The US Claims It Doesn't Need a Court Order to Ask Tech Companies to Build Encryption Backdoors

DooKey

DooKey

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According to documents released over the weekend, intelligence officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee there's no need to use the court system to ask tech companies to build backdoors into their products. Furthermore, they also said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows them to force service providers to provide backdoors in their systems. Sounds like Big Brother is alive and well.

In its answers, the government said it has "not to date" needed to ask the FISC to issue an order to compel a company to backdoor or weaken its encryption. The government would not say, however, if it's ever asked a company to add an encryption backdoor.
 
Literally every major OEM in the datacenter space has some kind of back door installed that allows the NSA and NRO full access. Major telecoms actually have entire floors in their facilities where people with up to Cosmic Crypto TS/SCI NOFORN work. I know this from first hand knowledge.
 
So much for checks and balances. Police state anyone? Here we come!

Oh wait,...that probably wreaks of hyperbole. Then again, playing the apathy card may not be the best thing to do either.
 
Communist-era Russia is so jealous of the spying technology the rest of the world has over it's citizens now. Everyone is guilty of some crime, no matter how small.
 
I mean, honestly just from headline it makes perfect sense. Hell I could request companies to send me their backdoors. Nothing is stopping me, just like nothing would stop them from saying “up yours”.

Compelling companies to put in a backdoor, without a court order though is fucked up. Wait, scratch that, compelling them with a court order is just as fucked up as well. Something something 4th amendment?
 
BSmith said:
So much for checks and balances. Police state anyone? Here we come!

Oh wait,...that probably wreaks of hyperbole. Then again, playing the apathy card may not be the best thing to do either.
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I agree. Reek btw.
 
trudude said:
Literally every major OEM in the datacenter space has some kind of back door installed that allows the NSA and NRO full access. Major telecoms actually have entire floors in their facilities where people with up to Cosmic Crypto TS/SCI NOFORN work. I know this from first hand knowledge.
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Then you shouldn't be speaking about it on open forums...
 
ob1 said:
Then you shouldn't be speaking about it on open forums...
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I should absolutely be talking about it. Keeping secrets is dangerous for governments. They risk losing the confidence of the people if they constantly keep getting caught in lies.
 
Nolan7689 said:
I mean, honestly just from headline it makes perfect sense. Hell I could request companies to send me their backdoors. Nothing is stopping me, just like nothing would stop them from saying “up yours”.

Compelling companies to put in a backdoor, without a court order though is fucked up. Wait, scratch that, compelling them with a court order is just as fucked up as well. Something something 4th amendment?
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What is this 4th admendment thing you speak of? Is it some kind of soda pop flavor?
 
I should absolutely be talking about it. Keeping secrets is dangerous for governments. They risk losing the confidence of the people if they constantly keep getting caught in lies.
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Hehe. You know the only time a politician is telling the truth, while speaking in public?
When he/she has stopped talking to take a drink from a glass of water. :)

the-one1 said:
What is this 4th admendment thing you speak of? Is it some kind of soda pop flavor?
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Nah, it is the 4th attempt to mend this leaky boat we are all trapped in.
 
trudude said:
I should absolutely be talking about it. Keeping secrets is dangerous for governments. They risk losing the confidence of the people if they constantly keep getting caught in lies.
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I think the government already lost the confidence of the people. They just don't care and we really can't do anything about it. We let the government get too big and now can do whatever they want.
 
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If a backdoor is there for the NSA, it's there for anyone else who can find it. One day the complete list of backdoors will be released. Every single device on the planet will be fully accessible to anyone, and impossible to close. It will be complete chaos, everything will shut down. This is the only direction this can possibly go.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
This makes me so mad. :mad:

The intelligence community just needs to be shut down completely. Their negative impact on society far outweighs their benefit at this point.
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That's like cutting off your arm because you keep whacking your funny bone on something. Sure you won't have that funny bone problem.. but you also won't be able to do anything else with that arm ever again.

On topic though... the amount of money our Alphabet agencies... (federal not private) spend on gathering and collecting data on it's citizenry is just INSANE.

But there are private companies that do things like.. Keep a copy of the internet....
 
gxp500 said:
The American people say otherwise...
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But what about the children?!?! We need this access so we can stop molesters and terrorists! Don't you want to feel safe in your own neighborhood??? That's all we are trying to do! Trust us - we're the government. We're only looking out for your best interest!!!
 
  1. Montu said:
    According to documents released over the weekend, intelligence officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee there's no need to use the court system to ask tech companies to build backdoors into their products. Furthermore, they also said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows them to force service providers to provide backdoors in their systems. Sounds like Big Brother is alive and well.
    Click to expand...
Montu said:
In its answers, the government said it has "not to date" needed to ask the FISC to issue an order to compel a company to backdoor or weaken its encryption. The government would not say, however, if it's ever asked a company to add an encryption backdoor.
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Where are my fourth amendment rights? Idiots.
 
Big difference between "ask" and "force."

Hopefully companies are saying no when being asked, but they probably aren't....
 
trudude said:
Literally every major OEM in the datacenter space has some kind of back door installed that allows the NSA and NRO full access. Major telecoms actually have entire floors in their facilities where people with up to Cosmic Crypto TS/SCI NOFORN work. I know this from first hand knowledge.
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Traitors all of them. What a travesty of logic this world has become. So much retard it hurts.
 
trudude said:
Literally every major OEM in the datacenter space has some kind of back door installed that allows the NSA and NRO full access. Major telecoms actually have entire floors in their facilities where people with up to Cosmic Crypto TS/SCI NOFORN work. I know this from first hand knowledge.
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I can't say I have ever heard of COSMIC.

