Schneier on Security

ECI • September 19, 2013 4:39 PM

Part of me agrees with many others here in that NSA is a rogue organization beyond the reach of lawmakers that needs to be reigned in by some serious reforms. However, the other half of me is more practical and less conspiratorial and realizes that the functions it serves are most certainly vital to national security. Ask any intelligence expert and they will tell you that SIGINT is, by far, the most reliable form of intelligence. This is likely why the NSA’s budget has surpassed the CIA’s (HUMINT) in recent years.

Just look at Obama for a moment. During his campaign in 2007-2008, he was just as much of a critic of Bush’s “unwarranted wiretaps” as anyone in the media. He said (and lied) that he would vote against telecom immunity. His opinions on the matter and his criticisms of NSA pretty much mirrored what people like Bruce are saying now.

Then he gets elected and his entire opinion on the matter apparently changes overnight. So, what happened? It’s simple really: as candidate Obama he was not “in the know,” but once he got into office and started hearing all of these classified briefings he had an “oh shit, so that’s how things really are” moment. He has even said as much publicly. For instance, when he was in Sweden after the Snowden story broke, various European reporters asked him about the NSA “scandal.” Obama basically said “If you knew what I knew, you would support these programs too.”

The problem I think we have in today’s world is that technology is no longer partitioned. During the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, for example, NSA ran the same type of sabotage programs against various crypto implementations. However, back then they could target specific crypto “machines” without having to worry too much about infringing on the privacy of Americans or citizens of closely allied nations.

Crypto AG is probably the best example of this. It was one of NSA’s most classified projects and led to a treasure trove of intelligence all throughout the 80’s. NSA (along with Germany’s BND) had rigged the machines so that when the ciphertext was transmitted, it also transmitted the key along with it. The only reason these backdoors were ever made public is because certain people in Congress couldn’t keep their mouths shut and told the media about various intelligence that was gleaned from this operation. Foreign governments (specifically Iran) put two and two together and realized that the information being reported in the press had to have come from their encrypted communications which led them to the obvious conclusion that their machines had been compromised. The Iranians even kidnapped a Crypto AG employee and held him for ransom. Fascinating reporting about this whole incident here: http://www.meta-religion.com/Secret_societies/Conspiracies/CIA/crypto_ag.htm

Now I think most of us here today would say “good job, NSA, you were able to tap the communications of some of America’s biggest threats.” The difference today is there aren’t really any more specific crypto machines — everyone everywhere uses the same technology (namely the Internet). So what is the NSA to do? In a perfect world they would backdoor everyone’s communications except that of Americans and its close allies. The problem is everyone, everywhere (both good and bad) uses the same crypto implementations on the Internet. NSA is left with no choice but to backdoor us all. It is technically impossible just to tap “part” of the Internet or to break SSL just for the Iranians or North Koreans and not American citizens. It just doesn’t work that way, as I am sure all of you here understand.

So, what would you suggest? NSA stop collecting intelligence? If not, then how do you propose they only “tap” part of the Internet? How do you propose they only break the crypto of the enemy whilst keeping American crypto strong? Remember, export laws wont work in today’s Internet age — once something “strong” is out there, the enemy will immediately have access to it. So, if any of you have any ideas, I am sure NSA’s thousands of engineers, scientists, and cryptologists would like to hear your brilliant analysis of how to achieve perfect secrecy for American communications whilst also being able to tap foreign communications.

This is why none of these NSA leaks come as a surprise to me. As James Clapper said “The fact NSA works to break cryptography is not news.” It’s common sense really. If NIST releases strong crypto standards, the enemy is going to be using them too. There is simply no way to restrict this technology and keep it confined. This is why I have always been highly skeptical as to the strength of publicly “accepted” standards that are pushed on us by NIST (a front for NSA). The only question is which of these standards are still strong, which have been backdoored, and how was it done? Is it a flaw with the ciphers, a flaw with the protocols, a flaw somewhere else? Is it a backdoor in Windows, a backdoor in Intel? Sadly, the answer is likely “all of the above.”

So, if I worked for NSA, I would do precisely what they are doing. I can’t blame them — they are, after all, in the business of gathering as much intelligence as possible. If anyone is to be blamed it should be Congress and/or the FISA court. The problem is even the “oversight” is highly classified and thus we in the public are forced to merely “trust” those in the know to conduct the proper checks and balances. NSA spying is not going to go away — we have to accept that. The only thing we can ask for is more transparency from the oversight process. But that in itself is a double-edged sword. If you allow too much transparency, then no doubt someone somewhere is going to leak classified information.

Now, it’s tin-foil-hat time:

One thing that has always made me somewhat suspicious about the NIST “open” competitions is how both the AES cipher and SHA-3 hash function were created by the same people (Joan Daemen was on both teams). Even though Daemen is Belgian, if you look at where he works (STMicroelectronics), you will see that its headquarters are in, you guessed it, Switzerland. The same Switzerland that was home to Crypto AG and the same Switzerland that has a secret agreement with America to only “pretend” to be neutral (goes back to a deal signed when Truman was in office).

And if you look at what other cryptographers have said about AES specifically, you will see that they are suspicious of its security (though none deny that its performance is exceptional). Bruce said he had reservations about Rijndael in his 2003 book “Practical Cryptography.” Even though he thinks AES is not breakable in any practical sense, he has reasons to be a bit suspicious of its theoretical security. Others have said the same thing, especially the XSL people who have described Rijndael’s exceptionally simple algebraic structure. I really do think they are onto something with this, even though people like Coppersmith (a former IBM cryptographer who knew about “differential cryptanalysis” back in the 70’s and chose to keep it secret at the request of NSA) have tried to downplay it. Others have remarked on its very questionable key-schedule.

Does NSA know something about AES’s potential weaknesses that the public doesn’t? I would place a pretty large bet that they do. They have been at the crypto game longer, have more people studying these problems full-time, and have techniques for cryptanalysis that are classified. Does this mean they have some marvelous technique to quickly recover plaintext via a ciphertext-only attack (COA)? Maybe not. Or maybe that’s exactly the “breakthrough” Bamford was talking about it his Wired article last year and perhaps it’s the same “breakthrough” Clapper was talking about in his budget requests to Congress (as leaked by Snowden). Bamford’s undisclosed sources seem to corroborate the Snowden leaks.

My bet is still on the notion they have broken public-keys somehow, though.

*tin-foil-hat removed**

In any case, it shouldn’t matter what they have or haven’t broken from cryptanalysis as it is pretty clear from the documents that they have rigged the game from the start, just as they did with Crypto AG.

ECI • September 20, 2013 7:11 AM

@aaaaa

Now, Germany and France and Iceland and Finland and other Western Countries bugged presidential office would be stronger argument.
I strongly doubt that Americans would be cool if it would be revealed that Brazilia listens Obamas phone cools. There would be huge outrage and possible threats to Brazilia.

I wouldn’t really care if Brazil spied on American politicians. I would look at it as a lapse in their security and a problem for them to fix. I think any rational person knows that most everyone spies on everyone (if they have the resources). Governments have always done this and it’s nothing new. The difference now is how easy it is not just to monitor foreign governments but average citizens. And the surveillance of average citizens is what most people here are concerned about.

Also, this attitude that only Americans deserve rights and protections is seriously troubling.

I never said anything of the sort. All I said is that the 4th amendment only applies to American citizens — NSA doesn’t have to obtain a warrant to spy abroad. And I seriously doubt foreign intelligence services need a warrant to spy on Americans. It works both ways here.

And I agree that the people being held by the USG on suspected terrorism charges should have long ago either had a trial or released.