[Cryptography] NSA’s FAQs Demystify the Demise of Suite B

[Peter Fairbrother]

On 17/02/16 04:37, Francisco Corella wrote:
>>> Another omission in the CNSA Suite
>>> is the requirement to provide forward secrecy in key establishment
>>> that was present in Suite B.  Surprisingly, this comes at a time when
>>> forward secrecy is becoming the norm on the web.
>>
>> No surprise there.
>>
>> No FS means that NSA's attack division only have to key-break one
>> communication in order to break all the traffic between two people;
>> whereas with FS they have to break each communication separately.
>
> The CNSA Suite, like its predecessor Suite B, are for National
> Security Systems.  The NSA wants to defend those systems, not attack
> them.


hehehehehehehe

Of course NSA want to attack them - otherwise how would they know what 
the rest of the Gubbmint are doing?  Or Gubbmint contractors?

And NSA recommended systems are used by loads of other people who have 
little to do with the Gubbmint.


And their recommendations are probably screwed by some really really 
secret considerations - eg they recommend AES but they can break it (not 
actually I expect, but an example of what they might be thinking).


> It has nothing to gain from being able to compromise them, and
> much to loose from them being compromised by adversaries.  That's why
> I find it surprising that the CNSA Suite drops the forward secrecy
> requirement.


And if they don't want to attack them, as they have the keys anyway, 
they still want to be able to monitor them.

The ability to monitor is more important to NSA than some small increase 
in security.

-- Peter Fairbrother


>
> Francisco
>
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