But, because the DoD does use commercial telecoms to support communications, it makes sense that as a defense contractor, (and that does make them a defense contractor), they would have cleared areas and workers just like Raytheon does for building missiles, etc. If a telecom wants to pursue work for sensitive military communications, they would have to meet all the requirements of a classified commercial work space. That doesn't mean necessarily that they are also conducting Intelligence gather operation within that facility although that too is a possibility.

I did find this reference, but it's wrong, still I'll link it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._security_clearance_terms
There is another "above top secret" category that is rarely mentioned: CRYPTO, meaning access to codes, ciphers, and the machines that use them. Someone with a TOP SECRET / CRYPTO / SCI clearance truly has the highest national-security clearance available to anyone.
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I say it's wrong because there is nothing "higher" than Top Secret. CRYPTO isn't a classification level, it's a compartment. It does make sense that communications related secrets involving encryption would bear this name. The communications channels we use for classified work are pretty much the most closely guarded secrets because with those people might could get everything else. It's why during the cold war the Soviets made huge efforts to compromise communications channels. It's the equavelant of what the US did in gaining access to the German's Enigma Machine in WW2.

But this article gets something wrong.
The government relies on section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to carry out the bulk of its intelligence gathering and surveillance operations. Section 702 has long been seen as the "crown jewels" of the intelligence community's legal powers.
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This statement isn't even close to true. There are fast areas of Intelligence collection that has nothing at all to do with FISA. If someone is only talking about the specific parts of the Intel community that is impacted by FISA, then this is not a bad statement. It's just that there is so much more, FISA covers a fraction of the action.
 
Still the land of the free there ? Seems like it's just the land of "corporations and the government are free to fuck you up the ass".
 
Spy on everyone, prosecute the people you don't like... Terrorists, Trump administration members, etc...

The deep state is real. It seems like they choose who runs the government, not the people. Everyone has dirt, they choose who to expose for their own agenda.
 
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trudude said:
I should absolutely be talking about it. Keeping secrets is dangerous for governments. They risk losing the confidence of the people if they constantly keep getting caught in lies.
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Makes me wonder if you have informed your SO/agency that vetted your clearance how you feel.

Especially since it seems that it won’t take much for you to let info out since “keeping secrets is dangerous”.
 
Hakaba said:
Makes me wonder if you have informed your SO/agency that vetted your clearance how you feel.

Especially since it seems that it won’t take much for you to let info out since “keeping secrets is dangerous”.
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There are differing opinions within compartmentalized special access groups. Some want the people to know others don't. At the end of the day it is a wash.
 
trudude said:
I should absolutely be talking about it. Keeping secrets is dangerous for governments. They risk losing the confidence of the people if they constantly keep getting caught in lies.
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You are right, there should be no clandestine operations in the world. So show us these back doors you viewed directly and first hand. Let use see them, because frankly, they could be normal stuff. If you aren't part of an ops crew for the NSA/NRO, then show us what you have seen. Lets talk about it openly.
 
ob1 said:
You are right, there should be no clandestine operations in the world. So show us these back doors you viewed directly and first hand. Let use see them, because frankly, they could be normal stuff. If you aren't part of an ops crew for the NSA/NRO, then show us what you have seen. Lets talk about it openly.
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I didn't say there should be no clandestine operations in the world. If I speak specifically about backdoors I will be sued. Many of the backdoors exist on director networking appliances on the backbones of entire datacenters and operate over non-standard protocols. ;)
 
I will put some of your minds at ease though because the backdoors are not really meant for spying on average Joe. The backdoors are for corporate espionage. Government connected corporations stealing intellectual property from their competition.
 
trudude said:
There are differing opinions within compartmentalized special access groups. Some want the people to know others don't. At the end of the day it is a wash.
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Regardless people’s differing opinions, the underlying rule is to not disclose information to people who do not have a need to know and are not cleared.

Your opinion or coworkers opinion is irrelevant.

Seeing the above post now, not engaging with you anymore on the subject.
 
Hakaba said:
Regardless people’s differing opinions, the underlying rule is to not disclose information to people who do not have a need to know and are not cleared.

Your opinion or coworkers opinion is irrelevant.

Seeing the above post now, not engaging with you anymore on the subject.
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Haha ok.
 
Grimlaking said:
That's like cutting off your arm because you keep whacking your funny bone on something. Sure you won't have that funny bone problem.. but you also won't be able to do anything else with that arm ever again.
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We more at the stage of Evil Dead II, where your hand is trying to get you, even after you cut it off, it won't stop attacking, and it will get away.
 
trudude said:
I will put some of your minds at ease though because the backdoors are not really meant for spying on average Joe. The backdoors are for corporate espionage. Government connected corporations stealing intellectual property from their competition.
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No offense, but that doesn't make me feel any better. They still could use it against us average Joes, if and when they do no one knows. It's just so wrong, except the world really is not a good place, so it doesn't surprise me. The worst part is companies will say how secure their products are, full well knowing it's a lie.

It's just like selling your soul even if you don't believe such things. No person should ever feel like they can do this to others, they deserve to be punished in this world and the hereafter if you ask me.
 
Grimlaking said:
That's like cutting off your arm because you keep whacking your funny bone on something.
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truly funny analogy - but in all honesty it needs to be razed to the ground & rebuilt, as their focuses have jumped the shark of their established intent for decades now...exactly like the tax code.
 
you leave those backdoors in, and you can be certain that not only the gov are the ones exploiting them
 
They are right, they can ask all they like.
If they want to force they need a court order
 
And these are the same ones that think Kaspersky AV is something to be worried about...
If this gets approved I'll do my best to initiate a boycott against US software! Everything has to be rated as spyware until proven safe.
 
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