The Australian Attorney General and a key Australian minister have published a memo detailing the demand they plan on presenting to the next Five Eyes surveillance alliance meeting, which will be held next week in Ottawa.

The Australian officials will demand that their surveillance partners join with them in a plan to force "service providers to ensure reasonable assistance is provided to law enforcement and security agencies" when spies and police want to read messages that have been encrypted.

The encryption technologies under description are widely implemented in products and services that are often run by volunteer communities, or by companies who operate entirely outside 5 Eyes borders, but whose products can be used by anyone, anywhere in the world.

Working encryption is how we ensure that malicious parties don't hack our voting machines, pacemakers, home cameras, telephones, banking systems, power grids, and other key systems. There is no way to make working cryptography that can defend these applications against "bad guys" but fail catastrophically the moment a police officer or spy needs to defeat them.

The demand to ban working encryption dates back to the Clinton administration and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's groundbreaking victory in Bernstein, which ended the US ban on civilian access to working cryptography. The delusion that authorities can ban working crypto and still secure their national infrastructure persists, and is presently being mooted in Germany, and formed a key plank in Theresa May's party platform in the disastrous UK election.

As a reminder, here's what countries would lose, and what steps they would have to take, to ensure that police and spies could decrypt any communications they wanted to target:

Its impossible to overstate how bonkers the idea of sabotaging cryptography is to people who understand information security. If you want to secure your sensitive data either at rest on your hard drive, in the cloud, on that phone you left on the train last week and never saw again or on the wire, when youre sending it to your doctor or your bank or to your work colleagues, you have to use good cryptography. Use deliberately compromised cryptography, that has a back door that only the good guys are supposed to have the keys to, and you have effectively no security. You might as well skywrite it as encrypt it with pre-broken, sabotaged encryption.

There are two reasons why this is so. First, there is the question of whether encryption can be made secure while still maintaining a master key for the authorities use. As lawyer/computer scientist Jonathan Mayer explained, adding the complexity of master keys to our technology will introduce unquantifiable security risks. Its hard enough getting the security systems that protect our homes, finances, health and privacy to be airtight making them airtight except when the authorities dont want them to be is impossible.

What these leaders thinks they're saying is, "We will command all the software creators we can reach to introduce back-doors into their tools for us." There are enormous problems with this: there's no back door that only lets good guys go through it. If your Whatsapp or Google Hangouts has a deliberately introduced flaw in it, then foreign spies, criminals, crooked police (like those who fed sensitive information to the tabloids who were implicated in the hacking scandal -- and like the high-level police who secretly worked for organised crime for years), and criminals will eventually discover this vulnerability. They -- and not just the security services -- will be able to use it to intercept all of our communications. That includes things like the pictures of your kids in your bath that you send to your parents to the trade secrets you send to your co-workers.

But this is just for starters. These officials don't understand technology very well, so they doesn't actually know what they're asking for.

For this proposal to work, they will need to stop Britons, Canadians, Americans, Kiwis and Australians from installing software that comes from software creators who are out of her jurisdiction. The very best in secure communications are already free/open source projects, maintained by thousands of independent programmers around the world. They are widely available, and thanks to things like cryptographic signing, it is possible to download these packages from any server in the world (not just big ones like Github) and verify, with a very high degree of confidence, that the software you've downloaded hasn't been tampered with.

Australia is not alone here. The regime they proposes is already in place in countries like Syria, Russia, and Iran (for the record, none of these countries have had much luck with it). There are two means by which authoritarian governments have attempted to restrict the use of secure technology: by network filtering and by technology mandates.

Australian governments have already shown that she believes she can order the nation's ISPs to block access to certain websites (again, for the record, this hasn't worked very well). The next step is to order Chinese-style filtering using deep packet inspection, to try and distinguish traffic and block forbidden programs. This is a formidable technical challenge. Intrinsic to core Internet protocols like IPv4/6, TCP and UDP is the potential to "tunnel" one protocol inside another. This makes the project of figuring out whether a given packet is on the white-list or the black-list transcendentally hard, especially if you want to minimise the number of "good" sessions you accidentally blackhole.

