September 5, 2013

The NSA Can Decrypt More Stuff Than You Think

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The Guardian and the New York Times have blockbuster stories today about the NSA’s surprising success in cracking encryption standards that until now everyone has considered safe. More about this later. But here’s a single tidbit from the Times story:

In one case, after the government learned that a foreign intelligence target had ordered new computer hardware, the American manufacturer agreed to insert a back door into the product before it was shipped, someone familiar with the request told The Times.

I guess the lesson here is not to buy network equipment from US companies. I don’t imagine that US purveyors of network equipment are very happy about this revelation.

Awkward question: Was this story timed to coincide with the G20 meeting in Russia?

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THE BIG PICTURE

You expect the big picture, and it's our job at Mother Jones to give it to you. And right now, so many of the troubles we face are the making not of a virus, but of the quest for profit, political or economic (and not just from the man in the White House who could have offered leadership and comfort but instead gave us bleach).

In "News Is Just Like Waste Management," we unpack what the coronavirus crisis has meant for journalism, including Mother Jones’, and how we can rise to the challenge. If you're able to, this is a critical moment to support our nonprofit journalism with a donation: We've scoured our budget and made the cuts we can without impairing our mission, and we hope to raise $400,000 from our community of online readers to help keep our big reporting projects going because this extraordinary pandemic-plus-election year is no time to pull back.

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