How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades - Washington Post
On 2/11/20, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-cry...
CryptoAG known corrupt for ages... https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-12-10-1995344001-story.html https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-9088423.html https://web.archive.org/web/20130902003901/https://ciphermachines.com/hageli... https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33676028 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/11/crypto-ag-cia-bnd-germany-in... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963 #OpenFabs , #OpenHW , #OpenSW , #OpenAudit Very simple concept, shame nobody's brain adopted it yet. Remember attempts: Lavabit, TrueCrypt, Clipper, ... In related news from the completely untrustable HW and SW dept... https://source.android.com/security/keystore https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=15755300&cid=59716026 https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/facebook-whatsapp-puts-allen-and-co-back-i... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sprint-corp-m-a-t-mobile/t-mobile-sprint-... https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-officials-say-huawei-can-covertly-access-te... https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/11/21133272/microsoft-windows-10x-windows-up... https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/02/11/1548223/samsung-unveils-galaxy-s2... https://comsecuris.com/blog/posts/path_of_least_resistance/ " Now one can see where they got the idea to push the clipper chip and trusted platform computing. The Intel Management Engine is just a giant crypto breaking internet backdoor built into every Intel CPU running alterable encrypted proprietary code that only intel knows about. It also makes you wonder about those unsubstantiated reports of microchips with backdoors in the SuperMicro boards. Allegedy a chinese operation but maybe CIA? or Maybe China doing the same. You can see why the CIA might have wanted to keep that quiet even if china were doing it just to keep people from peering elsewhere. And, admittedly a stretch, all the sidechannel timing attacks on Intel chips might be another ploy to put in a deliberate but hard to find backdoor. The fact that AMD's are just as fast without these operations is indicative that there were other ways to solve the same look-ahead speculative execution challenge. And finally the fact that the secure compartment operations on intel have turned out to be hackable too. If your going to call someting "secure" I think you want to start with something provably secure unless of course that was the point. "
On 12/02/2020 00:38, grarpamp wrote: Remember attempts: Lavabit, TrueCrypt, Clipper, ... Not to dismiss your point at all but, unless you know for sure otherwise, I think it most likely that TrueCrypt's strange demise was nothing to do with the government and more to do with the authors getting full time, well paying jobs, families, and so on, and simply not having the time or personal motivation to continue developing TrueCrypt. Additionally, TC had reached something of a technical crunch point with regards to GPT and EFI booting and a general need for updating. These problems have since been solved with VeraCrypt (thanks to Mounir Idrassi and all who have contributed) but it seems pretty clear that the TC devs just didn't have the time/interest any more. The abrupt and strange nature of their termination of TC certainly raised eyebrows and stoked suspicious but I don't think it was suspicious. They'd just moved on.
participants (3)
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Comet Dweller -
grarpamp -
jim bell