New State Laws Could Make Encryption Widespread 155
New laws that took effect in Nevada on Oct. 1 and will kick in on Jan. 1 in Massachusetts may effectively mandate encryption for companies' hard drives, portable devices, and data transmissions. The laws will be binding on any organization that maintains personal information about residents of the two states. (Washington and Michigan are considering similar legislation.) Nevada's law deals mostly with transmitted information and Massachusetts's emphasizes stored information. Between them the two laws should put more of a dent into lax security practices than widespread laws requiring customer notification of data breaches have done. (Such laws are on the books in 40 states and by one estimate have reduced identity theft by 2%.) Here are a couple of legal takes on the impact of the new laws.
Okay whew (Score:4, Funny)
Only laptops. I was worried that we would have to encrypt our entire database.
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Re:Okay whew (Score:4, Interesting)
Identity theft causes a breakdown in the system that allows a few very rich to wield excessive and arbitrary power while the majority struggles to meet their needs while surrounded by plenty.
I'm not rich. I don't expect to be rich, I don't desire to be rich. To be rich is to stand on the neck of your fellow man and steal his share, and to spend each day ensuring that the exploitation isn't disrupted.
I hope we see more identity theft. This system shouldn't exist, and the sooner it shatters due to its own inherent nature, the happier I will be.
I've got an idea for a much better law. All data must be placed on public servers, like Wikileaks, where anyone can examine it at any time. Anyone attempting to conceal information under any circumstances is guilty of conspiracy and treason. That would make it pretty hard to steal someones identity; you'd be caught for sure.
mofo.com? (Score:2, Funny)
What kind of n00b do you think I am? Like I'm really going to click through a link to mofo.com [mofo.com].
Jesus.
Re:mofo.com? (Score:5, Informative)
Morrison & Foerster [wikipedia.org] is a internationally recognized and prestigious law firm established in 1883, that has been going by the nickname MoFo since 1973. More on the linked wikipedia article for those still interested or skeptical.
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But, you have to admit, given how the current usage of "MoFo" has changed, it's an unfortunate domain name. That, or it's now the Samuel L. Jackson of domain names.
If they're your attorneys, you can say that your lawyers are some bad-assed MoFo's and be entirely
How exactly will this work ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Forcing idiots to encrypt sensitive files will ...
force idiots to encrypt files (not the ones they should encrypt, obviously) using the password "password" ...
and
lose half the data, believing they encrypted it
and
send the data to half their family, especially anyone claiming to be a hacker, with the subject line "can you tell me the password for this file", who'll put it online on wikileaks (who'll happily -and proudly- publish extremely private information on anyone they don't like [wikileaks.org], laws and privacy be damned)
Well at least, when the honeymoon's over and it's time for Barack O. to publish his email correspondance he can claim to have "encrypted it" and then send a random string, telling the judge the password has something to do with a very dark hole where apparently many claim the sun does not shine.
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There's only one real question to ask. If someone publishes Obama's email. And there are some private "let's barbecue some white guy" jokes in there, along with an email of some secretary asking to pay a certain bill or not. You know "state business".
And it would have been published whole ... I have to cover my ears just thinking about it.
So : it's NOT acceptable behavior. Sending the emails anonymously to the the police and keeping them 100% out of public view would be the very last line I would find toler
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Oh no, spying on someone by reading their email. That's a terrible crime and should definitely be punished.
What, you mean the government routinely sniffs all telephone/internet traffic already and reads EVERYTHING you write, in email, Slashdot, or otherwise?
So you're going to punish the government? Until then it's actually better if government employees' email is leaked too, that way we'll know what they're up to.
She didn't lose any real privacy - if there was anything juicy there the watchers would already
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You say your solution is "to fight".
"So we know what they're up to"
"they do it too"
"they do it more"
Why don't you fight. Throw yourself into your rage ? Get a gun, you know where, and start shooting. Fight the power.
Oh wait. You're not so stupid as to actually believe what you're saying. You're not so stupid to believe there's anything really wrong with "government". But you still have rage. You still have hate.
Throw yourself into it. End it. You want to.
Yes the police has access to your email if they want
Ironic... or just interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
It used to be that Philip Zimmermann was getting hassled for his creation of PGP.
