* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Top 5 entertainment news: Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming Animal’s runtime by 7-8 minutes, Akshay Ku – Times of India

    Top 5 Entertainment Highlights: Sandeep Reddy Vanga Reveals Why He Trimmed Animal’s Runtime by 7-8 Minutes, Plus Akshay Ku Updates

    Cote de Pablo reveals how Michael Weatherly used his soap opera roots to put her at ease in “NCIS” love scene – yahoo.com

    Cote de Pablo Reveals How Michael Weatherly’s Soap Opera Background Made Their “NCIS” Love Scene Easier

    City of Pelham announces entertainment district plans for former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre site – WVTM

    Pelham Unveils Exciting New Entertainment District Plans for Former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre Site

    Black Box Players presents ‘The Three Musketeers’ – CBS 19 News

    Experience the Adventure: Black Box Players Bring ‘The Three Musketeers’ to Life!

    AP Entertainment SummaryBrief at 1:51 p.m. EDT – Channel 3000

    Entertainment Highlights: Key Updates You Can’t Miss

    ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ casts Anne Hathaway’s love interest replacing Adrian Grenier’s Nate – Entertainment Weekly

    Devil Wears Prada 2′ Casts New Love Interest for Anne Hathaway, Replacing Adrian Grenier’s Nate

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology

    Eagle Unveils Revolutionary X-Ray Technology at Pack Expo

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Behind the Screens: The Impact of Technology on Real Estate – TRREB

    Behind the Screens: How Technology is Transforming the Future of Real Estate

    Sustainserv and Palau Announce Technology Partnership to Leverage Innovative AI Platform to Advance Sustainability Reporting – Business Wire

    Sustainserv and Palau Team Up to Transform Sustainability Reporting with Breakthrough AI Technology

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Top 5 entertainment news: Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming Animal’s runtime by 7-8 minutes, Akshay Ku – Times of India

    Top 5 Entertainment Highlights: Sandeep Reddy Vanga Reveals Why He Trimmed Animal’s Runtime by 7-8 Minutes, Plus Akshay Ku Updates

    Cote de Pablo reveals how Michael Weatherly used his soap opera roots to put her at ease in “NCIS” love scene – yahoo.com

    Cote de Pablo Reveals How Michael Weatherly’s Soap Opera Background Made Their “NCIS” Love Scene Easier

    City of Pelham announces entertainment district plans for former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre site – WVTM

    Pelham Unveils Exciting New Entertainment District Plans for Former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre Site

    Black Box Players presents ‘The Three Musketeers’ – CBS 19 News

    Experience the Adventure: Black Box Players Bring ‘The Three Musketeers’ to Life!

    AP Entertainment SummaryBrief at 1:51 p.m. EDT – Channel 3000

    Entertainment Highlights: Key Updates You Can’t Miss

    ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ casts Anne Hathaway’s love interest replacing Adrian Grenier’s Nate – Entertainment Weekly

    Devil Wears Prada 2′ Casts New Love Interest for Anne Hathaway, Replacing Adrian Grenier’s Nate

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology

    Eagle Unveils Revolutionary X-Ray Technology at Pack Expo

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Behind the Screens: The Impact of Technology on Real Estate – TRREB

    Behind the Screens: How Technology is Transforming the Future of Real Estate

    Sustainserv and Palau Announce Technology Partnership to Leverage Innovative AI Platform to Advance Sustainability Reporting – Business Wire

    Sustainserv and Palau Team Up to Transform Sustainability Reporting with Breakthrough AI Technology

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Technology

A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into encrypted data (2016)

February 3, 2024
in Technology
A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into encrypted data (2016)
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

A government agent uses an NSA IBM 360/85 console in 1971 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/NSA).

It’s been a weird week for America’s most valuable company—a firm whose tech products have such consumer goodwill they got away with forcing us to listen to U2—who is poised to go to court against its own government over its users’ right to privacy. The government is invoking an obscure law dating back almost to the founding of the country to force the company to comply. It’d be a pretty good movie.

But it’s just the most dramatic flare-up in a lengthy battle between government officials, cybersecurity experts, and the tech industry over how consumer’s technical data is protected, and whether or not the government has a right to access that information.

In fact, the government has actually won this fight before—secretly. 

Throughout 2015, U.S. politicians and law enforcement officials such as FBI director James Comey have publicly lobbied for the insertion of cryptographic “backdoors” into software and hardware to allow law enforcement agencies to bypass authentication and access a suspect’s data surreptitiously. Cybersecurity experts have unanimously condemned the idea, pointing out that such backdoors would fundamentally undermine encryption and could exploited by criminals, among other issues. While a legal mandate or public agreement would be needed to allow evidence obtained via backdoors to be admissible in court, the NSA has long attempted—and occasionally succeeded—in placing backdoors for covert activities.

An Enigma machine at Bletchley Park, long-rumored to be one of the first backdoored devices (Photo: Flickr/Adam Foster).

One of the most important developments in cryptography was the Enigma machine, famously used to encode Nazi communications during World War II. For years, rumors have persisted that the NSA (then SSA) and their British counterparts in the Government Communications Headquarters collaborated with the Enigma’s manufacturer, Crypto AG, to place backdoors into Enigma machines provided to certain countries after World War II. Crypto AG has repeatedly denied the allegations, and in 2015 the BBC sifted through 52,000 pages of declassified NSA documents to find the truth.

