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Mar 2 16 9:25 PM
The clash between Apple and the FBI over whether the company should provide access to encrypted data on a locked iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers highlights debates about privacy and data security which have raged for decades. Cryptography was once controlled by the state and deployed only for military and diplomatic ends. But in the 1970s, cryptographer Whitfield Diffie devised a system which took encryption keys away from the state and marked the start of the so-called "Crypto Wars". Whitfield Diffie and three other experts spoke to the BBC World Service Inquiry programme about the tensions at the heart of the spat between Apple and the FBI. Whitfield Diffie: The revolution beginsIn 1975, cryptographer Whitfield Diffie devised "public key cryptography", which revolutionised encryption. "The basic techniques we used until public key cryptography come from around 1500 in the western world, and were known from about 800 in the Middle East. "They are basically arithmetic. Not ordinary integer arithmetic, but something like clock arithmetic - it's 11 o'clock and you wait three hours and you get 2 o'clock - and table lookups. What's the 5th element in the table? What's the 20th element? "The trouble is you can't do them very well without some kind of mechanical computation. A human being can't do enough of those calculations to produce a secure system without making too many mistakes.
The clash between Apple and the FBI over whether the company should provide access to encrypted data on a locked iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers highlights debates about privacy and data security which have raged for decades.
Cryptography was once controlled by the state and deployed only for military and diplomatic ends. But in the 1970s, cryptographer Whitfield Diffie devised a system which took encryption keys away from the state and marked the start of the so-called "Crypto Wars".
Whitfield Diffie and three other experts spoke to the BBC World Service Inquiry programme about the tensions at the heart of the spat between Apple and the FBI.
In 1975, cryptographer Whitfield Diffie devised "public key cryptography", which revolutionised encryption.
"The basic techniques we used until public key cryptography come from around 1500 in the western world, and were known from about 800 in the Middle East.
"They are basically arithmetic. Not ordinary integer arithmetic, but something like clock arithmetic - it's 11 o'clock and you wait three hours and you get 2 o'clock - and table lookups. What's the 5th element in the table? What's the 20th element?
"The trouble is you can't do them very well without some kind of mechanical computation. A human being can't do enough of those calculations to produce a secure system without making too many mistakes.
Read more @ http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35659152?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link
The latest version of the Investigatory Powers Bill has failed to clarify tricky issues like encryption and gives police and security services wide-ranging powersThe UK government is pushing ahead with plans to update surveillance laws, despite criticism from privacy activists, communications firms and three parliamentary committees. Earlier today, the Home Office published the latest version of its Investigatory Powers Bill, nicknamed the “snooper’s charter”, which had been released in draft form last November. “The revised bill is both clearer and stronger in protecting privacy,” said home secretary Theresa May. The latest version attempts to clarify that a company will only be forced to remove “electronic protections”, such as encryption, that it has applied to users’ messages when it is “technically feasible” to do so. The earlier version suggested firms could be required to decrypt messages for which they do not have a key, which is impossible. This may still be the case, and will hinge on whether firms like Apple are deemed to apply end-to-end encryption to messages, or if a user does it themselves. End-to-end encryption means that even the software author (in this case Apple) does not have access to the key, only the two users communicating. But given the communication takes place on Apple’s platform, the government may be leaving itself some wiggle room. Heavily criticised The government has also not stepped back from its heavily criticised plans requiring communications firms to hold “internet connection records”, detailing users’ web history, for 12 months, for use by police and security services in investigations. The scope of these powers has actually been expanded to give police access to all web records, not just illegal websites or communications services.
The latest version of the Investigatory Powers Bill has failed to clarify tricky issues like encryption and gives police and security services wide-ranging powers
The UK government is pushing ahead with plans to update surveillance laws, despite criticism from privacy activists, communications firms and three parliamentary committees.
Earlier today, the Home Office published the latest version of its Investigatory Powers Bill, nicknamed the “snooper’s charter”, which had been released in draft form last November. “The revised bill is both clearer and stronger in protecting privacy,” said home secretary Theresa May.
The latest version attempts to clarify that a company will only be forced to remove “electronic protections”, such as encryption, that it has applied to users’ messages when it is “technically feasible” to do so. The earlier version suggested firms could be required to decrypt messages for which they do not have a key, which is impossible.
This may still be the case, and will hinge on whether firms like Apple are deemed to apply end-to-end encryption to messages, or if a user does it themselves. End-to-end encryption means that even the software author (in this case Apple) does not have access to the key, only the two users communicating. But given the communication takes place on Apple’s platform, the government may be leaving itself some wiggle room.
The government has also not stepped back from its heavily criticised plans requiring communications firms to hold “internet connection records”, detailing users’ web history, for 12 months, for use by police and security services in investigations. The scope of these powers has actually been expanded to give police access to all web records, not just illegal websites or communications services.
Read more @ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2079252-new-uk-snoopers-charter-still-gives-state-wide-hacking-powers/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link
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