"Two decades ago, US intelligence agencies, concerned over the spread of encryption software like Pretty Good Privacy, sought to impose a “Clipper Chip” which would have given the NSA a permanent key to break digital encryption. The effort was defeated after a backlash by political and business interests concerned about undermining America’s global technology edge, along with civil liberties groups. The NSA immediately set out to circumvent this. The Times reports: “Beginning in 2000, as encryption tools were gradually blanketing the web, the N.S.A. invested billions of dollars in a clandestine campaign to preserve its ability to eavesdrop. Having lost a public battle in the 1990s to insert its own ‘back door’ in all encryption, it set out to accomplish the same goal by stealth.” With the collaboration of technology companies in the US, employing specialized computers, the Times continues, “the N.S.A. hacked into computers to snare messages before they were encrypted. In some cases, companies say they were coerced by the government into handing over their master encryption keys or building in a back door. And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world."
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 09:49:09 +0000
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