US, British intelligence crack Web encryption

National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters at Fort Meade US and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption that secures a wide range of online communications including emails, banking transactions and phone conversations, according to newly leaked documents. The documents provided by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden to The New York Times, ProPublica and The Guardian suggest that the spy agencies are able to decipher data even with the supposedly secure encryption to make it private.
The documents indicate that the US National Security Agency, working with its British counterpart, GCHQ, accomplished the feat by using supercomputers, court orders, and some cooperation from technology companies.
If the reports are accurate, the highly secretive program would defeat much of what is used to keep data secure and private on the Internet, from emails to chats to communications using smartphones.
The reports noted that US intelligence officials asked the Times and ProPublica not to publish articles on the subject, fearing it would prompt foreign targets to switch to new forms of encryption or communications that would be harder to collect or read.
ProPublica, which is an independent, non-profit organization devoted to investigative journalism and has partnered with The Guardian and The New York Times to review documents from Snowden, said it decided to go ahead with the article because of its importance to the public.
"The story, we believe, is an important one. It shows that the expectations of millions of Internet users regarding the privacy of their electronic communications are mistaken," ProPublica's editors said in a note.
"These expectations guide the practices of private individuals and businesses, most of them innocent of any wrongdoing. The potential for abuse of such extraordinary capabilities for surveillance, including for political purposes, is considerable."
The reports said the NSA has been working on breaking Internet encryption for more than a decade after the agency lost a battle to force technology companies to provide encryption "keys."
The New York Times report noted that while the ability to break encryption can be used to thwart terror plots, it can have unintended effects by weakening the security of communications.
"The risk is that when you build a back door into systems, you're not the only one to exploit it," cryptography researcher Matthew Green told the daily. "Those back doors could work against US communications,,too."
Contacted by AFP, US intelligence officials had no immediate comment on the reports.
Source: AFP