Time to generate and select new elliptic curves by an open process, > wherein any large random quantities are chosen by a non secret process, > such as searching for the appropriate value nearest a round number. > There are curves not selected by e.g. NIST with a published rationale for their selection, like Curve25519. Is there any reason why such curves can't be evaluated retroactively? http://cr.yp.to/ecdh/curve25519-20060209.pdf See in particular Theorem 2.1. -- Tony Arcieri _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Old list archives
by John Preston 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

I'm having trouble finding the list archives going back into the 90's; they're not on cpunks.org. Anyone got them?

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Re: [liberationtech] Random number generation being influenced - rumors
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Andy Isaacson <adi(a)hexapodia.org> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 12:34:54 -0700 From: Andy Isaacson <adi(a)hexapodia.org> To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Random number generation being influenced - rumors User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Reply-To: liberationtech <liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu> On Fri, Sep 06, 2013 at 10:45:46AM -0700, Joe Szilagyi wrote: > Does anyone put any stock into the rumors floating lately that the > government may have influenced Intel and/or AMD into altering in > subtle ways that CPUs handle random number generation? I keep seeing > this possible FUD floating around in comments here and there on > other articles. I agree with some of your premises, but disagree with the conclusion you seem to be drawing. Yes, it's just a fear of uncertainty. We do not have evidence, nor even a claim based on knowledge, that HWRNG backdooring has occurred. However, I claim that the fear is well founded and should be taken into account by all threat models. HWRNG is a nearly-uniquely difficult security problem to crack. By definition it is impossible to prove that a black-box HWRNG is safe. This is different from the security properties of a blackbox AES or MODMUL accelerator, which can be demonstrated to conform to a known specification. If your AES instructions don't do AES, then testing against a software implementation will show it! The AES logic unit will have a hard time leaking the AES keybits since there's nowhere nondeterministic to put them. etc. By contrast, a properly functioning HWRNG cannot be tested in a way that distinguishes it from the output of a stream cipher seeded with a backdoor key. And there's no way to test the behavior of HWRNG on an ongoing basis; even if you had a test to run, it might switch to "stream cipher mode" under the covers. This is not to say that RdRand is completely unusable. Putting RdRand entropy into a software pool implementation like /dev/urandom (or preferably, a higher-assurance multipool design like Fortuna) is a cheap way to prevent a putative backdoor from compromising your system state. Now, there is a way that we can learn that a backdoor was included; if someone does a tear-down of a HWRNG and finds circuitry that has no purpose other than being a backdoor, that would be conclusive. AFAIK nobody has tried that experiment. Weighing towards distrusting HWRNG we have the fact that NSA is reported (yesterday) to have intentionally backdoored Dual_EC_DRBG, and to have spent significant amounts of money to backdoor chip implementations, with enough success that they brag about it in administrative summaries. So, I put a lot of credence in distrusting HWRNG black box implementations. But unfortunately we need a lot more reliable entropy. A fully open source, nothing up my sleeve hardware entropy source would be a huge improvement. -andy -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys(a)stanford.edu. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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[Cryptography] Matthew Green on BULLRUN
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 15:09:27 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> To: cryptography(a)metzdowd.com Subject: [Cryptography] Matthew Green on BULLRUN X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.9.0 (GTK+ 2.24.20; x86_64-apple-darwin12.4.0) Some interesting nuggets here, including the fact that he explicitly calls out the existence of NSA's new HUMINT division that infiltrates corporations for a living. http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/09/on-nsa.html -- Perry E. Metzger perry(a)piermont.com _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Secrecy News -- 09/08/13
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Steven Aftergood <saftergood(a)fas.org> ----- Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 08:08:09 -0700 From: Steven Aftergood <saftergood(a)fas.org> To: eugen(a)leitl.org Subject: Secrecy News -- 09/08/13 Reply-To: saftergood(a)fas.org X-Mailer-LID: 1 X-Mailer-RecptId: 399049 X-Mailer-SID: 1873 X-Mailer-Sent-By: 2 Format Note: If you cannot easily read the text below, or you prefer to receive Secrecy News in another format, please reply to this email to let us know. SECRECY NEWS from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2013, Issue No. 79 September 6, 2013 Secrecy News Blog: http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/ ** TRENDS IN INTELLIGENCE SPENDING, AND MORE FROM CRS ** RESOURCES ON CONFLICT IN SYRIA FROM CRS TRENDS IN INTELLIGENCE SPENDING, AND MORE FROM CRS The rise and fall (and rise) of intelligence spending