NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers said it is vital for Uncle Sam to spy on criminals and that this should be possible even if citizens use strong encryption.
Rogers reckons that Americans should secure their communications against all eavesdroppers – except, of course, those working for the police, the FBI and the NSA (for counter-terrorism). Experts warn, however, that any backdoors that allow this to happen could also be exploited by criminals.
Rogers spoke at a cybersecurity conference hosted by the New America Foundation think tank on Monday, according to TheRegister. Also in attendance was Bruce Schneier, who has written a book on cryptography and argued that the obsession with encryption backdoors — such as skeleton keys that can decrypt any message — will weaken Americans’ security.
Yahoo! Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos also wondered if his company is forced to install backdoors at the behest of the government, why shouldn't the Russians and Chinese have the right to make similar requests.
“I think we would be lying [saying that adding a backdoor] is not technically feasible. Now, this would have to be done within a context. I’m the first to acknowledge that,” Rogers said.
Rogers also referred to the term "backdoor," saying it was a bad word and insisted that there should be a legal framework for everyone, except the FBI or NSA, to make intercepting communications easier.
But the question was also raised about last week's Snowden revelation that the NSA and GCHQ hacked the largest SIM card manufacturer to steal encryption keys, as well as the Kaspersky Lab report on NSA malware hidden in hard drive firmware.
"Clearly I'm not going to go into detail. But I would like to say that, we are legal," he said, adding that he does not believe that the security of the Internet will be compromised by these actions.
Is the NSA legal? Doubtful. Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which authorizes the agency's spying, is due for renewal in 2015 after it expires on May 31. Rogers said it's up to lawmakers to renew or change the law.
As for the answer to the title question, it's the Perfect Forward Secrecy: software in most communications uses PFS to keep data encrypted even if the encryption keys are in the hands of agents or criminals. So the feds need other means to unlock encrypted data.
