Crypto-Affäre: Noch ein Puzzlestück von 2013

Ein Leser schickt mir gerade noch einen anderen Informationsfetzen. [Nachtrag]

Auf Gizmodo schrieb 2013 ein Adam Clark Estes: The NSA Can Beat Almost Any Type of Encryption

Bad news, America. All that effort you and your favorite companies have put into encrypting data was for nothing. After spending billions on research and supercomputers, the NSA can now get around almost any type of encryption according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Nothing is safe.

Against the government’s wishes, The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica just published complementary corroborating, unsettling exposées into the NSA’s top secret encryption techniques. The investigation also found that the agency spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year building backdoors into all kinds of software. Meanwhile, the bulk of the NSA’s efforts go towards breaking through the most widely used encryption methods like Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), virtual private networks (VPNs) and smartphone encryption services. In effect, the agency can do whatever it wants. […]

While especially unnerving in the context of the recent leaks, the NSA’s desire to foil encryption techniques is hardly new. Since the 1970s the agency has been pushing back against the increasingly complex methods of encryption that bubbled up from the academy. But as the internet grew and encryption improved, the NSA has done everything from trying to institute an industry standard of encryption to blocking academic papers about encryption.

Nochmal zum Mitschreiben: „blocking academic papers about encryption”.

Beth hat mir damals tobend verboten, das Kryptotelefon weiterzuentwickeln, sollte es sofort abbauen und durch Analog-Scrambling ersetzen.

Und Beth erklärte damals von einem Tag auf den anderen meine Dissertation für komplett falsch, wollte von mir, dass ich nochmal komplett neu mit einem belanglosen und kryptographiefreien Thema neu anfange.

Und in einem früheren Artikel The NSA Hated Civilian Encrypted Data Way Back in the 1970s

As Jay Stowsky at UC-Berkeley notes in his 2003 paper “Secrets or Shields to Share?” the intelligence community fought tooth and nail against the private development of cryptography for computers. When the NSA got wind of the research developments at IBM, Stanford and MIT in the 1970s they scrambled to block publication of their early studies. When that didn’t work, the NSA sought to work with the civilian research community to develop the encryption. As Stowsky writes, “the agency struck a deal with IBM to develop a data encryption standard (DES) for commercial applications in return for full pre-publication review and right to regulate the length, and therefore the strength of the crypto algorithm.” […]

Naturally, in the Watergate era, many researchers assumed that if the U.S. government was helping to develop the locks that they would surely give themselves the keys, effectively negating the purpose of the encryption. Unlike IBM, the researchers at Stanford and MIT didn’t go along with the standard and developed their own encryption algorithms. Their findings were published (again, against the wishes of the NSA) in the late 1970s after courts found that researchers have the right to publish on the topic of cryptography even if it makes the government uncomfortable. According to Stowsky, the NSA retaliated by trying to block further research funding that Stanford and MIT were receiving through the National Science Foundation.

Once the intelligence community realized they couldn’t legally stop the proliferation of encryption in the United States, they turned their attention to export laws. If U.S. citizens were going to have strong encryption, fine, but at least they could ensure that it wouldn’t get in the hands of other countries. As you can imagine, these restrictions became futile efforts as the internet grew into a more widespread force in the 1980s. And, in fact, it harmed private developers in the U.S. throughout the 1990s who couldn’t deliver their products overseas, where encryption software companies in places like Israel and Taiwan were able to gain huge market share over American firms.

The battles of the 1970s over privately developed encryption wouldn’t be the last word on the subject. The 1990s and 2000s saw a number of efforts by various government agencies to build backdoors into burgeoning communications mediums. But the encryption arms race continues.

Dazu muss man wissen, dass die amerikanischen Grundrechte wie Freedom of Speech und so weiter nach amerikanischem Verfassungsrecht nur für Amerikaner und für Menschen auf amerikanischem Boden gelten. Deshalb lässt die CIA im Ausland foltern. Im Ausland Forschung zu sabotieren verstößt also nicht gegen amerikanisches Verfassungsrecht.

Ich habe es noch nicht gelesen, aber hier bzw. hier gibt es das 30-seitige Paper von Jay Stowsky von 2003 darüber, ich habe es bisher aber nur überflogen.

„blocking academic papers about encryption”

Und auf wen traf man da in Deutschland?

Otto Leiberich, pensionerter Direktor beim BND, Zentralstelle für das Chiffrierwesen, in der Nummer mit der Crypto AG mit drin.

Ueli Maurer, Professor an der ETH Zürich, der Bundesuniversität der Schweiz, und der Schweizer Bund war ebenfalls in der Nummer mit der Crypto AG mit drin.

Claudia Eckert, die Professorin, die sich zu Kryptographie und ihrem eigenen Buch nicht äußern konnte, meine Einwände als Gerichtssachverständige aber ablehnte, ohne sie überhaupt gesehen zu haben und zu wissen, worum es ging, und die Beraterin der NATO ist.

Susanne Baer, Gender-Tante, Honorarprofessorin in Michigan, die Verfassungsrichterin ist und zehn Meilen gegen den Wind nach CIA stinkt.

Und dann kommen Presse, Politik, Greta, Rezo und all die Klimaspinner, und beschimpfen jeden, der „Wissenschaft” anzweifelt.

Nachtrag:

Und garniert wird das mit jeder Menge Führungspersonal in Politik, Medien, Presse, die in der „Atlantik-Brücke” sitzen und den Amerikanern den Speichel lecken.