FBI Failed To Break Encryption of Hard Drives 486
benoliver writes to let us know that the FBI has failed to decrypt files of a Brazilian banker accused of financial crimes by Brazilian law enforcement, after a year of attempts. Five hard drives were seized by federal police at the apartment of banker Daniel Dantas, in Rio de Janeiro, during Operation Satyagraha in July 2008. (The link is to a Google translation of the original article in Portuguese.) The article in English mentions two encryption programs, one Truecrypt and the other unnamed. 256-bit AES was used, and apparently both the Brazilian police and the FBI tried dictionary attacks against it. No Brazilian law exists to force Dantas to produce the password(s).
is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:4, Insightful)
is waterboarding next to get the info?
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not offtopic. If they want the info bad enough, that is what they will do. And nobody will be able to prove a damn thing.
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:5, Informative)
That's not offtopic. If they want the info bad enough, that is what they will do. And nobody will be able to prove a damn thing.
In Brazil, proofs produced by illegal means cannot be used (Federal Constitution, Art. 5, Inc. LVI).
Also, commiting a crime in order to produce proofs is aggravated up to a 1/3 (Decree-Law 2.848, Art. 342, Par. 1).
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:5, Interesting)
In Brazil, proofs produced by illegal means cannot be used
Same in America, and usually, that is how it works. More often than not, however, they are more worried about using the information rather than punishing the offender (ie: to get to his bosses) so they do it anyway, and try to convict without that information. This is mainly the federal government that does this, state governments almost never do this.
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Well in the USA the way to do that is immunize the guy and then compel him to testify. Since he has immunity he can't use the 5th amendment.
You know what immunity means, right? (Score:4, Informative)
Immunity means "Immunity against prosecution." So this is not the sort of thing they can use against someone. They can't say "You are immune from prosecution, now testify about your crimes. Ok, you testified, now we are going to charge you with those crimes." The person was given immunity from prosecution, can't prosecute them for those crimes.
The point of immunity is securing someone's testimony against another party. So lets say you and I had committed some crimes together. However your part was pretty minor, you'd done little things and you weren't the guy planning things. The prosecutors decide I'm the one they really want, you are just a petty crook they don't care about. However, you won't testify against me, not because you are scared of me but because in doing so you'd admit to your own crimes. They say "Ok we'll grant you immunity. Any crimes you testify about committing, you can't be prosecuted for." You then go and testify to all the stuff I've done. I go to jail, you do not.
Immunity isn't some magic way to make the 5th amendment disappear. What it does is protect someone's 5th amendment rights, while allowing them to testify. The 5th amendment says you can't be made to testify against yourself. So, if you are immune from being prosecuted there is no violation of your rights. Your testimony is not being used against you.
For the same reason they can't say "Ahhh! We had our fingers crossed! Deal doesn't count!" In that case your lawyer would argue to have your testimony, and any evidence as a result of it, suppressed. You only testified because you believed it could not be used against you, and there is a written deal to that effect. If they revoke the deal, then that violates your rights. A judge would then suppress the testimony, and all evidence that comes from it (US courts use a "poisoned fruit" idea that evidence that comes from a violation of rights itself cannot be used). Your lawyer then has the court dismiss the case due to lack of evidence.
Re:You know what immunity means, right? (Score:4, Informative)
No, not so much. For one, any competent defense attorney will ensure that any immunity offer extends to all related crimes. So suppose you rob a convenience store. In the process of the robbery you hold a gun to the clerk, force them to the floor, and tie them up. There are multiple other crimes there, like assault with a deadly weapon. For any immunity offer, your lawyer would demand it for everything. They aren't going to say "Sure immunity on the robbery charge is fine, never mind that testifying about it will get you convicted of other things." Again if they tried to force it, that would be a 5th amendment violation.
Then there's the fact that related crimes must be tried together because of double jeopardy. The state can't get around that by repeatedly charging you with new crimes for the same event. For example suppose you break in to someone's house, kill them, and burn it down. The state cannot charge you with murder 2, then when you are found not guilty, bring you back with a charge of manslaughter 1, then when that fails charge you with arson, and so on. They can charge you with all those things, but they have to bring it all to trial at the same time if ti was all part of the same crime.
