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British local authorities to monitor internet communications
,----[ Quote ]
| In 2004, Great Britain opened the door to extensive monitoring operations by
| hundreds of public bodies and quangos by introducing the Regulation of
| Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Anyone, down to local authorities or the
| fire brigade, can monitor communications without a court warrant. Abundant
| use is being made of these powers, even when there is no question of serious
| crime or terrorism. On the mere suspicion of a trivial offence, citizens are
| already being watched or having their communications bugged.
`----
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/114306/from/rss09
Spied on despite encryption
,----[ Quote ]
| In order to prevent misuse it is always advisable to use encrypted
| connections for sensitive activities, like online banking, or reading emails
| at services like Google Mail. However, in certain circumstances, attackers
| may still gain access to bank or email account data, despite the encryption.
`----
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/114307/from/rss09
Recent:
Skype won't say if it decrypts VoIP calls
,----[ Quote ]
| To allay fears that the calls might not be secure from law enforcement, Skype
| should open its platform to evaluation by trusted, credible industry experts,
| he says.
|
| Endler says it's equally difficult to know whether commercial VoIP vendors
| leave open the possibility of turning encryption keys over to law
| enforcement.
|
| In the United States, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act
| (CALEA) forbids requiring that vendors build in back-door decryption, says
| Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy &
| Technology. "CALEA expressly forbids requiring anyone to be able to decrypt
| anything," he says.
`----
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1143568778&rid=-50
Backdoor in Skype? We need an open-source replacement
,----[ Quote ]
| Deliberate or just flawed?
|
| So, assuming for a moment that the claim of the Austrian police is correct,
| there are two possibilities now: (a) Either Skype made a mistake somewhere in
| the implementation of their encryption algorithms and thus allowed a
| successful attack on their protocols. Or (b) they have deliberately provided
| a backdoor for law enforcement or other agencies.
|
| [...]
|
| And of course, Skype is ubiquituous. If you want to talk to people, you need
| to use what they are using. And everyone is using Skype.
`----
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/foobar/5472
Speculation over back door in Skype
,----[ Quote ]
| According to reports, there may be a back door built into Skype, which allows
| connections to be bugged. The company has declined to expressly deny the
| allegations. At a meeting with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian
| regulator on lawful interception of IP based services held on 25th June,
| high-ranking officials at the Austrian interior ministry revealed that it is
| not a problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations.
`----
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/Speculation-over-back-door-in-Skype--/111170
Open Source Skype Scuppered
,----[ Quote ]
| First, obviously, that such a flaw should be built in is bad. It weakens the
| product - crackers of the world are doubtless firing up their Skype programs
| even as I write - and suggests an extremely patronising attitude to users.
| But I think there's another, less obvious, problem with this revelation.
|
| For some time, people have been talking about getting Skype to go open
| source: you can now forget that.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2008/07/open-source-skype-scuppered.html
Compressed VoIP leaves eavesdropping clues
,----[ Quote ]
| Eavesdroppers might be able to gain clues about the content of encrypted
| conversations even without breaking the cryptography.
|
| VoIP services such as Skype encrypt conversations but law enforcement
| agencies, most notably in Germany, have complained this can hinder law
| enforcement investigations.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/23/compressed_voip_traffic_analysis/
Pirate Bay bitchslaps Swedish law with SSL
,----[ Quote ]
| The Pirate Bay plans to offer encryption services to people who use the
| BitTorrent tracker site in a direct attempt to combat a new controversial
| snoop law passed in Sweden last week.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/23/the_pirate_bay_ssl/
Why are European governments able to do more for less when it comes to National
Security?
,----[ Quote ]
| Fon has to comply with RIPA an act so strict that makes the Patriot act look
| simple. Fon has to provide special VPN tunneling technology in the UK for the
| UK secret services to investigate suspected criminals and terrorists when
| they log on to our WiFi signal. But this is not of course only Fon. Every UK
| ISP from BT down, Carphone Warehouse, Virgin, Sky, all have to provide this
| capability to the UK government.
`----
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/general/why-can-european-governments-do-more-for-less-when-it-gets-to-national-security.html
Skype: We can't comply with police wiretap requests
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| There's no guarantee that Skype's AES encryption is implemented properly or
| that there aren't lingering security flaws. A 2006 presentation at the
| BlackHat Europe conference in March said the right algorithms were being
| used, but that there's "no way" to know if a backdoor for eavesdropping
| exists. A Skype-commissioned independent evaluation, however, gave it a
| thumbs-up.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9963028-38.html
Related:
Beware of Skype
,----[ Quote ]
| The Skype network has been a concern of government intelligence agencies
| since its inception because it provides a worldwide network of encrypted VoIP
| calls to potential “terrorists”. So how coincidental is it that 10 days after
| Bush signs into law a Bill giving the government authority to track foreign
| calls that go through U.S. networks that Skype, for the first time in its
| existence, undergoes a massive worldwide outage?
|
| [...]
|
| But there are FOSS alternatives to Skype people really should start
| considering now. One is the OpenWengo Project. Businesses, and even
| individuals, should also consider setting up their own Asterisk servers with
| encryption.
`----
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/2479
Why proprietary code is bad for security
,----[ Quote ]
| Tho Skype is using an encrypted protocol, it’s still their own, non-disclosed
| code and property. So we don’t know what it contains.
|
| [...]
|
| It’s time to stop accepting that we are the bad guys, and to stop consuming
| things we just don’t understand (and cannot, because they are proprietary,
| closed-source systems).
|
| Say no to companies, or even governments who treat you like this. Start using
| open sourced products and protocols wherever you can. Even if you could
| still never understand the code used in these systems, there are still lots
| of people who can, and who will examine it. The magic word here is “peer
| review” - your friend or buddy or neighbour may be able to understand all
| that, and to help. No, not with Skype or Windows or any black box from Cisco.
`----
http://wolfgang.lonien.de/?p=394
Cryptome: NSA has access to Windows Mobile smartphones
,----[ Quote ]
| First time in history Cryptome.org has released information about the
| characteristics of NSA’s network surveillance.
`----
http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/1028
Dual_EC_DRBG Added to Windows Vista
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft has added the random-number generator Dual_EC-DRBG to Windows
| Vista, as part of SP1. Yes, this is the same RNG that could have an NSA
| backdoor.
|
| It's not enabled by default, and my advice is to never enable it. Ever.
`----
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/12/dual_ec_drbg_ad.html
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