CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Tag: surveillance

  • Silk Road, Lavabit, and the Limits of Crypto

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    Yesterday we saw two stories that illustrate the limits of cryptography as a shield against government. In San Francisco, police arrested a man alleged to be Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), the operator of online drug market Silk Road. And in Alexandria, Virginia, a court unsealed documents revealing the tussle between the government and secure email…

  • Senate Judiciary Testimony: FISA Oversight

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    I testified today at a Senate Judiciary committee hearing on Oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Here is the written testimony I submitted.

  • The Debian OpenSSL Bug: Backdoor or Security Accident?

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    On Monday, Ed wrote about Software Transparency, the idea that software is more resistant to intentional backdoors (and unintentional security vulnerabilities) if the process used to create it is transparent. Elements of software transparency include the availability of source code and the ability to read or contribute to a project’s issue tracker or internal developer…

  • Software Transparency

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    Thanks to the recent NSA leaks, people are more worried than ever that their software might have backdoors. If you don’t believe that the software vendor can resist a backdoor request, the onus is on you to look for a backdoor. What you want is software transparency. Transparency of this type is a much-touted advantage…

  • On Security Backdoors

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    I wrote Monday about revelations that the NSA might have been inserting backdoors into security standards. Today I want to talk through two cases where the NSA has been accused of backdooring standards, and use these cases to differentiate between two types of backdoors.

  • NSA, the FISA Court, and Risks of Tech Summaries

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    Yesterday the U.S. government released a previously-secret 2011 opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), finding certain NSA surveillance and analysis activities to be illegal. The opinion, despite some redactions, gives us a window into the interactions between the NSA and the court that oversees its activities—including why oversight and compliance of surveillance are…

  • Groklaw Shuts Down, Citing NSA Eavesdropping

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    The legendary technology law blog Groklaw is shutting down. Groklaw’s founder and operator, Pamela “PJ” Jones, wrote that in light of current eavesdropping, email is no longer secure. She went on to say: There is no way to do Groklaw without email. Therein lies the conundrum. […] What to do? I’ve spent the last couple…

  • 51% foreign test doesn't protect Americans

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    One of the notable claims we have heard, in light of the Verizon / PRISM revelations, is that data extraction measures are calibrated to make sure that 51% or more of affected individuals are non-U.S. persons. As a U.S. person, I don’t find this at all reassuring. To see why, let’s think about the underlying…

  • Twenty-First Century Eavesdropping

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    Yesterday’s revelations about widespread government data collection led me to re-read my nine-post series on “Twenty-First Century Eavesdropping” from back in 2006. I was surprised to see how closely that discussion fit the current facts. Links to the 2006 posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

  • Are There Countries Whose Situations Worsened with the Arrival of the Internet?

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    Are there countries whose situations worsened with the arrival of the internet?  I’ve been arguing that there are lots of examples of countries where technology diffusion has helped democratic institutions deepen.  And there are several examples of countries where technology diffusion has been part of the story of rapid democratic transition.  But there are no…