Again: Immunity is NOT some end run around the 5th amendment. If it was, judges would just not allow it. On the prosecution side of the isle, it is not about trying to find tricks or technicalities that allow you to violate someone's rights. The courts don't go for that. They very much require that the spirit of the law be obeyed. You can't come up with a convoluted scheme and then try and say well technically we didn't FORCE him to testify against himself. The judge will say "Nope, you violated his 5th amendment rights, it's all out."
What you may be thinking of is deals, which are different. Trials are expensive, so when possible the state would rather not have one. They'd rather get someone to plead guilty. Often what they'll do in that case is drop various charges. So if you agree to plead to robbery, they drop the assault charges and so on. That is perfectly legal. There is no rights violations, you are pleading guilty, and the agreed upon charges are being dropped.
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:5, Interesting)
Granting immunity is used in a fair number of crimes, but using it as away to force tesitmony frm an uncooperative witness is very rare, Much more common is the witness is perfectly willing to testify in exchange for the immunity. Cases like organized crime are the very reason for the WITSEC program (more popularly known as the witness protection program).
An even bigger problem with attempting to use immunity to compel testimony is that Supreme Court has held that only use immunity is required to compel tesitimony. That means the indivudual can later be prosecuted for the crime, but his testimony of evidence dirived from his testimony cannot be used against him. The only problem is that that should mean that only evidence collected before the testimony should be admissible, because it is impossible to show that evidence later collected was not found based on the testimony, and the courts do not require the police to prove that, so only evidence that was obviously based on the testimony is ever excluded.
Furthermore. If they refuse to testify they are charged with only contempt of court, but if they do testify, and that helps the cops get evidence against him, he is in bad shape. So given the choice he may well accept the contempt charge.
Finally, it can be hard to trust the testimony of somebody forced to testify against their will. Hiding this fact from the jury would be a bad idea because the jury has a right to know any reason why a particular witness may be unreliable. On the other hand, if the jury does know, The testimony really does not help the prosecution much.
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It can be, but AIUI only for as long as the court case drags on. After the case end, the prosecutor cannot demand that you testify, so you cannot be held in contempt once again for failing to testify. So you may be held in contempt several times, but not unlimited, unless the court case goes on for ever.
Since no court is going to allow the trial to go on without end, or be postponed too many times, there is a limit, which may well be significantly less than the crime you could end up charged with after you
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:4, Insightful)
Learn to read. TPP didn't say it was legal. Read the text you yourself quoted.
Coerced evidence is illegal almost everywhere. And it ends up being used almost everywhere, because it's really hard to prove coercion.
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:4, Informative)
The "problem" in Brazil is that, even if you're willing to do thing in a not-quite-right way, that's seldom viable in practice - specially in high profile cases with lots of expensive lawyers.
Why is that? The current Brazilian Constitution (created in 1988) and several key laws give lots of rights to the accused ones.
That's all nice and stuff, but many people (myself included) believe that they went too far and, basically, criminals are being treated like defenceless babies.
One thing you can hear about the Federal Constitution is that it was created "under the (left-wing) political prisoner syndrome". That is, back in 1988 the politicians wanted to avoid human rights abuses like the ones from the 1960s and 1970s (during the militar government), but (though well intended) they went too far.
The result is that it made criminal prosecution very hard in Brazil.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The laws were made as they always were. To protect the rich, powerful, and well-connected. Preferably whiter and male. And to damn the poor and duskier. And more female.
And to fatten, empower, and privilege all members of the judicial system.
The poor, better-melanized and female are - for all intents - railroaded. Those who have money including drug gangsters - keep afloat as long as they have anough money to feed the judicial system and bribe everyone else, and don't run afoul of "greater interests".
Brazi
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:5, Insightful)
hat's all nice and stuff, but many people (myself included) believe that they went too far and, basically, criminals are being treated like defenceless babies.
Fuck you. No, really...fuck you.
It is not possible to go too far in that direction. You take away just enough rights to prevent an anarchist nightmare, but no more. It's still evil that we must take away those rights, but the few assholes who want to hurt others for personal gain make it necessary to do so. Still, it is always very, very important that you're always aware that every law, regardless of how well-intentioned, causes you to slide a bit more into the slippery slope towards tyranny. So, when absolutely necessary in order to protect your society's way of life, you do it. Never do it just because some people are getting away with things you don't think they should...the price you're paying isn't worth it.
