More bad news for internet anonymity
Written by: Beck
First a method is developed to
fingerprint computers regardless of how or where they're connected to the internet. Now it appears that the internet's most popular & common method of data encryption has a
critical flaw.
The discovery of a crack in a commonly used Internet encryption technique raised concerns among government agencies and computer-code experts, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
"Our heads have been spun around," Jon Callas, chief technology officer at encryption supplier PGP Corp., told the newspaper.
The technique, called a "hash function," has been commonly used by Web site operators to scramble online transmissions containing credit-card information, Social Security numbers and other personal information.
Hash functions were thought to be impenetrable, but a team of researchers in China found that this encryption method was not as resistant to hackers than previously thought, according to the report.
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of all regarding this development is the fact that the crack was discovered by a team of Chinese engineers. This suggests two things: that the Chinese are actively working towards researching methods for prosecuting electronic attacks, and that they've succeeded in making discoveries and developing techniques yet to be achieved in the United States where all this technology was developed in the first place.