GUADEC: Danny O'Brien on privacy, encryption, and the desktop

Posted Aug 4, 2010 15:57 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
Parent article: GUADEC: Danny O'Brien on privacy, encryption, and the desktop

One thing to remember is that proprietary providers of encryption may have been subverted. One example is the Swiss firm Crypto AG, which sold crypto gear to all comers back in the 1980s. The NSA managed to install a back door, which allowed them to read Libyan encrypted communications. Right now Saudi Arabia and the UAE are planning to ban the Blackberry because they don't have access to encrypted messages, but for all we know the NSA might already have their hooks into RIM.

GUADEC: Danny O'Brien on privacy, encryption, and the desktop

Posted Aug 4, 2010 16:16 UTC (Wed) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link] (3 responses)

I had thought RIM was Canadian. Instead of the NSA, it is probably the evil Canadian secret agencies reading the Blackberry's email.

Those Canadian agencies are so secret that I've never even heard of them. They must be good, eh?

GUADEC: Danny O'Brien on privacy, encryption, and the desktop

Posted Aug 4, 2010 16:30 UTC (Wed) by ofeeley (guest, #36105) [Link] (1 responses)

The manin equivalent would be CSEC. But of course post-911 there's been a flowering of establishments apparently devoted to spying on everything and everyone. FINTRAC is one of newish Canadian spy agencies. It recently got into trouble with the privacy commissioner for having too little governance and accountability w.r.t. privacy.

GUADEC: Danny O'Brien on privacy, encryption, and the desktop

Posted Aug 6, 2010 16:45 UTC (Fri) by ofeeley (guest, #36105) [Link]

s/manin/main/

GUADEC: Danny O'Brien on privacy, encryption, and the desktop

Posted Aug 5, 2010 5:43 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Crypto AG was Swiss, which didn't stop the NSA from effectively taking them over. They could have their hooks into RIM, maybe with or maybe without the Canadian government's cooperation.

GUADEC: Danny O'Brien on privacy, encryption, and the desktop

Posted Aug 4, 2010 20:27 UTC (Wed) by klbrun (subscriber, #45083) [Link] (1 responses)

I think that France decided not to use RIM for government communications because they discovered the NSA was listening in.

GUADEC: Danny O'Brien on privacy, encryption, and the desktop

Posted Aug 7, 2010 13:18 UTC (Sat) by Trou.fr (subscriber, #26289) [Link]

No, this is not true. Blackberries are forbidden because they are not _sufficient guarantees_ that the communications are secure, which is a completely different statement than "NSA is listening to it".