Can the NSA decrypt encrypted emails?

[ZombieHorde]

This poll is based off this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014561202#post3

German companies to automatically encrypt emails

BERLIN (AP) — Two of Germany's biggest Internet service providers say they will encrypt customers' emails by default following reports that the U.S. National Security Agency monitors international electronic communications.

10 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes, the NSA can decrypt encrypted emails.
	9 (90%)
	No, the NSA cannot decrypt encrypted emails.
	1 (10%)
	I don't know.
	0 (0%)
	I know, but I don't want to share.
	0 (0%)
	Gingers don't have souls.
	0 (0%)
	Goats are sexy and I want to marry one when I grow up.
	0 (0%)
	If I owned a catapult, I would finally be able to conquer Tennessee.
	0 (0%)
	I get anxiety when the phone rings, because that means I either have to talk with someone, or snub someone.
	0 (0%)
	When I was 13 years old, my mother told me that punching a horse in the face was good luck.
	0 (0%)
	If I only had one week to live, I would spend it watching Toddlers & Tiaras.
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[NYC_SKP]

1. Can't find their own asses.

If they want to, they can probably decrypt a few of the messages they come across.

If they are inside the encryption companies, they can probably read all messages encrypted by those companies.

But can is quite different from do. I think they can't and I think they don't.

[dimbear]

2. Some yes and some no.

Basic rule of encryption.

[neverforget]

3. I say yes because no defense is perfect

[PowerToThePeople]

4. depends on how it is encrypted.

If a person knows what they are doing, then I would vote NO. They can not decrypt the email.

[Recursion]

16. Given enough time they could

I mean, given enough time anybody could. But they can't do it in anything like real time or on anything like a large scale.

[PowerToThePeople]

17. not while you are still alive.

There was a thread on another post going over the numbers. They could not do it without physically taking the key from your possession. They could not crack it.

[Recursion]

20. There's more to cryptanalysis than exhausting the keyspace

I'm assuming they have the kind of known plaintexts that you normally use for stuff like this.

[Gravitycollapse]

32. Redundant computing power. Start several hundred thousand GPUs at separate fixed points...

And even through brute force alone, super computers could crack a 64 bit encryption in just a couple days. I am nearly certain your email is not that secure.

[nebenaube]

30. hahaha...

There's a shiny black building that contains something that acts like a billion crays all linked together.

[Sgent]

5. Not if encrypted correctly

which is a bit harder than it sounds.

They can however look at meta-data much as in phone calls.

[NuclearDem]

6. Well, don't know bout the rest of you, but I'm off to Tennessee

Punch a horse for me.

[ZombieHorde]

12. Good luck on your righteous campaign! nt

[NuclearDem]

21. Me and the Trebushit are off!

[shenmue]

7. I should have voted for the goats.

Dang.

[ZombieHorde]

8. You can change your vote on DU3. nt

[backscatter712]

9. You should be encrypting your own emails, not letting your ISP do it for you.

When they go to the ISP, they'll simply give them a National Security Letter and take the decryption key.

If you encrypt yourself with something like GnuPG, it'll be much harder.

[Rex]

10. Someone wants to talk to you.

[ZombieHorde]

11. Hey, I didn't vote for that option, I was just trying to help them make an enemies list.

They have no reason to use their ginger magic against me.

[Rex]

13. NP I told them Cartman is a total poser.

They are now focused on him and not you.

[ZombieHorde]

14. Thank the gods! nt

[Recursion]

15. Probably not quickly enough to do much good en masse

Given a focus on a specific person and some time, yes.

[cthulu2016]

18. They can probably decrypt a message, if it's worth the time. But they cannot decrypt all of them

If encryption was the norm it would be quite difficult to handle

[Fumesucker]

19. I'd be shocked if they didn't have a back door into anything that's not open source

And you had best compile your own code too.

[Recursion]

22. Did you ever read about Richie's back door into the C compiler?

Even compiling your own code isn't always enough...

[Fumesucker]

23. I thought I may have been too optimistic

I suppose there's always Pig Latin.

[millennialmax]

24. There's very few encryptions that the NSA can't decrypt. eom

[1-Old-Man]

27. Yep.

None actually. People just don't understand.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

25. not with brute force techniques they can't

AES256 allows for 1.1X10^77 permutations. With a computer operating at 10 pFLOPS it would take 3.3X10^56 years to explore all the combinations. That's to break ONE key...

they have to have something else to work with. do they have a fancy higher math that makes this process shorter? maybe, but the thing is, the whizzes over at the NSA and CIA aren't the only smart people around. our gov't relies on classified and unclassified encryption algorithms to protect their conversations but they are all based on the same concepts. if they trust them to protect THEIR data, then you KNOW breaking those keys in nigh-on impossible.

sP

[PopeOxycontinI]

29. Yep...

it's a matter of math. 2 to the power of the length of your key. So, up to a certain key length, like maybe 128bit tops.

[giftedgirl77]

26. Send Greenwald a tweet & ask him.

Snowden supposedly gave him eleventy million different pages worth of documents, maybe that was one of them.

If he gives you a response ask him if we could see the evidence as well. Maybe we'llget lucky & it will actually be a document in it's entirety.

[Egnever]

28. Clearly not

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/silent-circle-shutting-down-encripted-email_n_3732779.html

These guys would have no reason to shut down if they could.

Poll results on this are a perfect example of all the woo on this subject.


OMG THE NSA CAN READ MY BRAIN!

[nebenaube]

31. Actually, yeah...

That nut has been cracked.