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Global Cyber War: NSA vs. Secure Email Providers
Cyber battles are heating up, as innovators try to find ways to keep the government out of private email. According to a recent post from BBC, programmers and cryptographers are hard at work on developing g-man proof email.
The NSA’s “principal forte” he says “is trying to find those things that are either inherent, accidental or merely the slips and pratfalls of people who don’t implement these things properly.”
As to the claim that vulnerabilities are inserted into commercial systems to make them exploitable, Inglis does not deny the possibility but suggests such techniques would only be used selectively. “Any activity of that sort would then in my view be focused on a very specific target – probably tactically focused and only for those legitimate purposes.” The NSA has defensive and offensive roles – with securing national security information as well as stealing that of others – but the tension between these roles has been highlighted by the increasingly widespread use of commercial cryptography, including by the government itself.
Encryption is invisible but it is everywhere today. Every time you bank or buy something online, when you make a call on your mobile or when your key fob opens your car. Crypto may be out there. But the crypto-wars – the battle between those who believe privacy is king, and those who support the state’s right to listen in – are only going to grow fiercer. MOREHERE