More ambitious is a mandate over which code operating systems in the 5 Eyes nations are allowed to execute. This is very hard. We do have, in Apple's Ios platform and various games consoles, a regime where a single company uses countermeasures to ensure that only software it has blessed can run on the devices it sells to us. These companies could, indeed, be compelled (by an act of Parliament) to block secure software. Even there, you'd have to contend with the fact that other states are unlikely to follow suit, and that means that anyone who bought her Iphone in Paris or Mexico could come to the 5 Eyes countries with all their secure software intact and send messages "we cannot read."

But there is the problem of more open platforms, like GNU/Linux variants, BSD and other unixes, Mac OS X, and all the non-mobile versions of Windows. All of these operating systems are already designed to allow users to execute any code they want to run. The commercial operators -- Apple and Microsoft -- might conceivably be compelled by Parliament to change their operating systems to block secure software in the future, but that doesn't do anything to stop people from using all the PCs now in existence to run code that the PM wants to ban.

More difficult is the world of free/open operating systems like GNU/Linux and BSD. These operating systems are the gold standard for servers, and widely used on desktop computers (especially by the engineers and administrators who run the nation's IT). There is no legal or technical mechanism by which code that is designed to be modified by its users can co-exist with a rule that says that code must treat its users as adversaries and seek to prevent them from running prohibited code.

This, then, is what the Australian AG is proposing:

* All 5 Eyes citizens' communications must be easy for criminals, voyeurs and foreign spies to intercept

* Any firms within reach of a 5 Eyes government must be banned from producing secure software

* All major code repositories, such as Github and Sourceforge, must be blocked in the 5 Eyes

* Search engines must not answer queries about web-pages that carry secure software

* Virtually all academic security work in the 5 Eyes must cease -- security research must only take place in proprietary research environments where there is no onus to publish one's findings, such as industry R&D and the security services

* All packets in and out of 5 Eyes countries, and within those countries, must be subject to Chinese-style deep-packet inspection and any packets that appear to originate from secure software must be dropped

* Existing walled gardens (like Ios and games consoles) must be ordered to ban their users from installing secure software

* Anyone visiting a 5 Eyes country from abroad must have their smartphones held at the border until they leave

* Proprietary operating system vendors (Microsoft and Apple) must be ordered to redesign their operating systems as walled gardens that only allow users to run software from an app store, which will not sell or give secure software to Britons

* Free/open source operating systems -- that power the energy, banking, ecommerce, and infrastructure sectors -- must be banned outright

The Australian officials will say that she doesn't want to do any of this. They'll say that they can implement weaker versions of it -- say, only blocking some "notorious" sites that carry secure software. But anything less than the programme above will have no material effect on the ability of criminals to carry on perfectly secret conversations that "we cannot read". If any commodity PC or jailbroken phone can run any of the world's most popular communications applications, then "bad guys" will just use them. Jailbreaking an OS isn't hard. Downloading an app isn't hard. Stopping people from running code they want to run is -- and what's more, it puts the every 5 Eyes nation -- individuals and industry -- in terrible jeopardy.

Thats a technical argument, and its a good one, but you dont have to be a cryptographer to understand the second problem with back doors: the security services are really bad at overseeing their own behaviour.

Once these same people have a back door that gives them access to everything that encryption protects, from the digital locks on your home or office to the information needed to clean out your bank account or read all your email, there will be lots more people wholl want to subvert the vast cohort that is authorised to use the back door, and the incentives for betraying our trust will be much more lavish than anything a tabloid reporter could afford.

If you want a preview of what a back door looks like, just look at the US Transportation Security Administrations master keys for the locks on our luggage. Since 2003, the TSA has required all locked baggage travelling within, or transiting through, the USA to be equipped with Travelsentry locks, which have been designed to allow anyone with a widely held master key to open them.

What happened after Travelsentry went into effect? Stuff started going missing from bags. Lots and lots of stuff. A CNN investigation into thefts from bags checked in US airports found thousands of incidents of theft committed by TSA workers and baggage handlers. And though aggressive investigation work has cut back on theft at some airports, insider thieves are still operating with impunity throughout the country, even managing to smuggle stolen goods off the airfield in airports where all employees are searched on their way in and out of their work areas.