over the past three decades is traced in a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service. "Limited publicly available data suggests intelligence spending, measured in constant 2014 dollars, has roughly doubled since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and, before declines over the last three years, was almost double spending at its peak at the end of the cold war," the CRS report notes. The report does not explicitly deal with the latest disclosure of a classified intelligence budget document in the Washington Post. "Because the document leaked to the news media is classified, CRS is unable to provide a discussion of the specific detail of that budget submission." But the report provides a useful compilation of previously disclosed intelligence budget data, along with some sensible extrapolations to round out the picture. CRS also reviews proposals to restructure the intelligence budgeting process. See "Intelligence Spending and Appropriations: Issues for Congress," September 5, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R42061.pdf But any proposals to modify current intelligence budget practices face strong opposition in Congress. In its report on the FY2014 defense authorization act, the House Armed Services Committee included language to prohibit efforts by the Secretary of Defense to create a new budget account for the National Intelligence Program. (Section 924) http://gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CRPT-113hrpt102/html/CRPT-113hrpt102.htm The Committee also said that the Defense Department has been secretly maneuvering to promote a consolidated National Intelligence Program budget within the Department of Defense as a separate budget category -- a step favored by the 9/11 Commission, among others, as a way to increase clarity and accountability in intelligence spending. "The committee is concerned that the executive branch has failed to notify the appropriate congressional committees about its continuing efforts to pursue consolidation of the portion of the Department of Defense budget designated as part of the National Intelligence Program," the House report said. The Committee directed the Department of Defense to submit a report to Congress on "any planning [for future intelligence budget consolidation] that has occurred during the past two years." Some other noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following. War in Afghanistan: Campaign Progress, Political Strategy, and Issues for Congress, August 29, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R43196.pdf Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2013, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42738.pdf Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Background and Issues for Congress, September 3, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL33741.pdf Banning the Use of Racial Preferences in Higher Education: A Legal Analysis of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, September 3, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43205.pdf Wildfire Management: Federal Funding and Related Statistics, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43077.pdf U.S. Farm Income, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40152.pdf Proposed U.S.-Mexico Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement: Background and Issues for Congress, August 29, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43204.pdf Kyrgyzstan: Recent Developments and U.S. Interests, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/97-690.pdf Climate Change and Existing Law: A Survey of Legal Issues Past, Present, and Future, August 28, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42613.pdf RESOURCES ON CONFLICT IN SYRIA FROM CRS Here are some new and updated reports on the conflict in Syria prepared by the Congressional Research Service: Possible U.S. Intervention in Syria: Issues for Congress, September 3, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R43201.pdf Syria: Overview of the Humanitarian Response, September 4, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R43119.pdf Syria's Chemical Weapons: Issues for Congress, August 30, 2013: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R42848.pdf _______________________________________________ Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists. The Secrecy News Blog is at: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to: http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/subscribe/ To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/unsubscribe/ OR email your request to saftergood(a)fas.org Secrecy News is archived at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html Support the FAS Project on Government Secrecy with a donation: https://members.fas.org/donate _______________________ Steven Aftergood Project on Government Secrecy Federation of American Scientists web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html email: saftergood(a)fas.org voice: (202) 454-4691 twitter: @saftergood ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: cypherpunks Digest, Vol 3, Issue 15
by Joseph Tag 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

The govt uses red/black switches and KG-n, KIV7hs, KIV19,(boxes) and KOV9 and more PCMIA cards to protect themselves. Semiconductor firms useto make DES chips. Boeing made an MLS server. Isn't Crypto supposed to be incorporated into firmware of Routers? Yes, bribery of network managers ( personnel security and trust ) is a big concern. 576-bit Group Keys / Key Encrypting Keys interest me. Thank you. Best wishes.

