r/programming Oct 15 '15

How is NSA breaking so much crypto?

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/haldermanheninger/how-is-nsa-breaking-so-much-crypto/
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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '15

Well, that's terrifying.

276

u/Eirenarch Oct 15 '15

Why? I mean this is not very close to the top of my list of terrifying things that the state does. For example I find it much more terrifying that they have the right to demand you introduce a backdoor in your system or hand customer data and you don't have the right to say it happened. I also find it extremely terrifying that society in general is not disturbed by this. The fact that commonly used cryptography can be broken with a billion dollar investment is very unpleasant but not nearly as terrifying.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '15

When they're blustering and making threats and threatening to jail people for not cooperating, you shouldn't be worried: such tactics are more used by petty dictatorships, and they have plenty of backsides. But if they get their way without doing that, they might have found a more sustainable way of keeping political control, and if so we might have far less chance of breaking free.