Tag: Security (page 10 of 11)

The New York Times reported today that the Obama administration plans to submit a bill next year that would require all online communication services to be “technically capable of complying” if served with a wiretap order.  According to the Times, this includes “encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct ‘peer to peer’ messaging like Skype.”  The mandate “would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.”

Photo by jeffschuler.

The Times highlighted three requirements:

• Communication services that encrypt messages must have a way to unscramble them.
• Foreign-based providers that do business inside the United States must install a domestic office capable of performing intercepts.
• Developers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication must redesign their service to allow interception.

Putting aside the political issues involved with such legislation, I see two big issues on the technology side of things:

• This could be really onerous for tech startups, who will have one more concern to worry about when creating software;
• This is only going to help the government catch stupid criminals.  Tech savvy criminals will turn to other services that aren’t monitored.  Couldn’t the bad guys just drop encrypted text files into a service like DropBox?

What do you think?  Is the U.S. government going too far?  Is all of this just wasted effort?

U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet [New York Times]

On some sites, you may notice the lock icon at the bottom of your web browser.  That icon means that you've established an encrypted Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection.  This connection keeps your information safe and secure while it is being transmitted.  To display that icon, a website needs to have a Certificate, which can be expensive.  If you run your own website, MakeUseOf tells us how to get a free SSL certificate from StartSSL.

As MakeUseOf notes,

StartSSL offers free certificates with no holds barred and with absolutely no hidden charges.  You can choose either a 128 bit or 256 bit key for encryption.

It should be noted that these are Class 1 certificates, which means that they only validate basic domain information (particularly, that the subscriber owns the domain name).  As a result, while they are great if you want to use them to log into a personal site from an unsecured location, you probably want a higher class certificate if you are running an online store.

The MakeUseOf article give detailed instructions for setting up the certificate, including a strong recommendation that you back up your key locally.  Let us know in the comments if you've tried out an SSL certificate from StartSSL, and how it's worked out for you.  If you have another solution, let us know that, too.

StartSSL [via MakeUseOf]

Photo by mikebaird.