Security over SONET/SDH

Wed Jun 26 00:56:24 UTC 2013

On Jun 25, 2013, at 6:34 PM, sam at wwcandt.com wrote:

> I believe that if you encrypted your links sufficiently that it was
> impossible to siphon the wanted data from your upstream the response would
> be for the tapping to move down into your data center before the crypto.
> 
> With CALEA requirements and the Patriot Act they could easily compel you
> to give them a span port prior to the crypto.

The value here isn't preventing <insert federal agency> from getting the data, as you point out there are multiple tools at their disposal, and they will likely compel data at some other point in the stack.  The value here is increasing the visibility of the tapping, making more people aware of how much is going on.  Forcing the tapping out of the shadows and into the light.

For instance if my theory that some cables are being tapped at the landing station is correct, there are likely ISP's on this list right now that have transatlantic links /and do not know that they are being tapped/.  If the links were encrypted and they had to serve the ISP directly to get the unencrypted data or make them stop encrypting, that ISP would know their data was being tapped.

It also has the potential to shift the legal proceedings to other courts.  The FISA court can approve tapping a foreign cable as it enters the country in near perfect, unchallengeable secrecy.  If encryption moved that to be a regular federal warrant under CALEA there would be a few more avenues for challenging the order legally.

People can't challenge what they don't know about.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

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