Boy we've come a long way. Check out the Wikipedia entry on PGP if you can [wikipedia.org]
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Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria off the top of my head. Not sure what the other(s) may be or if any of those are off the list.
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Apologies for replying to my own post, but I found the list in this PDF document [rsa.com]:
Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Serbia, Sudan, Syria, and Talisman-controlled (sic) (Taliban-controlled?) areas of Afghanistan as of January 2000.
(Although there are nine -- counting "Talisman-controlled areas of Afghanistan" -- listed, not 7.)
-- Glenn
Company laptops will be enctypted... (Score:5, Insightful)
but clueless users will write the password on a post it note, and probably burn a plaintext CD copy to leave lying around.
Government agencies will be worse.
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What you can't solve with technology, solve with policy. Burn unencrypted data to CD because your convenience is more important than security? That's a firin'.
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But the boss requested the cd for his home computer.
Refuse to burn the CD? That's a firin'.
The only solution is to get the boss' beard stuck in a pencil sharpener.
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1. Make use of encryption common
2. Once people are familiar with it, hopefully all softwares dealing with data support encryption by default.
3. ???
4. Profit (for people like me who can't use encryption in for example pidgin because the other person can't be bothered to install the plugin).
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This also won't stop people working for government agencies to simply sell the information.
It is very doubtful that so many people happen to lose laptops or other materials. How easy is it to sell a laptop and claim you lost it or that it was stolen? When do you ever hear about these "lost" laptops with a lot of personal data being returned? Never.
The best solution would be to encrypt the files and don't trust the low level employee's with the key.
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Encrypting laptops won't stop an employee from selling the laptop and data if that is what they want to do. All they have to do is give the purchaser the password when they sell the machine. All the purchaser needs to do is fire up the laptop and enter the password to get the data. Our work laptops are encrypted, and all i have to do at home to use the machine is enter my logon password twice -- once for access to the encrypted partition of the hard drive, and once to log on to Windows XP. I don't even
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You do realize that it is the "low level employees" who do most of the work, right?
Re:Company laptops will be enctypted... (Score:5, Insightful)
but clueless users will write the password on a post it note, and probably burn a plaintext CD copy to leave lying around. Government agencies will be worse.
And you know what? That's better than nothing. It's another layer.
Sure, we all think about "stolen laptops" when we think about these data losses, but that's not always true. Think about a remote hacking attack. Let's say a bad guy connects to the machine and starts sucking up a ZIP files labeled "Customer_Credit_Cards_2007-2008.ZIP". And the password is written down and stuck to the screen. The bad guy is on a network, can't see that password, and the file is just as unencryptable to him as it would be without the sticky note to you.
I'm just saying that you can still get some protection even from bad practices. If that stops 50% of the attackers, well, that's 50% more than we're stopping today. Is it watertight? No. Is it enough? No. Is it better? Yes.
nannystate tag? (Score:2)
Re:nannystate tag? (Score:4, Insightful)
As many people in the election on both sides has stated There are a lot of small business out there, more that do not focus on IT in general. Excessive restrictions and regulations are just as bad as none. You can't hold the hands of every company. You need to let them mess up from time to time. Encrytion is a good thing however forcing it isn't even for companies. As many of the small business are an employee of one and it is their own personal PC.
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a laptop is stolen weekly with 10000 credit card numbers on it. Yet the companies only respond to it when it affects their bottom line. This has to be law as it will take another decade before most companies even think about it.
Simple (Score:2)
For the love of Mike, somebody secure that laptop!
Thank you! I'm here through the weekend!
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Simple solutions that would solve 95% of the data leaks (especially the big ones):
1. Never store customer data on machines that must travel outside of the company. 2. Regardless of #1, all laptops have full disk encryption where poss
Re:nannystate tag? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not just personal data on the laptop.
I work for a fairly small company, and while we don't have any person data off our server, and in fact don't really have any personal data beyond names, addresses and email accounts...
Which is why, of course, we have Truecrypt with boot-time encryption on all laptops, so that if they get stolen we don't have to run around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure out every single login that needs to be changed.
For those people worried about forgetting password: Burn three or four TrueCrypt 'recovery CD' and write the password on them. In fact, write the password everywhere...just don't carry it around in the laptop bag.
