Cybersecurity

Problems With the Burr-Feinstein Bill

What appears to be a leaked copy of the Burr-Feinstein on encryption back doors. Crypto issues aside -- I and my co-authors have written on those before -- this bill has many other disturbing features. (Note: I've heard a rumor that this is an old version. If so, I'll update this post as necessary when something is actually introduced.) One of the more amazing oddities is that the bill's definition of "communications" (page 6, line 10) includes "oral communication", as defined in 18 USC 2510. more

The Second Machine Age Calls for Vision and Leadership

This post I've been pondering on for a long time, but never found the right angle and perhaps I still haven't. Basically I have these observations, thoughts, ideas and a truckload of questions. Where to start? With the future prospects of us all. Thomas Picketty showed us the rise of inequality. He was recently joined by Robert J. Gordon who not only joins Picketty, but adds that we live in a period of stagnation, for decades already. "All great inventions lie over 40 years and more behind us", he points out. more

Head of UK Intelligence Agency Says Tech Companies Should Provide a Way Around Encryption

In a speech at the Internet Policy Research Initiative at MIT, British intelligence agency GCHQ director Robert Hannigan said Monday that law enforcement and intelligence officials want only targeted ways to stop what he called "abuse of encryption" by ISIS and other terrorists and criminals. more

DNSSEC Workshop Streaming Live from ICANN 55 in Marrakech on Wednesday, March 9, 2016

What is the current state of DNSSEC deployment around the world and also in Africa? How can you deploy DNSSEC at a massive scale? What is the state of using elliptic curve crypto algorithms in DNSSEC? What more can be done to accelerate DNSSEC deployment? Discussion of all those questions and much more can be found in the DNSSEC Workshop streaming live out of the ICANN 55 meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, on Wednesday, March 9, from 9:00 to 15:15 WET. more

FBI vs Apple: A Bit Of Light Reading

Encryption is key to commerce online. Anything that weakens it is a threat to the digital economy, so the FBI vs Apple case is something that a lot of people are watching very closely... The most recent development is that Apple has filed "Motion to Vacate the Order Compelling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search, and Opposition to the Government's Motion to Compel Assistance." Legal filings aren't light bedtime reading, but this one explores the legal issues as well as the privacy and security implications from multiple angles and underlines why this case is so important. more

Security, Backdoors and Control

Encryption is a way to keep private information private in the digital world. But there are government actors, particularly here in the US, that want access to our private data. The NSA has been snooping our data for years. Backdoors have been snuck into router encryption code to make it easier to break. Today at M³AAWG we had a keynote from Kim Zetter, talking about Stuxnet and how it spread well outside the control of the people who created it. more

Why More Effort Won’t Solve the Exceptional Access Problem

In the debate over government "exceptional access" to encrypted communications, opponents with a technical bent (and that includes me) have said that it won't work: that such a scheme would inevitably lead to security problems. The response -- from the policy side, not from technical folk - has been to assert that perhaps more effort would suffice. FBI Director James Comey has said, "But my reaction to that is: I'm not sure they've really tried." Hillary Clinton wants a "Manhattan-like project, something that would bring the government and the tech communities together". More effort won't solve the problem - but the misunderstanding lies at the heart of why exceptional access is so hard. more

Thoughts on the Open Internet - Part 1: What Is “Open Internet”

I'm sure we've all heard about "the Open Internet." The expression builds upon a rich pedigree of term "open" in various contexts. For example, "open government" is the governing doctrine which holds that citizens have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government to allow for effective public oversight, a concept that appears to be able to trace its antecedents back to the age of enlightenment in 17th century Europe. more

Verisign’s Perspective on Recent Root Server Attacks

On Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 2015, some of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) root name servers received large amounts of anomalous traffic. Last week the root server operators published a report on the incident. In the interest of further transparency, I'd like to take this opportunity to share Verisign's perspective, including how we identify, handle and react, as necessary, to events such as this. more

Internet Root Servers Hit with Unusual DNS Amplification Attack

On Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, several of the Internet Domain Name System's root name servers received high rate of suspicious queries, reaching as high as 5 million queries per second, according to a report released by the Root Server System Advisory Council. The incident has been categorized as a unique type of DNS amplification attack. more

Consumer Trust? Not at ICANN Compliance

Every person and every entity must have a philosophy if they are to be successful. Consumer trust is one of the key issues at the heart of keeping the Internet open as well as prosperous. The ICANN Affirmation of Commitments was signed in 2009 and has been the guiding principle for ICANN's activities going forward. The title of section 9.3 is Promoting competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice. This section is in essence the embodiment of the commitment of ICANN. more

Officially Compromised Privacy

The essence of information privacy is control over disclosure. Whoever is responsible for the information is supposed to be able to decide who sees it. If a society values privacy, it needs to ensure that there are reasonable protections possible against disclosure to those not authorized by the information's owner. In the online world, an essential technical component for this assurance is encryption. If the encryption that is deployed permits disclosure to those who were not authorized by the information's owner, there should be serious concern about the degree of privacy that is meaningfully possible. more

Taking Back the DNS

Most new domain names are malicious. I am stunned by the simplicity and truth of that observation. Every day lots of new names are added to the global DNS, and most of them belong to scammers, spammers, e-criminals, and speculators. The DNS industry has a lot of highly capable and competitive registrars and registries who have made it possible to reserve or create a new name in just seconds, and to create millions of them per day. Domains are cheap, domains are plentiful, and as a result most of them are dreck or worse. more

Governments Shouldn’t Play Games with the Internet

Governments often use small players as pawns in their global games of chess. Two weeks ago the European Court of Justice invalidated the EU-US Safe Harbor ("Safe Harbor") framework, turning Internet businesses into expendable pawns in a government game. But for the past fifteen years, Safe Harbor allowed data flows across the Atlantic -- fostering innovation and incredible economic development. more

The Cyber Security Ecosystem: Collaborate or Collaborate - It’s Your Choice

As cyber security as a field has grown in scope and influence, it has effectively become an 'ecosystem' of multiple players, all of whom either participate in or influence the way the field develops and/or operates. It's increasingly evident that, more than ever, it is crucial for those players to collaborate and work together to enhance the security posture of communities, nations and the globe. more