this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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As if anybody here needs a reason to be wary of what you do online, this essay shares how a foreign adversary used back doors that were intentionally put in place to spy on Americans and how the rest of the world probably has the same back doors.

I especially appreciate the phrase "nerd harder" and the quote, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia".

How can IT folk help politicans to understand?

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Eh?

You can’t build an unpickable back door into a computer system.

You can’t break encryption for only the good guys.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Encryption only works when there is one decryption key. If there are two different keys then it isn’t encrypted bad actors will find a way in

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

That is 100% correct. Nonetheless, the US agencies assumed that they were smarter than basically all of the security community and common sense.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

except the intentions werent any good either.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

whenever you encrypt something, encrypt with both the intended public key and the fbi's public key. and send the one encrypted with the fbi's key to the fbi.