Seriously, half these 'data thefts' are random laptop thieves stealing random laptop that just happen to include absurdly dangerous amounts of data on them. They aren't targeted attacks, and the thief is probably wiping them before boot. But companies have to act like they have all your data because said companies are morons who can't spend a tiny amount of time setting up free software that would stop that from happening.
People often worry about computer security in entirely the wrong direction, worrying about changing internal company-only passwords every month, and then completely ignoring actual outside risks like someone snatching a laptop bag off someone's arm.
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You can't hold the hands of every company. You need to let them mess up from time to time. Encrytion is a good thing however forcing it isn't even for companies.
Lead reduction is a good thing however forcing it isn't even for companies.
Proper document shredding is a good thing however forcing it isn't even for companies.
Proper hazardous waste disposal is a good thing however forcing it isn't even for companies.
There are a lot of things that are inconvenient that we, as a society, have decided that our citizens must do. In each of the above cases, including yours, the regulations exist to enforce real, tangible protections. These aren't hypothetical problems that
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Proper hazardous waste disposal is a good thing however forcing it isn't even for companies.
Are you saying it should be legal to dump hazardous waste?
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Did you not even RTFS? They mention that this is applicable to companies who deal with peoples' personal information. If you run a one-man company that handles personal information and can't afford to implement even basic encryption and security systems, I would classify you in the same department and one-man machining companies that don't implement basic safety procedures!
If your company can't handle the requirements for handling personal information, then you shouldn't be handling personal information. Pe
What happens if someone is crossing the US border? (Score:2, Interesting)
Or if they are in the UK.
Let's say that this (good) idea is properly implemented (rather then just pretend implemented), and all the laptops have full disk encryption in place.
Now someone with one of these laptops travels outside the US, and then flies back in and is asked to boot up the laptop. They will do so of course, and then, suddenly, there is no point to having the encryption, at that point. Sure it's still useful for cases where the laptop gets left on a train or something (assuming that they also
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Why use full-disk, then? I imagine that having a bootable computer with reasonable apps would be enough to pacify most security personnel. For most cursory inspections, what ain't mounted ain't there.
Re:What happens if someone is crossing the US bord (Score:2)
Yes mister DHS, I'd love to decrypt this file for you! However, it is in the "Customer Records" folder, so I'm not allowed to know the key. Yes, it is probably full of goat-porn and cocaine receipts, but that's the law...
Re:What happens if someone is crossing the US bord (Score:2)
Yup, because if a solution doesn't fix every fucking problem in the world, it's not worth doing.
I'll be sure to tell my plumber not to try using the plunger because a plunger won't cure cancer.
No dumbass, a lost laptop with tens of thousands of users information on it is not directly equivalent to what a semi-hostile government body in a foreign country might do.
Oh Lord (Score:3, Interesting)
Here comes the flood of complaints that their systems are slow, not responsive or too busy.
We have gunfights with our encryption client almost on a daily basis, being a resource hog and all that.
"nanny state"? (Score:3, Interesting)
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No amount of fines in the world will get my personal data back. Once it's out there, it cannot be retracted. At least if the mechanic loses my car I can sue and use the money to invest in a new car. No one can use the car to impersonate me or make copies of the car to allow others to do the same. The car is just an object. It way have sentimental value, but I can ultimately live without that particular car. Personal data breaches, however, can adversely affect people for life. Data can be copied and
Re:"nanny state"? (Score:4, Insightful)
In a word: Yes.
Making laws to tell them exactly what to do is stupid. What if there's a better way, and encryption isn't needed? They still have to do the encryption now.
Other posts have been more reasonable: Harsher penalties for failing to protect the data.
It might even be different if this was a 100% fix. It's not. Now the thief just needs 1 more step, instead. The password/key. Even without it, it's not impossible to crack encryption. It's just very hard, if done right. (And next to useless if done wrong.)
So yes, the 'nannystate' tag is accurate.
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What if a company thinks or claims there's a better way, and encryption isn't needed?
There, fixed that for you.
