The security industry has the enemy it always dreamed of to help it make the case for encryption adoption, but users looking to secure their data and communications need to be wary of claims made in marketing messages. Securing data in motion is the priority, experts say, and some large Internet firms are already making progress in this area, but encrypting data at rest without losing its usefulness will prove a greater challenge.
"The NSA's surveillance has opened the eyes of many people around the world," Lamar Bailey, director of security research and development at security firm Tripwire said via email. "Security professionals have always known that this style of surveillance is possible with the right resources, but this episode has been a big wake-up call for everyone. Many countries and companies outside the U.S. are now taking a harder, more in-depth look at software and hardware that comes from the U.S., although the silver lining is that mainstream users are now more concerned with encrypting data and reviewing how their information is being shared."
The public debate sparked by the surveillance revelations in recent months has prompted some encouraging responses already: Google has encrypted the links between its data centers; Yahoo is working to do the same and has promised to enable SSL encryption by default for webmail and other services, and Twitter has enabled an SSL feature called forward secrecy, already implemented by Google and Facebook, which makes mass decryption of SSL traffic hard even if the website operator's master private key is compromised.
Some software vendors started developing alternatives to existing communication technologies, with the goal of providing end-to-end encryption and making upstream data interception harder. Secure communications provider Silent Circle launched an effort called the Dark Mail Alliance to develop a private a secure email protocol that encrypts metadata, not just message contents; Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde is working with others on a secure crowd-funded mobile messaging application called Hemlis with distributed infrastructure hosted in privacy-friendly jurisdictions, and BitTorrent, the company behind the popular file-sharing protocol of the same name, is developing a peer-to-peer instant messaging application that encrypts messages directly between users and doesn't rely on central servers.
These and other examples send a clear message: securing the data transport channels to prevent unwanted upstream interception is a priority. The Internet Engineering Task Force, an organization that develops Internet standards, is already working toward this goal. Together with other Internet infrastructure groups, IETF expressed concern that the reported mass monitoring and surveillance by government agencies undermines the trust and confidence of Internet users globally.
The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.
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Fig. 1 Thermochronology data from the Grand Canyon region. (A) Map of the Grand Canyon region showing apatite helium samples discussed in the text (1, 13–15). (B) Carving of an Eastern paleocanyon from 25 to 15 Ma is indicated by different temperatures of rim- and river-level samples until ~25 Ma. (C) Western Grand Canyon thermal models are in conflict, but joint inversion of AFT and AHe data [purple curves, from (14)], suggest that the western Grand Canyon was carved in the the past 6 million years. (D) The top left diffusion profile (1) may fit the “young canyon” model if modeled without the highest temperature step. (E) Full data set of AHe ages (top) resembles predicted “young” canyon distribution of (1). Joint inversion of independent AHe and AFT data sets is especially powerful and provides well-constrained cooling histories for river samples in the eastern Grand Canyon (14); these show that basement rocks cooled slowly from 80° to 70°C between 65 and 25 Ma, then cooled rapidly from 25 to 15 Ma. The geometry of their published rim-level samples (shown in our Fig. 1A) is not optimal for resolving paleocanyons, but all available data (12–15) suggest that rim- and river-level samples, now separated vertically by 1 to 1.5 km, resided at 45° to 55° and 80°C, respectively, from 60 to 25 Ma. There is no evidence for a paleocanyon until after 25 Ma, when rim- and river-level cooling paths converge (Fig. 1B). Similar data show that the Marble Canyon section of the eastern Grand Canyon was buried by ~2 km of rock, and hence no canyons existed there until after 10 Ma (14). The combined data (Fig. 1B) refute the hypothesis for carving of the eastern Grand Canyon by 55 Ma (1, 2). The western Grand Canyon cooled earlier than the eastern Grand Canyon because of its proximity to the ancient Sevier/Laramide highlands. This region was eroded by northeast-flowing Laramide paleocanyons (9) and is cut by numerous faults with a history of recurring movement (12). A model from one 4He/3He sample (CP06-69) (Fig. 1C) suggests that rocks cooled to <30°C (~200 m depth) and have resided at these cool temperatures since 70 Ma (1). However, this interpretation conflicts with the joint inversion of AFT and AHe data from nearby samples (14), which suggests that these rocks cooled from ~60° to 40°C between 60 and 25 Ma (01-GC86) (Fig. 1C), compatible with ~1-km burial depth (the present depth below the rim). These conflicting results (1, 14) have several plausible explanations: (i) Sample “ensembles” from (1) span several known faults and therefore may not have shared a common cooling history. (ii) Western Grand Canyon samples accumulated considerable radiation damage during residence in the AHe partial retention zone for >600 million years and may not have been heated enough during the Cretaceous time to fully anneal grains, such that western Grand Canyon models should be rerun starting ~600 Ma to account for any incomplete annealing and inherited helium. (iii) When the combined AFT and AHe data sets (1, 12–14) are merged, the results of (1) are more closely reproduced by the “young” canyon than the “old” canyon model (Fig. 1E). The conflicting models (Fig. 1C) could both be correct if (iv) sample CP06-69 (1) was situated beneath a north-flowing paleocanyon near Separation Canyon, whereas sample 01GC-86 (14) was from an interfluve; or (v) CP06-69 was cooled on the upthrown side of an unrecognized Laramide reverse fault relative to 01GC-86. Although our knowledge of the north-flowing Laramide paleocanyon system is incomplete, existing thermochronologic data argue against a 70-Ma western Grand Canyon that followed the same path with nearly the same depth as the modern canyon. A simple dichotomy of “old” canyon versus “young” canyon hypotheses is overly simplistic because the Grand Canyon includes different sections with different geologic histories. Older paleocanyons likely were reused or re-excavated once the river found its modern path and began eroding rapidly. Despite these complexities, existing data do not support the model for a 80- to 70-Ma northeast-flowing California river, nor a 55-Ma southwest-flowing Arizona river, that collectively carved the Grand Canyon to within a few hundred meters of its modern depth by Early Tertiary time. Instead, an overwhelming body of published geologic and thermochronologic evidence shows that a majority of the Grand Canyon—the canyon that we see from the rim today—has been carved in the past 5 to 6 million years by the Colorado River. Drainage integration at 5 to 6 Ma was likely facilitated by older paleocanyon segments, whose geometry is now coming into focus. Received for publication 12 December 2012. Accepted for publication 25 February 2013. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Acknowledgments: Funding for the University of New Mexico coauthors (K.E.K., R.C., L.C., and J.W.R.) was from NSF EAR-0711546 and EAR-1119629.