We Are So Screwed
Having already cost US companies money by making people leery of putting their data on sites based in the US, as Badtux notes Alexander the Geek has destroyed the credibility of US hardware suppliers. No one builds a massive castle wall and surrounds it with a moat, and then installs a footbridge to a garden gate through the wall in the back, hoping no one notices.
If you install a backdoor, it will be found and it will be exploited, and not just by the people who ordered it built. It has probably already been exploited by the pros, and the script-kiddies will be along eventually. Does NSA realize that their system has the same vulnerability?
I mentioned the motto of the Australian DSD: “Reveal their secrets … Protect our own”. NSA has failed in the second part, and seems to include everyone in ‘their’.
The Internet will adapt to these realities, but it is very likely that the US won’t have a place at the table where the changes are agreed to. Very few international meetings are held in the US these days because of the extremely restrictive visa policies that have been adopted. When the technical committees meet in the foreign locations, it is fair to assume that new standards will be approved for services that will negate much of what NSA has done. I expect that more than a few people will want to discuss how to route around the US.
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Reading further, the most startling back door requires that the NSA owns one of the key infrastructure providers so they can do massive man-in-the-middle attacks. Hmm, I wonder (Verisign) who that (Verisign) could possible (Verisign) be? Hmm, what else is in Reston Virginia, I forget?
So now Verisign’s business is going to get hammered. Yay, NSA! Managing to do to us what Osama bin Laden never did!
-BT
Alexander the Geek has systematically destroyed the US technology industry one sector at a time so they could charge a refugee Somali taxi driver in San Diego with sending $9k to Somali Islamists. I’m sure the investors will understand the ‘need’ to do this. 👿
You have to wonder how long the industry can put up with this before they revolt and go to Congress to get it to stop. They are going to have to do it if they hope to survive.
At the risk of over-generalizing, I can’t help seeing this as part of a trend: our government, since 9/11/2001, has prioritized security, or rather the appearance of security, over literally everything else, from industry profitability to diplomatic relations to personal freedoms… to the point that the US is, among the nations of the world, the smart-ass kid on the block, the kid no one wants to associate with on any level, in any way.
After 9/11, it became fashionable to say, “If X, then the terrorists will have won.” My version: if this security obsession continues, the terrorists have won. Welcome to a world our nation’s founders wouldn’t even recognize.
The US government has done exactly what every guerrilla movement/terrorist organization hopes for – more repression and authoritarianism. They have accomplished their primary goal of isolating the US. You can’t expand freedom and democracy abroad when you are limiting it at home.
My Dad and yours didn’t risk their butts fighting fascists, and I sure as hell didn’t risk mine fighting the Soviets to have to put up with this crap in the US.
From my point of view what the government has done isn’t cautious, it’s cowardly. It doesn’t show strength, it demonstrates weakness.
I’m heartily sick of it.