US crypto researchers to NSA: If you must track, track responsibly

Technology

Nidhi Subbaraman NBC News

Jan. 27, 2014 at 3:23 PM ET

Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA, file

A Maryland State Trooper sits in an unmarked SUV outside the grounds of the National Security Administration just north of Washington, in Fort Meade, Md.

A group of cryptography researchers from universities around the country iscondemning the weakening of security infrastructure by the U.S. government and NSA, and warning against storing mass amounts of sensitive data.

In the open letter published Friday, the researchers write that data collection activities uncovered in the last 10 months stand to "chill free speech and invite many types of abuse, ranging from mission creep to identity theft."

The group hopes to improve the knowledge of privacy-preserving technology that already exists, that could aid legal surveillance proceed in a targeted manner. Should the NSA choose to use them, the cryptographic research community has and is developing tools and projects that can "protect civil liberties while enabling legit government searches,"Amit Sahai, a crypto researcher at UCLA who signed the letter, told NBC News. Though, "the exact ways in which they would fit together would very much depend on the precise questions that need to be addressed."

For example, Sahai noted that a kind of secure communication protocol would let phone companies rather than the government hold onto cell phone data, while allowing government entities to selectively search for information on a suspect. In this setup, the phone companies would not be privy to the exact searches, and the government would not have access to all available data.

In 2010, the FBI followed digital crumbs to track down a bank-robbing duo whod been involved in a spate of teller heists across Arizona and Colorado. After getting the greenlight from a judge, feds analyzed data from four Verizon cell towers near affected banks, and found one number that had accessed three of those towers on the days each of the banks was robbed.

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US crypto researchers to NSA: If you must track, track responsibly