back to article Crypto thwarts TINY MINORITY of Feds' snooping efforts

US government court-sanctioned wiretaps were sometimes defeated by encryption, according to official figures on law enforcement eavesdropping released this week. State police were unable to circumvent the encryption used by criminal suspects in nine cases last year, while plain text was recovered in 32 of 41 cases where use of …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Tom 35

    I wonder?

    "State police were unable to circumvent the encryption used by criminal suspects in nine cases last year"

    Were they people who had already been caught once with a wire tap? I think that would be much stronger reason for a drugy to encrypt then the Snowden news in main stream press.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I wonder?

      Among people that I know, there is a large overlap in the Venn diagram of 'people who understand how to use crypto' and 'people who take lots of drugs', so it's not as much of a stretch as you might imagine.

      That said, most of those people understand the the best thing to do is not communicate in a way that might be recorded at all, and do everything face to face instead.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Of course, the big question is

    *what* crypto was used ?

    AC, natch.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Of course, the big question is

      It doesn't really matter. See, the plods just end-run AROUND the encryption. Since data has to be in a readable state to be usable, they just wait until the data is decrypted at some point. Other times, they just sniff out the key in some way because, again, the key has to be passed along in some fashion, and your average PC doesn't have secure physical lines of communication.

  4. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Are there that many non-computer-type people using effective crypto?

    It looks like it saved 9 out of 41 folks, so that's what... 22%? It's a minority but not a tiny one.

  5. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

    If the police state

    Just imagine a world half filled with starving people and the other so rich they buy their processed vegetation from extremely expensive sources...

    Who ya gonna call?

    1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: If the police state

      Because, people lost the capability to speak in person and write down notes. Right?

  6. Don Jefe

    Goal Defines Intelligence?

    'investigating conventional crimes rather than national security or terrorism-related investigations, where the use of crypto might be expected'

    Where did that mess of an idea come from? The idea that terrorists are somehow more technically savvy than any other sort of criminal is, at best, not well thought out. At worst, that idea demonstrates that government anti-terror, 'surrender your freedom to be safe from those who hate your freedom', propaganda works. That idea also completely justifies the comprehensive, end-to-end government surveillance that maximizes the chances of State Actors intercepting clear text and/or encryption keys. The sort of surveillance that has been such a large topic over the last year.

    None of that is intended to be a swipe at John Leyden or The Register, not at all. But I do want to demonstrate that it's really easy to end up waving a banner and advocating for things without meaning to. It's really easy to do that because a not insignificant amount of your tax dollars is spent on the best social science and engineering money can buy.

    Messaging 101 dictates that Message appeal, uptake and self sustained promulgation are the greatest when the content of the Message is generated by the target audience within a broad framework defined by the Message Originator. In the context of this story, the government says 'Terrorists are Coming for YOU, but we're looking for them' and other people dress that up in ways that go straight to the people they know how to reach.

    Putting terrorists up on a pedestal as some sort of advanced criminal is just silly. It's an emotional ejaculation that mistakenly equates the capacity for atrocity with evil super genius. People don't like to think they are surrounded by people who lack only the willingness and motivation to cause great harm, but they are. Being a terrorist doesn't require special skills or access to restricted technologies or large financial resources or knowledge of and access to secure communications equipment (those are the prerequisites for being a politician). Being a terrorist just requires one to be a dick. A dick with criminal intent and a shocking lack of exposure to anecdotes involving amputating noses to spite faces. There's nothing special about them.

    1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: Goal Defines Intelligence?

      With a modest amount of respect, terrorists are not idiots.

      Indeed, based upon direct, personal experience, many are quite bright.

      But then, I've spoken with some during questioning or after my teams captured them.

      It's the body bomber that isn't very bright, in a way, but over average intelligence. The reason is that one cannot get a moron to conduct any attack that would likely end his or her life. That is something studied by multiple governments, as no sane nation would enjoy sacrificing their brightest, rather than sacrificing their dullest.

      The planner, manager and supervisor types *are* quite bright, otherwise they'd have been captured.

      1. dogged

        Re: Goal Defines Intelligence?

        > With a modest amount of respect, terrorists are not idiots.

        With rather greater respect, yes they are. Especially those that believe that murdering a fuckton of people gets them a ticket to heaven from a merciful God.

  7. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    "terrorism-related investigations"

    IOW the other 500million+ US citizens being spied on 24/7

    1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: "terrorism-related investigations"

      "IOW the other 500million+ US citizens being spied on 24/7"

      So, somehow the US acquired 200 million additional citizens this week, huh?

      Learn about what you're going to go on about, you'll look a lot less foolish when you comment.

      1. Tom 13
        Joke

        Re: US acquired 200 million additional citizens this week

        Actually I believe he understated the number. It was only last week or the week before that El Reg ran the article about the US adding European citizens to its rolls. (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/25/us_privacy_rights_deal_offered_eu/)

  8. Suricou Raven

    No great surprise.

    Modern crypto is near-unbeatable - but these are statistics for individual cases with warrants. That means in all of these, the investigators have a suspect, which means the crypto can be defeated through conventional policing methods: Get the suspects to hand over the keys for a promise of leniency, search the property for keys written down. If need be call in the forensics guys and do some mid-level-tech stuff like sneaking in and installing a keylogger. Half the time you'll break it because the user did something stupid, like using a weak passphrase.

    Cryptography is still good against non-targeted dragnet monitoring though, of the type the NSA uses. It's not practical to actively modify internet traffic on a large scale - such a thing would be quickly noticed.

    1. Tom 13

      Re: No great surprise.

      Good points. On a skew line it is also possible that active cases is a selection bias in that organizations that are routinely use crypto are not as likely to be investigated if for no other reason than they are actively pursuing hiding their activities.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like