Researchers Find ‘Backdoor’ in Encrypted Police and Military Radios
Vice News ^ | 7/24/2023 | Joseph CoxPosted on 7/24/2023, 2:13:31 PM by Syncopated
A group of cybersecurity researchers has uncovered what they believe is an intentional backdoor in encrypted radios used by police, military, and critical infrastructure entities around the world. The backdoor may have existed for decades, potentially exposing a wealth of sensitive information transmitted across them, according to the researchers.
While the researchers frame their discovery as a backdoor, the organization responsible for maintaining the standard pushes back against that specific term, and says the standard was designed for export controls which determine the strength of encryption. The end result, however, are radios with traffic that can be decrypted using consumer hardware like an ordinary laptop in under a minute.
“There's no other way in which this can function than that this is an intentional backdoor,” Jos Wetzels, one of the researchers from cybersecurity firm Midnight Blue, told Motherboard in a phone call.
Liberal profs urge Biden to defy ‘mistaken’ rulings by ‘MAGA’ Supreme Court justices
NY Post ^ | July 24, 2023 | Isabel KeanePosted on 7/24/2023, 3:25:54 PM by Mr. Mojo
Two prominent professors are urging President Biden to thwart US Supreme Court “MAGA’’ justices by instituting an “alternative intepretation’’ to some rulings — a proposal that critics claim would be dictatorship.
Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet and San Francisco State University political scientist Aaron Belkin last week penned “An Open Letter to the Biden Administration on Popular Constitutionalism” to demand that Biden take action against what he has already deemed “not a normal court” because of some of its controversial recent rulings.
“We urge President Biden to restrain MAGA justices immediately by announcing that if and when they issue rulings that are based on gravely mistaken interpretations of the Constitution that undermine our most fundamental commitments, the Administration will be guided by its own constitutional interpretations,” the pair wrote.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4170239/posts
Researchers Find ‘Backdoor’ in Encrypted Police and Military Radios
Vice News ^ | 7/24/2023 | Joseph Cox
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What is the implication? Who/what was the backdoor for?
This is for the European standards. The TETRA radios are not used for US public safety. We use the APCO Project 25 digital communications standard, and the Federal encryption standard has become AES256, a 256 bit encryption code that is largely unbreakable. Many public safety agencies use analog radios without encryption (known as in-the-clear).
I didn't want readers to think TETRA was a US encryption standard. There's a LOT more to this, but this is the thumbnail sketch...