[Cryptography] TAO, NSA crypto backdoor program

[Paul Ferguson]

Apologies for top-posting, but wanted to maintain context here.

One additional issue here -- and there are *many* examples of this -- 
bothers me greatly, and that is that the U.S. does *not* appear to be a 
country where the "law" is applied evenly. Some people in government 
(and elsewhere) seem to be above the law.

Some people get prosecuted at the maximum extent of the law, yet others 
never get charged for their obvious & public violations of the law (even 
publicly suborning perjury by outright lying to congressional committees).

I am also very disturbed at the U.S. DoJ machinations in the past couple 
of years which indicate they are willing to go after anyone who exposes 
the secret violations of law by members (or agancies) of of the U.S. 
Government by threatening journalists with legal prosecutions, as well 
as intelligence operations targeted at journalists.

These are not activities of a functional and thriving democracy.

- ferg


On 1/1/2014 6:40 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Bill Frantz <frantz at pwpconsult.com
> <mailto:frantz at pwpconsult.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 12/30/13 at 5:42 PM, fergdawgster at mykolab.com
>     <mailto:fergdawgster at mykolab.com> (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
>
>         I am also impressed at the level of effort here. I did not think
>         we would
>         be "here" -- figuratively speaking -- when everyone was calling
>         Dorothy
>         Denning the "Wicked Witch of the East" for her support of key
>         escrow back
>         in the early 90's on the cypherpunk list (I have not been on
>         that list in
>         many years).
>
>         In any event -- and please don't take this the wrong way -- it
>         is almost as
>         sickening to me as someone telling a rape victim to sit back and
>         enjoy the
>         ride, or that they should admire their rapist for their
>         technique and
>         efficacy.
>
>         I won't make any ham-handed comparisons to GOP candidates in
>         2011. :-)
>
>         Seriously, the breadth & depth of how the NSA and the U.S.
>         Intelligence
>         Community has damaged trust in the post-9/11 Internet world is
>         sick &
>         twisted in the most grotesque way imaginable.
>
>         It is not to be respected or admired in any way whatsoever. They
>         have
>         undermined everything we have been trying to do on the Internet
>         in the name
>         of safety and security for 20+ years.
>
>
>     One thing to remembrer in this mess: NSA isn't the only capable
>     National Scale Adversary. While I might believe that NSA and GCHQ
>     could, in the future, again be restrained by the rule of law, I
>     don't believe we can use law to control the Russians and Chinese, to
>     name just two. We have a wonderful worked example of the kind of
>     threat we need to defend against. If we manage to rein in our
>     eavesdropping agencies by use of law, we still have ones that aren't
>     ours to worry about.
>
>
> There is an important difference: I don't have the slightest doubt as to
> the trustworthiness of GCHQ when it comes to the defense of democracy in
> the UK. I certainly cannot say that of the US military or the NSA.
>
> The political situation in the US does worry me for several reasons.
> First the NSA and CIA were in the business of toppling inconvenient
> governments for over thirty years. Even Eisenhower wondered about the
> possibility that it might become a habit that they would eventually
> practice on their own government.
>
> Then there is the fact that after Louis Freeh lost the crypto wars, he
> conspired with the Republican party in Congress to entrap the President
> and enable his impeachment. That was in my view an attempt at a
> constitutional coup. That failed attempt was followed by a successful
> one when the Republican party partisans on the Supreme court conspired
> to prevent the counting of the votes in the 2000 Presidential elections.
>
> The gulag in Guantanamo and the fact that none of the people responsible
> for ordering the use of torture in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib have been
> prosecuted is a demonstration that there is no accountability in the US
> political system.
>
> And finally here is a political culture in which it is considered
> acceptable for one party to peddle myths about the elected President's
> birth certificate being somehow defective. It is obvious what the real
> purpose of these claims is, in the UK we would call it mouthing treason.
>
>
> So no, I don't think the issues are equivalent.
>
>
>
> --
> Website: http://hallambaker.com/
>
>
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-- 
Paul Ferguson
PGP Public Key ID: 0x63546533