Tag Archive for: backdoors

Presidential hopeful John Kasich: Work out encryption backdoors in backroom deals

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Presidential candidate Gov. John Kasich thinks granting encryption backdoors is something that ought to be worked out in private by the president.

During the Republican presidential debate last night the Ohio governor responded to a question about whether cryptographic experts were wrong when they say opening up secret messages to third-party decryption would cause more problems than it would solve.

“Well, look the Joint Terrorism Task Force needs resources and tools,” he said, “and those are made up of the FBI, state and local law enforcement. And … it’s best not to talk anymore about back doors and encryption, it will get solved, but it needs to be solved in the situation room of the White House with the technology folks.”

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Network World Tim Greene

Despite rhetoric, DoJ, NSA still seek backdoors

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The U.S. took its encryption argument international last week, with Attorney General Loretta Lynch telling the World Economic forum that it doesn’t want to put security backdoors into encrypted communications, it just wants to vendors and service providers to decrypt when ordered to by a court.

That ignores that facts that vendors and providers can’t decrypt unless there is a backdoor of some sort, and that any backdoor undermines the security and therefore the value of encryption.

It’s a case of the Department of Justice – via Lynch and FBI Director James Comey – trying to steer clear, at least technically, of demanding backdoors, but it’s all a semantic game. Earlier, Comey stopped using the term backdoor and asked for front-door access to decryption instead. Backdoor had become too much of a flashpoint, even though a front-door is exactly the same as a backdoor from a technology standpoint.

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Network World Tim Greene

Cryptographic backdoors? France says, “Non!”

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France describes cryptographic backdoors as “a vulnerability by design,” and therefore “not a good solution.” We agree, and here is why…
Naked Security – Sophos

After Juniper security mess, Cisco searches own gear for backdoors

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While it says it has no reason to think there are backdoors in any of its products, Cisco has started an additional code review looking for “malicious modifications” after Juniper’s announcement that its ScreenOS operating system has been vulnerable for years.

anthony greico

Anthony Greico

“Our additional review includes penetration testing and code reviews by engineers with deep networking and cryptography experience,” according to the Cisco Security blog written by Anthony Grieco, senior director of the company’s Security and Trust Organization. The company says it will release its findings in accordance with its security vulnerability policy.

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Network World Tim Greene