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Encryption Privacy Government Security United States

NSA Ducks Questions About Backdoors In Tech Products (reuters.com) 84

Posted by BeauHD from the question-dodging dept.
The U.S. National Security Agency is rebuffing efforts by a leading Congressional critic to determine whether it is continuing to place so-called back doors into commercial technology products, in a controversial practice that critics say damages both U.S. industry and national security. Reuters reports: The NSA has long sought agreements with technology companies under which they would build special access for the spy agency into their products, according to disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and reporting by Reuters and others. These so-called back doors enable the NSA and other agencies to scan large amounts of traffic without a warrant. Agency advocates say the practice has eased collection of vital intelligence in other countries, including interception of terrorist communications. The agency developed new rules for such practices after the Snowden leaks in order to reduce the chances of exposure and compromise, three former intelligence officials told Reuters. But aides to Senator Ron Wyden, a leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, say the NSA has stonewalled on providing even the gist of the new guidelines.

The agency declined to say how it had updated its policies on obtaining special access to commercial products. NSA officials said the agency has been rebuilding trust with the private sector through such measures as offering warnings about software flaws. "At NSA, it's common practice to constantly assess processes to identify and determine best practices," said Anne Neuberger, who heads NSA's year-old Cybersecurity Directorate. "We don't share specific processes and procedures." Three former senior intelligence agency figures told Reuters that the NSA now requires that before a back door is sought, the agency must weigh the potential fallout and arrange for some kind of warning if the back door gets discovered and manipulated by adversaries.
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NSA Ducks Questions About Backdoors In Tech Products More

NSA Ducks Questions About Backdoors In Tech Products

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  • What was it again? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grnbrg ( 140964 ) <slashdot@ g r n b r g .org> on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @08:38PM (#60660844)

    What is Huawei being pilloried for again?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sit1963nz ( 934837 )
      Huawei attack was just an excuse.
      The REAL issue is that China is soon to be the worlds biggest economy. Techwise they are ahead in some areas, behind in others .
      Militarily, the US would loose a war against China.

      This is ALL about the USA wanting to maintain its dominance, but its already lost, and it has no idea how to cope.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by S_Stout ( 2725099 )
        In a world of nukes, a war between USA and China likely ends both countries, if not the planet. If we say they wouldn't use nukes, then the USA can't lose a war because its people won't ever give up. They are armed and would fight back. China would need to kill nearly everyone and by then I'm wondering why we aren't launching nukes.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          If we say they wouldn't use nukes, then the USA can't lose a war because its people won't ever give up. They are armed and would fight back..

          Um, that assumes that China invades the USA. Any other scenario, the US loses pretty much.

        • Re:What was it again? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by sit1963nz ( 934837 ) on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:54PM (#60660974)
          China outguns the USA, out numbers the USA already.
          Their weapons are more advanced.

          If China invades Taiwan, the USA will let them because it is unable to do anything anyway.

          And all those guns the USA has will be as effective as the ones ISIS had against the USA.

          And the current path the USA is on, it risks loosing friends in the world

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            China won't invade Taiwan. Taiwan doesn't have nukes (or so they claim) but could build some pretty quick if it needed to. Taiwan does have a decent conventional military too, so any invasion would be costly for China.

          • "RISKS losing friends"? My friend, thanks to glorious leader, we already have

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cyberax ( 705495 )

          They are armed and would fight back.

          LOL. People seriously believe this crap? Your light arms are useless against tanks or heavy artillery. They might make sense for guerilla warfare once China occupies the US but that's pretty much it.

        • Wrong. Armed citizens are not a militia and will die off after the first exchange
          Failure to "be trained in the discipline prescribed by Congress" per Article 1 (s) 8
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Quit smoking crack there you. The US military is the powerful fighting force in the world. I'm a former Marine so I have a little insight. What's your insight to the US "loosing" a war?
        • The US military in the *most* powerful fighting force in the world.

        • Vietnam, Korean, Afghanistan, the US Confederacy

          Even if the US were to somehow successfully invade China (which it couldn't), it couldn't maintain control of 1B+ people for long. And they would have and want to leave sooner or later, likely sooner. Do you think an invasion and occupation of a few years could change the hearts and minds of enough Chinese to make them bend to the US's will long term? They are a nation whose culture has lasted in some form for over a millennium. The US Confederacy was around f

        • Since WWII, total wins at war? 1.
          Losses? 6. Suck off military
    • Take your pick: Cisco = NSA, Huawei = benevolent CCP of the Chinese people. Only trolls are opposed to Social Credit Score. People who do the right thing can only benefit from the coming benign Chinese hegemony. The future is now.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yet there has been no evidence released of Huawei leaking data. Yet, there has been plenty of evidence regarding Cisco and the NSA.

        • That's right. You can include all of the FAANG in that statement. I've had a Huawei phone for almost a year. I'm even using its AppGallery in preference to Google Play. So, in another year, upgrading to a new Google-free Huawei handset won't be a problem. In fact, it will be better.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by xlsior ( 524145 )

      What is Huawei being pilloried for again?

      Because they didn't disclose their backdoors to the 'right' people?

    • What is Huawei being pilloried for again?

      You're right it's absolutely hypocritical. The question is, who do you trust more with that power, Five Eyes or the CCP?

      Frankly, I choose the group that doesn't harvest organs.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        What is Huawei being pilloried for again?

        You're right it's absolutely hypocritical. The question is, who do you trust more with that power, Five Eyes or the CCP?

        Frankly, I choose the group that doesn't harvest organs.

        To be fair, I bet the CCP would steal Mexican uteruses if they could too.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      What is Huawei being pilloried for again?

      For not being subservient to US interests.