The investigation revealed that while no backdoors were placed in the machines, there was a “gentlemen’s agreement” that Crypto AG would keep American and British intelligence appraised of “the technical specifications of different machines and which countries were buying which ones,” allowing analysts to decrypt messages much more quickly. Consider it a security “doggy-door.”

Next, in 1993, the NSA promoted “Clipper chips,” which were intended to protect private communications while still allowing law enforcement to access them. In 1994, researcher Matt Blaze uncovered significant vulnerabilities in the “key escrow” system that allowed law enforcement access, essentially making the chips useless. By 1996, Clipper chips were defunct, as the tech industry adopted more secure, open encryption standards such as PGP.

In more recent years, the NSA was unequivocally caught inserting a backdoor into the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm, a cryptographic algorithm that was supposed to generate random bit keys for encrypting data. The algorithm, developed in the early aughts, was championed by the NSA and included in NIST Special Publication 800-90, the official standard for random-number generators released in 2007. Within a matter of months, researchers discovered the backdoor, and awareness that the algorithm was insecure quickly spread, although it continued to be implemented in consumer software Windows Vista. What was really odd, as crypto expert Bruce Schneier explained in a 2007 essay published in Wired, was that Dual_EC_DRBG wasn’t even worth the NSA’s effort:

It makes no sense as a trap door: It’s public, and rather obvious. It makes no sense from an engineering perspective: It’s too slow for anyone to willingly use it. And it makes no sense from a backwards-compatibility perspective: Swapping one random-number generator for another is easy.

A Chipper clip—one of the NSA’s unsuccessful backdoor attempts (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Travis Goodspeed).

Although the NSA’s effort puzzled crypto experts, documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 proved that the NSA did indeed build a backdoor into Dual_EC_DRBG and paid RSA, a computer security company, to include the compromised algorithm in its software.

These are the incidents that have been proven. There are, of course, numerous theories and insinuations that the NSA has made many more efforts along these lines—from backdoors in Lotus Notes to persistent allegations that Microsoft routinely includes backdoors in its software. Additionally, the Snowden leak proved that the NSA is constantly working to decrypt common encryption standards.

As our lives become more and more dominated by the digital, security experts have become increasingly vocal in their calls for truly secure encryption, and some governments have begun to listen. Holland’s government has agreed not to use backdoors and support open encryption standards, and despite calls to do so in response to the Paris terrorist attacks, France refuses to implement a backdoor mandate. Even former NSA director Michael Hayden has said that backdoors are a bad idea (and he would know). As Apple vs. FBI wends its way through the courts, we are probably far from the end of this public battle. Whatever the results of this landmark case, the NSA’s classified efforts to subvert cryptography will likely continue.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Hacker News – https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-nsa-attempting-to-insert-backdoors-into-encrypted-data

Tags: briefhistory’technology
Previous Post

Researchers uncover potential non-opioid treatment for chronic pain in mice

Next Post

The New Alienware Aurora R16 Intel Core i9-14900K RTX 4090 Gaming PC Is on Sale at Dell

Yellowstone aspen showing signs of recovery following 1995 reintroduction of wolves to park – Oregon State University

Yellowstone Aspen Thriving Again Years After Wolves Were Reintroduced

July 26, 2025
CMC trustees approve new biological science bachelor’s degree – KUNC

CMC Trustees Approve Exciting New Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Sciences

July 26, 2025
By cutting science, the Defense Department is eating its seed corn – Defense News

Cutting Science Funding: How the Defense Department Is Jeopardizing Tomorrow’s Innovation

July 26, 2025
Opinion | Lifestyle Interventions Should Not be Replaced by GLP-1s – MedPage Today

Why Lifestyle Changes Must Stay the Cornerstone-Not GLP-1s

July 26, 2025
World’s most premature baby celebrates first birthday – The Guardian

World’s most premature baby celebrates first birthday – The Guardian

July 26, 2025
Idaho’s first geological engineering degree to power workforce, economy – Bonner County Daily Bee

Idaho Launches Its First Geological Engineering Degree to Boost Workforce and Drive Economic Growth

July 26, 2025
Top 5 entertainment news: Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming Animal’s runtime by 7-8 minutes, Akshay Ku – Times of India

Top 5 Entertainment Highlights: Sandeep Reddy Vanga Reveals Why He Trimmed Animal’s Runtime by 7-8 Minutes, Plus Akshay Ku Updates

July 26, 2025

How do the microplastics in our bodies affect our health? – BBC

July 26, 2025
Democratic candidates are posting weightlifting videos in search of a midterm lift – CNN

Democratic Candidates Pump Up Midterm Momentum with Weightlifting Videos

July 26, 2025

Eagle Unveils Revolutionary X-Ray Technology at Pack Expo

July 26, 2025

Categories

Archives

July 2025
MTWTFSS
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031 
« Jun    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (740)
  • Economy (764)
  • Entertainment (21,645)
  • General (16,122)
  • Health (9,802)
  • Lifestyle (772)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (766)
  • Politics (773)
  • Science (15,979)
  • Sports (21,261)
  • Technology (15,746)
  • World (747)

Recent News

Yellowstone aspen showing signs of recovery following 1995 reintroduction of wolves to park – Oregon State University

Yellowstone Aspen Thriving Again Years After Wolves Were Reintroduced

July 26, 2025
CMC trustees approve new biological science bachelor’s degree – KUNC

CMC Trustees Approve Exciting New Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Sciences

July 26, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version