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But the same objections could be raised to physical safety laws, or due diligence laws of any kind. With safety regulations, you don't just increase the penalties for accidents, and you don't avoid making explicit requirements because "what if there's a better way?" -- if the technology improves, so can the regulations, but it shouldn't just be a matter of whatever the company thinks is good enough.
Anything any company might conceivably do, with or without le
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You seem to be in favour of the data getting out and punishing those responsible. How does that protect my data ? Answer - it doesn't, in any way shape or form.
As for the thief only needing one more step, that's wrong too. I have a key for my ssh connections which requires a passphrase. I could use the same for files. So I would need:
a)the files
b)the key
c)the passphrase.
So no, nanny state is not accurate. Explain to me why the state is mandating encryption - oh yes, it's because companies are
Only 2% reduction? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not surprised it has made so little difference.
As we know, technical solutions are rarely enough to protect data. Human processes and policies can be much more important.
Personally I prefer the UK approach, the Data Protection Act [wikipedia.org]. No doubt it is flawed, and sadly not enforced as rigorously as it should be, but the concept is better. Rather than mandate specific technological approaches, it imposes a set of general requirements on any organisation that holds personal data:
The DPA is one of the few generally excellent pieces of legislation in the UK. It's just a shame that the Information Commisioner's Office that enforces it isn't as active as it could be. But it gives you quite a bit of power to take on companies yourself.
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Ironic that it is just the local implementation of the 1995 EC data protection directive...
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It's still a good thing, whoever came up with it.
Yay for the EU (sometimes).
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A better approach would be to stop pretending that a 10 digit number that is stored in a million different places is 'personal information'.
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The DPA is one of the few generally excellent pieces of legislation in the UK. It's just a shame that the Information Commisioner's Office that enforces it isn't as active as it could be. But it gives you quite a bit of power to take on companies yourself.
It's an excellent piece of legislation - but it's also one of the most widely misunderstood and poorly enforced.
It's been used by utility companies to avoid doing things - even though doing such things wouldn't be a breach of it anyway.
It's been ignored wholesale by British Telecom (who got away with it because police "don't think they intended to break the law" [theregister.co.uk] - really? Can I use that as a defence?).
On those rare occasions it has been enforced, companies fined have openly admitted that it won't affect th
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...
The DPA is one of the few generally excellent pieces of legislation in the UK.
And yet we still hear, quite a lot, of the MOD, NHS, or other UK entity losing yet another laptop, full of raw user data.
Just last week [slashdot.org], in fact.
But it gives you quite a bit of power to take on companies yourself.
Only after they give your life away. It is too late then.
This is at least trying to be proactive. Knowing there will be a loss, minimize the effects.
Why so expensive (Score:4, Interesting)
It sounds to me like all you need to do is encrypt the hard drive and require a password, but if so, why so much? It seems $300 per person is probably on the expensive end for the software, but I'll let that one slide. However, $50 per person per month just to maintain the system? What is this cost for? What is there to maintain? The only thing I can think of is dealing with forgotten passwords, which will require restoring the system and losing whatever was on the laptop and not backed up. $600 per employee per year seems high for this.
Re:Why so expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
Encrypting something isn't instantaneous, especially if new software has to be researched, bought, and installed. In addition, you're paying 2 employees for the time the system is getting the software installed. This goes for laptops, pc, servers, etc. The downtime for servers is also going to cost money in its own ways.
If you think dealing with encryption won't waste $50/mo of each employees productivity, you're mistaken. Plus the passwords thing you mentioned... That could do it on average, too.
No, I think the estimates are low, if anything.
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What downtime for servers? This law is just about encrypting data on portable devices, as far as I can tell. And how does encryption reduce a user's productivity? Yeah, it takes time to decrypt files, but not that much time. Especially considering most users will be dealing with relatively small files (for the most part, a couple MB at worst). I really can't see the 50 per month cost
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Bullshit. Encryption can and should be transparent to the employee. He enters his password, as he always does, and doesn't even need to know that his data is encrypted. Yes, encryption puts a small burden on the admin. But usually only once or, at worst, once per workstation. So, where exactly are $50/month wasted per employee here?
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What magical encryption do you have that doesn't slow the system at all?
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What magical encryption do you have that doesn't slow the system at all?