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:5, Insightful)
"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved." -- Benjamin Franklin
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nevertheless, what you describe appears to be a situation of what we might call "too much freedom", with the resulting (relative) anarchy that it entails. (And that is very far from any kind of "left-wing" ideal.) And as with any system with relatively weak criminal laws that does not also offer legal protections to the innocent, the physically powerful (i.e., those who accumulate, and are willing to use, force) will tend to dominate.
Even so, you should be aware that many Americans, having suffered for almost 10 times the number or years the Brazilian constitution has existed the constant expansion and increasing oppression of their Federal government, would probably give a lot to trade relative positions with you. As long as they could bring their own guns.
No, we have not experienced your particular problems. At least not in this decade. But then, neither have you experienced ours. And make no mistake: ours are real, too. I have stood up in government meetings and vocally opposed politically popular but unwise laws. I have personally opposed police who were breaking the law for their own benefit. I have placed myself between criminals and innocent people they were trying to victimize.
The poster who insulted you may have misunderstood your situation, and judged it based on his own. But misunderstanding OUR situation, and judging it based on your own, is equally out of line.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In Brazil, proofs produced by illegal means cannot be used (Federal Constitution, Art. 5, Inc. LVI
My guess is that, the next time this happens, it will no longer be considered "illegal means".
I recall a Slashdot article that said England already has a law that requires individual to turn over their passwords to law enforcement. Brazil's government may decide that they need something similar.
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing there's laws against it in the U.S. too, that didn't stop them. What makes you think they're beyond it in South America? The fact that you live there, perhaps? Quite narcissistic, but that seems to be the norm for Brazilians.
It seems that, in your opinion, all south american countries are barbaric lands where no laws are to be taken seriously.
That's incredibly arrogant of yours. Because of things like that, the rest of the World put all US citizens (including the good ones) in the same basket and call them assholes.
Even you completely disregard the morality (or immorality) of laws, good/bad/weak/silly laws are to be enforced and there are practical issues:
If they torture the guy in order to obtain the information, the next day that bastard will make a public scandal, cry his human rights were violated etc, and his lawyers will invoke every conceiveable law and the process will stall, badly.
Then his lawyers will spread doubt about any other evidence previously collected. They will make a party out of it and, in the end, the guy may be considered innocent.
So, even if you're willing to torture the guy, it's not practical.
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:4, Interesting)
I can only speak for my own country, the Netherlands, but here such things have happenned.
I can't think of any case where physical torture has been used, but emotional abuse has been used to get confessions in a handfull of cases in the past few decades.
Of those, all of the ones I know about ended in dismissal of the case or significantly lower charges and all of them ended up with court cases against the officials using or ordering illegal methods.
The general feeling here seems to be that immoral behaviour is immoral regardless the circumstances.
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:4, Interesting)
Since his pockets seem to be deep enough to buy a president of the Brazilian Supreme Court [google.com], not likely.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
No, they just need to send it to Wikileaks and tell them it's a video of waterboarding.
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No, they just need to send it to Wikileaks and tell them it's a video of waterboarding.
In all fairness I don't think parent is a troll, I think it's a weak attempt at a joke about wikileaks breaking encryption [nytimes.com]:
Somehow -- it will not say how -- WikiLeaks found the necessary computer time to decrypt a graphic video, released Monday, of a United States Army assault in Baghdad in 2007 that left 12 people dead, including two employees of the news agency Reuters.
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
The XKCD for that [xkcd.com]
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If waterboarding is not torture, then you are willing, I presume, to undergo it for two or three days? If not, fuck you.
Anything specific for three days is torture. Bad test.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? So you'd be unwilling to suffer through "The Comfy Chair [youtube.com]" for three days? I sincerely doubt that'd qualify as torture by any stretch of the imagination.
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If waterboarding is not torture, then you are willing, I presume, to undergo it for two or three days? If not, fuck you.
It has no lasting physical damage. And we already do waterboard our own military personnel to instruct them on what they might face if they were captured. Also the people that use it as a technique are required to also have it done to themselves in order to understand the physical and psychological effects is has.
So yeah, I'd be willing to be waterboarded. And like all techniques meant to momentarily weaken your resolve rather than actually hurt you, no I don't consider it torture.
