+1. I'd +10 if I could :-) > One thing that would be helpful is to encourage the use of > Diffie-Hellman everywhere. Even without certificates that can be > trusted, we can eliminate the ability of casual, dragnet-style > surveillance. Sure, an attacker can still do a MITM attack. But (a) > people who are more clueful can do certificate pinning/verification, > and (b) if the NSA is really putting data taps into tier 1 providers' > high speed interconnects, they can only carry out MITM attacks on a > bulk scale by placing racks and racks of servers, which will require > significant amounts of cooling and power, in places that are much more > likely where they would be noticed. It's no longer a data tap hidden > away somewhere in a closet near a tier 1's NAP. > > For too long, I think, we've let the perfect be the enemy of the good. > Using TLS with DH to secure SMTP connections is valuable even if it is > subject to MITM attacks, and even if the NSA/FBI can hand a National > Security Letter to the cloud provider. At least this way they will be > forced to go the NSL route (and it will show up in whatever > transparency reports that Google or Microsoft or Facebook are allowed > to show to the public), or spend $$$ on huge racks of servers in > public data centers, which maybe means less money to subvert standards > setting activities. > > Although perfect security is ideal, increasing the cost of casual > style dragnet surveillance is still a Good Thing. > > - Ted > -- Stefan WINTER Ingenieur de Recherche Fondation RESTENA - Réseau Téléinformatique de l'Education Nationale et de la Recherche 6, rue Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi L-1359 Luxembourg Tel: +352 424409 1 Fax: +352 422473 PGP key updated to 4096 Bit RSA - I will encrypt all mails if the recipient's key is known to me http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xC0DE6A358A39DC66
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