Al-Qaeda’s new homebrew crypto apps may make US intel-gathering easier

Terrorists loyal to al Qaeda and its offshoots are using new encryption software, most likely in response to revelations that the National Security Agency is able to bypass standard cryptographic protections as part of an expansive surveillance program, according to a recently released report from intelligence firm Recorded Future.

Supercomputers, trickery, court orders, and persuasion defeat widely used crypto.

The influx of new programs for al Qaeda members came amid revelations that the NSA was able to decode vast amounts of encrypted data traveling over the Internet. Among other things, according to documents Snowden provided, government-sponsored spies exploited backdoors or crippling weaknesses that had been surreptitiously and intentionally built in to widely used standards.

Cryptography and security expert Bruce Schneier said the release of new crypto tools wasn't likely to adversely affect US intelligence agents monitoring al Qaeda.

"I think the reverse is true. I think this will help US intelligence efforts," he wrote in a blog post published Wednesday. "Cryptography is hard, and the odds that a home-brew encryption product is better than a well-studied open-source tool is slight. Last fall, Matt Blaze said to me that he thought that the Snowden documents will usher in a new dark age of cryptography, as people abandon good algorithms and software for snake oil of their own devising. My guess is that this an example of that."

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Al-Qaeda’s new homebrew crypto apps may make US intel-gathering easier