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For several months and the beginning of the revelations of Edward Snowden, computer security experts and advocates online privacy no longer know where to turn.
revelation after revelation, documents exfiltrated by the US whistleblower about the NSA testify to the power of the intelligence agency and its ability to pierce the strongest protection on the Internet. The question came back on everyone’s lips was both simple and complex: what tool he still resists
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At the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, a festival of four dealing days include computer security, the two American journalists Laura Poitras Jacob Appelbaum and finally brought, Sunday, Dec. 28, answers to this question.
During a conference, the two journalists submitted new documents – also and simultaneously published in Der Spiegel – removed from the stock by Edward Snowden. These reveal that several tools, programs or computer languages pose big problems at NSA when it comes to drilling to date. These documents date from 2012, but the German magazine explains that they are likely to be still valid today.
Tools resistant
The tools robustness resists NSA are few: GnuPG, which is used to protect emails, Tails, an “amnesiac” operating system, OTR, a computer protocol protecting the confidentiality of instant discussions, the applications developed by collective Whispersystems (as Signal), Truecrypt, an encryption system documents whose mysterious interruption has raised many questions and Tor, including a browser for anonymous browsing on the Internet.
The efforts of the NOS against Tor were already known. New documents published show that these efforts were, for the moment, and until 2012 at least, no effects
“Read. TOR, software protection key of privacy in the viewfinder the
NOS
“I wanted to make a positive conference” says Jacob Appelbaum, who applauded by 3,500 people crowded into the auditorium of Hamburg’s congress center developers some of these tools.
Many unreliable tools
He and Laura Poitras, however, could not avoid enumerating some of the tools protection of communications that have not withstood the NSA. This list demonstrates the scale of resources devoted by the NSA and some of its allies to undo some of the main means of protecting communications over the Internet.
Der Spiegel writing example the connections called “https”, where the “S” stands for “secure” have “greatest-thing really secure” . According to documents published by the German magazine, NSA plans to “break 10 million https connections by the end of 2012″ . This type of protection allows a user to be sure to connect to an authentic site (his bank for example), and prevents an intermediary to intercept the information it transmits. It is used daily by hundreds of millions of users around the world, sometimes without even noticing.
Other means of protection is affordable NSA as SSH, a technique to securely connect two computers together, widely used by computer scientists. More worryingly, the documents indicate that the NSA can successfully tackle the VPN (“VPN”). The technology behind his obscure name for the general public, is nevertheless central to the security of many companies, which use them for such access from outside their internal network. Twelve NSA agents have been charged to bypass the VPN used by the Greek government, says one of the documents.
A “war against Internet security”
To work around these robust protections, the NSA uses “all available means” writes Der Spiegel , supercomputers capable of billions of calculations per second to send undercover agents to try to influence the development of these means of protection. These resources deployed are not surprising: according to an NSA document reproduces by Der Spiegel encryption of communications (and therefore the confidentiality of an increasing share of trade on the Internet) is now “threat” for the agency.
These new documents illuminate a little more what the German magazine described as “a war against Internet security” . Security, he still remembers, which is far from being the preserve of terrorists or criminals, but protects hundreds of millions of users in their daily use of the Internet.
Hundreds of activists and militants who cheered standing for several minutes at the end of the presentation of these documents have therefore nothing to be migraine before the NSA’s capabilities. But also something to celebrate: “is not hopeless, resistance is possible” has launched Mr. Appelbaum. “Free software and a well-implemented cryptography work.
“Read the article in Der Spiegel in its entirety, in English
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