Physical torture no, but it does qualify as psychological torture with potentially long lasting effects. Just check the citations in the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding [wikipedia.org]. As such, it's a violation of the Geneva Convention (which the US govt claimed didn't apply). Go get a video of you being waterboarded and we might take you seriously.
Re:is waterboarding next to get the info? (Score:5, Funny)
I take issue with your first statement. Luckily, there is an easy test to see what is and what isn't torture:
A claims that method X isn't torture, B says it is. Just have B apply Method X to A, until A confesses that he was wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First off, water-boarding isn't torture.
Fuck you, Dick Cheney. We executed Japanese commanders for doing it to American POWs, so it's fucking torture. You'd have realized that if you took your mouth off Glenn Beck's dick long enough to get some oxygen to what passes for your brain.
Wrong dictionary. (Score:5, Funny)
...both the Brazilian police and the FBI tried dictionary attacks against it
They should have used a Portuguese dictionary not an English one! Geeze! Folks are soooooo US centric!
Re:Wrong dictionary. (Score:5, Funny)
Fifty bucks says the password is GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Good luck with that. Even though goals are few and far between, in a game, there is an infinite number of ways of saying it...
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
etc.
Re:Wrong dictionary. (Score:5, Funny)
That would be GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLO, in Portuguese.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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Ops, sorry :) I forgot it was different in this case.
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To be fair, the US FBI probably *should* be US-centric. We already have a whole group of people who do the same thing, but specifically *not* US-centric.
Re:Wrong dictionary. (Score:5, Funny)
...both the Brazilian police and the FBI tried dictionary attacks against it
They should have used a Portuguese dictionary not an English one! Geeze! Folks are soooooo US centric!
I suggest using the OED. Place the subject's testicles on top of volume one*...
* If using a single-volume edition, open to the end of letter 'M'. Fair results can be had with the use of electronic editions, but the technique is not recommended.
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Well, even a Portuguese dictionary would not have helped. You don't find "1234" in a dictionary.
That's what they *want* you to believe (Score:5, Informative)
Just because you're paranoid does NOT mean that no one's out to get you.
And you KNOW the government is out to get you.
The universe would suffer thermal death (Score:2)
the sun would go nova before they crack the encryption.
Re: (Score:2)
before they break 256-bit aes. Even if computer power somehow went up magnitudes
the sun would go nova before they crack the encryption.
How about if a critical flaw is discovered in aes that produces an attack in 2^64 time?
How about if a critical flaw is is discovered in the implementation of aes that produces an attack in 2^32 time?
How about quantum computers advance to a usable level, and that 2^256 complexity is solvable in 256^6 time?
The first two are unlikely, since AES wasn't designed by fools, and has
Re: (Score:2)
Why so difficult? How about I just generate a random 256-bit number for the key? Good luck attacking that when there's no relation to it and the real world at all.
All it takes is say:
- combining parts of two commonly found files on the internet.
- fully random, stored on a different, harder to find encrypted volume, but accessible by a 2nd, easier to remember, key.
- for the truly paranoid, base64 encode a random 256-bit number and memorize the resulting 40 characters.
Or a sentence that is long enough to gi
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If we can crack 128 bit encryption then AES 256 should be easily breakable, http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/new_attack_on_a.html [schneier.com] there's several attacks on the flawed key schedule in that reduce the search space to something like 2^110.5 instead of the 256bits that AES 256 implies. (this means that AES 128 is actually more secure in this regard, at least as currently understood).
Maybe it was just random data (Score:2, Insightful)
Could take a while.
Re:Maybe it was just random data (Score:5, Insightful)
How will you get out of jail though?
Give them the password? You can't since it is random data.
Tell them it was random data? Sure... we believe you! Now give us the password @#&*$!
This does show though that proving that something is not random data would be very important before they try waterboarding a password out of you :)
Re:Maybe it was just random data (Score:5, Insightful)
How will you get out of jail though?
Give them the password? You can't since it is random data.
Tell them it was random data? Sure... we believe you! Now give us the password @#&*$!
This does show though that proving that something is not random data would be very important before they try waterboarding a password out of you
It depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to hide your secrets to stay out of jail, this may be a bad way to do it, especially if they torture you.
If your goal is, however, to keep your drug lord employer's secrets, otherwise they'll torture and kill your entire family, that's another thing entirely.