It's not the encryption, it's having a system with a processor made in the last 5 years. Spinning plates of rust are already insanely slow, adding symmetric encryption on top of that won't make a difference.
Re:Why so expensive (Score:4, Informative)
Right. Especially for laptops, which tend to have slower hard drives in the first place.
I installed TrueCrypt on my moderately old laptop, an Intel 1.6Ghz, and the only speed different I notice is that, for some reason, hibernation and unhibernation is twice as slow. I suspect this is some sort of bug. Other than that, I forget it's there except when I boot up.
TrueCrypt, by default, uses AES, which was designed for speed on modern processors. (Or, rather, was designed to use exactly the mathematical operations that CPU manufacturers optimize for in order to make games run faster, so as CPUs keep speeding those operations up AES gets faster.)
Ha, I just checked to see if that hibernation thing is a bug, and it turns out that not only is it, but it's been fixed in 6.0 and I should just upgrade instead of whining about it.
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There are some IDE controllers that can do encryption/decryption on the fly, using a password from the BIOS. I think some Lenovo systems sport such chips.
I'm waiting for the first company to standardize AES and SHA1/SHA2 within their x86 processors. VIA already has this, but I'm not sure it is ready for standardization in their form.
Then the time would be minimal for any protocol that uses the hardware encryption.
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What kind of CPU are you using that you can even measure a slowdown?
Anything above 1GHZ should be able to perform transparent encryption without breaking a sweat.
For reference: My Athlon64 3500+, which is a few years old now, encrypts AES-256 at roughly 80MB/s.
Most harddrives can't even burst at that rate, much less sustain it. Furthermore, for full-disk encryption you'll often use a less CPU intensive algorithm such as blowfish.
Thus, unless your CPU is completely saturated by something else (very unlikely
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Well, then your admins are incompetent.
Let me refer you to my other post [slashdot.org].
I don't know what software you used but with any half-decent product (TrueCrypt would be the main contender on windows, iirc) you'll be hard-pressed to even measure a slowdown. Much less actually have a human notice it under a normal workload.
Could it be that your machines were simply overloaded with the usual antivirus crapware, low on RAM and swapping to death?
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If you think dealing with encryption won't waste $50/mo of each employees productivity, you're mistaken.
My work laptop has full-disc encryption. The only time I notice is when it asks for a boot password or when I have to change the password every couple months. This is completely negligible compared to, say, the time to boot Windows and open all the horribly bloated (and network-aware, so they also take time to connect to the server) applications I have to use.
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Someone here must have been through an enterprise-wide encryption rollout. What did yours cost?
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The only thing I can think of is dealing with forgotten passwords, which will require restoring the system and losing whatever was on the laptop and not backed up.
They're probably working on the basis of the commercial top-end version of PGP. This includes key recovery so forgotten passwords don't mean the laptop needs to be wiped - but it's not cheap. The price quoted sounds about right from the last time I looked into it.
Corruption opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that specific software will be endorsed and/or required to meet this new requirement? Probably whichever one spends the most money to "demonstrate" its capabilities to the lawmakers by treating them all to free vacations in the Bahamas. How much do you want to bet that a free solution like Truecrypt just won't meet the "standards" set by this new law?
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I suspect that they'll just spec FIPS 140-2 [nist.gov] certification for the crypto app.
Corporate interest (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if Massachusetts concern about encrypting stored data has anything to do with EMC being headquartered in the state. Considering that EMC owns RSA (the company), a law like this would probably benefit EMC. Also, Massachusetts is home to TJX, famous for having had a major data breach.
[Note: I work for EMC, but have no inside knowledge related to this topic.]
Umm Good? (Score:2)
Seriously, its about damn time that states required companies with our personal data to do something smart with it. Yes I don't like business being forced to act at the whim of a government but in this case, with so much of our data out there and being transmitted to third parties controls are important.
Law Enforcement will Complain (Score:5, Insightful)
Mandate != Reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because a state mandates something, does not mean it automatically happens. Look at speeding, look at drug laws, look at overtime rules for P/T and F/T employees, look at many other unenforced business regulations.
This stuff is like when a judge ordered a server's RAM chips removed and stored as evidence, as they were a 'data storage device'. Government typically sucks at anything like this.