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Re: [Cryptography] Opening Discussion: Speculation on "BULLRUN"
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from Benjamin Kreuter <brk7bx(a)virginia.edu> ----- Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2013 11:28:22 -0400 From: Benjamin Kreuter <brk7bx(a)virginia.edu> To: John Kelsey <crypto.jmk(a)gmail.com> Cc: Jerry Leichter <leichter(a)lrw.com>, "cryptography(a)metzdowd.com List" <cryptography(a)metzdowd.com>, Jon Callas <jon(a)callas.org>, Peter Gutmann <pgut001(a)cs.auckland.ac.nz> Subject: Re: [Cryptography] Opening Discussion: Speculation on "BULLRUN" X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.9.0 (GTK+ 2.18.9; i686-redhat-linux-gnu) On Fri, 6 Sep 2013 01:19:10 -0400 John Kelsey <crypto.jmk(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I don't see what problem would actually be solved by dropping public > key crypto in favor of symmetric only designs. I mean, if the > problem is that all public key systems are broken, then yeah, we will > have to do something else. But if the problem is bad key generation > or bad implementations, those will be with us even after we abandon > all the public key stuff. Not necessarily. A bad implementation of a block cipher will be probably spotted quickly if you need it to interoperate with a good implementation; a bad implementation of a public key cipher might interoperate just fine with good implementations. Public key systems often have parameters or requirements that affect security without affecting the correctness of encryption or decryption. ElGamal encryption might appear to work even though you are using a group where the DDH assumption does not hold. Elliptic curve systems have even more parameters that need to be set correctly for security. I am not saying that we should abandon public key cryptography, I am just saying that there a number of ways for public key systems to go wrong that do not apply to symmetric ciphers. Just my 2 cents, Ben -- Benjamin R Kreuter UVA Computer Science brk7bx(a)virginia.edu KK4FJZ -- "If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them." - George Orwell _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: [Cryptography] Opening Discussion: Speculation on "BULLRUN"
by Eugen Leitl 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

----- Forwarded message from arxlight <arxlight(a)arx.li> ----- Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 00:46:15 +0200 From: arxlight <arxlight(a)arx.li> To: cryptography(a)metzdowd.com Subject: Re: [Cryptography] Opening Discussion: Speculation on "BULLRUN" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130620 Thunderbird/17.0.7 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 What surprises me is that anyone is surprised. If you believed OpenBSD's Theo de Raadt and Gregory Perry back in late 2010, various government agencies (in this specific case the FBI- though one wonders if they were the originating agency) have been looking to introduce weaknesses wholesale into closed AND open source software and OS infrastructures for some time. Over a decade in his example. (See: http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=129236621626462&w=2) Those of us old enough might marvel at the fact that going back to the late 1980s a huge dust up was caused by the allegations that Swiss firm "Crypto AG" introduced backdoors into their products at the behest of Western (read: United States and the BND) intelligence agencies, products that, at the time, were in widespread use by foreign governments who, one presumes, could not afford to field their own national cryptology centers to protect their own infrastructure (or were just lazy and seduced by a Swiss flag on the corporate domicile of Crypto AG). For the unwashed on the list, Wikipedia (and Der Spiegel) relate the story of (probably) hapless Crypto AG salesman Hans Buehler's 1992 arrest by the Iranian authorities after those allegations came to light, and the fact that Crypto AG paid a $1m ransom for him (but then later billed him for the $1m--you stay classy, Crypto AG). (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG) But fear not. Governments and NGOs around the world will be pleased to know that Crypto AG lives on and continues to provide superior crypto and security solutions to foreign institutions of all kinds, including: "National security councils, national competence centres, e-government authorities, encryption authorities, national banks, ministries of defence, combined/joint commands, cyber commands, air forces, land forces, naval forces, special forces, military intelligence services, defence encryption authorities, ministries of foreign affairs and numerous international organisations, ministries of the interior, presidential guards, critical infrastructure authorities, homeland security authorities, intelligence services, police forces, and cyber forces." (See: http://www.crypto.ch/ - The inclusion of a shot of the Patrouille Suisse is an especially nice touch. I often drive by their offices in Steinhausen and was stunned to realize a few years ago that they are thriving- I can only imagine what the mortgage on that place costs). I expect that today many of us feel quite naive at being shocked by those penetration revelations (sorry, allegations) given that it seems highly probable now that anyone using any sort of Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube, Skype, AOL or Apple product has now been elevated to a collection priority that seemed confined to the Irans of the world in the 1990s and early 2000s. Perry wondered after the "unpardonable carelessness" of the NSA in giving 50,000 Snowden's access to a Powerpoint with all the Prism partners. I would argue that the NSA had good cause to think no one would notice or care given how many people who should know MUCH MUCH better still send Crypto AG scads of money. And going back to the days of toad.com hasn't this always been the story? Security is expensive. Most people (and some governments) are cheap. There's something about the present political climate in the United States that really interests me. Mere mention of the word "fascism" in any context other than sarcasm seems to brand one quite instantly as a tin-foil nutjob. Granted, I