Lifeboat Foundation

Cryptography research panel at RSAC 2016 features debate on Apple vs. FBI, Juniper backdoor, and quantum crypto, and Diffie, Hellman nab Turing Award.

“For the third time in less than a year, security researchers have found a method to attack encrypted Web communications, a direct result of weaknesses that were mandated two decades ago by the U.S. government”

This could have more than just security gap ripple effects; it could actually be a loophole for any claims/ lawsuits that consumers and others have with various organizations.

For the third time in under a year, security researchers have found a method to attack encrypted Web communications, a direct result of weaknesses that were mandated two decades ago by the U.S. government.

Continue reading “Latest attack against TLS shows the pitfalls of intentionally weakening encryption” »

Three photons in a 3-D ‘twist’.

Is it time to relook at the CIO role requirements to include some level of CISO/ CSO experience?

Many of the security defences that companies invest in are blind to encrypted traffic and untrustworthy digital certificates, a study reveals.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has broken with other Silicon Valley giants by backing the FBI in its battle with Apple over hacking into a locked iPhone as part of the investigation into last December’s San Bernardino terror attack.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, Gates said a court order requiring Apple to help the FBI access a work phone belonging to gunman Syed Farook was” a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case.”

Gates went on to compare the FBI’s request to accessing bank and telephone records. However, he added that the government must be subject to rules about when it can access such information.

Continue reading “Microsoft founder Gates backs FBI in encryption fight with Apple” »

Here is a question that keeps me up at night…

Is the San Bernardino iPhone just locked or is it properly encrypted?

Isn’t full encryption beyond the reach of forensic investigators? So we come to the real question: If critical data on the San Bernardino iPhone is properly encrypted, and if the Islamic terrorist who shot innocent Americans used a good password, then what is it that the FBI thinks that Apple can do to help crack this phone? Doesn’t good encryption thwart forensic analysis, even by the FBI and the maker of the phone?

In the case of Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone, the FBI doesn’t know if the shooter used a long and sufficiently unobvious password. They plan to try a rapid-fire dictionary attack and other predictive algorithms to deduce the password. But the content of the iPhone is protected by a closely coupled hardware feature that will disable the phone and even erase memory, if it detects multiple attempts with the wrong password. The FBI wants Apple to help them defeat this hardware sentry, so that they can launch a brute force hack—trying thousands of passwords each second. Without Apple’s help, the crack detection hardware could automatically erase incriminating evidence, leaving investigators in the dark.

Continue reading “Is San Bernardino iPhone Fully Encrypted?” »

Very concerning news for the US security; we’ll see how the US responds. Remember, our largest hackers in the US is China; so we’ll need to determine what this means as well as how vulnerable we are.

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/969692.shtml

China’s stock markets have been stabilizing in recent days after the rollercoaster ride at the start of the year. And one bright point has been stocks related to quantum communications, showing renewed investor interest in the new technology, which will play an important role in creating a safety net for the increasingly information technology-savvy economy.

Continue reading “China’s newest tech can offer quantum of security” »

FBI not able to hack a phone is really starting to make them look really bad. Granted Apple has created a more advance encryption format on their phones; however, FBI is supposed to be a lot more advance than this.

Why would you want your smart phone encrypted? To protect the information on it should it get lost or stolen, and to ensure no one has tampered with your data.

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I have mentioned in my previous posts about the Quantum Internet work that Los Alamos has been leading; today Los Alamos has been awarded a patent on their Quantum Communication (QC) Optical Fiber.

Whitewood received a Notice of Allowance for a patent application that addresses issues that arise when employing quantum communications techniques to share cryptographic material over fiber networks.

ArcPoint Strategic Communications.

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