Irreal

The NSA has been playing fast and lose with its duty to secure our communications by arranging for backdoors to be inserted into our cryptographic protocols. Everyone familiar with the situation is convinced that the NSA diddled with the Dual_EC_DRBG random number generator, had it vetted by NIST, and then pushed to have it deployed as widely as possible.

Recently, it became known that

• Juniper Networks used the Dual_EC_DRBG RNG in its products but changed the constants that constituted the back door.
• Someone had replaced the Juniper constants with other values presumably opening another backdoor.
• These Juniper devices are widely used throughout the US Government.

As things stand now, someone—believed not to be the NSA—has a backdoor into scores of government networks. This is possible because the NSA valued its ability to spy on everyone more than their duty to help us and the government secure its communications. How does this advance our national security?

There’s a lesson here for everyone who thinks encryption backdoors should be inserted into our communication products. They have a way of circling back and biting you in the butt. Someone always find a way to exploit them and turn them against whoever installed them in the first place.

The NSA and GCHQ internally trumpeted their ability to break into Juniper devices. I bet they’re not high-fiving now.

UPDATE: GCHG → GCHQ

Benjamin Wittes over at Lawfare has posted a particularly silly idea for forcing vendors to install encryption backdoors: simply withdraw CDA §230 protection from any company that does not provide an unencrypted copy of any data they carry. The CDA (Communications Decency Act) protection Wittes is talking about is the law that says a service that merely carries data from third parties can not be held civilly liable for that content. Why shouldn’t the government, Wittes asks, condition its ‘great gift’ to service providers on their willingness to assist the government with decryption?

In the first place, it’s hard to see how saying “you’re not responsible for what someone else does” can be characterized as “a great gift from the government.” Secondly, it shows an astounding ignorance of who the players are and how they depend on §230.

Robert Graham has a splendidly entertaining rant explaining why this is just nonsense by someone who doesn’t understand the Internet or crypto. Graham certainly knows about the Internet and crypto but maybe he’s wrong about the law.

But no, not even Wittes co-bloggers are buying his ideas. Nicholas Weaver takes to Lawfare to describe in detail why Wittes is wrong and his ideas won’t work. Companies like Apple—one of the major targets of those pushing for backdoors—carries virtually no third-party data and does not depend on §230. Companies like AT&T that do depend on it have nothing to do with the encryption that law enforcement is concerned about.

Sadly, Wittes’ argument is typical of those advocating backdoors: it reveals that he doesn’t understand crypto, how it’s used on the Internet, or by whom.