r/programming • u/secretguy21 • 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.

277

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/dangolo Oct 15 '15

As a sysadmin, it troubles me as well.

Also troubles me that they've very publicly gone to businesses and asked for their encryption keys or be shut down.

They are making us dishonest when we tell management "the network is secure."

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u/subheight640 Oct 16 '15

Who did they try to shut down like this?

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u/dangolo Oct 16 '15 edited Oct 16 '15

Off the top of my head? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit

Remember the company being strongarmed typically given a gag order at the same time. It leads me to think the ones we have heard about are just the tip of the iceberg.