[nycbug-talk] Hot Story: German Gov. intelligence agencies decrypt PGP, SSH

[nop]

Have you rotated your keys and update the bits this year?


On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 8:09 PM, George Rosamond <
george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:

> Isaac (.ike) Levy:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > To throw a little chicken little into what is otherwise a beautiful
> > weekend,
> >
> > A google translation says: "The federal government declared that its
> > secret services were basically able to decrypt PGP and Secure Shell,
> > at least partially."
> >
> >
> http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http://www.golem.de/news/bundesregierung-deutsche-geheimdienste-koennen-pgp-entschluesseln-1205-92031.html
> >
> >  -- Apparently, GnuPG list and others merely have links to this
> > article, I haven't found anything more except links to this vague
> > original article.
> >
> > Thoughts?  Is tomorrow morning's commute to work going to look like
> > that new Brad Pitt movie, *or*, are we looking at a dopey expose of
> > well-known widespread worst-practices in cryptographic
> > misunderstandings?
>
> I don't know if there's more to this, but this may be the important part:
>
> <quote>
> The response of the federal government is: "Yes, the technology used is
> generally in a position, depending on the type and quality of the
> encryption."
> </quote>
>
> What?  Key length?  Encryption type?  Password strength?
>
> My feeling has always been that an adversary with sufficient resources
> and high enough stakes can break anything.
>
> If you're Jane Q Nobody crossing a border, and they image your drive and
> there's cipher text that's hard to crack, I doubt they devote the
> resources.  But if you're a priority target, I'm sure they would and
> ultimately could.
>
> Passwd strength is usually the weak link though, not the encryption itself.
>
> g
>
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