Why Did Hunter Biden Have DOD Encryption Keys On His Laptop?

AND Magazine ^ | 27 Mar, 2022 | Sam Faddis

[MtnClimber]

The ongoing analysis of the hard drive of Hunter Biden’s laptop has revealed that there are multiple Department of Defense “encryption keys” on it. These keys allow access to DOD email accounts and databases. The exact number of these keys is still unknown. There may be dozens.

The keys are known more formally as “root encryption certificates." Some of them appear to have unusually long expiration dates with many lasting twenty years or more. Such keys should not be present on a personal laptop of any kind, and there is no known reason that Hunter Biden would be in possession of them at all.

The keys were discovered only recently by Jack Maxey’s technical team working in Switzerland. Shortly after the discovery of the keys Maxey contacted the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland and reported that he had information that might compromise American national security and would like to talk to someone in the Regional Security Office to report what he had learned. His contact information was taken by the person with whom he spoke, but no one has ever called back to obtain the information in his possession.

According to information provided to Maxey, DOD is now aware of the presence of the keys on the laptop’s hard drive, has determined that the keys were still active, and has taken steps to cancel them.

[rdcbn1]

I’m obviously talking about encryption keys - not security certificates. They are different things. There have been problems with secure encryption systems. Guess we will have to see what comes up.

[markomalley]

I’m obviously talking about encryption keys - not security certificates.

The article was talking about root certificates:

The keys are known more formally as “root encryption certificates." Some of them appear to have unusually long expiration dates with many lasting twenty years or more. Such keys should not be present on a personal laptop of any kind, and there is no known reason that Hunter Biden would be in possession of them at all.

They are different things.

In terms of PKI, not so much. The root certificates (along with the corresponding certificate revocation list or CRL) provides a chain of trust that assure that an individual host's certificate is valid. (For example, a user for secure email or a website) The host's certificate acts as a public key that, in conjunction with your private key, allows for secure communications. Specifically, an asymmetric link is initially established using these public/private key pairings during which an session symmetric key is passed on that expires at the conclusion of the individual session. (Basic TLS protocol)

There have been problems with secure encryption systems.

Sure. AES-256 is considered the defacto standard for civilian communications, but with the advent of quantum computing, I would think they should probably go to 2048 bit encryption or higher all around. But I doubt that governments would support that as it makes it more difficult for our betters to snoop on our communications. But that only protects data in motion. Considering the crap state of data center protection, there is minimal issue with getting into an enclave and extracting data when it is at rest.

Guess we will have to see what comes up.

Yup. All I'm saying is that this appears to be a shiny object to distract and discredit people wishing to expose the real dangers of what's on the Crackhead's laptop in order to protect the Big Guy.