Am I the only one... (Score:3, Funny)
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Yes, you are.
If you read Groklaw, you know all about the MoFos (They're Novell's lawyers).
Encryption is a good start, but... (Score:2)
as was discussed yesterday, could be pointless [slashdot.org], as good part of the breach could go thru social engineering and trojans that could defeat several kinds of encryption schemes.
If you want to force users to be safe, educate and give them tools to be safe, be the information in their HDs encrypted or not.
Wonder how this combines with the tendency of US government to monitor ISPs to detect terrorism, IP violation or whatever excuse is hot in that moment. The encryption needed is a backdoored one or we could
Massachusetts long arm (Score:3, Insightful)
Any lawyers reading want to comment on Massachusetts's attempt to impose this regulation on any business (even one without a presence in Massachusetts) storing information about Massachusetts residents? My take on this is that they are WAY overstepping the boundaries of what state laws can do, but IANAL.
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Nevada wouldn't know encryption if it bit them (Score:2)
Nevada's legal definition of encryption sucks, and covers just about any technology that obstructs a bad guy's access to data. That includes such cryptographic wonders as, say, passwords or 2-factor auth.
The weaknesses of this law have been pointed out repeatedly -- for example by Schneier in a crypto-gram from probably 2004 (this is from memory), and by various bloggers interested in data breach legislation.
I am sure MA could not do a worse job, but Nevada did an absolutely terrible one.
Protecting SSNs won't stop identity theft (Score:5, Insightful)
Encryption is good for protecting trade secrets, but useless for protecting social security numbers. Thieves who want to steal credit card or social security numbers can choose from tens of thousands of possible targets, at least one of which will be insecure. We need to stop pretending that social security numbers are useful as identification or authentication, because using an SSN to identify yourself requires disclosing it. We need to switch to a system of public-key cryptography, and put the blame for identity theft where it belongs: on the banks, who somehow decided that a few readily-discoverable numbers and a few easily-forged documents were all that's needed to take a loan in your name.
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Thieves who want to steal SSNs can just throw darts, and check the SSA for whether or not they exist (I remember some services advertised years ago that did -e lookups for free and info dumps for like $5).
Even if they were well distributed the thieves would have something like a 1/3 chance, so it wouldn't take too much effort for "monte carlo" identity theft to be fairly profitable. AND go largely unnoticed: the thieves may have a high chance of guessing a number, but the number of actually stolen identiti
minimal effort (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if people will simply ROT13 [wikipedia.org] their data for cheap token compliance.
win98 (Score:3, Informative)
Problem for medical practices (Score:3, Interesting)
We also have one practice running a dedicated system for ophthalmologists that is so old it doesn't understand networks. Users are connected via serial port expansion units. Makes it a pain when they have multiple sites and the telco says "We're dropping support for those 56k dedicated lines you've been using for 15 years."
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Sounds like that's a market opportunity... I'll bet someone would be willing to deal with the HIPAA stuff to make a new system once the technology is completely outdated.
Or do you still complain that you can't get leaded gasoline?
Could be amusing .... (Score:2)
This could provide all sorts of amusement.
Once companies have to encrypt the user data, I'm waiting for some poor schmuck to be coming back into the US with data on his laptop. The border guys will insist you decrypt -- and, then you're screwed either way.
If you don't decrypt it, immigration and DHS will arrest you. If you do, the states will arrest you. :-P
I kid, hopefully this wouldn't be a real scenario. But, dueling laws is always fun to ponder.
Cheers
Good luck with that (Score:2)
And how much authority does Massachusetts have over a company in Wilimgton, DE (for example)? None.
Best case, this law will be ignored for a few months, then struck down by Federal court on the grounds that a state lacks authority over businesses that operate across state lines.
Worst case, businesses will ju
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Re:Legacy Systems? (Score:4, Informative)
You'd probably have trouble on AS/400 unless they've done a version that copes with all the nasty EBCDIC issues porting to that platform (and the fact that it doesn't use directories in any meaningful sense, and what there is of its filesystem is completely alien to the average PC user).
There are lots of those in operational use that have been doing mundane work for years.. and nobody is going to change them in a hurry, because replacement is very expensive and you don't get a better system at the end of it.
