Encryption, Edward Snowden, the NSA and you

“For the past decade, the NSA has lead an aggressive, multi-pronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies.”

That could be the lead to this column, but that’s actually from a 2013 PowerPoint slide that was part of the documents Edward Snowden leaked in June of 2013. Yeah, and it gets better.

“Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now have been discarded are now exploitable.”

Gross.

In 2013, the NSA expected to “Reach full operating capability for SIGINT access to a major Internet Peer-to-Peer voice and text communications system.” And to “Complete enabling for encryption chips used in Virtual Private Network and Web encryption devices.”

From a Top Secret NSA report, “NSA collects, on a representative day, (about sign) 500,000 buddylists and inboxes. More than 90% collected because tasked selectors identified only as contacts (not communicant, content, or owner).”

This is what Snowden wanted us to know.

“This is mass surveillance. Encryption is the only kind of technology we have that can prevent that mass surveillance, and it’s being taken apart, it’s being weakened from right here inside of the country,” said Mathew Greene, a cryptographer and professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Information Security Institute.

What is encryption? Encryption is a digital lockbox, and the key to the box is held only by the people you want.

That’s not going to stop your message from getting hijacked, but it’ll prevent the message from being read.

How is it used? Encryption is used for financial transactions, personally identifiable information, and anything that could be considered sensitive.

Government and corporate whistleblowers use encryption “lock boxes” set up by WikiLeaks, The New York Times, and The Guardian.

With that in mind, the Patriot Act, a holdover of the Bush Administration and reauthorized by Democratic and Republican congresses since, is on the verge of renewal.

The Patriot Act is the bill that NSA and other government officials have used to justify collecting U.S. citizens’ data and information, and allows the agency to operate with little, if any, oversight.

Every the Libertarians’ Golden Child, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, successfully filibustered the reauthorization earlier this week, but that is just one part of the effort.

The other part of the effort to is to let congressmen and -women in Washington D.C. know that the reauthorization of the Patriot Act will just continue to chip away at our  Bill of Rights.

For me, I’m not holding my breath. The track record of the Patriot Act, and anything regarding surveillance under the guise of security, is that it will be reauthorized, or pushed through by executive order.