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TECHNOLOGY Saturday 11 March 2017

What the CIA WikiLeaks dump tells us: Encryption works

ANICK JESDANUN for bad guys. So far, efforts
MICHAEL LIEDTKE to pass such a mandate
AP Technology Writers have stalled.
NEW YORK (AP) — If the STILL A PATCHWORK
tech industry is drawing At the moment, though,
one lesson from the latest end-to-end encrypted ser-
WikiLeaks disclosures, it’s vices such as iMessage and
that data-scrambling en- WhatsApp are still the ex-
cryption works, and the in- ception. While encryption is
dustry should use more of it. far more widely used than
Documents purported- it was in 2013, many mes-
ly outlining a massive CIA saging companies encode
surveillance program sug- user data in ways that let
gest that CIA agents must them read or scan it. Au-
go to great lengths to cir- thorities can force these
cumvent encryption they companies to divulge mes-
can’t break. In many cas- sage contents with war-
es, physical presence is rants or other legal orders.
required to carry off these Further expanding the use
targeted attacks. of end-to-end encryption
“We are in a world where if presents some challenges.
the U.S. government wants That’s partly because en-
to get your data, they can’t cryption will make it more
hope to break the encryp- difficult to perform popu-
tion,” said Nicholas Weav- lar tasks such as searching
er, who teaches network- In this Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, file photo, FBI Director James Comey speaks about the impact of years of emails for men-
ing and security at the Uni- technology on law enforcement, at Brookings Institution in Washington. tions of a specific keyword.
versity of California, Berke- Associated Press Google announced in mid-
ley. “They have to resort to il-liberties group Center for CIA has to resort to tapping a hacking tool — presum- 2014 that it was working on
targeted attacks, and that Democracy & Technology. individual phones and in- ably one similar to those end-to-end encryption for
is costly, risky and the kind That was because any giv- tercepting data before it is the CIA allegedly had at its email, but the tools have
of thing you do only on tar- en internet message gets encrypted or after it’s de- disposal. yet to materialize beyond
gets you care about. See- split into a multitude of tiny coded. On Wednesday, FBI Di- research environments.
ing the CIA have to do stuff “packets,” each of which It’s much like the old days rector James Comey ac- Instead, Google’s Gmail
like this should reassure civil traces its own unpredict- when “they would have knowledged the challeng- encrypts messages in tran-
libertarians that the situa- able route across the net- broken into a house to es posed by encryption. sit. But even that isn’t pos-
tion is better now than it work to its destination. plant a microphone,” said He said there should be a sible unless it’s adopted by
was four years ago.” The realization that spy Steven Bellovin, a Colum- balance between privacy the recipient’s mail system
MORE ENCRYPTION agencies had figured out bia University professor who and the FBI’s ability to law- as well.
Four years ago is when that problem spurred ef- has long studied cyberse- fully access information. He And encryption isn’t a pan-
former NSA contractor Ed- forts to better shield data curity issues. also said the FBI needs to acea, as the WikiLeaks dis-
ward Snowden revealed as it transits the internet. A Cindy Cohn, executive di- recruit talented computer closures suggest.
details of huge and secret few services such as Face- rector for Electronic Fron- personnel who might other- According to the purported
U.S. eavesdropping pro- book’s WhatsApp followed tier Foundation, a group wise go to work for Apple or CIA documents, spies have
grams. To help thwart spies the earlier example of Ap- focused on online privacy, Google. found ways to exploit holes
and snoops, the tech indus- ple’s iMessage and took likened the CIA’s approach Government officials have in phone and computer
try began to protectively the extra step of encrypt- to “fishing with a line and long wanted to force tech software to grab messages
encrypt email and messag- ing data in ways even the pole rather than fishing with companies to build “back when they haven’t been
ing apps, a process that companies couldn’t un- a driftnet.” doors” into encrypted de- encrypted yet. Although
turns their contents into scramble, a method called Encryption has grown so vices, so that the compa- Apple, Google and Micro-
indecipherable gibberish end-to-end encryption. strong that even the FBI nies can help law enforce- soft say they have fixed
without the coded “keys” CHALLENGES FOR AUTHORI- had to seek Apple’s help ment descramble mes- many of the vulnerabilities
that can unscramble them. TIES last year in cracking the sages with a warrant. But alluded to in the CIA docu-
The NSA revelations shat- In the past, spy agencies locked iPhone used by one security experts warn that ments, it’s not known how
tered earlier assumptions like the CIA could have of the San Bernardino at- doing so would undermine many holes remain open.
that internet data was hacked servers at What- tackers. security and privacy for ev- “There are different levels
nearly impossible to inter- sApp or similar services to Apple resisted what it con- eryone. where attacks take place,
cept for meaningful surveil- see what people were say- sidered an intrusive request, As Apple CEO Tim said Daniel Castro, vice
lance, said Joseph Lorenzo ing. End-to-end encryp- and the FBI ultimately broke Cook pointed out last year , president with the Informa-
Hall, chief technologist at tion, though, makes that into the phone by turning a back door for good guys tion Technology and Inno-
the Washington-based civ- prohibitively difficult. So the to an unidentified party for can also be a back door vation Foundation.