Hell, I'd hesitate to compile OpenSSL on quite mainstream OSs like HPUX (although probably someone has already gone through the pain of doing it I'm sure).
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That's a good point. I can't tell you how many times I've almost left my AS/400 on an airplane!
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2) Attempt to read said data on tape, even without encryption.
3) Try to bribe ancient ex AS400 operator in the nursing home to figure out how to read tapes.
4) Fail.
Security through obscurity at it's finest!
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I've actually compiled OpenSSL on HPUX rather than use old, ratty, early version packages. It's really not so bad if you think in terms of old Solaris machines that you couldnt do too many useful things with until you "gnuified" them. As soon as you've gotten your gcc goodness and a bucket of appropriate libraries, openssl becomes trivial to build anywhere really. That was my point---I cant i
Re:Legacy Systems? (Score:5, Informative)
It seems like the Democrats are doing the same thing the republicans did after 9/11. Just as after 9/11 the Republicans pushed Security to an extremist state, Democrats are using the financial crisis to push down all those heave regulations down our mouth...
BS, this is state level law, not Congress, way to troll. Besides these laws were passed way before the meltdown, these are their enactment dates.
Re: (Score:2)
They Have Democrats and Republicans for state Government too..
Re:Legacy Systems? (Score:5, Insightful)
>Also I could see huge problems later on when the only IT guy who knows the key is fired, hit by the obligatory train, or quits.
If you're covered by the credit card industry's Data Security Standard, you're already required to use encryption and you're required to use it competently, with a key management infrastructure.
Corporate crypto deployments have been using some form of key escrow for many years. Availability is as much part of security as confidentiality is.
Re: (Score:2)
There are still people running legacy systems that do not support encryption. Nor is it fast, easy, cheap, to get them to do so.
I don't think most legacy systems are portable, so they shouldn't be a problem.
Also I could see huge problems later on when the only IT guy who knows the key is fired, hit by the obligatory train, or quits.
And then you learn why you shouldn't do that. Write it down and put it in a safe, or have at least 3-4 people who know it.
Forcing encryption isn't the answer but penalties and legal repercussions if your data stolen is more appropriate. While it is not the right time to politically say this. It is a case where they don't really need government intervention as most companies will regulate themseles on this front especially if they don't have immunity to legal problems if something goes wrong.
Really? This only works if the company can (and does) truly repair any damage caused by a data leak. If the damage is more than the company is worth, or is something that can't be repaired, or the company can litigate people into submission, then there are "negative externalities" and ordinary market forces do
Re: (Score:2)
"It is a case where they don't really need government intervention as most companies will regulate themseles on this front especially if they don't have immunity to legal problems if something goes wrong."
The evidence does not back up your theory.
The "legal problems" in question are too big and strike too rarely for companies to deal with them. When they come, they are disastrous and unmanageable. See: Enron and Arthur Anderson. See: Mortgage lending crisis.
Re: (Score:2)
Government can mandate certain actions to protect privacy, or they can pass laws forcing disclosure and establishing civil claims that can be filed by the injured, but either way government is going to be involved.
I can appreciate the merits of the
Re:Bad news (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about free. Anything but free. This is government admiting they expect widespread monitoring of communications. For example, in the case of the UK, that means all business data will be scanned along with peoples emails, so it makes sense that governments and companies with international offices, are going to be worried their internal email documents are going to be intercepted.
Re: (Score:2)
Information doesn't WANT anything.
YOU want information to be free.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
click-click
click
<password><enter>
Damn, that was cryptic. Oh, wait.
TrueCrypt file volume. I now have a nice safe drive U:
Full disk encryption just prompts you for the password or smartcard+PIN at boot time.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
openssl des3 -d -salt -in file.des3 -out file.txt -k horsefeathers
Your password can be read in /proc; top will gladly do the work for me. Don't ever give the password as part of the command line.
And you're wrong, using crypto isn't hard. I use then full-disk encryption Ubuntu has spoon-fed me. When I boot, I enter "hunter2" at the password prompt. That's it.
Re:You Un-American *tards! (Score:4, Funny)
Millenium Development Goals :
Yes, you're right, that is un-American.
Re: (Score:2)