think the world "fascism" is as overused as the word "communism," but it bears mentioning that the usurpation of corporate entities and industry by the state to its own purposes is one of the classic tenants of fascism. I'm sure the list's readers sense where I'm going with this by now. It is hard to escape noticing that the NSA and its sister and orbital agencies have long since broken the traditional firewall and morphed themselves into domestic surveillance agencies. But the United States is late to the party here. In the world of finance it was long understood that certain state-dominated Russian firms were front-running a number of U.S. economic indicators prior to release. The rumor at the time was that this activity stopped cold after a security audit at the offending U.S. agencies. It's possible that the story was apocryphal, but I sort of doubt it. The economic intelligence apparatus of foreign intelligence services was the place to be if you wanted to find yourself in the good graces of your nation-state. (It's not an accident that Nikolay Patolichev, once the Soviet Union's Foreign Trade Minister, led the pack having been awarded the Order of Lenin twelve times). Of course, drafting otherwise independent-appearing private enterprises to the purposes of the state was popular then (the CIA would routinely interview U.S. businessmen and businesswomen after trips to jurisdictions of interest, and leverage their presence in foreign lands to their own advantage), and appears even more popular now. I won't belabor the point (made long ago and loudly by Kate Martin, only to fall upon decidedly deaf ears) that U.S. Courts generally refuse to examine the legality of collection of inculpatory evidence that is dropped into their lap- but it is important to at least acknowledge. Again, those of us shocked by those revelations (that evidence of domestic crimes "accidentally" collected by intelligence agencies would not necessarily be inadmissible) might feel awfully stupid now that it seems that the NSA expressly retains or passes on evidence of crimes unrelated to foreign intelligence activities or terrorism, and that the DEA (presumably among others) routinely engages what could fairly be called wholesale perjury to conceal the source of such evidence from courts and defense counsel when it is presented in support of criminal prosecutions. Finally returning to the original topic (please forgive the diversion) I think what is the most important element to understand is that what was once opportunistic synergy between national intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies (here the War on Drugs was clearly the camel's nose) has become Fusion Center level integration- and bilateral information flow. Don't take my word for it, just read some of the Fusion Center testimony to various congressional committees- this is their bread and butter. Whichever asshole it was who first blamed 911 on a lack of cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence did a great deal of damage to the United States, but the trend was already pressing forward. What seems even more daunting is the new path of information from the bottom up. Now that you have local law enforcement humming around in cars collecting position and "metadata" on every license plate within 20m of a cop car prowling around on its beat, federal agencies are just a "Fusion Center query" away from access to... well... nearly everything. Look at this model (local collection at local expense re-purposed to federal exploitation), basic "exception processing," and the impact of the last decade and a half of "crony capitalism" and it is suddenly pretty hard not to credit BULLRUN with far more access than is public even given the latest revelations. Certainly, I don't run the NSA, but it doesn't take much more than a middling operations professional to tell you that exception processing is the key. Attacking this stuff is a question of priorities. Though experiment: What order of difficulty would you assign: Catch it in the clear. Compromising a vendor (including keys and users passwords- which might be reused). Injecting poor RNG (with vendor cooperation). Stealing a master key. Stealing a session key. Stealing a password to master or session key. Dictionary-attacking a password. Brute-forceing a weak password. Compromising an endpoint. Compromising a physical machine. Rubber-hoseing a password. Brute-forceing a strong password. Brute-forceing a weak key. Brute-forceing a strong key. Include in your analysis the cost of bending (or breaking) constitutional protections in the post-911 era (if any). Just look at the leverage an unwieldy, all-encompassing central government has on large US based firms (See e.g. Qwest post-cooperation refusal) and reflect on the bi-lateral Fusion Center model and then try to speculate that BULLRUN is overstated. I don't think you need a major factoring breakthrough to have FANTASTIC success in accessing the vast majority of (for example) SSL "protected" internet traffic. Anyone know what the market penetration of Microsoft IIS is? No, quite the contrary. I'll be amazed to find that the NYT piece isn't UNDERstated. To coin a phrase with reference to large and medium sized Western IT firms: They're all Crypto AG now. - - uni -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (Darwin) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJSKQm3AAoJEAWtgNHk7T8QJOEQALI381nUcAHtALvqw/ac/k84 Tdn+Zd2+T54stDJPwJvOQXkeIJJKAURyhPgG+oGkXHbzjLnwTp6zpB9+et4pM5n7 PRc8X/9fAF8+X8EzDwQA90wYEZaAaSmnnaXi034faw0kKw0T0EDenDBgJ6J9fHGa DtsQECUlYenj2Evm0cY60Uz52/zJcXryWS5vRS4IU+i4ELCC3CbY6cX3MAT6Y6jc reh1B8Wf1fbmaXYR5Ws+Dd5VE4+9T2VkB2MZQN9T+/NbS9abe+lFVZkqjNx28RT4 OHC9VVqG0rGgn3a7tiLY2StmPSIxyV08LRmoz89CU0smdjb8pZDc+08V29anIH+Q E6xo+pJdc+SF34wHurCBRYqeH4TLowB2Bl/pLQ05FUFCcj6bIGO1lwf5sHaPpsKU 3mAC4HnQwlgd61epbLVbNcltp40nz5Soz/tfyyRM2T2VNdkxcriJUezKQRwu+t6d pCbQow9KEpcrdL3TlaQgcvNH0btU5HRnz7EJSrctL+FfZBKUj4jcRCUgASt6gRBd cnrzFcFAYoSgBBR/wJBxUATpzxMl+xZ74zPKJPdaIiA0XPd1F9ZIUe+mzDL+IxHT b08+gUgME9OMpjwToSkoopYL02AkK/GRirC14C2cXieC8JwjrevIoBQmCLUutNK6 XC4sOGrFZ7Z37sXL+1jT =4NbV -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography(a)metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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