The US system is rigged to create a halo of buck-passing unaccountability. When my family picked up our bags from our Easter holiday in the US, we discovered that the TSA had smashed the locks off my nearly new, unlocked, Travelsentry-approved bag, taping it shut after confirming it had nothing dangerous in it, and leaving it completely destroyed in the words of the official BA damage report. British Airways has sensibly declared the damage to be not their problem, as they had nothing to do with destroying the bag. The TSA directed me to a form that generated an illiterate reply from a government subcontractor, sent from a do-not-reply email address, advising that TSA is not liable for any damage to locks or bags that are required to be opened by force for security purposes (the same note had an appendix warning me that I should treat this communication as confidential). Ive yet to have any other communications from the TSA.

Making it possible for the state to open your locks in secret means that anyone who works for the state, or anyone who can bribe or coerce anyone who works for the state, can have the run of your life. Cryptographic locks dont just protect our mundane communications: cryptography is the reason why thieves cant impersonate your fob to your cars keyless ignition system; its the reason you can bank online; and its the basis for all trust and security in the 21st century.

In her Dimbleby lecture, Martha Lane Fox recalled Aaron Swartzs words: Its not OK not to understand the internet anymore. That goes double for cryptography: any politician caught spouting off about back doors is unfit for office anywhere but Hogwarts, which is also the only educational institution whose computer science department believes in golden keys that only let the right sort of people break your encryption.

Tackling Encryption and Border Security key Priorities at Five-Eyes Meeting in Ottawah [Office of the Australian Attorney General]

Australia advocates weakening strong crypto at upcoming Five Eyes meeting [Cyrus Farivar/Ars Technica]

(via /.)

(Image: Facepalm, Brandon Grasley, CC-BY)

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Australia announces plan to ban working cryptography at home and in the US, UK, New Zealand, and Canada - Boing Boing

On January 3rd 2009, the first bitcoin block was processed, or mined.

Known as the genesis block, its special for a variety of reasons.

Most notable is the colossal achievement in establishing a secure digital store of value, or currency, a culmination of some 30 years mathematics, cryptography, game theory and coding.

Some hundred years earlier, Marconi demonstrated it was possible to transmit radio waves across the Atlantic.

Ironically, his innovation had multiple detractors, from his Italian compatriots who showed little interest in his work, to those who believed radio waves would not follow the curvature of the earth.

Marconis radio waves didnt follow the curvature of the earth, but with a little help from the ionosphere, did reach Newfoundland.

In 1909, Marconi received the Nobel prize. Radio is a foundational technology.

It created new bedrock for economies, transforming how we understand ourselves and our place in the universe.

But it took more than a hundred years of innovation to reach where we are today.

Bitcoin, and its underlying transaction record, blockchain, has a cryptographic elegance allowing the creation of digital events that are persistent, secure and unique enough, to which value can be ascribed.

It can be thought of as a collapsing protocol, combining the ability to store value, indelibly record ownership and make payments.

Interestingly, some eight years after the genesis block was created it still contains encoded, for as long as a single bitcoin node exists, in hexadecimal, the text: The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.

This was a nod to the economic difficulties of those few months included by bitcoins creator, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto.

It took only a further year for bitcoin to acquire value when in May 2010, after a four day quest, Laszlo Hanyecz convinced Jeremy Sturdivant, to exchange 10,000 bitcoins for two Papa Johns pizzas.

At todays bitcoin price of roughly $2,500, those were special pizzas.

Over the next few years, what was a triumph in coding and cryptography, ran into rougher waters. Dogged by a reputation for extreme volatility, criminal activity, money laundering and financing terrorism, bitcoin suffered a lot of bad press.

Silk Road, using bitcoin as a medium of exchange, was probably the low point, the FBI eventually shutting the site down and seizing control of some 26,000 bitcoin in October 2013. Notwithstanding, the curious technology persisted, with hobbyists and enthusiasts working hard to develop and evolve the open source protocol, spawning in turn numerous derivatives.

As of today there are some 800 cryptocurrencies, all leveraging the thinking behind the original bitcoin protocol.

