Over product integrity and NSA exclusivity
Here’s how the clash between the NSA Director and a senior Yahoo executive went down.Roger's remarks were later challenged by Alex Stamos, Yahoo's chief information security officer, during a question-and-answer session.
"So it sounds like you agree with Director Comey that we should be building defects into the encryption in our products so that the US government can decrypt…" Stamos began. (These remarks were verified by a transcript provided by the Web site Just Security.)
"That would be your characterization," Rogers said, interrupting him.
"No, I think... all of the best public cryptographers in the world would agree that you can’t really build backdoors in crypto," Stamos replied. "That it’s like drilling a hole in the windshield."
"I’ve got a lot of world-class cryptographers at the National Security Agency," Rogers said.
"I’ve talked to some of those folks and some of them agree too, but…" Stamos said.
"Oh, we agree that we don’t accept each others’ premise," Rogers replied, interrupting again, as laughter erupted across the audience.
A little bit later in the exchange, Stamos tried to bring up a different point.
"If we’re going to build defects/backdoors or golden master keys for the U.S. government, do you believe we should do so — we have about 1.3 billion users around the world — should we do for the Chinese government, the Russian government, the Saudi Arabian government, the Israeli government, the French government?" Stamos asked.
"So, I’m not gonna… I mean, the way you framed the question isn’t designed to elicit a response," Rogers replied.
"Well, do you believe we should build backdoors for other countries?" Stamos asked again.
"My position is — hey look, I think that we’re lying that this isn’t technically feasible. Now, it needs to be done within a framework. I’m the first to acknowledge that. You don’t want the FBI and you don’t want the NSA unilaterally deciding, so, what are we going to access and what are we not going to access? That shouldn’t be for us. I just believe that this is achievable. We’ll have to work our way through it. And I’m the first to acknowledge there are international implications. I think we can work our way through this," Rogers answered.
"So you do believe then, that we should build those for other countries if they pass laws?" Stamos asked a third time.
"I think we can work our way through this," Rogers replied.
"I’m sure the Chinese and Russians are going to have the same opinion," Stamos said.
"I said I think we can work through this," Rogers said
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/23/heres-how-the-clash-between-the-nsa-director-and-a-senior-yahoo-executive-went-down/
