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Top-level
 CALEA forced a redesign of the foundational, physical layer of the internet. Thankfully, encryption at the protocol layer - in the programs we use - partially counters this deliberately introduced brittleness in the security of all our communications. 10/ 8 comments
Of course, that's why governments in the EU, the US, the UK and all over the world are *still* trying to ban working encryption, insisting that the back doors they'll install will only let the good guys in: https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/ *Any* back door can be exploited by your adversaries. 12/ The Chinese sponsored hacking group know as Salt Typhoon intercepted the communications of hundreds of millions of American residents, businesses, and institutions. From that position, they could do NSA-style metadata-analysis, malware injection, and interception of unencrypted traffic. And they *didn't have to hack anything*, because the US government insists that all networking gear ship *pre-hacked* so that cops can get into it. 13/ This isn't even the first time that CALEA back doors have been exploited by a hostile foreign power as a matter of geopolitical skullduggery. In 2004-2005, Greece's telecommunications were under mass surveillance by US spy agencies who wiretapped Greek officials, all the way up to the Prime Minister, in order to mess with the Greek Olympic bid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004%E2%80%9305 14/ This is a wild story in *so many* ways. For one thing, CALEA isn't law in Greece! You can totally sell working, secure networking gear in Greece, and in many other countries around the world where they have not passed a stupid CALEA-style law. *However* the US telecoms market is so fucking *huge* that all the manufacturers build CALEA back doors into their gear, no matter where it's destined for. 15/ So the US has effectively exported this deliberate insecurity to the whole planet - and used it to screw around with *Olympic bids*, the most penny-ante bullshit imaginable. Now Chinese-sponsored hackers with cool names like "Salt Typhoon" are traipsing around inside US telecoms infrastructure, using the back doors the FBI insisted would be safe. 16/ On October 23 at 7PM, I'll be in Decatur, presenting my novel *The Bezzle* at Eagle Eye Books: https://eagleeyebooks.com/event/2024-10-23/cory-doctorow -- Tor Books has just published two new, free "Little Brother" stories: "Vigilant," about creepy surveillance in distance education: https://reactormag.com/spill-cory-doctorow/ And "Spill," about oil pipelines and indigenous landback: https://reactormag.com/vigilant-cory-doctorow/ 17/ Image: CC BY 2.0 eof/ |
Gregory's Server
CALEA can be used to intercept your communications, but mostly what an attacker gets is "metadata" ("so-and-so sent a message of X bytes to such and such") because the data is scrambled and they can't unscramble it, because cryptography actually *works*, unlike back doors.
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