Modern cryptographic standards could harbor backdoors

[Retro]

A computer science expert explains why he thinks Elyptic Curve cryptography could harbor a backdoor that would allow governments to snoop on allegedly secure encrypted communications. That's your banking passwords and logins to other secure sites with sensitive information, for example. Should you be concerned about this risk? Yes.

This video is from February 2018, so four years ago now and I've not researched for updates to this information, but my general experience suggests to me that the problem might now be fully entrenched and becoming worse as time goes on. If you have any updates on this, let us know in the comments.

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@Geffers you might be interested in this one.

 

[Geffers]

Everything is so complicated it is a wonder it works most of the time. We take much on trust, we are told traffic is encrypted and safe, unless we are software engineers how do we really know. VPN, PGP, SSL, SSH - who knows.

A pencil, piece of paper, a known book and a page number is maybe the best encryption

Geoff

 

[Tiffany]

I agree, all of our information stored electronically is always a step away from either personal theft or intrusive government access. I stopped writing detailed emails years ago. I have a friend in Canada, that I recall telling me over fifteen years ago, her and her husband abstain from writing any emails at all. I've also watched too many crimes shows to see how accessible our personal information is from our phone and text records, legally or illegally. Call me paranoid.....just careful. I can also add, I much prefer the experience of websites like NZ, with a more personable atmosphere, rather then big tech websites that I know can get into my data, or worse get hacked and now other bad actors have my data.

 

[Mars]

A pencil, piece of paper, a known book and a page number is maybe the best encryption

True, sometimes it is indeed the best encryption, safely ensconced in a hidey place known only to you

 

[Mars]

I agree, all of our information stored electronically is always a step away from either personal theft or intrusive government access. I stopped writing detailed emails years ago. I have a friend in Canada, that I recall telling me over fifteen years ago, her and her husband abstain from writing any emails at all. I've also watched too many crimes shows to see how accessible our personal information is from our phone and text records, legally or illegally. Call me paranoid.....just careful. I can also add, I much prefer the experience of websites like NZ, with a more personable atmosphere, rather then big tech websites that I know can get into my data, or worse get hacked and now other bad actors have my data.

I totally agree, and I don't think you are paranoid...It really all depends on each one of us making our own risk assessment. We have to be vigilant, too vigilant for my liking, but that is the price we have to pay for this wonderful tool at our disposal, that tool being The Internet.

 

[Arantor]

For what it's worth, yes, there could be backdoors in it - however *if* you hear of it at all is one entirely different question, because the likes of the NSA will be very happy to keep that sort of thing to themselves if they happen to figure it out.

That said, I'm generally not actually that worried by such things - the people I would genuinely fear, the cyber-criminals, are not so likely to get a hold of these things, and the governments etc. have enough to do without worrying about what I'm doing. I'm not important or interesting enough to be worth the trouble.