Re:Maybe it was just random data (Score:4, Insightful)
If there is ever a case along the lines of: "Well, m'lud the prosecution have not proved there are any encrypted files - it's just a block of encrypted data, so there is no case to answer" then I suggest we all follow it very closely.
Re: (Score:2)
Which of course, should be completely invalid, because it goes against the right not to self incriminate, which is in the legal code of many countries, including Brasil.
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BTW, I'm guessing here - I'm very proud to say IANAL.
They should publish it as a DVD (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They should publish it as a DVD (Score:5, Funny)
weird (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought this [xkcd.com] was not just a sound idea but a law.
Great stuff though, but expect some new laws by government that make it illegal not to provide your password/keys to the government upon a court order and if you don't provide it, expect an assumption of guilt and some extra punishment. I am not saying it's right, just saying that's probably going to be one of the outcomes of this.
Of-course the problem is that they got the drives physically (not that I am necessarily on the side of a allegedly corrupt banker, but I am not automatically assuming he is guilty of anything either.) Here is a good application for the 'cloud' (yikes) - keep your encrypted data so that nobody can even know it exists in the first place.
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Sure, they can make a law to force people to give up their passwords... as long as they first prove that there actually WAS a password that would decrypt the data (and into what), as it might just be random garbage.
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That would mean that a truecrypt volume is distinguishable from random data?
Reality Check (Score:4, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/538/
Validating technology (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Validating technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We've had encryption this good, or close to it, for decades now. And if looking back, if anything it is likely that laws concerning cryptography will continue to get weaker and weaker, as they have been doing. This stuff used to be heavily export controlled, not so much anymore. Just look at the history of PGP.
this is obviously disinformation :) (Score:4, Insightful)
... if I were the FBI and I could decrypt TrueCrypt, I'd not admit it and hope everyone keeps using it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just general Slashtard AC paranoia (Score:3, Interesting)
You might notice that there are more than a few paranoid people on this site. They are convinced that the government is extremely evil, oppressive, and thus obviously extremely capable of doing amazing things that nobody else can. So the government can crack all encryption (even though the best research shows that isn't possible), the government can recover data from any harddrive unless you Gutmann wipe it (even though the best research shows a single overwrite screws over any recovery on EPRML drives). Th
Not a surprise (Score:2)
Modern encryption done right cannot practically broken at this time. However, many people do it wrong. You need something like 64 bit passphrase entropy to be secure, better 128 bit. As English gives only about 1.5 bit/char, that means a secure passphrase should have something like 90 characters with a minimum of around 45 characters. With random digits/letters, you can do better, for example 12 digits/letters just fulfill the minimum requirement.
Alternate Partition? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the great features of TrueCrypt is the whole alternate partition/segment idea. One password gives access to real data, while another (a duress password) would give some other access to an alternate segment. Put some benign documents in the alternate partition, and then under threat of water boarding, hand out the duress password. Assuming this all works, they find nothing, you go home.
Granted, I'm not encouraging this idea for criminal activity, but rather for truly sensitive data that shouldn't fall into the wrong hands.
Re:Alternate Partition? (Score:4, Insightful)
and then under threat of water boarding, hand out the duress password.
But what about the third password they want? What do you do then?
Turtles.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Are you there, Abby Sciuto? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wrong Agency (Score:5, Informative)
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Perhaps if they don't find any weaknesses and find the implementation IS correct they will grant it FIPS compliance so my company can use it.....(and save us a fortune).
Weakest link? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, AES has been independently vetted and attacked by multiple security organizations. The only flaws that have been discovered in the algorithm are minor and inconsequential.
That only matters if the implementation used doesn't have any important flaws. And a password wasn't stored anywhere by accident or 'overlooked mechanism' (caches etc). And the chosen keylength was enough to make brute-force attack unfeasible. And nobody else has/leaks password.
They don't have to crack a tried & tested algorithm, they only have to find the weakest link. Surely there's many links, most of those weaker than the algorithm itself.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Surely there's many links, most of those weaker than the algorithm itself.
Guess not. Two governments have failed to break it. Hows that work with your belief that recovery will always be compromised by some 'link'?
They just didn't apply enough governments.