  • "Yes, because you asked us to. Hold on, I mean no, because that would violate users' privacy. Wait, what's the correct answer?"

    Dammit, I know nobody else wanted to do it, but we *really* shouldn't have sent the intern to testify.

  • Remember when RSA (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Took 10 million dollars to intentionally backdoor their software, and then trotted out empty suits to spew a weasel-worded non-denial? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]

    • It's just the "Glomar response" which is common practice no mater what the question is about.

      Have you determined that the sky is blue? "Sir, I can neither confirm nor deny if we have determined the color of the sky, and if we have, what color we may have determined the sky is."

  • And Huawei.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kryptonut ( 1006779 ) on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:32PM (#60660930)

    Huawei said "come look at our source code, we have nothing to hide."

    Nice one United States of Hypocrisy

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      There's the slight point that it's difficult to determine that the code that's running matches the code that's been inspected, but still a quite valid point.

  • ... why are there ducks working for the NSA?

  • New parties needed immediately (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Miles_O'Toole ( 5152533 ) on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:02PM (#60661072)

    The Republicans and Democrats have been so utterly corrupted by the aptly-named Military Industrial Complex there's no hope agencies like the NSA and CIA will ever be held accountable for gang-raping the US Constitution. Right now, the Democrats control the purse strings. They could pass bills that would defund huge parts of the NSA, then tell them to answer the questions put to them fully and honestly, or learn how to work for free from home. But they won't. And if Americans get angry and vote the Republicans in to replace the feckless, gutless Democrats...same story, but with a bit more chest beating and flag waving.

    • Can't. The NSA would immediately leak damaging information on these members of Congress. Remember, they hold the communications of everyone, and people are not even allowed into government unless they participate in the crimes. This creates a system with an unprecedented motivation to protect other members, and horrific punishments for anyone who dissents.

      The intelligence community have gone rogue and are not under the control of the democratically elected government. "This is like a spy novel." [youtube.com]

    • The Republicans and Democrats have been so utterly corrupted by the aptly-named Military Industrial Complex there's no hope agencies like the NSA and CIA will ever be held accountable for gang-raping the US Constitution. Right now, the Democrats control the purse strings. They could pass bills that would defund huge parts of the NSA, then tell them to answer the questions put to them fully and honestly, or learn how to work for free from home. But they won't. And if Americans get angry and vote the Republicans in to replace the feckless, gutless Democrats...same story, but with a bit more chest beating and flag waving.

      Democrats would NEVER defund their private source of intelligence that can use domestic surveillance on their opponents.

      Republicans won't pull funding from the tools used to gather intelligence on foreign adversaries.

      So, the money will continue to flow. It's like social security, Politically there is no other choice.

    • As long as we have plurality voting, we will have two dominant parties. If you destroy one of them, another will form just like it to take its place. If you start a third party, one party will die off, and the two remaining ones will gravitate to where the two parties are now. Plurality voting is the force that maintains two dominant parties.

      And plurality voting is specified in the constitution. Changing that would require the cooperation of the two parties that stand to lose the most from shifting towar

  • I see the temptation of having back doors in a large number of electronic devices, I really do. I wish though they had considered the alternative of having US hardware and software being known as the the most secure equipment in the world. Over time the US would own the world secure electronics market. That doesn't just benefit US industry, it means that secure systems in banks and governments all over the world become reliant on US technology - which can be withdrawn if there is a political need.

  • All this name calling doesnt gain anything positive for the US and only makes enemies increasingly angry. I wonder how much this will cost the US in the future, hate and name calling never helps any sort of relationship.
    • Not a cent. US enemies don't care if you insult or not. Though they may make use for propaganda purposes. Neither will praise do a bit of good. Sure didn't gain us anything when the previous administration heaped praise on our enemies.
      • Using Bin Laden and his mates in the 80s was relatively cheap or was it ? How much did the USA spend in the 2000s ?
      • People and countries dont like being labelled with negative words. If it doesnt matter, why not say a few words against Mohammad ? Of course it matters, call y9our neighbours or boss names, hey it doesnt matter.

      • Life isn't zero-sum. One can have win-win situations, one can also have lose-lose situations. Gratuitous name-calling likely is a lose-lose.

        What makes a country an enemy in the first place? It usually isn't a unilateral move nor something that a single incident creates. Over time relations deteriorate with each insult adding up. And there are always ways to make relations better or worse. Usually a country is neither an enemy nor a friend and looking at it that way is probably counter-productive. This US is

  • Good questions, but we're in 2020... (Score:3)

    by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Thursday October 29, 2020 @12:50AM (#60661214)
    The NSA depends on the government, the president, and (no offense intended) the current president is certainly much less tech-aware than his predecessor. That means either the NSA felt free to do what they want (= even more privacy intrusion) having no one to put the brakes, or, on the contrary, they were not able to pursue their plan due to the lack of understanding from the deciders.

  • The agency developed new rules for such practices after the Snowden leaks in order to reduce the chances of exposure and compromise

    Not to reduce exposure/compromise of the surveilled sheep, mind you, but to reduce future exposures of NSA overreach and compromises of their unchecked power.

  • This would take a while to be effective but...

    A long term fix for this would be to label companies that go into these super secret agreements with the NSA to backdoor systems as unpatriotic. Have Congress pass laws against such practices. Get caught and a corporation gets its license to do business revoked permanently. Keep that pressure on and sooner or later some company gets caught and dissolve the business and force liquidation of its assets. Shareholder value goes to zero. Consider it a form of treason

  • One agencys backdoor will quickly become EVERY black hat hackers catflap!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Complete morons. NSA knows better, congress does not. Any backdoor is exploitable by anyone. NO backdoor is secure. Win for gov control, LOSS for public and humanity.

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