Security quotes of the week

In short, given everything known today about the possible potential of quantum computers, it is already possible to do all the sorts of things we do with cryptography today in a way that is secure against future adversaries with quantum computers. Unfortunately, "Quantum Computing Not Really A Big Deal For Security" doesn't make for a very good magazine article.

Overall, we've been doing a pretty good job at teaching US-based law enforcement about Tor. At the end of the conference, one of the FBI agents took me aside and asked "surely you have *some* sort of way of tracking your users?" When I pointed at various of his FBI colleagues in the room who had told me they use Tor every day for their work, and asked if he'd be comfortable if we had a way of tracing *them*, I think he got it.

The whole idea that we're now allowing countries with horrid human rights records, and with little to no experience in supporting innovation-enabling technologies, to control direction of these discussions suggests that the entire ITU process is broken beyond belief.

Governments around the world continue to eye the Internet and the open communications it fosters to be primarily a threat, with its technology ripe for surveillance, and its users to be controlled, censored, flogged, imprisoned, and even worse. The ITU's newfound fetish for DPI -- Deep Packet Inspection -- makes the wet dreams of tyrants and others in this sphere all the more explicit.

These dynamics are continuing going forward. The risks of Internet censorship, fragmentation, and other severe damage to the Internet we've worked so hard to build will continue to be exacerbated, despite our holding the ITU pretty much at bay this time around.