Re:Wrong Agency (Score:4, Insightful)
If the passphrase has more than 256 bits, brute-forcing it is less efficient by a fair margin, than direct guessing. On the practical side, passphrase guessing likely becomes very expensive for something like 50+ bits of entropy with a good key-setup. Keep in mind that the key-setup may make you work for, e.g., 1 sec of CPU time per guess. With 50 bits, that is (assuming an EC3 small unit for simplicity) around 25 Billion USD for the crack. For every 10 additional bits, add a factor of 1000. With this money, you can built special-purpose hardware, but incidentally, that is likely only going to be faster but not cheaper.
Re:Wrong Agency (Score:4, Interesting)
Most people pick lousy passwords. Brute-forcing them is restricted only by the speed of your hardware(and password-guessing is one of those conveniently parallel problems that scales with almost perfect linearity across however many nodes you want to throw at it).
Either this guy is way above average when it comes to picking good passwords, or the key was, in fact, stored separately and never located, or (tinfoil hat) they actually cracked his password three years ago, didn't find enough evidence to build a case, and would rather "admit defeat", and encourage other malefactors to trust in their encryption, than just admit that they don't have a case....
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's fairly easy to create a good, strong password for the really important stuff. I usually suggest the following:
1. Pick a phrase, any phrase "maryhadalittlelamb"
2. Add three "typos" with digit, capital and special character "marXyhadali6ttlel!amb"
3. Remember the typos as part of the words: "marXy" "li6ttle" "l!amb"
It'll never match a dictionary attack. It's too long with too large a character set to be brute forced, close to 128 bits. A hybrid attack possibly might but even if you know the phrase in 1. a
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The most secure configuration involves storing the keyfile separately from the encrypted volume(on a smartcard, USB drive, etc.). For reasons of convenience, though, Truecrypt(and, again, most of the conceptually similar systems) support storing the keyfile in the
Re:Wrong Agency (Score:4, Insightful)
A password based on a phrase where you substitute 3-4 letters for a few special characters and insert 1-4 extra characters into the middle of a word as to mess with the length, would be about has hard to break as the AES key itself. This would be an easy to remember password that would only take a few seconds to type and would render dictionary attacks useless.
"a large distributed attack should be able to 'crack' it with much less difficulty than reversing the AES itself"
Of course brute forcing a 256bit key could take 1,000,000,000,000 computers that could do 1,000,000,000,000 AES comparisons per second(aka, about 32,768 cores at 3ghz) about 1.8e+42 millennia. So, by "much less", so you mean to reduce the effectiveness to 1/10^42(0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000001%) would only take those 1 trillion 32k core 3ghz super computers 1000 years to break.
Assuming this person used a semi-decent password, the only way to get around this would be torture, key got cached/written down, bugged his keyboard, or general luck.
Fun fact told to me via a PHD in encryption. A 256bit symmetric algorithm that has no work around (AES has flaws that reduces its effectiveness) and using computers so efficient that it takes the theoretically smallest amount of energy to flip a bit, would on average consume most of the energy in the known universe to break a single key. (Think consuming all the stars in the Milkyway galaxy just a start)
"It is not crazy to think that the NSA could have this capability." I would say overly optimistic.
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Which is, again, why we'll probably just keep someone awake for 3 days while we scream at them and hit them under the arms with a phonebook until they talk.
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*offers b4upoo a roll of tinfoil and a bag containing 26 scrabble tiles*
Re: (Score:2)
Parent should be modded +Conspiracy Theorist.
Re:Wrong Agency (Score:5, Insightful)
Other agencies such as NSA can probably crack that encryption with ease if not instantaneously
Stop believing in spy movies.
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Other agencies such as NSA can probably crack that encryption with ease if not instantaneously.
Anyone serious about their security will use long passwords.
Even with supercomputer time, you're never going to crack anything the length of "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" (43 characters)
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Some time back, I think it was on slashdot,
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You never want to wait longer then the heat-death of the universe, and most of the time the length of a human life time is sufficient. Anything longer then that counts as never.
Re:Wrong Agency (Score:4, Insightful)
Not never. Given enough time and CPU cycles, anything stored locally can be cracked. It's just a matter of how long you want to wait.
Wrong. There is a finite amount of matter and energy (and hence computing power) in the universe. With AES 256 these limits are already very close and possibly exceeded.
