I really don't like that there replacing an open source crypto with a closed source one. Putting on my tin foil hat but didn't Microsoft hand over a back door to the NSA already.
> Putting on my tin foil hat but didn't Microsoft hand over a back door to the NSA already.
What incident are you referring to? I can think of a couple of possible ones:
1. PRISM, which is still a big question mark, and if it's in your threat model, then running Windows, let alone running Windows with an SSH server of any form, is not something you want to be doing, regardless of whether a particular library in it is open-source.
2. _NSAKEY, which MS had a decently convicing explanation of: it was a signing key used to indicate NSA-approved cryptographic providers (for FIPS-ish auditing), not anything that could be used to break into a user's account remotely.
3. The removal of the Elephant diffuser from BitLocker. My personal opinion is that all "diffusers", custom block cipher modes, etc. for full-disk encryption are pseudoscience; if you really want integrity protection, change your filesystem so it uses 4064-byte sectors, a 16-byte IV, and a 16-byte authentication tag. In any case, it still requires physical access to the disk to attack, so it's not particularly useful as an NSA back door (unless your threat model is one of the "then you have bigger problems" ones).
The two cryptographers who originally publicly identified the backdoor (that Snowden eventually confirmed) work for Microsoft. So, the opposite of what you're insinuating.
They collaborated with the NSA to develop an exploit in the SSL implementation used in Outlook.com.
From the Snowden documents;
July 31, 2012
Microsoft (MS) began encrypting web-based chat with the introduction of the new outlook.com service. This new Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption effectively cut off collection of the new service for FAA 702 and likely 12333 (to some degree) for the Intelligence Community (IC). MS, working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal with the new SSL. These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012.
It's not clear this should be called an "exploit". It sounds like Microsoft in its capacity as a cryptographic endpoint turning over either plaintext or session keys (or in the severely worst case, long-term private keys). It doesn't make much sense to me to refer to that as an "exploit".
Are you saying that you are familiar with the events that DonnyV is referring to but you are confident that they are mere legend? That you disagree with the published accounts?
Or are you saying that you are not familiar with that particular scandal, you've never heard of it, and your response is simply "Not that I know of."?
If you check his post history he basically just blanket denies everything relating to the Snowden NSA leaks and accuses people of believing in 'magic' when they discuss the agency's capabilities.
That's not true at all. I question it when people post conspiracy theory stuff with no evidence whatsoever. HackerNews is not that type of website, and I hope it never degenerates into it.
What incident are you referring to? I can think of a couple of possible ones:
1. PRISM, which is still a big question mark, and if it's in your threat model, then running Windows, let alone running Windows with an SSH server of any form, is not something you want to be doing, regardless of whether a particular library in it is open-source.
2. _NSAKEY, which MS had a decently convicing explanation of: it was a signing key used to indicate NSA-approved cryptographic providers (for FIPS-ish auditing), not anything that could be used to break into a user's account remotely.
3. The removal of the Elephant diffuser from BitLocker. My personal opinion is that all "diffusers", custom block cipher modes, etc. for full-disk encryption are pseudoscience; if you really want integrity protection, change your filesystem so it uses 4064-byte sectors, a 16-byte IV, and a 16-byte authentication tag. In any case, it still requires physical access to the disk to attack, so it's not particularly useful as an NSA back door (unless your threat model is one of the "then you have bigger problems" ones).
But maybe I'm forgetting something else?