[Cryptography] Senator drafting bill to criminalize Apple’s refusal to aid decryption

[Tom Mitchell]

On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 12:33 PM, Jerry Leichter <leichter at lrw.com> wrote:

> Already withdrawn -
> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/senate-intel-chief-backs-off-on-bill-criminalizing-refusal-to-aid-decryption/
>
> Of course, this is one minor skirmish - the battle is far from over



> ....
>
> > On Feb 19, 2016, at 12:13 PM, Ron Garret <ron at flownet.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/senator-drafting-bill-to-criminalize-apples-refusal-to-aid-decryption/
> >
> >
>
>
The only part of this that is crypto is key management.   There no
decryption
tool just an order to compel the development of a tool.

For the moderator to not shut this down....
How to put a encryption and decryption hat on this discussion.

The order does compel a company to do something they do not want to do and
are
perceived to be uniquely able to provide.   That takes us to door #2 and
open the tech behind it.

Now if this was a court order compelling one or more company with vast
computing resources to attack an encrypted data set.

To my knowledge no government has more computing power than
Google+Facebook+Apple+Microsoft  to attack a block of data that
none of the parties generated?

Assuming the list of available data encryption methods enumerated
by NIST as standard encryptions how long can each endure the efforts
of such computing resources if so ordered.

Lets kick it up a notch.   What if a court ordered MS to push a service
into all Windows 10 machines to be part of a distributed computing
decryption
resource?  Ordered to do so because they could given their unique position.

Now how long would the same list of standard algorithms fair when such a
trick
was inserted into the package list and run on the MS install base.  Machine
count....
At one point it was to about 16.3 installs of Windows 10 a second worldwide.
That identifies a solid number for the rate to install a hack.  As for
machine totals
In Oct 2015  "Microsoft's Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the
Windows and
Devices group, announced that Windows 10 has already been installed on more
than 110 million devices devices since its launch on July 29. The company's
ultimate
goal is to get Windows 10 running on 1 billion devices with two to three
years, a
number it hopes to hit as partners like HP, Lenovo and Asus bring their own
devices to market."

So if a court can compel a company to build and do something that they are
uniquely
able to do ... what is next.

For this list there is a technical question... if so ordered what algorithms
and key lengths might be secure when a billion machines are after it
in all their available idle time?

So not the political topic but a technical next move question.


-- 
  T o m    M i t c h e l l
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