Re: (Score:2)
Not never. Given enough time and CPU cycles, anything stored locally can be cracked. It's just a matter of how long you want to wait.
Close enough to never that it really doesn't matter.
With modern technology the sun will have swallowed the Earth before you crack that disk.
But even if we see significant improvements in technology and we manage to crack the disk in just 50-100 years, that's probably effectively "never" as you'll likely be close enough to death not to really care too much about the incriminating evidence getting out.
Hell, even 10-20 years might as well be "never" if it exceeds the statute of limitations
Re: (Score:2)
Other agencies such as NSA can probably crack that encryption with ease if not instantaneously.
Doubtful, we are not talking about a cipher that was created by some guy in his spare time -- this is a cipher that has been tested by numerous experts and cryptology researchers around the world. Unless the NSA has some secret way to break the code, which is possible but they probably would not want to let everyone know about over something like this, I doubt that they could crack it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hard drive encryption has nothing to do with public-key encryption, much less public-key encryption using smallish keys (by today's standards, 1024 is practically insecure).
Symmentric encryption keysizes are not comparable to public key encryption keysizes. 128-bit AES keys are unbreakable today, and 256-bit keys are just healthy overkill.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The government has a vested interest in appearin
This guy is not American (Score:3, Interesting)
It could even be that the NSA was asked first and failed, then they sent it to the FBI.
Daniel Dantas was involved in many shady operations, including one when the MCI company, which has used some funny accounting, [wikipedia.org] bought Brazilian Embratel [wikipedia.org].
It was the Brazilian federal government which asked the US government for help in cracking that encryption. International cooperation among d
Re:Wrong Agency (Score:5, Interesting)
If the NSA could have unlocked it for them, I believe the FBI would have been there in a split second. They probably already asked.
You must remember that the NSA is in the national security business. Revealing that AES can be broken would be beyond huge, it'd be bigger than the breaking of the Enigma codes during WWII. It'd also destroy the value, because afterwards everyone would migrate to something else. So even if NSA has that capability it'd be Top Secret and not revealed just to catch this guy. It's something they'd use in secret for signals intelligence and only reveal if it was absolutely necessary in defense of the United States.
Gotta ask, does AES have a backdoors that they can go "compell" an organization to give them the keys to it?
AES itself? No. Any particular encryption software? Possibly, but as TrueCrypt is open source that's unlikely. Same with the full disk encryption in Linux. As pure brute force, there's not enough energy in the sun to break a 256-bit encryption. But there can always be some kind of algorithmic attack. I think for AES256 there was an attack lowering the strength to about AES128 strength. Still plenty strong but you can't knew if there's a better one.
Re:Wrong Agency (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:US Laws? (Score:5, Funny)
The law of gravity. The feds hang you by your feet out a 5th floor window till you talk......
Re:US Laws? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet, the Government of the US, lead by the President of the US, fought a battle all the way to the Supreme Court of the US, arguing that they had the right to detain US citizens indefinitely without recourse to the courts simply because they called the citizen a name - "Terrorist" and "enemy combatant".
And the courts of the US haven't yet issued a ruling that this is against our precious constitution. Nor has our president, running on a platform of change, spoken out against this travesty:
http://en.wik [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
They could probably charge you with contempt of court and hold you until you comply. Are you really willing to sit in jail forever for not giving up the password if the crime you're accused of committing has lower sentencing guidelines?
Re: (Score:2)
Can you /prove/ you /really/ forgot the password? Can you prove you're not faking? Without the password, you can't access the data either, so how can you prove you're innocent? Sounds like a trick to me. *slams gavel*
Re: (Score:2)
Welcome to the new US justice system. We don't call it presumption of guilt, we call it contempt of court. We don't call it denying access to a jury, we call it administrative law.
The US Constitution is a relic of a time that passed 50 years ago...
Re:So where's the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's a BANKER! (Score:2)
It's customary in Slashdot to ask if we are for or against someone.
This guy is a banker who has been accused of several crimes, but convicted only once, of trying to bribe an officer, Brazilian federal police "delegado" (I think the closest English translation would be "sheriff") Protogenes Queiroz [wikipedia.org].
Anyone can be accused of a crime and it's up to the state to prove him guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.
However, when a very rich banker is arrested and gets a writ of habeas corpus within fifteen minutes after