Many thought technology would lead nowhere, and mass adoption of bitcoin, or some other derivative cryptocurrency, was considered ridiculous.

And whilst the concept of bitcoin does seem ridiculous, it works.

Its nigh on impossible to shut down because of the distributed nature of the record of ownership; every single node needs to be destroyed.

It is easily accessible via a mobile phone allowing payments to be made with relative ease without the need for fiat currency, central counterparties, payment systems or general ledgers.

And the protocol itself has never been hacked.

In 2014, it started attracting the attention of the Bank of England.

In their third quarterly review of the year, examining payment technologies and the emergence of digital currencies, the authors conclude the key innovation is the distributed ledger allowing payment systems to operate in an entirely decentralised way, without intermediaries such as banks.

A year later, the Economist ran a piece called the Trust Machine, proclaiming how the technology behind bitcoin could change the world. And Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM, made an equally bold claim in The Wall Street Journal, late in 2016, that blockchain, once widely adopted would transform the world.

IBC2017 -Blockchain and Broadcasters: A Masterclass Exploring the Opportunities for Broadcasters - in Distribution, Transparency, Anti-Piracy and Other Areas.

So where are we? For the media, entertainment and broadcast industry, there is little reference to the technology, which is strange, given the opportunity.

Aside from the obvious use cases relating to transaction processing, content is unique information, which is exactly what digital currencies are.

This means the cryptographic ecosystem created to record ownership can be applied to video, audio and text.

Content can be cryptographically secured, key pairs generated to control authorship and progress through production phases.

Blockchain allows a family tree of variants to be created, each with its own metadata, and cryptographic index, accessible anywhere.

Digital identities, anonymous or otherwise, can be created, capturing consumption data, and linking that to payment frameworks, operating without the need for fiat currency. This would also allow the synchronisation of payment at the point of consumption, at a micro level.

Finally, capital can be raised by issuing digital tokens, similar to bitcoin, funds being held in escrow, released in tranches, after peer-to-peer validation of the different phases from the treatment to preview.

Unique digital experiences can even be attached to those tokens; augmented and virtual reality, content gamification and curated viewing. I have even had a conversation about using a blockchain-jam to reach consensus as part of originating music or video content.

In exploring the immense opportunity this technology offers, there are seemingly three challenges. The first is understanding.

Presentation of blockchain and digital currency technology, largely focuses on describing it as a distributed ledger, or database, that maintains a continuously growing list of records, called blocks. Whilst technically correct, this doesnt engage the imagination.

Its the equivalent of describing radio as the simultaneous periodic variation of electric and magnetic fields.

Both of these descriptions do little to highlight the importance of their underlying importance.

The second is the general omission of any reference to the digital currency part. Most articles discuss blockchain, making some passing reference to bitcoin, without discussing the higher order of efficiency possible when considered together.

The net result are blockchain projects, that are nothing more than databases, still referencing the real world via fiat currency, versus including the digital currency part.

Finally, bitcoin is generally perceived as bad, so nobody talks about it, despite having current aggregate value of some $42bn.

Blockchain is a collapsing protocol; it acts as a store of value, a payments platform, and a ledger to record changes in data, whether an ownership record, or otherwise.

True blockchains are also immutable. Their distributed nature, the cryptography they employ and the consensus mode of operation which ignores bad actors creates a trust fabric, where every node on the network can trust every other node, without the need for a trusted intermediary.

The store of value is a unique cryptographic event, in the same way content is, making the blockchain ecosystem perfectly suited for managing the secure capture, creation, distribution and consumption of content asymmetrically; it puts the author back in control.

Ignoring or dismissing the technology at this stage is as dangerous as ignoring Marconi.

Founder and Managing Director of Blockchain Hub, an advisory company promoting and supporting the use of Blockchain across business sectors.

He is a former General Manager of Fujitsu and has held senior operational and technology strategy roles in the Bank of England, A.T. Kearney and Deutsche Bank.

Next week: Mark Mayne examines the size and scope of the blockchain market.

Original post:
Blockchain: a new foundation for media, entertainment and broadcast - IBC365 (registration)