Viewing Single Post From: The NSA May Read My Mail

Viewing Single Post From: The NSA May Read My Mail
Donald	Sep 11 2005, 02:01 PM
Elite member Posts: 454 Group: Trusted Member Member #8 Joined: September 2, 2005	"insecure" But how do we know that, say, the NSA doesn't have a crack for AES? I don't think the NSA has a crack for AES, and I think that if they found one, they would switch the standard to something they could not crack. Now I know that sounds like I'm being very trusting of "No Such Agency", but I'm not. Let me explain my reasoning. Now it's true that the NSA would LOVE to be reading everyone's AES encrypted data. BUT, snooping is not their only job. One of the NSA's primary goals is to defend the USA from foreign cryptographic attacks. The NSA has suggested all of the US's business use AES as a standard. IF the NSA had a crack for AES, then they would have to live in constant fear that some OTHER government may have discovered the same crack! And if, some hostile government had, when will they use that crack to destroy the US's banking system overnight? Now this IS assuming that the government will act intelligently, NOT a safe assumption! But, we DO have evidence from the past that indicates they think this way. When DES was set as the standard, the NSA modified the algorithm a bit. They did some kind of change to the way the S-Boxes were handled. Now at the time, the civilian world didn't understand the change, and many assumed it was a deliberate weakness added to the system so the NSA could break DES whenever they wanted. Well, the civilian world of cryptography has advanced somewhat since that date, and they now think they understand why the NSA changed the s-boxes. There was a WEAKNESS in the original design, a weakness that the NSA experts saw, but the civilians didn't. The NSA changes fixed that weakness and made DES STRONGER. Yes they limited the keysize, but they didn't want anyone being able to break DES in a useful amount of time. The NSA does NOT want anyone to be able to break into our banking system, so as long as our banking system uses AES, I will assume that the NSA actually thinks AES is secure. For now... "insecure" Should we lift those export controls? The USA mainly ignores those controls right now, since there are easy ways around them. We can HOPE that someone in the government with two braincells to rub together will lift them entirely in the near future.


The NSA May Read My Mail · Debates