[Cryptography] PRISM-Proofing and PRISM-Hardening

[Peter Gutmann]

Phillip Hallam-Baker <hallam at gmail.com> writes:

>I have not spent a great deal of time looking at the exact capabilities of
>PRISM vs the other programs involved because from a design point they are
>irrelevant. The objective is to harden/protect the infrastructure from any
>ubiquitous, indiscriminate intercept capability like the one Gen Alexander
>appears to have constructed.

Precisely.  I made the same point recently in an interview about PRISM, that a
well-designed, well-engineered protocol will be NSA-proof (or at least as NSA-
proof as you can get within reason).  It'll also be Russian mafia-proof,
Chinese-government-proof, and your-mother-proof.  There isn't some exotic
class of protocol or mechanism that's needed to resist the NSA, anything well-
designed and implemented can do it.

Peter.