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Bruce Schneier: China Possibly Hacking US “Lawful Access” Backdoor (www.schneier.com)

submitted 2 months ago by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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Chinese hackers (Salt Typhoon) penetrated the networks of US broadband providers, and might have accessed the backdoors that the federal government uses to execute court-authorized wiretap requests. Those backdoors have been mandated by law—CALEA—since 1994.

Refering to a story published by the Wall Street Journal, security expert Bruce Schneier writes "that the attack wasn’t against the broadband providers directly, but against one of the intermediary companies that sit between the government CALEA requests and the broadband providers".

"For years, the security community has pushed back against these backdoors, pointing out that the technical capability cannot differentiate between good guys and bad guys. And here is one more example of a backdoor access mechanism being targeted by the “wrong” eavesdroppers."

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[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 25 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Shocking. /s

No current technology can distinguish between good guys and bad guys. There's like a pervasive ideological discomfort with that basic fact. You see it again and again on every regulation debate.

[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

@CanadaPlus

I get what you mean by highlighting that no current technology can distinguish between good and bad guys, but I feel there will never be a technology that can do that. A backdoor can easily be used by your government/law enforcement to suppress people and eliminate freedoms, even if there may have been best initial intentions for such a backdoor. This is a fundamentally human -rather than a technological- issue.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

but I feel there will never be a technology that can do that.

That's my best guess too, but someone could plausibly argue otherwise. I just went with something undisputable that still illustrates the main point.

[–] borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Here I’ve built software that can detect the difference between good guys and bad guys, it uses Artificial Intelligence.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I mean, that's what it would have to be, right? OP probably thinks it's impossible because GAI is impossible. I think it's likely impossible because there's no moral system that's both totally specific and which we could all agree on, even roughly.

Either way, a good guy detector is far off at the very least, and we're going to have to struggle for the cause of good, whatever that may be, the old fashioned political way.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

Mother of god if someone actually tried to push that I would run for office for the explicit purpose of killing it dead and loudly vilifying the dumbfuck who thought of it into never making anything again.